Front matter (continued 4)

The Gidger loved the rabbits and I told her how the mother bunny would presently have some little ones, and that she would love them very much and make a warm nest for them, and pull off her own soft fur to keep her babies warm. I want my little daughter to know of all the wonderful protective instincts God has implanted in His creatures and the sweet provision that He makes for all the tiny things.

Just before dinner we flew down the village to buy some bran for the new arrivals. On our return my brother did one of his atrocious lightning changes.

When Sam let us in Ross said,—

'Thanks, Sam, any letters?' and then 'Knee bad?'

'Pretty middling, sir.'

'Go and put it up, then. What are you about on it for?'

'It'll be time enough to put it up after dinner, sir. I must wait at table to-night, the parlour-maid is out.'

The atmosphere in the hall became suddenly arctic. I shivered as the cold of it blew into me. I could feel Ross looking through Sam as he asked coldly,—

'Did you intend to say "must" to me, Brown?' And Brown said,—

'No, sir,' and did not appear at dinner. I sent him up a book and two Cox's oranges, so I had to continue 'My 'Ilda's' education in the art of waiting.

As she handed the soup she decorated each plate with a beautiful scallop like a flannel petticoat. I suppose it is difficult to keep liquid level and walk at the same time. She had put no fish forks on the table, so I said reprovingly,—

'What are we to eat the fish with, Hilda?'

'Oh, whatever you like, Mrs Ellsley,' she said brightly. Ross drank some water hurriedly. I endeavoured to make my meaning clearer and to keep my face straight at the same time, whereupon 'My 'Ilda' said,—

'I do like being here; you don't mind how many mistakes I make so long as I do it right.'

She shot a knife and fork into Ross's lap, mercifully they were clean or there would have been ructions, then she upset a glass of water and got the hiccoughs, and later tripped over the footstool and sent the cheese straws flying like leaves before an autumn gale.

When 'My 'Ilda' brought the coffee into the hall she stepped on the kitten's tail, and as that indignant fluffy ball spat at her, she remarked,—

'My! ain't Fitzbattleaxe got a temper, I don't think. Your face is red, Mrs Ellsley; did I do it all right at dinner?'

As I went to my room to fetch a book I heard her fall down the back stairs with a pail. It was the end of an imperfect meal. Ross says I ought to start a nursing home for sergeant-majors suffering from depression—they'd be cured in a week, and then he remarked,—

'I wonder if Sam's got a decent supper. I must go and see.'

When he came down again he tossed a little box into my lap and said,—

'Why didn't you tell me that you wanted a new necklace? I'd have loved to give you one.'

'What do you mean, Ross?'

'Michael wrote to me to-day that you had said you wanted a "new necklace for yourself" directly the cave was finished, and that I was to buy you one.'

Oh, isn't he absurd and dear? So I opened the box, and inside there were two to choose from. So I chose the one of very perfect pearls, and then for some extraordinary reason of his own Ross kissed me and said,—

'How Michael spoils you, darling.'

But two kisses in twelve days. He must be ill, I think.

CHAPTER XVIII

It's All Fools' Day. Perhaps that's why the Titmouse elected to get the rheumatics that come from damp attics, so that I had to tell the Stench what 'to be getting on with.'

As I walked round the garden with him I asked if all the seeds were in.

'In, an' coming up by the galore, mum, an' I've given the turnips a dressin' of soot, as it makes a vast difference to 'em on their first appearance through the soil, mum.'

I could well believe it!

'I think you'd better dig the bed in front of the kitchen window then.'

'How deep, mum, two spits?'

I hadn't the foggiest notion how deep that is, but I said,—

'Oh, yes, of course, dig down as deep as ever you can; you can't dig too deep, Stench—Tench, I mean!'

Ross thinks he knows a bit about gardening, so at lunch I said,—

'Ross, how big is a spit?'

'Depends on how bad your cold is,' he began, but I closed the conversation.

Alas, alas, hear the end. Half an hour later the S.P. said would I speak to the captain in the garden? I found him in front of the kitchen window surveying some extraordinary earth-works and excavations, the Stench standing by looking particularly wooden.

'What on earth——' I began.

'I've dug so deep, mum, I come to a poipe; do it matter?' said the boy.

I surveyed the scene of his labours and found the little wretch had dug down to the kitchen drain.

'Gardening is certainly your strong point, Meg. Do you think the boy has dug this bit deep enough, or shall he take up the drains as well? By Jove,' added my brother, doubling up suddenly with laughter, 'what an acquisition you'd both be in the army. I never saw a better communication trench in my life.'

At tea-time Ross gloomily surveyed the table lightly spread with thin bread and butter and minute cakes.

'Well, there doesn't seem enough for Fitzbattleaxe, so let's go and have tea with Sam. He's dead down on his luck, too.'

'Knee bad?' I questioned.

'Putrid, so's his temper since I rowed him this morning.'

'What did you row him for?' I asked.

'Usual thing. Found him standing up brushing my clothes to-day, so I pitched into him for once in his life, hot and strong. It is rotten for him, but I really had to tell him a few home truths. He simply must stick his leg up all day.'

So we went up into Sam's little sitting-room with Fitzbattleaxe.

'Better?' said Ross, as he went in.

'Yes, thank you, sir,' said Sam, and got up hastily as I entered.

'Forgotten your orders again, Brown?' asked Ross sternly, opening the door to go out.

'No, sir,' said Sam, still standing up. (I do love to see him 'fighting' Ross.) 'Orders were: "Bed at 11. Not to stand up when it were you only, between the hours of 10.30 a.m. and 7 p.m.," sir.'

Quite obviously Sam was obeying the strict letter of the law, so Ross came in again, and I remarked,—

'And I say, same hours when it's only me, Sam.'

'If you could both remember about the verb "to be,"' began my brother.

'I can't,' I said.

Sam dropped into a chair, looking as if he'd like to smash all clocks, and remarked he was absolutely fed up.

'Well, we're not, we're half starved. That's why we've come to tea.'

'You want to count your mercies, Sam,' I said, which being a remark to which my Aunt Amelia is much addicted, was the most aggravating thing I could think of at the moment. When one is down on one's luck it is fatal to be sympathetic, and Sam was down on his, right on the bed-rock bottom of it.

'Well, I'm counting the mercies he's got and we haven't,' said Ross; 'there's quite a respectable bit of heaven spread on this table at the moment. A whole loaf, a pound of butter, two pounds of strawberry jam and jorams of Devonshire cream, goodies with sugar on top, and a plum cake that you can cut. My hat, some people have all the luck. It's a regular Hickley Wood one.'

'Make the tea, Sam,' I exclaimed, 'the kettle's boiling; mind you don't set the woods alight.'

'Have I ever set the woods alight, miss?' Sam asked indignantly.

'Nor ever failed to lose your temper either, if I suggested you would,' I answered.

So Sam grinned and felt better, and made a long arm for the kettle, and brewed tea, and cut up bread and cream, and we had it in the Hickley Woods, as we've had it millions of times together. It was just the same. Whenever I had finished my slice, Sam put another on my plate, with mountains of cream and jam on it. At the third I remarked,—

'Sam, there really are limits.'

'Yes, but you ain't reached them yet, miss; four's yours.'

'Do you think you ought to speak to me like that, now I am married and have a daughter, Sam?'

'He gets you muddled up with the daughter, I expect, same as I do,' remarked Ross, 'only the Gidger is so much more sober and serious-minded than you're ever likely to be.'

'Four,' I called out; 'limit's reached, Sam.'

'Well, there isn't any more cream, anyway,' said Sam, which, of course, was the one and only reason why we stopped in Hickley Woods.

'I begin to feel better,' observed my brother. 'Why don't I have enough to eat at lunch, Meg, I do at breakfast?'

'I see to your breakfast,' said Sam, 'and I'd see you had a good lunch if only I was allowed down.'

'Well, you aren't,' said my brother, 'so that's that, and I should think it would be better manners if you saw we had a good tea when we're up. Pass the cake. Here, you eat the little chaps, I'll have the plum.'

So Sam ate all the small cakes with sugar on top, and Fitzbattleaxe got the cream tin to lick out. He went right inside and stuck, and had to be lugged out by the tail. Then we shoved the table back and sat round the fire, and talked about the old days. At seven o'clock Nannie looked round the door. She was promptly hauled in and sat on Ross's knee.

'Sam,' she scolded, 'why do you keep them out so late? I really shall have to tell your father to wallop you. I've often threatened to, I really will to-night.'

'Let's run her down the passage, Sam, for cheek,' said Ross, and they were just about to do it when Brown suddenly got up and said,—

'Want a bath, sir?' and Nannie said, 'Will you wear your black again, ma'am?' and, of course, it was that wretched S.P. come to clear away the tea. The smell under her nose was rather worse than usual, and the picnic broke up hurriedly. I felt as if I had been having tea with my brother's man-servant, and Ross had been nursing one of the maids. Oh, I do loathe that woman!

It was a most unfortunate dinner to-night, like one of those you get at Aunt Amelia's. There didn't seem to be anything solid to eat. At the end Sam handed Ross sardines on toast. 'What a thundering lot of hors d'oeuvres we seem to be having to-night, when's the dinner coming?'

'Savoury, sir,' said Sam.

'You don't mean to tell me,' said Ross, pushing back his chair and glaring at Sam, 'that I've had my dinner?'

'You've had what there was of it, sir.'

