“what a lot of times i seem to have said ‘merry christmas’ this afternoon!” sydney remarked as she and miss osric went round the village in sydney’s little pony carriage with the pair of lovely little bay ponies she so much enjoyed driving. “and the sad thing is, that nobody here seems to feel particularly happy,” she went on. “mrs. andrews, to whom i took that crossover just now, said—‘it was hard enough to feel joyful when her man was bent double with rheumatism from the dampness of his cottage!’ miss osric, are the cottages in very bad repair here? lord braemuir seemed to think so, and so do the people who live in them. but when i asked lady frederica she said—‘poor people always grumbled; if it wasn’t one thing, it was sure to be another!’ what do you think?”
miss osric hesitated for a little while before replying.
“well, sydney,” she said at length, “i don’t
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know whether i ought to tell you this, but it seems to me right you should know something of the cottages on the estate. it will be your business to know by-and-by. you know my father is chaplain to the hospital at donisbro’, and he has often told me that the amount of cases coming from the cottages on this estate is appalling. people have been brought to the hospital from loam and lislehurst, and even styles, where the ground is higher, simply crippled with rheumatism, and off and on there have been a good many cases of diphtheria and fever. that doesn’t speak well for the cottages, you know.”
sydney pulled up the ponies in the middle of the road.
“i shall ask mr. fenton,” she said slowly; “i don’t think i could ask st. quentin.”
“i think asking mr. fenton is not at all a bad idea,” miss osric said cordially; “but, my dear sydney, we mustn’t dawdle here in the cold even to discuss points of duty. have you any more presents to distribute?”
“just one for pauly at the vicarage,” the girl said, gathering up the reins again; “that is the parcel underneath the seat that you said took up as much room as we did. it’s a horse and waggon—a horse with real hair—and i
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think pauly will be able to get himself into the waggon if he tucks his legs up. i’m sure he will be pleased—the darling!”
“i wonder how long that quarter’s allowance is going to last,” laughed miss osric, as they turned the ponies’ heads up the drive to the vicarage. “you’ve been so lavish over christmas presents, sydney; that parcel for london alone must have nearly ruined you!”
“i am rather near bankruptcy,” owned sydney. “it is shocking to confess, but i never had such a lot of money to spend in my life, and i went and spent it. but i am not a bit sorry,” she concluded, “for, just for once, they will have at home exactly what they wanted.” pauly had seen them coming from the window of his father’s study, against which he was flattening his small round nose till it looked exactly like a white button. he flew to the door and cast himself upon them in the hall with a shriek of delight.
“oh, do you know, it’s going to be chwistmas day to-morrow!” he exclaimed, “and i am going to church in the morning like a big man, and santa claus is coming in the night, daddy finks, to put fings in my stocking, ’cause i’ve been a very good boy for years and not runned away or been lostened!”
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the vicar, too, was not behindhand in his welcome, though he was not quite so conversational as his little son.
“come into the study, both of you,” he said; “we’ve got a real yule log there, haven’t we, pauly?—such a monster!—and i’m sure you must be frozen.”
the sydney of six weeks ago would have accepted mr. seaton’s offer, but the sydney of to-day had learned to think what would annoy her cousin and lady frederica.
“i am afraid we must hurry back, mustn’t we, miss osric?” she said. “we shall be rather late as it is. we have been all round the village, wishing ever so many people a happy christmas, so we must only just wish the same to you, and ask you to tell santa claus to see if he can’t find a rather large, knobby parcel in the corner of the hall for pauly, when he comes to visit you to-night.”
“it’s very good of you,” said the vicar. “pauly, don’t tear miss lisle’s clothes to pieces in your joy. you spoil him, you know, miss lisle, if you will allow me to say so. well, if you must go, a very happy christmas to you both! you are going the right way to make it a happy one, i think.”
“mr. seaton, one thing,” sydney asked
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as they went through the hall together. “are the people miserable here because their cottages want rebuilding?”
mr. seaton looked at the earnest face beside him, and wondered if the wish to help her poorer neighbours would continue when she had the power.
“yes,” he said, “i am sorry to own that most of the cottages here are in a very neglected condition. but landlords have no easy time of it, i know, and often lack the means to do all they want.”
“thank you,” said sydney, and then she kissed little pauly, and she and miss osric got into the carriage and drove away, the vicar watching them, with his small son, riotous and conversational, on his shoulder, till they turned out into the road again.
“i don’t think i ever knew anybody more devoted to a child than that man is,” said miss osric, as they reached the lodge gates. “what would he have done if he had lost him the other day?”
“oh, don’t talk about that dreadful morning!” said sydney with a shiver.
lady frederica had no love for christmas.
