Engaging Father Christmas (7 page)

The usher, dressed in a Nutcracker uniform, handed me a program, and I entered the darkened theater. Fresh boughs of evergreen shaped into huge Christmas wreaths hung from each of the Victorian-style lighting sconces. The ceiling glowed in the amber light, reflecting the inlaid plaster frescos with their repeating oval patterns of soft white-on-white. The dark blue velvet stage curtains were trimmed across the top with golden tassels from which bright red Christmas balls had been hung like holly berries.

Tender memories of my visit last year returned. I think the scent of the pine boughs started the feeling of having come full circle.

When I had reluctantly entered this place a year ago, I still was harboring a deep anger against my mother. Her offense was that the theater was her other love. Acting was her life. And a fall from a faulty balcony on a Venetian set took her life — not only from her but also from me.

After my mother’s death, I was raised by Doralee, a bald woman with seven cats named after Egyptian pharaohs. Doralee was one of my mother’s theater friends who lived in Santa Cruz where she bravely fought cancer and lost. The incongruous part of it all to me was that she lost with victorious words of heaven on her lips. Doralee was the first Christian I had met and possibly the most peculiar.

My adolescent years in her home fostered an independence that aided me as I faked my age after her death to obtain a job in San Francisco. My strength and independence of the past decade were born out of my silent rebellion against the theater. In some crazy belief birthed in my preteen years and fostered by the vacuum left in my mother’s departure from this earth, I thought I could “get back” at the theater if I ignored the place that had been my mother’s home and heart.

So I never went to the theater. Nor did I think of it or give it any regard in conversations. This was a challenge while I lived in San Francisco, a place where going to the theater was as much a part of life as going to a restaurant. But I was up to the challenge and remained a devoted boycotter.

Until last Christmas.

I had entered Grey Hall to gain information about my father. But that decision turned out to be the gift I “gave” my mother last Christmas. I said an important good-bye to her that night as I watched vigorous Andrew stride across the stage. I took a first step toward peace inside this theater, which I later discovered had been funded by my father.

Now, a year later, the love of my life was waiting center stage in this same theater, and I entered unencumbered. A nice, round, full circle of peace with the theater encased me in the same way the evergreen wreaths encircled the Victorian-style sconces along the side walls.

I drew in a breath for courage as I walked to the front and stood at the end of the row where Edward and his mother were seated. Seeing them reminded me that I may have made my peace with the theater, but with the two of them, I was walking into a broken circle that I had little hope of repairing. Yet here I was, available. Hopeful. And feeling a little sick to my stomach.

I should have waited for Ellie.

Edward stood in his tall, stiff, professor-like stance and looked at me through the lower portion of his rectangular glasses. Offering his hand, he said, “Good evening, Miranda.”

“Good evening, Edward. Good evening, Margaret.” I offered my hand to her and let it dangle in the space between us just in case she chose to reach for it. She didn’t. Margaret had lightly touched my fingers with a gloved hand when we first met, before she knew who I was. Since then I had been with her half a dozen times, but she had never touched me again. Not once.

Instead of a handshake, Margaret offered me a regal nod. She seemed to be taking in my red dress from top to hem as I stood in the aisle, waiting to be allowed entrance to the Whitcombe row.

I glanced around the quickly filling auditorium in case I would need to find a seat in another row.

Edward, in his usual gentlemanly form, said, “Would you care to sit with us, Miranda?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

I slid past Edward and Margaret and was about to leave the seat beside her empty for Ellie when I decided I would attempt to move closer to Margaret both figuratively and literally. I reminded myself of how she had complimented me on my discretion at the Tea Cosy. I also remembered how the other women at the Tea Cosy whispered about her aloofness. From much experience, I understood the art of trying to remain invisible; I recognized the symptoms in Margaret’s demeanor.

I hadn’t arrived at a sense of earnest sympathy or genuine compassion for her. But I did understand. And maybe that was enough of a first step, even if Margaret never responded to me in kind.

Which she didn’t.

