The Country Gentleman (31 page)

Then it was over. A light snow, the first of the year, was found to have fallen while they were at dinner. The wheels of the visitors’ departing carriages pressed a delicate lattice into it as they went. With the informality of the season, the house party crowded at the open hall door to wave them off. Anne walked out a moment with Henry and young Arthur Highet, to taste the crispness of the air and marvel at the thin white layer on the branches of the trees and every twig of every bush. Then, shivering, all went in, and climbed to their several beds.

Mr. Mallinger’s heart thumped. The blood roared in his ears so loudly he could hardly hear what Trigg was saying to him. From his expression, he guessed the man had wished him a happy Christmas; from his gesture, he supposed he was waiting for his coat. Accordingly, he wished Trigg a happy Christmas in return and surrendered the desired garment. Yet the man still stood, pointing, pointing, and saying something about a hat. Ah, his hat! Mr. Mallinger plucked it off, shook from its brim a fair dusting of the snow which had been falling since noon, and walked inside towards the drawing-room.

It seemed a long walk. Every step brought him closer to Mrs. Insel (whose arrival he had known of even before it happened, for the second parlour-maid at Fevermere had
told the boy from the dairy, who had mentioned it to the girl who tidied up the schoolhouse). In the last two months he had almost stopped hoping such a day would ever come again. Yet here it was! Nor could he blame himself for going where he knew he was sure to meet her: On the contrary, he had most earnestly endeavoured to refuse Mr. Highet’s invitation to Christmas supper. But all in vain. Mr. Highet had been adamant. When friendly urging had failed, indeed, Highet had straitly adjured him to come, even going so far as to hint the security of his position as schoolmaster rested upon it! What then could Mr. Mallinger do but bow to fate? Now his only fear was that, hearing he was expected, Mrs. Insel had elected to absent herself from the evening.

A moment, another moment would tell him. Behind that door, amid that hum of voices, did he hear hers? He sent a quick prayer to heaven. Though she had told him not to hope, though to see her and not to have her might be exquisite torment, how he longed for that torment! Screwing up such courage as the long anxiety of the past two days had left to him, he entered the room.

She was there! His little dove, all in dove grey and—could it be?—rather more rosy and round than when he had last set eyes on her. Had her weeks in London suited her, then, so well? A stab of pain that it should be so—that a separation which had stripped his life of all interest, all happiness, should have calmed and nourished her—shot through him. But he must make his bows to the company, thank his hosts, meet the Framouths, renew his acquaintance with the Staffordshire family, pay his courtesies to Miss Veal, say hello to Rand (for this family supper was the one night in the year at Fevermere when man and master sat together). At last it came time to face
Mrs. Insel. Mr. Highet led—one would almost have said pulled—him to the corner of the room where she sat, quiet and demure, upon a little sofa.

“You know Mrs. Insel,” was all Highet said, with a jovial flourish of the hand.

Mr. Mallinger bowed deeply as the rest of the room seemed to fade. There was only himself and—oh, fetching, taking little thing! Instantly he forgave her her healthy bloom. How could he begrudge it when it suited her so well? “Madam,” he said, rising from his bow to search her face in a quick glance. Was she angry at him for coming?

No!

Sorry to see him?

No again!

Half incredulous, Mr. Mallinger read on her sweet countenance nothing but shy pleasure in his presence. True, she did not beg him to sit down beside her. Though she asked (with what divine timidity!) how he did, she did not set any of an hundred questions which must have kept him there talking to her. But she smiled upon him! Smiled.

Mr. Mallinger was ecstatic.

The reader will perhaps be content to leave him in ecstasy for a little while—goodness knows he has been there infrequently enough of late, and he is quite safe there so long as such a numerous party surrounds him—and turn his attention to how the others passed Christmas Eve. They sat down about nine o’clock to a long table decorated with holly and drank deeply from a steaming bowl of wassail replenished, as needed, by a footman who between times took his place at the board. Mrs. Highet the eldest led the company in a rousing chorus of “Deck the
Halls”; Anne, Mr. Highet, and Maria performed their practised versions of “The First Nowell” and “Good Christian Men, Rejoice”; young William Highet, who professed to know all the verses to “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” shepherded the others through that complicated carol with the liberal assistance and correction of Miss Veal; and Augusta Highet, at the tender age of six, sang “God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen” all by herself. About ten they were interrupted by a troupe of mummers from Faulding Chase, who enacted the story of St. George and the Turkish Knight most ably, and afterwards ate goose and mince-pie with equal competency. These departing, the children engaged in a game of blindman’s-buff, dragging their Uncle Henry and their willing father into it. Then all played snap-dragon, Arthur Highet contriving to singe not only his fingers but his tongue with his quick and fearless style. Mr. Rand told a ghost story perfectly likely to deprive a boy of fifteen of a week’s sleep, let alone a girl of six. While Augusta ran shrieking to her mother’s arms, her father suddenly noticed a bough of mistletoe which had mysteriously got fastened up to the ceiling before the fireplace (where, of course, a vast yule log blazed merrily).

