Christmas Comes but Once A Year
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Luke Limner >> Christmas Comes but Once A Year
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[Illustration]
Old Strap, who had taken "the pledge," but since introduced an
exceptional clause in favour of feasts and festivals, gets out the black
bottle for fraternity's sake. They take a pipe a-piece, and so softened
is the little organist with their genuine unsophisticated kindness, that
he sees all his cares fly, and nothing but joys in the wreathed curls of
smoke betaking themselves up the chimney:--he sees Messrs. Blow and
Grumble, the eminent organ-builders, making a fortune by his "new
movement;" having purchased and patented it: he has found a publisher
for his church music, and sold his old opera. Captain de Camp has
vanished in smoke--he has exploded of spontaneous combustion,--they find
him all deceit, leaving a glass eye and a cork leg. Mr. Latimer gets the
Colonial Bishopric of Bushantee, in New Zealand, and cuts Miss Jemima.
Mr. Wellesley having gone to India for glory, returns with it,--a hook,
and a patch over his eye. Miss Angelina vows to die a virgin. Mr. Brown
says to Mr. Spohf, "my son!"--Mr. Spohf says to Mr. Brown, "my father!"
Mr. Strap is standing in triumph upon a pyramid of "carpets to beat,"
viewing a lesser one of "boots to brush;" having been entrusted with
more "messages" than mortal ever could "deliver;" whilst innumerable
vans, bearing the name of Strap, traverse innumerable roads in "Town and
Country." Mrs. Strap, dressed in a plain plum silk, turns a mahogany
mangle, and gets up nothing but "fine things." Ichabod has cut the
choir, and made his _debut_ in an opera as Herr Strapii, a perfect
triumph.
But here we will leave Mr. Spohf's reverie--for Victoria and reality;
where the company is arriving to the annual dinner, and sitting about
the drawing-room, looking as happy as patients at a dentist's; or
festive, as disappointed toadeaters at the funeral of an opulent
relative, who had left all his property to found an asylum for decayed
postboys--after leading everybody to expect the lion's share of it:--the
guests, for want of more exciting topics, admiring the gimcracks they
admired a year ago; thinking the portrait of Mr. Brown--"done," twenty
years since, at a portrait club,--a splendid likeness, and that the
original grows younger (query, richer?); stating truths and untruths
about the weather; inquiring energetically after each other's
health--not caring for the answers; with other homely pleasantries, too
numerous to mention; until some of the juveniles--the only ones who
really seem at home--espy from the window a loaded parcel-cart; this
they observe as funny on a Sunday (little thinking, at that moment, it
was Tuesday). Here Mr. Brown descends, to hold an altercation with the
guard of that cart, who makes light of a huge hamper of game; whilst the
guests at the windows above, speculate upon having to eat an uncooked
turkey, or fancy their ravenous appetites waiting while it is
cooked--the youngsters calculating upon a dinner all pudding. Mr. Brown
returns, and tenders his arm to Lady Lucretia de Camp--in the
excitement, leading her down the side where the stairs taper to
nothing,--causing that lady to lose both equilibrium and temper.
[Illustration: THE PUDDING.
AS IT OUGHT TO HAVE APPEARED.]
