Dickens at Christmas (Vintage Classics)

by Charles Dickens

  Mr Tetterby sought upon his screen for a passage appropriate to be impressed upon his children’s minds on the occasion, and read the following.

  ‘“It is an undoubted fact that all remarkable men have had remarkable mothers, and have respected them in after life as their best friends.” Think of your own remarkable mother, my boys,’ said Mr Tetterby, ‘and know her value while she is still among you!’

  He sat down in his chair by the fire, and composed himself, cross-legged, over his newspaper.

  ‘Let anybody, I don’t care who it is, get out of bed again,’ said Tetterby, as a general proclamation, delivered in a very soft-hearted manner, ‘and astonishment will be the portion of that respected contemporary!’ – which expression Mr Tetterby selected from his screen. ‘Johnny, my child, take care of your only sister, Sally; for she’s the brightest gem that ever sparkled on your early brow.’

  Johnny sat down on a little stool, and devotedly crushed himself beneath the weight of Moloch.

  ‘Ah, what a gift that baby is to you, Johnny!’ said his father, ‘and how thankful you ought to be! “It is not generally known,” Johnny,’ he was now referring to the screen again, ‘“but it is a fact ascertained, by accurate calculations, that the following immense per-centage of babies never attain to two years old; that is to say –”’

  ‘Oh, don’t, father, please!’ cried Johnny. ‘I can’t bear it, when I think of Sally.’

  Mr Tetterby desisting, Johnny, with a profounder sense of his trust, wiped his eyes, and hushed his sister.

  ‘Your brother ’Dolphus,’ said his father, poking the fire, ‘is late tonight, Johnny, and will come home like a lump of ice. What’s got your precious mother?’

  ‘Here’s mother, and ’Dolphus too, father!’ exclaimed Johnny, ‘I think.’

  ‘You’re right!’ returned his father, listening. ‘Yes, that’s the footstep of my little woman.’

  The process of induction, by which Mr Tetterby had come to the conclusion that his wife was a little woman, was his own secret. She would have made two editions of himself, very easily. Considered as an individual, she was rather remarkable for being robust and portly; but considered with reference to her husband, her dimensions became magnificent. Nor did they assume a less imposing proportion, when studied with reference to the size of her seven sons, who were but diminutive. In the case of Sally, however, Mrs Tetterby had asserted herself, at last; as nobody knew better than the victim Johnny, who weighed and measured that exacting idol every hour in the day.

  Mrs Tetterby, who had been marketing, and carried a basket, threw back her bonnet and shawl, and sitting down, fatigued, commanded Johnny to bring his sweet charge to her straightway, for a kiss. Johnny having complied, and gone back to his stool, and again crushed himself, Master Adolphus Tetterby, who had by this time unwound his Torso out of a prismatic comforter, apparently interminable, requested the same favour. Johnny having again complied, and again gone back to his stool, and again crushed himself, Mr Tetterby, struck by a sudden thought, preferred the same claim on his own parental part. The satisfaction of this third desire completely exhausted the sacrifice, who had hardly breath enough left to get back to his stool, crush himself again, and pant at his relations.

  ‘Whatever you do, Johnny,’ said Mrs Tetterby, shaking her head, ‘take care of her, or never look your mother in the face again.’

  ‘Nor your brother,’ said Adolphus.

  ‘Nor your father, Johnny,’ added Mr Tetterby.

  Johnny, much affected by this conditional renunciation of him, looked down at Moloch’s eyes to see that they were all right, so far, and skilfully patted her back (which was uppermost), and rocked her with his foot.

  ‘Are you wet, ’Dolphus, my boy?’ said his father. ‘Come and take my chair, and dry yourself.’

  ‘No, father, thankee,’ said Adolphus, smoothing himself down with his hands. ‘I an’t very wet, I don’t think. Does my face shine much, father?’

  ‘Well, it does look waxy, my boy,’ returned Mr Tetterby.

  ‘It’s the weather, father,’ said Adolphus, polishing his cheeks on the worn sleeve of his jacket. ‘What with rain, and sleet, and wind, and snow, and fog, my face gets quite brought out into a rash sometimes. And shines, it does – oh, don’t it, though!’

