When Christmas Day was as yet a fortnight off, notes of preparation began to sound through the house in Gower Place. There was anxious reckoning-up of resources and eager devising of extra and unwonted means of supply, in order that the season might lack nothing of its due celebration. Let us see how matters stood, what chances there were of the god of gluttony and surfeit being gladdened with an appropriate sacrifice.
In the first place several of the members of the family were enrolled in the “goose club;” that is to say, they had each paid fourpence a week at a neighbouring public-house during the last half year, in acknowledgment of which patronage the landlord supplied each of them with a Christmas goose. Then Mrs. Pettindund and two of her daughters were in the “grocer’s club;” that is to say, they had each paid the sum of threepence weekly since the month of May, in return for which they now rejoiced in the receipt of two pint bottles of port wine, of one or two large plum cakes, and of sundry pounds of tea, coffee and sugar. (It is curious, bye-the-by, how incapable the working classes, as a rule, are of keeping their own savings. The public-house landlord, or the grocer, or the benefit society is quite welcome to a few shillings a week, provided they return occasionally something like a tenth of what they have received). These provisions were all very well as stop-gaps, but in the serious business of the feast they went for nothing. Accordingly, in each of the three weeks immediately preceding Christmas, Mrs. Pettindund had, with the utmost efforts, succeeded in putting aside the sum of one pound out of her regular receipts. That money would go towards supplying joints, and would not be any too much. Then, the eldest Miss Pettindund had paid repeated visits of late to a pawnbroker’s shop at no great distance, in the course of which sundry coats and trousers, sheets and blankets, hoots, watches, rings, necklaces, bracelets, &c., had become converted into a very respectable little sum of current cash. But neither was this sufficient, for it must be remembered that the Pettindunds took a serious view of the obligations of the season; anything less than deep carousal from Christmas Eve to the morning of the first day of January would have been desecration in their eyes. Accordingly Mrs. Pettindund herself paid a visit to a familiar loan office, where she procured, without difficulty, on the security of her house and furniture, the sum of fifteen pounds. And now at length, when this last sum had been carefully put away in the tea caddy, together with the three pounds before mentioned, and the harvest reaped at the pawnbroker’s, family quietly rested till the arrival of Christmas Eve. This pause was absolutely necessary. It was like the diver taking a long breath before he springs into the water, like the athlete reposing his sinews for a moment before he tries an enormous effort of strength.
Early on the eventful day which precedes Christmas the Pettindund family was stirring to some purpose. To-day were to be baked an utterly incalculable number of mince-pies, together with half a dozen very large plum-puddings, destined to be eaten cold on the morrow. The plum-pudding, the weight of which I dare not guess at, was now made and received its first boiling, but that would have to be reboiled on the following day. To-day were to be roasted some six. or seven ducks, these also to be eaten cold on Christmas and the ensuing days. The turkey would not be boiled, of course, till tomorrow, and till then were reserved the two ponderous masses of beef, which, on account of their size, would be entrusted to the tender care of the baker. This morning, too, Mrs. Pettindund, happening to be quenching a momentary thirst at the public-house, purchased, as it were, en passant, a quart bottle of brandy and two similar sized bottles of the beverage known as “Old Tom.”
“Now mind yer don’t keep my Moggie a waitin’ when she comes for the liquor to-night an’ tomorrow,” was Mrs. Pettindund’s parting injunction to the landlord; to which the latter replied with a wink of each eye, and the exclamation, “All serene!”
That evening — Christmas Eve — only some two or three friends were expected. They arrived between eight and nine o’clock, and began by satisfying their hunger. I shall not endeavour to find a name for this meal and those that follow. At this period such purely factitious distinctions were lost sight of by the Pettindunds; the tables were spread and folks ate, all day and night. This evening, however, the mirth was kept within moderate bounds. All present knew by experience the folly of wasting one’s energy in mere preliminaries. To be sure Mr. Pettindund got very drunk and passed the night on the kitchen hearth-rug, but that was a matter of course, an event which occurred so repeatedly that no one took any notice of it. By three o’clock in the morning the house was at rest.
