The Amazing Years

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The Amazing Years

by

W. Pett Ridge

Author of "Mord Em'ly" "69 Birnam Road" etc.

Hodder And Stoughton London New York Toronto MCMXVII.

The Amazing Years

Chapter I

Mrs. Hillier said something just before lunch that touched me more than she could have guessed. The family was to leave on the Saturday, and the elder of the two young ladies--Miss Muriel--had grumbled throughout the week because of the delay insisted upon by the master. The departure had originally been fixed for the twenty-fifth; Mr. Hillier, who seldom spoke at home, but when he did talk expected to be obeyed, announced that the party would not cross the Channel until the first. That would be two days before the Bank Holiday, and Miss Muriel foresaw discomforts arising from over-crowded compartments, carriages reserved for the incredible Polytechnic folk and the impossible Lunn trippers. Mrs. Hillier, as I managed with some difficulty to turn the key of a trunk, put her hand on my shoulder.

"Weston," she remarked, impulsively, "I wish you were coming with us."

"Ma'am," I said, "I don't like the sea, and I can't endure foreigners. Furthermore, a woman like myself, knowing only the English language, would be simply a hindrance."

"Wherever you found yourself," she declared, "you'd contrive to make yourself understood. Who is coming here to stay with you whilst we are away?"

"Thought, ma'am, of asking my young nephew. He's just got a scholarship, and the month's rest will do him good."

One of the maids knocked and came in to ask me whether she should sound the gong. Mrs. Hillier's manner altered at once. She gave definite instructions regarding the tying on of the blue labels that had been specially printed by a firm at Sidcup Hill, commented sharply on the condition of Master Edward's laundry, and mentioned that the working classes were becoming intolerably careless. When the maid had gone, she turned to me again.

"Weston," she said. "I'm worried about this trip. Before, I've felt confidence in your master to see us through any difficulty. He's been a sort of a dependable courier, and though he can't have relished the holiday, it's been at any rate a change for him. But lately--Oh I don't know," she broke off. "Perhaps I'm wrong."

Talk at lunch, I noticed, was devoted to the coming journey. The conversation could not be described as good tempered: it needed the presence of Master John to ensure anything like cheerfulness, and you might have assumed that the three, instead of going for a holiday, were about to engage upon one of the most trying and distasteful tasks of a lifetime. I had come into the family when it lived in Tressillian Road, Brockley, and Miss Muriel was twelve--that was ten years before--and Miss Katherine eight. A dear little soul Miss Katherine was too at that time, with her doll's perambulator, and her hoop, and a nursery not over furnished. There came Mr. Hillier's good luck in the City with the agency in Basinghall Street, and we moved to The Croft, where I was told to make no reference to Brockley, and to disclose to the maids of the house, or to the servants at any other house, no particulars of early days that had been imparted to me in confidence or gained by observation. It was little Miss Katherine's fault that I did not go from the family when Mr. Hillier went up in the world. It means a lot for a woman to be near a child--near any child--who can put its arms around her neck, and hug her.

"Dover and Calais," Miss Muriel was saying, as I directed the parlour maid to bring in the sweets.

"Folkestone and Boulogne," announced Mrs. Hillier.

"Dover and Calais is the shorter route, mother, dear."

"There's very little difference, darling, and one saves on the land journey."

"I shall tell father," declared Miss Muriel, "that unless we travel by way of Dover and Calais, I prefer not to go at all. Kitty, you agree with me, I'm sure."

"Your sister," said Mrs. Hillier, "has the good sense to take my view."

"I vote," remarked Miss Katherine, "for Newhaven and Dieppe, and I bet a large red apple that's the way we take." She hummed something about Yo ho, yo ho, a sailor's bride I'd be, and live for ever gaily on the bounding sea. Her mother requested her not to sing at table, and pointed out that the wives of seamen invariably lived on shore.

"Let Weston decide," suggested Miss Muriel. "Come along, Weston. This is where you come in, in the usual way, as peacemaker."

"'To foil their plans,'" said Miss Katherine, quoting from last year's pantomime, "'we now bring upon the scene, The villain's foe, our friend the Fairy Queen.'"

"If it was my case," I said, "I should wait until there was a Channel tunnel." It proved to be not the first time that I had managed, by disagreeing with all three, to check an argument.

Master Edward came home from Blackheath soon after six, and brought a new subject for consideration. He had enjoyed a good day in watching Kent play, and Kent had done well; in my room he rattled off the figures exultantly. Humphreys 45, Hardinge 86, Seymour 66, A.P. Day 55 and so on; three hundred and forty-nine in all. "Let's see Surrey beat that!" he remarked, defiantly. The boy took the brass shovel from the empty fire-place, and described some of the most important hits of the game. I reminded him of his own score of twenty-five, not out, performed on the ground of his boarding school at Westgate, and we had a serious talk concerning the wise life to lead: Master Edward thought mere education was very much over-rated, and declared he would rather be Mr. Troughton, captain of Kent, than a science master at a college. I was unable to go all the way with him, and suggested, as a compromise, that games should be cultivated in moderation.

"But you see, my tall old bird," he said, persuasively, "you're only a woman. I don't say you can't throw a ball in straight, because, as it happens, it's one of the things you can just manage to do; but apart from that--Realise what I mean, don't you?"

Contention about the route came up again at dinner, when Mr. Hillier took the foot of the table, crumbling his bread in the absent-minded manner he had recently adopted. Sometimes the evening meal went through, I noticed, without a syllable from him, and when the savoury came he would give a nod of apology to his wife, and go off to his workshop at the back of the house. On this particular Thursday night he was cross-examined by Miss Muriel with severity concerning the question of tickets, and he admitted he had not yet secured them. Miss Muriel gave a picture of the rush, and tumult, and hurry-scurry at the station; the most cheerful detail seemed to be that father would undoubtedly be left behind. I was absent from the dining room in order to see that his two pipes were filled, that, in the study, the cigars set out in case any one should call; the liqueur stand had to be replenished, and I suppose ten minutes had gone when I returned. I found everyone talking--excepting, of course, the master--everyone shouting at the top of the voice, everyone begging the others to be silent.

"Weston," said Mrs. Hillier. ("Keep quiet, all of you. Impossible to hear oneself speak with all this din going on. Edward, I forbid you to say another word. Muriel, I'm surprised at you.) Weston, I want to ask you something." She rapped her forehead with her knuckles. "So much chatter that it's no wonder thoughts go out of my head." The rest declined to give the cue. "Oh, I remember. Have you heard any rumours about trouble on the Continent?"

"Only what I've read in the papers, ma'am."

"There!" she said, triumphantly to her husband. "Now perhaps you'll leave off throwing out these foolish suggestions that you have somehow got into your head. You speak before you think, James. I've warned you about it previously. You men in the City meet at lunch time, and over your chop, and your bottle of wine----"

"I always have a cup of coffee, and a piece of shortbread."

"And on that," she remarked, changing the subject, "you expect to keep well. Why don't you have a sensible meal at mid-day, the same as I do? It's very difficult," she said to the girls, "very difficult indeed to knock any sense into men."

Mr. Hillier rose, I opened the door. Miss Katherine followed him to whisper something consoling.

"Don't dare forget to see about the tickets to-morrow, father," directed Miss Muriel.

"I'll make inquiries," he said.

Colonel Edgington called later and I switched on the lights in the billiard room, took off the cloth, chalked two cues, and summoned the master from the workshop. I asked Mr. Hillier whether I should remain in the billiard room and look after the scoring board; he said, "Thank you, Weston, no. We shan't want to bother you this evening." As I was going, he called me. "Afraid," he went on, apologetically, "that we trouble you too much in this establishment. We get into the habit of depending upon you, Weston." I said, "Not at all, sir!" and left. At eleven, when Colonel Edgington had gone, I found that spot white had made four, and plain white had scored nothing. It looked as though the game had been interfered with by discussion. Home Rule probably. The Colonel came from the north of Ireland, and he held strong views on the subject; I knew from the papers that a four days' conference at Buckingham Palace had failed to settle the question. Apart from the condition of the scoring board, it was strange that the Colonel had not touched his tumbler of whiskey. I went over the house to see to the locking up, and encountered on one of the landings, the master: he was gazing out at the fine summer night and I expected he would make some casual remarks concerning the stars.

"Seven," he remarked, in a dreamy way. "Seven, Watson, seven."

"More than that, sir, surely."

"More later on," he agreed. "But seven is the number of Stock Exchange firms that failed yesterday."

The next day was cheerful, only in regard to the weather. Master Edward came home from the cricket ground to announce in a dismal manner that Hayward and Hobbs were doing astonishingly well for Surrey; I had to remind him that a match was not finished until the stumps were drawn on the last day. Several ladies had called during the afternoon, and they brought all sorts of wild rumours with them that Mrs. Hillier found extremely upsetting. One said she had heard from a bookstall boy at the station that the Bank of England was going to close its doors. Another had been told by her gardener that the Germans would probably land at Dover, after they had dealt with France, and march up through Kent, taking Chislehurst on the way, and this she regretted the more because her gladioli were very fine and likely, but for interference, to do well at the flower show. A third was able to give, as a more reliable piece of information, the announcement that her German governess, who had been with the family for years, and knew how to manage difficult children, had disappeared; it was found she had taken the train for Dover.

Mr. Hillier was bombarded with questions on these and other subjects so soon as he arrived. Generally he travelled from Cannon Street by the four forty-eight, which did the journey in half an hour, and his time for reaching the house was five thirty. He reached home on this Friday by a quarter past four.

