The Project Gutenberg eBook, Happy House, by Betsey Riddle, Freifrau von Hutten zum Stolzenberg

HAPPY HOUSE

The BARONESS

VON HUTTEN

HAPPY HOUSE

BY

The BARONESS VON HUTTEN

AUTHOR OF "PAM," "PAM DECIDES," "SHARROW," "KINGSMEAD," ETC.

NEW YORK

GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

COPYRIGHT, 1920,

BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

TO MISS LILY BETTS

my dear lily: We three, one of us in a chair, and two of us upside down on the grass-plot, have decided that this book must be dedicated to you, in memory of how we did not work on it at Sennen Cove, and how we did work on it here. So here it is, with our grateful love, from

Your affectionate
Richard, and Hetty, and B. v. H.
PENZANCE

CONTENTS

HAPPY HOUSE

[CHAPTER I]

Mrs. Walbridge stood at the top of the steps, a pink satin slipper in her hand, looking absently out into the late afternoon. The July sunlight spread in thick layers across the narrow, flagged path to the gate, and the shadows under the may tree on the left were motionless, as if cut out of lead. The path was strewn with what looked like machine-made snowflakes, and a long piece of white satin ribbon had caught on the syringa bush on the right of the green gate, and hung like a streak of whiter light across the leaves. Someone inside the house was playing a fox-trot, and sounds of tired laughter were in the air, but the well-known author, Mrs. Walbridge, did not hear them. She was leaning against the side of the door, recklessly crushing her new grey frock, and her eyes were fixed on the gate in the unseeing stare of utter fatigue. Presently the music stopped and the sudden silence seemed to rouse her, for, with a deep sigh and a little shake of the head that was evidently characteristic, she turned and went slowly into the house.

A few minutes later a brisk-looking young man in a new straw hat came down the street and paused at the gate, peering up at the fanlight to verify his whereabouts. Number eighty-eight did not seem to satisfy him, but suddenly his eyes fell on the gate. On its shabby green were painted the words, very faded, almost undecipherable, "Happy House," and with a contented nod the young man opened the gate and went quickly up the steps. No one answered his ring, so he rang again. Again the silence was unbroken, but from somewhere far off he heard the sound of laughter and talking, and, peering forward into the little hall, he took a small notebook from his pocket and wrote a few words in it, whistling softly between his teeth. He was a freckled-faced young man with a tip-tilted nose, not in the least like the petals of a flower, and with a look of cheery cheekiness. After a moment he went into the passage and thrust his head into the open drawing-room door. The room was filled with flowers, and though the windows were wide open, it smelt close, as if it had already been full of people. The walls were covered with pink and white moiré paper, whose shiny surface was broken by various pictures. Watts's "Hope" in a gilt frame dominated the mantelpiece; a copy of "The Fighting Téméraire" faced it, and there were a good many photographs elaborately framed, grouped, like little families, in clusters. Between the windows hung an old, faded photogravure of "The Soul's Awakening," and "Alone at Last" revealed its artless passion over a walnut chiffonier laden with small pieces of china. The young man in the straw hat, which was now pushed far back on his sweat-darkened fair hair, stood in the middle of the room and looked round, scratching his head with his pencil. His bright eyes missed nothing, and although he was plainly a young man full of buoyant matter-of-factness, there was scorn, not unkindly, but decided, in his merry but almost porcine eyes as he made mental notes of his surroundings.

"Poor old girl," he muttered. "Hang that 'bus accident. I wish I'd been here in time for the party——" Then his shrewd face softened as the deeper meaning of the room reached him. It was ugly; it was commonplace, but it was more of a home than many a room his journalistic activities had acquainted him with. By a low, shabby, comfortable-looking arm-chair that stood near the flower-filled grate was a dark-covered table on which stood five photographs, all in shiny silver or leather frames. Mr. Wick stood over the table tapping his teeth softly with his pencil, and moving his lips in a way that produced a hollow tune. "So that's the little lot," he said to himself in a cheerful, confidential voice. "Three feminines and two masculines, as the Italians say. And very nice too. Her own corner, I bet. Yes, there's her fountain pen." He took it up and made a note of its make and laid it carefully down. There was a little fire-screen in the shape of a banner of wool embroidery on the table. "That's how she keeps the firelight out of her eyes when she's working in the winter. Poor old girl. What ghastly muck it is, too—— Good thing for her the public likes it. Now, then, what about that bell? Guess I'll go and have another tinkle at it." He started to the door, when it was pushed further open and the owner of the house came in. Mr. Wick knew at the first glance that it was the owner of the house. A fattish, middle-aged man in brand new shepherd's plaid trousers and a not quite so new braided morning-coat.

"Hallo! I—I beg your pardon——" the new-comer began, not at all in the voice of one who begs pardon. Mr. Wick waved his hand kindly.

"Oliver Wick's my name," he explained. "I come from Round the Fire for an account of the wedding, but I got mixed up with a rather good 'bus smash in Oxford Street, and that's why I'm late."

"Oh, I see. Want a description of the wedding, do you? Clothes and so on? I'm afraid I'm not much good for that, but if you'll come into the garden I'll get one of my daughters to tell you. Some of the young people are still there, as a matter of fact."

Mr. Walbridge had stopped just short of being a tall man. His figure had thickened and spread as he grew older and his hips were disproportionately broad, which gave him a heavy, clumsy look. In his reddish, rather swollen face were traces of what had been great beauty, and he had the unpleasant manner of a man who consciously uses his charm as a means to attain his own ends.

"Come into the dining-room first and have a glass of the widow," he suggested, as he led the way down the narrow passage towards an open door at the back of the house.

Mr. Wick, who had no inhuman prejudice against conviviality, followed him into the dining-room and partook, as his quick eyes made notes of everything on which they rested, of a glass of warmish, rather doubtful wine.

"I suppose Mrs. Walbridge will give me five minutes?" the young man asked, setting down his glass and taking a cigarette from the very shiny silver case offered him by his host. Mr. Walbridge laughed, showing the remains of a fine set of teeth artfully reinforced by a skilled dentist.

"Oh, yes. My wife will quite enjoy being interviewed. Women always like that kind of thing, and, between you and me and the gate-post," he poured some champagne into a tumbler and drank it before he went on, "interviewers don't come round quite as they used in her younger days."

Mr. Wick despised the novels of the poor lady he had come to interview, but he was a youth not without chivalry, and something in his host's manner irritated him.

"She has a very good book public, anyhow, has Violet Walbridge. You mustn't mind me calling her that. I shouldn't call Browning Mr. Browning, you know, or Victoria Cross Miss Cross."

Walbridge nodded. "Oh, yes, they're pretty stories, pretty stories, though I like stronger stuff myself. Just re-reading 'L'Assommoir' again. Met Zola once when I was living in Paris. Always wondered how he smashed his nose. Well, if you're ready, let's come down into the garden where the ladies are."

The garden of Happy House was a long narrow strip almost entirely covered by a grass tennis court, and bounded by a narrow, crowded, neglected herbaceous border. As he stood at the top of the steep flight of steps leading down to where the group of young people were sprawled about in dilapidated old deck-chairs or on the grass, Mr. Wick's quick eyes saw the herbaceous border, and, what is more, they understood it. It was a meagre, squeezed, depressed looking attempt, and the young man from Brondesbury knew instinctively that, whereas the tennis court was loved by the young people of the family, the wild and pathetic flowers belonged to the old lady he had come to interview. Somehow he seemed to know, as he told his mother later, quite a lot about Violet Walbridge, just through looking at her border.

