The Christmas Mouse Read online

  Such were the good effects of

  Virtue and Oeconomy

  Read, Grandeur, and Blush

  Certainly, goodness and thrift, combined with a horror of ostentation and boasting, were qualities which Mrs Berry embodied all the days of her life, and her daughters profited by her example.

  Mrs Berry left the kitchen and went to sit by the fire in the living room. It was already growing dark, for the sky was thick with storm clouds, and the rain showed no sign of abating.

  Water bubbled in the crack of the window frame, and Mrs Berry sighed. It was at times like this one needed a man about the place. Unobtrusively, without complaint, Stanley and then Bertie had attended to such things as draughty windows, wobbly door knobs, squeaking floor-boards and the like. Now the women had to cope as best they could, and an old house, about two hundred years of age, certainly needed constant attention to keep it in trim.

  Nevertheless, it looked pretty and gay. The Christmas tree, dressed the night before by Jane and Frances – with many squeals of delight – stood on the side table, spangled with stars and tinsel, and bearing the Victorian fairy doll, three inches high, which had once adorned the Christmas trees of Mrs Berry’s own childhood. The doll’s tiny wax face was brown with age but still bore that sweet expression which the child had imagined was an angel’s.

  Sprigs of holly were tucked behind the picture frames, and a spray of mistletoe hung where the oil lamp had once swung from the central beam over the dining table.

  Mrs Berry leaned back in her chair and surveyed it all with satisfaction. It looked splendid and there was very little more to be done to the preparations in the kitchen. The turkey was stuffed, the potatoes peeled. The Christmas pudding had been made in November and stood ready on the shelf to be plunged into the steamer tomorrow morning. Mince pies waited in the tin, and a splendid Christmas cake, iced and decorated with robins and holly by Mrs Berry herself, would grace the tea table tomorrow.

  There would also be a small Madeira cake, with a delicious sliver of green angelica tucked into its top. The old lady had made that for those who, like herself, could not tackle Christmas cake until three or four hours after Christmas pudding. It had turned out beautifully light, Mrs Berry remembered.

  She closed her eyes contentedly, and before long, drifted into a light sleep.

  Mrs Berry awoke as the children burst into the room. A cold breeze set the Christmas tree ornaments tinkling and rustled the paper chain, which swung above the door.

  The little girls’ faces were pink and wet, their bangs stuck to their foreheads and glistened with dampness. Drops fell from the scarlet mackintoshes and their woolly gloves were soaked. But nothing could damp their spirits on this wonderful day, and Mrs Berry forbore to scold them for the mess they were making on the rug.

  Mary, struggling with the shopping, called from the kitchen.

  ‘Come out here, you two, and get off those wet things! What a day, Gran! You’ve never seen anything like Caxley High Street. Worse than Michaelmas Fair! Traffic jams all up the road, and queues in all the shops. The Caxley traders will have a bumper Christmas, mark my words!’

  Mrs Berry stirred herself and followed the children into the kitchen to help them undress. Mary was unloading her baskets and carrier bags, rescuing nuts and Brussels sprouts which burst from wet paper bags on to the floor, and trying to take off her own sodden coat and headscarf all at the same time.

  ‘I seem to have spent a mint of money,’ she said apologetically, ‘and dear heaven knows where it’s all gone. We’ll have a reckon-up later on, but we were that pushed and hurried about I’ll be hard put to it to remember all the prices.’

  ‘No point in worrying,’ said Mrs Berry calmly. ‘If ’tis gone, ’tis gone. You won’t have wasted it, I know that, my girl. Here, let’s put on the kettle and make a cup of tea. You must be exhausted.’

  ‘Ah! It’s rough out,’ agreed Mary, sounding relieved now that she had confessed to forgetting the cost of some of her purchases. ‘But it’s the rush that takes it out of you. If only that ol’ bus came back half an hour later ’twould help. As it is, you have to keep one eye on the town clock all the time you’re shopping.’

  The little girls were delving into the bags, searching for their own secret shopping.

  ‘Now mind what you’re at,’ said Mary sharply. ‘Take your treasures and put ’em upstairs, and I’ll help you pack ’em up when we’ve had a cup of tea.’

