Jill the Reckless

"Topping evening!" said Freddie conversationally.

"Yes."

They walked through the square in silence. Freddie shot an appreciative glance at his companion. Freddie, as he would have admitted frankly, was not much of a lad for the modern girl. The modern girl, he considered, was too dashed rowdy and exuberant for a chappie of peaceful tastes. Now, this girl, on the other hand, had all the earmarks of being something of a topper. She had a soft voice. Rummy accent and all that, but nevertheless a soft and pleasing voice. She was mild and unaggressive, and these were qualities which Freddie esteemed. Freddie, though this was a thing he would not have admitted, was afraid of girls, the sort of girls he had to take down to dinner and dance with and so forth. They were too dashed clever, and always seemed to be waiting for a chance to score off a fellow. This one was not like that. Not a bit. She was gentle and quiet and what not.

It was at this point that it came home to him how remarkably quiet she was. She had not said a word for the last five minutes. He was just about to break the silence, when, as they passed under a street lamp, he perceived that she was crying—crying very softly to herself, like a child in the dark.

"Good God!" said Freddie appalled. There were two things in life with which he felt totally unable to cope—crying girls and dog-fights. The glimpse he had caught of Nelly's face froze him into a speechlessness which lasted until they reached Daubeny Street and stopped at her door.

"Good-bye," said Nelly.

"Good-bye-ee!" said Freddie mechanically. "That's to say, I mean to say, half a second!" he added quickly. He faced her nervously, with one hand on the grimy railings. This wanted looking into. When it came to girls trickling to and fro in the public streets, weeping, well, it was pretty rotten and something had to be done about it. "What's up?" he demanded.

"It's nothing. Good-bye."

"But, my dear old soul," said Freddie, clutching the railing for moral support, "it is something. It must be! You might not think it, to look at me, but I'm really rather a dashed shrewd chap, and I can see there's something up. Why not give me the jolly old scenario and see if we can't do something?"

Nelly moved as if to turn to the door, then stopped. She was thoroughly ashamed of herself.

"I'm a fool!"

"No, no!"

"Yes, I am. I don't often act this way, but, oh, gee! hearing you all talking like that about going to America, just as if it was the easiest thing in the world, only you couldn't be bothered to do it, kind of got me going. And to think I could be there right now if I wasn't a bonehead!"

"A bonehead?"

"A simp. I'm all right as far up as the string of near-pearls, but above that I'm reinforced concrete."

Freddie groped for her meaning.

"Do you mean you've made a bloomer of some kind?"

"I pulled the worst kind of bone. I stopped on in London when the rest of the company went back home, and now I've got to stick."

"Rush of jolly old professional engagements, what?"

Nelly laughed bitterly.

"You're a bad guesser. No, they haven't started to fight over me yet. I'm at liberty, as they say in the Era."

"But, my dear old thing," said Freddie earnestly, "if you've nothing to keep you in England, why not pop back to America? I mean to say, home-sickness is the most dashed blighted thing in the world. There's nothing gives one the pip to such an extent. Why, dash it, I remember staying with an old aunt of mine up in Scotland the year before last and not being able to get away for three weeks or so, and I raved—absolutely gibbered—for the sight of the merry old metrop. Sometimes I'd wake up in the night, thinking I was back at the Albany, and, by Jove, when I found I wasn't I howled like a dog! You take my tip, old soul, and pop back on the next boat."

"Which line?"

"How do you mean, which line? Oh, I see, you mean which line? Well ... well ... I've never been on any of them, so it's rather hard to say. But I hear the Cunard well spoken of, and then again some chappies swear by the White Star. But I should imagine you can't go far wrong, whichever you pick. They're all pretty ripe, I fancy."

"Which of them is giving free trips? That's the point."

"Eh? Oh!" Her meaning dawned upon Freddie. He regarded her with deep consternation. Life had treated him so kindly that he had almost forgotten that there existed a class which had not as much money as himself. Sympathy welled up beneath his perfectly fitting waistcoat. It was a purely disinterested sympathy. The fact that Nelly was a girl and in many respects a dashed pretty girl did not affect him. What mattered was that she was hard up. The thought hurt Freddie like a blow. He hated the idea of anyone being hard up.

"I say!" he said. "Are you broke?"

Nelly laughed.

"Am I? If dollars were doughnuts, I wouldn't even have the hole in the middle."

Freddie was stirred to his depths. Except for the beggars in the streets, to whom he gave shillings, he had not met anyone for years who had not plenty of money. He had friends at his clubs who frequently claimed to be unable to lay their hands on a bally penny, but the bally penny they wanted to lay their hands on generally turned out to be a couple of thousand pounds for a new car.

"Good God!" he said.

There was a pause. Then, with a sudden impulse, he began to fumble in his breast-pocket. Rummy how things worked out for the best, however scaly they might seem at the moment. Only an hour or so ago he had been kicking himself for not having remembered that fifty-pound note, tacked on to the lining of his coat, when it would have come in handy at the police-station. He now saw that Providence had had the matter well in hand. If he had remembered it and coughed it up to the constabulary then, he wouldn't have had it now. And he needed it now. A mood of quixotic generosity had surged upon him. With swift fingers he jerked the note free from its moorings and displayed it like a conjurer exhibiting a rabbit.

"My dear old thing," he said, "I can't stand it! I absolutely cannot stick it at any price! I really must insist on your trousering this. Positively!"

Nelly Bryant gazed at the note with wide eyes. She was stunned. She took it limply, and looked at it under the dim light of the gas-lamp over the door.

"I couldn't!" she cried.

"Oh, but really! You must!"

"But this is a fifty-pound!"

"Absolutely! It will take you back to New York, what? you asked which line was giving free trips. The Freddie Rooke Line, by Jove, sailings every Wednesday and Saturday! I mean, what?"

"But I can't take two hundred and fifty dollars from you!"

"Oh, rather. Of course you can."

There was another pause.

"You'll think—" Nelly's pale face flushed. "You'll think I told you all about myself just—just because I wanted to...."

