Tidings of Comfort and Joy by T. Davis Bunn

flame. What if I wasn't the first lost and forlorn little thing to show up at Grant's doorstep? What if the whole village was laughing behind their hands? Oh, look, there goes another of Grant's floozies, and this one all the way from America, can you imagine. I flipped the collar up on my coat, and buried my face out of view. Yes, I could just bet the landlady was looking forward to meeting me.
    The taxi took a sudden turn, and there at the bottom of the road was water. A large flowing stretch of it. "What is that?"
    "That?" My question caused the driver to laugh out loud. "Why, that's the River Thames, Miss. Didn't you know we're a river village?"
    "I suppose I did." Of course. The town's name was Arden-on-Thames. But I had no idea the river was so close. The road seemed to simply drop into the water. As we drew closer, I saw how it took a right-hand bend and went up to join with an old stone bridge.
    But the taxi did not follow the road around. Instead, it took a sharp turn to the left, down a tiny cobblestone lane. The alley was so narrow that no one could pass the taxi when its doors were opened.
    The driver pulled up and stopped. "Here we are, Miss."
    Hesitantly, I inspected my new home through the grimy window of the taxi. There was not much to see. The entire street was one long wall of two-story houses all joined together. They looked like the neatly painted brick tenements of a big city. But this was a small village, and tenements had no place here.
    "Fred, yoo-hoo, I say, Fred!"
    "There's your landlady now," the driver said, opening his door. He scrambled from the taxi and doffed his cap.
    "Fine morning, Miss Rachel."
    "Oh, it's not, it's cold and it's dreadful and you still haven't done a thing about that horrid floor of yours, have you?" The woman coming their way was limping heavily and leaning upon a cane. She stopped and huffed a moment, then finished, "Shame on you, Fred."
    The driver responded with another grin. "I put the blanket in like you said, Miss Rachel."
    "That's not good enough. It simply won't do." She started toward my side of the taxi. "To think our new arrival has been forced to rattle about our little town in such a condition!"
    I opened my door and rose to greet her. Only then did I realize how tall the woman was. She had to be over six feet in height. She was stooped somewhat, and she walked with difficulty, but still she had a regal bearing. And a grand light to her eyes.
    "Oh, my dear," she said. "If only I could have come up and gathered you myself. But the old banger caught a terrific cold last year and I still haven't managed to obtain the required parts." She frowned at Fred, as though it was all his fault. "A dreadful state, if you ask me."
    I was caught flatfooted. The only thing I could think to say was my name. "I'm Emily Robbins."
    "Well, of course you are. And I should have been up to see you long before now. But I came down with the worst influenza, which of course was the last thing you needed breathed upon you. All sorts of germs are floating about these days. It's the cold, you know, they're predicting the worst winter since the last war."
    She gave her head an impatient shake. "Then when I was better, that new doctor we've been saddled with actually ordered me to stay well away from the clinic."
    She snorted her derision, which instantly warmed me to her. I didn't like the doctor either.
    Rachel went on, "I told him time and time again, the young lady needs a bit of company, especially over the Christmas holidays. But he kept going on about the new babies and such. He actually claimed he would bar the doors if I came up! Can you imagine such nonsense?"
    I decided I liked this tall, angular woman. Enough, in fact, to confess, "I was very lonely."
    The words brought a great ballooning of her emotional sails. "Well, of course you were." She hefted her cane and shook it fiercely. "I didn't half give him a piece of my mind, I can tell you that. But you see how much good it did.