The Armourer's House

by Rosemary Sutcliff

  Tamsyn didn’t say anything. She was seeing the inside of that stable, the golden light and the kind faces of the cows and horses, and the nice fat little angels with their feathery, crimson wings spread out to keep draughts from the little Baby.

  Then the others arrived, because they had finished their wrapping up; and almost at once they heard Aunt Deborah calling up the stairs that supper was ready. ‘Coming!’ they shouted; ‘Coming, Mother,’ and ‘Coming, Aunt Deborah.’ And they went hurry-scurry whirling downstairs, down and down and round and round, like a flurry of falling leaves, with Bunch away in front, and Littlest, who was being allowed to sit up to supper, bringing up the rear.

  The parlour was full of candlelight. Candles of honey-beeswax glimmered like stars on every chest and among poor Catherine of Aragon’s carved pomegranates on the smoke-hood, and the panes of the windows and every shining leaf of the Christmas garlands reflected back a hundred little, dancing-crocus candle-flames. A great fire of pine logs blazed on the hearth, filling the air with a lovely resiny smell like a fir wood on a hot day; and in the place of honour, in the very middle of the table which was already spread for supper with the best pewter and fine white damask and Aunt Deborah’s lovely Venetian goblets, shone the Christmas candle, four times as big as any ordinary candle, making the whole parlour glow and sparkle like a great golden rose. ‘A golden rose at Christmas,’ thought Tamsyn. ‘How nice!’ Aunt Deborah was golden too, in her loveliest gown of yellow damask, with pearl drops in her ears and her honey-coloured hair piled high under her black velvet hood, and looking so lovely that Tamsyn thought not even the Queen could look lovelier.

  ‘Look, Tamsy,’ said Aunt Deborah. ‘Your tulip has come right out, in the warmth of the fire.’

  And it had. There it was, in its pot on the sill, a scarlet lamp of a flower, opened wide for the joy of Christmas time.

  After Uncle Gideon had said Grace, they all sat down to supper. It was only salt fish and greens and crusty brown bread with whole wheat-grains on top of it, because in those days people ate plain fare on Christmas Eve, while they were waiting for the little King, and feasted royally on Christmas Day, when the waiting was over. But there was a great bowl of frumenty for afterwards, and that was golden too, with the gold of eggs and new wheat and sparkling sugar-candy; and Tamsyn loved it all. She had that shimmery Something-lovely-is-going-to-happen feeling that people do have on Christmas Eve, but she had it more strongly than she had ever had it in all the nine Christmas Eves that she had known before; and the red tulip seemed to feel just the same. It made the salt fish taste simply lovely.

  After supper they played Hot-cockles and Cheeses and Hoodman-blind, and Meg came up from her kitchen to help them, and Bunch and Aunt Deborah and Uncle Martin and even Uncle Gideon played too. And when they were all hot and breathless and quite wuzzly in the head from laughing and squealing and running about, Aunt Deborah went to the clavichord, and they all gathered round her for carols. The Dolphin House family always sang carols on Christmas Eve.

  Now, in those days foreign Ambassadors and people of that sort always said, when they went back to their own homes again, that England was a nest of singing-birds; and what they meant was this – that in England everybody could sing, not just as people sing in their baths, but as people sing in choirs. It was one of those things you just had to learn, like reading and writing and table manners. Littlest could not sing like that yet, of course, he just made a cheerful noise; but the others could, even Tamsyn; and they all loved singing.

  Aunt Deborah touched the ivory keys of the clavichord very gently, as though she loved them, and they gave out a sweet thin music like tiny bells under her fingers; and everybody chose a carol in turn, beginning with Littlest, because he was the littlest, and working up through the rest of the family in order of age.

  ‘Littlest first,’ said Aunt Deborah.

  ‘Come along, Littlest; what’s your choice?’ they asked.

  Littlest said he wanted the Cockylolly carol.

  Everybody looked at each other, and then they looked at Littlest. ‘How does it go, Littlest?’ they asked.

  Littlest stood with his feet planted wide apart, and looked back at them, especially at Tamsyn who was good at knowing what he wanted when the rest of the family did not. ‘Littlest wants the Cockylolly carol,’ he said firmly. ‘Cockylolly on a plate.’

