The Christmas Mouse

by Miss Read

  ‘Of course. And tell them I should like to see them, to explain matters.’

  ‘And the police?’

  ‘If the police have been troubled, then you apologize to them too. You know what I told you. You must face the consequences whatever they are. This night should make you think in future, my boy, and a very good thing too.’

  She stood up, and moved to the window. Outside, the rain had stopped, but a stiff wind blew the ragged clouds swiftly across a watery moon, and ruffled the surface of the puddles.

  It was a good step to Tupps Hill, but Stephen must be on his way shortly. Mrs Berry was not blind to the dangers of the night for a young child walking the lanes alone, but it was a risk that had to be taken. At least the weather was kinder, the child’s clothing was dry, and he had eaten and slept. He had got himself into this situation, and it would do him no harm, thought Mrs Berry sturdily, to get himself out of it. In any case, the chance of meeting anyone abroad at half-past three on Christmas morning was remote.

  ‘Put your clothes on,’ directed the old lady, ‘while I make us both a cup of coffee.’

  She left him struggling with the toggle fastenings as she went into the kitchen. When she returned with the steaming cups of coffee, the boy was lacing his shoes. He looked up, smiling. He was so like Pepe, in that fleeting moment, that the years vanished for old Mrs Berry.

  ‘Lovely and warm,’ Stephen said approvingly, holding up his feet.

  Mrs Berry handed him his cup, and offered the biscuit tin. As he nibbled his Ginger Nut with his prominent front teeth, Stephen’s resemblance to a mouse was more marked than ever.

  The old lady shuddered. Was her own little horror, the mouse, still at large above? Mrs Berry craved for her bed. She was suddenly stiff and bone-tired, and longed for oblivion. What a night it had been! Would the boy ever remember anything that she had tried to teach him? She had her doubts, but one could only try. Who knows? Something might stick in that scatterbrained head.

  She motioned to the child to fetch his coat, turned the sleeves the right way out, and helped to button it to the neck. His chin was smooth and warm against her wrinkled hand, and reminded her with sudden poignancy of her own sleeping grandchildren.

  She held him by the lapels of his raincoat, and looked searchingly into his dark eyes.

  ‘You remember the promise? Say nothing, if they know nothing. Speak the truth if they do. And in future, do what’s right and not what’s wrong.’

  The child nodded solemnly.

  She kissed him on the cheek, gently and without smiling. They went to the front door together, Mrs Berry lifting a bar of chocolate from the Christmas tree as she passed.

  ‘Put it in your pocket. You’ve a long way to go and may get hungry. Straight home, mind, and into bed. Promise?’

  ‘Promise.’

  She opened the door quietly. It was fairly light, the moon partially visible through fast-scudding clouds. The wind lifted her hair and rustled dead leaves in the road.

  ‘Good-bye then, Stephen. Don’t forget what I’ve told you,’ she whispered.

  ‘Good-bye,’ he whispered back.

  He stood motionless for a second, as if wondering how to make his farewell, then turned suddenly and began the long trudge home.

  Mrs Berry watched him go, waiting for him to turn, perhaps, and wave. But the child did not look back, and she watched him walking steadily – left, right, left, right – until the bend in the lane hid him from her sight.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Back in the warm living room Mrs Berry found herself swaying on her feet with exhaustion. She steadied herself by holding on to the back of the armchair that had been her refuge for the night.

  It was years since she had felt such utter tiredness. It reminded her of the days when, as a young girl, she had helped with the mounds of washing at the vicarage. She had spent an hour or more at a time turning the heavy mangle – a monster of cast iron and solid wood – in the steamy atmosphere of the washhouse.

  She looked now at her downy nest of feather pillow and eiderdown, and knew that if she sat down sleep would engulf her. She would be stiff when she awoke for every nerve and sinew in her old body craved for the comfort of her bed, with room to stretch her heavy limbs.

  She would brave that dratted mouse! Ten chances to one it had made its way home again, and, in any case, she was so tired she would see and hear nothing once she was abed.

