by Candace Camp
It was fortunate that she was much older and wiser now. Not that he was likely to make any sort of advance to her—indeed, she could not imagine why he ever had. But, still, it was reassuring to know that now she would be able to withstand his charm, to see him for what he was. She would not allow herself to be maneuvered into such a situation nowadays, and certainly she would not simply stand there, stunned into silence, if he tried to kiss her. No, she would … well, she wasn’t sure what she would do. Slap his face, she supposed; that seemed appropriate.
Occupied by such thoughts, Thea hacked away at the evergreen branches with the small hatchet she had brought, quickly loading the garden wagon. When the wagon was nearly full, she added several branches of holly loaded with red berries among their waxy green leaves. She could not find any low-hanging mistletoe, so, after a quick glance around to make sure no one was around to see her, she kilted up her skirt and tucked the end into the sash, then climbed up into the oak tree and knocked down several pieces. Satisfied with her haul, she turned and headed for home. Her stomach was rumbling with hunger, and she wished that she had eaten more than just the single slice of bread she had taken from the kitchen. However, even if Daniel had finished eating, Mrs. Brewster would have set aside a plate for her.
In fact, when Thea parked the wagon behind the vicarage and went inside to wash up, she found that her brother was still at the breakfast table, drinking his tea and perusing a letter. He looked up at her and smiled when she entered the dining room. “Hallo, Thea. Mrs. Brewster wasn’t sure where you had gotten to.”
“I went out early to gather evergreen boughs for the church.”
“Ah. Excellent. It always makes the old girl look quite festive.”
“Yes. I think I’ll go over later and decorate.”
“Mm.” Daniel turned his attention back to the letter.
“Have you gotten the mail already?” Thea nodded toward the paper in his hands as she loaded her plate and began to eat.
“Yes. I took a little stroll before breakfast, so I picked it up. There’s a note from Veronica.”
“Oh, really?” Thea glanced up at him. “Did she say when she would be arriving?”
“That’s the thing. Apparently she’s not.”
“What?” Disappointment formed in Thea’s stomach like a rock, and she set down her fork. “What do you mean? She’s supposed to be here any day now.”
Her brother shrugged. “She wrote to say she won’t be able to make it after all. Her husband came home unexpectedly. Apparently his ship had to return for repairs or some such thing.” He continued to read the rest of the letter. “She says the Commander is well, as are the rest of them, and, of course, they are delighted to have him home. Then there is something about a dress she’s going to wear to a Twelfth Night ball. She sounds quite excited about it.”
“The dress or Commander Stanton coming home?”
“I’m not entirely certain.” Daniel handed the letter across the table to Thea. “I have to say, I am disappointed not to see Veronica. Although it will certainly be more peaceful without the children here.”
“Yes, I suppose so.” Thea skimmed through the note and handed it back to her brother. The days ahead seemed suddenly much emptier.
“Well …” Daniel took a final drink from his cup and rose to his feet. “I should go work on my sermon.”
Thea nodded. “I made some notes about your topic, if you’d like to see them.” It was their polite fiction regarding the sermons she wrote for him.
“Of course, of course. I’ll be in my study.” Daniel nodded pleasantly and walked off.
Thea pushed away her plate, no longer hungry. The silence that her brother would treasure this holiday seemed to her an echoing emptiness. With a sigh, she left the room and started up the stairs. A cold loneliness was centered in her chest. She retrieved the sermon she had written from the small oak secretary in her bedroom and laid it on Daniel’s desk. Work, she knew, was the best cure for unhappiness, so she put on her cloak and gloves and went out to the laden wagon she had left behind the house. Picking up its handle, she started toward the church.
St. Margaret’s was an old building, built of the same native stone as much of the town. It was plain and squat, yet had a beauty in its simplicity. It did not strive to be anything it was not. Centuries ago, in the heyday of the wool trade, there had been talk of tearing it down and building a grander edifice, but the citizens of Chesley, ever a practical lot, had decided not to do so.
