The family came cascading down the stairs
IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE for a person as gay as Ginnie usually was to be worried about something, and nobody notice she was being unusual. Of course she did not worry all the time, but only when she remembered, so it was not so much the worrying Cathy noticed as the interest Ginnie was taking suddenly in her face. When Cathy did not understand something about her children she often asked advice from Mrs Gage, for Mrs Gage was very sensible.
After nearly a week of rain Saturday was fine. Cathy, gay because of the sun, felt in the mood to talk. She was cooking kippers for breakfast.
‘Have you noticed anything odd about Ginnie, Mrs Gage?’
Mrs Gage looked up from scrubbing the kitchen floor.
‘She’s always a caution. Seems a bit quieter off and on like.’
Cathy gave the kippers a prod with her fork.
‘She’s never been a vain child, but quite suddenly she’s taken to staring at herself in looking-glasses. Did any of your children do that when they were ten?’
Mrs Gage thought the matter over.
‘Come to think of it my Margaret Rose was chronic at it. But then she had ’ad the looks, which Ginnie ’asn’t. Shouldn’t wonder if something ’asn’t been said at the school, children often acts up after somethin’s been said that way.’
Cathy left the kippers and put some tea in the teapot.
‘Ginnie’s never been a child to care what was said about her, she’s always made fun of her appearance.’
Mrs Gage went back to her scrubbing.
‘She’s taken a vain fit, maybe, but what I say is you’ve got the face ’eaven sent you, and no amount of thinking about it won’t alter it, so it’s no good creatin’.’
Cathy thought of her fat, plain little Ginnie, and smiled.
‘I don’t think we need take quite such a gloomy view as that. Lots of girls have started fat and without any looks have grown up with figures like film stars, and lovely faces. Ginnie has got plenty of time to become beautiful. I wonder whether you’d have a talk with her. You’ll have her to yourself while Jane and I are out buying the stuff for her frock. If something has been said at school which has upset her you’re the right person to find out about it, she thinks a lot of what you say.’
Mrs Gage in her scrubbing had reached the tidy bin. She pulled at a piece of newspaper which was sticking out of it.
‘Right-o, dear.’ She opened the bin and took out the paper. ‘Funny how the paper thin’s comes wrapped in always seems to ’ave better bits in it than the paper what you buys to read. Look at this piece the kippers come in, isn’t that a smashin’ dog?’
Cathy moved round and looked over Mrs Gage’s shoulder at a large photograph of a poodle.
‘He’s beautiful.’
Mrs Gage folded the paper so that she could read it.
‘Oh, it’s a competition. Look what’s wrote. “’ave you got a camera? Enter your dog now for the most beautiful dog in Britain competition. First prize fifty pounds.” Well, I never! Better show this to young Paul, ’e’s got a camera.’
‘I dare say the competition’s over, you know how old fishmongers’ newspapers often are. Is the date still on it?’
‘No. It’s come off where the fish stuck, but you could buy today’s copy and see.’
Cathy’s mind was not really on the competition, but on the day ahead of her. How lucky it was such a lovely morning! They so seldom went to the west end of London to shop, it would have been cruel luck if it had rained. Going with Jane to choose new stuff for the frock would be fun, for their clothes were so often altered from secondhand ones that came in bundles for needy clergy. If there was one job Cathy hated more than another it was turning other people’s old garments into clothes for her family. How nice to ride on the top of a bus, crossing the Thames, watching the tugs, the seagulls and seeing Big Ben. She said, answering her own thoughts:
‘Oh, what a lovely morning!’
Mrs Gage was more practical.
‘I said to Mr Gage as I woke up this mornin’: “Nice it’s fine for Mrs Bell and Jane for their shoppin’, but it’s a funny thin’, the day I do the vicar’s study as my good deed, the sun always shines after a wet week.” ’
Cathy looked fondly at Mrs Gage’s back.
‘It’s angelic of you to do it, and I’m glad the sun shines, as a reward.’
Mrs Gage sniffed.
‘Reward nothin’. It ’appens regular as clockwork. Out pops the sun, and the parishioners look out of their windows and seein’ the sun again says to theirselves: “I could do with a nice walk after all that rain, now where shall I go? I know, I’ll pop along and call on the vicar!”’
