The Christmas Megapack

by Reginald Robert

  “And I’ve got to go at half past five to meet Father when he’s through with that wedding uptown, and then we’re going shopping. I’ve got a lot to talk about. The Beckwith babies are awful sick. I guess it would be a good thing if they were to die. They are always having colic and cramps and croup, and they’ve got a coughing mother and a lazy father; but they won’t die. Some babies never will. Did you know Mr. Rheinhimer had been on another spree?” Carmencita, feet fastened in the rounds of her chair, elbows on knees, and chin in the palms of her hand, nodded affirmatively at the face in front of her. “Worst one yet. He smashed all the window-panes in the bedroom, and broke two legs of their best chairs doing it, and threw the basin and pitcher out of the window. He says he’d give any man living five hundred dollars, if he had it, if he’d live with his wife a month and not shake her. She is awful aggravating. She’s always in curl papers, and don’t wear corsets, and nags him to death. She says she wishes you’d send him to a cure or something. And I want to tell you about Father’s present.”

  For twenty minutes they talked long and earnestly. Carmencita’s list of names and number of pennies were gone over again and again, and when at last she got up to go the perplexities of indecision and adjustment were mainly removed, and she sighed with satisfaction.

  “I’m very much obliged to you for helping me fix it.” The piece of paper was carefully pinned to the inside of the coat. “I’m not going to get anything but Father’s present tonight. I won’t have to go to school tomorrow, and I want the buying to last as long as possible. Isn’t it funny the way Christmas makes you feel?”

  Carmencita’s hands came suddenly together, and, pressing them on her breast, her eyes grew big and shining. Standing first on one foot and then on the other, she swayed slightly forward, then gave a leap in the air.

  “I can’t help it, Miss Frances, I really can’t! It’s something inside me—something that makes me wish I was all the world’s mother! And I’m so squirmy and thrilly and shivery, thinking of the things I’d do if I could, that sometimes I’m bound to jump—just bound to! I’m almost sure something nice is going to happen. Did you ever feel that way, Miss Frances?”

  “I used to feel that way.” The clear dark eyes for a moment turned from the eager ones of the child. “It’s a very nice way to feel. When one is young—though perhaps it is not so much youth as hope in the heart, and love, and—”

  “I don’t love everybody. I loathe Miss Cattie Burns. She’s the very old dev—I promised Father I wouldn’t say even a true mean thing about anybody for a month, and I’ve done it twice! I’d much rather love people, though. I love to love! It makes you feel so nice and warm and homey. If I had a house I’d have everybody I know—I mean all the nice everybodies—to spend Christmas with me. Isn’t it funny that at Christmas something in you gets so lonely for—for—I don’t know what for, exactly, but it’s something you don’t mind so much not having at other times.”

  Carmencita’s arms opened to their full length, then circled slowly, and her hands crossed around her neck. “It’s the time to wipe out and forget things, Father says. It’s the home-time and the heart-time and—” In her voice was sudden anxiety. “You are not going away for Christmas are you, Miss Frances?”

  “Not for Christmas eve.” She hesitated. “I’m not quite sure what I’m going to do on Christmas day. My people live in different places and far apart. It is all very different from what it used to be. When one is alone—”

  She stopped abruptly and, going over to the window, looked down on the street below; and Carmencita, watching, saw the face turned from hers twist in sudden pain. For a moment she stood puzzled and helpless. Something she did not understand was troubling, something in which she could not help. What was it?

  “You couldn’t be alone at Christmas, Miss Frances.” Slowly she came toward the window, and shyly her hand slipped into that of her friend. “There are too many wanting you. Father and I can’t give fine presents or have a fine dinner, but there wouldn’t be words in which to tell you how thankful we’d be if you’d spend it with us. Would you—would you come to us, Miss Frances?”

