Ginnie went round the bed, and picked up her side of the sheet.
‘Every day I measure my face, and it isn’t a tiny weeny bit bigger than it ever was.’
‘Maybe you’re not goin’ to ’ave it. I always said you was born lucky, fall in the sea and you’d come out dry. Nor do you want to pay too much attention to what I said about a judgment. I’m curious meself, and I must say I never expected no judgment to come from it; but one thing I can tell you, young Ginnie, I’ve ’ad the mumps, and you’ll know fast enough if you’re gettin’ ’em.’
‘How?’
‘Oh, you feel proper rough, not yourself at all, and your face pains somethin’ chronic, so I tell you what we’ll do. If you don’t feel yourself, you keep out of everyone’s way, and call me. If I’m not about you go straight to your Mum and tell her everythin’ just as you’ve told it to me. And maybe, now I know, you’d better let me ’ave a look at your face every day. Mind you, you got to act honest. Tell me the moment you feels the least bit off.’
Ginnie felt wonderfully better after this talk with Mrs Gage, and as it never needed much to turn her from despair to gaiety she set off shopping with Angus and Esau in the wildest spirits. It was not difficult shopping, so soon the children were coming out of the ice cream shop with double-sized ice cream wafer sandwiches. They put down the shopping-bag to make eating easier, and to leave their hands free to give Esau his taste. It was while they were feeding Esau that Miss Bloggs saw them. She got off her bicycle.
‘Good morning, dears, what are you little people doing?’
It was so obvious they were eating ice creams, Ginnie decided that Miss Bloggs could not mean that, so, as it was rude to say nothing, she told her about Jane’s new frock, and that Mrs Gage was turning out the study, and they were helping by doing the shopping. Angus added:
‘These ices are our reward.’
Miss Bloggs seemed pleased about what happened to other people; she said, as if she was eating an ice cream herself:
‘Splendid! Splendid! Many hands make light work. And what are you wearing to the birthday party, Ginnie? We expect you all to do us credit when you go to Covent Garden.’
Ginnie took a big lick of her ice.
‘We won’t. Jane’s the only one who will. All I’ve got to wear is Jane’s old yellow, which you’ve seen often. Mummy’s wearing her black of course.’
Miss Bloggs smiled happily.
‘I’ve always liked her in that.’
Ginnie gave Esau another little bit of ice cream.
‘You may, but it’s really only an old frock of Aunt Rose’s, and it’s all our shame that she has to wear it to a party given by Aunt Rose. You don’t know our Aunt Rose, she’s an expensive-looking woman.’
‘The sort that smells,’ said Angus.
Ginnie saw Miss Bloggs looked puzzled.
‘Angus means scent, and sometimes of flowers too, she often wears those.’
Miss Bloggs had no dress sense at all. She considered clothes were coverings; winter and summer she wore a dark blue coat and skirt. In the summer with a cotton blouse, in the winter with a woollen jumper. She seldom saw well-dressed people, and had the mistaken idea that smart people wore fussy clothes. So when Ginnie said flowers, an idea sprang into her mind.
‘I wonder if your mother would like some flowers to brighten her frock for the party. Somebody sent a box of artificial flowers for the last jumble sale. I didn’t put them into the sale, because I thought they were quite unsuitable and an occasion might turn up when they would be useful. Now the occasion has turned up. I’ll put some money to the jumble sale fund, and if you little people will come with me I’ll give you the box to take to your mother.’
Miss Bloggs’s house was not very far from the vicarage. She asked the children and Esau to come into the dining-room and wait, while she fetched the flowers. It was not very nice waiting in the dining-room, because it was a very brown room, and the pictures were dull, and Esau would sniff at the fireplace, which had paper folded like a fan in it, pretending he could smell a mouse. Luckily, before he tore the paper fan out, Miss Bloggs came down with a cardboard box. She put it on the table. Inside it were artificial flowers that had been good once, but had become old and tired looking. There were some very red roses, some forget-me-nots, some daisies, and several bunches of faded violets. Ginnie, staring at this flower garden, saw the flowers, not as they were, but as they might be. She was so carried away by the vision inside her head that she caught hold of Miss Bloggs’s hand.
