"When icicles hang by the wall,
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When blood is nipp'd and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
Tu whit,
Tu whu, a merry note
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot."
Mhor began to look forward to Christmas whenever the days began to
shorten and the delights of summer to fade; and the moment the
Hallowe'en "dooking" for apples was over he and Jock were deep in
preparations.
As is the way with most things, the looking forward and preparing were
the best of it. It meant weeks of present-making, weeks of wrestling
with delicious things like paints and pasteboard and glue. Then came a
week or two of walking on tiptoe into the little spare room where the
presents were stored, just to peep, and make sure that they really were
there and had not been spirited away, for at Christmas-time you never
knew what knavish sprites were wandering about. The spare room became
the most interesting place in the house. It was all so thrilling: the
pulling out of the drawer, the breathless moment until you made sure
that the presents were safe, the smell that came out of the drawer to
meet you, an indescribable smell of lavender and well-washed linen, of
furniture polish and cedar-wood. The dressing-table had a row of three
little drawers on either side, and in these Jean kept the small eatables
that were to go into the stockings--things made of chocolate, packets of
almonds and raisins, big sugar "bools." To Mhor a great mystery hung
over the dressing-table. No mortal hand had placed those things there;
they were fairy things, and might vanish any moment. On Christmas
morning he ate his chocolate frog with a sort of reverence, and sucked
the sugar "bools" with awe.
A caller at The Rigs had once exclaimed in astonishment that an
intelligent child like the Mhor still believed in Santa Claus, and Jean
had replied with sudden and startling ferocity, "If he didn't believe I
would beat him till he did." Happily there was no need for such extreme
measures: Mhor believed implicitly.
Jock had now grown beyond such beliefs, but he did nothing to undermine
Mhor's trust. He knew that the longer you can believe in such things the
nicer the world is.
The Jardines always felt about Christmas Day that the best of it was
over in the morning--the stockings and the presents and the postman,
leaving long, over-eaten, irritable hours to be got through before
bedtime and oblivion.
This year Jock had drawn out a time-table to ensure that the day held
no longueurs.
7.30 Stockings.
8.30 Breakfast.
9 Postman.
10-12 Deliver small presents to various friends.
1 Luncheon at the Jowetts'.
4 Tea at home and present-giving.
5-9 Devoted to supper and variety entertainment.
This programme was strictly adhered to except by the Mhor in the matter
of his stocking, which was grabbed from the bed-post and cuddled into
bed beside him at least two hours before the scheduled time; and by the
postman, who did not make his appearance till midday, thereby greatly
disarranging things.
The day passed very pleasantly: the luncheon at the Jowetts' was
everything a Christmas meal should be, Mrs. M'Cosh surpassed herself
with bakemeats for the tea, the presents gave lively satisfaction, but
_the_ feature of the day was the box that arrived from Pamela and her
brother. It was waiting when the family came back from the Jowetts',
standing in the middle of the little hall with a hammer and a
screw-driver laid on the top by thoughtful Mrs. M'Cosh--a large white
wooden box which thrilled one with its air of containing treasures. Mhor
sank down beside it, hardly able to wait until David had taken off his
coat and was ready to tackle it. Off came the lid, out came the packing
paper on the top, and in Jock and Mhor dived.
It was really a wonderful box. In it there was something for everybody,
including Mrs. M'Cosh and Peter, but Mhor's was the most striking
present. No wonder the box was large. It contained a whole railway--a
train, lines, signal-boxes, a station, even a tunnel.
Mhor was rendered speechless with delight. Jean wished Pamela had been
there to see the lamps lit in his green eyes. Mrs. M'Cosh's beautiful
tea was lost on him: he ate and drank without being aware of it, his
eyes feasting all the time on this great new treasure.
