How Mrs. Claus Saved Christmas

by Jeff Guinn

  “Think this through carefully,” Arthur warned. “You’ll be a wanted criminal on the run. You won’t know who to trust, who might betray you to the Puritans. And, if there’s truly war, you know how that will affect your ability to travel fast.” He suddenly remembered Pamela, and added, “I mean, with battles all around you, you won’t be able to make your way directly to many places.”

  “I’ll just have to do my best,” I said. “Well, Pamela, I really think you should go back to work now. I’m grateful to you for helping me avoid immediate arrest, and I pray you won’t find yourself in trouble for doing it. I’ll go pack now and be gone as soon as it’s dark.”

  “Wait, Layla,” Pamela said haltingly. “I think I may know somewhere you can go, someone who would take you in. Do you know about the town of Canterbury?”

  Of course, I did.

  Canterbury, about sixty miles southeast of London, grew from a camp scratched out of swamps by primitive tribesmen. The Romans established a town there, and later St. Augustine arrived, sent about the same time we met Arthur, to strengthen Christianity in what was a pagan land. In 597, construction began on a great cathedral, which, almost five hundred years later, had expanded into one of the most towering, impressive places of worship in all the world. In 1170, King Henry II had his archbishop Thomas à Becket murdered in the cathedral, which brought Canterbury a great deal of national attention and shame. Pilgrims began to come to Canterbury for special worship after the Catholic church declared Becket to be a saint. As in Myra at the supposed tomb of my husband Nicholas, many people thought if they came to Canterbury and prayed to St. Thomas à Becket they would be cured of all sorts of diseases.

  In the late 1300s, an official of the English government wrote a book called The Canterbury Tales, all about some very odd pilgrims who were on their way there to worship. This book, which poked fun at its characters, became one of the most popular ever written. You can still find copies quite easily today. It only added to the town’s reputation. Except for the income generated by visiting pilgrims, who would buy food and rent places to stay, Canterbury was mostly a farming community. When King Henry VIII broke away from the Catholic church, Canterbury particularly felt his wrath. He ordered the shrine of St. Thomas à Becket completely destroyed—Henry did not want any of his subjects worshipping at the grave of a Catholic saint. As soon as the shrine was gone, so were most of the pilgrims, so with their tourist trade evaporating it was lucky people in Canterbury had farming to fall back on. In particular, they raised sheep. Wool from Canterbury was prized in foreign markets.

  But Canterbury’s religious reputation continued to work against the town. In the 1550s, when Henry VIII’s Catholic daughter, Mary, was queen, she ordered some Protestants burned at the stake in Canterbury. All the English monarchs since—Elizabeth I, James I, and Charles I—had supported Protestants over Catholics, and Canterbury became a haven for Protestants fleeing persecution by Catholics in Europe. Now the town was considered by the Puritans to be one of their strongholds, and I wondered why Pamela Forrest would mention Canterbury to me as I tried to pick a place to hide.

  “Who would shelter me in Canterbury, Pamela?” I asked. “I don’t know anyone there, and, to hear the Puritans tell it, no one there would want to know me.”

  “That isn’t so, Layla,” she replied. “Most of the people in and around Canterbury are just good, hardworking folk who want all war to go away and with it any people who try to tell others how to worship and what to believe. It’s true that Avery Sabine, the town’s mayor, happily serves the Puritans in any way he can, but the vast majority of Canterbury citizens still love Christmas. I know all this because I have a younger sister who lives there. Elizabeth is a wonderful, warm person who I know would become your good friend. She and her husband, Alan Hayes, live in a pretty little cottage about a mile outside the town walls. Alan is often away, because he is a fine sailor and much in demand on voyages to and from the New World, so Elizabeth and her eight-year-old daughter, Sara, are left to carry on as best they can. Elizabeth, in fact, works in the manor of Mayor Sabine and his wife, Margaret. I know she and Alan would give you shelter if I asked.”

  “I couldn’t impose on strangers like that,” I said. “Your sister hardly needs to be placed in danger by hiding a fugitive.”

