From the hall came an interminable monologue, from which his wife would, he knew, come back exhausted, but probably having done some kind deed. Damn Mrs. Phipps, whoever she was. And damn Miss Phipps, who was on the railway. People didn’t come to their houses badgering their wives to death at all hours of the night. He remembered the two young women at Winter Overcotes station. Dreadful-looking girls they were, but good-humoured as could be, grateful for his help, and probably helping to win the war just as much as he was, in their own way. No place for old men in the world now, he thought; though no one would have called him an old man. Angrily he took up the evening paper and read what Mrs. Betty Higgins, aged ninety-seven, had to say about the war. Oh, Lord!
He was almost glad when Selina appeared at the far door and announced, “Matron, Sir Harry.”
“Tell her ladyship, Selina,” he said. “Good evening, Matron. Come and sit by the fire and we’ll have some coffee.”
He managed to keep the conversation on neutral ground till the coffee came, and then said:
“Well, Matron, I’m sorry to hear about your cat. Whose fault was it?”
Matron, who had arrived full of pent-up emotion of various kinds: anger, grief, the holy feeling that a good cry leaves behind it, and several more, was rather taken aback.
“Whose fault?” she repeated.
Sir Harry looked at her. She was a handsome, middle-aged woman with grey waving hair and a firm mouth. Her dress was as precise as it could be; a long line of ribbons on the bodice spoke of honourable service in many places and campaigns. He was willing to wager that she was one of those rare nurses who look even better out of uniform than in it.
“Yes, Matron. Jenks had no business with a gun, but why was he out after tea? I thought they had to be in unless they had special permission.”
“He had no business to be out at all,” said Matron severely. “Then why was he out?” said Sir Harry.
“I really thought Nurse Poulter understood that no one could go out unless he had a proper leave pass.”
“Who is Nurse Poulter?” asked Sir Harry. “I don’t think I’ve met her.”
“She only came in on Tuesday. She is an excellent nurse and will be a help to us. But really, Sir Harry, I do not quite see what this has to do with my pussy. He was as faithful as a dog and far more intelligent. It’s a shocking thing if men are to be allowed to shoot dumb animals and nothing is to be said.”
Her voice rose a little and she clasped her hands, signs which did not escape her host.
“How old was he?” he asked kindly.
“Five—I had him from a kitten and he was one of those cats that prefer people to places. Never did I have to butter his paws. Wherever I went was home to him. And that’s what makes it so hard. Your keeper is, I am afraid, answerable for the death of that poor dumb beast.”
“Margett had no business to let any of your patients have a gun,” said Sir Harry, “and I have already spoken very seriously to him about it. It will not occur again unless you and I both give permission. I am extremely sorry.”
“Well, I’m sure nothing could be more handsome,” said Matron, visibly softened, “but what to do about Jenks I cannot decide. I should like to send him straight back to his regiment, but I don’t think doctor would pass him as fit. He is only just recovering from appendicitis which,” said Matron, fearing she might be relenting too much, “makes it all the worse, of course. Pussy would never have hurt a fly.”
“They make them mangy, don’t they?” said Sir Harry sympathetically. “My wife had a Persian who used to eat beetles, and its fur came out in handfuls. But now, Matron, about Private Jenks being out of bounds after tea. If you did not give precise instructions to this Nurse Poulter, it seems to me the responsibility is yours. You couldn’t possibly have foreseen what would happen. It is all very sad and you are being very brave about it.”
For a moment Sir Harry feared that Matron was going to cry, but she fought down her weakness and said “Thank you” in a small voice.
Sir Harry breathed an inward sigh of relief. And even greater was his relief when the door from the hall was opened and his wife came in, for he felt he could not handle the situation much longer.
“Good evening, Matron,” said Lady Waring, shaking hands. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am about your poor cat. It’s dreadful that it happened here and Sir Harry has told Margett he must never let any of your patients have a gun without his and your permission. Will you excuse me one moment. Harry, Mrs. Phipps lives at Worsted and she has bicycled over to thank you for being so kind to her girl who is one of the porters at Winter Overcotes. Do you mind if she comes in?”
