CHAPTER XIX

It seemed to me that I should have to go to work cautiously in regard to the new scheme in my mind concerning The Croft. A policy of carefulness had grown up at Gloucester Place; for some time past accounts had been kept, accounts that had to balance or the expert young folk applied themselves to the figures, and ascertained the reason why. Mr. Hillier, as I knew, had been saving money since the loss of his wife (she, dear soul, never was able to acquire the useful trick) and once a man begins to hoard it is difficult to induce him to embark upon anything like adventure or risk. Also, I could not be sure to what extent their affection for the rooms in Gloucester Place might weigh; it was certain that the struggles and triumphs associated in their minds with Greenwich would count whenever a suggestion was offered of removal. Once, a casual reference had been made to the house in Tressillian Road, Brockley, where we had lived before going to Chislehurst; this idea appeared to be lacking in boldness. There was Katherine's little chap to be considered. We had the Park at hand, but I was fearful that as he grew up he might be playing with other children and--Well, I suppose, we people who have once lived in large houses remain snobs to the rest of our days.

I managed to find the auctioneer at his office in a comparatively leisurely mood, but he was a hustling sort of man, constantly looking at his watch and with the affectation of being over-crowded with engagements that deceives only the partially demented. He broke off more than once during our interview to ring people up on the telephone, and to impress me with the vastness of his business, and the importance of his dealings. The Croft, he admitted, was still unlet, but how long it would remain in this state of emptiness, he could not attempt to guarantee. Several folk were endeavouring to obtain it, and the matter was one of rent, and of rent only.

"You're wrong," he declared, when I mentioned that large houses were not now in great demand. "Absolutely off the main line. Never made a bigger mistake in the whole course of your existence. Try to put that idea out of your head, my dear madam, as soon as ever you can. By-the-bye, I like to know who I am dealing with. Give me your name, and your full address."

I furnished him with the London Street address. It was no part of my scheme to give him the chance of calling at Gloucester Place, and blurting out information there.

"Good!" he said briskly. "I take it you are a lady of some property."

"You are safe in assuming that."

"My method," he went on, "is to be perfectly frank and straightforward. What I mean is, as frank and straightforward as business will permit. Now I don't mind telling you that I have two strong offers for the house, and at any moment one of these may decide to clinch the bargain."

"Your several, then, comes down to a couple."

"I'm telling you now," declared the auctioneer, solemnly, "the gospel truth. I can't disclose names, but if you are inclined to doubt my word, I can show you a part of communications I have received from these two parties."

I was willing to believe his statement on this point.

"Very well, then! You will understand, Miss Weston, that there is a reserve rental set, and my duty is--we can't afford to be sentimental, you know, in our profession--my duty is to get as near to that as I possibly can. Now, on this slip of paper I am writing the figures of the highest bid that has been made up to the present." He threw the note across the table. I crossed out the sum, and wrote an increased amount. "Right you are!" he said. "Come back here the day after to-morrow, and I may have something further to tell you."

Looking back, I really cannot be sure how far I intended to go in the transaction. It was, I knew, impossible for me to realise some of my investments and put the money down even for one year's rent; certainly I could not make myself responsible for taking up a lease; I fancy the idea was to carry on the preliminaries to a certain stage, and then go to Mr. Hillier and urge him to take the matter over. Meanwhile, in order to save myself from the risk of being caught in a net, I told Millwood to say, supposing anyone called at the shop, that I had gone. Nothing more; just that. Perhaps one had better not discuss the fairness of the proceedings. I wanted to see my people back at their old home, and I did not intend to be too particular about the means.

The haggling went on. I had to go to the auctioneer's office more than half a dozen times. I climbed the hill from Chislehurst station and went under the water tower so often that I became tired of seeing the Bickley arms engraven there. Then old Captain Winterton took a turn for the worse, and his wife began to fail; I gave all spare time to the ground floor. To my question, Mrs. Winterton answered that they had no relatives. At times, both rallied slightly, and I was able to assure them they would not finish their innings until they scored a hundred.

"I would like to live on for a few years," confessed the old lady. "I want to see that dear baby boy grow up."

