SHORT STORY FELICITY COOKS HER GOOSE

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 133, 7 June 1937, Page 15

SHORT STORY FELICITY COOKS HER GOOSE

I CAME home to find my study looking like a mixture of Smithfleld, Covent Garden and Lewis' Grotto. Every chair was occupied by a goose, a turkey or a pile of mysterious packages (shrouded in crinkly paper and tied with festive-looking tape. In the middle of the floor, wrestling with a shapelesw» parcel wound round — rather than tied up—with many yards of string, knelt Felicity, flushed and a little breathless, but entirely happy. "What on earth. . . I began. "Christmas is coming, darling," she cried. "Ye*, I know. But we've only just got the smell of firework night out of our throats." * I am not a natural-born, died-in-the-wool lover of Christmas. Before I married Felicity I used to work most of Christmas Day and dine out in the evening.

At the back of my mind I always have a vague intention of spending the festive season in the old way, with no weeks of catastrophic preparation and no gargantuan feast to crown them.

But Felicity considers that she has changed all that; and she enters into the domestic Christmas ritual with a zest so entirely adorable that my days of Peace on Earth have been finally swallowed up in involuntary expressions of Good Will to All Men—and especially to her family, whom I don't really like very much.

"You're starting early with your Christmas preparation," I protested feebly. "Those birds will all be high by Christmas Day."

"Well," said Felicity rather wickedly, "one of them is going to Aunt Agatha. She always says she 'needs must love the highest when she sees it.'"

"Yes, but not when she tastes or smells it," I objected.

Aunt Agatha is the most soulful of Felicity's aunts. When we meet— which is as rarely as I can contrive — she engages me in elevated mystical conversation about something called an "aura," and maintains that pain doesn't really exist.

"You know," I resumed, "I can't think c why you don't get the poulterer and the other Christmas fare merchants to « pack all these tilings up for you. They'd do it so much better, and with so much » less trouble." "But it's such fun packing all the things oneself and taking them to the 1 post." Perhaps it or perhaps it would be, if Felicity really did the packing. ( But making post-proof parcels is not ( among her many charming accomplish- ' ments; so I always have to come to the rescue in the end. "What are you doing with that cocoon !, of string?" I asked. "It's not a cocoon of string," she ( pouted. "It's a parcel for Cousin ( Grace. BiitV'l'm not sure it's safely packed. Do you think it will come . undone ?" "I'm sure it will. Here, give it to me and let me show- you how to peck a parcel." She stood rather mutinously aside, while I unwound, several miles of unnecessary and useless string from the illpacked parcel. "You see," I said, "several lots of string thai aren't tight arc less use ' than one lot that is. And the first thing to do is to arrange the contents so that the string can get a good hold of them. There, that's better. Now put your finger on this knot while I fWiish it off. Yes, that'll do. Now you can address it." She hesitated with her pen poised over the label. "Jim, darling, don't yo* think Cousin Jean would like these crystallised fruits better than Cousin Grace i" "I doft't know, I'm sure," I said. "You're the recognised authority on the several tastes and habits of your numerous cousins. ■ If you think so, we'll send this to Cousin Jean." • • • • Felicity wrote Cousin Jean's address in. a fine, round hand, and we went on to the next parcel. In fact, we went on to the next half-dozen. Then she reverted to Cousin Jean's and turned it over in her hands. "What's the matter?" I asked. "Doesn't Cousin Jean like crystallised fruits either?" "Ye-yes"—uncertainly —"but you see I've put a message in this parcel for Cousin Grace." "Well, wl:y not send it to Cousin Grace after all? You've only got to take off that label and put on a new one." "Yes, I know. But I've just remembered that Cousin Grace never eats crystallised fruits because they get into her teeth." I sat. back on my heels. "Then there's nothing for it. but to undo the parcel. But never mind. Think how you'll enjoy watching me pack it up again afterwards." "Jim, darling, you're being mean to me." "Qh, I say. I thought I was bero°j perfectly charming. But here goes—' cutting the string. I hunted through the parcel, but no message of any sort could I find. I looked up at a little sound of dismay from Felicity. She looked guilty and confused. "I'm so sorry, darling," she said. "I forgot to put the message in, after all. Here it is. lying on the table. And now you'll have to pack the parcel again all for nothing. Darling Jim, are you Ivery angry';nritli me?"