In the hall they are introduced to the viands, all thought to partake
of;--which have arrived too late, and are now displayed in their
primitive state--a picture of still life; whilst the guests--a picture
of disappointment--have to put up with odds and ends, concocted to meet
the emergency, ending with a series of plum-dumplings, in place of the
legitimate large pudding. However, the indigent relatives, who prefer
the cold corners, and take "any part," declare themselves well
satisfied:--all partaking of everything, and brandy afterwards, as if
the viands were rich. Master Brown does justice to everything, of
course--that sweet child is now pulling the _merry thought_ with his
maiden aunt; he is victor, and, as no one wishes to know his _thoughts_,
seems determined to tell them,--_wishing_ "Jemy. and Mr. Latimer would
look sharp, and knock up the match Mamma spoke of; as then he should be
breeched, have pockets, and money:" here the little dear turned to the
Captain, saying, "You'll give me a crown, won't you?"--a question at
which the maiden aunt blushed intensely, as did Mrs. Brown, who
attempted to hide her emotion by saying, "What strange things children
do think of!"--at the same time helping a gentleman who had had
enough--the bashful gentleman, who sat at the junction of the tables,
and appeared so incommoded by the table-land of one being higher than
the table-land of the other--causing his plate to oscillate in a very
remarkable manner, and discharge its contents in his lap,--the conjoined
legs compelling him either to sit at a fearful distance, and spill the
gravy, or to split his kerseymeres, by extending them too much for their
frail make:--however, he has at last succeeded in thrusting one knee
between them, and the shorter leg of the two off Bunyan's "Pilgrim's
Progress"--used to stilt it;--letting the unfortunate gentleman's
pudding down, and his plate travel, until at last it stops, performing a
gyration, all to itself, under the sideboard.
[Illustration: The Merry Thought]
During this clatter, the ladies rise and depart, leaving the gentlemen
to drown all disappointments in the wine. Mr. Brown, "feeling called
upon," rises, apologizing for certain misfortunes, herein described--at
the same time trusting that such events might never happen again; and,
in the end, eulogizing Mrs. B., who is painted in glowing colours, by a
painter who said he should not have painted it; or, as any one else
might have observed, introduced two virtuously amiable daughters, so
prominently in the foreground. After a noble reply by Captain de Camp,
of the Hon. East India Company's service, from Madras, and much applause
from the diners, they ascend, to join the ladies; forming, round the
drawing-room-fire, a vast amphitheatre, in the centre of which,
gladiatorial children contend for nuts and oranges--Captain de Camp
filling the post of honour,--making himself at home in Mr. Brown's easy
chair and slippers. Mr. Wellesley drags in the yule-log, much to the
detriment of the Brussels, and the annoyance of the guests; for, upon
placing it in the grate, it causes everything to be covered with black
tadpoles, nearly extinguishing the fire--until it ignites, roasting the
company, and making the pot a white-heat.
[Illustration]
The Captain has repeated last evening's brew, upon a larger scale,
in the "little bason," or wassail-bowl. Master Wellesley has kissed
Angelina under the misletoe, suspended from the chandelier, and placed
in the centre of the amphitheatre, for that purpose. Mr. Latimer has
"taken the opportunity," as Jemima turned up a refractory burner; and
everybody kissed everybody else they liked, or could catch there. The
entertaining Captain has narrated an effective anecdote of an enraged
elephant, and a precious big boar speared in a savage jungle--to which
he might have added, with no more personal risk than Mrs. Brown may
experience when hunting for a boa in her wardrobe. And, Mr. Mouldy, the
city merchant, who dealt in rags, sang about a little excitable pig, and
"Mac Mullin's Lament;" whilst Mr. Snobbins--who it was hoped would sit
and be silent,--has broken the spell, dared to remember old times,
sleeping under a counter, and the pugnacity of Brown, when they were in
a _mess_ at the _blues_--making Captain de Camp think more of a military
repast than Christ's Hospital;--until the "_blues_" were dispelled by
Mr. Snobbins singing "The gallant 'prentice boy:"--not that the company
would have lacked a military man, had the Captain been absent, for there
was Cowed, the meek Bermondsey tanner, by livery a hatter, and withal a
soldier--a member of the Hon. Artillery Company,--he who sang about God
blessing the old cow's hide, and a
"Wish that his soul in heaven might dwell,
Who first invented the leather bottel;"
--and, Mrs. Brown's brother, Mr. Barthe Brick, familiarly known as _the_
"Brick," who had just commenced a song, a parody upon Fra
Diavolo,--a something very, very low, supposed to be sung by a dealer in
hearth-stones; who, at the end of each verse, vociferates "who'll buy,"
heightening the illusion by trundling a chair, on its back, round the
family circle, to represent a barrow.