‘They don’t come to see him unless there’s something to see him about.’
Mrs Gage’s hearty laugh roared out.
‘That’s what you think, dear. But you’d be surprised. They ’oard thin’s for a fine Saturday, they know the weddin’s got to be fixed, and the baby christened or that, but do they come on a wet Saturday? Not them. They wait till it comes out nice, like this mornin’, then they march in and sit in our ’all, waitin’ to walk with their muddy boots right across the study carpet which I’ve just washed.’
Alex, walking back from early service, was thinking about his study. It was splendid of Mrs Gage to clean it, she looked upon it as the same thing as giving money to the church, bless her, but he did wish she would choose some other charity. Of course he knew studies had to be turned out, but he thought it a little hard it had to be on a Saturday. Saturdays were such busy days for vicars. The parish workers came to do the flowers and clean the brass, and of course he had to look in and have a word with them. There were always babies to be christened on Sundays, and the fathers and mothers of the babies came to see him on Saturdays about that. Saturdays, because they were half-holidays for many, were the days when people called who wanted to see him about getting married, or other of their business. As well Saturdays were the days when he had to put the finishing touches to two sermons. Alex had made a rule for himself, which he tried very hard to stick to. It was not to let anybody know when he was feeling cross. So outside the vicarage he stopped. First he pulled back his shoulders, which were feeling rather saggish, because it was before breakfast. Then he gave himself a sort of mental slap to remind himself not to grouse. Then, feeling better, he opened the front door. Cathy was coming up the hall with the breakfast tray, she stopped to give him a kiss.
‘Hungry?’
Alex, almost over his bad mood, gave a pleased sniff.
‘Kippers?’
‘Yes. Everybody’s charmed except Esau. Sound the gong, Alex, darling.’
The family came cascading down the stairs. Paul carrying his books. Angus riding the banisters. Jane talking as she came.
‘Oh, Mummy, galosh galoosh! Look what a scrumdatious Saturday it is. Do you think pink could be useful?’
Mrs Gage, coming up the passage, gave Angus a gentle smack.
‘If I was your mother I’d take a slipper to you. The shorts aren’t made that would stand up to slidin’ on them like that.’
Ginnie rushed down the stairs and jumped the last four steps.
‘Do up my frock, Mrs Gage darling, while I finish plaiting my hair.’
Mrs Gage made pretence clicking disapproving sounds.
‘Late as usual, young Ginnie. Dragon for sleep you are.’
Ginnie never minded what Mrs Gage said.
‘I’m much nearer on time than I often am,’ then, hearing her father call, she shouted ‘Coming,’ and tore into the dining-room.
All meals in the vicarage started with grace. Alex knew that few other homes said grace, and that his children thought it was old-fashioned of him to say one, but he liked a grace said, and paid no attention to what his children thought.
‘For what we are about to receive may the Lord make us truly thankful.’
Alex had barely said the last word when Ginnie burst out:
‘Could Miss Virginia Bell be wrong in thinking she heard Miss Jane Bell ask if her new frock could be pink?’
Jane turned eagerly to Cathy.
‘Could pink ever be a useful colour, Mummy?’
Ginnie looked at Alex.
‘Would you stand up for me, Daddy? Would you make Jane remember that when she has a new frock it’s only hers to begin with, and will be mine in two years. I keep hoping I’ll get thinner as I get older, but I bulge more and more, and nobody who bulges looks nice in pink. My size is a cross I have to bear.’
Alex laughed.
‘Poor Miss Virginia Bell.’ Then he turned to Jane. ‘Is this the shopping day?’
Jane looked at Cathy.
‘I think it’s a cross we have to bear to have a father who’s so unworldly he doesn’t even remember the day when his child is going to have a new dress.’
Angus paused, with a spoon of cereal half-way to his mouth.
‘When caterpillars change into cocoons Paul says they don’t feel odd, but I think they do. I think they feel sort of surprised when they wake up and find that instead of being something that walks, with lots of legs, they’ve got wings instead, I mean I would.’
Alex poured some milk over his cereal.
‘Does this mean that there is now a butterfly in the menagerie?’
‘Was,’ said Paul, ‘we let it out of the window of course. I wish we had a yard. I’d like to keep some animals for diet experiments, rabbits, guinea pigs and so on. I think it would be interesting to feed them on all sorts of food they never ate before, and see how they get on.’
