Whether it was due to the Christmas card look of his new house or merely
to a desire to flaunt a romantic hospitality in the face of his eldest
brother, it is certain that John had never before in his life gone so
benevolently mad as during the week that preceded Christmas in the year
1910. Mindful of that afternoon in the town of Galton when he had tried
to procure for Harold and Frida gifts of such American appearance as
would excuse his negligence, he was determined not to expose himself for
a second time to juvenile criticism, and in the selection of toys he
pandered to every idiosyncrasy he had so far observed in his nephews and
nieces. Thus, for Bertram he bought a large stamp album, several sheets
of tropical stamps, a toy theater, representatives of every species in
the great genus marbles, a set of expensive and realistic masks, and a
model fireman's outfit. For Viola he filled a trunk with remnants of
embroideries and all kinds of stuffs, placing on top two pairs of ebony
castanets and the most professional tambourine he could find; and, in
order that nature might not be utterly subordinated to art, he bought
her a very large doll, rather older in appearance than Viola herself; in
fact, almost marriageable. In the hope of obliterating the
disappointment of those china animals, he chose for Frida a completely
furnished dolls' house with garage and stables attached, so grand a
house, indeed, that by knocking all the rooms into one, she could with
slight inconvenience have lived in it herself; this residence he
populated with gentleman-dolls, lady-dolls, servant-dolls, nurse-dolls,
baby-dolls, horses, carriages, and motors; nor did he omit to provide a
fishmonger's shop for the vicinity. For Harold he bought a butterfly
collector's equipment, a vacuum pistol, a set of climbing-irons, a
microscope, and at the last moment a juvenile diver's equipment with
air pumps and all accessories, which was warranted perfectly safe,
though the wicked uncle wondered if it really was.
"I don't want a mere toy for the bathroom," he explained.
"Quite so, sir," the shopman assented, with a bow. "This is guaranteed
for any ordinary village pond or small stream."
For his grown-up relations John bought the kind of presents that one
always does buy for grown-up relations, the kind of presents that look
very ornamental on the counter, seem very useful when the shopman
explains what they are for, puzzle the recipient and the donor when the
shopman is no longer there, and lie about the house on small tables for
the rest of the year. In the general odor of Russia leather that clung
to his benefactions John hoped that Miss Hamilton would not consider too
remarkable the attache case that he intended to give her, nor amid the
universal dazzle of silver object to the few little luxuries of the
writing-desk with which he had enhanced it. Then there were the presents
for the servants to choose, and he counted much on Miss Hamilton's
enabling him to introduce into these an utilitarian note that for two or
three seasons had been missing from his donations, which to an outsider
might have seemed more like lures of the flesh than sober testimonials
to service. He also counted upon her to persuade Mrs. Worfolk to
accompany Maud down to Ambles: Elsa was to be left in Church Row with
permission to invite to dinner the policeman to whom she was betrothed
and various friends and relations of the two families.
When the presents were settled John proceeded to lay in a store of
eatables and drinkables, in the course of which enterprise he was
continually saying:
"I've forgotten for the moment what I want next, but meanwhile you'd
better give me another box of Elvas plums."
"Another drum? Yes, sir," the shopman would reply, licking his pencil in
a way that was at once obsequious and pedantic, though it was not
intended to suggest more than perfect efficiency.
When the hall and the adjacent rooms at 36 Church Row had been turned
into rolling dunes of brown paper, John rushed about London in a last
frenzy of unbridled acquisitiveness to secure plenty of amusement for
the children. To this end he obtained a few well-known and well-tried
favorites like the kinetoscope and the magic lantern, and a number of
experimental diversions which would have required a trained engineer or
renowned scientist to demonstrate successfully. Finally he bargained for
the wardrobe of a Santa Claus whose dignified perambulations round the
Christmas Bazaar of a noted emporium had attracted his fancy on account
of the number of children who followed him everywhere, laughing and
screaming with delight. It was not until he had completed the purchase
that he discovered it was not the exterior of the Santa Claus which had
charmed his little satellites, but the free distribution of bags of
coagulated jujubes.
"I expect I'd better get the Christmas tree in the country," said John,
waist-deep in the still rising drift of parcels. "I dare say the Galton
shops keep those silver and magenta globes you hang on Christmas trees,
and I ought to patronize the local tradesmen."
"If you have any local shopping to do, I'm sure you would be wise to go
down to-day," Miss Hamilton suggested, firmly. "Besides, Mrs. Worfolk
won't want to arrive at the last minute."
"No, indeed, I shan't, Miss," said the housekeeper. "Well, I mean to
say, I don't think we ever shall arrive, not if we wait much longer. We
shall require a performing elephant to carry all these parcels, as it
is."
"My idea was to go down in the last train on Christmas Eve," John
argued. "I like the old-fashioned style, don't you know?"
