Christmas with the Savages

by Mary Clive

  We had been told not to get up till half past six and Rosamund had promised to call me so that we could all unpack together. I wondered what the time was, and at that moment the stable clock obligingly struck. I counted fourteen, which seemed strange and exciting, but on thinking it over I decided that I must have added in the chimes and that it was really six. To have to wait for half an hour was almost unbearable, but there seemed nothing else to be done, specially as I had no matches. I tried to lie still but the stocking seemed to pull me towards it, and every few minutes I was down at the end of my bed feeling to make sure that there was no mistake.

  At last the stable clock struck half past and my door was flung open by Rosamund. She was carrying a candle and her hair was in three pigtails tied up with rags.

  ‘Happy Christmas!’ she shouted in a voice loud enough to wake the whole of Tamerlane. ‘Happy Christmas! Happy Christmas!’

  In an instant I was up and had unpinned my stocking which suddenly became so heavy that I dropped it on the floor. I then saw that there were things on the chair as well. I tried not to look to see what they were as I grabbed the lot and then had to lay them down again as I put on my dressing gown.

  When I got to Rosamund’s room I found the other children were already there.

  ‘Two candles aren’t enough,’ said Lionel, ‘and Minnie says that three is very unlucky. Fetch all your candles, Evelyn, and we’ll have a grand illumination.’

  ‘All right, only nobody must look at anything till I come back.’

  So I fetched my candles, and when Rosamund had lit them by tipping a lighted one against them (the grease ran down on to the carpet but we didn’t mind) the room looked very gay. We huddled together on to the beds and Rosamund commanded:

  ‘Everybody to pull out together and only one thing at a time. Are you all ready? Now! One, two, three, go!’

  I am afraid I have forgotten most of the things that came out of those stockings, except that Rosamund and I each got a clock. Hers was red and mine was blue, and they were called Bee clocks. They stood on little legs which we soon found could be unscrewed, and then the case came to pieces and the glass fell out and all the works could be seen. I also had a set of teeny little flower pots about two inches high. There was a teeny watering can with them and packets of mustard and cress seed. Later on when I was back in London I followed the directions with the help of my governess and the mustard and cress did actually grow and we ate it for tea.

  But the thing that pleased me most was a glass swan exactly like Mrs Peabody’s, except that while hers had red eyes, mine had green. I could hardly believe that it had come to me already, without having to wait till I was grown up. I kissed it and put it beside my bed, next to my Bible, though not on top of it, as that would have been irreverent.

  After breakfast I was told to go with the Savages to their mother’s room where I should find the presents which my parents had sent for me. As we raced along the passage a frantic quarrel broke out between Rosamund and Harry as to which of them was to be given an annual called Little Folks.

  The Savages’ mother had set out five chairs with heaps of presents on each and we pounced down on them, Betty of course with a terrific squeal. I found that my presents were just what I wanted but what I thought I should never be given – beyond that I can’t describe them.

  Presents poured in at intervals throughout the day, but the only one I can remember is a life-sized dachshund on wheels. Great-Uncle Algy gave it to Tommy, who at once broke into such howls of terror that it was quickly handed on to me who happened to be standing near. I had got past the age when people usually give you stuffed animals, so I was very pleased to get this one. He was christened Great Agrippa and went to bed with me for years.

  At one moment we all surged down into the dining room where the uncles and aunts were having their breakfast. One got to the dining room by going through a mysterious little room full of doors which was known as the lobby and had a black-and-white marble floor and buffaloes’ horns on the wall. One opened the biggest door and found oneself behind a screen, and when one had walked round the end of the screen one found oneself in an immense room with pillars in it. The grown-ups were eating at a big table in the middle, but there were wide open spaces all round them and other tables near the walls. With a whoop the Savages dashed towards a large polished table which stood in the corner and began playing ships on it and under it. I took in the situation at a glance and decided to follow an idea of my own and to go to the grown-up table where the people breakfasting would be at my mercy. I spotted an uncle whom I had not seen before and who I thought would find me irresistible, and I felt contempt for the Savages who were so childish that they chose to play ships under the sideboard at a time when they might have been fascinating the house party.

