CHAPTER IV

It was all very well to accept the compliments that Mr. Hillier had paid me, but as a matter of fact, whether a ray of sunshine, or a mascot, or a sheet anchor, I felt as much disturbed by all that was going on out in Belgium and France as anybody; if I woke up at night, I was so anxious and depressed about it that I could not get to sleep again. Looking back, it is possible to see how greatly one was helped by the milkman's Russians. He never wavered from his first announcement, and I am sure that at the present time he is confident he was right, and official statements were wrong. Indeed, one was receptive for any encouraging news at a time when a journal, on a beautifully bright and summer-like Sunday, gave the question on its poster, "Can the British Army be Saved?" and the thick black line on the daily war maps bent lower and lower in the direction of Paris. And at the fishmonger's, plaice was a shilling a pound. I tried to bargain with the man, and he said bitterly that I could take it or leave it, or, if I knew how, do both. Belgians were coming over, he added, in their thousands, bringing no money, and we should have to keep them. In a short time, he prophesied, the French people would arrive.

"We shall be eaten out of 'ouse and 'ome," said the fishmonger, dismally, "and I 'alf wish the Germans were here now, and that it was all over and done with!"

Master John and my Herbert wrote that they had been transferred to Caterham for drill. Their letters were common property, and if I received one I read it aloud, and if the family had one, I was called in to listen. Miss Katherine began to take lessons from me in cooking; Miss Muriel joined a sewing society and, clumsy enough at first, and quite incompetent when put in charge of the cutting out, did keep on at it, and showed herself ready to learn, willing to be reproved for blunders. Master Edward I took off to the Council school, and that disposed of him for five and a-half hours from Mondays to Fridays; at first, he came home extremely contemptuous of what he called the blighters, but in a few weeks he was bragging of Wilkinson, and Perrett, and Moore, and other great lads of the educational establishment. It was the subject of income that worried me. Money was going out, day by day, and a ten shilling note seemed to vanish in no time; not a penny was coming in. So soon as the amount representing the sum due to me was exhausted, there would be left nothing but farthings in the pillar box on the kitchen mantelpiece. Mr. Hillier looked through the advertisements carefully, and occasionally wrote letters; he became a special constable partly for the sake of filling up time. Mrs. Hillier alone declined to make any change other than those which circumstances forced upon her; now and again I was tempted to take her by the elbows, and give her a good shake.

"I find Greenwich very soothing," she would say, complacently. "Ideal, really!" The first cold day, and the falling of brown leaves out in the park, made some impression on her, and she shivered slightly in making any comments upon the fighting.

Master John, home on Sunday, gave us a description of his drill at Caterham. He had experienced a fall at the gymnasium, and made light of it, but his mother was concerned, and offered the view that Mr. Asquith ought to be told. Master John said that turning out time in the morning was half-past five; on the previous day he was on duty until a quarter to ten at night. Nearly eight thousand men down there, all Guards, and the Senior Medical Officer examined everyone, although the men had been passed in London for general army service; Master John said that about ten per cent. were rejected, and was content to announce that he himself had gone through safely. Food rather poor at times; occasionally it had to be taken without the assistance of plates.

"Your father must write to the papers about that," decided Mrs. Hillier, warmly. "Gross carelessness on the part of somebody."

Master John said that everyone was eager to get out to the front. Now that the Germans had been turned back from the Marne, and were on the run northwards, the fear at Caterham was that it might not be possible to arrive at the fighting district in time to take a share in the lark. Mrs. Hillier said this would be scandalous.

It was soon after this that the milkman told Mrs. Hillier of the imminent reduction in lighting; she declared that other people could, of course, do as they pleased but she, for one, intended to take no notice of the order. I argued with her, the young ladies argued with her, but she was obstinate until Mr. Hillier took the matter in hand. He gave a hint to the most serious of his colleagues who paid a call one evening at Gloucester Place, and talked to Mrs. Hillier in a way that she had probably never been spoken to before. After pointing out the risks and the penalties, he remarked that neighbours would have no alternative but to assume that she was in sympathy with the Germans. Upon that Mrs. Hillier gave directions, and blinds were drawn, lights carefully shaded. As I let the special constable out at the front door, he said to me:

"A difficult lady to deal with, your friend upstairs."

