Chapter IV: Part 4

Then I went to bed. But, oh, not to sleep. The family's appalling habit of leaving doors half open prevented that, and I heard Ross say to Brown when he came up to bed (his voice does carry so), 'What's to be done, Sam, they can't stop here?'

'Certainly not, Master Ross. Never saw such a dinner in my life, though the cooking was all right.'

'Yes, it's the stuff they cooked that's wrong. Can't you do something?' said Ross vaguely. Sam has always seemed to be able to do the things that put our muddles right.

'Well, you see, sir,' said Brown, 'it's a bit awkward; Mrs Ellsley seems to be paying very little, and food is expensive.'

'Have you ever known my sister pay very little for anything if it was possible to pay a lot?'

'No, sir, and that's what I can't understand about it.'

'But how much _is_ she paying, then?' inquired my brother.

'Six guineas, sir.'

'But aren't there always extras in a place like this?' said Ross vaguely, searching his mind for recollections of lodgings at the sea. 'Don't they always make the profits out of--cruets, I think they call it?'

'Miss Margaret don't seem to have gone into any details,' said Brown.

'No,' agreed Ross, 'she wouldn't. But I should have thought you could feed two women and a child better than that for eighteen pounds a week. Well, they'll have to pay more, that's all.'

'But it isn't eighteen pounds,' said Brown.

'You said it was just now,' said Ross, 'six guineas each.

'But it was two guineas that was meant, sir. Six guineas for the lot of them.'

I heard my brother sink into a seat and scrape his feet along the floor, as he does when the burden of life becomes too heavy to be borne standing up.

'Do you mean to say, Sam, that the landlady proposes to provide rooms, beds, food, baths, boots, fires, cruets, and----' here Ross searched violently in his mind for more things which Mrs Tremayne was willing to provide, 'and "Believer's Visions" for two pounds a week each? Why, she's a public benefactor.'

'That's the price, sir. She said she asked six guineas and the lady agreed without arguing, as her lodgers usually do.'

'Well, of course, that's the explanation, Sam. She thought she meant "each."'

'The "she's" me,' I said to myself, to make it clearer in my mind.

'Not a doubt about it, sir,' said Sam.

'Funny things, women,' said my brother reflectively, 'never seem able to make a proper arrangement with a hotel, or book a cabin. The only mess I ever got into on a ship was when I let one of my aunts book my berth going out to--I forget where----'

'Indeed, sir,' said Brown, with interest.

'Yes, wrote and said she'd booked my berth but the ship was full and I'd have to share a cabin with a Captain Booth. Hoped I didn't mind. I loathed it, of course.'

'Of course,' said Brown.

'However, there was nothing to be done but put up with it, so I prayed it might be the Captain Booth in the 4th Lancers that I knew a bit. Where were you, Sam, that time?'

'Typhoid.'

'Oh, yes, of course. Well, I got down to the ship and turned in early, as I was dead done after--forget what I'd been doing; kept half an eye on the door to see what my stable companion was going to be like, and then Captain Booth came in.'

'Was it Captain Booth of the 4th Lancers?' asked Brown.

'Salvation Army lass,' said Ross laconically, and Brown laughed, as he used to do in Uncle Jasper's woods.

Suddenly somebody knocked violently on the wall.

'Anybody ill, do you think?' asked my brother.

'Oh, no, sir, making too much row--laughed a bit too loud, I expect, woke up the other lodgers.'

'What a rum place,' observed my brother, and then there was silence till the water ran in the bath, and the house for a few moments was turned into a pond with a polar bear in it.

Then I went to sleep.

*CHAPTER VI*

Brown has, apparently, been 'doing things' the last few days. Particularly nice breakfasts turn up now, a maid lights my fire and the bath water is hot. Ross informed me that he had taken on the running of the show, but that, with the best will in the world, Mrs Tremayne could not supply butter, so he'd wired to Aunt Constance for a supply, and that if I could put up with marmalade till it arrived it would ease his mind.

I have recovered my temper, too, and have decided that cavemen have their advantages. The one with whom my lot is cast at the moment knows how to stoke a fire, if nothing else. The millions of logs have begun to arrive, too, so at any rate we shall be warm. Ross says it's a pity I didn't live in the days of Nebuchadnezzar, for then I could have got really thawed on the days they lighted the burning fiery furnace.

The other occupants of the house are two maiden ladies--'artists.' Ross calls them the 'spiders,' because they entice into their parlour all their friends and acquaintances, and encourage them to buy their 'pictures,' and they borrow; oh, how they borrow! It is 'Could Mrs Ellsley kindly lend some ink?' or 'We have run out of notepaper and should be so obliged, etc.' Yesterday their newspaper hadn't come. 'Would Captain Fotheringham spare his for ten minutes?' Captain Fotheringham spared it with a very ill grace, but as the ten minutes became fifteen, and then twenty, and then thirty, he announced his intention of singing Hymn 103 outside their door.

'Why a hymn?' I inquired.

'Because it expresses in concise, lucid, clear, and unbiased language the perfectly intolerable situation which has arisen,' and he departed down the passage, singing loudly, 'My Times are in thy hand.'

Alas! this afternoon we are in deep disgrace, for the Spiders have given notice, and are going in about a week, because of us.