'Well, I'm jiggered. Why on earth, Meg, don't you make them cook more food. Really——'

''Tisn't her fault,' said Sam, still in the Hickley Woods, sticking up for me as he always did; 'she's told them times without number; it's no good blaming her. Shall I cut some sandwiches?'

'Sam, I suppose I can reprove my sister without your interfering, and I never blame, I always rule by love.'

'Same as you did this morning, sir,' grinned Sam, 'will you have large cups of coffee with your sandwiches?'

'Do you think that's a respectful remark to make to your superior officer, Brown?'

'No, sir, sorry.'

'I shall judge the measure of your repentance by the number of sandwiches you cut,' said Ross, 'and if the cups of coffee are very large, I might be inclined to overlook your cheek, otherwise——'

But Sam had vanished into the kitchen, and we went into the hall to wait for supper. A few minutes afterwards, Sam dumped a tray of food on the table.

We settled down comfortably for a good long evening. At 10.15, just as we were beginning to enjoy ourselves, Sam came in, he looked like milk and butter, and his voice was a caress.

'Turned your bath on, sir.'

'Are you dotty, Brown?' asked my brother.

'Certainly not, sir.'

'Well, what are you gassing about baths for at this hour of the afternoon, you gloomy ox, you're worse than a keeper.'

'Orders is orders, sir. If I've got to go to bed at 11 you'll have to go at 10.15, if I'm to see to your arm.'

'My hat,' ejaculated Ross, looking across at me in hopeless consternation, 'what a fool I am.'

'First of April, sir,' said Sam, and fled upstairs.

CHAPTER XIX

I can't manage my 'staff,' I wish I were an Eastern Queen, then I should sort of call the eunuchs when I wanted anything, instead of which the maids do exactly what they like. Ross says if I won't let Sam 'do something' I must put my own foot down.

The S.P. brings my early tea in a silver teapot instead of the little brown chap I told her I preferred. So I hid the beastly thing under my bed, hoping she would take the hint and see I really meant it. She came and asked me if that was where I wished the silver kept in future!

Then when I ordered the dinner to-day I said to Dulcie, 'Send in the junket in the old blue china bowl, please.' It came in that silver dish we use for cutlets. So I wouldn't eat the junket—said it would taste of mutton cutlets, and after lunch the S.P. rowed me for saying the silver wasn't clean, which I hadn't even thought of, for she keeps it beautifully.

Putting my foot down made my face so hot that I retired to my bedroom to recover, but alas! Fitzbattleaxe was making the day hideous with his howls. He was lodged on a ledge in my chimney, just out of reach, and was apparently afraid to jump the precipice into my bedroom.

So I tied my hair up in a handkerchief, put on a nightgown to protect my dress, and laid down comfortably on the hearthrug with my head up the chimney. At intervals I waved a bit of liver at the kitten and said in my most persuasive manner, 'Littlekittycatpoorpussycometomissusdidums.' This seemed to entertain the kitten very much as it responded by rubbing its back violently against the chimney and incidentally dislodging a good deal of soot over me, while it sniffed ecstatically at the liver.

'Goodness,' said Ross, bursting like a cyclone into the room, 'what a sight you look; is that kitten still there? Mr Williams is downstairs. Are you giving that little beast meat, Meg; how many times have I warned you that it's illegal to give rations to rodents.'

'It isn't a rodent,' I said, sitting up in the fireplace, 'and it's not rations either, it's offal.'

A frozen look of horror slowly overspread my brother's open countenance.

'Offal,' he queried, 'could it possibly have been offal you said?'

'Yes,' and I began to get little creeps down my spine as I did as a child when I'd been naughty, 'it's offal, edible offal.'

'The word "edible" does not excuse the word offal.'

'They call it that in the Times,' I said meekly.

'There are many things in the Times which it is better not to repeat in polite society, Margaret.'

'I don't call your society polite, far from it,' I rejoined. 'What does Mr Williams want?'

'Oh, my angel, he wants a lot of things: a shave, for instance, and a bath and a clean collar, and his clothes brushed, and his nails cut, and snow-white flowers against his hair, and a heap of things like that.'

'I expect he's very poor,' I said, waving the liver at Fitzbattleaxe.

'Unless he's behind with his water rate, he could have most of his present needs supplied by turning on the tap. He's asked to see you.'

'Well, I can't see him like this, can I?'

'You certainly can't. You look like the back of a cab, Meg!'

'Do tell me sensibly what he says,' I implored.

Ross pulled his mouth down at the corners, closed his eyes and put his hands together as if in prayer. '"My dear wife is laid aside with an internal chill, she is, therefore, unable to be present at the class for female confirmation candidates this afternoon, and as the vicar is away, I ventured to think that Mrs Ellsley might be good enough to speak a few words of exhortation in her place, hymn 547, let us pray."'

'How can you be so absurd?' I said.

'Oh, why do curates talk like that? Why can't this man wash? Why can't he be modern and human? Why can't he say, "Hallo, old bean, my wife ain't in the pink, got a pain in her breadbasket or something. Priceless washout, too, as it's her turn to spout to the gals. Just blew in to see if your sister would help me out of a hole and come and do a pi-jaw stunt, what!"'

Here my disgusting twin retched realistically into the soap dish, murmuring 'He makes me sick.'

'Your vulgarity is simply awful, Ross, do stop, you make me feel quite ill.'

'I venture to think, my misguided young friend——' began Ross again.

'You know what happened to the children in the Bible,' I interrupted, 'who mocked at their betters: a frightful animal jumped out at them and——'

Here I gave a piercing scream as the kitten suddenly decided to risk it, and landed unexpectedly in the middle of my stomach.

'Just so,' said Ross with a howl of laughter, 'I never saw a better illustration of it in my life.'

And now I want to ask the General Public something.

Could you tell me why, because a person's mother once fell off the top of a step-ladder, a person should never be allowed to go on the top step herself? It seems such a ridiculous thing to hand on from father to son.

'Gracious,' I said, when I was rowed for it to-day, after Mr Williams had departed, 'because mother did it, it's a thousand to one I won't. I don't know the actuary figures, but it practically insures me against it, Ross.'

'I don't care,' said that gentleman, 'I won't have it, and that's all there is about it.'

'How can you be so ridiculous. You don't mind if I go up a tree, and I've done everything that you've done always. If you don't think it's dangerous for me to climb and hunt and ski, why on earth should you kick at the top of a step-ladder?'

'Well, we won't argue about it, Margaret.'

'I loathe twins,' I grumbled.

And he said he did, too, the sort that spat fire when a chap tried to take care of them.

Suddenly the bottom dropped out of the world, and everything that I had thought solid, stable, and immovable came crashing about me, and my brother, for the first and last time in all his life was 'meek' to me and said,—

'Please, darling, because I found mother after she smashed herself up so badly.'

It was that tide in the affairs of men which had I taken at the flood would have tamed the lion to eat out of my hand. Oh, wasn't I a fool to say,—

'Oh, all right, Ross.'

But there it is, and I know now what that poor darling felt when he wrote Paradise Lost.

CHAPTER XX

A telegram came from Monica this morning saying,—

'Please meet the 11.20 train.'

So the family turned up at the station en masse, but instead of the lady we expected, there descended from the guard's van a beautiful and dignified Great Dane with a label round his neck.

'For Meg's baronial hall. A thank-offering, sent with "Hove from a modern Lussy."'

Or, at any rate, that's what it looked like. Monica does write so badly.

The Gidger kissed the thank-offering promptly, and was rewarded with a large lick.

'Oh, don't wash me with your flannel,' she exclaimed.

Then we all introduced ourselves, and Ross observed as he edged away from a very wet tongue,—

'He must be first cousin to the dog in the Bible that was so kind to the poor beggar; you'd better call him "Moreover," after him, Meg.'

'What dog, and what beggar?' I asked.

'Gracious, child, for a Bishop's daughter you don't know much Church history, and haven't you heard that old chestnut either? Why, when Lazarus was laid at the rich man's gate, Moreover, the dog, came and licked his sores.'

Our Moreover is a splendid person. Directly he arrived at the house he walked into the hall, and laid himself down by the great open fire, and looked positively Elizabethan.

On the way home Ross dashed into the post office to send some telegrams. 'Aren't I a fool never to have thought of it before,' he said fervently, but what he hadn't thought of he declined to say, so I just agreed with the fool part.

After luncheon I slipped over to see Mrs Williams. The curate opened the door himself, looking haggard, with black rings round his eyes and yesterday's beard still on his chin.

'I called to inquire for Mrs Williams and to bring her some flowers and grapes. I hope she's better,' I said.

His hand shook as he took the little basket. 'How kind of you, won't you come up and see my wife, she's a little better to-day, but I have been up with her all night. I've just taken her some tea. I'll fetch another cup.'

'Please don't bother about tea for me,' I said. 'I'm sure your maids will have enough to do.'

'We haven't any maids.'

'But who is doing for you, then?'

'I do the best I can,' and he opened the bedroom door. If you could have seen that room and its little white-faced occupant. There was no carpet on the floor, no fire, though it had turned quite cold. It was all very clean, but, oh, the poverty of it. The poor little woman was propped up with two thin pillows and a sofa cushion, and had beside her a cup of half-cold tea and a bit of bread and margarine.

'Oh, Alfred, you oughtn't to have let Mrs Ellsley up. I'm not tidy,' and she patted her hair and smoothed out the crumpled sheet.

