'Tis the Season: A Collection of Mimi's Christmas Books (31 page)

“You’re having me on. You hate it when I giggle.”

“No such thing. I find it rather charming. Now, I did call Dr. Andrews’ house, and we have an appointment in the morning. He’ll be returning late tonight, and Mrs. Dorn firmly opposed us arriving before the doctor had a chance to his—her words—’peace and quiet after his gallivanting all over God’s green acres.’”
His mimicking of Mrs. Dorn’s accent worked brilliantly.

Abbie giggled.
“She’s quite the character, isn’t she? Tomorrow’s soon enough. To tell you the truth, I’m a little scared to approach him. What if he can’t help us?”

“Then we’ll keep looking. No doubts now, Abbie. Keep a positive outlook, and it’ll all work out. So, what’s next on our agenda?”

“Your office. I’ve kept you from your work long enough, and I did promise to share the time with you. Just know one thing: I will be knocking at your conscience a bit later on, so we can stop to see the children at Holly Mount. I’ve been remiss in not going in sooner, but I know that seeing the children will be difficult, and I’d hoped to save you from the troubling situation.”

“It’s a deal. And Abbie, you have no idea what I can handle on your behalf. Bye now.”

The office was in chaos when he arrived, just as he knew it would be. Previously, he would have obsessed over the hundred-and-one chores that needed his attention, but today he experienced a definite lack of enthusiasm.

Mrs. Tennyson, his personal assistant, approached, her expression fierce and her manner frazzled. Tight-lipped, she bit out the information she’d decided ranked as most important. Watching her slap each memo under the bunch she carried as she read them out loud, he could tell his absence had created havoc.

He called a halt to her tirade. “Mrs. Tennyson, stop and catch your breath. Pile all my messages on my desk in the order you received them, and then be available for comment after I’ve had a chance to get organized. If you’d be so kind, I’d also like some coffee. And then take a cuppa and ten minutes for yourself—put your feet up on your desk and relax.”

“Excuse me, Mr. Chapman?” Her astonishment was obvious.

“That’s an order!” He gave her the old eagle eye, and she withered.

“Yes, sir.”

He could feel Abbie hovering in the background as he loosened his tie, took off his suit jacket, and pitched in. To ignore her wasn’t easy, but he had no choice. Responsibilities had always ranked high on his agenda, claiming his attention, keeping him shackled. He guessed he was born serious and diligent…and boring.

He sorted and worked through a load that would put a slight dent in the stack, but he came nowhere near cleaning off his desk. Nevertheless, when his mind clicked into work mode, he blessed his ability to remember information on all his clients and their individual cases. Before long, he’d organized everyone around him and delegated tasks so that the office hummed once again, with everyone working in tune with the boss.

“You’re a lawyer and an accountant?”

“So, you’ve decided to stop lurking and say something. As to your question, I’m what they refer to as a Corporate and Commercial Lawyer. Or an Accountant Lawyer. That makes me twice as boring, I suppose.”

“I didn’t say that.”

He waited.

“I’d say you must be twice as smart.”

Her answer pleased him. He didn’t know why it should matter so much—how she saw him, that is—but it did.
“More like twice as busy. When I decided to open an office branch in this area, I already had quite a few happy clients because our moving closer would cut down on their travelling to London. I actually thought I’d be able to slow down some. But that’s not the case. I’ve been inundated with business; so much so, it’s impossible to keep up. Especially with our, ahh, shall we say, special circumstances, I haven’t made it into the office since we joined up.”

“But having such a tremendous load is a good thing and should be simple to overcome. There are a lot of individuals looking for employment right now. Hire the appropriate people to take on more of the responsibilities, and leave ‘em to it. Surely it isn’t necessary to do everything yourself?”

“I do believe you’ve hit on a perfect solution.”
Sarcasm, evident in his tone, had her rethinking her words. Of course the man had already come up with this solution, but something had to be wrong.

“As if you hadn’t thought of it yourself.”

