And, ‘P’raps Boxing Day,’ she had said to him gently, ‘I’ll come to tea on Boxing Day.’ Because she had not wanted to be away from the Bear on Christmas Day; perverse it may be to force herself through torment, but she did not want to be away from the Bear on any day.
‘Thank you,’ she said again, firmly suppressing the memory of a blunt, square, baffled face, ‘that would be nice.’
Nice? To sit at the same table as Ben Patten? To watch his meticulous attentions to his newly returned, pretty young wife who alternately glittered like a chandelier or sat in a strangely provocative, childlike silence, her eyes lit with secret dreams. Nice?
‘Good. Pa’s arranged for help in the kitchen so that Mrs Briggs can eat with us. A couple of friends of Peter’s are coming, too. It should be fun.’
Sally nodded. ‘I’ll look forward to it.’
And – blimey, she thought with deliberate wryness as Hannah turned to leave, I’m sounding more like one of them every day!
But not enough. Never enough.
* * *
Christmas Day went well. After the dreary weather that had preceded it, the day was clear and cold and bright. The children, apart from a couple of scuffles, behaved themselves well enough in church – at least until the last five minutes when the tooth and nail affair that broke out between Tom, Toby’s first lieutenant, and Billy Turner, his only real rival for the leadership of the children, was smartly broken up by Ralph and Ben. Toby himself knelt, hands joined in innocence before him, eyes fixed upon the candlelit altar, the very picture of cherubic boyhood, ignoring Sally’s furious glare. Dinner was suitably and predictably exhausting and thoroughly enjoyed by its young participants. Roast goose and roast potatoes, stuffing and sauce, cabbage and Brussels sprouts, all disappeared at lightning speed down young throats that still had time and breath to roar out Christmas carols or squabble with automatic rancour with a neighbour. The plum pudding and custard, Sally noted, kept them quiet for a full three minutes. Then it was blind man’s buff, hunt the thimble, musical chairs and yet another set-to between Tom and Billy.
‘Enough, you two!’ Sally hauled them apart and cuffed them with indiscriminate force. ‘One more squeak – just one! – and you’re in bed for the rest of the day! Now – upstairs, and quick about it. I want you all smartened up and clean as a whistle in fifteen minutes!’
Twenty minutes later they filed two by two, bright, shiny, brushed and for the moment overawed to silence, into the parlour. The small, communal gasp of pleasure and amazement when they saw the Christmas tree with its candles and its gleaming decorations brought smiles to the faces of those already assembled.
‘Is it magic?’ little Betsy whispered, and blushed scarlet as the words dropped loudly into the silence.
‘Yes, little one – that’s exactly what it is – magic!’ Peter Patten swept her into his arms, his fair, bright face alight with laughter and sudden tenderness. ‘Come on, play Saint Nicholas with me. Help me give out the presents.’
Hannah, with Sally’s help, had done her job well. Dolls and books, trains and puzzles, all were grasped by small eager hands that had held few enough such things before. For a short while even the roughest of the youngsters was subdued by the munificence. With awkward grace the gifts they themselves had made were handed out, and Sally was touched almost to tears by the ungainly picture of her that the babies had painstakingly painted, the shell box the older children had constructed and above all the small string of beads that Toby nonchalantly proffered. ‘I pinched them,’ he volunteered with an angelic smile, ‘from the ones the girls were sewing on to Miss Hannah’s box.’
She hugged him, blinking. ‘Thanks, Tobe. Here. I bought something for you, too.’ She fished in her pocket.
He stood with bowed head, looking at the shiny, brand new fountain pen that lay in his slim, pale fingers.
‘It’s – to help you with the scholarship. For – for good luck.’ She was taken aback by this stillness, the lack of reaction. Did he not, after all her thought, like her gift?
‘Thanks.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Thanks,’ he said again, and lifted his face for her kiss, the arms that he flung about her neck all but strangling her, saying the things his young tongue could not master.
‘You like it?’
‘It’s the best present I’ve ever had,’ he said simply. ‘And the best I ever will have.’
Tea was taken in a well-mannered calm that astounded even Sally, who was, it must be said, the source of the imaginative threats that had brought it about. The girls smiled and dimpled their ‘pleases’ and ‘thank yous’ and the boys did their level best to come up to such perfection.