'You look quite sweet,' I said, 'but I'm afraid you aren't well, and as you have no maids is there anything I can do for you both; what does the doctor say?'

'I haven't had the doctor.'

'She won't let me fetch him,' said her husband, 'though I have begged her to.'

'Oh, but do let me send, Mrs Williams. I am sure you ought to see him.'

'No, no,' she cried, getting very agitated, 'I shall be better in the morning.'

So I sat with her a little while and chatted and then tried once more about the doctor, but in vain. She would 'be better in the morning.'

'But, Mrs Williams, it would ease your husband's mind so; do tell me why you won't.'

Then, because she was so very tired and weak and ill, at last she told me. She had had attacks of internal pains several times during the winter, and the expense and medicine had used up all their little savings, and with a burst of bitter tears she said they owed five pounds, and had nothing more of value they could sell; and so on—all the piteous tale—of high prices and an income so minute that only by the most careful management and hard work could it be made to do in ordinary times. Gradually all the little jewels had gone and bits of plate, the food had been cut down, and she had had to turn her clothes and patch and mend and work till all her strength had gone, and now that she was ill it was 'All too much for Alfred.' The poor little soul turned faint and sick then from sheer exhaustion and lack of food. I sent her Alfred flying out for milk: there was only tinned stuff in the house, 'it went farther,' and with a reckless hand I beat up their only egg, which he informed me anxiously he had been saving for her to-morrow's dinner. And then I flung the last few drops of brandy in the glass and made her drink it all and eat some tiny sandwiches, and a few grapes. The food revived her and a scrap of colour came into her cheeks.

'Now,' I said sternly, 'I'm going to fetch a cab, and roll you up in blankets and take you to my house and nurse you up a bit.'

Of course she protested, said it was impossible.

'Why?' I demanded.

Oh, heaps of reasons, gave a few, hadn't a clean nightie, for one thing, she had only two and had been too ill to wash the other. She had so hoped there would have been some in the last parcel from the Charitable Clothing Fund.

'But I have simply dozens,' I wailed. Yes, I know, there wasn't an ounce of tact in that remark, but I was thinking of my own luxurious room, fires every night, all the pettings and scoldings I get if I'm not well, and how nobody asks me if I will have the doctor or takes the slightest notice of me if I say I won't, and of all the clothes I'd got and the general and disgusting air of affluence there is about the family. I hated myself and all my relatives. Yes, I did, the whole blessed lot of them.

'But I couldn't leave my husband,' said Mrs Williams.

'Of course, he's coming too, my spare room is crying out for visitors.'

'But we are strangers, you can't take us in like this.'

'But it was "a stranger and ye took Me in," He said. Oh,' I continued, throwing grammar to the winds, 'why didn't He tell a person what to do when the stranger won't be took in.'

She laughed at that and then consented. So I flew home and told the tale to Ross and Nannie in the nursery.

'Poor young thing,' said Nannie, 'but she'll soon get better here.' So I sent the Gidger flying to the Titmouse for heaps of flowers, and the S.P. scuttling round to get the spare room ready for her and the dressing-room for him, and the Stench off on a bicycle to ask the doctor to look in, and 'My 'Ilda' for a cab. After that I said to Nannie, 'Come and help me look out some things for her, nighties and something pretty to sit up in.'

And then I turned to my brother, who was sitting silently.

'Why, Ross, I couldn't do anything else? You don't mind Mr Williams coming, do you?' Suddenly his Irish grandmother came on top, and he exploded violently and unexpectedly in that way he has.

'What a system,' he stormed, 'what a church, that can so sweat its ministers that their families have not enough to eat, and gentlefolk are reduced to wearing other people's old clothes and being glad to get them. It's enough to make one sick, and I suppose they call it "holy poverty." It wouldn't make me feel very holy to see my wife hoping some beastly society would send her an old nightgown and have the cheek to call it charity. Surely if it's necessary to help the clergy at all we ought to give the best we can, as if we were giving to Him. Anyway, I won't have you give Mrs Williams your old clothes, Meg. If it wasn't that Michael was so disgustingly well off it might be you. Thank goodness I've got plenty of money; here, buy her all she wants and if it isn't enough tell me,' and he pitched into my astonished hands all the loose money from his pockets and a note-case stuffed with notes. 'And then you ask me if I mind,' he stormed, 'when the boot is on the other leg. He may mind meeting me. I wasn't decently civil when he called the other day, sneered at him because he looked unbrushed, when he'd probably been up all night. Why, I'm not fit to black his boots. It's all my accursed temper and my damnable pride.' And he flung out of the nursery into his own room and slammed the door.

'Oh, Nannie,' I said, 'isn't he funny? he hasn't been in such a bate for years; of course I never meant to give her my old clothes.'

'Of course you didn't, dearie, he'll remember in a minute, don't you fret.'

'Shall I go after him and tell him so?'

'Oh, I should let him bide, poor lamb.'

'So I let him 'bide,' though anything less like a lamb than Ross at that moment wasn't conceivable.

We smuggled out some nighties, so that the maids shouldn't see, and a blue dressing-gown, and a little quilted coat to match, and some soft blue shoes, and a cap or two, and a shawl and pretty things like that to suit an invalid, and when I got to Mrs Williams's house I packed them all in her own suit-case and brought her in a cab to Gidger's Cottage.

Nannie solemnly unpacked for her, and said,—

'How pretty your things are, ma'am, if you won't think it a liberty for me to say so,' which was considerably more tactful than my remark about the nighties. And the invalid blushed quite nicely and looked at me reprovingly.

Daddy always said that Nannie couldn't tell a lie and came out in a cold perspiration if she even tried, but I think her first and last will be forgiven her. So we got Mrs Williams to bed, she was very exhausted. The doctor came and said that she was threatened with appendicitis and that if this attack could be warded off she ought to be sent to the sea and get quite strong and then have the operation.

While I was waiting in the firelight for dinner a chastened Ross appeared. He slipped his arm round me and hid his face in my hair.

'Oh, Meg,' he said, 'I am a beast.'

'I was wrongfully accused!'

'Nannie told me about the ripping things you've given her; I ought to be kicked for saying it.'

'Oh, Ross, what rot, what about that fat case of notes?'

'Well, I can't give him my new kilt, can I?' with a ghost of a laugh. 'I wish I hadn't been so cool to the chap, but clothes with the remains of the last meal on simply make me curl up. I can't help it, I do try and not let it show. I will be deadly civil now, I'll have my party smile on all the time,' said my repentant brother.

Ross in white rags of penitence so amused me that I felt I would like to keep him humble a little longer. The boot is nearly always on the other leg, so I said, very gravely, hoping he wouldn't feel me giggle,—

'You see, Ross, it was your damnable temper and your accursed pride.'

Then with amazing suddenness the boot was on the usual leg. 'I won't have you say those words, Meg, and understand if I let you have these people here, you're not to get fagged out. Michael says so in every letter he writes me. I shall wire for a nurse for her in the morning, and you're to get somebody extra in the kitchen, and as you don't seem able to manage those women, I've told Sam to do something. Michael sent me a prepaid wire to-day saying you'd said you were hungry, and what was being done about it.'

I was just about to protest when Mr Williams came into the hall, so the conversation changed abruptly. He was quite spruced up, shaved, and looked heaps better. I saw Ross give one fastidious glance at the spotted clothes, but he was very nice to him at dinner and talked with charming deference. When half a spoon of soup went down the ill-used coat, I saw Ross slowly freeze and curl up, but he violently uncurled himself and said, 'Oh, rotten luck, sir,' and helped poor Mr Williams mop it up.

I slipped upstairs quite early to see how the invalid was, and found her inclined to be sleepy, and as I bent over her she whispered, 'I can't thank you, but "Inasmuch," He said.'

Ross peeped round my door about eleven and found me writing.

'Did I do it all right at dinner, Mrs Ellsley?' he began, mimicking 'My 'Ilda.' 'You look quite sweet in that cap and jacket, Meg.' And then he added hastily, lest I should be puffed up with pride like Pau-Puk-Keewis, 'but I thought Michael had forbidden you to read in bed.'

'He has, but I'm not reading, I'm just writing.'

'Humph,' said Ross, 'could I—would it—do you think it would offend him if I got Sam to—brush and—er sponge them, Meg? Goodness,' he ejaculated, pulling out his watch, 'do you know what the time is?'

'Twenty past,' I said, looking at mine.

'Twenty past what?'

'I don't know, the hour hand slips round, but twenty past anything can't be late; if it were five to, now, it might be different, Ross.'

'Well, anyway, give me that pen, Meg. You're not going to write another word, and I'll have that watch mended to-morrow. Give it me.'

So I handed that over, too, and produced a pencil

'Well, I'm dashed,' said Ross, and took that also.

'Oh, do let me finish my letter to Michael, Ross. The Titmouse posts it in the morning. I only want to write just one more thing.'

'You may say,' said Ross, handing it back, '"I am a very disobedient wife, Michael."'

So I said, "I am a very disobedient wife, Michael, but I love you" (oh, he's coming for the pencil), "love you—lo——"'

But, of course, I've got another pencil, one must be prepared for such emergencies, but the thing that really rankles is, if he 'lets me'—in my house!

In the silent watches of the night I have decided that if Sam does produce any improvement in the housekeeping I am going to find out how; surely my brain is as good as a man's any day of the week.