  “She would want to help, I promise,” Pamela said firmly. “Elizabeth has a warm heart and a keen sense of justice. Let me write a note for you to take to her. I’ll tell her something about your circumstances, asking that she let you stay with her, at least for a little while so you have time to make further plans. Canterbury is far enough from London for you to be safe there, I’m sure.”

  “I can’t do it,” I repeated, but Arthur agreed with Pamela.

  “It’s already getting dark, and you’re to be arrested in the morning, Layla,” he pointed out. “There is very little time left. And I like the idea of Canterbury, since the Puritans believe they are so popular there. They would never expect you to hide in their city. Also, to be honest, it doesn’t seem that you have any better option.”

  “Let me write the note to Elizabeth,” Pamela urged.

  It seemed I had no real choice. I privately decided that if this Elizabeth Hayes in any way seemed reluctant to take me in, I would not stay at her home at all. Even if she was willing, I would still leave as soon as I came up with another idea. The thought of running, of hiding, was so disturbing to me. I was branded a spy because I loved Christmas. How foolish! How very, very sad!

  While Pamela wrote her note I packed a few items of clothing, along with some bread, fruit, and cheese.

  “I really don’t need to take along food,” I reminded Arthur. “Sixty miles is nothing to you or me. Even walking, I’ll probably be in Canterbury in less than a day.”

  “It never hurts to be prepared,” Arthur said. “You might have to leave the road to avoid patrols and hide along the way for a while. If you do, the food will come in handy. And if you don’t need to eat it, you can contribute it to the larder of your hosts.”

  He hesitated a moment, then said, “There is one other thing I must ask you, and I didn’t want to while Pamela was here. Layla, why on earth would Oliver Cromwell want to warn you about Blue Richard? Could this be some sort of trick on his part?”

  I shook my head. “Although we disagree about Christmas, I think Oliver Cromwell is an honorable man who acts on his beliefs, just as you and I do. He realizes I’m no spy for the king. Cromwell will always be faithful to those causes he believes are just, but never at the expense of truth.”

  Then I took a few moments to write a hasty letter to my husband, telling him I was off for a while to scout the English countryside for children deserving of gifts from Father Christmas. I hoped he and Felix were well and happy. Then, after a long pause, I added: “Remember always how much I love you, and how glad I’ll be when we’re together again. I especially thank you for letting me be your equal partner in this grand gift-giving mission. You are the finest man in the world, and I’m so honored to be your wife.”

  After twelve hundred years of marriage, Nicholas and I seldom put into spoken or printed words our feelings for each other. We usually felt we didn’t have to. Our mutual devotion was obvious. But this one time I wanted him to have those words to remember me by if my flight from Blue Richard Culmer did not prove successful.

  In a while, Pamela finished her note to Elizabeth. She pressed the note into my hand and whispered, “God be with you, Layla.”

  “And with you,” I replied. Farewells should be kept brief under the best of circumstances, and this particular moment was dreadful. I hugged Arthur, patted Leonardo on the arm—he was absentmindedly gazing at a circling moth, wondering, perhaps, how its wings carried it through the air—and then I swung my small pack onto my shoulder, pulled the hood of my cloak tight around my face, and went out into the London night.

  Streetlamps were lit at varying intervals, but mostly I walked through the city in shadow. For the fir
st time ever, I felt the need to occasionally look behind me to be certain I wasn’t being followed. I didn’t see anyone, but the very thought of being pursued made me nervous. Still, I encountered few people, and no one challenged me when I walked through a city gate and out into the country on the road to Canterbury. If Blue Richard was going to put up posters with my likeness on them, he hadn’t gotten around to it yet.

  At that same moment forty miles to the north, the armies of the king and Parliament were preparing to clash. The Battle of Edge Hill wouldn’t officially begin until the next day, but cavalry scouts from both sides were picking their way through the dark to determine the best routes of attack. A few of these scouts accidentally encountered one another and fired some futile shots. Though I had no way of knowing the exact particulars, I had immediate evidence that there was fighting. With my usual powers to travel at great speed, I could have covered the sixty miles between London and Canterbury in a few hours. I had expected to greet Elizabeth Hayes as the morning sun rose. Instead, it took me that night plus three full days to make the trip, walking at the usual human pace. Any sort of fighting had that effect on our special powers. So, to my great dismay, I realized that somewhere in England a dreadful civil war had begun, and Christmas hung in the balance.

