The Bazaar and Other Stories (16 page)

When, towards the end of term, the bad news came that Comfort
would have no home for Christmas, and so, like several more of
the London boarders this year, must stay for her holidays at school,
Joy’s mother took pity on Joy’s anguish at the idea of Comfort’s
vicissitudes and invited Comfort on a three-day visit. This was to
start on Christmas Eve. The Devises’ shabby, elastic house was,
already, fuller than it could hold: there were the Warrington family,
Aunt Christine and the young billeted officer. Comfort must have a
camp bed in Joy’s room. The two could talk for three nights – they
were as happy as larks.

To crown everything, it was a white Christmas. Snow laid a
gleaming blanket over the common and, around Helmbourne,
powdered the brown bare woods. The wide street of the village at
the foot of the common looked like a scene on a Christmas card.
The soldiers billeted everywhere whistled carols, crisply trampling
the snow. In the dusk of Christmas Eve afternoon the Devises’ hall
was wreathed with holly; firelight streamed from the open living
room door as Comfort and Joy clattered in, with Comfort’s suitcase
from school. On the mat they stopped to knock snow from their
boots. They did not stop singing what they called their signature
carol:

“
Glad tidings of Comfort and Joy, Comfort-and-Joy,
Glad tidings of Comfort and Joy
.”
¹

The young officer reading a letter at the hall table looked up
from the letter, looked right

through
them. His eyes were deadened
and horror-struck. Then he picked up his cap and strode past the
children, the letter tightly crushed in one hand.

Comfort said: “Now what

is
the matter with him? Maybe he
doesn’t like carols.”

 

Joy said: “He didn’t seem to like us.”

 

Their hearts sank – they had a hero-worship for him. He was
handsome, silent and twenty-four. When he did speak, they stopped
their chatter to listen. Their eyes, with candid devotion, followed
him round and round any room. They each had a present ready, tied
up in holly paper, to give him tomorrow morning. His name was
Cyril Elwin – from the way he had just crashed out they felt they
might never see him again.

 

Nobody did see Cyril for the rest of the day: he came in soon
after eleven and went straight to his room. He had to be quite alone

 

– but he could not sleep. His room was next to the little girls’: they
both heard him tossing about, and he heard them chattering,
through the wall. “Little blighters,” he thought. And, in a painful
way (tonight, any thought hurt him) he wondered what secrets girls
had. Girls grew up to know the secret of being cruel, all right. For
minutes together he lay in the dark, rigid, hands locked under his
head – then he would fling himself over, switch on his bed-lamp,
read the letter again (though he knew every word by heart). Since
that afternoon, every word had blazed round and round in his brain
. . . Outside, beyond the blacked-out houses, stretched the unmoved
snow. And across the snow’s silence, hour by hour, he heard the
clock strike.

 

Downstairs, Mrs. Devise sat up late, tying up the last of the
Christmas presents. Across the table from her sat Mrs. Warrington,
helping: one lamp shed its light on their bent heads. The fire had
been let die down, but the warmth of the embers still filled the big
shabby livingroom. Everyone else had gone up – and once or twice
Mrs. Devise stopped working, as though the silent household were
in her mind. Her husband, like Mrs. Warrington’s, was away this
Christmas; tonight she felt like the captain of a ship.
²
Under this
one roof, what a curious medley of dreams and hopes and fears.
Suzanne Warrington read her thoughts (these two had been friends
since their schooldays) and said: “I expect they are all asleep.”

 

“What is the matter with that young man, Suzanne? He never
looked in to say goodnight.”

 

“I wondered, too,” confessed Suzanne.

 

“What a pack of women we are. He is the only man in the house,
and we can’t help noticing what he does or he doesn’t do.”

 

“He didn’t whistle,” said Suzanne.

 

“I don’t like things to go wrong,” sighed Clare Devise.

 

The livingroom door began to open by inches: Aunt Christine
came in, in her dressing-gown. Over her curlers and round her neck
she had twisted a little Shetland scarf. “Oh,
here
you both are,” she
said nervously. “I thought I didn’t hear you come up to bed.”
“Aunt
Christine
– can’t you sleep?”

 

“I did drink my glass of milk, dear, but somehow I couldn’t settle.
I had a feeling something was going on.”

