Aunt Dimity's Christmas

by Nancy Atherton

“Did you accuse your brother of murder?” Julian asked.

  “I didn’t have to,” Lady Havorford replied. “Once he’d seen the memoir, he knew exactly what he’d done.” Her powder-blue eyes narrowed. “I told him he had no right to his legacy and he agreed. He should have transmitted his inheritance to my son, but instead he wasted it on undeserving strangers.”

  “The money helps a lot of people,” I offered.

  “A sop to soothe a guilty conscience,” said Lady Havorford, softly but venomously. “The first step in his absurd scheme to redeem himself. Poverty, chastity, good works, and prayer—sound familiar, Father Bright? Christopher thought it would cleanse his soul, but I knew better.” She paused to adjust the hang of a diamond earring, adding almost as an afterthought, “I was relieved when he disappeared, and I have no intention of allowing him to return.”

  There was a sudden burst of laughter from the hallway followed by shouts of Merry Christmas! I jumped, startled by the sound, kicked over the canvas carryall, and sent Anne Somerville’s brown horse tumbling across the Aubusson rug. With a hasty apology, I scrambled to retrieve the scruffy toy.

  “Lancaster?” Surprise mingled with distaste in Lady Havorford’s voice. “Don’t tell me Christopher’s still dragging that nasty old thing around with him.”

  I looked uncertainly from her to the patched and faded toy. “Lancaster?”

  “Christopher named it after his horse,” Lady Havorford explained.

  I stood, the small horse cradled in my hands. “Lancaster belongs to Kit?”

  “He’s had it since he was a boy,” said Lady Havorford. “A neighbor woman made it for him. Yet another sympathetic soul. She lived in a cottage at the end of our bridle path.”

  I felt my knees wobble slightly as I looked down at the well-loved little horse. “What was the neighbor woman’s name?”

  “Westwood,” said Lady Havorford. “Miss Dimity Westwood.”

  A bell tolled in the furthest recesses of my mind, and I was instantly transported to my living room, where the Pym sisters sat, describing their fleeting encounter with Kit Smith.

  It was rather eerie, to be honest. He reminded us so strongly … … of poor Robert Anscombe, who died so long ago….

  “Y-your maiden name, Lady Havorford,” I managed, returning shakily to the present moment. “Was it, by any chance, Anscombe?”

  “Originally, yes,” she replied. “It later became Anscombe-Smith. My stepmother insisted on joining her name to ours when she married Papa.”

  I looked at Julian and gave a short, incredulous laugh. “Christopher Anscombe-Smith,” I said. “Kit Smith. Smitty.” When he didn’t respond, I took a step toward him. “Kit grew up at Anscombe Manor, Julian. That’s how he knew about the bridle path. He grew up next door to Dimity.”

  Lady Havorford favored me with a polite, incurious stare. “I don’t pretend to know what you’re talking about”—she held up her hand for silence—”nor do I care. I have told you the truth about my brother. It is a matter of indifference to me whether you believe it or not. I must now attend to my guests. If you’ll excuse me …”

  “Lady Havorford,” Julian said urgently, “you must have loved your brother once. If you search your heart, you’ll find your love for him still lives, in spite of everything. Won’t you please give me a message to bring to him? You may not have another chance.”

  Lady Havorford floated to her feet and gazed down at Julian imperiously. “You may bring a message to my brother, Father Bright. You may tell him that he will never redeem himself in my eyes, and that I hope he rots in hell.”

  Lady Havorford smoothed her dress and glided toward the hallway, her beautiful head erect, her satin gown rippling luxuriously as she moved. When the double doors had closed behind her, I saw that Julian had crossed to the mahogany desk.

  “Julian,” I said, “Budge’ll be here in a minute, to kick us out.”

  “I doubt it.” He untied the black ribbon and took up the manuscript. “Lady Havorford wouldn’t have left us alone with her father’s memoir unless she wanted us to see it.” He scanned the topmost sheet, set it aside, and began leafing through the rest of the pages. Suddenly he clutched the sheaf of papers to his chest and looked up at the gilded balcony, his face etched in pain.

  “Julian?” I said, hastening to his side. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  He pointed to the page he’d set aside. “Read the epigraph Sir Miles chose.”