"I wish," he said at last, "that I could do something for the Honourable
and Richard Plantagenet. I only sent her a wee poetry-book. It cost a
shilling. It was Jean's shilling really, for I hadn't anything left, and
I wrote in it, 'Wishing you a pretty New Year.' I forgot about 'happy'
being the word; d'you think she'll mind?"
"I think Pamela will prefer it called 'pretty,'" Jean said. "You are
lucky, aren't you?--and so is Jock with that gorgeous knife."
"It's an explorer's knife," said Jock. "You see, you can do almost
everything with it. If I was wrecked on a desert island I could pretty
nearly build a house with it. Feel the blades--"
"Oh, do be careful. I would put away the presents in the meantime and
get everything ready for the charade. Are you quite sure you know what
you're going to do? You mustn't just stand and giggle."
Jean had asked three guests to come to supper--three lonely women who
otherwise would have spent a solitary evening--and Mrs. M'Cosh had
asked Bella Bathgate to sup with her and afterwards to witness what she
dubbed "a chiraide."
The living-room had been made ready for the entertainment, all the
chairs placed in rows, the deep window-seat doing duty for a stage, but
Jean was very doubtful about the powers of the actors, and hoped that
the audience would be both easily amused and long-suffering.
Jock and Mhor protested that they had chosen a word for the charade, and
knew exactly what they meant to say, but they would divulge no details,
advising Jean to wait patiently, for something very good was coming.
The little house looked very festive, for the boys had decorated
earnestly, the square hall was a bower of greenery, and a gaily coloured
Chinese lantern hanging in the middle added a touch of gaiety to the
scene. The supper was the best that Jean and Mrs. M'Cosh could devise,
the linen and the glass and silver shone, the flowers were charmingly
arranged Jean wore her gay mandarin's coat, and the guests--when they
arrived--found themselves in such a warm and welcoming atmosphere that
they at once threw off all stiffness and prepared to enjoy the evening.
The entertainment was to begin at eight, and Mrs. M'Cosh and Miss
Bathgate took their seats "on the chap," as the latter put it. The two
Miss Watsons, surprisingly enough, were also present. They had come
along after supper with a small present for Jean, had asked to see her,
and stood lingering on the doorstep refusing to come farther, but
obviously reluctant to depart.
"Just a little bag, you know, Miss Jean, for you to put your work in if
you're going out to tea, you know. No, it's not at all kind. You've been
so nice to us. No, no, we won't come in; we don't want to disturb
you--just ran along--you've friends, anyway. Oh, well, if you put it
that way ... we might just sit down for five minutes--if you're sure
we're not in the way...." And still making a duet of protest they sank
into seats.
A passage had been arranged, with screens between the door and the
window-seat, and much traffic went along that way; the screens bumped
and bulged and seemed on the point of collapsing, while smothered
giggles were frequent.
At last the curtains were jerked apart, and revealed what seemed to be a
funeral pyre. Branches were piled on the window-seat, and on the top,
wrapped in an eiderdown quilt, with a laurel wreath bound round his
head, lay David. Jock, with bare legs and black boots, draped in an
old-fashioned circular waterproof belonging to Mrs. M'Cosh, stood with
arms folded looking at him, while Mhor, almost denuded of clothing, and
supported by Peter (who sat with his back to the audience to show his
thorough disapproval of the proceedings), stood at one side.
When the murmured comments of the spectators had ceased, Mhor, looking
extraordinarily Roman, held up his hand as if appealing to a raging mob,
and said, "Peace, ho! Let us hear him," whereupon Jock, breathing
heavily in his brother's face, proceeded to give Antony's oration over
Caesar. He did it very well, and the Mhor as the Mob supplied
appropriate growls at intervals; indeed, so much did Antony's eloquence
inspire Mhor that, when Jock shouted, "Light the pyre!" (a sentence
introduced to bring in the charade word), instead of merely pretending
with an unlighted taper, Mhor dashed to the fire, lit the taper, and
before anyone could stop him thrust it among the dry twigs, which at
once began to light and crackle. Immediately all was confusion. "Mhor!"
shouted Jean, as she sprang towards the stage. "Gosh, Maggie!" Jock
yelled, as he grabbed the burning twigs, but it was "Imperial Caesar,
dead and turned to clay," who really put out the fire by rolling on it
wrapped in an eiderdown quilt.
