CHAPTER VII

We all went slightly off our heads that evening at Gloucester Place. At first, there was a misapprehension on my side to be removed: I had forgotten that Lille was in the hands of the Germans, although the superscription of the card ought to have made this obvious; explanations made it clear to me now that Master John was a wounded prisoner, and that we should probably not see the dear lad again until the war finished. Master Edward, when he came home, was still so greatly excited that he omitted, for an hour, to tell us that he was about to be transferred to the head offices at London Bridge, where his hours would be fixed and regular, and escape effected from hot tempered and argumentative passengers. The recommending word of the superintendent's wife and his own engaging manner had to be thanked for the swift promotion. We regretted the absence of Miss Muriel; if she had been with us our party could have been reckoned complete.

"Really didn't think we should hear of him again," admitted Mr. Hillier. "With every desire to hope for the best, I had come to the conclusion John was lost to us."

"It will be something to tell the girls at the bank," mentioned Miss Katherine. "They have been inquiring every day, and they meant it well, I know, but it only seemed to remind me of--Anyhow," brightly, "the suspense is over. Let us be musical. We haven't lifted up our tuneful voices in song for a long time past."

"There's no piano," I remarked.

"Unaccompanied," directed Miss Katherine. "Edward, my laddie, if you have gone past the stage when you didn't know whether you were going to give out a high note or a low one, you make a start. Anything, except Tipperary."

We were joining in a chorus when a rap sounded at the door. I answered it, and, seeing the old lady and gentleman of the ground floor, assumed at once that they had come up to protest against the noise.

"Beg your pardon," said the elderly gentleman, "but--my wife and myself--we're rather quiet people."

"The singing shall be stopped at once, sir."

"By no means," he cried, urgently. "Pray do nothing of the sort. We are here to ask you if you would kindly leave your door open. Our sense of hearing is not so good as it was, and we want to learn the words of some of the popular songs of the day."

"Are you serious?" I asked, incredulously.

"Bless my soul, no," he chuckled. "We're not serious. We enjoy life. We're rather lonely, it's true, but apart from that you can look upon us as the most frivolous young couple this side of the river." He turned to his wife. "Always have been, haven't we, my sweet?"

"We married for love," whispered the old lady to me, nodding her head.

They had the appearance of people in fancy dress--she with ringlets and a lace cap, and a silk dress that, as my mother used to say of a remembered costume of the same quality, could have stood by itself, and he with large collar, black stock, heavy watch chain and fob, velvet jacket, shepherd's plaid trousers.

"Our compliments to your young folk," he said, with a bow, "and our apologies for interfering."

"You, like ourselves," she remarked, "are fortunate in having no relative engaged in this terrible war. Few have such cause to be thankful. We wish you good evening."

Mrs. Hillier came forward, and, breaking the rule which she had laid down regarding communication with neighbours, joined in the discussion, gave the news concerning Master John. The old gentleman, greatly interested, offered congratulations, and excusing himself, left his wife to go on with the talk. She with many antiquated protests--

"But I shall be discommoding you, I fear."

"I hope you will not look upon it in the light of an intrusion."

"Pray do not fail to tell me when to go."

Accepted the invitation to enter the sitting room, and giving a curtsey, felicitated Miss Katherine upon her singing, spoke of Madame Jenny Lind, Mario, Grisi, Sims Reeves. We were in the sixties, and forgetting all about the current year and its troubles, when she stopped suddenly. A jingling sound was heard from the landing.

"Do you mind," she said to me, "helping Captain Winterton? He is not quite so active in household duties as he used to be. I myself am just the same that I always was, but I perceive a change in him."

Captain Winterton had brought up a large silver tray that I coveted the moment I caught sight of it; the tray bore decanters of cut glass that would have looked well on the shelves at London Street; a cigar case had a flourished inscription announcing it was a testimonial from the passengers of sailing vessel _Magnitude_. The old gentleman wore now an embroidered smoking cap with a tassel.

