Christmas in New England by Jonah
This is a work of fiction so be aware that every character herein is also fictitious. If you think you recognise yourself, or somebody else in here - you don't. Some places, and some institutions in here are real, but the people attached to those institutions in the story are not. Most characters are my own creations, but some are the creations of another author. I want to thank Jacob Lion, in the USA, for his permission to use his characters in my stories.
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Chapter 7
On Sunday moning we were off to Church for the fourth Sunday of Advent service. All the hymns were Christmas ones - though not necessarily carols. We did justice to "Cradled in a Manger Meanly", though I really prefer the English tune. "It came upon a midnight clear" had a different tune too, which I discovered that I preferred to Sir Arthur Sullivan's tune. We also sang "Infant Holy, Infant Lowly", "Love came down at Christmas" and "Angels from the Realms of Glory". I'm not sure whether that is a choice of hymns that would have been sung in an English Church on that particular Sunday. It just seemed unusual to me. When I was thirteen, and we first met a certain American family, Christmas took on a different meaning for me. I had an odd feeling that it was about to do so again.
After the service there was an opportunity to use up some of the leftovers from the previous night. We acknowledged it - made a token obeisance to it - then hurriedly departed with Chris, Nesta and Simon following in our wake.
Yori, who rarely attended Sunday morning worship (now I knew where Garret got it from) had been busy in our absence. His dining table could have seated ten easily but, alongside it, another table had apppeared. This new table was bedecked with a mountain of food - mostly Japanese - which I'm certain he couldn't have hidden in the house without our knowing. To this day I don't know how it was done. Did he bring in outside caterers? Was there a secret room somewhere in the house? I don't think I'll ever know.
In no time at all we had helped ourselves and were seated at the dining table. Yori had served drinks and we were a convivial bunch.
To a certain extent there was catching up to be done. I knew that, after our third visit to the States (the one that Jonah didn't tell you about, though, for that matter - neither did I), Jonah and Jake still kept up a correspondence. Since I left for Cambridge, I never did return to Harrow so I didn't know if they still corresponded. Since Liam had told me things that Jonah hadn't, it seemed likely that they didn't. Kori had corresponded with me right up until I married Garret. We were still good friends so far as I knew. I guess he just didn't think correspondence with me would be appropriate once I was married. Ning, I discovered, was now working as a doctor in Northampton. His mother was also living under his roof. Until Pastor White retired, they had both regularly attended Church in Ashfield, but Chris hadn't seen them for a while. Yori revealed that he was a frequent visitor at their home. He had invited Ning to visit this weekend, but it would depend on the workload at the hospital.
You may have noticed that this conversation amongst the adults continued uninterrupted by any of the four boys present. That's because there were not four boys present. As soon as they finished munching, all four of them had rushed upstairs. Lloyd had reappeared briefly to ask Yori if it was OK for them to disappear, having belatedly remembered his manners, but the old man had just waved him away dismissively.
The conversation was so intense that not one of the adults noticed the boys creep down again - though the paucity of shoes and socks amongst them enabled them to creep quietly. Our first intimation that such a thing had taken place was the strains of Sir Arthur Sullivan's tune "Noel" from the big piano in the music room. Three boys joined in with the soprano and alto lines to "It came upon a midnight clear". As one, the adults left the table and tiptoed to the music room. The last verse of the hymn had tenor and bass lines as well.
Barry had begun to get a grip on what was in the piano stool. It seems that, amongst the sheet music, he had also discovered a bound copy of "The Oxford Book of Carols". There had never been a Cambridge book of carols or Garret and I would have had something to say about the matter. I recalled that Oxford printed books while Cambridge read them. This distinction was summed up by a verse, by William Browne, about King Charles I's treatment of them, which also attributes the difference to their political affinities:
The King, to Oxford, sent a troop of horse;
For Tories own no argument but force;
With equal skill, to Cambridge, books he sent;
For Whigs admit no force but argument:
Barry seemed delighted to find that the book contained, not only well-known carols, but ancient ones that modern audiences wouldn't know. As Barry played, Garret and I were obliged to perform "Adam lay y bounden." It was lucky that our sight-reading was up to it. Lloyd and Philip then joined forces for "Wassail! wassail!" and then Simon gave a solo performance of "Away in a manger." Garret was not going to be outdone. He persuaded Barry to accompany him in, "Dark the Night". In an attempt to give us a well-known carol, by way of contrast, Barry next selected "While Shepherds Watched", only to discover that Victorians didn't sing it to "Winchester Old." I pointed out to him that it had been sung to many tunes (including "On Ilkley Moor baht 'at"), and found a copy of Lyngham, which we all enjoyed singing. It was time for my party piece. I sang the first verse of "O come all ye faithful" in Latin, after which everybody else joined in in English. Lloyd and Philip joined Nesta in singing the descant to the last verse (well, the last verse that we were going to sing). Even Yori was not to be left out. He took up the cello that nobody had noticed in the corner, and gave us, with Barry's help, a fine performance of the best known of Borodin's "Polotvian Dances" - best known, that is, as the modern carol "Silver Star". Christopher surprised us by plucking from the carol book the Victorian carol, "Chanticleer". His fine tenor voice was well suited to it. To round off an enjoyable evening, we all joined in the "Twelve Days of Christmas". At the end of it all we laughed a lot - clasped each others hands a lot - clapped each other on the back a lot - sent Simon upstairs to recover his socks, and joyfully sped the Plover family on their way.
Barry found himself the toast of everybody as we tucked into a late supper and said our goodnights.