"Eh, ye ill callant," said Bella Bathgate.
"Ye wee deevil," said Mrs. M'Cosh, "ye micht hev had us a' burned where
we sat, and it Christmas too!"
"What made you do it, sonny?" Jean asked.
"It made it so real," Mhor explained, "and I knew we could always throw
them out of the window if they really blazed. What's the use of having a
funeral pyre if you don't light it?"
The actors departed to prepare for the next performance Jock coming back
to put his head in at the door to ask if they had guessed the first part
of the word.
Jean said she thought it must be incendiarism.
"Funeral," said Miss Watson brightly.
"Huch," said Jock; "it's a word of one syllable."
"I think," Jean said as the door shut on Jock--I think I know what the
word is--pyre."
"Oh, really," said Miss Watson, "I'm all shaking yet with the fright I
got. He's an awful bad wee boy that--sort of regardless. He needs a man
to look after him."
"I'll never forget," said Miss Teenie, "once I was staying with a friend
of ours, a doctor; his mother and our mother were cousins, you know, and
when I looked--I was doing my hair at the time--I found that the curtain
had blown across the gas and was blazing. If I had been in our own house
I would just have rushed out screaming, but when you're away from home
you've more feeling of responsibility and I just stood on a chair and
pulled at the curtain till I brought it down and stamped on it. My hands
were all scorched, and of course the curtain was beyond hope, but when
the doctor saw it, he said, 'Teenie,' he said--his mither and ours were
cousins, you know--'you're just a wee marvel.' That was what he said--'a
wee marvel.'"
Jean said, "You _were_ brave," and one of the guests said that presence
of mind was a wonderful thing, and then the next act was ready.
The word had evidently something to do with eating, for the three actors
sat at a Barmecide feast and quaffed wine from empty goblets, and carved
imaginary haunches of venison. So far as could be judged from the
conversation, which was much obscured by the smothered laughter of the
actors, they seemed to belong to Robin Hood's merry men.
The third act took place on board ship--a ship flying the Jolly
Roger--and it was obvious to the meanest intelligence that the word was
pirate.
"Very good," said Miss Teenie, clapping her hands; "but," addressing the
Mhor, "don't you go lighting any more funeral pyres. Boys who do that
have to go to jail."
Mhor looked coldly at her, but made no remark, while Jean said hastily:
"You must show everyone your wonderful present, Mhor. I think the hall
would be the best place to put it up in."
The second part of the programme was of a varied character. Jean led off
with the old carol:
"There comes a ship far sailing then,
St. Michael was the steersman,"
and Mhor followed with a poem, "In Time of Pestilence," which had
captivated his strange small boy's soul, and which he had learned for
the occasion. Everyone felt it to be singularly inappropriate, and Miss
Watson said it gave her quite a turn to hear the relish with which he
knolled out:
"Wit with his wantonness
Tasteth death's bitterness:
Hell's executioner
Hath no ears for to hear
What vain art can reply!
I am sick, I must die--
God have mercy on us."
She regarded him with disapproving eyes as a thoroughly uncomfortable
character.
One of the guests sang a drawing-room ballad in which the words "dear
heart" seemed to occur with astonishing frequency. Then the
entertainment took a distinctly lower turn.
David and Jock sang a song composed by themselves and set to a hymn
tune, a somewhat ribald production. Mhor then volunteered the
information that Mrs. M'Cosh could sing a song. Mrs. M'Cosh said, "Awa
wi' ye, laddie," and "Sic havers," but after much urging owned that she
knew a song which had been a favourite with her Andra. It was sung to
the tune of "When the kye come hame," and was obviously a parody on that
lyric, beginning:
"Come a' ye Hieland pollismen
That whustle through the street,
An' A'll tell ye a' aboot a man
That's got triple expansion feet.
