One Sunday morning as Patricia was sitting in the Park watching the promenaders and feeling very lonely, she saw coming across the grass towards her Godfrey Elton accompanied by a pretty dark girl in an amber costume and a black hat. She bowed her acknowledgment of Elton's salute, and watched the pair as they passed on in the direction of Marble Arch.
Suddenly the girl stopped and turned. For a moment Elton stood irresolute, then he also turned and they both walked in Patricia's direction.
"Lady Peggy insisted that we should break in upon your solitude," said Elton, having introduced the two girls.
"You will forgive me, won't you?" said Lady Peggy, "but I so wanted to know you. You see Peter has the reputation of being invulnerable. We're all quite breathless from our fruitless endeavours to entangle him, and I wanted to see what you were like."
"I'm afraid you'll find I'm quite common-place," said Patricia, smiling. It was impossible to be annoyed with Lady Peggy. Her frankness was disarming, and her curiosity that of a child.
"I always say," bubbled Lady Peggy, "that there are only two men in London worth marrying, and they neither of them will have me, although I've worked most terribly hard."
"Who are they?" enquired Patricia.
"Oh! Goddy's one," she said, indicating Elton with a nod, "and Peter's the other. They are both prepared to be brothers to me; but they're not sufficiently generous to save me from dying an old maid."
"I must apologise for inflicting Peggy upon you, Miss Brent," said Elton; "but when you get to know her you may even like her."
"I'm not going to wait until I know her," said Patricia.
"Bravo!" cried Lady Peggy, clapping her hands. "That's a snub for you, Goddy," she said, then turning again to Patricia, "I know we're going to be friends, and you can afford to be generous to a defeated rival."
"I must warn you against Lady Peggy," said Elton quietly. "She's a most dangerous young woman."
"And now, Patricia," said Lady Peggy, "I'm going to call you Patricia, and you must call me Peggy. I want you to do me a very great favour."
Patricia looked at the girl, rather bewildered and breathless by the precipitancy with which she made friends. "I'm sure I will if I possibly can," she replied.
"I want you to come and lunch with us," said Lady Peggy.
"It's very kind of you, I shall be delighted some day," replied Patricia conventionally.
"No, now!" said Lady Peggy. "This very day that ever is. I want you to meet Daddy. He's such a dear. Goddy will come, so you won't be lonely," she added.
"I'm afraid I've got——" began Patricia.
"Please don't be afraid you've got anything," pleaded Lady Peggy. "If you've got an engagement throw it over. Everybody throws over engagements for me."
"But——" began Patricia.
"Oh, please don't be tiresome," said Lady Peggy, screwing up her eyebrows. "I shall have all I can do to persuade Goddy to come, and it's so exhausting."
"I will come with pleasure," said Elton, "if only to protect Miss Brent from your overwhelming friendliness."
"Oh, you odious creature!" cried Lady Peggy, then turning to Patricia she added with mock tragedy in her voice, "Oh! the love I've languished on that man, the gladness of the eyes I have turned upon him, the pressures of the hand I've been willing to bestow on him, and this is how he treats me." Then with a sudden change she added, "But you will come, won't you? I do so want you to meet Daddy."
"If the truth must be told," said Elton, "Peggy merely wants to be able to exploit you, as everybody is wanting to know about you and what you are like. Now she will be a celebrity, and able to describe you in detail to all her many men friends and to her women enemies."
Lady Peggy deliberately turned her back upon Elton.
"Now we are going to have another little walk and then we'll go and get our nosebags on," she announced. "No, you're not going to walk between us"—this to Elton—"I want to be next to Patricia," she announced.
Patricia felt bewildered by the suddenness with which Lady Peggy had descended upon her. She scarcely listened to the flow of small talk she kept up. She was conscious that Elton's hand was constantly at the salute, and that Lady Peggy seemed to be indulging in a series of continuous bows.
"Oh! do let's get away somewhere," cried Lady Peggy at length. "My neck aches, and I feel my mouth will set in a silly grin. Why on earth do we know so many people, Goddy? Do you know," she added mischievously, "I'd love to have a big megaphone and stand on a chair and cry out who you are. Then everybody would flock round, because they all want to know who it is that has captured Peter the Hermit, as we call him." She looked at Patricia appraisingly. "I think I can understand now," she said.
"Understand what?" said Patricia.
"What it is in you that attracts Peter."
Patricia gasped. "Really," she began.
"Yes, we girls have all been trying to make love to Peter and fuss over him, whereas you would rather snub him, and that's very good for Peter. It's just the sort of thing that would attract him." Then with another sudden change she turned to Elton and said, "Goddy, in future I'm going to snub you, then perhaps you'll love me."
Patricia laughed outright. She felt strongly drawn to this inconsequent child-girl. She found herself wondering what would be the impression she would create upon the Galvin House coterie, who would find all their social and moral virtues inverted by such directness of speech. She could see Miss Wangle's internal struggle, disapproval of Lady Peggy's personality mingling with respect for her rank.
"Oh, there's Tan!" Lady Peggy broke in upon Patricia's thoughts "Goddy, call to her, shout, wave your hat. Haven't you got a whistle?"
But Lady Tanagra had seen the party, and was coming towards them accompanied by Mr. Triggs.
Lady Peggy danced towards Lady Tanagra. "Oh, Tan, I've found her!" she cried, nodding to Mr. Triggs, whom she appeared to know.
