Diana's English Christmas
Diana had fondly hoped that the armistice meant an immediate declaration
of peace, that her father and mother would return post-haste from
France, take her away from Pendlemere, and cross at once to America, so
that they might spend Christmas in their own home. To her immense
disappointment, nothing so nice happened. The peace conferences were
lengthy. Mr. and Mrs. Hewlitt remained in Paris, and did not even speak
of booking passages to New York. They wrote instead to make arrangements
for Diana's holidays in England. It was at first decided that she should
spend the time with her cousins, the Burritts, but influenza broke out
so badly at Petteridge Court that all in a hurry the plans had to be
changed. It ended in Diana passing Christmas with the Flemings at
Pendlemere Vicarage. So far she had scarcely realized Meg and Elsie
Fleming. They came to school daily, and she had seen them among the
juniors, and remarked that they were "sweet kids". She was now to meet
them at nearer acquaintance, and not only Meg and Elsie, but Monty,
Neale, and Roger as well.
They were an interesting and lively family, and after a preliminary
half-hour of painful politeness, they thawed over schoolroom tea, and
adopted her into their midst. Monty, the eldest, was an eccentric,
clever lad in spectacles, fond of making scientific and chemical
experiments, which generally ended in odours that caused the others to
hold their noses and open the schoolroom windows, top and bottom. He had
a philosophical mind and a love of argument, and would thrash out
questions for the sheer fun of debate in a growling sort of tone that
was not really bad-tempered, only put on.
Neale, six months older than Diana, was a bright, jolly-looking boy,
with a freckled nose and chestnut hair that rather stood on end. As
regards book-learning, the less said about his attainments the better,
and he had an unpleasant half-hour in his father's study, explaining
details of his school report; but in all practical matters he was ahead
of Monty. He was a thorough young pickle, up to endless pranks, and
determined not to let time hang heavy on his hands during the holidays.
Roger, the youngest, a smart little chap of nine, followed in the wake
of his brothers, poking interfering fingers into Monty's chemical
messes, or acting scout for Neale's escapades. At the end of twelve
hours Diana felt that she knew them perfectly, and had shaken down into
a place of her own amongst them.
Six young people home for the holidays are apt to turn a house upside
down, and it was fortunate for Mrs. Fleming that she had an easy-going
and happy-go-lucky disposition, and could view with comparative
equanimity the chaos that reigned in the schoolroom. To Diana it was
delightful; she preferred a floor littered with shavings, a table spread
with paints, plasticine modelling-clay, and other descriptions of mess,
and chairs encumbered with books and papers, to the neatest, tidiest
room where everything you want is put away out of reach in cupboards.
"When I heard I was coming to the Vicarage, I thought: 'My, I guess I
won't have to bounce there!' But you're a real set of sports," she
assured her new friends.
"Well, I don't think we're exactly what you'd call prim and proper,"
chuckled Meg.
There were still a few days before Christmas, and the energies of the
whole family were focused on decorations. There were not many people in
the village with leisure to help, so most of the work fell upon the
Flemings. They tramped down to the church, bearing great armfuls of
evergreens, strings of holly-berries, and texts cut out in paper
letters. The girls sat in a pew and twisted garlands of yew and laurel,
which the boys, with the aid of a short ladder, fastened round the
pillars. Mrs. Fleming was fitting panels of cotton wool on to the
pulpit, and sprinkling them with artificial frost.
"We ought to have lots of flags about the place this Christmas," said
Monty, "to make it a sort of victory celebration as well. I'll put two
or three over the organ, and stick some round the monuments. What I'd
like would be to see our huge Union Jack hanging down over that blank
wall there."
"Well, why don't you put it?" enquired Diana, looking up from her
wreath-twisting.
"All very well, madam, but how am I going to get it there? That's a
little detail which escapes your feminine observation. Please to note
the height of our ladder and the height of that wall, and compare the
difference."
