CHAPTER VI
CHRISTMAS AT OAKFIELD
'Round the world and home again,
That's the sailor's way.'—WILLIAM ALLINGHAM
aptain Maitland did call at the cottage, as he had said, the very day after Godfrey's adventure. Angel and Betty felt a little alarmed, for they never had any visitors except the vicar of the parish of which Oakfield was an outlying hamlet. They sat up rather straight on the company chairs in the parlour, and Penelope, who had kept the visitor waiting at the door while she put on her best cap, brought in a bottle of gooseberry wine and a plate of sweet biscuits, for the cake which Angel had hoped would be ready against the time when the captain called was still in the oven. Perhaps it was the disappointment about the cake that upset Penny's ideas, for she never looked where she was going as she came in with the tray, and the consequence was that she stumbled over the round footstool with two wool-work doves sitting in a wreath of roses. It was a dreadful moment, while Penny came staggering forward with the gooseberry wine slipping off the tray, until she went full tilt into the arms of the captain, who had sprung to his feet, and managed very adroitly to catch the tray in one hand and hold up Penny with the other, while the sweet biscuits hailed upon him like bullets. Poor Penny turned and ran, with her cap over one ear, too much abashed even to see what damage was done, and Betty felt that if only the floor would open under her it would be a comfort. Only for half a moment. Then the captain turned round and said, with a most comical expression:
'I can't drink this whole bottle by myself. May I pour you out a glass?'
Betty could do nothing but burst out laughing, and Angel, in spite of her dismay, joined in, and as to Captain Maitland, he laughed out more heartily than any of them, and from that moment there was no more stiffness between them. The captain, though he seemed quite old to Godfrey, and indeed to his aunts too, was not thirty, for he had attained his promotion rapidly for courage and coolness in an encounter off the French coast. He had the frank cheery manners of a sailor too, so that it was not difficult to feel at home with him; besides, as Betty said afterwards, where was the use of pretending they didn't remember that he had had Penny in his arms, and that he had been on his knees under the table picking up the sweet biscuits?
He would be at home for about a fortnight, he said; he had not been to Oakfield for nearly seven years, not since his mother's death; and Angel thought the bright sunburnt face looked a little wistful, and felt sorry for him having no one to welcome him. But he smiled again directly as he said how glad he was to find the place so little changed; and then he asked if he might see the garden, he remembered being brought there when he was a very little boy; did the clove pinks still grow in the border under the yew hedge? So they all went out together, and the captain had forgotten nothing and greeted Miss Jane as an old friend; there had been a ship in the squadron off the Spanish coast, he said, whose figurehead always reminded him of her. And he remembered the view from the paddock, and missed the big elm that had been blown down two winters ago, and said what a good thing it was the storm had spared Sir Godfrey's tree; it would be a misfortune indeed if anything happened to that, but it seemed all right at present, as stout a heart of oak as the Admiral's flag-ship. And he heard that Cousin Crayshaw was coming down for Christmas, and said he remembered him and should do himself the honour of calling upon him. And then they all walked with him to the end of the lane.
'Do you know,' Betty said as they turned, back, 'I keep on forgetting that he is Kiah's captain, and yet I like to think he is.'
Angel and Godfrey felt much the same. It did seem so impossible that this cheery, simple man, who had laughed over the gooseberry wine, and been so interested in the garden, could be the hero who would perhaps be in the history books of the future. Why, they had been talking the whole time, telling him about the great gale which had blown the elm down, when he knew what a storm at sea was like, with waves mountains high, and mighty ships and brave men swallowed up among them, and he had asked about the bees and the best way of layering pinks as if he really cared to know. Could he have room in his thoughts for such simple things when strife and danger and bloodshed and the life-and-death struggle of nations were familiar to him?
