And meanwhile what had been going on at Old Place? Outwardly very little,
yet one long-expected, though when it happened, surprising, thing had
occurred. Also Janet, as the day went on, felt more and more worried
about Jack.
He wandered in and out of the house like an unhappy, unquiet spirit, for
the sudden departure of Enid Crofton for London two days before had taken
him utterly by surprise, the more so that she had left no address, and
he was suspicious of--he knew not what! It was reasonable to suppose she
had gone to pay the debt for which he had provided the money; but then
why keep her address in town secret from him?
At last, this morning, there had come a postcard to Rosamund, asking to
be met at the station, alone, with the Old Place pony-cart. It was a
reasonable request, for the funny little vehicle only held two people and
a minute quantity of luggage. Still Jack had felt annoyed she had not
asked him to meet her. She seemed to him absurdly over-cautious.
About ten minutes before the motoring party's return, Rosamund hurried in
with a casual message that Enid was very tired, and so had gone straight
to bed; that she hoped some of them would come in and see her on the
morrow, Sunday. In any case they would all meet at church.
Jack was puzzled, hurt, and bitterly disappointed, and at once he went
off to write a note which should be, while wildly loving, yet clear in
its expressions of surprise that she had not sent him some sort of
message appointing a time for their next meeting. He found the letter
unexpectedly difficult to write, and he had already torn up two
beginnings, when the door behind him burst open, and, turning round
irritably, he saw Timmy rush across to a window and shout exultantly,
"Mum? We're back! And we've brought Josephine and her kittens. Mr.
Trotman said she'd be all right now."
Jack Tosswill jumped up from his chair. It was as if his pent-up feelings
of anger had found a vent at last: "You have, have you?" he cried in an
enraged voice. "Then I'll see to the shooting of the brute this very
minute!"
Quick as thought, Timmy rushed back to the door and turned the key in the
lock. Then he bounded again to the open window. "Mum!" he screamed at the
top of his voice. "Come here--I'm frightened!"
Janet Tosswill, walking quickly across the lawn, was horrified at the
look of angry despair on the child's face.
"What's happened?" she asked, and then, suddenly, she saw Jack's blazing
eyes.
"J-Janet," he began, stuttering in his rage, "either that cat is shot
to-day, or I leave this house for ever."
Even in the midst of poor Janet's agitation, she could not help smiling
at the melodramatic tone in which the usually self-contained Jack uttered
his threat. Still--
"It was very, very wrong of you, Timmy, to bring back your cat to-day,"
she said sternly. "Had I known there was any idea of such a thing I
should have absolutely forbidden it. Josephine is not fit to come back
here yet; you know what Dr. O'Farrell said."
The colour was coming back into Timmy's face. He had a touching belief in
his mother's power of saving him from the consequences of his own naughty
actions.
"I'm very sorry," he began whimperingly. "It was not my fault, Mum. Even
Mr. Trotman said there was nothing the matter with her."
And now Jack was beginning to repent of his hasty, cruel words. He was as
angry as ever with Timmy, but he was ashamed of having spoken as he had
done to Janet--the woman who, as he knew deep in his heart, was not only
the best of step-mothers, but the best of friends, to his sisters and
himself.
"Of course I don't mind her being at Trotman's, but I do very much object
to her being here," he said ungraciously.
"I'll see about her being sent back to Epsom to-day," said Janet quietly.
She turned to her son: "Now then, Timmy, I'm afraid we shall have to ask
poor Godfrey to start back at once after tea."
"Oh, I say," called out Jack awkwardly. "I don't want the cat to go as
soon as that, Janet. To-morrow will do all right. All I ask is that the
brute shall be taken away before it has a chance of seeing Mrs. Crofton
again."
"Very well; the cat shall go to-morrow."
Drawing her little boy quickly after her, Janet left the drawing-room,
crossed the corridor, walked into the empty schoolroom, and then, to
Timmy's unutterable surprise, burst into bitter tears.
Now Timmy had never seen his mother cry--and she herself was very much
taken aback. She would have given a great deal to have been left alone
just then to have her cry out, but Timmy's scared little face touched
her.
"I can't think why you did it," she sobbed. "I always thought you were
such an intelligent boy. Oh, Timmy, surely you understood how angry it
would make Jack and Rosamund if you brought Josephine back now, to-day?"
"I never thought of them," he said woefully. "We were so happy,
Mum--Godfrey, Betty and I. Oh, why are people so horrid?"
