Chapter II: The Valentine Mistress Mary Found

It was past eight o’clock on that St. Valentine’s Eve, and yet from every window in Pudding Lane shone forth the yellow light of a candle, a phenomenon which made all the clocks in the town wonder whether they hadn’t skipped an hour somewhere or other. For every timepiece in the village, from Mrs. Flinders’ fine old grandfather’s clock to Mrs. Dumpty’s pert little cuckoo, had good reason to know that one of old King Cole’s strictest rules was, “Early to Bed and Early to Rise”; and yet here it was eight o’clock and nobody abed yet. Queer, thought the cuckoo, as he stepped smartly out of his box and cuckoo’ed eight times with a significant look at Humpty Dumpty. Odd, thought the grandfather’s clock, as he rumbled his eight strokes in Polly Flinders’ ear.

Silly clocks, they had forgotten what night it was, or they never would have been so mystified. For we know what was going on that night in Pudding Lane, don’t we? We do it ourselves on St. Valentine’s Eve. So we can just see Boy Blue addressing an envelope to Judy, The Shoe, Pudding Lane, and another to Bessie, The Candlestick-Maker’s, Pudding Lane. And we can see Jill writing a verse to Jack:

“Jack, Jack, the funny fellow,
Got bruised black and got bruised yellow,
When he came tumbling down the hill,
With his loving friend, whose name is Jill.”

Yes, they were all making Valentines that night. The children of the Old Woman had the Shoe cluttered up with paper and ribbon and paints. Simple Simon was busy copying a verse for Mistress Mary. It was hardly a delicate sentiment, reading as it did:

“Hum, hum, Harry,
If I weren’t engaged, I should never marry.”

But it was the only poem Simple Simon knew. Besides, it is doubtful whether Mistress Mary would be able to read it, anyway, for Simple Simon’s handwriting, as you know, was highly individual.

At the Clauses’, Santa and the two batches of twins were busy making Valentines. Santa was good at cutting and pasting, and Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were good at getting in his way and cluttering things up, so everybody was happy, including Mrs. Claus, who dozed by the fire, Mr. Claus, who was reading the _Banbury Cross Weekly_ over his spectacles, and Misery, the cat, who sat solemnly watching them all.

Indeed, everybody in Pudding Lane was busy making Valentines, except--guess who--Cross-Patch. You know Cross-Patch, that unpleasant old woman who lived down at the end of Pudding Lane. Of course, Cross-Patch was not making Valentines. She didn’t believe in such foolishness!

Yet somebody was making a Valentine for her, and that person was--you’ll never believe it, but it’s true--the candlestick-maker. Now although you have known the candlestick-maker quite intimately, would you ever have guessed that he Nursed a Secret Passion for Cross-Patch? Of course you wouldn’t. But that’s the sort of thing that comes out on St. Valentine’s Day. He may seem like a queer kind of lover, the toothless, bent-over old man, yet he was an earnest one, nevertheless, and he cackled gleefully as he pasted a yellow paper rose on a pink paper heart and wrote:

“Needles and pins, needles and pins,
When a man marries his trouble begins.”

When he tried to say this verse, the candlestick-maker always said, “Peedles and nins, peedles and nins”, but it seemed to go all right with a pencil. However, it did not sound very loving, he thought, after he had written it, so he added a little verse like this:

“P.S. But when a man’s married
His wife is his own,
And when a man’s single
He’s living alone.”

It may not seem very clear to us, but the candlestick-maker was charmed with it, and said to himself he could be a poet as well as anybody else if he’d just take the time to it. And then, with one last delighted cackle, he called Jack, his nephew, and bade him be nimble and be quick about delivering that Valentine to Cross-Patch. Jack hastily jumped over the candlestick as directed and ran down Pudding Lane with the pink paper heart in his hand.

Jack had gone but a few steps when he heard a little squeaking noise which sounded like--well, it sounded to Jack like a mouse with a cold in its nose. He stopped to listen. Yes, there it was, a choked little squeak of a noise. Then, to Jack’s surprise, up started somebody from behind the winter hedge near by. It was Mistress Mary, Quite Contrary, and it was she who was making the noise. Mistress Mary was crying.

Of course, she pretended she wasn’t. When she saw Jack, she giggled in a silly little desperate way to cover up her sobs, the way girls often do when they’re caught in tears.

“Hello,” said Jack. He was glad she had stopped crying.

“Hello,” said Mistress Mary gayly, quite as if she had never shed a tear in her life. “Where are you going?”

“Taking a Valentine,” began Jack, when Mistress Mary unexpectedly began to cry again in that little squealing way. Jack, much disturbed, asked Mistress Mary what was the matter. Whereupon, the poor girl, still weeping, explained the cause of her woe. She was crying, she said, because she had no Valentine for Santa Claus, of whom she was so very fond.

“But why haven’t you a Valentine?” asked Jack.

“Just because I was so contrary, I guess,” admitted Mistress Mary. “My mother told me to get one ready, but I didn’t want to then--and now it’s too late. Oh, dear, it’s often very uncomfortable to be contrary, Jack.”

