CHAPTER X

A letter came from my Quartermaster-Sergeant.

"We have been having a busy time lately. Nothing else but marching and fighting, and the regiment was in the great attack described correctly in the London papers of the 15th under the heading of 'British Check.' But I am pleased to be able to tell you that another attack has taken place, which proved a huge success, and the advantage is being followed up at the time of writing.

"Would you like to send me two re-fills for my electric lamp; address in the Strand enclosed. It is difficult work to find one's way about at night on unfamiliar ground. Hope you are keeping well and fit, as it leaves me at present."

There was the strike on with the tramway men, and I had to go by rail to make the purchase. The train went to Cannon Street only, and in running across there from one platform to another, I nearly came into collision with Guard Richards who was also in a hurry.

"Caught sight of your Miss Muriel t'other evening," he called out.

"Where," I demanded stopping, "and how was she, and what is she doing?"

William Richards had disappeared through one of the barriers, and did not hear my question. It was something, however, to know that the adventurous girl was still alive.

At the shop in the Strand I put the usual inquiry to the attendant--"How do you find business?"--and he said he found nothing to complain about, and I mentioned that I, too, had no cause to grumble. Hedging slightly, he remarked that he felt sorry that in the old days, before the war, he had devoted so much time and money to a favourite hobby; his wife--"She's got a bitter way of talking when she likes!"--aided and encouraged by her mother, never failed, it appeared, to hold him up to ridicule of an evening when he returned home, to take supper. I had given a few vague words of sympathy, and the counsel to take no notice, and was leaving when he happened to say that anybody who once began to collect old furniture was considered by non-collectors as on the road to Colney Hatch. Within ten minutes, I had promised to wait for him near the post office, and journey northwards in order to look at his stock, and to see whether I felt inclined to make an offer, and take the whole lot off his hands. There would have been less celerity over the early part of the transaction but that, as I explained to him, it was rarely I found myself so near to his district, and, as he explained to me, he had, to appease his wife and her relatives, given the assurance that he was taking active steps to get rid of the articles which crowded the rooms. On the way, he suddenly expressed the wish that I had been a member of his own sex. He did not know what his wife would say when she found he had brought a lady, unknown to her, into the house. He expressed the view that if the Zeppelins ever dared to come over London, they would receive from her as good as they gave.

The wife quickly informed him of her attitude in regard to my visit. So soon as he opened the front door of his house with his latch key, and immediately that she heard my voice, she ordered the two maids to go upstairs. Herself conducted us into the drawing-room.

"I've been anticipating this," she said, tearfully, "and I fully recognise, David, that I'm partly responsible. I've got a jealous disposition, and I expect it will be my curse and companion to the very end of my life."

"Miss Weston has come here--" he began.

"I know!" interrupted his wife, finding her handkerchief. "I quite understand, and the fewer words we exchange on the subject, the better. Perhaps if there had been children, it might have been different. Very likely if I had been more tactful in speech, this terrible business could have been put off for a while. Think as kindly of me as you can, David."

"I always do, my dear, and--"

"No," she contradicted, with a show of truculence. "I'm not going to allow you to say that. I am ready to take my just share of the blame, but not more. You know as well as I do that I stand very low in your estimation, compared for instance with that Oliver Cromwell chair you picked up somewhere in Essex three years ago. I needn't tell you that you love that gate table in the next room with a devotion you never gave to me, even in the early days of our acquaintance. It's been a hideous blunder, David, this marriage of ours, and now that you have taken a definite proceeding by bringing another woman into the house--"

"What a foolish person you are!" I exclaimed.

"Don't you dare speak to me," she ordered. "David I am sorry for, but you I consider beneath my estimation. Heaven knows by what tricks and dodges you have succeeded in weaving your mesh around him."

"My dear," said her husband, "this lady and I have met this evening for the first time."

"That makes it worse, David. But I always suspected you were really fond of tall women, and I cannot be blind to the fact that I am short and stout. I only hope--"

I managed to induce her to cease talking after a while, and, in a few sharp words, described the reason of my visit. The strange thing was that so soon as I had forced her to comprehend this, her annoyance with her husband knew no bounds. Why had he mis-led her in this preposterous manner? Why was he never so happy as when inducing his poor wife to make herself a laughing stock? As to the furniture, she felt by no means inclined to allow it to go. Any allusions she had made in the past were given, she declared, more for the purpose of keeping up genial conversation than anything else. Certainly, she did not propose to have the house emptied of half its contents, bought mainly with her cash, in order to gratify a man who rarely thought of any plan or scheme likely to make her existence cheerful.

