Chapter 2 – Christmas Evening
Friday December 25, 1812
Grace, always ready and obliging, obeyed, lifting down her coat from the hook and buttoning it as she stepped outside. That particular coat was a great delight to Grace. She had inherited it from Helen, who had made it up three years before in what she termed “very fashionable style.” It had a high waist, and a curious little ruffled collar, which looked like a relic from Elizabethan times. The sleeves were full at the top, so that they could fit over a puffed dress sleeve without crumpling it, but were gathered in snugly above the elbow. The bodice fastened with a row of wonderful shining buttons, but the skirt had no buttons at all, and left a wide strip open down the front of the gown. Mary had frowned upon this as dreadfully impractical, and poor Grace had been in great fear lest it should be replaced or altered, but as Helen had used up all the wool upon the original and the merchant in Bentford could not match it, Aunt Alice had decided that Grace might as well be allowed to enjoy her grandeur. The only stipulation was that a cloak should be added in very cold weather. And Miss Macintosh advised Helen in private not to make any more fashionable experiments without specific permission.
Outdoors the weather was such as is very familiar to a Christmas in what is today Southern Ontario. The temperature hovered uncertainly around zero, as if it could not make up its mind whether snow or rain would suit the season better. It had snowed about a week before and the ground had been carpeted with several inches, but the cold snap had been succeeded by milder weather in the last few days, producing that half white, half green landscape which often comes when winter is just arriving or departing. This day had been particularly bright and sunny, so that the green was in the ascendency, but the last rays of the sinking sun were reflected upon clouds in the northeast, and as its warming light receded, a chill crept into the air.
Grace, looking about for her younger brothers, at first saw no one, for dusk was fast gathering and it was hard to see very far, but at length she spied something lying beneath one of the fir trees which bordered the property, and going over to investigate she found it to be none other than seven year old Philip. To find Philip alone at any time was rather a novelty, as he was the inseparable shadow of both his brothers. He was now lying flat upon his back, with eyes closed and eyebrows arched, and his round face drawn up into an expression of indescribable calmness and tranquility. His small figure was half-wrapped in a cloak which was far too large for him, and every fold had been arranged with a melodramatic flare. His hands were folded over his chest in an attitude of absurd repose, and every one of the picturesque flaxen curls which framed his ruddy face lay with a look of such studied carelessness as to suggest that the little sleeper—if such was his intended role—had been entirely arranged by some other person or persons, and then left to carry out his mission, whatever that might be.
Some such thought must have crossed Grace’s mind, for she glanced about her as if suspicious of walking into the trap of some high-spirited prank, and was about to interrupt the serene repose of the sleeper by a question, when that young individual slowly opened one eye and informed her, in a very serious tone, that he was “Quite Dead.”
“What are you playing at, Phil. Where are the boys?” asked his sister, apparently not at all alarmed by this unexpected intimation.
“I am General Brock,” said Philip, still gazing up very solemnly through his one opened eye, but without moving a single muscle for fear of disturbing what he viewed as the striking attitude of his costume.
“Oh, you are, are you?” said Grace, feeling that some light had been shed upon the subject. Over two months had passed since the battle near Fort George, when the United States army had attempted to cross the Niagara River into Canada West, and had been resisted by General Brock, the British Commander so beloved to his troops. Queenston Heights, the place where the conflict had been fought, was not very far from Bentford. Grace could often remember her father and Aunt Alice taking the children there for picnics in the summer months. Somehow, the fact of a battle being fought out on the very ground where they had run and played, seemed to strike home the reality of the war to her even more that the distant rumble of muskets and the muffled boom of the canon which could be heard from the dooryard. The British army had carried the day, so that the American forces had come no closer to Bentford, but it had been at the loss of their invaluable commander, General Brock. In the heat of the battle, the impetuous Brock had personally led a desperate charge in which he was mortally wounded.
