CHAPTER XV
The morning after Janet Tosswill's call at Rose Cottage, Rosamundfollowed her step-mother into the drawing-room immediately afterbreakfast, and observed plaintively that it did seem strange that "Enid"was never asked to Old Place. "We take anything from her, and never giveanything back," she said.
Janet, who had a certain tenderness for the pretty black sheep of thefamily, checked the sharp retort which trembled on her lips. Still, itwas quite true that Rosamund had more than once been kept to lunch at TheTrellis House, and that on the day of Nanna's accident Mrs. Crofton hadissued a sort of general invitation to supper to the young people of OldPlace--an invitation finally accepted, at Betty's suggestion, by GodfreyRadmore and Rosamund.
Janet admitted to herself that they did owe Mrs. Crofton some civility.If the thing had to be done, it might as well be done at once, and so,when Rosamund had reluctantly gone upstairs to do her share of thehousehold work, his mother beckoned Timmy into the drawing-room, and toldhim that she would have a note ready for him to take to The Trellis Housein a few minutes.
"Oh, Mum, do let Jack take it!" the boy exclaimed. "I can't go to TheTrellis House with Flick, and it's such a bore to shut him up."
"Why can't Flick go with you?"
"Mum! Don't you remember? Mrs. Crofton is _terrified_ of dogs. Do letJack take it!"
"But are you sure Jack is going there this morning?" she asked, and thenshe remembered Miss Pendarth's ill-natured remark.
"He goes there every morning," said Timmy positively, "and this morninghe's going there extra early, as he's lending Mrs. Crofton our bestpreserving pan. She wants to make some blackberry jam."
And then there occurred one of those odd incidents which were alwayshappening in connection with Timmy and with which his mother never knewquite how to deal. He screwed up his queer little face for a moment,shaded his eyes with his hand, and said quietly: "I think Jack is juststarting down the drive now. You'll catch him if you'll open the windowand shout to him, Mum--it's no good my going after him--he wouldn't comeback for _me_."
Janet Tosswill got up from her writing-table. She opened the nearestwindow and, stepping out, looked to her right. Yes, there was Jack'sneat, compact figure sprinting down the long, straight avenue towards thegate. He was holding a queer-looking, badly done up parcel in his hands.
"Jack! Jack! Come here for a minute--I want you," she called out in herclear, rather high-pitched voice.
He slackened, and it was as if she could see him hesitating, wonderingwhether he dare pretend he had not heard her. Then he turned and ran backdown the drive and across the wide lawn to the window.
"What is it?" he asked breathlessly. "I'm late as it is! I'm taking oneof our preserving pans to The Trellis House. The fruit was all pickedyesterday."
"I won't be a moment. I want you to take a letter for me to Mrs. Crofton.I'm asking her to come in to dinner to-night."
She turned back into the room and, sitting down, took up her pen: "Timmy?Go into the scullery, and help Betty for a bit."
After her little son had left the room, she called out to Jack, "Do comeinside; it fidgets me to feel that you're standing out there."
After what seemed to Jack Tosswill a long time, though it was only threeminutes, his step-mother turned, and held out her note: "She needn'twrite--a verbal answer will do. If she can't come we shall have done thecivil thing."
And then, thinking aloud, she went on: "Somehow I don't expect her tostay long in Beechfield. She's too much of a London bird."
"I don't suppose she would have come at all if she had known what abeastly, inhospitable place Beechfield is," said Jack sharply. Though hewas in such a hurry to be off, he waited in order to add: "She's beenhere nearly a month, and you've never called on her yet--it's too bad!"
Janet Tosswill flushed deeply. Jack had not spoken to her in such a tonesince he was fifteen.
"What nonsense! She must be indeed silly and affected," she exclaimed,"if she expected me to pay her a formal call, especially as we had her into supper the very first day she was here! I might retort by saying thatshe might have sent or called to know how poor old Nanna was! Everyone inthe village has done so--but then your friend, Jack, is not what myfather used to call '18 carat'!"
"I think it's we who are not '18 carat,'" he answered furiously. "We haveshown Mrs. Crofton the grossest discourtesy, and I happen to know thatshe feels it very much."
Janet Tosswill looked at her elder stepson with a feeling of blankamazement. It had often astonished her to notice how completely Jack hadhis emotions and temper under control. Yet here he was, his face aglowwith anger, his voice trembling with rage.
Poor Janet! She had had long days of fatigue and worry since the oldnurse's accident, and suddenly she completely lost her temper. "I don'twant to say anything unkind about the little woman, but I do think herboth silly and second-rate. I took a dislike to her when she behaved insuch a ridiculous manner over Flick."
"You were almost as frightened as she was," said Jack roughly.
"It's quite true that I was frightened for a moment, but only becauseI was afraid for Timmy."
"I can tell you one thing--she won't come here again to supper unlessI can give her my word that all our dogs are really shut up. And I fearI must ask you to undertake to see that Timmy does not let Flick outafter I _have_ shut him up."
