“Yes Stoat, I had thought of it,” Pitt said, pushing the cream across to him.
The Stoat grinned, showing sharp, gappy teeth, and poured the cream generously. “Y’in’t daft, fer a crusher, is yer!” he said with grudging respect.
Pitt believed the Stoat, but even so he felt compelled to pursue any other contacts he had right up until Christmas Eve. He found nothing but a blank ignorance and a total absence of fear, which was in itself a kind of evidence. He tramped miles through dingy alleys behind the grand façades of the great streets; he questioned pimps, fences, footpads, and keepers of bawdy houses, but no one told him anything of a thief who had broken into Hanover Close and tried to sell or dispose of the missing property, or who was hiding from a murder charge. The whole underworld turned a dirty, conniving, but quite innocent face to his inquiries.
It was a fine, sharp evening, dark by half past four after a pale green sunset. Gas lamps burned yellow, carriages rattled back and forth over a shining film of ice on the cobbles. People called out greetings, drivers shouted abuse, and street sellers cried their wares: hot chestnuts, matches, bootlaces, old lavender, fresh pies, penny whistles, toy soldiers. Here and there little knots of youths sang carols, their voices thin and a little sharp in the frosty air.
Pitt felt a slow, blessed cleanliness wash over him as the smell of despair receded and the grayness was infused with the beginnings of color. The excitement around him drove out memory and buoyed him up, even expunging the pity and guilt he usually felt when leaving the rookeries and returning to his comfortable home. Today he cast off those feelings like a soiled coat and was left with only gratitude. He flung open the front door and shouted out, “Hello!”
There was an instant’s silence, then he heard Jemima jump from her stool and the clatter of shoes on linoleum as she ran up the hall to meet him.
“Papa! Papa, is it Christmas Eve yet? It is, isn’t it!”
He threw his arms round her and lifted her high into the air. “Yes, my sweetheart, it is! It is Christmas Eve, right now!” He kissed her and held her on his arm, striding into the kitchen. All the lights were blazing. Charlotte and Emily sat at the table, putting the finishing touches on the icing of a great cake, and Gracie was stuffing the goose. Emily had arrived an hour earlier with a footman in tow, laden with colored paper, boxes, and ribbons. Edward, Daniel, and Jemima had clustered round him, speechless with excitement, Edward hopping up and down from one foot to the other, his blond hair flopping on his head like a silver-gold lid. Daniel was doing a little dance on the floor, round and round in circles until he fell over.
Pitt put Jemima down, kissed Charlotte, welcomed Emily, and acknowledged Gracie’s presence. He took his boots off and stretched out in front of the stove, warming his feet and legs, and watched contentedly as Gracie moved the kettle over onto the hot surface and got down the teapot and his large breakfast cup.
After the meal he could hardly wait for the children to go to bed so he could bring out his carefully hidden gifts and begin to wrap them up. He and Emily and Charlotte sat round the scrubbed kitchen table, now piled with scissors, bright paper, and pieces of ribbon and string. Every so often someone would disappear into the parlor, demanding not to be disturbed, and returning with a satisfied smile and gleaming eyes.
They went to bed a little before midnight, and Pitt only heard Charlotte get up once in the pitch darkness when a small voice on the landing asked plaintively, “Isn’t it morning yet?”
He woke properly at seven to find Daniel at the door in his nightgown and Charlotte fully dressed at the window.
“I think it’s snowing,” she said softly. “It’s too dark to see, but there’s a sort of gleam in the air.” She turned round and saw Daniel. “Happy Christmas, darling,” she said, bending over to kiss him. He stood still; he was nearly five and not sure about being kissed anymore, at least not in front of other people.
“Is it Christmas?” he whispered into the soft hair around her cheek.
“Yes—yes it is! Get up Thomas, it’s Christmas.” She held out her hand to Daniel. “Do you want to come and see what is under the tree in the parlor before you get dressed?”
He nodded, his wide eyes never leaving her face.
“Then come on!” And she whisked him out, leaving the door wide open behind her and calling for Edward and Jemima to follow.
Pitt scrambled out of bed, pulled on his clothes in even worse disarray than usual, and, after splashing his face from the pitcher on the dresser, ran downstairs. Charlotte, Emily, and the children stood in the parlor staring at the tree and the pile of bright parcels under it. No one spoke.
“Breakfast first, then church; then we’ll see what’s in there,” Pitt said, breaking the spell. He did not want Emily to turn and see his face, and think of George.
Jemima opened her mouth to protest, then thought better of it.
“Where’s Gracie?” he asked.
“I sent her home last night,” Charlotte replied. “With two of us we can do everything quite easily.”
“Wouldn’t she rather have been here, with us?” Pitt thought of the difference between Gracie’s home and this house with its warmth, its happiness, and the goose in the oven.
“Maybe,” Charlotte agreed, leading the way to the kitchen. “But her mother wouldn’t. Emily gave her a chicken,” she added under her breath, then went on briskly. “Breakfast in thirty minutes. Everyone go and get dressed— come on!” She clapped her hands and Emily took the children back upstairs while she went to prepare porridge, bacon, eggs, toast, marmalade, honey, and tea. Pitt went back up to shave.
Outside there was a fine dusting of snow and banners of pearl-gray cloud across the winter blue of the sky between the rooftops. They walked together to the church half a mile away. Everywhere bells were ringing; the cold air was full of the sound.
The service was short, and they sat packed together in the narrow pews while the vicar told the familiar story, the organ pealing out all the familiar hymns. “Oh Come All Ye Faithful” and “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,” and everyone sang till the sound seemed to roll round them like an ocean.
They walked back in a shower of snow, making footprints in its newness, taking another look at the pile of parcels under the tree. Then, after a short stage of flurry in the kitchen, they all sat down to roast goose with savory stuffing and all the trimmings, crisp brown roast potatoes and parsnips, and a good French wine, and plum pudding fired with brandy, to the delight of the children, and covered with cream. Charlotte had made it and cut it with great care so everyone got a silver threepence.
Finally the presents could be kept no longer. Bursting with excitement, they all trooped into the parlor to portion them out and watch as three children tore off paper, scattered it in mounds, and were lost in a daze of boundless wonder. For Daniel there were the engine and wagons Pitt had made him and a jack-in-the-box Emily had brought; for Edward a box of bricks of every color, shape and size which Pitt had carved and painted, and a set of tin soldiers from Emily; and for Jemima a doll for whom Charlotte had sewn three different outfits of clothing, and from Emily a kaleidoscope which when she shook it and held it to her eye presented an ever-changing magic world of glittering designs.
From Charlotte’s mother they each had books: Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland for Jemima; Charles Kingsley’s The Water Babies for Daniel; and Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island for Edward.