‘She’ll be the death of me, Ted.’
Ted’s eyes were twinkling.
‘Come on, my old trouble, for she’ll be the death of both of us if her light lunch isn’t served pronto.’
Virginia, the daughter Mrs Cornelius told the Chrystals she had given her first husband, had, by her mother’s standards, made a poor marriage. For she had married Tom Oswald, who not only had no money of his own, but was not much good at earning it. Mrs Cornelius, when Virginia had collected sufficient courage to tell her whom she was marrying, had been so disgusted she had refused to attend the wedding, and had not seen Virginia since. But though her mother might think Tom Oswald a poor sort of husband, Virginia knew him to be a perfect one, for he was warm, loving, and of a happy disposition, all qualities she had been unused to in her own home. Tom was a gardener, a job that was not well paid but at which he was very good. Where Tom gardened there was a cottage, and in it Virginia’s and Tom’s children, Alan and Benita, had grown up to the ages of fourteen and twelve without ever seeing or thinking about their Cornelius grandmother.
It had been one of the few mornings that the Oswalds’ cottage had not been full of laughter when the invitation arrived to spend Christmas in Caldecote Castle. Tom and Virginia, for the sake of the children, tried not to show how depressed and frightened the letter of invitation made them, but they were not successful, for Alan and Benita were intelligent.
‘Must we go?’ Alan asked. ‘She’s never bothered with us before.’
‘Christmas is always perfect here,’ Benita pleaded. ‘Don’t let’s go.’
Mrs Cornelius would not have believed her ears if she could have heard Tom’s answer to his children.
‘Poor old lady. We mustn’t be selfish, we have so much and she’s got nothing. Let’s give her one nice Christmas to remember.’
Mrs Cornelius’s second husband had been a Mr Silas P. Dawson, an American. By him she had a son called James. Mr Dawson had been immensely rich and it had been his intention that James should be rich too, but he had died while James was a small child and so had left his fortune to his wife, expecting her to provide for James. And so she would have done if James had behaved as she expected him to. But James had not, for he had fallen in love with a pretty penniless school teacher, and insisted on marrying her, and a year later had died, leaving behind him a baby son called Gardiner. Mrs Cornelius felt that James’s death relieved her of responsibility. ‘That girl Lalla he married,’ she told herself, ‘supported herself as a teacher before she married him, so I suppose she can continue to do so. I will, however, provide for Gardiner in my will.’
That keeping yourself as a school teacher was one thing, and keeping yourself and a baby son was another had not struck Mrs Cornelius, and Lalla, who was proud, would not write to explain and ask for help. Instead, somehow she managed, and though she and Gardiner lived in two rooms in downtown New York, which were far too hot in summer and dismally cold in winter, they not only managed to survive but to enjoy themselves.
Gardiner had scarcely heard of Grandmother Cornelius, but he was wild with excitement at the thought of the journey by jet plane, which was part of the invitation.
‘Gee, a jet plane! Will that be something to tell the other boys!’
Mrs Cornelius’s living husband, old Hans Cornelius, lived outside Cape Town in an exquisite white Cape Dutch house. Just a couple of miles away his son Jan lived in another beautiful house with his wife Anna and their three children, Peter who was ten, and the two little girls, Jane who was eight and Rinke seven.
Christmas comes in the summer in South Africa, so when Jan drove over with Anna to show his father their letter from Mrs Cornelius, they found him in his rose garden, which was in full flower.
Old Hans smelt a glorious golden rose before he gave his opinion.
‘I would like to say no. Why should we leave our beautiful South Africa to go to cold foggy England? But your mother, Jan, is no longer young and no doubt lonely, so if you can make the sacrifice, Anna, my dear, I think we should all go, for it will be a treat for her to see your children.’
The families arrived at the castle within half an hour of each other. The first to get there were Gardiner and his mother. Miss Smith, trying by the warmth of her smile to build her small mouse-coloured self into a whole reception committee, met them in the hall and showed them to their rooms, and, as she did so, her spirits bounded upwards. For in Lalla she saw not a frightening, demanding American daughter-in-law belonging to Mrs Cornelius, but a tired young woman, with a face prematurely lined from standing too long hours in the store where she worked, and with hair turning grey from the worry of making ends meet. And so Miss Smith did something she had never dreamed she would be doing to one of the daughters-in-law, she put an arm through Lalla’s and said: ‘You must rest while you are here. I shall see you have breakfast in bed every day.’
