The next morning, Monday, towards eleven o'clock, Sally dropped
expertly off the municipal tram, without waiting for it to stop, at the
second turn on the right past the Brewery, along the suburban end of
the Corfield Road, and entered a street that she had never seen before.
Torrington Avenue was one of those thoroughfares on the edge of large
cities that seem to spring into being in a day and a night. In spite of
the obvious haste with which its small houses had been flung together
it was not unpleasing. But when Sally was last in her native city, a
year before the war, this area had been a market garden.
Number Fourteen was a well kept little dwelling in the middle of a neat
row. Just as Sally reached it, an old woman with a wicker shopping
basket came out of the iron gate.
"Mrs. Nixey?"
The visitor had recognized the old lady but the converse did not hold
true.
"You don't remember me, Mrs. Nixey. I'm Sally Munt."
The old lady gave vent to surprise, pleasure, incredulity. But even
then she was not able to identify one who but a few years ago had been
almost as familiar to her as her own son until Sally had lifted her cap
and rolled back the fur collar of her immense khaki overcoat.
"Well, I never!" The old woman's voice was shrill and excited. "It
_is_ Miss Munt. I _am_ pleased to see you, my dear." The distinguished
visitor suddenly received a peck on a firm brown cheek. "He knows all
about you. I read him the account of the doings at the Floral Hall. He
wanted to be there, but the Doctor thought it wouldn't be good for him.
It _is_ kind of you to come and see him.... It'll please him so."
Sally cut the old lady short with a brief, pointed question or two. He
was very well in health except that he couldn't see, but he was always
telling his mother that he was quite sure he would be able to see
presently, although Dr. Minyard had told her privately that he couldn't
promise anything.
The old lady led the way along the short path and applied a latchkey to
the front door. As it opened, Sally caught the delicately played notes
of a piano floating softly across the tiny hall.
"He plays for hours and hours and hours," said the old lady. "Your
dear father has just given him a beautiful new piano. He's been such a
friend to Harold. Wonderful the interest he's taken in him."
She opened the door of a small sitting room, whence the music came,
but the player wholly absorbed did not hear them enter.
"Harold, who do you think has come to see you!"
As the piano stopped and the musician swung round slowly on his stool,
Sally shivered at the pallor of the face and the closed eyes. She saw
that tears were trickling from them.
"Miss Munt has come to see you." There was excitement in the voice of
the old lady. "You remember Miss Sally of Waterloo Villa. And to think
what we've been reading about her in the _Tribune_!"
The musician sprang up with a boy's impulsiveness. "You don't say,
Mother--you don't say!" The eager voice had a music of its own. "Where
are you, Miss Sally?" He held out his hand. "Put your hand there and
then I shall believe it."
Sally did as she was asked.
"Well, well, it's really the great and famous you." He seemed to caress
that strong and competent paw with his delicate fingers.
She couldn't find the courage to say anything.
But he did not allow the silence to become awkward. "Better go and look
after your coupons, Mother, while Miss Sally and I talk shop."
Upon that plain hint the old lady went away, closing the front door
after her, and then the blind man helped the visitor to take off her
heavy coat and put her into a chair. He found his way back to the music
stool without difficulty, but in sitting down he brushed the keys of
the piano with his coat sleeve.
"Your dear, good father gave me this. A wonderful improvement on
the one we've scrapped. Did you hear me murdering Beethoven as you
came in? One's only chance now to score off the poor blighters!" His
cheerfulness, his whimsical courage, were amazing to Sally. "Since
last we met things have happened, haven't they? South Kensington Tube
Station, December, 1913. Æons ago." He sighed like a child. "By the
way, tell me, did you get a letter I sent to you when you did your 'go'
of time?"
Sally had received the letter. Soft the admission and also blushing,
although he could not see that.
"Wasn't meant as an impertinence, though perhaps it was one. Always
doing the wrong things at that time, wasn't I? And I'm saying 'em now.
Born under bad stars." He laughed a little and paused. "Jove! what
wonderful things you've done, though."
"I've had luck." Her voice was firm at last.
"Not more than you deserve. Hell of a time in Serbia ... must have had.
Don't know how you managed to come through it."
"Just the stars." Sally laughed a little now. But never in her life had
she felt so little like laughing. She remembered that she used to think
him a bounder; she remembered how much his proposal had annoyed her.
Yet he was just the same now--the same Harold Nixey--only raised to a
higher power. Once she had despised his habit of thinking aloud, yet
now it almost enchanted her....
But she was not very forthcoming. He seemed to have to do the talking
for both. "Fritz beginning to get cold feet, do you think?"
She didn't think so.
"What are you doing now?" It was the dry tone of the professional
soldier.
"I'm detailed for special duty in France." The tone of Sally was
professional also.