A Christmas Garland

By

ARNLD BNN*TT

I.

Emily Wrackgarth stirred the Christmas pudding till her right arm began to ache.  But she did not cease for that.  She stirred on till her right arm grew so numb that it might have been the right arm of some girl at the other end of Bursley.  And yet something deep down in her whispered “It is your right arm!  And you can do what you like with it!”

She did what she liked with it.  Relentlessly she kept it moving till it reasserted itself as the arm of Emily Wrackgarth, prickling and tingling as with red-hot needles in every tendon from wrist to elbow.  And still Emily Wrackgarth hardened her heart.

Presently she saw the spoon no longer revolving, but wavering aimlessly in the midst of the basin.  Ridiculous!  This must be seen to!  In the down of dark hairs that connected her eyebrows there was a marked deepening of that vertical cleft which, visible at all times, warned you that here was a young woman not to be trifled with.  Her brain despatched to her hand a peremptory message—­which miscarried.  The spoon wabbled as though held by a baby.  Emily knew that she herself as a baby had been carried into this very kitchen to stir the Christmas pudding.  Year after year, as she grew up, she had been allowed to stir it “for luck.”  And those, she reflected, were the only cookery lessons she ever got.  How like Mother!

Mrs. Wrackgarth had died in the past year, of a complication of ailments.[8] Emily still wore on her left shoulder that small tag of crape which is as far as the Five Towns go in the way of mourning.  Her father had died in the year previous to that, of a still more curious and enthralling complication of ailments.[9] Jos, his son, carried on the Wrackgarth Works, and Emily kept house for Jos.  She with her own hand had made this pudding.  But for her this pudding would not have been.  Fantastic!  Utterly incredible!  And yet so it was.  She was grown-up.  She was mistress of the house.  She could make or unmake puddings at will.  And yet she was Emily Wrackgarth.  Which was absurd.

[Footnote 8:  See “The History of Sarah Wrackgarth,” pp. 345-482.]

[Footnote 9:  See “The History of Sarah Wrackgarth,” pp. 231-344.]

She would not try to explain, to reconcile.  She abandoned herself to the exquisite mysteries of existence.  And yet in her abandonment she kept a sharp look-out on herself, trying fiercely to make head or tail of her nature.  She thought herself a fool.  But the fact that she thought so was for her a proof of adult sapience.  Odd!  She gave herself up.  And yet it was just by giving herself up that she seemed to glimpse sometimes her own inwardness.  And these bleak revelations saddened her.  But she savoured her sadness.  It was the wine of life to her.  And for her sadness she scorned herself, and in her conscious scorn she recovered her self-respect.

It is doubtful whether the people of southern England have even yet realised how much introspection there is going on all the time in the Five Towns.

Visible from the window of the Wrackgarths’ parlour was that colossal statue of Commerce which rears itself aloft at the point where Oodge Lane is intersected by Blackstead Street.  Commerce, executed in glossy Doultonware by some sculptor or sculptors unknown, stands pointing her thumb over her shoulder towards the chimneys of far Hanbridge.  When I tell you that the circumference of that thumb is six inches, and the rest to scale, you will understand that the statue is one of the prime glories of Bursley.  There were times when Emily Wrackgarth seemed to herself as vast and as lustrously impressive as it.  There were other times when she seemed to herself as trivial and slavish as one of those performing fleas she had seen at the Annual Ladies’ Evening Fête organised by the Bursley Mutual Burial Club.  Extremist!

She was now stirring the pudding with her left hand.  The ingredients had already been mingled indistinguishably in that rich, undulating mass of tawniness which proclaims perfection.  But Emily was determined to give her left hand, not less than her right, what she called “a doing.”  Emily was like that.

At mid-day, when her brother came home from the Works, she was still at it.

“Brought those scruts with you?” she asked, without looking up.

“That’s a fact,” he said, dipping his hand into the sagging pocket of his coat.

It is perhaps necessary to explain what scruts are.  In the daily output of every potbank there are a certain proportion of flawed vessels.  These are cast aside by the foreman, with a lordly gesture, and in due course are hammered into fragments.  These fragments, which are put to various uses, are called scruts; and one of the uses they are put to is a sentimental one.  The dainty and luxurious Southerner looks to find in his Christmas pudding a wedding-ring, a gold thimble, a threepenny-bit, or the like.  To such fal-lals the Five Towns would say fie.  A Christmas pudding in the Five Towns contains nothing but suet, flour, lemon-peel, cinnamon, brandy, almonds, raisins—­and two or three scruts.  There is a world of poetry, beauty, romance, in scruts—­though you have to have been brought up on them to appreciate it.  Scruts have passed into the proverbial philosophy of the district.  “Him’s a pudden with more scruts than raisins to ’m” is a criticism not infrequently heard.  It implies respect, even admiration.  Of Emily Wrackgarth herself people often said, in reference to her likeness to her father, “Her’s a scrut o’ th’ owd basin.”

