Part 6

Daddy is such a comfortable person, he doesn't, like Aunt Amelia, jaw about the war and say it's 'a judgment' _every_ time he writes. When it first broke out he said that God seemed to be speaking to the world with great vigour about something, and was I listening for the bit He meant for me?

Really, when you come to think of it, arms are nice things when one is tired. War makes one tired, all women hate it. I wish Michael wasn't in France. I wish he could have seen his way to take the staff job he was offered.

*CHAPTER III*

I have had such a glorious sleep! The gardener's cat wasn't in it, but the earwig was--in my bed--and Nannie wouldn't let me kill it because 'earwigs are such good mothers.'

Oh, what bliss a bed is after a bunk, the joy of a motor hoot instead of a fog horn, and the sight of a house opposite one's windows instead of a sickening swirl of green water and sky.

But I felt rather at a loose end, and when Nannie came in with my breakfast I said,--

'I wonder what I'd better do to-day?'

'Buy a hat, I should think, dearie, and then go to the Bank.'

She is a comfort!

She sat on the edge of my bed while the Poppet and I had breakfast. I believe her private opinion is that Michael has kept us short of food, as we ate everything but the crockery, but when a person has lived on a dry biscuit for weeks, a person is apt to feel a bit peckish at the end of such a fast.

Dear old Nannie hasn't altered much, she carries her years lightly, it's just the same kind face, with the hair a little grayer. She says she would have come out to India to me ages ago if it hadn't been for the war. We had so much to say to one another that I got rid of quite a respectable amount of the conversation which had accumulated during the voyage, for I was too sick even to talk!

It is good to be in London. I went to my old shop. 'Estelle' remembered me and said, 'Madame is of a youthfulness inconceivable to have such a big little daughter,' which is most satisfactory. The 'big little daughter' looks enchanting in a white fur cap to match her coat, and I got a small soft brown thing 'of a price preposterous.' Captain Everard called to inquire after me, so I asked him to lunch and thanked him for all he had done for me. He said he hardly recognised me in a vertical position, having seen me prostrate so long. After lunch I spent the afternoon with Ross. He said he was 'quite well.'

'Then why are you in bed?' I inquired politely.

'Matron's orders,' snapped the soldier bit of him. 'Drat the woman,' said my brother.

He hasn't altered much, though the war has painted shadows and grim lines about his mouth; his eyes, too, are sterner than they used to be, otherwise he is the same good-looking, big, teasing, maddening brother. He thought I hadn't changed, and seemed the 'same rum kid.' I saw matron afterwards. She told me that his arm is very badly injured, and she feared at first that he would lose it, but it is on the mend at last, though it will be months before he can go out again, 'for which,' she said, 'you won't be sorry.' Then she added, 'I don't know if you've any plans, but he would be much better if he could be somewhere where it's quiet. When the pain comes on we simply cannot keep the place quiet enough. The slamming of a door, the noise of footsteps in the room make his pain almost unendurable. It's the shot nerve, you know. You can't, in a house like this, keep every door from banging, though we do our best. He would be much better with you in the country, though you would need a nurse. A right arm makes a man so helpless; he can't cut his food up, or dress himself. Of course, there's Sam,' and then she laughed. 'He'll probably be leaving his hospital soon; he's close by, you know.'

'But could he manage? How could he wait on Ross if he can't walk?'

'Oh, he can walk enough for that,' she said. 'He's already interviewed me on the subject more than once. He says the captain only wants an arm which _he_ has got. If you could let him rest his knee all day and just help your brother night and morning it might do, though you'd have the pair of them really on your hands.'

'But do the men ever get leave from hospital like that?' I asked.

'Oh, there is such a thing as extended hospital furlough,' said matron; 'it doesn't usually apply to knees, but all the hospitals are crammed. I dare say I could work it. You'd have to give him time off sometimes to go before his M.O.'

'Well, if you think you can work it,' I said doubtfully.

'You can work most things, if you know how! Your brother's very angry with me to-day because I made him stay in bed after the excitement of your arrival. I am in very deep disgrace,' said matron, smiling.

As I went along the frosty streets I promised myself a perfect orgy of shopping. My wardrobe is too diaphanous for this climate. The cold is almost unbelievable after India. When I got back to the hotel I found the Gidger had had a gorgeous afternoon at the Zoo, and was sitting up in bed, eating her supper, while Nannie cut her bread and butter into 'ladies' fingers,' as she had done, oh, how many times for me when I was four years old.

