by Miss Read
However, Mrs Thurgood - one of the Trustees - had later pressed for even the conservatory to be enlarged. She had nagged poor Charles Henstock, and any other Trustee within range, like a dripping tap. For a time, Charles had parried her demands by saying there was no money for a further extension but then an angel - in the guise of an American with connections back to Mrs Curdle and the May Day Fair - had appeared and donated the funds.
Edward had been able to extend the conservatory without spoiling its overall appearance and it seemed that everyone was happy, including Mrs Thurgood. Looking round the room and the conservatory now, filled with all the residents and most of the Trustees, Charles had to admit the extra space had been needed.
Jane and Bill Cartwright, the wardens, had decorated the rooms festively. Albert Piggott had paid a second visit to Lulling Woods, and had again dragged back a tarpaulin heaped with fine sprigs of holly and mistletoe which he delivered to Rectory Cottages. The brightly berried holly was now tucked behind the pictures on the walls, and coloured streamers criss-crossed both the main room and the conservatory. In one corner, a small Christmas tree stood on a table, its pretty lights winking.
The elderly residents were in their favourite chairs, while the Trustees perched on other chairs brought in for the party or sat on the conservatory window seat. Cups of tea had already been poured and handed round and now Bill Cartwright circulated with the sweet sherry much favoured by the residents. It was perhaps a bit early for sherry but it had become a tradition. Jane Cartwright handed round plates of sandwiches and squares of Christmas cake, and later there would be mince pies.
Like small children, the residents had clamoured to be allowed to pull the crackers the Trustees always provided, and now most present were wearing paper hats. Mrs Thurgood, however, declined to take off her large blue felt hat with its jay’s feather tucked into the ribbon round its crown. She felt that paper hats were rather undignified for people of their age - not that she was as old as the residents of Rectory Cottages, she thought hastily.
Charles Henstock sat near his old friend Tom Hardy. Both men were wearing their paper hats, Charles’s somewhat askew on his round bald head. Tom had aged and slowed up a lot in the past year, he thought, and the old man’s once very blue eyes were rheumy, but he seemed content enough.
‘Will you come to St Andrew’s on Christmas morning, Tom?’ he asked.
‘Course, I will, sir,’ Tom replied. ‘Those that can will walk to the church but John there’ - and he waved a hand towards his friend John Enderby - ‘I’m not sure he’ll make it. His bronchitis is bad again, and Dr Lovell told him to stay indoors and keep warm.’
Across the room, Harold Shoosmith was talking to Mrs Bates and Miss Fuller, congratulating them respectively on the brasses and flowers in St Andrew’s. ‘Wonderful, quite wonderful,’ he said, in his best churchwarden’s voice. ‘I don’t know what we would do without you good ladies.’
And the good ladies simpered appreciatively.
As promised, mince pies were brought round and Harold pretended not to notice when he saw old Mr Cross carefully lift the lid and pour a slurp of his sweet sherry inside.
Jane Cartwright suddenly clapped her hands, calling for hush. ‘The carol singers are here!’ she said. ‘They will sing the two carols we requested, so if you all like to go into the conservatory you will be able both to see and hear them in the garden.’
This, too, was a tradition. Alan Lester with a merry band of carol singers of both children and parents made Rectory Cottages their first port of call, while the annual party was in progress. This year, the residents had chosen ‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing’ and ‘The Holly and the Ivy’. During the singing of the second carol, little Annie Curdle came round with a collecting box marked ‘For St Richard’s Hospice’, and the residents and Trustees generously dropped their coins into it.
As the carol singing party left the garden, Jane Cartwright stood at the gate with a plate of mince pies.
Bill Cartwright brought the sherry bottle round once more and filled up the glasses. Dimity caught Charles’s eye from the other side of the room, and when she slightly raised her glass, Charles remembered it was his duty, as chairman of the Trustees, to give the annual Christmas toast. He patted Tom Hardy’s arm, and then rose to his feet, clearing his voice as he did so. The room hushed.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends in Rectory Cottages, it only feels a short while ago that we were here toasting last Christmas. But I know how time flies as one gets older.’ There was a murmur of agreement. ‘I would like to thank Bill and Jane for another lovely party.’ He paused while the residents variously raised their glasses to the two wardens, or called out, ‘Thank you, happy Christmas!’
