Christmas Carol (37 page)

“I don’t know how we will get that turkey to
the hall,” Mrs. Marks fussed.

“I shall carry it,” Crampton told her, “and I
shall carve it, too. You have done a lovely job on it, Mrs. Marks.
The bird will provide the perfect centerpiece to the main
course.”

“They already have two turkeys, you know,”
said Hettie, closing the last tin of cookies. “There are people in
the kitchen over at St. Fiacre’s carvin’ them right now.”

“Nonetheless, / shall carve this one where
everyone can see it,” Crampton responded. “The sight of an entire
bird beautifully roasted to a perfect shade of brown will add to
the festive air of the meal.”

“Exactly right, Crampton,” said Mrs.
Marks.

“I suggest that you ladies retire for twenty
minutes or so, in order to prepare yourselves, and then we will
leave,” Crampton said.

Smiling to herself at the way in which the
formerly standoffish servants were warming to the plans she had
instigated, Carol hurried to her room to hide the last batch of
parcels in her closet. She pulled out a simple gray wool dress and
changed into it, wrapping the new green scarf around her throat and
fastening it with a gold pin in the shape of a leaf. It had once
belonged to her grandmother and for sentimental reasons, Carol had
refused to part with it when she gave up all other traces of past
luxury.

The group from Marlowe House made a merry
parade through the streets to St. Fiacre’s Bountiful Board, where
the rector greeted them at the door. Carol quickly discovered that
she need not have worried over the way she would be received.
Lucius Kincaid gave her the same friendly smile he bestowed on the
others with her. Carol also found that his almost Victorian manner
of speech no longer irritated her. Rather, knowing now the kind of
person he really was, she thought his speech was charming.

“Good heavens,” Lucius Kincaid said,
surveying the food they carried. “I knew you were coming to help
us, but I never expected all of this. My friends, you have made
Christmas immeasurably happier for many souls tonight.

“And please do notice,” he added, waving an
arm to indicate the decorated front door and the interior of the
hall, “that an anonymous donor has sent us wreaths and flowers.
It’s quite remarkable, really, to find someone so sensitive and so
generous. Few people remember that even those who live in the
direst poverty can appreciate beauty when it is shown to them. Of
course, we need food to nourish their bodies, but we ought not to
forget to feed their spirits as well.”

“Amen to that.” The florist with whom Carol
had dealt earlier in the day had spoken from behind Lucius
Kincaid’s back, and she winked at Carol.

When the Reverend Mr. Kincaid moved away to
show Crampton where to put down the turkey, Carol stepped closer to
the florist. “Thank you for your discretion on the subject of the
decorations,” Carol murmured. Looking around, she added, “But I
never ordered this many flowers. There is a bouquet on every table,
and there are wreaths on all the walls and even on the door into
the kitchen.”

“Isn’t it amazing how much pleasure can be
derived from giving a gift to someone who has no idea who sent it?”
said the florist, laughing. “I wish I had discovered that simple
fact of life before today.”

“Are you saying that you donated the extra
bouquets?” Carol asked, wondering how she was going to pay for this
largesse if the additional flowers were not a donation.

“You inspired me,” the florist answered. “My
shop will be closed for the next two days. Anything left there this
afternoon will surely be dead by Monday morning, so I thought, why
not bring all the flowers here, for these people to enjoy? They are
just leftovers, you know, but Lucius Kincaid was so happy to have
them that I felt guilty for not doing this long ago. I think from
now on I will send all of my unsold flowers here to St Fiacre’s.
I’m sure Mr. Kincaid will know who would appreciate them. Perhaps I
could donate bouquets for the altar each Sunday, too, if it’s
agreeable to him.”

“I’m sure it will be. That’s very kind of
you.”

“The idea was yours, Miss Simmons, and it was
a good one. Will you excuse me? I am supposed to be helping in the
kitchen.”

With moist eyes Carol looked after the young
woman, astonished to discover how quickly her own modest gesture
had affected someone else’s behavior. Surely, this was what Lady
Augusta meant when she said that the smallest change in the present
could make a major difference in the future. True, it was only a
few flowers, yet the gesture might lighten someone’s heart enough
to produce a correspondingly kind chain reaction in a more
important area.

