Meg, looking a wispy little shadow of woe.
Anthony came forward with outstretched hands.
"Meg, my child, what good wind has blown you here this afternoon? I thought you were having ever such a gay time down in the country."
But Meg made no effort to grasp the greeting hands. On the contrary, she moved so that the whole width of the dining-room table was between them.
"Wait," she said, "you mustn't shake hands with me till I tell you what I've done ... perhaps you won't want to then."
And Anthony saw that she was trembling.
"Come and sit down," he said. "Something's wrong, I can see. What is it?"
But she stood where she was, looking at him with large, tragic eyes; laid down a leather despatch-case she was carrying, and seized the edge of the table as if for support.
"I'd rather not sit down yet," she said. "Perhaps when you've heard what I've got to tell you, you'll never want me to sit down in your house again ... and yet ... I did pray so you'd be here ... I knew it was most unlikely ... but I did pray so ... And you are here."
Anthony was puzzled. Meg was not given to making scenes or going into heroics.
It was evident that something had happened to shake her out of her usual almost cynical calm.
"You'd be much better to sit down," he said, soothingly. "You see, if you stand, so must I, and it's such an uncomfortable way of talking."
She pulled out a chair and sat down at the table, took off her gloves, and two absurd small thumbs appeared above its edge, the knuckles white and tense with the strength of her grip.
Anthony seated himself in a deep chair beside the fireplace. He was in shadow. Meg faced the light, and he was shocked at the appearance of the little smitten face.
"Now tell me," he said gently, "just as little or as much as you like."
"This morning," she said hoarsely, "I ran away with a man ... in a motor-car."
Anthony was certainly startled, but all he said was, "That being the case, why are you here, my dear, and what have you done with him?"
"He was married...."
"Have you only just found that out?"
"No, I knew it all along. His wife is hard and disagreeable and older than he is ... and he's thirty-five ... and they can't live together, and she won't divorce him and he can't divorce her ... and I loved him so much and thought how beautiful it would be to give up everything and make it up to him."
"Yes?" said Anthony, for Meg paused as though unable to go on.
"And it seemed very wonderful and noble to do this, and I forgot my poor little Papa and those boys in India, and you and Jan and Fay and ... I was very mad and very happy ... till this morning, when we actually went off in his car."
"But where," Anthony asked in a voice studiously even and quiet, "are he and his car?"
"I don't know," Meg said hopelessly, "unless they're still at the place where we had lunch ... and I don't suppose he'd stay there all this time...."
Anthony felt a great desire to laugh, but Meg looked so woebegone and desperately serious that he restrained the impulse and said very kindly: "I don't yet understand how, having embarked upon such an enterprise, you happen to be here ... alone. Did you quarrel at lunch, or what?"
"We didn't have lunch," Meg exclaimed with a sob. "At least, I didn't ... it was the lunch that did it."
"Did what?"
"Made me realise what I had done, and go away."
"Meg dear," said Anthony, striving desperately to keep his voice steady, "was it a very bad lunch?"
"I don't know," she answered with the utmost seriousness. "We hadn't begun; we were just going to, when I noticed his hands, and his nails were dirty, and they looked horrid, and suddenly it came over me that if I stayed ... those hands...."
She let go of the table, put her elbows upon it and hid her face in her hands.
Anthony made no sound, and presently, still with hidden face, she went on again:
"And in that minute I saw what I was doing, and that I could never be the same again, and I remembered my poor little dyspeptic Papa, and my dear, dear brothers so far away in India ... and you and Jan and Fay—all the special people I pray for every single night and morning—and I felt that if I didn't get away that minute I should die...."
"And how did you get away?"
"It was quite simple. There was something wrong with the car (that's how he got his hands so dirty), and he'd sent for a mechanic, and just as we were sitting down to lunch, the waiter said the motor-man had come ... and he went out to the garage to speak to him...."
"Yes?" Anthony remarked, for again Meg paused.
"So I just walked out of the front door. No one saw me, and the station was across the road, and I went right in and asked when there was a train to London, and there was one going in five minutes; so I took a ticket and came straight here, for I knew somehow, even if you were all away, Hannah would let me stay ... just to-night. I knew she would ..." and Meg began to sob feebly.
And, as if in response to the mention of her name, Hannah appeared, bearing a tray with tea upon it. Hannah was short and square; she stumped as she walked, and she carried a tray very high and stately, as though it were a sacrifice. As she came in Meg rose and hastily moved to the window, standing there with her back to the room.
"I thocht," said Hannah, as though challenging somebody to contradict her, "that Miss Morton would be the better for an egg to her tea. She looks just like a bit soap after a hard day's washing."
"I had no lunch," said a muffled, apologetic voice from the window.
"Come away, then, and take yer tea," Hannah said sharply. "Young leddies should have more sense than go fasting so many hours."
As it was evident that Hannah had no intention of leaving the room till she saw Meg sitting at the table, the girl came back and sat down.
"See that she gets her tea, sir," she said in a low, admonitory voice to Anthony. "She's pretty far through."
The tray was set at the end of the table. Anthony came and sat down behind it.
"I'll pour out," he said, "and until you've drunk one cup of tea, eaten one piece of bread-and-butter and one egg, you're not to speak one word. I will talk."
He tried to, disjointedly and for the most part nonsense. Meg drank her tea, and to her own amazement ate up her egg and several pieces of bread-and-butter with the utmost relish.
As the meal proceeded, Anthony noted that she grew less haggard. The tears still hung on her eyelashes, but the eyes themselves were a thought less tragic.
When Hannah came for the tray she gave a grunt of satisfaction at the sight of the egg-shell and the empty plates.
"Now," said Anthony, "we must thresh this subject out and settle what's to be done. I suppose you left a message for the Trents. What did you tell them?"
"Lies," said Meg. "He said we must have a good start. His yacht was at Southampton. And I left a note that I'd been suddenly summoned to Papa, and would write from there. They'd all gone for a picnic, you know—and it was arranged I was to have a headache that morning ... I've got it now with a vengeance ... It seemed rather fun when we were planning it. Now it all looks so mean and horrid ... Besides, lots of people saw us in his motor ... and people always know me again because of my hair. Everyone knew him ... the whole county made a fuss of him, and it seemed so wonderful ... that he should care like that for me...."