  ‘He wants “King Herod and the Cock”,’ said Tamsyn.

  So they sang ‘King Herod and the Cock’, with Uncle Gideon singing King Herod’s bit in his nice deep voice and Littlest puffing out his chest and crowing joyously at the bit where the cock stood up in the dish and crowed and ruffled his feathers.

  Then it was Tamsyn’s turn, and soon they were all singing:

  ‘Now the holly bears a berry as white as the milk,

  And Mary bore Jesus, who was wrapped up in silk:

  And Mary bore Jesus Christ, our Saviour for to be,

  And the first tree in the greenwood it was the holly, holly! holly!

  And the first tree in the greenwood, it was the holly.’

  So they went on singing, until they came to Piers, and he chose the Cherry Tree Carol; and when that was sung, there was a little silence; and Piers said suddenly, ‘I think it would be nice to choose one for Kit. It’s his turn now, and it doesn’t seem fair that he should be left out of it.’

  Aunt Deborah’s hands sank into her lap, and she looked round at the family. ‘I think it would be nice, too,’ she said. ‘Who chooses for Kit?’

  ‘You choose for Kit,’ said everybody.

  So Aunt Deborah thought for a moment, and then she said, ‘Let’s sing “Lullay My Liking”. Kit was very fond of it, and it’s time we had a quiet one, anyway.’ So they began to sing, very softly this time, and their singing made Tamsyn think once again of the snow and the stars, and the little angels spreading out their warm, feathery, crimson wings to keep draughts off the little Baby; not quite like any of the carols that had gone before. They sang all together at first:

  ‘Lullay my liking, my dear

  son, my sweeting;

  Lullay my dear heart, mine

  own dear darling!’

  Then everyone was quiet, and Aunt Deborah sang on alone, in her high clear voice:

  Lullay My Liking

  ‘I saw a fair maiden

  Sitten and sing:

  She lulled a little child,

  A sweeté lording.’

  And then they all joined in again:

  ‘Lullay my liking, my dear

  son, my sweeting;

  Lullay my dear heart, mine

  own dear darling!’

  And suddenly Tamsyn saw pretty Aunt Deborah’s face quiver in the candlelight, and she knew that just for the moment Aunt Deborah was not thinking of the Baby in the carol at all, but only of Kit, who had been drowned. And Tamsyn wanted to cry. But Aunt Deborah’s face stopped quivering in an instant, and she smiled at Uncle Gideon, and went on alone again.

  When the carol was over, Aunt Deborah said, ‘Now you, Martin, because you are our guest.’

  And Uncle Martin said, ‘Well, as I am a merchant and often watch for ships, I shall choose “I saw three Ships”,’ and next instant they were all singing joyously at the top of their voices:

  ‘I saw three ships come sailing in,

  On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day,

  I saw three ships come sailing in,

  On Christmas Day in the morning.’

  Littlest jigged up and down and hammered Lammy’s legs on the back of the clavichord because he liked the tune. They were all making so much noise that it was not until the end of the carol that they heard a loud knocking on the street door, which sounded as though it had been going on for quite a long time.

  ‘Who can that be?’ said Aunt Deborah, after they had explained to Meg that someone was knocking at the door and she had gone stumping off to see who it was. ‘It can’t be the Waits, or they would be singing themselves.’

  �
��P’raps it’s good St. Nicholas!’ squeaked Littlest.

  ‘Silly!’ said Beatrix scornfully. ‘St Nicholas never comes until everyone is asleep with their shoes off He couldn’t fill their shoes if they were still wearing them.’

  Then they heard the street door open, and Meg making the most queer shrill noises of astonishment.

  ‘Who can it be?’ they said.

  Then they heard Meg coming upstairs again in a tremendous hurry, and someone coming up behind her. Next instant she bounced into the stairway arch, and stood there panting and wheezing and looking as though she had had the most tremendous shock, but a good shock, not a bad one, with her face puckered into a huge smile and large tears trickling down her cheeks and bouncing off her chin, sparkling in the candlelight as they trickled.

