THE MUDFORD BLIGHT
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Mary settled her shoulders against the mantel-piece, slid her hands into her pockets and looked down at her mother with faint apprehension in her eyes.
"I want," she remarked, "to go to London."
Mrs. Martin rustled the newspaper uneasily to an accompanying glitter of diamond rings. Mary's direct action slightly discomposed her, but she replied amiably. "Well, dear, your Aunt Laura has just asked you to Wimbledon for a fortnight in the Autumn."
Mary did not move. "I want," she continued abstractedly, "to live in London."
Mrs. Martin glanced up at her daughter as if discrediting the authorship of this remark. "I don't know what you are thinking of, child," she said tartly, "but you appear to me to be talking nonsense. Your father and I have no idea of leaving Mudford at present."
"I want," Mary went on in the even tone of one hypnotised by a foregone conclusion, "to go and live with Jennifer and write—things."
Mrs. Martin's gesture as she rose expressed as much horror as was consistent with majesty.
"My dear Mary," she said coldly, "let me dispose of your outrageous suggestion before it goes any further. You appear to imagine that because you have been earning a couple of hundred a year in the Air Force during the War you are still of independent means. Allow me to remind you that you are not. Also that your father and I are unable and unwilling to bear the expenses of two establishments. Please consider the matter closed."
She swept from the room. Mary whistled softly to herself, then she walked to the desk and wrote a letter.
"... And that's that," she finished. "So now to business. I will send you some articles at the end of the week, and for goodness' sake be quick, because I can't stand this much longer."
When she had posted it she retired to her room and was no more seen till dinner.
They were bright articles and, like measle-spots, they appeared rapidly after ten days or a fortnight; unlike measles they seemed to be permanent. They dealt irreverently with Mudford society, draped in a thin veil of some alias material, and they signed themselves "Blight."
"Disgraceful!" snorted Colonel Martin, throwing one crumpled newspaper after another into the waste-paper basket. "Ought to be publicly burned! As if it weren't enough to find the beastly things all over the Club, without being pestered with them at home, making fun of the best people in Mudford. Bolshevism! Fellow ought to be shot! Wish I knew who he was and I'd do it myself. I will not have another word of this poisonous stuff in my house. D'you hear, Gertrude?"
Mrs. Martin trailed into the hall in search of her sunshade.
"It's so difficult," she complained en route, "to know what paper he's coming out in next and stop it in time;" and she wandered mournfully into the garden.
"Mary," she sighed, sinking into a chair on the lawn, "have you noticed anything peculiar in the way people speak to us lately? Of course it may be only my imagination, and yet," she hesitated, "Admiral and Lady Rogers were quite—quite formal to me yesterday."
Mary balanced her tennis racquet on her outstretched hand and laughed. "It's the local Blight, I suppose. You and Father are about the only people left who haven't been withered yet, and the others are bound to think there's something suspicious about you. Stupid of me—I didn't think of that. I'm sorry."
Her mother started. "What do you mean?" she inquired sharply.
Mary rose languidly. "However," she added graciously, "I will put that right for you next week. I have several sketches that will do."
Mrs. Martin's face registered inquiry, incredulity, indignation and apoplexy in chronological order; then the garden gate clicked and a young man walked across the lawn. Mary looked down at her mother and spoke quietly.
"I think it is time you knew that I wrote those articles. One writes about what one sees, and as long as I remain here I shall see Mudford."
"Pardon me," began the young man, arriving, "but is this Colonel Martin's house?"
Mrs. Martin made no effort to reply and Mary reassured him.
"It's like this," he continued frankly. "I'm representing The Daily Rebel, and I'm awfully anxious to get certain information for my paper. I was speaking to Admiral Rogers just now and he told me I should probably get it here if I tried. He said he could only give me a guess himself and I had better come to headquarters. Madam," he bowed towards Mrs. Martin, "will you kindly tell me if you are the famous ..."
Here Mary interposed. "My mother," she said serenely, "is not the Mudford Blight. Nor is my father."
The young man wheeled on her.
"Then you ...?" he queried.
Mary hesitated, questioning her mother with a glance.
"My daughter," replied Mrs. Martin in a strangled voice, "cannot possibly be the person you seek since she is not a Mudford resident. She lives in London and is only staying here till to-morrow—at the latest."
Mary smiled radiantly and sent a wire later in the afternoon.
Young Miner's Mother. "I can't do nothink wiv our 'Erbert since 'e voted for the strike. Wen I ask 'im to run a errand 'e says it isn't a man's job."