"Sir," he said, giving up the tray to me, and addressing Mr. Hillier, "this is a great liberty, and no one knows it better than I do, but the circumstances must be held responsible. A few beverages, selected by me on my many travels, and I want you, sir, and the ladies, if they will be so good, to favour me with their opinion on them."

I went off to cut sandwiches. When I returned he was near the fire-place, making a speech. Old Mrs. Winterton beckoned to me. "Remarkably gifted," she whispered. "So much experience, you see, on board his ship. This is the only time I've heard him speak about the war." She laid a finger on her lips to enjoin perfect silence.

"--Goes off to fight for his country's welfare," Captain Winterton was saying, in the full enjoyment of oratory, "and fights, I'll be bound to say, like a gallant and determined Englishman. And although he appears to be now suffering from his honorable wounds, and is detached from his comrades, and his friends, I am sure he has the consolation of knowing that they are all thinking of him with affection and sincere regard, and looking forward to the joyful day when he shall again find himself among them. I drink to the elder son of this estimable family. I wish him a quick recovery, a safe and a glorious return."

I think Captain Winterton was slightly disappointed to find that he had succeeded in making no one cry but his wife: he assured Mrs. Hillier that in his happiest moments and his most successful efforts on the last day of a lengthy voyage, you might look around at the tables when he had spoken after dinner, and fail to discover a single dry eye.

"I may be out of practise," he suggested, wistfully. Mrs. Hillier assured him that she felt more touched by his remarks than she cared to show. He said that as time went on, one was bound to recognise alterations and differences; as to himself, he could perceive no great change in the last thirty years, but he feared Mrs. Winterton was exhibiting some of the marks of age.

"My sweet," to his wife, "we mustn't outstay our welcome."

"My dearest," she agreed, "there is your beauty sleep to be remembered."

"You are not going to hurry away like this," protested Mr. Hillier. "Recollect that we so rarely get visitors, nowadays."

Mrs. Winterton spoke of the period when she mixed in the best society that the neighbourhood afforded. Greenwich, she said proudly, was Greenwich in those times, and held up its head, bless you, and saw the aristocrats coming down to dine at the Ship; carriages arrived from London bringing the finest in the land, and the railway was still something like a novelty. Master Edward had seen at the head offices an aged picture of the earliest trains leaving London Bridge to the music of a band; the old lady said very precisely that this she had heard, but she had no personal knowledge of the occurrence, and Captain Winterton rallied her good-temperedly on the question of her age. "My sweet likes to be thought," he remarked to us, "as on the sunny side of eighty, but I can remember that when I first met her she called herself seventeen, and that was in the year of the great Exhibition in Hyde Park, and I could tell you what she wore at the time. She'd got on the prettiest little poke bonnet--you don't see anything so attractive in these days, if this young lady here will forgive me for saying so--a full flounced skirt and a waist so small that I could nearly go twice around it with my arm--" Mrs. Winterton took her husband off, and returned for the tray, and to explain that her husband's memory was failing, especially in regard to dates.

A few weeks earlier, and Mrs. Hillier would have resented the call from the elderly pair of the ground floor; now, she made friends with them, running down sometimes to have a chat with old Mrs. Winterton, and delighted when the Captain made a visit, bringing daffodils, "With respectful inquiries, ma'am, and hoping you continue to have good news of your boy." The best service they did to my mistress was in taking her mind from the war. It seemed that they were too advanced in years to give their mind to events of the day, however important and enormous these might be; they lived in the past, and to them we were all nothing but children with memories covering a brief period only. To Miss Katherine they became specially attached, although Mrs. Winterton could not approve of the idea of a girl engaging herself in commercial affairs; she spoke with pride of the days when no young women of good position had any other prospect or hope but that of marriage. To me, she confided a secret which I was not to disclose to a soul, or ask whence the information had been obtained; it was that on the day that the first woman was entrusted with, and exercised, the power of voting, on that day the world would undoubtedly come to an end.

"A great pity, of course," she said, nodding her ringlets and dismissing the topic, "but it can't be helped, and there you are, and that's all about it!"