"I don't know anything," he said. "I can't tell you any more than the man in the moon."

"Apparently you are able to tell less," remarked his wife.

"Perhaps," said Miss Muriel, "you can at least contrive to say, father, at what time we start to-morrow morning."

"Oh, that!" he remarked, calling the subject back to his memory. "Oh, we don't go to-morrow. I thought it was understood."

Miss Katherine stood by him, but the others raised their voices in indignant protests. Mrs. Hillier begged that he would, for once, listen calmly, and endeavour to understand that when trunks were packed, and preparations made, it was simply nonsense to say that the holiday was not to be taken; she implored him also to consider the talk that would go on in Chislehurst. Miss Muriel said that so far as she was concerned, she intended to go alone, and the others could follow when and as they pleased. Master Edward suggested it was rotten bad luck to be disappointed; he could not imagine the sort of tale he would have to make up on returning to Westgate after a blank and empty holiday.

"Besides," urged Mrs. Hillier, triumphantly, "there's John!"

"John I saw this afternoon," said Mr. Hillier. (You must understand that they all talked freely whilst I was about; if one of the maids put in an appearance, then, of course, they used more care). "John and I had a long talk. He expected to have a couple of songs out next month, and he's afraid all this trouble may delay them. Anyway, he wants to stay on, and see what happens. He's coming here this afternoon."

The elder son of the family had recently taken rooms in town; we all knew the songs he had composed, from myself down to the scullery-maid, and everyone in the house was looking forward to his next. I remember I felt more concerned at hearing the deliberate announcement of Master John's intentions than at anything else which was happening, and the others, too, seemed impressed by it. They left Mr. Hillier alone. The evening was very quiet, the grand pianoforte did not find itself opened. On the Saturday morning the master went up to Cannon Street, and came back before noon. He told me he heard the Stock Exchange had been closed an hour after it opened, and in regard to his own business in Basinghall Street, where he represented an important Austrian firm, nothing was being done.

"By the bye, Weston," he said, "there used to be something in the house that I don't seem able to find. You would know where it is if anybody does." I waited for him to explain. "I mean," he said, rather confusedly, "a revolver."

"Whenever Master Edward is home for his holidays, sir, I always take the liberty of putting that where no one but myself can find it."

"Very wise," he agreed. "But where is it exactly? You see," persuasively, "if we're going to be attacked, why we must be prepared to sell our lives dearly, eh?"

"We're not going to sell our lives, sir, and we're not going to give them away either. We must keep calm, and not do anything foolish, or even think of doing anything foolish, on the spur of the moment. If trouble's coming, we've got to face it."

"Quite so, quite so, quite so!" He looked at me for a while, and I looked at him. "Quite so!" he remarked once more. And began to hum. He had no ear for music, and the playing and singing of the young ladies were always endured by him with a pained air, but I never heard him or any other man hum a tune more incorrectly than he did on that occasion. It was a relief when Master John walked up the drive, and took his father at once for a run in the car. What Mr. Hillier required was fresh air, and sensible, male companionship.

We were more animated that evening. I had Master John's room all in order, and I told him I hoped he was going to stay for the week-end; he said he had not thought of doing so, but when I hinted that it would be a sensible thing to do, he nodded, and said, pleasantly, "Right you are, Weston. You always have your own way, somehow!" Even Mr. Hillier brightened in the presence of his elder son, and Master John was able to check his mother and Miss Muriel when they showed a tendency to go back to the grievance of the cancelled trip. Master John had been going about in some of the hard-up quarters of London, and recounted his experiences, described the folk he had met, the places he had seen. There was nothing very fresh to me in all this, but he made it attractive, and I had to speak rather sharply to one of the maids for laughing at a joke he told. The most difficult thing in drilling young girls is to convince them that they must keep a straight face when waiting at table.

"All the same," remarked Miss Katherine, "it must be a dud life for them. I mean to have two one double four Hell for a telephone number."

"They've been used to nothing different," argued her mother.

"I feel rather sorry," said Master John, "for the folk who come down to it from the heights."

"Even in those cases," said his mother, "they have only themselves to blame. Generally, it's drink."

"Sometimes sheer misfortune," he remarked.

"Rather than lead that sort of existence," said Miss Muriel, dramatically, "I would take a revolver and shoot myself." I frowned at her, and she said, "Don't make faces, Weston. It doesn't improve your appearance in the least." Her father glanced at me.

Master John had a theory, and proceeded to give it across the table. Many of the districts he had been referring to were, he pointed out, near the river. You would assume that nothing was easier for these people, when goaded by worry, and depressed by anxiety, than to stroll down to the edge of the water, and put an end to their existence. But, said Master John, this was exactly the course they did not adopt. It was not in their class you found men and women taking upon themselves a duty that belonged to a greater power, and deciding when life was to be terminated. These cases existed in other stages of society, where the crumpled rose-leaf, and nothing but a crumpled rose-leaf, was sometimes held to justify the act.

"An unpleasant subject to be discussing," said Mrs. Hillier. "Let's talk about the war for a change. What do you think Germany means to do, John?"

I have often, in recent days, wished I had written down all the views, and all the prophecies heard from different sources at that period. Likely enough, Chislehurst was not more fruitful in this than was other places, but we were just far enough from town to enable folk to go around, distributing new ideas between the arrival of editions of the London newspapers. Master John altogether refused to make any predictions. "Ask me again in a week's time," he said. He took his father along to the billiard room, and there kept his opponent concentrated on the game, and declined to talk of any other matters than that of how to deal with the red. Mr. Hillier made a break of twelve, and felt tremendously pleased about it. "Really believe, do you know, Weston," he said, cheerfully, "that if I had more practise, I'd be able to give people quite a decent game."

Master John astonished us by going to church on Sunday morning; he announced at the mid-day meal that prayers had been offered for the maintenance of peace. He ran up to town in the afternoon, and on his return, described an anti-war meeting held in Trafalgar Square, and a patriotic meeting held close by at the Admiralty Arch. An enormous crowd, he said, marched along The Mall to the Palace where folk sang the National Anthem, and the Marseillaise, and the King and Queen bowed acknowledgments of the cheering.

"Like looking on at history," he remarked.

"A good deal of preposterous fuss," commented Miss Muriel, in her superior way, "concerning absolutely nothing at all!"

* * * * *

It would save some trouble if one could ask you to accept Miss Muriel without explanation, and to judge her by the acts recorded of her, but this is perhaps making too great a strain upon credulity. At an entertainment given in aid of some Church funds at St. Mary's Hall I once saw a performance in which six characters took part: a highwayman, the landlady of a tavern, a Bow Street runner, a village maiden, an old Duke, and his elderly daughter; I observed that they came on separately, and so soon as one went off another entered, and I thought nothing special of it until I ascertained later, from the programme, that all the characters were performed by one gentleman. Miss Muriel had something of this ability. She was everything by turns, and nothing strong. At one time she determined to go down to posterity as a great musician, and during this period, she scoffed at her brother's efforts, and composed elaborate melodies that, without exception, sounded to me very like something I had heard before; the mantelpiece in her room was given up to small busts of Wagner and Liszt, and Beethoven and Mozart. There followed a rather serious attack of literature. Miss Muriel took literature very badly, and whilst it was on her, the house had to be kept perfectly quiet; any discordant sound, she declared, upset her writing for the day. She appealed to eminent novelists for their autographs (which they supplied with alacrity) and endeavoured to keep up the correspondence by asking their advice in regard to plots, to methods, and to publishers; the answers diminished in number, and Miss Muriel talked darkly of ring-bound fences, of the trials of new beginners.

"For two hatpins," she declared, "I would take up some other hobby!"

She did this, without the bribe suggested. At the time of which I speak, Miss Muriel was preparing herself for a brilliant career on the stage.

It was an epidemic that went around at intervals, started occasionally by an amateur performance, and the compliments given in the _Chislehurst and District Times_; in Muriel's case, it was due to the presence of a well-known actor who had returned from an American tour with plenty of money, and, taking a house near the Common, announced his intention of enjoying peace with dignity. Him, Miss Muriel encountered during the interval that followed convalescence from literature. It occurred to her that the stone cross which bore the inscription on one side--"Napoleon, Eugène Louis Jean Joseph, Prince Imperial. Killed in Zulu-land, 1st June, 1879," and on the other, "This Cross erected by the Dwellers at Chislehurst"--it occurred to her, I say, that this memorial was not receiving the attention it deserved. In placing her daily offering of a bunch of flowers inside the railings (the self-imposed duty lasted for nearly a week) she one afternoon met the great man. He was greatly touched by Miss Muriel's devotion.

"A beautiful act," he said, tears in his eyes. "A most charming thought. Dear young lady, allow me to offer you my sincerest compliments."

He called at The Croft later, and Mrs. Hillier was impressed by his manner, although Master Edward described him privately, as a white-haired fraud. Miss Muriel spoke of her wish to assist the stage by her presence, and he received the announcement with enthusiasm, promised to give any help that might be necessary. But he went off in a state of crimson-faced indignation, and I found that, in my absence from the drawing room, Mrs. Hillier had been so incautious as to offer a casual and approving remark concerning one of the younger members of the profession. Miss Muriel asserted that her bright anticipations had been marred by this carelessness, and it did prove that the promised help failed to come. A Sunday journal announced that the gentleman had been induced, by pressure from his countless admirers, to return to the boards, and to give a series of "those brilliant impersonations with which his name, and his name alone, will ever be associated." Miss Muriel's letters to him were not answered, but she told me this circumstance would have little or no effect on her plans.

"Even this absurd war business won't stop me!" she declared.