"To make a touch? Absolutely not! Rid yourself of the jolly old supposition entirely. You see before you, old thing, a chappie who knows more about borrowing money than any man in London. I mean to say, I've had my ear bitten more often than anyone, I should think. There are sixty-four ways of making a touch—I've had them all worked on me by divers blighters here and there—and I can tell any of them with my eyes shut. I know you weren't dreaming of any such thing."

The note crackled musically in Nelly's hand.

"I don't know what to say!"

"That's all right."

"I don't see why.... Gee! I wish I could tell you what I think of you!"

Freddie laughed amusedly.

"Do you know," he said, "that's exactly what the beaks—the masters, you know—used to say to me at school."

"Are you sure you can spare it?"

"Oh, rather."

Nelly's eyes shone in the light of the lamp.

"I've never met anyone like you before. I don't know how...."

Freddie shuffled nervously. Being thanked always made him feel pretty rotten.

"Well, I think I'll be popping," he said. "Got to get back and dress and all that. Awfully glad to have seen you, and all that sort of rot."

Nelly unlocked the door with her latch-key, and stood on the step.

"I'll buy a fur-wrap," she said, half to herself.

"Great wheeze! I should!"

"And some nuts for Bill!"

"Bill?"

"The parrot."

"Oh, the jolly old parrot! Rather! Well, cheerio!"

"Good-bye.... You've been awfully good to me."

"Oh, no," said Freddie uncomfortably. "Any time you're passing...."

"Awfully good.... Well, good-bye."

"Toodle-oo!"

"Maybe we'll meet again some day."

"I hope so. Absolutely!"

There was a little scurry of feet. Something warm and soft pressed for an instant against Freddie's cheek, and, as he stumbled back, Nelly Bryant skipped up the steps and vanished through the door.

"Good God!"

Freddie felt his cheek. He was aware of an odd mixture of embarrassment and exhilaration.

From the area below a slight cough sounded. Freddie turned sharply. A maid in a soiled cap, worn coquettishly over one ear, was gazing intently up through the railings. Their eyes met. Freddie turned a warm pink. It seemed to him that the maid had the air of one about to giggle.

"Damn!" said Freddie softly, and hurried off down the street. He wondered whether he had made a frightful ass of himself, spraying bank-notes all over the place like that to comparative strangers. Then a vision came to him of Nelly's eyes as they had looked at him in the lamp-light, and he decided—no, absolutely not. Rummy as the gadget might appear, it had been the right thing to do. It was a binge of which he thoroughly approved. A good egg!

II

Jill, when Freddie and Nelly left the room, had seated herself on a low stool, and sat looking thoughtfully into the fire. She was wondering if she had been mistaken in supposing that Uncle Chris was worried about something. This restlessness of his, this desire for movement, was strange in him. Hitherto he had been like a dear old cosy cat, revelling in the comfort which he had just denounced so eloquently. She watched him as he took up his favourite stand in front of the fire.

"Nice girl," said Uncle Chris. "Who was she?"

"Somebody Freddie met," said Jill diplomatically. There was no need to worry Uncle Chris with details of the afternoon's happenings.

"Very nice girl." Uncle Chris took out his cigar-case. "No need to ask if I may, thank goodness." He lit a cigar. "Do you remember, Jill, years ago, when you were quite small, how I used to blow smoke in your face?"

Jill smiled.

"Of course I do. You said that you were training me for marriage. You said that there were no happy marriages except where the wife didn't mind the smell of tobacco. Well, it's lucky, as a matter of fact, for Derek smokes all the time."

Uncle Chris took up his favourite stand against the fireplace.

"You're very fond of Derek, aren't you, Jill?"

"Of course I am. You are, too, aren't you?"

"Fine chap. Very fine chap. Plenty of money, too. It's a great relief," said Uncle Chris, puffing vigorously. "A thundering relief." He looked over Jill's head down the room. "It's fine to think of you happily married, dear, with everything in the world that you want."

Uncle Chris' gaze wandered down to where Jill sat. A slight mist affected his eyesight. Jill had provided a solution for the great problem of his life. Marriage had always appalled him, but there was this to be said for it, that married people had daughters. He had always wanted a daughter, a smart girl he could take out and be proud of; and fate had given him Jill at precisely the right age. A child would have bored Uncle Chris—he was fond of children, but they made the deuce of a noise and regarded jam as an external ornament—but a delightful little girl of fourteen was different. Jill and he had been very close to each other since her mother had died, a year after the death of her father, and had left her in his charge. He had watched her grow up with a joy that had a touch of bewilderment in it—she seemed to grow so quickly—and had been fonder and prouder of her at every stage of her tumultuous career.

"You're a dear," said Jill. She stroked the trouser-leg that was nearest. "How do you manage to get such a wonderful crease? You really are a credit to me!"

There was a momentary silence. A shade of embarrassment made itself noticeable in Uncle Chris' frank gaze. He gave a little cough, and pulled at his moustache.

"I wish I were, my dear," he said soberly. "I wish I were. I'm afraid I'm a poor sort of a fellow, Jill."

Jill looked up.

"What do you mean?"

"A poor sort of a fellow," repeated Uncle Chris. "Your mother was foolish to trust you to me. Your father had more sense. He always said I was a wrong 'un."

Jill got up quickly. She was certain now that she had been right, and that there was something on her uncle's mind.

"What's the matter, Uncle Chris? Something's happened. What is it?"

Uncle Chris turned to knock the ash off his cigar. The movement gave him time to collect himself for what lay before him. He had one of those rare volatile natures which can ignore the blows of fate so long as their effects are not brought home by visible evidence of disaster. He lived in the moment, and, though matters had been as bad at breakfast-time as they were now, it was not till now, when he confronted Jill, that he had found his cheerfulness affected by them. He was a man who hated ordeals, and one faced him now. Until this moment he had been able to detach his mind from a state of affairs which would have weighed unceasingly upon another man. His mind was a telephone which he could cut off at will, when the voice of Trouble wished to speak. The time would arrive, he had been aware, when he would have to pay attention to that voice, but so far he had refused to listen. Now it could be evaded no longer.

"Jill."

"Yes?"

Uncle Chris paused again, searching for the best means of saying what had to be said.

