Tidings of Comfort and Joy (15 page)

Colin was climbing into the truck, but stopped at my approach. Even before I was close enough to speak, the grim expression to his face said it all. I felt something in my chest tear apart, as though a wound that had just begun to heal was violently reopened. "Oh, Colin. Isn't there anything we can do?"

"I'm going to the Ministry," he said tersely. "And I'm not leaving until I find out who's responsible."

Without another word I raced around and opened the passenger door. Tossing in the box of stockings, I clambered inside and declared, "Let's go."

MY SECOND JOURNEY to London was better than the first only because I was not so alone. Despite the steady flow of buses and lorries, there were very few automobiles. The broad streets seemed strangely empty, as though the city had been built for twice the traffic. The sidewalks were crowded, but people seemed as subdued as the city itself. I watched the faces wherever we stopped, especially when we approached one of the bomb sites. It seemed as though I was the only person who took any notice of the destruction.

We turned down a spacious avenue, and abruptly I found myself surrounded by the grandeur of the mighty British Empire. Tall buildings of white marble stood like solemn soldiers, flanked by pillars and statues and ranks of broad steps. When Colin pulled up in front of one of them, I asked, "Where are we?"

"Pall Mall."

I got out, but hesitated there by the truck. The buildings seemed so imposing, so utterly powerful and uncaring. It was only the sight of Colin, poor tired Colin tromping up that expanse of grand white stairs all alone, that gave me the strength to go forward.

We passed through a pair of enormous bronze doors. I read a placard beside one that said the doors had been made from cannons melted down after some battle. The interior was no less dignified, with a vast circular chandelier suspended from a ceiling thirty feet high. I stayed close to Colin as we crossed the marble-tiled floor, feeling very, very small.

The gray-haired man guarding the entrance barrier wore row after row of ribbons and medals on his ancient uniform. He gave us an impassive stare. "Yes?"

"Displaced persons," Colin said, his voice clipped by tension and worry.

"Second floor, down the hall on your left. Take the stairs there."

Upstairs the building was much less imperial, full of bustling offices and hurrying people and uniforms and voices. Nobody paid us the least attention. I sat on a hard wooden bench while Colin went in to announce our arrival and, as he put it, demand a meeting with someone who could do something about this mess.

As I sat and waited, I found myself growing increasingly aware of my appearance. The clothes had seemed fine when I put them on this morning, as I had planned to go no farther afield than the orphanage. But within the walls of this stuffy Ministry, I realized that I looked a mess.

My shoes were scuffed and worn. The hem of my skirt was muddy from a walk through the orphanage garden the afternoon before. One of the infants had also stained my lapel with formula. I wore no makeup. My hair was pinned haphazardly into place. My hands were chapped raw from scrubbing floors.

The meeting was a misery from beginning to end. It was the only time I had ever seen Colin lose his temper. The woman was precise and prune-faced, with her hair in a bun so tight it drew her eyes into slits. She wore a tailored gray suit, and cast a disapproving eye over my appearance. I found myself so intimidated I was afraid to open my mouth.

Colin grew red-faced and bitter when he learned the Ministry could not even tell us where the children were going, or when. His anger seemed to please the woman to no end. Her name was Miss Hillary Tartish, and she watched Colin storm and protest with amused contempt. "The children are not your concern, Reverend, ah . . ."

"Albright," Colin snapped.

"Of course. The children are the Ministry's responsibility, to do with as the Ministry sees fit." Her gaze was as severe as her dress. "A fact that seems to have escaped your attention for far too long."

"Those children are alive because we looked after them," Colin flashed angrily. "And not a lick of help or thanks did we receive from your lot."

"What you fail to recognize, Reverend," Miss Tartish responded glacially, "is that it is precisely because of your meddlesome ways that our own carefully planned and logical routine was so thoroughly disrupted."

"The children still needed food," Colin barked. "They still needed clothes. What kept you from sending supplies when we were so desperately short?"

