She was sitting in front of the fire when he entered the flat.
"Hilloa," he said, "you're home early, aren't you?"
She looked up and smiled rather wanly at him.
"Yes," she said, "I came home about three!..."
"Why? Aren't you well?"
"I'm not feeling very grand!"
"What's the matter!"
"I don't know. At least I ... Oh, I don't know. It may only be
imagination!"
He sat down beside her. "Imagination!..." She looked at him very
steadily, and he found himself remembering how beautiful he had thought
her eyes were that day when he saw her for the first time. They were
still very beautiful.
"I'm not sure," she said. "I don't know ... but I ... I think I'm going
to have a baby!"
"Holy Smoke!"
"I don't know. I feel so stupid!..."
She had been smiling while she was telling this to him, but now she
dismayed him by bursting into tears.
"Eleanor!" he exclaimed, not knowing what to say or to do, and she let
herself subside into his arms and lay there, half laughing and half
crying.
"I'm being a ... frightful ... fool," she said between sobs, "but I ...
I can't help it!"
They sat together until the dusk had turned to darkness, holding each
other and whispering explanations and hopes and fears. A queer sense of
responsibility settled upon John, a feeling that he must bear burdens
and be glad to bear them. Eleanor seemed to him now to be a very
fragile and timid creature, turning instinctively to him for care and
protection. Immeasureable love for her surged in his heart. This very
dear and gentle girl, so full of courage and yet so full of alarm, had
become inexpressibly precious to him. She had come to him in doubt and
had entrusted her life to him, not certain that she cared for him
sufficiently to be entirely happy with him. He had tried to make her
happy, and slowly he had seen her liking for him growing into some sort
of affection. Perhaps now she loved him as he loved her. Soon she would
be the mother of a child ... his child!... How very extraordinary it
seemed! A few months ago, Eleanor and he had been strangers to each
other ... and now she was about to bear a child to him!
"I must work hard," he said to himself, and then to her, "Of course,
you can't go back to Mr. Crawford. I'll write to my mother and tell
her!"
He remembered the commission from Hinde, and while he was telling her
of it, the postman delivered a letter from the Herald in which was the
invitation card for the ceremony in Westminster Abbey.
She examined it with interest. "But it says Morning Dress must be
worn," she exclaimed, pointing to the notice in the corner of the card.
"You haven't got any Morning Dress!"
"Do you think it'll matter?"
"They may not let you in if you go as you are now. You haven't even a
silk hat!"
"What shall I do then?" he asked.
"We must think of something. Perhaps Mrs. Townley's husband would lend
you his silk hat!" The Townleys were their neighbours. "He hardly ever
wears it, and he's about your size!"
"I shouldn't like to ask them!..."
"Oh, I'll ask them all right," Eleanor said.
She left the flat and crossed the staircase to the door of the
Townleys' flat, and after a little while, she returned carrying a silk
hat that was much in need of ironing.
"She lent it quite willingly," Eleanor said. "She says Mr. Townley's
only used it twice. Once when they were married and once at a funeral.
Put it on!" She fixed it on his head. "It doesn't quite fit," she said.
"Perhaps if I were to put some paper inside the band, that would make
it sit better!"
She lined the hat with, tissue paper and then, put it on his head
again. "That's a lot better," she exclaimed. "Look at yourself in the
glass!"
"I feel an awful fool in it," he murmured, glancing at his reflection
in the mirror.
"Oh, well, I suppose all men do feel like fools when they put on silk
hats ... at first anyhow ... but it isn't any worse than a bowler hat
or one of those awful squash-hats that Socialists wear. Men's hats are
hideous whatever shape they are. I don't know what we're to do about a
morning coat for you. I didn't like to ask Mrs. Townley to lend her
husband's to me!..."
"Good Lord, no! You can't borrow the man's entire wardrobe from him!"
"Your grey flannel trousers might look like ordinary trousers, if we
could get a morning-coat for you!" She paused as if she were reflecting
on the problem. "I know," she said at last. "It's sure to rain, in the
morning. King George is going to the thing, so it's sure to rain. Wear
your overcoat ... then you won't need a morning coat ... and the silk
hat and your grey flannel trousers and your patent leather boots!..."
"It's a bit of a mixture, isn't it?"
"It won't be noticed. That'll do very nicely! Thank goodness, we've
solved that problem! The money will be useful, dearest!"
V
"What luck!" said Eleanor, looking out of the window in the morning.
The sky was grey and the streets were wet and dirty.
John had urged her to stay at home, offering to explain to Mr. Crawford
why she was not returning to her employment, but she had insisted that
she was well enough now and must treat Mr. Crawford as fairly as he had
treated her. "I'll give notice to him at once," she said, "and he can
get someone else as soon as possible ... but I can't leave him in the
lurch!"
