Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes - What Timmy Did

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"Did I, sir? Well, one can never tell in this world. But I think Mrs.
Crofton _will_ find the money." She added, almost in a whisper, "It's to
'er interest to do so, sir."

"To her interest?" repeated Radmore. "What exactly do you mean?"

"I don't quite understand it myself, sir." Mrs. Piper spoke with a touch
of light indifference in her voice, "Piper don't tell me very much. I was
in Islington, conducting a little business I've got, when Colonel Crofton
came by 'is sad death. Mrs. Crofton spoke to Piper most feelingly, sir,
about the service 'e'd done her by what 'e said at the inquest. I've
always 'ad my belief, sir, that Piper might 'ave said something more and
different that would have been, maybe, awkward for Mrs. Crofton." She
waited a moment, realising that she had burnt her boats. "Do you take my
meaning, sir?"

"No," said Radmore sternly, "I don't take your meaning at all, Mrs.
Piper. I don't in the least understand what you meant to imply just now."

A most disturbing suspicion had begun to assail him. Was this woman, with
her low, mincing voice, and carefully chosen words, something of a
blackmailer?

They walked on in silence for a few minutes, and on her side, Mrs. Piper
began to doubt very much whether she had acted for the best in being so
honest--"honest" was the word she used to herself. But she told herself
that now she had started, perhaps she had better go straight on with it.

"It's my belief that Piper did ask Mrs. Crofton to speak to you, sir,
about the matter, and I thought, maybe, that she 'ad done so. 'Ave I your
permission to say, sir, that I met you in the road, and that the subject
cropped up as it were?"

"You can say anything you like," said Radmore coldly.

He could not ask this strange, sinister woman to remain silent, yet the
thought that Enid Crofton was about to be told that he and this Mrs.
Piper had discussed her affairs was very disagreeable to him.

Radmore was tempted for a moment to do a quixotic act, to say to the
woman, "I will find this money for your husband; don't trouble Mrs.
Crofton," and but for what had happened not an hour ago he would almost
certainly have done so. But now he felt as if he never wanted to hear
Enid Crofton's name mentioned again, and he would have given a good deal
to obliterate her and her concerns entirely from his memory.

They were now, much to his relief, close to The Trellis House: "I will
ring the bell for you," he said courteously, and then, without waiting
for her thanks, he hurried off towards Old Place.

* * * * *

The next evening Jack Tosswill drew Radmore aside. "Look here," he said
awkwardly, "I wonder if you'd kindly wait a bit after the others have
gone to bed? I want to ask you something, Godfrey."

"Of course I will, old chap." Radmore looked hard into the young man's
moody, troubled face, and came to a certain conclusion. Doubtless Enid
Crofton had given Jack his dismissal, and the foolish fellow was going to
pour it all out. He felt he was in for a disagreeable, not to say
painful, half hour. Few people of a kindly disposition even reach the age
Radmore had reached without having had more than one such talk with a
young man crossed in love.

As soon as they settled themselves down, each with his pipe, in front
of the drawing-room fire, Jack began, speaking obviously with a great
effort, and yet with a directness and honesty which the older man
admired:--

"Look here, Godfrey? It's no use beating about the bush. I want to know
if you can lend me L500, and I want to say at once that I don't know when
I shall be able to pay you back. Still, I shall be able to pay you
interest. I suppose one pays the bank rate? I don't know anything about
those things. Of course, you may ask why don't I go to my father, but--"

Radmore stopped him. "It's all right, old chap. I'll give you a cheque
this evening before we go to bed."

"I say--" Jack turned round. "You're a good fellow, Radmore; I wouldn't
do it, only--only--"

"I know," said Radmore coolly. "I quite realise it isn't for yourself. I
suppose it's to oblige a pal. You needn't tell me anything more about it.
As a matter of fact I meant to ask you whether you'd take a present from
me of just that sum. I don't suppose you know how I feel about you all.
George and I were just like brothers. He'd have given me anything."

"No, no! I want this to be a business transaction, Godfrey." He said the
words just a little fiercely.

"So it shall be--if you want it that way. I'll go and get my cheque book
now."

When he came back, the cheque made out in his hand, he said thoughtfully,
"I hope your friend hasn't got into the sort of scrape which means that
one has to pay money of a--well, of a blackmailing sort? There's no end
to _that_, you know."

Jack Tosswill looked surprised. "Good Heavens, no! He's only being rushed
over a bill--legal proceedings threatened--you know the sort of thing?"

"I've made out the cheque to self and endorsed it," observed Radmore.