  ‘Oh, sir!’ gasped Meg the Kitchen. ‘Oh, Mistress Deborah! – It’s Master Kit! Master Kit’s come home! He’s not drowned at all! He –’

  A long arm came round Meg the Kitchen, and hooked her firmly out of the way, and there in her place was a tall young man in ragged clothes much too small for him, who stood blinking in the candlelight and looking round him rather shyly, with his mouth curling up towards his ears in the most entrancing way.

  Just for one instant no one moved, not even Bunch. Then the strange young man said, ‘I’ve come home, Mother.’ And Aunt Deborah, who had gone very still and white, gave a queer little cry, and sprang up from the clavichord to run to the young man at the stair-head, and Uncle Gideon took one stride in the same direction, and then stopped, so that Aunt Deborah should get there first, which was rather a lovely thing for him to do, when you come to think of it. So Aunt Deborah got there first, and the young man flung his ragged arms round her and hugged her and hugged her and hugged her, as though he was never going to leave off any more, while she clung round his neck and made small joyful crying noises into his ragged shoulder.

  Then suddenly everybody was crowding around him, not making very much noise, because when you have been thinking someone drowned for more than two years, and then they suddenly come home, somehow you don’t want to make much noise about it, just at first. Tamsyn stood quite still by the clavichord, with her hands clasped before her, and watched. She was not in the least bit surprised about Kit coming home and not being drowned after all, because it was just the sort of thing that ought to happen on this night of all the year, and because she had known all along that this was a very extra special Christmas Eve. Only she would have felt just a little lonesome and out of it, if it had not been that Uncle Martin was out of it too, and she thought it would be rather nice if someone remembered her.

  Then Piers came and caught her hand and pulled her in with the others, so that she was not lonesome or out of it any more; and all the noise and rejoicing that hadn’t happened before suddenly burst out, and everybody was talking at once, and Bunch was barking all round them, and Uncle Martin joined the throng and Meg the Kitchen burst into tears again, and Aunt Deborah began to laugh and cry at the same time and say over and over again, ‘We thought you were drowned, Kit. We thought you were drowned.’ And Kit was hugging her against him with one arm and saying, ‘I know, dearest, but it’s all right now,’ and shaking hands with his father with the other hand and saying, ‘I couldn’t get word to you, sir,’ and getting in the most dreadful muddle with trying to do and say two different things at once. And Littlest was standing directly in front of Kit, gazing up at him worshipfully, and repeating over and over again, ‘Kit! Kit! Do shake hands with Littlest.’ And Giles was shouting, ‘I say, have you had adventures? I’m sure you have! I say, I expect you’ve had tremendous adventures!’ And altogether there was so much noise and rejoicing that Tamsyn’s head simply went round and round like a top and everything was just a glorious muddle of shimmering light and noise and gladness.

  But after a time things quietened down a little, and Kit did shake hands with Littlest, and everything got sorted out after a fashion. Then Aunt Deborah suddenly stopped laughing and crying and became very sensible and motherly, and said Kit must be shrammed and famished, and must have his supper before he said another word (though he had not had a chance to say many words so far). And in an unbelievably short time Kit was sitting down to the table where the Christmas candle was burning brighter than ever, eating up pies and cold ham and marchpanes that had been meant for tomorrow, while everybody crowded round him, and Aunt Deborah sat close beside him and watched him as though she was afraid he would disappear if she let him out of her sight for an instant, and Uncle Gideon, who hadn’t said anything much all this time, stood behind the two of them, with his hand on Kit’s shoulder.

  Between mouthfuls Kit told them how he and two others had been missed in the storm and darkness by the ship that rescued the rest of the survivors of the Elizabeth and how they had been picked up next morning by a Portuguese ship bound round the Cape for India; and how of course they had to go on with her for the voyage, working their passages, and so they had had no chance of getting word home to their families that they were safe. He told them about the long voyage to India and back again to Portugal, and how the three of them had hung round the Lisbon docks, living as they could, and hoping for an English ship, until at last the Mary Garland had put in homeward bound from the Canaries. And how they had made themselves known to the Captain, and come home with all their troubles behind them, and dropped anchor in the Pool of London scarcely an hour ago, just in time to separate to their own homes for Christmas.

