FOOTNOTES:

GOD REST YOU, MERRY CHRISTIANS[6]

George Madden Martin

It was the night before Christmas. Any Christian must have known it, apart from the calendar, by reason of a driving, haunting sense of things yet undone, and a goaded gathering together of exhausted faculties for a final sprint towards the accomplishing of all before the dawning of The Day.

Because we long have associated certain things with Christmas we have come to believe them integrant. The blended odor of orange peel, lighted tapers, and evergreens rushing upon us as the Church door opens means Christmas, even as much as the murmuring voices of the children within, each pew a variegated flower-bed of faces up-lifted to the light and tinsel of a giant tree.

Aromatic odors, other than frankincense and myrrh, mean Christmas, cedar, spices; and certain flavors, an almond kernel laid against a raisin and crushed between molars to the enravishment of the palate, seem to belong to Christmas; the translucent olive of preserved citron, exuding sugared richness, suggests Christmas, together with the crinkled layers of the myriad-seeded, luscious-hearted fig; blazing brandy means Christmas, and the velvet smoothness of egg, cream and Old Bourbon blended, seems part of Christmas too.

But because the average Christian is an unreasoning creature, and, like the ox, bending his neck to the yoke because the yoke offers, plods the way along unquestioning beneath it, the preceding mad rush means Christmas too, and the feverish dream wherein, for instance, the long strand of embroidery silk forever pulls through, unknotted. And it is expected that the bones should ache at Christmas, and the flesh cry out for weariness, and the brain be fagged to the excluding of more than a blurred impression of The Day when it is come.

In the Rumsey household the celebration of the festival began on Christmas Eve with a family gathering of children and grandchildren. There is a certain wild, last hour, preceding the moment of gracious and joyous bestowal, made up of frenzied haste and exhaustion. It was that hour now.

“Anne Rumsey calls it the tears and tissue-paper stage,” was told as evidence of Anne’s singular attitude towards the ways of the Christian world about her.

“And I am sure I don’t know what I’ve done to have any one as queer as Anne for my child,” Mrs. Rumsey, handsome, imposing, on her knees by the bed tying parcels, was saying to her married daughter, Florrie, come home with her babies for Christmas. “There’s no one prides themselves more on the conventional than I do, and I am sure you never did an unconventional thing in your life. But I suppose every family has to have its black sheep, not”—hastily at Florrie’s horrified disclaimer—“not that I mean that, of course—Florrie, how you take one up!—nor ugly duckling exactly, either, for Anne is the handsomest of you all—what did I tie in this package, do you know? I’m sure I don’t—but that a child of mine should thus deliberately each year stand apart, outside the Christmas spirit, while others—it almost looks as if I had not brought my children up with a proper regard for sacred things.”

Down-stairs, in the big, circular hallway, Anne Rumsey, outstretched in a long wicker chair, lay gazing into the fire. It was nice to lie there and watch the flames and listen to the crackle of the logs. Hickory logs seem to belong to Christmas. Anne’s grandfather, years ago, in the country, used to bring in hickory logs for Christmas. Anne had provided these for to-night herself. She had gone to a place in the country she knew of, and walked over to a farm and negotiated for them. She had waited a week for some member of her family to find time from shopping to make the jaunt with her, and then had gone alone. It was ideal December weather; the snow crunched under foot, the sky was brilliant, a top-knotted cardinal bird and a jay on a thorn-hedge against the blue looked at her as she passed along the road. It was good to be alive.

Her mother was testy that night at dinner. Her handsome face was flushed to floridness beneath her gray pompadour. “I’m sure I haven’t time to know whether the weather is perfect or not, if I half do my duty for my family at Christmas. For Heaven’s sake, Anne, don’t be so aggressively high-spirited; it gets on my nerves.”

And to-night, Christmas Eve, Anne lay looking into the fire. It was nice to know it was snowing outside those drawn curtains, it made one love their warmth and crimson more, and snow seems part of Christmas. That morning she had put holly about, idling over the pleasure of trying it here, there. Now she reveled in the color and cheer about her. She had dressed for the evening with a sort of childlike and smiling gaiety, slowly and pleasurably, because the dress seemed part of the season and the joy, and in the scarlet gown looked some dryad of the holly-tree herself, or some Elizabethan’s concept of the Twelfth Night spirit.