As Betty said, they found it hard to believe, and yet it was very nice to think of, and seemed to mean that being a hero need not take one quite away from everything that other people loved and cared about, just as the good Admiral Collingwood noted on the eve of a great sea-fight that it was his little Sarah's birthday, and remarked while the French were pouring their broadside into his ship that his wife would be just going to church. And gentle Angel said to herself that perhaps after all, when Godfrey was a great man, he might be her Godfrey still if he could manage to copy Captain Maitland. And, meanwhile, she felt very glad and thankful on her boy's account for the captain's coming; for here at last, she said to herself, was what she had wanted so long, some one whom he could look up to and admire and try to copy. What a happy thing it was that he should have learnt from his first hero that lesson that the beginning of victory is the conquest of self.
Cousin Crayshaw was to arrive two days before Christmas, and Godfrey and his aunts had been busy decorating the cottage with holly for the occasion. Cousin Crayshaw was not a particularly interesting visitor certainly, but Betty, from the top of the stepladder, told Godfrey, with all the more emphasis because she didn't quite feel it herself, that they ought to be very thankful they had somebody to welcome.
Martha said that welcoming kept people's hearts warm. The two aunts and the nephew all had their own delightful Christmas secrets, and there was much whispering and great excitement and solemn taking of pennies out of Godfrey's money-box when Pete went to the county town with some hay. It was a very serious matter, for of course he could not consult the aunts, and he felt very important when he ran down to meet Pete, and waited at the end of the lane, jingling the pennies and listening to the sound of approaching cart-wheels. Peter saw the little figure waiting, and jumped down at once.
'Anything I can do in town for you, Master Godfrey?' he asked.
'Yes,' said Godfrey, very seriously, 'I am going to give you some money to spend, Pete, to spend on presents. I want two very beautiful presents for two ladies, and a little one that would suit an old nurse.'
'Certainly, sir,' said Pete gravely.
Godfrey jingled his pennies thoughtfully.
'There's a good deal of money,' he remarked. 'Perhaps there might be some over.'
'Very true, sir,' said Pete with much seriousness. Godfrey considered again. Then that happy Christmas feeling which makes our hearts widen to all the world got the best of it:
'If there should be any over, Pete,' he said, 'I should like you to choose another present.'
'I shall be proud to do my best, sir. Would the present be for a lady or a gentleman, sir?'
'For a gentleman, Pete. A gentleman not very young and not at all handsome, that doesn't care much about nice things or pretty things, so it mustn't be an ornament; and that only reads the paper, so it mustn't be a story-book; and that doesn't like any games, so it mustn't be anything to play with. Do you think you could do that, Pete?'
'I'd try, Master Godfrey. It 'd be a useful thing, now, the gentleman would fancy?'
'Yes, certainly useful,' said Godfrey decidedly; 'and rather cheerful too, if you could manage it, for Cousin Cray—I mean the gentleman—isn't a very cheerful gentleman, and I thought perhaps a present might make him a little more cheerful for Christmas.'
'And I'm to spend all this money, Master Godfrey?'
'Yes, all,' said Godfrey generously, pouring his pennies into Pete's hand; 'you're not to bring back one.'
'I do like giving presents,' he went on, as Pete counted the money and put it in his big leathern purse. 'If I had a lot more money I know what I'd do. I'd tell you to choose a present for a gentleman that is one of the very bravest, best people in the world, a gentleman that likes ships and fighting and gardens and flowers, and is always kind to every one except people he ought to kill; but I should think it would take nearly a hundred pounds to buy a present that would be good enough for him. Good-bye, Pete; I shall try and run round to the Place before lessons to-morrow to see what you've got.'
But Godfrey had not to wait till next morning, for just before his bed-time Penny came to the parlour door to say that Peter was in the kitchen and asking for the young master.
'It's business,' said Godfrey with an air of great importance—Betty always called any talk 'business' that Godfrey was not meant to hear. 'Please, Aunt Angel, let Penny stop here while Pete and I are talking in the kitchen.'
Pete was standing by the back door, with a sprinkling of snow on his hat and shoulders, and as Godfrey appeared he brought out from some safe pocket various parcels very tightly tied up, which, when they were undone, displayed a china cup with
'Remember me
When this you see'
on it in gold letters, two china lambs lying under a tree, and a needle-book with a picture of Queen Charlotte outside. Godfrey was lost in admiration. They were perfect, they were just the very things. The lambs would stand on Aunt Betty's table and the cup would hold Aunt Angel's tea, and the needle-book would suit Penny exactly. 'And was there any more, Pete?' he asked. 'There couldn't have been, surely.'
