Brotherly Breezes
There was no doubt that Egbert was the odd one in the Saxon family. He
had inherited a testy strain of temper, and was frequently most
obstinate and perverse. It was unfortunate that he was an articled pupil
in his father's office, for he fretted and tried Mr. Saxon far more than
Athelstane would have done in the circumstances. Egbert's saving quality
was his intense love for his mother. Her influence held him steadily to
his work, and smoothed over many difficult situations. He was apt to
quarrel with Quenrede, but he had a soft corner for Ingred, and
sometimes made rather a pet of her.
A few days after the incident at the Abbey he turned up at school, to
her immense astonishment, and asked leave from Miss Burd to take her out
to tea at a café. It had been an old promise on his part, ever since
Ingred went to the hostel, but it had hung fire so long that she had
come to regard it as one of those piecrust promises that elder members
of a family frequently make, and never find it convenient to carry out.
She had reminded Egbert of it at intervals all through the autumn term,
then had given it up as "a bad job." To find him waiting for her in Miss
Burd's study, ready to escort her to the Alhambra tea-rooms, seemed like
a fairy tale come true. She whisked off at once to make the best
possible toilet in the circumstances, and reappeared smilingly ready.
When you have tea every day at a long table full of girls, the meal is
apt to grow monotonous, and it was a welcome change to take it instead
in a gay Oriental room with Moorish decorations and luxurious
arm-chairs, and a platform in a corner, where musicians were giving a
capital concert. Ingred leaned back on an embroidered cushion and ate
cakes covered with pink sugar, and listened to a violin solo followed by
some charming songs, and watched the gay crowd sitting at the other
small tables. It was really delightful to be out just with Egbert alone.
It made her feel almost grown-up. Moreover, he was in such a remarkably
generous mood. He set no limit to the supply of cakes, and he stopped at
the counter as they went downstairs and bought her a box of chocolates
and a large packet of Edinburgh rock. He even went further, for as they
walked round the square together, and looked into the window of a fancy
shop, he told her to choose her birthday present, and agreed amicably
when she selected a morocco-leather bag which was for the moment the
summit of her dreams. She parted from him at the College gates in
deepest gratitude. This was indeed something like a brother!
"You're an absolute trump!" she assured him.
"Well, a fellow's always got a decent sister to take about, anyway," he
replied enigmatically, a remark over which Ingred pondered, but could
not fathom.
She mentioned the jaunt at the family supper-table on Friday evening. To
her immense surprise her innocent remark had somewhat the effect of a
bomb. Mr. Saxon turned to his son with a sudden keen expression, as if
he had convicted him of a crime. Mrs. Saxon's face also was full of
suppressed meaning, while Egbert colored furiously, looked thunderous at
his sister, and relapsed into sulky silence. Poor Ingred felt that she
had, quite unconsciously, put her foot in it, though how or why she
could not tell. She said no more at the time, and when, afterwards, she
ventured to refer again to the subject, she was so tremendously shut up
that she saw clearly it was discreet to make no further inquiry. Plainly
there was some tremendous quarrel between Egbert and his father, for
they were barely on speaking terms.
Mr. Saxon threw out occasional inuendoes that caused his son finally to
stump from the room. Mrs. Saxon went about with a cloud of distress on
her face, and Quenrede, to whom Ingred applied for enlightenment,
promptly and pointedly changed the subject. It was miserably
uncomfortable, for father and son were like two Leyden jars charged with
electricity, and ready to let fly at any moment. It was only the
mother's influence that averted a family thunderstorm. Athelstane, too,
seemed in the depths of gloom. He was willing, however, to communicate
his woes.
"I want a whole heap more medical books," he confided to his sister,
"and Dad says he can't get them, and I must manage without. How on earth
_can_ I manage without. What's the use of my going to College if I
haven't the proper textbooks? I can't always be borrowing. If I fail in
my exams, it will be his fault, not mine. He's the most absolutely
unreasonable man anybody could have to deal with. Of course I know
they're expensive, and funds are low, but I've simply _got_ to have
them, or chuck up medicine!"
"It's so terrible to be poor!" sighed Quenrede, thinking of the old,
happy pre-war days at Rotherwood, when everything came so easily, and
there were no struggles to make ends meet.
She talked the matter over afterwards with Ingred.
"If I could only help somehow!" she mourned. "I've often thought I might
go out and earn something, but Mother's not strong, and I really do a
great deal in the house. If I went away and left her with only 'The
Orphan,' she'd be laid up in a fortnight. As it is, she tries to do far
too much. How could we possibly get some money for Athelstane's books?
