by Julie Berry
The clouds were thick and heavy, moist with the hopeful promise of snow. Outside the enveloping arms of the school building, London’s noises never paused, but in the courtyard, quiet hung in the expectant air.
After inspecting our appearances in the frosty dark, the schoolmistresses gave us each a candle. Miss Salisbury, the music mistress, waggled her hands to lead us in singing “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” As soon as our voices began, Miss Salamanca took her lantern and lit the first girl’s candle with it. The second girl tipped her taper into the first girl’s until it lit. Thus, slowly, carefully, little lights spread down the line, casting a halo over each girl’s face.
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting light!
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight.
Mine is not a heart of stone, despite what some people think. For that moment, with those candles, and that song, Christmas wrapped itself around me like a muffler—one knitted by someone other than me. Each girl became more, to me, than she’d been before. I couldn’t stay vexed with anyone. I even felt a glimmer of acceptance of Theresa Treazleton. Miss Salamanca looked, for a moment, in lantern light, like her kindly, better, warmer self—like the girl she must’ve been once, if she’d ever had a mother to love her.
She led us slowly, still singing, across the street to the charitable home. Each of us walked with a lit candle in one hand and a parcel in the other: a muffler and a pair of mittens wrapped in red paper. We had each tied a little sack of sugarplums into the parcel’s ribbon.
“Think of the poor, motherless boys who never get to enjoy a sweet,” Miss Rosewater had said when we wrapped them. I remembered Tommy stealing my licorice, but said nothing.
London’s bells broke out in their joyful, clamorous song. Seven o’clock. Time for a Christmas party. From the shouts and the steam-fogged windows of the washrooms across the way an hour before, the boys at the charitable home had faced a trying ordeal getting scrubbed and combed for the occasion. It tickled me to wonder what Tom would look like, all dandied up for a party. If there was lace anywhere, I’d never let him live it down.
We filed into the home and down a dark hallway to the refectory, where the boys ate their meals. It was colder here than at the girls’ school. The corridor smelled faintly of coal smoke and burnt eggs and, well, of boy. Sweaty, unwashed, cricket-playing, wrestling-in-the-dirt boy. I contrasted it with Miss Salamanca’s school, which smelled like starched pinafores and too many rules. I almost wished I were an orphan.
Until I saw the boys.
I’d seen them roughhousing at play, of course, but never lined up on exhibition as they were now.
They didn’t need mufflers. They needed dinner.
They stood in a group, arranged by height, with the smallest lads in front, and the tallest in back. Tommy stuck out. His washed and combed hair looked as red as a Christmas apple. I knew he was a bony, lanky fellow, but it wasn’t until I saw him clustered with all his mates that I realized how hungry he looked. They all did. Their cheeks were hollow, and their ankles, poking out from too-short trousers and knickers, looked like twigs.
I wondered which of them was the first to coin the phrase “Fast-bowl Franny.”
Tommy wouldn’t look at me.
Miss Guntherson directed us to line up and present our parcels to the orphans. At her severe nod, each girl recited the phrase she’d been taught: “Happy Christmas, and God bless you.” At a scowl from one of the orphan masters, the recipient dutifully replied, “Thank you, miss, ever so kindly, for your generous gift.”
I was determined to give my parcel to Tommy, so I hung back in the line until I saw a chance to give it to him, cutting off little Winnifred Herzig in the process. People were always cutting off Winnifred Herzig.
I shoved the parcel at Tommy and waited for him to see that it was me. Surely this was all a big joke to him, and we could have a laugh together about it later on. True, he’d be stuck with my muffler, but at least Alice had knitted his mittens.
But Tommy wouldn’t take the parcel. He still wouldn’t meet my gaze.
“Happy Christmas,” I whispered. “What’s the matter with you, anyway? Oh,” I remembered my lines. “God bless you.”
His dark glance flickered upward for an instant. It was as if we’d never gone to Persia with a djinni, as if we were back to being dread enemies.
What was the matter with him? Were we no longer friends? Was he angry that I hadn’t taken him on another adventure yet? Did he suspect I’d gone on one without him?