Dr. Macintosh had shaken his head very gravely when the news had come in. He would not say it would have been better to lose the battle than lose Brock, but he lamented the reckless and daring spirit which, though it had gained so much over the course of this first year of the war, had ended in the loss of one of the most valuable leaders the British colonies possessed. Strong as were the doctor’s principles regarding bloodshed, both as a physician and as a Christian, he could not but grieve to see so promising a leader cut down.
Not unnaturally, the children took Brock up as their favorite hero for the time, and many were the brave assaults they led against hay-loft, and stair-landing, in impersonation of his final charge—although generally, it must be noted, with a success which had been sadly wanting in the original. Lately, however, their ardor had somewhat slackened. Indeed, even at its height, the boys had never found it worthwhile to carry their re-enactments so far as to the general’s actual demise. George did not have much of a fancy for the tragic; and as George was the eldest, and generally played the role of the famous commander, his ruling was decisive.
“And so George is letting you have a turn at Brock, today?” asked Grace, bending kindly over the little figure to see if he was not getting wet lying upon the damp earth. “But why do you not charge, as George generally does?”
“Oh, George was being Brock until he died,” said Philip most matter-of-factly. “I’m not wet at all. See, I have Percy’s cloak on. George and Percy were the British, and I was being the Americans. I was holding down the tree. But George said it was too gloomy a day to play at winning, so they let me beat them instead, and Brock got killed; but Percy and I couldn’t lift him to carry him away to his funeral, so George said I might be him, and they showed me how to lie. I think I look very dead, don’t you?”
“Where did the boys go,” asked Grace, who could not exactly answer in the affirmative to this unusual question.
“They have gone to get a gun-carriage, so that I can ride in state,” said the little general, most confidently. “Papa said that they took General Brock in a gun-carriage to his funeral at the fort. What do you think a gun-carriage looks like, Grace? Do you suppose it’s like Grandmother’s big black coach only with a canon on the roof? I should like to be the person who fired it off, wouldn’t you?”
Grace was spared an answer to this last remark by the return of the two elder lads, pulling a state conveyance in the form of a wheelbarrow.
“Hello, Grace!” called George cheerily. “Have you come to play with us, too?”
“What job shall I get if I do?” returned Grace. “If this is a specimen of your treatment of good-natured helpers, I don’t fancy I care to be one!”
“You could be the carriage horse,” suggested George. “Or the chaplain .”
“Decidedly a difficult choice,” said a voice behind them, with the slight Scottish accent which all the elder Macintoshes still bore as a trace of their old homeland.
“Papa!” exclaimed the children at once.
“Veritably so,” said the doctor. “And I begin to think you in need of my professional services. What has Phil been doing to himself, to call for a carriage horse and a chaplain at once?”
“Only playing at Brock,” said George; and a volley of explanations followed, in which the confusion of military terms and illustrious incidents reminded Grace of her conversation with her sisters.
“But Papa,” she said, as soon as there was a lull in the busy chatter, “Did you tell Aunt Alice that the boys oughtn’t to play fighting anymore?”
“Not play fighting!” exclaimed George. “Why Papa, that is only a girls’ notion, for fear of someone getting hurt! No one but a coward could help looking up to someone so brave as General Brock!”
“It stands to reason that conflict, of a more or less severe nature, is incidental to human existence,” said Percy, who was rather philosophical, and very fond of long words.
“I shall fight if the other boys do!” cried Phil, not to be outdone by his elder brothers.
“But it is so dreadful,” objected Grace.
“It is noble, and courageous, and everything a brave country ought to be!” declared George.
“Courage in the face of what is dreadful,” said the doctor. “You have both a grain of truth. I am glad to see my boys admire what is noble, but recollect that not all that glitters is gold.”
“General Brock was brave,” said George persistently.
“So he was, and I would have you honour the bravery which faces death rather than shirk the duty to which one is pledged. But George, you are all old enough to understand me, yes and these troubled times call for a sober view of the topic. There is much to excite our enthusiasm in the conduct of wartime heroes. But we cannot close our eyes to the bloodshed and violence which are inseparable from their deeds. There may be glory in the courage which war calls forth, but there is no glory at all in causing the death of our fellow men.”
