A STORY FOR CHRISTMAS
by H.R.F Keating

 Miss Unwin spent only one Christmas at Marlstone Manor and it was not a happy one. In part this was because, with the untimely death of Lady Frances Adair, her two little daughters—ten-year-old Maria and eight-year-old Florence—had been taken by their fierce old grandmother, Lady Maynooth, to her home in Ireland for a few weeks. Without the children to look after, Miss Unwin felt herself to be in an unpleasantly awkward position.
As governess it had been her duty to oversee every aspect of her charges' daily lives, as Lady Frances—even before her sudden final illness—had been something of an invalid. So, except during the holidays, Miss Unwin gave the two little girls lessons in the schoolroom in the mornings and in the afternoons she took them for walks, pointing out interesting natural phenomena in Sir Stephen Adair's large park.
Now, with no duties, she did not feel it right to be idle all day. It was not, she felt, entirely proper to sit comfortably with the ladies in the drawing room with nothing more to do than her 'work,'—that obligatory stitching activity which was the lot of all women—while the gentlemen Christmas guests were out shooting, or to sit with a book in the evenings as if she had—like the lady Christmas guests in the house—nothing else to do. It felt even more wrong to come to the table at mealtimes and, taking her lowly place there, to eat and drink what those who had been invited to the Manor ate and drank.
Still when various tasks were abruptly imposed upon her she could not help experiencing a slight feeling of resentment. Was it a governess' duty to put more coals on the fire? No. For that, a bell should be rung, a maid summoned, directions given. Was it her duty to be down at breakfast before anyone else, even though when the children had been present she had done mat as a matter of course? And when in the breakfast room, should she be asked to fetch and carry? No. But asked she often was, and fetch and carry she did.
The heaviest burden in her life, however, was an expectation which was never spoken of. She knew it was her duty to avoid situations where she might overhear something which a mere governess should not hear. Yet any decisions about what to hear and what not to hear she had to make by herself in silence, without advice—often finding herself having to make a rapid retreat at a moment's notice. There had been the time, for instance, shortly before old Lady Maynooth had left with Maria, Florence, and her maid for Ireland when it had been impossible not to betray, as she was quietly closing the half-open door, the fact that she was hearing a snatch of conversation between Sir Stephen and his mother.
She had actually overheard Lady Maynooth, who prided herself always on her 'plain speaking,' say to Sir Stephen, bereaved less than a month earlier, "You must marry again, you know. The family must have an heir."
She had tried to blot this from her memory. But her memory was wonderfully retentive, and always had been. Throughout her life disparate pieces of information which she had acquired years before would come back from somewhere deep in her memory and prove useful to her in whatever circumstances she found herself in. It was her retentive memory which had lifted her to her present position from her childhood in the depths of the workhouse, where the master, one Mr. Bumble, had named orphans 'on the alphabetical principle' as they had arrived. At her birth he had called her Polly Unwin. 'Polly,' a name she had intensely disliked, she had changed to 'Harriet' as soon as she had gotten the chance.

So when, on Christmas Eve, Harriet Unwin was ordered—it was the only word to describe the way she had been spoken to—to tell the assembled company a story, she felt that familiar resentment once more.
The gentlemen had come back from their after-dinner port and tea had been drunk, but it was still too early to take candles and go up to bed. Someone proposed that a tale round the Yule log fire would be just the thing. Each of the guests in turn declined to produce such a Christmas story while somehow managing to indicate that if they had told one, it would have been a tale indeed.
Then dark-featured Sir Stephen, the widower, issued his order.
"Miss Unwin, I heard you telling some sort of a tale to the girls once, and they seemed to be listening well enough. You give us a story."
There was a murmur of agreement. Sir Stephen gave a low footstool an idle shove with his foot, moving it to a position of prominence. Miss Unwin, little though she liked the task being thrust upon her, was constrained then to come forward, where all the company could see her, and to begin. Out of nothing.
For perhaps half a long minute she sat there on her low stool. Then, at the very last second she felt her audience's patience would hold, the idea suddenly came to her. She had no time to think about whether this story was going to please her listeners or not. Indeed, she hardly had time to work out how, after the beginning that had flashed into her mind, the story was going to continue. True, she had entertained her young charges with stories, but to come up with a story for a group of assembled guests was a new experience altogether. Would it be long enough? Or, on the other hand, would she find herself embroiled in so many incidents and accountings that there would come a moment, with the story still far from its end, when Sir Stephen—at the sight perhaps of a yawning guest— would simply stand up and say, "Miss Unwin, that will do."
