Back to Billabong
by Mary Grant Bruce · English · Gutenberg #7047 · 440,457 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Back to Billabong
Author: Mary Grant Bruce
Release date: June 6, 2006 [eBook #7047]
Most recently updated: March 15, 2018
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7047
Credits: Produced by Donald Lainson; David Widger
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BACK TO BILLABONG ***
Produced by Donald Lainson
BACK TO BILLABONG
By Mary Grant Bruce
1921
“Beyond the distant sky-line
(Now pansy-blue and clear),
We know a land is waiting,
A brown land, very dear:
A land of open spaces,
Gaunt forest, treeless plain:
And if we once have loved it
We must come back again.”
(Dorothea Mackellar.)
CONTENTS
CHAP.
I. LANCASTER GATE, LONDON, W
II. THE RAINHAMS
III. PLAYING TRUANT
IV. COMING HOME
V. THE TURN OF FORTUNE'S WHEEL
VI. SAILING ORDERS
VII. THE WATCH DOGS
VIII. HOW TOMMY BOARDED A STRANGE TAXI
IX. THE WELCOME OF AUSTRALIA
X. BILLABONG
XI. COLONIAL EXPERIENCES
XII. ON INFLUENZA AND FURNITURE
XIII. THE HOME ON THE CREEK
XIV. THE CUNJEE RACES
XV. HOW WALLY RODE A RACE
XVI. BUILDING UP AGAIN
BACK TO BILLABONG
CHAPTER I
LANCASTER GATE, LONDON, W
“Do the beastly old map yourself, if you want it. I shan't, anyhow!”
“Wilfred!”
“Aw, Wil-fred!” The boy at the end of the schoolroom table, red-haired,
snub-nosed and defiant, mimicked the protesting tone. “I've done it
once, and I'm blessed if I do it again.”
“No one would dream that it was ever meant for Africa.” The young
teacher glanced at the scrawled and blotted map before her. “It--it
doesn't look like anything earthly. You must do it again, Wilfred.”
“Don't you, Wilf.” Wilfred's sister leaned back in her chair, tilting it
on its hind legs.
“You have nothing to do with Wilfred's work, Avice. Go on with your
French.”
“Done it, thanks,” said Avice. “And I suppose I can speak to my own
brother if I like.”
“No, you can't--in lesson time,” said the teacher.
“Who's going to stop me?”
Cecilia Rainham controlled herself with an effort.
“Bring me your work,” she said.
She went over the untidy French exercise with a quick eye. When she had
finished it resembled a stormy sky--a groundwork of blue-black, blotted
writing, lit by innumerable dashes of red. Cecilia put down her red
pencil.
“It's hopeless, Avice. You haven't tried a bit. And you know it isn't
hard--you did a far more difficult piece of translation without a
mistake last Friday.”
“Yes, but the pantomime was coming off on Saturday,” said Wilfred, with
a grin. “Jolly little chance of tickets from Bob if she didn't!”
“You shut up!” said Avice.
“Be quiet, both of you,” Cecilia ordered, a spot of red in each pale
cheek. “Remember, there will be other Saturdays. Bob will do nothing for
you if I can't give him a decent report of you.” It was the threat she
hated using, but without it she was helpless. And the red-haired pair
before her knew to a fraction the extent of her helplessness.
For the moment the threat was effective. Avice went back to her seat,
taking with her the excited-looking French exercise, while Wilfred
sullenly recommenced a dispirited attack upon the African coastline.
Cecilia leaned back in her chair, and took up a half-knitted sock--to
drop it hastily, as a long-drawn howl came from a low chair by the
window.
“Whatever is the matter, Queenie?”
“I per-ricked my finger,” sobbed the youngest Miss Rainham. She stood
up, tears raining down her plump cheeks. No one, Cecilia thought, ever
cried so easily, so copiously, and so frequently as Queenie. As she
stood holding out a very grubby forefinger, on which appeared a minute
spot of blood, great tears fell in splashes on the dark green linoleum,
while others ran down her face to join them, and others trembled on her
lower eyelids, propelled from some artesian fount within.
“Oh, dry up, Queenie!” said Wilfred irritably. “Anyone 'ud think you'd
cut your silly finger off!”
“Well--it'th bleed-in'!” wailed Queenie. She dabbed the injured member
with the pillow case she was hemming, adding a scarlet touch in pleasant
contrast to its prevailing grime.
“Well--you're too big a girl to cry for a prick,” said Cecilia wearily.
“People who are nearly seven really don't cry except for something
awfully bad.”
“There--I'll tell the mater you said awfully!” Avice jeered. “Who bites
our heads off for using slang, I'd like to know?”
“You wouldn't have much head left if I bit for every slang word you
use,” retorted her half-sister. “Do get on with your French, Avice--it's
nearly half-past twelve, and you know Eliza will want to lay the table
presently. Come here, Queenie.” She took the pillow case, and unpicked
a few stitches, which clearly indicated that the needle had been taking
giant strides. “Just hem that last inch or two again, and see if you
can't make it look nice. I believe the needle only stuck into your
finger because you were making it sew so badly. Have you got a
handkerchief?--but, of course, you haven't.” She polished the fat,
tear-stained cheek with her own. “Now run and sit down again.”
Queenie turned to go obediently enough--she was too young, and possibly
too fat, to plan, as yet, the deliberate malice in which her brother and
sister took their chief pleasure. Unfortunately, Wilfred arrived at the
end of Africa at the wrong moment for her. He pushed the atlas away from
him with a jerk that overturned the ink bottle, sending a stream of ink
towards Avice--who, shoving her chair backwards to escape the deluge,
cannoned into Queenie, and brought her headlong to the floor. Howls
broke out anew, mingled with a crisp interchange of abuse between the
elder pair, while Cecilia vainly sought to lessen the inky flood with a
duster. Upon this pleasant scene the door opened sharply.
“A nice way you keep order at lessons,” said Mrs. Mark Rainham acidly.
“And the ink all over the cloth. Well, all I can say is, you'll pay for
a new one, Cecilia.”
“I did not knock it over,” said Cecilia, in a low tone.
“It's your business to look after the children, and see that they do not
destroy things,” said her stepmother.
“The children will not obey me.”
“Pouf!” said Mrs. Rainham. “A mere question of management. High-spirited
children want tact in dealing with them, that is all. You never
trouble to exercise any tact whatever.” Her eyes dwelt fondly on her
high-spirited son, whose red head was bent attentively over Africa
while he traced a mighty mountain range along the course of the Nile.
“Wilfred, have you nearly finished your work?”
“Nearly, Mater,” said the industrious Wilfred, manufacturing mountains
tirelessly. “Just got to stick in a few more things.”
“Say 'put,' darling, not 'stick.' Cecilia, you might point out those
little details--that is, if you took any interest in their English.”
“Thethilia thaid 'awfully' jutht now,” said Queenie, in a shrill pipe.
“I don't doubt it,” said Mrs. Rainham, bitterly. “Of course, anyone
brought up in Paris is too grand to trouble about English--but we think
a good deal of these things in London.” A little smile hovered on
her thin lips, as Cecilia flushed, and Avice and her brother grinned
broadly. The Mater could always make old Cecilia go as red as a
beetroot, but it was fun to watch, especially when the sport beguiled
the tedium of lessons.
A clatter of dishes on a tray heralded the approach of Eliza.
“It is time the table was clear,” Mrs. Rainham said. “Wilfred, darling,
I want you to post a letter. Put up your work and get your cap. Cecilia,
you had better try to clean the cloth before lunch; it is ruined, of
course, but do what you can with it. I will choose another the next time
I am in London. And just make sure that the children's things are all in
order for the dancing lesson this afternoon. Avice, did you put out your
slippers to be cleaned?”
“Forgot all about it, Mater,” said Avice cheerfully.
“Silly child--and it is Jackson's day off. Just brush them up for her,
Cecilia. When the children have gone this afternoon, I want you to see
to the drawing-room; some people are coming in to-night, and there are
fresh flowers from Brown's to arrange.”
Cecilia looked up, with a sudden flush of dismay. The children's dancing
lesson gave her one free afternoon during the week.
“But--but I am going to meet Bob,” she stammered.
“Oh, Bob will wait, no doubt; you need not keep him long, if you hasten
yourself. Yes, Eliza, you can have the table.” Mrs. Rainham left the
room, with the children at her heels.
Cecilia whisked the lesson books hastily away; Eliza was waiting with a
lowering brow, and Eliza was by no means a person to be offended. Maids
were scarce enough in England in the months after the end of the
war; and, even in easier times, there had been a dreary procession
of arriving and departing servants in the Rainham household--the
high-spirited characteristics of the children being apt to pall quickly
upon anyone but their mother. In days when there happened to be no
Eliza, it was Cecilia who naturally inherited the vacant place, adding
the duties of house-maid to those of nurse, governess, companion and
general factotum; all exacting posts, and all of them unpaid. As Mrs.
Rainham gracefully remarked, when a girl was not earning her own living,
as so many were, but was enjoying the comfort of home, the least she
could do was to make herself useful.
“Half a minute, Eliza.” She smiled at the slatternly girl. “Sorry to
keep you waiting; there's a river of ink gone astray here.” She placed
the soaked cloth on the waste-paper basket and polished the top of the
table vigorously.
“I'll bet it worn't you wot spilt it--but it's you wot 'as the cleanin'
up,” muttered Eliza. “Lemme rub that up now, Miss.” She put down her
tray and took the cloth from Cecilia's hand.
“Thanks, ever so, Eliza--but you've got plenty to do yourself.”
“Well, if I 'ave, I ain't the on'y one wot 'as,” said Eliza darkly.
Her wizened little face suddenly flushed. “Lor, Miss,” she said
confidentially, “you doan't know wot a success that 'at you trimmed for
me is. It's a fair scream. I wore it larst night, an' me young man--'im
wot's in the Royal Irish--well, it fair knocked 'im! An' 'e wants me to
go out wiv 'im next Benk 'Oliday--out to 'Ampstead 'Eath. 'E never got
as far as arstin' me that before. I know it was that 'at wot done it.”
“Not it, Eliza,” Cecilia laughed. “It was just your hair under the hat.
I told you how pretty it would be, if you would only brush it more.”
“Well, I never 'ad no brush till you give me your old one,” said Eliza
practically. “I did brush it, though, a nundred times every night, till
Cook reckoned I was fair cracked. But 'air's on'y 'air, an' anyone 'as
it--it's not every one 'as an 'at like that.” She clattered plates upon
the table violently. “You goin' out this awfternoon, Miss?”
“As soon as I can, Eliza.” Cecilia's face fell. “I must arrange flowers
first.”
“I'll 'ave the vawses all ready wiv clean water for you,” said Eliza.
“An' don't you worry about the drorin'-room--I'll see as it's nice.”
“Oh, you can't, Eliza--you have no time. I know it's silver-cleaning
afternoon.”
“Aw, I'll squeeze it in some'ow.” Eliza stopped suddenly, at a decided
footstep in the passage, and began to rattle spoons and forks with a
vigour born of long practice. Cecilia picked up the inky cloth, and went
out.
Her stepmother was standing by the hall-stand, apparently intent on
examining Wilfred's straw hat. She spoke in a low tone as the girl
passed her.
“I wish you did not find so much pleasure in gossiping with servants,
Cecilia. It is such a bad example for Avice. I have spoken about it to
you before.”
Cecilia did not answer. She went upstairs with flaming cheeks, and
draped the cloth across the hand basin in the bathroom, turning the tap
vengefully. A stream of water flowed through the wide stain.
“There's more real kindness in that poor little Cockney's finger than
there is in your whole body!” Cecilia whispered, apparently addressing
the unoffending cloth--which, having begun life as a dingy green and
black, did not seem greatly the worse for its new decoration. “Hateful
old thing!” A smile suddenly twitched the corners of her mouth.
“Well, she can't stop the money for a new cloth out of this quarter's
allowance, because I've just got it. That's luck, anyhow. I'll give it
to Bob to keep, in case she goes through my desk again.” She poured some
ammonia upon the stain, and rubbed gingerly, surveying the result with a
tilted nose. It was not successful. “Shall I try petrol? But petrol's
an awful price, and I've only got the little bottle I use for my gloves.
Anyhow, the horrible old cloth is so old and thin that it will fall to
pieces if I rub it. Oh, it's no use bothering about it--nothing will
make it better.” She squeezed the water from the cloth and spread the
stained area over a chair to dry, looking disgustedly at her own dyed
finger-nails. “Now for Avice's shoes before I scrub my hands.”
Avice's shoes proved a lengthy task, since the younger Miss Rainham had
apparently discovered some clay to walk through in Regent's Park on her
way home from the last dancing lesson; and well-hardened clay resists
ordinary cleaning methods, and demands edged tools. The luncheon bell
rang loudly before Cecilia had finished. She gave the shoes a final
hurried rub, and then fell to cleansing her hands; arriving in the
dining-room, pink and breathless, some minutes later, to find a dreary
piece of tepid mutton rapidly congealing on her plate.
“I think you might manage to be down in time for meals, Cecilia,” was
Mrs. Rainham's chilly greeting.
Cecilia said nothing. She had long realized the uselessness of any
excuses. To be answered merely gave her stepmother occasion for further
fault-finding--you might, as Cecilia told Bob, have a flawless defence
for the sin of the moment, but in that case Mrs. Rainham merely changed
her ground, and waxed eloquent about the sin of yesterday, or of last
Friday week, for which there might happen to be no defence at all. It
was so difficult to avoid being a criminal in Mrs. Rainham's eyes that
Cecilia had almost given up the attempt. She attacked her greasy
mutton and sloppy cabbage in silence, unpleasantly conscious of her
stepmother's freezing glance.
Mrs. Rainham was a short, stout woman, with colourless, rather pinched
features, and a wealth of glorious red hair. Some one had once told her
that her profile was classic, and she still rejoiced in believing it,
was always photographed from a side view, and wore in the house loose
and flowing garments of strange tints, calculated to bring out the
colour of her glowing tresses. Cecilia, who worshipped colour with every
bit of her artist soul, adored her stepmother's hair as thoroughly as
she detested her dresses. Bob, who was blunt and inartistic, merely
detested her from every point of view. “Don't see what you find to rave
about in it,” he said. “All the warmth of her disposition has simply
gone to her head.”
There was certainly little warmth in Mrs. Rainham's heart, where her
stepdaughter was concerned. She disapproved very thoroughly of Cecilia
in every detail--of her pretty face and delicate colouring, of the fair
hair that rippled and curled and gleamed in a manner so light-hearted as
to seem distinctly out of place in the dingy room, of the slender grace
that was in vivid contrast to her own stoutness. She resented the very
way Cecilia put on her clothes--simple clothes, but worn with an air
that made her own elaborate dresses cheap and common by comparison. It
was so easy for her to look well turned out; and it would never be easy
to dress Avice, who bade fair to resemble her mother in build, and had
already a passion for frills and trimmings, and a contempt for plain
things. Mrs. Rainham had an uneasy conviction that the girl who bore all
her scathing comments in silence actually dared to criticize her in
her own mind--perhaps openly to Bob, whose blue eyes held many unspoken
things as he looked at her. Once she had overheard him say to Cecilia:
“She looks like an over-ornamented pie!” Cecilia had laughed, and Mrs.
Rainham had passed on, unsuspected, her mind full of a wild surmise.
They would never dare to mean her--and yet--that new dress of hers was
plastered with queer little bits of purposeless trimmings. She never
again wore it without that terrible sentence creeping into her mind.
And she had been so pleased with it, too! An over-ornamented pie. If she
could only have been sure they meant her!
She thought of it again as she sat looking at Cecilia. The new dress was
lying on her bed, ready to be worn that afternoon; and Cecilia was going
to meet Bob--Bob, who had uttered the horrible remark. Well, at least
there should be no haste about the meeting. It would do Bob no harm to
cool his heels for a little. She set her thin lips tightly together, as
she helped the rice pudding.
The meal ended, amidst loud grumbles from Wilfred that the pudding was
rice; and Cecilia hurried off to find the flowers and arrange them. The
florist's box was near the vases left ready by the faithful Eliza; she
cut the string with a happy exclamation of “Daffodils!” as she lifted
the lid. Daffodils were always a joy; this afternoon they were doubly
welcome, because easy to arrange. She sorted them into long-necked vases
swiftly, carrying each vase, when filled, to the drawing-room--a painful
apartment, crowded with knick-knacks until it resembled a bazaar stall,
with knobby and unsteady bamboo furniture and much drapery of a would-be
artistic nature. It was stuffy and airless. Cecilia wrinkled her pretty
nose as she entered. Mrs. Rainham held pronounced views on the subject
of what she termed the “fresh-air fad,” and declined to let London
air--a smoky commodity at best--attack her cherished carpets; with the
result that Cecilia breathed freely only in her little attic, which had
no carpet at all.
The lady of the house rustled in, in her flowing robe, as Cecilia put
the last vase into position on the piano--finding room for it with
difficulty amid a collection of photograph frames and china ornaments.
She carried some music, and cast a critical eye round the room.
“This place looks as if it had not been properly dusted for a week,”
she remarked. “See to it before you go, Cecilia.” She opened the
piano. “Just come and try the accompaniment to this song--it's rather
difficult, and I want to sing it to-night.”
Cecilia sat down before the piano, with woe in her heart. Her
stepmother's delusion that she could sing was one of the minor trials of
her life. She had been thoroughly trained in Paris, under a master who
had prophesied great things for her; now her hours at the Rainhams'
tinkly piano, playing dreary accompaniments to sentimental songs with
Mrs. Rainham's weak soprano wobbling and flattening on the high notes,
were hours of real distress, from which she would escape feeling her
teeth on edge. Her stepmother, however, had thoroughly enjoyed herself
since the discovery that no accompaniment presented any difficulty to
Cecilia. It saved her a world of trouble in practising; moreover, when
standing, it was far easier to let herself go in the affecting passages,
which always suffered from scantiness of breath when she was sitting
down. Therefore she would stand beside Cecilia, pouring forth song after
song, with her head slightly on one side, and one hand resting lightly
on the piano--an attitude which, after experiment with a mirror, she had
decided upon as especially becoming.
The song of the moment did make some demands upon her attention. It
had a disconcerting way of changing from sharps to flats; trouble being
caused by the singer failing to change also. Cecilia took her through it
patiently, going over and over again the tricky passages, and devoutly
wishing that Providence in supplying her stepmother with boundless
energy, a tireless voice and an enormous stock of songs, had also
equipped her with an ear for music. At length the lady desisted from her
efforts.
“That's quite all right,” she said, with satisfaction. “I'll sing it
to-night. The Simons will be here, and they do like to hear what's new.
Go on with your dusting; I'll just run through a few pieces, and you can
tell me if I go wrong.”
Cecilia hesitated, glancing at the clock.
“It is getting very late,” she said. “Eliza told me she could dust the
room.”
“Eliza!” said Mrs. Rainham. “Why, it's her silver day; she had no
business to tell you anything of the sort--and neither had you, to ask
her to do it. Goodness knows it's hard enough to make the lazy thing do
her own work. Just get your duster, and make sure as you come down that
the children are properly dressed for the dancing class.” She broke into
a waltz.
Cecilia ran. Sounds of woe greeted her as she neared Avice's room,
and she entered, to find that damsel plunged in despair over a missing
button.
“It was on all right last time I wore the beastly dress,” wailed she.
“If you'd look after my clothes like Mater said you had to, I wouldn't
be late. Whatever am I to do? I can't make the old dress shut with a
safety pin.”
“No, you certainly can't,” said her half-sister. “Never mind; there are
spare buttons for that frock, and I can sew one on.” She accomplished
the task with difficulty, since Avice appeared quite unable to stand
still.
“Now, are you ready, Avice? Shoes, hat, gloves--where are your gloves?
How do you ever manage to find anything in that drawer?” She rooted
swiftly in a wild chaos, and finally unearthed the gloves. “Yes, you'll
do. Now, where's Wilfred?” Search revealed Wilfred, who hated dancing,
reading a “penny dreadful” in his room--ready to start, save for the
trifling detail of having neglected to wash an extremely dirty face.
Cecilia managed to make him repair the omission, after a struggle,
and saw them off with a thankful heart--which sank anew as she heard
a neighbouring clock strike three. Three--and already she should be
meeting Bob in Hyde Park. She fled for a duster, and hurried to the
drawing-room. Eliza encountered her on the way.
“Now, wotcher goin' to do wiv that duster, Miss?” she inquired. “I told
yer I'd do it for yer.”
“Mrs. Rainham is waiting for me to do it, Eliza. I'm sorry.”
“Ow!” Eliza's expression and her tilted nose spoke volumes. “Suppose
she finks I wouldn't clean 'er old silver proper. Silver,
indeed!--'lectrer-plyte, an' common at that. Just you cut and run as
soon as she's out of the 'ouse, Miss; I know she's goin', 'cause 'er
green and yaller dress is a-airin' on 'er bed.”
“It's not much good, Eliza. I ought to be in the Park now.” Cecilia
knew she should not allow the girl to speak of her mistress so
contemptuously. But she was disheartened enough at the moment not to
care.
“Lor!” said Eliza. “A bloomin' shyme, I calls it!”
Cecilia found her stepmother happily engaged upon a succession of wrong
notes that made her wince. She dusted the room swiftly, aware all the
time of a watchful eye. Occasionally came a crisp comment: “You didn't
dust that window-sill.” “Cecilia, that table has four legs--did you only
notice two?”--the effort to speak while playing generally bringing the
performer with vigour upon a wrong chord. The so-called music became
almost a physical torment to the over-strained girl.
