CHAPTER XXIV
Two days went by, and now Saturday had come round again.
In a sense nothing had happened during those two days, and to some of theinmates of Old Place the week had seemed extremely long and dull.
Mrs. Crofton had suddenly gone up to town for two nights, and both Jackand Rosamund, in their very different ways, felt depressed and lonely inconsequence. But she was coming back to-day, and Rosamund was going tomeet her at the station with the Old Place pony cart.
At breakfast Rosamund suggested that perhaps Godfrey might like to motorher there instead, but to her vexation he didn't "rise" at all. He simplyobserved, rather shortly, that he was going on a rather long businessexpedition: and Rosamund retorted, pertly, "Business on a Saturday? Howstrange!" to receive the dry reply: "Yes, it does seem strange, doesn'tit?"
Half an hour later Betty and Timmy were busily engaged in washing up thebreakfast things when Godfrey Radmore strolled into the scullery.
"I thought that I was always to be in on this act?" he exclaimed. And itwas true that he had fallen into the way of helping to wash up, turningwhat had always been a very boresome task into what Timmy to himselfcalled "great fun" for while Radmore washed and dried the plates anddishes, he told them funny things about some of his early experiences inAustralia.
"We've done quite well without you. We're nearly through," said Bettymerrily. Somehow she felt extraordinarily light-hearted to-day.
Her visitor--for very well she knew he was her visitor rather thanTimmy's--came a little nearer, and shut the scullery door behind him.
"Look here," he said mysteriously, "I want just us three to take a secretexpedition to-day. I think I've found my house of dreams! If you'll thenboth run upstairs and put on your things, we could go there and be backin quite good time for tea."
"For tea?" repeated Betty, startled. "But who would look after lunch?"
"There's plenty of delicious cold mutton in the house," said Radmoredecidedly. He added with a certain touch of cunning: "I did ask yourmother, Timmy, if she'd come too, but she can't leave the house thismorning: she's expecting a very important telephone message--somethingto do with the garden. She'll see about lunch, for she's particularlyanxious,"--he turned to Betty,--"that _you_ should have a good blow thistime. We shall get a little lunch while we are out, and be home by four."
"Let's take lunch with us," broke in Timmy eagerly. "We can eat itanywhere." He had always had a passion for picnics.
Betty was the last human being to make any unnecessary fuss. Also,somehow, she felt as if to-day was not quite like other days. She couldnot have told why. "All right. I'll cut some sandwiches, and then I'll goand get ready," she said.
Janet was in the hall when Betty came down.
"That's right," she said heartily, "I'm glad you're going to have a realouting at last!"
She took the girl in her arms and kissed her, and Betty felt touched. Herstep-mother was not given to affectionate demonstration. And then, all atonce, Janet looked round and said in a low voice: "Betty, I'm dreadfullyworried about Jack. D'you think it's conceivably possible that there'sanything _serious_ between him and Mrs. Crofton?"
Betty hardly knew what to answer. For some days past she had felt quitesure that there was something between those two. Jack had been so odd, sounlike himself, and once he had said to her, "Betty, I do wish you'd makefriends with Mrs. Crofton. After all you're my sister ..." and then theyhad been, perhaps fortunately, interrupted. But if there was anythingbetween Jack and the fascinating widow, Rosamund, who was so devoted toEnid Crofton, knew nothing of it.
"I really can't say," she answered at last, "I've hardly ever felt sodoubtful about anything in my life! Sometimes I think there is, andsometimes I think there isn't."
"I'm afraid there's no doubt as to what _he_ feels. I happen to knowshe's just had a very good offer for The Trellis House--seven guineas aweek for six months. But she seems to have settled in here for good andall, doesn't she?"
"I wonder if she really has," said Betty. And then she grew a littlepink.
Deep in her heart she had felt quite convinced that Mrs. Crofton had cometo Beechfield for Godfrey Radmore, and for no other reason. Now shewondered if she had been unjust.
"How I wish she'd stay away _now_, even for a few days longer!" exclaimedJanet.
