These High, Green Hills (7 page)

“I went to see Miss Pattie this morning,” she announced, her breath sending puffs of steam into the frigid air.

“You did?”

“I gave Evie two hours off.”

“God knows when Evie’s had two hours off. You’re a saint.”

“I’m no such thing. We played Scrabble.”

“Scrabble? With Miss Pattie?” Evie Adams’s mother hadn’t been in her right mind for a decade, causing Evie to call the church office with some frequency, in tears of frustration.

“She spelled one word—‘go’—and declared herself the winner. Then we had an imaginary lunch and she showed me her imaginary doll.”

“Knowing you, you can describe that doll in detail.”

She laughed. “Dimples. Blue eyes—one won’t shut. It had lost its socks and shoes, and I think its toes were once chewed by a puppy. I told Evie I’d come again.”

He stopped and put his arms around her. “I’ve always wanted a deacon. You’re hired.” He kissed her on both cheeks and then on the mouth.

“Dearest ... everyone will talk.”

“It’s time I gave them something to talk about,” he said, meaning it.

“I’ll be et for a tater if it ain’t th‘ preacher! Rose, come and look, he’s got ’is missus with ‘im.”

They stood at the back door of the museum that led to the apartment the town had remodeled for Miss Rose and Uncle Billy Watson.

The old man’s schizophrenic wife of nearly fifty years peered around the door. The rector thought she looked fiercer than ever.

“What do they want?” she demanded, staring directly at the shivering couple on the steps.

Uncle Billy appeared bewildered.

“You invited us for banana pudding!” said Cynthia. “Yesterday, when I saw you on the street.”

“I did?” Miss Rose put her hands on her hips and gave them a withering look. “Well, I don’t have any banana pudding!”

“Oh, law,” said Uncle Billy, “did you go an‘ forget you invited th’ preacher and ‘is missus?”

“I certainly did not forget. It’s too close to Thanksgiving to make banana pudding. I would never have had such an idea.”

Uncle Billy looked anguished. “You ‘uns come on in, anyway, and set where it’s warm. I’ve got somethin’ for you, Preacher, hit’s nearly burnt a hole in m‘ pocket.”

“That’s all right, Uncle Billy, we’ll come another time.” Talk about a life-saving turn of events.

“Nossir, I need t‘ give you this. It’s somethin’ that belongs to th‘ Lord, don’t you know.”

They trooped in as Miss Rose eyed them with suspicion.

The rector observed that she was still dressing out of her long-dead brother’s military wardrobe. Under a worn housecoat whose belt dragged the floor, she was wearing Army pants and a World War II field jacket. He was almost comforted by the sight of her unlaced saddle oxfords, which were her all-time favorite footwear.

“I cain’t set down, cain’t lay down, an‘ cain’t hardly stand up,” said Uncle Billy, who was leaning on a cane. “Ol’ arthur’s got me, don’t you know.”

They hovered timidly by the kitchen table while Miss Rose stood at the stove and gave them a thorough looking-over.

“Preacher, could you step in here a minute?” Uncle Billy opened the door to the unheated part of the house, admitting a blast of arctic air, and led the way. As the door closed behind them, the rector looked back at his wife, who was trying to appear brave.

“I put it over yonder,” said Uncle Billy, turning on a light in a room stacked with old newspapers. “I’ve kep‘ it hid from Rose—she wouldn’t take t’ me doin‘ this, don’t you know.”

He felt thoroughly refrigerated by the time the old man located the stack of yellowed papers and withdrew an envelope. With a trembling hand, he gave it to the rector.

“It’s m‘ tithe,” he said, his voice breaking. “Th’ Lord give me that money for my pen an‘ ink drawin’s that Miss Cynthia sold, and I’m givin’ His part back.”

The rector was so moved, he could barely speak. “May the Lord bless you, Bill!”

“Oh, an‘ He does. Ever’ day, don’t you know.”

“I’m glad we went,” he said, buttoning his pajama top.

“Me, too. Even if Miss Rose does scare me half to death!”

She put her hands on her hips and said fiercely, “I don’t
have
any banana pudding!”

“Thanks be to God!” he shouted, as they collapsed on the bed with laughter.

CHAPTER THREE

“You LOOKIN‘ at th’ las’ supper,” said Louella.

As Fernbank’s dining room was closed off for winter, they were sitting at the kitchen table.

“Louella’s having her knee operation on Thursday,” Miss Sadie reminded her guests. “She won’t be able to cook like this again for a long time.” His hostess, who was also his oldest, not to mention favorite, parishioner, appeared wistful.

“Who’s driving you to Winston-Salem?” asked Cynthia, who had offered to do it a month earlier.

“Ed Malcolm. I don’t know how Mr. Leeper heard about it, but somehow he did, and gave Ed the day off so he can drive us. Have you ever?”

“Extraordinary,” said the rector. Buck Leeper, the abrasive, profane, don’t-tread-on-me supervisor of the Hope House project ...

Cynthia helped herself to another deviled egg. “How long will you be there?”

“Five days, we think,” said Miss Sadie.

“What will you do down there for five days? And where will you stay?”

“I’ll have a cot in Louella’s room!”