Or was he embarrassed for me to see him this way?
A shadow fell over my hands holding the package. One of the orphan masters, a tired-looking man with a red face and thin, pale hair, stood behind Tom.
He rested an ink-stained hand on his shoulder. “Where are our manners, young man?”
Tommy spoke like one in a trance. His lips moved but his jaw did not. “Thank you, miss, ever so kindly, for your generous gift.”
Any other time, I might’ve kicked him in the shins for being so testy with me. But the look on his face pulled me up short. To me, the whole business was a silly, sentimental holiday charade, but I could tell it was no joke to Tommy.
Now I understood his anger. Outside this room, we were friends. Inside it, I was one of the privileged young ladies, and he was a pathetic charity case.
I didn’t see it that way at all, not one bit. But I could see how he might, and how that would sting his pride. It would sting anybody’s.
All along the line, girls bestowed their gifts to the “poor, needy orphans.” Girls with round cheeks, bright curls, new wool hats and capes, and self-satisfied faces. Some looked contemptuously at the boys, while others showed pity and concern, but always there was the glow of feeling they’d been virtuous and benevolent. Little Lady Bountifuls in training. For a moment, I saw what that must look like through Tommy’s proud eyes. How galling, how humiliating, to be put on display to make wealthier children feel better about themselves! To remind the fortunate ones to be grateful for their comforts, while these boys shivered at night. It made me want to drop the sugarplums on the floor and tread them under my feet.
A pair of the littlest boys were of a different mind. They’d already gotten the wrappers off their candies. Now their cheeks bulged and their lips oozed sugary syrup. When the pale orphan master gave them a stern look, their guilty eyes went wide as full moons, but they sucked all the harder on their candies, lest they be forced to spit them out.
I couldn’t help smiling. Tom noticed them, too, and shook his head. The corner of his mouth twitched. He couldn’t stay angry in the face of those little imps. I would’ve slipped them extra sweeties, if I had any.
The schoolmistresses beckoned us back, away from the orphans, as though they might be contagious, and indeed, they might. Several looked quite unwell—paler and far thinner than even the other boys. I stood next to Alice as we lined up, more or less, opposite to the boys, in a formation like theirs, and Miss Salisbury stepped forward with a pitch pipe and puffed out a reedy note. An A, or something. Maybe a C. All the same to me. Time for the song we’d all been rehearsing, on both sides of the square.
A young boy stepped forward to sing the first verse as a solo. His pure voice filled the dining hall:
See amid the winter’s snow,
Born for us on earth below,
See the tender Lamb appears,
Promised from eternal years.
Alice’s breath caught in her throat, and her eyes filled with tears. I’m no judge of music, but even I could tell this boy should be singing at St. Paul’s, not starving to death at Mission Industrial School and Home for Working Boys. But he never would sing there. He’d end up at the cotton mill like all the others. If he lived that long.
We all joined in on the chorus, and in the verses to follow, and it happe
ned again, that old Christmas magic. Music, and candles. Darkness, and light. We couldn’t be Lady Bountifuls and Poor Urchins when we sang the same notes together. We were just we.
Teach, O teach us, Holy Child,
By Thy face so meek and mild,
Teach us to resemble Thee
In Thy sweet humility.
We sang the last refrain, and the carol ended. Nobody wanted to move, lest they break the spell of lingering song. It tingled in our bodies. But headmistresses must be immune to such things. Miss Salamanca shooed us toward the door.
I glanced over at Tommy. Maybe the carol had thawed him a little, because he gave me a grin and popped a sugarplum into his mouth. I was glad to know we would go into the holidays as friends again.
I couldn’t help thinking, as we filed out the door, that “sweet humility” had been in our midst that night. Just not necessarily in the hearts of the children who thought they possessed it.
