Mark greeted me politely, and I pulled up a chair next to him by the waning fire. “I heard you have the leading role tonight.”
“Yes, I do.” His thin lips pulled tight in a squiggly line. Bits of shortbread crumbs dotted the corners.
“You’re going to do a great job. I’m just sure of it.”
Mark didn’t look convinced, but he thanked me all the same.
“Are you feeling nervous?”
He shrugged bravely.
“I’ll tell you a little trick that might help. My mother used to tell herself every opening night that it was only a dress rehearsal. She said she never got the jitters.”
“Was your mother in a lot of performances?”
“Yes, she was.”
“Did she go to a lot of parties?”
“A lot of parties? I don’t know. I suppose she went to some. She went to cast parties with the other actors.”
“What did they do at those parties?”
“Same sort of things you do at the cast parties here. Eat and talk about the performance.”
Mark reached for the iron poker and taunted the roasted logs into bursting into what looked like a thousand escaping fireflies. He seemed to be pondering my answer rather intensely.
“Did that answer your question, Mark?”
“Sort of.”
“What is it you wanted to know?”
“I wanted to know . . .” he hesitated, breaking the depleted log in half by hitting it directly in its hollowed center.
“What?” I wanted him to know he had my full attention.
“Did your mother kiss a lot of men?”
I drew back and tried to read Mark’s expression. “Why did you ask that?”
Mark shrugged.
I didn’t leave his comment alone. “What prompted you to ask that question?”
Mark looked down at his feet. “It’s because I know.”
“Because you know what?”
Without looking up he said in a low voice, “I know who your father was.”
I
let out a slow, steady breath. “Did someone tell you about my mother, Mark?”
“No. No one told me. I heard my grandmother talking to my father. The parts they didn’t say, I figured out.”
I thought a moment. “Have you told anyone what you heard?”
“No.” He adamantly shook his head.
“I think you should tell your parents and your grandmother. They would like to know what you heard.”
“But I wasn’t trying to listen in on them.”
“I know. But since you did hear them talking, I think you should tell them what you heard.”
“Is it true then?”
For a moment I considered dodging the question. I knew I could think of a way to avoid telling Mark the truth. That’s what my mother did. She spun many fanciful tales in response to my challenging questions and managed to effortlessly enchant me right out of reality and into the realm where I could pretend that life was something other than what it was. For a moment I wondered if that was the best approach to take with Mark.
Then I thought of Katharine and her penchant for not hiding truth once it was revealed. Even Josh the psychologist, with his comments on how truth always rises to the surface, would tell me to be honest with Mark. What was it Josh had said about how sometimes you must wait for truth to surface and other times you must go to it, take it by the hand, and pull with all your might?
Mark had bravely taken truth by the hand and now was pulling with all his might. He could end up carrying my response with him the rest of his life.
I reached over and put my hand on Mark’s shoulder. “Yes, it’s true. My father was Sir James.”
Mark didn’t reply. In the hardening lines around his eyes, I instantly saw the reason my mother told fairytales instead of truths. Her lies were a misplaced sort of kindness, I suppose, in that it was her way of protecting my sensitive, young spirit. Perhaps my quirky mother and the bohemian lifestyle she imposed on me was her attempt to do the best she could with what she had. Don’t all mothers do that? What my mother had was a wealth of fantasy.
Mark’s dark hair fell across his forehead as he looked down at his hands. “Why do you think she did it?” he asked in a low voice.
I wasn’t sure what he meant, so I asked him to expand his question.
“Why do you think your mother . . . you know . . . did what she did with my grandfather?”
I had no immediate response for him.
“I know how babies are born,” Mark said with a muffled fierceness. “You don’t need to pretend I don’t know anything like Julia.” Backing down he added, “If I shouldn’t be asking this sort of question, then . . .”
“No, it’s okay. The answer is, I don’t know. I think my mother loved your grandfather. I really do. I think they probably both felt something meaningful and real toward each other when they met. Your grandparents were separated at the time . . .”
“I know,” Mark said quickly.
“So when your grandparents got back together, my mother chose not to tell him she was expecting me. She raised me by herself, and we just went on.”