"Yes, old-fashioned's the word," Mrs. Worfolk exclaimed. "Why, who's to
get the house ready if we all go trooping down on Christmas Eve? And if
I go, sir, you must come with me. You know how quick Mrs. Curtis always
is to snap any one up. If I had my own way, I wouldn't go within a
thousand miles of the country; that's a sure thing."
John began to be afraid that his housekeeper was going back on her word,
and he surrendered to the notion of leaving town that afternoon.
"I say, what is this parcel like a long drain-pipe?" he asked in a final
effort to detain Miss Hamilton, who was preparing to make her farewells
and leave him to his packing.
"Ah, it would take some finding out," Mrs. Worfolk interposed. "I've
never seen so many shapes and sizes of parcels in all my life."
"They must have made a mistake," said John. "I don't remember buying
anything so tubular as this."
He pulled away some of the paper wrapping to see what was inside.
"Ah, of course! They're two or three boxes of Elvas plums I ordered. But
please don't go, Miss Hamilton," he protested. "I am relying upon you to
get the tickets to Waterloo."
In spite of a strenuous scene at the station, in the course of which
John's attempts to propitiate Mrs. Worfolk led to one of the porters
referring to her as his mother, they managed to catch the five o'clock
train to Wrottesford. After earnestly assuring his secretary that he
should be perfectly ready to begin work again on Joan of Arc the day
after her arrival and begging her on no account to let herself be
deterred from traveling on the morning of Boxing Day, John sank back
into the pleasant dreams that haunt a warm first-class smoking
compartment when it's raining hard outside in the darkness of a December
night.
"We shall have a green Christmas this year," observed one of his fellow
travelers.
"Very green," John assented with enthusiasm, only realizing as he spoke
that the superlative must sound absurd to any one who was unaware of his
thoughts and hiding his embarrassment in the _Westminster Gazette_,
which in the circumstances was the best newspaper he could have chosen.
John was surprised and depressed when the train arrived at Wrottesford
to find that the member of the Ambles party who had elected to meet him
was Hilda; and there was a long argument on the platform who should
drive in the dogcart and who should drive in the fly. John did not want
to ride on the back seat of the dogcart, which he would have to do
unless he drove himself, a prospect that did not attract him when he saw
how impatiently the mare was dancing about through the extreme lateness
of the train. Hilda objected to driving with his housekeeper in the fly,
and in the end John was compelled to let Maud and Mrs. Worfolk occupy
the dogcart, while he and Hilda toiled along the wet lanes in the fly.
It was decided to leave the greater portion of the luggage to be fetched
in the morning, but even so it was after eight o'clock before they got
away from the station, and John, when he found himself immured with
Hilda in the musty interior of the hired vehicle was inclined to
prophesy a blue Christmas this year. To begin with, Hilda would try to
explain the system she had pursued in allotting the various bedrooms to
accommodate the large party that was expected at Ambles. It was bad
enough so long as she confined herself to a verbal exposition, but when
she produced a map of the house, evidently made by Hugh on an idle
evening, and to illuminate her dispositions struck away most of John's
matches, it became exasperating. His brain was already fatigued by the
puzzle of fitting into two vehicles four pieces, one of which might not
move to the square next two of the remaining pieces, and another of
which could not move backward.
"I leave it entirely to you," he declared, introducing at last into the
intellectual torment of chess some of the happy irresponsibleness of
bridge. "You mustn't set me these chess problems in a jolting fly before
dinner."
"Chess!" Hilda sniffed with a shiver. "Draughts would be a better name."
She did not often make jokes, and before John had recovered sufficiently
from his surprise to congratulate her with a hearty laugh, she was off
again upon her querulous and rambling narration of the family news.
"If everything _had_ been left to me, I might have managed, but Hugh's
interference, apparently authorized by you, upset all my poor little
arrangements. I need hardly say that Mama was so delighted to have her
favorite at home with her that she has done everything since his arrival
to encourage his self-importance. It's Hughie this and Hughie that,
until I get quite sick of the sound of his name. And he's very unkind to
poor little Harold. Apart from being very coarse and sarcastic in front
of him, he is sometimes quite brutal. Only this morning he shot him in
the upper part of the leg with a pellet from the poor little man's own
air-gun."
John did laugh this time, and shouted "Merry Christmas!" to a passing
wagon.
"I dare say it sounds very funny to you. But it made Harold cry."
"Come, come, Hilda, it's just as well he should learn the potentialities
of his own instrument. He'll sympathize with the birds now."
"Birds," she scoffed. "Fancy comparing Harold with a bird!"
"It is rather unfair," John agreed.
"However, you won't be so ready to take Hugh's part when you see what
he's been doing at Ambles."
"Why, what has he been doing?"
