“You stand round your Grandmother’s chair until your uncles and aunts arrive, and then you’ll do what the rest of the family do, you can’t go wrong if you keep your eyes open.”
They longed to ask “wrong about what?” but Alice had dashed out shouting to Hannah to come and lend her a hand.
Sorrel looked at Mark and Mark looked at Holly; and all of a sudden it seemed so silly standing solemnly in a row round an empty armchair that they began to giggle. Mark giggled so much that he had to lie down on the floor. Then they heard the front door bell. Sorrel pulled him to his feet.
“Oh, goodness! There’s the uncles and aunts! Do get up, it’s most terribly important that we shouldn’t be a disgrace. We don’t want them to despise the Forbes.”
A perfectly strange man dressed as a butler threw open the drawing-room door and roared out, “Mr. Moses Cohen, Mrs. Cohen, Miss Cohen.”
The first person to come in was Miriam. She stood just inside the door, and in a very affected way, that was not a bit like her, said:
“This is my Daddy, and this is my Mummy.” As the children knew quite well that she called her parents Mum and Dad, and as Miriam was never affected, they stared at her in amazement. Miriam saw their faces and added, in a hoarse whisper, “We always work up everybody’s entrance on Christmas Day.”
Aunt Lindsey came in. She was dark and rather severe looking, and very smart. She stood in the doorway with both hands outstretched, and said in an acting sort of voice:
“Little Addie’s children!”
She then stood to one side. There was a moment’s pause and there was Uncle Mose with a tiny cardboard hat on the side of his head, rubbing his hands in front of him.
“Vell! Vell! Vell!”
Evidently saying “Vell! Vell! Vell!” like that was something for which he was famous, because as soon as he had finished saying it, Aunt Lindsey and Miriam laughed.
Once the laugh was over and the Cohen family safely in the room, everybody began to behave in an ordinary way. Miriam raced across and hugged her three cousins and said “Happy Christmas,” and told them what she had been given for presents. Aunt Lindsey kissed them and was very nice, and Uncle Mose told them to feel in his pockets, and out came three envelopes marked Sorrel, Mark and Holly, and in each one was a ten-shilling note! He kissed Sorrel and Holly and rubbed Mark’s hair the wrong way, and told them what he would like them to do would be to buy a book each, but that the money was their own and they could spend it how they liked. They took a great fancy to Uncle Mose.
The Cohens had no sooner got safely into the drawing-room than the Brains arrived. The strange man dressed as a butler said, “Sir Francis and Lady Brain. Miss Miranda Brain.” This time Miranda came in first. She stood in the doorway, and said in her lovely voice:
“A merry Christmas, everybody.” Then she turned and held out both hands, and added in a surprised voice, as if she had not known she was there, “Mummy!”
Aunt Marguerite was shorter than Aunt Lindsey, and thinner. She had an anxious, strained expression. She put one arm round Miranda.
“A happy Christmas.” And then, holding out her free hand into the passage, “Look who’s here! Come to say merry Christmas to everybody.”
Uncle Francis was a large man with a big, booming deep voice, which sounded as though he kept it mellow by giving it caramels. He looked round the drawing-room as if he were surprised to find himself there. He stood between Aunt Marguerite and Miranda, an arm round each.
“My dear wife, my little daughter, this is an occasion.” And then, with a big smile round the room, “A merry Christmas to you all from the Brain family.”
The moment this introduction was over, Aunt Marguerite ran across the drawing-room to hug Aunt Lindsey, but her eyes were on the children.
“Oh, isn’t this fun! I have so wanted to meet you, but we’ve been touring.” She kissed each of the children in turn. “I didn’t know what to bring you, dears; it’s so hard these days to find anything nice.” She turned to Miranda. “Run and get the parcels out of the hall.”
Miranda and Miriam were both looking as well dressed as Sorrel was afraid they would. Miranda had on a party dress of green taffeta, and Miriam was in white with an orange ribbon round the waist. Sorrel felt at her worst, as if she were sticking out in all the wrong places.
