"You wouldn't care, I suppose, Miss Weston—I've always had a great respect for you—to join forces with me, so to speak, and——"
"No," promptly. "Got work to do here. Folk to look after."
"The time will come," she prophesied, in going, "when you'll want to kick yourself for not having listened to friendly advice."
It occurred to me that even if there existed little risk of a shortage in supplies, the fact that so many people were making large purchases might have serious results, and I resolved to concentrate my thoughts on the subject of flour. Flour became an obsession with me. Flour, for the space of at least one morning, was the one article that I desired. I had, the previous night, dreamt of flour; sacks of it, cellar-fulls of it, and the dream finished with the perturbing discovery that the bags on being opened contained nothing but wooden shavings. It is easy enough now to look back upon those very early days of the war, and to smile at the flurried anxieties and the nervous agitation; I can say truthfully that, being ordinarily as calm as most people, I nevertheless caught the epidemic and came as near as I have ever been to losing my head. My most extravagant act was to induce William Richards, by wire, to make himself responsible for bringing, whilst off duty on the Tuesday, two hundred-weight of flour from London; he conveyed it from the station to The Croft on a luggage trolley.
"Your thanks, Mary Weston," he said, "amply repay me, they do, for all the trouble. Came in, I did, for a fair amount of chaff on the way down from humorous colleagues of mine, and it's been a warmish business getting the stuff here, on a day like this, but this glass of cider, and your kind remarks—"
"When I wrote off in a hurry to you last night, I never thought you'd be able to do it."
William finished his glass, and appeared to be forming words in his mind. Altering the intention, he hummed the first lines of "Auld Lang Syne."
"There's a good deal of extra work going on," he remarked, "with the railways, and I can't always call my hours my own. But anything I can do for you, Mary Weston, I'm prepared to do. If I may offer a suggestion it is that your next orders should be such as not to make my uniform look quite so dusty."
I found a brush and dispersed the white marks. As I went up and down the sleeve, he took my hand and kissed it, and, at once, rushed from the kitchen, leaving the second glass that had been poured out for him. Going down to the tradesmen's gate, I caught sight of William Richards sprinting along the tarred road, more as one under the impression the Germans were after him than as though he had given an impetuous sign of affection.
My housekeeper acquaintance was not the only person who held the view that the war would throw folk out of employment. Everybody seemed to be furnishing everybody with the same idea. The most cheerful anticipation was that there were always the workhouses, and in any case the Government would have to do something. The disturbing fact that, as my acquaintance hinted, cheques were not being accepted, was, in itself, enough to startle and to alarm. Master Edward went on his bicycle a dozen times in the course of the day to pick up news at the station, and never returned without something like an arm-full; the trouble was to sift the correct from the undependable, and to keep one's mind clear of inaccuracies, but appetite for particulars was so keen that nothing was refused. Our old gardener with whom, owing to his partiality for alcohol, I had hitherto been on remote terms, appeared flattered to discover that I listened to his muddle-headed rumours with an attentive ear.