This mistletoe perhaps reminds some readers that we left Mr. Mallinger, some hours ago, in a state of ecstasy. But other readers, I think, will readily agree that no smile, no dove-like sweetness displayed by Mrs. Insel to the schoolmaster, could sufficiently embolden him—I might say madden him—to make him attempt to kiss her. No, the most that can be said of Mr. Mallinger and the mistletoe, is that he gave Mrs. Insel (who unluckily had been seated—by Mrs. Archibald Highet—at the other end of the table from him) a hasty, embarrassed glance when its
presence was first pointed out, and intercepted just such a hasty glance from Mrs. Insel.

But in view of the history of these two, such a glance is perhaps a great deal!

Maria and Mr. Mallinger aside, however, the mistletoe caused plenty of havoc. Mr. Rand seized and roughly kissed Anne’s abigail, Lizzie; Mr. Thaddeus Highet jocosely bussed a stunned Miss Veal; Masters Arthur and George Highet kissed Evaline Framouth, and tickled but refused to kiss their sister Augusta; after which Anne found herself being dragged by these same hooligans to the magic spot, her husband at the same time under forcible conveyance there by Masters Tad, William, and Charles.

“A kiss, a kiss!” the cry went up, as the new-married couple found themselves under the cursed sprig. Anne went crimson. Her husband, clumsy with embarrassment, stood foolishly still for a moment, as if dazed, then bent and chastely saluted her on the cheek.

“A proper kiss, a proper kiss!” the audience (nephews chief among them) roared, quite unsatisfied by this feeble performance. Masters Arthur and George made a human ring around Anne, preventing her from running away, while Master William positively shoved his uncle at her. The ring broke away, Henry received a second, mighty push, and amid general pandemonium his arms went round her and his mouth (somehow, for Anne doubted very much he intended it, or could have steered himself right even if he had) met hers. A dizzy moment and it was over. Exploding with laughter, the boys went back to the table to fetch their parents and repeat the performance.

Three shades of scarlet, Anne stumbled back to her place and hid her face in a napkin. But when some
minutes later a boar’s head duly decked with bays and rosemary was brought in, and a new bowl of wassail, and a huge shoulder of venison, Anne looked up and caught her husband’s eye with a smile in her own, and only a little embarrassment.

They sat till midnight, when the bells of the church, clear over the snowy fields, tolled to tell them it was Christmas Day. Then each man kissed his neighbour, or shook his hand, and a vast tray of plum-pudding was brought out. The thimble was found first, appearing (appropriately and, we hope, painlessly) in the portion given to Miss Veal, then the button in the pudding of Master Arthur (who loudly celebrated this omen that he need never marry) and finally the wedding ring by Mrs. Insel. (The reader will perhaps accuse the author of planting it there, a clumsy and worn device; in which case the author begs the reader please to direct his attention to the curiously smug look on the face of Mr. Henry Highet, who served the pudding out. The defence rests.) If Mr. Mallinger lacked the courage, or vulgarity, to attempt to kiss Mrs. Insel under the mistletoe, Mrs. Insel was equally bereft of the fortitude, or coarseness, a look at Mr. Mallinger upon finding the ring would have required. She merely noted its discovery very quietly to her neighbour—who happened to be Augusta Highet—and gave it to her to wear. It was Miss Augusta, of course, who made its appearance generally known. Hearing of it, Mr. Mallinger felt the lure of superstition for perhaps the first time in his life.

He quitted Fevermere just before one and made the long walk across the quiet fields to his rooms behind the schoolhouse with a lighter heart than had been in his breast in many days. Whether Mrs. Insel’s smiling face
had been only an island of Christmas amnesty in a cold sea of exile; or whether her smile invited him back to friendship, but still denied him love; nevertheless she had smiled—and, moreover, would see him again in church on the morrow, and perhaps smile again. For the moment, he was content with this. Content? Euphoric.

