TIDDY APPEARS
I
Tiddy can best be described by the word “_éveillée_,” which cannot be
translated exactly into English. “Alert” comes near it. “Wideawake” is
not wide of the mark. Sir Nathaniel Tiddle’s daughter possessed shrewd
brains, but little beauty. Being well aware of this, she made the most
of what was likely to challenge interest and admiration. She cocked a
pert little head at an unusual angle and flaunted short, crisp curls,
which she shook in the face of Authority. The curls remained curly even
after immersion in sea-water. Shampooed they became irrepressibly alive.
Tiddy reckoned her curls to be a great asset. She awarded second place
to her eyes, large, round, saucer-eyes, neither grey nor green nor blue,
something of all three, fringed by short, thick, dark lashes, very
provocative, and even more interrogative. They seemed to say: “I want to
know everything about everybody.” Of her complexion (which was sallow),
of her nose (which was pug), of her large mouth, let us say no more. Her
teeth were small, white and even. Her figure lent itself to all vagaries
of fashion, being slender but not thin. She could pass as a jolly boy
without fear of her sex being detected. And she had in full measure a
boy’s agility and lissomness.
Mentally, too, she had a healthy boy’s outlook, although emotionally
feminine. Joy in life radiated from her. Dames of Lady Selina’s quality
might (and did) stigmatise this as pagan. Long ago, Miss Spong had
rebuked her for dancing or prancing to church. But, despite rebuke, she
had gone on dancing, conscious, possibly, of slim ankles and high
insteps.
Tiddy being an only child, it might be reasonably inferred that she was
spoilt by adoring parents. Nothing of the kind. Sir Nathaniel had become
a millionaire by the exercise of brains and indomitable will. Tiddy’s
mother, as we have said, began womanhood in a shoe factory. Both Sir
Nathaniel and she were excellent types of the successful industrial
class in this nation. The beacon which had led them upwards and onwards
was undiluted common sense. Sir Nathaniel had his weaknesses—what great
man is without them?—pride in what he had accomplished, pardonable
vanity, an ambition that vaulted as high as the Upper House, and an
ever-increasing desire to play the part of a magnate. But he remained,
like his wife, sound and simple at core. He had never, for example,
turned his back upon relations who had not soared. He was of the people,
and much too fond of saying so. Tiddy had inherited from him democratic
instincts. And if, with accumulating riches, Sir Nathaniel had become,
as his daughter hinted, conservative in regard to property, he never
faltered in his allegiance to the class from which he had sprung. His
great factories were models of organisation and administration. He
boasted that no strikes had taken place in them. Possibly his greatest
pleasure in life was taking appreciative guests—particularly
personages—round his factories, and, in their presence receiving the
homage of pleasant smiles and grateful words from his employés. It was
after such an agreeable excursion that the honour of knighthood had been
bestowed.
II
Tiddy duly arrived at Wilverley, and that night Cicely and she sat up
talking till the small hours. As a rule, the nursing staff took their
meals together. Mrs. Roden and Wilverley dined apart. But, inasmuch as
Tiddy was Cicely’s friend, the two V.A.D.s were asked to square the
family circle at dinner. Tiddy would join the staff on the following
morning.
Cicely was amused to see that she made an immense impression both upon
Wilverley and his sister, asking innumerable questions, all of them to
the point, and describing her experiences in a big Red Cross Hospital in
the Midlands, not run upon model lines.
“Friction everywhere,” declared Tiddy. “Matron on bad terms with sisters
and nurses, favouritism——”
“Were you a favourite, Miss Tiddle?” asked Wilverley, much amused.
“Yes,” replied Tiddy. “As a martyr I might have stuck it, but just
because Daddy weighed in with big cheques they were much too civil to
me, and I loathed it. That’s why I’m here to-night,” she concluded with
a gay laugh.
“Pray go on,” entreated Mrs. Roden. “This is most instructive. We may
profit by your experiences, my dear young lady.”
“As to that,” said Tiddy frankly, “I should keep mum, if I didn’t know
from Cis that things are humming along here on the right lines. The poor
duchess meant well——”
“The duchess . . .?” interrogated Mrs. Roden. To Mrs. Roden a duchess
was not quite as other women.
“The Duchess of Mowbray. I thought you knew that I had been working at
Harborough Castle.”
“She was a D’Arcy,” murmured Mrs. Roden. “I never speak ill of others or
repeat ill-natured gossip. Still . . .”
“Please make an exception in this case, my dear Mary,” said Wilverley.
Cicely could see that his eyes twinkled. Certainly this rather stodgy
man had an elementary sense of humour. But you had to dig deep to find
it.
Mrs. Roden said solemnly:
“Her mother was a Dollope. We all know that the Dollopes are . . . well
. . . Dollopes . . .!”
“They would be with such a name,” Tiddy observed.
Mrs. Roden continued trenchantly:
“Old Lord D’Arcy was quite impossible. One couldn’t repeat what he did
or said.”
“Tell me all about him afterwards,” said Wilverley.
“I am serious, Arthur. Lord D’Arcy was a moral idiot, first and last a
crutch man, leaning on others. No sense of responsibility whatever. I
could tell you stories . . .!”
“But you won’t, Mary. That is so exasperating. However, let him rest in
peace!”
“In peace——? I should be false to my faith in the here and the
hereafter, if I let pass such a remark. Lord D’Arcy, wherever he may be,
is not in peace. But I thought—possibly I am mistaken—that the duchess
was in France.”
