CHAPTER III
THE CHRISTMAS HARP
Great was the excitement in the houses of King as Christmas drew
nigh. The air was simply charged with secrets. Everybody was
very penurious for weeks beforehand and hoards were counted
scrutinizingly every day. Mysterious pieces of handiwork were
smuggled in and out of sight, and whispered consultations were
held, about which nobody thought of being jealous, as might have
happened at any other time. Felicity was in her element, for she
and her mother were deep in preparations for the day. Cecily and
the Story Girl were excluded from these doings with indifference
on Aunt Janet's part and what seemed ostentatious complacency on
Felicity's. Cecily took this to heart and complained to me about
it.
"I'm one of this family just as much as Felicity is," she said,
with as much indignation as Cecily could feel, "and I don't think
she need shut me out of everything. When I wanted to stone the
raisins for the mince-meat she said, no, she would do it herself,
because Christmas mince-meat was very particular--as if I couldn't
stone raisins right! The airs Felicity puts on about her cooking
just make me sick," concluded Cecily wrathfully.
"It's a pity she doesn't make a mistake in cooking once in a while
herself," I said. "Then maybe she wouldn't think she knew so much
more than other people."
All parcels that came in the mail from distant friends were taken
charge of by Aunts Janet and Olivia, not to be opened until the
great day of the feast itself. How slowly the last week passed!
But even watched pots will boil in the fulness of time, and
finally Christmas day came, gray and dour and frost-bitten
without, but full of revelry and rose-red mirth within. Uncle
Roger and Aunt Olivia and the Story Girl came over early for the
day; and Peter came too, with his shining, morning face, to be
hailed with joy, for we had been afraid that Peter would not be
able to spend Christmas with us. His mother had wanted him home
with her.
"Of course I ought to go," Peter had told me mournfully, "but we
won't have turkey for dinner, because ma can't afford it. And ma
always cries on holidays because she says they make her think of
father. Of course she can't help it, but it ain't cheerful. Aunt
Jane wouldn't have cried. Aunt Jane used to say she never saw the
man who was worth spoiling her eyes for. But I guess I'll have to
spend Christmas at home."
At the last moment, however, a cousin of Mrs. Craig's in
Charlottetown invited her for Christmas, and Peter, being given
his choice of going or staying, joyfully elected to stay. So we
were all together, except Sara Ray, who had been invited but whose
mother wouldn't let her come.
"Sara Ray's mother is a nuisance," snapped the Story Girl. "She
just lives to make that poor child miserable, and she won't let
her go to the party tonight, either."
"It is just breaking Sara's heart that she can't," said Cecily
compassionately. "I'm almost afraid I won't enjoy myself for
thinking of her, home there alone, most likely reading the Bible,
while we're at the party."
"She might be worse occupied than reading the Bible," said
Felicity rebukingly.
"But Mrs. Ray makes her read it as a punishment," protested
Cecily. "Whenever Sara cries to go anywhere--and of course she'll
cry tonight--Mrs. Ray makes her read seven chapters in the Bible.
I wouldn't think that would make her very fond of it. And I'll
not be able to talk the party over with Sara afterwards--and
that's half the fun gone."
"You can tell her all about it," comforted Felix.
"Telling isn't a bit like talking it over," retorted Cecily.
"It's too one-sided."
We had an exciting time opening our presents. Some of us had more
than others, but we all received enough to make us feel
comfortably that we were not unduly neglected in the matter. The
contents of the box which the Story Girl's father had sent her
from Paris made our eyes stick out. It was full of beautiful
things, among them another red silk dress--not the bright, flame-
hued tint of her old one, but a rich, dark crimson, with the most
distracting flounces and bows and ruffles; and with it were little
red satin slippers with gold buckles, and heels that made Aunt
Janet hold up her hands in horror. Felicity remarked scornfully
that she would have thought the Story Girl would get tired wearing
red so much, and even Cecily commented apart to me that she
thought when you got so many things all at once you didn't
appreciate them as much as when you only got a few.
"I'd never get tired of red," said the Story Girl. "I just love
it--it's so rich and glowing. When I'm dressed in red I always
feel ever so much cleverer than in any other colour. Thoughts
just crowd into my brain one after the other. Oh, you darling
dress--you dear, sheeny, red-rosy, glistening, silky thing!"
She flung it over her shoulder and danced around the kitchen.
"Don't be silly, Sara," said Aunt Janet, a little stimy. She was
a good soul, that Aunt Janet, and had a kind, loving heart in her
ample bosom. But I fancy there were times when she thought it
rather hard that the daughter of a roving adventurer--as she
considered him--like Blair Stanley should disport herself in silk
dresses, while her own daughters must go clad in gingham and
muslin--for those were the days when a feminine creature got one
silk dress in her lifetime, and seldom more than one.