Miss Katherine followed Master Edward's success by gaining a transfer to the correspondence office, where figures were less intrusive, and the work more varied. The weekly income at Gloucester Place was now as follows:

Mr. Hillier £1 17 6 Miss Katherine 1 10 0 Master Edward 15 0

We were able to settle up tradesmen's books promptly; there was some talk of a holiday to be taken, months later on, but economy had to be observed, and one of the improvements in Mrs. Hillier was noticeable in the fact that she now heartily supported my efforts in this direction. No more cards arrived from Master John. We wrote to him regularly to the care of the Information Bureau at Berlin, taking pains to give nothing but domestic news, and we hoped he was receiving these communications. At the Post Office I was told it would be useless to send parcels until he came out of the hospital; I was also assured it was unnecessary to do so, and from other quarters we gained that the hardships over there did not begin until the wounded men were away from medical treatment. Herbert sent me a cheery letter saying that he was back in the trenches, and mentioning that there was a chance that he might get his third stripe. Answering my question, he said that he knew Quartermaster-Sergeant Cartwright, and described him as a chap who thought a good deal of himself. My own estimation of Cartwright was not diminished by this, and I began to forward _Punch_ to him each week, and the Quartermaster-Sergeant occasionally sent me one of the printed cards with everything crossed out excepting the line,

"I am quite well."

And

"Letter follows at first opportunity."

By asking Herbert what Cartwright was like, I meant that I wanted a description of his appearance. In the absence of particulars, this had to be left to the imagination. Miss Katherine pictured him as a tall man, florid and stout, with an enormous moustache, and using language at which she could but hint.

"Dismiss this particular romance from your thoughts, dear Weston," she counselled. "Concentrate your mind, instead, upon your railway guard."

"You and your nonsense!" I exclaimed. "There's precious little chance of me getting married to William Richards or to anyone else. My opportunities never have been great, and now they are less than ever. And it doesn't matter so much, for some of us, but I do feel sorry, when I look at the casualty lists each morning, for young ladies like yourself. Luckily, in your case, there is no one out there that you're especially fond of."

Miss Katherine said something in regard to the latest fashions. Hearts, she mentioned, were no longer worn upon sleeves.

* * * * *

There were several matters, and many views, and some fears, in those days which we kept from each other; the young people had long since given up at Gloucester Place the old habit of reciting dreams at the breakfast table. In my own case, I found that, awaking at three o'clock in the night, it was possible to consider the most dismal and gloomy aspect of everything. At that hour, all the good news was forgotten, and nothing but disaster could be anticipated. By day, there was generally some encouraging placard to be seen, and the announcement given, though not always based on fact, was undeniably cheering. ("Only two forts left in the Dardanelles," was one of these, I remember.) But in the small hours, Dreadnoughts were sunk by the dozen, U boats were doing as they pleased, German forces again came near to Paris; the enemy's navy was steaming up the Thames, and bombarding the college at Greenwich; my nephew Herbert had been killed by a hand grenade, and Master John was being kicked and starved. When these pleasing incidents ceased to dance about in my brain, there was always the business in London Street to offer a possibility of disaster. The number of times that, in my imagination, I saw the name of Mary Weston, spinster, figuring amongst the names in the list of receiving orders from the London Gazette, cannot be reckoned.

Water carts came out, and the green chairs were set in Greenwich Park, spring flowers made their bow, Gloucester Place brightened itself, children at the L.C.C. schools behind The Circus played their games more shrilly, and the river took on a cheerful air that had been absent throughout the winter. My brother-in-law Millwood, at the shop, complained that Peter's industry left him with no scope for exercise of the mind or body, and I sent him, with his walking stick, on a hobbling tour around the neighbourhood, and invested him with a task which I described precisely. He was to make a list, in no case was the sum to be higher than ten pounds, and in most instances the amount was to be less. Then I inserted an advertisement in a Woolwich journal that had a circulation amongst the Arsenal workers; a well displayed advertisement with a note to the effect that it would not appear again. The Chance of a Lifetime, it was headed, and it announced that Weston's had been fortunate enough to secure some Magnificent Bargains in the shape of Second Hand Pianofortes by Well Known Makers. Satisfaction Guaranteed. Do not Delay. A Rare Opportunity for Lovers of Music.

