I paid little attention to the news from Chislehurst, although one was,
of course, interested in Miss Muriel as in the others; the opening of
the shop at London Street occupied in truth a good deal of my time
and care. Mrs. Hillier, answering my invitation to look over the
establishment, said that in view of my incurable habit of embarking
upon adventure without consulting her, it was impossible for her to
give any sort of countenance to the business, or make purchases there.
I retorted that I had no desire to ask for her patronage, and I might
have added--but did not--that in the circumstances, it was not much
she could afford to buy. But the good lady appeared to find one of her
rare joys in pretending that her money resources were as large as they
had been before the war, and it seemed a pity to be always destroying
the notion. Miss Katherine was the one who sometimes took me apart, and
said:
"Weston, dear. How much do we owe you now?" It was to Miss Katherine
alone that I showed the penny memorandum book in which I entered the
accounts. The girl had given up her manner of talking slang; she said
it was not approved by the best City authorities.
I gave Saturday to the new shop, and a part of Sunday (better the day,
the better the deed) and on Monday morning, was there again so soon
as I had prepared breakfast at Gloucester Place for the three working
members of the family. Mr. Hillier left the house at six o'clock,
Master Edward, being at present on middle duty, caught the train at
half-past eight; Miss Katherine did not have to go until rather later.
The cheeky boy, at London Street, had been paid off by Millwood, and
his mother called to beg me to take him on again. She was one of the
helpless parents that London sometimes cultivates.
"I'm sure I don't know what'll become of him," she declared, rubbing
eyes with the hem of her apron, "if you refuse to take my Peter in
hand. He only wants looking after; nothing else. And hearing you talked
about, Miss, as a rare good manager, why, it struck me that I couldn't
do better than get you to look after him. You've got a chance of
doing a good action, and I'm sure you'll regret it if you don't take
advantage of the opportunity. It'll be on your conscience."
"If he comes back here, he will have to work. And work hard."
"Break that news to my Peter," she urged, "as plainly and as forcibly
as ever you can. Give him a good nagging. He takes no notice of
anything I say. I'd very much like," she added, tearfully, "that he
should grow up a credit to me. It's hard on mothers when their sons
turn out badly."
I took Peter back, but did not deliver to him anything like an address,
or a lecture, or a heart to heart talk. Instead I provided him with
a duster, and a bottle of polish, and other articles constituting an
outfit, and gave him brief instructions. Ten minutes later, I found him
behind a leather screen, and resting on a settee; he was concentrating
his attention upon literature that dealt with the Adventures of Gideon
Smart, Detective. I placed the journal in the fire, and Peter supported
the argument of heredity by weeping; I allowed him to cry, and, when
he had finished, pointed to the tasks which awaited his consideration.
Used to the companionship of words and plenty of them, my silence
impressed him, and so soon as he had finished one job, I provided him
with another. Peter submitted later some brass candlesticks for my
approval, and was honoured with a guarded sentence for which he seemed
acutely grateful.
"Excuse me, miss," he said, respectfully, "but you're not much of a
conversationalist, are you?"
"I'm a worker."
"Couldn't it be managed, do you think, to run the two, so to speak, at
one and the same time?"
"Work comes first," I said. Peter gave the sigh of a man who regrets
the eccentric rules concerning business deportment.
Neighbours looked in from shops hard by, and told me that their own
trades were doing badly, and would, in their opinion, do worse ere they
did better. Having said this with much cheerfulness, they endeavoured
to assume a compassionate air in giving the view that of all the trades
none could expect to fare so ill, in these exceptional times, as that
which dealt with furniture; they spoke of the condition of affairs
in Shoreditch and Bethnal Green. Their knowledge was never first
hand, but had come from a cousin of a friend who knew a person whose
brother-in-law was something of an authority on the subject. Certain
of the older ones spoke of the days that were prosperous at Greenwich,
when visitors came to the Ship and the Trafalgar, and climbed the
ascent in the Park, and strolled about the town, and bought mementoes
and souvenirs.
"Fifty year ago," said a watchmaker to me, confidentially, "you might
have made a do of it. Now, it's like throwing your money down a sink.
Besides, you women-folk always get swindled right and left when you
barge in to affairs of this kind. By the bye, I've got a couple of
grandfather's clocks you might care to have a glance at when you're
passing my way. They're almost genuine!"
