Chapter 15
After a moment of thinking, Mr Brownlow decided to follow Alice into the drawing room. He didn't plan to bother her any further but simply take some time to relax and reflect. He reached the doorway and paused. From his vantage point he could see Alice as she climbed up on the settee and then onto the arm of the settee, stretching for her sewing box. When she had it in her hand she aimed and dropped it safely onto the empty settee, then jumped herself down to the ground.
She set herself down on the settee and opened her sewing box, pulling out three half embroidered handkerchiefs, each with initials neatly stitched in the corner. One had A.T written on it, another O.T and the last J.D. She was finishing off the lace around the edge of her own as Mr Brownlow watched on amazed that he had finally found a very ladylike and apt pastime that Alice was particularly good at. He recalled the conversation months earlier when Alice had told him not to bother sending his clothes to the tailors; he was now considering it to be an option. Perhaps that sort of responsibility and trust was just what Alice needed to feel more at home.
Alice was just as surprised as Mr Brownlow was to see Oliver come bounding up to her and sit by her side. Neither had noticed he was in the room at all. He wanted to know what Alice was doing.
She told him she was making handkerchiefs and then he enquired for whom she was making them.
"Well, that one's for Jack and that one's for me." She replied. Alice found it utterly amusing to watch her brother's little face as his mind translated Jack into his more familiar nickname in order for Oliver to understand what she meant. She couldn't blame him after all she had been the only one to called Jack by his real name and it was never uttered any when else.
"So who's that one's?" Oliver asked pointing to the one handkerchief that she had not allocated a person to.
"Never you mind!" Alice said folding it over so he couldn't read the initials. Oliver knew better then to pry, it was approaching December bringing with it the festival of Christmas that Oliver was looking forward to celebrating in his new home. He let the topic drop trying to pretend he had never asked the question in the first place. He was going to turn the topic around to Alice's baby but he noticed their uncle was hovering at the doorway and he remember what Alice had told him and kept mute. Instead he asked about what the noise had been outside, he had heard it and assumed that she had been involved by the manner in which Mr Brownlow had fused when they returned into the room. Alice reported calmly the events, having not noticed Mr Brownlow's presence at the door she didn't feel the need to neglect Jack's part in it.
"Jack and Max had a disagreement, it got a little out of hand and Max took it to heart and now wants to kill Jack and me which is why we had to run. Max followed us here and we tried to hide but Max threatened Mr Brownlow so I came out to help him, what you heard was the reaction of Max when I told him Mr Brownlow was acquainted with the magistrate. Quite amusing how quickly he changed his tune then!" Alice summarized as simply as she could for Oliver.
Oliver already vaguely knew about Max, at least enough to be able to understand how something like this could happened. Max was an evil man who Jack hated but had to work for.
"Did Dodger get away?" Oliver enquired.
"I think so, I hope so, I don't know." Alice said unconvincingly, she knew that she had left Jack safely down by the kitchen entrance but she had no way of knowing if he returned to the den safely or not. After all Max was running around London looking for him.
At the mention of this name, Mr Brownlow started. It was the same name he had heard that terrible rogue they had encountered outside. 'Dodger'. Yes that was an oddly familiar phrase.
"Mr Brownlow sir, I was about to send of this Christmas order, I thought perhaps you might overlook it first before I send it off, in case you would like to make any amendments before I should do anything with it." Mrs Bedwin interrupted his thoughts, thrusting a long neatly written list in front of him. Blinking himself out of his thoughts, Mr Brownlow relieved Mrs Bedwin of the list and squinted his eyes to view it.
"Yes, well, if you would like we could go over it in the study." Mr Brownlow suggested although he had already made steps towards the study.
"If you would, sir, that would be very helpful." Mrs Bedwin said tagging along behind her master.
