Nor was his pride hurt, or good humour affected, for he realised very early on in these dusty proceedings that as a result of this to-do he and Miss Bugle were getting to know each other a great deal quicker and better than a spinster lady and a bachelor Mole might normally be expected to do.
He had soon discovered from Miss Bugle’s sharp asides concerning Mrs Ffleshe that she was not one of those retiring spinsters who, like so many of her age and station, was a little too meek and mild for her own good. He saw now that she was made of sterner stuff than he had imagined, and he was sure that she might be — no, she would be — an ally in his campaign to bring some general improvements to the River Bank Christmas.
He was about to broach this delicate subject when he remembered the compote he had brought her as a gift. He produced it from his bag with something of a flourish and not a little pride. Though not wrapped in paper, it was brightly ribboned and labelled, and he had written his festive greetings under her name and followed it with his signature.
Her eyes brightened at once, and for a moment he thought they might fill with nostalgic tears. She held it tightly to her bosom, as if to suggest that if she received no other festive gift than this it would be enough to warm her heart and cheer her spirit. Then she said with considerable feeling, “I am glad indeed that Christmas so evidently lives in your heart, Mr Mole, as well as it does in mine, for I swear its expression has very nearly died in this house these past years! Yet not completely, no not absolutely, for I make sure it does not.”
“I am glad if you can find some time to celebrate Christmas yourself,” said the Mole quietly, “for I rather feared that the responsibilities of having the Hall to organise would prevent you from doing so.”
“Well, I should not quite say ‘celebrate’ in the sense you mean, for Mrs Ffleshe is a demanding guest, if I may put it that way”
Mole murmured that she might if she wished.
“But I always make sure I have the afternoon of Christmas Eve to myself, at least till seven o’clock, and upon this point I have had my way with Mrs Ffleshe. I shall do most of the work I need to this evening so that I can have that time to myself tomorrow afternoon. How very much I look forward to it!”
“I am glad of it, Miss Bugle,” returned the Mole, “glad indeed, for I dare say you have no other liberty between now and the sixth of January.”
The Mole was about to tackle the subject uppermost in his mind when Miss Bugle stood up in an animated way and interrupted his search for suitable words.
“Twelfth Night!” she cried, eyes brighter still. “How Mr Toad Senior used to make us all enjoy that special ritual. ‘Miss Bugle,’ he would say, ‘kindly make sure that not all the decorations are taken down for I like to see the glitter to the end!’
“I would take him at his word, and see to it that those decorations we used to place over the dining room fire, in whose grate the Yule log was first lit, were left till last. Then as the embers died he would summon all the staff from butler down to bootboy, from housekeeper down to under-scullery maid, and he would propose our health, guests and servants alike. O he was a jolly gentleman, Mr Mole!”
“I dare say you miss him still?” said Mole with a smile. “I do. O I do — but I do not forget him. Why, on Christmas Eve I —”
She paused and looked suddenly a little coy as if she was about to make a revelation she should not. The Mole had the very good sense to remain silent, for he saw that the infectious spirit of Christmas might do his plotting for him.
“Mr Mole’ she began impulsively looking again with pleasure at his gift, “would it be too bold of me to ask if this compote, which I believe you said was of chestnut and prune, might be taken with afternoon tea with clotted cream?”
The Mole said it would go very well with that. He certainly had enjoyed it at tea-time many times.
“You do not quite understand me, Mr Mole. I am sure I should not be so bold, but…”
The Mole smiled as encouragingly as he could.
“Yes, Miss Bugle?” he said with a twinkle in his eye, his heart filled with joy to discover that the spirit of Christmas was not quite dead along the River Bank after all.
“Might I ask if you would be so kind as to be my guest tomorrow afternoon, Mr Mole, because — well, because I would be so very much obliged if you would!”