A proportion of Millwood's stock was useful only as fire-wood, and the
covered yard at the back received these articles, making a pile to
be drawn upon during the winter months. The mere eviction of these
improved the look of the shop; the greatest change was perhaps effected
by the linoleum covering of the floor which gave a fair imitation of
parquet, and received the care of Peter when there was nothing else
for the lad to do. Folk, hurrying past on their way to the station,
observed the altered appearance and stopped to give a few moments
of inspection, and I hoped some of them would come in, and at least
inquire the prices, or make an offer where the amount was exhibited.
Not until three o'clock on the second day did the first customer enter.
He was young, and I wondered why he was not in khaki. He seemed pressed
for time.
"You a judge of furniture?"
"I am," I said.
"Able to tell whether it's good or not?"
"Rather!"
"Care to take on a sort of a contract?" he demanded.
"If I can make anything out of it."
"How long have you been engaged in this work?"
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," I answered.
He appeared satisfied with my replies, and, taking off his silk hat,
explained his wants. He was a doctor and had to join the R.A.M.C. the
following week. Before that date, he proposed to get married. The lady
had remarked, in agreeing to the hasty procedure, that the drawing room
and the dining room were to be set out with articles that possessed the
quality of age; she drew the line at the accession of Queen Victoria.
"Now," he said, rapidly, "I've no time to go about searching here,
there and everywhere, and, apart from that, I haven't the necessary
knowledge. I may have hinted to her that I possess it, but as a matter
of fact I don't know Chippendale from Wensleydale, or whatever they
call the stuff."
"What is the limit, sir?"
"Two hundred and fifty," he said.
"Give me some references."
"Rather give you a cheque."
I set ink and pen before him, and he, demanding my name, filled in the
slip.
"There you are," he said, preparing to run off. "I've made it three
fifty. Now, I'm depending on you. Don't fail me, whatever you do."
It occurred to my mind that although he was trusting me, there appeared
no reason why I should trust him. The cheque was drawn on a local
branch, and leaving Peter in charge, and giving him enough to do to
keep him out of mischief, I went along and saw the manager. He said the
cheque, if paid in at once, would be met, and he suggested I should
open an account of my own. I did this.
The milkman--an uncertain person so far as concerned rumours of large
events--proved useful and reliable here. He knew, as not many knew,
the financial position of establishments in the neighbourhood; his
information, most likely, was gained from news collected in areas, and
corroborated by promptitude or delay in settlement of his account.
Also, he was able to tell me of houses where the furniture was old
and valuable. By a stroke of luck, it happened that the very first
door in Crooms' Hill I knocked at proved to be a place where my call
was welcomed, and indeed expected. The three ladies there, facing
serious reductions in dividends, had resolved to leave Greenwich, and
go off to a cottage owned by them and already sufficiently furnished
in Buckinghamshire. (When the transaction ended, one of them admitted
to me that fear of air-raids and nearness to the Arsenal had something
to do with the decision.) Terrified by the idea of a public sale, they
had, the night before, made an appeal on their knees that some other
means should be supplied.
"Providence has sent you," said the eldest, contentedly, "and, knowing
that you have been selected to help us at this moment of trouble, we
are willing you should go over the house, choose what you require, and
name your own figure. Of course, it's a wrench for us to part with the
furniture, but it brings with it the consolation that we are taking
our share in the war. And it is such a relief to find that we are not
called upon to deal with some man, with a smell of tobacco about him."
Their simplicity disarmed me, and their genuine piety forced me to
deal with them in a more straightforward manner than I might otherwise
have adopted. One or two of the articles were particularly good and
valuable: there was, for instance, a Chesterfield sofa that would
have fetched forty pounds in the open market, and I told them so, and
advised them to take it, with some of the rest, away to Farnham Common.
In the servants' bedroom I found three Queen Anne mirrors. I made up an
inventory that included four-posters, cupboards, dining tables, suites
of chairs, an Adam cabinet, two escritoires, some remarkably fine
glass, and a few mezzotints.
On these last I was not qualified to put an exact value.
"I'll give you three hundred pounds for the lot," I said, handing over
the list.