I told Nannie matron's views, and she said, 'Why don't you go into rooms, Miss Margaret? Then you could have him. You and I could manage for him.'

'You can see him letting a "parcel of women" hang round him, can't you, Nannie? No, it must be a nurse or Sam, if we can get him.' But I agreed to wire to Fernfold, where a pal of Nannie lives, who has a friend who takes in lodgers, and would make us comfortable.

Just as I was going down to dinner I got a trunk call. It was Uncle Jasper. 'Your aunt wants to know when you are coming down to us,' he boomed.

'Where are you speaking from?' I asked; 'the Manor House?'

'No, we're at Rottingdean.'

'Wallowing in old churches, at least your uncle is,' came my aunt's voice, a long way off. 'Won't you come to us, darling, I'm so worried about Eustace. No, I can't tell you on the telephone, and we'd so love to have you.'

'Why aren't you at home?' I said.

'Yes, another call; oh, ... don't cut us off!'

'Your aunt,' said Uncle Jasper, seizing the receiver, 'has been very ill with influenza.'

'Nonsense,' said Aunt Constance, 'don't frighten the child, Jasper. I'm all right now, darling.'

'Shall I meet the 2.5 to-morrow?' said my uncle.

So I told him about Ross and Fernfold.

'What's the church there?' he inquired; 'Norman or Early English?'

I could hear his snort of indignation when I said I thought it was a new Wesleyan Chapel! Then we got cut off.

Nannie says that her friend's friend prefers to board her lodgers, 'and you'd better let her, dearie. You won't like contending with the rations.' So it's settled we're to be boarded if we go to Fernfold. I'm so dead tired I must be getting sleeping sickness. Will there be a letter from 'the black beast' in the morning?

*CHAPTER IV*

Such shoppings! The Poppet and I are now considerably warmer than we were, and, we hope, more beautiful. Certainly Michael is considerably poorer.

I have seen several old friends and had lunch with Monica Cunningham. She has grown very pretty and still moves in the graceful way that made Charlie in the old days call her 'a Greek poem.' She has risen to the occasion, as daddy always said she would, and done the splendid thing like all the other girls--exchanged luxury for hospital work at Hammersmith. She was very amusing about it. She said that at first she had visions of herself in a becoming uniform holding the fevered hands and smoothing the pain-racked brows of wounded warriors, but what she got was all the kicks and none of the halfpence. However, she seemed quite happy.

'Meg,' she said, 'those men I nurse--they are "everything that really matters"--as your father used to say.'

And I wondered if she had learned that other bit of daddy's, _i.e._ that the lack of grandfathers was not important then!

I tried to get her to talk about Charlie Foxhill, for I'm certain he's been in love with her for years.

'Oh,' she said, 'he's quite a decent boy,' but I think her eyes said something stronger, and I was glad, because I'm devoted to them both.

Then I took the Gidger to Hampstead to call on Aunt Amelia.

In the old days I used to heave a sigh of relief when I came away from 7 Victoria Gardens, and things are still unchanged. One enters a house full of 'judgment' and leaves the 'love' outside in the garden. There is the same high moral tone about Aunt Amelia's conversation. Her 'fydo' does the things he always did. Her drawing-room is still decorated in tones of mustard and bestrewn with antimacassars. Only in the throes of a bilious attack can one appreciate the scheme of colour. My aunt greeted me with her accustomed coolness, but gave a peck to the Gidger's cheek, which that small person promptly rubbed off; this was a bad start.

The same sour-faced maid brought in the same uninteresting, microscopic tea. The Poppet, who is used to a square meal at 4.30, said clearly,--

'Muvver, is this all the tea we're going to have?'

Aunt Amelia remarked acidly that she had bad table manners, and inquired if she had begun to learn the catechism.

Here the Gidger said pleasantly, 'I should like to go home now.'

Whereupon Aunt Amelia observed that she seemed as badly brought up as most modern children, and that my blouse was very low, and my neck looked most unsuitable for a Bishop's daughter.

I wonder if my neck is unsuitable, and, if so, isn't the Bishop the one to blame?

'Can you sing a hymn, child?' said my aunt.

'No, but I can say a little piece that Captain Everard taught me.'

'Can you, darling?' I said, rather frightened. I knew some of Captain Everard's 'little pieces.' 'I don't suppose your great-aunt would care for that.'

