The Gaskell-Walkers returned from their very long honeymoon a few days
later and spent the night at Happy House, their own house being not
quite ready for them.
It having rained without ceasing for a week at the Lakes, the young man
had taken his bride to North Devon, where he had hired a car and they
had spent a delightful time tearing over the country as fast as they
could go, which happened to be Mr. Gaskell-Walker's higher form of
enjoyment. He had made notes of the distance traversed each separate
day, and to Mrs. Walbridge's bewildered mind, it seemed as if they had
been nowhere, but had spent their time going from or to different
places. However, her pretty daughter was in blooming health, and
displayed her airs and graces in an artless and becoming way like some
pretty bird. Wracked with worry, almost unbearably anxious about her new
work, on which subject her publishers had maintained a silence which
looked ominous. Mrs. Walbridge gave herself up to delight for a few
hours in watching the happiness of these young people and hearing their
comfortable plans for the future. She had never seen the house in
Campden Hill, but Hermione had been taken there shortly before her
wedding, and was delighted with everything about it. The drawing-room
was apparently the only drawing-room in London that was over twenty feet
long, and the art treasures, about which the young woman talked
vaguely, but with immense satisfaction, seemed to be various and
valuable.
"There is a whole room full of Chinese dragons," Gaskell-Walker told her
at dinner, "wicked-looking, teethy devils of all sizes. I used to be
awfully frightened of them when I was a kid."
"And the loveliest Indian screens, mother, you know, that dull,
crumbly-looking wood, inlaid with mother-of-pearl."
Mrs. Walbridge had no idea of the exact income of her son-in-law, but
she knew that the young couple intended to keep three servants and that
Billy was partner in a fairly prosperous, though new, stockbroking firm
in Throgmorton Street. He was not so sympathetic to her as Maud's
husband. Moreton Twiss was young and full of boyish high spirits and a
kind of innocent horse-play, that even the arrival of Hilary had in no
wise quieted; and for some reason his untidy black hair and twinkling
eyes were dearer to her than the correct smartness of the more
conventional Gaskell-Walker.
Gaskell-Walker was ten or twelve years older than the other man,
although he had married the younger daughter, and being extremely
short-sighted, he wore pince-nez, without which his mother-in-law had
never seen him. She was one of those people who prefer eyes to be
unglazed. However, everything pointed to happiness being in store for
Hermy, for she and her husband were very much in love with each other,
he rather more than she was, which her mother felt to be as things
should be. And the little dinner was very pleasant, Paul being at his
best, which was very good, so good that he rarely produced it for family
use, and Hermy, being a daughter for any mother's eyes to rest upon with
pride, in her pretty sapphire-blue frock, with the charming diamond
pendant her husband had given her for her wedding present, blinking on
her lovely bosom.
"What news from Guy?" the bride asked, as they lingered in the
old-fashioned way over their walnuts and port.
"I had a beautiful letter from him only this afternoon. I am going to
show it to you. He's very well and seems to have made some nice friends
amongst the officers."
Gaskell-Walker laughed. "Trust Master Guy to make friends," he said,
cracking a nut with care, his over-manicured nails flashing as he did
so. "Easier to make than to keep them in his case."
"Like the Governor," commented Paul carelessly.
"Children, children," Mrs. Walbridge glanced with anxious eyes from the
one to the other, "I do wish you wouldn't speak of your father so--or
Guy either, Paul, if you don't mind."
Gaskell-Walker bowed courteously. "I am sorry, Mrs. Walbridge," he
answered, plainly meaning what he said, "I was only chaffing. We always
tease the brat about his new intimate friends, and I didn't mean to say
a word against him."
"Is father really better?" Hermione put in, smiling at her mother over
the top of her glass. "I hear he is carrying on anyhow with Clara
Crichell. Who was it told us so, Billy?"
"Oh, shut up, Hermy," put in Paul with a glance at his mother, who,
however, had paid no attention to the remark.
It was a peculiarity of Mrs. Walbridge's children that, while each one
of them individually was capable of hurting her a dozen times a day, not
one of them could bear one of the others to inflict the slightest
scratch on her.