  ‘And never have I seen anything so beautiful as that English ship,’ said Kit, helping himself to more raised pie, and breaking off to smile at his mother between mouthfuls. ‘Jack Marfield spotted that she was English first – he’s got eyes like a hawk – and he let out the most tremendous yell, and then we all saw her, and Tenby said, “We’ll be home for Christmas, lads!” and by Cock and Pie! we went clean off our heads for a bit. We nearly didn’t get home for Christmas after all – wind dead against us in the Bay – but we just made it – and oh, it’s good to be home!’

  ‘There will be three happy homes this Christmas,’ said Aunt Deborah, ‘if there are no more in all London Town.’

  A long, long while afterwards everyone was still gathered in the fire-glow, with no thought of bed. There was so much to talk about on this lovely Christmas Eve when Kit had come back to them. Kit sat on the rush-deep floor, close beside Aunt Deborah’s chair, where Aunt Deborah could reach down and touch him every few moments to make quite sure that he was real, and if Aunt Deborah had looked lovely in her golden gown earlier that evening, she was far lovelier now, because her gladness seemed to shine as though a light had sprung up inside her. Tamsyn sat bunched up between Piers and Uncle Gideon’s legs in the opposite chimney-corner, and gazed and gazed at the long-lost Kit. He was thin and hard, and brown as a berry and as ragged as the sailor who had brought the letter from Uncle Martin and almost discovered the North-West Passage. He had red hair like all the family – feathery red hair – and long, dancing green eyes, and he looked tremendously nice, but for herself, Tamsyn liked Piers best, and so she slipped one hand into his, to show him she did. It was long, long past the children’s bedtime, but no one had remembered to tell them to go to bed, and so they had not gone. They sat bolt upright in the fire-glow, with flushed faces and shining eyes, all except Littlest, who was sound asleep long ago, curled up like a puppy beside Bunch among the warm rushes.

  Kit had been telling them about India and the riches of the East that he had seen, and about the Portuguese ship, the Santa Cristobel, in which he had served, and all the funny and exciting things that had happened during the voyage. And then suddenly he laughed, and reached up over his shoulder to take his mother’s hand, and said, ‘But I’ve had enough of the sea. I wanted my one trip, and by Cock and Pie, I’ve had it!’ And he looked across the hearth at Uncle Gideon. ‘I’ve not changed about wanting to be a swordsmith, sir – that is, unless Piers –’

  ‘There’s room for you both in the workshop,�
� said Uncle Gideon.

  Then Piers let go Tamysn’s hand and got up and stood looking at Uncle Gideon, with his freckles standing out black across his nose as they always did when he was desperately in earnest; and he said, ‘Please, Father, will you let me go from being your prentice? I’ve not changed, either. I still want to go to sea.’

  Then somehow they were all on their feet, and Uncle Gideon said, ‘Have you been wanting that, all this time?’

  And Piers said, ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Then why in the name of all the saints in Cornwall, didn’t you tell me before?’ said Uncle Gideon.

  Piers didn’t say anything; he just looked at his father in a rather troubled sort of way, because it wasn’t the kind of thing you could explain in the middle of a crowd.

  And after a moment Uncle Gideon smiled and said, ‘Oh, I see. Thank you, Piers. We’ll burn your indentures tonight.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said Piers, with his freckles blacker than ever, and his eyes shining; and then he turned to Uncle Martin, and asked, ‘Uncle Martin, did you mean what you said yesterday – about there being a place for me aboard one of your ships?’

  ‘I did,’ said Uncle Martin. ‘You shall sail with the Joyous Venture in the spring, and here’s my hand on it.’ So they shook hands with a steady grip and quiver that showed how much they meant it, and Uncle Martin nodded, and said, ‘You’ll make a good seaman, Piers – one day you’ll make a very good seaman.’

  ‘I’ll do my best, sir,’ said Piers in a sort of joyful croak; and suddenly, for an awful moment, Tamsyn thought that he had forgotten about her share in the Dolphin and Joyous Venture, and that he would sail away and find fresh trade routes and discover new lands, and not remember to come back for her at all. But next instant he looked down and caught her eye and gave her a little shared-secret kind of smile; and she knew that he hadn’t forgotten, just as certainly as though he had said so; and that one day, when he had risen to be Master of the Joyous Venture, he would come back for her. And they would sail out over Bideford Bar and away beyond Lundy into the Golden West, and have adventures together.