'But I should like to say it for her,' said the child obligingly. 'It's what a poor man said when he was tired on Sunday.'

At the word 'Sunday' Aunt Amelia thawed a little, so the Poppet recited,--

'To-morrow's Monday, Mrs Stout Says she must put the washing out. Why can't she save my scanty tin And try and keep the washing in? The next day's Tuesday, what a pest. Why can't the devil let me rest?'

'That will do,' said Aunt Amelia, and rang the bell for her maid. 'Take the child away, and perhaps you could teach her a hymn, Keziah.'

'Yes, my lady,' said Keziah.

Then I tried to tell my aunt a little about my journey. 'I was so ill,' I said, 'the sea was simply awful.'

'Don't say "awful," Margaret, there's nothing awful but being in hell.'

I felt the conversation languishing. I asked if there was any news. It seemed safer to let my Aunt do all the talking, besides 'my prickles' were _all_ out.

'I suppose,' she said, 'you've heard about your cousin, Eustace?'

'No,' I replied. 'Aunt Constance said she was in trouble, but she couldn't tell me why just then. What is it?'

'I expect she's ashamed,' said Aunt Amelia acidly. It's all her fault. Your Uncle Jasper knows the truth, at least he ought to,' but as I could not hear a word against those two beloveds, I said again,--

'Tell me about Eustace.'

'Monastery,' she said. 'Monks got hold of him and he has finally decided. I'm sorry for your uncle; there'll be no heir now, but it serves him right. He knows the truth and hasn't followed it. I look upon it as a judgment on him. Your aunt's persuaded him to let the new vicar--"priest," she calls him--put flowers in your father's old church. Candles will come next, of course; it's only the thin end of the wedge. And then your Aunt Constance talks about "union," but does she think that I would ever unite with people who have flowers and candles?'

'But,' I put in, 'father always said you needn't unite about the flowers and candles, but just in your mutual love of God.'

'Your father was always too charitable, but he's "one of the right sort," and I don't know what he'll say when he gets my last letter.'

I thought to myself he'll say, 'What a pearl you are, Amelia,' or else he'll lose his temper. Darling daddy! He'd die for the faith that is in him, but he regards his Lord's 'Judge not' as a command, consequently it is really rather pleasant to live with him.

'I think,' I remarked, getting up, 'I must go now,' so she rang for the Gidger.

'Well, and have you learned a hymn, child?'

'She's learnt four lines, m'lady,' said Keziah. 'She isn't very quick. Say them, miss.'

So the Gidger folded two small hands, shut her eyes in accordance with instructions in a way that set my teeth on edge, and chanted,--

'Go bury thy sorrow, The world hath its share. Go bury it deeply, Go hide it with care.'

But anything less like a person with a sorrow that needed burial was the radiant Gidger when she opened her eyes.

'Very nice,' said Aunt Amelia, 'very suitable to these solemn times.'

'Yes, m'lady,' said Keziah.

'Look at my little cross Aunt Constance sent me,' said the Gidger, showing the small pearl thing with great pride. Aunt Amelia threw up her hands, while Keziah looked as if she'd like to.

'No one,' exclaimed my aunt 'can possibly be a Christian who wears a cross or a crucifix. If this poor ignorant child came to stay in this godly house we might begin to see some signs of grace. But of course,' she added hastily, 'I couldn't possibly have her; a child in the house would be too much for me.'

So then she pecked my cheek and gave me two incoherent tracts, one for myself, called 'The Scarlet Woman,' and one for Ross, entitled 'Do you drink, smoke, swear, or gamble?' To the poor Poppet she presented a book called _Heaven or Hell?_ with lurid and appalling pictures of both states as they appeared to the mind of the writer. Then we drove to the hospital.

Ross was delighted with his tract, though he thought the questions 'rather intimate.' He said he should write one for Aunt Amelia, entitled 'Do you paint, powder, or wear bust-bodices?'

The Gidger had a second tea and so much flattering attention that I was afraid her head would be turned; the piece about the poor man who was tired on Sunday being received with cheers.

'What a row,' said a voice at the door, 'oh, what an awful, wicked, fiendish noise to make, you must be mad! I cannot spend my entire day coming in to ask the joke so as to tell the others. You, as usual, Captain Fotheringham, why, you're worse in bed.'