“one is expected to be so aggressively cheerful and social,” she complained, “when
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one is really feeling bored to extinction! and now st. quentin’s illness casts a gloom over everything; it is most absurd to attempt any feeling of festivity. he wouldn’t like it at all.”
“did cousin st. quentin care for christmas when he was well?” sydney asked a little wistfully.
“well, i remember one year, when both his father and mother were alive, they had the regular old-fashioned sort of christmas, and he certainly seemed to enjoy it. the dean of donisbro’ and his daughter katharine were here, i remember. the dean had slipped upon a slide some tiresome boy had made when he came over to dine here the week before christmas, and he fell and sprained his ankle. of course dr. lorry wouldn’t let him travel, so st. quentin got poor dear alicia, his mother, to go to donisbro’ herself and bring back miss morrell to spend christmas with her father. there were only those two, you see. my dear, katharine morrell was a pretty girl in those days! you’ve seen her, haven’t you? but she has gone off a good deal. i fancy st. quentin admired her rather, but it didn’t come to anything, though we all thought it would that christmas-time. but
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she was a good deal too strait-laced for him, i expect; not that he was worse than other young man, but he ran through a lot of money on cards and racing, and annoyed his poor father very much. oh! sir algernon, is that you?” (sir algernon had entered at the moment). “i was telling sydney of that christmas when the dean and miss morrell were here. i forget if you have met katharine morrell?”
sydney saw a strange expression cross the handsome face for a moment. but in a second he had answered in his usual rather languid accents, “yes, i know her slightly; very slightly.”
christmas day dawned clear and sunny and sydney, as she stood beside lady frederica in the castle pew at lislehurst church, felt something of the joy of christmas coming to her, even in this strange place. she smiled across at little pauly, who, standing beside mr. seaton’s housekeeper, was singing, “hark! the herald angels sing” with all his might, and to a time and tune quite his own.
mr. seaton’s sermon was very short; he said he thought the christmas hymns and carols preached a better sermon than he had the power to do. he only asked his people
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to remember that next to god’s glory, the angels had set peace and goodwill upon earth. the second followed on the first. he wanted all those who had to-day been glorifying god for his great christmas gift, to see to it that peace and goodwill was not lacking in that small part of god’s earth that concerned each—his or her own home.
sydney had not seen her cousin since her outburst on the subject of the chichesters, and her conscience pricked her. it was true that st. quentin had expressed no wish to see her, but she had made no attempt to find out if he had one unexpressed. surely the first move towards that peace and goodwill of which mr. seaton spoke should come from her!
she and lady frederica drove home together; sydney full of eagerness for the post, which would have come while they were at church.
lady frederica laughed, and said sydney was “the most childish girl for her age she had ever known”; but when they reached the castle, she fastened a dainty little pearl brooch into the collar of the girl’s frock, with a “there, my dear, is a christmas present for you!”
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sydney was a good deal touched by this kindness from one who generally seemed dissatisfied with her, but still she was undoubtedly relieved when lady frederica told her that she might take her parcels and letters to her rooms and amuse herself as she liked till luncheon. lady frederica, it appeared, was going to rest after the tremendous exertion of getting up sufficiently early to attend eleven o’clock service!
sydney and miss osric spent a blissful hour over the letters and presents. i think sydney cried a little over those with the london post-mark, for christmas-time with its associations had made her more homesick than she knew.
they had all written to the absent one, and there were presents from everybody. no one had forgotten her, from old nurse down to prissie. sydney and miss osric undid parcels and munched home-made toffee with a noble disregard for the spoiling of their appetites, until the luncheon gong sounded, by which time the morning-room where they were sitting looked exactly like a christmas bazaar.
but sydney had not forgotten her morning’s resolution, and when lunch was over and lady frederica, exhausted, doubtless, by her unaccustomed early rising, had fallen asleep in
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her chair, sydney got up and moved softly from the gold drawing-room, crossed the hall, and tapped lightly at the door of the library.
“come in,” said st. quentin’s voice.
sir algernon was with his host, and both men looked up as she entered. the excitement of the home letters had brought a flush to her face, and her eyes were very bright. sir algernon let his cigarette drop from between his fingers as he looked at her. “by jove!” he muttered.
“i didn’t mean to interrupt you,” said sydney, flushing under his cool survey. “i only”—with an unconsciously appealing glance in the direction of the sofa—“i only came to give my christmas wishes to you, cousin st. quentin.”
“thanks,” said st. quentin, holding out his hand to her. “you’re going for a stroll in the park, aren’t you, bridge?”
“ah, yes, of course i am,” his friend answered. “have a look round at the timber, eh, quin? miss lisle, i hope you made my humble apologies to the vicar for not attending church this morning. oh, all right!” in answer to a rather impatient sound from the sofa. “i’m off, old man. ta-ta!”
he lounged out, and sydney felt relieved by his absence.