"Thanks awfully. You _are_ a good sort. I am far more grateful than I can
say, far more than--than--if it was only for myself--"

He stopped abruptly, and there was an awkward pause. Then Jack, speaking
rather breathlessly, asked an odd question:--

"You knew Crofton very well, didn't you, Godfrey? What kind of a chap was
he?"

He brought out the question with an effort. But he did so want to know!
For the first time in his self-confident, comfortable, young life Jack
Tosswill was in love and full of painful, poignant, retrospective
jealousy.

Radmore looked away, instinctively. "I liked Colonel Crofton, I always
got on with him--but he was not popular. He was not at all happy when I
knew him, and unhappy people are rarely popular."

He was wondering whether he had better say anything to Jack--whether the
favour he had just done him gave him the right to speak.

"I suppose he was at least thirty years older than Mrs. Crofton?"

Radmore nodded, and then they neither spoke for a few moments. Each was
waiting for the other to say something, and at last Jack asked another
question.

"They didn't get on very well together, did they?"

"When I first knew them they seemed to be all right. But he was very
jealous of her, and he had cause to be, for most of the fellows out there
were in love with her, and well, not to put too fine a point on it, she
liked it!" He hesitated. "She was rather too fond of telling people that
her husband wasn't quite kind to her."

"I think that was very natural of her!" exclaimed Jack, and Radmore felt
a surge of pity for the young fellow. Still he forced himself to go on:
"It's no use pretending. She was--and still is--a tremendous flirt."

Jack made a restless movement.

"I'm afraid you think me rather a cad for saying that, and I wouldn't say
it to anyone but you. She was bred in a bad school--brought up, so I
understood from a man who had known her as a girl, in Southsea, by a
widowed mother as pretty as herself. Her first husband--"

"But--but surely Colonel Crofton was her first husband?"

"No," again Radmore avoided looking at his companion, "she's been married
twice. Her first husband, a good-looking young chap in the 11th Hussars,
died quite soon after the marriage, the two of them having 'blued' all
they had between them. I suppose she foolishly thought there was nothing
left for it but for her to marry Colonel Crofton. And the real trouble
was that Colonel Crofton was poor. I fancy they'd have got on perfectly
well if he had had pots of money."

"I--I don't agree to that," Jack said hotly.

"I'm afraid it's true. But we really oughtn't to discuss a woman, even as
we are doing now. The only excuse is that we're both so fond of her,"
said Radmore lightly.

But even as he spoke he felt heavy-hearted. Jack Tosswill had got it very
badly, far worse than he had suspected, and somehow he didn't believe
that the medicine he had just administered had done the young man any
good.

CHAPTER XXIV

Two days went by, and now Saturday had come round again.

In a sense nothing had happened during those two days, and to some of the
inmates of Old Place the week had seemed extremely long and dull.

Mrs. Crofton had suddenly gone up to town for two nights, and both Jack
and Rosamund, in their very different ways, felt depressed and lonely in
consequence. But she was coming back to-day, and Rosamund was going to
meet her at the station with the Old Place pony cart.

At breakfast Rosamund suggested that perhaps Godfrey might like to motor
her there instead, but to her vexation he didn't "rise" at all. He simply
observed, rather shortly, that he was going on a rather long business
expedition: and Rosamund retorted, pertly, "Business on a Saturday? How
strange!" to receive the dry reply: "Yes, it does seem strange, doesn't
it?"

Half an hour later Betty and Timmy were busily engaged in washing up the
breakfast things when Godfrey Radmore strolled into the scullery.

"I thought that I was always to be in on this act?" he exclaimed. And it
was true that he had fallen into the way of helping to wash up, turning
what had always been a very boresome task into what Timmy to himself
called "great fun" for while Radmore washed and dried the plates and
dishes, he told them funny things about some of his early experiences in
Australia.

"We've done quite well without you. We're nearly through," said Betty
merrily. Somehow she felt extraordinarily light-hearted to-day.

Her visitor--for very well she knew he was her visitor rather than
Timmy's--came a little nearer, and shut the scullery door behind him.

"Look here," he said mysteriously, "I want just us three to take a secret
expedition to-day. I think I've found my house of dreams! If you'll then
both run upstairs and put on your things, we could go there and be back
in quite good time for tea."

"For tea?" repeated Betty, startled. "But who would look after lunch?"

