Christmas Carol (43 page)

“Very well, then,” Lady Augusta went on.
“This is my request. That you name your first daughter Augusta.
Raise her with love, teach her to have a generous heart, and when
she is grown you will discover in her a friend as constant and
loving as I ought to have been to you when I was most recently
alive.”

“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
Carol exclaimed.

“There are some things,” responded Lady
Augusta, “which I am forbidden to explain. All the same, I believe
you do understand what I cannot speak. You always have understood
me in the past—and in the future.”

“I wish I could touch you,” Carol whispered.
She stretched out her hand, but her fingers encountered only a
cool, transparent light.

“You will touch me again, in time. In good
time,” Lady Augusta said. Her figure was beginning to fade, as was
the glorious light surrounding her. “Good-bye for now, Carol”

“Don’t go. Please, stay with me for just a
while longer. There is so much I need to ask you.” Tears were
pouring down Carol’s cheeks.

“Later, Carol…”

“Carol, love, for heaven’s sake, wake
up!”

“What—where—?” Forcing her eyes to open,
Carol looked around. She was curled up in the wing chair with the
blanket tucked around her feet, and Nicholas was kneeling before
her, talking to her and attempting to wipe the flowing tears off
her face.

“Where is she?” Carol demanded.

“Where is who? Carol, your hands are cold as
ice. What have you been doing alone in this unheated room?”

“I am not alone. Nicholas, didn’t you
see—?”

She grabbed at his upper arms, holding on to
him until the world around her settled down and stopped spinning.
“I must have been dreaming.”

“It sounded like a nightmare, from the way
you were screaming. I heard you all the way down in my room. Are
you sure you’re all right?” He pulled her to her feet and held her
close as if to warm her with his own body heat.

“Yes, I’m fine. I came up here to think, and
fell asleep and had a bad dream, that’s all.” It was not all, and
Carol knew it. She was beginning to understand so many wonderful
things. She smiled at Nicholas, her love.

“Let’s go back to my room, where it’s warm.”
His arm around her shoulders urged her toward the door. “I want to
make love to you again.”

“I would like that very much.” She would
decide later exactly when and how much to tell him about her
adventures with Lady Augusta’s ghost. He might not believe her
until he knew her as completely as she knew him—and after all, a
wife was not required to reveal everything about her past life to
her husband.

Nicholas would be her husband, when the time
was right for them to marry. She was absolutely certain of it. This
man had been her love in the past and would be her husband again in
the distant future.

Carol knew beyond any doubting that her life
had been on the wrong track when Lady Augusta’s ghost first
appeared to her. Cold and distrustful as she had then been, she had
almost destroyed her own future along with the future prospects of
everyone for whom she now cared.

Lady Augusta had saved her. At the image of
that once-cantankerous lady and the amazing possibilities she had
suggested, Carol could not help smiling.

“What are you thinking about?” Nicholas
paused in the doorway of Carol’s old room to kiss her. With one
gentle finger he traced the new upward curve of her lips.

“I was thinking about Lady Augusta,” she
said, casting a last glance backward into the room as Nicholas shut
the door on it. “She is the one who brought me to Marlowe House,
and who then brought you here, to me. All of it was meant to be,
exactly as it happened.”

“I will always be grateful that you were here
to meet me,” he whispered as they went down the stairs to his
bedchamber.

“So will I.” Carol sighed, sinking into his
arms so that he was obliged to pick her up and carry her the rest
of the way to his bed. “Always and forever, Nicholas.
Forever
. Merry Christmas and many Happy New Years to come,
my love.”

Merry Christmas

Lond, A. D. 2168

It was snowing again, though not enough
flakes floated downward to cause difficulties for travelers. On
this Christmas Eve there was just enough snow to lightly frost the
evergreen in the center of the square and make it look like the
tree in a classical Christmas picture. It was an enormous tree, so
tall that during the summer months birds nested in its uppermost
branches in complete safety far above the vigorous city life that
went on in the square even in the hottest of weather. On those hot,
sunny days, children played in the shade beneath the tree or
climbed along its trunk as high as their parents or their nurses
would allow them to go.

