Hero's Bride by Jane Peart

Author:Jane Peart
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Array
Publisher: Zondervan

chapter

13

BY HER SECOND day at Birchfields, Kitty realized how tired she was. Her work schedule at St. Albans had been grueling, not only the physical labor but the added tension to prove herself.One of only a very few Americans on staff, she almost felt that the honor of her country was at stake. There, she had been too busy to think o f anything but her duties, and at night, she was too bone-weary to do much but fall into bed.

Now there was time to rest and think. Of course, it was Kip who filled her thoughts. She had not heard from him in weeks and, although he had warned her of this possibility, she worried about him. I f he had been injured . . . or worse . . . she would be informed. His family would have received official notification and would have told her.

But deep down, Kitty harbored an apprehension of some unknown danger. Not the recurrent nightmare from which she awoke panting and drenched with cold perspiration, having dreamed that Kip's plane had gone down in a spiraling arrow of flame. No, there was something else, something she could not name.

Before she left London, Kitty had written to him that she was going to spend Christmas with Aunt Garnet. She had even suggested he try to get leave and join them for a family celebration. But by the time she was ready to leave for Birchfields, there had been no letter from him.

Kitty had hoped that perhaps he might write her here. Each morning, she came downstairs in the anticipation that today's mail might bring some word from Kip. She tried to keep busy, volunteering for whatever needed to be done—reading to the men with eye injuries, writing letters home for others. Always a part of her was impatiently counting the minutes until the postman's truck from the village would come puttering up the long drive, and the mail would be sorted and placed on the polished hall table. But there was nothing from Kip.

Knowing that her Aunt Garnet was depending on her to help make Christmas a happy occasion for the men at Birchfields, realizing also that it might be the last some of them would ever have, Kitty tried to bury her own anxiety in activity. She plunged herself into all the holiday preparations, leaving no room for morbid thoughts.

Great armloads of greens from the nearby woods were brought in to be made into garlands to twine through the banisters of the staircase, decorate the fireplace mantels, and drape the balcony overlooking the entrance hall. The doors of the drawing room and music room were opened to form one large space, and a six-foot cedar tree was placed in the center.

A tree-trimming party was planned for Christmas Eve. Early in the evening, Aunt Garnet requested Kitty to play some Christmas carols while the men and staff gathered to participate in decorating the tree. The piano had been moved into an alcove in an adjoining room.

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