CHAPTER IV

But the day had not finished with Henry yet.

When he had washed and tidied himself he discovered to his great relief that his pince-nez were not broken, and that only one button (and that an unimportant one) was torn from his trousers, and he departed. Sir Charles asked him no questions, but only sat there at his table, staring at his paper with a fixed look of melancholy absorption that Henry dared not break. As no questions were asked Henry offered no explanations. He was very glad that he had not to offer any. He simply said, "Good afternoon, sir," and went. He was half expecting that Tom Duncombe would be hiding behind some pillar in the hall, and would spring out upon him as he passed, but there was no sign of anybody. The house was as silent and dead as the Nether Tomb.

He walked through the crowded ways to Peter Street in a fine turmoil of excitement and agitation. The physical side of the struggle was not yet forgotten; his shins, where Tom Duncombe had kicked him, were very sore indeed, and his leg would suddenly tremble for no particular reason.

His chest was sore and his head ached, from his enemy's vigorous hair-pulling. He was very thankful that his face was not marked. That was because he had held his head down. But the physical consequences were lost in consideration of the deeper, more important spiritual and material issues. What had Tom Duncombe really been after? Plainly enough something that he had been after before. One could tell that from his brother's silence. What revenge would Tom now try to take upon Henry? Perhaps he would bribe Mr. King to murder him in his sleep, or would send Henry poison in a box of chocolates, or would distil fly-paper into his coffee as Seddonhad done to poor Miss Barrow? Perhaps he would have him assassinated by some Bolshevik agent, in the middle of Piccadilly? No, all these things, delightful though they sounded, were not likely—Tom Duncombe was obviously lacking in imagination.

A beautifulvers libreflew like a coloured dove into Henry's brain just as he crossed the Circus:

Red-chested MinotaurThrustBlow on Blow.Golden apples showeringFrom Autumn treesIn wolf-hauntedForest—

Red-chested MinotaurThrustBlow on Blow.Golden apples showeringFrom Autumn treesIn wolf-hauntedForest—

Had he not been sworn at by the driver of a swiftly advancing taxi-cab he might have thought of a second verse equally good.

Arriving at his destination, he found Mrs. Tenssen all alone seated at the table playing Patience, with a pack of very greasy cards. One useful lesson at least Henry was to learn from this eventful year, a lesson that would do him splendid service throughout his life—namely, that there is nothing more difficult than to discover a human being, man or woman, who is really wicked all the way round and the whole way through. People whoseemto be thoroughly wicked, whom one passionately desires to be thoroughly wicked, will suddenly betray kindnesses, softnesses, amiabilities, imbecilities that simply do not go with the rest of their terrible character. This is very sad and makes life much more difficult than it ought to be.

It is indeed to be doubted whether a completely wicked human being has ever appeared on this planet.

It had already puzzled Henry on several occasions that Mrs. Tenssen, who as nearly resembled a completely wicked person as he had ever beheld, should care so passionately for the simple game of Patience, and should take flowers, as he discovered that she did, once a week to the Children's Hospital in Cleseden Street.

He would so greatly have preferred that she should not dothese things. She did them, it might be, as a blind, a concealment, an alibi, even as Count Fosco had his white mice and Uncle Silas played the flute, but they did notappearto be a disguise; she seemed to enjoy doing them.

She greeted Henry with great affection. She had been very kind to him of late. He did not like her any better than on his first vision of her; he liked her indeed far less. He did not know any one, man or woman, from whom sex so indecently protruded. It was always as though she sat quite naked in front of him and that she liked it to be so.

She had once made what even his innocent mind understood as improper advances to him, and he had not now the very slightest doubt of the reason why the various gentlemen, of all sizes and ages, came and had tea with her.

All this made him very sick and put him into an agony of desire to seize Christina and deliver her from the horrible place, but until now he had not thought of any plan, and one of his principal difficulties was that he could never succeed in being with Christina alone.

He realized that Mrs. Tenssen had not as yet sufficiently made up her wicked mind about him. She was hesitating, he perceived, as to whether he was worth her while or no. He had no doubt but that she had been making inquiries about him and his family. Was she speculating about him as a husband for her daughter? Or had she some other plans in her evil head?

To-day the room was close and stuffy and dingy in spite of the pink silk. There was a smell of cooking that writhed in and out of the furniture, some evil, but savoury mess that was onions and yet not onions at all, here black pudding, and there stewing eels, once ducks' eggs and then again sheeps' brains—just such a savoury mess as any witch would have stewing in her cauldron.

Mrs. Tenssen, on this afternoon, proceeded to deliver herself of some of her thoughts, her large face crimson above her purple dress, her rings flashing over the shabby dog-eared cards. Henry sat there, his eyes on the door, listening, listening for the step that he would give all the world to hear.

"You know," she said, cursing through her teeth at the badorder of the cards, "the matter with me is that I'm too good-natured. I've got a kind heart—that's the matter with me. I'm sorry for it. I'm a fool to let myself go as I do. And what have I ever got for my kindness—damn that club. What but ingratitude and cheating. It's the way of the world. You're young. You just remember that. Don't let your heart go. Use your intelligence."

"What," asked Henry who wished to discover from her something about Christina's earlier life, "kind of a town is Copenhagen? How did you like Denmark?"

"Ugh!" said Mrs. Tenssen. "I'm an Englishwoman, I am—born in Bristol and bred there, thank God. None of your bloody foreign countries for me. Twenty years of my life wasted in that stinking hole. Not that my husband was so bad—not as husbands go that is. He was a sailor and away many a time, and a good thing too. Fine upstanding man he was with yellow curls and a chest broad enough to put a table on. He'd smack my ass and say, 'There's a woman for you!' and so I was and am still for the matter of that."

"Was Christina your only child," asked Henry.

"Yes. What do you take me for? No more children for me after the first one. 'No,' I said to David. 'Behave as you like,' I said, 'but no more children for me.' Wouldn't have had that one if I hadn't been such a blighted young fool. What's life for if you're lying up all the time? But David was all right. Drowned at sea. I always told him he would be."

"Well, then, why weren't you happy?"

"Happy," she echoed. "I tell you Copenhagen's a stinking town. Dirty little place. And his relations! There was a crew for you, especially a damned brother of his with a long beard, like a goat who was always round interfering. Didn't want me to have any gentlemen friends. 'Oh you go to hell,' I said. 'I'll have what friends I damn well please.' Wanted to take my girl away from me. There's a nice thing! When a woman's a widow and all alone in the world and doing all she can for her girl, for a bloody relation to come along and try to take her away."

"What did he want to take her away for?" asked Henry.

"How the hell should I know? That's what I asked him.'What do you want to take her away for?' I asked him. He called me dirty names, then, so I just called dirty names back. Two can play at that game. I hadn't been educated in Bristol for nothing. Then they went on interfering, so I just brought her over here."

Henry was longing to ask some more questions when the door opened and Christina came in.

"Well, deary," said her mother. "Here's Mr. Trenchard." Christina smiled, then stood there uncertainly.

"There's a man coming upstairs, mother, who said you'd asked him to call. He wouldn't give his name."

Steps were outside. There was a pause, a knock on the door. Mrs. Tenssen looked at them both uncertainly.

"What do you say to taking Christina out to tea, Mr. Trenchard? It won't do her any harm?"

Henry said he would be delighted, as for sure he would.

"Well, then, suppose you do—some nice tea-shop. I know you'll look after her."

The girl moved to the door. Henry opened it for her. On the other side was standing a large heavy man, some country-fellow he seemed, young, brown-faced, in rough blue clothes.

Christina slipped by, her head down. In the street Henry found her crying. He didn't speak to her or ask her any questions. In silence they went down Peter Street.

When they were in Shaftesbury Avenue, Henry said, very gently:

"Where would you like to have tea? I'd want to take you to the grandest place there is if you'd care for that."

She shook her head. "No no, nowhere grand. . . ." She paused, standing still and looking about her as though she were utterly lost. Then he saw her, with a great effort, drag herself together. "There's a little place in Dean Street," she said. "A little Spanish restaurant—opposite the theatre."

He had been there several times to have a Spanish omelette which was cheap and very good. The kind little manager was a friend of his. He took her there wondering that he was not more triumphant on this, the first occasion when he had been alone with her in the outside world—but he could not be triumphant when she was so unhappy.

He found, as he had hoped he would, a little deserted table in the window shut off from the rest of the room by the door. It was very private with the light evening sunlight beyond the glass and people passing to and fro, and a little queue of men and women already beginning to form outside the pit door of the Royalty Theatre. The little manager brought them their tea and smiled and made little chirping noises and left them to themselves.