And I had to agree with him. I sometimes wondered whether any occurrence would effect an alteration in her.

She proved to be greatly annoyed by Miss Katherine's announcement. Miss Katherine had told me of her intentions, but under the bond of secrecy, and when she disclosed the fact that she had obtained a position as clerk in a bank, you might have thought, from Mrs. Hillier's deportment, that a lasting and intolerable disgrace had come upon the family. Nothing ever upset Miss Katherine, and even in our palmy days, she had always been the one to keep a serene temper; she listened now to her mother's severe criticism, and explained that the matter had been kept quiet for the reason that it was possible a failure might have occurred over the examination.

"The news is bound to reach Chislehurst," bewailed Mrs. Hillier. "And when we eventually go back there, I can't see, for the life of me, how it is to be explained."

"We must put it down, mother, to temporary insanity on my part."

"That wouldn't answer," she declared seriously, "because everyone is aware that there have been no signs of it on either your father's side or mine."

"Hadn't thought of that," admitted Miss Katherine.

"Weston," said Mrs. Hillier, appealing to me, "is it, or is it not a fact that in many cases a girl behaving in this way would, by some parents, simply be cut off with a shilling?"

"If you wanted to do so, ma'am," I said, "you'd have to borrow it."

"Not very tactful of you, surely, to throw my misfortunes in my face."

"Has to be done, now and again, in order that you should be reminded of them."

"Because I preserve calm," protested Mrs. Hillier, "whilst all around me are losing their heads and behaving in a hysterical manner, it does not mean, Weston, that I am indifferent to the events which are happening. Katherine must write a letter to the authorities at once, and say circumstances prevent--"

"You can't do that with a bank, ma'am. A bank has powers that a lot of other firms don't possess. People never dream of arguing with a bank."

"I didn't know, Weston," she said, weakly.

"High time you did," I declared.

I was glad to have the prospect of some money coming in to the household, and when Miss Katherine arrived home, after a day at office, I took care there was a meal ready, saw that she went off each morning in good time to catch her train to the City. I think the work must have been trying, exacting probably for any young lady brought up, so to speak, in cotton-wool, and I encouraged her to talk about it to me and to her sister; Mrs. Hillier declined to listen to any reference to the occupation. Miss Katherine, it appeared, reached the bank at ten minutes to nine, and engaged sometimes on the work of entering up pass books; occasionally she was given the task of writing up the waste book where the cheques paid in, on account of other banks, and sent out, were recorded. For the first time in her life, the girl discovered the necessity of being exactly precise, completely correct. Mistakes were not permitted. Miss Katherine described to me the machine called a totalisator that reckoned any figure you gave it up to ninety-nine thousand pounds.

I began to feel anxious again in regard to Mr. Hillier. He managed to catch a cold whilst walking on his beat during the early hours of a night, and thought of the expenses of a doctor worried me. I nursed the cold, and made remedies, and whilst attending upon him there occurred the opportunity of talking over his own prospects. He said, at the start of the conversation, that these could scarcely be discussed at any great length for the very sound reason that they did not exist; I assured him it was his indisposition which forced him to take this view.

"But I am simply not wanted," he argued. "That's the long and short of the matter, and when you have said that, there's nothing more to be said." Mr. Hillier gave a movement of the shoulders that indicated hopelessness. "The fact is, Weston, I was suited for one job in this life; fairly well suited for it. If it had not been for the war, I should have pulled round, and contrived to go on making an income. But there seems nothing else that I am capable of doing."

"Surely you could be a clerk, sir, in some office, and earn thirty shillings or a couple of sovereigns a week. You've got to pocket your pride, you know, at a time like this."

"All the pride I have," he said, "could go into my waistcoat pocket. The one that used to hold my watch. But it's impossible for me to go and beg a situation from the men I used to know, and the men I don't know just give a glance at me and shake their heads."