"I'd get up on to that passage and fix it," nodding to the triforium.
"Would you, indeed, Miss America? I rather think I see you toddling
along there, with a drop of thirty feet below you."
"Do you dare me to?"
"You're brave enough down here in a pew, but I don't believe any girl
would have the head for that. Women aren't steeple-jacks!"
"You needn't speak so scornfully. There may be a few steeple-jennies
among them!"
"No fear," laughed Monty, turning away.
Diana said nothing more, but as she went on with her wreath her thoughts
were as busy as her fingers. She was more silent than usual at lunch,
and slipped away quickly afterwards, leaving the family talking round
the fire. First, she ran upstairs to the corner of the upper landing,
where she knew the big Union Jack was kept. She rolled it into a tight
bundle, tucked it under her arm, then tore off to the church. She found
herself alone there, for none of the other decorators had returned. It
was exactly the opportunity she wanted. The bunch of keys was hanging in
the big door. She pulled them out, and carried them to the tiny door by
the chancel steps. This she unlocked and flung open, disclosing a steep,
winding stair. Almost on her hands and knees Diana scrambled up, and up,
and up till she reached the triforium, the narrow stone gallery that ran
round the church under the clerestory windows. The first few yards were
safely protected with arches, pillars, and a balustrade, but after that
came a stretch of about twenty feet with no parapet at all. The gallery
was only twenty-four inches wide; on the one side was the wall, on the
other a sheer drop of about thirty feet. Diana paused, and set her
teeth. She did not dare to walk it, but she knelt down and crawled along
till she reached the next piece of balustrade. Then she unrolled her
Union Jack, and, tying it by its cords to the pillars, arranged it so
that it hung down into the church and covered the exact spot of blank
wall that Monty had indicated. She had just finished when she heard
footsteps in the porch. Not wanting to be caught by the Vicar, she began
to crawl back in the same way as she had come. Perhaps the sense that
someone might be watching her from below unnerved her, for the return
journey seemed far worse than the outward one had done. She did not
venture to look down, but kept her eyes on the wall. Half-way she was
suddenly seized with a horrible paroxysm of dizziness. For a moment or
two she lay flat, too frightened to move, while her giddy head seemed to
be spinning round. With a supreme effort she mastered the sensation, and
crawled on, inch by inch, till she once again reached safety. With
rather tottering knees she came down the winding staircase, and through
the small door to the chancel steps. Mrs. Fleming, Meg, Monty, and Neale
were standing by the lectern when she appeared. Mrs. Fleming was white
as chalk; the others were staring open-mouthed, with a queer strained
look in their eyes.
"Well, I've done it, you see!" said Diana jauntily.
The Flemings gazed at her without speaking. Monty went and locked the
door of the staircase and put the keys in his pocket. The silence was
embarrassing.
"I think it looks very nice hanging there," declared Diana, nodding at
her Union Jack.
"My dear," said Mrs. Fleming in a shaky voice, "if you knew what I
suffered when I saw you creeping along the triforium you couldn't speak
so lightly. It isn't right to risk your life in this fashion."
Diana tried to carry the matter off airily, but the boys were grumpy and
would not speak. Meg kept looking at her with a peculiar expression, as
if she were recovering from a shock. Altogether, Diana felt that her
deed of daring had fallen very flat. She was annoyed that no one
congratulated her upon it. She considered that for a girl of fourteen it
was rather a record. Monty would not be able to sneer at "Miss America"
again. She strolled in a casual way past the font which he was
decorating, and made a final effort to wring from him the appreciation
she craved.
"There _are_ some steeple-jennies in the world!" she remarked, staring
upwards at the clerestory.
Monty picked up another piece of holly, placed it deliberately in
position, and then turned his spectacles on Diana.
"And there are more jenny-asses in it too than I should have expected!"
he answered pointedly.
When Diana had undressed that evening Mrs. Fleming came into her room to
say good-night, and sat down for a minute on the edge of her bed.
