A letter came from my Quartermaster-Sergeant.
"We have been having a busy time lately. Nothing else but marching
and fighting, and the regiment was in the great attack described
correctly in the London papers of the 15th under the heading of
'British Check.' But I am pleased to be able to tell you that
another attack has taken place, which proved a huge success, and the
advantage is being followed up at the time of writing.
"Would you like to send me two re-fills for my electric lamp; address
in the Strand enclosed. It is difficult work to find one's way about
at night on unfamiliar ground. Hope you are keeping well and fit, as
it leaves me at present."
There was the strike on with the tramway men, and I had to go by rail
to make the purchase. The train went to Cannon Street only, and in
running across there from one platform to another, I nearly came into
collision with Guard Richards who was also in a hurry.
"Caught sight of your Miss Muriel t'other evening," he called out.
"Where," I demanded stopping, "and how was she, and what is she doing?"
William Richards had disappeared through one of the barriers, and did
not hear my question. It was something, however, to know that the
adventurous girl was still alive.
At the shop in the Strand I put the usual inquiry to the
attendant--"How do you find business?"--and he said he found nothing
to complain about, and I mentioned that I, too, had no cause to
grumble. Hedging slightly, he remarked that he felt sorry that in the
old days, before the war, he had devoted so much time and money to a
favourite hobby; his wife--"She's got a bitter way of talking when
she likes!"--aided and encouraged by her mother, never failed, it
appeared, to hold him up to ridicule of an evening when he returned
home, to take supper. I had given a few vague words of sympathy, and
the counsel to take no notice, and was leaving when he happened to say
that anybody who once began to collect old furniture was considered
by non-collectors as on the road to Colney Hatch. Within ten minutes,
I had promised to wait for him near the post office, and journey
northwards in order to look at his stock, and to see whether I felt
inclined to make an offer, and take the whole lot off his hands. There
would have been less celerity over the early part of the transaction
but that, as I explained to him, it was rarely I found myself so near
to his district, and, as he explained to me, he had, to appease his
wife and her relatives, given the assurance that he was taking active
steps to get rid of the articles which crowded the rooms. On the way,
he suddenly expressed the wish that I had been a member of his own sex.
He did not know what his wife would say when she found he had brought a
lady, unknown to her, into the house. He expressed the view that if the
Zeppelins ever dared to come over London, they would receive from her
as good as they gave.
The wife quickly informed him of her attitude in regard to my visit. So
soon as he opened the front door of his house with his latch key, and
immediately that she heard my voice, she ordered the two maids to go
upstairs. Herself conducted us into the drawing-room.
"I've been anticipating this," she said, tearfully, "and I fully
recognise, David, that I'm partly responsible. I've got a jealous
disposition, and I expect it will be my curse and companion to the
very end of my life."
"Miss Weston has come here--" he began.
"I know!" interrupted his wife, finding her handkerchief. "I quite
understand, and the fewer words we exchange on the subject, the better.
Perhaps if there had been children, it might have been different. Very
likely if I had been more tactful in speech, this terrible business
could have been put off for a while. Think as kindly of me as you can,
David."
"I always do, my dear, and--"
"No," she contradicted, with a show of truculence. "I'm not going to
allow you to say that. I am ready to take my just share of the blame,
but not more. You know as well as I do that I stand very low in your
estimation, compared for instance with that Oliver Cromwell chair you
picked up somewhere in Essex three years ago. I needn't tell you that
you love that gate table in the next room with a devotion you never
gave to me, even in the early days of our acquaintance. It's been a
hideous blunder, David, this marriage of ours, and now that you have
taken a definite proceeding by bringing another woman into the house--"
"What a foolish person you are!" I exclaimed.
"Don't you dare speak to me," she ordered. "David I am sorry for, but
you I consider beneath my estimation. Heaven knows by what tricks and
dodges you have succeeded in weaving your mesh around him."
"My dear," said her husband, "this lady and I have met this evening for
the first time."
"That makes it worse, David. But I always suspected you were really
fond of tall women, and I cannot be blind to the fact that I am short
and stout. I only hope--"
I managed to induce her to cease talking after a while, and, in a few
sharp words, described the reason of my visit. The strange thing was
that so soon as I had forced her to comprehend this, her annoyance
with her husband knew no bounds. Why had he mis-led her in this
preposterous manner? Why was he never so happy as when inducing his
poor wife to make herself a laughing stock? As to the furniture, she
felt by no means inclined to allow it to go. Any allusions she had made
in the past were given, she declared, more for the purpose of keeping
up genial conversation than anything else. Certainly, she did not
propose to have the house emptied of half its contents, bought mainly
with her cash, in order to gratify a man who rarely thought of any plan
or scheme likely to make her existence cheerful.
