Part 12

'I wonder if Sam's got a decent supper. I must go and see.'

When he came down again he tossed a little box into my lap and said,--

'Why didn't you tell _me_ that you wanted a new necklace? I'd have loved to give you one.'

'What _do_ you mean, Ross?'

'Michael wrote to me to-day that you had said you wanted a "new necklace for yourself" directly the cave was finished, and that I was to buy you one.'

Oh, isn't he absurd and dear? So I opened the box, and inside there were two to choose from. So I chose the one of very perfect pearls, and then for some extraordinary reason of his own Ross kissed me and said,--

'_How_ Michael spoils you, darling.'

But two kisses in twelve days. He must be ill, I think.

*CHAPTER XVIII*

It's All Fools' Day. Perhaps that's why the Titmouse elected to get the rheumatics that come from damp attics, so that I had to tell the Stench what 'to be getting on with.'

As I walked round the garden with him I asked if all the seeds were in.

'In, an' coming up by the galore, mum, an' I've given the turnips a dressin' of soot, as it makes a vast difference to 'em on their first appearance through the soil, mum.'

I could well believe it!

'I think you'd better dig the bed in front of the kitchen window then.'

'How deep, mum, two spits?'

I hadn't the foggiest notion how deep that is, but I said,--

'Oh, yes, _of course_, dig down as deep as ever you can; you can't dig too deep, Stench--Tench, I mean!'

Ross thinks he knows a bit about gardening, so at lunch I said,--

'Ross, how big is a spit?'

'Depends on how bad your cold is,' he began, but I closed the conversation.

Alas, alas, hear the end. Half an hour later the S.P. said would I speak to the captain in the garden? I found him in front of the kitchen window surveying some extraordinary earth-works and excavations, the Stench standing by looking particularly wooden.

'What on earth----' I began.

'I've dug so deep, mum, I come to a poipe; do it matter?' said the boy.

I surveyed the scene of his labours and found the little wretch had dug down to the kitchen drain.

'Gardening is certainly your strong point, Meg. Do you think the boy has dug this bit deep enough, or shall he take up the drains as well? By Jove,' added my brother, doubling up suddenly with laughter, 'what an acquisition you'd both be in the army. I never saw a better communication trench in my life.'

At tea-time Ross gloomily surveyed the table lightly spread with thin bread and butter and minute cakes.

'Well, there doesn't seem enough for Fitzbattleaxe, so let's go and have tea with Sam. He's dead down on his luck, too.'

'Knee bad?' I questioned.

'Putrid, so's his temper since I rowed him this morning.'

'What did you row him for?' I asked.

'Usual thing. Found him standing up brushing my clothes to-day, so I pitched into him for once in his life, hot and strong. It is rotten for him, but I really had to tell him a few home truths. He simply must stick his leg up all day.'

So we went up into Sam's little sitting-room with Fitzbattleaxe.

'Better?' said Ross, as he went in.

'Yes, thank you, sir,' said Sam, and got up hastily as I entered.

'Forgotten your orders again, Brown?' asked Ross sternly, opening the door to go out.

'No, sir,' said Sam, still standing up. (I do love to see him 'fighting' Ross.) 'Orders were: "Bed at 11. Not to stand up when it were you only, between the hours of 10.30 a.m. and 7 p.m.," sir.'

Quite obviously Sam was obeying the strict letter of the law, so Ross came in again, and I remarked,--

'And I say, same hours when it's only me, Sam.'

'If you could both remember about the verb "to be,"' began my brother.

'I can't,' I said.

Sam dropped into a chair, looking as if he'd like to smash all clocks, and remarked he was absolutely fed up.

'Well, we're not, we're half starved. That's why we've come to tea.'

'You want to count your mercies, Sam,' I said, which being a remark to which my Aunt Amelia is much addicted, was the most aggravating thing I could think of at the moment. When one is down on one's luck it is fatal to be sympathetic, and Sam was down on his, right on the bed-rock bottom of it.

'Well, I'm counting the mercies he's got and we haven't,' said Ross; 'there's quite a respectable bit of heaven spread on this table at the moment. A whole loaf, a pound of butter, two pounds of strawberry jam and jorams of Devonshire cream, goodies with sugar on top, and a plum cake that you can cut. My hat, some people have all the luck. It's a regular Hickley Wood one.'

'Make the tea, Sam,' I exclaimed, 'the kettle's boiling; mind you don't set the woods alight.'

