Ashley Sterne The Truth about the Mistletoe Bough

 

Another comic Christmas story by Ashley Sterne, originally published in The Radio Times (December 20, 1935).

The Truth about the Mistletoe Bough

The ballad begins:  ’ The mistletoe hung in the  castle hall, the holly branch shone on the old oak wall; and the Baron’s retainers were blithe and gay, and keeping their Christmas holiday. ’

Yes, the Baron was one of the good old democratic sort, and made it a custom on Christmas Day to throw open the castle hall to his staff so soon as they had washed up the Christmas dinner crockery.

Here, in the holly-bedecked, mistletoe-behung, oak-bewalled hall, he would kick off the Christmas revels by treading a measure with the cook — a Turkey Trot, no doubt, or possibly a Christmas Cakewalk; and thereafter participating in some of the various quaint folk-dances, such as Jenny pull your stockings up, Green grow the goozgogs, Little zinc trousers, and so forth.

And into these capers none of the revellers threw themselves with greater zest and energy than the Baron’s freshly-married daughter, who (as far as the old ballad is concerned) was anonymous, but who, having espoused a rather poor fish named Lovel, may safely be referred to as Mrs. Lovel.

‘ The Baron beheld, with a father’s pride, his beautiful child, young Lovel’s bride; while she, with her bright eyes, seemed to be the star of the goodly company. ’

Yes, she was certainly plus-four at beauty and bright eyes, but there was no gainsaying the fact that, though small of stature, she was in the cruiserweight class.  On the weighing-maching in the bathroom she knocked up a generous twelve-stun-ten.  Hence her zeal for the rollicking round-dances; for in those remote days the virtues of orange-juice as an attenuant were unknown.

Of course, the Baron saw nothing ungainly in his daughter’s form.  He was all for carrying on the Old Tradition.  As for young Lovel, he simply adored his young bride, and wouldn’t willingly have dispensed with a single cubic yard of her.

‘ Oh! the mistletoe bough! ‘ the ballad parenthetically concludes its first (and every succeeding stanza.  But since this interest bit of parasitic vegetation plays no part whatever in the drama, one must simply regard it as an interjectory expression of the poet’s, like ‘ Capten, art tha sleepin’ there below? ‘

Now, when the revelry was at its height, and the Baron had just finished “setting to corners” with the wench who did the boots and knives in the fourth figure of Little zinc trousers, young Mrs. Lovel suddenly left her partner, darted to the middle of the hall, and clapped her hands for silence.

‘ “I’m tired of dancing now,” she cried.  “Here tarry a moment, I’ll hide, I’ll hide!  And Lovel, be sure thou’rt the first to trace the clue to my secret lurking place.” ‘

This erstwhile popular game of lurk-and-trace was the precursor of the somewhat similar game of our own childhood-day, hide-and-seek.  It had for many years been played in the castle on Christmas Day, and practically every lurking-place was familiar to the whole assembly.  Thus it grew increasingly difficult year by year to discover fresh lurks.  Nevertheless—

‘ Away she ran, and her friends began each tower to search, each nook to scan (which wasn’t fair until she called “Coo-ee”); and young Lovel cried “Oh, where dost thou hide?  I’m lonesome without thee, my own dear bride.” ‘

Which just shows you the sort of cheap skate young Lovel was — couldn’t suffer his sugar out of his sight for a flick without giving vent to a languish.  But in vain did he turn the towers upside down and shake ‘em; in vain did he insinuate the vacuum-cleaner into every nook the castle contained.  No answer came to his reiterated demand for information.

At midnight the gong went for supper.  So did Lovel.  The retainers also ran.  Lovel tried to swallow the pork-pie.  But he couldn’t.  It didn’t fit.  It choked him, as food will always do when one is overwrought….  Then the search began again; and with renewed zeal, for the Baron had offered a small prize to the successful finder.  Indeed—

‘ They sought her that night, and they sought her next day, and they sought her in vain till a week passed away.  In the highest, the lowest, the loneliest spot, young Lovel sought wildly but found her not. ‘

All this time, the Baron, you note, apparently took no active part in the search.  But he began to get apprehensive, and became a positive hive of industry.  He put through, time after time, an emergency call to Scotland Yard, only to meet with the usual fate of emergency-callers.  In tardy succession he became connected with the Drury Lane box-office, the Metropolitan Asylums Board, the Stogumber Steam Laundry, the Heckmondwike Fire Brigade, the Western Brothers (Kenneth and George), the Carlyle Cousins (George and Kenneth), the Houston Sisters (Kenita and Georgina), the Elder Brethren of Trinity House (Kenneth and George), and a police call-box in Steeple Bumsted.

The years flew by (blatantly asserts the ballad), until came the day when—

‘ At length an old chest that had long lain hid was found in the castle.  They raised the lid…  And a skeleton form lay mould’ring there, in the bridal wreath of the lady fair! ‘

This, of course, is mere poet’s license carried to a point where he deserved to have his licence endorsed, suspending him from active poetry for a year at least.  As modern research has shown (or if it hasn’t, it jolly well ought to), Mrs. Lovel was secreted in the chest about ten days in all, and could only be called a skeleton by the standards of Comparative Anatomy.  She certainly wasn’t half the woman she was, for her proportions were now reasonably normal.

Young Lovel was rather annoyed.  He shook her roughly by the shoulder, and she awoke once again to light and love.

“So here you are!” he began, testily.

“Yes, I know,” said Mrs. Lovel.

“And what d’you think you’re doing?”

“Hibernating.”

“With what object, may I ask?”

Mrs. Lovel sat up in the chest.  “To slim,” she announced.  “To slim without interference — the birthright of every Englishwoman.”

“You might have slimmed yourself to death that way,” young Lovel grunted.  “D’you know that chest’s got a spring-lock?”

“Yes, and like all the other locks in this rotten old shatto, it’s broken.  As for starving to death, don’t you believe it!  What do snakes to when they pack up for the winter?”

“Hibernate,” said Lovel, just like a book.

“Bah!  I mean, what do they live on?  Why, on their fat, of course,  If you don’t believe me, ask any herpetologist you like.”

“I don’t like any herpetologist.  I hate ‘em all.”

“Well, never mind.  Help me out of this.”

Lovel lifted her out.  She tottered a little as he stood her up on end.  “Slimming or no,” he remarked, “I’m afraid you’ve had a pretty thin time.  Lean on me for the future”  and he offered her his arm.

‘ Oh! the mistletoe bough! ‘  — and hough!