‘Like when we were at Uncle Jim’s?’ Ginnie asked. ‘And you cooked those toadstools instead of mushrooms?’
Paul remembered only too well, for he had been responsible.
‘By the book they were all right.’
‘That was the only time,’ said Angus reminiscently, ‘that I ever knew anybody could be sick fourteen times, without eating anything in between.’
Cathy, too, remembered only too well the day her children had picknicked on supposedly edible fungi.
‘Darlings, please not at breakfast. As a matter of fact, I don’t know why you want to remember it at all.’
‘We only did,’ Ginnie explained, ‘because Paul’s thinking of giving odd food to rabbits and guinea pigs, and we were standing up for them.’
Cathy looked affectionately at Paul.
‘You can’t become a doctor without having an inquiring mind, but that’s the last time you’re going to experiment on any of us.’
Jane was stroking Esau’s ears.
‘Mummy, as Esau hates kippers could he have the littlest bit of cereal and milk this morning?’
The rule was that Esau was not fed at meals. This meant nothing, for all the children fed him under the table, and on special occasions he was allowed something off a plate. But this was not a special occasion so Alex tried to be firm.
‘You know he mustn’t be fed at meals, I say that every day. Anyway, it ruins his figure.’
Cathy put down her teacup.
‘Talking of Esau’s figure, Mrs Gage found something in the paper that was round the kippers. It’s a competition for the most beautiful dog in Britain. I don’t know what date the paper was, or if the competition is over, but Mrs Gage thinks that if it isn’t over you ought to take Esau’s photograph, Paul, and enter it for the competition.’
‘What’s the prize?’ Paul asked.
‘Fifty pounds.’
There was a gasp round the table. Fifty pounds! An enormous sum like that, just for a photograph!
‘Fifty pounds!’ said Jane. ‘What will you buy with it, Paul?’
Ginnie stopped eating and leant on the table.
‘You can buy almost anything for fifty pounds. Will you spend it all on one thing, Paul, or on lots of little things?’
‘If it’s a photograph of Esau,’ said Angus, ‘then the fifty pounds belongs to him, and it’s him ought to decide what it’s spent on.’
Alex laughed.
‘Esau’s a very good-looking dog, but I don’t think we should start spending that fifty pounds at the moment. Paul has only a very small camera and it’s not in very good condition.’
Angus looked anxiously at his father.
‘Esau mayn’t like being the most beautiful dog in Britain. Hundreds of people will come and look at him, and he won’t care for that at all.’
‘I don’t think we need worry at the moment about admiring crowds, old man,’ said Alex.
Mrs Gage brought in the post. She handed a pile of letters to Alex.
‘The usual for you, Vicar.’ Then she passed one letter to Cathy. ‘It’s from your brother, Mrs Bell, dear.’ Paul told her they had just heard about the competition. Mrs Gage looked affectionately at Esau. ‘Bit of all right if our Esau were to win us fifty pounds, wouldn’t it? Mind you, though, it don’t always turn out for the best. There was a woman up my street took a prize in one of these newspaper competitions for the best-looking twin babies.’
‘What happened?’ asked Jane.
Mrs Gage saw the children were listening. Her voice became full of drama.
‘The day they won the prize the newspaper sends a photographer, and what do you think ’ad ’appened? The twins was swelled up so you wouldn’t ’ave known them from a coupl’a footballs. It was the mumps.’
In the second after Mrs Gage had said the word ‘mumps’ Ginnie threw an appalled glance at Jane, and Jane an equally appalled one at Ginnie. Each day before breakfast Ginnie measured her face with a yard measure. So far there was no difference in the measurement, though Ginnie had worried moments when in looking-glasses she thought she looked different. Jane’s worry was in case Ginnie was not measuring in the right place, and the mumps might swell up without their noticing it. Now they said in frightened voices:
‘Mumps!’
Mrs Gage was charmed to have so good an audience.
‘That’s right. Their mother thought maybe it was a judgment for puttin’ the babies photos in the paper.’
As the door shut behind Mrs Gage, Ginnie asked in a voice which, try as she would, sounded scared:
‘Can you get mumps as a judgment, Daddy?’