"Nothing can be done," I remarked to the husband. "It isn't your fault.
I must see about making my way back to Greenwich."
"I'd like you just to look at my collection," he said. "You're a bit
of an expert, I can tell, and it would be interesting to know what you
think of the purchases I have made during the past ten years. I may
have been taken in over some of them."
"I can give you fifteen minutes."
In the list of eccentric people I have met, the lady of this house well
deserves a first place. During the quarter of an hour, her mind went
to every point of the compass. When I said a word in praise of the
half-dozen Hepplewhite chairs, she announced that she would sooner die
than permit anything to be taken out of the house: when I commented
strongly on a faked Sheraton sideboard, she said disconsolately that a
van had better be sent for the rubbish on the following morning. Her
husband was described alternately, as the wisest and shrewdest darling
in the world, and, a moment later, as a drivelling idiot.
"Don't you think so yourself, ma'am?" she inquired, at one moment.
"Undoubtedly," I answered.
It appeared I had carelessly agreed with one of her condemnatory
remarks, and, swirling around, she ordered me to leave the house. Who
was I, she would like to know, to venture to criticise her David? What
did I mean by coming there, a perfect stranger, simply in order to hold
her dear one up to ridicule? The dear one conducted me to the front
door, muttering apologies on the way.
"Never marry anyone who's got money," he counselled.
"There doesn't seem to be much of a catch in it."
"Sorry you have been brought all this way for nothing. You've got a
fine night for your journey home, anyway. Fortunately, you're one of
the sensible people who take no notice of all this wild talk about
air-raids. Mind the steps," he added, counting them as I went down.
"One, two, three; that's right!"
The first thunderous clamouring bang came as he had nearly closed the
door. He rushed out, caught hold of my arm, and pulled me in. Another
tremendous report sounded as we stumbled over the mat. The two maids
rushed wildly down the staircase and, throwing themselves upon me in a
hysterical manner, babbled questions, begged that I would save them,
urged that I should remain in the house for their protection.
"There's no danger now," I said. "It's all over. The Zepps are a long
way off by this time. Come into this room, and let us see how your
mistress is taking it."
The lady of the house had fainted with great promptitude, and the
discovery of some one more considerably affected by the incident than
themselves, restored the girls to composure. Dogs were barking out of
doors, and there was shouting by children; the explosions had awakened
birds in the trees at the back of the road. A fire engine went along,
clanging its bell.
"I'm all serene," announced the astonishing lady, when she was able
to sit up. "Appear to have taken it much more calmly than the rest of
you. It's a great mistake to let the Germans imagine they can frighten
us. David, give the maids something to drink, and let them go upstairs
again."
She mentioned, when the others were out of the room, that her people
had always been renowned for their courage, and that it was a
considerable help, in time of need, to feel one had to keep up this
reputation. I remarked that the bombs had fallen near enough to excuse
alarm; for myself, I had no desire for a closer acquaintance.
"Now that they have come once," she said, complacently, "they will come
again. I shouldn't wonder if they arrived every night, regularly."
"Cheerful anticipation!"
"I can always look facts in the face," she remarked. "Nothing daunts
me. I possess the heart of a lion. The word 'fear' has no existence
where I am concerned." She went to the mirror, and beamed at her
reflection. "Do you think he will mind giving up the house?"
Her husband's return saved me the trouble of guessing at the meaning
of this inquiry. He was ordered to find the A.B.C. and, this done,
accepted, with bowed head, all the responsibility for the circumstance
that no train ever left Paddington for Wallingford after nine-fifty p.m.
"Then I go there, David," she announced, "early to-morrow, and stay
at a farmhouse until the war is over." She asked me rather anxiously
whether I thought the enemy's airships were likely to get so far as
Berkshire, and, meeting a glance from her husband, I gave the opinion
that the county referred to, might be looked upon as safe. In all
likelihood, the Germans had never heard of it. "My view exactly," she
said. "You will get rid of the house, David, and go into your old
bachelor rooms."
"But the furniture, my dear?"
"He has no head for management," remarked the lady to me,
apologetically. "You and I must settle this. Name a figure for all the
old stuff, and the remainder can go to one of the auction rooms."
Her husband, in seeing me once again, to the front door, mentioned,
with a chuckle, that Zeppelin raids had their drawbacks, but that they
did appear to be capable of solving a domestic problem.