"Doubtless it did," said Anthony drily. "But we must consider what is to be done now. If you said you were going to your father, perhaps the best thing you can do is to go to him, and write to the Trents from there. I hope you didn't inform him of your intention?"
"No," she faltered. "I was to write to him just before we sailed ... But you may be perfectly sure the Trents will find out ... He will probably go back there to look for me ... I expect he is awfully puzzled."
"I expect he is, and I hope," Anthony added vindictively, "the fellow is terrified out of his life as well. He ought to be horsewhipped, and I'd like to do it. A babe like you!"
"No," said Meg, firmly; "there you're wrong. I'm not a babe ... I knew what I was doing; but up to to-day it seemed worth it ... I never seemed to see till to-day how it would hurt other people. Even if he grew tired of me—and I had faced that—there would have been some awfully happy months ... and so long as it was only me, it didn't seem to matter. And when you've had rather a mouldy life...."
"It can never be a case of 'only me.' As society is constituted, other people are always involved."
"Yet there was Marian Evans ... he told me about her ... she did it, and everyone came round to think it was very fine of her really. She wrote, or something, didn't she?"
"She did," said Anthony, "and in several other respects her case was not at all analogous to yours. She was a middle-aged woman—you are a child...."
"Perhaps, but I'm not an ignorant child...."
"Oh, Meg!" Anthony protested.
"I daresay about books and things I am, but I mean I haven't been wrapped in cotton-wool, and taken care of all my life, like Jan and Fay ... I know about things. Oh dear, oh dear, will you forbid Jan ever to speak to me again?"
"Jan!" Anthony repeated. "Jan! Why, she's the person of all others we want. We'll do nothing till she's here. Let's get her." And he pushed back his chair and rushed to the bell.
Meg rushed after him: "You'll let her see me? You'll let her talk to me? Oh, are you sure?"
The little hands clutched his arm, her ravaged, wistful face was raised imploringly to his.
Anthony stooped and kissed the little face.
"It's just people like Jan who are put into the world to straighten things out for the rest of us. We've wasted three-quarters of an hour already. Now we'll get her."
"Is she on the telephone?" asked the practical Meg. "Not far off?"
Jan was quite used to being summoned to her father in a tremendous hurry. She was back in St. George's Square before he started for the dinner. Meg was lying down in one of the dismantled bedrooms, and when Jan arrived she went straight to her father in his dressing-room.
She found him on his knees, pursuing a refractory collar-stud under the wash-stand.
"It's well you've come," he said as he got up. "I can't fasten my collar or my tie. I've had a devil of a time. My fingers are all thumbs and I'm most detestably sticky."
He told Jan about Meg. She fastened his collar and arranged his tie in the neatest of bows. Then she kissed him on both cheeks and told him not to worry.
"How can one refrain from worrying when the works of the devil and the selfishness of man are made manifest as they have been to-day? But for the infinite mercy of God, where would that poor silly child have been?"
"It's just because the infinite mercy of God is so much stronger than the works of the devil or the selfishness of man, that you needn't worry," said Jan.
Anthony put his hands on Jan's shoulders and held her away from him.
"Do you know," he said, "I shall always like Hannah better after this. In spite of her moustache and her grimness, that child was sure Hannah would take her in, whether any of us were here or not. Now, how did she know?"
"Because," said Jan, "things are revealed to babes like Meg that are hidden from men of the world like you. Hannah is all right—you don't appreciate Hannah, and you are rather jealous of her moustache."
Anthony leant forward and kissed his tall young daughter: "You are a great comfort, Jan," he said. "How do you do it?"
Jan nodded at him. "It will all straighten out—don't you worry," she said.
All the same, there was plenty of worry for everybody. The man, after his fashion, was very much in love with Meg. He was horribly alarmed by her sudden and mysterious disappearance. No one had seen her go, no one had noticed her.
He got into a panic, and motored back to the Trents', arriving there just before dinner. Mrs. Trent, tired and cross after a wet picnic, had, of course, read Meg's note, thought it very casual of the girl and was justly incensed.
On finding they knew no more of Meg's movements than he did himself, the man—one Walter Brooke—lost his head and confessed the truth to Mrs. Trent, who was much shocked and not a little frightened.
Later in the evening she received a telegram from Jan announcing Meg's whereabouts.
Jan had insisted on this, lest the Trents should suspect anything and wire to Major Morton.
Mrs. Trent, quite naturally, refused to have anything further to do with Meg. She talked of serpents, and was very much upset. She wrote a dignified letter to Major Morton, explaining her reasons for Meg's dismissal. She also wrote to their relative among the weariful rich, through whom she had heard of Meg.
Meg was more under a cloud than when she left Ribston Hall.
But for Jan and Anthony she might have gone under altogether; but they took her down to Wren's End and kept guard over her. Anthony Ross dealt faithfully with the man, who went yachting at once.
Meg recovered her poise, searched the advertisements of the scholastic papers industriously, and secured a post in a school for little boys, as Anthony forced his cousin Amelia to give her a testimonial.
Here she worked hard and was a great success, for she could keep order, and that quality, where small boys are concerned, is much more valuable than learning. She stayed there for some years, and then her frail little ill-nourished body gave out, and she was gravely ill.
When she recovered, she went as English governess to a rich German family in Bremen. The arrangement was only for one year, and at its termination she was free to offer to meet Jan and her charges.
CHAPTER X
PLANS
"NOW, chicks, this is London, the friendly town," Jan announced, as the taxi drove away from Charing Cross station.
"Flendly little London, dirty little London," her niece rejoined, as she bounced up and down on Jan's knee. She had slept during the very good crossing and was full of conversation and ready to be pleased with all she saw.
Tony was very quiet. He had suffered far more in the swift journey across France than during the whole of the voyage, and it was difficult to decide whether he or Ayah were the more extraordinary colour. Greenish-white and miserable he sat beside his aunt, silent and observing.