"Found whom?" enquired Lady Tanagra.
"Patricia. The captor of St. Anthony, and we're going to be friends, and she's coming to lunch with me to meet Daddy, and Goddy's coming too, so don't you dare to carry him off. Oh, Mr. Triggs! isn't it a lovely day," she cried, turning to Mr. Triggs, who, hat in hand, was mopping his brow.
"Beautiful, me dear, beautiful," he exclaimed, beaming upon her and turning to shake hands with Patricia. "Well, me dear, how goes it?" he enquired. Then looking at her keenly he added, "Why, you're looking much better."
Patricia smiled, conscious that the improvement in her looks was not a little due to Lady Peggy and her bright chatter.
"You've become such a gad-about, Mr. Triggs, that you forget poor me," she said.
"Oh no, he doesn't!" broke in Lady Peggy, "he's always talking about you. Whenever I try to make love to him he always drags you in. I've really come to hate you, Patricia, because you seem to come between me and all my love affairs. Oh! I wish we could find Peter," cried Lady Peggy suddenly, "that would complete the party."
Patricia hoped fervently that they would not come across Bowen. She saw that it would make the situation extremely awkward.
"And now we must dash off for lunch," cried Lady Peggy, "or we shall be late and Daddy will be cross." She shook hands with Mr. Triggs, blew a kiss at Lady Tanagra and, before Patricia knew it, she was walking with Lady Peggy and Elton in the direction of Curzon Street.
Patricia was in some awe of meeting the Duke of Gayton. Hitherto she had encountered only the smaller political fry, friends and acquaintances of Mr. Bonsor, who had always treated her as a secretary. The Duke had been in the first Coalition Ministry, but had been forced to retire on account of a serious illness.
"Look whom I've caught!" cried Lady Peggy as she bubbled into the dining-room, where some twelve or fourteen guests were in process of seating themselves at the table. "Look whom I've caught! Daddy," she addressed herself to a small clean-shaven man, with beetling eyebrows and a broad, intellectual head. "It's the captor of Peter the Hermit."
The Duke smiled and shook hands with Patricia.
"You must come and sit by me," he said in particularly sweet and well-modulated voice, which seemed to give the lie to the somewhat stern and searching appearance of his eyes. "Peter is a great friend of mine."
Patricia was conscious of flushed cheeks as she took her seat next to the Duke. Later she discovered that these Sunday luncheons were always strictly informal, no order of precedence being observed. Young and old were invited, grave and gay. The talk was sometimes frivolous, sometimes serious. Sunday was, in the Duke's eyes, a day of rest, and conversation must follow the path of least resistance.
Whilst the other guests were seating themselves, Patricia looked round the table with interest. She recognised a well-known Cabinet Minister and a bishop. Next to her on the other side was a man with hungry, searching eyes, whose fair hair was cropped so closely to his head as to be almost invisible. Later she learned that he was a Serbian patriot, who had prepared a wonderful map of New Serbia, which he always carried with him. Elton had described it as "the map that passeth all understanding."
It embraced Bulgaria, Roumania, Transylvania, Montenegro, Greece, Albania, Bessarabia, and portions of other countries.
"It's a sort of game," Lady Peggy explained later. "If you can escape without his having produced his map, then you've won," she added.
At first the Duke devoted himself to Patricia, obviously with the object of placing her at her ease. She was fascinated by his voice. He had the reputation of being a brilliant talker; but Patricia decided that even if he had possessed the most commonplace ideas, he would have invested them with a peculiar interest on account of the whimsical tones in which he expressed them. He was a man of remarkable dignity of bearing, and Patricia decided that she would be able to feel very much afraid of him.
In answer to a question Patricia explained that she had only met Lady Peggy that morning.
"And what do you think of Peggy's whirlwind methods?" asked the Duke with a smile.
"I think they are quite irresistible," replied Patricia.
"She makes friends quicker than anyone I ever met and keeps them longer," said the Duke.
Presently the conversation turned on the question of the re-afforestation of Great Britain, springing out of a remark made by the Cabinet Minister to the Duke. Soon the two, aided by a number of other guests, were deep in the intricacies of politics. During a lull in the conversation the Duke turned to Patricia.
"I am afraid this is all very dull for you, Miss Brent," he remarked pleasantly.
"On the contrary," said Patricia, "I am greatly interested."
"Interested in politics?" questioned the Duke with a tinge of surprise in his voice.
Gradually Patricia found herself drawn into the conversation. For the first time in her life she found her study of Blue Books and her knowledge of statistics of advantage and use. The Cabinet Minister leaned forward with interest. The other guests had ceased their local conversation to listen to what it was that was so clearly interesting their host and the Cabinet Minister. In Patricia's remarks there was the freshness of unconvention. The old political war-horses saw how things appeared to an intelligent contemporary who was not trammelled by tradition and parliamentary procedure.
Suddenly Patricia became aware that she had monopolised the conversation and that everyone was listening to her. She flushed and stopped.
"Please go on," said the Cabinet Minister; "don't stop, it's most interesting."
But Patricia had become self-conscious. However, the Duke with great tact picked up the thread, and soon the conversation became general.
As they rose from the table the Duke whispered to Patricia, "Don't hurry away, please, I want to have a chat with you after the others have gone."
As they went to the drawing-room, Lady Peggy came up to Patricia and linking her arm in hers, said:
"I'm dreadfully afraid of you now, Patricia. Why everybody was positively drinking in your words. Wherever did you learn so much?"