Tiddy answered promptly:
“She is. She ought to be at home. What has happened? The patients and
the servants—oh, those servants!!—get top-hole rations. The
nursing-staff were half-starved.”
“Dear, dear!” ejaculated Mrs. Roden. She looked shocked, but she felt
somehow rather pleased. The Duchess of Mowbray, before the war, had
overlooked Mrs. Roden’s claims to consideration upon more than one
occasion. Cicely, not too sharp in such matters, guessed that Tiddy was
“making good.”
“Yes,” continued Tiddy cheerfully; “the duchess, you see, arranged with
some contractor to feed us, and of course he didn’t.”
“I give undivided attention to these important matters,” said Mrs.
Roden.
“I know you do,” said Tiddy.
Presently, the talk drifted into Wilverley’s particular channel. Tiddy
listened to him attentively, chipping in, now and again, with apposite
remarks that astonished Cicely. Altogether, this first meeting was a
small triumph for Miss Tiddle.
“They like you, Tiddy,” said Cicely, as the pair warmed their toes over
the bedroom fire.
“I like them, Cis. Mrs. Roden frightens you, I see, but you were right:
she’s a scream. I must pull up my socks, and take her as seriously as
she takes herself. Lord Wilverley is not quite the bromide you had led
me to expect.”
“I never said a word against him.”
“Oh! Didn’t you? Evidently he’s dead nuts on you. Has he proposed, old
thing?”
Cicely blushingly admitted that my lord had plunged into water too hot
for both of them. Tiddy went on ruthlessly:
“And Romeo with the disconcerting eyes . . .?”
“Shut up!”
“I couldn’t, if I tried. Let’s have it fresh from the oven.”
Cicely, after more pressure, gave a not too articulate version of what
had passed between Grimshaw and herself. Tiddy listened, with her head
on one side, bright-eyed, not unlike a robin watching another robin
picking up crumbs. From time to time, she shook her curls impatiently,
but she held her tongue till Cicely finished.
Then Miss Tiddle delivered judgment with all the wisdom of youth.
“It seems to me, Cis, that silence has extinguished you.”
Cicely admitted as much proudly.
“We Chandoses are like that.”
“We Chandoses——!” Tiddy laughed scornfully. “Cut all that cackle with
me, Cis. I have the greatest contempt for silence. Generally it means
stupidity. Idiots say nothing and are proud of it. Really, I’m ashamed
of you. However, I daresay I’ve nipped in in time.”
“In time for—what?”
“To put things right. I want to meet your Harry.”
“_My_ Harry! What an idea!”
Tiddy said obstinately: “We Tiddles are like that. We don’t look blandly
on when babies are playing on the edge of a precipice. I say that you
love Romy; and that Romy loves you. And that hateful Mrs. Grundy stands
between you.” Cicely exercised the Chandos gift of silence. Tiddy
continued warmly: “You may take Fatty out of pique.”
“Fatty——!”
“I used that word to annoy you, to rouse you. You are quite likely to
become fat yourself out of sheer indolence. Some of you swells have
brains, but you don’t use ’em. And if you don’t get a move on, you’ll be
down and out.”
Cicely murmured deprecatingly:
“Arthur Wilverley is a dear.”
“So is our butler at home. I might do worse than marry him, but I hope
to do better.”
“You won’t meet Mr. Grimshaw, Tiddy, because he’s going to France.”
“Settled, is it?”
“Yes. He—he”—her voice faltered—“went away yesterday, so dear Mother
wrote.”
“So dear Mother wrote . . .! I’ll bet my boots that dear Mother managed
all this.”
“She didn’t.”
“Anyhow, you mismanaged it. Well, if Romy cares he’ll come back.”
“Do you think he will?”
“_If he cares._”
III
For some weeks nothing of interest happened at Wilverley Court. Cicely,
perhaps, was slightly disconcerted because, as a V.A.D., Miss Tiddle, a
new-comer, soared above her. Cicely remained a drudge; Tiddy was
accorded privileges. One of the patients required a special nurse. No
sister could be spared. Tiddy, by virtue of an alert physiognomy, was
selected by “Matron” out of a dozen eager aspirants for the post. And
poor Cicely gnashed her teeth when she found herself “clearing up,” as
it is technically called, after Miss Tiddle’s more congenial labours. To
remove, humbly and swiftly, the impedimenta of a sick-room, leaving
behind the immaculate Tiddy enthroned beside an interesting case, tried
Cicely to breaking point. Indeed, a too long apprenticeship to drudgery
failed to accustom a daughter of the ancient House of Chandos to
carrying away soiled dressings, washing bandages, and cleaning
dressing-buckets with Monkey soap, which roughens hands, takes the
polish from nails, and brightens everything except the temper. And,
after two hours’ sweeping and garnishing, it was mortifying to proud
flesh to hear judgment pronounced by a sister, who was the daughter of a
greengrocer: “This ward looks like nothing on earth.” After such
experiences and exercises Cicely was quite unable to tackle with
appetite the good food provided by Mrs. Roden at lunch.
She went to Wilverley Court aflame with patriotic ardour and brimming
over with excellent resolutions, assuring and reassuring herself that,
much as she might shrink from the sight of ugly wounds and cruel
sufferings, never, never would she exhibit irritability or impatience
with heroes who had bled for England. She had imagined that such heroes
would remain heroes. She had not realised the inconsideration, the
disobedience, the fractious unreasonableness that even a Victoria Cross
may fail to hide when its wearer is reduced by long weeks of pain to a
mere attenuated shadow of his true self.