  Unlike her dark-complexioned mother, Sara was light, almost pale, with white-blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes. It seemed to me that there was something very special about this child, a sort of inner glow.

  CHAPTER Eleven

  I finally reached Canterbury about eight o’clock on a gloriously sunny Sunday morning. The temperature was cool but not cold, just right for October. Though I had been walking for almost four days, and my legs were tired—an odd sensation for someone used to traveling a hundred miles or more in a night and never becoming weary—I was still overwhelmed by the combination of bright blue sky, fluffy white clouds, rolling green hills, and golden falling leaves. Canterbury itself, nestled in a cozy, shallow valley on the banks of the Stour River, which actually bisected part of the town, added to the overall loveliness. Its ancient origins were evident in the number of old Roman and early medieval structures that made up much of the central district, which was surrounded by a stout wall of flint and other stone. You could enter Canterbury by any one of six different gates, but the main one, the West Gate, was placed on the main road leading to and from London. This gate was comprised of two massive wooden doors, and a drawbridge had to be lowered to allow access. Behind the West Gate were two round towers, each sixty feet high. This is where the town’s magistrate and military force were stationed. Because Canterbury was, at least in a military sense, controlled by the Roundheads, the soldiers there had close-cropped hair and dressed in much simpler, drab uniforms than the colorful costumes of the king’s forces. The left-hand tower also housed the town jail, which seemed to be a rather fearsome place. Its few windows were crisscrossed by massive bars.

  But the forbidding wall and gates and towers and jail still didn’t spoil Canterbury’s overall impression of country welcome. On this Sunday morning, all the gates stood open and the drawbridge was down. Few people were stirring yet. The calls of the birds and the gentle rushing of the river were easy to hear. Soon, though, everyone would be up, and most, after breakfasting, would make their way to church. There were several churches in the town, but all of them paled in comparison to the limestone Canterbury Cathedral in the eastern corner. This glorious cathedral towered high, dwarfing everything else in both height and breathtaking majesty. Seeing it in daylight for the first time—my few previous visits to Canterbury had been by night to deliver Christmas gifts—I was especially struck by the gorgeous stained-glass windows that adorned all the cathedral’s long walls. Even from the outside, they reflected the sun in great rainbows of colors. How wonderful, I thought, that human beings had mastered the skills necessary to craft such beautiful things.

  Before Henry VIII’s edict changing England from a Catholic to a Protestant country, long lines of pilgrims would have circled the cathedral, each waiting for a turn to pray at the shrine to St. Thomas à Becket in a small side chapel. So many pilgrims went there for so long that grooves were worn into the hard stone chapel floor—often they would fall on their knees when they entered and actually crawl to the altar to pray. Now such behavior was frowned upon, especially with Puritans running the town, and so no pilgrims came and crawled and prayed.

  About eight thousand people lived in Canterbury, quite a respectable number for that time, and their homes were much the same as those in London. The few wealthiest residents resided in fine stone structures. From my vantage point of a roadside hilltop a quarter-mile from the West Gate, I could look down over the town wall and see clearly where these well-to-do folk lived. I suspected that one particularly large home must belong to the city’s mayor. Then there were the middling homes of merchants, their plaster walls supported by wooden beams. The vast majority of the houses were modest, squarish cottages with thatched roofs. The portion of the town streets I could see looked much cleaner than those in London. At least, there were fewer pigs on the loose, rooting through trash.

  I was tempted to go into the town and find some small, quiet church at which to do Sunday worship, but there was another matter that needed immediate attention. I had Pamela Forrest’s letter to her sister Elizabeth, and no real idea of whether or not this Elizabeth Hayes would even consider taking in a stranger, and a fugitive from the Roundheads at that. If she turned me away, I wasn’t really sure what I could do next, besides try to hide myself away in the country until I could think of a different plan. Pamela had assured me Elizabeth would make me welcome, but I couldn’t be certain this would be the case.