  Into the eager blue eyes looking up the dark eyes looked down, and, looking, grew misty. “Dear child, I’d come to you if I were here, but I do not think I’ll be here.” Her head went up as if impatient with herself. “I’m going away on Christmas day—going—” She took out her watch hurriedly and looked at it. “It’s after half past five, Carmencita. You will have to hurry or you won’t see the wedding guests go in. Good-by, dear. Have a good time and tuck away all you see to tell me later. I will be so busy between now and Christmas, there will be no time for talking, but after Christmas—Why, you’ve got on your straw hat, Carmencita! Where is the winter one Miss Cattie gave you? She told me she had given you a perfectly good hat that would last a long time.”

  “She did.” Carmencita’s hands were stuck in the deep pockets of her long coat, and again her big blue eyes were raised to her friend’s. “It would have lasted for ever if it hadn’t got burned up. It fell in the fire and got burned up.” Out in the hall she hesitated, then came back, opened the door, and put her head in. “It did get burned up, Miss Frances. I burned it. Good-by.”

  Late into the night Frances Barbour sat at her desk in the bare and poorly furnished room which she now called hers, and wrote letters, settled accounts, wrapped bundles, assorted packages, and made lists of matters to be attended to on the next day. When at last through, with the reaction that comes from overtired body and nerves she leaned back in her chair and let her hands fall idly in her lap, and with eyes that saw not looked across at the windows, on whose panes bits of hail were tapping weirdly. For some minutes thought was held in abeyance; then suddenly she crossed her arms on the table, and her face was hidden in them.

  “Oh, Stephen! Stephen!” Under her breath the words came wearily. “We were so foolish, Stephen; such silly children to give each other up! All through the year I know, but never as I do at Christmas. And we—we are each other’s, Stephen!” With a proud uplifting of her head she got up. “I am a child,” she said, “a child who wants what it once refused to have. But until he understood—” Quickly she put out the light.

  CHAPTER III

  He was ashamed of himself for being ashamed. Why on earth should he hesitate to tell Peterkin he would dine alone on Christmas day? It was none of Peterkin’s business how he dined, or where, or with whom. And still he had not brought himself to the point of informing Peterkin, by his order for dinner at home, that he was not leaving town for the holidays, that he was not invited to dine with any one else, and that there was no one he cared to invite to dine with him. It was the 22d of December, and the custodian in charge of his domestic arrangements had not yet been told what his plans were for the 25th. He had no plans.

  He might go, of course, to one of his clubs. But worse than telling Peterkin that he would dine alone would be the public avowal of having nowhere to go which dining at the club would not only indicate, but affirm. Besides, at Christmas a club was ghastly, and the few who dropped in had a half-shamed air at being there and got out as quickly as possible. He could go to Hallsboro, but Hallsboro no longer bore even a semblance to the little town in which he had been born—had, indeed, become something of a big city, bustling, busy, and new, and offensively up-to-date; and nowhere else did he feel so much a stranger as in the place he had once called home. He was but twelve when his parents moved away, and eight months later died within a week of each other, and for years he had not been back. Had there been brothers and sisters—Well, there were no brothers and sisters, and by this time he should be used to the fact that he was very much alone in the world.

  Hands in his pockets, Stephen Van Landing leaned back in his chair and looked across the room at a picture on the wall. He did not see the picture; he saw, instead, certain things that were not pleasant to see. No, he would not go to Hallsboro for Christmas.

  Turning off the light in his office
and closing the door with unnecessary energy, Van Landing walked down the hall to the elevator, then turned away and toward the steps. Reaching the street, he hesitated as to the car he should take, whether one uptown to his club or one across to his apartment, and as he waited he watched the hurrying crowd with eyes in which were baffled impatience and perplexity. It was incomprehensible, the shopping craze at this season of the year. He wished there was no such season. Save for his very young childhood there were few happy memories connected with it, but only of late, only during the past few years, had the recurrence awakened within him a sort of horror, its approach a sense of loneliness that was demoralizing, and its celebration an emptiness in life that chilled and depressed beyond all reason. Why was it that as it drew near a feeling of cowardice so possessed him that he wanted to go away, go anywhere and hide until it was over, go where he could not see what it meant to others? It was humanity’s home-time, and he had no home. Why—

  “An ass that brays is wiser than the man who asks what can’t be answered,” he said, under his breath. “For the love of Heaven, quit it! Why-ing in a man is as inexcusable as whining in a woman. There’s my car—crowded, of course!”

