A Light in the Window (19 page)

He didn’t know how he felt about the Borsolino hat, and he already had a topcoat, but the peppered ham sounded terrific.

Humming “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing,” he went downstairs, the folded letter crackling in his robe pocket. After supper with Dooley, he would sit in the study and read it again.

It was only the end of November, and a bit early, in his opinion, for stringing lights.

Mitford, however, had no such qualms—winking lights were strung from one end of Main Street to the other; fresh, beribboned greenery was hung on the light poles; and the merchants had stuffed their windows with everything from a Santa Claus with a moving head to a box of free puppies wearing red collars and mistletoe.

A Christmas tree lot was set up on the edge of Little Mitford Creek, across from Winnie Ivey’s cottage, and fairly bristled with Fraser firs from the next county. In fact, everywhere he looked, he saw a tree lashed to the top of a car or truck, and an expectant driver headed home to an evening’s festivity.

Carols poured from the music system at Happy Endings, enlivening that end of the street, and the town monument was respectfully draped with garlands of boxwood and holly.

Avis Packard filled the wooden bins in front of The Local with green boughs and mountain apples and ran a special on cider in the jug.

Sitting in the rear booth one morning at breakfast, he watched Percy Mosely lift the door of the hatch behind the grill and carry a box of fruitcakes down the stairs. They would be his holiday dessert special, served with Cool Whip and a cherry. Percy hand-lettered the counter sign, himself: You’ll Be Nuts About Our Fruitcake.

The Lord’s Chapel service of Lessons and Carols was coming straight ahead, and then, all the services and celebrations would be unleashed full force.

Suddenly, there was the quandry of what to give Cynthia, and what he might give Dooley, and yes, this year, he wanted to take gifts to Fernbank. The thought of it all made his head feel light and oddly empty, so that he had to go searching for sensible thoughts, as one might seek after pillowcases blown from a clothesline by high winds.

Several times, he found himself pacing the study in a circle, like a train on a track. The train! It would need to be brought down from the attic, which was a job for Dooley Barlowe. Delegate! That’s what he needed to do. And why agonize over what people might want or like? Why not just ask them? He had never done such a thing, but he’d read an article recently that suggested this strategy was loaded with success.

“A jam box,” said Dooley.

“A what?”

“A jam box—to listen to music.”

What kind of music, he wanted to ask, but didn’t—and how loud?

When he talked to Cynthia that evening, she said, “A neckrub! I’ve bent over these illustrations for such long hours that my neck is positively stiff as a board. A neckrub would be the loveliest gift imaginable.”

A neckrub. He had never given such a thing in his life. How far did one have to unbutton one’s caution to give a neckrub?

He heard the strain in her voice. “I’m working very hard to get finished, and with my editor in Europe, I feel all at sixes and sevens when it comes to knowing whether it’s really working. There’s such comfort in having someone say, Yes, that’s lovely, or good heavens, Cynthia, what could you be thinking?

“But that’s enough about me. What do you want for Christmas, Timothy?”

“I can’t say that I haven’t thought about it. I want you and Dooley and Barnabas, and a fire in the study, and a splendid dinner, and peace. The peace of having you home again, of seeing the boy finding his own peace, and feeling your contentment in having a rough task behind you. That, and nothing more.”

“How dear you are to me.”

“Am I? I wish I could imagine why.”

“Perhaps if you could imagine why, it would spoil everything.”

That, he admitted, was a thought.

“Isn’t there any family left for you, except Walter and Katherine? Are we both so nearly alone in the world?”

“My mother had three sisters, but only one had children.”

“Then you have other cousins!” She seemed hopeful for him.

“One of Aunt Lily’s kids vanished after a divorce, another died in a train accident. At forty-five, Aunt Martha married a man thirty years her senior, and Aunt Peg was what we used to call a spinster. Immediately after college, she had her linens monogrammed with her own initials, declaring she would never marry.”

Cynthia laughed. “What became of her?”

“She grew prize asters and headed up the local D.A.R.”

“My!” said Cynthia, not knowing what else to say.

