TOMMY TREGENNIS,
Chapel Garth,
East Draeth.

This was the address on a cheap, white envelope that the postman brought on Boxing Day and pushed through the gap below the door. Mrs. Tregennis picked up the letter and turned it over more than once before passing it on to her husband.

“Well, it beats me, Ellen,” said he; “’tis a female hand for certain. Who can be makin’ up to our Tommy?”

Mrs. Tregennis went to the door and espied Jimmy Prynne. “Seen our Tommy?” she asked him.

Jimmy jerked his thumb over his right shoulder, and Mrs. Tregennis walked in the direction indicated.

“Tommy,” she called.

But Tommy, conscious of grimy hands and sticky mouth, thought this was a summons to wash, and affected not to hear. Something on the horizon claimed his attention and he gazed fixedly out to sea.

Mrs. Tregennis, therefore, waved the white envelope in vain. “Tommy, postman’s brought a letter for ee, for your very own.”

This was arrestive. Very few letters came to the house when there were no visitors, and never before had there been one for Tommy. Often, certainly, he had picked up old envelopes, and by licking the torn flaps had made them stick down for a time so that he could pretend that they were letters that had come for him. But now there was a real letter all for his very own, and it was held in Mammy’s hand only a few yards off. He ran hastily, tripped over a stone, picked himself up and ran on again. Then he actually held his own real letter in his grimy hand.

He could read the two capital T’s without any difficulty, and of course he knew that they stood for his name. This knowledge gave him much satisfaction; it was a fine thing to be educated. He was all for opening the envelope then and there, but, persuaded by Mammy, they returned to the house together, and in Daddy’s presence the flap was torn.

Inside the envelope was a gilt-edged card. At the top left-hand corner of this a gaily-dressed boy with powdered hair was bowing to a Watteau shepherdess who curtsied before him. The picture absorbed them until Mammy discovered that there was interest, too, in the old-fashioned, pointed handwriting below:

“Miss Lavinia invites Tommy Tregennis to a party on New Year’s Day, from four o’clock until seven.”

There was no R.S.V.P. in the bottom, right-hand corner. The invited guests would not have known what it meant; but when New Year’s Day came of course all who were bidden to the party would go.

“My dear life,” ejaculated Mammy. “I was never at a Christmas party in all my born days. You’m a lucky boy, Tommy Tregennis!”

Tommy nodded.

After dinner on New Year’s Day there was no rest for Mrs. Tregennis until Tommy was dressed in the new brown jersey suit. He was ready before half-past two and wished to set off for the party at once. When Mammy, however, pictured to him how very disappointed Granny and Aunt Keziah Kate would be if he did not go and show himself in his new clothes, he decided to run in to see them first. He was gratified when they unstintingly praised his personal appearance, although it was only what he had expected.

With one little thing or another it was half-past three before Tommy was able to leave for Miss Lavinia’s house. On such an occasion as this no-one would have thought of referring to it as school. Following his usual custom Tommy called for his cousin. He was much taken aback when Auntie Jessie told him that Ruthie was upstairs and was not quite ready, but would be brought to the party later.

Ruthie’s absence took some of the brightness out of the afternoon, and as he drew nearer and nearer to Miss Lavinia’s house Tommy became unaccountably shy. To add to his embarrassment when he reached the familiar door he found it shut, instead of standing invitingly open as on ordinary school days. At the sight of the closed door the last particle of courage left him, and he wished to run home fast and have tea quietly with Mammy. Yet something urged him to be brave, and he screwed up his hand tight, ready to hammer on the door. It was just at this point that a gentleman walking down the street, seeing a small boy and a high knocker, crossed over to Tommy and gave a loud rat-tat to help him. Smiling he passed on, leaving Tommy more deeply embarrassed than before.

When Miss Lavinia, wearing her best black silk dress and a gold locket, herself answered the knock Tommy stood still, not quite knowing what to do next. When she stooped and kissed him he flushed deeply, then, with a broad smile of anticipation, stood flat against the wall in the narrow passage while she closed the door.

Miss Lavinia, who was really just as shy and nervous as her guests, led the way into the schoolroom, and here the sense of unfamiliarity deepened. The desks and maps had gone and the room was hung with evergreens. Round the fire stood children whom Tommy saw every single day and never before had he been at a loss in entering upon a conversation with any one of them. This afternoon, however, he found nothing to say, and they all looked at one-another in silence.

Miss Lavinia felt that the party was a failure and grew more and more nervous as the silent moments were ticked out by the school-room clock. She went away presently to speak to Mrs. Harris about the tea. Mrs Harris was the woman who came in for an hour now and again to help with the rough work, and she had volunteered to be there this evening just to see Miss Lavinia through.

