Shepherds Abiding (3 page)

He had a moment of deepest gratitude, and the odd and beguiling sense that he was on the brink of something. . . .

But what?

Something . . .
different.
Yes, that was it.

T
he day after his visit to Oxford Antiques, he realized that the angel had seized his imagination.

He was surprised by a vivid recollection of her face, which he’d found beautiful, and the piety of her folded hands and downcast eyes.

As for the missing wing, wasn’t that a pretty accurate representation of most of the human horde, himself certainly included?

The image of the Babe had also come to mind. The craziness and commerce of Christmas, so utterly removed from the verity of its meaning, had served to make the bubble-wrapped figure a profoundly fitting metaphor.

He hadn’t given much consideration to crèche scenes in recent years. They had used his maternal grandmother’s once or twice, but found the dull, base-metal figures so forbidding, he’d packed them away. Generally, he and Cynthia had been making do with hers, which
she’d miraculously rescued from a hither-and-yon childhood. It was an odd and poignant thing, which she’d created from scraps of yarn, felt, and straw, and included clothespin shepherds for whom, at the age of fourteen, she had sewn silk robes.

Prior to arriving in Mitford, he had used his family’s Irish-made crèche, observing Anglican traditions taught him by his now-long-deceased father.

Though Matthew Kavanagh had been decidedly hostile to the church and its associations, he’d celebrated Christmas, and Christmas only, with certain feeling. And, eager to promote any stirring of his heart toward God, his wife, Madelaine, had carried forth the observance of Advent and Christmas with particular zeal.

As an only child, he, Timothy, had the privilege and pleasure of setting up the Nativity scene on the first day of Advent. He always began, as his father directed, by placing Mary and Joseph and the empty manger on top of a low bookcase in their parlor. Then he grouped the two donkeys, a doleful horse, a cow, a calf, and two sheep to one side, where they stood in a concert of expectation.

His mother and father sat in the parlor with him as he assembled the hand-carved, hand-painted figures
into a scene that he tried to make fresh and different each year. During one year, he might place the horse so that it looked down on the manger. Another year, he might give the cow and calf this privilege of station.

He felt happy in bringing the small setting to life, and happier still that his usually dour and remote father seemed interested in his son’s effort.

“The horse will do well there,” Matthew Kavanagh might say. Or, “The manger wants less straw.”

“Father likes the crèche,” he said to his mother.

“Yes,” she said, “he has always loved it. Your great-grandmother brought it over from Ireland, and she taught your father to set it up exactly as he’s teaching you.”

He remembered being thrilled by this newfound connection with his father’s boyhood, and even with a great-grandmother he’d never seen. He turned his face from his mother so she couldn’t look upon the pride that laid his feelings bare.

During the heady days of Advent, with its special wreath and candles, and the baking done by his mother and Peggy, the house was filled with wonderful smells. These aromas, including an ever-present fragrance of chickory coffee perking on the stove, were dense and
rich; he could sometimes smell them all the way to the rabbit pen, where his best friend, Tommy Noles, came to help “feed up.”

“Them little pellets go in, an’ th’ same little pellets come out, ’cept in a different color,” said Tommy.

“Yep.”

“What’re you gettin’?”

“I hope a bike. What’re you gettin’?”

Tommy shrugged, looking mournful. “Prob’ly nothin’.”

“Everybody gets somethin’ at Christmas,” he said.

“Not if they’re poor, they don’t.”

“You’re not poor.”

“Becky says we are.”

“But you’ve got a house and a barn and lots of things, even horses, and we only have rabbits.” He had always wanted horses.

“We got a cow, too, an’ a calf,” Tommy reminded him.

“Besides, she’s just your little sister. She’s dumb to say that. Y’all even have a truck, and we don’t have a truck, only a Buick.” He had always wanted a truck.

Tommy had seemed encouraged.

Four shepherds, in the meantime, waited in the dining room on the walnut sideboard, to journey to the
manger on Christmas morning. In his mother’s sewing room, he knew that presents waited, too. His mother spent many hours in that room, always with the door closed, wrapping presents with yards and yards of her signature white satin ribbon and protecting with uncommon zeal the wonderful secrets that he tried diligently to puzzle out.

During the long days before Christmas, he could scarcely wait to put the Babe in the manger, and often made the trek to the silver drawer of the sideboard to peer at the infant resting safely in the bowl of a gravy ladle.

At a time when his friends had stopped believing in Santa Claus, he was still believing in the powerful reality of the small tableau—in much the same way, he supposed, that a boy believes his action heroes to be living, and the battles on the parlor floor to be real.

Years later, he had stored the Irish crèche in the basement of the riverside rectory in Hastings, where he was rector for ten years prior to Mitford. He remembered driving home from a diocesan conference in a frightening storm, then opening his basement door and seeing the water risen above the bottom step.