‘Splendid!’ Doctor Will said beaming. ‘You’ve all been absolutely splendid! And as a reward – tomorrow you shall all go to the zoo! What do you think of that?’
Toby, ever a man for the moment, sprang to his feet. ‘Hurrah! Hurrah for Doctor Will! Hurrah for the zoo!’
The children cheered themselves hoarse.
‘Hurrah for everyone! Hurrah for Christmas!’
The adults, laughing, joined in that one.
‘Hurrah for a quick story and hurrah for bed,’ Sally said crisply, sensing the moment with a sure instinct. Little Bessie, having eaten more in one day than she would usually manage in a week, was looking decidedly pale.
‘O-oh!’ The chorus, disappointed though it was, could not disguise a certain weariness. It had been a very long day.
Sally clapped her hands. ‘Zoo tomorrow, so a good night’s sleep tonight. But before you go – what do you say?’ She was suddenly, uncomfortably aware of Ben’s eyes upon her, his face relaxed and laughing.
Toby, still standing, raised his small hands elegantly, like the conductor of a symphony orchestra. ‘Thank you, Doctor Will,’ the children chanted obediently, grinning. ‘Thank you, Miss Hannah. Thank you, Mr Ralph. God bless you, and a merry Christmas.’ And then, forgetting at this last moment the hard-drilled lessons of the week before, in a tangle of arms and legs, pushing and tumbling like unruly puppies, they left the table and fled through the door, the bounty of their presents clutched in sticky fingers, the prospect of tomorrow’s outing lighting their eyes like beacons.
Sally, about to follow them found herself stopped by a hand on her arm. ‘Wonderful work, Miss Smith,’ Doctor Will said. ‘You’ve got the little barbarians eating out of your hand.’
She laughed. ‘Not quite. But thanks anyway.’
‘Your speciality, is it? Taming barbarians?’ It was Ben, the rugged face creased into laughter. She lifted her head and for a moment their eyes met. The communication between them was instant and warm and totally unexpected for them both. Some flash of laughter, an instinctive rapport, flickered between them. She had not imagined it; she knew she had not. A sudden, irrational and blinding happiness rose. She felt the warmth of colour creep into her face.
‘Why?’ She tilted her head in smiling challenge, ‘Do you know any that need it?’
For the strangest moment they might have been the only people in the full and chattering room. The quality of his smile changed as she watched, the long sweep of his dark lashes veiled his eyes. Her heart all but stopped, laughter fled. ‘I think’, she said, carefully composed, ‘that Betsy might be going to be sick. I’d better go.’
‘You are coming to dine this evening?’ Doctor Will asked genially.
She tore her eyes from a strangely questing, even more strangely uncertain face of his son, who stood looking at her she thought as if he had never seen her before. ‘Yes, I’m coming,’ she smiled a swift smile, directed at anyone and everyone but Ben, ‘after I’ve seen the barbarians tucked safely into bed.’
* * *
Sally spent more time before her mirror that night than she ever had in her life, though that, to be truthful, was not saying much in an age when a lady of leisure might contrive to spend the best part of her day so. She had no special dress to wear; her two good, serviceable white blouses and dark skirt we
re her only decent clothes, but she had washed and neatly pressed the prettier of the two blouses and had accepted gratefully from Bron the offer of a small brooch to pin at the neck. The sleeves were puffed at the shoulder and were full and soft to the wrist, disguising, she hoped, the lack of plump, soft flesh that no amount of Mrs Briggs’s wholesome cooking seemed to remedy. She was still thin and angular, her face narrow, the bones prominent. Piling the weight of her brown hair inexpertly upon her head she admitted a little ruefully that even in the softening candlelight no one would ever call her a beauty. But her skin at least was now clean, clear and smooth, her hair shone and her long-lashed, slanting eyes beneath their dark, tilted brows were bright. She leaned closer to the mirror inspecting the white scar that flawed her lower lip. Ben Patten had done a good job – her always slightly lopsided smile was perhaps a little more crooked, but the scar did not disfigure. She sat back. So; it might not be a pretty face that looked steadily back at her – but it was hers, and it was like no other face she knew. That would have to do.