"Nothing can be done," I remarked to the husband. "It isn't your fault. I must see about making my way back to Greenwich."

"I'd like you just to look at my collection," he said. "You're a bit of an expert, I can tell, and it would be interesting to know what you think of the purchases I have made during the past ten years. I may have been taken in over some of them."

"I can give you fifteen minutes."

In the list of eccentric people I have met, the lady of this house well deserves a first place. During the quarter of an hour, her mind went to every point of the compass. When I said a word in praise of the half-dozen Hepplewhite chairs, she announced that she would sooner die than permit anything to be taken out of the house: when I commented strongly on a faked Sheraton sideboard, she said disconsolately that a van had better be sent for the rubbish on the following morning. Her husband was described alternately, as the wisest and shrewdest darling in the world, and, a moment later, as a drivelling idiot.

"Don't you think so yourself, ma'am?" she inquired, at one moment.

"Undoubtedly," I answered.

It appeared I had carelessly agreed with one of her condemnatory remarks, and, swirling around, she ordered me to leave the house. Who was I, she would like to know, to venture to criticise her David? What did I mean by coming there, a perfect stranger, simply in order to hold her dear one up to ridicule? The dear one conducted me to the front door, muttering apologies on the way.

"Never marry anyone who's got money," he counselled.

"There doesn't seem to be much of a catch in it."

"Sorry you have been brought all this way for nothing. You've got a fine night for your journey home, anyway. Fortunately, you're one of the sensible people who take no notice of all this wild talk about air-raids. Mind the steps," he added, counting them as I went down. "One, two, three; that's right!"

The first thunderous clamouring bang came as he had nearly closed the door. He rushed out, caught hold of my arm, and pulled me in. Another tremendous report sounded as we stumbled over the mat. The two maids rushed wildly down the staircase and, throwing themselves upon me in a hysterical manner, babbled questions, begged that I would save them, urged that I should remain in the house for their protection.

"There's no danger now," I said. "It's all over. The Zepps are a long way off by this time. Come into this room, and let us see how your mistress is taking it."

The lady of the house had fainted with great promptitude, and the discovery of some one more considerably affected by the incident than themselves, restored the girls to composure. Dogs were barking out of doors, and there was shouting by children; the explosions had awakened birds in the trees at the back of the road. A fire engine went along, clanging its bell.

"I'm all serene," announced the astonishing lady, when she was able to sit up. "Appear to have taken it much more calmly than the rest of you. It's a great mistake to let the Germans imagine they can frighten us. David, give the maids something to drink, and let them go upstairs again."

She mentioned, when the others were out of the room, that her people had always been renowned for their courage, and that it was a considerable help, in time of need, to feel one had to keep up this reputation. I remarked that the bombs had fallen near enough to excuse alarm; for myself, I had no desire for a closer acquaintance.

"Now that they have come once," she said, complacently, "they will come again. I shouldn't wonder if they arrived every night, regularly."

"Cheerful anticipation!"

"I can always look facts in the face," she remarked. "Nothing daunts me. I possess the heart of a lion. The word 'fear' has no existence where I am concerned." She went to the mirror, and beamed at her reflection. "Do you think he will mind giving up the house?"

Her husband's return saved me the trouble of guessing at the meaning of this inquiry. He was ordered to find the A.B.C. and, this done, accepted, with bowed head, all the responsibility for the circumstance that no train ever left Paddington for Wallingford after nine-fifty p.m.

"Then I go there, David," she announced, "early to-morrow, and stay at a farmhouse until the war is over." She asked me rather anxiously whether I thought the enemy's airships were likely to get so far as Berkshire, and, meeting a glance from her husband, I gave the opinion that the county referred to, might be looked upon as safe. In all likelihood, the Germans had never heard of it. "My view exactly," she said. "You will get rid of the house, David, and go into your old bachelor rooms."

"But the furniture, my dear?"

"He has no head for management," remarked the lady to me, apologetically. "You and I must settle this. Name a figure for all the old stuff, and the remainder can go to one of the auction rooms."

Her husband, in seeing me once again, to the front door, mentioned, with a chuckle, that Zeppelin raids had their drawbacks, but that they did appear to be capable of solving a domestic problem.