"Here's dear old Piccadilly," Jan exclaimed, as the taxi turned out of St. James's Street. "Doesn't it look jolly in the sunshine?"
Tony turned even greener than before, and gasped:
"This! Piccadilly!"
This not very wide street with shops and great houses towering above them, the endless streams of traffic in the road and on the crowded pavements!
"Did Mrs. Bond live in one of those houses?" he wondered, "and if so, where did she keep her ducks? And where, oh, where, were the tulips and the lilies of his dream?"
He uttered no sound, but his mind kept exclaiming, "This! Piccadilly?"
"See," said Jan, oblivious of Tony and intent on keeping her lively niece upon her knee. "There's the Green Park."
Tony breathed more freely.
After all, there were trees and grass; good grass, and more of it than in the Resident's garden. He took heart a little and summoned up courage to inquire: "But where are the tulips?"
"It's too early for tulips yet," Jan answered. "By and by there will be quantities. How did you know about them? Did dear Mummy tell you? But they're in Hyde Park, not here."
Tony made no answer. He was, as usual, weighing and considering and making up his mind.
Presently he spoke. "It's different," he said, slowly, "but I rather like to look at it."
Tony never said whether he thought things were pretty or ugly. All he knew was that certain people and places, pictures and words, sometimes filled him with an exquisite sense of pleasure, while others merely bored or exasperated or were positively painful.
His highest praise was "I like to look at it." When he didn't like to look at it, he had found it wiser to express no opinion at all, except in moments of confidential expansion, and these were rare with Tony.
Meg had found them a nice little furnished flat on the fifth floor in one of the blocks behind Kensington High Street, and Hannah must surely have been waiting behind the door, so instantaneously was it opened, when Jan and her party left the lift.
There were tears in Hannah's eyes and her nose was red as she welcomed "Miss Fay's motherless bairns." She was rather shocked that there was no sign of mourning about any of them except Jan, who wore—mainly as a concession to Hannah's prejudices—a thin black coat and skirt she had got just before she left Bombay.
Tony stared stonily at Hannah and decided he did not like to look at her. She was as surprising as the newly-found Piccadilly, but she gratified no sensuous perception whatsoever.
Ayah might not be exactly beautiful, but she was harmonious. Her body was well proportioned, her sari fell in gracious flowing lines, and she moved with dignity. Without knowing why, Tony felt that there was something pleasing to the eye in Ayah. Hannah, on the contrary, was the reverse of graceful; stumpy and heavy-footed, she gave an impression of abrupt terminations. Everything about her seemed too short except her caps, which were unusually tall and white and starchy. Her afternoon aprons, too, were stiffer and whiter and more voluminous than those of other folk. She did not regard these things as vain adornings of her person, rather were they the outward and visible sign of her office as housekeeper to Miss Ross. They were a partial expression of the dignity of that office, just as a minister's gown is the badge of his.
By the time everyone was washed and brushed Meg returned with the luggage and Hannah brought in tea.
"I thought you'd like to give the bairns their tea yourself the first day, Miss Jan. Will that Hindu body have hers in the nursery?"
"That would be best," Jan said hastily. "And Hannah, you mustn't be surprised if she sits on the floor. Indian servants always do."
"Nothing she can do will surprise me," Hannah announced loftily. "I've not forgotten the body that came back with Mrs. Tancred, with a ring through her nose and a red wafer on her forehead."
Jan, herself, went with Ayah to the nursery, where she found that in spite of her disparaging sniffs, Hannah had put out everything poor Ayah could possibly want.
The children were hungry and tea was a lengthy meal. It was not until they had departed with Ayah for more washings that Jan found time to say: "Why don't you take off your hat, Meg dear? I can't see you properly in that extinguisher. Is it the latest fashion?"
"The very latest."
Meg looked queerly at Jan as she slowly took off her hat.
"There!" she said.
Her hair was cropped as short as a boy's, except for the soft, tawny rings that framed her face.
"Meg!" Jan cried. "Why on earth have you cut off your hair?"
"Chill penury's the cause. I've turned it into good hard cash. It happens to be the fashionable colour just now."
"Did you really need to? I thought you were getting quite a good salary with those Hoffmeyers."
"No English governess gets a good salary in Bremen, and mine was but a modest remuneration, so I wanted more. Do you remember Lady Penelope Pottinger?"
"Hazily. She was pretty, wasn't she ... and very smart?"
"She was and is ... smarter than ever now—mind, I put you on your honour never to mention it—she's got my hair."
"Do you mean she asked you to sell it?"
"No, my child. I offered it for sale and she was all over me with eagerness to purchase. Hair's the defective wire in her lighting apparatus. Her own, at the best, is skimpy and straight, though very much my colour, and what with permanent waving and instantaneous hair colouring it was positively dwindling away."
"I wish you had let it dwindle."
"No, I rather like her—so I suggested she should give her own poor locks a rest and have an artistic postiche made with mine; it made two, one to come and one to go—to the hairdresser. She looks perfectly charming. I'd no idea my hair was so decent till I saw it on her head."
"I hope I never shall," Jan said gloomily. "I think it was silly of you, for it makes you look younger and more irresponsible than ever; and what about posts?"
"I've got a post in view where it won't matter if only I can run things my own way."
"Will you have to go at once? I thought, perhaps——"
"I wish to take this post at once," Meg interposed quickly, "but it depends on you whether I get it."
"On me?"
"On no one else. Look here, Jan, will you take me on as nurse to Fay's children? A real nurse, mind, none of your fine lady arrangements; only you must pay me forty pounds a year. I can't manage with less if I'm to give my poor little Papa any chirps ... I suppose that's a frightful lot for a nurse?"
"Not for a good nurse ... But, Meg, you got eighty when you taught the little boys, and I know they'd jump at you again in that school, hair or no hair."
"Listen, Jan." Meg put her elbows on the table and leaned her sharp little chin on her two hands while she held Jan's eyes with hers. "For nine long years, except that time with the Trents, I've been teaching, teaching, teaching, and I'm sick of teaching. I'd rather sweep a crossing."
