"Hark! I hear chimes! David, it is Christmas morning! This day last year, you dined with me. Where shall we be this time next year, I wonder? What shall we be doing?
"I wish you a happy Christmas, David.
"Do you remember Sarah"s Christmas card? Yes, of course you do. You never forget such things. Sarah retailed to me the conversation in St. Botolph"s about it; all you said to her; all she said to you. So you and I were the turtle-doves! No wonder you "fair shook with laughin"!"
Good old Sarah! I wonder whether she has "gone to a chicken" for G.o.d-papa. Oh, no! I believe I sent him a turkey.
"There are the "waits" under the portico. "_Hark the herald angels sing!_"
"I hope they won"t wake my sleeping family, or there will be a premature feeling in stockings. These self-same "waits" woke me at midnight when I was six years old. I felt in my stocking, though I knew I ought not to do so until morning. I drew out something which rattled deliciously in the darkness. A little round box, filled with "hundreds and thousands." Do you know those tiny, coloured goodies? I poured them into my eager little palm.
I clapped it to my mouth, as I sat up in my cot, in the dark. I shall never forget that first scrunch. They were mixed beads!
"Moral....
"No, you will draw a better moral than I. My morals usually work out the wrong way.
"I must finish this letter on Boxing-day. Christmas-day will be very full, with a Christmas-tree and all sorts of plans for these little children of other people.
"Well the mail does not go until the 26th, and I shall like to have written to you on _our_ three special days--Christmas-eve, Christmas-day, and Boxing-day.
"Good-night, David."
CHAPTER XXVII
A QUESTION OF CONSCIENCE
"Boxing-day.
"Well, my dear David, all our festivities are over, and, having piloted our party safely into the calm waters of Boxing-day afternoon, I am free to retire to the library, and resume my talk with you.
"What a wonderful season is Christmas! It seems to represent words entirely delightful. Light, warmth, gifts, open hearts, open hands, goodwill--and, I suppose the children would add: turkey, mince-pies, and plum-pudding.
Well, why not? I am by no means ashamed of looking forward to my Christmas turkey; in fact I once mentioned it in a vestry as an alluring prospect, to a stern young man in a ca.s.sock! I must have had the courage of my convictions!
"No, the fact of the matter is, I was very young then, David; very crude; altogether inexperienced. You would find me older now; mellowed, I hope; matured. Family cares have aged me.
"Yesterday, however, being Christmas-day, I threw off my maturity, just as one gleefully leaves off wearing kid gloves at the seaside, and became an infant with the infants. How we romped, and how delightfully silly we were!
After the midday Christmas dinner, as we all sat round at dessert, I could see Mrs. Mallory eying me with amazed contempt, because I wore the contents of my cracker--a fine guardsman"s helmet, and an eyegla.s.s, which I jerked out, and screwed in again, at intervals, to amuse the children.
When I surprised Mrs. Mallory"s gaze of pitying scorn, I screwed in the eyegla.s.s for her especial benefit, and looked at her through it, saying: "Don"t I wear it as if to the manner born, Mrs. Mallory?" "Oh, quite," said Mrs.
Mallory, with an appreciative smile. "Quite, my dear Mrs.
Rivers; quite." Which was so very "quite quite," that nothing remained but for me to fix on my guardsman"s helmet more firmly, and salute.
"Mrs. Mallory"s cracker had produced a jockey cap, in green and yellow, and it would have delighted the children if she had worn it jauntily on her elaborately crimped coiffure.
But she insisted upon an exchange with a dear little girl seated next her, who was feeling delightfully grown-up, in a white frilled Marie Antoinette cap, with pink ribbons.
This, on Mrs. Mallory"s head, except that it was made of paper, was exactly what she might have bought for herself in Bond Street; so she had achieved the conventional, and successfully avoided amusing us by the grotesque. The jockey cap was exactly the same shape as the black velvet one I keep for the little girls to wear when they ride the pony in the park. The disappointment on the face of the small owner of the pretty mob-cap, pa.s.sed quite unnoticed by Mrs. Mallory. Yet she _adores_ children. I, who only tolerate them, saw it. So did the oldest of the boys--such a nice little fellow. "I say, Mrs. Rivers," he said, "Swapping shouldn"t be allowed." "Quite right, Rodney,"
said I. "Kiddies, there is to be no swapping!" "Surely,"
remarked Mrs. Mallory, in her shocked voice, "no one present here, would think of _swapping_?" Rodney said, "Crikey!" under his breath; and I haven"t a notion, to this hour, what meaning the elegant verb "to swap" holds for Mrs. Mallory.
"But here I go again, telling you of all sorts of happenings in our home life, which must seem to you so trivial. I wish I could write a more interesting letter; especially this afternoon, David. This time last year you and I were having our momentous talk. There was certainly nothing trivial about that! I sometimes wish you could know--oh, no matter what! It is useless to dwell perpetually on vain regrets. And as we _are_ on the subject of Mrs. Mallory, David, I want to ask your opinion on a question of conscience which came up between her and myself.
"Oh, David, how often I wish you were here to tackle her for me, as you used to tackle poor old Chappie; only the difficulties caused by Chappie"s sins, were as nothing, compared with the complications caused by Lucy Mallory"s virtues.