As if I have any notion, she thought, pitchforked into the tale as I have been, how that end is to be reached. Or even, when it comes, what it will be—what the unyielding direction of my story (a story scarcely in my head as yet) will decree must be the end.
But now it must begin. She gave the smallest of little throat-clearing coughs and launched herself.
"Once upon a time there was a woman by the name of Mrs. Pickell...."
She had started the story as she would have for the children. But never mind. Yet where had that name come from? Why had it come? Sir Stephen, before she had settled herself on her low stool and spread her good grey merino skirt wide round her, had moved his chair so that he was sitting directly opposite. And surely a flicker of a frown had appeared on his long fine-featured face.
Why can that be—that look of disapproval? Is it because somehow this name that's come into my head indicates that the story is going to be one of low life—which he considers unsuitable for such company as this? Or is it something else?
But I cannot come to a halt already.
"Mrs. Pickell, who was the wife of a pawnshop owner, had but one aim in life. She wanted to have a merry Christmas. She wanted it, yes, for herself—to make up for all the difficulties and disappointments her married days had brought her. Her husband, Nathaniel, was a miser who would have put Mr. Dickens' Scrooge to shame. But she also wanted a merry Christmas for her children's sake. There were four of them now—two boys, aged five and six, a girl of three, and the baby—and never in all their lives had they had a good Christmas dinner or indeed any truly joyful celebration."
Yes. Surely this was the sort of story that would make the well-fed guests at the Manor feel a warm sense of charitable benevolence for their fellows, yet cause them no immediate concern. And, thank goodness, I gave the poor children in the story different ages from those of little motherless Maria and Florence. No one, at this moment, will want to be reminded of my two charges. Everyone here knows what cold comfort the Countess of Maynooth, that dragon, is likely dispensing in Ireland.
But go on. Keep on.
"This year, however, Mrs. Pickell had made up her mind. Her children were going to have a Christmas to remember. Yes, she said to herself, on every other day of the year they have to eat the porridge that Nathaniel says is all they need—breakfast and dinner both. But on Christmas Day, when it comes, they are going to eat goose.
"She had laid her plans for that long ago. Money was what she needed to make her wish come true, and money was what, little by little, she had collected. How had she done it? Nathaniel Pickell, ungiving at home as he was ungiving when the poor of the neighbourhood brought their wretched bits and pieces to his pawnshop, never allowed her money to spend. All she got was the cost of the monthly sack of oats, from which she made the porridge that, day after day, she fed them all.
"Well, this is how she had done it. Hardening her heart against the fears that assailed her, she had locked her small children into the family's wretched hovel of a house. Then she had set off through the long streets to a more prosperous neighbourhood and found work as a charwoman. It had paid little. But day by day her earnings had mounted up until she had just enough to buy the cheapest goose which Mr. Tubb, the butcher, had hanging at the back of his shop."
Yes, this is going quite well. They're listening, even the gentlemen. I can see a bleary touch of good feeling in their eyes. Mr. Dickens would be proud of me.
But keep on, keep on.
"However, Mrs. Pickell—"
Did I catch that fierce little frown on Sir Stephen's face again? Perhaps, if it seems to offend him somehow, I should not refer to my heroine—if that is what she is turning out to be—by that name?
But don't come to a stop, whatever I do.
"However, Mrs. P. had no intention of simply going along on Christmas Eve to Mr. Tubb's shop and bringing back that scrawny goose. She knew better than that.
"If she did, Nathaniel would fly into the most terrible rage at the thought that she had spent money—money that should by right of law be his—on such an unnecessary treat. Nor could she confess that she had left the children locked up in the house while she had indulged herself in acquiring money to pay for the bird.
"No, such things were better kept secret, she thought—like the time when Nathaniel had refused her the few pence she had needed to buy some rat poison to dispose of the nasty creatures who had found her sack of oats and were nibbling away at the bottom of it almost as fast as she was scooping out from the top. That time she had resorted to an act as daring as buying Mr. Tubb's spindle-shanked goose. She had stolen—yes, stolen—a small quantity of ratbane from a druggist's shop, first ordering it, then pretending she had heard a noise from the back of the shop and, while the old owner had turned to see what was the matter, snatching just enough as she needed.