‘Of course not. Can you believe that Heaven would inflict mumps on two defenceless babies, just because their mother entered their photographs for a beauty competition?’
Cathy, who was reading her letter, gave a pleased squeak.
‘Oh, what fun! There’s going to be a medical conference the week after next, and both Uncle Jim and Mumsdad have to come to it, so Aunt Ann and Mumsmum are coming too. It will be nice to see them all.’
Such a chorus of approval greeted Cathy’s news that Alex had to laugh.
‘I notice much more enthusiasm when your family appear than when mine do, Cathy.’
Jane, who sat next to him, patted Alex’s hand.
‘It’s much easier when they come, no dressing up like there is for Grandfather and Grandmother, or the fuss that goes on when Aunt Rose and Uncle Alfred ask us to things. Mummy’s family like us as we are, and don’t care what we wear.’
Cathy was still reading her letter.
‘Oh, and imagine, it’s half-term! So they’re going to bring Ricky and Liza too. They say, if it’s fine, would you all like to go to the Zoo on the Saturday.’
‘Goodness,’ said Jane, ‘the things that happen to this family. Imagine, the ballet party for Angus’s birthday one week and the Zoo the next. Aren’t we getting gay?’
Jane saw Ginnie had sunk into silent gloom, and she did not wonder. She knew that Ginnie must be feeling awful inside, thinking you could get mumps as a judgment, and though she thought Ginnie ought to have had quarantine she was sorry for her. Nobody else noticed anything was wrong. To Paul it was always a day to remember when he could talk to Uncle Jim. Uncle Jim took his being a doctor for granted, and made the years before he could be one shrink. To Angus a day at the Zoo was the perfect day. He had once said that his idea of a perfect life would be to live in an empty cage at the Zoo, and he meant it. Alex was not noticing Ginnie, because he was so pleased for Cathy. Her father, though he was retired, was still on many committees, and Cathy did not see nearly enough of her parents. It was nice to see her so pleased she had pink cheeks, and shining eyes. He came round the table and kissed her.
‘Good-bye, darling, I hope you and Jane have a good morning shopping. I must go and get on with my work, before Mrs Gage lays her claws on my study.’
After Paul had gone, and while Cathy was talking food with Mrs Gage, Jane, Ginnie and Angus cleared the breakfast table. Ginnie, unable to hold back her worry any more, burst out:
‘Jane, I know Daddy says you can’t, but do you think you can get mumps as a judgment? I mean, could you if you weren’t a poor defenceless baby?’
Angus was scraping kipper bones on to a plate.
‘I don’t think Esau can get mumps as a judgment, because I don’t think dogs get mumps.’
Jane tried to sound hopeful.
‘Perhaps there isn’t any such thing as a judgment, anyway, perhaps you can’t catch mumps if there is.’ She saw she was not being very encouraging, so she changed the subject. ‘I wish that photograph was taken, and Esau’d won the fifty pounds now, then Mummy could have a new dress as well as me.’
Angus was disgusted at such casual treatment of other people’s money.
‘If Esau had fifty pounds you don’t know he’d want to spend it on a new frock for Mummy. I expect he would, because he’s got a lovely nature, but you can’t just go spending his money without asking.’
Jane patted Esau.
‘Of course that’s what you’d spend your money on, wouldn’t you, Esau?’ She knelt down and hugged his red-gold body to her. ‘Angel boy, you would buy Mummy a new dress, you’re as ashamed as we are to see her going to Aunt Rose’s party in Aunt Rose’s cast-off, aren’t you?’
It was not like Angus to pay attention to clothes, but because Jane had spoken to Esau about Cathy’s dress her words had sunk in. He watched her leave for the kitchen with a loaded tray, then he said to Ginnie:
‘Esau hasn’t any money yet, but if he ever has, and if Mummy needs a new dress, I’m perfectly certain he would buy one.’
Ginnie was glad to think of other things than judgments.
‘Of course she needs a new dress. She’s only got Aunt Rose’s old dress. You know how despising Aunt Rose can look. Well, we think she looks despising when Mummy wears it.’
‘Isn’t there enough money in the money box to buy her a new one?’
Ginnie looked scornfully at Angus.
‘Of course there isn’t, my boy. There’s only just enough to get Jane one, if there’s to be anything for the summer holidays.’
