Christmas Bells (28 page)

“What do you mean? Is Sophia leaving St. Margaret's?”

“Oh, no, certainly not. It's her other job—her paying job. She teaches music at Peleg Wadsworth Elementary in Watertown.”

“That's where Paul attended school.”

“Yes, I remember,” said Winifred, thinking of the boy she had known so many years before, the bright lad with an ear for music and no piano at home to play upon. His school music classes had made a great difference in his life. He had told her so. “Our Sophia found out earlier this afternoon that her position is being eliminated. It's terribly unfortunate, not only for her but for her students. The state budget for education was slashed, as I'm sure you know, and a local tax levy measure failed in last month's election. Since the federal funding almost certainly won't come through—”

“Why is that?” Mrs. Barrett interrupted. “Why almost certainly?”

“Well, with your late husband's passing,” said Winifred delicately, “the vote in the Senate is guaranteed to go the other way, isn't it?”

“I most definitely disagree. Let's not concede defeat until the Senate reconvenes and we see where the votes lie.”

“Of course you know much more about politics than I do, but isn't the fellow who's expected to replace your husband entirely set against it?”

“You must mean the governor's brother-in-law.” Mrs. Barrett frowned. “The governor hasn't appointed an interim senator yet, but you're right, rumor has it that his brother-in-law is the front-runner.”

Winifred refrained from admitting that she had a more reliable source than mere rumor. A certain member of the governor's staff served on St. Margaret's Altar Committee, and she liked to chat. “Perhaps the governor will have a change of heart,” she said, although her source suggested otherwise.

Mrs. Barrett folded her arms and shrugged, her black purse dangling from the crook of her arm. “The governor should want to avoid charges of nepotism. What he really ought to do is choose someone as qualified as his brother-in-law but more appealing to voters. Someone likable, perhaps someone other than a career politician.”

“Someone who cares about education and the poor.” Winifred smiled brightly. “Perhaps I should volunteer.”

Mrs. Barrett smiled. “Why not? I could put in a good word for you if you like. I expect to see the governor tonight.”

“No, no, dear me, no,” Winifred exclaimed, until she realized Mrs. Barrett was teasing her. “Very well, then, if you insist. It's not a position I would seek out, but if I'm asked to serve, I couldn't possibly refuse.”

After promising to be in touch with any news, Mrs. Barrett explained that she was expected at a benefit dinner and hurried
off to her car. By then rehearsal had concluded, so Winifred went to the front of the church to bid the children farewell. When she found Alex putting on his coat, it was difficult not to confess that Mrs. Barrett was making inquiries on his father's behalf. “I hope you have a very Merry Christmas, Alex,” she said instead.

“Thanks,” he said, suddenly glum. “It won't be the same without my dad around.”

“I'm sure that's true, dear.”

“There's stuff he does to make it special, you know? It won't feel like Christmas without him, especially if the stupid Internet is still broken and we can't even talk to him.”

“Well—” Winifred paused to think. “Is there anything you can do to fill in for your father?”

“Like what?”

“The stuff he does to make Christmas special, as you say. Can you do any of it in his place?” Quickly Winifred added, “Only safe things, of course. Nothing involving fire or rockets.”

Alex grinned. “Christmas fire rockets. Cool.”

“Only safe things,” she repeated emphatically. At that moment, Charlotte approached to collect her brother. “Oh, Charlotte, dear, I have a favor to ask.”

“Sure, Sister. Anything.”

“Miss Sophia put me in charge of making the programs for the choir concert, and I thought it would be lovely to include the poem from your Christmas story.”

A smile briefly lit up the girl's face before worry replaced it. “I'd like that, but . . .”

“But what, dear?”

She winced and tucked her hands into her coat pockets. “I was kind of hoping everyone would forget about it.”

“But it's such a charming story,” Winifred protested. “At the very least, I think you really ought to share it with your mother.”

Charlotte's eyes widened in alarm. “You told her I got it back?”

“Didn't she know?” One look at the girl's stricken expression gave Winifred her answer. “Oh, dear. My apologies, Charlotte. I assumed you had told her.”

“Told her what?” Alex queried.

Ignoring him, Charlotte gulped air. “It's okay. She knew about the assignment, and the contest. I read the story to her before I turned it in. She would've asked about it eventually, or my teacher would've told her.”

“What story?” Alex persisted. “What contest?”

“Your sister wrote a wonderful Christmas tale,” Winifred told him.