  Unfortunately for my plans, on my way towards my victim I had to pass near a table on which was a boar’s head. The boar had rolling eyes and great tusks and I suppose was really only an ordinary pig, but it looked like something out of history. Round it was mashed jelly of a beautiful golden colour, and as no one was looking at me I stuck two fingers in and took a great mouthful.

  Then I was in a fix indeed. The jelly was perfectly horrible and I couldn’t possibly bring myself to swallow it, but I didn’t dare to spit it out. Instead of going to fascinate the grown-ups I had to slink into the corner after the other children.

  ‘Come up on deck, Evelyn,’ said Rosamund, stretching out a hand.

  But I ducked down into the cabin, where I found Harry and Peter.

  ‘Which will you be,’ said Harry, ‘stoker or stewardess?’ The Savages sometimes went to Ireland and so they knew about ships.

  I nodded, still unable to open my mouth.

  ‘What does that senseless sort of nod mean?’ asked Harry. ‘Does it mean you want to be a stoker and shovel coal till the perspiration pours off you in rivers, or does it mean that you want to be a stewardess and hand round basins?’

  It really meant that I wished somebody would hand me a basin, but at that moment the captain’s head appeared upside down as he leant over from the deck, and while Harry and Peter were exchanging remarks with it, I managed to get rid of the jelly under the corner of the carpet which was fortunately not nailed down.

  ‘I think I’ll just be a passenger,’ I said, ‘a grand lady with lots of luggage and a Pomeranian.’

  ‘What class are you going?’ asked Harry:

  ‘First-class cabin full of shoes,

  Second-class cabin hullabaloos,

  Third-class cabin full of oats

  [for the animals],

  Fourth-class cabin full of boats

  [that’s really the top deck and it’s frightfully

  cold and always rains].’

  I said I should certainly go first class. Peter now began shovelling coal, and considering that the coal, the shovel and the furnace were all imaginary, he somehow managed to produce very loud and lifelike noises. I looked out of a porthole to see how the grown-ups were bearing it, but they were so wrapped up in themselves and their own breakfasts that they did not seem to notice us at all.

  ‘Land ahoy!’ shouted Lionel’s voice from the deck. ‘Stop the ship! We’re running on to a rock! Stop her, can’t you, you donkeys.’

  ‘Very sorry, Captain,’ shouted Rosamund. ‘Afraid I can’t! The wheel’s stuck.’

  ‘Stand by for a wreck!’ shouted Lionel. ‘Man the boats! Women and children first!’ Here he threw Betty into the sea. She let out one of her most horrible yells and came rolling into the cabin.

  ‘Rock’s getting closer, getting closer,’ shouted Lionel. ‘Now I can see the houses, now I can see the people, now I can see the gulls, now I can see the winkles. And now for the beastly bump.’

  As he spoke the three children on the deck crashed over together and there were shouts of ‘Take to the boats!’ ‘Swim for your lives!’ and also, less appropriately, ‘Fire! Murder! Burglary!’

  The whole lot of us (myself am
ong them) were now swimming about on the carpet, but Lady Tamerlane had finished her breakfast.

  ‘Run on, children, and get ready for church,’ she said as she rose from the table, and as no one ever thought of disobeying her, up we got and off we ran.

  Getting ready for church took us a long time, particularly as the nurses could not agree as to whether we were to wear our Sunday clothes or not. I think in the end we wore our Sunday coats but not our Sunday hats, but somehow we were made to feel just as stiff and uncomfortable as if we were dressed entirely in Sunday outfits.

  Ding, dong, dell, went the church bells.

  ‘Hurry up, Harry,’ said Nana Savage languidly. ‘There are the bells saying “Come-to-church! Come-to-church!” ’

  We stopped to listen, but at that moment the peal changed to Dinga-dinga-dong.

  ‘But now they are saying “Go-a-way-from-church! Go – a – way – from – church!” ’ objected Harry.

