Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes - What Timmy Did

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He looked round and espied a chair, which he brought up close to the bed.

Rosie was far too excited and shy to speak.

"What's your name?" he began. "Mine is Timothy Godfrey Radmore Tosswill."

The little girl whispered "Rosamund."

"I've got a sister called Rosamund; now, isn't that curious?" cried
Timmy.

He had already seized the scissors, and was engaged in cutting out some
quaint, fantastic looking little figures.

After the others had left the room, Rosamund's mother turned to Betty. "I
never saw such a nice, kind, young gentleman!" she exclaimed. "He fair
took my breath away--a regular little doctor he'd make."

* * * * *

Houses are like people--they have their day, their hour, even, one feels
inclined to add, their moods of sadness and of joy, of brightness and of
dulness.

To-day the white Corinthian-looking building called Doryford House was at
its best, in the soft lambent light of an autumn day. For a moment, when
the long, pillared building first came into view, Radmore had felt a
thrill of unreasonable disappointment. He had hoped, somehow, for a
red-brick manor-house--a kind of glorified Old Place. But a few minutes
later, when the mahogany front doors had been unlocked, and they passed
into a light, circular hall and so into a delightful-looking sunny
drawing-room filled with enchanting examples of 18th century furniture,
he began to think that this was, after all, a very attractive house.

"In what wonderful order everything seems to be!" he exclaimed. "Have the
people to whom the place belongs only just left it?"

"It's this way, sir. The gentleman to whom it belongs has several other
homes--he don't care for this place at all. But it's all kep' up
proper--one of the gardeners sees to the furnace--and about all this here
furniture, anybody who takes the house unfurnished, or buys the place,
will be able to keep what they likes at a valuation. Perhaps you and your
lady would like to go over the house by yourselves? People often do, I
notice. If you'll excuse me, I'll just nip away. I wants to go to the
village for a few minutes--that is if your little boy will be so kind as
to stay with my Rosie till I'm back."

"I'm sure he will," said Radmore heartily. He told himself that it was
very natural that everyone should think that he and Betty were married.

The front door shut behind the caretaker, and the two left behind began
going through the ground floor of the great empty house. Their progress
gave Betty an eerie feeling. She felt as if she was in a kind of dream;
the more so that this was quite unlike any country house into which she
had ever been.

They finally came to the last living-room of all, and both exclaimed
together: "This is the room I like best of all!"

It was an octagon library, lined with mahogany bookcases filled with
bound books which looked as though they hadn't been disturbed for fifty
years. The wide, fan-shaped window looked out on a formal rose garden.

And then, all at once, Radmore's quick eye detected a concealed door in
the wall, on which there were encrusted the sham book titles often to be
found on the doors of an old country home library. Quickly he went across
and, opening it, found it gave straight on to a corkscrew staircase.

Filled with a queer sense of adventure, he motioned Betty to go up first,
in front of him.

The staircase led up to a tiny lobby, into which opened a most beautiful
bedchamber, a replica as to shape and size of the library beneath.

The furniture there interested Betty, for she had never seen anything
like it, except once in a chateau near Arras. It was First Empire, and on
the pin-cushion, lying on the ornate dressing-table, someone had written
in a fine Italian hand on an envelope, the words: "This room was
furnished from Paris in 1810. The bed is a replica of a bed made for the
Empress Josephine."

They went on through many of the rooms on the upper floor, full to-day of
still, sunny late autumn charm.

Radmore scarcely spoke at all during their curious progress through the
empty house, and Betty still felt as if in a dream. She had asked herself
again and again if he could really be thinking of buying this stately
mansion.

The mere possibility of such a thing meant that he must be thinking of
marrying Mrs. Crofton, and also that he must be much richer than any of
them knew.

At last they came down a wide staircase which terminated in a corridor
leading into the circular hall, and then it was Betty who broke what was
becoming an oppressive silence:

"Shall we go on and see the kitchen and the servants' quarters, Godfrey?"

"No; they're sure to be all right."

Again came what seemed to Betty a long, unnatural silence.

"Do you really like the house?" he asked at last.

"I like it very much," she said frankly. "But wouldn't it cost a
tremendous lot of money, Godfrey? It would be a pity not to buy it
exactly as it stands. It all seems so--so--"

"I know! As if the furniture had grown there," he broke in.