“Oh, that. I thought it was a poem.” Alex frowned at his sister, confused. “I know it was. I saw you working on it—I mean, I
heard
you working on it, and working on it, and working on it. You kept repeating lines and changing one word and changing it back.”

Winifred and Charlotte exchanged a look. “You remember that clearly?” Winifred asked him.

“Well, yeah. It was really annoying. And now that poem is stuck in my head. ‘I heard the choir on Christmas Day, I'd rather go outside and play, than hear my sister's poem all day.'”

“That's not how it goes,” Charlotte snapped.

“Maybe that's how it
should
go.”

Charlotte took a deep breath, let it out, and regarded Alex with barely contained exasperation. “I'm not going to get mad at you, and you know why? Because we're in church, and because you're a witness.”

Alex's face wrinkled up in bewilderment. “What did I witness?”

“My creative process.”

“I don't get it.”

“That's okay. Mom will.” Charlotte smiled tentatively up at Winifred. “Thanks, Sister. You can use my poem for the concert program. See you Christmas Eve.” She tugged her brother's coat
sleeve, and the two children hurried off to meet their mother at the door.

Winifred watched them go, smiling.

The church had fallen quiet as the children departed, and when Winifred glanced around, she realized that Father Ryan had left as well—to phone his brother, she hoped. A laugh caught her attention, and she turned around to discover Sophia and Lucas putting away sheet music and tidying up the choir seats. “Should I meddle?” she mused aloud. “Oh, why not. I've already caused so much mischief today, what's a little more?”

It was not exactly the soundest ethical argument she had ever made, but when she considered how Sister Mary Joan might have responded if Winifred had asked her advice, she imagined her old friend and mentor smiling in amusement and raising no objections.

“Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” she murmured, crossing the transept to join the young people at the piano. “Such a delightful rehearsal,” she declared, and they broke off their work and conversation to smile back. “That first carol the children sang, the one based upon the poem by Longfellow—I'm not as familiar with it as the others but I'm quite taken with it.”

“I'm glad you enjoyed it,” said Sophia. “Every year I like to include a song or two with a connection to the community.”

“Oh, yes, Longfellow was a local boy, wasn't he?” Winifred gave a little start. “Oh, I shouldn't keep you two, tonight of all nights. Don't you have a traditional date after the last rehearsal before the Christmas Eve concert? You go out for a bite to eat and exchange Christmas gifts, isn't that right?”

“Well—” Sophia threw Lucas a quick glance. “I guess it
is
a tradition, but I don't think we would call it a—” She fell abruptly silent and glanced at Lucas again.

“We usually go out and celebrate after the concert,” Lucas quickly explained. “Not that, I mean, not that we're going out in any sense other than, you know. Going. And out.”

“So it's a tradition,” said Winifred carefully, making sure she got it right, “but not a date, and you aren't going out tonight, but on the night after the concert, and you may be going
outside
, but you are not
going
out
.”

Sophia and Lucas looked at each other, and then at her, and then in unison they nodded, Sophia embarrassed, Lucas pained.

Winifred shook her head and laughed. “Well, I might have gotten it word perfect but I don't understand half of what I just said. Goodness, young couples today certainly have a way of making simple things unnecessarily complex! I blame social media.”

“We're not a couple,” Sophia blurted. When Lucas winced, Sophia's regret was clearly deep and immediate. “I said that about ten times more emphatically than I should have. I was only trying to clarify— I didn't mean—”

Lucas managed a smile. “It's really okay. I understand.”

Winifred knew it was time to make her exit. “I'll leave you to it, then, whatever your plans for the evening are.” She turned and began to walk away, but then she paused to smile back at them. “I must say, in this festive season, there's something so absolutely wonderful and life-affirming about seeing a young couple in love. It just warms my heart.”

With one last nod for each of them, she continued on her way.

Just as she reached the door, she heard Sophia ask Lucas, “Do you think she meant us?”

Winifred waited for the door to close behind her before she burst into merry laughter.

Christmas 1863

Although Charley chafed to be confined to the house and lamented his absence from the First Massachusetts Cavalry, Henry knew that his eldest son was happy to spend Christmas at home among his family. He grew stronger every day, and he whistled and sang as he went about the house, playing chess with Ernest, singing at the pianoforte with Alice, and delighting Edith and Annie by attending a series of dainty tea parties in the nursery. Once Henry even came upon Charley in the study, propped up with a lotus-leaf pillow in the largest chair, ordering supplies for his next campaign.