Chapter II

Guard Richards called at The Croft on the Monday afternoon, and brought a newspaper which he said contained little that was fresh and nothing that could be reckoned as jolly; before entering into any conversation with him, I took it to Master John.

"The governor requires careful handling," he mentioned. "You understand, Weston, I'm sure. He mustn't get too many whacks all at once."

"He can scarcely have anyone near him better than yourself, sir."

"The others are not helping a great deal," he admitted. "I foresee how much we are going to rely upon you, Weston." I expressed the hope that he would stay as long as was possible, hinted that, in the circumstances, he might perhaps feel disposed to give up his rooms in town. "It will depend upon--" he began, and searched for a word. "Circumstances," he added.

William Richards I had known since the country days when I tried to be a school teacher and failed in the examination, and my mother, considerably annoyed, packed me off to service, and he, too, disappointed his people by refusing to be educated with the view of becoming a Wesleyan minister, and ran to London, and joined the railway. By the time I returned to the hall, Master Edward had found him, and Richards, with coat off in the field near the house was sending down a swift ball at a single stump, where Master Edward in gloves and pads endeavoured to imitate the methods of his favourite wicket-keeper. For some reason, the spectacle annoyed me. In the case of the boy it was easy enough to understand, but William was forty if a day, and at a time when everyone about the place seemed more or less worried, it was irritating to see a big hulking chap playing at games.

"But it's Bank Holiday," he argued, when I had given my opinions.

"You're nothing but a kid," I declared. "In everything but years."

"Neither you or me, Mary Weston, can reckon ourselves as mere chicken. But that's no reason why we should go about with a face as long as a fiddle."

"It's a reason why we should set an example to those younger than ourselves. Are you aware that your country is likely to find itself in the biggest difficulty it's ever encountered?"

"A lot of passengers," he remarked, "have been telling me about it, but I never take much notice of rumours. Up at Charing Cross, one of the inspectors said the railways was going to be taken over by the Government; but, there again, I don't place much dependence, for the simple reason that it comes from a man who has give me more wrong tips in regard to 'orses than I've had from all the rest of the staff put together. Who's this coming up the road?"

A woman in my position cannot possibly think of everything, especially at a time when there is more than usual to be thinking about, and I had clean forgotten to write to my young nephew to tell him the Continental trip was cancelled. Here he came, looking taller than ever, but slightly round shouldered; his leather case in one hand, and in the other a book that he read as he walked. Herbert Millwood was never one to waste a single moment in his studies, and we watched him as he by chance avoided collision with other people, and by luck escaped contact with a lamp-post. He was going past the second gate of The Croft when I called to him. He came out of his dreams, dropped the book. Master Edward, impatient to resume play, ran out and picked it up whilst Herbert gave me a kiss, and offered his hand to William Richards.

"Are you reading this too?" cried Master Edward. "I've just finished it. Isn't it a ripper."

"I found it," said my nephew, in his careful way of speech, "extremely interesting. It appears to me a most accurate description of cowboy life in Western America."

I recognised one of the twopenny volumes with which the house was always strewn during the period of Master Edward's holidays. Coming on the top of Guard Richards's behaviour, the discovery did not lessen my resentment.

"Herbert," I said, shortly, "you can take yourself off home again. I meant to have written to you. William Richards, perhaps you've got sufficient intelligence to tell us when the next up train goes?"

Miss Muriel came out of the house, walked down the steps, and along the broad gravelled space. "Weston," she said, authoritatively, "arrange something for me to do. The tennis party I ought to have gone to has been put off. It's most annoying." She stared at Herbert.

"My nephew, miss," I said, presenting him, "who was to have stayed here if you'd all gone abroad."

"Do you play?" she demanded.

"Haven't a racket," he answered. "It's been sent up to Cambridge with my luggage."

"One can be found. And do you play?" (To William Richards.)

"No reason why I shouldn't be learnt, Miss."

They took the whole business out of my hands. Herbert and Miss Muriel decided to be partners against William Richards and Master Edward. The two visitors remembered, at the last moment, that their shoes might damage the grass. "It doesn't matter in the least," said Miss Muriel, with a touch of bitterness. "The general impression I gain is that we shall be leaving here before the end of the week."

"You don't mean that!" exclaimed my nephew.

"Really don't know what I mean," she retorted, irritably, "or what anybody else means. There are so many riddles about that I have given up all attempt to answer them. And Weston, here, whose business it is to cheer us up, and who is paid to cheer us up, has apparently gone on strike. Just as though," addressing Guard Richards, "just as though she were a railway man."

"Miss Hillier," said Master Edward, "having made herself pleasant and agreeable to most of the company present, will now show us her celebrated imitation of Mrs. Lambert-Chambers at the net."

"I am not a crack player," she remarked condescendingly to my nephew, "but I have my good days."

It appeared, later, that Miss Muriel was put off her game by the marching by of Territorials, an insect in her eye, rays of the sun, and one or two other discouraging incidents. Nevertheless, the game improved her temper, and she was in a gracious mood when I sent two of the maids out with table and trays; she admitted the victory had been a narrow one, and that Herbert was as good as Master Edward, whilst she was but a shade better than Guard Richards. William Richards improved his position, and caused himself to be reckoned an efficient member of good society by juggling dexterously with four tennis balls. "If I could do that," declared Master Edward, "I should never trouble to do anything else. How did you get the knack of it, guard?" William explained that on long journeys, when parcels had been sorted, and letters arranged, an official of his rank had plenty of time for practising the art. He tried to make a further impression by essaying a trick he had seen at a popular entertainment; this necessitated the providing of a leather hat case, an open umbrella, and a cigarette, and all these articles were readily discovered and furnished. William Richards threw the cigarette in the air, and failed to catch it with his mouth, the leather hat case fell upon Miss Muriel, and the open umbrella came down upon me. William said he thought he had better catch the next train, but Master Edward, declaring that he, too, did not always succeed in his experiments, begged him to stay.

I was afraid Mrs. Hillier, when she came out, would be annoyed at the sight of the mixed group, but she was so eager to obtain opinions concerning the war that she seemed ready to forgive the presence of the two visitors, and to overlook the fact that one of them was in a uniform. My mistress, at that period, always accepted and repeated the views of the last person consulted, and the effect of this was that sometimes she felt certain we were not going to be involved in the war, sometimes that France, with one hand tied behind its back, could beat Germany, sometimes that the Kaiser would be at Buckingham Palace by the end of August. William Richards took care from her shoulders by alluding to the numerous occasions, within his knowledge, when inaccuracies had appeared in the journals of the day.

"If they spelt your name wrongly in the Board of Trade inquiry you are speaking of," she said, "why it stands to reason that the newspapers are capable of making even greater blunders in regard to more important subjects."

"Exactly my argument, lady," he said.

"I must get you to talk to my husband, guard."

"If the gentleman has made up his mind, perhaps it wouldn't be much use."

"That," she said, addressing the group, "is just what I complain of in regard to Mr. Hillier. He's obstinate. He's self-willed. He won't listen to reason. He doesn't understand as I do that no reliance can be placed on what one reads. I wonder whether we shall get an evening paper?"

I mentioned that Guard Richards had brought one, and went in search of it. On the way back I glanced at the stop press column, which William apparently had over-looked. It seemed a pity to spoil the comfort of the party, and I tore the portion off, and held it in my fist.

"This time next week," said Mrs. Hillier, after glancing at the head lines, "we shall be laughing at the way people have allowed themselves to be upset over trifles."

My dodge did enable them to enjoy an hour of composure; I regretted, in a way, that the others were not present, if only to see how well my nephew could comport himself when he encountered his betters. William Richards was telling the old story of the flustered young woman passenger, who on the platform kissed the guard, and gave her husband threepence, when Colonel Edgington came along the drive, flourishing a newspaper.

"The bounders have invaded Belgium," he shouted.

"I don't believe it," declared Mrs. Hillier at once. "It's probably a misprint."

"Weston," he said, ignoring my mistress, "where is the governor?" I hurried towards him, and explained that Mr. Hillier was out with Master John and Miss Katherine; I hoped that if Colonel Edgington happened to meet them he would be careful to soften down any bad news he had to communicate. "War is a man's business," he retorted. "All that you women have to do is to just stand outside the ropes, and look on."

"I think you'll find us doing a lot more than that, sir."

"Ah," he said, "you mean nursing. Well, we may allow you to take a share in nursing, but nothing else, mind."

"It probably won't rest with either you or me, sir."

"It certainly won't rest with you, Weston. If I miss the governor, say that I am going up to the War Office to-morrow morning early. I shall most likely catch his train. But I daresay it will slip your memory. Never met a woman yet who could be depended upon to do as she was ordered."

"Perhaps your experience of them has been limited, sir."

"Weston," he said, rolling up the newspaper, and pointing it at me, "I've often heard it said about here that you were treated as one of the family. I've denied the statement. I've always pointed out that you are treated as the head of the family."

* * * * *

There was telephoning to and fro, and the local shops were kept in attendance on the instruments, town establishments were harried and badgered by the same means of communication. I looked through the stock room, and at first decided that no great additions were necessary; if the worst came to the worst, The Croft could stand a siege of reasonable length, and the kitchen gardens would furnish supplies. But the shop-people at Sidcup alarmed me, and another housekeeper I met there induced me to believe I was failing to take wise precautions. The shop folk spoke of the immense orders they were receiving from customers who had the fear that either prices would go up with a tremendous jump, or that articles of food might be unobtainable; my friend assured me, with gleeful confidence, that whatever happened to other households in the neighbourhood, her's, at any rate, was safe.

