Tidings of Comfort and Joy (7 page)

"That?" My question caused the driver to laugh out loud. "Why, that's the River Thames, Miss. Didn't you know we're a river village?"

"I suppose I did." Of course. The town's name was Arden-on-Thames. But I had no idea the river was so close. The road seemed to simply drop into the water. As we drew closer, I saw how it took a right-hand bend and went up to join with an old stone bridge.

But the taxi did not follow the road around. Instead, it took a sharp turn to the left, down a tiny cobblestone lane. The alley was so narrow that no one could pass the taxi when its doors were opened.

The driver pulled up and stopped. "Here we are, Miss."

Hesitantly, I inspected my new home through the grimy window of the taxi. There was not much to see. The entire street was one long wall of two-story houses all joined together. They looked like the neatly painted brick tenements of a big city. But this was a small village, and tenements had no place here.

"Fred, yoo-hoo, I say, Fred!"

"There's your landlady now," the driver said, opening his door. He scrambled from the taxi and doffed his cap.

"Fine morning, Miss Rachel."

"Oh, it's not, it's cold and it's dreadful and you still haven't done a thing about that horrid floor of yours, have you?" The woman coming their way was limping heavily and leaning upon a cane. She stopped and huffed a moment, then finished, "Shame on you, Fred."

The driver responded with another grin. "I put the blanket in like you said, Miss Rachel."

"That's not good enough. It simply won't do." She started toward my side of the taxi. "To think our new arrival has been forced to rattle about our little town in such a condition!"

I opened my door and rose to greet her. Only then did I realize how tall the woman was. She had to be over six feet in height. She was stooped somewhat, and she walked with difficulty, but still she had a regal bearing. And a grand light to her eyes.

"Oh, my
dear,"
she said. "If only I could have come up and gathered you myself. But the old banger caught a terrific cold last year and I still haven't managed to obtain the required parts." She frowned at Fred, as though it was all his fault. "A dreadful state, if you ask me."

I was caught flatfooted. The only thing I could think to say was my name. "I'm Emily Robbins."

"Well, of course you are. And I should have been up to see you long before now. But I came down with the worst influenza, which of course was the last thing you needed breathed upon you. All sorts of germs are floating about these days. It's the cold, you know, they're predicting the worst winter since the last war."

She gave her head an impatient shake. "Then when I was better, that new doctor we've been saddled with actually ordered me to stay well away from the clinic."

She snorted her derision, which instantly warmed me to her. I didn't like the doctor either.

Rachel went on, "I told him time and time again, the young lady needs a bit of company, especially over the Christmas holidays. But he kept going on about the new babies and such. He actually claimed he would bar the doors if I came up! Can you imagine such nonsense?"

I decided I liked this tall, angular woman. Enough, in fact, to confess, "I was very lonely."

The words brought a great ballooning of her emotional sails. "Well, of
course
you were." She hefted her cane and shook it fiercely. "I didn't half give him a piece of my mind, I can tell you that. But you see how much good it did. Nobody pays any attention to an old woman. Not these days."

"There's a chill wind blowing down the lane, Miss Rachel," the driver pointed out.

"Quite right, Fred. Come along, my dear. We mustn't be keeping you out here in your condition." She reached into the pocket of her shapeless sweater-coat and came up with a bundle of keys. A skeleton key almost four inches long was used to unlock the red door. "I came by this morning to light the heater and dust a bit. Couldn't manage more than that, I'm afraid. I'm only a few days out of bed myself, and all the energy I have has been spent up at the College. There's far too much that's gone undone while I've been lying abed, don't you know. Poor Colin can only see to so much on his own, and most of the others wouldn't know to wipe their own noses unless someone's there to tell them how."

I did not understand what she was talking about, but decided it did not matter. Her voice was the nicest thing I had heard since stepping off the boat. I followed Rachel into a very small, very plain front room. It was not much warmer than outside. A disused fireplace stood empty and cold in one corner. Three high-backed chairs and a cracked side table were the room's only furnishings. I said doubtfully, "You didn't have to go to any trouble on my account."

