Home for Christmas

by Annie Groves

  Without the barrier of the window, the ring looked even prettier to her. Agnes already loved it almost as much as she loved Ted, but in a very different way, of course. The ring was so dainty, its small diamond almost hidden in a way that made it even more special to Agnes, without her being able to explain why. She just knew that she had fallen in love with the ring the minute she had seen it.

  With very great care it was removed from its bed of velvet. The gold of the ring was fine and delicate, the single small stone so pretty that Agnes’s heart bounded into her chest wall.

  Ted took it from the salesman and was sliding it onto her finger when suddenly the woman turned round and said in a loud voice, waving her hand in Agnes’s direction, ‘You’re a cheapskate, Artie, that’s what you are. The next thing I know you’ll be wanting me to have a little bit of nothing like she’s having.’ With that the woman marched out of the shop leaving her partner to follow her. Agnes wasn’t interested in them though. All her attention was concentrated on Ted, whose ears were burning a dark red. Looking humiliated and angry, he started to tug the ring off her finger.

  ‘No, Ted, don’t,’ Agnes protested.

  ‘I’m not having anyone thinking that I can’t afford to buy my girl a decent ring,’ Ted told her.

  He’d been pleased initially when he’d seen the price of the ring Agnes had indicated, thinking that with the money left over from what he’d saved he’d be able to put something aside for the future as well as buy Agnes her ring, but now . . .

  ‘We want to see something else,’ he told the salesman. ‘Something better.’

  ‘No, Ted,’ Agnes protested again, saying almost pleadingly to the salesman, ‘I like this ring.’

  ‘If I may say so, sir, when a lady has a delicate hand and finger, then a delicate ring looks best.’

  For a moment Agnes thought that Ted was going to refuse to listen.

  ‘Please, Ted,’ she begged him, ‘I really do want this ring. It’s so pretty. The minute I saw it I felt that it was just there waiting for me.’

  She could see from the set of his mouth that Ted still wasn’t happy but he gave in and finished sliding the ring onto her finger.

  Agnes gave a happy sigh as the ring slipped on. It fitted her perfectly, just as though it had been made for her.

  ‘The stone might be small but it is good quality,’ the salesman assured them both, his expression relaxing into a hint of a smile as he looked at Agnes, her face all prettily pink with happiness.

  ‘If you’re sure it’s what you want?’

  Ted could see how much Agnes liked the ring. That was one of the things he loved about her: the fact that she was so honest about her feelings. The other woman’s words had rankled, though, and hurt his pride. Right now he wanted to see his Agnes wearing the biggest and shiniest diamond ring there was, just to show everyone how much he loved her.

  Agnes, though, was stroking the soft slightly worn gold of ‘her’ ring with a tender smile on her face as she watched its small diamond twinkle up at her.

  ‘This is the one I want, Ted,’ she repeated.

  The salesman was looking at him, so Ted gave an abrupt nod of his head. Agnes removed the ring and handed it over to the salesman to take away, but as he started to do so he stopped and turned round.

  ‘There’s a wedding ring that goes with it, if you’re interested. Came in as a pair, they did, but Mr Goldstein, who owns the shop, separated them.’

  ‘We won’t be getting married yet,’ Agnes informed him, giving Ted a proud smile as she explained, ‘Ted’s got his family to look after, you see.’

  ‘We might as well have a look at it,’ Ted overruled her. ‘No sense in not doing.’

  The wedding ring was duly produced, and they could both see that it fitted together perfectly with the engagement ring.

  One look at Agnes’s face was enough to have Ted saying firmly, ‘We’ll take them both,’ his pride restored at being able to do so.

  ‘Oh, Ted,’ Agnes breathed ecstatically, so that he straightened his back and walked tall as he left her to go and pay for the rings.