* * * * *

Few incidents occurred in the neighbourhood that were not in some way or other communicated to me; for some reason, the striking case of Corporal Bateman of Royal Hill remained, declining to be evicted from my thoughts. Bateman represented to me, for a period, a type of the British soldier, and behaviour of the British soldier where matters of the heart were concerned. My Quartermaster-Sergeant had not, in all probability, encountered or heard of Bateman, and he little knew how much his home prospects were affected by the deportment of the Corporal. (Now, it seems to me that no excuse can be found for the way in which I allowed it to influence me; at the time, no excuse appeared necessary.)

Corporal Bateman had been what Greenwich called half engaged to his cousin; the two quarrelled over his enlistment (the cousin thought he should have first mentioned it to her) and when he left for France his mother only saw him off. Mrs. Bateman was one of the few elderly people unable to read or write; the joke in Royal Hill was that, to conceal this defect, she pointedly and markedly bought each evening a newspaper, and seated on a wooden chair at her doorway, affected to peruse it carefully, with ejaculations such as,

"Gracious me, what a war this is to be sure!"

And,

"You'd never think they'd have the face to do such things!"

And,

"Lay my boy is in the thick of it, although I don't see his name nowheres." By oversight, she sometimes gave these remarks to the advertisement page.

Corporal Bateman, after months in France, came home on leave, anxious to see again his old mother of whom he was genuinely fond, and all the more desirous because he had received no word from her. At the door, he loosened his equipment, and knocked. The cousin, appearing, straightway threw herself with some impetuosity into his arms.

"Oh Daniel," she cried, emotionally. "Home at last. Thank Heaven for this happy moment!"

Corporal Bateman disengaged himself, and looked around in a dazed manner. Glanced at the brass figures on the door.

"The number's all right," he said, perplexedly, "and the 'ouse looks correct, but I don't know you. Who are you, and what are you doing 'ere?"

"I'm your cousin," she replied. "Your cousin Phoebe, that you used to be so fond of."

"Haven't quite got rid of the effects of the gassing," he said, tipping back his cap, and rubbing at the top of his head. "I'd better have a stroll in the Park."

"You'll do nothing of the kind," declared the young woman. "Come inside at once, and wait till your mother comes home from the market."

"Have I got a mother?" asked Corporal Bateman, simply. "What's she like? Where's father?"

"I can't answer that last question, Daniel dear, because he drew his final breath years ago. Don't you remember the new suit you had for the funeral?"

"I don't remember nothing," he said, hopelessly. "Me mind's a blank."

He was anxious to stay outside the house until someone else arrived, but the cousin, an authoritative person, conducted him through the passage. On observing that he did not know where to find the row of hat pegs, she burst into tears; he regarded her with an increased aloofness, and asked the way to the best room. There she announced a desire to sit near to him, and to hold his hand, and to talk about old times; he remarked, in a confused mumbling way, that he made it a principle never to carry on with female strangers.

"Have you had your tea?" she inquired.

"I don't know," replied Corporal Bateman, absently. "If I have, I've forgot all about it. I forget about everything. Don't bother me, else I shall get worse."

She was in the kitchen preparing the meal, when Mrs. Bateman let herself in at the front door with a latch-key. The girl listened. "Good afternoon, ma'am," said the returned soldier. "Have you called to see mother? Because, if so, she's out!"

The two women consulted agitatedly later, endeavouring to find a plan for arousing the dormant intellect of the visitor. They counted it a hopeful sign that he remembered the name of the nearest public-house; Mrs. Bateman expressed the hope that a good supper would brighten him. As a result of their deliberations, the girl went softly into the room, where Corporal Bateman was now dozing, and gave him a modest and cousinly kiss; he awoke at once, and declared he would provide her with a coloured eye if she dared to do this again.

"A liberty," he said, aggrievedly. "That's what I call it. If it happens again, I go straight out of the house. You understand!"

Mrs. Bateman said she had read of such cases in the newspapers, and believed that at times a sudden shock had a remedial effect. The girl remarked that she knew what was in her aunt's mind, but hesitated to take the desperate step of making the announcement in question: she feared the stunning blow might send poor Daniel completely off his head, and then the blame would be hers, and the remorse hers, until the very end of life.

