Chapter III: The Christmas Tree

Old Mr. Sharpe insisted upon the children coming into the cottage and having some refreshment. It was too early for tea, but he produced some home-made ginger beer, and some currant cake. His daughter, a sad-faced young woman, had traces of tears on her cheeks. She had been talking about the young husband killed in the war. But she smiled at the children's eagerness and enthusiasm for the garden.

"Oh, Mums, such rows and rows of daffodils and narcissus! Isn't it a pity it's too late to plant them now?"

"And, Mums, you should have seen the flowers in the hot-houses, but none of them will grow out of doors now!"

"And the little trees, all coming out in pink and white flowers!"

It was not until they were on the way home that Mrs. Inglefield was told of the purchases.

Diana had chosen nothing but flowers. She had a tiny rose tree coming up the next day to be placed in the middle of her bed.

"It will be the queen," she said with the dreamy look in her grey eyes that her mother loved to see; "and I shall have her ladies-in-waiting all round her: Lady Pansy, and Lady Blue Cornflower, and Lady Pink Verbena, and Lady Snapdragon, and Lady Yellow Eschscholtzia; and then her little pages will be Tom Thumb Nasturtiums. Don't you think my bed will be lovely, Mums?"

"Lovely, darling. You have done very well, I think. What is Chris's choice?"

"I've got mustard and cress, and radishes," he said sturdily, "and one strawberry plant. And two red geraniums are coming to me when it's time to put them in the ground. And I've a lot of mixed sweet-peas, and one little gooseberry bush."

"You have a lot for your money. First rate," said his mother. "What has Noel got?"

Diana looked at Chris, and they both giggled.

Noel looked at them angrily, and turned to his mother:

"I'm going to have one fing only, but it's quite big, it's what we never had in India, and what I've always been wanting ever since you read me about it in my fairy book."

"I believe I can guess," his mother said: "it's a Christmas tree."

"Yes, that's just what it is. And Mr. Sharpe and me choosed for ever so long before we found a big one, and it's coming to-morrow."

"But, my darling, won't it be rather a dull garden with only that tree in it?"

"It won't be dull to me," said Noel. "I love it. And it will be ready for next Christmas. It's been wondering when its turn was coming to be taken away, it didn't know it was coming into this lovely garden with me to love it. Don't you r'ember the fir tree that was always finking and being disappointed? I mean to tell mine exac'ly what's going to happen to him."

"You're a funny darling," said his mother, but she kissed him and said no more.

"Mr. Sharpe gave him some flower seeds as a present," said Chris, "but he says he isn't going to put them in his garden."

"No, my Christmas tree won't like them. He likes plenty of room all to himself, and I shall put those seeds where I want to."

Mrs. Inglefield looked at him a little perplexedly.

"You're a funny boy," she said again; "but if your Christmas tree will make you happy, I shall say nothing against it. You've made your choice, so it's all right."

Noel seemed quite content. But he refused to tell Diana and Chris his plan about his seeds. All three of them wanted to go into the garden after tea, but Nurse refused to let them do it.

"It is too cold, and rain is beginning to fall. You must just stay in the nursery."

"We can go to Mums," said Diana.

"No, you can't. The mistress is going to rest. She's been at it all day long."

So they tried to make themselves happy in this new nursery of theirs. Chris got out his paint-box and began to colour the picture in a story-book of his. Diana got out her beloved sheets of paper and commenced a fresh story under the inspiration of this fresh home. Noel got a chair and knelt up at the window, looking out upon the English scene with keen, observant eyes.

Suddenly he looked round:

"What are those green lumps all over the church garden?" he asked.

"Those are graves, of course," said Chris, "where people are buried when they die."

"Why do they crowd into the church garden? Haven't they gardens of 'er own?"

"Oh, that wouldn't be proper," said Chris.

"I s'pose," Noel went on thoughtfully, "they try and get as near to God as they can, poor fings! But they aren't really vere at all, it's only their bodies. It isn't a very pretty garden: God ought to have a better one."

Chris made no reply.

Noel was always dressed first, and then Nurse went to Diana. It was a lovely sunny morning. Directly Nurse's back was turned, Noel slipped downstairs very quietly: then he ran out into the garden, opened the little gate that led to the churchyard and began his operations. Going from one green mound to another, he made a hole with his finger in the middle of each, opened his precious packet of seeds and dropped one or two seeds in it. Then he carefully covered it up with earth, and went on to another. Mr. Sharpe had put several varieties of seed into his packet. There was mignonette, aster, lobelia, and a few other summer flowers. Noel knew nothing about the names or the flowers, but he went on steadily planting seed by seed, and by and by a clergyman came out of the church. He looked at the small boy in surprise. He was a young, cheerful-looking man with a very quick, decided manner.

"Now, what on earth are you doing here?" he asked. "And who are you? We've never seen each other before, have we?"

"I'm Noel. Who are you?"

"I'm John Wargrave, the parson. And this place belongs to me."

Noel looked at him stolidly.