The circumstance that my journey had not been wasted, in a business sense, helped me to make my way home cheerfully. There was some excitement amongst the people travelling, a great deal of interest, and very little of anything resembling nervousness. One or two who had been at the moment in underground trains regretted their ill-luck in missing the sights and the sounds, declaring that this was but a sample of the misfortune which persistently dogged their footsteps through life, and the others tried to console them up by prophesying hopefully that the occurrence would undoubtedly be repeated. No one could have complained that night of the reticence of the Londoner. Everyone talked to everybody, and one woman with a basket of groundsel possessed special information that made her seem richer than any of the rest of us; she exacted a respect that had, it is certain, not hitherto been paid to her. All the values were, for a time, disturbed. At Greenwich station I met Mr. Hillier. He was waiting for Miss Katherine and her brother, who had gone to a theatre, with orders that had been presented to Master Edward; some of the invented scraps of news had come by the down trains, and Mr. Hillier was anxious. He walked the three sides of the courtyard outside the station, and I remembered the announcement thrown to me by Richards.

"Well now," he declared, "that is really something to be grateful for. Muriel is alive, at any rate. But what I can't understand is, why she is doing it? I don't see the reason. What induced her to run off?"

"I think, sir, that she was fed up with everything. I imagine that she wanted to start afresh."

"But she might have taken you, Weston, or me, or one of us into her confidence."

"Miss Muriel never gave much thought or consideration to other people. She fixed all her regard upon herself, and for that reason, I feel pretty sure that she is not likely to come to any harm. There's plenty of work for girls to do nowadays, and she ought to be taking her share. But I admit I'd like to know more about what's going on."

"I had great theories," he remarked, "when I first married about the bringing up of children. Wonderful theories. Magnificent theories. And, in the result, the children brought themselves up. With help from you, Weston. You came along in time to save three of them; if you had arrived earlier, you might have helped the other one. Don't assume, because we rarely talk about it, that we forget."

"Only earnt my wages, sir."

"I may have taken that view at the time; I see it all more clearly now. And if you should ever meet any of the maids of the old Chislehurst establishment, I'd like them to know, Weston, that I appreciated the services they gave there. I did see one of them on a platform the other day, and I should have spoken to her, but she and her husband were travelling first and I was going third." He drew in his breath sharply.

"You've had a lot to put up with," I remarked, "and, in my opinion, you have stood it uncommonly well."

"Don't mind confessing to you, Weston, that at first it took a bit of doing. Now that I'm in the swing of it, it doesn't require so much effort. Look at my hands!" They gave evidence of hard work in the Arsenal. The palms had become hardened; lines were marked darkly; there was a cut or two, and one finger had the protection of a stall. "Honourable scars, Weston," he said, rather exultantly. "And there are some, too, on the mind, that no one can see. Discover from your friend the guard, so soon as you can, where he caught sight of Muriel. Here come the other two."

Miss Katherine and Master Edward arrived in the high state of excitement that youth can gain from a visit to the play; they were not greatly interested in my news of the raid, but insisted on telling their father and me, on the way to Gloucester Place, the plot of the musical comedy they had seen; a task which made a demand upon their combined efforts. We found Mrs. Hillier waiting up, with a post letter addressed to her husband that, as she admitted, she had refrained from opening only by an effort; I could not help recalling the times when she would have shown no such consideration. The writing was Miss Muriel's; we made an eager semi-circle to listen to the communication.

"I'm sorry," said Mr. Hillier, brokenly, "but I--I can't read it. Weston, you try."

Miss Muriel gave no address at the head of the letter, and the wording had something of the romantic and poetic touch that she always favoured. Having encountered a railway friend of Weston's who mentioned that her people were worried and perturbed about her, she was now sending a line to assure her father that she was well, and in no need of money. Miss Muriel announced that she had engaged upon the task of re-forming her character, and did not intend to return home until this process was completed. She sent love to all, "including dear fussy Weston." The note contained nothing more, and each of us, in turn, searched it carefully, and held it up to the light, examined the envelope.

"Not much," decided Mr. Hillier, "but better than no news."

"The dear child is in good health anyway," remarked his wife.

"The dear child," said Miss Katherine, "might have a little more consideration for her relatives. If I happen to meet the dear child, I shall talk to her in the manner that Dutch uncles are supposed to adopt."

"'Re-forming her character,'" quoted Master Edward, taking the note again. "'Re-forming,' with a hyphen. I haven't the slightest idea what she means. A silly phrase, I call it."

