16

It was on Christmas Eve, when they had been out in the forest cutting boughs, that Mr Dean sent Phuba up with a parcel. The Sisters’ feet were soaking when they came in and, even after rubbings and dry stockings, they could not get warm. They gathered round Phuba, stamping their feet and wrapping their cold hands in their sleeves. He was a tall old Bhotiya with a pigtail hanging to his hams and, like Mr Dean, he wore a felt hat of no shape at all, but in his he had a peacock’s feather.

‘It’s a parcel for us!’ cried Sister Honey.

‘Not for us,’ corrected Sister Clodagh. ‘Mr Dean knows better than to send us presents. It’s for the Order.’

‘That’s splitting a hair,’ said Sister Ruth boldly, but, as if she had not heard her, Sister Clodagh opened the parcel. Inside were five pairs of Tibetan boots, knee high and made of felt and worked with wool and lined with fleece.

‘Ahh!’ whispered Sister Briony, going down on her knees as if they were something holy. ‘Dear goodness! Just feel the warmth and the fleece and the softness. Blessings on the dear, dear man. Now I shall be able to get about on my poor feet without wanting to cry at every step.’

But Sister Clodagh was looking at them doubtfully as if she had half a mind to send them back. ‘I wonder if we ought to take them. These are gifts to us, not to the Community.’

‘I don’t agree,’ said Sister Briony. ‘I don’t agree at all, if you’ll excuse me saying so, dear Sister. Mr Dean knows how our work has been spoiled and crippled, yes really crippled by this cold. I don’t know how many things I’ve been forced to leave undone because of hobbling so badly on my poor feet. I shall put on a pair at once and thank God for them and Mr Dean.’

She sat down there and then on a stool and, grimacing, took off her own leather boots and drew on the largest pair of Mr Dean’s. ‘He must have measured us up very nicely,’ she chuckled. ‘I always have difficulty in getting fitted, but these are plenty big enough for me.’

‘And didn’t he make me call you one by one across the yard when the mud was soft?’ said Ayah in huge delight. ‘And he measured the footsteps and wrote it all down on the paper he keeps in his hat.’

Sister Briony’s feet looked an elephant’s in the high felt boots, but her face wore a look of bliss. When Sister Clodagh saw that they did not show too much under her habit and that the colours were not really too bright, she told the others that they might wear them too. Sister Ruth did not try hers on, but sat apart with them, touching them with her finger and looking at them; there was something tense and childish in that look that gave Sister Clodagh a sudden shiver.

‘Come along,’ Sister Briony said to her. ‘We have all this litter to clear and supper to eat before we can start hanging the boughs. Pick up your boots and get on.’

‘Don’t you touch them,’ said Sister Ruth turning on her. ‘Don’t you dare lay a finger on them.’

Sister Briony was folding up the parcel paper and undoing the smallest knots in the string, and did not hear her, but Sister Clodagh watched her sharply.

‘I wish we could do something for Mr Dean after all he’s done for us,’ said Sister Honey. ‘Couldn’t we invite him to the carol singing, Sister?’

‘No,’ cried Sister Ruth fiercely. ‘That wouldn’t do at all.’

‘Sister Blanche was speaking to me and not to you,’ said Sister Clodagh, still watching her. ‘Mr Dean can certainly come to the carol singing if he likes. The service is open to everyone who cares to come.’ She saw her face darken, but she picked up the papers and carried them away without answering.

Joseph had been given boots too; his had come in the Christmas Box from Canstead. When he saw them he licked his lips uneasily.

‘Look,’ cried Sister Honey. ‘They’ve come all the way from England. Joseph, aren’t you a lucky little boy?’ and Joseph’s heart sank as she showed him the laces and the toe-caps and the beautiful welted soles. He felt he was bound to keep them always with him, and, after that, Joseph could be seen trotting on his errands with his beautiful English boots hung round his neck.

All the servants had presents.

‘These are extraordinary people,’ said Ayah. ‘I don’t understand them.’ She folded the cardigan that had come for her in the box. ‘They buy coolie blankets for themselves and sleep on thin cotton, and this, that they give to me, is thick wool and good bone buttons; and yet they don’t owe me anything, they always pay my wages on the first of every month.’

Sister Honey had spent hours in making a Crib for the children; she had put it inside the porch as there was no room in the chapel, and it was made of spruce and bamboo boughs strangely mingled together. The figures for it had been sent from Canstead too, and she made them change colour by holding strips of coloured talc across a light. She made a rosy Bethlehem dawn outside the Inn, or a strong noon in yellow, or moonlight, shadowing with blue the tinsel star. The people thought it was wonderful and Sister Honey was gratified by their numbers, but she did not know that Ayah had invited them with promises of a free show and free tea. There were the women in their respectable gowns, the men who were so dirty in comparison and, most of all, the children.

‘Why have the devils with wings come to mock at the poor baby?’ asked the children, pointing to the angels.

‘The baby is the Number One Lord Jesus Christ,’ Ayah told them.