'Have I ever set the woods alight, miss?' Sam asked indignantly.

'Nor ever failed to lose your temper either, if I suggested you would,' I answered.

So Sam grinned and felt better, and made a long arm for the kettle, and brewed tea, and cut up bread and cream, and we had it in the Hickley Woods, as we've had it millions of times together. It was just the same. Whenever I had finished my slice, Sam put another on my plate, with mountains of cream and jam on it. At the third I remarked,--

'Sam, there really are limits.'

'Yes, but you ain't reached them yet, miss; four's yours.'

'Do you think you ought to speak to me like that, now I am married and have a daughter, Sam?'

'He gets you muddled up with the daughter, I expect, same as I do,' remarked Ross, 'only the Gidger is so much more sober and serious-minded than you're ever likely to be.'

'Four,' I called out; 'limit's reached, Sam.'

'Well, there isn't any more cream, anyway,' said Sam, which, of course, was the one and only reason why we stopped in Hickley Woods.

'I begin to feel better,' observed my brother. 'Why don't I have enough to eat at lunch, Meg, I do at breakfast?'

'I see to your breakfast,' said Sam, 'and I'd see you had a good lunch if only I was allowed down.'

'Well, you aren't,' said my brother, 'so that's that, and I should think it would be better manners if you saw we had a good tea when we're up. Pass the cake. Here, you eat the little chaps, I'll have the plum.'

So Sam ate all the small cakes with sugar on top, and Fitzbattleaxe got the cream tin to lick out. He went right inside and stuck, and had to be lugged out by the tail. Then we shoved the table back and sat round the fire, and talked about the old days. At seven o'clock Nannie looked round the door. She was promptly hauled in and sat on Ross's knee.

'Sam,' she scolded, 'why do you keep them out so late? I really shall have to tell your father to wallop you. I've often threatened to, I really will to-night.'

'Let's run her down the passage, Sam, for cheek,' said Ross, and they were just about to do it when Brown suddenly got up and said,--

'Want a bath, sir?' and Nannie said, 'Will you wear your black again, ma'am?' and, of course, it was that wretched S.P. come to clear away the tea. The smell under her nose was rather worse than usual, and the picnic broke up hurriedly. I felt as if I had been having tea with my brother's man-servant, and Ross had been nursing one of the maids. Oh, I do loathe that woman!

It was a most unfortunate dinner to-night, like one of those you get at Aunt Amelia's. There didn't seem to be anything solid to eat. At the end Sam handed Ross sardines on toast. 'What a thundering lot of hors d'oeuvres we seem to be having to-night, when's the dinner coming?'

'Savoury, sir,' said Sam.

'You don't mean to tell me,' said Ross, pushing back his chair and glaring at Sam, 'that I've _had_ my dinner?'

'You've had what there was of it, sir.'

'Well, I'm jiggered. Why on earth, Meg, don't you make them cook more food. Really----'

''Tisn't her fault,' said Sam, still in the Hickley Woods, sticking up for me as he always did; 'she's told them times without number; it's no good blaming her. Shall I cut some sandwiches?'

'Sam, I suppose I can reprove my sister without your interfering, and I never blame, I always rule by love.'

'Same as you did this morning, sir,' grinned Sam, 'will you have large cups of coffee with your sandwiches?'

'Do you think that's a respectful remark to make to your superior officer, Brown?'

'No, sir, sorry.'

'I shall judge the measure of your repentance by the number of sandwiches you cut,' said Ross, 'and if the cups of coffee are very large, I might be inclined to overlook your cheek, otherwise----'

But Sam had vanished into the kitchen, and we went into the hall to wait for supper. A few minutes afterwards, Sam dumped a tray of food on the table.

We settled down comfortably for a good long evening. At 10.15, just as we were beginning to enjoy ourselves, Sam came in, he looked like milk and butter, and his voice was a caress.

'Turned your bath on, sir.'

'Are you dotty, Brown?' asked my brother.

'Certainly not, sir.'

'Well, what are you gassing about baths for at this hour of the afternoon, you gloomy ox, you're worse than a keeper.'

'Orders is orders, sir. If I've got to go to bed at 11 you'll have to go at 10.15, if I'm to see to your arm.'

'My hat,' ejaculated Ross, looking across at me in hopeless consternation, '_what_ a fool I am.'

