Christmas at the Hummingbird House (9 page)

Her lips tightened with reproof as she shook her head.  “Derrick, just because you’re in the country doesn’t mean you can abandon your common sense.  Paul said he just drove up out of nowhere looking for work.”

“Rode,” corrected Derrick.  “He rode up.  On a Harley.”

Lindsay and Bridget exchanged an alarmed look, and Cici cast a helpless glance heavenward.

Derrick said, “You may be right.  It’s just that with all we have going on over the holidays he really was a godsend, and it just didn’t seem wise to look a gift horse too closely in the mouth, if you know what I mean.  He really can do anything. As a matter of fact,” he added on a note of brave resolve, “we’re talking about asking him to stay on even after the holidays.  A jack-of-all-trades is exactly what we need around here.”

“Are you talking about that fellow Mick?”  Dominic came up from behind them and rested an affectionate hand on Lindsay’s shoulder blade.  They were still newlyweds and at the stage where touching each other was as automatic as breathing.  “I was just talking to him.  Seems like a real stand-up guy.  Has some interesting stories, too.  He used to tag sharks in Indonesia, and raced the Baja 1000 last year.”

“There,” declared Derrick, relieved.  “What more do you need to know?  And Dominic thinks he’s a stand-up guy.  Dominic, let me get you a drink.  Ladies, have you met the Watersons?”

Lindsay stared at her husband.  “Tag sharks?  Why would anyone want to do that?”

“Oh, and there’s Louella Timpson,” Derrick added, expertly steering the ladies toward the group by the fireplace.  “Come, sit down, have a chat.” He raised his voice a little and waved to Louella Timpson.  “How are you, my dear?”  He bent his head close to Cici’s and added, sotto voce, “Don’t say anything about her hair.  Bad dye job at Missy’s Cut and Curl.  She’s very self-conscious about it.”  Then, turning toward the door, he called cheerfully, “Welcome!  Lovely to see you!  Come in, come in.  Let me get you a drink.  Your table will be ready momentarily.”

The ladies, looking only slightly less concerned than they had a moment ago, watched him bustle off.

“Seriously,” Lindsay demanded of Dominic.  “Sharks?”

“It’s a conservation thing,” he assured her.  “Very noble.”

“I don’t see anything noble about conserving sharks,” Lindsay replied with a frown.

“I don’t mean to be a mother hen,” Cici said, “but I can’t help worrying about them.  Paul and Derrick can be a little naive.”

“They have the biggest hearts in the world,” agreed Bridget, “but they’re not always the best judges of character.”

“To be fair,” Lindsay admitted, a little reluctantly, “we weren’t all that sure about Purline at first, either.  And she turned out okay.”

“She did lose the crepe pans,” Bridget could not resist pointing out.

“And nobody liked Harmony when she turned up here, either,” Cici added.

Lindsay frowned.  “Well, the jury is still out on her.”

“Ladies.” Dominic placed one hand on Cici’s back and the other on Bridget’s.  “you’ll forgive me for pointing out the obvious but …”  He glanced around the room in a meaningful way.  “The gentlemen seem to be doing rather well for themselves.  Perhaps, in the spirit of the holidays, you might give them the benefit of the doubt?”

Lindsay’s lips turned down in rueful amusement.  “You’re only saying that because Paul told you where he keeps the key to the wine cellar.”

Dominic’s eyes twinkled and he dropped a light kiss atop his wife’s hair. “Which is where I’m headed right now.  Go and talk to  Louella Timpson.  But,” he advised with a perfectly straight face, “don’t say anything about her hair.  She’s sensitive.”

The three women watched him go with universal affection.  “You know,” said Bridget, sipping from her glass, “he’s right.  We’re just being over protective.”

“We should be so lucky as Paul and Derrick,” agreed Cici.

“They have everything under control,” said Lindsay with a definitive nod of her head.

Bridget said, “And as soon as Kevin gets back from vacation I’m going to ask him to check out this Mick fellow.”

The three women, relieved, raised their glasses to that.

