IN the kitchen of a small farm a little woman sat cutting bread and butter. The glow of the clear, ruddy fire was on her shining cheek and white apron; but grey hair will not take the warm caress of firelight.
She skilfully spread the softened butter, and cut off great slices from the floury loaf in her lap. Already two plates were piled, but she continued to cut.
Outside the naked ropes of the creeper tapped and lashed at the window.
The grey-haired mother looked up, and setting the butter on the hearth, rose and went to look out. The sky was heavy and grey as she saw it in the narrow band over the near black wood. So she turned and went to look through the tiny window which opened from the deep recess on the opposite side of the room. The northern sky was blacker than ever.
She turned away with a little sigh, and took a duster from the red, shining warming-pan to take the bread from the oven. Afterwards she laid the table for five.
There was a rumbling and a whirring in the corner, and the clock struck five. Like clocks in many farmers’ kitchens, it was more than half an hour fast. The little woman hurried about, bringing milk and other things from the dairy; lifting the potatoes from the fire, peeping through the window anxiously. Very often her neck ached with watching the gate for a sign of approach.
There was a click of the yard gate. She ran to the window, but turned away again, and catching up the blue enamelled teapot, dropped into it a handful of tea from the caddy, and poured on the water. A clinking scrape of iron shod boots sounded outside, then the door opened with a burst as a burly, bearded man entered. He drooped at the shoulders, and leaned forward as a man who has worked heavily all his life.
‘Hello, mother,’ he said, loudly and cheerfully. ‘Am I first? Aren’t any of the lads down yet? Fred will be here in a minute.’
‘I wish they would come,’ said his wife, ‘or else it’ll rain before they’re here.’
‘Ay,’ he assented, ‘it’s beginning, and it’s cold rain an’ all. Bit of sleet, I think,’ and he sat down heavily in his armchair, looking at his wife as she knelt and turned the bread, and took a large jar of stewed apples from the oven.
‘Well, mother,’ he said, with a pleasant comfortable little smile, ‘here’s another Christmas for you and me. They keep passing us by.’
‘Ay,’ she answered, the effects of her afternoon’s brooding now appearing. ‘They come and go, but they never find us any better off.’
‘It seems so,’ he said, a shade of regret appearing momentarily over his cheerfulness. ‘This year we’ve certainly had some very bad luck. But we keep straight — and we never regret that Christmas, see, it’s twenty-seven years since — twenty-seven years.’
‘No, perhaps not, but there’s Fred as hasn’t had above three pounds for the whole year’s work, and the other two at the pit.’
‘Well, what can I do? If I hadn’t lost the biggest part of the hay, and them two beasts —’
‘If —! Besides what prospects has he? Here he is working year in year out for you and getting nothing at the end of it. When you were his age, when you were 25, you were married and had two children. How can he ask anybody to marry him?’
‘I don’t know that he wants to. He’s fairly contented. Don’t be worrying about him and upsetting him. He’d only go and leave us if he got married. Besides, we may have a good year next year, and we can make this up.’
‘Ay, so you say.’
‘Don’t fret yourself to-night, lass. It’s true, things haven’t gone as we hoped they would. I never thought to see you doing all the work you have to do, but we’ve been very comfortable, all things considered, haven’t we?’
‘I never thought to see my first lad a farm labourer at 25, and the other two in the pit. Two of my sons in the pit!’
‘I’m sure I’ve done what I could, and’ — but they heard a scraping outside, and he said no more.
The eldest son tramped in, his great boots and his leggings all covered with mud. He took off his wet overcoat, and stood on the hearthrug, his hands spread out behind him in the warmth of the fire.
Looking smilingly at his mother, as she moved about the kitchen, he said:
‘You do look warm and cosy, mother. When I was coming up with the last load, I thought of you trotting about in that big, white apron, getting tea ready, watching the weather. There are the lads. Aren’t you quite contented now — perfectly happy?’