Alan and Benita, as soon as they arrived, were turned out of their rooms by their mother who, looking at the vast amount of cupboard space, had decided she would unpack for the family, and so, by skilful laying out and hanging up, disguise how few clothes they possessed. So Gardiner, prowling along a passage, ran slap into them.
‘’Lo,’ he said, pleasantly surprised by Alan’s appearance, for he had on his grey flannel trousers and he had supposed all English boys wore short pants. ‘I’m Gardiner. You’ll be Alan and Benita. Gee, this is a big place and unfriendly some way.’
‘Have the others come, the South African ones?’ Benita asked.
Gardiner dismissed the Cornelius children.
‘Naw. Come on, let’s explore.’
It was exploring that took Alan, Benita and Gardiner into the kitchen. They reached it by way of the thickly carpeted front hall, where every corner was set with formally staged groups of pot plants.
‘Like a funeral parlour,’ Gardiner whispered. ‘How say we see what’s through this green door?’
To the children the kitchen was immediately home. Rosa and Ted were having an early cup of tea, and without invitation the three pulled up chairs and joined them.
‘How come,’ Gardiner asked, looking appreciatively at the cards and holly, ‘you’ve got all this out here and we’ve got nothing back there?’
Rosa passed him a cup of tea.
‘You’re seeing your Granny after tea. I’m sure you’ve only got to ask and she’ll send for a tree and holly and that.’
Benita, relaxing for the first time since she had reached the castle, took the slice of cake Ted offered her.
‘It’s not that we need a tree exactly, but it’s not like Christmas without one. At home Dad cuts down a tree and we all decorate it.’
‘I daresay your Dad could do the same here,’ said Ted, ‘there’s plenty of trees in the grounds.’
Alan shook his head.
‘I don’t reckon Dad would face up to that. Out there,’ he pointed vaguely towards the front of the castle, ‘it’s like a posh hotel, you couldn’t mess it up, and you can’t trim a tree without mess.’
The Cornelius children might be small but they were bright. So while their mother was unpacking, cheeping like sparrows and as if they had always known the castle, they hurried along the bedroom corridor, down the main staircase, through the baize-covered door which divided the kitchen world from the rest of the house, straight to Rosa, Ted and their new cousins. They stood in the doorway, beaming.
‘Hullo,’ said Peter, ‘I’m Peter, this is Jane and this is Rinke. We’re hungry.’
Rosa fetched some more cups from where they were hanging on the dresser.
‘Bring up three chairs, Ted. Do you drink milk or tea, dears?’
When the children were fetched by Miss Smith to come to the drawing-room, something made the six know they must not tell Grandmother Cornelius that they had made friends with the Chrystals. Instead they told her about each other, to the great amusement of old Hans Cornelius, who was watching Mrs Cornelius’s face.
After they had all b
een introduced Rinke said, ‘Do you know, Grandmother Cornelius, Benita’s father is a gardener, which means they can have all the vegetables they need, which is lucky, for they can’t often have meat.’
‘Imagine that,’ Jane added. ‘We have meat every day, don’t you, Grandmother Cornelius?’
‘Gardiner’s mother works in a store,’ Peter piped up, ‘so Gardiner’s always had to get his own lunch. He makes sandwiches of anything that’s in the ice box; when there isn’t much he makes do with bread.’
Gardiner thought that was enough about him. He jerked his head towards the three Cornelius children and gave a wink.
‘They were wondering how Santa gets to find his way in a place this size, but I told them he’d figure it out, that’s right, isn’t it?’
‘We were wondering about a tree, Grandmother Cornelius,’ Benita said softly. ‘I mean, it needn’t cost anything, I’m sure there’s one about Dad could cut down.’
‘And we could make the ornaments,’ Alan suggested hopefully, ‘fir cones and that, painted.’
Mrs Cornelius, who had been silenced by the shower of talk, made a signal to Miss Smith.
‘Order a tree and tell them to send decorations, and people to hang them up.’
