Party

The front door bell pealed, and there sounded the rustle of Sadie's print skirt on the stairs. A man's voice murmured; Sadie answered, careless, "I'm sure I don't know. Wait. I'll ask Mrs Sheridan." "What is it, Sadie?" Laura came into the hall. "It's the florist, Miss Laura." It was, indeed. There, just inside the door, stood a wide, shallow tray full of pots of pink lilies. No other kind. Nothing but lilies - canna lilies, big pink flowers, wide open, radiant, almost frighteningly alive on bright crimson stems. "O-oh, Sadie!" said Laura, and the sound was like a little moan. She crouched down as if to warm herself at that blaze of lilies; she felt they were in her fingers, on her lips, growing in her breast. "It's some mistake," she said faintly. "Nobody ever ordered so many. Sadie, go and find mother." But at that moment Mrs. Sheridan joined them. "It's quite right," she said calmly. "Yes, I ordered them. Aren't they lovely?" She pressed Laura's arm. "I was passing the shop yesterday, and I saw them in the window. And I suddenly thought for once in my life I shall have enough canna lilies. The garden-party will be a good excuse." "But I thought you said you didn't mean to interfere," said Laura. Sadie had gone. The florist's man was still outside at his van. She put her arm round her mother's neck and gently, very gently, she bit her mother's ear. "My darling child, you wouldn't like a logical mother, would you? Don't do that. Here's the man." He carried more lilies still, another whole tray. "Bank them up, just inside the door, on both sides of the porch, please," said Mrs. Sheridan. "Don't you agree, Laura?" "Oh, I do, mother." In the drawing-room Meg, Jose and good little Hans had at last succeeded in moving the piano. "Now, if we put this chesterfield against the wall and move everything out of the room except the chairs, don't you think?" "Quite." "Hans, move these tables into the smoking-room, and bring a sweeper to take these marks off the carpet and - one moment, Hans - " Jose loved giving orders to the servants, and they loved obeying her. She always made them feel they were taking part in some drama. "Tell mother and Miss Laura to come here at once. "Very good, Miss Jose." She turned to Meg. "I want to hear what the piano sounds like, just in case I'm asked to sing this afternoon. Let's try over 'This life is Weary.'" Pom! Ta-ta-ta Tee-ta! The piano burst out so passionately that Jose's face changed. She clasped her hands. She looked mournfully and enigmatically at her mother and Laura as they came in. "This Life is Wee-ary, A Tear - a Sigh. A Love that Chan-ges, This Life is Wee-ary, A Tear - a Sigh. A Love that Chan-ges, And then ... Good-bye!" But at the word "Good-bye," and although the piano sounded more desperate than ever, her face broke into a brilliant, dreadfully unsympathetic smile. "Aren't I in good voice, mummy?" she beamed. "This Life is Wee-ary, Hope comes to Die. A Dream - a Wa-kening." But now Sadie interrupted them. "What is it, Sadie?" "If you please, m'm, cook says have you got the flags for the sandwiches?" "The flags for the sandwiches, Sadie?" echoed Mrs. Sheridan dreamily. And the children knew by her face that she hadn't got them. "Let me see." And she said to Sadie firmly, "Tell cook I'll let her have them in ten minutes. Sadie went. "Now, Laura," said her mother quickly, "come with me into the smokingroom. I've got the names somewhere on the back of an envelope. You'll have to write them out for me. Meg, go upstairs this minute and take that wet thing off your head. Jose, run and finish dressing this instant. Do you hear me, children, or shall I have to tell your father when he comes home to-night? And - and, Jose, pacify cook if you do go into the kitchen, will you? I'm terrified of her this morning." The envelope was found at last behind the dining-room clock, though how it had got there Mrs. Sheridan could not imagine. "One of you children must have stolen it out of my bag, because I remember vividly - cream cheese and lemon-curd. Have you done that?" "Yes." "Egg and--" Mrs. Sheridan held the envelope away from her. "It looks like mice. It can't be mice, can it?" "Olive, pet," said Laura, looking over her shoulder. "Yes, of course, olive. What a horrible combination it sounds. Egg and olive." They were finished at last, and Laura took them off to the kitchen. She found Jose there pacifying the cook, who did not look at all terrifying. "I have never seen such exquisite sandwiches," said Jose's rapturous voice. "How many kinds did you say there were, cook? Fifteen?" "Fifteen, Miss Jose." "Well, cook, I congratulate you." Cook swept up crusts with the long sandwich knife, and smiled broadly. "Godber's has come," announced Sadie, issuing out of the pantry. She had seen the man pass the window. That meant the cream puffs had come. Godber's were famous for their cream puffs. Nobody ever thought of making them at home. "Bring them in and put them on the table, my girl," ordered cook. Sadie brought them in and went back to the door. Of course Laura and Jose were far too grown-up to really care about such things. All the same, they couldn't help agreeing that the puffs looked very attractive. Very. Cook began arranging them, shaking off the extra icing sugar. "Don't they carry one back to all one's parties?" said Laura. "I suppose they do," said practical Jose, who never liked to be carried back. "They look beautifully light and feathery, I must say." "Have one each, my dears," said cook in her comfortable voice. "Yer ma won't know." Oh, impossible. Fancy cream puffs so soon after breakfast. The very idea made one shudder. All the same, two minutes later Jose and Laura were licking their fingers with that absorbed inward look that only comes from whipped cream. "Let's go into the garden, out by the back way," suggested Laura. "I want to see how the men are getting on with the marquee. They're such awfully nice men." But the back door was blocked by cook, Sadie, Godber's man and Hans. Something had happened. "Tuk-tuk-tuk," clucked cook like an agitated hen. Sadie had her hand clapped to her cheek as though she had toothache. Hans's face was screwed up in the effort to understand. Only Godber's man seemed to be enjoying himself; it was his story. "What's the matter? What's happened?" "There's been a horrible accident," said Cook. "A man killed." "A man killed! Where? How? When?" But Godber's man wasn't going to have his story snatched from under his very nose. "Know those little cottages just below here, miss?" Know them? Of course, she knew them. "Well, there's a young chap living there, name of Scott, a carter. His horse shied at a traction-engine, corner of Hawke Street this morning, and he was thrown out on the back of his head. Killed." "Dead!" Laura stared at Godber's man. "Dead when they picked him up," said Godber's man with relish. "They were taking the body home as I come up here." And he said to the cook, "He's left a wife and five little ones." "Jose, come here." Laura caught hold of her sister's sleeve and dragged her through the kitchen to the other side of the green baize door. There she paused and leaned against it. "Jose!" she said, horrified, "however are we going to stop everything?" "Stop everything, Laura!" cried Jose in astonishment. "What do you mean?" "Stop the garden-party, of course." Why did Jose pretend? But Jose was still more amazed. "Stop the garden-party? My dear Laura, don't be so absurd. Of course we can't do anything of the kind. Nobody expects us to. Don't be so extravagant." "But we can't possibly have a garden-party with a man dead just outside the front gate."