Tidings of Comfort and Joy (11 page)
I found myself remembering the New Year's Eve service, and seeing those shadowy faces take form. There in her cheerful little kitchen, I had a sudden waking dream.Perhaps it was the force of experience behind her words.Perhaps it was my own grief-stricken state. Whatever the reason, once again I found myself staring through the darkness and the snowfall, only this time I was standing right there in line with the other bitter, hate-ridden faces.
Rachel was too lost in her memories to notice my shudder. "That was what drove me back to church, not any desire to seek God's comfort. I woke up one Sabbath morning, and recalled the passage in Scripture where a demon found the house swept clean and left empty, so he went and gathered seven of his fellows, all worse than himself, and came back with them and possessed the soul."
I remembered that passage. I recalled sitting in church one sunny morning and hearing the pastor of my youth speak those words. I remembered how comforted I was to be sitting there, surrounded by friends and family, knowing that God was there in His house, and I would be kept safe. And now? I studied Rachel's face, and saw an extraordinary mixture of strength and weakness, age and youth, sadness and joy. And wisdom. There was such wisdom to that quiet voice that it rang like great silver bells within my heart.
"That morning," Rachel went on, "Colin Albright was giving the sermon. I have no idea what he spoke about. I sat there, and felt that even within the church I was not beyond the reach of all that had driven me from the house.Then, through the fog that had wrapped itself around my mind and heart, one passage managed to work through to me. Eight little words Colin spoke, that's all I heard. But it was enough."
When Rachel remained silent, I found my voice and asked, "What did he say?"
She looked at me then, her eyes filled with a sadness that reached across the gulf of years and nationalities and different sorrows. She said, "Even the pagans love those who love them."
Slowly I gave a nod. I remembered that passage as well. It was when the Lord had said that we must love our enemies.That was what would set us apart from all others. The message was a crushing challenge. And suddenly I was crying.Sobbing without control. I heard Rachel rise and come to me, I felt her touch my cheek, my neck, then slide around to hold me close, offering me a comfort beyond words.
Finally I was able to regain enough control to accept the handkerchief she offered. I whispered, "I don't know if I can ever do that. Forgive Grant, I mean."
"I know." Her murmur was almost as soft as my own. "But allow the Lord's gentle grace to enter your wounded spirit, my dear, and He will work the miracle for you Himself."
Oh, do get a move on, Fred," Rachel complained from the taxi's backseat. "I might as well have walked."
"You can step out and try anytime you like." He kept his nose pressed to the cracked windscreen. Snow billowed and swirled outside, reducing vision to barely a few feet beyond the car's hood. "Don't see how anybody's going much of anywhere today."
"Don't say that," Rachel said, her tone rising with sudden tension. "The thought kept me awake all night."
"Heard on the wireless most of the trains out this way have been canceled," Fred went on. "No help from that corner."
I looked from one to the other. "What's the matter?"
As Rachel opened her mouth to respond, the snow eased momentarily, revealing the startling sight of the road simply ending in a high white embankment. Fred jerked the wheel around hard. The taxi spun wildly, before doing a four-wheel slide through the great stone gates. "Sorry, ladies. Heard before I left this morning, the council only cleared the roads as far up as the College. Took 'em the better part of four hours to get this far."
Rachel turned to stare through the snow-spattered back windscreen, and wailed, "But how are the deliveries supposed to get through?"
"Been asking myself that same question all morning,"Fred said worriedly. He wheeled up in front of the imposing house and stopped. "This is my last trip of the day, ladies. You'll have to ask the vicar to bring you home. That old heap of his has four-wheel drive. He'll get you back safe and sound."
Rachel paid and stepped from the taxi. She stood and seemed to sniff the air before declaring, "It is far too quiet."
"The snow's keeping everybody inside."
"That's not it," she said emphatically, and stumped up the stairs. "Something's amiss. I just know it."
The grand entrance hall was equally quiet. Rachel slammed the door hard, and hallooed. The sound of her voice echoed eerily. Steps were heard in the distance, a door slammed, another, and then the harried night-mistress came hustling down the back hallway. Kate stopped when she saw who it was, her face falling. "Oh, I hoped it was the grocer."