“She goan baby me,” said Louella, looking sunny. Miss Sadie had babied Louella, who had been born at Fernbank, since they were children. In recent years, however, circumstances had begotten the reverse.

Five nights on a hospital cot? he thought. Not good.

“Louella would do the same for me.”

“Amen!” pronounced Louella, passing the mashed potatoes. “Y‘all eat these up. We don’t have no puppy dogs t’ feed ‘em to.”

He could tell that his wife was in seventh heaven, eating like a trencherman and happy as a child. She looked at him and smiled. “Keep your eyes off the gravy, dearest.”

Lord knows, he was trying. “What will you do when you come back? Surely the stairs ...”

Louella will sleep down here in the kitchen.“

“For how long?”

“The doctor said no stairs for three months.”

“We ain’t tol‘ him our stairs go almos’ to th’ Pearly Gates. How many we got, Miss Sadie?”

“Twenty-nine! Papa wanted thirty, but it didn’t work out.”

Sadie Baxter alone at night on that cavernous second floor? And what if Louella were to take a tumble on this cracked and broken linoleum? He didn’t like the sound of the plan, not at all.

“When we go up at night, we go together,” said Louella. “But sometime, it’s more settin‘ down than goin’ up.”

“That’s right. Sometimes it takes so long to get to the top, it’s nearly time to start back to the bottom!”

“Me an‘ Miss Sadie, we sing our way up. I say, Do you remember ’To You before the close of day ...‘? She say, Sho’ I do, you start and I’ll jump in. We set there and sing a verse, then we climb up another little step or two. Sometime, we go through two or three hymns jus’ to lay our bones down.”

“And
sometimes,”
said Miss Sadie, inspired by the excitement of revelation, “we don’t come
downstairs
at all.”

“Miss Sadie, she keep candy in her vanity, an‘ I keeps Spam and loaf bread in my bureau. We watch th’ soaps and th‘ news.”

“We play checkers, or go ramble in the attic. I love to ramble in the attic. It keeps me young to remember old times.”

“Many a day,” said Louella, “we read th‘ Bible out loud, or Miss Sadie jus’ sleep ’til dark.”

“Louella, you don’t need to tell that!”

“It’s th‘ gospel truth.”

Miss Sadie looked suddenly tired. “This old house ...” she murmured. “I don’t know....”

You can learn a lot over a platter of fried chicken, he thought. Why had Miss Sadie never told him any of this? She always made everything seem bright and shining. They had no business rattling around in this clapboard coliseum alone. But what could be done? Hope House wouldn’t be finished and staffed for another year. Maybe good help was the solution, someone to come in at night.

Or ... well, now. That was a thought. Why hadn’t it occurred to him before? The fine old house on Lilac Road, bequeathed to Olivia Davenport by her mother ... perfect!

Only months ago, Miss Sadie had found something she never knew she had—blood kin. The beautiful Olivia was her great-niece, a surprising revelation that had thrilled both women. It was, however, a revelation they chose to keep secret, as it pointed to an illegitimate child by Miss Sadie’s own mother.

Now, Olivia was married to Hoppy Harper, who had engineered her miraculous heart transplant. As they were living happily in the doctor’s rambling mountain lodge, Olivia’s house on Lilac Road sat quite empty. And didn’t it have a brand-new furnace, wall-to-wall carpet, and every imaginable convenience, all on one floor?

He wouldn’t introduce the idea just now, however. He’d make his move on Monday.

The shrill ring of the phone sounded in the hallway.

“I’ll get it!” said Cynthia.

He would ask Olivia if there were any plans to sell her house. If not, he’d work on breaking down Miss Sadie’s resistance to the idea of leaving Fernbank. She had lived in the house her father built since she was nine years old—more than eighty years. One didn’t casually walk away from such a bond.

“Miss Sadie, it’s Olivia.”

As Miss Sadie left the room with her cane, Louella leaned over and whispered, “Honey, this ol‘ house killin’ me and it killin‘ her, don’t let her fool you. ’Sides that, when I say Miss Sadie, you ‘member this hymn, she say she do, but she don’t. Miss Sadie doan want you to think she doan remember. And ramblin’ in th‘ attic?’ She could stay up there ‘til Jesus comes, kickin’ up all that dust.”

“I don’t like the thought of you two being twenty-nine stair steps apart at night,” he said.

“An‘ I don’t like th’ idea of Miss Sadie doin‘ th’ cookin‘ aroun’ here! Fact is, she don’t cook—she sets out. She sets out mustard, she sets out baloney, she sets out light bread. Bless th‘ Lord, we in a pickle!”

Cynthia put on Louella’s apron and announced she was washing the dishes. She handed her husband a drying towel.

Miss Sadie came back to the kitchen and closed the door. “I declare, if it’s not one thing to muddle over, it’s two. You’ll never guess what that was all about.”

“I could never guess,” Cynthia admitted.

“Olivia said, Aunt Sadie, I want you to come and live in Mother’s house, we’re worried about you and Louella.”

“Thanks be to God!” said the rector.

“Praise Jesus!” boomed Louella.

“Bingo!” exclaimed Cynthia. “And what did you say?”

Miss Sadie sat down and met each pair of eyes. “I said I’d have to think about it.”

Cynthia spoke up at once. “I hope you’ll think about the fact that it’s all on one floor.”