She was in great distress, not noticing her tea, staring in front of her as Henry had often seen her unconsciously do before, rolling her handkerchief between her hands into a little wet ball.

"I wanted us to come. I'm glad we've had the chance. I've been wanting for weeks to explain something to you." Henry poured her tea out for her and mechanically, still staring beyond him, beyond the shop, beyond London, she drank it.

"You've been very good these months, very very good. I don't know why, because you didn't know me before, nor anything about me. One day I laughed at you and I'm sorry for that. You are not to be laughed at—you have not that character—not at all—anywhere."

She paused, and Henry, looking into her face, said:

"I haven't been good to you. I'm ashamed because these weeks have all gone by and I haven't helped you yet. But you needn't say why do I come and why am I your friend. I love you. I loved you the first moment I saw you in Piccadilly. I've never loved anybody before and I feel now as though I shall never love anybody again. But I will do anything for you, or go anywhere. You only have to say and I will try and do that."

Her gaze came inwards, leaving those wide unscaleable horizons whither she had gone and travelling back to the simple untidy face of Henry whose eyes at any rate were good enough for you to be quite sure that he meant honestly all that he said. "That's it," she said quickly. "That's what I must try to explain to you. I've wanted to say to you before that perhaps I have made you think what isn't true. I like you. You're the only friend I've had since I came to England. But I can't love you, you dear good boy, nor I can't love anybody.I will not forget you if I can once get out of this horrible place, but I have no thoughts of love—not for any one—until I can come home again.

"You saw me crying just now. I should not cry; my father used to say, 'Christina, always be strong and not show them you're weak,' but I cry, not from weakness, but from deep, deep shame at that woman and what you see in her house."

She suddenly took his hand. "You are not angry because I don't love you? You see, I have only one thought—to get home, to get home, to get home!"

Henry choked in his throat and could only stare back at her and try to smile.

"Well, then," she said smiling. "Now I will try to tell you how I am. That woman—that horrible woman—whom they call my mother, and I too, to my shame, call her so—she was the wife of my father. From my birth she was cruel to me, she always hated me. When my father was at home she could not touch me—he would not allow her—but when he was at sea then she could do what she wished. My father was a hero, he was the finest of all Danish men, and when a Dane is fine no one in the world is as fine as he. He loved me and I loved him. Every one must love him, how he sang and danced and played like a child! After a time he hated the woman he'd married, because she was cruel, and he would have taken me away with him on his ship, but of course he could not. And then father was drowned—one night I knew it. I saw him. He came to my bed and smiled at me and he was all dripping with water. Then that woman was terrible to me, and my two uncles, father's brothers, who were almost as fine as he, tried to take me away, but she was too quick for them. And when they quarrelled with her, she ran away in the night and brought me over here."

Henry sighed in sympathy with her.

"Yes, and here it is terrible. I do not think I can endure it very much more. My uncle wrote and said he would come for me, and that is why I have been waiting, because I am sure that he will come.

"But now I think that woman is planning something else. She wants to sell me to some man so that she herself can befree. She is in doubt about several. That old man you saw the other day is one. He is very rich, and has a castle. Then she has been for some while in doubt about whether perhaps you will do. I don't care for it when she beats me, and when she says terrible things to me, but it is the fear of the future, and she may do worse than she has ever done—she threatens . . . and when I am alone at night—often all night—I am so afraid. . . ."

"Alone?" said Henry. "Isn't she there?"

"She has another place—somewhere in Victoria Street. Often she is away all night."

"Then," said Henry eagerly, "it's quite easy. We'll escape one night. I can get enough money together and I will travel with you to Copenhagen and give you to your uncle."

She shook her head. "No. You are a sweet boy, but that is no good. She has the place always watched. The police would stop us at once. She is a very clever woman."

"But then," pursued Henry, "if that house in Peter Street is a bad house, and she is keeping you, that is against the law, and we can have her arrested."

Christina shook her head.

"No. She is a very clever woman indeed. Nothing wrong goes on there. Perhaps in Victoria Street. I don't know. I have never been there. But I am sure if you tried to catch her in Victoria Street you would not be able to. There is nothing to be done that way. But see . . ."

She leant over towards Henry across the table, dropping her voice.

"Next December I shall be twenty-one and shall be free. It is before that that I am afraid. I know she is making some plan in her head. But I feel that you are watching, then I shall be safer. She wants to get a lot of money for me, and I think perhaps that old Mr. Leishman whom you saw is arranging something with her.

"What you want to do is to be friends with her so long as you can, so that you may come to us freely. But one day she will have made up her mind, and then there will be a scene, and she will forbid you the house. After that watch every day inThe Timesin the personal part. I will let you know when it isserious. I will try to tell you where I have gone. If I do that, it will mean that it is very anxious, and you must help me any way you can. Will you promise me?"

"I promise," said Henry. "Wherever I am, whatever I am doing, I will come."

"I have written to my uncle and I know he will come if he can. But he travels very much abroad, and my other uncle is in Japan. If they do not get any letter, I have no one—no one but you."

She took Henry's hand again. "Since father died I can't love any one," she said. "But I can be your friend and never forget you. I have been so long frightened now, and I am so tired and so ashamed, that I think all deeper feeling is dead.

"I only want to get home. Do you understand, and not think me false?"

Henry said, "I'm just as proud as I can be."

Then, saying very little, he took her back to Peter Street.

Meanwhile, as Henry was having his adventures, so, also was Millie having hers, and having them, even as Henry did, in a sudden climacteric moment after many weeks of ominous pause.

She knew well enough that that pause was ominous. It would have been difficult for her to avoid knowing it. The situation began to develop directly after the amateur performance ofThe Importance of Being Earnest. That same performance was a terrible and disgracefully public failure. It had been arranged originally with the outward and visible purpose of benefiting a Babies' Crèche that had its home somewhere in Maida Vale, and had never yet apparently been seen by mortal man. Clarice, however, cared little either for babies or the crèches that contain them, but was quite simply and undisguisedly aching to prove to the world in general that she was a better actress than Miss Irene Vanbrugh, the creator of her part.

The charity and kindliness of an audience at an amateur theatrical performance are always called upon to cover a multitude of sins, but, perhaps, never before in the history of amateur acting did quite so many sins need covering as on this occasion—sins of omission, sins of commission, and sins of bad temper and sulkiness. Clarice knew her part only at happy intervals, but young Mr. Baxter knew his not at all, and tried to conceal his ignorance with cheery smiles and impromptu remarks about the weather, and little paradoxes that were in his own opinion every bit as good as Oscar Wilde's, with the additional advantage of novelty. Mr. Baxter was, indeed, at the end of the performance thoroughly pleased with himself and the world in general, and was the only actor in the cast who could boast of that happy condition.

Next morning in the house of the Platts the storm broke, and Millie found, to her bewildered amazement, that she was, in one way and another, considered the villainness of the piece. That morning was never to be forgotten by Millie.

She was not altogether surprised that there should be a storm. For many days past the situation had been extremely difficult; only four days earlier, indeed, she had wondered whether she could possibly endure it any longer, and might have gone straight to Victoria and resigned her post had she not had five minutes' encouraging conversation with little Doctor Brooker, who had persuaded her that she was doing valuable work and must remain. There were troubles with Clarice, troubles with Ellen (very curious ones), troubles with Victoria, troubles with the housekeeper, even troubles with Beppo. All the attendant guests in the house (except the poor Balaclavas) looked upon her with hatred because they knew that she despised them for their sycophancy and that they deserved her scorn. Her troubles with Victoria were the worst, because after all did Victoria support her nothing else very seriously mattered. But Victoria, like all weak characters determined upon power, swayed like a tree in the wind, now hither now thither, according to the emotions of the moment. She told Millie that she loved her devotedly, then suddenly would her mild eyes narrow with suspicion when she heard Millie commanding Beppo to bring up some more coal with what seemed to her a voice of too incisive authority. She said to Millie that the duty of the secretary was to control the servants, and then when the housekeeper came with bitter tales of that same secretary's autocracy she sided with the housekeeper. She thought Clarice a fool, but listened with readiness to everything that Clarice had to say about "upstart impertinence," "a spy in the house," and so on. She had by this time conceived a hatred and a loathing for Mr. Block and longed to transfer him to some very distant continent, but when he came to her with tears in his eyes and said that he would never eat another roll of bread in a house where he was so looked down upon by "the lady secretary," she assured him that Millie was of no importance, and begged him to continue to break bread with her so long as there was bread in the house.

