CHAPTER III

I had at times complained about the folk of the neighbourhood; some made money rather suddenly and appeared anxious to persuade the residents that they belonged to aristocratic families; a few took up an attitude of reserve that could be easily mistaken for contempt. But, in the misfortune which had overtaken my people, their behaviour left no room for criticism. It was not only Colonel Edgington who showed kindness. I stayed the night in Miss Katherine's room, which was amongst the apartments that had escaped, and when I went out in the morning and walked along to the Colonel's house I found, even at that early hour, cars outside and messages being delivered, and all sorts of hospitality tendered. If we had cared to accept them, we could have put up at a dozen houses.

"Thank you ever so much," said Miss Katherine, taking the duty of answering. "It is really sporting of you, but we shall be perfectly all right here for a few days. And then we shall have to find a new house."

"At Chislehurst?"

"Not at Chislehurst. I think my father intends to butt in at some other neighbourhood."

"Quite natural in the circumstances. Be sure to let us know if there is anything we can do."

Under her breath Miss Katherine said, "Oh do push off!"

The old gardener, in a sobered morning mood, had given himself up at the police station, but Mr. Hillier declined to take any proceedings. (We heard, later, that the gardener, acutely disappointed, again tried the remedy of beer, and was eventually fined ten shillings for being drunk and disorderly; a tame finish, so far as he was concerned, to the whole incident.) Mr. Hillier wished to make another effort to discover the auctioneer, but I told him there was not enough of property remaining to justify a public sale, and that if he determined to get rid of everything, I could arrange with my brother-in-law at Greenwich to make a valuation, and to give a fair price.

"See to it, Weston," he directed, cheerily. "I have been talking it over with Mrs. Hillier, and we agree that we want to begin afresh. We're going to make a new start."

"Very glad, sir, that you are all taking it so well."

"I've an idea that the fates have used their last cartridge. It's a relief, Weston."

"Afraid you haven't yet heard what Master John has done."

"But that," he declared, "is the best news I have had for months. It's good to think he joined up without advice or encouragement. To tell you the truth, I was afraid that he might be afraid. And that would have been, not so much the last straw, as a whole truss of it to carry on my back all through the war."

"Don't know what Herbert's father will say."

"I can guess," said Mr. Hillier, confidently. "Everything depends now on what our lads do for us."

The two young men left directly after breakfast. They had passed the medical examination, it seemed, at the schools near St. Martin's Church, Trafalgar Square, and although Master John was rather short for a guardsman, they urged their desire to be in the same regiment, and it had been arranged they should join the Coldstreams at Wellington Barracks. We all came out to wish them good luck, and Colonel Edgington took off his straw hat, and, waving it, led the three cheers. I mentioned to him that to see the two going away side by side--my mistress's son and my own nephew--was one of the proofs that a war existed. "You'll see mightier changes than that," he remarked. "People who know nothing whatever about it are saying it'll all be over by Christmas." I expressed the hope it would not last so long. "Indeed," he cried, explosively, "and you're as big an idiot as the rest of them. In this respect, I mean," he added. Later, the Colonel took me aside, and spoke in confidence. He asked me to believe that his house was at the disposal of the family for an indefinite period, but he knew it would be better for the Hilliers if the move which had to be made were effected quickly, and whilst the excitement of recent occurrences was still about. "Do just what you think is best," he said.

Herbert's father kept a second-hand furniture shop in London Street, Greenwich, and whilst my sister was alive the business had been prosperous; on her last day, she gave such precise instructions concerning the boy's career that Millwood had never attempted to depart from them. I took an afternoon train to New Cross, and the tram-car from outside the station there, and found Millwood setting up a map in the window of the shop and adjusting small flags upon it; a crowd stood watching interestedly. Children, free from school (their holidays were afterwards cut short) marched along banging toy drums, and wearing paper hats. The newspaper placards gave the information, "Kitchener at the War Office." Groups were talking and arguing on the pavement.