"Have you thought, dear," she said, "what it would have meant to Mr.
Fleming and me to have been obliged to write to your father and mother
and tell them you were lying dead, or, worse still, a cripple with a
broken spine; and what your father's and mother's feelings would have
been at the news?"
Diana turned her face away.
"Thoughtlessness can sometimes amount to heartlessness in its lack of
consideration for others."
"Monty dared me to do it."
"He never dreamed you actually would. Besides, are you going to do every
idiotic, silly thing that every foolish person says you dare not? I
thought you were more sensible, Diana! Remember, we are responsible for
you during the holidays, and I wish to return you whole to your parents.
We use every reasonable precaution to take care of you, but I can't
calculate on safeguarding you as if you were a baby of three."
Diana drummed her fingers on the pillow. Mrs. Fleming waited a moment,
then tried a different tack.
"I'm not very strong, Diana. My heart is weak, and I'm afraid for some
days I shall feel the effect of the shock you gave me this afternoon. I
don't believe you're the kind of girl who'd deliberately want to make me
ill."
Diana wriggled round, but her head was bent down.
"Remember that we care about you, dear. It would grieve us very much if
the slightest little accident were to happen to you. We want you to have
jolly holidays here, and to go back to school safe and well, with, I
hope, a happy remembrance of the Vicarage."
Two soft arms were thrown round Mrs. Fleming's neck.
"I'd do anything for _you_, though I hate to be a molly-coddle!"
whispered Diana. "I'm most fearfully sorry if I've really made you feel
ill!"
* * * * *
The decoration of the church was only one of the incidents of Christmas;
there were other things to be done before the festival arrived. The
Flemings liked to preserve old traditions, and finding that their
little American guest was very keen on all the details of a genuine
British Yule-tide, they did their best to satisfy her. Mrs. Fleming used
the cherished half-pound of currants--which in the war-time shortage of
dried fruits was all the grocer could send her--to make the frumenty and
spiced cakes that from time immemorial had been eaten in that northern
district to celebrate the feast of the Nativity. A Yule-log was sawn and
placed upon the dining-room fire, and a huge bough of mistletoe hung up
in the hall.
"We ought to have the Waits to make it just perfect!" said Diana.
"I believe some of the choir used to go round carol singing once," said
Meg, "but it's been given up. The mothers said the girls caught cold,
and they stayed out too late, so it was put a stop to. It's a pity in a
way. Mrs. James was saying only the other day that she quite missed
them, and so did Mrs. Holmes. They both said Christmas wasn't what it
used to be."
The pupils of Diana's eyes were growing large and round and shining, as
they always did when her fertile mind was evolving new ideas. She seized
Meg's arm.
"Oh, I've got such a brain-wave!" she confided. "Look here! Why
shouldn't we be Waits? We've learnt all those Christmas carols at
school. Let's go round and sing them. It would be ripping fun!"
The idea appealed to Meg and Elsie, and, rather to the astonishment of
the girls, the boys also took it up with enthusiasm, and volunteered
their assistance. They enlisted the help of the village schoolmistress,
and some of the most tuneful among her pupils, and all on the spur of
the moment made up their company.
"What always spoils carol singing," said Monty sententiously, "is that
everybody's generally so beastly out of tune. They don't seem able to
keep the pitch without a harmonium."
"Pity we can't carry a harmonium with us!"
"Why shouldn't we?" suggested Neale. "I don't mean I'm going to haul the
thing on my back, so you needn't grin. I've a better notion than that.
We'll see if the Blackwoods will lend us a cart. Put the harmonium
inside, hang up a lantern to see by, and there you are, with a movable
concert platform ready to take round where we like."
The others looked at Neale with admiration. It was such a very brainy
idea, they wondered they had never thought of it for themselves. Time
was short, as the performance was to be that evening, so they dispersed
to make their arrangements. Ted Blackwood, a member of the church choir,
agreed to bring his father's cart.