No one knows where the barbarous atrocities would have ended, and all
before the refined strangers, too, had not the olive-branches--disposed
for rest by their several mammas in the room above--all awoke at once,
tumbled out of bed, and joined in a combined cry; this breaks the family
circle--mothers fly to pack their turbulent innocents for travel; the
candles flare, and carriages clatter, grinding the flints in the lane.
John, the footman, finds he has a dozen half-crowns, and Mary seven. The
last fly has departed with the little Bricks; lights appear and
disappear in the bed-chambers; and the Christmas-day--that comes but
once a year--has vanished, like a dream!
Mr. Brown has jotted the events, in his Diary, in a hand scarcely
legible. It must have been penned in a somnambulistic fit--thinking he
was at a meeting of St. Stiff's vestry, in the union board-room,--for,
after a list of member's present (the names of his guests), Captain de
Camp in the chair, follow these minutes of proceedings:--Firstly, that
one Spohf be dismissed as organist of St. Stiff's, confined in the
idiot-ward, fed on water gruel, and handed over to his own parish
(Vienna); proposed by Latimer, and seconded by Wellesley de Camp. The
second proposition appears to be to the effect that a vagrant named
Brick, dealer in hearth-stones, be confined in the refractory-ward, and
fed upon bread and water.
The morning after the festivities London oversleeps itself:--and,
awaking, finds it boxing-day. Variegated dips are being disseminated
among delighted, dirty, juveniles; whilst the boys seem chagrined at
notices for "the extinction of abuses," or "suppression of
Christmas-boxes;" which seems only to make them the more pertinacious at
Victoria Villa: for an irregular dustman has chalked the post, and the
Postman vowed to mark Mr. Brown; the Turncock is turned off; the Waits
have to "wait a little longer;" and the Beadle, who declared Mr. Brown
no generous churchwarden, has, withal, found enough alcohol to make him
stupid before night--causing that dignitary to cry a lost boy instead of
a girl, and to see twice as many posts round St. Stiff's as usual;
taking half of them to be boys about to vault over the other half,
he rushes on to disperse them, soundly chastising the granite.
[Illustration]
All the little boys secure their mites before mid-day; taking their
posts at the gallery-door of a popular theatre, five hours before
opening, to practise that rare virtue, patience, at the shrine of "Hot
Codlings," and "George Barnwell."
[Illustration: BOXING DAY.
AN OFFENDED DIGNITARY OF THE CHURCH.
'BOLISH THE BOXES, INDEED: 'SPECT NEXT THEY'L 'BOLISH THE BISHOPS.--
WHAT'S A SEASON WITHOUT COMPLIMENTS?]
Master Ichabod Strap, in his richest yellow breeches, and burnished
badge of St. Stiff the Martyr, is perambulating the parish with his gay
phylactery, or Christmas-piece--"The History of Joseph," painted, like
the coat, in many colours:--he shows it to Mrs. Brown, who approves the
performance; "stroking the head of modest and ingenuous worth that
blushed at its own praise;" measuring the boy at a glance, and
proffering him promotion in the shape of an uniform, of buttons, just
vacated by a youth--called by his peers "Nobby Jones," but by his
mistress "Alphonso;"--who, having grown to the great risk of buttons and
stitches, was dispossessed of his regimentals, being sent home one dark
night in his bed-gown. "Ichabod" promises to resign that title and all
connection with the dirty boys, to reign as Alphonso the second page;
being missed by Mr. Spohf, for whom he used to blow the organ, in the
little second floor--a bereavement Mrs. B. enjoyed, saying, she wondered
how the unworthy little animal would raise the wind now.