‘What are you little people doing?’
‘Miss Bloggs, dear, would you let me have these flowers? They’re for Mummy, but I don’t want her to see them until I’ve sewn them on. It’s to be a surprise.’
Miss Bloggs could see no harm in the request.
‘Of course, dear. Very sweet of you to think of it. I am sure your mother will love a surprise for the party.’
Ginnie put the box under her arm.
‘Come on, Angus, I want to get home and hide these before Mummy sees them.’
That evening a very important event took place. Esau was photographed. For Esau it had been a nasty afternoon. Paul came home at lunch-time, with a copy of the paper with the competition in it. It was not too late to send a photograph, so immediately after lunch Esau was given a bath. The family took turns at bathing him, Paul and Jane one time, Ginnie and Angus the other. This time it was Paul and Jane’s turn, and a very thorough bathing it was. Afterwards Esau was dried by the dining-room gas fire, and then he was given a tremendous brushing and combing until he glistened like a ripe horse chestnut. Over tea there was a family discussion. Against what background, and in what position should Esau’s photograph be taken?
‘I think he looks simply angelic sitting in the armchair in here,’ said Jane.
Alex’s eyes twinkled as he looked at Cathy.
‘I thought we agreed Esau wasn’t to get on chairs. You said his hairs were such a job to brush off.’
‘I did,’ Cathy agreed, ‘and we did say he shouldn’t, and I’m sure he does, but he certainly shan’t in a photograph, that would look as if we approved.’
‘I should think coming out of the front door would be best,’ Paul suggested. ‘If somebody said “walk” he would wear his best, pleased, excited face.’
‘Seeing he’s a vicarage dog,’ said Angus, ‘I think he should be coming out of church.’
‘Miss Virginia Bell thinks that a very silly suggestion, seeing Esau is never allowed inside a church, and hates us going because he’s left alone at home.’
‘All the same, the steps are a good idea,’ Cathy pointed out. ‘He would look enormously distinguished sitting at the top of them.’
In the end the top of the church steps it was. By bribing with biscuits Esau sat in six different, but to his admiring family, equally engaging positions. There was no doubt about it, he was an unusually good-looking dog, and when he had just had a bath and a brush, quite irresistible.
‘Such a pity,’ said Cathy, ‘it’s not in colour. His red-gold coat looks so lovely against the dark oak of the church door.’
Jane hugged Esau.
‘Adorable boy! I only hope, if you win, you don’t get offered a film contract, you easily might, and we couldn’t let you go and live in Hollywood.’
‘I should think he’d certainly win,’ said Angus, ‘there couldn’t possibly be a more beautiful dog than him in Britain.’
Ginnie skipped over to Cathy, and put her arm through hers.
‘Were you thinking if he won fifty pounds you’d have a new frock, Mummy?’
Cathy squeezed Ginnie’s arm to hers.
‘Of course not, goose. Plenty of other things would come first.’
‘But you would be glad if you looked so different at the party that everybody, especially Aunt Rose, was absolutely astonished.’
Cathy smiled.
‘It certainly would make a startling change.’
4
The Birthday
 
; THERE IS A very special smell that belongs to a birthday. Angus woke up early, sniffed and wondered for a moment why the morning smelt exciting. Then, in a second, he remembered and in one bounce was out of bed and hopping round the room.
‘Wake up, Paul. It’s birthday day. I’m eight.’
Paul rolled over, and would have told Angus what he thought of him for waking him up, but he remembered in time what day it was.
‘Many happy returns. I wanted to buy you some white mice, but Mum said you’d nowhere to keep them. But I’ve bought something I know you want, you’ll get it at breakfast.’
The thought of parcels on his plate made Angus hurry. He rushed out into the passage to see if he could be the first in the bathroom, but Jane had beaten him to it.
‘Sorry,’ she shouted through the door. ‘Many happy returns. You should have had it first, you’re a king today and can do what you like, but I didn’t know you wanted it. I couldn’t get up early enough on this gorgeous day. Imagine! The ballet and a new dress!’
The girls’ bedroom door was open so Angus walked in, for it was as good a place to wait for the bathroom as any other. Ginnie was sitting on her bed with her back to the door, very busy working at something, but she heard Angus come in.