"Oh, never mind. I'd rather you judged for yourself," said Hilda,
darkly. "Of course, I don't know what Hugh has been up to in London that
you've had to send him down to Hampshire. I always used to hear you vow
that you would have nothing more to do with him. But I know that
successful people are allowed to change their minds more often than the
rest of us. I know success justifies everything. And it isn't as if Hugh
was grateful for your kindness. I can assure you that he criticizes
everything you do. Any stranger who heard him talking about your plays
would think that they were a kind of disgrace to the family. As for
Laurence, he encourages him, not because he likes him, but because Hugh
fills him up with stories about the stage. Though I think that a
clergyman who has got into such a muddle with his bishops would do
better not to make himself so conspicuous. The whole neighborhood is
talking about him."
"What is Laurence's latest?"
"Why, stalking about in a black cloak, with his hair hanging down over
his collar, stopping people in quiet lanes and reciting Shakespeare to
them. It's not surprising that half the county is talking about his
behavior and saying that he was turned out of Newton Candover for being
drunk when the bishop took a confirmation, and _some_ even say that he
kept a ballet girl at the vicarage. But do you think that Edith objects?
Oh, no! All that Laurence does must be right, because it's Laurence. She
prays for him to get back his belief in the Church of England, though
who's going to offer him another living I'm sure I don't know, so she
might just as well spare her knees. And when she's not praying for him,
she's spoiling him. She actually came out of her room the other morning
with her finger up to her lips, because Laurence wasn't to be disturbed
at that moment. I need hardly tell you I paid no attention and went on
saying what I had to say to Huggins about the disgraceful way he's let
the pears get so sleepy."
"It's a pity you didn't succeed in waking them up instead of Laurence,"
John chuckled.
"It's all very well for you to laugh, John, but if you could see the way
that Edith is bringing up Frida! She's turning her into a regular little
molly-coddle. I'm sure poor Harold does his best to put some life into
the child, but she shrinks and twitches whenever he comes near her. I
told Edith that it wasn't to be wondered at if Harold did tease her
sometimes. She encourages him to tease her by her affectations. I used
to think that Frida was quite a nice little girl when I only saw her
occasionally, but she doesn't improve on acquaintance. However, I blame
her mother more than I do her. Why, Edith doesn't even make the child
take her cod-liver oil regularly, whereas Harold drinks his up like a
little Trojan."
"Never mind," said John, soothingly. "I'm sure we shall all feel more
cheerful after Christmas. And now, if you don't mind, I'm afraid I must
keep quiet for the rest of the drive. I've got a scene to think about."
The author turned up the collar of his coat and retired into the further
corner while Hilda chewed her veil in ruminative indignation until the
mellow voice of Laurence, who had taken up a statuesque pose of welcome
by the gate, broke the dank silence of the fly.
"Ah, John, my dear fellow, we are delighted to see you. The rain has
stopped."
If Laurence had still been on good terms with his Creator, John might
have thought from his manner that he had personally arranged this break
in the weather.
"Is Harold there?" asked Hilda, sharply.
"Here I am, mother; I've just caught a Buff-tip, and it won't go into my
poison-bottle."
"And what is a Buff-tip?" inquired Laurence in a tone of patronizing
ignorance.
"Oh, it's a pretty common moth."
"Harold, darling, don't bother about moths or butterflies to-night. Come
and say how d'ye do to dear Uncle John."
"I've dropped the cork of my poison-bottle. Look out, Frida, bother you,
I say, you'll tread on it."
The combined scents of cyanide of potassium and hot metal from Harold's
bull's-eye lantern were heavy upon the moist air; when the cork was
found, Harold lost control over the lantern which he flashed into
everybody's face in turn, so that John, rendered as helpless as a
Buff-tip, walked head foremost into a sopping bush by the side of the
path. However, the various accidents of arrival all escaped being
serious, and the thought of dinner shortened the affectionate greetings.
Remembering how Hugh had paid out Harold with his own air-gun, John
greeted his youngest brother more cordially than he could ever have
supposed it was possible to greet him again.
By general consent, the owner of the house was allowed to be tired that
evening, and all discussion of the Christmas preparations was postponed
until the next day. Harold made a surreptitious attempt to break into
the most promising parcel he could find, but he was ill rewarded by the
inside, which happened to be a patent carpet sweeper.
Before old Mrs. Touchwood went to bed, she took John aside and
whispered:
"They're all against Hughie. But I've tried to make the poor boy feel
that he's at home, and dear Georgie will be coming very soon, which will
make it pleasanter for Hugh, and I've thought of a nice way to manage
Jimmie."
"I think you worry yourself needlessly over Hugh, Mama; I can assure you
he's perfectly capable of looking after himself."
"I hope so," the old lady sighed. "All my patience came out beautifully
this evening. So I hope Hughie will be all right. He seemed to think you
were a little annoyed with him."
"Did he tell you why?"
"Not exactly, but I understand it was something to do with money. You
mustn't be too strict with Hugh about money, John. You must always
remember that he hasn't got all the money he wants, and you must make
allowances accordingly. Ah, dear, peace on earth, good-will towards men!
