A CHRISTMAS NOSEBAG

From Lady Emilia Silver-Darling's 'They Did It My Way'

Lady Emilia Silver-Darling's memoirs are a mixture of anecdote, advice, sparkling wit and pure poison.  They were published, at her own instruction, precisely five years after her death in 1924.  When they finally saw the light of day they scandalised the area, exactly, no doubt, as she had intended.  They caused many a red face, several divorces, and at least one headlong dash for the nearest port.

This section of the memoirs, detailing her views on Christmas, is actually one of the tamer passages.

  I always greatly enjoy the Christmas season.  It has a number of advantages (or, might I quip, adventages?) over other times of the year.  For example, his Lordship gets drunk even earlier than usual, and consequently takes to his bed sooner, leaving me free of his attentions.  For another, there are a number of days of holiday, meaning that many more people than usual are available to be patronised at all hours of the day.  But, most amusingly, one is able to observe the truth of the saying that the devil finds work for idle hands.

The hands I refer to are chiefly those employed on this estate, who must be amongst the very idlest in the land.  They seem to require a constant succession of breaks, breathers, high days, holidays and weekends.  I venture to say that some of them do scarcely seventy or eighty hours of real work in a whole week.  As a result the horned one has considerable opportunities.

Take the parlour maid, whose name eludes me if I ever knew it, who rewarded my generosity in giving her a whole hour off one Christmas afternoon by having the nerve to use it to get herself with child by one of my sons (we don't know which one, as they were all tempted from the straight and narrow by the little slut that afternoon).  Of course, she had to be sent packing.  The last I heard she had taken herself to London, where she has lost her honest name again and again, including at least twice to my cousin Tarquin, who has low tastes.

Take Walter Kipper, a member of a local family for whom the word depravity is scarcely adequate.  This is a family who work for nobody but the devil.  They sing disgusting songs.  They live from hand to mouth without ever washing the foresaid appendages.  One Christmas I was able to engineer Kipper's arrest for egg poaching.  All his protests that this was an old family recipe, and that the eggs had come from their own birds were to no avail, and Constable Crabb had no choice but to march him off to jail for the festive season at my insistence.  Of course, had Kipper or Crabb been able to read then they might have perused the small print and realised that the poaching of eggs by consenting adults in private is, in fact, allowed.  Eventually this came out when the Bench sat again in mid January.  Indeed, as I was myself sitting I was able to point it out personally, but not before the wretch had pleaded for mercy.  I think those three weeks in prison served to instruct him exactly who is in charge around here.

There are a number of mildy diverting events held in the village at this time of the year.  For the Victorian Faire the peasantry promenade around the lanes attired in mock Victorian costume, although their everyday wear is so ragged and ancient that I suspect much of it may be the genuine article.  The village takes on the aspect of a chocolate box, albeit one that has been emptied of all confection and thrown to the dogs to be played with for an hour or so.  There are a number of supposedly Victorian diversions, which I am required to judge, such as 'The best covered piano legs' and 'Most starved in a ditch'.  These are always organised by the most irritating people, who try to use the occasion to curry favour.  I have suggested that some of them might like to emulate the great Queen herself and retire to Scotland for a number of years, but so far there have been no takers.

At Christmas I especially like to think of those less well off than myself - the poor, the sick, and the stupid.  It cheers me enormously.  I say to myself "Emilia, if it weren't for the fact that you are a very superior person, you might be just like them".  Of course, I don't believe myself.  I believe that one is born to one's natural position, and woe betide anyone who attempts to adopt an unnatural position.  And yes, I do mean you Christopher Cockle, with your Union of Sweed Bashers and Allied Trades.  Nothing good will come of it, believe me.

