The Two Mrs. Abbotts

by D. E. Stevenson

  “It’s ’im,” declared Wilhelmina, with emphasis.

  Miss Marks nodded. “Very well, then…”

  “Wot am I ter do?” asked Wilhelmina, but this time she asked it hopefully, her eyes upon her protector’s face.

  “Sit down and help me to clean the silver,” said Miss Marks firmly. “It will take me a little time to explain…”

  ***

  At two o’clock precisely Colonel Melton walked up the path to the door of Ganthorne Lodge followed by Sergeant Frayle and the small ferrety-looking man in the blue suit. Jerry was waiting for them—she had been given Colonel Melton’s message in his exact words—but she was a little taken aback when they walked in.

  “Oh, it’s Mr. Boles!” exclaimed Jerry in dismay.

  “You know this man?” asked Colonel Melton.

  “Yes, of course. It’s Mrs. Boles’s husband—that used to be at the cottage—he came down to see them once or twice.”

  “Three toimes,” said Mr. Boles in a husky voice.

  “Oh, it was three times?” said Jerry, helplessly. “I didn’t—er—remember.”

  Now that the cat was out of the bag Colonel Melton saw the whole thing and all its implications at a glance, for he had a quick and lucid mind. He saw Jerry’s predicament, and, although she was in the wrong, he was very sorry for her. If he had had any inkling of the man’s identity he might have arranged things differently (perhaps the man had guessed as much, perhaps that was the reason he had refused to speak) but it was too late now. Mrs. Abbott was in for an unpleasant half hour and he could do very little to help.

  “State your business, Boles,” said Colonel Melton. “Mrs. Abbott is busy. We can’t presume upon her time.”

  “That’s easy. I want my Elmie.”

  “Elmie!” repeated Jerry, vaguely.

  “Elmie,” said Mr. Boles. “My Elmie’s ’ere. She’s ’ere without ’er parients’ permission. I’ve come ter take ’er ’ome.”

  “But she doesn’t want—” began Jerry and then she saw Colonel Melton shaking his head at her and stopped.

  “Mrs. Abbott understood—” began Colonel Melton.

  “I don’t want no talk,” declared Mr. Boles in a truculent manner. “I wants my kid, that’s all. She’s my kid an’ I wants ’er. Where is she?”

  At this moment the door opened and Wilhelmina walked in (it almost looked as if she had been listening outside); her entrance was so unexpected and raised so many different sensations in the bosoms of the room’s occupants that there was dead silence for a few moments. Wilhelmina was not discomposed. She stood there calmly, looking from one face to another and smiling to herself. She was dressed in her best frock—it was dark green serge—and her hair, which was smooth and shining, was tied at the side with a green ribbon.

  “Elmie!” said Mr. Boles at last.

  “Yes, Dad?” said Wilhelmina in questioning tones.

  Mr. Boles did not reply. He was breathing heavily; he was gazing at his daughter with his mouth slightly open.

  “Yes, Dad?” repeated Wilhelmina.

  “Well!” exclaimed Mr. Boles, giving himself a shake and straightening his back. “Well, this is a noice thing, this is. Wot d’yer mean by it—eh? Walkin’ out of the ’ouse an’ never comin’ back, froightnin’ us out of our wits! That’s a noice thing ter do, ain’t it?”

  Wilhelmina said nothing.

  “Too good fer yer ’ome, ain’t yer?” continued Mr. Boles, warming up a little. “Too good ter wash up dishes fer yer ma! Livin’ on the fat of the land, ain’t yer? Dressed up fit ter kill—ribbings on yer ’air an’ wot not! Think yer a bit of okay, don’t yer?”

  Wilhelmina did not reply.

  “Charity!” said Mr. Boles. “Livin’ on charity, that’s a noice thing, that is! That’s a bit of a come down, ain’t it?”

  “I’ve got a job,” said Wilhelmina briefly.

  “Got a job?”

  “I’m a housemaid.”

  “Ho, a ’ousemaid! A pide servant!” said Mr. Boles in disgust.

  “Like you,” said Wilhelmina sweetly. “You get paid, too, don’t you?”