Pete, for answer, produced another parcel from the depths of his pocket, and exhibited a wooden wafer-box, painted bright red, and with a picture of Mr. Pitt on the lid. Pete watched with the deepest interest while Godfrey opened it.
'You see, Master Godfrey,' he said, 'I was a-thinking the gentleman would be bound to do a deal of writing; and as you said he was partial to newspapers, seemed to me Mr. Pitt would come kind o' natural to him seeing they seem to be mostly about him; and the red colour looks sort o' cheerful and might liven the gentleman up. Hoping it meets your fancy, Master Godfrey.'
'I think it's beautiful,' said Godfrey earnestly; 'you are a very clever person, Pete. Do you mean to say you got it all for that money?'
The smile on Pete's face broadened out, till it reached nearly from ear to ear.
'Well, sir,' he said, 'fact is, for its size and being such a good article, it was wonderful cheap, and there was some money out when I paid for it. And you being so particular about my not bringing a penny home, seemed to me I'd risk bringing this little thing here, in case it might come in handy for what you were talking about.'
So saying, Pete brought out another parcel, and out of the paper came a second box, coloured dark blue this time, and adorned with a picture of a ship in full sail, surrounded by a wreath of convolvulus.
'You see, Master Godfrey,' explained Pete, 'it seemed to me, with you saying the gentleman had a fancy for ships and flowers, and the colour being blue, which stands for sailors, it did seem the sort o' thing you were just a-wishing for.'
'But, Pete,' said Godfrey, as if hardly daring to believe in so grand an idea, 'do you think that sort of gentleman would be likely to be using wafers?'
'Bound to, sir,' said Pete promptly; 'you see, he'd be writing to the Admiral about all the fine things him and his ship was doing, and besides he'd be writing home to folks he was fond of, folks that thought about him, and—and gave him presents and such like.'
'Oh no, Pete, no,' said Godfrey, almost breathless, 'he wouldn't be writing to those sort of people. But really, Pete, I do think the box is very, very beautiful; and do you think—do you think he would be offended if I gave it to him?'
'I'll warrant he'd be as pleased as you like, Master Godfrey,' said Pete heartily; 'he's not the sort to take offence, isn't the captain. Why, bless you, Nancy brought him in a few berries out o' the hedges on Sunday and he made such a work with them as you never saw.' Pete had dropped the little fiction about the gentleman in his interest, and Godfrey did not object.
'I'm very, very much obliged to you, Pete,' he said earnestly; 'I'm as happy as ever I can be. Good-night, dear Pete, and thank you very, very much.'
And so came Christmas, the children's festival, touching home life and child life with its great majesty and beauty. Can any one dare to despise simple things and simple souls when all Christendom comes adoring to a poor cradle and angels stoop to sing carols to shepherd folk? Some such thoughts came into Angelica Wyndham's mind when Nancy ran over on Christmas Eve, very eager and excited, with the captain's compliments, and would Mr. Crayshaw and the young ladies and Master Godfrey dine with him next day; and, please, she did hope they would come, for they were all going to have snap-dragon, and the captain had sent her out with such a lot of money to buy the raisins. And Angel wondered whether after all it was not surprising but right and natural that the captain should care for such things. Wasn't it the Christmas lesson that the great and the simple lie close together, and that the men who are foremost in the midst of death and danger have room in their hearts for children and flowers and home joys and Christmas games as well? And then Cousin Crayshaw had said he would go, and had declared he had a great respect for Captain Maitland. Altogether, it was the happiest Christmas that the sisters had ever spent at Oakfield. And I think there must have been some magic about that cheerful wafer-box with the picture of Mr. Pitt. Mr. Crayshaw found it on his plate on Christmas morning, with an inscription upon it which had been composed by Pete, but written in Godfrey's own firm round hand, and with spelling which was also quite Godfrey's own—'To my deer and respekted cuzon.' And something about the box or the inscription—or was it just a Christmas thought which they put into his head?—made Mr. Crayshaw turn away to the window as if to admire the striking likeness of Mr. Pitt, and then take off his spectacles and rub them and put them on again; and then he did what he had never done before, came round to Godfrey's chair, and put his hands on the little boy's shoulders and kissed his forehead. They walked to church along the ringing frosty road, with the wide white common spreading away on each side like the snow-fields of Godfrey's Arctic stories. And at the churchyard gate they paused, because there were two figures going slowly up the path before them, Captain Maitland, walking erect and steady, with old Kiah Parker on his arm.
