Penny Plain Part 26

Lord Bidborough began to laugh helplessly.

"I wonder if any man ever had such a difficult lady," he said, "or one so uncompromisingly truthful?"

He rang the bell, and as they stood on the doorstep waiting, the light from the hall-door fell on his face, and Jean, looking at him, suddenly felt very low. He was going away, and she might never see him again. The fortnight he had been in Priorsford had given her an entirely new idea of what life might mean. She had not been happy all the time: she had been afflicted with vague discontents and jealousies such as she had not known before, but at the back of them all she was conscious of a shining happiness, something that illuminated and gave a new value to all the commonplace daily doings. Now, as in a flash, while they waited for the door to open, Jean knew what had caused the happiness, and realised that with her own hand she was shutting the door on the light, shutting herself out to a perpetual twilight.

"If only you hadn't been a man," she said miserably, "we might have been such friends."

A servant opened the door and they went in together.

CHAPTER XVII

"When icicles hang by the wall, And d.i.c.k the shepherd blows his nail, And Tom bears logs into the hall, And milk comes frozen home in pail, When blood is nipp'd and ways be foul, Then nightly sings the staring owl, Tu whit, Tu whu, a merry note While greasy Joan doth keel the pot."

Mhor began to look forward to Christmas whenever the days began to shorten and the delights of summer to fade; and the moment the Hallowe'en "dooking" for apples was over he and Jock were deep in preparations.

As is the way with most things, the looking forward and preparing were the best of it. It meant weeks of present-making, weeks of wrestling with delicious things like paints and pasteboard and glue. Then came a week or two of walking on tiptoe into the little spare room where the presents were stored, just to peep, and make sure that they really were there and had not been spirited away, for at Christmas-time you never knew what knavish sprites were wandering about. The spare room became the most interesting place in the house. It was all so thrilling: the pulling out of the drawer, the breathless moment until you made sure that the presents were safe, the smell that came out of the drawer to meet you, an indescribable smell of lavender and well-washed linen, of furniture polish and cedar-wood. The dressing-table had a row of three little drawers on either side, and in these Jean kept the small eatables that were to go into the stockings--things made of chocolate, packets of almonds and raisins, big sugar "bools." To Mhor a great mystery hung over the dressing-table. No mortal hand had placed those things there; they were fairy things, and might vanish any moment. On Christmas morning he ate his chocolate frog with a sort of reverence, and sucked the sugar "bools" with awe.

A caller at The Rigs had once exclaimed in astonishment that an intelligent child like the Mhor still believed in Santa Claus, and Jean had replied with sudden and startling ferocity, "If he didn't believe I would beat him till he did." Happily there was no need for such extreme measures: Mhor believed implicitly.

Jock had now grown beyond such beliefs, but he did nothing to undermine Mhor's trust. He knew that the longer you can believe in such things the nicer the world is.

The Jardines always felt about Christmas Day that the best of it was over in the morning--the stockings and the presents and the postman, leaving long, over-eaten, irritable hours to be got through before bedtime and oblivion.

This year Jock had drawn out a time-table to ensure that the day held no longueurs.

7.30 Stockings.

8.30 Breakfast.

9 Postman.

10-12 Deliver small presents to various friends.

1 Luncheon at the Jowetts'.

4 Tea at home and present-giving.

5-9 Devoted to supper and variety entertainment.

This programme was strictly adhered to except by the Mhor in the matter of his stocking, which was grabbed from the bed-post and cuddled into bed beside him at least two hours before the scheduled time; and by the postman, who did not make his appearance till midday, thereby greatly disarranging things.

The day pa.s.sed very pleasantly: the luncheon at the Jowetts' was everything a Christmas meal should be, Mrs. M'Cosh surpa.s.sed herself with bakemeats for the tea, the presents gave lively satisfaction, but _the_ feature of the day was the box that arrived from Pamela and her brother. It was waiting when the family came back from the Jowetts', standing in the middle of the little hall with a hammer and a screw-driver laid on the top by thoughtful Mrs. M'Cosh--a large white wooden box which thrilled one with its air of containing treasures. Mhor sank down beside it, hardly able to wait until David had taken off his coat and was ready to tackle it. Off came the lid, out came the packing paper on the top, and in Jock and Mhor dived.

It was really a wonderful box. In it there was something for everybody, including Mrs. M'Cosh and Peter, but Mhor's was the most striking present. No wonder the box was large. It contained a whole railway--a train, lines, signal-boxes, a station, even a tunnel.

Mhor was rendered speechless with delight. Jean wished Pamela had been there to see the lamps lit in his green eyes. Mrs. M'Cosh's beautiful tea was lost on him: he ate and drank without being aware of it, his eyes feasting all the time on this great new treasure.

"I wish," he said at last, "that I could do something for the Honourable and Richard Plantagenet. I only sent her a wee poetry-book. It cost a shilling. It was Jean's shilling really, for I hadn't anything left, and I wrote in it, 'Wishing you a pretty New Year.' I forgot about 'happy'

being the word; d'you think she'll mind?"

"I think Pamela will prefer it called 'pretty,'" Jean said. "You are lucky, aren't you?--and so is Jock with that gorgeous knife."

"It's an explorer's knife," said Jock. "You see, you can do almost everything with it. If I was wrecked on a desert island I could pretty nearly build a house with it. Feel the blades--"

"Oh, do be careful. I would put away the presents in the meantime and get everything ready for the charade. Are you quite sure you know what you're going to do? You mustn't just stand and giggle."

