Kissing Father Christmas (7 page)

“O, holy night,” I sang softly. “The stars are brightly shining…”

I drew in a deep breath of the chilly air and entered Whitcombe Manor under the motto G
RACE AND
P
EACE
R
ESIDE
H
ERE
.

Just as I stepped inside, the grandfather clock in the entry hall chimed.

One, two, three…

I counted until the last chime made twelve in all. It was midnight. I looked down, smiling at the irony of the chiming clock and silently congratulating myself for returning with both shoes.

Even without a tiara, my princess-for-a-day adventure had come to a lovely conclusion.

Best of all, I was going to see Peter again tomorrow.

I
slept in the next morning and by the time I found my way downstairs, the Whitcombe household was in a flurry of activity. Ellie was in the kitchen writing out a grocery list for everything she needed for the Christmas feast.

Julia was concentrating on adding just the right amount of sprinkles to all the cookies she and Ellie had baked that morning.

Edward had gone into town to get the programs printed and then was planning to help get everything set up at the community theater for the play that evening.

“Did you have a nice time last night?” Ellie asked. “How was your night on the town?”

“Wonderful!” I described how much I enjoyed seeing Big Ben and how we'd had fish and chips and ended up at Trafalgar for the surprising and meaningful Christmas celebration. “I can't wait to go back to London again. There's so much to see.”

“I wish I could have gone with you,” Julia said with a pout. “I like fish and chips.”

I leaned across the counter and looked Julia in the eye. “Well, I have something to tell you, then.”

She looked at me expectantly. Her innocent little face filled with Christmas hope and wonder.

“Your mom and dad have invited me to come back in the spring. Why don't you and I plan to go to London together when I come back? We'll have fish and chips and go to the art museums you were telling me about. What do you think?”

“Will Peter come with us and take us around in a taxi?”

I turned away because I felt my face beginning to turn rosy at the mention of Peter. “I guess we'll have to wait and see about that.” I opened the refrigerator and helped myself to some orange juice.

“That sounds encouraging.” Ellie caught my eye and raised an eyebrow. Clearly, she was hoping for additional hints on how things had really gone last night.

I felt bashful and avoided Ellie's gaze. Last spring my hopes about Peter had grown wild like an overly fed and watered rosebush. Peter's clarification on my first day here had cut us way back to being “friends.” Just friends.

When I was dressing that morning, I could hear Prudence reminding me that my severely cut-back dreams were now down to a stump. If, indeed, that stump had sprouted a hint of something more last night, then it was best to let it take its time to grow naturally. Or wither.

Either way, I wanted to return in the spring without any awkwardness.

“So,” I held my glass of orange juice with both hands and looked over Julia's shoulder. “How goes the cookie-decorating project?”

“I'm nearly finished. How do you like this one?” Julia held up a star-shaped sugar cookie with an excessive amount of multicolored sprinkles.

“Beautiful.”

“You can have it. Here.”

I took a bite and felt all the sugar sprinkles clinging to my lips. “Mmmm. Delicious.” I looked over at Ellie. “I love the flavor.”

“I use almond instead of vanilla extract. Gives it that little something extra. Each year the critics become a little more vocal about the treats we serve during intermission at the play. I've had to step up my contributions.”

“These will definitely be a hit.”

“Miranda is baking this morning as well. She called earlier and asked if you wanted to go over and keep her company. That is, if you didn't have plans already with anyone else.”

“I don't have any plans.” I gave Ellie an unflinching smile, hoping it would curtail her from doing any more fishing to try to catch details about Peter. “I'd love to help her.”

“All right, then. I can give you a ride over to Rose Cottage in a few minutes. Julia and I were about to do our shopping.”

“Great. I'll grab my things.” The main item I wanted to take with me was the purple notebook from Harrods. I had a very important Christmas gift that needed immediate attention. I loaded up my large shoulder bag with all my art supplies and grabbed my coat and scarf.

By the time I'd returned downstairs, Ellie had efficiently packed up the finished cookies, put away the washed cookie sheets, and had Julia bundled up and ready to go.

“I certainly wasn't much help this morning,” I said on our short drive to Miranda and Ian's.

Ellie brushed off my sort-of apology. “You'll have plenty to do in helping Miranda.”

Their quaint little cottage had belonged to Sir James and was tucked away in an idyllic setting. I had begun a sketch of Rose Cottage on the morning after Ian and Miranda's wedding but hadn't finished it. That was the morning when I saw Peter riding his bike with Molly. She was riding in her special wagon-like seat that he'd affixed on the front. I remembered being touched by the way he treated her with such patience and kindness.