He's got braw, braw tartan whuskers
That defy the shears and kaim:
There's an awfu' row in Brigton
When M'Kay comes hame."
It went on to tell how:
"John M'Kay works down in Singers's,
He's a ceevil engineer,
But his wife's no verra ceevil
When she's had some ginger-beer.
When he missed the last Kilbowie train
And had to walk hame lame,
There wis Home Rule wi' the poker
When M'Kay cam hame."
Mrs. M'Cosh sang four verses and stopped, in spite of the rapturous
applause of a section of the audience.
"There's aboot nineteen mair verses," she explained "an' they get kinna
worse as they gang on, so I'd better stop," which she did, to Jean's
relief, for she saw that her guests were feeling that this was not an
entertainment such as the Best People indulged in.
"And now Miss Bathgate will sing," said Mhor.
"I will not sing," said Miss Bathgate. "I've mair pride than make a fool
o' mysel' to please folk."
"Oh, come on," Jock begged. "Look at Mrs. M'Cosh!"
Miss Bathgate snorted.
"Ay," said Mrs. M'Cosh, with imperturbable good-humour, "she seen me,
and she thinks yin auld fool is enough at a time. Never heed, Bella,
juist gie us a verse."
Miss Bathgate protested that she knew no songs, and had no voice, but
under persuasion she broke into a ditty, a sort of recitative:
"Gang further up the toon, Geordie Broon, Geordie Broon,
Gang further up the toon, Geordie Broon:
Gang further up the toon
Till ye's spent yer hale hauf-croon,
And then come singin' doon,
Geordie Broon, Geordie Broon."
"I remember that when I was a child," Jean said. "We used to be put to
sleep with it; it is very soothing. Thank you so much, Miss Bathgate
... Now I think we should have a game."
"Forfeits," Miss Teenie suggested.
"That's a silly game," said Mhor; "there's kissing in it."
"Perhaps we might have a quiet game," Jean said. "What was that one we
played with Pamela, you remember, Jock? We took a subject, and tried who
could say the most obvious thing about it."
"Oh, nothing clever, for goodness' sake," pleaded Miss Watson. "I've no
head for anything but fancy-work."
"'Up Jenkins' would be best," Jock decreed; so a table was got in, and
"up Jenkins" was played with much laughter until the clock struck ten,
and the guests all rose in a body to go.
"Well," said Miss Watson, "it's been a very pleasant evening, though I
wouldn't wonder if I had a nightmare about that funeral pyre ... I
always think, don't you, that there's something awful pathetic about
Christmas? You never know where you may be before another."
One of the guests, a little music-teacher, said:
"The worst of Christmas is that it brings back to one's mind all the
other Christmasses and the people who were with us then...."
Bella Bathgate's voice was heard talking to Mrs. M'Cosh at the door: "I
dinna believe in keeping Christmas; it's a popish festival. New Year's
the time. Ye can eat yer currant-bun wi' a relish then. Guid-nicht,
then, and see ye lick that ill laddie for near settin' the hoose on
fire. It's no' safe, I tell ye, to live onywhere near him noo that he's
begun thae tricks. Baith Peter an' him are fair Bolsheviks ... Did I
tell ye that Miss Reston sent me a grand feather-boa--grey, in a
present? I've aye had a notion o' a feather-boa, but I dinna ken how she
kent that. And this is no' yin o' the skimpy kind; it's fine and fussy
and soft ... Here, did the Lord send Miss Jean a present?... I doot he's
aff for guid. Weel, weel, guid-nicht."
With a heightened colour Jean said good-night to her guests, separated
Mhor from his train, and sent him with Jock to bed.
As she went upstairs, Bella Bathgate's words rang in her ears dismally:
"I doot he's aff for guid."