  ‘And then the salesman put the rings in ever such a lovely box, on account of Ted buying both of them together, didn’t he, Ted?’ Agnes told Ted’s mother excitedly, her face flushed with happiness, as the five of them – Ted, and her, and his mother and two sisters – sat together in Joe Lyons. Of course, with it being a Saturday and so close to Christmas, the café was busy. Agnes had to raise her voice a little to make herself heard above the noise and bustle, with the smartly dressed ‘nippy’ waitresses whisking to and fro, serving afternoon teas and clearing and resetting tables. Ted’s party had had to queue at the door to get a table, but luckily not for very long, and now, whilst they waited for their order of tea and teacakes, Ted had begun to tell his mother about their successful shopping trip.

  ‘Mum said that she doesn’t know how our Ted can afford to go buying engagement rings.’ Ted’s younger sister, Sonia, suddenly piped up, causing the three adults to fall silent.

  Agnes could feel her face burning with discomfort as she avoided looking at Ted’s mother.

  ‘I can afford it ’cos I’ve saved up for it, that’s how,’ Ted told his mother firmly.

  ‘That’s all very well, Ted, but I don’t like to see you going without, just to buy a fancy engagement ring,’ Mrs Jackson said. ‘You could have done with replacing that old winter coat of yours this year, and the girls are growing out of theirs as well.’

  ‘There’s plenty of money in the kitty for new coats for the girls, Ma,’ Ted responded. ‘I’ve already told you that.’

  The nippy arrived with their tea and teacakes, but Agnes’s happiness had evaporated every bit as quickly as the steam escaping from the teapot when Ted’s mother opened the lid to give its contents a good stir.

  ‘So where is it then, this ring?’ Ted’s mother demanded once she had poured the tea.

  ‘We’d perhaps best not get it out here, Ted,’ Agnes suggested in a low voice. ‘You can show your mum later at home.’ She didn’t want to see her precious ring exposed to Ted’s mother’s critical gaze, and somehow she felt that it would be a critical gaze, the same as the critical not-good-enough-for-her-son gaze she felt that Ted’s mother was fixing on her.

  Her hand shook slightly as she lifted her teacup to her lips.

  Chapter Eighteen

  ‘. . . and Drew’s managed to get a special Father Christmas suit so that he can hand out the presents to the children at the Christmas party, seeing as the one Sergeant Dawson used to wear has been lost.’

  ‘Yes, Tilly, you’ve already told me that several times already,’ Olive pointed out to her daughter, who was hoping excitedly from one foot to the other as she waited for Olive to finish putting on her coat, prior to the two of them setting off for the church hall for the Christmas party.

  Olive was a loving mother who liked Drew, but Tilly, like all young women freshly in love, could barely manage to say a single sentence without somehow or other managing to include a reference to Drew in it. Not that Olive wasn’t grateful to Drew for offering to step in at such short notice when Sergeant Dawson had been unable to play his normal role of Father Christmas because he had to be on duty instead. She was, and she was even willing to agree that Drew would be a very good Father Christmas.

  ‘We’re going to be late,’ Tilly protested.

  Olive raised an eyebrow, remembering how last Christmas Eve Tilly had complained that attending the church party was dull stuff compared with the delights of going dancing at the Hammersmith Palais. That was what young love did to you though, Olive knew: it coloured everything that included your beloved in a rosy glow.

  Olive and Tilly were the only two occupants of number 13 making their way to the party from there, but the others were also going to attend. Agnes was meeting Ted and his mother and sisters at the tube station, and going straight to the church hall with them. Sally was going direct from the hospital, where George, who had mana
ged to get leave over Christmas, was going to pick her up, whilst Dulcie, who had announced that Wilder would be escorting her to the party, would be meeting him outside Selfridges when she finished work, the store expecting to be busy since it was the last day to shop before Christmas.

  Tilly had been lucky in that she had only had to work in the morning, returning home at dinner time, and offering to help her mother with her busy Christmas preparations in the kitchen.

  Olive, though, sensing disruption to her carefully laid Christmas cooking plans, had suggested instead that Tilly wrap the Christmas presents Olive had hidden away for her lodgers.