Miranda, who had gone into the passage to fetch the parcels, came back with her arms full. Aunt Marguerite selected three of the parcels and handed them to the children.
“Don’t undo them until Grandmother comes. We keep the presents until then.”
Grandmother’s arrival was announced. The butler threw open the drawing-room door:
“Miss Margaret Shaw.”
Grandmother stood in the open doorway. She was wearing a dress of black trailing chiffon, and fox furs, and her hair was held up on the top of her head with a diamond comb. There was not very much light in the hall and as she stood there she did not look like an old lady, but like somebody out of a fairy story. She stretched out both arms.
“My children! Now this is really Christmas.”
The children that she referred to were, of course, Aunt Lindsey and Aunt Marguerite, and they hurried forward and kissed their mother.
“Darling Mother.”
“Mother dearest.”
Then Uncle Francis came across the room and kissed Grandmother’s hand.
“Wonderful, wonderful woman!”
Uncle Mose followed Uncle Francis. He kissed Grandmother’s hand, too. All this time Sorrel, Mark and Holly had been waiting to do something, and now they had their cue. Miranda and Miriam danced across the room.
“Granny, Granny!”
Uncle Mose gave a wink and a jerk of his head to Sorrel. She caught hold of Mark and Holly and they hurried forward. After kissing Grandmother, the right thing to do seemed to be to lead her to her chair. She sat down, shook out her skirts, rested her back comfortably against her cushion and twinkled up at Aunt Lindsey.
“Well, what is it this year?”
Aunt Lindsey looked positively nervous as she produced her parcel.
“I do hope it’s something you’ll like, darling; but you know how difficult things are.”
Aunt Lindsey, being obviously so nervous, seemed to affect everybody else, and they all leaned forward while Grandmother opened the box. Inside was a beautiful handbag.
“Of course,” Sorrel thought, “one shouldn’t criticise one’s grandmother,” but she did seem to take presents in a funny way. She turned the bag upside down, she smelt the leather, and she looked at the lining; and it was this that took most of her attention, for when she had examined it carefully she said to Aunt Lindsey in a shocked way:
“Artificial.”
“I know, dear,” Aunt Lindsey agreed, “but there is so little real silk about these days.”
Uncle Mose gave Grandmother an affectionate tap on the shoulder.
“You’ve fooled her as usual, Mother. I know you’re not looking at the lining; you’re hoping to find the price ticket.”
Grandmother twinkled up at him.
“Quite right. I love knowing what things cost.”
Aunt Marguerite laid her present on Grandmother’s knee. This time it was a thin parcel. Inside was an umbrella.
“I know, dear,” Aunt Marguerite said, “that you never have used an umbrella, and that you never walk anywhere; but now that you’re going into this show, I do think you ought to be prepared in case you have to, there are so very few taxis.”
Grandmother turned over the umbrella as if it were some curiosity from a foreign country.
“Interesting. I remember I carried one just like this in the first act of ‘Aunt Celia.’ You remember, that was the play when I had to try and look dowdy.”
Uncle Francis cleared his throat.
“Good umbrellas are scarce to-day, Mother.”
Grandmother answered him in a very good imitation of his own voice.
“Then it was very kind of
the Brains to give it to me.” All of a sudden, her manner changed and she swung round in her chair and looked at the children. “Now, what about the children’s parcels? Where are they? Bring them out.”
Aunt Marguerite’s parcels were opened. In Sorrel’s and Holly’s were very pretty strings of beads, and in Mark’s a penknife. As well, there was a parcel each from Aunt Lindsey. A book by Ransome for Sorrel, a torch for Mark, and a game for Holly. They took a very good view of their aunts’ ideas of presents.
The children had made Grandmother’s heath look better by putting round the pot a bow that Alice had found. They had given it to Alice to put on the table. Now Sorrel began rather to wish they had not. Evidently this was the right time to give presents, and anyway it looked pretty shabby of them not to have got presents for at any rate Miranda and Miriam; but even with the presents they had given they were cleaned out.
They need not have worried; their present was a great success. Grandmother said she should put it on her dressing-table at the theatre to bring her luck.
