If Little Sarah was rather stupid, she was also very good-natured. She glanced at Mary with a smile, but with rather an odd look on her face too.
“What does you want? What is you looking at me for?” said Mary.
“Oh, nothing,” said Sarah. “I was only thinking whatever would you do without nurse if – if nurse was busy and couldn’t be so much with you, Miss Mary.”
“Nurse wouldn’t never be busy like that,” said Mary.
“Oh, well, never mind. I’ll dress Master Artie and I dare say nurse – ” began Sarah, but she stopped short. Nurse just then came into the room.
“Here’s Miss Mary worretting for you,” said the girl.
Nurse hurried up to the little girl’s bed.
“Have you been awake long, my dear?” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
“Nurse,” whispered Mary, pulling nurse’s head close down so that she could whisper to her, “I heard Old Sarah and Little Sarah talking, and Old Sarah sayed ‘Thursday’ and ‘May.’ Is it my birfday comed, nurse? Mamma sayed it was coming in May, and it would be Thursday.”
“My dearie,” said nurse, “you’ve guessed right. It is your birthday – the 18th of May.”
Mary felt pleased, but also a little disappointed. She had been waiting for her birthday and thinking about it for such a long time that now she could scarcely believe it had come. For it seemed just like other days. No, not quite like other days, not as nice. For nurse had got up so early and Old Sarah and Little Sarah had been talking in the nursery – she did not like anybody to talk like that in the nursery.
“Dress me quick, please, nurse,” she said, “and then I’ll go to mamma’s room, and then p’raps my birfday will begin. I don’t think it can have beginned yet. I thought – ” and then she stopped and her lips quivered a little.
“What, my dearie?” said nurse.
She was a very kind, understanding nurse always, but this morning she spoke even more kindly than other mornings to Mary.
“I don’t know,” said Mary. “I think I thought mamma would come to kiss me in bed like a fairy, and – and – I thought there’d be stockings or somefin’ like that – like Kissimas, you know.”
Nurse had lifted Mary out of her bath by this time, and was rubbing her with a nice large “soft-roughey” towel – “soft-roughey” was one of Mary and Artie’s words – it meant the opposite of “prick-roughey.” They did not like “prick-roughey” things. She wrapped Mary all round in the big towel for a minute; it was nice and warm, for it had been hanging in front of the fire; then she gave Mary a little hug.
“You mustn’t be unhappy, dear Miss Mary,” she said. “Mamma meant to come, I’m sure, but she’s fast asleep – and when she wakes I’m afraid she’ll have a headache. So I’m afraid your birthday won’t be quite like what you planned. But I’m sure there’ll be some pretty presents for you – quite sure.”
But Mary looked up with her lips quivering still more, and the tears beginning to come too.
“It isn’t presents I want,” she said. “Not presents like that way. I – I want mamma. Mammas shouldn’t have headaches. It takes away all the birfday-ness.”
Then she turned her head round and pressed it in to nurse’s shoulder and burst into tears.
Chapter Two.
Guessing
Poor nurse was very sorry. But she knew it would not do to be too sorry for Mary, for then she would go on crying. And once Mary got into a long cry it sometimes went on to be a very long one indeed. So nurse spoke to her quite brightly.
“My dearie,” she said, “you mustn’t cry on your birthday morning. It’s quite a mistake. Look up, dear. See, the sun’s coming out so beautiful again, and we’ll have Master Leigh and Master Artie calling for their breakfast. And you’ll have to be quick, for your papa gave me a message to say you were to go down to see him in the dining-room.”
Mary gave a little wriggle, though she still kept her face hidden. But as nurse went on talking she slowly turned round so that her dressing could go on.
“I’ve something to say to you before you go down,” nurse went on. “There’s something that’s come just in time for your birthday. I’ll give you each two guesses – you and Master Leigh and Master Artie, while you’re eating your breakfast.”
Mary looked up.
“Where’s my hankercher?” she said, and when nurse gave it to her she wiped her eyes.
That was a good sign.
“Let me have my guesses now, nursey,” she said coaxingly.
But nurse kept to what she had said.
“No, dear, guesses are much nicer when there’s two or three together. Besides, we must be very quick. See, there’s your nice frock all ready.”
And Mary saw, where nurse pointed to, one of her Sunday afternoon frocks lying on a chair. It was a blue one – blue with tiny white stripes, and Mary was very fond of it. It had a very pretty wide sash, just the same colour, and there were little bows on her shoes the same colour too. Her face got quite smiley when she saw all these things. She was not a vain little girl and she did not care about fine clothes, but it gave her a nice feeling that, after all, her birthday was going to be something different to other days.
Soon she was dressed; her hair, which was not very long but soft and shaggy and of a pretty brown colour, combed out so that no tuggy bits were left; her hands as clean as a little girl’s hands could be; a nice white pinafore on the top of the pretty blue frock, so that Mary felt that, as nurse said, she was quite fit to go to see the Queen, if the Queen had asked her.
And when she went into the day-nursery things seemed to get still nicer. There were no bowls of bread and milk, but a regular “treat” breakfast set out. Tea-cups for herself and the boys, and dear little twists of bacon, and toast – toast in a toast-rack – and some honeycomb in a glass dish.
“Oh,” said Mary, “it is my birfday. I’m quite sure now there’s no mistook.”
And in a minute Leigh and Artie came running in. I do not know, by the by, that Leigh came running, most likely he was walking, for he was rather a solemn sort of boy, but Artie made up for it. He scarcely ever walked. He was always hopping or jumping or turning head over heels, he could almost do wheels, like a London street boy. And this morning he came in with an extra lot of jumps because it was Mary’s birthday.
“You thought we’d forgotten, Leigh and me, now didn’t you?” he said. “But we hadn’t a bit. It was Leigh said you liked the bacon twisted up and it was me reminded about the honey. Wasn’t it now, nurse? And we’ve got a present for you after breakfast. It’s downstairs with papa’s and mamma’s. We’ll give you them all of us together, Mary.”
But the mention of mamma brought a cloud again to Mary’s face.
“Nursey says mamma’s dot a headache, and we can’t see her. Not Mary on her birfday.”
At this Leigh looked up.
“Is that true?” he said. “Is mamma ill?”
“She’s asleep, Master Leigh, and she may sleep a good while. I dare say you’ll all see her when she wakes.”
“Her shouldn’t be ’nill on my birfday,” began Mary again.
“Rubbish, Mary,” said Leigh. “I dare say she’ll be all right. And you should be sorry for mamma if she’s ill; it isn’t her fault.”
“I am sorry,” said Mary dolefully; “that’s why I can’t help crying.”
“Come now, Miss Mary,” began nurse.