  “We are all paid servants,” said Colonel Melton, who had been listening to the conversation with a good deal of interest. “In fact Mrs. Abbott is the only person in the room who works hard and gets no pay.”

  “She’s a capitalist,” declared Mr. Boles.

  “I wish I were!” exclaimed Jerry. “As a matter of fact—”

  “I didn’t come to talk,” said Mr. Boles, interrupting her with scant ceremony. “I come ’ere to taike Elmie ’ome. She don’t want no jobs as ’ousemaids.”

  “But I do!” cried Wilhelmina.

  “Your ma wants yer,” said Mr. Boles, trying another tack. “Yer pore ma wants yer. She’s bin porely.”

  “I would rather stay here,” replied Wilhelmina but, for the first time, her voice faltered a little.

  “You’ll come ’ome, my girl. You’ll come ’ome with me—an’ no nonsense.”

  “No.”

  “I’ll taike yer,” said Mr. Boles rising as he spoke. “I’ll taike yer now, this minit, an’ I’d loike ter see anyone stop me.”

  Jerry half-expected to see Wilhelmina turn and fly, but she stood her ground manfully. “I suppose you could,” she said, measuring her parent thoughtfully. “You could take me ’ome by force, couldn’t you?”

  “Yes,” replied Mr. Boles, but he said it doubtfully.

  “You couldn’t keep me there, could you?” said Wilhelmina with a little smile.

  “Couldn’t keep yer?”

  Wilhelmina shook her head.

  “Wot d’yer mean?”

  “You couldn’t keep me at ’ome—not unless you kep’ me locked up all the time,” explained Wilhelmina.

  Mr. Boles gazed at her in dismay. “Kep’ yer locked up?”

  Wilhelmina nodded.

  “Strike me pink!” exclaimed Mr. Boles, envisaging the inconvenience of this drastic expedient.

  “I’d just come back ’ere,” continued Wilhelmina, whose aitches were becoming a trifle shaky with excitement. “I wouldn’t stay at ’ome—not one moment longer than I could ’elp.”

  “But Elmie.”

  “I got a job,” declared Wilhelmina. “I like it an’ I get paid fer doin’ it. You can take me ’ome if you want to—but I won’t stay.”

  Father and daughter stood and gazed at each other and suddenly Jerry saw that they were alike. Mr. Boles was pale and sharp featured and Wilhelmina was a very nice-looking child but there was a likeness all the same…they were both full of “spunk”; they were both strong-minded and independent. They stared at each other for several moments, measuring swords, and then Mr. Boles laughed…Everybody joined in the laughter, partly with relief and partly because it really was very funny indeed.

  “Strike me pink!” cried Mr. Boles, between his spasms of mirth. “There’s a kid for you! Knows ’er own moind, don’t she? Well, it beats me—beats me ’ollow—I carn’t get around it, no’ow!”

  After that everything was easy and pleasant. Colonel Melton and the sergeant vanished and Markie appeared carrying a tray upon which were set out a bottle of beer, a glass and two sandwiches. Mr. Boles had no use for the sandwiches—he had dined already—but the beer was a different matter. He drank to his daughter, remarking that she was a chip off the old block and worth two of Arrol, and he drank to Mrs. Abbott, and to “the ’ouse.” He was about to drink the health of Miss Marks when he discovered that his glass was empty. Mr. Boles turned the bottle upside down and gave it a shake…and then he looked at his hostess, but she did not seem to understand.

  “Oh well,” he said. “It was good while it larsted.”

  As Wilhelmina had been given the afternoon off to go to Wandlebury and do her shopping, and, as Mr. Boles was obliged to catch t
he six o’clock train home, the two went off together in the bus.

  “I suppose it’s quite safe letting her go with him,” said Jerry as she and Markie watched them walking down the drive.

  “Perfectly safe,” replied Markie. “Wilhelmina can see him off and come home before dark. One need have no apprehensions.”

  “It was clever,” said Jerry thoughtfully. “You put her up to it, of course, you naughty old thing.”

  “I made a few little suggestions,” admitted Markie with a satisfied air.