The sun was setting now, and a little wind had come up, stirring the leaves on the old elm under whose shade, erratic and scant, the little group were seated. Three or four young men were there, splendid, if rather warm, in their wedding garments, and several young women and girls, the pretty pale colours of their fine feathers harmonising charmingly with the evening. At the far end of the garden a lady was walking, with a blue silk sunshade over her shoulder. As the two men came down the steps Mr. Walbridge pointed to her.

"There's my wife," he said. "Shall I come and introduce you?"

"No, thank you. No, no, I'll go by myself," the young man answered hastily, and as he went down across the lawn he heard a girl's voice saying laughingly: "Reporter to interview Mrs. Jellaby." The others laughed, not unkindly, but their laughter lent to Mr. Wick's approach to Mrs. Walbridge a deference it might otherwise not have had. She had not heard him coming, and was standing with her back to him, her head and shoulders hidden by the delphinium-blue sunshade, and when she turned, starting nervously at the sound of his voice, he realised with painful acuteness that delphinium blue is not the colour to be worn by daylight by old ladies. Her thin, worn face, in which the bones showed more than in any face he had ever seen, was flooded with the blue colour that seemed to fill all the hollows and lines with indigo, and her large sunken eyes, on which the upper eyelids fitted too closely, must have been, the young man noticed, beautiful eyes long ago. They were of that most rare eye-colour, a really dark violet, and the eyebrows on the very edge of the clearly defined frontal bone were slightly arched and well marked over the temples. When he had told her who he was and his errand, she flushed with pleasure and held out her hand to him, and he, whose profession is probably second only to that of dentistry in its unpopularity, was touched by her simple pleasure.

"My Chief thought the public would be interested in the wedding. He tells me this daughter—the bride, I mean—was the original of—of—one of your chief heroines."

Violet Walbridge led the way to an old, faded green garden seat, on which they sat down.

"Yes, she's the original of 'Rose Parmenter,'" she helped him out gently, without offence at his having forgotten the name. "I wish you had seen her. But you can say that she was looking beautiful, because she was——"

Mr. Wick whipped out his notebook and his beautifully sharpened pencil, contrived a little table of his knees, and looked up at her.

"'Rose Parmenter'—oh, yes. That's one of your best-known books, isn't it?"

"Yes, that and 'Starlight and Moonlight.' They sold best, though 'One Maid's Word' has done very well. That," she added slowly, "has been done into Swedish, as well as French and German. 'Queenie's Promise' has been done into six languages."

Her voice was very low, and peculiarly toneless, but he noticed a little flush of pleasure in her thin cheeks—a flush that induced him, quite unexpectedly to himself, to burst out with the information that a friend of his sister—Jenny her name was—just revelled in his companion's works. "Give me a box o' chocs," Kitty will say, "and one of Violet Walbridge's books, and I wouldn't change places with Queen Mary."

Without being urged, Mrs. Walbridge gave the young man details he wanted—that her daughter's name was Hermione Rosalind; that she was the second daughter and the third child, and that she had married a man named Gaskell-Walker—William Gaskell-Walker.

"He belongs to a Lancashire family, and they've gone to the Lakes for their honeymoon." The author waved her thin hand towards the group of young people at the other end of the lawn. "There's the rest of my flock," she said, her voice warming a little. "The tall man who's looking at his watch is my other son-in-law, Dr. Twiss of Queen Anne Street, Cavendish Square. He married my eldest daughter, Maud, four years ago. Their little boy was page to-day. He's upstairs asleep now."

As she spoke one of the girls in the group left the others and came towards her and Wick.

"This is your daughter, too?" the young man asked, a little throb of pleasure in his voice.

"Yes, this," Mrs. Walbridge answered, taking the girl's hand, "is my baby, Griselda. Grisel, dear, this is Mr.—Mr.——"

"Wick," said the young man. "Oliver Wick."

"You've come to interview Mum?" Miss Walbridge asked, a little good-natured raillery in her voice.

The young man bowed. "Yes. I represent Round the Fire, and my Chief thought that the public would be interested in an account of the wedding——" His eyes were glued to the young girl's face. She was very small, and, he thought to himself, the blackest white girl he had ever seen; so dark that if he had not known who she was he might have wondered whether she were not the whitest black girl—her hair was coal-black and her long eyes like inkwells, and her skin, smooth as vellum, without a touch of colour, was a rich golden brown. She was charmingly dressed in canary-coloured chiffon, and round her neck she wore a little necklet of twisted strands of seed pearls, from which hung a large, beautifully cut pearl-shaped topaz.

"I came to tell you, Mum," she went on, glancing over her shoulder at one of the upper windows, "that Hilary's awake and bawling his head off, and Maud wants you to go up to him."

Mrs. Walbridge rose and Wick noticed, although he could not have explained it, how very different were her grey silk draperies from the yellow ones of her daughter. She had, moreover, sat down carelessly, and the back of her frock was crushed and twisted.

"It's my little grandson," she explained. "He's always frightened when he wakes up. I'll go to him. Perhaps you'd like my daughter to show you the wedding presents, Mr. Wick."

Oliver Wick was very young, and he was an ugly youth as well, but something about him held the girl's attention, in spite of his being only a reporter. This something, though she did not know it, was power, so it was perfectly natural that the little, spoilt beauty should lead him into the house to the room upstairs where the presents were set forth. His flowery article in the next number of Round the Fire expressed great appreciation of the gifts, but there was no detailed account of them, and that was because, although he looked at them and seemed to see what he was looking at, he really saw nothing but Miss Walbridge's enchanting little face.

"Do you ever read any of Mum's novels?" the girl asked him at last, as they stood by the window, looking down over the little garden into the quiet, tree-bordered road.

The young man hesitated, and she burst out laughing, pointing a finger of scorn at him.

"You've not?" she cried. "Own up. You needn't mind. I'm sure I don't blame you; they're awful rubbish—poor old Mum! I often wonder who it is does read them."

As she finished speaking, the door into the back room opened, and Mrs. Walbridge came out, carrying the little boy who had been crying. His long, fat legs, ending in shiny patent leather slippers, hung limply down, and his towsled fair head leant on her shoulder. He was dressed in cavalier costume of velvet and satin, and his fat, stupid face was blotted and blurred with tears. He looked so very large and heavy, and Mrs. Walbridge looked so small and old and tired that the young man went towards with his arms held out.

"Let me carry him down for you," he said. "He's too heavy——"

Griselda laughed. "My mother won't let you," she said gaily. "She always carries him about. She's much stronger than she looks."

Mrs. Walbridge didn't speak, but, with a little smile, went out of the room and slowly downstairs. Her daughter shrugged her shoulders.

"Mum's not only superannuated as to novels," she announced, smoothing her hair in front of a glass; "she's the old-fashioned mother and grandmother. She won't let us do a thing."

Her bright beauty had already cast a small spell on the young man, but nevertheless he answered her in a flash:

"Do you ever try?"

She stared for a moment. In spite of his journalistic manner and what is really best described as his cheek, Oliver Wick was a gentleman, and the girl had instinctively accepted him as such. But at the abrupt, frank censure in his voice she drew herself up and assumed a new manner.

"Now that you've seen the presents," she said, in what he knew she thought to be a haughty tone, "I think I must get back to my friends."

He grinned. "Righto! Sorry to have detained you. But I haven't quite finished my talk with Mrs. Walbridge. I'm sure she won't mind giving me a few tips about her next book. Our people love that kind of thing—eat it."

He cast his eye about the pleasant sunny room, and then, as he reached the door, stopped.

"I suppose this is your room?" he asked, with bland disregard of her manner.

"What do you mean?"

"Well—different kinds of pictures, you know; brown wallpaper, and that's a good Kakemono. Hanabosa Iccho, isn't it?"

Miss Walbridge's face expressed surprise too acute to be altogether courteous.

