Christmas with the Savages

by Mary Clive

  ‘She stood beside him, she really did, and said “Capital!” and “Bravo!” ’

  ‘Your grandmama’s past praying for,’ said Nana Glen, but wasting no further words she sent her nursery maid to seize and hold the bathroom. Lionel had got there first, however, and was wiping the dough off his face with Peter’s bath towel.

  ‘Nana’s coming,’ remarked the nursery maid as she turned on the tap.

  ‘Put Peter’s towel down at once,’ said Nana Glen bustling in.

  ‘Isn’t it mine?’ said Lionel. ‘Oh, a thousand apologies. Bad mistake to take somebody else’s bath towel, specially a Pumpkin Eater’s. Mustn’t occur again. Where shall I put it? Sweets to the sweet and bath towels to the bath.’ So saying he flung the towel into the water and skipped out of the door. ‘Ow!’ he cried as he burnt his leg on the hot pipe.

  6. Christmas Eve

  ‘Quick! Quick!’ cried Rosamund who was looking out of the nursery window. ‘What do you think is going in at the front door!’

  It was after breakfast and Nana Howliboo had opened the windows to air the room and had ordered us to go away; but Rosamund had collected us again and told us to come back. She loved a feud, and as her own Nana was too lazy to fight for herself she felt it was her duty to annoy Nana Howliboo whenever an opportunity offered.

  Everybody ran to the open window and hung out as well as the bars and rabbit-netting would allow.

  ‘Betty’s not to see it,’ said Rosamund, suddenly turning elder-sisterly, and she flung herself on Betty and put her hands over her eyes. Betty, not unnaturally, fought like a wild animal, snarling, writhing and kicking. ‘Only donkeys kick,’ said Rosamund.

  For a change Betty bit Rosamund, who was so surprised that she let go her hold and Betty dashed to the window.

  ‘I’ve seen it! It’s the tree!’

  The tree was such a big one that the gardeners were having great difficulty in getting it through the front door. Mr O’Sullivan was out on the gravel giving directions, and there was a crowd of men – the odd man in a green baize apron and the house carpenter in a white one, and others whose names we did not know. We waved and shouted to them, leaning out of the window which Nana Howliboo had so kindly opened.

  ‘Don’t fall out,’ shouted Mr O’Sullivan jokingly.

  This gave Rosamund an idea.

  ‘Let’s play an April Fool on Nana Howliboo,’ she said. ‘Let’s pretend that Betty has fallen out of the window. She can hide behind the curtains and cry aloud for help, and we can arrange her shoes with the soles upwards as though she were just hanging on by her toes.’

  ‘But no one could really fall out,’ said someone, ‘because of the bars and the rabbit-netting.’

  ‘In her frenzy Nana Howliboo will forget about the bars,’ said Rosamund.

  She was right. The April Fool was a perfect success. We put Betty’s shoes on the windowsill with a cushion which happened to be much the same colour as Betty’s dress, and then rolled Betty up in the curtain so that she was completely hidden.

  Very softly we went out into the passage but left the door open, and then Betty let out the most frightful yells for help. They would have taken in anyone. The night-nursery door burst open and Nana Howliboo came charging out and dashed to the window exclaiming:

  ‘Oh, my godfathers!’

  Nana Glen whizzed in from the other side.

  Then, of course, the rest of us rushed in too, and danced about shouting, ‘April Fool!’

  The nurses, having had a bad fright, were not at all pleased, but there was nothing that they could do about it, and fortunately at that moment the odd man came in and dumped on the floor a dust-sheet full of holly, yew and box. The nurses stopped glaring at us and turned and glared at each other. Then both clawed at the pile and took up an armful of greenery which they carried away to their bedrooms.

  They were back in a moment, confronting each other across the dust-sheet. Who was going to decorate the day nursery?

  Rosamund, seeing that Nana Savage was taking no part, snatched up an armful, too, and the Savages ran off to decorate their bedroom. I, however, had been nicely brought up.

  ‘Please can I have some for my room?’ I asked politely.