"Jill, I don't know if you understand about these things, but there was what is called a slump on the Stock Exchange this morning. In other words...."

Jill laughed.

"Of course I know all about that," she said. "Poor Freddie wouldn't talk about anything else till I made him. He was terribly blue when he got here this afternoon. He said he had got 'nipped' in Amalgamated Dyes. He had lost about two hundred pounds, and was furious with a friend of his who had told him to buy margins."

Uncle Chris cleared his throat.

"Jill, I'm afraid I've got bad news for you. I bought Amalgamated Dyes, too." He worried his moustache. "I lost heavily, very heavily."

"How naughty of you! You know you oughtn't to gamble."

"Jill, you must be brave. I—I—well, the fact is—it's no good beating about the bush—I lost everything! Everything!"

"Everything?"

"Everything! It's all gone! All fooled away. It's a terrible business. This house will have to go."

"But—but doesn't the house belong to me?"

"I was your trustee, dear." Uncle Chris smoked furiously. "Thank heaven you're going to marry a rich man!"

Jill stood looking at him, perplexed. Money, as money, had never entered into her life. There were things one wanted which had to be paid for with money, but Uncle Chris had always looked after that. She had taken them for granted.

"I don't understand," she said.

And then suddenly she realized that she did, and a great wave of pity for Uncle Chris flooded over her. He was such an old dear. It must be horrible for him to have to stand there, telling her all this. She felt no sense of injury, only the discomfort of having to witness the humiliation of her oldest friend. Uncle Chris was bound up inextricably with everything in her life that was pleasant. She could remember him, looking exactly the same, only with a thicker and wavier crop of hair, playing with her patiently and unwearied for hours in the hot sun, a cheerful martyr. She could remember sitting up with him when she came home from her first grownup dance, drinking cocoa and talking and talking and talking till the birds outside sang the sun high up into the sky and it was breakfast time. She could remember theatres with him, and jolly little suppers afterwards; expeditions into the country, with lunches at queer old inns; days on the river, days at Hurlingham, days at Lords', days at the Academy. He had always been the same, always cheerful, always kind. He was Uncle Chris, and he would always be Uncle Chris, whatever he had done or whatever he might do. She slipped her arm in his and gave it a squeeze.

"Poor old thing!" she said.

Uncle Chris had been looking straight out before him with those fine blue eyes of his. There had been just a touch of sternness in his attitude. A stranger, coming into the room at that moment, would have said that here was a girl trying to coax her blunt, straightforward, military father into some course of action of which his honest nature disapproved. He might have been posing for a statue of Rectitude. As Jill spoke, he seemed to cave in.

"Poor old thing?" he repeated limply.

"Of course you are! And stop trying to look dignified and tragic! Because it doesn't suit you. You're much too well dressed."

"But, my dear, you don't understand! You haven't realized!"

"Yes, I do. Yes, I have!"

"I've spent all your money—your money!"

"I know! What does it matter?"

"What does it matter! Jill, don't you hate me?"

"As if anyone could hate an old darling like you!"

Uncle Chris threw away his cigar, and put his arms round Jill. For a moment a dreadful fear came to her that he was going to cry. She prayed that he wouldn't cry. It would be too awful. It would be a memory of which she could never rid herself. She felt as though he were someone extraordinarily young and unable to look after himself, someone she must soothe and protect.

"Jill," said Uncle Chris, choking, "you're—you're—you're a little warrior!"

Jill kissed him and moved away. She busied herself with some flowers, her back turned. The tension had been relieved, and she wanted to give him time to recover his poise. She knew him well enough to be sure that, sooner or later, the resiliency of his nature would assert itself. He could never remain long in the depths.

The silence had the effect of making her think more clearly than in the first rush of pity she had been able to do. She was able now to review the matter as it affected herself. It had not been easy to grasp, the blunt fact that she was penniless, that all this comfort which surrounded her was no longer her own. For an instant a kind of panic seized her. There was a bleakness about the situation which made one gasp. It was like icy water dashed in the face. Realization had almost the physical pain of life returning to a numbed limb. Her hands shook as she arranged the flowers, and she had to bite her lip to keep herself from crying out.

She fought panic eye to eye, and beat it down. Uncle Chris, swiftly recovering by the fireplace, never knew that the fight had taken place. He was feeling quite jovial again now that the unpleasant business of breaking the news was over, and was looking on the world with the eye of a debonair gentleman-adventurer. As far as he was concerned, he told himself, this was the best thing that could have happened. He had been growing old and sluggish in prosperity. He needed a fillip. The wits by which he had once lived so merrily had been getting blunt in their easy retirement. He welcomed the opportunity of matching them once more against the world. He was remorseful as regarded Jill, but the optimist in him, never crushed for long, told him that Jill would be all right. She would step from the sinking ship to the safe refuge of Derek Underhill's wealth and position, while he went out to seek a new life. Uncle Chris' blue eyes gleamed with a new fire as he pictured himself in this new life. He felt like a hunter setting out on a hunting expedition. There were always adventures and the spoils of war for the man with brains to find them and gather them in. But it was a mercy that Jill had Derek....

Jill was thinking of Derek, too. Panic had fled, and a curious exhilaration had seized upon her. If Derek wanted her now, it would be because his love was the strongest thing in the world. She would come to him like the beggar-maid to Cophetua.

Uncle Chris broke the silence with a cough. At the sound of it, Jill smiled again. She knew it for what it was, a sign that he was himself again.

"Tell me, Uncle Chris," she said, "just how bad is it? When you said everything was gone, did you really mean everything, or were you being melodramatic? Exactly how do we stand?"

"It's dashed hard to say, my dear. I expect we shall find there are a few hundreds left. Enough to see you through till you get married. After that it won't matter." Uncle Chris flicked a particle of dust off his coat-sleeve. Jill could not help feeling that the action was symbolical of his attitude towards life. He nicked away life's problems with just the same airy carelessness. "You mustn't worry about me, my dear. I shall be all right. I have made my way in the world before, and I can do it again. I shall go to America and try my luck there. Amazing how many opportunities there are in America. Really, as far as I am concerned, this is the best thing that could have happened. I have been getting abominably lazy. If I had gone on living my present life for another year or two, why, dash it, I honestly believe I should have succumbed to some sort of senile decay. Positively I should have got fatty degeneration of the brain! This will be the making of me."

