to, trains never fail one—— What are you doing to-morrow?”
“Nothing special. I thought I’d treat myself to a really long walk.”
“We’re quite alone,” Nicole told him. “After your walk it would be a kind act if you’d eat your Christmas dinner with us—7.30—and afterwards we’ll sit round the fire and talk. . . . Isn’t it jolly to-night? The moon and the snowy roofs and the lights in the frosty air. And look at that little steamer, plugging along! Where are you going to, you funny little boat? Don’t you know what night this is?”
CHAPTER XVII
“Go humbly; humble are the skies,
And low and large and fierce the Star;
So very near the manger lies
That we may travel far.”
G. K. Chesterton.
When Alastair had almost finished dressing on Christmas morning, Gentle Annie suddenly dumped a parcel on the dressing-table, announcing, “That’s ma present.”
Alastair looked shyly at it, making no effort to discover its contents.
“Open’t. Here! See!” Annie quickly whipped off the paper and disclosed, on a stand, a round glass globe containing a miniature cottage, which, when shaken, became surrounded with whirling snow-flakes.
“It’s a snow-storm,” she declared triumphantly. “It cost one shilling and sixpence.”
“Oh, Annie, how could you afford it?” Alastair asked anxiously.
“Aw, weel, I wanted a strong ane this time. The last I got was a shilling, an’ I brocht it back from Langtoun in aside ma new hat, for I thocht that would be a safe place, but when I won hame I fand it had broken, and a’ the water and white stuff—I think it’s juist bakin’ soda—was ower ma hat.”
Alastair shook the globe and produced a most realistic snow-scene.
“Is the snow really only baking soda?” he asked rather sadly.
“Ay, but it does fine. We’ll pit it on the mantelpiece for an ornamint, an’ juist shake it whiles, an’ then it’ll no get broken in a hurry. . . . By! but ye’re weel off gettin’ a’ thae things in yer stockin’. . . . Dinna brush yer hair till yer jersey’s on. D’ye no see ye pit it a’ wrang again?—Noo, rin awa’ doon to yer breakfast, like a guid laddie, and be sure and say ‘a Merry Christmas’ to yer auntie.”
But Alastair, very pink in the face, was thrusting something into Annie’s hand.
“It’s my present, a purse. I bought it at Jimmie Nisbet’s when I was out with Mr. Beckett. D-d’you like it?”
“By! it’s a braw ane,” said Annie. She saw that it was really a tobacco pouch, but Alastair had bought it for a purse and she wouldn’t enlighten him. “I’ll keep ma chance-money in’t, and aye carry it when I’m dressed.”
Alastair, blushing with pleasure to hear that his present was valued, and carrying the contents of his stocking, ran downstairs. He was well content with the beginning of his day, and ready to enjoy anything that might turn up.
“Good morning, Aunt Janet,” he said; “a Merry Christmas,” his eyes all the time fixed on his place at the breakfast-table. There were parcels there!
“Good morning, Alastair. A Happy Christmas. I hope you’re a grateful boy to-day. Just think of all the poor children who will get no presents. . . . No, sup your porridge, and eat your bread and butter before you touch a parcel.”
Miss Symington had never much to say to her nephew except in the way of reproof, and breakfast was eaten more or less in silence. When they had finished the bell was rung for prayers, and the servants came in and sat on chairs near the door, while their mistress read a chapter and a prayer, and Alastair said the text which Annie had to teach him every morning. At first she had opened the Bible and chosen a verse at random, and Alastair had come down and repeated, “All the Levites in the Holy City were two hundred, fourscore and four,” or something equally relevant, until Miss Symington gave her a text-book which she was working steadily through.
“Your text, Alastair,” his aunt said on this Christmas morning, and Alastair’s flute-like voice repeated gravely, “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when ye shall say, I have no pleasure in them.”
To Alastair there was no sense in the words, but he liked the sound of them, the rhythm . . . Remember now thy Creator. . . . “May I open my parcels now?”
Miss Symington had not much to open. The postman would bring her some cards and booklets, doubtless. Mrs. Lambert had sent her a tray cloth, her own work, and Mrs. Heggie—with a thought, perhaps, of Alastair—a box of candied fruit. And there was Miss Rutherfurd’s box. It stood on the sideboard, a seductive-looking parcel wrapped in white paper and tied with carnation silk ribbon. What could it be! Surely not chocolates. . . . Slowly she untied the ribbon, undid the paper, took off the lid of the box and lifted out the fragile gilt bowl. She sniffed. Bath salts—geranium. That was the scent Miss Rutherfurd always used. Well, really! Miss Symington sat back in her chair and looked at the frivolous, pretty thing. No one had ever thought of giving her such a present before. A thought came vaguely to her that the gift was like the giver, the glow of it, the brightness, the fragrance.
While Alastair played, absorbed, she gathered up the box with the bowl, and the ribbon, and carried them up to her room.
The window was wide open to the frosty air, the bed stripped, and airing. She looked round for a place to put her present. The dressing-table was covered with the silver brushes and mirror her parents had given her on her twenty-first birthday. There was a large pin-cushion too, and two silver-topped bottles that would not unscrew. It looked crowded, and she remembered Nicole’s dressing-table when she had once been taken into her room to see something, a table, old and beautiful in itself, covered with plate-glass, with nothing on it but a standing mirror and a bowl of flowers. Everything else, Nicole had explained, lived in the drawers of the table: it was tidier so, she thought.
Janet then tried the bowl on the mantelpiece, but decided at once that it couldn’t stand there. It was an ugly painted wood mantelpiece, with a china ornament at each end and a photograph of the Scott Monument in the middle, and the Venetian bowl looked forlornly out of its element, as a nymph might have looked at an Educational Board meeting.
There was a fine old walnut chest of drawers opposite the window. It had a yellowish embroidered cover on it which Janet whisked off, leaving it bare. That was better. The wood was beautiful, and the bowl stood proudly regarding its own reflection in the polished depths.
Janet was surprised at her own feeling of pleasure and satisfaction in her new possession. After all, there was, she thought, something rather nice about having pretty things about one. But, the worst of it was that one pretty thing was apt to make everything else look uglier. That wall-paper! It had been chosen for its lasting qualities, but she acknowledged to herself that it was far from beautiful. Suppose the walls were made cream? It would make