I have no wish to exaggerate the results of this notice, but I can say with truth that Millwood, and young Peter, and myself, had a busy time. There was plenty of money being earned in Woolwich, and all of it did not go in wastefulness, as some folk suggested: there were many families where the desire was to improve the interior of households. We became a sort of clearing house for pianofortes, exchanging them from establishments affected adversely by the war, and passing them on, by pantechnicon vans, to those where incomes had been improved. I remember an Arsenal man and his wife and young daughter called one day to make a purchase: they examined the cases only, and made no attempt to try the keyboard. They were puzzled which to buy of two that seemed to them equally attractive.

"Look 'ere, old gel," he said, at last to his wife. "One will look rather lonely. We'll take both." And this they did, paying the money down.

There was one attractive baby grand that Millwood picked up at rather above the limit fixed, and I arranged to have it delivered at Gloucester Place. It arrived there just as daylight was going, at seven o'clock. Miss Katherine had received but few tokens to call attention to her birthday, and one could not help guessing that she might be comparing it with previous anniversaries. A welcome card had come from Master John; she declared that this, in itself, was the best present any one could require. "Still in hospital," he wrote. "Leg progressing slowly. Am fairly cheerful."

The men with the van had done so much work on my account that they tackled the difficulties of the job in a determined and breezy way; they reached the landing of the first floor watched by the old Captain, who gave advice in seafaring terms that they did not pretend to understand. Miss Katherine came out.

"Weston, my child," she exclaimed, "they will never manage to get that beautiful instrument up to your rooms."

"They'd better not try, miss. It's for you, wishing you, with all my heart, many happy years."

"But," she stammered, taken aback, "you really mustn't, you know, do extravagant actions like this, dear soul, in war times."

"There's no one, Miss Katherine, in a position to dictate to me how I shall spend my money." She tried to conceal her emotion by making some reference to the Quartermaster-Sergeant.

There could be no doubt that the new pianoforte--new to the Hilliers, anyway--did manage to cheer and brighten up the establishment. Now that Miss Katherine and Master Edward were exempt from the direction of music teachers, they practised and played of their own will instead of being driven to the keyboard. The family began to talk of other additions in the way of furniture, to be exhibited as a surprise and a gratification to Master John when he returned. Mrs. Hillier admitted to me that she was becoming as house-proud as she had been in the early days of her married life.

And into the comfortable group suddenly arrived Miss Muriel. Miss Muriel, fresh from the large house of her friends at Chislehurst, and losing no time in complaining of the want of room at Gloucester Place, of Weston's position of equality at table, of her father's appearance when he returned from the Arsenal, and indeed of everything that lent itself to criticism. She was allowed a free tongue at first, but when she returned to the grievance that concerned me, her mother interposed. Miss Muriel followed me out of the room, and offered a kind of defiant apology.

"What's wrong, miss?" I inquired. "You were always rather difficult, but I should have thought that this war--"

"I am under no obligation to the war."

"Few of us are, but we can't help being influenced by it. People who, before it started, had good expectations, find themselves with none, and folk who used to be on their beam ends, so to speak, are now doing well. It's all according to whether a person is of any real use, or not."

"I can't pretend," said Miss Muriel, "to be greatly interested in the fortune of others. To compensate for that, I am enormously interested in my own."

"We are all hoping, miss, that your engagement has been cancelled."

"An amiable wish," she retorted, "that has been anticipated by events. Mr. Schloss is interned. Interned by the astonishing authorities of this country."

"Very glad to hear it," I said, genuinely. "And now that you are amongst us again, I trust you'll make yourself as amiable as possible, and we, on our side, will try to recognise that it's hard on you, miss, to have been disappointed in love."

"Not disappointed in love, Weston. Disappointed in money would be a more correct phrase."

"Upon my word!" I exclaimed warmly. "I can't make it out at all. I'm sometimes inclined to look on you as a bit of a freak."

"At last," said Miss Muriel, "I have achieved a notable success. I have contrived to make our Weston really angry. No one can say now that I have lived in vain."