Then Charles continued: ‘We lost our dear friends Eric and Carlotta Jermyn during the year, but are so pleased that Martha and Stephen Hill have settled in so quickly.’ The newest residents, sitting side by side on the window seat, beamed. ‘We, the Trustees, wish you all a very happy Christmas and a healthy and happy New Year.’ And, raising his glass, he called out, ‘To the residents of Rectory Cottages, a very merry Christmas!’
‘Everyone seems very happy there,’ said Dimity a short while later, as she and Charles were walking back to Ella’s cottage. They made their way with great care since the snow was now falling more seriously and the pavement had been quickly covered. Their feet crunched on the virgin snow in a most satisfying way.
‘Yes, it gives one such comfort to see them so settled,’ replied the good rector, ‘but Tom Hardy indicated that John Enderby isn’t very well, rather frail now.’
‘I expect it comes from all those years he spent out of doors, working in people’s gardens,’ Dimity replied. ‘Jane will keep a close eye on him.’
‘Just as we must keep a close eye on Ella,’ said Charles.
‘She’s far more stubborn than John Enderby,’ Dimity said. ‘And proud.’
Charles was about to push open the garden gate of Ella’s cottage when the party of carol singers came down the road.
‘Hello, Vicar,’ called Alan Lester. ‘Would Miss Bembridge like us to sing her a carol?’
‘I think that would be a lovely idea,’ cried Dimity. ‘Just hang on a tick and we’ll go and fetch her to the door.’
Dimity found Ella sitting in the kitchen, an extremely frayed roll-up sticking out of her mouth. It was a very familiar scene, apart from her plastered arm.
‘Ella, the carol singers are here. They’d like to sing you a carol. Here, put your coat round your shoulders and come to the front door.’
As Ella lumbered to her feet, she had the presence of mind to leave her cigarette in the ashtray on the table, and pick up her purse.
‘Now, what carol would you like?’ Dimity asked, as the two old friends made their way to the front door.
‘Oh, golly, I don’t mind. Hello, Alan,’ Ella said, greeting the schoolmaster. Then, as a snowflake landed gently on her nose, she looked up. ‘Goodness, I didn’t realize it had snowed so much. Is there a carol with snow in it?’
‘I think it had better be “Good King Wenceslas”, hadn’t it?’ Alan replied. ‘The children like that one.’
The three friends stood on Ella’s doorstep and listened, smiling, as the words of the carol floated out in the snowy evening air, and when the carol had finished, they clapped appreciatively and more coins tinkled down into the proffered collecting box.
‘Good night, merry Christmas,’ the singers called and they walked down the path, stamping their feet to keep out the cold, and set off to find another audience.
Back in the kitchen, Ella sat down on her chair again, picked up her cigarette and re-lit it. Only when she had sent the first cloud of pungent smoke into the air, did she speak.
‘Had a good time at the old folk’s home?’ she asked gruffly.
‘Yes, indeed,’ Charles replied. ‘Mrs Bates and the Angells sent their best wishes for a speedy recovery. Now,’ he said, ‘are you ready for us to ta
ke you home?’ And as he said it, he knew he’d made an error.
‘This is my home,’ snapped Ella. She paused a moment, then continued quietly, ‘I love this cottage, I really do. I couldn’t bear to have to leave it.’
She looked round at the familiar room: the scrubbed pine table in the middle of the kitchen, and the little Welsh dresser against the wall between the two windows. Dimity noticed Ella had lit the candle on her favourite Christmas decoration: the heat from the candle made a whirligig of angels slowly move round in circles, tinkling gently.