  The same number of people lived outside the town walls as inside them. These “outer” families usually owned or worked on farms, and their cottages were within easy walking distance of Canterbury’s shops and churches. Elizabeth Hayes, I’d been told, lived a mile to the east of the city with her husband, Alan, and daughter, Sara. Anne’s directions to me were to go to the river just past town and follow the path beside it past a grove of poplars. I would soon see a cottage surrounded by flower bushes, with a mighty oak tree towering over it. That, Pamela said, was her sister’s home. Of course, Pamela couldn’t provide me with a specific address, because these things were not yet in use. People lived where they lived, and you found them by looking around and asking.

  Church bells had begun to peal back in the town by the time I saw the Hayes cottage. The cheerful ringing echoed down the road as I walked, and I thought again how foolish it was for a country to go to war, even in part, because people could not agree to let each other worship as they pleased. Then I paused, because the door of the Hayes home was opening, and I got my first look at my prospective hostess.

  Elizabeth Hayes

  Elizabeth Hayes was slender and dark, a lovely looking woman of perhaps thirty. Her brown hair cascaded past her shoulders, and her smile was warm and unforced. I liked her on sight, but didn’t have the chance to speak, for she was dressed in a long, clean frock and clearly on her way to church. She paused just outside the door, gesturing for someone to follow, and a moment later was joined by a sturdy-looking child I knew must be her eight-year-old daughter, Sara. If I liked Elizabeth Hayes the first time I saw her, I loved her daughter. Unlike her dark-complexioned mother, Sara was light, almost pale, with white-blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes. It seemed to me that there was something very special about this child, a sort of inner glow. Was it obvious to everyone else, or only to me? Sara had a serious expression as she tugged a kerchief in place over her hair, and took her mother’s hand as they walked toward the town. They nodded to me as they passed where I stood perhaps twenty yards from their cottage. Elizabeth said, “Happy Sabbath,” in a bright, friendly voice, while Sara quietly murmured, “Good day,” and looked quickly away. It was obvious she was a very shy child. It would be a bad thing, I decided, to interrupt their stroll to church by presenting Pamela’s
letter, and so I decided to sit for a while in the shade of the towering oak and eat the last of my fruit and cheese. Time enough when Elizabeth returned from worship to introduce myself. I did wonder where her husband might be, since only mother and daughter had left the cottage. Either he was sleeping in—not likely in those days and that place—or else he was away on one of his voyages.

  I rested my back against the tree and munched an apple. Families made their way down the path, heading into town and church. Many people called out greetings to me. It seemed almost impossible that the same England that was home to such warm, friendly folk was at the same time split by civil war. During the time it had taken me to walk from London to Canterbury, I had heard bits of gossip about the first clash between royalists and Roundheads at Edge Hill. The king’s forces, apparently, had barely gotten the better of the fight, and the Roundheads had retreated back toward their strongholds near London. Oliver Cromwell, I guessed, would have taken part in the fighting, and I hoped he had survived.

  The breeze was cool, but the sun was warm, and after I’d eaten I suppose I must have dozed, for suddenly I snapped awake with the feeling of being watched. My pleasure in the fine morning had made me forget, for a while, that I was on the run, but now my fear of capture overwhelmed me. I gasped, opened my eyes, and there, perhaps five feet away, was little Sara, who must have been as frightened as I was, for she whirled and scampered back to her mother, Elizabeth, who stood at the cottage door.

  “Sara, remember your manners,” Elizabeth cried. “Ma’am, I apologize for my daughter. She should not have approached you as you slept. Are you hungry, perhaps? I’m about to prepare our Sabbath meal, and you’re most welcome to join us.”

  For English country folk of the time, inviting a stranger in to eat was not an uncommon thing. Hospitality was cherished, even among the poorest people. Whatever God gave you was to be shared with open arms and a generous heart. Elizabeth’s invitation provided me with a perfect opportunity to introduce myself, and I took advantage of it.