But I don't complain. I'm very happy here with my patience, and I dare
say something can be done to get rid of the bees that have made a nest
in the wall just under my bedroom window. They're asleep now, but when
they begin to buzz with the warm weather Huggins must try and induce
them to move somewhere else. Good-night, my dear boy."
Next morning when John leaned out of his window to inhale the Hampshire
air and contemplate his domain he was shocked to perceive upon the lawn
below a large quadrangular excavation in which two workmen were actually
digging.
"Hi! What are you doing?" he shouted.
The workmen stared at John, stared at one another, stared at their
spades, and went on with their digging.
"Hi! What the devil are you doing?"
The workmen paid no attention; but the voice of Harold came trickling
round the corner of the house with a gurgle of self-satisfaction.
"_I_ didn't do it, Uncle John. I began geology last week, but I haven't
dug up _anything_. Mother wouldn't let me. It was Uncle Hugh and Uncle
Laurence. Mother knew you'd be angry when you saw what a mess the garden
was in. It does look untidy, doesn't it? Huggins said he should complain
to you, first thing. He says he'd just as soon put brown sugar on the
paths as _that_ gravel. Did you know that Ambles is built on a gravel
subsoil, Uncle John? Aren't you glad, because my geology book says that
a gravel subsoil is the healthiest...."
John removed himself abruptly out of earshot.
"What is that pernicious mess on the front lawn?" he demanded of Hugh
half-an-hour later at breakfast.
"Ah, you noticed it, did you?"
"Noticed it? I should think I did notice it. I understand that you're
responsible."
"Not entirely," Laurence interposed, gently. "Hugh and I must accept a
joint responsibility. The truth is that for some time now I've felt that
my work has been terribly at the mercy of little household noises, and
Hugh recommended me to build myself an outside study. He has made a very
clever design, and has kindly undertaken to supervise its erection. As
you have seen, they are already well on with the foundations. The design
which I shall show you after breakfast is in keeping with the house, and
of course you will have the advantage of what I call my little Gazebo
when I leave Ambles. Have I told you that I'm considering a brief
experience of the realities of the stage? After all, why not?
Shakespeare was an actor."
If John had been eating anything more solid than a lightly boiled egg at
the moment he must have choked.
"You can call it your little Gazebo as much as you like, but it's
nothing but a confounded summerhouse," he shouted.
"Look here, Johnnie," said Hugh, soothingly. "You'll like it when it's
finished. This isn't one of Stevie's Gothic contortions. I admit that to
get the full architectural effect there should be a couple of them. You
see, I've followed the design of the famous dovecotes at...."
"Dovecoats be damned," John exploded. "I instructed you to prepare the
house for Christmas; I didn't ask you to build me a new one."
"Laurence felt that he was in the way indoors," Edith explained,
timidly.
"The impression was rather forced upon me," said Laurence with a glance
at Hilda, who throughout the dispute had been sitting virtuously silent;
nor did she open her thin lips now.
"He was going to pay for his hermitage out of the money he ought to have
made from writing _Lamp-posts_," Edith went on in a muddled exposition
of her husband's motives. "He wasn't thinking of himself at all. But of
course if you object to his building this Gas--oh, I am so bad at proper
names--he'll understand. Won't you, dear?"
"Oh, I shall understand," Laurence admitted with an expression of
painfully achieved comprehension. "Though I may fail to see the
necessity for such strong language."
Frida wiggled in the coils of an endless whisper from which her mother
extricated her at last by murmuring:
"Hush, darling, Uncle John is a little vexed about something."
Hilda and her son still sat in mute self-righteousness; and Grandmama,
who always had her breakfast in bed, was not present to defend Hugh.
"If it had been anywhere except on the lawn right in front of my room,"
John began more mildly.
"We tried to combine suitability of site with facility of access,"
Laurence condescended to explain. "But pray do not say another word," he
added, waving his fingers like magic wands to induce John's silence.
"The idea of my little Gazebo does not appeal to you. That is enough. I
do not grudge the money already spent upon the foundations. Further
discussion will irritate us all, and I for one have no wish to disturb
the harmony of the season." Then exchanging his tone of polite martyrdom
for the suave jocularity of a vicar, he continued: "And when are we to
expect our Yuletide guests? I hear that the greater portion of your
luggage is still in the care of the station-master at Wrottesford. If I
can do anything to aid in the transport of what rumor says is our
Christmas commissariat, do not hesitate to call upon my services. I am
giving the Muse a holiday and am ready for anything. Harold, pass the
marmalade, please."
John felt incapable of further argument with Laurence and Hugh in
combination, and having gained his point, he let the subject of the
Gazebo drop. He was glad that Miss Hamilton was not here; he felt that
she might have been rather contemptuous of what he tried to believe was
"good-nature," but recognized in his heart as "meekness," even
"feebleness."
"When are Cousin Bertram and Cousin Viola coming?" Harold asked.