Feeling like a ruddy twit, mean and insensitive, he apologized.
“I’m sorry for biting your head off, Sweetheart. Last week I interviewed a multitude of possible employees but came up almost empty-handed. Good people in my line of work are few and far between. Either they’re too old and set in their ways, or they’re unwilling to relocate from the bigger cities, or…”

“Have you tried the graduating classes at the universities? If you can get them young, malleable, and still full of energy and willingness to work hard at their new careers, wouldn’t it make up for their lack of experience?”

After she made her sensible suggestion,
he felt her begin to retreat, probably afraid he’d bite her head off again, so he quickly replied,
“Now that I didn’t think of. I’ll get Mrs. Tennyson busy securing a list of the top students from the closest campuses right after the holidays. You know, we did hire a few younger people in the London office, and they turned out to be some of our best employees.
Her pleasure radiated inside, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

“It was just a thought, but if it helps you at all, then I’m happy I spoke up.”

“Me too. Never be afraid to speak up around me, Abbie. Promise me.”

“I promise. I’ve interfered with your work enough, so I’ll leave you to get on with it for now.”

As soon as his energy began to wane, she returned.
“Marcus, you did give me permission to call a halt when I thought it time. I think you should stop now. Inside I can feel your exhaustion. It’s almost as if you’re recuperating, and your body wants to shut down. Were you ill recently?”

“How could you tell?”

“Just a feeling I got, of a weakness underlying your inherent vigour. Please do stop. We can return to the house so you can have a lie-down.”

“You’d give up your visit to the orphanage for me?”

“Of course, you great ruddy idiot. You’re very important to me.”

“I guess I am. Without me, you’d be what? A homeless spirit floating around, scaring people?”

“I didn’t mean it in that sense. Behave yourself. And quit being such a tease.”

“Apart from a slight headache, I feel fine, Abbie. But I do appreciate your offering. I’ll rest for a short while and join you later.”

Maybe he was acting like a sentimental fool, but her picking up on his medical history and caring about his health made up for all the times he’d felt put out at having his life disrupted. Good thing he’d closed off before she discovered all the chinks in his armour, the sappy spots he normally kept off limits to everyone except his mother.

****

The orphanage resembled a hive of activity. The four- and five-year-olds were colouring various images of Christmas angels destined to be attached to the classroom walls, while the Sisters were trying to keep the toddlers entertained with making pretend holiday cookies from plasticine. A smaller group was crowded together, sitting in tiny chairs around a nun who was creating a beautiful crèche to put on display in the church foyer. As she worked, she told the little ones the story of baby Jesus’ birthday.

Marcus approached the nun closest to the entrance and found himself whispering, “Hello, Sister. My name is Marcus Chapman. I’m a friend of Abbie’s, and I wondered if I might spend some time with the youngsters this afternoon?”

The short woman wearing black looked up and smiled. She had a protruding chin, or maybe it only looked so, over the stiffness of her habit, but when the beauty of her smile caught his attention, nothing else in her face seemed to matter. Her voice came across as being overly loud even when using a normal tone. “Why, Mr. Chapman, any friend of Abbie’s would be more than welcome. Please, do come in and meet the children.” So saying, she took his hand to shake and, without letting it go, pulled him toward the craft table full of plasticine. “Please call me Sister Agnes.”

The mention of Abbie’s name appeared to work a miracle. All the children stopped what they were doing and peered around him as if they expected her to pop out and yell, “Surprise!” When nothing happened, they turned to him. One cherub, who’d managed to sneak a chew out of some of the pink dough—it showed between her teeth—raised her eyes to him and pulled on his sleeve. “Sir? If you’re a friend of hers, do you know where our Abbie is?”

“Hmm. What should I tell her? I’d say, from the bold gleam in her eye, she’s a midget copper on an investigation into a missing person case.”

“Isn’t she wonderful? Her name is Elsie, but she hates the name. Says no one would want to be called by two different letters. Wants everyone to call her Cece.”

