Alayne had spent some time in teaching her the festive greeting. She said:
“It’s her first Christmas present to you.”
He hugged them both and examined the grey suede gloves with expressions of delight.
Alayne stroked his lean, freshly shaven cheek. “Can’t we be alone together for a little?” she asked.
He looked at his wristwatch. “Ten o’clock. I have just time to go to the stables before eleven o’clock service. The snow is too deep for the car. We must walk.”
“I don’t think I’ll go,” she said. “It’s very cold. The walk through the snow will be tiring.”
“But it’s Christmas Day!” he exclaimed.
“You know that I am not orthodox,” she returned.
He reached for his cap from the rack, from the top of which the carved muzzle of a fox looked down. She continued:
“And I don’t think the uncles should attempt the walk.”
“Oh, a little snow won’t discourage them.” He put the child into her arms and went out.
She stood looking after him. The ghosts of fourscore Christmases celebrated by Whiteoaks under this roof pressed in upon her. She could feel the Christmas spirit palpitating through the house. Fourscore hoary heads of Santa Claus peered at her from the walls. A procession of eighty turkeys passed by her gobbling in despair. Eighty round Christmas puddings flamed and sputtered like eighty burnt-out worlds. From the drawing-room came the voice of the parrot declaiming, for the benefit of Sarah:
“Kutni! Kutni! Kutni! Pajil Paji! Shaitan-kabacha!”
She pictured Augusta, a child of two, offering her first Christmas present to Captain Whiteoak on this very spot. It took the individuality out of one, she thought; one could put up only a losing fight against the power of the Whiteoaks.
Pheasant came slowly down the stairs. She was dressed for going out and had Mooey by the hand.
“Pheasant!” cried Alayne, “surely you’re not attempting to go to Church through the snow!”
“Oh yes. We always do, don’t we? Mooey and I are starting early because we can’t walk very fast.”
“You’re not well. I don’t see any sense in it. Anyhow, I’m not going.”
She opened the door for Pheasant, and a wind, fresh and wild as though it had just swept the Pole, leaped in on her. She stood for a moment, letting it have its way, smiling ironically as it slammed doors throughout the house. She could hear Nicholas grumbling and Ernest complaining. She and the child laughed at each other as the sparkling snow drove in on them.
She watched them set out in pairs and trios. Pheasant and Mooey. Sarah and Finch, in the direction of Vaughanlands. Nicholas and Ernest, the first leaning on Renny, the second on his mother’s ebony stick. Wakefield dashing off late, with Sarah’s offering in his pocket. She had the house to herself! Adeline was as good as gold this morning. They were gay together. Alayne found the key of the sitting room and had the pleasure of seeing Adeline’s eyes dance at the first sight of the bedizened tree.
Sarah had casually given Wakefield ten dollars as her contribution to church charities. He had managed, with difficulty, to conceal his amazement at such largesse. He was poverty-stricken after the buying of Christmas presents and he was stirred to exhilaration by this unexpected wealth in his pocket. But for how short a time it would be there! For no longer than it took him to dash across the snowy fields to church. To him there was something showy in placing such an amount in the alms dish. It would be an embarrassing moment for him. It might be better, he thought, hurrying through the unmarked snow, for he had taken a short cut, to poke it into the poor box in the vestibule. Still, that would scarcely be fair to Sarah, who had designed her gift for the offertory.
He skirted the pews at the back of the church and entered the family pew from a side aisle, for he knew that Nicholas would not budge from his place at the end. He found himself next Pheasant and beyond he saw the profiles of Ernest, Renny, and Nicholas, and the round face of Mooey peering at him like a flower bud among tall stalks. Across the aisle he saw Maurice and Augusta. It was strange to see her in the Vaughans’ pew.
Wakefield sniffed the spicy scent of the Christmas decorations. He was pleased with the effect of the club moss and holly with which he himself had enriched the window. As long as he could remember he had taken part in the Christmas decorating. When he was three Meg had held him up so that he might place a flower in a vase on the altar. Though he considered himself an agnostic he loved this church that his grandfather had built, and to him the scattered congregation was an imposing gathering. Certainly Mr. Fennel could not complain of thin feminine singing when there was always a male quartet of Whiteoaks to bulwark the responses and keep Miss Pink, the organist, from lagging.