At that moment Timmy rushed into the hall, Radmore drove up in his motor,and in a couple of minutes the three were off--Janet looking after them,a touch of wistful longing and anxiety in her kind heart.
She had hoped somehow, that Godfrey would persuade Betty to go alone withhim to-day, and she was wondering now whether she could have said a wordto Timmy. Her child was so unlike other little boys. If selfish, he wasvery understanding where the few people he cared for were concerned, andhis mother had never known him to give her away.
But the harm, if harm there was, was done now, and for some things shewas not sorry to get rid of Timmy for some hours. There had arisenbetween the boy and his eldest half-brother a disagreeable state oftension. Timmy seemed to take pleasure in teasing Jack, and Jack wasnot in the humour to bear even the smallest practical joke just now.
* * * * *
On and on sped the party in the motor, Timmy sitting by his godfather infront, Betty, in lonely state, behind.
They hadn't gone very far before the countryside began to have all thecharm of strangeness to Betty Tosswill, and she found herself enjoyingthe change of scene as only a person who has been cooped up in onefamiliar place for a considerable time can enjoy it.
"Why, we must be on the borders of Sussex!" she called out, at a pointwhere Radmore, slowing down, was consulting a sign-post. He turned roundand nodded.
They started again. And then something rather absurd happened. Betty'shat blew off! It was an ordinary, rather floppy hat, and she had tied iton, as she thought, securely with a veil under her chin.
Both Timmy and Radmore jumped out to pick the hat up, and as they cameback towards the car, Timmy exclaimed: "It's a shame that Betty hasn'tgot a proper motor bonnet! Rosamund's got a lovely one."
"Why hasn't Betty got one?"
"Because they're so expensive," said Timmy simply. He went on, "When I'vegot lots of money, I shall give Betty heaps of beautiful clothes; butonly one very plain dress apiece to Rosamund and Dolly."
"Betty! You ought to have a motor bonnet," called out Radmore as he cameup to the car.
Her fair hair, blowing in the wind, formed an aureole round her face. Shelooked very, very different to the staid Betty of Old Place.
She answered merrily: "So I will when my ship comes home! I had onebefore the War, and I stupidly gave it away."
"Surely we might get one somewhere to-day," suggested Radmore.
"Get one to-day--what an extraordinary idea? Motor bonnets don't grow onhedges--"
But when they were going through--was it Horsham?--Radmore, alone of thethree, espied a funny little shop. It was called "The Bandbox": itswoodwork was painted bright green, and in the window were three hats.
"Now then," he exclaimed, slowing down, "this, I take it, is where motorbonnets grow. At any rate we'll get down and see."
"What a lark!" cried Timmy delightedly. "Please, _please_ Betty, don'tmake yourself disagreeable--don't be a 'govvey'!"
And Betty, not wishing to be a "govvey," got out of the car.
"But I've no money with me," she began.
"I wouldn't let you pay for what's going to be a present," said Radmoreshortly. "You're the only inhabitant of Old Place to whom I haven't givena present since I've been home."
Home? It gave Betty such pleasure to hear him call it that.
They all three marched into the tiny shop where the owner of "TheBandbox," described by Timmy to his mother, later, as a "ratherspidery-looking, real lady," sat sewing.
She received them with a mixture of condescension and pleasure at thethought of a new customer, which diverted Radmore, who was new to thephenomenon of the la
dy shopkeeper. But when it came to business, shetook a very great deal of trouble, bringing out what seemed, at the time,the whole of her considerable stock, for "The Bandbox" was cleverly linedwith deep, dust-proof cupboards.
At last she produced a quaint-looking little blue and purple bonnet, withan exquisitely soft long motor veil of grey chiffon.
"My sister is at Monte Carlo," she observed, "and when she was passingthrough Paris she got me a dozen early autumn models. I have alreadycopied this model in other colours, but this is the original motorbonnet. May I advise that you try it on?"
It was in its way a delightful bit of colour, and Betty hardly knewherself when she looked in the glass and saw what a very prettyreflection was presented there. She was startled--but oh, how pleasantlystartled--to see how young she still could look.
