At half-past seven on the morning of Armistice Day Caroline Breeze, who
was an early waker, but a late riser, was sitting up in bed reading. Her
small, high up flat was very comfortable, and the good old woman had
only to cross the room to light her gas-ring and prepare her morning
tea. This she had done half an hour before, and was now propped up
against many pillows with a pleasantly furnished tea-tray on her lap,
bread and butter in one hand, which she dipped shamelessly into her tea,
as she read, with avid, dreamy eyes, a new novel.
Miss Breeze was about sixty, and of irredeemable plainness, being the
victim of that cruel form of indigestion that makes the nose red and the
eyes watery. Her sparse grey hair, the front part of which was by day
covered by a front of grey glossiness with but few pretences at
concealment, that now hung, carefully brushed, on the foot of her bed
like a bloodless and innocently come by war trophy, was screwed up on
top of her big square head. She wore a little flannel jacket of the
wrong shade of pink; her eiderdown, her window curtains, her wallpaper
were pink, all too, of that pathetically wrong shade, but being
comfortably colour blind, or taste blind, she knew nothing of this, and
regarded her room as a bower of beauty and charm. The book she was
reading was intensely interesting; there was in it a most cruelly
treated companion, a revolting lap-dog that had to be taken for walks
in the park, and a handsome nephew who ground his teeth in moments of
emotion, and had designs on Rosamund (that was the governess's name). So
engrossed was the good lady that presently she allowed her bit of bread
and butter to soak too long in the tea, and as she raised it to her
mouth it disintegrated, and fell with a horrid splash on her jacket.
"Oh, dear, how disgusting!" the old lady said aloud, laying down her
book and removing the tea-soaked and buttery bread with a knife. "I do
hope it's going to end all right."
When she had rubbed the front of her jacket vigorously with her napkin,
she took up the book, and with a furtive air turned to the last page.
This habit of looking at the end before she got to it was one of which
Miss Breeze was very ashamed, but she was so tender-hearted that when
she saw in the story any signs of possible tragedy, she really could not
resist taking a hasty glance at the ending, just to see if things were
all right. If they were she went back to the tale with undisturbed zest,
and undiminished excitement over the intervening troubles of the
heroine. But if the author had been so foolish as to allow death or
misunderstanding to blight the life of her heroine, Caroline Breeze
closed the book and never opened it again.
She had just resumed her reading, when a ring came at her door. The
postman did not ring, and she did not receive telegrams, so she was
startled, and sat staring owl-like through her glasses towards the door.
The ring was repeated, followed by a quick tapping of ungloved fingers
on the panel, and she heard a voice:
"Let me in, Caroline, it's only me."
"Good gracious. It's Violet!"
Slipping the tray from her knees to the little bamboo table at the side
of the bed, Miss Breeze wrapped the eiderdown round her, and scuttled
across and opened the door. She kissed her guest and they both went back
into the warm bedroom; for the fire in the little drawing-room would not
be lit until just before Miss Breeze got up, and lying in bed in the
morning was her one self-indulgence.
"My dear, take your hat off and sit down in the comfortable chair.
Whatever has brought you here at this hour?"
"Trouble," answered Mrs. Walbridge simply, doing as she was told. "I
want you to do something for me, Caroline, it's a favour. I've very
little time, so I can't explain. I must have some money."
"Money!" Miss Breeze had known Mrs. Walbridge for many years, but she
had never suspected that her friend had money troubles.
"Yes, I must have some at once, and I want you to--to pawn these for
me."
Opening her bag, she took out a little old case into which she had
crowded her two or three old-fashioned diamond rings, and two pairs of
earrings, one of seed pearls, the other of pale sapphires clumsily set
in diamond chips and thick gold.
Caroline Breeze had never been inside a pawnshop in her life, but she
did not protest against the horrid errand.
"I'll get up at once and go," she said. "What do you think they ought to
give me?"
Mrs. Walbridge, who was very pale, and whose eyes looked larger and more
sunken than ever, shrugged her shoulders helplessly. "I haven't the
slightest idea," she said.
"What's that book?" she added sharply, the crimson cover of her friend's
novel catching her eyes.
Miss Breeze's face, already so red and white in the wrong places, turned
a deep bluish colour of extreme embarrassment. "Oh, it's--it's just a
book," she stammered, laying her hand on it. "I--I thought I'd like to
read it, just to see if it really is good."
Mrs. Walbridge, who had risen, held out her hand.
"Let me see it, Caroline," she said quietly, and Miss Breeze gave it to
her. "I thought so--Beryl J. Bell. I've seen it advertised. Jones &
Hayward advertise a great deal. Is it--is it good?"
Mrs. Walbridge's voice shook a little, and Caroline Breeze turned her
eyes away.
"Nothing extra," she answered in a voice that tried to be indifferent.
"I suppose they spend a lot of money in advertising her."
