The Christmas Angel (21 page)

‘Pa is
such
a Luddite,’ Dossie says. ‘He hates change.’

‘Roofs,’ he snorts with contempt. ‘The whole point of Wimbledon was that the weather sorted out the men from the boys.’

Mo watches too, but her mind is elsewhere. It is too hot to work at anything. In the little parlour, with the windows
wide
open, there is no breath of air. The garden lies drenched in heat and there is no birdsong now: no thrush to waken her at dawn. As she watches white-clad figures racing hither and thither over the balding tennis court she broods on the conversation they had with Dossie, remembering her surprise, almost shock, when Pa told her that they want her to have The Court.

‘But what about Adam?’ she asked. ‘What will he have? How does that work?’

‘We’ve thought about it carefully,’ he answered, ‘and Mo and I aren’t particularly happy to think of Adam having this house and simply leaving it to Natasha and those girls.’

‘No, no. I can see that,’ she said, ‘but surely the fair thing to do is to leave it between us.’ She looked from one to the other, frowning a little. ‘Isn’t it?’

‘Not necessarily fair,’ Mo put in quickly. ‘The point is that your work has helped to keep us all going here, especially once the B and B-ers stopped. I know Pa’s pension is very important but we wouldn’t be managing here without you, Dossie. And we think that you look on it as your home in a way Adam never has. We’d like you to go on being able to do that, if you want to. And Clem and Jakey, too.’

Mo recalls Dossie’s expression: she looked shocked and touched and fearful, all at the same time.

‘It’s true, Doss,’ Pa said. ‘You’ve made it possible in many different ways for us to go on here. We all know that.’

‘But if you leave it to me, won’t Adam contest the will? I mean, it’s a big thing, isn’t it? He’ll be … well,’ she looked alarmed, clearly imagining Adam’s reaction, ‘he’ll be incandescent. And, to be fair, I wouldn’t blame him.’

‘It’s quite fair.’ Pa was stern. ‘Adam has never cared about the place. You have. He has no children of his own to inherit
it
. You have. He has a home of his own with Natasha. You haven’t a home other than this one.’

Mo, remembering, saw Dossie struggling with this, thinking out the weaknesses.

‘The thing is,’ she said at last, ‘that I don’t know how I’d manage to keep it running all on my own. And I can’t guarantee that Clem or Jakey would ever be able to, either. Look, don’t think I don’t want it – I love this house and it would be very sad to leave it – but I can’t promise anything. And then how would Adam feel if I had to sell it anyway?’

She gazed at them anxiously and Mo felt compassion for her, and fear. Pa was ready for that one, though.

‘We were thinking, Mo and I, that there might come a time when you’d want to give up all this dashing about the country and settle down a bit. And we wondered, didn’t we, Mo, whether you’d consider going back to the B and B-ing.’

Now, recalling Dossie’s expression, Mo almost laughs aloud.

‘B and B-ing.’ Her lips framed the words but she made no sound. After the first shock her eyes held an inward, considering look. Slowly, very slowly, she began to smile.

‘Do you know,’ she said carefully, ‘that’s not as mad as it sounds.’

Pa was so relieved and delighted that she didn’t simply laugh in his face that he made no protest about the suggestion being mad. Instead, he waited with hopeful, anguished patience whilst Dossie considered it.

‘May I think about this?’ she asked at last. ‘Don’t be hurt that I’m not grasping it with both hands, but I’d be the one left facing Adam and I’d want to be confident that I could deal with him.’

‘Of course you must think about it,’ Mo said quickly, before
Pa
could exert any pressure. ‘We quite understand that you need notice to consider it from all angles. We just want you to know how we feel.’

‘But you’ll think about the B and B-ers?’ Pa added quickly.

Dossie laughed; she still looked almost shell-shocked, but excited too. ‘I promise,’ she said, and Mo nudged Pa’s foot with her own to warn him to leave well alone.

Now, watching Federer’s graceful, athletic performance, Mo wonders what Dossie is up to. She’s still made no mention of any new relationship though it is clear that something is going on. Yet she seems to think that her future might be at The Court. Perhaps this new fellow, whoever he is, might move in with them. Mo tries to imagine it, how Pa might react and how it would work, and shakes her head. It is impossible to speculate on such a prospect. Meanwhile they must wait for what Dossie will say. Pa seems content, now he’s spoken out, to wait for Dossie’s decision – and, anyway, he’s absorbed as usual with Wimbledon.