“If she would only stop--if she would only go away!” she found herself
murmuring, over and over. Even the thought of Bob waiting in Hyde Park
in the chill east wind became dim beside that horrible piano, banging
and tinkling in her ear. She dusted mechanically, picking up one cheap
ornament after another--leaving the collection upon the piano until the
last, in the hope that by the time she reached it the thirst for
music would have departed from the performer. But Mrs. Rainham's tea
appointment was not yet; she was thoroughly enjoying herself, the charm
of her own execution added to the knowledge that Cecilia was miserable,
and Bob waiting somewhere, with what patience he might. She held on
to the bitter end, while the girl dusted the piano's burden with a set
face. Then she finished a long and painful run, and shut the piano with
a bang.
“There--I've had quite a nice practice, and it isn't often the
drawing-room gets really decently dusted,” she remarked. “Nothing like
the eye of the mistress; I think I must practise every day while you are
dusting, Cecilia. Oh, and, Cecilia, give the legs of the piano a good
rubbing. Dear me, I must go and dress.”
Cecilia dragged herself upstairs a few minutes later. All the spring was
gone out of her; it really did not seem to matter much now whether she
met Bob or not; she was too tired to care. This was only a sample of
many days; so it had been for two years--so it would be for two more,
until she was twenty-one, and her own mistress. But it did not seem
possible that she could endure through another two years.
She reached her own room, and was about to shut the door, when the harsh
voice rasped upwards.
“Cecilia! Cecilia! Come here a minute.”
The girl went down slowly. Mrs. Rainham was standing before her mirror.
“Just come and hook my dress, Cecilia. This new dressmaker has a knack
of making everything hard to fasten. There--see that you start with the
right hook and eye.”
At the moment, physical contact with her stepmother was almost the last
straw for the girl. She obeyed in silence, shrinking back as far as she
could from the stout, over-scented body and the powdered face with the
thin lips. Mrs. Rainham watched her with a little smile.
“Yes, that's all right,” she said. “Now, my hat, Cecilia--it's in the
bandbox under the bed. I can't stoop in this dress, that's the worst
of it. And my gloves are in that box on the chest of drawers--the white
pair. Hurry, Cecilia, my appointment is for four o'clock.”
“Mine was for three o'clock,” said the girl in a low voice.
“Oh, well, you should manage your work better. I always tell you that.
Nothing like method in getting through every day. However, Bob is only
your brother--it would be more serious if it was a young man you were
meeting. Brothers don't matter much.”
Cecilia flamed round upon her.
“Bob is more to me than anyone in the world,” she cried. “And I would
rather keep any other man waiting.”
“Really? But I shouldn't think it very likely that you'll ever have to
trouble about other young men, Cecilia; you're not the sort. Too thin
and scraggy.” Mrs. Rainham surveyed her own generous proportions in the
glass, and gathered up her gloves with a pleased air. For the moment she
could not possibly believe that anyone could have referred to her as “an
over-ornamented pie.” “Good-bye, Cecilia; don't be late for tea.” She
sailed down the stairs.
Even the bang of the hall door failed to convey any relief to Cecilia.
For the second time she toiled upstairs, to the bare freshness of her
little room. Generally, it had a tonic effect upon her; to-day it seemed
that nothing could help her. She leaned her head against the window,
a wave of homesick loneliness flooding all her soul. So deep were its
waters that she did not hear the hall door open and close again, and
presently swift feet pounding up the stairs. Someone battered on her
door.
“Cecilia! Are you there?”
She ran to open the door. Bob stood there, a short, muscular fellow, in
Air Force blue, with twinkling eyes. She put out her hands to him with a
little pitiful gesture.
“Don't say that horrible name again,” she whispered. “If anyone else
calls me Cecilia I'll just go mad.”
Bob came in, and flung a brotherly arm round her shoulders.
“Has it been so beastly?” he said. “Poor little Tommy. Oh, Tommy, I saw
the over-ornamented pie sailing down the street, and I dived into a side
alley until she'd gone out of range. I guessed from her proud and happy
face that you'd been scarified.”
“Scarified!” murmured Cecilia. But Bob was not listening. His face was
radiant.
“I couldn't wait in the park any longer,” he said. “I had to come and
tell you. Tommy, old thing--I'm demobilized!”
CHAPTER II
THE RAINHAMS
It was one of Mrs. Mark Rainham's grievances that, comparatively late
in her married life, she should suddenly find herself brought into
association with the children of her husband's first marriage. They were
problems that Fate had previously removed from her path; she found it
extremely annoying--at first--that Fate should cease to be so tactful,
casting upon her a burden long borne by other shoulders. It was not
until she had accepted Mark Rainham, eleven years before, that she found
out the very existence of Bob and Cecilia; she resented the manner of
the discovery, even as she resented the children themselves. Not that
she ever dreamed of breaking off her engagement on their account. She
was a milliner in a Kensington shop, and to marry Mark Rainham, who
was vaguely “something in the city,” and belonged to a good club, and
dressed well, was a distinct step in the social scale, and two unknown
children were not going to make her draw back. But to mother them was
quite another question.
Luckily, Fate had a compassionate eye upon the young Rainhams, and was
quite willing to second their stepmother's resolve that they should come
into her life as little as possible. Their father had never concerned
himself greatly about them. A lazy and selfish man, he had always been
willing to shelve the care of his small son and daughter--babies were
not in his line, and the aunt who had brought up their mother was only
too anxious to take Bob and Cecilia when that girl-mother had slipped
away from life, leaving a week-old Cecilia and a sturdy, solemn Bob of
three.
The arrangement suited Mark Rainham very well. Aunt Margaret's house
at Twickenham was big enough for half a dozen babies; the children went
there, with their nurse, and he was free to slip back into bachelor
ways, living in comfortable chambers within easy reach of his club and
not too far, with a good train service, from a golf links. The regular
week-end visits to the babies suffered occasional interruptions, and
gradually grew fewer and fewer, until he became to the children a vague
and mysterious person named Papa, who dropped from the skies now
and then, asked them a number of silly questions, talked with great
politeness to Aunt Margaret--who, they instinctively felt, liked him
no better than they did--and then disappeared, whereupon every one
was immensely relieved. Even the fact that he generally brought them a
packet of expensive sweets was as nothing beside the harrowing knowledge
that they must kiss him, thereby having their faces brushed with a large
and scrubby moustache. Aunt Margaret and nurse did not have to endure
this infliction--which seemed to Bob and Cecilia obviously unfair. But
the visits did not often happen--not enough to disturb seriously an
existence crammed with interesting things like puppies and kittens, the
pony cart, boats on the river that ran just beyond the lawn, occasional
trips to London and the Zoo, and delirious fortnights at the seaside
or on Devonshire moors. Cecilia had never known even Bobby's shadowy
memories of their own mother. Aunt Margaret was everything that
mattered, and the person called Papa was merely an unpleasant incident.
Other little boys and girls whom they knew owned, in their houses,
delightful people named Daddy and Mother; but Cecilia and Bob quite
understood that every one could not have the same things, for possibly
these fortunate children had no puppies or pony carts. Nurse had pointed
out this, so that it was perfectly clear.
It was when Cecilia was eight and Bob eleven, that their father married
again. To the children it meant nothing; to Aunt Margaret it was a bomb.
If Mark Rainham had happened to die, or go to the North Pole, she would
have borne the occurrence calmly; but that he should take a step which
might mean separating her from her beloved babies shook her to her
foundations. Even when she was assured that the new Mrs. Rainham
disliked children, and had not the slightest intention of adding Bob and
Cecilia to her household, Aunt Margaret remained uneasy. The red-haired
person, as she mentally labelled her, might change her mind. Mark
Rainham was wax in her hands, and would always do as he was told. Aunt
Margaret, goaded by fear, became heroic. She let the beloved house at
Twickenham while Mr. and Mrs. Rainham were still on their honeymoon;
packed up the children, her maids, nurse, the parrot and most of the
puppies; and kept all her plans a profound secret until she was safely
established in Paris.
To the average Londoner, Paris is very far off. There are, of course,
very many people who run across the Channel as easily as a Melbourne man
may week-end in Gippsland or Bendigo, but the suburban section of
London is not fond of voyaging across a strip of water with unpleasant
possibilities in the way of choppiness, to a strange country where most
of the inhabitants have the bad taste not to speak English. Neither Mark
Rainham nor his new wife had ever been in France, and to them it seemed,
as Aunt Margaret had shrewdly hoped it would, almost as though the
Twickenham household had gone to the North Pole. A great relief fell
upon them, since there could now be no question of assuming duties
when those duties were suddenly beyond their reach. And Aunt Margaret's
letter was convincing--such a good offer, suddenly, for the Twickenham
house; such excellent educational opportunities for the children, in
the shape of semi-English schools, where Bob and Cecilia might mix with
English children and retain their nationality while acquiring Parisian
French. If Mark Rainham felt any inward resentment at the summary
disposal of his son and daughter, he did not show it; as of old, it was
easier to let things slide. Aunt Margaret was given a free hand, save
that at fourteen Bob returned to school in England; an arrangement that
mattered little, since all his holidays were spent at the new home at
Fontainebleau--a house which, even to the parrot, was highly reminiscent
of Twickenham.
Bob and Cecilia found life extremely interesting. They were cheery,
happy-go-lucky youngsters, with an immense capacity for enjoyment; and
Aunt Margaret, while much too shrewd an old lady to spoil children,
delighted in giving them a good time. They found plenty of friends in
the little English community in Paris, as well as among their French
neighbours. Paris itself was full of fascination; then there were
wonderful excursions far afield--holidays in Brussels, in the South
of France, even winter sporting in Switzerland. Aunt Margaret was
determined that her nurselings should miss nothing that she could give
them. The duty letters which she insisted on their writing, once a
month, to their father told of happenings that seemed strangely remote
from the humdrum life of London. “By Jove, the old lady gives those
youngsters a good time!” Mark Rainham would comment, tossing them across
the table to his wife. He did not guess at the dull rage that filled her
as she read them--the unreasoning jealousy that these children should
have opportunities so far beyond any that were likely to occur for her
own, who squabbled angrily over their breakfast while she read.
“She seems to have any amount of money to spend on gadding about,” she
would say unpleasantly.
“Oh, pots of money. Wish to goodness I had some of it,” her husband
would answer. Money was always scarce in the Rainham household.
When the thunderbolt of war fell upon the world, Aunt Margaret, after
the first pangs of panic, stiffened her back, and declined to leave
France. England, she declared, was not much safer than anywhere else;
and was it likely that she and Cecilia would run away when Bob was
coming back? Bob, just eighteen, captain of his school training corps,
stroke of its racing boat, and a mighty man of valour at football, slid
naturally into khaki within a month of the outbreak of war, putting
aside toys, with all the glad company of boys of the Empire, until such
time as the Hun should be taught that he had no place among white men.
Aunt Margaret and Cecilia, knitting frantically at socks and mufflers
and Balaclava helmets, were desperately proud of him, and compared his
photograph, in uniform, with all the pictures of Etienne and Henri and
Armand, and other French boys who had played with him under the trees at
Fontainebleau, and had now marched away to join him at the greater game.
It was difficult to realize that they were not still little boys in
blouses and knickerbockers--difficult even when they swooped down from
time to time on short leave, filling the quiet houses with pranks and
laughter that were wholly boyish. Even when Bob had two stars on
his cuff, and wore the ribbon of the Military Cross, it would have
astonished Aunt Margaret and Cecilia very much had anyone suggested that
he was grown up.
Indeed, Aunt Margaret was never to think of him as anything but “one of
the children.” Illness, sudden and fierce, fell upon her after a long
spell of duty at the hospital where she worked from the first few months
of the war--working as cook, since she had no nursing experience, and
was, she remarked, too old to learn a new trade. Brave as she was, there
was no battling for her against the new foe; she faded out of life after
a few days, holding Cecilia's hand very tightly until the end.
Bob, obtaining leave with much difficulty, arrived a few days later, to
find a piteous Cecilia, white-faced, stunned and bewildered. She pleaded
desperately against leaving France; amidst all the horror and chaos that
had fallen upon her, it seemed unthinkable that she should put the sea
between herself and Bob. But to remain was impossible. Aunt Margaret's
English maids wanted to go back to their friends, and a girl of
seventeen could scarcely stay alone in a country torn by two years of
war. Besides, Aunt Margaret's affairs were queerly indefinite; there
seemed very little money where there had formerly been plenty. There was
no alternative for Cecilia but England--and England meant the Rainham
household, and such welcome as it might choose to give her.
She was still bewildered when they made the brief journey across the
Channel--a new Channel, peopled only with war-ships of every kind, from
grim Dreadnoughts to submarines; with aircraft, bearing the red, white
and blue circles of Britain, floating and circling overhead. Last time
Cecilia had crossed, it had been with Aunt Margaret on a big turbine
mail boat; they had reached Calais just as an excursion steamer from
Margate came up, gay with flags and light dresses, with a band playing
ragtime on the well-deck, and people dancing to a concertina at the
stern. Now they zig-zagged across, sometimes at full speed, sometimes
stopping dead or altering their course in obedience to the destroyer
nosing ahead of them through the Channel mist; and she could see the
face of the captain on the bridge, strained and anxious. There were
so few civilians on board that Cecilia and the two old servants were
greeted with curious stares; nearly all the passengers were in uniform,
their boots caked with the mud of the trenches, their khaki soiled with
the grime of war. It was all rather dream-like to Cecilia; and London
itself was a very bad dream; darkened and silent, with the great beams
of searchlights playing back and forth over the black skies in search of
marauding Zeppelins. And then came her father's stiff greeting, and the
silent drive to the tall, narrow house in Lancaster Gate, where Mrs.
Rainham met her coldly. In after years Cecilia never could think without
a shudder of that first meal in her father's house--the struggle to
eat, the lagging talk round the table, with Avice and Wilfred, frankly
hostile, staring at her in silence, and her stepmother's pale eyes
appraising every detail of her dress. It was almost like happiness again
to find herself alone, later; in a dingy little attic bedroom that smelt
as though it had never known an open window--a sorry little hole, but
still, out of the reach of those unblinking eyes.
For the first year Cecilia had struggled to get away to earn her own
living. But a very few weeks served to show Mrs. Rainham that chance
had sent her, in the person of the girl whose coming she had sullenly
resented, a very useful buffer against any period of domestic stress.
Aunt Margaret had trained Cecilia thoroughly in all housewifely virtues,
and her half-French education had given her much that was lacking in
the stodgy damsels of Mrs. Rainham's acquaintance. She was quick
and courteous and willing; responding, moreover, to the lash of the
tongue--after her first wide-eyed stare of utter amazement--exactly as a
well-bred colt responds to a deftly-used whip. “I'll keep her,” was Mrs.
Rainham's inward resolve. “And she'll earn her keep too!”
There was no doubt that Cecilia did that. Wilfred and Avice saw to it,
even had not their mother been fully capable of exacting the last ounce
from the only helper she had ever had who had not the power to give her
a week's notice. Cecilia's first requests to be allowed to take up work
outside had been shelved vaguely. “We'll find some nice war-work for
you presently”. . . and meanwhile, the household was short-handed, Mrs.
Rainham was overstrained--Cecilia found later that her stepmother was
always “overstrained” whenever she spoke of leaving home--and duties
multiplied about her and hemmed her in. Mrs. Rainham was clever; the net
closed round the girl so gradually that she scarcely realized its meshes
until they were drawn tightly. Even Bob helped. “You're awfully young
to start work on your own account,” he wrote. “Can't you stick it for
a bit, if they are decent to you?” And, rather than cause him any extra
worry, Cecilia decided that she must “stick it.”
Of her father she saw little. He was, just as she remembered him in her
far-back childhood at Twickenham, vague and colourless. Rather to her
horror, she found that the ordeal of being kissed by his large and
scrubby moustache was just as unpleasant as ever. Cecilia had no idea
of how he earned his living--he ate his breakfast hurriedly, concealed
behind the Daily Mail, and then disappeared, bound for some mysterious
place in the city--the part of London that was always full of mystery to
Cecilia. Golf was the one thing that roused him to any enthusiasm, and
golf was even more of a mystery than the city. Cecilia knew that it
was played with assorted weapons, kept in a bag, and used for smiting
a small ball over great expanses of country, but beyond these facts her
knowledge stopped. Mrs. Rainham had set her to clean the clubs one day,
but her father, appearing unexpectedly, had taken them from her hands
with something like roughness. “No, by Jove!” he said. “You do a good
many odd jobs in this house, but I'm hanged if you shall clean my golf
sticks.” Cecilia did not realize that the assumed roughness covered
something very like shame.
Money matters were rather confusing. A lawyer--also in the city--paid
her a small sum quarterly--enough to dress on, and for minor expenses.
Bob wrote that Aunt Margaret's affairs were in a beastly tangle. An
annuity had died with her, and many of her investments had been hit by
the war, and had ceased to pay dividends--had even, it seemed, ceased to
be valuable at all. There was a small allowance for Bob also, and some
day, if luck should turn, there might be a little more. Bob did not say
that his own allowance was being hoarded for Cecilia, in case he “went
west.” He lived on his pay, and even managed to save something out of
that, being a youth of simple tastes. His battalion had been practically
wiped out of existence in the third year of the war, and after a
peaceful month in a north country hospital, near an aerodrome, the call
of the air was too much for him--he joined the cheerful band of flying
men, and soon filled his letters to Cecilia with a bewildering mixture
of technicalities and aviation slang that left her gasping. But he
got his wings in a very short time, and she was prouder of him than
ever--and more than ever desperately afraid for him.
The children's daily governess, a down-trodden person, left after
Cecilia had been in England for a few months, and the girl stepped
naturally into the vacant position until some one else should be found.
She had no idea that Mrs. Rainham made no effort at all to discover any
other successor to Miss Simpkins. Where, indeed, Mrs. Rainham
demanded of herself, would she be likely to find anyone with such
qualifications--young, docile, with every advantage of a modern
education, speaking French like a native, and above and beyond all else,
requiring no pay? It would be flying in the face of Providence to ignore
such a chance. Wherefore Cecilia continued to lead her step-sisters
and brother in the paths of learning, and life became a thing of utter
weariness. For Mrs. Rainham, though shrewd enough to get what she
wanted, in the main was not a far-sighted woman; and in her unreasoning
dislike and jealousy of Cecilia she failed to see that she defeated her
own ends by making her a drudge. Whatever benefit the girl might have
given the children was lost in their contempt for her. She had no
authority, no power to enforce a command, or to give a punishment,
and the children quickly discovered that, so long as they gave her the
merest show of obedience in their mother's presence, any shortcomings in
education would be laid at Cecilia's door. Lesson time became a period
of rare sport for the young Rainhams; it was so easy to bait the new
sister with cheap taunts, to watch the quick blood mount to the very
roots of her fair hair, to do just as little as possible, and then to
see her blamed for the result. Mrs. Rainham's bitter tongue grew more
and more uncontrolled as time went on and she felt the girl more fully
in her power. And Cecilia lived through each day with tight-shut lips,
conscious of one clear thing in her mist of unhappy bewilderment--that
Bob must not know: Bob, who would probably leave his job of skimming
through the air of her beloved France after the Hun, and snatch an hour
to fly to England and annihilate the entire Rainham household, returning
with Cecilia tucked away somewhere in his aeroplane. It was a pleasant
dream, and served to carry her through more than one hard moment. But it
did not always serve; and there were nights when Cecilia mounted to her
attic with dragging footsteps, to sit by her window in the darkness,
gripping her courage with both hands, afraid to let herself think of the
dear, happy past; of Aunt Margaret, whose very voice was love; least of
all of Bob, perhaps even now flying in the dark over the German lines.
There was but one thing that she could hold to: she voiced it to
herself, over and over with clenched hands, “It can't last for ever! It
can't last for ever!”
And then, after the long years of clutching anxiety, came the Armistice,
and Cecilia forgot all her troubles in its overwhelming relief. No one
would shoot at Bob any longer; there were no more hideous, squat guns,
with muzzles yawning skywards, ready to shell him as he skimmed high
overhead, like a swallow in the blue. Therefore she sang as she went
about her work, undismayed by the laboured witticisms of Avice
and Wilfred, or by Mrs. Rainham's venom, which increased with the
realization that her victim might possibly slip from her grasp, since
Bob would come home, and Bob was a person to be reckoned with. Certainly
Bob had scarcely any money; moreover, Cecilia was not of age, and,
therefore, still under her father's control. But Mrs. Rainham felt
vaguely uneasy, and visions floated before her of the old days when
governesses and maids had departed with unpleasant frequency, leaving
her to face all sorts of disagreeable consequences. She set her thin
lips, vowing inwardly that Cecilia should remain.
Nevertheless it was a relief to her that early demobilization did
not come for Bob. At the time of the Armistice he was attached to an
Australian flying squadron, and for some months remained abroad; then he
was sent back to England, and employed in training younger fliers at a
Surrey aerodrome. This had its drawbacks in Mrs. Rainham's eyes, since
he was often able to run up to London, and, to Bob, London merely meant
Cecilia. It was only a question of time before he discovered something
of what life at Lancaster Gate meant--his enlightenment beginning upon
an afternoon when, arriving unexpectedly, and being left by Eliza to
find Cecilia for himself, he had the good fortune to overhear Mrs.
Rainham in one of her best efforts--a “wigging” to which Avice and
Wilfred were listening delightedly, and which included not only
Cecilia's sin of the moment, but her upbringing, her French education,
her “foreign fashion of speaking,” and her sinful extravagance in
shoes. These, and other matters, were furnishing Mrs. Rainham with
ample material for a bitter discourse when she became aware of another
presence in the room, and her eloquence faltered at the sight of Bob's
astonished anger.
Mrs. Rainham did not recall with any enjoyment the interview which
followed--Cecilia and the children having been brushed out of the way
by the indignant soldier. Things which had been puzzling to Bob
were suddenly made clear--traces of distress which Cecilia had often
explained away vaguely, the children's half-contemptuous manner towards
her, even Eliza's tone in speaking of her--a queer blend of anger and
pity. Mrs. Rainham held her ground to some extent, but the brother's
questions were hard to parry, and some of his comments stung.