"Yet you teach so well; you know the little boys adored you."
"I love children and they usually like me. If you take me to look after Tony and little Fay, I'll do it thoroughly, I can promise you. I won't teach them, mind, not a thing—I'll make them happy and well-mannered; and, Jan, listen, do you suppose there's anybody, even the most superior of elderly nurses, who would take the trouble for Fay's children that I should? If you let me come you won't regret it, I promise you."
Meg's eyes, those curious eyes with the large pupil and blue iris flecked with brown, were very bright, her voice was earnest, and when it ceased it left a sense of tension in the very air.
Jan put out her hand across the table, and Meg, releasing her sharp little chin, clasped it with hers.
"So that's settled," Meg announced triumphantly.
"No." Jan's voice was husky but firm. "It's not settled. I don't think you're strong enough; but, even so, if I could pay you the salary you ought to have, I'd jump at you ... but, my dear, I can't at present. I haven't the least idea what it will all cost, but the fares and things have made such a hole in this year's money I'll need to be awfully careful."
"That's exactly why I want to come; you've no idea of being careful and doing things in a small way. I've done it all my life. You'll be far more economical with me than without me."
"Don't tempt me," Jan besought her. "I see all that, but why should I be comfortable at your expense? I want you more than I can say. Fay wanted it too—she said so."
"Did Fay actually say so? Did she?"
"Yes, she did—not that you should be their nurse, we neither of us ever thought of that; but she did want you to be there to help me with the children. We used to talk about it."
"Then I'm coming. I must. Don't you see how it is, Jan? Don't you realise that nearly all the happiness in my life—all the happiness since the boys left—has come to me through Mr. Ross and Fay and you? And now when there's a chance for me to do perhaps a little something in return ... If you don't let me, it's you who are mean and grudging. I shall be perfectly strong, if I haven't got to teach—mind, I won't do that, not so much as A.B.C."
"I know it's wrong," Jan sighed, "just because it would be so heavenly to have you."
Meg loosed the hand she held and stood up. She lifted her thin arms above her head, as though invoking some invisible power, stretched herself, and ran round the table to kiss Jan.
"And do you never think, you dear, slow-witted thing, that it will be rather lovely for me to be with you? To be with somebody who is kind without being patronising, who treats one as a human being and not a machine, who sees the funny side of things and isn't condescending or improving if she doesn't happen to be cross?"
"I'm often cross," Jan said.
"Well, and what if you are? Can't I be cross back? I'm not afraid of your crossness. You never hit below the belt. Now, promise me you'll give me a trial. Promise!"
Meg's arms were round her neck, Meg's absurd cropped head was rubbing against hers. Jan was very lonely and hungry for affection just then, timid and anxious about the future. Even in that moment of time it flashed upon her what a tower of strength this small, determined creature would be, and how infinitely hard it was to turn Meg from any course she had determined on.
"For a little while, then," so Jan salved her conscience. "Just till we all shake down ... and your hair begins to grow."
Meg stood up very straight and shook her finger at Jan. "Remember, I'm to be a real, proper nurse with authority, and a clinical thermometer ... and a uniform."
"If you like, and it's a pretty uniform."
Meg danced gleefully round the table.
"It will be lovely, it is lovely. I've got it all ready; green linen frocks, big well-fitting aprons, and such beautiful caps."
"Not caps, Meg!" Jan expostulated. "Please not caps."
"Certainly caps. How otherwise am I to cover up my head? I can't wear hats all the time. And how could I ever inspire those children with respect with a head like this? When I get into my uniform you'll see what a very superior nurse I look."
"You'll look much more like musical comedy than sober service."
"You mistake the situation altogether," Meg said loftily. "I take my position very seriously."
"But you can't go about Wren's End in caps. Everybody knows you down there."
"They'll find out they don't know me as well as they thought, that's all."
"Meg, tell me, what did Hannah say when she saw your poor shorn head?"
"Hannah, as usual, referred to my Maker, and said that had He intended me to have short hair He would either have caused it not to grow or afflicted me with some disease which necessitated shearing; and she added that such havers are just flying in the face of Providence."
"So they are."
"All the more reason to cover them up, and I wish to impress the children."
"Those children will be sadly browbeaten, I can see, and as for their poor aunt, she won't be able to call her soul her own."
"That," Meg said, triumphantly, "is precisely why I'm so eager to come. When you've been an underling all your life you can't imagine what a joy it is to be top dog occasionally."
"In that respect," Jan said firmly, "it must be turn and turn about. I won't let you come unless you promise—swear, here and now—that when I consider you are looking fagged—'a wispy wraith,' as Daddie used to say—if I command you to take a day in bed, in bed you will stay till I give you leave to get up. Unless you promise me this, the contract is off."
"I'll promise anything you like. The idea of being pressed to remain in bed strikes me as merely comic. You have evidently no notion how persons in a subordinate position ought to be treated. Bed, indeed!"
"I think you might have waited till I got back before you parted with your hair." Jan's tone was decidedly huffy.
"Now don't nag. That subject is closed. What about your hair. Do you know it is almost white?"
"And what more suitable for a maiden aunt? As that is to be my rôle for the future I may as well look the part."
"But you don't—that's what I complain of. The whiter your hair grows the younger your face gets. You're a contradiction, a paradox, you provoke conjecture, you're indecently noticeable. Mr. Ross would have loved to paint you."
Jan shook her head. "No, Daddie never wanted to paint anything about me except my arms."
"He'd want to paint you now," Meg insisted obstinately. "I know the sort of person he liked to paint."
"He never would paint people unless he did like them," Jan said, smiling as at some recollection. "Do you remember how he utterly refused to paint that rich Mr. Withells down at Amber Guiting?"
"I remember," and Meg laughed. "He said Mr. Withells was puffy and stippled."
Tony had been cold ever since he reached the Gulf of Lyons, and he wondered what could be the matter with him, for he never remembered to have felt like this before. He wondered miserably what could be the reason why he felt so torpid and shivery, disinclined to move, and yet so uncomfortable when he sat still.
