The drive back to Great Mop was more filled with glory than anything she had ever experienced. The wagonette creaked over bare hilltops and plunged downwards into the chequered darknesses of unknown winter woods. All the stars shook their glittering spears overhead. Turning this way and that to look at them, the frost pinched her cheeks.
That evening she asked Mrs. Leak if she would lend her some books. From Mrs. Leak’s library she chose Mehalah, by the Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould, and an anonymous work of information called Enquire Within Upon Everything. The next morning was fine and sunny. She spent it by the parlour fire, reading. When she read bits of Mehalah she thought how romantic it would be to live in the Essex Marshes. From Enquire Within Upon Everything she learned how gentlemen’s hats if plunged in a bath of logwood will come out with a dash of respectability, and that ruins are best constructed of cork. During the afternoon she learned other valuable facts like these, and fell asleep. On the following morning she fell asleep again, in a beechwood, curled up in a heap of dead leaves. After that she had no more trouble. Life becomes simple if one does nothing about it. Laura did nothing about anything for days and days till Mrs. Leak said: “We shall soon be having Christmas, miss.”
Christmas! So it had caught them all again. By now the provident Caroline herself was suffering the eleventh hour in Oxford Street. But here even Christmas was made easy.
Laura spent a happy afternoon choosing presents at the village shop. For Henry she bought a bottle of ginger wine, a pair of leather gaiters, and some highly recommended tincture of sassafras for his winter cough. For Caroline she bought an extensive parcel—all the shop had, in fact—of variously coloured rug-wools, and a pound’s worth of assorted stamps. For Sibyl she bought some tinned fruits, some sugar-biscuits, and a pink knitted bed-jacket. For Fancy and Marion respectively she bought a Swanee flute and a box with Ely Cathedral on the lid, containing string, which Mrs. Trumpet was very glad to see the last of, as it had been forced upon her by a traveller, and had not hit the taste of the village. To her great-nephew and great-nieces she sent postal orders for one guinea, and pink gauze stockings filled with tin toys. These she knew would please, for she had always wanted one herself. For Dunlop she bought a useful buttonhook. Acquaintances and minor relations were greeted with picture postcards, either photographs of the local War Memorial Hall and Institute, or a coloured view of some sweet-peas with the motto: “Kind Thoughts from Great Mop.” A postcard of the latter kind was also enclosed with each of the presents.
Titus was rather more difficult to suit. But by good luck she noticed two heavy glass jars such as old-fashioned druggists use. These were not amongst Mrs. Trumpet’s wares—she kept linen buttons in the one and horn buttons in the other; but she was anxious to oblige such a magnificent customer and quite ready to sell her anything that she wanted. She was about to empty out the buttons when Laura stopped her. “You must keep some for your customers, Mrs. Trumpet. They may want to put them in their Christmas puddings,” Laura was losing her head a little with excitement. “But I should like to send about three dozen of each sort, if you can spare them. Buttons are always useful.”
“Yes, miss. Shall I put in some linen thread too?”
Mrs. Trumpet was a stout, obliging woman. She promised to do up all the parcels in thick brown paper and send them off three days before Christmas. As Laura stepped out of the shop in triumph, she exclaimed: “Well, that’s done it!”
For the life of her she could not have said in what sense the words were intended. She was divided between admiration for her useful and well-chosen gifts and delight in affronting a kind of good taste which she believed to be merely self-esteem.
Although she had chosen presents with such care for her relations, Laura was surprised when counter presents arrived from them. She had not thought of them as remembering her. Their presents were all of a warm nature; they insisted upon that bleakness and draughtiness which their senders had foretold. When Caroline wrote to thank Laura, she said:
“I have started to make you a nice warm coverlet out of those pretty wools you sent. I think it will look very cheerful and variegated. I often feel quite worried to think of you upon those windswept hills. And from all I hear you have a great many woods round you, and I’m afraid all the decaying leaves must make the place damp.”
Heaping coals of fire was a religious occupation. Laura rather admired Caroline for the neat turn of the wrist with which she heaped these.
In spite of the general determination of her family that she should feel the cold Laura lived at Great Mop very comfortably. Mrs. Leak was an excellent cook; she attended to her lodger civilly and kindly enough, made no comments, and showed no curiosity. At times Laura felt as though she had exchanged one Caroline for another. Mrs. Leak was not, apparently, a religious woman. There were no texts on her walls, and when Laura asked for the loan of a Bible Mrs. Leak took a little time to produce it, and blew on the cover before she handed it over. But like Caroline, she gave the impression that her kingdom was not of this world. Laura liked her,