The others, as has been hinted, had adopted the habit of looking after themselves, but Miss Muriel exacted from me all the attention to which she had a right in the old days. I found myself doing lady's maid work. She did not do a hand's stroke in any of the domestic tasks. She bewailed the circumstance that her friends at Chislehurst, answering her appeal, wrote that they regretted it was impossible to offer a fresh invitation; I pointed out to Miss Muriel that it was always an error in tactics to remain at people's house for an undue length of time. In her trunk, I found a packet, carefully sealed, and I put a question regarding the contents; she recommended that I should mind my own business. Later, she mentioned that the parcel held documents which she believed were of high importance, and asked whether at London Street there happened to be a fire-proof safe.

"I can get one," I said. "Been thinking about purchasing one for some while past. After our experience at The Croft, we can't be too careful."

"Take charge of the packet now, Weston," she begged. "The responsibility will be off my mind."

"Do I understand that you don't actually know what is inside?"

"I can trust you," she said, after a moment's pause. "You are queer, but you are reliable. Mr. Schloss gave this to me just before the police called on him. I promised to look after it until all the trouble was over. And that cannot be long now."

I bought a good second-hand safe, and Peter took a leather, and polished up the brass handle, and the cover of the lock; set in a corner of the shop it would give a solid, business-like look calculated to impress people who came to inspect furniture. Whilst the lad was engaged on the work, my attention was taken by a group from Charlton who had called to see about a pianoforte; the woman who desired to buy had brought with her half a dozen experts made up of female relatives and neighbours. When they had gone, I turned and found Millwood and Peter endeavouring to move the heavy safe to the place chosen for it.

"Mind that packet on the floor!" I cried.

The safe, in moving, crunched over the parcel entrusted to me by Miss Muriel, smashing the seals. I contrived to make the two understand what I thought of such clumsy behaviour; Peter offered to obtain a stick of wax from the shop not far off, and declared confidence in his ability to repair the damage. Millwood said it was a good job the parcel contained nothing of a breakable nature.

It was sheer curiosity that induced me to look at the papers inside; I found little to repay me, for the letters were all written in a language I did not understand. Millwood was prepared to take his oath that the language was German.

"You'd best be careful, Mary Weston," he said. "You mind out what you're a doing of. Otherwise you'll find yourself at the Tower. They don't make no bones about shooting nobody, not nowadays, they don't!" Millwood was giving more advice, when William Richards looked in. The two men never liked each other; in earlier days they always wrangled on political subjects, and now, in view of the truce agreed upon regarding these topics, Millwood, with the comment of "Hullo! Not dead yet, then?" went into the back room.

William Richards wanted news of Herbert, and of Master John. He hoped the Germans would deal with Master John fairly, but admitted he could not trust them in this or in any other particular. When we had discussed the subject, I told him about the parcel, submitted the documents. William shook his head gravely. "If only Dickenson was here!" he said. It appeared that Dickenson was a uniformed interpreter, known to William, and for the number of languages with which Dickenson was acquainted you needed the fingers of both hands, and the thumbs as well.

"Look here, Mary Weston," he said. "Hand 'em over to me. Just as they are. You shan't be dragged into the affair. I shall tell Dickenson I found the parcel on the floor of a second-class smoking. If they're nothing more than love letters, or business communications, you shall have 'em back!" Peter arrived with the sealing wax, but we decided that the present condition of the parcel should remain.

* * * * *

Mr. Schloss was tried a few weeks later on a charge of attempting to deal with the enemy, and he received a sentence of twelve months hard labour. Miss Muriel, terrified and penitent, begged me to destroy the parcel she had confided to my care, lest the contents should have any bearing on the matter, and, in promising her that she might depend upon me, I gave her about the straightest talking to that she had ever received in the whole course of her existence.

"It will be a lesson to me," she declared penitently.

"But some of you," I remarked, "want such a lot of teaching!"