After his bath, on that first night in London, tucked into a little bed with a nice warm eiderdown over him, he still felt that horrid little trickle of ice-cold water down his spine and could not sleep.
His cot was in Auntie Jan's room with a tall screen round it. The rooms in the flat were small, tiny they seemed to Tony, after the lofty spaciousness of the bungalow in Bombay, but that didn't seem to make it any warmer, because Auntie Jan's window was wide open as it would go—top and bottom—and chilly gusts seemed to blow round his head in spite of the screen. Ayah and little Fay were in the nursery across the passage, where there was a fire. There was no fire in this wind-swept chamber of Auntie Jan's.
Tony dozed and woke and woke and dozed, getting colder and more forlorn and miserable with each change of position. The sheets seemed made of ice, so slippery were they, so unkind and unyielding and unembracing.
Presently he saw a dim light. Auntie Jan had come to bed, carrying a candle. He heard her say good night to the little mem who had met them at the station, and the door was shut.
In spite of her passion for fresh air, Jan shivered herself as she undressed. She made a somewhat hasty toilet, said her prayers, peeped round the screen to see that Tony was all right, and hopped into bed, where a hot-water bottle put in by the thoughtful Hannah was most comforting.
Presently she heard a faint, attenuated sniff. Again it came, this time accompanied by the ghost of something like a groan.
Jan sat up in bed and listened. Immediately all was perfectly still.
She lay down again, and again came that sad little sniff, and undoubtedly it was from behind the screen that it came.
Had Tony got cold?
Jan leapt out of bed, switched on the light and tore away the screen from around his bed.
Yes; his doleful little face was tear-stained.
"Tony, Tony darling, what is the matter?"
"I don't know," he sobbed. "I feel so funny."
Jan put her hand on his forehead—far from being hot, the little face was stone-cold. In a moment she had him out of bed and in her warm arms. As she took him she felt the chill of the stiff, unyielding small body.
"My precious boy, you're cold as charity! Why didn't you call me long ago? Why didn't you tell Auntie Jan?"
"I didn't ... know ... what it was," he sobbed.
In no time Tony was put into the big bed, the bed so warm from Auntie Jan's body, with a lovely podgy magic something at his feet that radiated heat. Auntie Jan slammed down the window at the bottom, and then more fairness! She struck a match, there was a curious sort of "plop," and a little fire started in the grate, an amazing little fire that grew redder and redder every minute. Auntie Jan put on a blue dressing-gown over the long white garment that she wore, and bustled about. Tony decided that he "liked to look at her" in this blue robe, with her hair in a great rope hanging down. She was very quick; she fetched a little saucepan and he heard talking in the passage outside, but no one else came in, only Auntie Jan.
Presently she gave him milk, warm and sweet, in a blue cup. He drank it and began to feel much happier, drowsy too, and contented. Presently there was no light save the red glow of the fairy fire, and Auntie Jan got into bed beside him.
She put her arm about him and drew him so that his head rested against her warm shoulder. He did not repulse her, he did not speak, but lay stiff and straight with his feet glued against that genial podgy something that was so infinitely comforting.
"You are kind," Tony said suddenly. "I believe you."
The stiff little body relaxed and lay against hers in confiding abandonment, and soon he was sound asleep.
What a curious thing to say! Jan lay awake puzzling. Tragedy lay behind it. Only five years old, and yet, to Tony, belief was a more important thing than love. She thought of Fay, hectic and haggard, and again she seemed to hear her say in her tired voice, trying to explain Tony: "He's not a cuddly child; he's queer and reserved and silent, but if he once trusts you it's for always; he'll love you then and never change."
Jan could just see, in the red glow from the fire, the little head that lay so confidingly against her shoulder, the wide forehead, the peacefully closed eyes. And suddenly she realised that the elusive resemblance to somebody that had always evaded her was a likeness to that face she saw in the glass every time she did her hair. She kissed him very softly, praying the while that she might never fail him; that he might always have reason to trust her.
CHAPTER XI
THE STATE OF PETER
MEANWHILE Peter was making discoveries about himself. He went back to his flat on the evening of the day Jan and the children sailed. Swept and garnished and exceedingly tidy, it appeared to have grown larger during his absence and seemed rather empty. There was a sense of unfilled spaces that caused him to feel lonely.
That very evening he decided he must get a friend to chum with him. The bungalow was much too big for one person.
This had never struck him before.
In spite of their excessive neatness there remained traces of Jan and the children in the rooms. The flowers on the dinner-table proclaimed that they had been arranged by another hand than Lalkhan's. He was certain of that without Lalkhan's assurance that the Miss-Sahib had done them herself before she sailed that very morning.
When he went to his desk after dinner—never before or after did Peter possess such an orderly bureau—he found a letter lying on the blotting-pad, and on each side of the heavy brass inkstand were placed a leaden member of a camel-corps and an India-rubber ball with a face painted upon it, which, when squeezed, expressed every variety of emotion. These, Lalkhan explained, were parting gifts from the young sahib and little Fay respectively, and had been so arranged by them just before they sailed.
The day before Jan had told the children that all this time they had been living in Peter's house and that she was sure Mummy would want them to be very grateful (she was careful to talk a great deal about Mummy to the children lest they should forget her); that he had been very kind to them all, and she asked if there was anything of their very own they would like to leave for Peter as a remembrance.
Tony instantly fetched the camel-corps soldier that kept guard on a chair by his cot every night; that Ayah had not been permitted to pack because it must accompany him on the voyage. It was, Jan knew, his most precious possession, and she assured him that Peter would be particularly gratified by such a gift.
Not to be outdone by her brother, little Fay demanded her beloved ball, which was already packed for the voyage in Jan's suit-case.
Peter sat at his desk staring at the absurd little toys with very kind eyes. He understood. Then he opened Jan's letter and read it through quite a number of times.
"Dear Mr. Ledgard," it ran.
