{"product_id":"2940013755642","title":"The Expensive Halo","description":"It had been raining all day, but now a wild red sunset flooded the town\u003cbr\u003ewith uncanny light, so that the dripping black buildings stood glorified\u003cbr\u003eand the hurrying crowds turned their heads, half-consciously, in uneasy\u003cbr\u003ewonder at the magnificent west.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMary Ellis stood by the kitchen table in the basement window, and the\u003cbr\u003elight, reflected from the wet pavement, shone round her with a mild\u003cbr\u003eradiance very different from the disturbing crimson of the angry sky. It\u003cbr\u003elit her grey hair to a halo, and made her intent, secret-smiling face\u003cbr\u003ethat of a saint at her devotions. She was icing a cake. And as she piped\u003cbr\u003ethe pink sugar in careful preordained scrolls on the white plateau, her\u003cbr\u003emind was filled with a radiance which no sunset could produce. By the\u003cbr\u003ecake lay a cardboard box containing twenty-four little candles. She had\u003cbr\u003ehad to buy twenty-four because they were sold by the box. But the little\u003cbr\u003eMarsden girl could have the other three. There was no use in keeping\u003cbr\u003ethem, because never again would she put candles on a cake. Not until she\u003cbr\u003ehad a grandchild, and that might be never. She hoped Gareth wouldn't\u003cbr\u003ethink it babyish of her to do it this once. Babyish people often had an\u003cbr\u003eeager nose for babyishness in others. She hadn't made a birthday cake for\u003cbr\u003emany years now. The habit had been dropped during the war, when there was\u003cbr\u003enothing to make a cake with. And somehow, afterwards, people were less\u003cbr\u003eovertly sentimental. Symbols counted less. The children had had treats on\u003cbr\u003etheir birthdays, but there had been no cake with little candles. It was a\u003cbr\u003epractical age.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe laid aside the piping-bag and looked at her work with her still,\u003cbr\u003esecret smile. A cake for Gareth's birthday: that's all it was. But it\u003cbr\u003ewas, too, the crowning of her own life, and she felt it in all her being.\u003cbr\u003eTo-morrow her baby was twenty-one; the baby she had not wanted; the baby\u003cbr\u003ethey had said she would never rear: and it seemed as if her whole\u003cbr\u003eexistence had been but a preparation for this moment. Her five other\u003cbr\u003echildren had each in turn achieved their majority and there had been\u003cbr\u003econgratulation and pleasure in each event. But to-morrow Gareth would be\u003cbr\u003etwenty-one, and her spirit rose up and overflowed in her at the thought.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe chose from the box the more perfect of the candles (it would not\u003cbr\u003ematter to the Marsden baby that her three were a little chipped), and\u003cbr\u003ebegan to set them in the cake, carefully because of the still-soft icing.\u003cbr\u003eIt was strange that the baby whose coming she had resented so\u003cbr\u003epassionately should be more a part of her now than he had been to those\u003cbr\u003emonths before his birth. Even his name was hers. Alfred had said that the\u003cbr\u003ebaby was to have a Biblical name, like the others. No child of his should\u003cbr\u003ehave other than a Biblical name. Always on previous occasions, she had\u003cbr\u003eagreed for the sake of peace, but this time she had fought him, weak,\u003cbr\u003edetermined and furious. Now that the puny brat was there she felt that\u003cbr\u003efor once it should be hers to do as she liked with. She had borne it,\u003cbr\u003esuffered for it, and she should mime it. It should be called Gareth.\u003cbr\u003eGareth was the name of the hero in a book which she had been reading, and\u003cbr\u003ethe word had sung itself through her head during those awful hours. She\u003cbr\u003edid not like the name particularly, but that did not matter. All that\u003cbr\u003emattered was that it should be a name of her own choosing and that it\u003cbr\u003eshould have no Biblical associations.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd Alfred had given in. She had been surprised at the time but too\u003cbr\u003erelieved and weary to marvel long. Afterwards she had discovered that the\u003cbr\u003edoctor had spoken to Alfred as one man very rarely speaks to another. He\u003cbr\u003ehad, in his own phrase, put the fear of God in Alfred, and to Alfred,\u003cbr\u003ethat intimate of God, it was a new sensation. Alfred had agreed that Mary\u003cbr\u003eshould choose the name.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd he had, of course, changed his doctor. But as there were no more\u003cbr\u003ebabies that had not mattered very greatly.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBecause he was hers in a sense that the others had never been, the\u003cbr\u003esickly, wailing baby had been taken to her heart. When they tried to warn\u003cbr\u003eher that he might never make old bones her lips tightened in the little\u003cbr\u003emovement with which all her children were familiar, and her chin lifted,\u003cbr\u003eFools! Of course he would live. He was hers, wasn't he? The only one to\u003cbr\u003ebe wholly hers. She would see to it that he lived. And it seemed that her\u003cbr\u003eson had inherited her spirit, for he not only lived but, in spite of his\u003cbr\u003emany illnesses, throve. Her hand hesitated a moment and she smiled at a\u003cbr\u003epassing vision of Gareth at the age of seven; a battered little figure,\u003cbr\u003ewith thin scarred knees, red hair damp and tumbled, one eye dark where a\u003cbr\u003eblack eye was coming, and the other eye faintly green where a black eye\u003cbr\u003ewas going.","brand":"WDS Publising","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47079719960816,"sku":"2940013755642","price":5.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013755642_p0.jpg?v=1763589828","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013755642","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}