She laughed an odd little laugh, and poured out the tea. The boys came in from the pit, wet and dirty, with clean streaks down their faces where the rain had trickled. They changed their clothes and sat at the table. The elder was a big, heavy loosely-made fellow, with a long nose and chin, and comical wrinkling round his eyes. The younger, Arthur, was a handsome lad, dark-haired, with ruddy colour glowing through his dirt, and dark eyes. When he talked and laughed the red of his lips and the whiteness of his teeth and eyeballs stood out in startling contrast to the surrounding black.
‘Mother, I’m glad to see thee,’ he said, looking at her with frank, boyish affection.
‘There, mother, what more can you want?’ asked her husband.
She took a bite of bread and butter, and looked up with a quaint, comical glance, as if she were given only her just dues, but for all that it pleased and amused her, only she was half shy, and a grain doubtful.
‘Lad,’ said Henry. ‘It’s Christmas Eve. The fire ought to burn its brightest.’
‘Yes. I will have just another potato, seeing as Christmas is the time for feeding. What are we going to do? Are we going to have a party, mother?’
‘Yes, if you want one.’
‘Party,’ laughed the father, ‘who’d come?’
‘We might ask somebody. We could have Nellie Wycherley, who used to come, an’ David Garton.’
‘We shall not do for Nellie nowadays,’ said the father, ‘I saw her on Sunday morning on the top road. She was drivin’ home with another young woman, an’ she stopped an’ asked me if we’d got any holly with berries on, an’ I said we hadn’t.’
Fred looked up from the book he was reading over tea. He had dark brown eyes, something like his mother’s, and they always drew attention when he turned them on anyone.
‘There is a tree covered in the wood,’ he said.
‘Well,’ answered the irresistible Henry, ‘that’s not ours, is it? An’ if she’s got that proud she won’t come near to see us, am I goin’ choppin’ trees down for her? If she’d come here an’ say she wanted a bit, I’d fetch her half the wood in but when she sits in the trap and looks down on you an’ asks, ‘Do you happen to hev a bush of berried holly in your hedges? Preston can’t find a sprig to decorate the house, and I hev some people coming down from town,’ then I tell her we’re all crying because we’ve none to decorate ourselves, and we want it the more ’cause nobody’s coming, neither from th’ town nor th’ country, an’ we’re likely to forget it’s Christmas if we’ve neither folks nor things to remind us.’
‘What did she say?’ asked the mother.
‘She said she was sorry, an’ I told her not to bother, it’s better lookin’ at folks than at bits o’ holly. The other lass was laughing, an’ she wanted to know what folks. I told her any as hadn’t got more pricks than a holly bush to keep you off.’
‘Ha! ha!’ laughed the father; ‘did she take it?’
‘The other girl nudged her, and they both began a laughing. Then Nellie told me to send down the guysers to-night. I said I would, but they’re not going now.’
‘Why not?’ asked Fred.
‘Billy Simpson’s got a gathered face, an’ Wardy’s gone to Nottingham.’
‘The company down at Ramsley Mill will have nobody to laugh at to-night,’ said Arthur.
‘Tell ye what,’ exclaimed Henry, ‘we’ll go.’
‘How can we, three of us?’ asked Arthur.
‘Well,’ persisted Henry, ‘we could dress up so as they’d niver know us, an’ hae a bit o’ fun. Hey!’ he suddenly shouted to Fred, who was reading, and taking no notice, ‘Hey, we’re going to the Mill guysering.’
‘Who is?’ asked the elder brother, somewhat surprised.
‘You an’ me, an’ our Arthur. I'll be Beelzebub.’
Here he distorted his face to look diabolic, so that everybody roared.
‘Go,’ said his father, ‘you’ll make our fortunes.’
‘What!’ he exclaimed, ‘by making a fool of myself? They say fools for luck. What fools wise folk must be. Well, I'll be the devil — are you shocked, mother? What will you be, Arthur?’
