CHAPTER I

Mrs. Hillier said something just before lunch that touched me more than she could have guessed. The family was to leave on the Saturday, and the elder of the two young ladies--Miss Muriel--had grumbled throughout the week because of the delay insisted upon by the master. The departure had originally been fixed for the twenty-fifth; Mr. Hillier, who seldom spoke at home, but when he did talk expected to be obeyed, announced that the party would not cross the Channel until the first. That would be two days before the Bank Holiday, and Miss Muriel foresaw discomforts arising from over-crowded compartments, carriages reserved for the incredible Polytechnic folk and the impossible Lunn trippers. Mrs. Hillier, as I managed with some difficulty to turn the key of a trunk, put her hand on my shoulder.

"Weston," she remarked, impulsively, "I wish you were coming with us."

"Ma'am," I said, "I don't like the sea, and I can't endure foreigners. Furthermore, a woman like myself, knowing only the English language, would be simply a hindrance."

"Wherever you found yourself," she declared, "you'd contrive to make yourself understood. Who is coming here to stay with you whilst we are away?"

"Thought, ma'am, of asking my young nephew. He's just got a scholarship, and the month's rest will do him good."

One of the maids knocked and came in to ask me whether she should sound the gong. Mrs. Hillier's manner altered at once. She gave definite instructions regarding the tying on of the blue labels that had been specially printed by a firm at Sidcup Hill, commented sharply on the condition of Master Edward's laundry, and mentioned that the working classes were becoming intolerably careless. When the maid had gone, she turned to me again.

"Weston," she said. "I'm worried about this trip. Before, I've felt confidence in your master to see us through any difficulty. He's been a sort of a dependable courier, and though he can't have relished the holiday, it's been at any rate a change for him. But lately--Oh I don't know," she broke off. "Perhaps I'm wrong."

Talk at lunch, I noticed, was devoted to the coming journey. The conversation could not be described as good tempered: it needed the presence of Master John to ensure anything like cheerfulness, and you might have assumed that the three, instead of going for a holiday, were about to engage upon one of the most trying and distasteful tasks of a lifetime. I had come into the family when it lived in Tressillian Road, Brockley, and Miss Muriel was twelve--that was ten years before--and Miss Katherine eight. A dear little soul Miss Katherine was too at that time, with her doll's perambulator, and her hoop, and a nursery not over furnished. There came Mr. Hillier's good luck in the City with the agency in Basinghall Street, and we moved to The Croft, where I was told to make no reference to Brockley, and to disclose to the maids of the house, or to the servants at any other house, no particulars of early days that had been imparted to me in confidence or gained by observation. It was little Miss Katherine's fault that I did not go from the family when Mr. Hillier went up in the world. It means a lot for a woman to be near a child--near any child--who can put its arms around her neck, and hug her.

"Dover and Calais," Miss Muriel was saying, as I directed the parlour maid to bring in the sweets.

"Folkestone and Boulogne," announced Mrs. Hillier.

"Dover and Calais is the shorter route, mother, dear."

"There's very little difference, darling, and one saves on the land journey."

"I shall tell father," declared Miss Muriel, "that unless we travel by way of Dover and Calais, I prefer not to go at all. Kitty, you agree with me, I'm sure."

"Your sister," said Mrs. Hillier, "has the good sense to take my view."

"I vote," remarked Miss Katherine, "for Newhaven and Dieppe, and I bet a large red apple that's the way we take." She hummed something about Yo ho, yo ho, a sailor's bride I'd be, and live for ever gaily on the bounding sea. Her mother requested her not to sing at table, and pointed out that the wives of seamen invariably lived on shore.

"Let Weston decide," suggested Miss Muriel. "Come along, Weston. This is where you come in, in the usual way, as peacemaker."

"'To foil their plans,'" said Miss Katherine, quoting from last year's pantomime, "'we now bring upon the scene, The villain's foe, our friend the Fairy Queen.'"

"If it was my case," I said, "I should wait until there was a Channel tunnel." It proved to be not the first time that I had managed, by disagreeing with all three, to check an argument.

Master Edward came home from Blackheath soon after six, and brought a new subject for consideration. He had enjoyed a good day in watching Kent play, and Kent had done well; in my room he rattled off the figures exultantly. Humphreys 45, Hardinge 86, Seymour 66, A.P. Day 55 and so on; three hundred and forty-nine in all. "Let's see Surrey beat that!" he remarked, defiantly. The boy took the brass shovel from the empty fire-place, and described some of the most important hits of the game. I reminded him of his own score of twenty-five, not out, performed on the ground of his boarding school at Westgate, and we had a serious talk concerning the wise life to lead: Master Edward thought mere education was very much over-rated, and declared he would rather be Mr. Troughton, captain of Kent, than a science master at a college. I was unable to go all the way with him, and suggested, as a compromise, that games should be cultivated in moderation.

