CHAPTER IX
A MERRY CHRISTMAS
The snowy air had painted the ceiling of the room a lurid grey when Letizia woke her father and mother next morning. She was standing up in her cot, holding the footrails of the big bed with one hand and waving the toy dog in the other.
“Look, muvver, look at my dog? I’ve got a dog, muvver! Look, faver, I’ve got a dog! Look, I say! Look, look!”
Her parents had just focussed their sleepy eyes on the dog when it was flung on the floor, and the monkey was being waved in its place.
“Look, muvver, I’ve got a monkey! And he’s climbing up and down. Look, faver, look at my monkey. Oh, do look!”
The monkey’s triumph was brief, his degradation swift. The fickle mob had found another favourite.
“Oh, muvver, look at my baa-lamb. I’ve got a little baa-lamb, faver. Look at my pretty little woolly baa-lamb, faver,” she shouted imperiously.
But the lamb immediately followed his colleagues to the floor.
“And I’ve got a rub-a-dub-dub and a wheedle-wheedle and an apple and an orange. And I saw Santy Claus come down the chiminy, and had a most anormous beard you ever saw and he said, ‘How d’ye do, Tizia, will you give me a nice kiss?’ And I said, ‘Yes,’ and he gived me a kiss, and he put fousands and fousands of lovely fings into my stocking. Wasn’t Mrs. Porridge kind to give me her stocking because it was so anormous? And please can Icome and get into bed with you and bring my trumpet?”
“Come along, darling,” invited Nancy, holding out her arms.
Letizia climbed very cautiously out of her cot and was lifted up on the bed and deposited between her father and mother, where she sat and blew her trumpet without a stop until her father picked up his pillow and pretended to smother her.
“Hullo,” Bram exclaimed, looking at the little box which was thus uncovered. “Here’s something of mother’s under father’s pillow.”
Nancy smiled and shook her head.
“No, boy, that’s yours.”
Bram smiled and shook his head.
“No, it’s yours. I put it under your pillow last night.”
“But, Bram, I put it under yours.”
By this time Letizia had disentangled herself from the pillow and was sounding another tucket, so that she had to be smothered all over again with Nancy’s pillow. And there was revealed another little box exactly like the first.
“Open it, muvver. Oh, do open it!” Letizia urged. “Perhaps there’s choc-chocs inside.”
“Strange,” Bram exclaimed. “What’s inside mine, I wonder?”
Nancy and he opened the two boxes. In each one was a silver key.
“Bram!”
“Nancy!”
“This is the key of my heart. Keep it always, my darling,” he read in an awed voice.
“With this key you unlocked my heart,” she read in equal awe.
They wished each other a merry Christmas, and with their eyes they vowed eternal love, those unlocked hearts too full for words, while Letizia blew such a resounding alarum on her trumpet that she fetched up Mrs. Pottage.
“Well now, fancy that! I heard her right downstairs in the kitchen. Well, it’s real Christmas weather, andno mistake. Good morning, my beauty, and how are you?”
This to Letizia.
“Mrs. Porridge, Santy Claus brought me a dog and a lamb and a monkey and a rub-a-dub-dub and a wheedle-wheedle and a trumpet and a book and an orange and an apple and some sweeties and fousands of fings. And he came down the chiminy, and I wasn’t a bit frightened.”
Mrs. Pottage shook her head in delighted admiration.
“Did he come down head first or feet first?”
“Bofe,” Letizia declared, after a moment’s pause.
“You can’t catch her out, can you? Why, she’s as cunning as King Pharaoh,” Mrs. Pottage chuckled, and with this she departed to fetch the morning tea.
Nancy was suddenly seized with a desire to go to Mass and take Letizia.
“I’ll come too,” Bram volunteered. “Now, don’t discourage me.”
It was true that Nancy always was inclined to discourage him from taking an interest in her religion. Not that she took such a very profound interest in it herself, to tell the truth. But she had a dread of people’s saying that she had forced her husband to become a Catholic. He did at intervals bring up the subject of being received; but there never seemed to be time to take any steps in the matter when they were on tour, and when they were resting it seemed a pity to worry their heads about religion. However, that morning Nancy did not discourage Bram from accompanying her and Letizia to Mass.
Letizia was very full of her visit to the Crib, when she saw Mrs. Pottage again.
“And I saw the baby Jesus in his nightygown, Mrs. Porridge.”
“You did?”
“Yes, and He was lying on His back and kicking His legs up in the air ever so high. And there was a moo-cow smelling Him.”
“No, darling,” her mother interrupted, “the moo-cow was praying to Him.”
