(12/20) No Holly for Miss Quinn (8 page)

Whatever Lovell did, Miriam tried to do. Whatever Lovell told her, she believed implicitly. Whatever Lovell said was right, was so, and whatever Lovell found wrong was, of course, quite wrong.

This particular Christmas Miriam was much exercised in her mind. Ruby, her six-year-old friend at school, had stated categorically that there was no Father Christmas. Miriam was horrified at such an infamous statement.

"Of course there is! You get presents don't you?"

Ruby, skipping busily at the time, was offhand.

"Your mum or dad puts 'em there," she puffed, twirling the rope.

"I don't believe it," said Miriam stoutly, but a cold hand seemed to clutch at her stomach. Could it be true? Could her father and mother have told her lies? Could Lovell?

Never, she told herself! Lovell always told her the truth. If there were no Father Christmas Lovell would have said so. It was Ruby who told lies.

"You don't know what you're talking about," she told the skipper robustly. "I just
know
there's a Father Christmas, so there!"

"Better stay awake and find out," shouted Ruby to Miriam who was walking away.

And maybe I will, thought Miriam stubbornly, just to prove she's wrong.

In the few days left before Christmas she was often on the point of asking her mother about this problem. But, as always, the vicarage was fast filling up with elderly relatives who were coming to spend Christmas with the family, and Mrs. Quinn was fully occupied.

"Poor things," said that warm-hearted lady to her husband. "They've nowhere to go, and it's quite unthinkable that they should be alone at a time like this." The Reverend Horace Quinn, that staunch Christian, readily agreed.

Both parents replied kindly to Miriam's tentative enquiries about the authenticity of Father Christmas, but were vague and preoccupied. On the whole, though, she felt slightly reassured.

Among the Christmas guests was a recently widowed young aunt with her four-year-old son Sidney. The child was delicate, and made even more so by his mother's mollycoddling.

"Naturally she fusses over him," Miriam heard her mother say to one of the elderly second cousins. "He's all she has now, and he is a dear little boy."

Lovell and Miriam did not think so. They thought him spoilt, a cry-baby and a tale-teller. The fact that the poor child lisped only made him more ridiculous in their eyes. With childish heartlessness they teased the little boy, without mercy, whenever they had him alone.

It so happened that this particular Christmas Eve brought snow to bleak East Anglia, and the three children were wrapped up warmly and sent to play, with injunctions to make a snowman. Lovell and Miriam, strong and boisterous, threw themselves into the task joyfully, but Sidney, half-afraid of the bigger children and disliking the cold, did little.

"Come on, Thid," shouted Lovell, "lend a hand!"

"Thid, Thid, Thilly-Thid-Thid!" mocked Miriam, following Lovell's lead as usual.

The child shook his head unhappily, near to tears. Irritated by his apathy, the two young savages began to chase him round and round the half-built snowman. Within two minutes the little boy was sobbing, and struggling to escape from his tormentors. They pursued him ruthlessly, until at last he fell wailing into the snowman and the bigger children, incensed at the damage, rolled the child back and forth in the snow.

"Now look what you've done!"

"All our work spoilt! We'll pay you out for this!"

They began stuffing snow down the neck of the child's jersey, giggling now, but still enjoying the feeling of power over this weakling.

Sidney's cries attracted his mother. The three children were driven into the kitchen and the young Quinns were accused by Sidney's hysterical mother of gross cruelty. Mrs. Quinn banished her two to their bedrooms for an hour, after apologies all round, and Miriam spent the time wobbling the front tooth and thinking about the existence, or otherwise, of Father Christmas.

Called down to tea after their penance, Miriam spoke urgently to Lovell as they went into the dining room.

"Ruby Adair at school said there wasn't a Father Christmas. Is it true?"

An extraordinary look came over Lovell's face. It was as though Miriam had hit him. He stuttered when he replied, a thing he only did when very upset.

"You don't want to believe everything Ruby says," he managed to say. "I've never told you that, have I?"

The tension, which had screwed Miriam's inside into a painful knot, lessened at once, and the feeling of relief carried her through the hours until bedtime. She even managed to speak kindly to the loathsome Sidney who insisted on sitting close to his mother.

Bedtime came. The three children prepared the traditional snack for Father Christmas, a mince pie from each one, and a glass of orange squash, which Sidney chose as the best drink available.

Miriam watched Lovell closely as they placed the food in the hearth. His face was solemn, and he was being uncommonly gentle with young Sidney. He would not take such trouble, thought Miriam with relief, if he did not truly expect Father Christmas to arrive.

The children went to bed. Over each bed rail hung an empty pillowcase. Miriam looked at hers as she lay awake. If, as silly Ruby said, one's parents filled it then she would be bound to hear them.

Despite her intention to stay alert, she was asleep in ten minutes. The sound of the door opening woke her, hours later.

"All right?" she heard her mother whisper.

Her father answered:

"Fast asleep!"

Cold with horror, she lay motionless.

She saw the empty pillowcase twitched from the bed rail, and felt the bump of a full one as it was lodged at the foot of the bed. So
that
was how it was done!

The door closed noiselessly. She lay there, numbed with shock. A painful lump swelled in her throat, and hot tears began to trickle. Ruby was right.

To think that all this time her parents had lied! And Lovell too! It was cruel. All these years she had loved Father Christmas, and now it was spoilt.

She crept from her bed, and squatting on the floor, she felt the various shapes in the pillowcase. There was the doll she had asked for, and this box must be the tea set or a jigsaw puzzle. She could smell the fragrance of the tangerine tucked in a corner, and could hear the rattle of the nuts in the other.

Tears continued to course down her cheeks. She would not unpack things until morning light. And would she enjoy them then, she wondered, knowing that Lovell had betrayed her? Would things ever be the same again?