"There's plenty of delicious cold mutton in the house," said Radmore
decidedly. He added with a certain touch of cunning: "I did ask your
mother, Timmy, if she'd come too, but she can't leave the house this
morning: she's expecting a very important telephone message--something
to do with the garden. She'll see about lunch, for she's particularly
anxious,"--he turned to Betty,--"that _you_ should have a good blow this
time. We shall get a little lunch while we are out, and be home by four."

"Let's take lunch with us," broke in Timmy eagerly. "We can eat it
anywhere." He had always had a passion for picnics.

Betty was the last human being to make any unnecessary fuss. Also,
somehow, she felt as if to-day was not quite like other days. She could
not have told why. "All right. I'll cut some sandwiches, and then I'll go
and get ready," she said.

Janet was in the hall when Betty came down.

"That's right," she said heartily, "I'm glad you're going to have a real
outing at last!"

She took the girl in her arms and kissed her, and Betty felt touched. Her
step-mother was not given to affectionate demonstration. And then, all at
once, Janet looked round and said in a low voice: "Betty, I'm dreadfully
worried about Jack. D'you think it's conceivably possible that there's
anything _serious_ between him and Mrs. Crofton?"

Betty hardly knew what to answer. For some days past she had felt quite
sure that there was something between those two. Jack had been so odd, so
unlike himself, and once he had said to her, "Betty, I do wish you'd make
friends with Mrs. Crofton. After all you're my sister ..." and then they
had been, perhaps fortunately, interrupted. But if there was anything
between Jack and the fascinating widow, Rosamund, who was so devoted to
Enid Crofton, knew nothing of it.

"I really can't say," she answered at last, "I've hardly ever felt so
doubtful about anything in my life! Sometimes I think there is, and
sometimes I think there isn't."

"I'm afraid there's no doubt as to what _he_ feels. I happen to know
she's just had a very good offer for The Trellis House--seven guineas a
week for six months. But she seems to have settled in here for good and
all, doesn't she?"

"I wonder if she really has," said Betty. And then she grew a little
pink.

Deep in her heart she had felt quite convinced that Mrs. Crofton had come
to Beechfield for Godfrey Radmore, and for no other reason. Now she
wondered if she had been unjust.

"How I wish she'd stay away _now_, even for a few days longer!" exclaimed
Janet.

At that moment Timmy rushed into the hall, Radmore drove up in his motor,
and in a couple of minutes the three were off--Janet looking after them,
a touch of wistful longing and anxiety in her kind heart.

She had hoped somehow, that Godfrey would persuade Betty to go alone with
him to-day, and she was wondering now whether she could have said a word
to Timmy. Her child was so unlike other little boys. If selfish, he was
very understanding where the few people he cared for were concerned, and
his mother had never known him to give her away.

But the harm, if harm there was, was done now, and for some things she
was not sorry to get rid of Timmy for some hours. There had arisen
between the boy and his eldest half-brother a disagreeable state of
tension. Timmy seemed to take pleasure in teasing Jack, and Jack was
not in the humour to bear even the smallest practical joke just now.

* * * * *

On and on sped the party in the motor, Timmy sitting by his godfather in
front, Betty, in lonely state, behind.

They hadn't gone very far before the countryside began to have all the
charm of strangeness to Betty Tosswill, and she found herself enjoying
the change of scene as only a person who has been cooped up in one
familiar place for a considerable time can enjoy it.

"Why, we must be on the borders of Sussex!" she called out, at a point
where Radmore, slowing down, was consulting a sign-post. He turned round
and nodded.

They started again. And then something rather absurd happened. Betty's
hat blew off! It was an ordinary, rather floppy hat, and she had tied it
on, as she thought, securely with a veil under her chin.

Both Timmy and Radmore jumped out to pick the hat up, and as they came
back towards the car, Timmy exclaimed: "It's a shame that Betty hasn't
got a proper motor bonnet! Rosamund's got a lovely one."

"Why hasn't Betty got one?"

"Because they're so expensive," said Timmy simply. He went on, "When I've
got lots of money, I shall give Betty heaps of beautiful clothes; but
only one very plain dress apiece to Rosamund and Dolly."

"Betty! You ought to have a motor bonnet," called out Radmore as he came
up to the car.

Her fair hair, blowing in the wind, formed an aureole round her face. She
looked very, very different to the staid Betty of Old Place.

She answered merrily: "So I will when my ship comes home! I had one
before the War, and I stupidly gave it away."

"Surely we might get one somewhere to-day," suggested Radmore.

"Get one to-day--what an extraordinary idea? Motor bonnets don't grow on
hedges--"

But when they were going through--was it Horsham?--Radmore, alone of the
three, espied a funny little shop. It was called "The Bandbox": its
woodwork was painted bright green, and in the window were three hats.