"I—I don't know," she said. "I know it's a very good one. Mother bought it for Paul—that's my brother—he's very fond of such things—for his birthday and at Christmas—his room is being painted, so some of his things are in here."

The young man looked admiringly at the grey and white study of monkeys and leaves.

"I've got an uncle who collects them," he said, "and that's a jolly good one. I suppose that Mrs. Walbridge goes in for Japanese art too?"

"Poor mother!" The girl laughed. "She doesn't know a Kakemono from a broomstick. Paul found that one at some sale and asked her to give it to him."

They went slowly down the stairs, the girl's pretty white hand sliding lightly along the polished rail in a way that put all thought of Japanese art out of the young man's active mind. He was going to be a great success, for he had the conquering power of concentrating not only his thoughts but his feelings on one thing at a time; and for the moment the only thing in the world was Griselda Walbridge's left hand.

[CHAPTER II]

Happy House was a big old house with rooms on both sides of the door, and a good many bedrooms, but it was old-fashioned in the wrong way, like a man's straw hat, say, of the early seventies. It was inconvenient without being picturesque. There was only one bathroom, and the passages were narrow. Most of the children had been born there, indeed all of them except Paul, for the prudent Mrs. Walbridge had bought it out of the proceeds of her first book, "Queenie's Promise"—a book that is even now dear to thousands of romantic hearts in obscure homes. Paul had been born in the little house at Tooting Bec, for there it was that the Great Success had been written. In those days might have been seen walking under the fine trees of the common, a little dowdy figure with a bustle and flowing unhygienic draperies, that was the newly married Mrs. Ferdinand Walbridge, in the throes of literary invention. But just before the birth of Maud Evelyn the removal had been made; the hastily gathered, inexpensive household gods had been carried by the faithful Carter Paterson to Walpole Road and set up in their over-large, rather dwarfing shrine. Those were the days of limitless ambition and mad, rosy dreams, when Ferdinand was still regarded by his young wife much in the way that Antony Trollope's heroines worshipped their husbands a short time before. The romantic light of the runaway match still hung round him and his extraordinary good looks filled her with unweakened pride.

They hung up Mr. Watts's "Hope," the beautiful and touching "Soul's Awakening" (which, indeed, bore a certain resemblance to Walbridge at that time), she arranged her little odds and ends of china, and her few books that her father had sent her after the half-hearted reconciliation following Paul's birth, and one of the first things they bought was a gilt clock, representing two little cupids on a see-saw. Mrs. Walbridge's taste was bad, but it was no worse than the taste of the greater part of her contemporaries of her own class, for she belonged body and soul to the Philistines. She hadn't even an artistic uncle clinging to the uttermost skirts of the pre-Raphaelites to lighten her darkness, and, behold, when she had made it, her little kingdom looked good to her. She settled down light-heartedly and without misgivings, to her quadruple rôle of wife, mother, housekeeper and writer. She had no doubt, the delicate little creature of twenty, but that she could "manage" and she had been managing ever since. She managed to write those flowery sentimental books of hers in a room full of crawling, experimental, loud-voiced babies; she managed to break in a series of savage handmaidens, who married as soon as she had taught them how to do their work; she managed to make flowers grow in the shabby, weed-grown garden; she managed to mend stair-carpets, to stick up fresh wallpapers, to teach her children their prayers and how to read and write; she managed to cook the dinner during the many servantless periods. The fate of her high-born hero and heroine tearing at her tender heart, while that fabulous being, the printer's devil, waited, in a metaphorical sense, on her doorstep. But most of all, she managed to put up with Ferdinand. She had loved him strongly and truly, but she was a clear-sighted little woman, and she could not be fooled twice in the same way, which, from some points of view, is a misfortune in a wife. So gradually she found him out, and with every bit of him that crumbled away, something of herself crumbled too. Nobody knew very much about those years, for she was one of those rare women who have no confidante, and she was too busy for much active mourning. Ferdinand was an expensive luxury. She worked every day and all day, believed in her stories with a pathetic persistence, cherishing all her press notices—she pasted them in a large book, and each one was carefully dated. She had a large public, and made a fairly large, fairly regular income, but there never was enough money, because Walbridge not only speculated and gambled in every possible way, but also required a great deal for his own personal comforts and luxuries. For years it was the joy of the little woman's heart to dress him at one of the classic tailors in Savile Row; his shirts and ties came from a Jermyn Street shop, his boots from St. James's Street, and his gloves (he had very beautiful hands) were made specially for him in the Rue de Rivoli. For many years Ferdinand Walbridge (or Ferdie, as he was called by a large but always changing circle of admiring friends) was one of the most carefully dressed men in town. He had an office somewhere in the city, but his various attempts at business always failed sooner or later, and then after each failure he would settle down gently and not ungratefully to a long period of what he called rest.

When the three elder children were eight, six and three, a very bad time had come to "Happy House." Little had been known about it except for the main fact that Mr. Walbridge was made a bankrupt. But Caroline Breeze, the only woman who was anything like an intimate friend of the household, knew that there was, over and above this dreadful business, a worse trouble.

Caroline Breeze was one of those women who are not unaffectionately called "a perfect fool" by their friends, but she was a close-mouthed, loyal soul, and had never talked about it to anyone. But years afterwards, when the time had come for her to speak, she spoke, out of her silent observation, to great purpose. For a long time after his bankruptcy Ferdie Walbridge walked about like a moulting bird; his jauntiness seemed to have left him, and without it he wilted and became as nothing. During this three years Mrs. Walbridge for the first time did her writing in the small room in the attic—the small room with the sloping roof and the little view of the tree-tops and sky of which she grew so fond, and which, empty and desolate though it was, had gradually grown to be called the study; and that was the time when Caroline Breeze was of such great use to her. For Caroline used to come every day and take the children, as she expressed it, off their mother's hands.

In '94 Mrs. Walbridge produced "Touchstones," in '95 "Under the Elms" and in '96 "Starlight and Moonlight." It was in '98 that there appeared in the papers a small notice to the effect that Mr. Ferdinand Walbridge was discharged from his bankruptcy, having paid his creditors twenty shillings in the pound.

Naturally, after this rehabilitation, Mr. Walbridge became once more his charming and fascinating self, and was the object of many congratulations from the entirely new group of friends that he had gathered round him since his misfortune.

"Most chaps would have been satisfied to pay fifteen shillings in the pound," more than one of these gentlemen declared to him, and Ferdie Walbridge, as he waved his hand and expressed his failure to comprehend such an attitude, really almost forgot that it was his wife and not himself who had provided the money that had washed his honour clean.

Caroline Breeze, faithful and best of friends, lived up three pairs of stairs in the Harrow Road, and one of her few pleasures was the keeping of an accurate and minute record of her daily doings. Perhaps some selections from the diary will help to bring us up to date in the story of "Happy House."

October, 1894—Tuesday.—Have been with poor Violet. Mr. Walbridge has been most unfortunate, and someone has made him a bankrupt. It is a dreadful blow to Violet, and poor little Hermy only six weeks old. Brought Maud home for the night with me. She's cutting a big tooth. Gave her black currant jam for tea. Do hope the seeds won't disagree with her....

Wednesday.—Not much sleep with poor little Maud. Took her round and got Hermy in the pram, and did the shopping. Saw Mr. Walbridge for a moment. He looks dreadfully ill, poor man. Told me he nearly shot himself last night. I told him he must bear up for Violet's sake....

A week later.—Went to "Happy House" and took care of the children while Violet was at the solicitors. She looks frightfully ill and changed, somehow. I don't quite understand what it is all about. Several people I know have gone bankrupt, and none of their wives seem as upset as Violet....