“Well, I'll take her away,” he stormed at length. “It's evident that she
does not give you satisfaction, and she certainly isn't happy. She had
better come away with me to-day.”
“Ah,” said his stepmother freezingly, “and where will you take her?”
Bob hesitated.
“There are plenty of places--” he began.
“Not for a young girl alone. Cecilia is very ignorant of England;
you could not be with her. Your father would not hear of it. You must
remember that Cecilia is under his control until she is twenty-one.”
“My father has never bothered about either of us,” Bob said bitterly.
“He surely won't object if I take her off your hands.”
“He will certainly not permit any such thing. Whatever arrangement he
made during your aunt's lifetime was quite a different matter. If you
attempt to take Cecilia from his control you commit an illegal action,”
said Mrs. Rainham--hoping she was on safe ground. To her relief Bob did
not contradict her. English law and its mysteries were beyond him.
“I don't see that that matters,” he began doubtfully. His stepmother cut
him short.
“You would very soon find that it matters a good deal,” she said coldly.
“It would be quite simple for your father to get some kind of legal
injunction, forbidding you to interfere with your sister. Home training
is what she needs, and we are determined that she shall get it. You will
only unsettle and injure her by trying to induce her to disobey us.”
The hard voice fell like lead on the boy's ears. He felt very helpless;
if he did indeed snatch his sister away from this extremely unpleasant
home, and their father had only to stretch out a long, legal tentacle
and claw her back, it was clear that her position would be harder than
ever. He could only give in, at any rate, for the present, and in his
anxiety for the little sister whom Aunt Margaret had always trained him
to protect, he humbled himself to beg for better treatment for her. “No
one ever was angry with her,” he said. “She'll do anything for you if
you're decent to her.”
“She might give less cause for annoyance if she had had a little
more severity,” said Mrs. Rainham with an unspoken sneer at poor Aunt
Margaret. “You had better advise her to do her best in return for the
very comfortable home we give her.” With which Bob had to endeavour
to be content, for the present. He went off to find Cecilia, with a
lowering brow, leaving his stepmother not nearly so easy in her mind as
she seemed. For Bob had a square jaw, and was apt to talk little and do
a good deal; and his affection for Cecilia was, in Mrs. Rainham's eyes,
little short of ridiculous.
Thereafter, the brother and sister took counsel together and made great
plans for the future, when once the Air Force should decide that it had
no further wish to keep Captain Robert Rainham from earning his living
on terra firma. What that future was to be for Bob was very difficult to
plan. Aunt Margaret had intended him for a profession; but the time for
that had gone by, even had the money been still available. “I'm half
glad that it isn't,” Bob said; “I don't see how a fellow could go back
to swotting over books after being really alive for nearly five years.”
There seemed nothing but “the land” in some shape or form; they were
not very clear about it, but Bob was strenuously “keeping his ears
open”--like so many lads of his rank in the early months of 1919,
when the future that had seemed so indefinite during the years of war
suddenly loomed up, very large and menacing. Cecilia had less anxiety;
she had a cheerful faith that Bob would manage something--a three-roomed
cottage somewhere in the country, where he could look after sheep, or
crops, or something of the kind, while she cooked and mended for
him, and grew such flowers as had bloomed in the dear garden at
Fontainebleau. Sheep and crops, she was convinced, grew themselves, in
the main; a person of Bob's ability would surely find little difficulty
in superintending the process. And, whatever happened, nothing could be
worse than life in Lancaster Gate.
Neither of them ever thought of appealing to their father, either for
advice or for help. He remained, as he had always been to them, utterly
colourless; a kind of well-bred shadow of his wife, taking no part in
her hard treatment of Cecilia, but lifting not a finger to save her. He
did not look happy; indeed, he seldom spoke--it was not necessary,
when Mrs. Rainham held the floor. He had a tiny den which he used as a
smoking-room, and there he spent most of his time when at home, being
blessed in the fact that his wife disliked the smell of smoke, and
refused to allow it in her drawing-room. Nobody took much notice of him.
The younger children treated him with cool indifference; Bob met him
with a kind of strained and uncomfortable civility.
Curiously enough, it was only Eliza who divined in him a secret
hankering after his eldest daughter--Cecilia, who would have been very
much astonished had anyone hinted at such a thing to her. The sharp eyes
of the little Cockney were not to be deceived in any matter concerning
the only person in the house who treated her as if she were a human
being and not a grate-cleaning automaton.
“You see 'im foller 'er wiv 'is eyes, that's all,” said Eliza to
Cook, in the privacy of their joint bedroom. “Fair 'ungry he looks,
sometimes.”
“No need for 'im to be 'ungry, if 'e 'ad the sperrit of a man,” said
Cook practically. “Ain't she 'is daughter?”
“Well, yes, in a manner of speakin',” said Eliza doubtfully. “But there
ain't much of father an' daughter about them two. I'd ruther 'ave my
ole man, down W'itechapel way; 'e can belt yer a fair terror, w'en 'e's
drunk, but 'e'll allers tike yer out an' buy yer a kipper arterwards.
Thet's on'y decent, fatherly feelin'.”
“Well, Master don't belt 'er, does 'e?”
“No; but 'e don't buy 'er the kipper, neither. An' I'd ruther 'ave the
beltin' from my ole man, even wivout no kipper, than 'ave us allers
lookin' at each other as if we was wooden images. Even a beltin' shows
as 'ow a man 'as some regard for 'is daughter.”
“It do,” said Cook. “Pity is, you ain't 'ad more of it, that's the only
thing!”
CHAPTER III
PLAYING TRUANT
“Demobilized! Oh, Bob--truly?”
“Truly and really,” said Bob. “At least, I shall be in twenty-seven
days. Got my orders. Show up for the last time on the fifteenth of next
month. Get patted on the head, and told to run away and play. That's the
programme, I believe, Tommy. The question is--What shall we play at?”
Cecilia brushed the hair from her brow.
“I don't know,” she said vaguely. “It's too big to think of; and I can't
think in this awful house, anyhow. Take me out, quick, please, Bobby.”
“Sure,” said Bob, regarding her with an understanding eye. “But you want
to change or something, don't you, old girl?”
“Why, yes, I suppose I do,” said Cecilia, with a watery smile, looking
at her schoolroom overall. “I forgot clothes. I've had a somewhat packed
morning.”
“You look as if this had been your busy day,” remarked Bob. “Right-oh,
old girl; jump into your things, and I'll wait on the mat. Any chance of
the she-dragon coming back?”
“No; she's gone out to tea.”
“More power to her,” said Bob cheerfully. “And the dragon puppies?”
“Oh, they're safely out of the way. I won't be five minutes, Bob. Don't
shut the door tight--you might disappear before I opened it.”
“Not much,” said Bob, through the crack of the door. “I'm a fixture.
Want any shoes cleaned?”
“No, thanks, Bobby dear. I have everything ready.”
“From what the other fellows say about their sisters, I'm inclined to
believe that you're an ornament to your sex,” remarked Bob. “When you
say five minutes, it really does mean not more than five and a half, as
a rule; other girls seem to mean three-quarters of an hour.”
“I get all my things ready the night before when I'm going to meet you,”
said Cecilia. “Catch me losing any time on my one day out. You can come
back again--my coat's on the hanger there, Bobby.” He put her into it
deftly, and she leaned back against him. “If you knew how good it is
to see you again--and you smell of clean fresh air and good tobacco and
Russia leather, and all sorts of nice things.”
“Good gracious, I'll excite attention in the street!” grinned Bob. “I
didn't imagine I was a walking scent-factory!”
“Neither you are--but everything in this house smells of coal-smoke and
cabbage-water and general fustiness, and you're a nice change, that's
all,” said Cecilia. They ran downstairs together light-heartedly, and
let themselves out into the street.
“Do we catch a train or a 'bus?”
“Oh, can't we walk?” Cecilia said. “I think if I walked hard I might
forget Mrs. Rainham.”
“I'd hate you to remember her,” Bob said. “Tell me what she has been
doing, anyhow, and then we won't think of her any more.”
“It doesn't sound much,” Cecilia said. “There never is anything very
much. Only it goes on all the time.” She told him the story of her day,
and managed to make herself laugh now and then over it. But Bob did not
laugh. His good-humoured young face was set and angry.
“There isn't a whole lot in it, is there?” Cecilia finished. “And no
one would think I was badly off--especially when the thing that hit me
hardest of all was just dusting that awful drawing-room while she plays
her awful tunes. Yes, I know I shouldn't say awful, and that no lady
says it--that must be true because Mrs. Rainham frequently tells me
so--but it's such a relief to say whatever I feel like.”
“You can say what you jolly well please,” said Bob wrathfully. “Who's
she, I'd like to know, to tell us what to say? And she kept you there
all the afternoon, when she knew you were due to meet me!--my hat, she
is a venomous old bird! And now it's half-past four, and what time does
she expect you back?”
“Oh--the usual thing; the children's tea-time at six. She told me not to
be late.”
Bob set his jaw.
“Well, you won't be late, because you won't be there,” he said. “No
going back to tea for you. We'll have dinner at the Petit Riche in Soho,
and then we'll do a theatre, and then I'll take you home and we'll face
the music. Are you game?”
Cecilia laughed.
“Game? Why, of course--but there will be awful scenes, Bobby.”
“Well, what can she do to you?” asked Bob practically. “You're too big
to beat, or she'd certainly do it; she can't stop your pay, because you
don't get any; and as you have your meals with the youngsters, she can't
dock your rations. That doesn't leave her much beside her tongue. Of
course, she can do a good deal with that; do you think you can stand
it?”
“Oh, yes,” said Cecilia. “You see, I generally have it, so it really
doesn't matter much. But if she forbids me to go out with you again,
Bobby?”
Bob pondered.
“Well--you're nineteen,” he said. “And the very first minute I can, I'm
going to take you away from her altogether. If you were a kid I wouldn't
let you defy her. But, hang it all, Tommy, I'm not going to let her
punish you as though you were ten. If she forbids you to meet me--well,
you must just take French leave, that's all.”
“Oh, Bob, you are a satisfying person!” said Cecilia, with a sigh.
“Well, I don't know--it's you who will have to stand the racket,” said
Bob. “I only wish I could take my share, old girl. But, please goodness,
it won't be for long.”
“Bob,” said Cecilia, and paused. “What about that statement of
hers--that it would be illegal for you to take me away? Do you think
it's true?”
“I've asked our Major, and he's a bit doubtful,” said Bob. “All the
other fellows say it's utter nonsense. But I'm going to ask the old
lawyer chap who has charge of Aunt Margaret's money--he'll tell me. We
won't bother about it, Tommy; if I can't get you politely, I'll steal
you. Just forget the she-dragon and all her works.”
“But have you thought about what you are going to do?”
“I don't think of much else, and that's the truth, Tommy,” said her
brother ruefully. “You see, there's mighty little in sight. I could get
a clerkship, I suppose. I could certainly get work as a day labourer.
But I don't see much in either of those possibilities towards a
little home with you, which is what I want. I'm going to answer every
advertisement I can find for fellows wanted on farms.” He straightened
his square shoulders. “Tommy, there must be plenty of work for any chap
as strong as an ox, as I am.”
“I'm sure there's work,” said Cecilia. “But the men who want jobs don't
generally advertise themselves as 'complete with sister.' I'm what's
technically known as an encumbrance, Bob.”
“You!” said Bob. “You're just part of the firm, so don't you forget it.
Didn't we always arrange that we should stick together?”
“We did--but it may not be easy to manage,” Cecilia said, doubtfully.
“Perhaps we could get some job together; I could do inside work, or
teach, or sew.”
“No!” said Bob explosively. “If I can't earn enough for us both, I ought
to be shot, Aunt Margaret didn't bring you up to work.”
“But the world has turned upside down since Aunt Margaret died,” said
Cecilia. “And I have worked pretty hard for the last two years, Bob; and
it hasn't hurt me.”
“It has made you older--and you ought to be only a kid yet,” said Bob
wistfully. “You haven't had any of the fun girls naturally ought to
have. I don't want you to slave all your time, Tommy.”
“Bless you!” said his sister. “But I wouldn't care a bit, as long as it
was near you--and not in Lancaster Gate.”
They had turned across Hyde Park, where a big company of girl guides
was drilling, watched by a crowd of curious on-lookers. Across a belt of
grass some boy scouts were performing similar evolutions, marching with
all the extra polish and swagger they could command, just to show the
guides that girls were all very well in their way, but that no one with
skirts could really hope to do credit to a uniform. Cecilia paused to
watch them.
“Thank goodness, the children can come and drill in the park again!” she
said. “I hated to come here before the armistice--soldiers, soldiers,
drilling everywhere, and guns and searchlight fixings. Whenever I saw a
squad drilling it made me think of you, and of course I felt sure you'd
be killed!”
“I do like people who look on the bright side of life!” said Bob
laughing. “And whenever you saw an aeroplane I suppose you made sure I
was crashing somewhere?”
“Certainly I did,” said his sister with dignity.
“Women are queer things,” Bob remarked. “If you had these unpleasant
beliefs, how did you manage to write as cheerfully as you did? Your
letters were a scream--I used to read bits of 'em out to the fellows.”
“You had no business to do any such thing,” said Cecilia, blushing.
“Well, I did, anyhow. They used to make 'em yell. How did you manage
them?”
“Well, it was no good assuring you you'd be killed,” said Cecilia
practically. “I thought it was more sensible to try to make you laugh.”
“You certainly did that,” said Bob. “I fancied from your letters that
life with the she-dragon was one huge joke, and that Papa was nice and
companionable, and the kids, sweet little darlings who ate from your
hand. And all the time you were just the poor old toad under the
harrow!”
“I'm not a toad!” rejoined his sister indignantly. “Don't you think you
could find pleasanter things to compare me to?”
“Toads aren't bad,” said Bob, laughing. “Ever seen the nice old fellow
in the Zoo who shoots out a tongue a yard long and picks up a grub every
time? He's quite interesting.”
“I certainly never had any inclination to do any such thing,” Cecilia
laughed.
They had turned into Piccadilly and were walking down, watching the
crowded motor traffic racing north and south. Suddenly Bob straightened
up and saluted smartly, as a tall staff officer, wearing a general's
badges, ran down the steps of a big club, and nearly cannoned into
Cecilia.
“I beg your pardon!” he said--and then, noticing Bob--“How are you,
Rainham?” He dived into a waiting taxi, and was whisked away.
“Did he bump you?” inquired Bob.
“No--though it would be almost a privilege to be bumped by anyone as
splendid as that!” Cecilia answered. “He knows you, too!--who is he,
Bobby?”
“That's General Harran, the Australian,” said Bob proudly. “He's a great
man. I've run into him occasionally since I've been with the Australians
in France.”
“He looks nice.”
“He is nice,” replied Bob. “Awful martinet about duty, but he treats
every one under him jolly well. Never forgets a face or a name, and he's
always got a decent word for everybody. He's had some quite long talks
to me, when we were waiting for some 'plane or other to come back.”
“Why wouldn't he?” asked Cecilia, who considered it a privilege for
anyone to talk to her brother.
Bob regarded her in amazement.
“Good gracious!” he ejaculated. “Why, he's a major-general; I can tell
you, most men of his rank haven't any use for small fry like me--to talk
to, that is.”
Cecilia had a flash of memory.
“Isn't he the general who was close by when you brought that German
aeroplane down behind our lines? Didn't he say nice things to you about
it?”
“Oh, that was only in the way of business,” said Bob somewhat confused.
“The whole thing was only a bit of luck--and, of course, it was luck,
too, that he was there. But he is just as nice to fellows who haven't
had a chance like that.”
Out of the crowd two more figures in Air Force uniform came, charging at
Bob with outstretched hands.
“By Jove, old chap! What luck to meet you!”
They shook hands tumultuously, and Bob made them known to
Cecilia--comrades he had not seen for months, but with whom he had
shared many strange experiences in the years of war. They fell into
quick talk, full of the queer jargon of the air. The newcomers, it
appeared, had been with the army of occupation in Germany; there seemed
a thousand things they urgently desired to tell Bob within the next
few minutes. One turned to Cecilia, presently, with a laughing
interpretation of some highly technical bit of slang.
“Oh, you needn't bother to translate to Tommy,” Bob said. “She knows all
about it.”
The other boys suddenly gave her all their attention.
“Are you Tommy? But we know you awfully well.”
“Me?” Cecilia turned pink.
“Rather. We used to hear your letters.”
The pink deepened to a fine scarlet.
“Bob!” said his sister reproachfully. “You really shouldn't.”
“Oh, don't say that,” said the taller boy, by name Harrison. “They were
a godsend--there used to be jolly little to laugh about, pretty often,
and your letters made us all yell. Didn't they, Billy?”
“They did,” said Billy, who was small and curly-haired--and incidentally
a captain, with a little row of medal ribbons. “Jolliest letters ever.
We passed a vote of thanks to you in the mess, Miss Tommy, after old Bob
here had gone. Some one was to write and tell him about it, but I don't
believe anyone ever did. I say, you must have had a cheery time--all the
funny things that ever happened seemed to come your way.”
Cecilia stammered something, her scarlet confusion deepening. A rather
grim vision of the war years swept across her mind--of the ceaseless
quest in papers and journals, and wherever people talked, for “funny
things” to tell Bob; and of how, when fact and rumour gave out, she used
to sit by her attic window at night, deliberately inventing merry jests.
It had closely resembled a job of hard work at the time; but apparently
it had served its purpose well. She had made them laugh; and some one
had told her that no greater service could be rendered to the boys who
risked death, and worse than death, during every hour of the day and
night. But it was extremely difficult to talk about it afterwards.
Bob took pity on her.
“I'll tell you just what sort of a cheery time she had, some time or
other,” he remarked. “What are you fellows doing this evening?”
“We were just going to ask you the same thing,” declared Billy. “Can't
we all go and play about somewhere? We've just landed, and we want to be
looked after. Any theatres in this little town still?”
“Cheer-oh!” ejaculated Billy. “Let's all go and find out.”
So they went, and managed very successfully to forget war and even
stepmothers. They were all little more than children in enjoyment of
simple pleasures still, since war had fallen upon them at the very
threshold of life, cutting them off from all the cheery happenings that
are the natural inheritance of all young things. The years that would
ordinarily have seen them growing tired of play had been spent in grim
tasks; now they were children again, clamouring for the playtime they
had lost. They found enormous pleasure in the funny little French
restaurant, where Madame, a lady whose sympathies were as boundless
as her waist, welcomed them with wide smiles, delighting in the
broken French of Billy and Harrison, and deftly tempting them to fresh
excursions in her language. She put a question in infantile French to
Bob presently, whereupon that guileless youth, with a childlike smile,
answered her with a flood of idiomatic phrases, in an accent purer than
her own--collapsing with helpless laughter at her amazed face. After
which, Madame neglected her other patrons to hover about their table
like a stout, presiding goddess, guiding them gently to the best dishes
on the menu, and occasionally putting aside their own selection with a
hasty, “Mon-non; you vill not like that one to-day.” She patted Cecilia
in a motherly fashion at parting, and their bill was only about half
what it should have been.
They found a musical comedy, and laughed their way through it--Billy and
Harrison had apparently no cares in the world, and Bob and Cecilia were
caught up in the whirl of their high spirits, so that anything became
a huge joke. The evening flew by on airy wings, when Billy insisted
on taking them to supper after the theatre. Cecilia allowed herself a
fleeting vision of Mrs. Rainham, and then, deciding that she might as
well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, followed gaily. And supper was so
cheery a meal that she forgot all about time--until, just at the end,
she caught sight of the restaurant clock.
“Half-past eleven! Oh, Bobby!”
“Well, if it is--you poor little old Cinderella,” said Bob.
But he hurried her away, for all that, amid a chorus of farewells and
efforts, on the part of Billy and Harrison, to arrange further meetings.
They ran to the nearest tube station, and dived into its depths; and,
after being whisked underground for a few minutes, emerged into the cool
night. Cecilia slipped her arm through her brother's as they hurried
along the empty street.
“Now, you keep your nose in the air,” Bobby told her. “You aren't
exactly a kid now, and she can't really do anything to you. Oh, by
Jove--I was thinking, in the theatre, she might interfere with our
letters.”
“She's quite equal to it,” said Cecilia.
“Just what she'd revel in doing. Well, you can easily find out. I'll
write to you to-morrow, and again the next day--just ordinary letters,
with nothing particular in them except an arrangement to meet next
Saturday. If you don't get them you'll know she's getting at the mail
first.”
“What shall I do, then?”
“Drop me a line--or, better still, wire to me,” said Bob. “Just say,
'Address elsewhere.' Then I'll write to you at Mr. M'Clinton's; the old
solicitor chap in Lincoln's Inn; and you'll have to go there and get the
letters. You know his address, don't you?”
“Oh, yes. I have to write to him every quarter when he sends me my
allowance. You'll explain to him, then, Bob, or he'll simply redirect
your letters here.”
“Oh, of course. I want to go and see the old chap, anyhow, to talk over
Aunt Margaret's affairs. I might as well know a little more about them.
Tommy, the she-dragon can't actually lock you up, can she?”
“No--it couldn't be done,” said Cecilia. “Modern houses aren't built
with dungeons and things. Moreover, if she tried to keep me in the house
she would have to take the children out for their walks herself; and she
simply hates walking.”
“Then you can certainly post to me, and get my letters, and I'll be up
again as soon as ever I can. Buck up, old girl--it can't be for long
now.”
They turned in at the Rainhams' front gate, and Cecilia glanced up
apprehensively. All the windows were in darkness; the grey front of the
house loomed forbiddingly in the faint moonlight.
“You're coming in, aren't you?” she asked, her hand tightening on his
arm.
“Rather--we'll take the edge off her tongue together.” Bob rang the
bell. “Wonder if they have all gone to bed. The place looks pretty
dark.”
“She's probably in the little room at the back--the one she calls her
boudoir.”
