Aunt Dimity's Christmas

by Nancy Atherton

  “Don’t you?” Anne’s mouth curved upward in a strange, sad smile. “Then let me tell you about Kit. For your sake, as well as his.”

  “Go ahead,” I said gruffly, but I knew even as I spoke that nothing she said would convince me that the man I’d seen in the Radcliffe was crazy.

  “In order to tell you about Kit,” Anne began, “I must tell you a bit about myself.” She paced slowly toward the fire, then turned to face Julian and me. “My first husband died of a stroke five years ago. He was thirty-two, and I was six months pregnant with our first child. I went into premature labor and lost the baby.” She knelt on the hearth rug and put an arm around Branwell. “It was a terrible time.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Julian, somehow managing to make the clichéd phrase sound sincere.

  “Blackthorne Farm was my late husband’s dream, not mine,” Anne continued. “I’d no idea how to manage it, but I refused to give it up. It was all I had left of him.”

  Julian nodded sympathetically.

  “As you can imagine, the place soon began to go to pieces,” said Anne. “I was on the verge of selling out when I found Kit.”

  “Found him?” I said.

  “He was in the church at Great Gransden, standing before the memorial window.” Anne gave Branwell’s chin a rub and sat back on her heels. “At first I thought he was an old airman—”

  “Why would you think that?” I interrupted.

  “The window’s dedicated to the bomber crews who flew from the airbase at Gransden Lodge during the war.” She closed her eyes, spread her hands upon her thighs, and recited from memory, “‘The people of these villages cared for the airmen who flew from R.A.F. Gransden Lodge. They watched for them and prayed for them.”’ Anne’s eyes opened and she smiled briefly. “My father made me learn the inscription by heart. He flew as a navigator during the war.”

  “What was Kit doing in the church?” I asked.

  “He said he’d gone inside to escape the rain,” Anne replied. “His voice is … magical. I kept him talking just to hear it. When he said he was looking for work and a place to stay, I offered him my spare room and a job.” A faint blush stained Anne’s creamy complexion, but she continued in a level voice. “He was terribly kind, you see, and I was vulnerable.”

  “How long ago was this?” I asked, a merciless inquisitor.

  “Kit moved into the farmhouse just over year ago,” Anne answered. “I paid him next to nothing, yet in one short year he turned the place around—and taught me how to manage it. He said he’d learned about farming from his late father, who’d owned a vast estate.”

  “Did you believe him?” Julian asked.

  “Oh, yes,” said Anne. “It was clear to me from the start that Kit wasn’t just another itinerant farm laborer. It worried me, in fact.”

  “Why?” asked Julian.

  Anne lifted her hands into the air, then let them fall. “Kit dressed in rags. He carried everything he owned in one small bag. He ate like a sparrow and worked like a dog, but it was all a charade. Any fool could tell he’d been born to money. You had only to hear him speak to know he was too well educated, too cultivated to settle for a life of ill-paid drudgery….

  “But that’s not the only thing that worried me.” She got to her feet and returned to the settee. “Kit had one day free every week. On his free days he rose at dawn and drove off in the farm lorry. He never said where he was going and never mentioned his trips once he returned.”

  “It must have driven you crazy,” I put in, wincing slightly at my choice of words.

  “It piqued my curiosity,” Anne admitted. “So much so that one day, I stowed away in the back of the lorry.” Anne blushed and looked down at the floor, as though embarrassed by the memory of her actions.

  “Where did he go?” Julian asked.

  Anne raised her eyes. “He drove to an abandoned bomber base, a remnant of the war. Cambridgeshire is littered with them, but until then I’d only seen them from a distance.” She ran her tongue over her lips, as though her mouth had suddenly gone dry. “I didn’t much like the one we went to.”

  I leaned toward her, fascinated. “What did Kit do when he got there?”

  Anne favored me with a level gaze. “He stood at one end of the runway. In the pouring rain. Without moving. For eight hours.”

  A chill touched my spine and I looked toward the fire, trying to envision the scene as Anne Somerville had described it. I could imagine Kit’s long-legged stride as he wound his way between clusters of crumbling bunkers and long-abandoned huts. If I closed my eyes I could see him standing on a cracked and weed-choked runway, his great-coat billowing in the cold wind, his long hair streaming with rain.