The outer door behind her opened to a latch-key and closed.

“Is that you, Daddy?” called Anne. “Come to the blaze and warm.”

“I can’t,” confessed the big-headed, square little man, struggling out of his overcoat; “I’m a disheveled wreck and I’ve got to dress for dinner, I suppose. What time do you look for ’em all around? God bless my soul, Anne, it’s good to see somebody composed and enjoying themselves. I’ve been looking for something for the grandchildren.”

“You said you were too busy, didn’t really have time——”

“Yes, yes, I did, I know I did, but——”

“—at the eleventh hour you rushed out; what did you buy, Daddy?”

“Just a trifle, a trifle around,” confessed John Rumsey hastily, moving towards the stairway; “just a trifle—been putting greenery around, Anne? It looks nice—but I’m worried by a sort of after-recollection. Didn’t I give Florrie’s boy a silver cup before, some time or other?”

Anne laughed; a teasing, yet a provoking laugh, too, it was. “Sort of mile-stones on the road to Dover, little John’s mugs will be, won’t they, father? This will make the——”

John Rumsey, with a plunge up the steps, sent back a sort of frenzied snort.

“Change your shoes,” called Anne after him; “it’s slushy down street, I know. I laid your clothes out; the buttons are in.”

“Thank the Lord!” John Rumsey’s voice came back. “I’ve been fighting my way through mobs, I’m exhausted.”

The dear, blessed, grizzle-headed little Daddy! It was he who, after the long pull, had made hickory fires and crimson hangings and silver mugs possible. The girl’s eyes softened to almost maternal tenderness. The dear, square-set, grizzled little Daddy!

Anne stretched her strong, young length in the chair and consciously luxuriated in the warmth, the richness, the beauty around her.

“It is like a hymn, the colors,” she was thinking.

Again a door opened, somewhere above this time, and protesting childish voices came down the stairway, the voices of sister Florrie’s babies come for Christmas. Anne’s eyes deepened as she listened, laughingly, yet broodingly.

It was sister Florrie answering:

“Now go on down to Norah, John Rumsey, and take your little sister. Go on! I’ll lose my mind if you say another word about Santy Claus; go on, I’ve got all that bed full of things to tie up yet——”

“But you said—” expostulated a small voice, the voice of little John Rumsey.

“I don’t care what I said—” a door closed violently.

A wail arose on the silence, the injured cry of Mary Wingate, the baby.

“Shut up, can’t you,” the fraternal tones of small John were heard requesting, “and come on.” Feet pattered along the hall as towards a rear stairway. “But she said afore we came to Grandpa’s, she did,” the voice of little John was reiterating as it grew fainter, “when she got time she’d tell me what Santy Claus looked like when she was little, afore his whiskers got white.”

Anne down-stairs laughed through merry yet fierce eyes. Babies belong to Christmas. Yet they could not come down here to her because of the decorations and the preparations which Florrie would not permit them to see beforehand.

Anne waxed hot in her soul, for babies belong to Christmas, or, rather, Christmas belongs to babies, and she loved babies. They are so honest, so unconquered, they look at the adult and its inconsistencies so uncompromisingly. So do boys, and she loved boys too. Babies and boys are the honestest things in life. Had Anne but known it, there was much of baby and of boy in her own nature; she attacked nobody’s convictions, only stood to her own. It gives one large liberty if one will be honest to self.

The footsteps of the babies, sent to some nether world, died away.

“Yet Christmas is meant for babies, or, rather, Christmas means A Baby.”

The girl rose. There were rooms opening around the hallway. It was at times such as this, with married sisters and brothers arriving with their families and laughter and jollity, that one loved it so, the space, and the beauty, and the means. At times such as Christmas one paused and thought about it all. The dear Daddy who had given it to them!