"Of course you must have that one," said Radmore, in a matter of facttone, "and leave the horrid thing you wore coming here behind you." Thenhe turned to Timmy:--"Now then, don't you think _you_ could choosesomething for your mother?"
The lady of the shop turned patronisingly towards the little boy. Shewent across to a corner cupboard and opened what appeared to be a rathersecret receptacle. Though she had not been in business long, she alreadyrealised what an advantage it is to deal, as regards feminine fripperies,with a man-customer. Also, Radmore, almost in spite of himself, lookedopulent.
"I think I have the very thing!" she explained. "It's a little on thefantastic side, and so only suits a certain type of face."
As she spoke she brought out a miniature brown poke bonnet which waswreathed with one uncurled ostrich feather of a peculiar powder bluetint. She put it deftly on Betty's head, then stepped back and gazeddelightedly into the smiling face and dancing eyes of her new client.
"I have kept this back," she began, "hoping I should come across abride-elect whom it might really suit, for it would make a perfect'going-away' hat! But it is so extraordinarily becoming to _this_ lady,that I feel I ought to let _her_ have it!"
She turned appealingly to Radmore, but Timmy intervened:--"That's not mymother!" he cried, going off into fits of laughter. "We want a hat for my_mother_. That's only my sister!"
The shop-lady looked vexed, and Radmore felt awkward. He realised that heand Betty had been taken for husband and wife, Timmy for their spoiltlittle boy.
"I'm quite sure I could find something that would suit Janet," exclaimedBetty, hastily taking off the delightful bit of headgear.
She put on the motor bonnet again, and then she went over to where ablack garden hat, with just one rose on the brim, and with long bluevelvet strings, was lying on a table.
"I think Timmy's mother would look very nice in this," she said smiling.
The black hat was slipped into a big paper-bag, and handed to Timmy. ThenRadmore exclaimed: "Now then, we've no time to lose! Help your sisterinto the car, Timmy, while I stop behind and pay the bill."
The bill did not take a minute to make out, and Radmore was rathersurprised to find that the three hats--for he bought three--cost him notfar short of fifteen pounds between them, though the lady observedpleasantly, "Of course I can afford to sell my hats at a _much_ lessprice than London people charge."
To Betty's eyes, Godfrey looked rather funny when he came out of the gaylittle painted door with a flower-covered bandbox slung over his rightarm.
She had thought it just a little mean that the shop-woman should giveTimmy Janet's hat in a paper-bag. Though Betty would have been horrifiedindeed at the prices paid by Radmore, she yet suspected that "TheBandbox" lady asked quite enough for her pretty wares to be able to throwin a cardboard box, so "Is that for Janet's hat?" she called out.
"This," he said, looking up at her, "is that queer-looking brown thingwith the blue feather that suited you so well. Of course I meant you tohave it too."
Betty felt at once disturbed, and yet, absurdly pleased. "I'm afraid itwas very expensive," she began. And then suddenly Radmore told himselfthat after all the poke bonnet had been cheap indeed if the thought of itcould bring such a sparkle into Betty's eyes, and such a vivid whiledelicate colour to her cheeks.
There came a day, as a matter of fact the day when Betty wore thatquaint-looking bonnet for the first time, when she did venture to askGodfrey what it had cost. He refused to tell her, simply saying thatwhatever he had paid he had had the best of the bargain as it had beenworth its weight in gold. Even so it is very unlikely that she will everknow what that queer little bonnet, which she intends to keep as long asshe lives, really meant to Godfrey Radmore--how it had suddenly made himfeel that here was the young Betty of nine years ago come back, never todisappear into the mists of time again.
Something else happened in the High Street of that little Sussex town.Radmore decided that it was Timmy's turn to sit behind, and the boy gavein with a fairly good grace; though after they had left the houses behindthem and were again moving swiftly between brown hedges, he called outpatronisingly:--"The back of your head looks very nice now, Betty--quitedifferent to what it looked in that horrid old hat you left in the shop."
