Winter Is Past. Ruth Morren Axtell

wasn’t it?”

      “Yes, it was.”

      Rebecca looked toward the garden. “Do you believe in God?”

      “Yes, dear.”

      The little girl gave Althea a straightforward look. “Abba doesn’t.”

      “How do you know?”

      “I’ve heard him say God is an outdated notion and no rational mind can accept Bible stories as anything but myths.”

      Althea considered the parroted words, shocked despite herself. “Do you believe in God, Rebecca?”

      Rebecca tilted her head back against the chair. “I don’t know.”

      Hiding her concern, Althea eased herself onto the arm of the chair and touched the top of Rebecca’s head. “Why is that?”

      Rebecca turned her eyes up to her. “I’ve never seen Him. I’ve never heard Him. Who is to say He is really there?”

      Althea nodded. “You are absolutely right. If you have never felt His presence, you cannot say for certain He is.”

      Rebecca studied her. “You have felt His presence, haven’t you?”

      “Yes, dear,” she answered with a smile, her hand stroking Rebecca’s hair.

      “What does that mean, ‘feel His presence’?”

      Althea pursed her lips, considering how best to reply. “I’ll show you.” Gently, she placed both her hands against the sides of Rebecca’s head and turned it away from her, toward the garden. Then she removed her hands completely from Rebecca. “You can’t see me, can you?”

      Rebecca shook her head.

      “You can’t feel me touching you anywhere, can you?”

      Again she shook her head.

      “Now I shall stop speaking and you won’t be able to hear me. Let’s do that, shall we?”

      Rebecca nodded her head.

      Althea waited silently a little while, not moving. As the silence stretched out, she forgot Mrs. Coates’s earlier scorn, the impossible task Simon had assigned her, and the myriad distractions that had clouded her real purpose in this household. As God’s peace descended upon her, she gazed out the windows at the black outline of espaliered trees against the brick wall enclosing the garden. The ground was a patchwork of snow and brown grass between the gravel paths.

      “Miss Althea?”

      “How do you know I’m still here?”

      Rebecca turned toward her a face radiant with discovery. “I can feel your presence, can’t I?”

      Althea smiled at her.

      “Let’s do it again!” Rebecca cried happily, turning her gaze back toward the garden.

      “Very well. But this time, don’t turn around until I tell you to.”

      Rebecca nodded happily.

      They played the game several times, at Rebecca’s insistence. The final time Althea quietly slipped outside the room and stood just beyond the doorway. After a while, she heard Rebecca’s “Miss Althea? Miss Althea? Are you there? Where are you?”

      Althea immediately stepped over the threshold. “Here I am. What did you feel that time?” she asked as she walked back to Rebecca’s chair.

      “I felt alone.” The child’s deep-set eyes, so much like her father’s, stared up at her in wonder. “I started wondering whether you were still there. The room felt empty. I waited a little longer, but then I couldn’t help calling out.”

      Althea knelt in front of her, taking both her hands in her own. “Sometimes we can’t feel the Lord’s presence, just as you experienced now. But once you have felt His presence, you’ll know even then that He’s still with you. Just as I was right nearby, just outside the door, God is always with you, even when you can’t feel His presence. He promises us, ‘I shall never leave you nor forsake you.’”

      “How can I come to feel His presence the way I did yours?”

      Althea rubbed the back of the girl’s hands with her thumbs. “You invite Him into your heart. And you believe in your heart that He will come in.”

      “Can I do it right now?”

      Althea smiled. “Right now.”

      The little girl bowed her head and said a simple prayer beginning with “Dear God.” Althea was unsure whether to tell her about Jesus, not knowing how the girl’s father would feel about her evangelizing his daughter. Althea remained silent for the moment, knowing the Lord would guide her in that direction when the time was right.

      For the present, she knew God heard the girl’s prayer and would answer it.

      A few days later Althea entered the house, the heavy front door shutting behind her with a bang on a gust of wind. She had had to bend her face downward during her walk, but the air had invigorated her. Surely if March were coming in like a lion, there was a good possibility it would go out like a lamb, she consoled herself as she wiped her boots against the mat in the quiet hall. She looked up startled at the sound of a throat clearing.

      The housekeeper stood with her hands folded in front of her. She looked like a plump, curved urn, round on top and bottom, cinched in at the waist by her apron ties. Tight curls framed a face prematurely wrinkled, as if a sculpture’s knife had slipped, leaving deep lines along her cheeks.

      “Oh, pardon me, Mrs. Coates. I didn’t see you standing there. May I help you with anything?”

      “Yes, miss, if you please.”

      Althea wondered at the subdued tone. “Let me just hang up my damp things and I shall be right with you.”

      She joined the housekeeper in her sitting room.

      “Would you like a cup of tea?” the housekeeper asked stiffly, gesturing toward the pot on the table before her.

      Amazed, Althea took a seat at the table. “That would be lovely. It’s quite cold outside.” She waited quietly as the housekeeper poured the steaming liquid into a cup and covered the pot with a cozy.

      Mrs. Coates sat down opposite her. A stack of correspondence lay on the small table between them. Noticing her glance, the housekeeper said, “Them’s the replies.”

      “The replies?”

      “For the dinner he’s giving.”

      Not liking the way she was referring to their employer, Althea said, “The dinner Mr. Aguilar is hosting?”

      “That’s right. The replies’ve been comin’ in. Most are acceptances.” Mrs. Coates sighed, her ample bosom rising. She pushed forward a sheet of paper. “I was working on seating arrangements when you walked in.”

      “I see. How are they coming?” she asked, looking at the blank sheet of paper.

      Mrs. Coates fingered the corner of the paper. “Not so well. You see, he—that is, Mr. Aguilar—hasn’t been too clear about how he wants it. Only thing he told me was to seat him by—” she shuffled among the correspondence until she came to the right one “—Lady Stanton-Lewis.” She pushed the reply toward Althea.

      Althea took the folded vellum. A hint of a floral fragrance drifted to her nostrils as she unfolded the creamy sheet. Lord Griffith and Lady Eugenia Stanton-Lewis accepted the invitation to dinner at the residence of the Honorable Simon Aguilar on the evening of the twelfth of March. Althea remembered the names Simon had mentioned the evening he was going to the opera.

      She made a greater effort to recall them from her days in London society. She remembered the name was a good one, but that was all that came to mind. “Very well,” she said, “let us put her on Mr. Aguilar’s right—unless,