Jill sat down on the lounge and laughed till there were tears in her eyes. Uncle Chris might be responsible for this disaster, but he was certainly making it endurable. However greatly he might be deserving of censure, from the standpoint of the sterner morality, he made amends. If he brought the whole world crashing in chaos about one's ears, at least he helped one to smile among the ruins.

"Did you ever read 'Candide,' Uncle Chris?"

"'Candide'?" Uncle Chris shook his head. He was not a great reader, except of the sporting press.

"It's a book by Voltaire. There's a character in it called Doctor Pangloss, who thought that everything was for the best in this best of all possible worlds."

Uncle Chris felt a touch of embarrassment. It occurred to him that he had been betrayed by his mercurial temperament into an attitude which, considering the circumstances, was perhaps a trifle too jubilant. He gave his moustache a pull, and reverted to the minor key.

"Oh, you mustn't think that I don't appreciate the terrible, the criminal thing I have done! I blame myself," said Uncle Chris cordially, nicking another speck of dust off his sleeve. "I blame myself bitterly. Your mother ought never to have made me your trustee, my dear. But she always believed in me, in spite of everything, and this is how I have repaid her." He blew his nose to cover a not unmanly emotion. "I wasn't fitted for the position. Never become a trustee, Jill. It's the devil, is trust money. However much you argue with yourself, you can't—dash it, you simply can't believe that it's not your own, to do as you like with, There it sits, smiling at you, crying 'Spend me! Spend me!' and you find yourself dipping—dipping—till one day there's nothing left to dip for—only a far-off rustling—the ghosts of dead bank-notes. That's how it was with me. The process was almost automatic. I hardly knew it was going on. Here a little—there a little. It was like snow melting on a mountain-top. And one morning—all gone!" Uncle Chris drove the point home with a gesture. "I did what I could. When I found that there were only a few hundreds left, for your sake I took a chance. All heart and no head! There you have Christopher Selby in a nutshell! A man at the club, a fool named—I've forgotten his damn name—recommended Amalgamated Dyestuffs as a speculation. Monroe, that was his name, Jimmy Monroe. He talked about the future of British Dyes now that Germany was out of the race, and ... well, the long and short of it was that I took his advice and bought on margin. Bought like the devil. And this morning Amalgamated Dyestuffs went all to blazes. There you have the whole story!"

"And now," said Jill, "comes the sequel!"

"The sequel?" said Uncle Chris breezily. "Happiness, my dear, happiness! Wedding bells and—and all that sort of thing!" He straddled the hearth-rug manfully, and swelled his chest out. He would permit no pessimism on this occasion of rejoicing. "You don't suppose that the fact of your having lost your money—that is to say—er—of my having lost your money—will affect a splendid young fellow like Derek Underhill? I know him better than to think that! I've always liked him. He's a man you can trust! Besides," he added reflectively, "there's no need to tell him! Till after the wedding, I mean. It won't be hard to keep up appearances here for a month or so."

"Of course we must tell him!"

"You think it wise?"

"I don't know about it being wise. It's the only thing to do. I must see him to-night. Oh, I forgot. He was going away this afternoon for a day or two."

"Capital! It will give you time to think it over."

"I don't want to think it over. There's nothing to think about."

"Of course, yes, of course. Quite so."

"I shall write him a letter."

"Write, eh?"

"It's easier to put what one wants to say in a letter."

"Letters," began Uncle Chris, and stopped as the door opened. Jane, the parlourmaid, entered, carrying a salver.

"For me?" asked Uncle Chris.

"For Miss Jill, sir."

Jill took the note off the salver.

"It's from Derek."

"There's a messenger-boy waiting, miss," said Jane. "He wasn't told if there was an answer."

"If the note is from Derek," said Uncle Chris, "it's not likely to want an answer. You said he left town to-day."

Jill opened the envelope.

"Is there an answer, miss?" asked Jane, after what she considered a suitable interval. She spoke tenderly. She was a great admirer of Derek, and considered it a pretty action on his part to send notes like this when he was compelled to leave London.

"Any answer, Jill?"

Jill seemed to rouse herself. She had turned oddly pale.

"No, no answer, Jane."

"Thank you, miss," said Jane, and went off to tell the cook that in her opinion Jill was lacking in heart. "It might have been a bill instead of a love-letter," said Jane to the cook with indignation, "the way she read it. I like people to have a little feeling!"

Jill sat turning the letter over and over in her fingers. Her face was very white. There seemed to be a big, heavy, leaden something inside her. A cold hand clutched her throat. Uncle Chris, who at first had noticed nothing untoward, now began to find the silence sinister.

"No bad news, I hope, dear?"

Jill turned the letter between her fingers.

"Jill, is it bad news?"

"Derek has broken off the engagement," said Jill in a dull voice. She let the note fall to the floor, and sat with her chin in her hands.

"What!" Uncle Chris leaped from the hearth-rug, as though the fire had suddenly scorched him. "What did you say?"

"He's broken it off."

"The hound!" cried Uncle Chris. "The blackguard! The—the—I never liked that man! I never trusted him!" He fumed for a moment. "But—but—it isn't possible. How can he have heard about what's happened? He couldn't know. It's—it's—it isn't possible!"

"He doesn't know. It has nothing to do with that."

"But...." Uncle Chris stooped to where the note lay. "May I...?"

"Yes, you can read it if you like."

Uncle Chris produced a pair of reading-glasses, and glared through them at the sheet of paper as though it were some loathsome insect.

"The hound! The cad! If I were a younger man," shouted Uncle Chris, smiting the letter violently, "if I were.... Jill! My dear little Jill!"

He plunged down on his knees beside her, as she buried her face in her hands and began to sob.

"My little girl! Damn that man! My dear little girl! The cad! The devil! My own darling little girl! I'll thrash him within an inch of his life!"

The clock on the mantelpiece ticked away the minutes. Jill got up. Her face was wet and quivering, but her mouth had set in a brave line.