"You cannot be secretary to a rising politician," said Patricia with a smile, "without learning a lot of statistics. I have to read up all sorts of things about pigs and babies and beet-root and street-noises and all sorts of objectionable things."
"What do you think of her, Goddy?" cried Lady Peggy to Elton as he joined them.
"I'm afraid she has made me feel very ignorant," replied Elton. "Just as you, Peggy, always make me feel very wise."
In the drawing-room the Serbian attached himself to Patricia and produced his "map of obliteration," as the Duke had once called it, explaining to her at great length how nearly all the towns and cities in Europe were for the most part populated by Serbs.
It was obvious to her, from the respect with which she was treated, that her remarks at luncheon had made a great impression.
When most of the other guests had departed, the Duke walked over to her, and dismissing Peggy, entered into a long conversation on political and parliamentary matters. He was finally interrupted by Lady Peggy.
"Look here, Daddy, if you steal my friends I shall——" she paused, then turning to Elton she said, "What shall I do, Goddy?"
"Well, you might marry and leave him," suggested Elton helpfully.
"That's it. I will marry and leave you all alone, Daddy."
"Cannot we agree to share Miss Brent?" suggested the Duke, smiling at Patricia.
"Isn't he a dear?" enquired Lady Peggy of Patricia. "When other men propose to me, and quite a lot have," she added with almost childish simplicity, "I always mentally compare them with Daddy, and then of course I know I don't want them."
"That is my one reason, Peggy, for not proposing," said Elton. "I could never enter the lists with the Duke."
"You're a pair of ridiculous children," laughed the Duke.
In response to a murmur from Patricia that she must be going, Lady Peggy insisted that she should first come upstairs and see her den.
The "den" was a room of orderly disorder, which seemed to possess the freshness and charm of its owner. Lady Peggy looked at Patricia, a new respect in her eyes.
"You must be frightfully clever," she said with accustomed seriousness. "I wish I were like that. You see I should be more of a companion to Daddy if I were."
"I think you are an ideal companion for him you are," said Patricia.
"Oh! he's so wonderful," said Lady Peggy dreamily. "You know I'm not always such a fool I appear," she added quite seriously, "and I do sometimes think of other things than frills and flounces and chocolates." Then with a sudden change of mood she cried, "Wasn't it clever of me capturing you to-day? As soon as you're alone Daddy will tell me what he thinks of you, and I shall feel so self-important."
As Patricia looked about the room, charmed with its dainty freshness, her eyes lighted upon a large metal tea-tray. Lady Peggy following her gaze cried:
"Oh, the magic carpet!"
"The what?" enquired Patricia.
"That's the magic carpet. Come, I'll show you," and seizing it she preceded Patricia to the top of the stairs. "Now sit on it," she cried, "and toboggan down. It's priceless."
"But I couldn't."
"Yes you could. Everybody does," cried Lady Peggy.
Not quite knowing what she was doing Patricia found herself forced down upon the tea-tray, and the next thing she knew was she was speeding down the stairs at a terrific rate.
Just as she arrived in the hall with flushed cheeks and a flurry of skirts, the door of the library opened and the Duke and Elton came out.
Patricia gathered herself together, and with flaming cheeks and downcast eyes stood like a child expecting rebuke, instead of which the Duke merely smiled. Turning to Elton he remarked:
"So Miss Brent has received her birth certificate."
As he spoke the butler with sedate decorum picked up the tray and carried it into his pantry as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world for guests to toboggan down the front staircase.
"To ride on Peggy's 'magic carpet,' as she calls it," said the Duke, "is to be admitted to the household as a friend. Come again soon," he added as he shook hands in parting. "Any Sunday at lunch you are always sure to catch us. We never give special invitations to the friends we want, do we, Peggy? and I want to have some more talks with you."
As Patricia and Elton walked towards the Park he explained that Lady Peggy's tea-tray had figured in many little comedies. Bishops, Cabinet Ministers, great generals and admirals had all descended the stairs in the way Patricia had.
"In fact," he added, "when the Duke was in the Cabinet, it was the youngest and brightest collection of Ministers in the history of the country. Every one of them was devoted to Peggy, and I think they would have made war or peace at her command."
When Patricia arrived at Galvin House, she was conscious of the world having changed since the morning. All her gloom had been dispelled, the drawn look had passed from her face, and she felt that a heavy weight had been lifted from her shoulders.
"Miss Brent, please get up. There's an air raid."
Mechanically Patricia sat up in bed and listened. Outside a police-whistle was droning its raucous warning; within there was the sound of frightened whispers and the noise of the opening and shutting of doors. Suddenly there was a shriek, followed by a low murmur of several voices. The sound of the police-whistle continued, gradually dying away in the distance, and the noises within the house ceased.
Patricia strained her ears to catch the first sound of the defensive guns. She had no intention of getting up for a false alarm. For some minutes there was silence, then came a slight murmur, half sob, half sigh, as if London were breathing heavily in her sleep, another followed, then half a dozen in quick succession growing louder with every report. Suddenly came the scream of a "whiz-bang" and the thunder of a large gun. Soon the orchestra was in full swing.
Still Patricia listened. She was fascinated. Why did guns sound exactly as if large plank were being dropped? Why did the report seem as if something were bouncing? Suddenly a terrific report, a sound as if a giant plank had been dropped and had "bounced." A neighbouring gun had given tongue, another followed.