But—there were illuminating compensations. One afternoon, she was
returning late from the village, through a dark lane. To her dismay, a
man in khaki joined her and passed her without a word. He walked just
ahead of her. Every minute Cicely feared that he would turn and confront
her with—with abominable effrontery. At the end of the dark lane, when
the lights of Wilverley Court were in sight, he did turn, and saluted
her, saying respectfully: “Good night, Sister.” Then he retraced his
steps—a _preux chevalier_!
Other experiences were equally illuminating. One of the patients, an
unusually handsome man, died after much suffering patiently endured. At
the last his wife was summoned, a respectable, plain-faced woman, who
was with him when he passed away. The man’s kit was duly given to her.
Late that same night, the Matron found her crying over some letters she
had discovered, written by another woman. Next day, early in the
morning, a good-looking, slightly brazen-faced young person presented
herself and asked to see the patient, not knowing that he was dead. The
Matron told her the truth. Whereupon she said calmly: “I’m his wife. I
want to see him.” The Matron, aghast, blurted out the truth: “His wife?
His lawful wife is here. We know that; we sent for her.” Whereupon, the
other replied quite coolly: “If you want to know, I ain’t his lawful
wife, but I mean to see him all the same.” The Matron went to the
genuine widow, and told her that the woman who had written the letters
wished to see the dead man. She asked the crucial question: “Are you big
enough to let this poor creature see him? She loved him.” To cut short a
poignant story, the two women went together into the mortuary-chamber.
This incident made a profound impression upon Tiddy. She analysed it
from every point of view. “If we grant,” said she, “that a man can love
two women”—because, according to Matron, the real wife had spoken of
her husband’s devotion—“is it equally certain that a woman can love two
men?” Cicely shrank from answering such a question. Tiddy had astonished
her by saying: “I believe it is possible. Why not? One man might appeal
physically; the other intellectually.”
“Horrible!” said Cicely.
“You can’t compromise with life by calling it bad names.”
Cicely remained obstinately silent much to Miss Tiddle’s exasperation.
Often Cicely went to bed with a headache and rose with it. To go on duty
feeling unfit, to contemplate ten hours of physical _malaise_, to count
the lagging minutes, to confront the pettiness and injustice of some
sister, perhaps, who held amateurs in contempt, to be conscious that she
was not rising adequately to these moral exigencies, to retire at length
discomfited and defeated, has been the experience of all V.A.D.S. Cicely
was no exception.
One night Tiddy found her in tears.
“What a soaker!” said Tiddy.
“I’m so miserable,” groaned Cicely.
“Why?”
“I’m such a failure, Tiddy.”
“Tosh! The real trouble with you, Cis, is excess of sentiment. You look
at my patient, for instance, with sweet girlish pity. He hates that. He
doesn’t want sweet girlish pity. Smiles buck him up, and strong
language.”
“I thought I could count on your sympathy.”
“So did my patient. Sympathy can be shown without being sloppy. I made
my patient laugh.”
“How?”
“I told him about the old woman who keeps our lodge. She left one doctor
and went to another, but, being a bit of a pincher, she went on taking
the medicine of the first with the medicine of the second, and a sort of
earthquake took place inside her.”
Cicely was beyond laughter, but she dabbed at her eyes. Tiddy continued:
“I know what upsets you, Cis. You have to do some of my old work; and
they rag you a bit downstairs. And then you don’t rag back, but glump.
You are glumping now.”
“I’m not. I suppose we’re different.”
“That’s your misfortune, not mine. I refuse to weep with you. ‘Weep, and
you weep alone.’ Good old Ella got there with both feet.”
Cicely smiled faintly.
In due time Tiddy returned to the normal duties of a V.A.D.
Meanwhile Arthur Wilverley had been absent from home. He came back in
March, burdened with fresh duties and lamenting the loss of his
secretary, who had joined up.
“What I want,” he said to Cicely, “is a clever girl who can do typing
and shorthand, and come and go when I want her. But she must have a head
on her shoulders.”
A name flew into Cicely’s mind and out of her mouth.
“Agatha Farleigh.”
If Agatha could be found, Cicely was sure that she would prove the real
right thing. Of course the Extons would know. Old Ephraim Exton had not
waited a year to leave his farm. He was now a tenant of Wilverley, and
likely to do well, breeding cattle and horses under happier conditions.
His son, John, had enlisted. Cicely, anxious to serve a kind host,
cycled next day, during off-time, to Exton’s farm, obtained from the old
man Agatha’s address in London, and then, at Wilverley’s request, wrote
to her at length, setting forth all details of duties, salary and so
forth. Agatha wired back promptly from a typewriting establishment in
the Strand, accepting the situation. Within a week she was at work in
Wilverley’s office. Within a fortnight Wilverley acclaimed Agatha as a
gem of purest ray serene.
He told Cicely, whenever they met (not too often), details about his
work. The mandarins had just begun to recognise the possibility of
famine. Wilverley, as an expert on agriculture, had been summoned and
impressed, without salary, into the Government service. To grow two
bushels of wheat where one grew in pre-war days engrossed his
activities. To persuade others to tread in his steps had become—so
Cicely noticed—a sort of obsession. No word of love slipped from his
lips. And a Chandos respected this silence. But, inevitably, the girl
came to full understanding of what work meant to Wilverley and others.
