Chapter XIII: Their Mother's Birthday

Mrs. Inglefield's birthday dawned very brightly. The birthday presents were given to her before breakfast, and she expressed herself as peculiarly pleased and satisfied with each.

Then she told her children of the treat that she proposed to give them. She had ordered a car to come for them all at ten o'clock, and they were going to drive away to the sea, which was just twenty miles away.

"It is a big car and we have room for Inez. Could you go and fetch her, Chris?"

Chris willingly consented. All the children were enchanted at the idea of going to the sea. But before Chris had started from the house, Inez appeared, almost hidden by the most enormous bouquet of flowers, which she carried with both hands.

"It's for you," she said, flying into Mrs. Inglefield's arms; "and I wish you many, many happy returns of your birthday. I picked every flower I could get in the garden, and I wish I could have carried more. I brought as many as I could hold."

Mrs. Inglefield expressed her gratitude and then told Inez of their intended outing. Inez of course was only too glad to be included, and Chris rode off on his cycle to tell Julia not to expect her home till the end of the day.

"You'll find Julia rather waxy," Inez said to Chris, "because she tried to prevent me picking some of the flowers in the greenhouse, so I pushed her into a potting-shed, and locked her in, and went on picking my flowers until I remembered something, so then I unlocked her in a hurry, and begged her pardon, and flew like the wind away from her with my flowers, and she started to chase me, and then she stopped, for she saw it was no good."

Mrs. Inglefield shook her head at Inez.

"I'm afraid I shan't like to look at these orchids, for they are forbidden spoils."

"Oh no, not really. It's only Julia. And she says herself she doesn't know what has come to me, for I'm so good. And she wasn't locked in more than two minutes—you see I forgot until I remembered. And I don't expect you know what I'm talking about, but I'll tell you when we're quite alone."

"I know!" said Noel, nodding his head importantly.

Mrs. Inglefield looked from one to the other with puzzled eyes, but she did not ask to be enlightened, and there was so much bustle and confusion getting ready for the expedition that there was no chance of any quiet talk.

They all packed themselves away in an open car, and had the most glorious two hours' drive, through woods and by the river's side, up and down hill, and then through a beautiful green valley down to the sea. It was rather a lovely little bay, with a few fishers' cottages standing on the green sloping cliffs above it. Very few people were on the beach. The tide was out, and there was a great stretch of golden sand with brown rocks, and delicious pools fringed with seaweed and sea anemones.

Mrs. Inglefield had a big luncheon-basket in the car, and the children were quite ready for their open-air meal.

Afterwards they played on the sands and waded into the sea, and Mrs. Inglefield sat amongst the rocks, watching them and reading a book by turns.

Presently Inez crept up to her.

"May I sit here and talk with you? Do you remember you said to me that I could get joined to God if I wanted to, and you told me about Jesus Christ loving me. That was on the day of our other picnic. Well, I thought and thought, and when you were away Noel and I managed it together. We went into the church and I made a vow. I told Jesus I would serve Him for ever and ever and do what He told me. And I went home and thought I was going to be exactly like an angel, but it didn't turn out as I thought. The next day I began all right; but in the afternoon Julia provoked me and I got mad and wild, until I remembered —and it was of a sudden—just like God laying His hand on my shoulder. I stopped, and Julia thought I was going to have a fit, and I went away to my room, and cried, for it all seemed no use. And then I thought I'd talk to God like Noel does, instead of saying prayers. And He seemed to forgive and comfort me. But I haven't been turned from a wicked child into a good child all at once."

"No, darling, of course not," said Mrs. Inglefield gently; "and you never will be. It will be always a fight to the end between good and evil. It isn't easy to be good with any of us, but it is possible with God's help and strength. Pray to Him, and you will find the oftener you pray the more you will remember. It is forgetfulness that makes us sin, isn't it?"

Inez listened with eager face. And then, child-like, she dashed away in a moment or two to join the others in their play.

It was late in the evening before they returned home, and they were all a little tired though very happy. There had been no quarrels and nothing to mar the enjoyment of Mrs. Inglefield's birthday treat.

As Noel was getting into bed he said to Nurse: "I s'pose birfdays are the happiest days in the year, aren't they?"

"I think they are, for children," said Nurse. "Some older people find them rather sad."

"Does Jesus Christ find His birfday sad?" Noel asked quickly.

It was one of Noel's questions that Nurse could not answer.

He went on:

"I'm sure He doesn't, because everybody in the world is happy on Chris'mas Day and that's His birfday, and He likes to see us happy, doesn't He?"

"Yes," said Nurse.

"And the next birfday in our family will be His birfday and mine," said Noel with intense satisfaction in his tone.

A few days after, Chris had the joy of seeing his school chum. He called in a car in the morning and took Chris off to spend a long day with him. And Chris enjoyed it all the more, because of his previous disappointment.

The holidays slipped away very fast, and soon school and lessons began again.