‘Hallo, happy birthday and all that.’ Then she turned and made a this-is-secret face at him.
Angus tiptoed across the room.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Sewing the flowers on Mummy’s frock of course. Imagine, Angus, I could only start last night, because she didn’t press it till yesterday afternoon, and I couldn’t start till she’d done that, or she’d have seen the flowers and the surprise would have been spoilt.’ Ginnie held up the dress. ‘Look, isn’t it gorgeous!’
Cathy’s dress was a very plainly cut black crêpe-de-chine. Ginnie had sewn the violets round the neck, the daisies on the cuffs, and was finishing sewing the last of the bright-red roses round the waist. Angus was full of admiration.
‘It does look gay! Won’t Mummy be pleased!’
‘I stayed awake simply ages to do it. I thought Jane would never go to sleep. I never would have kept awake only I stood up to sew, you can’t really go to sleep standing up because you fall over if you do. I’d better put it away now in case Jane comes. I’m hiding it behind our mackintoshes. I’m going to put on the last of the roses when Jane’s doing her dancing practice.’ Ginnie got up and opened the cupboard door and hung up the dress. ‘I simply can’t wait for this evening to see Mummy’s face when she sees what I’ve done for her.’
Jane came bounding into the bedroom.
‘The bathroom’s all yours, Angus,’ then she saw Ginnie beside the cupboard. ‘Has Ginnie been showing you my lovely frock? Mummy finished it last night, I think it’s too beautiful to be true.’
It was a charming frock of silk with little flowers all over it. Ginnie looked at it gloomily.
‘It’s all right for you, Jane, but each time I see you being fitted in it I shudder. I can see me in it in two years’ time. Unless my shape changes very much by then I’m not going to like me in it at all. I’m not the sort of girl to wear dresses that stick out and rustle.’ Jane closed the door behind Angus. Ginnie’s voice became muffled for the yard measure was across her mouth. ‘Still not swollen, thank goodness, but I knew it wouldn’t be.’ She rolled up the yard measure. ‘Mrs Gage says before you have mumps you feel proper rough, and your face pains you something chronic. I don’t feel rough at all, I feel very smooth this morning, and my face doesn’t hurt the teeniest weeniest bit.’
‘I should stop worrying about your face. Mrs Gage said yesterday she’d never seen a face less like having mumps.’
Ginnie put away the yard measure.
‘As a matter of fact this morning Miss Virginia Bell wasn’t worrying about her face. D’you know what I’d have done, Jane, if I had the tiniest feeling of mumps this morning?’
‘Gone to bed of course.’
‘Not me. What’d be the good? You’d have all had quarantine if I’d had it, and then nobody could go to the ballet. No, I’d have gone to the ballet, and I’d have spent all the evening taking deep breaths, and breathing them at Veronica.’
On birthdays the place of the birthday person was decorated. For Angus’s birthday Cathy had made a ring of early summer flowers, and in the middle was his pile of birthday presents. On birthdays breakfast had to be half an hour early, to allow time for parcel opening before school. Angus had some lovely presents. Esau always gave the same present, a birthday card marked with his footprint. There was a camera from Mumsdad and Mumsmum, a box of tools from Cathy and Alex, a torch from Paul, a platform for his railway from Jane, a magnificent magnet from Mrs Gage, a china goat and a little plaster rabbit from Ginnie, and a morse code buzzer from Miss Bloggs.
They were all full of admiration when they saw the buzzer, it really was such a good idea. Ginnie said:
‘I would never have thought Miss Bloggs was a morse-code buzzer sort of person. When she said an elf had told her what you wanted for your birthday, Angus, my bet was, that sort of hymn book that has tunes in it was coming.’
Alex tried to look stern-fatherish.
‘You children are very unjust to Miss Bloggs, she’s not got much money, and it seems to me she always gives you lovely presents.’
Angus was eating his breakfast with one hand and playing with the buzzer with the other.
‘Actually this buzzer is almost the nicest present I’ve had.’
‘Not nicer than Mummy and Daddy’s tools,’ Jane protested, ‘or the camera from Mumsdad and Mumsmum.’