We'd rather die than ask our friends!"
Ingred shook her head sadly. Wild ideas surged through her mind of
disguising herself and sweeping a crossing--there were stories of
wealthy crossing-sweepers--or rivaling Charlie Chaplin on the cinema
stage, but somehow they did not seem quite practicable for a girl of
sixteen. She left Quenrede's question unanswered. It was only late on
Saturday afternoon that a great idea came to her. Great--but so
overwhelming that she winced at the bare notion. It was as if some inner
voice said to her: "Sell Derry!" Now Derry, the fox terrier, was her
very own property. He had been given to her two years before by a cousin
as a birthday present. He was of prize breed, and had brought his
pedigree with him. He was a smart, bright little fellow, and on the
whole a favorite in the household, though he sometimes got into trouble
for jumping on to the best chairs and leaving his hairs on the cushions.
It had never particularly struck Ingred that Derry was of value, until
last week, when Mr. Hardcastle noticed him. Relations with that precise
old neighbor next door had been rather strained for a long time, since
the unfortunate episode when Hereward had unwittingly discharged the
contents of the garden syringe in his face. For months he studiously
avoided them, calling his collie away with quite unnecessary caution if
they happened to pass him on the road, and bolting into his own premises
if they met near the gate. But one day, about Christmas-time, Sam, the
collie, who was a giddy and irresponsible sort of dog, given to aimless
yapping at passing conveyances, overdid his supposed guardianship of his
owner's property, and blundered into a motor that was whisking by. The
car did not trouble to stop, and when it was a hundred yards away, Sam
picked himself up and limped on three legs to show his bleeding paw to
his agitated master. Fortunately Athelstane, from the bungalow garden,
had witnessed the accident, and came forward like a Good Samaritan with
offers of help. His elementary acquaintance with surgery stood him in
good stead, and he neatly set the injured limb, and bound it up with
splints and plaster. There had been many inquiries over the hedge as to
the invalid's progress, and congratulations when the bandages were able
at last to be removed. Old Mr. Hardcastle had waxed quite friendly as he
expressed his thanks, and one day, catching Ingred by the gate with
Derry, he had volunteered the information that "that fox terrier of
yours is a fine dog, and no mistake, and would be worth something to a
fancier!"
"Sell Derry!" the idea, though she hated it, had taken possession of
Ingred's brain. He was the only thing she had that was of marketable
value. To part with the poor little fellow would be like selling her
birthright, but, after all, brothers came first, and how could
Athelstane study without books? Something Mother had said the other day
clamored in her memory. "If we've lost our fortune we've got our family
intact, and we must stick tight together, and be ready to make
sacrifices for one another." Ingred had quite made up her mind. She put
on her hat, took Derry from his cozy place by the kitchen fire, kissed
his nose, and, carrying him in her arms, walked to the next-door house,
rang the bell, and asked to see Mr. Hardcastle.
She found the old gentleman in a cozy dining-room, seated by a cheery
fire, and reading the evening paper. He looked a little astonished when
she was ushered in, but received her politely, as if it was quite a
matter of course for a young lady, hugging a dog, to pay him an
afternoon visit.
Ingred put Derry down on the hearth rug, took the arm-chair that was
offered her, and with a beating heart and a very high color plunged into
business, and inquired if it were possible to find a fancier who wished
to buy a prize fox terrier.
"I've his pedigree here," she finished, "and he really is a nice little
dog. If you know of anybody, I'd be so glad if you would tell me
please!"
Mr. Hardcastle, evidently much electrified, knitted his bushy eyebrows
in thought, and pursed his mouth into a button.
"There was a vet. in Grovesbury who told me a while ago that he wanted
one, but I saw him yesterday, and he said he had just bought one, so
that's no good! You might try the advertisements in _The Bazaar_. He
looks a bright little chap. Why are you in such a panic to get rid of
him? Been killing chickens?"
"No," said Ingred, turning pinker still; "it isn't that--I don't want to
sell him, of course--only--only----"
And then to her extreme annoyance, her brimming eyes overflowed, and she
burst into stifled sobs.
The old gentleman shot his lips in and out in mingled consternation and
sympathy.
"There! There! There!" he exclaimed. "Don't cry! For goodness' sake,
don't cry! Tell me, whatever's the matter?"
It was, of course, a most unorthodox thing for Ingred to blurt out
family affairs, and Father and Mother would have been justly indignant
had they known, but she was impulsive, and without much worldly wisdom,
and Mr. Hardcastle seemed sympathetic, so on the spur of the moment she
told him the urgency of Athelstane's need, and how she was trying to
meet it. He sat quite quiet for a short time, staring into the fire,
then he said, very gently and kindly:
"My dear little girl, you needn't part with your dog. I believe I can
lend your brother all the medical books he wants."