Wandering in and out of the pattern of the Christmas service was the shining thread of the thought of Pauline. In a few hours they would be together again. Together! Lovely word! It had the sweetness of the evergreens and the brightness of the stained-glass windows in it… If only he might have given her the hoop of pearls and diamonds today! God only knew when he should be able to afford it… “I must be adamant. I must be steel. Deny myself everything in order to afford it.”
Renny, casting a look sideways at him, thought—“He still has the look of a child. I’m glad of that.”
The offertory plate was now moving from pew to pew, carried by old Chalk, the blacksmith, whose son now had a petrol station. Chalk watched with discreet interest to see what the Whiteoaks’ offerings would be, and his Christian spirit wavered for an instant in the direction of unpaid bills for hoseshoeing and motor repairs.
Regretfully Wakefield laid Sarah’s banknote on the alms dish. His eyes slanted toward the faces beside him to observe its effect on them. He saw Pheasant start, heard her amazed intake of breath. He saw Uncle Ernest lean forward blinking unbelievingly at its crisp surface. Mooey stretched out his small chapped hand and pointed at it, his mouth forming an “oo” of wonder. Nicholas glared at it over his glasses, but it was Renny who nipped it up and held it suspended while he scanned, with desperate enquiry, the faces beside him.
Wakefield nodded a resigned affirmation of the offering. Pheasant began to quiver with laughter. Ernest made futile faces of protest. Nicholas blew out his cheeks, while Mooey’s “oo” became articulate.
Renny replaced the note on the plate, grinned affably at Chalk, who, very red in the face, clumped on down the aisle. From across the way Maurice and Augusta scented something strange. They too stopped singing and gazed at their kinsfolk. The Misses Lacey whispered together. The infection spread to Miss Pink and she fumbled for the keys. The congregation wavered. The hymn all but expired. Mr. Fennel mounted the pulpit and covered his face with his hands.
The family progressed slowly along the icy slope from the church. Augusta, leaning on Maurice’s arm, was joined by Nicholas, who supported himself on Wakefield. They were followed by Renny, who assisted Ernest. Mooey slid alongside on the ice. Pheasant came last bearing her unborn child, whose weight, on a morning like this, was something of a burden to her.
Nicholas said to his sister—“I can’t wish you a Merry Christmas, Gussie! Not at a time like this. But I can and do wish you many happier ones. How’s the boy?”
“Not improving, Nicholas. But he had a quieter sleep last night and seems quite bright today”
“Are you coming to Jalna for dinner?”
“No. I shall stay with Eden and let Maurice and Meg go. I’ll go over later in the day.”
The elder Miss Lacey, who had set her cap at Nicholas in her youth, now shuffled up to him across the icy path and they shook hands warmly. She was a pretty old lady, he thought, and he might have done worse than get spliced up with her.
“Real Christmas weather, isn’t it?” she said.
“Yes,” he agreed sombrely. “A sad Christmas for us. But we make the best of it for the sake of the young people.”
“How time does fly,” she sighed. “It seems just yesterday when they were childre
n and we were—not so old. And not so very long ago since we ourselves were young. What sleigh rides we used to have on Christmas Day!”
“Yes, yes,” he returned abruptly, and held Wakefield back and let her shuffle on alone. He cast a bleak look over the family plot, at the granite plinth pointing upward from the snow, the low iron fence, the ornamental chains and balls of which each bore its fragile mound of whiteness, the graves levelled and indistinguishable.
Wakefield gave his arm a little tug. “Come along, Uncle Nick, I see Piers down there with the car. He’s managed to get it here through the snow.”
Nicholas hastened to join the others. “Good boy, good boy, I’m very glad of that! The walk here was quite enough. Well, I’m very glad he’s brought the car. I hope you’ll have a Merry Christmas, Wake. If we elders are a bit quiet—well, you must try to keep your spirits up.”
“Thanks, Uncle Nick.”