November 5th.—Spent the day at "Happy House" looking after the children. Violet had to go to the Law Courts with Mr. Walbridge. He looked so desperate this morning that I crept in and hid his razors. He dined at the King's Arms with some of his friends, and Violet and I had high tea together. She looks dreadfully ill, and the doctor says she must wean poor little Hermy. She said very little, but I'm afraid she blames poor Mr. Walbridge. I begged her to be gentle with him, and she promised she would, but she looked so oddly at me that I wished I hadn't said it.

November 20th.—Violet has moved into the top room next the nursery to be nearer the children. I must say I think this is wrong of her. She ought to consider her husband. He looks a little better, but my heart aches for him.

February, 1895.—Violet's new book doing very well. Third edition out yesterday. She's getting on well with the one for the autumn. Such a pretty title—"Under the Elms." It's about a foundling, which I think is always so sweet. She's very busy making over the children's clothes. Ferdie (he says it is ridiculous that such an intimate friend as I am should go on calling him Mr. Walbridge) has gone to Torquay for a few weeks as he's very run down. Mem.—I lent him ten pounds, as dear Violet really doesn't seem quite to understand that a gentleman needs a little extra money when he's away. He was sweet about her. Told me how very good she was, and said that her not understanding about the pocket money is not her fault, as, of course, she is not quite so well born as he. He is very well connected indeed, though he doesn't care to have much to do with his relations. He's to pay me back when his two new pastels are sold. They are at Jackson's in Oxford Street, and look lovely in the window....

November, 1895.—Violet's new book out to-day—"Under the Elms"—a sweet story. She gave me a copy with my name in it, and I sat up till nearly two, with cocoa, reading it. Very touching, and made me cry, but has a happy ending. I wish I had such a gift.

January 13th, 1896.—Just had a long talk with poor Ferdie. He is really very unlucky. Had his pocket picked on his way home from the city yesterday with £86 15s. 4d. in his purse. Does not wish to tell poor Violet. It would distress her so. He had bought some shares in some kind of mineral—I forget the name—and they had gone up, and he had been planning to buy her a new coat and skirt, and a hat, and lovely presents for all the children. He's such a kind man. He was even going to buy six pairs of gloves for me. The disappointment is almost more than he can bear. Sometimes I think Violet is rather hard on him. I couldn't bear to see him so disappointed, so I am lending him £50 out of the Post Office Savings Bank. He's going to pay me six per cent. It's better than I can get in any other safe investment. He's to pay me at midsummer. N.B.—That makes £60.

February 12th, 1896.—Paul's birthday. Went to tea to "Happy House." Violet made a beautiful cake with white icing, and had squeezed little pink squiggles all over it in a nice pattern. She gave him a fine new pair of boots and a bath sponge. His daddy gave him a drum—a real one—and a large box of chocolates.

February 13th, 1896.—Ferdie came round at seven this morning to ask me to help nurse Paul. He was ill all night with nettle-rash in his throat, and nearly choked, poor little boy. I've been there all day. Susan told me Ferdie's grief in the night was something awful. It's a good thing Violet does not take things so to heart. Odd about the chocolate. It seems it's always given him nettle-rash.

September 4th, 1896.—Darling Hermy's second birthday. Her mother made her a really lovely coat out of her Indian shawl. I knitted her a petticoat. Dear Ferdie gave her a huge doll with real hair, that talks, and a box of chocolates, which we took away from her, as Paul cried for some. Ferdie had quite forgotten that chocolates poison Paul. He was very wonderful this evening after the children had gone to bed. He had made some money (only a little) by doing some work in the city, and he had bought Violet a lovely pair of seed-pearl earrings. I suppose she was very tired, because she was really quite ungracious about them, and hurt his feelings dreadfully. There was also some trouble about the gas man, which I didn't quite understand. But afterwards, when I had gone upstairs to take a last look at the children, they had a talk, and as I came downstairs I saw him kneeling in front of her with his head in her lap. He has such pretty curly hair, and when I came in he came to me and took my hand and said he didn't mind my seeing his tears, as I was the same as a sister, and asked me to help influence her to forgive him, and to begin over again. It was very touching, and I couldn't help crying a little. I was so sorry for him. Violet is really rather hard. I suggested to her that after all many nice people go bankrupt, and that other women have far worse things to bear, and she looked at me very oddly for a moment, almost as if she despised me, though it can't have been that....

September 30th, 1896.—Have been helping Violet move her things back into the downstairs room. Ferdie was so pleased. He brought home a great bunch of white lilac—in September!—and put it in a vase by the bed. I thought it was a lovely little attention.

July 4th, 1897.—A beautiful little boy came home this morning to "Happy House." They are going to call him Guy, which is Ferdie's favourite name. He was dreadfully disappointed it wasn't a little girl, so that she could be named Violet Peace. He's so romantic. What a pity there is no masculine name meaning Peace....

[CHAPTER III]

Mr. Oliver Wick's ideas of courtship were primitive and unshakable. On one or two clever, ingenious pretexts he visited "Happy House" twice within the month after his first visit, in order, as he expressed it to himself, to look over Miss Walbridge in the light of a possible wife. That he was in love with her he recognised, to continue using his own language, "from the drop of the hat," "from the first gun." But although he belonged to the most romantic race under the sun, Mr. Wick was no fool, and whereas anything like a help-meet would have displeased him almost to the point of disgust, he had certain standards to which any one with claims to be the future Mrs. Oliver Wick must more or less conform. He didn't care a bit about money—he felt that money was his job, not the girl's—but she'd got to be straight, she'd got to be a good looker, and she'd got to be good-tempered. No shrew-taming for him—at least not in his own domestic circle.

One evening, shortly after his third visit to "Happy House," the young man was standing at the tallboys in his mother's room in Spencer Crescent, Brondesbury, tying a new tie over an immaculate dress shirt.

"I'm going to do the trick to-night," he declared, filled with pleasant confidence, "or bust."

Mrs. Wick, who looked more like her son's grandmother than his mother, sat in a low basket chair by the window, stretching, with an old, thin pair of olive-wood glove stretchers, the new white gloves that were to put the final touch of splendour to the wooer's appearance.

She was a pleasant-faced old woman, with a strong chin and keen, clear eyes, and when she smiled she showed traces of past beauty.

"Well, of course," she said, snapping the glove-stretchers at him thoughtfully, "you know everything—you always did—and far be it from me to make any suggestions to you."

He turned round, grinning, his ugly face full of subtle likeness to her handsome one.

"Oh, go on," he jeered, "you wonderful old thing! Some day your pictures will be in the penny papers as the mother of Baron Wick of Brondesbury. Of course I know everything! Look at this tie, for instance. A Piccadilly tie, built for dukes, tied in Brondesbury by Fleet Street. What's his name—D'Orsay—couldn't do it better. But what were you going to say?"

She laughed and held out the gloves. "Here you are, son. Only this. I bet you sixpence she won't look at you. She'll turn you down; refuse you; give you the cold hand; icy mit—what d'you call it? And then, you'll come back and weep on my shoulder."

Mr. Wick, who had taken the gloves, stood still for a minute, his face full of sudden thought.

"She may," he said, "she may. I don't care if she does. I tell you she's lovely, mother. She'd look like a fairy queen if the idiots who paint 'em realised that fairies ought to be dark, and not tow-coloured. Of course she'll refuse me a few times, but her father'll be on my side."

"Why?"

"Because he's a rather clever old scoundrel, and he'll know that I'm a succeeder—a getter."

The old woman looked thoughtful. "I haven't liked anything you told me about him, Olly. But, after all, he has paid up, and lots of good men have been unfortunate in business."

The young fellow took up his dress-coat, which was new and richly lined, and drew it on with care.