The circumstance that my journey had not been wasted, in a business
sense, helped me to make my way home cheerfully. There was some
excitement amongst the people travelling, a great deal of interest, and
very little of anything resembling nervousness. One or two who had been
at the moment in underground trains regretted their ill-luck in missing
the sights and the sounds, declaring that this was but a sample of the
misfortune which persistently dogged their footsteps through life, and
the others tried to console them up by prophesying hopefully that the
occurrence would undoubtedly be repeated. No one could have complained
that night of the reticence of the Londoner. Everyone talked to
everybody, and one woman with a basket of groundsel possessed special
information that made her seem richer than any of the rest of us; she
exacted a respect that had, it is certain, not hitherto been paid to
her. All the values were, for a time, disturbed. At Greenwich station
I met Mr. Hillier. He was waiting for Miss Katherine and her brother,
who had gone to a theatre, with orders that had been presented to
Master Edward; some of the invented scraps of news had come by the down
trains, and Mr. Hillier was anxious. He walked the three sides of the
courtyard outside the station, and I remembered the announcement thrown
to me by Richards.
"Well now," he declared, "that is really something to be grateful for.
Muriel is alive, at any rate. But what I can't understand is, why she
is doing it? I don't see the reason. What induced her to run off?"
"I think, sir, that she was fed up with everything. I imagine that she
wanted to start afresh."
"But she might have taken you, Weston, or me, or one of us into her
confidence."
"Miss Muriel never gave much thought or consideration to other people.
She fixed all her regard upon herself, and for that reason, I feel
pretty sure that she is not likely to come to any harm. There's plenty
of work for girls to do nowadays, and she ought to be taking her share.
But I admit I'd like to know more about what's going on."
"I had great theories," he remarked, "when I first married about the
bringing up of children. Wonderful theories. Magnificent theories.
And, in the result, the children brought themselves up. With help from
you, Weston. You came along in time to save three of them; if you had
arrived earlier, you might have helped the other one. Don't assume,
because we rarely talk about it, that we forget."
"Only earnt my wages, sir."
"I may have taken that view at the time; I see it all more clearly now.
And if you should ever meet any of the maids of the old Chislehurst
establishment, I'd like them to know, Weston, that I appreciated the
services they gave there. I did see one of them on a platform the other
day, and I should have spoken to her, but she and her husband were
travelling first and I was going third." He drew in his breath sharply.
"You've had a lot to put up with," I remarked, "and, in my opinion, you
have stood it uncommonly well."
"Don't mind confessing to you, Weston, that at first it took a bit of
doing. Now that I'm in the swing of it, it doesn't require so much
effort. Look at my hands!" They gave evidence of hard work in the
Arsenal. The palms had become hardened; lines were marked darkly;
there was a cut or two, and one finger had the protection of a stall.
"Honourable scars, Weston," he said, rather exultantly. "And there are
some, too, on the mind, that no one can see. Discover from your friend
the guard, so soon as you can, where he caught sight of Muriel. Here
come the other two."
Miss Katherine and Master Edward arrived in the high state of
excitement that youth can gain from a visit to the play; they were not
greatly interested in my news of the raid, but insisted on telling
their father and me, on the way to Gloucester Place, the plot of the
musical comedy they had seen; a task which made a demand upon their
combined efforts. We found Mrs. Hillier waiting up, with a post letter
addressed to her husband that, as she admitted, she had refrained
from opening only by an effort; I could not help recalling the times
when she would have shown no such consideration. The writing was Miss
Muriel's; we made an eager semi-circle to listen to the communication.
"I'm sorry," said Mr. Hillier, brokenly, "but I--I can't read it.
Weston, you try."
Miss Muriel gave no address at the head of the letter, and the wording
had something of the romantic and poetic touch that she always
favoured. Having encountered a railway friend of Weston's who mentioned
that her people were worried and perturbed about her, she was now
sending a line to assure her father that she was well, and in no need
of money. Miss Muriel announced that she had engaged upon the task
of re-forming her character, and did not intend to return home until
this process was completed. She sent love to all, "including dear
fussy Weston." The note contained nothing more, and each of us, in
turn, searched it carefully, and held it up to the light, examined the
envelope.
"Not much," decided Mr. Hillier, "but better than no news."
"The dear child is in good health anyway," remarked his wife.
"The dear child," said Miss Katherine, "might have a little more
consideration for her relatives. If I happen to meet the dear child,
I shall talk to her in the manner that Dutch uncles are supposed to
adopt."
"'Re-forming her character,'" quoted Master Edward, taking the note
again. "'Re-forming,' with a hyphen. I haven't the slightest idea what
she means. A silly phrase, I call it."