CHAPTER XXI

I feel anxious about Monica. She hasn't heard from Charlie. I saw her yesterday. She looked very tired, but wouldn't say much—only, 'there's hardly been time yet,' which she knows as well as I do isn't true. So I suppose something has gone wrong there. God doesn't seem to like people to be happy lately. I haven't heard from Michael either the last two days, but I try not to worry. Probably the posts are just hung up again.

Mrs Williams is better, much less pain, and a little fatter, or perhaps it would be more correct to say, rather less thin. The nurse thinks she will be able to get up for a while to-morrow, and that she should go away for a change before her operation.

While I was in the garden sowing seeds, Ross came out to me and said,—

'Meg, excuse me mentioning it, but how much do operations cost?'

'It depends on how much they take out,' I said. '"Why, at one hoperation alone——"'

'Margaret, if you would have the goodness to give me some idea of a figure, and not make me sick, I should be so obliged.'

I looked round wildly for 'some idea of a figure.' The flower seed packet in my hand was numbered 207, so I said,—

'About 207, I should think, and it was "Our Lady of Ventre," Ross, who said that about the "hoperation." As long as it's a quotation, a person can say anything and not be blamed.'

'Your quotations always were about the limit,' he answered, and went indoors again.

A little later in the afternoon Ross was drumming idly on the drawing-room window when he suddenly exclaimed,—

'There are two visitors coming up the path, freaks, too, look at their clothes. My hat, Meg I it's Aunt Amelia, Keziah, and the fydo!'

I don't know if I said before that Keziah is tall and rather angular, with smooth black hair parted down the middle, like Aunt Amelia's, and as the maid is always arrayed in her mistress's cast-off clothes, one description will do for both. On this occasion each wore a funny little black bonnet, and a long voluminous broché skirt, the train of which was held right over the arm, showing acres of white embroidered petticoat. A black jacket, and square-toed, flat-heeled boots, and those awful stuff gloves that pull on without buttons completed an awe-inspiring costume.

Keziah arranged my aunt in an arm-chair and handed over the fydo to her care, and then retired with my pulverised parlourmaid to the servants' hall.

Aunt Amelia was extremely gracious for her, in an early Victorian fashion, 'Hoped we liked our house and had found suitable domestic help.' She then asked in the next breath, without waiting for my answers, what we thought of the church, and when I replied that we liked it very much she said,—

'I'm distressed to hear it, Margaret. It may be a beautiful structure, but do you know the vicar believes in the Virgin Mary?'

Ross got up hurriedly and opened another window, and then my amiable relative started on the family and her friends and proceeded to pick their religious views to pieces, while the fydo wheezed and stank and panted at her feet.

I felt at all costs the conversation must be changed, so I told her rather irrelevantly that we kept chickens, but that we couldn't have many as we hadn't much space.

'Ah, Margaret,' she said, 'if you want space you can always look above.'

'But you can't keep chickens there, Gweat Aunt,' said the Gidger, who had been listening with great interest to the conversation.

My brother looked at me piteously. I don't know how much longer he could have controlled his laughter. Mercifully the fydo got fidgety, so the good lady got up to go. The Poppet observed with deep interest that the loose cover of the chair upon which the visitor had been sitting was all pulled out and wrinkled. She looked up at her great-aunt, and in a voice of the most intense interest, said,—

'Look how you've wuckled up the cover of muvver's chair. You must be cowogated like our hen-house roof.'

Ross became so alarmingly faint that he could only gasp out a choked 'good-bye' and hurry upstairs.

I found him a few minutes later with his head buried in a sofa cushion. 'Oh, what a thing it is to have a corrugated relative!' he gasped. 'Isn't she a priceless female? And their clothes! I must write and tell daddy. How he would have enjoyed it.'

And then my brother suddenly turned serious in that funny way he has, and said,—

'But now, wasn't she absolutely putrid, picking holes in everybody who differs in the least degree from herself. I hate that type of "Christian"; you ought to be able to judge Him by His followers, and half the time you can't. Nasty, spiteful old cat, bet her husband wished he'd never married her after the first ten minutes. I don't wonder he kicked the bucket at an early age.'

'Well,' I remarked in a pause, 'you aren't exactly doing the charitable stunt yourself at the moment, are you?'

My brother looked at me lugubriously.

'Isn't it difficult?' he exclaimed. 'Really, I wonder He doesn't chuck me right out of The Service. I'm always letting Him down. Oh, clear out, Meg.'

So I cleared out, and as I passed the top of the back stairs I could see the staff standing on three chairs, craning their necks to catch the last glimpse of Keziah as she followed her mistress down the garden path. When the gate closed on the vision, the staff sighed deeply and said,—'Golly.'

Which seemed to exactly sum up the situation.

'Our Lady of Ventre' remarked,—

'Give my inside quite a turn she did when she first come in the kitchen!'

Then I went in to Sam's little sitting-room.

'I've come to have it out with you, Sam, sit down.'

'Won't hurt me to stand up for five minutes, miss.'

'Sit down when you're told. I'm going to stay hours. Put your leg up properly. Now then,' I observed, when discipline had been unwillingly restored. 'We've had enough to eat since last Friday, have you been interfering in my kitchen, Brown?'

'Sorry, miss, but he told me to, you know.'

'Yes, but do you think that is sufficient reason when I told you not to. You must take a month's notice,' I said severely. 'Who's the mistress of the house, Brown?'

'You are, madam,' and he twinkled at me.

'Well, now, as you are really respectful, I may feel inclined to withdraw the notice if you tell me exactly where I go wrong. Why are we so disliked, let's have the whole truth, what's the matter with us?'

'Everything,' said Sam, surveying me gloomily, 'but some things specially, the silver's one.'

'The silver? Why it's almost all old, some of it's seventeen hundred and something.'

'Well, that's what I'm telling you, miss; it's battered in places, it isn't embossed enough, even a bit of chasing would be better than nothing. And then your clothes——'

'Well, they cost enough.'

'Yes, but they don't look it, then Master Ross——'

'Well, he always looks clean, Sam.'

'Looking clean don't matter, miss, he should try to look rich; then your relatives—what's the good of some of them having titles if you call them plain "father" and "aunt"?'

'You can leave that bit out.'

'I'm not going to. You asked for the whole truth and you're going to get it for once in your life, besides I want that notice withdrawn, I've got a comfortable place.'

'Oh,' I said, 'I do hope you are comfortable, Sam. Do you think your knee is any better? I so wish I could give you a nicer sitting-room and not in front of the house. It's so rotten for you to see us go out for walks and not be able to come.'

Sam has such nice soft eyes. He said he was 'Much obliged, miss.' He is always 'obliged' for such funny things, and never about the things I would be. He's never obliged for his wages, really seems to rather loathe them. Now I would love them, especially if they were paid punctually, which his never are.

'Well, now, miss,' he continued, 'when the letters come, for instance, why can't Master Ross behave like a gentleman and say,—

'"Brown, if there are any communications from his lordship, or from my uncle, Sir Jasper Fotheringham, Bart., or from Lady Amelia Leigh, you may hand them to me on a silver salver and retire." Instead of, "Sam, chuck over anything from father or Aunt Constance, and stick the bills on the mantelpiece."'

'Oh, Sam,' I giggled hopelessly, 'we always pray there mayn't be one from Aunt Amelia.'

'"Aunt!" There you go again,' said Sam desperately. 'Is it any good my talking to you?'

'Well, but what about the housekeeping, Sam?'

'Oh, that's worse than anything, apparently. The first morning you went into the kitchen you said vaguely, "We like thick soup better than clear, and junkets when there's any cream from Devonshire, and there are those chickens my uncle sent, I suppose they'd better be used soon." And you seemed to think you'd done the housekeeping for a week,' said Sam severely.

'Well, but that's what mother used——'

'Yes, but not after old Mary died. If you want a thick soup, you must say what they've got to put in it.'

He got up hastily and murmured, 'Caught again,' as the S.P. came along the passage with his tea, and as she came in and I got off the table, he said, 'Very well, madam, I'll see to it,' and I retired with dignity!

At dinner to-night Mr Williams quite warmed up. I suppose it's because his little wife is better. He nearly forgot to be a pallid curl paper and told us tales of the East End parish he had worked in after he returned from Ligeria. He said that some of the poor things were never washed except when they were born and buried, and never entered a church unless to get married, and they're all so ignorant that he found one wedding party kneeling round the font. (I wish to goodness I had got the chance of kneeling round a font again; sometimes the ache for the small son is simply not endurable.) Mr Williams spoke, too, of the awful grinding poverty, and the vice, and how the housing question was responsible for so much. 'It's all a question of money,' he said, 'money can buy everything.'

'Except the Kingdom of Heaven,' said my brother, with one of his gentle looks.

And then the S.P. came in with a note for Mr Williams. It was from his bank, apparently.

'There must be some mistake,' he said aloud. 'Some one has paid in £207 to my account. Oh, Mrs Ellsley,' looking across at me, 'I can't possibly accept such a sum, you know. Why, one never could thank you for half the things you have done already.'

'Mr Williams, I swear it's nothing to do with me, I haven't done it,' and I glanced across at Ross.

'Captain Fotheringham,' said poor Mr Williams, 'can it possibly be you?'

'Do you know, sir, what a captain's pay is?' asked my brother.