I waved good-bye to Julia and sauntered up the path to the front door. It was decorated with a beautiful wreath that appeared to be crafted from fresh greenery and dried wildflowers. I knocked and heard Miranda call out, “Come in!”

I stepped inside and all my artistic senses were filled with a rush of Christmas beauty and joy. Amber flames danced in the fireplace. A thick garland of greens dotted with red berries lined the mantel. The inviting fragrance of gingerbread mixed with the scent of the fresh greenery caused me to stop where I was and draw in a deep breath. Christmas carols played in the background. The windowsills were decorated with ivory candles and in the center of the small dining table was a beautiful, old-world style nativity scene.

The tree was lit with white twinkling lights and the branches were adorned with deep red roses along with a simple collection of ornaments. Crowning the top of the tree was the delicate angel Miranda had purchased yesterday at Harrods. The angel figurine's silver-white wings were spread in a protective pose over the tree and, it seemed, over this blessed cottage.

“Miranda!”

She stood in the tiny kitchen space that was open to the rest of the living area. She had oven mitts on both hands and was wearing a cute red-and-white Christmas apron covering her jeans and T-shirt. Her smile was contagious. “Merry Christmas! I'm so glad you came over.”

I motioned to the stunning décor all around me. “Miranda, this is adorable. No, not adorable. It's extraordinary! Gorgeous! Wow! I feel like I just walked into a magazine picture of Christmas perfection.”

“I love Christmas. I never had any of this while I was growing up, so all of this is new to me and I can't stop myself. You'll have to see what I did in the bathroom. Ian started calling me a ‘Christmas-crazed American.'”

I put down my shoulder bag brimming with art supplies and took off my coat. “I'm going to check out the bathroom right now.”

She pointed the way. I peeked inside and saw that Miranda had added a string of white twinkle lights to the rim of the oval mirror. The white bath towels hanging on pegs on the wall were tied with wide red ribbons with sprigs of green holly berries tucked in the bows.

Miranda joined me. “Like I said, Ian is tolerating my fancy touches. He likes the living room a lot but decorating the ‘loo,' as he calls it, seems excessive to him. I love it, though, and he says if it makes me happy, he can navigate his way around all the fluff for a few weeks.”

I was studying the wall where Miranda had hung an assortment of small frames. Each one had a different antique-style image of Father Christmas wearing a white fur-trimmed robe and a long, pointed cap that folded over his shoulder.

“I found those old postcards at a bookshop in the next village over. Aren't they great? They look like the style of costumes that are worn each year for the Dickens play.”

“I love these.”

“I know. So do I. My favorite is the one on top. It reminds me of how Ian looked last Christmas when he wore the vintage costume for the play.”

“I remember someone talking about it at your wedding. He must have made a memorable Father Christmas.”

“It's a big deal here in Carlton Heath, as you have probably heard. Sir James started the tradition a long time ago. He used to play the role of Father Christmas and after he was gone, Andrew took on the role. But when Andrew was ill last year, the part fell to Ian. He was great at it. So good with all the kids.” Miranda smiled.

I looked at the top picture more closely. The long white beard on the Gandalf-esque Father Christmas flowed to his waist. He was holding a small Christmas tree decorated with miniature carvings of woodland creatures. The details in the drawing were impressive. I couldn't determine the method used to draw it unless I could take it out of the frame and look at the paper more closely.

“This is an exceptional drawing,” I told Miranda. “It makes me want to sketch a Father Christmas card right now. I never had much of an interest in drawing a Santa. But this would be a nice challenge.”

“You're welcome to take it down or take it with you, if you want.”

“No, I better finish the projects I brought with me—that is, after you let me help you with all your baking. Ellie seemed to think you were in need of some backup assistance.”

Miranda chuckled. Her dark hair was pulled back with a wide red ribbon that looked like it came from the same spool as the ribbons on the towels. “I'm sure she said that because Ellie knows I'm not much of a cook or a baker. This year I'm only making goodies that I can pour into a pan and cut into small squares. The gingerbread is almost done. The brownies go in next.”

“Do you need help with anything?”

“No. All the batter is mixed and ready to go for the next three batches, but my oven is too small to do more than one pan at a time. And I only have two baking pans. That's why it's going to take most of the day.”

“Would you mind if I sketched while the goodies are baking?”

“Of course not! Please make yourself at home. Would you like something to drink?”

