Quiet Dell: A Novel Read Online Free PDF

relieved to speak. Such a catastrophe would have canceled everything. She could not have left Charles, alone and facing terrible difficulty. She felt him take her hand and followed him to the dining room.
    “Shall we?” He held the opened wine, and touched her fingers to his mouth.
    She laughed. “Charles, you’re such a storybook character today.”
    “My dear,” he said behind her, “we live storybook lives. Do open your eyes and observe.”
    The dining room before them was transformed. Clearly, Charles had been under orders to distract her in the kitchen while Grethe and Annabel, who stood expectantly at the end of the table, finished preparing their tableau. The votive candles inside the cardboard houses and church of the Christmas village were lit, and the little houses glowed in a long row down the length of the table beyond the place settings. Grethe had arranged pine boughs and cotton snow, mirrors for skating ponds, the miniature flocked trees. Annabel had no doubt placed the little porcelain figures, ice skaters and shopkeepers, children with sleds, men in top hats, women carrying parcels. They were Lavinia’s fine hand-painted German Christmas sets, and they stood about in conversational groups, glided motionless atop their reflections, or bent to their work, all in concert.
    “Girls, it’s so beautiful.” Anna felt Charles gently embrace her from behind and was glad, for she was almost faint. The chandelier’s teardrop crystals caught the dipping sparkle of the candles and the gold of the stenciled border on the cranberry walls. Such a warm color for a dining room, Lavinia had said, and stood on a ladder to paint the stenciled pattern, a filigree of barely present fleur-de-lis.
    “Mother, I lit the candles for Grethe.” Annabel held out a stump of matchbook, beaming. Anna could see the soot on her fingertips, and a dark little smear on her cheek.
    “I’m very glad I dressed appropriately,” Charles said into Anna’s hair. “This is the most beautiful Christmas table ever seen by man or angels.”
    “Man or angels,” Annabel repeated, clearly impressed with the phrase.
    “She did very well,” Grethe said, “but she wouldn’t use the kitchen matches. She wanted to use the old matchbooks from Grandmother’s collection.”
    “Never mind,” Charles said. “That’s fine, Grethe. And now your mother and I will have a glass of wine, and enjoy your work while you guess what’s in those presents.”
    The girls, under strict orders never to leave candles burning in a room, turned away to finish their preparations. Anna sat gratefully. Charles pulled his chair close beside hers, and offered his handkerchief. “There, you see? Everything is going to be all right, Anna.”
    She took the wine he poured for her and felt its warmth in her mouth. “Annabel insists on keeping Lavinia’s old matchbooks. She found a cache of them and won’t let me throw them out. She likes to arrange them in rows on the kitchen table.”
    “They’re interesting,” Charles said. “Little pictures of Copenhagen and London, names of exotic restaurants, but I’m surprised the matches still light. Look, our dramatist has written the place cards with great style.”
    Annabel had written their names in script that approximated Lavinia’s, with swooping serifs on all the capital letters. Well, let her. Charles was right. She must express it all, somehow. Anna saw that Grethe had assigned Charles the seat at the head of the table, with Asta to his right, and Hart to his left, and the two girls opposite one another. They were all so happy to see him. She herself was so glad she’d not invited the Verbergs or the Breedloves, neighbors who would have kindly provided distraction, given Lavinia’s death a month ago. Anna wanted this last Christmas in their home to be just for the five of them.
    “All right?” Charles asked.
    She nodded. She’d told Charles of her plan to sell the house; she would tell the children in the