There is an universal adage about risking sprats to capture
herrings--a sport not unknown to our cosmopolite Captain, for he had
fished in troubled waters, and hunted for a dinner many a time;--he knew
the traps and snares to secure game, the days and seasons; so, on
Boxing-day, he baits the servants with crowns; Tommy with a sovereign;
Angelina with "The Keepsake;" Jemima with a modern-ancient missal, or
portion of Scripture made dear and difficult to read; presenting Mrs. B.
with the last new art manufacture--"The Knowing Blade, a brazen-faced
sharper, to remove blunt;" and procuring for Mr. B. the skin of the
identical Bengal tiger he killed, as may be seen from a legend running
up the back bone--though an inscription on the tip of the tail states it
to be sold by Fitch of Regent Street. The bait secures its amount of
flat-fish; for that evening, Captain de Camp was more than usually
lucky--he caught enough at _ecarte_ to clear himself;--a freak of
fortune that caused no asperity in the noble breast of Brown; for here
are his own thoughts in his own words:--"December 26_th_, _Wednesday_
(Boxing-day).--My dear friend, De Camp, has this day given us all tokens
of the warmest attachment--sadly wanting to do something for
me--'Colonial,' 'War,' or 'Admiralty.' Not requiring anything just now,
this will form an admirable reserve; I must, in the meantime, profit by
his refined society, as I hope and trust the girls will by his sons'.
If there be any drawback to the delight I feel, it is the non-arrival of
his luggage; for I am personally inconvenienced by his wearing my best
coat. I may be over-scrupulous in wishing he would return the books he
devours with such avidity:--Mrs. B. says, she thinks, the paragon of
knowledge swallows them; for they are not to be found."
Next morning Ichabod enters the Brown suit and service, having spent
Boxing-night and the proceeds of the Christmas-piece at the play, where
he saw "Jane Shore" and "Harlequin House that Jack built;" the plot and
tricks of which he recounted to Master Tommy, as he took that young
gentleman for a walk, inoculating him with a great desire to go and
behold it. So, after having coaxed his mother, teased his father, and
cried his lovely blue eyes into a good imitation of red veined marble,
the youth triumphed; for on Thursday evening, they all went to the play
in the fusty fly from Drone's yard, driven by old Drone, in his
pepper-and-salt suit of pseudo livery, that looked as if he always
brushed it with the currycomb; and so tindery about the breast, from the
number of marriage-favours annually pinned there, that it is a wonder it
holds together. Alphonso rode upon the box, giving the vehicle a certain
amount of smartness. On their arrival under the dirt-embrowned portico
of the theatre, they are cordially recognised by the De Camps; who,
thinking it a pity the box should not be filled, have just dropped down
to see "London Assurance"--intending to quit before the pantomime, but
forgetting to do so after all.
[Illustration]
During the play, Master Tommy disposes of a vast quantity of oranges and
sponge-cakes--vanishing between each act to obtain a fresh
supply;--making butterflies of the bill, and causing the
double-barrelled _lorgnette_ (which was hired for the occasion from an
adjacent oyster-shop) to slip off the cushion, falling upon a bald
gentleman in the pit:--the excited little pest remarking everything, and
fairly shouting at the discovery of Alphonso below, until chid by his
mother. Oh! that we could participate in thy youthful enthusiasm, or
feel pleased at that hotch-potch--the overture; or, a thrill when the
muffin-bell tinkles, causing the lovely drop-scene--that combined the
grandeur of the pretty Parthenon with the sublimity of Virginia
Water--to vanish into its own intensely blue sky; disclosing the
"Harlequin House that Jack built," and Mr. John Bull's huge paste-board
thick head, snoring like thunder, in a "property" summer-house--an
elephantine blue-bottle on his proboscis, and a sleeping bull-dog, the
size of an Alderney steer, at his feet;--here Master Brown, with a grin,
calls the house Victoria Villa, and the paste-board mask his papa. Now
enters the rat, to eat the good things that lay in the house that John
built, represented by a stealthy seedy gentleman, who, after reading a
board intimating that apartments were to let, crept slyly past the
sleepy Bull, to mount the house-steps; and there deliver himself of the
following doggerel, in a mellifluous voice:--
"I search for lodgings--here's the very thing,--
Though I've not got a _rap_, I think I'll _ring_;
For all I want is to be _taken in_,--
As I would others _take_--sure 'tis no sin
To do to others--only tit for tat--
So here goes--Rat--tat, tat--a tat!!!!!"