'Why,' I exclaimed, rushing in where angels would fear to tread, 'good gracious, Ross can't live on it without an allowance from his godmother.' ('Since deceased,' I added underneath my breath, to make it truthful).

'No, I suppose not,' said Mr Williams (he is so easy to deceive); 'but what am I to think?'

'Well, I should think it was the most amazing bit of luck, sir,' drawled my brother, slightly bored. 'And I wish you'd introduce me to your friend.'

So Mr Williams went upstairs in a state of complete bewilderment to tell his little wife, and Ross was really rather nice to me, though I was not allowed to mention the subject of our recent conversation. However, he did say that I was a nice child not to have given the show away, kissed me once and called me 'Jonathan,' which he only does when he is pleased with one, I mean not actively displeased. Funny old 'David.'

CHAPTER XXII

My visitors departed soon after breakfast to-day in a motor-car with the nurse. Mrs Williams is going to the sea for a month to get quite strong so as to be very brave and have the operation. He is really touching, so is she. It seems such a small thing to have done for such a wealth of gratitude, and that absurd £207 will make it possible for her to go to a proper nursing home, instead of the free ward of a London hospital.

I was rather glad to see them go, although I have learned to like them very much. But for six days I have had no letter from Michael, and yesterday the mail brought me one from father which upset me horribly. He wrote:—

'DARLING—I want to tell you something I have never told any one before. I can hardly write of it even after all these years—But I once saw a vision of my Lord.

'That summer, Meg, after you were married, Ross and I were so wretched without you, that we went down to that little house-boat of Uncle Jasper's on the Helford River.

'One lovely evening, after a wet day, I was in the dinghy fishing when Ross came out in the duck punt and said,—

'"Father, shall I go back and fetch our supper: It's too perfect to go in?"

'So he went back in the duck punt and I went on fishing. Suddenly The Man I told you about the night before your wedding sat down in the dinghy, and as I was about to kneel to Him, He said, just naturally, as a king might to any one he'd known for years,—

'"Oh, Fotheringham, a boat is an impossible place for you to be respectful in!" And He laughed as He said, "Sit down."

'And then after a minute He asked,—

'"Any luck?"

'"No, Sir," I answered.

'"It's because you're anchored; it doesn't do in this river, and you're in the wrong place. I'll take you to a better."

'So He rowed me further down the river towards the sea.

'"Is your line clear of weed?" He asked.

'And I looked and said, "Yes, Sir."

'"Do you ever breathe on your hooks?"

'"No, Sir, is it any good?"

'"Well, those old fishermen always say it's better, why don't you try it?"

'So I did, and I began to catch. Then The Man said,—

'"What about My other fishing?" And at first I didn't answer, because He had mentioned it to me before, and I wanted to refuse, but His eyes compelled me, for all they were so gentle, so I said,—

'"I'm not cut out for that other kind of fishing."

'"Not if I breathed on your hooks?"

'We fell silent. Then I thought of the loathing I have always had for slums and dirt and squalor, and especially for natives, and He must have known what I was thinking, for He said,—

'"Isn't it a good thing I didn't have an antipathy for black people—that time I died for you?"

'And I said, "Yes, Sir," because all in a moment I realised how black sin was to the Son of God who in the perfection of His whiteness had been "made sin" that I might become the righteousness of God in Him.

'And then He said, "Anthony, you've been horribly lonely lately, haven't you?"

'"Yes, Sir."

'"And you think I can't comprehend that kind of loneliness, but it's you who don't understand. I have never had My marriage supper—My bride delays to make herself ready.'

'I looked at Him again then, and saw His ache and hunger for His Church.

'"Anthony, land and water only divide you from your children, so many of Mine are separated from Me by sin," and I looked at Him again, and saw that He would always be lonely till the last of His children kneel to Him.

'"So, Anthony, what about My other fishing?"

'"I've not forgotten what you chose I should do years ago, Sir, and if you order this I must go."

'"And still——?"

'"And still be Your unprofitable servant, Sir." For all at once I saw that, too.

'"Anthony, is 'I'll go because I'm ordered' really the best that you can say?"

'I looked out over the beautiful river, at the hills I loved, and I thought of the friends I would have to leave, and of the beauty of my old Devonshire home, and my heart ached increasingly for your mother. I looked at Ross, too, coming back in the duck punt—Ross, the last of my immediate family left to me—and I felt that I could only go out to the mission field if I were ordered.

'"Anthony, have you ever heard the old saying, 'Don't look at the thing that is asked for, but at the One who asks'?"

'"No, Sir."

'"Some people say you see then if it's worth while."

'So I looked at The Man who asked, and saw afresh God's Son. And suddenly I perceived the limitless love of Him, and His unbounded sacrifice, and the whole divine patience and perfection and beauty of The Man, and I cried, in sudden surrender and adoration,—

'"Lord, I will go willingly, because I love You."

'And although The King had had every right to give the order, He deigned instead to accept my long-delayed submission to His love. And presently He said,—

'"Oh, here's Ross coming back in the duck punt with your supper. I must go."

'But I cried, "Oh, don't leave me, stay to supper with us both."

'"I can't to-night, Anthony, I simply must go in to Plymouth, and there's an old woman in a cottage I must look in at on the way. You come to supper with Me instead on Sunday."

'So He departed over the fields to Plymouth, through clouds and trails of gorgeous blue and gold, and the water was all luminous from His footsteps, and the hills as He passed ablush with rose. As He went the sunset faded, and then suddenly the brightness all came back, for The Man called to me again from the cliff above the water,—

'"Anthony, the climate on that other river isn't fit for English women."

'"Oh, Beloved of my soul," I cried, "I am contented. I would not ask You for her back."

'Then He smiled and my Vision Splendid faded, but He left His peace behind, and the moon rose undimmed out of the ocean where the Helford River runs into the sea.

'And the reason that I've told you this, my dearest little daughter, is that you sound unhappy in your letters. You are haunted by a fear that He may take things from you. But, darling, don't you see that when you have Him you have everything. Oh, Meg, His strength! and the supreme perfection of His eyes. No brush can paint Him, no words describe Him. Oh, darling, won't you be dutiful to Him and leave everything to His most unutterable love?'

But I can't feel like daddy does about things. I can't trust Him. I don't even want to look at the One who asks if it means I have to give up anything. I love all my family so frightfully that I don't know what I would do if He took any of them away. I only hope I would at least be civil to Him. I never could be 'dutiful' about it. I have never really had a trouble, only that dreadful time when darling mother died, but then Michael came along so soon after that it seemed as if God had only taken away one love to give me back an even more perfect one. But since the war it seems to me that God is so relentless and so jealous. He won't share hearts. He will have all or none, and I am growing to feel that it must be 'none' with me. I am like that soul, pursued by the Hound of Heaven; I fear His 'following feet,' I dread lest having Him I must have naught beside.

CHAPTER XXIII

Twelve days again without a letter, and ah, dear God! the news from France! I kept my promise, and Ross knows, and though he wraps me round with love, it is as if I cannot taste or see or feel, but I can only listen for the post that does not come. It has been a wretched week, several of our friends are killed and many wounded, and to-day at lunch the S.P. brought a telegram, and my heart stopped beating.

'It's Foxhill,' Ross said huskily, looking across at me quickly, and my heart went on again, and then I prayed that I might be forgiven for being glad that it was Charlie and not Michael.

'Not killed,' said Ross, 'but blinded, and his right arm gone above the elbow. He's in London, and would like to see us. Shall we go this afternoon, there's just time to catch the train?'

'Oh, poor Charlie—and poor Monica!' I added and got up. I felt I hated God. Just then a car stopped, and the door bell rang, and presently the S.P. came and said,—

'The Hon. Miss Cunningham is in the drawing-room,' and even at that moment I noticed how she loved to say 'the Honourable,' it was so exclusive. I thought what a beast I was, and said,—

'Monica? oh, my poor Monica.'

She was standing by the window with a frozen look upon her face, very pitiful to see.

'Don't go, Ross,' she said, after he had shaken hands and was preparing to leave us together, 'You know Charlie best. Don't go, it's you I've come to see. You are his greatest friend. Perhaps you can tell me about this, perhaps you know why he has written this to me, who love him so,' and she held out a letter. It was very short, and typed, except the signature, which was very badly written.

'DEAR MONICA,—It was more than good of you to write to me, but I have thought things over very carefully since I received your letter, and have come to the conclusion that it is best for me to say at once that I feel now I cannot marry you. Please do not try to see me, and think of me as kindly as you can.

'CHARLIE.'

'Has he told you, Ross? Doesn't he love me any more?' she said, with quivering lips, pathetic In my proud Monica.

'Monica, dear,' said Ross, 'haven't you heard about his wounds?'

'I have heard nothing since I wrote to him till I got this.'

Then very gently Ross told her about the poor blinded eyes while I kneeled beside her and tried to rub a little warmth into her ice cold hands.

'And I expect,' Ross finished up, 'that he wrote like this because he was half mad with pain knowing that he must give you up.'

'Why should he give me up?' she asked.

'Why, Monica, surely you see that it's the only honourable thing he could do, now that he's so helpless; don't you see, dear, every other man would do the same?'

'Then men are cruel,' I burst out. 'They never think the same as women do. If Monica had married him, would he write like that?'

'Of course not,' said my brother, 'that would be different. She'd have taken him already then for better or for worse.'

'She doesn't wait to take him till she goes to church in orange blossom and satin, she does that when she first tells him she loves him, doesn't she?'