Comparisons were forced upon her. Inevitably, also, during her leisure,
intimacy developed between Agatha and her. Work in London had changed
Agatha from a girl into a woman. Her wits and tongue had been sharpened
upon the whetstone Competition. Cicely soon discovered that Agatha had
discarded reserves of speech imposed upon villagers. She had become,
perhaps, less of an individual and more of a type. She showed this in
her clothes, and in her talk. Obviously she preened herself after the
fashion of up-to-date typists and stenographers, acutely sensible of the
cash value of appearances. On the first Sunday at Wilverley Church she
wore a cony-seal coat and a hat that distracted the attention of every
young woman who was not “quality.” Under the coat waggled a
shepherd’s-plaid skirt, cut very short, exposing imitation-silk
stockings and high fawn-coloured cloth-topped boots, which, so Cicely
suspected, were not too large for her feet. Conscious of Cicely’s amused
smile, Agatha assumed a defiant expression, as much as to say: “If you
don’t like my costume I’m sorry for you. It’s quite the latest style,
and paid for. Not by a rich mother, but by a hard-working, independent
girl.” Cicely, greeting Agatha in the churchyard, observed without
malice:
“I say, Agatha, you must have saved a bit in London.”
To this Agatha replied sharply, imputing censure:
“What I saved I spent. And why not?”
Perceiving that she had provoked resentment, Cicely hastened to assuage
it.
“Why not?” she echoed. “I never was able to save a farthing out of my
allowance.”
“We grow old and ugly soon enough,” said Agatha, in a softened tone. “I
oughtn’t to have bought this coat, but that’s why I did it.”
Cicely’s laugh melted the little ice that remained. And Agatha’s
gratitude for the word spoken to Wilverley was whole hearted. She said
shyly:
“I wanted to come back to be near my own people and—and the Extons.”
As she spoke, she pulled off a white glove with black stitching and
revealed a ring sparkling upon the third finger of her left hand. Cicely
saw a small cluster of diamonds, a ring that she might have worn
herself.
“John Exton gave me this before he joined up.”
Cicely kissed her.
“I’m ever so glad. Tell me all about it.”
Agatha, nothing loath, remarked with urban complacency:
“I do believe that prinking did it. I was a terrible dowd before I went
to town. Those everlasting greys . . .! My lady liked that. So suitable
. . .! We girls talked a lot about clothes.”
“I always wondered what you did talk about.”
“I was ragged—a fair treat. I had to grin and bear it. Well, what was
in the Savings Bank came out of it—quick. In six months I didn’t know
myself. When John came up and saw me, I knew that I hadn’t been the fool
I secretly thought myself. It’s gospel truth; girls like me must march
with the band, or—or be left behind.”
“I don’t blame you or John,” declared Cicely.
Agatha continued in the same slightly complacent tone, which jarred upon
Lady Selina’s daughter, although it served to amuse and instruct her.
Her soft, respectful manner of address had evidently been cast as
rubbish to the void. Cicely divined that she had become something of an
echo.
“We girls must have a good time when we’re young, or do without for ever
and ever, amen! And as to catching the men, why, I suppose Bernard Shaw
knows what he’s talking about.”
“Man and Superman, eh?”
“Yes.”
Under some little pressure from Cicely, Agatha, with unabashed candour,
and without picking her phrases, set forth her experiences in London “on
her own.” Cicely was informed that girls of the wage-earning class who
want husbands must make the most of their opportunities before they
reach thirty, or find themselves stranded on the bleak shores of
celibacy, with a glimpse of the workhouse in the far distance.
“They do fight like animals for a good time,” said Agatha.
Then, to Cicely’s amazement, this protégée of her mother’s opened a
smart Dorothy bag, examined her nose in a tiny mirror, and proceeded
calmly to powder it. Cicely thought that she looked thinner, and
wondered if the colour on the girl’s cheeks came out of the Dorothy bag.
“Have you lost weight, Agatha?” she asked.
“Well, we do skimp food to buy clothes, but we’re greedy enough when
somebody else pays for our meals.”
After this unabashed talk, Cicely admitted consternation to Tiddy, who
gibed at her.
“I never saw such a change in a girl.”
“Pooh! We don’t change much. What was in her came out. She seizes joy
when it passes her way. No exception at all. I see you don’t talk much
with the other V.A.D.s. Silly—that! Take my tip, and study people at
first-hand. I do. I want to understand everybody. Of course, as we’re
pals, I dissemble a wee bit with your mother. Perhaps if she understood
me I should be out of bounds to you.”
Acting upon this advice, Cicely became more friendly with the farmers’
and tradesmen’s daughters now working at Wilverley Court. Most of them
called her “Shandy.” She had accepted this cheerfully, because such
familiarity would end, she reflected, with the war. Now, she was
beginning to wonder whether social distinctions were of paramount
importance. Freedom of intercourse, according to Tiddy, begetting a
truer sympathy, a kindlier understanding, might be a greater thing than
respectful salutations. In the Midlands, children neither curtsied nor
touched caps. Lamentable . . .! She was glad that she didn’t live there.
The V.A.D.s responded to Cicely’s advances. She found in them what she
had found in Agatha: pluck, fortitude and an invincible optimism in
regard to big things. They whined and wailed over trifles. They lacked
restraint, refinement, and lied magnificently to achieve their ends.
Tiddy talked to all and sundry, particularly the sundry. She didn’t
invite confidence timidly, like Cicely. She exacted and extracted it,
waving it triumphantly, as a dentist will hold aloft a big molar. With
the august Mrs. Roden Tiddy shared the conviction that women were coming
into their promised land. Agatha agreed with Miss Tiddle. Often Cicely
found herself in a minority of one when social questions were debated at
meal-time.