She complained with bitterness of the confusion of her correspondence and admired enthusiastically the order and discipline into which Millie had brought it, and yet, from an apparently wilful perverseness, she created further confusion whenever she could, tumbling letters and bills and invitations together, and playing a kind of drawing-room football with her papers as though Dr. Brooker had told her that this was one of the ways of warding off stoutness.

This question of her stoutness was one of Millie's most permanent troubles. Victoria now had "Stoutness on the Brain," a disease that never afflicted her at all in the old days when she was poor, partly because she had too much work in those days to allow time for idle thinking, and partly because she had no money to spend on cures.

Now one cure followed upon another. She tried various systems of diet but, being a greedy woman and loving sweet and greasy foods, a grilled chop and an "asbestos" biscuit were real agony to her. Then, for a time, she stripped to the skin twice a day and begged Millie to roll her upon the floor, a performance that Millie positively detested. She weighed herself solemnly every morning and evening and her temper was spoilt for the day when she had not lost but had indeed gained.

It must not be supposed, however, that she was always irritable and in evil temper. Far from it; between her gusts of despair, anger and assaulted pride she was very sweet indeed, assuring Millie that she was a wicked woman and deserved no mercy from any one.

"I cannot think how you can endure me, my Millie," she would say. "You sweet creature! Wonderful girl! What I've done without you all these years I cannot imagine. I mean well. I do indeed. I'm sure there isn't a woman in the country who wants every one to be happy as I do. How simple it seems! Happiness! What a lovely word and yet how difficult of attainment! Life isn't nearly as simple as it was in the days when dear Papa was alive. I'm sure when I had nothing at all in the bank and didn't dare to face kind Mr. Miller for days together because I knew that I had had more money out of his bank than I had ever put into it, life was simplicity—but now—what doyou think is the matter with me, my Millie? Tell me truthfully, straight from your loyal heart."

Millie longed to tell her that what was the matter could all be found in that one word "Money!" but the time for direct and honest speech, woman to woman, was not quite yet, although it was, most surely, close at hand.

With Ellen the trouble was more mysterious—Millie did not understand that strange woman. After the scene in Ellen's room for many days she held aloof, not speaking to Millie at all. Then gradually she approached again, and one morning came into the room where Millie was working, walked up to her desk, bent over her and kissed her passionately and walked straight out of the room again without uttering a word. A few days later she mysteriously pressed a note into her hand. This was what it said:

Darling Millie—You must forgive any oddness of behaviour that I have shown during these last weeks. I have had one headache after another and have been very miserable too for other reasons with which I need not bother you. I know you think me strange, but indeed you have no more devoted friend than I if only you would believe it. Some may seem friends to you but are not really. Do not take every one at their face value. It is sweet of you to do so but you run great risks. Could we not be a little more together than we are? I should like it so much if we could one day have a walk together. I feel that you do not understand me, and it is true that I am not at my best in this unsympathetic household. I feel that you shrink from me sometimes. If I occasionally appear demonstrative it is because I have so much love in my nature that has no outlet. I am a lonely woman, Millie. You have my heart in your hands. Treat it gently!—Your loving friend,Ellen Platt.

Darling Millie—You must forgive any oddness of behaviour that I have shown during these last weeks. I have had one headache after another and have been very miserable too for other reasons with which I need not bother you. I know you think me strange, but indeed you have no more devoted friend than I if only you would believe it. Some may seem friends to you but are not really. Do not take every one at their face value. It is sweet of you to do so but you run great risks. Could we not be a little more together than we are? I should like it so much if we could one day have a walk together. I feel that you do not understand me, and it is true that I am not at my best in this unsympathetic household. I feel that you shrink from me sometimes. If I occasionally appear demonstrative it is because I have so much love in my nature that has no outlet. I am a lonely woman, Millie. You have my heart in your hands. Treat it gently!—Your loving friend,

Ellen Platt.

This letter irritated and annoyed Millie. Her hands were full enough already without having Ellen's heart added to everything else. And why need Ellen be so mysterious, warning her about people? That was underhand. Did she suspect anybody she should speak out. Millie walked about cautiously for the next few days lest she should find herself alone with Ellen, when the woman looked so miserable that her heart was touched, and one morning, meeting her in the hall, she said:

"It was kind of you to write that note, Ellen. Of course we'll have a walk one day."

Ellen stared at her under furious eyebrows. "If that's all you can say," she exclaimed, "thank you for nothing. Catch me giving myself away again," and brushed angrily past her. . . .

So on the morning after the theatricals down came the storm. It began with the housekeeper, Mrs. Martin. Sitting under Eve Millie examined the household books for the last fortnight.

"The butcher's very large," she observed.

"Honk!" Mrs. Martin remarked from some unprobed depths of an outraged woman. She was a little creature with an upturned nose and a grey complexion.

"Well it really is too large this time," said Millie. "Twenty pounds for a fortnight even in these days——"

"Certingly," said Mrs. Martin, speaking very quickly and rising a little on her toes. "Certingly if I'm charged with dishonesty, and it's implied that I'm stealing the butcher's meat and deceiving my mistress, who has always, so far asIknow, trusted me and found no fault at all and has indeed commented not once nor twice on my being economical, but if so, well my notice is the thing that's wanted, I suppose, and——"

"Not at all," said Millie, still very gently. "There's no question of any one's dishonesty, Mrs. Martin. As you're housekeeper as well as cook you must know better than any one else whether this is an unusual amount or no. Perhaps it isn't. Perhaps——"

"I may have my faults," Mrs. Martin broke in, "there's few of us who haven't, but dishonesty I've never before been accused of; although the times are difficult and those who don't have to buy the things themselves may imagine that meat costs nothing, and you can have a joint every quarter of an hour without having to pay for it, still that hasn't been my experience, and to be called a dishonest woman after all my troubles and the things I've been through——"

"I never did call you a dishonest woman," said Millie. "Never for a moment. I only want you to examine this book with me and see whether we can't bring it down a little——"

"Dishonesty," pursued Mrs. Martin, rising still higher onher toes and apparently addressing Eve, "is dishonesty and there's no way out of it, either one's dishonest or one isn't and—if one is dishonest the sooner one leaves and finds a place where one isn't the better for all parties and the least said the sooner mended——"

"Wouldyou mind," said Millie with an admirable patience, "just casting your eye over this book and telling me what you think of it? That's all I want really."

"Then I hope, Miss," said Mrs. Martin, "that you'll take back your accusation that I shouldn't like to go back to the kitchen suffering under, because I neverhavesuffered patiently under such an accusation and I never will."

"I made no accusation," said Millie. "If I hurt your feelings I'm sorry, but do please let us get to work and look at this book together. Time's short and there's so much to be done."

But Mrs. Martin was a woman of one idea at a time. "If you doubt my character, Miss, please speak to Miss Platt about it, and ifshehas a complaint well and good and I'll take her word for it, she having known me a good deal longer than many people and not one to rush to conclusions as some are perhaps with justice and perhaps not."

Upon this particular morning Millie was to lose her temper upon three separate occasions. This was the first occasion.

"That's enough, Mrs. Martin," she said sharply. "I did not call you dishonest. I do not now. But as you seem incapable of looking at this book I will show it to Miss Platt and she shall discuss it with you. That's everything, thank you, good morning."

"Honk!" said Mrs. Martin. "Then if that's the way I'm to be treated the only thing that's left for me to do is hand in my notice which I do with the greatest of pleasure, and until you came, Miss, I should never have dreamt of such a thing, being well suited, butsuchtreatment no human being can stand!"

"Very well then," said Millie, cold with anger. "If you feel you must go, you must. I'm sorry but you must act as you feel."

Mrs. Martin turned round and marched towards the door muttering to herself. Just before she reached it Victoria and Clariceentered. Mrs. Martin looked at them, muttered something and departed banging the door behind her.

Millie could see that Victoria was already upset, her large fat face puckered into the expression of a baby who is not sure whether it will cry or no. Clarice, her yellow hair untidy and her pink gown trembling with unexpected little pieces of lace and flesh, was quite plainly in a very bad temper.

"What's the matter with Mrs. Martin?" said Victoria, coming through into the inner room. "She seems to be upset about something."

"She is," said Millie. "She's just given notice."

"Given notice!" cried Victoria. "Oh dear, oh dear! What shall we do? Millie, how could you let her? She's been with us longer than any servant we've had since father died and she cooks so well considering everything. She knows our ways now and I've always been so careful to give her everything she wanted. Oh Millie, how could you? You really shouldn't have done it!"

"I didn't do it," said Millie. "Shedid it. I simply asked her to look at the butcher's book for the last fortnight. It was disgracefully large. She chose to be insulted and gave notice."

