Mavis Gallant - The Cost of Living - Early and Uncollected Stories

He stood up and, taking advantage of her humor, paused at the door, and said, “If I go now, will you read my term paper while I’m gone? I must give it to the mailman this morning.”

He stepped aside as he said it, and for an astonished moment Madeline thought he expected her to throw something at him. But it was only because of Allie, who had been struggling with the door handle and now burst into the room, hairbrush in hand.

“I was told to tell you a happy birthday,” she said to Madeline. “Will you do my hair?”

Madeline sat up. “Am I the only person in this house who can do things?” she asked. “No, I am not going to do your hair and I’m not going to read Paul’s paper, because it’s my birthday.”

Allie sat down on the bed, leaning comfortably across Madeline’s feet. She offered the hairbrush as if she hadn’t heard. “What an adorable nightgown that is,” she said. “Doris is making you a cake.”

Madeline kicked at her from under the covers. “Get off and get out,” she said. “You’re more annoying than Paul.” She looked at Paul and he smiled foolishly, backing into the hall with his books.

“I’ll be back later,” he promised.

“Now, as for you—” Madeline said to Allie. She took the hairbrush and began brushing Allie’s hair so hard that it hurt.

Allie, accustomed to this daily punishment, said only, “Braid it good and tight, otherwise it comes undone in the water.”

“Since it’s my birthday,” said Madeline, “could you do me a favor and leave me alone all day? Without even speaking to me?”

“No,” Allie said, and added warningly, “Don’t yell at me — Mummy’s coming.”

“Happy birthday!” Mrs. Tracy said as she opened the door. She was wearing blue and looked younger than Madeline. “Allie, let Madeline get dressed. Go on downstairs and put her present in front of her place.” She moved quietly about the room picking up and straightening Madeline’s belongings. It had been her own room before she married, and it was perfect for a jeune fille , but Madeline, she felt, would have been just as happy in a tent on the lawn.

“You’re a very sloppy girl,” she observed, “even for your age. But I daresay it’s a reaction to boarding school. That’s one good thing about this house. People can relax in it and be what they are. I mean I couldn’t survive the winter without a summer here.”

“Couldn’t you?” said Madeline. “I could, with pleasure.”

No one — not even Madeline — was ever rude to Mrs. Tracy, and she stood still, rooted with shock, Madeline’s bathing suit in her hand. Then she saw that Madeline was crying. “Oh!” Mrs. Tracy exclaimed. “Not on your birthday! Allie, honey, will you do what Mummy tells you and go downstairs?”

She sat down on the bed where Allie had been. “I can’t think what can be wrong,” she said. She did not touch Madeline but folded her hands on her lap and looked at them, frowning. “On your birthday,” she repeated wonderingly. “I know it sounds trite, but this is the best time of your life, this and the next four or five years. Why, when I think of your mother at your age! All the gardenias and the orchids! These are the years that should be absolute heaven for you.”

From behind her hands, Madeline said, “I wish you had left me in town. I was perfectly all right.”

“I can’t listen to such nonsense,” Mrs. Tracy said. She stood up, smoothing the covers at Madeline’s feet. “Allie, will you please, for the love of God, do what Mummy tells you for once and go downstairs?”

“I don’t like Mr. Tracy,” Madeline said, “and he doesn’t like me.”

“You’re being dramatic,” Mrs. Tracy said, “but it’s normal at your age.” More gently, she added, “But you mustn’t cry over nothing. In a few years, you can do anything you please, as I do, or your mother does. Now get dressed and come to breakfast, like a good girl. This is a terrible start for a birthday.”

Still hiding her face, Madeline nodded, and Mrs. Tracy fled down the staircase, relieved to be away from so much emotion. Perhaps Madeline had been miserable all summer.

In the kitchen, she found Allie sitting on a high stool, holding a large mixing bowl between her knees. She was scraping the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula and licking off bits of cake batter. Her pale hair, brushed but unbraided, was smeared with batter and stuck to her cheeks.

“Allie! Not before breakfast,” Mrs. Tracy said, from habit. Allie, aware of the absentminded voice, went on without answering. Mrs. Tracy sat down at the table and leaned her head on her hand. Finally, she said, “When you were upstairs, before I came in, how did Madeline act?”

“Like always.”

“What does that tell me? Put that thing — that bowl — down. What is ‘always’?”

“With Madeline, it means to be rude.”

“Yes. But was she crying? Did she say anything about me?”

“No,” Allie said, embarrassed.

“This is dreadful,” said Mrs. Tracy. “I can’t live for the rest of the summer, even seven days of it, with someone in the house who is thinking only of the train to New York.”

This was beyond Allie. She murmured, “If she is going, will we have a birthday party just the same?”

“There! The party!” Mrs. Tracy cried. “And your father won’t be here. This is his fault. If he had been here, if he had spent more time with us, none of this would have happened.”

“We could call him,” Allie said. “I can get long distance.”

“Maybe he doesn’t like this house, either,” Mrs. Tracy said. “I can’t understand any of this. Everyone I know has always been happy. My summers have always been so perfect, ever since I was a child.” And, bursting into tears, she ran out to the garden, past the astonished postman, who had walked up from the road with a package too large for the mailbox. It contained a present for Madeline, an unsuitable evening dress chosen by her stepmother, whom she had never met.

From the window of his room, Paul saw Mrs. Tracy run across the lawn. She stopped and bent down to pull three or four bits of wild grass from a flower bed. Then she wiped her eyes with her hands and walked calmly back to the house.

He turned to his books and wondered how soon it would be safe to approach Madeline again. A moment later, he heard the postman drive away and knew that he had missed the deadline for his term paper.

Mrs. Tracy put in a call to Mr. Tracy, and Paul began composing a letter to the head of the extension course, asking if he might submit his paper a few days late. He would show the letter to Madeline, he thought.

In the next room, Madeline had stopped crying and fallen asleep. She dreamed that someone had given her a dollhouse. When a bell rang downstairs, it merged into her dream as something to do with school. Actually, the ringing was caused by the long-distance operator, who had at first reported that the circuits to New York were busy and was now ready to complete the call. Mrs. Tracy entered the house in time to take the receiver from Allie’s hand and assure her husband that nothing was the matter, that she had called only to say good morning.

“It’s a lovely morning here,” she said. “Couldn’t you come up in time for dinner tonight? It’s for Madeline’s sake — you know what a birthday means to a young girl.”

“I don’t know,” Edward said. “I suppose I could.” His office would be unbearably hot, and he was beginning to feel foolish about his quarrel with Madeline. “She’s only a kid,” he said aloud.

“That’s just the point. We mustn’t take her too seriously. And it’s her birthday,” Mrs. Tracy said, as if this fact were a talisman, something that would cause the day to fall into place.