"This is God's garden," he said, "and that place you've come out of is God's house. It all belongs to Him."

"So it does, sonny. You've corrected me. But it isn't nice to make a playground of the churchyard. What are you doing?"

"I'm not playing. I'm working very hard."

Noel spoke in an injured tone. Mr. Wargrave looked at the packets of seeds in his hands, and wondered. Then Noel explained himself.

"I've made myself into God's gardener, and I'm going to make flowers come all over His garden. God loves flowers. Mums told me He did. It's an ugly garden now: not half as nice as ours."

"Do you love God?" Mr. Wargrave asked gently.

Noel nodded.

"It's a very nice thought, my boy, but a lot of people own a bit of ground here. The graves belong to them, and they wouldn't like you to meddle with them. Have you many seeds left?"

Noel spread out three small packets.

"Well, look here. There is a rose tree over the church porch. It is in a bed of its own, and you can plant the rest of your seeds there. I'll come and help you do it now."

Noel was quite willing. Mr. Wargrave produced a trowel from a little room at the back of the church, and they made quite a good job of it. He soon found out who Noel was and where he lived, and he said he was coming to call on Mrs. Inglefield very soon. They were good friends when they parted, and Noel trotted upstairs to his nursery breakfast. Nurse scolded him for his dirty hands, but supposed he had been playing in the garden. He did not tell anyone what he had been doing.

But later in the day when his Christmas tree arrived, and Diana and Chris were busy with their gardens, he was asked where his seeds were.

"God has got them," he said solemnly; "I've given them to Him."

He would say nothing more.

Diana remarked to Chris:

"I can't think why Noel is so religious. He isn't a good boy at all, and yet he is always talking about God."

"He's too little to know he oughtn't to do it," said Chris decidedly.

"Why oughtn't we to do it, I wonder?" said Diana musingly. "The people in the Bible talked about God."

"It isn't respectful," said Chris: "rev'rent, I mean. Granny always hushed us about religious things."

"Yes, but Mums talks about them quite easily: she doesn't whisper."

Chris gave it up.

"I only know Noel wouldn't do it if he was amongst a lot of other boys. They'd laugh at him."

"We laugh at him, but he doesn't care."

"He's a most cocky little beggar!"

The Christmas tree almost overshadowed Noel's small garden. It looked strangely out of place there, and would do so even more when surrounded by spring and summer flowers. Chris and Diana, up in the medlar tree the next day, watched Noel standing, hands in pockets, in front of it. A pert saucy robin came and perched on the topmost branch. Noel stood so still that he did not frighten it away, but he commenced to talk to it.

"You're sitting on my tree. I don't know if you know it. I'm a Chris'mas child and the tree is a Chris'mas tree, and we bofe belong to the best day in the whole year, and that's Jesus Christ's birfday and mine. It will take a long time to come this year, for we haven't got to the summer yet, but I'm going to be patient, and as for my tree, he is finking all the time of the wonderful day that's coming to him: the glorious, beautiful day when he'll be dressed from his head to his feet all over with lovely shining fings of glory, and crowds of chil'en and people will be dancing round him and looking up at him as if—as if he was a king. So, Mr. Robin, if you sit on his branches, you must re'mber you're almost sitting on a king!"

"Isn't he a funny boy?" whispered Diana to Chris.

Then Noel went on talking to his tree:

"I'm going to call you Firry; you must have a name. I hope you're happy in this garden; you haven't got any bruvvers to talk to, but I'd rather talk alone than to Chris. He never understands, and so you must be like me and like best to be alone. And if the trees wiv flowers on laugh at you, tell them that when winter comes—the English winter—they'll be dead and gone, and you'll be alive and glorious, it will be Chris'mas, and the very happiest day in the whole year. I don't want you to be unhappy, Firry. I cried for the poor little Chris'mas tree in Germany that was forgotten when Chris'mas Day was over. I shall never forget you. That's why I brought you here. I'll talk to you all the summer and tell you what's coming to you, and after Chris'mas you shall come back here and live and be happy and get ready for the nex' Chris'mas."

"He's talking drivel!" said Diana, and then she sprang down from the tree with a shout, and Noel, after giving a violent start, walked away and didn't go near his Christmas tree again that day.

The first Sunday came.

To Chris and Diana church was no treat; yet they looked forward to the novelty of going to a strange church and seeing strange people. To Noel this was a momentous day. He had never been to church in England yet. In London, for several reasons, he had not been taken there.

It was a bright sunny morning. Noel was dressed in his white sailor suit. It was a new one, and he felt rather self-conscious in it. As Mrs. Inglefield walked down the garden and through the little gate into the churchyard, she felt proud of her children. Diana had slipped her hand into her mother's, but Chris and Noel were having a tussle the other side of her. Each felt he ought to be nearest to his mother. When they reached the church door, Mrs. Inglefield looked down upon two hot, rather angry faces, and she said immediately:

"Now, boys, I can't have this. I am going to have Diana on one side of me in church, and Noel the other. Chris must be content to be the outside one. He shall sit near the aisle, for he is my eldest son, and that is where his father would sit if he were with us."