Every Christmas the tree was decorated with
lights. It had grown so tall that placing all the colored bulbs had
become a long and tedious project, particularly when the weather
turned blustery. In a recent year, the Government had suggested
that the tree be cut down and a smaller one planted in its place.
This, the Government claimed, would make holiday decorating easier
and more efficient. The outcry of those who lived in or near the
square had been so immediate and so loud with outrage that the
Government at once withdrew the suggestion, bowing as usual to the
will of the people and leaving the beautiful old symbol of a
cherished holiday untouched for all to enjoy.

Car turned from the front window and
contemplation of the decorated tree outside to give her full
attention to the gathering in the drawing room of Mar House.
Everyone she loved would be there. Dear friends Bas and Jo and
their children sat beside the Christmas tree that almost touched
the drawing room ceiling. Lin and Sue and Lin’s husband, Tom, were
helping them to sort through a box of antique Christmas ornaments
in preparation for the decorating party that was about to
begin.

Out in the hall the most recent arrivals,
Nik’s twin sisters, were pulling off their winter coats in eager
expectation of joining the fun. Through the wide doorway Car could
see the very pregnant Pen leaning against her beloved Al while the
two of them listened to El’s new husband, the ever-smiling Luc,
tell a slightly naughty joke.

“They don’t look like twins, do they?” Nik
said, sliding an arm around Car’s waist. “I sometimes think the
midwives mixed them up with someone else’s babies at birth.”

“I don’t,” Car responded. “Their characters
are remarkably similar. Outer appearances can be deceiving.”

Pen was tall and slender save for the bulge
of the child she carried within her. Her hair was pale blond and
her eyes were blue. El was shorter and plump, with darker, curly
blond hair and gray eyes. While they might not look like identical
twins, they did look like sisters and their tastes were so similar
that, to the utter despair of their brother and the frustration of
their would-be lovers, they had traded Al and Luc back and forth
between them for several years before finally deciding which sister
would marry whom.

“Here is Aunt Aug.” Nik hurried forward to
assist the elderly lady who had just appeared in the doorway to
remove the old-fashioned cloak she insisted on wearing. Beneath the
cloak Aug had on a bright red velvet dress trimmed with small
bunches of artificial holly and mistletoe. Her thick white hair was
pinned into a neat knot at the back of her head, with a small piece
of mistletoe tucked into it.

“You look wonderful,” Car said, answering
Aug’s usual question before she could ask it. After hugging her
aunt and kissing her cheek with great fondness, Car inquired, “How
did your meeting with the Prime Minister go?”

“Rather well,” Aug responded. “I do believe
that Drum has seen the error of his recent autocratic ways and will
in future pay much more attention to what the citizens of this
country want him to do—and not just at election time, either.”

“He’s a hard man, our Prime Minister,” Car
agreed, “but he is a fair man, too, and he wants to do what’s
best.”

“He doesn’t have much choice, with you two
females harrying him at regular intervals,” Nik teased.

“This time, it was Aunt Aug, not me, who
convinced him to change his policy,” Car said. To the older woman
she added, “You are a wonder.”

“Yes.” Aug gave her a knowing grin. “I
certainly am. Now, tell me, my girl, when do you intend to give me
a great niece to carry on my name? I am not going to continue in
this present life for much longer and I would like to be sure my
successor is on the way before I leave you.”

“If we must remain childless to keep you with
us,” said Nik, “then I shall send Car to the attic to sleep and
make my own bed in the sub-basement.”

“Now, there is an arrangement that could not
last for more than two hours at the most.” Pen had joined them in
time to hear Nik’s joking words. “Aug, I beg you, stay with us. We
need you. I cannot think how any of us would manage without
you.”

“Especially Prime Minster Drum,” Car added,
laughing, though the eyes with which she regarded Aug were shadowed
by the certain knowledge that, at one hundred years of age, Aug
could not live much longer.

“But my dear,” Aug said, patting Car’s arm,
“I will always be with you. You couldn’t get rid of me if you
tried. I thought you knew that by now.

“Enough of serious talk,” Aug went on,
raising her voice to speak to all of the guests. “It is time for
laughter and feasting and goodwill to everyone. It is time to
celebrate Christmas. You young people, start singing. I expect to
hear a few good old-fashioned Christmas carols from you. I, of
course, intend to be the one to place the star on top of the
Christmas tree. Someone bring a ladder.”