NINE

The Spirit of Christmas

W
reaths were hung, trees were decorated, lights were strung. Gingerbread baked in the oven and wassail simmered on the stove, filling the air with the aroma of Christmas spices.  Every surface sparkled.  Fires were laid in each guest room, awaiting only the strike of a match, and the London Symphony Orchestra’s recording of
The
Nutcracker Suite
wafted softly from speakers throughout the public rooms.  A framed copy of the dinner menu was artfully placed on every dressing table, and on each bed, in a leather bound commemorative folder, the day’s agenda was printed in scroll font on heavy vellum paper.  No detail had been overlooked, from the cut-glass canisters in the bathrooms filled with lavender scented cotton balls, to the fragrant basket of evergreens and cinnamon sticks that flanked the front door.  This was the moment everyone at the Hummingbird House had been working for, planning for, and waiting for all year.  Their Christmas guests arrived today.

Gift baskets filled with hand-poured chocolates, local cheeses, preserves, water crackers and a bottle of Ladybug Farm wine were thoughtfully placed in each guest room—with the exception of the room the two teenage girls shared, whose basket contained a bottle of sparkling cider—along with complimentary wineglasses etched with hummingbirds, a corkscrew tastefully imprinted with the name and phone number of the B&B, and of course, a copy of the Geoffery Allen Windsor book.  Hand-loomed Christmas stockings, one for each guest, were hung above the fireplace in every room, specifically designed to coordinate with the mantelscape, of course.  The bins were filled with firewood, the walk was so thoroughly swept it practically gleamed, and even Mother Nature had cooperated with a delicate frosting of snow that dusted the winter lawn and the holly bushes like confectioner’s sugar.  Everything was perfect. They were ready.

Almost.

Derrick paced back and forth in front of the window in the reception area, the telephone pressed to his ear.  “Still no answer,” he fretted.  “How could she do this to us?  How can she not answer her phone?”

“She’s in India,” replied Paul calmly from behind the big desk.  He was intently focused on the display he was creating with an antique wooden train, a sheet of cotton batting and a collection of miniature Christmas trees.  “I don’t think they have cell phone service at an ashram.”

Derrick pocketed his phone, his face a study in anxiety.  “But Mrs. Hildebrand has booked a massage for nine o’clock tonight, and the Mathesons for ten in the morning, and … well, we’re booked practically on the hour every hour for the whole weekend, and we have no massage therapist!  I
knew
this would happen.  How could I not know?”

“Relax,” replied Paul, tucking a sprig of evergreen beneath the carpet of cotton batting.  “Harmony said they’d be here, and they will.  It’s barely noon, after all.”

“How can you be so calm?” demanded Derrick, scowling.  “This is a crisis!”

“Oh, I don’t know.”  Paul stepped back to admire his work, smiling.  “There’s something about seeing this little train that always puts me in a good mood. It’s like childhood in a box.”

“Did Santa bring you that, Mr. Paul?” inquired a small voice from behind them.

Paul turned, and even the sight of one of Purline’s boys in the reception room barely four hours before guests were due did not erase the smile from his face.  “Why, yes he did, young Jacob-or-Joshua,” he replied.  “When I was a tyke not much older than yourself.  And he gave it to my father before me and his father before him.  It was handmade in Holland almost two hundred years ago, you know, and has been passed down through my family since that time.  It’s my most precious possession.”

“Even more precious than your crepe pans?”  Purline came around the corner in her puffy jacket and ski cap, the other twin in tow.  Her tone was slightly sarcastic, because Paul never lost an opportunity to remind her of how valuable the pans were, to which she repeatedly replied that the pans were not lost, simply temporarily misplaced amidst all the Christmas falderal, and how many people really liked crepes anyway?

Paul’s smile did falter a smidgen then, and he replied archly, “As a matter of fact, yes. You may be interested to know this little wooden train set is worth far more to me than anything else I own, although I do expect to see those crepe pans back on the stove making crepes before the Christmas season is over.”