Chris brightened up immediately. They took their seats in the middle aisle, not very far from the pulpit. There was a good congregation, and the service was a hearty one. Mr. Wargrave, the young vicar, preached so earnestly and simply that even Noel could understand him. His big blue eyes seemed to be taking in everybody and everything. He was very still; he did not fidget as much as Chris did, and when they came out of church, he looked up at his mother with shining eyes:

"When I grow up, I shall have a white dress on, and stand up in church and preach like that man. I shall be a padre when I grow up."

Mrs. Inglefield looked down upon him tenderly.

"You couldn't be anything better, Noel," she said.

And then an old lady came up to them and shook hands with Mrs. Inglefield in a delighted way.

"I heard you were coming back to these parts. How's your mother? Still wedded to her town life? And are these your children? Bring them to tea with me to-morrow. Four o'clock. Good-bye. So glad to welcome you."

And then she bustled off and got into a car and was whirled away from them before Mrs. Inglefield had time to say a word. She turned to her children.

"That is Lady Alice Herbert. She's an old friend of Granny's. She lives at the Hall, and her husband, General Herbert, is a great invalid."

"And we're all going to tea with her. What fun!" said Chris.

In the afternoon the three children went into the garden whilst their mother rested; but by and by Mrs. Inglefield heard a little tap at the door, and Noel walked in. He did not look very happy.

"Am I asturbing you, Mummy?" he asked in his most angelic tone.

"No, darling, I am not sleeping; come and sit down by the couch here. What have you been doing?"

"I don't like those uvver two," said Noel, shaking his head with a heavy frown. "They're always playing and talking outside me."

"You mean without you; but you see they've not been accustomed to have a third in their games. I hope you're nice to them?"

"I don't want to have nuffin' to do with them. They laugh at me about the Chris'mas tree. You and me, Mummy, can be two as we've always been, and they can be just a two away from us."

"Oh, my darling," said Mrs. Inglefield, half laughing, yet with a perplexed face, "you mustn't talk so! This comes of bringing you up away from them. You all belong to me and to each other, and we must be a very happy little family. I can't talk to you any more now, so if you want to stay with me, get a picture-book from my table over there. There's that one you love about the boys in the Bible."

Noel got the book, and drawing a stool up by his mother's side, was quite happy till tea-time.

Chris and Diana appeared in very good spirits, and if Noel was rather silent, they did not seem to be impressed by it.

They were full of anticipation of going to Lady Alice Herbert's to tea the following day, and talked about it till bedtime.

Very great was their disappointment the next morning when their mother told them that she had received a letter from Lady Alice saying that, as the General was not very well, she would not ask the children, but only herself.

Diana pouted, Chris cried "What a shame!" and Noel stumped up and down the room in real anger.

"Never mind, chicks, she will ask you another day, I am sure, and perhaps it is just as well, for it looks like rain."

And rain it did in an hour's time. The children played contentedly in the nursery all the morning. They had their early dinner downstairs with their mother, and afterwards she took them up to her boudoir, and read a story to them till it was time for her to go off to the Hall. The car came for her a little before four o'clock, and the children watched her depart with envious eyes. They waved their hands to her, standing on the doorstep till they could see her no more, and then very reluctantly they went back to their nursery.

"What is there to do?" said Chris discontentedly as he put his hands deep in his jacket pockets and stood gazing out of the window at the driving rain and sodden garden.

"I'm going to finish my story, and then I'll read it to you," said Diana happily, as she drew her chair up to the table and produced some crumpled sheets of paper out of her pocket. Diana always carried her story about with her, in case of sudden inspiration seizing her.

"Read it to us first, and finish it afterwards," said Chris with a grin.

Noel looked at him contemptuously, and Chris caught the look and resented it.

"What are you going to do, Baby?" he asked.

Noel's eyes flashed.

"I aren't going to play with you," he said, and then, he marched out of the room.

A few minutes later a little figure in sailor cap and overcoat was plodding down the path to the gate, in the rain.

It was Noel. He felt that he could not be shut up in the nursery with his brother and sister all the afternoon, and suddenly thought that he would go and see Mr. Wargrave. Then he changed his mind. He would go into the church if the door was unlocked. There were a lot of things he wanted to see and understand there.

Half an hour later the house was being searched by Nurse for the truant. When she missed his cap and coat she was very angry with Chris and Diana.

"I was only ironing in the kitchen; you might have kept him quiet and out of mischief, the two of you," she said. "He's a child, I'll say that, but if he's wandering about in this rain, he'll be laid up with cold, with his Indian constitootion."

"He's most likely in the garden talking to his fir tree, or in the churchyard," said Chris. "Shall I go and look for him and bring him in?"

"Put on your mackintosh then, and be quick about it," said Nurse. "'Tis your fault he's wandered out, I consider. You're none too kind to him, either of you!"