Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1473 page)

‘If that little love isn’t trying to screw her courage up to ask me to taste her plum pudding, I’m a Dutchman’ — cried the Squire, catching Annie in his arms, and fairly kissing her — ’Without ceremony, Mr Wray, I invite myself here, to a Christmas dinner. We would have had it at Cropley Court; but you’re not strong enough yet, to go out these cold nights. Never mind! all the dinner, except Annie’s pudding, shall be done by my cook; Mrs Buddle, the housekeeper, shall come and help; and we’ll have such a feast, please God, as no king ever sat down to! No apologies, my good friend, on either side: I’m determined to spend the happiest Christmas Day I ever did in my life; and so shall you!’

And the good Squire kept his word. It was, of course, noised abroad over the whole town, that Matthew Colebatch, Esquire, Lord of the Manor of Tidbury-on-the-Marsh, was going to dine on Christmas Day with an old player, in a lodging house. The genteel population were universally scandalized and indignant. The Squire had exhibited his levelling tendencies pretty often before, they said. He had, for instance, been seen cutting jokes in the High Street with a travelling tinker, to whom he had applied in broad daylight to put a new ferrule on his walking stick; he had been detected coolly eating bacon and greens in one of his tenant farmer’s cottages; he had been heard singing, ‘Begone, dull care,’ in a cracked tenor, to amuse another tenant farmer’s child. These actions were disreputable enough; but to go publicly, and dine with an obscure stage-player, put the climax on everything! The Reverend Daubeny Daker said the Squire’s proper sphere of action, after that, was a lunatic asylum; and the Reverend Daubeny Daker’s friends echoed the sentiment.

Perfectly reckless of this expression of genteel popular opinion, Mr Colebatch arrived to dinner at No. 12, on Christmas Day; and, what is more, wore his black tights and silk stockings, as if he had been going to a grand party. His dinner had arrived before him; and fat Mrs Buddle, in her lavender silk gown, with a cambric handkerchief pinned in front to keep splashes off, appeared auspiciously with the banquet. Never did Annie feel the responsibility of having a plum-pudding to make, so acutely as she felt it, on seeing the savoury feast which Mr Colebatch had ordered, to accompany her one little item of saccharine cookery.

They sat down to dinner, with the Squire at the top of the table (Mr Wray insisted on that); and Mrs Buddle at the bottom (he insisted on that also); old Reuben and Annie, at one side; and ‘Julius Caesar’ all by himself (they knew his habits, and gave him elbow room), at the other. Things were comparatively genteel and quiet, till Annie’s pudding came in. At sight of that, Mr Colebatch set up a cheer, as if he had been behind a pack of fox-hounds. The carpenter, thrown quite off his balance by noise and excitement, knocked down a spoon, a wine glass, and a pepperbox, one after the other, in such quick succession, that Mrs Buddle thought him mad; and Annie — for the first time, poor little thing, since all her troubles — actually began to laugh again, as prettily as ever. Mr Colebatch did ample justice, it must be added, to her pudding. Twice did his plate travel up to the dish — a third time it would have gone; but the faithful housekeeper raised her warning voice, and reminded the old gentleman that he had a stomach.

When the tables were cleared, and the glasses filled with the Squire’s rare old port, that excellent man rose slowly and solemnly from his chair, announcing that he had three toasts to propose, and one speech to make; the latter, he said, being contingent on the chance of his getting properly at his voice, through two helpings of plum-pudding; a chance which he thought rather remote, principally in consequence of Annie’s having rather overdone the proportion of suet in mixing her ingredients.

‘The first toast,’ said the old gentleman, ‘is the health of Mr Reuben Wray; and God bless him!’ When this had been drunk with immense fervour, Mr Colebatch went on at once to his second toast, without pausing to sit down — a custom which other after-dinner orators would do well to imitate.

‘The second toast,’ said he, taking Mr Wray’s hand, and looking at the mask, which hung opposite, prettily decorated with holly, — ’the second toast, is a wide circulation and a hearty welcome all through England, for the Mask of Shakespeare!’ This was duly honoured; and immediately Mr Colebatch went on like lightning to the third toast.

‘The third,’ said he, ‘is the speech toast.’ Here he endeavoured, unsuccessfully, to cough up his voice out of the plum pudding. ‘I say, ladies and gentlemen, this is the speech toast.’ He stopped again, and desired the carpenter to pour him out a small glass of brandy; having swallowed which, he went on fluently.