[Illustration: HERE WE ARE AGAIN!]
The orchestra, loud in wishing to know "who's dat knocking at de door?"
and Master Tom, deep in the bill, with Mr. Rat, who is there described
as a "scamp"--an unknown term to Tom, for he asked its meaning;
observing that Uncle Brick said Captain de Camp was a scamp. This
question remained unanswered; for no one heard it except the Captain,
who felt a great itching to pull a young monkey's ears, but did not. The
cat (a sort of Puss in Boots, with a short stick and strip of paper)
entering, to catch the rat, is worried by the dog; who is tossed by a
cow with a very crumpled horn; who was milked by a maid said to be very
forlorn; who is kissed by a sweet-looking beggar, all tattered and
torn--the loving pair being likened to Jemima and Latimer, by Master
Tom, causing his sister's face to redden as a furnace, that heightened
the more it was fanned; and when the priest, all shaven and shorn (whom
Tom called the Rev. Loyalla a Becket), commenced marrying the couple,
then Miss Jemima entertained serious notions of fainting; and, probably,
would, had not the solemnization of matrimony been violated by the
priest, who shed his sack-cloth surplice, vaulting over the rails of the
altar, between the astonished couple, leaving that sanctuary to change
into a _match maker's_--appearing, himself, a perfect _clown_, stating
that sublime, veritable, truth--"_here we are again!_"--working his
geometric, chromatic, physiognomy into endless contortions, extending
his arms like the sails of contrary windmills, twiddling his legs like a
fly,--and when called upon, by unearthly voices, for "Tippytiwitchet,"
appears so scared that he tumbles through the big drum, to oblige them
with the song from the slips; instantly afterwards presenting himself
upon the stage, dilating his spotted inexpressibles, until they put him
in mind of a friend, _Pantaloon_, that, by a curious coincidence,
resides at a tailor's, in the back-ground, having just completed a
patch-work skin, for _Harlequin_; who, the instant he is fitted, flies
through the panel of a door, inscribed "_cutting-out_ room," into the
next house, a _florist's_, there to obtain his favourite flower, the
_Columbine_, with whom he has a long dance in the centre of a very
solitary street; whilst Clown and Pantaloon arrange a partnership
concern, which they carry on in the middle of the road, in front of the
shop, until Clown renders himself more plague than profit, by warming
his partner's lumbar region with a very red-hot goose, basting him with
the sleeve-board, and sticking him to the road with wax--Clown
dissolving partnership by walking off, in a new wrap-rascal, with the
cash-box, that no one may rob them. The best things must come to an
end!--and so does the Pantomime--with a gorgeous display of red fire,
tinsel and gold, real water and the electric light--all chopped off in
the middle by the descending curtain. The box-fronts have been enveloped
in their night-gowns; the Columbine is clattering, in pattens, to her
lodgings; the Harlequin has been bolted out, unable to vault through the
fan-light; and the Clown is running in his painted face, having
forgotten to wash it, for at home he left a dear wife seriously ill,
to come and be funny in sadness.
[Illustration: THE NOTORIOUS SINGER AT THE "WARREN," SINGING HIS
CELEBRATED BITS "THE DROP" AND "THE DRAIN."]