She stuck the last pin firmly into her hair, gave her reflection one last, long and far from enchanted inspection and prepared to take herself downstairs.
Dinner was a far more rowdy affair than she had expected, thanks mainly to Peter Patten and his two sidekicks who, flushed with wine and the glory of the season made sure that not one dull moment was allowed to intrude upon the fun. A constant stream of jokes and anecdotes kept the company laughing, whilst the young men indulged with some gusto in fulsome compliments and outrageous flirtation with every female at the table, from the plump, flustered and flattered Mrs Briggs and the blushing Bron to the over-gay, exquisitely pretty Charlotte. Every now and again, by way of a change Peter would demand a Christmas carol, and the loved old words would echo heartily around the ancient room that must have heard them so many times before. The meal was splendid and passed in a tempest of conversation and laughter. Sally, seated between Peter and a friend he had introduced as Crispin, found herself the target of her fair share of attention. Crispin, who had obviously enjoyed a tot or two before arriving at the Bear, spent a good deal of time with his hand upon her knee; she spent an equal amount of time laughingly but firmly removing it. The candles in their silver candlesticks upon the table gleamed and flickered upon the happy faces, shone in the glasses, glowed in the wine.
‘A toast!’ Peter jumped to his feet as the last of the great plum pudding was carried away and the glasses were charged yet again.
A silence fell, in which Bron giggled loudly and then, blushing furiously fell to silence as smiling eyes turned to her. Crispin, sitting opposite her, discreetly removed his foot from hers and attempted once more an exploration of Sally’s upper leg. Very firmly, as she might have with an errant puppy or kitten, she picked up his hand and placed it back on the table. He smiled winningly.
‘To Mrs Briggs, her helpers and her splendid dinner! The King himself can’t have partaken of a better feast!’
‘Hear, hear!’ The toast was drunk.
‘And to us all.’ Peter looked affectionately from face to face. ‘As a more literary brain than mine has put it: God bless us, every one!’
Again glasses were lifted amidst a smiling murmur.
‘And now—’ he waved his arm, a general commanding his troops, ‘—to the parlour. And bring your glasses. There’s champagne for everyone.’
The parlour was bright with lamps and candles, the tree glowed in its corner. Beneath it a new pile of presents had been laid. Amidst squeals and cries of delight they were handed out.
‘Oh, Peter, how lovely! Do, please, help me to put it on!’ Obligingly Peter clasped a small locket about his pretty sister-in-law’s neck.
‘My goodness, how splendid.’ Will eyed his new pipe a little doubtfully.
Hannah kissed him. ‘I just hope it smells a little better than the old one!’
‘Well, I do declare!’ Mrs Briggs held up a pair of soft slippers, ‘Just look at that! And quite the right size, too!’
Ralph leafed through a book, lost to the world for a moment, oblivious of them all. Ben and Hannah exchanged amused and affectionate glances.
Hannah came to Sally, smiling. ‘For you. From us all.’
Startled, Sally took the small, soft package. ‘But—’ she stopped, embarrassed. Although now earning her keep her salary was no fortune and every spare penny she had saved had gone on the pen for Toby.
Hannah beamed. ‘Open it, then.’
She tore the paper, looked in absolute silence at the pretty tumble of soft green silk in her lap.
‘Do you like it?’ Hannah asked, a little anxiously.
‘I’ve never seen anything so pretty,’ Sally said simply. ‘Never.’ She lifted the blouse, with its drift of lace at collar and cuffs, held the soft material to her face.
‘The colour will suit you very well. It matches your eyes.’
‘But – I haven’t got anything to give—’
‘Oh, nonsense.’ Hannah interrupted her briskly, ‘No one would expect it. Happy Christmas, my dear fellow prisoner!’ and she dropped a laughing kiss on Sally’s cheek which, even more than the present had a rather alarming effect on Sally’s emotions. She blinked rapidly. Entirely unable to speak, she smiled her thanks.