"You! But you're not a doctor?" exclaimed Ingred.
"No, but my boy was studying medicine at Birkshaw. He had just passed
his intermediate M. B. when he was called up. I've got all his books. He
won't want them again now. He was flying over the German lines, and his
machine crashed down. One comfort, he was killed instantly! He had
always hoped he'd never be taken prisoner. I think he'd have liked his
books to be put to some use. I'll hunt them out, and send them across to
your brother, and the microscope, and any other things I can find. He
may just as well have them."
There was a huskiness in the old gentleman's voice, but he coughed it
away.
"I don't know how to thank you!" stammered Ingred.
"I don't want any thanks. It's only a neighborly act. Take your dog
home, and say nothing about all this. I'll write to your brother. I
wonder I never thought about it before!"
Mr. Hardcastle was as good as his word, for next Monday evening quite a
large consignment arrived for Athelstane, with a note offering the loan
of books and microscope if they would be of any service in his medical
studies.
"Why, they're absolutely the very things I wanted!" exclaimed that youth
rapturously. "What a trump he is! A real good sort! I say, you know,
it's really most awfully kind of him! I wonder what the Dickens put it
into his head?"
But on that point none of the family could enlighten him, for only
Ingred and Derry knew the secret, and Ingred was at school, while Derry,
belonging to the dumb creation, expressed his opinions solely in barks.
When the household was reunited for next week-end, the clouds had
cleared from Athelstane's horizon, but seemed to have settled more
darkly than ever round Egbert. There was a horrible feeling of impending
storm in the home atmosphere. It lent a constraint to conversation at
meals, and put an effectual stopper on the fun which generally
circulated round the fireside. It was all the more uncomfortable because
nobody voiced the cause.
"Father looks unutterables, Mother's plainly worried to death, Egbert is
sulks personified, Queenie won't tell, Athelstane and Hereward either
don't know or don't care what's the matter, but it makes them cross.
What is one to do with such a family?" thought Ingred on Sunday
afternoon.
It had been wet, and, though a detachment of them had ventured to church
in waterproofs, they had not been able to take their usual safety valve
of a walk across the moors. Seven people in a small house seem to get in
one another's way on Sunday afternoons. Father was dozing in the
dining-room, Mother, Athelstane and Hereward were in the drawing-room,
interrupting each other's reading by constant extracts from their own
books; Ingred, who hated to pause in the midst of _The Scarlet
Pimpernel_ to hear choice bits from _The Young Visiters_ or _Parisian
Sketches_, sought sanctuary in her bedroom, only to find the blind drawn
and Quenrede with a bad headache, trying to rest. There seemed no
comfortable corner available, so she slipped on her thick coat, put her
book in the pocket, and walked down the garden to sit in the cycle-shed.
Even in the rain it was nice out of doors; clumps of purple and yellow
crocuses showed under the gooseberry bushes; lilies were pushing up
green heads through the soil; the flowering currant was bursting into
bud; roots of polyanthus flaunted mauve and orange blossoms; under a
sheltered wall were even a few early violets, whose sweet fresh scent
seemed as the first breath of spring. A missel-thrush on the bare pear
tree sang triumphantly through the rain, and a song-thrush, with more
melodious notes, trilled forth an occasional call; the robin, which had
haunted the garden all the winter, was scraping energetically for grubs
among the ivy on the wall, and scarcely troubled to fly away at her
approach.
Ingred drew great breaths of sweet-scented wet air, and, with almost the
same instinct as the thrush, broke into "Thank God for a Garden!" the
song that Mother loved to hear Quenrede sing in the evenings when the
day's work was over.
Delightful and refreshing and soothing as Nature may be, however, it is
rather a wet business to stand admiring crocuses in the streaming rain,
so Ingred made a dash through the dripping bushes to the cycle-shed. If
she had calculated upon finding solitude here she was disappointed. It
was occupied already. Egbert, looking as gloomy as Hamlet, was tinkering
with the motor-bicycle. He greeted his sister with something between a
sigh and a grunt, whistled monotonously for a moment or two, then burst
into confidence.
"Look here, Ingred; I can't stand this any longer. I wish I were back in
the army! I've a jolly good mind to chuck everything up, and re-enlist!"
"Is it as bad as all that?" asked Ingred.
"Yes, I'm about fed up with life. If it weren't for the little Mater I'd
have cleared out before this. Perhaps she'll miss me, but I don't know
that anybody else will, and I don't care!"