"The kid's having a grand time," Paul went on to his sister, "with Fred
and Elsie Ford. Balls and dinners every night and adorers by the dozen,
so Archie Pratt told me. He had been down there--he's a cousin of
Elsie's, you know. He says the kid's the success of the place. Seemed
rather smitten himself, I thought."
"I loathe Archie Pratt," murmured Hermione, "he smells of white rose and
is always talking about biplanes and monoplanes."
"He is an A1 airman," put in her husband, "they say he is down for a
D. S. O. for that Italian business. By the way, Paul, I hear the
Armistice is most certainly going to be signed next week."
Paul nodded. "Yes, according to the paper it is, but some of these
duffers will probably put it off."
"No. I have it pretty straight. It really is going to be. The Hun cannot
possibly hold out any longer. It's funny the way they cling to that
figure-head of the Kaiser. But his nerve seems to be completely broken.
He won't be able to stick it out."
Mrs. Walbridge pushed back her chair. "Guy says they expect it to be
signed on Monday or Tuesday--the French expect it, I mean."
"What is Guy going to do then?" asked Gaskell-Walker, as he opened the
door.
His mother-in-law looked at him vaguely. "Do? I don't know. I suppose
he'll go back to the City. Mr. McCormick promised to take him back, but
I don't know--he hasn't said anything about it. I'll get his letter."
They went upstairs to the girl's room, for Paul had long since
established his æsthetic inability to sit in "the mausoleum," as he
called the drawing-room, and there, among the pretty modern
knick-knacks and pictures, the mother read her soldier son's letter.
It was a good letter, unoriginal and typical in its lack of grumbling
and rather artificial cheerfulness. The writer called his friends and
comrades by odd nicknames, vegetable and otherwise; he gave the details
of the food, and the delights of sleeping in a bed once more after
eighteen months of trench life. Then at the last there was something
over which Mrs. Walbridge hesitated for a moment--something which was
plainly very important to her. Billy Gaskell-Walker got up.
"I'll just go down and get a cigar out of my coat pocket," he said
kindly.
But Mrs. Walbridge stopped him. "No, no, Billy, don't go," she said,
"I'd like you to hear because you are going to be brothers now." She
could not tell him that it was Paul before whom she had hesitated to
read the more intimate part of the letter.
Paul sat at the far end of the room, reading a newspaper, his smoothly
brushed hair gleaming over the back of Grisel's favourite chair.
"Of course, you know that Guy has been rather foolish," his mother went
on after a pause, putting on her spectacles again. "But he is only
twenty-one, after all, and that's not so very old, is it?"
Curiously enough the stranger, the man who was nothing to her or to her
boy by blood, understood her better and was closer to her at that moment
than either her son or her daughter. Gaskell-Walker drew his chair a
little nearer and took his cigarette out of his mouth, a queer little
unpremeditated act of homage which she noticed and for which she was
grateful.
"A man of twenty-one," he said slowly, "is not a man at all, he's only
a child, and Guy is so good-looking, he's so full of what women call
charm----" he broke off with an expressive shrug, and after smiling
gratefully at him, and lowering her voice a little that she might not
disturb Paul's study of the _Evening Standard_, his mother-in-law went
on with the letter, reading in a low, moved voice:
"'_Dear old Mum, I shall be awfully glad to get back. I've been
thinking quite a lot lately and I can see better than I used to
what a selfish young cub I've always been to you. Of course, it's
your own fault that we're all such pigs. You've been too good to
us!_'--That," the reader broke off to say, "is ridiculous.--'_But
then I've just sort of taken everything for granted. It's been part
of nature that you should sit up in the little garret room, slaving
away at writing books to do things and buy things for us. It never
struck me before that you don't have much of a time, but it does
now, and when I come back I'm going to try to be a little more
decent to you. It isn't that I didn't love you----_'" Her voice
fell still lower and she shot another nervous glance at the back of
Paul's immovable head. "'_I always did--we all do, of course. It's
just possible that we're all selfish without meaning to be and I've
been the worst, because, of course, Paul has been working for years
and has no time to do very much, and it's different with the girls.
