The Christmas Mouse

To Elizabeth Ann Green
who started this story

Miss Read

Illustrated by J. S. Goodall

Cover

Dedication

Title Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

About the Author

Books by Miss Read

Copyright

T
he rain began at noon.

At first it fell lightly, making little noise. Only the darkening of the thatched roofs, and the sheen on the damp flagstones made people aware of the rain. It was dismissed as ‘only a mizzle’. Certainly it did not warrant bringing in the tea towels from the line. Midday meals were taken in the confident belief that the shower would soon blow over. Why, the weather-men had predicted a calm spell, hadn’t they, only that morning?

But by two o’clock it was apparent that something was radically wrong with the weather forecast. The wind had swung round to the northwest, and the drizzle had turned to a downpour. It hissed among the dripping trees,
pattered upon the cabbages in cottage gardens and drummed the bare soil with pock marks.

Mrs Berry, at her kitchen window, watched the clouds of rain drifting across the fields, obscuring the distant wood and veiling the whole countryside. A vicious gust of wind flung a spatter of raindrops against the pane with so much force that it might have been a handful of gravel hurled in the old lady’s face. She did not flinch, but instead raised her voice against the mounting fury of the storm.

‘What a day,’ said Mrs Berry, ‘for Christmas Eve!’

Behind her, kneeling on the rush matting, her daughter Mary was busy buttoning her two little girls into their mackintoshes.

‘Hold still,’ she said impatiently, ‘hold still, do! We’ll never catch the bus at this rate.’

They were fidgeting with excitement. Their cheeks were flushed, their eyes sparkling. It was as much as they could do to lift their chins for their mother to fasten the stiff top buttons of their new red mackintoshes. But the reminder that the bus might go without them checked their excitement. Only two afternoon buses a week ran past the cottage, one on market day, and one on Saturday. To miss it meant missing the last-minute shopping expedition for the really important Christmas presents – those for their mother and grandmother. The idea of being deprived of this joy brought the little girls to partial submission.

Mary, her fingers busy with the buttons, was thinking of more mundane shopping – Brussels sprouts, some salad, a little pot of cranberry jelly for the turkey, a few more oranges if they were not too expensive, a lemon or two. And a potted plant for Mum. A cyclamen perhaps? Or a heather, if the cyclamen proved to be beyond her purse. It was mean the way these florists put up the prices so cruelly at Christmas. But there, she told herself, scrambling to her feet, the poor souls had to live the same as she did, she supposed, and with everything costing so much they would have to look after themselves like anyone else.

‘You wait here quietly with Gran for a minute,’ she adjured the pair, ‘while I run and get my coat on, and fetch the baskets. Got your money and your hankies? Don’t want no sniffing on the bus now!’

She whisked upstairs and the children could hear her hurrying to and fro above the beamed ceiling of the kitchen.

Old Mrs Berry was opening her brown leather purse. There were not many coins in it, and no notes, but she took out two silver fivepenny pieces.

‘To go towards your shopping,’ said the old lady. ‘Hold out your hands.’

Two small hands, encased in woollen gloves knitted by Mrs Berry herself, were eagerly outstretched.

‘Jane first,’ said Mrs Berry, putting the coin into the older girl’s hand. ‘And now Frances.’

‘Thank you, Gran, thank you,’ they chorused, throwing their arms round her comfortable bulk, pressing wet kisses upon her.

‘No need to tell your mum,’ said Mrs Berry. ‘It’s a little secret between us three. Here she comes.’

The three hurried to the cottage door. The rain was coming down in sheets, and Mary struggled with an umbrella on the threshold.

‘Dratted thing’ – she puffed – ‘but can’t do without it today. I’ll wager I forget it in some shop, but there it is. Come on now, you girls. Keep close to me, and run for it!’

Mrs Berry watched them vanish into the swirling rain. Then she shut the door upon the weather, and returned to the peaceful kitchen.

She put her wrinkled hand upon the teapot. Good, it was still hot. She would have another cup before she washed up.

