– Uncle Willard’s in one of his regular Christmas moods, cross as a
bear.” We laughed, yet, as the car turned into our lane, something
began to tighten round my heart. How could it not, this time? As
never before, grief, loss impinged on a Christmas homecoming.
Quickly, Carol, as though our feelings were one, gave my hand a
reassuring squeeze. Close together, we watched those familiar
windows come, glowing, nearer. Soon, out burst a flood of light
onto the snow: framed in the door stood Mother, arms wide open.
Indoors, holly wreathed round the hall lantern made the air
pungent with hot berries. Warmth quivered from the kind crimson
walls: not large, the hall seemed smaller than ever, overflowing with
the entire family. One small new face darted around: Charlie, my
solid ten-year-old brother, had as guest a boy of his age, Blinks, a
high-strung child with goggle spectacles. Down the stairs came
Alec, Louise’s tall handsome husband, their baby chuckling on his
shoulder. On the outskirts fluttered Cissie Potter, and from the
living-room arch glowered Uncle Willard.
Not to speak unkindly of Uncle Willard, we could have done
without him. This ancient bachelor was noted for thinking of
nobody but himself. Deafness alternated, in Uncle Willard, with a
hearing that could be inconveniently sharp. Principally, of course,
he was Mother’s burden. He’d moved in not long after Father died,
on pretext of giving Mother “support.” I suspect we suited him,
though he declined to show it. Mother claimed Uncle Willard
needed affection; we children did our best, though we doubted it.
“Where,” he loudly asked, “is this gal with the broken heart, this
miss we keep hearing so much about?”
What had happened to Carol had hit us all. No hint of anything
wrong till Jim called Mother (who is his aunt) long distance. “I’m
sorry,” he announced, she told us later, “but I won’t be coming for
Christmas.” Mother flared up: “Not come, when Carol’s coming?
When you two’ve been parted for half a year?” From planets away
came his curt rejoinder: “That’s just it.” The line then seemed to go
dead, leaving Mother demanding: “Jim, what’s the matter?” Finally
he told her: “Better ask Carol.” He then hung up.
She could conclude but one thing, rightly. The engagement was
broken.
Head awhirl with Christmas, frantic with preparations, Mother
stared at the telephone, then rapidly asked for a city number. Yes,
there
was
Carol; moreover, with the letter still in her hand. Mother’s
was the first voice to come through since the girl had read Jim’s
shattering words. “He’s right to be honest; I’d hate him not to be
honest,” Carol kept piteously repeating, adding: “You mustn’t blame
him!” Then, though, a sob tore its way through her. That sound was
more than Mother could stand, being helpless to comfort from
where she was: our home, miles away in the country. She called me,
Liz (also there in the city), saying, “Go straight to Carol!” and told
me why. Though this hit our entire family, Mother realised I would
be hurt doubly. Jim had been always my hero cousin; Carol was my
dearest-beloved friend.
Soon I was in her apartment, she in my arms. Speechless for
minutes, we sat on her studio bed. All round, in heart-breaking
contrast, the small room was bright with pre-Christmas litter. She’d
been in the midst of packing when the mail came. It was I who burst
out: “I
can’t
understand Jim! To do this to you, and to do it
now
!”
She protested: “No, Liz – think! How could he go through with
a Christmas of ‘acting up’? With me, in front of
you
all, who know
him so well? See for yourself!” She gave me the letter.
She had been right: these few lines of Jim’s left little margin for
doubt or hope. I winced. Now I am older, now I know more about
psychology, I can see why Jim, by nature kind and protective, said
nothing to lessen the shock, soften the blow. And what had forced
him to this? The same old story: a “someone else.” Separated from
Carol by his work, in a distant country, Jim had fallen prey to such
loneliness as unsteadies a man.
The end of Jim’s letter startled me. “I have no right,” he con
cluded, “to ask you anything, now. Yet I do ask this: will you go to
them, all the same? This can wreck their Christmas; you could still
save it. Happiness goes where you are. Goodbye, Carol.”
I handed the letter back. “Carol,” I said timidly, “
is
it too much to
ask?”
She stood before me, pushing her fair hair back. “It isn’t that, Liz.
Wouldn’t I make you sad?”
“Imagine our sadness to feel we’d lost you!” For a minute I felt an
inner struggle go on. Then our eyes met. Calmly she said, “I should
like to come.”