  ‘Don’t tell,’ wailed Jane. ‘It’s a secret!’

  ‘A secret!’ echoed Frances.

  ‘It still is,’ retorted their mother. ‘Up you go then, and take the things up carefully. And put on your slippers,’ she shouted after them, as they clambered upstairs clutching several small packets against their chests.

  ‘Mad as hatters, they are,’ Mary confided to her mother. ‘Barmy as March hares – and all because of Christmas!’

  ‘All children are the same,’ replied Mrs Berry, pouring boiling water into the teapot, and peering through the silvery steam to make sure it was not overfull. ‘You three were as wild as they are, I well remember.’ She carried the tray into the living room. ‘Could you eat anything?’ she asked.

  ‘Not a thing,’ said Mary, flopping down, exhausted, into the armchair by the fire, ‘and a biscuit will be enough for the girls. They’re so excited they won’t sleep if they have too much before bedtime.’

  ‘We’ll get them upstairs early tonight,’ said her mother. ‘There are still some presents to pack.’

  ‘We’ll be lucky if they go to sleep before nine,’ prophesied Mary. ‘I heard Jane say she was going to stay awake to see if Father Christmas really does come. She doesn’t believe it anymore, you know. I’m positive about that, but she don’t let on in case he doesn’t come!’

  ‘She’s seven,’ observed Mrs Berry. ‘Can’t expect her to believe fairy tales all her life.’

  ‘They’ve been telling her at school,’ said Mary. ‘Once they start school they lose all their pretty ways. Frances has only had six months there, but she’s too knowing by half.’

  The women sipped their tea, listening to the children moving about above them and relishing a few quiet moments on their own.

  ‘They can have a good long time in the bath tonight,’ said Mary, thinking ahead, ‘then they’ll be in trim to go to church with you tomorrow.’

  ‘But wouldn’t you like to go?’

  ‘No, Mum. I’ll see to the turkey while you’re out. The service means more to you than me. Somehow church doesn’t seem the same since Bertie went. Pointless, somehow.’

  Mrs Berry was too taken aback to comment on this disclosure, and the entry of the children saved her from further conversation on the matter.

  Her thoughts were in turmoil as she poured milk into the children’s mugs and opened the biscuit tin for their probing fingers.

  That unguarded remark of Mary’s had confirmed her suspicions. She had watched Mary’s growing casualness to religious matters and her increasing absences at church services with real concern. When Stanley died, she had found her greatest consolation in prayer and the teachings of the Church. ‘Thy Will Be Done,’ it said on the arch above the chancel steps, and for old Mrs Berry those words had been both succour, support and reason.

  But, with the death of Bertie, Mary had grown hard, and had rejected a God who allowed such suffering to occur. Mrs Berry could understand the change of heart, but it did not lessen her grief for this daughter who turned her face from the comfort of religious beliefs. Without submission to a divine will, who could be happy? We were too frail to stand and fight alone, but that’s what Mary was doing, and why she secretly was so unhappy.

  Mrs Berry thrust these thoughts to the back of her mind. It was Christmas Eve, the time for good will to all men, the time to rejoice in the children’s pleasure, and to hope that, somehow, the warmth and love of the festival would thaw the frost in Mary’s heart.

  ‘Bags not the tap end!’ Mrs Berry heard Jane sho
ut an hour later, as the little girls capered naked about the bathroom.

  ‘Mum, she always makes me sit the tap end!’ complained Frances. ‘And the cold tap drips down my back. It’s not fair!’

  ‘No grizzling now on Christmas Eve,’ said Mary briskly. ‘You start the tap end, Frances, and you can change over at halftime. That’s fair. You’re going to have a nice long bathtime tonight while I’m helping Gran. Plenty of soap, don’t forget, and I’ll look at your ears when I come back.’

  Mrs Berry heard the bath door close, and then open again.

  ‘And stop sucking your facecloth, Frances,’ scolded her mother. ‘Anyone’d think you’re a little baby, instead of a great girl of five.’

  The door closed again, and Mary reappeared, smiling.

  ‘They’ll be happy for twenty minutes. Just listen to them!’

  Two young treble voices, wildly flat, were bellowing ‘Away in a manger, no crib for a bed,’ to a background of splashes and squeals.