The party at Fevermere marked Christmas Day with a very large breakfast (from which Mrs. Henry Highet, predictably and wisely, absented herself), a visit to church (where the Reverend Septimus Samuels preached his annual sermon on “The M in Miracle”—Mary, Mercy, Motherhood and so on), and a long afternoon of skating on a small pond near the old border between Fevermere and Linfield. The children skated vigorously, Selina and Mrs. Framouth decorously, the gentlemen with that undertone of competition that so often plagues the masculine component of even a small assembly. Maria cried off, but Anne (who could not remember to have stood on skates since before her father died) gamely allowed herself to be persuaded—mostly by George Highet—to try them again. Leaning heavily on her husband’s willing arm, she first tottered, then crept, then glided across the ice. At last, proud veteran of two or three successful circuits, she declared herself ready to skate alone.

“You are certain?”

Cheeks flushed with cold and exertion, eyes bright and a little watery in the December wind, “Indeed,” she impatiently replied.

Still Mr. Highet lingered, holding his wife’s gloved hand against his steadying arm, and regarding her booted ankles dubiously. “Perhaps one more turn—?”

At the same moment, “Mr. Highet, I am perfectly capable—” she began, wrenching her hand out from under
his with a twitch of irritation. She turned smartly, set off gliding away from him on her right foot, tried to bring the left foot up for its turn, but instead caught her toe in the ice and promptly tumbled down, landing with a thud.

“Dear ma’am!” Mr. Highet was beside her in an instant, hovering over her, offering his hand. But she had buried her head in her arms. Her back shook under her fur-trimmed mantle, and a series of little choking sounds came from her. “Mrs. Highet?” he nervously inquired, while one by one the other skaters observed her situation and turned to look. Mr. Highet leaned down farther and gently touched her trembling back. “My dear?”

At last she looked up. One glance at his solemn, anxious face and she exploded into whoops. “I am not crying, sir!” she laughed up at him. She sat on the ice and laughed till she did cry, till Mr. Highet laughed with her, then Masters Arthur and George, then everyone. She never stopped till, a small, sharp noise causing her abruptly to look down, “Oh, dear heavens!” she shrieked, and attempted to scramble to her feet. “Mr. Highet!” She stretched an arm out to him, suddenly urgent—for the ice beneath her had begun to crack and a tiny rivulet of frigid water had seeped to the surface and soaked through her glove. For the next minute she seemed all knees and elbows, flashing blades, flying ermine, and awkwardly flailing limbs. Mr. Highet endeavoured to pull her up, but she could not keep her balance. She fell once more, causing another ominous crack. Then,

“Stay still!” Mr. Highet commanded her, for fear her flapping and scrambling would sink her altogether. “Remove your skates,” he bade her, while he lay down full length upon the ice and stretched an arm to her. By dint of these simple shifts, he soon succeeded in removing her
to safety—where, if he had hoped to receive her heartfelt gratitude for having rescued her, he must have been deeply disappointed; for she only broke (once she had recovered her breath) into howls of laughter again, not merely at the thought of his solemn countenance when she fell, but also, helplessly, at the idea of her own ridiculous performance.

Boxing Day came and went, and with it the Framouths. The holly hung so gaily on Christmas Eve soon began to dry and turn brown, and had to be taken down. But for the nightly appearance of a plum-pudding at the table (one of these was traditionally eaten at Fevermere each night between Christmas Eve and Twelfth Night, for luck in the next twelve months) the festiveness of the season might almost have been forgot. On the third day after Christmas the Staffordshire Highets left for home. Anne saw them go with some regret, for besides having got to like the children, their departure reminded her she and Maria ought perhaps to be leaving also.

Only…So little had passed, as yet, between Maria and Mr. Mallinger. Distracted as she was by her own concerns, Anne had not failed to observe the former’s smiling behaviour towards the latter on Christmas Eve. Indeed, if Maria had been too refined to glance at the schoolmaster when she found the ring in the pudding, Anne had not. She had been gratified to see in his face a start of suppressed excitement. But at church the next day, he and Mrs. Insel had both seemed conscious and awkward. After the service, when all around them were shaking hands or kissing, Anne had watched the two merely bow to each other. She saw from their faces that neither (silly babies!) had the courage to do anything else. Still, short of going to Mr. Mallinger and telling him to be bold, Anne could not
think how to help the two of them out of their mutual embarrassment. She tried inviting Mr. Mallinger to tea one day shortly after Christmas, and the effort was mildly successful—he came, he drank tea in the same room as Maria, he was civil to every one—but they parted as distantly as ever, so that Anne thought at this rate they would need till Midsummer Day to clear up matters between them. And she could not stay in Cheshire until Midsummer Day. Aside from everything else, how would it look to Mr. Highet?