Finding Father Christmas (12 page)

“Yes, fine. Sorry I jumped the way I did.”

“Don’t worry. It’s all right. Julia, why don’t you set up a tea party for us? Would you like that?”

Julia gave a timid nod and went to the end table where her tiny tea set was waiting.

“Shall I pour, or will you?” Ellie asked.

“I’ll pour, silly Mummy. It’s my party.” Julia cast a shy glance at me.

I smiled, hoping my outburst hadn’t ruined the closeness I had felt with Julia earlier.

She looked at her tea set and then back at me. “Would you like to come to my tea party, too?”

“Yes, I would like to come very much.”

“Then you can sit right there.” She went to work pouring invisible tea into one of the four cups.

The three of us “ladies,” as Julia now called us, sipped our invisible tea while Edward remained at the window, watching his
pajama-wearing son shoot another arrow into the air.

“It’s a wonder he isn’t frozen solid yet.” Ellie glanced over her shoulder at Mark. “We should call him inside, though. We
do need to get ready for the Christmas service.”

Edward left the room, and Ellie excused herself from the tea party, thanking her hostess before turning back into the mother
and sending Julia upstairs to dress for church. I offered to help in any way I could. Ellie assured me there was nothing more
to do.

“The turkey is already in the oven,” she said. “I’ve managed to organize everything this year, so I think there’s only one
thing for you to do, and this is only if you would like, because I can certainly do it later. But the cutlery needs to be
laid out on the dining table.”

I assumed she meant I could set the table with the silverware, but I didn’t see a dining-room table in the drawing room.

“It’s all on the sideboard in the dining room, which is the room directly across from the study. I can show you now, if you’d
like.”

Clutching the blue purse, I followed Ellie into the dining room where she showed me how she wanted the table to be set. The
china plates were a cheerful seasonal pattern with sprigs of holly and bright red berries circling the edges. Each of the
twelve places had a dinner plate and a bread plate. Silverware of all shapes and sizes accompanied the various plates and
needed to be positioned on the table just so.

Down the center of the ivory tablecloth ran a winding swath of fresh evergreen boughs. The fragrance enlivened the rather
small formal dining room. Tea candles were tucked here and there, ready to give a soft glow when the time came for the Christmas
feast. Over the table hung a simple chandelier with red and green ribbons entwined around the dangling crystals.

Edward appeared in the doorway. “Ellie, did you have a chance to give one last look to the papers on the desk?”

“No, I didn’t. Do you need to make the decision today, or can you wait?”

“I can wait, of course, but I will be seeing Robert at the service this morning. He is eager for an answer, you know. After
the party last night, he and I put our best efforts into the discussion, but I’m afraid we have failed to come to an agreement.”

“Right.” Ellie handed me the forks. “The papers are still on the desk?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll come have a look. Then we really must dress for church.”

Ellie and her husband stepped into the study across the hall.
I could hear their voices but didn’t think they realized how clearly their words carried from room to room.

“It does seem, Edward, that finding this paper in your father’s wallet should be reason enough to include it in the collection.”

“Robert would agree with you, of course. I was only hoping for some possible clarification.”

“What we really need is a fresh pair of eyes on this,” Ellie said.

I heard Edward’s brisk footsteps returning to the dining room. He stuck out his jaw and looked at me through the lower portion
of his glasses. His stance reminded me of a scientist examining a rare bug. “Are you by any chance good at word games, Miranda?”

“Not especially.”

“Pity.” He sighed. “Would you mind coming and having a look anyway? We have a small problem with a short poem.”

Mystified, I followed him across the hall into the study. In front of us was the fabulous, wide desk. The top of the desk
was covered with papers that seemed to have been placed in a specific order. The handwriting on all the pages matched. Some
of the pages were filled with words and spaced like a handwritten letter. Other pages had only a few words. Even though the
pages were upside down from where I stood, I could see the consistent slant of the author’s penmanship.