"Oh, I'm not marrying into this family because I admire my future father-in-law," he answered. "I haven't any little illusions about him, old lady. It's his wife who's done the paying, or I'm very much mistaken. She's an honest woman—poor thing."

There was such deep sympathy in his voice that his mother, who had risen, and was patting and smoothing the new coat into place on his broad shoulders, pulled him round till he faced her, and looked down at him, for she was taller than he.

"Why are you so sorry for her?"

He hesitated for a moment, and his hesitation meant much to her.

"I don't know. She never says anything, of course. She seems happy enough, but I believe—I believe she's found him out——"

"God help her," Mrs. Wick answered.

The young man remembered this episode as he sat opposite his hostess at dinner an hour and a half later. The dining-room had been re-papered since he had drunk that glass of luke-warm wine in it the day of Hermione's wedding, and his sharp eyes noticed the absence of several ugly things that had been there then. Stags no longer hooted to each other across mountain chasms over the sideboard, and one or two good line drawings hung in their place.

"How do you like it?" Griselda asked him. "Paul and I have been cheering things up a bit."

"Splendid," he replied promptly. "I say, how beautiful your sister is!"

Griselda's rather hard little face softened charmingly as she looked across the table, where the bride was sitting. Hermione Gaskell-Walker was a very handsome young woman in an almost classical way, and her short-sighted, clever-looking husband, who sat nearly opposite her, evidently thought so too, for he peered over the flowers at her in adoration that was plain and pleasing to see.

"They've such a jolly house in Campden Hill. His father was Adrian Gaskell-Walker, the landscape painter, and collected things."

Mr. Wick nodded, but did not answer, for he was busy making a series of those mental photographs, whose keenness and durability so largely contributed to his success in life. He had an amazing power of storing up records of incidents that somehow or other might come in useful to him, and this little dinner party, which he had decided to be a milestone on his road, interested him acutely in its detail.

By candlelight, in perfect evening dress, Ferdinand Walbridge's slightly dilapidated charms were very manifest. On his right sat an elderly lady about whom Mr. Wick's apparatus recorded only one word—pearls.

Next to her came Paul Walbridge, looking older than his twenty-nine years—thin, delicate, rather high shouldered, with remarkably glossy dark hair and immense soft, dove-coloured eyes. He looked far better bred, the young man decided, than he had any right to look; his hands, in particular, might have been modelled by Velasquez.

"Supercilious——" Wick thought, and then paused, not adding the "ass" that had come into his mind, for he knew that Paul Walbridge was not an ass, although he would have liked to call him one.

Next Paul came the beautiful Hermione, with magnificent shoulders white as flour, and between her and her mother sat a man named Walter Crichell, a portrait painter, one of the best in the secondary school—a man with over-red lips and short white hands with unpleasant, pointed fingers.

"That fellow's a stinker," Wick decided, never to change his mind.

Next came the hostess, thin, worn, rather silent, in the natural isolation of an old woman sitting between two young men, each of whom had youth and beauty on his far side.

Then, of course, came Oliver himself and Grisel. Next to Grisel, Gaskell-Walker, the lower part of whose face was clever, but who would probably find himself handicapped by the qualities belonging to too high, too straight a forehead; and next him, consequently on the host's left, sat Crichell's wife. Young Wick could not look at her very comfortably without leaning forward, but he caught one or two glimpses of her face as Walbridge bent over her, and promised himself a good look in the drawing-room. She was worth it, he knew. A soft, velvety brown creature, a little on the fat side, but rather beautiful. It was plain, too, that the old man admired her.

Mr. Wick studied his host's face for a moment as he thus completed his circle of observation, and so strong were his feelings as he looked at Mr. Walbridge that quite unintentionally he said "Ugh!" aloud.

"What did you say?" It was Mrs. Walbridge who spoke—her first remark for quite a quarter of an hour—and in her large eyes was the anxious, guilty look of one who has allowed herself to wool-gather in public.

Wick started, blushed scarlet, and then burst out laughing at his dilemma.

"I didn't say anything," he answered. "I was only thinking. I beg your pardon, Mrs. Walbridge."

Her worn face softened into a kind smile, and he noticed that her teeth were even and very white.

"It is awful, isn't it," she said, "to—to get thinking about things when one ought to be talking? I'm afraid I'm very dull for a young man to sit next."

"Oh, come, Mrs. Walbridge," he protested, "when you know how they all lapped up that article I wrote about you."

She bridled gently. "It was a very nice article." After a minute she added anxiously, her thin fingers pressing an old blue enamel brooch that fastened the rather crumpled lace at her throat: "Tell me, Mr. Wick, do you—do you really think that—that people like my books as much as they used to?"

"You must have a very big public," he answered, wishing she had not put the question.

"Yes, I know I have, but—you see, of course I'm not young any more, and the children—they know a great many people, and bring some of them here and—I've noticed that while they are all very kind, they don't seem to have—to have really read my books."

"Don't they?" said Wick, full of sympathy. "Dear me!"

She shook her head. "No, they really don't, and I've been wondering if—if it is that they're beginning to find me—a little old-fashioned."

What he wanted to say in return for this was: "But, bless your heart, you are old-fashioned, the old-fashionest old dear that ever lived!" What he did say was: "Well, I suppose lots of people think Thackeray and Dickens old-fashioned——" But when Grisel turned just then and fired some question at him, he felt a weak longing to mop his brow. It had been a narrow escape, and he would not have hurt the old lady's feelings for worlds. Something about this faded, exhausted-looking little old literary bee touched the young fellow in a quite new way.

"Gosh!" he thought; "now if it was mother, she wouldn't let people think her old-fashioned; she wouldn't be old-fashioned. My word, wouldn't she just sit up at night and write something to beat Wells, and Elinor Glyn, and the rest of them into a cocked hat!"

Grisel, in white—white that would have done very well, he thought, in Grosvenor Square or St. James's—was in her best mood that night, and as they talked he felt himself slipping lower and lower into the abyss—that pleasant abyss on the edge of which he had hovered so many times before without letting himself go.

It was then that the question of Bruce Collier's book rose. It was Crichell who brought up the subject, and as he described the book he enthusiastically waved his peculiarly white hands, which Mr. Wick thought, with some disgust, looked as if they were on the point of sprouting into horrid white tubers like potatoes in a dark cellar.

"The finest book I've read for years," he declared. "Magnificent piece of work."

"Walter's quite mad about it," his wife put in, leaning forward and making motions with her hand and throat like those of a sunning pigeon. "He dined with us last night—Mr. Collier—and he's an extraordinary creature. Never touched a drug in his life, yet he knows all about it—and as for the other things——" she shrugged her shoulders and laughed. Her husband shook his fist at her.

"Now, Clara," he said, "curb that tongue of yours, my dear, or you'll shock Mrs. Walbridge. Have you read the book, Mrs. Walbridge, 'Reek'?"

The little writer shook her head. "No, I haven't very much time for reading. I've just read 'The Rosary.' What a delightful book it is!"

Grisel stretched her hand across Wick and took hold of her mother's.

"Never mind, darling, you shan't be teased, and you mustn't read 'Reek.' I shouldn't dream of allowing you to."

Walbridge, in whose handsome, swollen eyes a new little flame was showing, looked up from a whispered talk with Mrs. Crichell and smiled at his wife.

"No, darling," he agreed, "I can't have you reading such books. It would ruin your style. I'm sure Mr. Wick agrees with me, don't you, Mr. Wick? Mr. Wick is a great admirer of your books," he added in an insufferable way.

She didn't speak, but Wick saw her thin lips quiver a little, and hastened to answer:

"I'm only a business man, Mr. Walbridge, and know nothing at all about literature, but I know this much—I bet the chap who wrote 'Reek' would give his eye-tooth to have Mrs. Walbridge's sales!"