Janet Tosswill held out her hand. "I think you'd better give me that noteback," she said curtly. "We certainly don't want anyone here of the kindyou have just described. From something Godfrey said to me it's clearthat Mrs. Crofton's horror of dogs is just a pose she thinks makes herinteresting. Why, her husband bred terriers; Flick actually came fromthere! And Godfrey says that she herself had a little dog called by theabsurd name of 'Boo-boo' to which she was devoted."
"'Boo-boo' was the exception that proves the rule," answered Jack hotly."As for Colonel Crofton, it was beastly of him to breed terriers, knowinghow his wife felt about dogs! She told me herself she would never havemarried him if she had known there was any likelihood of that coming topass. She feels about dogs as some people feel about cats."
"I never heard such nonsense!"
"Nonsense?" he repeated in an enraged tone. "It isn't nonsense! The bestproof that that horror of dogs is instinctive with her is the effect thatshe herself has on every dog she comes across. That was shown the eveningshe was here."
"Really, Jack, that's utterly absurd! Flick was not thinking of her atall. Something in the garden had frightened him. Your father feels surethat it was a snake which he himself killed the next morning." And then,for she was most painfully disturbed by this scene between herself andJack, she said quietly: "I'm sorry that Mrs. Crofton ever came toBeechfield. I didn't think there was anyone in the world who would makeyou speak to me as you have spoken to me now."
"I hate injustice!" he exclaimed, a little shamefacedly. "I can't thinkwhy you've turned against her, Janet. It's so mean as well as so unkind!She has hardly any friends in the world, and she thought by the accountGodfrey gave of us that _we_ should become her friends."
"It's always a woman's own fault if she has no friends, especially whenshe's such an attractive woman as Mrs. Crofton," said Janet shortly. Shehesitated, and then added something for which she was sorry immediatelyafterwards: "I happen to know rather more about Mrs. Crofton than most ofthe people in Beechfield do."
She spoke with that touch of mysterious finality which is always soirritating to a listener who is in indifferent sympathy with a speaker.
"What d'you mean?" cried Jack fiercely. "I insist on your telling me whatyou mean!"
Janet Tosswill told herself with Scotch directness that she had been afool. But if Jack was--she hardly knew how to put it to herself--so--sobewitched by Mrs. Crofton as he seemed to be, then perhaps, as they hadgot to this point, he had better hear the truth:
"Mrs. Crofton made herself very much talked about in the neighbourhood ofthe place where she and her husband settled after the War. She was so
actively unkind, and made him so wretched, that at last he committedsuicide. At least that is what is believed by everyone who knew them inEssex."
"I suppose a woman told you all this?" he said in a dangerously calmvoice.
"Yes, it was a woman, Jack."
"Of course it was! Every woman, young or old, is jealous of her becauseshe's so pretty and--so--so feminine, and because she has nothing abouther of the clever, hard woman who is the fashion nowadays! The onlyperson who does her justice in this place is Rosamund."
"I disapprove very much of Rosamund's silly, school-girlish, adoration ofher," said Janet sharply.
She was just going to add something more when she saw Timmy slippingquietly back into the room. And all at once she felt sorry--deeplysorry--that this rather absurd scene had taken place between herself andJack. She blamed herself for having let it come to this pass.
"I daresay I'm prejudiced," she exclaimed. "Take this note, Jack, andtell Mrs. Crofton that Flick shall be securely shut up."
"All right." Jack shrugged his shoulders rather ostentatiously, anddisappeared through the window, while Janet, with a half-humorous sigh,told herself that perhaps he was justified in condemning in his own mind,as he was certainly doing now, the extraordinary vagaries of womankind.She turned back to her writing-table again. However disturbed and worriedshe might feel, there were the weekly books to be gone through, and thistime without Nanna's shrewd, kindly help.
Suddenly she started, for Timmy's claw-like little hand was on her arm:"Mum," he said earnestly, "do tell me what Colonel Crofton was reallylike? Did that lady--you know, I mean the person Jack thinks is jealousof Mrs. Crofton--tell you what he was like?"
"No--yes--oh, Timmy! I'm afraid you must have been listening at the doorjust now?"
"I didn't like to come in," he said, wriggling uneasily. "I've neverheard Jack speak in such an angry way before. He was in a wax, wasn't he?But, Mum, do tell me what Colonel Crofton looked like--I do _so_ want toknow."
She put down her pen, and turning, gazed down into the child's eager,inquisitive little face.
"Why should you wish to know, Timmy?" She spoke rather coldly andsternly.
She was sorry indeed now that she had been tempted to repeat what wasperhaps after all only the outcome of Miss Pendarth's unconsciousjealousy of the woman who had made a fool of the man she had loved as agirl. It was unfortunately true that Olivia Pendarth had an unconsciousprejudice against all young and pretty women.