Floating on the small, enclosed river in the lower
portion of his house were the Nativity figures—camels without riders, shepherds without crooks, the stable with its pointed roof and fixed star, a miniature bale of sodden straw, and, here and there, a sheep or donkey along with other detritus loosed from cardboard containers and set free upon the floodwaters of southern Alabama.

He had rescued them and put them into a box and, in the upheaval following the flood, had forgotten them. When he opened the box months later, the figures were rank with a fetid damp that caused them to stick together in a mildewed and forbidding clump.

He’d felt a deep sense of loss, as well as relief, when, months later, he discovered that the movers had failed to load the box on the truck to Mitford.

Dear Hope,

Due to the serious nature of the following proposal, I’m not e-mailing or calling you. Instead, I’m allowing you ample time to consider my idea, and thereby give it the careful and positive thinking you’ve displayed in making Happy Endings a more profitable enterprise.

Mitford has great charm, but, as you’re aware, it has distinct limitations, as well. Of the entire population, scarcely a tenth
enjoys a thumping good read or has any inclination to open the covers of a book. We’ve had to go further and further afield to pay the rent and stock our shelves, and no coffee bar or gallery of so-called amusing greeting cards could ever turn this distressing circumstance around.

Your clever marketing of HE to surrounding communities, your committed endeavors with the literacy council, and your development of a rare-books business on the Internet, have certainly paid off.
But only to the extent that the rent, the utilities, and your salary are met each month, with barely enough left to restock the shelves.

In other words, though you work very hard and have made a far better go of it than I did while living in Mitford, the profit margin remains slim and tenuous. I don’t enjoy telling you this, but it’s best to make a clean breast of things.

The HE lease is up at the end of December, and I’ve decided I simply don’t wish to carry on in Mitford. Instead, I’m inviting you to join me at the store in Florida and help grow the business here.

Really, my dear, I see no reason at all for you to remain in Mitford. I assure you that your dull and solitary life there will be replaced by a very exciting life here. And—Peter and I have a charming guesthouse where you can live in great comfort until you get your wings!

I won’t ring you for a week, as P and I shall be in the Keys, and thus you shall have every opportunity to think this through and give me the answer I hope—and indeed
expect
—to hear!

Yours fondly,
Helen

P.S. We will, of course, pay all moving expenses, which should be minimal, given your minuscule accommodations over the Tea Shop.

P.P.S. I’ll contact Edith Mallory’s attorneys tomorrow, with a sixty-day notice. As you’re aware, the dreadful fire at Clear Day handicapped her severely, and though she’s proved to be a grasping and unlovely landlord, I admit to feeling a certain pity for the poor creature.

Don’t let the word out until Christmas is behind us—they’d all be wanting something for nothing, and I have no intention of putting on a going-out-of-business sale; remaining inventory will be moved here.

The first time Hope read this letter, her heart had raced with excitement. Now she felt it racing for quite another reason.

It was from fear of what lay ahead.

He had every reason in the world not to do it.

First, he’d never attempted anything like this before. Not even remotely like this.

Second, it was the sort of project Cynthia might take on and accomplish with great success, but as for himself, he had no such talent or skill—indeed, except for a fair amount of aptitude for gardening and cooking, he was all thumbs.

Third, there would hardly be enough hours left in the year to get the job done, though when he made an inquiry by phone, Andrew offered to help him every step of the way, vowing to call upon his professional resources for advice.

Fourth, the thing was too large, too out of proportion for the corner of the study: some figures were easily fifteen or sixteen inches tall.

Last, but definitely not least, he had enough to do. He was struggling with yet another piece of business for which he probably had no talent or skill—he was writing a book of essays. Truth be told, he’d hardly enjoyed a moment of writing the blasted things; he’d like
to chuck the whole lot in the trash and be done with it. But, no, he’d invested untold hours. . . .

He put on his jacket and opened the door of the yellow house, inhaling the crisp morning air.

And another thing . . . there were the pulpits he’d agreed to supply before the year was out—five, total, including the Christmas Eve service at Lord’s Chapel, due to Father Talbot’s trip to Australia.

And what about the preparations he needed to make for his own trip? He and Cynthia would be going out to Meadowgate in mid-January, to farm-sit for Hal and Marge Owen for a year. As the farm was only fifteen minutes away, they could dash back and forth to Mitford with ease. Nonetheless . . .

Andrew Gregory was polishing a Jacobean chest when Father Tim arrived at the Oxford.

He went directly to Andrew and, without formal greeting or further deliberation, said, “I’ll take it.”

He thought his voice quavered a bit when he said this, as well it might.