She jumped out of bed and proceeded to pull on her stockings. There was a gentle tapping at her door, not the peremptory summons that had awakened her and which, by the voice that had accompanied it, she recognised as that of Mrs. Craske-Morton.
"What is it?" she called out.
"It's me, mees." Patricia could scarcely recognise in the terrified accents the voice of Gustave. "It's a raid. Oh! mees, please come down."
"All right, Gustave. I shall be down in a minute," replied Patricia, and she heard a flurry of retreating footsteps. Gustave was descending to safety. There was about him nothing of the Roman sentry.
Patricia proceeded with her toilette, hastened, in spite of herself, by a tremendous crash which she recognised as a bomb.
At Galvin House "Raid Instructions" had been posted in each room. Guests were instructed to hasten with all possible speed downstairs to the basement-kitchen, where tea and coffee would be served and, if necessary, bandages and first-aid applied. Miss Sikkum had made a superficial study of Red Cross work from a shilling manual but as, according to her own confession, she fainted at the sight of blood, no very great reliance was placed in her ministrations.
As Patricia entered the kitchen her first inclination was to laugh at the amazing variety, not only of toilettes, but of expressions that met her eyes. Self-confident in the knowledge that she was fully dressed, she looked about her with interest.
"Oh, here you are, Miss Brent!" exclaimed Mrs. Craske-Morton, who was busily engaged in preparing the tea and coffee of the "Raid Instructions." "Gustave would insist on going up to call you a second time. We were——" Mrs. Craske-Morton broke off her sentence and dashed for the gas-stove, where the milk was boiling over.
"Oh, mees!" Patricia turned to Gustave. She bit her lip fiercely to restrain the laugh that bubbled up at the sight of the major-domo of Galvin House.
Above a pair of black trousers, tucked in the tops of unlaced boots, and from which the braces flapped aimlessly, was visible the upper part of a red flannel night-shirt. The remainder was bestowed beneath the upper part of the trousers, giving to his figure a curiously knobbly appearance. His face was leaden-coloured and his upstanding hair more erect than ever, whilst in his eyes was Fear.
He was trembling in every limb, and his jaw shook as he uttered his expression of relief at the sight of Patricia. She smiled at him, then suddenly remembering that, in spite of his terror, he had voluntarily gone up to the top of the house to call her, she felt something strangely uncomfortable at the back of her throat.
"Come along, Gustave!" she cried brightly. "Let us help get the tea. I'm so thirsty."
From that moment Gustave appeared to take himself in hand, and save for a violent start, at the more vigorous reports, seemed to have overcome his terror.
As Patricia proceeded to assist Mrs. Craske-Morton, a veritable heroine in a pink flannel wrapper, she took stock of her fellows. Miss Wangle was engaged in prayer and tears, her wig was awry, her face drawn and yellow and her clothes the garb of advanced maidenhood. On her feet were bed-socks, half thrust into felt slippers. From beneath a black quilted dressing-gown peeped with virtuous pride the longcloth of a nightdress of Victorian severity.
Mrs. Mosscrop-Smythe was in curl-papers and a faded blue kimono that allowed no suggestion to escape of the form beneath. Miss Sikkum had seized a grey raincoat, above which a forest of curl papers looked strangely out of place. Her fingers moved restlessly. The two top buttons of the raincoat were missing, displaying a wealth of blue ribbon and openwork that none had suspected in her. The lateness at which the ribbon and openwork began gave an interesting demonstration in feminine bone structure.
Mr. Sefton was splendid in a purple dressing-gown with orange cord and tassels, and red and white striped pyjamas beneath. Mr. Sefton had chosen his raid-costume with elaborate care; but the suddenness of the alarm had not allowed of the arrangement of his hair, most of which hung down behind in a sandy cascade. His manner was the forced heroic. He was smoking a cigarette with a too obvious nonchalance to deceive. The heroes of Mr. Sefton's imagination always lit cigarettes when facing death. They were of the type that seizes a revolver when the ship is sinking and, with one foot placed negligently upon the capstan (Mr. Sefton had not the most remote idea of what a capstan was like) shouted, "Women and children first."
He walked about the kitchen with what he meant to be a smile upon his pale lips. The cigarette he found a nuisance. If he held it between his lips the smoke got in his eyes and made them stream with water; if, on the other hand, he held it between his fingers, it emphasized the shaking of his hand. He compromised by letting it go out between his lips, arguing that the effect was the same.
Mr. Bolton had donned his fez and velvet smoking-jacket above creased white pyjama trousers that refused to meet the tops of his felt slippers. Mr. Bolton continued to make "jokes," for the same reason that Mr. Sefton smoked a cigarette.
Mr. Cordal was negative in a big ulster with a hem of nightshirt beneath, leaving about eight inches of fleshless shin before his carpet slippers with the fur-tops were reached. He sat gazing with unseeing eyes at the cook huddled up opposite, moaning as she held her heart with a fat, dirty hand.
Mrs. Barnes, the victim of indecision, had leapt straight out of bed, gathered her clothes in her arms and had flown to safety. She walked about the kitchen aimlessly, dropping and retrieving various garments, which she stuffed back again into the bundle she carried under her arm.
Mrs. Craske-Morton was practical and courageous. Her one thought was to prepare the promised refreshments. Her staff, with the exception of Gustave, was useless, and she was grateful to Patricia for her assistance.