At ten on the following morning — Christmas morning — the earliest guests began to appear. The very first to arrive was Jim Glibbery. Jim was a carter, and as good as engaged to the eldest Miss Pettindund; so that his arrival excited no particular attention, he being regarded as one of the family. Jim took a seat by the kitchen fire, despatched Moggie for a pot of “six ale,” and undertook to watch that the saucepans on the fire did not boil over. When Mr. and Mrs. Tudge and the three little Tudges came in, however, it was a different thing. Here there was a grand reception. The visitors were shown into the best room and all the Pettindunds crowded to greet them. Mr. Tudge was, in fact, a very well-to-do oilman, and so could not be neglected. It was this gentleman’s habit to flirt jestingly with the eldest Miss Pettindund, to the vast exasperation of his wife. Accordingly when this object of his affections entered the room, he bestowed a sounding smack upon her lips, and in return received no less sounding a smack on each ear, one from the maiden herself, one from the angry Mrs. Tudge.
“Well, I’m damned!” he exclaimed, without paying the least attention to these marks of favour, “here’s Sarah with a new dress on! ‘Ev yer wet it, Sarah, eh?”
“Not yet, Mr. Tudge,” replied the damsel, with a becoming leer at herself in a glass hard by.
“Then, damn me!” cried Mr. Tudge, “where’s that Moggie o’ yourn? Here, Moggie, young ’un. Run for two pots of ‘four ale’ with a quartern of Old Tom in it! D’ye ‘ear? Here’s a two bob piece, and mind yer bring the right change”
The uninitiated reader must be informed that the “wetting” of a new garment means drinking the health of its wearer. Before many minutes Moggie returned with the prescribed compound in a huge tin can, into which each individual dipped his or her glass till it was all finished. But by this time numerous other visitors had arrived. Prominent among these was young Mr. Spinks, a grocer’s counterman, who had an eye upon another Miss Pettindund. He was always the funny man of the party. As he entered the room he struck an attitude and exclaimed in a stagey voice —
“Bring forth the lush!”
“Ain’t got none!” screamed his Miss Pettindund. “Just finished!”
“So! Then, Moggie, run and get me a ‘alfporth o’ four ‘alf, and blast the hexpense!”
This jest was received with perfect shrieks of laughter, which continued to be excited by sallies of the same nature till the house was quite full of visitors, and at length dinner was ready. Then indeed for a time there was silence, save f or the unceasing clatter of knives and forks and the audible evidences of mastication; it would be difficult to say which of these sounds predominated. The two masses of beef disappeared like tall grass before the scythe of a sturdy mower. If any guest was incommoded owing to Mrs. Pettindund’s inability to carve quickly enough, he amused himself with half a duck or a considerable fraction of turkey till his turn came. Those who were so unfortunate as to have been beyond reach of these entrées, solaced themselves with mince pies and celery alternately. Poor Moggie’s life became a burden to her. Her duty it was to see that every guest’s glass was kept filled, in the execution of which she rapidly emptied two large cans, ordinarily used for carrying up water into the lodgers’ bed-rooms. When these contained no more she hurried for a fresh supply, and on her return was roundly cursed for having been so long. Mr. Spinks went the length of throwing a turkey’s leg-bone at the unfortunate child’s head, and was loudly applauded for the ingenuity of the joke.