They object, it seems, to meeting Brown on the stairs and landings, and to the number of baths we have. Since we arrived there is never any hot water left for washing their blouses. The climax came, apparently, this morning. Brown goes into the bathroom about 7.30 a.m. and cleans the bath. I saw him do it once at home, so I know what happens. He sprinkles it all over with some powder in a tin, and then scrubs and scours it till you'd think all the enamel would come off. And then he washes it out with hot water and a brush on a long handle, and then dries it, and cleans the taps, and wipes the floor, and puts out soap and heaps of towels, turns the cold tap on and then goes along to Ross and says 'Bath's ready, sir.'

Then Ross goes and splashes it all up, and scatters soap about and swamps the floor, and then, after breakfast, Brown cleans it just the same all over again for me, only this time it's the hot tap, and Nannie comes and says 'Bath's ready, dearie, hurry up now.' What would Ross say if Brown suddenly said, 'Hurry up, now, dearie,' and if he wouldn't stand it, why do I?

Well, for some reason or other this morning Ross went along to his bath before Brown called him. He had on his new dressing-gown. His taste is lurid and flamboyant, and Aunt Constance aids and abets him. This was a really scrummy one, dull purple silk, with pink flamingoes. And Aunt Constance had had bath shoes made to match with baby flamingoes on the toes. She does spoil him abominably.

Well, Ross, resplendent in his purple and flamingoes, lounged in a chair and smoked a cigarette, while Brown put the last polish on the taps and 'chucked the towels about,' as Ross expressed it. Brown was silently absorbed in taps and Ross in watching him, when, suddenly, the door was flung wide open and a Spider entered in a red flannel dressing-gown, rather short, with a collar that had bits chewed out (I quote my brother, he means pinked) while its feet were thrust in red felt shoes. It had no cap on, but its hair was screwed into a tight, 'round button on the top,' like the panjandram, and it was in a temper hot and hissing.

Ross got up hurriedly and surveyed the apparition, feeling a little at a disadvantage, with his hair rough and with pink flamingoes. Brown stood at petrified attention by the bath.

'Oh, is it possible,' said the artist, for it was one of the sisters I told you of, 'is it humanly possible that this room is _still_ occupied?'

'I've only just come,' my brother remarked.

'But that man has been here at least half an hour,' said the red flannel dressing-gown.

'Have you, Brown?' asked Ross.

'I've had to clean the bath, madam,' said Brown.

'But surely,' said the Spider, 'surely the bath doesn't need cleaning. I'm sure Mrs Tremayne keeps everything most beautifully. It really is absurd. It's the same in the mornings, and at night, and sometimes before dinner. The man's always in here, and I feel the time has come to put my foot down. We all pay the same, and baths are included in the price.'

So Ross, with that courtesy which he can't help showing to a woman, even if he's furious with her, said 'I'm extremely sorry, but if you will tell my man after breakfast what time it is convenient to you for me to have my bath, I will fit in with you and will speak to my sister also. See to it, Brown, will you?' and he turned away to close the conversation.

But the Spider's conversation was not so easily closed, and she was just about to begin again. However, she had bargained without Brown. Brown had his orders, he had been told to 'see to it,' and meant to. Somehow he hustled the little woman out and, with 'My master is waiting to have his bath, madam,' he closed the door on the little spitfire, and Ross exploded comfortably.

After luncheon they gave notice. 'Jolly good job, too,' says Ross. But I feel sorry we've annoyed them, though I shall go in and possess my Naboth's vineyard with great pride and pleasure.

Ross is only pretty well; he gets a good deal of pain and is sleeping badly, but he generally manages to be cheerful, when he can't he goes upstairs and stays there till the bout is over.

This evening he came into my room to say 'Good-night,' and his mind seemed full of dressing-gowns. 'Meg,' he demanded, 'is your dressing-gown red?'

'Yes,' I said, 'the one I'm using at the moment happens to be red.'

'But is it flannel?'

'No, but it's something quite as thick. Estelle thought it would be warmer for me. It's over there, if you'd like to see it.'

He picked up the soft crimson thing that Estelle had made for me when I first landed.

'Why, Meg, it looks like an evening dress.'

'Yes, but it buttons down the front, that's where the difference is.'

'Do you always button it, then, when you put it on?'

'Oh, always,' I replied, 'don't people usually?'

'I dunno,' he said, 'only this morning she had got hers sort of draped across her tummy, kept together with the belt knotted. When you walk about the passages in hotels, Meg, don't you wear a cap or something?'

'My dear child,' I observed, 'where do you think I was dragged up?'

*CHAPTER VII*

Fairy hands have been at work. Instead of a shining white world all is green again. There has been a very rapid thaw. The frost has gone and little brooks of melted snow are running down the lanes and paths. Tiny green spikes have appeared in all the garden as if by magic. There is even a half-drowned primrose out, telling that spring is coming very soon this year.

The morning post brought me a letter from Michael 'written in the mud.' It contains a most amazing suggestion. He asks me to try to find an old house 'such as his soul loveth' and make a home.

Oh, how he must have misunderstood my letters and thought because I frivolled and told him all our stupid jokes that I am happy. How can he imagine I could even contemplate making a home in England without him when it has been the dream of our lives to do it together. Surely he knows by now that 'Home' for me is just that particular bit of mud in Flanders in which his dear feet are embedded, and that any place without him is exile, that life, till he returns, is merely marking time. I don't care if I am talking like a little Bethel.... Ross thinks it's a topping idea. Even Nannie didn't help me. When I told her, all she said was, 'But of course you will if Master Michael wants you to.'

I felt, as I sometimes used to as a child, that 'every one's against me,' and I decided to walk my devils off.

I went downstairs and found Ross reading.