"But look here," I argued. "You're talking as though your's was a singular case. There must have been many others who came a cropper last August in the same way that you did. What are they doing now? They're not all moping about, surely, and wearing a hump on their back!"

"I have met only one or two. And they pretended they hadn't a care in the world, and I did the same."

"Oh, you men!"

"Face the difficulties of your position, Weston," he counselled, "and recognise them, and don't commit the blunder of attempting to perform impossibilities. The women of this family you may be able to manage, and in doing that you are achieving more than I have ever been able to do. But the men must go their own way."

"Trouble about some of you is that you don't know your own way, and you are too independent to ask. Why, bless my soul, there's work just now for everybody. Somewhere or other there's a job waiting for you."

"Wish it would give me a call," he said, earnestly.

I visited Millwood's shop in London Street, to settle for the articles of furniture he had bought for me; I had looked in for this purpose two or three times before, and discovered no one but a boy who appeared to have few other qualifications but that of impudence. On this occasion I noticed a small bill, lolling so carelessly in the window that it was with some pains I made out the announcement, "This Business to be Sold. Enquire Within." London Street was a thoroughfare where, since I had known it, there had always seemed to be establishments closed or on the point of closing; shutters were up at places, and, at others, announcements of selling off. The cheeky boy said the governor was not in, and would not be at home to receive company until six o'clock; he added that the governor was a widower and preferred to have nothing to do with ladies. "Me," explained the lad, "I'm just the reverse. Never 'appier than when I'm in their company. Always able to get a smile out of 'em." I made it clear to the youngster that he was dealing with an exception to this pleasing rule: he affected terror, and begged me not to be cross, or to do tricks with my features. He spoke of one or two remarkably good films at the local picture palace where the characters exercised this art with greater success, and illustrated his assertion by depicting for my benefit, hate, acute anxiety, murderous intentions, foiled villainy, triumphant love. I sat in the least dusty of the arm chairs, and my interest gained the boy's confidences: he told me that the occupation on which he was engaged did not satisfy his wishes, and that he had some thought of making his way to the interior of Germany, and there playing the part of an ingenious and successful spy, worm out all the enemy's most important secrets, and bring them back to be laid before our War Office. "One shake of the hand from Kitchener," he declared, with emotion, "and I sh'd feel I'd been amply repaid for my trouble." He was describing further magnificent projects when my brother-in-law came in. He gave a curt nod to the boy, and the young gentleman, after smoothing his hair with both hands in front of a cracked looking glass, put on a roller skate, and, uttering a piercing scream that conveyed satisfaction at the relief from business duties, vanished.

"That's all right, Mary Weston," said Millwood, in taking the money. "Glad you was satisfied with what I picked up for you. You're not a easy one to please."

"I find you looking a deal brighter than when I saw you last."

"That remark, coming from the quarter it does, is scarcely intended to be in the nature of a fulsome compliment. I know you mean it. And if you want to know the reason, it is that I am working 'ard."

"About the last thing, Millwood, I should have expected you to do."

"A justifiable comment," he agreed. "I admit I was getting slack. Loafing about in a business like this, and only moving when somebody stopped outside to have a look at the furniture, was enough to make anyone become blassy, as our friends across the water would put it. I showed a card, I did--'Don't hope for the Best: come inside and get It'--but it didn't stimulate matters. Now I'm at the Arsenal. A mechanic at the Arsenal: that's what I am. Getting good money, and earning it. I come back here of an evening, jolly well fagged out, and uncommon pleased with myself. And now there's the chance of you making one of your sarcastic snacks that you're reckoned pretty good at."

"Millwood," frankly, "you have every reason to feel pleased with yourself."

"Thank you, Mary Weston. Wanted to get the idea, you see, that I was doing something useful."

"There are one or two matters I'd like to talk to you about, but, first of all, there's this shop. It's no use to you."

"It's a incubus," confessed Millwood.

"You are trying to get rid of it."

"Anyone can have it as a free gift, if they'll only let me go on living over'ead."

"I'll take it off your hands."