"They made me pay cash for everything, Miss Weston," she went on, "but that was only reasonable. Paper money is not of much use at times like this. What I'm anxious about is the number of hands that will be thrown out of work. I told my girls, only to-day, they'll all be starving before the month is up."

"That ought to have pleased them."

"We've got to face the facts," she declared, earnestly. "There's not the slightest use in burying our heads in the sand. Everyone will be getting rid of servants, and what the poor souls are to do doesn't bear thinking of. I suppose your people are like the rest, talking of cutting down expenses."

"Hints. Nothing more!"

"Fortunately," she said, "I have been able to put by, just as you, no doubt, have managed to do. Eh?"

"I didn't say anything."

"And my notion is that when it becomes too hot, I shall rush off to a quiet place I've got my eye on in Wales where the Germans won't trouble to come, and if they do, all my money will be safely buried in the flower garden, and I shall pretend I'm too silly to understand anything that's said to me."

"You'll find that easy enough."

"You wouldn't care, I suppose, Miss Weston--I've always had a great respect for you--to join forces with me, so to speak, and----"

"No," promptly. "Got work to do here. Folk to look after."

"The time will come," she prophesied, in going, "when you'll want to kick yourself for not having listened to friendly advice."

It occurred to me that even if there existed little risk of a shortage in supplies, the fact that so many people were making large purchases might have serious results, and I resolved to concentrate my thoughts on the subject of flour. Flour became an obsession with me. Flour, for the space of at least one morning, was the one article that I desired. I had, the previous night, dreamt of flour; sacks of it, cellar-fulls of it, and the dream finished with the perturbing discovery that the bags on being opened contained nothing but wooden shavings. It is easy enough now to look back upon those very early days of the war, and to smile at the flurried anxieties and the nervous agitation; I can say truthfully that, being ordinarily as calm as most people, I nevertheless caught the epidemic and came as near as I have ever been to losing my head. My most extravagant act was to induce William Richards, by wire, to make himself responsible for bringing, whilst off duty on the Tuesday, two hundred-weight of flour from London; he conveyed it from the station to The Croft on a luggage trolley.

"Your thanks, Mary Weston," he said, "amply repay me, they do, for all the trouble. Came in, I did, for a fair amount of chaff on the way down from humorous colleagues of mine, and it's been a warmish business getting the stuff here, on a day like this, but this glass of cider, and your kind remarks--"

"When I wrote off in a hurry to you last night, I never thought you'd be able to do it."

William finished his glass, and appeared to be forming words in his mind. Altering the intention, he hummed the first lines of "Auld Lang Syne."

"There's a good deal of extra work going on," he remarked, "with the railways, and I can't always call my hours my own. But anything I can do for you, Mary Weston, I'm prepared to do. If I may offer a suggestion it is that your next orders should be such as not to make my uniform look quite so dusty."

I found a brush and dispersed the white marks. As I went up and down the sleeve, he took my hand and kissed it, and, at once, rushed from the kitchen, leaving the second glass that had been poured out for him. Going down to the tradesmen's gate, I caught sight of William Richards sprinting along the tarred road, more as one under the impression the Germans were after him than as though he had given an impetuous sign of affection.

My housekeeper acquaintance was not the only person who held the view that the war would throw folk out of employment. Everybody seemed to be furnishing everybody with the same idea. The most cheerful anticipation was that there were always the workhouses, and in any case the Government would have to do something. The disturbing fact that, as my acquaintance hinted, cheques were not being accepted, was, in itself, enough to startle and to alarm. Master Edward went on his bicycle a dozen times in the course of the day to pick up news at the station, and never returned without something like an arm-full; the trouble was to sift the correct from the undependable, and to keep one's mind clear of inaccuracies, but appetite for particulars was so keen that nothing was refused. Our old gardener with whom, owing to his partiality for alcohol, I had hitherto been on remote terms, appeared flattered to discover that I listened to his muddle-headed rumours with an attentive ear.

"They do tell me, ma'am," he said, confidentially, "that these 'ere foreigners drink a kind of beer that don't have no effect on you, like what our stuff does. Nice cheerful sort of prospect, ain't it, for those on us that are what you may call settled in our 'abits? Dang my old eyes," the gardener went on with vehemence, "if it ain't nearly enough to induce a man to turn teetotal!"

Mr. Hillier made no attempt to catch his usual train. Instead of doing this, or cultivating his hobby in the workshop, he walked up and down on the lawn, tweed cap at the back of head, and when I sent Miss Katherine out to him, she returned with the announcement that he wished to be alone; Master John was similarly repulsed. My nephew had been asked to stay the night, and he and Master John were consulting together with serious countenances. Two of the maids came to me with telegrams, and asked to be permitted to leave at once. In one case a father belonging to the Naval Reserve had been called out, and the mother wanted her daughter's company at home; in the other, the girl wished to say good-bye to her sweetheart, a Territorial who was leaving with his battalion for a sea coast town. I allowed them to go, and went to mention the circumstance to Mrs. Hillier. She never objected to any decision of mine, but I generally kept her informed of anything that happened.

"I was just going out," she said, "to liven your master up, Weston. If you have a few minutes to spare, you might come with me. I've got rather a good idea, and you will come in handy to support it. Get the rose basket, and my leather gloves, and the scissors."

No pretence that my mistress adopted would have taken in a fly, and when she affected to be surprised at discovering her husband on the lawn, he glanced at her without speaking. She submitted the good idea, without delay. Mr. Hillier was to take advantage of the brief holiday from Basinghall Street, and start upon the task of learning to play golf. "I'd sooner walk about on my head," he declared. She begged him not to come to a hasty decision, and pointed out first, that no one walked about on the head; second, that a great many folk did play golf, and if one could judge by their conversation, found enjoyment in it.

"You want something, James," she argued, "to take you out of yourself. You're getting into a habit of brooding and that never yet did any good to man, woman or child. Try to follow my example, and take cheerful views. Think of the people who are worse off than yourself."

"I wouldn't mind so much," he said, "if I were twenty years younger."

"Now I appeal to you, Weston," she remarked, looking up at me. "Isn't that a foolish thing to say? Why, if he were twenty years younger he wouldn't be living in this large house, and these fine grounds, and with plenty of servants about to do everything that's wanted." The under-gardener came across to ask some question; I signalled to him to stay where he was.

"The large house," said Mr. Hillier, with deliberation, "and the fine grounds, and the plenty of servants, will soon be nothing but a memory."

"Wandering in his speech," she whispered to me.

"It's time," he went on, speaking carefully, "that you knew the truth, and there's no reason why Weston should not hear it. If it hadn't been for this war, I might have pulled matters round, but as it is--Well, I'm done for!"

"You've been smoking too much."

"My pipe is the only real comfort I have left."

"James," she cried, expostulatingly, "you forget me!"

"There was a time," he said, "when you were my good companion, but that takes me back a long, long while ago. And the children are not children now, and altogether--I beg pardon, my dear. I ought not to be saying anything likely to hurt."

"If matters are so bad, we must try a little economy." Mrs. Hillier had a sudden inspiration. "I've sent off a couple of the maids already."

"You'll have to do more than that."

"You don't mean," she cried, alarmedly, "that we shall have to do without Weston?"

He gave a half smile at me; I waited anxiously to hear what he would say. "We shall have to do without everybody," he said. "It's like this. I've been working all these years to make money for you and the kiddies. I've never saved, partly because you gave no help in that direction, partly because I wanted to look on and see everyone having a capital time."

"How selfish of you, James!" I touched her arm reprovingly.

"The sooner we get away from here," he said, "the better for my good name. I want to keep that because--because it's about all I shall have left. The only question that's worrying me is this. What sort of a part are you going to play?"

"I shall go," she replied, with an air, "wherever destiny calls me."

"Well then," rather doubtfully, "that, I suppose, is all right then. If you set an example to the children, they'll follow on. Explain it all to them--or perhaps Weston here will do that, as one of her last jobs before leaving--and make it clear to them that I'm sorry. And she might contrive to hint that it isn't altogether my fault."

I gave the two gardeners their notice at once. The younger one, it appeared, wanted to leave and was ready to go instantly; the other who always made a grievance of everything, took it very ill. "Me just in the middle of a lot of clearin' up, and now I'm called upon to go and look for another situation! Hard lines; that's what I call it, miss." I pointed out that he was not the only person who suffered. "I'm the only one that interests me," he said, doggedly. "People don't seem to remember that I'm getting on in years. Be rights, I ought to be pensioned off, or dumped into an almshouse, or some'ing of the kind." I reminded him that he was fortunate in having no wife or children. "There's some advantage in being a bachelor," he agreed, "because there's no one to nag at you when you reach home at night a bit late, and a trifle comfortable. On the other hand, you've got no one to 'elp earn your living for you. And that reminds me. I shall chuck work for a hower or two, and go along, and take a glass o' beer. Just in order to stiddy my nerves." He came back later singing, and told one of the dogs that there were many worlds inferior to this, and that he proposed to celebrate the occasion by arranging a good old hang-it-all bonfire. Master John and my nephew had gone from the house (without mentioning where they were bound for), otherwise I should have asked one of them to order the elderly chap to go home. I might have done this myself, but I never care to argue with men when they are in drink. It is impossible to tell whether they are going to be extremely abusive, or aggressively affectionate.

The master seemed more like himself now that he had made a full statement of the position. At his request, I went over the house with the two of them, and we made something like an inventory; I estimated the prices, and Mr. Hillier was quite cheered when he eventually reckoned up.

"Might have been worse," he said. "The money we've spent hasn't all been wasted."