'Going out?' he asked.

'Yes, will you come?'

'No, arm's bothering,' and he took up his book again.

I went for a long tramp, down the quiet lanes and through the little spinneys, but there was no harmony--the old 'washed' feeling wouldn't come. I slipped into the Intercession Service at the little church and tried to pray for Ross and Michael and all the others. War seems very near in England, only a few miles off--those guns--that one hears sometimes in the night. I thought as I sat in church of all the death and desolation, the suffering and the broken hearts and tears. A great horror of the war came over me and a great rebellion. Why does God allow such things? How can I think of Him as a beneficent Being when the world is swamped with cruelty, blood, and separation? I feel like Tommy Vellacott. I don't love God now. I only believe in Him.

When I got home my feet were soaked and my throat sore, so I went upstairs early. I felt better in bed, and decided that I _would_ try to find a house if it would give Michael the least scrap of happiness. If he would feel 'less anxious' about me in a house of our own instead of rooms, why a house it shall be. I grew quite excited and interested (as my feet got warmer), planning the details of our dream--an old, old house, standing in a big garden with long, low rooms full of oak furniture, seventeenth century, for choice, with lots of flowers and sunshine in the summer, and books and candlelight and glowing fires for the winter evenings. But how awful it would be if, when Michael saw it for the first time he should say,--

'This the dream house?--what a nightmare!'

Then Ross came in to say good-night. 'Better?' he queried.

'No, but I'm going to get up to-morrow,' I said defiantly.

'Are you,' he drawled, as though he hadn't the faintest interest in the subject, but there was a look in his eyes somehow I didn't like. 'Why is that wretched kitten up here again?' he said. 'I can hear it wheezing,' and he looked under the bed.

'It's me,' I said.

'It's I,' said Ross.

'Oh, have you got it, too?' (I will not be reproved for grammar by a twin).

'Are you making that noise for fun, Meg?'

'No, I can't help it,' I said crossly.

'Hadn't you better have one of those things on made out of a muslin curtain, with hot muck inside,' he added vaguely, racking his brains for medical knowledge. 'Can't think what the stuff's called.'

'No,' I said violently, 'I hadn't better!'

Presently the house grew quiet and I began to worry over Ross, his bad nights, the constant pain and the absolute refusal to let any one do anything for him; he won't have a fire and snaps Brown's head off if he suggests a doctor. He was really angry with me on Saturday because I--oh, well, it's no use worrying, I reflected, as I mopped my eyes.

Just as I was about to try to compose myself for slumber, with a little folding of the hands to sleep, wishing I could drown the kitten, Nannie came in. You will hardly believe it when I tell you that she carried in between two hot plates the thing that Ross had mentioned, in a muslin curtain.

'Master Ross says,' began Nannie.

'Nannie,' I retorted, and I was furious, 'I simply will not have that beastly thing on just because Ross says so.'

'Well,' said Nannie soothingly, 'have it because I say so, if you'd rather,' and she clapped it on.

And I decided, as she closed the door, that I should run away at dawn.

But the kitten wouldn't stop, and then I started choking. There was dead silence in the house, so I hoped that Ross was sleeping well for once, and I buried my head under the bedclothes and coughed comfortably.

I started up presently with a little shriek to find a giant in pyjamas making up my fire.

'Sorry I frightened you,' said Ross. 'What have you got your head buried for, can't you sleep?'

'No,' I replied.

'But I told you to knock if you wanted me, Meg.'

'I didn't want you,' I said crossly, 'that's why I didn't knock.'

'You're very difficult to take care of,' said Ross, surveying me from the foot of the bed.

'Not nearly so difficult as you are,' I retorted, all the worry of his continued sleepless nights coming to a head suddenly in my mind, 'you won't let me do a thing for you. I cry about you sometimes.'

'You cry about _me_?' said the giant, suddenly sitting on the edge of the bed.

'Yes,' and I leaned against him; he seemed a friendly sort of giant at the moment.

'When did you cry last?' he demanded.

'To-night,' and I fumbled for a handkerchief I didn't really need.

'Why?' asked the giant.

'Because your arm's so bad, you aren't sleeping, you won't take anything or do anything, or let any one else do anything for you. You're making me perfectly miserable, and as for Sam, you've been absolutely rotten to him all the week.'

'I told Brown to keep every one out of my room when I'd got a "go" on, and he let you in on Saturday.'

'Yes, but Ross,' I said, 'how could he keep me out?'

'He'd had his orders. I can't be responsible for any difficulties that may occur in the carrying of them out,' said Ross obstinately.

'You are hard,' I said.

'Scold away,' grinned Ross.

'No, but you are; you've simply looked through Brown and locked your door, and been cold to me for days.'

'Can't stand disobedience in a soldier,' said Ross, shortly, 'never could.'

'Nor in a sister, Ross?'

But there was no reply.

'Ross,' I exclaimed suddenly, desiring an armistice, 'I'm sorry. I won't come in again, only, if you knew how I worry about you, you'd let me. But,' I added, 'I thought when we embarked on this conversation, that I was rowing you.'

'I haven't said a word,' protested Ross.

'No, I know you haven't, but conscience makes the head uneasy when it wears a crown.'

'Are you feverish, darling?' said Ross anxiously.

'No, but I get quotations mixed at times. Will you forgive me?' I said childishly.