‘I don’t care,’ was the answer. ‘We can put some of that red paint on our faces, and some soot, they’d never know us. Shall we go, Fred?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Why, I should like to see her with her company, to see if she has very fine airs. We could leave some holly for her in the scullery.’
‘All right, then.’
After tea all helped with the milking and feeding. Then Fred took a hedge knife and a hurricane lamp and went into the wood to cut some of the richly berried holly. When he got back he found his brothers roaring with laughter before the mirror. They were smeared with red and black, and had fastened on grotesque horsehair moustaches, so that they were entirely unrecognisable.
‘Oh, you are hideous,’ cried their mother. ‘Oh, it’s shameful to disfigure the work of the Almighty like that.’
Fred washed and proceeded to dress. They could not persuade him to use paint or soot. He rolled his sleeves up to the shoulder, and wrapped himself in a great striped horse rug. Then be tied a white cloth round his head, as the Bedouins do, and pulled out his moustache to fierce points. He looked at himself with approval, took an old sword from the wall, and held it in one naked, muscular arm.
‘Decidedly,’ he thought, ‘it is very picturesque, and I look very fine.’
‘Oh, that is grand,’ said his mother as he entered the kitchen. His dark eyes glowed with pleasure to hear her say it. He seemed somewhat excited, this bucolic young man. His tanned skin shone rich and warm under the white cloth, its coarseness hidden by the yellow lamplight. His eyes glittered like a true Arab’s, and it was to be noticed that the muscles of his sun-browned arms were tense with the grip of the broad hand.
It was remarkable how the dark folds of the rug and the flowing burnous glorified this young farmer, who, in his best clothes looked awkward and ungainly, and whose face a linen collar showed coarse, owing to exposure to the weather, and long application to heavy labour.
They set out to cross the two of their own fields, and two of their neighbour’s, which separated their home from the mill. A few uncertain flakes of snow were eddying down, melting as they settled. The ground was wet, and the night very dark. But they knew the way well, and were soon at the gate leading to the mill yard. The dog began to bark furiously, but they called to him, ‘Trip, Trip,’ and knowing their voices, he was quieted.
Henry gave a thundering knock, and bawled in stentorian tones,
‘Dun yer want guysers?’
A man came to the door, very tall, very ungainly, very swarthy.
‘We non want yer.’ he said, talking down his nose.
‘Here comes Beelzebub,’ banged away Henry thumping a pan which he carried. ‘Here comes Beelzebub, an’ he’s come to th’ right place.’
A big, bonny farm girl came to the door.
‘Who is it?’ she asked.
‘Beelzebub, you know him well.’ was the answer.
‘I’ll ask Miss Ellen it she wants you.’
Henry winked a red and black wink at the maid, saying, ‘Never keep Satan on the doorstep,’ and he stepped into the scullery.
The girl ran away, and soon was heard a laughing, and bright talking of women’s voices drawing nearer to the kitchen.
‘Tell them to come in,’ said a voice.
The three trooped in and glanced round the big kitchen. They could only see Betty, seated as near to them as possible on the squab, her father, black and surly, in his armchair, and two women’s figures in the deep shadows of one of the great ingle-nook seats.
‘Ah,’ said Beelzebub, ‘this is a bit more like it, a bit hotter. The Devil feels at home here.’
They began the ludicrous old Christmas play that everyone knows so well. Beelzebub acted with much force, much noise, and some humour. St. George, that is Fred, played his part with zeal and earnestness most amusing, but at one of the most crucial moments he entirely forgot his speech, which, however, was speedily rectified by Beelzebub. Arthur was nervous and awkward, so that Beelzebub supplied him with most of his speeches.
After much horseplay, stabbing, falling on the floor, bangings of dripping-pans, and ludicrous striving to fill in the blanks, they came to an end.
They waited in silence.
‘Well what next?’ asked a voice from the shadows.
‘It’s your turn,’ said Beelzebub.
‘What do you want?’
‘As little as you have the heart to give.’
‘But,’ said another voice, one they knew well, ‘we have no heart to give at all.’