"Nonsense, of course I did." She flicked on the light switch, illuminating a single bulb in a white ceiling fixture. The room still looked faded and full of cold shadows. "Now I want you to give Fred here some money. Fred, go down to the shops and buy her some provisions." Her long age-spotted hands dived back into her pocket. "Here, I've made you out a list."

"The rationing's still on, Miss Rachel."

"Oh, stuff and nonsense. She has to eat, hasn't she? And how on earth is she supposed to have a ration card when she's been laid out in the clinic since she arrived?"

Fred mulled that one over, then brightened. "I'll have the grocer put it on Mr. Grant's card."

The saying of his name was like a knife stabbing straight to my heart. Rachel shot me a swift knowing glance, then said, "Of course you will. I should have thought of that myself. Tell Bob I'll drop the card by myself later on."

"Right you are, Miss Rachel." The driver accepted my bill with another doffing of his cap. "I'll bring your cases up with the provisions, Miss. Don't you worry now, Miss Rachel will see you right, sure enough."

The kind words and the unspoken knowledge behind them brought a burning to my eyes. Rachel's shrewd gaze caught that as well, for she turned me around and guided me to the stairwell. "Up here, my dear. Let me show you your new home."

Home.
Despite my best efforts to maintain control, sorrow was an overpowering vacuum that drew me in. So many dreams had been contained in that one word,
home.

I followed her up the stairs and down a narrow hallway. Upstairs, the house was warm and cozy. As we entered the front parlor, I swallowed the lump in my throat, and said, "It's very nice."

And it was. The room was small but very tastefully appointed, with mahogany double doors and a matching built-in cupboard. The fireplace was black marble, with a mahogany mantel. The furniture was old and worn, but welcoming. Big windows and another mahogany door, this one with a glass centerpiece, looked out over a nice little balcony. Beyond the balcony flowed the river.

There was no sign of Grant having ever been there. None at all. Suddenly I understood what Rachel had meant by a bit of dusting.

"The structure itself is Victorian, designed and built around 1890. It was turned into a series of row houses about thirty years ago." Rachel stood in the center of the little parlor and surveyed it with a critical eye. "It's all rather in need of a dash of paint and a bit of work, I'm afraid."

"It's wonderful. Really." I stepped to the window and looked out over the river. It flowed gray and silent beneath the blustering storm. The banks on the other side lay still and white. Hills rose into the lowering clouds, disappearing like quiet old men gathered beneath a floating veil. A sigh escaped from my heart. It would have made a lovely home.

"Yes, the view is what makes this place so special."

Rachel moved up beside me. Her natural effervescence was quietened. She looked out over the river and said confidentially, "We bought this place for our boy, Samuel. We lost him over Normandy."

I turned from the river. "I'm so sorry."

"The one good thing about it all, if I can call it that, was that my husband passed on the year the war began. Otherwise the loss of Samuel would have killed him stone dead, and I couldn't have managed the two losses at once." The lines on her face deepened, her tone dropped. "He was our only child, you see, and we had him rather late in life. A grand boy. A flier. Just like your Grant."

She cast me a quick little smile, one at direct odds to the hollow grieving in her gaze. "That's why we decided to let this flat to him, you see. Grant was so much like our boy. Tall and dashing and devil-may-care."

"A laugh for every problem, a smile for every girl," I said, and could not keep the quiver from my voice.

"Oh, you mustn't think Grant did not care for you, my dear." Rachel turned her gaze toward the river, allowing me privacy in this intimate moment. "He spoke of you as he spoke of none other."

"But he's gone," I said, wiping my eyes.

"Yes, well, some men are not the marrying kind. They are meant to soar the heavens in search of adventure and glory." Rachel took a ragged breath and drew herself up taller. "That is what has kept me going, you see. Thinking that perhaps my Samuel was never truly meant for this earth, not in the way of most mortals. He came and splashed us all with the light of heaven, did his part for God and country, and left us richer for having known him. Even for a little while. Even when the loss is a wound that shall never heal."