‘But He hasn’t any clothes on! Aren’t they going to give Him anything? Not a little red robe? Not a bit of melted butter?’

‘This is His Mother,’ said Ayah, showing them the little porcelain Virgin in blue and white and pink. ‘He is her child.’

‘That isn’t true,’ said the women, measuring the baby with their eyes. ‘He’s too big to be possible. Probably He’s a dragon, a bhût in the shape of a child, and presently He’ll eat up the woman.’

They were all afraid of bhûts, Hindus and Buddhists alike, and the little Christian Joseph would not go down to Mr Dean’s house alone at night because of the bhût who lived on the road.

All day the people came softly in and out; the porch was full of voices respectfully low, and of feet coming and going. A tide of love and liking seemed to lap the Convent; it was in Ayah’s dark skirts as she went to welcome them in, and it was in the china figures under the boughs of spruce; it came from the children’s happy faces as they crowded round, and was in the nuns’ voices as they spoke to one another and in the candles they had lit before the Crib. All day Sister Clodagh had felt that sense of success and love and again she wrote glowingly to Mother Dorothea.

At midnight Sister Clodagh read the Christmas prayers and psalms. The new harmonium had come; the ponies had carried it down, two harnessed together under its weight. When it was uncrated, the packing straw was frozen stiff, but it was not any the worse, and when Sister Honey practised on it, the music rolled down the hill. The wind carried it over the trees and across the gulf; in the village they woke to listen; it came in through the windows of the General’s house and reached Mr Dean as he sat at his dining-room table drinking the whisky that the General had sent him for Christmas. Sister Honey had not played for a long time and, even after practising, sometimes there would come, instead of a note, a long breath of wind or a sudden vibration that startled the room and jarred the window panes.

The chapel was festive; they had laid branches along the sills and crossed them at the foot of the statues, and on the altar were the few precious sprays of holly that had come from the hedges at Canstead. After prayers came the carols, that were always sung by the Sisters on the first hour of Christmas morning. Sister Briony, Sister Philippa and Sister Ruth had risen in the front line, Kanchi and Joseph from among the empty seats behind them, Sister Clodagh stood by the altar facing them, when the door opened on the night and Mr Dean came in and with him the young General, Dilip Rai.

The harmonium gave a long wail and a jar, the singing wavered, the book Sister Clodagh was holding dipped closer to the candle flames; then her voice rose:

‘I sing of a maiden

That is matchless,

King of all Kings

For her Son she chose.’

Mr Dean kicked over a chair as he moved in near the door; Dilip, shocked and blushing, picked it up and set it on its legs. Sister Briony, still singing, stepped from her place and offered them the sheet of words, and Mr Dean began to sing. Sister Clodagh thought his voice was unnecessarily loud, but it gave impetus to the Sisters, who sang loudly too, their crosses rising and falling on their breasts as if they were panting. Now there was a warmth and rush in the singing, their faces reddened, the harmonium notes seemed to swell in the room and the boughs trembled. The meek familiar carols were almost shouted into the night.

Mr Dean was enjoying himself, but Dilip’s eyes were full of wonder. He looked at the altar with its lace and holly, the candles shining on the brass cross and the statues above the boughs. Sister Clodagh watched his face as she sang.

On that last Christmas, Con had given her a silver brooch. He was not good at giving things in proper season, but he had always bought her a great many presents. She remembered once, when they were in the High Street at Pantown, he had stopped and said: ‘I want to give you a hat.’

Pantown! They always drove to Pantown in the lorry because there was usually a netted pig or a steer to take in. ‘It’s market day. We’re taking in the bull calf. Like a lift?’

The lorry had no side windows, the wind blew in a hurricane, and the rain trickled to where she sat between the old man and Con, tweed shoulder to tweed shoulder. Often her cheek touched Con’s shoulder, the short gold hairs that were clipped on his neck were close to her lips. They swayed and bumped, hip to hip.

‘Do keep your skirt off the gears,’ said Con. ‘Listen to the brutes! You wouldn’t know it, but one day I’m going to have a Bentley,’ and he shot a glance at his father across her.

In the High Street he said, ‘I want to buy you a hat.’

‘You can’t. Don’t be silly, Con.’

‘I want to. Come on.’

The harmonium finished the last line, pelting ahead of the singers. In the silence she looked up. ‘Number six, on your sheets. “Once in Royal David’s city”.’

The only hat shop was Strayne’s; it had cream blinds edged with lace and a tapestry chair in the window, and a bowl of anemones on the floor. Why on the floor?

‘He was gentle, meek and lowly,

Tears and smiles like us he knew.’

Tears and smiles! That was the year that hats were shaped like pudding basins and pails. Con was difficult over them.

‘That one’s like a bucket. Take it away. No, thank you, that’s too much of a flower-pot altogether.’

‘What kind of a hat do you want, sir?’

‘Well, I had in mind a very little one; grey with something bright and soft on it, like feathers and diamonds mixed.’

But the brooch had come on Christmas Day. He gave it to her outside, after church. ‘Here’s something for you.’ He walked away to talk to the other men.

