Home for the Holidays (26 page)

“There’s a blizzard burying us under tons of snow and you still found a way to get the latest gossip?” Jane teased. “You’re more dedicated than the post office, Aunt Ethel.”

“I should say so. Our mail carrier still takes a week to deliver my electric bill.” Ethel touched her lips with her
fingertips and frowned. “Do you have some lip balm, Jane? I’m getting a little chapped.”

“I think I left some at the front desk. Be right back.” Jane departed.

“Here, Alice. I found what you were looking for.” Ethel immediately took a small, brown, paper-wrapped package from where it was tucked inside her jacket. “Now go on and hide it, quick, before Miss Nosy gets back.”

Alice nearly ran into Louise as she hurried out of the kitchen. Her older sister greeted their aunt and glanced over her shoulder. “What sent Alice racing out of here?”

Ethel gave her a mysterious smile. “Just a little something for Christmas.”

Chapter Eighteen

S
unday stretched out long, silent and then dark as the power failed in the afternoon. Ethel insisted on returning to the carriage house so that she could watch over her home during the bad weather, but she promised to return once the conditions cleared. The Howard sisters’ five guests spent the day quietly, either resting in their candlelit rooms or sitting around the inn, pretending to read but mostly staring out of the windows at the storm.

Laura and Allan kept to their rooms, while Edwina sat in the parlor by a storm lamp and knitted a tiny, striped afghan for the grandchild she would not be able to see. Ted seemed to wander in and out of the rooms like a restless ghost, while Max silently watched over the fireplaces and kept them well-stocked with wood.

Louise had insisted that all three sisters give the visitors some time to adjust to the idea of being at Grace Chapel Inn for the holidays.

“We should just go about our normal daily routine while they acclimate to their situation,” she told her sisters.
“I know they’ll come around when it gets closer to Christmas.”

Alice had volunteered to prepare lunch so that Louise and Jane could go to work on decorating the parlor. Unpacking the box of decorations made Louise quickly forget about their unhappy situation, as the contents included Madeleine Howard’s collection of wooden Christmas toys, given to her by her parents each year in her stocking.

Louise smiled as she took out one of the old, wooden jumping jacks that their mother had treasured. “This was her favorite, remember? The purple one with the yellow hat.”

“I loved making that jack jump.” Jane’s eyes got a faraway look in them. “I thought it was much more fun to play with than those silly Darcey dolls Santa kept leaving for me.”

“You were doll-resistant,” Louise agreed. “Of course, Darcey couldn’t do jumping jacks.”

“Sure she could,” Jane said, giving her a slow smile. “With a little wire and some fine tuning of her limbs, which popped right out of the joint sockets, by the way.”

“I don’t think I want to hear any more,” Louise said, noticing that Edwina had stopped knitting and was listening to their conversation.

“You were always a soft touch for dolls, big sister.”

“While you were like a wild child with them.” She sighed. “I was too old to have a Darcey doll when they came
out, but I would have liked one when I was a girl. I was very fond of the Darceys I bought for you and Cynthia.”

Her youngest sister laughed. “Then I shouldn’t tell you about when and where I took Darcey deep-sea diving.”

“Deep-Sea-Diving Darcey?” A chuckle escaped Edwina. “I don’t remember that version.”

“Well, there actually wasn’t an official deep-sea-diving version. I put Luau-Lovely Darcey through extensive marine training.” Jane’s eyes sparkled. “Guess what I used for a pool.”

“I don’t think you want to hear this, Edwina,” Louise warned. “She was the kind of child who could make the straightest hair curl.”

“You had Darcey dolls, didn’t you, Edwina?” When she nodded, Jane asked, “Didn’t you take them on adventures?”

“What she means is, did you scalp them, drown them or try to send them to the moon on a rocket launcher?” Louise translated.

“It was not a rocket launcher,” Jane said. “It was a firecracker.”

“Which I can verify does not make Darcey fly when you strap it to her back and light it,” Louise added. “We had a very nice memorial service for her, however.”

Now the schoolteacher laughed. “You must have been a handful, Jane. I’m afraid I was not quite as adventurous myself.” She looked down at the little afghan that she was
making. “You know, I learned to knit so that I could make clothes for my Darceys. My Aunt Margaret taught me one winter when she was staying with us.”

“You do knit beautifully.” Jane paused to admire her work. “Louise tried to teach me, but the yarn kept snarling into knots.”

“No, you
tied
it into knots, as I recall,” Louise said. “That was the year you wanted to become a pirate, or maybe it was the year you wanted to be a cowgirl and herd cattle at a ranch in Montana. I can’t remember which.”

Jane dug into the box and took out a red stocking, which had several large holes in it. “Oh rats! Or, more likely,
moths
. I wanted to hang them up this year, like we did when we were girls. Just for decoration.”

“Let me see.” Edwina came over to examine the damage. “You could patch them, but they wouldn’t look the same.”

“It’s okay.” Jane shrugged. “It was a silly idea anyway.”

“I don’t think it was. My parents always made a fuss about preparing our stockings.” Edwina sighed. “I miss that—waking up Christmas morning and hurrying to see what Santa had left in my stocking. It was so exciting, pulling one thing after another out of it until I reached the toe. The best gift was always at the very bottom.”

“I have some yarn,” Louise said, sounding thoughtful. “Maybe I could knit up a few stockings before Christmas.”

“With all we have to do around here?” Jane shook her head. “It’s not that important.”