“Well, he was smelling Him too.”
“You’d have to start walking the week before last to get in front of her,” said Mrs. Pottage.
There was a letter from Nancy’s father to greet with seasonable wishes, her and hers, and as a kind of Christmas present there was an extra flourish to his already florid signature. He had been engaged to play Sir Lucius O’Trigger in a production ofThe Rivalsat a West End theatre, and he felt sure that this meant finally abandoning the provinces for London. There was, too, a letter from old Mrs. Fuller written by her companion.
Lebanon HouseBrigham.Dec. 23rd, 1894.Dear Bram,I can no longer hold a pen, even to wish you a merry Christmas and a fortunate New Year, and as much to your Nancy and that unhappily named Letizia. Although I am indecently old—eighty-two—I ought still to be able to write, but I’ve had a slight stroke and I who once died to live now only live to die.Your lovingGrandmother.
Lebanon HouseBrigham.Dec. 23rd, 1894.
Lebanon HouseBrigham.Dec. 23rd, 1894.
Lebanon House
Brigham.
Dec. 23rd, 1894.
Dear Bram,
I can no longer hold a pen, even to wish you a merry Christmas and a fortunate New Year, and as much to your Nancy and that unhappily named Letizia. Although I am indecently old—eighty-two—I ought still to be able to write, but I’ve had a slight stroke and I who once died to live now only live to die.
Your lovingGrandmother.
Besides these two letters there were a few cards from friends, but not many, for it is difficult to keep up with people’s whereabouts on tour.
The Christmas dinner was entirely a small family affair, but only the more intensely enjoyed for that very reason. Mrs. Pottage was invited in to dessert, and also Mrs. Pottage’s assistant, a crippled girl, who was imported to help in the household work on occasions of ceremony. Quite what help Agatha Wilkinson was no one ever discovered, for she could only move with extreme slowness and difficulty on a pair of crutches. Perhaps her utility lay in being able to sit quietly in a cornerof the kitchen and listen to Mrs. Pottage’s conversation, which increased in volubility, the more she had to do. There was a pineapple on the table, a slice of which the landlady emphatically declined.
“No, thanks, not for me. That’s a thing I only eat from the tin. Raw, I’d sooner eat a pinecomb any day. Would you like to try a slice, Aggie?”
Agatha was too shy to refuse when Bram put a slice on her plate, and Mrs. Pottage watched with obvious gratification her fearful attempts to manipulate it.
“Ah, I thought she wouldn’t like it. You needn’t eat any more, Aggie, if it puts your teeth on the edge. Yes, it’s my opinion if pineapples cost twopence apiece instead of ten shillings people might buy a few just to throw at strange cats. To scrape your boots on? Yes. To eat? No. That’s my opinion about pineapples.”
In the evening, when Letizia had been put to bed after a number of uproarious games in which Bram had surpassed even his own wonderful record as an animal impersonator, Mrs. Pottage came in as magnificent as a queen-dowager in black satin to ask if her lodgers would give her the pleasure of their company in the parlour.
“I’ve got a few friends coming in to celebrate Christmas. Mrs. Bugbird’s here, and two of my unintendeds—Mr. Hopkins, the chandler—well, I thought I’d ask him, though he’s no more addition to anything than a nought, which is what he looks like—and then there’s Mr. Watcher. Yes, Watcher’s a good name for him, for he watches me like a dog watches a bone. He and Mr. Hopkins can’t bear the sight of one another. Well, I daresay there’s a bit of jealousy in it, if it comes to that, just because I happened to refuse him before I refused Hopkins. His business is coal. Sells it, I mean. I don’t think even Watcher would have had the nerve to propose to me if he’d have actually been a coalman. Oh, dear, oh, dear, who does marry coalmen, that’s what I ask myself. Or sweeps, if it comes to that? And then there’s Mr. and Mrs. Breadcutt, who’s an inspector of nuisancesfor the London County Council. So, if you’ll come in and join us, we shall be a very nice merry little party.”
Though they were feeling rather tired, Bram and Nancy accepted the invitation, because Mrs. Pottage had been so kind to them and they knew she would be terribly disappointed if they refused. However, they stipulated that she must not persuade them to stay very late on account of the matinée, to which, they reminded her, she had promised to take Letizia to-morrow.
“Oh, I hadn’t forgotten. In fact, I thoroughly enjoy a good pantomime. It’s a pity Mrs. Bugbird’s got to go and see her relations over in Putney, because that woman so loves a bit of fun and always laughs so hearty that she’d make any panto a success just by being there.”