Jos had emptied out from his pocket on to the table a good three dozen of scruts.  Emily laid aside her spoon, rubbed the palms of her hands on the bib of her apron, and proceeded to finger these scruts with the air of a connoisseur, rejecting one after another.  The pudding was a small one, designed merely for herself and Jos, with remainder to “the girl”; so that it could hardly accommodate more than two or three scruts.  Emily knew well that one scrut is as good as another.  Yet she did not want her brother to feel that anything selected by him would necessarily pass muster with her.  For his benefit she ostentatiously wrinkled her nose.

“By the by,” said Jos, “you remember Albert Grapp?  I’ve asked him to step over from Hanbridge and help eat our snack on Christmas Day.”

Emily gave Jos one of her looks.  “You’ve asked that Mr. Grapp?”

“No objection, I hope?  He’s not a bad sort.  And he’s considered a bit of a ladies’ man, you know.”

She gathered up all the scruts and let them fall in a rattling shower on the exiguous pudding.  Two or three fell wide of the basin.  These she added.

“Steady on!” cried Jos.  “What’s that for?”

“That’s for your guest,” replied his sister.  “And if you think you’re going to palm me off on to him, or on to any other young fellow, you’re a fool, Jos Wrackgarth.”

The young man protested weakly, but she cut him short.

“Don’t think,” she said, “I don’t know what you’ve been after, just of late.  Cracking up one young sawny and then another on the chance of me marrying him!  I never heard of such goings on.  But here I am, and here I’ll stay, as sure as my name’s Emily Wrackgarth, Jos Wrackgarth!”

She was the incarnation of the adorably feminine.  She was exquisitely vital.  She exuded at every pore the pathos of her young undirected force.  It is difficult to write calmly about her.  For her, in another age, ships would have been launched and cities besieged.  But brothers are a race apart, and blind.  It is a fact that Jos would have been glad to see his sister “settled”—­preferably in one of the other four Towns.

She took up the spoon and stirred vigorously.  The scruts grated and squeaked together around the basin, while the pudding feebly wormed its way up among them.

II.

Albert Grapp, ladies’ man though he was, was humble of heart.  Nobody knew this but himself.  Not one of his fellow clerks in Clither’s Bank knew it.  The general theory in Hanbridge was “Him’s got a stiff opinion o’ hisself.”  But this arose from what was really a sign of humility in him.  He made the most of himself.  He had, for instance, a way of his own in the matter of dressing.  He always wore a voluminous frock-coat, with a pair of neatly-striped vicuna trousers, which he placed every night under his mattress, thus preserving in perfection the crease down the centre of each.  His collar was of the highest, secured in front with an aluminium stud, to which was attached by a patent loop a natty bow of dove-coloured sateen.  He had two caps, one of blue serge, the other of shepherd’s plaid.  These he wore on alternate days.  He wore them in a way of his own—­well back from his forehead, so as not to hide his hair, and with the peak behind.  The peak made a sort of half-moon over the back of his collar.  Through a fault of his tailor, there was a yawning gap between the back of his collar and the collar of his coat.  Whenever he shook his head, the peak of his cap had the look of a live thing trying to investigate this abyss.  Dimly aware of the effect, Albert Grapp shook his head as seldom as possible.

On wet days he wore a mackintosh.  This, as he did not yet possess a great-coat, he wore also, but with less glory, on cold days.  He had hoped there might be rain on Christmas morning.  But there was no rain.  “Like my luck,” he said as he came out of his lodgings and turned his steps to that corner of Jubilee Avenue from which the Hanbridge-Bursley trams start every half-hour.

Since Jos Wrackgarth had introduced him to his sister at the Hanbridge Oddfellows’ Biennial Hop, when he danced two quadrilles with her, he had seen her but once.  He had nodded to her, Five Towns fashion, and she had nodded back at him, but with a look that seemed to say “You needn’t nod next time you see me.  I can get along well enough without your nods.”  A frightening girl!  And yet her brother had since told him she seemed “a bit gone, like” on him.  Impossible!  He, Albert Grapp, make an impression on the brilliant Miss Wrackgarth!  Yet she had sent him a verbal invite to spend Christmas in her own home.  And the time had come.  He was on his way.  Incredible that he should arrive!  The tram must surely overturn, or be struck by lightning.  And yet no!  He arrived safely.

The small servant who opened the door gave him another verbal message from Miss Wrackgarth.  It was that he must wipe his feet “well” on the mat.  In obeying this order he experienced a thrill of satisfaction he could not account for.  He must have stood shuffling his boots vigorously for a full minute.  This, he told himself, was life.  He, Albert Grapp, was alive.  And the world was full of other men, all alive; and yet, because they were not doing Miss Wrackgarth’s bidding, none of them really lived.  He was filled with a vague melancholy.  But his melancholy pleased him.

In the parlour he found Jos awaiting him.  The table was laid for three.

“So you’re here, are you?” said the host, using the Five Towns formula.  “Emily’s in the kitchen,” he added.  “Happen she’ll be here directly.”

“I hope she’s tol-lol-ish?” asked Albert.