'First of April, sir,' said Sam, and fled upstairs.

*CHAPTER XIX*

I can't manage my 'staff,' I wish I were an Eastern Queen, then I should sort of call the eunuchs when I wanted anything, instead of which the maids do exactly what they like. Ross says if I won't let Sam 'do something' I must put my own foot down.

The S.P. brings my early tea in a silver teapot instead of the little brown chap I told her I preferred. So I hid the beastly thing under my bed, hoping she would take the hint and see I really meant it. She came and asked me if that was where I wished the silver kept in future!

Then when I ordered the dinner to-day I said to Dulcie, 'Send in the junket in the old blue china bowl, please.' It came in that silver dish we use for cutlets. So I wouldn't eat the junket--said it would taste of mutton cutlets, and after lunch the S.P. rowed me for saying the silver wasn't clean, which I hadn't even thought of, for she keeps it beautifully.

Putting my foot down made my face so hot that I retired to my bedroom to recover, but alas! Fitzbattleaxe was making the day hideous with his howls. He was lodged on a ledge in my chimney, just out of reach, and was apparently afraid to jump the precipice into my bedroom.

So I tied my hair up in a handkerchief, put on a nightgown to protect my dress, and laid down comfortably on the hearthrug with my head up the chimney. At intervals I waved a bit of liver at the kitten and said in my most persuasive manner, 'Littlekittycatpoorpussycometomissusdidums.' This seemed to entertain the kitten very much as it responded by rubbing its back violently against the chimney and incidentally dislodging a good deal of soot over me, while it sniffed ecstatically at the liver.

'Goodness,' said Ross, bursting like a cyclone into the room, 'what a sight you look; is that kitten still there? Mr Williams is downstairs. Are you giving that little beast meat, Meg; how many times have I warned you that it's illegal to give rations to rodents.'

'It isn't a rodent,' I said, sitting up in the fireplace, 'and it's not rations either, it's offal.'

A frozen look of horror slowly overspread my brother's open countenance.

'Offal,' he queried, 'could it _possibly_ have been offal you said?'

'Yes,' and I began to get little creeps down my spine as I did as a child when I'd been naughty, 'it's offal, edible offal.'

'The word "edible" does not excuse the word offal.'

'They call it that in the _Times_,' I said meekly.

'There are many things in the _Times_ which it is better not to repeat in polite society, Margaret.'

'I don't call your society polite, far from it,' I rejoined. 'What does Mr Williams want?'

'Oh, my angel, he wants a lot of things: a shave, for instance, and a bath and a clean collar, and his clothes brushed, and his nails cut, and snow-white flowers against his hair, and a heap of things like that.'

'I expect he's very poor,' I said, waving the liver at Fitzbattleaxe.

'Unless he's behind with his water rate, he could have most of his present needs supplied by turning on the tap. He's asked to see you.'

'Well, I can't see him like this, can I?'

'You certainly can't. You look like the back of a cab, Meg!'

'Do tell me sensibly what he says,' I implored.

Ross pulled his mouth down at the corners, closed his eyes and put his hands together as if in prayer. '"My dear wife is laid aside with an internal chill, she is, therefore, unable to be present at the class for female confirmation candidates this afternoon, and as the vicar is away, I ventured to think that Mrs Ellsley might be good enough to speak a few words of exhortation in her place, hymn 547, let us pray."'

'How can you be so absurd?' I said.

'Oh, why do curates talk like that? Why can't this man wash? Why can't he be modern and human? Why can't he say, "Hallo, old bean, my wife ain't in the pink, got a pain in her breadbasket or something. Priceless washout, too, as it's her turn to spout to the gals. Just blew in to see if your sister would help me out of a hole and come and do a pi-jaw stunt, what!"'

Here my disgusting twin retched realistically into the soap dish, murmuring 'He makes me sick.'

'Your vulgarity is simply awful, Ross, do stop, you make me feel quite ill.'

'I venture to think, my misguided young friend----' began Ross again.

'You know what happened to the children in the Bible,' I interrupted, 'who mocked at their betters: a frightful animal jumped out at them and----'

Here I gave a piercing scream as the kitten suddenly decided to risk it, and landed unexpectedly in the middle of my stomach.

'Just so,' said Ross with a howl of laughter, 'I never saw a better illustration of it in my life.'

And now I want to ask the General Public something.