  “He did the same thing the following week, and the week after that,” Anne went on, hammering her point home. “When I finally told him that I’d followed him, and asked what he was doing, do you know what he said?” Tears trembled like ice crystals on the tips of her lashes. “He said, ‘I’m keeping watch for the airmen.”’

  I looked past Anne Somerville, past the shining Christmas tree, to the farmyard beyond the mullioned windows. The dark clouds I’d seen on the horizon were moving over Blackthorne Farm, and the brilliant sunshine that had followed us all day was growing weaker. In a few more hours dusk would settle over the broad, flat fields, and perhaps another blizzard would close in, but I was no longer afraid for my own safety. I was too filled with fear for Kit.

  A tear spilled down Anne’s cheek. “Kit’s mad,” she said. “He’s obsessed with war or death or …” She paused. “It’s probably what drew him to me. He must have sensed that death and I had become old friends.”

  Julian crossed to Anne’s side. “Mrs. Somerville, if this is too difficult for you, you needn’t go on. I think you’ve told us enough.”

  “Let her finish.” Charles stood in the doorway, gazing at his wife. “Tell them the rest, Anne.”

  Anne wiped her eyes and straightened her shoulders, seeming to draw strength from her husband’s presence. “When Kit told me about the airmen, I knew for certain that he was ill, but by then I didn’t care. I’d have done anything to protect him.”

  “Because you were in love with him?” Julian said gently.

  “Me? In love with Kit?” Anne gave an astonished laugh. “I think not. It would’ve been like falling in love with a monk. Besides,” she added, gazing fondly at her husband, “I was too busy falling in love with the manager Kit had taken on.”

  Charles returned his wife’s fond gaze. “Anne thought her heart was dead and buried, but Kit brought it back to life. He made her care about someone other than herself, you see. By the time I showed up, she was ready to fall in love.”

  Anne’s smile dimmed. “Kit saved me as well as my farm. I’ve thought of him every day since he left. He’s a good, kind man, but he simply can’t be trusted to look after himself. He needs supervision.”

  “I agree,” said Julian. “That’s why Lori and I came to Blackthorne Farm. We were hoping …”

  I listened with a growing sense of outrage as Julian, Anne, and Charles discussed plans for Kit Smith’s future. They didn’t talk about providing for his needs until his health was fully restored, but about taking him into a kind of protective custody. If they had their way, Kit would spend the rest of his days confined at Blackthorne Farm, under a comfortable, caring form of house arrest. The idea made my skin crawl, but the worst part was that Kit had no voice in the proceedings. What if he didn’t want to return to the farm? Would the invitation become an ultimatum?

  The military medals bit into my palm as I clutched the soft suede pouch. Kit peered up at me from the Heathermoor Asylum ID, and I gazed back at him, bewildered by the intensity of my emotions. Kit had smiled at a knife-wielding lunatic; he’d starved himself; he’d stood on abandoned runways, keeping watch for long-dead airmen. There was no reason to believe that he was sane.

  Yet I knew as surely as I knew my sons’ names that the soul I’d glimpsed behind tho
se violet eyes wasn’t that of a madman.

  When Charles brought in the sandwiches, Julian ate heartily, but I scarcely managed a crust. I could sense Anne’s gaze on me throughout the meal, and when Julian and I were getting ready to leave, she took me aside.

  “I do know what you’re feeling,” she said, “but you mustn’t let yourself be beguiled by Kit. He’s a sick man. He needs special care.”

  “Why don’t you call the Heathermoor Asylum?” I muttered. “I’m sure they’ll be happy to have him back.”

  Anne’s green eyes blazed. “If you think I could do such a thing, then you haven’t heard a word I’ve said.” She turned to go, but I caught her by the arm.

  “I—I’m sorry, Anne,” I faltered. “I shouldn’t have spoken so harshly. You’ve been … more than kind.”

  The anger drained from her face, to be replaced by something resembling pity. “He’ll break your heart,” she said, too softly for the others to hear. “The same way he broke mine.”

  Snowflakes danced in the headlights as Saint Christopher carried us back to Oxford. It was scarcely three o’clock, but the sun was already low on the horizon. Pinpricks of light dotted the plains as lamps were lit in isolated farmsteads, then winked out, one by one, as a swirling cape of snow swept across the open plains.