The church building had once been the chapel of Astwold Abbey, a convent established by Eleanor of Aquitaine. During the Dissolution, the abbey had been given to an ancestor of Lord Fenstone’s. Most of the buildings had been torn down, leaving only two complete structures standing: the chapel and the priory. The priory, which stood at the opposite end of the abbey premises from the church, had been restored and added onto, becoming a residence for the earls of Fenstone. The chapel had been given to the village to use as its church almost three hundred years ago. The ruins of the rest of the abbey lay between the two buildings. If Thea looked in that direction, she could see the fallen stones and half walls that remained.
She did not spare a glance for the familiar sight today, however, as she pulled the wagon to the church door and carried a load of evergreen branches into the nave of the church. Walking down the main aisle past the intersecting arms that formed the cross of the church, she laid the branches on the steps leading up to the altar. She turned and skirted the raised sanctuary to open the door at the back of the church, which led into a short corridor containing the sacristy and a couple of storerooms.
Thea picked up a small oil lamp and carried it down to the farthest storeroom. There she made her way through the collection of churchly odds and ends that had wound up in there. In the back, she found the manger she intended to use for the living Nativity scene on Christmas Eve and hauled it out. It was a simple feed box that stood on X-shaped legs, and though it had not been used in a few years, it seemed to still be in good condition. Grabbing a few tools, she blew out the lamp and set it back in the sacristy, before carrying the rest of the things to the outer vestibule of the church, near the front doors. Later, when she was finished decorating the church, she would take the manger outside and clean it.
Now, however, she went back into the sanctuary and began to adorn the church for Christmas. She made her way down the left wall, cutting and arranging the fragrant branches on the sills of the stained-glass windows. When she reached the short intersecting arms of the church, she turned into the left one, which contained the small chapel devoted to St. Dwynwen.
Separated from the main part of the church by a decorative wrought-iron screen, the chapel held only a few rows of pews facing the main altar in the center of the church. Against one wall was a prie-dieu, flanked by a small stand of votive candles. On the other side of the prie-dieu stood a statue of a female saint, the Dwynwen for whom the little side chapel had been named. At the far end of the chapel, on either side of the single window, were stone sepulchres of a knight and his lady, their effigies carved on the top of the stone slabs.
This part of the church had always been Thea’s favorite. It was dimmer than the rest of the church because it had only one stained-glass window, and the few flickering candles in their red-glass votive holders cast only a small, atmospheric light. The statue of St. Dwynwen, somewhat smaller than life-size, stood on a short, square pedestal of stone. The statue itself was simply, even crudely, carved out of wood, and it was faded and fissured with time. The saint looked out and down, smiling sweetly, her arms held out to the side.
From the time she was a child, Thea had liked to sit in the chapel. She loved the quiet, the light and scent of the candles, the aged statue. St. Dwynwen, she thought, looked to be a kind and understanding soul, not pretty perhaps, but loving. It was said that the knight entombed in the rear of the chapel had carried the statue back with him from his campaign in Wales. The story went that he had stopped at a
small shrine to St. Dwynwen to pray for success in Wales, and afterward he had won not only the battle but also the heart of a beautiful Welsh lady. In gratitude, he had pledged his devotion to the saint and brought the statue back to his home, where he had given it and the funds for building the chapel to the convent as a gift in the name of his Welsh wife.
The tale had caught Thea’s imagination, and she had pored through her father’s books until she found the story of St. Dwynwen. Dwynwen, it was said, had been the daughter of a Welsh king and had fallen deeply in love with a man named Maelon. Her father would not let her marry Maelon, but insisted that she marry a wealthier lord. In a rage at being denied his love, Maelon forced himself upon Dwynwen. Heartsick, she fled into the forest, where she prayed for help. An angel appeared and, moved by her plight, gave her a potion for the treacherous Maelon to drink. When Maelon drank it, he was turned to ice as punishment for his cruelty. The angel told Dwynwen that God would grant her three prayers. From the deep love and purity of her heart, Dwynwen asked that Maelon be released from his punishment, that she herself not ever have to marry, and that God look after all true lovers. Maelon was restored, and Dwynwen retreated to Llanddwyn Island and spent the rest of her life in solitude, becoming over the years the Welsh patron saint of love and lovers.