I made tlie only possible response to tliat. As she wriggled free she protected: '"That means a pair of gloves, darling.". "It doesn't," I contradicted. "There wasn't any mistletoe. And anyhow, what the deuce do you think I married you for?" I looked round the room. "What about all these birds? Are they all labelled?" "No, but I'll tell you where to send them. They've all got messages inside." "What, right inside? Like stuffing?" "No, silly. In those envelopes tied round their necks." • • • • I wrote the labels at Felicity's dictation, and she tied them on the birds. Then we took everything to the post. "Post early for Christmas," she said with pensive satisfaction as we returned. I comforted myself that at any rate we'd got it all over in good time. But we hadn't. Xot by a long chalk. Every day brought its new list of people to whom Felicity wanted to send presents or cards. I got tired of being turned out of my study, and still more tired of sitting down on prickly stray bits of holly. At last, however —as it seemed to me, ■though for Felicity it was all too soon — Christmas Kve arrived, and with it a positive orpry of holly, mistletoe and poisonous evergreens in general. It was after 11 o'clock when we finally cleared up the mess and sat down to supper—dinner having been sacrificed to the exigencies of the occasion.

"It looks lovely," Felicity commented, "and there's so much mistletoe you won't be able to escape giving mc lots of new gloves."

"No," I admitted. "I wish I'd laid in a stock."

j "Darling!" she cried suddenly, "do i you know what I've done? I've forf {rotten all about getting anything for iour own Christmas dinner. And now the shops are all shut, and goodness knows what we're going to do." It really was rather a facer. "Do you mean." I asked, "that there's absolutely nothing in the house to eat?" "Well . . . there's bread and cheese." "And mince pies, and nuts, and dates, and lots and lots of sweets," I prompted. "Yes," she wailed, "but vou can't make a Christmas dinner out of those." "Felicity," I said with mock solemnity, "many a poor woman would be glad of all those sweets." "Oh, shut up, and tell me what I'm to do." She came and knelt by my side, near to weeping, and hid her face in my sleeve. "Darling," she wailed, "I'm not a good wife to you at all. I turn you out of your room, and make you sit on spiky bits of holly for days and ' days and days . . ."

"No, darling," I interrupted, "not for days and days and days. I don't go on sitting on holly." . . and then I can't even give you a Christmas dinner," she pursued, now frankly in tears.

When Felicity weeps it twists me all up inside. "Look here, darling," I said. "I've got a plan. But before I tell you what it is, let's agree there's to be no more ridiculous talk about your not being a good wife. "Understand once for all that I'd rather sit all my days on a spiky bit of holly and have nothing but meringue* and marzipans for my Christmas dinners than be married to anyone but you. So that question's closed. Is it a bargain?" She. nodded with an April smile.

"Well, then," I went on, "to-morrow, after breakfast —you've pot some bacon and eggs, I presume?" —Felicity nodded again—'well, after breakfast we'll take the car and drive out into the country to a road-house I know, where they'll be having turkey and plum pudding for lunch.

"Then we'll come back to town for dinner. There's sure to be dancing in the big West End restaurants. We'll keep Christmas all right, never fear." "Jim," she quavered, "you're . . . you're a darling." Then, doubtfully, "But of course it won't be the same."

"Not quite the 6ame," -I agreed. "But where we two are on Christmas Day, there is all the spirit of Christmas." "Darling, you say the sweetest things," she said, busily drying her eyes and repairing her ravaged make-up.

Suddenly there was a thunderous, assault ou our front door. "Oh!" cried Felicity, "wlioever's that? Have you left the car in the stree-t without lights?" I rushed to the door, with Felicity at my heels. There on the doorstep, against the background of fog which does duty in this country for Christ-mas-card weather, stood a weary postman holding by the neck an indecently naked goose. "Hullo," I said, "this is a late visit." "Yessir. Christmas comes but once a year, I'm glad to say." He handed the goo6e to Felicity and was gone. "Darling," she cried, "this is the goose I sent to Aunt Agatha. Look, here's her letter. She 6ays I enclosed a message to Aunt Jane, so she didn't think the bird was for her. She sends it back with her love." "Perhaps she doesn't like the highest as much as she thought she did," I commented irreverently. "But. darling! We've got our Christmas dinner after all. And 111 send Aunt Agatha something nice for the New Year."

— By LOUIS ANDERSON FENN