"Whatever Mr. Kipling may say of the Celt, the lowland Scot finds it very difficult to express strong feeling in words. If I had tried to tell you, face to face, how sensible I am of your kindness and consideration for us during the last sad weeks—I should have cried. You would have been desperately uncomfortable and I—miserably ashamed of myself. So I can only try to write something of my gratitude.
"We have been your guests so long and your hospitality has been so untiring in circumstances sad and strange enough to try the patience of the kindest host, that I simply cannot express my sense of obligation; an obligation in no wise burdensome because you have always contrived to make me feel that you took pleasure in doing all you have done.
"I wish there had been something belonging to my sister that I could have begged you to accept as a remembrance of her; but everything she had of the smallest value has disappeared—even her books. When I get home I hope to give you one of my father's many portraits of her, but I will not send it till I know whether you are coming home this summer. Please remember, should you do so, as I sincerely hope you will, that nowhere can there be a warmer welcome for you than at Wren's End. It would be the greatest possible pleasure for the children and me to see you there, and it is a good place to slack in and get strong. And there I hope to challenge you to the round of golf we never managed during my time in India.
"Please try to realise, dear Mr. Ledgard, that my sense of your kindness is deep and abiding, and, believe me, yours, in most true gratitude,
"Janet Ross."
For a long time Peter sat very still, staring at the cheerful, highly-coloured face painted on Fay's ball. Cigarette after cigarette did he smoke as he reviewed the experience of the last six weeks.
For the first time since he became a man he had been constantly in the society of a woman younger than himself who appeared too busy and too absorbed in other things to remember that she was a woman and he a man.
Peter was ordinarily susceptible, and he was rather a favourite with women because of his good manners; and his real good-nature made him ready to help either in any social project that happened to be towards or in times of domestic stress. Yet never until lately had he seen so much of any woman not frankly middle-aged without being conscious that he was a man and she a woman, and this added, at all events, a certain piquancy to the situation.
Yet he had never felt this with Jan.
Quite a number of times in the course of his thirty years he had fallen in love in an agreeably surface sort of way without ever being deeply stirred. Love-making was the pleasantest game in the world, but he had not yet felt the smallest desire to marry. He was a shrewd young man, and knew that marriage, even in the twentieth century, at all events starts with the idea of permanence; and, like many others who show no inclination to judge the matrimonial complications of their acquaintance, he would greatly have disliked any sort of scandal that involved himself or his belongings.
He was quite as sensitive to criticism as other men in his service, and he knew that he challenged it in lending his flat to Mrs. Tancred. But here he felt that the necessities of the case far outweighed the possibilities of misconception, and after Jan came he thought no more about it.
Yet in a young man with his somewhat cynical knowledge of the world, it was surprising that the thought of his name being coupled with Jan's never crossed his mind. He forgot that none of his friends knew Jan at all, but that almost every evening they did see her with him in the car—sometimes, it is true, accompanied by the children, but quite as often alone—and that during her visit his spare time was so much occupied in looking after the Tancred household that his friends saw comparatively little of him, and Peter was, as a rule, a very sociable person.
Therefore it came upon him as a real shock when people began to ask him point-blank whether he was engaged to Jan, and if so, what they were going to do about Tancred's children. Rightly or wrongly, he discerned in the question some veiled reflection upon Jan, some implied slur upon her conduct. He was consequently very short and huffy with these inquisitive ones, and when he was no longer present they would shake their heads and declare that "poor old Peter had got it in the neck."
If so, poor old Peter was, as yet, quite unconscious of anything of the kind.
Nevertheless he found himself constantly thinking about her. Everything, even the familiar streets and roads, served to remind him of her, and when he went to bed he nearly always dreamed about her. Absurd, inconsequent, unsatisfactory dreams they were; for in them she was always too busy to pay any attention to him at all; she was wholly absorbed by what it is to be feared Peter sometimes called "those confounded children." Though even in his dream world he was careful to keep his opinion to himself.
Why on earth should he always dream of Jan during the first part of the night?
Lalkhan could have thrown some light upon the subject. But naturally Peter did not confide his obsession to Lalkhan.
Just before she left Jan asked Lalkhan where the sahib's linen was kept, and on being shown the cupboard which contained the rather untidy little piles of sheets, pillow-cases, and towels that formed Peter's modest store of house linen, she rearranged it and brought sundry flat, square muslin bags filled with dried lavender. Lace-edged bags with lavender-coloured ribbon run through insertion and tied in bows at the two corners. These bags she placed among the sheets, much to the wonder of Lalkhan, who, however, decided that it was kindly meant and therefore did not interfere.
The odour was not one that commended itself to him. It was far too faint and elusive. He could understand a liking for attar of roses, of jessamine, of musk, or of any of the strong scents beloved by the native of India. Yet had she proposed to sprinkle the sheets with any of these essences he would have felt obliged to interfere, as the sahib swore violently and became exceedingly hot and angry did any member of his household venture into his presence thus perfumed. Even as it was he fully expected that his master would irritably demand the cause of the infernal smell that pervaded his bed; so keen are the noses of the sahibs. Whereupon Lalkhan, strong in rectitude, would relate exactly what had happened, produce one of the Jan-incriminating muslin bags, escape further censure, and doubtless be commanded to burn it and its fellows in the kitchen stove. But nothing of the kind occurred, and, as it is always easier to leave a thing where it has been placed than to remove it, the lavender remained among the sheets in humble obscurity.
The old garden at Wren's End abounded in great lavender bushes, and every year since it became her property Jan made lavender sachets which she kept in every possible place. Her own clothes always held a faint savour of lavender, and she had packed these bags as much as a matter of course as she packed her stockings. It seemed a shame, though, to take them home again when she could get plenty more next summer, so she left them in the bungalow linen cupboard. They reproduced her atmosphere; therefore did Peter dream of Jan.
A fortnight passed, and on their way to catch the homeward mail came Thomas Crosbie and his wife from Dariawarpur to stay the night. Next morning at breakfast Mrs. Crosbie, young, pretty and enthusiastic, expatiated on the comfort of her room, finally exclaiming: "And how, Mr. Ledgard, do you manage to have your sheets so deliciously scented with lavender—d'you get it sent out from home every year?"