An airy stretch of silence fashioned invisible bonds between my astute nephew and me. I reached over and gave his hand a small squeeze. His fingers were cold. He looked up with a softened expression that reminded me of Ellie. He definitely had his father’s sharp, analytical mind, but he also had his mother’s tender spirit toward all living creatures.
“Thanks for talking to me about it,” he said in an adult-sounding voice.
“You’re welcome.”
His wobbly, thin-line smile returned. “Whenever I call you Aunt Miranda, everyone else will think it’s still because you’re a family friend. But I’ll know who you really are.”
I leaned over and pressed a motherly kiss on the side of his head. In a whisper I said, “And I will always know who you are, Mark Whitcombe. You are my amazing nephew. And I will always love you.”
My unexpected declaration embarrassed Mark, but I decided that was okay. I didn’t have much experience in being around young children or finding ways to express what I felt in my heart. My first attempts were bound to be clumsy.
Ever since Ian started to shower me with love, affection, and hope, I felt eager to spill that love out whenever I had the chance. Now that I was finally back in Carlton Heath where the few people in this world that I truly loved resided, I wanted to show them that love, even if the moments turned awkward.
I held onto that thought as I helped finish up the cookies. It was easy to feel and express love for Ellie, Katharine, and Julia. Especially Julia. She kept giving me hugs and saying things like, “I can’t wait until you live here all the time, Auntie Miranda.”
Once the cookies were done, I had to peel myself away from a clapping game Julia had started. Ellie had sent Mark to Katharine’s car for my luggage. She had him transfer it to her car since I’d be staying with them that night. But I intercepted Mark and pulled from my suitcase the items I would need to dress up for the performance later that evening.
As soon as everyone left — Katharine to the hospital and Ellie and the kids home to dress for the play — I took a quick shower and an even quicker ten-minute nap. Then I changed into the special dress I had brought for the performance that evening.
Last year when I attended the play, Ellie was dressed as a Sugar Plum Fairy. I still had sparkles from her ensemble on my peacoat. Katharine had been adorned as a regal lady of the theater. All my clothes were waiting for me in a London hotel room last year, so I attended in my crumpled travel clothes.
This year I couldn’t wait to join the merriment by dressing up in my new cheery-cherry-swishy-merry red Christmas dress. I returned to the kitchen for some soup Katharine had left for me on the stove. A note on the kitchen counter reminded me that the Whitcombe family driver would come for me at 6:40.
I had just finished the soup when I heard the door bells jingle.
“I’ll be right there!” I called out, placing my soup bowl in the sink.
-Heavy-booted footsteps crossed the uneven wooden floor coming toward the kitchen. Apparently the Whitcombe’s driver hadn’t heard me so I called out again, “You didn’t have to come get me!”
The kitchen curtain parted and a magnificent, deep voice rumbled, “Oh yes I did.” In front of me in all his white-haired, velvet-robed glory stood Father Christmas.
F
or the briefest of moments, it seemed I was looking at
the
Father Christmas. Tilting my head and studying the eyes, I said, “Ian?”
“Ian to you. Father Christmas to all the wee girls and boys.” With a pause he opened his palms and asked, “What do you think? Other than that I must be daft to have agreed to do this.”
“No, not at all. You look fantastic! Very convincing. The beard is so believable. Does it itch?”
“I think you would be the one to best answer that question.” Ian drew me close and kissed me good. “Well? What’s your answer, woman?”
“My answer?”
“Does the beard itch?”
“Oh.” I quickly put away the flitting thought that he was asking for an “answer” because he had included a proposal somewhere in the kiss, but I had been too swept up to hear it.
“Actually,” I said, regaining my coy composure, “I’m not sure. You better try the kiss test one more time.”
Ian willingly obliged.
We drew apart, and I said, “I’m still not quite sure . . .”
Another kiss came to me as visions of spending the rest of my life with this man danced in my head.
Margaret’s driver found Ian and me in the middle of test kiss number four. Neither of us had heard him enter the Tea Cosy. We untangled from our hug and hid our smiles.