"No," remarked the eldest firmly. "Dear me no!" I prepared for the
duel of bargaining. "Two hundred and fifty will be ample. We cannot
think of taking advantage of one who has come here in answer to our
prayers." The sisters nodded an emphatic endorsement, and I realised it
was useless to argue with them. They asked, as a great favour, that the
van which took the furniture away should attend at an early hour in the
morning, before Crooms Hill was awake. "We don't wish," they pleaded,
"to be the subject of gossip." They gave me a new prayer book, and I
came away with the feeling that one had peeped into a world too good
for a business person.
The young doctor was well satisfied with the transaction. He told me
his fiancée said she had always known that his taste and selection
could be depended upon, and he thanked me warmly for my assistance. To
the milkman I presented five one pound notes signed by John Bradbury,
Secretary to the Treasury, and when he realised that the notes were
genuine and that he was not being made the target for a practical
joke, he declared I was a lady well worth knowing, assured me that
any information he possessed concerning the inside of residences at
Greenwich would always be at my disposal.
* * * * *
The telegram informing us that Master John and my Herbert were leaving
for the front arrived one morning when the working members of the
family in Gloucester Place had gone off to their respective duties. A
few hints had come before, but this information was definite.
"We shall have to hurry, ma'am." Mrs. Hillier was taking breakfast in
bed. "There's no time to lose. Bustle about!"
"You are asking me to do something, Weston, altogether foreign to my
nature."
"I very often wonder, ma'am, what can happen that will rouse you up
thoroughly. There seemed a possibility that it was going to happen at
Chislehurst but it passed off."
"With so much turmoil and excitement," she said, serenely, "going on
around me, I feel it my duty to give an example of--"
"We must be out of this house in half an hour's time."
"But why on earth--"
"I'll tell you," I interrupted. "We're going to see the dear boys off
for the reason that we may never catch sight of them again!"
"You always look on the dark side, Weston," she complained.
In the tram-car, on the way up to Westminster Bridge, she made it
clear to other travellers that my position was that of a dependent,
and this would have been continued throughout the journey, only
that at New Cross Gate two jovial factory girls came in, and these,
appreciating the situation, at once began to imitate her voice and her
manner. Mrs. Hillier was silent after this, and when I explained to
the two girls the task on which we were engaged, they stopped their
raillery, and, apologising, told me that their chaps were abroad
fighting; they insisted upon showing me the latest communications which
had reached them. Our half of the car became friendly on this; other
notes and cards were produced, photographs were handed around. A woman
possessed a letter from the King's secretary, congratulating her on the
circumstance that she had a husband and four sons in the army, and this
broke down Mrs. Hillier's attitude of lofty reserve. She counselled the
owner to have the document framed, lest, by frequent passing about,
it should become creased and torn; the woman said this was a rattling
good idea, and promised to act upon it. The factory girls left at the
Elephant, and Mrs. Hillier shook hands with them; when we alighted at
the Boadicea corner the passengers gave us a message of good luck to be
tendered to the two boys.
"Some of these people, Weston," she said, tolerantly, as we went in the
direction of Birdcage Walk, "are, after all, very human." I thought to
myself that the same could be said of her whenever she cared to show
herself at her best.
We found an enormous crowd outside the barracks. Inside the park,
hobbled horses were at the sand place marked "This Space is for
Children only"; the lake was empty. We stood on the high walk near the
park railings, and could see the Guards drawn up on the parade ground;
it was impossible to identify Master John or Herbert.
"Why didn't you think to bring the field glasses, Weston?" complained
Mrs. Hillier.
"Because they were sold," I answered. "Sold with everything else
that would fetch money. And try to recollect, ma'am, that this isn't
a moment for asking silly questions; you're looking on at something
wonderful. Something that you'll want to keep in your mind's eye for
the rest of your life. Don't let me have to speak about it again."
The soldiers were allowed to stand easy for five minutes: their
comrades ran forward to have a last talk. Orders were shouted. The men
marched out four abreast through the open gates. The crowd cheered, and
began to move eastwards; we followed and went at a good pace, but not
good enough to keep up with the foremost ranks. There was no music,
but the soldiers sang, and called out facetiously in unison, "Is the
canteen shut?" and gave a shouted answer of "No!" Each carried his full
equipment, and a tin of thick sandwiches. In Great George Street, when
I had begun to think we should have to give up, Mrs. Hillier caught
sight of Master John and they exchanged waves of the hand; encouraged
by this she walked faster, and we crossed the bridge at a rate I had
not experienced since competing in running games at school.
