A Handful of Dust

 Later in the nursery, while he was having supper, John said: “I think Mr. Beaver’s a very silly man, don’t you?” 

“I’m sure I don’t know,” said nanny. 

“I think he’s the silliest man who’s ever been here.” 

“Comparisons are odious.” 

“There just isn’t anything nice about him. He’s got a silly voice and a silly face, silly eyes and silly nose,” John’s voice fell into a liturgical sing-song, “silly feet and silly toes, silly head and silly clothes . . .” 

“Now you eat up your supper,” said nanny. 

&

The vicar climbed, with some effort, into the pulpit. He was an elderly man who had served in India most of his life. ‘Tony’s father had given him the living at the instance of his dentist. He had a noble and sonorous voice and was reckoned the best preacher for many miles around. 

His sermons had been composed in his more active days for delivery at the garrison chapel; he had done nothing to adapt them to the changed conditions of his ministry and they mostly concluded with some reference to homes and dear ones far away. The villagers did not find this in any way surprising. Few of the things said in church seemed to have any particular reference to themselves. They enjoyed their vicar’s sermons very much and they knew that when he began about their distant homes, it was time to be dusting their knees and feeling for their umbrellas. 

.... And so as we stand here bareheaded at this solemn hour of the week,” he read, his powerful old voice swelling up for the peroration, “let us remember our Gracious Queen Empress in whose services we are here and pray that she may long be spared to send us at her bidding to do our duty in the uttermost parts of the earth; and let us think of our dear ones far away and the homes we have left in her name, and remember that though miles of barren continent and leagues of ocean divide us, we are never so near to them as on these Sunday mornings, united with them across dune and mountain in our loyalty to our sovereign and thanksgiving for her welfare; one with them as proud subjects of her sceptre and crown.” 

(“The Reverend Tendril ’e do speak uncommon high of the Queen,” a gardener’s wife had once remarked to Tony.) 

&

The vicar preached his usual Christmas sermon. It was one to which his parishioners were particularly attached. “How difficult it is for us,” he began, blandly surveying his congregation, Who coughed into their mufflers and chafed their chilblains under their woollen gloves, “to realize that this is indeed Christmas. Instead of the glowing log fire and windows tight shuttered againse the drifting snow, we have only the harsh glare of the alien sun; instead of the happy circle of loved faces, of home and family, we have the uncomprehending stares of the subjugated, though no doubt grateful, heathen, Instead of the placid ox and ass of BethJlehem,” said the vicar, slightly losing the thread of his comparisons, “‘we have for companions the ravening tiger and the exotic camel, the furtive jackal and the ponderous elephant .. .” And so on, through the pages of faded manuscript. The words had temporarily touched the heart of many an obdurate trooper, and hearing them again, as he had heard them year after year since Mr. Tendril had come to the parish, Tony and most of Tony’s guests felt that it was an integral part of their Christmas festivities; one with which they would find it very hard to dispense. “The ravening tiger and the exotic camel’ had long been bywords jn the family, of frequent recurrence in all their games, 

These games were the hardest part for Brenda. They did not amuse her and she still could not see Tony dressed up for charades without a feeling of shyness. Moreover she was tortured by the fear that any lack of gusto on her part might be construed by the poor Lasts as superiority. These scruples, had she known it, were quite superfluous for it never occurred to her husband’s relatives to look on her with anything but cousinly cordiality and a certain tolerance, for, as Lasts, they considered they had far more right in Hetton than herself. Aunt Frances, with acid mind, quickly discerned the trouble and attempted to reassure her, saying, “Dear child, all these feelings of delicacy are valueless; only the rich realize the gulf that separates them from the poor,” but the uneasiness persisted and night after night she found herself being sent out of the room, asking or answering questions, performing actions in uncouth manners, paying forfeits, drawing pictures, writing verses, dressing herself up and even being chased about the house, and secluded in cupboards, at the will of her relatives. Christmas was on a Friday that year, so the party was a long one from Thursday until Monday.