  I put the suede pouch in Kit’s carryall and kept the battered bag on my lap. As dusk closed in around us, I thought of him lying in the Radcliffe, haloed by golden light, dreaming of a war that had been over for half a century.

  “Charles and Anne are a lovely couple,” Julian said brightly.

  I made no comment.

  “The Somervilles are going to visit Kit tomorrow,” Julian continued. “I’ll have to remember to tell Dr. Pritchard to expect them.”

  “Good idea,” I said, gazing down at the canvas bag.

  A few miles passed before Julian observed, “You’re awfully quiet, Lori.”

  “Am I?” I thought for a moment, then shrugged. “I guess I don’t have much to say.”

  Julian sighed. “It’s not easy to accept, I know, but it explains a lot, don’t you think?”

  “No,” I said bluntly.

  “Then tell me how he ended up at Saint Benedict’s,” Julian challenged. “How did the son of a prosperous landowner come to live among drunks and drug addicts? Why did he smile when Bootface tried to kill him? Why did he choose to go hungry in the midst of plenty?”

  I toyed with the tab on the carryall’s zipper while I gave Julian’s questions careful consideration. “As a priest,” I said finally, “you should know better than most people that there’s another way to look at Kit’s behavior.”

  “Go on,” said Julian.

  “Kit comes from a comfortable home,” I said, gazing out at the falling snow, “yet he chooses to live among the poor. He befriends outcasts. When faced with violence, he turns the other cheek. He gives up his own meals—sacrifices himself—so that others may eat.” I smoothed the canvas carryall with my palms. “If Kit’s crazy, then Christ was crazy, too.”

  “Ah, I see.” Julian stroked his goatee meditatively. “You think Kit might be a religious fanatic.”

  “I think Kit’s a good man!” I exclaimed heatedly. “And the world’s in a pretty sorry state if we’ve started classifying goodness as a form of mental illness.”

  Julian gave me a sharp glance, then faced forward. “Christ didn’t stand in the rain watching invisible airplanes,” he said. “And Christ was never confined to an asylum.”

  I let the words flow over me, unheeded. I couldn’t explain all of Kit’s behavior. I didn’t know for sure why he’d gone to the airfields, or the Heathermoor Asylum.

  But I intended to find out.

  I returned home to find my sons on the living-room floor, surrounded by empty cardboard boxes—their favorite toys—while my father-in-law, immaculate as ever, watched over them from the comfort of a nearby armchair. After greeting Will and Rob, and covertly scanning them for signs of damage, I sat on the floor with them and filled Willis, Sr., in on my very eventful day. I expected my eminently sensible father-in-law to fall in line with popular opinion on the subject of Kit Smith’s sanity, but, as usual, he surprised me.

  “The evidence is flimsy at best,” he pronounced. “Mr. Smith’s actions, in my opinion, remain open to interpretation. We cannot know for certain what he meant when he told Mrs. Somerville that he was ‘keeping watch for the airmen.’ Perhaps he was speaking metaphorically. Perhaps he was being facetious, in an attempt to discourage her from intruding further into his private affairs.”

  “He stood in the rain for eight hours,” I pointed out.

  “That is … unusual,” Willis, Sr., conceded.

  “And what about the Heathermoor Asylum?” I asked. “It’s pretty hard to ignore the ID card’s implications.”

  “You might telephone the institution and inquire after Mr. Smith,” said Willis, Sr.

  I pulled Rob out of a cardboard box and into my lap. “They wouldn’t release patient information to me,” I said. “I don’t have the necessary authority. Besides, I don’t want to run the risk of alerting them to Kit’s whereabouts. If he’s absent without leave, they might try to round him up again.”

  “Quite so.” Willis, Sr., tented his hands over his silk-lined waistcoat and tapped the tips of his index fingers together. “Perhaps we could ask Miss Kingsley to look into the matter.”

  I gaped at my father-in-law, awestruck. “William, you’re a genius. I’ll get right on it.”