On the run up to Christmas Mr Brownlow had a long list of activities that he wanted Oliver and Alice to do, things that he knew would be new to them and that he hope they would find interesting. Being that this was their first Christmas in his home he wanted them to enjoy the experience and spend some quality family time together. It was for this reason that Mr Brownlow had taken to spending more time at home with them and less time working. The closer it came to seasonal festival the less work he had anyway.
Alice was finding this family time a little too suffocating. She had decreasingly less opportunities to sneak away and she had only seen Jack once since the incident involving Max, unlike her uncle Alice couldn't easily forget about it. Jack had said that Max hadn't been seen since which didn't give Alice any confidence at all; she knew Max meant ever word of his threat and she was certain he was planning some sort of revenge in his long absence. It was extremely annoying to her that she was unable to visit Jack, to check he was ok, Mr Brownlow was spending too much time with them and she had exhausted reasons to leave the house. There were no extra little things to pop down to the market for as the produce had been brought in advance on bulk order to last the whole Christmas season. Mr Brownlow had decided that Christmas cards were going to be hand-delivered this year and so there was no reason to make a trip to the post box. Even the classic 'I'm just going for a walk' wasn't working as Mr Brownlow seemed to think this was a good idea and declared that they all took a nice walk outside much to Alice's annoyance.
On Christmas Eve Mr Brownlow had brought home the Christmas tree, of which the servants helped to get into the living room and arranged in a position that would suit the layout of the room and making the tree visible for all to admire.
Oliver and Alice had found the concept of bringing an evergreen fir tree into the house and decorating it absurd. They stood back and watched as the servants began to bring in the decorations in, a box load of them. Mr Brownlow had begun to take the individual decorations out of the box; there was tinsel in all varying colours, handmade items which were clearly Mrs Bedwin's handiwork, orange pomanders smelling sweetly of both orange and cloves and several other dried food decorations like cranberry, nut and raisin garlands.
Mr Brownlow tied and draped the decorations to the branches of the tree as Alice and Oliver observed in interest, still thinking the notion quite strange.
"What's the point of this?" Alice asked finally after trying to discover the truth for herself.
"Well it brightens up the place and it's become a very popular tradition." Mr Brownlow replied although Alice was unconvinced.
"Yeah, but do you have to have one in the house? Couldn't we just decorate one outside?"
"It does seem very silly to have to cut one down to bring it indoors; decorating one outside would surely make more sense." Oliver agreed.
"But the Queen has one in her living room; Prince Albert was the one who brought the tradition from his homeland of Germany to the fair land we live in." Mr Brownlow had tried to give the fashionable tradition that his great nephew and niece failed to comprehend worthy credit to its name.
The siblings still stayed away and let their uncle decorate the tree. For a while Mr Brownlow let them just watch. He was aware of their uncertainty and didn't want to force it upon them as it would ruin the enjoyment of it. Eventually after observing and figuring how it might actually be fun, Oliver decided to give it a go and plucking out a decoration from the box he placed it on a bare branch that Mr Brownlow was too tall to reach. Alice took long to join in she was adamant that she wasn't going to take part in such an stupid pointless event but on seeing her brother and her great uncle enjoying themselves as they hung the varied decorations she could resist just trying one.
She picked up a hand sewn miniature star and fixed it neatly on to a branch. Oliver smiled but said nothing for fear of discouraging her. He had learnt that his sister was like a deer, you had to let her come to you and not try to persuade her to. Mr Brownlow smiled too. He was pleased that his family activities were being successful despite taking a while to get going.
"Oliver, find the Angel out of the box." Mr Brownlow said softly.
Oliver obediently raked around the decoration box to find this angel his uncle was talking about. When he found it he held it up in the air to prove he had it.
"This one Uncle?" he asked.
"Yes, bring it over here,"
Oliver hopped over to Mr Brownlow and pushed the angel in front of him.
"No no you keep hold of him…" Mr Brownlow contradicted Oliver's actions and he recoiled his hand back.
"That's it, now turn round." Confused at the purpose of the instructions, Oliver frowned but obeyed his uncle. Even Alice was curious as to what their uncle was going to do now.
