CHAPTER IV
It was all very well to accept the compliments that Mr. Hillier had paid me, but as a matter of fact, whether a ray of sunshine, or a mascot, or a sheet anchor, I felt as much disturbed by all that was going on out in Belgium and France as anybody; if I woke up at night, I was so anxious and depressed about it that I could not get to sleep again. Looking back, it is possible to see how greatly one was helped by the milkman's Russians. He never wavered from his first announcement, and I am sure that at the present time he is confident he was right, and official statements were wrong. Indeed, one was receptive for any encouraging news at a time when a journal, on a beautifully bright and summer-like Sunday, gave the question on its poster, "Can the British Army be Saved?" and the thick black line on the daily war maps bent lower and lower in the direction of Paris. And at the fishmonger's, plaice was a shilling a pound. I tried to bargain with the man, and he said bitterly that I could take it or leave it, or, if I knew how, do both. Belgians were coming over, he added, in their thousands, bringing no money, and we should have to keep them. In a short time, he prophesied, the French people would arrive.
"We shall be eaten out of 'ouse and 'ome," said the fishmonger, dismally, "and I 'alf wish the Germans were here now, and that it was all over and done with!"
Master John and my Herbert wrote that they had been transferred to Caterham for drill. Their letters were common property, and if I received one I read it aloud, and if the family had one, I was called in to listen. Miss Katherine began to take lessons from me in cooking; Miss Muriel joined a sewing society and, clumsy enough at first, and quite incompetent when put in charge of the cutting out, did keep on at it, and showed herself ready to learn, willing to be reproved for blunders. Master Edward I took off to the Council school, and that disposed of him for five and a-half hours from Mondays to Fridays; at first, he came home extremely contemptuous of what he called the blighters, but in a few weeks he was bragging of Wilkinson, and Perrett, and Moore, and other great lads of the educational establishment. It was the subject of income that worried me. Money was going out, day by day, and a ten shilling note seemed to vanish in no time; not a penny was coming in. So soon as the amount representing the sum due to me was exhausted, there would be left nothing but farthings in the pillar box on the kitchen mantelpiece. Mr. Hillier looked through the advertisements carefully, and occasionally wrote letters; he became a special constable partly for the sake of filling up time. Mrs. Hillier alone declined to make any change other than those which circumstances forced upon her; now and again I was tempted to take her by the elbows, and give her a good shake.
"I find Greenwich very soothing," she would say, complacently. "Ideal, really!" The first cold day, and the falling of brown leaves out in the park, made some impression on her, and she shivered slightly in making any comments upon the fighting.
Master John, home on Sunday, gave us a description of his drill at Caterham. He had experienced a fall at the gymnasium, and made light of it, but his mother was concerned, and offered the view that Mr. Asquith ought to be told. Master John said that turning out time in the morning was half-past five; on the previous day he was on duty until a quarter to ten at night. Nearly eight thousand men down there, all Guards, and the Senior Medical Officer examined everyone, although the men had been passed in London for general army service; Master John said that about ten per cent. were rejected, and was content to announce that he himself had gone through safely. Food rather poor at times; occasionally it had to be taken without the assistance of plates.
"Your father must write to the papers about that," decided Mrs. Hillier, warmly. "Gross carelessness on the part of somebody."
Master John said that everyone was eager to get out to the front. Now that the Germans had been turned back from the Marne, and were on the run northwards, the fear at Caterham was that it might not be possible to arrive at the fighting district in time to take a share in the lark. Mrs. Hillier said this would be scandalous.
It was soon after this that the milkman told Mrs. Hillier of the imminent reduction in lighting; she declared that other people could, of course, do as they pleased but she, for one, intended to take no notice of the order. I argued with her, the young ladies argued with her, but she was obstinate until Mr. Hillier took the matter in hand. He gave a hint to the most serious of his colleagues who paid a call one evening at Gloucester Place, and talked to Mrs. Hillier in a way that she had probably never been spoken to before. After pointing out the risks and the penalties, he remarked that neighbours would have no alternative but to assume that she was in sympathy with the Germans. Upon that Mrs. Hillier gave directions, and blinds were drawn, lights carefully shaded. As I let the special constable out at the front door, he said to me:
"A difficult lady to deal with, your friend upstairs."