He didn’t have any money, though. He wondered if there was anything he could sell, but his train set was broken, so no one would want to buy that. Nothing else he had was worth very much.
Wait - there was the new winter coat his mother had bought him. Anyone would pay a lot of money for such a beautiful coat - lovely and hairy, with five leather buttons to fasten it. He had felt like a prince the only time he had worn it. He didn’t want to sell it, the best coat he had ever had, but if it would make his mother and Mary happier about the baby he would willingly give it up. He would get a few pounds for it, he was sure, and he could buy a really good present with money like that. Not gold or myrrh or that other precious stuff, of course, but something worth giving.
But - what would his mother say about him selling the coat? He remembered hearing her tell his father that coats for children were very expensive nowadays. ‘I’ll just have to make do with my old winter coat,’ she had said. ‘William has grown out of his and he’ll have to get a new one.’
No, it wouldn’t be a good idea to sell it; his mother would probably be angry with him. Or else she would start crying, and he didn’t want to see her crying any more -she cried too much already. What could he do?
Just then, Mary came in to change the baby, a process that usually made William so embarrassed that he left the room, but today he was so preoccupied that he didn’t even notice. Mary took the baby over to him when she was finished. ‘Keep an eye on her for me, William, till I wash the nappies, there’s a good lad.’
He looked at the baby who gave a little mew and opened her eyes, so he hastily laid her down in the pram and gave it a gentle rock. ‘I’m going to bring you a gift,’ he announced decisively. ‘I don’t know how I’m going to manage it, but I promise you I am. I’ll let them see that I like you, little …’
He stopped, aghast. This baby didn’t even have a name. Mary always said, ‘the baby’, while his mother usually called it ‘that child’. So that’s why they were always crying - no one had remembered to give it a name. Whoopee! He would give the baby a name for a Christmas gift; what a wonderful idea. Nobody had thought of it and it wouldn’t cost anything. He would pick a really magnificent name and make all the family proud of him - and of the baby.
When Mary came back, he went up to his own room and thought over all the girls’ names he knew. What about the girls in his class at school? One of their names might do.
Lynne? No, she had a spotty face.
Susan? She nipped you when you weren’t looking.
Lorraine? He liked Lorraine, and thought she was pretty, but lots of girls were called Lorraine, and he wanted something special.
This was much more difficult than he had imagined. He looked at his books to see if he could find a better name there.
Alice in Wonderland? The name Alice didn’t seem to fit the baby.
Hansel and Gretel? He quite liked the idea of Gretel, it was unusual, but he didn’t think his mother and Mary would like it.
‘Tea’s ready, William,’ called his mother.
After teatime, he went back to his room and lay down on his bed. He wondered how babies ever got names if it was so difficult to choose them. By the time he went to bed, he still hadn’t hadn’t found a name, and he tossed and turned for what felt like hours before he fell asleep.
He dreamed of that first Christmas, of how the Angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and told her that she would have a son, of how the Angel told the shepherds in the fields when the Baby Jesus was born, of all the gifts the Three Kings brought.
When he woke in the morning, he knew that somewhere in his dream was the name he was seeking, but he couldn’t think what it might have been. Then he remembered! The Angel Gabriel! That was it - what a perfect name for the baby! ‘Angel Gabriel.’ He said it slowly, letting it roll round his tongue and savouring the beauty of the sound. He could bet that no other baby ever had a name like that.
He froze, suddenly. How could he make a proper gift of a name? It wasn’t something you could wrap up in Christmassy paper or put in a fancy box, and he did so want to make it a good gift. A gift card! He had seen them in the shops with pretty pictures on them, and they just had to go in an envelope. He couldn’t buy one, of course, but he could try to make one. He could write the name on a piece of paper in his best, joined-up writing, the kind they were learning at school.
He rummaged about in his toy box, looking for his drawing book, and at last he found it - luckily with a few empty pages. Tearing them out carefully, he searched for his packet of felt pens. A red one was all he could find, but it would do. Red was a nice, cheerful colour. He went down on his knees and laid the book on his bed, putting one of the blank pages on top.
He made a mistake on the first page, and it wasn’t until his third attempt - on the last page - that he was satisfied that he had done his best writing. He studied it critically. It didn’t seem much for a gift of such importance, but he could draw something on it to brighten it up. What would a baby like? He drew a little butterfly for a start and it looked quite good, so he drew a few more. Then he decided it needed a fancy pattern around the edge, so he spent the next half-hour making little squiggles all the way around. He propped the card against the mirror on his dressing table, and stood back to admire the effect. It looked really good, he thought, and all he needed now was an envelope.
He took the strongest white envelope he could find in his father’s bureau, slipped the card inside and licked the flap. Thumping it vigorously to make it stick down properly, he let out a long sigh of satisfaction. All that remained to be done was to write on the front, and it didn’t matter so much about that. The card was the real gift, the special gift.
With love from William, he wrote, laboriously, then placed the envelope with its precious contents inside the drawing book. He would give it to the baby tomorrow; that was Christmas Day, the proper day.
William went about for the rest of that day with a secretive smile on his face, making his mother wonder what mischief he was hatching, but as he was behaving rather well otherwise, she didn’t upset him by asking any questions.
