Shirley Jump - A Christmas Letter

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As a child, FIONA HARPERwas constantly teased for either having her nose in a book, or living in a dream world. Things haven’t changed much since then, but at least in writing she’s found a use for her runaway imagination. After studying dance at university, Fiona worked as a dancer, teacher and choreographer, before trading in that career for video-editing and production. When she became a mother she cut back on her working hours to spend time with her children, and when her littlest one started pre-school she found a few spare moments to rediscover an old but not forgotten love—writing.

Fiona lives in London, but her other favourite places to be are the Highlands of Scotland and the Kent countryside on a summer’s afternoon. She loves cooking good food and anything cinnamon-flavoured. Of course she still can’t keep away from a good book or a good movie—especially romances—but only if she’s stocked up with tissues, because she knows she will need them by the end, be it happy or sad. Her favourite things in the world are her wonderful husband, who has learned to decipher her incoherent ramblings, and her two daughters.

THESE were the kind of gates made for keeping people out, Faith thought as she tipped her head back and looked up at twenty feet of twisting and curling black iron. Neither the exquisite craftsmanship nor the sharp wind slicing through the bars did anything to dispel the firm message that outsiders should stay on her side of the gate.

Too bad. She needed to get into the grounds of Hadsborough Castle and she needed to do it today.

She glanced round in frustration to where her Mini sat idling, her suitcase and overnight bag stuffed in the back, and sighed. She’d had other plans for today—ones involving a quaint little holiday cottage on the Kent coast, hot chocolate with marshmallows and a good book. The perfect winter holiday. But that had all changed when she’d found an innocent-looking lilac envelope on her doorstep yesterday morning. The cheerful snowman return address sticker on the back hadn’t been fooling anyone. She’d known even before she’d ripped the letter open that its contents would cause trouble, but the exact brand of nuisance had been a total surprise.

She stared out over the top of her Mini to the rolling English countryside beyond. The scene was strangely monochrome. Fog clung to the dips in the fields and everything was tinged with frost. Only the dark silhouettes of trees on top of the hill remained ungilded.

It was strange. She’d grown up in the country back home in Connecticut, but this landscape didn’t have the earthy, familiar feel she’d been expecting when she’d driven out of London earlier that morning. Even though she’d adopted this country almost a decade ago, and her sisters now teased her about her so-called British accent, for the first time in ages she was suddenly very aware she was a foreigner. This misty piece of England didn’t just feel like another country; it felt like another world.

She turned round and tried a smaller gate beside the main pair, obviously made for foot traffic. No good. Also locked. A painted board at the side of the gate informed her that normal castle opening hours were between ten and four, Tuesday through Saturday. Closed to visitors on Mondays.

But she wasn’t a tourist. She had an appointment.

At least she thought she had an appointment.

She shook the smaller gate again, and the chain that bound it rattled, laughing back at her.

That was what Gram’s letter had said. She pulled the offending article out of her pocket and leafed through the lilac pages, ignoring the smug-looking snowman on the back. She’d bet he didn’t have a wily old white-haired grandmother who was blackmailing him into taking precious time out of his vacation.

She scanned down past the news of Beckett’s Run, past Gram’s description of how festive her hometown was looking now the residents had started preparing for the annual Christmas Festival.

Ah, here it was.

Faith, honey, I wonder if you’d do me a favor? I have a friend—an old flame, really—who needs help with a stained glass window, and I told him I knew just the girl for the job. Bertie and I were sweethearts after the war. We had a magical summer, but then he went home and married a nice English girl and I met your grandfather. I think it all worked out as it should have in the end .

The window is on the estate of Hadsborough Castle in Kent. What was the name of the man who designed it? Bertie did say. It’ll come to me later …

Anyhow, I know you’ll be finished with your London window soon, and you mentioned the next restoration project wasn’t going to start until the New Year, so I thought you could go down and help him with it. I told him you’d be there November 30th at 11 a.m .

And here she was.

Still gripping Gram’s letter between thumb and forefinger, she flipped the pages over so she could pull up the sleeve of her grey duffle coat to check her watch. It was the thirtieth, at ten-fifty, so why wasn’t anyone here to meet her? To let her in? She could have been sipping hot chocolate right now if it hadn’t been for Gram’s little idea of a detour.

As beautiful as the window at St Bede’s in Camden had looked when the team had finished restoring it, it had been four months of back-breaking, meticulous labour. She deserved a break, and she was going to have it.

Just as soon as she’d checked out this window.

She turned the last page over and looked below her grandmother’s signature. Reading the line again still gave her goosebumps.

P.S. I knew it would come to me! Samuel Crowbridge. That was the designer’s name .

Without that tantalising mention of the well-known British artist Faith would have blown off this little side trip on the way to her holiday cottage in a heartbeat.

Well…okay, maybe she’d have come anyway. Gram had been the one stable figure in her otherwise chaotic childhood—more like a surrogate mother than a grandparent. All Faith’s happiest memories were rooted in Gram’s pretty little house in Beckett’s Run. She owed her grandmother big time, and she’d probably have danced on one leg naked in the middle of Trafalgar Square if the old lady had asked her to.