  ‘I’m afraid not, dear,’ said Nana Howliboo. ‘There isn’t too much left for the day nursery as it is – not so as to do it properly.’ She squinted at Nana Glen, who said:

  ‘Take as much as you like, dear.’ She gave me all I could carry, so much, in fact, that I had some over to give to Marguerite.

  When I got back to the nursery I found that Nana Howliboo had lost the day, as her babies had started howling and she had had to go off to see to them.

  The Glen nursery maid was standing on a chair while Nana Glen was handing her bits of holly with exact directions how to place each one, mixed with complaints that the gardener thought any old rubbish good enough for the nursery. It took some time, as they had to put a strip of greenery along the top of every single picture. There were fourteen pictures in the nursery, as I remember very well. One was of the Russian Army looking at Constantinople, one was of Chinese ladies having tea on the floor and the other twelve were of volcanoes. Some of the volcanoes only had a little wisp of smoke at the top, others had smoke and fire, while in the best one the sky was a sheet of flame and people in boats were fleeing for their lives.

  After the pictures were finished, paper festoons were produced and stretched across the room so thickly that you could hardly see the ceiling. Just as the last of these was being fastened Nana Howliboo came back and looked around her with contempt.

  ‘Isn’t it glorious!’ said Rosamund, reappearing again through one of the other doors. Nana Howliboo knew quite well that she was only saying this to be annoying, so she replied:

  ‘Run along, dear, and get ready to go out. And tell Minnie to brush your hair. It looks a perfect sight.’

  That morning it was the Glens’ turn to go out riding, and I went for a walk with the four Savages and some nursery maids.

  ‘Let’s tell story,’ they said as soon as we started. So we walked along in a row and the Savages ‘told story’, which meant that they chattered away about the adventures of themselves and a lot of imaginary people with Greek and Roman names who endlessly fought battles and killed each other. You might have imagined it difficult for four people to tell the same story at the same time, but the Savages managed it; in fact, they quarrelled less over their story than over anything else. I, on the other hand, found it impossible to join in as, to begin with, I couldn’t make any sense of it at all, and to go on with, whenever I got tired of keeping silence and ventured a suggestion, the others shut me up.

  ‘Oh, no, Evelyn. He couldn’t have done that.’

  ‘But why couldn’t he? Your people seem able to do anything.’

  ‘You don’t understand.’

  I didn’t understand, and I thought their story frightfully boring, and I told them so; but they went on with it just the same. I tried walking with the nursery maids, but the four children gabbling away drew me as a magnet draws a needle and I kept going back to them. Their story, as far as I could make it out, was as silly as possible. It was all about their imaginary countries which must have been very unpleasant places to live in. Wars were nonstop and you never could get rid of your wicked men, as when anyone died they went to a place in the clouds called Fairyland, and every month lifts came down from Fairyland to Earth. Sometimes you killed a person just before a lift was due to start, and there he was back again in two twos. Of course, if you were killed yourself, you also could come alive again; but on the whole Fairyland seemed a bad arrangement.

  ‘Oh, do stop and talk about something interesting,’ I said. ‘Let me tell you about the Pageant I saw last summer.’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ they said, and went on telling story.

  In the afternoon everyone went down to the farm in a swarm. Fathers and mothers, uncles and aunts came too. The Savages buzzed round their father who was a l
arge, silent man who liked children. The children asked him questions the whole time.

  ‘Dada,’ said Harry, ‘is Grandpapa ninety?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But, Dada, he said he could remember the Battle of Navarino, which was in 1827, you know, and if he could really remember it, he must be ninety.’

  ‘You shouldn’t muddle his old brain.’

  ‘Dada, was Hannibal a better general than Julius Caesar?’

  ‘Comparisons are odious.’

  ‘Dada,’ said Lionel, ‘if a dinosaur fought a pterodactyl who would win?’

  ‘Dada,’ said Harry, ‘which would win if a Gurkha and a Zouave fought two Zulus?’

  ‘Dada,’ said Betty, ‘who would win, Mr O’Sullivan or an elephant with a Gatling gun?’

  ‘Dada,’ said Rosamund, whose front teeth were already missing, ‘do look in my mouth. I believe I’ve got another tooth loose.’