But I'd give something nice now, when I think about it all out
here, if I hadn't always been such a hound about going upstairs for
you and down to the kitchen and little things like that. Your poor
old feet must have been pretty tired sometimes chasing about doing
things for us, and in future I'm going to do the chasing._'"
"Bless him," put in Hermione lazily, "he's a good child. We must kill
the fatted calf for him when he comes home. Billy, we'll have a
beautiful party----."
Gaskell-Walker nodded. "Bravo, Brat," he approved gently. "We mustn't
tease him any more. Perhaps," he added thoughtfully, "I might get him a
job in Throgmorton Street. Don't think much of McCormick, anyway.
"There's a little more," went on Mrs. Walbridge, who had not listened to
this conversation, but was bending over her letter, partly, it struck
her son-in-law, to hide her eyes, "it's about--about that poor girl--you
know."
Paul turned round in his chair and rested his chin on its black satin
back.
"Francine, you mean"--he laughed with a little sneer, "what about her?
The youth seems to be making his soul in earnest, but I have my doubts
as to whether the lady will be satisfied with the rôle he offers her."
"Oh, shut up, Paul, you're a cat," Hermione almost snapped, in her
unusual vehemence. "Unless, I am very much mistaken you liked the girl
yourself till the Brat came along and wiped your eye."
"Shut up, you two. Go on, Mrs. Walbridge," interrupted Gaskell-Walker.
"The girl's no worse than most young fellow's first adventure. Go and
chew your bone on the mat, you two, if you've got to squabble. I want to
hear what the Brat says."
After a pained look at her elder son, Mrs. Walbridge went on with the
letter, Paul walking ostentatiously indifferent to the piano and
turning over the music on top of it as she did so.
"'_I know you have been worried to death about my silly scrape with
that girl, but it really wasn't so bad as you all thought. I can't
tell you about it in a letter, but I will when I see you and then
you'll see that I wasn't quite such an ass as most people imagined.
Anyhow, I straightened it all out the best way I could before I
went back after my last leave, and I know you'll be glad to hear
that I didn't treat her badly._' That's all he said about her. Then
he asks about his bullfinch--we've not told him it died--and sends
his love to everyone." Her voice shook a little as she read on.
"'_Tell old Paul I'm awfully glad to hear he's doing so well, and
hope he'll soon be able to get out of that cursed bank. I wish he'd
write to me, letters are a great boon out here. Give the girls each
a kiss and tell Billy that a little stick won't do Mrs. Hermy any
harm, when she goes through her manners at home!_' Isn't it a very
nice letter, Billy?"
"It is indeed, Mrs. Walbridge, there's good stuff in the Brat, and for
one, I'm going to do my best to help it come out. He'll have a good time
at our house--we both like entertaining, and I've done pretty well this
year, and it'll be nice for him to have a cheery place to go to, full of
young people. We must get some pretty flappers to amuse him, Hermy, and
then he won't want to go wasting his time in silly places."
Paul turned. "I rather think," he drawled, "that we haven't, in spite of
all these virtuous plans, heard the last of the excellent Francine.
Good-night, Gaskell-Walker." He left the room, closing the door very
softly behind him.
"I do wish," snapped Hermy, "that Paul would slam the door when he's
furious, like a Christian. That cat-footed way of his drives me mad."
A little later Mrs. Walbridge accompanied her guests to their room,
where everything had been prepared for them with the most minute and
loving care.
"There's the cold milk, Billy, on your side, and Hermy's hot milk is in
the thermos. The windows are open at the top about a foot. Is that
right?"
Hermione kissed her mother, who, after a minute's hesitation, kissed her
again.
"That's poor little Guy's kiss," the elder woman said. "Oh, Hermy, I'm
so glad he's coming home."
Mrs. Walbridge then held out her hand to her son-in-law. "Good-night.
Billy, it's nice having you here. You've been very kind about Guy. It
has made me happy."
Gaskell-Walker peered closely into her face, for he had taken his
glasses off. He was a selfish man, and not particularly tender-hearted,
selfishness after forty having a tendency to grow a thick membrane over
the feelings. But something in her face touched him.
"Good-night, dear Mrs. Walbridge," he said gently. "Will you allow your
new son-in-law to kiss you good-night?" And he bent and kissed her on
her soft cheek.