"He'll have to know one day," urged Mrs. Bateman. The girl shuddered.

"Let's put it off as long as we can," she begged. "Him coming home like this seems already like a judgment on me."

They found him looking through the family album in a casual, uninterested way; a year ago portrait of himself and his cousin, taken together, caused him to put the question, "Who are these two supposed to be?" He gave permission to his mother to take the nearest chair; the cousin, he said, was to sit at the opposite end of the room. As the pages were turned, Mrs. Bateman offered comments and explanations; he shook his head to intimate that he could neither confirm or deny the particulars.

"That's your uncle, my boy. The father of Phoebe, over there. He's took in his merchant service uniform. Quite a seafaring family, the whole lot of 'em. Excepting, of course, Phoebe, and she's made up for it by--" The girl at the other end of the room coughed; Mrs. Bateman accepted the warning. Corporal Bateman turned another page.

"Who's this good-looking sailor chap?" he inquired. "That," said Mrs. Bateman promptly, "is Phoebe's husband." The cough came too late this time. "Oh, my boy," she cried, self-reproachfully, "I 'ave been and told you something, and no mistake. The truth is, his ship was in dock for repairs, three weeks ago, and he came 'ome here, he did, and he married Phoebe, and you mustn't take on about it, my son, because what is to be will be, and everything's ordered for the best, and--Oh, don't do anything cruel to her!"

Corporal Bateman had risen and crossed the room. He took his cousin by the elbows, and gave her a sounding kiss.

"Hearty congrats, Phoebe, old girl," he said, in his normal manner. "It's a load off my mind. What I was afraid of was that you'd be wanting to make it all up with me again. How about us three trotting along to the first 'ouse at the Empire, up near the Broadway?"

* * * * *

The ingenuity shewn by Corporal Bateman caused me to gain the impression that the British Army, excellent in most ways, could in matters of sentiment, not be trusted implicitly. The moment was unfortunately chosen for my Quartermaster-Sergeant's blunder.

* * * * *

A square envelope came from Cartwright, and opening it, I found it addressed to "My dear Lily." Of course I ought not to have read on, but there are situations where etiquette cannot be strictly observed. It was an affectionate but not an extravagant note; the memory came to me of the statement of an officer, made early in the war, who censoring letters out at the front, discovered six from one youth, all in identical and loving terms, but with the Christian names of the girls different in each case. I could picture my dear Lily without trouble. A young girl, good looking, and probably occupied in some business that left her with more time than I had to exchange communications with a soldier friend at Seaford. I boiled with annoyance to think there was someone to whom George Cartwright was writing in these terms; I scorched with irritation to recognise that she was reading the letter intended for me. Towards the end there was reference to a wedding.

"It's the first time I trusted a man," I cried to baby, "and, my word, it shall be the last." The baby seemed under the impression that I was endeavouring to be humorous. "If he'd been kept out in France, he'd have been safe enough."

It has probably been written about already, and in any case I am not going to write about it here; I mean the trial a woman of my age endures when she discovers that her romance has gone. For a while, I lost interest in the matter of the Chislehurst house.

I had to run, with all my might, one afternoon to the doctor's house to beg him to come and see the old people on the ground floor; Katherine's little baby had been given to the care of a motherly servant next door. The doctor was on the point of leaving the house with his wife in his small two-seated car, and I threw the Gloucester Place key to him, gave directions, and started to walk back at a good pace. I noticed that, just inside the Park railings, a long soldier was lying prone on the grass. I took the view--it was just after half-past two--that he had been rather too busily engaged during the brief time of opening permitted to licensed premises. Glancing over my shoulder, I caught sight of the stripes on his arm. I found the nearest gate, and raced back.

"Cartwright," I cried, forgetting my grievance against him. "What's wrong, dear man? Pull yourself together. It's Mary Weston who's talking to you."

"Goo' Lord," exclaimed the Quartermaster-Sergeant, amazedly. "And here I've been mourning for you because I thought you'd gone to Heaven."

"It's not so bad as all that," I said. He jumped up, caught me in his arms, and kissed me until four children stopped to look on.

"Nearly all the worries in this life," he declared, "are about matters that don't exist. And I'm not a chap, in a general way, to go hunting around for trouble, but the information that reached me didn't somehow appear to give me much of a loop-hole."