Piers accepted their gratitude for bringing the car but, in truth, he had had his young wife and her burden in mind and not the fatigue of the old people. She and Mooey sat in front with him while Augusta and her brothers squeezed themselves into the back seat. Renny, Maurice, and Wakefield, relieved of responsibility, strode homeward together.
Surely, thought Mooey, when the heavy two o’clock dinner was over and the grown-ups were established in the drawing-room about a blazing fire, surely Santa Claus will come now! He stood, shivering with excitement, outside the locked door of the sitting room. The other children were being dressed for the occasion, but he had been dressed ready and waiting all day for the coming of Santa Claus and the glory of the tree. The clock in the hall struck four. The wintry twilight was already drawing in.
Jock, sitting by the stove, gave a wide yawn.
“You’re tired of waiting too, aren’t you?” said Mooey.
Jock looked at him quizzically.
“But you won’t get anything off the tree, will you?”
Jock closed his eyes.
“Rags,” said Mooey as the ever-busy houseman flitted by “is Santa Claus back in his own house now?”
Rags almost dropped the tray he was carrying. “In ’is own ’Ouse? Not a bit of it! ’E’s in this ’Ouse ’ere, that’s w’ere ’e is. Right in Jalner!”
Mooey’s heart gave a leap of joy and terror. He caught Rags by the coattails and held him fast.
“Don’t go! Tell me—how did he get in? Where is he?”
Rags pointed a thin, greyish-white forefinger at the door of the library. He compressed his lips. His eyes were two gimlets boring into the door.
Mooey dropped Rags’s coattail. His scalp pricked and his hair looked suddenly very lively.
Jock rose, went to the door of the library, sniffed it and whined.
“Rags! Rags!” cried Mooey, “don’t go! Stay with me!”
His knees shook when he found himself alone with Jock still sniffing at the door. He had had a glimpse of the grown people sitting about the drawing-room but he could not go in to them, frightened though he was. He must stay here, waiting for Santa Claus.
Without warning the front door opened and Augusta, followed by Finch and Sarah, stood on the threshold. Behind them Mooey saw the great dark-blue sky splashed with bronze and scarlet, the black shapes of the evergreens. He found himself enveloped in his great-aunt’s embrace.
“I hope we have not kept the children waiting,” said Augusta over the little boy’s head to Alayne, who had just come into the hall.
“Not very long, I think,” answered Alayne, and added in a whisper—“How is he?”
“Much better than we could have hoped for. Just his old gay self—but weak.”
Finch put icy fingers down Mooey’s collar. He laughed excitedly and wriggled.
Finch said to Sarah—“He’s a nice little fellow, isn’t he? He’s funny and wistful—rather, like Pheasant.”
Sarah stood with hands folded in her muff and looked coldly down at the child.
“I don’t care for them,” she said, in her velvety voice. “They make me uncomfortable.”
Finch laughed. “Just what I should expect of you, Sarah. I can’t picture you with a child.”
Pheasant was descending the stairs with Nooky by the hand. They looked up and saw her. The change in her figure was noticeable.
Sarah said—“I can picture myself with my own child. I should love it like a tigress.”
“Those poor babes,” said Pheasant, “are at the end of all patience. Mooey’s been waiting outside this door for hours.”
As she spoke, a deep voice called from within:
“Mooey! Mooey! Bring young Mooey here!”
Mooey rushed in terror to his mother.
“It’s Santa Claus,” she said. “He’s calling for you!”
“Mooey! Mooey!” boomed the voice.
The drawing-room emptied itself into the hall. It became crowded.
Mooey thrust his head against Pheasant’s side and burrowed there as though he would harry the unborn from her womb and re-establish himself in that dark security.
“Mooey! Mooey!” roared the voice.
He could not help himself. He was swept into the library by strong avuncular hands. The tree blazed above him. The air was heavy with the scent of evergreens, candle-wax, and oranges. Santa Claus, enormous, red of coat and breeches, pink of face, white of beard, blue of eye, demanded in terrible accents if he had been a good boy all the year.