“One would think you were returning to the field tomorrow,” Henry had exclaimed, able to regard his son's eagerness with good humor knowing that Dr. McGill had forbidden him to rejoin his regiment for six months. “That tomorrow is a good way off.”

“I want to be prepared,” Charley had said, grimacing slightly. He never uttered a single murmur of complaint, though he had a wound through his back a foot long. He pretended it did not hurt
him, but Henry knew better. Every morning he had to help Charley wash and dress, and even those simple tasks caused him pain. Henry admired his son's newfound sense of responsibility, but Henry considered the six-month prescribed convalescence to be a great gift, and not a day passed but he was thankful for it.

Christmas Eve at Craigie House was a simple but joyous affair, with a tree for the children on Christmas Eve and the reading of Charles Dickens's thrilling
A Christmas Carol
by the fireside in the evening. The next morning there were gifts to open and carols to sing, and at midday the family enjoyed a delicious feast, with a menu that boasted many of Charley's favorite dishes.

In the late afternoon, after bidding farewell to a few last callers and seeing the children settled down to new books and toys, Henry decided to go for a stroll. He had brought home a bothersome cold from Washington, and he hoped a turn in the brisk, frosty air would clear his head.

As Henry passed through the gate and stepped onto the sidewalk, a sudden gust of wind jostled his hat. He pulled it on more firmly, tightened his scarf, and set out with his back to the wind. In the distance he heard a church bell ringing out a poignant carol, like a voice calling out a joyful Christmas greeting to listeners far and near, a wish for peace on Earth and goodwill to all.

Henry smiled, remembering the great, sonorous pealing of bells that had heralded the dawn of Christmas that morning. Every belfry had proclaimed the good news of the birth of the Christ Child, in Boston and Cambridge and throughout Christendom, one unbroken song of peace and love as the sun rose and darkness gave way to light.

Then a shadow fell over his thoughts. Had the young men on the battlefield heard the distant bells welcoming Christmas morning, or had the sublime carol been drowned out by the thundering of cannon? How many sons, brothers, fathers, and husbands in camps, on battlefields, or in hospitals had perished
in the time that the bells had tolled the promise of peace and goodwill? The nation had been rent asunder, and many a family with it. It seemed impossible that there could be a single household, North or South, that did not grieve on that Christmas Day, missing a beloved soldier shivering in a camp or hospital or prison hundreds of miles from home, mourning one who had fallen to artillery or illness, suffering all the deprivations and dangers of war, appealing to the Lord for deliverance that never came.

Did those forlorn households hear the joyful ringing of Christmas bells or the sorrowful tolling that marked a funeral? Did they hear merry pealing, or only an echo of the bleak misery of war?

Henry's throat constricted. It seemed absurd to celebrate Christmas in such dark days. Songs of peace on Earth and goodwill to men mocked the last cry of a soldier cut down by a bullet, the unfathomable grief of an enslaved mother whose child had been snatched from her arms and sold away from her forever, the endless mourning of countless wives, children, mothers, sisters, and sweethearts whose hearts had died with the men they loved, uncounted casualties of war. There was no peace on Earth, only war, war and death and abandonment and mourning. Where was God's peace? Where, for that matter, was God? When countless voices cried out His name in the hour of death, in the endless years of mourning, why did He do nothing?

“God is not dead,” a gentle voice spoke behind him, “nor doth He sleep.”

“Fanny—” Henry whirled about, but no one stood behind him. A horse pulled a sleigh a block away down Brattle Street, light spilled through the windows of dozens of houses, merry laughter and music momentarily broke the stillness as a front door opened to welcome guests and closed again—but Henry stood on the sidewalk alone.

A steady wind stirred his whiskers and scarf; a few lacy flakes of snow fell upon his eyelashes. He blinked them away, his breath trapped in his throat, aching and raw. He had heard Fanny's voice so clearly, so unmistakably, so warm and compassionate and familiar and close that he should have felt her breath on his cheek.

“Fanny,” he murmured, tears filling his eyes.

He was alone, and yet he was not.

“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep,” Henry repeated, committing the phrase to memory. Quickly he strode down Brattle Street toward home. He could not pretend to comprehend God's plan, but he had faith that there was one, and in the fullness of time, all would be revealed. Evil would fail and good would triumph. Surely someday there would indeed be peace on Earth and goodwill to all—Union and Confederate, slave and free, man and woman, believer and skeptic.

He would write about it, and perhaps, in his way, he could help bring about that better, peaceful, harmonious world the bells proclaimed when they filled the skies with their joyous carols on Christmas Day.