"Now then," he exclaimed, slowing down, "this, I take it, is where motor
bonnets grow. At any rate we'll get down and see."

"What a lark!" cried Timmy delightedly. "Please, _please_ Betty, don't
make yourself disagreeable--don't be a 'govvey'!"

And Betty, not wishing to be a "govvey," got out of the car.

"But I've no money with me," she began.

"I wouldn't let you pay for what's going to be a present," said Radmore
shortly. "You're the only inhabitant of Old Place to whom I haven't given
a present since I've been home."

Home? It gave Betty such pleasure to hear him call it that.

They all three marched into the tiny shop where the owner of "The
Bandbox," described by Timmy to his mother, later, as a "rather
spidery-looking, real lady," sat sewing.

She received them with a mixture of condescension and pleasure at the
thought of a new customer, which diverted Radmore, who was new to the
phenomenon of the lady shopkeeper. But when it came to business, she
took a very great deal of trouble, bringing out what seemed, at the time,
the whole of her considerable stock, for "The Bandbox" was cleverly lined
with deep, dust-proof cupboards.

At last she produced a quaint-looking little blue and purple bonnet, with
an exquisitely soft long motor veil of grey chiffon.

"My sister is at Monte Carlo," she observed, "and when she was passing
through Paris she got me a dozen early autumn models. I have already
copied this model in other colours, but this is the original motor
bonnet. May I advise that you try it on?"

It was in its way a delightful bit of colour, and Betty hardly knew
herself when she looked in the glass and saw what a very pretty
reflection was presented there. She was startled--but oh, how pleasantly
startled--to see how young she still could look.

"Of course you must have that one," said Radmore, in a matter of fact
tone, "and leave the horrid thing you wore coming here behind you." Then
he turned to Timmy:--"Now then, don't you think _you_ could choose
something for your mother?"

The lady of the shop turned patronisingly towards the little boy. She
went across to a corner cupboard and opened what appeared to be a rather
secret receptacle. Though she had not been in business long, she already
realised what an advantage it is to deal, as regards feminine fripperies,
with a man-customer. Also, Radmore, almost in spite of himself, looked
opulent.

"I think I have the very thing!" she explained. "It's a little on the
fantastic side, and so only suits a certain type of face."

As she spoke she brought out a miniature brown poke bonnet which was
wreathed with one uncurled ostrich feather of a peculiar powder blue
tint. She put it deftly on Betty's head, then stepped back and gazed
delightedly into the smiling face and dancing eyes of her new client.

"I have kept this back," she began, "hoping I should come across a
bride-elect whom it might really suit, for it would make a perfect
'going-away' hat! But it is so extraordinarily becoming to _this_ lady,
that I feel I ought to let _her_ have it!"

She turned appealingly to Radmore, but Timmy intervened:--"That's not my
mother!" he cried, going off into fits of laughter. "We want a hat for my
_mother_. That's only my sister!"

The shop-lady looked vexed, and Radmore felt awkward. He realised that he
and Betty had been taken for husband and wife, Timmy for their spoilt
little boy.

"I'm quite sure I could find something that would suit Janet," exclaimed
Betty, hastily taking off the delightful bit of headgear.

She put on the motor bonnet again, and then she went over to where a
black garden hat, with just one rose on the brim, and with long blue
velvet strings, was lying on a table.

"I think Timmy's mother would look very nice in this," she said smiling.

The black hat was slipped into a big paper-bag, and handed to Timmy. Then
Radmore exclaimed: "Now then, we've no time to lose! Help your sister
into the car, Timmy, while I stop behind and pay the bill."

The bill did not take a minute to make out, and Radmore was rather
surprised to find that the three hats--for he bought three--cost him not
far short of fifteen pounds between them, though the lady observed
pleasantly, "Of course I can afford to sell my hats at a _much_ less
price than London people charge."

To Betty's eyes, Godfrey looked rather funny when he came out of the gay
little painted door with a flower-covered bandbox slung over his right
arm.

She had thought it just a little mean that the shop-woman should give
Timmy Janet's hat in a paper-bag. Though Betty would have been horrified
indeed at the prices paid by Radmore, she yet suspected that "The
Bandbox" lady asked quite enough for her pretty wares to be able to throw
in a cardboard box, so "Is that for Janet's hat?" she called out.

"This," he said, looking up at her, "is that queer-looking brown thing
with the blue feather that suited you so well. Of course I meant you to
have it too."