"Jill, dear!"

She let his hand close over hers.

"Everything's happening all at once this afternoon, Uncle Chris, isn't it!" She smiled a twisted smile. "You look so funny! Your hair's all rumpled, and your glasses are over on one side!"

Uncle Chris breathed heavily through his nose.

"When I meet that man...." he began portentously.

"Oh, what's the good of bothering! It's not worth it! Nothing's worth it!" Jill stopped and faced him, her hands clenched. "Let's get away! Let's get right away! I want to get right away, Uncle Chris! Take me away! Anywhere! Take me to America with you! I must get away!"

Uncle Chris raised his right hand, and shook it. His reading-glasses, hanging from his left ear, bobbed drunkenly.

"We'll sail by the next boat! The very next boat, dammit! I'll take care of you, dear. I've been a blackguard to you, my little girl. I've robbed you, and swindled you. But I'll make up for it, by George! I'll make up for it! I'll give you a new home, as good as this, if I die for it. There's nothing I won't do! Nothing! By Jove!" shouted Uncle Chris, raising his voice in a red-hot frenzy of emotion, "I'll work! Yes, by Gad, if it comes right down to it, I'll work!"

He brought his fist down with a crash on the table where Derek's flowers stood in their bowl. The bowl leaped in the air and tumbled over, scattering the flowers on the floor.

CHAPTER VII

Jill varied the monotony of sitting in her room—which was the only place in the house where one might be sure of not encountering a furniture-broker's man with a note-book and pencil—by taking long walks. She avoided as far as possible the small area which had once made up the whole of London for her, but even so she was not always successful in escaping from old acquaintances. Once, butting through Lennox Gardens on her way to that vast, desolate King's Road which stretches its length out into regions unknown to those whose London is the West End, she happened upon Freddie Rooke, who had been paying a call in his best, and a pair of white spats which would have cut his friend Henry to the quick. It was not an enjoyable meeting. Freddie, keenly alive to the awkwardness of the situation, was scarlet and incoherent; and Jill, who desired nothing less than to talk with one so intimately connected in her mind with all that she had lost, was scarcely more collected. They parted without regret. The only satisfaction that came to Jill from the encounter was the knowledge that Derek was still out of town. He had wired for his things, said Freddie, and had retreated further north. Freddie, it seemed, had been informed of the broken engagement by Lady Underhill in an interview which appeared to have left a lasting impression on his mind. Of Jill's monetary difficulties he had heard nothing.

After this meeting, Jill felt a slight diminution of the oppression which weighed upon her. She could not have borne to have come unexpectedly upon Derek, and, now that there was no danger of that, she found life a little easier. The days passed somehow, and finally there came the morning, when, accompanied by Uncle Chris—voluble and explanatory about the details of what he called "getting everything settled"—she rode in a taxi to take the train for Southampton. Her last impression of London was of rows upon rows of mean houses, of cats wandering in back-yards among groves of home-washed underclothing, and a smoky greyness which gave way, as the train raced on, to the clearer grey of the suburbs and the good green and brown of the open country.

Then the bustle and confusion of the liner; the calm monotony of the journey, when one came on deck each morning to find the vessel so manifestly in the same spot where it had been the morning before that it was impossible to realize that many hundred miles of ocean had really been placed behind one; and finally the Ambrose Channel lightship and the great bulk of New York rising into the sky like a city of fairyland, heartening yet sinister, at once a welcome and a menace.

"There you are, my dear?" said Uncle Chris indulgently, as though it were a toy he had made for her with his own hands. "New York!"

They were standing on the boat-deck, leaning over the rail. Jill caught her breath. For the first time since disaster had come upon her she was conscious of a rising of her spirits. It is impossible to behold the huge buildings which fringe the harbour of New York without a sense of expectancy and excitement. There had remained in Jill's mind from childhood memories a vague picture of what she now saw, but it had been feeble and inadequate. The sight of this towering city seemed somehow to blot out everything that had gone before. The feeling of starting afresh was strong upon her.

Uncle Chris, the old traveller, was not emotionally affected. He smoked placidly and talked in a wholly earthy strain of grape-fruit and buckwheat cakes.

It was now, also for the first time, that Uncle Chris touched upon future prospects in a practical manner. On the voyage he had been eloquent but sketchy. With the land of promise within biscuit-throw and the tugs bustling about the great liner's skirts like little dogs about their mistress, he descended to details.

"I shall get a room somewhere," said Uncle Chris, "and start looking about me. I wonder if the old Holland House is still there. I fancy I heard they'd pulled it down. Capital place. I had a steak there in the year.... But I expect they've pulled it down. But I shall find somewhere to go. I'll write and tell you my address directly I've got one."

Jill removed her gaze from the sky-line with a start.

"Write to me?"

"Didn't I tell you about that?" said Uncle Chris cheerily—avoiding her eye, however, for he had realized all along that it might be a little bit awkward breaking the news. "I've arranged that you shall go and stay for the time being down at Brookport—on Long Island, you know—over in that direction—with your Uncle Elmer. Daresay you've forgotten you have an Uncle Elmer, eh?" he went on quickly, as Jill was about to speak. "Your father's brother. Used to be in business, but retired some years ago and goes in for amateur farming. Corn and—and corn," said Uncle Chris. "All that sort of thing. You'll like him. Capital chap! Never met him myself, but always heard," said Uncle Chris, who had never to his recollection heard any comments upon Mr. Elmer Mariner whatever, "that he was a splendid fellow. Directly we decided to sail, I cabled to him, and got an answer saying that he would be delighted to put you up. You'll be quite happy there."

Jill listened to this programme with dismay. New York was calling to her, and Brookport held out no attractions at all. She looked down over the side at the tugs puffing their way through the broken blocks of ice that reminded her of a cocoanut candy familiar to her childhood.

"But I want to be with you," she protested.