  With that task done, Tilly was now anxious for them to get to the church hall, all the more so since she knew about the surprise Drew had arranged for the children with the help of his mother, and her friends. She was longing to see the expressions on the faces of the children when they received their unexpected gifts, especially Ted’s two sisters. That, of course, was not the prime reason why she was urging her mother to hurry. It was the prospect of being with Drew himself that excited her the most. She hadn’t seen him since the weekend because he had been busy writing an extra column for his newspaper back at home about how war-struck London was facing Christmas.

  The weather had turned cold, and secretly Tilly wished it could be a white Christmas, especially since Drew had told her about the white Christmases in Philadelphia, where his mother came from.

  Olive and Tilly had already received a large Christmas card from Drew’s parents, thanking them for welcoming Drew into their home, and Olive had sent one back – a much smaller one, but still a very nice one, Tilly felt, with its scene of a Dickensian Christmas.

  At last her mother was ready to leave. Olive had already made one visit to the church hall earlier in the day to take down the food she had made as her contribution to the party, along with some small gifts for the children’s bran tub, and a pair of fingerless gloves she had knitted for Mrs Windle, who complained that when she had to stand in for the church organist her fingers were so cold she could hardly find the keys.

  The church hall was busy with those members of the WVS who had helped to cook, bake and otherwise provide the buffet meal that was now laid out on trestle tables, the plates of sandwiches covered by carefully dampened tea towels so that the bread wouldn’t dry out and curl up.

  The hall’s wooden floor had been brushed and then scrubbed. Coloured garlands, patched here and there with different colours where they had broken, swung gently in the air from the constantly opening and closing door. In addition to the garlands, paper chains made by the children attending the party had also been hung up, some of the ‘chains’ stuck together rather haphazardly.

  A large Christmas tree stood at one end of the room, decorated with tinsel and coloured tree lights in various shapes and colours. The tree had a group of excited children standing round it, with an even larger group surrounding the bran tub, with it’s hidden presents. The faded red velvet curtains pulled over the blackout fabric covering the windows added an extra festive touch to the room.

  Tilly had come to Christmas parties here as far back as she could remember, first with both her grandparents and her mother, and then with her grandfather and her mother. Now, of course, there were just the two of them. Tonight, though, their small family would number three and not two, even if Drew’s inclusion in that family could only exist inside her own and Drew’s hearts for now. They had, after all, promised her mother that they wouldn’t get too serious about one another.

  Tilly smiled a secret tender smile. It just wasn’t possible for her not to get serious about Drew when he was such a special person.

  As though her thinking about him had magically conjured him up, Drew came in through the doors that separated the church hall from the outer vestibule, his face breaking into a smile the moment he saw Tilly.

  ‘I didn’t think you’d be here for ages yet,’ Tilly told him after they had exchanged a brief public hug. ‘We’ve only just arrived. Mum’s gone to have a word with Mrs Windle.’

  ‘I didn’t want to leave it too long in case some other Father Christmas got here before me and stole my girl,’ Drew laughed.

  ‘Have the toys all arrived then?’ Tilly asked. ‘I know you were worrying that they might not.’

  ‘Don’t worry. We got everything sorted out, although not quite as I’d planned.’ He bent towards her ear and whispered, ‘It’s your present that matters most to me right now, Tilly. I’ve got something I want to give you later, a special present, just between us.’

  There was an urgency in his voice that had Tilly drawing back to look at him. She could see his love for her in his eyes, and she was about to ask him what her special present was when he gave a small warning shake of his head and told her in a louder voice, ‘I could do with some help finding somewhere to put the stuff I’ve left in the foyer. Including my Father Christmas suit.’

  The sound of her mother’s voice came from behind Tilly: ‘We’ll both give you a hand. There’s a small room off the kitchen where you can put everything and get changed later when all the children are here.’

  Drew hadn’t been joking about needing some help, Tilly acknowledged several minutes later as she and her mother stared at the mound of brightly wrapped presents standing in a corner of the vestibule on a red sledge.

  ‘What on earth . . . ?’ Olive began.

  But Tilly broke in, enthusing, ‘Isn’t it wonderful, Mum? Drew wrote to his mother and sisters and asked them to have a collection of no longer needed toys so that all the children here could have something.’

