Aunt Dimity's Christmas (13 page)

“Mrs. Bunting covered her face with her hands and retreated to the cloakroom,” said Willis, Sr., “where she remained for the duration of the evening. I must say that I was tempted to join her.”

I surveyed his resigned expression and felt a pang of conscience. He'd done me a big favor by filling in for Bill. I had to think of a way to cheer him up.

“Look,” I said, leaning back against the sink, “why don't you and I corral the boys in the playpen and get to work decorating the cottage? It'll take your mind off of Peggy Kitchen and be a nice surprise for Bill when he gets home.”

Willis, Sr., shook his head. “It is an enticing suggestion, Lori, but I must confess that I do not feel up to it.” He touched his forehead with the back of his hand. “I seem to be unusually warm, in fact. I believe I may have caught the vicar's cold.”

It wasn't until he spoke those words that I noticed his heightened color and a mild hoarseness in his mellow voice. Guilt stabbed me with a thousand sharpened blades. For the past three days I'd been so absorbed in Kit Smith that Willis, Sr., could have dropped dead at my feet without attracting my attention. It wasn't good enough, not by a long shot, no matter what Julian said.

I immediately ordered Willis, Sr., into his silk pajamas, tucked him up in the master bedroom, and brought tea to him on a tray. While he sipped languidly, I called Dr. Finisterre, the semiretired physician who ministered to the local population.

The doctor arrived at the cottage a half hour later. I led him to the master bedroom, then paced the hallway, wringing my hands. My father-in-law had a heart condition. If his cold turned into pneumonia, he might end up in intensive care, like Kit, with IVs in his arms, and a bank of beeping monitors looming over him.
And it would be my fault
. By the time Dr. Finisterre emerged from the master bedroom, I was nearly in tears.

“His heart?” I said anxiously.

“Nothing to do with his heart,” the doctor said. “Your
father-in-law has a head cold. It's par for the course, this time of year. No need to call out the RAF.” He gave a rumbling chuckle as he descended the stairs. “I should keep him away from the twins for the time being. It's for his benefit, not theirs. William needs rest.”

I let out a sobbing sigh and covered my mouth with my hand.

“Get hold of yourself, Lori,” Dr. Finisterre scolded. “No need to make such a fuss over a simple head cold.” He pulled on his black wool coat, placed his homburg on his head, and opened the front door. “Bed rest, fluids, and aspirin will do the trick. William'll be right as rain in a few days.”

I thanked the doctor fervently, closed the door behind him, and leaned against it, weak-kneed with relief. From now on, I vowed, Kit Smith would take a backseat to my family. As I went upstairs to check on Willis, Sr., however, one part of my mind was still attuned to the telephone and the sound of Miss Kingsley's voice.

I was in the kitchen the next day, laboring over a vat of homemade chicken soup and wondering why Miss Kingsley hadn't called, when the March of the Widows began. I'd known that widows made up a large segment of Finch's modest population, but I'd had no idea how large a segment until the eligible male in my master bedroom began sneezing. It was as if he'd issued a mating call.

The cottage was besieged by a chattering mob of white-haired dears bearing bits of flannel (“to tuck about his poor weak chest”), bowls of blancmange (“so soothing to a scratchy throat”), embroidered sleeping caps, crocheted foot-warmers, and several months' worth of casseroles. I felt as though I were holding a wake.

A wake might have been in order had I fed my ailing swain the curious nostrums offered by his aged groupies. Bottles filled with glutinous brown liquids and jars of hideous gray jellies were offered with exact directions for their use. I baked another batch of angel cookies to give as thank-you's to each amateur physician but flushed their malodorous concoctions down the toilet.

The only home remedy I would countenance was the tea Emma Harris brought over from Anscombe Manor on Saturday afternoon. If Emma said that burdock-root tea would ease Willis, Sr.'s chest congestion, I believed her.