“Horrible little den, full of bamboo and draperies and pampas grass--I
know,” nodded Bob. “Well, either she's asleep or she thinks it's fun to
keep us on the mat. I'll try her again.” He pressed the bell, and the
sound of its whirring echoed through the silent house.
CHAPTER IV
COMING HOME
The bolt grated, as if grudgingly, and slowly the door opened as far as
the limits of its chain would permit, and Mrs. Rainham's face appeared
in the aperture. She glared at them for a minute without speaking.
“So you have come home?” she said at last. The chain fell, and the door
opened. “I wonder you trouble to come home at all. May I ask where you
have been?”
“She has been with me, Mrs. Rainham,” Bob said cheerfully. “May I come
in?”
Mrs. Rainham did not move. She held the door half open, blocking the
way.
“It is far too late for me to ask you in,” she answered frigidly.
“Cecilia can explain her conduct, I presume.”
“Oh, there's really nothing to explain,” Bob answered. “It was so late
when she got out this afternoon that I kept her--why, it was after
half-past four before she was dressed.”
“I told her to be in for tea.”
“Yes; but I felt sure you couldn't realize how late she was in getting
out,” said Bob in a voice of honey.
“That was entirely her own mismanagement--” began the hard tones.
“Oh, no, Mrs. Rainham; really it wasn't,” said Cecilia mildly. “Your
accompaniments, you remember--your dress--your music,” she stopped,
in amazement at herself. It was rarely indeed that she answered any
accusation of her stepmother's. But to be on the mat at midnight, with
Bob in support, seemed to give her extraordinary courage.
“You see, Mrs. Rainham, there seems to have been quite a number of
little details that Cecilia couldn't mismanage,” said Bob, following
up the advantage. It was happily evident that his stepmother's rage was
preventing her from speaking, and, as he remarked later, there was no
knowing when he would ever get such a chance again. “She really needed
rest. I'm sure you'll agree that every one is entitled to some free
time. Of course, you couldn't possibly have realized that it was a week
since she had been off duty.”
“It's her business to do what I tell her,” said Mrs. Rainham, finding
her voice, in an explosive fashion that made a passing policeman glance
up curiously. “She knew I had company, and expected her help. I had
to see to the children's tea myself. And how do I know where she's
been?--gallivanting round to all sorts of places! I tell you, young
lady, you needn't think you're going to walk in here at midnight as if
nothing was the matter.”
“I never expected to,” said Cecilia cheerfully. “But it was worth it.”
Bob regarded her in solemn admiration.
“I don't think we gallivanted at all reprehensibly,” he said. “Just
dinner and a theatre. I haven't made much claim to her time during the
last four years, Mrs. Rainham; surely I'm entitled to a little of it
now.”
“You!” Mrs. Rainham's tone was vicious. “You don't give her a home, do
you? And as long as I do, she'll do what I tell her.”
“No; I don't give her a home--yet,” said Bob very quietly. “But I very
soon will, I assure you; and meanwhile, she earns a good deal more than
her keep in her father's house. You can't treat her worse than your
servants--”
Cecilia suddenly turned to him.
“Ah, don't, Bob darling. It doesn't matter--truly--not a bit.” With the
end of the long penance before her, it seemed beyond the power of the
angry woman in the doorway to hurt her much. What she could not bear was
that their happy evening should be spoiled by hard and cruel words at
its close. Bob's face, that had been so merry, was sterner than she
had ever seen it, all its boyishness gone. She put up her own face, and
kissed him.
“Good night--you mustn't stay any longer. I'll be all right.” She
whispered a few quick words of French, begging him to go, and Bob,
though unwillingly, gave in.
“All right,” he said. “Go to bed, little 'un. I'll do as I promised
about writing.” He saluted Mrs. Rainham stiffly. “You'll remember,
Mrs. Rainham, that she stayed out solely at my wish--I take full
responsibility, and I'll be ready to tell my father so.” The door closed
behind Cecilia, and he strode away down the street, biting his lip. He
felt abominably as though he had deserted the little sister--and yet,
what else could he do? One could not remain for ever, brawling on a
doorstep at midnight--and Tommy had begged him to go. Still--
“Hang it!” he said viciously. “If she were only a decent Hun to fight!”
In the grim house in Lancaster Gate Cecilia was facing the music alone.
She listened unmoved, as she had listened many times before, to
the catalogue of her sins and misdeeds--only she had never seen her
stepmother quite so angry. Finally, a door above opened, and Mark
Rainham looked out, his dull, colourless face weakly irritable.
“I wish you'd stop that noise, and let the girl go to bed,” he said.
“Come here, Cecilia.”
She went to him hesitating, and he looked at her with a spark of
compassion. Then he kissed her.
“Good night,” he said, as though he had called her to him simply to say
it, and not to separate her from the furious woman who stood looking
at them. “Run off to bed, now--no more talking.” Cecilia ran upstairs
obediently. Behind her, as she neared her attic, she heard her
stepmother's voice break out anew.
“Just fancy Papa!” she muttered. Any mother sensations were lost in
wonder at her father's actually having intervened. The incredible thing
had happened. For a moment she felt a wave of pity for him, left alone
to face the shrill voice. Then she shrugged her shoulders.
“Ah, well--he married her,” she said. “I suppose he has had it many a
time. Perhaps he knows how to stop it--I don't!” She laughed, turning
the key in the lock, and sitting down beside the open window. The
glamour of her happy evening was still upon her; even the scene with her
stepmother had not had power to chase it away. The scene was only to be
expected; the laughter of the evening was worth so every-day a penalty.
And the end of Mrs. Rainham's rule was nearly in sight. Not even to
herself for a moment would she admit that there was any possibility of
Bob failing to “make good” and take her away.
She went downstairs next morning to an atmosphere of sullen resentment.
Her father gave her a brief, abstracted nod, in response to her
greeting, and went on with his bacon and his Daily Mail; her
stepmother's forbidding expression checked any attempt at conversation.
The children stared at her with a kind of malevolent curiosity; they
knew that a storm had been brewing for her the night before, and longed
to know just how thoroughly she had “caught it.” Eliza, bringing
in singed and belated toast, looked at her with pity, tinged with
admiration. Cook and she had been awakened at midnight by what was
evidently, in the words of Cook, “a perfickly 'orrible bust-up,” and
knowing Cecilia to have been its object, Eliza looked at her as one may
look who expects to see the scars of battle. Finding none, but receiving
instead a cheerful smile, she returned to the kitchen, and reported to
Cook that Miss Cecilia was “nuffink less than a neroine.”
But as that day and the next wore on, Cecilia found it difficult to be
cheerful. That she was in disgrace was very evident, Mrs. Rainham said
no more about her sins of the night before; instead, she showed her
displeasure by a kind of cold rudeness that gave a subtle insult to her
smallest remark. The children were manifestly delighted. Cecilia was
more or less in the position of a beetle on a pin, and theirs was the
precious opportunity of seeing her wriggle. Wherefore they adopted
their mother's tone, openly defied her, and turned school-hours into a
pandemonium.
Cecilia at last gave up the attempt to keep order. She opened her desk
and took out her knitting.
“Well, this is all very pleasant,” she said, calmly. “You seem
determined to do no work at all, so I can only hope that in time you
will get tired of being idle. I can't attempt to teach you any more. I
am quite ready, however, if you bring your lessons to me.”
“You'll get into a nice row from the Mater,” jeered Wilfred.
“Very possibly. She may even punish me by finding another governess,”
said Cecilia, with a twinkle. “However that may be, I do not feel
compelled to talk to such rude little children as you any more. When
you are able to speak politely you may come to me for anything you
want; until then, I shall not answer you.” She bent her attention to the
mysteries of heel-turning.
The children were taken aback. To pinprick with rudeness a victim who
answered back was entertaining; but there was small fun in baiting
anybody who sat silently knitting with a half-smile of contempt at the
corners of her mouth. They gave it up after a time, and considered the
question of going out; a pleasant thing to do, only that their mother
had laid upon them a special injunction not to leave Cecilia, and she
was in a mood that made disobedience extremely dangerous. Cecilia quite
understood that she was being watched. No letters had yet come from Bob,
and she knew that her stepmother had been hovering near the letter-box
whenever the postman had called. Mrs. Rainham had accompanied them on
their walk the day before; a remark of Avice's revealed that she meant
to do so again to-day.
“It's all so silly,” the girl said to herself. “If I chose to dive into
a tube station or board a motor-bus she couldn't stop me; and she can't
go on watching me and intercepting my letters indefinitely. I suppose
she will get tired of it after a while.” But meanwhile she found the
spying rather amusing. Avice popped up unexpectedly if she went near the
front door; Wilfred's bullet head peeped in through the window whenever
she fancied herself alone in the schoolroom. Only her attic was
safe--since to spy upon it would have required an aeroplane.
The third day brought no letter from Bob. Cecilia asked for her mail
when she went down to breakfast, and was met by a blank stare from her
stepmother--“I suppose if there had been any letters for you they would
be on your plate.” She flushed a little under the girl's direct gaze,
and turned her attention to Queenie's table manners, which were at all
times peculiar; and Cecilia sat down with a faint smile. It was time to
obey orders and telegraph to Bob.
She planned how to do it, during a long morning when the children
actually did some work--since to be rude or idle meant that their
teacher immediately retired into her shell of silence, and knitted, and
life became too dull. To employ Eliza was her first thought--rejected,
since it seemed unlikely that Eliza would be able to get time off to go
out. If Mrs. Rainham's well-known dislike for walking proved too strong
for her desire to watch her stepdaughter, it would be easy enough to
do it during the afternoon; but this hope proved vain, for when she
appeared in the hall with her charges at three o'clock the lady of the
house sailed from the drawing-room, ready for the march. They moved off
in procession; Mrs. Rainham leading the way, with Avice and Wilfred,
while Cecilia brought up the rear, holding Queenie's podgy hand.
She had telegraph forms in her desk, and the message, already written,
and even stamped, was in the pocket of her coat. There was nothing for
it but to act boldly, and accordingly, when they entered a street in
which there was a post office, she let Queenie lag until they were
a little distance behind the others. Then, as they reached the post
office, she turned sharply in.
“Wait a minute, Queenie.”
She thrust her message across the counter hurriedly. The clerk on duty
was provokingly slow; he finished checking a document, and then lounged
across to the window and took the form, running over it leisurely.
“Oh, you've got the stamps on. All right,” he said, and turned away just
as quick steps were heard, and Mrs. Rainham bustled in, panting.
“What are you doing?”
Cecilia met her with steady eyes.
“Nothing wrong, I assure you.” She had had visions of covering her real
purpose by buying stamps--but rejected it with a shrug.
“Thethilia gave the man a pieth of paper!” said Queenie shrilly.
“What was it? I demand to know!” cried Mrs. Rainham. She turned to the
clerk, who stood open-mouthed, holding the telegram in his hand. “Show
me that telegram. I am this young lady's guardian.”
The clerk grinned broadly. The stout and angry lady made no appeal to
him, and Cecilia was a pretty girl, and moreover her telegram was for
a flying captain. The clerk wore a returned soldier's badge himself. He
fell back on Regulations.
“Can't be done, ma'am. The message is all in order.”
“Let me see it.”
“Much as my billet's worth, if I did,” said the clerk. “Property of the
Postmaster-General now, ma'am. Couldn't even give it back to the young
lady.”
“I'll report you!” Mrs. Rainham fumed.
“Do, ma'am. I'll get patted on the head for doin' me duty.” The clerk's
grin widened. Cecilia wished him good afternoon gravely, and slipped out
of the office, pursued by her stepmother.
“What was in that telegram?”
“It was to my brother.”
“What was in it?”
“It was to Bob, and that is guarantee that there was nothing wrong in
it,” Cecilia said steadily. “It was on private business.”
“You have no right to have any business that I do not know about.”
Cecilia found her temper rising.
“My father may have the power to say that--I do not know,” she said.
“But you have none, Mrs. Rainham.”
“I'll let you see whether I have the right!” her stepmother blazed. “For
two pins, young lady, I'd lock you up.”
Cecilia laughed outright.
“Ah, that's not done now,” she said. “You really couldn't, Mrs.
Rainham--especially as I have done nothing wrong.” She dropped her
voice--passers-by were looking with interest at the elder woman's
face. “Why not let me go? You do not approve of me--let me find another
position.”
“You'll stay in your father's house,” Mrs. Rainham said. “We'll see what
the law has to say to your leaving with your precious Bob. Your
father's your legal guardian, and in his control you stay until you're
twenty-one, and be very thankful to make yourself useful. The law will
deal with Bob if he tries to take you away--you're a minor, and it'd
be abduction.” The word had a pleasantly legal flavour; she repeated it
with emphasis. “Abduction; that's what it is, and there's a nice penalty
for it. Now you know, and if you don't want to get Bob into trouble,
you'd best be careful.”
Cecilia had grown rather white. The law was a great and terrible
instrument, of which she knew nothing. It seemed to have swallowed up
Aunt Margaret's money; it might very well have left her defenceless. Her
stepmother seemed familiar with its powers, and able to evoke them at
will; and though she did not trust her, there was something in her glib
utterance that struck fear into the girl's heart. She did not answer,
and Mrs. Rainham followed up her advantage.
“We'll go home,” she said. “And you make up your mind to tell me what
was in that telegram, and not to have any secrets from me. One thing I
can tell you--until you decide to behave yourself--Bob shan't show his
nose in my house, and you shan't go out to meet him, either. He only
leads you into mischief; I don't consider he has at all a good influence
over you. The sooner he's away somewhere, earning his own living in a
proper manner, the better for every one; and it'll be many a long day
before he can give you as good a home as you've got now.” She paused
for breath. “Anyhow, he's not going to have the chance,” she finished
grimly.
CHAPTER V
THE TURN OF FORTUNE'S WHEEL
“Is Mr. M'Clinton in?”
The clerk, in a species of rabbit hutch, glanced out curiously at the
young flying officer.
“Yes; but he's very busy. Have you an appointment?”
“No--I got leave unexpectedly. Just take him my card, will you?”
The clerk handed the card to another clerk, who passed it to an
office-boy, who disappeared with it behind a heavy oaken door. He came
back presently.
“Mr. M'Clinton will see you in ten minutes, if you can wait, sir.”
“I'll wait,” said Bob, sitting down upon a high stool. “Got a paper?”
“To-day's Times is here, sir.” He whisked off, to return in a moment
with the paper, neatly folded.
“You'll find a more comfortable seat behind the screen, sir.”
“Thanks,” said Bob, regarding him with interest--he was so dapper, so
alert, so all that an office-boy in a staid lawyer's establishment ought
to be. “How old might you be?”
“Fourteen, sir.”
“And are you going to grow into a lawyer?”
“I'm afraid I'll never do that, sir,” said the office-boy gravely. “I
may be head clerk, perhaps. But--” he stopped, confused.
“But what?”
“I'd rather fly, sir, than anything in the world!” He looked
worshippingly at Bob's uniform. “If the war had only not stopped before
I was old enough, I might have had a chance!”
“Oh, you'll have plenty of chances,” Bob told him consolingly. “In five
years' time you'll be taking Mr. M'Clinton's confidential papers across
to Paris in an aeroplane--and bringing him back a reply before lunch!”
“Do you think so, sir?” The office-boy's eyes danced. Suddenly he
resumed his professional gravity.
“I must get back to my work, sir.” He disappeared behind another
partition; the office seemed to Bob to be divided into water-tight
compartments, in each of which he imagined that a budding lawyer or head
clerk was being brought up by hand. It was all rather grim and solid and
forbidding. To Bob the law had always been full of mystery; this grey,
silent office, in the heart of the city, was a fitting place for it.
He felt a little chill at his heart, a foreboding that no comfort could
come of his mission there.
The inner door opened, after a little while, and a woman in black came
out. She passed hurriedly through the outer office, pulling down her
veil over a face that showed traces of tears. Bob looked after her
compassionately.
“Poor soul!” he thought. “She's had her gruel, evidently. Now I suppose
I'll get mine.”
A bell whirred sharply. The alert office-boy sprang to the summons,
returning immediately.
“Mr. M'Clinton can see you now, sir.”
Bob followed him through the oaken door, and along a narrow passage to a
room where a spare, grizzled man sat at a huge roll-top desk. He rose as
the boy shut the door behind his visitor.
“Well, Captain Rainham. How do you do?”
Bob gripped the lean hand offered him--it felt like a claw in his great
palm. Then he sat down and looked uncomfortably at the lawyer.
“I had thought to have seen you here before, Captain.”
“I suppose I should have shown up,” said Bob--concealing the fact that
the idea had never occurred to him. “But I've been very busy since I've
been back to England.”
“And what brings you now?”
“I'm all but demobilized,” Bob told him, “and I'm trying to get
employment.”
“What--in this office?”
“Heavens, no!” ejaculated Bob, and at once turned a fine red. “That
is--I beg your pardon, sir; but I'm afraid I'm not cut out for an
office. I want to get something to do in the country, where I can
support my sister.”
“Your sister? But does not your father support her? She is an inmate of
his house, is she not?”
“Very much so,” said Bob bitterly. “She's governess, and lady-help, and
a good many other things. You couldn't call it a home. Besides, we have
always been together. I want to take her away.”
“And what does your father say?”
“He says she mustn't go. At least, that's what my stepmother says, so my
father will certainly say it too.”
“Your sister is under age, I think?”
“She's just nineteen--I'm over twenty-two. Can my father prevent her
going with me, sir?”
“Mph,” said the lawyer, pondering. “Do I gather that the young lady is
unhappy?”
“If she isn't, it's because she has pluck enough for six people, and
because she always hopes to get away.”
“And do you consider that you could support her?”
“I don't know,” said Bob unhappily. “I would certainly have thought
I could, but there seems mighty little chance for a fellow whose only
qualification is that he's been fighting Huns for nearly five years.
I've answered advertisements and interviewed people until my brain
reels; but there's nothing in it, and I can't leave Tommy there.”
“Tommy?” queried the lawyer blankly.
Bob laughed.
“My sister, I mean, sir. Her name's Cecilia, but, of course, we've never
called her that. Even Aunt Margaret called her Tommy.”
Mr. M'Clinton made no reply. He thought deeply for a few moments. Then
he looked up, and there was a glint of kindness in his hard grey eyes.
“I think you had better tell me all about it, Captain Rainham. Would it
assist you to smoke?”
“Thanks awfully, sir,” said Bob, accepting the proffered cigarette.
He plunged into his story; and if at times it was a trifle incoherent,
principally from honest wrath, yet on the whole Cecilia's case
lost nothing in the telling. The lawyer nodded from time to time,
comprehendingly.
“Aye,” he said at last, when Bob paused. “Just so, just so. And why did
you come to me, Captain?”
“I want your advice, sir,” Bob answered. “And I should like to know
something about my aunt's property--if I can hope for any help from that
source. I should have more chance of success if I had a little capital
to start with. But I understand that most of it was lost. My father
seemed very disappointed over the small amount she left.” He hesitated.
“But apart from money, I should like to know if I am within the law in
taking my sister away.”
Mr. M'Clinton thought deeply before replying.
“I had better speak frankly to you, Captain Rainham,” he said. “Your
aunt, as you probably know, did not like your father. I am not sure that
she actually distrusted him. But she considered him weak and indolent,
and she recognized that he was completely under the thumb of his second
wife. Your late aunt, my old friend, had an abhorrence for that lady
that was quaint, considering that she had scarcely ever seen her.” He
permitted himself the ghost of a smile. “She was deeply afraid of any of
her property coming under the control of your father--and through him,
of his wife. And so she tied up her money very carefully. She left
direct to you and your sister certain assets. The rest of her property
she left, in trust, to me.”
“To you, sir?”
“Aye. Very carefully tied up, too,” said Mr. M'Clinton, with a twinkle.
“I can't make ducks and drakes of it, no matter how much I may wish to.
It is tied up until your sister comes of age. Then my trust ceases.”
“By Jove!” Bob stared at him. “Then--do we get something?”
“Certainly. Unfortunately, many of your aunt's investments were very
hard hit through the war. Certain stocks which paid large dividends
ceased to pay altogether; others fell to very little. The sum left to
you and your sister for immediate use should have been very much larger,
but all that is left of it is the small allowance paid to you both.
I imagine that a smart young officer like yourself found it scarcely
sufficient for tobacco.”
“I've saved it all,” said Bob simply. “A bit more, too.”
“Saved it!” said the lawyer in blank amazement. “Do you tell me, now?
You lived on your pay?”
“Flying pay's pretty good,” said Bob. “And there was always Tommy to
think of, you know, sir. I had to put something away for her, in case I
crashed.”
“Dear me,” said Mr. M'Clinton. “Your aunt had great confidence in you
as a boy, and it seems she was justified. I'm very glad to hear this,
Captain, for it enables me to do with a clear conscience something which
I have the power to do. There is a discretionary clause in your aunt's
will, which gives me power to realize a certain sum of money, should you
need it. I could hand you over about three thousand pounds.”
“Three thousand!” Bob stared at him blankly.
“Aye. And I see no reason why I should not do it--provided I am
satisfied as to the use you will make of it. As a matter of form I
should like a letter from your commanding officer, testifying to your
general character.”
“That's easy enough,” said Bob. “But--three thousand! My hat, what a
difference it will make to Tommy and me! Poor old Aunt Margaret--I might
have known she'd look after us.”
“She loved you very dearly. And now, Captain, about your sister.”
“She's the big thing,” said Bob. “Can I kidnap her?”
“It's rather difficult to say just how your father might act. Left
to himself, I do not believe he would do anything. But urged by your
stepmother, he might make trouble. And the good lady is more likely
to make trouble if she suspects that there is any money coming to your
sister.”
“That's very certain,” Bob remarked. “I wish to goodness I could get her
right out of England, sir. How about Canada?”
The lawyer pondered.
“Do you know any one there?”
“Not a soul. But I suppose one could get introductions. And one can
always get Government expert advice there, I believe, to prevent one
chucking away one's money foolishly.”