Over the years, many people had prayed before the statue, both at its original shrine in Wales and here in Chesley, and a local legend had sprung up around it. The legend was, of course, romantic. It was said that whoever prayed with a truly loving heart to St. Dwynwen here in her chapel would have his or her prayer granted. Some argued that only prayers for love were granted, but others said that the kindly saint would answer even prayers of broader scope.
Now and then Thea had said prayers here, and as best she could tell, few of them had been granted. Still, it was her favorite place to pray or just to sit and think. She loved the quiet and the solemnity of it, the beauty of the sanctuary and the marble baptismal font that centered the arm on the opposite side of the church.
She lit a candle and knelt to say a brief prayer beside the statue, then went to the end of the chapel to decorate the lone window with evergreen and holly. Afterward, she sat down in the front pew and began to wire the boughs into garlands to string across the front of the church. The peace and solitude of the chapel surrounded her, and the heady fragrance of the evergreens filled her nostrils. But sitting here in the quiet, she found it hard to ignore the cold lump that lay in the center of her chest. For a while her activity had masked it, subdued it, but now the coldness seemed to grow and spread.
Thea told herself the hard lonely feeling would pass. After all, though she loved her sister and her niece and nephews, they were not really part of her life. It was disappointing that they would not be here for Christmas, but the next few days would be much like her days always were. This was her life—her brother, this church, the vicarage, the town.
Except that none of it was really hers. Her brother was the vicar; it was his house, his church, the people his parishioners. She only shared in that life as he allowed her to, and if he died, it would all go to some other pastor, some other family, and she would no longer have even a home. Thea shook her head—what a morbid and foolish way to think! Daniel was young and healthy; he was not about to die. But, she reminded herself, he might very well marry one day. He had given no sign so far that he had any interest in marrying, but it could reasonably happen. If he did marry, Thea would no longer be needed. Daniel was too kind to make her leave, but Thea knew that she would not have a real place in the vicarage. It would be another woman’s home, not hers.
Tears pricked at her eyelids, and she was swept by an overwhelming loneliness. It seemed suddenly that she had no real place in the world, no home, no spot of her own, as if all her life were merely borrowed from others. This feeling had come over her before, a stark and cold thing that pierced her soul. Usually Thea could shove the emotion aside, fill her life with work, but suddenly she could not. With awful clarity, she saw the truth: she did not have a place, a life, of her own. She lived on the edges of other people’s lives—writing sermons that would be her brother’s, spending a week once a year with children that were her sister’s, living in a house that belonged to the church, busying herself with the affairs of a church that was not hers. She was twenty-seven years old, unmarried, and childless. And so utterly invisible that a man who had kissed her ten years ago did not have even the slightest twinge of recognition when he saw her.
She would never have a real life. There was no likelihood that she would marry. Whom would she marry in this village? She had known everyone here all her life, and clearly no husband for her was among them. Even if she could somehow magically live somewhere else, she had little chance of capturing any man’s heart. She was plain, and she could not even make up for her plainness with a sweetness of spirit. She was often opinionated—some would even say bossy—and she could be sharp-tongued. She had trouble asking for someone else’s advice or help when she knew what she should do. It was difficult for her to flatter and smooth and soothe. The combination of her looks and personality was, she was well aware, a deadly obstruction to marriage.
Her life seemed suddenly so empty and pointless that it took her breath away. Something close to panic swept through Thea, and she knotted her hands together tightly in her lap. She was afraid she might cry out, might weep. Abruptly she dropped down onto the kneeling rail that fronted the votive-candle stand. Her clasped hands on the wooden rail, she closed her eyes. The imprint of the dancing candle flames still burned in her vision.