Rachel turned away from both the window and me, raising up one corner of her sweater to wipe at her eyes. She hobbled across to the doors, and said with forced cheerfulness, "I'll leave you to rest a bit and get settled. Fred can set your cases and the provisions by the stairs." She stopped in the doorway, and said without turning around, "I must ask a favor of you. If you're up to it, could you perhaps accompany me to church for the New Year's service this evening?"

I was about to tell her that I couldn't. I was too tired, too weak, too anything so long as it kept me from having to face a church full of curious eyes. But something held me back. I felt as though a strong yet gentle hand had settled over my mouth.

"There will be words of remembrance, you see," Rachel went on, her back still to me and the room. "I find such outings hard going on my own, don't you know. So many of my friends will be locked in their own grief. Most of us have lost someone close. I don't see how I could possibly burden them with my own woes just now, but I am not sure I can hear those words alone."

"Of course I'll come," I said weakly, not understanding at all what was tugging at my heart.

Rachel released a sigh, one that sounded as though she had been holding it ever since we met. "That is so very kind of you, my dear. You have a nice rest, and I'll be back for you around eight."

EIGHT

I ate and rested and ate again, aching with the emptiness of moving about what should have been our house, sleeping in what could have been my marriage bed. Then in the afternoon I felt strong enough to do something that could not wait. I bundled myself in layer after layer and went out.

It was hard to believe this was truly New Year's Eve. Other than a fly-specked banner in the grocer's window, no doubt left over from years gone by, there was little to suggest this day was different from any other. People moved down the snow-covered walks in cautious haste, so hidden beneath layers of old dark-colored clothes I could scarcely make out whether they were male or female. There was little conversation, and none of the festivities that must have been going on back home. Only once did I hear someone wish another a Happy New Year.

Yet despite my best efforts to convince myself otherwise, the village of Arden-on-Thames held a truly charming air. The softly falling snow and empty streets helped transport it back to an earlier era. The frills and laces of a red-brick Victorian gothic structure stood alongside a staid Queen Anne cottage and that beside a bowed Elizabethan building, one that dated from before the American colonies were settled. I was so very glad to be out of the clinic and strong enough to be walking around. The freedom meant a great deal, and the air was crisp and cold and held a clean snowy taste I loved.

I arrived at my destination, very pleased that I had found my way back. A shop I had passed in the taxi had displayed a P & O Steamship placard in the window. I inspected the snow-dashed display, and saw that this was indeed a travel agent. But the cruise poster was so old that the women's dresses had gone out of style and were back in fashion again.

Inside the shop had a dismal, disused air. One elderly woman sat behind a long counter, and seemed utterly astounded that I had decided to enter. "Can I help you?"

"I'd like a ticket to America. A steamer." I selected one of a half-dozen chairs lining my side of the counter. All of them bore a layer of dust.

The woman brightened immensely. "Ah, you must be the American lady. I heard they let you out of the clinic today."

I felt my cheeks grow bright red, but I was determined not to be put off. "As soon as possible, please."

"I'm afraid that won't be easy, my dear. All passages to and from the British Isles are restricted to a 'need-only' basis." She gave me a cheery smile. "Which is their way of saying that we need not apply, as we'd only be wasting our time."

I was in no mood for polite jokes. "But there must be something."

"There isn't, I'm afraid. You only need read the papers to understand." Clearly she was delighted with the company, and in no hurry to send me on my way. "Over thirty thousand children were sent to Canada and America when the Jerries started bombing our cities. The families are clamoring for them to come home."

"But I'm going the other way."

"Even worse, I'm afraid. There've been protests in Washington, I saw it on the Movietone News just the other day. Went to see the new Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movie. I say, can all American gents dance like him?"

"Not all." I leaned back. I, too, had heard about the protests. Mothers from all over America had gathered in Washington, carrying signs and shouting for the government to "Bring Our Boys Home." "So all the berths are going to troops?"

"Afraid so. Unless you've got some connection, there's almost nothing I can do."