 

“Christmas Eve’s going on,” said Suzanne with her calm smile.
“I thought my three were never going to sleep. But they are now;
I’ve just had a look at them.”

 

“Ah, your three are young,” said Aunt Christine. She turned to
Mrs. Devise. “You don’t think that little Comfort over-excites Joy?”

 

Mrs. Devise said: “No – why?” just a shade too quickly. In her
heart she had been wondering this herself – Aunt Christine had a
way of stirring shadowy worries up. Mrs. Devise, who hoped to like
everyone, blamed herself for not liking Comfort better. Could one
be jealous? A dreadful thought. Up to now she had had the whole
of Joy’s confidence; now, Joy seemed completely possessed by her
friend. Children have got to grow up, she told herself. Joy must have
her illusions and find out her mistakes.

 

“I’m glad to have Comfort with us,” she said firmly. “It’s the child’s
first Christmas away from home.”

 

Aunt Christine, who had sat down for just a minute, discreetly
arranging her dressing-gown, said: “I am sure that’s the way to look
at it, dear. You make us all very happy – even that young man. By
the way, where was he tonight? He didn’t – ”

 

The church clock struck midnight, across the snow. The last
stroke and the first Christmas minute seemed to echo over the
world: each of the three women, in that minute, felt something
move in her heart.

 

Aunt Christine broke the silence. “About that young man,” she
said, “you know that khaki muffler I knitted for him? As he goes out
so very early, would it be any harm if I left it outside his door on my
way up? He might like to wear it tomorrow – the mornings are very
cold.”

Cyril Elwin, lying locked in his black thoughts, had only welcomed
Christmas in with a groan. Two or three minutes later he heard
the cautious slip-slop of Aunt Christine’s felt slippers along the
passage. Stopping outside his door, she put something down: a
board creaked: she slip-slopped away again. Had she mistaken his
door for the little girls’? Restlessness got him up and across his
threshold, to play a beam of torch on the passage floor; he stooped
for the parcel – and read his name. “Oh

lord
!” he thought, touched
and miserable. The gift made him run a hand through his hair. He
stepped back into his room and began to pull at the string.

The letter had dropped unnoticed from his pyjama pocket: it
stayed where it fell, in the darkness outside his door.

 

Comfort and Joy, wide awake in the next room, overheard the
whole incident from the start. Aunt Christine’s idea did not seem to
them bad – they were impressed by Cyril’s immediate response.
Rolling round her head towards Comfort’s on the adjacent pillow,
Joy whispered: “Why not us do the same? Then he’ll have to say
something
when he sees us tomorrow.” They gave it ten minutes, then,
with their offerings, made a bare-footed sortie to Cyril’s door. “You
can put them,” breathed Joy generously – and Comfort kneeled
down; the board creaked once more. Comfort’s hand brushed the
letter. “What’s this?” she said – and she took the letter back with her
to their room. Then they were busy listening – but nothing more
happened: Cyril did not come out again.

Joy slept late. She opened her eyes to see on the wallpaper a
pink reflection of winter sun – and to see the same pinkish burnish
about the head of Comfort, who, wide awake, sat up on her pillows
reading a letter. “

Happy Christmas
!” Joy mumbled.
³
“Has post come?”

“No,” replied Comfort briefly – not even raising her eyes from the
letter. A minute later: “This is

“
awful
!” she breathed.

 

“Show!” Joy said – still no more than half awake she stepped from
one bed to the other and got in by Comfort’s side. They were half
way through the letter before Joy’s cheeks flamed. “But Comfort –
this isn’t written to
us
!”

 

“Thank goodness,” said Comfort, turning over a page.

 

“Then we mustn’t read it. It’s horrible, anyway.”

 

Comfort gave Joy a side-glance out of apparently quite candid
blue eyes. “It
might
be to anyone,” she said. “Nobody wants it,
anyway; it was out in the passage. It’s simply to somebody called
‘My dear.’”

 

“Who’s it from?” said Joy miserably.

 

“Simply from somebody called ‘R.’ I know I should hate her,”
Comfort added. “Fancy breaking off an engagement on Christmas
Eve!”

 

“I don’t care what it’s about! I – ”

 

“Oh yes you do,” said Comfort. “You care what happens to Cyril.
You know you do.”