"I've never bought any furniture," remarked Mrs. Hillier, "without first taking Weston's advice. She's an excellent judge."

"It's hard to be treating her as a criminal," he mentioned, "after all these years."

"Don't you trouble about me, sir," I said.

"I foresee," he remarked genially, "that a certain official on the railway will shortly send in an application for holiday leave, and passes for himself and wife."

"If Richards has got any such idea in his head," I declared sharply, "he's in for a big disappointment. My intentions are entirely different."

"I must go and find a good auctioneer," he said, "And at once."

In this way it happened that when the fire at The Croft broke out, there were women folk only in the house. For over an hour there had been a smell of burning, and when I spoke of it, one of the maids said the old gardener had set light to rubbish, but that the flames were now out; in the quiet summer evening air the scent remained. It was at about eight o'clock when the alarm came that the garage was on fire. Dinner was half over; the ladies were wondering at the delay in the return of Master John and of Herbert, and hoped they would soon appear with the latest news. Directly I caught sight of the blaze I recognised that here was a serious matter, and I ran off to the telephone, and called up the Brigade. Then I beckoned from the doorway of the dining room to young Master Edward, told him what had happened, and begged him to rush around and get together all the able-bodied men he could find in the neighbourhood. Downstairs the maids were hysterical, and one had fainted; I spoke to them with an abruptness that made them come to their senses, and gave directions. I collected hats and coats belonging to my mistress and the young ladies and, saying that there was no danger and that the fire would soon burn itself out, told them to go on the lawn, and to watch for the engine. Miss Muriel began to talk excitedly and protestingly; her sister and mother interposed.

"Weston knows best!" they said.

Even if there had been a man about the place, I doubt whether it would have been possible to save the car. The bemused gardener had set his mound of rubbish near to the wooden doors, and these were the first to catch alight. The billiard room was overhead, and when an explosion came from the garage I knew that nobody would ever play on that table again. There was not much wind, but all that existed was blowing in the direction of the house. The master's workshop, where he had spent many Saturday afternoons, was the next to go.

Master Edward (enjoying it all tremendously) ran up the drive with his party of a dozen men, Colonel Edgington amongst them and clearly determined to take charge, and to extinguish the fire in his own style; he gasped out orders that no one could understand, and no one felt called upon to obey. The men rushed through the dark path at the side of the house, where Colonel Edgington had the misfortune to step upon a rake that instantly--as is the habit of rakes when thus treated--instantly sprang up, and gave him a blow in the face which put him temporarily out of action. His language included several words quite new to me.

"Pails, Weston!" shouted Master Edward.

We had a number of pails but, despite the efforts of the helpers, they were of little more use than a soda water syphon would have been. For one thing, the fire was now so scorching that the men could not get near; the water when thrown fell with a slight hiss and had no other result. I called them into the house, disregarding Master Edward's appeal, and asked them to do their best to save the furniture. Their best, I am willing to admit, was very good. Colonel Edgington came up the staircase and again endeavoured to assume command: I told him to go down, and look after the ladies, and keep them out of the way of the articles that were being flung from the windows. It was no time for being civil, and it was no time either for careful and delicate handling of furniture. A cheval glass came down on the sun dial, and cracked in all directions. Articles in silver from dressing tables rained upon the grass; a jewel case danced about on the gravel, distributing its contents. I felt glad to see two constables inside the gate, keeping back folk who wanted a good view.

The house was alight when the fire engine came, and everyone was out, and gathering up the property that had been strewn around; Mrs. Hillier and the two young ladies worked as hard as the men, and with the maids--the early fright over--I had no reason to discover any fault. Master John and my nephew Herbert arrived when the hose was playing on the flames; the supply of water, owing to the recent fine weather, was not too good, and the pond, that might at other times have assisted, was almost empty. The two young men accepted the condition of affairs without a word; threw off jackets, and dashed into the task of salvage. Despite all the efforts it was not a great amount that could be saved: the fire chased the men from room to room. A drizzling rain came on, and the lads found tarpaulins and canvas to serve as protection to the rescued furniture. Colonel Edgington had vanished, and I was congratulating myself on this, when he returned with his car.

"Come along now, Mrs. Hillier," he said, authoritatively. "And the two girls. And the small boy. And any of the servants who can find room. I'm going to take you all over to my place, and you'll stay there as long as you like. Weston," he said to me, "I'll come back for you."

"Sorry, sir, if I was rather rude to you, just now."

"Rude?" he echoed. "Bless my soul, that was nothing. I'm rather rude to everybody. But I mean well, Weston: indeed, and I mean well!"

The brigade superintendent, making his way across pools of water, at the finish, asked me whether the house and the fittings were insured, and I said, "Why, of course!" The men assisted in returning furniture to the two or three rooms that had not been touched by the fire. The beer cask in the cellar was safe, and I told them to find tumblers and help themselves. Master John and my Herbert came up to me, so begrimed that I kissed Master John by mistake; he declared it was a full sixteen years since I had thought of paying him such an attention.

"Wish we had been here at the start," he remarked. "We should have been, only that there were so many others waiting to enlist."

"Others?"

"We've both joined," he announced. "Is that the governor out in the road?"

Mr. Hillier was gazing at the damaged house. We went across, and I put the question to him that the superintendent had put to me. He mentioned that he had experienced a difficulty in finding the auctioneer, and was describing this at some length when I repeated the inquiry.

"I wish you'd tell me, sir, about the insurance," I begged. "Just yes or no."

"The answer is no, Weston," he replied, in a quiet voice. "I allowed the policy to lapse at midsummer in order to give the job to a hard-up man who was starting as an agent. I heard last week he had disappeared."

"You don't seem very much upset about the fire."

"Dreamt that it happened," said Mr. Hillier, "these three nights past." He turned to his son. "Anything fresh about the war, my lad?"

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!"

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!"

Chapter V

I paid little attention to the news from Chislehurst, although one was, of course, interested in Miss Muriel as in the others; the opening of the shop at London Street occupied in truth a good deal of my time and care. Mrs. Hillier, answering my invitation to look over the establishment, said that in view of my incurable habit of embarking upon adventure without consulting her, it was impossible for her to give any sort of countenance to the business, or make purchases there. I retorted that I had no desire to ask for her patronage, and I might have added--but did not--that in the circumstances, it was not much she could afford to buy. But the good lady appeared to find one of her rare joys in pretending that her money resources were as large as they had been before the war, and it seemed a pity to be always destroying the notion. Miss Katherine was the one who sometimes took me apart, and said:

"Weston, dear. How much do we owe you now?" It was to Miss Katherine alone that I showed the penny memorandum book in which I entered the accounts. The girl had given up her manner of talking slang; she said it was not approved by the best City authorities.

I gave Saturday to the new shop, and a part of Sunday (better the day, the better the deed) and on Monday morning, was there again so soon as I had prepared breakfast at Gloucester Place for the three working members of the family. Mr. Hillier left the house at six o'clock, Master Edward, being at present on middle duty, caught the train at half-past eight; Miss Katherine did not have to go until rather later.

The cheeky boy, at London Street, had been paid off by Millwood, and his mother called to beg me to take him on again. She was one of the helpless parents that London sometimes cultivates.

"I'm sure I don't know what'll become of him," she declared, rubbing eyes with the hem of her apron, "if you refuse to take my Peter in hand. He only wants looking after; nothing else. And hearing you talked about, Miss, as a rare good manager, why, it struck me that I couldn't do better than get you to look after him. You've got a chance of doing a good action, and I'm sure you'll regret it if you don't take advantage of the opportunity. It'll be on your conscience."

"If he comes back here, he will have to work. And work hard."

"Break that news to my Peter," she urged, "as plainly and as forcibly as ever you can. Give him a good nagging. He takes no notice of anything I say. I'd very much like," she added, tearfully, "that he should grow up a credit to me. It's hard on mothers when their sons turn out badly."

I took Peter back, but did not deliver to him anything like an address, or a lecture, or a heart to heart talk. Instead I provided him with a duster, and a bottle of polish, and other articles constituting an outfit, and gave him brief instructions. Ten minutes later, I found him behind a leather screen, and resting on a settee; he was concentrating his attention upon literature that dealt with the Adventures of Gideon Smart, Detective. I placed the journal in the fire, and Peter supported the argument of heredity by weeping; I allowed him to cry, and, when he had finished, pointed to the tasks which awaited his consideration. Used to the companionship of words and plenty of them, my silence impressed him, and so soon as he had finished one job, I provided him with another. Peter submitted later some brass candlesticks for my approval, and was honoured with a guarded sentence for which he seemed acutely grateful.

"Excuse me, miss," he said, respectfully, "but you're not much of a conversationalist, are you?"

"I'm a worker."

"Couldn't it be managed, do you think, to run the two, so to speak, at one and the same time?"

"Work comes first," I said. Peter gave the sigh of a man who regrets the eccentric rules concerning business deportment.

Neighbours looked in from shops hard by, and told me that their own trades were doing badly, and would, in their opinion, do worse ere they did better. Having said this with much cheerfulness, they endeavoured to assume a compassionate air in giving the view that of all the trades none could expect to fare so ill, in these exceptional times, as that which dealt with furniture; they spoke of the condition of affairs in Shoreditch and Bethnal Green. Their knowledge was never first hand, but had come from a cousin of a friend who knew a person whose brother-in-law was something of an authority on the subject. Certain of the older ones spoke of the days that were prosperous at Greenwich, when visitors came to the Ship and the Trafalgar, and climbed the ascent in the Park, and strolled about the town, and bought mementoes and souvenirs.