"Lavender?" Peter repeated. "I've got no lavender. My people never sent me any, and I've certainly never come across any in India."
"But I'm convinced everything smelt of lavender. It made me think of home so. If I hadn't been just going I'd have been too homesick for words. I'm certain of it. Think! You must have got some from somewhere and forgotten it."
Peter shook his head. "I've never noticed it myself—you really must be mistaken. What would I be doing with lavender?"
"It was there all the same," Mrs. Crosbie continued. "I'm certain of it. You must have got some from somewhere. Do find out—I'm sure I'm not wrong. Ask your boy."
Peter said something to Lalkhan, who explained volubly. Tom Crosbie grinned; he understood even fluent Hindustani. His wife did not. Peter looked a little uncomfortable. Lalkhan salaamed and left the room.
"Well?" Mrs. Crosbie asked.
"It seems," Peter said slowly, "there is something among the sheets. I've sent Lalkhan to get it."
Lalkhan returned, bearing a salver, and laid on the salver was one of Jan's lavender bags. He presented it solemnly to his master, who with almost equal solemnity handed it to Mrs. Crosbie.
"There!" she said. "Of course I knew I couldn't be mistaken. Now where did you get it?"
"It was, I suppose, put among the things when poor Mrs. Tancred had the flat. I never noticed, of course—it's such an unobtrusive sort of smell...."
"Hadn't she a sister?" Mrs. Crosbie asked, curiously, holding the little sachet against her soft cheek and looking very hard at Peter.
"She had. It was she who took the children home, you know."
"Older or younger than Mrs. Tancred?"
"Older."
"How much older?"
"I really don't know," said the mendacious Peter.
"Was she awfully pretty, too?"
"Again, I really don't know. I never thought about her looks ... she had grey hair...."
"Oh!" Mrs. Crosbie exclaimed—a deeply disappointed "Oh." "Probably much older, then. That explains the lavender bags."
Silent Thomas Crosbie looked from his wife to Peter with considerable amusement. He realised, if she didn't, that Peter was most successfully putting her off the scent of more than lavender; but men are generally loyal to each other in these matters, and he suddenly took his part in the conversation and changed the subject.
Among Peter's orders to his butler that morning was one to the effect that nothing the Miss-Sahib had arranged in the bungalow was to be disturbed, and the lavender bag was returned to rejoin its fellows in the cupboard.
It was four years since Peter had had any leave, and it appeared that the lavender had the same effect upon him as upon Mrs. Crosbie. He felt homesick—and applied for leave in May.
CHAPTER XII
"THE BEST-LAID SCHEMES"
PETER had been as good as his word, and had found a family returning to India who were glad to take Ayah back to Bombay. And she, though sorry to leave Jan and the children, acquiesced in all arrangements made for her with the philosophic patience of the East. March was a cold month, and she was often rather miserable, in spite of her pride in her shoes and stockings and the warm clothes Jan had provided for her.
Before she left Jan interviewed her new mistress and found her kind and sensible, and an old campaigner who had made the voyage innumerable times.
It certainly occurred to Jan that Peter had been extraordinarily quick in making this arrangement, but she concluded that he had written on the subject before they left India. She had no idea that he had sent a long and costly cable on the subject. His friend thought him very solicitous for her comfort, but set it down entirely to her own merits and Peter's discriminating good sense.
When the day came Jan took Ayah to her new quarters in a taxi. Of course Ayah wept, and Jan felt like weeping herself, as she would like to have kept her on for the summer months. But she knew it wouldn't do; that apart from the question of expense, Hannah could never overcome her prejudices against "that heathen buddy," and that to have explained that poor Ayah was a Roman Catholic would only have made matters worse. Hannah was too valuable in every way to upset her with impunity, and the chance of sending Ayah back to India in such kind custody was too good to lose.
Meg had deferred the adoption of the musical-comedy costume until such time as she took over Ayah's duties. She in no way interfered, but was helpful in so many unobtrusive ways that Jan, while she still felt guilty in allowing her to stay at all, acknowledged she could never have got through this time without her.
Fortunately the day of Ayah's departure was fine, so that while Jan took her to her destination Meg took the children to spend the afternoon at the Zoo. To escort little Fay about London was always rather an ordeal to anyone of a retiring disposition. She was so fearless, so interested in her fellow-creatures, and so ready at all times and in all places to enter into conversation with absolute strangers, preferably men, that embarrassing situations were almost inevitable; and her speech, high and clear and carrying—in spite of the missing "r"—rendered it rarely possible to hope people did not understand what she said.
They went by the Metropolitan to Baker Street and sat on one of the small seats at right angles to the windows, and a gentleman wearing a very shiny top-hat sat down opposite to them.
He looked at little Fay; little Fay looked at him and, smiling her adorable, confident smile, leant forward, remarking: "Sahib, you wear a very high hat."
Instantly the eyes of all the neighbouring passengers were fixed upon the hat and its owner. His, however, were only for the very small lady that faced him; the small lady in a close white bonnet and bewitching curls that bobbed and fluttered in the swaying of the train.
He took off the immaculate topper and held it out towards her. "There," he said, "would you like to look at it?"
Fay carefully rubbed it the wrong way with a tentative woolly-gloved finger. "Plitty, high hat," she cooed. "Can plitty little Fay have it to keep?"
But the gentleman's admiration did not carry him as far as this. Somewhat hastily he withdrew his hat, smoothed it (it had just been ironed) and placed it on his head again. Then he became aware of the smiling faces and concentrated gaze of his neighbours; also, that the attractive round face that had given him so much pleasure had exchanged its captivating smile for a pathetic melancholy that even promised tears. He turned extremely red and escaped at the next station. Whereupon ungrateful little Fay, who had never had the slightest intention of crying, remarked loftily: "Tahsome man dawn."
When at last they reached the Zoo Meg took it upon herself to remonstrate with her younger charge.
"You mustn't ask strangers for things, dear; you really mustn't—not in the street or in the train."
