At Greenwich, the Judge's facetious suggestion was taken up by young Edward, and commented upon by him with considerable relish. Mr. Hillier, and the two girls, observing that I was not amused, gave him a private warning to make no further allusions to the Quartermaster-Sergeant.
I was careful to send out no newspapers to France that gave a report of the case, but Cartwright, in one of his pencilled letters mentioned that he had heard of it. "If ever you are in any legal trouble, go to my brother at the enclosed address." It was the first time he had spoken of this relative. The old people at Lewisham had not referred to this son; conversation when I called there was restricted to the soldier. Particulars of greater importance in the letter had a place on the last sheet. "I have been feeling out of sorts, and they tell me I need a change and a rest. But I do not want to come home until the job is ended. Fritz has got to be downed." Whilst I was receiving correspondence and sending it with scarcely a single mishap, my dear Katherine found that her communications and parcels to Mesopotamia were subjected to erratic treatment; now and again a steamer taking the mails was torpedoed in the Mediterranean, and this accounted for some of them, but not for all. Lieutenant Langford, on one occasion, cabled to her: "Are you writing?" and it cost about two pounds to reply, stating that she had been sending to him each week since he left. To me, in a moment of confidence induced by her anxiety, Katherine communicated a secret.
"And aren't you as pleased, my love, as ever you can be?"
"In a way, yes," she answered perplexedly. "But it means I shall have to leave the bank."
"Only for a time."
"They'll say I ought to have been straightforward with them. They'll be annoyed. They can be very stern when they like."
"Important folk, no doubt," I remarked, "but it isn't for them to give permission for dear, beautiful babies to come into the world. And don't forget when the time comes, that although your poor mother is gone, I shall be here."
"Shouldn't like to be facing it, Aunt Weston, without you."
My Quartermaster-Sergeant walked into the shop at London Street one wet day when Greenwich was looking something short of its brightest, and neighbouring tradesmen had called to give me their private and business anxieties. He said, "Hullo, Mary, my girl!" and kissed me, and, at once, other people's troubles vanished from my thoughts and for all I knew sunshine might have taken the place of rain. He was slightly thinner, and he had one or two lines on his forehead that I had not before noticed; it struck me there was a touch of grey about his moustache. Also his manner seemed quieter.