She then took a deep breath, stubbed out the cigarette, and said, ‘And, yes, I’m ready. That needs to come with me.’ She pointed to a bulging carrier bag containing wrapped parcels, and a roll of Christmas paper. ‘I’ve put a few clothes out on my bed,’ she continued and then stopped. Neither Charles nor Dimity said anything and, after a moment, Ella went on in a quiet voice. ‘I can’t get my little suitcase down off the top of the cupboard without standing on a chair, and I didn’t think it would be very safe for me to climb up one-handed.’
Dimity shuddered at the thought. ‘I’ll go up and pop them in the case. Why don’t you and Charles take the rest of the things out to the car? I won’t be a moment.’
‘Thanks, Dim,’ said her old friend. ‘Thank you both very much.’ She heaved herself to her feet, crossed to the Welsh dresser and blew out the candle on her Christmas decoration. She watched the circling angels slowly come to a halt and then turned to Charles who was waiting quietly by the door. ‘I’m ready now. Shall we go?’
At about the same time as the Thrush Green carol singers were entertaining the residents of Rectory Cottages, another group of carol singers arrived outside The Fuchsia Bush, which was serving tea to the last exhausted shoppers. It was nearly five o’clock, and the shops’ brightly lit windows shone out onto the pavement. The white Christmas lights, strung high across the fronts of the High Street shops, twinkled cheerfully.
Poppy, who was idling at the back of the tea-room and wondering how quickly these last customers might leave because she was going out that evening with Geoff, the photographer who had attended the award ceremony, pushed open the door into the kitchen and called through, ‘Mrs Piggott, the carol singers is come.’
Nelly came bustling through into the tea-room. ‘Well, open the door, girl, so as we can hear them!’
Poppy dutifully opened the door, letting in the cold evening air. Ha! she thought. That’ll shift the dawdlers.
The carol singers’ voices followed the cold air in. ‘God rest ye merry gentlemen,’ they sang. It was the choir from St John’s and Nelly waved to a few people she knew. The remaining customers smiled and sat back to enjoy the music.
Nelly pulled the last remains of the cakes resting on the counter towards her, and sliced great chunks of rich fruit cake, chocolate cake and coffee cake. When the carol singers had finished their second carol, ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’, she handed two plates piled with cake to Poppy and Rosa.
‘Look sharp now!’ she said. ‘Take the cake down to them and make sure you come back with empty plates. It’s nippy out there, and this’ll keep ’em warm.’
The singers gratefully stretched out for slices of cake, and one or two popped an extra slice into their pockets. Then, calling out their thanks, they moved off down the road towards their next stop. As Nelly held the door open for the last of the customers to leave, she thought that the singing was sounding a little muffled - no doubt the slices of cake had something to do with it.
At six-thirty that evening, Derek and Jean Burwell arrived home having spent the afternoon in Oxford. As Mr Burwell turned the car across the Woodstock Road to enter his driveway, he let out a surprised cry, and stopped the car between the two stone pillars.
‘What’s happened to the lights?’ he spluttered.
‘Oh dear, there must be a power cut,’ Jean Burwell said.
‘Rubbish, woman!’ snapped her husband. ‘There are lights on in the house next door.’
He backed the car a little, so the headlights lit up the stone gateposts, and then got out of the car, crossing to peer more closely at them. When his wife saw him bending down and fumbling around the base of the pillars, she realized that the uplighters were not shining either.
‘Come on, dear,’ she called. ‘It’s perishing cold with your door open.’
Derek got back into the car. ‘I think they’ve been vandalized, but I’ll be able to see better with a torch.’
Having parked the car, he grabbed a large torch from a shelf in the garage and marched back up the tarmac drive to the gateway, leaving his wife to take all their shopping into the house. She was pouring boiling water into a teapot when her husband marched into the kitchen, slamming the back door behind him.
‘I was right - vandalized!’ he exclaimed. ‘What a nerve! The wreaths round the lion and unicorn seem to be all right but I’ve found at least two of the little lights smashed which has shorted the rest. And the bottom lights have been kicked to one side.’
‘Who’d have done such a thing?’ his wife asked indignantly.
‘Lord knows,’ he replied. ‘Some of the kids, I expect. That Cooke family that lives down the Nidden Road, they’re always making trouble. It came up at the PCC meeting the other day.’