  The short quotation was written in a crabbed hand on an unlined and unnumbered sheet of paper:

  As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an evil, then their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil that they set out to destroy.

  —Christopher Dawson,

  The Judgment of Nations (1942)

  I looked up at Julian. “It sounds like something Kit might have said to him.”

  “I hope to God it wasn’t,” Julian said heavily. “Here, look at the next page.”

  He handed me a photocopy of a photograph. It was an abstract black-and-white composition, blurred splashes and pinpoints of light against a grainy gray background. The caption, written below the photograph in the same crabbed hand as in the epigraph, identified it as The first RAF raid on Hamburg, 24 July 1943. Photoflash of city center.

  “It’s the firestorm in Hamburg,” Julian explained, “as seen from the belly of a bomber. There were pictures like it in the book I borrowed from you. The dots are incendiary bombs. The blurs are where fires are already raging.” He placed the rest of the manuscript on the desk. “Turn to the next page and go on turning.”

  There was no narrative text in Sir Miles’s memoir. Instead, each page contained a single photograph, photocopied, no doubt, during the long days he’d spent at the Imperial War Museum.

  Some of the photographs were like the first, taken from bombers as they flew over a burning city, but most depicted more readily recognizable scenes: charred bodies, sobbing women, smoking ruins. The captions below the ruins conjured their own haunting visions: Maternity Hospital, Berlin; Holy Ghost Church, Munich; Refugee Center, Dresden, and on and on, for more than five hundred pages. I flipped from image to image and finally turned away, unwilling to look further.

  “It’s not a memoir,” I said. “It’s a nightmare.”

  “It’s a self-portrait,” said Julian, “meant to explain himself to his son.”

  “What kind of man would leave something like that to his son?” I asked. “It’s hellish.”

  “Imagine how much more hellish it would be to carry those pictures around in your head,” said Julian, “to see them in your dreams and in every waking moment of your life—and know you’d had a part in creating them.” He walked aimlessly to the middle of the room, pressing his fingers to his temples, as though to drive the obscene images from his mind.

  I tapped the pages of the manuscript together, retied the ribbon, and placed them on the blotter, where Lady Havorford had left them. “Do you think Sir Miles was a monster?”

  “He was a man of conscience, asked to do unconscionable things.” Julian’s hands dropped to his sides as he looked toward the gilded table. “His medals must have stabbed at him like a crown of thorns. While his children bragged about his bravery, he brooded over the children he’d destroyed. I’ve seen it before,” he went on, “in the old soldiers who end up at Saint Benedict’s after years of trying to erase their memories with drugs or drink.”

  I thought of the two vagrants, Rupert’s mates, who’d saluted me in Preacher’s Lane. “What do you do for them?”

  “I feed them, listen to them, remind them that God loves them. Sometimes they believe me. Sometimes …” He shrugged helplessly. “I can’t condone suicide, but I also can’t help wondering how a decent man could live with himself after leading the raid on Dresden.” His head snapped up and he glared at the balcony, his eyes glazed with angry tears. “But where could Sir Miles look for help? He was a hero. How can a hero admit to doubt and self-disgust? Ho
w can a man who’d done what he’d done believe in the promise of salvation?”

  Julian swiped a hand across his eyes, then strode to the gilded table, where he bent to collect Sir Miles’s medals and return them to the water-stained suede pouch. I tucked Lancaster into the canvas carryall and stood before the fire, trying to think of something comforting to say.

  “I don’t believe that Kit drove his father to suicide,” I said finally. “I think Sir Miles was on his way there long before Kit confronted him. It’s like you said—Sir Miles carried those pictures around in his head. His memories killed him, not Kit.”

  “What we believe is immaterial,” said Julian. “It’s what Kit believes that matters. Kit believes himself responsible for his father’s madness and death. Sir Miles left his son a legacy of despair.” He thrust the suede pouch into the carryall and zipped it shut, as if he never wanted to see the medals again.

  I ran a hand through my hair, wishing I could do something to ease the anguish I saw in Julian’s eyes. “Sir Miles is beyond our help,” I said, “and Lady Havorford doesn’t want it. But we can still help Kit.”