Sitting in the wooden armchair that had been her husband’s, Mrs Berry surveyed the kitchen with pleasure. It had been decorated a few years before and young Bertie, Mary’s husband, had made a good job of it. The walls
were white, the curtains cherry-red cotton, and the tiles round the sink were blue and white. Bertie, who had set them so neatly, said they came from a fireplace over in Oxfordshire and were from Holland originally. The builder, a friend of his, was about to throw them out but Bertie had rescued them.

A clever boy with his hands, thought Mrs Berry, stirring her tea, though she could never understand what poor Mary saw in him, with that sandy hair and those white eyelashes. Still, it did no good to think ill of the dead, and he had made a good husband and father for the few short years he and Mary had been married. This would be the third Christmas without him – a sad time for Mary, poor soul.

Mrs Berry had once wondered if this youngest daughter of hers would ever marry. The two older girls were barely twenty when they wed. One was a farmer’s wife near Taunton. The other had married an American, and Mrs Berry had only seen her twice since.

Mary, the prettiest of the three girls, had never been one for the boys. After she left school, she worked in the village post office at Springbourne, cycling to work in all weather and seeming content to read and knit or tend the garden when she returned at night.

Mrs Berry was glad of her daughter’s company. She had been widowed in 1953, after over thirty years of tranquil marriage to dear Stanley. He had been a stone-mason, attached to an old-established firm in Caxley, and he too cycled daily to work, his tools strapped securely on the carrier with his midday sandwiches. On a day as wild and wet as this Christmas Eve, he had arrived home soaked through. That night he tossed in a fever, muttering
in delirium, and within a week he was dead – the victim of a particularly virulent form of influenza.

In the weeks of shock and mourning that followed, Mary was a tower of strength to her mother. Once the funeral was over, and replies had been sent to all the friends and relatives who had written in sympathy, the two women took stock of their situation. Thank God, the cottage was her own, Mrs Berry said. It had taken the savings of a lifetime to buy when it came on the market, but now they had a roof over their heads and no weekly rent to find. There was a tiny pension from Stanley’s firm, a few pounds in the post office savings bank, and Mary’s weekly wage. Two mornings of housework every week at the Manor Farm brought in a few more shillings for Mrs Berry. And the farmer’s wife, knowing her circumstances, offered her more work, which she gladly accepted. It was a happy household, and Mrs Berry was as grateful for the cheerful company she found there as for the extra money.

Mother and daughter fell into a comfortable routine during the next few years. They breakfasted together before the younger woman set off on her bicycle, and Mrs Berry tidied up before going off to her morning’s work at the farmhouse. In the afternoon, she did her own housework, washed and ironed, gardened, or knitted and sewed. She frugally made jams and jellies, chutneys and pickles for the store cupboard, and it was generally acknowledged by her neighbours that Mrs Berry could stretch a shilling twice as far as most. The house was bright and attractive, and the door stood open for visitors. No one left Mrs Berry without feeling all the better for her company. Her good sense, her kindness and her courage brought many people to her door.

Mary had been almost thirty when she met Bertie Fuller. He was the nephew of the old lady who kept the Springbourne post office and had come to lodge with her when he took a job at the Caxley printing works.

Even those romantically inclined had to admit that nothing as fantastic as love at first sight engulfed Mary and Bertie. She had never been one to show her feelings and now, at her age, was unlikely to be swept off her feet. Bertie was five years her senior and had been married before. There were no children of this first marriage, and his wife had married again.

The two were attracted to each other and were engaged within three months of their first meeting.

‘Well, my dear, you’re old enough to know your own mind,’ said Mrs Berry, ‘and he seems a decent, kindly sort of man, with a steady job. If you’d like to have two rooms here while you look for a house you’re both welcome.’

No, the villagers agreed, as they gossiped among themselves, Mary Berry hadn’t exactly caught ‘a regular heart-throb’, but what could you expect at thirty? She was lucky really to have found anyone, and they did say this Bertie fellow was safe at the printing works, and no doubt was of an age to have sown all the wild oats he wanted.