  ‘How sharper than a serpent’s thanks it is to have a toothless child,’ said her father. His remarks were apt to be mystifying, and we all meditated for a moment on what a serpent’s thanks would be like. However, silence did not last, and soon they were all quarrelling as to whether Betty could go into the Army when she grew up.

  ‘Can.’

  ‘Can’t.’

  ‘Can.’

  ‘You’re only a silly little girl.’

  ‘Silly little girl yourself.’

  ‘Dada, she can’t, can she?’

  ‘Dada, I can, can’t I?’

  ‘Don’t cross your bridges till you come to them,’ said their father. I tried to exchange amused glances with him, but he strode along with his head bent and his eyes on the ground. To attract his attention I said:

  ‘Look at that man over there. How lazy he is to walk so slowly.’

  ‘The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,’ said the Savages’ father. ‘How many different ways can you say that?’

  We all began shouting at once, ‘The homeward weary ploughman plods his way,’ and ‘His weary way the ploughman homeward plods,’ and so on. No one could keep count of the different ways of saying it, and it lasted as a topic the rest of the way to the farm.

  In the barn there was a crowd of men and women and a great heap of raw meat. The people came up one by one to Lady Tamerlane (Lord Tamerlane’s bath chair was there but he took no part) and she said a few words to each of them. At the same time a chunk of meat was handed to them by a man who had a hook instead of a hand, like Captain Hook in Peter Pan. We none of us could take our eyes off that hook as it flashed among the meat, cleverly hooking out exactly the right joint for everybody.

  When we started back, the Savages’ father went with their mother to call on one of the cottages, so Betty said: ‘I think I will walk with Pincher and his crew,’ and marched off beside Lord Tamerlane’s bath chair.

  ‘I shall walk with Marguerite,’ said Harry. ‘I talk to her in Old English.’

  ‘Do you mean Anglo-Saxon?’ asked his grandmother.

  ‘Yes,’ said Harry. ‘It sounds awful nonsense to me but she likes it.’ He started spouting gibberish and Marguerite really seemed quite pleased by his attentions.

  I looked for a grown-up to attach myself to, but they all seemed to be busy talking to each other, so I had to put up with Rosamund.

  ‘Shall I say you some poetry?’ she said, and started gabbling away before I could stop her.

  ‘Queen Sigrid the haughty sat proud and aloft.’

  ‘If she was a queen why did she sit in a loft?’ I asked.

  ‘Don’t interrupt,’ said Rosamund, and went gabbling on. Every now and then she seemed to come to the end of a poem, for she would put her head on one side and in a slow, soppy voice say:

  ‘The eternal dawn, beyond a doubt,

  Shall break on hill and plain,

  And put all stars and candles out,

  Ere we be young again.’

  Then she would start gabbling on as fast as before.

  By the time we reached home she had said the soppy bit so often that we both felt like old, old women and could hardly drag our boots up the stairs. However, by tea time we had become sufficiently young again to play a joke on Lionel. He was late and Nana Glen had poured out his tea and Rosamund and I put jam in it and also mustard, salt and pepper (the cruet was on the table because there was hot buttered toast). The grown-ups pretended not to notice, but I could see that Nana Glen and the nursery maids were watching when he picked up his cup. The stuff had sunk to the bottom so Lionel did not realize that there was anything wrong till he was halfway down and then he got it all together in one gulp.

  ‘Pumpkin Eater yourself,’ cried Peter in delight as Lionel coughed and spluttered.

  That evening, when we were dressed and ready, we did not go down the dragon stairs as usual, but down the little blue stairs which landed one near Lady Tamerlane’s sitting room. This mysterious apartment was sometimes called the Chinese Room. The wallpaper was patterned with Chinese flowers, and on the ceiling were painted clouds with a dragon (more dragons!) flying among them. The furniture was got up to look like bamboo, and the carpet was so thick that the footsteps of even the noisiest child could not be heard. A special warm, exciting smell always hung in the air, and more exciting still, there was at one side a sort of alcove draped with silk hangings. It made a little dark passage with cushioned seats at the side, and at the end were glass doors.