"How about Miss Bertrand?" asked Ingred, obeying a sudden impulse of
mischief.
Egbert flung down a spanner, and turned to her the most astonished face
in the world.
"What do _you_ know about Miss Bertrand?" he queried.
Ingred chuckled delightedly. To use her own schoolgirl expression, she
felt she "had him on toast."
"More than you imagine! Who went into the Abbey Church, I should like to
know, and sat in a pew for ever so long, and looked tender nothings? Oh
yes! _I_ saw you, and a pretty sight it was, too!" she teased.
Egbert was gazing at her as if he could scarcely believe his senses.
"But--but--where were you?" he stuttered.
"In the peep-hole!" exploded Ingred. "I could see right down into the
church, and I watched you come in! I've been saving this up!"
Egbert drew a long breath.
"If I'd only known before!" he said slowly. "Ingred, stop laughing! You
don't understand. Look here, will you go and tell Dad that you saw me
there, and the exact day and time when it happened. You can remember
that?"
"Why, surely Father's the very last person you want to know?" said
Ingred, sobering down.
"No, he isn't, he's the one it's most important should hear about it
from a reliable witness whom he can believe. I don't mind telling you
about it now" (as Ingred expressed her astonishment in her face), "I'd
got myself into a jolly old mess, and you'll be able to clear me! It was
this way; I slipped out from the office one afternoon for an hour, and
went into the Abbey as you saw. Well, when I got back, somebody had been
into Dad's room during his absence, and a small sum of money was
missing. He taxed me with taking it!"
"_You!_ But why you?" exclaimed Ingred indignantly.
"Because I was the only person who had access to his private room. I
told Dad I had been out--which made him angrier still--but none of the
clerks had happened to see me go or come back, and I had no other
witness to prove my words. As a matter of fact, I went out before
Father, and came back after he had returned, but he wouldn't take my
word for it. You know what he is when he's angry. You simply can't argue
with him! Then you made things ever so much worse by blurting out how
I'd taken you to tea at the café, and bought you a bag. Father glared as
if it proved I'd been spending stolen money!"
"You were rather flush of cash that day," commented Ingred.
"Yes, the fact is I'd been writing a short story, and it had been
accepted by a newspaper. It's a poor enough thing, and I didn't sign my
own name to it. I didn't want to tell them at home I was trying to write
until I could do something better. Anyhow, I'd just cashed the check,
and thought I'd give you a treat for once. I knew it was no use to
explain to Father. Mother has stuck up for me, but I can tell you I've
been having a time of it this last fortnight."
"But, Egbert," said Ingred, frankly puzzled, "couldn't you have got Miss
Bertrand to tell Dad where you were? It would have been better after all
than letting him think you took the money."
Egbert's face darkened again tragically.
"I wouldn't appeal to Miss Bertrand to clear my character if it were a
charge of murder. I'd be hanged first! I met her the very day after we
were in the Abbey together--she was walking with some idiot of an
airman--and she stared straight in my face and cut me. I've done with
girls! They're all of them alike!" and the gloomy young misanthrope
picked up the spanner and began energetically tightening nuts on the
motorcycle.
Ingred shook a sympathetic head. She had not much experience in love
affairs, but she fancied that this one did not go very deep.
"You'll get over it," she consoled. "And she wasn't a very nice girl,
anyway. Queenie always loathed her. If Dad's had his nap, I'll go and
tell him how I saw you in the Abbey. I know it was a Tuesday, because
I'd had my music lesson, and was taking the books that Dr. Linton left
behind him."
"Good! That's what's called proving an alibi. I don't know who walked
off with those notes, but as long as Dad's satisfied I had nothing to do
with it, that's all I care. He can thrash it out with the clerks now, or
leave it alone."
Mr. Saxon questioned Ingred closely, but accepted her account of the
matter, which set his doubts at rest concerning his son. The relief in
the family circle was enormous. Mother's face was beaming, and it seemed
as if the storm-clouds had blown away, and the sun had shone out. Tea
was the most comfortable meal that the household had taken together for
a fortnight.
"I haven't spent quite all that check I got from the _Harlow Weekly
News_," whispered Egbert to Ingred that evening, "and I'm going to buy
you a box of chocolates on Monday. I'll leave them for you at the
Hostel. You deserve them!"
"You mascot! I can't quite see that I _do_ deserve them, for I really
meant to rag you about that Abbey business. But I won't say 'No, thank
you!' to chocks! Rather not! We'll have a gorgeous little private feast
in No. 2 to-morrow night."