I like to give small gifts to the peasantry.  Nothing too rich for their base systems, of course, nor anything expensive enough to narrow the distance in our circumstances.  One year, for instance, I heard of a family who lacked what even the poorest wretch in the village had.  It was with great satisfaction, therefore, that I arranged for them to be given rickets, even though I dare say they would have found a single ricket real riches.  On other occasions at this season I have visited myself upon the sick in their cottages.  Naturally I have not done this until a number of my staff have ejected all the other residents, cleaned the house from top to bottom, thrown away any food in the house (which will be sure to carry diseases), and finally reported that the patient has fully recovered.  Then I visit them briefly, to raise their spirits and inspire them.  All that remains then is for my staff to retrieve and sterilise any items of linen and so on which may have been supplied so as not to offend my sensibilities.  I feel it is the least I can do to share their suffering.  If I could do less, of course, I would.

Boxing Day is a busy one for me, as I take a central part in the two major diversions, those being fox hunting and morris dancing.  The former is, of course, a public service.  We keep quite a pack of foxes here, and the day after Christmas we whip them in and do what we can to reduce the local dog population.  Some consider this cruel, suggesting we might deprive someone of a much loved pet.  They know we are coming, however, so all they need do is to keep their pets securely confined.  We are not stupid, even if they probably are.  We make life easy upon ourselves by breaking into the least secure properties we can find to release our quarry.  If it weren't for the hunt I doubt there would be a fox left alive in this area, as in the wild they are so destructive of stock and wildlife.

As for the morris dancing, my role is one of organiser.  It is simply a matter of engaging what passes for musicians in this area, that usually being whichever members of the aforementioned Kipper family are currently at liberty, and persuading the young girls of the village that what will happen to them if they fail to turn out will be worse than what happens when they do.  Then I arrange them in two opposing rows, arm them with sticks, call for the music and then sit back and enjoy the show as they beat each other with the sticks in time to the music.  It is an ancient tradition, and I am determined to continue it.  How else would those of us who are employers determine those girls best suited to hard work and heavy labour?

Of course there are some seasonal activities which are far below me.  The common folk have a thing called a Christmas club, for instance.  All year they put into the club whatever pitiful amounts of money they have managed to save.  Excitement mounts as Christmas approaches, until on a particular day, determined by some arcane method which I cannot fathom, word gets out that the person responsible for the money has left the village in a hurry and all the money has disappeared.  It is one of the oldest customs of the folk, and really should be recorded before the greatest mistake of our age, universal education, is perpetrated, as I fear it will be.  A little knowledge, it should be remembered, is a dangerous thing.  We should not let children play with matches unless we are prepared to put the fire out.

Christmas, of course, is also a time for family.  Usually this means it is a time for family problems.  There was the year, for instance, when my daughter Victoria returned from her honeymoon.  Sadly, she neglected to return with a husband.  What happened was that they decided at the last minute not to wed, when Vicky found out that her intended, Lord Hardwick, did not have a single mistress.  As she said to me; "Mother, I would be the laughing stock of decent society.  Either he is impotent or he expects me to provide for all of his needs in that department.  Either one is quite unacceptable".  I agreed with her, not least from my own bitter experience.  I did insist, however, that since the honeymoon had been paid for they must take it, married or not.  I thought they might somehow patch things up.  They set off, accompanied by an odious little reporter from the Trunch Trumpet.  I shall spare you the most sordid details, but it seems that Victoria preferred the odious reporter to Lord Lenwade.  His Lordship also seems to have preferred the odious reporter to Victoria, which explained the lack of mistresses.  This, of course, opened the way for the couple to be married after all, since Victoria would clearly not be bothered 'that way'.  His Lordship agreed to take a token mistress, and I volunteered at once for the post.  It was a happy solution for all but the odious reporter, who I had fired and thrown out of his cottage.

My other daughter, Veronica - or Lady Guppy as she is now - actually bore me a grand-daughter on Christmas day.  What a delight it was to hold the little mite in my arms on Christmas evening, just three years later.  Obviously, I didn't touch it before that.  I will have nothing to do with the incontinent.

But the greatest joy of Christmas is perhaps the simplest.  It is the one I share with my husband every Christmas morning, come rain or shine, hell or high water.  For that is the time when we tour the village, supervising our Steward, as he visits every single home, farm, shop and hovel, collecting the rent.  It is a Quarter Day, after all.