"Don't tell me he hasn't been here yet."
Kate wrung her hands. "Oh, Rachel, it's like our worst nightmare has come to life. I've been on the phone to the Ministry a half-dozen times already. All deliveries north of London have been halted. They're trying to organize something by train, but there's trouble with them as well, something about the snow having frozen hard to the tracks; I wasn't listening by that point."
"But how are we supposed to feed the children?"
"Precisely what I've been asking the Ministry. All they could tell me was they were working on it." She snorted. "If it's anything like the rate of progress we've seen so far, we'll still be waiting next Christmas."
"Don't say that," Rachel admonished. "Don't even think it."
I asked, "Where are the children?"
"Oh, they're hiding. They know something's the matter, they don't know what it is, but they're hiding just the same."
"I haven't heard it this quiet since we ousted Matilda," Rachel said, glancing around. "Well, what on earth are we to do?"
"Colin's going to try to make it to the next village, bless his heart. He's spoken to the vicar, and they've promised to take up a collection. He's—"
Footsteps clomped down the stairs. Colin Albright came into view, his feet stuffed into great rubber boots. He was wrapping a long gray scarf around his neck and face. "I'm off. Don't get your hopes up, John was not optimistic. They haven't had any deliveries over there either."
"Anything you can get will be better than what we have," Kate replied.
Rachel's face was a mask of concern. "There's nothing at all?"
"A mouthful or two for each child. Colin brought in absolutely everything the local grocers could spare. We found some old potatoes downstairs in the root cellar, and there are some bitter herbs and a few leeks." The woman smiled tiredly. "Most of these children have managed on far less, I'd wager."
"Not while they've been under my care," Colin said grimly. "I'll be back as soon as I can."
"Wait," I said, stepping forward. All eyes turned toward me. "I think I have an idea. Can you drive me to the airfield?"
"My dear," Rachel admonished, "this is hardly the time—"
"I met with a couple of the fliers last night," I said quickly. "They offered me supplies from the PX."
A breathless intake of hope caught them all. "Do you think they really meant it?"
"He said the PX was chock full of stuff," I replied."Those were his exact words."
"My truck has no heat," Colin warned. "You'll need to wrap up warmer than that to manage a journey over the Chilterns."
THANKFULLY, THE SNOW had eased before we left the village behind. Colin Albright's truck was an old army model, short and set up on a high suspension, so that it looked like a landlocked boat. It rocked dangerously over every dip and sway in the road. But the tires bit easily through the snow, and the engine growled cheerfully as we began to climb.
"Rationing has become such a way of life for us, we can hardly remember anything else," Colin was saying. His voice came out slightly muffled from behind his tightly wrapped scarf. He had instructed me to do the same—not only because of the cold, but because the wool caught most of the moisture so the windscreen did not freeze up so quickly. "I haven't had chocolate in over a year. We got in a shipment just before Christmas, but you know how it is with children. I got more joy out of watching their faces than I could ever have from eating it myself."
My feet were encased in two pairs of thick woolen socks, then stuffed in those high rubber boots the English called wellies. I wore a pair of men's woolen mittens and my own gloves under them.
Rachel had found me some woolen underwear, far too excited over the prospect of gaining supplies from the Americans to notice my embarrassment. I wore another helper's sweater, my own coat, and a thick woolen cap and scarf from the orphanage's rummage chest. The layers were so thick my arms felt cocked out at angles, like a winter scarecrow. I could scarcely move. The wool itched everywhere it touched—my elbows, under my arms, my forehead, behind my knees, my toes. All that was visible were my eyes.But I was warm, and the drive was exhilarating.
"The only way we've been able to make this project work is because everyone in the village has pitched in," Colin went on, his tone matter-of-fact. "That is, almost everyone. My petrol is coming off an account with the local station. Everything we use is on account—the heating oil, produce, the canned goods, everything. All the clothes you see the children wear. Our meat comes from local butchers and nearby farmhouses that otherwise would have kept it as extra for their own families."