Back at the school, our party began—more songs, then pudding and punch, and little wrapped Christmas crackers. We had hung stockings in the dining room, draped over our chairs, and girls who had written one another notes and hand-decorated homemade Christmas cards put them in their friends’ stockings. Alice had given me a wrapped present—a can of kippers! I got the joke immediately. I’d given her a little drawing I had made of two swans. (I’d copied from pictures in Bewick’s History of British Birds.) Alice had mentioned once a pair of swans living at her grandparents’ country home. Apparently, they were a lot tougher than they looked. That was true of Alice, too.
Mrs. Gruboil served out the pudding and sauce. Even she seemed in quite a jolly holiday mood. Perhaps she’d been early at her cider jug. I devoured my plate of pudding and helped myself to dried fruits and nuts aplenty, thinking all the while of the boys across the street. Why couldn’t they have been invited here to share these treats with us? Of course, that would cost the school more in foodstuffs, but surely it could be managed. If I’d thought my opinion was worth a farthing to Miss Salamanca, I would’ve suggested it.
At length, I grew tired and decided to leave the party. Alice followed me up the stairs to our room. I’d sat on my bed and began unlacing my boots when I noticed my pillow looked strangely crooked and my bed rumpled. Alice’s, too. The papers and books on our desks were strewn about and spilling onto the floor.
“What happened?” whispered Alice.
It was then that I remembered my sardine can, under my pillow.
I threw the pillow aside. I hunted behind the mattress, and between the bed and the wall. Under the bedclothes. Beneath the mattress. In every other inch of the entire room. Twice.
Mermeros’s sardine can was gone.
Chapter 21
Alice and I stayed up half the night searching for my sardine can, and even after we took to our beds, I could only stare into the darkness at the ceiling. The Persian artifacts were undisturbed in their hiding place, and if I’d had the sense to leave the sardine can there, I’d still have that, too.
I should’ve wished for the money while I had the chance. I should’ve wished for anything.
When Alice woke in the morning, I confronted her with my theory. I sat on the edge of my bed and fiddled with the artifacts despondently, sliding the ring on and off my finger.
“Do you remember us talking about my final wish, and money, last night?”
She nodded and rubbed her sleep-fuzzy eyes. “Mm-hmm.”
“What if someone overheard us?” I told her. “Theresa, or one of her friends?”
She blinked herself more awake. “Oh, I was so afraid of that!”
“I know.” I hung my head. “I was careless. It was stupid of me.”
Alice rose and began her preparations for the day. “Poor Maeve,” she said. “That would mean Mr. Treazleton has Mermeros already.”
“Or he will,” I said, “once he meets Theresa today at pickup time.”
What Alice said next proved what a good friend she is, for she holds obedience and rule-following to be angelic virtues. “Do you, er, want me to distract Theresa this morning while you search her room?”
Hoofbeats and carriage wheels sounded outside. We had to run out to the landing in the corridor for a window view of the front courtyard. There it was, Mr. Treazleton’s carriage, and descending from it, a stout, magnificently dressed older woman.
“That’s Theresa’s grandmother, the Widow Treazleton,” Alice whispered in my ear. “She’s an acquaintance of my grandparents.”
I stared at her.
“Distantly,” she stammered. “We don’t dine with them, if that’s what you mean.”
“They’re picking her up early,” I said. “Taking no chances with Mermeros. Come on, let’s stop her!”
Then, Theresa appeared in the courtyard. We were too late. Footmen took her luggage and stowed it atop the carriage. Before she got in, she turned and surveyed the entire school with a self-satisfied expression. She glanced at my window, saw me watching her, and favored me with smug little wave.
“May she break out in pimples,” I muttered as she drove away.
And there it was. Before we were even out of our nightdresses, Theresa was gone. My sardine can, no doubt, clutched in her little valise. All morning, my mind watched the roll of her carriage wheels, over and over, bearing away all my hopes.
A cab discharged us at St. Pancras Station: Aunt Vera, Polydora, and I, along with an old man in a homburg hat who kept winking at Aunt Vera, and a ginger-whiskered fellow in a bowler hat who wouldn’t even look at us.
Polly and my aunt had come to fetch me late in the morning to whisk me home for winter holidays. Aunt Vera was in a jovial mood and gave me a tin of gingerbread, but I could barely taste it. Polly was feeling festive, too, but she could tell right away that something was wrong.