‘Mr Wray, sir,’ pursued the old gentleman, ‘I address you in particular, because you are particularly concerned in what I am going to say. Three days ago, I had a little talk in private with those two young people. Young people, sir, are never wholly free from some imprudent tendencies; and falling in love’s one of them.’ (At this point, Annie slunk behind her grandfather; the carpenter, having nobody to slink behind, put himself quite at his ease, by knocking down an orange.) ‘Now, sir,’ continued the Squire, ‘the private talk that I was speaking of, leads me to suppose that those two particular young people mean to marry each other. You, I understand, objected at first to their engagement; and like good and obedient children, they respected your objection. I think it’s time to reward them for that, now. Let them marry, if they will, sir, while you can live happily to see it! I say nothing about our little darling there, but this: — the vital question for her, and for all girls, is not how
high,
but how
good,
she, and they, marry. And I must confess, I don’t think she’s altogether chosen so badly.’ (The Squire hesitated a moment. He had in his mind, what he could not venture to speak — that the carpenter had saved old Reuben’s life when the burglars were in the house; and that he had shown himself well worthy of Annie’s confidence, when she asked him to accompany her, in going to recover the mould from Stratford.) ‘In short, sir,’ Mr Colebatch resumed, ‘to cut short this speechifying, I don’t think you can object to let them marry, provided they can find means of support. This, I think, they can do. First there are the profits sure to come from the mask, which you are sure to share with them, I know.’ (This prophecy about the profits was fulfilled: fifty copies of the cast were ordered by the new year; and they sold better still, after that.) ‘This will do to begin on, I think, Mr Wray. Next, I intend to get our friend there a good berth as master-carpenter for the new crescent they’re going to build on my land, at the top of the hill — and that won’t be a bad thing, I can tell you! Lastly, I mean you all to leave Tidbury, and live in a cottage of mine that’s empty now, and going to rack and ruin for want of a tenant. I’ll charge rent, mind, Mr Wray, and come for it every quarter myself, as regular as a tax-gatherer. I don’t insult an independent man by the offer of an asylum. Heaven forbid! but till you can do better, I want you to keep my cottage warm for me. I can’t give up seeing my new grandchild sometimes! and I want my chat with an old stager, about the British Drama and glorious John Kemble! To cut the thing short, sir: with such a prospect before them as this, do you object to my giving the healths of Mr and Mrs Martin Blunt that are to be!’

Conquered by the Squire’s kind looks and words, as much as by his reasons, Old Reuben murmured approval of the toast, adding tenderly, as he looked round on Annie, ‘If she’ll only promise always to let me live with her!’

‘There, there!’ cried Mr Colebatch, ‘don’t go kissing your grandfather before company like that you little jade; making other people envious of him on Christmas Day! Listen to this! Mr and Mrs Martin Blunt that are to be — married in a week!’ added the old gentleman peremptorily.

‘Lord, sir!’ said Mrs Buddle, ‘she can’t get her dresses ready in that time!’

‘She
shall,
ma’am, if every mantua-making wench in Tidbury stitches her fingers off for it! and there’s an end of my speech-making!’ Having said this, the Squire dropped back into his chair with a gasp of satisfaction.

‘Now we are all happy!’ he exclaimed, filling his glass; ‘and now we’ll set in to enjoy our port in earnest — eh, my good friend?’

‘Yes; all happy!’ echoed old Reuben, patting Annie’s hand, which lay in his; ‘but I think I should be still happier, though, if I could only manage not to remember that horrible dream!’

‘Not remember it!’ cried Mr Colebatch, ‘we’ll all remember it — all remember it together, from this time forth, in the same pleasant way!’

‘How? How?’ exclaimed Mr Wray, eagerly.

‘Why, my good friend!’ answered the Squire, tapping him briskly on the shoulder, ‘we’ll all remember it gaily, as nothing but a STORY FOR A CHRISTMAS FIRESIDE!’

This short story was published as part of the collabourative work
The Holly Tree Inn
, an extra Christmas number of Household Words in 1855, arranged by Dickens.
 
The whole of the work has been provided for your enjoyment.

THE HOLLY-TREE

THREE BRANCHES

with Wilkie Collins, William Howitt, Harriet Parr and Adelaide Procter

FIRST BRANCH — MYSELF

 
I have kept one secret in the course of my life. I am a bashful man. Nobody would suppose it, nobody ever does suppose i
t, nobody ever
did suppose it, but I am naturally a bashful man. This is the secret which I have never breathed until now.

I might greatly move the reader by some account of the innumerable places I have not been to, the innumerable people I have not called upon or received, the innumerable social evasions I have been guilty of, solely because I am by original constitution and character a bashful man. But I will leave the reader unmoved, and proceed with the object before me.

That object is to give a plain account of my travels and discoveries in the Holly-Tree Inn; in which place of good entertainment for man and beast I was once snowed up.

It happened in the memorable year when I parted for ever from Angela Leath, whom I was shortly to have married, on making the discovery that she preferred my bosom friend. From our school-days I had freely admitted Edwin, in my own mind, to be far superior to myself; and, though I was grievously wounded at heart, I felt the preference to be natural, and tried to forgive them both. It was under these circumstances that I resolved to go to America — on my way to the Devil.

Communicating my discovery neither to Angela nor to Edwin, but resolving to write each of them an affecting letter conveying my blessing and forgiveness, which the steam-tender for shore should carry to the post when I myself should be bound for the New World, far beyond recall, — I say, locking up my grief in my own breast, and consoling myself as I could with the prospect of being generous, I quietly left all I held dear, and started on the desolate journey I have mentioned.