  She glanced round the room. The fire must be raked through, and the two telltale coffee cups washed and put away. Mrs Berry had no intention of telling Mary and the little girls about her visitor.

  She put all to rights, moving slowly, her limbs leaden, her eyes half-closed with fatigue. She drew back the curtains, ready for the daylight, and scanned the stormy sky.

  The moon was high now. Ragged clouds skimmed across its face, so that the glimpses of the wet trees and shining road were intermittent. The boy should be well on his way by now. She hoped that he had avoided the great puddles that silvered his path. Those shoes would be useless in this weather.

  The old lady sighed, and turned back to the armchair, folding the eiderdown neatly and putting the plump pillow across it. Gathering up her bundle, she took one last look at the scene of her encounter with young Stephen. Then, shouldering her burden, she opened the door to the staircase and went, very slowly, to her bedroom.

  Exhaustion dulled the terror that stirred her at the thought of the mouse still at large. Nevertheless, the old lady’s heart beat faster as she quietly opened the bedroom door. The great double bed was as welcome a sight as a snug harbour to a storm-battered boat.

  Mary had turned down the bedclothes. They gleamed, smooth and white as a snowdrift, in the faint light of the moon.

  The room was still and cool after the living room. Mrs Berry stood motionless, listening for any scuffle or scratching that might betray her enemy. But all was silent.

  She switched on the bedside lamp, which had been Mary’s last year’s Christmas present. It had a deep-pink shade that sent a rosy glow into the room. The old lady replaced her pillow and spread out the eiderdown, then, nerving herself, she bent down stiffly to look under the bed and see if the intruder was still there.

  All was as it should be. She scanned the rest of the floor, and saw the mousetrap. It was empty, and the second piece of cheese was still untouched.

  Mrs Berry’s spirits rose a little. Surely, this might mean that the mouse had returned to his own home? He would either have been caught, or the cheese would have been eaten, as before. But the trap must not be left there, a danger to the grandchildren, who would come running in barefoot, all too soon, to show their tired grandmother the things that Father Christmas had brought.

  Mrs Berry took a shoe from the floor and tapped the trap smartly. The crack of the spring snapping made her jump but now all was safe. She could not bring herself to touch the horrid thing with her bare fingers, but prodded it to safety, under the dressing table, with her shoe.

  Sighing with relief, the old lady climbed into bed, drew up the bedclothes and stretched luxuriously.

  How soon, she wondered, before Stephen Amonetti would be enjoying his bed, as she did now?

  At the rate he was stepping out, thought Mrs Berry drowsily, he must be descending the long slope that led to the fold in the downs at the foot of Tupps Hill.

  She knew that road well. The meadows on that southern slope had been full of cowslips when little Amelia Scott and her friends were children. She could smell them now, warm and sweet in the May sunshine. She loved the way the pale green stalks grew from the flat rosettes of leaves, so like living pen wipers, soft and fleshy, half hidden in the springy grass of the downland.

  The children made cowslip balls as well as bunches to carry home. Some of the mothers made cowslip wine, and secretly young Amelia grieved to see the beautiful flowers torn from their stalks and tossed hugger-mugger into a basket. They were too precious for such rough treatment, the child felt, though she relished
a sip of the wine when it was made, and now tasted it again on her tongue, the very essence of a sunny May day.

  On those same slopes, in wintertime, she had tobogganed with those same friends. She remembered a childhood sweetheart, a black-haired charmer called Ned, who always led the way on his homemade sled and feared nothing. He scorned gloves, hats, and all the other winter comforts in which loving mothers wrapped their offspring, but rushed bareheaded down the slope, his eyes sparkling, cheeks red, and the breath blowing behind him in streamers.

  Poor Ned, so full of life and courage! He had gone to a water-filled grave in Flanders’ mud before he was twenty years old. But the memory of that vivacious child remained with old Mrs Berry as freshly as if it were yesterday that they had swept down the snowy slope together.

  In those days a tumbledown shack had stood by a small rivulet at the bottom of the slope. It was inhabited by a poor, silly, old man, called locally Dirty Dick. He did not seem to have any steady occupation, although he sometimes did a little field work in the summer months, singling turnips, picking the wild oats from the farmers’ standing corn, or making himself useful when the time came round for picking apples or plums in the local orchards.