"Wow-wow-wow!" Hugh imitated, and he was probably expressing the general
opinion of Harold's re-entry into the breakfast-table conversation.
"For goodness' sake, boy, don't talk about them as if they were elderly
colonial connections," John commanded with the resurgent valor that
Harold always inspired. "Bertram and Viola are coming to-morrow. By the
way, Hilda, is there any accommodation for a monkey? I don't know for
certain, but Bertram talked vaguely of bringing a monkey down. Possibly
a small annex could be attached to the chickenhouse."
"A monkey?" Edith exclaimed in alarm. "Oh, I hope it won't attack dear
Frida."
"I shall shoot him, if he does," Harold boasted. "I shot a mole last
week."
"No, you didn't, you young liar," Hugh contradicted. "It was killed by
the trap."
"Harold is always a very truthful little boy," said his mother, glaring.
"Is he? I hadn't noticed it," Hugh retorted.
"Far be it from me to indulge in odious comparisons," Laurence
interposed, grandly. "But I cannot help being a trifle--ah--tickled by
so much consideration's being exhibited on account of the temporary
lodging of a monkey and so much animus--however, don't let us rake up a
disagreeable topic."
John thought it was a pity that his brother-in-law had not felt the same
about raking up the lawn when after breakfast he was telling Huggins to
fill in the hole and hearing that it was unlikely to lose the scar for a
long time.
"You could have knocked me down with a feather, sir, when they started
in hacking away at a lovely piece of turf like that."
"I'm sure I could," John agreed, warmly.
"But what's done can't be undone, and the best way to mend a bad job
would be to make a bed for ornamental annuals. Yes, sir, a nice bed in
the shape of a star--or a shell."
"No thanks, Huggins, I should prefer grass again, even if for a year or
two the lawn does look as if it had been recently vaccinated."
John's Christmas enthusiasm had been thoroughly damped by the atmosphere
of Ambles and he regretted that he had let himself be persuaded into
coming down two days earlier than he had intended. It had been Mrs.
Worfolk's fault, and when his housekeeper approached him with a
complaint about the way things were being managed in the kitchen John
told her rather sharply that she must make the best of the present
arrangements, exercise as much tact as possible, and remember that
Christmas was a season when discontent was out of fashion. Then he
retreated to the twenty-acre field to lose a few golf-balls. Alas, he
had forgotten that Laurence had proclaimed himself to be in a holiday
humor and was bored to find that this was so expansive as to include an
ambition to see if golf was as difficult as people said.
"You can try a stroke if you really want to," John offered, grudgingly.
"I understand that the theory of striking involves the correct
application of the hands to the club," said the novice. "I set much
store by the old adage that well begun is half done."
"The main thing is to hit the ball."
"I've no doubt whatever about being able to hit the ball; but if I
decide to adopt golf as a recreation from my dramatic work I wish to
acquire a good style at the outset," Laurence intoned, picking up the
club as solemnly as if he was going to baptize it. "What is your advice
about the forefinger of my left hand? It feels to me somewhat
ubiquitous. I assume that there is some inhibition upon excessive
fidgeting."
"Keep your eye on the ball," John gruffly advised him. "And don't shift
your position."
"One, two, three," murmured Laurence, raising the club above his
shoulder.
"Fore!" John shouted to a rash member of the household who was crossing
the line of fire.
A lump of turf was propelled a few feet in the direction of the
admonished figure, and the ball was hammered down into the soft earth.
"You distracted me by counting four," Laurence protested. "My intention
was to strike at three. However, if at first you don't succeed...."
But John could stand no more of it and escaped to Galton, where he
bought a bushel of lustrous ornaments for the Christmas tree that was
even now being felled by Huggins in a coppice remote from Harold's
myopic explorations. Then for two days the household worked feverishly
and unitedly in a prevalent odor of allspice; the children were decoyed
from the house while the presents were mysteriously conveyed to the
drawing-room, which had been consecrated to the forthcoming revelry;
Harold, after nearly involving himself in a scandal by hiding himself
under the kitchen-table during one of the servant's meals in order to
verify the cubic contents of their several stockings, was finally
successful in contracting with Mrs. Worfolk for the loan of one of hers;
Frida whispered as ceaselessly as a grove of poplars; everybody's
fingers were tattooed by holly-pricks; and the introduction of so much
decorative vegetation into the house brought with it a train of
somnambulant insects.