“Is nothing sacred to you?” she asked Tiddy.
“Oh, yes, but not tin gods. This war will scrap them for ever and ever.
Speed up.”
“Pace kills, Tiddy.”
“Tosh! Pace kills those who won’t get out of the way. Tin gods sat in a
row, graven images, obstructing progress. We shall knock ’em down like
ninepins. It’s a case of knock or be knocked. You’ve come on a lot. I
wonder what your mother thinks of you.”
Whereupon Cicely confessed that she too dissembled with Lady Selina. At
this Tiddy shrugged disdainful shoulders.
“I should have thought you were sick of whitewash in your village.”
“Whitewash? Mr. Grimshaw called it that.”
“Yes; he was the first to open your baby eyes.”
“Well, there’s no whitewash here.”
“Wrong again. Whitewash and eyewash. A full dose yesterday.”
Upon the previous afternoon, the Wilverley Court Red Cross Hospital had
been inspected by a medical Panjandrum. Wards and passages had been
swept and garnished with nauseating haste and diligence. A great house,
already in fine working order, had been scrubbed from basement to
attics. The tired scrubbers had presented smiling faces and spotless
uniforms to the cold stare of red-tabbed Authority. After his departure
they had retired—foundered!
“What’s the use of that?” asked Tiddy. “Why can’t these pestering old
duffers take us unawares, and find out how things really are? We should
have gloried in that test. At Harborough we played the same rotten game.
For half-an-hour the place was as it ought to have been. Next day we
went back to the old disorder and dirt. However, we women are going to
change all that.”
“Changes are so upsetting, Tiddy.”
“I repeat—knock or be knocked. Really, you privileged people can’t
complain; you’ve had a wonderful innings. But this war has bowled you
out.”
“Mother would have a fit if she heard you,” remarked Cicely.
IV
Afterwards, long afterwards, Cicely could not recall with any exactness
when she began to look at Upworthy with eyes from which the scales had
fallen. Presently she beheld the beloved cottages through Miss Tiddle’s
twinkling orbs. Little escaped them. Called upon to admire thatched
roofs and walls brilliantly white against a background of emerald-green
fields, Tiddy perpetrated sniffs.
Cicely said defiantly:
“They’re the prettiest cottages in the county.”
“In our cottages, Cis, Daddy and I look at the kiddies. If they’re all
right, we’re satisfied.”
“Satisfied with rows of ugly brick houses with slate tiles . . .?”
“Absolutely.”
“What’s the matter with our children?” asked Cicely.
Tiddy replied with imperturbable and exasperating good humour:
“You must find that out for yourself, old thing. It’s no use jawing at
people. That only makes ’em the more obstinate. Sooner or later, if you
keep your peepers peeled, you’ll catch on. I’m wondering just how long
you will keep it up.”
“Keep what up?”
“Self-deception—humbugging your own powers of observation.”
Coming and going to the Manor, when off duty, the girls would drop into
the cottages and pass the time of day with smiling and obsequious
villagers. But their pleasant greetings failed to impress Sir
Nathaniel’s daughter. It happened, shortly after Agatha’s arrival, that
Cicely paid a visit to Timothy Farleigh, the typist’s uncle. Before she
tapped on the door, Cicely spoke a word of warning to Miss Tiddle.
“I want to tell Timothy how well Agatha is doing, but . . .”
“Yes?”
“Well, the old fellow has a grievance. Mrs. Farleigh is a dear. And you
will admire the kitchen.”
They tapped and entered. Tiddy was agreeably surprised and delighted.
The kitchen was charming; a quaint, old-fashioned room with a deep open
hearth and ingle-nook. A broad seat semi-circled a deeply-recessed bay
window, and above the seat was a ledge with flower-pots upon it. An oak
dresser set forth to advantage some blue-and-white pottery. Hams hung
from a big black rafter. Upon the walls gleamed an immense brass
warming-pan and a brass preserving-dish which seemed to have survived
the use and abuse of centuries. A large table was scrubbed immaculately
white. There were plain Windsor chairs and a huge arm-chair facing the
hearth. In this arm-chair sat Timothy Farleigh, reading a Sunday paper
with horn spectacles upon his bony nose. He rose when the young ladies
entered, and greeted them civilly but without the customary servility.
In the ingle-nook Nick, the softy, was crouching, crooning to himself.
Timothy thanked Cicely for bringing him information about his niece.
Tiddy eyed him critically noting his strong square chin, heavy brow and
deep-set eyes. A curious light smouldered in them. He spoke in the West
Country dialect still used in remote districts by the elder generation.
“Aggie be a fine young ’ooman, able, thank the Lard! to fend for
herself. I be proud o’ she, a gert, understanding lass I calls ’er.”
“I have brought my friend, Miss Tiddle, to see you, Timothy. She comes
from the Midlands, where folk are thick as bees in a hive.”
Timothy glanced with interest at Tiddy.
“Do they bide quiet in their hives, miss? I bain’t much of a scollard,
but I reads my Sunday paper, I do, and folks in your parts seemin’ly be
buzzin’ and swarmin’ like bees ready to leave old hive.”
“There is a good deal of that,” admitted Tiddy candidly.
“Ah-h-h!”