“So there you have it. No kin to speak of, except for that rowdy bunch in Ireland, of course. As I recall, Walter and I were related in some way to almost everyone at the tea party.”

“I love the Irish!”

“The Irish would love you,” he said.

A neckrub and a jam box made a wildly intriguing start to his gift list, he thought as he dialed Miss Sadie.

“What do I want? Oh, dear, I suppose I should spend more time thinking of my wants instead of my needs. I’d be more interesting, wouldn’t I, Father?”

“It would be impossible for you to be more interesting.”

“Oh, pshaw! Well, let’s see.” There was a pause. “I haven’t the faintest idea! Let me ask Louella. Louella, what do I want for Christmas?”

“New stockin’s, new rouge, and a new slip,” came Louella’s quick response from the background.

Miss Sadie put her hand over the receiver, but he heard the muffled conversation.

“I can’t ask my priest for stockings and a slip!”

“Well, then, ask’im for rouge, you lookin’ white as a sheet.”

“Louella says ask for rouge, Father. Not too red and not too pink. Oh, dear, this is embarrassing, maybe just some candy from the drugstore, we like nougats.”

He sat back on the sofa, laughing. It had never happened in just this way before, but he was definitely getting the Christmas spirit.

He called Dora Pugh at the hardware and asked her to order a sack of special rabbit food; then he called Avis at The Local, and ordered five pounds of Belgian chocolates—four for the nurses at the hospital, and one for Louella. He asked Avis to put together enough food items to fill a dozen baskets, and to reserve his choice beef bones, starting now.

He had no intention of asking Walter what he might like. No, indeed. Walter would want a cashmere sweater, a blazer from Brooks Brothers, or a Montblanc pen. He might very well ask for a lighted world globe on an antique stand, or a leatherbound atlas, or both.

He ordered a desk calendar for Walter’s law office, and a leather frame for Katherine, to hold the photo of the three of them in front of the family castle. They had given a pound note to a passing Irish lad, who used Walter’s Nikon with the most amazing results. In the color print, in which they had all appeared to be years younger, one could see the crumbling remains of the castle in the background. Even now, he suspected with wry affection, this priceless photograph was swimming about in one of Katherine’s jumbled drawers, getting dog-eared.

He went to the bank and retrieved five crisp one-hundred-dollar bills, and stopped by the drugstore for a compact of rouge,

There. He was nearly done, he thought. He whistled all the way to the Grill.

Grinning, Emma stood in front of his desk, and rattled a bag from Wesley’s department store.

“It’s your Christmas present,” she said. “Guess what it is!” She rattled it some more.

Every year, as much as six weeks before Christmas, she couldn’t stand it any longer and gave him his gift. Worse still, she never had gifts of her own to open on Christmas Day, as she always tore into a present the minute she received it.

“I can’t guess,” he said, dolefully. “A tie?”

“Wrong.”

“Shaving lotion!”

“You’re not trying.”

“A solar calculator.”

“Ha! Wrong again.” She opened the bag and dumped something on his desk. Her presentation skills had never been noteworthy. “A restaurant guide to New York City!”

He looked at it without speaking.

“I know you’ve never been there before, so when you go visit your neighbor, you’ll know how to do.” She was as pleased as if she’d given him a Rolex watch.

“Who says I’m going to New York?”

“You mean you’re not?”

“I most certainly am not.”

“Not even for a
weekend?”

“You said it.”

“You mean you’re going to let her stay in that godforsaken place all by herself, with no relief from home? Have you seen the kind of men they have in the publishing business up there? Handsome! Intelligent!
Tall!”

She used this last jab for all it was worth.

“And what, may I ask, do you know about the publishing business?”

“I do watch TV, you know, which is more than I can say for some people.”

“Aha. So men in the publishing business are often on TV?”

“All the time! Very good-looking and smart as whips.”

“From what I’ve seen in the bookstores lately, they’re on TV because they have nothing better to occupy their time. As for myself, Emma, I am presently occupied with five holiday services, a music festival, a youth choir concert, a baptism, a party at the hospital, a discussion topic for the men’s prayer breakfast, and an overnight visit from the bishop. Thank you for your gift, and please—I beg you—take the morning off.”