This harmless remark seemed to provoke the old woman. “Gentry,” she said peevishly, “are aye crackin’ aboot views. I never felt the need o’ a view if I had a guid fire. An’ I dinna haud wi’ Christmas. It’s juist Papacy. It fair scunners me to hear the wives aboot the doors a’ crackin’ aboot Christmas here an’ Christmas there. Ye canna blame the bairns for bein’ taen up wi’ Sandy Claws an’ hingin’ up their stockins, but it’s no’ for grown folk. . . . Whae tell’t ye that Christ was born on the 25th o’ December? It’s no’ in the Bible that I’ve ever seen. Juist will-worship, that’s what ma auld minister ca’ed it, an’ he kent. The verra word’s Popish—Christ-Mass.”
Nicole left the window and sat down by Betsy.
“Does it matter about all that?” she asked. “Isn’t it a good thing that we should keep one day for kind thoughts and goodwill to all men, because long ago in Bethlehem a baby was born?”
Betsy sniffed. “Ay, but I dinna haud wi’t. It was aye the New Year we keepit at Langhope. Thae were the days!”
“Did you have presents?”
“Na, we hed nae money for presents, but the bairns dressed up and went frae hoose to hoose playin’ at ‘Galatians’ and singin’
‘Get up, auld wife, an’ shake yer feathers,
Dinna think that we are beggars:
We are but children come to play—
Get up and gie’s oor Hogmanay.’
An’ we got oatcakes and cheese, and a lump o’ currant-loaf, and shortbreed, and we carried it a’ hame in oor pinnys.”
Nicole was sorting out parcels from her big bag.
“I don’t suppose,” she said, “that this shortbread will taste anything like as good, but it says on it ‘Frae Tweedside.’ ”
“So it does.” Betsy gazed admiringly at the sugar inscription. “It’s faur ower bonny to eat, I’ll juist pit it in a drawer.” Nicole exclaimed at the idea, and produced tea, and a warm woolly coat.
“These are from my mother with her best wishes. She hopes to come to see you very soon.”
Betsy sat with her hands on her gifts. “I dinna ken what to say. I’m no’ üsed bein’ noticed. Naebody ever brocht me things afore, no’ as muckle as a mask o’ tea. Lady Jane’s kindness is fair nonsense, but ye’ll tell her I’m muckle obleeged.”
“Mrs. Martin told me to tell you that she’ll be along this evening with some ‘kail.’ ”
“Ay, weel, it’s no’ a’body’s kail I’d sup. God gies the guid food, but the deil sends the cook. . . . But Agnes Martin’s a rale guid haund at kail.”
“Well, good-bye, Betsy, and—a Merry Christmas.”
“Na, I’m for nane o’ yer Christmases. I’ll gie you a wish for Ne’er day, for fear I dinna see ye—‘The awfullest luck ever ye kent and a man afore the year’s oot.’ ”
Nicole left her chuckling, and took her perilous way down the slippery stair to the home of Mrs. Brodie.
Mrs. Brodie was busy cleaning for the New Year and, like Betsy, seemed to take little stock in Christmas.
“Ay,” she said, leaning on her besom as Nicole produced her box, “the morn’s Christmas, but it maks nae odds here. It’s juist wark, wark, the same. The bairns get an orange an’ a screw o’ sweeties in their stockins, but that’s a’ the length we gang. It’s rale guid o’ yer mither to send thae things—Jimmie, I’ll warm yer lugs if ye dinna let that alane!—Is she gaun tae gie me a look in wan o’ thae days? I like fine to hae a crack wi’ her. Weel, guid day to ye, an’ thanks.”
Nicole left her parcels at Lucknow and at Knebworth, and then turned into the gate of Ravenscraig.
Miss Symington was, as usual, sitting in the dining-room, making up the accounts of one of the many societies she was interested in. There was no sign of festivity anywhere, not so much as a sprig of holly. To-night Alastair would hang up his stocking and she would go in on her way to bed and put some things in, she had these lying ready—a shilling and some walnuts in the toe, a pair of warm gloves, an orange, and a small packet of chocolates. Chatterbox would be laid on the breakfast-table, also a game sent by Mrs. Heggie, and a box of Meccano from the Bucklers. It was too much for one child, she thought, and she meant to tell him how many children had nothing but a crust of bread.
She added up columns rapidly as she sat, putting very neat figures into a pass-book. Then she put the books away and fetched some brown paper and string from a table in the corner. Nicole came springing in on her like a gay schoolgirl.
“Am I disturbing you? No, please go on packing. I’ve been at it for the last week, and to-day I’d never have got through if Barbara hadn’t given me a hand. She takes time by the fetlock, as my brother Ronnie used to say, and is always well beforehand.”
“These are just a few things that Annie will take out this evening,” Miss Symington said, cutting the end of a string carefully.
Nicole, watching her, said, “You don’t keep Christmas much in Kirkmeikle, do you? My efforts to be seasonable have been rather snubbed this afternoon; but Alastair keeps it, I’m sure. Will you put these things into his stocking, please? They are only little things, but they may amuse him. And this is for you. You won’t open it till to-morrow morning—promise? Now, I’m not going to stay a moment longer. A very Happy Christmas to you. No, don’t come to the door. . . .”
She heaved a sigh of relief as she left the dreary villa, and stood on the brae-face looking over the tumbled roofs to the sea, and saw the lights along the coast begin to twinkle greeting to the stars in the frosty sky.
“Quite like a Christmas number, isn’t it?” a voice said behind her, and she turned quickly to find Simon Beckett.
“Where are you wandering to, sir? I’ve been playing ‘Sandy Claws,’ as old Betsy puts it. . . . I thought you would have gone away to spend the festive season—falsely so called.”
Simon turned and walked by her side. “Watch how you go: it’s pretty slippery. . . . No, I’m not going away. I’ve only cousins to go to, anyway, and they don’t particularly want me. Besides, it hardly seemed worth while to go so far just now. I’m keen on getting my job done, and . . .”
“How are you getting on? You haven’t asked for any advice yet?”
“No—you see I’ve only now got the rough draft done: I’ve taken an age to it. It’s when I re-write and polish that I’ll be most grateful for help—only, I hardly like to bother you.”
“We’ll be enormously flattered and not in the least bothered. You know that. . . . I’ve been at Ravenscraig with some things for Alastair’s stocking. It was all so hopelessly uncheery for the poor lamb. When I think of our childhood—the fuss that was made, the thrill of the preparations, the mystery. It does make a difference having a mother, an aunt given to good works isn’t the same at all.”
Simon agreed. “I’ve got a train for him,” he said, “with rails. It only