Timothy pressed his thin lips, as if fearing that buzzing might escape
from him. He shrugged his heavy shoulders, warped by constant toil in
the fields, and remained silent. Just then his wife bustled in, a frail,
spindling little woman with worried eyes. She greeted Cicely, so Tiddy
noticed, with genuine affection, and offered instantly a cup of tea. Her
obvious desire to ingratiate herself with the quality seemed pathetic to
the young woman from the Midlands.
“Stop your noise, Nicky,” said Mrs. Farleigh sharply. “You knows better
nor that.”
“Let ’un bide,” growled Timothy.
Nick stared and then grinned at Miss Tiddle, offering slyly his
customary greeting to strangers.
“I be soft, I be.”
“Don’t ’ee take no notice of him, miss.”
Cicely talked on cheerfully about Agatha till it was time to go. Outside
Tiddy said sharply:
“What is this grievance?”
Reluctantly, Cicely told the tale of diphtheria and two graves in the
churchyard. Tiddy refrained from comment. Crossing the village green,
after five minutes with Mrs. Rockram, they encountered Nicodemus Burble,
hearty and garrulous as ever.
“It do tickle me to death to see ’ee, miss,” he assured Cicely. “A fair
stranger you be.”
“How is everything in the village, granfer?”
“We be gettin’ older, miss, and more rheumaticky. But I keeps on my old
pins, I does, being scairt o’ takin’ to my bed wi no ’ooman to fend for
me.”
“An old bachelor?” asked Tiddy.
“Lard love ’ee, miss, I ha’ buried two wives, and might ha’ taken a
third, a very praper young wench, but too free wi’ her tongue like.”
“Was she?” asked Tiddy.
“Aye. Whatever do ’ee think she says to me, the lil’ besom, when I up
and axed her to be number three?”
“I can’t imagine,” said Cicely.
Tiddy observed thoughtfully:
“She might have said a good deal.”
The ancient chuckled.
“‘Granfer,’ she says, ‘a man o’ your gert age ought to go to bed wi’ a
candlestick.’”
Cicely threw back her head and laughed. Tiddy wanted more detail.
“And what did you reply to that, Mr. Burble?”
“Ah-h-h! I was too flambergasted, miss, for common speech, but a very
notable answer blowed into my yed just one fornit arter. I can’t go to
bed wi’ a candlestick, acause I ain’t got none, nary one.”
He hobbled on, still chuckling.
“They’re quite wonderful,” said Tiddy. “Prehistoric. How long will it
last?”
Cicely frowned, anticipating criticism.
“I suppose you would like to see everything cut to pattern, with the
colour out of the pattern, a drab monotony of millions doing and saying
the same thing; no distinctions, no differences—ugh?”
“Is that your own, Cis?”
Cicely had to admit that she was quoting from the _Morning Post_.
Tiddy laughed at her, as usual.
“You Tories are always so extreme. Changes needn’t be violent, but they
may be violent if you swells don’t climb down the pole a bit and get
nearer facts as they are. That’s all. What a very horrid smell!”
Under the stronger beams of a May sun odours of pig were wafted on the
breeze.
“I don’t mind the smell of pigs.”
“Does your mother ever notice it?”
“I don’t know.”
“If she kept away from her village I should understand, but she
doesn’t.”
Cicely was sharp enough to explain.
“That’s it. If she kept away . . .! Then she might notice. She has smelt
these smells for thirty years. She says that a smell you can smell is
not dangerous. Brian thinks just as she does.”
“France may take some dust out of his eyes.”
Retrenchment, expenses cut to the irreducible Saltaire minimum, was
inscribed upon gates, fences, and buildings. Cicely had an illuminating
word to say about the gates:
“Father said that he liked a gate that you could put a young horse at
without running much risk of breaking your neck.”
“What a humane man!”
Cicely added pensively:
“When hounds run across Wilverley I look before I leap.”
“Ah! Then you do see the difference between Wilverley and Upworthy?”
Reluctantly, feeling rather disloyal, Cicely had to confess that the
difference did obtrude itself. Since Arthur’s return, she had ridden out
with him about once a week. A groom accompanied them. Arthur would
dismount and take Cicely into his cottages, asking many questions,
insisting upon truthful answers, checking, so to speak, the reports,
written and spoken, of his agent, leaving nothing to chance or
mischance. His actions as a landlord revealed him far more clearly to
Cicely than the halting words with which at first he had tried to
capture her affections. She began to wonder what Upworthy would look
like under Wilverley management. If she married this good, capable
fellow, would he put his stout shoulder to the wheel of a mother-in-law?
Tentatively, with a faint flush upon her cheeks, she said to him:
“I wish, Arthur, that you could persuade Mother to make a few
improvements at Upworthy.”
He replied, with a touch of irritation:
“Good heavens! As it is, I can’t find time to mind my own business. Lady
Selina would resent any interference. I thought that Grimshaw——”
He broke off abruptly, realising that an indictment of Chandos methods
had almost escaped him.
“Please go on. What did you expect from Mr. Grimshaw?”
Evading the direct question, she pressed him vehemently:
“I do so want to know what might be done. If it isn’t your business, it
might be mine, mightn’t it?”
He eyed her keenly. Was she thinking of a dire possibility, the death of
her brother? Her next words reassured him.
“You see, Arthur, Brian knows nothing about estate management. He’s a
soldier, and I’m glad he is.”
“Perhaps you are sorry that I am not?”
She replied gracefully:
“But you are. You are fighting as hard as any man I know.”
“Thanks.” His voice softened. “What do you want to know?”