  ‘How very kind of them, Drew. But how did everything get here so quickly?’ Olive frowned. ‘I do hope it wasn’t taking up space on a ship that could have been used for—’

  ‘No, no, they didn’t do that,’ Drew assured her.

  Tilly was relieved to see her mother’s frown disappear.

  ‘Did a pram and a doll come for Ted’s sisters?’ she asked him.

  ‘Yes,’ he assured her.

  ‘Drew, they’ll be thrilled,’ Tilly told him, giving him a shining-eyed smile.

  Tonight at midnight, after Ted’s mother had taken his sisters home and after she and Ted had been to the midnight carol service here at the church, Ted was going to give Agnes her engagement ring and then they would be officially engaged. Agnes sighed happily to herself as she opened the church hall door for Ted and his mother and the girls.

  Ted’s sisters, who had been chattering excitedly about Christmas all the way from the underground station, had gone all shy and quiet now they had seen families they didn’t know greeting one another as they headed inside.

  Olive, who had been keeping an eye out for their arrival, immediately made her way towards them, giving them all a warm smile and saying welcomingly, ‘You must be Mrs Jackson, and these two pretty girls must be Marie and Sonia. I’m Agnes’s landlady, Olive Robbins. We’re so glad you were able to come. I know that Agnes is looking forward to having a chance to get to know your girls a bit better. Ted, why don’t you take the girls and show them the Christmas tree with Agnes whilst I take your mother and introduce her to Mrs Windle?’ She turned back to Ted’s mother. ‘Mrs Windle is our vicar’s wife. She’ll be playing the piano later on for the children’s games and then the dancing . . .’

  And so Ted’s mother was borne away, leaving Ted and Agnes to take his sisters over to the tree, where Agnes was soon introducing them to some of the other children whom she knew from seeing them at church with their parents.

  One of them, a sturdily built boy with red hair, announced importantly, ‘Father Christmas will be here later. Well, he isn’t the real Father Christmas, of course, because there isn’t—’

  A sharp dig in the ribs from the older girl standing next to him had the boy coughing, whilst she continued in a voice that warned anyone against arguing with her, ‘He’s helping the real Father Christmas because he’ll be busy delivering everyone’s presents.’

  ‘Geo
rge, you look as though you haven’t slept for days,’ Sally told her boyfriend with concern as they stood together in the hospital foyer.

  ‘I haven’t,’ he admitted, ‘or at least not very much. I volunteered to stand in for three of the other chaps to make sure that I could get this time off to be with you.’

  ‘Oh, George.’ Sally shook her head. ‘Somehow I don’t think Mr McIndoe would approve of you doing that.’

  ‘Luckily we’re pretty quiet. Mr McIndoe likes the men to live their lives as close to normal as possible so all ops other than the most urgent are suspended over Christmas. And the families of those patients who can’t go home have been invited down to spend Christmas with them. It hard sometimes to watch them watching the door for visitors, half hoping, half afraid. Some of the wives and girlfriends can’t face what’s happened to them. Only a few,’ he added when Sally made a small sound of distress.

  ‘I had a lovely letter from your parents this week,’ Sally told him. ‘You must have given them a very improved version of the real me, George. They seem to think I’m some kind of saint.’

  ‘I told them that you are the most wonderful girl and that I love you,’ George informed her. ‘And I said that they would love you too, which they will.’

  Arm in arm they left the hospital, heading for the bus stop.

  ‘I’d like to drop my bag off at Ian Simpson’s first, before we go on to the party, if that’s OK?’ George told Sally.

  ‘Yes, of course it is,’ she assured him. ‘I’ve got a key for you. Ian gave it to me before he left for the country. I’ve never seen a man loaded up with so many Christmas presents.’

  Sally shivered, taking the opportunity provided by the icy cold wind to snuggle closer to George as they waited for the bus.

  ‘Olive’s going to have a houseful tomorrow for Christmas dinner, seeing as she’s invited Drew, and that young American that Dulcie is seeing, as well as you,’ she told him.