‘Con, come back. Come back for a moment. I want to speak to you.’

The music had stopped again. They had come to the end of the carols and they were waiting for her. She knelt; they all knelt, she could see Sister Honey out of the corner of her eye, the soles of her feet in Mr Dean’s boots were turned upwards. Mr Dean sat down noisily and Dilip Rai very quietly, Kanchi looked through her fingers at them.

Sister Clodagh was the last to leave the chapel; she put out the candles dreamily. As they went out one by one and the room grew dim, the night and the stars seemed to come closer to the windows, pressing cloud and gold against the glass. Now only the red lamp was burning in front of the altar; it was the colour of cherries; Dilip would have called it the colour of rhododendrons, he always said ‘red as rhododendrons’, ‘white as rhododendrons’. He had been taking lessons for ten days now.

She knelt down before leaving the chapel. ‘Con, come back. Come back for a moment. I want to speak to you.’

There was a scuffle outside and a small scream, and steps ran past into the house. She went to the door but there was no one there, only the young General and Mr Dean a little way off, standing with their ponies under the porch.

Dilip Rai came up to her at once and said: ‘Sister, may I congratulate you on the birth of Christ?’

‘Thank you,’ she said, not knowing what else to say. She saw Mr Dean smile in the light of the porch lantern.

‘I was so glad to come,’ Dilip said. ‘I heard the music, and went down to ask Dean what it was, and he brought me to see. I hope you did not mind. I am very much interested in Jesus Christ.’ Sister Clodagh stiffened and he said quickly: ‘Have I said anything wrong?’

‘No-o,’ she answered, ‘but we don’t usually speak of Him so casually.’

‘Then you should,’ said Mr Dean loudly. ‘He should be casual, and as much a part of life as – hic – your d-daily bread.’

She ignored that. ‘We want to thank you for the boots,’ she said. ‘Sister Briony will tell you, far more eloquently than I can, how very much we needed them; and now we have a present for you. Real holly sent to us by our Mother General at Canstead. It was picked from our hedge there; we have only a few sprays, but we kept them for the chapel and for you, because you have been so good to us.’

The young General, who had been thinking, asked: ‘You have a feast to commemorate His death, haven’t you?’

‘Yes, at Easter. His death and resurrection,’ said Sister Clodagh, holding out the holly to Mr Dean who made no movement to take it.

‘In the history of my country,’ said Dilip gravely, ‘there is a superstition that, if a man asks for his shoes and umbrella when he is dying, he will come back from the dead.’

Mr Dean gave a loud guffaw, and Sister Clodagh saw that he was very drunk, holding on to his saddle and watching her and Dilip with affectionate amusement. She was shocked to her very bones, and for a moment could only stand there, staring at him. Dilip, with his head bent, was drawing a circle on the gravel with his toe; he was quivering with shame because Mr Dean had laughed at him.

His laugh had broken the silence. Though the house was quiet it seemed to be full of people; behind Dilip Rai it lay with a teeming life of its own. She had a sudden sense of dismay that came from the house and not from Mr Dean, a sense that she was an interloper in it and the Convent life no more than a cobweb that would be brushed away. The house had its own people, strange bare-footed people who had never had a Christmas, nor a star, nor a Christ. Dilip fitted them, standing in the porch with his horse as if he had just come through the forest. ‘The grandfather kept his women here.’

She seemed to hear the door opened in the night, and hear them coming, running, gauze hurriedly twisted round their bosoms, flowers seized and pinned in the hair, feet with anklets chiming, hastening to the door. She heard them come and she heard their voices, whispering as they gathered their finery, coming to the door to welcome Dilip Rai. ‘This house used to be not good. I give you until the rains break.’ The Brothers had left their ruins in the grass.

The holly pricked her hand. Dilip was looking at Mr Dean now, with an interested face.

She said: ‘How dare you come here – like this?’ He only smiled, holding on to his pony. ‘How dare you be with that boy – or come here to our service to-night?’

Still he smiled and she saw that he wore a sprig of holly in his buttonhole, and at once she remembered the scuffle she had heard outside the chapel and the faint scream. Could it have been – couldn’t it have been Kanchi? She put out a hand to push him away, trembling with disgust.

‘You’re –’ she said furiously. ‘You’re – you’re unforgivable.’ Then she said vindictively, between her teeth: ‘You’re objectionable when you’re sober, and abominable when you’re drunk.’

‘I quite agree,’ he said, and taking his pony went down the hill. They saw Phuba rise out of the shadows and take his other arm. Presently they heard him loudly singing.

‘I sing of a maiden

That is matchless,

King of all Kings

For her Son she chose –’

The words shivered the shadows, mocking their Christmas; even the rustling of the leaves seemed a titter and the house whispered, insinuating whispers, under that bawdy singing.

‘Don’t listen. Don’t listen,’ she cried.

But Dilip was listening attentively. ‘I do like his voice,’ he said. ‘It’s so nice and loud. I think it’s lovely, don’t you?’