Free (12/20) No Holly for Miss Quinn by Miss Read Page B

had departed into the waste of wind and water, and Robin's bath time arrived. Hazel and Jenny accompanied her to the bathroom, anxious to help and to explain to the boy the importance of hanging up his stocking.
    Less hostile than the previous evening, nevertheless the child still resented Miriam's attentions
    "Dadda do!" he muttered sulkily. "Go away!"
    "You're a bad boy," scolded Hazel, "to say that to Aunt Miriam when she's come all this way to look after you!"
    Robin responded by blowing a mouthful of soapy water over his sister. Most of it went on Miriam's skirt.
    Jenny improved the shining hour by telling the child about Father Christmas.
    "And he'll creep into your room in a red coat," she began, but was interrupted by a fearful screeching from her brother.
    "No want! No want!" he screamed, shaking his head violently.
    Jenny looked resignedly at Miriam who was doing her best to soap his thrashing legs.
    "You know, he's frightened, that's what! He's just frightened of Father Christmas. What'll we do?"
    Hazel came to the rescue.
    "Put his stocking on the banisters, then he'll be all right, won't he?"
    She looked at Miriam with a conspiratorial glance.
    "Good idea," said she hastily, praying that the secret would still be kept.
    She hauled the boy out of the water, amidst more shrieking, and muffled his cries in a warm towel. The bathroom, steamy and damp, was the warmest place in the house, and she was loath to leave it to put the child into his cot in the chilly bedroom. What this place needs, she told herself, and will never get, is a thoroughly efficient central heating system.
    The two little girls had climbed into the bath together, lured into an early bedtime by the promise of supper by the fire downstairs, and the happy prospect of hanging up stockings.
    Miriam left them there while she warmed their milk in the kitchen. Outside, the rain lashed at the window, and the branches of the apple tree creaked and groaned. A particularly fierce draft under the larder door made a noise like a banshee wailing. This was Norfolk at its worst, thought Miriam, but at least the stove was warm, and the comforting smell of the steak casserole counteracted the bleakness outside.
    The sitting room was snug with the curtains drawn and the fire blazing. The two little girls nursed their bowls of cornflakes liberally topped with brown sugar and raisins, and asked Miriam to tell them about Christmas when she was small.
    "Well," began Miriam, "we used to hang up pillowcases, your Daddy and I."
    "So do we. And stockings."
    "And we left a mince pie and some milk for Father Christmas, in the hearth."
    "So do we," they chorused.
    "And after he'd been," said Miriam, looking squarely at Hazel, whose face remained rapt, "we took our pillowcases into grandma and grandpa's bed and undid all our parcels."
    "And what did you have?"
    Miriam suddenly remembered the agonizing night when she felt her parcels as the tears rolled down her cheeks. She could taste them now, salty and bitter, and feel the lump in her aching throat.
    "Are you all right?" asked Hazel.
    "Yes, just thinking," said Miriam. "Oh, a doll, and a tea set with little flowers on it, and, of course, a tangerine and nuts and sweets. Lots of lovely things." And heartbreak, she added silently. God, that heartbreak! Nothing had ever hurt so since!
    "Can we bring our things into your bedroom?" asked Jenny, spooning up the last drop.
    "Of course you can!" cried Miriam. "On Christmas Day you can do anything you like! Within reason," she added prudently.
    They skipped upstairs before her, and accompanied her to the linen cupboard for two pillowcases. A pair of Eileen's stockings already hung over their bed rail.
    "Do you think they'll be full?" asked Jenny.
    "Positively brimming over," Miriam promised her, tucking them in, and praying that sleep would soon engulf them.
    ***
    Later that evening, she and Lovell drowsed before the fire, before he went over to the church for his late service.
    In her