05 Aunt Dimity's Christmas by Nancy Atherton

Author:Nancy Atherton [Atherton, Nancy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-03-05T07:00:00+00:00

13

On Sunday morning I made sure that Willis, Sr., was resting comfortably, then strapped the twins into the Mercedes and took off for Saint George’s. It had been nearly a week since Kit Smith had slipped silently into my life, and I felt the need for spiritual sustenance.

The church was unusually crowded. Peggy Kitchen and Jasper Taxman sat in the front row, Mr. Barlow sat in the back, and the Peacocks took up half a pew near the baptismal font. Sally Pyne helped Able Farnham to a place on the center aisle, and Lilian Bunting sat before the pulpit, where her husband could look to her for encouragement during his less than inspiring sermons.

The moment I spotted Lilian, I knew that something strange was afoot. She should have been greeting the parishioners, who were still streaming through the side door, but instead she was already seated, with her back to the congregation, speaking to no one. I wondered fleetingly if she was still upset over the villagers’ mean-spirited remarks about Kit, then let the thought go, distracted by Will’s interest in my hymnal.

Saint George’s was resplendent. An imposing arrangement of silvery ferns rose from the Norman font, and Christmas roses set off by sprigs of holly decorated the altar. Evergreen garlands climbed the stone pillars, and the air was filled with the aromatic fragrance of yew and cypress.

The Victorian crèche, with the manger as yet empty, sat on a bed of sweet-smelling straw in the chancel, and as the organist played the first notes of the voluntary, I felt a glimmer of the contentment I’d hoped the season would bring. When the vicar mounted the pulpit to give his sermon, the twins and I settled back, with the rest of the congregation, to enjoy a pleasant doze. Theodore Bunting had come to Finch from a tough London parish and had never displayed the slightest inclination to re-create the fraught atmosphere he’d left behind. His sermons were, as a rule, low-key enough to serve as lullabies.

“On this, the fourth Sunday in Advent,” he began, “I would like to speak to you of a certain visitor who recently passed through our community.”

Heads that had begun to droop rose instantly. Everyone knew what the vicar was talking about—news of Kit’s passage had spread to the farthest reaches of the parish—but no one had expected to hear a sermon on the subject. Then, too, there was an odd note in the vicar’s voice, a sharpness that would, in anyone else, have signified anger.

“He was a stranger to our village,” the vicar continued, “a poor man dressed in ragged clothes. He was hungry, yet he asked no one for food. He was ill, yet he asked for no one’s help. Had he done so, I fear, he would have been hard-pressed to find so much as a crumb of kindness among us.”

Mr. Barlow gave an audible harrumph, and unhappy glances were exchanged among those who’d attended the previous night’s rehearsal.

The vicar leaned forward, his mild gray eyes flashing like unsheathed swords as he surveyed his flock.

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