Dinner was tremendous fun. Grandmother and Uncle Mose were both terribly funny and always funny about things to do with the children. First, it was about Miranda, and then Sorrel perhaps, and then Mark. It seemed to be that kind of party when nobody minds how excited you get or how noisy you are. There was turkey to eat. Uncle Mose had managed to get it from a friend and he told a long, silly story about how he had led it on a gold ribbon right up from the city. Of course, they all knew it was not true, but they enjoyed it just the same. There was plum pudding of a sort to follow and some mince pies. The children all chose the plum pudding because, as Alice laid it down, she said:
“There’s a thimble, a china baby, a horseshoe and a sixpence in there, and I want everything except the sixpence back for next year, so mind you don’t swallow them.”
The thimble and the china baby were found by Holly, the horseshoe by Miranda, and Uncle Mose got the sixpence. Uncle Francis had brought with him a bottle of port wine, which he said he had got from his club, and when dinner was over, everybody, including the children, were given some to drink. It was for toasts. There seemed to be a custom about this. First of all, Grandmother’s health was drunk, and Uncle Francis made a speech about it. Then Aunt Lindsey fetched an enormous photograph of Uncle Henry and put it down by Grandmother’s side, and Grandmother made a speech about “my eldest boy,” and everybody drank to Uncle Henry. Then Grandmother made a speech about the Cohens and another about the Brains. The children, who had not had very much port to begin with, began to wonder how many more healths were going to be drunk, because even though they took only teeny little sips they had not much left, when Grandmother suddenly held up her hand for silence.
“There’s someone we specially want to drink to to-night. These children’s father. May he be home with them by next Christmas.”
It was quite awful; but somehow, thinking of its being Christmas and even imagining him home by next Christmas was so absolutely gorgeous, it made Sorrel want to cry. She looked at Mark and saw he was going to cry too, and then she looked at Holly and saw that she was, too. Fortunately, Sorrel was not the only one who knew what was going to happen. Uncle Mose was quicker than she was. Before more than two tears had flopped down Sorrel’s cheeks and Mark had only got to the making-faces stage, and Holly was just puckering up, he had got off his chair and was walking round the table on his hands.
None of the children had ever seen a person do that before, and they were so interested watching him that the crying moment passed, and they were back feeling Christmassy again.
After dinner they played charades, and the man dressed as a butler, Alice and Hannah came in as audience.
The charades started like ordinary party charades, only of rather a grand kind. Uncle Mose, Grandmother, Miranda, Holly and Aunt Lindsey made a side. They acted “manifold” but the word did not seem to have much to do with it. It was just thinking of amusing things to give everybody, especially the children, to do. The second charade was acted by the rest of the family. This was more serious because Uncle Francis seemed only to play serious parts, and so that charade was not very funny. It was when they were playing the third charade that Grandmother and Uncle Mose got together.
“You must do Jaques in ‘As You Like It,’” Uncle Mose urged, “only, instead of the apple, I’ve got a prop for you.”
The children had never seen Uncle Francis act. So it was not half as funny to them as it seemed to be to the others.
Grandmother, with an overcoat on to show she was being a man, stood with an enormous carving knife in one hand and peeled a pumpkin. And while the skin fell on the floor she rolled out very slowly the Seven Ages of Man speech. There were immense pauses when she looked up and did things with her eyes, and this simply convulsed Aunt Lindsey, Uncle Mose and Alice. Alice laughed so much that she had to hold her inside, and she kept murmuring to the butler:
“She’ll be the death of me.”
Hannah, sitting beside her, never laughed at all. Alice had told her that this was Shakespeare—and Shakespeare, according to what Hannah had heard, was not a thing to laugh at. After that, Uncle Mose pretending to be Aunt Marguerite and Grandmother pretending to be Uncle Francis, did a scene from “Macbeth.” Sorrel, who had learnt “Macbeth,” knew that neither of them was using the real words, but making it up. Some of the things that Uncle Mose did were really funny, but otherwise the people who enjoyed themselves most were Grandmother and Uncle Mose. Uncle Francis was not amused at all.
