So when this Mr. Briggs wrote from the hospital in London, she sent him a cordial answer. Any friend of Myra Stebbings was more than welcome. She would not charge him more than out-of-pocket expenses. For she did not know who this foolish young man might be. Myra sphinx-like, as usual, had given no clue. But for Myra to ask a favour was an unprecedented occurrence. She must have far more than ordinary interest in the welfare of the young fellow. Mrs. Pettiland’s curiosity was aroused and she awaited the arrival of her new lodger with impatience.
The station car from the Fanstead garage brought him, on a late summer afternoon, with his brown canvas kit-bag and suit-case and khaki overcoat. She stood in the pedimented doorway, over which was fixed the wooden post-office board, and watched him descend. He faced her for a moment, and raised his hat.
“Mrs. Pettiland?”
She looked at his clear cut face, so boyish in spite of whiteness and haggardness, at his careless brown hair sweeping over his temples, at the lips parted in a smile, at the lithe young figure. She caught the significance of his uplifted hat and the pleasant tone of his voice. In her limited category of values he would be only one thing—a gentleman. The manners of an instant charmed her.
“Mr. Briggs?”
“I hope I shan’t be a dreadful nuisance to you, but I need rest and quiet and Miss Stebbings told me to come. And,” he smiled, “What she says generally goes.”
“I see that you know her, sir,” said Mrs. Pettiland pleasantly.
The luggage taken in, the cab dismissed she led him up to his room—a large bed-sitting room, looking over a wild garden and a wide expanse of rolling downs, with the faint white ribbon of high road circling in and out and round about them. His meals, she informed him, he could take in the parlour downstairs, without extra charge.
“But I insist on paying my way,” he said. “Unless my staying here is profitable to you, I can’t remain. For the present at least, I can well afford it.”
So a modest arrangement was made and Triona settled down in his new home.