Without waiting for the answer which she knew Sir Harry would have to give, she ushered Mrs. Phipps into the sitting-room. That lady wore a disgraceful blue felt hat crammed down on her grey clipped hair and a brown coat with a little old fur on it, and was carrying a basket.
“This is Mrs. Phipps,” said Lady Waring. “This is my husband, Mrs. Phipps, and this is the matron of our convalescent home.”
“Pleased to meet you and Matron,” said Mrs. Phipps. “My Dawris told me how nice you’d acted to her and Lily-Annie this evening and having to visit my sister in the village I come over on my bike to thank you. She’s a real good girl Dawris is, and she said you gave them a hand with the truck. I said, ‘That’s no work for a gentleman, my girl,’ but Dawris said, ‘All right, Mother, you ask the gentleman.’ Lily-Annie and her said you were a lovely gentleman.”
“That’s all right, Mrs. Phipps,” said Sir Harry. “They are good girls. I hope your daughter likes her work.”
“The Wrens would have her any day,” said Mrs. Phipps, “so would the Waafs. But the railways is in the family as you might say, Bert Margett at Worsted station being my second cousin. Him and Dawris have been going together six years, so I s’pose they’ll be getting married one of these days. But Dawris always had her heart in the railway, and she said to me, ‘All right, Mother, it’s no good you and Dad talking, because Lily-Annie and me’s going on the railway.’ ‘Why not go in telephones like your cousin Palmyra?’ I said, but Dawris talked her Dad and me round, so there it is.”
“Thank you very much for coming, Mrs. Phipps. You will have a cup of tea before you go,” said Lady Waring, ringing.
“I don’t mind if I do,” said Mrs. Phipps. “It’s a nasty hill up to Worsted on a bike. I had words yesterday with one of my ladies, I thought you’d like to know, the one I work for on Tuesdays and Fridays, so if you want anyone I dare say I could manage it.”
Lady Waring was about to say that she would inquire, when Selina came in, so she asked her to give Mrs. Phipps some tea before she went, and put out her hand to say good-bye. But Mrs. Phipps was struggling with something in her basket and paid no attention.
“The mother’s our old Flossie,” said Mrs. Phipps, at last extricating a small bundle wrapped in a piece of blanket, “but the father’s a full Persian. I chased him away twenty times if I chased him away once, but my fine gentleman got the better of me. We call this one Winston. Me and Dad thought you’d like him, being as you was so kind to Dawris.”
She unwrapped the bundle carefully. In it was a silky, smoke-coloured kitten half asleep. It opened its mouth, showed some little sharp white teeth and a rose-petal tongue, and mewed.
“How very kind of you, Mrs. Phipps,” said Lady Waring, madly racking her brain for a plausible excuse for not taking a kitten that she didn’t in the least want.
The kitten mewed again piercingly.
“He wants some milk,” said Matron suddenly. “Will you excuse me, Lady Waring. Come to auntie, then.”
She poured some of the still warm milk into a coffee saucer and offered it to the kitten which lapped twice, sneezed, and mewed again.
“You’d better take him on your lap, miss,” said Mrs. Phipps. “He loves a bit of warmth.”
Matron sat down. Mrs. Phipps deposited the bundle on her lap. The kitten stretched itself and settl
ed down to the milk with delicate voluptuousness.
“It’s extremely kind of you, Mrs. Phipps,” said Sir Harry, suddenly inspired, “and we would love to have Winston, but it’s a bit awkward when we are out so much and the milk so short. Would you mind if I asked Matron to take care of him? She gets all the milk she wants and plenty of fish, and we can see him every day.”
“That’s all right,” said Mrs. Phipps. “But don’t feed him too much. His mother’s a rare mouser and I always keep her short, or she gets lazy. Well, good-night all, and I’ll be sure to tell Dawris what you said, Sir Harry. You can keep the kitten’s blanket, miss.”
“What did I say about Doris?” said Sir Harry to his wife when Mrs. Phipps had left, accompanied by Selina, who was already crying because the kitten was such a dear wee little thing.
“I haven’t the faintest idea,” said his wife.
“You ought to go to bed, Lady Waring,” said Matron, looking at her with a professional eye. “And take a day in bed to-morrow if you will excuse my saying so. I apologize for staying so long, and thank you very much for all your kindness, Sir Harry. I shall take the greatest care of Winston. Come along to beddy-byes with auntie, then.”