Mr. M'Clinton nodded approvingly.
“I don't know, but you might do worse,” he said. “I believe in these
new countries for young people; the old ones are getting overcrowded
and worn out. And your relations are likely to give trouble if you
are within their reach. A terrible woman, that stepmother of yours; a
terrible woman. She came to see me with your father; he said nothing,
but she talked like a mill-race. Miss Tommy has my full sympathy.
A brawling woman in a wide house, as the Scripture says. I reproach
myself, Captain, that I did not inquire personally into Miss Tommy's
well-being. She told you nothing of her trials, you say, during the
war?”
“Not a word. Wrote as if life were a howling joke always. I only found
out for myself by accident a few months ago.”
“A brave lassie. Well, I'll do what I can to help you, Captain.
I'll keep a lookout for a likely land investment for your money, and
endeavour to prepare a good legal statement to frighten Mrs. Rainham
if she objects to your taking your sister away. Much may be done by
bluffing, especially if you do it very solemnly and quietly. So keep a
good heart, and come and see me next time you're in London. Miss Tommy
will be in any day, I presume, after the telegram you told me about?”
“Sure to be,” said Bob. “She'll be anxious for her letters. I'm leaving
one for her, if you don't mind, and I'll write to her again to-night.”
He got up, holding out his hand. “Good-bye--and I don't know how to
thank you, sir.”
“Bless the boy--you've nothing to thank me for,” said the lawyer. “Just
send me that letter from your commanding officer, and remember that
there's no wild hurry about plans--Miss Tommy can stand for a few weeks
longer what she has borne for two years.”
“I suppose she can--but I don't want her to,” Bob said.
The brisk office-boy showed him out, and he marched down the grey
streets near Lincoln's Inn with his chin well up. Life had taken a
sudden and magical turn for the better. Three thousand pounds!--surely
that meant no roughing it for Tommy, but a comfortable home and a
chance of success in life. It seemed a sum of enormous possibilities.
Everything was very vague still, but at least the money was certain--it
seemed like fairy gold. He felt a sudden desire to get away somewhere,
with Tommy, away from crowded England to a country where a man could
breathe; his heart rejoiced at the idea, just as he had often exulted
when his aeroplane had lifted him away from the crowded, buzzing camp,
into the wide, free places of the air. Canada called to him temptingly.
His brain was seething with plans to go there when, waiting for a chance
to cross a crowded thoroughfare, he heard his own name.
“Asleep, Rainham?”
Bob looked up with a start. General Harran, the Australian, was beside
him, also waiting for a break in the crawling string of motor-buses and
taxi-cabs. He was smiling under his close-clipped moustache.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” stammered the boy, coming to the salute
stiffly. “I was in a brown study, I believe.”
“You looked it. I spoke to you twice before you heard me. What is
it?--demobilization problems?”
“Just that, sir,” said Bob, grinning. “Most of us have got them, I
suppose--fellows of my age, anyhow. It's a bit difficult to come down to
earth again, after years spent in the air.”
“Very difficult,” Harran agreed gravely. He glanced down with interest
at the alert face and square-built figure of the boy beside him. There
were so many of them, these boys who had played with Death for years.
They have saved their country from horror and ruin, and now it seemed
very doubtful if their country wanted them. They were in every town in
England, looking for work; their pitiful, plucky advertisements greeted
the eye in every newspaper. The problem of their future interested
General Harran keenly. He liked his boys; their freshness and pluck and
unspoiled enthusiasm had been a tonic to him during the long years of
war. Now it hurt him that they should be looking for the right to live.
“I'm just going to lunch, Rainham,” he said. “Would you care to come
with me?”
Bob lifted a quaintly astonished face.
“Thanks, awfully, sir,” he stammered.
“Then jump on this 'bus, and we'll go to my club,” said the General,
swinging his lean, athletic body up the stairs of a passing motor-'bus
as he spoke. Bob followed, and they sped, rocking, through the packed
traffic until the General, who had sat in silence, jumped up, threaded
his way downstairs, and dropped to the ground again from the footboard
of the hurrying 'bus--with a brief shake of the head to the conductor,
who was prepared to check the speed of his craft to accommodate a
passenger with such distinguished badges of rank. Bob was on the ground
almost as quickly, and they turned out of the crowded street into
a quieter one that presently led them into a silent square, where
dignified grey houses looked out upon green trees, and the only traffic
was that of gliding motors. General Harran led the way into one of the
grey houses, up the steps of which officers were constantly coming
and going. A grizzled porter in uniform, with the Crimean medal on his
tunic, swung the door open and came smartly to attention as they passed
through. The General greeted him kindly.
“How are you, O'Shea? The rheumatism better?”
“It is, sir, thank you.” They passed on, through a great hall lined with
oil-paintings of famous soldiers, and trophies of big game from all
over the world; for this was a Service club, bearing a proud record of
soldier and sailor members for a hundred years. Presently they were in
the dining-room, already crowded. The waiter found them a little table
in a quiet corner.
There was a sprinkling of men whom Bob already knew; he caught several
friendly nods of recognition us he glanced round. Then General Harran
pointed out others to him--Generals, whose names were household words in
England--a notable Admiral, and a Captain with the V.C. ribbon--earned
at Zeebrugge. He seemed to know every one, and once or twice he left his
seat to speak to a friend--during which absence Bob's friends shot him
amazed glances, with eyebrows raised in astonishment that he should be
lunching with a real Major-General. Bob was somewhat tongue-tied with
bewilderment over the fact himself. But when their cold beef came,
General Harran soon put him at his ease, leading him to talk of himself
and his plans with quiet tact. Before Bob fairly realized it he had
unfolded all his little story--even to Tommy and her hardships. The
General listened with interest.
“And was it Tommy I saw you with on Saturday?”
“Yes, sir. She was awfully interested because it was you,” blurted Bob.
“You see, she and I have always been pals. I'm jolly keen to get some
place to take her to.”
“And you think of Canada. Why?”
“Well--I really don't know, except that it would be out of reach of
England and unpleasantness,” Bob answered. “And my money would go a lot
further there than here, wouldn't it, sir? Three thousand won't buy much
of a place in England--not to make one's living by, I mean.”
“That's true. I advise every youngster to get out to one of the new
countries, and, of course, a man with a little capital has a far greater
chance. But why Canada? Why not Australia?”
“There's no reason why not,” said Bob laughing. “Only it seems further
away. I don't know more of one country than the other--except the sort
of vague idea we all have that Canada is all cold and Australia all
heat!”
General Harran laughed.
“Yes--the average Englishman's ideas about the new countries are pretty
sketchy,” he said. “People always talk to me about the fearfully hot
climate of Australia, and seem mildly surprised if I remark that we have
about a dozen different climates, and that we have snow and ice, and
very decent winter sports, in Victoria. I don't think they believe me,
either. But seriously, Rainham, if you have no more leaning towards one
country than the other, why not think of Australia? I could help you
there, if you like.”
“You, sir!” Bob stammered.
“Well, I can pull strings. I dare say I could manage a passage out for
you and your sister--you see, you were serving with the Australians,
and you're both desirable immigrants--young and energetic people with
a little capital. That would be all right, I think, especially now that
the first rush is over. And I could give you plenty of introductions in
Australia to the right sort of people. You ought to see something of the
country, and what the life and work are, before investing your money.
It would be easy enough to get you on to a station or big farm--you to
learn the business, and your sister to teach or help in the house. She
wouldn't mind that for about a year, with nice people, would she?”
“Not she!” said Bob. “It was her own idea, in fact; only I didn't want
to let her work. But I can see that it might be best. Only I don't know
how to thank you, sir--I never imagined--”
General Harran cut him short.
“Don't worry about that. If I can help you, or any of the flying boys,
out of a difficulty, and at the same time get the right type of settlers
for Australia--she needs them badly--then I'm doing a double-barrelled
job that I like. But see here--do I understand that what you really
want to do is to take your sister without giving your father warning? To
kidnap her, in short?”
“I don't see anything else to do, sir. I spoke to him a while ago about
taking her away, and he only hummed and hawed and said he'd consult Mrs.
Rainham. And my stepmother will never let her go as long as she can keep
her as a drudge. We owe them nothing--he's never been a father to us,
and as for my stepmother--well, she should owe Tommy for two years' hard
work. But honestly, to all intents and purposes, they are strangers
to us--it seems absolutely ridiculous that we should be controlled by
them.”
“You say your aunt's family lawyer approves?”
“Yes, or he wouldn't let me have the money. I could get him to see you,
sir, if you like; though I don't see why you should be bothered about
us,” said Bob flushing.
“Give me his address--I'll look in on him next time I'm in Lincoln's
Inn,” said the General. “Your own, too. Now, if I get you and your
sister passages on a troopship, can you start at short notice--say
forty-eight hours?”
Bob gasped, but recovered himself. After all, his training in the air
had taught him to make swift decisions.
“Any time after the fifteenth, sir. I'll be demobilized then, and a free
agent. I'll get my kit beforehand.”
“Don't get much,” counselled the General. “You can travel in
uniform--take flannels for the tropics; everything you need in Australia
you can get just as well, or better, out there. Most fellows who go out
take tons of unnecessary stuff. Come into the smoking-room and give me a
few more details.”
They came out upon the steps of the club a little later. Bob's head was
whirling. He tried to stammer out more thanks and was cut short, kindly
but decisively.
“That's all right, my boy. I'll send you letters of introduction to
various people who will help you, and a bit of advice about where to go
when you land. Tell your sister not to be nervous--she isn't going to a
wild country, and the people there are much the same as anywhere else.
Now, good-bye, and good luck”; and Bob found himself walking across the
Square in a kind of solemn amazement.
“This morning I was thinking of getting taken on as a farm hand in
Devonshire, with Tommy somewhere handy in a labourer's cottage,” he
pondered. “And now I'm a bloated capitalist, and Tommy and I are going
across the world to Australia as calmly as if we were off to Margate
for the day! Well, I suppose it's only a dream, and I'll wake up soon.
I guess I'd better go back and tell Mr. M'Clinton; and I've got to see
Tommy somehow.” He bent his brows over the problem as he turned towards
Lincoln's Inn.
CHAPTER VI
SAILING ORDERS
“Are you there, miss?”
The sepulchral whisper came faintly to Cecilia's ears as she sat in her
little room, sewing a frock of Queenie's. The children were out in the
garden at the back of the house. Mrs. Rainham was practising in the
drawing-room. The sound of a high trill floated upwards as she opened
the door.
“What is it, Eliza?”
“It's a letter, miss. A kid brought it to the kitchen door--a bit of a
boy. Arsked for me as if 'e'd known me all 'is life--called me Elizer!
'E's waitin' for an answer. I'll wait in me room, miss, till you calls
me.” The little Cockney girl slipped away, revelling in furthering any
scheme to defeat Mrs. Rainham and help Cecilia.
Cecilia opened the letter hurriedly. It contained only one line.
“Can you come at once to Lincoln's Inn? Important.--BOB.”
Cecilia knitted her brows. It was nearly a month since the memorable
evening when she and Bob had revolted; and though she was still made
to feel herself in disgrace, and she knew her letters were watched, the
close spying upon her movements had somewhat relaxed. It had been
too uncomfortable for Mrs. Rainham to keep it up, since it made heavy
demands upon her own time, and interfered with too many plans; moreover,
in spite of it, Cecilia had slipped away from the house two or three
times, going and coming openly, and replying to any questions by the
simple answer that she had been to meet Bob. Angry outbreaks on the part
of her stepmother she received in utter silence, against which the waves
of Mrs. Rainham's wrath spent themselves in vain.
Indeed, the girl lived in a kind of waking dream of happy anticipation,
beside which none of the trials of life in Lancaster Gate had power to
trouble her. For on her first stolen visit to Mr. M'Clinton's office the
wonderful plan of flight to Australia had been revealed to her, and the
joy of the prospect blotted out everything else. Mr. M'Clinton, watching
her face, had been amazed by the wave of delight that had swept over it.
“You like it, then?” he had said. “You are not afraid to go so far?”
“Afraid--with Bob? Oh, the farther I can get from England the better,”
she had answered. “I have no friends here; nothing to leave, except the
memory of two bad years. And out there I should feel safe--she could not
get a policeman to bring me back.” There was no need to ask who “she”
was.
Cecilia had made her preparations secretly. She had not much to do--Aunt
Margaret had always kept her well dressed, and the simple and pretty
things she had worn two years before, and which had never been unpacked
since she put on mourning for her aunt, still fitted her, and were
perfectly good. It had never seemed worth while to leave off wearing
mourning in Lancaster Gate--only when Bob had come home had she unpacked
some of her old wardrobe. Much was packed still, and in store under Mr.
M'Clinton's direction, together with many of Aunt Margaret's personal
possessions. It was as well that it was so, since Mrs. Rainham had
managed to annex a proportion of Cecilia's things for Avice. To
Lancaster Gate she had only taken a couple of trunks, not dreaming of
staying there more than a short time. So packing and flitting would be
easy, given ordinary luck and the certain co-operation of Eliza. Her few
necessary purchases had been made on one of her hurried excursions with
Bob; she had not dared to have the things sent home, and they had been
consigned in a tin uniform case to Bob's care.
She pondered over his note now, knitting her brows. It would be easy
enough to act defiantly and go at once; but if this meant that the
final flight were near at hand she did not wish to excite anew her
stepmother's anger and suspicion. Then, as she hesitated, she heard a
heavy step on the stairs, and she crushed the note hurriedly into her
pocket.
Mrs. Rainham came into the room without the formality of knocking--a
formality she had never observed where Cecilia was concerned. The
afternoon post had just come, and she carried some letters in her hand.
“Cecilia, I want you to put on your things and go to Balding's for me,”
she said, her voice more civil than it had been for a month. “I'm asked
up to Liverpool for a few days; my sister there is giving a big At
Home--an awfully big thing, with the Lady Mayoress and all the Best
People at it--and she wants me to go up. I suppose she'll want me to
sing.”
“That is nice,” said Cecilia, speaking with more truth than Mrs. Rainham
guessed. “What will you wear?”
“That's just it,” said her stepmother eagerly. “My new evening dress
isn't quite finished--we ran short of trimming. I can't go out, because
the Simons are coming in to afternoon tea; so you just hurry and go over
to Balding's to match it. I got it there, and they had plenty. Here's
a bit.” She held out a fragment of gaudy sequin trimming. “I think you
could finish the dress without me getting in the dressmaker again--she's
that run after she makes a regular favour of coming.”
“Very well,” said Cecilia--who would, at the moment, have agreed to sew
anything or everything that might hasten her stepmother's journey. “When
do you go?”
“The day after to-morrow. I'll stay there a few days, I suppose; not
worth going so far for only one evening. Mind, Cecilia, you're not to
have Bob here while I'm away. When I come back, if I'm satisfied with
you, I'll see about asking him again.”
“That is very good of you,” said the girl slowly.
“Well, that's all right--you hurry and get ready; there's always a
chance they may have sold out, because it was a bargain line, and if
they have you'll have to try other places. I don't know what on earth
I'll do if you can't match it.” She turned to go, and then hesitated. “I
was thinking you might take Avice with you--but you'll get about quicker
alone, and she isn't ready. The tubes and buses are that crowded it's
no catch to take a child about with you.” In moments of excitement
Mrs. Rainham's English was apt to slip from her. At other times
she cultivated it carefully, assisted by a dramatic class, which an
enthusiastic maiden lady, with leanings towards the stage, conducted
each winter among neighbouring kindred souls.
Cecilia had caught her breath in alarm, but she breathed a sigh of
relief as the stout, over-dressed figure went down the narrow stairs,
with a final injunction to hurry. There was, indeed, no need to give
Cecilia that particular command. She scribbled one word, “Coming,” on
Bob's note, thrust it into an envelope and addressed it hastily, and
then tapped on the wall between the servants' room and her own.
Eliza appeared with the swiftness of a Jack-in-the-box, full of
suppressed excitement.
“Lor! I fought she was never goin',” she breathed. “Got it ready, Miss?
The boy'll fink I've gorn an' eloped wiv it.” She took the envelope and
pattered swiftly downstairs.
A very few moments saw Cecilia flying in her wake--to Balding's first,
as quickly as tube and motor-bus could combine to take her, since
she dared not breathe freely until Mrs. Rainham's commission had been
settled. Balding's had never seemed so huge and so complicated, and when
she at length made her way to the right department the suave assistant
regretted that the trimming was sold out. It was Cecilia's face of blank
dismay that made him suddenly remember that there was possibly an odd
length somewhere, and a search revealed it, put away in a box of odds
and ends. Cecilia's thanks were so heartfelt that the assistant was
mildly surprised.
“For she don't seem the sort to wear ghastly stuff like that,” he
pondered, glancing after the pretty figure in the well-cut coat and
skirt.
Outside the great shop Cecilia glanced up and caught the eye of a
taxi-driver who had just set down a fare.
“I'll be extravagant for once,” she thought. She beckoned to the man,
and in a moment was whirring through the streets in the peculiar comfort
a motor gives to anyone in a hurry in London--since it can take
direct routes instead of following the roundabout methods of buses and
underground railways. She leaned back, closing her eyes. If this summons
to Bob indeed meant that their sailing orders had come, she would need
all her wits and her coolness. For the first time she realized what her
stepmother's absence from home might mean--a thousandfold less plotting
and planning, and no risk of a horrible scene at the end. Cecilia
loathed scenes; they had not existed in Aunt Margaret's scheme of
existence. Since Bob's plans had become at all definite, she had looked
forward with dread to a final collision with Mrs. Rainham--it was untold
relief to know that it might not come.
She hurried up the steps of Mr. M'Clinton's office. The alert office
boy--who had been Bob's messenger to Lancaster Gate--met her.
“You're to go straight in, miss. The Captain's there.”
Bob was in the inner sanctum with Mr. M'Clinton. They rose to meet her.
“Well--are you ready, young lady?” the old man asked.
“Is it--are we to sail soon?”
“Next Saturday--and this is Monday. Can you manage it, Tommy?” Bob's
eyes were dancing with excitement.
“Oh, Bobby--truly?” She caught at his coat sleeve. “When did you hear?”
“I had a wire from General Harran this morning. A jolly good ship, too,
Tommy; one of the big Australian liners--the Nauru. You're all ready,
aren't you?”
“Oh, yes. And there's the most tremendous piece of luck, Bobby--Mrs.
Rainham's going away on Wednesday!”
“Going away! How more than tactful!” ejaculated Bob. “Where is she
going?”
“To Liverpool.”
“Liverpool? Oh, by Jove!” Bob ended on a low whistle, while his face
assumed a comical expression of dismay. He turned to the lawyer. “Did
you ever hear of anything so queer?”
“Queer? Why?” demanded Cecilia.
“Well, it looks as if she wanted to see the last of you, that's all. The
Nauru sails from Liverpool.”
“Bobby!” Cecilia's face fell. “I thought we went from Gravesend or
Tilbury, or somewhere.”
“So did I. But the General's wire says Liverpool, so it seems we don't,”
said Bob. “And that she-dragon is going there too!”
“I don't think you need really worry,” Mr. M'Clinton said drily.
“Liverpool is not exactly a village. The chances are that if you went
there, trying to meet some one, you would hunt for him for a week in
vain. And you'll probably go straight from the train to the docks, so
that you won't be in the least likely to encounter Mrs. Rainham.”
“Why, of course, we'd never run into her in a huge place like
Liverpool,” Bob said, laughing. “Don't be afraid, Tommy--you'll have
seen the last of her when you say good-bye on Wednesday.”
“It seems too good to be true,” said Cecilia solemnly. “I remember how
I felt once before, when she went away to visit her sister in Liverpool;
the beautiful relief when one woke, to think that not all through the
day would one even have to look at her. It's really very terrible to
look at her often; her white face and hard eyes seem to fascinate one.
Oh, I don't suppose I ought to talk like that, especially here.” She
looked shamefacedly at Mr. M'Clinton, and blushed scarlet.
Both men laughed.
“The good lady had something of the same effect on me,” Mr. M'Clinton
admitted. “I found her a very terrible person. Cheer up, Miss Tommy,
you've nearly finished with her. And, now, what about getting you away?”
Cecilia turned to her brother.
“What am I to do, Bob?”
“We'll have to go to Liverpool on Friday,” Bob replied promptly. “I
can't find out the Nauru's sailing time, and it isn't safe to leave it
until Saturday. There's a train somewhere about two o'clock that gets up
somewhere about seven or eight that evening. Mr. M'Clinton and I don't
want to leave it to the last moment to get your luggage away from
Lancaster Gate. Can you have it ready the night before?”
“It would really be safer to take it in the afternoon,” Cecilia said
after a moment's thought. “Mrs. Rainham's absence will make that quite
easy, for I know I can depend upon Eliza and Cook. I can get my trunks
ready, leave them in my room, and tell Eliza you will be there to call
for them, say, at four o'clock. Then I take the three children out for a
walk, and when we return everything is gone. Will that do?”
“Perfectly,” said Bob, laughing. “And four o'clock suits me all right.
Then you'll saunter out on Friday morning with an inoffensive brown
paper parcel containing the rest of your worldly effects, and meet me
for lunch at the Euston Hotel. Is that clear?”
“Quite. I suppose I had better put no address on my trunks?”
“Not a line--I'll see to that. And don't even mention the word
'Australia' this week, just in case your eye dances unconsciously, and
sets people thinking! I think you'd better cultivate a downtrodden look,
at any rate until Mrs Rainham is out of the house; at present you look
far too cheerful to be natural--doesn't she, sir?”
“You have to see to it that she does not look downtrodden again, after
this week,” said Mr. M'Clinton. “Remember that, Captain--she's going a
long way, and she'll have no one but you.”
“I know, sir. But, bless you, it's me that will look downtrodden,” said
Bob with a grin. “She bullies me horribly--always did.” He slipped his
hand through her arm, and they looked up at him with such radiant faces
that the old man smiled involuntarily.