Drone's fly is homeward bound, heavily laden. The young men of the party
have dived into "The Welsh Rarebit Warren," there to spend the early
hours of the morning, listening to sentimental songs chanted amid fumes
of tobacco and spirits, to hear sorry wit, and make vapid remarks. The
great feature of the evening being a melodramatic dirge, supposed to be
sung by a condemned felon--a triumphant lamentation and delineation of
brutal character,--so eloquent and thrilling, in its monosyllabic groans
of anguish, that it is a wonder the kidneys, consumed in such numbers,
are ever digested. But, alas!--such is life--those most swayed by animal
propensities see the least warning therein:--as, the thief combines
business and pleasure at the gallow's foot; so, with the frequenters of
the "Warren"--they imbue their sentiment and supper,--only digesting the
latter. Wellesley has devoured several "rabbits," and Latimer disposed
of numberless kidneys, whilst young Brown has had to wait the usual
forty minutes for a steak; and, in the interim, had five "stouts," four
"goes," and several cigars, _i.e._, with assistance from the De Camps;
who have made free, ay, to order goblets of champagne, and, in the end,
not having change to repair the "damage" (a mean, but true, term, as
often applied), they get young Brown to pay the complicated sum added up
by the waiter, upon a mahogany ditto, in lieu of a slate, with stale
stout spilled in the corner, receipted with a wipe of the towel:--and
so, home in the "safety" cab, with large wheels and a spanking
grey,--lettered along the side "_Nil desperandum_," thinking "handsome
is as _Hansom_ does;" tumbling into bed just before the peep o' day, and
five hours after Mr. Brown had made up his Diary--writing against
December the 27th., Thursday, that he had taken Tom and the girls to a
pantomime; been agreeably surprised to find the De Camps there,
especially the sons, who did sit in front, with Jemy. and Angel.,
looking made as much for one another as he could desire:--Tom behaving
very sadly; and, were it not for his mother, the boy should spend the
vacations at a Yorkshire school;--twice every year--in the Dog-days and
December--is the house turned topsy-turvy,--it may be sport to you,
Master Tom, but 'tis death to us.
[Illustration]
Thus older grew the year, and fuller got the Diary--Mr. Brown
graphically recounting the doings and disasters of "December 28_th_,
_Friday_.--Unpropitious, fatal, Friday! I never knew it lucky save once,
and then it _was_--I let the Albert. 'Christmas comes but once a year,'
with a train of nasty bills, not to be bilk'd; and sorry consolation is
it thinking you 'paid at the time,' when the receipt is not to be found.
Miss-Fortune, that never came single, now visits with a large family of
little pests--out of season and uninvited!--Here is Needy, the pianist,
who, one would think, had married her; for he has children enough to
fill a charity school. Needy, of No. 9, Brown Terrace, has absconded
without paying the rent--sending the key, and L12. 10_s._, instead of
L14., with a shabby excuse about hoping to be able to make up the
difference some day:--this is the return for showing compassion to a
poor devil!--I ought to have known, when I took the cottage-piano for
last quarter, though Spohf did say it was a six-and-three-quarters,
worth three times the money!--I am a good-natured fool, and ought,
in justice to my family, to be a little more selfish--these mean
professionals estimating their rubbish far beyond all reason!--My
spirits are damped--and so are we all, for the water-pipes that that
rascal Plummer fixed, at the low contract, have burst with this
evening's thaw, and were discovered just as the water was coming in;
having played, I know not how long, a fountain in the bathroom, tumbling
down the stairs like the falls of the Niagara, obliging us to insert
tobacco-pipes all over the drawing-room ceiling, to drain the
inundation:--it has spoilt the watered paper, stained the aquatint of
the Aqueduct, and 'Wellington at Waterloo,' done for the water-gilding,
and saturated the 'Momentous Question;' the 'Heart's Misgivings' is a
sop; and the water-colour of the 'Flood' is washed away. Alphonso is
sitting up in goloshes to empty the pots, and I doubt much if I shall
sleep over the dropping-well."
[Illustration]
How Mr. Brown slept we do not know, but can imagine, for here is the
Diurnal Record, made up in bed:--"December 29_th_, _Saturday_.--Dreamed
Victoria Villa turned into a hydropathic establishment--that I was being
frozen, thawed, and suffocated; did wake, this day, with an enlarged
cheek--the influenza compelling me to keep my bed, bathe my chilblains,
and anoint my nose; I take slops internally, and wear a heart upon the
outside of my chest. The kind, considerate Captain called, smoking a
cigar, that made me cough, and think his visit a visitation."
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