Sisterchicks Go Brit! (12 page)

“Nice assortment,” she said. “All your British authors.”

“Yes. Well, Scott was from Scotland, but the rest were from England.”

With our treasures paid for and wrapped in brown butcher paper and tied with a string by the clerk, Kellie and I stepped back outside into the chilly sunshine. Kellie had also purchased a map of Oxford, which she already had opened.

“Where to now?” I asked.

“I was trying to find Exeter College. That’s where Tolkien taught, if I remember what the cab driver said. It looks like it’s this way.” She pointed to the left.

“Are you sure, Lady Ebb?”

She gave me a smirk. “Would you rather take a taxi?”

“I don’t think we can afford to take another taxi the rest of the trip after what yesterday’s gallivanting cost us.”

“Then let’s walk. It will warm us up on this invigorating day.” Kellie picked up the pace. “Have you ever felt the air this crisp on your face at home?”

“No, never. I love it. I just wish I had bought a warmer coat.” I noticed we were no longer strolling. We were women on a mission. Kellie took us around a bend, down an alleyway, and out onto a wide street with lots of cars and buses and an intersection with traffic stopped in both directions. It was by far the widest street we had seen in Oxford. The traffic light didn’t appear to be working. All the vehicles were taking their turns at hedging their way across the no man’s land in the middle.

“We have to be getting close.” Kellie huffed and puffed as our power walk continued past more bookshops, woolen clothing stores, and a coffee shop alive with morning coffee drinkers and a
table set up outside on the narrow sidewalk. Most of the shop’s patrons looked like they were college age.

More students brushed past us. I smiled, imagining that some of the learning they had been stuffing into their brains might be leaking out and was therefore ready to light on the nearest head—mine!

We turned a corner, and a large number of students were funneling into a small opening in a tall stone wall.

“I think this is it,” Kellie said.

“Should we follow them?”

“What? Pretend we’re students?”

“Why not? We can go back to pretending we’re Lady Ebb and Lady Flo, if you want.”

With chins forward, we entered the stream of students passing through the creamy-colored, block-wall entry and into the courtyard. No one stopped us as we walked through the entrance. The sensation of sneaking in was delicious.

I
nside, behind the high wall
surrounding Exeter College, lay a manicured lawn in a large rectangle surrounded by a walkway. The antiquated buildings that encased the courtyard were three stories high and crafted from pitted sandstone that gave the buildings a soft, buttery color in the morning light.

The students all seemed to be headed for the classrooms inside the rectangular buildings. None of them was going to the more ornate building on our left. It looked like a chapel, with tall, arched windows and a pitched roof. We took several steps up and were greeted by organ music. We inched forward, wanting to make sure a service wasn’t in progress.

The organ music suddenly stopped, and so did our footsteps. We paused, looking at each other, wondering if we had been found out.

“Begin again, if you please. From the last bar,” a distant voice above us said. The organ music, emanating from the chapel’s back
balcony, started up again. We couldn’t see the master or the student, and we didn’t think they could see us. But we could certainly hear them, and if Kellie and I got too loud, they would be able to hear us.

But we weren’t loud. We were as reverent and tippytoey as church mice. All we wanted was a quick peek. And, oh boy, did we get what we came for!

The long, narrow chapel was the most beautiful and intricately decorated either of us had ever seen. The elevated pews were positioned on the right and left sides, leaving the center aisle open and the front of the chapel ablaze with breathtaking, soaring, stained-glass windows. The sunshine lit up all the vibrant colors in the stained glass, and dozens of images of biblical accounts danced before us, highlighted with heavenly brilliance. Kellie and I stood with our hands folded in front of us as we tried to take it all in. It was much more exalted than the simple sandstone country chapel Lewis attended that we had visited yesterday.

I felt awe and reverence. The chapel didn’t seem overdone or gaudy. I loved the arched ceilings, the dark wood, and the artistic balance of all the elements. Someone who loved details had decorated this chapel. More likely it had been decorated and redecorated many times over the hundreds of years of its existence. One could sit here and worship Creator God for years and never notice all the intricacies in the tapestries or the small details in the carvings on the pews.

Cautiously I took several steps into the worship area, then paused behind a wooden lectern that held a large Bible. Affixed to the front of the pulpit was a glimmering bronze eagle with its wings back and its face to the altar. With my hands now clasped behind my back, I saw that the large Bible was open in about the middle of Jeremiah. I scanned the verses before me, curious if the Bible was only for display or if it was actually read from during a service.

I tried to imagine what it would sound like to hear God’s Word read aloud in this jewel case of a chapel. Would the words, read in a rich British accent, match the beauty of the stained glass and the deep hue of the carved pews?

Squaring my shoulders, I tried out a sample reading in a low voice, using my best British accent. The organ practice in the balcony behind me certainly would drown out my reading.

“Jeremiah chapter 24, verse 7. ‘I will give them hearts that will recognize me as the L
ORD
. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me wholeheartedly.’ ”

The organ struck a major chord and held it. I smiled. This was good stuff. I was beginning to develop an affection for the majesty built into the worship in a formal “high church” setting that wasn’t always evident in the more casual church we attended. What did Opal call it? A contemporary service?

I liked our church and the familiarity of it. I wasn’t interested in changing. But I felt a growing curiosity over what it would be
like to worship in a place like this chapel. The verse I had just read felt richer, somehow, reading it here.

Double-checking the reference, I decided I would mark that same Jeremiah passage in my Bible so I could always remember what it felt like to read it here.

Kellie had wandered off to the side where she was scanning a tapestry hanging between two marble pillars. I stepped closer, and she turned to me with the look of a treasure hunter on her face.

