Front matter (continued 3)

CHAPTER IX

And the doctor's verdict is 'Two days in bed and bromide. First dose now.'

'I'll stay in bed,' said Ross, with the air of a man conferring a great favour, 'I'll not take drugs.'

'I'll get it down,' said Brown to the doctor, as he saw him to the car, 'somehow,' he added grimly.

'Sam,' I inquired, 'how are you going to get it down?'

'Can't imagine, miss. After last night he won't stand much. Well, it was a bit thick.'

'Sam, do you think if your knee gave out and it hurt you to keep standing when you argued, that it might have weight?'

'Can but try, miss.'

So Brown's knee, of course, has given out. They are a happy pair, one in bed and the other with his leg up on a chair, talking woods and shooting, fishing, and birds' eggs, and they're smoking—how they smoke! I think the bromide's swallowed. There's a contented look in Sam's eyes and a 'Oh-well-stretched-a-point-for-once,' in my dear brother's.

So I proceeded to carry out my patent plan of finding houses and had a delightful and exciting morning. It was a lovely day, the hedges were a soft promise of green, and the bright sunshine and some saucy robins made a brave pretence of summer. I rambled down all kinds of little lanes and by-paths, but never a house did I see to suit me, till at last I chanced on Lynford, a little place I fell in love with at first sight and which I am sure is after Michael's own heart.

The village is built on the slope of a hill, with a little church on the summit and charming old world cottages clustered together in picturesque confusion just below.

Alas, the cottages were quite small ones, with only four or five rooms at most, and so not practicable. The last house in the village was a great surprise. It was larger than the others, with quaint little diamond windows and a glorious old red roof, and lots of creepers climbing over, which would make it in the autumn a thing of flaming beauty.

In the flower borders crocuses and snowdrops were already peeping, and the porch was aflame with yellow winter jasmine. The view was superb, for the hill sloped steeply from the house, and at my feet lay beautiful water meadows all in flood after the snow, with the ruins of an old abbey in the near distance.

Without stopping to think of anything but the fact that it was the kind of habitation I was looking for, I boldly walked up to the front door and rang the bell. Here my courage, which I had thought was screwed to the sticking point, began, in the most horrible manner, to trickle out of my boots, but before I could escape an elderly and severe domestic opened the door and glared at me as if I wanted to sell her something.

I inquired if I might see the owner on a matter of business. She hesitated and, after looking me well up and down, most reluctantly said, 'I'll see.'

She departed down the old flagged passage, leaving me on the mat with my last shred of courage in tatters and my knees a jelly. After a minute or two she returned and said, 'The master will see you,' and if ever a woman's sour visage said 'More fool he,' that woman's did.

As the last moments of a drowning man are crammed with the recollections of a lifetime, so all the silly, impulsive things I have done in my life crowded on me as I followed down that stone passage. Why, oh, why did I have an Irish grandmother to lead me into this scrape? What on earth could I say to 'the master' that wouldn't sound the most appalling impertinence?

I entered his presence rather more quickly than I meant to, as I fell down a small step.

I looked across the charming room, and by the bright wood fire was an old gentleman seated at breakfast at eleven o'clock in the morning.

'Good-morning,' I said, 'I'm afraid I'm rather early.'

'Not at all,' said he. 'I'm afraid I'm rather late. Have some breakfast?'

'No, thank you, I haven't come to call.'

'Oh, he replied, 'I thought you had.'

'No,' and my words began to tumble over one another in my agitation, 'that is to say, not in the ordinary sense of the word, but I came—I hope you won't mind—I hope you won't think it awful cheek, but now I am inside your house I feel it is, though outside it seemed the most ordinary thing to do, but the fact is I am looking—oh——' I broke off as the appallingness of the situation came upon me afresh. 'Promise you will not be offended, but that you will take my visit in the spirit in which it is intended.'

'Is this to be an offer of marriage, my dear young lady?'

'Oh, no,' I gasped, 'much worse, it's an offer for your house.'

'Aha, aha,' said he, 'I thought I heard the tenth commandment crack as you fell down the step.'

'Crack,' I exclaimed, 'it's broken into a million pieces.'

'Well, I think that we had better see what we can do to patch it up again, as it's really quite a nice commandment, and breaking it is apt to cause distressing situations. Sit down and have some breakfast and tell me why you are coveting your neighbour's house and if you want my men and maid servants, oxen and she asses, too?'

'Not your maidservant, anyway,' I said, and his eyes twinkled. He was so friendly and kind that I sat down, and over tea and toast, which he insisted I should have, I told him about Michael and of our passion for old houses, and Ross, and the Gidger, and indeed all about everything.

'Ah,' he said, 'so you love old houses. Well, I sympathise, but this one will not be to let until I am carried out feet first.'

'God forbid that I should ever have it, then,' I said, and got up to go, 'and it's dear of you not to have been offended.'

'Offended!' he laughed, as he said good-bye, 'I was never so entertained in all my life.'

When I got home I went up to tell Ross about it, and he remarked as I finished the tale,—

'Well, there's to be no more house-hunting on those lines, Meg; you might have been most frightfully insulted. It's all right as it's happened; Michael would be simply furious with me for letting you do it if he knew.'

'But I told you I was going to,' I expostulated.

'It never occurred to me that you meant it. Of course, I thought you were fooling, you little idiot.'

And Ross did one of his atrocious lightning changes. Instead of a ragging brother one was merely 'fighting' with there was a man whose 'Sorry, darling, but I mean you mustn't do it again' closed the discussion, for all that it was very gently said.

Then he kissed me and said, 'Oh, Meg, you are so sweet and funny when you're "meek."'

As a rule people who bully me are not allowed to kiss me—but—my brother was ill in bed!

CHAPTER X

Ross seemed fairly well this morning, and, having announced 'Time's up,' said that he would go to the house agents at Tarnley to-day, and that if I liked I might come too.

I had previously said to Sam,—

'Don't you think another day in bed would do him good?'

'Not a doubt about it, miss,' said Sam, 'but I couldn't work it: thought we should have hardly lasted out the time as it was. We've drove him a bit hard lately. Better not press him too much, miss, he don't take kindly even to the snaffle.'

So we sallied forth to call on Messrs Cardew Thompkins.

My brother was in one of his mad moods and announced that he should pretend we were just married, and that I was to look as shy and modest as my brazen countenance would allow, and to blush at intervals if I could. An elegant young man, with a waist, received us with a bow, begged us to be seated and state our requirements.

'Take a pew, Florrie,' said Ross to me. I took one and hoped I looked shy and modest.

'I want,' said Ross, bursting with newly married pride and importance, 'to rent a small house for myself and my er——'

The agent coughed discreetly and said, 'Quite so.'

My face by this time was perfectly crimson with suppressed laughter. I hope Mr Cardew Thompkins thought it was shy blushes.

'The house must be as small as possible,' continued Ross, 'and quite new, with no garden, as my wife doesn't like slugs, do you, lovey? It must be in a row, or at most, semi-detached, as my er——'

'Quite so,' said the agent again.

'My wife is nervous at nights. We haven't been married very long,' said the incorrigible Ross in a burst of confidence.

'We should like it opposite a railway station, if possible, and we want white paint—enamel, I mean—and fireplaces with tiled hearths, nice cheerful wall-papers, and a dodo in the hall.'

'Dado,' I murmured.

'What, sweetie?' said Ross, 'what did you say, my pet?'

I could have murdered him.

'But it must be quite a new house,' said Ross, as I didn't answer, 'as you don't like beetles, do you, duckie? We don't even mind if it isn't quite finished, because——' Here Ross's powers of invention mercifully failed him.

'Because,' said the agent, 'then you could choose your own decoration. I quite understand.'

I was pulp by this time, and as I was in imminent danger of exploding I retired to the window and made curious noises into my handkerchief, while the house agent looked through a number of small cards in a little box.

'You're in a draught, my pretty,' said Ross, 'come and sit near to hubby, while Mr Cardew Thompkins writes us the order to view.'

I came lest worse should befall me, and Ross tried to hold my hand but didn't succeed.

'There's a little old house out at Crosslanes,' began the agent—Ross nudged me violently.

'Also one at Stoke, which is slightly larger and older.'

'It's beginning to work,' whispered Ross.

'I will give you orders to view both of these.'

'Are they near the railway?'

'I haven't actually seen them myself,' said Mr Cardew Thompkins, 'but I think from the description of your requirements they are just what you need. Good-morning.'

If he had looked out of his office window a moment later he would have seen Ross and me with our handkerchiefs stuffed in our mouths fleeing down the road till we got round the corner out of sight.

'Oh,' sobbed Ross, 'do stop. I told you so, but it's worked better than I thought. Read this:—

'"St JULIANS.—Very desirable gentleman's country residence."'

'Oh, that won't do, Meg.'

'Why not? Sounds rather nice, I think.'

'Is Michael a very desirable gentleman?'

'Oh, I never notice those mistakes, or spelling ones, I wish I did; they're so amusing when you see them.'

'Can't think what they teach in girls' schools,' said Ross gloomily. 'Daddy used to groan about the bills, tons of extras too, and when it's all said and done you don't know the most elementary things.'

'Grammar,' I observed, 'is very difficult; some of the best people can't spell.'