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“you don’t like bridge?” her cousin asked her quickly.
sydney was uncompromising in her views at all times. “not at all,” she said.
if she had been looking at st. quentin at the moment she would have seen an expression of relief on his face at her answer. but she was looking round the room, which certainly was rather untidy.
“wouldn’t you like the hearth swept, and these cards put away in their case, and the papers in a drawer?” she asked her cousin. “i don’t believe dickson has been in here since this morning, has he?”
“no, bridge and i were talking private business.”
“shall i put away the papers, cousin st. quentin?”
“yes, in the second drawer of the writing-table, left hand side. lock it, please, and give me the key.”
she obeyed him, then swept up the hearth, regardless of his “ring for dickson!” and finally sat down in the great brown leather chair by the fireside.
“cousin st. quentin, may i ask you one or two questions?”
“yes.”
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“must you do business with sir algernon? i am sure it can’t be very good for you. you are looking much more ill. i don’t think dr. lorry would like it.”
he smiled a little at her grandmotherly tone.
“is it to do with money?” she asked, with a remembrance of a certain pucker on father’s brow, which christmas bills brought with them.
“partly; not all. let’s talk of something else, instead of boring you with my affairs,” her cousin said.
“they don’t bore me. of course i care to know your bothers!” she declared.
he raised his eyebrows and looked at her in a considering kind of way. “do you? i wonder why?” he laughed a little. “go ahead and talk to me,” he said. “tell me what you’ve done to-day. i suppose you had letters by the ream from your beloved chichesters?”
sydney reddened, remembering their last interview upon that subject. her cousin seemed to recollect it too.
“has it ever struck you that you’ll have a much better time of it when i’m gone?” he said. “as long as you look pretty and walk
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into a room the right way, aunt rica won’t interfere with you much.”
“how can you?” the girl cried, with hot indignation. “i hate to hear you talk like that! why, you’ve been very kind to me—except about the chichesters!”
“and that’s a rather big exception, isn’t it?” st. quentin said. “you haven’t got much cause to like me, sydney.”
something in the sadness of his tone appealed to her pity.
“i do care about you!” she said. “you say those horrid things about the chichesters just because you don’t understand, that’s all. some day, perhaps, you will know that one couldn’t give up loving people, even if one tried. but i do care about you, really! i think you are the very bravest person that i ever met!”
st. quentin did not answer for a minute, and when he spoke, though it was lightly, his voice was not quite so steady as usual.
“is it very rude to suggest to a lady, who is going to reach the advanced age of eighteen in a few days’ time, that her experience of life may possibly be limited?” he said. “my dear child, i regret to say you’re out in your conception of my character. i am a
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coward. of course, i hope one is enough of a man not to make a fuss over the inevitable, by which i mean the consequences of my motor-smash. what is, is, and only fools whine over it. but for all that, i’m a coward. there, let’s talk of something else!” he leaned back and closed his eyes. “tell me what you like.”
and sydney told him about lady frederica and her present; about pauly and the hymn; and everything else she could think of that might amuse or interest him.
she told of the knobby parcels they had taken round the village in the pony-carriage yesterday, and of the fright of one old woman when a rolled-up pair of thick stockings had slipped from sydney’s over-laden arms, and gone rolling across the kitchen floor to her very feet.
suddenly she stopped her merry talk, and her eyes took a thoughtful expression.
“what are you thinking of?” her cousin asked, looking across at the creamy-gowned figure in the brown chair.
“i was thinking of the cottages,” she answered. “they are so wretched and so damp, st. quentin, and the people told me there could be no ‘merry christmas’ for them!”
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“that meddling parson has been putting you up to that idea, i suppose!” he said sharply.
“no, i saw the cottages for myself. oh, st. quentin, can’t something be done?”
“nothing!”
she looked at him with troubled eyes. “i expect i cost a good deal of money. couldn’t i have fewer frocks and things of that kind? or perhaps,” with an effort, “we might sell bessie: keeping a horse is so expensive, i’ve heard father say.”
st. quentin’s voice was stern as he stopped her. “don’t talk of what you do not understand. i can do nothing for the cottages at present. if it’s any consolation to you, i will tell you this—i wish i could. there; talk of something else, for goodness’ sake!”
she talked on, though feeling little in the mood for conversation, and was rewarded by his exclamation of astonishment on learning the lateness of the hour when dickson came in to light the lamp.
“why, i’ve kept you here two mortal hours, forgetting all about the time; you must be sick of me! a nice way to make you spend your christmas day! however, you’ve made mine a bit more cheerful.”
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as the girl passed his sofa on the way to the door, he took her hand, saying, “have you forgiven me for what i said about the chichesters the other day?”
and sydney, remembering that morning’s sermon, said “yes,” with all her heart.