  ‘Did you manage to find some slippers for them?’ asked Mrs Berry.

  ‘Yes, Tom’s Christine had put them by for me, and I had a quick look while the girls were watching someone try on shoes. There’s a lot to be said for knowing people in the shops. They help you out on occasions like this.’

  She was rummaging in a deep oilcloth bag as she spoke, and now drew out two boxes. Inside were the slippers. Both were designed to look like rabbits, with shiny black beads for eyes, and silky white whiskers. Jane’s pair were blue, and Frances’ red. They were Mrs Berry’s present to her grandchildren, and she nodded her approval at Mary’s choice.

  ‘Very nice, dear, very nice. I’ll just tuck a little chocolate bar into each one—’

  ‘There’s no need, Mum. This is plenty. You spoil them,’ broke in Mary.

  ‘Maybe, but they’re going to have the chocolate. Something to wear is a pretty dull Christmas present for a child. I well remember my Aunt Maud – God rest her, poor soul. What a dance she led my Uncle Hubert! She used to give us girls a starched white pinafore every Christmas, and very miserable we thought them.’ She shook her head. ‘Ungrateful, weren’t we? Now I can see it was a very generous present, as well as being useful; but my old grandad gave us two sugar mice, one pink and one white with long string tails, and they were much more welcome, believe me.’

  ‘Like the tangerine and toffees you and Dad used to tuck in the toe of our stockings.’ Mary smiled. ‘We always rushed for those first before unpacking the rest. Funny how hungry you are at five in the morning when you’re a child!’

  ‘Get me some wrapping paper,’ said Mrs Berry briskly, ‘and I’ll tie them up while those two rascals are safe for ten minutes. They’ve eyes in the backs of their heads at Christmastime.’

  Mary left her mother making two neat parcels. Her wrinkled hands, dappled with brown age spots, were as deft as ever. Spectacles on the end of her nose, the old lady folded the paper this way and that, and tied everything firmly with bright red string.

  Mary took the opportunity to smuggle a beautiful pink cyclamen into her own bedroom and hide it behind the curtain on the windowsill. It had cost more than she could really afford, but she had decided to forego a new pair of winter gloves. The old ones could be mended, and who was to notice the much sewn seams in a little place like Shepherds Cross?

  She drew the curtains across to hide the plant and to keep out the draught, which was whistling through the cracks of the ancient lattice-paned window. Outside, the wind roared in the branches; a flurry of dead wet leaves flew this way and that as the eddies caught them. The rain slanted down pitilessly, and as a car drove past, the beams of its headlights lit up the shining road where the raindrops spun like silver coins.

  She took out from a drawer her own presents for the children. There were two small boxes and two larger ones, and she opened them to have one last look before they were wrapped. In each of the smaller boxes a string of little imitation pearls nestled against a red mock-velvet background. How pretty they would look on the girls’ best frocks! Simple, but good, Mary told herself, with satisfaction. As Mum had said, children wanted something more than everyday presents at Christmas, and the two larger boxes were rather dull perhaps.

  They held seven handkerchiefs, one for each day of the week, with the appropriate name embroidered in the corner. Sensible, and would teach them how to spell too, thought Mary, putting back the lids.

  She was just in time, for at that moment the door burst open and she only had a second in which to thrust the boxes back into the drawer, when two naked cherubs skipped in, still wet with bath water.

  ‘What d’you think—’ she began, but was cut short by two vociferous voices in unison.

  ‘The water’s all gone. Frances pushed out the plug—’

  ‘I never then!’

  ‘Yes, you did! You know you did! Mum, she wriggled it out with her bottom—’

  ‘Well, she never changed ends, like you said. I only wriggled ’cos the cold tap dripped down my back. I couldn’t help it!’

  ‘She done it a-purpose.’

  ‘I never. I told you—’

  Mary cut short their protestations.

  ‘You’ll catch your deaths. Get on back to the bathroom and start to rub dry. Look at your wet foot marks on the floor! What’ll Gran say?’

  They began to giggle, eyeing each other.

  ‘Let’s go down and frighten her, all bare,’ cried Jane.