Margaret shifted in her seat and exhaled a disagreeable sound that in the past might have been enough to make me get up and move. This night I was determined in this place of full circles to do everything I could to inch this disconnected ring closer to peace and settled completeness.

When Ellie swished down the aisle a few moments later, she motioned for me to move over one seat. I made the change. As Ellie settled into her seat like a bird in a nest, I leaned back, feeling as if I had at least inched closer to Margaret.

The lights inside the theater flickered on and off, indicating the performance was about to begin. The audience hushed. The lights dimmed. The blue velvet curtains parted.

There stood Ian — my Ian — strong and bold and stunning in his flowing white hair, beard, and fur-lined Father Christmas robe. A wreath of holly now circled his head.

In his left hand he held a staff. He raised his right hand to the audience, allowing the wide velvet sleeve to slide down his brawny forearm. Ian’s commanding presence was magnificent.

Andrew would have loved seeing this. I wish he and Katharine were here.

“He’s so like Sir James!” Ellie whispered to me.

A tender sweetness came over my heart as I realized that my father wore that same robe and stood on this same stage only a few years ago. I had missed seeing him in this role just as Andrew and Katharine were missing Ian now.

Time and distance seemed to fade. I smiled at Ian the way I used to sit in the front row and smile at my mother.

With a quick glance at Margaret, I wondered if she had a special smile she pulled out for my father every time it was opening night for him. Or did she harbor her own unremitting grudge against the theater?

Oh, Margaret, if only you knew how similar we are. If only you would give me a chance.

Chapter Eleven

I
an’s booming voice rode over the audience like a tidal wave as he delivered the opening line. “Marley was dead. As dead as a doornail.”

Ellie reached over and gave my hand a happy squeeze. I squeezed hers back. The play was afoot, and all my attention was center stage. Ian completed his short monologue, stepped to the side, and gave a sweeping gesture to mark the commencement of the first scene. The cast of characters filed on stage beginning with Mark in his Scrooge business suit costume. He launched his first line by yelling at two of the bookkeepers, telling them to work faster.

“You are sorely mistaken if you think I will be giving you the day off for Christmas!” Poor Mark, his preadolescent voice cracked on “sorely mistaken” and “Christmas.”

The audience muffled a collective chuckle. I turned to Ellie and saw that she was making a motherly wince. “Keep going, Markie,” she whispered.

Mark went right on, undaunted by the wobbly opening. Within minutes he had the audience in the palm of his hand and showed no signs of stage fright. I felt so proud of him. His sense of timing and deadpan expressions proved quickly that he wasn’t just the stand-in understudy. He was a natural. He was unmistakably the grandson of Sir James Whitcombe.

By the time the intermission lights came on, it was clear I wasn’t the only one bursting with excitement and pride over Mark’s performance.

“Your son is brilliant,” the woman behind us said, patting Ellie on the shoulder.

“He’s doing quite well, isn’t he?” Ellie was all smiles. “A bit of vocal range lurch there at the beginning, but he pulled it off, wouldn’t you say?”

Edward adjusted his glasses and nodded. I wondered how he really felt about his son’s success.

A woman behind Margaret said, “It takes only one such performance to set a course for a lifetime. I dare say your grandson has revived the talent of our own Sir James this evening. Why has the young man not performed before?”

“It was his choice,” Edward said firmly.

I had a feeling it might have been a choice strongly influenced by Edward. His affection for the theater and all that came with the life of an actor was as low as mine had been last year.

“Shall we go to the lobby for a bit of a sweet?” Ellie rose from her seat.

Edward and I both went to the lobby with Ellie while Margaret stayed behind. We were soon caught up in the crush of people gathered around the refreshment table. It was fun hearing all the comments about young Mark and his performance.

The good people of Carlton Heath had all come to the same conclusion. Mark was destined to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps across the golden stage. Each of them seemed to enjoy announcing that acting was “in his blood,” as if they were the first one to arrive at that conclusion.

One woman even had the boldness to say, “The talent obviously didn’t fall to you, Edward — no offense meant.”