“I didn’t think of the other side,” said George more seriously than he had spoken before. “But, Papa, it is not that which we like to play at. It is the courage and the greatness. And you let Andrew Roberts go to the war as soon as it began, even though you couldn’t get another medical pupil to take his place. You told him it was a noble work.”
“Ah, but what work did I send him to?” said the doctor with a sigh. “He is not gone as a soldier, but as a physician—to save life, not to kill. That is, indeed, a noble work.”
“Oh, well, then I can still be a soldier after all,” said George with some relief. “I shall be a medical orderly, and it will be all right!”
“If you went, like Andrew, to fill the great need of tending to the wounded and dying,” said the doctor. “But recollect, my dear lad, that to be in the midst of hundreds of men engaged in constant warfare requires a great deal of moral strength. It is not easy to love one’s enemy when one is surrounded by those who do not—especially if one has only chosen the medical profession as a way of appeasing one’s conscience.” And the doctor gave a pinch to George’s cheek, as he saw his crestfallen face.
“I am sure I would not want you in the midst of all that fighting!” said Grace. “I don’t know how people can bear to think of their fathers and brothers being with the army!”
“That is all very well for a girl,” said Percy, who had been listening to the conversation in silence until now. “But you would not like us to be afraid of fighting, Papa?”
“No Percy,” said the doctor with a smile. “And you never need be. But the things which you play at for amusement when you are children, will mold your characters for your future life. Courage in the face of danger, bravery which will not yield its duty at any cost, fearless fighting in the battles to which we are called—these are all characteristics which I would have my children pursue. For are we not all engaged in a warfare far greater than any which are fought out by the armies of men?”
“That’s like Pilgrim’s Progress,” Philip observed.
“So it is,” said the doctor. “Every one of us has a battle to fight, just as Christian did, and just as many a brave warrior of Christ has fought before and since. Ought you to play fighting, did you ask? Yes, I would have you play it, and do more than play it. But take care that you do not mistake your enemy. Neither British nor American soldiers are your opponents. War on earth is a grave, tragic thing which was never part of God’s original creation, and which will not be part of the new heaven and earth. But the battle against right and wrong is very real and present – far closer to us than ever the battle at Queenston Heights was. And those who win—those who fight and die in its cause—are far greater heroes even than Brock in his last charge.”
“Well!” said George, a good deal impressed. “I guess we won’t play at that anymore. It doesn’t seem half so great when you think of it that way. I say, Percy! We will have a game of Christian, fighting his way to the Celestial City, tomorrow morning! That will be better than General Brock! And it will last longer, too. We’ll begin at the very beginning, and go straight through all the dangers and get caught by the giant, and escape again, and have no end of adventures. I can be Christian, and you can be Hopeful, and Phil—”
“No,” said Philip, with some alarm. “I do not mind being the Americans, but I will not be Giant Despair!”
There was a general laugh; and then the doctor moved off toward the barn, calling back that he had only returned to fetch a bottle of medicine, and that he had told Helen he would be back before long.
“And we ought to be inside for supper!” said Grace.
“It will be miserable to go in without Aunt Alice,” said Philip, returning to the subject which all four had forgotten for the moment. There was a general sigh.
“Well, at least Aunt Rose will be here tomorrow,” said Percy, whose philosophic composure was seldom ruffled for long, and whose spirits, although seldom high, were rarely subject to extravagant depression. His comment raised the spirits of the entire party. Grace recollected her father’s gentle, sympathizing younger sister, and felt certain of cheering and encouragement. George could not be denied a certain sort of curiosity as to whether Aunt Rose was the sort of person who minded boys climbing out the attic window and onto the roof, and whether she would tolerate snakes and toads being kept in bedrooms more than Aunt Alice had. And to little Philip, an aunt was an aunt, and the new Miss Macintosh would be sure to fill Aunt Alice’s shoes so fully and seamlessly that he had no doubts but that her arrival would mend all that was at present gloomy.