Mole was very well aware from what she had said earlier what a compliment and honour this was, and nothing, absolutely nothing, could have delighted him more. Why, his social calendar, so empty but two days before, was filling up very rapidly indeed.
“Madam,” said he, rising rather formally, “I shall be as honoured as I shall be delighted. Would four o’clock be the correct time for me to arrive? By then dusk will be upon us and I will be less likely to be observed by Mrs Ffleshe or Mr Toad.”
“Four o’clock, sir, let it be four o’clock!” cried Miss Bugle gaily.
“I shall look forward to it inordinately, and I will save till then the matter I had come expressly here today to discuss with you. It will be all the better for being mooted over tea!”
“Well then, Mr Mole, let it be so!”
As he took his leave she put her hand on his arm.
“Mr Mole?”
“Madam?”
“Forgive me, but what exactly caused you to be confined in the coal cellar?”
Mole laughed.
“That too can wait, Miss Bugle, for it has a great deal to do with the issue I wish to discuss with you. Suffice it to say if being half-suffocated by coal dust was the only way I might have had an invitation to tea with you upon Christmas Eve then, madam, I would gladly undergo the ordeal again.”
Miss Bugle laughed with pleasure, and the Mole chuckled nearly all the way home.
VI
On Christmas Eve
At the appointed time the following afternoon, wearing a hat to hide his face in case Toad or Mrs Ffleshe caught sight of him, the Mole scurried round the side of Toad Hall and knocked at the tradesman’s entrance.
Miss Bugle was ready and waiting. After the briefest but brightest of greetings, she hurried him through the kitchen and, holding a candle to light the way, up the narrow back stairs to the servants’ quarters above.
The Mole was not in the habit of surreptitiously making his way to the private apartments of spinster ladies and was both amused and a touch embarrassed to find himself in such a situation. But so too, it seemed, was Miss Bugle.
She bustled up the stairs with an urgency to her step that the Mole guessed came from the fear that if she for one moment hesitated she might not have courage to see her objective through.
When they emerged at last into a corridor on the third floor and turned into the northern wing of the Hall, the Mole found himself so puffed that he had to pause to catch his breath. But Miss Bugle hurried him on till, at last, she brought him before a green door with a polished brass handle.
“Sir,” said she with all due propriety, “I realise it is an unusual proceeding for a maiden lady to invite a bachelor into her rooms unchaperoned, but on this special day and in these special circumstances, and in view of what you indicated about your own desire to revive the Christmas spirit by creating some joint plan of action with myself, I feel — I am certain — I hope —”
Her hand went to the handle, but did not yet turn it. “— that you will understand why I have invited you to tea. I was raised in an orphanage and till I came to the Hall in Mr Toad Senior’s day — a happy day for me, most happy! — I had never known a Christmas in a family home. He showed me its joys, and taught me all I know of it. When he passed on—“
The door remained unopened as she continued this personal reminiscence.
“— and Mr Toad’s Uncle Groat imposed himself from afar by means of the late Nanny Fowle and Mrs Fleshe, I fear that something rebelled within me. I decided that come what may I would try to keep the spirit of Christmas alive —Miss Bugle began at last to open her door.
“— and just as Mr
Toad Senior would have wished me to, and as I believe the present Toad would himself do were he not in thrall to Mrs Ffleshe and ultimately to his Uncle Groat!”
The door opened further.
“Till this moment, Mr Mole, I have never mentioned this matter to a living soul, but when you so unexpectedly offered me the compliments of the season and a gift as well I thought — I felt —”
Miss Bugle could say no more, for the Christmas Eve secret she had held so long was now too much for her to bear and her voice began to break.
“Christmas Eve, Mr Mole, is never a time to be alone, and I have been alone on this day too often. The lights of Christmas candles surely shine brighter in the sympathetic company of others.”
“They do, Miss Bugle, O, I know they do!” said the Mole with considerable sympathy and feeling.
“Well then…” she said, pushing her door open with a curious gesture of shy hopefulness and indicating that he should go ahead of her.