'But geography, your geography's no better. Why, I heard some one tell you the other day that her son was in Dunkirk, and you said that she must be so thankful to have him in Scotland. I could see the woman thought you dotty, only she was too polite to say so.'

'But, Ross, Dunkirk is so difficult, don't you see how Scotch it sounds. It's one of those places that I try to remember by reversing it. There is a system like that. I think of shortbread and then I know it's France.'

'Well, your system doesn't seem to have worked that time. But now I come to think of it, Meg, you're right. There is a system, whatever is the beastly thing called? Mell-gell-Hell-man-ism, I think it is.'

'Ross!'

'What?'

'You're not to put bad words into my mind.'

'I'm not, I said a sentence.'

'But no sentence could possibly begin with "Hell man."'

'Of course it could. I could say heaps.'

'Yes, but not fit for my young ears.'

'Meg, I could say one that a Plymouth Brother wouldn't mind Aunt Amelia hearing.'

'I'll give you a bob if you can while I count twenty.'

So my brother thought hard and said, 'Suppose.'

'But that doesn't begin with the right word,' I said.

'I must tell you the context, child. Suppose a Plymouth Brother were arguing with an atheist.'

'One, two, three,' I counted.

'He might with perfect propriety say.'

'Four, five, six.'

'Hell, man, is not a myth. Aunt Amelia would say he was "one of the right sort," so that's worth 3d. extra. Give me that bob, Meg.'

So I gave him six pennies, six halfpennies, and a threepenny bit, and he said it wasn't a bob. He said it was a shilling, which was different, and he "couldn't be fashed with all that muck in his pockets," so we bought sweets.

Then he exclaimed,—

'Come on, Meg,' as if it had been I who had stopped first.

'But,' I protested, 'what is the hurry, there was such a pretty girl looking at you in that shop.'

'Meg, will you come, there's a man staring at you.'

'But I don't mind the pretty girl staring at you, Ross;' but my brother said,—

'One really couldn't have one's women stared at by a chap like that.'

'Really, Ross,' I said, 'I'm not a harem.'

'You're a jolly sight more trouble to look after.'

'Oh, have you had much experience,' I asked. And then he said I was 'abominable.'

So we walked on.

'No,' said my brother, reverting violently to my education, 'girls' schools are simply rotten. I could run one better than your woman did. Don't even seem to have fed you properly, judging by the size you've grown, or rather not grown. I wonder if it's too late to bring an action for insufficient nourishment considering the price paid. There's one thing you do really well though, and that's arithmetic.'

So I cheered up.

'I never knew anybody, no, not any single person that could add up her wants so accurately and subtract them from her husband's bank balance with such lightning speed.'

'I think, Ross,' I said with dignity, 'it would be better if we went back to St Julian's.'

So he read out:—

'"10 bed and dressing-rooms, 5 reception rooms, 6 acres of pleasure gardens, stabling and coachhouse, usual domestic offices. For sale only."

'Here's another:—

'"Charming country cottage for sale, 5 miles from Whittington station, combines old-world charm with every modern convenience, capable of being added to."

'Oh! Meg, isn't it priceless? Let's get a taxi and go and see them. Mop up your eyes, child, I don't want to look as if I were eloping with an unwilling bride.'

We got to the 'charming country cottage' first. It was miles away from anywhere. It was a bungalow—at least I suppose it was, at any rate the upper storey had disappeared. It seemed to be nearly tumbling down. There was only one large room, with a lovely old bread oven and one or two small cupboard-like apartments leading out of it. I stared at it in amazement.

'Capable of being added to?'

'Of course,' said Ross, 'very true, indeed, about the only thing you could honestly say of it. You could build a new house around it and use the present structure for a coal-hole. Next, please. I feel St Julian's will be the one, Florrie.'

This, however, proved to be a young barrack. If there were eighteen rooms, there were hundreds, I should think. The type of house that a polygamist might fancy. Damp oozed from the walls and most of the paper had peeled off and lay in little mouldering heaps on the floor. Rats scuttled in the wainscoting, and in the bathroom, which was on the ground floor, lay two or three of the largest cockroaches I have ever seen.

'You see,' said Ross, pointing to them with great pride, 'how the charm works. "My wife is afraid of beetles"—you get them—beautiful specimens. You want a house not quite finished—you are sent to one tumbling down. Now, if this could be worked out to its logical conclusion you would, of course, get your ideal home. I must do it on paper and try to get a formula. Let's go back to the agents, Florrie.'

'Not I—never again,' I said. So we returned to Fernfold for lunch. It's so jolly now the Spiders have gone. The Poppet has a nice day nursery and Ross a better bedroom. He says he misses the lumps in his mattress dreadfully, and his bed is now so comfortable that he cannot sleep.

To-night, after I was in 'my byes,' as the Gidger calls it, Ross came to say good-night. He was so quaint.

'Meg, something that you said to-day has rankled horribly.'

'Practically everything you say every day always does with me.'

'No, but Meg, do I ever put bad words into your mind?'

'Oh, Ross,' I said, and giggled hopelessly.

'But, darling, do you know any?'

'Why, yes, I know several: Damn's one, only daddy forbade me to say it once, and somehow I've never got into the way of it, and since the war I say Hell sometimes, not that I mean to swear, only it does seem like Hell.'

'The Germans seem inspired by the devil, if that's what you mean,' said Ross.

'And I say "infernal" sometimes. Daddy told me I might.'

'I bet he didn't, Meg.'

'He did, I tell you, if I always thought of Devonshire when I said it.'

'Daddy is topping,' said my brother, as he remembered the old joke, 'well, go on.'

'I think that's all I know,' I replied.

'Oh, he said, 'how white women are. I wish they were all I knew.'

'But surely, Ross, not knowing a thing doesn't make a person "white." If you know a lot and don't say them, by the grace of God, I should have thought that was being "white."'

CHAPTER XI

The Gidger came in from a drive bursting with excitement and importance.

'Muvver, I've found you a house, it's the darlingest you ever saw, very old, and the drawing-room has got a pump in it, and there's a pig, too.'

'In the drawing-room, Gidger?' Ross inquired; 'that sounds as if it might do. Your mother likes a pig under her bed, and so did her grandmother.'

'Nannie and I went all over it, muvver. One of the bedrooms has a funny little place leading out of it, the lady said she thought it was a powdering closet.'

'Get the telegraph forms and tell Mr Cardew Thompkins we're suited,' cried Ross, getting up in a great hurry. 'Of course it's the house; you're a jewel, Gidger. We never in our wildest moments hoped for a powdering closet.'

'I don't know what the drainage is like,' said Nannie.

'Fancy talking of drainage and a powder closet in the same century,' said Ross indignantly, 'let's have lunch at once, Meg, and catch the Longcross bus and go and see it.'

We had a bit of a scrimmage to catch the bus. It starts from the other inn, called The Ramping Cat. The guide-book says 'it is a small but well-conducted hostelry on the main road to London.' It seems an unfortunate name to have chosen for a place with so high a moral tone. However, as we got half-way to it we saw the bus, looking, as Ross expressed it, 'about to weigh anchor, and we're late as usual.' So I ran on ahead to ask the man to wait for Ross, as I didn't want his arm to be joggled.

The bus was a quaint affair, a kind of square sarcophagus on wheels, the door opened in two bits like a stable, and the driver informed us that 'the upper part 'ad jammed that tight he couldn't get it open no'ow.' So we crawled into the beastly thing's bowels (I quote my brother), but after we had started the upper part flew open, and nothing I could do (or Ross say) would induce it to remain shut, so at last we gave it up as a bad job and left it idly flapping in the breeze.

Presently the bus stopped and the man poked his head in at the window and said,—

'I'm sorry to 'ave to ask you, mum and sir, to get down, but the 'orse is going to throw a fit.'

We hastily descended and found the poor beast trembling violently and looking wretched.

'Does he often have them?' inquired Ross.

'No,' said the man, 'only if 'e's upset about anythink—when the young lady come up in the yard and asked me to wait, I thought 'e was going to throw one, but I 'oped we'd get to Longcross before 'e did.'

'Goodness!' said Ross, hurrying me away, 'what a perfectly ghastly effect your face seems to have on animals, Meg; I should think we'd better walk back unless you could buy a thick veil in the village. If you come out here to live you'll have to buy a motor; that poor beast's health would soon be undermined if you used the bus constantly!'

The little brown house, as the Gidger called it, turned out to be two cottages, one of which is at present occupied by the owner, who is moving shortly. Perhaps it would be more correct to say that it is really one biggish house, which, about fifty years ago was divided into two small ones, each with an acre of garden. By taking down a partition and unblocking a doorway or two, it could be restored to its original state. It stands on the slope of a hill overlooking miles of common which will soon be ablaze with gorse, and in the distance there is a low ridge of purple hills with a crown of fir trees.

Most of the rooms have windows at each end, an arrangement I like, as it is delightful to follow the sun round. There is the most glorious old roof you can imagine, with beautiful curves and crooked chimneys, lovely, warm, red tiles and mossy eaves.