At last the car slowed down in front of a gate, on one side of which wasa big board. On this board was painted a statement to the effect that thehistoric estate of Doryford House was to be let or sold, furnished orunfurnished, "Apply to the principal London agents."
The finding of the place had not been quite easy, and Radmore drew abreath of relief as he helped Betty down.
"When Timmy and I were last here," he said hurriedly, "there was a childvery ill at the lodge. So I think I'd better go and just find how thingsare."
He was hoping with all his heart that the news he would see on themother's face would be good news. Somehow he felt that it would be ofhappy augury for himself.
As he rang the bell his heart was beating--a feeling of acute suspensehad suddenly come over him, of which he was secretly ashamed, for it wasalmost entirely a selfish distress. And then, when the door opened, hesaw that all was well, for the young woman's worn face was radiant.
"Is that you, sir? Oh, I did hope that you would come again!" sheexclaimed, "The doctor says that my little girl's certain to get well. Iwas terrible anxious the day before yesterday, but now though she's weakand wan, you'd hardly know she'd been bad, sir."
"I wonder if you could give me the keys of Doryford House?" beganRadmore. "I want to go over it, and we need not trouble you to come withus."
"I'm supposed always to go up with visitors," she said hesitatingly,"even if I leaves them there," but she looked troubled at the thought ofleaving her child. Then, all at once, Radmore had a happy inspiration.
"Would you feel easier if we left the little boy we've brought with us incharge? He's very intelligent. He might sit in your kitchen."
She looked across to where Betty Tosswill and Timmy were standing. "Why,yes!" she exclaimed, relieved. "If the young gentleman don't mind,perhaps he would sit with Rosie. 'Tain't nothing infectious, you know,sir, and it would please her like to have a visitor. She's got a book inwhich there's a picture of a little sick girl and someone coming to seeher. She said to me yesterday, 'No one comes to see me, mother, 'ceptingdoctor.'"
Radmore went off to the other two.
"The woman evidently feels that she ought to come up herself to thehouse. But she's nervous about leaving her little girl. I was wonderingwhether Timmy would mind staying and amusing the child? We might haveour picnic in the house itself, if it's in any way possible."
"What sort of a little girl is she?" began Timmy, but his godfather cuthim short.
"Never mind what sort of a little girl she is--she's longing for avisitor, and you will be the first one to see her since she's been ill."
He turned to Betty. "Perhaps you'd like to go in and see what sort of aplace it is? Meanwhile I'll open the gate and get the car through."
Betty and Timmy followed the woman through the kitchen of the lodge to abedroom, where lay a pale-faced little girl of six. On the patchworkcounterpane were a pair of scissors an
d a big sheet of paper. It wasevident that the child had been trying to amuse herself by cutting outpatterns. As the visitors came in, she sat up, and her little faceflushed with joy. Here was her dream come true! Here were somevisitors--a beautiful lady in a peculiarly lovely blue bonnet, and apleasant-looking young gentleman too!
Timmy, who was quite unshy, went up to her bedside. "Good-morning," hesaid in a polite, old-fashioned way. "I'm sorry you're ill, and I hopeyou'll soon be quite well. I've come to look after you while your mothergoes up to the house with my godfather and my sister. If you like, I'llcut you some beautiful fairy figures out of that paper, and then we canpretend they're dancing."
He looked round and espied a chair, which he brought up close to the bed.
Rosie was far too excited and shy to speak.
"What's your name?" he began. "Mine is Timothy Godfrey Radmore Tosswill."
The little girl whispered "Rosamund."
"I've got a sister called Rosamund; now, isn't that curious?" criedTimmy.
He had already seized the scissors, and was engaged in cutting out somequaint, fantastic looking little figures.
After the others had left the room, Rosamund's mother turned to Betty. "Inever saw such a nice, kind, young gentleman!" she exclaimed. "He fairtook my breath away--a regular little doctor he'd make."
* * * * *
Houses are like people--they have their day, their hour, even, one feelsinclined to add, their moods of sadness and of joy, of brightness and ofdulness.