"She is such a gentle-looking little woman, in trailing widow"s weeds; a pink and white complexion, china blue eyes, and ma.s.ses of flaxen hair elaborately puffed and crimped. She never knows her own mind, for five minutes at a time; is never quite sure on any point, or able to give you a straightforward yes or no. And yet, in some respects, she is the most obstinate person I ever came across. My old donkey, Jeshurun, isn"t in it with Mrs. Mallory, when once she puts her dainty foot down, and refuses to budge.
Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked, and did everything he shouldn"t; but always yielded to the seduction of a carrot.
But it is no good waving carrots at Mrs. Mallory. She won"t look at them! She reminds me of the deaf adder who stoppeth her ears, lest she should hear the voice of the charmer.
And always about such silly little things, that they are not worth a battle.
"But the greatest trial of all is, that she has a morbid conscience.
"Oh, David! Did you ever have to live with a person who had a morbid conscience?
"Now--if it won"t bore you--may I just give you an instance of the working of Mrs. Mallory"s morbid conscience, and perhaps you will help me, by making a clear p.r.o.nouncement on the matter. Remember, I only have her here because she is a missionary"s widow, left badly off; and not strong enough to undertake school teaching, or any arduous post involving long hours. I have tried to make her feel at home here, and she seems happy. Sometimes she is a really charming companion.
"The first evening she was here, she told me she had always been "a great Bible student." She spends much time over a very large Bible, which she marks in various coloured inks, and with extraordinary criss-cross lines, which she calls "railways". She explained the system to me one day, and showed me a new "line" she had just made. You started at the top of a page at the word _little_. Then you followed down a blue line, which brought you to a second mention of the word _little_. From there you zigzagged off, still on blue, right across to the opposite page; and there found _little_, again. This was a junction! If you started down a further blue line you arrived at yet a fourth _little_, but if you adventured along a red line, you found _less_.
"I had hoped to learn a lot from Mrs. Mallory, when she said she was a _great_ Bible student, because I am so new at Bible study, and have no one to help me. But I confess these railway excursions from _little_ to _little_, and from _little_ to _less_, appear to me somewhat futile! None of the _littles_ had any connection with one another; that is, until Mrs. Mallory"s blue railway connected them. She is now making a study of all the Marys of the Bible. She has a system by which she is going to prove that they were all one and the same person. I suggested that this would be an infinite pity; as they all have such beautiful individual characters, and such beautiful individual histories.
""Truth before beauty, my dear Mrs. Rivers," said Mrs.
Mallory.
""Cannot truth and beauty go together?" I inquired.
""No, indeed," p.r.o.nounced Mrs. Mallory, firmly. "Truth is a narrow line; beauty is a snare."
"According to which method of reasoning, my dear David, I ought to have serious misgivings as to whether your Christmas-eve sermon, which changed my whole outlook on life, was true--seeing that it most certainly was beautiful!
"Now listen to my little story.
"One morning, during this last autumn, Mrs. Mallory received a business letter at breakfast, necessitating an immediate journey to town, for a trying interview. After much weighing of pros and cons, she decided upon a train; and I sent her to the station in the motor.
"A sadly worried and distressed little face looked out and bowed a tearful farewell to me, as she departed. I knew she had hoped I should offer to go with her; but it was a lovely October day, and I wanted a morning in the garden, and a ride in the afternoon. It happened to be a very free day for me; and I did not feel at all like wasting the golden sunshine over a day in town, in and out of shops with Mrs. Mallory; watching her examine all the things which she, after all, could not "feel it quite right to buy." She never appears to question the rightness of giving tired shop people endless unnecessary labour. I knew she intended combining hours of this kind of negative enjoyment, with her trying interview.
"So I turned back into the house, sat down in the sunny bay window of the breakfast room, and took _Times_; thankful that the dear lady had departed by the earliest of the three trains which had been under discussion during the greater part of breakfast.
"But my conscience would not let me enjoy my morning paper in peace. I had not read five lines before I knew that it would have been kind to have gone with Mrs. Mallory; I had not read ten, before I knew that it was unkind to have let the poor little soul go alone. She was a widow and worried; and she had mentioned the departed Philip, as a bitterly regretted shield, prop, and mainstay, many times during breakfast.
"I looked at the clock. The motor was, of course, gone; and the quarter of an hour it would take to send down to the stables and put in a horse would lose me the train. I could just do it on my bicycle if I got off in four minutes, and rode hard.
"Rodgers trotted out my machine, while I rushed up for a hat and gloves. I was wearing the short tweed skirt, Norfolk coat, and stout boots, in which I had intended to tramp about the park and gardens; but there was not time to change. I caught up the first hat I could lay hands on, slipped on a pair of reindeer gloves as I ran downstairs, jumped on to my bicycle, and was half-way down the avenue, before old Rodgers had recovered his breath, temporarily taken by the haste with which he had answered my pealing bell.
"By dint of hard riding, I got into the station just in time to fling my bicycle to a porter, and leap into the guard"s van of the already moving train.
"At the first stop, I went along, and found Mrs. Mallory, alone and melancholy, in an empty compartment. Her surprise and pleasure at sight of me, seemed ample reward. She pressed my hand, in genuine delight and grat.i.tude.
""I couldn"t let you go alone," I said. Then, as I sat down opposite to her, something--it may have been her own dainty best attire--made me suddenly conscious of the shortness of my serviceable skirt, and the roughness of my tweed. "So I am coming with you, after all," I added; "unless you think me too countrified, in this get-up; and will be ashamed to be seen with me in town!"