Poor Relations Part 38

Hilda and her son still sat in mute self-righteousness; and Grandmama, who always had her breakfast in bed, was not present to defend Hugh.

"If it had been anywhere except on the lawn right in front of my room,"

John began more mildly.

"We tried to combine suitability of site with facility of access,"

Laurence condescended to explain. "But pray do not say another word," he added, waving his fingers like magic wands to induce John's silence.

"The idea of my little Gazebo does not appeal to you. That is enough. I do not grudge the money already spent upon the foundations. Further discussion will irritate us all, and I for one have no wish to disturb the harmony of the season." Then exchanging his tone of polite martyrdom for the suave jocularity of a vicar, he continued: "And when are we to expect our Yuletide guests? I hear that the greater portion of your luggage is still in the care of the station-master at Wrottesford. If I can do anything to aid in the transport of what rumor says is our Christmas commissariat, do not hesitate to call upon my services. I am giving the Muse a holiday and am ready for anything. Harold, pa.s.s the marmalade, please."

John felt incapable of further argument with Laurence and Hugh in combination, and having gained his point, he let the subject of the Gazebo drop. He was glad that Miss Hamilton was not here; he felt that she might have been rather contemptuous of what he tried to believe was "good-nature," but recognized in his heart as "meekness," even "feebleness."

"When are Cousin Bertram and Cousin Viola coming?" Harold asked.

"Wow-wow-wow!" Hugh imitated, and he was probably expressing the general opinion of Harold's re-entry into the breakfast-table conversation.

"For goodness' sake, boy, don't talk about them as if they were elderly colonial connections," John commanded with the resurgent valor that Harold always inspired. "Bertram and Viola are coming to-morrow. By the way, Hilda, is there any accommodation for a monkey? I don't know for certain, but Bertram talked vaguely of bringing a monkey down. Possibly a small annex could be attached to the chickenhouse."

"A monkey?" Edith exclaimed in alarm. "Oh, I hope it won't attack dear Frida."

"I shall shoot him, if he does," Harold boasted. "I shot a mole last week."

"No, you didn't, you young liar," Hugh contradicted. "It was killed by the trap."

"Harold is always a very truthful little boy," said his mother, glaring.

"Is he? I hadn't noticed it," Hugh retorted.

"Far be it from me to indulge in odious comparisons," Laurence interposed, grandly. "But I cannot help being a trifle--ah--tickled by so much consideration's being exhibited on account of the temporary lodging of a monkey and so much animus--however, don't let us rake up a disagreeable topic."

John thought it was a pity that his brother-in-law had not felt the same about raking up the lawn when after breakfast he was telling Huggins to fill in the hole and hearing that it was unlikely to lose the scar for a long time.

"You could have knocked me down with a feather, sir, when they started in hacking away at a lovely piece of turf like that."

"I'm sure I could," John agreed, warmly.

"But what's done can't be undone, and the best way to mend a bad job would be to make a bed for ornamental annuals. Yes, sir, a nice bed in the shape of a star--or a sh.e.l.l."

"No thanks, Huggins, I should prefer gra.s.s again, even if for a year or two the lawn does look as if it had been recently vaccinated."

John's Christmas enthusiasm had been thoroughly damped by the atmosphere of Ambles and he regretted that he had let himself be persuaded into coming down two days earlier than he had intended. It had been Mrs.

Worfolk's fault, and when his housekeeper approached him with a complaint about the way things were being managed in the kitchen John told her rather sharply that she must make the best of the present arrangements, exercise as much tact as possible, and remember that Christmas was a season when discontent was out of fas.h.i.+on. Then he retreated to the twenty-acre field to lose a few golf-b.a.l.l.s. Alas, he had forgotten that Laurence had proclaimed himself to be in a holiday humor and was bored to find that this was so expansive as to include an ambition to see if golf was as difficult as people said.

"You can try a stroke if you really want to," John offered, grudgingly.

"I understand that the theory of striking involves the correct application of the hands to the club," said the novice. "I set much store by the old adage that well begun is half done."

"The main thing is to hit the ball."

"I've no doubt whatever about being able to hit the ball; but if I decide to adopt golf as a recreation from my dramatic work I wish to acquire a good style at the outset," Laurence intoned, picking up the club as solemnly as if he was going to baptize it. "What is your advice about the forefinger of my left hand? It feels to me somewhat ubiquitous. I a.s.sume that there is some inhibition upon excessive fidgeting."

"Keep your eye on the ball," John gruffly advised him. "And don't s.h.i.+ft your position."

"One, two, three," murmured Laurence, raising the club above his shoulder.

"Fore!" John shouted to a rash member of the household who was crossing the line of fire.

A lump of turf was propelled a few feet in the direction of the admonished figure, and the ball was hammered down into the soft earth.

"You distracted me by counting four," Laurence protested. "My intention was to strike at three. However, if at first you don't succeed...."