“What’s the matter, Maeve, dear. Are you ill?” She peered into my eyes and made me stick out my tongue when we were still in the school courtyard, where my bags and I had been waiting for her arrival. I didn’t appreciate the public examination.
“Just tired,” I told her. “I had trouble sleeping last night.”
Polly stroked my cheek. “Poor darling,” she said. “We’ll get you home, feed you, and tuck you right into bed.”
Now I followed Polly and Aunt Vera through the crowded train station like one in a trance, while the porter Aunt Vera had paid followed us with our luggage in tow. St. Pancras Station was a splendid building, but I couldn’t enjoy it today. Biggest room in the world, they called it. The soaring heights of its iron-and-glass roof made us travelers nothing more than scurrying ants. Usually it made me feel like I was falling, in the best of ways, though my feet were firmly on the ground.
This close to the holidays, the place bulged with travelers and their parcels, even at midday. Carolers sang with collection baskets displayed for some worthy charitable fund. A brass quartet played holiday tunes in another corner of the station. The tea shops had draped bunting and paper cutouts in their doorways. Sellers of newspapers and hot chestnuts wore sprigs of holly pinned to their hats. And nobody seemed to begrudge the poorer folks clustered around heating stoves. Not at this time of year.
But what did I care? Christmas was ruined. School holidays were ruined. My entire future was probably ruined.
Aunt Vera purchased our tickets, then steered us toward a tea shop. “We have half an hour before our train,” she said. “Let’s take a little refreshment while we wait.”
I nibbled at a dry biscuit and watched people pass by without really seeing them. Where in all of London could my sardine can be now? Out of all London, I’d been the one to find it the first time. I’d never stumble upon it again by sheer luck, that was plain. After the new owner’s three wishes were spent, Mermeros would probably vanish and reappear in Timbuktu.
I’d had a djinni. A real, magical, wish-granting djinn
i. Just like in the stories. What had I to show for it now? Theresa’s chopped braids and Alice’s sunburn. The memory of an adventure, but what good are memories? A few shabby antiquities. Useful to a museum, but not to me. I’d brought them home with me. They mocked me with bitter recollection of what might have been, if it weren’t for my big mouth.
I’d had a djinni, and I’d lost it. I’d let Mermeros slip through my fingers like the wiggling sardine he was. I had only myself to blame. (If I ever found out who else I had to blame, they’d get a taste of my fist.)
“Maeve? Maeve?” Aunt Vera was saying.
I blinked awake. “Yes, Aunt Vera?”
“Penny for your thoughts?” She smiled at me.
“I’m sorry,” I told her. “What were you saying?”
“I was asking what friends you’ve made at school. Last time we visited, I never had a chance to ask.”
I didn’t mention Tommy. Not even cheerful Aunt Vera would want to hear that I was fraternizing with orphans, for one thing, and boys, for another.
“My particular friend is my roommate,” I told her. “Alice Bromley.”
“Ah! The Bromleys are a fine old family,” Aunt Vera said. “They live in Grosvenor Square. I met Mrs. Bromley at a charity benefit she hosted at her home once. Oh, the hothouses! She has the most exquisite flowers at her tables, and fresh strawberries year-round.”
“She’s invited me to come visit Alice over the holidays,” I said.
“Splendid! Now that’s a very fine connection to cultivate, Maeve.”
I wanted to groan. As if my friendship with Alice was a hothouse flower, needing cultivation. I’m not so false, and neither is Alice. If she was, she could fawn after Theresa Treazleton. I didn’t like Alice because I ought to; I liked her because I did.
“If your mother’s too busy to take you—and if I know my sister, she will be, what with all this wedding folderol—I’ll take you to see Alice,” Aunt Vera said. “I can always do with a bit of shopping in town.”
I wondered if she was more keen to shop, or to have occasion to visit Grosvenor Square. But Aunt Vera wasn’t too terribly much of a snob. She was nowhere near as bad as Mother.