  Master Adolphus was also in the newspaper line of life, being employed, by a more thriving firm than his father and Co., to vend newspapers at a railway station, where his chubby little person, like a shabbily-disguised Cupid, and his shrill little voice (he was not much more than ten years old), were as well known as the hoarse panting of the locomotives, running in and out. His juvenility might have been at some loss for a harmless outlet, in this early application to traffic, but for a fortunate discovery he made of a means of entertaining himself, and of dividing the long day into stages of interest, without neglecting business. This ingenious invention, remarkable, like many great discoveries, for its simplicity, consisted in varying the first vowel in the word ‘paper,’ and substituting, in its stead, at different periods of the day, all the other vowels in grammatical succession. Thus, before daylight in the winter-time, he went to and fro, in his little oilskin cap and cape, and his big comforter, piercing the heavy air with his cry of ‘Morn-ing Pa-per!’ which, about an hour before noon, changed to ‘Morn-ing Pep-per!’ which, at about two, changed to ‘Morn-ing Pip-per!’ which, in a couple of hours, changed to ‘Morn-ing Pop-per!’ and so declined with the sun into ‘Eve-ning Pup-per!’ to the great relief and comfort of this young gentleman’s spirits.

  Mrs Tetterby, his lady-mother, who had been sitting with her bonnet and shawl thrown back, as aforesaid, thoughtfully turning her wedding-ring round and round upon her finger, now rose, and divesting herself of her out-of-door attire, began to lay the cloth for supper.

  ‘Ah, dear me, dear me, dear me!’ said Mrs Tetterby. ‘That’s the way the world goes!’

  ‘Which is the way the world goes, my dear?’ asked Mr Tetterby, looking round.

  ‘Oh, nothing,’ said Mrs Tetterby.

  Mr Tetterby elevated his eyebrows, folded his newspaper afresh, and carried his eyes up it, and down it, and across it, but was wandering in his attention, and not reading it.

  Mrs Tetterby, at the same time, laid the cloth, but rather as if she were punishing the table than preparing the family supper; hitting it unnecessarily hard with the knives and forks, slapping it with the plates, dinting it with the salt-cellar, and coming heavily down upon it with the loaf.

  ‘Ah, dear me, dear me, dear me!’ said Mrs Tetterby. ‘That’s the way the world goes!’

  ‘My duck,’ returned her husband, looking round again, ‘you said that before. Which is the way the world goes?’

  ‘Oh, nothing!’ said Mrs Tetterby.

  ‘Sophia!’ remonstrated her husband, ‘you said that before, too.’

  ‘Well, I’ll say it again if you like,’ returned Mrs Tetterby. ‘Oh nothing – there! And again if you like, oh nothing – there! And again if you like, oh nothing – now then!’

  Mr Tetterby brought his eye to bear upon the partner of his bosom, and said, in mild astonishment:

  ‘My little woman, what has put you out?’

  ‘I’m sure I don’t know,’ she retorted. ‘Don’t ask me. Who said I was put out at all? I never did.’

  Mr Tetterby gave up the perusal of his newspaper as a bad job, and, taking a slow walk across the room, with his hands behind him, and his shoulders raised – his gait according perfectly with the resignation of his manner – addressed himself to his two eldest offspring.

  ‘Your supper will be ready in a minute, ’Dolphus,’ said Mr Tetterby. ‘Your mother has been out in the wet, to the cook’s shop, to buy it. It was very good of your mother so to do. You shall get some supper too, very soon, Johnny. Your mother’s pleased with you, my man, for being so attentive to your precious sister.’

  Mrs Tetterby, without any remark, but with a decided subsidence of her animosity towards
the table, finished her preparations, and took, from her ample basket, a substantial slab of hot pease pudding wrapped in paper, and a basin covered with a saucer, which, on being uncovered, sent forth an odour so agreeable, that the three pairs of eyes in the two beds opened wide and fixed themselves upon the banquet. Mr Tetterby, without regarding this tacit invitation to be seated, stood repeating slowly, ‘Yes, yes, your supper will be ready in a minute, ’Dolphus – your mother went out in the wet, to the cook’s shop, to buy it. It was very good of your mother so to do’ – until Mrs Tetterby, who had been exhibiting sundry tokens of contrition behind him, caught him round the neck, and wept.

  ‘Oh, ’Dolphus!’ said Mrs Tetterby, ‘how could I go and behave so?’

  This reconciliation affected Adolphus the younger and Johnny to that degree, that they both, as with one accord, raised a dismal cry, which had the effect of immediately shutting up the round eyes in the beds, and utterly routing the two remaining little Tetterbys, just then stealing in from the adjoining closet to see what was going on in the eating way.