‘And now,’ Peter again had assumed the role of master of ceremonies, ‘ladies and gentlemen, for your delight and delectation,’ he paused, grinning, savouring the puzzled expectancy on the faces about him ‘the pièce de rèsistance!’ He walked to the table, upon which lay a solid, rectangular shape hidden beneath a fringed shawl. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, girls and boys – here it is! – my present to the household.’ With a dramatic gesture he whipped the shawl away to reveal a long, beautifully inlaid box that shone with a mellow loveliness in the light, its elaborately decorated brass hinges and lock shining like gold. The company pressed forward, murmuring at the sheer beauty of the thing.
‘But – what is it?’ Charlotte ran a small finger in wonder over the shining wood and then, in sudden understanding, delightedly answered her own question. ‘Oh, Peter! It isn’t—? It is! A musical box!’
Pleased with the effect of his gift Peter leaned forward and lifted the heavy lid, revealing to gasps of admiration an extraordinary arrangement of brass cylinders and bells, the whole thing polished and gleaming like precious metal.
‘Oh, look! Butterflies!’ Charlotte clapped her hands. ‘Oh, Peter – quickly! – how do you play it?’
He leaned forward and flicked a switch. There was a whirr and a click, loud in the expectant silence, and then the cylinder began to turn and the music played, clear and precisely beautiful, intricate and charming as the pattern of sunshine on water. The bells chimed, struck prettily by the metal butterflies that, on their slender metal rods, swooped about the box in time to the lilting music.
‘Oh, Danube so blue—’ Peter had seized the giggling Bron and was waltzing her about the room, ‘la-la, la-la.’
In moments Crispin had caught Charlotte about the waist and Ralph had taken Hannah’s hand. The musical box played on, weaving an enchantment of sound such as Sally had never in her life imagined could exist.
She of all of them had made no sound, no exclamation. She stared at the lovely thing like a child, in wonder, watching the magic intricacies of its movement, enthralled by the chiming music. The harps of the angels could not have sounded lovelier to her ears.
She heard Charlotte, ‘Peter! What extravagance! It must have cost a fortune!’
Peter leaned to her ear, a wary eye on his father. ‘Had a bit of luck on the gee-gees, actually.’
‘Wicked!’ She pushed him playfully.
Fascinated, Sally watched the slowly turning cylinder, with its bright brass pins. She had never seen anything so amazing in her whole life.
‘Let’s push the chairs back – make a bit more room. Then we can all dance.’
‘Why aren’t you dancing?’ Peter’s other friend, whose name she had not caught, slid an
arm about her waist. ‘Come on, join the fun. “After the ball was over, After the night was through”.’
It was undoubtedly the loveliest evening she had ever experienced. She danced with Peter, she danced – rather less exuberantly – with Doctor Will. She shared a glass of champagne with Crispin and drank another all to herself. She laughed a lot and talked more about nothing than she would ever have believed possible. And then she turned to find Ben beside her, that dear, warm smile lighting his square face, a hand held out in invitation. She stepped into his arms as if it were the most natural thing in the world to do. The room was crowded. Crispin and Hannah bumped into them, careered away. Ben’s arms tightened about her protectively. She could feel the warmth of him, the incredible, unlikely strength of the man, smell the indefinably male smell of him. She closed her eyes. They danced in absolute silence, a small bubble of intimacy in that noisy room. The musical box was slowing down. Peter disengaged himself from Bron’s eager arms. ‘Wait, everyone. It just needs rewinding—’
They stood very close, Ben’s arm about her waist, hers resting lightly upon his shoulder, their other hands clasped, waiting for the music. Then Sally lifted her head to look at him; and caught her breath at what she saw. If at any time over these past, confused weeks she had convinced herself that the intense attraction she felt for Ben Patten was not returned, in that moment such doubts were dispelled. Before he could veil it she saw the deep hunger in his eyes as he looked at her. They stood for a moment in still silence amidst the talk and the laughter.
‘There we are – Oh, Danube so blue—’ Peter waltzed back into Bron’s waiting arms. The couples about them started to move. For an odd, suspended second Sally and Ben stood, still and alone, looking at each other. And then the spell was broken. They moved with the music, a little stiffly, awkward with each other. He steered her to the table where the champagne and glasses stood.
‘A little refreshment. It’s really remarkably warm in here.’ He poured two glasses of champagne, handed her one, drank his own much too quickly.
Tomorrow, Jerusalem Page 26