  The children were warned not to speak to him. Years before, it seemed, he had been taken to court in Caxley for some indecent conduct, and this was never forgotten. The rougher children shouted names after him and threw stones. The more gently nurtured, such as little Amelia, simply hurried by.

  ‘You’re not to take any notice of him,’ her mother had said warningly.

  ‘Why not?’

  A look of the utmost primness swept over her mother’s countenance.

  ‘He is sometimes a very rude old man,’ she said, in a shocked voice.

  Amelia enquired no further.

  His end had been tragic, she remembered. He had been found, face downwards, in the little brook, a saucepan in his clenched hand as he had dipped for water to boil for his morning tea. The doctor had said his heart must have failed suddenly. The old man had toppled into the stream and drowned in less than eight inches of spring flood water.

  Young Amelia had heard of his death with mingled horror and relief. Now she need never fear to pass that hut, dreading the meeting with ‘a very rude old man’, whose death, nevertheless, seemed unnecessarily cruel to the soft-hearted child.

  Well, Stephen Amonetti would have no Dirty Dick to fear on his homeward way, but he would have the avenue to traverse, a frightening tunnel of dark trees lining the road for a matter of a hundred yards across the valley. Even on the hottest day, the air blew chill in those deep shadows. On a night like this, Mrs Berry knew well, the wind would clatter the branches and whistle eerily. Stephen would need to keep a stout heart to hold the bogies at bay as he ran the gauntlet to those age-old trees.

  But by then he would be within half a mile of his home, up the steep short hill that overlooked the valley. A small estate of council houses had been built at Tupps Hill, some thirty years ago, and thought the architecture was grimly functional and the concrete paths gave an institutional look to the area, yet most of the tenants – countrymen all – had softened the bleakness with climbing wall plants and plenty of bright annuals in the borders.

  The hillside position, too, was enviable. The houses commanded wide views over agricultural land, the gardens were large and, with unusual forethought, the council had provided a row of garages for their tenants, so that unsightly, old shabby cars were screened from view. Those lucky enough to get a Tupps Hill house were envied by their brethren.

  If only Stephen could get in unobserved! Mrs Berry stirred restlessly, considering her visitor’s chances of escaping detection. Poor little mouse! Poor little Christmas mouse! Dear God, please let him creep into his home safely!

  And then she froze. Somewhere, in the darkness close at hand, something rustled.

  Her first instinct was to snatch the eiderdown from the bed, and bolt. She would fly downstairs again to the safety of the armchair, and there await the dawn and Mary’s coming to her rescue.

  But several things kept her quaking in the warm bed. Extreme tiredness was one. Her fear that she would rouse the sleeping household was another. The day ahead would be a busy one, and Mary needed all the rest she could get. This was something she must face alone.

  Mrs Berry tried to pinpoint the position of the rustling. A faint squeaking noise made her flesh prickle. What could it be? It did not sound like the squeak of a mouse. The noise came from the right, by the window. Could the wretched creature be on the windowsill? Could it be scrabbling, with its tiny claws, on the glass of the windowpane, in its efforts to escape?

  Mrs Berry shuddered at the very thought of confronting it, of seeing its dreadful stringy tail, its beady eyes, and its more than likely darting to cover into some inaccessible spot in the bedroom.

  All her old terrors came flying back, like a flock of evil black birds, to harass her. There was that ghastly dead mouse in her aunt’s flour keg, the next one with all those pink hairless babies in her father’s toolbox, the one that the boys killed in the school lobby, the pair that set up home once under the kitchen sink, and all those numberless little horrors that Pepe the cat used to bring in, alive and dead, to scare her out of her wits.

  But somehow, there had always been someone to cope with them. Dear Stanley, or Bertie, or brave Mary, or some good neighbour would come to her aid. Now, in the darkness, she must manage alone.

  She took a deep breath and cautiously edged her tired old legs out of the bed. She must switch on the bedside lamp again, and risk the fact that it might stampede the mouse into flight.