“It’s this one.” Ellie pointed to a piece of paper in the far corner. The page at one time had been folded into a small rectangle
and was now yellowed along the many creases.

“We’re trying to make a final decision on several pieces of my father’s works, which are under consideration by the British
Theatrical Preservation League for a historical collection. We’re certain the piece in question is in his handwriting. It
matches all
the other pieces. However, this poem simply doesn’t follow the pattern or logic of his other works.”

“In other words, none of us understands what the poem means,” Ellie said.

“We believe it was an original piece and not copied from a quote. The challenge is that we’re being asked to provide some
reference data and, quite frankly, we’re puzzled. If there is a meaning to the piece, it certainly has escaped us.”

By that point in the conversation, my heart was pounding. These were my father’s papers. I was looking at his letters, in
his handwriting.

Stepping to the other side of the desk, I held my racing pulse in check as I read the five lines that solidified my birthright.

by lake shore in moon glow

first time only time

as it was at the beginning of time

beguiling eve once

now ever in this jailed heart

I knew what the poem meant.

I knew all about the moonlit night beside a lake on a feathery bed of moss. James Whitcombe slept there with beguiling Eve
Carson, the actress, and the memory of her had never left him. It was the first time, the only time, he was unfaithful to
his wife. My mother had taken the photo from his wallet, and in its place he had inserted this small clue. A poem. An ode
to beguiling Eve, and perhaps a temperate reminder to his failed vow of faithfulness.

“It’s a mystery.” Ellie shook her head. “I’m not sure anyone
can explain the meaning. Apparently, it was special to him. That is the part we can choose to honor.”

I clenched my jaw, hoping my expression wouldn’t give away any of the emotions that came rushing forth. Long ago I had chosen
to believe in my father. After seeing the photo, seeing the name of his community theater on the playbill, and hearing this
poem, I knew my father was real. His name was Sir James Whitcombe. The sweetest part about these words, written in my father’s
hand, was that my mother had meant something to him. He had carried a memory of her in his wallet.

“Any thoughts, Miranda?” Edward turned to me with his bug-examining expression.

I hesitated far too long. Edward and Ellie stared at me until I finally spoke, my voice cracking as I said, “I think the poet
was writing about a woman. The woman was named Eve. He wanted to remember her.”

By the stunned expressions on their faces, I knew they never had considered the possibility that the “eve” in the poem might
be a person and not a reference to the time of day.

Ellie read the words again and shook her head. “That couldn’t be right. If it’s a love poem, the name would be Margaret. Not
Eve. He and Margaret were married for fifty-eight years. He wrote a number of poems to her.”

Obviously, James had experienced a season, or perhaps only a moment, with Eve. I was the living proof of that.

“Maybe,” I said gingerly, “your father had a moment, so to speak, with another woman, and—”

Before I could finish, Edward brusquely squared his shoulders. “That’s not possible.”

“It’s certainly not probable.” Ellie gave me a sympathetic expression the way one would look at an outsider who didn’t know
anything. “We do appreciate your willingness to offer an opinion. That is why we asked you. But, you see, that possibility
is not probable.”

“Not at all probable,” Edward stated firmly. “Not probable and certainly not possible.”

“But she wouldn’t know that, Edward, because, after all… ” Turning to me, Ellie said kindly, “You didn’t know Edward’s father.”

Clenching my jaw and looking away I said, “You’re right. I didn’t know him.”

“We’d best be getting ready for church, Edward.”

The two of them turned to leave the study, but I longed to stay where I was, right there, in the midst of my father’s letters.

Edward stopped at the doorway and cleared his throat.

I looked up and with my bravest smile said, “Would it be all right if I stayed in here?”

“Certainly,” Ellie answered. “It’s a wonderful room, isn’t it?”

“Would it also be all right if I had a look at the rest of these papers?” I knew my request was bold, but I longed to touch
something my father had touched. I knew these papers might be the only chance I would have to glimpse his heart.

Ellie looked to Edward for his answer to my strange question.

“You’re not a reporter or anything, are you?”

“No, I’m not a reporter.”

