Aunt Dimity's Christmas (5 page)

“Bill's father has already volunteered,” I said smoothly. “In fact, William would like to take over the role entirely, if it's okay with Lilian.”

The vicar's face cleared. “She'll be delighted. God knows she doesn't want Mrs. Kitchen playing Joseph.” He sneezed twice, stood to blow his nose, then bent low
again. “Lilian told me about the unfortunate gentleman you rescued yesterday. Have you any news of him?”

I'd spoken with Dr. Pritchard before I left the cottage, so I was able to give the vicar an update on the tramp's condition.

“He's still unconscious,” I told him, “but he's stable.”

“Thank the Lord,” the vicar said gravely. “No idea who the fellow is?”

“None,” I said. “The police have sent out John Doe bulletins to all of the local shelters, but so far no one's identified him.”

The vicar sighed. “Poor chap. I'll offer up a prayer for him at evensong. Mr. Barlow sends his best wishes as well.”

“I'll pass them along,” I said.

I closed the window, oddly comforted by the vicar's words. It was a relief to know that not everyone in Finch was as narrow-minded as Peggy Kitchen.

Oxford was as unpleasant as ever, noisy and traffic-choked, a lumpy conglomeration of beautiful colleges swallowed whole, but never fully digested, by a sprawling, unkempt town.

The slushy conditions had reduced the usual stream of bicyclists to a trickle, but the swarming hordes of students had been replaced by hordes of holiday shoppers, none of whom seemed to know the most elementary rules of traffic safety. I frightened a good half-dozen pedestrians before finding sanctuary in a parking garage near the Radcliffe.

Dr. Pritchard was with a patient when I arrived at the reception desk, but he'd told Reception to expect me and assigned a round-faced, red-haired student nurse to take me through to intensive care.

Nurse Willoughby was one of those annoying individuals who seem to thrive on the smell of disinfectant. While she bounced merrily along, I kept my eyes trained on her heels and breathed shallowly through my mouth.

“Our patient is in an isolation ward, because of his pneumonia,” the young nurse informed me brightly. “He hasn't regained consciousness yet, but that's not necessarily a bad sign. Matron says it may be that his body needs a good, long rest.” She turned a broad smile in my direction. “I can understand your interest in him, Ms. Shepherd. He's …” The young nurse blushed prettily. “He's really something special. We all think so. Even Matron.”

We stopped at a nurses' station overlooking a glass-walled cubicle, and I exchanged my cashmere coat and leather shoulder bag for a wraparound surgical gown and a tie-on surgical mask.

“You see what I mean?” Nurse Willoughby whispered. She motioned toward three nurses standing before the cubicle. “They come here during their breaks, just to get a glimpse of him.” Her freckled face became somber. “It's not just that he's handsome,” she said gravely. “Anyone can be handsome, but he's got an air about him … as if he's come to remind us of why our jobs are so important. We're taking better care of all our patients because of him.” She tugged my gown's elastic cuff into place. “But you know what I mean. You've seen him already.”

I smiled amiably, even though I hadn't the foggiest notion what Nurse Willoughby meant. The tramp, as I recalled him, had been about as inspirational as a latter-day Howard Hughes.

“You're sure this is the right guy?” I asked. “The elderly man who—”

“Elderly man?” Nurse Willoughby exclaimed. “You can
hardly call our patient elderly, Ms. Shepherd. Dr. Pritchard says he's no more than forty years old.”

I stared at her, taken aback. I could scarcely believe that the gaunt and gray-haired man who'd lain on our sofa was only a few years older than my husband. “You're sure?”

Nurse Willoughby was positive. “You must've been fooled by his hair color—prematurely gray, Matron says. And of course he's so terribly thin…. Now,” she continued, in a businesslike tone, “Dr. Pritchard's waived the rules about visiting hours, but you'll still have only ten minutes with our patient.”

“That's fine by me,” I told her.