“Ah, I think you'll be all right,” he said. “Remember, Miss Tommy, I'll
expect to hear from you--fairly often, too. I shall not say good-bye
now--you'll see me on Friday at luncheon.”
They found themselves down in the grey precincts of Lincoln's Inn,
which, it may be, had rarely seen two young things prancing along so
dementedly. In the street they had to sober down, to outward seeming;
but there was still something about them, as they hurried off to find a
teashop to discuss final details, that made people turn to look at
them. Even the waitress beamed on them, and supplied them with her
best cakes--and London waitresses are a bored race. But at the moment,
neither Cecilia nor Bob could have told you whether they were eating
cakes or sausages.
“The money is all right,” Bob said. “It'll be available at a Melbourne
bank when we get there; and meanwhile, there's plenty of ready money,
with what I've saved and my war gratuity. So if you want anything,
Tommy, you just say so, and don't go without any pretties just because
you think we'll be in the workhouse.”
“Bless you--but I don't really need anything,” she told him gratefully.
“It would be nice to have a little money to spend at the ports, but I
think we ought to keep the rest for Australia, don't you, Bob?”
“Oh, yes, of course; but you're not to go without a few pounds if you
want 'em,” said Bob. “And, Tommy, don't leave meeting me on Friday until
lunch time. I'll be worrying if you do, just in case things may have
gone wrong. Make it eleven o'clock at the Bond Street tube exit, and if
you're not there in half an hour I'll jolly well go and fetch you.”
“I'll be there,” Cecilia nodded. “You had better give me the half-hour's
grace, though, in case I might be held up at the last moment. One never
knows--and Avice and Wilfred are excellent little watchdogs.”
“Anyhow, you won't have the she-dragon to reckon with, and that's a
big thing,” Bob said. “I don't see how you can have any trouble--Papa
certainly will not give you any.”
“No, he won't bother,” said Cecilia slowly. “It's queer to think how
little he counts--our own father.”
“A pretty shoddy apology for one, I think,” Bob said bitterly. “What has
he ever done for us? But I'd forgive him that when I can't forgive him
something else--the way he has let you be treated these two years.”
“He hasn't known everything, Bobby.”
“He has known quite enough. And if he had the spirit of a man he'd have
saved you from it. No; we don't owe him any consideration, Tommy; and
he saw to it years ago that we should never owe him any affection. So
we really needn't worry our heads about him. By the way, there are to be
some Australians on the Nauru who General Harran says may be of use to
us--I don't remember their names, but he's going to give me a letter
to them. And probably there will be some other flying people whom I may
know. I think the voyage ought to be rather good fun.”
“I think so, too. It will be exciting to be on a troopship,” Cecilia
said. “But, then, anything will be heavenly after Lancaster Gate!”
She hurried home, as soon as the little meal was over, knowing that
Mrs. Rainham would be impatiently awaiting her. Luckily, her success in
matching the trimming made her stepmother forget how long she had been
away; and from that moment until a welcome four-wheeler removed the
mistress of the house on Wednesday, she sewed and packed for her
unceasingly. Her journey excited Mrs. Rainham greatly. She talked
almost affably of her sister's grandeur, and of the certainty of meeting
wealthy and gorgeously dressed people at her party.
“Not that I'll be at all ashamed of my dress,” she added, looking at
the billowy waves on which Cecilia was plastering yet more trimming.
“Unusual and artistic, that's what it is; and it'll show off my hair.
Don't forget the darning when I'm gone, Cecilia. There's a tablecloth to
mend, as well as the stockings. I'll be home on Saturday night, unless
they persuade me to stay over the week-end.”
Cecilia nodded, sewing busily.
“And just see if you can't get on a bit better with the children. You've
got to make allowances for their high spirits, and treat them tactfully.
Of course you can't expect them to be as obedient to you as they would
be to a regular governess, you being their own half-sister, and not so
much older than Avice, after all. But tact does wonders, especially with
children.”
“Yes,” said Cecilia, and said no more.
“Well, just bear it in mind. I don't suppose you'll see much of your
father, so you needn't worry about him. But don't let Eliza gossip and
idle; she never does any work if she's not kept up to it, and you know
you're much too familiar with her. Always keep girls like her at a
distance, and they'll work all the better, that's what I say. Treat her
as an equal, and the next thing you know she'll be trying on your hats!”
“I haven't caught Eliza at that yet,” said Cecilia with the ghost of a
smile.
“It'll come, though, if you're not more stand-offish with her--you mark
my words. Keep them in their place--that's what I always do with my
servants and governesses,” said Mrs. Rainham without the slightest idea
that she was saying anything peculiar. “Now, I'll go and put my things
out on my bed, and as soon as you've finished that you can come up and
pack for me.”
Cecilia stood at the hall door that afternoon to watch her go--bustling
into the cab, with loud directions to the cabman, her hard face full of
self-importance and satisfaction. The plump hand waved a highly scented
handkerchief as the clumsy four-wheeler moved off.
“To think I'll never see you again!” breathed the girl. “It seems too
good to be true!”
A kind of wave of relief seemed to have descended upon the house. The
children were openly exulting in having no one to obey; an attitude
which, in the circumstances, failed to trouble their half-sister. Eliza
went about her work with a cheery face; even Cook, down in the basement,
manifested lightness of heart by singing love songs in a cracked soprano
and by making scones for afternoon tea. Mark Rainham did not come home
until late--he had announced his intention of dining at his club. Late
in the evening he sauntered into the dining-room, where Cecilia sat
sewing.
“Still at it?” he asked. He sat down and poked the fire. “What are you
sewing?”
“Just darning,” Cecilia told him.
He sat looking at her for a while--at the pretty face and the
well-tended hair; and who shall say what thoughts stirred in his dull
brain?
“You look a bit pale,” he said at last. “Do you go out enough?”
“Oh, yes, I think so,” Cecilia answered in astonishment. Not in two
years had he shown so much interest in her; and it braced her to a
sudden resolve. She had never been quite satisfied to leave him without
a word; whatever he was, he was still her father. She put her darning on
her knee, and looked at him gravely.
“You know Bob is demobilized, don't you, Papa?”
“Yes--he told me so,” Mark Rainham answered.
“And you know he wants to take me away?”
Her father's eyes wavered and fell before her.
“Oh, yes--but the idea's ridiculous, I'm afraid. You're under age, and
your stepmother won't hear of it.” He poked the fire savagely.
“But if Bob could make a home for me! We have always been together, you
know, Papa.”
“Oh, well--wait and see. Time enough when you're twenty-one, and your
own mistress; Bob will have had a chance to make good by then. I--I
can't oppose my wife in the matter--she says she's not strong enough to
do without your help.”
“But she never seems satisfied with me.”
Mark Rainham rose with an irritably nervous movement.
“Oh, no one is ever perfect. I suspect, if each of you went a little
way to meet the other, things would be better. Your stepmother says her
nerves are all wrong, and I'm sure you do take a great deal of trouble
off her shoulders.”
“Then you won't let me go?” The girl's low voice was relentless, and
her father wriggled as though he were a beetle and she were pinning him
down.
“I--I'm afraid it's out of the question, Cecilia. I should have to be
very satisfied first that Bob could offer you a home--and by that time
he'll probably be thinking of getting married, and won't want you. Why
can't you settle down comfortably to living at home?”
“There isn't any home for me apart from Bob,” said the girl.
“Well, I can't help it.” Mark Rainham's voice had a hopeless tone. He
walked to the door, and then half turned. “If you can make my wife agree
to your going, I won't forbid it. Good night.”
“Good night,” said Cecilia. The slow footsteps went up the stairs, and
she turned to her darning with a lip that curled in scorn.
“Well, that let's me out. I don't owe you anything--not even a good-bye
note on my pincushion,” she said presently; and laughed a little. She
folded a finished pair of socks deliberately, and, rising, stretched
her arms luxuriously above her head. “Two more days,” she whispered. She
switched off the light, and crept noiselessly upstairs.
CHAPTER VII
THE WATCH DOGS
“Well, if you ask me, she's up to something,” said Avice with
conviction.
“How d'you mean?” Wilfred looked up curiously.
“Lots of things. She looks all different. First of all--look how red she
is all the time, and the excited look in her eyes.”
“That's all look--look!” jeered her brother. “Girls always have those
rotten ideas about nothing at all. Just because Cecilia's got a bit
sunburnt, and because she's havin' an easy time 'cause Mater's away--”
“Oh, you think because you're a boy, you know everything,” retorted his
sister hotly. “You just listen, and see if I've got rotten ideas. Did
you know, she's kept her room locked for days?”
“Well--if she has? That's nothing.”
“You shut up and let me go on. Yesterday she forgot, and left it open
while she was down talking to Cook, and I slipped in. And there was
one of her great big trunks, that she always keeps in the box room,
half-packed with her things. I nicked this necklace out of it, too,”
said Avice with triumph, producing a quaint string of Italian beads.
“Good business,” said Wilfred with an appreciative grin. “Did she catch
you?”
“Not she--I can tell you I didn't wait long, 'cause she always comes
upstairs as quick as lightning. She did come, too, in an awful hurry,
and locked up the room--I only got out of the way just in time. And
every minute she could, yesterday, she was up there.”
“Well, I don't see much in that.”
“No, but look here, I got another chance of looking into her room this
morning, and that trunk was gone!”
“Gone back to the box-room,” said Wilfred with superiority.
“No, it wasn't--I went up and looked. And her other trunk's not there,
either.”
“Oh, you're dreaming! I bet she'd just pushed it under her bed.”
“Pooh!” said Avice. “That great big trunk wouldn't go under her bed--you
know she's only got a little stretcher-bed. And I tell you they'd both
gone. I bet you anything she's going to run away.”
“Where'd she run to?”
“Oh, somewhere with Bob.”
“Well, let her go.”
“Yes, and Mater 'd have to spend ever so much on a new governess; and
most likely she'd be a worse beast than Cecilia. And no governess we
ever had did half the things Mater makes Cecilia do to help in the
house. Why she's like an extra servant, as well as a governess. Mater
told me all about it. I tell you what, Wilfred, it's our business to see
she doesn't run away.”
“All right,” said Wilfred, “I suppose we'd better watch out. When do you
reckon she'd go? People generally run away at night, don't they?”
“Well, anyone can see she's just taking advantage of Mater being away.
Yes, of course she'd go at night. She might have sent her boxes away
yesterday by a carrier--I bet that horrid little Eliza would help her.
Ten to one she means to sneak out to-night--she knows Mater will be home
to-morrow.”
“What a sell it will be for her if we catch her!” said Wilfred with
glee. “I say, what about telling Pater?”
Avice looked sour.
“I did tell him something yesterday, and he only growled at me. At
least, I said, 'Do you think Cecilia would ever be likely to run away?'
And he just stared at me, and then he said, 'Not your business if she
does.' So I'm not going to speak to him again.”
“Well, we'd better take it in turns to watch her,” Wilfred said. “After
dark's the most likely time, I suppose, but we'd better be on the
look-out all the time. Where's she now, by the way?”
“Why, I don't know. I say, she's been away a long time--I never
noticed,” said Avice, in sudden alarm. “She said we were to go on with
our French exercises--and that's ages ago.”
“Come on and see,” said Wilfred jumping up.
Outside the room he caught Avice by the arm.
“Kick off your shoes,” he said. “We'll sneak up to her room.”
They crept up silently. The door of Cecilia's room was ajar. Peeping in,
they saw her standing before her tiny looking-glass, pinning on her
hat. A small parcel lay upon her bed, with her gloves and parasol. The
children were very silent--but something struck upon the girl's tightly
strung nerves. She turned swiftly and saw them.
“What are you doing?” she demanded. “How dare you come into my room?”
“Why, we thought you were lost,” said Avice. “We finished our French
ages ago. Where are you going?”
“I am going out,” said Cecilia. “I'll set you more work to do while I'm
away.”
“But where are you going?”
“That has nothing to do with you. Come down to the schoolroom.”
Avice held her brother firmly by the arm. Together they blocked the way.
“Mater wouldn't let you go out in lesson time. I believe you're going to
run away!”
A red spot flamed in each of Cecilia's white cheeks.
“Stand out of my way, you little horrors!” she said angrily. She caught
up her things and advanced upon them.
“I'm hanged if you're going,” said Wilfred doggedly. He pushed her back
violently, and slammed the door.
The attic doors in Lancaster Gate, like those of many London houses,
were fitted with heavy iron bolts on the outside--a precaution against
burglars who might enter the house by rooms ordinarily little used. It
was not the first time that Cecilia had been bolted into her room by her
step-brother. When first she came, it had been a favourite pastime to
make her a prisoner--until their mother had made it an offence carrying
a heavy penalty, since it had often occurred that Cecilia was locked up
when she happened to need her.
But this time Cecilia heard the heavy bolt shoot home with feelings of
despair. It was already time for her to leave the house. Bob would
be waiting for her in Bond Street, impatiently scanning each crowd of
passengers that the lift shot up from underground. She battered at the
door wildly.
“Let me out! How dare you, Wilfred? Let me out at once!”
Wilfred laughed disagreeably.
“Not if we know it--eh, Avice?”
“Rather not,” said Avice. “What d'you think Mater'd say to us if we let
you run away?”
“Nonsense!” said Cecilia, controlling her voice with difficulty. “I was
going to meet Bob.”
There was silence, and a whispered consultation. Then Avice spoke.
“Will you give us your word of honour you weren't going to run away?”
Words of honour meant little to the young Rainhams. But they knew that
Cecilia held it as a commonplace of decent behaviour that people did not
tell lies. They had, indeed, often marvelled that she preferred to “take
her gruel” rather than use any ready untruth that would have shielded
her from their mother's wrath. Avice and Wilfred had no such scruples on
their own account: but they knew that they could depend upon Cecilia's
word. They were, indeed, just a little afraid of their own action in
locking her up; their mother might have condoned it as “high spirits,”
but their father was not unlikely to take a different view. So they
awaited her reply with some anxiety.
Cecilia hesitated. Never in her life had she been so tempted. Perhaps
because the temptation was so strong she answered swiftly.
“No--I won't tell you anything of the kind. But look here--if you will
let me out I'll give you each ten shillings.”
Ten shillings! It was wealth, and the children gasped. Wilfred, indeed,
would have shot back the bolt instantly. It was Avice who caught at his
arm.
“Don't you!” she whispered. “It'll cost heaps more than that to get
a new governess--and we'll make Mater give us each ten shillings for
keeping her. I say, we'll have to get the Pater home.”
“How?” Wilfred looked at her blankly.
“Easy. You go to the post office and telephone to him at his office.
Tell him to come at once. I'll watch here, in case Eliza lets her out.
Run--hard as you can. Mater'll never forgive us if she gets away.”
Wilfred clattered off obediently, awed by his sister's urgency. Avice
sat down on the head of the stairs, close to the bolted door; and when
Cecilia spoke again, repeating her offer, she answered her in a voice
unpleasantly like her mother's:
“No, you don't, my fine lady. Wilfred's gone for the Pater--he'll be
here presently. You just stay there quietly till he comes.”
“Avice!” The word was a wail. “Oh, you don't know how important it
is--let me out. I'll give you anything in the world.”
“So'll Mater if I stop your little game,” said Avice. “You just keep
quiet.”
Eliza's sharp little face appeared at the foot of the flight of stairs.
“Wot's up, Miss Avice? Anyfink wrong with Miss 'Cilia?”
“Nothing to do with you,” said Avice rudely. “I'm looking after her.”
But Cecilia's sharp ears had caught the new voice.
“Eliza! Eliza!” she called.
The girl came up the stairs uncertainly. Avice rose to confront her.
“Now, you just keep off,” she said. “You're not coming past here. The
master'll be home directly, and till he comes, no one's going up
these stairs.” She raised her voice, to drown that of Cecilia, who was
speaking again.
Eliza looked at her doubtfully. She was an undersized, wizened little
Cockney, and Avice was a big, stoutly-built girl--who held, moreover,
the advantage of a commanding position on the top step. In an encounter
of strength there was little doubt as to who would win. She turned
in silence, cowed, and went down to the kitchen, while Avice sang a
triumphant song, partly as a chant of victory, and partly to make sure
that no one would hear the remarks that Cecilia was steadily making. She
herself had caught one phrase--“Tell my brother”--and her sharp little
mind was busy. Did that mean that Bob would be coming, against its
mistress's orders, to Lancaster Gate.
In the kitchen Eliza poured out a frantic appeal to Cook.
“She's got Miss 'Cilia locked up--the little red-'eaded cat! An' Master
Wilfred gorn to fetch the Master! Oh, come on, Cookie darlin', an' we'll
let 'er out.”
Cook shook her head slowly.
“Not good enough,” she said. “I got a pretty good place. I ain't goin'
to risk it by 'avin' a rough-an'-tumble with the daughter of the 'ouse
on the hattic stairs. You better leave well alone, Liza. You done your
bit, 'elpin' 'er git them trunks orf yes'day.”
“Wot's the good of 'avin the trunks off if she can't go, too?” demanded
Eliza.
“Oh, she'll git another chance. Don't worry your 'ead so much over other
people's business. If the Master comes 'ome an' finds us scruffin' 'is
daughter, 'e'll 'and us both over to the police for assault--an' then
you'll 'ave cause for worry. Now you git along like a good gel--I got to
mike pastry.” Cook turned away decisively.
Wilfred had come home and had raced up the stairs.
“Did you get him?” Avice cried.
“No--he was out. So I left a message that he was to come home at once,
'cause something was wrong.”
“That'll bring him,” said Avice with satisfaction. “Now, look here,
Wilf--I believe Bob may come. You go and be near the front door, to
block Eliza, if he does. Answer any ring.”
“What'll I say if he comes?”
“Say she's gone out to meet him--if he thinks that, he'll hurry back to
wherever they were to meet. Don't give him a chance to get in. Hurry!”
“Right,” said Wilfred, obeying. He sat down in a hall chair, and took
up a paper, with an eye wary for Eliza. Half an hour passed tediously,
while upstairs Cecilia begged and bribed in vain. Then he sprang to his
feet as a ring came.
Bob was at the door; and suddenly Wilfred realized that he had always
been afraid of Bob. He quailed inwardly, for never had he seen his
half-brother look as he did now--with a kind of still, terrible anger in
his eyes.
“Where's Cecilia?”
“Gone out,” said the boy.
“Where?”
“Gone to meet you.”
“Did she tell you so?”
“Yes, of course--how'd I know if she didn't?”
“Then that's a lie, for she wouldn't tell you. Let me in.”
“I tell you, she's gone out,” said Wilfred, whose only spark of
remaining courage was due to the fact that he had prudently kept the
door on the chain. “And Mater said you weren't to come in here.”
From the area below a shrill voice floated upwards.
“Mr. Bob! Mr. Bob! Daon't you believe 'im. They got Miss 'Cilia locked
up in 'er room.”
“By Jove!” said Bob between his teeth. “Bless you, Eliza! Open that
door, Wilfred, or I'll make it hot for you.” He thrust a foot into the
opening, with a face so threatening that Wilfred shrank back.
“I shan't,” he said. “You're not going to get her.”
“Am I not?” said Bob. He leaned back, and then suddenly flung all his
weight against the door. The chain was old and the links eaten with
rust--it snapped like a carrot, and the door flew open. Bob brushed
Wilfred out of his way, and went upstairs, three at a time.
Avice blocked his path.
“You aren't coming up.”
“Oh, yes, I think so,” Bob said. He stooped, with a quick movement,
and picked her up, holding her across his shoulder, while she beat and
clawed unavailingly at his back. So holding her, he thrust back the bolt
of Cecilia's door and flung it open.
“Did you think they had got you, Tommy?”
She could only cling to his free arm for a moment speechless. Then she
lifted her face, her voice shaking, still in fear.
“We must hurry, Bob. They've sent for Papa.”
“Have they?” said Bob, with interest. “Well, not a regiment of papas
should stop you now, old girl. Got everything?”
Cecilia gathered up her things, nodding.
“Then we'll leave this young lady here,” said Bob. He placed Avice
carefully on Cecilia's bed, and made for the door, having the pleasure,
as he shot the bolt, of hearing precisely what the younger Miss
Rainham thought of him and all his attributes, including his personal
appearance.
“A nice gift of language, hasn't she?” he said. “Inherits it from
her mamma, I should think.” He put his arm round Cecilia and held her
closely as they went downstairs, his face full of the joy of battle.
Wilfred was nowhere to be seen, but by the door Eliza waited. Bob
slipped something into her hand.
“I expect you'll lose your place over this, Eliza,” he said. “Well,
you'll get a better--I'll tell my lawyer to see to that. He'll write to
you--by the way, what's your surname? Oh, Smithers--I'll remember. And
thank you very much.”
They shook hands with her, and passed out into the street. Cecilia was
still too shaken to speak--but as Bob pulled her hand through his arm
and hurried her along, her self-control returned, and the face that
looked up at his presently was absolutely content. Bob returned the look
with a little smile.
“Didn't you know I'd come?” he asked. “You dear old stupid.”
“I knew you'd come--but I thought Papa would get there first,” Cecilia
answered. “Somehow, it seemed the end of everything.”
“It isn't--it's only the beginning,” Bob answered.
There was a narrow side street that made a short cut from the tube
station to the Rainhams' home; and as they passed it Mark Rainham came
hurrying up it. Bob and Cecilia did not see him. He looked at them for
a moment, as if reading the meaning of the two happy faces--and then
shrank back into an alley and remained hidden until his son and daughter
had passed out of sight. They went on their way, without dreaming that
the man they dreaded was within a stone's throw of them.
“So it was that,” said Mark Rainham slowly, looking after them. “Out of
gaol, are you--poor little prisoner! Well, good luck to you both!” He
turned on his heel, and went back to his office.
CHAPTER VIII
HOW TOMMY BOARDED A STRANGE TAXI
“We're nearly in, Tommy.”