“Yes, it is,” Edwina insisted. “I could make a few, if I could borrow some yarn. I don’t have any Christmas colors with me.”

“I have my knitting bag in the study, right next to the brown armchair.” Louise smiled. “Please, help yourself to whatever you like.”

“I’ll go look at it now. I’ve never made a stocking pattern before, but it shouldn’t be that hard. I could make one for everyone.” Edwina hesitated. “Would you have some little things we could put in them as gifts for the others? I’ll pay for them.”

Jane nodded. “We’d be happy to provide them. We can’t have empty stockings on Christmas morning. Perhaps we’ll talk about paying at another time.”

“That would be wonderful.” Beaming, Edwina departed for the study.

“You know, that is the happiest I have seen her since the group came here.” Louise looked down at the box of decorations. “What did Ted love about Christmas as a child, I wonder.”

“I don’t know,” Jane admitted. A slow smile appeared on her face. “But we’re going to find out, aren’t we?”

“I think a little reminiscing about childhood could be just the thing. Remember how much everyone enjoyed
talking about their favorite family recipes for the holidays over dinner last night? Our guests will not mind if we ask them to contribute something to our decorations or holiday preparations by recreating one of their favorite Christmas memories.” Louise tapped a finger against her cheek. “Those memories never make us sad. They are part of the magic of Christmas.”

“Very sneaky, big sister,” Jane said, “As long as no one has a treasured childhood memory of building a ten-foot, red-and-green Tyrannosaurus Rex and having it attack the tree.”

“I’ll check with Ted, but I think we are safe from that.” She frowned. “Do you think it will work? Reminding them of their childhood Christmases?”

Edwina hurried back into the parlor. “Do you have Miss Reed’s phone number?” she asked. “If I could call her, I’m sure she’d be willing to share her stocking pattern with me. I can simply enlarge it to make the stockings people-sized instead of cat-sized.”

“That would work,” Jane said and gave her older sister a big smile.

Alice had doubted Louise’s idea at first, but seeing how happy Edwina was as she began knitting stockings for everyone had convinced her to give it a try. When she had gone up
to check on Allan, who was still quite miserable, she had told him the story about Jane’s buying the gingerbread men for the children at the bakery in town and mentioned her own favorite childhood memory of decorating sugar cookies with her father.

“My mother would make a big gingerbread house every year,” Allan told her. My brother and I always helped her decorate them with cookies and candy when we were little, but as we got older she would bake the gingerbread and let us design and build the houses ourselves.”

“Is this tradition responsible for your love of architecture?” Alice asked. “Or were you just interested in snitching bits of the building materials?”

Allan laughed. “Both, I believe.”

“I do love gingerbread houses, but I’ve never made one,” Alice said. “Our father was not much of a baker.”

“They’re not difficult at all. The trick is to make the sheets of gingerbread very thin, and cut the pieces out while the gingerbread is still warm and soft from the oven. The recipes for the gingerbread and the white icing that acts like plaster for it are in any standard cookbook.” He sat up and reached for his sketchpad. “I could draw up what pieces you need to cut out of the gingerbread. There’s one I made when I was a teenager that looked like a real log cabin.”

In view of Alice’s success with Allan, Jane had decided to try Louise’s idea with Laura, who emerged from her room the next morning looking wan and asking if the sisters had any aspirin. When she returned with some from her room, Jane mentioned Allan’s idea about the gingerbread house and also hinted that making candy might be a good idea.

Laura seemed momentarily lost in thought. “My grandmother was from Maine and she hated store-bought candy. She said the chemical dyes in it always made them taste bitter.”

“She never let you have candy?” Jane asked, surprised.

“Not anything you could buy at a store. She made candy for me out of maple syrup and snow.” Laura’s thin lips uncrimped a little. “If you have some pure maple syrup and a candy thermometer, I think I could make a soft version of it.”

“What’s the snow for?” Jane asked.

“To cool it and make it harden. You boil the syrup until it reaches a certain temperature and then you pour it on snow.” She gestured with her hands. “We would make big pans of it and fight over the best pieces. We ate sour pickles in between.” She saw the look Jane gave her. “You can’t eat maple sugar candy without breaking it up with something sour. It’s a tradition.”

Sour pickles and maple candy?
“I’d love to try it. Why not use today to plan your candy production. I’ll guarantee you kitchen time tomorrow for your specialty.” Jane hoped that
she had enough antacid on hand for the upset stomachs that combination would produce.

Ted had already gotten involved in Allan’s gingerbread house project before Alice or Jane could ask him about his favorite childhood memory, which left Max. Alice decided to ask him that night after dinner, when they were clearing the table.

“Waffles,” he said at once.

“What sort of waffles?”

“Any kind my mother made. She had about a hundred different variations, but on Christmas morning she always made real Belgian waffles. She would let me pour the batter over the waffle iron and watch it to make sure it wouldn’t burn. I taught my wife that recipe when we got married.” He cleared his throat and murmured something else.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“My favorite kind when I was a boy were when Mother made waffle men,” Max said, and two flags of red color appeared on his cheekbones. “If you pour the batter a certain way, you can make waffles shaped like people. I used to put blueberries in the batter to make faces for them.”

“Would you make some of the waffle men for us tomorrow morning?” Alice asked. “I know I’d love to try them.”

Max nodded. “If you’ve got a waffle iron, I can make you a whole army of them.”