Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.”
The pressure to the doors was precisely what I had expected.
And with a smile on my lips I watched Seecombe, walking stiff and straight yet treading the ground lest it should give way beneath his feet, bring up the rear.
Those who remained pushed the benches and the trestles against the wall.
After the presents had been given from the tree, and we had departed, those who were able to do so would take their partners in a dance.
High revelry would last until midnight.
I used to listen to the stamping, as a boy, from my nursery window.
Tonight I made my way over to the little group standing by the tree.
The vicar was there, and Mrs. Pascoe, three daughters and a curate. Likewise my godfather and Louise.
Louise looked well, but a trifle pale.
I shook hands with them.
Mrs. Pascoe gushed at me, all teeth,
“You have surpassed yourself.
Never have we enjoyed ourselves so much.
The girls are quite in ecstasy.”
They looked it, with one curate between three of them.
“I’m glad you thought it went off well,” I said, and, turning to Rachel,
“Have you been happy?”
Her eyes met mine and smiled.
“What do you think?” she said. “So happy, I could cry.”
I saluted my godfather.
“Good evening to you, sir, and happy Christmas,” I said.
“How did you find Exeter?”
“Cold,” he said shortly, “cold and drear.”
His manner was abrupt.
He stood with one hand behind his back, the other tugged at his white mustache.
I wondered if something about the dinner had upset him.
Had the cider flowed too freely for his liking?
Then I saw him stare at Rachel.
His eyes were fixed upon the collar of pearls around her throat.
He saw me staring, and he turned away.
For a moment I felt back again in the Fourth Form at Harrow, with the master discovering the crib hidden under my Latin book.
Then I shrugged my shoulders.
I was Philip Ashley, aged four-and-twenty years.
And no one in the world, certainly not my godfather, could dictate to me to whom I should, or should not, give Christmas presents.
I wondered if Mrs. Pascoe had already dropped some fell remark.
Possibly good manners would prevent her.
And anyway, she could not know the collar.
My mother had been dead before Mr. Pascoe held the living.
Louise had noticed it.
That was already plain.
I saw her blue eyes waver towards Rachel, and then drop again.
The people came stumping back into the room.
Laughing, murmuring, pressing together, they came nearer to the tree, as Rachel and I took our stand before it.
Then I bent to the presents, and, reading out the names, gave the parcels to Rachel; and one by one they came to take their gifts.
She stood there, before the tree, flushed, and gay, and smiling.
It was all I could do to read the names instead of looking at her.
“Thank you, God bless you, sir,” they said to me; and passing onto her,
“Thank you, m’am.
God bless you, too.”