Colin had been the brightest of the three, a cheeky little boy with charm and a talent for mischief. Miss Crindle had never quite forgiven him for leaving school at sixteen to go into his father’s grocery shop.
“And how is Colin?” Miss Crindle inquired that morning.
Harriet looked surprised. “Haven’t you heard, Miss Crindle? I thought everybody had. We had a row last night and it’s all over.”
Miss Crindle noticed that Harriet’s left eye was twitching and that she looked embarrassed. All the same, she didn’t seem too distressed. She had always been a sensible girl, Miss Crindle thought, and things were different nowadays. In her time, if a girl and her boy friend split up she would be upset for days. “I’m sorry,” she said.
Harriet shrugged. “I’ll get over it,” she said ruefully.
Miss Crindle was sure she would. A girl like Harriet, vivacious and attractive, would find no shortage of young men.
That afternoon, Colin, driving back from Leobury, slewed off the road into a ditch two miles from the village. He explained that he had swerved to avoid a pheasant and skidded, but the popular theory was that his mind hadn’t been on his driving, he was thinking about Harriet and their row. Whatever the cause, his car was well and truly stuck and he had to walk to the nearest house and phone the garage to come and tow him out.
They were still doing it when Billy Powis, having run all the way home, blurted out breathlessly to his mother that he had just seen Santa Claus. Mary Powis was busy making mince pies. She laughed but didn’t pay too much attention. She was used to her son’s tales.
“Oh, dear?” she said.
“But I did. Mum,” the seven-year-old insisted.
“Had he got his sledge and reindeer?”
Billy hesitated. He was a truthful little boy and he couldn’t really remember, he had been too excited. “He’d got something,” he mumbled. More certainly he added, “And he had a sack over his shoulder.”
“Where was he?”
“I told you, at the edge of Brackett’s Wood. He went into the trees.”
“You shouldn’t make up stories, Billy,” Mary told him mildly. “It’s telling fibs, and that’s naughty.”
“I did see him,” Billy persisted. He was learning early that it is bad enough to be suspected when one is guilty, but much worse when one is innocent. “He was all in red, with white stuff on his coat, and he had a big red hood and boots. Like he does when he comes to our school party.”
Oh, dear, Mary thought. She decided that the best course would be to ignore her son’s tale. “Go and wash your hands,” she said.
At the same time, Sheila Richards was trying without success to ring her sister-in-law. Harriet’s mother told her Harry was out. She didn’t know where, but she didn’t suppose she would be long. Sheila thanked her and said she would try again later.
Billy Powis wasn’t the only inhabitant of Much Cluning to see Father Christmas. Two other people saw him, and they were grownups. The first was George Townley, the owner of the general store-cum-post office. While Billy was running home to tell his mother what he had seen, George was returning from visiting his sister at Little Cluning. As he drove down the hill into the village, he saw a figure in red with a hood and carrying a sack disappear into the trees beside the road. He was unwise enough to mention it to one of his customers, and soon the story was all over the village. George Townley had started seeing things, and he believed in Santa Claus.
It had been getting colder during the day, and about five o’clock it started to snow. By the time most of Much Cluning went to bed, there was a three-inch covering over everything and it was still snowing. It stopped during the night, but the temperature dropped further.
The second adult to see Father Christmas was Miss Crindle. At one o’clock in the morning of December the twenty-third, she had to get out of bed to go to the bathroom. On her way back, she looked out of the window. It was a fine clear night with a moon. There was never much noise in the valley, but now every sound was muffled by the thick layer of snow.
Just across the road, a figure dressed in scarlet and white, its head covered by a hood, was turning the corner round the back of the Renwicks’ cottage. It was bowed under the weight of the sack slung over its right shoulder. Miss Crindle blinked. There were no children’s parties at that hour, and any devoted father who was inclined to go to the lengths of dressing up to deliver his offsprings’ presents would hardly do so two days before Christmas.
Miss Crindle told herself that if it wasn’t a fond father, it must be a burglar. She considered calling the police. But she disliked the idea of being thought an overimaginative old fool and, anyway, everybody knew the Renwicks were almost destitute. No burglar would try his luck there. She climbed back into bed, and the next day she kept what she had seen to herself.
She said nothing even when Phoebe Renwick, who was well over seventy and worn out from caring for her invalid husband, told her her news. When she came down that morning and opened the back door, there on the doorstep there had been a parcel wrapped in gift paper. In it there was a small turkey already plucked and drawn and a tiny Christmas pudding.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Phoebe said. She was close to tears. “We haven’t been able to have a turkey for over twenty years. Not since soon after Bert was first ill and had to give up work. We can’t keep it, of course, it wouldn’t be right, but it was a lovely thought.”
“Of course you can keep it. ‘ Miss Crindle told her with spirit.
“No. We were brought up not to accept what we hadn’t paid for, or to ask for charity, and we never have, neither of us.”
“You call a present charity? Anyway,” Miss Crindle added reasonably, “who would you give it back to?”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Phoebe admitted.
“You keep it and be glad there are people in the village who think of others,” Miss Crindle told her. “You can say a prayer for them in chapel on Christmas morning.”
The old lady’s eyes moistened. “I will tonight, too,” she said.
Busy with her thoughts, Miss Crindle went back indoors and resumed the cleaning she had been doing when she heard Mrs. Renwick calling her. Who was the kind soul who had left the parcel on the old couple’s step? She had no doubt that it was the person in Santa Claus costume she had seen during the night, but who was he? Or she?
Not that it mattered: if somebody wanted to do the old couple a good turn surreptitiously, good luck to them. Only why the fancy dress? Such ostentation seemed out of keeping with leaving the parcel secretly in the middle of the night. It was like a disguise, and it made her a little uneasy.
The Renwicks weren’t the only beneficiaries of Much Cluning’s own Santa Claus: the Randalls, Josie Gardner, and an elderly lady named Willings with a crippled son had found similar parcels at their back doors that morning. By evening the story was all over the village.
Miss Crindle heard it. and she wondered still more.
Neither of the Richardses had heard about the parcels. Bracketts Farm was a mile out of Much Cluning and they’d been busy there all day. Thus there was no reason for Sheila to suspect anything when Jason came into the kitchen during the afternoon and asked her, “Has Mrs. Grundy been for her bird?”
Sheila had been right, he was tired. The woman who helped deal with the turkeys was ill with flu and he had been driving himself hard for days. He was also suspicious.
“No.” Sheila answered without looking up from what she was doing at the sink. “She said she’d come tomorrow.”
Jason swore.
“Why, what’s the matter? It doesn’t make any difference.”
“It’s gone.”
Sheila looked up then. “What do you mean?”
“What I say,” Jason told her angrily. “It’s clear enough, isn’t it? It’s been pinched.”
His wife stared at him. “Are you sure?” she asked. But she could see from Jason’s face he was. “Have any of the others gone?”
“I don’t know. I was only looking for hers.”
“Can’t she have another one?” Sheila tried to be practical, but she knew it wouldn’t assuage Jason’s anger.