Forgetting her hurry, Mrs. Walbridge sat down again and looked eagerly
through the book. There was a long silence, a flutter of pages being the
only noise in the quiet room. Caroline Breeze's faithful heart ached for
her friend, and in her wisdom she said nothing. But Mrs. Walbridge spoke
after she had closed the book and laid it down on the bed.
"I suppose you know," her voice was very quiet and the colour had died
away from her face, leaving the shadows and lines in it deeper than
ever. "I suppose you know that 'Lord Effingham' is--a failure?"
Caroline made a dreadful grimace, rumpling up her nose and protruding
her thick lips two or three times rapidly, a way she had when she was
embarrassed or distressed.
"Oh, no," she protested, "not a failure. I've noticed that the critics
don't seem to like it _quite_ so much as the others, but----"
"Don't. It's a failure, Caroline, and it's right that it should be. I
tried to change it, to make it more modern, and I've spoiled it
completely. It's neither fish, flesh, fowl, nor good red herring."
"Oh, Violet!" Poor Miss Breeze's watery eyes overflowed a little, the
tears did not fall, but spread awkwardly, scantily, over her rutted
cheeks, and made her plain face even plainer. "I love your books, and I
love this one too. If they had let you alone it would have been sweet."
"Yes, but they didn't let me alone, and they were right not to. They
weren't unkind, they were right."
There was something innocently pathetic in the little figure by the bed.
The plain old felt hat was on one side of her head, and in the
strengthening morning light she looked a really old woman--an unhappy,
hopeless old woman.
"I'm old-fashioned, Caroline--out of date. That's what it is. These new
people--that woman for instance, Beryl J. Bell--she's young, she
believes in her books, her mind isn't tired like mine. I know." She rose
and moved nervously about the room, speaking in a quick undertone. "I've
always known that my books aren't very good of course--not like Hichens,
I mean, and Mrs. Humphrey Ward, and Arnold Bennett--but they were good
of their kind, and people did like them, I know they did. I've had
letters from people I've never even heard of, showing how much they
liked them, and how they had helped them. But now they're old-fashioned
even among old-fashioned ones. That's it." She stood still to utter the
saddest of cries. "I'm old, Caroline. I'm old."
Poor Caroline Breeze burst into loud snuffling sobs, and rising from her
bed, her skimpy nightgown clinging to her bony legs, she embraced her
poor friend, and tried to comfort her with love and lies. Violet
Walbridge did not cry. She was never a tearful woman, and at this moment
was far past such a show of feeling.
"Get back into bed, dear. You'll catch cold," she said gently, patting
her friend's bony shoulder. "I must go now or they'll miss me. Come to
lunch when you've been to the pawnshop. It's good of you to go. I know I
ought to go myself, but somehow I can't, with my own things, and I
thought it would not be so bad for you, because you can _tell_ the man
that it's for a friend."
This idea she cherished, poor innocent lady, as one of great
originality, and to Miss Breeze as well it appeared valuable. But even
now, grieved as she was for her friend, it never occurred to the
faithful Caroline that the financial situation of "Happy House" could
possibly be one of more than temporary tightness.
Mrs. Walbridge never talked of money matters and for all Miss Breeze
knew might have a regular income quite apart from her books. So the kind
old maid's assumption was that one of the boys had got into a scrape,
and that Mrs. Walbridge wished to help him without her husband's
knowledge. For, in spite of the fact that Ferdie Walbridge, on the
strength of having once paid back ten pounds of his original loan from
Miss Breeze, had on several occasions borrowed further small sums of
her, to avoid, he said, bothering poor Violet about trifles, Caroline
still cherished her pristine belief that husbands were superior beings,
who ought not to be troubled by small matters by their wives.
As the friends parted Caroline ventured one question. "There's another
book sold to Lubbock & Payne, isn't there? On that last contract, I
mean."
Mrs. Walbridge shook her head. "No, this is the last of the three. I--I
dare say I shall hear from them shortly."
Caroline Breeze went back to her room, and dressed and prepared to go on
her, to her, so strange and adventurous errand.
No one saw Mrs. Walbridge come home, and the morning dragged along with
its usual round of dull duties, until about half past ten, when Miss
Breeze arrived, her long queer figure, in her tight-fitting jacket edged
with strips of shabby mink, and her oddly rakish hat decorated with a
scrap of gold lace and a big bunch of pink roses.
"I've been, dear," she burst out eagerly, as she came into the attic
room, where her friend sat at her work-table, "and I've got fifty-two
pounds. Isn't it splendid?"
Mrs. Walbridge's face fell. "Oh, thanks--that's very good," she said,
"and I'm so grateful to you, Caroline."
"It wasn't a bit like what I had expected," Miss Breeze explained,
unbuttoning her jacket, and pulling out her cherished lace frill. "I
rather thought there would be little pens, you know, like the ones in
Dickens, with a young man leaning across a counter. But it was exactly
like a shop and there was a very nice little back room, and such a
polite man, a Christian. He said the diamonds were very good, but small,
and he didn't seem to believe me when I told him it was for a friend.