"Now she contrived a similar act of deception. She took Mr. Tubb into her confidence, and he—not without a twinkle in his eye—agreed to have the cheap goose ready and waiting. At a time he knew Nathaniel would be coming by, he would quickly hang it up in the front of the shop with a large label attached pricing it at a ridiculously small sum, where it was bound to catch his eye,. They both agreed that, with such an extraordinary bargain glaringly there, Mr. Pickell, when he passed by, would—"
Bother, I shouldn't have given him that name again and risked another angry frown.
"He— He would be bound to buy. But— But—"
No, I mustn't stop. I mustn't lose their attention. Go on, go on.
"But, alas, Mr. Pickell did pass by."
One of the gentlemen at the back is laughing. Thank goodness, thank goodness.
Quickly she picked up the thread of the tale.
"The next evening, when Mrs.— Mrs. P. nipped out to his shop just before it closed, Mr. Tubb could hardly contain his laughter. 'He passed right by,'  he chortled. 'Oh, he looked at that goose and its label all right. And then he walked on. He just walked on'  So, Mrs. P. had to think again. She was by now even more determined that, come Christmas Day, her children would eat goose, however small the helpings. So this is what she did next. The idea came to her even before Mr. Tubb had finished chuckling."
Yes, Miss Unwin thought, under her breath as it were, the idea must come to Mrs. Pickell in the same way the ideas for this story are coming to me. Out of nowhere.
"She took the goose she had already paid for and tucked it under her tattered shawl. It was such a wretched object that it hid itself nicely there. And then she set off for the place her wits had suggested to her. Because, and this you must know, Nathaniel—"
Yes, call him plain Nathaniel. Don't mention his full name.
"... miser though he was, did have one weakness. Every night he allowed himself to smoke one pipe of tobacco. In secret. The pipe was small enough—a churchwarden—and he kept it hidden in a deep crack in a stone wall that stood on a dank, dark patch of neglected land behind the local chapel. There he would stand, every night of the year, by moonlight or huddled to one side to shelter against falling rain, and have his smoke.
"He believed that no one had any notion of where he was or what he was doing. But one night long before, his wife had had to go hurrying to a neighbour to borrow a little oil of cinnamon when her first-born had a cough that was rocking his frail body to and fro. She had just glimpsed, as she had scurried by, the little burning glow at the end of the long stem of that churchwarden pipe, and thus had discovered her husband's secret—though she had never told another soul about it.
"So it was to that little square-shaped piece of neglected land, always squashy with mud (except in high summer), that she went now. In its darkest corner just underneath the crack in the wall where Nathaniel's churchwarden was tucked away, she laid the scrawny goose still enclosed in the half-sheet of newspaper Mr. Tubb had wrapped it in. Now, she thought, Nathaniel cannot fail to seize on the gift that chance has left him."
Miss Unwin raised her eyes for a moment. Yes, she could see in the expressions on the faces of most of her audience—one or two of them, she guessed, were too slow ever to respond to even the most blatant of expectations—that the little trap she had set as she had unwound her tale had well and truly caught them. They knew that, despite the words Nathaniel cannot fail to seize on the gift, somehow he was going to fail.
But how? Have I even thought of that? Yes, of course I have, though I hardly knew it as I uttered the words that set my trap.
My trap? But am I not setting another trap with every sentence I put together? A trap I was only half aware of way in the back of my mind when the idea for this seemingly innocent little story planted itself in my head along with the name Mrs. Pickell and the way that, unlike myself, I slurred over that Mrs	
Do I want to go on until I see whether my trap has caught the person it was intended for? What will happen if it does? What will it mean if it does not?
But go on. Keep on. There's nothing else I can do now.
"To begin with it looked as if Mrs. P.'s last desperate plan was going to succeed. Nathaniel found the scrawny bird. And he brought it home. And he boasted about how clever he had been to have gotten hold of it. But then ...."
Oh, how expectant they look.
"Then he said, with a terrible leer, 'I'm going to take this fine bird tomorrow straight round to Mr. Tubb, and I'm going to sell it to him for a pretty penny.
They are laughing again. With delight. They are laughing— almost all of them.
But— But will they laugh when my bigger trap—the one I seem to be setting with each sentence of this story—is sprung? Or will they turn on me? Will I be chased out of the house? Might I even find myself, before this night is over, in a police station cell accused of the worst of slanders?
But go on, go on. The die is cast.
"There were, however, still a few more days before Christmas, and during them Mrs. Pickell—"
Yes, don't conceal that name any more. It must work out its message, come what may.
"Msss Pickell—"
Miss Unwin had slurred over that Mrs. even to an unlikely extent. Opposite, in the firelight, she saw more clearly than ever that frown of angry disquiet.