  “You might have warned me.”

  “No dear,” said Markie firmly. “It was essential that you should know nothing at all.”

  Wilhelmina came home in good time, but she came empty-handed, and when Markie inquired into the matter she replied in a somewhat shamefaced way that she had not bought the skirt. “Never mind,” said Markie, kindly. “You can buy it next month. You are quite right to send the money to your mother, dear.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Miss Marks Goes for a Walk

  Markie was sleeping badly. The pain in her side, which had abated for a while, had now returned nagging like toothache. She could not sleep and she did not want her meals. The pain was bad enough but the anxiety it occasioned her was a great deal worse and much harder to bear. Nobody knew better than she the devastating effects of a long agonizing illness. She had seen her father die by inches before her eyes—would Jerry have to go through the same Gethsemane with her? It must not happen, thought Markie. I cannot let it happen. I must keep going as long as I can stand on my feet. If only I could die, thought Markie. If only I could die now, before it gets worse, before Jerry finds out.

  But Markie did not worry all the time, for sometimes the pain lessened and she was buoyed up by the hope that it was leaving her for good, and one afternoon when her spiritual barometer was pointing to “set fair,” she decided to go out for a walk. I must get out more, thought Markie. I am much better—I need fresh air. She looked out of the window and what she saw confirmed her in her intention: it was a lovely afternoon, the sun was shining and a few white clouds were scudding across the bright blue sky.

  Markie never went for a walk without dressing for the part. It never occurred to her to throw on a wrap and rush out onto the moor. She changed her shoes, donned her black cloth coat with the gray fur collar and a small black toque with white flowers in it, which had been the height of fashion when George the Fifth came to the throne. She put on a pair of suede gloves with buttons, took her bag and her umbrella, and sallied forth. She had intended to walk up the hill as far as the wood, but it was such a lovely day and she felt so well and happy that she decided to go farther. It would not matter if she were late for tea. She walked on through the wood, past the fallen oak where Archie and Jane had had their long interesting conversation, and came out onto the moor. Here she paused. Should she return or should she go farther still. She could strike across the moor by a footpath and come home by the Gostown road. It would not be too far. No, not a bit. Markie walked on.

  How lovely it was! The air was cool and crisp with the first hint of autumn. The trees had been touched with frost—one here and one there—and burned as if with fire. The moors rolled away to the horizon, clothed with brown bracken and patches of sunlit grass. Dozens of rabbits scuttled about the moor, or sat at the doors of their burrows and watched Markie as she passed.

  Presently the path ran up a steep rise and Markie puffed and blew as she breasted the slope, for she was out of training. She paused when she reached the top and stood there while she recovered her breath. It was a splendid view, a wide undulating expanse of moorland with here and there a wood or a cottage. To her left, a couple of miles away, lay Ganthorne Lodge and the cluster of Nissen huts where the soldiers lived, to her right lay the grounds and policies of Wisden House, below her was the Gostown road…and there was the bus that ran between Gostown and Wandlebury, bucketing along over the somewhat uneven surface in its usual headlong way. If Markie had been a little quicker she might have stopped the bus and got a lift home…but it did not matter, she was not really tired.

  She walked down toward the road; it was only a few hundred yards, but to reach it she must pass through a wood; and the wood was a neglected sort of place, full of dead trees and choked with nettles and brambles and rhododendron bushes that had gone wild and straggly. There was something very unpleasant about the wood and Markie was suddenly a little nervous. It was absolutely ridiculous, of course, but she was—nervous. She had a feeling that she was not alone. Somebody was near.

  Markie looked around. There was nobody to be seen…but she still had that odd feeling. “Perfect nonsense,” said Markie firmly and she walked on a few steps, accelerating her pace a little…and then she stopped again. There was somebody else in the wood.

  Markie could never explain why or how she knew. Whether she had heard something—which seemed unlikely—or whether she had seen something—which seemed unlikely, too. She just knew that she was not alone in the wood; something told her…and the same something, which told her she was not alone, told her to step over a ditch, scramble up a bank, and look through a tangled mass of brambles and rhododendron bushes.