‘You did not know your parts well,’ said Blanche, the stranger. ‘The big fellow in the blanket deserves nothing.’
‘What about me?’ asked Arthur.
‘You,’ answered the same voice, ‘oh you’re a nice boy, and a lady’s thanks are enough reward for you.’
He blushed, and muttered something unintelligible.
‘There’ll be the Devil to pay,’ suggested Beelzebub.
‘Give the Devil his dues, Nell,’ said Blanche choking again with laughter. Nellie threw a large silver coin on the flagstone floor, but she was nervous and it rolled to the feet of Preston in his arm-chair.
‘’Alf-a-crern!’ he exclaimed, ‘gie em thrippence, an’ they’re non worth that much.’
This was too much for the chivalrous St. George. He could bear no longer to stand in this ridiculous garb before his scornful lady-love and her laughing friend.
He snatched off his burnous and his robe, flung them over one arm, and with the other caught back Beelzebub, who would have gone to pick up the money. There he stood, St. George metamorphosed into a simple young farmer, with ruffled curly black hair, a heavy frown and bare arms.
‘Won’t you let him have it?’ asked Blanche. ‘Well, what do you want?’ she continued.
‘Nothing, thanks. I’m sorry we troubled you.’
‘Come on,’ he said, drawing the reluctant Beelzebub, and the three made their exit. Blanche laughed and laughed again to see the discomfited knight tramp out, rolling down his shirt sleeves.
Nellie did not laugh. Seeing him turn, she saw him again as a child, before her father had made money by the cattle-dealing, when she was a poor, wild little creature. But her father had grown rich and the mill was a big farm, and when the old cattle dealer had died, she became sole mistress. Then Preston, their chief man, came with Betty and Sarah, to live in, and take charge of the farm.
Nellie had seen little of her old friends since then. She had stayed a long time in town, and when she called on them after her return found them cool and estranged. So she had not been again, and now it was almost a year since she had spoken many words to Fred.
Her brief meditations were disturbed by a scream from Betty in the scullery, followed by the wild rush of that damsel into the kitchen.
‘What’s up?’ asked her father.
‘There’s somebody there got hold of my legs.’
Nellie felt suddenly her own loneliness. Preston struck a match and investigated. He returned with a bunch of glittering holly, thick with scarlet berries.
‘Here’s yer somebody,’ said he, flinging the bunch down on the table.
‘Oh, that is pretty,’ exclaimed Blanche. Nellie rose, looked, then hurried down the passage to the sitting-room, followed by her friend. There, to the consternation of Blanche, she sat down and began to cry.
‘Whatever is the matter?’ asked Blanche.
It was some time before she had a reply, then, ‘It’s so miserable,’ faltered Nellie, ‘and so lonely. I do think Will and Harry and Louie and all the others were mean not to come, then this wouldn’t have happened. It was such a shame — such a shame.’
‘What was a shame?’ asked Blanche.
‘Why, when he had got me that holly, and come down to see —’ she ended blushing.
‘Whom do you mean — the Bedouin?’
‘And I had not seen him for months, and he will think I am just a mean, proud thing.’
‘You don’t mean to say you care for him?’
Nellie’s tears began to flow again. ‘I do, and I wish this miserable farm and bit of money had never come between us. He’ll never come again, never, I know.’
‘Then,’ said Blanche, ‘you must go to him.’
‘Yes, and I will.’
‘Come along, then.’
In the meantime, the disappointed brothers had reached home. Fred had thrown down his Bedouin wardrobe, and put on his coat, muttering something about having a walk up the village. Then he had gone out, his mother’s eyes watching his exit with helpless grief, his father looking over his spectacles in a half-surprised paternal sympathy. However, they heard him tramp down the yard and enter the barn, and they knew he would soon recover. Then the lads went out, and nothing was heard in the kitchen save the beat of the clock and the rustle of the newspaper, or the rattle of the board, as the mother rolled out paste for the mince-pies.