  He took a steadying breath, the straightened his shoulders and nodded toward the double doors. “Come, old friend. It’s time we were going home.”

  “Home,” I murmured. I gazed slowly around the perfect bijou of a room and saw grim shadows hovering in every corner. My cottage, with its tilted tree and half-hung decorations, had never seemed so sweet.

  The sensible majority of the British population had elected to ride out the storm in the comfort of their own homes. Apart from the inevitable semis, a cadre of emergency vehicles, and a few dozen intrepid fools like ourselves, traffic on the major motorways was nonexistent.

  It was no longer snowing, but Paul was forced to drive cautiously, nonetheless. The M40 to Oxford, reduced by the storm to one lane in each direction, was a hazardous maze of abandoned cars and jackknifed trailers made even more challenging by an unpredictable gusting wind that rocked the limo and reduced visibility, on occasion, from yards to inches.

  Julian had said nothing since we’d left Havorford House. The depression that had settled over him in the library hung between us like a gray shroud, and I didn’t know how to lift it. The questions he’d asked, about decent men and war, seemed unanswerable.

  Sighing, I reached for the hamper Miss Kingsley had sent along to keep starvation at bay if we were stranded. In it I discovered three Cornish game hens, two bottles of claret, and assorted side dishes, all of which looked a good deal more appetizing than anything I’d be able to offer my guests. Will and Rob might be content to suck on frozen drumsticks, but I doubted that Bill’s English relatives would be so easily satisfied. With a soft groan, I looked out at the blowing snow, wondering what my father would make of my half-baked festivities.

  “Worrying about your party?” Julian asked.

  “Yeah,” I admitted sheepishly, glad of any excuse to get him talking. “Seems pretty trivial, after what we’ve learned today.”

  “Christmas traditions aren’t trivial,” he asserted. “They brighten the darkest months of the year.”

  “It sure doesn’t feel like Christmas,” I said, closing the hamper. “I don’t know about you, but my head’s so filled with war and suffering that I’m finding it a little hard to believe in Santa.” No sooner had I said the words than I saw, as clearly as I’d seen the pictures in Sir Miles’s memoir, the photograph of my father standing in the ruins of Berlin. I put the hamper on the floor and turned the image over in my mind. “Did I ever tell you that my father was a soldier?”

  “No,” said Julian. “You never mentioned it.”

  “He landed at Omaha Beach,” I said, “and fought all the way to Berlin. There’s a photograph of him …” I looked out at the snow-blurred landscape and saw instead the snow-covered ruins of a war-ravaged city, frozen in grainy black-and-white. “It’s Christmas in Berlin, just after the war. He’s in his GI uniform and he’s handing out presents to a bunch of German kids. Nothing fancy, just chocolate bars and socks and stuff like that. But the looks on the kids’ faces—it’s like he’s giving them the best presents they’ve ever had.”

  “It sounds as though they had no trouble believing in Santa,” said Julian.

  “That’s what I’m getting at.” I could almost hear the children’s laughter as my father filled their hands. “See, Julian, I think that’s what a decent man does, after a war. He tries to build a decent world. He doesn’t brag or brood. He grabs a sackful of candy and hands it out to his enemy’s kids. He helps them believe in Santa Claus again.” I rubbed the tip of my nose, embarrassed by my earnestness. “It’s not like starting the United Nations, but—”

  “But a decent world is built upon small acts of kindness.” Julian gazed down at the canvas carryall. “It’s something Kit would understand.”

  “That’s right,” I said eagerly. “Kit didn’t give in to despair. His father may have left him a dark legacy, but Kit chose to light a candle. He lit candles everywhere he went, through acts of kindness large and small.”

  Julian hesitated, then pulled the carryall into his lap and opened the side pocket. “Such as helping a grieving widow,” he said, pulling out the braided loop of straw. “Or closing a dangerous asylum.” He held the Heathermoor ID out to me.

  I looked down at Kit’s wild hair and his gentle, intelligent eyes. “Or using your inheritance to feed the hungry.”

  Julian paused before adding gruffly, “Or risking your life to save someone else’s.”