Hermione Gaskell-Walker raised her heavy-lidded eyes and smiled at him gratefully, as she murmured, "Darling mum," and, stimulated by his success, Mr. Wick ended the conversation by saying firmly, as Mrs. Walbridge caught the eye of the pearl lady: "Filthy book, anyhow; not fit to be read by ladies——"

Some hours later a not very crestfallen young man sat in the small dining-room of 11, Spencer Crescent, Brondesbury, and ate poached eggs on toast—he was always ready for poached eggs—and announced to his dressing-gowned and beslippered mother that the lady of his choice had rejected him.

"Couldn't dream of it," he announced cheerfully, reaching for butter with his own knife in a way only permissible at such out-of-hour meals. "She pretended to be surprised, you know, and then, when that didn't work, she tried to assume that I was mad. Pretty little piece, she is, mother. Dimples in her lovely face she's got, and eyes like two little black suns, shining away——"

His mother coughed drily. "You don't seem remarkably cast down," she observed, rubbing her nose with her thumb—a broad and capable thumb, "and here was I wasting my tissue in an agony of fear about my broken-hearted boy."

He cocked his head as little snub-nosed dogs do, indeed, he all but cocked one ear, and his eyes twinkled.

"You and your tissue, indeed! You don't think I thought she was going to jump down my throat, do you? I'd hate a girl who took me first time. I like being refused—looks well. I hope she'll refuse me three or four times more."

"If she could see you eat poached eggs in your shirt-sleeves, with all the varnish off your hair, she'd go on refusing you to the crack o' doom," retorted the old lady.

Then they went to bed, and in five minutes the rejected one was snoring comfortably.

[CHAPTER IV]

"Roseleaves and Lavender," Violet Walbridge's last novel, was selling pretty well, but a few days after the dinner party the author left her house about half-past eleven, mounted a No. 3 bus, settled herself in the prow and travelled down to the Strand in answer to a rather pressing invitation from her publishers.

It was a fine October morning, with a little tang in the air, so windless that some early falling leaves left their boughs with an air of doubt and travelled very slowly, almost hesitatingly, towards the earth. All the smoke went straight up into the sky, and several caged birds on the route were singing loudly outside their windows. The bus was full of people, more or less all of them of the type who made Mrs. Walbridge's public, and there were, without doubt, several girls sitting almost within reach of her who would have felt it in the nature of an adventure to meet the author of "Queenie's Promise" and "One Maid's Word." It is interesting to think that there are fewer people who would genuinely thrill at the sight of George Meredith, if he were still alive, than would thrill at having met such a writer as Violet Walbridge. But no one knew who the little, dowdily dressed woman was, and her journey to Charing Cross was uneventful. God, who gives all mercies, gave the gift of vanity, and Mrs. Walbridge, although very humble-minded, was not without her innocent share in the consoling fault. More than once she had given herself the pleasure of telling some casually met stranger who she was. Once her yearly holiday at Bexhill had been given a glow of glory by the fact that she had by chance found the chambermaid at the little hotel, engrossed to the point of imbecility in "Starlight and Moonlight." Delicately, shyly, she had made known to the girl the fact of her identity, and the reverence, almost awe, of the poor ignorant servant in meeting the author of that splendid book had made her very happy for many hours.

Another time a working man in a train had been quarrelling with his wife for the possession of a torn copy of "Aaron's Rod" (a book which Mrs. Walbridge privately considered a little strong), and as she got out of the train and the man handed her down her holdall, she had thrown the exciting information of her identity into his face and run for her life, feeling herself akin to Dickens, Miss Ethel M. Dell, Robert Louis Stevenson, and all the other great ones of the earth. But these splendid events had never been frequent, and of late years they had almost ceased to occur. And as the little lady got off the bus at Charing Cross and blundered apologetically into a tall, rosy-faced girl, who clutched The Red Magazine to her breast, she wondered wistfully if the girl would have been delighted if she had told her.

Messrs. Lubbock & Payne, publishers, had their offices in the Strand, and Mrs. Walbridge's appointment was for half-past eleven. She felt a little nervous and depressed as she went up in the lift, for Mr. Lubbock was a very imposing man, whose fine bay-windowed waistcoat always overawed her a little. However, it was probably the glory of the golden autumn day that had got on her nerves. She was always sad on such days, so she tried to look bold and successful as she passed Wheeler, the old clerk, Mr. Lubbock's right-hand man, whom she had known for a quarter of a century.

Wheeler, however, did not respond to her remarks about the weather as he had once done, and when she had waited nearly half an hour her depression had grown still greater, and she was finally ushered into the inner office with hands and feet icy with fear.

Harrison Lubbock, a large, abnormally clean-looking old gentleman, with a ruff of silky white hair round his polished scalp, greeted her kindly, but without enthusiasm.

"I've asked you to call, Mrs. Walbridge," he began at once with a pronounced glance at the clock, "on a little matter of business. Mr. Payne and I have been talking things over of late—business matters you understand—and we have come to the conclusion that there are one or two of our authors to whom a few words of advice might be of use." He paused, and she looked at him anxiously.

"I see," she said, her face growing a little paler. "I—I'm one of those authors?"

He bowed, and the soft folds of his beautifully shaved double chin dropped a little lower over his high collar.

"Yes, yes, quite so. You're a very old, shall I say, client?—of ours——"

She would have liked to reply that at that moment the word patient might be more applicable to her, but she dared not, and after a moment he went on:

"I think we may say that we are very old friends."

This was awful. She was no business woman, and she had little knowledge of the world, but even she knew that it meant danger, in an interview avowedly a business interview, when friendship was invoked. She stammered something, and he went on:

"Your books have sold—sell—very well, on the whole. We have done our best for them, and, as you know, the cost of publishing and advertising—particularly advertising—has nearly doubled since the war."

Again he paused, and this time she bowed, being afraid to say that she knew conditions were such that her percentage on sales had gone down, while the sale price of her books had gone up to seven and six. She noticed Mr. Lubbock's sleeve-links; they were new ones and very neat, of gold and platinum. How she wished she could buy a pair like that for Paul! In the old days her envy would have been for Ferdie. Mr. Lubbock cleared his throat, fitted his fat finger-tips neatly together, and began to be sprightly.

"Amazing how the output of books of fiction has increased of late years, isn't it? Dear me, I can remember when 2250 would have been considered a big output, and now there are so many good writers, so many excellent writers, Mrs. Walbridge, that we are forced by competition and market conditions to bring out nearly three times that number. I wonder if you have kept up with the new writers," he went on after a pause, "Mrs. Levett, Joan Kelly, Austen Goodheart, and so on—and Wanda Potter. Wanda Potter's last book sold over a hundred thousand."

"I haven't read any of them, I'm afraid. I've so little time——" She tried to smile and felt as if her lips were freezing.

"Just so, just so; exactly what I was saying to Payne. 'Mrs. Walbridge is a very busy woman,' I said to Payne. 'She hasn't time—she can't be expected to have time—to read all these things, so it's quite natural that—that——'" He broke off, and taking up a little bronze figure of a poodle, that served as a paper weight, he examined it carefully for a moment. "I'm sure you understand what I mean, Mrs. Walbridge," he said at last.