“She is,” said Jos.  “But don’t you go saying that to her.  She doesn’t care about society airs and graces.  You’ll make no headway if you aren’t blunt.”

“Oh, right you are,” said Albert, with the air of a man who knew his way about.

A moment later Emily joined them, still wearing her kitchen apron.  “So you’re here, are you?” she said, but did not shake hands.  The servant had followed her in with the tray, and the next few seconds were occupied in the disposal of the beef and trimmings.

The meal began, Emily carving.  The main thought of a man less infatuated than Albert Grapp would have been “This girl can’t cook.  And she’ll never learn to.”  The beef, instead of being red and brown, was pink and white.  Uneatable beef!  And yet he relished it more than anything he had ever tasted.  This beef was her own handiwork.  Thus it was because she had made it so….  He warily refrained from complimenting her, but the idea of a second helping obsessed him.

“Happen I could do with a bit more, like,” he said.

Emily hacked off the bit more and jerked it on to the plate he had held out to her.

“Thanks,” he said; and then, as Emily’s lip curled, and Jos gave him a warning kick under the table, he tried to look as if he had said nothing.

Only when the second course came on did he suspect that the meal was a calculated protest against his presence.  This a Christmas pudding?  The litter of fractured earthenware was hardly held together by the suet and raisins.  All his pride of manhood—­and there was plenty of pride mixed up with Albert Grapp’s humility—­dictated a refusal to touch that pudding.  Yet he soon found himself touching it, though gingerly, with his spoon and fork.

In the matter of dealing with scruts there are two schools—­the old and the new.  The old school pushes its head well over its plate and drops the scrut straight from its mouth.  The new school emits the scrut into the fingers of its left hand and therewith deposits it on the rim of the plate.  Albert noticed that Emily was of the new school.  But might she not despise as affectation in him what came natural to herself?  On the other hand, if he showed himself as a prop of the old school, might she not set her face the more stringently against him?  The chances were that whichever course he took would be the wrong one.

It was then that he had an inspiration—­an idea of the sort that comes to a man once in his life and finds him, likely as not, unable to put it into practice.  Albert was not sure he could consummate this idea of his.  He had indisputably fine teeth—­“a proper mouthful of grinders” in local phrase.  But would they stand the strain he was going to impose on them?  He could but try them.  Without a sign of nervousness he raised his spoon, with one scrut in it, to his mouth.  This scrut he put between two of his left-side molars, bit hard on it, and—­eternity of that moment!—­felt it and heard it snap in two.  Emily also heard it.  He was conscious that at sound of the percussion she started forward and stared at him.  But he did not look at her.  Calmly, systematically, with gradually diminishing crackles, he reduced that scrut to powder, and washed the powder down with a sip of beer.  While he dealt with the second scrut he talked to Jos about the Borough Council’s proposal to erect an electric power-station on the site of the old gas-works down Hillport way.  He was aware of a slight abrasion inside his left cheek.  No matter.  He must be more careful.  There were six scruts still to be negotiated.  He knew that what he was doing was a thing grandiose, unique, epical; a history-making thing; a thing that would outlive marble and the gilded monuments of princes.  Yet he kept his head.  He did not hurry, nor did he dawdle.  Scrut by scrut, he ground slowly but he ground exceeding small.  And while he did so he talked wisely and well.  He passed from the power-station to a first edition of Leconte de Lisle’s “Parnasse Contemporain” that he had picked up for sixpence in Liverpool, and thence to the Midland’s proposal to drive a tunnel under the Knype Canal so as to link up the main-line with the Critchworth and Suddleford loop-line.  Jos was too amazed to put in a word.  Jos sat merely gaping—­a gape that merged by imperceptible degrees into a grin.  Presently he ceased to watch his guest.  He sat watching his sister.

Not once did Albert himself glance in her direction.  She was just a dim silhouette on the outskirts of his vision.  But there she was, unmoving, and he could feel the fixture of her unseen eyes.  The time was at hand when he would have to meet those eyes.  Would he flinch?  Was he master of himself?

The last scrut was powder.  No temporising!  He jerked his glass to his mouth.  A moment later, holding out his plate to her, he looked Emily full in the eyes.  They were Emily’s eyes, but not hers alone.  They were collective eyes—­that was it!  They were the eyes of stark, staring womanhood.  Her face had been dead white, but now suddenly up from her throat, over her cheeks, through the down between her eyebrows, went a rush of colour, up over her temples, through the very parting of her hair.

“Happen,” he said without a quaver in his voice, “I’ll have a bit more, like.”

She flung her arms forward on the table and buried her face in them.  It was a gesture wild and meek.  It was the gesture foreseen and yet incredible.  It was recondite, inexplicable, and yet obvious.  It was the only thing to be done—­and yet, by gum, she had done it.

Her brother had risen from his seat and was now at the door.  “Think I’ll step round to the Works,” he said, “and see if they banked up that furnace aright.”

    NOTE.—­The author has in preparation a series of volumes
    dealing with the life of Albert and Emily Grapp.