Poor Relations Part 39

Various mothers emerged at this point and put a stop to the contest; the hallowed and gracious silence of Christmas night descended upon Ambles, and John went on tiptoe up to his bedroom.

"The beard, I suppose, is the most important item," he said to himself, when he had unpacked his costume.

It was a n.o.ble beard, and when John had fixed it to his cheeks with a profusion of spirit-gum, he made up his mind that it became him so well that he would grow one of his own, which whitening with the flight of time would in another thirty years make him look what he hoped to be--the doyen of romantic playwrights. The scarlet robe of Santa Claus with its tr.i.m.m.i.n.g of bells, icicles, and holly and its ruching of snow had been made in a single piece without b.u.t.tons, so that when John put it over his head the beard caught in the folds and part of it was thinned out by an icicle. In trying to disentangle himself John managed to get one sleeve stuck to his cheek much more firmly than the beard had ever been. Nor were his struggles to free himself made easier by the bells, which tinkled with every movement and made him afraid that somebody would knock at the door soon and ask if he had rung. Finally he got the robe in place, plucked several bits of sleeve from his cheek, renovated the beard, gathered together the apples, oranges, sweets, and small toys he had collected for the stockings, looked at his watch, decided that it was at least an hour too early to begin, and lay down upon his bed, where notwithstanding the ticking of his beard he fell asleep. When he woke, it was after one o'clock; the house was absolutely still. He walked cautiously to the little room occupied by Frida, turned the handle, and felt his way breathlessly along the bed to where the stocking should be hung. Unfortunately, the bed had somehow got twisted round or else his beard had destroyed his sense of direction, for while he was groping for the stocking he dropped an orange on Frida's face, who woke with a loud scream.

"Hush, my little dear," John growled in what he supposed to be the correct depth for the character. "It's only Santa Claus."

"Go away, go away," shrieked the horrified child.

John tried to strike a match to rea.s.sure her, and at the cost of a shower of apples on the floor, which sounded like bombs in the tense darkness, he managed to illuminate his appearance for an instant. The effect on Frida was appalling; she screamed a thousand times louder than before and fled from the room. John ran after her to stop her before she woke up everybody else and spoilt his fantasy; but he was hampered by the costume and Frida gained the sanctuary of her parents' bedroom.

"I only hope the little idiot will frighten them more than I frightened her," muttered John, hurrying as fast as he could back to his own room.

Suddenly from the hall below he heard a sound of sleigh-bells that put to shame the miserable little tinkle that attended his own progress; above the bells rose peals of hearty laughter, and above the laughter Hugh's voice could be heard shouting:

"Wake up! Wake up! Good people all! Here's Santa Claus! Santa Claus!

Wake up!"

Just as John reached his own room, Hugh appeared at the head of the stairs brandishing a lighted torch, while close behind him dragging Harold's toboggan loaded with toys was a really superb Santa Claus.

John locked his door and undressed himself savagely, tearing off his beard in handfuls and flinging all the properties into a corner.

"Anyway, whoever it is," he said, "he'll get the credit of driving Frida mad. That's one thing. But who is it? I suppose it's Laurence showing us how well he can act."

But it was Aubrey Fenton whom Hugh had invited down to Ambles for Christmas and smuggled into the house like this to sweeten the unpleasant surprise. What annoyed John most was that he himself had never thought of using the toboggan; but the new Santa Claus was an undoubted success with the children, and Frida's sanity was soon restored by chocolates. The mystery of the apples and oranges strewn about her bedroom remained a mystery, though Hilda tried to hint that her niece had abstracted them from the sideboard.