“But isn’t it still two letters?”

“Yes. But you see, they’re the same ones, so it doesn’t count.”
They both said the last sentence in unison and the humour of it brought a huge smile to Marcus’ face.

Seeing this softening, the children gathered around. Cece, not one to be ignored, pulled on his sleeve once again.

“Can you tell Abbie to come home? I miss her like the devil.”

“Cece swore, Sister.” The chubby boy who overheard and then blabbed evidently took enjoyment from being able to tittle-tattle.

“I only said ‘devil,’ Sister. It weren’t a swear word. I don’t ever say words like ‘bloody ‘ell’ or ‘bugger’ like ‘e does.” Her tiny finger pointed at the red-faced snitch.

“That’s quite enough, children. Mr. Chapman is here to visit, and we wouldn’t want him to think we have no manners, now, would we?” Fighting a smile, the nun shuffled the children back to their places. “How about you all show the gentleman what talented children you are and make him special cookies? He’ll be our judge and will choose the best one, so get to work.”

Taking his arm, she led him off to the colouring area. Here the older ones were deeply involved in bringing their individual angels to life. Marcus pretended to critically survey each treasured work of art until one small lad covered up his as he approached.

“Timothy, why are you hiding your picture? I’m sure Mr. Chapman would like to see what a fine colourer you are.”

The girl sitting beside Timothy spoke up. “He’s ashamed because he didn’t colour his angel proper. I told him they only wore white gowns, and he wouldn’t listen.” She smirked and pointed to his work. “His angel has a green gown.”

“But Sister, white isn’t really a colour, is it? Green is much prettier, and it’s my favourite. I wanted my angel to have a pretty dress. Abbie said I could. She said we all have more than one shirt to wear, so why couldn’t the angels?”

Before anyone could dispute his logic, Abbie chirped in, using Marcus’ voice. The children didn’t recognize her, but something in the tone soothed. “Of course angels can have more than one dress. After all they’re girls, aren’t they, and girls like lots of different colours. If I were an angel, and could make magic happen, I’d have lots of gowns to choose from.”

The nun looked perplexed, but nodded at Marcus. “I do believe you’re right, Mr. Chapman. It makes sense to me.”

Marcus grinned when he spied Timothy sticking his tongue out at Sally, but he soon stifled it when Sister’s hand gently covered the offender’s mouth.

While they spent the next hour going from group to group, Marcus felt Abbie blossom, and he began to understand how much she loved this place.

Because of her insistence, they ended up in the nursery. Before he knew what she intended, she had him picking up the one baby who was making such a racket that it hurt his eardrums. He didn’t know who was more shocked—himself or the Sister. Cuddling and shushing followed, all without his full cooperation or even his approval. Thankfully, as soon as the child heard Abbie croon, albeit with his deeper tone, the crying stopped. With a snuffling sigh followed by a tiny whimper, the babe nestled into his arms, closed his eyes, and dropped off.

“Thank you, Jesus.” The chubby little nun in charge of the nursery whispered to him once she felt certain the child slept. “Only Abbie had the touch with this little one. We’ve tried everything to get him to settle down since she’s been in hospital. We all miss her so. Pray God, she gets better and comes home soon. Until then, since he seems to have taken to you, might we coerce you into becoming a regular visitor either until Abbie gets better or until Nicholas ‘ere grows out of whatever problem he suffers from?”

Marcus left Abbie in charge of his arms, but he took back his voice. “What do the doctors say?”

“Nothing wrong with ‘im. He’s got a bit of the colic, true, but they say he’s belligerent because he’s that attached to our Abbie. When she’s around, he behaves very well, indeed.”

“Now do you understand why it’s necessary for me to be here, Marcus? Nicholas has become so important to me that knowing he frets when I’m not here is hellish, and I hate it.”

Why people describe feeling sad as having the blues, he’d never know. To him, the grimness that shifted from Abbie to him seemed more like a horribly dull grey.

Chapter Ten