'Easy now, easy now, Kiah,' he was saying, 'you'll have me on my nose if you go that pace, man; you and I are more at home on deck than on slippery ground; don't send me sprawling at the very church door, my hearty.'
And as for Kiah, he looked prouder than the Admiral of the Fleet.
After church, however, he hobbled on ahead with Peter and Nancy, while the captain stayed to speak to the party from the cottage. He had had the most beautiful Christmas present, he said, just the very one thing he couldn't have done without any longer. And somebody must have chosen it just to suit him, for it was a real bit of the old blue, and as for the ship, why the Mermaid might have sat for the portrait.
'Just the thing for a present to a sailor from a sailor that is to be,' he said; and Godfrey looked as if he had nothing else in the world to wish for.
'Are you going to let me have the little lad one day, sir?' the captain said to Mr. Crayshaw, when Godfrey had walked on in front between his two aunts.
'You do him very great honour, sir,' said the lawyer. 'I have not thought much at present about the boy's future career. He has been a difficulty, Captain Maitland, something of a difficulty. I was afraid that his unfortunate surroundings during his early childhood had had a very bad effect upon his character; but he is much improved, very much improved indeed. You think something may be made of him?'
'I think he is the sort of stuff that heroes are made of,' said the captain thoughtfully, 'and he has such influence about him now as makes heroes.'
Mr. Crayshaw glanced at the three in front of him and coughed in an embarrassed way.
'Angelica is—is a very good girl,' he said; 'indeed they are both very good girls, very good girls. I had my doubts as to the desirability of leaving Godfrey under their charge, but I feel satisfied now that at present I could hardly do better for him.'
'I think he is having such training as will bless his whole life,' said Captain Maitland gravely, and Mr. Crayshaw did not contradict him. Perhaps a thought came over him that if he had had a gentle Angelica and a bright, loving Betty beside him when he was young, his life might have been a better and a more beautiful thing.
An invitation to dinner was such a rare thing at Oakfield that there was a good deal of excitement about getting ready for it. Penny and Angel and Betty all brushed Godfrey's hair in turn, until he was thankful to escape and leave his aunts to get dressed on their own account. But he very soon came rushing upstairs again two steps at a time, and asked eagerly at their door if he might come in.
'Aunt Angel, Aunt Betty, look!' he exclaimed as he burst into the room, 'presents, from Cousin Crayshaw. Oh, do look!—A seal, a real proper seal that belonged to grandpapa, with words on, that makes a mark when you hold it down on your hand hard. And this box has got things in for you; he said so. He was so funny, and he said it so fast I didn't hear it all; but he said I was to give it to you, Aunt Angel, because it was yours really, and perhaps it would help you to remember some things that were past and to forget some others. What did he mean? Only open it, do open it!'
So Angel opened the box, with Betty looking over her shoulder and peering between her falling curls, and Penny peeping over her. And it was Penny who was the first to exclaim, while she hugged both her young ladies in her delight:
'Oh, bless you, my dears, they're your dear mamma's jewels! Dear, dear! and don't I know 'em if any one does, me that put them on her times enough.'
'Mamma's things! Oh, Angel!' said Betty in hushed tones, touching the trinkets with reverent fingers. Angelica had put her hands before her eyes. A great rush of memory was sweeping over her, for it is the little things that take hold of our minds when we are children, and the sight of them in after years brings the big things in their train. And those pearls used to be twisted among the sunny curls of the head that had bent over her little bed on long ago evenings, and the ruby ring had sparkled on the hand that used to clasp her baby fingers. And that miniature with its gold setting? Did not mamma wear it on a gold chain out of sight? Had not Betty's little restless fingers pulled it out one day, and had not Angel wondered as her mother kissed it with dewy eyes and put it back? Betty was holding it to the light.