Directly I had said this, and Millwood had recovered from his surprise, he began to hedge; I expected this. He explained that the phrase "a free gift" was used in a metaphorical sense, and that if he had realised he was talking to a likely purchaser, he would, of course, have selected his words more carefully. Millwood was a haggler from long practise, and I was something of a bargainer by habit, and we spent a very pleasant hour in coming to terms, with, on the one side, an amount quoted at first above and beyond all expectations, and, on the other, a sum low enough to provide a margin for increase. In the end, we agreed, and Millwood said that, so help his goodness, I was a hard nut to crack if ever there was one, and I said of him that he was as artful as a waggon load of monkeys.

"I'd nearly forgotten something else I wanted to speak of," I said. "This Arsenal work. Do they want more hands there?"

"They're nearly full up, but there's still a chance. If it's any working man of your acquaintance, get him to hurry along."

"And I suppose if he has some skill in engineering, it makes a bit of difference."

"Makes all the difference," said Millwood. "The difference between being a mechanic like myself, and something a good deal better paid. I know a fitter there who's earning close upon four quid a week. The work is indispensable to the Government, and the Government doesn't mind paying for it. But it's no child's play, mind you!"

Millwood, in regard to the shop, suggested a letter should be written agreeing that he could retake possession when the war was over, or earlier.

From that moment I was as fully occupied as one desired to be; perhaps a trifle more. There came first the business of getting Mr. Hillier free of his cold, and here I missed the assistance, by day, of Miss Katherine; meanwhile I threw out hints concerning the Arsenal, and he showed interest in the description of some of the tasks performed there. He confessed that in leaving Chislehurst the greatest wrench had been the loss of the workshop. "The one place," said Mr. Hillier, "where I could forget everything else. It was drink, and golf, and smoke to me. If Mrs. Hillier nagged, or the girls bothered, or matters went wrong in the City, I had only to go down beyond the garage, and put on a yellow over-all, and, for the time being, I was someone else. Those experiences can never come again, Weston."

I provided some additional information regarding the Arsenal, spoke of the convenient train journey. You left Greenwich, and passed Maze Hill, Westcombe Park, Charlton, Woolwich Dockyard, and there you were at the Arsenal station. Fifteen minutes in the train.

I knew Mr. Hillier well enough, and I understood his temperament sufficiently to be aware that the idea would seem much more attractive if he had the impression that it was his own, and that it had not been forced upon him by anyone else. Later, he put some questions about Trades Unions, and I promised to make inquiries.

"There is no hurry," he remarked. "I asked only out of curiosity."

* * * * *

Master Edward arriving home from school, made an announcement that astonished me, and furnished a new task. I ought to have remembered that a boy leaves the County Council schools when he reaches the age of fourteen, but I had so much to think of that the fact escaped my notice; Mrs. Hillier, on hearing this excuse, said it seemed to her my intelligence was decaying. Miss Muriel had been invited to pay a visit to friends at Chislehurst, and I was relieved from the task of looking after her: Mr. Hillier was making a good recovery, and I hoped my scheme in regard to him might be successful; the shop in London Street was in the hands of a firm of decorators who had promised to be out of it within seven days, from the start, and had already been pottering about there for three weeks. And here came Master Edward thrown back from school upon my hands; it appeared to be understood at Gloucester Place that it was for me to arrange the launching of him into business life.

"What would you like to be?" I asked, sharply.

"Really don't know, Weston," he answered.

"But haven't you any bent, or inclination, or----"

"I fancy the pater's notion was that I should go in for the law."

"You'll have to do something useful," I declared. "Something that will bring in a few shillings a week, without delay."

"Most chaps have a holiday when they leave school."

"Not in these war times. Just now, the country wants everybody to work. Don't let me hear any nonsense talk of that nature."

"Wish I were old enough to do as John did, and join the army."

"My dear lamb," giving up my manner of severity, "you ought to be thankful that you're young enough to be out of all this terrible business. Haven't you seen the poor wounded soldiers limping about in the Park, and on Blackheath?"

"They look happy," said the boy.

