THE CHRISTMAS HAMPERS.
Nobody but a hungry and excitable child, exiled from home and happiness,
bereft of toys and kisses, can conceive the mad delight of receiving a
Christmas hamper at school. Picture, if you can, a minute regiment with
eager faces pasted against the frost-embroidered window-panes, watching
a van drive up the Ivies' path, knowing that a hamper is coming for some
fortunate creature--but for whom?
Outside the land is all bridal white, and the lovely snow looks like
deep-piled white velvet upon the lawn, and like the most delicate lace
upon the branches. We see distinctly the driver, with a big
good-humoured face of the hue of cochineal under his snow-covered hat,
and he nods cheerfully to his enthusiastic admirers. He would be a churl
indeed to remain unmoved by our vociferous salutations, as we stamp our
feet, and clap our hands, and shout with all the force of our infant
lungs.
For the Christmas hamper, announced by letter from my stepfather, meant
for me the unknown. But every Christmas afterwards I was wiser, and not
for that less glad. A hamper meant a turkey, a goose, a large plum-cake
with Angela in beautiful pink letters upon the snow-frost ground. It
meant boxes of prunes, of sweets, of figs, lots of oranges and apples,
hot sherry and water, hot port and water in the dormitory of a cold
night, all sorts of surprising toys and picture-books. But it did not
imply by any means as much of those good things (I speak of the
eatables) for me as my parents fancied. The nuns generously helped
themselves to the lion's share of fruit and wine and fowls.
But the cake, best joy of all, was left to us untouched, and also the
sweets. The big round beauty was placed in front of me; with a huge
knife, a lay-sister sliced it up, and I, with a proud, important air,
sent round the plate among hungry and breathless infants, who had each
one already devoured her slice with her eyes before touching it with her
lips.
And at night in the dormitory, all those bright eyes and flushed little
faces, as we laughed and shouted and danced, disgraceful small topers
that we were, drinking my stepfather's sherry and port--drinking
ourselves into rosy paradises, where children lived upon plum-cake and
hot negus.
Oh, the joy of those Christmas excesses, after the compulsory sobriety
of long ascetic months! As each child received a hamper, not quite so
bountifully and curiously filled as mine, for my stepfather was a
typical Irishman--in the matter of hospitality, of generosity, he always
erred on the right side for others, and was as popular as a prince of
legend,--for a fortnight we revelled in a fairyland of toffee and
turkey, of sugared cakes and plum-pudding, of crackers and sweets, and
apples and oranges and bewitching toys. Like heroes refreshed, we were
then able to return to the frugality of daily fare--though, alas! I fear
this fugitive plenty and bliss made us early acquainted with the poet's
suffering in days of misery by the remembering of happier things. This
was my candid epistle, soon after Christmas, despatched to Kildare:--
"MY DERE EVRYDAY MAMA,--i dont like skule a bit. i cant du wat i
like. i dont have enuf tu et. Nun of us have enuf tu et. We had
enuf at crismas when everyboddy sent us lots of things. We were
very glad i had luvly things it wos so nice but i dont like skule,
its horid, theres a horid boy here. i bet him when he called me a
savage. Sister Esmeralda said it first i dont like her. She teches
me. tell Mary Jane to give my black dog 6 kisses. i want to go home
i like yu and Louis and Mary Jane and Bessy the apel woman i want
to clim tres like Johny Burke your affecshunat little girl.
ANGELA."
When this frank outpouring was subjected to revision, it ran:--
"MY DEAR FOSTER-MAMMA,--I am very happy here with the dear nuns. I
hope I shall remain with them a long while. We have such fun
always. We learn ever so many nice things. We love our dear
mistress, Sister Esmeralda. Reverend Mother had a cold, and we all
prayed so hard for her, and now she is better. I want some money
for her feast-day. We are going to give her a nice present. We had
a play and a tea-party. Lady Wilhelmina Osborne's little girl came
over from the Abbey. I hope you are quite well. With love, your
affectionate
ANGELA."
All our mistresses were not like Sister Esmeralda, a Spanish inquisitor
in a shape of insidious charm, nor a burly brute like the lay-sister,
who had so piously welted my naked back, nor a chill and frozen despot
like the pallid superioress. Mother Aloysius was, of course, a far-off
stained-glass vision, a superlative rapture in devotion, not suitable
for daily wear,--a recompense after the prolonged austerities of virtue
and self-denial, a soaring acquaintance with ecstatic admiration. But on
a lower plane there were some younger nuns we found tolerable and
sympathetic. There was Sister Anne, who taught us to play at snowballs,
and took a ball on her nose with companionable humour in the midst of
our shrieking approbation. There was Sister Ignatius, who inspired us
with terpsichorean ambition by dancing a polka with one of the big girls
down the long study hall, to the amiable murmur of--
"Can you dance a polka? Yes, I can.
Up and down the room with a nice young man";
or upon a more imaginative flight--
"My mother said that I never should
Play with the gypsies in the wood;
If I did, she would say,
Naughty girl to disobey."
Her great feat was, however, the Varsovienne, which she told us was a
Polish dance, and that Poland was a bleak and unfortunate country on the
confines of Russia. Ever afterwards I associated the sprightly Sister
Ignatius with a polar bear, especially when I watched her dance the
"Varsovienne," and fling her head over her shoulders in a most laughable
way, just as I imagined a bear would do if he took to dancing the dance
of Poland.
Mother Catherine is a less agreeable memory. I see her still, a tall
gaunt woman in coif and black veil, with austere grey eyes. She used to
watch us in the refectory, and whenever a greedy infant kept a rare
toothsome morsel for the wind-up of a frugal meal, Mother Catherine
would sweep down and confiscate the reserved luxury. "My child, you will
make an act of mortification for the good of your soul." I leave you to
imagine the child's dislike of her immortal soul, as the goody was
carried off.