Birthday Surprise - Alice, Isabella, Randolf, Charlie, and Scott - G

[babyjosephine]

12 April, 1947. Alice Fitzwilliam's seventh birthday.

Charlie would be home from school very soon. Home from school for the weekend because it was Alice’s seventh birthday and Mummy made him come home.

Alice was bouncing about the house in her tap shoes, clicking noisily through every hall and every door. Her friends were going to arrive in an hour, and Isabella was putting off dressing her daughter for the occasion until she had calmed down, or at least was presented with birthday-related obstacles, such as cake and presents. Any premature stain would cause unneeded stress.

As she clamored down the stairs into the servants’ hall, their housekeeper, Margaret, peered out of the kitchen. “What on earth are you doing, Miss Alice?” she asked, always soft but strict, as she had raised several boys of her own, most of whom worked on the property.

“Nothing! May I see my cake?” she asked, trying to sneak past Margaret into the kitchen, but Margaret gently took her shoulders and turned her away.

“Why don’t you go put on a show for the boys whilst you wait, hm?”

“Mummy says I can’t wear my shoes out of doors anymore—” Someone called her name and Alice squeaked. “I bet that’s Charlie come home!” She raced down the hall, sliding on the floors and giving Margaret several heart attacks (“Child’s going to split her skull.”) until she was upstairs again.

Upstairs, but hardly safe. Alice clicked down the hall and burst into the foyer, which was covered in balloons for the occasion, every wooden post wrapped in streamers. The large table in the center of the room was overflowing with flowers and party favors, as all of the presents were relegated to the parlor.

But the foyer was ultimately devoid of anyone capable of calling her name. No one was there at all. Alice paused, tapping her toes, and then buffaloed her way into the center of the room, where she was forced to stop dancing, as the carpet prevented it. There, she listened. She couldn’t hear anyone.

“Mummy?” she called. One of the maids came out of a room upstairs and peered over the railings into the foyer.

“Is that you, Miss Alice?”

“Yes—who called me?”

“Your mother. She’s outside!”

“Thank you!” Alice shouted, tearing off across the room and out the open doors into the back gardens. A table had been set up near the fountain, and white and pink balloons glowed in the bright spring sunlight. Alice ran down the stone steps and tore off across the yard, belatedly remembering she was wearing her tap shoes, but hoping her mother wouldn’t notice.

“Mummy!”

“There you are! Where did you go?” Isabella asked, hugging Alice when the girl was close enough.

“To see my cake.”

“Alice!”

“Margaret wouldn’t let me. What’s this for?”

“I thought it would be nice to have the cake out of doors. It’s certainly warm enough. And you and the girls could go swimming in the pond.” Isabella stroked some loose hair out of Alice’s face—the rest was still in rags.

“Is Charlie coming?” Alice asked hopefully.

“Daddy went to collect him.”

“Really?!” Alice grinned.

“Really!”

“Do you think he’ll let Charlie drive back?”

Isabella laughed, alarmed. “What do you mean? Charlie’s only twelve!”

Oops. “Um. I know!”

Isabella looked slightly shaken. “Your father let Charlie drive?”

“No!” Alice squeaked. “Bye, Mummy!”

“Wait—wait a minute! Are you wearing your tap shoes?” Isabella called after her daughter, who was running back to the house.

“No!” Alice yelled, covering her mouth with both hands to keep from laughing as she scrambled back up the steps and into the house. She nearly slipped on the stone steps and then nearly tripped over the runner carpet, hitting the lamp.

“Slow down!” one of the maids said, laughing.

Alice danced along the floor, twisting and tapping and doing several turns, then jumped right out the front entrance way to see if any cars had arrived. Nothing new. A gardener was trimming a hedge, though, so Alice waved at him and he winked and tipped his hat with a nod.

“Happy birthday, Miss Alice!”

“Thanks!” she chirped.

“Alice!” Isabella called from the house. Alice whipped around and bounded back inside. Her mother was in the foyer, adjusting some of the flower arrangements as the maid said something that made her laugh.

“Come here, love. It’s time to go get you dressed.”

“Charlie is coming, isn’t he?” Alice asked again, concerned.

“Yes!” Isabella assured her. “Come. Take my hand.”

Alice let her mother lead them upstairs. As they passed Scott’s room, Alice stuck her head in and said, “You’re coming, I hope!”

Scott raised his head, auburn fringe in his eyes, and gave his sister a look. “Yes,” he said. “Why?”

“Because you’re not properly dressed—”

“Alice, leave him alone. Scott, brush your hair.” Scott smoothed down his hair self-consciously and returned to his train set, which was set around the parlor of his room.