Now, here she was in our midst.
Head high, radiant under the lantern, Carol, unbuttoning her
coat, stood smiling around her. “Good to see you, Carol,” Alec
remarked, taking her coat, in his easy brotherly way. She returned,
“It’s wonderful to be back.”
Meanwhile, no quieting Uncle Willard! “Eh?
Where
?” he grumbled.
“Where’s she hiding herself, this Miss Broken-heart?”
I helplessly shook my head.
“A
ha
!” he cackled, “last minute, you brought Miss Pretty instead.
Better fun, eh? What’s the proverb? ‘Weep and you weep alone.’
Can’t pretend I’m sorry: damp tears catch
me
right in the bones!”
He uttered a snort. “If there’s one thing I can’t abide, it’s a whiny
woman.” Uncle Willard gave point to his last remark by aiming a
baleful look at poor Cissie Potter, in “upset” retreat from the rest of
us. “One’s enough in
this
house,” declared Uncle Willard. “The older,
the sillier!”
“Uncle!” I protested.
It inclined to be a theory of Cissie Potter’s that nobody else’s
sorrows went truly deep. This girlhood friend of Mother’s had
succeeded in pickling herself in romantic grief. She modelled her
self, in spite of advancing years, on a Victorian lovelorn maiden. Her
moist-violet eyes were given to rolling, her figure was ultra-willowy
and her voice plaintive. Immune, through spinsterhood, from
domestic cares, Cissie had leisure for brooding. Genuinely, she liked
to be called “Poor Cissie.” As to what had dealt the death-blow to
her heart, Mother remained evasive. Cissie herself favoured a veil of
mystery. “She needs taking out of herself,” Mother would say; for
which reason, we had her for every Christmas. Our home is oldfashioned.
This
Christmas, our outstanding family trouble banished lesser
concerns. Before the blow dealt by Jim to Carol, Mother’d wondered
if Cissie would choose to be “overcome” by being under one roof
with two blissful lovers. What did not occur to us was that she still
might play a big emotional scene, the reverse way. I scented the
danger the minute I observed the eager blue bobbing of Cissie’s
hair bow: she could hardly wait to get going, intrude, and probe.
We
honoured Carol’s reserve; loving her for her desperate youthful
courage. To Cissie both were incomprehensible. Her eyes already
were fixed upon my friend, morbidly, indeed, avidly.
That
must be
stopped, I thought!
This evening, early to bed. Carol and I shared a raftered attic,
faintly smelling of apples. Away in a crib under the sloping ceiling
slumbered Louise’s Frankie: cheeks pink still with the contentment
left by her happy day. Tucked in the crook of one plump elbow, my
niece held, tonight, all her heart desired: a battered blue velvet
monkey. How possible to be
satisfied
, when one’s six! I asked myself,
does one grow harder to please? Nineteen we both were, Carol and
I. Already, life involved one in desperate risks. Yet would that be
helped? If one
were
a woman, be a woman one must! Frankie would
find that, someday.
I put out the lamp. Below, we heard the grandfather clock strike
nine: for
me
, after that, nothing more.
What woke me, I could not at first tell. “
Carol
?” Her bed though
still warm was empty. Utterly still was the house, with its many
sleepers, till I heard, again, that insistent, bewildered crying.
Tugging on my robe, I investigated. Across the head of the staircase
a door stood open: I looked into the other attic which moonlight
filled. In here was Charlie’s kingdom, fiercely guarded; stark as a
mountain hut. Tonight, two beds were in here.
One bed was jerked by restrained sobbing. On it, twisted into a
knot, Blinks lay, fists crammed into his eyes. On the edge sat Carol
in a white wrapper. Tousled, in his nightshirt, my young brother
hovered anxiously round. “Blinks feels badly,” he pointed out, in a
hoarse whisper.
“I’m sorry. Sick?”
“No, but he couldn’t settle. Keeps jumping out, and now he’s trod
on his spectacles. He can’t see.”
“Tomorrow, we’ll – ”
Carol said: “I don’t think it’s only that.”
“No, it’s not,” said Charlie. “It’s this first Christmas without his
mother.”
“Where is she?”
“She – she isn’t there any more.”
Leaning over, Carol eased open one of the tight-clenched fists.