The next event was Miss Constance's wedding in London. Noel went up to it, as he was to be her page; and as Mrs. Inglefield was asked, too, she took Diana up as well, and they all stayed with Granny for the occasion.

Granny rather wondered at Noel's being asked to the wedding.

"I should have thought Diana would have made a pretty little bridesmaid. Why did she fix upon him?"

"She took a great liking to him," said Mrs. Inglefield. "Do you think that strange?"

"I suppose," said Granny, "that I know the other two best. They have lived with me and he hasn't. I still consider him a spoilt bit of goods."

"Oh no," remonstrated his mother: "I don't think I have spoilt him. He gets on better with his brother and sister now. Don't you notice it?"

"I notice that Diana's will gives way first," said Granny.

The wedding took place, and was a very pretty one. Noel's behaviour was perfect, but he always was good in a church, and the big London church with all its floral decorations and crowds of people awed him. When he returned home, his granny called him to her, and began to question him about it.

He described it all eagerly to her.

"Miss Constance was all in white. She looked like an angel, and God's man was smiling all over his face. She kissed me and he kissed me."

"Who do you mean by 'God's man'? The clergyman?"

"No. God sent him to get Inez and me out of the room—we asked God to send somebody and God sent him."

This needed explanation, and Noel gave it in his funny quaint way.

Granny told his mother afterwards that he was too religious for a child.

"No," said Mrs. Inglefield gravely. "His faith is real and big. I wish I had as much."

Before the children left Granny to return home, she presented them each with five shillings.

"What will you do with it?" she asked them.

"I shall spend mine on a little—just a little present for Chris," said Diana. "He collects stamps at school, and I'm going to buy some for him. The rest I shall spend on a big fat book of lined paper for my stories. I want to write a real long story, and I'm always short of paper."

"And what is Noel going to do with his?"

Noel looked up with shining eyes.

"I'm going to buy presents for my Chris'mas tree," he said; "and I'll begin doing it now, so as to get ready in time, and I'll show them to him. He's very dull and lonely, and thinks he's no good to nobody. It will cheer him up."

"Who do you mean?"

"Oh," said Diana, laughing, "he means his Christmas tree; he's just mad about it. He talks as if it can feel and think."

"Hans Andersen's book says they do fink," said Noel eagerly; "and, Granny, he's having such a dull time in our garden! Him and me long every day for Chris'mas to come."

Granny laughed at him; and then she laid her delicate old hand on his curly head.

"Lots of people have a very dull time and even Christmas brings no change to them," she said. "When you get old, it ceases to amuse you."

"But it's a birfday," cried Noel; "it's my biggest, wonder-fullest day in the year, and it's Jesus Christ's birfday, Granny."

"Yes; so it is."

Granny gave a little sigh, and sent them away from her; but when Mrs. Inglefield came to wish her good-bye, she said to her:

"I pitied you for your dull life in the country, but I find that I am having the dull time now. I suppose I miss the children. They do keep one amused."

"Come and stay with us," begged Mrs. Inglefield; but Granny shook her head.

"No, I'll live through my days. If I get very hipped, you can send me one of the chicks for a week or two. I am getting too old to move about, and most of my friends are in town—"

So Diana and Noel came back to their lessons, and autumn set in. The flowers in the garden faded; the leaves came flying down from the trees; and soon Noel's garden was the only one that had a good show of green in it.

One afternoon Inez came flying over in the greatest excitement. Her parents had returned very suddenly from abroad, and had taken her by surprise by arriving very late on the previous evening.

"And Mother has been talking to me this morning. I'm going to school directly after Christmas, and I'm glad of it. I'm tired, very tired of Julia."

"But I hoped you were getting on better with her lately!" said Mrs. Inglefield.

"Oh yes. I don't bite or kick or scratch her any more. We've made an agreement that we don't take hold of each other at all. She has left off grabbing at me, and if she scolds, I back away from her as fast as I can, so as not to tempt her to touch me. It's when she snatches hold of me that I get angry. But of course a proper Christian girl wouldn't get angry if they were snatched and shaken to pieces. I'm hardly a Christian at all yet. But perhaps I shall be better at school."

"How lovely to have your father and mother both home together," said Diana.

But Inez did not seem very joyful over the arrivals.

"Father thinks I'm too lanky, and mother says my fingernails are shocking! They're going hunting to-morrow. I wish they'd take me, but they won't. They're going to stay till Christmas. I shall have three people to please and to obey now. It's dreadfully difficult for me. May I stay to tea? Nobody wants me at home, and I told Julia I would try and stay here as long as I could."

"We shall be very glad to have you, dear," said Mrs. Inglefield; "if you are sure that your mother would like you to be here."

"Mother is lying down till tea, and Father is in the stables; he's going round the gardens afterwards. He says everybody has been neglecting everything, and he must wake them up. He'll make things hum now he's home again!"