"She means improving it," I said, quickly. "And I like the tone of
her letter. The handwriting is firmer than it used to be. She's in no
trouble, and that's the great thing."
"But," argued the lad, frowning, "how is she getting money?"
"This parcel of mine," I said, changing the conversation, and producing
the articles bought in the Strand, "ought I suppose to go in a wooden
box if it is to travel safely to France."
Miss Katherine, following my lead, inquired regarding the contents,
and pointed out to the others that Weston was sparing no efforts in
the endeavour to trap and secure the Quartermaster-Sergeant. Going on
with her chaff, she expressed the hope that she herself would never
have to adopt such unworthy means in order to capture the affections
of a male bird. Rather than force gifts upon a coy recipient, Miss
Katherine declared she was willing to remain a spinster with nothing in
the shape of love but a deep and unswerving affection for bank work.
Master Edward, coming in on my side, mentioned that Katherine had lent
her opera glasses that evening to an enamoured youth seated beside her
in the stalls. Miss Katherine declared that the gentleman was in no way
enamoured, that his age was well over seventy, and that she had offered
the glasses with no other motive than that of preventing her brother
from gazing through them absorbedly at a six foot lady on the stage.
The two gave us some of the tunes they had heard, acted one of the
scenes.
"Bed, children," ordered their mother. "You both have to be up early in
the morning."
"Shan't feel much inclined to turn out."
"I'll see to that," I promised.
Whereupon the young people described me as the curse of the household,
as a woman with an insane craving for breakfast at eight, one devoid of
consideration for anybody under the rank of a Quartermaster-Sergeant. I
put an end to the discussion by taking Miss Katherine in my arms, and
carrying her upstairs as I had often done when she was a small girl; I
threatened to return and perform a like service for Master Edward.
"Weston," said Miss Katherine, in her room, "joking apart, and speaking
with a full knowledge of the importance of the announcement, let me
tell you in strict confidence, that the hour is not far distant when I
shall not have to depend, for company, upon my respected brother. Of
course we can't insure against war risks, but the outlook, Weston, may
be regarded as hopeful. Decidedly hopeful."
"When the time comes, miss, I can only hope you will be as happy as you
deserve to be."
"I am looking forward," remarked the girl, "to being much happier than
that!"
* * * * *
Cartwright acknowledged receipt of the package in a long letter written
with such an ineffective pencil that, at first, I did not trouble to
read it to the end; a van, at the moment, was arriving from the north
of London, and the elderly men in charge, explaining that all the
firm's young chaps had enlisted, announced there had been difficulty
enough in loading the furniture; they appeared to regard the task of
discharging it as impossible. Luckily, my brother-in-law, Millwood,
came along: he had some engagements to speak near town, and desired
to take up residence at London Street for a few days. He took off his
coat at once, put on green baize apron, set to work. Sales had been
good at the shop of late, and by a little shifting, and re-arrangement,
space was made. Millwood talked as we engaged upon the job, and I had
difficulty in understanding the trend of his remarks. After a while,
I discovered that he was cultivating alliterativeness in speech,
and, being challenged, he admitted that he found the trick extremely
effective in speaking to audiences.
"I enjoy myself no end," he remarked, as we carried in an escritoire.
"Generally I'm called upon at the finish, when everybody has just about
had enough of 'igh class talk, and of well-educated chaps saying the
same thing over and over again. I give it to 'em straight from the
shoulder. Definite as a door-knocker. A tornado of truth. An avalanche
of asseverations."
"And don't they guy you?"
"In some places, a slight tendency to do this, at the start. But I
tell 'em a pathetic story about a soldier's little daughter, and after
that I can do what I like. I make 'em cry, and I make 'em laugh. The
tribulation of tears, and the deportment of diversion. See what I mean?
And, before I sit down, I turn on the patriotic key, and they shout the
blooming roof half off. Mary Weston, you ought to see the swell ladies
come up afterwards and offer their congratulations."
"No doubt, a picturesque sight."
"Sometimes," my brother-in-law went on, chuckling, "sometimes they're
at the railway station to bid me good-bye. Floral tributes. Illustrated
papers. Shaking of hands, and come again soon. Three cheers for Mr.
Millwood. And the other passengers regard me with the envy of--"
he appeared, for a moment, to be floored--"the envy of enthusiasm.
By-the-bye, why didn't my 'Erb come and listen to me when he was home
on leave?"
"Herbert was busy," I explained. "And he felt anxious about a certain
young woman."