Mrs. Bugbird, who was in the parlour when Bram and Nancy walked downstairs, was built on an altogether larger scale than Mrs. Pottage. The latter was plump and for her age still remarkably buxom; but she was not noticeably too fat. On the other hand, Mrs. Bugbird’s immense face crowned a really massive campanulate base. When she laughed, which was practically all the time, her little eyes kept bubbling up out of her cheeks and then apparently bursting as they were once more swallowed up by the rolls of fat. This likeness to bursting bubbles was accentuated by the drops of moisture that during her spasms of mirth kept trickling down Mrs. Bugbird’s cheeks, so that she had from time to time to wipe them away with an extensive red silk handkerchief on which was printed in bright yellow a view of the Pool of London.
A feature of Mrs. Pottage’s best parlour was one of those Victorian triple chairs, two of which were occupied by Mr. Hopkins and Mr. Watcher. This meant that they were practically sitting back to back, an attitude which did nothing to allay the rumour of their mutual lack of esteem. Sitting thus, with their polished bald heads, they looked like two boiled eggs in a china stand. No doubt, Mrs. Bugbird had perceived this ridiculous resemblance,for every time she threw a glance in the direction of the two rivals her eyes bubbled in and out with the rapidity of soda-water. The outward appearance of Mr. Breadcutt, the inspector of nuisances, bore no signs of his profession; indeed he looked as tolerant and as genial a man as one might expect to meet in a month. Perhaps the nuisances were ferreted out by Mrs. Breadcutt, an angular woman with a pair of intelligent, pink-rimmed eyes, who sat up on the edge of her chair like an attentive bull-terrier. The party was completed by Agatha Wilkinson.
“Well, now we’re all here, what game shall we play?” Mrs. Pottage asked expansively.
“Kiss in the ring,” Mr. Breadcutt suggested without a moment’s hesitation. Whereupon Mr. Hopkins and Mr. Watcher both scowled, the one at the ceiling, the other at the floor, while Mrs. Bugbird rocked backward and forward in a convulsion of irrepressible mirth.
“George,” said Mrs. Breadcutt sharply.
“Yes, my dear?”
“Behave yourself, even if it is Christmas. You ought to know better at your age than suggest such a game in a little room like this.”
“That’s just why I did suggest it,” Mr. Breadcutt retorted. “I’d have a chance of catching Mrs. Pottage and helping myself to a good one.”
Mr. Hopkins and Mr. Watcher turned simultaneously at this outrageous admission to glare at the inspector of nuisances. Unfortunately Mr. Hopkins turned his head to the left and Mr. Watcher turned his head to the right, so that their eyes met, and instead of glaring at Mr. Breadcutt they glared at each other.
“Well, I’m going to call on Mr. Fuller for a song,” said Mrs. Pottage. She apologised later for thus dragging him into a performance on his night off. “But really,” she said, “I thought Hopkins and Watcher was going to fly at one another. They looked like a couple of boxing kangaroos.”
Bram obliged the flattered company with two or threesongs which Nancy accompanied on the ancient piano, the noise of which was the occasion of another apology by the hostess.
“More like teeth clicking than music, isn’t it? Well, it hasn’t really been used since the year dot excepting for a bookcase. It belonged to my dear old dad, and he only bought it to cover up a spot in the wall where the roof leaked. He couldn’t bear music, the dear old man. When he was over seventy, he nearly got fined for squirting a syringe full of the stuff he washed his greenhouse with into the big end of a cornet and which a blind man was playing outside his house. Of course, as he explained, he wasn’t to know the pore fellow was blind or he’d have spoke before he spouted. ButI’mvery fond of music, I am.”
And to prove her sincerity Mrs. Pottage sangTwo Lovely Black Eyes, a performance which so utterly convulsed Mrs. Bugbird that she fell off her chair, and sat undulating on the floor for nearly five minutes, until the united efforts of the male guests got her back again, when in order to deal with the moisture induced by such excess of mirth, she had to produce her reserve handkerchief, on which was printed a gruesome picture of the execution of Mr. and Mrs. Manning.
Then Nancy sang to Bram’s accompaniment, after which Bram gave imitations of familiar animals to the intense pleasure of Mr. Breadcutt, who slapped his leg and declared he was a blooming marvel.
“George!” snapped his wife.
“Yes, my dear?”
“Don’t swear!”
“Blooming isn’t swearing.”
“It’s as near as not to be worth an argument,” she said severely.
This caused Mr. Breadcutt to wink at Mr. Watcher, who thought he was winking at Mrs. Pottage and did not respond.