I invited Emma to stay for a cup of nonmedicinal tea, and after looking in on my patient and putting the boys down for their naps, I joined her in the living room, where she was surveying my raftered ceiling and oak mantelpiece with a puzzled frown.

“Looks like the Christmas fairy's passed you by,” she commented as she settled beside me on the couch. “What happened to all of the holly you gathered, and the evergreen boughs? Shouldn't they be up by now?”

“Yep,” I acknowledged, filling her cup. “Bill and I were on the verge of decorating when he was called away to attend a funeral in Boston. I thought I might tackle the job with William's help, but then he caught his cold.”

“So what have you been up to?” Emma raised her teacup to her lips and took a sip.

“I've been lusting after a comatose stranger and a Roman Catholic priest,” I tossed off nonchalantly. “You?”

Emma choked and sputtered, splashing tea down the front of her handknit heather-gray sweater. I quickly took the teacup from her hand and dabbed at her sweater with a calico napkin.

“F-forget about the sweater,” Emma managed, waving off my ministrations. “T-tell me about the priest!”

So I told her about Julian, about his self-doubt, dedication, and touching vulnerability, and I told her about Kit, who still lay unconscious in intensive care. By the time I finished, Emma's sweater had dried and the tea had grown cold.

“Now I understand what Peggy Kitchen was grumbling about.” Emma kicked off her shoes, curled her legs beneath her, and turned to face me. “When I went into the Emporium this morning she muttered something about you flooding the village with undesirables. I thought she was talking about your Christmas Eve party, but she must have meant Kit.” Emma giggled wickedly. “Too bad Julian doesn't wear his collar. That would really give Peggy something to talk about.”

“Papists and vagrants.” I clasped my hands over my heart. “
My people
. But seriously, Emma”—I put my feet on the coffee table and rested my head on the back of the couch—”I don't know why I feel so strongly about these two men.”

“Well, you've teamed up with Julian, haven't you? Being part of a team can make you feel very close to someone. As far as Kit's concerned …” Emma reached for Reginald, who'd somehow ended up between the sofa cushions. “I think you want to mother him. It's only natural. After all, he's even more helpless than your babies.”

I pursed my lips, marveling at Emma's ability to drain the passion from the most emotionally charged situations. “In other words,” I said dryly, “I'm seething with a combination of team spirit and maternal instinct?”

“I wouldn't rule out lust,” Emma temporized. “You do have a weak spot for wounded princes.” She gave me a sly, sidelong glance. “I'd better tell Bill to walk with a limp when he gets home.”

“If he's not home by Christmas Eve,” I growled, “I'll give him a limp.”

“See?” said Emma. “You're still in love with your husband.” She propped Reginald on the arm of the couch and folded her arms. “I ran a search on a random sample of names from Kit's scroll yesterday. Three of the men were killed in action, flying bombers over Germany. One was a POW. The rest survived the war without a scratch.”

“The living and the dead,” I murmured pensively. “It's not what I expected.”

“Kit squeezed in about six hundred names per page,” Emma explained. “That's over a hundred thousand names. The man at the Imperial War Museum put the total number of men who served with Bomber Command at one hundred twenty-five thousand. It looks as if Kit listed them all.”

“I suppose the living need prayers as much as the dead,” I reasoned.

“Maybe more so,” said Emma. “May I have a look at those medals Kit was carrying?”

“Of course.” While I fetched the suede pouch from the master bedroom, Emma took a pen and notebook from her purse. When I returned, she made a complete inventory of the pouch's contents, listing every badge, medal, ribbon, and bar.

“What are you up to?” I asked.

“It seems to me,” she said, tucking the notebook back into her purse, “that only a handful of men would have been so highly decorated during the war. If I put the list of medals out on the Internet, maybe someone will recognize it and tell us who they belong to. Assuming they all belong to one man.”

“It's worth a try,” I said. Emma started to get up, but I
put a hand on her arm to restrain her. “Emma, my best and dearest friend,” I said, in my most wheedling tones, “would you please do another favor for me?”