* * * * *

Old Captain Winterton, in his determination not to discuss war news, fell back on reminiscences, and if he sometimes told these more than once, the Hillier family nevertheless gave him their attention; although he talked in an elaborate manner, they made no attempt to interrupt. I could not help comparing their Greenwich methods with those adopted at Chislehurst. He had three anecdotes and to these his wife listened eagerly and expectantly, sometimes whispering to me, after the twentieth or so repetition,

"You'll like this, Miss Weston."

And.

"This is new to you, I expect."

She joined in the expressions of amusement with great heartiness. The first story was of the lady who feared that if the storm continued she might find herself in Heaven, and wanted to be re-assured. ("Depends on the life you've led, madam.") The second was of the sailor who reported that Jim Bates had been blown overboard. ("And that ain't the worst, cap'en. He's took my pail with him!") The third was so long and so much involved, and required such an amount of preliminary description that the old fellow never reached the point of it, and we, at times, wondered if any point existed. I liked him best when he described Greenwich, at Easter, in the old days at the period when Richardson's Fair was held at the end of what is still known as Tea-pot Row, although its proper name is King William Street, and all the tag, rag and bob-tail came from far and near, and to carry a watch in one's pocket was to make a present of it to somebody with light fingers, and the taverns did a roaring trade; all this, it appeared, came to an end in '57. Of the time when London folk drove down in hackney coaches, and the men wore veils to their white top hats, and the ladies wore crinolines, and they had joyous hours at the Ship or the Trafalgar, and gave incredible tips to waiters, and started for home singing "Slap bang, here we are again!" Of more demure parties of statesmen who came, once a year, by steamer, from near to Westminster Bridge, and were reported to chat over the table of other matters than Cabinet secrets, and to consume quantities of old port, and, at any rate, returned in a sleepy condition, ignoring the cheers raised by their local supporters, and the groans given by their opponents. Of crime connected with the borough--

"Love," interposed Mrs. Winterton, "be careful not to shock the young ladies!"

"I will be most cautious, sweet!"

And, in particular, of one Charles Peace whose real name, it seemed, was John Warne, and who on a night in October shot three times at Constable Robinson in an avenue leading from St. John's Park to Blackheath; shot with a revolver that was strapped around Peace's wrist. Captain Winterton had learnt, word for word, the statement made by Peace when Mr. Justice Hawkins asked him whether he had anything to say why sentence should not be passed upon him, and the old chap spared us nothing of this, from--"I have not been fairly dealt with, and I declare before God that I never had any intention to kill the prosecutor--" to "So, my Lord, have mercy upon me; my lord, have mercy upon me!" Peace lived for a time at Greenwich, in a well-furnished house where he sometimes gave musical evenings.

"I always give myself the satisfaction," said Captain Winterton, with relish, "of gazing at the dwelling whenever I happen to pass that way."

If he began to tell the story of the murder of Jane Maria Clousen--discussed and debated at Greenwich to this hour, because no one was hanged for it--Mrs. Winterton placed hands over her ears. Miss Clousen it seemed was, in '71, a domestic servant in the employment of a Greenwich printer; she was found in Kidbrooke Lane, Eltham, on the edge of death, murmuring, "Oh my poor head, oh my poor head!" and the acquittal of a young man, charged with the crime, was followed by noisy and disorderly gatherings outside his father's house, and proceedings at law for libel.

Captain Winterton had, too, political reminiscences of the borough, and of the time when it was notably represented in Parliament, and we had excerpts from Mr. Gladstone's speech on Blackheath, and from Mr. Gladstone's farewell address at the Ship Hotel, and a description of the wonderful moment when Mr. Gladstone said to Captain Winterton, "And what, pray, is your view in regard to the future of our mercantile marine?" and did not wait for an answer, but instead furnished his own opinions on the subject. And we listened (none so eagerly or so absorbedly as Mrs. Winterton) to the Captain's account of the _Princess Alice_ disaster of '78 at Becton Reach near Woolwich, and in the technical details--was the _Bywell Castle_ to blame, or did the _Princess Alice_ starboard her helm, when she ought to have done something else?--in all this, I found myself at first bewildered, then semi-detached, and finally my thoughts went to London Street, and prices of the articles of furniture stored there.