There are eight bedrooms and an oak-panelled hall, with a fireplace big enough to sit in and a place for your elbow and your pint pot. There is only one modern fireplace in the whole house. Most of the bedrooms lead out of one another, and some of 'the domestic offices,' as Mr Cardew Thompkins would call them, are a little unusual. The larder, for instance, is in the present dining-room, and so is the back door, so that while you are at lunch your butcher might arrive. But these are details which, no doubt, could be altered. There is a powdering closet, also a pump, not actually in the drawing-room, as the Gidger said, but in the 'potato shed,' which leads immediately out of it. The potato shed has a glass roof and will make a tiny conservatory.

The back of the house faces south-west and is a regular sun-trap. Both the cottages are half-timbered and pargetted, with splendid beams and diamond-leaded windows, and roses and honeysuckle everywhere, and such a garden!—all on a slope, of course, with little steps here and there to break the levels, flowers, strawberries, and vegetables all mixed up, and lots of trees, and bush fruit, and a little copse with bluebells; already the exciting green spikes are showing, and there are a few snowdrops out.

It's the dream-house, and the Gidger found it!

We have got through a tremendous lot of business since we first saw the cottage, and I hope Michael will think we have done all the sensible things we ought. Ross telegraphed to the lawyers and they sent down a surveyor yesterday afternoon to value it and see it wouldn't tumble down the moment we bought it. The verdict is 'that it will outlast many a modern villa.' I wanted a builder to give me an estimate for doing it up. I asked the owner, who advised me to go to Jones, who had always given her satisfaction. So to Jones I went. He is the quaintest character. His hair and his whiskers grow with such velocity that on a Friday night he is double the size he was the previous Saturday, after his weekly hair-cut. He wears old stained overalls and a battered hat, and altogether looks a most frightful ruffian, the sort of person one would prefer not to meet in a dark lane. But his eyes redeem him, they are so blue and clear. The second time I saw him he said,—

'Have you any relations in the Isle of Man, mum?'

'No,' I said, 'why?'

'Oh, because my wife comes from there, and she was a Miss Ross, and when the captain come to the door yesterday, so nice and friendly like, my wife says to me afterwards, "I do see Uncle John in 'im.'" (How delightful these unexpected relationships are, and I suppose he thinks I call my brother by his surname!)

The house needs very little doing up, but I should like it distempered throughout, and 'Uncle John' says that the alterations I want in 'the domestic offices' can be quite easily managed. Even now I can't describe it. I have a confused impression of beams and panelling, diamond-leaded windows with wreaths of creeper, but, ah, wait till I have filled the sweet old rooms with flowers and oak and firelight and comfy chairs and books and cushions—how Michael will love it—I am intrigued at the prospect of living in Gidger's gorgeous cottage, I shall be so disappointed if the 'black beast' won't buy it.

Charlie Foxhill is home on leave and wired to-day, while I was out, to know if we could give him dinner and a bed to-night. Ross telegraphed to say 'No, but we can give you an apology for the one and a series of lumps for the other.' So dear old Charlie duly arrived—beaming. It's so nice to see all one's pals. He is as amusing as ever, and has the same quaint diffidence, and bubbles over with jokes and absurdities. We asked after his mother.

'Oh, still steeped in saints,' he answered, sighing.

After dinner he started holding on to the mantel-piece with both hands and bending first one knee and then the other.

Ross inquired, with his beautiful natural courtesy, if he were endeavouring to qualify for entrance into the County Asylum, and then Charlie gave one of those absurd answers that veil his real meaning.

'Oh, no, my dear chap, but I'm going to try my luck with Monica next week. I want to talk intelligently to her father, so I've mugged up patent manures and the lost ten tribes till I'm blue in the face, and am not perfectly clear now whether it's the fertiliser or the tribes that's got mislaid. As they have family prayers and my knees do crack so abominably, I'm trying to get them a bit looser. It might prejudice my chances if they think I ain't used to kneeling down. What.'

'Well, you aren't, are you?' asked my brother.

'Well, no,' said Charlie, 'to be perfectly candid, I'm not—I get too much of it at home.'

'Which is the particular pill you never can swallow?' asked Ross.

'Virgin birth,' said Charlie. 'I think He was quite a good man, but I'm not prepared to say He was divine.'

'Are you prepared to say He was a humbug and the bastard son of Mary, then?' demanded Ross.

'No, not that either, quite,' said Charlie.

'Well, He must be one or the other, for there's nothing in between,' remarked my brother. 'Here, chuck over the cigarettes,' and the conversation changed rather hurriedly to Germans.

This morning when Charlie saw the Gidger he swore that Monica was not his fate. (I wonder if Michael would think him a suitable person on whom to bestow his daughter's hand in marriage as Charlie wants to wait for her.)

But before he went to the station, and I was alone with him for a little while, he let me see his soul for just a moment.

I had wished him luck with Monica in the flippant way one does, when he said,—

'Meg, I'll almost believe in Him if I get her. I shan't care how soon I stop a bullet if I don't.'

'Oh, Charlie,' I exclaimed, holding out my hands to him, 'don't be diffident with her. You know Monica likes her mind made up for her. She always used to let you do it.'

'No, Meg,' he said, 'not about this. She must come to me willingly or not at all.'

But I am frightened for them. I know Monica's irresolution. He will be diffident and seem almost indifferent because he wants her so desperately, and she will be 'difficult' and will forget that it's just his way. She won't know her own mind till afterwards. Sometimes in these war days there is no 'afterwards.'

When we got back from the station Ross presented me with four threepenny bits.

'The charge for the delivery of each package from the station,' he said, 'is threepence.'

'How interesting,' I replied, pocketing the money, 'but I'm not expecting any parcels.'

'Oh, yes, you are, Meg, last night I wrote to four of our relatives and told them you were taking a house—an old one—and that contributions of seventeenth century furniture would be gratefully received.'

'Ross, how could you?' I gasped.

'Oh, it was quite simple,' he said; 'I just wrote what I wanted to say on a piece of paper, folded it carefully and put it into an envelope, and stamped and posted it. Of course, it needs brain; I don't suppose you could do it, Meg.'

'Well, if you've really written——'

'Do you doubt my word?' said Ross indignantly.

'You're a horribly ill-mannered, mercenary, money-grubbing, badly-behaved wretch, Ross; Nannie always said you should never ask for things you wanted.'

'I asked for things you wanted,' said Ross, with the air of a martyr. This was so unanswerable that I changed the conversation hurriedly, and, although I feel that his behaviour is most reprehensible, and I don't know that he's written at all, at the same time it would be exciting if any parcels did arrive.

And now I shall have to begin to think about furniture, if Michael decides to buy the cottage. It will be difficult to choose without him. I wish I had some of the old family things and bits of oak mother and daddy used to have, but everything was sold when he went out to be a missionary. There was a chest that used to stand in the hall at home. It had a lovely carved border, and there was a corner cupboard, too, that I specially loved because one side of it was longer than the other. And the 'chair of the nine devils.' How I would like that. It had eight little devils carved on it and the ninth was the person who sat in it!

CHAPTER XII

I am afraid Ross has been doing too much. He has had a dreadful lot of pain since Charlie left. On Sunday I took the law into my own hands and sent for the doctor. I 'got rowed' by my brother for doing it, and by his doctor for not doing it before. I think that life is very hard on women.

'No, he needn't stay in bed,' the doctor said, 'but something must be done about the nights. He has simply got to get some natural sleep.'

So I informed the invalid that I was going to sit up with him, make tea, and read aloud, and perhaps the night would seem a little less long, and he'd get a nice sleep before the morning.

But my brother is not one of those people whose submissive patience is always apparent to the naked eye, and all he said was, quite politely, but quite firmly,—

'You're going to do nothing of the kind.'

'I quite definitely am,' I said.

So then there was a little gust of temper.

'Oh, do stop fussing, Meg. You and Sam really are the limit. Anybody would think that I was "going to leave this mortal world of sin, and hatch myself a Cherubim," the way you both go on! When you hear me begin to chip the shell you can both sit up, but not before.'

So then the feathers underneath my skin got ruffled, and I said that he was simply hateful and delighted to worry people who only wanted to be kind to him.

And then he turned into a glacier, so I tried thawing it.

'Please, Ross.'

'No, darling.'

'But if you had something to do in the night it wouldn't seem so long.'

'I have got something to do, Meg.'

'What?'

'Swear,' said my brother laconically.

'Oh, you poor old thing,' I exclaimed.

And then he added, rather hesitatingly, 'Or else try to stick it out and be courteous to Him about it.'

My eyes filled up suddenly with tears. My brother evidently had still that 'picture of Him in his head,' and of course one ought always to be courteous to a person with a crown on, though I've not been decently civil myself lately.

Then Ross, feeling, perhaps, that he had inadvertently been betrayed into 'talking religion' (though he apparently didn't mind trying to 'live it') said irrelevantly, 'I wonder how Charlie has got on?'

'I am longing to know what she said to him, Ross.'

'Let's hope she kissed him "good-night, darling," which is what you're going to do to me now,' said my brother, whose face whitened suddenly as the pain seized him again.

At that moment Sam came in dragging a basket chair.

'I don't intend to argue it out again with you, Brown,' said his master coldly.

'Nor I with you,' said Brown.

The two men looked at one another, and I could almost hear the clashing of their wills.

'I don't feel up to it to-night, Sam.'

'I don't either, Master Ross.'

'Is your knee bad?'

'Putrid. I shan't sleep, anyway.'