I sent a postcard to William Richards, and he hurried down from Charing Cross so soon as he was off duty. We met at the station, and I first took him along to the shop, where the elderly workmen were startled by the fact that I had brought a companion; William Richards supported my arguments with some determined words that they seemed to understand better than the milder language which I used. He said they were a dashed lot of adjective mikers. He declared his intention of calling on their adjective governor, and dashed well taking the adjective job away, and giving it to some other adjective firm. He assured them they had every reason to be dashed well ashamed of themselves. William Richards wore a bowler hat to indicate that he was free of railway service, but underneath an overcoat was his brass buttoned uniform, and I think the decorator's men were impressed by the sight of this. The foreman urged they were doing all that mortals could be expected to do; contended that a job, to be carried out well, should be carried out with nothing like undue haste. William Richards waved these arguments aside, and used some more of his resolute denunciations.

"Look here, sir," said the old foreman. "We don't wish for no unpleasantness. All we want is to live and let live. In regard to this job, we'll get a move on, and I promise you we shall be clear and away by Friday evening."

"Friday noon," directed William Richards, "and not a minute later."

"Friday noon it shall be," agreed the other, "and it's been a pleasure to meet a gentleman who can express himself so clear as what you have done. Mind that pail as you go out, and see that your lady friend don't take off any of the wet paint on her skirts!"

We walked around the old-fashioned market off Nelson Street, where the names--Underwood, Austin, Gladwin, Goulding, and others reminded one of country days--and considered the case of Master Edward. William said that so many railway men had left to enlist, and so many more wished to go, that it was an easy matter for a lad to obtain employment. All the same, William shook his head in a doubtful way, and happening to discover as he talked the phrase of _infra dig_, used it liberally. He remembered the family as it existed at Chislehurst, and declared it would be _infra dig_ for any member of it, however youthful, to join the railway service. He could scarcely imagine that a gentleman who had once been a first class season ticket holder would become so _infra dig_ as to allow his son to go in for railway work. The railways were not intended for _infra dig_ people. In his opinion _infra digs_ ought to offer themselves to loftier occupations.

"Go back at once to headquarters at London Bridge," I ordered. "Get a form of application, and send it to me by this evening's post. And thank you very much, William Richards, for being kind enough to help."

"I'd do more than this for you, Mary Weston," he said. "And well you know it."

Master Edward was sensible over the business, and rather pleased to be engaged on something like a conspiracy. We said no word about it to any of the others, and on a day when Mr. Hillier had gone out with the remark that he did not expect to return until late, I obtained permission to take the boy to London on the pretence of seeing the recruiting on Horse Guards Parade, and listening to any bands that might be playing. The application form had been endorsed by the head master at the schools, and by Millwood. At the head offices, Master Edward was told that he could start work on probation the following morning in a booking office at a suburban station: wages ten shillings a week.

"Bright looking lad, that son of yours," remarked a senior clerk, as I was waiting.

"He's not my son."

"A nephew, perhaps."

"Not a nephew."

"I see," he remarked. "You're just a friend of the family."

It occurred to me there were some grounds for hoping that this was not altogether an inaccurate description.

The announcement was made to Mrs. Hillier that evening and, fortunately, Miss Katherine arrived home from the bank in good time, and ready and willing to support the action taken. Mrs. Hillier complained that she was being treated as though she were a mere nonentity in the household, declared that it was high time Weston learnt her right place, and was made to keep in it, and to refrain from assuming responsibilities that, correctly speaking, belonged to others: Master Edward had described his own satisfaction with the arrangement, and Miss Katherine was inviting her mother to recognise the facts of the case, when Mr. Hillier came up the staircase, taking two steps at a time, and whistling as he entered the room.

"I've obtained a berth at the Arsenal," he announced, cheerfully, "and I feel as happy as a sand boy. Give me your congratulations, my dear."

"No," said his wife, distantly. "No, I cannot do that. That, James, is impossible. But I willingly extend to you my most earnest sympathy."

The last post brought a letter from Chislehurst which induced her to regard events with a slightly diminished amount of gloom. It gave the news that Miss Muriel was engaged. "I hope the man has money," said Mrs. Hillier. "I think we can trust Muriel for that. And, at any rate, it saves her from the peril of going on the stage!"