Ian addressed the driver somberly. “I’ll be taking Miranda to the theatre. Sorry you didn’t get the update.”
The chauffer tipped his black cap and left us to our kitchen canoodling. Our kiss was short and sweet, followed by a tiny kiss on the end of my nose.
Reaching for my hands and standing back to look at me at arm’s length, all Ian said was, “Miranda, you . . .”
“You like my new dress?”
“The dress is lovely, but it’s the beautiful woman wearing the dress I’m in love with.”
We paused a moment, standing hand in hand, making mushy eyes at each other, and then I laughed.
“What?” Ian seemed to have forgotten he was dressed as Father Christmas.
“Your outfit is equally ravishing,” I said. “But it’s the amazing, handsome man wearing the Father Christmas costume I’m in love with.”
“So it’s not a one-sided crush I’m having on you then, is it?” Ian sneaked in another kiss on the cheek.
I giggled. “Now that one tickled. And the answer to your question is the crush is terminal and highly mutual.”
“We’d better get out of here then. Where’s your coat?”
I strolled with Father Christmas to his Austin-Healy parked in front of the Tea Cosy. We zigged down the narrow lane and parked in back of Grey Hall.
Last Christmas I had walked to Grey Hall from the train station and approached the Victorian-style building on a wide walkway lit by eight metal shepherd’s hooks. A lantern hung from each hook, twinkling in the dark night. Before me, decked out in long garlands of evergreen boughs, was the theater my father had built during the late 1980s in a style reminiscent of Dickens.
As memorable as that arrival had been, this year with Ian, slipping in through the back entrance was memorable for other reasons. This time the only “décor” I noticed were the faces of the young performers as they watched Father Christmas swoosh past them and head for center stage behind the thick, blue curtain.
Ian pulled out a stack of index cards and stood on his mark, concentrating on getting the lines down. In less than twenty minutes those curtains would part and he would be “it” — the opening performer. All eyes would be on Ian, my Ian, and he would convince them he was Father Christmas.
I knew he could do it.
I blew him a kiss and wiggled my way through the maze of props backstage. If I wanted to, I could find the side door that would take me out to the front of the auditorium. But it seemed more fitting to go out the way we had come in, walk around to the front of Grey Hall, and promenade up the wide path lit with the hanging lanterns on the shepherd’s hooks. In a way, I was giving tribute to my father for the theater he had built, as well as giving tribute to my mother who always let me sneak around backstage with her before a performance.
What a difference I felt over the way I had approached this theater last Christmas. I had made peace with the thought that my mother loved the theater as much as she loved me. I had come to appreciate the generosity of Sir James to this community, and in a clandestine way, I felt proud to be his daughter.
Entering the bustling lobby, I inched over to the coat check counter. Around me dozens of proud parents chatted with friends, checked their coats, shook hands, and made merry. Ellie was one of the coat checkers this year, which was a little silly due to her petite size. When I stepped up to the window, she was holding three coats and nearly drowned in all the woolen thickness.
“I’ll wait until after you hang those up,” I said.
“Miranda, look at you! What a beautiful dress. You look absolutely gorgeous! Ian is going to be gobsmacked for certain.”
“Gobsmacked?” I repeated with a laugh. “Let me see your outfit.”
She handed the stack of coats to her coworker, a tall man in a black top hat and tails, and opened her arms to reveal her surprise ensemble.
“I’m a snowflake,” she said. “Can you tell? Someone thought I was trying to be the White Witch of Narnia. I think I may have gotten it all wrong this year.”
“Oh, no. You definitely look like a snowflake. I would have guessed snowflake right away.”
Her short gown was white with shimmering, pearl-shaded sequins. The sleeves and hem were cut in fanciful, straight-lined snips and clips the way a child cuts a folded-up piece of paper before opening it to reveal a snowflake. She wore white tights, white boots, a sprinkling of iridescent sparkles across her fair skin, and a wreath of white stars around her head.
“Do you think so, really?”
“Definitely. You make a darling snowflake.”
“Thank you, Miranda. Have you seen Edward yet? He and Margaret might already be seated. Head toward the front on the left side, and you’ll see them. I’ll be there shortly.”