'Are you telling me the truth, Brown?'

'I'm not in the habit of lying to you, sir.'

'Sorry,' said Ross, 'of course you aren't. You can stay if you have your bed wheeled in.'

'Thanks,' said the other briefly.

So I left them, and when I returned later with hot milk and biscuits, they were both smoking, each man in his bed, prepared to help the other 'stick it out.' I wondered as I made up the fire and filled their 'baccy pouches for them whether they would swear, or be courteous, during the long hours, and prayed that they might both get some sleep before the morning.

In the night I woke at four o'clock, so I went in to see the invalids. But the dear things were both asleep. He had been 'compassionate' to them instead!

Now, when I wake up at four o'clock there always is a row before the day is out, and to-day was no exception to the rule.

There were three letters by the first post. One from Michael saying that he would buy the cottage, one from Charlie explaining rather bitterly that he supposed he hadn't enough grandfathers, or that the cement was too hard for her to swallow, but anyway Monica had refused him; and one from the lady in question to the effect that 'Charlie didn't seem to mind much.'

I lost my temper then. What a fool Monica is! As usual, I didn't stop to think, but rushed straight up to London and told her so. I interviewed her in the boot cupboard at the hospital.

'You're a fool, Monica,' I said; 'you can't, even at your age, see farther than your nose. You've been so wrapped up all your life in family trees that you've never even seen the flower of Charlie's love.' (I got muddled up with Mr Williams's song. I felt somehow that Monica ought to be willing to lay snow-white flowers against Charlie's hair, and that she wasn't.) 'You've looked up so many pedigrees that you've never noticed his devotion all these years. What's cement when he's got everything else that matters. You've mistaken everything about him. Not mind? Why, he worships the ground you walk on, and I suppose presently you'll be sorry and think you do like him after all. You never could make up your mind in time. Never could decide whether you wanted your new dress to be pink or blue, and when your mother spoilt you and gave you both you wished you had chosen shot, and when she gave you that, too, you wished it had been mauve.' (I was too angry and agitated to notice that a dress shot pink and blue would have been mauve.) 'I'm absolutely sick of you. You've played with Charlie. You've let him care for you all these years and never let him speak, and when he does you refuse him. I'm tired of you,' I said. 'I'm done with you. You're too'—(I hesitated here and cast my mind round wildly for a word. I seemed to see my whole vocabulary, printed in columns like a spelling book, down which I ran a mental finger, rejecting them all until I came to 'patrician,' so I said)—'You're too patrician for me,' and I flung out of the boot cupboard.

Having quarrelled with my best friend and made her 'quick all bluggy,' I bolted into a post office and sent a frantic wire to 'Uncle John' to meet me at five o'clock at the cottage to talk about repairs. After that I did a heap of shopping, whirled into a registry office and put my name down for a cook, and was rude to the lady who ran the office because she seemed to imagine I must be dotty to think she could get me one at all, though she took my booking fee all right. Then I got in a panic and wondered whether I really did like the cottage now that it was finally decided, so I rushed home and routed Ross out to walk over to it and help me to make up my mind—like Monica.

The winter sun was setting as we walked up the red brick path, mellowing and beautifying the old place and filling the rooms with soft rose light. I felt quite sure I liked it.

'Uncle John' turned up at five o'clock as requested.

'Now,' said I, walking into what will be the drawing-room, 'what would you suggest here, Jones?'

'Well, mum,' said he, pulling his beard (it was one of his bushy days), 'I should think a nice yaller satin paper with a cream stripe would do 'ere, and a modern grate with a tiled hearth, that could be yaller to match the paper, or if you think that too conspishus you could 'ave it cream to match the stripe. I done one for a lady last week, and it looks a fair treat, that it do.'

I murmured weakly that I was sure it did, and did not venture to meet my brother's eye. Then we passed into the lovely old dining-room, with its oak panelling and beamed ceiling.

'Now 'ere,' said 'Uncle John,' warming to the job, 'you won't 'ave to go to no expense in fillin' up the fireplace; I dun that last year, but I should 'ave a nice gas fire, it saves a deal of work.' But the room he considered needed brightening up. 'A nice red paper, now, and this 'ere old panelling painted white.'

'By Jove,' said the incorrigible Ross, looking at me with a malicious grin, 'it would make the room lighter if you painted all the oak white, Meg, and you could have a green plush carpet and a red table cloth with ball fringe.'

'Uncle John' looked at him approvingly.

'Killing 'Uns ain't spoilt the young genelman's taste, I can see that,' he said, 'but I shouldn't 'ave nothing green, it is too conspishus, the two colours; keep it all red, that's what I say, mum. Walls, carpets, and curtings all to match; what you want to aim at, Mrs Ellsley, is a scheme o' colour, art in the 'ome is what you want; I done up a house for a lady like that, last week, dining-room red, drawing-room yaller, 'all green, bedrooms pink and blue, everythink to match and no expense spared, quite the palace, mum. Why, I could brighten up this old place so as you wouldn't know it.'

Am I lacking in moral courage? Could you have damped his ardour by word of mouth? He was so interested and friendly, so anxious to give the best advice. How could I tell him I wanted nothing but soft cream wash on the walls? and the only awful modern grate, that desecrated the whole house, pulled out? I didn't even want a geyser, his idea of the acme of comfort, ''ot bath of a Saturday night and no trouble.' So I weakly said I would go home and think it over and would write and tell him what I had decided. Ross vanished into the village drapers on the way home and came out waving a pattern of ball fringe.

''Ere yer are,' he giggled, 'best quality seven three, what 'o for art in the 'ome.'

A radiant Gidger met us at the door.

'The first parcel's come, muvver. Oh, Uncle Woss, do cut the string.'

'String,' said Ross, proceeding to try to untie every knot with his left hand, 'string is a very valuable thing, Gidg., and must on no account be wasted. Your cottage is only held up by the wallpaper, which your mother insists on having stripped off, so I expect we shall have to tie it up outside like a parcel.'

'Oh, what a lubberly supwise, muvver.' And, indeed, it was. Aunt Constance had sent us six pairs of real old chintz curtains, enough for all my small windows, I should think. Such lovely soft colours: anemones and leaves on a cream ground, and a border that will make miles and miles of little frills for the top! I am now going to compose a suitable letter to 'Uncle John' about the wallpapers.

Oh, I nearly forgot to say that I have managed to get a cook after all, for 'Uncle John' brought his eldest daughter along with him and suggested I should try her, and as she had an excellent written reference from her last employer, who is now nursing in France, I engaged her on the spot, and Nannie says it's another modern miracle and no other woman ever had my luck!

Then I am keeping on the old man, Tidmarsh, nicknamed the Titmouse, who has always come in for two days a week and done the garden. He can give me full time and knows of a garden boy who will also do the boots and knives and all the other jobs that modern servants won't do. The boy's name is Tench. Of course, Ross christened him 'the Stench' at once. The registry office at Tarnley sent a girl up this evening as parlourmaid. She amused me very much by saying, 'I don't consider myself an ordinary servant, I am very superior, and so is my family. I never go out, except to very special places, my mistresses have always been real ladies, they didn't know how to do anything.'

I am afraid I cannot aspire to that standard of gentility, but have engaged her and hope I shan't regret it.

Then the charlady of these rooms said,—

'My 'Ilda wants a place, would she do as 'ousemaid though she is a bit rough and young like?'

She came up to see me, and she proved to be a cheery soul, and perhaps the corners will rub off. I hope the superior parlourmaid won't be too superior to take on the job of training her. In any case there does not seem to be another housemaid in the world, so my choice is somewhat limited.

The staff, therefore, consists of the Titmouse, and the Stench for outside, and the Superior Person (commonly called the S.P.), the cook, who rejoices in the name of Dulcie, and 'my 'Ilda' for the house. Nannie insists she can manage for me and all the nursery part, if 'my 'Ilda' does the scrubbing.

It has turned very cold again after the thaw, and the frost made everything exceedingly slippery, the roads are like glass.

At dinner I said to Ross,—

'Aren't the paths slippery? Positively I could hardly get home this afternoon; I took one step forward and slid back two.'

'Do think, my dear,' said Ross, 'do try to use your brains, if you have any. If you had really taken one forward and two back you'd have found yourself back at the station.'

'I did, so took a taxi home, didn't you hear me drive up?'

'Humph,' said Ross. (I don't often get one in, do I?)

I am going to keep chickens and rabbits, as the meat question is difficult, and cockerels and young bunnies will help to feed the family. I suggested a goat, but Ross is dead off that. He thinks the Stench and a goat will be too much for the S.P. and Dulcie.

I intend the Gidger to know all about animals and flowers and how they breed and propagate. Nature is beautiful and ignorance unlovely. So I shall not tell my little girl lies or half truths about sex, but shall unfold the facts of life gradually as she is able to bear them, so that her heart and mind may become as beautiful as her face promises to be.

Then some day she may go to her husband, not in that awful state of ignorance, fright, and misery that some call 'innocence,' but with a wide, sweet, sane knowledge of the beautiful mysteries of life.

CHAPTER XIII

Ross seems better. He is sleeping some hours each night without the bromide. I never heard how much of that Brown got him to take.

When I inquired how the knee was, Sam said,—

'Keeps pretty level with the arm, miss—ma'am, I should say.'