I’m not a lot of things. But I am the daughter of Sir James Whitcombe, whether you think such a thing is possible or probable
or not.

I waited a moment. Did I only think that, or did I say it aloud? Edward and Ellie didn’t look shocked. I must have only thought
it. How disastrous if that declaration had slipped out.

Edward looked at Ellie’s kind eyes and then back at me. “I don’t mind your having a look as long as everything remains as
it is.” As an afterthought he added, “We’ve nothing to hide.”

W
e left in a flurry for the Christmas morning service. Julia sat beside me in the car’s backseat. Holding my hand, she chattered
like a little bird. I was glad for her prattle because it meant Edward and Ellie weren’t compelled to converse with me about
what else I might have seen in the letters in the study.

Most of the papers were cordial correspondence, thanking a colleague for a dinner invitation or a theater critic for a good
review. One of the letters was a note to his brother Robert, expressing appreciation for a pocketknife Robert had bought James
on a trip to Switzerland in 1975.

One other poem in the collection, the one that referred to “Margaret of the Midnight Sun,” preoccupied my thoughts as we drove
to church.

you touch

with light

the arctic hollow of my

pilgrim soul

margaret of the midnight sun

with you

i journey through always summer

and never night

The poem opened my mind to the depth of Sir James’s love for his wife Margaret. It made me dwell on the thought that he had
no business sleeping with my mother.

He had a wife. He loved her. What was he doing allowing himself to he “beguiled” by Eve?

I was aware of a sense of guilt simply for being born. I felt bad about being the result of my mothers “moment” with a married
man. I never had felt remorse because I hadn’t known any details surrounding my existence. My mother’s choice not to tell
me about my father had kept me from lingering over such possible revelations. Her silence had kept me buoyant on a sea of
secrecy.

I looked down at Julia’s little hand in mine and knew that no child should ever be handed the self-destructive seed of feeling
guilty for being born. None of us gets to select our parents. How can any of us feel responsible for coming into this world?
It wasn’t my idea to be born.

I remembered a conversation I’d had with Doralee when she was trying to find my father the second time. I told her my life
must have been an accident. My guess, I said, was that my mom must have done something that “put her on God’s bad side,” and
that’s why she didn’t want me or anyone to know who my father was. We were cursed.

Doralee got pretty revved up and said my life was
not
an accident. She said all of us start life “on God’s bad side,” under a curse. She said we all need someone who will make
things right for us with God.

That’s how she explained Jesus to me. He was the only one since Adam and Eve who wasn’t locked into the curse when he was
born.

“Cod is supreme,” she told me. “Your life was no mistake, Miranda. God can do whatever he wants. Isn’t it obvious he wants
you?”

At the time I said I much preferred the premise that I was an accident of nature and in control of my own destiny. At least
my destiny in this life. After that, I wasn’t sure what happened.

Julia gave my hand a gentle squeeze, checking to make sure I was still listening to her chatter. I gave her little hand a
squeeze back and decided that going to church on Christmas morning felt right, as if a part of me was saying to God, “All
right, I’m here. Go ahead. Show me what you’ve got. This is your chance. Prove to me that I’m not a fluke of evolution.”

I didn’t mean those words in a disrespectful way. I was looking for affirmation. Much like Julia squeezing my hand, I wanted
to know if God was paying attention and if he would squeeze back.

As I became more curious about what awaited me at the church service, we arrived at the same charming village chapel I had
walked past the night before. Sunlight spilled over the top of the spire and warmed the quilted earth that trailed from the
rose bed and covered the quarried gravestones. The image was glorious. If ever I felt in the mood to set foot inside a church,
this was the morning.

We arrived early because Mark and Julia had parts in the Christmas service. Julia was jumping up and down on one foot by the
time we filed through the arched entrance. The inside
of the stone church felt as chilly as the outside. Small electrical heaters were plugged into a long orange extension cord.
The metal grates were glowing red, huffing and puffing out their heat in an effort to warm the cavernous space.