Anne crossed to one of the arched spaces and, pulling a curtain aside, went in. She left the hangings apart. The tree, glittering with scarlet and gold, and hung with delightful woolly lambs and Noah’s Arks and such like toys, would show joyously through the opening. And why not? Since it was her tree, for the tree had come to be her part and she had pottered around the whole happy, uninterrupted morning adorning it, since it was her tree it should stand unconcealed from first to last for its purpose—beauty, revel, festivity.

On salvers upon a table near the tree were bowls of glass and silver heaped with dates, figs, tamarinds, sweet pastes, nougats—luscious things that seemed to bring close, far-away Orient climes.

There seemed, too, in the colors and the appointments of the room, an Oriental sumptuousness pervading. Anne loved it, and laving in it, lent herself to it and stood with half-closed lids and parted lips, hands straight at sides, letting fancy be ravished, until she seemed to see——

Against an indigo sky wherein a star burned clear, three swift-footed, shadowy creatures swinging across sandy wastes, each uncouth back bearing in silhouette against the blue, a turbaned rider, eyes shielded by hand, gazing ahead——

Her eyes opened. It was lavish, the richness about her. There came a distaste. It was a simple and pastoral life those Orient Jewish people led. She had been there, she and Daddy, one delightful runaway journey together. Afterward her father had marked passages in a book and brought it to her, wherein it was put as neither he nor she could put it.

Now she walked to a bookcase, and taking out a slim volume, hunted passages, and finding them, read blissfully:

A total indifference to ... the vain appanage of the comfortable which our drearier countries make necessary to us, was the consequence of the sweet and simple life lived in Galilee.... The countries which awaken few desires are the countries of idealism and poesy. The accessories of life are there insignificant compared with the pleasure of living.... The embellishment of the house is superfluous, for it is frequented as little as possible.... This contempt, when it is not caused by idleness, contributes greatly to the elevation of the soul.

Anne, hunting passages, drew a long breath. She could love it too, the simple life of certain poverties.

We see the streets where Jesus played when a child in the stony paths or little crossways which separate the dwellings. The house of Joseph doubtless much resembled those poor shops lighted by the door, serving at once for shop, kitchen, and bedroom, having for furniture a mat, some cushions on the ground, one or two clay pots, and a painted chest.

Where the little Jesus played! The eyes of Anne, lifting from the page, sought a niche where, in a golden frame, hung a picture, royal in indigo, purple and scarlet. It was a copy, but it was an honest one. The Baby’s head seemed verily to rest, to press, into the curve of Mary’s arm. The little head! And the brooding, jealous ecstasy in Mary’s face, and the little hand Mary was playfully uplifting! Was she dreaming great, beautiful dreams for the little son’s life to come? Does every woman dream mighty deeds for her man-child’s doing? And this Baby’s hand, uplifted there by Mary’s finger, the hand of the little Galilean peasant whose carpenter-father’s house boasted a few mats, one or two clay pots, and a painted chest: this little hand was to lift the human ideal out of materialism and set it above earthly things, and behold! nineteen hundred years are gone, and still that ideal shines high, clear, a star against the dome of Time, and wise men, following its leading, still are journeying, eyes shielded by hand, as they gaze ahead——

Mary’s little son, the peasant baby!

There was an opened piano in the room. Anne crossed to it. On her lips was a smile, an exultant, a jealous smile. She could feel the little head pressing into the curve of Mary’s arm.

Her fingers sought the keys. The notes were rich and deep and full; they filled the room and poured out into the hallway and rose——

Above stairs, from his own doorway, John Rumsey, struggling with the last details of a toilet, stood looking into his wife’s room. He was a big-headed, even a belligerent little man, but he stood as though hesitating once, twice, before speaking what was on his mind to say.

“Mary,” he had begun.

Mrs. Rumsey scarcely turned from the mêlée of jeweler’s boxes, ribbons, packages, surrounding her. “I can’t listen now; I’ve forgotten whom I could have meant this for——”

“But, Mary——”

“Heavens, John, don’t distract me; I have to dress yet——”

“Call Anne to help you.”

“Not at all,” with some asperity; “if Anne can so separate herself from the Christmas spirit as to abjure the preparing of any gifts herself, she’ll not be called on——”

“Mamma”—it was Florrie speaking from her room across the hall—“did you ever order the flowers for the dinner table?” appearing as she ended.