“Please …” She dropped her forehead to her hands, her mind too overset to know what to say. Intercessions, prayers, pleas, tumbled through her head. “Please help me.” What did she want? “Give me a life. Please, give me a life of my own.” She remained bent over, pain and fear storming through her. For once she could not push it away, could not ignore it, could not superimpose work over it. She could only feel the desperate, lonely longing.
Thea was not sure how long she knelt that way before a noise outside in the church brought her back to awareness of her surroundings. She raised her head and noticed that her cheeks were wet; she knew that she must have been crying. With hands that trembled a little, she wiped away the tears and sat back on her heels, listening.
Again a noise came, something like a squeak. She rose to her feet, frowning. She wasn’t sure what the first sound had been. Perhaps a footfall or a door closing? She wondered if someone had come into the church. Thea wiped her cheeks and eyes again, thinking with embarrassment that she must look a mess. She walked out of the chapel and glanced around the church. It was silent and dimly lit, as empty as when she had entered it.
Then she heard an odd sputtering noise. It seemed to come from the vestibule, and Thea took a few steps in that direction. In the next instant, an angelic little face framed by pale gold curls popped up over the side of the wooden feed bin. Thea stopped, her mouth dropping open in astonishment.
A baby was in the manger.
Four
For one horrified instant, Thea thought that she had gone quite mad. The baby let out a high-pitched squeal and grabbed the side of the manger with one hand, pulling himself into a sitting position. He grinned as he latched onto the manger with his other hand and shook it as he produced a series of bubbling, blowing noises. If this was a figment of her imagination, she thought, it was incredibly real.
Thea came out of her frozen state and hurried down the aisle, her mind tumbling with questions. She could not imagine who the child was or where he had come from. She was sure there must be a rational explanation for his sitting in the manger, but at the moment she had no idea what it was. Thea half expected to find the child’s mother in the vestibule, but when she stepped into the area, it was empty except for the baby and the manger. She rushed over to the door and opened it to peer outside, but there was no sign of anyone there, either.
Turning back around, she stared at the child. He
gazed back at her with lively interest. Up close, she could see that he was truly lovely. He had a softly rounded face with pudgy, rosy cheeks and an adorable tiny dimple on his chin. His blue eyes were enormous and his hair a soft tumble of feathery blond curls. Though she could not pretend to know every infant in the village, Thea was certain that she had never before seen this boy.
“Who are you?” she murmured, coming over to the manger.
He seemed delighted at her movement, and he banged both his hands down on his legs, smiling and releasing a crow of delight. Thea chuckled at the noise.
“Where is your mother?” she asked, bending down toward him.
He grinned and held his hands up to her, and something melted inside Thea. She picked him up, and he latched onto the shoulder of her dress with one hand. With the other, he reached out to pat her cheek, his gaze steady on her face.
He wore the customary white baby gown, with knitted bootees on his feet and a knitted sweater atop the gown. He had been sitting on a small blanket in the manger, and a tiny knitted blue cap was beside it. Thea wondered if he was warm enough. Even though they were inside the stone church, it was still quite cool. Thea had taken off her cloak as she worked, but she realized that now, after doing nothing but sitting for a while, she was chilled.
“Are you cold?” Thea picked up the little blanket and wrapped it around the baby, tucking the little knitted cap in her pocket. “It’s a shame you aren’t old enough to talk.”
She went back into the church, which was warmer than the vestibule, and sat down in one of the pews to think. Try as she could, she could come up with no reason for his being in the manger unless someone had purposely abandoned him. She had heard stories of babies being left at a vicarage or a church. However, it seemed unlikely that someone could want to get rid of this child. He was utterly angelic in appearance, and he looked not only well fed, but was dressed in clean, new clothes.