Outside pandemonium was raging, the noise of the barrage was diabolical, the "bouncing" of the heavy guns, the screams of the "whiz-bangs," the cackle of machine-guns from aeroplanes overhead; all seemed to tell of death and chaos.
Suddenly the puny sound of guns was drowned in one gigantic uproar. For a moment the place was plunged in darkness, then the electric light shuddered into being again. The glass flew from the windows, the house rocked as if uncertain whether or no it should collapse. Miss Wangle slipped on to her knees, her wig slipped on to her left ear.
"Oh, my God!" screamed the cook, as if to ensure exclusive rights to the Deity's attention.
Jenny, the housemaid, entirely unconscious that her nightdress was her sole garment, threw herself flat on her face. Mrs. Craske-Morton, who was pouring out tea, let the teapot slip from her hand, smashing the cup and pouring the contents on to the table. Gustave's knees refused their office and he sank down, grasping with both hands the edge of the table. Mrs. Barnes dropped her clothes without troubling to retrieve them.
Suddenly there was a terrifying scream outside, then a motor-car drew up and the sound of men's voices was heard.
Still the guns thundered. Patricia felt herself trembling. For a moment a rush of blood seemed to suffocate her, then she found herself gazing at Miss Wangle, wondering whether she were praying to God or to the bishop. She laughed in a voice unrecognisable to herself. She looked about the kitchen. Mr. Sefton had sunk down upon a chair, the cigarette still attached to his bloodless lower lip, his arms hanging limply down beside him. Mr. Cordal was looking about him as if dazed, whilst Mr. Bolton was gazing at the glassless window-frames, as if expecting some apparition to appear.
"It's a bomb next door," gasped Mrs. Craske-Morton, then remembering her responsibilities, she caught Patricia's eye. There was appeal in her glance.
"Come along, Gustave," cried Patricia in a voice that she still found it difficult to recognise as her own.
Gustave, still on his knees, looked round and up at her with the eyes of a dumb animal that knows it is about to be tortured.
"Gustave, get up and help with the tea," said Patricia.
A look of wonder crept into Gustave's eyes at the unaccustomed tone of Patricia's voice. Slowly he dragged himself up, as if testing the capacity of each knee to support the weight of his body.
"There's brandy there," said Mrs. Craske-Morton, pointing to a spirit-case she had brought down with her. "Here's the key."
Patricia took the key from her trembling hand, noting that her own was shaking violently.
"Mrs. Morton," she whispered, "you are splendid."
Mrs. Morton smiled wanly, and Patricia felt that in that moment she had got to know the woman beneath the boarding-house keeper.
"Shall we put it in their tea?" enquired Patricia, holding the decanter of brandy.
Mrs. Craske-Morton nodded.
"Now, Gustave!" cried Patricia, "make everybody drink tea."
Gustave looked at his own hands, and then down at his knees as if in doubt as to whether he possessed the power of making them obey his wishes.
Miss Wangle was still on her knees, the cook was appealing to the Almighty with tiresome reiteration. Jenny had developed hysterics, and was seated on the ground drumming with her heels upon the floor, Miss Sikkum gazing at her as if she had been some phenomenon from another world. Mr. Bolton had valiantly pulled himself together and was endeavouring to persuade Mrs. Barnes to accept the various garments that he was picking up from the floor. Her only acknowledgment of his gallantry was to gaze at him with dull, unseeing eyes, and to wag her head from side to side as if in repudiation of the ownership of what he was striving to get her to take from him.
Mr. Sefton, valiant to the end, was with trembling fingers endeavouring to extract a cigarette from his case, apparently unconscious that one was still attached to his lip. Mrs. Craske-Morton, Patricia and Gustave set themselves to work to pour tea and brandy down the throats of the others. Mr. Sefton took his mechanically and put it to his lips, oblivious of the cigarette that still dangled there. Finding an obstruction he put up his hand and pulled the cigarette away and with it a portion of the skin of his lip. For the rest of the evening he was dabbing his mouth with his pocket-handkerchief.
Gustave had valiantly gone to the assistance of Jenny, and was endeavouring to pour tea through her closed teeth, with the result that it streamed down the neck of her nightdress. The effect was the same, however. As she felt the hot fluid on her chest she screamed, stopped drumming with her heels and looked about the kitchen.
"You've scalded me, you beast!" she cried, whereat Gustave, who was sitting on his heels, started and fell backwards, bringing Miss Sikkum down on top of him together with her cup of tea.
Mrs. Craske-Morton was ministering to Miss Wangle and Mrs. Mosscrop-Smythe. Mr. Bolton and Mr. Cordal were both drinking neat brandy out of teacups.
Outside the guns still thundered and screamed.
Patricia went to the assistance of the cook; kneeling down she persuaded her to drink a cup of tea and brandy, which had the effect of silencing her appeals to the Almighty.
For an hour the "guests" of Galvin House waited, exactly what for no one knew. Then the noise of the firing began to die away in waves of sound. There would be a few minutes' silence but for the distant rumble of guns, then suddenly a spurt of firing as if the guns were reluctant to forget their former anger. Another period of silence would follow, then two or three isolated reports, like the snarl of dogs that had been dragged from their prey. Finally quiet.
For a further half-hour Galvin House waited, praying that the attack would not be renewed. There were little spurts of conversation. Mr. Sefton was slowly returning to the "foot on the Capstan" attitude, and actually had a cigarette alight. Mr. Bolton and Mr. Cordal were speculating as to where the bomb had fallen. Mrs. Craske-Morton was wondering if the Government would pay promptly for the damage to her glass.