So we smoked the pipe of peace with great contentment, smoked the calumet, the peace pipe, and I said, 'My brother, listen,--

"See the smoke rise slowly, slowly,
First a single line of darkness,
Then a denser, bluer vapour,
Then a snow-white cloud unfolding,
Like the tree tops of the forest.
Ever rising, rising, rising,
Till it touched the top of heaven,"
Till it broke against the ceiling,
Till I sneezed.'

'Meg, I'm sure you're feverish.'

'I'm not.'

'Well, the only thing I've understood that you've said lately was the sneeze.'

'And that,' I observed with pride, 'was the original bit. I always felt I could be a poet if I tried. Now I'm going to finish rowing you.'

'But I thought we'd smoked the pipe of peace, Meg.'

'Oh, that----' I said.

'How like a woman. Fire away, then, and get it off your chest.'

So I fired away and got off all the wrongs of days.

'If you weren't so small,' said Ross, when at last he got a word in, 'I shouldn't feel so inclined to bully you.'

'But that's an awful thing to say. Why, you never ought to hit a man who's smaller than yourself.'

'Looks as if my moral nature is decaying and I seem to be a fair and average all-round beast,' said Ross, with gloom. 'I didn't mean to hurt you, darling. Sorry, little 'un. I'll try to be different,' he promised, as he used when he was naughty as a boy.

'Have some coffee, Meg? Brown put some in my thermy.'

'Yes. I will if you will,' and because my brother was 'trying to be different' he took a cup himself.

'Well, it's time you went to sleep,' remarked the giant, and got up to go.

Outside the door, as he went out, I heard Brown say, 'Can't you sleep, sir,' and then something about 'no dressing-gown with that cold on you.'

'Oh, dry up,' said Ross wrathfully, really trying to be different, 'you're as bad as a wet nurse. Go to bed and stop there, or I'll sack you, Sam.'

So I knew Brown was forgiven, too.

When I woke up next time it was getting light. I fumbled for my watch. It said the hour was twelve, so I knew it must be seven, or it might be eight--the hour hand will slip round, though I can always tell the minutes, which is what one usually wants to know.

Then there was a knock upon my door.

'This,' I thought, 'is my repentant brother. Now, after last night, I must remember to be firm, but kind, and so help him to be different,' and I called 'Come in.'

But an icicle in shirt sleeves entered that I'd seen several times before.

'Meg,' it said, 'you're not to get up.'

'My dear sir,' I said to it (telling myself that I was not afraid of icicles), 'I hadn't the slightest intention of doing such a thing for at least an hour.'

'Not all day,' said the icicle, and as I opened my lips, intending to be firm, but kind, it said in a voice cold as a glacier just before the dawn, 'Don't argue, it's quite settled, Margaret.'

'But,' I objected, assuring myself again that firm kindness was the _only_ way with icicles, 'you've got exactly the same cold, and you're up. Sauce for a goose ought to be sauce for a gander.'

Suddenly a rapid thaw set in and the icicle subsided into a mere puddle on the floor, and my brother answered, 'Sauce _from_ a goose is all I know about,' and there we left it.

*CHAPTER VIII*

It took two days to drown that kitten, but now I'm up again and out, and to-day I went to Tarnley, with the permission of my gracious keeper, 'if I drove both there and back.' As it was sunny, and mercies are strictly rationed just at present, I accepted the offer and went to all the places I had meant to go to first, did a lot of shopping, and finally interviewed one of the house agents.

I was quite clear and definite in my requirements--I wanted to _buy_ an _old_ house; so of course every one he sent me to was _red brick_, _modern_, and _to let_.

I went home and groused to Ross, and announced that the only really satisfactory way to find a suitable dwelling was to walk the length and breadth of England, and when you saw the house you wanted knock at the door and beguile the owner into selling it to you, and that I intended to adopt this plan and to begin my pilgrimage shortly.

Ross, as usual, was rude about it.

'Haven't you discovered all these years, you little ass, that agents are a race apart?' said he; 'their minds are controlled by the law of opposites. Now your heart, Meg, is set on a house, ancient and mellowed with years, with long, low rooms and beams, and an old-world garden full of wallflowers, phlox and herbs and perennials and----'

'But, Ross----'

'Don't interrupt me, Meg; consequently you must tell the agent that you desire a new up-to-date dwelling with a small garden overlooked on either side (since we are cheerful souls and love the company of our fellows). Then they would give you orders to view old houses with little latticed windows and winding stairs. Methinks if you said you _must_ have lincrusta and white enamel you might even get oak panelling.'

After dinner Ross departed upstairs, said he had things to do and then he was going to bed.

To bed? To walk his room all night, with Brown, unbeknown to my brother, pacing up and down the passage.

I sat by my fire and read. At one o'clock, Ross knocked me up. As I went into the corridor Brown barred his door.

'I daren't, ma'am. Please don't ask me. Not after last time, miss.'

'Let her in, Brown,' cried Ross. 'I knocked her up, you ass! Worrying?' he asked me laconically as I went in.

'Yes.'

'Like to make tea then? got such a rotten "go" on, Meg.'

And then he fainted, and I called to Brown. He got his master into bed, while I flew round for brandy.

'Give me some water,' said my reviving brother.

'No, I won't,' said Brown, 'you'll take the brandy, Master Ross, or I'll thrash you like I did that day in Hickley Woods when you fell and cut your knee and sprained your ankle, and tried to prevent me going for the doctor.'

Ross was so dumbfounded that he took the brandy meekly.

'Now these aspirins,' said Brown, 'and I'm going to light the fire. The room is like an ice-house. I'm about fed up.'

