They began to eat what Lydia had given them. Beyond the open door of the dining-room the shop was dark and jumbled. Lydia ate primly, and the little black revolver lay beside her plate. The light glinted along its barrels. They viewed it without apprehension. This was their last evening; they were confusedly sorry; Alice, hospitable if eccentric; and what, indeed, was eccentricity? She was giving them champagne now; it was wrong to begin with spirits, and to go on to champagne; but what matter? Alice was well-meaning; generous. That little revolver: like a little black, shining bull-terrier, squat, bulbous. They heard themselves laughing and making jokes. Alice seemed pleased, she was smiling; up to the present she had not smiled at all; but now the smile was constant on her face as she watched them. They exerted themselves to entertain her. Their efforts were successful; she watched them with evident approval, swaying a little, backwards and forwards, as she sat. They ventured more; still she smiled, and her hand poured generously, though she did not empty her own glass. They had forgotten that they were old. Looking at one another, they laughed very heartily over the trappings Alice had provided for them. “Christmas!” said Bertie, tapping his nose. Emily leant back in her chair; she was sleepy and happy. She roused herself to accept the sweets which Lydia offered her. “Sleepy,” she murmured, smiling at Bertie’s wife; “your hair ...” she toppled off to sleep in the midst of her sentence. Fred wanted to prop her up. “Let her be,” said Lydia benignly. “All happy,” said Bertie. They pulled crackers, and put the paper caps on their heads; the table under the candelabra was littered with the coloured paper off the crackers, and there was a discord produced by the whistles and small trumpets that came out of them. Bertie was on his feet, trying all these toy instruments in turn; he swayed round the table, collecting them, and reading out the mottoes. He paused to look at his wife, who had fallen forward with her arms on the table and her head on her arms. “Asleep,” he said, with a puzzled expression. Lydia still sat bolt upright at the head of the table, letting them all have their way as it seemed best to them, whether in sleep or hilarity; with her hands she clasped her elbows, and the bands of hair lay undisturbed upon her brows. She examined her guests in turn; Emily, who slept, slipped sideway in her chair, the moustache still stuck on her upper lip; Bertie’s wife, who slept likewise, her face hidden, the blue wig uppermost; Fred, who between the ears stared vaguely before him; and Bertie, who, portly and irresponsible, wandered round the table searching among the litter of the crackers. Lydia at last, having scrutinized them all, gave out a sudden creaking laugh. Her party was to her satisfaction. “Forty years!” she said, nodding at Bertie, “forty years!” When she laughed he looked at her, dimly startled through his confusion. “Christmas,” he replied, blinking; he intended it to be an expression of good-will, an obliteration of those forty years. At last, he thought, they had found out the right way to treat Alice: not solemnly, not as though they were afraid of her, but in a light-hearted and jocund spirit. “Christmas,” he repeated, leaning up against her chair.
She began to laugh. Her laughter grew; it creaked at first, then grew shrill; she pointed derisively at them all in turn. Bertie was not alarmed; he joined in. He relished at last the humour of the situation, which Alice had been relishing now since yesterday. She had got twenty-four hours’ start ahead of him: an unfair advantage. He made up for lost time by trying to laugh more heartily than she did. She observed this with a dangerous appreciation; her fingers began to play with the butt of the revolver. Forty years. Forty Christmases spent in solitude. Her sudden rage blackened out the room before her eyes. She lifted the revolver uncertainly, then laid it down again. “Subtle, subtle. Not blatant,” she muttered to herself, an often-rehearsed lesson, and tapped her fingers against her teeth. She felt slightly helpless, as though she were unable to make the most of her opportunity. She knew she had had many schemes, but they all seemed to be slipping away from her. It was difficult to hold on to one’s thoughts, difficult to concentrate them; they scattered as one came up to them, like a lot of sparrows. A pity—she must make an effort—because the opportunity would not come again.
Just then she heard the front-door bell ring sharply through the house.
A little dazed, she got up to answer it. A messenger from outside? Perhaps an unexpected help in her emergency? She left the dining-room, where Bertie fumbled and tried to detain her; she passed through the shop, and, moving like a sleep-walker, unlocked and undid the many fastenings of the door. Outside in the street stood a group of men, carrying lanterns; the snow sparkled on the ground; the narrow street was like an illustration of old-fashioned Christmas. She stood holding the door open. She recognized many of her fellow-tradesmen; she heard their words, “Your well-known charity, Miss Protheroe ... never turn away an appeal unanswered.... Christmas-time ... trust we don’t intrude ...” and heard the rattle of coin, and saw the collecting-boxes in their hands.
“You don’t intrude,” she said. “Come in.”
Inwardly she knew they wanted an excuse to find out how Miss Protheroe spent her Christmas. They should see. They came in, removing their hats, from which the melting snow began to drip, and scraping the snow from their boots on the wire mat; their faces were red and jovial. She led them through the jumbled shop, through into the dining-room, where Bertie leant up against the littered table, and the two women slept, and Fred gaped stupidly.
They were at a loss to say anything; checked in their joke of routing out old Miss Protheroe, they gazed uncomprehending at the scene before them. Their eyes turned again towards Miss Protheroe; she stood erect and prim, her hands clasping her elbows.
“You don’t know my relations,” she said, and, indicating them, “my sister, my brother-in-law, my sister-in-law, my brother.” She effected the introduction with irreproachable gravity.
“She’s mad,” cried Bertie suddenly, reason flooding him, and he pointed at her with a denouncing hand.
They stared, first at those four crazy figures, and then at the stiff correctness of Miss Protheroe as they always knew her.