Outside there were sounds of life and movement, cars were throbbing and passing to and fro, and men's voices could be heard. Suddenly there was a loud peal of the street-door bell. All looked at each other in consternation. Gustave looked about him as if he had lost a puppy. Mrs. Craske-Morton looked at Gustave.
"Gustave!" said Patricia, surprised at her own calm.
Gustave looked at her for a moment then, remembering his duties, went slowly to the door, listening the while as if expecting a further bombardment to break out. With the exception of Miss Wangle and the cook, everybody was on the qui vive of expectation.
"It's the police," suggested Mrs. Craske-Morton, with conviction.
"Or the ambulance," ventured Miss Sikkum in a trembling voice. "They're collecting the dead," she added optimistically.
All eyes were riveted upon the kitchen door. Steps were heard descending the stairs. A moment later the door was thrown open and Gustave in a voice strangely unlike his own announced:
"'Ees Lordship, madame."
Bowen entered the kitchen and cast a swift look about him. A light of relief passed over his face as he saw Patricia. Some instinct that she could neither explain nor control caused her to go over to him, and before she knew what was taking place both her hands were in his.
"Thank God!" he breathed. "I was afraid it was this house. I heard a bomb had dropped here. Oh, my dear! I've been in hell!"
There was something in his voice that thrilled her as she had never been thrilled before. She looked up at him smiling, then suddenly with a great content she remembered that she had dressed herself with care.
Bowen looked about him, and seeing Mrs. Craske-Morton, went over and shook hands.
"She's a regular heroine, Peter," said Patricia, unconscious that she had used his name. "She's been so splendid."
Mrs. Craske-Morton smiled at Patricia, again her human smile.
"Oh! go away, make him go away!" It was Mrs. Mosscrop-Smythe who spoke. Her words had an electrifying effect upon everyone. Miss Wangle sat up and made feverish endeavours to straighten her wig. Jenny, the housemaid, looked round for cover that was nowhere available. The cook became aware of her lack of clothing. Miss Sikkum strove to minimise the exhibition of feminine bone-structure. Mrs. Barnes made a dive for Mr. Bolton, who was still holding various of her garments that he had retrieved. These she seized from him as if he had been a pickpocket, and thrust them under her arm.
"Oh, please go away!" moaned the cook.
"Come upstairs," said Patricia as she led the way out of the kitchen, to the relief of those whose reawakened modesty saw in Bowen's presence an outrage to decorum. Switching on the light in the lounge, Patricia threw herself into a chair. She was beginning to feel the reaction.
"Why did you come?" she asked.
"I heard that a bomb had fallen in this street and—-well, I had to come. I was never in such a funk in all my life."
"How did you get round here; did you bring the car?"
"No, I couldn't get the car out, I walked it," said Bowen briefly.
"That was very sweet of you," said Patricia gratefully, looking up at him in a way she had never looked at him before. "And now I think you must be going. We must all go to bed again."
"Yes, the 'All Clear' will sound soon, I think," replied Bowen.
They moved out into the hall. For a moment they stood looking at each other, then Bowen took both her hands in his. "I am so glad, Patricia," he said, gazing into her eyes, then suddenly he bent down and kissed her full on the lips.
Dropping her hands and without another word he picked up his cap and let himself out, leaving Patricia standing gazing in front of her. For a moment she stood, then turning as one in a dream, walked slowly upstairs to her room.
"I wonder why I let him do that?" she murmured as she stood in front of the mirror unpinning her hair.
The next day and for many days Galvin House abandoned itself to the raid. The air was full of rumours of the appalling casualties resulting from the bomb that had been dropped in the next street. No one knew anything, everyone had heard something. The horrors confided to each other by the residents at Galvin House would have kept the Grand Guignol in realism for a generation.
Silent herself, Patricia watched with interest the ferment around her. With the exception of Mrs. Craske-Morton, all seemed to desire most of all to emphasize their own attitude of splendid intellectual calm during the raid. They spoke scornfully of acquaintances who had flown from London because of the danger from bomb-dropping Gothas, they derided the Thames Valley aliens, they talked heroically and patriotically about "standing their bit of bombing." In short Galvin House had become a harbour of heroism.
Mrs. Craske-Morton, who had shown a calmness and courage that none of the others seemed to recognise, had nothing to say except about her broken glass; on this subject, however, she was eloquent. Miss Wangle managed to convey to those who would listen that her own safety, and in fact that of Galvin House, was directly due to the intercession of the bishop, who when alive was particularly noted for the power and sustained eloquence of his prayers.
Mr. Bolton was frankly sceptical. If the august prelate was out to save Galvin House, he suggested, it wasn't quite cricket to let them drop a bomb in the next street.
Everyone was extremely critical of everyone else. Mr. Bolton said things about Mrs. Barnes and her clothes that made Miss Sikkum blush, particularly about the nose, where, with her, emotion always first manifested itself. Mr. Sefton had permanently returned to the "women and children first" phase and, as two cigarettes were missing from his case, he was convinced that he had acquitted himself with that air of reckless bravado that endeared a man to women. He talked pityingly and tolerantly of Gustave's obvious terror.