  ‘I am sure, ’Dolphus,’ sobbed Mrs Tetterby, ‘coming home, I had no more idea than a child unborn—’

  Mr Tetterby seemed to dislike this figure of speech, and observed, ‘Say than the baby, my dear.’

  ‘– Had no more idea than the baby,’ said Mrs Tetterby. – ‘Johnny, don’t look at me, but look at her, or she’ll fall out of your lap and be killed, and then you’ll die in agonies of a broken heart, and serve you right. – No more idea I hadn’t than that darling, of being cross when I came home; but somehow, ’Dolphus—’ Mrs Tetterby paused, and again turned her wedding-ring round and round upon her finger.

  ‘I see!’ said Mr Tetterby. ‘I understand! My little woman was put out. Hard times, and hard weather, and hard work, make it trying now and then. I see, bless your soul! No wonder! ’Dolf, my man,’ continued Mr Tetterby, exploring the basin with a fork, ‘here’s your mother been and bought, at the cook’s shop, besides pease pudding, a whole knuckle of a lovely roast leg of pork, with lots of crackling left upon it, and with seasoning gravy and mustard quite unlimited. Hand in your plate, my boy, and begin while it’s simmering.’

  Master Adolphus, needing no second summons, received his portion with eyes rendered moist by appetite, and withdrawing to his particular stool, fell upon his supper tooth and nail. Johnny was not forgotten, but received his rations on bread, lest he should in a flush of gravy, trickle any on the baby. He was required, for similar reasons, to keep his pudding, when not on active service, in his pocket.

  There might have been more pork on the knucklebone, – which knucklebone the carver at the cook’s shop had assuredly not forgotten in carving for previous customers – but there was no stint of seasoning, and that is an accessory dreamily suggesting pork, and pleasantly cheating the sense of taste. The pease pudding, too, the gravy and mustard, like the Eastern rose in respect of the nightingale, if they were not absolutely pork, had lived near it; so, upon the whole, there was the flavour of a middle-sized pig. It was irresistible to the Tetterbys in bed, who, though professing to slumber peacefully, crawled out when unseen by their parents, and silently appealed to their brothers for any gastronomic token of fraternal affection. They, not hard of heart, presenting scraps in return, it resulted that a party of light skirmishers in night-gowns were careering about the parlour all through supper, which harassed Mr Tetterby exceedingly, and once or twice imposed upon him the necessity of a charge, before which these guerilla troops retired in all directions and in great confusion.

  Mrs Tetterby did not enjoy her supper. There seemed to be something on Mrs Tetterby’s mind. At one time she laughed without reason, and at another time she cried without reason, and at last she laughed and cried together in a manner so very unreasonable that her husband was confounded.

  ‘My little woman,’ said Mr Tetterby, ‘if the world goes that way, it appears to go the wrong way, and to choke you.’

  ‘Give me a drop of water,’ said Mrs Tetterby, struggling with herself, ‘and don’t speak to me for the present, or take any notice of me. Don’t do it!’

  Mr Tetterby having administered the water, turned suddenly on the unlucky Johnny (who was full of sympathy), and demanded why he was wallowing there, in gluttony and idleness, instead of coming forward with the baby, that the sight of her might revive his mother. Johnny immediately approached, borne down by its weight; but Mrs Tetterby holding out her hand to signify that she was not in a condition to bear that trying appeal to her feelings, he was interdicted from advancing another inch, on pain of perpetual hatred from all his dearest connections; and accordingly retired to his stool again, and crushed himself as before.

  After a pause, Mrs Tetterby said she was better now, and began to laugh.

  ‘My little woman,’ said her husband, dubiously, ‘are you quite sure you’re better? Or are you, Sophia, about to break out in a fresh direction?’

  ‘No, ’Dolphus, no,’ replied his wife. ‘I’m quite myself.’ With that, settling her hair, and pressing the palms of her hands upon her eyes, she laughed again.

  ‘What a wicked fool I was, to think so for a moment!’ said Mrs Tetterby. ‘Come nearer, ’Dolphus, and let me ease my mind, and tell you what I mean. Let me tell you all about it.’

  Mr Tetterby bringing his chair closer, Mrs Tetterby laughed again, gave him a hug, and wiped her eyes.