Then the charades were over. Grandmother went back to her chair and Aunt Lindsey looked at her watch.
“I think it’s time we started the carols.”
They sang “The First Noel” and “Good King Wenceslas.” And then Grandmother held out a hand to Mark.
“Come here, grandson. I hear from Madame Fidolia that you can sing. What carol will you sing for us?”
Mark did not want to sing at all. It was that sort of party which, as nobody was stern with anybody, had got to the point when knocking other people about, especially grown-ups, was fun. Mark felt more in the mood to stand on his head than to sing a carol, but Grandmother was holding him firmly and she obviously meant to have her way.
“If I sing one you won’t say ‘sing another,’ will you?”
Grandmother looked round at her daughters.
“See how he bullies me; you’d never have dared do that. Very well, Mark, just one carol and I won’t ask for another.”
They had learnt at the Academy, “I Saw Three Ships.” It was easy to sing without a piano, and Mark liked it. He leant against Grandmother and sang it all through.
There was complete silence when he had finished. Sorrel did not wonder, for, really, Mark’s singing was a very nice noise. She looked at him with pride. It was a good thing that one of them could shine in this clever family. Uncle Francis was the first to speak, and he used his most caramel voice:
“Beautiful, beautiful.”
Aunt Lindsey kissed her mother.
“I think that’s the right ending to a lovely evening. We’ve hired a car, you know, and it ought to be here any minute.”
Grandmother was kissing everybody.
“Good-night, dears. Good-night, Francis. Good-night, Marguerite. God bless you all.”
CHAPTER XIV
FIRST NIGHT
Holly woke very early one morning and thought about the two pounds Posy had sent her. Holly was not exactly vain but she liked nice things, and all through the term she had to look at Miriam, who was given the best of everything by Aunt Marguerite, but the best thing of all in Holly’s opinion was her attaché case. Not having an attaché case mattered much more to Holly than it did to Sorrel or to Mark. Holly was forgetful and could easily drop a thing and not notice it, and she was not very good at tying up a parcel. Almost every day she dropped a sandal or a tap shoe, or a sock somewhere in the Academy, and though at first people had been kind and helpful about it, now everybody groaned, “Oh, Holly!?
?? When Holly woke in the mornings she made the most splendid resolutions. “When I go up to my class to-day I won’t drop anything. I’ll come with all the right things folded neatly inside my towel like Winifred showed me, and then everybody will say, ‘Well done, Holly!’” Unfortunately, these splendid resolutions never went beyond Holly’s bed. She generally left something behind in the bathroom as a start to the day, and then Hannah said:
“Your head will never save your feet.”
It was still dark and it was very cold; but Holly, as soon as she had thought of the attaché case, was so thrilled about it, she simply had to tell Sorrel. She got out of bed very quietly, for the iron beds that she and Hannah slept on creaked horribly if anyone moved quickly. She managed to find her dressing-gown, which was lying over the end of the bed. She could not find her slippers, so, though it was not allowed, she ran up the passage without them.
Sorrel was asleep. Miles and miles down in sleep, dreaming one of those nice dreams where you keep meeting people all together who in actual life could never meet at all. Her father was having a talk with Madame and she pulled forward a little girl and said, “This is my best pupil,” and one moment the little girl was Sorrel and the next it was her mother at the same age. And then Hannah came running in with a huge tray of ice-cream, singing, “Pease porridge, hot!” Sorrel had just taken an enormous strawberry ice-cream with real strawberries in it and whipped cream on the top, the sort of thing even in peacetime that would have been something to remember, when Holly woke her. She tried very hard to be nice; but really, what with missing the ice-cream and just waking up, she did not feel nice. Holly sat on the edge of the bed.
“I simply had to come. Do you think I could buy a real leather attaché case, the grand sort like Miriam has, with the ten shillings Uncle Mose gave me, as well as Posy’s two pounds?”
Sorrel thought about it. She remembered the shops they had been to and the attaché cases they had seen.
“I am awfully afraid we couldn’t. Those nice ones we saw were five pounds, I think.”