Now what does he mean by that?

There has been another thaw and everything is distinctly mucky, but yesterday, after lunch, I put on my shortest skirt and my oldest hat, the one with the pheasant wing in it that Michael likes, and we tramped over the dripping meadows to call on 'Uncle John.' 'Aunt John' opened the door. She was resplendent in black silk with a necklace of melon seeds and a pair of the most enormous pearl ear-rings, that even Cleopatra might have envied.

She invited us into the little front parlour. This room was almost entirely filled with a full-sized grand piano, which 'Uncle John' had bought at a sale cheap, owing to the fact that most of the notes were missing, 'But then,' as he explained, 'look at the case, real Hebony.'

He came in a few minutes after, looking a perfect ragamuffin in his stained overalls and battered hat, not at all a suitable mate for the resplendent vision in silk and melon seeds. The pair rather reminded me of Uncle Jasper and Aunt Constance—she dressed for dinner in all her finery and jewels and he just come in from grubbing out a foundation of a buried abbey. And 'Aunt John' looked at 'Uncle John' in much the same way that Aunt Constance looks at Uncle Jasper under the same circumstances.

'Fair caught, I am,' he exclaimed affably, shaking hands all round; 'ain't had it off yet, then?' he said to Ross by way of cheering up an invalid. And then with great pride he added, reverting to his first paragraph, 'but the missis fair makes up for it, don't she, always dressed up like a 'am bone of an afternoon is Sarah.'

'Well, mum,' he said, turning to me, 'I got your letter, and it's a fair blow, that it is; I don't say but what wall-papers ain't expensive and likely to go up, but if you could 'ave afforded the yaller with the cream stripe I think it would 'ave fair made the place. Perhaps if you wrote and told yer 'usband 'ow much better I say it would look 'e might be willing to do a bust for once, especially as you don't seem to cost 'im much in clothes,' and he glanced at my plain tweed skirt.

Here Ross tittered, as I happened to have mentioned at lunch the price I had paid for the garment in question.

''Owever, it ain't for me to say,' said 'Uncle John,' 'owe no man nothing is my motter and always 'as been, and it ain't always that I could give the wife a silk dress for the afternoon, is it, Sarah?'

Sarah, with ready tact, changed the conversation by offering us tea, and observed that John was always 'a bit free with his tongue.'

'Oh, no offence intended, I'm sure,' said 'Uncle John,' but the dear soul has it firmly fixed in his mind that we are rather poor, and he keeps assuring me that he will keep expenses down as much as possible. He will begin the work on Friday, with the owner's consent, although the deeds will not be actually signed by then. I hope we shall be in 'Our House' by the middle of March.

When we returned from calling on 'Uncle John' I found a letter asking me to go to Staple Inn this week to sign some deeds. But why should they want me to do that when Ross has Michael's Power of Attorney? I asked my brother if he knew, but he professed the most profound ignorance of everything in heaven and earth, except the evening paper (which was private).

So I had to possess my soul in patience all night, and this morning when we got to the lawyer's office I discovered two conspiracies.

Fancy! Michael has given me the cottage. Isn't it too sweet of him? I was quite overcome when the lawyer said that the deeds were to be in my name. I have never had anything of my own like that before, except £2 a year paid quarterly, that an old cousin left me.

When the lawyer had congratulated me on my elevation to the position of a landed proprietor, he said, 'And now, my dear young lady, I have another piece of news which will, I think, make you an even more radiant vision than you are at the moment.'

'Oh, lor!' Ross whispered, 'that's another 13/4 for poor old Michael; the larger the lie, Meg, the bigger the bill!'

And then the lawyer told me that all the family silver and the old furniture had been stored all these years by daddy's orders for me if I cared to have them.

My brother and I were so excited that we could hardly stop to say 'good-bye' to our legal adviser, but tumbled head-first downstairs and into a taxi. Ross exhorted the Jehu to drive furiously to the Furniture Depository, where I found all my treasures, all the things that in the old days made home, that had acquired a special value from their association quite apart from their intrinsic worth. I sat in the chair of the nine devils and cried for the days when mother used the things, wept because daddy had been so thoughtful, and because I badly wanted to hear him say the old joke I loved as a kiddie, 'Oh, can't you see the ninth devil? I can!'

I found in store the eight old wheel-back chairs which were used in the servants' hall at home and the two arm-chairs to match, which were always set at either end of the long table for the cook and parlourmaid. Woe betide any lesser lights that dared to sit in those seats of the mighty! Fashion changes rapidly, however, and they will be our best, oh, very best dining-room chairs, with little flat cushions added, perhaps, for comfort. Then there is mother's grandmother's gate leg table, it used to stand in the hall for cards and letters, but that will be used for us to dine at. I seem to see the flowers on it and the little pools of light made by the glass and silver and the soft reflection of the shaded candles on the oak.

I shall set the chair of the nine devils beside the fire. The corner cupboard with the one side longer than the other will do for glass and salts and peppers, but as our dining-room is low, it must stand instead of hang as it used to do at home. Alas for Aunt Amelia's feelings, the cupboard door is panelled and the four divisions form a cross! Then there is a funny old Devonshire dresser made of deal, with three deep drawers, that we used in the school-room. It will do for a sideboard, and the drawers, if divided and lined with green baize, will hold the forks and spoons. It is painted black and has fascinating drop handles. There is a hard, uncompromising Elizabethan air about it that just matches the heavy beams in the ceiling. There is a splendid old brass Chinese incense burner amongst the ornaments, and somewhere in one of my multifarious boxes I have a flaming square of crimson with that glorious embroidery only Chinese people produce. It shall be made into a cushion for the black oak chair, and be the only splash of colour in the room. One or two of the pictures will look quite nice. There is a quaint print, in an old maple frame—Speech Day at Christ's Hospital—rows of stately dames mixed up with Mayors and Aldermen and maces sit round the hall, listening to one of the pupils reciting an ode. The pride and agony on the headmaster's face near by is funny. 'Will he remember it all? Such a credit to the school.' This at home used to be in an attic, but I loved it because, the glass being cracked, it made the Mayor appear to squint. Evidently daddy remembered this, for he had written on the back on a bit of stamp paper, 'For Meg,' that was what started the tears.

There are a few silhouettes in black frames with acorns on the top. One is of Grandpa Fotheringham as a baby, and his mother has written the date at the back and added, 'Very like my little boy, so dear to me.' There is a painting, black with age, of one of my mother's family. She is a severe-looking old lady, with rather a low-necked bodice (too low for a Bishop's relative), but I forgot she was on the distaff side. She has huge, full, puff sleeves and her head is entirely covered with a large muslin cap with a goffered frill all round her face, tied under her chin. That must hang near the silhouettes, I think. I found in a box a funny old sampler framed in an ancient black and gilt frame. It is a picture, beautifully sewn in faded silks, of a little girl and a lamb sitting under a tree in a meadow, which looks damp, and her home is in the distance at the back. She, too, is in a low-necked gown, with short sleeves, and she wears a muslin erection on her head. She is loving the lamb, which is extremely woolly. He is made entirely of French knots, so if you know what those are you will know how very woolly that lamb is. There is a pair of small shoes peeping out from under the little girl's gown, they are red. Somehow I feel that they are her best ones, and I don't believe her mother knows she's got them on. They look most unsuitable for a damp meadow, and the lamb will step on them in a minute, and then there'll be trouble. She'll probably cry.

When I got home I found a batch of letters and a picture from Uncle Jasper. It is a copy of one in the cathedral library at Canterbury. I will copy out a bit of his letter, which is so typical of the darling pet:—

'I am sending you a copy, painted by a pal of mine, of the Mediæval Portrait of Queen Ediva. I expect you never heard of the lady, Little 'un, but she was the second wife of Edward the Elder, A.D. 961. Do try to remember that date. She was a great benefactress to Christ Church Priory, which I suppose you know is Canterbury Cathedral. In the picture you will see she is dressed in her royal robes and crown. Notice the beautiful jewelled and enamelled morse which fastens her ermine-lined cloak. The original is painted on wood and is presumably of the latter part of the fourteenth century. It is signed I.P.F., and if he's the chap I think he is, the date will be about 1392. You can hang it in the dining room of your ridiculous cottage. Why don't you say what the date of it is, instead of jawing about the creepers and leaded windows, which I expect are modern.'

Alas, there are no old deeds, so I do not know the date.

There was a letter from Aunt Constance, such a sad one. She asks me if I would like the Manor House nursery furniture for the Gidger. She has been saving it for her grandchildren, but now that Eustace has finally decided, there will never be any little folk to use the pretty things. Ross ejaculates at intervals, after reading the letter,—

'Oh, my hat! I simply couldn't, and when he could fight, too!'

No, I don't think the monastic life is the one for Ross.

So poor Aunt Constance, being a soldier's daughter, eats her heart out because her Eustace cannot see his way to fight and pray. Well, it's a funny throw-back.

Aunt Amelia acknowledged my letter telling her of my plans in thoroughly characteristic fashion. There is a good bit about the Devil in her epistle. She thinks 'one's days might better be occupied these solemn times than in amassing possessions and lands, marrying and giving in marriage'; but Michael and I are married, and it's only one house, and as to land, two acres and a cow is considered a minimum, and I've left out the cow. She 'hopes that the Vicar is faithful, and wears a black gown,' that the Gidger is showing signs of grace, and that I have been able to purge from the child's young mind the recollection of that dreadful recitation, taught her by some ungodly friend of her poor afflicted nephew.

