There remained the evening and the night. Lydia had said Christmas-day,
and for some reason they took for granted that after Christmas-day was
passed all would be over—one way or the other. The shutters would be
unbarred, the shop reopened, and life would return to the cloistered
house. Still the evening and the night. What a Christmas-tide! And they
were old; too old for such pranks. Bertie was sixty-five. Old, too old.
They were tired of the strain of the silent day. Hungry, too, although
they had not noticed it. They went downstairs meekly when Lydia summoned
them to supper. Nose, ears, moustache, blue wig; no attempt at
rebellion. They sat round the table, waiting to be given their food and
drink. They had half hoped that Lydia would present some unexpected
appearance; if she was mad, she ought to look mad; that would be less
terrifying. It was horrible to be so mad and to continue to look so
sane. She might have been an old family governess; a strict one. Whereas
they were condemned to sit there, so ludicrous; knowing, moreover, that
she lost none of the full savour of the paradox.
“You shall drink my health,” she said, at the opening of the meal.
They drank it, in neat spirit. She plied them with more.
“I never touch anything,” said Emily feebly.
“No, but this is an exception.” She poured freely into Emily’s glass,
drinking nothing herself.
The Javanese warrior holding the lantern on his spear grinned down at
them with his yellow mask. The candles flickered in the great sham
candelabras. The spirit was tawny in the shining glasses.
“Drink! it’s our last evening together.”
Emily looked at Lydia, they were sisters; had the same features; were
not unlike one another.
“We shared a bedroom, Alice, didn’t we? I got into your bed once, when I
was frightened at night. There was a box made of shells on the
dressing-table, do you remember? Mother gave it to us at the seaside.”
She laughed; her laugh was almost tender.
“I used to pull your hair, Alice,” said Bertie.
They were suddenly confident that Alice would do them no harm.
“Forty years,” said Lydia, looking down the table at them.
“A waste of time,” said Bertie, “when we were brother and sisters
together. But you’ve paid us out, Alice, you’ve paid us out.”
“Not yet,” said Lydia, “not fully.”
“I daresay I should have done the same myself,” said Bertie’s wife,
surprisingly. “After all, it was a joke, Alice; why not take Alice’s
joke in good part?” She looked round, as though she had made a
discovery.
“If you prefer,” said Lydia, unmoved.
“Ha, ha!” said Fred, and was suddenly silent.
They began to eat what Lydia had given them. Beyond the open door of the
dining-room the shop was dark and jumbled. Lydia ate primly, and the
little black revolver lay beside her plate. The light glinted along its
barrels. They viewed it without apprehension. This was their last
evening; they were confusedly sorry; Alice, hospitable if eccentric; and
what, indeed, was eccentricity? She was giving them champagne now; it
was wrong to begin with spirits, and to go on to champagne; but what
matter? Alice was well-meaning; generous. That little revolver: like a
little black, shining bull-terrier, squat, bulbous. They heard
themselves laughing and making jokes. Alice seemed pleased, she was
smiling; up to the present she had not smiled at all; but now the smile
was constant on her face as she watched them. They exerted themselves to
entertain her. Their efforts were successful; she watched them with
evident approval, swaying a little, backwards and forwards, as she sat.
They ventured more; still she smiled, and her hand poured generously,
though she did not empty her own glass. They had forgotten that they
were old. Looking at one another, they laughed very heartily over the
trappings Alice had provided for them. “Christmas!” said Bertie, tapping
his nose. Emily leant back in her chair; she was sleepy and happy. She
roused herself to accept the sweets which Lydia offered her. “Sleepy,”
she murmured, smiling at Bertie’s wife; “your hair ...” she toppled off
to sleep in the midst of her sentence. Fred wanted to prop her up. “Let
her be,” said Lydia benignly. “All happy,” said Bertie. They pulled
crackers, and put the paper caps on their heads; the table under the
candelabra was littered with the coloured paper off the crackers, and
there was a discord produced by the whistles and small trumpets that
came out of them. Bertie was on his feet, trying all these toy
instruments in turn; he swayed round the table, collecting them, and
reading out the mottoes. He paused to look at his wife, who had fallen
forward with her arms on the table and her head on her arms. “Asleep,”
he said, with a puzzled expression. Lydia still sat bolt upright at the
head of the table, letting them all have their way as it seemed best to
them, whether in sleep or hilarity; with her hands she clasped her
elbows, and the bands of hair lay undisturbed upon her brows. She
examined her guests in turn; Emily, who slept, slipped sideway in her
chair, the moustache still stuck on her upper lip; Bertie’s wife, who
slept likewise, her face hidden, the blue wig uppermost; Fred, who
between the ears stared vaguely before him; and Bertie, who, portly and
irresponsible, wandered round the table searching among the litter of
the crackers. Lydia at last, having scrutinized them all, gave out a
sudden creaking laugh. Her party was to her satisfaction. “Forty years!”