"So beautiful and so--so unusual," Betty went on diffidently.

"I'm afraid I'm a commonplace person, Betty. I like a room to be
beautiful, but I like comfort, and I think this is a very comfortable
house. I feel, somehow, as if happy, good people had lived here. I like
that, too."

He was standing by one of the round pillars which carried out the type of
architecture which had been the fashion at the time Doryford was built;
and he was gazing at her with what seemed to her a rather odd expression
on his dark face. Was he going to tell her of his hopes or intention with
regard to Mrs. Crofton?

Betty felt, for the first time that day, intensely shy. She walked away,
towards the big half-moon window opposite the front door. A wide grass
gallop, bordered with splendid old trees, stretched out as if
illimitable, and she began gazing down it with unseeing eyes.

He came quickly across the hall, and stood by her. Then he said slowly,
"I'm wondering, wondering, wondering if I shall ever be in this house
again!"

"You must think it well over," she began.

But he cut her short. "It depends on _you_ whether Doryford becomes my
home or not."

"On me?" she repeated, troubled. "Don't trust to my taste as much as
that, Godfrey."

"But you do like it?" he asked insistently.

"Of course I like it. If it comes to that, I don't know that I've ever
been in so beautiful and perfect a house. And then, well perhaps because
we've everything so shabby at Old Place, I do like to see everything in
such apple-pie order!"

A little disappointed, he went on, "I fear it isn't your ideal house,
Betty? Not your house of dreams?"

And then, all at once, she knew that she couldn't answer him, for tears
had welled up in her eyes, and choked her speech.

Her house of dreams? Betty Tosswill's house of dreams had vanished, she
thought, for ever, so very long ago. Betty's house of dreams had been
quite a small house--but such a cosy, happy place, full of the Godfrey
of long ago, and of good, delicious dream children....

She turned her head away.

"Well," he exclaimed, "that's that! We won't think about this house
again. We'll go and look at another place to-morrow."

His matter-of-fact, rather cross, tone made her pull herself together.
What a baby he was after all!

"Don't be absurd, Godfrey. I don't believe if we were to look England
through, that I should see a house I thought more delightful than this
house. I'm a little overawed by it, that's all! You see I've never dwelt
in marble halls--"

"Oh, one gets used to that!"

"Yes, I expect one does."

"Whether I buy this place depends on you," he said obstinately.

"Well, then, if I'm to decide, I say buy it!" She turned and smiled at
him a little tremulously, keeping her head well down--her face shadowed
by the deep brim of her motor-bonnet.

More and more was this like a scene out of a dream to Betty Tosswill. In
a way, it was, of course, natural that she and Godfrey should be alone,
and that he should turn to her as his closest friend. And yet it seemed
strange and unnatural, too. But Betty had a very generous nature--and to
this man, who was looking at her with such an eager, searching look, she
felt in a peculiar relation. So she repeated, with greater ease and
lightness, "Let's settle, here and now, that this is to be the future
residence of Godfrey Radmore, Esquire! Timmy's a little bit like a cat,
you know. He'll simply adore this house. He'll love all the pretty things
in it. Perhaps you'd run him up in the motor presently, while I stay with
the little girl and that nice woman?"

And then all at once he took a step forward and roughly took her two
hands in his: "Betty," he said, "don't you understand? I shall never
enter this house again unless you're willing to come and share it with
me. No place would be home to me without you in it. Why, Old Place is
only home now because you're there."

She looked at him with a long, searching, measuring look; a look that
was, unconsciously, full of questioning; but her hands remained in his
strong grasp.

"Don't you know that I've always been yours?" he asked--"that I shall
always be yours even if you won't have me--even if I end by marrying
another woman, as I daresay I shall do if you won't have me, for I'm a
lonely chap--" And then something in her face made him add: "Try to love
me again, Betty. I want you to say to yourself--'a poor thing but mine
own.' Do, my dear."

And then Betty burst out crying, and found herself clasped in his arms,
strained to his heart, while his lips sought and found her soft,
tremulous mouth.

He was gentle with her, gentle and strangely restrained. And yet as the
happy moments went by in that silent, sunny house, something deep in her
still troubled heart told her that Radmore really loved her--loved her as
perhaps he had not loved her ten years ago, in his hot, selfish,
impulsive youth.

