MRS. BRAIDING
G.J. went home at once, partly so that Christine should not be
disturbed, partly because he desired solitude in order to examine and
compose his mind. Mrs. Braiding had left an agreeable modest fire--fit
for cold April--in the drawing-room. He had just sat down in front of
it and was tranquillising himself in the familiar harmonious beauty
of the apartment (which, however, did seem rather insipid after the
decorative excesses of Queen's room), when he heard footsteps on
the little stairway from the upper floor. Mrs. Braiding entered the
drawing-room.
This was a Mrs. Braiding very different from the Mrs. Braiding of
1914, a shameless creature of more rounded contours than of old, and
not quite so spick and span as of old. She was carrying in her arms
that which before the war she could not have conceived herself as
carrying. The being was invisible in wraps, but it was there; and she
seemed to have no shame for it, seemed indeed to be proud of it and
defiant about it.
Braiding's military career had been full of surprises. He had expected
within a few months of joining the colours to be dashing gloriously
and homicidally at panic-stricken Germans across the plains of
Flanders, to be, in fact, saving the Empire at the muzzle of rifle
and the point of bayonet. In truth, he found that for interminable,
innumerable weeks his job was to save the Empire by cleaning harness
on the East Coast of England--for under advice he had transferred to
the artillery. Later, when his true qualifications were discovered,
he had to save the Empire by polishing the buttons and serving the
morning tea and buying the cigarettes of a major who in 1914 had been
a lawyer by profession and a soldier only for fun. The major talked
too much, and to the wrong people. He became lyric concerning the
talents of Braiding to a dandiacal Divisional General at Colchester,
and soon, by the actuating of mysterious forces and the filling up of
many Army forms, Braiding was removed to Colchester, and had to save
the Empire by valeting the Divisonal General. Foiled in one direction,
Braiding advanced in another. By tradition, when a valet marries a
lady's maid, the effect on the birth-rate is naught. And it is certain
that but for the war Braiding would not have permitted himself to act
as he did. The Empire, however, needed citizens. The first rumour that
Braiding had done what in him lay to meet the need spread through
the kitchens of the Albany like a new gospel, incredible and
stupefying--but which imposed itself. The Albany was never the same
again.
All the kitchens were agreed that Mr. Hoape would soon be stranded.
The spectacle of Mrs. Braiding as she slipped out of a morning past
the porter's lodge mesmerised beholders. At last, when things had
reached the limit, Mrs. Braiding slipped out and did not come back.
Meanwhile a much younger sister of hers had been introduced into the
flat. But when Mrs. Braiding went the virgin went also. The flat was
more or less closed, and Mr. Hoape had slept at his club for weeks.
At length the flat was reopened, but whereas three had left it, four
returned.
That a bachelor of Mr. Hoape's fastidiousness should tolerate in his
home a woman with a tiny baby was remarkable; it was as astounding
perhaps as any phenomenon of the war, and a sublime proof that Mr.
Hoape realised that the Empire was fighting for its life. It arose
from the fact that both G.J. and Braiding were men of considerable
sagacity. Braiding had issued an order, after seeing G.J., that his
wife should not leave G.J.'s service. And Mrs. Braiding, too, had her
sense of duty. She was very proud of G.J.'s war-work, and would
have thought it disloyal to leave him in the lurch, and so possibly
prejudice the war-work--especially as she was convinced that he would
never get anybody else comparable to herself.
At first she had been a little apologetic and diffident about her
offspring. But soon the man-child had established an important
position in the flat, and though he was generally invisible, his
individuality pervaded the whole place. G.J. had easily got accustomed
to the new inhabitant. He tolerated and then liked the babe. He had
never nursed it--for such an act would have been excessive--but he had
once stuck his finger in its mouth, and he had given it a perambulator
that folded up. He did venture secretly to hope that Braiding would
not imagine it to be his duty to provide further for the needs of the
Empire.
That Mrs. Braiding had grown rather shameless in motherhood was shown
by her quite casual demeanour as she now came into the drawing-room
with the baby, for this was the first time she had ever come into the
drawing-room with the baby, knowing her august master to be there.
"Mrs. Braiding," said G.J. "That child ought to be asleep."
"He is asleep, sir," said the woman, glancing into the mysteries of
the immortal package, "but Maria hasn't been able to get back yet
because of the raid, and I didn't want to leave him upstairs alone
with the cat. He slept all through the raid."
"It seems some of you have made the cellar quite comfortable."
"Oh, yes, sir. Particularly now with the oilstove and the carpet.
Perhaps one night you'll come down, sir."
"I may have to. I shouldn't have been much surprised to find some
damage here to-night. They've been very close, you know.... Near
Leicester Square." He could not be troubled to say more than that.
"Have they really, sir? It's just like them," said Mrs. Braiding. And
she then continued in exactly the same tone: "Lady Queenie Paulle has
just been telephoning from Lechford House, sir." She still--despite
her marvellous experiences--impishly loved to make extraordinary
announcements as if they were nothing at all. And she felt an uplifted
satisfaction in having talked to Lady Queenie Paulle herself on the
telephone.
"What does _she_ want?" G.J. asked impatiently, and not at all in a
voice proper for the mention of a Lady Queenie to a Mrs. Braiding.
He was annoyed; he resented any disturbance of the repose which he so
acutely needed.
Mrs. Braiding showed that she was a little shocked. The old harassed
look of bearing up against complex anxieties came into her face.
"Her ladyship wished to speak to you, sir, on a matter of importance.
I didn't know _where_ you were, sir."
That last phrase was always used by Mrs. Braiding when she wished to
imply that she could guess where G.J. had been. He did not suppose
that she was acquainted with the circumstances of his amour, but he
had a suspicion amounting to conviction that she had conjectured it,
as men of science from certain derangements in their calculations will
conjecture the existence of a star that no telescope has revealed.
"Well, better leave Lady Queenie alone for to-night."
"I promised her ladyship that I would ring her up again in any case in
a quarter of an hour. That was approximately ten minutes ago."
He could not say:
"Be hanged to your promises!"
Reluctantly he went to the telephone himself, and learnt from Lady
Queenie, who always knew everything, that the raiders were expected to
return in about half an hour, and that she and Concepcion desired his
presence at Lechford House. He replied coldly that he was too tired to
come, and was indeed practically in bed. "But you must come. Don't
you understand we want you?" said Lady Queenie autocratically, adding:
"And don't forget that business about the hospitals. We didn't attend
to it this afternoon, you know." He said to himself: "And whose fault
was that?" and went off angrily, wondering what mysterious power of
convention it was that compelled him to respond to the whim of a girl
whom he scarcely even respected.