—He assured me that, in making a large number of new acquaintances, he found no one so companionable as Mr. Hillier, nobody with whom he could argue on a perfectly amicable note. Sending my mind back to the disputes that used to take place, I could not help estimating the degree of warmth that existed in present-day debates between Colonel Edgington and his friends. He asked for the address of the private hotel where Mrs. Hillier and the two young people were staying, and promised to call on the Sunday.
"I find life perplexing, Weston," he admitted confidentially, before leaving at Saxmundham. "Everything seems to be undergoing an alteration. As for instance; in talking to you I've somehow felt as though I was conversing with one almost my own equal in intelligence." It was a great temptation to retort that I had never shared this, in talking to him. But there were people in the world more deserving of being snapped at than Colonel Edgington.
Aldeburgh gave reminders of the war that I had not hitherto encountered. At Greenwich, one saw troops marching about, but there was no suggestion that any possibility of invasion existed. Here, Miss Katherine and Master Edward pointed out to me excitedly the barbed wire protections on the beach, the trenches with the usual names—Paradise Terrace, Fairy Glen, A Home from Home—mine sweepers were coming in, and we watched the ships taking up position, and the crews disembarking. Up and down the coast, sea traffic appeared to be going on as usual; Master Edward gave us a lecture on the useful work done by the British navy. In the absence of his father, the lad was taking charge of the women-folk, planning the day for them, and surprising me by his grown-up manner: it seemed that but a week or ten days since he was a school-boy with no greater anxiety in his mind than that his county should win cricket matches. At the private hotel where Mrs. Hillier welcomed me, Edward talked gravely of war affairs, and recited scraps of information he had picked up during the afternoon, gave views about the Russian retreat, saw that the thick blinds were carefully drawn so soon as the lights had been turned on. In this last regard, there was nothing casual in the military control. When a match was struck near an unprotected window, a soldier's voice from below shouted imperiously.
"Put that light out there!"
And later, came the challenging that was new to me; the circumstance of it being given with a strong London accent made me think of it, at first, as a joke. "'Alt, who gaows there? Advaunce friend, and give the cahntersign. Paws friend; all's well!" Master Edward gave me a brief abstract of the rules to be observed in the case of attack from the sea; the general impression I secured was that you would do well to make the way inland by the main roads, and that as these would be required for military purposes, no civilians could be allowed to use them. That night, the Germans did make an invasion on the Suffolk coast, and I found myself, insufficiently clad for the journey, and with shoes that came off at every other step, carrying Mrs. Hillier, and Miss Katherine, and Master Edward; the progress, not unnaturally, was slow, and I felt so gratified at encountering Quartermaster-Sergeant Cartwright that I awoke suddenly in my room. (Other people's dreams are rarely interesting, but I have never failed to take great account of my own, and I sometimes wish that, during all the long years of suspense and perturbation, I had set down details of them for my own reading. It is not easy now to calculate the number of times between ten o'clock p.m. and six o'clock a.m. that I led a British regiment to victory, and made, with my own hands, a prisoner of the Emperor William.) In the morning I had a definite reminder of the war in being called upon to fill in a Registration Form for New Residents and Visitors, with present address in the area, date of arrival in the area. A refined lady boarder complained that the Government seemed to be treating us all as though we were kitchen maids.
It was strange to be in a house where the early hours brought no domestic tasks for me, and to find myself able to dress leisurely, and completely for the early meal. Master Edward ejaculated "My Aunt!" as I entered the coffee room, and Miss Katherine—observing that other residents nodded privately to each other as though the remark confirmed their estimate of relationship—at once adopted the idea.
"We shall be proud, madam," she declared, across the table, "to include such a considerable swell as yourself amongst the family. You will do us credit. Your presence raises us in the general estimation. You are, dear Aunt Weston, as my poor brother here endeavoured to convey, nothing more nor less than a fashion plate. You are the last word from Hanover Square. I am not using the language of exaggeration, but merely the speech of candid compliment, when I describe you as absolutely It."
"You are learning how to dress yourself," said Mrs. Hillier.
"Miss Katherine gave me the first lessons."