"Isn't that vexing?" cried Victoria. "I do think you might have managed better, Millie. She isn't a woman who easily takes offence either. She's taken such a real interest in us all and nothing's been too much trouble for her!"

"Meanwhile," Millie said, "she's been robbing you right and left. You know she has, Victoria. You as good as admitted it to me the other day. Of course if you want to go on being plundered, Victoria, it's no affair of mine. Only tell me so, and I shall know where I am."

"I don't think you ought to speak to me like that," said Victoria. "It's not kind of you. I didn't quite expect that of you, Millie. You know the troubles I have and I hoped you were going to help me with them and not give me new ones."

"I'm not giving you new ones," Millie answered. "I'm trying to save you. However——"

It was at this point that Clarice interrupted. "Now I hope at last, Victoria," she said, "that your eyes are opened. It only supports what I was saying downstairs. Miss Trenchard(Clarice had been calling her Miss Trenchard for the last fortnight) may be clever and attractive and certainly young men seem to think her so, but suited to be your secretary she is not."

Millie got up from her seat. "Isn't this beginning to be rather personal?" she said. "Hadn't we all better wait until we are a little cooler?"

"No we had not," said Clarice, trembling with anger. "I'm glad this occasion has come at last. I've been waiting for it for weeks. I'm not one to be underhand and to say things behind people's backs that I would not dare to say to their faces; I say just what I think. I know, Miss Trenchard, that you despise me and look down upon me. Of that I have nothing to say. It may be deserved or it may not. I am here, however, to protect my sister. There are things that she is too warm-hearted and kind-natured to see although they do go on right under her very nose. There have been occasions before when I've had to point circumstances out to her. I've never hesitated at what was I thought my duty. I do not hesitate now. I tell you frankly, Miss Trenchard, that I think your conduct during these last weeks has been quite disgraceful. You have alienated all Victoria's best friends, disturbed the servants and flirted with every young man that has come into the house!"

This was the second occasion on which Millie lost her temper that morning.

"Thank you," she said. "Now I know where I stand. But you'll apologize please for that last insult before you leave this room."

"I will not! I will not!" cried Clarice.

"Oh dear, what shall I do?" interrupted Victoria. "I knew this was going to be a terrible day the moment I got out of bed this morning. Clarice, you really shouldn't say such things."

"I should! I should!" cried Clarice, stamping her foot. "She's ruined everything since she came into the house. No one knows how I worked at that horrible play and Bunny Baxter was beginning to be so good, most amusing and knowing his part perfectly until she came along. And then she turned his head and he fancies he's in love with her and the whole thing goes to pieces. And I always said, right away from the beginning, that we oughtn't to have Cissie Marrow as prompter, she always loses her head and turns over two pages at once—and now I've gone and made myself the laughing-stock of London and shall never be able to act in public again!"

The sight of Clarice's despair touched Millie, and when the poor woman turned from them and stood, facing the window, snuffling into a handkerchief, her anger vanished as swiftly as it had come.

Besides whatwerethey quarrelling about, three grown women? Here was life passing and so much to be done and they could stand and scream at one another like children in the nursery. Millie's subconscious self seemed to be saying to her: "I stand outside you. I obscure you. This is not real, but I am real and something behind life is real. Laugh at this. It vanishes like smoke.Thisis not life." She suddenly smiled; laughter irradiated all her face, shining in her eyes, colouring her cheek.

"Clarice, I'm sorry. If I've been a pig to you all these weeks I surely didn't mean to be. It hasn't been very easy—not through anybody's fault but simply because I'm so inexperienced. I'm sure that I've been very trying to all of you. But why should we squabble like this? I don't know what's happened to all of us this year. We stood far worse times during the War without losing our tempers, and we all of us put up with one another. But now we all seem to get angry at the slightest thing. I've noticed it everywhere. The little things now are much harder to bear than the big things were in the War. Please be friends, Clarice, and believe me that I didn't mean to hurt you."

At this sudden softening Clarice burst into louder sobbing and nothing was to be heard but "Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!" proceeding from the middle of the handkerchief.

All might now have been well had not Victoria most unfortunately suddenly bethought herself of Mrs. Martin.

"All the same, Millie," she said. "It wasn't quite kindly of you to speak to Clarice like that when you knew that she must be tired after all the trouble she had with her acting, and I'm sure I thought it went very nicely indeed although there was a little confusion in the middle which I'm certainnobody noticed half as much as Clarice thought they did. And I do wish, Millie, that you hadn't spoken to Mrs. Martin like that. I simply don't know what we shall do without her. We'll never get any one else as good. I'm sure she never spoke to me rudely. She only wants careful handling. I do so detest registry offices and seeing one woman worse than another. Idothink you're to blame, Millie!"

Whereupon Millie lost her temper for the third time that morning and on this occasion very thoroughly indeed.

"All right," she said, "that finishes it. You can have my month's notice, Victoria, as well as Mrs. Martin's—I've endured it as well as I could and as long as I could. I've been nearly giving you notice a hundred times. And before Idogo let me just tell you that I think you're the greatest coward, Victoria, that ever walked upon two feet. How many secretaries have you had in the last two months? Dozens I should fancy. And why? Because you never support them in anything. You tell them to go and do a thing and then when they do it desert them because some one else in the house disapproves. You gave me authority over the servants, told me to dismiss them if they weren't satisfactory, and then when at last I do dismiss one of them you tell me I was wrong to do it. I try to bring this house into something like order and then you upset me at every turn as though you didn'twantthere to be any order at all. You aren't loyal, Victoria, that's what's the matter with you—and until youareyou'll never get any one to stay with you. I'm going a month from to-day and I wish you luck with your next selection."

She had sufficient time to perceive with satisfaction Victoria's terrified stare and to hear the startled arrest of Clarice's sobs. She had marched to the door, she had looked back upon them both, had caught Victoria's "Millie! you can't——" The door was closed behind her and she was out upon the silent sunlit staircase.

Breathless, agitated with a confusion of anger and penitence, indignation and regret she ran downstairs and almost into the arms of young Mr. Baxter. Oh! how glad she was to see him! Here at any rate was aman—not one of these eternal women with their morbidities and hysterias and scenes! His verysmile, his engaging youth and his air of humorous detachment were jewels beyond any price to Millie just then.

"Why! What's the matter?" he cried.

"Oh, I don't know!" she answered. "I don't know whether I'm going to laugh or cry or what I'm going to do! Oh, those women! Thosewomen! Bunny—take me somewhere. Do something with me. Out of this. I'm off my head this morning."

"Come in here!" he said, drawing her with him towards a little poky room on the right of the hall-door that was used indifferently as a box-room, a writing-room and a room for Beppo to retire into when he was waiting to pounce out upon a ring at the door. It was dirty, littered with hat-boxes and feminine paraphernalia. An odious room, nevertheless this morning the sun was shining with delight and young Baxter knew that his moment had come.

He pushed Millie in before him, closed the door, flung his arms around her and kissed her all over her face. She pulled herself away.

"You . . . You . . . What is the matter with every one this morning?"

He looked at her with eyes dancing with delight.

"I'm sorry. I ought to have warned you. You looked so lovely I couldn't help myself. Millie, I adore you. I have done so ever since I first met you. I love you. I love you. You must marry me. We'll be happy for ever and ever."

There were so many things that Millie should have said. The simple truth was that she had been in love with him for weeks and had no other thought but that.

"We can't marry," she said at last feebly. "We're both very young. We've got no money."

"Young!" said Bunny scornfully. "Why, I'm twenty-seven, and as to money I'll soon make some. Millie, come here!"

She who had but now scolded the Miss Platts as though they were school children went to him.

"See!" he put his hands on her shoulders staring into her eyes, "I oughtn't to have kissed you like that just now. It wasn't right. I'm going to begin properly now. Dear Millicent, will you marry me?"

"What will your mother——?"

"Dear Millicent, will you marry me?"

"But if you haven't any money?"

"Dear Millicent, will you marry me?"

"Yes."

She suddenly put her arms around him and hugged him as though he had been a favourite puppy or an infant of very tender years. She felt about him like that. Then they simply sat hand in hand on a pile of packing-cases in the corner of the room. He suddenly put his hand up and stroked her hair.

"Funny!" she said. "Some one did that the other day and I hated it."

"Who dared?"

She laughed. "No one you need be jealous of."

Poor Ellen! She felt now that she loved all the world, Clarice and Mrs. Martin included.

"You won't mind if you keep our engagement dark for a week or two?" he asked.

"Why?" She turned round and looked at him.

"Oh! I don't know. It would be more fun I think."

"I don't think it would. I hate concealing things."