'Of course,' said Monica. 'Are you absolutely sure he loves me, Ross, and that there is no other woman?'

'I did once hear him say he'd rather have the Gidger.'

'Oh, Ross, the comfort of you!' said poor Monica, and laughed and cried together. 'I must go to him,' she added, and as she did this 'splendid thing' the last vestige of 'littleness' dropped away from her.

'And I will take you,' answered Ross, 'but first you must have food and coffee. Had any lunch?'

'No,' said Monica, 'and I can't eat till it's settled.'

'Get your hat on, Meg, and let me deal with this rebellious woman, I'm getting such a dab at it.'

She laughed and let him put her in a comfy chair, and ate the food he brought, while he sat beside her and told her all the things he could remember that Charlie had ever said about her, and her eyes were shining when I came down ready for the drive. Yes, the 'Hon. Miss Cunningham' looked a different woman; more exclusive, if you know how that looks.

'Oh, Meg,' she said, 'I feel heaps better,' and then shamelessly, 'If Charlie throws me over I shall marry Ross.'

'Done,' said my brother, 'that's a bargain, mind.'

Somehow I don't think the S.P. would approve, do you? Such remarks are not made in the best circles.

We were very silent in the car. Once Monica turned to Ross,—

'Oh, are you sure that it's only his eyes?'

And Ross said simply,—

'Quite sure, dear, don't doubt his love,' and took her hand and held it till the car stopped at the hospital. We saw the matron first.

'He's very brave,' she said, 'and very very patient, but I'm not happy about him, he's got something on his mind. He asked for a typist the day before yesterday and dictated a letter. He hasn't slept since. You can go up and see him at once if you like.'

So Ross and I went up, and the matron promised to bring Monica up in ten minutes. Charlie was lying propped up with pillows in a little room alone. I never saw a face with such a tortured look. It nearly broke my heart.

'Who is it?' he asked, turning his poor, bandaged face towards the door, and when I took his hand he said,—

'Why, it's Meg and Ross; how jolly of you, dear old things.'

'Charlie,' I said presently, 'why did you write that letter to Monica?' and as I spoke the door was pushed open a little way and Monica slipped in. He turned his face away.

'Meg, I can't discuss that, even with you.'

'But,' I persisted, 'don't you love her any more?'

'Love her. My God, how can you ask me such a thing, how dare you torture me like that. There's some one in the room,' he added quickly, 'oh, who is it?'

And then as Monica put her arms around him, he sighed,—

'Ah, my dear love, why have you come to make it harder for me now I must let you go?' As she drew him closer, and he hid his sightless eyes in the warm comfort of her breast, we slipped away and left them.

After a little while a message came asking us to go up again. He was back on his pillows and Monica was sitting beside him very quietly. All the tortured look had gone from his face and a great peace was there instead, and a great thankfulness in hers.

'Meg,' he cried, with his old laugh, 'how brazen all you modern women are. You never have the vapours like your grandmothers, never faint when you are pressed to name the day, as any lady should. Instead, you come and beg a chap to marry you when he's already said he won't in writing, and bother his life out till he says he will, just to stop the creature chattering. This thing,' he said, groping for Monica's hand, 'says that three arms and two eyes are enough for any couple to start housekeeping on, so—oh, good gracious, could I have a cigarette; being proposed to is so dashed exhausting.'

Then we said good-bye and Monica came down to see us off. Just as she and Ross went out of the room Charlie called me back, and as I leaned over him he said with his old absurdity,—

'Isn't it a merciful dispensation that I'm "amphidextrous," Meg? I shall, at least, be able to fish with my left hand,' and then, with a little wave of his old diffidence coming back, he added,—

'Wasn't it perfect of Him to give me back Monica?'

I couldn't think what he meant, so I said,—

'Who, Charlie?'

'Why, the only Person I can see now, Meg—my Lord.' And I choked as I went down the stairs, because from the rapture in his voice he seemed to think his Lord was worth his eyes.

In the train Ross said,—

'What angels women are!'

'Oh, no,' I said, 'it's just the contrast.'

When we got home another wire was in the hall addressed to me.

'Let me open it,' said Ross, picking it up.

'No,' and I snatched it from him and ran up to my room. The dreadful ice was all around my heart again. The horror of a great darkness came upon my mind. I couldn't pray. I tried to quieten all my jangled nerves by saying—Daddy says 'They're underneath, oh, always underneath, those everlasting arms,' and then I read the telegram and flung myself upon the floor beside my bed in an agony of tears.

Ross came in and gathered me all up into the shelter of his love.

'Oh, Meg, not Michael?'

'Yes.'

'Oh, Meg, not killed,' he said again and held me closer.

'Oh, no, not killed,' I sobbed. 'He's got the D.S.O. and is coming home in three days' time on leave. Oh, it is such a relief.'

'You ridiculous child,' said Ross, giving me a little shake, 'oh, you poor, funny little scrap, what an awful fright you gave me. Poor Michael, what a wife he's got who sobs and cries because he's coming home on leave, I'm really sorry for that chap.' And then he picked me up, a crumpled heap, from off the floor, and dumped me on my bed. 'You'll stay there till you've had your dinner, anyhow. Now, don't argue,' he exclaimed, flinging himself into the nearest chair, 'I must have a cigarette. How poor old Solomon got on with all his lot beats me, managing two women in one short afternoon's enough. It is, as Charles would say, "so dashed exhausting."'

THREE WEEKS LATER

CHAPTER XXIV

But of course I'm not. Why on earth should I be crying after three such perfect weeks. It's only just the smell of Harris tweed again. I caught the whiff of it as I came through the door into the hall alone, after the last sound of Michael's car had died away. I wish I had been allowed to go to London with him, it would have been another hour or so with my beloved. No, I don't really wish it if he didn't. I must be ill, I think, to be so meek.

After he went there was a ridiculous telegram from Ross saying that he was returning in time for dinner if it was convenient. Wasn't it absurd of him to take himself off like that the morning Michael came, and only come to dine and sleep twice in three whole weeks. He has had another Board, and the verdict is 'Three to four weeks and massage,' and Sam's M.O. said, 'Three to five weeks and massage.' So there you are! The usual arrangement!

But, oh, to think in a very few more weeks I shall have to say 'Good-bye' again to both of them. I can't accept God's will about it. My mind's divorced from His, my wishes in opposition. The constant struggle to feel differently fags me out, but perhaps I shall 'feel better in the morning,' as Mrs Williams used to say.

When Ross came in to say 'Good-night,' he said,—

'By the way, Meg, how's the novel? Got a plot yet?'

'No,' I sighed, and thought that Nannie was right that time. There is no plot in women's lives just now. They only say 'Good-bye,' as I have done to-day. For, oh, this book begun as a joke is now no longer a book at all. The written words are just a mirror which reflects some pictures from that thing I call my 'life.' Each chapter is the reflection of a day. You who can read between the lines will understand why some of them are grave and others gay, and how my fickle mood alters with each day's news, or varies with the irregularity of the posts from France. You will know, too, that though each day stands as a single, separate thing, unconnected, as Uncle Jasper would say, 'by a strong plot,' yet each is linked to each by a great fear and an endeavour to be brave. For those who go have all the 'plot.' Theirs is the splendid hazard, so to them goes all the high adventure and romance. And we who stay at home have just the giving and the waiting. Yet some one said, 'They also serve who only stand and wait.' Ah, you dear women folk! I know the splendour of your waiting. I have told you a little of the rebellion that's in mine.

CHAPTER XXV

Here's two-thirds of the merry month of May slipped by! The posts are regular. We have had a glorious telegram to say that father's coming home. The Gidger flourishes like a green bay tree. Ross is better, and the house buzzes and overflows (as the old vicarage used to do) with the jolly men that he asks down to lunch, or to 'dine and sleep,' regardless of the servants. Bless you! they don't mind. They'll always slave for Ross, and 'Our Lady of Ventre' 'dotes upon the military,' so she'll always come and lend a hand. But, and there always is one, isn't there—the roof is not all it ought to be!

On Friday a regular S.W. gale got up with raging winds and driving rain, and in the middle of the night I heard a little sound in the powdering closet which leads out of my bedroom. 'That's a mouse,' I said to myself. The sound increased. 'That's a rat,' I thought. A horrid roar shook the room. 'That's a bomb!' I shrieked, thinking it was a raid. I heard Ross's welcome voice at the door, asking me what I had dropped. I hurriedly lighted the lamp and let him in, and we surveyed the wreckage. A big bit of the ceiling of the powdering closet had fallen in, and there was a small hole in the roof through which I could see the stars.

'Did you say your prayers, last night,' said Ross.

'Of course, I did,' I replied indignantly.

'Meg, you couldn't have said the litany of St Christopher. I always do. I never get night alarms, my ceiling never comes down.'

'For goodness' sake say it now then, for there's a huge crack over my bed.'

So Ross lifted up his voice and chanted,—

'From gholies and ghosties,

From long leggity beasties,

From things that go bump in the night

St Christopher deliver us.'

We spent an exhausting hour mopping up the water. Ross said he could now sympathise with the other occupants of the Ark when Noah would keep opening the window. After we'd got the place dry Ross said,—

'It's nearly one o'clock, Meg; come and have lunch in my room. I've got a thermos full of coffee and some perfectly adorable biscuits—the squashed fly sort.'