'Does she mean me?' asked Ross indignantly.

'Yes, you're the afflicted one, and Captain Everard is the person who——'

'Well, old Everard does know some tales, I admit,' said Ross, 'but go on.'

'Oh, I can't bear to read any more of it out.' I threw the letter at him.

'Why does she always spell devil with a capital "D"? I should have thought the smallest she could write was good enough for that old beast,' remarked my brother as he handed the missive back.

CHAPTER XIV

I don't know if the day in London was too much for Ross, but he had a bad 'go' of pain in the night and cussed with great enthusiasm after breakfast because he couldn't light his own pipe. Somehow he cannot strike a match with his left hand, though heaps of men do it, I believe. Half an hour after the outburst Sam appeared with a vase filled with spills.

'Why these funny things?' said Ross, picking one up.

'Spills, sir, light them at the fire, sir; can't get matches.'

'Oh,' said Ross, and tried one. 'Why, Sam, this is a brain wave. I can light my own pipe.'

'Can you, sir,' said Sam, going away contented. He is so thoughtful in those little ways. He gives Ross such a very perfect service. Sam never attempts to serve two masters. He is wholehearted for his one.

After lunch Ross said that he didn't feel up to going out, and that his "Rev. Mother" wanted him to lie down and take some soothing syrup.

'And are you going to?' I asked.

'Of course I'm not. Do you think I always do what Brown says. The 'Rev. Mother's' the one that will do the lying down,' said my brother grimly.

So I went over to the Gidger's cottage and found it full of ladders, paint-pots, pails of white-wash, workmen knocking down partitions, while 'Uncle John,' his hair and whiskers bristling like a wild man of the woods, whirls in and out like a dog at a fair, glorying in all the mess and confusion. Now that the house is mine, I go round anxiously and point out the flaws and cracks in the walls, and 'Uncle John' says soothingly, 'Oh, yes, mum, it only wants a bit o' mortar, it won't cost you much,' 'a bit o' mortar' is his panacea for all ills. He says the roof is sound except over the powdering closet, which may give trouble, no doubt 'a bit o' mortar will set it right.'

The two partitions are down and the doorways unblocked so that I can now walk through my entire domain without going out in the garden, over the fence and in at the other front door. All the rooms have had one coat of distemper and the drawing-room is finished. The pale cream walls are quite delightful and cry out for water-colours in gold mounts and frames, the oak floors have been beautifully polished, and joy, there are three Persian rugs in the Depository. To-day I bought a pair of plain old iron dogs to rest the logs on in the open fireplace. The casement curtains are to be made of the anemone besprinkled chintz with frills along the top. But, alas, the little curtains cut into more yards of stuff than one would think, and so I must have others in the bedrooms. I went into a shop to-day and asked the man to show me dimity.

'Dimity,' said he with a supercilious stare, 'dimity, why, good gracious, it's a hundred years old, madam.'

'But my house,' I said with quiet scorn, 'must be at least two hundred and fifty.'

I bought a seventeenth century settee and some deep chairs when I was up in town. They have loose covers made of chintz with a design of birds and baskets printed from the original old wood blocks.

The drawing-room is such a jolly room, very light and bright, with three big windows facing north and east and south. It has only one beam going across the ceiling and none of the sombre dark beauty of the dining-room, so I feel I may be flippant there. I shall have heaps of colour in the covers and curtains. There are a few delightful things of daddy's for this room—a lovely old mahogany corner cupboard with latticed doors, and some bits of china to go in it, bowls and jugs and funny old cups without handles. There are also three beautiful chairs with rounded backs filled in with lattice work painted in black and gold; the gold is very faint and worn in places. The seats are cane and the front legs very spindly, the kind of chair one's heaviest male visitor will inevitably choose. I think they must be French, they are so elegant. No one should sit in them but an old gentleman with powdered hair, delicate lace ruffles, and a little cane, and his lady opposite must have a small patch box, there is one that I can lend her if she likes. None of my men folk will look well in them, unless perhaps my father, in his robes and full lawn sleeves. And I bought an old mahogany bureau with deep drawers and little hidy holes and secret places in it. It was really most expensive, but I asked Ross, and he said Michael's balance at the bank was so indecent that he thought I really must. I don't think we shall want much else; I like space and Michael needs plenty; he will only fall over things if I crowd the rooms too much, and complain that there is nowhere for his legs.

I forgot to say there is a great cupboard in this room with battened shelves for fruit. (I told you the domestic offices were all mixed up), and there are Cox's orange apple trees in the garden. I seem to see a man who will get up suddenly and leave the fire on a winter's night and hie him to the cupboard 'for a map,' but his pockets will bulge suspiciously on his return, and there will be a kind of 'ain't going to be no core' look in his eyes. Then he will lean back in the chair covered with the bird and basket chintz and blatantly and vulgarly eat a Cox's, skin and all, regardless of the fact that he's already had at least one properly at dinner with finger bowls and silver knives and plates. Then I shall say in righteous indignation, 'Where's the map?' and he will say, 'Why, in my pocket, can't you see it sticking out?' 'I can see something round,' I say severely. 'Well, what would you have?' he drawls, 'the world's round, isn't it? It follows that the maps should be round, too.' And he picks up his book again and reads. But I, because the flesh is weak and the man tempted me too far, and because his second apple looks so good, I shall shriek out, 'Oh, now I know how Adam felt, Michael, you old serpent, give me one.' 'You can't eat maps,' he says. 'Oh, yes, I can,' I say, and snuggle down beside the fire and lean against his knee and munch in jolly comradeship, while the tale of cores mounts steadily and sizzles with delightful splutterings in the fire. Ah, well!

CHAPTER XV

Everything now is signed, sealed, and delivered. Gidger's cottage really belongs to me.

I have engaged a most enchanting charwoman: she cleans silver and brass better than any one else in the world, and polishes furniture till it dazzles, but she can't scrub, she has an 'inside.' It is of deep and lasting interest to her, and must be such a consolation on a wet day when one wants a hobby in the house. She is never tired of talking of it. It has a way of cropping up in every conversation, like the head of Charles the First in Mr Dick's memorial. Ross calls her 'Our Lady of Ventre,' which sounds more like a Belgian cathedral than it really is! She is very emaciated and her looks are more 'delicate' than her conversation.

'You see, mum, it's my inside,' she says; 'what I've suffered no one don't know but those what 'as it; why, one hoperation alone they took out——' but I spare you. So I have a second woman to scrub, and between them they are getting the house like a new pin, and it will burst upon the staff in all its pristine and primeval cleanness. I am a little afraid of the staff. I understand that English servants in these days need 'standing up to.' I can manage a man all right, having had a vast experience, and Ross keeps my hand in, but a woman—how does one stand up to her?

To-day the saucepans and baking tins arrived. I was thrilled, so was 'Our Lady of Ventre,' she helped me to unpack them while the other lady scrubbed the shelves.

'Could you wash them, do you think?' I asked.

'Oh, yes, mum, as long as I don't do no scrubbing; you see, it's my——' but I changed the conversation quickly by asking how her husband was.

'I 'ad a field card yesterday' (I wish I had), she answered, ''e was all right then; my 'usband's in the calvery, in the calvery 'e is, always was a one for 'orses.'

'So is mine,' I said.

'Fond of hall dumb hanimals, my 'usband is.'

'Ah, a kind man,' I answered.

''E is that,' she said, waving the lid of a saucepan at me, 'never laid a 'and on me or any of the children, and what I've cost 'im in doctors you never would believe; you see, it's my inside, mum,' and she took a header into it, which I was powerless to prevent. 'Why, when I first went out walkin' with 'im, mum, only nineteen I was at the time, I got such a hawful pain in my inside they took me to the 'orsepital, took me kidney right out they did, never thought I would 'ave lived they didn't. Me young man, 'im what's me 'usband now, you understand, mum, 'e come to see me when I began to git over it a bit; fair upset 'e was when the sister told 'im about me kidney. I says to 'im, "Alb," I says, "I'm sure if we gets married I shall cost you a hawful lot in doctors, and as I lay 'ere," I said, "I've thought it's 'ardly fair to expect a man to feel the same to 'is young woman when she ain't got all 'er orgins, and if you feel you'd rather 'ave some other young lady, why, say so now," I says, and I cried, I did, I was that weak and low, for I thought a deal of Alb, I did, and I didn't want to lose 'im, mum.'

'"Liza," 'e says, "don't never talk like that again, my gal, I'd rather 'ave you with no hinside than any other young lady what's got all her guts." Always one was Alb to speak 'is mind, and 'e fair blubbed, 'e did, 'e was that upset, and then the nurse come along again and sent 'im off, but I never forgot it, mum' (I shouldn't have either), 'and, as I say, I've never 'ad an unkind word from 'im. 'Elped with the 'ousework, too, many a time, and always lights the kitchen fire and brings me up a cup of tea, 'e does, of a morning, suppose that's why I miss 'im so now 'e's in France,' and a tear splashed down into the saucepan she had started washing.