She was looking at the corner of his polished mahogany writing table; she was looking at two carefully jointed bits of wood, finely grained and smoothly welded together, but what she saw was "Happy House"; Ferdie and his new cedar cigar chest yawning to be filled; of an unpaid tailor's bill; of his annual cough (Ferdie coughed himself regularly to Torquay every autumn); she saw Paul and his new edition de luxe of Swinburne, and the Rowlandson "Horse Fair" he had taken her to see in King Street, St. James's—the "Horse Fair" that was to cost "only eighteen guineas." She saw the little sea-green frock that hung in the great Frenchman's window in Hanover Square, the little frock that would look so beautiful on Grisel. She saw a vision of a hecatomb of roasts of beef and saddles of mutton, and oysters, and burgundy, that she was longing to offer up to her family gods. She saw the natural skunk coat she had been planning to give to poor dear Caroline for Christmas. She saw the new bathroom, on which the men were already working, that was to be Grisel's. Then these things passed away, and the corner of the table again appeared, and Mr. Lubbock was saying, in that kind, dreadful voice of his: "I feel quite sure that you understand our position, Mrs. Walbridge, and, after all, the reduction is not of very great consequence."

Before she could speak the telephone bell rang. He took up the receiver and bent forward, politeness and courtesy expressed in every line of his big figure as clearly as if the telephone had been a person he was speaking to.

"Oh—oh, yes, is that you, Payne?" she heard him say. "Yes, what an odd coincidence, she's here with me now!" and Mrs. Walbridge knew that it was no coincidence; that they had planned it all out between them, and for a moment she had a wild idea of flight. She would run and run down the narrow, dusty stairs and out into the street, and not hear any of it said. It seemed that she could bear the reduction of her money, but that she could not bear it discussed by these two men who held not only her, but "Happy House" and everybody in "Happy House" in the hollow of their hands. But she dared not move, and presently Mr. Payne came in.

Mr. Payne was a little, yellowish-pink man, who looked like a weazel. He had lashless and browless blue eyes, and his nose was sharp and his teeth looked very sharp. He was brisk and brusque in his manner, and he dashed at the subject of the smaller price for the next book with an abruptness that was only one degree more bearable than Mr. Lubbock's smoothness.

"Yes, yes," he declared, shaking hands rather violently. "I knew you understood, Mrs. Walbridge, didn't I, Lubbock? 'Mrs. Walbridge is a business woman,' I said, 'and of course she'll understand that the war has changed things very considerably, to say nothing of the—of the—ah—inevitable march of time.'"

"I was telling Mrs. Walbridge," Lubbock joined in, "that I thought it would be a good plan for her to read some of the new books. Haven't we got Wanda Potter's 'Rice Paper'? Excellent story, excellent—and sells well." He called up someone on the telephone, and smiling into it, working his rough eyebrows genially, he gave orders for someone named Briggs to get Miss Potter's last book for Mrs. Walbridge. "Wait a minute, George. What other ones would you suggest? Oh, yes, and Mr. Goodheart's 'New Odyssey.' Useful book that," to Mrs. Walbridge. "You take them, with our compliments, and just—just go through them——"

Mrs. Walbridge had risen and stood before the table, her hands clutching very hard at her shabby leather bag.

Mr. Payne was about to speak, when something in her face stopped him. They had known her for years. They had treated her very well, and they had made a great deal of money out of her. But both of them felt at that moment that until then they had never quite known her. Her face was very white, and her immense hollow eyes were full of almost unbearable misery. But it was the bravery of her that struck them both.

"Do I understand," she said quietly, "that you mean that I am old-fashioned—too old-fashioned?" They did not answer, and she went on, not realising that they both felt that she had turned the tables on them. "You mean that my books don't sell so well as they did because they are not up to date, because I'm—old."

"Good gracious, Mrs. Walbridge," broke in Mr. Payne, with the horrid facetiousness of well-meaning vulgarity, "what an idea! We simply mean that because you are so busy you have not had time to—how shall I say it?—to keep exactly up to date. But a lady with your gifts and your great experience is not going to pretend that she finds any difficulty in changing this——"

She bowed. "Thank you, Mr. Payne. I think I understand. My new book would have been ready in a few days, but if you can give me an extra fortnight, I'll go through it again and try to—to modernise it a little."

Then she said good morning, and went quietly out.

Mr. Lubbock let himself heavily down into his swivel chair.

"Dear me," he said, being a man of unblemished vocabulary, "that was very unpleasant, Payne."

Mr. Payne lit a cigarette. "It was beastly," he retorted, blinking rapidly through the smoke. "Upon my word, it's quite upset me. Poor old thing! She'll never be able to do it, Lubbock. Never in this world. By God, it's quite upset me! I'll have a pint of champagne for my lunch."

Violet Walbridge had a little shopping to do. She had to go to Sketchley's to get some blouses that had been cleaned for Griselda; she went to Selfridges for a paper box of opened oysters for Paul, who was at home with a cold; and she had two bills to pay in Oxford Street. When these things were done, and she had bought a bunch of chrysanthemums from a flower-girl, she took her place near the kerb and waited for her bus. And then it was that the malicious gods struck her their final blow for that day. Two young women stood near her, laden with parcels, cheerfully talkative. One of them had been to a dance the night before; the other one's baby had a new tooth, a very remarkable tooth, it seemed, and both of them were in a state of pleasant turmoil and fret about frocks that they were having made. Mrs. Walbridge listened to them innocently, standing first on one foot and then on the other to rest herself, her various parcels hugged close under her arms, the oysters borne like a sacred offering in both hands.

"Dear me," one of the young women said suddenly, "it's after one o'clock!"

Mrs. Walbridge started, for one o'clock was her lunch hour, and her husband was very particular about punctuality in others.

"I meant to pop in to the Times Book Club and get something to read," declared the mother of the baby with the new tooth, "but it's too late. Have you read that thing 'Reek'? I've forgotten who it's by—somebody new."

"No. I've been down for it for days and days, but I can't get it. I've read a splendid new book, though—Wanda Potter's 'Rice Paper'—awfully clever, and Joan Kelly's 'Ploughshares.'"

"I had an ulcerated tooth the other day," answered her friend, "and couldn't go out, and sent Winnie to Boots' with a list of books, and they were all out, so that nice red-haired girl—you know—picked out some herself and sent me, and guess what one of them was. Violet Walbridge's last one—'Rosemary and Lavender'—or something——"

The other one laughed. "Oh, I know. 'Sage and Onions,' George calls it. Awful trash—can't stand her nowadays."

A bus arrived at that moment, and the two young women going on top, Mrs. Walbridge crept inside, and sat crushed between two large uncomfortable women, her face bent over the oysters.

"'Sage and Onions,'" she kept repeating under her breath, "'Sage and Onions'——"

Ferdie was very much annoyed because she was late for lunch, and called her very selfish to be out parading the streets doing idiotic errands when she ought to be at home.

[CHAPTER V]

"Lord Effingham" was the book on which Mrs. Walbridge was at work, and she sat the greater part of the next three nights reading the books that Mr. Lubbock had given her, with a view to freshening up her nearly finished novel. She could not read during the day, because she had too much to do.

The plumbers had played havoc with the house in getting the new bathroom in, and the cook had to leave even more unexpectedly than cooks generally leave because her only sister was marrying and she had to go home and look after her mother. This domestic complication is familiar to many, but it didn't make it any easier for Mrs. Walbridge. Nor did things improve when Maud Twiss and her husband went for a second honeymoon to Ireland, leaving little Hilary at "Happy House."

Mrs. Walbridge loved her grandson; but he was a querulous, spoilt child, and at the best of times his presence was upsetting. Now, with no cook, with plumbers and the dreadful necessity of modernising "Lord Effingham," the little boy nearly drove her mad.

One morning, about four weeks after her interview with Mr. Lubbock, she was sitting in her little attic at the back of the house, surrounded by closely written sheets of foolscap into which she had red-inked her desperate efforts at enlivening—Lady Tryx, the heroine, had started on a new career of endless cigarettes and cocktails, and a hitherto blameless housemaid, who at first had been dismissed by an unkind countess on a charge of theft, was now burdened with an illegitimate baby; but even this failed to brighten up the dull level of decency that was so discouraging to the publishers. Violet Walbridge was a failure at illegitimacy and lawless passion, and, what was worse, she knew it.