Alice began to skip, still holding her mother’s hand as she swung her arms in time with her jumps, and didn’t stop until she was in her room, the sunlight gleaming into the parlor side.

“Go to your bedroom and pull on your dress,” Isabella said, letting Alice go. “And bring me your tap shoes so I can get the grass out of the plate, please.”

Alice shimmied into her bedroom and picked her dress off her bed. It was white with a pink satin bow around the middle, and layered with tulle and various other fluffing mechanisms. She pulled it on and sat down to untie the ribbons of her tap shoes, then peeled off her socks and bounced back to her mother, who was waiting for her after cleaning up some of Alice’s toys.

“Turn,” Isabella said gently. Alice turned and Isabella zipped up the back of the dress and tied the ribbon.

“Is the bow big?” Alice asked, knitting her brow as she turned to look over her shoulder.

“Of course it is,” Isabella said, not quite sure what Alice meant.

“But I want it to be stiff like a bow in the shops!”

“You need wire for that,” Isabella said. Alice huffed and began to whine about wanting wire in the bow, but Isabella stopped her. “Your bow is lovely. Sit down here and let me take your curlers out.”

Alice fidgeted, whining when her mother tugged or caught her hair, unable to sit still now that it was close enough for her to dress. She couldn’t see the road to the house from here, and this frustrated her, which Isabella noticed.

“We’re almost done. Bring me your pink hair ribbon and some pins, please.”

Eager to finish and to get downstairs to watch for Charlie, Alice ran to do as told, then ran back and plopped in her mother’s lap again. She waited patiently as Isabella tied the ribbon around the curls and pinned it securely to her hair, making sure the bow was the focus, then kissed her daughter’s cheek and wrapped her up in a hug that made Alice giggle and squirm as she attempted to fight away.

“Don’t go outside in your dress,” Isabella said. “Not until the girls are here.” Alice nodded and squirmed even more deliberately, so Isabella let her go, giving her bum a pat as Alice raced out and into the hall.

“Is Charlie here yet?!” she called eagerly.

“No!” called at least three different maids from three different directions. Alice wrinkled her nose and skipped downstairs, swinging around the banister as she reached the bottom.

Her brother’s lateness was frustrating her. She depended on having both brothers around as often as possible, and this was simply out of line. Scott was being stupid with his boring train set and she wasn’t allowed to mess about while wearing her dress. There was a reason Isabella saved her patent leather Mary Janes and lace socks for last. Alice’s current pair was number five this year alone.

She danced around the table, skipping so that her dress would fluff and bounce, and counted the flower arrangements, then ran around the parlor for a moment, counting presents there. But she’d counted them already—there were eight so far from her family, and the rest would come from her friends.

Bored, Alice pattered out of the room and went back upstairs. The foyer here was rather quiet. She saw her mother leave the house and Scott’s door was closed. The maids had finished cleaning and gone downstairs, leaving Alice even more restless than before. And still Charlie wasn’t home. To make matters worse, that meant her father wasn’t home, either.

Alice dragged her feet along the carpet, making static shocks here and there, and peered into Charlie’s room. His room faced the front of the house. It was also a mess.

Quietly, Alice tip-toed across the messy floor as though avoiding explosives or trip wires, and went to Charlie’s desk. Her brother had lots of secrets and he kept most of them from his parents. Alice knew of one—that he had been smoking for two years. Their parents knew initially, as ten year olds tend not to hide things as well as they think, but now Charlie was an expert at keeping the habit a secret. He figured how easy it was to hide the smell of pipe smoke, since their father smoked a pipe, as well, so he no longer bothered with cigarettes. He also didn’t know how easily Alice could squeeze into small space when Charlie had friends over and locked himself in one of the tower rooms at the top of the house.

Delicately, Alice pulled open a drawer. Feeling cross about her brother’s lack of enthusiasm for his sister’s birthday, she shifted through the contents until she found the simple box at the back and pulled it out. Inside were two pipes, both simple and wooden. With a smirk, she pulled them both out and hid them behind her back as she went to Charlie’s fireplace and knelt down. There was an awful lot of ash and coal in the grate, and Alice carefully scooped some up, dumping the tobacco out and replacing it with the ash. She was very, very particular, taking care not to smudge her white dress, and when the job was done, she carefully stuffed the tobacco back on top of the ash and coal so as to disguise the true contents, and ran back to the box to put the pipes away.

After the task was complete, she held her hands out in front of her and skipped to her room to wash them in her basin.

She was most pleased with having not dirtied her dress, although her knees had been marked up somewhat. She wiped them clean, as well.

“Alice!”

Alice jumped. “Nothing!”

Isabella peeked in. “Nothing what? What are you doing?”