“Morris,” she whispered. “I’m sure of it. It has to be an original. Lizzie, look at the shape of the birds and the way the vines intertwine. And the choice of colors. I can’t believe I’m looking at an original Morris!”

I whispered back, “Do you want to take a picture of it?”

“Do you think it’s okay?”

We glanced around. No signs indicated otherwise. Kellie pulled out her camera and snapped three pictures.

The organ music stopped. Had they heard us whispering? Seen the camera flash? The pause sounded louder than the music had been.

With a mutual nod toward the door, we took our leave of the beautiful sanctuary. On our way out, the organ began again with the same piece.

I was already beyond the door when I noticed Kellie wasn’t behind me. I saw a flash and peered back inside to see Kellie take a picture of a bust in a small alcove and then turn to take a few final snaps of the inner chapel and the stained-glass windows.

When she stepped outside with me, her face glowed. “What an incredible chapel. Such a great balance in the colors. Didn’t you love the tones of the wood and their contrast to the jewel tones in the stained-glass windows?”

I nodded, even though I hadn’t taken it all in with the eye of an artist like Kellie had.

“I loved all the detail in the carving on every single column. I could spend an entire day in there. And did you see the bronzed bust I was photographing?”

“No, who was it?”

“Tolkien! This was such a treasure. I’m so glad the balloon ride was delayed and we got ‘detoured’ to Oxford.”

“I thought about that a lot last night, and I’m convinced none of what has happened to us has been an accident. God is directing us.”

“I’ll say. I’ve thought about that too. These past few days seem like they have to be God’s idea because nothing, absolutely nothing, has gone the way we thought it would. And to be honest with you, I think it’s gone better than anything we could have planned.”

I agreed and told myself to remember this affirmation of God’s sweet grace on us when it came time to step into the hot-air balloon’s wicker basket. I repeated the admonition to myself an hour or so later as we were riding out into the Oxfordshire countryside, heading for the Cotswolds. The driver of the minivan, Jeremy, was also our hot-air balloon pilot. I was thankful that
nothing about our ride with him was wild. His wife, Andrea, had come with him and was on her cell phone, checking with the crew in the field.

I gazed out the window at the expanding view. At long last I had a chance to take in the English countryside. And what a glorious vista spread out before us! The low, rolling hills were dressed in that fresh shade of early spring green I was coming to adore.

“Look!” Kellie pointed out her side of the van. In a large field hemmed in by a low stone wall, a matronly speckling of ewes nibbled at the sprouting greens.

“Have you enjoyed your stay in Oxford?” Andrea asked as soon as she finished her phone call.

“Yes, it’s a wonderful place,” I said. “It seems like it would take years to see it all.”

Andrea chuckled. “Not years, I’d say. A few weeks, perhaps.”

“Yesterday we had a wild time.” Kellie started an Ebb and Flo summary of our crazy tour with the questionable cabby.

Jeremy and Andrea exchanged looks of surprise. Andrea interrupted us and said, “You went on the Peeping Jon Tour!”

“Peeping Jon?”

“The cab driver’s name is Jon, and the local news ran a story on him last week. He was described as the self-appointed tour guide who walks sightseers right up to the windows of Lewis’s and Tolkien’s homes to have a look inside. Everyone is up in arms about it because Lewis’s home is owned by a foundation and has
regularly scheduled study groups that stay there. Tolkien’s home is a private residence.”

“We definitely didn’t peek in anyone’s windows,” I said. At the same time, I felt a little as if we had been part of a paparazzi brigade, snapping pictures of lawn gnomes and grave sites. I couldn’t imagine how awkward it would have been if the cabby had taken us to the crematorium or hospital. Did visitors actually take pictures of those places?

“Did you leave everything as you found it?” Jeremy asked.

“Yes. Of course,” Kellie said.

“Some tourists have been trying to take bricks from Lewis’s fence and shingles from Tolkien’s home. It’s maddening.”

“You have to understand what’s happened here,” Andrea said. “Ten years ago you could have asked anyone on the street who Lewis was, and they wouldn’t have known. Now, with the success of the
Narnia
and
Lord of the Rings
films, as well as the fact that parts of
Harry Potter
were filmed here, well, Oxford suddenly is swarming with a different sort of tourist than we’ve had before.”

Jeremy said, “You can see how it’s off-putting to the neighbors and such. Last thing anyone wants is a Hollywood-style touring coach to come rumbling down the street every hour loaded with tourists and their cameras.”

“Although we do love tourists, don’t we, Jeremy?” Andrea stated quickly.

“Right. Tourists like Kellie and Liz. That’s what we like. I guess we’re a bit snooty in that way.”

We returned Andrea’s quick grin over her shoulder. A few minutes later Jeremy pulled into an open field and parked behind a large truck. On my side of the minivan stood a long row of poplars in their minimalist garb after being stripped down by winter’s merciless blast. At the edge of the field a team of men were unfurling what looked like an enormous bright orange and blue tarp.

Kellie took one look at the wicker basket waiting to the side of the flattened balloon and seemed to have second thoughts. “How do all of us fit in that tiny basket?”

“It’s larger than it looks,” Andrea said.

“If there’s only room for one of us …,” I began.

I could tell Kellie was checking my vitality signs. I smiled confidently so she wouldn’t think I was wimping out on her. I was merely being hospitable.

“There’s room for both of you as well as Jeremy. The rest of us are on the chase team,” Andrea said. “We’ll follow you in the truck and pick you up where the balloon comes down for a landing.”

“So where will we land?”

Andrea grinned. “The air currents make that decision for us, and I’ll tell you: it’s never the same place twice. Jeremy is very good at catching just the right current, and often he can maneuver the balloon in the direction he wants it to go. Not always, but most of the time.”