  Markie did these things and found herself gazing at a man, dressed in a tweed suit, who was sitting propped up against a fallen tree, fast asleep.

  “Most extraordinary!” said Markie under her breath.

  She looked at him for some moments and all sorts of ideas sped through her mind. Who was he? Where had he come from? Why was he here? He might be an officer from the camp who had come here for a little peace—but Markie knew all the officers and she had never seen this man before. Could he be somebody from Gostown? Could he be a guest from Wisden House? He might be, of course, but somehow or other Markie felt doubtful, and the more she looked at the man the more doubtful she became. There was something very odd about him.

  At first Markie could not decide why the man looked odd. She tried to crystallize her impressions. Was it his clothes? His suit was made of quite ordinary gray tweed, but it did not look comfortable and slightly shabby like most country tweeds. It was a new suit—and yet it was dirty, soiled with mud. That was odd, thought Markie, for what man in his senses would put on a brand-new suit to go for a ramble in the woods? His hair was queer, too. It was cut in a curious way. It was very short and bristly…his head was square.

  “Most extraordinary!” said Markie again, but this time with quite a different inflexion, for she had reached the somewhat alarming conclusion that the man was not an English citizen; that his origin was Teutonic. Of course he might be a foreigner and yet have a perfect right to be here, for Britain was full of foreigners—it had become the most cosmopolitan spot on the face of the earth—but somehow or other Markie was sure that this man was not a friendly alien. She was sure of it even before she saw the gleam of the small revolver that lay beside him within easy reach of his hand…

  Markie was breathing a little faster than usual as she withdrew from the hedge and climbed down the bank on to the path, but it was with excitement, not fear…she had found the spy. The man was a spy—they had been talking about a spy, and this was he.

  Goodness! thought Markie, standing upon the path and literally gasping with excitation of feeling. Goodness, what had I better do? I cannot do anything myself, for the man is armed. I had better run back to the camp and tell Colonel Melton.

  Yes, Colonel Melton was the person to deal with the situation. He would know exactly what to do…but Markie had scarcely taken two steps in the direction of the camp when she was assailed by a flock of doubts and misgivings: supposing her diagnosis was wrong and the man was not a spy! Supposing she got hold of Colonel Melton and brought him to the wood and the man proved to be quite a harmless person! What a fool she would look!

  Markie stopped and thought about it. She had been sure of her premises, of course, but now she was not so sure. No
w that her eyes were not fixed upon the man she could scarcely credit their evidence. And the whole thing was so extraordinary (thought Markie). It was not the sort of thing that happened to an ordinary person like herself. There was the revolver, of course. A harmless person would not walk about the woods carrying a revolver, nor go to sleep with a revolver placed close to his hand—only a man who went in fear of his life would take that precaution—but had she really seen the revolver? Could it have been something that looked like a revolver? His pipe, for instance!

  I must make quite sure, thought Markie. I should look such a fool…I must have a closer view of the man.

  With this aim in view Markie made a circuit of the bushes and finding a path that led in the right direction she came around behind her quarry through the trees. He was still asleep, but he seemed restless, breathing noisily and muttering…as Markie approached he flung out one arm and turned over on his other side. She waited till he was quiet again, and now she was perfectly certain of her man: his cephalic characteristics were unmistakable. She went nearer, stepping softly and carefully, and she saw his revolver lying by his side…

  Moved by a sudden brilliant idea Markie stooped and picked up the revolver. It was cold in her hand, cold and heavy, and it had a grim ugly look—but the fact that she had disarmed her enemy gave her a good deal of satisfaction. He was not so dangerous now. Still dangerous, of course, thought Markie (backing away from him through the trees, and carrying the little gun very carefully as if it might go off at any moment and blow her up), still dangerous, but not so dangerous. Colonel Melton would be able to capture him quite easily without the risk of getting shot…

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The Route March

  Lieutenant Howe had arrived at Ganthorne Camp the night before. He was rather shy and he felt exactly like a new boy at school. He was so anxious to make a good impression and showed so much zeal that Major Cray deputed him to take “B” Company for a route march.