"Why are people so selfish?" she asked sadly. "I'm surprised at Betty; I
should have thought that she, at least, would have understood that the
cat must stay away a little longer."
"It wasn't Betty's fault," said Timmy hastily. He waited a moment, then
added cunningly, "It was really Mr. Trotman's fault; he said Josephine
ought to come home."
But his mother went on a little wildly: "It isn't an easy job, taking
over another woman's children--and doing the very best you can for them!
To-day, Timmy, you've made me feel as if I was sorry that I ever did it."
"Sorry that you married Daddy?" asked Timmy in an awe-struck voice.
Janet Tosswill nodded.
"Sorry that I was ever born?" cried Timmy. He flung his skinny arms round
her bent neck.
She looked up and smiled wanly. "No, Timmy, I shall never be able to say
that, however naughty you may be."
But Timmy was not to be let off yet.
"What happened to-day has hurt me very, very much," she went on. "It will
be a long time before I shall feel on the old, happy terms with Jack
again. Without knowing it, Timmy, you've pierced your mother's heart."
But even as she uttered these, to Timmy, dreadful words, Janet Tosswill
got up, and dried her eyes. "Now then, we must go and see about Josephine
being shut up in some place of safety, where she and her kittens will not
offend the eyes of Jack and Rosamund. How about the old stable?"
She was her own calm, satirical, determined self again. But Timmy felt,
perhaps for the first time in his life, deeply conscious of sin. His
mother's phrase made him feel very uneasy. Had he really pierced her
heart--could a mother's heart be permanently injured by a wicked child?
It was a very mournful, dejected, anxious boy who walked into the kitchen
behind Janet Tosswill.
Timmy had a very vivid imagination, and during the drive back he had
amused himself by visualising the scene when he would place Josephine and
her kittens in their own delightful, roomy basket in the scullery. It
would be such fun, too, introducing Flick to the two kittens! At Betty's
suggestion, Flick had been shut out from the scullery after Josephine's
kittens were born, and that though the dog and the cat got on extremely
well together. In fact, Flick was the only creature in the world with
whom Josephine, since she had reached an approximately mature age, ever
condescended to play.
And now poor Josephine and her kittens were to be banished to the old
stable, and to-morrow driven back ignominiously to Epsom, all because of
that tiresome, hateful Mrs. Crofton!
There was no one in the kitchen, and it did not look as tidy as it
generally looked; though the luncheon things had been washed up, they had
not been put away.
Mother and son walked on into the scullery to find Betty there, boiling
some water over a spirit lamp. "Betty? How very delightful you look!" her
step-mother exclaimed. "Just like an old picture, child! Wherever did you
get that charming motor-bonnet?"
And then Timmy chipped in: "_I_ thought of it," he said triumphantly; "it
was _my_ idea, Mum, but Godfrey paid for it. He said he hadn't given
Betty a proper present yet, so he _had_ to pay for it, and, and--"
Janet was just a little surprised. She was very old-fashioned in some
ways, and she had brought up her step-daughters to be, as regarded money
matters at any rate, as old-fashioned as herself. It seemed to her very
strange that Betty had allowed Godfrey Radmore to give her such a present
as a hat! Yet another thing puzzled her. She had understood that the
three of them were going off some way into Sussex to look at a house, but
they had evidently been up to London. Motor bonnets don't grow on country
hedges.
"Where's the cat?" she asked, looking round.
"Godfrey has taken her up to the nursery," said Betty, "partly to show
her to Nanna, and partly because we thought it would be better for her to
be quiet up there than down here."
"Oh, Mum--do say that she can stay up there," cried Timmy pleadingly. "I
hate the thought of her being in that dark old stable!"
"Very well; put her in the night nursery."
Even as she spoke, Janet was still gazing at her eldest step-daughter.
Betty certainly looked extraordinarily charming this afternoon. It showed
that the child required more change than she had had for many a long day.
They had got too much, all of them, into thinking of her as a stand-by.
After all she was only eight and twenty! Janet, with a sigh, looked back
to the days when she had been eight and twenty, a very happy, independent
young lady indeed, not long before she had met and married her quiet,
wool-gathering John, so losing her independence for ever.
"I suppose you haven't heard the great news," she exclaimed, forgetting
that Timmy was there.
"What news?" asked Betty.
She glanced at her step-mother. Surely Janet hadn't been crying? Janet
never cried. She had not cried since that terrible day when the news had
come of George's death.
