Part 58 (1/2)

”Well,” he said, ”have you seen enough of me?”

They were outside the threshold now, and she stood there, one arm holding her lamp, the other stretched across the doorway, as if she would keep him from ever entering again.

”Or,” said he, ”may I come again? Soon?”

”Do,” she said, ”and bring Nina with you.”

She set her lamp on the floor at the stairhead, and backed, backed from him into the darkness of the room.

XXVI

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 pa.s.sionate 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, brus.h.i.+ng 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 ma.s.ses 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 b.u.t.tons 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.