"Aunt Mary!" cried a voice, as they swung around into York Road.
"God bless you, Herbert, my lad," I panted. "And bring you both back
safely."
"Don't forget to ask Him to do so," said my nephew. Some of his
comrades thought this was meant as a joke: I knew quite well the dear
lad was in earnest.
We went home by tram-car, too full of our thoughts to exchange a word
with each other. That night, in my rooms at the top of the house, I
obeyed my boy's directions. It made me think of the three ladies of
Crooms' Hill, and I could not help wishing I had some of their placid
and simple faith.
* * * * *
It seemed possible the departure of the lads would have a lasting
effect upon Mrs. Hillier, and this, I believe, might have happened but
for the arrival of her elder daughter. The others of the family were in
good working order. Mr. Hillier returned at night, comfortably tired,
ready for the meal prepared for him, willing to talk of the incidents
of his new life, the men he encountered and the tasks he was called
on to perform; all the satisfaction he had gained from his hobby at
Chislehurst he was now securing at the Arsenal. Mr. Hillier often
pointed out to me that the fighting had sent us back to a condition of
affairs where the man of brains occupied a position inferior to that of
the man of hands.
"It will take the conceit out of some people," he remarked.
"It's taken a certain amount out of you, sir."
"Agreed, Weston. It has improved all of us. Excepting--" He did not
finish the sentence.
Miss Katherine came into the flat of an evening, justifying her
father's assertion, eager to chat vivaciously of everything that had to
do with banks, and her own progress in type-writing and shorthand. The
first of these came to her easily enough; the second presented greater
difficulties. Sometimes I read aloud a speech from the parliamentary
reports and Miss Katherine took it down, with appeals of "Please,
please, not so fast, Weston, dear," and then, apologetically, "You
always are a bit of a sprinter in conversation, you know, and I expect
it's not easy to get out of the habit." When it was finished, she took
her meal, and then transcribed the speech from her shorthand notes, and
read it aloud. Often, she had to admit that the result was incoherent,
and not to be understood: I tried to comfort her by pointing out that
the same might be said of the original, but Miss Katherine shook her
head. "I shall never be any earthly good at it, Weston," she declared,
hopelessly. It seemed that the qualification was not needed in the
department where she was at present engaged, but Miss Katherine had
hopes of promotion.
Master Edward, too, had been changed considerably by his railway
experiences. His hours when on the early turn were from five o'clock,
and when on the late turn from one o'clock; every other Sunday he had
to give sixteen hours to duty, with three hours off for the mid-day
meal. Later, he hoped to be transferred to a London station where the
figure of wages was said to reach as much as £90 a year. The early
turn was the one that troubled him, and indeed it was not easy or
comfortable to turn out in the dark of a January morning. At times,
when I knocked at his door, he would reply in a bright active voice
as though he were fully awake, but I knew boys too well to be deluded
by that trick, and I waited and knocked again until he came to the
door and assured me that he would be ready for his cup of hot coffee
within ten minutes. One of the compensating moments of pride came when
I gave him on his birthday, a case of safety razors that I had picked
up at a sale; he accepted it gratefully as a tribute to his age, and
impending requirements. For the rest, Edward had to tell us of agitated
passengers who came with a rush demanding tickets for the station which
they wished to leave, of attempts on race days to ring the changes or
tender notes of home manufacture, of the dislocation of time tables to
permit of trains being run for Government purposes, of the cancelling
of all excursion fares and cheap tickets, of economical parents whose
long-legged children refused to admit to any age above twelve, of the
head booking clerk who always began the day in the worst possible
temper, and invariably ended it with perfect geniality. I daresay
Master Edward lost some of his refinement of manners, and I confess
I was shocked when I first heard him allude, one morning to "these
blasted shoe laces."
"Oh," he said, answering my reproof, lightly, "you're old-fashioned,
Weston. You belong to the antiques. By-the-bye, how is London Street
doing? And who, just now, are you doing?"