But John could stand no more of it and escaped to Galton, where he bought a bushel of l.u.s.trous ornaments for the Christmas tree that was even now being felled by Huggins in a coppice remote from Harold's myopic explorations. Then for two days the household worked feverishly and unitedly in a prevalent odor of allspice; the children were decoyed from the house while the presents were mysteriously conveyed to the drawing-room, which had been consecrated to the forthcoming revelry; Harold, after nearly involving himself in a scandal by hiding himself under the kitchen-table during one of the servant's meals in order to verify the cubic contents of their several stockings, was finally successful in contracting with Mrs. Worfolk for the loan of one of hers; Frida whispered as ceaselessly as a grove of poplars; everybody's fingers were tattooed by holly-p.r.i.c.ks; and the introduction of so much decorative vegetation into the house brought with it a train of somnambulant insects.

On Sat.u.r.day afternoon the remaining guests arrived, and when John heard Bertram and Viola shouting merrily up and down the corridors he recognized the authentic note of Christmas gayety at last. James was much less disagreeable than he had expected, and did not even freeze Beatrice when she gushed about the loveliness of the holly and reminded everybody that she was countrified herself; Hilda and Eleanor were brought together by their common dread of Hugh's apparent return to favor; George exuded a gross reproduction of the host's good-will and wandered about the room reading jokes from the Christmas numbers to those who would listen to him; Laurence kissed all the ladies under the mistletoe, bending down to them from his majesty as patronizingly as in the days of his faith he used to communicate the poor of the parish; Edith clapped her hands every time that Laurence brought off a kiss and talked in a heart-felt tremolo about the Christmas-tides of her girlhood; Frida conceived an adoration for Viola; Hugh egged on Bertram to tease, threaten, and contradict Harold on every occasion; Grandmama in a new b.u.t.ter-colored gown glowed in the lamplight, and purred over her fertility, as if on the day she had accepted Robert Touchwood's hand nearly half a century ago she had foreseen this gathering and had never grumbled when she found she was going to have another baby.

"Snapdragon will be ready at ten," John proclaimed, "and then to bed, so that we're all fit for Christmas Day."

He was anxious to get the household out of the way, because he had formed a project to dress himself up that night as Santa Claus and, as he put it to himself, stimulate the children's fancy in case they should be awake when their stockings were being filled.

The clock struck ten; Mrs. Worfolk gave portentous utterance to the information that the snapdragon was burning beautiful; there was a rush for the pantry where the ceremony was to take place. Laurence picked out his raisins as triumphantly as if he were s.n.a.t.c.hing souls from a discredited Romish purgatory. Harold notwithstanding his bad sight seemed to be doing well until Bertram temporarily disabled him by s.n.a.t.c.hing a glowing raisin from the fiercest flame and ramming it down his neck. But the one who ate most of all, more even than Harold, was George, whose fat fingers would scoop up half-a-dozen raisins at a go, were they never so hot, until gradually the blue flames flickered less alertly and finally went out altogether in a pungency of burnt brandy.

"Half-past ten," John, who was longing to dress himself up, cried impatiently.

His efforts to urge the family up to bed were rather interfered with by Laurence, who detained Eleanor with numerous questions about going on the stage with a view to correcting a few technical deficiencies in his dramatic craftsmans.h.i.+p.

"I'm anxious to establish by personal experience the exact length of the interval required to change one's costume, and also the distance from one's green-room to the--ah--wings. I do not aim high. I should be perfectly satisfied with such minor parts as Rosencrantz or Metellus Cimber. Perhaps, Eleanor, you will introduce me to some of your theatrical friends after the holidays? There is a reduced day return up to town every Thursday. We might lunch together at one of those little Bohemian restaurants where rumor says that an excellent lunch is to be had for one and sixpence."

Eleanor promised she would do all she could, because John evidently wanted her to go to bed, and he was the uncle of her children.

"Thank you, Eleanor. I hope that as a catechumen I shall do honor to you. By the way, you will be interested in the part of Pontius Pilate's wife in my play. In fact I'm hoping that you will--ah--interpret it ultimately."

"Did you ever think of writing a play about Polonius's wife?" James growled on his way upstairs. "Good-night."

When the grown-ups were safely in their rooms, John could not understand why the children were allowed to linger in the pa.s.sage, gossiping and bragging; they would never go to sleep at this rate.

"I've got two coc.o.o.ns of a Crimson-underwing," Harold was saying.

"Poof!" Viola scoffed. "What are they. Bertram touched the nose of a kangaroo last time we went to the Zoo."

"Yes, and I prodded a crocodile with V's umbrella," added Bertram, acknowledging her testimonial by awarding his sister a kind of share in the exploit.

"Well, I was bitten by a squirrel once," related Harold in an attempt to keep his end up. "And that was in its nest, not in a cage."

"A squirrel!" Viola sneered. "Why, the tallest giraffe licked Bertram's fingers with his tongue, and they stayed wet for hours afterwards."

"Well, so could I, if I went to the Zoo," Harold maintained with a sob at the back of his throat.

"No, you couldn't," Bertram contradicted. "Because your fingers are too smelly."

"Much too smelly!" Viola corroborated.