Mrs. Rumsey arose the picture of imposing and tragic despair. A small figure turned from between the curtains, where he was drawing figures on the moisture gathering on the pane. It was little John Rumsey.

“Aunt Anne went out and got them,” he said. “They are roses, they’re red.”

Now there were certain things destined to swell the portion of little John, as yet unwrapped.

“How did that child get in here?” demanded John’s grandmamma testily, even sharply; “now go on out. Didn’t your mother send you to Norah?”

“She put us out the kitchen, she’s helping ’em down there. She said we weren’t to see till everything was done.”

“Florrie,” besought Mrs. Rumsey, “please take him out. Gracious, child!” as the light fell upon the slender person of Florrie, “how ghastly tired you look! I told you that you were overdoing. There, there, don’t go to crying. Pour her some aromatic ammonia, Papa, it won’t hurt her; I’ve taken two doses myself since I got home. Sometimes I think it is a mistake to have them all here for Christmas Eve. Next year we’ll send the presents around and get the business over with and Christmas Day have them here in peace and quiet.”

“Mary,” the voice of Mr. Rumsey was insistent, “Donald Page is in town; got in this afternoon. I asked him to dinner to-night.”

There was silence. Some silences are ominous. Then from Florrie, looking from father to mother, timidly, perhaps, for Florrie loved peace:

“Does Anne know?”

“She wrote him. She brought her answer to me for sanction.”

“And you?” it was his wife asking.

“I sent it. She has waited a long time on you, Mary.”

Mrs. Rumsey had risen again, her lapful of ribbons and papers strewing the floor. “You sent it, and you asked him to dinner, Donald Page, absolutely come up out of the ranks——”

“I am out of the ranks,” said her husband.

“—and self-made, that is, if he ever is made at all.”

“I am self-made,” said John Rumsey.

Mary Rumsey, imposing in her maturity, handsome, surveyed him. She was a Wingate and they are an arrogant blood.

“I am self-made,” repeated John Rumsey, looking at her steadily.

“I have never forgotten it,” said Mary, his wife, her eyes measuring him.

The little boy at the window was gazing at these older people. His eyes were big.

“Oh,” Florrie was saying, “Mamma.”

They were looking at each other, the man and the woman, long married. Her eyes were hard, and his were sorrowful.

A few chords from the piano reached them. It was Anne; they knew her touch, and it was Anne’s voice now arising, sweet, strong, trembling with the passion of it.

For it was Christmas Eve. Else why this room strewn with holly and gifts and scarlet ribbons, else why this spiciness of cedar pervading the house, else why Anne’s noël arising?

The words came up to them, words that had belonged to Christmas at the small, old-fashioned church where the Rumseys once had been wont to go.

The little boy slipped out into the hall. They heard him pattering down to Anne.

Mary Rumsey, with a gesture of contrition like any girl’s, went to her husband, and the next moment was crying on the little man’s shoulder and his hand was patting her soothingly, gently.

For it was Christmas Eve, eve of the night when Christ was born, and Anne was singing of it:

“For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn,

Fall on your knees! O hear the angel voices!

O night divine, O night when Christ was born,

O night, O night divine!”

And down-stairs Anne, turning from the piano to the little nephew standing there, drew him to her with a kind of rapture, for children belong to Christmas, children and simple joys and memories and loves.

And then, a servant opening the door, Donald Page came in out of the night, big, steadfast-looking Donald, with something somewhere of the grimness of the fight in his eyes, and Anne went from the room out to the hall to meet him.

It was very big and simple, the gesture of her hands, as with one who gives all.

And then little John Rumsey gasped, for his Aunty Anne was lifting her face even as baby sister might, to a tall and strange man to be kissed.

Gifts had been given and the evening was almost over. Anne Rumsey’s sister-in-law was speaking, under cover of voices and merriment and confusion, to Anne’s sister:

“It saves Anne trouble, of course, but to put one’s self outside it all, and give nothing at Christmas, I don’t see how Anne can.”