  As soon as we got into Lady Tamerlane’s sitting room there was a scurry for the alcove and the glass doors. Ourselves in deep shadow, we looked through into the ballroom, which was blazing with light from dozens of candles. In the middle stood an immense Christmas tree, glittering, sparkling, dazzling.

  ‘O-o-ooh!’ we all said.

  My memory of the rest of the evening is rather confused. I can see us joining hands and dancing round the tree, and I can see Mr O’Sullivan walking about with a sponge on the end of a long stick with which he put out any dangerous candles, and I can see a work basket lined with red satin which I suppose was my present, and I can see the fairy doll at the top which I wanted but didn’t get – no one got it – and I can see the servants crowding in at a side door and coming up one by one to receive a roll of dark cloth from Lady Tamerlane – each bobbed low as she took her roll and then the next one came forward.

  And then somehow we were upstairs again in the twilight of our bedrooms eating our suppers and chattering. We all had a glass of milk, and a ginger biscuit and a marie biscuit, which could either be eaten one at a time or together like a sandwich. Both ways made a lot of crumbs.

  Peggy ran into my room to swap her marie for my ginger and I ran into hers to borrow a big safety-pin (you can probably guess what for). Marguerite had remembered to pack one of my father’s stockings but not a safety-pin. However, Nana Glen had quantities of them, and my brass bedrail was just the shape I needed.

  Then I heard the Savages giggling so much that I had to run into their room to see what was happening. Harry had fallen out of bed and Nana Savage had said, ‘Get back to bed, you silly little fellow,’ but he continued to lie on the floor, laughing and unable to move. The nurses were all rather keen to hurry us along, as later in the evening there was to be dancing. (In the housekeeper’s room the music was provided by Mr O’Sullivan who played the violin, and in the servants’ hall there was a sort of barrel organ.)

  But, before that, mothers had to come round to hear prayers and say goodnight. As I hadn’t a mother Lady Tamerlane heard my prayers, which she did in the brisk businesslike way that she did everything. She carried a special candlestick with a glass funnel to protect the flame as she moved swiftly down the corridor, and she went round the children and kissed them in turn.

  Then our own candles were blown out and we were left lying in the dark to wait for Father Christmas. We were all excited but in different ways, from Tommy who was so horrified and revolted by the idea of a dreadful old man coming down the chimney in the middle of the night that they had had to h
ang his stocking outside his door, to Lionel who had put a wet sponge beside his bed with the worst intentions. I was in that state when you don’t know what to expect or whom to believe, and I several times crept to the end of my bed to feel my limp stocking. Was it possible that in a few hours’ time that dingy woollen object would be oozing toys?

  Just as I was dropping off to sleep I was roused by the sound of the Savages’ door being violently thrown open and bare feet pattering along the passage.

  ‘Nana!’ wailed Harry, ‘Minnie! May! My stocking’s empty! There’s nothing in it!’

  Loud unfeeling laughter burst from the nursery and presently Harry was led back to bed by Minnie, who explained gently that though he had been asleep, it wasn’t morning.

  I was glad Harry had made such a disturbance as I had been getting very drowsy myself and I did really mean to lie awake till Father Christmas came so as to settle once and for all who he was. But the room was pitch dark except for a strip of light under the door, and it was very difficult to keep my eyes open. I could not see the pictures of stags but I wondered what they would think of reindeer. ‘Is Father Christmas a Cavalier or a Roundhead? And suppose he has hooks instead of hands, and hooks instead of feet, and wears a pink sash …’

  7. Christmas Day

  Presently I noticed that the crack of light wasn’t there any more, and as I lay in the dark I became aware of a strong smell of oranges. Vaguely I wondered where the smell was coming from and then, with a start, I asked myself, could it be coming from my stocking?

  Regardless of the cold, I pushed back the bedclothes and crawled to the end of my bed and my hand met something that was woolly, hard and sharp. Nothing else in the world feels quite like a well-stuffed stocking.

  My hand followed the bumps and jags up to the top and there the woolliness ended and I could feel something which in the darkness I mistook for the top of an umbrella – it afterwards turned out to be a book. With a sigh of relief I nipped back under the bedclothes thinking, ‘The Magic has worked yet once again. He has come.’