_Could_ you tell me why, because a person's mother once fell off the top of a step-ladder, a person should never be allowed to go on the top step herself? It seems such a ridiculous thing to hand on from father to son.

'Gracious,' I said, when I was rowed for it to-day, after Mr Williams had departed, 'because mother did it, it's a thousand to one I won't. I don't know the actuary figures, but it practically insures me against it, Ross.'

'I don't care,' said that gentleman, 'I won't have it, and that's all there is about it.'

'How can you be so ridiculous. You don't mind if I go up a tree, and I've done everything that you've done always. If you don't think it's dangerous for me to climb and hunt and ski, why on earth should you kick at the top of a step-ladder?'

'Well, we won't argue about it, Margaret.'

'I loathe twins,' I grumbled.

And he said he did, too, the sort that spat fire when a chap tried to take care of them.

Suddenly the bottom dropped out of the world, and everything that I had thought solid, stable, and immovable came crashing about me, and my brother, for the first and last time in all his life was 'meek' to me and said,--

'Please, darling, because I found mother after she smashed herself up so badly.'

It was that tide in the affairs of men which had I taken at the flood would have tamed the lion to eat out of my hand. Oh, wasn't I a fool to say,--

'Oh, all right, Ross.'

But there it is, and I know now what that poor darling felt when he wrote _Paradise Lost_.

*CHAPTER XX*

A telegram came from Monica this morning saying,--

'Please meet the 11.20 train.'

So the family turned up at the station _en masse_, but instead of the lady we expected, there descended from the guard's van a beautiful and dignified Great Dane with a label round his neck.

'For Meg's baronial hall. A thank-offering, sent with "Hove from a modern Lussy."'

Or, at any rate, that's what it looked like. Monica does write so badly.

The Gidger kissed the thank-offering promptly, and was rewarded with a large lick.

'Oh, _don't_ wash me with your flannel,' she exclaimed.

Then we all introduced ourselves, and Ross observed as he edged away from a very wet tongue,--

'He must be first cousin to the dog in the Bible that was so kind to the poor beggar; you'd better call him "Moreover," after him, Meg.'

'What dog, and what beggar?' I asked.

'Gracious, child, for a Bishop's daughter you don't know much Church history, and haven't you heard that old chestnut either? Why, when Lazarus was laid at the rich man's gate, Moreover, the dog, came and licked his sores.'

Our Moreover is a splendid person. Directly he arrived at the house he walked into the hall, and laid himself down by the great open fire, and looked positively Elizabethan.

On the way home Ross dashed into the post office to send some telegrams. 'Aren't I a fool never to have thought of it before,' he said fervently, but what he hadn't thought of he declined to say, so I just agreed with the fool part.

After luncheon I slipped over to see Mrs Williams. The curate opened the door himself, looking haggard, with black rings round his eyes and yesterday's beard still on his chin.

'I called to inquire for Mrs Williams and to bring her some flowers and grapes. I hope she's better,' I said.

His hand shook as he took the little basket. 'How kind of you, won't you come up and see my wife, she's a little better to-day, but I have been up with her all night. I've just taken her some tea. I'll fetch another cup.'

'Please don't bother about tea for me,' I said. 'I'm sure your maids will have enough to do.'

'We haven't any maids.'

'But who is doing for you, then?'

'I do the best I can,' and he opened the bedroom door. If you could have seen that room and its little white-faced occupant. There was no carpet on the floor, no fire, though it had turned quite cold. It was all very clean, but, oh, the poverty of it. The poor little woman was propped up with two thin pillows and a sofa cushion, and had beside her a cup of half-cold tea and a bit of bread and margarine.

'Oh, Alfred, you oughtn't to have let Mrs Ellsley up. I'm not tidy,' and she patted her hair and smoothed out the crumpled sheet.

'You look quite sweet,' I said, 'but I'm afraid you aren't well, and as you have no maids is there anything I can do for you both; what does the doctor say?'

'I haven't had the doctor.'

'She won't let me fetch him,' said her husband, 'though I have begged her to.'

'Oh, but do let me send, Mrs Williams. I am sure you ought to see him.'

'No, no,' she cried, getting very agitated, 'I shall be better in the morning.'

So I sat with her a little while and chatted and then tried once more about the doctor, but in vain. She would 'be better in the morning.'

'But, Mrs Williams, it would ease your husband's mind so; do tell me why you won't.'