Jean had asked three guests to come to supper--three lonely women who otherwise would have spent a solitary evening--and Mrs. M'Cosh had asked Bella Bathgate to sup with her and afterwards to witness what she dubbed "a chiraide."

The living-room had been made ready for the entertainment, all the chairs placed in rows, the deep window-seat doing duty for a stage, but Jean was very doubtful about the powers of the actors, and hoped that the audience would be both easily amused and long-suffering.

Jock and Mhor protested that they had chosen a word for the charade, and knew exactly what they meant to say, but they would divulge no details, advising Jean to wait patiently, for something very good was coming.

The little house looked very festive, for the boys had decorated earnestly, the square hall was a bower of greenery, and a gaily coloured Chinese lantern hanging in the middle added a touch of gaiety to the scene. The supper was the best that Jean and Mrs. M'Cosh could devise, the linen and the gla.s.s and silver shone, the flowers were charmingly arranged Jean wore her gay mandarin's coat, and the guests--when they arrived--found themselves in such a warm and welcoming atmosphere that they at once threw off all stiffness and prepared to enjoy the evening.

The entertainment was to begin at eight, and Mrs. M'Cosh and Miss Bathgate took their seats "on the chap," as the latter put it. The two Miss Watsons, surprisingly enough, were also present. They had come along after supper with a small present for Jean, had asked to see her, and stood lingering on the doorstep refusing to come farther, but obviously reluctant to depart.

"Just a little bag, you know, Miss Jean, for you to put your work in if you're going out to tea, you know. No, it's not at all kind. You've been so nice to us. No, no, we won't come in; we don't want to disturb you--just ran along--you've friends, anyway. Oh, well, if you put it that way ... we might just sit down for five minutes--if you're sure we're not in the way...." And still making a duet of protest they sank into seats.

A pa.s.sage had been arranged, with screens between the door and the window-seat, and much traffic went along that way; the screens b.u.mped and bulged and seemed on the point of collapsing, while smothered giggles were frequent.

At last the curtains were jerked apart, and revealed what seemed to be a funeral pyre. Branches were piled on the window-seat, and on the top, wrapped in an eiderdown quilt, with a laurel wreath bound round his head, lay David. Jock, with bare legs and black boots, draped in an old-fashioned circular waterproof belonging to Mrs. M'Cosh, stood with arms folded looking at him, while Mhor, almost denuded of clothing, and supported by Peter (who sat with his back to the audience to show his thorough disapproval of the proceedings), stood at one side.

When the murmured comments of the spectators had ceased, Mhor, looking extraordinarily Roman, held up his hand as if appealing to a raging mob, and said, "Peace, ho! Let us hear him," whereupon Jock, breathing heavily in his brother's face, proceeded to give Antony's oration over Caesar. He did it very well, and the Mhor as the Mob supplied appropriate growls at intervals; indeed, so much did Antony's eloquence inspire Mhor that, when Jock shouted, "Light the pyre!" (a sentence introduced to bring in the charade word), instead of merely pretending with an unlighted taper, Mhor dashed to the fire, lit the taper, and before anyone could stop him thrust it among the dry twigs, which at once began to light and crackle. Immediately all was confusion. "Mhor!"

shouted Jean, as she sprang towards the stage. "Gosh, Maggie!" Jock yelled, as he grabbed the burning twigs, but it was "Imperial Caesar, dead and turned to clay," who really put out the fire by rolling on it wrapped in an eiderdown quilt.

"Eh, ye ill callant," said Bella Bathgate.

"Ye wee deevil," said Mrs. M'Cosh, "ye micht hev had us a' burned where we sat, and it Christmas too!"

"What made you do it, sonny?" Jean asked.

"It made it so real," Mhor explained, "and I knew we could always throw them out of the window if they really blazed. What's the use of having a funeral pyre if you don't light it?"

The actors departed to prepare for the next performance Jock coming back to put his head in at the door to ask if they had guessed the first part of the word.

Jean said she thought it must be incendiarism.

"Funeral," said Miss Watson brightly.

"Huch," said Jock; "it's a word of one syllable."

"I think," Jean said as the door shut on Jock--I think I know what the word is--pyre."

"Oh, really," said Miss Watson, "I'm all shaking yet with the fright I got. He's an awful bad wee boy that--sort of regardless. He needs a man to look after him."

"I'll never forget," said Miss Teenie, "once I was staying with a friend of ours, a doctor; his mother and our mother were cousins, you know, and when I looked--I was doing my hair at the time--I found that the curtain had blown across the gas and was blazing. If I had been in our own house I would just have rushed out screaming, but when you're away from home you've more feeling of responsibility and I just stood on a chair and pulled at the curtain till I brought it down and stamped on it. My hands were all scorched, and of course the curtain was beyond hope, but when the doctor saw it, he said, 'Teenie,' he said--his mither and ours were cousins, you know--'you're just a wee marvel.' That was what he said--'a wee marvel.'"

Jean said, "You _were_ brave," and one of the guests said that presence of mind was a wonderful thing, and then the next act was ready.

The word had evidently something to do with eating, for the three actors sat at a Barmecide feast and quaffed wine from empty goblets, and carved imaginary haunches of venison. So far as could be judged from the conversation, which was much obscured by the smothered laughter of the actors, they seemed to belong to Robin Hood's merry men.