All’s well that ends well.
Despite the painful incidents of Evie’s convalescence, Christmas was a happy season at Erley Chase, for it had always been a tradition of the household to make much of this festival, and Mrs Chester could not bring herself to change her habits as the years advanced. Every twenty-sixth of December Mr Chester would say solemnly, “This is the last time! I cannot let you wear yourself out like this. When Christmas cards have to be sent off by the hundred, and presents by the score, it is time to call a halt, for what has been a pleasure becomes a burden. Next year you drop these outside people, and think only of our immediate circle,” and Mrs Chester would murmur meekly, “Yes, dear; of course. Just as you wish,” and begin laying in stores for next Christmas at her first visit to the January sales. There was a cupboard in one of the spare rooms which was dedicated entirely to the keeping of presents, and into it went all manner of nick-nacks which were picked up during the year—bazaar gleanings, in the shape of cushions, cosies, and table-cloths, relics of travel, and a hundred and one articles useful and ornamental, which had been bought because they were so cheap, and it really seemed wicked to leave them lying on the shop counter! When a need arose, as when a birthday was suddenly remembered the day before it fell due, or an anniversary suggested the propriety of a little offering, it was the easiest thing in the world to poke about in the cupboard until a suitable gift was discovered.
Laura Everett was much amused by this novel way of apportioning presents, which was so strangely different from that practised at her own home. When she was wheeled into the morning-room a few days before Christmas, it was to find a small bazaar of fancy articles spread on tables and sofas, while Mrs Chester sat checking off the names written on a long sheet of paper, and Rhoda cried out: “Here’s a yellow silk cushion. Whom do we know who has got a complexion that can bear being set off against a background of sulphur yellow?” ... “Here’s a gorgeous table centre, quite beautifully worked. Whom do we know who is old-fashioned enough to use table centres still?” ... “Here’s a piece of Turkish embroidery, which would be the very thing to cover that shabby old sofa at the Vicarage; it was absolutely in holes the last time I saw it.”
“Turkish embroidery—Mrs Mason. Thank goodness, that’s one thing settled! Wrap it up at once, Rhoda dear. It will be one thing less to do,” cried Mrs Chester in a tone of relief, while Evie held up her hands in astonishment.
“Of all the extraordinary ways of giving presents! To have a room full of things and then to puzzle as to whom you can give them! This is indeed a new experience for me. When we talk over our presents at home it is to wonder how in the world we can contrive to buy twenty things for nineteen shillings. Such a wholesale way of managing things I never imagined in my wildest moments.”
She gave a little sigh of envy as she looked at the lavish profusion which lay around; yet, after all, there was a pleasure in contriving those simple gifts—in putting in delicate stitches to add to the value of cheap materials, a triumph in manufacturing something out of nothing, which Rhoda and her mother could never enjoy! She was not at all sure that that old home fashion was not the sweeter after all.
While the apportioning of gifts was going on in the morning-room, the cook and her kitchen maids were busy at work in the great nagged kitchen, manufacturing all sorts of dainties to be packed away in the hampers ranged in readiness along the walls. It was a sight to see the good things laid out on the tables, and Evie was carried down on her chair to admire and praise with the rest, and to watch the interesting process of packing. Far and wide these hampers went, carrying good cheer into many a home where otherwise there would have been scanty provisions for the day of rejoicing, and bringing unexpected gleams of sunshine to many an anxious heart. Needless to say, one of the best was addressed to a country parsonage especially dear to Evie’s heart, and was accompanied by a parcel of presents, which had not been lightly bought, but worked by loving fingers during long hours of convalescence.
Christmas Day itself was a busy occasion, when the home party had little leisure to think of themselves, so unending was the stream of pensioners which came up to the Chase to receive their gifts, and to be fed and warmed in the gaily-decorated rooms. Dinner was served early, so that the servants might be free to have their festivities in the evening, and at nine o’clock all the employees on the estate came up, dressed in their best, and danced with the servants in the hall. Mr and Mrs Chester, with Harold and Rhoda, honoured the assembly by joining in the first dance, and Evie sat in her wheeled chair, looking on and trying to keep a smiling face, the while she fought one of the mental battles which seemed to meet her on every step of the road to recovery. She had been so much occupied grieving over the serious financial loss which her inability to work would involve, that she had taken little thought of the pleasures from which she was debarred; but, after all, she was but a girl, and a girl with a keen capacity for enjoyment, and it was a very keen pang which went through her heart as she listened to the seductive strains of the band, and watched the couples glide slowly by. The dark brows twitched as if in pain, and she drew aside the folds of the pink tea-gown to cast a longing glance at the little useless feet stretched before her. A sudden remembrance arose of the day when Rhoda protested in dismay at the thought of wearing the ugly regulation school shoes, and of her own confession of love for pretty slippers, of the satisfaction with which she had donned the same on Thursday evenings, and danced about the hall as blithely as any one of her pupils. Those days were over—for ever over; she would never again know the joy of any rapid, exhilarating motion. She lifted her hand to wipe away a tear, hoping to escape observation the while, but, to her dismay, Harold stood by her side, and his eyes met hers with an expression of pained understanding. Any reference to her infirmity seemed to distress him so acutely that the first instinct was to comfort him instead of herself, and she smiled through her tears, saying in the sweetest tones of her always sweet voice:
“Don’t, please! Don’t look so sorry! It was babyish of me, but just for one moment—I was so fond of dancing, you know, and I had never realised before—”
“Just so. You realise fresh losses every day. I know what you must feel. You have not been babyish at all, but most brave and heroic.”