'Come in, sister,' four men shouted.

'No,' said the voice. 'I'm going out to fetch four cabs and keepers, and you're all off to Bedlam this night. Why, you're not having more tea?' she said, catching sight of a cup, and then she came right in and saw me sitting by the fire.

'Oh,' she exclaimed, 'I beg your pardon. Brown wants to know if he can do anything for you to-night,' turning to Ross.

'He can hang himself,' replied my grateful brother, 'after he's put my sister in a cab.'

'I don't want a cab,' I said. 'I'd rather wait and go in one of sister's four.'

Going home, the Gidger remarked, 'I don't think I like going to see my gweat-aunt much. Need I go any more? and I hate hymns. What is a sign of grace, muvver?'

A telegram awaited me at the hotel to say that the rooms at Fernfold are vacant, so I have wired to say we will take them from the 28th of January. Oh, when shall I get a letter from my Belovedest?

*CHAPTER V*

We left the Savoyard after lunch yesterday and arrived at this pretty little village in time for tea.

I suppose Uncle Jasper would say that I must get in a bit of 'background' now, but I'd so much rather be 'dim and confused.'

And is Surrey 'clear cut'? Is any county in the south of England, except perhaps Cornwall, with its spray-worn rocks and fringe of foaming sea?

This little village--you can look it up on a map if you want to. It's near a powder factory and a Pilgrim Way, and yet not so _very_ near them! In summer it is cupped in a circle of gorse and broom, and all the country round is a soft blur of silver birches and heather. There are bits of common land and little woods with nightingales, there are cowslip fields as well, but at the moment everything is deep in snow.

Our lodgings are in a house with a nice new thatch and my sitting-room is exactly opposite one of the village pubs.

The landlady is a Mrs Tremayne--Cornish, of course--and a regular character. She has a loud voice and she shouts all her remarks at the top of it. She calls every one 'my dear,' in Cornish fashion. Her first remark was, 'Well, now, my dear, I 'ope you'll be comfortable like. You've had a 'ansome but cold day for travelling, and no mistake.' She is a dear old thing, and Nannie seems to like her.

The Gidger made a conquest of her at once. She was a nurse for many years before she married, so 'likes to hear a child about the house.'

The rooms were very clean, but bare, and in spite of a nice fire looked rather appalling and comfortless as a prospective winter residence. However, after a very sleepy Gidger had been put to bed, Nannie and I unpacked. Ross had given me a big box of flowers, and I filled all the vases and jars, and set out lots of photographs and books and cushions, and by the time dinner was ready I had transformed my sitting-room into quite a habitable place with the homey feel that books and flowers and firelight always give, while Nannie worked miracles upstairs in bedrooms.

The dinner was distinctly quaint: something funny in a pie-dish, with potatoes on the top. The top was brown. I liked that part. Nannie says I'm not to be dainty; food is very difficult just now.

At present we can only have two bedrooms and two sitting-rooms, as there are artist ladies across the passage. Their rooms are my Naboth's vineyard, as they would make such nice nurseries for the Poppet. We shall want to spread out if Ross comes.

It is so quiet here after the noise and bustle of London, but the air is lovely. It was rather an effort to be cheerful last night as I had so hoped for a letter, and I missed Ross, but the Gidger woke me this morning with 'Muvver, four letters from daddy. _Oh_, aren't you sleepy, darling?'

When I could get my eyes sufficiently open I found Nannie and breakfast (rather a queer one), and four precious letters from Michael arranged round the tea-pot. Of course they had missed me at the Savoyard and been re-directed. I was so pleased to get them.

I was in the middle of dressing when Mrs Tremayne brought up a wire. Telegrams give one the creeps these days, but this was from Ross to say that he was arriving by the 7.10 to-night. Nannie and I hurriedly held a council of war on the subject of bedrooms. There is a small dressing-room vacant, but it really will not do for Ross. He gets bad nights, and he must be as comfortable as possible, so Nannie and I towed all my things into the little room and made the other ready for him and coaxed the landlady for a fire. Fires seem to be difficult to obtain in this house, 'coal being such a price.'

Some of the things in my new room are very droll. There is a case of stuffed birds, and a glass ship in a bottle, lots of ribbon bows, and a hair-tidy like a balloon, made out of an electric light bulb encased in yellow crochet, with an ingenious 'basket' constructed out of a small jelly-pot covered in with yellow silk. The Gidger thought it was the most fascinating thing she'd ever seen, and asked for it, but Nannie said, 'Landladies don't like things moved.'