Emma eyed me suspiciously. “Depends on what it is.”

“I promised William that I'd stand in for him at tonight's rehearsal,” I informed her. “And I was hoping you'd be an absolute angel and babysit for me. It'll just be for a couple of hours, and I'll have the boys bathed and in their pajamas by the time you get here.”

“You want
me
to look after the twins?” Emma gaped in disbelief. Emma's stepchildren had come to her fully weaned and potty-trained. She claimed to have no discernible maternal instinct.

“Either that or spend the evening in Finch with Peggy Kitchen,” I said, fluttering my eyelashes.

“I'd
love
to look after the twins,” Emma declared. “If things get too desperate, Derek can always bail me out.”

I heaved a sigh of relief and gave her a hug. Emma's husband knew all there was to know about babies. With Derek as backup, Emma would have a peaceful, trouble-free evening.

I somehow doubted that the same would hold true for me.

F
inch sparkled like a cheap dime-store bracelet that evening. Each building on the square had been outlined in fairy lights, in imitation of the annual display at Harrods, and garish garlands had been wound around each tree. The pub's plastic choirboys swayed drunkenly in the icy breeze and Sally Pyne's Santa heads leered from the tearoom's shadowy windows. The darkness softened the features of Peggy Kitchen's mad-eyed, mechanical Father Christmas, however, and made him appear marginally less hostile.

Every business on the square seemed to be closed for the evening, but the schoolhouse had come alive. Light shone from the gothic windows, and smoke rose from the narrow chimney. The succession of frigid days following the blizzard had left a glaze of ice across the schoolyard, but the show was going on regardless, thanks to a thick layer of sand spread across the treacherous surface by Mr. Barlow. The retired mechanic stood in the doorway admiring his handiwork, and Buster, his yappy terrier, barked a greeting as I approached.

I bent to scratch Buster's chin, then straightened and cocked an ear toward the sound of voices coming from within the schoolhouse. “I guess everyone's shut up shop to come to the rehearsal, huh?”

“You guess right,” Mr. Barlow answered, ushering me into the cloakroom. “Won't be a business open in Finch from now until the ruddy thing's done with.” He set his sand bucket on a wooden stool and closed the door behind us. “William feeling better, I hope? And how's that chap you found in your driveway? Hasn't packed it in, has he?”

I thanked Mr. Barlow for his interest and gave him a general health report: Willis, Sr., had stopped sneezing, but another day or two in bed wouldn't do him any harm; Kit Smith remained unconscious.

“Poor chap.” Mr. Barlow shook his head, then motioned toward the former classroom that now served as an all-purpose meetingplace. “Best get inside and do your bit. If you ask me, Mrs. Bunting's in over her head. She's got Sally Pyne, Christine Peacock, and Peggy Kitchen playing the three wise men—in false beards!”

“She didn't have much luck finding male volunteers,” I reminded him. “Are you in the play?”

“I'm on lights,” Mr. Barlow stated flatly. “You wouldn't catch me parading—” He broke off abruptly and colored to his roots. “Not that there's anything wrong with it, mind. I'm sure we're all grateful to William for pitching in.”

“Who's playing Herod?” I asked, easing him off the hook.

“Jasper Taxman,” Mr. Barlow replied, grinning broadly. “Don't know what Mrs. Bunting was thinking.”

Nor did I. It would be difficult to find a more self-effacing man than Jasper Taxman. The audience would have to summon up a superhuman suspension of disbelief to accept
him as a paranoid megalomaniac plotting a search-and-destroy mission against a newborn.

“Able Farnham and George Wetherhead'll do as the shepherds,” Mr. Barlow allowed, “so long as they don't have to move.”

I nodded my understanding. An old hip injury forced George Wetherhead to walk with the aid of a three-pronged cane, and ancient Mr. Farnham was so frail that he could scarcely cross the square without toppling over. I trembled to think what might happen if either man got too close to the edge of the stage.