People Like Ourselves (Scottish Historical Novels). Anna Buchan
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The Jardines always felt about Christmas Day that the best of it was over in the morning—the stockings and the presents and the postman, leaving long, over-eaten, irritable hours to be got through before bedtime and oblivion.
This year Jock had drawn out a time-table to ensure that the day held no longueurs.
7.30 Stockings.
8.30 Breakfast.
9 Postman.
10-12 Deliver small presents to various friends.
1 Luncheon at the Jowetts'. 4 Tea at home and present-giving.
5-9 Devoted to supper and variety entertainment.
This programme was strictly adhered to except by the Mhor in the matter of his stocking, which was grabbed from the bed-post and cuddled into bed beside him at least two hours before the scheduled time; and by the postman, who did not make his appearance till midday, thereby greatly disarranging things.
The day passed very pleasantly: the luncheon at the Jowetts' was everything a Christmas meal should be, Mrs. M'Cosh surpassed herself with bakemeats for the tea, the presents gave lively satisfaction, but the feature of the day was the box that arrived from Pamela and her brother. It was waiting when the family came back from the Jowetts', standing in the middle of the little hall with a hammer and a screw-driver laid on the top by thoughtful Mrs. M'Cosh—a large white wooden box which thrilled one with its air of containing treasures. Mhor sank down beside it, hardly able to wait until David had taken off his coat and was ready to tackle it. Off came the lid, out came the packing paper on the top, and in Jock and Mhor dived.
It was really a wonderful box. In it there was something for everybody, including Mrs. M'Cosh and Peter, but Mhor's was the most striking present. No wonder the box was large. It contained a whole railway—a train, lines, signal-boxes, a station, even a tunnel.
Mhor was rendered speechless with delight. Jean wished Pamela had been there to see the lamps lit in his green eyes. Mrs. M'Cosh's beautiful tea was lost on him: he ate and drank without being aware of it, his eyes feasting all the time on this great new treasure.
"I wish," he said at last, "that I could do something for the Honourable and Richard Plantagenet. I only sent her a wee poetry-book. It cost a shilling. It was Jean's shilling really, for I hadn't anything left, and I wrote in it, 'Wishing you a pretty New Year.' I forgot about 'happy' being the word; d'you think she'll mind?"
"I think Pamela will prefer it called 'pretty,'" Jean said. "You are lucky, aren't you?—and so is Jock with that gorgeous knife."
"It's an explorer's knife," said Jock. "You see, you can do almost everything with it. If I was wrecked on a desert island I could pretty nearly build a house with it. Feel the blades——"
"Oh, do be careful. I would put away the presents in the meantime and get everything ready for the charade. Are you quite sure you know what you're going to do? You mustn't just stand and giggle."
Jean had asked three guests to come to supper—three lonely women who otherwise would have spent a solitary evening—and Mrs. M'Cosh had asked Bella Bathgate to sup with her and afterwards to witness what she dubbed "a chiraide."
The living-room had been made ready for the entertainment, all the chairs placed in rows, the deep window-seat doing duty for a stage, but Jean was very doubtful about the powers of the actors, and hoped that the audience would be both easily amused and long-suffering.
Jock and Mhor protested that they had chosen a word for the charade, and knew exactly what they meant to say, but they would divulge no details, advising Jean to wait patiently, for something very good was coming.
The little house looked very festive, for the boys had decorated earnestly, the square hall was a bower of greenery, and a gaily coloured Chinese lantern hanging in the middle added a touch of gaiety to the scene. The supper was the best that Jean and Mrs. M'Cosh could devise, the linen and the glass and silver shone, the flowers were charmingly arranged Jean wore her gay mandarin's coat, and the guests—when they arrived—found themselves in such a warm and welcoming atmosphere that they at once threw off all stiffness and prepared to enjoy the evening.
The entertainment was to begin at eight, and Mrs. M'Cosh and Miss Bathgate took their seats "on the chap," as the latter put it. The two Miss Watsons, surprisingly enough, were also present. They had come along after supper with a small present for Jean, had asked to see her, and stood lingering on the doorstep refusing to come farther, but obviously reluctant to depart.
"Just a little bag, you know, Miss Jean, for you to put your work in if you're going out to tea, you know. No, it's not at all kind. You've been so nice to us. No, no, we won't come in; we don't want to disturb you—just ran along—you've friends, anyway. Oh, well, if you put it that way … we might just sit down for five minutes—if you're sure we're not in the way…." And still making a duet of protest they sank into seats.
A passage had been arranged, with screens between the door and the window-seat, and much traffic went along that way; the screens bumped and bulged and seemed on the point of collapsing, while smothered giggles were frequent.
At last the curtains were jerked apart, and revealed what seemed to be a funeral pyre. Branches were piled on the window-seat, and on the top, wrapped in an eiderdown quilt, with a laurel wreath bound round his head, lay David. Jock, with bare legs and black boots, draped in an old-fashioned circular waterproof belonging to Mrs. M'Cosh, stood with arms folded looking at him, while Mhor, almost denuded of clothing, and supported by Peter (who sat with his back to the audience to show his thorough disapproval of the proceedings), stood at one side.
When the murmured comments of the spectators had ceased, Mhor, looking extraordinarily Roman, held up his hand as if appealing to a raging mob, and said, "Peace, ho! Let us hear him," whereupon Jock, breathing heavily in his brother's face, proceeded to give Antony's oration over Cǣsar. He did it very well, and the Mhor as the Mob supplied appropriate growls at intervals; indeed, so much did Antony's eloquence inspire Mhor that, when Jock shouted, "Light the pyre!" (a sentence introduced to bring in the charade word), instead of merely pretending with an unlighted taper, Mhor dashed to the fire, lit the taper, and before anyone could stop him thrust it among the dry twigs, which at once began to light and crackle. Immediately all was confusion. "Mhor!" shouted Jean, as she sprang towards the stage. "Gosh, Maggie!" Jock yelled, as he grabbed the burning twigs, but it was "Imperial Cæsar, dead and turned to clay," who really put out the fire by rolling on it wrapped in an eiderdown quilt.
"Eh, ye ill callant," said Bella Bathgate.
"Ye wee deevil," said Mrs. M'Cosh, "ye micht hev had us a' burned where we sat, and it Christmas too!"
"What made you do it, sonny?" Jean asked.
"It made it so real," Mhor explained, "and I knew we could always throw them out of the window if they really blazed. What's the use of having a funeral pyre if you don't light it?"
The actors departed to prepare for the next performance Jock coming back to put his head in at the door to ask if they had guessed the first part of the word.
Jean said she thought it must be incendiarism.
"Funeral," said Miss Watson brightly.
"Huch," said Jock; "it's a word of one syllable."
"I think," Jean said as the door shut on Jock—I think I know what the word is—pyre."
"Oh, really," said Miss Watson, "I'm all shaking yet with the fright I got. He's an awful bad wee boy that—sort of regardless. He needs a man to look after him."
"I'll never forget," said Miss Teenie, "once I was staying with a friend of ours, a doctor; his mother and our mother were cousins, you know, and when I looked—I was doing my hair at the time—I found that the curtain had blown across the gas and was blazing. If I had been in our own house I would just have rushed out screaming, but when you're away from home you've more feeling of responsibility and I just stood on a chair and pulled at the curtain till I brought it down and stamped on it. My hands were all scorched, and of course the curtain