The tramp's admirers dispersed as we approached the glass-walled cubicle. Nurse Willoughby opened the door, pulled it shut behind me, and returned to the nurses' station.

I paused just inside the doorway, gazing once more at the floor. I wasn't a trained nurse. I didn't find sick people fascinating. I'd made it through the hospital corridors with my dignity intact, but coming face-to-face with a critically ill patient was another matter. Still, I thought, I'd promised Aunt Dimity…. I braced myself and lifted my gaze.

The tramp seemed as frail as an autumn leaf. His collarbones stood out in sharp relief against the pale-blue hospital gown, and his long, tapering fingers were hidden beneath layers of gauze. A clear plastic oxygen mask covered his nose and mouth, IVs snaked from his arms, and thin wires connected him to a bank of beeping, blinking machines that loomed at the far side of his bed. His long hair was clipped short, his shaggy beard shaved off, and an overhead lamp cast a halo of light upon a face so beautiful it took my breath away.

He wasn't an old man. I could see that now. His skin was
weathered but taut, his chin firm, and the long lashes casting half-moon shadows on his windburned cheeks were as dark as my own. I took one step, then another, until I stood beside his bed, looking down on a face I'd seen, but hadn't seen. His wide-set eyes and curving lips might have been carved by Michelangelo.

The long, dark lashes fluttered, the eyelids slowly opened, and the cubicle seemed to vanish as I fell into the depths of his violet eyes. In them I glimpsed a soul wiser, braver, and kinder by far than my own, a soul scarred but undaunted by suffering. He gazed at me so trustingly that for a moment I believed I'd come there not merely to observe, but to save him. I stood spellbound, unaware of my surroundings, until he blinked once, twice, smiled as sweetly as a child, and closed his eyes.

Suddenly, Nurse Willoughby was at my side, pointing to her watch. I turned, as if awakened from a dream, and caught sight of a man staring through the cubicle's glass wall. He was tall and well built—in his fifties, I guessed—and dressed all in black: black turtleneck, black jeans, and a black-leather bomber jacket. His fringe of graying hair thinned to peach fuzz on the top of his head and he sported a neatly trimmed goatee. His long, pouchy face and sad brown eyes reminded me strongly of a placid basset hound.

Nurse Willoughby touched my arm and we left the cubicle, the young nurse looking back a dozen times, as if to fix the tramp's features in her memory. I needed no backward glance. The tramp's face was as clear in my mind as Bill's.

“He opened his eyes,” I said, as I stripped off the protective clothing.

“Highly unlikely,” Nurse Willoughby informed me.

“He opened his eyes and he smiled,” I insisted.

“An involuntary reflex, perhaps,” she allowed.

“I know what I saw,” I stated firmly.

“And I know what the instruments tell me,” she replied, with equal firmness. “You want him to be well, Ms. Shepherd. We all do. But wanting something doesn't make it so. Our patient is deeply unconscious. He couldn't possibly respond to your presence or communicate with you in any way.” She patted my arm. “It was probably a trick of the light.”

She was trying to be kind, but I felt the same frustration I'd felt when well-meaning people told me that my babies' smiles had more to do with gas than with glee. I was about to argue the point further when the man in the black leather jacket approached me.

“Lori Shepherd?” he inquired.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Dr. Pritchard told me you'd be along,” the man said. “I'm Julian Bright.” He put out his hand. “Would you care to come to Cambridgeshire with me?”

T
he request was so preposterous that I didn't know whether to laugh or call for help. “Thank you, Mr. Bright, but I don't usually accept invitations from complete strangers.”

“Please, call me Julian,” he said, with a reassuring smile. “And believe me when I tell you that my intentions are honorable. I don't intend to make a pass at you—or any other woman, for that matter.”

I took in the goatee and the black leather jacket and felt myself blush. “Oh,” I said carefully. “I didn't realize.” I motioned toward the cubicle, wondering how best to phrase my next question. “Are you …
involved
with the man in there?”