John was able to obtain as much sympathy as he wanted from the rest of the family over Hugh's importation of his friend. In fact they were so eager to express their disapproval of such calm self-a.s.surance, not to mention the objectionable way in which he had woken everybody up in the middle of the night, that John's own indignation gradually melted away in the heat of their malice. As for Grandmama, she shut herself up in her bedroom on Christmas morning and threatened not to appear all day, so deep was her hatred of that young Fenton who was the author of all Hugh's little weaknesses--not even when she could shift the blame could she bring herself to call her son's vices and crimes by any stronger name. Aubrey, who lacked Hugh's serene insolence, wanted to go back to London and was so much abashed in his host's presence and so appreciative of what he had done in the affair of the check that John's compa.s.sion was aroused and he made the intruder welcome. His hospitality was rewarded, because it turned out that Aubrey's lifelong pa.s.sion for mechanical toys saved the situation for many of John's purchases, nearly all of which he managed to set in motion; nor could it be laid to his account that one of the drawing-room fireworks behaved like an out-of-door firework, because while Aubrey was lighting it at the right end Harold was lighting it simultaneously at the other.

On the whole, the presentation of the Christmas gifts pa.s.sed off satisfactorily. The only definite display of jealousy occurred over the diver's equipment given to Harold, which was more than Bertram notwithstanding his own fireman's outfit could suppress.

"I'll swop with you, if you like," he began mildly enough.

But Harold clutched the diver's mask to his breast and shrank from the proposal.

"I think you'd rather be a fireman," Bertram persisted. "Anybody can be a diver, can't they, V?"

Viola left her doll in a state of semi-nudity and advanced to her brother's support.

"You'd look much nicer as a fireman, Harold," she said, coaxingly. "I wish I could be a fireman."

"Well, you can if you like," he answered, sullenly, looking round with a hunted expression for his mother, who unluckily for her son was in another part of the house arguing with Mrs. Worfolk about the sauce for the plum-pudding.

"But wouldn't you rather wear a pretty bra.s.s helmet?" Viola went on.

"No, I wouldn't," said Harold, desperately wrapping himself in the rubber tubes that was so temptingly conspicuous a portion of his equipment.

"Oh, you little idiot," Viola burst out, impatiently. "What's the good of your dressing up as a diver? In those goggles you always look like a diver."

"I don't, do I, Frida?" Harold implored.

Now Frida was happy with her dolls'-house; she had no reason to be loyal to Harold, who had always treated her shamefully; but the spirit of the squaw rose in her breast and she felt bound to defend the wigwam against outside criticism. Therefore she a.s.sured Harold that in ordinary life he did not look in the least like a diver.

"Well," Bertram announced, throwing aside the last pretense of respecting property, "V and I want that diver's dress, because we often act _Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea_."

"Well, I can act _Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea_ too."

"No you can't because you haven't read it."

"Yes, I have."

"What a bung!" exclaimed Bertram. "You've only read _A Journey to the Center of the Earth_ and _Round the World in Eighty Days_."

Then he remembered Frida's att.i.tude. "Look here, if you take the fireman's uniform you can set fire to Frida's house."

Frida yelled her refusal.

"And put it out, you little idiot," Bertram added.

"And put it out," Viola echoed.

Frida rushed to her mother.

"Mother, mother, don't let them burn my dolls'-house! Mother, you won't, will you? Bertram wants to burn it."

"Naughty Bertram!" said Edith. "But he's only teasing you, darling."

"Good lummy, what a sneak," Bertram commented, bitterly, to his sister.

Viola eyed her cousin with the scorn of an Antigon.

"Beastly," she murmured. "Come on, Bertram, you don't want the diver's dress!"

"Rather not. And anyway it won't work."

"It will. It will," cried Harold, pa.s.sionately. "I'm going to practice in a water-b.u.t.t the first fine day we have."

It happened that John was unable to feel himself happily above these childish jealousies, because at that moment he was himself smarting with resentment at his mother's handing over to James all that she still retained of family heirlooms. His eldest brother already had the portraits, and now he was to have what was left of the silver, which would look utterly out of place in Hill Road. If John had been as young as Bertram, he would have spoken his mind pretty freely on the subject of giving James the silver and himself a checkered woolen kettle-holder.

It was really too disproportionate, and he did mildly protest to the old lady that she might have left a few things at Ambles.

"But Jimmie is the eldest, and I expect him to take poor Hugh's part.

The poor boy will want somebody when I'm gone, and Jimmie is the eldest."

"He may be the eldest, but I'm the one who has to look after Hugh--and very often James for that matter."

"Ah well, you're the lucky one, but Jimmie is the eldest and Hugh is the baby."

"But James hasn't any children."