Angus gazed affectionately at the buzzer.
‘This is a immediate nice present. I can take it to school. The tools will be nice for always, and so will the torch and the platform. The camera would have been more useful if it had come last week. It’s newer than Paul’s, so it would have taken a much better picture of Esau.’
‘One would think,’ said Ginnie, ‘that Miss Virginia Bell had not given Mr Angus Bell a birthday present, for he didn’t mention it.’
Angus looked gravely at Ginnie.
‘I’m pleased to have that little goat, and I’m glad to have the rabbit, but I can’t help knowing that you didn’t buy the rabbit, because I saw it come out of that cracker at Christmas.’
‘You’re a very ungrateful boy, Angus, isn’t he, Mummy? When Jane told me she’d bought you a new platform for your railway I said that I’d buy you a little goat, and I’ll not only buy him a goat but I’ll give him the rabbit as well. They can both stand on the platform as luggage.’
Cathy smiled at Angus.
‘So they can, darling, and even birthday boys must eat their breakfast.’
Angus took a mouthful, but he had not finished his argument.
‘Goats and rabbits don’t stand on platforms as luggage much.’
Ginnie turned to her father.
‘That a child of yours should be so ignorant, Daddy!’ Then she hissed at Angus: ‘In the country they do all the time.’
Before the family left for school Cathy said:
‘Now listen, darlings. Everybody is to be completely ready by twenty past six. Uncle Alfred’s hire car will be here at half-past, you know how fussy he is about punctuality.’
Usually, of course, there was a special tea with a cake on birthdays, but because of the party Angus’s tea and cake were saved for Saturday. Instead there was a high tea, with an egg each to keep them, Cathy said, from rumbling during the performance.
In the contrary way things like boilers always behave, that day the vicarage boiler chose to what Mrs Gage called ‘act up.’ She came to the tea table to warn the children.
‘Nothin’ for it, dears, if you’re to ’ave baths before you dress, same as your Mum said, you’ll ’ave to share the water. It won’t ’ot up more’n the once.’
It was decided that Angus, because it was his birthday, would have first bath. Ginnie, because she was slow, second, and Jane third. Pa
ul was not home from school when the discussion started, so he was clearly the fourth bath-er.
‘Oh, Mummy,’ pleaded Jane, ‘must I have a bath? I want to feel gorgeous all over under my new frock, and I can’t all messed up with Angus and Ginnie’s dirty water.’
Ginnie was so indignant she choked over her egg.
‘I like that. Mr Angus Bell and Miss Virginia Bell are just as clean as Miss Jane Bell. As a matter of fact, when I get out of the bath nobody will ever know anyone has bathed in the water.’
Cathy laughed.
‘Painfully true as a rule, I’m afraid, but not on this occasion, because Mrs Gage is going to be in the bathroom seeing that every corner of both Mr Angus and Miss Virginia Bell is scrubbed.’ Then she turned to Jane. ‘If you come to my bedroom before you have your bath I’ll give you some of those eau-de-cologne bath crystals I had for Christmas. They ought to make you feel worthy of the new frock.’
‘Do you think I could take my morse-code buzzer with me to the theatre?’ Angus asked. ‘Then I could practise it if I didn’t like the ballet.’
Nobody refused requests, if they could help it, made by the person whose birthday it was, but Alex very quickly turned that suggestion down.
‘Certainly not.’
Jane saw Angus thought Alex was being mean.
‘But you could take the torch Paul gave you.’ She saw her father looked like arguing. ‘It’ll help you find the keyhole when we get in.’
Angus was glad he might bring his torch, but it was a poor substitute for his buzzer, so it seemed a good moment to present another idea. He adored a swop, but seldom had something really good to bargain with.
‘That camera Mumsmum and Mumsdad gave isn’t any use to me. I’ll get eight pennies a week now I’m eight, but I have lots of things to buy with it, so I could hardly ever buy a film.’
Pocket money in the Bell family was earned money. On the principle that the older you were the more help you should be, Jane, Ginnie and Angus had as many pennies a week as they were years old. Paul had more as part of his scholarship.
Cathy felt sure Angus was planning a swop.