  I heard the note of self-reproach in his voice and frowned at him. “Or struggling to keep a hostel open,” I stated firmly, “to help the kind of men selfish idiots like me would prefer to ignore.”

  A slow, sweet smile crept across his face. “Or seeing goodness where an envious fool like me chose to see madness.”

  I lifted an eyebrow. “I guess Kit wouldn’t want us to be depressed about all of that, huh?”

  “I’m certain it’s the last thing he’d want.” Julian tucked the braided straw and the Heathermoor ID into the carryall, placed it on the floor, and swung sideways to face me. “We’ll drink his health on Christmas Eve and pray for him on Christmas morning. We’ll fill the darkness with light, Lori. That’s what Kit would want us to do.”

  “I suppose that’s what Christmas is all about, really,” I said. “A child bringing the light of hope to a dark world.”

  “Very prettily said, madam,” Paul piped up from the front seat. “But don’t let’s forget presents. Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without presents, now, would it?”

  I grinned at him in the rearview mirror. “No, Paul, it certainly wouldn’t. I hope you like what Bill and I got for you.”

  “For me?” Paul’s eyes lit with pleasant anticipation. “Oh, madam, you shouldn’t have….”

  His response, as traditional as carols on Christmas morning, banished the last vestiges of gloom from the limo, and triggered a chain of reminiscences that kept us smiling all the way to Oxford. There would be time to ponder war’s myriad tragedies another day, I told myself. Today, hope reigned supreme.

  I urged Julian to come to my party—such as it was—but he wanted to spend Christmas Eve with his flock, so we dropped him off in Oxford. It was hard to say good-bye to him, but I managed it, without a single tear. He promised to look in on Kit, and I renewed my vow to return to Saint Benedict’s as soon as the holidays were over. As he waved to us, surrounded by his scruffy crew on the crumbling doorstep of his decrepit hostel, I caught a glimpse of heaven in his face. I wondered if the bishop knew what a wise decision he’d made when he’d banished his gadfly assistant to live and work among outcasts. And I wondered if Kit would ever know how grateful I was to him for leading me to Julian.

  Paul fled the low-rent district as if the hounds of hell were nipping at his tires, and he didn’t really relax until we were on the way to Finch. A dusky gloom was settling in by the time we reached the village, and the square seemed curi
ously deserted. Peacock’s pub was dark, the lights were out in Sally Pyne’s tearoom, and a CLOSED sign was hanging on the Emporium’s front door.

  “Great,” I moaned, burying my face in my hands. “Everyone’s at the cottage but me and Bill. What am I going to do, Paul? All I’ve got to offer them is a burnt gingerbread.”

  “I shouldn’t worry, madam,” Paul soothed. “It’s a giving spirit that counts, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, right,” I muttered, wondering how far I could stretch three Cornish game hens.

  As we passed the mouth of the drive leading to Anscombe Manor, a line of vehicles came into view, parked end to end along the lane leading to the cottage—the Hodges’ farm truck, the Pym sisters’ antiquated “motor,” Nell’s sleigh, Mr. Barlow’s snowplow, and at least ten out-of-county cars that had somehow made it through the storm intact. Someone had had the foresight to leave enough room in my driveway for the limo, but no one had prepared me for the sight that met my eyes when Paul turned into the drive.

  It was as if the cottage had collided with a gaudy carnival ride. A manically blinking rainbow of lights outlined the slate roof, the chimney, and the windows; tinselly garlands dripped from the lilacs’ bare branches; and a flock of mutant papier-mâché robins had come to roost on the trellis framing the front door. A pair of the Peacocks’ glowing choirboys flanked the living room’s bow window, and a row of their three-foot plastic candy-canes stood like a striped stockade just inside the beech hedge. Sally Pyne’s disembodied Santa heads leered from every window, and a sinister snowman stood beside the flagstone path, wearing a bicycle helmet, a pair of wraparound sunglasses, and a wicked grin of coal. The display was garish, tasteless, as far from perfect as it could ever hope to be—and absolutely glorious.

  The windows were ablaze with light, and the stone walls seemed to vibrate with the rumble of a dozen conversations. As I emerged from the limo, the front door flew open and people streamed out into the snow. First came Emma Harris, then Derek, Nell, and—