Then Carol spied Abigail Penelope Kincaid, in
a bright red skirt and green turtleneck sweater, just as she had
been dressed in Carol’s vision of this night. Clutching the box of
candy she had brought along, Carol hurried forward to intercept the
rector’s wife.

“Merry Christmas,” Carol said. Not knowing
exactly what to say next, and still more than a bit embarrassed
over her unkindness at their last meeting, she thrust the decorated
box into Mrs. Kincaid’s hands. “This is for you. Please be just a
little selfish and keep it for yourself. I want you to have
it.”

“You and the others from Marlowe House have
already been so generous,” Mrs. Kincaid said. “Lucius and I were
quite surprised. Oh, dear, I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just
that when we met the other day, you weren’t at all interested in
what we are trying to do here.”

“I wasn’t myself the other day,” Carol said.
“Not my true self, the self I am supposed to be. I’m not making
much sense, am I?” She ended on a nervous little laugh.

“Perhaps more sense than you think.” Abigail
Penelope Kincaid gave her a shrewd look. “You are different now. If
you were to ask my opinion, I would say that you have had a
revelation of some kind.”

“You would be very close to the mark,” Carol
told her. “Perhaps one day, when we know each other better, I can
tell you exactly what has happened to me since Monday and Lady
Augusta’s funeral. You and your husband are among the few people
who might believe me.”

“Of course we will believe you. And I have a
feeling that we are going to become very good friends.” Abigail
Kincaid linked her arm through Carol’s. “Now, come and help us
serve this wonderful dinner that you and so many other generous
people have helped to provide.”

Carol went with the rector’s wife and did her
best to be useful. After serving up vegetables at the buffet table,
she helped to clear off the empty dishes and then set out the
donated pies, cakes, and cookies. Meanwhile, Mrs. Marks’s cooking
skills and Crampton’s carving ability were much admired. Mrs.
Marks’s cookies in particular were widely praised, and every last
one of them was eaten, a fact which pleased the cook
enormously.

Someone from Marlowe House—Carol never
discovered who it was, but she suspected Nell— had whispered the
secret of her birthday to Lucius Kincaid. At the end of the main
course, and just before dessert was served, the Reverend Mr.
Kincaid rapped a spoon against a glass and called for
attention.

“We all know that this is a blessed night,
the holiest night of all the year,” he said. “For one of our
contributors here with us at this feast, December twenty-fourth
also has a personal significance. It is her birthday. To the
well-named Miss Carol Noelle Simmons, we wish the happiest of
birthdays, and a joyous year ahead.”

The company did not sing “Happy Birthday.”
Instead, they offered three cheers to her. As “Hip, hip, hurrah!”
rang through the hall, Carol stood between Lucius and Abigail
Kincaid and tried her best not to cry.

“Speech, speech,” called a voice from the
crowd.

“They will expect you to say something,”
Abigail Kincaid whispered to Carol.

“Thank you, and a merry Christmas to every
one of you,” Carol responded to her audience. “This is easily the
best birthday I have ever had. But there is a far more important
Person whose birthday we will celebrate in just a few hours. I hope
to see all of you in church.”

“I second that particular sentiment,”
declared Lucius Kincaid, to general laughter. “Miss Simmons, why
don’t you cut the largest cake? Symbolically, of course, since it
is not, strictly speaking, a birthday cake.”

“It is the very best kind of cake,” Carol
told him, “because it was made and carried here in a spirit of love
and generosity.”

Following the serving of desserts, Carol,
Mrs. Marks, the florist, and Abigail Kincaid took charge of pouring
coffee or tea for the grownups and milk for the youngsters. Later,
when the meal was over and most of the guests had left, there were
dishes to wash and put away, while Hettie and Nell helped to sweep
the floor and a few male volunteers folded up and stored the chairs
and tables. Everyone worked with a cheerful will, but all the same,
they just barely got to the church in time.

Carol had been standing for hours, and her
feet were aching, she was tired—and she had rarely in her life been
so contented or felt so completely possessed by the Christmas
spirit. Nor was she alone in being affected by the evening and by
the welcome they had received at St. Fiacre’s.

“Hettie isn’t the only one who comes here,”
Mrs. Marks confided to Carol in a remarkably friendly way. “I try
to sneak out for early service each Sunday.”

“It’s a lovely old church,” Carol whispered
back, “but it needs a lot of work.”