When he arose from the fireplace he was once again the suave, impassive servant. 'I should wish to give a month's warning, sir. I don't seem able to give you satisfaction.' And there was a desolating silence. 'Anything more I can do for you to-night, sir?'

'Yes,' said Ross, 'stop playing the goat.'

But Brown's face remained hard and impassive.

'Want me to eat humble pie, I suppose,' said Ross, and surveyed his servant as if he had just suddenly seen him.

'Yes, sir, I think it would be a good thing.'

'Well, then, I've been a devil all the week.'

But Brown still waited.

'Want more pie?' asked my erring brother.

'That's as you feel, sir,' said Brown.

So Ross, with the air of a man who thought it a pity to spoil the ship of repentance for a ha'porth of grace, said 'Sorry.'

'Don't name it, sir,' said Brown, and I so rejoiced over the sinner that repented that I forgot to remind him to say 'punchbowl.'

Just as Brown went through the door, Ross called out, 'Got another place, Sam?'

Sam suddenly came to life again. 'Will you see the doctor in the morning?'

'Oh, have it your own way,' growled Ross.

'Then I've got a place,' said Sam.

'Get us some tea, then,' my brother ordered, 'and come and have a cup yourself.'

'Certainly not, sir, with Miss Meg--Margaret, I mean,' he said, getting deeper into the mire.

'Do you usually call my sister by her Christian name?'

'No, sir, but you worry me so, I don't know half the time what I'm a-saying.'

'Well, I'm a-saying now,' said his autocratic master, 'that it's time the tea was here, and bring three cups. I want to talk about the Hickley Woods. You've got a rotten temper, Sam.'

'Yes, sir, you can't touch pitch,' said Sam, firing the last shot.

So victory is not always to the strong.

'Oh, what a chap,' said Ross.

We spent a warm and pleasant hour talking birds, and fish, and rabbits, and the years slipped away and we were back again in the Hickley Woods--Ross, Miss Meg, and Sam.

After Brown had departed with the tea-cups, Ross said, 'Meg, do you think I'm weak?'

'Well, darling,' I replied, 'you are sure to feel so after fainting, but if you take care, you----'

'But I don't mean my body, Meg.'

'We are all sinners,' I said, 'but if you would like to see a clergyman in the morning, I'll----'

'How can you be so aggravating; I don't mean my soul, either. I want to talk about my Will.'

'I thought you had made it ages ago, but I'll wire for the lawyer in the morning.'

'Oh, Meg, how you do exasperate a chap.'

'Well, what do you mean?' I giggled.

'I mean my will power. Do you think I'm weak?'

'About as weak as Michael,' I replied. 'Why?'

'Because,' said my brother seriously, 'doesn't it seem an awful thing that a chap my size can't manage a chap his.'

'But there's only three inches between you, and he is six months older.'

'Yes, but three inches is three inches, and what's six months, Meg?'

'You say forty minutes is enough when you boss me.'

'Oh, twins are different, but with Brown I get along all right when I take my stand on the King's Regulations. But when he brings in the Hickley Woods I go to water.'

'No, to brandy.'

'Oh, rub it in,' said Ross, and then because he was so quaint and sweet and I loved him, and he had fainted, and because the lion seemed very tame, I forebore to tease him further and was really nice, kissed him once and petted him a little, and then when I got up to go he said,--

'Pity you aren't always as dutiful as that.'

'Dutiful!' I shrieked. 'Oh, what a word,' and so we parted coldly after all.

*CHAPTER IX*

And the doctor's verdict is 'Two days in bed and bromide. First dose now.'

'I'll stay in bed,' said Ross, with the air of a man conferring a great favour, 'I'll not take drugs.'

'I'll get it down,' said Brown to the doctor, as he saw him to the car, 'somehow,' he added grimly.

'Sam,' I inquired, 'how are you going to get it down?'

'Can't imagine, miss. After last night he won't stand much. Well, it was a bit thick.'

'Sam, do you think if your knee gave out and it hurt you to keep standing when you argued, that it might have weight?'

'Can but try, miss.'

So Brown's knee, of course, has given out. They are a happy pair, one in bed and the other with his leg up on a chair, talking woods and shooting, fishing, and birds' eggs, and they're smoking--how they smoke! I think the bromide's swallowed. There's a contented look in Sam's eyes and a 'Oh-well-stretched-a-point-for-once,' in my dear brother's.

So I proceeded to carry out my patent plan of finding houses and had a delightful and exciting morning. It was a lovely day, the hedges were a soft promise of green, and the bright sunshine and some saucy robins made a brave pretence of summer. I rambled down all kinds of little lanes and by-paths, but never a house did I see to suit me, till at last I chanced on Lynford, a little place I fell in love with at first sight and which I am sure is after Michael's own heart.

The village is built on the slope of a hill, with a little church on the summit and charming old world cottages clustered together in picturesque confusion just below.

Alas, the cottages were quite small ones, with only four or five rooms at most, and so not practicable. The last house in the village was a great surprise. It was larger than the others, with quaint little diamond windows and a glorious old red roof, and lots of creepers climbing over, which would make it in the autumn a thing of flaming beauty.

In the flower borders crocuses and snowdrops were already peeping, and the porch was aflame with yellow winter jasmine. The view was superb, for the hill sloped steeply from the house, and at my feet lay beautiful water meadows all in flood after the snow, with the ruins of an old abbey in the near distance.