I want to speak of Miss Muriel, but whilst I think of it, I must set
down some reference to the collection of glass that I came across
in a large house at Vanbrugh Park, where an old lady, the daughter
of an Archdeacon who knew something besides Church matters, had
recently died, leaving her property to a certain benevolent society,
"because," her will said, "it has never asked me for a donation."
Sales were not being well attended just then, and at each one that I
went to--sometimes nodding frequently to the auctioneer, and sometimes
keeping my head still--there were fewer of the agents, as they liked
to call themselves, to be seen. A mixed crew, these, and inclined,
at first, to resent the presence of a woman dealer; they tried, on
one occasion, to pinch my fingers by running up the price of a fine
horse-hair settee for which I had a purchaser ready, and I stopped just
in time to compel a syndicate to take it; one of the members came to me
later, and made a deferential offer that involved a loss on his side of
two pounds ten. In the matter of the glass referred to there was little
competition; a few private buyers were willing to bid for certain
articles, but the fact that it was all comprised in one lot compelled
them to refrain from making any offer. I have rarely been so pleased
in all my life as when I took back to the shop in London Street that
set of glass, cleaned it well and arranged it on dark wooden ledges.
(In the result, I disposed of every piece, but I never parted from one
without feeling regret for myself, and something like animosity towards
the buyer.)
Let us come to the topic of Miss Muriel. She had been away at
Chislehurst for some time; she and her mother had corresponded
regularly and her letters, since the announcement of her engagement,
seemed less querulous. Miss Muriel wrote, in one, a description of the
gentleman's house, and this ought to have prepared me for the facts;
as it happened, it was not until Miss Muriel brought him over one
Saturday afternoon to be formally presented to the family, and I heard
him below in Gloucester Place giving directions to the driver of his
car that I gained the first hint of his age. He was speaking in curt,
loud, and ejaculatory manner, and--just as well to admit it--I made up
my mind at once that I was not going to regard him favourably. And this
intention was confirmed when Miss Katherine ran up to my rooms at the
top of the house, and said through the half-opened door--
"Weston! Weston! He's a bounder. A bounder from the village of Bound.
One of the worst ever. Come down, and have a peep at him!"
I had to go back to the London Street shop, and ascertain whether
Millwood was able to take care of the establishment and to look after
Peter for a few hours; my brother-in-law proved quite ready to do
this, and I fancy he took some pleasure in sitting near the window,
and observing the interest shown by passers-by, listening to their
comments, and, if they entered, to say, "You must call again when Miss
Weston is here, unless you're prepared to give what's marked on the tab
that's tied to the articles. I've got no power, mark you, to accept a
farthing less!" In Gloucester Place, could be heard now the middle-aged
gentleman's voice at the balcony, explaining how the trees in the
garden ought to be cut down. Miss Muriel came out to the landing.
"Ah, Weston," she said. "Haven't seen you for ages. I expect you have
missed me."
"In a sense, yes."
"Never a flatterer," she remarked, indulgently. "You might, at least,
though, offer your congratulations."
"I've not seen the gentleman yet. But if you've quite decided, miss, to
change your name, there's nothing more to be said about it."
"Your assumption is wrong. I don't propose to change my name."
"The engagement is off, then."
"Once more," she said, complacently, "error has crept, Weston, into
your calculations. Mr. Schloss intends to take my name. He will become
Mr. Hillier, and I shall be Mrs. Hillier. And he has an income that
will enable me to live in the comfort I was once used to."
"Your handwriting, miss, is so bad that I never guessed he was a
German."
Miss Muriel reprimanded me for the criticism of her pen, and for the
suggestion concerning her gentleman. Mr. Hillier came out of the room.
"We don't talk to Weston in this manner," he ordered, closing the door
behind him. "Weston is one of us. We owe a great deal to her, Muriel,
in more ways than one. In fact, we are only just beginning to pay off
the indebtedness. Kindly treat her in a proper way."
"She had no right," protested Miss Muriel, "to suggest that he is
anything but English."
"I ascertained a while since," said her father, quietly, "that he was
naturalised, rather hurriedly, in August of last year. And he has just
admitted the circumstances to me."
"Nothing," she declared, in a tragic manner--"not even the
extraordinary behaviour of my own people--shall ever part us from each
other!"