Then, because she was so very tired and weak and ill, at last she told me. She had had attacks of internal pains several times during the winter, and the expense and medicine had used up all their little savings, and with a burst of bitter tears she said they owed five pounds, and had nothing more of value they could sell; and so on--all the piteous tale--of high prices and an income so minute that only by the most careful management and hard work could it be made to do in ordinary times. Gradually all the little jewels had gone and bits of plate, the food had been cut down, and she had had to turn her clothes and patch and mend and work till all her strength had gone, and now that she was ill it was 'All too much for Alfred.' The poor little soul turned faint and sick then from sheer exhaustion and lack of food. I sent her Alfred flying out for milk: there was only tinned stuff in the house, 'it went farther,' and with a reckless hand I beat up their only egg, which he informed me anxiously he had been saving for her to-morrow's dinner. And then I flung the last few drops of brandy in the glass and made her drink it all and eat some tiny sandwiches, and a few grapes. The food revived her and a scrap of colour came into her cheeks.

'Now,' I said sternly, 'I'm going to fetch a cab, and roll you up in blankets and take you to my house and nurse you up a bit.'

Of course she protested, said it was impossible.

'Why?' I demanded.

Oh, heaps of reasons, gave a few, hadn't a clean nightie, for one thing, she had only two and had been too ill to wash the other. She had so hoped there would have been some in the last parcel from the Charitable Clothing Fund.

'But I have simply dozens,' I wailed. Yes, I know, there wasn't an ounce of tact in that remark, but I was thinking of my own luxurious room, fires every night, all the pettings and scoldings I get if I'm not well, and how nobody asks me if I will have the doctor or takes the slightest notice of me if I say I won't, and of all the clothes I'd got and the general and disgusting air of affluence there is about the family. I hated myself and all my relatives. Yes, I did, the whole blessed lot of them.

'But I couldn't leave my husband,' said Mrs Williams.

'Of course, he's coming too, my spare room is crying out for visitors.'

'But we are strangers, you can't take us in like this.'

'But it was "a stranger and ye took Me in," He said. Oh,' I continued, throwing grammar to the winds, 'why didn't He tell a person what to do when the stranger won't be took in.'

She laughed at that and then consented. So I flew home and told the tale to Ross and Nannie in the nursery.

'Poor young thing,' said Nannie, 'but she'll soon get better here.' So I sent the Gidger flying to the Titmouse for heaps of flowers, and the S.P. scuttling round to get the spare room ready for her and the dressing-room for him, and the Stench off on a bicycle to ask the doctor to look in, and 'My 'Ilda' for a cab. After that I said to Nannie, 'Come and help me look out some things for her, nighties and something pretty to sit up in.'

And then I turned to my brother, who was sitting silently.

'Why, Ross, I couldn't do anything else? You don't mind Mr Williams coming, do you?' Suddenly his Irish grandmother came on top, and he exploded violently and unexpectedly in that way he has.

'What a system,' he stormed, 'what a church, that can so sweat its ministers that their families have not enough to eat, and gentlefolk are reduced to wearing other people's old clothes and being glad to get them. It's enough to make one sick, and I suppose they call it "holy poverty." It wouldn't make me feel very holy to see my wife hoping some beastly society would send her an old nightgown and have the cheek to call it charity. Surely if it's necessary to help the clergy at all we ought to give the best we can, as if we were giving to Him. Anyway, I won't have you give Mrs Williams your old clothes, Meg. If it wasn't that Michael was so disgustingly well off it might be you. Thank goodness I've got plenty of money; here, buy her all she wants and if it isn't enough tell me,' and he pitched into my astonished hands all the loose money from his pockets and a note-case stuffed with notes. 'And then you ask me if I mind,' he stormed, 'when the boot is on the other leg. He may mind meeting me. I wasn't decently civil when he called the other day, sneered at him because he looked unbrushed, when he'd probably been up all night. Why, I'm not fit to black his boots. It's all my accursed temper and my damnable pride.' And he flung out of the nursery into his own room and slammed the door.

'Oh, Nannie,' I said, 'isn't he funny? he hasn't been in such a bate for years; of course I never meant to give her my old clothes.'

'Of course you didn't, dearie, he'll remember in a minute, don't you fret.'

'Shall I go after him and tell him so?'

'Oh, I should let him bide, poor lamb.'

'So I let him 'bide,' though anything less like a lamb than Ross at that moment wasn't conceivable.