"Oh, darling Millie, please—only for a very little time—a week or two. My mother's away in Scotland and I don't want to write it to her, I want to tell her."

"Very well." She would agree to anything that he wanted, but for a very brief moment a little chill of apprehension, whence she knew not, had fallen upon her heart.

"Now I must go." She got up. They stood in a long wonderful embrace. He would not let her go. She came back to him again and again; then she broke away and, her heart beating with ecstasy and happiness, came out into the hall that now seemed dark and misty.

She stood for a moment trying to collect her thoughts. Suddenly Victoria appeared out of nowhere as it seemed. She spoke breathlessly, as though she had been running.

"Millie . . . Millie . . . Oh, you're not going? You can't be. . . . You can't mean what you said. You mustn't go. We'll never, never get on without you. Clarice is terribly sorry she was rude, and I've given Mrs. Martin notice. You're quiteright. She ought to have gone long ago. . . . You can't leave us. You can do just what you like, have what you like. . . ."

"Oh, you darling!" Millie flung her arms around her. "I'm sorry I was cross. Of course I'll stay. I'll go and beg Clarice's pardon—anything you like. I'll beg Mrs. Martin's if you want me to. Anything you like! I'll even kiss Mr. Block if you like. . . . Do you mind? Bunny Baxter's here. Can he stay to lunch?"

"Oh, I'm so glad!" Victoria was tearfully wiping her eyes. "I thought you might have gone already. We'll never have a word again, never. Of course he can stay, for as long as he likes. Dear me, dear me, what a morning!"

The hoarse voice of Beppo was heard to announce that luncheon was ready.

These are some letters that Millicent and Henry wrote to one another at this time:

Metropolitan Hotel, Cladgate,July 17, 1920.Darling Henry—We got down here last night and now it's ever so late—after twelve—and I'm writing in a bedroom all red and yellow, with a large picture of the Relief of Ladysmith over my bed, and it's the very first moment I've had for writing to you. What a day and what a place to spend six weeks in! However, Victoria seems happy and contented, which is the main thing.It appears that she stayed in this very hotel years ago with her father when they were very poor, and they had two tiny rooms at the very top of the hotel. He wanted her to see gay life, and at great expense brought her here for a week. All the waiters were sniffy and the chambermaid laughed at her and it has rankled ever since. Isn't it pathetic? So she has come now for six solid weeks, bringing her car and Mr. Andrew the new chauffeur and me with her, and has taken the biggest suite in the hotel. Isn'tthatpathetic? Clarice and Ellen, thank God, are not here, and are to arrive when theydocome one at a time.We had so short a meeting before I came away that there was no time to tell one another anything, and I have suchlotsto tell. I didn't think you were looking very happy, Henry dear,orvery well. Do look after yourself. I'm glad your Baronet is taking you into the country very shortly. I'm sure you need it. But do you get enough to eat with him? His sister sounds a mean old thing and I'm sure she scrimps over the housekeeping. (Scrimps is my own word—isn't it a good one?) Eat all youcan when you're in the country. Make love to the cook. Plunder the pantry. Make a store in your attic as the burglar did in our belovedJim.One of the things I hadn't time to tell you is that I had an unholy row with every one before we came away. I told you that a storm was blowing up. It burst all right, and first the housekeeper told me what she thought and then I told the housekeeper and then Clarice hadherturn and Victoria hadhersand I had the last turn of all. I won a glorious victory and Victoria has eaten out of my hand ever since, but I'm not sure that I'm altogether glad. Since it happened Victoria's been half afraid of me, and is always looking at me as though she expected me to burst out again, and I don't like people being afraid of me—it makes me feel small.However, there it is and I've got her alone here all to myself, and I'll see that she isn't frightened long. Then there's something else. Something—— No, I won't tell you yet. For one thing I promised not to tell any one, and although you aren't any one exactly still—— But I shan't be able to keep it from you very long. I'll just tell you this, that it makes me very, very happy. Happier than I dreamt any one could ever be.I shouldn't think Cladgate was calculated to make any one very happy. However you never can tell. People like such odd things. All I've seen of it so far is a long, oily-grey sea like a stretch of linoleum, a pier with nobody on it, a bandstand with nobody in it, a desert of a promenade, and the inside of this hotel which is all lifts, palms, and messenger boys. But I've seen nothing yet, because I've been all day in Victoria's rooms arranging them for her. I really think I'm going to love her down here all by myself. There's something awfully touching about her. She feels all the time she isn't doing the right thing with her money. She buys all the newspapers and gets shocks in every line. One moment it's Ireland, another Poland, another the Germans, and then it's the awful winter we're going to have and all the Unemployed there are going to be. I try to read Tennis to her and all about the wonderful Tilden, and what the fashions are at this moment in Paris, and how cheerful Mr. Bottomley feels about everything, but she only listens to what shewantsto hear. However, she really is cheerful and contented for the moment.I had a letter from Katherine this morning. She says that mother is worse and isn't expected to live very long. Aunt Aggie's come up to see what she can do, and is fighting father and the nurse all the time. For the first time in my life I'm on Aunt Aggie's side. Any one who'll fight that nurse has me as a supporter. Katherine's going to have another baby about November and says she hopes it will be a girl. If it is it's to be called Millicent. Poor lamb! Philip's gone in more and more for politicsand says it's everybody's duty to fight the Extremists. He's going to stand for somewhere in the next Election.Imustgo to bed. I'll write more in a day or two. Write to me soon and tell me all about everything—and Cheer Up!—Your lovingMillie.Have you seen Peter?

Metropolitan Hotel, Cladgate,July 17, 1920.

Darling Henry—We got down here last night and now it's ever so late—after twelve—and I'm writing in a bedroom all red and yellow, with a large picture of the Relief of Ladysmith over my bed, and it's the very first moment I've had for writing to you. What a day and what a place to spend six weeks in! However, Victoria seems happy and contented, which is the main thing.

It appears that she stayed in this very hotel years ago with her father when they were very poor, and they had two tiny rooms at the very top of the hotel. He wanted her to see gay life, and at great expense brought her here for a week. All the waiters were sniffy and the chambermaid laughed at her and it has rankled ever since. Isn't it pathetic? So she has come now for six solid weeks, bringing her car and Mr. Andrew the new chauffeur and me with her, and has taken the biggest suite in the hotel. Isn'tthatpathetic? Clarice and Ellen, thank God, are not here, and are to arrive when theydocome one at a time.

We had so short a meeting before I came away that there was no time to tell one another anything, and I have suchlotsto tell. I didn't think you were looking very happy, Henry dear,orvery well. Do look after yourself. I'm glad your Baronet is taking you into the country very shortly. I'm sure you need it. But do you get enough to eat with him? His sister sounds a mean old thing and I'm sure she scrimps over the housekeeping. (Scrimps is my own word—isn't it a good one?) Eat all youcan when you're in the country. Make love to the cook. Plunder the pantry. Make a store in your attic as the burglar did in our belovedJim.

One of the things I hadn't time to tell you is that I had an unholy row with every one before we came away. I told you that a storm was blowing up. It burst all right, and first the housekeeper told me what she thought and then I told the housekeeper and then Clarice hadherturn and Victoria hadhersand I had the last turn of all. I won a glorious victory and Victoria has eaten out of my hand ever since, but I'm not sure that I'm altogether glad. Since it happened Victoria's been half afraid of me, and is always looking at me as though she expected me to burst out again, and I don't like people being afraid of me—it makes me feel small.

However, there it is and I've got her alone here all to myself, and I'll see that she isn't frightened long. Then there's something else. Something—— No, I won't tell you yet. For one thing I promised not to tell any one, and although you aren't any one exactly still—— But I shan't be able to keep it from you very long. I'll just tell you this, that it makes me very, very happy. Happier than I dreamt any one could ever be.

I shouldn't think Cladgate was calculated to make any one very happy. However you never can tell. People like such odd things. All I've seen of it so far is a long, oily-grey sea like a stretch of linoleum, a pier with nobody on it, a bandstand with nobody in it, a desert of a promenade, and the inside of this hotel which is all lifts, palms, and messenger boys. But I've seen nothing yet, because I've been all day in Victoria's rooms arranging them for her. I really think I'm going to love her down here all by myself. There's something awfully touching about her. She feels all the time she isn't doing the right thing with her money. She buys all the newspapers and gets shocks in every line. One moment it's Ireland, another Poland, another the Germans, and then it's the awful winter we're going to have and all the Unemployed there are going to be. I try to read Tennis to her and all about the wonderful Tilden, and what the fashions are at this moment in Paris, and how cheerful Mr. Bottomley feels about everything, but she only listens to what shewantsto hear. However, she really is cheerful and contented for the moment.