  We were shocked by Harry, and still more so by Betty who announced that she was going to take her bear to church. Indeed, this made us really anxious, as it was almost impossible to get Betty to change her mind once she had made it up, but to the relief of everybody she came to her senses in time. She said that after all she had decided that Bear was rather young for church, so instead she would leave him sitting on the dirty-clothes basket so that he could have a nice cosy talk to it with no one listening.

  ‘And what does the clothes-basket talk about?’ asked Mrs Peabody, who had drifted in.

  Betty gave Mrs Peabody a suspicious look to see if her leg was being pulled.

  ‘It talks about nothing but clothes,’ she said.

  Eventually we got off and went in a straggling crowd down the avenue. The church stood by itself in the park, a little old church with cedar trees in the churchyard. The grass was neatly mown and the path was weeded and the graves were decorated with holly wreaths. Beside it was a big mound covered with trees which the children called the giant’s castle. We never got the chance to explore it, so for all I know a giant really did live on top.

  In church we filled several pews, the children being put in one against the back wall, which was a good thing as a great deal of whispering and giggling went on. I think children don’t giggle as much now as they used to, perhaps because they are not so strictly brought up. When we were all in the pew a ledge on a hinge was fixed across the opening so as to make more room and the child who knelt in front of that was always pushing his prayer book over it or else just catching it in time. In either case the rest of us giggled.

  Peter and Betty shared a prayer book. They followed the service closely, and whenever they came to a word they could read they joined in as loudly as they could. Peter showed Betty what ‘Amen’ looked like and they waited panting for every one and then bawled it, generally coming in a second too soon or a second too late. Rosamund’s prayer book was full of pretty little markers which kept slipping out and fluttering to the ground, followed by dives and head-bumping.

  Harry behaved fairly well although he occasionally asked questions in his usual voice without making any attempt to lower it, while Lionel behaved beautifully except during the hymns. These he would sing to ridiculous words which he had picked up at school and which we all thought terribly witty.

  I was in two minds whether to sit primly like the grown-ups or to wriggle and giggle like the children, and I tried first one way and then the other. Unfortunately Lady Tamerlane chose to look round just as I was laughing at Peggy waggling her finger through a hole in her glove, and she made me come out of the back pew and sit beside her for the rest of the service. I was covered with shame at this public disgrace and thought that everyone in the church, from the clergyman to the old man who blew the organ, was looking at me with scorn.

  However, I recovered my spirits on the way home, as one of the great-aunts walked beside me and talked to me as though nothing had happened. She told me stories of what she and her cousins had done when they were young and I came to the conclusion that Victorian children, far from being little angels, were really much naughtier than we were. It was astonishing to learn that Great-Uncle Algy had mesmerized his governess and had then not been able to un-mesmerize her again, or that Lady Tamerlane herself had, when a little girl, gone into a visitor’s bedroom and put soapy water in all her cupboards and drawers as a suggestion that she was staying too long. ‘And once,’ said the great-aunt in her little squeaky voice, ‘we all decided to run away.’

  I couldn’t help laughing. We had dropped behind the others, as the great-aunt could hardly walk, and the idea of her running at all was absurd.

  ‘Where were you going to run to?’

  ‘We meant either to go to London to be crossing-sweepers, or to Malvern because the water was so good.’

  ‘And what happened?’

  ‘Gustavus always was a tell-tale-tit,’ said the great-aunt, her dim eyes flashing as she looked at the bent back of an aged gentleman tottering along in front of us. I could see that she never had quite forgiven him for sneaking.

  By the time I reached the house I had entirely got back my good opinion of myself and was able to eat as much turkey and Christmas pudding as anybody.

  8. Boxing Day

  I have often noticed that one feels rather flat on Boxing Day. The weather is generally grey and dull, and children are apt to be tired and bored.

  ‘I can’t think why it is,’ said Rosamund, ‘I don’t really like these sweets at all now, and yet I just can’t stop eating them.’

  ‘My mouth feels all sugary inside,’ I said, ‘I wonder if one of those lumps of nougat would take the taste away.’