 

Something began to choke Joy: everything went ugly. She got
out of Comfort’s bed, went to the dressing-table, tugged a comb
through her hair. “This has ruined Christmas,” she said. “I feel mean.”

 

“You’re not nearly as mean as her.”

 

“Oh, shut up, Comfort,” said Joy.

 

Downstairs in the diningroom sausages sizzled on the hot plate.
Aunt Christine was in from early church; the table was massed with
Christmas cards; the three little Warringtons were already falling
upon their presents. The room was bright with reflections of sunny
snow. Mrs. Devise, busy making the coffee, said to Mrs. Warrington,
shaking cereal from a packet, “No sign of the girls.”

 

Aunt Christine, glancing at Cyril’s place, said: “I hoped they
would let him back for breakfast today.”
⁴

 

Comfort slid into the room, very trim in blue wool crepe (“As
pretty as a picture,” Mrs. Devise thought), kissed everyone round
the table and took her place. Composedly, she began to open her
presents – several had come for her by post. “Oh,
look
what Mummy
has sent me!” They all looked: the pendant glittered, twirling round
in the sun. While they were still distracted, Joy was among them,
doggedly scrambling on to her chair. “Happy Christmas,” she said in
a loud but unhappy voice.

 

“Why, Joy,” began Aunt Christine, “what
is
the – ”

 

“Aunt Christine, you’ve got three more robins this morning,”
Suzanne Warrington put in hurriedly – and Aunt Christine, diverted,
smiled at the window-sill and began to brush up the toast-crumbs
round her plate. But then the eldest Warrington child said: “Oo,
Joy
,
you aren’t opening your presents!” So Joy began to untie knots with
shaky fingers: she opened gift after gift with a wan smile.

 

Aunt Christine had gone to the window to feed her robins; she
was easing the sash up. “Now guess who’s coming!” she said. “And
he’s got it on!”

 

Cyril had decided to face things out. He came up the path with
his chin sunk in Aunt Christine’s muffler, inside his trench-coat
collar. There was still something flattened, heavy about his step on
the snow. In the crook of each arm he carried a pot of Roman
hyacinths. They all saw, through the window, his figure outlined
against the dazzling day and the little Warringtons, singing, beat
their spoons on their plates.
God rest you, merry gentlemen; let nothing you dismay!
”
⁵

Comfort turned shell-pink; she stopped twiddling the pendant
and glanced at Joy sideways under her eyelashes. Joy did not look
up: she turned dead white.

Cyril stood in the diningroom doorway. “Happy Christmas,” he
said, smiling rather too much. He looked boldly at no one particular,
and they all saw the circles round his too-bright, fagged eyes. Every -
one, turning round from the breakfast-table, opened their mouths to
say something to him – but nobody spoke. The children put down
their spoons.

“Is there – bad news?” faltered Aunt Christine.

Then Joy shot up and ran straight to him: she moved so quickly
no one could see her face. She flung her arms round his neck and
clasped him tightly, pulling his head down. What she said no one
heard.

Then she fled. They all heard her flying across the stone hall,
flying upstairs, banging her bedroom door. “Well!” smiled Mrs.
Devise, while Comfort looked at her plate.

“That was most awfully nice of her,” Cyril said. He took his place
and began to pull in his chair.
The Good Earl
Y
es, sir, that is the Castle across the water. You will meet
no other any side of the Lough. The tide is under the jurisdiction of
the ocean, but the two shores belong to the Good Earl. The Earl
himself built the Hotel.

The Earl was our benefactor; there have been none like him
before or since. From the time he succeeded into his father’s place
he put a halt to the wicked doings. While he was still young he
became famous as an improving landlord; and in the latter days he
never quitted the country, except to express his opinion among the
Lords and to make his obeisance to Queen Victoria. In his young
manhood, however, he had travelled the world, and there was no
capital city of which he could not tell us. His conversation was of
the kind to draw all to him, and he was sought out. He was in favour
of science and he had a telescope mounted on the terrace of the
Castle and he was an accomplished reader of books. But the Earl was
not puffed up. He would greet those he perceived, and my father
recalled the evening he and the Earl conversed on the Lough shore
till you could have wrung the rain from their two beards. The Earl
spoke to my father about a comet.