“Be fine, will Sly. Won’t you, son?”
“Me fine, Jim. Fine on line all mine.”
At that Miss Oliphaunt nodded brightly, then went inside to get the meal ready for them and “to freshen up a little,” explaining that she rarely had guests these days.
“LEAST SHE TOLD THE TRUTH about the gas. But she looked to be making a real effort not to wipe her fingers on her embroidered skirt after she shook hands with me. In case some of the black color had worn off on her ladylike skin.” Kyle was rolling out one of the ten-gallon drums of fuel, while Sly and Jim were topping up the tanks of both the vehicles.
“Come on,” said Carrie. “She’s lonely and very old. Can’t blame her if she still lives off politics that went out when Reagan finally handed in his boots and six-gun. Mind, she did make me feel like I was wearing dirty underwear.”
A fluting voice from behind them made everyone turn around. “Food’ll be on the table in five minutes. I assume you will all want to wash up.”
“Yes, ma’am,” replied Jim. Heather grinned. “Was that a suggestion or a blued-steel order? I would’ve hated being in her class. Bet she used to hit the kids across the knuckles with the edge of a big ruler. If we’re late, we’ll an get detention.”
They weren’t late.
Jim had tried to paste down his thinning blond hair with water from a black-painted iron pump in the backyard. He had to agree with the others. Mercy Oliphaunt made him feel as if it was his first day in school.
The six-legged Colonial oak table was covered in a lace-edged muslin cloth so spotlessly white that it seemed to fill the room with its radiance. There were three gleaming brass lamps, two on a sideboard and one on a round table by the door to the dining room.
The cutlery looked as if it had just come, mint new, from its box, and Miss Oliphaunt had found time to hand-letter place cards for them all in a sloping italic script. Jim was to her left, with Carrie opposite him. Then Kyle and Sly, and Heather at the foot of the table.
“Would any of you wish to say grace?” she asked.
There was a shuffling of feet. Nobody wanted to meet those oddly huge eyes.
“Very well. After all, this is my humble demesne and I the chatelaine. It is seemly that the duty falls upon my frail shoulders.”
Jim led the way, clasping his hands and dropping his eyes to the tabletop, glancing under lowered lids to make sure the others were following suit. Sly was last, looking around at everyone else. Then his face brightened, and he put his hands together and clamped his eyes tight shut.
Mercy Oliphaunt spoke. It struck Jim that the grace was not so much that of a humble supplicant to her Lord and Master but more an equal having a discussion about life.
“We are here, Jesus, ready to eat a fine meal. No doubt you helped provide some of the necessities, but I’ve done all the preparation and cooking. And the big freezer out back is becoming woefully understocked, Jesus, so if you aim to assist me further, then it would be as well to get moving in that direction.” She raised her voice to include those around her. “Thanks in the name of Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen.”
A ragged chorus of “Amens” followed, led by Heather.
“Amen, Jesus, and I love you,” came from Sly Romero a few seconds later.
“Properly said, young man,” said Mercy. “Now, I shall go and bring in the repast. I trust all of you have some fine and sturdy appetites?”
Not waiting for an answer, she swept out of the dining room, her heels clicking along the passage toward the kitchen.
Kyle grinned at the others. “Anyone who looks like an adman’s ideal of the American granny has to cook like a dream. Lamb casserole and apple cobbler.”
Carrie licked her lips. “Boy, oh boy. You realize that we haven’t had a real old-fashioned meal since the Aquila came down at Stevenson?”