"Fifty year ago," said a watchmaker to me, confidentially, "you might have made a do of it. Now, it's like throwing your money down a sink. Besides, you women-folk always get swindled right and left when you barge in to affairs of this kind. By the bye, I've got a couple of grandfather's clocks you might care to have a glance at when you're passing my way. They're almost genuine!"

A proportion of Millwood's stock was useful only as fire-wood, and the covered yard at the back received these articles, making a pile to be drawn upon during the winter months. The mere eviction of these improved the look of the shop; the greatest change was perhaps effected by the linoleum covering of the floor which gave a fair imitation of parquet, and received the care of Peter when there was nothing else for the lad to do. Folk, hurrying past on their way to the station, observed the altered appearance and stopped to give a few moments of inspection, and I hoped some of them would come in, and at least inquire the prices, or make an offer where the amount was exhibited. Not until three o'clock on the second day did the first customer enter. He was young, and I wondered why he was not in khaki. He seemed pressed for time.

"You a judge of furniture?"

"I am," I said.

"Able to tell whether it's good or not?"

"Rather!"

"Care to take on a sort of a contract?" he demanded.

"If I can make anything out of it."

"How long have you been engaged in this work?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," I answered.

He appeared satisfied with my replies, and, taking off his silk hat, explained his wants. He was a doctor and had to join the R.A.M.C. the following week. Before that date, he proposed to get married. The lady had remarked, in agreeing to the hasty procedure, that the drawing room and the dining room were to be set out with articles that possessed the quality of age; she drew the line at the accession of Queen Victoria.

"Now," he said, rapidly, "I've no time to go about searching here, there and everywhere, and, apart from that, I haven't the necessary knowledge. I may have hinted to her that I possess it, but as a matter of fact I don't know Chippendale from Wensleydale, or whatever they call the stuff."

"What is the limit, sir?"

"Two hundred and fifty," he said.

"Give me some references."

"Rather give you a cheque."

I set ink and pen before him, and he, demanding my name, filled in the slip.

"There you are," he said, preparing to run off. "I've made it three fifty. Now, I'm depending on you. Don't fail me, whatever you do."

It occurred to my mind that although he was trusting me, there appeared no reason why I should trust him. The cheque was drawn on a local branch, and leaving Peter in charge, and giving him enough to do to keep him out of mischief, I went along and saw the manager. He said the cheque, if paid in at once, would be met, and he suggested I should open an account of my own. I did this.

The milkman--an uncertain person so far as concerned rumours of large events--proved useful and reliable here. He knew, as not many knew, the financial position of establishments in the neighbourhood; his information, most likely, was gained from news collected in areas, and corroborated by promptitude or delay in settlement of his account. Also, he was able to tell me of houses where the furniture was old and valuable. By a stroke of luck, it happened that the very first door in Crooms' Hill I knocked at proved to be a place where my call was welcomed, and indeed expected. The three ladies there, facing serious reductions in dividends, had resolved to leave Greenwich, and go off to a cottage owned by them and already sufficiently furnished in Buckinghamshire. (When the transaction ended, one of them admitted to me that fear of air-raids and nearness to the Arsenal had something to do with the decision.) Terrified by the idea of a public sale, they had, the night before, made an appeal on their knees that some other means should be supplied.

"Providence has sent you," said the eldest, contentedly, "and, knowing that you have been selected to help us at this moment of trouble, we are willing you should go over the house, choose what you require, and name your own figure. Of course, it's a wrench for us to part with the furniture, but it brings with it the consolation that we are taking our share in the war. And it is such a relief to find that we are not called upon to deal with some man, with a smell of tobacco about him."

Their simplicity disarmed me, and their genuine piety forced me to deal with them in a more straightforward manner than I might otherwise have adopted. One or two of the articles were particularly good and valuable: there was, for instance, a Chesterfield sofa that would have fetched forty pounds in the open market, and I told them so, and advised them to take it, with some of the rest, away to Farnham Common. In the servants' bedroom I found three Queen Anne mirrors. I made up an inventory that included four-posters, cupboards, dining tables, suites of chairs, an Adam cabinet, two escritoires, some remarkably fine glass, and a few mezzotints.

On these last I was not qualified to put an exact value.

"I'll give you three hundred pounds for the lot," I said, handing over the list.

"No," remarked the eldest firmly. "Dear me no!" I prepared for the duel of bargaining. "Two hundred and fifty will be ample. We cannot think of taking advantage of one who has come here in answer to our prayers." The sisters nodded an emphatic endorsement, and I realised it was useless to argue with them. They asked, as a great favour, that the van which took the furniture away should attend at an early hour in the morning, before Crooms Hill was awake. "We don't wish," they pleaded, "to be the subject of gossip." They gave me a new prayer book, and I came away with the feeling that one had peeped into a world too good for a business person.

The young doctor was well satisfied with the transaction. He told me his fiancée said she had always known that his taste and selection could be depended upon, and he thanked me warmly for my assistance. To the milkman I presented five one pound notes signed by John Bradbury, Secretary to the Treasury, and when he realised that the notes were genuine and that he was not being made the target for a practical joke, he declared I was a lady well worth knowing, assured me that any information he possessed concerning the inside of residences at Greenwich would always be at my disposal.

* * * * *

The telegram informing us that Master John and my Herbert were leaving for the front arrived one morning when the working members of the family in Gloucester Place had gone off to their respective duties. A few hints had come before, but this information was definite.

"We shall have to hurry, ma'am." Mrs. Hillier was taking breakfast in bed. "There's no time to lose. Bustle about!"

"You are asking me to do something, Weston, altogether foreign to my nature."

"I very often wonder, ma'am, what can happen that will rouse you up thoroughly. There seemed a possibility that it was going to happen at Chislehurst but it passed off."

"With so much turmoil and excitement," she said, serenely, "going on around me, I feel it my duty to give an example of--"

"We must be out of this house in half an hour's time."

"But why on earth--"

"I'll tell you," I interrupted. "We're going to see the dear boys off for the reason that we may never catch sight of them again!"

"You always look on the dark side, Weston," she complained.

In the tram-car, on the way up to Westminster Bridge, she made it clear to other travellers that my position was that of a dependent, and this would have been continued throughout the journey, only that at New Cross Gate two jovial factory girls came in, and these, appreciating the situation, at once began to imitate her voice and her manner. Mrs. Hillier was silent after this, and when I explained to the two girls the task on which we were engaged, they stopped their raillery, and, apologising, told me that their chaps were abroad fighting; they insisted upon showing me the latest communications which had reached them. Our half of the car became friendly on this; other notes and cards were produced, photographs were handed around. A woman possessed a letter from the King's secretary, congratulating her on the circumstance that she had a husband and four sons in the army, and this broke down Mrs. Hillier's attitude of lofty reserve. She counselled the owner to have the document framed, lest, by frequent passing about, it should become creased and torn; the woman said this was a rattling good idea, and promised to act upon it. The factory girls left at the Elephant, and Mrs. Hillier shook hands with them; when we alighted at the Boadicea corner the passengers gave us a message of good luck to be tendered to the two boys.

"Some of these people, Weston," she said, tolerantly, as we went in the direction of Birdcage Walk, "are, after all, very human." I thought to myself that the same could be said of her whenever she cared to show herself at her best.

We found an enormous crowd outside the barracks. Inside the park, hobbled horses were at the sand place marked "This Space is for Children only"; the lake was empty. We stood on the high walk near the park railings, and could see the Guards drawn up on the parade ground; it was impossible to identify Master John or Herbert.

"Why didn't you think to bring the field glasses, Weston?" complained Mrs. Hillier.

"Because they were sold," I answered. "Sold with everything else that would fetch money. And try to recollect, ma'am, that this isn't a moment for asking silly questions; you're looking on at something wonderful. Something that you'll want to keep in your mind's eye for the rest of your life. Don't let me have to speak about it again."

The soldiers were allowed to stand easy for five minutes: their comrades ran forward to have a last talk. Orders were shouted. The men marched out four abreast through the open gates. The crowd cheered, and began to move eastwards; we followed and went at a good pace, but not good enough to keep up with the foremost ranks. There was no music, but the soldiers sang, and called out facetiously in unison, "Is the canteen shut?" and gave a shouted answer of "No!" Each carried his full equipment, and a tin of thick sandwiches. In Great George Street, when I had begun to think we should have to give up, Mrs. Hillier caught sight of Master John and they exchanged waves of the hand; encouraged by this she walked faster, and we crossed the bridge at a rate I had not experienced since competing in running games at school.

"Aunt Mary!" cried a voice, as they swung around into York Road.

"God bless you, Herbert, my lad," I panted. "And bring you both back safely."

"Don't forget to ask Him to do so," said my nephew. Some of his comrades thought this was meant as a joke: I knew quite well the dear lad was in earnest.

We went home by tram-car, too full of our thoughts to exchange a word with each other. That night, in my rooms at the top of the house, I obeyed my boy's directions. It made me think of the three ladies of Crooms' Hill, and I could not help wishing I had some of their placid and simple faith.

* * * * *

It seemed possible the departure of the lads would have a lasting effect upon Mrs. Hillier, and this, I believe, might have happened but for the arrival of her elder daughter. The others of the family were in good working order. Mr. Hillier returned at night, comfortably tired, ready for the meal prepared for him, willing to talk of the incidents of his new life, the men he encountered and the tasks he was called on to perform; all the satisfaction he had gained from his hobby at Chislehurst he was now securing at the Arsenal. Mr. Hillier often pointed out to me that the fighting had sent us back to a condition of affairs where the man of brains occupied a position inferior to that of the man of hands.