Gorged into silence, the guests at length leaned back in their chairs, and for a few minutes amused themselves only with picking their teeth. It was the preparation for an outburst of enthusiasm. When, after a few minutes, two Misses Pettindund struggled in under the weight of a mountain of plum-pudding, which had been drenched with brandy and then set on fire, each person in the room arose and gave utterance to a yell which must have been heard in Tottenham Court Road. The cry seemed to have aided the process of digestion; the capacity of all appeared renewed. By this time ale was no longer in request, but bottles of spirits circulated round the table, and Moggie was at hand with a kettle of boiling water. The scene now baffles description. Every one talked and nobody listened. Most of the men swore, not a few told disgusting stories, a few interchanged expletives or even blows, the women shrieked and squabbled indiscriminately. At this period Mrs. Pettindund, happening to go downstairs into the kitchen, caught Moggie — who had had nothing to eat all day, bye-the-by — in the act of demolishing some fragments of duck which had been left. With a howl of rage and a curse which it would defile the very ink to trace, she caught up the nearest object, which happened to be an empty bottle, and hurled it at the child. Luckily her aim was not very steady, and Moggie was only bruised on the shoulder. With a yell of pain, the wretched child darted past her mother and up into the street, where she waited out of sight till she thought the incident had been forgotten.
And so the short day darkened into night. Shutters were now closed, and blinds drawn down, and two or three rooms prepared for dancing. The fact that these rooms were only about twelve feet square was no obstacle. The eldest Miss Pettindund then began to hammer a waltz on the piano, which had been carried out in the hall in order that its sounds might penetrate as far as possible, and dancing forthwith commenced. Before long the house seemed to shake and quiver to its foundations. Here a couple, whirling themselves into insensate giddiness, would fall with a heavy crash upon the floor, and two or three other couples stumbling over them, the whole room would become a mass of struggling, kicking and cursing humanity, if the latter word be not grossly inappropriate. At one point two young men became obnoxious to each other in consequence of their attentions to the same young woman. From expostulations they proceeded to recriminations, and thence rapidly to blows. Vain were the efforts of the bystanders to separate them. Unable long to stand, from the excess of liquor they had imbibed, the two rolled in each other’s embraces from end to end of the room. They bit, they scratched, they tore, they kicked, had not their wonted vigour been somewhat enfeebled, one of them would without doubt have been killed. In a few minutes their faces were indistinguishable from streaming blood, their waistcoats were rent open, their collars and neck-cloths were scattered to the winds. At length they were both overpowered by pure weight of numbers, Mrs. Tudge, together with three stout women, fairly falling upon the one, and Mrs. Pettindund with all her daughters actually sitting upon the other. Most of the men present were enraged at this result. Their ferocity was excited, and they longed for the sight of blood. They satisfied themselves, however, with the anticipation of the match being fought out on the morrow when there would be no women to interfere.
Matters had been once more brought to a pacific state, and Miss Pettindund had recommenced to hammer upon the piano, when she suddenly stopped.
“What is it?” yelled half a dozen voices.
“A knock at the door,” was the reply. “Fire away! I’ll go.”
And she accordingly went and opened the door. Outside in the black street a fierce snowstorm was raging. The girl’s breath was stopped by the blast which blew into her face as she held the door and peered out to see who it was. A tall woman’s figure, clad in a ragged black dress which only showed here and there through the cleaving snowflakes, and carrying some kind of bundle in a large shawl, was all that Miss Pettindund could discern.
“Why it’s a beggar!” she exclaimed, indignantly. “Get away with yer! We’ve enough to do to make our own living, these hard times, without givin’ to beggars. Now, you be orff!”
The woman stepped forward, reaching out with one long, bare arm, and saying something which the fierce blasts of wind and the riot within the house rendered inaudible.
“I’ve nothink to say to yer!” shrieked Miss Pettindund; and she was on the point of exerting her whole strength to slam to the door, when the beggar actually advanced into the hall.
“Sarah! Don’t you know me?” she cried, in a hoarse voice.
As the light from the hall-lamp fell upon her face, Miss Pettindund saw that it was Carrie Mitchell. With a horrified scream she ran into the front parlour, calling out — “Ma! ma!”
“What is it, child?” screeched Mrs. Pettindund, in reply. “Ugh! who’s gone an’ left that front door open? I’m froze to death. Whatever’s the matter, Sarah?”
“Oh, my God, ma!” cried the young lady. “Here’s a go! Come and look here!”
In a moment, a dozen people had crowded into the hall, and were gazing with astonishment on the tall figure, half white, half black, from whom the melted snow was running like a stream on to the floor.