"Knowed my boy'd be one of the fust to offer hisself," said Millwood. My sister improved his manner of talking a good deal, in her lifetime, but when she left, he dropped back into his earlier methods. "I says, soon as ever I heard about the war being started, I says to myself, 'Mark my words. Young 'Erb'll be in this. Right in the very thick of it.'"

"Good to find you accept it like this. You being such an out and out Radical--"

"How could I accept it otherwise?" he demanded, warmly. "And can't a Radical be as partial to his country as what the bigoted dunderheaded Tories is? I remember hearing Bradlaugh say once--"

"I haven't called to talk politics."

"Because you know very well, Mary Weston, which of us comes the best off when you and me do have an argument."

"I do know. And I must say you generally accept your beating in very good part."

"I never get beaten in no discussion," he shouted, "and if I did, I shouldn't accept it in the way you describe. Often feel uncommon glad that I didn't pick out you instead of your poor sister. I might ha' done, but for what I may term the intervention of Providence. You was better educated than her, and to tell you the truth nothing but that saved me from making the blunder of a lifetime."

"I should perhaps have had a word or two to say in the matter."

"Can't imagine any subject on which you wouldn't."

I had to talk him round because there was a favour to be asked. He declared, at first, that he had no wish to add to his stock or to his responsibilities; of the second, I knew nothing, but I could see that the contents of the shop had scarcely altered since my previous visit on the occasion when the funeral took place. There were dilapidated writing desks that no one seemed to require; a suite of chairs with red plush that had nearly lost colour from exposure to the sun, a cabinet out of the perpendicular owing to partial failure of one leg, an easy chair with broken springs, engravings in mottled frames of events in the life of Queen Victoria, a tipsy-looking music stand, a bookcase that ought to have revolved but had lost the trick. It was but necessary to hint at the misfortunes that had overtaken the Hillier family, to secure Millwood's aid. He was ready to see the furniture, to offer a good price for it on my behalf, to attend to the removal and the storing. Two young women came in whilst we were arranging this, and asked Millwood for the address of the local newspaper. He gave the directions, and they mentioned that they wished, by means of an advertisement, to let their furnished flat in Gloucester Place. "We are going off nursing," they mentioned, animatedly. I came forward, and put some questions, and within five minutes I was looking through the rooms in their company, and inside of a quarter of an hour I had come to an agreement with them. The rooms were old-fashioned in build, and pleasant to look upon; Gloucester Place, with The Circus, bow shaped, opposite had, in their day, been the society part of Greenwich; a large railed garden was set between the two rows of houses; a broad roadway led in from Royal Hill, and a narrower one went out to Crooms' Hill, and to the Park. To Gloucester Place a touch of modernity had been given by the conversion of one house into County Council offices. At the very top of the residence I inspected were two rooms, not occupied, and not furnished. Before I left, I saw the agent, and took these for a quarter at a rent I could well afford. The ground floor, I ascertained, was occupied by a quiet, elderly couple.

"Depend upon me," said Millwood. "And as you're coming to live in my neighbourhood, mind you drop in whenever you have the opportunity, Mary Weston, or the wish to do so. I foresee that with both political parties coming into line over this fighting business, life for a public man like myself is going to be jest a trifle monotonous. I shall get stale if I don't find someone to have a few friendly words with."

It pleased him when I gave him an order to pick up one or two articles of furniture I indicated from a sales room with which he was acquainted.

I went home and announced the result of my journey. I settled with cook and the two housemaids and sent them off in a good temper. I rang up the agent for the owner of The Croft, and advised him to give notice to his insurance people. I took the two young ladies to the house and found old trunks in the cellars, packed some of their clothes that the fire had not damaged; Miss Muriel appeared inclined to be sentimental over the task, but Miss Katherine chaffed her out of this, pointing out that the verses composed by her sister that morning, with, for opening lines,

"Home of my childhood, oh where art thou gone, The fire has consumed thee, thy loss I bemoan"

had, if looked upon as poetry, certain merits, and if considered as a statement of facts, many inaccuracies. It was not, she declared, the home of Miss Muriel's childhood, unless that period could be reckoned to start at the age of seventeen. The house had not gone, and it could not be said with truth that the fire had consumed it, for here it was, requiring only the aid of a builder and carpenter to make it habitable for new tenants.