“There’s little money in this parish,” said
Mrs. Marks. “And what there is goes to meals like the one you saw
tonight. At one time I hoped that Lady Augusta would leave
something to St. Fiacre’s in her will, but I should have known
better.”

“Perhaps it’s not too late,” Carol murmured.
She watched Abigail Kincaid and her three little children arrive
and take their seats, a signal that the service was about to
begin.

In the church Carol could see evidence of her
own good intentions, for the flowers and greens she had ordered for
the altar now filled the lovely old vases—and there were extra
vases of white chrysanthemums, which she had not ordered, sitting
on either side of the pulpit. She glanced toward the florist, now
standing with a young man who had joined her during the course of
the evening. The florist looked at Carol and smiled, letting Carol
know that the white flowers were her contribution.

“There is hope,” Carol said aloud.

“Perhaps there is,” answered Mrs. Marks.
“Every Christmas I believe that anew.”

Then they stopped talking because the choir
began to march in and the strains of “Oh, Come All Ye Faithful”
filled the old church.

It was nearly one o’clock in the morning
before the contingent from Marlowe House returned home.

“A most rewarding evening,” remarked
Crampton, setting down the turkey platter and the carving set. “I
am glad we participated.”

“So am I,” said Mrs. Marks. “Thank you for
suggesting it, Miss Simmons.”

“Yes,” said Nell. “And the church service was
beautiful, too.”

Hettie’s only comment was a long, noisy
yawn.

Wishing each other some rather sleepy
variations of “Merry Christmas,” they separated then, but Carol
stayed up until well after two o’clock, wrapping the Christmas
presents she had bought earlier in the day.

She slept long and well that night,
entertaining no ghostly visitors and not plagued by visions of
Christmases in the past, present, or future. When she wakened at
mid-morning it was to the sweet scent of paperwhite narcissus. The
red bowl of bulbs she had purchased three days earlier and set on
the table beside her bed now presented flowers in full bloom, and
the fragrance filled her chamber.

“No matter where I may be during the rest of
my life,” Carol said, touching a petal with one gentle finger, “the
smell of narcissus will always remind me of this incredible
Christmas. Fresh, pure flowers blooming in the dead of winter to
symbolize a new beginning. In fact, a whole new life.”

She swung her feet out of bed and hastened to
dress, eager to meet whatever possibilities this special day might
bring to her. She pulled on a beige skirt and matching sweater and
slid her feet into low-heeled beige pumps. For a bit of cheerful
color she-added the green silk scarf, once again fastening it at
her throat with her grandmother’s pin.

“We all got up so late,” Nell whispered to
Carol when she finally reached the kitchen, “that Mrs. Marks has
decided to serve the Christmas feast in early afternoon, so she can
skip making lunch. She says we can be satisfied with just tea
later, instead of a regular dinner.”

“From what I have seen of her preparations
for today’s big meal, a cup of tea will probably be all any of us
will be able to swallow by nightfall,” Carol responded. Raising her
voice, she added, “Mrs. Marks, can I help you in some way?”

“You can set the table,” came the prompt
answer. “Crampton will show you where everything is. Make certain
you do it right.” Hearing this admonition, Carol and Nell grinned
at each other, smothering laughter.

Except for the addition of a small Christmas
tree decorating the sideboard—a joint contribution from Nell and
Hettie—the holiday meal that followed shortly after noontime
appeared
to be just as Carol had seen it when Lady Augusta
showed it to her in the second of her remarkable nights with that
ghostly apparition. However, there was a definite change in the
spirits of those who gathered in the servants’ dining room.

“After last night I do feel much more in the
spirit of the holiday,” Mrs. Marks declared. “This meal reminds me
of the Christmas dinners my dear mother used to make when I was a
child.”

“Indeed,” said Crampton. “This has been a
most memorable Christmas. I no longer feel quite so useless as I
once did when contemplating the retirement soon to be forced upon
me. I had begun to believe that I would be put out to pasture, so
to speak. I thought there was no place for a man of my years in
today’s busy world. But last night the Reverend Mr. Kincaid asked
if I would be interested in overseeing the production of meals at
St. Fiacre’s Bountiful Board. He says the meals have become so
popular that he and his wife no longer have time to do the work
involved and still keep up with parish affairs and their many other
duties.”