"We needn't tell anyone for a little while, need we?" she whispered at
last.

She had shared her life, given her services to so many during the last
nine years, and she longed to keep this strange new joy a secret for a
while.

"If you like, we need never tell them at all," he answered. "We can just
go out, find a church, and be married!"

"Oh, no; that wouldn't be fair to Janet." And yet the notion of doing
this fascinated her.

CHAPTER XXV

And meanwhile what had been going on at Old Place? Outwardly very little,
yet one long-expected, though when it happened, surprising, thing had
occurred. Also Janet, as the day went on, felt more and more worried
about Jack.

He wandered in and out of the house like an unhappy, unquiet spirit, for
the sudden departure of Enid Crofton for London two days before had taken
him utterly by surprise, the more so that she had left no address, and
he was suspicious of--he knew not what! It was reasonable to suppose she
had gone to pay the debt for which he had provided the money; but then
why keep her address in town secret from him?

At last, this morning, there had come a postcard to Rosamund, asking to
be met at the station, alone, with the Old Place pony-cart. It was a
reasonable request, for the funny little vehicle only held two people and
a minute quantity of luggage. Still Jack had felt annoyed she had not
asked him to meet her. She seemed to him absurdly over-cautious.

About ten minutes before the motoring party's return, Rosamund hurried in
with a casual message that Enid was very tired, and so had gone straight
to bed; that she hoped some of them would come in and see her on the
morrow, Sunday. In any case they would all meet at church.

Jack was puzzled, hurt, and bitterly disappointed, and at once he went
off to write a note which should be, while wildly loving, yet clear in
its expressions of surprise that she had not sent him some sort of
message appointing a time for their next meeting. He found the letter
unexpectedly difficult to write, and he had already torn up two
beginnings, when the door behind him burst open, and, turning round
irritably, he saw Timmy rush across to a window and shout exultantly,
"Mum? We're back! And we've brought Josephine and her kittens. Mr.
Trotman said she'd be all right now."

Jack Tosswill jumped up from his chair. It was as if his pent-up feelings
of anger had found a vent at last: "You have, have you?" he cried in an
enraged voice. "Then I'll see to the shooting of the brute this very
minute!"

Quick as thought, Timmy rushed back to the door and turned the key in the
lock. Then he bounded again to the open window. "Mum!" he screamed at the
top of his voice. "Come here--I'm frightened!"

Janet Tosswill, walking quickly across the lawn, was horrified at the
look of angry despair on the child's face.

"What's happened?" she asked, and then, suddenly, she saw Jack's blazing
eyes.

"J-Janet," he began, stuttering in his rage, "either that cat is shot
to-day, or I leave this house for ever."

Even in the midst of poor Janet's agitation, she could not help smiling
at the melodramatic tone in which the usually self-contained Jack uttered
his threat. Still--

"It was very, very wrong of you, Timmy, to bring back your cat to-day,"
she said sternly. "Had I known there was any idea of such a thing I
should have absolutely forbidden it. Josephine is not fit to come back
here yet; you know what Dr. O'Farrell said."

The colour was coming back into Timmy's face. He had a touching belief in
his mother's power of saving him from the consequences of his own naughty
actions.

"I'm very sorry," he began whimperingly. "It was not my fault, Mum. Even
Mr. Trotman said there was nothing the matter with her."

And now Jack was beginning to repent of his hasty, cruel words. He was as
angry as ever with Timmy, but he was ashamed of having spoken as he had
done to Janet--the woman who, as he knew deep in his heart, was not only
the best of step-mothers, but the best of friends, to his sisters and
himself.

"Of course I don't mind her being at Trotman's, but I do very much object
to her being here," he said ungraciously.

"I'll see about her being sent back to Epsom to-day," said Janet quietly.
She turned to her son: "Now then, Timmy, I'm afraid we shall have to ask
poor Godfrey to start back at once after tea."

"Oh, I say," called out Jack awkwardly. "I don't want the cat to go as
soon as that, Janet. To-morrow will do all right. All I ask is that the
brute shall be taken away before it has a chance of seeing Mrs. Crofton
again."

"Very well; the cat shall go to-morrow."