"It will take the conceit out of some people," he remarked.

"It's taken a certain amount out of you, sir."

"Agreed, Weston. It has improved all of us. Excepting--" He did not finish the sentence.

Miss Katherine came into the flat of an evening, justifying her father's assertion, eager to chat vivaciously of everything that had to do with banks, and her own progress in type-writing and shorthand. The first of these came to her easily enough; the second presented greater difficulties. Sometimes I read aloud a speech from the parliamentary reports and Miss Katherine took it down, with appeals of "Please, please, not so fast, Weston, dear," and then, apologetically, "You always are a bit of a sprinter in conversation, you know, and I expect it's not easy to get out of the habit." When it was finished, she took her meal, and then transcribed the speech from her shorthand notes, and read it aloud. Often, she had to admit that the result was incoherent, and not to be understood: I tried to comfort her by pointing out that the same might be said of the original, but Miss Katherine shook her head. "I shall never be any earthly good at it, Weston," she declared, hopelessly. It seemed that the qualification was not needed in the department where she was at present engaged, but Miss Katherine had hopes of promotion.

Master Edward, too, had been changed considerably by his railway experiences. His hours when on the early turn were from five o'clock, and when on the late turn from one o'clock; every other Sunday he had to give sixteen hours to duty, with three hours off for the mid-day meal. Later, he hoped to be transferred to a London station where the figure of wages was said to reach as much as £90 a year. The early turn was the one that troubled him, and indeed it was not easy or comfortable to turn out in the dark of a January morning. At times, when I knocked at his door, he would reply in a bright active voice as though he were fully awake, but I knew boys too well to be deluded by that trick, and I waited and knocked again until he came to the door and assured me that he would be ready for his cup of hot coffee within ten minutes. One of the compensating moments of pride came when I gave him on his birthday, a case of safety razors that I had picked up at a sale; he accepted it gratefully as a tribute to his age, and impending requirements. For the rest, Edward had to tell us of agitated passengers who came with a rush demanding tickets for the station which they wished to leave, of attempts on race days to ring the changes or tender notes of home manufacture, of the dislocation of time tables to permit of trains being run for Government purposes, of the cancelling of all excursion fares and cheap tickets, of economical parents whose long-legged children refused to admit to any age above twelve, of the head booking clerk who always began the day in the worst possible temper, and invariably ended it with perfect geniality. I daresay Master Edward lost some of his refinement of manners, and I confess I was shocked when I first heard him allude, one morning to "these blasted shoe laces."

"Oh," he said, answering my reproof, lightly, "you're old-fashioned, Weston. You belong to the antiques. By-the-bye, how is London Street doing? And who, just now, are you doing?"

I want to speak of Miss Muriel, but whilst I think of it, I must set down some reference to the collection of glass that I came across in a large house at Vanbrugh Park, where an old lady, the daughter of an Archdeacon who knew something besides Church matters, had recently died, leaving her property to a certain benevolent society, "because," her will said, "it has never asked me for a donation." Sales were not being well attended just then, and at each one that I went to--sometimes nodding frequently to the auctioneer, and sometimes keeping my head still--there were fewer of the agents, as they liked to call themselves, to be seen. A mixed crew, these, and inclined, at first, to resent the presence of a woman dealer; they tried, on one occasion, to pinch my fingers by running up the price of a fine horse-hair settee for which I had a purchaser ready, and I stopped just in time to compel a syndicate to take it; one of the members came to me later, and made a deferential offer that involved a loss on his side of two pounds ten. In the matter of the glass referred to there was little competition; a few private buyers were willing to bid for certain articles, but the fact that it was all comprised in one lot compelled them to refrain from making any offer. I have rarely been so pleased in all my life as when I took back to the shop in London Street that set of glass, cleaned it well and arranged it on dark wooden ledges. (In the result, I disposed of every piece, but I never parted from one without feeling regret for myself, and something like animosity towards the buyer.)

Let us come to the topic of Miss Muriel. She had been away at Chislehurst for some time; she and her mother had corresponded regularly and her letters, since the announcement of her engagement, seemed less querulous. Miss Muriel wrote, in one, a description of the gentleman's house, and this ought to have prepared me for the facts; as it happened, it was not until Miss Muriel brought him over one Saturday afternoon to be formally presented to the family, and I heard him below in Gloucester Place giving directions to the driver of his car that I gained the first hint of his age. He was speaking in curt, loud, and ejaculatory manner, and--just as well to admit it--I made up my mind at once that I was not going to regard him favourably. And this intention was confirmed when Miss Katherine ran up to my rooms at the top of the house, and said through the half-opened door--

"Weston! Weston! He's a bounder. A bounder from the village of Bound. One of the worst ever. Come down, and have a peep at him!"

I had to go back to the London Street shop, and ascertain whether Millwood was able to take care of the establishment and to look after Peter for a few hours; my brother-in-law proved quite ready to do this, and I fancy he took some pleasure in sitting near the window, and observing the interest shown by passers-by, listening to their comments, and, if they entered, to say, "You must call again when Miss Weston is here, unless you're prepared to give what's marked on the tab that's tied to the articles. I've got no power, mark you, to accept a farthing less!" In Gloucester Place, could be heard now the middle-aged gentleman's voice at the balcony, explaining how the trees in the garden ought to be cut down. Miss Muriel came out to the landing.

"Ah, Weston," she said. "Haven't seen you for ages. I expect you have missed me."

"In a sense, yes."

"Never a flatterer," she remarked, indulgently. "You might, at least, though, offer your congratulations."

"I've not seen the gentleman yet. But if you've quite decided, miss, to change your name, there's nothing more to be said about it."

"Your assumption is wrong. I don't propose to change my name."

"The engagement is off, then."

"Once more," she said, complacently, "error has crept, Weston, into your calculations. Mr. Schloss intends to take my name. He will become Mr. Hillier, and I shall be Mrs. Hillier. And he has an income that will enable me to live in the comfort I was once used to."

"Your handwriting, miss, is so bad that I never guessed he was a German."

Miss Muriel reprimanded me for the criticism of her pen, and for the suggestion concerning her gentleman. Mr. Hillier came out of the room.

"We don't talk to Weston in this manner," he ordered, closing the door behind him. "Weston is one of us. We owe a great deal to her, Muriel, in more ways than one. In fact, we are only just beginning to pay off the indebtedness. Kindly treat her in a proper way."

"She had no right," protested Miss Muriel, "to suggest that he is anything but English."

"I ascertained a while since," said her father, quietly, "that he was naturalised, rather hurriedly, in August of last year. And he has just admitted the circumstances to me."

"Nothing," she declared, in a tragic manner--"not even the extraordinary behaviour of my own people--shall ever part us from each other!"

Chapter VI

Miss Muriel went back in the car to her friends at Chislehurst, with the air of one who, for the sake of romance, was prepared to defy the world. She had always been spoilt by her mother (it is fair to myself to mention that the treatment was started before I entered the family) and Mrs. Hillier now took her side against the rest of us, declaring that a girl had to obey the instructions of her own heart, that love was something which could not be directed by those outside its influence, and that, moreover, it was a comfort to think there was likely to be an establishment available which would enable one to escape from the surroundings of Greenwich.

"Apart from all that," she argued, triumphantly, "a man can't help the country he was born in."

"He ought to help it," said Master Edward. The lad was the most strenuous of us all on the opposition side. "This chap should have gone back directly the war started. He has no business here."

"Pardon me," said his mother, "he has a business here. And a very good one, I am happy to say."

"I mean that when two countries are fighting each other----"

"You don't know what you mean," she asserted. "And, besides, you are much too young to have an opinion on a subject of this kind. If your father, sitting over there by the window, and saying nothing, had a proper control over his children, he wouldn't allow you to talk in this way."

"Do you want my view of the matter?" asked Mr. Hillier.

"Oh, no," she answered quickly. "No. It's all settled, and there's nothing more to be said."

"My view is," he announced, "that I'd rather see her cleaning doorsteps."

"I daresay!" said Mrs. Hillier, coldly. "That is because the Arsenal work has coarsened your outlook. Vulgarised your mental attitude. Twisted your sense of proportion."

Miss Katherine went to her father: Master Edward crossed the room to his mother. I left them as Mr. and Mrs. Hillier were beginning to offer apologies for hasty words. The day was Sunday, and upstairs--having the time to spare--I wrote the drafts of two notes; one begging Miss Muriel to come and see me and have a long talk, and the other asking her to think of the way in which her brother John, out in France, would receive the news of her engagement. I am supposed to be handy with my pen, but neither of these communications satisfied me, and I decided to take a few days to consider the matter. Instead, I wrote a long communication to Corporal Herbert Millwood, and sent in it an affectionate message to Master John. I tried to make the letter cheerful. "If you come across the Kaiser on his birthday, please wish him, for me, many unhappy returns."

* * * * *

William Richards called at London Street one afternoon. Whenever he had happened to say anything of a specially friendly nature--as he had done on his previous visit--William always stayed away for a considerable time, as though desirous of allowing the memory of it to fade, and he now seemed rather nervous; to conceal this, he told me three war anecdotes, which, so far as I could see, had no point whatever. I mentioned this, and he admitted that a story never improved in his hands. He gave compliments to the shop, remarked that Peter seemed a decent sort of lad, spoke of the large amount of traffic which was being dealt with by the Southern railways. He had heard excellent reports of Master Edward, and told me that the boy's appearance, speech, and behaviour had, by good fortune, been noticed and commented upon by the wife of the superintendent. After this interval of sanity, William again went blundering in and amongst tales from the fighting line.