  I took one but it was horrid, and when I tried to throw it into the fire it hit the fender. It became very runny and stuck in the wire meshes, and the more we tried to poke it through with a pencil the more sticky everything became.

  ‘You’d better not have any more sweets, Harry,’ said Rosamund, ‘not after what happened at dinner.’

  Harry appeared to be pondering great thoughts. At last he spoke.

  ‘Sick can be very surprising sometimes.’

  ‘Well, we certainly were more surprised than pleased,’ said Rosamund. ‘Why did you say that you were too hungry to eat?’

  ‘Because I thought I was,’ said Harry humbly.

  We were interrupted by Lady Tamerlane coming in to suggest that the nursery maids should take us down to the back lodge to watch the Marathon race.

  ‘And which of you can tell me what a Marathon race is?’ she asked.

  Lionel would certainly have known, but he wasn’t there and so we all looked at Rosamund, hoping that she would rise to the occasion.

  ‘It is a race,’ said Rosamund bravely, ‘run by Marathons, who are, who were, a sort of ancient Greek.’

  ‘Or is it something to eat,’ suggested Peter, ‘like an egg-and-spoon race?’

  ‘Have none of you really ever heard of Marathon?’ asked Lady Tamerlane, delighted to have an excuse for telling us about it.

  ‘I have,’ I spoke up, seeing my chance to score off the others and impress a grown-up at last. ‘I know Marathon very well. We always start from Marathon Station when we go to stay with Aunt Mildred.’

  ‘Marylebone Station, I expect,’ said Lady Tamerlane, not, alas, impressed. ‘Well, I see I shall have to tell you the story of Marathon.’

  This roused Betty. She came out from under the sofa and stood in front of her grandmother.

  ‘Are there any fairies in it?’ she asked suspiciously. ‘Because if there are, it’s not true.’

  ‘There are no fairies in the story of Marathon,’ said Lady Tamerlane.

  ‘That’s a blooming good thing,’ said Betty.

  Lady Tamerlane looked as if she would like to criticize this remark but changed her mind and began.

  ‘Marathon was one of the decisive battles of the world.’

  ‘Which are the other ones?’ Harry asked.

  ‘I will tell you that later,’ said
his grandmother, who was never at a loss for an answer and who had plenty of encyclopaedias downstairs, ‘or better still, you children might all make lists of decisive battles.’

  ‘Go on, Grandmama,’ said Peggy quickly.

  ‘Well, Greece was in dire peril. It was being invaded by the mighty armies of the Persians who were coming by way of the Plain of Marathon, between the mountains and the sea. The mountains look on Marathon and Marathon looks on the sea.’

  ‘Exactly how far is Marathon from Navarino?’ asked Harry.

  ‘The Battle of Marathon and the Battle of Navarino are separated by over two thousand years,’ said Lady Tamerlane who, as I said before, was never at a loss for an answer, and had had plenty of practice with children. ‘Although the Persians far outnumbered the Greeks, the Greeks it was who conquered. They rushed down upon the Persians and won a great victory. Then the question arose, who should carry the good tidings to Athens? And the choice fell on Pheidippides, a swift runner who had already run to Sparta and back and had also fought bravely in the battle.’

  ‘What a funny person to choose,’ said Peggy, who did not much care for history but thought that somebody ought to say something.

  Lady Tamerlane gave a quick glance at Betty who was standing there glowering. Although it is strictly true that there are no fairies in the story of Marathon, what about that bit when Pheidippides has a talk with the Great God Pan? Lady Tamerlane was not at all sure that Betty would approve of the Great God Pan and so decided that there was not really time to mention him. So she went straight on –

  ‘Pheidippides ran swiftly to Athens and told them that the country was saved. And then down he dropped, dead.’

  Betty turned away. No fairies had been mentioned and she was disappointed.

  ‘What was the point of running so fast?’ said Harry. ‘If they had lost the battle there would have been some sense in it. But as they had won it, what was the hurry?’

  ‘So nowadays,’ said Lady Tamerlane, frankly taking no notice, ‘very long races are called Marathon races.’