Once, when no one else was in the room for a few moments, he moved over to the pram. ‘Angel Gabriel,’ he said, experimentally. The infant hiccoughed and opened her eyes, then to William’s delight, a smile passed across the tiny face. This convinced him that she liked the name and he gave a whoop of joy, causing his mother to pause in her preparations for the next day to listen for the crash which inevitably followed the familiar noise. Nothing happened, however, so she shrugged her shoulders and carried on.
When he was hanging up his stocking that night, a disturbing thought bothered William. ‘Mum,’ he said, ‘will Santa know about the baby?’
She didn’t answer immediately, and he looked anxiously into her face. She looked as if she might cry again, so he put his arm round her neck. ‘Mum,’ he repeated, ‘will you hang up a stocking for … it?’ He had nearly given his secret away.
She gave him an unexpected hug. ‘Yes, darling, I will. Santa won’t forget her, I promise.’
William rose before anyone else was up and ran downstairs to see what Santa had brought him. He enjoyed opening the packages, but he knew his greatest thrill would come when the baby’s envelope was opened. Making sure that indeed there were other gifts for the infant, he took the envelope out of his pyjama-top pocket and pushed it well down into the other stocking - like his, one of his father’s large golfing socks. It was going to be a happy Christmas after all.
He could scarcely contain his excitement until the rest of the family came down, and when at last Mary starting taking the things out of the baby’s stocking, he held his breath in glorious anticipation.
‘Oh, thank you, Mum. Thank you very much.’ Mary’s voice was choked as she shook out a lovely lemon pram cover. ‘Dad. This is gorgeous.’ She held up a furry teddy
bear for William to see.
He was wondering why she was thanking them for the things that Santa had brought when he heard her say,
‘What’s this?’
He lifted his head and saw that she was looking at the envelope - his envelope. His heart began to beat faster, but with studied nonchalance, he murmured, ‘It’s my gift to …’ He stopped. He had nearly given the game away, again, ‘To … to … it,’ he finished, lamely, pointing to the pram.
His sister opened the envelope, read the card and passed it over to her mother and William felt a great weight descending on him They didn’t like the name -they would have said something if they did.
Then his mother said, ‘What does it mean, William?’
He looked down at his slippers,, his face scarlet. ‘It’s my gift to the baby,’ he said, doggedly. ‘It’s a name for it.’
‘But why?’ Mary was obviously puzzled.
This was when the boy decided to tell the whole truth, so he stood up and looked her straight in the eyes. ‘Well, Mum and you don’t seem to like it, and nobody ever gave it any presents, not until Santa came last night. Babies should get gifts, like the Baby Jesus. And it didn’t even have a name.’
Mary ran out of the room at that, but before he could say anything, his mother followed her. He looked across at his father, who signed to him to sit down and eat his breakfast. Each mouthful of cereal tasted like sawdust to him, and he was just about to excuse himself from the table when the two women came back. He stared at them in surprise; they had their arms round each other and were laughing and crying at the same time.
Mary stretched out her free arm and pulled him to her. ‘Oh, William, it’s a lovely gift, and you don’t know how much it means to me.’
‘It wasn’t for you,’ he objected. ‘It was for Angel Gabriel.’
His mother patted his cheek. ‘I’m afraid we can’t call her Angel Gabriel, darling, because that was a man, but it was a really good idea, just the same.’
He swallowed to get rid of the lump in his throat, but couldn’t trust himself to speak. His mind was a jumble of confused thoughts. They didn’t like the name he had so carefully chosen. There couldn’t be a man angel, he’d never heard of that before. All angels were beautiful girls, he had always believed. But his mum knew everything, and she was always right. That meant that his gift to the baby was useless.
Mary saw the bitter disappointment in his face and wished she could comfort him. He had gone to a lot of trouble to try to make the family happy. ‘I know, William!’ she cried suddenly, as an idea occurred to her. ‘We’ll call her Gabrielle for short. But we’ll always know she was named after an angel, and that it was your idea.’ She watched him anxiously as a teardrop spilled over and trickled down his cheek.
After a moment or two, however, his face cleared. ‘Gabrielle?’ he whispered.
Oh, yes, he thought, it sounded nearly as good as the name he had chosen. ‘Gabrielle,’ he repeated. It sounded better the more he said it. His gift was a success after all.
***
Word count 2506
Published in Woman’s Way, December 1973
This magazine stopped being published not long after this story was printed, and I sincerely hope that I wasn’t the cause of its demise …
The Night Before Christmas
Whooo-ooo-ooo! The whistling of the wind coming in round the window frame was annoying rather than frightening, and the two slight figures huddled by the fireplace were suitably annoyed.
‘Why has somebody not done something about the window before this, Archie?’ the younger one said mournfully.
‘How would I know? It’s a damned disgrace after all this time. I remember when I was a laddie …’
‘Ach, not again man. I’m tired of hearing about when you were a laddie. It’s the same every winter, like the cold did something to your brains.’