A very genteel knock at the door put an end to Miss Lavinia’s superfluous directions. There was hushed expectancy among the groups of children gathered round the fire when she ushered into the schoolroom Ruthie’s mother leading Ruthie by the hand.

Ruthie was the only child who had been brought.

In the very middle of the room she stood while her mother freed her from the folds of a big Paisley shawl. Then she was revealed to nineteen pairs of admiring eyes—a little girl in a white silk frock; the only white silk frock in the room.

“It is to save her Sunday dress,” Ruthie’s mother explained to Miss Lavinia. “You see this will wash.”

She then lifted her daughter on to a table at the far end of the room, and with a whispered injunction that she must on no account mess up her clothes she left.

The spell that until now had held the children was broken. Half envious, half admiring they gathered round the table and looked at Ruthie in a real party frock. Her hair had been in so many plaits for so many hours that it stood out crisply all round her head. But the greatest wonder of all was her gloves. Ruthie was actually wearing gloves! White cotton gloves they were, held up at the top by a band of black elastic; a band so tight that it had already made a groove in each little arm between the elbow and the wrist.

Tommy was the only one brave enough to speak about them. “You’ve forgotten to take off your gloves, Ruthie.”

“Mammy said to keep ’em on.”

“Whafor?”

“I don’t know.”

“Take ’em off,” said Tommy, and Ruthie, as usual, obeyed.

The gloves and elastic bands were laid on the table, and from there they fell to the floor. A kick from Tommy sent them into a corner where Mrs. Harris found them the next morning when she came to tidy up.

The summons to tea broke up the group. Ten very shy little girls and ten boys trying hard to look at ease, walked along the narrow passage to Miss Lavinia’s kitchen. Here table and chairs had been replaced by trestle-boards and forms.

It was a tight squeeze but a place was found for all the guests who, in deep embarrassment, looked at the well-piled plates in front of them.

Miss Lavinia and Mrs. Harris walked round filling tea cups and passing plates.

In the deep silence Miss Lavinia quite dreaded the sound of her own voice. She grew more and more nervous. She had given so much thought to this, her first (and last!) little party. For weeks past she had exercised numerous economies to make the giving of it possible, and now that it was actually happening it was all a failure. The children were not happy and there were still three hours to drag through. Her mouth was so dry that she had to clear her throat and moisten her lips before she could ask Ruby Dark to have more tea; and her words came so jerkily that Ruby was surprised almost to the point of tears.

Then Mrs. Harris came to the rescue. “Where be they crackers, Miss Lavinia?” she demanded, and Miss Lavinia, opening the cupboard door, brought out two gay boxes with twelve beautiful crackers lying closely and shinily side by side.

First each girl was given one and pulled it with the boy sitting near her, and they all screwed up their eyes and there were little cries of fright when the pop came. By the time the boys were given their crackers all the children were out of their places, jumping up and down with excitement, proudly wearing paper bonnets with frills, and three-cornered caps, and paper aprons whose strings would never meet round any waist.

Miss Lavinia’s nervousness suddenly passed. “Shoo!” she said as though they were so many chickens. “Run back to the school-room.”

She clapped her hands and they surged along the passage laughing, jumping, poking one another; a boisterous band of happy children for whom tea and the crackers had broken the ice.

First of all they would play “Hunt the Slipper,” and therefore they must all sit in a ring.

“Mammy said not to sit on the floor,” whispered Ruthie to Tommy.

“Sit down,” said Tommy scornfully. Ruthie sat, and the game began.

The slipper went round and round and round. It was thrown across, and up and back again, and Jimmy Prynne, outside the circle, grabbed and missed and snatched again. There was much confusion, and no one quite knew what anyone else was doing, or what they themselves were meant to do, but it was a grand game, and in the merry laughter no-one joined more heartily than Miss Lavinia herself.

Next came “Nuts and May,” and “Blind Man’s Buff.” The blind man always guessed the wrong number of fingers held up, and yet managed to see just quite a little either above or below the handkerchief that smelled so sweetly of lavender and had belonged to Miss Lavinia’s father years and years ago.

After this they were all so hot that they played “Postman’s Knock” for coolness. Jimmy Prynne went out first. He rapped sharply on the closed door and Miss Lavinia opened it just a small crack and peered out into the passage where Jimmy stood. Then followed the old-time dialogue, dear to so many generations of children.

“Who’s there?” said Miss Lavinia. Memories laid away in lavender these many years were awakened by the foolish old game.

“Postman,” replied a gruff, stern voice.

The children sitting in a row, waiting—waiting, laughed their appreciation of Jimmy’s dramatic power.

Then the dialogue continued. “What with?”

“A letter.”

“How many stamps?” The air was tense.

“Fifteen stamps.”

Then the most important question of all. “Who for?”

There was a pause on the part of the postman.