The Story Girl also got a present from the Awkward Man--a little,
shabby, worn volume with a great many marks on the leaves.
"Why, it isn't new--it's an old book!" exclaimed Felicity. "I
didn't think the Awkward Man was mean, whatever else he was."
"Oh, you don't understand, Felicity," said the Story Girl
patiently. "And I don't suppose I can make you understand. But
I'll try. I'd ten times rather have this than a new book. It's
one of his own, don't you see--one that he has read a hundred
times and loved and made a friend of. A new book, just out of a
shop, wouldn't be the same thing at all. It wouldn't MEAN
anything. I consider it a great compliment that he has given me
this book. I'm prouder of it than of anything else I've got."
"Well, you're welcome to it," said Felicity. "I don't understand
and I don't want to. I wouldn't give anybody a Christmas present
that wasn't new, and I wouldn't thank anybody who gave me one."
Peter was in the seventh heaven because Felicity had given him a
present--and, moreover, one that she had made herself. It was a
bookmark of perforated cardboard, with a gorgeous red and yellow
worsted goblet worked on it, and below, in green letters, the
solemn warning, "Touch Not The Cup." As Peter was not addicted to
habits of intemperance, not even to looking on dandelion wine when
it was pale yellow, we did not exactly see why Felicity should
have selected such a device. But Peter was perfectly satisfied,
so nobody cast any blight on his happiness by carping criticism.
Later on Felicity told me she had worked the bookmark for him
because his father used to drink before he ran away.
"I thought Peter ought to be warned in time," she said.
Even Pat had a ribbon of blue, which he clawed off and lost half
an hour after it was tied on him. Pat did not care for vain
adornments of the body.
We had a glorious Christmas dinner, fit for the halls of Lucullus,
and ate far more than was good for us, none daring to make us
afraid on that one day of the year. And in the evening--oh,
rapture and delight!--we went to Kitty Marr's party.
It was a fine December evening; the sharp air of morning had
mellowed until it was as mild as autumn. There had been no snow,
and the long fields, sloping down from the homestead, were brown
and mellow. A weird, dreamy stillness had fallen on the purple
earth, the dark fir woods, the valley rims, the sere meadows.
Nature seemed to have folded satisfied hands to rest, knowing that
her long wintry slumber was coming upon her.
At first, when the invitations to the party had come, Aunt Janet
had said we could not go; but Uncle Alec interceded in our favour,
perhaps influenced thereto by Cecily's wistful eyes. If Uncle
Alec had a favourite among his children it was Cecily, and he had
grown even more indulgent towards her of late. Now and then I saw
him looking at her intently, and, following his eyes and thought,
I had, somehow, seen that Cecily was paler and thinner than she
had been in the summer, and that her soft eyes seemed larger, and
that over her little face in moments of repose there was a certain
languor and weariness that made it very sweet and pathetic. And I
heard him tell Aunt Janet that he did not like to see the child
getting so much the look of her Aunt Felicity.
"Cecily is perfectly well," said Aunt Janet sharply. "She's only
growing very fast. Don't be foolish, Alec."
But after that Cecily had cups of cream where the rest of us got
only milk; and Aunt Janet was very particular to see that she had
her rubbers on whenever she went out.
On this merry Christmas evening, however, no fears or dim
foreshadowings of any coming event clouded our hearts or faces.
Cecily looked brighter and prettier than I had ever seen her, with
her softly shining eyes and the nut brown gloss of her hair.
Felicity was too beautiful for words; and even the Story Girl,
between excitement and the crimson silk array, blossomed out with
a charm and allurement more potent than any regular loveliness--
and this in spite of the fact that Aunt Olivia had tabooed the red
satin slippers and mercilessly decreed that stout shoes should be
worn.
"I know just how you feel about it, you daughter of Eve," she
said, with gay sympathy, "but December roads are damp, and if you
are going to walk to Marrs' you are not going to do it in those
frivolous Parisian concoctions, even with overboots on; so be
brave, dear heart, and show that you have a soul above little red
satin shoes."
"Anyhow," said Uncle Roger, "that red silk dress will break the
hearts of all the feminine small fry at the party. You'd break
their spirits, too, if you wore the slippers. Don't do it, Sara.
Leave them one wee loophole of enjoyment."
"What does Uncle Roger mean?" whispered Felicity.
"He means you girls are all dying of jealousy because of the Story
Girl's dress," said Dan.
"I am not of a jealous disposition," said Felicity loftily, "and
she's entirely welcome to the dress--with a complexion like that."
But we enjoyed that party hugely, every one of us. And we enjoyed
the walk home afterwards, through dim, enshadowed fields where
silvery star-beams lay, while Orion trod his stately march above
us, and a red moon climbed up the black horizon's rim. A brook
went with us part of the way, singing to us through the dark--a
gay, irresponsible vagabond of valley and wilderness.