  Her fingers shook as she groped for the switch. Once more, rosy light bathed the room. Sitting on the side of the bed, Mrs Berry turned round to face the direction of the rustling, fear drying her throat.

  There was no sound now. Even the wind seemed to have dropped. Silence engulfed the room. Could she have been mistaken? Could the squeaking noise have been caused by the thorns of the rosebush growing against the wall? Hope rose. Immediately it fell again.

  For there, crouched in a corner of the windowsill, was a tiny furry ball.

  Old Mrs Berry put a shaking hand over her mouth to quell any scream that might escape her unawares. Motionless, she gazed at the mouse. Motionless, the mouse gazed back. Thus transfixed, they remained. Only the old lady’s heavy breathing broke the silence that engulfed them.

  After some minutes, the mouse lifted its head and snuffed the air. Mrs Berry caught her breath. It was so like Stephen Amonetti, as he had sprawled in the armchair, head back, with his pointed pink nose in the air. She watched the mouse, fascinated. It seemed oblivious of danger and sat up on its haunches to wash its face.

  Its bright eyes, as dark and lustrous as Stephen’s, moved restlessly as it went about its toilet. Its minute pink paws reminded Mrs Berry of the tiny pink shells she had treasured as a child after a Sunday-school outing to the sea. It was incredible to think that something so small could lead such a full busy life, foraging, making a home, keeping itself and its family fed and cleaned.

  And that was the life it must return to, thought Mrs Berry firmly. It must go back, as surely as Stephen had, to resume its proper existence. Strange that two creatures, so alike in looks, should flee their homes and take refuge on the same night, uninvited, under her roof!

  The best way to send this little scrap on its homeward journey would be to open the window and hope that it would negotiate the frail stairway of the rosebush trained against the wall, and so return to earth. But the thought of reaching over the mouse to struggle with the window catch needed all the courage that the old lady could muster, and she sat on the bed summoning her strength.

  The longer she watched, the less frightened she became. It was almost like watching Stephen Amonetti all over again – a fugitive, defenceless, young, and infinitely pathetic. They both needed help and guidance to get them home.

  She took a deep breath and stood up. The bed spri
ngs squeaked, but the mouse did not take flight. It stopped washing its whiskers and gazed warily about it. Mrs Berry, gritting her teeth, approached slowly.

  The mouse shrank down into a little furry ball, reminding Mrs Berry of a fur button on a jacket of her mother’s. Quietly, she leaned over the sill and lifted the window catch. The mouse remained motionless.

  The cold air blew in, stirring the curtain and bringing a breath of rain-washed leaves and damp earth.

  Mrs Berry retreated to the bed again to watch developments. She sat there for a full minute before her captive made a move.

  It raised its quivering pink nose and then, in one bound, darted over the window frame, dragging its pink tail behind it. As it vanished, Mrs Berry hurried to the window to watch its departure.

  It was light enough to see its tiny shape undulating down the crisscross of thorny rose stems. But when it finally reached the bare earth, it was invisible to the old lady’s eyes.

  She closed the window carefully, sighed with relief and exhaustion, and clambered, once more, into bed.

  Her two unbidden visitors – her Christmas mice – had gone! Now, at long last, she could rest.

  Behind the row of wallflower plants, close to the bricks of the cottage, scurried the mouse, nose twitching. It ran across the garden path, dived under the cotoneaster bush, scrambled up the mossy step by the disused well, turned sharp right through the jungle of dried grass beside the garden shed, and streaked, unerringly, to the third hawthorn bush in the hedge.

  There, at the foot, screened by ground ivy, was its hole. It dived down into the loose sandy earth, snuffling the dear frowsty smell of mouse family and mouse food.

  Home at last!

  At much the same time, Stephen Amonetti lowered himself carefully through the pantry window.

  The house was as silent as the grave, and dark inside, after the pallid glimmer of the moon’s rays.

  With infinite caution he undid the pantry door, and closed it behind him. For greater quietness, he removed his wet shoes and, carrying them in one hand, he ascended the staircase.