“Diplomatist!” said Lady Waring to her husband when they were alone.
“I thought you didn’t want the kitten, my dear,” said Sir Harry. “And Matron was quite right; you must go to bed. There’s the telephone again.”
Selina came in.
“Please, Sir Harry,” she said, “it’s a gentleman at the camp. I said could I take a message, but he said he wanted to speak to you particularly.”
“What gentleman?” said Sir Harry.
“Captain Harper, or some such name, Sir Harry. I didn’t like to ask again because he seemed so——”
“No, he was not upset, Selina, and he’s not a gentleman, and his name is Hooper. All right, I’ll come. What the dickens does he want at this time of night? You go to bed, my dear.”
But Lady Waring did not go to bed. Her husband’s voice, speaking with the patient courtesy that he used for anyone he did not like, told her that Captain Hooper from the camp who was not a gentleman was interrupting him at every other word.
“Now is the moment when I wish brandy wasn’t such a price and rotgut at that,” said Sir Harry coming back.
“Shall I get you some?” said his wife. “I have that bottle that Lord Bond gave us put away.”
“No, my dear, it’s all right. But rather a nuisance. The fellow Hooper wants to know if we can put up an Intelligence officer.”
“Yes, of course we can,” said Lady Waring. “After all, we have got the empty room and it’s better than evacuees.”
“Bless you, my dear. But I’m afraid there’s a wife too. I told Hooper I’d ask you.”
“You didn’t, Harry. You said you would take them. Don’t try to deceive me. It will be a bit of a squash but we’ll manage. They can have the big room and Leslie can have the little room next to Selina’s. That’s the best we can do.”
“Is Leslie coming?” asked Sir Harry, who seldom thought about his young cousin, sister of his heir, though he liked her when he saw her.
“You know she is, darling,” said Lady Waring, suddenly looking very tired.
“Go to bed at once,” said her husband with kindly ferocity. “Oh Lord! there’s the front-door bell again!”
Once more Selina appeared, to say it was the under-house-maid from Mr. Palmer’s who had lost her ration cards and her clothing coupons and wanted Sir Harry to witness her declaration of loss as he was a J.P., and it was her evening out, so she thought she might as well look in on her way back.
“Oh damn Palmer’s under-housemaid,” Sir Harry exploded. “Oh, all right, I’ll see her. And you go to bed at once, my dear; and you too, Selina. I’ll let the girl out.”
“She’s not a girl, Sir Harry,” said Selina, “or she’d be called up, Sir Harry. She’s Mr. Margett’s aunt.”
“If she is the devil himself, I’ll show her out,” said Sir Harry. “Go along to bed, both of you.”
CHAPTER II
SIR HARRY breakfasted at a quarter to eight four days a week, walked to Lambton station, and got the one up train by which there was no change at Winter Overcotes. Before he left on the morning after Matron’s visit he went to say goodbye to his wife as usual. She was in bed, a breakfast tray on a table at one side, a large dispatch-box on a table at the other side, dealing with the morning’s post before she got up. Sir Harry bent cautiously over the breakfast tray and kissed her, expressing a hope that she hadn’t been kept awake by all the visitors last night, and that the Intelligence officer and his wife would not be too much for her.
“If you think you can’t manage it, my dear,” he said, “I’ll let Hooper know he must try somewhere else. I can’t have you working yourself to death.”
“I shall manage quite well,” said Lady Waring. “And it came to me in the small hours of the night that Mrs. Phipps is the solution. If she can come here on Tuesdays and Fridays and Mrs. Officer isn’t too exigent, we shall do quite well. Leslie can help Selina a bit and after all it isn’t for ever.”
Sir Harry looked at his wife with admiration, took her letters to post in London and went off. His cold, dark walk to the station was solaced by the thought that few other wives would have given such loyal support as his (though here he was quite wrong) and that in all their married life she had never failed him (in which he was quite right). So absorbed was he in these pleasant reflections that he showed his season ticket in a dream, acknowledged the station-master’s salute from habit, and strode up and down the platform oblivious of his surroundings. Gradually the fact penetrated his consciousness that every time he passed the ticket office there was a noise as of unrefined giggling. Next time he stopped, and in the dismal light which was now filtering through heavy clouds saw two young women from whom the giggling appeared to come. Loud whisperings were exchanged, more giggles and a good deal of pushing followed. Then Doris Phipps, detaching herself from her friend, came forward.