"And that's that!" she said, summing up briskly. "You chuck poetry, my beloved sister. There's no money in it, and you never use it except as a medium for grousing."

"I mean to write some verses about the war," said Miss Muriel, resolutely.

"If it gets known, peace will be arranged without delay. Besides, I thought you were going on the stage. Weston, can we give you a hand with your packing?"

"Couldn't think of asking you to do that, Miss Katherine."

"Which, being interpreted," she said, "means that even you, with all your common sense, have not yet realised all that has occurred. Tell me: you have money put by, haven't you?"

"A trifle, Miss Katherine."

"So that you are now above us. You are better off than we are. You are a plutocrat, Weston. At any moment, some gay spark may come along on his motor cycle, wed you for the sake of your riches, take you off in his side car."

"A pity," I said, to change the subject, "that neither of you young ladies had contrived to get married before all this happened. It would have simplified matters a good deal."

"Perhaps," she remarked, "we have hitherto been too ambitious. In the new circumstances, I shall be ready to listen to any honourable proposal from a baker. No," correcting herself. "Let me not sink too low. A confectioner. A confectioner, near a school. And over military age."

"There won't be many young men left if this fighting goes on for long."

"'How happy,'" quoted Miss Katherine, "'is the blameless vestal's lot, The world forgetting, by the world forgot.' By Pope, my dear Muriel, Pope. A gentleman who was in the line of business you have recently taken up."

We managed to finish the task, and a greengrocer undertook to convey the packages to Colonel Edgington's house. I was under the impression that everything was going well and smoothly, when a telegram came from the two young women at Greenwich. "Find course of lectures indispensable. We remain in flat for a time."

The delay which ensued became one of the most trying details of the whole affair. If I had been able to whisk the family off as I intended to do, if it had all been done whilst the excitement was upon us, if we had been able to give a hurried good-bye to Chislehurst and then disappear, why, I do believe the job would have proved easy enough. There was the alternative of finding other rooms, but I had fixed my mind on the arrangement at Greenwich, and when it was suggested to me privately by Colonel Edgington that this might be done--

"Not a word to the others, mind, Weston. Don't want them to think I'm tired of their company."

Then I talked about contracts, and represented the two impetuous girls at Gloucester Place as square-headed, obstinate women of business; I hinted that to argue with them or plead to them was like contending against a brick wall. So the Hilliers stayed on, and each day brought for me some discouraging occurrence. Mr. Hillier, with nothing else to do, went back to his habit of mooning about: the Colonel was very good, and always endeavoured to give him his company, but the master seemed to prefer solitude, and whenever he could manage it, contrived to slip away for a lonely walk. Mrs. Hillier, dismissing all thoughts of the immediate past, allowed herself to be taken up by her friends in the neighbourhood, and readily agreed to take positions--for which she was in no way fitted--in the charitable work that had been started with feverish and excitable energy. The idea was, at the time, that there would be an enormous amount of distress in London, and meetings were held, and speeches made, and Mrs. Hillier when asked to take any part, succeeded in making just about as big a fool of herself as it was possible to do. I told her so. I told her so plainly, and we came very near to parting from each other on account of this. I suppose I was becoming irritable over the postponement of my scheme, and I certainly did not like the notion of all of us staying on at Colonel Edgington's for an indefinite period. One word led to another, and I happened to use a phrase without giving due consideration to it.

"Imposing on good nature?" she echoed, amazedly.

"We'll call it sponging, if you like."

"Weston," she said, with dignity, "you are, and you have been for some weeks past, free to leave my service. The wages due will be paid so soon as Mr. Hillier has had time to look about him."

"He's doing that now. And precious little of anything else."