Without stopping to think of anything but the fact that it was the kind of habitation I was looking for, I boldly walked up to the front door and rang the bell. Here my courage, which I had thought was screwed to the sticking point, began, in the most horrible manner, to trickle out of my boots, but before I could escape an elderly and severe domestic opened the door and glared at me as if I wanted to sell her something.

I inquired if I might see the owner on a matter of business. She hesitated and, after looking me well up and down, most reluctantly said, 'I'll see.'

She departed down the old flagged passage, leaving me on the mat with my last shred of courage in tatters and my knees a jelly. After a minute or two she returned and said, 'The master will see you,' and if ever a woman's sour visage said 'More fool he,' that woman's did.

As the last moments of a drowning man are crammed with the recollections of a lifetime, so all the silly, impulsive things I have done in my life crowded on me as I followed down that stone passage. Why, oh, why did I have an Irish grandmother to lead me into this scrape? What on earth could I say to 'the master' that wouldn't sound the most appalling impertinence?

I entered his presence rather more quickly than I meant to, as I fell down a small step.

I looked across the charming room, and by the bright wood fire was an old gentleman seated at breakfast at eleven o'clock in the morning.

'Good-morning,' I said, 'I'm afraid I'm rather early.'

'Not at all,' said he. 'I'm afraid I'm rather late. Have some breakfast?'

'No, thank you, I haven't come to call.'

'Oh, he replied, 'I thought you had.'

'No,' and my words began to tumble over one another in my agitation, 'that is to say, not in the ordinary sense of the word, but I came--I hope you won't mind--I hope you won't think it awful cheek, but now I am inside your house I feel it is, though outside it seemed the most ordinary thing to do, but the fact is I am looking--oh----' I broke off as the appallingness of the situation came upon me afresh. 'Promise you will not be offended, but that you will take my visit in the spirit in which it is intended.'

'Is this to be an offer of marriage, my dear young lady?'

'Oh, no,' I gasped, 'much worse, it's an offer for your house.'

'Aha, aha,' said he, 'I thought I heard the tenth commandment crack as you fell down the step.'

'Crack,' I exclaimed, 'it's broken into a million pieces.'

'Well, I think that we had better see what we can do to patch it up again, as it's really quite a nice commandment, and breaking it is apt to cause distressing situations. Sit down and have some breakfast and tell me why you are coveting your neighbour's house and if you want my men and maid servants, oxen and she asses, too?'

'Not your maidservant, anyway,' I said, and his eyes twinkled. He was so friendly and kind that I sat down, and over tea and toast, which he insisted I should have, I told him about Michael and of our passion for old houses, and Ross, and the Gidger, and indeed all about everything.

'Ah,' he said, 'so you love old houses. Well, I sympathise, but this one will not be to let until I am carried out feet first.'

'God forbid that I should ever have it, then,' I said, and got up to go, 'and it's dear of you not to have been offended.'

'Offended!' he laughed, as he said good-bye, 'I was never so entertained in all my life.'

When I got home I went up to tell Ross about it, and he remarked as I finished the tale,--

'Well, there's to be no more house-hunting on those lines, Meg; you might have been most frightfully insulted. It's all right as it's happened; Michael would be simply furious with me for letting you do it if he knew.'

'But I told you I was going to,' I expostulated.

'It never occurred to me that you meant it. Of course, I thought you were fooling, you little idiot.'

And Ross did one of his atrocious lightning changes. Instead of a ragging brother one was merely 'fighting' with there was a man whose 'Sorry, darling, but I mean you mustn't do it again' closed the discussion, for all that it was very gently said.

Then he kissed me and said, 'Oh, Meg, you are so sweet and funny when you're "meek."'

As a rule people who bully me are not allowed to kiss me--but--my brother was ill in bed!

*CHAPTER X*

Ross seemed fairly well this morning, and, having announced 'Time's up,' said that _he_ would go to the house agents at Tarnley to-day, and that if I liked I might come too.

I had previously said to Sam,--

'Don't you think another day in bed would do him good?'

'Not a doubt about it, miss,' said Sam, 'but I couldn't work it: thought we should have hardly lasted out the time as it was. We've drove him a bit hard lately. Better not press him too much, miss, he don't take kindly even to the snaffle.'

So we sallied forth to call on Messrs Cardew Thompkins.

My brother was in one of his mad moods and announced that he should pretend we were just married, and that I was to look as shy and modest as my brazen countenance would allow, and to blush at intervals if I could. An elegant young man, with a waist, received us with a bow, begged us to be seated and state our requirements.

'Take a pew, Florrie,' said Ross to me. I took one and hoped I looked shy and modest.

'I want,' said Ross, bursting with newly married pride and importance, 'to rent a small house for myself and my er----'

The agent coughed discreetly and said, 'Quite so.'

My face by this time was perfectly crimson with suppressed laughter. I hope Mr Cardew Thompkins thought it was shy blushes.

'The house must be as small as possible,' continued Ross, 'and quite new, with no garden, as my wife doesn't like slugs, do you, lovey? It must be in a row, or at most, semi-detached, as my er----'

'Quite so,' said the agent again.

'My wife is nervous at nights. We haven't been married very long,' said the incorrigible Ross in a burst of confidence.

'We should like it opposite a railway station, if possible, and we want white paint--enamel, I mean--and fireplaces with tiled hearths, nice cheerful wall-papers, and a dodo in the hall.'

'Dado,' I murmured.

'What, sweetie?' said Ross, 'what did you say, my pet?'

I could have murdered him.