“It must be,” thought Jack to himself. But to Mistress Mary he said, “Well, what are you going to do about it?”

“I don’t know,” answered Mistress Mary mournfully. “I’m afraid there’s nothing to do now. And, oh, Santa Claus will think I don’t love him. And I love him better than anybody else in Pudding Lane.”

“Why don’t you send Santa Claus a flower from your garden, Mistress Mary?” Jack suggested. “Flowers make fine Valentines, you know.”

Mistress Mary shook her head sorrowfully.

“Alas,” she said, “my crocuses are contrary, too, Jack. They ought to be out now, but somehow they just won’t bloom.”

“I see,” said Jack gravely. Truly this was pretty bad, he thought to himself, that a girl should set such an unhappy example to the very flowers in her garden.

Then he thought of Mother Goose, who always knew how to get people out of trouble.

“Let’s ask Mother Goose what to do,” he said to Mistress Mary.

“But Mother Goose is not here.”

“Yes, she is,” Jack told her. “She’s spending the week-end with old King Cole. Let’s run right up to the palace and ask her.”

“Oh!” cried Mistress Mary, “that’s the very thing.” For once in her life the contrary girl agreed with somebody, so the two children ran off hand in hand toward the palace of Old King Cole.

Mistress Mary was not the only person in Pudding Lane that night who was in trouble. Meanwhile, something had happened at the Clauses’. It happened so quickly too. The children had all gone to bed and Santa Claus and his mother were sitting up addressing the last of the Valentines and Misery was watching them. Then the next minute, while they were still busily scratching away with their pens, Misery _wasn’t_ watching them.

“Where’s that cat?” asked Mrs. Claus, as she looked up. She always called Misery “that cat” and she always pretended that she did not like him a bit, yet it was Mrs. Claus who had given Misery so much cream when he was a kitten that it made him fearfully sick, and it was Mrs. Claus who now had to be watched lest she give him more meat and gravy than was good for his digestion.

So now she said, “Where’s that cat?” in a tone of great asperity, and she frowned blackly at the place by the stove where Misery had been but a moment before.

“Perhaps he’s gone to bed,” said Santa Claus, as he carefully drew a great flourish under Humpty-Dumpty’s name.

Mrs. Claus got up and went over to the box where Misery slept.

“Not here,” she reported, after rummaging around in it. “Where is that cat?”

She looked under the stove and in her workbasket and behind the baby’s cradle. No Misery! She went into Mr. Claus’s bedroom and looked in the drawer where he kept his best blue shirt. No Misery! She finally went out into the woodshed and prowled around there in the dark, calling for Misery. No green eyes appeared. No purring black shape came to rub against her feet. By this time Mrs. Claus was really alarmed. She flew back to the kitchen and Santa.

“He’s gone!” she told her little boy.

“Misery?” Santa asked, staring.

“Misery himself,” answered Mrs. Claus.

Santa jumped to his feet and ran around the room, calling the cat. He ran all over the whole house, looking for Misery. No cat was to be found, but the twins and Mr. Claus and even the baby woke up at his racket, and they set up a horrible din at the news of Misery’s departure. The four boys howled with grief; the baby screamed to keep them company; Mr. Claus kept shouting, “Great snakes, great snakes, great snakes,” and, oh, dear, such a time as there was in the Claus household at that late hour on St. Valentine’s Eve.

Of course, the Clauses kept right on looking for the cat. Mr. Claus, good soul, even went outdoors in his bare feet (he never had got his green slippers back since the time of the first Snow Man that year). He went out into the yard, calling the cat so loudly that if the creature had been within ear-shot, he would have been frightened away by the noise. He went into the shop with a candle and poked around in the shelves and drawers there. (They _had_ found Misery sleeping sweetly there in a nest of buns one time.) But although they all hunted high and low for that cat, it soon became apparent that Misery was not to be found.

It was a sad and sober company that gathered around the kitchen stove when the search had been abandoned.

“He’s gone,” spoke Mr. Claus in a hollow tone. Mr. Claus looked rather peculiar in his nightcap and overcoat and bare feet, but nobody noticed that.

The twins howled again. Santa Claus blinked. Mrs. Claus was seen to rub her eyes impatiently.

“I knew that cat would get us into some kind of a bother,” she said.

“And the mice,” said Mr. Claus. “I’m afraid that when the cat’s away, the mice will play.”

“Of course they will,” spoke up Mrs. Claus sharply. “Anybody knows that.” Then Mrs. Claus looked at the clock and jumped energetically out of her chair.

“Mercy on us, Mr. Claus,” she exclaimed. “Here it is after nine! What can we be thinking of to let the children stay up like this?”

With which she gathered her six children up and packed them all off to bed.

But if you think Santa Claus could go to sleep that night, well, you just never were the owner of a runaway cat. For Santa could think of nothing but Misery as he lay in bed. He could see nothing but Misery’s beautiful green eyes and swaying tail. He could hear nothing but Misery’s purr, “the bee buzzing inside him,” as he called it. The Valentines were forgotten, all the fun of the next day was forgotten, as Santa mourned his lost Misery that night.