"Those very same shortages are exactly why we shall all be better off distributing those children around the other displaced persons camps. Facilities, I might add, which are
much
better run than your own."

What she had just said struck me with the force of a slap to my face. "A
camp?
You're sending these children to a camp full of adults?"

"Full of displaced persons," she replied icily. "Which is
precisely
what these young people are, in case that has slipped your notice."

"They're not," I cried. "They're
children.
They've been horribly scarred by war and their experiences, and they need love and care. Not to be lost in the mass of humanity in a camp!"

"I've heard quite enough of this nonsense," she snapped. "For your information, Europe is positively awash with these displaced persons. There is neither the time nor the resources to give them special treatment of
any
sort." She looked down her nose with frigid contempt. "Your lot has done nothing but set a bad example, and upset our carefully prepared plans."

I turned to Colin. "This is absurd."

"What this is, young lady, is official government policy." Her words were a biting lash. "We shall begin transferring those children by the beginning of next month, and close you down entirely three weeks later!"

"We'll see about that," Colin cried, rising to his feet.

"Yes," Miss Tartish retorted, remaining seated behind her vast empty desk. "Yes, we certainly shall."

It was only when we were back in the truck that Colin dropped his head to the steering wheel and moaned, "I made an absolute shambles of that."

"No, you didn't," I protested, as worried at that point for Colin as I was for the children. "You did everything you could."

"Which was nothing at all." He turned hopeless eyes toward me. "What on earth am I going to tell the others?"

The drive back began in a silence more dismal than the one that had accompanied us in. I wanted to ask him about his heart, but Colin was already so despondent that I did not dare. Instead, I tried to force away the quiet by talking about Brad's telephone call and my trip into the village.

"I'm not surprised he wanted your stockings," Colin said when I was finished. "Clyde Hoggin has made a small fortune as a spiv."

"A what?"

"A spiv is someone who deals on the black market. There's such as that in every town." Colin shook his head. "His daughter Hannah is one of the quiet ones, and no wonder, given her father's nature. Whenever she can manage she helps out in the sick-hall." He tried to offer me a smile. "It's a pity God doesn't operate heaven on a family plan, for I fear that's the only way her father will ever see the eternal city."

The sadness in his eyes threatened to break my heart. "I'm so sorry, Colin."

"And you are a dear to be so concerned for our little woes." He drove on in silence for a while, before offering, "I used to be a fair hand at taking photographs."

"You did?"

"I even apprenticed to a portrait maker, back before I received my calling." He gave his chin a thoughtful rub. "It's not such a bad idea you've had, Emily. Jolly nice, in fact. We could send a few pictures over to Brad's church, and save the others for ourselves. You know, in case—"

"Take the stockings and buy all the film you can," I cried, cutting him off. I could not bear to hear him say that our little charges might be taken away, lost in a maelstrom of Ministry papers. Or that the photographs might someday become our only link to what once had been. The thought of not even knowing where they might land cut like a knife. I could not hear him speak the words.

FIFTEEN

The next morning Rachel decided to take our protest up with the Arden village council. Fred was busy with an out-of-town call, so I took the bus up the hill to the orphanage. I was no longer afraid of being seen and stared at and whispered over. I could not explain why going to the Ministry had affected me in that way. O r perhaps it was the way the grocer's wife had greeted me. Or the avaricious shopkeeper, more concerned with my stockings than with my needs or our children. Yes, I thought.
Our
children. I was far too busy worrying over where they might end up, and under whose care, to be concerned with the murmured conversations and the looks shot my way. Even if some of the half-heard words were meant as arrows, I kept my head held high.

The bus was an ancient round-shouldered affair that wheezed and rattled at each stop, and belched great clouds of black smoke as it started off again. I sat and stared out the rain-streaked window, and found myself thinking of the river, and of Rachel's words from the day before. How I needed to hold on to silence in order to hear the Lord's quiet voice. The more I came to know that tall stately woman, the more I admired her. My thoughts about Rachel and the river pushed aside my worries, and left no room for the snide conversations swirling about me. Instead, I was held by an image of the river, the rain falling softly upon the surface, the steady current flowing on undisturbed.