They entered the house to find the supper laid out on the parlor table. There was tea, in a little silver pot which had been handed down through the various generations back to one Miss Minerva Bradstock who had received the set in commemoration of her marriage to Mr. Fredrick Mackintosh in 1721. This information, it may be stated, has been preserved with the utmost exactness, being engraved upon the side of the said pot. And we may add, for the benefit of those to whom one of these names may not be quite new, that there is a little round portrait in one of the hallways of Highbank Castle which bears a little plaque carrying the name of Miss Minerva; and I dare say, although I did not ask, that the proprietress could assure our readers as to the exact history of her connection to the family.
But we deviate from our narrative. This tea-set was upon the table, and there was beside it some cold sliced goose, leftover from the Christmas feast, and a thick loaf of bread, to be served with butter and preserves. Also, a pretty china plate with slices of Christmas pudding, drizzled over with sauce, to be eaten as dessert.
The general mood grew brighter and brighter as the meal went forwards. Henry’s mood had been considerably lightened by sleeping off the fatigue of roast fowl and well wishes combined, and he was his usual calm, rational self, showing them all how they must put up a brave front; and counting, like all the rest, upon the new Miss Mackintosh supplying all the vacancies left by the first. Helen could never be sad long, and having had out her burst of misery, found it great fun to be lady of the house for one night at least, and distributed pudding and jam with such a liberal hand that the joviality of the younger portion of the party requires no further explanation. Mary, too, had come to a rational viewpoint, and though always grave and rather old for her age, she did not see any call to dampen the evening by being more so than usual when the cause for such glumness was beyond her control. Grace’s warm-hearted and sympathizing nature was always dictated, at least in a measure, by those around her, and thus she grew bright and happy under the influence of the general air. The plum pudding and very weak compound of milk and sugar with a trace of tea which Mary permitted to the younger company, were quite sufficient to restore good humor to George and Philip; and Percy, always the philosophic member of the family, took the rational view that people were bound to get married, it was uncomfortable to those left behind, but could not be helped, and there was no particular reason to make oneself unhappy about it.
And then, as everyone said, it was only for one night, until the new Miss Macintosh should arrive.
Dr. Macintosh, kept very bad hours. He himself claimed to thrive upon six hours sleep; thought himself particularly fortunate if he got five and a half; and went about cheerful and apparently well contented with a good deal less. It was not that he was never home, but rather that he was never predictable. His children saw a great deal of him—more, indeed, than did those of many doctors who were far less busy and had far more limited districts—but he could never tell one day where he would be or what he would be doing the next. The doctor maintained that this only brought home with more force the doctrine “take no thought for the morrow”; the townsfolk declared it would be the death of him; and Miss Macintosh, up to this point, had never interfered in the matter one way or the other.
Because the doctor’s hours were so irregular, the family had learned to proceed with their meals and employments, it being the understanding that he would join in his part if possibly able, and would arrive home the moment he could be spared, but that nothing was to wait for such uncertainties as sick people. Upon this particular night he came home so late that the little boys had been induced to go to bed by dint of many recommendations from Helen, a good deal of scolding from Mary, and a little coaxing from Grace. The elder ones were sitting round the fire, trying to decide whether they ought to follow them—as their father might be out all night—but no one liking to go, when the click of the latch was heard, and Dr. Macintosh walked into the room.
“Ah, Papa, here you are!” was the universal cry, as they all jumped up to take his coat and hat, find his slippers, and draw him into the best chair before the fire.
“Was Mrs. Preston worse again?” asked Grace, seeing he looked tired and worried.