Mr. Bolton saw in the adventure material for jokes for months to come. He laboured at the subject with such misguided industry that Patricia felt she almost hated him. Some of his allusions, particularly to the state of sartorial indecision in which the maids had sought cover, were "not quite nice," as Mrs. Mosscrop-Smythe expressed it to Mrs. Hamilton, who returned from a visit the day following.
At breakfast everyone had talked, and in consequence everyone who worked was late for work; the general opinion being, what was the use of a raid unless you could be late for work? Punctuality on such occasions being regarded as the waste of an opportunity, and a direct rebuke to Providence who had placed it there.
Patricia did not take part in the general babel, beyond pointing out, when Gustave was coming under discussion, that it was he who had gone to the top of the house to call her. She looked meaningly at Mr. Bolton and Mr. Sefton, who had the grace to appear a little ashamed of themselves.
When Patricia returned in the evening, she found Lady Tanagra awaiting her in the lounge, literally bombarded with different accounts of what had happened—all narrated in the best "eye-witness" manner of the alarmist press. Following the precept of Charles Lamb, Galvin House had apparently striven to correct the bad impression made through lateness in beginning work by leaving early.
It was obvious that Lady Tanagra had made herself extremely popular. Everyone was striving to gain her ear for his or her story of personal experiences.
"Ah, here you are!" cried Lady Tanagra as Patricia entered. "I hear you behaved like a heroine last night."
Mrs. Craske-Morton nodded her head with conviction.
"Mrs. Morton was the real heroine," said Patricia. "She was splendid!"
Mrs. Craske-Morton flushed. To be praised before so distinguished a caller was almost embarrassing, especially as no one had felt it necessary to comment upon her share in the evening's excitement.
"Come up with me while I take off my things," said Patricia, as she moved towards the door. She saw that any private talk between herself and Lady Tanagra would be impossible in the lounge with Galvin House in its present state of ferment.
In Patricia's room Lady Tanagra subsided into a chair with a sigh. "I feel as if I were a celebrity arriving at New York," she laughed.
"They're rather excited," smiled Patricia, "but then we live such a humdrum life here—the expression is Mrs. Mosscrop-Smythe's—and much should be forgiven them. A book could be written on the boarding-house mind, I think. It moves in a vicious circle. If someone would only break out and give the poor dears something to talk about."
"Didn't you do that?" enquired Lady Tanagra slily.
Patricia smiled wearily. "I take second place now to the raid. Think of living here for the next few weeks. They will think raid, read raid, talk raid and dream raid." She shuddered. "Thank heavens I'm off to-morrow."
"Off to-morrow?" Lady Tanagra raised her eyes in interrogation.
"Yes, to Eastbourne for a fortnight's holiday as provided for in the arrangement existing between one Patricia Brent and Arthur Bonsor, Esquire, M.P. It's part of the wages of the sin of secretaryship." Patricia sighed.
"I hope you'll enjoy——"
"Please don't be conventional," interrupted Patricia. "I shall not enjoy it in the least. Within twenty-four hours I shall long to be back again. I shall get up in the morning and I shall go to bed at night. In between I shall walk a bit, read a bit, get my nose red (thank heavens it doesn't peel) and become bored to extinction. One thing I won't do, that is wear openwork frocks. The sun shall not print cheap insertion kisses upon Patricia Brent."
"You're quite sure that it is a holiday," Lady Tanagra looked up quizzically at Patricia as she stood gazing out of the window.
"A holiday!" repeated Patricia, looking round.
"It sounded just a little depressing," said Lady Tanagra.
"It will be exactly what it sounds," Patricia retorted; "only depressing is not quite the right word, it's too polite. You don't know what it is to be lonely, Tanagra, and live at Galvin House, and try to haul or push a politician into a rising posture. It reminds me of Carlyle on the Dutch." There was a note of fierce protest in her voice. "You have all the things that I want, and I wonder I don't scratch your face and tear your hair out. We are all primitive in our instincts really." Then she laughed. "Well! I had to cry out to someone, and I shall feel better. It's rather a beastly world for some of us, you know; but I suppose I ought to be spanked for being ungrateful."
"Do you know why I've come?" enquired Lady Tanagra, thinking it wise to change the subject.
Patricia shook her head. "A more conceited person might have suggested that it was to see me," she said demurely.
"To apologise for Peter," said Lady Tanagra. "He disobeyed orders and I am very angry with him."
Patricia flushed at the memory of their good-night. For a few seconds she stood silent, looking out of the window.
"I think it was rather sweet of him," she said without looking round.
Lady Tanagra smiled slightly. "Then I may forgive him, you think?" she enquired.
Patricia turned and looked at her. Lady Tanagra met the gaze innocently.
"He wanted to write to you and send some flowers and chocolates; but I absolutely forbade it. We almost had our first quarrel," she added mendaciously.
For the space of a second Patricia hated Lady Tanagra. She would have liked to turn and rend her for interfering in a matter that could not possibly be regarded as any concern of hers. The feeling, however, was only momentary and, when Lady Tanagra rose to go, Patricia was as cordial as ever.
From Galvin House Lady Tanagra drove to the Quadrant.
"Peter!" she cried as she entered the room and threw herself into an easy chair, "if ever I again endeavour to divert true love from its normal——"
"How is she?"' interrupted Bowen.
"Now you've spoiled it," cried Lady Tanagra, "and it was——"
"Spoiled what?" demanded Bowen.
"My beautiful phrase about true love and its normal channel, and I have been saying it over to myself all the way from Galvin House." She looked reproachfully at her brother.