Purline rolled her eyes.  “I left ham sandwiches in the fridge for your lunch,” she said, “and I put the chicken and wine in the Dutch oven.”

“Coq au vin,” correct Derrick.  “It’s called coq au vin.  You used the cabernet, didn’t you?  Not the Riesling we’re chilling to serve with dessert?”

“I used the one you opened and set on the counter with a big sign that said ‘use this one,’” she informed him.  “Just let the chicken sit and simmer ’til you’re ready to serve.  The gingerbread is cooling, and the bread needs to warm at three hundred for fifteen minutes. Don’t forget to take the butter out of the fridge half an hour before supper to let it soften. You sure you don’t want me to come back after you eat and clear away?”

“We can put the dishes in the dishwasher,” Paul assured her.

“And don’t forget to put the tablecloths in to soak,” she reminded him.  “Anything that gets spilled on them will go hard as clay by the morning, and I don’t have all day to be rubbing spots out of your tablecloths.”

“We’ve done this before, Purline,” Paul reminded her.

“I wouldn’t go,” she said, still sounding worried, “but the kids are doing their Christmas pageant tonight, and I’ve got to finish gluing cotton balls on the sheep costumes. These two are sheep,” she said proudly, slicking back a strand of hair on one of the twins, “and Mimi’s an angel.”

“Not a real angel,” piped up little Jacob-or-Joshua.  “Just a pretend one.”

Derrick looked around nervously.  “Where is Mimi, anyway?”

“Getting the kids’ coats,” replied Purline.  She glanced around.  “Did them massage people ever show up?  You want me to call Holly down at the Cut and Curl?  She does a real nice foot rub before she paints your nails.”

“I’m sure that won’t be necessary, Purline,” Paul said quickly, before a horrified Derrick could form a reply.

“Here I am, Mama!” cried Mimi, skipping into the foyer with an armful of coats.  Derrick winced as an errant jacket sleeve sent a string of tiny bells on the reception area Christmas tree to jingling.  She skidded to a stop beside her mother and stared up at the two men solemnly.  “I’m going to be a angel,” she said.

“Yes, we heard,” replied Derrick with a brief smile, and turned to her mother.  “Purline …”

“Not a real angel,” reiterated a twin stubbornly.  “Not like angel-man.”

Derrick, having drawn breath to address Purline, stopped and looked at him.  Paul spoke first.  “Angel man?”

“That’s what they call your hired hand,” explained Purline with an expression somewhere between contempt and suspicion.

“He’s got feathers on his arms,” explained the other twin.

This time the two men simply turned to Purline and waited for the translation.

“They mean his tattoos,” she said.  “They’re wings.  Nasty things.”  She leaned close to Paul and Derrick and lowered her voice.  “You know who else has wings tattooed on their arms, don’t you?”

At their confused silence she moved even closer and whispered with a sharp note of satisfaction, “Hell’s Angels, that’s who!”

Paul and Derrick could not prevent an uneasy glance out the window, where Mick could be seen applying a cement patch to one of the rock walls in the garden that had become a little wobbly in the past day or so.  Though they couldn’t hear him through the window, they knew he was whistling a Christmas carol, as he always did when he worked.  What fascinated everyone in the house, and often caused them to stop what they were doing and simply listen for minutes at a time, was that Mick never whistled the same carol that was being played on the house stereo system, but he somehow managed to maintain his own perfect tune and rhythm with an entirely different song.

Paul turned away from the window and said, with all the conviction he could muster, “People are allowed to have tattoos, Purline.”

“Besides,” added Derrick, “I don’t think there even are Hell’s Angels anymore.  Not around here, anyway.”

“And just how would you know that?” demanded Purline.

“I read it on the Internet.”

“Oh, well then.” She did not bother to disguise her disdain.  “It must be true.”

“Anyway,” Paul said firmly, “you may as well get used to having him around because we’ve asked him to stay on through the holiday and chauffeur our guests, among other things.  The drivers Harmony suggested have turned out to be less than reliable.”

“Just like her massage therapists,” Derrick muttered.