'Why, Angel,' she exclaimed wonderingly, 'it's Godfrey.'
And Penny, with her apron to her eyes, explained,
'No, no, my dear, it's his poor dear papa, that's who it is.'
'My papa!' ejaculated Godfrey, with round eyes, 'why, Penny, it's a little boy.'
'And so he was a little boy,' sobbed Penny, 'and the dearest, beautifullest little boy ever I saw or anybody saw, and his dear mamma had his picture done the day he was eight years old, and she wore it till she died, bless her heart.'
Angel bent her head and kissed the laughing face as she had seen her mother kiss it.
'And Cousin Crayshaw sent it to us,' said Betty thoughtfully; 'now I know what he meant about remembering and forgetting.'
'I don't,' said Godfrey, 'but I want Aunt Angel to hang papa's picture round her neck.'
'Yes, yes, Angel, you must,' said Betty eagerly, clasping the chain about her sister's throat; 'you talked to him—you remember—and I don't really, though I'm sure I feel a kind of something as if I should know him.'
'Then you must wear mamma's pearls, Betty dear, you must indeed.'
'No, indeed, I mustn't, because you are going to. Yes, you are, Angel, don't say a word—you are going to wear them in your hair like she used to. Penny, please put up Angel's hair like mamma's picture. I am going to have this dear, dear brooch, with all the twisted bits of gold and the little tiny diamonds; fancy me in diamonds! You ought to have them really, but I know you like the others best.'
And so, a few minutes later, when Angel met Cousin Crayshaw on the stairs, he quite started at the sight of her, with the gold chain round her neck and the pearls among her dark curls.
'You have given us the most beautiful Christmas present in the world, Cousin Crayshaw,' she said, holding out her hands to him. And Mr. Crayshaw, with a sudden impulse, kissed her forehead as he had kissed Godfrey's.
'They were yours already, not mine, my dear,' he said, and then he added:
'You are very like your mother, Angelica, very like indeed.'
I don't think there could have been a merrier party than that Christmas dinner party at Oakfield Place.
Captain Maitland held the same opinion as a wise man who once said that 'it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas time, when its mighty Founder was a child Himself.' And the captain had the power of not only being quite childishly happy himself, but of making those about him feel the same. The room was all bright with holly, and when pretty Patty had brought in the Christmas goose, and the captain had handed Angelica with courtly politeness to her place on his right hand, he set himself to keep the whole party laughing, and succeeded very well. For he told stories about Christmases at sea, and days when he was a boy at Oakfield Place, and got into scrapes and out again like other boys who had not grown up into heroes. And then he positively asked Mr. Crayshaw if he hadn't some stories of scrapes to tell, now that they were all making confessions. And before Betty's eyes had got back to their natural size, after her amazement at the idea of Cousin Crayshaw in a scrape, that gentleman was answering, with a sort of little cackle which really was almost a laugh, that he did remember once being out after time on a half-holiday, and finding the school-gate shut and climbing over it, and that his coat caught on the top and he hung there till it tore. And at the thought of Cousin Crayshaw hanging on a nail, Betty at any rate hid her face and laughed till she cried, and I believe Angel wasn't far behind her, and, most wonderful of all, Cousin Crayshaw didn't mind a bit. And when dinner was over, and they had drunk to 'Present Company' and 'Absent Friends,' and Mr. Crayshaw had proposed 'The Navy' in quite a fine speech, and Captain Maitland had proposed 'The Law' in a still finer one, then Patty came in with a twinkle in her eyes and moved away the table and pushed the chairs against the walls. And then the captain remarked that it was a cold night, and wouldn't it be a good thing if they were to warm their feet a little? And the next minute there was the sound of Kiah's wooden leg in the passage, and there he was with his fiddle, and the Rogers, all in their Sunday clothes, just behind him. And Patty ran to put down a line of mats, because wooden legs were not good for polished floors. And the captain made Angel such a bow, as if she had been Queen Charlotte herself, and hoped she would put up with an awkward old sailor for a partner, and he was sure Pete would show them the way with Miss Betty. And Godfrey did his very best to copy the captain as he gave his hand to Nancy. And then happened the most wonderful thing that ever had happened in Oakfield, for as Kiah struck up 'Off she goes!' Mr. Crayshaw suddenly went up to fair-haired Patty, who hardly knew where to look, and told her he had not danced for twenty years, but Christmas seemed the time for a frolic, and he would ask her to help him.