"I'll take t'owd mare," he grinned. "Shoo's steady, and won't bolt when
th' harmonium starts. Aye, I've a big stable lantern as 'ull do too."
Here indeed was an excitement for a young American visitor. Diana could
hardly wait till tea was over and darkness fell. Fortunately it was a
fine evening, with a hint of frost in the air, so the expedition would
not be damped by rain. Mrs. Fleming insisted upon all the party being
very warmly clad, and brought out an old picture of "The Waits" to
demonstrate that the use of mufflers was an integral part of the
ceremony. Diana, to her delight, was lent a Red Ridinghood cloak of
Meg's, clad in which she felt that she had stepped back at least three
centuries, and was walking in the days of the Stuarts.
"I might be one of the pilgrims in the _Mayflower_!" she exclaimed.
"What would Dad give to see me? I wish you were coming too," she added
to Mrs. Fleming.
"I'm too busy, child, to-night," said Mrs. Fleming, kissing the roguish
little face framed in the red hood. "Enjoy yourselves, chicks! And,
Diana,"--with a warning finger held up--"_don't_, please, do anything
desperately amazing!"
"I'll be an absolute model of mild mediaeval maidenhood," promised that
damsel, with twinkling eyes.
They went first to the Blackwoods' farm, then, when Ted had harnessed
"t'owd mare", they proceeded with the cart to the schoolhouse, and,
after a good deal of heaving and hauling, lifted in the harmonium and a
stool for Miss Simpson, the schoolmistress, to sit upon while she
played. The rest of the party having joined them, they jogged along to
the first house on their list, that of Mrs. Holmes at the Old Grange
Farm. They drew up the cart outside the door, placed lanterns on the
harmonium, and saw Miss Simpson settled at the instrument--a matter of
some difficulty, as the cart sloped, and the stool was inclined to slide
away. Ted held the old mare by the bridle, in case the music might
revive her youthful spirits and cause her to bolt. The others grouped
themselves round the cart. Miss Simpson struck up, and through the keen
night air rang out the cheerful strains of "Christians, awake!" The
Holmes family opened the door in quite a state of excitement, and
listened with much appreciation while "Good King Wenceslas", "The First
Nowell", and other old carols were sung. They insisted on bringing the
party indoors for slices of Yule cake, and would have given them hot
coffee as well, but Monty, who wished to visit other houses, declared
they had not time to wait while it was made. So they tramped on to the
James's farm, where they had an equally hearty reception, and were
regaled with cocoa, currant bread, and cheese.
It was a unique experience, trudging along country lanes with a cart and
lanterns, with hoar-frost under foot, and a few stars winking in a misty
sky, then standing in the cold night air to sing their carols. Diana
felt that she could never forget it, and that the shrill voice of little
Jack Greenhalgh warbling
"Nowell! Nowell! Nowell! Nowell!
Born is the King of Israel!"
would always be associated with her idea of Christmas.
She had her fill of old-world customs, for she was allowed, by special
favour, to go into the belfry and help for one brief minute to pull a
bell. And after service on Christmas morning she stood in the church
porch and watched the distribution of the "roth shillings", which, in
accordance with the terms of an old charity, were handed over to "twelve
worthy widows resident within the bounds of the parish". She helped in
the afternoon at the schools, where a big tea-party and Christmas-tree
were given to the children of the village, and joined nobly in the games
that were played afterwards, tearing round at "Drop the Handkerchief",
or pulling at "Oranges and Lemons", with unflagging energy.
"Have you had a nice Christmas Day, childie, away from all your own
people?" asked Mrs. Fleming, holding Diana's face between her hands as
she said good-night, and looking at her critically for signs of
home-sickness.
But Diana's eyes were without a suspicion of moisture, and her voice was
absolutely cheerful as she answered:
"Yes, thanks; just topping!"