“Mrs. Preston? No, she was rather better. I barely needed to look in at her,” but he gave a weary sigh as if he still felt oppressed. “No, I was detained by an unexpected case. I am afraid your grandmother has had another attack,” and he shook his head between pity and vexation. Mrs. Macintosh’s “attacks” were a perplexity to all whom they concerned. The doctor from the next town maintained that they were nothing more than the effects of an excitable mind upon a delicate constitution, and that they could be entirely overcome by turning her attention to something else. Mrs. Macintosh had been working herself up into a state certain to aggravate any pre-existing condition, by blaming her own weakness for every symptom she suffered. Then the surgeon from Fort George had counteracted this opinion, with the philosophic remark that such cases only pointed to the need for double care. This comforted the patient, but Dr. Macintosh himself, divided between these contrasting diagnoses, was twice as disturbed by her relatively un-alarming fits as he had ever been by the most serious, but well-comprehended case he had attended. He was torn between respect and honour for his mother, and the inward conviction that the attacks never came when her energies were otherwise occupied.
The marriage of her daughter, even though Alice had lived at the doctor’s for the past seven years, was the ostentatious cause of the current bout. The occupation for both mind and hands through the past months had so far prevented all alarming symptoms almost since Alice’s engagement, as to give the doctor very bright hopes for the future; and these being suddenly dashed, only added to the perplexity of the case. Whatever the cause, and whatever course the unfortunate son should settle upon as a future preventative, it was clear that her present state would be only worsened by any more changes in her own house.
“Consequently,” said the doctor, his feelings somewhat relieved by the recitation. “It is impossible for your Aunt Rose to leave her until she is better. She was very sorry for it, poor dear, and called me back, after Rose had gone down to fetch some tea, to consult me privately whether I was quite sure I could spare her. No, even if it is the fault of dwelling always upon her health, no one can say she does not think of others! And though I could wish she had cultivated more gumption—to use a very colonial word—when she was stronger, this is no time for showing her so. It would be disastrous to have her preying upon her mind with the thought that Rose ought to be here and yet thinking it impossible to spare her. So I told her you were all getting to be great big girls and capital house keepers, and should have a very jolly time being Miss Macintosh until she was well. And indeed, she was so pleased with the notion, and sent you all so many good-natured bits of housewifely advice, that her pulse was already better when I left her. That may be proof of Barber’s theory, but then again it is often so in nervous attacks, and that does not prove it to be her fault!” And the poor doctor gave a weary shake of his head, unable to say that the mind did not affect the body, but unwilling to condemn his mother by allowing it.
“And so Aunt Rose is not coming at all?” said Grace rather blankly.
“Not until Grandmamma is better, which we all trust and pray will not be long,” said Dr. Macintosh, regaining his usual cheerful air. “And in the meantime,” his eyes twinkled as he rose and stepped out into the hall, “Your aunt has sent you a legacy which she received from the former Miss Macintosh, and which she regards as an emblem of office.”
He brought back a sturdy box, which upon opening proved to contain two high stacks of gilt-edged paper, each sheet headed with an elaborate scroll and the title “Miss Macintosh, Chiveley, Bentford,” and which elicited a burst of laughter from the whole company. For be in known that Aunt Alice, about five years earlier, had ordered a set of this ornamental note paper. But, not realizing the units by which they were sold, she had unknowingly requested not eighty-five sheets, but eighty-five dozen, which supply outlasted the name and address of the owner.
“Oh, there is such a great deal left,” cried Grace, looking into the box and then raising her round face full of mirthful wonder.
“I had hoped her wedding notes would have seen the last of it,” remarked Mary, though even her eyes were twinkling.
“It is for Helen to fill up now,” said her father with a laugh. “We will see which shall run out first: Miss Macintosh or her notes!”
And thus, with a good deal of merry teasing, the party separated for the night; Christmas Day having brought them unexpected new duties and responsibilities. But, though realizing a great deal of the task before them, the sensations of the three young daughters as they laid their heads on their pillows were more of excitement and vigor than forebodings. What young lady after all, is insensible of the charms of being for a short time the mistress of the house? Does not a thrill of delight accompany the thought of reaching the post which is a woman’s honour, as well as duty? Though trials must attend the blessing, youth and hopes soar above them, and are invigorated, rather than intimidated, by the prospect. And so it was that the last week of 1812 began.
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