Then, when even Nancy and Godfrey were breathless, there came in one of Martha's best cakes and a big plate full of oranges. And the captain called upon Kiah for a song, which Kiah sang readily enough, and played for himself, too, on the fiddle, with the music a good way behind the words. And then they all joined in the chorus of 'Hearts of Oak,' and after that Angel's sweet voice started 'God rest you, merry gentlemen.' And then out with the lights and in with the blazing dish of snap-dragon! How valiant Godfrey was in pulling out plums for every one; how very, very nearly Betty set her lace ruffles on fire; what queer shadows the flickering light threw on the wall, and how strange the eager faces looked when the captain threw a handful of salt on the fire and the flame burnt blue, while Nancy got half frightened and hid behind Patty's skirts! But at last all the raisins had been pulled out and the fire was dying, and positively there was the clock striking ten! What a time of night for Godfrey and Nancy to be out of bed! But, as the captain said, who looks at the clock at Christmas time? So Martha and her daughters curtsied themselves out of the room, and Mr. Crayshaw stood at the door talking quite cheerily with old Kiah, while Betty kept Pete back a minute to ask about her linnet, which was ill—Pete knew so much about birds.
Godfrey had climbed into the window seat, and was peeping between the curtains to see if it looked like another frost.
'Look at the stars, Aunt Angel dear, aren't they bright? Is the Wise Men's Star there still, do you suppose? That's the Plough, isn't it? If one was up in the Plough could one see Oakfield, do you think?'
'I used to like to think one could,' said the captain, who had come up behind them. 'Many's the time, when I was a little bit of a middy, I used to watch the stars and feel quite friendly to them because they could see home. And the Plough, when I could see it, was a real old friend, I knew the look of it so well from this window.'
'I shall do that when I'm a middy,' said Godfrey gravely, 'and I shall think of them seeing my aunts and Oakfield, and they'll think of them seeing me.'
'So you've quite made up your mind to be a middy?' said the captain, with a hand on Godfrey's shoulder.
'Quite,' said the little boy earnestly; 'Aunt Angel says everybody must be useful, like you and Kiah, and she's teaching me to be. I'm like her's and Aunt Betty's little oak-tree, and they hope I shall grow up a very brave sailor. But she's really braver than me, for she says it will be very hard for her not to mind when the Frenchies shoot my leg off, and I don't think I shall mind much.'
Angel's cheeks were crimson at hearing her own words repeated. She looked so very sweet and womanly as she sat there in the window.
They had not lighted the candles again, and only the flickering fire-light played about her, touching her white dress and the curly locks, knotted up high behind her head, with the gleaming pearls among them.
The captain stroked Godfrey's hair.
'Ay, little man,' he said, 'the bravest hearts are the ones we leave at home; and more shame to us that we're not finer fellows when they take so much thought for us.'
Just then Betty called Godfrey, and he ran to bid Pete good-night. The captain stood looking after him.
'His Majesty's navy will be the richer for that lad one day, Miss Angelica,' he said.
Angel flushed with pleasure.
'I do hope so,' she said simply; 'Betty and I are almost afraid sometimes when we think what we want him to be, and that there is only us to teach him and fit him for it.'
'I don't think you need be afraid,' said Captain Maitland quietly; 'the navy is a rough school, Miss Angelica, but so is the world all over, I fancy, and I've known plenty of men who've lived and died on board as pure and simple as if they'd never left home. And they were mostly men who'd such a home life as your little lad to stick by them and keep them straight. Never mind about special training, just give him something to steer by, and trust me he won't go far wrong.'