Mo stirs restlessly. She’s never been as committed to the tennis as Pa is. Glancing about for her book she sees a leaflet advertising the St Endellion’s Summer Festival lying on her small bureau: there will be concerts and music and events to go to in the little collegiate church, and it is time that she booked tickets. She hopes that the swine flu scare – ‘bacon fever,’ Pa calls it – won’t affect it. Reaching for the leaflet and her spectacles, Mo settles down to study it.

Her eyes widen with delight. The festival opens with a wonderful Choral Evensong including music by Mendelssohn and Holst and then, on Sunday morning, a Eucharist sung to Haydn’s
Missa Brevis
. There is to be a performance of Britten’s
Death in Venice
with James Bowman, a chamber music concert with pieces by Tchaikovsky and Mozart, and
the
festival ends with a performance of
Twelfth Night
on the rectory lawn.

Mo begins to mark certain events with a pencil. Presently she dozes.

A few days later Clem and Janna sit facing each other across the caravan’s little table. They can hear the whisper of soft rain falling beyond the open door where the drenched banties peck disconsolately. A gang of squirrels marauder in the apple trees, and delicate sweet peas flower under the window.

‘You’ve made up your mind then.’ she says. ‘I can tell. You look really happy.’

And he does. His eyes gleam their narrow smile at her and his lips are pressed tightly together as if he fears that he might smile too much and give away a secret. Jakey looks like this sometimes when he brings her a stone and says, ‘Close your eyes and put out your hand …
Now
you can look,’ and when she opens her eyes he’ll be watching her with just this same expression.

Clem nods. ‘If we can show that it could work and it goes ahead then I shall stay and train for ordination. I don’t have to go away for two years this time, though. I can do a much shorter course while I’m still carrying on working here. Father Pascal and I have been talking it through with Bishop Freddie. He’s really excited about it. Well, they both are.’

Janna watches him. She’s never seen him so animated, so alive – or so attractive. He wears an old, faded blue cotton shirt with its sleeves rolled up over his brown arms, and his silver-fair hair, damp with rain, is a striking contrast to his deeply tanned face.

‘What about you?’ he’s asking. ‘You’ll stay too, won’t you? The Sisters will need you more than ever.’

She looks away from him, drawing little patterns on the table-top with her fingers, shaking her head evasively.

‘I don’t know yet. I’d like to know a bit more about it, see. I mean, it’s OK now because we’re like family. Even the guests are lovely and friendly and I feel I can manage. But this’ll be different, won’t it? Father Pascal says that it’ll have to be more businesslike than we are at the minute.’

‘Well, that’s true. But we shall have full-time staff to help rather than the way we go on now. I was thinking of you being with the Sisters rather than actually working in the retreat house itself. They’ll need continuity when they move into the Coach House; someone to be looking after them. Just like you do at the moment. Wouldn’t you be happy doing that?’

‘I’m thinking about it,’ she says defensively.

It seems that only she and Sister Ruth are not completely in favour of this new plan and she feels almost guilty that she can’t enter wholeheartedly into the excitement. She looks out through the door into the damp orchard, fearful and confused. She doesn’t want to leave Chi-Meur but nor does she want to be too heavily relied upon. The Sisters seem to believe that she is part of their family now; committed to the future with them.

Clem is watching her, but when she meets his eyes reluctantly she is immediately calmed by the understanding she sees there.

‘I wouldn’t be able to stay in the caravan,’ she blurts out. ‘They need the orchard for their private garden. Anyway, they’d like me to be in the Coach House so as to be close at hand as they all get older. ’Tis just … I feel happier out here.’

He nods and they sit for a minute in silence. ‘The Coach
House
is going to be rejigged,’ he says tentatively, ‘so it’s possible that you might still be able to be a bit private. We need to look into that.’

She crosses her arms, as if to defend herself from any persuasion. ‘It seems all wrong,’ she tells him, ‘for me and Sister Ruth to be on the same side. She’s never liked me much and I don’t get on with her anything like as well as I do with Sister Emily or Mother Magda.’