"... went out once more, leaving her children locked in the house, despite the danger of fire and a hundred and one other disasters, and taking up the charwoman's work she had done before. Her employer was generous at that season of goodwill, and she soon made enough to go to Mr. Tubb once more and offer to buy again the twice-sold goose. But...."
Oh, should I be playing these story-games when something so much more serious is in play?
Then, while her listeners' expectations were rustling round the attentive circle, she let her mind, for a few instants, go back to the possible discovery she had made. What it was that was causing these thoughts to come unbidden into her mind.
Some months earlier, Marlstone Manor had been invaded by an odour. A highly unpleasant odour. It had arrived quite suddenly, and it had shown no intention of departing. Various members of the household, from the ever-weak Lady Frances (whom it had sent to her bed) to the lowliest kitchen maid, had offered their views on what exactly the foul smell, which had eventually inexplicably disappeared, reeked of. But no one had agreed. Only Miss Unwin, still comparatively new to the house and unwilling to put herself forward, had the definitive answer. Garlic. The big house was smelling and smelling of garlic.
It is quite plain, she had told herself, why no one else has identified the odour. Garlic, though it grows in England well enough, is not eaten here. It is considered a beastly French taste. It is only because of the time that I was governess to Mme. Guillaume's little Amelie that I know about it and I would like just occasionally to savour it again.
But, surely, she had asked herself, a smell this strong, so pervasive, seemingly renewed and renewed, cannot be produced by the crushing of garlic bulbs, in however large a quantity. So what is making it? And then she knew. Her gift of recall came to her aid.
It had been something she had read about long ago in another household while she was consulting the encyclopaedia to find out about the healing herb arnica, (The little daughter of the house had badly bruised herself and Harriet wanted to find out more about the use of arnica as a remedy.) and, having done so, had taken a few moments to glance at the next entry in the encyclopaedia: Arsenic. It was then she had come across three romantically mysterious words: mispickel, realgar, and orpiment. They described, she learnt, substances produced in the manufacture of white arsenic, which process gave rise as well to a powerful odour much like that of garlic. Of course, those three romantic words had stayed lodged in her memory.
At the time she had realised what must be causing the odour pervading Marlstone Manor, she had thought little of her discovery. True, she had faintly wondered whether the smell might have been linked to the long hours Sir Stephen spent shut away in the gunroom. She knew that there must be plentiful supplies of lead shot in the gunroom and that—another odd piece of information she'd picked up—to achieve the optimum weight for accurate shooting, shot needed a small admixture of arsenic. But she had said nothing. It would hardly have done to accuse her employer of being the cause of the noxious odour.
But my story, my story. And what, moment by moment with every new twist and turn, it is revealing to me. The knowledge that, I believe now, I had not dared to let myself fully accept before.
Miss Unwin gave a little cough, as if to clear a temporary dryness in her throat.
"But, no, good Mrs. Pickell was to be thwarted once again. When she went to Mr. Tubb with the same amount of money that had earlier bought her the wretched goose he told her, with a sad shake of his head, that, alas, he could not sell it now for such a small sum. 'The truth «,' he said, 'that when old Nathaniel sold me that goose, he bargained and bargained so hard that I found—oh, he's such a mean old rogue, begging you pardon—till I found I'd paid him more for it than I'd paid the dame who breeds 'em when I'd first collected it from her.'
"For a few minutes then, wending her way sadly back home, Mrs. Pickell thought that this would once again be a year when their Christmas dinner would consist of the porridge that made their dinner and their breakfast on every other day of the year. But then she revolted. No, she would not let that happen. What I'll do —"
Once more Miss Unwin cast a quick glance over the ranged faces of her audience. Yes, they were waiting. What would Mrs. Pickell do?
"What I'll do, Msss Pickell thought, is I'll commit a crime. I'll steal that bird, the way I stole the ratbane. I'm driven to it, driven to it, and l'll do it. Never mind that I've been a law-abiding soul as long as I've lived. When things get bad enough, when it's push from there and push from here till you don't know whether you're on your head or your heeh, then nobody can hold out."
A deep breath. One steady glance at the recently bereaved owner of Marlstone Manor. And the story's next words.
"Then anybody can commit a crime. Even murder."
A sudden choking sound.
In the firelight Miss Unwin saw that the guests were now looking, almost as one, at Sir Stephen's deathly white face.
"Miss Unwin," his voice rang out harshly, "that will do."