On Saturday afternoon the remaining guests arrived, and when John heard
Bertram and Viola shouting merrily up and down the corridors he
recognized the authentic note of Christmas gayety at last. James was
much less disagreeable than he had expected, and did not even freeze
Beatrice when she gushed about the loveliness of the holly and reminded
everybody that she was countrified herself; Hilda and Eleanor were
brought together by their common dread of Hugh's apparent return to
favor; George exuded a gross reproduction of the host's good-will and
wandered about the room reading jokes from the Christmas numbers to
those who would listen to him; Laurence kissed all the ladies under the
mistletoe, bending down to them from his majesty as patronizingly as in
the days of his faith he used to communicate the poor of the parish;
Edith clapped her hands every time that Laurence brought off a kiss and
talked in a heart-felt tremolo about the Christmas-tides of her
girlhood; Frida conceived an adoration for Viola; Hugh egged on Bertram
to tease, threaten, and contradict Harold on every occasion; Grandmama
in a new butter-colored gown glowed in the lamplight, and purred over
her fertility, as if on the day she had accepted Robert Touchwood's
hand nearly half a century ago she had foreseen this gathering and had
never grumbled when she found she was going to have another baby.
"Snapdragon will be ready at ten," John proclaimed, "and then to bed, so
that we're all fit for Christmas Day."
He was anxious to get the household out of the way, because he had
formed a project to dress himself up that night as Santa Claus and, as
he put it to himself, stimulate the children's fancy in case they should
be awake when their stockings were being filled.
The clock struck ten; Mrs. Worfolk gave portentous utterance to the
information that the snapdragon was burning beautiful; there was a rush
for the pantry where the ceremony was to take place. Laurence picked out
his raisins as triumphantly as if he were snatching souls from a
discredited Romish purgatory. Harold notwithstanding his bad sight
seemed to be doing well until Bertram temporarily disabled him by
snatching a glowing raisin from the fiercest flame and ramming it down
his neck. But the one who ate most of all, more even than Harold, was
George, whose fat fingers would scoop up half-a-dozen raisins at a go,
were they never so hot, until gradually the blue flames flickered less
alertly and finally went out altogether in a pungency of burnt brandy.
"Half-past ten," John, who was longing to dress himself up, cried
impatiently.
His efforts to urge the family up to bed were rather interfered with by
Laurence, who detained Eleanor with numerous questions about going on
the stage with a view to correcting a few technical deficiencies in his
dramatic craftsmanship.
"I'm anxious to establish by personal experience the exact length of the
interval required to change one's costume, and also the distance from
one's green-room to the--ah--wings. I do not aim high. I should be
perfectly satisfied with such minor parts as Rosencrantz or Metellus
Cimber. Perhaps, Eleanor, you will introduce me to some of your
theatrical friends after the holidays? There is a reduced day return up
to town every Thursday. We might lunch together at one of those little
Bohemian restaurants where rumor says that an excellent lunch is to be
had for one and sixpence."
Eleanor promised she would do all she could, because John evidently
wanted her to go to bed, and he was the uncle of her children.
"Thank you, Eleanor. I hope that as a catechumen I shall do honor to
you. By the way, you will be interested in the part of Pontius Pilate's
wife in my play. In fact I'm hoping that you will--ah--interpret it
ultimately."
"Did you ever think of writing a play about Polonius's wife?" James
growled on his way upstairs. "Good-night."
When the grown-ups were safely in their rooms, John could not understand
why the children were allowed to linger in the passage, gossiping and
bragging; they would never go to sleep at this rate.
"I've got two cocoons of a Crimson-underwing," Harold was saying.
"Poof!" Viola scoffed. "What are they. Bertram touched the nose of a
kangaroo last time we went to the Zoo."
"Yes, and I prodded a crocodile with V's umbrella," added Bertram,
acknowledging her testimonial by awarding his sister a kind of share in
the exploit.
"Well, I was bitten by a squirrel once," related Harold in an attempt to
keep his end up. "And that was in its nest, not in a cage."
"A squirrel!" Viola sneered. "Why, the tallest giraffe licked Bertram's
fingers with his tongue, and they stayed wet for hours afterwards."
"Well, so could I, if I went to the Zoo," Harold maintained with a sob
at the back of his throat.
"No, you couldn't," Bertram contradicted. "Because your fingers are too
smelly."
"Much too smelly!" Viola corroborated.
Various mothers emerged at this point and put a stop to the contest; the
hallowed and gracious silence of Christmas night descended upon Ambles,
and John went on tiptoe up to his bedroom.
"The beard, I suppose, is the most important item," he said to himself,
when he had unpacked his costume.
It was a noble beard, and when John had fixed it to his cheeks with a
profusion of spirit-gum, he made up his mind that it became him so well
that he would grow one of his own, which whitening with the flight of
time would in another thirty years make him look what he hoped to
be--the doyen of romantic playwrights. The scarlet robe of Santa Claus
with its trimming of bells, icicles, and holly and its ruching of snow
had been made in a single piece without buttons, so that when John put
it over his head the beard caught in the folds and part of it was
thinned out by an icicle. In trying to disentangle himself John managed
to get one sleeve stuck to his cheek much more firmly than the beard had
ever been. Nor were his struggles to free himself made easier by the
bells, which tinkled with every movement and made him afraid that
somebody would knock at the door soon and ask if he had rung. Finally he
got the robe in place, plucked several bits of sleeve from his cheek,
renovated the beard, gathered together the apples, oranges, sweets, and
small toys he had collected for the stockings, looked at his watch,
decided that it was at least an hour too early to begin, and lay down
upon his bed, where notwithstanding the ticking of his beard he fell
asleep. When he woke, it was after one o'clock; the house was absolutely
still. He walked cautiously to the little room occupied by Frida, turned
the handle, and felt his way breathlessly along the bed to where the
stocking should be hung. Unfortunately, the bed had somehow got twisted
round or else his beard had destroyed his sense of direction, for while
he was groping for the stocking he dropped an orange on Frida's face,
who woke with a loud scream.