Her feet were cold as stones, and she clambered back into bed. As she did so, her restless tongue finally broke the loose tooth from its precarious moorings. Still weeping, she felt the edge of the new tooth thrusting through. She pulled the clothes about her, and fell into an uneasy sleep.

Leaden-eyed and leaden-hearted next morning, she did her best to share in the general excitement.

At the breakfast table she thanked all her relatives for their gifts. She could hardly bear to look at Lovell, so happy and unconcerned.

Sidney was flushed with joy and excitement.

"All gone!" he said, showing her Father Christmas's empty plate. "Did you thee him?"

He pressed against Miriam anxiously.

"Did you thee him?" he persisted.

Conscious of the eyes of all upon her, her heart raging with bitterness, Miriam took a deep breath. She turned her blazing gaze upon the traitor Lovell.

"No, I
didn't!
" she burst forth. "I
didn't
see Father Christmas, Sidney. But I'll tell you what I
did
see!"

The child looked up at her, smiling and trusting.

Lovell's gaze was steady. Across the breakfast table, brother and sister were locked in a look.

Very slowly Lovell shook his head. Briefly, and with a wealth of meaning, he glanced at Sidney, and then looked back at Miriam. It was a conspiratorial look, and it filled Miriam's quivering body with warmth and comfort. Now, in a flash, she understood. Suddenly, she was grown up. Hadn't she felt the first of her adult teeth this very morning?

A little child, as she had been until now, had the right to believe in this magic. She felt suddenly protective towards the young boy beside her. She, and Lovell, and all the other people present, knew, and faced the responsibilities of knowing, this precious secret. Now, she too was one of the elect.

"What did you thee?" asked Sidney.

"I saw the door closing," said Miriam. "That's all."

Across the table, Lovell smiled at her with approval. Her heart leapt, and Christmas Day became again the joyful festival she had always known.

***

How sharply it came back, thought Miss Quinn, that memory of thirty years ago! The shock of her enlightenment was some measure of the joy she had formerly felt in the myth of Father Christmas. She was glad that Jenny and Robin were still ardent believers, and she must try and make sure that Hazel, on the brink of knowledge, did not suffer as she had done as a child, and did not tarnish the glitter for the younger ones.

Somewhere, in some distant copse, a fox gave an eerie cry.

The scudding clouds parted briefly, and a shaft of moonlight fell across the bed.

The night was made for sleeping, said Miriam to herself, and tomorrow there was much to be done. There were children to be tended, Eileen to visit, provisions to organize, and all to be accomplished amidst the joyous frenzy of Christmas Eve.

Resolutely, she applied herself to sleep.

Chapter 7

CHRISTMAS EVE

S
HE AWOKE
, much refreshed, still with the memories of past Christmas times about her, and determined to make the present one happy for the children.

It was still dark, but she could hear children's voices. Perhaps they were already dressed? She put her warm feet upon the chilly linoleum and went to the door. The house felt icy.

Sure enough, the two little girls were scampering about the long passage half-dressed. They greeted her with cries of joy, and bounced into her room unbidden. Wails from Robin could be heard in the distance.

"Oh, he's all right," said Hazel casually. "Daddy's put him on his potty, and he doesn't want to go. That's all."

Jenny was fingering Miriam's hairbrush.

"I've asked Father Christmas for one like this," she said.

Hazel's lip began to curl in a derisory manner, and Miriam, recalling her nighttime memory, put a hand on her arm. There was no mistaking the alert glance that the child flashed at her. She knew all right!

Remembering Lovell's meaning shake of the head so long ago, she repeated the small gesture to his daughter. The child half-smiled in return, squeezed the restraining hand upon her arm, and remained silent.

That, thought Miriam thankfully, was one hurdle surmounted!

"What do you have for breakfast?" she enquired, tactfully changing the subject.

"Cornflakes, or shredded wheat," said Hazel.

"Sometimes toast, if there's time," said Jenny.

"What does Daddy have?" asked Miriam, secretly thinking that Eileen should surely cook a breakfast, if not for the children, then for a man off to his parish duties in the coldest part of England.

"The same," they chorused.

"Go and get dressed," said Miriam, "and I'll make toast for us all, and perhaps a boiled egg."

"Oh, lovely!" squealed the children. "Let's go and tell Robin!"

They fled, leaving Miriam to have the bathroom in peace.

***

At breakfast, Miriam broached the practical problem of catering for the household for four days. The basic things seemed to be in the house, and she knew that there were Brussels sprouts, cabbages, and carrots in the vegetable garden.

A Christmas pudding stood on the pantry shelf, but she would have to make mince pies and other sweets, and where was the turkey—or was it to be a round of beef?

Lovell was vague. He rather thought a friend of theirs was supplying the turkey, but he would have imagined it should have been delivered by now.

"Will it be dressed?" asked Miriam, with considerable anxiety. She might be Sir Barnabas's right hand, but she knew her limits. Drawing a fowl was not among her talents.

"Dressed?" queried Hazel, egg spoon arrested halfway to her mouth. "What in?"

Gales of giggles greeted this sally.

"A bonnet," gasped Jenny, "and shawl! Like Jemima Puddleduck. That's what turkeys dress in!"

The two little girls rolled about in paroxysms of mirth. Lovell cast his eyes heavenward, in mock disdain.

"Dressed means ready to put in the oven," explained Miriam, laughing.

"I know a boy at school who can pull out the tubes and smelly bits," said Hazel, recovering slightly. "Is that what you mean?"

"Exactly," said Miriam.

At that moment the telephone rang, and Lovell vanished.

"It might still have its feathers on," remarked Jenny.

"And its head," added Hazel.

Miriam's qualms intensified.

"How do you get its head off?" enquired Jenny conversationally, scraping the last of her egg from the shell.