"She means improving it," I said, quickly. "And I like the tone of her letter. The handwriting is firmer than it used to be. She's in no trouble, and that's the great thing."

"But," argued the lad, frowning, "how is she getting money?"

"This parcel of mine," I said, changing the conversation, and producing the articles bought in the Strand, "ought I suppose to go in a wooden box if it is to travel safely to France."

Miss Katherine, following my lead, inquired regarding the contents, and pointed out to the others that Weston was sparing no efforts in the endeavour to trap and secure the Quartermaster-Sergeant. Going on with her chaff, she expressed the hope that she herself would never have to adopt such unworthy means in order to capture the affections of a male bird. Rather than force gifts upon a coy recipient, Miss Katherine declared she was willing to remain a spinster with nothing in the shape of love but a deep and unswerving affection for bank work. Master Edward, coming in on my side, mentioned that Katherine had lent her opera glasses that evening to an enamoured youth seated beside her in the stalls. Miss Katherine declared that the gentleman was in no way enamoured, that his age was well over seventy, and that she had offered the glasses with no other motive than that of preventing her brother from gazing through them absorbedly at a six foot lady on the stage. The two gave us some of the tunes they had heard, acted one of the scenes.

"Bed, children," ordered their mother. "You both have to be up early in the morning."

"Shan't feel much inclined to turn out."

"I'll see to that," I promised.

Whereupon the young people described me as the curse of the household, as a woman with an insane craving for breakfast at eight, one devoid of consideration for anybody under the rank of a Quartermaster-Sergeant. I put an end to the discussion by taking Miss Katherine in my arms, and carrying her upstairs as I had often done when she was a small girl; I threatened to return and perform a like service for Master Edward.

"Weston," said Miss Katherine, in her room, "joking apart, and speaking with a full knowledge of the importance of the announcement, let me tell you in strict confidence, that the hour is not far distant when I shall not have to depend, for company, upon my respected brother. Of course we can't insure against war risks, but the outlook, Weston, may be regarded as hopeful. Decidedly hopeful."

"When the time comes, miss, I can only hope you will be as happy as you deserve to be."

"I am looking forward," remarked the girl, "to being much happier than that!"

* * * * *

Cartwright acknowledged receipt of the package in a long letter written with such an ineffective pencil that, at first, I did not trouble to read it to the end; a van, at the moment, was arriving from the north of London, and the elderly men in charge, explaining that all the firm's young chaps had enlisted, announced there had been difficulty enough in loading the furniture; they appeared to regard the task of discharging it as impossible. Luckily, my brother-in-law, Millwood, came along: he had some engagements to speak near town, and desired to take up residence at London Street for a few days. He took off his coat at once, put on green baize apron, set to work. Sales had been good at the shop of late, and by a little shifting, and re-arrangement, space was made. Millwood talked as we engaged upon the job, and I had difficulty in understanding the trend of his remarks. After a while, I discovered that he was cultivating alliterativeness in speech, and, being challenged, he admitted that he found the trick extremely effective in speaking to audiences.

"I enjoy myself no end," he remarked, as we carried in an escritoire. "Generally I'm called upon at the finish, when everybody has just about had enough of 'igh class talk, and of well-educated chaps saying the same thing over and over again. I give it to 'em straight from the shoulder. Definite as a door-knocker. A tornado of truth. An avalanche of asseverations."

"And don't they guy you?"

"In some places, a slight tendency to do this, at the start. But I tell 'em a pathetic story about a soldier's little daughter, and after that I can do what I like. I make 'em cry, and I make 'em laugh. The tribulation of tears, and the deportment of diversion. See what I mean? And, before I sit down, I turn on the patriotic key, and they shout the blooming roof half off. Mary Weston, you ought to see the swell ladies come up afterwards and offer their congratulations."

"No doubt, a picturesque sight."

"Sometimes," my brother-in-law went on, chuckling, "sometimes they're at the railway station to bid me good-bye. Floral tributes. Illustrated papers. Shaking of hands, and come again soon. Three cheers for Mr. Millwood. And the other passengers regard me with the envy of--" he appeared, for a moment, to be floored--"the envy of enthusiasm. By-the-bye, why didn't my 'Erb come and listen to me when he was home on leave?"

"Herbert was busy," I explained. "And he felt anxious about a certain young woman."