Gradually what I was hearing began to sink in. I turned from watching the village drop away below us, and gazed at this tired-looking vicar beside me. Colin continued, "The government has managed to give everybody just barely enough by rationing almost everything. To have a village our size be forced to support three hundred orphans has put a strain on everyone."
"But the war is over," I protested.
He smiled. "You'll hear a lot of people around here making the same observation. A lot of good it does them."
I turned back to my window, sorting through what I had just heard. I then recalled what Rachel had said the day before, how the orphans' arrival had been the best thing that could have happened to Arden. "It must be hard."
"We manage." His calm tone was belied by the strain and the fatigue in his face. "Barely, but we manage. We keep hoping that the promised help will arrive soon. That, more than anything, keeps us going."
Outside my window, the road was growing steeper.Snow swirled in lazy clouds, opening every once in a while to reveal vistas of white and black and gray. Trees were simple etchings of stark limbs and ancient trunks. Hillsides were decorated with primitive stone cottages and long lines of hedgerows separating empty fields. Then the snow closed in once more, and all was white. "I can't believe they would just dump all those children on you."
"Oh, they gave us help. Initially." His voice turned as stark as the winter white beyond our little cab. "Her name was Matilda Whetlock. You will hear that name spoken with dread by all who met her. Prior to her arrival in Arden, she ran a borstal."
"A what?"
"A prison. A borstal for young women. She was hard as nails, Matilda was. She and the staff she'd brought along with her. A worse caretaker for children coming from the horrors of war I could not possibly imagine."
Outrage filled his voice. "We were positively aghast at what we saw happening. The children were so terrified of her and the staff, they neither ate nor slept. We would arrive most mornings to find them sleeping outdoors, rather than be put to bed by Matilda Whetlock. We spent most of August and September walking from tree to tree, gathering up these little forms, then battling the mistress and her staff to keep them from punishing our children."
He stopped the truck right in the middle of the road.There was no need to pull off to one side. There was no traffic. The road was an unblemished strip of white, thankfully marked by hedgerows and low stone walls. Otherwise there would have been no way to tell where the road stopped and the neighboring fields began. Colin walked around front and scraped ice off the windscreen, then returned to the cab and did the same to the inside. He settled back behind the wheel, put the truck into gear, and started off.
When he drove on in silence, I demanded, "What happened?"
"What? Oh, to Matilda, yes, of course. Sorry, I was busy hoping this trip wasn't in vain. We drove her off."
"Who did?"
"The entire village. By that point, everyone within twenty miles was talking about Matilda Whetlock. Her name was enough to give the young ones nightmares, just listening to how the adults spoke of her. We held a town meeting, then went up one day and drove her away, her and her minions." He turned to flash me an apologetic smile. "Which partly explains why the Ministry has been somewhat reluctant to jump in once more. Our actions made the national press. British officialdom does not like to have its hand slapped in public."
"But they have to help you," I cried.
"Oh, they will. But they are dragging their heels in best bureaucratic fashion. It is their way of punishing us, I suppose." He crested the steepest rise so far, and applied the brakes. The truck shuddered to a halt. "Well, the worst is behind us."
He climbed from the truck to give the glass another scraping. As he did, the snow stopped once more. A lance of sunlight managed to break through the clouds. I opened my door and climbed down. When I turned around, and saw where we had come from, I had to grip the truck for support.
The view was beautiful but frightening. Behind us, the road dipped into a valley of white and silence. Dark gray lines crisscrossed the empty fields, and smoke rose in lazy ribbons from cottages that seemed a very long way below us. "I'm glad I didn't know where you were taking me."
Colin Albright laughed, and suddenly the years and the strain fell away. "It is quite a feat, what we've just done. I don't mind saying so myself." He pointed ahead of us."You can see the airfield in the valley just along there."
The descent was far more gradual than the rise we had just crested. The planes were tiny toys, and the field itself was a long white ribbon laid upon the valley's floor. All was silent and still. Not a person could be seen moving about.I climbed back inside with Colin, exhilarated by the air and the accomplishment. I took an overdeep breath and coughed.