It was the twenty-seventh of June, Laura's birthday. Tanqueray had
proposed that they should celebrate it by a day on Wendover Hill. For
the Kiddy's increasing pallor cried piteously for the open air.
Nina was to bring Owen Prothero; and Jane, in Prothero's interests, was
to bring Brodrick; and Tanqueray, Laura insisted, was to bring his wife.
Rose had counted the days, the very hours before Laura's birthday. She
had plenty to do for once on the morning of the twenty-seventh, making
rock cakes and cutting sandwiches and packing them beautifully in a
basket. Over-night she had washed and ironed the white blouse she was to
wear. The white blouse lay on her bed, wonderful as a thing seen in a
happy dream. Rose could hardly permit herself to believe that the dream
would come true, and that Tanqueray would really take her.
It all depended on whether Laura could get off. Getting Laura off was
the difficulty they encountered every time she had a birthday.
So uncertain was the event that Nina and Prothero called at the house in
Albert Street before going on to the station. They found Tanqueray, and
Rose in her white blouse, waiting outside on the pavement. They heard
that Jane Holland was in there with Laura, bringing pressure to bear on
the obstinate Kiddy who was bent on the renunciation of her day.
Jane's voice on the landing called to them to come up-stairs. Without
them it was impossible, she said, to get Laura off.
The whole house was helping, in a passionate publicity; for every one in
it loved Laura. Mr. Baxter, the landlord, was on the staircase, bringing
Laura's boots. The maid of all work was leaning out of the window on the
landing, brushing Laura's skirt. A tall girl was standing by the table
in the sitting-room. She had a lean, hectic face, and prominent blue
eyes under masses of light hair. She was Addy Ranger, the type-writer on
the ground-floor, who had come up from her typewriting to see what she
could do. She was sewing buttons on Laura's blouse while Jane brought
pressure upon Laura. "Of course you're going," Jane was saying. "It's
not as if you had a birthday every day."
For Laura still sat at her writing-table, labouring over a paragraph,
white lipped and heavy eyed. Shuffling all over the room and round about
her was Mr. Gunning. He was pouring out the trouble that had oppressed
him for the last four years.
"She won't stop scribbling. It's scribble--scribble--scribble all day
long. If I didn't lie awake to stop her she'd be at it all night. I've
caught her--in her nightgown. She'll get out of her bed to do it."
"Papa, dear, you know Miss Lempriere and Mr. Prothero?"
His mind adjusted itself instantly to its vision of them. He bowed to
each. He was the soul of courtesy and hospitality, and they were his
guests; they had come to luncheon.
"Lolly, my dear, have you ordered luncheon?--You must tell Mrs. Baxter
to give us a salmon mayonnaise, and a salad and lamb cutlets in aspic.
And, Lolly! Tell her to put a bottle of champagne in ice."
For in his blessed state, among the fragments of old splendours that
still clung to him, Mr. Gunning had preserved indestructibly his sense
of power to offer his friends a bottle of champagne on a suitable
occasion, and every occasion now ranked with him as suitable.
"Yes, darling," said Laura, and dashed down a line of her paragraph.
He shuffled feebly toward the door. "I have to see to everything
myself," he said. "That child there has no more idea how to order a
luncheon than the cat. There should be," he reverted, "lamb cutlets in
aspic. I must see to it myself."
He wandered out of the room and in again, driven, by his dream.
"Oh," cried Laura, "somebody else must have my birthday. _I_ can't have
it. I must sit tight and finish my paragraph."
"You'll spoil it if you do," said Prothero.
"Besides spoiling everybody's day," said Jane judiciously.
That brought Laura round. She reflected that, if she sat tight from ten
that evening till two in the morning, she could save their day.
But first she had to finish her paragraph and then to hide it and lock
it up. Then she put the pens and ink on a high shelf out of Mr.
Gunning's reach. He had been known to make away with the materials of
Lolly's detestable occupation when he got the chance. He attributed to
it that mysterious, irritating semblance of poverty in which they moved.
He smiled at her, a happy, innocent smile.
"_That's_ right, _that's_ right. Put it away, my dear, put it away."
"Yes, Papa," said Laura. She took the blouse from Addy Ranger, and she
and Jane Holland disappeared with it into a small inner room. From the
voices that came to him Prothero gathered that Jane Holland was
"buttoning her up the back."
"Don't say," cried Laura, "that it won't meet!"
"Meet? It'll go twice round you. You don't eat enough."
Silence.
"It's no good," he heard Jane Holland say, "not eating. I've tried
both."
"I," said Laura in a voice that penetrated, "over-eat. Habitually."