The reassuring smile became a broad grin. “I'm not a homosexual, if that's what you're asking. I'm a priest. A Roman Catholic priest. And I am deeply involved with the man in there. I owe him my life.”

Nurse Willoughby put her head between us. “I'm sorry, Julian, but you'll have to take your conversation elsewhere.”
She handed over my coat and shoulder bag. “You know what Matron will say if she finds you blocking the passageway again.”

“One moment, please, Nurse Willoughby,” said Julian. “I'm in need of a character reference. Would you be so kind as to inform Ms. Shepherd that I'm an honorable gentleman who means her no harm?”

“I'd be happy to.” The red-haired nurse tilted her head toward me and said, in a confidential murmur, “He's mad as a March hare.”

“That's not exactly—” Julian began, but Nurse Willoughby cut him off.

“He gave up a posh parish to run a doss-house,” she told me. “Makes the rounds here every morning, looking for his lost sheep. Matron says he was in line to become bishop, but he threw it all away for a lot of old soaks.”

“Pure self-interest,” Julian said quickly. “I fully expect to find a a masquerading millionaire among Saint Benedict's drug addicts and drunks.”

Nurse Willoughby laughed. “When you do, give him my name, will you? I could do with a few extra bob.” She waggled her fingers at us. “Now run along before Matron throws a fit.”

“If anyone wants us, we'll be in the cafeteria,” said Julian, and before I could object, he took me by the elbow and steered me down the hospital corridor. “Dr. Pritchard told me that you called out the RAF rescue squad for Smitty. I can't tell you how grateful I am. A lot of people would've looked the other way.”

“It wasn't really my idea,” I confessed, embarrassed by the undeserved praise.

“But you're here now,” Julian pointed out. “Not every woman would take time out of her busy holiday schedule to visit a man like Smitty.”

I shrugged weakly. “That wasn't my idea, either.”

“But you're glad you spent time with him,” Julian ventured. “I can see it in your face.”

Startled, I lifted a hand to my cheek. Did I look as starstruck as the knot of nurses I'd seen clustered around the tramp's cubicle? “Is his name really Smitty or is it just a nickname?”

“It's what we call him at Saint Benedict's,” Julian replied.

We entered a brightly lit, cheerfully painted cafeteria that seemed to cater to patients, staff, and visitors alike. Almost everyone in the room called a greeting to Julian as he escorted me to a corner table.

“Cup of tea?” he asked.

“Yes, please.” I folded my coat over the chair next to mine and rested my arms on the table, feeling as though I'd been washed ashore by a minor tidal wave. Julian Bright might look like a placid basset hound, but he had the energy of a fox terrier. He paused at a dozen tables on his way to the tea urn, fielding questions, tossing off quips, and at one point kneeling on the floor to speak quietly with a young girl in a wheelchair. I needed no further proof that he was indeed the honorable gentleman he claimed to be.

As I waited for my tea, a flock of questions flitted through my mind. How well did Julian know Smitty? Had the tramp really saved his life? Above all, why would a Catholic priest invite me to go with him to Cambridgeshire?

Julian returned with three cups of tea on a blue plastic tray. He placed two of the cups in front of me, set aside the third for himself, hung his black leather jacket on the back of his chair, and sat opposite me.

I pointed to the pair of teacups. “Why two?”

“To help you recover from the shock of meeting me.” He added milk to his tea and stirred. “I'm afraid I got rather ahead of myself back there. It's just that it's my night
to supervise dinner at Saint Benedict's, which means that I have to leave for Cambridgeshire in less than an hour. I'd very much like you to come with me.”

“Why?” I asked.

“To help Smitty find the specialized care he'll need once he leaves here.” Julian laid his spoon aside. “Unless you're willing to take him in.”

“Er, I, uh …” I sipped my tea and fumbled for an answer. “I hadn't planned on it.”

“I can't do it, either,” said Julian. “Saint Benedict's is no place for a man with his sort of illness.”