The rivulets of thought seemed to run together in my mind. The village, the people seated about me, the children, my own troubles—a world full of woes and hurts and misgivings. All the while, currents of love and healing ran deep and unseen, but we could only see the rain marring the surface.

The bus pulled up in front of the orphanage's gates.
As
I walked down the long lane I struggled to focus, though a single image remained to tug at me. The river flowed on, steady and ceaseless, waiting for me to reach down and draw from its eternal strength.

THE MOOD AT the orphanage was morose, and worsened steadily with the day and the weather. By midafternoon it had turned so cold the rain began freezing as it fell. Icicles grew from windows and eaves and tree limbs. There was no hope of the nighttime volunteers arriving. Even walking down the front stairs meant risking a broken limb.

After the dinner dishes were cleaned, I sat with Annique until sleep stole her away. The doctors were increasingly certain we faced a bout of hepatitis; that particular strain, though serious, was almost never life-threatening in children. I sat there on the side of her bed and watched her sleeping face. She was a remarkable pixie, a child's face stamped with such womanly features, honed far beyond her years by experiences I could scarcely imagine. She and all these other slumbering forms had come to mean so much to me. I could scarcely bear the thought of their being taken and split apart and sent goodness knew where.

Eventually I went back downstairs and found Rachel standing at the back French doors. Without asking, I made two cups of tea, and went over to join her. Her smile at my approach was tinted by the same sadness that filled my heart. "How sweet of you, my dear," she said, accepting the cup and then opening the door. "Come, let us get a breath of air."

We stepped carefully onto the grand back veranda. The patio was all slate tile and marble inlay, with Grecian urns decorating the stone wall. In order to avoid the subject on everyone's mind, I asked her whom the house belonged to.

"Nobody. Or rather, the National Trust, an organization founded some time ago to look after properties such as these, when a family either dies out or loses its fortune. Such properties then become a part of our national heritage."

"Or war colleges. Or orphanages."

"Precisely." Her breath smoked as she examined me over the rim of her cup. "You have changed, my dear."

I stared up at the night sky. The clouds had vanished, and the air was scrubbed clean by the rain. I had never seen so many stars. I could feel her eyes upon me, but did not lower my gaze. Imprinted there upon the star-flecked skies were fleeting images of all the past few days had held. Yet I found it difficult to put any of it into words. Finally I said, "The river spoke to me."

"Ah." Rachel's voice altered, and I realized she had turned her face toward the heavens. "It is remarkable how God will teach us through the silent things, is it not?"

I nodded, though I knew she could not see me. "Almost as though the hard times open us to lessons we would otherwise prefer not to notice."

"What a glorious thought." She patted my arm. "I will bid you good night, my dear. Rest well."

I stayed on the veranda as long as I could. The stars became friends that night, and the silhouette of the big silent house, and the dark images of trees sleeping in the cold air. When I finally allowed the cold to drive me back inside, I knew I would hold that image close to my heart for the rest of my days. Despite the present sadness, despite all in my life that was not as I might have wished, still the Lord was with me. That I knew for certain.

IT WAS THE quietest dawn I had ever known. This was not the silence of falling snow, with sweet whispers of wind and flakes. Instead, the world was held in a frozen grip, breathless and awestruck by nature's quiet power.

I rose from my bed in the large room off the kitchen which we were using as a pantry. There was no stirring from the other four mattresses spread upon the stone floor. Quietly I slipped into my clothes. Despite the stove that we had kept burning all night long, I could see my breath. Shivering and rubbing my arms, I carefully stepped onto the back veranda.

The sun had not appeared over the horizon. The eastern sky was rimmed with gold, yet overhead the stars seemed so bright and close I could almost touch them. The ground was white and layered with a drifting blanket of fog. The trees, the veranda's stone railing, the house, everything was enveloped in frost. Icicles dripped like winter's fingers.