Christmas Day rose with a clear, frosty blue sky. Miss Sandys and Miss
West both felt the unwonted stillness of the house; and they could not
help a lurking suspicion that time without public occupation might hang
a dead weight on their hands. The two ladies went through the ceremony
of wishing each other a merry Christmas, Scotland though it was. Miss
Sandys went off to put into execution her holiday cooking practice--for
it was refreshing to her to have a bowl instead of a book in her
grasp--and to make her preparations for welcoming her primitive cousins.
Miss West sat down to write her letters and to work at her veil and at
her other New Year's gifts.
She wished she could work with her mind as well as her fingers, so that
it might not run on picturing what this day was in tens of thousands of
homes throughout Christendom. It had always been an unruly member this
fancy of hers, and it was particularly busy at this season. Yesterday
the roads had resounded with the blithe tramp of eager feet hieing
homewards. To-day the air was ringing with the pleasant echo of voices
round hearths, the fires of which flashed like the sun, and where age
and youth met in the perfect confidence and sweet fearlessness of family
affection. In her mind's eye, she had yesterday seen railways and
coaches disgorging their cheerful loads; she had witnessed the meetings
at lodge gates, in halls, and on the thresholds of parlour and cottage
kitchens; she had looked on the bountiful boards, where cherished guests
crowned the festival, of which Miss Sandys' rasping tea and stale cake
was a half-pathetic, half-comic version. To-day she was in spirit with
the multitude walking in close groups to holly-wreathed churches,
sharing in the light-hearted thoughtlessness of many an acknowledgment,
and in the deep gratitude of many a thanksgiving. She strove to put
herself aside altogether in her meditations, and simply to rejoice with
those who rejoiced; but she had not attained this degree of
unselfishness; she could not help believing sometimes that she had
plucked all the thorns and none of the roses of life. But if you suppose
that she betrayed this yearning and pining to the world at large, you
are very much mistaken. As has been told, she had the right chord of
genuine nobility and generosity in her, and she laboured to fit her
cross to her own back, so that it might not overshadow and crush others.
Her fingers went nimbly about her gifts--trifling things, only enough to
gladden simple hearts. She gratified Miss Sandys by praising her rusty
accomplishments in cookery; she uttered a jest or two for the benefit of
Jenny and Menie, who had a liking for her, though they called her
"scornful;" and she brought in holly and box from the garden to decorate
the sitting-rooms. The last move, however, proved nearly a failure, for
there was one little pink and white blossom of laurustinus, which had
ventured out in a sheltered nook, though half of its leaves were
blanched ashen grey. It somehow or other raised such a tide of sentiment
in her as all but overcame her.
Miss West desired work for this season, and she got work, and tolerably
hard work too, for besides completing her New Year's gifts, she had to
help to entertain Captain and Mrs. Berwick.
The visitors were so vulgar, according to fine people, that they were
not even sensible of their own vulgarity. And so good-natured were they,
that they were not offended because cousin Sandys did not invite them
with any of the genteel parents of her pupils. They took this reserved
hospitality as a complimentary admission of their kinsmanship. But they
were not intrinsically more coarse-minded than many dukes and duchesses.
Captain Berwick, it is true, was nautical in his tone, and talked shop,
but that is permitted to sea captains in novels, nay, enjoined upon
them. He was apt to be broad in his jokes, and to use unwarrantable
expressions, for which he bent his shock head in penitent apology the
moment after he had used them. "It is the effect of bad habits, Kirsten
and Peggy," he would cry: "you women know nothing of bad habits any more
than of bad words."
Mrs. Berwick was a particularly round-eyed woman, and was plump and
ruddy where the Captain was battered and weather-beaten. She placed the
scene of most of her narratives in the kitchens of her acquaintances,
and scrambled with her _dramatis personæ_ through the strong situations
of a servant's history.
Nevertheless the manner of the Berwicks was not without the refreshing
influence of common, rude fresh air. They were not exceptionally
coarse-minded, but unluckily they were neither strong nor fine minded.
They were ponderous, clumsy beings, and although genuine and
warm-hearted, were destitute of internal resources. They expected to be
constantly eating and drinking, or to be constantly entertained. If they
were not entertained, they showed their weariness without restraint, by
yawning outrageously. The entertaining of Captain and Mrs. Berwick was
therefore no sinecure. But Miss West was loyal. She walked with the
Captain, so that he might have more than his one smoke a day, and
perseveringly copied and sang Braham's songs for him. She designed and
cut out patterns for Mrs. Berwick, who, as the Captain had saved money,
did not make her own dresses, but nevertheless loved to accumulate
patterns of sleeves, capes, and flounces. She listened to her tales, and
helped her to as much more kitchiana as she could produce on short
notice. She told how Betsy had worn feathers and been taken to prison on
suspicion of theft; and how Marianne her sister had hoarded her wages in
order to secure legal advice for Betsy, and had captivated and married
an officer of the court in which Betsy had been tried, and how it had
all happened in a family where Miss West had lived.