Nancy Atherton - Aunt Dimity's Christmas

“Merry Christmas,” I said brightly.

“Ho ho ho!” he replied, and before I could identify the voice, the jolly old elf swung around, yanked off his beard, and swept me into a back-bending, full-contact kiss that first silenced the room, then brought shouts of approval from the assembled throng.

“Bill!” I gasped when he finally released me. “I thought you were in Iceland.”

“Hitched a ride with Santa,” he said.

“God bless Rudolph,” I murmured fervently, and pulled my husband to me for another mistletoe moment. Absence doesn’t make the heart alone grow fonder. I could feel my toes curl as Bill’s embrace tweaked each and every one of my God-given appetites.

It was hardly the time to indulge them, however. Lilian Bunting, worried by her cast members’ frequent trips to the punch bowl, asked us to help her gather her flock and pack them off to the schoolhouse, where the Nativity play was due to start in one hour’s time.

Willis, Sr., elected to ride to the village in Nell’s sleigh, and as Bill and I stood on the doorstep, waving them off, I had a sudden flash of inspiration.

“I’ve just thought of another Christmas present,” I said.

Bill enfolded me in his Father Christmas cape. “I’ve already got everything I want.”

I leaned against him, savoring the familiar contours of his body, and decided not to tell him that the present I’d thought of wasn’t meant for him. “I’ve missed you so much,” I murmured.

“Not half as much as I’ve missed you.” He kissed the top of my head. “Father told me why you went to London. Did you find the answers you wanted?”

“I found answers I didn’t know I was looking for.” I raised my head from his chest to look toward the lilac bushes, to the place where I’d first seen Kit Smith. “I’ll tell you all about it later. Right now, we have a job to do.”

“What’s that?” Bill asked.

“Lilian’s got the cast and crew together,” I told him. “It’s up to us to supply the audience.”

22

Finch, that night, outshone even my cottage. Electric candles brightened every window and strings of fairy lights outlined each roof, crept from tree to tree around the square, and graced the holly bushes encircling the war memorial. Saint George’s Lane was jammed with cars, and bright-eyed revelers trundled between the pub and the schoolhouse doors, where Emma stood, selling tickets and handing out programs.

“How’s Lilian holding up?” I asked, when Bill and I reached the doorstep.

“Nerves of steel,” Emma replied. “It’s Peggy Kitchen who’s the basket case. She can’t find her beard.”

“Beard?” Bill’s eyebrows shot up. “Is there something I should know about Peggy before we go inside?”

“You’ll find out soon enough, O absent one,” I said, and hauled him into the schoolhouse.

Lilian’s newfound air of authority had brought an end to the chaos that had reigned during rehearsals. The folding chairs had been arranged in neat rows on either side of a central aisle, blue velvet drapes spangled with tinfoil stars had been hung to conceal the stage, and all traces of paint, sawdust, and sewing detritus had been swept away.

Bill and I found two empty seats in the back corner of the schoolroom, near Mr. Barlow, who hovered over a wire-covered lighting board the twins found utterly entrancing. While we wrestled with our inquisitive sons, Dick Peacock pounded out carols on the upright piano, accompanied by a chorus of anxious whispers and muttered depredations coming from the dressing areas on either side of the stage.

By the time six o’clock rolled around, every folding chair had been filled and at least twenty members of the audience were sitting on windowsills or standing in the back of the room. When Lilian emerged from the ladies’ dressing area and signaled for Dick Peacock to stop playing, she looked well pleased.

“Welcome,” she said, standing before the stage, “and thank you for taking time from your own private celebrations to share this joyful evening with us. Our play has rather a special meaning for us this year, as the proceeds will be donated to Saint Benedict’s Hostel for Transient Men in Oxford.” She looked toward me and smiled. “Lori? Would you care to say a few words?”

I stood, with Will wriggling in my arms, and flushed as every head turned in my direction.

“I don’t think anyone here expected to have anything to do with a place like Saint Benedict’s this Christmas.” I smiled wryly. “I certainly didn’t. When Kit Smith showed up on my doorstep, I was more concerned about head lice than about his well-being. But I’ve learned a thing or two since then. We all have, thanks to Kit.”

I shifted Will to my other hip before continuing.

“Kit’s arrival in Finch challenged all of us to be bigger and better than we thought we could be. And we managed, after a few false starts, to meet the challenge. I’ve never been prouder of my village than I am tonight. Thank you for opening your hands and hearts to Kit Smith and the men of Saint Benedict’s.”

My words were greeted by dead silence, broken suddenly by vigorous applause. Lilian waited for it to die down before taking the floor once again.

“If it is more blessed to give than to receive,” she said, “then it is we who owe Mr. Smith a vote of thanks. Those of you who would care to increase your donation to such a worthy cause may do so on the way out.” She paused. “And now, ladies and gentlemen, our play.”

Lilian took her seat in the front row, the vicar took his place behind the lectern to one side of the stage, the lights dimmed, and an anticipatory hush fell over the school-house.

“And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed….”

The vicar’s pleasant, sonorous voice had its usual soporific effect—the moment he began to speak, the twins stopped squirming. As their heads drooped and they curled sleepily in their travel cots, I wondered fleetingly if Theodore Bunting would be available to read bedtime stories to them for the next five or so years.

“And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth….”

The blue velvet curtains parted jerkily and a spotlight picked out Nell Harris and Willis, Sr., at center stage, standing before the plywood facade of an inn with its door determinedly shut.

The tableau was unexpectedly moving. Nell sat on a moth-eaten vaulting horse, her hands on her swollen belly, her head turned slightly to one side. Her expression, a poignant mixture of patience and disappointment, was heartrending, and Willis, Sr., was equally effective. He stood, humbly clad in sandals and a dusty brown caftan, with one hand on Nell’s shoulder and the other pointing the way to the stable, where they would find shelter…

“…because there was no room for them in the inn.” The vicar paused, the spotlight faded, and the curtains jerked shut to a ripple of applause. Dick Peacock struck up a chorus of “Angels We Have Heard on High” that nearly succeeded in drowning out the thumps and grumbles coming from behind the curtain as the scenery was shifted.

“Your father’s done you proud,” I whispered to Bill.

“Remind me to tell him so when we get home,” he whispered back.

“I will,” I assured him.

“And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field,” intoned the vicar, “keeping watch over their flock by night.”

The curtains opened a couple of feet and the spotlight fell lopsidedly on a sheep munching contentedly on a flake of alfalfa hay. The sheep won an instant round of applause.

An offstage voice whispered urgently, “Pull harder!” and the curtains flew apart. The spotlight widened to illuminate George Wetherhead and Able Farnham, dressed in bathrobes, with cord-bound dish towels draped artfully over their heads. Each clutched a sturdy shepherd’s crook—Lilian’s clever solution to the pair’s mobility problems. Between them, and slightly upstage of the sheep, stood an exceptionally corpulent palm tree, silhouetted against a backdrop of bilious green hills.