Quiet Dell: A Novel by Jayne Anne Phillips Read Free Book Online

banner, the sheep and cows that stand and lie in real straw. It was their mother’s crèche, in her childhood. Annabel looks closely at the white feet and delineated toes of Mary and Joseph, who are barefoot; the kings’ and shepherds’ feet are covered by layered robes and tunics. The colors were painted in Italy long ago; the white of the bisque seems to glow from within the pinks and browns and blues and scarlets.
    Dreamily, Annabel scoops a handful of straw from within the stable and stuffs it loosely into the shoe she holds in her hand. She folds under the strap and puts the Baby Jesus, who lies molded in his swaddling clothes, into her shoe amongst the straw. She pulls her lace cloak around the Christ protectively and takes him to the big window, standing close against the glass to let him feel the cold. The Palladian window in the living room is like a door of falling snow, for the window starts at her knees and runs upward nearly to the ceiling. Annabel breathes with the snow, holding the shoe to her chest, until she hears sounds upstairs. Quickly she covers theChrist with her hand and moves to the piano. The crèche scene is much changed. Joseph’s flared fingers are alarmed. Even the animals gaze pointedly at the empty porcelain hole, and Mary’s prayerful expression strikes in Annabel a tiny thrill of fear. She puts back the Christ, which fits snugly in, porcelain lip to lip, like one tray inside another.
    She sees that her glade must be littered with straw, and the lights off but for the gaslit sconces, and reaches behind the crèche, where Grethe has heaped the extra straw. She sweeps it all into her arms. The players will be barefoot, of course. It would have been ridiculous otherwise. She will write in her final changes.
    •   •   •
    Outside, Hart is shoveling, clearing the walk. Be sure it’s clear to the street, his mother kept telling him, as though anyone would arrive in the middle of a storm, and on Christmas. The Verbergs and Breedloves have gone away to relatives and their porch lights glow eerily in the snowy whirl. Lit trees twinkle in the parlor windows of houses up and down Cedar Street. All is deserted. The snow is so deep that he will have to rescue Duty if the dog even walks into the yard.
    “Stay there, Duty,” Hart calls. “Stay on the porch.”
    Snow falls in pieces and great puffs, like a magic show. He still has to fill the luminarias, and put on the round tablecloth Annabel says is his costume. God, how they cater to Annabel, but she’s the closest he has to a brother and at least gets up to things, while Grethe is more and more quiet, as Mother presses her into more cleaning and arranging. Nothing must be moved or touched in the whole downstairs, or she puts it back again. Irritating how she has gotten so pious, and is a full head taller than he.
    Girls made presents, it was easy for them, but what was he to make?
    By accident, he’d gotten something nice for everyone.
    Grethe will like her beads, strung on knotted string with a cross. Lutherans had no need of rosaries, his mother said when heshowed her, but these were Venetian beads, and a real gold cross; wherever did he find it? She insisted he say. He told her about the Catholic church rummage sale, on Saturday mornings. He didn’t tell her about the girls that ran it. The one with auburn hair said he must look her up when he was out of knickers. They were cheeky girls, and let him look through boxes in the back. He traded his jar of cat’s-eye marbles for a pair of tarnished cuff links—Charles always wore posh shirts with turned-back cuffs. And he gave his Tom Mix books for a doll’s celluloid vanity and chair. It was yellowish, like vanilla ice cream, and would fit Mrs. Pomeroy, Annabel’s daft rag doll. The girls prized the vanity and wrapped it carefully in layers of pink tissue from the hatboxes that toppled everywhere in leaning tiers.
    Duty is barking, biting at snow blown on the wind. Hart rounds off