What he saw when he entered quite took his breath away. It was a parlour like no parlour he had ever seen. One so filled and resplendent with the Christmas spirit that all the gloom and unhappiness the Mole had recently felt fled from his heart, to be replaced by that sense of simple joy and wonder he had last felt as a child, standing before his first Christmas tree.
From every place that bright Christmas decorations could hang, they hung: from the gaslights on the walls, from the central pendant, from the picture rail, from beneath the mantel over the modest fire, from the window latches, from the brass doorhandles, from a hatstand, from the backs of chairs, and from occasional tables — from all of these vantage points, and very many more, there hung shiny silver stars, golden angels, dazzling green fir trees and red Father Christmases.
Some of the decorations simply streamed in shimmering lines, others swooped in handmade chains, and yet others declared themselves as suns and moons, as firebirds, as cherubs, or as reindeers flying through the night. And that was just what hung — for upon every flat surface there were tens, nay hundreds, more decorations, some of wood, some tin, some brass, all brightly coloured or shining, intricately catching the gaslight above and the bright firelight below, and turning it all into a universe of a hundred thousand shimmering stars.
The Mole stood dumbfounded, turning in a complete circle before he moved slowly to the mantelpiece, to reach out and touch a little of what he saw, doing so in pure delight. He had not found such simple pleasure in a festive display since he first saw and touched those wondrous decorations his parents had put up when he was a child.
As then, so now: one moment the world seemed humdrum and normal, the next a door was opened — or rather re-opened — upon the unforgettable glory of bright festive seasonal delight.
Miss Bugle quickly found some tapers to light the candles and their reflections seemed to bring forth a thousand new lights to the festive scene.
“Do you like it?” began Miss Bugle, almost gaily. “I do like it, I do!” cried the Mole, almost dancing in a circle once again as he surveyed the happy scene, taking in more and more as he did so and feeling the years drop off him in the wonderment of what he saw.
“And this?” he asked, leaning forward to examine a daguerreotype, which was framed with fronds of holly and ivy made most delicately of glass and tin, painted red and green.
“That is Mr Toad Senior and he gave it to me himself at my request. He was too modest a gentleman to think that another might like his portrait. It is my most valued possession. But, Mr Mole, pray be seated by the fireside.”
The thoughtful Mole had already observed that there was only one armchair in the room, which was certainly Miss Bugle’s own. What need had a maiden lady with no relatives of a second comfortable chair?
At once he went to bring a chair from a dining table that was tucked away in one corner, but when he tried to sit on it Miss Bugle would have none of it, and insisted he take her own. So it was that for a second time in three days, though for very different reasons, the Mole found himself the guest of honour in his host’s own chair before a blazing fire. It was a situation that Mole could not imagine being bettered on a Christmas Eve.
It was as well that the compote (his) and the scones and cream (hers) could not be compared because each was sure the other was the better. Nor, had there been a contest as to who was the more sympathetic listener, could one have emerged the victor, for both were undoubtedly experts.
In what seemed like no time at all — though it took a good hour and two pots of tea — Mole had heard the sad story of Miss Bugle’s orphan days and learned how Mr Toad Senior had rescued her.
Miss Bugle, in her turn, had wrung from Mole those secrets of his past that bore upon his lost siblings and present regrets that he would not see them again.
“But have you never tried to find your sister’s address in the north and make contact with her?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“But, Mr Mole, it is not so very far to those who use the railways!”
“I do not think I would have the courage to do such a thing,” said the Mole sadly, “for what must surely be a fruitless search.”
With that he let the subject drop. The darkness of the winter evening had fallen as they talked and the Mole became aware that their time was slipping away — soon Miss Bugle would have to resume her duties.