"Impossible, my dear, for the present. I shall be very busy, very busy indeed for some weeks, until I have found my feet. Really, you would be in the way. He—er—travels the fastest who travels alone! I must be in a position to go anywhere and do anything at a moment's notice. But always remember, my dear," said Uncle Chris, patting her shoulder affectionately, "that I shall be working for you. I have treated you very badly, but I intend to make up for it. I shall not forget that whatever money I may make will really belong to you." He looked at her benignly, like a monarch of finance who has earmarked a million or two for the benefit of a deserving charity. "You shall have it all, Jill."

He had so much the air of having conferred a substantial benefit upon her that Jill felt obliged to thank him. Uncle Chris had always been able to make people grateful for the phantom gold which he showered upon them. He was as lavish a man with the money he was going to get next week as ever borrowed a five-pound note to see him through till Saturday.

"What are you going to do, Uncle Chris?" asked Jill curiously. Apart from a nebulous idea that he intended to saunter through the city picking dollar-bills off the sidewalk, she had no inkling of his plans.

Uncle Chris toyed with his short moustache. He was not quite equal to a direct answer on the spur of the moment. He had a faith in his star. Something would turn up. Something always had turned up in the old days, and doubtless, with the march of civilization, opportunities had multiplied. Somewhere behind those tall buildings the Goddess of Luck awaited him, her hands full of gifts, but precisely what those gifts would be he was not in a position to say.

"I shall—ah—how shall I put it—?"

"Look round?" suggested Jill.

"Precisely," said Uncle Chris gratefully. "Look round. I daresay you have noticed that I have gone out of my way during the voyage to make myself agreeable to our fellow-travellers? I had an object. Acquaintances begun on shipboard will often ripen into useful friendships ashore. When I was a young man I never neglected the opportunities which an ocean voyage affords. The offer of a book here, a steamer-rug there, a word of encouragement to a chatty bore in the smoke-room—these are small things, but they may lead to much. One meets influential people on a liner. You wouldn't think it to look at him, but that man with the eye-glasses and the thin nose I was talking to just now is one of the richest men in Milwaukee!"

"But it's not much good having rich friends in Milwaukee when you are in New York!"

"Exactly. There you have put your finger on the very point I have been trying to make. It will probably be necessary for me to travel. And for that I must be alone. I must be a mobile force. I should dearly like to keep you with me, but you can see for yourself that for the moment you would be an encumbrance. Later on, no doubt, when my affairs are more settled...."

"Oh, I understand. I'm resigned. But, oh dear! it's going to be very dull down at Brookport."

"Nonsense, nonsense! It's a delightful spot."

"Have you been there?"

"No. But of course everybody knows Brookport. Healthy, invigorating.... Sure to be. The very name.... You'll be as happy as the days are long!"

"And how long will the days be!"

"Come, come. You mustn't look on the dark side."

"Is there another?" Jill laughed. "You are an old humbug, Uncle Chris. You know perfectly well what you're condemning me to. I expect Brookport will be like a sort of Southend in winter. Oh, well, I'll be brave. But do hurry and make a fortune, because I want to come to New York."

"My dear," said Uncle Chris solemnly, "if there is a dollar lying loose in this city, rest assured that I shall have it! And, if it's not loose, I will detach it with the greatest possible speed. You have only known me in my decadence, an idle and unprofitable London clubman. I can assure you that lurking beneath the surface, there is a business acumen given to few men...."

"Oh, if you are going to talk poetry," said Jill, "I'll leave you. Anyhow, I ought to be getting below and putting my things together."

II

If Jill's vision of Brookport as a wintry Southend was not entirely fulfilled, neither was Uncle Chris' picture of it as an earthly paradise. At the right time of the year, like most of the summer resorts on the south shore of Long Island, it is not without its attractions; but January is not the month which most people would choose for living in it. It presented itself to Jill on first acquaintance in the aspect of a wind-swept railroad station, dumped down far away from human habitation in the middle of a stretch of flat and ragged country that reminded her a little of parts of Surrey. The station was just a shed on a foundation of planks which lay flush with the rails. From this shed, as the train clanked in, there emerged a tall, shambling man in a weather-beaten overcoat. He had a clean-shaven, wrinkled face, and he looked doubtfully at Jill with small eyes. Something in his expression reminded Jill of her father, as a bad caricature of a public man will recall the original. She introduced herself.

"If you're Uncle Elmer," she said, "I'm Jill."

The man held out a long hand. He did not smile. He was as bleak as the east wind that swept the platform.

"Glad to meet you again," he said in a melancholy voice. It was news to Jill that they had met before. She wondered where. Her uncle supplied the information. "Last time I saw you, you were a kiddy in short frocks, running round and shouting to beat the band." He looked up and down the platform. "I never heard a child make so much noise!"

"I'm quite quiet now," said Jill encouragingly. The recollection of her infant revelry seemed to her to be distressing her relative.

It appeared, however, that it was not only this that was on his mind.

"If you want to drive home," he said, "we'll have to 'phone to the Durham House for a hack." He brooded a while, Jill remaining silent at his side, loath to break in upon whatever secret sorrow he was wrestling with. "That would be a dollar," he went on. "They're robbers in these parts! A dollar! And it's not over a mile and a half. Are you fond of walking?"

Jill was a bright girl, and could take a hint.

"I love walking," she said. She might have added that she preferred to do it on a day when the wind was not blowing quite so keenly from the East, but her uncle's obvious excitement at the prospect of cheating the rapacity of the sharks at the Durham House restrained her. Her independent soul had not quite adjusted itself to the prospect of living on the bounty of her fellows, relatives though they were, and she was desirous of imposing as light a burden upon them as possible. "But how about my trunk?"

"The expressman will bring that up. Fifty cents!" said Uncle Elmer in a crushed way. The high cost of entertaining seemed to be afflicting this man deeply.

"Oh, yes," said Jill. She could not see how this particular expenditure was to be avoided. Anxious as she was to make herself pleasant, she declined to consider carrying the trunk to their destination. "Shall we start, then?"

Mr. Mariner led the way out into the ice-covered road. The wind welcomed them like a boisterous dog. For some minutes they proceeded in silence.

"Your aunt will be glad to see you," said Mr. Mariner at last in the voice with which one announces the death of a dear friend.