"It is not for you to criticise your master. That is one of my privileges, and I think I may say that I have never failed to take advantage of it. For the moment, my powers in this respect are directed against yourself. You are forgetting, Weston, the position you hold, and unless you think fit to remember it, I shall have to ask you to go."

"You know as well as I do, ma'am, that I can't leave you all like this. You'll be lost without my help, and I should have it on my conscience for the rest of my life."

Master Edward rushed in. He had been down the hill to the station, seeing train loads of soldiers go through, and, with the assistance of other boys, cheering them. He began to tell us of his experiences but, recognising an unusual tension in the air, dashed off at once to find his sister Katherine. When she came, the trouble was soon adjusted. I apologised to Mrs. Hillier, and Mrs. Hillier apologised to me, and we both said it was all a misunderstanding, and one that would not happen again.

But I went over, that afternoon, to Greenwich, and waited there until the young women arrived home from their lecture at the Polytechnic. Millwood had carried out my instructions very well; the two rooms on the top floor needed only a few more bits of hay to make them into a comfortable nest. The two came in, tired with study; all the animation they had shown at our first encounter seemed to have vanished.

"Of course," said the elder, desolately, "we are sorry for the inconvenience that is being caused, but you have no idea how much there is to be learnt before one can be reckoned a capable nurse."

"Have you considered the advisability of trying anything else?"

"We most particularly want to tend wounded soldiers."

"But," I argued, "wounded soldiers don't want to be tended by people who can't tend."

"Seems a pity."

"Now, if you care to leave it to me," I said, "I'll find out whether there's anything else you could start upon. What do you say?"

"It must be something we can do at once," they urged. "We appear to be wasting time."

I hurried along to the Miller Hospital, and consulted a Sister there whom I had known for years. She told me that hospitals in London, and at other places, were on the defensive owing to the strong attacks made by unqualified, but well-intentioned ladies. For example, a society woman attended one of the classes and said, at the end, to the lecturer, that she had gained a considerable amount of knowledge by the afternoon, but that as she was going abroad with an ambulance party, she thought it would be advisable perhaps to come to a second afternoon. The lecturer retorted that she herself had been learning the business of nursing for ten years, and still felt she had much to learn. "Ah, yes," said the society woman, "but you see, I'm exceptionally quick." The Sister told me other anecdotes of the period, and then considered the problem set before her.

"Let them become gardeners," she decided. "Gardeners at a convalescent home I'm acquainted with."

A reply paid telegram was sent, and, before I left the hospital, the answer had been received. Taking it to Gloucester Place, I used the best argumentative qualities at my disposal. Here was a noble chance of taking--in all likelihood--the places of two men who would thus be released for the purposes of the war. Good, healthy out-door work, and later, when soldiers came to the home, there would be a splendid opportunity of instructing them in arts connected with the land. "An opening of a lifetime," I urged. They confessed they had been brought up on a farm, and knew something of agricultural tasks, but it was dear the attraction of becoming second Florence Nightingales was too great to be relinquished hastily. I mentioned that, if they insisted on becoming nurses they would probably find themselves at a hospital in London; the chances of being sent abroad were small, and I furnished details of the hard labour probationers were called on to perform.

"If we did accept this offer," asked one, "do you think we should be allowed to wear some kind of uniform?"

"Sure you would," promptly. "And when the War Office takes over the home, why, of course, you will be under Government control."

This settled the matter. I found an A.B.C. and selected a train; sent a wire announcing the time of their arrival; fetched a cab from the station yard, helped the driver with their trunks. They shook hands with me gratefully, and alluded to me as a treasure, and a perfect dear.

