DAVID KIPPERFIELD

by Augustus Swineherd

(writing as Charlotte Dickens)

It was the best of chimes, it was the worst of chimes, but as soon as Mr Rickety heard that chime he answered the door to the postman.

"Merry Christmas Smethurst", he cried, giving the postman his box.

"You wouldn't be so bloomin' merry at this time if you was a postman", said Smethurst, handing over a brace of seasonal missives.  "And what I'm supposed to put in all these boxes I'm sure I don't know".

Mr Rickety closed the door on his grumbling, whereupon Mr Macabre, who was making punch, turned to me.

"My dear Kipperfield, I am sure that I speak for Mrs Macabre and myself when I confide how tickled I am to be spending Christmas in company with yourself and these fine people."

Here he waved his ladle to encompass all those sitting in the stranded boat that was Mr Rickety's house.  I had never resolved the conundrum of whether it was a boat-house or a house-boat.

"And I am touched, sir, to be in such company aboard what, given that it is made from a maritime vessel, yet nevertheless stands high and dry upon the sand, I can only describe as a ship of the desert."

"Is that not a camel, my love?" asked Mrs Macabre.

"No, my dear, you are mistaken, surely.  A camel - and I am certain of my correctness in this - has a hump, and - again I am quite positive of my accuracy - it has a quartet of legs, a brace of ears, a single snout and a tail, although these features, I hasten to append, are not necessarily arranged in the order in which I have named them, but are present without exception in any animal which wishes to bear the noble name 'camel'."

There was a profound silence, broken only by the gentle snoring of the assembled company.

We roused soon enough, however, when Macabre announced that the punch had reached a peak - or perhaps he said a hump.  And so, with steaming bowls in hand, we toasted each other quite brown.

And then we drank a drop to Absent Friends.

"Frabs and Ench," declared Willis, the carter.  Eggerty smiled indulgently.  "Willis is barking," she said fondly.

At this point the door was thrown open by a rough fisherman acting in a desperate manner.  "A clipper from Spain have foundered!" he cried; "She's a-breaking up!"

"From Spain, you say," said Mr Rickety.  "Well now, we aren't about to take ourselves out on a bitter night like this, and get ourselves cold and wet on account of no bunch of foreigners".

And with that he called upon Pork to slam the door firm shut, which deed was quickly done, none of us caring to note whether the fisherman had previously removed his face from the frame.

"Frabs and Ench" cried Willis again, and the whole party laughed heartily.

"But there are so many absent friends," hazarded Little Elmtree, hazardously.

"Indeed there be," agreed Mr Rickety, agreeably.  "But that reminds me - where did I put those missives?"

And from somewhere deep within his raiment he drew the two Christmas cards, which were now gently steaming.

"Read them to me, Elmtree", he suggested, suggestively.

She blushed a little, and glanced toward Pork.

"Yes," rapped Pork, rapidly, and though it was but a single syllable his meaning was clear enough.

"Very well then," uttered Elmtree, utterly.  "The first is from Uriah Dump.  He 'umbly wishes us a Merry Christmas, with no 'umbug, and he 'opes we will be 'umming a merry tune and not getting the 'ump".

"There," declared Mr Macabre; "I knew that camels came into the matter somewhere".

"The other card is from David's friend, Mr Sneerforth.  He hopes that, although we are but poor, both in wit and wealth, and certainly not refined enough to appreciate the exquisiteness of his felicitations, we will nonetheless take some sort of crude pleasure from the time of year.  After all, he opines, opinionatedly, regulation will occur in the most accidental families".

It seemed to me there was more to the note than that, but when Elmtree's eyes fell upon the remainder she blushed, and put the card away in something that looked uncommonly like her bosom.

Had I but known then - that she would later seduce Sneerforth, that she would ruin and abandon him, and that she and her father would be forced to flee to Australia;

Had I but known then - that when Mr Macabre announced that 'Something will turn up', that very something would be the toes of both Pork and Sneerforth himself, drowned together but a handful of yards from where we kept such merry company;

Had I but known any of that, then this might have been a considerably shorter book.

But, of course, I knew no such things, so it is not.