Then Mr. Hopkins tried to remember for the benefitof the company what he assured everybody was a capital game that he often used to play at social gatherings twenty years ago.
“We all sit round in a circle,” he began in a doleful voice. “Wait a minute, what do you do next? Oh, yes,” he went on, as soon as he was sure that Mr. Watcher had been successfully isolated from Mrs. Pottage. “Now we all join hands.” Perhaps the emotion of finding her plump hand firmly imprisoned in his own was too much for the ship-chandler, for he could not remember what was the next move. “Wait a minute,” he implored, holding Mrs. Pottage’s hand tighter than ever. “Don’t move, and I’ll remember in a jiffy. Oh, yes, I’ve got it! I knew I would! Somebody has to be in the middle of the circle. Mr. Watcher, perhaps you’d stand in the middle, will you?”
“Hadn’t you better stand in the middle yourself?” the coal-merchant replied. “You thought of this game. We aren’t guilty.”
“Don’t be so gruff, Watcher,” said Mrs. Pottage sternly. “You’ve been sitting like a skelington at the feast ever since you arrived. Wake up and be a man, do.”
Thus adjured Mr. Watcher unwillingly stood up in the middle of the circle.
“What’s he do now, Hopkins?” Mrs. Pottage asked.
“I’m trying to remember. Oh, yes, of course, I know. I know. I know! He’s blindfolded,” Mr. Hopkins exclaimed in a tone as near to being cock-a-whoop as his low-pitched funereal voice could achieve.
“Mrs. B., you’ve got a nice big handkerchief. Tie Watcher up, there’s a good soul,” the hostess ordered.
Mrs. Bugbird in a gurgle of suppressed laughter muffled the coal-merchant’s disagreeable countenance with her reserve handkerchief, from which his bald head emerged like one of those costly Easter eggs that repose on silk in the centre of confectioners’ shops.
“Now what does he do, Hopkins?”
“Just a minute, Mrs. Pottage. I’m stuck again. No,I’m not. I remember perfectly now. Turn him round three times.”
This was done, and there was another pause.
“Well, what next?” everybody asked impatiently.
“That’s just what I’m bothered if I can remember,” said the chandler at last. “It’s on the tip of my tongue too ... but wait ... yes, no ... yes, I’ve got it ... he asks ... no, that’s wrong,hedoesn’t ask anything, we askhim.... Now what the juice is it we do ask him?... Don’t say anything, because I’ll remember in a minute.... I’m bound to remember.... You see, it’s such a long time since I played this game that some of the rules....”
“Look here,” Mr. Watcher’s irate voice growled through the folds of the handkerchief, “if you think I’m going to stand here wrapped up like a Stilton cheese while you remember what game you played with Nore in the Ark, you’re blooming well mistaken. And that’s that.”
“If you’d only have a morsel of patience, Mr. Watcher. I can’t remember the whole of a big game all at once,” protested the chandler, still clinging desperately to Mrs. Pottage’s hand. “But I will remember it. It’s on the tip of my tongue, I tell you.”
“Well, what’s on the tip of my tongue to tell you,” shouted Mr. Watcher, “I wouldn’t like to tell anybody, not in front of ladies.” With which he pulled down the handkerchief round his neck and stood glaring at the other players with the expression of a fierce cowboy.
Mr. Breadcutt in order to quiet the coal-merchant proposed as a game familiar to everybody blind man’s buff.
“Not me you don’t blindfold again,” said Mr. Watcher. “And if Mr. Hopkins starts in to try I’ll blindfold him without a handkerchief.”
“Well, what about a snack of supper?” suggested the hostess, who felt that the situation required a diversion.
And her supper was such a success that before it was over the two rivals were confiding in each other variousways of getting the better of their common enemy, the purchaser.
When it was time to adjourn again to the parlour, Bram and Nancy begged to be excused from enjoying themselves any longer in Mrs. Pottage’s company in view of the hard day before them at the Theatre Royal.
“You’ve given us such a jolly Christmas, dear Mrs. Pottage,” said Bram.
“A lovely Christmas,” Nancy echoed.
“Well, I’m sure I’ve enjoyedmyself, and Mrs. Bugbird said she’s never laughed so much in all her life as what she did when Mr. Fuller was imitating them animals. ‘Lifelike,’ she said they was, and she spent her girlhood on a farm, so that’s a bit of a compliment coming from her. Well, good night. Oh, dear, oh, dear, before we know where we are we shall be seeing in the New Year. I’m bound to say, what with one thing and another life’s full of fun.”