That evening, my people arrived at Gloucester Place, and even Miss Muriel could discover no fault in the new surroundings. Mr. Hillier took Master Edward down to the riverside whilst we were arranging the different rooms; they came back enthusiastic regarding the shipping, the London steamboats, the College, the view from the Observatory. For the first time since the Saturday before the Bank Holiday we made no reference in conversation to the war, and I abstained from mentioning that a placard of an evening journal bore the words, "France fighting for its Life now." Nor did I repeat a scrap of talk I heard near the station between two Deptford women. "And ain't it a shame," said one, "to think that all this trouble has been caused by the Germin Emperor." The other shook her head. "It ain't the Germin Emperor what's to blame," she said, correctingly. "It's the Kayser." Boys ran around The Circus bawling news, and we took no notice of them. Master Edward came out strongly on historical subjects, and told us of all the Royal folk who had lived at Greenwich, from King Henry the Eighth, onward; it seemed to make us feel that we had really gained in social position by the removal. Mr. Hillier mentioned that history was interesting enough to look back upon, but trying to live with; Master Edward expressed sympathy for the boys who came after him and would have to learn all about the present war. The master and Mrs. Hillier conferred with each other near a window that looked across at The Circus. I heard her say, "You must tell her, James. If I try to do so, I shall simply break down." He beckoned to me, and we went out on the landing.

"Weston," he said, clearing his voice rather nervously, "I've shut the offices in Basinghall Street, and it wasn't pleasant to say good-bye to men who have worked for me and with me during past years. And now a duty has been imposed upon me that I should very much like to escape. But someone has to do it, and I suppose--The fact is, we are very grateful to you for all you have done for us in this trying and exacting predicament, and we are obliged to you for piloting us safely to this new--er--harbour." He hesitated, and went on again. "You have, I take it, made your own plans, Weston?"

"Yes, sir."

"Very well, then. It only remains to say good-bye, and to give you this small envelope that contains the wages due. I ask you to believe that the sum in no way represents our indebtedness--"

"Look here, sir," I interrupted. "I know all about the finances of the establishment, and if I take this money I shall be taking nearly the last penny you have. You just let it stand over. Any time will do for settling with me."

"Good of you."

"And as regards future arrangements, I'm going to live on the top floor, and I shall be in and about in a friendly sort of way whenever I'm wanted. The mistress and the young ladies have been used to plenty of help and attention, and I don't wish all that cut off suddenly at the main, so to speak. My wages stop from to-day, and when matters get brighter--and that may not be long ahead--why they can start again."

"Weston," he declared, "the State ought to be making you, just now, a generous allowance. You should be put in charge of the ray of sunshine department. You are a mascot. You're a sheet anchor. So long as you are with us, we shall feel ourselves safe. God bless you!"

In the morning, I went down early to answer the milkman's knock. Content to gain new customers, he told me an important item of information which had come to him direct from no less an authority than the pier-master at the end of King William Street. Russian troops, in enormous numbers, were on the way _via_ Archangel, and would shortly pass through England on the way to France. The pier-master's idea was that this would settle the war in less than no time.

"But don't give it away, miss," begged the milkman, urgently. "Don't mention it to anyone, because it's a secret, and only a few of us, who can be depended upon to keep it dark, are supposed to know anything about it."

* * * * *

We were all of us to blame, more or less, for the circulation of rumours, but the chief responsibility in my own immediate district had to be placed upon Arthur. Arthur was--it sounds like an extract from a French lesson book--the brother of our greengrocer's wife; the lady professed to be suffering from nerves in consequence of the war (she had no relatives engaged in the struggle, and felt, I think, that it was necessary for her to take up a distinguished attitude in order to avoid the pain of being reckoned of no account) and Arthur had previously been spoken of by her as a West End club-man, one who mixed with the aristocrats, not so much on equal terms as on terms of high superiority.

"Great shock to him when I went and married a tradesman," she confided to me. "I recollect so well the words he said to me at the time. 'Julia,' he said, 'promise that you'll never on any account do a hand's stroke of work in the shop.' And," triumphantly, "I've kept my word, even on Saturday nights." Her husband, instead of being annoyed, and rating her for indolence, took great pride in the aloof attitude thus taken up; he was in the habit of referring to her, in conversation, as his little Queen of Sheba.