They travelled by Tube to town together, and John went on to
Westminster Abbey. He was very early and when he arrived at the
entrance nominated on the Invitation Card he found that he was the
first arrival. Ten minutes afterwards, a grubby-looking man in a slouch
hat ambled up the asphalt path to the narrow door against which John
was leaning. "Good morning!" John said, glancing at the slouch hat and
the shabby reefer coat and the brown boots. "Have you come to do this
ceremony, too?" The man nodded his head. He was very uncommunicative
and had a surly look. "But they won't let you in, like that!" said
John.
"Won't let me in! Who won't let me in?" the man demanded.
"It says 'Morning Dress to be worn' on the Invitation Card," John
answered, showing his card as he spoke.
"That's all bunkum! They'd let me in if I were naked. I'm here to
report the performance, not to display my elegance, and these people
want the thing reported as much as possible. I don't suppose you know
me?"
"No, I don't," said John.
"Well, I'm known as the Funeral Expert in Fleet Street. My paper always
sends me out on special occasions to report big funerals. I'm very good
at that sort of thing. I seem to have a flair for funerals somehow.
I've never done a show like this before, but if I can only persuade
myself to believe that there's a corpse about, I'll do it better than
anybody else. I make a specialty of quoting the more literary parts of
the Burial Service in my reports!..."
"You won't be able to do that to-day. This isn't a funeral," said John.
"No, but I can quote the hymns if they've got any merit at all.
Otherwise I shall drag in the psalms. Hymns aren't very quotable as a
rule. Shocking doggerel most of 'em!..."
They were joined by other reporters, and John observed that he alone
among them was wearing a silk hat. He commented on the fact to the
Funeral Expert.
"There's only one silk hat in the whole of Fleet Street," the Funeral
Expert replied, "and it belongs to the man who specialises in Murders.
He never investigates a murder without wearing his silk hat. He says
it's in keeping with the theme!"
The door was opened by a verger and the journalists entered the Abbey
and were led up some very narrow and dark and damp stone stairs until
at last they emerged on to a rude platform of planks high up in the
roof. At one end of the platform a pole had been placed breast-high
between two pillars, and against this the journalists were invited to
lean. Far below, the ceremony was to take place. John felt giddy as he
looked down on the floor of the Cathedral.
"We shan't be able to see anything up here," he said to the Funeral
Expert.
"What do you want to see?" was the reply he received. "You've got a
programme of the ceremony, haven't you, and an imagination. That's all
you need. I suppose you've never done a job of this sort before?"
"No. I'm a beginner!"
"Well, write a lot of slushy staff about the sun shining through the
rose-coloured window just as the King entered the Abbey. That always
goes down well. There are three psalms to be sung during the service.
If you quote the first one, I'll quote the second, and then we shan't
clash. Is that agreed?"
"All right!"
Half the journalists retreated from the pole-barrier and sat on a pile
of planks at the back of the platform. Like John, they suffered from
giddiness. They had their writing-pads open, however, and were busily
engaged in inventing accounts of the ceremonial that was presently to
be performed. John glanced over a man's shoulder and caught sight of
the words, "As His Majesty entered the ancient abbey, a burst of
sunlight fell through the old rose window and cast a glorious crimson
light on his beautiful regalia!...."
"Lord!" said John, moving away.
He went to the end of the platform, and then, moved by some feeling
which he could not explain, descended the dark, stone stairs which he
had lately mounted. He could hear the music of the organ, and presently
the choir began to sing an anthem.
"I suppose it's beginning," he thought.
He reached the ground-floor, and presently found himself standing
behind a stone-screen in the company of selected persons and officials
in brilliant uniforms. There were three special reporters here, to whom
an official in a gorgeous green garb, looking very like a figure on a
pack of cards, was giving information. John edged nearer to them, and
as he did so, he saw that some ceremony was proceeding in one of the
chapels.
"What's happening?" he asked in a whisper.
His neighbor whispered back that this was to be the chapel of the Order
of the Bath, and that the King was about to conduct some ceremonial
with the Knights of the Order. He raised himself on the edge of a tomb
and saw two lines of old men in rich claret-coloured robes facing each
other, with a broad space between them, and while he looked, the King
passed between the Knights who bowed to him as he passed towards the
altar. He heard the murmur of old, feeble voices as the Knights swore
to protect the widow and the orphan and the virgin from wrong and
injury!...
"They haven't the strength to protect a fly," John whispered to his
neighbour.
"Ssh!" his neighbour whispered back, "it's a symbolical promise!..."