‘Oh, well I’m very sorry.’ Archie, the elder by a good number of years, sounded quite offended. ‘I was only saying …’
‘I know what you were only saying, but I’m saying …’
Whooooosh!! They both jumped back as a fluff of soot came spewing down the chimney.
‘Ach, the wind’s changing.’ Archie shook his head in disgust. ‘I suppose you’ll be saying next that somebody should block up the lum.’
‘There’s no need for you to be sarcastic.’ Fergus was offended now. ‘We shouldna have to freeze like this every winter.’
Archie was silent, his white head hunched into his shoulders, his arms clasped round his middle, while Fergus regarded him sadly. ‘It’s bad enough the rest of the winter, but to be as cold as this on the night before Christmas … it doesna seem right.’
‘Whisht, man.’ Archie lifted his head as a distant clanking came to his ears.
‘What is it, Archie? Are you hearing something?’
‘I would be hearing something if you didna keep speaking.’
They both strained their ears for a few moments, but the noise was not repeated. ‘What was it you thought you heard?’ Fergus persisted.
‘I didna think I heard something, I did hear something,’ Archie snapped.
Realising that he was getting nowhere, Fergus changed his tactics. ‘If you would tell me what you did hear, seeing your hearing’s apparently better than mine, we might be able to settle down again.’
Archie was only slightly mollified by the back-handed compliment. ‘It was chains rattling,’ he volunteered.
‘Ch … chains? Ghosts, d’you mean?’ The younger man was very agitated now.
‘Huh!’ Archie snorted. ‘There’s been nothing like that in this place for as long as I’ve been here.’
‘That doesna mean to say …’ Fergus was stopped by a malevolent glare.
‘I thought I could hear something else, man. Would you just keep your big mouth shut for a while? You never stop blethering.’
Fergus grimaced and said no more, but he looked even more alarmed at the sound of approaching footsteps in the corridor outside. His head jerked up, but Archie motioned to him to be still. The footsteps drew nearer.
‘We’d better get out of sight,’ Archie whispered. ‘We don’t want anybody to know we’re here. We’ll just have to wait and see who they are and what they do.’
They stood up noiselessly, and went to crouch behind the dilapidated sofa by the far wall. In a few seconds, the door creaked slowly open.
‘I canna see a thing in here,’ a deep voice said, peevishly. ‘Hold up the lantern, Sandy.’
An arc of pale light swept round the room, growing brighter as the bearer advanced, and Archie had to hold Fergus back from poking up his head to have a look.
‘It’s an awful big room, Donald,’ said another voice with less resonance.
‘It is that, and just look at that fireplace. It’s big enough to roast an ox.’
‘You’d never want to roast an ox, surely?’
‘It’s just a saying.’ Donald sounded rather exasperated. ‘And that couch. It could seat six, I wouldna be surprised.’
The lantern now illuminating the area around their hiding place, Archie and Fergus remained absolutely motionless until the beam swung away again. They had been unable to look before, but with the light not focused in their direction any longer, they took the chance to peep over the low back of their shield. At first, all they could see was the lantern, because everything behind it was in darkness, but as the light moved round, they could see two shadowy shapes. One was round and small, but the other was huge.
They looked at each other in dismay, and with his mouth against Fergus’s ear, Archie whispered, ‘We’ll have to scare them away.’
Fergus turned his head and put out his hand to find the other man’s olfactory organ. ‘You canna scare them away, if they’re ghosts,’ he
muttered into it.
Archie gave him a push, and started to moan softly.
‘What was that, Donald?’ One of the newcomers stood still to listen. ‘Did you say something?’
‘I thought it was you, Sandy.’
Both voices held a deep note of apprehension, so Archie moaned again, a little louder this time and Fergus joined in, an octave higher, more a screech than a groan.
There was dead silence when they stopped. The two figures in the middle of the room stood as though transfixed. ‘It sounds like g … ghosts,’ Donald said at last, his voice low and quivering.
‘You never said nothing to me about the place having ghosts,’ Sandy said, nervously.
‘Nobody never said nothing about it to me, either, and I’m not paying good money for a haunted castle, even if it is cheap. Come on, let’s get out of here.’
To convince them, Archie moaned again. He didn’t fancy strangers moving in and upsetting their placid existence.
‘I thought it was cheap because it was needing a lot of repairs,’ Sandy observed slightly unsteadily, as they moved towards the door, ‘and I was quite willing to give you a hand to fix things up and get rid of the draught there would likely be, but …’
The door closed behind them with a loud click, their footsteps echoed along the corridor and died away, then the heavy portal clanged and there was the sound of chains and lock being secured.
‘You see what you did?’ Archie exclaimed, accusingly. ‘If you hadna been so sure they were ghosts, they’d have bought the castle and fixed things up, and we’d have been warm every winter instead of near freezing into snowmen.’
‘It was your idea to scare them away,’ Fergus said, childishly, ‘for I thought the little one might be Santy Claus, and I’ve aye wanted to see him, ever since I was …’
‘For any sake, man! It’s your brains that get touched wi’ the cold, I’m thinking.’
‘You’re as bad!’ Fergus retorted, trying to have the last word for a change. ‘If they had been ghosts, they wouldna have been frightened of other ghosts, now would they?’
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