  ‘You know, ’Dolphus, my dear,’ said Mrs Tetterby, ‘that when I was single, I might have given myself away in several directions. At one time, four after me at once; two of them were sons of Mars.’

  ‘We’re all sons of Ma’s, my dear,’ said Mr Tetterby, ‘jointly with Pa’s.’

  ‘I don’t mean that,’ replied his wife, ‘I mean soldiers – serjeants.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Mr Tetterby.

  ‘Well, ’Dolphus, I’m sure I never think of such things now, to regret them; and I’m sure I’ve got as good a husband, and would do as much to prove that I was fond of him, as—’

  ‘As any little woman in the world,’ said Mr Tetterby. ‘Very good. Very good.’

  If Mr Tetterby had been ten feet high, he could not have expressed a gentler consideration for Mrs Tetterby’s fairy-like stature; and if Mrs Tetterby had been two feet high, she could not have felt it more appropriately her due.

  ‘But you see, ’Dolphus,’ said Mrs Tetterby, ‘this being Christmas-time, when all people who can, make holiday, and when all people who have got money, like to spend some, I did, somehow, get a little out of sorts when I was in the streets just now. There were so many things to be sold – such delicious things to eat, such fine things to look at, such delightful things to have – and there was so much calculating and calculating necessary, before I durst lay out a sixpence for the commonest thing; and the basket was so large, and wanted so much in it; and my stock of money was so small, and would go such a little way; – you hate me, don’t you, ’Dolphus?’

  ‘Not quite,’ said Mr Tetterby, ‘as yet.’

  ‘Well! I’ll tell you the whole truth,’ pursued his wife, penitently, ‘and then perhaps you will. I felt all this, so much, when I was trudging about in the cold, and when I saw a lot of other calculating faces and large baskets trudging about, too, that I began to think whether I mightn’t have done better, and been happier, if – I hadn’t –’ the wedding-ring went round again, and Mrs Tetterby shook her downcast head as she turned it.

  ‘I see,’ said her husband quietly; ‘if you hadn’t married at all, or if you had married somebody else?’

  ‘Yes,’ sobbed Mrs Tetterby. ‘That’s really what I thought. Do you hate me now, ’Dolphus?’

  ‘Why no,’ said Mr Tetterby, ‘I don’t find that I do, as yet.’

  Mrs Tetterby gave him a thankful kiss, and went on.

  ‘I begin to hope you won’t, now, ’Dolphus, though I am afraid I haven’t told you the worst. I can’t think what came over me. I don’t know whether I was ill, or mad, or what I was, but I couldn’t
call up anything that seemed to bind us to each other, or to reconcile me to my fortune. All the pleasures and enjoyments we had ever had – they seemed so poor and insignificant, I hated them. I could have trodden on them. And I could think of nothing else, except our being poor, and the number of mouths there were at home.’

  ‘Well, well, my dear,’ said Mr Tetterby, shaking her hand encouragingly, ‘that’s truth after all. We are poor, and there are a number of mouths at home here.’

  ‘Ah! but, Dolf, Dolf!’ cried his wife, laying her hands upon his neck, ‘my good, kind, patient fellow, when I had been at home a very little while – how different! Oh, Dolf dear, how different it was! I felt as if there was a rush of recollection on me, all at once, that softened my hard heart, and filled it up till it was bursting. All our struggles for a livelihood, all our cares and wants since we have been married, all the times of sickness, all the hours of watching, we have ever had, by one another, or by the children, seemed to speak to me, and say that they had made us one, and that I never might have been, or could have been, or would have been, any other than the wife and mother I am. Then, the cheap enjoyments that I could have trodden on so cruelly, got to be so precious to me – Oh so priceless, and dear! – that I couldn’t bear to think how much I had wronged them; and I said, and say again a hundred times, how could I ever behave so, ’Dolphus, how could I ever have the heart to do it!’

  The good woman, quite carried away by her honest tenderness and remorse, was weeping with all her heart, when she started up with a scream, and ran behind her husband. Her cry was so terrified, that the children started from their sleep and from their beds, and clung about her. Nor did her gaze belie her voice, as she pointed to a pale man in a black cloak who had come into the room.

  ‘Look at that man! Look there! What does he want?’

  ‘My dear,’ returned her husband, ‘I’ll ask him if you’ll let me go. What’s the matter? How you shake!’