‘She’s frightened that they’ll all be swallowed up by the new venture. She can’t quite believe that their work will be carried forward and expanded and that they’ll still have a vital role to play. She’s terrified of being sidelined and undervalued. Her insecurity and fear make her aggressive.’

Janna is puzzled. It’s never occurred to her that the sharp-tongued Sister Ruth is either insecure or fearful.

‘Promise me,’ Clem is saying, ‘that you won’t just disappear, Janna. Even if you feel you don’t want to be part of it, promise that you’ll say goodbye.’

She stares at the table, unwilling to make such a promise, knowing her deep-down need to be free; shrinking from the prospect of saying goodbye to all these people whom she loves. She swallows and bites her lip, and then nods almost imperceptibly.

‘I’d never be able to explain it to Jakey,’ he says quietly. ‘D’you see how hard it would be for him – let alone all the rest of us – if you just vanished overnight? He loves you, Janna.’

Her lips tremble as if she might cry but she shakes her head, denying it. ‘He’s got you,’ she muttered, ‘and Dossie and Pa and Mo …’

‘That’s irrelevant,’ he says impatiently. ‘Yes, he’s got all of us but that’s not the point. You are important to him, Janna.
What
would I say to him? If you go you must say goodbye to him.’

‘I love him, too,’ she protests. Tears stand in her eyes and she blinks them away. ‘You know I do. And that’s one of the problems. He comes here to see me, the dear of him, running through the orchard, calling out to me. And we sit here or outside on the grass, and we have silly picnics and stuff, and we laugh and sing songs.’ She leans towards him, across the table, the tears falling down her cheeks. ‘And how will that be in the Coach House? How will they cope with that? They won’t have it. Specially Sister Ruth won’t have it. I can tell you that now.’

Clem is silent and Janna leans back and takes a deep breath.

‘Let me think about it,’ he says at last, ‘and, meanwhile, please promise that you won’t do a runner.’

She wipes her cheeks with the backs of her hands. ‘’Tis time for the bus,’ she says. ‘Jakey’ll be getting wet,’ and Clem glances at his watch and gets up quickly with a muttered curse. He gives her one long last look, and hurries away through the orchard. She watches him go, trying to hold back the tears and wondering if it would be possible to lie to Clem.

We have come before the throne of God

To share in the inheritance of the saints in light.

EVER SINCE WAKENING
, the Canticle for the Festival of the Transfiguration of Our Lord has been running through Sister Emily’s head. It seems appropriate now that so many people are being transfigured with new hope. Clem is happier than any of them have yet seen him; Father Pascal is brimming with plans and ideas. Even Mother Magda – now that Bishop Freddie is so enthusiastic – has cast aside her habitual cloak of anxiety and is entering into this new climate of expectation with a positive determination. She has even written to Mr Brewster explaining why they will not be accepting his offer. Only Sister Ruth refuses to be swept along on the new transfiguring tide of excitement; Sister Ruth … and Janna.

We have come before God’s holy mountain … the city of the living God
…

The words sing in her head as she goes about her tasks of dusting and polishing. Passing through the rooms lightly,
like
a little fragile-boned bird, Sister Emily flourishes her yellow duster and rubs industriously, and ponders on Janna. Father Pascal and Clem are worried about her too.

‘Janna’s inner angel has been packed about with fear,’ she said to Father Pascal. ‘Its light shines out – we can see it – but is obscured and fogged by her need to belong and her terror of commitment.’

He smiled at the imagery: ‘Odd, isn’t it,’ he mused, ‘to be driven by two such conflicting forces.’

He’d gone on to speak of genetics, of nature and nurture, and she said rather impatiently at the end: ‘Yes, yes, but we must
hold on
to her. If she leaves us now it will be disastrous for her.’

He understood her. ‘But how can we make her stay? We can’t forbid her to go.’

‘I know,’ Sister Emily answered wretchedly, ‘but we can pray that her inner angel might have a chance of being unpacked at last.’

Father Pascal smiled and nodded. ‘And what about Sister Ruth’s inner angel?’ he asked teasingly.

She laughed with him. ‘Sister Ruth’s angel is not so deeply buried. In all the years since her profession her angel has had many shining moments, some longer than others, before the wrapping goes back on – but at least we know it’s a strong and healthy angel.’

He hadn’t asked about her own angel – or his – but had gone away, still laughing, waving his hand.

We have come before countless angels making festival
…