"You army men get nervy."

"It wasn't that," he contradicted. "I got a relative of mine to call at London Street to inquire about you. There the answer was that you had gone, and my relation assumed it meant you had kicked the bucket."

I remembered then about the letter. "The news must have come as a relief to you," I said, coldly.

"Mary Weston, explain yourself."

"It isn't me that needs any explaining. It's somebody else, who'll find a bit of a difficulty in that respect. No doubt a soldier imagines it a great lark to carry on with three or four girls, and correspond with them; it's only when he gets a bit careless over envelopes--"

The Quartermaster-Sergeant looked serious. "Pride of Greenwich," he said, appealingly, "and Queen of Kent, I ask you, as a personal favour not to talk about that bloomer to anyone else but me. If it once reached Seaford, there's active minds there that would give it a touch of exaggeration, and the story would last for three years, or the duration of the war. Be a chum, and keep it to yourself." He held my arm; I shook him away.

"Out of mere curiosity," I said, "and for no other reason, I'd rather like to know what view your friend Lily took of the situation."

"Got frightfully excited about it."

"Don't blame her."

"Took a journey across country, at once, with the idea of finding you, and bringing you your letter."

"If I'd known where she lived, I'd have discovered her," I assured him. "And the conversation that would have taken place might have made your ear tingle."

"She's a sensible girl," went on the Quartermaster-Sergeant, "although she is my cousin, and, in spite of the fact that she's up to her eyes in needlework, and getting ready to marry my solicitor brother, she gave up the best part of a day in the attempt to make an exchange with you. What I blame her for is getting a wrong impression from your brother-in-law at London Street, and upsetting me to an extent that I leave you to imagine. It'll make a difference to the present I give her."

"Cartwright," I said, "ever since the affair happened, I foresaw as clearly as anything that you'd provide some emergency exit that you could slip through. I don't mind admitting your story does credit to your invention. It's a deal cleverer than I expected it to be. I regard it as a good piece of work, nicely put together, very well dove-tailed. Only drawback is that I don't believe it."

"You can look me in the eyes, and say that?" he demanded.

"I'll say it all over again if you like."

"Once is ample," declared the Quartermaster-Sergeant, resolutely. "I'll leave you now. And understand this, Mary Weston. I'm going out of your life, and so help my goodness"--he raised one hand impressively--"I don't come back to it unless you go on your knees, on your bended knees, to me." He strode away down the hill, taking no notice of the retort I made. It was intended to be effective, and later, I thought of several others that were even more stinging and determined. But it is of no use aiming words when a target does not exist.

To my relief, the doctor's car was outside the house in Gloucester Place, with the doctor's wife glancing at her watch, and clicking her tongue to indicate impatience. "Do hurry him up," she begged. "He takes such a frightful amount of time over his patients, unless they are on the panel."

I first called next door where Katherine's son was becoming slightly bored with the extravagant attentions paid to him. At our house, the doctor came out of the Wintertons' rooms as I turned the duplicate key.

"What has delayed you?" he demanded, curtly. "Sweethearting, I suppose."

"Quite the opposite."

"These old people are too ill to be left alone. If you can't see to them, we must find a nurse."

"I'm free now," I said.

* * * * *

It was a good deal like having three babies to look after instead of one, and, at any rate the occupation saved me from brooding over the finish of my engagement with Cartwright. I half hoped a letter would come from Seaford apologising for swift words and impetuous action, and I went so far as to draft an amiable reply, but the necessity for sending this did not arise. On the first Sunday I could manage to leave Gloucester Place, I hurried to Chislehurst, and ascertained the private address of the auctioneer. He answered the ring, and protested in a voluble way against interference with his one day of rest. His nose to the grindstone throughout the week, he declared, and here he was disturbed for the third time on the afternoon that he felt entitled to claim as exempt from the worries of business. I made as though to leave, but this procedure also failed to meet with his favour.

"Come in," he ordered, recklessly. "I'm a born slave, I suppose, and folk have got the idea that they're all entitled to act as my overseers." He flung open the door of the front room. "Uncle Tom's Cabin," he declared, "is nothing to it."