"Now that one," he remarked, rubbing the top of his head with the peak of his uniform cap, "that one, I'll swear, appeared funny when I first heard it. And now it sounds simply chronic." He glanced at his large watch. "By Ginger," he exclaimed, "but time does fly when you're in pleasant company. There was something I wanted to tell--" He gave a fair imitation of a puzzled look. "I've got it," he said, triumphantly. "Piece of news I heard at Charing Cross. The Major of that lot that your nephew, and your Master John was in: he's been took prisoner. Good-day to you, Mary!"

The news was confirmed by a brief paragraph in the evening journal; I said nothing of it at Gloucester Place because it is rarely wise to go out of your way simply in order to shake hands with trouble. Far better to wait where you are, and let trouble, if it cares to do so, come to you. (Afterwards we discovered that all of us had seen the announcement, and each determined to make no allusion.)

The first information of a definite nature came in a letter from a Quartermaster-Sergeant. Addressed to Mr. Hillier, and written in pencil it said, "I regret to tell you that your son, Corporal Hillier, has been missing since the twenty-fifth January. He may be a prisoner, but we do not know for certain. He asked me, should anything happen to him, to let you know."

There followed a brief letter from my nephew, Herbert.

"We were surprised in a dug out," he wrote. "We ran in single line for cover, with machine firing coming across. John had no rifle. That was the last we saw of him. Tell his people to hope for the best. I was one of the few who escaped, but I am in hospital. Nothing serious. Love to my father, and to you."

There came a month of suspense during which we gathered scraps of news but nothing that re-assured us. The good Quartermaster-Sergeant, in another letter, said there were no further particulars; they could not say what had really happened; directly the battalion obtained definite information he would write again.

I went up to town, and called at Wellington Barracks; Mr Hillier paid a Saturday afternoon visit to the War Office; Miss Katherine communicated with a girl friend at Geneva, begging her to make inquiries of the Red Cross Society. During all this time, I noticed that Mrs. Hillier, eager as the rest of us, showed no tears, but she became more active in the work of the small household, and took duties that had hitherto been performed by the rest of us. She rose each morning to see her husband leave for the Arsenal, and kissed him before he went: kissed him again when he returned in the evening. No complaining came from her now. If she spoke of Master John, she referred to him hopefully.

An envelope arrived with the postmark of Cricklewood. We recognised the handwriting, and waited anxiously for Mr. Hillier to come home and open it.

"I am having this letter posted," wrote the Quartermaster-Sergeant, "by a comrade who is off to England, so as to avoid it being censored. Well, to tell you as much as possible, sir, about your son. We were in the forward trenches on the morning of the twenty-fifth of last month, when the enemy made an attack. Their trenches were not a hundred yards from our own. They had under-mined our forward trenches. They threw up some smoke bombs as a signal, and to blind their attack. At the same time, they exploded their mines. The result was that part of our trenches were blown up, and before you could look sideways they were upon us in thousands. The Right Flank and the Left Flank of our regiment stuck to their ground until overcome by sheer weight of numbers. Then, those that possibly could, retired to a brick field about eight hundred yards back which the remainder of the battalion (two companies) had turned into a miniature fort. This was known as The Keep. The Germans made violent attacks, all without any material advantage to themselves, on this position, but were unable to take it. And it was not lost when matters quietened down. Our trenches have now been regained, and our boys, I am pleased to say, managed to steal some of the German trenches.

"I am very sorry to say I can give you no good news of your son. I have made inquiries of the regiments who held the position after it had been regained, and one of the sergeants told me they buried over two hundred of our men. Some of them were found dead at the 'present,' ready to fire at the enemy, so you see it is no good telling you anything that might build up very great hopes.

"The strength of the companies going into the trenches was two hundred and seventy-six. Of these forty-six returned. Of course, we held a position where we did not dare to lose ground, and although it was a terrible business, it was a great victory for the English and French troops. At any rate, the enemy did not score much on their Emperor's birthday.

"You can understand how deeply I sympathise with you as none of us knows the minute when our own people will need the same. I have a father and mother living at Lewisham."

Mr. Hillier read this out to us, in a voice that broke now and again. His wife took his hand when he finished, and patted it sympathetically.

"I could hug the man who wrote that nice letter," I declared.

Herbert sent a note later from the hospital at Boulogne (where he found himself, after treatment at a dressing station) saying that he was nearly well, and ready to go back to the fighting line. "Have you any news of John?" he asked. "We were real good chums." The official communication came to Gloucester Place from the War Office, stating that Corporal Hillier was reported missing. His mother, showing greater industry in domestic work every day, and relieving me of half my duties, argued that the use of this word by the authorities proved that they were not without hope; the rest of us abstained from contesting this opinion. We knew that all the two hundred and thirty mentioned in Quartermaster-Sergeant Cartwright's letter would be reported in the first instance under the same heading. Mr. Hillier ventured to allude to the question of Muriel's engagement as regarded in the new circumstances.

"I have already written to her, dear," said Mrs. Hillier. "Don't you let that worry you. I've told her the engagement must be cancelled. After the way his people have treated our boy--"

"I was sure," he said, gratefully, "you would see the matter in that light."

"You can consider it as settled," she declared. "Weston," turning to me, "I'm going to cook supper this evening. And you are to sit down with us, please."

I was not at all certain that I wanted to join the family party at table, and I had my doubts concerning Mrs. Hillier's abilities to prepare a meal. As a fact, the dish she served up was excellent, and when we offered our congratulations she disclosed a circumstance that had been kept from everyone but Mr. Hillier; in her early youth, it seemed, she had been compelled to take charge of a household, and run it with economy. "But, mother dear," protested Miss Katherine, amazedly, "why in the world didn't you tell us this before?" Mrs. Hillier considered for a moment before replying. "I can think of no other excuse," she said, "than that of foolish pride." From that moment, I began to feel a new regard for Mrs. Hillier. It needed some courage to make an admission of the nature before her own children, and in front of me. We were very cheerful that evening (partly, I think, because we had resolved to keep each other's spirits up) and Miss Katherine, recalling a comment of mine when the letter from France was being read, sketched out a romantic episode in the life of the Quartermaster-Sergeant to take place after the war, with a wedding at St. Alphege's, and the bride offering a charming appearance in the latest confection from Dover Street. She suggested that business could be combined with sentiment if all the gifts were purchased at the bride's establishment in London Street.

"But I've never set eyes upon the man," I protested.

"The moment he sets eyes upon you, Weston," prophesied Miss Katherine, "his fate will be sealed."

"He may be married already."

"If he has, which I very much doubt, for he spoke of parents at Lewisham, but said nothing about a wife--if he has, I say, she is suffering from a nervous affection that will take her off in the nick of time."

"None of your widowers for me," I declared.

The affair of Miss Muriel's engagement was not settled so easily as we had hoped. She wrote expressing regret at the absence of definite news concerning her brother; she was also sorry to find that her mother had allowed herself to be impressed by occurrences which had no real bearing on plans agreed upon earlier. Her marriage was to take place on the twenty-seventh. Mr. Schloss had decided to set up a new home in the West of England: this, owing to prejudices which were being shown by folk of the neighbourhood who ought to know better, but were seemingly unwilling to listen to reasonable argument. Miss Muriel enclosed some verses of hers beginning, "True love knows no barriers."

My brother-in-law met with a slight accident whilst on the way to his work, and came home to London Street, depressed by the thought that he would be prevented for some time from assisting in munition tasks, discouraged by the knowledge that his wages would cease. I set him right on this second question by engaging him to look after the shop which he had once owned, and I gave Peter instructions to look after him and to see that he did not over-exert himself. Peter had joined the Boy Scouts, and had become such a dependable lad and so well spoken that Millwood announced he was prepared now for miracles of all sorts. (Peter's mother called one day at the shop and denounced me, up hill and down dale, on the grounds that I had marred and spoilt her views regarding the boy; she intended, it seemed, that he should follow the example of her two other children, and qualify himself for being sent by a magistrate to an Industrial School where the State would have accepted the responsibility of making a man of him. "And all my plans set aside," she lamented, "owing to your clumsy interference!") Millwood was glad to be able to go with the aid of a couple of sticks to his club again of an evening, although he complained that with Radicals and Tories working in hearty agreement over philanthropic matters, all the pepper and mustard had gone out of the institution. Millwood had given up alcoholic beverages for the duration of the war. "Really," he explained to me, confidentially, "I did that because I fancied it might please young 'Erb. I'd rather like the boy not to be ashamed of me."

It was near the end of the month that I went to town to see a customer, recommended to me by the doctor who set up the home of old furniture. He lived in North Street, behind the Abbey, and on the way back I looked in at Whitehall, and made inquiries. The officials there, although badgered by anxious folk, answered me politely. No news of Corporal Hillier. I returned from Charing Cross, where I happened to see William Richards.

"Hope on, hope ever!" said William, encouragingly.

I told myself in the train for Greenwich that I had come to the limits of my optimism, and that Master John was to be henceforth only a memory. I thought of his early days when I had first come into the Hillier establishment; thought of the pride we all took, later, over his first song; wondered whether there was perhaps some young girl, not known to us, who sorrowed for the loss of him. Crossing by the subway at Greenwich station, and coming up the steps I caught sight of Master Edward, on his way to late duty, and, to my pain and astonishment, dancing on the platform. His train came in before I could reach him, and give him a word of reproof.

At Gloucester Place, Mrs. Hillier waved gaily from the balcony; I assumed this was but a part of her new and improved method of conducting life. She di