Purline gave Paul a skeptical look.  “You think them fancy-pants lawyers and doctors and their nose-in-the-air women are gonna get in a car at night with somebody that looks like him?  Good luck with that.”

Paul glanced out the window again, looking mildly concerned.  “You know,” he told Derrick, “she may have a point.”

“Perhaps a makeover,” Derrick suggested.  “I think I have an old tuxedo that would fit him.  What do you suppose he is, a thirty-six waist?”

Paul looked at him indulgently.  “My dear, you are many wonderful things, but a size thirty-six you have never been.”

Before Derrick could register a retort, Purline interrupted with, “Well, you two figure it out.  I gotta get going.”

“Purline,” Derrick said, “if you’re going by the post office on your way home, I wonder if you’d be good enough to mail some letters for me.”  He gestured hopefully toward the office.

She said, “Well, all right, but hurry up.  I’ve got a list as long as my arm to get done this afternoon.”  She turned to her daughter as Derrick led the way to the office. “Help your brothers get their coats on, honey, and wait for Mama on the porch.”

She followed Derrick to the office and Paul, slipping from behind the reception desk, joined them.  “Actually,” he said, a little anxiously, “there was something we wanted to discuss with you, this being the children’s last day here.”

“I told you, I’m not working Christmas morning.”  She took the stack of envelopes Derrick passed to her from behind the desk and glanced through them curiously.  “What is all this? Christmas cards?”

“Our annual donations,” explained Derrick, “and the last of the gift cards for our friends.”

She glanced at him, puzzled.  “Gift cards?  You mean, like money?”

“Well, yes,” said Paul.  “So much easier all the way around.”

Her frown was clearly disapproving.  “That’s like paying a bill.  What’s that got to do with Christmas?”

“We have a lot of friends,” Paul told her, in a tone that was only a little condescending. “We couldn’t possibly shop for every single one.”

She sniffed her disapproval, thumbing through the envelopes.  “In my house, it’s not about how much you spend, but how much you care.  The real presents are the ones money can’t buy, that’s what I always tell my kids.”

Paul and Derrick exchanged another uneasy look, then Derrick opened a drawer of the desk and quickly pulled out a box wrapped in red paper.  “Speaking of which,” he said.  “We, um, got this for the children.” He offered the box to her.  “We thought you might like to put it under the tree for them since we won’t be seeing them again before Christmas.”

Purline took the gift hesitantly, her face softening with wonder.  For a moment she just looked at the package in her hand, and then she said softly. “Well, if you two ain’t just the sweetest things.”

Paul and Derrick smiled their satisfaction.  “Christmas is about the children,” Derrick said.

Paul told her, “It’s a video game console.  Our friend Bridget said they might like it.”

“I hope they don’t already have one,” Derrick added.

Purline looked up at them, a small frown knotting her brow.  “Those things cost a couple of hundred bucks.”

Derrick waved a dismissing hand.  “Our pleasure.”

She began to shake her head.  “It’s not that I don’t appreciate the thought,” she said firmly, thrusting the package back at Derrick, “and all the trouble you went to, but you need to take this right back to the store and get your money back.  My kids’ve got no use for such as this.”

“Oh, but Purline,” Paul assured her, “we have it on the best authority that the games are suitable for all ages.”

“We made certain of it,” Derrick added confidently.

“In the first place,” she continued, still holding the package at arm’s length, “we don’t even allow our babies to watch the TV.  In the second place, it’s too much money. Now you take it back and get the boys a couple of picture books, and little Mimi a nice puzzle. Puppies or kittens or something.  Here.”

She pushed the package into Derrick’s chest and he took it reluctantly.  Seeing his disappointment, she smiled and patted his arm.  “You really are the sweetest things,” she said.  “And don’t you worry about not seeing the kids again before Christmas.  Looks like they’ll be coming to work with me the rest of the week.  Mama’s not flying back until Friday.”  Ignoring the unilateral dismay that crossed her bosses’ faces, she held up the handful of envelopes and added, “I’ll get these in the mail for you.”