Neither of them suspected him to lift Oliver up as if he weighed but a feather so he could reach the very tip of the tree.
"Go on then, put the angel on the top." Mr Brownlow said when he had got his great nephew in place.
Delicately and with great precision Oliver placed the tree topper on the tip of the vertical trunk. He then felt himself being lifted back down to the ground, his angelic moment gone.
Christmas day brought about a mixture of feelings to the house. There was enjoyment, festivities and a sense of involvement which you'd expect on such a day but underneath all that each one had a different memory etching on their brain making it hard for them to fully enjoy the experience. Oliver couldn't help but be reminded of the Christmas' spent in the workhouse, a day like any other but with the addition of extra prayers and reflection time. Reflection which generally ended up with him questioning the point of his existence and the fairness of his treatment, when he knew, vaguely, what Christmas entailed for the rest of the world. Alice's memory had a much happier tone to it which in contrast made her feel sad. She remembered Christmas' at the den and the fun and laughter that, despite being too poor to have anything special, they always seemed to manage on Christmas day. Everyone would have the day off from work considering people spent the day at home and rarely ventured out into the cold December air for any reason. They spent the day playing games, card games and any other games they could create from as little as they had. It played on her mind how much she missed those Christmas' and she was trying her hardest to find the same amount of enjoyment in the day now.
Mr Brownlow, who had been the most excited for this day to come, found it extremely difficult to press out of his mind the image of his sister, her husband and his niece, Oliver and Alice's mother. Seeing Alice sitting in her place at the dinner table had not helped at all. He was holding back the tears as she took up the same position on the floor of the living room as he recalled her mother sitting in when she was young. She began to give out the presents from under the tree, dishing them out as they came. The first was addressed to Oliver from Mr Brownlow and he carefully undid the wrapping to reveal a spanking new writing book in which Mr Brownlow had written in the front page the date and occasion Oliver had received it for him. Oliver heartily thanked him, thinking it only coincidence that his present hand-me-down notebook was coming dangerously close to finishing.
The next present was addressed to Alice from Mr Brownlow. She took it cautiously and picked apart the paper to discover a whole new set of sewing needles. Her old ones were bent and going rusty but the thought would never cross her mind to ask for a new set so she was equally pleased and confused at how Mr Brownlow had known she needed them.
Next Alice gave out her present to Oliver, which was of course the handkerchief she had been making earlier on in the month. He was thrilled, having seen and handled many a handkerchief but never actually owned one.
Alice followed this by giving Mr Brownlow a present; he opened it to find a elongated small handmade drawstring bag. It was decorated nicely, embellished with patterns all neatly sewn.
"O thankyou, but what is it dear?" Mr Brownlow said trying to sound as enthusiastic as he could considering he had no idea what he was thanking her for.
"It's a bag to hold your reading glasses in. I noticed you leave them lying around everywhere and are constantly cleaning them. Well now you won't have to." Alice replied giggling at his failure to comprehend the present.
Mr Brownlow relooked at his gift, it made much more sense now he could see its purpose and the sentiment became all the more valued.
Several more presents were given out, mainly items of necessity like clothes. Alice kept dishing them out until she had but one present left under the tree. She picked it up and then remembering who it was for she put it back down again.
"Who is that one addressed to?" Mr Brownlow asked assuming it was addressed to one of the three of them.
"No one. I just…I shouldn't have brought that one down, I didn't mean to wrap it." Alice stammered trying to cover it up. She took the present in her hands and stood up. The best way to resolve this is to take it out of sight.
"I'll be back in a moment." She announced and left the room.
Oliver looked his handkerchief and the recalled one Alice had been making that November day and automatically he knew whose present it was. He kept his head down and pretended not to hear his uncle when he queried him on Alice's actions. He didn't want to risk breaking his promise.
Wrong time of year but hey! Let me know what you think!