"But you see, my tall old bird," he said, persuasively, "you're only a woman. I don't say you can't throw a ball in straight, because, as it happens, it's one of the things you can just manage to do; but apart from that--Realise what I mean, don't you?"

Contention about the route came up again at dinner, when Mr. Hillier took the foot of the table, crumbling his bread in the absent-minded manner he had recently adopted. Sometimes the evening meal went through, I noticed, without a syllable from him, and when the savoury came he would give a nod of apology to his wife, and go off to his workshop at the back of the house. On this particular Thursday night he was cross-examined by Miss Muriel with severity concerning the question of tickets, and he admitted he had not yet secured them. Miss Muriel gave a picture of the rush, and tumult, and hurry-scurry at the station; the most cheerful detail seemed to be that father would undoubtedly be left behind. I was absent from the dining room in order to see that his two pipes were filled, that, in the study, the cigars set out in case any one should call; the liqueur stand had to be replenished, and I suppose ten minutes had gone when I returned. I found everyone talking--excepting, of course, the master--everyone shouting at the top of the voice, everyone begging the others to be silent.

"Weston," said Mrs. Hillier. ("Keep quiet, all of you. Impossible to hear oneself speak with all this din going on. Edward, I forbid you to say another word. Muriel, I'm surprised at you.) Weston, I want to ask you something." She rapped her forehead with her knuckles. "So much chatter that it's no wonder thoughts go out of my head." The rest declined to give the cue. "Oh, I remember. Have you heard any rumours about trouble on the Continent?"

"Only what I've read in the papers, ma'am."

"There!" she said, triumphantly to her husband. "Now perhaps you'll leave off throwing out these foolish suggestions that you have somehow got into your head. You speak before you think, James. I've warned you about it previously. You men in the City meet at lunch time, and over your chop, and your bottle of wine----"

"I always have a cup of coffee, and a piece of shortbread."

"And on that," she remarked, changing the subject, "you expect to keep well. Why don't you have a sensible meal at mid-day, the same as I do? It's very difficult," she said to the girls, "very difficult indeed to knock any sense into men."

Mr. Hillier rose, I opened the door. Miss Katherine followed him to whisper something consoling.

"Don't dare forget to see about the tickets to-morrow, father," directed Miss Muriel.

"I'll make inquiries," he said.

Colonel Edgington called later and I switched on the lights in the billiard room, took off the cloth, chalked two cues, and summoned the master from the workshop. I asked Mr. Hillier whether I should remain in the billiard room and look after the scoring board; he said, "Thank you, Weston, no. We shan't want to bother you this evening." As I was going, he called me. "Afraid," he went on, apologetically, "that we trouble you too much in this establishment. We get into the habit of depending upon you, Weston." I said, "Not at all, sir!" and left. At eleven, when Colonel Edgington had gone, I found that spot white had made four, and plain white had scored nothing. It looked as though the game had been interfered with by discussion. Home Rule probably. The Colonel came from the north of Ireland, and he held strong views on the subject; I knew from the papers that a four days' conference at Buckingham Palace had failed to settle the question. Apart from the condition of the scoring board, it was strange that the Colonel had not touched his tumbler of whiskey. I went over the house to see to the locking up, and encountered on one of the landings, the master: he was gazing out at the fine summer night and I expected he would make some casual remarks concerning the stars.

"Seven," he remarked, in a dreamy way. "Seven, Watson, seven."

"More than that, sir, surely."

"More later on," he agreed. "But seven is the number of Stock Exchange firms that failed yesterday."

The next day was cheerful, only in regard to the weather. Master Edward came home from the cricket ground to announce in a dismal manner that Hayward and Hobbs were doing astonishingly well for Surrey; I had to remind him that a match was not finished until the stumps were drawn on the last day. Several ladies had called during the afternoon, and they brought all sorts of wild rumours with them that Mrs. Hillier found extremely upsetting. One said she had heard from a bookstall boy at the station that the Bank of England was going to close its doors. Another had been told by her gardener that the Germans would probably land at Dover, after they had dealt with France, and march up through Kent, taking Chislehurst on the way, and this she regretted the more because her gladioli were very fine and likely, but for interference, to do well at the flower show. A third was able to give, as a more reliable piece of information, the announcement that her German governess, who had been with the family for years, and knew how to manage difficult children, had disappeared; it was found she had taken the train for Dover.

Mr. Hillier was bombarded with questions on these and other subjects so soon as he arrived. Generally he travelled from Cannon Street by the four forty-eight, which did the journey in half an hour, and his time for reaching the house was five thirty. He reached home on this Friday by a quarter past four.

"I don't know anything," he said. "I can't tell you any more than the man in the moon."

"Apparently you are able to tell less," remarked his wife.