“Blinks,” she said, “I don’t exactly know how it is for you, but I do
almost. Both of us losing someone: it’s awful. No good pretending
it’s not.”
He let fall the other fist, rolled his head around. “K-keeps coming
back on me, when I don’t expect.”
“I know,” she said.
“
You
do?” he asked.
“So I’m glad you’re here,” Carol declared, “and I’m glad I am.
That’s company, isn’t it? Let’s plan something.”
“What’ll we plan?”
“Build us a hut. Invent a surprise together. We’ll see, or you or I
might happen to dream some idea.”
He thought that over. “Want me to go to sleep?”
“Well, it would help.” She rose, but only to straighten the twisted
blanket. Quieter every minute under her touch, Blinks let out his
breath in a great sigh. “Wish I could properly see you,” he mur
mured, “I just see
white
. Don’t, anyway, go,” he demanded. “Sing.
Sing, ‘Silent Night, Holy Night.’” So she sang.
Christmas Eve it was, when we woke next morning. The boys
were off in the woods. Mother, busy in the kitchen, made frequent
sorties; Alec chopped; Louise made yet another dash to the village;
Frankie shifted armfuls of kittens or dangling puppies from scene to
scene. Hum concentrated around the parlour, where the Christmas
tree was being arrayed. The baby tottered delightedly in. A ladder
stood by the tree. All other years, it was Jim who fixed the tree’s
lighting. Connection was apt to be tricky: tangles of cord, dully
jewelled with unlit bulbs, messed the floor. Cissie’s entrance was
spoilt, she all but tripped up.
Uncle Willard scowled, crouching over the game of chess at
which he was beating himself. Cissie in a flash took in the lighting
predicament. Her earrings, like crystallised tears, swayed as she
cried: “How one misses a man!”
Carol scaled the ladder rapidly to the top, where she busied
herself.
I declared: “I could
perfectly
do it, if I knew how to.”
“No one could ever, like Jim! It scarcely feels like Christmas
without him. Though of course,” Cissie went on, with a glance at
Carol, “under the
circumstances
, he could hardly come! It’s a dreadful
loss to us all!” Stepping back, she placed her heel on a bulb, which
exploded.
1
“Oh, for the Lord’s sake!” yelled Uncle Willard, shoving the
chessboard from him. “What’s this all about?” He sneered at the
cord. “Any fool could do that. Show me!”
Uncle Willard’s dexterity was unknown to us. In a trice, he had
done a neat job.
“There!” he spat out, having made a successful test. Cissie, bored,
meanwhile drifted away. I looked up to laugh with Carol, and was
shocked to see her turn very white. “Cissie may be mean,” she said,
“but she’s far from wrong. I
have
deprived you of Jim. If
I
hadn’t
come – ”
“Carol,
he
couldn’t have, anyway.”
“You can’t mean, he’d feel you’re angry with him? Liz, you’re
not
,
are you?”
“I guess we’re willing to understand,” I said, after a pause, “but we
need time.”
“Let’s get on with the tree,” she said quickly. Twirling a gilt-glass
bell, she admitted: “I can’t help wondering where he is, where he’s
going to go.”
(“With ‘
her
,’” I bitterly thought.) Uncle Willard, now halfway back
to his game, had a spasm of perfect hearing.
“What, Jim?” he exclaimed, “faugh, there
is
a fool! Write him right
off, Miss Pretty, and serve him right! You’re one in a thousand, miss.
A splendid gal.”
Not a hope for the spectacles, this side Christmas. “Poor kid, it’s
hard to know what to do for him, barely knows where he is,”
lamented Louise. “
And
on top of everything! You don’t mean Charlie
took him off in the woods, half-blind? Why?”
“They were cutting boughs.”
“Whatever for?” my sister said.
“These were for Carol, special. Their plan, or something. Those
two came home dragging half the woods!”
“Heavens! Whatever’s doing out there in the barn, so late? Or did
Frankie or somebody leave the lights on?”
“In there’s where they’re building.”
“Christmas Eve’s one big secret!” Balancing the baby on one knee,
Louise blew through the fluffy curls on its pate. Outside the livingroom window, the last pink dusk lay over the snow. The telephone
rang. “That’s probably Alec’s mother,” she said, sliding the baby to
me. Whoever it was, it didn’t take long: back came Louise. “Of all
the mystification!”