"Hush, my little dear," John growled in what he supposed to be the
correct depth for the character. "It's only Santa Claus."
"Go away, go away," shrieked the horrified child.
John tried to strike a match to reassure her, and at the cost of a
shower of apples on the floor, which sounded like bombs in the tense
darkness, he managed to illuminate his appearance for an instant. The
effect on Frida was appalling; she screamed a thousand times louder than
before and fled from the room. John ran after her to stop her before she
woke up everybody else and spoilt his fantasy; but he was hampered by
the costume and Frida gained the sanctuary of her parents' bedroom.
"I only hope the little idiot will frighten them more than I frightened
her," muttered John, hurrying as fast as he could back to his own room.
Suddenly from the hall below he heard a sound of sleigh-bells that put
to shame the miserable little tinkle that attended his own progress;
above the bells rose peals of hearty laughter, and above the laughter
Hugh's voice could be heard shouting:
"Wake up! Wake up! Good people all! Here's Santa Claus! Santa Claus!
Wake up!"
Just as John reached his own room, Hugh appeared at the head of the
stairs brandishing a lighted torch, while close behind him dragging
Harold's toboggan loaded with toys was a really superb Santa Claus.
John locked his door and undressed himself savagely, tearing off his
beard in handfuls and flinging all the properties into a corner.
"Anyway, whoever it is," he said, "he'll get the credit of driving Frida
mad. That's one thing. But who is it? I suppose it's Laurence showing us
how well he can act."
But it was Aubrey Fenton whom Hugh had invited down to Ambles for
Christmas and smuggled into the house like this to sweeten the
unpleasant surprise. What annoyed John most was that he himself had
never thought of using the toboggan; but the new Santa Claus was an
undoubted success with the children, and Frida's sanity was soon
restored by chocolates. The mystery of the apples and oranges strewn
about her bedroom remained a mystery, though Hilda tried to hint that
her niece had abstracted them from the sideboard.
John was able to obtain as much sympathy as he wanted from the rest of
the family over Hugh's importation of his friend. In fact they were so
eager to express their disapproval of such calm self-assurance, not to
mention the objectionable way in which he had woken everybody up in the
middle of the night, that John's own indignation gradually melted away
in the heat of their malice. As for Grandmama, she shut herself up in
her bedroom on Christmas morning and threatened not to appear all day,
so deep was her hatred of that young Fenton who was the author of all
Hugh's little weaknesses--not even when she could shift the blame could
she bring herself to call her son's vices and crimes by any stronger
name. Aubrey, who lacked Hugh's serene insolence, wanted to go back to
London and was so much abashed in his host's presence and so
appreciative of what he had done in the affair of the check that John's
compassion was aroused and he made the intruder welcome. His hospitality
was rewarded, because it turned out that Aubrey's lifelong passion for
mechanical toys saved the situation for many of John's purchases, nearly
all of which he managed to set in motion; nor could it be laid to his
account that one of the drawing-room fireworks behaved like an
out-of-door firework, because while Aubrey was lighting it at the right
end Harold was lighting it simultaneously at the other.
On the whole, the presentation of the Christmas gifts passed off
satisfactorily. The only definite display of jealousy occurred over the
diver's equipment given to Harold, which was more than Bertram
notwithstanding his own fireman's outfit could suppress.
"I'll swop with you, if you like," he began mildly enough.
But Harold clutched the diver's mask to his breast and shrank from the
proposal.
"I think you'd rather be a fireman," Bertram persisted. "Anybody can be
a diver, can't they, V?"
Viola left her doll in a state of semi-nudity and advanced to her
brother's support.
"You'd look much nicer as a fireman, Harold," she said, coaxingly. "I
wish I could be a fireman."
"Well, you can if you like," he answered, sullenly, looking round with a
hunted expression for his mother, who unluckily for her son was in
another part of the house arguing with Mrs. Worfolk about the sauce for
the plum-pudding.
"But wouldn't you rather wear a pretty brass helmet?" Viola went on.
"No, I wouldn't," said Harold, desperately wrapping himself in the
rubber tubes that was so temptingly conspicuous a portion of his
equipment.
"Oh, you little idiot," Viola burst out, impatiently. "What's the good
of your dressing up as a diver? In those goggles you always look like a
diver."
"I don't, do I, Frida?" Harold implored.