"Perhaps," said Miss Muriel, "you can at least contrive to say, father, at what time we start to-morrow morning."

"Oh, that!" he remarked, calling the subject back to his memory. "Oh, we don't go to-morrow. I thought it was understood."

Miss Katherine stood by him, but the others raised their voices in indignant protests. Mrs. Hillier begged that he would, for once, listen calmly, and endeavour to understand that when trunks were packed, and preparations made, it was simply nonsense to say that the holiday was not to be taken; she implored him also to consider the talk that would go on in Chislehurst. Miss Muriel said that so far as she was concerned, she intended to go alone, and the others could follow when and as they pleased. Master Edward suggested it was rotten bad luck to be disappointed; he could not imagine the sort of tale he would have to make up on returning to Westgate after a blank and empty holiday.

"Besides," urged Mrs. Hillier, triumphantly, "there's John!"

"John I saw this afternoon," said Mr. Hillier. (You must understand that they all talked freely whilst I was about; if one of the maids put in an appearance, then, of course, they used more care). "John and I had a long talk. He expected to have a couple of songs out next month, and he's afraid all this trouble may delay them. Anyway, he wants to stay on, and see what happens. He's coming here this afternoon."

The elder son of the family had recently taken rooms in town; we all knew the songs he had composed, from myself down to the scullery-maid, and everyone in the house was looking forward to his next. I remember I felt more concerned at hearing the deliberate announcement of Master John's intentions than at anything else which was happening, and the others, too, seemed impressed by it. They left Mr. Hillier alone. The evening was very quiet, the grand pianoforte did not find itself opened. On the Saturday morning the master went up to Cannon Street, and came back before noon. He told me he heard the Stock Exchange had been closed an hour after it opened, and in regard to his own business in Basinghall Street, where he represented an important Austrian firm, nothing was being done.

"By the bye, Weston," he said, "there used to be something in the house that I don't seem able to find. You would know where it is if anybody does." I waited for him to explain. "I mean," he said, rather confusedly, "a revolver."

"Whenever Master Edward is home for his holidays, sir, I always take the liberty of putting that where no one but myself can find it."

"Very wise," he agreed. "But where is it exactly? You see," persuasively, "if we're going to be attacked, why we must be prepared to sell our lives dearly, eh?"

"We're not going to sell our lives, sir, and we're not going to give them away either. We must keep calm, and not do anything foolish, or even think of doing anything foolish, on the spur of the moment. If trouble's coming, we've got to face it."

"Quite so, quite so, quite so!" He looked at me for a while, and I looked at him. "Quite so!" he remarked once more. And began to hum. He had no ear for music, and the playing and singing of the young ladies were always endured by him with a pained air, but I never heard him or any other man hum a tune more incorrectly than he did on that occasion. It was a relief when Master John walked up the drive, and took his father at once for a run in the car. What Mr. Hillier required was fresh air, and sensible, male companionship.

We were more animated that evening. I had Master John's room all in order, and I told him I hoped he was going to stay for the week-end; he said he had not thought of doing so, but when I hinted that it would be a sensible thing to do, he nodded, and said, pleasantly, "Right you are, Weston. You always have your own way, somehow!" Even Mr. Hillier brightened in the presence of his elder son, and Master John was able to check his mother and Miss Muriel when they showed a tendency to go back to the grievance of the cancelled trip. Master John had been going about in some of the hard-up quarters of London, and recounted his experiences, described the folk he had met, the places he had seen. There was nothing very fresh to me in all this, but he made it attractive, and I had to speak rather sharply to one of the maids for laughing at a joke he told. The most difficult thing in drilling young girls is to convince them that they must keep a straight face when waiting at table.

"All the same," remarked Miss Katherine, "it must be a dud life for them. I mean to have two one double four Hell for a telephone number."

"They've been used to nothing different," argued her mother.

"I feel rather sorry," said Master John, "for the folk who come down to it from the heights."

"Even in those cases," said his mother, "they have only themselves to blame. Generally, it's drink."

"Sometimes sheer misfortune," he remarked.

"Rather than lead that sort of existence," said Miss Muriel, dramatically, "I would take a revolver and shoot myself." I frowned at her, and she said, "Don't make faces, Weston. It doesn't improve your appearance in the least." Her father glanced at me.

Master John had a theory, and proceeded to give it across the table. Many of the districts he had been referring to were, he pointed out, near the river. You would assume that nothing was easier for these people, when goaded by worry, and depressed by anxiety, than to stroll down to the edge of the water, and put an end to their existence. But, said Master John, this was exactly the course they did not adopt. It was not in their class you found men and women taking upon themselves a duty that belonged to a greater power, and deciding when life was to be terminated. These cases existed in other stages of society, where the crumpled rose-leaf, and nothing but a crumpled rose-leaf, was sometimes held to justify the act.