"What for?" asked Fay. She nearly always said, "What for" when she meant "Why"; and it was as hard-worked a phrase as "What nelse?"
"Because people don't do it, you know."
"They do—I've heard 'em."
"Well, beggars perhaps, but not nice little girls."
"Do nasty little girls?"
"Only nasty little girls would do it, I think."
Fay pondered this for a minute, then in a regretfully reflective voice she said sadly: "Vat was a nasty, gleedy sahib in a tlain."
"Not at all," Meg argued, struggling with her mirth. "How would you have liked it if he'd asked you to give him your bonnet 'to keep'?"
Little Fay hastily put up her hands to her head to be sure her bonnet was in its place, then she inquired with great interest: "What's 'is place, deah Med?"
"Deah Med" soon found herself followed round by a small crowd of other sight-seers who waited for and greeted little Fay's unceasing comments with joyful appreciation. Such popular publicity was not at all to Meg's taste, and although the afternoon was extremely cold her cheeks never ceased to burn till she got the children safely back to the flat again. Tony was gloomy and taciturn. Nobody took the slightest notice of him. Weather that seemed to brace his sister to the most energetic gaiety only made him feel torpid and miserable. He was not naughty, merely apathetic, uninterested, and consequently uninteresting. Meg thought he might be homesick and sad about Ayah, and was very kind and gentle, but her advances met with no response.
By this time Tony was sure of his aunt, but he had by no means made up his mind about Meg.
When they got back to Kensington Meg joyously handed over the children to Jan while she retired to her room to array herself in her uniform. She was to "take over" from that moment, and approached her new sphere with high seriousness and an intense desire to be, as she put it, "a wild success."
For weeks she had been reading the publications of the P. N. E. U. and the "Child-Study Society," to say nothing of Manuals upon "Infant Hygiene," "The Montessori Method" and "The Formation of Character." Sympathy and Insight, Duty and Discipline, Self-Control and Obedience, Regularity and Concentration of Effort—all with the largest capitals—were to be her watchwords. And she buttoned on her well-fitting white linen apron (newest and most approved hospital pattern, which she had been obliged to make herself, for she could buy nothing small enough) in a spirit of dedication as sincere as that imbuing any candidate for Holy Orders. Then, almost breathlessly, she put her cap upon her flaming head and surveyed the general effect in the long glass.
Yes, it was all very satisfactory. Well-hung, short, green linen frock—was it a trifle short? Yet the little feet in the low-heeled shoes were neat as the ankles above them were slim, and one needed a short skirt for "working about."
Perhaps there was a touch of musical comedy about her appearance, but that was merely because she was so small and the cap, a muslin cap of a Quakerish shape, distinctly becoming. Well, there was no reason why she should want to look hideous. She would not be less capable because she was pleasing to the eye.
She seized her flannel apron from the bed where she had placed it ready before she went out, and with one last lingering look at herself went swiftly to her new duties.
Tea passed peacefully enough, though Fay asked embarrassing questions, such as "Why you wear suts a funny hat?"
"Because I'm an ayah," Meg answered quickly.
"Ayahs don't wear zose kind of hats."
"English ayahs do, and I'm going to be your ayah, you know."
Fay considered Meg for a minute. "No," she said, shaking her head. "No."
"Have another sponge-finger," Jan suggested diplomatically, handing the dish to her niece, and the danger was averted.
They played games with the children after tea and all went well till bed-time. Meg had begged Jan to leave them entirely to her, and with considerable misgiving she had seen Meg marshal the children to the bathroom and shut the door. Tony was asked as a favour to go too this first evening without Ayah, lest little Fay should feel lonely. It was queer, Jan reflected when left alone in the drawing-room, how she seemed to turn to the taciturn Tony for help where her obstreperous niece was concerned. Over and over again Tony had intervened and successfully prevented a storm.
Meg turned on the bath and began to undress little Fay. She bore this with comparative meekness, but when all her garments had been removed she slipped from Meg's knees and, standing squarely on the floor, announced:
"I want my own Ayah. Engliss Ayah not wass me. Own Ayah muss come bat."
"She can't, my darling; she's gone to other little girls, you know—we told you many days ago."
"She muss come bat—'jaldi,'" shouted Fay—"jaldi" being Hindustani for "quickly."
Meg sighed. "I'm afraid she can't do that. Come, my precious, and let me bathe you; you'll get cold standing there."
With a quick movement Meg seized the plump, round body. She was muscular though so small, and in spite of little Fay's opposition she lifted her into the bath. She felt Tony pull at her skirts and say something, but was too busy to pay attention.
Little Fay was in the bath sure enough, but to wash her was quite another matter. You may lead a sturdy infant of three to the water in a fixed bath, but no power on earth can wash that infant if it doesn't choose. Fay screamed and struggled and wriggled and kicked, finally slipping right under the water, which frightened her dreadfully; she lost her breath for one second, only to give forth ear-splitting yells the next. She was slippery as a trout and strong as a leaping salmon.
Jan could bear it no longer and came in. Meg had succeeded in lifting the terrified baby out of the bath, and she stood on the square of cork defying the "Engliss Ayah," wet from her topmost curl to her pink toes, but wholly unwashed.
Tony ran to Jan and under all the din contrived to say: "It's the big bath; she's frightened. Ayah never put her in the big bath."
Meg had forgotten this. The little tin bath they had brought from India for the voyage stood in a corner.
It was filled, while Fay, wrapped in a Turkish towel, sobbed more quietly, ejaculating between the gurgles: "Nasty hat, nasty Engliss Ayah. I want my own deah Ayah!"
When the bath was ready poor Meg again approached little Fay, but Fay would have none of her.
"No," she wailed, "Engliss Ayah in nasty hat not wass me. Tony wass me, deah Tony."
She held out her arms to her brother, who promptly received her in his.
"You'd better let me," he said to the anxious young women. "We'll never get her finished else."
So it ended in Tony's being arrayed in the flannel apron which, tied under his arm-pits, was not so greatly too long. With his sleeves turned up he washed his small sister with thoroughness and despatch, pointing out somewhat proudly that he "went into all the corners."