  For some minutes longer he waited for a car on which there was chance to get a foothold, then, buttoning his overcoat, put his hands in his pockets and began the walk to his club. The season had been mild so far, but a change was coming, and the two days left for Christmas shopping would doubtless be stormy ones. On the whole, it might be fortunate. There was a good deal of nonsense in this curious custom of once a year getting on a giving jag, which was about what Christmas had degenerated into, and if something could prevent the dementia that possessed many people at this season it should be welcomed. It had often puzzled him, the behavior of the human family at this so-called Christian holiday in which tired people were overworked, poor people bought what they couldn’t afford, and the rich gave unneeded things to the rich and were given unwanted ones in return. The hands of all people—all places—had become outstretched. It wasn’t the giving of money that mattered. But what did matter was the hugeness of the habit which was commercializing a custom whose origin was very far removed from the spirit of the day.

  With a shrug of his shoulders he shoved his hands deeper down into his pockets. “Quit again,” he said, half aloud. “What do you know of the spirit of the day?”

  Not only of the spirit of the day did he know little, but of late with acute conviction it was dawning on him that he knew little of many other things. Certainly he was getting little out of life. For a while, after professional recognition had come to him, and with it financial reward, he had tested society, only to give it up and settle down to still harder work during the day and his books when the day was done. The only woman he had ever wanted to marry had refused to marry him. His teeth came down on his lips. He still wanted her. In all the world there was but one woman he loved or could love, and for three years he had not seen her. It was his fault. He was to blame. It had taken him long to see it, but he saw it now. There had been a difference of opinion, a frank revealing of opposing points of view, and he had been told that she would not surrender her life to the selfishness that takes no part in activities beyond the interests of her own home. He had insisted that when a woman marries said home and husband should alone claim her time and heart, and in the multitude of demands which go into the cultural and practical development of a home out of a house there would be sufficient opportunity for the exercise of a woman’s brain and ability. He had been such a fool. What right had he to limit her, or she him? It had all been so silly and such a waste, such a horrible waste of happiness.

  For she had loved him. She was not a woman to love lightly, as he was not a man, and hers was the love that glorifies life. And he had lost it. That is, he had lost her. Three years ago she had broken their engagement. Two years of this time had been spent abroad. A few months after their return her mother died and her home was given up. Much of the time since her mother’s death had been spent with her married sisters, who lived in cities far separated from one another, but not for some weeks had he heard anything concerning her. He did not even know where she was, or where she would be Christmas.

  “Hello, Van!”

  The voice behind made him turn. The voice was Bleeker McVeigh’s.

  “Where are the wedding garments? Don’t mean you’re not going!”

  “Going where?” Van Landing fell into step. “Whose wedding?”

  McVeigh lighted a fresh cigarette. “You ought to be hung. I tell you now you won’t be bidden to my wedding. Why did you tell Jockie you’d come, if you didn’t intend to?”

  Van Landing stopped and for a minute stared at the man beside him. “I forgot this was the twenty-second,” he said. “Tell Jock I’m dead. I wish I were for a week.”

  “Ought to be dead.” McVeigh threw his match away. “A man who ignores his fellow-beings as you’ve ignored yours of late has no right to live. Better look out. Don’t take long to be forgotten. Good night.”

  It was true that it didn’t take long to be forgotten. He had been finding that out rather dismally of late, finding out also that a good many things Frances had told him about himself were true. Her eyes could be so soft and lovely and appealing; they were wonderful eyes, but they could blaze as well. And she was right. He was selfish and conventional and intolerant. That is, he had been. He wished he could forget her eyes. In all ways possible to a man of his type he had tried to forget, but forgetting was beyond his power. Jock had loved half a dozen women and this afternoon he was to be married to his last love. Were he on Jock’s order he might have married. He wasn’t on Jock’s order.