Oh, it was really very sweet: the little woman's eyes were all alight with love at the remembrance of her Alb's renunciation of her 'orgin,' which, after all, was inspired by the same divine spark which caused Dante to adore his Beatrice, Jacob to serve fourteen years for Rachel, and Elizabeth to cry out to Robert,—

'How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

. . . . . . I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears of all my life! and if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.'

I nearly forgot to say that the workpeople are out of all the rooms, except the servants' bedrooms, so we are able to make a start arranging furniture. Really, there isn't time to breathe, but when it is finished Michael will perhaps come home. Oh, the happiness of seeing him walk up to the front door, of taking him round the rooms, of introducing him to all the dear old things, of showing him the garden. I can't think about it, I cannot bear the separation bravely if I do—and for five days I have had no letter.

The weather is delightful for going to and fro from Fernfold. It is warmer, and there is a shade of green over the garden. Snowdrops and a few early primroses make a show of bloom and great fat buds are coming on the lilac trees. Soon there will be violets under the hedges. My lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places. Each morning Ross and I walk over to the cottage with sandwiches and Cornish pasties, eggs and things, and coffee hot as hot in thermos flasks. The two chars meet us there and Nannie and the Gidger come sometimes for tea. We all go home tired but happy in the bus at five o'clock. The General Public will be relieved to know that up to now the horse has not succumbed to any other fits on my account!

To-day we arranged the hall. Three sides of it are panelled with black oak. There are large red flagstones for a floor and a wide window looking out across a bit of lawn into a little wood already pierced with bluebell spikes. Amongst the family things there is an old deal settle painted black, and this and a spinning wheel now stand beside the open fire, and where there is no panelling on the walls, I've stood an ancient dresser and filled its shelves with plates and dishes, made of stoneware, blue and gold. There are cups to match as well upon the hooks, and on the board below a naval copper rum jug Ross dug up from somewhere, and some copper bowls and pans. The carved oak chest now stands beneath the window, and there are other things besides which you shall see if you like to come and call on me! And then, although it looked so nice it lacked the feel of Michael, and because I am a very foolish woman I hung some caps and a coat of his upon the hooks just by the door, and flung a pipe and matches and a riding whip upon the table, and pretended that he had just come in and said, 'Lunch ready, old lady, what's the pudden?' and was gone upstairs for a moment followed by a trail of dogs. Then because he hadn't, and his things only increased the desolation, and because I have not had a letter for five days, I wept copiously into the aforesaid coat, and made a wet patch on the sleeve. Ross, passing unexpectedly, caught me with wet eyes, so I told him that the smell of Harris tweed always had, did, and would make my eyes water, which was the best excuse I could make at such short notice. This statement my brother received with the tact of an archangel, merely remarking as he went out that he knew exactly what I meant. Some things made his eyes run, for example, pepper and onions, and measles in the early stages. He returned soon after and said,—

'Meg, I want my lunch.'

'But you can't possibly eat your lunch at half-past twelve, Ross.'

'Can't I? You try me. Nature abhors a vacuum, come on, I'm starving. Now,' said he, as he stood, a great tall thing with his back to the fire, 'you're going to have a long rest this afternoon.'

'Indeed, I'm not, I've simply stacks to do.'

'This afternoon and every afternoon,' continued Ross, ignoring my remark. 'Michael says I'm letting you do too much, you're tired out and it's got to be stopped, I've got to read the Riot Act and then the list of crimes.'

'I should have thought the crimes came first,' I said.

'They have,' replied my brother grimly. 'Been reading in bed?' he asked abruptly.

'Yes, I haven't been able to sleep the last three nights, and it's no good, I simply must work, I can't do nothing with the news so bad and Michael in the thick of all that hell. Work all day and reading at night stop me thinking, and keeps me sane, so don't ask me to do less, Ross.'

'I don't "ask" you,' he said, and there was a horrid little silence.

One of the masters at Harrow once said to daddy, 'Don't mistake your boy, in spite of his wild spirits, his fun and charm and fascination, there's iron underneath.' The iron has a way of slipping up at times; it was uppermost just then, floating merrily, like the borrowed axe, and where was the prophet to whom I could go for rescue and say, 'Alas, Master.'

'You're too thin,' he began again, and then he pulled a letter out of his pocket and said, 'I don't really know any one who can express himself more clearly than Michael, once he really starts. I've had a regular jawing to-day from him for letting you get overtired—he——'

'Oh, Ross,' I interrupted, getting up hurriedly and clutching at his sleeve, 'have you had a letter from Michael to-day?'

'Yes, and another yesterday; why, what's the matter, kid?'

'Oh, why didn't you tell me?'

'It never occurred to me,' he said, 'Michael only wrote yesterday about money matters, and about you to-day; you hear from him every day yourself, don't you?'

'But I haven't had a letter for nearly a week, Ross.'

'Why on earth didn't you tell me, then,' he said, sitting down beside me on the settle.

'It's such a small worry compared with other people's, but I've been so dreadfully anxious.'

'You poor little scrap,' he said, and the cry which he had interrupted earlier in the morning I finished on his shoulder comfortably.

'What ridiculous handkerchiefs women use,' he remarked presently, exchanging my wet crumpled ball for his nice big, cool, dry one. 'Some chap said that men must work and women must weep, and you'd think that the sex that did the weeping would go in for the larger handkerchiefs, but I suppose you can't expect a female thing to be consistent. I shall have to ask our Lady of Ventre to bring a mop if you don't stop soon, and it'll be so bad for her inside, Meg.'

'How can you be so absurd,' I said, cheering up a bit, 'and I'm not a female thing.'

'You're a very provoking one,' he replied, 'and if there's another interval in Michael's letters, I'm to be told.'

'What does Michael say?' I asked.

'I'm to be told,' he repeated, tilting up my chin.

'So you said before,' I answered, trying to take his hand away, 'but I don't want to worry you with all my woes, you've got enough of your own.'

'My dear child, I could have told you two days ago that as I had heard from Michael his letters to you were only hung up in the post, and you would have been spared all this needless worry. Are you going to tell me in future, or must I order Nannie to bring me all your letters first?' and he tilted my chin still higher.

'I will tell you,' I said weakly, leaning up against him, it seemed the only way to stop him looking at me, 'What does Michael say?'

'That the Power of Attorney he gave me to manage his affairs is now extended to his wife, that there's to be no more reading in bed, no more rackety days in London. Blows me up sky high for letting you work all day and sew miles of little frills at night. Here, I'll read you out the last bit: "Yes, it's all right about the shares. You take quite decent care of my goods, why can't you of my chattel? I'll scrag you if you let her get knocked up; don't take the slightest notice of anything she says, make her obey orders."'

'The audacity of the man, the cheek,' I exclaimed, 'to call me a "chattel," to talk of "orders"—to a person who by Act of Parliament has been put on an equality with himself—to a woman with the vote—to a householder—the autocracy of it!'

'Good word that,' said my aggravating brother, 'but then, you see, Michael isn't exactly Mr Jellaby, and I'm going to see that you do obey orders, and chuck in a few extras of my own—milk and things,' said Ross vaguely. 'Here, get outside this sandwich and have some more coffee for a start, and then up you go to get a rest.'

'It's so nice by the fire,' I remarked rebelliously, and then he remembered the old joke and said whimsically, 'You know what you promised in the harness-room that day, darling,' and he gave me one of his rare kisses.

So I hope Michael the caveman is satisfied—that black beast—out there. All my plans upset, all the crockery still in straw, no curtains up, and not a picture hung. Oh, I had planned to have the cave so nice for his return, to sprinkle all the floor with fine sea sand, to hang up the skin of that big tiger that he killed, to keep away the draught, and over the driftwood fire to set a pot of rabbit stew (he always is so hungry), and then perhaps with a new necklace for myself I should have been ready.

Just as we were getting in the bus to-night our Lady of Ventre came running out to ask me if she might come two hours late to-morrow. She said that an old woman in the village was dying, and was sure to be dead by the morning, and she had been asked to lay her out, there being no nieces or daughters who could do it. 'Can't say I like the job, mum, but one can't 'ardly refuse to perform the last horfice for the dead seeing as 'ow we've all got to come to it; it's different if you know a person; if it was you now, mum, or the capting, I'd do it with pleasure.' Ross's guffaw nearly took the roof off.

When we got back to Fernfold there were three letters from Michael, but I only liked two of them. If he gives another man a Power of Attorney to row his wife, he oughtn't to do it himself as well. It's not cricket. Oh, well, I read the third one through again and liked it better, because I left out all the written part and only read between the lines—my darling!

CHAPTER XVI

Another week has passed. The workpeople have gone and taken all their pots and pails. Gidger's cottage is almost finished. It will be quite completed by to-night and we are going to sleep in it.

At the moment the two chars are working in the kitchen: Brown with his leg up is unpacking china, Ross ordering every one about, Nannie and the Gidger very busy in the nursery (the Poppet giving much advice about her own department), while the only person who really matters is doing 'nothing much' for a day or two, except cussing her male relatives in her heart.

The day-nursery is rather pretty—soft green walls, so that there may be no glare to strain the precious eyes: white furniture, just big enough for tiny folk: cupboards with shelves, low enough for little hands to reach the toys and that lovely 'Masque of Flowers' for pictures.