To-day the white Corinthian-looking building called Doryford House was atits best, in the soft lambent light of an autumn day. For a moment, whenthe long, pillared building first came into view, Radmore had felt athrill of unreasonable disappointment. He had hoped, somehow, for ared-brick manor-house--a kind of glorified Old Place. But a few minuteslater, when the mahogany front doors had been unlocked, and they passedinto a light, circular hall and so into a delightful-looking sunnydrawing-room filled with enchanting examples of 18th century furniture,he began to think that this was, after all, a very attractive house.
"In what wonderful order everything seems to be!" he exclaimed. "Have thepeople to whom the place belongs only just left it?"
"It's this way, sir. The gentleman to whom it belongs has several otherhomes--he don't care for this place at all. But it's all kep' upproper--one of the gardeners sees to the furnace--and about all this herefurniture, anybody who takes the house unfurnished, or buys the place,will be able to keep what they likes at a valuation. Perhaps you and yourlady would like to go over the house by yourselves? People often do, Inotice. If you'll excuse me, I'll just nip away. I wants to go to thevillage for a few minutes--that is if your little boy will be so kind asto stay with my Rosie till I'm back."
"I'm sure he will," said Radmore heartily. He told himself that it wasvery natural that everyone should think that he and Betty were married.
The front door shut behind the caretaker, and the two left behind begangoing through the ground floor of the great empty house. Their progressgave Betty an eerie feeling. She felt as if she was in a kind of dream;the more so that this was quite unlike any country house into which shehad ever been.
They finally came to the last living-room of all, and both exclaimedtogether: "This is the room I like best of all!"
It was an octagon library, lined with mahogany bookcases filled withbound books which looked as though they hadn't been disturbed for fiftyyears. The wide, fan-shaped window looked out on a formal rose garden.
And then, all at once, Radmore's quick eye detected a concealed door inthe wall, on which there were encrusted the sham book titles often to befound on the doors of an old country home library. Quickly he went acrossand, opening it, found it gave straight on to a corkscrew staircase.
Filled with a queer sense of adventure, he motioned Betty to go up first,in front of him.
The staircase led up to a tiny lobby, into which opened a most beautifulbedchamber, a replica as to shape and size of the library beneath.
The furniture there interested Betty, for she had never seen anythinglike it, except once in a chateau near Arras. It was First Empire, and onthe pin-cushion, lying on the ornate dressing-table, someone had writtenin a fine Italian hand on an envelope, the words: "This room wasfurnished from Paris in 1810. The bed is a replica of a bed made for theEmpress Josephine."
They went on through many of the rooms on the upper floor, full to-day ofstill, sunny late autumn charm.
Radmore scarcely spoke at all during their curious progress through theempty house, and Betty still felt as if in a dream. She had asked herselfagain and again if he could really be thinking of buying this statelymansion.
The mere possibility of such a thing meant that he must be thinking ofmarrying Mrs. Crofton, and also that he must be much richer than any ofthem knew.
At last they came down a wide staircase which terminated in a corridorleading into the circular hall, and then it was Betty who broke what wasbecoming an oppressive silence:
"Shall we go on and see the kitchen and the servants' quarters, Godfrey?"
"No; they're sure to be all right."
Again came what seemed to Betty a long, unnatural silence.
"Do you really like the house?" he asked at last.
"I like it very much," she said frankly. "But wouldn't it cost atremendous lot of money, Godfrey? It would be a pity not to buy itexactly as it stands. It all seems so--so--"
"I know! As if the furniture had grown there," he broke in.
"So beautiful and so--so unusual," Betty went on diffidently.
"I'm afraid I'm a commonplace person, Betty. I like a room to bebeautiful, but I like comfort, and I think this is a very comfortablehouse. I feel, somehow, as if happy, good people had lived here. I likethat, too."
He was standing by one of the round pillars which carried out the type ofarchitecture which had been the fashion at the time Doryford was built;and he was gazing at her with what seemed to her a rather odd expressionon his dark face. Was he going to tell her of his hopes or intention withregard to Mrs. Crofton?