Wasn't it odd of him?"
Mrs. Walbridge nodded. She had taken up a pencil and was making some
notes on an old envelope, "twenty-six, thirty-six," she murmured. "Are
they really signing the Armistice to-day?" she asked a moment later,
looking up.
"Yes, I think so. The streets are crowded, everybody seems to be waiting
for something. I don't see why they don't sign the peace at once, and
not waste time over an armistice; it would be far simpler."
Mrs. Walbridge rose. "Let's go downstairs, dear," she said.
But at that moment a sudden ringing of bells filled the air--bells from
all sides, bells big, bells small, bells musical and bells harsh. The
two women stared at each other.
"That must be it," Miss Breeze cried. "I thought they were going to fire
off cannon."
Mrs. Walbridge went to the little window and opened it. The sun was
shining, and the sky was as clear as if they looked at it from some
empty moor. She stood and looked up.
"Thank God," she said. "Now all the sons and brothers and lovers will be
coming home--those who are left----"
"And husbands," agreed Miss Breeze, clasping her hands.
As the cannon began to roar, Violet Walbridge turned and looked at her
friend with a curious expression in her fine eyes. "And husbands," she
added softly.
* * * * *
While the two women were having their simple lunch the house door burst
open and Griselda came running in, glowing with colour and happiness,
looking the picture of youth and beauty, in a little close-fitting fur
cap and stole of the same kind of fur. The Fords had motored her up to
town to see the celebrations and to go to a ball at one of the big
hotels that night.
"Oh, mother," she cried, "aren't you glad it's over--the war, I mean?"
She sat down at the table, and leaning her chin in her hand, watched the
two women as they pecked at their bread and cheese.
"Aren't you surprised to see me? We only came up on the spur of the
moment. Fred said it was a historical event, and we ought not to miss
it, and he telephoned through and got rooms. The prices are perfectly
fearful, but he really doesn't care what he spends. So here we are. They
sent me up here in the car."
"Where," asked her mother, in an odd, dry little voice, "did you get
those furs?"
Griselda, who had taken off the stole, glanced down at it carelessly.
"Oh, this. Elsie gave it to me. Fred gave her some heavenly sables the
other day, so she didn't want these any more."
"I gave you my beaver set."
The girl glanced curiously at her mother's face. "I know you did, dear,
and it's very nice, of course. But beaver doesn't suit me, and besides
it's very old fashioned."
Mrs. Walbridge started at the last word, and her wedding ring struck
sharply against a glass.
"Old fashioned?" she said. "Yes, I suppose it is. Well, come upstairs,
dear, and take your things off in my room. Jessie's turning yours out
to-day, but it'll be ready in a little while."
Griselda caught up her stole and threw it round her shoulders. "Oh, I'm
not staying," she explained carelessly. "We're at the Ritz. It's only
for two or three days, so I thought I wouldn't--upset things here--and
besides, Elsie wanted me. Sir John Barclay is motoring her and me back
on the day after to-morrow----"
"Who is Sir John Barclay?" asked Miss Breeze interestedly. Grisel
laughed.
"Try to bear it, Caroline," she said, "but he's not young and handsome;
he's old. _Very_ nice," she added, patronisingly, "but really old. White
hair and all that. Isn't it a pity, for he's as rich as
Croesus--copper in Africa it is, and sheep and cows in South America.
I wish he'd adopt me as a favourite grandchild." As she spoke a long,
throaty honk of a motor horn was heard. "That's Peters. I promised Elsie
I wouldn't be late, and he's reminding me. We're lunching at the Carlton
with Sir John, so I really _mustn't_ be late. Good-bye, dears."
She kissed both the women and they all three walked to the hall door
together.
"Oh, I forgot to tell you," the girl went on, as she opened the door.
"Dad says he's going to stay on for another fortnight. He says his
health's better, but really and truly he's having the time of his life
and is a thoroughly gay old dog. Oh, yes, and he wants you to send him
some new pajamas--only two or three pairs, and you're not to send him
mauve ones. Rather naughty of him to be so particular, isn't it?"
"Griselda!" Mrs. Walbridge's voice was very stern, and the girl made a
funny little face as she ran down the path.
They watched her get into the big car, and waved their hands to her as
it bore her quietly away.
The two women went back into the house and sat down in the drawing-room.
The fire had gone out during the excitement of the morning, and the room
looked more than ever unlovely and uninhabited. Mrs. Walbridge stood for
a moment gazing down at the five photographs.
"Dear Grisel is having a splendid time, isn't she?" asked Caroline
warmly. "How nice for her to have such rich friends."
Mrs. Walbridge did not answer. Her eyes were still fixed on the pictures
of her five children.