Angus, though he quarrelled with her a great deal, had faith in Ginnie.
‘Couldn’t you do something to get her one? You usually think of things.’
It was at that moment that Ginnie’s glorious idea was born. Everybody spent their time saying ‘Your old black frock,’ and ‘Aunt Rose’s cast-off,’ and things like that, but nobody did anything about it. Yet there must be things that could be done. Perhaps not a whole new dress, but there must be some way to make it different. She, Ginnie, would find that way.
‘I believe you’ve got something there, my boy. I’m not sure yet exactly what. Miss Virginia Bell will wait for guidance.’
There was always trouble if Cathy went out when the children were at home, without stating clearly what each was to do while she was away. The Bells were not a quarrelsome family, but it would not be natural for any child to offer to make beds, wash up or do any chore that was going unless they had been asked to. Before Cathy left with Jane on the shopping expedition she arranged that Angus would give his caterpillar boxes a real turn out, and while this was going on Ginnie would help Mrs Gage make the beds. Later, while Mrs Gage was doing her good deed to the study Ginnie and Angus were to be trusted to do the shopping. The reward for all this hard work was money for ice creams.
There was no need for Mrs Gage to look for a way to ask Ginnie if anything was worrying her, for before they were half-way through the first bed Ginnie said:
‘Mrs Gage, do you really believe things can come as a judgment? I mean, like you said those twins had mumps?’
Mrs Gage laid down her side of the sheet. Then she sat down on the bed and told Ginnie to come and sit beside her.
‘What are you worryin’ about judgments for? What you been up to?’
Ginnie turned her face away.
‘Nothing.’
Mrs Gage was not having that, she turned Ginnie’s face round so that she could see it.
‘I saw you lookin’ in the glass just now. Is it somethin’ to do with your face?’
The pupils of Ginnie’s eyes grew large with fright.
‘Why? Does it look different?’
Mrs Gage hugged Ginnie to her.
‘Is it somethin’ to do with the mumps? Now, come on, dear, the beds can wait. I know you’ve somethin’ on your mind, and what I told you about them twins brought it to an ’ead like. Troubles shared is troubles ’alved.’
Because Ginnie was really so terribly worried, Mrs Gage’s being so nice was the last straw. She flung her arms round her neck, and started to cry. She cried so hard that for quite a long time, though she told Mrs Gage the whole story, Mrs Gage never heard one word she said. So presently, when the crying had reached the sniff and hiccoughing stage, she said very gently:
‘Come on, stop cryin’. When you go out shoppin’ you don’t want the ’ole ’igh Street wonderin’ what you been cryin’ about. Now, start at the beginnin’, and tell me slow what the trouble is.’
Out came the story, how Alison had been taken out of the form, pulling the top off the cut, the leaning over Alison, and the awful end when Miss Newton had rung up.
‘It’s my ’satiable curiosity that did it. I simply had to know what the secret was.’
Mrs Gage stroked Ginnie’s hair.
‘I’m the same meself, dear. See a telegraph boy and you can’t ’old me, it’s fidget, fidget till I know who it’s for and what’s in the telegram.’
Ginnie felt much better after having told Mrs Gage her awful secret, but she was not at all sure that Mrs Gage realised the full terribleness that might happen if she caught mumps.
‘You see, if I get it it won’t be only me who has quarantine, it’ll be everybody. There won’t be any party for the ballet, Jane won’t dance her nymph, Paul will miss his cricket coaching, and now Mummy heard today that Mumsmum, Mumsdad, Uncle Jim, Aunt Ann, Ricky and Liza are all coming to London, and we’re going to the Zoo. If I have mumps that won’t happen either.’
Mrs Gage made worried clicking sounds, her tongue against her teeth.
‘This is a mess, this is. Mind you, never say die. I knew a lady once that ’eld a baby all the way from Liverpool to London, never knowing the baby ’ad the dip. She never caught it.’
‘But I’m afraid I shall catch it, I’m afraid it’ll be like you said, a judgment.’
Mrs Gage got up.
‘Judgment or no judgment we’d better finish these beds. Rightly I did ought to go to your mother, still, the trouble’s done now so to speak. Maybe we’d better ’ope on.’
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.’
‘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.’