In the pitch-dark barn, the rueful Bedouin told himself that he expected no other than this, and that it was high time he ceased fooling himself with fancies, that he was well-cured, that even if she had invited him to stay, how could he; how could he have asked her; she must think he wanted badly to become master of Ramsley Mill. What a fool he had been to go — what a fool!
‘But,’ he argued, ‘let her think what she likes. I don’t care. She may remember if she can that I used to sole her boots with my father’s leather, and she went home in mine. She can remember that my mother taught her how to write and sew decently. I should think she must sometimes.’
Then he admitted to himself that he was sure she did not forget. He could feel quite well that she was wishing that this long estrangement might cease.
‘But,’ came the question, ‘why doesn’t she end it? Pah, It’s only my conceit; she thinks more of those glib, grinning fellows from the clerks’ stools. Let her, what do I care!’
Suddenly he heard voices from the field at the back, and sat up listening.
‘Oh, it’s a regular slough,’ said someone. ‘We can never get through the gate. See, let us climb the stockyard fence. They’ve put some new rails in. Can you manage, Blanche? Here, just between the lilac bush and the stack. What a blessing they keep Chris at the front! Mind, bend under this plum tree. Dare we go, Blanche?’
‘Go on, go on,’ whispered Blanche, and they crept up to the tiny window, through which the lamplight streamed uninterrupted. Fred stole out of the barn and hid behind the great water-butt. He saw them stoop and creep to the window and peep through. In the kitchen sat the father, smoking and appearing to read, but really staring into the fire. The mother was putting the top crusts on the little pies, but she was interrupted by the need to wipe her eyes.
‘Oh, Blanche,’ whispered Nellie, ‘he’s gone out.’
‘It looks like it,’ assented the other.
‘Perhaps he’s not, though,’ resumed the former bravely. ‘He’s very likely only in the parlour.’
‘That’s all right, then.’ said Blanche. ‘I thought we should have seen him looking so miserable. But, of course, he wouldn’t let his mother see it.’
‘Certainly not,’ said Blanche.
Fred chuckled.
‘But,’ she continued doubtfully, ‘If he has gone out, whatever shall we do? What can we tell his mother?’
‘Tell her we came up for fun.’
‘But if he’s out?’
‘Stay till he comes home.’
‘If it’s late?’
‘It’s Christmas Eve.’
‘Perhaps he doesn’t care after all.’
‘You think he does, so do I; and you’re quite sure you want him.’
‘You know I do, Blanche, and I always have done.’
‘Let us begin, then.’
‘What? ‘Good King Wenceslas?’’
The mother and father started as the two voices suddenly began to carol outside. She would have run to the door, but her husband waved her excitedly back. ‘Let them finish,’ his eyes shining. ‘Let them finish.’
The girls had retired from the window lest they should be seen, and stood near the water-butt. When the old carol was finished, Nellie began the beautiful song of Giordani’s:
Turn once again, heal thou my pain,
Parted from thee, my heart is sore.
As she sang she stood holding a bough of the old plum tree, so close to Fred that by leaning forward he could have touched her coat. Carried away by the sweet pathos of her song, he could hardly refrain from rising and flinging his arms around her.
She finished, the door opened, showing a little woman holding out her hands.
Both girls made a motion towards her, but —
‘Nell, Nell,’ he whispered, and caught her in his arms. She gave a little cry of alarm and delight. Blanche stepped into the kitchen, and shut the door, laughing.
She sat in the low rocking-chair swinging to and fro in a delighted excitement, chattering brightly about a hundred things. And with a keen woman’s eye, she noticed the mother put her hands on her husband’s as she sat on the sofa by his chair, and saw him hold the shining stiffened hand in one of his, and stroke it with old, undiminished affection.
Soon the two came in, Nellie all blushing. Without a word she ran and kissed the little mother, lingering a moment over her before she turned to the quiet embrace of the father. Then she took off her hat, and brushed back the brown tendrils all curled so prettily by the damp.
Already she was at home.