"There are reasons--you wouldn't understand if I tried to tell you--but
you can't have much of a Christmas this year. But I've told Matilda to
make you a good plain pudding. Perhaps next Christmas will be brighter."
(It was; for the next Christmas saw us the affluent nephews and nieces
of an Indian uncle--but that is quite another story, as good old Kipling
says.)
When Father had been seen off at Lewisham Station with his bags, and a
plaid rug in a strap, we came home again, and it was horrid. There were
papers and things littered all over his room where he had packed. We
tidied the room up--it was the only thing we could do for him. It was
Dicky who accidentally broke his shaving-glass, and H.O. made a paper
boat out of a letter we found out afterwards Father particularly wanted
to keep. This took us some time, and when we went into the nursery the
fire was black out, and we could not get it alight again, even with the
whole _Daily Chronicle_. Matilda, who was our general then, was out, as
well as the fire, so we went and sat in the kitchen. There is always a
good fire in kitchens. The kitchen hearthrug was not nice to sit on, so
we spread newspapers on it.
It was sitting in the kitchen, I think, that brought to our minds my
Father's parting words--about the pudding, I mean.
Oswald said, "Father said we couldn't have much of a Christmas for
secret reasons, and he said he had told Matilda to make us a plain
pudding."
The plain pudding instantly cast its shadow over the deepening gloom of
our young minds.
"I wonder _how_ plain she'll make it?" Dicky said.
"As plain as plain, you may depend," said Oswald. "A
here-am-I-where-are-you pudding--that's her sort."
The others groaned, and we gathered closer round the fire till the
newspapers rustled madly.
"I believe I could make a pudding that _wasn't_ plain, if I tried,"
Alice said. "Why shouldn't we?"
"No chink," said Oswald, with brief sadness.
"How much would it cost?" Noel asked, and added that Dora had twopence
and H.O. had a French halfpenny.
Dora got the cookery-book out of the dresser drawer, where it lay
doubled up among clothes-pegs, dirty dusters, scallop shells, string,
penny novelettes, and the dining-room corkscrew. The general we had
then--it seemed as if she did all the cooking on the cookery-book
instead of on the baking-board, there were traces of so many bygone
meals upon its pages.
"It doesn't say Christmas pudding at all," said Dora.
"Try plum," the resourceful Oswald instantly counselled.
Dora turned the greasy pages anxiously.
"'Plum-pudding, 518.
"'A rich, with flour, 517.
"'Christmas, 517.
"'Cold brandy sauce for, 241.'
"We shouldn't care about that, so it's no use looking.
"'Good without eggs, 518.
"'Plain, 518.'
"We don't want _that_ anyhow. 'Christmas, 517'--that's the one."
It took her a long time to find the page. Oswald got a shovel of coals
and made up the fire. It blazed up like the devouring elephant the
_Daily Telegraph_ always calls it. Then Dora read--
"'Christmas plum-pudding. Time six hours.'"
"To eat it in?" said H.O.
"No, silly! to make it."
"Forge ahead, Dora," Dicky replied.