I pulled out my art supplies and thought a moment. “Not to sound too much like a Scandinavian from Minnesota, but do you happen to have any coffee? Dark coffee?”

“As a matter of fact, I do. I'm a coffee drinker, too. I like tea, but in the morning I do much better if I start with a cup of dark coffee. Is French press okay?”

“Sounds fancy, so yes. Absolutely.” I settled in one of the high-back chairs by the fire and made sure I was facing the kitchen so that it would be easy to keep our conversation going while Miranda baked.

The unmistakable fragrance of deep, dark coffee wafted my direction and I smiled. It was like having the best of all worlds. A bit of home, a lot of English countryside charm, and a blossoming friendship with Miranda. I knew it was going to be excruciating to leave all this in less than a week. I closed my eyes and breathed in the moment. I didn't want to forget any of it.

I
've been meaning to tell you how glad Ian and I are that you came for Christmas.” Miranda turned down the volume on the Christmas music. “I didn't realize how much I missed hearing a familiar accent and being around a fellow American. It's wonderful to have you here. I only wish you were staying longer.”

I told her about Ellie's invitation and how I hoped to return in the spring. The first question she asked after that was about Peter. Unlike Ellie and her politely subtle raised eyebrow style of probing, Miranda dove right in.

“Do you think there's something there?” she asked. “I mean, you two seemed to hit it off nicely at our wedding.”

“We did,” I agreed cautiously. Once again Prudence was telling me to guard my secret thoughts and not entrust myself to anyone. I found it difficult to do so because I liked Miranda very much and wanted to keep our cousin connection growing even closer.

“How has it been for you to be around Peter now? Is he showing an interest in being more than friends?”

“No.” The answer popped out before I could decide if that was the most honest assessment. “I mean, he's nice and friendly. We had a great time last night and he was a terrific tour guide. But he made it clear the first time I saw him after I arrived that he's only interested in being friends.”

Miranda looked at me as if trying to decide if she wanted to believe me or not.

“We're good chums,” I said a little too brightly. “I'm fine with that. I didn't come here looking for love.”

I wasn't sure if I agreed with my own statement. I definitely didn't want to read in Miranda's inquisitive eyes whether she was buying it. My eyes lowered to my lap where the purple notebook was awaiting my attention.

“You know, I've wondered how it was for you when you moved here. Did you feel at home right away?”

The best thing about Miranda, I decided just then, was her calm way of understanding how to shift topics and make others feel comfortable in the midst of it. She started telling me the whole story of how she found her way into the Whitcombe family. She had come to England a couple years ago in search of her birth father, whom she'd never met. Miranda never imagined her father would be Sir James. Happenstance, as my cousin Ian had called it, led her to the Tea Cosy where she was soon enveloped into the Whitcombe family at Christmas.

“It took Edward a while before he accepted me as his half sister. Now that he has, I feel at home here in every way.”

Miranda slowly plunged down the stopper on her glass French press. She looked out the window and added, “Now that the paparazzi have moved on to other, more interesting women, I feel that I'm accepted by all the members of the Whitcombe family. Edward's mother, Margaret, was especially gracious to me, considering all the circumstances. You haven't met her yet and you probably won't. When Ian and I got engaged last Christmas, she announced two days later that she was going to live with her daughter in Bedford. No one could believe she'd move out of the manor, but she did. She said it was because Bedford is closer to her doctors in Cambridge. I still feel that in spite of her kindness in welcoming me into the family, she prefers to not be around me.”

“Why?”

“I'm the constant reminder that her husband was unfaithful.”

“But you had nothing to do with that.”

“I know. But the media had a field day when they found out and security had to be hired to keep the photographers from intruding into the lives of the family. As I said, it all died down. Ian and I chose to make our home here, so I think that's why Margaret chose to make her home elsewhere.”

“But you said she was kind to you and welcomed you here.”

“She did. And grace offered in words can be very healing, but actions are the true expression of love. I want to believe that Margaret left Whitcombe Manor as a gesture of love to Ian and me as well as a way of finding her own sort of comfort in the face of a difficult family situation.”

I nodded my understanding. “That's similar to what I've seen in my mother. She's given full-time care to her father-in-law, my Opa. He's been an invalid for almost six years now and lives at my parents' home.”

I realized that all the unbending, methodical, and cautious traits I'd recently come to dislike in my mother had been the exact qualities that allowed her the strength and steady peace necessary to provide the intensive, ongoing care my Opa needed.

A burst of appreciation for my mother, just the way she was, came over me. I was the one who needed to extend more grace. More love.