“Jimmy, Jimmy Prynne, choose me, Jimmy,” and Ruby Dark stood up in her excitement.

Jimmy hesitated.

Miss Lavinia, the doorkeeper, bent down, and in a very gentle whisper, said: “Choose Ruby, Jimmy.” And Ruby, shining eyes and chin uplifted passed out into the dim light of the narrow passage, and there fifteen kisses, each one carefully counted by the bearer of the letter, were solemnly exchanged.

Every one had a letter. Miss Lavinia saw that nobody was forgotten. She was childishly glad when Tommy chose her and the letter bore one hundred stamps; although, as she explained when they were together in the passage, there really was not time for all the hundred then, they must be content with two and the rest could be delivered some other day.

After this Mr. and Mrs. Brown, and the little dog, and the cushions, and the whip, and the reins and all the other parts of the Old Family Coach grew dizzier and dizzier with the restless whirling and turning resulting from the many adventures and accidents that befell the coach on its perilous summer morning’s journey.

Christmas parties come all too quickly to an end. It was nearly time to go home, but first of all would Miss Lavinia tell them a story? So the lamp was turned out, and in the firelight Miss Lavinia began.

“Once upon a time” (every child looked straight into Miss Lavinia’s eyes). “Once upon a time, in the heart of a deep, green wood, a very beautiful princess lived all alone. She had no father and no mother, but all the creatures that flew, or crawled, or ran were her friends.

“It was always summer in the wood. So the princess wore beautiful garments made of silken gossamer, and the spiders wove a new robe for her every morning, just when the sun was up. When the new gossamer robe was ready the birds flew to the boughs of the beech tree under which the princess slept, and sang sweet songs until the princess sat up and rubbed her eyes, and said: ‘Why, it is day!’

“Then the birds flew away to look after their own families, and the squirrels brought nuts and cracked them, and laid them at the feet of the beautiful princess.

“She was never hungry, this beautiful princess, for such wonderful fruits grew in the wood. She was never cold, for the sun shone all day long. When night came, and the moon and the stars took the place of the sun, she lay down under the beech tree that had stood there for hundreds of years, and covered herself with bracken, and slept.

“She was perfectly happy, was the princess, until one night she had a dream. It was the very first dream that she had ever had, and she dreamed that she was alone. In the morning she sat up and rubbed her eyes just at the dawn, long before the birds came. She looked down through the long shadows of the trees. She was afraid, for ‘I am alone,’ she said. It seemed a dreadful thing to be a beautiful princess all alone in the heart of a deep, green wood.”

A glowing coal fell from the fire. Miss Lavinia paused for a moment, and for the first time the children stirred.

“When I’m growed up,” said Ruthie, “I shall get married.”

“You must wait until some one asks you, Ruthie,” Miss Lavinia gently reproved her.

“Didn’t no-one never ask you, Miss Lavinia?” said Tommy, pushing a hot, moist hand into hers. “’N so couldn’t you never be married?”

“What happened to the Princess in the wood?” asked Jimmy Prynne impatiently.

“Well, a butterfly that had also wakened very early flew round and round the Princess, and then away from her, towards the shadows of the trees. The Princess stood up and followed, one hand stretched out as if to touch the coloured wings. The butterfly led her quite to the edge of the wood. There, beyond the bracken that she gathered for her bed under the beech tree, stood the most wonderful Prince in the whole, wide world.

“And the Princess knew that she was no longer alone.

“‘Come!’ she said to the Prince.

“‘There is magic,’ he replied, ‘and I cannot cross the bracken unless you lead me by the hand.’

“So the Princess stepped through the high fern-fronds, and when she held the hand of the Prince he kissed her. At his kiss a wind arose and the branches of the trees waved to and fro. The birds twittered uneasily, and there was a sound like thunder and falling rain. Then, as hurrying shadows, the trees vanished. The Prince and the Princess could no longer see the birds, but they heard the fluttering of their wings overhead.

“There was a sudden lightning flash that made the Prince and Princess close their eyes.

“When they opened them again they were no longer in the wood, but in a room with a cheerful fire and a lighted lamp. The Princess had lost her gossamer robe; she wore a blue serge frock and a white apron. The Prince had on a blue jersey with a name on the front. They stood in the little room hand in hand.

“‘I am no longer alone,’ said the Princess, and smiled.

“‘Let us unlock the door,’ said the Prince, ‘then perhaps a little child will come in.’

“So they drew back the bolt and waited!”

Tommy wriggled his hot hand from the clasp of Miss Lavinia’s thin fingers. “My Mammy’ll be missin’ me,” he said, and struggled to his feet. Then the clock struck seven.

Five minutes later twenty little people, in coats and mufflers, kissed Miss Lavinia and ran out laughing into the winter night.

Miss Lavinia closed the door behind them and returned to the firelight alone.