"How's Patricia?" demanded Bowen eagerly.
"Fair to moderately fair, rain later, I should describe her," replied Lady Tanagra, helping herself to a cigarette which Bowen lighted. "She's going away."
"Good heavens! Where?" cried Bowen.
"Eastbourne."
"When?"
"To-morrow."
"Damn!"
"My dear Peter," remarked Lady Tanagra lazily, "this primitive profanity ill becomes——"
"Please don't rot me, Tan," he pleaded. "I've had a rotten time lately."
There was helpless and hopeless pain in Bowen's voice that caused Lady Tanagra to spring up from her chair and go over to him.
"Carry on, old boy," she cried softly, as she caressed his coat-sleeve. "It's your only chance. You're going to win."
"I must see her!" blurted out Bowen.
"If you do you'll spoil everything," announced Lady Tanagra with conviction.
"But, last night," began Bowen and paused.
"Last night, I think," said Lady Tanagra, "was a master-stroke. She is touched; it's taken us forward at least a week."
"But look here, Tan," said Bowen gloomily, "you told me to leave it all in your hands and you make me treat her rottenly, then you say——"
"That you know about as much of how to make a woman like Patricia fall in love with you as an ostrich does of geology," said Lady Tanagra calmly.
"But what will she think?" demanded Bowen.
"At present she is thinking that Eastbourne will be a nightmare of loneliness."
"I'll run down and see her," announced Bowen.
"If you do, Peter!" There was a note of warning in Lady Tanagra's voice.
"All right," he conceded gloomily. "I'll give you another week, and then I'll go my own way."
"Peter, if you were smaller and I were bigger I think I should spank you," laughed Lady Tanagra. Then with great seriousness she said, "I want you to marry her, and I'm going the only way to work to make her let you. Do try and trust me, Peter."
Bowen looked down at her with a smile, touched by the look in her eyes. For a moment his arm rested across her shoulders. Then he pushed her towards the door. "Clear out, Tan. I'm not fit for a bear-pit to-night."
The Bowens were never demonstrative with one another.
For half an hour Bowen sat smoking one cigarette after another until he was interrupted by the entrance of Peel, who, after a comprehensive glance round the room, proceeded to administer here and there those deft touches that emphasize a patient and orderly mind. Bowen watched him as he moved about on the balls of his feet.
"Have you ever been to Eastbourne, Peel?" enquired Bowen presently. Just why he asked the question he could not have said.
"Only once, my lord," replied Peel as he replaced the full ash-tray on the table by Bowen with a clean one. There was a note in his voice implying that nothing would ever tempt him to go there again.
"You don't like it?" suggested Bowen.
"I dislike it intensely, my lord," replied Peel as he refolded a copy ofThe Times.
"Why?"
"It has unpleasant associations, my lord," was the reply.
Bowen smiled. After a moment's silence he continued:
"Been sowing wild oats there?"
"No, my lord, not exactly."
"Well, if it's not too private," said Bowen, "tell me what happened. At the moment I'm particularly interested in the place."
Peel gazed reproachfully at a copy ofThe Sphere, which had managed in some strange way to get its leaves dog-eared. As he proceeded to smooth them out he continued:
"It was when I was young, my lord. I was engaged to be married. I thought her a most excellent young woman, in every way suitable. She went down to Eastbourne for a holiday." He paused.
"Well, there doesn't seem much wrong in that," said Bowen.
"From Eastbourne she wrote, saying that she had changed her mind," proceeded Peel.
"The devil she did!" exclaimed Bowen. "And what did you do?"
"I went down to reason with her, my lord," said Peel.
"Does one reason with a woman, Peel?" enquired Bowen with a smile.
"I was very young then, my lord, not more than thirty-two." Peel's tone was apologetic. "I discovered that she had received an offer of marriage from another."
"Hard luck!" murmured Bowen.
"Not at all, my lord, really," said Peel philosophically. "I discovered that she had re-engaged herself to a butcher, a most offensive fellow. His language when I expostulated with him was incredibly coarse, and I am sure he used marrow for his hair."
"And what did you do?" enquired Bowen.
"I had taken a return ticket, my lord. I came back to London."
Bowen laughed. "I'm afraid you couldn't have been very badly hit, Peel, or you would not have been able to take it quite so philosophically."
"I have never allowed my private affairs to interfere with my professional duties, my lord," replied Peel unctuously.
For five minutes Bowen smoked in silence. "So you do not believe in marriage," he said at length.
"I would not say that, my lord; but I do not think it suitable for a man of temperament such as myself. I have known marriages quite successful where too much was not required of the contracting parties."
"But don't you believe in love?" enquired Bowen.
"Love, my lord, is like a disease. If you are on the look out for it you catch it, if you ignore it, it does not trouble you. I was once with a gentleman who was very nervous about microbes. He would never eat anything that had not been cooked, and he had everything about him disinfected. He even disinfected me," he added as if in proof of the extreme eccentricity of his late employer.
"So I suppose you despise me for having fallen in love and contemplating marriage," said Bowen with a smile.
"There are always exceptions, my lord," responded Peel tactfully. "I have prepared the bath."
"Peel," remarked Bowen as he rose and stretched himself, "disinfected or not disinfected, you are safe from the microbe of romance."
"I hope so, my lord," responded Peel as he opened the door.
"I wonder if history will repeat itself," murmured Bowen as he walked through his bedroom into the bathroom. "I, too, hate Eastbourne."