"What news?" she asked again.
"Mr. Barton--I really can't call him Lionel yet--came over this afternoon
and--and--"
Timmy rushed forward in front of his mother, his little face all aglow:
"Oh, Mum! You don't mean to say that he's popped?" he cried.
"Timmy, don't be vulgar!" exclaimed Janet severely.
Betty began to laugh a little wildly. "How very, very strange that it
should have happened to-day--"
"I don't think it's strange at all," said Janet quietly. "The strange
thing is that it hasn't happened before! But there it is--they're engaged
now. He seems to have told her that he thought it wrong to make his offer
until he had saved £100. She has gone over to Oakford, and they are busy
making an inventory of the things they will have to buy."
"Has he actually saved £100?" asked Betty.
"No, he never could have done that. He's had a legacy left him, and he
seems to think that £100 will start them most splendidly and comfortably
on their married life. He _is_ a fool!"
The door which gave on to the stairs which led from the scullery to the
upper floor opened, and Godfrey Radmore stepped down. "Am I the fool?" he
asked pleasantly.
Janet answered, smiling: "No, no; you're anything but that. I was only
telling Betty that Dolly and Mr. Barton are engaged at last." She turned
to Betty. "Of course, he's coming to supper to-night. I've been wondering
what we can do in the way of something extra to celebrate the occasion.
We _were_ going to have cold mutton."
"At any rate I'll go and see what the village pub. can produce in the way
of champagne," exclaimed Godfrey. He turned to his godson. "Timmy? Run up
and look at Josephine and her kittens. I've put them in the old night
nursery for a bit."
And then, when the boy had gone, he went up to Janet and, to her
surprise, put his arm through hers: "I'm glad about Dolly," he said
heartily.
"It proves how very little one really knows of human nature." She sighed,
but it was a happy sigh. "I was beginning to believe that he would never
what Timmy calls 'pop,' and yet the poor fellow was only waiting to be a
little forward in the world. Someone's left him £100, so he felt he could
embark on the great adventure. Your father and I have already talked it
over a little"--she turned to Betty--"and we think we could squeeze out
£100 a year somehow."
"I think we could," said Betty, hesitatingly. "After all, £1 is now only
what 8/- was before the War."
"But not to us," cried Janet; "not to us!"
And then, to the utter discomfiture of both her companions, she began to
laugh and cry together.
Godfrey rushed over to the sink. He took up a cup, filled it with water,
rushed back to where Janet was standing, shaking, trembling all over,
making heroic efforts to suppress her mingled tears and laughter, and
dashed the water into her face.
"Thank you," she gasped; "thank you, Godfrey! I'm all right now. I may as
well tell you both the truth. There's been a row--an awful row--between
Jack and Timmy, and it thoroughly upset me. It was only over the
cat--over Josephine--but of course it proved that what Betty and I were
talking about this morning is true. Jack's madly in love with Mrs.
Crofton--and--and--it's all so pitiful and absurd--"
"I doubt if you're quite fair to Mrs. Crofton, Janet," said Godfrey, in a
singular tone. "I fancy she really does care for Jack. Of course it seems
odd to all of us, but still, after all, odder things have been known! If
you ask me whether they will marry in the end--that's quite another
matter. If you ask me whether they're engaged, well, yes, I'm inclined to
think they are!"
Even Betty felt violently disturbed and astonished.
"Oh, Godfrey!" she exclaimed. "D'you really think that?"
"I can't tell you what makes me think so, or rather I'd rather not tell
you. But I don't think you need worry, if you'll only take a long view.
They can't marry yet, and long before they could marry, she'll have got
tired of him, and fond of someone else."
Betty gave him a quick look. Was he really unconscious of the reason why
Mrs. Crofton had come to Beechfield?
Through her mind in a flash there crowded the many small, almost
imperceptible, impressions made on her mind by the new tenant of The
Trellis House. Enid Crofton in love with Jack? Betty shook her head. The
idea was absurd. And yet Godfrey had spoken very decidedly just now. But
men, even very shrewd, intelligent men, are at a hopeless disadvantage
when dealing with the type of woman to which Enid Crofton belonged.
As for Janet she exclaimed, with sudden passion, "I would give anything
in this world to see Mrs. Crofton leave Beechfield for ever--" She
stopped abruptly, for at that moment the staircase door to her right
burst open, and Timmy stepped down into the scullery.