There is a window seat with cushions, where big people can tell small ones fairy stories in the dusk. There's a comfy chair for Nannie and a rocking-horse and doll's house, all presents from Aunt Constance, sent 'with love.'

Then in the Gidger's other room the same soft green, and all the pictures the small owner loves: that perfect Madonna of Andrea del Sarto, and a copy of Watts' 'Whence—Whither?' Do you remember that perfect baby, who runs out of the sea toward you, whichever way you stand and look at it. By special request, hung where she can always see them, are the two great favourites, 'The Good Shepherd' with a lamb, and the other—five Persian fluffy kittens sitting in a row.

'Because I like,' explained the Gidger to Uncle Woss, 'to see Jesus and the tittens when I get into my byes.'

'Would you call King George by his Christian name, Gidger?' Ross asked.

'Course not, Uncle Woss.'

'Why?'

'Because it would be most fwightful cheek.'

'Then don't you see it's much more cheek to call Him by His, darling?'

'But I didn't mean to be wude to Him,' said the Poppet tearfully, 'I'm fond of Him.'

'Of course, darling, so if you just say "Sorry, Sir," it'll be all right.'

So the Gidger said, 'Sorry, Sir,' and the conversation changed to kittens.

'I wish I had a titten, Uncle Woss, just like the one in the miggle.'

Ross said he would see what could be done, with which my daughter seemed contented.

But, ah, why is there only one little bed in the nursery, why is there no little son? Yes, of course, Michael is 'better to me than ten sons,' only he's so 'normous, the other would be so cuddley.

The Gidger does so want a long clothes baby doll. She's got a mother hunger for it, and I won't give her one. Shall I tell you why? If I should ever have the joy to hope about a little son, I shall hunt the garden for a nest, and let the Gidger peep at it with all the soft, downy things inside. Then I shall say, 'I made a little nest for you once, darling, just underneath my heart,' and I shall take her up in the nursery and open a drawer and show her all the small robes and garments that I made for her, and then she'll say, 'Oh, muvver, why won't you let me have a long clothes baby dolly?' And I shall tell her about the second nest that I've begun to make, and then I shall give her a most perfect baby doll that I've got waiting in a box just now. I shall ask her sometimes if she'd like to come and learn to sew some clothes for her baby while I sew some for mine: and if she pricks her little fingers, and makes a tiny spot of blood upon the narrow hem, and looks at me with eyes like drowned forget-me-nots (as she does if she is going to cry), I shall say, 'But, darling, don't you think it's worth it for your baby?' She'll learn to know then, when she's married and she's got the mother hunger, that her baby will be worth the mother pain.

And now the evening time has come. The house is finished, the last picture is up, the last curtain hung, and all the dear domestic gods arranged. Alas! the fly in the ointment has turned up also. The staff has arrived, and I am terrified of it. I feel all awash inside to think that I have to order the dinner in the morning and tell the S.P. what her work is. However, 'sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.'

Tired, but happy, I wandered into the scented garden in the dusk to gather great branches of white and purple lilac, armfuls of forget-me-not and fragrant pheasant eye and the very early honeysuckle that grows over the porch. Then I filled every vase and pot that could be induced to hold water, and some that couldn't, Ross says, because I stood a leaky jar on his dressing-table and the water trickled into the drawer beneath and reduced the contents to pulp.

The house is so sweet, filled with the spring, but if only I had decorated all the rooms for Michael! My heart goes out to him to-night with a great longing. The rooms are full of the peace and fragrance only found in old houses, yet, dear as it is, it can never be to me anything more than a house till he comes and transforms it into Home.

CHAPTER XVII

I think 'The Staff' might be worse, though it could not be more alarming. Dulcie cooks beautifully, only she won't cook enough of anything, and the S.P. is very superior, quite appallingly so. She does her work well, but she despises me. I try to like her, but it is difficult to feel any affection for a person who looks as if you were a bad smell under her nose. She has always lived with such exclusive families that I cannot think she will stay very long with us. Her last place was a failure, she only stayed a month. 'After I got there,' she explained, 'I found the mistress was not a lady.'

'How did you know?' I inquired politely.

'Oh, she never dressed for dinner, put the coals on with her fingers, and had tea in the dining-room. (By a merciful dispensation we have ours in the hall.) 'I was most uncomfortable,' she added, 'but I liked him. He was a real gentleman, his underclothing was all made of silk.'

'My 'Ilda' needs a great deal of polishing. At lunch the S.P. teaches her to wait at table, but it is a daily martyrdom for any one so perfectly genteel, so unutterably refined!

Monica turned up yesterday, unexpectedly, in a motor-car. She stayed ten minutes and then dashed back to her hospital.

'Oh, Meg!' she laughed as she came in, 'why didn't you tell me the truth years ago? What an utter little fool I've always been, but I've found out that I love him after all.'

'Well, you'd better write and tell him so,' I said, and kissed her.

'I have,' she answered, blushing like a wild rose. 'Aren't I a bold, bad girl? Aren't modern women hussies? I'm so longing for his letter, Meg. Oh, you were funny! I'm not a bit patrician, am I? I adore cement!'

Dear old Monica!

And after she had departed like a young whirlwind I had another thrill. The curate and his wife called, and he turned out to be Mr Williams. He is still solemn, and thinner and limper even than he used to be, but he cheered up a bit at the mention of the Bishop of Ligeria. She is a frail little person with a dress like a spasm and the most desolating hat it has been my lot to meet for years. I wonder if she dresses so from choice or poverty.

I was glad my brother was in London when they called. His eyes would have been fascinated by the reserve of food on Mr Williams's coat. Funny old thing I Ross is always so well-groomed himself that, like the robin, he makes all the other birds look dirty.

When he came home he brought a hamper.

'The one in the miggle's in there,' he said with pride.

'You are famed for your lucidity,' I remarked politely.

It was a kitten for the Gidger, such a purring, fluffy atom, just out of the frame and christened Fitzbattleaxe by my daughter the moment she saw it. When Nannie had whisked her away, Ross said,—

'You'll have to put up with me for a bit longer, old thing. I got a big overhauling to-day. They say my arm is better, and I can have it in a sling now instead of these infernal bandages.'

'Well, that's something,' I observed, but Ross is not of a grateful nature.

'Small something, I think,' he snorted. 'Boards are a lot of old women, said I must be content to "Make haste slowly," as if I were a schoolgirl. I want to be back with my men. Oh, what an awful time it seems since I saw anybody decent.'

'Well,' I ejaculated, 'if that's not the pink-edged limit!'

'Oh, twins don't count, Meg, but I am in a vile temper. Let's go and do something. Clean the greenhouse roof, shall we? There's just light enough. Come on!'

Ross decided the plan of campaign. I was to pour the water from my bedroom window on to the glass beneath, while he, armed with a long broom borrowed from the kitchen, would stand on a pair of steps in the garden and clean the glass with the broom aforesaid.

'Now, Meg, plenty of water, no stinting,' he ordered.

So I got a huge canfull, and in order that Ross should have all the water he desired, I poured it out, not from the spout but from the other end, with great pride and force. Alas, 'the ways of mice and men aft gang agley.' The gutter of the beastly thing was too small to catch my Niagara, and the entire volume of water rushed over the glass, down Ross's neck, into his eyes and mouth, flooding his pockets and soaking him to the skin.

He gave one awful yell and overbalanced into the water butt, the lid of which, of course, was off (it would be in my garden). In my agitation I dropped the can, which followed the water in a wild leap on to the path below, smashing two or three panes of glass in its mad career.

'Well, you have done it,' said Ross, surveying the wreckage from the water tub. 'There's no doubt if you want a thing really well done, it's best to do it oneself.'

Then Sam appeared and looked reproachfully at me, and spoke to Ross, and I heard the words 'arm' and something about 'taking more care.'

Ross looked through Sam in that disgusting way he has when he isn't pleased, and said,—

'I can't go through the house like this, Meg; why do you have your tubs lined with green. Get me a bath, Brown.'

'Cold, sir?'

'How can I get this stuff off in cold? Hot, of course,' snapped his master, 'and ask the Titmouse for the ladder, Brown, and I'll go through the bathroom window.'

As I went upstairs a little later, Ross's door was slightly open; Sam was catching it. King's Regulations and the Hickley Woods wrestling for the mastery.

'You'll excuse me, sir, you don't take care.'

Then my brother's voice floated towards me down the passage.

'No, I'll not excuse you, Brown. I've had too much cheek from you the last ten minutes! Get me a shirt. If you mention my arm again in front of Mrs Ellsley, you'll quit. Now my coat. Do you call this brushed? Now a handkerchief, and get out.'

Then as he remembered that he was now promoted to a sling he added stormily,—

'Understand once for all, I will not be fussed over like a schoolgirl, I'm not a sucking dove.'

'Oh, no, sir,' said Brown, and I caught a flicker of amusement on his impassive countenance as he closed the door behind him with the wet clothes on his arm.

Just then the carrier brought a crate of hens and a box of rabbits from Aunt Constance. We felt rather like Noah when the animals began to file into the ark. The hens were the breed that have the very large combs. 'My 'Ilda' remarked as they were put into their run,—

'My! you won't get many eggs from them, mum, they're all cocks.'