She picked her phrases carefully, and they had been prepared, pat to
just such an opportunity.
“I want to know why things have drifted into the present pass. I want to
know who is really responsible? And most of all I want to know if
anything can be done.”
The sincerity in her voice, the trouble in her eyes, moved him
poignantly. And this was the first appeal of weakness to strength always
so irresistible and captivating. He answered her as sincerely, plunging
headlong into the subject, speaking, however, with that tincture of
exasperation which marred somewhat his efforts on public platforms.
Knowledge is at heart intolerant of ignorance, but your silver-tongued
orator would lose half his power if he betrayed this.
“I’ll do my best, Cicely. But I propose to leave your mother out of it.
I can’t criticise her to you. And really she is the victim of
circumstances almost beyond her control.”
“Almost?”
“I said almost. Something utterly unforeseen might change her point of
view. She believes firmly that she is acting for the best. For the
moment let us leave it at that. Unhappily, she has a bad bailiff. And
your Inspector of Nuisances is in the hands of your Board of Guardians,
small farmers who are terrified of improvements because it would mean a
rise in rates. And then there’s Snitterfield——!”
“Dr. Snitterfield?”
“Your Health Officer, also in the hands of your Guardians, and elected
by them. Snitterfield, the Inspector, and Gridley pursue a policy of
masterly inactivity. Grimshaw found himself up against those three, up
against vested interests, up against absurd medical etiquette. I rather
hoped that he would call upon the Chief Medical Officer of the County, a
good man, but that would have meant an appalling rumpus. Grimshaw would
have had to prove his case up to the hilt; no easy matter. Probably he
would have hostilised your mother. Old Pawley, perhaps, restrained him.
I don’t know. I’m not surprised that Grimshaw bolted.”
“He didn’t.”
“I felt at the time that I should have bolted. Grimshaw told me that
just such intolerable conditions drove him out of Essex and Poplar.”
“Mr. Grimshaw went to France because he was needed there. I am sure of
that.”
“I daresay. Anyway, he left Upworthy. Where was I? Oh, yes. I can’t tell
you where responsibility begins or ends. Our land system howls to heaven
for reform. And I can’t tell you what ought to be done at Upworthy.
Tinkering with improvements is bad business. For the present, at any
rate, until this accursed war ends, Lady Selina must be left alone.
I—I’m sorry I spoke with such heat.”
“I am much obliged to you,” said Cicely.
V
This confidential talk produced one unexpected effect. Cicely’s plastic
mind, plastic under any dominating hand, began to envisage Grimshaw as
driven out of Upworthy by circumstance. Instinct had told her that
Wilverley’s conjecture was wrong, and instinct happened to be right. But
her intelligence, much sharpened by Tiddy, reversed the first judgment.
She beheld Grimshaw turning his back upon a hopeless fight, as
admittedly he had done before. And if this were true, he would not come
back.
He had not written to her.
Not even to Tiddy would she admit that she had hoped for a letter. If he
cared, he would surely write. He might write, if he didn’t care. And he
had written to Mrs. Rockram, an epistle read aloud to Cicely and then
put away as a cherished souvenir of a perfect gentleman. Grimshaw had
written also more than once to Dr. Pawley, but Cicely had not read these
letters. She gathered from an old friend that Grimshaw was doing
first-class work, likely to be recognised, if not rewarded, at
Headquarters. Pawley said to her regretfully:
“This parish is too small for him.”
And at the time, Hope had whispered the flattering tale: “Yes, it is;
but I’m in it, and he’ll come back on my account.”
Now Hope faded out of sight.
Of course the sharp-eyed Tiddy perceived that her friend was passing
through a bad time. The flame of patriotism burned less brightly; the
daily drudgery went on imposing fresh exacerbations. Tiddy felt very
sorry, but she reflected, not without an inward smile, that Cicely would
profit by these bludgeonings. She would learn what Sir Nathaniel
called—values. Meanwhile, an unhappy young gentlewoman might mar her
own life, and that of another, by marrying the wrong man. Tiddy decided
that Arthur Wilverley was a good fellow. But he would take Cicely into
his ample maw and absorb her. She would become Lord Wilverley’s wife, an
amiable nonentity. She decided, also, with equal cocksureness, that such
a match would prove disastrous to the husband. Wilverley worked in a
circle likely to grow smaller if he were left alone with his
potentialities. His energies would centre upon himself and his
possessions. In this regard the author of Miss Tiddle’s being furnished
an object-lesson. He reigned supreme in the pill factories and on
occasion assumed the god, thereby shaking not the spheres but the sides
of those who beheld him.
Eventually Tiddy came to the conclusion that Cicely and Wilverley were
drifting, like leaves upon a stream, into marriage.
“I must take a hand in this game,” thought Miss Tiddle.
The necessity of doing “something” became even more imperative when she
marshalled the forces arrayed against her. Lady Selina, she decided, was
exercising, perhaps unconsciously, continual pressure. Mrs. Roden was
plainly bent upon lending Providence a helping finger. She said
majestically to Tiddy:
“You are a very sharp young lady.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Roden,” Tiddy demurely replied.
“Between ourselves, my dear”—Tiddy smiled—“I can assure you that the
happiness of others concerns me more, much more, than my own.”
This was quite untrue, and Tiddy knew it. Mrs. Roden continued:
“You must have noticed what is going on under our noses?”
Tiddy intimated, abstaining from slang, that her eyes were not
altogether ornamental.