'But it must be quite a new house,' said Ross, as I didn't answer, 'as you don't like beetles, do you, duckie? We don't even mind if it isn't quite finished, because----' Here Ross's powers of invention mercifully failed him.

'Because,' said the agent, 'then you could choose your own decoration. I quite understand.'

I was pulp by this time, and as I was in imminent danger of exploding I retired to the window and made curious noises into my handkerchief, while the house agent looked through a number of small cards in a little box.

'You're in a draught, my pretty,' said Ross, 'come and sit near to hubby, while Mr Cardew Thompkins writes us the order to view.'

I came lest worse should befall me, and Ross tried to hold my hand but didn't succeed.

'There's a little old house out at Crosslanes,' began the agent--Ross nudged me violently.

'Also one at Stoke, which is slightly larger and older.'

'It's beginning to work,' whispered Ross.

'I will give you orders to view both of these.'

'Are they near the railway?'

'I haven't actually seen them myself,' said Mr Cardew Thompkins, 'but I think from the description of your requirements they are just what you need. Good-morning.'

If he had looked out of his office window a moment later he would have seen Ross and me with our handkerchiefs stuffed in our mouths fleeing down the road till we got round the corner out of sight.

'Oh,' sobbed Ross, 'do stop. I told you so, but it's worked better than I thought. Read this:--

'"St JULIANS.--Very desirable gentleman's country residence."'

'Oh, that won't do, Meg.'

'Why not? Sounds rather nice, I think.'

'Is Michael a very desirable gentleman?'

'Oh, I never notice those mistakes, or spelling ones, I wish I did; they're so amusing when you see them.'

'Can't think what they teach in girls' schools,' said Ross gloomily. 'Daddy used to groan about the bills, tons of extras too, and when it's all said and done you don't know the most elementary things.'

'Grammar,' I observed, 'is very difficult; some of the best people can't spell.'

'But geography, your geography's no better. Why, I heard some one tell you the other day that her son was in Dunkirk, and you said that she must be so thankful to have him in Scotland. I could see the woman thought you dotty, only she was too polite to say so.'

'But, Ross, Dunkirk is so difficult, don't you see how Scotch it sounds. It's one of those places that I try to remember by reversing it. There is a system like that. I think of shortbread and then I know it's France.'

'Well, your system doesn't seem to have worked that time. But now I come to think of it, Meg, you're right. There is a system, whatever is the beastly thing called? Mell-gell-Hell-man-ism, I think it is.'

'Ross!'

'What?'

'You're not to put bad words into my mind.'

'I'm not, I said a sentence.'

'But no sentence could possibly begin with "Hell man."'

'Of course it could. I could say heaps.'

'Yes, but not fit for my young ears.'

'Meg, I could say one that a Plymouth Brother wouldn't mind Aunt Amelia hearing.'

'I'll give you a bob if you can while I count twenty.'

So my brother thought hard and said, 'Suppose.'

'But that doesn't begin with the right word,' I said.

'I must tell you the context, child. Suppose a Plymouth Brother were arguing with an atheist.'

'One, two, three,' I counted.

'He might with perfect propriety say.'

'Four, five, six.'

'Hell, man, is _not_ a myth. Aunt Amelia would say he was "one of the right sort," so that's worth 3d. extra. Give me that bob, Meg.'

So I gave him six pennies, six halfpennies, and a threepenny bit, and he said it wasn't a bob. He said it was a shilling, which was different, and he "couldn't be fashed with all that muck in his pockets," so we bought sweets.

Then he exclaimed,--

'Come on, Meg,' as if it had been I who had stopped first.

'But,' I protested, 'what is the hurry, there was such a pretty girl looking at you in that shop.'

'Meg, will you come, there's a man staring at you.'

'But I don't mind the pretty girl staring at you, Ross;' but my brother said,--

'One really couldn't have one's women stared at by a chap like that.'

'Really, Ross,' I said, 'I'm not a harem.'

'You're a jolly sight more trouble to look after.'

'Oh, have you had much experience,' I asked. And then he said I was 'abominable.'

So we walked on.

'No,' said my brother, reverting violently to my education, 'girls' schools are simply rotten. I could run one better than your woman did. Don't even seem to have fed you properly, judging by the size you've grown, or rather not grown. I wonder if it's too late to bring an action for insufficient nourishment considering the price paid. There's one thing you do really well though, and that's arithmetic.'

So I cheered up.

'I never knew anybody, no, not any single person that could add up her wants so accurately and subtract them from her husband's bank balance with such lightning speed.'

'I think, Ross,' I said with dignity, 'it would be better if we went back to St Julian's.'

So he read out:--

'"10 bed and dressing-rooms, 5 reception rooms, 6 acres of pleasure gardens, stabling and coachhouse, usual domestic offices. For sale only."

'Here's another:--

'"Charming country cottage for sale, 5 miles from Whittington station, combines old-world charm with every modern convenience, capable of being added to."

'Oh! Meg, isn't it priceless? Let's get a taxi and go and see them. Mop up your eyes, child, I don't want to look as if I were eloping with an unwilling bride.'

We got to the 'charming country cottage' first. It was miles away from anywhere. It was a bungalow--at least I suppose it was, at any rate the upper storey had disappeared. It seemed to be nearly tumbling down. There was only one large room, with a lovely old bread oven and one or two small cupboard-like apartments leading out of it. I stared at it in amazement.

'Capable of being added to?'

'Of course,' said Ross, 'very true, indeed, about the only thing you could honestly say of it. You could build a new house around it and use the present structure for a coal-hole. Next, please. I feel St Julian's will be the one, Florrie.'