"A mistake his father never committed," said Millwood. "With the exception of your poor sister, there's never been one of them able to exercise the slightest attraction so far as I am personally concerned."

"You'd better touch wood," I suggested.

The two elderly men were relieved to find the undertaking satisfactorily completed, and in accepting silver, they mentioned that if all lady customers were as business-like and as generous as I proved to be, the drawbacks experienced in emerging from retirement and taking up active duties would be considerably lightened. "The very female parties," they asserted, "that were always a-badgering our young chaps with 'Why aren't you in khaki?' are just the ones that complain now because some of us old 'uns are a trifle careful in our movements!" I counselled them not to place too much importance on exceptional cases, and called their notice to the fact that women-folk were doing remarkably good work in munition factories, and elsewhere. The aged carmen closed the debate with the remark that it took all sorts to make a world.

"I overheard your talk," said Millwood, when we sat at a meal, in the back room, "and it's give me an idea that I shall dove-tail into my speech at Croydon this evening. It may be that, in the past, I've taken somewhat 'arsh views in regard to members of your sex. Probably I have shown a certain aloofness so far as they are concerned. A deportment of disdain. An attitude of inattention."

"I don't suppose they minded."

"Not too late to make amends," he argued. "It'll come rather well from me to pay them a sort of a veiled compliment. I shall be careful, mind you. If they want the fulsomeness of flattery, or the slavery of serfdom, they must go to other quarters. I made a fool of myself over a woman once, by going out of my way to marry her, but--never again!" He shook his head, knowingly. "Once bit, twice shy."

"That describes your attitude fairly well," I said. "Shy is just what you are. You're always awkward, but you're more clumsy than ever when you're in the presence of women-folk."

"It's a disappointed female who's making that statement," he declared, warmly. "Oh, yes," as I protested, "I know very well what I'm talking about. I've noticed a difference in you ever since that bill was passed making it legal to marry your wife's deceased sister--" Millwood found himself in a tangle of words, and his annoyance increased. He rose and went across to the mantelpiece to find matches. "Who is this letter in the green envelope from?"

"The Quartermaster-Sergeant who was so kind when Master John was missing."

"Can I read it?"

"If your eyesight is good enough. It only came just now, and I am not sure that I finished it."

Millwood explained that he sometimes picked up useful snips of information from letters written near the trenches, and, putting on his glasses, he went through the numbered pages of the communication. Towards the end he began to frown. At the finish he threw the sheets on the table, with a gesture of irritation.

"Well," he said, curtly. "What are you going to do about it?"

"I shall write to him, I suppose, when I can find time. They like to receive correspondence out there. Makes them realise they are not forgotten."

"Yes, yes! But how are you going to answer him? What sort of a reply do you intend to give? I'm one of the family, and I have a right to know." To my surprise, he took hold of my arm, and shook me. "You women!" he shouted. "Upon my word, you do know how to exasperate. It's my belief, you find a certain delight in trying to send a man clean off his 'ead."

"An easy job, enough, in some cases. Let me glance at Cartwright's letter, and see what it is that has upset you."

"Read page four," he commanded.

It was impossible to avoid smiling, and this sent Millwood raging up and down the small room. The Quartermaster-Sergeant wrote that he wished to marry me so soon as the war was over, or, if I preferred it, at an earlier date; he begged that an answer should be despatched at once--"that the subject can be off my mind."

"Look here, Mary Weston," said Millwood, shaking a fore-finger at me, in his platform way. "You've got a mad, wild, reckless, tempestuous nature--"

"Don't be ridiculous. I'm one of the most self-possessed--"

"Where love is concerned," he insisted, "all women are alike. I know 'em well. I've studied 'em. And I ask you to put this soldier chap off. Postpone him, so to speak. Let your decision be definitely deferred. Treat his offer in a lady-like manner, but allow him to see that you are in no way eager to march immediately into the madness of matrimony."

"What I can't understand is why you are in such a state of alarm and excitement. What on earth has it to do with you?"

"Everything!" he declared. "My future is at stake. My happiness is in peril. My career----" He glanced at the clock. "Hang it," he cried, "I shall be late for my meeting if I don't fly."

I brushed his hat, and gave it to him. Reminded him of his pipe. Hurried after him with his walking stick.

"Daresay I seem somewhat peculiar in my style," he remarked, more composedly. "But the fact of it is, Mary Weston, I came home here with the full and definite intention of proposing to you, myself!"