"It's awfully kind of you to have me to stay with you," said Jill. It is a human tendency to think, when crises occur, in terms of melodrama, and unconsciously she had begun to regard herself somewhat in the light of a heroine driven out into the world from the old home, with no roof to shelter her head. The promptitude with which these good people, who, though relatives, were after all complete strangers, had offered her a resting-place touched her. "I hope I shan't be in the way."

"Major Selby was speaking to me on the telephone just now," said Mr. Mariner, "and he said that you might be thinking of settling down in Brookport. I've some nice little places round here which you might like to look at. Rent or buy. It's cheaper to buy. Brookport's a growing place. It's getting known as a summer resort. There's a bungalow down on the shore I'd like to show you to-morrow. Stands in a nice large plot of ground, and if you bought it for twelve thousand you'd be getting a bargain."

Jill was too astonished to speak. Plainly Uncle Chris had made no mention of the change in her fortunes, and this man looked on her as a girl of wealth. She could only think how typical this was of Uncle Chris. There was a sort of boyish impishness about him. She could see him at the telephone, suave and important. He would have hung up the receiver with a complacent smirk, thoroughly satisfied that he had done her an excellent turn.

"I put all my money into real estate when I came to live here," went on Mr. Mariner. "I believe in the place. It's growing all the time."

They had come to the outskirts of a straggling village. The lights in the windows gave a welcome suggestion of warmth, for darkness had fallen swiftly during their walk and the chill of the wind had become more biting. There was a smell of salt in the air now, and once or twice Jill had caught the low booming of waves on some distant beach. This was the Atlantic pounding the sandy shore of Fire Island. Brookport itself lay inside, on the lagoon called the Great South Bay.

They passed through the village, bearing to the right, and found themselves in a road bordered by large gardens in which stood big, dark houses. The spectacle of these stimulated Mr. Mariner to something approaching eloquence. He quoted the price paid for each, the price asked, the price offered, the price that had been paid five years ago. The recital carried them on for another mile, in the course of which the houses became smaller and more scattered, and finally, when the country had become bare and desolate again, they turned down a narrow lane and came to a tall, gaunt house standing by itself in a field.

"This is Sandringham," said Mr. Mariner.

"What!" said Jill. "What did you say?"

"Sandringham. Where we live. I got the name from your father. I remember him telling me there was a place called that in England."

"There is." Jill's voice bubbled. "The King lives there."

"Is that so?" said Mr. Mariner. "Well, I bet he doesn't have the trouble with help that we have here. I have to pay our girl fifty dollars a month, and another twenty for the man who looks after the furnace and chops wood. They're all robbers. And if you kick they quit on you!"

III

Jill endured Sandringham for ten days; and, looking back on that period of her life later, she wondered how she did it. The sense of desolation which had gripped her on the station platform increased rather than diminished as she grew accustomed to her surroundings. The east wind died away, and the sun shone fitfully with a suggestion of warmth, but her uncle's bleakness appeared to be a static quality, independent of weather conditions. Her aunt, a faded woman, with a perpetual cold in the head, did nothing to promote cheerfulness. The rest of the household consisted of a gloomy child, "Tibby," aged eight; a spaniel, probably a few years older, and an intermittent cat, who, when he did put in an appearance, was the life and soul of the party, but whose visits to his home were all too infrequent for Jill.

The picture which Mr. Mariner had formed in his mind of Jill as a wealthy young lady with a taste for house property continued as vivid as ever. It was his practice each morning to conduct her about the neighbourhood, introducing her to the various houses in which he had sunk most of the money he had made in business. Mr. Mariner's life centred around Brookport real estate, and the embarrassed Jill was compelled to inspect sitting-rooms, bathrooms, kitchens, and master's bedrooms till the sound of a key turning in a lock gave her a feeling of nervous exhaustion. Most of her uncle's houses were converted farm-houses, and, as one unfortunate purchaser had remarked, not so darned converted at that. The days she spent at Brookport remained in Jill's memory as a smell of dampness and chill and closeness.

"You want to buy," said Mr. Mariner every time he shut a front-door behind them. "Not rent. Buy. Then, if you don't want to live here, you can always rent in the summer."

It seemed incredible to Jill that the summer would ever come. Winter held Brookport in its grip. For the first time in her life she was tasting real loneliness. She wandered over the snow-patched fields down to the frozen bay, and found the intense stillness, punctuated only by the occasional distant gunshot of some optimist trying for duck, oppressive rather than restful. She looked on the weird beauty of the ice-bound marshes which glittered red and green and blue in the sun with unseeing eyes; for her isolation was giving her time to think, and thought was a torment.

On the eighth day came a letter from Uncle Chris—a cheerful, even rollicking letter. Things were going well with Uncle Chris, it seemed. As was his habit, he did not enter into details, but he wrote in a spacious way of large things to be, of affairs that were coming out right, of prosperity in sight. As tangible evidence of success, he enclosed a present of twenty dollars for Jill to spend in the Brookport shops.

The letter arrived by the morning mail, and two hours later Mr. Mariner took Jill by one of his usual overland routes to see a house nearer the village than most of those which she had viewed. Mr. Mariner had exhausted the supply of cottages belonging to himself, and this one was the property of an acquaintance. There would be an agent's fee for him in the deal, if it went through, and Mr. Mariner was not a man who despised money in small quantities.

There was a touch of hopefulness in his gloom this morning, like the first intimation of sunshine after a wet day. He had been thinking the thing over, and had come to the conclusion that Jill's unresponsiveness when confronted with the houses she had already seen was due to the fact that she had loftier ideas than he had supposed. Something a little more magnificent than the twelve thousand dollar places he had shown her was what she desired. This house stood on a hill looking down on the bay, in several acres of ground. It had its private landing-stage and bath-house, its dairy, its sleeping-porches—everything, in fact, that a sensible girl could want. Mr. Mariner could not bring himself to suppose that he would fail again to-day.

"They're asking a hundred and five thousand," he said, "but I know they'd take a hundred thousand. And, if it was a question of cash down, they would go even lower. It's a fine house. You could entertain there. Mrs. Bruggenheim rented it last summer, and wanted to buy, but she wouldn't go above ninety thousand. If you want it, you'd better make up your mind quick. A place like this is apt to be snapped up in a hurry."