Betty felt at once disturbed, and yet, absurdly pleased. "I'm afraid it
was very expensive," she began. And then suddenly Radmore told himself
that after all the poke bonnet had been cheap indeed if the thought of it
could bring such a sparkle into Betty's eyes, and such a vivid while
delicate colour to her cheeks.

There came a day, as a matter of fact the day when Betty wore that
quaint-looking bonnet for the first time, when she did venture to ask
Godfrey what it had cost. He refused to tell her, simply saying that
whatever he had paid he had had the best of the bargain as it had been
worth its weight in gold. Even so it is very unlikely that she will ever
know what that queer little bonnet, which she intends to keep as long as
she lives, really meant to Godfrey Radmore--how it had suddenly made him
feel that here was the young Betty of nine years ago come back, never to
disappear into the mists of time again.

Something else happened in the High Street of that little Sussex town.
Radmore decided that it was Timmy's turn to sit behind, and the boy gave
in with a fairly good grace; though after they had left the houses behind
them and were again moving swiftly between brown hedges, he called out
patronisingly:--"The back of your head looks very nice now, Betty--quite
different to what it looked in that horrid old hat you left in the shop."

At last the car slowed down in front of a gate, on one side of which was
a big board. On this board was painted a statement to the effect that the
historic estate of Doryford House was to be let or sold, furnished or
unfurnished, "Apply to the principal London agents."

The finding of the place had not been quite easy, and Radmore drew a
breath of relief as he helped Betty down.

"When Timmy and I were last here," he said hurriedly, "there was a child
very ill at the lodge. So I think I'd better go and just find how things
are."

He was hoping with all his heart that the news he would see on the
mother's face would be good news. Somehow he felt that it would be of
happy augury for himself.

As he rang the bell his heart was beating--a feeling of acute suspense
had suddenly come over him, of which he was secretly ashamed, for it was
almost entirely a selfish distress. And then, when the door opened, he
saw that all was well, for the young woman's worn face was radiant.

"Is that you, sir? Oh, I did hope that you would come again!" she
exclaimed, "The doctor says that my little girl's certain to get well. I
was terrible anxious the day before yesterday, but now though she's weak
and wan, you'd hardly know she'd been bad, sir."

"I wonder if you could give me the keys of Doryford House?" began
Radmore. "I want to go over it, and we need not trouble you to come with
us."

"I'm supposed always to go up with visitors," she said hesitatingly,
"even if I leaves them there," but she looked troubled at the thought of
leaving her child. Then, all at once, Radmore had a happy inspiration.

"Would you feel easier if we left the little boy we've brought with us in
charge? He's very intelligent. He might sit in your kitchen."

She looked across to where Betty Tosswill and Timmy were standing. "Why,
yes!" she exclaimed, relieved. "If the young gentleman don't mind,
perhaps he would sit with Rosie. 'Tain't nothing infectious, you know,
sir, and it would please her like to have a visitor. She's got a book in
which there's a picture of a little sick girl and someone coming to see
her. She said to me yesterday, 'No one comes to see me, mother, 'cepting
doctor.'"

Radmore went off to the other two.

"The woman evidently feels that she ought to come up herself to the
house. But she's nervous about leaving her little girl. I was wondering
whether Timmy would mind staying and amusing the child? We might have
our picnic in the house itself, if it's in any way possible."

"What sort of a little girl is she?" began Timmy, but his godfather cut
him short.

"Never mind what sort of a little girl she is--she's longing for a
visitor, and you will be the first one to see her since she's been ill."

He turned to Betty. "Perhaps you'd like to go in and see what sort of a
place it is? Meanwhile I'll open the gate and get the car through."

Betty and Timmy followed the woman through the kitchen of the lodge to a
bedroom, where lay a pale-faced little girl of six. On the patchwork
counterpane were a pair of scissors and a big sheet of paper. It was
evident that the child had been trying to amuse herself by cutting out
patterns. As the visitors came in, she sat up, and her little face
flushed with joy. Here was her dream come true! Here were some
visitors--a beautiful lady in a peculiarly lovely blue bonnet, and a
pleasant-looking young gentleman too!

Timmy, who was quite unshy, went up to her bedside. "Good-morning," he
said in a polite, old-fashioned way. "I'm sorry you're ill, and I hope
you'll soon be quite well. I've come to look after you while your mother
goes up to the house with my godfather and my sister. If you like, I'll
cut you some beautiful fairy figures out of that paper, and then we can
pretend they're dancing."

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