But presently he heard a slight noise outside the house. It sounded as if it were right there by his window. He thought he heard a whisper, then a tiptoe, then a little hushed-up laugh. For a moment, he was afraid. It might be Taffy, for Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief, and came around at night quite often to steal a round of beef. Then he jeered at himself for being a scaredy-cat and climbed bravely out of bed. He looked out of the window and saw there--what do you think? Four hands, two green eyes, and a curly head. It was Jack and Mistress Mary with Misery in their hands!

“Hey!” screamed Santa Claus excitedly.

Mistress Mary laughed and Jack called out softly “Hello!”

“Hey!” screamed Santa Claus again. He reached out his hands and took Misery in them. Oh, how nice and warm Misery felt to him. And was the bee buzzing inside him? Santa Claus put his ear down to the silky black body. Yes, there it was. Misery was happy too, glad to get home again.

Then the rest of the Clauses came rushing in. A boy can’t shout “Hey!” in the middle of the night, as Santa Claus had done, without waking folks up, you know. When they saw the cat, they cried out too. And when they looked out of the window and saw Mistress Mary and Jack standing there laughing, they cried out again. At least, Mrs. Claus did.

“Good gracious!” she exclaimed. “Where did you children come from?”

“From old King Cole’s palace,” they told her.

“And what are you doing here?” she asked them.

“We brought Misery back,” they explained.

“Name of goodness,” was all Mrs. Claus could say.

Then Jack and Mistress Mary went around to the front door, came into the parlor, and the Clauses all gathered around them to hear the story of the discovery.

“Well, there isn’t much of a story,” said Mistress Mary. “Jack and I just went up to the palace to see Mother Goose a minute. We wanted to ask her--something.” She looked warningly at Jack. “And when we got there, we found them having a party in the throne room. The King and Mother Goose were dancing a polka, the fiddlers three were playing their fiddles, and the Queen of Hearts, well, the Queen was asleep, but her ladies in waiting weren’t, for they were playing games with the King’s Men--oh, it was quite a party!”

“It must have been,” said Mrs. Claus. She wondered how often the King indulged in such goings-on while his people were asleep in their beds.

“But the cat,” prompted Santa. “Where did you find the cat?”

“Why, right there,” said Mistress Mary. “Right there.”

“In the King’s palace?” asked Mrs. Claus incredulously. “Our Misery up at King Cole’s?”

“Yes,” responded Mistress Mary.

“Why, a cat may look at a King, Mrs. Claus,” the baker reminded her.

But Mrs. Claus was flabbergasted.

“Little did I ever think that our cat would go amongst royalty,” she said.

“Well, he did, anyway,” said Mistress Mary. “And he was having a lovely time too. I never heard of a cat doing that before, running away to the king’s, but that’s where your cat was, just the same, for we found him right there, didn’t we, Jack?”

“We did that,” said Jack.

“Well,” said Mrs. Claus, “I suppose it was too dull for him here, Santa Claus, with just you and me here in the kitchen. Misery loves company, you know.”

Then she got up and went to the door.

“I don’t wish to seem unmannerly,” said Mrs. Claus, “but I know you two children ought to be home and asleep. Does your mother know where you are, Mistress Mary?”

“We stopped and told her on the way,” replied Mistress Mary, “but we ought to go now, I know.” Then Mistress Mary went over to Santa. “I meant to give you a Valentine, Santa Claus,” she said. “I did mean to, but here it is St. Valentine’s Eve and I haven’t any for you, after all. I was contrary about it--”

“Why, Mistress Mary,” exclaimed Santa Claus, “you brought Misery back to me. And Misery’s the very best Valentine I could possibly have.”

Mistress Mary, happy as could be at this, beamed at Santa Claus. Mother Goose had told her that same thing--that if she took Misery back to his master, it would be the best Valentine he could have. And now Santa Claus had said so himself, and everything was all right. She went home overjoyed, and as Jack walked beside her, he thought what a nice girl Mistress Mary was when she forgot to be contrary.

It was not until Jack got clear inside the candlestick-shop that he remembered the Valentine his uncle had given him to take to Cross-Patch. Then what a sinking feeling he had in his heart. What would the old candlestick-maker say? How could he have forgotten to deliver the Valentine when it was the very thing he had been sent out for? Poor Jack, usually so nimble, so quick, so obedient, could have thrashed himself for his forgetfulness. He turned around to the door. Perhaps he could go back now and slip the Valentine under Cross-Patch’s door. But the candlestick-maker, who had looked as if he were dozing there on the bench, opened his eyes and spoke to Jack.

“Did ye leave her the Valentine?” he asked.

Jack grew red and began to stammer.

“I’m going--I’m going back--now--” he said.

“Then ye didn’t leave it?” asked the old man.

Oh, dear, how Jack hated to admit his disobedience. The old candlestick-maker was really such a good uncle to him, and now he had just gone off and forgotten to do his errand. But he had to answer, for the old man had his little eyes pinned on him.

“No, sir,” he said hesitatingly. “No, sir, I forgot it, somehow. But I’ll go back now.”

The old man closed his eyes again for another doze.

“Never ye mind,” he said. “It’s just as well. Don’t believe me and that old woman would get along very well, anyway.”