"I must go," said Mr. Gunning, "and find my hat and stick." His idea now
was that Laura was going to take him for a walk.
Addy Ranger began to talk to Prothero. He liked Addy. She had an amusing
face with a long nose and wide lips, restless and cynical. She confided
to him the trouble of her life, the eternal difficulty of finding
anywhere a permanent job. Addy's dream was permanence.
Then they talked of Laura.
"Do you know what _her_ dream is?" said Addy. "To be able to afford
wine, and chicken, and game and things--for him."
"When you think of her work!" said Nina. "It's charming; it's finished,
to a point. How on earth does she do it?"
"She sits up half the night to do it," said Prothero; "when he isn't
there."
"And it's killing her," said Addy, who had her back to the door.
Mr. Gunning had come in again and he heard her. He gazed at them with a
vague sweetness, not understanding what he heard.
Then Laura ran in among them, in a tremendous hurry. She wasn't ready
yet. It was a maddening, protracted agony, getting Laura off. She had
forgotten to lock the cupboard where the whisky was (a shilling's worth
in a medicine bottle); and poor Papa might find it. Since he had had his
sunstroke you couldn't trust him with anything, not even with a jam-pot.
Then Addy, at Laura's request, rushed out of the room to find Laura's
hat and her handkerchief and her gloves--not the ones with the holes in
them. And then Laura looked at her hands.
"Oh," she cried, "_look_ at my poor hands. I can't go like that. I
_hate_ an inky woman."
And she dashed out to wash the ink off.
And then the gloves found by Addy had all holes in them. And at that
Laura stamped her foot and said, "Damn!"
The odds against Laura's getting off were frightful.
But she was putting on her hat. She was really ready just as Tanqueray's
voice was heard calling on the stairs, "You must hurry up if you want to
catch that train." And now they had to deal seriously with Mr. Gunning,
who stood expectant, holding his hat and stick.
"Good-bye, Papa dear," said she.
"Am I not to come, too?" said Mr. Gunning.
"Not to-day, dear."
She was kissing him while Jane and Nina waited in the open doorway.
Their eyes signed to her to be brave and follow them. But Laura
lingered.
Prothero looked at Laura, and Mr. Gunning looked at Prothero. His
terrible idea had come back to him at the sight of the young man,
risen, and standing beside Laura for departure.
"Are you going to take my little girl away from me?" he said.
"Poor little Papa, of course he isn't. I'm going with Jane, and Nina.
You know Nina?"
"And who," he cried, "is going to take me for my walk?"
He had her there. She wavered.
"Addy's coming in to give you your tea. You like Addy." (He bowed to
Miss Ranger with a supreme courtesy.) "And I'll be back in time to see
you in your little bed."
She ran off. Addy Ranger took Mr. Gunning very tenderly by the arm and
led him to the stairs to see her go.
Outside on the pavement Tanqueray gave way to irritation.
"If," said he, "it would only please Heaven to take that old gentleman
to itself."
"It won't," said Nina.
"How she would hate us if she heard us," said Jane.
"There ought to be somebody to take care of 'im," said Rose, moved to
compassion. "'E might go off in a fit any day. She can't be easy when
'e's left."
"He _must_ be left," said Tanqueray with ferocity.
"Here she is," said Jane.
There she was; and there, too, was her family. For, at the sight of
Laura running down-stairs with Prothero after her, Mr. Gunning broke
loose from Addy's arm and followed her, perilously followed her. Addy
was only just in time to draw him back from the hall door as Prothero
closed it.
And then little Laura, outside, heard a cry as of a thing trapped, and
betrayed, and utterly abandoned.
"I can't go," she cried. "He thinks I'm leaving him--that I'm never
coming back. He always thinks it."
"You know," said Nina, "he never thinks anything for more than five
minutes."
"I know--but----"
Nina caught her by the shoulder. "You stupid Kiddy, you must forget him
when he isn't there."
"But he _is_ there," said Laura. "I can't leave him."
Between her eyes and Prothero's there passed a look of eternal patience
and despair. Rose saw it. She saw how it was with them, and she saw what
she could do. She turned back to the door.
"You go," she said. "I'll stay with him."
From the set of her little chin you saw that protest and argument were
useless.
"I can take care of him," she said. "I know how."
And as she said it there came into her face a soft flame of joy. For
Tanqueray was looking at her, and smiling as he used to smile in the
days when he adored her. He was thinking in this moment how adorable she
was.
"You may as well let her," he said. "She isn't happy if she can't take
care of somebody."
And, as they wondered at her, the door opened and closed again on Rose
and her white blouse.