"I want to know," mumbled Timmy, "because I think I do know what he waslike."
"If you know what he was like, then there is nothing more to say."
"I want to be sure," he repeated obstinately.
"But how absurd, Timmy! Why should you want to know about a poor oldgentleman who is dead, and of whom you are not likely ever to hearanything? I have often told you how horrid it is to be inquisitive."
Timmy paused over that remark. "I want to know," he said in a lowmumbling voice, "because I think I have seen him." He did not look up athis mother as he spoke. With the forefinger of his right hand he begantracing an imaginary pattern on the blue serge skirt which covered herknee.
She looked around apprehensively. Yes, the door was shut. She rememberedthat Dr. O'Farrell had told her never to encourage the child'sconfidences, but, on the other hand, never to check them.
"I first saw him the evening she came to supper," Timmy mumbled. "Theywere walking together down the avenue. I thought he was a real oldgentleman. There was a dog with him, a terrier exactly like Flick, only alittle bigger. Of course I thought it was a real dog too. But now I knowthat it wasn't. I know now that it was a ghost-dog. It is _that_ dog,Mum, that frightens the other dogs who meet them--not herself, as she'scome to think."
"Oh, Timmy,"--Janet felt acutely uncomfortable--"you know I cannot bearto think that such things really happen to you. If you really think themI'd rather know, but I'd so much rather, dear boy, that you didn't thinkthem."
But Timmy was absorbed in what he was saying. "I know now that it wasColonel Crofton," he went on, "because I've seen an old photograph ofhim, Mum. Mrs. Crofton brought a tin box full of papers with her, andthere were some old photographs in it. There was one of an officer inuniform, and it had written across it, 'Yours sincerely, Cecil Crofton.'She tore it up the day after she came here, and threw it in thewaste-paper basket, but her cook took it out of the dustbin, andthat's how I saw it."
"How disgusting!" exclaimed his mother, feeling herself now on firmground. "How often have I had to tell you, Timmy, not to go into otherpeople's kitchens and sculleries? No nice boy, no little gentleman, woulddo such a thing. Of course it was seeing that photograph made you believeyou saw Colonel Crofton's--"
She stopped abruptly, for she never, if she could help it, used the word"ghost," or "spirit," to the child.
"Up to now I've always supposed that animals had no souls, Mum, but now Iknow they have. I know another thing, too," but there was a doubtful notein his voice. "I suppose that ghost-dog hates Mrs. Crofton because shewas so unkind to his master. That's why he makes the other dogs fly ather, I expect--or d'you think it's just because they're frightened thatthey do it?"
Janet Tosswill was an unconventional woman, also she was on terms of veryclose kinship with her strange little son. Still, she reddened as shedrew him closer to her and said: "Look here, Timmy, I want to tell yousomething. I'm sorry now I said what I did say to Jack about Mrs.Crofton. I ought not to have said it--I'm ashamed of having said it! Itwas told me by someone who is rather fond of repeating disagreeable,sometimes even untrue, things."
Timmy had also grown very red while his mother was making her littleconfession. He took up her hand and squeezed it impulsively, as an olderperson might have done.
"I think I know who you mean," he said. "You mean Miss Pendarth?"
"Yes," said his mother steadily, "I do mean Miss Pendarth. I think itquite possible that poor little Mrs. Crofton was never really unkind toColonel Crofton at all."
"But you wouldn't like Jack to marry her, Mum, would you?"
Janet felt a shock of dismay go through her. There flashed into her mindthat sometimes most disturbing text--"Out of the mouths of babes andsucklings...."
"I shouldn't like it at all," she exclaimed, "and I think you're oldenough to understand that such a thing would be impossible. Jack won'tmake enough money to keep a wife for years and years." She hesitated, andthen added, speaking to herself rather than to Timmy, "Still, I hope withall my heart that he won't get foolish about her."
"He _is_ foolish about her," said Timmy positively. "Even Nannathinks"--he waited a moment, then said carefully--"that he is pastpraying for. She said yesterday to Betty that there were some thingsprayers didn't help in at all, and that love was one of them. She saysthat Jack's heart has gone out of his own keeping. Isn't that a funnyidea, Mum?"
"It is a terrible idea," and, a little to her own surprise, tears rose toJanet Tosswill's eyes. Timmy, looking up into her face, felt his heartswell with anger against the person who was causing his mother to look asshe was looking now.
He moved away a little bit, as if aware that what he was going to saywould not meet with her approval, and then he said in a peculiar voice,a defiant, obstinate voice which she knew well: "I do wish that Mrs.Crofton would die--I do hate her so!"
Janet Tosswill looked straight into her little son's face. She felt thatshe had perhaps made a mistake in treating Timmy as if he were grown up."My dear," she said very gravely, "remember the Bible says--'Thou shaltnot kill.'"
"Of course I know _that_,"--he spoke with a good deal of scorn. "Ofcourse I want her to die a _natural_ death."