"A mistake his father never committed," said Millwood. "With the
exception of your poor sister, there's never been one of them able to
exercise the slightest attraction so far as I am personally concerned."
"You'd better touch wood," I suggested.
The two elderly men were relieved to find the undertaking
satisfactorily completed, and in accepting silver, they mentioned that
if all lady customers were as business-like and as generous as I proved
to be, the drawbacks experienced in emerging from retirement and taking
up active duties would be considerably lightened. "The very female
parties," they asserted, "that were always a-badgering our young chaps
with 'Why aren't you in khaki?' are just the ones that complain now
because some of us old 'uns are a trifle careful in our movements!"
I counselled them not to place too much importance on exceptional
cases, and called their notice to the fact that women-folk were doing
remarkably good work in munition factories, and elsewhere. The aged
carmen closed the debate with the remark that it took all sorts to make
a world.
"I overheard your talk," said Millwood, when we sat at a meal, in the
back room, "and it's give me an idea that I shall dove-tail into my
speech at Croydon this evening. It may be that, in the past, I've taken
somewhat 'arsh views in regard to members of your sex. Probably I have
shown a certain aloofness so far as they are concerned. A deportment of
disdain. An attitude of inattention."
"I don't suppose they minded."
"Not too late to make amends," he argued. "It'll come rather well from
me to pay them a sort of a veiled compliment. I shall be careful,
mind you. If they want the fulsomeness of flattery, or the slavery of
serfdom, they must go to other quarters. I made a fool of myself over a
woman once, by going out of my way to marry her, but--never again!" He
shook his head, knowingly. "Once bit, twice shy."
"That describes your attitude fairly well," I said. "Shy is just what
you are. You're always awkward, but you're more clumsy than ever when
you're in the presence of women-folk."
"It's a disappointed female who's making that statement," he declared,
warmly. "Oh, yes," as I protested, "I know very well what I'm talking
about. I've noticed a difference in you ever since that bill was passed
making it legal to marry your wife's deceased sister--" Millwood found
himself in a tangle of words, and his annoyance increased. He rose and
went across to the mantelpiece to find matches. "Who is this letter in
the green envelope from?"
"The Quartermaster-Sergeant who was so kind when Master John was
missing."
"Can I read it?"
"If your eyesight is good enough. It only came just now, and I am not
sure that I finished it."
Millwood explained that he sometimes picked up useful snips of
information from letters written near the trenches, and, putting on
his glasses, he went through the numbered pages of the communication.
Towards the end he began to frown. At the finish he threw the sheets on
the table, with a gesture of irritation.
"Well," he said, curtly. "What are you going to do about it?"
"I shall write to him, I suppose, when I can find time. They like to
receive correspondence out there. Makes them realise they are not
forgotten."
"Yes, yes! But how are you going to answer him? What sort of a reply do
you intend to give? I'm one of the family, and I have a right to know."
To my surprise, he took hold of my arm, and shook me. "You women!" he
shouted. "Upon my word, you do know how to exasperate. It's my belief,
you find a certain delight in trying to send a man clean off his 'ead."
"An easy job, enough, in some cases. Let me glance at Cartwright's
letter, and see what it is that has upset you."
"Read page four," he commanded.
It was impossible to avoid smiling, and this sent Millwood raging up
and down the small room. The Quartermaster-Sergeant wrote that he
wished to marry me so soon as the war was over, or, if I preferred it,
at an earlier date; he begged that an answer should be despatched at
once--"that the subject can be off my mind."
"Look here, Mary Weston," said Millwood, shaking a fore-finger at me,
in his platform way. "You've got a mad, wild, reckless, tempestuous
nature--"
"Don't be ridiculous. I'm one of the most self-possessed--"
"Where love is concerned," he insisted, "all women are alike. I know
'em well. I've studied 'em. And I ask you to put this soldier chap off.
Postpone him, so to speak. Let your decision be definitely deferred.
Treat his offer in a lady-like manner, but allow him to see that you
are in no way eager to march immediately into the madness of matrimony."
"What I can't understand is why you are in such a state of alarm and
excitement. What on earth has it to do with you?"
"Everything!" he declared. "My future is at stake. My happiness is in
peril. My career----" He glanced at the clock. "Hang it," he cried, "I
shall be late for my meeting if I don't fly."
I brushed his hat, and gave it to him. Reminded him of his pipe.
Hurried after him with his walking stick.
"Daresay I seem somewhat peculiar in my style," he remarked, more
composedly. "But the fact of it is, Mary Weston, I came home here with
the full and definite intention of proposing to you, myself!"