Mrs. Roden, warming to altruistic work, pursued the even tenor of her
way.
“In my opinion, these two dear people want pushing.”
“Sometimes I could shake Cis,” said Tiddy.
“Yes, yes. Now, once more strictly between ourselves——”
“That is understood.”
“I have decided that you, my dear, should—a—give the little push.”
“Really?”
“I am sure of it.”
“I don’t think, Mrs. Roden, that I could push Lord Wilverley.”
“Certainly not. Being the man he is, of a somewhat nervous stolidity,
irritably energetic, if I may say so, he might resent pushing from you.
I propose to push him. I want you to push Cicely. Together we shall
achieve our purpose.”
“I see.”
“I can’t conceive of a happier, more suitable match. It would be, I
venture to affirm, abundantly blessed. Whenever I look at them, I think
of—a——”
“The multiplication table?”
“How quick you are! Yes, yes—the patter of little feet appeals to me
tremendously. I am glad to think that such a vital subject can be
frankly discussed between a matron and a maid. The maids will make
better matrons when absurd reserves become obsolete. All that is needed
in this case is adjustment, the little touch that turns the balance. It
is a great privilege to give such touches. I need say no more.”
“I understand,” said Tiddy. “I shall push for all I’m worth.”
VI
“In the other direction,” she added mentally.
That same night, during the rite of hair-brushing, Tiddy said abruptly,
well aware, of course, that a push, to be effective, should be
administered without warning:
“Are you playing the game with Lord Wilverley?”
“I beg your pardon, Tiddy?”
“Never do that. It’s a device to gain time. You heard me. Are you
playing the game? If not—as Mrs. Roden would say—why not?”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Then I’ll say it for you. I advised you before I came here to flirt
with this nice big man. I was thinking for you, doing what I should do
myself. I hold that a sensible girl must get really intimate with a man
whom she may eventually marry. Under our stupid shibboleths and
conventions that is called ‘flirting.’ There’s no harm in it, up to a
point. In my opinion you have passed that point.”
“Have I?” Cicely considered this pensively.
“Yes; he has behaved with astounding patience and consideration. He is
crystal-clear. He wants you. If you don’t want him, say so, and have
done with it. I think I can read you as easily as you read him. You
would like to please your mother, who, for the first time in her amazing
life, is feeling, as you told me, forlorn; you are getting fed up with
war work and bottle-washing, and you hanker for a change, _any change_;
also, you have a vague and quite excellent notion that Lord Wilverley,
as a son-in-law, might persuade your mother to let him take Upworthy in
hand. Probably he would, with little coaxing from you. In your less
robust moments you rather gloat over this opportunity of self-sacrifice.
On the other hand, it’s obvious that you don’t really love this good,
honest fellow; you are piqued because Romeo did the vanishing stunt. You
might have come to some sort of an understanding, but silly pride
prevented that. Agatha captured her John right enough.”
“Because she knew that he loved her.”
“In your funny little heart you believe that Romeo loves you. Pride
upset his apple-cart. Now—what are you going to do?”
Cicely, to Miss Tiddle’s rage and disgust, answered the question by
melting into tears. Tiddy, without a word, rose from her chair, opened
an umbrella, and sat down under it with a derisive smile upon her lips.
“When the shower is over,” she remarked tartly, “I’ll put down my
umbrella.”
Cicely, feeling ridiculous, gulped down her sobs.
“I wish I had your brains.”
“Tosh! Your brains are O. K. You’re too indolent to use them. Marry the
wrong man, and your brains will become a negligible quantity. What beats
me is that Lord Wilverley should talk to you at all when he might talk
to me.”
At this Cicely “sat up,” literally and metaphorically. Tiddy closed her
umbrella, but held it ready for use. She added calmly:
“I could make him talk to me, if I tried.”
“Take him from me, you mean?”
“Quite easily.”
Cicely’s eyes began to sparkle.
“He ought to marry a woman with some snap and ginger. I could egg him on
to great things.”
Cicely made an incredulous gesture. Then she said acrimoniously:
“I suppose you don’t believe in friendship between a man and a girl?”
“I don’t.”
“Well, I do. Friendship between girls is rather difficult.”
“Friendship between any two persons is very difficult. Most women are
too exacting in their friendships. For instance, you expect a lot of
sloppy sentiment from me. You won’t get it. My object is to save you
from yourself. You are drifting. If you really want to drift, say so,
and I’ll shut up. But I warn you, within a day or two you’ll have to say
‘yes’ or ‘no’ to Arthur Wilverley. If you temporise, he’ll think you a
rotter.”
“If Arthur bustles me, I shall say ‘no.’”
“I knew it!” exclaimed Miss Tiddle, triumphantly. “You don’t love him.”
“I—I might.”
Tiddy wisely said no more.
Next day, Destiny interfered. At a moment when Lady Selina had good
reason to think that her son would be spared, because our cavalry were
well out of the danger zone, Brian Chandos was offered and accepted a
staff appointment.
Three days afterwards he was shot through the head, when carrying
despatches, and died instantly.
Cicely was summoned home. Lady Selina met her upon the threshold of the
great hall. Stimson hurried away, leaving mother and daughter alone.
Outwardly, Lady Selina remained calm. To Cicely she seemed to have
become suddenly an old woman. Her face was white and lined, but she held
her head erect. Her voice never faltered. When Cicely gripped her
convulsively, she took the girl’s face between her hands and gazed at it
mournfully.
“I want you, child; I want you—desperately.”