Mooey’s chin rested on his heaving breast. Wakefield propelled him toward the saint. Every eye was on him when— “Me too,” cried Nooky, and ran forward without shame.
“Splendid!” said Santa Claus, and placed a Noah’s ark in Nooky’s arms.
“Speak up,” urged Wakefield, in Mooey’s ear. “Tell him you’ve been good!”
Mooey’s eye was drawn by a toy train. He gathered all his force and said huskily:
“I’ve been good!”
“What!” roared Santa Claus. “Good all the year? Every single day?” His gaze was all the more terrible because it was so strangely familiar. Now it searched the faces of the collected family. “Has he really been good or is this just bluff?”
“He’s been angelic,” growled Nicholas. “Give him that puff-puff or I’ll pull your beard off!”
Mooey hugged the train to his breast and dived behind the towering forms of his uncles.
“Now,” said Santa Claus, in a gentler tone, “who’s this I see?”
It was Patience. She pointed, bright-eyed, to a doll’s perambulator. Santa Claus placed a blue rabbit in it and trundled it toward her. She grasped the handle and, breaking into a loud song of triumph, wheeled it between Ernest’s legs and almost upset him.
Renny, who had been holding Adeline on his shoulder, now set her down and she started off like a small automaton toward Santa Claus. He glared at her.
“Have you been good?”
Adeline stood intrepid. Then, as Santa Claus did not offer her a present, she marched to the tree and pulled the lowest candle from its place.
“You have exasperated the child,” said Augusta. “She must be pacified.”
Santa Claus extinguished the candle and gave Adeline a flamboyant doll chosen by Renny.
The jovial saint must be embraced for that, and Adeline liked the feel of his smooth lips and woolly beard so well that nothing less than a score of kisses would satisfy her.
“She’s Mamma all over again,” said Nicholas.
“What a pity Gran couldn’t have seen her,” said Renny.
Present by present the tree was stripped and Santa Claus offered a pungent remark with each gift. The presents had never been so inexpensive but there had never been so many candles.
When the library was again in darkness and the children had been put to bed, the spirits that had upheld the older folk failed. They talked, in low desultory tones, about the fire. Piers demanded to have a window open to cool his head after the heat of the wig and beard.
“Open that window,” he tersely orde
red Wakefield. “I’m as hot as blazes!”
“What about me?” demanded Ernest. “D’you think I can stand the cold night air?”
“Why, Uncle Ernest, the air can’t touch you where you’re sitting,” said Pheasant, “and Piers is frightfully overheated.”
“Let him go out and stick his head in a snowbank,” said Nicholas.
“Will someone play bridge, then?” asked Piers, without resentment.
Augusta and Meg looked at each other. They said:
“We must go. We’ve been away too long as it is.”
Piers brought out the card table and seated himself before it. He began to shuffle the cards.
Maurice said—“I’d like to play but I suppose I must go.”
“I’ll drive them over,” said Renny. “I’d like to see him.”
Pheasant’s gaze was fixed timidly on Piers’s downcast eyes.
Alayne thought—“Oh, I wish it were over! I wish it were over!”
Nicholas turned his grey head from side to side on the back of his chair. He stretched out his hand and took his sister’s.
“Yes. You must go to him, Gussie. He should not be left too long.”
Meg said—“The maid is there, Uncle Nick, and she is very kind.”
“But it’s not the same. It’s not the same. Tell him I’ll be over tomorrow.”
“Tell him that I’ll go too,” said Ernest, “just as soon as it thaws. Give him my love.”
Piers tapped the pack of cards sharply on the table. “Who is going to play?” he asked.
Meg bent over him to kiss him goodbye. She took the opportunity of whispering:
“You might show a little sympathy when all the rest of us are feeling so badly.”
He wrenched his shoulder free of her embrace.
“The hell I will!” he said stubbornly.
Renny said—“Hurry up, Meggie! Get your things on.”
She and Augusta went upstairs. Alayne never knew whether or not to treat Meg as a guest. She always felt that Meg resented whichever attitude she took. She stood hesitant, wondering whether she were expected to accompany her upstairs.
Pheasant went to Piers. “Shall I play?” she asked.
The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche Page 311