“None taken,” he said.

“The talent skipped a generation and has fallen on Mark, wouldn’t you say?”

With the audience high on the speculations of young Mark’s future on the stage, we returned to our seats and settled in for act two.

The curtains parted and six extras, including Julia, entered dressed as waifs, all wearing nightgowns and sleeping caps that looked like puffed-up muffin tops.

Instead of staying with the pack while Scrooge and the Spirit of Christmas Present visited the workhouse, Julia stepped to the side of the stage and gave a little wave to her mum and dad. Ellie waved back.

Pleased with the ruffle of giggles her antics produced, Miss Julia favored us with a six- year-old, ballerina-style spin around. Her costume filled with air and puffed out. She spun a second time, and Ellie whispered, “Oh dear, she knows better than to be showing off like that.”

Pointing her finger at Julia and inching it in the air like a little worm, Ellie silently directed the free-spirited waif back to where she belonged on stage.

Clever Mark ad-libbed the obvious interruption with a quick quip. He glared at his sister with his hand on his hip and said, “Oh, Spirit of Christmas Present, it seems you’re not the only spirit sent to torment me this night.”

The crowd laughed. Mark broke character just long enough to turn to his mum and dad and offer a shrug. He squared his shoulders and went on with his next line without missing a beat.

Julia, not having caught the implication, looked at the audience with a grand smile, as if she were the source of all the merriment. As soon as she was offstage, she found her way through the back of the hall and came to our aisle. Margaret held out her arms for Julia to sit on her lap.

Julia demurely slid past her grandmother. I was surprised since Julia and her grandmother shared a close and sweet relationship. But Julia was definitely “mummy’s girl,” so when she edged her way past her grandmother, I thought she was going to cuddle up with Ellie.

Instead, Julia headed straight for me. She invited herself up into my lap and settled in as if this were the only place in the world she wanted to be.

Julia whispered to her mother and me, asking if we saw her spinning on stage.

“Yes, darling,” Elli whispered to her overeager thespian. “Now hush. We mustn’t talk until the play is over.”

I glanced at Margaret. If she was miffed that Julia had come to me instead of her, she didn’t show it in her expression. The rest of the play I tried not to think of Margaret but instead concentrated on enjoying the delight of having my cuddly niece on my lap and my clever nephew on the stage.

Before the fall of the curtain, Ian returned to his mark, center stage. With grand, Father Christmas hand motions, he had a final word for the merry audience.

“I charge you, gentlefolk, far and wide,

Heed this tale as told you this night.

Whenever you happen upon those in need,

Look to your heart and do a good deed.

Gather close this Christmastide,

All your loved ones by your side.

Mother, father, daughter, son,

May God bless us, everyone!”

The crowd erupted in applause. A standing ovation followed as the entire cast assembled onstage. Julia apparently had forgotten she would be given this additional chance to be in the spotlight.

She couldn’t scamper off my lap quickly enough and charged up the narrow side steps in her flowing waif nightclothes. She joined her brother in the lineup. Mark did an admirable job of sharing his big moment with his little sister.

The houselights went up, and Ian fixed his gentle gaze on me. I blew him a kiss. He stayed in character and simply gave me a nod of his snowy head. I couldn’t wait to see the magic that I knew would happen in the lobby when the little children would have a chance to sit on his lap and have their photos taken.

As we filed out of the row, I sidled up to Edward. “Was it here that you had the photo taken on your father’s lap when he was dressed as Father Christmas?”

“I don’t recall where the infamous Christmas photo was taken. It was quite some time ago. Do you remember, Mother?”

Margaret needed for Edward to repeat the question to her. She thought a moment and then shook her head. “No, the doors to my memory on such details seem to have lost a few of their keys.”

I smiled at Margaret in response to her comment and gave her a warm and open gaze. I wanted her to see that my hope for the door that had been unlocked between us earlier at the Tea Cosy would remain unlocked.

She didn’t smile back. She looked the other way, and when we arrived in the lobby, Edward arranged for the driver to take her home.