I had a letter from Katherine this morning. She says that mother is worse and isn't expected to live very long. Aunt Aggie's come up to see what she can do, and is fighting father and the nurse all the time. For the first time in my life I'm on Aunt Aggie's side. Any one who'll fight that nurse has me as a supporter. Katherine's going to have another baby about November and says she hopes it will be a girl. If it is it's to be called Millicent. Poor lamb! Philip's gone in more and more for politicsand says it's everybody's duty to fight the Extremists. He's going to stand for somewhere in the next Election.

Imustgo to bed. I'll write more in a day or two. Write to me soon and tell me all about everything—and Cheer Up!—Your lovingMillie.

Have you seen Peter?

Panton St.,July 21, '20.Dear Millie—Thank you very much for your letter. Cladgate sounds awful, but I daresay it will be better later on when more people come. I'll make you an awful confession, which is that there's nothing in the world I like so much as sitting in a corner in the hall of one of those big seaside hotels and watching the people. So long as I can sit there and don't have to do anything and can just notice how silly we all look and how little we mean any of the things we say, and how over-dressed we all are and how conscious of ourselves and how bent on food, money and love, I can stay entranced for hours. . . . However, this is off the subject. What is your secret? You knowing how inquisitive I am, are treating me badly. However, I see that you are going to tell me all about it in another letter or two, so I can afford to wait. How strangely do our young careers seem to go arm in arm together at present. What I wanted to tell you the other day, only I hadn't time, is that I also have been having a row in the house of my employer—an actual fist-to-fist combat or rather in this case a chest-to-chest, because we were too close to one another to use our fists. "We" was not Sir Charles and myself, but his great bullock of a brother. It was a degrading scene, and I won't go into details. The bullock tried to poke his nose into what I was told he wasn't to poke his nose into, and I tried to stop him, and we fell to the ground with a crash just as Sir Charles came in. It's ended all right for me, apparently—although I haven't seen the bullock again since.Sir Charles is a brick, Millie; he really is. I'd do anything for him. He's awfully unhappy and worried. It's hateful sitting there and not being able to help him. He's had in a typist fellow to arrange the letters, Herbert Spencer by name. I asked him whether he were related to the great H. S. and he said no, that his parents wanted him to be and that's why they called him Herbert, but that wasn't enough. He has large spectacles and long sticky fingers and isverythin, but he's a nice fellow with a splendid Cockney accent. I can now concentrate on the "tiddley-bits" which are very jolly, and what I shan't know soon about the Edinburgh of 1800-1840 won't be worth anybody's knowing. Next week I go down with Duncombe to Duncombe Hall. Unfortunately Lady Bell-Hall goes down too. I'm sorry, because when I'm with some one who thinks poorly of me I always make a fool of myself, whichI hate doing. I've been over to the house every day and enquired, but I haven't seen mother yet. Aunt Aggie is having a great time. She has ordered the nurse to leave, and the nurse has ordered her to leave; of course they'll both be there to the end. Poor mother. . . . But why don't you and I feel it more? We're not naturally hard or unfeeling. I suppose it's because we know that mother doesn't care a damn whether we feel for her or no. She put all her affection into Katherine years ago, and then when Katherine disappointed her she just refused to give it to anybody. I would like to see her for ten minutes and tell her I'm sorry I've been a pig so often, but I don't think she knows any more what's going on.The worst of it is that Iknowthat when she's dead I shall hate myself for the unkind and selfish things I've done and only remember her as she used to be years ago, when she took me to the Army and Navy Stores to buy underclothes and gave me half-a-crown after the dentist.I'm all right. Don't you worry about me. The girl I told you about is in a terrible position, but I can't do anything at present. I can only wait until there's a crisis—and Idetestwaiting as you know. Peter's all right. He's always asking about you.Norman and Forrest are going to reissue two of his early books,Reuben HallardandThe Stone House, and at last he's begun his novel. He says he'll probably tear it up when he's done a little, but I don't suppose he will. Do write to him. He thinks a most awful lot of you. It's important with him when he likes anybody, because he's shut up his feelings for so long that they mean a lot when theydocome out. Write soon.—Your loving brother,Henry.

Panton St.,July 21, '20.

Dear Millie—Thank you very much for your letter. Cladgate sounds awful, but I daresay it will be better later on when more people come. I'll make you an awful confession, which is that there's nothing in the world I like so much as sitting in a corner in the hall of one of those big seaside hotels and watching the people. So long as I can sit there and don't have to do anything and can just notice how silly we all look and how little we mean any of the things we say, and how over-dressed we all are and how conscious of ourselves and how bent on food, money and love, I can stay entranced for hours. . . . However, this is off the subject. What is your secret? You knowing how inquisitive I am, are treating me badly. However, I see that you are going to tell me all about it in another letter or two, so I can afford to wait. How strangely do our young careers seem to go arm in arm together at present. What I wanted to tell you the other day, only I hadn't time, is that I also have been having a row in the house of my employer—an actual fist-to-fist combat or rather in this case a chest-to-chest, because we were too close to one another to use our fists. "We" was not Sir Charles and myself, but his great bullock of a brother. It was a degrading scene, and I won't go into details. The bullock tried to poke his nose into what I was told he wasn't to poke his nose into, and I tried to stop him, and we fell to the ground with a crash just as Sir Charles came in. It's ended all right for me, apparently—although I haven't seen the bullock again since.

Sir Charles is a brick, Millie; he really is. I'd do anything for him. He's awfully unhappy and worried. It's hateful sitting there and not being able to help him. He's had in a typist fellow to arrange the letters, Herbert Spencer by name. I asked him whether he were related to the great H. S. and he said no, that his parents wanted him to be and that's why they called him Herbert, but that wasn't enough. He has large spectacles and long sticky fingers and isverythin, but he's a nice fellow with a splendid Cockney accent. I can now concentrate on the "tiddley-bits" which are very jolly, and what I shan't know soon about the Edinburgh of 1800-1840 won't be worth anybody's knowing. Next week I go down with Duncombe to Duncombe Hall. Unfortunately Lady Bell-Hall goes down too. I'm sorry, because when I'm with some one who thinks poorly of me I always make a fool of myself, whichI hate doing. I've been over to the house every day and enquired, but I haven't seen mother yet. Aunt Aggie is having a great time. She has ordered the nurse to leave, and the nurse has ordered her to leave; of course they'll both be there to the end. Poor mother. . . . But why don't you and I feel it more? We're not naturally hard or unfeeling. I suppose it's because we know that mother doesn't care a damn whether we feel for her or no. She put all her affection into Katherine years ago, and then when Katherine disappointed her she just refused to give it to anybody. I would like to see her for ten minutes and tell her I'm sorry I've been a pig so often, but I don't think she knows any more what's going on.

The worst of it is that Iknowthat when she's dead I shall hate myself for the unkind and selfish things I've done and only remember her as she used to be years ago, when she took me to the Army and Navy Stores to buy underclothes and gave me half-a-crown after the dentist.

I'm all right. Don't you worry about me. The girl I told you about is in a terrible position, but I can't do anything at present. I can only wait until there's a crisis—and Idetestwaiting as you know. Peter's all right. He's always asking about you.

Norman and Forrest are going to reissue two of his early books,Reuben HallardandThe Stone House, and at last he's begun his novel. He says he'll probably tear it up when he's done a little, but I don't suppose he will. Do write to him. He thinks a most awful lot of you. It's important with him when he likes anybody, because he's shut up his feelings for so long that they mean a lot when theydocome out. Write soon.—Your loving brother,Henry.

Metropolitan Hotel, Cladgate,July 26, '21.Dearest Henry—Thank you very much for your letters. I always like your letters because they tell me just what I want to know, which letters so seldom do do. Mary Cass, for instance, tells me about her chemistry and sheep's hearts, and how her second year is going to be even harder than her first, but never anything serious.The first thing about all this since I wrote last is that it has rained incessantly. I don't believe that there has ever been such a wet month as this July since the Flood, and rain is especially awful here because so many of the ceilings seem to have glassy bits in them, and the rain makes a noise exactly like five hundred thunderstorms, and you have to shriek to make yourself heard, and I hate shrieking. Then it's very depressing, because all the palms shiver in sympathy, and it's so dark that you have to turn on the electric light which makes every one look hideous. But I don'tcare, I don't care about anything! I'm so happy, Henry, that I—There! I nearly let the secret out. I know that I shan't be able to keep it for many more letters and I told him yesterday—— No, Iwon't. I must keep my promise.Here's Victoria,—I must write to you again to-morrow.

Metropolitan Hotel, Cladgate,July 26, '21.