"An unpleasant subject to be discussing," said Mrs. Hillier. "Let's talk about the war for a change. What do you think Germany means to do, John?"

I have often, in recent days, wished I had written down all the views, and all the prophecies heard from different sources at that period. Likely enough, Chislehurst was not more fruitful in this than was other places, but we were just far enough from town to enable folk to go around, distributing new ideas between the arrival of editions of the London newspapers. Master John altogether refused to make any predictions. "Ask me again in a week's time," he said. He took his father along to the billiard room, and there kept his opponent concentrated on the game, and declined to talk of any other matters than that of how to deal with the red. Mr. Hillier made a break of twelve, and felt tremendously pleased about it. "Really believe, do you know, Weston," he said, cheerfully, "that if I had more practise, I'd be able to give people quite a decent game."

Master John astonished us by going to church on Sunday morning; he announced at the mid-day meal that prayers had been offered for the maintenance of peace. He ran up to town in the afternoon, and on his return, described an anti-war meeting held in Trafalgar Square, and a patriotic meeting held close by at the Admiralty Arch. An enormous crowd, he said, marched along The Mall to the Palace where folk sang the National Anthem, and the Marseillaise, and the King and Queen bowed acknowledgments of the cheering.

"Like looking on at history," he remarked.

"A good deal of preposterous fuss," commented Miss Muriel, in her superior way, "concerning absolutely nothing at all!"

* * * * *

It would save some trouble if one could ask you to accept Miss Muriel without explanation, and to judge her by the acts recorded of her, but this is perhaps making too great a strain upon credulity. At an entertainment given in aid of some Church funds at St. Mary's Hall I once saw a performance in which six characters took part: a highwayman, the landlady of a tavern, a Bow Street runner, a village maiden, an old Duke, and his elderly daughter; I observed that they came on separately, and so soon as one went off another entered, and I thought nothing special of it until I ascertained later, from the programme, that all the characters were performed by one gentleman. Miss Muriel had something of this ability. She was everything by turns, and nothing strong. At one time she determined to go down to posterity as a great musician, and during this period, she scoffed at her brother's efforts, and composed elaborate melodies that, without exception, sounded to me very like something I had heard before; the mantelpiece in her room was given up to small busts of Wagner and Liszt, and Beethoven and Mozart. There followed a rather serious attack of literature. Miss Muriel took literature very badly, and whilst it was on her, the house had to be kept perfectly quiet; any discordant sound, she declared, upset her writing for the day. She appealed to eminent novelists for their autographs (which they supplied with alacrity) and endeavoured to keep up the correspondence by asking their advice in regard to plots, to methods, and to publishers; the answers diminished in number, and Miss Muriel talked darkly of ring-bound fences, of the trials of new beginners.

"For two hatpins," she declared, "I would take up some other hobby!"

She did this, without the bribe suggested. At the time of which I speak, Miss Muriel was preparing herself for a brilliant career on the stage.

It was an epidemic that went around at intervals, started occasionally by an amateur performance, and the compliments given in the _Chislehurst and District Times_; in Muriel's case, it was due to the presence of a well-known actor who had returned from an American tour with plenty of money, and, taking a house near the Common, announced his intention of enjoying peace with dignity. Him, Miss Muriel encountered during the interval that followed convalescence from literature. It occurred to her that the stone cross which bore the inscription on one side--"Napoleon, Eugène Louis Jean Joseph, Prince Imperial. Killed in Zulu-land, 1st June, 1879," and on the other, "This Cross erected by the Dwellers at Chislehurst"--it occurred to her, I say, that this memorial was not receiving the attention it deserved. In placing her daily offering of a bunch of flowers inside the railings (the self-imposed duty lasted for nearly a week) she one afternoon met the great man. He was greatly touched by Miss Muriel's devotion.

"A beautiful act," he said, tears in his eyes. "A most charming thought. Dear young lady, allow me to offer you my sincerest compliments."

He called at The Croft later, and Mrs. Hillier was impressed by his manner, although Master Edward described him privately, as a white-haired fraud. Miss Muriel spoke of her wish to assist the stage by her presence, and he received the announcement with enthusiasm, promised to give any help that might be necessary. But he went off in a state of crimson-faced indignation, and I found that, in my absence from the drawing room, Mrs. Hillier had been so incautious as to offer a casual and approving remark concerning one of the younger members of the profession. Miss Muriel asserted that her bright anticipations had been marred by this carelessness, and it did prove that the promised help failed to come. A Sunday journal announced that the gentleman had been induced, by pressure from his countless admirers, to return to the boards, and to give a series of "those brilliant impersonations with which his name, and his name alone, will ever be associated." Miss Muriel's letters to him were not answered, but she told me this circumstance would have little or no effect on her plans.

"Even this absurd war business won't stop me!" she declared.