Ross really thought my ceiling might come down, so he rolled himself up on the nursery sofa, and I spent the rest of the night in his bed. I lay awake for some time groaning in spirit at the thought of the mess and muddle workmen always make, and wondering how much more of the roof was likely to descend on us. Presently I heard Ross whisper outside,—

'Meg, are you asleep?'

'No, I wish I was.'

'Your grammar seems as defective as your dwelling,' he said, poking his head round the door.

'What I came in to say, Meg, was that when the workmen strip that bit of roof you may find the date of the house.'

I sat up in bed suddenly. Life seemed rosy once more. 'You angel,' I exclaimed, 'how exciting.'

'What a ridiculous kid you are, little 'un, up one minute and down the next.'

'Well, it is exciting. What did you wake me up for if you didn't think so?'

'I thought you said you weren't asleep!'

I pushed him out and shut the door. The thought of the date so consoled me that I went to sleep immediately, but I had one of my dreadful nightmares. I dreamed that the foundations of the house fell outwards with a crash, leaving the walls, which were made of squashed fly biscuits, standing on the date—B.C. .4!

'Uncle John' came in to survey the wreckage the next morning, but can't repair the roof till Monday. Then I showed him the crack in my ceiling.

'That ain't nothing, mum, surface, that is; I can put a bit of plaster on it now if you like, but it don't need it.'

So I decided to dispense with the plaster and to sleep in my own bedroom, but my keeper thought otherwise, so we had words about it.

'Ross, what is the difference between the air coming in at the roof or coming in at the window?' But there is apparently a most enormous difference, and my brother said,—

'You're not going to sleep in that draught. There's a most beastly bug about just now. All the men at Canley barracks are down with it, kind of "'flu," I suppose; you get a frightful cold in your head, and then your tummy gets distended, and you can't button your trousers, and——'

'Is that the bug you suggest I'm going to get?' I interrupted icily.

And then he said I was abominable!

I am, however, allowed to sleep in my own room after all, because 'Uncle John' nobly suggested that the powdering closet should be boarded over till he could come and mend the roof, to which my keeper graciously agreed.

But half the night I could hear that bug walking up and down in the powdering closet, scratching the boarded door, trying to get in, until I said to it,—

'You needn't bother about me. I'm not afraid of you.' And then it started howling, and I discovered that it was Fitzbattleaxe up on that ledge in the chimney again, and he kept me awake for hours.

In the morning Ross said he must see if the ledge could not be bricked up somehow. We got a ladder and a light, and he rescued the kitten, who spat at him, and then he said,—

'Why, Meg, it's such a wide ledge, and at the back there's a small stone slab which seems to be loose. Shall I see if I can get it out? Give me something to poke it with.'

I gave him my best silver button-hook, and he jabbed about and broke it, but he eased out the stone and found behind a little hollow, and—yes—an old deed!—Such a nice one, though quite small.

It is an Indenture made the two and twentieth day of January, 1645, in the one and twentieth year of the reign of our sovereign lord Charles by the grace of God of England, Scotland, ffrance, and Ireland, King Defender of the Faith. But the part that intrigues me is that it seems to be a kind of marriage settlement for 'George Albury gives to his wife Mary'—Gidger's cottage—'in consideration of the love and affection he bore her.' So Michael has only been repeating history.

But why did Mary put her deed in my chimney? She must have got so grubby doing it. I'm sure her husband hated her to get so dirty, didn't like her little hands so soiled; but perhaps her George was up that winter with King Charles's army and she hid it there for safety, for the times were much disturbed and she was frightened. Women don't like war, I know just how she felt. I wonder what George and Mary Albury thought that other winter morning, four years later, when their sovereign lord, who by the grace of God was King of England, ffrance, and Ireland, was beheaded on the scaffold in Whitehall.

And every day now I say, 'Daddy's on his way home,' and Ross says, 'Won't it be rotten if I just miss him?'

Yesterday in church the vicar announced that there was an awful outbreak of that bug at the local Red Cross hospital, that all the men were down with it, and nearly all the nurses, and the few of them who had escaped were worked to death. He asked for volunteers to help, not with the nursing, but in the kitchen. I told Ross coming home that I should offer, but he wouldn't hear of it, because Toby once said years ago I ought not to go within a million miles of 'flu. But there are times when I don't take kindly to the snaffle, as Sam would say. However, Ross is going to London to-morrow, so I said no more at the moment, and the conversation wandered off to the education and upbringing of the young.

'The poor Gidger doesn't seem to get much bringing up,' said Ross.

'Well, you're her godfather,' I retorted, 'you're to blame; why don't you teach her whether her name is N or M?'

'Oh, she knows her name all right, it's her station in life she doesn't seem to be clear about, thinks she's the Queen of England, I think, same as her mother does.'

'Ross, darling, you don't really think that she's——'

'Oh, you silly little ass, Meg.'

'But I have views on the way a child should be trained.'

'Then for goodness' sake get rid of them at once.'

'But all the same,' I persisted, 'I do hate the way modern children are brought up. They've no manners, they are such little pigs at meals, and they're always served first.'

'Well, the Gidger isn't.'

'No, but that's not your fault, Ross.'

I remembered the first time she came down to lunch I told Sam to serve me first, and then Ross, and then the Poppet. He agreed, and said I was 'Quite right, miss.' So he served me first and then went to Ross, who said, 'You've forgotten the other lady, Sam,' and so, without a word to me, Sam upset all my carefully arranged plans for my daughter's edifying and upbringing, and went to the Gidger just because his master told him to. Ross and I had words about it afterwards, and he said I was a silly little ass, and kissed me for some extraordinary reason.

'Doesn't Michael think she is a disappointing kiddie?' said Ross, breaking in upon my reverie, but as I didn't answer the conversation changed to oysters.

So the Gidger came down to lunch to-day, and as he is better Brown waited, and in a fit of mental aberration he handed a dish of stewed apricots to her before he had been to me.

'No, thank you,' said the Poppet.

'It's apricots, miss,' said Brown. 'Miss' never having in all the years of her long life been known to refuse them.

'Apricots, miss,' said Sam again.

'No, thank you, muvver isn't served.'

So I was served, and then the lady who thinks she is the Queen of England condescended to allow her faithful henchman to give her apricots, and my brother, with his usual habit of talking backwards, said,—

'You see, Meg, how little you know about bringing them up. If you really had "views," such a thing couldn't have happened. You were always such a nice child yourself, so pretty when you were a baby, such a pity that you've altered so.'

Then in a tone of most awful consternation he added, 'Why, Gidger?' for my daughter was in tears.

'Uncle Woss' was beside her in a moment, kneeling humbly to the 'Queen of England,' 'Darling, what is it?' he cried distractedly.

'You said muvver wasn't pwetty now.'

'Oh,' said Ross to me, 'could you go outside, woman, while I comfort this lady?'

So I went outside. After he had consoled the lady she went off with Sam, but she wasn't quite happy, so he kneeled down and took a turn at comforting.

'I assure you, miss, you've not the slightest occasion to worry. Your uncle always does say just the reverse of what he means—gentlemen do——'

'But are you sure he thinks muvver is pwetty now?' said the Poppet.

'Certainly, miss, not a doubt about it.'

'Do you think she's pwetty, Bwown?'

'She's perfectly distracting at times, miss; that's why I forgot to serve her first.'

'Oh, you are my gweatest comfort, Bwown; have you known muvver long?'

'Can't remember the time when I didn't know her, miss.'

'Neither can I,' said the Poppet. 'I weally don't know what I should do without you, Bwown.'

'I'm sure I'm very much obliged, miss,' he said, and kissed her little hands, and then offered to make her another boat or a new doll's house if she'd rather.

How do I know that last bit? Why, a little bird told Nannie, and Nannie told me, besides I always know everything. Oh, you silly men, because you don't see the finger on the pulse you don't believe it's there. Why, I know every heartbeat in the house (including Brown's!) and so does every other woman!

CHAPTER XXVI

Ross departed to London last Monday with Sam. And I took the bit in my teeth and went up by the train after they did. I could see Ross and Sam hanging on to the red lights at the back of the last coach. They catch their trains like that (men always do). I, of course, like every other woman, invariably catch the train before.

I went to the Red Cross shop and bought a set of General Service uniform, and when I got home I found 'Uncle John' in a state of great excitement because he had found the date in the roof, as Ross had said he might! I went up the ladder to look at it. It is carved roughly on a beam. The wood is in as good a state of preservation as the day it was put in, and some initials (of the man who built the house, I suppose) are carved over it so:—

J.H.T. 1570

Elizabethan, after all!

It is such a pity that Ross is away, as I have no one to gloat with me, but when he comes back and rows about the hospital, I shall say,—

'Yes, but I've found the date,' and then all will be harmony and love. No one could be angry with a person who had found the date 1570.

I have to get up so desperately early in the morning. Nannie is horrid about the whole thing, refuses to call me or help me dress, says she is sure Master Michael won't approve and that she's not going to have any hand in it. However, 1570 consoles me for much, though everything else is rather beastly.

So on Tuesday I went to the hospital. It was a vile morning, blowing half a gale and raining. It took me so long to get into the unaccustomed clothes without Nannie that I had to run most of the way to avoid being late.