It appeared--when a doctor had been sent for and admitted, after he had cross-examined and investigated, that he could not give a name to her ailment (the greengrocer's wife was enormously conceited over this, counting it as a victory for herself), and when the oft-mentioned brother called and asked me to keep an eye on her--that the description of West End club-man was exact, but not complete. He was, in point of fact, a hall porter at a club, where he described himself as second in command, and his hours were from eight o'clock in the evening until three in the morning or earlier if there happened to be no member remaining in the establishment.

"And you'll easily understand," he said, with an effort at modesty, "that in my position, I get to hear about a large quantity of matters that under the present arrangement of keeping nearly everything out of the newspapers, won't be mentioned in print, for months to come, perhaps not at all. So in return for the kindness you are going to show to my sister Julia, I shall make it my business to bring down to you, miss, any little tit-bits of information that come my way, because, with a nephew in the army you must feel specially interested. Do you follow what I'm driving at?"

I take some credit to myself for making a selection from the particulars brought, later, by Arthur. When he prefaced an announcement by--"Looked in at the club, I did, on me way, and the last thing in on the tape machine was to the effect that----" then I felt justified in assuming that the news had association with truth. But when he said, "Overheard one of our gentlemen, I did, talking to another in the lounge last night, after dinner, and he said, as distinctly as ever he could speak that--" then I knew that here was something which required a good deal of salt before it could be accepted, something it would be wise not to pass on to other folk. Apparently there was, in the West End, all the keen desire to be early in the field with news, that existed in minor districts of town, with an added gift for invention. At times Arthur brought a double load, and one was called upon to take a share in a perfect orgie of rumours. Of notable public men (alive to-day) who had been rushed off to the Tower, and shot, without trial or any unnecessary fuss--

"They tie him to a chair in the Range," said Arthur, exultantly, "six Guardsmen come along from Wellington Barracks, their rifles are loaded, the party in the chair is blindfolded, the sergeant gives the word of command, and then--shoot, bang, fire!--and there's no more headaches for him! Do you follow what I'm driving at?"

Of members of the Government in the pay of Germany, and making money hand over foot; Arthur said darkly that their names were known to him, and they had best be careful. Of the utter and complete uselessness of these Zeppelins that Germany was bragging about; Arthur explained to me a means of bringing down an enemy air-ship, so simple that it appeared to be within the capacity of any boy of ten. Of a remark made by the wife of a Cabinet Minister to her lady's maid, and transferred by many and devious routes, and losing nothing, it was certain, on the way. Of optimists who knew for a matter of absolute fact that Germany's finances would not allow her to continue the struggle for longer than six weeks from now, and of pessimists who said (as the old lady remarked when she heard that Spa Road Station was to be closed), "This war is really getting beyond a joke!"

Until the greengrocer's wife--finding that people were ceasing to inquire after her health and discovering too that, on one occasion her brother called on me without visiting her--until she announced that by exercise of strength of will she had cured herself, where doctors proved of no avail, we were well supplied with rumours, and could have sold them, at a profit, at two for three half-pence. For the rest, came throughout the day, and every day more reliable news on the posters, and often these announcements were staggering blows that made one feel as sick and as helpless as a defeated team in football; sometimes the punishment was followed by a cheering and encouraging smile from the fates, and for the moment, disasters were forgotten. Take it as well as one might, it was a trying period and one cannot pretend any desire to live through it again.

Arthur, on his last call, said that he had found my company very soothing, and assured me that but for the existence of a wife and six children, living at Fulham, nothing would have prevented him from making me a definite and honorable proposal.

"Wish I'd met you earlier," said the hall porter, speaking tremulously, "but there it is, and it's little use grumbling about what can't be remedied. Do you follow what I'm driving at? All the same, I wish you every prosperity, miss, and when the right man comes along--he's a trifle late, if you don't mind me saying so, but he may have been detained--why, I'll trust you'll recognise him, and that you'll both live happy ever afterwards!"