‘Ring Harold Shoosmith, then,’ Jean Burwell said. ‘It’s not right to damage people’s property like that. The lights were so pretty, too.’
‘I’ll go down to Lulling in the morning and get some replacements.’ He waved away his wife’s proffered cup of tea. ‘I’ll have it in a moment. I’m going to ring Shoosmith now. Got to get to the bottom of this,’ and he stormed out of the kitchen.
‘Tell him it’s scandalous behaviour,’ called his wife to his retreating back. ‘And at Christmas time, too!’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A Very Happy Christmas!
Christmas Day was the busiest day of the year for Charles Henstock, with services in all four of his churches, and he was up long before dawn started to glimmer on the eastern horizon. Dimity was still asleep in bed; she had been to the midnight service with him the evening before in St John’s, and they hadn’t got home until after one o’clock.
She had left out the box of cereal on the kitchen table for him, and he poured a generous helping into a bowl as he waited for the kettle to boil.
‘You must have breakfast before you leave for Nidden, dear,’ Dimity had said. ‘And make sure you wear your thermal vest - that church is never warm enough for the eight o’clock service.’
As Charles opened the back door a quarter of an hour later, he could smell the frost outside rather than see it for it was still very dark. He stood for a moment and sniffed the air as a curious rabbit might. Much to the disappointment of the local children, the snow that had fallen two days previously had not lingered. Rain on the morning of Christmas Eve had melted it swiftly and all that remained were a number of sagging snowmen. The previous night’s frost would mean an awkward drive to Nidden. The vicar tilted his round face up to gaze into the dark sky; he could see stars high above - and shining brightest of all was the Morning Star. How apt, he thought, as he crossed the gravel to the garage.
Charles set off for Nidden, passing through Thrush Green as he went. The village was beginning to stir. He was glad to see the figure of Albert Piggott pushing open the church gate; he would be going in to turn on the heating, ready for the eleven-fifteen service. There were lights on in the Curdles’ home next to the Youngs’. No doubt George, Annie and Billy were opening their stockings.
As he turned up the Nidden Road, he dropped his speed. Although the steep hill from Lulling to Thrush Green had been dry and frost-free, the gritting lorry would not have come up here the evening before. He passed the ramshackle cottage where the Cooke clan lived. It was still in total darkness. He wondered if the youngest children would have any sort of Christmas. Cooke senior was still serving time at Her Majesty’s pleasure and he didn’t know if Mrs Cooke had any work. I
t was certain that none would appear in church, and he made a resolution to call on them in the New Year.
He hoped there would be more than the usual four worshippers at the eight o’clock communion service but doubted it. He sometimes wondered how long the little church could continue to remain open. There were only ever two services a month here, the regular worshippers having to go to one of his other parishes if they wanted to attend every Sunday. After Nidden, he would have the nine o’clock service at Lulling Woods, a dash back for the ten o’clock service at St John’s in Lulling and then, finally, he’d have to hurry to get to St Andrew’s in Thrush Green.
Christmas Day was always a rush - but it was worth it. Churches fuller than usual, children, happy faces. Yes, a very good time of the year, he declared, as he pulled into his regular parking place outside the little church.
The rector had been right about the Curdle household: it had had a very early start. Much too early, Ben had chided, sending Annie back to her room when she’d appeared beside his bed and his clock told him it was not yet five o’clock.
‘But Father Christmas has come, an’ I want to open my stocking,’ she’d whispered so as not to wake her mother.
‘If you don’t go back to bed, Father Christmas might come and take it back,’ her father had said sternly. ‘You can come in at seven. And no opening of the stocking beforehand,’ he added to his daughter’s retreating figure.
It had been closer to six-thirty when Ben and Molly’s bedroom door had burst open, and two over-excited children had come in, dragging their stockings behind them.
‘Happy Christmas, Mum, Dad!’ they cried.
Ben opened one eye and saw the time. Well, they’d managed an extra hour and a half’s sleep. ‘Happy Christmas, George. And happy Christmas, Annie,’ he said, sitting up, running a hand through his tousled hair.