she said, nodding at Bertie, “forty years!” When she laughed he looked
at her, dimly startled through his confusion. “Christmas,” he replied,
blinking; he intended it to be an expression of good-will, an
obliteration of those forty years. At last, he thought, they had found
out the right way to treat Alice: not solemnly, not as though they were
afraid of her, but in a light-hearted and jocund spirit. “Christmas,” he
repeated, leaning up against her chair.
She began to laugh. Her laughter grew; it creaked at first, then grew
shrill; she pointed derisively at them all in turn. Bertie was not
alarmed; he joined in. He relished at last the humour of the situation,
which Alice had been relishing now since yesterday. She had got
twenty-four hours’ start ahead of him: an unfair advantage. He made up
for lost time by trying to laugh more heartily than she did. She
observed this with a dangerous appreciation; her fingers began to play
with the butt of the revolver. Forty years. Forty Christmases spent in
solitude. Her sudden rage blackened out the room before her eyes. She
lifted the revolver uncertainly, then laid it down again. “Subtle,
subtle. Not blatant,” she muttered to herself, an often-rehearsed
lesson, and tapped her fingers against her teeth. She felt slightly
helpless, as though she were unable to make the most of her opportunity.
She knew she had had many schemes, but they all seemed to be slipping
away from her. It was difficult to hold on to one’s thoughts, difficult
to concentrate them; they scattered as one came up to them, like a lot
of sparrows. A pity—she must make an effort—because the opportunity
would not come again.
Just then she heard the front-door bell ring sharply through the house.
A little dazed, she got up to answer it. A messenger from outside?
Perhaps an unexpected help in her emergency? She left the dining-room,
where Bertie fumbled and tried to detain her; she passed through the
shop, and, moving like a sleep-walker, unlocked and undid the many
fastenings of the door. Outside in the street stood a group of men,
carrying lanterns; the snow sparkled on the ground; the narrow street
was like an illustration of old-fashioned Christmas. She stood holding
the door open. She recognized many of her fellow-tradesmen; she heard
their words, “Your well-known charity, Miss Protheroe ... never turn
away an appeal unanswered.... Christmas-time ... trust we don’t
intrude ...” and heard the rattle of coin, and saw the collecting-boxes
in their hands.
“You don’t intrude,” she said. “Come in.”
Inwardly she knew they wanted an excuse to find out how Miss Protheroe
spent her Christmas. They should see. They came in, removing their hats,
from which the melting snow began to drip, and scraping the snow from
their boots on the wire mat; their faces were red and jovial. She led
them through the jumbled shop, through into the dining-room, where
Bertie leant up against the littered table, and the two women slept, and
Fred gaped stupidly.
They were at a loss to say anything; checked in their joke of routing
out old Miss Protheroe, they gazed uncomprehending at the scene before
them. Their eyes turned again towards Miss Protheroe; she stood erect
and prim, her hands clasping her elbows.
“You don’t know my relations,” she said, and, indicating them, “my
sister, my brother-in-law, my sister-in-law, my brother.” She effected
the introduction with irreproachable gravity.
“She’s mad,” cried Bertie suddenly, reason flooding him, and he pointed
at her with a denouncing hand.
They stared, first at those four crazy figures, and then at the stiff
correctness of Miss Protheroe as they always knew her.