  Reaching his club, he started to go up the steps, then turned and walked away. To go in would provoke inquiry as to why he was not at the wedding. He took out his watch. It was twenty minutes of the hour set for the ceremony. He had intended to go, but—Well, he had forgotten, and was glad of it. He loathed weddings.

  As he reached the building in which was his apartment he again hesitated and again walked on. An unaccountable impulse led him in the direction of the house, a few blocks away, in which his friend was to be married, and as he neared it he crossed the street and in the darkness of the late afternoon looked with eyes, half mocking, half amazed, at the long line of limousines which stretched from one end of the block to the other. At the corner he stopped. For some minutes he stood looking at the little group of people who made effort to press closer to the entrance of the awning which stretched from door to curbing, then turned to go, when he felt a hand touch him lightly on the arm.

  “If you will come up to the top of the steps you can see much better,” he heard a voice say. “I’ve seen almost everybody go in. I just ran down to tell you.”

  CHAPTER IV

  Turning, Van Landing looked into the little face upraised to his, then lifted his hat. She was so enveloped in the big coat which came to her heels that for half a moment he could not tell whether she was ten or twenty. Then he smiled.

  “Thank you,” he said. “I don’t know that I care to see. I don’t know why I stopped.”

  “Oh, but it is perfectly grand, seeing them is! You can see everything up there”—a little bare hand was waved behind her in the direction of the porch—“and nothing down here. And you looked like you wanted to see. There have been kings and queens, and princes and princesses, and dukes and duchesses, and sirs, and—” She looked up. “What’s the lady name for sir? ’Tisn’t siress, is it?”

  “I believe not.” Van Landing laughed. “I didn’t know there was so much royalty in town.” “There is. They are royals—that kind of people.” Her hand pointed in the direction of the house from which could be heard faint strains of music. “They live in palaces, and wave wands, and eat out of gold plates, and wear silk stockings in the morning, and—oh, they do everything that’s splendid and grand and magnificent and—”

  “Do you think people are splendid and grand and magnificent because t
hey live in palaces and wear—”

  “Goodness gracious!” The big blue eyes surveyed the speaker with uncertainty. “Are you one of them, too?”

  “One what?”

  “Damanarkists. Mr. Leimberg is one. He hates people who live in palaces and wave wands and have dee-licious things to eat. He don’t believe in it. Mr. Ripple says it’s because he’s a damanarkist and very dangerous. Mr. Leimberg thinks men like Mr. Ripple ought to be tarred and feathered. He says he’d take the very last cent a person had and give it to blood-suckers like that”—and again the red little hand was waved toward the opposite side of the street. “Mr. Ripple collects our rent. I guess it does take a lot of money to live in a palace, but I’d live in one if I could, though I’d try not to be very particular about rents and things. And I’d have chicken-pie for dinner every day and hot oysters for supper every night; and I’d ask some little girls sometimes to come and see me—that is, I think I would. But maybe I wouldn’t. It’s right easy to forget in a palace, I guess. Oh, look—there’s somebody else going in! Hurry, mister, or you won’t see!”

  Following the child up the flight of stone steps, Van Landing stood at the top and looked across at the arriving cars, whose occupants were immediately lost to sight in the tunnel, as his new acquaintance called it, and then he looked at her.

  Very blue and big and wonder-filled were her eyes, and, tense in the effort to gain the last glimpse of the gorgeously gowned guests, she stood on tiptoe, leaning forward eagerly, and suddenly Van Landing picked her up and put her on top of the railing. Holding on to his coat, the child laughed gaily.

  “Aren’t we having a good time?” Her breath was drawn in joyously. “It’s almost as good as being inside. Wouldn’t you like to be? I would. I guess the bride is beautiful, with real diamonds on her slippers and in her hair, and—” She looked down on Van Landing. “My father is in there. He goes to ’most all the scrimptious weddings that have harps to them. He plays on the harp when the minister is saying the words. Do you think it is going to be a very long wedding?”