Miranda brought over my requested cup of dark coffee in a Christmas mug, of course. That prompted us to slip into a less intense discussion of our favorite Christmas movies and favorite Christmas carols. She told me about the woman she lived with after her mother passed away and how the Santa Cruz cat-loving woman was fond of tofu.

“She gave me my first pair of Birkenstocks,” Miranda said. “And she loved God. It was the most peculiar combination. Every morning as I ate my bowl of granola with chia seeds and acai berries, long before that combination was popular, she read to me from the Psalms.”

Miranda put the pan of brownies in the oven, removed her kitchen mitts, and joined me by the fire. “Two years ago when I first came here, it felt as if God was close to me in this place. It was the first time since the granola years that I'd felt that way. I came here on a search for my birth father. But at the Christmas Eve service I felt as if I'd found my Heavenly Father.”

Miranda took a sip of coffee from her snowflake-pattern mug. “In a way, I think my Heavenly Father was the one I'd really been searching for all along.”

“I came to Christ in a similar way. It was at a Christmas Eve candlelight service at my grandmother's big church in Minneapolis. I don't know what it was, exactly. The music, perhaps. Or maybe it was the profound meaning in the Scripture passages that were read during the church service. All I know is that when my grandmother turned to light my candle from hers, I whispered a childlike prayer and told Jesus I wanted to give Him my heart.”

Miranda nodded as if she understood exactly.

“Have you heard the Christina Rossetti poem? The children recited it at the Christmas Eve service two years ago.” Miranda reached for a small red book on the coffee table. The title was
Best Loved Christmas Poems
. The cover had a Victorian look and it fit in perfectly with Miranda's other careful design choices.

“Here it is. ‘In the Bleak Midwinter.' It's the last stanza. ‘What can I give Him, poor as I am? If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb; If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part; Yet what can I give Him: Give my heart.'”

“I love that. I've never heard it before.”

“It's also a song that's popular here around Christmastime with the children's choir.”

“That's exactly how I felt. I wanted to give my heart and life to God for Christmas.”

Both of us seemed to find great joy in the way our conversation flowed effortlessly like spring snowmelt on a sunny Minnesota morning. I had always followed my dad's advice to never talk to anyone about religion or politics. But this didn't feel like we were talking about religion. We were talking about a relationship and the way we had each come into a loving, growing relationship with the One who became a baby on that first Christmas so long ago.

Miranda leaned back in her wingback chair. “Your powers of concentration impress me. You've been drawing the whole time we've been talking.”

“I'm on a Christmas deadline. I'm making a princess coloring book for Julia.”

“You are?”

I handed her the book so she could see the first two completed illustrations.

“Anna, this is so cute. Julia is going to love it.” She looked over at me and gave me a look of amazement. It was the way I felt when I walked into her beautifully, artistically decorated home.

“The next one I'm going to draw is Princess Julia with her tiara in the backseat of a London taxi with stacks and stacks of pink macaroons. Well, actually, they'll be stacks of macaroons. She can color them anything she wants. Pink, green, purple.”

“You are so gifted, Anna. I can't believe you haven't done more illustrations for children's books. Would you like to do more?”

I nodded. “I'm just beginning to figure out how to write and illustrate my own books and have them printed as well.”

“Sounds like a huge endeavor.”

“It was.”

“Does that mean you've already published your own children's book?”

I hesitated. Prudence told me to keep my secret to myself. This could turn out to be quite embarrassing.

In my shoulder bag was a wrapped Christmas gift that I'd brought with me. I hadn't told anyone about it. No one had seen it yet, except for the printer in Pennsylvania that I paid in order to have three copies made. The other two copies were hidden in my room at home.

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean to sound pushy,” Miranda said.

“No. I didn't take it as pushy. I hesitated because I do have a children's book that I wrote. I have it with me. It's just that I haven't shown it to anyone yet.”

Miranda's eyes gave me a tender, pleading sort of look. “I would love to see it. I really would. If you don't feel comfortable showing me because it's a gift, I understand. I'll see it after you give it to Julia.”

I shifted in my chair, feeling uncomfortable and yet so eager to connect with Miranda. We'd been honest and open and vulnerable in our conversation ever since I entered this cottage of comfort and joy. It seemed stingy of me to hold back from showing her the gift.

With a deep breath for courage, I told Prudence to take a hike.

Miranda will understand. And if seeing the book prompts her to ask a lot more questions, so be it.

I pulled the bubble-wrapped gift from my bag and gingerly handed it to her with my telltale confession.

“The book isn't for Julia.”