Felicity and Peter walked not with us. Peter's cup must surely
have brimmed over that Christmas night. When we left the Marr
house, he had boldly said to Felicity, "May I see you home?" And
Felicity, much to our amazement, had taken his arm and marched off
with him. The primness of her was indescribable, and was not at
all ruffled by Dan's hoot of derision. As for me, I was consumed
by a secret and burning desire to ask the Story Girl if I might
see HER home; but I could not screw my courage to the sticking
point. How I envied Peter his easy, insouciant manner! I could
not emulate him, so Dan and Felix and Cecily and the Story Girl
and I all walked hand in hand, huddling a little closer together
as we went through James Frewen's woods--for there are strange
harps in a fir grove, and who shall say what fingers sweep them?
Mighty and sonorous was the music above our heads as the winds of
the night stirred the great boughs tossing athwart the starlit
sky. Perhaps it was that aeolian harmony which recalled to the
Story Girl a legend of elder days.
"I read such a pretty story in one of Aunt Olivia's books last
night," she said. "It was called 'The Christmas Harp.' Would you
like to hear it? It seems to me it would just suit this part of
the road."
"There isn't anything about--about ghosts in it, is there?" said
Cecily timidly.
"Oh, no, I wouldn't tell a ghost story here for anything. I'd
frighten myself too much. This story is about one of the
shepherds who saw the angels on the first Christmas night. He was
just a youth, and he loved music with all his heart, and he longed
to be able to express the melody that was in his soul. But he
could not; he had a harp and he often tried to play on it; but his
clumsy fingers only made such discord that his companions laughed
at him and mocked him, and called him a madman because he would
not give it up, but would rather sit apart by himself, with his
arms about his harp, looking up into the sky, while they gathered
around their fire and told tales to wile away their long night
vigils as they watched their sheep on the hills. But to him the
thoughts that came out of the great silence were far sweeter than
their mirth; and he never gave up the hope, which sometimes left
his lips as a prayer, that some day he might be able to express
those thoughts in music to the tired, weary, forgetful world. On
the first Christmas night he was out with his fellow shepherds on
the hills. It was chill and dark, and all, except him, were glad
to gather around the fire. He sat, as usual, by himself, with his
harp on his knee and a great longing in his heart. And there came
a marvellous light in the sky and over the hills, as if the
darkness of the night had suddenly blossomed into a wonderful
meadow of flowery flame; and all the shepherds saw the angels and
heard them sing. And as they sang, the harp that the young
shepherd held began to play softly by itself, and as he listened
to it he realized that it was playing the same music that the
angels sang and that all his secret longings and aspirations and
strivings were expressed in it. From that night, whenever he took
the harp in his hands, it played the same music; and he wandered
all over the world carrying it; wherever the sound of its music
was heard hate and discord fled away and peace and good-will
reigned. No one who heard it could think an evil thought; no one
could feel hopeless or despairing or bitter or angry. When a man
had once heard that music it entered into his soul and heart and
life and became a part of him for ever. Years went by; the
shepherd grew old and bent and feeble; but still he roamed over
land and sea, that his harp might carry the message of the
Christmas night and the angel song to all mankind. At last his
strength failed him and he fell by the wayside in the darkness;
but his harp played as his spirit passed; and it seemed to him
that a Shining One stood by him, with wonderful starry eyes, and
said to him, 'Lo, the music thy harp has played for so many years
has been but the echo of the love and sympathy and purity and
beauty in thine own soul; and if at any time in the wanderings
thou hadst opened the door of that soul to evil or envy or
selfishness thy harp would have ceased to play. Now thy life is
ended; but what thou hast given to mankind has no end; and as long
as the world lasts, so long will the heavenly music of the
Christmas harp ring in the ears of men.' When the sun rose the old
shepherd lay dead by the roadside, with a smile on his face; and
in his hands was a harp with all its strings broken."
We left the fir woods as the tale was ended, and on the opposite
hill was home. A dim light in the kitchen window betokened that
Aunt Janet had no idea of going to bed until all her young fry
were safely housed for the night.
"Ma's waiting up for us," said Dan. "I'd laugh if she happened to
go to the door just as Felicity and Peter were strutting up. I
guess she'll be cross. It's nearly twelve."
"Christmas will soon be over," said Cecily, with a sigh. "Hasn't
it been a nice one? It's the first we've all spent together. Do
you suppose we'll ever spend another together?"
"Lots of 'em," said Dan cheerily. "Why not?"
"Oh, I don't know," answered Cecily, her footsteps lagging
somewhat. "Only things seem just a little too pleasant to last."
"If Willy Fraser had had as much spunk as Peter, Miss Cecily King
mightn't be so low spirited," quoth Dan, significantly.
Cecily tossed her head and disdained reply. There are really some
remarks a self-respecting young lady must ignore.
