Nancy Atherton - Aunt Dimity's Christmas

A tear spilled down Anne’s cheek. “Kit’s mad,” she said. “He’s obsessed with war or death or…” She paused. “It’s probably what drew him to me. He must have sensed that death and I had become old friends.”

Julian crossed to Anne’s side. “Mrs. Somerville, if this is too difficult for you, you needn’t go on. I think you’ve told us enough.”

“Let her finish.” Charles stood in the doorway, gazing at his wife. “Tell them the rest, Anne.”

Anne wiped her eyes and straightened her shoulders, seeming to draw strength from her husband’s presence. “When Kit told me about the airmen, I knew for certain that he was ill, but by then I didn’t care. I’d have done anything to protect him.”

“Because you were in love with him?” Julian said gently.

“Me? In love with Kit?” Anne gave an astonished laugh. “I think not. It would’ve been like falling in love with a monk. Besides,” she added, gazing fondly at her husband, “I was too busy falling in love with the manager Kit had taken on.”

Charles returned his wife’s fond gaze. “Anne thought her heart was dead and buried, but Kit brought it back to life. He made her care about someone other than herself, you see. By the time I showed up, she was ready to fall in love.”

Anne’s smile dimmed. “Kit saved me as well as my farm. I’ve thought of him every day since he left. He’s a good, kind man, but he simply can’t be trusted to look after himself. He needs supervision.”

“I agree,” said Julian. “That’s why Lori and I came to Blackthorne Farm. We were hoping…”

I listened with a growing sense of outrage as Julian, Anne, and Charles discussed plans for Kit Smith’s future. They didn’t talk about providing for his needs until his health was fully restored, but about taking him into a kind of protective custody. If they had their way, Kit would spend the rest of his days confined at Blackthorne Farm, under a comfortable, caring form of house arrest. The idea made my skin crawl, but the worst part was that Kit had no voice in the proceedings. What if he didn’t want to return to the farm? Would the invitation become an ultimatum?

The military medals bit into my palm as I clutched the soft suede pouch. Kit peered up at me from the Heathermoor Asylum ID, and I gazed back at him, bewildered by the intensity of my emotions. Kit had smiled at a knife-wielding lunatic; he’d starved himself; he’d stood on abandoned runways, keeping watch for long-dead airmen. There was no reason to believe that he was sane.

Yet I knew as surely as I knew my sons’ names that the soul I’d glimpsed behind those violet eyes wasn’t that of a madman.

When Charles brought in the sandwiches, Julian ate heartily, but I scarcely managed a crust. I could sense Anne’s gaze on me throughout the meal, and when Julian and I were getting ready to leave, she took me aside.

“I do know what you’re feeling,” she said, “but you mustn’t let yourself be beguiled by Kit. He’s a sick man. He needs special care.”

“Why don’t you call the Heathermoor Asylum?” I muttered. “I’m sure they’ll be happy to have him back.”

Anne’s green eyes blazed. “If you think I could do such a thing, then you haven’t heard a word I’ve said.” She turned to go, but I caught her by the arm.

“I—I’m sorry, Anne,” I faltered. “I shouldn’t have spoken so harshly. You’ve been… more than kind.”

The anger drained from her face, to be replaced by something resembling pity. “He’ll break your heart,” she said, too softly for the others to hear. “The same way he broke mine.”

8

Snowflakes danced in the headlights as Saint Christopher carried us back to Oxford. It was scarcely three o’clock, but the sun was already low on the horizon. Pinpricks of light dotted the plains as lamps were lit in isolated farmsteads, then winked out, one by one, as a swirling cape of snow swept across the open plains.

I put the suede pouch in Kit’s carryall and kept the battered bag on my lap. As dusk closed in around us, I thought of him lying in the Radcliffe, haloed by golden light, dreaming of a war that had been over for half a century.

“Charles and Anne are a lovely couple,” Julian said brightly.

I made no comment.

“The Somervilles are going to visit Kit tomorrow,” Julian continued. “I’ll have to remember to tell Dr. Pritchard to expect them.”

“Good idea,” I said, gazing down at the canvas bag.

A few miles passed before Julian observed, “You’re awfully quiet, Lori.”

“Am I?” I thought for a moment, then shrugged. “I guess I don’t have much to say.”

Julian sighed. “It’s not easy to accept, I know, but it explains a lot, don’t you think?”

“No,” I said bluntly.

“Then tell me how he ended up at Saint Benedict’s,” Julian challenged. “How did the son of a prosperous landowner come to live among drunks and drug addicts? Why did he smile when Bootface tried to kill him? Why did he choose to go hungry in the midst of plenty?”

I toyed with the tab on the carryall’s zipper while I gave Julian’s questions careful consideration. “As a priest,” I said finally, “you should know better than most people that there’s another way to look at Kit’s behavior.”

“Go on,” said Julian.

“Kit comes from a comfortable home,” I said, gazing out at the falling snow, “yet he chooses to live among the poor. He befriends outcasts. When faced with violence, he turns the other cheek. He gives up his own meals—sacrifices himself—so that others may eat.” I smoothed the canvas carryall with my palms. “If Kit’s crazy, then Christ was crazy, too.”

“Ah, I see.” Julian stroked his goatee meditatively. “You think Kit might be a religious fanatic.”

“I think Kit’s a good man!” I exclaimed heatedly. “And the world’s in a pretty sorry state if we’ve started classifying goodness as a form of mental illness.”

Julian gave me a sharp glance, then faced forward. “Christ didn’t stand in the rain watching invisible airplanes,” he said. “And Christ was never confined to an asylum.”

I let the words flow over me, unheeded. I couldn’t explain all of Kit’s behavior. I didn’t know for sure why he’d gone to the airfields, or the Heathermoor Asylum.

But I intended to find out.

I returned home to find my sons on the living-room floor, surrounded by empty cardboard boxes—their favorite toys—while my father-in-law, immaculate as ever, watched over them from the comfort of a nearby armchair. After greeting Will and Rob, and covertly scanning them for signs of damage, I sat on the floor with them and filled Willis, Sr., in on my very eventful day. I expected my eminently sensible father-in-law to fall in line with popular opinion on the subject of Kit Smith’s sanity, but, as usual, he surprised me.

“The evidence is flimsy at best,” he pronounced. “Mr. Smith’s actions, in my opinion, remain open to interpretation. We cannot know for certain what he meant when he told Mrs. Somerville that he was ‘keeping watch for the airmen.’ Perhaps he was speaking metaphorically Perhaps he was being facetious, in an attempt to discourage her from intruding further into his private affairs.”

“He stood in the rain for eight hours,” I pointed out.

“That is… unusual,” Willis, Sr., conceded.

“And what about the Heathermoor Asylum?” I asked. “It’s pretty hard to ignore the ID card’s implications.”

“You might telephone the institution and inquire after Mr. Smith,” said Willis, Sr.

I pulled Rob out of a cardboard box and into my lap. “They wouldn’t release patient information to me,” I said. “I don’t have the necessary authority. Besides, I don’t want to run the risk of alerting them to Kit’s whereabouts. If he’s absent without leave, they might try to round him up again.”