“Mr Mole,” said his hostess, “I fear that I have no aperitifs to offer you of the kind that I believe bachelor gentlemen enjoy at this time of evening. I have no brandy or whisky, and certainly no gin! But —”
Mole raised his head hopefully and saw that Miss Bugle had glanced once more towards the portrait of the employer whose memory she revered so greatly.
“I do have a decanter of madeira that was given to me by Mr Toad Senior a very long time ago. There is not much left now, but if you would —?”
Mole indicated that he would indeed, and out came the crystal decanter, accompanied by two exquisitely engraved glasses.
“He gave me these along with the madeira. But up till this moment—“
As she smiled her eyes moistened, and the Mole guessed that till this moment there had never been a reason to fill the second of the glasses, though he noticed it was as brightly polished as the first. No one understood the pleasure of that moment better than he.
“It has been my habit to have a single glass once a year on Christmas Eve, when I toast the memory of those most happy years with Mr Toad Senior.”
“Madam,” said the Mole, half—rising in alarm, “I cannot think to rob you of a full glass of a drink that is so special, and which I see has now almost run dry. Rather —”
A glance from her stilled him and she filled the glasses without a word, leaving barely enough for two more in the precious bottle.
“Each Christmas Eve I sit here,” said she, “and I contemplate my little drink, and I look about at these decorations, which are mainly the Hall’s own, for I borrow them from the boxes where they are kept in the attic rooms above, and I ponder the joys of the past year, and such joys as I may find in the year to come. Little did I think that this year would bring into my presence one so gracious and good-hearted as yourself.”
She did not yet raise her glass, and nor did the Mole. “Then I slowly sip my drink and watch the firelight. I think of all those families who have children in their midst, and wonder what they are doing and how excited they must feel…”
“They are inclined to mischief and over-excitement, if my memory of my youth serves me right,” observed the Mole with a smile.
Their glasses remained untouched.
“I think too of those who are alone like me, but not lucky enough to have so happy a situation or so benign an employer as the present Mr Toad, and I wish them better luck in the months and years ahead.
“So do the moments of my little Christmas celebration pass. Then, reluctantly, I come to my final task. As the hour of six rings out from the Village church — and when the wind is in the west as i
t is tonight I can hear it from my open window — I take down these decorations one by one, and pack them up for another year into those wooden boxes you see beneath my dining table. Then I silently transport them back up to the attic whence they came. By that time it is nigh-on seven o’clock and I have to be on duty once again. Then is my Christmas done, even before it has begun for the rest of the world!”
Miss Bugle was silent, and seemed neither happy nor sad, but rather resigned to this solitary annual ritual.
Breaking her silence at last, she said, “I would be very grateful, Mr Mole, if this year you would be kind enough to propose a toast, for I believe that is a gentleman’s prerogative.”
“I will do so with great pleasure, madam,” said the Mole, who had been much moved by her words. He rose up and declared, “It is my firm belief that this will be the last time that the River Bank’s Christmas will be blighted and I am confident that the spirit of Christmas will win through again. I now feel that in you I have the staunchest possible ally for certain efforts I am planning with the help of Mr Badger and others on the River Bank’s behalf, and so I feel emboldened to propose the health of Christmas now and for always! May all our wishes regarding it come true!”
Their glasses clinked merrily in the firelight.
They talked a little more in general terms before the Mole felt the moment had come to ask her about something that had nagged at him since Mr Baltry the poulterer had mentioned it, and which had been referred to indirectly by all those he had spoken to since.
“Please answer me this, Miss Bugle, for I believe you are best placed to do so. I have been told that Mr Toad’s malaise at Christmas time, and his inability to deal firmly with Mrs Ffleshe, if I may so put it, has something to do with his father. I feel that if I am to take successful action and gain Toad’s help, I need to understand Mr Toad’s state of mind. Can you cast any light on the matter?”
Miss Bugle nodded her understanding and said very sombrely, “The long and short of it is that Mr Toad’s father passed away at Christmas.”
The Willows at Christmas Page 7