Cecilia looked up from her corner with a start, and the book she had
been trying to read slipped to the floor of the carriage.
“I believe you were asleep,” said Bob, laughing. “Poor old Tommy, are
you very tired?”
“Oh, nothing, really. Only I was getting a bit sleepy,” his sister
answered. “Are we late, Bob?”
“Very, the conductor says. This train generally makes a point of being
late. I wish it had made a struggle to be on time to-night; it would
have been jolly to get to the ship in daylight.” Bob was strapping up
rugs briskly as he talked.
“How do we get down to the ship, Bob?”
“Oh, no doubt there'll be taxis,” Bob answered. “But it may be no end of
a drive--the conductor tells me there are miles and miles of docks, and
the Nauru may be lying anywhere. But he says there's always a military
official on duty at the station--a transport officer, and he'll be able
to tell me everything.” He did not think it worth while to tell the
tired little sister what another man had told him, that it was very
doubtful whether they would be allowed to board any transport at night,
and that Liverpool was so crowded that to find beds in it might be an
impossibility. Bob refused to be depressed by the prospect. “If the
worst came to the worst, there'd be a Y.W.C.A. that would take in
Tommy,” he mused. “And it wouldn't be the first time I've spent a night
in the open.” Nothing seemed to matter now that they had escaped. But,
all the same, there seemed no point in telling Tommy, who was extremely
cheerful, but also very white-faced.
They drew into an enormous station, where there seemed a dense crowd
of people, but no porters at all. Bob piled their hand luggage on
the platform, and left Cecilia to guard it while he went on a tour of
discovery. He hurried back to her presently.
“Come on,” he said, gathering up their possessions. “There's a big
station hotel opening on to the platforms. I can leave you sitting in
the vestibule while I gather up the heavy luggage and find the transport
officer. I'm afraid it's going to take some time, so don't get worried
if I don't turn up very soon. There seem to be about fifty thousand
people struggling round the luggage vans, and I'll have to wait my turn.
But I'll be as quick as I can.”
“Don't you worry on my account,” Cecilia said. “This is ever so
comfortable. I don't mind how long you're away!” She laughed up at him,
sinking into a big chair in the vestibule of the hotel. There were heavy
glass doors on either side that were constantly swinging to let people
in or out; through them could be seen the hurrying throng of people
on the station, rushing to and fro under the great electric lights,
gathered round the bookstall, struggling along under luggage, or--very
occasionally--moving in the wake of a porter with a barrow heaped with
trunks. There were soldiers everywhere, British and Australian, and
officers in every variety of Allied uniform.
An officer came in with a lady and two tiny boys--Cecilia recognized
them as having been passengers on their train. With them came an old
Irish priest, who had met them, and the officer left them in his
care while he also went off on the luggage quest. The small boys were
apparently untired by their journey; they immediately began to use the
swinging glass doors as playthings to the imminent risk of their own
necks, since they were too little to be noticed by anyone coming in
or out, and were nearly knocked flat a dozen times by the swing of the
doors. The weary mother spent a busy time in rescuing them, and was not
always entirely successful--bumps and howls testified to the doors being
occasionally quicker than the boys. Finally, the old priest gathered
up the elder, a curly-haired, slender mite, into his arms and told him
stories, while his plump and solemn brother curled up on his mother's
knee and dozed. It was clearly long after their bed-time.
The procession of people came and went unceasingly, the glass doors
always aswing. In and out, in and out, men and women hurried, and just
beyond the kaleidoscope of the platforms moved and changed restlessly
under the glaring arc lights. Cecilia's bewildered mind grew weary of it
all, and she closed her eyes. It was some time later that she woke with
a start, to find Bob beside her.
“Sleepy old thing,” he said. “Oh, I've had such a wild time, Tommy; to
get information of any kind is as hard as to get one's luggage. However,
I've got both. And the first thing is we can't go on board to-night.”
“Bob! What shall we do?”
“I was rather anxious about that same thing myself,” said Bob, “since
everyone tells me that Liverpool is more jammed with people than even
London--which is saying something. However, we've had luck. I went to
ask in here, never imagining I had the ghost of a chance, and they'd
just had telegrams giving up two rooms. So we're quite all right; and so
is the luggage. I've had all the heavy stuff handed over to a carrier to
be put on the Nauru to-morrow morning.”
“You're the great manager,” said Cecilia comfortably. “Where is the
Nauru, by the way?”
“Sitting out in the river, the transport officer says. She doesn't come
alongside until the morning; and we haven't to be on board until three
o'clock. She's supposed to pull out about six. So we really needn't have
left London to-day--but I think it's as well we did.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Cecilia, with a shiver. “I don't think I could have
stood another night in Lancaster Gate. I've been awake for three nights
wondering what we should do if any hitch came in our plans.”
“Just like a woman!” said Bob, laughing. “You always jump over your
hedges before you come to them.” He pulled her gently out of her chair.
“Come along; I'll have these things sent up to our rooms, and then we'll
get some dinner--after which you'll go to bed.” It was a plan which
sounded supremely attractive to his sister.
Not even the roar and rattle of the trains under the station hotel kept
Cecilia awake that night. She slept, dreamlessly at first; then she had
a dream that she was just about to embark in a great ship for Australia;
that she was going up the gangway, when suddenly behind her came her
father and her stepmother, with Avice, Wilfred and Queenie, who all
seized her, and began to drag her back. She fought and struggled with
them, and from the top of the gangway came Mr. M'Clinton and Eliza, who
tugged her upwards. Between the two parties she was beginning to think
she would be torn to pieces, when suddenly came swooping from the clouds
an areoplane, curiously like a wheelbarrow, and in it Bob, who leaned
out as he dived, grasped her by the hair, and swung her aboard with him.
They whirred away over the sea; where, she did not know, but it did not
seem greatly to matter. They were still flying between sea and sky when
she woke, to find the sunlight streaming into her room, and some one
knocking at her door.
“Are you awake, Tommy?” It was Bob's voice. “Lie still, and I'll send
you up a cup of tea.”
That was very pleasant, and a happy contrast to awakening in Lancaster
Gate; and breakfast a little later was delightful, in a big sunny room,
with interesting people coming and going all the time. Bob and Cecilia
smiled at each other like two happy children. It was almost unbelievable
that they were free; away from tryanny and coldness, with no more
plotting and planning, and no more prying eyes.
Bob went off to interview the transport officer after breakfast, and
Cecilia found the officer's wife with the two little boys struggling to
attend to her luggage, while the children ran away and lost themselves
in the corridors or endeavoured to commit suicide by means of the lift.
So Cecilia took command of them and played with them until the harassed
mother had finished, and came to reclaim her offspring--this time with
the worry lines smoothed out of her face. She sat down by Cecilia and
talked, and presently it appeared that she also was sailing in the
Nauru.
“Indeed, I thought it was only wives who were going,” she said. “I
didn't know sisters were permitted.”
“I believe General Harran managed our passages,” Cecilia said. “He has
been very kind to my brother.”
“Well, you should have a merry voyage, for there will be scarcely any
young girls on board,” said Mrs. Burton, her new friend. “Most of the
women on the transports are brides, of course. Ever so many of our men
have married over here.”
“You are an Australian?” Cecilia asked.
“Oh, yes. My husband isn't. He was an old regular officer, and returned
to his regiment as soon as war broke out. I don't think there will be
many women on board: the Nauru isn't a family ship, you know.”
“What is that?” Cecilia queried.
“Oh, a ship with hundreds of women and children--privates' wives and
families, as well as officers'. I believe they are rather awful to
travel on--they must be terrible in rough weather. The non-family ships
carry only a few officers' wives, as a rule: a much more comfortable
arrangement for the lucky few.”
“And we are among the lucky few?”
“Yes. I only hope my small boys won't be a nuisance. I've never been
without a nurse for them until last night. However, I suppose I'll soon
get into their ways.”
“You must let me help you,” Cecilia said. “I love babies.” She stroked
Tim's curly head as she spoke: Dickie, his little brother, had suddenly
fallen asleep on his mother's knee.
Mrs. Burton smiled her thanks.
“Well, it is pleasant to think we shan't go on board knowing no one,”
she said. “I hope our cabins are not far apart. Oh, here is my husband;
I hope that means all our luggage is safely on board.”
Colonel Burton came up--a pleasant soldierly man, bearing the
unmistakable stamp of the regular officer. They were still chatting
when Bob arrived, to be introduced--a ceremony which appeared hardly
necessary in the case of the colonel and himself.
“We've met at intervals since last night in various places where they
hide luggage,” said the colonel. “I'm beginning to turn faint at the
sight of a trunk!”
“It's the trunks I can't get sight of that make me tremble,” grinned
Bob. “One of mine disappeared mysteriously this morning, and finally,
after a breathless hunt, turned up in a lamp-room--your biggest
Saratoga, Tommy! Why anyone should have put it in a lamp-room seems to
be a conundrum that is going to excite the station for ever. But there
it was.”
“And have they really started for the ship?” asked Cecilia.
“Well--I saw them all on a lorry, checked over my list with the
driver's, and found everything right, and saw him start,” said Bob,
laughing. “More than that no man may say.”
“It would simplify matters if we knew our cabin numbers,” said Colonel
Burton. “But we don't; neither does anyone, as far as I can gather,
since cabins appear to be allotted just as you go on board--a peculiar
system. Can you imagine the ghastly heap of miscellaneous luggage that
will be dumped on the Nauru, with frenzied owners wildly trying to sort
it out!”
“It doesn't bear thinking of,” said Bob, laughing. “Come along, Tommy,
and we'll explore Liverpool.”
They wandered about the crowded streets of the great port, where may,
perhaps, be seen a queerer mixture of races than anywhere in England,
since ships from all over the world ceaselesly come and go up and down
the Mersey. Then they boarded a tram and journeyed out of the city,
among miles of beautiful houses, and, getting down at the terminus,
walked briskly for an hour, since it would be long before there would
be any land for them to walk on again. They got back to the hotel rather
late for lunch, and very hungry; and afterwards it was time to pack up
their light luggage and get down to the docks. General Harran had warned
them to take enough hand-baggage to last them several nights, since
it was quite possible that their cabin trunks would be swept into the
baggage room, and fail to turn up for a week after sailing.
A taxi whisked them through streets that became more and more crowded.
The journey was not a long one; they turned down a slope presently, and
drew up before a great gate across the end of a pier where two policemen
were on duty to prevent the entrance of anyone without a pass. Porters
were there in singular numbers--England had grown quite used to being
without them; and Bob had just transferred their luggage to the care of
a cheerful lad with a barrow when Cecilia gave a little start of dismay.
“Bob, I've left my watch!”
“Whew!” whistled her brother. “Where?”
“I washed my hands just before I left my room,” said the shamefaced
Cecilia. “I remember slipping it off my wrist beside the basin.”
“Well, there's no need to worry,” said Bob cheerfully. “Ten to one it's
there still. You'll have to take the taxi and go back for it, Tommy:
I can't leave the luggage, and I may be wanted to show our papers,
besides; but you won't have any difficulty. Come along, and I'll see
that the policeman lets you through when you come back.”
The constable was sympathetic. He examined Cecilia's passport, declared
that he would know her anywhere again, and that she had no cause for
anxiety.
“Is it time? Sure, ye'll be tired of waitin' on the ould pier hours
afther ye get back,” he said cheerfully. “I know thim transports. Why,
there's not one of the throops marched in yet. There comes the furrst
lot.”
A band swung round the turn of the street playing a quickstep: behind
it, a long line of Australian soldiers, marching at ease, each man with
his pack on his shoulder. A gate with a military sentry swung wide to
admit them, and they passed on to where a high overhead bridge carried
them aboard a great liner moored to the pier.
“'Tis the soldiers have betther treatment than the officers whin it
comes to boardin' transports,” said the friendly policeman. “They get
marched straight on board. The officers and their belongin's has to wait
till they've gone through hivin knows what formalities. So you needn't
worry, miss, an' take your time. The ould ship'll be there hours yet.”
The taxi driver appeared only too glad of further employment, and
Cecilia, much cheered, though still considerably ashamed of herself,
leaned back comfortably in the cab as they whisked through the streets.
At the hotel good fortune awaited her, for a chambermaid had just found
her watch and had brought it to the office for safe keeping. Cecilia
left her thanks, with something more substantial, for the girl, and
hurried back to the cab.
The streets seemed more thronged than ever, and presently traffic was
blocked by a line of marching men--more “diggers” on their way to the
transport. Cecilia's chauffeur turned back into a side street, evidently
a short cut. Half-way along it the taxi jarred once or twice and came to
a standstill.
The chauffeur got out and poked his head into the bonnet, performing
mysterious rites, while Cecilia watched him, a little anxiously.
Presently he came round to the door.
“I'm awful sorry, miss,” he said respectfully. “The old bus has broke
down. I'm afraid I can't get another move out of 'er--I'll 'ave to get
'er towed to a garage.”
“Oh!” said Cecilia, jumping out. “Do you think I can find another near
here?”
“You oughter pick one up easy in the street up there,” said the
chauffeur. “Plenty of 'em about 'ere. Even if you shouldn't, miss, you
can get a tram down to the docks--any p'liceman 'll direct you. You
could walk it, if you liked--you've loads of time.” He touched his cap
as she paid him. “Very sorry to let you down like this, miss--it
ain't my fault. All the taxis in England are just about droppin' to
pieces--it'll be a mercy when repair shops get goin' again.”
“It doesn't matter,” Cecilia said cheerfully. She decided that she would
walk; it would be more interesting, and the long wait on the pier would
be shortened. She set off happily towards the main street where the tram
lines ran, feeling that short cuts were not for strangers in a big city.
Even in the side street the shops were interesting. She came upon a
fascinating curio shop, and stopped a moment to look at the queer medley
in its window; such a medley as may be seen in any port where sailor-men
bring home strange things from far countries. She was so engrossed
that she failed to notice a woman who passed her, and then, with an
astonished stare, turned back. A heavy hand fell on her wrist.
“Cecilia!”
She turned, with a little cry. Mrs. Rainham's face, inflamed with sudden
anger, looked into her own. The hard grasp tightened on her wrist.
“What are you doing here, you wicked girl? You've run away.”
At the moment no speech was possible to Cecilia. She twisted her arm
away fiercely, freeing herself with difficulty, and turning, ran, with
her stepmother at her heels. Once, Mrs. Rainham gasped “Police!” after
which she required all the breath to keep near the flying girl. The
street was quiet; only one or two interested passers-by turned to
look at the race, and a street urchin shouted: “Go it, red 'ead--she's
beatin' yer!”
It follows naturally, when one person pursues another through city
streets, that the pursued falls under public suspicion and is liable to
be caught and held by any officious person. Cecilia felt this, and her
anxiety was keen as she darted round the corner into the next street,
looking about wildly for a means of escape. A big van, crawling across
the road, held Mrs. Rainham back for a moment, giving her a brief
respite.
Just in front of her, a block in the traffic was beginning to move. A
taxi was near her. She held up her hand desperately, trying to catch the
driver's eye. He shook his head, and she realized that he was already
engaged--there was a pile of luggage beside him with big labels, and
a familiar name struck her--“H.M.T. Nauru.” A girl, leaning from the
window of the taxi, met her glance, and Cecilia took a sudden resolve.
She sprang forward, her hand on the door.
“I am a passenger by the Nauru. Could you take me in your car?” she
gasped.
“Why, of course,” said the other girl. “Plenty of room, isn't there,
dad?”
“Yes, certainly,” said the other occupant of the cab--a big, grizzled
man, who looked at the new-comer in blank amazement. He had half risen,
but there was no time for him to assist his self-invited guest; she had
opened the door and jumped in before his daughter had finished speaking.
Leaning forward, Cecilia saw her stepmother emerge from the traffic,
crimson-faced, casting wild and wrathful glances about her. Then her
wandering eye fell upon Cecilia, and she began to run forward. Even as
she did the chauffeur quickened his pace, and the taxi slid away, until
the running, shouting figure was lost to view.
Cecilia sat back with a gasp, and began to laugh helplessly. The others
watched her with faces that clearly showed that they began to suspect
having entertained a lunatic unawares.
“I do beg your pardon,” said Cecilia, recovering. “It was inexcusable.
But I was running away.”
“So it seemed,” said the big man, in a slow, pleasant voice. “I hope it
wasn't from the police?”
“Oh no!” Cecilia flushed. “Only from my stepmother. My own taxi had just
broken down, and she found me, and she would have made a scene in the
street--and scenes are so vulgar, are they not? When I saw Nauru on your
luggage, you seemed to me to have dropped from heaven.”
She looked at them, her pretty face pink, her eyes dancing with
excitement. There was something appealing about her, in the big childish
eyes, and in the well-bred voice with its faint hint of a French accent.
The girl she looked at could hardly have been called pretty--she was
slender and long-limbed, with honest grey eyes and a sensitive mouth
that seemed always ready to break into smiles. A little smile hovered at
its corners now, but her voice held a note of protection.
“I don't think we need bother you to tell us,” she said. “In our country
it's a very ordinary thing to give anyone a lift, if you have a seat to
spare. Isn't it, daddy?”
“Of course,” said her father. “And we are to be fellow-passengers, so it
was very lucky that we were there in the nick of time.”
Cecilia looked at them gratefully. It might have been so different, she
thought; she might have flung herself on the mercy of people who would
have been suspicious and frigid, or of others who would have treated her
with familiarity and curious questioning. These people were pleasantly
matter-of-fact; glad to help, but plainly anxious to show her that they
considered her affairs none of their business. There was a little catch
in her throat as she answered.
“It is very good of you to take me on trust--I know I did an
unwarrantable thing. But my brother, Captain Rainham, will explain
everything, and he will be as grateful to you as I am. He is at the ship
now.”
“Then we can hand you over to his care,” said her host. “By the way,
is there any need to guard against the--er--lady you spoke of? Is she
likely to follow you to the docks?”
“She doesn't know I'm going,” said Cecilia, dimpling. “Of course, if
it were in a novel she would leap into a swift motor and bid the driver
follow us, and be even now on our heels--”
“Goodness!” said the other girl. She twisted so that she could look out
of the tiny window at the back; turning back with a relieved face.
“Nothing near us but a carrier's van and a pony cart,” she said. “I
shouldn't think you need worry.”
“No. I really don't think I need. My stepmother did see me in the
taxi, but her brain doesn't move very swiftly, nor does she, for that
matter--and I'm sure she wouldn't try to follow me. She knows, too, that
if she found me she couldn't drag me away as if I were two years old.
Oh, I'm sure I'm safe from her now,” finished Cecilia, with a sigh of
relief.
“At any rate, if she comes to the docks she will have your brother to
deal with,” said the big man. “And here we are.”
They got out at the big gate where the Irish policeman greeted Cecilia
with a friendly “Did ye find it now, miss?” and beamed upon her when she
held up her wrist, with her watch safely in its place. He examined her
companions' passports, but let her through with an airy “Sure, this
young lady's all right,” which made Cecilia feel that no further proof
could be needed of her respectability. Then Bob came hurrying to meet
her.
“I was just beginning to get uneasy about you,” he said. “Did you have
any trouble?”
“My taxi broke down,” Cecilia answered. “But this lady and gentleman
most kindly gave me a seat, and saved me ever so much trouble. I'll tell
you my story presently.”
Bob turned, saluting.
“Thanks, awfully,” he said. “I wasn't too happy at letting my little
sister run about alone in a strange city, but it couldn't be helped.”
“I'm very glad we were there,” said the big man. “Now, can you tell me
where luggage should go? My son and a friend are somewhere on the pier,
I suppose, but it doesn't seem as though finding them would be an easy
matter.”
The pier, indeed, resembled a hive in which the bees have broken loose.
Beside it lay the huge bulk of the transport, towering high above all
the dock buildings near. Already she swarmed with Australian soldiers,
and a steady stream was still passing aboard by the overhead gangway to
the blare and crash of a regimental march. The pier itself was crowded
with officers, with a sprinkling of women and children--most of them
looking impatient enough at being kept ashore instead of being allowed
to seek their quarters on the ship. Great heaps of trunks were stacked
here and there, and a crane was steadily at work swinging them aboard.
“We can't go aboard yet, nobody seems to know why,” Bob said. “An
individual called an embarkation officer, or something of the kind, has
to check our passports; he was supposed to be here before three
o'clock, but there's no sign of him yet, and every one has to wait his
convenience. It's hard on the women with little children--the poor mites
are getting tired and cross. Luggage can be left in the care of the
ship's hands, to be loaded; I'll show you where, sir, if you like. Is
this yours?” His eye fell on a truck-load of trunks, wheeled up by a
porter, and lit up suddenly as he noticed the name on their labels.
“Oh--are you Mr. Linton?” he exclaimed. “I believe I've got a letter for
you, from General Harran.”
“Now, I was wondering where I'd heard your name before, when your sister
happened to say you were Captain Rainham,” said the big man. “How stupid
of me--of course, I met Harran at my club this week, and he told me
about you.” He held out his hand, and took Bob's warmly; then he turned
to his daughter. “Norah, it's lucky that we have made friends with Miss
Rainham already, because you know she's in our care, after a fashion.”
Norah Linton turned with a quick smile.
“I'm so glad,” she said. “I've been wondering what you would be like,
because we didn't know of anyone else on board.”
“General Harran told my brother that you would befriend us, but I did
not think you would begin so early,” Cecilia said. “Just fancy, Bob,
they rescued me almost from the clutches of the she-dragon!”
Bob jumped.
“You don't mean to say you met her?”
“I did--as soon as my cab broke down. And I lost my head and ran from
her like a hare, and jumped into Mr. Linton's car!”
Bob regarded her with solemn amazement.
“So this is what happens when I let you go about alone!” he ejaculated.
“Why, you might have got yourself into an awful mess--it might have been
anybody's car--”
“Yes, but it wasn't,” said his sister serenely. “You see, I looked at
Miss Linton first, and I knew it would be all right.”
