The Rutherfurd Saga. Anna Buchan
would be laid on the breakfast-table, also a game sent by Mrs. Heggie, and a box of Meccano from the Bucklers. It was too much for one child, she thought, and she meant to tell him how many children had nothing but a crust of bread.
She added up columns rapidly as she sat, putting very neat figures into a pass-book. Then she put the books away and fetched some brown paper and string from a table in the corner. Nicole came springing in on her like a gay schoolgirl.
“Am I disturbing you? No, please go on packing. I’ve been at it for the last week, and to-day I’d never have got through if Barbara hadn’t given me a hand. She takes time by the fetlock, as my brother Ronnie used to say, and is always well beforehand.”
“These are just a few things that Annie will take out this evening,” Miss Symington said, cutting the end of a string carefully.
Nicole, watching her, said, “You don’t keep Christmas much in Kirkmeikle, do you? My efforts to be seasonable have been rather snubbed this afternoon; but Alastair keeps it, I’m sure. Will you put these things into his stocking, please? They are only little things, but they may amuse him. And this is for you. You won’t open it till to-morrow morning—promise? Now, I’m not going to stay a moment longer. A very Happy Christmas to you. No, don’t come to the door. . . .”
She heaved a sigh of relief as she left the dreary villa, and stood on the brae-face looking over the tumbled roofs to the sea, and saw the lights along the coast begin to twinkle greeting to the stars in the frosty sky.
“Quite like a Christmas number, isn’t it?” a voice said behind her, and she turned quickly to find Simon Beckett.
“Where are you wandering to, sir? I’ve been playing ‘Sandy Claws,’ as old Betsy puts it. . . . I thought you would have gone away to spend the festive season—falsely so called.”
Simon turned and walked by her side. “Watch how you go: it’s pretty slippery. . . . No, I’m not going away. I’ve only cousins to go to, anyway, and they don’t particularly want me. Besides, it hardly seemed worth while to go so far just now. I’m keen on getting my job done, and . . .”
“How are you getting on? You haven’t asked for any advice yet?”
“No—you see I’ve only now got the rough draft done: I’ve taken an age to it. It’s when I re-write and polish that I’ll be most grateful for help—only, I hardly like to bother you.”
“We’ll be enormously flattered and not in the least bothered. You know that. . . . I’ve been at Ravenscraig with some things for Alastair’s stocking. It was all so hopelessly uncheery for the poor lamb. When I think of our childhood—the fuss that was made, the thrill of the preparations, the mystery. It does make a difference having a mother, an aunt given to good works isn’t the same at all.”
Simon agreed. “I’ve got a train for him,” he said, “with rails. It only came this morning and I was in a perfect funk that it wasn’t going to turn up in time. He’s been fearfully keen to possess one. I hope it’ll come up to his expectations.”
“Sure to, trains never fail one—— What are you doing to-morrow?”
“Nothing special. I thought I’d treat myself to a really long walk.”
“We’re quite alone,” Nicole told him. “After your walk it would be a kind act if you’d eat your Christmas dinner with us—7.30—and afterwards we’ll sit round the fire and talk. . . . Isn’t it jolly to-night? The moon and the snowy roofs and the lights in the frosty air. And look at that little steamer, plugging along! Where are you going to, you funny little boat? Don’t you know what night this is?”
CHAPTER XVII
“Go humbly; humble are the skies,
And low and large and fierce the Star;
So very near the manger lies
That we may travel far.”
G. K. Chesterton.
When Alastair had almost finished dressing on Christmas morning, Gentle Annie suddenly dumped a parcel on the dressing-table, announcing, “That’s ma present.”
Alastair looked shyly at it, making no effort to discover its contents.
“Open’t. Here! See!” Annie quickly whipped off the paper and disclosed, on a stand, a round glass globe containing a miniature cottage, which, when shaken, became surrounded with whirling snow-flakes.
“It’s a snow-storm,” she declared triumphantly. “It cost one shilling and sixpence.”
“Oh, Annie, how could you afford it?” Alastair asked anxiously.
“Aw, weel, I wanted a strong ane this time. The last I got was a shilling, an’ I brocht it back from Langtoun in aside ma new hat, for I thocht that would be a safe place, but when I won hame I fand it had broken, and a’ the water and white stuff—I think it’s juist bakin’ soda—was ower ma hat.”
Alastair shook the globe and produced a most realistic snow-scene.
“Is the snow really only baking soda?” he asked rather sadly.
“Ay, but it does fine. We’ll pit it on the mantelpiece for an ornamint, an’ juist shake it whiles, an’ then it’ll no get broken in a hurry. . . . By! but ye’re weel off gettin’ a’ thae things in yer stockin’. . . . Dinna brush yer hair till yer jersey’s on. D’ye no see ye pit it a’ wrang again?—Noo, rin awa’ doon to yer breakfast, like a guid laddie, and be sure and say ‘a Merry Christmas’ to yer auntie.”
But Alastair, very pink in the face, was thrusting something into Annie’s hand.
“It’s my present, a purse. I bought it at Jimmie Nisbet’s when I was out with Mr. Beckett. D-d’you like it?”
“By! it’s a braw ane,” said Annie. She saw that it was really a tobacco pouch, but Alastair had bought it for a purse and she wouldn’t enlighten him. “I’ll keep ma chance-money in’t, and aye carry it when I’m dressed.”
Alastair, blushing with pleasure to hear that his present was valued, and carrying the contents of his stocking, ran downstairs. He was well content with the beginning of his day, and ready to enjoy anything that might turn up.
“Good morning, Aunt Janet,” he said; “a Merry Christmas,” his eyes all the time fixed on his place at the breakfast-table. There were parcels there!
“Good morning, Alastair. A Happy Christmas. I hope you’re a grateful boy to-day. Just think of all the poor children who will get no presents. . . . No, sup your porridge, and eat your bread and butter before you touch a parcel.”
Miss Symington had never much to say to her nephew except in the way of reproof, and breakfast was eaten more or less in silence. When they had finished the bell was rung for prayers, and the servants came in and sat on chairs near the door, while their mistress read a chapter and a prayer, and Alastair said the text which Annie had to teach him every morning. At first she had opened the Bible and chosen a verse at random, and Alastair had come down and repeated, “All the Levites in the Holy City were two hundred, fourscore and four,” or something equally relevant, until Miss Symington gave her a text-book which she was working steadily through.
“Your text, Alastair,” his aunt said on this Christmas morning, and Alastair’s flute-like voice repeated gravely, “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when ye shall say, I have no pleasure in them.”
To Alastair there was no sense in the words, but he liked the sound of them, the rhythm . . . Remember now thy Creator. . . . “May I open my parcels now?”
Miss Symington had not