Now Frida was happy with her dolls'-house; she had no reason to be loyal
to Harold, who had always treated her shamefully; but the spirit of the
squaw rose in her breast and she felt bound to defend the wigwam against
outside criticism. Therefore she assured Harold that in ordinary life he
did not look in the least like a diver.
"Well," Bertram announced, throwing aside the last pretense of
respecting property, "V and I want that diver's dress, because we often
act _Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea_."
"Well, I can act _Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea_ too."
"No you can't because you haven't read it."
"Yes, I have."
"What a bung!" exclaimed Bertram. "You've only read _A Journey to the
Center of the Earth_ and _Round the World in Eighty Days_."
Then he remembered Frida's attitude. "Look here, if you take the
fireman's uniform you can set fire to Frida's house."
Frida yelled her refusal.
"And put it out, you little idiot," Bertram added.
"And put it out," Viola echoed.
Frida rushed to her mother.
"Mother, mother, don't let them burn my dolls'-house! Mother, you won't,
will you? Bertram wants to burn it."
"Naughty Bertram!" said Edith. "But he's only teasing you, darling."
"Good lummy, what a sneak," Bertram commented, bitterly, to his sister.
Viola eyed her cousin with the scorn of an Antigon.
"Beastly," she murmured. "Come on, Bertram, you don't want the diver's
dress!"
"Rather not. And anyway it won't work."
"It will. It will," cried Harold, passionately. "I'm going to practice
in a water-butt the first fine day we have."
It happened that John was unable to feel himself happily above these
childish jealousies, because at that moment he was himself smarting with
resentment at his mother's handing over to James all that she still
retained of family heirlooms. His eldest brother already had the
portraits, and now he was to have what was left of the silver, which
would look utterly out of place in Hill Road. If John had been as young
as Bertram, he would have spoken his mind pretty freely on the subject
of giving James the silver and himself a checkered woolen kettle-holder.
It was really too disproportionate, and he did mildly protest to the old
lady that she might have left a few things at Ambles.
"But Jimmie is the eldest, and I expect him to take poor Hugh's part.
The poor boy will want somebody when I'm gone, and Jimmie is the
eldest."
"He may be the eldest, but I'm the one who has to look after Hugh--and
very often James for that matter."
"Ah well, you're the lucky one, but Jimmie is the eldest and Hugh is the
baby."
"But James hasn't any children."
"Nor have you, my dear boy."
"But I might have," said John.
If this sort of thing went on much longer, he would, too--dozens of
children.
"Bertram," John called out. "Come here, my boy, and listen to me. When I
go back to London, you shall have a diving-suit too if I can find
another."
Eleanor tossed her head back like a victorious game-cock; she would have
crowed, if she could.
"Dinner is ready," announced Hilda fresh from a triumph over Mrs.
Worfolk about the sauce and happily ignorant of the dreadful relegation
of her son. After an unusually large meal even for Christmas the company
lay about the drawing-room like exhausted Roman debauchees, while the
pink and green paper caps out of the crackers one by one fluttered from
their brows to the carpet. Snores and the occasional violent whizz of an
overwound toy were all that broke the stillness. At tea-time everybody
woke up, and Bertram was allowed to put on his fireman's uniform in
order to extinguish a bonfire that Huggins had hoped would burn slowly
over the holidays. After a comparatively light supper games were played;
drawing-room fireworks were let off; Laurence blacked his nose in the
magic lantern; and George walking ponderously across the room to fetch
himself a cigar was struck on the ear by a projectile from the vacuum
pistol, the red mark of which was visible for some time even on his
florid countenance. Then, when the children became too quarrelsome to be
any longer tolerated out of bed, a bowl of punch was brought in and Auld
Lang Syne was sung. After which everybody agreed that it had been a very
merry Christmas, and Grandmama was led weeping up to bed.
The next morning about midday John announced that he was driving to
Wrottesford for the purpose of meeting Miss Hamilton.
"For though it is holiday time, I must do a certain amount of work," he
explained.
"Miss Hamilton?" said Grandmama. "And who may Miss Hamilton be?"
Hilda, Edith, Eleanor, and Beatrice all looked very solemn and
mysterious; James chuckled; Hugh brightened visibly.
"Well, I suppose we mustn't mind a stranger's coming to spoil our happy
party," Hilda sighed.
"Ah, this will be your new secretary of whom rumor has already spoken,"
said Laurence. "Possibly she will give me some advice on the subject of
the typing of manuscripts."
"Miss Hamilton will be very busy while she is staying here," said John,
curtly.
Everybody looked at everybody else, and there was an awkward pause,
which was relieved by Harold's saying that he would show her where he
thought a goldfinch would make a nest in spring.
"Dear little man," murmured his mother with a sigh for his childish
confidence.
"Shall _I_ drive in to meet her?" Hugh suggested.
"No, thank you," said John, quickly.
"That's right, Johnnie," James guffawed. "You stick to the reins
yourself."