‘And there ought to be masses and masses of parcels in coloured paper,’ Jane prompted, ‘there always are.’
Mrs Cornelius had not had a Christmas present for so long she had forgotten about them. She gave another signal to Miss Smith.
‘And order parcels suitably packed.’
Twelve eyes stared at her. Rinke spoke for them all.
‘That,’ she said firmly, ‘is not the way to buy Christmas presents. You choose them.’
Gardiner looked round the beautifully furnished but unlived-in room.
‘Don’t you get cards at Christmas, Grandmother Cornelius?’
Miss Smith caught old Hans Cornelius’s eye. It said: ‘That’s enough for one night. Take them away.’ Miss Smith took the hint.
‘Come along, dears. It’s time you younger ones went to bed,’ and she swept the children out of the room.
The grown-ups’ dinner having been served and washed up, the Chrystals, Alan, Benita and Gardiner sat down to their own supper. A splendid meal where everybody ate something different, and all helped themselves. And it was then that the children learned something strange. It came out when Rosa and Ted were showing them their Christmas cards.
‘Why,’ Benita asked, ‘does this one say “To the best goose that ever laid a golden egg”?’
Ted looked at Rosa, who smiled cosily back at him.
‘Tell them. They won’t say anything and they’ll like to hear.’
‘Well, it’s this way,’ said Ted. ‘I’ve been an actor all my life.’
‘And none better,’ put in Rosa.
‘But my speciality was animals.’
‘More especially geese,’ said Rosa. ‘I reckon there’s never been a goose in panto to touch him.’
Rosa and Ted, helped out by Alan and Benita, had to explain to Gardiner what a pantomime was, and then he found it hard to believe there were such entertainments.
‘The mother’s a man called a dame, the principal man is played by a girl, and you come on as a goose. I haven’t seen nothing yet!’
It was with difficulty Rosa and Ted urged the children to bed, for they knew they must be tired, and they themselves had a long, hard day ahead of them.
‘I tell you what, though,’ said Rosa, ‘tomorrow I’ll get Miss Smith to buy paper for making paper-rings; we always had them when I was a child.’
‘That’s right,’ Ted agreed, ‘smashing decorations they make.’
‘Even the little ones can make them,’ Rosa went on, ‘and while you’re doing it Ted shall tell you about working in a pantomime.’
To the dismay of the adults the next day was hopelessly wet, so wet that even the men could only manage a short walk in the dripping castle grounds. But the children did not mind how much it rained. All the morning they were busy, helping to prepare the lunch; then when they had eaten a splendid meal themselves, the paper for ring-making arrived and they settled round a table with a vast pot of paste made by Rosa, and Ted sat with them, talking in his slow way about pantomimes. Sometimes he demonstrated.
‘Then I’d come to the footlights, like this; wonderful music I had for that bit, and acted like I was heartbroken, see, for I was turned out, me that was part of the family.’
Rosa hummed Ted’s goose music, and Ted, in spite of the fact that he was wearing ordinary trousers held up over his shirt by braces, and an apron tied round him, seemed to the children to become a goose.
During tea, Ted, helped out by Rosa, imitated principal boys they had known, and to see him swaggering up and down the kitchen as if he was a lovely girl with magnificent legs in tights was really something. So it was to a kitchen echoing with laughter that Miss Smith came from the sad bridge-playing drawing-room to fetch the children to see their grandmother. It was after this visit that they decided to keep their decorations a secret.
‘Good evening, children,’ said Mrs Cornelius. ‘What have you been doing today?’
The children had not planned what to answer if they were asked that, so Peter said, ‘Playing.’
‘When is the tree being erected?’ Mrs Cornelius asked Miss Smith.
‘Now,’ Miss Smith twittered. ‘It can be lighted tonight.’
‘Trees,’ said Jane, ‘aren’t lighted until Christmas Eve. That’s when you have your presents.’
Alan disagreed with that.
‘We don’t have ours till Christmas Day.’
‘We don’t get a tree,’ Gardiner broke in. ‘Mum can’t afford one.’
In the little silence that fell after that old Hans Cornelius looked at Mrs Cornelius.
‘We wouldn’t have one either if Dad didn’t get it free,’ said Benita.