It was cold up in the attic, for there was no fireplace, and something had gone wrong with her oil-stove. Paul had promised to see to it before going to the City that morning, but he had forgotten, so his mother had to put an old flannel dressing-gown on over her ordinary clothes and wrap her aching feet in a shawl. Her hands were covered with red ink, for her cheap stylographic pen leaked, and her pretty black hair, wavy and attractively threaded with white, was tumbled and loose.

She was utterly discouraged and unhappy about the book. "Lord Effingham," with ridiculous perseverance, insisted on pursuing his so blightingly blameless career. Her effort had put the book, such as it was, completely out of shape, and she could have cried with despair as she sat there staring through the curtainless window at the sky. Her burden was so very great, and it made it worse, although she had always prided herself on keeping her secret, that no one knew how utterly dependent the whole household of "Happy House" was on her books.

Her husband had an office and regarded himself as a business man; Paul worked in a bank, and poor Guy had been called up and was in France. (He had been with some stockbrokers in the City.) But none of them had ever contributed anything serious to the upkeep of the house.

Paul's salary was small, and his mother considered that the poor boy really needed all that he made, because he was one of those people who are very dependent on beautiful surroundings. He was a poet, too, and had written some charming verse, most of which was still unpublished, but every line of which was carefully copied in a vellum covered book someone had sent to his mother one Christmas from Florence.

Somehow that morning her mind was full of the now long absent Guy. Guy was the troublesome one. They were all tabulated in her mind—Hermione being the beauty, and Maud, "my eldest girl," while Paul was artistic.

There had been scrapes in Guy's early days (he was only twenty-one now). Certainly his tendencies had been inherited from his father—full grown cap-â-pie tendencies they were, sprung whole, it seemed, from Ferdie's brain, as Pallas Athene sprang from her father, Zeus's. The boy was fond of billiards and devoted to horses, and there had been a time—a very tragic time—when he had shown signs of being too fond of whisky and soda. But that was past. Twice he had been home on leave from the front, and he had undoubtedly improved in many ways.

A year ago there had been an Entanglement—(Mrs. Walbridge thought of it with a capital in her mind)—with a young Frenchwoman in Soho, but that too seemed to have died down and now that the war was certainly going to end before long—this dreadful war to which we in England had so dreadfully become accustomed—he would be coming back. She sighed, for Guy's return would mean an even severer strain on her resources. He was rather a dandy and fond of clothes, but he had grown and expanded of late, and would need new things.

She looked down with something very much like hatred at the impeccable "Lord Effingham," whose persistent virtue and the wholesome tendencies of whose female friends were such drawbacks to her living children.

She struggled on and wrote a few pages, realising that the interpolations she had made were as clumsy and damaging to her story as were the red ink words that expressed them to the fair sheets of her manuscript.

Presently she heard footsteps, and a familiar little cough, coming up the stairs. It was Ferdinand coming, she knew, for a talk with her about his visit to Torquay.

"Dear me, Violet, why can't you write downstairs like a Christian," he began fretfully, turning up his coat collar and plunging his hands into his trouser pockets. "All this affectation of needing quiet and solitude for such work as yours is simply ridiculous."

She glanced up at him without moving. "I'm sorry, Ferdie," she said gently, "but indeed it isn't affectation. I really can't work when people are going in and out, and poor little Hilary is so noisy."

"Poor little Hilary! Damn nonsense! I slept very badly last night, and had just got nicely off this morning about half-past nine, when he came into my room and waked me—wanted my boot-jack for a boat, little beast!"

"Oh, I am sorry—I told him he mustn't disturb you. I'd just gone down to show Jessie how to make the mince——"

"Jessie's cooking is abominable. I don't know why you haven't got someone by this time."

When Ferdie's indignation had died away, he began again.

"What I want to know is about my rooms at Torquay. Has Mrs. Bishop written?"

"Yes. Her letter came this morning. I've got it somewhere here"—she rummaged about, but failed to find the letter. "I must have left it downstairs. She says she can't let you have the front room, because some general has got it and is going to stay all winter."

"Damnation! Just the kind of thing that always happens to me."

The clear morning light, falling undiluted from the sky, seemed to expose his mean soul almost cruelly, and his wife turned her eyes hastily away. She had known him now, as he really was, for many years and yet somehow the memory of what he had once seemed to be, what he had been to her, in her loving imagination, came back to her with painful force, and smote her to the heart.

"She says there is a very nice room at the back——"

He rose impatiently, waving his beautiful hands, on which the veins were beginning to stand out ominously.

"Oh, of course, you would think it delightful for me to have a room at the back. Nobody but you ever does appreciate beauty, views or anything of that kind. When am I to go?"

"The room will be ready on Wednesday. But, listen, Ferdie, if you think you can't bear it, why don't you write to Mrs. Bishop yourself and ask her to look out something for you? You see, she knows you, so she'd take more pains than if I wrote——"

A smile that she knew and hated crept round his mouth. "Yes, that's possible, she might," he answered. "Nice little woman, Mrs. Bishop, and although she is only a boarding-house keeper, she knows a gentleman when she sees him."

At the door he paused. "Well, I'll go and write to her. I suppose you've got some money, my dear? I paid my last cent to the income-tax man the other day. I'm sure you needn't have declared all that money to them, Violet——"

"I only told them the truth, Ferdie."

It was an old quarrel, this about the declaration to the income-tax people, and one in which he was always beaten, so, with a shrug, he went downstairs.

After a moment he called, his musical voice hoarse with the effort: "Violet—I say, Violet, have my new shirts come?"

"I—I didn't know you had ordered any, dear——"

"Oh, didn't you? No, I may have forgotten to tell you. Well, I did. Thought I might as well get two dozen while I was about it. Things are going up so."

There was a little pause and then she said, "I hope you got them at that nice place in Oxford Street?"

He had begun to whistle, but now he stopped and snarled out, "No, I didn't then. I suppose it's my business where I order my own shirts? I got them at my usual shirt-makers in Jermyn Street."

Mrs. Walbridge went quietly back into her little study and sat down.

That afternoon she went by Underground to Oxford Street and from there walked in a cold grey rain to Queen Anne Street, where her daughter, Mrs. Twiss, lived. Doctor Twiss lived in one-half of a roomy old house in Queen Anne Street. His waiting-room and his consulting-room were at the left of the door, those on the right belonging to a fashionable dentist—but the rest of his rooms were two flights upstairs, the dentist, who was a rich man, occupying the whole of the first floor.

Mrs. Walbridge paused before she rang at the upstairs door, for she was very tired, and her usually placid thoughts seemed broken and confused. Maud was her eldest daughter and in some ways the most companionable, but she was a selfish woman and devotedly fond of her husband and little boy, so that she had scant room for anyone else in her life.

"If only Maud would be sympathetic," Mrs. Walbridge thought, as she finally rang.

"Mrs. Twiss is in the bedroom," the maid told her, "she ain't very well to-day. I think the sea voyage upset 'er."

Mrs. Walbridge nodded to her and went down the narrow rose-walled passage and knocked.

Mrs. Twiss was lying down on a divan at the foot of her bed, reading.

"Oh, Mum," she cried, without getting up, "how sweet of you to come so soon! How are you, all right? We've had the most glorious time—Moreton's put on four pounds and never looked better in his life."

Mrs. Walbridge sat down and looked round at the pleasant, familiar room. There were plenty of flowers about and piles of new books, and all the illustrated weeklies, and on a little Moorish table close to the divan stood a gilt basket full of chocolates.

"You seem to be having a comfortable afternoon, my dear."