This, however, proved to be a young barrack. If there were eighteen rooms, there were hundreds, I should think. The type of house that a polygamist might fancy. Damp oozed from the walls and most of the paper had peeled off and lay in little mouldering heaps on the floor. Rats scuttled in the wainscoting, and in the bathroom, which was on the ground floor, lay two or three of the largest cockroaches I have ever seen.

'You see,' said Ross, pointing to them with great pride, 'how the charm works. "My wife is afraid of beetles"--you get them--beautiful specimens. You want a house not quite finished--you are sent to one tumbling down. Now, if this could be worked out to its logical conclusion you would, of course, get your ideal home. I must do it on paper and try to get a formula. Let's go back to the agents, Florrie.'

'Not I--never again,' I said. So we returned to Fernfold for lunch. It's so jolly now the Spiders have gone. The Poppet has a nice day nursery and Ross a better bedroom. He says he misses the lumps in his mattress dreadfully, and his bed is now so comfortable that he cannot sleep.

To-night, after I was in 'my byes,' as the Gidger calls it, Ross came to say good-night. He was so quaint.

'Meg, something that you said to-day has rankled horribly.'

'Practically everything you say every day always does with me.'

'No, but Meg, _do_ I ever put bad words into your mind?'

'Oh, Ross,' I said, and giggled hopelessly.

'But, darling, do you know any?'

'Why, yes, I know several: Damn's one, only daddy forbade me to say it once, and somehow I've never got into the way of it, and since the war I say Hell sometimes, not that I mean to swear, only it does seem like Hell.'

'The Germans seem inspired by the devil, if that's what you mean,' said Ross.

'And I say "infernal" sometimes. Daddy told me I might.'

'I bet he didn't, Meg.'

'He did, I tell you, if I always thought of Devonshire when I said it.'

'Daddy is topping,' said my brother, as he remembered the old joke, 'well, go on.'

'I think that's all I know,' I replied.

'Oh, he said, 'how white women are. I wish they were all I knew.'

'But surely, Ross, not knowing a thing doesn't make a person "white." If you know a lot and don't say them, by the grace of God, I should have thought that was being "white."'

*CHAPTER XI*

The Gidger came in from a drive bursting with excitement and importance.

'Muvver, _I've_ found you a house, it's the darlingest you ever saw, very old, and the drawing-room has got a pump in it, and there's a pig, too.'

'In the drawing-room, Gidger?' Ross inquired; 'that sounds as if it might do. Your mother likes a pig under her bed, and so did her grandmother.'

'Nannie and I went all over it, muvver. One of the bedrooms has a funny little place leading out of it, the lady said she thought it was a powdering closet.'

'Get the telegraph forms and tell Mr Cardew Thompkins we're suited,' cried Ross, getting up in a great hurry. 'Of course it's _the_ house; you're a jewel, Gidger. We never in our wildest moments hoped for a powdering closet.'

'I don't know what the drainage is like,' said Nannie.

'Fancy talking of drainage and a powder closet in the same century,' said Ross indignantly, 'let's have lunch at once, Meg, and catch the Longcross bus and go and see it.'

We had a bit of a scrimmage to catch the bus. It starts from the other inn, called The Ramping Cat. The guide-book says 'it is a small but well-conducted hostelry on the main road to London.' It seems an unfortunate name to have chosen for a place with so high a moral tone. However, as we got half-way to it we saw the bus, looking, as Ross expressed it, 'about to weigh anchor, and we're late as usual.' So I ran on ahead to ask the man to wait for Ross, as I didn't want his arm to be joggled.

The bus was a quaint affair, a kind of square sarcophagus on wheels, the door opened in two bits like a stable, and the driver informed us that 'the upper part 'ad jammed that tight he couldn't get it open no'ow.' So we crawled into the beastly thing's bowels (I quote my brother), but after we had started the upper part flew open, and nothing I could do (or Ross say) would induce it to remain shut, so at last we gave it up as a bad job and left it idly flapping in the breeze.

Presently the bus stopped and the man poked his head in at the window and said,--

'I'm sorry to 'ave to ask you, mum and sir, to get down, but the 'orse is going to throw a fit.'

We hastily descended and found the poor beast trembling violently and looking wretched.

'Does he often have them?' inquired Ross.

'No,' said the man, 'only if 'e's upset about anythink--when the young lady come up in the yard and asked me to wait, I thought 'e was going to throw one, but I 'oped we'd get to Longcross before 'e did.'

'Goodness!' said Ross, hurrying me away, 'what a perfectly ghastly effect your face seems to have on animals, Meg; I should think we'd better walk back unless you could buy a thick veil in the village. If you come out here to live you'll have to buy a motor; that poor beast's health would soon be undermined if you used the bus constantly!'

The little brown house, as the Gidger called it, turned out to be two cottages, one of which is at present occupied by the owner, who is moving shortly. Perhaps it would be more correct to say that it is really one biggish house, which, about fifty years ago was divided into two small ones, each with an acre of garden. By taking down a partition and unblocking a doorway or two, it could be restored to its original state. It stands on the slope of a hill overlooking miles of common which will soon be ablaze with gorse, and in the distance there is a low ridge of purple hills with a crown of fir trees.

Most of the rooms have windows at each end, an arrangement I like, as it is delightful to follow the sun round. There is the most glorious old roof you can imagine, with beautiful curves and crooked chimneys, lovely, warm, red tiles and mossy eaves.