"Is Daddy like that?" Diana asked her mother.

But Mrs. Inglefield would not answer. Noel and Diana were going for their walk with Miss Morgan, and she told Inez that she had better go with them.

Inez was delighted to do so. She and Diana walked on in front together and Diana resumed her wonderful, never-ending story about "Ada and Gertrude," whose adventures thrilled Inez through and through.

Noel walked with Miss Morgan. He rather preferred a talk and a walk with a grown-up person. They were delighted when Miss Morgan suggested going to Mr. Sharpe's nursery gardens, as she wanted to take home a plant to her mother.

Bessie, the daughter, received them with a grave face.

"Dad is ill. Been in bed for six weeks with rheumatic fever. But his foreman will do what you want. I'll call him."

Miss Morgan expressed her sympathy for old Mr. Sharpe; then she and the little girls followed the foreman through the gardens to the glasshouses. But Noel begged to see Mr. Sharpe. He was devoted to him, and after Bessie had been upstairs, she came down saying:

"Dad would dearly like to see you, Master Noel. He's quite comfortable this afternoon; he's on the mend, I hope, but the doctor says he'll never work in his garden again; and if he knew it, I believe it would fair break his heart."

Noel went up the narrow stairs on tiptoe, then found himself in a big comfortable-looking bedroom.

Upon a large bed drawn close to the window, lay old Mr. Sharpe. His face looked thin and worn with suffering, but he greeted Noel with his cheery smile.

"Hulloo, little Master Christmas, how are you? And how's the little tree?"

"I'm very well, and so's my tree. Only think, Mr. Sharpe, it will be not three months to Chris'mas! I'm counting up every week. I fink my Chris'mas tree is a little happier now. You see, he didn't much like it when all the flowers were out smelling so beautiful and looking so pretty! I raver fink they weren't very nice to him, and he felt ugly, and no use to anybody. Chris and Diana would point their fingers at him and say that he looked higeous and was only taking up room, and doing nothing at all. 'He doesn't even smell,' they said; but I like his smell, 'specially after rain, and he's been growing green tips all over him. Now he knows he hasn't much more time to wait, and then he'll come into his glory."

"Come into his glory," repeated Mr. Sharpe, looking at Noel with a wistful smile; "do you know, little master, I've been lying here in much pain and trouble, and then I've taken to think over my plants, and I've learnt a lot of rare lessons from them. My days of work and usefulness are over—I'm in a bed now doing nothing, and shall do nothing for a long time to come. My hands and feet are that twisted that I doubt if they'll ever come straight again. My Bessie, she thinks I don't know, but I do—I know I'm going to be a bedridden cripple for the rest of my life—"

"Oh! Mr. Sharpe," cried Noel, "but God will make you well again. We'll ask Him to do it at once."

"Ay, ay, He could if He would. I've prayed quick and hasty-like, but now I tell the good Lord that He must have His will with me, and I'll be content. I've just got transplanted into a quiet bed by myself; and, like your little tree, I'm a useless hulk to some eyes, doing no good to no one. That will be my fate in the future. But my Gardener and Master has put me here, and I'm to wait till I'm called into my glory. My Christmas will come by and by, when I shall be taken up and carried into the king's palace. I shall see there what I was meant for."

Noel did not follow all this, but he caught the idea.

"You mean that people can be like Chris'mas trees, and have a very lonely, dull time, and then God takes them and lights them up in heaven and covers them with glory. That's what I shall do to my tree. I shall cover him with glory."

"Yes, we shall be 'covered with glory,'" said Mr. Sharpe, his eyes shining with a strange light. "What does it matter if we lie in bed or work in our garden? We have only to do what our Master tells us. And we shan't have to wait too long. We have such a happy life coming."

"And you're like my tree. You're just waiting," said Noel.

Then he began to tell the old man of all the presents that he had bought for his tree with his granny's money.

"And Ted is making me some frogs, and Mums is going to help, and I'm going to ask everybody I know to come to it. And Chris and Diana won't laugh at him any more then."

Bessie came in at this juncture. She was afraid her father would be tired.

"The little gentleman has done me good," said the old man happily. "We have been reminding each other of our good time coming."

Then he turned to Noel.

"There be many who would do well to be like your fir tree. Be quiet and content in a dull life and go on quietly growing and waiting. Such souls may grow faster than some of the busy workers. Good-bye, little laddie, and come again and see the old man if you can."

"I'll tell Mums, and she'll come, too," said Noel, clattering down the stairs.

He joined the others with rather a sober face, and tried to repeat to Miss Morgan what the old man had said to him. But she did not seem to understand so well as his mother, and when he told her all about it, she exclaimed:

"Dear old man! I suppose his time is coming, and God wants him to lie still and think about it. I shall go and see him to-morrow."

"And he's just like my Chris'mas tree," said Noel, summing up the whole in his usual slow, deliberate way.