Jill could endure it no longer.

"But, you see," she said gently, "all I have in the world is twenty dollars!"

There was a painful pause. Mr. Mariner shot a swift glance at her in the hope of discovering that she had spoken humorously, but was compelled to decide that she had not.

"Twenty dollars!" he exclaimed.

"Twenty dollars," said Jill.

"But your father was a rich man." Mr. Mariner's voice was high and plaintive. "He made a fortune over here before he went to England."

"It's all gone. I got nipped," said Jill, who was finding a certain amount of humour in the situation, "in Amalgamated Dyes."

"Amalgamated Dyes?"

"They're something," explained Jill, "that people get nipped in."

Mr. Mariner digested this.

"You speculated?" he gasped.

"Yes."

"You shouldn't have been allowed to do it," said Mr. Mariner warmly. "Major Selby, your uncle, ought to have known better than to allow you."

"Yes, oughtn't he?" said Jill demurely.

There was another silence, lasting for about a quarter of a mile.

"Well, it's a bad business," said Mr. Mariner.

"Yes," said Jill. "I've felt that myself."

The result of this conversation was to effect a change in the atmosphere of Sandringham. The alteration in the demeanour of people of parsimonious habit, when they discover that the guest they are entertaining is a pauper and not, as they had supposed, an heiress, is subtle but well marked. In most cases, more well marked than subtle. Nothing was actually said, but there are thoughts that are almost as audible as words. A certain suspense seemed to creep into the air, as happens when a situation has been reached which is too poignant to last. Greek Tragedy affects the reader with the same sense of overhanging doom. Things, we feel, cannot go on as they are.

That night, after dinner, Mrs. Mariner asked Jill to read to her.

"Print tries my eyes so, dear," said Mrs. Mariner.

It was a small thing, but it had the significance of that little cloud that arose out of the sea like a man's hand. Jill appreciated the portent. She was, she perceived, to make herself useful.

"Of course I will," she said cordially. "What would you like me to read?"

She hated reading aloud. It always made her throat sore, and her eye skipped to the end of each page and took the interest out of it long before the proper time. But she proceeded bravely, for her conscience was troubling her. Her sympathy was divided equally between these unfortunate people who had been saddled with an undesired visitor and herself who had been placed in a position at which every independent nerve in her rebelled. Even as a child she had loathed being under obligations to strangers or those whom she did not love.

"Thank you, dear," said Mrs. Mariner, when Jill's voice had roughened to a weary croak. "You read so well." She wrestled ineffectually with her handkerchief against the cold in the head from which she had always suffered. "It would be nice if you would do it every night, don't you think? You have no idea how tired print makes my eyes."

On the following morning after breakfast, at the hour when she had hitherto gone house-hunting with Mr. Mariner, the child Tibby, of whom up till now she had seen little except at meals, presented himself to her, coated and shod for the open and regarding her with a dull and phlegmatic gaze.

"Ma says will you please take me for a nice walk!"

Jill's heart sank. She loved children, but Tibby was not an ingratiating child. He was a Mr. Mariner in little. He had the family gloom. It puzzled Jill sometimes why this branch of the family should look on life with so jaundiced an eye. She remembered her father as a cheerful man, alive to the small humours of life.

"All right, Tibby. Where shall we go?"

"Ma says we must keep on the roads and I mustn't slide."

Jill was thoughtful during the walk. Tibby, who was no conversationist, gave her every opportunity for meditation. She perceived that in the space of a few hours she had sunk in the social scale. If there was any difference between her position and that of a paid nurse and companion it lay in the fact that she was not paid. She looked about her at the grim countryside, gave a thought to the chill gloom of the house to which she was about to return, and her heart sank.

Nearing home, Tibby vouched his first independent observation.

"The hired man's quit!"

"Has he?"

"Yep. Quit this morning."

It had begun to snow. They turned and made their way back to the house. The information she had received did not cause Jill any great apprehension. It was hardly likely that her new duties would include the stoking of the furnace. That and cooking appeared to be the only acts about the house which were outside her present sphere of usefulness.

"He killed a rat once in the wood-shed with an axe," said Tibby chattily. "Yessir! Chopped it right in half, and it bled!"

"Look at the pretty snow falling on the trees," said Jill faintly.

At breakfast next morning, Mrs. Mariner having sneezed, made a suggestion.

"Tibby, darling, wouldn't it be nice if you and cousin Jill played a game of pretending you were pioneers in the Far West?"

"What's a pioneer?" enquired Tibby, pausing in the middle of an act of violence on a plate of oatmeal.

"The pioneers were the early settlers in this country, dear. You have read about them in your history book. They endured a great many hardships, for life was very rough for them, with no railroads or anything. I think it would be a nice game to play this morning."

Tibby looked at Jill. There was doubt in his eye. Jill returned his gaze sympathetically. One thought was in both their minds.

"There is a string to this!" said Tibby's eye.

Mrs. Mariner sneezed again.

"You would have lots of fun," she said.

"What'ud we do?" asked Tibby cautiously. He had been had this way before. Only last summer, on his mother's suggestion that he should pretend he was a shipwrecked sailor on a desert island, he had perspired through a whole afternoon cutting the grass in front of the house to make a shipwrecked sailor's simple bed.

"I know," said Jill. "We'll pretend we're pioneers stormbound in their log cabin in the woods, and the wolves are howling outside, and they daren't go out, so they make a lovely big fire and sit in front of it and read."

"And eat candy," suggested Tibby, warming to the idea.

"And eat candy," agreed Jill.

Mrs. Mariner frowned.

"I was going to suggest," she said frostily, "that you shovelled the snow away from the front steps!"

"Splendid!" said Jill. "Oh, but I forgot. I want to go to the village first."

"There will be plenty of time to do it when you get back."

"All right. I'll do it when I get back."

It was a quarter of an hour's walk to the village. Jill stopped at the post-office.

"Could you tell me," she asked, "when the next train is to New York?"

"There's one at ten-ten," said the woman behind the window. "You'll have to hurry."

"I'll hurry!" said Jill.