  Miss Kingsley was the concierge at the Flamborough Hotel in London, and a longtime friend of the Willis family. She was discreet, efficient, and blessed with an uncanny ability to ferret out information on the most obscure individuals. If anyone could bore through a wall of institutional confidentiality, it would be the redoubtable Miss Kingsley.

  “Would it be too great an imposition to request that you postpone your telephone call to Miss Kingsley until after we have dined?” said Willis, Sr. “I have fed my grandsons, but I have not yet had the opportunity to feed myself.”

  A wave of guilt dampened my jubilation. I’d been so preoccupied with Kit Smith that I hadn’t bothered to ask how my father-in-law’s day had gone, much less given a moment’s thought to our evening meal.

  “Dinner’ll be on the table in twenty minutes,” I promised, and when Willis, Sr., began to rise from his chair, I ordered him to stay put. “Relax,” I said. “You’ve done enough for one day.”

  I devoted the rest of the evening to hearth and home. I whipped up a meal for Willis, Sr., bathed Will and Rob and got them off to bed, then invited my father-in-law to join me in the kitchen while I baked a double batch of angel cookies, in a belated attempt to celebrate my mother’s birthday. By the time Willis, Sr., turned in for the night, it was too late to telephone Miss Kingsley.

  It wasn’t too late, however, to speak with Aunt Dimity. Tired though I was, I went to the study, pulled the blue journal from its niche on the bookshelves, and curled up on the tall leather armchair before the hearth.

  I yipped in alarm when the journal sprang open in my hands.

  It’s about time. The familiar copperplate raced across the page in a nearly illegible scrawl. I was beginning to think you’d forgotten me. Did you go to the Radcliffe? Were you allowed in to see the tramp? Have you learned anything more about him?

  “His name’s Kit Smith,” I began, and for the second time that evening, recounted everything I’d learned about the man in the Radcliffe Infirmary. When I’d finished, Dimity’s handwriting resumed, this time at its normal pace.

  I do not remember anyone called Kit Smith. Tell me again about the medals in the suede pouch.

  “There’s a DSO, a DFC, an Air Force Cross, and a Pathfinder badge, among others,” I told her. “Why? Did you know someone who flew bombers during the war?”

  In February 1943, I was given a temporary assignment with Bomber Command, at a base up in Lincolnshire. I came to know many aircrews, but none of
the men with whom I worked were so highly decorated.

  I slumped in the chair, discouraged. “Then we still don’t know why he risked his life to come here. Julian’d say that it was just another example of Kit’s crazy behavior.”

  Then Father Bright would be jumping to conclusions. We may not know Kit’s reasons for coming to the cottage, but that doesn’t mean he had none. I do wish you’d been able to see Kit more clearly. Your description of him remains woefully inadequate. Around forty years of age, tall, slender—well, he would be slender, wouldn’t he, if he’s suffering from malnutrition?

  I bit my lip. I hadn’t exactly lied to Dimity, but I hadn’t told her the whole truth, either. “The cubicle was dimly lit,” I said, “and Kit was wearing an oxygen mask.”

  And since Father Bright and the Somervilles saw Kit as you did, through a curtain of hair and heard, they wouldn’t he able to describe him either. You must return to the Radcliffe after they’ve removed Kit’s mask and take a good, long look at him. I will search my memory for anyone called Kit Smith, but I’m still counting on you to bring me an accurate description.

  “I will,” I promised, but as I watched Aunt Dimity’s handwriting fade from the page, I wasn’t sure I’d keep my promise.

  I closed the blue journal and looked across the study to the desk where I’d left Kit’s carryall when I’d returned from Oxford. I’d borrowed the bag from Julian, telling him, and myself, that I hadn’t had time to examine its contents thoroughly, and that a closer inspection might provide a further clue to Kit’s identity. I wondered now if my reasons for keeping the bag had less to do with discovering Kit’s identity than with experiencing his presence.

  I closed my eyes and saw Kit’s face so clearly I could almost count his lashes. I saw the creases at the corners of his eyes, the sculpted cheekbones, the curving lips, and the fine, straight nose, each feature bathed and softened by golden light. Once again, those violet eyes gazed up at me and that sweet smile pierced my heart.

  Why hadn’t I described Kit to Aunt Dimity? Why had I withheld from her the very information she desired most? Was I afraid I might describe him all too accurately?