  ‘Don’t you dare now!’ said their mother, her voice sharpened by the thought of the slippers being wrapped below.

  A little chastened by her tone, the two romped out of the room, jostling together like puppies. Mary heard their squeals of laughter from behind the bathroom door, and smiled at her reflection in the glass.

  ‘“Christmas comes but once a year,”’ she quoted aloud. ‘Perhaps it’s as well!’

  She followed her rowdy offspring into the bathroom.

  Twenty minutes later the two girls sat barefoot on their wooden stools, one at each side of the fire. On their laps they held steaming bowls of bread and milk, plentifully sprinkled with brown sugar.

  ‘You said we could hang up pillow slips tonight,’ remarked Jane, ‘instead of stockings.’

  ‘I haven’t forgotten. There are two waiting on the banisters for you to put at the end of your bed.’

  ‘Will Father Christmas know?’ asked Frances anxiously, her eyes wide with apprehension.

  ‘Of course he will,’ said their grandmother robustly. ‘He’s got plenty of sense. Been doing the job long enough to know what’s what.’

  Mary glanced at the clock.

  ‘Finish up now. Don’t hang it out, you girls. Gran and I’ve got a lot to do this evening, so you get off to sleep as quick as you can.’

  ‘I’m staying awake till he comes,’ said Jane firmly.

  ‘Me too,’ echoed Frances, scooping the last drop of milk from the bowl.

  They went to kiss their grandmother. She held their soft faces against hers, relishing the sweet smell of soap and milk. How dear these two small mortals were!

  ‘The sooner you get to sleep, the sooner the morning will come,’ she told them.

  She watched them as, followed by Mary, they tumbled up the staircase that opened from the room.

  ‘I shall stay awake!’ protested Jane. ‘I shan’t close my eyes, not for one minute! I promise you!’

  Mrs Berry smiled to herself as she put another log on the fire. She had heard that tale many times before. If she were a betting woman she would lay a wager that those two would be fast asleep within the hour!

  But, for once, Mrs Berry was wrong.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Upstairs, in the double bed, the two little girls pulled the clothes to their chins and continued their day-long conversation.

  A nightlight, secure in a saucer on the dressing table, sent great shadows bowing and bending across the sloping ceiling, for the room was crisscrossed with draughts on this wild night from the ill-fitting w
indow and door. Sometimes the brave little flame bent in a sudden blow from the cold air, as a crocus does in a gust of wind, but always it righted itself, continuing to give out its comforting light to the young children.

  ‘Shall I tell you why I’m going to stay awake all night?’ asked Jane.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Promise to do what I tell you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Promise faithfully? See my finger wet and dry? Cross your heart? Everything?’

  ‘Everything,’ agreed Frances equably. Her eyelids were beginning to droop already. Left alone, free from the vehemence of her sister, she would have fallen asleep within a minute.

  ‘Then eat your pillow,’ demanded Jane.

  Frances was hauled back roughly from the rocking sea of sleep.

  ‘You know I can’t!’ she protested.

  ‘You promised,’ said Jane.

  ‘Well, I unpromise,’ declared Frances. ‘I can’t eat a pillow, and anyway what would Mum say?’

  ‘Then I shan’t tell you what I was going to.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ replied Frances untruthfully.

  Jane, enraged by such lack of response and such wanton breaking of solemn vows, bounced over on to her side, her back to Frances.

  ‘It was about Father Christmas,’ she said hotly, ‘but I’m not telling you now.’

  ‘He’ll come,’ said Frances drowsily.

  This confidence annoyed Jane still further.

  ‘Maybe he won’t then! Tom Williams says there isn’t a Father Christmas. That’s why I’m going to stay awake. To see. So there!’

  Through the veils of sleep which were fast enmeshing her, Frances pondered upon this new problem. Tom Williams was a big boy, ten years old at least. What’s more, he was a sort of cousin. He should know what he was talking about. Nevertheless . . .

  ‘Tom Williams don’t always speak the truth,’ answered Frances. In some ways, she was a wiser child than her sister.

  Jane gave an impatient snort.

  ‘Besides,’ said Frances, following up her point, ‘our teacher said he’d come. She don’t tell lies. Nor Mum, nor Gran.’