Dearest Henry—Thank you very much for your letters. I always like your letters because they tell me just what I want to know, which letters so seldom do do. Mary Cass, for instance, tells me about her chemistry and sheep's hearts, and how her second year is going to be even harder than her first, but never anything serious.

The first thing about all this since I wrote last is that it has rained incessantly. I don't believe that there has ever been such a wet month as this July since the Flood, and rain is especially awful here because so many of the ceilings seem to have glassy bits in them, and the rain makes a noise exactly like five hundred thunderstorms, and you have to shriek to make yourself heard, and I hate shrieking. Then it's very depressing, because all the palms shiver in sympathy, and it's so dark that you have to turn on the electric light which makes every one look hideous. But I don'tcare, I don't care about anything! I'm so happy, Henry, that I—There! I nearly let the secret out. I know that I shan't be able to keep it for many more letters and I told him yesterday—— No, Iwon't. I must keep my promise.

Here's Victoria,—I must write to you again to-morrow.

Telegram:

July27.Who's Him? Let me know by return.Henry.

July27.

Who's Him? Let me know by return.

Henry.

Cladgate,July28.Dearest Henry—You're very imperative, aren't you? Fancy wasting money on a telegram and your finances in the state they're in. Well, I won't tantalize you any longer; indeed, Ican'tkeep it from you, but remember that it's a secret to the whole world for some time to come.Well. I am engaged to a man called Baxter, and I love him terribly. He doesn't know how much I love him, nor is he going to know—ever. That's the way to keep men in their places. Who is he you say? Well, he's a young man who came to help Clarice with her theatricals in London. I think I loved him the very first moment I saw him—he was so young and simple and jolly and honest, andsucha relief after all the tantrums going on elsewhere. He says he loved me from the first moment, too, and I believe he did. His people are all right. His father's dead, but his mother lives in a lovely old house in Wiltshire, and wears a lace white cap. He's the only child, and his mother (whom I haven't yet seen) adores him. It's because of her that we're keeping things quiet for the moment, because she's staying up in Scotland with some relatives, and he wants to tell her all about it by word of mouth instead of writing to her. I hate mysteries. I always did—but it seems a small thing to grant him. He's working at the Bar, but as there appears to be no chance of making a large income out of that for some time, he thinks he'll help a man in some motor works—there's nothing about motors that he doesn't know. Meanwhile, he's staying here in rooms near the hotel. Of course, Victoria has been told nothing, but I think she guesses a good deal. She'd be stupid if she didn't.I've never been in love before. I had no conception of what it means. I'm not going to rhapsodize—you needn't be afraid, but in my secret self I'velongedfor some one to love and look after. Of course, I love you, Henry dear, and always will, and certainly you need looking after, but that's different. I want to doeverything for Ralph (that's the name his mother gave him, but most people call him Bunny), mend his socks, cook his food, comforthim in trouble, laugh with him when he's happy, be poor with him, be rich with him,anything, everything. Of course I mustn't show him I want to do all that, it wouldn't be good for him, and we must both keep our independence, but I never knew that love took you so entirely outside yourself, and threw you so completely inside some one else.Now you're quite different; I don't mean that your way of being in love isn't just as good as mine, but it'sdifferent. With you it's all in the romantic idea. I believe you like it better when she slips away from you, always just is beyond you, so that you can keep your idea without tarnishing it by contact. You want yours to be beautiful—I want mine to be real. And Bunnyisreal. There's no doubt about it at all.Oh! I do hope you'll like him. You're so funny about people. One never knows what you're going to think. He's quite different from Peter, of course—he'smuchyounger for one thing, and he isn'tintellectuallyclever. Not that he's stupid, but he doesn't care for your kind of books and music. I'm rather glad of that. I don't want my husband to be cleverer than I am. I want him to respect me.I'm terribly anxious for you both to meet. Bunny says he'll be afraid of you. You sound so clever. It's still raining, but of course I don't care. Victoria is a sweet pet and will go to Heaven.—Your loving sister,Millicent.P.S.—Don't tell Peter.

Cladgate,July28.

Dearest Henry—You're very imperative, aren't you? Fancy wasting money on a telegram and your finances in the state they're in. Well, I won't tantalize you any longer; indeed, Ican'tkeep it from you, but remember that it's a secret to the whole world for some time to come.

Well. I am engaged to a man called Baxter, and I love him terribly. He doesn't know how much I love him, nor is he going to know—ever. That's the way to keep men in their places. Who is he you say? Well, he's a young man who came to help Clarice with her theatricals in London. I think I loved him the very first moment I saw him—he was so young and simple and jolly and honest, andsucha relief after all the tantrums going on elsewhere. He says he loved me from the first moment, too, and I believe he did. His people are all right. His father's dead, but his mother lives in a lovely old house in Wiltshire, and wears a lace white cap. He's the only child, and his mother (whom I haven't yet seen) adores him. It's because of her that we're keeping things quiet for the moment, because she's staying up in Scotland with some relatives, and he wants to tell her all about it by word of mouth instead of writing to her. I hate mysteries. I always did—but it seems a small thing to grant him. He's working at the Bar, but as there appears to be no chance of making a large income out of that for some time, he thinks he'll help a man in some motor works—there's nothing about motors that he doesn't know. Meanwhile, he's staying here in rooms near the hotel. Of course, Victoria has been told nothing, but I think she guesses a good deal. She'd be stupid if she didn't.

I've never been in love before. I had no conception of what it means. I'm not going to rhapsodize—you needn't be afraid, but in my secret self I'velongedfor some one to love and look after. Of course, I love you, Henry dear, and always will, and certainly you need looking after, but that's different. I want to doeverything for Ralph (that's the name his mother gave him, but most people call him Bunny), mend his socks, cook his food, comforthim in trouble, laugh with him when he's happy, be poor with him, be rich with him,anything, everything. Of course I mustn't show him I want to do all that, it wouldn't be good for him, and we must both keep our independence, but I never knew that love took you so entirely outside yourself, and threw you so completely inside some one else.

Now you're quite different; I don't mean that your way of being in love isn't just as good as mine, but it'sdifferent. With you it's all in the romantic idea. I believe you like it better when she slips away from you, always just is beyond you, so that you can keep your idea without tarnishing it by contact. You want yours to be beautiful—I want mine to be real. And Bunnyisreal. There's no doubt about it at all.

Oh! I do hope you'll like him. You're so funny about people. One never knows what you're going to think. He's quite different from Peter, of course—he'smuchyounger for one thing, and he isn'tintellectuallyclever. Not that he's stupid, but he doesn't care for your kind of books and music. I'm rather glad of that. I don't want my husband to be cleverer than I am. I want him to respect me.

I'm terribly anxious for you both to meet. Bunny says he'll be afraid of you. You sound so clever. It's still raining, but of course I don't care. Victoria is a sweet pet and will go to Heaven.—Your loving sister,Millicent.

P.S.—Don't tell Peter.

Panton St.,July 30.My dear Mill—I don't quite know what to say. Of course, I want you to be happy, and I'd do anything to make you so, but somehow he doesn't sound quite the man I expected you to marry. Are yousure, Millie dear, that he didn't seem nice just because everybody at the Platts seemed horrid? However, whatever will make you happy will please me. As soon as I come up from Duncombe I must meet him, and give you both my grand-paternal blessing. We go down to Duncombe to-morrow, and if it goes on raining like this, it will be pretty damp, I expect. I won't pretend that I'm feeling very cheerful.Myaffair is in a horrid state. I can't bear to leave her, and yet there's nothing else for me to do. However, I shall be able to run up about once a week and see her. Her mother is still friendly, but I expect a row at any moment. This news of yours seems to have removed you suddenly miles away. It's selfish of me to feel that, but it was all so grizzly at home yesterday that for the moment I'm depressed. Oh, Millie, I do hope you'll be happy. . . . You must be, you must!—Your loving brother,Henry.

Panton St.,July 30.

My dear Mill—I don't quite know what to say. Of course, I want you to be happy, and I'd do anything to make you so, but somehow he doesn't sound quite the man I expected you to marry. Are yousure, Millie dear, that he didn't seem nice just because everybody at the Platts seemed horrid? However, whatever will make you happy will please me. As soon as I come up from Duncombe I must meet him, and give you both my grand-paternal blessing. We go down to Duncombe to-morrow, and if it goes on raining like this, it will be pretty damp, I expect. I won't pretend that I'm feeling very cheerful.Myaffair is in a horrid state. I can't bear to leave her, and yet there's nothing else for me to do. However, I shall be able to run up about once a week and see her. Her mother is still friendly, but I expect a row at any moment. This news of yours seems to have removed you suddenly miles away. It's selfish of me to feel that, but it was all so grizzly at home yesterday that for the moment I'm depressed. Oh, Millie, I do hope you'll be happy. . . . You must be, you must!—Your loving brother,

Henry.