“What the devil’s all this about?” blustered Mr. Tudge. “Here, get you out o’ this ’ere ’ouse!”
“Aunt!” cried the intruder, struggling to make herself understood with a voice which exposure to the weather had made so hoarse and feeble that it could scarcely be heard. “Aunt! let me in! — Let me sit in the kitchen! My baby will be frozen to death!”
“Oh, God! she’s got a baby!” screamed all the Misses Pettindund together.
“What! Carrie Mitchell!” exclaimed Mrs. Pettindund. “She a comin’ ’ere in that way! Well, I’m blowed! Isn’t it like her impudence! Now, come, trot! I’ve nothing to do with people of your class. Go somewhere else, and don’t come to ‘spectable ‘ouses. You know well enough where to go, trust you! I ain’t got nothin’ for yer, I tell yer; go!”
One cry of despair came from the lips of the outcast, but even that was scarcely heard amid the yell of approval with which the guests greeted Mrs. Pettindund’s determination. The latter, never blest with a very good temper, became a fiend when under the influence of drink. Laying a rude hand upon her niece’s shoulder, she pushed her violently into the street, and slammed the door fiercely behind her.
“There!” she exclaimed, “that’s how I treat them kind o’ people! — Ha, ha, ha!”
The mirth was resumed, and sped on fast and furious. In five minutes the incident had been altogether forgotten. The piano rang out its discordant waltzes, polkas and gallops, and again the very house rocked and reeled. Soon it was midnight, at which hour Mrs. Pettindund proclaimed that supper was ready. Accordingly the guests once more crowded round the table. Cold provender was there in abundance, and, in addition, the two younger Misses Pettindund had just completed the broiling of some half-dozen pounds of beef-steak, which, smoking in reeking onions, made a dish at which the guests cheered. An hour was spent in the consumption of supper, after which music and dancing recommenced. All the time, be it understood, the supply of liquids had been unfailing. Shortly before the time at which the public-house closed, Moggie had refilled all the largest vessels, the contents of which, it was hoped, would suffice to bring the merriment to an end. And so they did. Towards half-past three, signs of abatement began to manifest themselves; by four o’clock several guests were fast asleep, either on the floor or on chairs. About this hour, the movement of departure began. The party, led by Mr. Spinks, went off arm-inarm, howling, “We won’t go home till morning.” Mr. Tudge staggered into the street, with difficulty supported between his wife and eldest child; bevies of young damsels, who were far from quite steady upon their feet, rushed out into the snow-storm with shrieks of laughter which made the night reecho; the two young men who had fought went off with the young woman who had been the cause of the combat, and, before they had reached the end of the street, quarrelled again, came to blows, and wallowed together in the snow, whilst the female with them yelled like a vulture over a field of battle. Neither of the gentlemen reached their home that night, for the cries of the woman attracting one or two policemen, they were both dragged away to the police-station, and there allowed to sleep off the effect of their carouse. By five o’clock, there was silence throughout the house of the Pettindunds.
During the morning, Mark Challenger had been visiting some friends, but, as the short afternoon drew on towards night, he returned, and, before entering his own room, knocked at Arthur’s door. Summoned to enter, he did so, but the moment he opened the door, such a tremendous shouting, yelling and screaming sounded from the rooms below, that Arthur started to his feet in sudden anger.
“Good God!” he exclaimed, “this is intolerable! Have they got half the inhabitants of the Zoological Gardens to dinner downstairs? Every five minutes I hear such a hideous roaring that I am almost driven mad. I have a headache to begin with.”
“You may well ask whether they are beasts,” replied Mark. “As I came along the passage, the front-room door was open, and I never set eyes on such a scene in my life. There must be twenty people there, and I’m quite sure they’re all drunk. I had only time to notice one thing, and that was old Pettindund at one side of the table, and another man opposite to him, holding a goose, or something of the kind, by its legs, and ripping it in two between them!”
“Brutes!” replied Arthur, in a tone of disgust. “Do not such blackguards as these give go............