If you were outside a place and wanted to get in, what would you do? Ring the front door bell, of course, you say. Well, that's what I did, but it wasn't right, quite wrong, in fact. The person who opened the door to me seemed to think I must be dotty. I ought to have gone to the back door and taken off my hat and coat in a kind of mausoleum in the yard. By the time I had rectified all these mistakes it was a quarter past eight. I didn't know how the veil ought to be worn either, so I put it on as the nurses did in Ross's hospital in London, which turned out wrong, for when I went to matron for my orders, she snapped,—

'Washing up—you're not an army sister yet, and no use at all to me unless you're punctual.'

I could see that she meant something horrid, but couldn't think what, and I blushed and stammered like a school child. There was a nice girl in the scullery who came behind the door and altered my veil and tried to console me by saying,—

'Matron isn't a bit like that usually, only she's absolutely overdone, as we all are.'

Then I started washing up. They had had kippers for breakfast, and I had no idea that they were so disgusting cold, or how impossible it was to prevent water going over one's feet when one emptied a big panful down the sink. By the time I had been at it an hour I was soaking, I could feel it on my skin, and the floor was all awash. A diver's costume would have been really useful. The girls who had been there for months thought I was such a fool. (They do not suffer fools gladly in a military hospital!) They were quite polite, of course, that's why it was so hard. I'm not used to people being polite to me.

The only person who was really decent was the charwoman, who was also new that morning, so perhaps she had a fellow feeling. She did not, however, seem to be quite clear as to what a V.A.D. was, for she said,—

'Oh, duckie, you are wet; new at it, ain't you? Why don't you buy yourself a mackintosh apron? I did in my first place, they aren't expensive.'

Later on, when I had dried up a bit and was cleaning a saucepan with great vigour, she said,—

'Nice 'elp you'll be to mother after this, duckie.'

I was very bucked at that remark. It's nice to feel that one person, at any rate, believes you to be young enough to be 'a nice 'elp to mother.'

At 10.30 a.m. the kitchen staff all came into the scullery and sat on boxes and drank cocoa, and ate bread and dripping (I hid the dripping part of mine) while the orderly and boy scout had theirs in the kitchen. After cocoa I helped with the potatoes and then cleaned saucepan lids. Then I washed up the men's dinner things. They had had Irish stew and suet pudding. Have you ever washed a pudding cloth? My last job was the pig pail! In the happy past when I have gone and loved the little pigs at Uncle Jasper's I never knew there was a pig pail. Ours stands outside the backdoor in the yard. It's rather like a domed cathedral; into it you scrape the kipper skins and bits of bread and fat and apple cores, and things like that.

I can do it now without active sickness. By the end of the week, perhaps, I need not shut my eyes or hold my nose.

But my hands are disgusting. My finger-nails are in deep mourning and the grease will not come off.

On Wednesday I committed the sin that can never be forgiven, for, unaddressed, I spoke to a General in front of matron, and I am to be shot at dawn on Friday.

This is what happened. I was just about to replenish the pig pail, trying to screw up my courage to remove the dome from the cathedral, when round the house came matron in a very starched apron with several extra ramrods down her back. With her was a most splendid brass hat—rows of ribbons, gorgets, gold braid, all complete, and there were several other officers. Picture me standing by the pig bucket—I was not too clean. I hadn't got my sleeves on, my arms were streaked with blue bell, and my cap was slightly crooked. Suddenly I looked at the advancing General, and I said quite loudly,—

'Toby, dear, what priceless luck!'

It was General Sir Tobias Merriwater, K.C.B., D.S.O., M.D., F.R.C.P. All I remembered was that I had known him all my life, and never called him anything but 'Toby'.

Suddenly the warm spring day vanished, I was up at the North Pole, or the South one if it's colder, as I saw the matron's face. And then, by way of trying to ease the situation, I dropped the scullery pig pail, showered the kipper skins and apple cores, bits of bread and fat and suet, like rice and rose leaves at a wedding in the pathway of a bride.

There was an awful silence, even the officers forgot to be bored, and looked quite interested. I drew back and wished I could get right inside the pig bucket, and shut down the lid.

'Ah,' said General Sir Tobias Merriwater to the matron, 'you keep pigs?'

'Yes, sir,' said she.

She was very bright and nice to him. (I understand people are always nice and bright to Generals.)

'And this is for them, I suppose. Most commendable, very.' And the retinue passed on.

I picked up all the 'rice and rose leaves,' every bit of it by hand, and then I went and told the girl I work with in the scullery. She collapsed into the coal box, saying, 'You'll be shot at dawn,' when a hand cautiously opened the scullery window and a voice said,—

'I'll be waiting outside the gate when you go home at one o'clock, and if you would kindly hurry I think it would be better, for I'm very much afraid I shall explode.'

So at one o'clock I went outside the gate, whereupon there appeared the unseemly spectacle of the latest V.A.D. hugging the Visiting Committee!

'Oh, Toby, it's such pure bliss to see you. I wish I could shake hands,' I said, 'but I really am so filthy.'

'A kiss of yours is good enough for any man,' said Toby. So of course I kissed him, as I always have, and at that moment matron caught us! Somehow, my luck's dead out. However, I felt as I was not on duty I could hug Generals if I chose, and, anyway, I was to be shot at dawn on Friday, so nothing mattered.

So the Visiting Committee came home to lunch with me and stayed to tea, which it hadn't meant to do, and then stayed on for dinner, but it couldn't stop the night, or else it would have. It was delightful to see Toby. When he went he said,—

'Darling, you don't look too frightfully well, are you being taken care of properly? You ought not to be going to that beastly hospital when they've got influenza. You're not strong enough. Do you ever faint now?'

'Never, except once last Thursday.'

But I don't think he heard, for he went down to the car and drove away.

CHAPTER XXVII

Ross wired to say that he was delayed till Tuesday, and then came on Saturday after all. I was in the hall wondering why I felt so tired and whether I'd bother to change for dinner, when my brother let himself in at the front door, followed by Brown.

'Why, Ross, this is a surprise. I didn't expect you to-day!'

He had, however, somehow grown deaf during his absence, and merely said,—

'Good-evening, Margaret. See to the luggage, will you, Brown,' and walked upstairs, followed by all the dogs.

'Has anything happened, Sam?' I asked.

'Not in London, miss,' and he handed me the evening paper.

Obviously a storm was brewing, so I decided that it was worth while to dress. I put on my best and latest frock. At dinner I was sparkling, and told my brother all about the hospital in my most vivid style. Somehow he didn't think any of it the least amusing. I asked him then if he wasn't sorry to miss Toby, and he informed me that he had had lunch with him at the club in London.

Ross was, however, quite polite and civil, more so than he'd been for years, but as to rowing me as I had thought, oh, dear, no; he quite obviously was not interested in me at all, the whole subject of the hospital bored him stiff.

I thought I'd see if the date would warm the atmosphere.

'Ross, we've had such an excitement while you were away. We've found the date in the roof, and it's 1570.'

'Oh, really,' he drawled.

After that I gave it up. If 1570 wouldn't melt an iceberg, nothing would, so we adjourned to the hall for coffee, and now there sits on one side of the fire, surrounded by ice and snow fields, something which was once my twin, while I sit on the other writing my novel, trying to get thawed, pretending I don't mind a bit.

I have such a poisonous headache. I feel so funny! I——

* * * * *

For ten days I haven't been allowed to write, not even to Michael, and even now I may only do so for a 'very little while.'

After my headache I remember nothing till I found myself in bed and Ross making up the fire, still in his old dinner jacket. He looked a giant in the dim light, and I called out to him,—

'Why am I in bed if it's dinner time?'

'It isn't, it's eleven o'clock at night.'

'Then why are you here, Ross?'

'You weren't very well, fainted or something naughty, and I'm just going to change and stay with you for a bit.'

'But I don't want any one to sit up with me.'

'Sorry,' said the giant firmly.

'No, but I mean that I don't need any one.'

'The doctor's the best judge of that, Meg.'

'Ross, am I ever the best judge of anything?

'Not to talk till you're better,' he replied.

I said, 'Oh, I shan't be better till I've talked.' So he said I might 'a very little while then.'

'Have I got the bug?' I asked.

'Yes, a minute one, so Nannie mustn't come because of the Gidger; it's nothing to be alarmed about.'

'I'm not a bit alarmed about the bug, only it always frightens me to faint. You won't leave me when I feel like fainting, will you?' I asked, feeling very like it at the moment. Even an iceberg seems a standby when you're going to faint. Then I began to shake and shiver and felt as if I were slipping down a slope, till Ross held me in his arms to stop me sliding down so fast. When I was a little better I said,—

'Oh, don't be angry with me any more.' He was so ridiculous then and teased me, said I must be much worse than the doctor thought, to mind about any one being angry with me.

'But I do mind,' I said.

He was very sweet to me. I can't think how big things can be so gentle.

'Of course, I'm not "angry" with you, darling, only I feel I have so badly bungled things, if you felt it was necessary to go to the hospital without telling me.'

'But, Ross, if you had been here, you wouldn't have let me go.'

'Well, of course I wouldn't when you catch the 'flu every time you meet the bug. Michael——'

'Oh, don't let Michael be angry with me either, I can't bear it.'

'Oh, Meg, I'm sure your temperature must have gone up miles, I shall have to send the S.P. for the doctor, if you go on being "meek." Has Michael ever been angry with you, you little goose?'

'No, except about the being taken care of side of things.'

'Well, don't you see, one must take care of something smaller than oneself. I can't explain, little 'un, only it's in one's blood, and your going to the hospital like that——'