I glanced around. One of the chairs had a ticket, "Lot 240," still attached.

"I never saw Uncle Tom's Cabin," I remarked, "but if it was anything like this, the people had grounds for complaining."

"Most of the articles of furniture were bargains."

"No," I said. "Never were bargains, never will be bargains. It's all a muddle. Wonder to me is that you can live with it. I should go crazy if I were put amongst shoddy stuff of this kind."

"Tell me," he begged, "what you consider is wrong with the room."

There was little left when I had complied with his request, and he became increasingly submissive as I went on with the task. In going through the crowded mantelpiece I came across two cards that were seemingly intended to be placed out of sight. A kindly action is supposed to be its own reward, but here was something in the nature of a definite prize.

"My wife separated from me," he remarked, dolefully, "because she said I was not gifted with taste, and I argued that I was. Perhaps she was right. It's very good of you to take so much trouble."

"Don't mention it. I called about that house and property--"

"Afraid you're too late," said the auctioneer, resuming his quick business-like air. "The matter is not absolutely settled, but it is on the point of being settled. Two people, besides yourself, are making offers--perhaps I told you--and as I've seen nothing of you for some time, I assumed you had given up any desire to compete."

"I have!"

"Good gracious!" he cried. "But why?"

"Because Mr. Hillier, who has been calling on you, is an acquaintance of mine."

"Come, come!" he urged. "Friendship is all very well, but it needn't be carried to extreme lengths. Besides, he is only one."

"And your other caller, Colonel Edgington, I have known for many a year."

"That puts the lid on it," he cried, lapsing into slang. "This has absolutely torn it. I can only hope the two gentlemen are strangers to each other."

"Life-long friends."

"But," he pleaded, "you're not going to disclose the fact to them that each has been--"

"A woman," I said, rising to go, "can't possibly keep a secret."

I waited on Colonel Edgington, and took him back to Greenwich. From the time the bells rang for evening service, until the hour when people came back from church, he and Mr. Hillier and I threshed the matter out; the Colonel was indignant at the thought that anyone but himself should have hit on the notion of securing The Croft for the Hilliers, and particularly vehement concerning what he called my unwarrantable interference. At this Mr. Hillier took my side, and defended me, and when, to pacify the other, I pointed out that Colonel Edgington was the best friend the family ever had, Mr. Hillier suddenly burst into a roar that lasted minutes. It was the first time I had heard him do this since the war started.

"But for Aunt Weston," he said, wiping his eyes, "but for her, we two, Edgington, might have gone on bidding against each other for all time. I had determined, you see, to go back to The Croft."

"For my part, Hillier," said the Colonel resolutely, "I never let go of an idea, once I get well hold of it."

"Each of you will write now," I directed, "with-drawing your offer. No one but ourselves, apparently, wants the house, and in a week or two, Katherine--Mrs. Langford--will take it at a reasonable figure."

Colonel Edgington went across to the fire-place, adjusted his belt, glared at me, and turned to Mr. Hillier.

"Old friend," he said, "if there is anything in the flat in the nature of a beverage, I should like to give myself the pleasure of drinking this extraordinary woman's health!"

* * * * *

It was August again, and the Bank Holiday, a circumstance that jogged the memory, forcing one to think of the opening of the war two years before. (The banks were not closed, and few people took holiday, because we were still in the thick of the fighting, with good news from the British Headquarters, an excellent report from the Suez Canal, a splendid telegram from Petrograd.) The Croft looked just as it did then, and the countryside, which I once pictured as being over-run by the enemy, was peaceful, but for intermittent booming of guns that were being tested at Woolwich. The stationmaster told me cheap tickets had not yet been re-introduced, and I snatched at the excuse for not going down to Seaford, and there finding my Quartermaster-Sergeant, and, somehow or other, offering an apology to him; a card had reached me in July announcing the wedding of Walter Cartwright of Lincoln's Inn Fields to Lily Cartwright of Haywards Heath, and the last traces of suspicion had been forced to vanish. I might have written a long and explanatory letter, and I did try to do so, but the essays made appeared either too cringing or too haughty, and I persuaded myself that the first step ought to come from him.