The Lintons laughed unrestrainedly.
“That's your look of benevolent old age, Norah,” said her father. “I've
often noticed it coming on.”
“I wish you'd mention it to Wally,” Norah said. “He might treat me with
more respect if you did.”
“I doubt it; it isn't in Wally,” said her father. “Now, Rainham, shall
we see about this luggage?”
They handed it over to the care of deck hands, and watched it loaded,
with many other trunks, into a huge net, which the crane seized, swung
to an enormous height and then lowered gently upon the deck of the
Nauru. Just as the operation was finished two figures threaded their way
through the crowd towards them; immensely tall young officers, with the
badge of a British regiment on their caps.
“Hullo, dad,” said the taller--a good-looking grave-faced fellow, with a
strong resemblance to Norah. “We hardly expected you down so early.”
“Well, Norah and I had nothing to do, so we thought we might as well
come; though it appears that we would have been wiser not to hurry,”
said Mr. Linton. “Jim, I want to introduce you to two courageous
emigrants--Miss Rainham, Captain Rainham--my son.”
Jim Linton shook hands, and introduced his companion, Captain Meadows,
who was dark and well built, with an exceedingly merry eye.
“We've been trying to get round the powers that be, to make our way on
board,” he said. “The chief difficulty is that the powers that be
aren't there; everything is hung up waiting for this blessed official. I
suppose the honest man is sleeping off the effects of a heavy lunch.”
“If he knew what hearty remarks are being made about him by over two
hundred angry people, it might disturb his rest,” said Wally Meadows.
“Come along and see them--you're only on the fringe of the crowd here.”
“Wally's been acting as nursemaid for the last half hour,” Jim said, as
they made their way along the pier. “He rescued a curly-haired kid from
a watery grave--at least, it would have been in if he hadn't caught it
by the hind leg--and after that the kid refused to let him go.”
“He was quite a jolly kid,” said Wally. “Only he seems to have
quicksilver in him, instead of blood. I'm sorry for his mother--she'll
have a packed time for the next five weeks.” He sighed. “Hide me,
Norah--there he is now!”
The curly-haired one proved to be little Tim Burton, who detached
himself from his mother on catching sight of Wally, and trotted across
to him with a shrill cry of “There's mine officer!”--whereat Wally swung
him up on his shoulder, to his infinite delight. Mrs. Burton hurried up
to claim her offspring, and was made known to every one by Cecilia.
“It's such an awful wait,” she said wearily. “We came here soon after
two o'clock, thinking we would get the children on board early for their
afternoon sleep; now it's after four, and we have stood here ever since.
It's too tantalizing with the ship looking at us, and the poor babies
are so tired. Still, I'm not the worst off. Look at that poor girl.”
She pointed out a white-faced girl who was sitting in a drooping
attitude on a very dirty wooden case. She was dainty and refined in
appearance; and looking at her, one felt that the filthy case was the
most welcome thing she had found that afternoon. Her husband, an officer
scarcely more than a boy, stood beside, trying vainly to hush the cries
of a tiny baby. She put up her arms wearily as they looked at her.
“Oh, give her to me, Harry.” She took the little bundle and crooned over
it; and the baby wailed on unceasingly.
“Oh!” said Norah Linton. She took a quick stride forward. They watched
her accost the young mother--saw the polite, yet stiff, refusal on the
English girl's face; saw Norah, with a swift decided movement stoop down
and take the baby from the reluctant arms, putting any protest aside
with a laugh. A laugh went round the Linton party also.
“I knew she'd get it,” said Jim.
“Rather!” his friend echoed. “But she hasn't arms enough for all the
babies who want mothering here.”
There were indeed plenty of them. Tired young mothers stood about
everywhere, with children ranging from a few months to three or four
years, all weary by this time, and most of them cross. Harassed young
husbands, unused to travelling with children--unused, indeed, to
anything but War--went hither and thither trying to hasten the business
of getting on board--coming back, after each useless journey, to try and
soothe a screaming baby or restrain a tiny boy anxious to look over the
edge of the pier. It was only a few minutes before Cecilia had found a
mother exhausted enough to yield up her baby without much protest; and
Jim and Wally Meadows and Bob “adopted” some of the older children, and
took them off to see the band; which diversions helped to pass the time.
But it was after five o'clock before a stir went round the pier, and a
rush of officers towards a little wooden room at the foot of the gangway
told that the long-waited-for official had arrived.
“Well, we won't hurry,” said Mr. Linton. “Let the married men get on
first.”
There were not many who did not hurry. A few of the older officers kept
back; the majority, who were chiefly subalterns, made a dense crowd
about the little room, their long-pent impatience bursting out at
last. Passports examined, a procession began up the gangway; each man
compelled to halt at a barrier on top, where two officers sat allotting
cabins. It was difficult to see why both these preliminaries could not
have been managed before, instead of being left until the moment
of boarding; the final block strained every one's patience to
breaking-point.
The Lintons and the Rainhams were almost the last to board the ship,
having, not without thankfulness, relinquished their adopted babies. The
officers allotting berths nodded comprehendingly on hearing the names of
the two girls.
“Oh yes--you're together.” He gave them their number.
“Together--how curious!” said Cecilia.
“Not a bit; you're the only unmarried ladies on board. And they're
packed like sardines--not a vacant berth on the ship. Over two thousand
men and two hundred officers, to say nothing of wives and children.” He
leaned back, thankful that his rush of work was over. “Well, when I make
a long voyage I hope it won't be on a trooper!”
“Well, that's a bad remark to begin one's journey on,” said Jim
Linton, following the girls up the gangway. “Doesn't it scare you, Miss
Rainham?”
“No,” she said, with a little laugh. “Nothing would scare me except not
going.”
“Why, that's all right,” he said. His hand fell on his sister's
shoulder. “And what about you, Nor?”
The face she turned him was so happy that words were hardly needed.
“Why--I'm going back to Billabong!” she said.
CHAPTER IX
THE WELCOME OF AUSTRALIA
A path of moonlight lay across the sea. Into it drifted a great ship,
her engines almost stopped, so that only a dull, slow throb came up from
below, instead of the swift thud-thud of the screw that had pounded for
many weeks. It was late; so late that most of the ship's lights were
extinguished. But all through her was a feeling of pulsating life, of
unrest, of a kind of tense excitement, of long-pent expectation.
There were low voices everywhere; feet paced the decks; along the port
railings on each deck soldiers were clustered thickly, looking out
across the grey, tossing sea to a winking light that flashed and
twinkled out of the darkness like a voice that cried “Greeting!” For it
was the Point Lonsdale light, at the sea gate of Victoria; and the men
of the Nauru were nearly home.
There was little sleep for anyone on board on that last night. Most of
the Nauru's great company were to disembark in Melbourne; the last two
days had seen a general smartening up, a mighty polishing of leather and
brass, a “rounding-up” of scattered possessions. The barber's shop had
been besieged by shaggy crowds; and since the barber, being but human,
could not cope with more than a small proportion of his would-be
customers, amateur clipping parties had been in full swing forward,
frequently with terrifying results. Nobody minded. “Git it orf, that's
all that matters!” was the motto of the long-haired.
No one knew quite when the Nauru would berth; it was wrapped in mystery,
like all movements of troopships. So every one was ready the night
before--kit bags packed, gear stowed away, nothing left save absolute
necessaries. Then, with the coming of dusk, unrest settled down upon
the ship, and the men marched restlessly, up and down, or, gripping
pipe stems between their teeth, stared from the railings northwards. And
then, like a star at first, the Point Lonsdale light twinkled out of the
darkness, and a low murmur ran round the decks--a murmur without words,
since it came from men whose only fashion of meeting any emotion is with
a joke; and even for a “digger” there is no joke ready on the lips, but
only a catch at the heart, at the first glimpse of home.
Norah Linton had tucked herself away behind a boat on the hurricane
deck, and there Cecilia Rainham found her just after dusk. The two
girls had become sworn friends during the long voyage out, in the close
companionship of sharing a cabin--which is a kind of acid test that
generally brings out the best--and worst--of travellers. There was
something protective in Norah's nature that responded instantly to the
lonely position of the girl who was going across the world to a strange
country. Both were motherless, but in Norah's case the blank was
softened by a father who had striven throughout his children's lives to
be father and mother alike to them, while Cecilia had only the bitter
memory of the man who had shirked his duty until he had become less than
a stranger to her. If any pang smote her heart at the sight of Norah's
worshipping love for the tall grey “dad” for whom she was the very
centre of existence, Cecilia did not show it. The Lintons had taken them
into their little circle at once--more, perhaps, by reason of Cecilia's
extraordinary introduction to them than through General Harran's
letter--and Bob and his sister were already grateful for their
friendship. They were a quiet quartet, devoted to each other in their
undemonstrative fashion; Norah was on a kind of boyish footing with Jim,
the huge silent brother who was a major, with three medal ribbons to
his credit, and with Wally Meadows, his inseparable chum, who had been
almost brought up with the brother and sister.
“They were always such bricks to me, even when I was a little scrap of a
thing,” she had told Cecilia. “They never said I was 'only a girl,' and
kept me out of things. So I grew up more than three parts a boy. It was
so much easier for dad to manage three boys, you see!”
“You don't look much like a boy,” Cecilia had said, looking at the tall,
slender figure and the mass of curly brown hair. They were getting ready
for bed, and Norah was wielding a hair-brush vigorously.
“No, but I really believe I feel like one--at least, I do whenever I
am with Jim and Wally,” Norah had answered. “And when we get back
to Billabong it will be just as it always was--we'll be three boys
together. You know, it's the most ridiculous thing to think of Jim and
Wally as grown-ups. Dad and I can't get accustomed to it at all. And as
for Jim being a major!--a major sounds so dignified and respectable, and
Jim isn't a bit like that!”
“And what about Captain Meadows?”
“Oh--Wally will simply never grow up.” Norah laughed softly. “He's like
Peter Pan. Once he nearly managed it--in that bad time when Jim was a
prisoner, and we thought he was killed. But Jim got back just in time to
save him from anything so awful. One of the lovely parts of getting Jim
again was to see the twinkle come back into Wally's eyes. You see, Wally
is practically all twinkle!”
“And when you get back to Australia, what will you all do?”
Norah had looked puzzled.
“Why, I don't know that we've ever thought of it,” she said. “We'll just
all go to Billabong--we don't seem to think further than that. Anyway,
you and Bob are coming too--so we can plan it all out then.”
Looking at her, on this last night of the voyage, Cecilia wondered
whether the unknown “Billabong” would indeed be enough, after the long
years of war. They had been children when they left; now the boys were
seasoned soldiers, with scars and honours, and such memories as only
they themselves could know; and Norah and her father had for years
conducted what they termed a “Home for Tired People,” where broken and
weary men from the front had come to be healed and tended, and sent
back refitted in mind and body. This girl, who leaned over the rail and
looked at the Point Lonsdale light, had seen suffering and sorrow; the
mourning of those who had given up dear ones, the sick despair of young
and strong men crippled in the very dawn of life; and had helped them
all. Beside her, in experience, Cecilia felt a child. And yet the
old bush home, with its simple life and the pleasures that had been
everything to her in childhood, seemed everything to her now.
Cecilia went softly to her side, and Norah turned with a start.
“Hallo, Tommy!” she said, slipping her arm through the
new-comer's--Cecilia had become “Tommy” to them all in a very short
time, and her hated, if elegant, name left as a legacy to England. “I
didn't hear you come. Oh, Tommy, it's lovely to see home again!”
“You can't see much,” said Tommy, laughing.
“No, but it's there. I can feel it; and that old winking eye on Point
Lonsdale is saying fifty nice things a minute. And I can smell the gum
leaves--don't you tell me I can't, Tommy, just because your nose isn't
tuned up to gum leaves yet!”
“Does it take long to tune a nose?” asked Tommy, laughing.
“Not a nice nose like yours.” Norah gave a happy little sigh. “Do you
see that glow in the sky? That's the lights of Melbourne. I went to
school near Melbourne, but I never loved it much; but somehow, it seems
different now. It's all just shouting welcomes. And back of beyond that
light is Billabong.”
“I want to see Billabong,” said the other girl. “I never had a home that
meant anything like that--I want to see yours.”
“And I suppose you'll just think it's an ordinary, untidy old place--not
a bit like the trim English places, where the woods look as though they
were swept and dusted before breakfast every morning. I suppose it is
all ordinary. But it has meant just everything I wanted, all my life,
and I can't imagine its meaning anything less now.”
“And what about Homewood--the Home for Tired People?”
“Oh, Homewood certainly is lovely,” Norah said. “I like it better than
any place in the world that isn't Billabong--and it was just wonderful
to be able to carry it on for the Tired People: dad and I will always be
thankful we had the chance. But it never was home: and now it's going to
run itself happily without us, as a place for partly-disabled men, with
Colonel Hunt and Captain Hardress to manage it. It was just a single
chapter in our lives, and now it is closed. But we're--all of us--parts
of Billabong.”
Some one came quietly along the deck and to the vacant place on her
other side.
“Who's talking Billabong again, old kiddie?” Jim Linton's deep voice was
always gentle. Norah gave his shoulder a funny little rub with her head.
“Ah, you're just as bad as I am, so you needn't laugh at me, Jimmy.”
“I wasn't laughing at you,” Jim defended himself. “I expected to find
you ever so much worse. I thought you'd sing anthems on the very word
Billabong all through the voyage, especially in your bath. Of course I
don't know what Tommy has suffered!”
“Tommy doesn't need your sympathy,” said that lady. “However, she wants
to look her best for Melbourne, so she's going to bed. Don't hurry,
Norah; I know you want to exchange greetings with that light for hours
yet!”
She slipped away, and Norah drew closer to Jim. Presently came Wally, on
her other side, and a few moments later a deep voice behind them said,
“Not in bed yet, Norah?”--and Wally made room for Mr. Linton.
“I couldn't go to bed, dad.”
“Apparently most of the ship is of your mind--I didn't feel like bed
myself,” admitted the squatter, letting his hand rest for a moment
on his daughter's shoulder. He gave a great sigh of happiness. “Eh,
children, it's great to be near home again!”
“My word, isn't it!” said Jim. “Only it's hard to take in. I keep
fancying that I'll certainly wake up in a minute and find myself in
a trench, just getting ready to go over the top. What do you suppose
they're doing at Billabong now, Nor?”
“Asleep,” said Norah promptly. “Oh, I don't know--I don't believe
Brownie's asleep.”
“I know she's not,” Wally said. He and the old nurse-housekeeper of
Billabong were sworn allies; though no one could ever quite come up to
Jim and Norah in Brownie's heart, Wally had been a close third from the
day, long years back, that he had first come to the station, a lonely,
dark-eyed little Queenslander. “She's made the girls scrub and polish
until there's nothing left for them to rub, and she's harried Hogg and
Lee Wing until there isn't a leaf looking crooked in all the garden,
and she and Murty have planned all about meeting you for the hundred and
first time.”
“And she's planning to make pikelets for you!” put in Norah.
“Bless her. I wouldn't wonder. She's planning the very wildest cooking,
of course--do you remember what the table used to be the night we came
home from school? And now she's gone round all the rooms to make sure
she couldn't spend another sixpence on them, and she's sitting by her
window trying to see us all on the Nauru. 'Specially you, old Nor.”
“'Tis the gift of second sight you have,” said Jim admiringly. “A
few hundred years ago you'd have got yourself ducked as a witch or
something.”
“Oh, Wally and Brownie were always twin souls; no wonder each knows what
the other is thinking of,” Norah said, laughing. “It all sounds exactly
true, at any rate. Boys, what a pity you can't land in uniform--wouldn't
they all love to see you!”
“Can't do it,” Jim said. “Too long since we were shot out of the army;
any enterprising provost-marshal could make himself obnoxious about it.”
“I know--but I'm sorry,” answered Norah. “Brownie won't be satisfied
unless she sees you in all your war paint.”
“We'll put it on some night for dinner,” Jim promised. He peered
suddenly into the darkness. “There's a moving light--it's the pilot
steamer coming out for us.”
They watched the light pass slowly from the dim region that meant the
Heads, until, as the pilot boat swung out through the Rip to where the
Nauru lay, her other lights grew clear, and presently her whole outline
loomed indistinctly, suddenly close to them. She lay to across a little
heaving strip of sea, and presently the pilot was being pulled across
to them by a couple of men and was coming nimbly up the Nauru's ladder,
hand over hand. He nodded cheerily at his welcome--a fusillade of
greetings from every “digger” who could find a place at the railings,
and a larger number who could not, but contented themselves with
shouting sweet nothings from behind their comrades. A lean youngster
near Jim Linton looked down enviously at the retreating boat.
“If I could only slide down into her, an' nick off to the old Alvina
over there, I'd be home before breakfast,” he said. “Me people live at
Queenscliff--don't it seem a fair cow to have to go past 'em, right up
to Melbourne?”
The pilot's head appeared above on the bridge, beside the captain's, and
presently the Nauru gathered way, and, slowly turning, forged through
the tossing waters of the Rip. Before her the twin lights of the Heads
opened out; soon she was gliding between them, and under the silent guns
of the Queenscliff forts, and past the twinkling house lights of the
little seaside town. There were long coo-ees from the diggers, with
shrill, piercing whistles of greeting for Victoria; from ashore came
faint answering echoes. But the four people from Billabong stood
silently, glad of each other's nearness, but with no words, and in David
Linton's heart and Norah's was a great surge of thankfulness that, out
of many perils, they were bringing their boys safely home.
The Nauru turned across Port Phillip Bay, and presently they felt the
engines cease, and there came the rattle of the chain as the anchor shot
into the sea.
“As the captain thought,” said Jim. “He fancied they'd anchor us off
Portsea for the night and bring us up to Port Melbourne in the morning,
after we'd been inspected. Wouldn't it be the limit if some one
developed measles now, and they quarantined us!”
“You deserve quarantining, if ever anyone did,” said Norah, indignantly.
“Why do you have such horrible ideas?”
“I don't know--they just seem to waft themselves to me,” said Jim
modestly. “Anyhow, the quarantine station is a jolly little place for
a holiday, and the sea view is delightful.” He broke off, laughing, and
suddenly flung his arm round her shoulders in the dusk of the deck. “I
think I'm just about insane at getting home,” he said. “Don't mind me,
old kiddie--and you'd better go to bed, or you'll be a ghost in the
morning.”
They weighed anchor after breakfast, following a perfunctory medical
inspection--so perfunctory that one youth who, having been a medical
student, and knowing well that he had a finely-developed feverish
cold, with a high temperature, and not wishing to embarrass his
fellow-passengers, placed in his mouth the wrong end of the clinical
thermometer handed him by the visiting nurse. He sucked this gravely
for the prescribed time, reversing it just as she reappeared; and, being
marked normal and given a clean bill of health, returned to his berth
to shiver and perspire between huge doses of quinine. More than one such
hero evaded the searching eye of regulations; until finally the Nauru,
free to land her passengers, steamed slowly up the Bay.
One by one the old, familiar landmarks opened out--Mornington,
Frankston, Mordialloc, while Melbourne itself lay hidden in a mist cloud
ahead. Then, as the sun grew stronger the mist lifted, and domes and
spires pierced the dun sky, towering above the jumbled mass of the grey
city. They drew closer to Port Melbourne, and lo! St. Kilda and all the
foreshore were gay with flags, and all the ships in the harbour were
dressed to welcome them; and beyond the pier were long lines of motors,
each beflagged, waiting for the fighting men whom the Nauru was bringing
home.
“Us!” said a boy. “Why, it's us! Flags an' motors--an' a blessed band
playin' on the pier! Wot on earth are they fussin' over us for? Ain't it
enough to get home?”
The band of the Nauru was playing Home, Sweet Home, very low and
tenderly, and there were lumps in many throats, and many a pipe went out
unheeded. Slowly the great ship drew in to the pier, where officers in
uniform waited, and messengers of welcome from the Government. Beyond
the barriers that held the general public back from the pier was a
black mass of people; cheer upon cheer rose, to be wafted back from
the transport, where the “diggers” lined every inch of the port side,
clinging like monkeys to yards and rigging. Then the Nauru came to rest
at last, and the gangways rattled down, and the march off began, to the
quick lilt of the band playing “Oh, it's a Lovely War.” The men took
up the words, singing as they marched back to Victoria--coming back, as
they had gone, with a joke on their lips. So the waiting motors received
them, and rolled them off in triumphal procession to Melbourne, between
the cheering crowds.
From the top deck the Lintons, with the Rainhams, watched the men
go--disembarkation was for the troops first, and not till all had gone
could the unattached officers leave the ship. The captain came to them,
at last a normal and friendly captain--no more the official master of
a troopship, in which capacity, as he ruefully said, he could make no
friends, and could scarcely regard his ship as his own, provided he
brought her safely from port to port. He cast a disgusted glance along
the stained and littered decks.
“This is her last voyage as a trooper, and I'm not sorry,” he said.
“After this she'll lie up for three months to be refitted; and then I'll
command a ship again and not a barracks. You wouldn't think now, to see
her on this voyage, that the time was when I had to know the reason why
if there was so much as a stain the size of a sixpence on the deck. Oh
yes, it's been all part of the job, and I'm proud of all the old ship
has done, and the thousands of men she's carried; and we've had enough
narrow squeaks, from mines and submarines, to fill a book. But I'm
beginning to hanker mightily to see her clean!”
The Lintons laughed unfeelingly. A little mild grumbling might well be
permitted to a man with his record; few merchant captains had done finer
service in the war, and the decoration on his breast testified to his
cool handling of his ship in the “narrow squeaks” he spoke of lightly.
“Oh yes. I never get any sympathy,” said the captain, laughing himself.
“And yet I'll wager Miss Linton was 'house-proud' in that 'Home for
Tired People' of hers, and she ought to sympathize with a tidy man. You
should have seen
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