“Um—cleaning up.”

“Excellent idea. When you’re done, put your shoes and socks on and come downstairs.”

“Yes, Mummy!” Alice said, wiping her hands roughly on a towel and darting to her room. The pleasure curling through her stomach over her brilliant plan was growing better by the minute. Charlie would never expect it and she couldn’t wait to see what happened. She grinned to herself as she folded over her socks and buckled her white shoes and left the room with a spring in her step.

Isabella greeted her and gave her instructions to set up the table in the gardens, which Alice did with reluctance, stopping to chat with Margaret’s second youngest son and one of the twins, Sam. He gave her a small box and told her he wished her well for her seventh, and she made him bend down so she could give him a kiss on the cheek. Sam acted suitably flattered and smiled after her as she raced back to the house to put the box on the table in the parlor.

But half way through the foyer she heard the unmistakable sound of a car door slamming and rushed to the front entrance to see her father and brother unloading the car.

“Charlie!” she called, running over the gravel and into his middle.

Charlie let out a rush of wind as she hit him but hugged her once he recovered. “I guess you missed me?” he asked. “You look smart.”

“Thank you! Daddy!” Alice skipped over to her father, who set down the present in his arms, balancing it on the hood of the car, and picked his daughter up with ease, even giving her a few swings just to make her laugh.

“My grown up girl!” he said, kissing her cheek. “I’ve missed you these past four hours!”

“Sam gave me a gift!”

“Did he?”

“Yes!”

Randolf set Alice down and picked up the present again. “Have you opened it?”

“No! Should I? What did you get me, Charlie?”

“It’s a present. It’s meant to be a surprise,” Charlie said coolly. Since attending a boys’ school in the city, he had adopted a very serious manner that Alice thought needed some loosening up. No one bought it in this family. They all knew he was a clown. One with the potential to be quite a gentleman, just like their father, but a clown just like their father, as well.

“I know that,” Alice said, leading her brother and father into the house and dancing around the table again.

“Looks beautiful!” Randolf said as Charlie escaped upstairs. Alice snickered, hiding behind a particularly tall floral arrangement.

“Where’s my—Iz!”

Alice ducked and hid under the table as her parents kissed. They were used to being booed whenever they showed affection, as they showed affection all the time. The boys especially hated it and enjoyed perfecting the sound of a gag.

When her parents went outside so Isabella could show off the party decorations, Alice crawled out of the table and skipped upstairs, deciding to play it cool by visiting Charlie in his room: expected behavior.

“Charlie!” she said happily. He slammed his desk drawer shut.

“Hey, baby sister,” he said, remaining calm. “Are you ready for your party?”

Alice nodded and walked over to him. Her excitement was flaring but she managed to look calm. “I’m not a baby, though,” she said.

“I know,” Charlie said. “You are to me, though. You look pretty.”

“Thanks.”

“Alice!” someone shouted.

“Hurry!” Alice told her brother as she ran from the room, her skirt lit on fire. She tore down the stairs and burst out into the entrance way, where her mother told her to stop and calm down.

It was very difficult to calm down with guests arriving. The foyer was filled with a dozen young girls and their parents, along with one set of grandparents (the only set—Randolf’s parents, who lived in Surrey on an even grander estate). Isabella moved the party out to the garden just as Scott reluctantly thudded down the stairs. Randolf chuckled, already smoking his pipe, and kept his son company as they girls screamed their way outside.

Alice played it incredibly cool as they played blind man’s bluff and Scott was allowed to sit out and watch. But when Isabella announced that they were moving inside for lunch, Alice ripped off the blind fold and ran inside first. Charlie hadn’t come down yet. Isabella was getting frustrated.

“I told him to come down for the games,” she said quietly to Randolf, who rubbed her back.

“He will. He’s getting to that age.”

But it wasn’t the age that had got him at all. When Alice entered the foyer, she saw her brother furiously wiping at his face, which was unmistakably sooty. And the look on his face—the disgust and confusion and annoyance that he couldn’t tattle on anyone at all without implicating himself, oh, that was the best part.

Alice took one look at him, at his blackened teeth and lips, and immediately started laughing. Charlie knew what that meant. He eyed her as Isabella gasped, but before any adults could say anything, he ran at his little sister, who squealed and ran back outside.

He wasn’t angry. He could never really be angry with her, but Alice ran for her life, anyway, laughing so hard she nearly tripped over her own feet.

It was Charlie who carried her back to the house, slung over his shoulder, coal all over her dress and a promise between them to never tell anyone about what happened or he would stick her doll in the fire again. She could agree to that, and did, but Charlie was grounded for soiling Alice’s dress.