It was what she wanted, of course; she had told him so. But she had half
hoped that he might send her a letter or a little remembrance on
Christmas Day.
Better not, perhaps, but it would have been something to keep. She
sometimes wondered if she had not dreamt the scene in the Hopetoun
Woods, and only imagined the words that were constantly in her ears. It
was such a very improbable thing to happen to such a commonplace person.
Her room was very restful-looking that night to Jean, tired after a long
day's junketing. It was a plain little upper chamber, with white walls
and Indian rugs on the floor. A high south wind was blowing (it had been
another of poor Mhor's snow-less Christmasses!), making the curtains
billow out into the room, and she could hear through the open window
the sound of Tweed rushing between its banks. On the dressing-table lay
a new novel with a vivid paper cover. Jean gave it a little disgusted
push. Someone had lent it to her, and she had been reading it between
Christmas preparations, reading it with deep distaste. It was about a
duel for a man between a woman of forty-five and a girl of eighteen. The
girl was called Noel, and was "pale, languid, passionate." The older
woman gave up before the end, and said Time had "done her in." There
were pages describing how she looked in the mirror "studying with a
fearful interest the little hard lines and markings there beneath their
light coating of powder, fingered and smoothed the slight looseness and
fullness of the skin below her chin," and how she saw herself going down
the years, "powdering a little more, painting a little more, touching up
her hair till it was all artifice, holding on by every little
device...."
A man had written that. What a trade for a man, Jean thought.
She was glad she lived among people who had the decency to go on caring
for each other in spite of lines and wrinkles--comfortable couples whose
affection for each other was a shelter in the time of storm, a shelter
built of common joys, of "fireside talks and counsels in the dawn,"
cemented by tears shed over common sorrows.
She smiled to herself as she remembered a little woman who had told her
with great pride that, to celebrate their silver wedding, her husband
was giving her a complete set of artificial teeth. "And," she had
finished impressively, "you know what teeth cost now."
And why not? It was as much a token of love as a pearl necklace, and,
looked at in the right way, quite as romantic.
"I'd better see how it finishes," Jean said to herself opening the book
a few pages from the end.
Oh yes, there they were at it. Noel, "pale, languid passionate," and the
man "moved beyond control." "He drew her so close that he could feel the
throbbing of her heart ..." And the other poor woman with the hard lines
and marking beneath the light coating of powder, where had she gone?
Jean pushed the book away, and stood leaning on the dressing-table
studying her face in the glass. This was no heroine, "pale, languid,
passionate." She saw a fresh-coloured face with a pointed chin,
wide-apart eyes as frank and sunny as a moorland burn, an innocent
mouth. It seemed to Jean a very uninteresting face. She was young,
certainly, but that was all--not beautiful, or brilliant and witty. Lord
Bidborough must see scores of lovely girls. Jean seemed to see them
walking past her in a procession--girls who had maids to do their hair
in the most approved fashion, constantly renewed girls whose clothes
were a dream of daintiness all charming, all witty, all fitted to be
wife to a man like Lord Bidborough. What was he doing now, Jean
wondered. Perhaps dancing, or sitting out with someone. Jean could see
him so clearly, listening, smiling, with lazy, amused eyes. By now he
must be thankful that the penny-plain girl at Priorsford had not
snatched at the offer he had made her, but had had the sense to send him
away. It must have been a sudden madness on his part. He had never said
a word of love to her--then suddenly in the rain and mud, when she was
looking her very plainest, muffled up in a thick coat, clogged by
goloshes, to ask her to marry him!
Jean nodded at the girl in the glass.
"What you've got to do is to put him out of your head, and be thankful
that you have lots to do, and a house to keep, and boys to make happy,
and aren't a heroine writhing about in a novel."
But she sighed as she turned away. Doing one's duty is a dreary business
for three-and-twenty. It goes on for such a long time.