Muriel had a week of leave from Gracechurch Street, and my nephew Herbert was staying at the cottage I had taken in Lower Camden, not ten minutes from The Croft; they were out together for the afternoon, with a tea basket for chaperone. Katherine no longer went to the City. She gave up the work reluctantly, but when the money came to her from the dear old Wintertons of Gloucester Place, I persuaded her, and Mr. Hillier assured her, there was no longer any excuse for attendance at the bank; I pointed out that she ought to make way there for some girl who was in need of the salary. So Katherine became the tenant in name, and in fact, of The Croft, and I went in and out of the house, and gave her a word of advice when there happened to be any difficulty with maids. "Why on earth," I overheard one of the servants say, "doesn't Mattie look about, and find a chap, and have the banns put up? She isn't too old, and there's plenty of tradesmen around here ready to wink at her, if she didn't give 'em the frozen face." When one is alluded to as Mattie, the adjective of Meddlesome is understood.

Katherine, and the baby, and I on the first Monday in August had tea on the lawn, and I carried the little fellow about, and picked daisies, and made them into a chain. A note had come from Katherine's husband; she read parts of it aloud to me, and I assured her it could not be long ere he came back, and she counted up once more the number of months he had been away. It occurred to me, in thinking of the space occupied by the war, that the one occasion I had felt annoyed with poor Lord Kitchener was when, quite at the beginning, he prophesied the war would last three years.

"I suppose, Aunt Weston," she said, "you are like Muriel. You intend to do nothing until peace comes. I mean in regard to getting married. Your Quartermaster-Sergeant. The one in the Guards. The tall, broad--"

"Oh," I remarked, indifferently, "that's all off. Didn't I mention it before? Yes, we found that we couldn't agree, and we decided it was of no use going on."

"But this is such a pity," she cried, anxiously. "Can't something be done? Surely, if there's been a misunderstanding it ought not to be a difficult matter to put it right."

"We're both of us obstinate, my dear, and I suppose we'd got too much accustomed to having our own way to be willing to give in to each other. He was in the habit of ordering people about, and I'd got hold of the trick of expecting everyone to obey me, and--and--"

Here, at a moment when I was talking cheerfully and light-heartedly, what must I do but break down. The maid, coming out to take away the tea-things, looked at me sympathetically, and, at my request, ran back to the house to find a handkerchief; Katherine patted my hand, and directed the boy to upbraid me, mainly by gesture, calling attention to an incident of the day before when he had been hurt by a naughty safety pin, and refrained from tears. He was told to urge me to be a soldier, and laugh it off. Mr. Hillier called from the workshop, asking me whether I had seen anything of a small screw-driver; the handkerchief came in time to enable me to offer, in replying, a composed and ordinary appearance. Edward and John arrived from some practice with convalescent soldiers near the West Kent Cricket Club ground, where the first had been playing, and the second--never more any games of the kind for him!--looked on. I slipped away to the tradesmen's gate, to avoid meeting them.

I had locked the front door of my small house in Lower Camden because, as it was a sort of a holiday, strangers might be about. The back looked up at the railway, and I always found it interesting to watch troop trains racing along the down lines with bunches of cheery faces at every window; it was less exhilarating to see the Red Cross trains going to London. There had come a long spell of hot weather, and in opening my gate I noticed that signs of melted tar had been brought from the roadway to the sill. With an exclamation of annoyance at the carelessness of folk, I opened the door, found a damp cloth, and returning, knelt on the mat to repair the damage. Absorbed in the task, I did not glance up when footsteps came.

"Fair maiden," said a deep voice. "Pray rise, and accept the pardon that is willingly granted."

"Cartwright!"

"Your own soldier laddie," he remarked, genially, "and none other. Called on the old people at Lewisham, and came on here, and been bombarding the door, I have, like a reg'lar Jack Johnson, and absolutely determined not to go back without seeing you. And now, Mary Weston, that you've apologised on your knees in the manner I some time since suggested, what about me coming in and having a glance round this nobby little domicile that you're getting ready against the time we finish off the war, and I retire from the British army?"

"Give those clumsy boots of yours a good scrape first!" I directed.

_Printed in Great Britain by Wyman & Sons, Limited, London and Reading._