“These High, Green Hills,” the third installment of the Mitford series, finds Father Tim and Cynthia as newlyweds. Tim has never been married, and now in his sixties he’s finding the idea of having a wife delightful, challenging, and invigorating. Each day, Cynthia presents him with new thoughts and dreams, and he loves listening to her flights of fancy. He’s not so crazy about her intense desire to bring the furniture from her house next door over to the rectory, and take the rectory furniture over to her house (which she has retained as a studio) but when she explains her desire for the two of them to meld together and become one, how can he refuse?
Dooley Barlowe, the at-risk teenager Father Tim took in a couple of years before, is now attending a prep school, paid for by the town’s millionaire, Sadie Baxter. As he comes home for visits and speaks to Father Tim on the phone, the rector senses a change in the boy, one he’s not entirely pleased to see. Is Dooley forgetting how very much Father Tim loves him?
Meanwhile, a girl from the Creek community shows up at Father Tim’s house, beaten to near pulp by her father. Caring for her wounds and feeding her a good meal, Cynthia and Father Tim are disheartened when she announces she’s returning home. She doesn’t feel she has a choice; her mother is still there, an invalid who can’t get out of bed, and if she’s not there to care for her mother, she’s sure her mother will die.
In the middle of all this, Father Tim’s secretary Emma is learning how to use the computer, and J.C, the ornery editor of the Mitford paper, is falling head over heels in love with a female police officer, to the ridicule of everyone at the diner. And, after a long and glorious life, we finally say goodby to Sadie Baxter, as she slips into the next life.
I enjoy my frequent trips to Mitford as I read this delightful, restful series by Jan Karon. If you’re looking for an escape from the horrors of the daily newscasts and just want to go somewhere quiet and rural, these books will be perfect for you.
(This book was published in 1996 by Viking Penguin.)
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