“Thank you ever so for taking Winston,” she said. “Mum said she’d drown him and I cried ever so. Mum’s coming to oblige at the Priory, she said to tell you.”
Sir Harry said he didn’t think anything had been arranged.
“Oh yes,” said Doris Phipps. “Mum says she’s going up on Friday to commence working. She says the young lady that gave her the tea was ever so nice.”
Sir Harry, feeling a little unequal to these plans so early in the morning, asked if they were going on duty by the train.
Lily-Annie, who had not yet spoken, said, “Ow now, Sir Harry,” and overcome by her own courage in saying the gentleman’s name, though not quite sure if it was etiquette to say Harry, which she knew was short for Henry, got behind Doris Phipps.
“It’s our day off,” said Doris, “so Mum said to bike over to Lambton and tell you she’d be over on Friday, Sir Harry.”
“But how did she know I would be here?” said Sir Harry.
“The young lady told her you got the 8.25, Sir Harry,” said Doris, “and Mr. Pollett, he’s the station-master at Worsted, said you always went up on Wednesdays, because he takes duty at Lambton if Ernie Pollett, that’s my uncle, is on leave.”
Doris Phipps might have gone on for ever, making Sir Harry more and more confused as he realized for the hundredth time how fierce was the light of public interest that was directed at him from all quarters, had not Lily-Annie given her friend a hearty shove, with the words, “You and your Bert!” upon which both girls shrieked and ran giggling out of the station.
The 8.25 came in and Sir Harry was carried away to London, rather battered by this unexpected rencontre, but very glad to hear that his wife was to have help. For from what he had seen of Mrs. Phipps, he was quite sure she would come if she meant to.
When Sir Harry had gone Lady Waring finished her letters and read her Times, which did not come till after her husband had gone to town. In spite of her
cheerful assurances to him, she had not slept very well and thought longingly of Matron’s advice to stay in bed. There was a good deal to be done. She must find out if that Mrs. Phipps was really free; she must visit Selina’s mother, Nannie Allen, who lived down in Ladysmith Cottages and took offence rather easily. Captain Hooper must be rung up on the private number her husband had left with her. How very nice it would be, she felt, if the unknown Intelligence officer and wife could suddenly find a billet somewhere else. And then there was Leslie coming to-day.
By rights, Lady Waring thought, or at least by all the rules of novels, she and her husband ought to hate the heir who would possess George’s inheritance. If Harry were a proper uncle, like Ralph Nickleby, he would do his best to ruin Lieutenant-Commander Cecil Waring, R.N., and if possible persecute his sister Leslie: though even that wouldn’t do much good, for Cecil would meet Admiral Cheeryble, K.C.B., and Leslie would marry Captain Frank Cheeryble, R.N., his nephew, and Harry would hang himself from the hook in the drawing-room where the gas chandelier used to hang in his grandfather’s time; for there were not any hooks in the servants’ wing as far as she could remember. This delightful plan did not seem to leave any place for her, so she laughed at herself, and thought how much nicer it really was that Harry was on good terms with Cecil. As for Leslie, her visits had always been a pleasure, from her early nursery days to her late long-legged schoolgirl days. Lady Waring never pretended to herself that she loved Leslie like a daughter. “I couldn’t, you know,” she said aloud to herself, “because I’ve never had a daughter so I don’t know how one loves them.” But she was fond of the girl and found her a useful person to have at the Priory in the days when they had house-parties, for she was willing to listen, played tennis well, danced well, and took a really intelligent interest in the estate. Lady Waring had once said to her husband that it was a pity brothers and sisters couldn’t marry, like the Ptolemies, as Cecil and Leslie seemed so admirably suited to one another and Leslie was so fond of the place and could help her brother with it. To which Sir Harry said the Ptolemies were a dashed queer lot and what Leslie ought to do was to marry some nice man and have a family and he hoped his wife wouldn’t say things like that in public. So she kissed him and said she wouldn’t.
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