Betty felt, for the first time that day, intensely shy. She walked away,towards the big half-moon window opposite the front door. A wide grassgallop, bordered with splendid old trees, stretched out as ifillimitable, and she began gazing down it with unseeing eyes.
He came quickly across the hall, and stood by her. Then he said slowly,"I'm wondering, wondering, wondering if I shall ever be in this houseagain!"
"You must think it well over," she began.
But he cut her short. "It depends on _you_ whether Doryford becomes myhome or not."
"On me?" she repeated, troubled. "Don't trust to my taste as much asthat, Godfrey."
"But you do like it?" he asked insistently.
"Of course I like it. If it comes to that, I don't know that I've everbeen in so beautiful and perfect a house. And then, well perhaps becausewe've everything so shabby at Old Place, I do like to see everything insuch apple-pie order!"
A little disappointed, he went on, "I fear it isn't your ideal house,Betty? Not your house of dreams?"
And then, all at once, she knew that she couldn't answer him, for tearshad welled up in her eyes, and choked her speech.
Her house of dreams? Betty Tosswill's house of dreams had vanished, shethought, for ever, so very long ago. Betty's house of dreams had beenquite a small house--but such a cosy, happy place, full of the Godfreyof long ago, and of good, delicious dream children....
She turned her head away.
"Well," he exclaimed, "that's that! We won't think about this houseagain. We'll go and look at another place to-morrow."
His matter-of-fact, rather cross, tone made her pull herself together.What a baby he was after all!
"Don't be absurd, Godfrey. I don't believe if we were to look Englandthrough, that I should see a house I thought more delightful than thishouse. I'm a little overawed by it, that's all! You see I've never dweltin marble
halls--"
"Oh, one gets used to that!"
"Yes, I expect one does."
"Whether I buy this place depends on you," he said obstinately.
"Well, then, if I'm to decide, I say buy it!" She turned and smiled athim a little tremulously, keeping her head well down--her face shadowedby the deep brim of her motor-bonnet.
More and more was this like a scene out of a dream to Betty Tosswill. Ina way, it was, of course, natural that she and Godfrey should be alone,and that he should turn to her as his closest friend. And yet it seemedstrange and unnatural, too. But Betty had a very generous nature--and tothis man, who was looking at her with such an eager, searching look, shefelt in a peculiar relation. So she repeated, with greater ease andlightness, "Let's settle, here and now, that this is to be the futureresidence of Godfrey Radmore, Esquire! Timmy's a little bit like a cat,you know. He'll simply adore this house. He'll love all the pretty thingsin it. Perhaps you'd run him up in the motor presently, while I stay withthe little girl and that nice woman?"
And then all at once he took a step forward and roughly took her twohands in his: "Betty," he said, "don't you understand? I shall neverenter this house again unless you're willing to come and share it withme. No place would be home to me without you in it. Why, Old Place isonly home now because you're there."
She looked at him with a long, searching, measuring look; a look thatwas, unconsciously, full of questioning; but her hands remained in hisstrong grasp.
"Don't you know that I've always been yours?" he asked--"that I shallalways be yours even if you won't have me--even if I end by marryinganother woman, as I daresay I shall do if you won't have me, for I'm alonely chap--" And then something in her face made him add: "Try to loveme again, Betty. I want you to say to yourself--'a poor thing but mineown.' Do, my dear."
And then Betty burst out crying, and found herself clasped in his arms,strained to his heart, while his lips sought and found her soft,tremulous mouth.
He was gentle with her, gentle and strangely restrained. And yet as thehappy moments went by in that silent, sunny house, something deep in herstill troubled heart told her that Radmore really loved her--loved her asperhaps he had not loved her ten years ago, in his hot, selfish,impulsive youth.
"We needn't tell anyone for a little while, need we?" she whispered atlast.
She had shared her life, given her services to so many during the lastnine years, and she longed to keep this strange new joy a secret for awhile.
"If you like, we need never tell them at all," he answered. "We can justgo out, find a church, and be married!"
"Oh, no; that wouldn't be fair to Janet." And yet the notion of doingthis fascinated her.