In the late afternoon of Wednesday August 4 Henry found himself standing in the pouring rain on the little wind-driven platform of Salting Marting, the station for Duncombe.

He was trying to whistle as he stood under the eaves of the little hideous roof, his hands deep in his waterproof, his eyes fixed sternly upon a pile of luggage over which he was mounting guard. The car ordered to meet them had not appeared, the ancient Moffatt was staring down the wet road in search of it, Sir Charles was telephoning and Lady Bell-Hall shivering over the simulacrum of a fire in the little waiting-room.

Henry did not feel very cheerful; this was not a happy prelude to a month at Duncombe Hall, and the weather had been during the last few weeks more than even England's reputation could tolerate.

Henry was very susceptible to atmosphere, and now the cold and wet and gathering dusk seem to have been sent towards him from Duncombe and to speak ominously in his ear of what he would find there.

He had seldom in all his young life felt so lonely, and he seemed to be back in the War again waiting in a muddy trench for dawn to break and . . .

"I've succeeded in procuring something," wheezed Moffatt in his ear, "if you'd kindly assist with the luggage, Mr. Blanchard."

(It was one of Moffat's most trying peculiarities that he could not master Henry's name.)

"Why, it's a four-wheeler!" Henry heard Lady Bell-Hall miserably exclaim.

"It's all I could do, m'lady," creaked Moffatt. "Very difficult—'s time of the evening. Did m' best, m'lady."

They climbed inside and were soon rising and sinking in a grey dusk, whilst boxes, bags and packages surged around them. There was complete silence, and at last Lady Bell-Hall went to sleep on Henry's shoulder, to his extreme physical pain, because a hatpin stuck sharply into his shoulder, and spiritual alarm, because he knew how deeply she would resent his support when she woke up. Strange thoughts flitted through his head as he bumped and jolted to the rattle of the wheels. They were dead, stumbling to the Styx, other coaches behind them; he could fancy the white faces peering from the windows, the dark coachman and yet other grey figures stealing from the dusky hedges and climbing in to their fore-destined places. The Styx? It would be cold and windy and the rain would hiss upon the sluggish waters. An exposed boat as he had always understood, the dim figures huddled together, their eyes straining to the farther shore. He nodded, nodded, nodded—Millie, Christina . . . Mrs. Tenssen . . . a strange young man called Baxter whom he hated at sight and tried to push from the Coach. The figure changed to Tom Duncombe, swelling to an enormous size, swelling, ever swelling, filling the coach so that they were breathless, crushed . . . a sharp pricking awoke him to a consciousness of Lady Bell-Hall's hatpin and then, quite suddenly, to something else. The noise that he heard, not loud, but in some way penetrating beyond the rattle and mumble of the cab, was terrifying. Some one in great pain—grr—grr—grr—Ah! Ah!—grr—the noise compressed between the teeth and coming in little gasps of agony.

"What is it?" he said, in a whisper. "Is that you, sir?" He could see very little, the afternoon light faint and green behind the rain-blurred panes, but the black figure of Duncombe was hunched up against the cab-corner.

"What is it? Oh, sir, what is it?"

Then very far away a voice came to him, the words faltering from clenched teeth.

"It's nothing. . . . Pain bad for a moment——"

"Shall I stop the cab, sir?"

"No, no. . . . Don't wake my—sister."

The sound of agonizing pain behind the words was like something quite inhuman, unearthly, coming from the ground beneath the cab.

Henry, trembling with sympathy, and a blind eagerness to help, leant forward. Could he change seats? He had wished to sit with his back to the horses but Duncombe had insisted on his present place.

"Please . . . can't I do something?"

"No . . . nothing. It will pass in a moment."

A hand, trembling, came out and touched his, then suddenly clutched it, jumping from its weak quiver into a frantic grasp, almost crushing Henry's. The hand was hot and damp. For the moment in the contact with that trouble, the world seemed to stop—there was no sound, no movement—even the rain had withered away. . . . Then the hand trembled again, relaxed, withdrew.

Henry said nothing. He was shaking from head to foot.

Lady Bell-Hall awoke. "Oh, where am I? Who's that? Is that the bell? . . ." Then very stiffly: "Oh, I'm very sorry, Mr. Trenchard. I'm afraid I was dozing. Are we nearly there? Are you there, Charles?"

Very faintly the voice came back.

"Yes . . . another half-mile. We've passed Brantiscombe."

"Really, this cab. I wonder what Mortimers were doing, not sending us a taxi. On a day like this too."

There was silence again. The cab bumped along. Henry could think of nothing but that agonizing whisper. Only terrible suffering could have produced that and from such a man as Duncombe. The affection and devotion that had grown through these months was now redoubled. He would do anything for him, anything. Had he known? Memories came back to him of hours in the library when Sir Charles had sat there, his face white, his eyes sternly staring. Perhaps then. . . . But surely some one knew? He moved impatiently, longing for this horrible journey to be ended. Then there were lights, a gate swung back, and they were jolting down between an avenue of trees. Soon the cab stopped with a jerk before a high grey stone building that stood in the half-light as a veiling shadow for a high black doorway and broad sweeping steps. Behind, in front and on every side they were surrounded,it seemed, by dripping and sighing trees. Lady Bell-Hall climbed out with many little tweaks of dismay and difficulty, then Henry. He turned and caught one revealing vision of Sir Charles's face—white, drawn and most strangely aged—as he stood under the yellow light from a hanging square lantern before moving into the house.

At once standing in the hall Henry loved the house. It seemed immediately to come towards him with a gesture of friendliness and sympathy. The hall was wide and high with a deep stone fireplace and a dark oak staircase peering from the shadows. It was ill-lit; the central lamp had been designed apparently to throw light only on the portrait of a young man in the dress of the early eighteenth century that hung over the fireplace. Under his portrait Henry read—"Charles Forest Duncombe—October 13th, 1745."

An elderly, grave-looking woman stood there and a young apple-cheeked footman to whom Moffatt was "tee-heeing, tut-tutting" in a supercilious whisper. Lady Bell-Hall recovered a little. "Ah, there you are, Morgan. Quite well? That's right. And we'll have tea in the Blue Boom. It's very late because Mortimer never sent the taxi, but we'll have tea all the same. I must have tea. Take Pretty One, please, Morgan. Don't drop her. Ickle-Ickle-Ickle. Was it cold because we were in a nasty slow cab, was it then? There, then, darling. Morgan shall take her then—kind Morgan. Yes, tea in the Blue Room, please."

At last Henry was in his room, a place to which he had come, as it seemed to him, through endless winding passages and up many corkscrew stairs. It was a queer-shaped little room with stone walls, a stone floor and very narrow high windows. There was, of course, no fire, because in England we keep religiously to the seasons whatever the weather may be. The rain was driving heavily upon the window-panes and some branches drove with irregular monotony against the glass. The furniture was of the simplest, and there was only one picture, an oil-painting over the fireplace, of a thin-faced, dark-browed, eighteenth-century priest, cadaverous, menacing, scornful.

Henry seemed to be miles away from any human company. Not a sound came to him save the rain and the driving branches.He washed his hands, brushed his hair, and prepared to find his way downstairs, but beside the door he paused. As he had fancied in the library in Hill Street, so now again it seemed to him that something was whispering to him, begging him for sympathy and understanding. He looked back to the little chill room, then up to the portrait of the priest, then to the window beyond which he could see the thin grey twilight changing to the rainy dark. He stood listening, then with a little shiver, half of pleasure, half of apprehension, he went out into the passage.

His journey, then, was full of surprises. The house was deserted. The passage in which he found himself was bordered with rooms, and after passing two or three doors he timidly opened one and peered in. In the dusk he could see but little, the air that met him was close and heavy, dust blew into his nostrils, and he could just discern a high four-poster bed. The floor was bare and chill. Another room into which he looked was apparently quite empty. The passage was now very dark and he had no candle; he stumbled along, knocking his elbow against the wall. "They might have put me in a livelier part of the house," he thought; and yet he was not displeased, carrying still with him the sense that he was welcome here and not alone. In the dusk he nearly pitched forward over a sudden staircase, but finding an oak banister he felt his way cautiously downward. On the next floor he was faced with a large oak door, which would lead, he fancied, to the other part of the house. He pushed it slowly back and found himself in a chapel suffused with a dark purple light that fell from the stained-glass window above the altar.

Back to IndexNext