On the way back to the kitchen the children had a small committee meeting.
‘Let’s keep our rings for the kitchen part of the castle,’ Peter suggested. ‘It’s much the nicest bit.’
Alan had another idea. ‘And I’ll find a little tree in the grounds, there’s heaps of room for it at the end of the kitchen.’
The Chrystals were delighted when they heard what was planned.
‘Oh, I would like a tree,’ said Rosa, ‘it’s years since I had one. And I tell you what we’ll do, we’ll put the lights out on Christmas Eve and light the tree and leave the curtains undrawn; they say you should always have lights in the window on a Christmas Eve to show the Christ Child the way.’
Rinke put her arms as far as they would go round Rosa.
‘Darling, darling Rosa, could we sing carols round your tree?’
‘It’s the only place we could,’ Alan pointed out, ‘carols would sound all wrong in any other part of the castle.’
The tree, decorated quietly and efficiently by girls and men sent with it, was lit that evening. When it was finished, Miss Smith, who had long ago become ‘Smithy’ to the children, dug them out of the kitchen to admire it.
‘Mrs Cornelius will want to know that you’ve seen it.’
‘It’s a very neat tree,’ said Jane.
Benita looked up at the shining new decorations.
‘It seems as if it felt embarrassed here.’
Alan was looking at the parcels under the tree.
‘Smithy, how will Grandmother Cornelius know which is for which?’ he asked. ‘There’s no labels.’
‘They’ve left a chart, dear,’ Miss Smith explained. ‘Blue paper for men. Green for women. Red for boys. Yellow for girls.’
Jane started to move back towards the kitchen. ‘Just like a Santa does in a shop.’
It was that night that the first grown-up dared to break out from the drawing-room. It was old Hans Cornelius; he was not playing in the rubber of bridge which was going on, so he slipped quietly out of the room, and, like a homing pigeon, found his way through the green baize door.
The Chrystals, Alan, Benita and Gardiner were having Welsh rarebit for supper, and while they ate it Ted was describing a night when the curtain had stuck and would not come down at the end of Dick Whittington.
‘And there was Miss Dolores Dear, always one to be upset easily, stepping forward and saying:
“And now we’ve had enough of this and that,
“Let’s say farewell to Whittington …” and that was where I had to come forward for the “and cat”, but the curtain stuck, so she starts again and …’
Old Hans had come in so quietly that at first they did not see him standing in the doorway. Then he said, ‘That Welsh rarebit smells very good, Mrs Chrystal. Could I have a bit?’
Old Hans told Jan where he had been, and Jan told Anna, and Anna told Lalla, and Lalla told Virginia, who, of course, passed on the news to Tom. So the next day, which was Christmas Eve, there was great rivalry amongst the grown-ups to cut out of the bridge rubbers, for it was so lovely and Christmassy in the kitchen, with paper-rings festooned across the ceiling and a jolly little tree in the window.
‘And tonight we’re going to light it,’ said Rinke.
‘And leave the curtains open,’ Jane explained.
‘Rosa says it’s to show Jesus the way to come,’ Gardiner added.
‘If you can get out of playing bridge, Mummy,’ Benita implored, ‘do come here after dinner, for that’s when we shall sing carols.’
‘The kids,’ Alan explained, nodding at Peter, Jane and Rinke, ‘are coming down in their dressing-gowns.’
‘I’ll be there somehow,’ Virginia promised.
‘I wouldn’t miss it,’ said old Hans.
‘Nor us,’ Jan and Anna agreed.
‘Count on me,’ Tom stated firmly.
‘What about you?’ Gardiner asked his mother.
‘I’ll be there,’ said Lalla.
So that evening, after dinner, on one excuse and another, everybody slipped out of the drawing-room and away to the kitchen, until Mrs Cornelius, with the cards in front of her, had no one with whom to play bridge. She rang the bell for Miss Smith, but Miss Smith, enraptured, was in the kitchen and did not hear it. Furiously Mrs Cornelius rang again, and again nobody came. So, determined to tell everybody what she thought of them, she left the drawing-room and marched out into the great hall. She might, and very nearly did, miss opening the green baize door, but something guided her to it.
Christmas with the Chrystals & Other Stories (A Puffin Book) Page 2