There is also a unique collection of pictures and a lot of texts, but the thing which I most love is an engraving called 'The Believer's Vision.' It is a priceless work. On a low couch, with folded hands and a smug smile of satisfaction on her depressing countenance, lies 'the Believer' fast asleep. She has a plate of grapes and oranges beside her on a table, and there seems to be a good deal of Greek drapery about as well. Up in one corner is 'The Vision'--two fat angels lying long-ways on a hole they've scooped out of the ceiling. Oh, they are fat: two to a ton, as Michael would say, and they are blowing trumpets and have heaps of feathers. It is a most entrancing work of art.

After lunch, which I think was weirder than the dinner (I hope I am not dainty) I took the Gidger for a walk and bought a lot of fruit and biscuits. Fernfold is very sweet. All Surrey is, I think, with its little woods and commons.

After tea I went down to the station, and Ross arrived, apparently in the worst of tempers; Brown was with him.

'Why, Brown,' I exclaimed, 'I didn't know you were coming.'

'Nor I, but he's not staying,' growled Ross.

'It's quite convenient,' I said, 'only there isn't a bed. I expect we could fix up something.'

'Oh, that don't matter, ma'am,' said Brown, 'don't bother about me.'

'Brown can sleep on the edge of a knife, Meg. And I hope it'll cut him,' Ross said vindictively.

'Yes, sir, thank you, sir,' said Brown, with the greatest possible deference, 'won't you get into the cab, sir? You oughtn't to stand after the journey.'

'Oh, don't fuss. If you are going to fuss,' said Ross, 'you can go to the----'

'Ross!'

'Can I never say it?'

'No,' I said severely, '_never_.'

'But if I go and stay at Hindhead, surely there I----'

'Yes, but there you must say "punchbowl" after it.'

'Seems a bit complicated, Meg; how pious you've grown! What are you standing still for, Brown? Get the luggage and get a lick on you,' said my amiable relative, 'and then go back to London, don't----'

Brown had however vanished on to the platform and I followed.

'Sam,' I remarked, and somehow all the years slipped back, and he was just the jolly boy at Uncle Jasper's lodge, and I the Rector's little daughter. 'You can't go back to-night; there's no train; the last one goes at seven o'clock.'

'So the matron said, miss'--(what a wily bird, she said she'd 'work it')--'but, don't you worry, miss, I'll come up presently, it'll be all right, there ain't no call for you to worry, miss'--(there never was in Sam's view)--'we've got through worse than this,' said Sam as we got back to the cab.

'Got all the things?' asked Ross.

'Yes, sir.'

'Good-night, Brown.'

'Good-night, sir.'

'What happened about Brown?' I asked going home.

'Oh,' said Ross, as if the subject frankly bored him, 'matron sent me in a cab to Waterloo, with an orderly to get my ticket. I was sitting in my carriage, trying to turn the evening paper, when Brown said, "Allow me, sir," and then before I could swear at him, he got out into the corridor and the train went off. It was such a swot to try to find him, so there it is.'

'Oh,' I began.

'I am tired, Meg, can't think why she made me come so late; never seems much sense in women's orders.'

The first thing we did on arriving at the lodgings was to fight fiercely about bedrooms. His room looked so pleasant with flowers, a cheerful fire, a box of his favourite cigarettes, and a whole box of matches!

'Very nice,' said the invalid, 'and may I ask where you sleep?'

'Oh, I have a dear little room near by.'

'I should like to see this "dear little room near by," Meg.'

'You can't,' I said. 'It's all in a muddle and my things aren't put away.'

'I should like,' reiterated Ross, in his most maddening manner, 'to see this "dear little room near by."'

So of course he saw it. He wandered slowly round it, gazing at the works of art, until he came to 'The Believer's Vision,' which seemed to fascinate him. After a long pause in front of it he said, 'Well, it 'ud wreck my faith completely,' and then he collected an armful of my clothing and proceeded to hang it up in the other room that had been so carefully prepared for him.

'Oh, Ross, don't,' I begged. 'I much prefer the little room.'

'Why didn't you choose it at first?' he said with unanswerable logic, 'and why isn't there a fire in it?'

'I made the other room so nice for you,' I wailed, and we can't all have fires; coal is so expensive.'