Drawing her little boy quickly after her, Janet left the drawing-room,
crossed the corridor, walked into the empty schoolroom, and then, to
Timmy's unutterable surprise, burst into bitter tears.

Now Timmy had never seen his mother cry--and she herself was very much
taken aback. She would have given a great deal to have been left alone
just then to have her cry out, but Timmy's scared little face touched
her.

"I can't think why you did it," she sobbed. "I always thought you were
such an intelligent boy. Oh, Timmy, surely you understood how angry it
would make Jack and Rosamund if you brought Josephine back now, to-day?"

"I never thought of them," he said woefully. "We were so happy,
Mum--Godfrey, Betty and I. Oh, why are people so horrid?"

"Why are people so selfish?" she asked sadly. "I'm surprised at Betty; I
should have thought that she, at least, would have understood that the
cat must stay away a little longer."

"It wasn't Betty's fault," said Timmy hastily. He waited a moment, then
added cunningly, "It was really Mr. Trotman's fault; he said Josephine
ought to come home."

But his mother went on a little wildly: "It isn't an easy job, taking
over another woman's children--and doing the very best you can for them!
To-day, Timmy, you've made me feel as if I was sorry that I ever did it."

"Sorry that you married Daddy?" asked Timmy in an awe-struck voice.

Janet Tosswill nodded.

"Sorry that I was ever born?" cried Timmy. He flung his skinny arms round
her bent neck.

She looked up and smiled wanly. "No, Timmy, I shall never be able to say
that, however naughty you may be."

But Timmy was not to be let off yet.

"What happened to-day has hurt me very, very much," she went on. "It will
be a long time before I shall feel on the old, happy terms with Jack
again. Without knowing it, Timmy, you've pierced your mother's heart."

But even as she uttered these, to Timmy, dreadful words, Janet Tosswill
got up, and dried her eyes. "Now then, we must go and see about Josephine
being shut up in some place of safety, where she and her kittens will not
offend the eyes of Jack and Rosamund. How about the old stable?"

She was her own calm, satirical, determined self again. But Timmy felt,
perhaps for the first time in his life, deeply conscious of sin. His
mother's phrase made him feel very uneasy. Had he really pierced her
heart--could a mother's heart be permanently injured by a wicked child?

It was a very mournful, dejected, anxious boy who walked into the kitchen
behind Janet Tosswill.

Timmy had a very vivid imagination, and during the drive back he had
amused himself by visualising the scene when he would place Josephine and
her kittens in their own delightful, roomy basket in the scullery. It
would be such fun, too, introducing Flick to the two kittens! At Betty's
suggestion, Flick had been shut out from the scullery after Josephine's
kittens were born, and that though the dog and the cat got on extremely
well together. In fact, Flick was the only creature in the world with
whom Josephine, since she had reached an approximately mature age, ever
condescended to play.

And now poor Josephine and her kittens were to be banished to the old
stable, and to-morrow driven back ignominiously to Epsom, all because of
that tiresome, hateful Mrs. Crofton!

There was no one in the kitchen, and it did not look as tidy as it
generally looked; though the luncheon things had been washed up, they had
not been put away.

Mother and son walked on into the scullery to find Betty there, boiling
some water over a spirit lamp. "Betty? How very delightful you look!" her
step-mother exclaimed. "Just like an old picture, child! Wherever did you
get that charming motor-bonnet?"

And then Timmy chipped in: "_I_ thought of it," he said triumphantly; "it
was _my_ idea, Mum, but Godfrey paid for it. He said he hadn't given
Betty a proper present yet, so he _had_ to pay for it, and, and--"

Janet was just a little surprised. She was very old-fashioned in some
ways, and she had brought up her step-daughters to be, as regarded money
matters at any rate, as old-fashioned as herself. It seemed to her very
strange that Betty had allowed Godfrey Radmore to give her such a present
as a hat! Yet another thing puzzled her. She had understood that the
three of them were going off some way into Sussex to look at a house, but
they had evidently been up to London. Motor bonnets don't grow on country
hedges.

"Where's the cat?" she asked, looking round.

"Godfrey has taken her up to the nursery," said Betty, "partly to show
her to Nanna, and partly because we thought it would be better for her to
be quiet up there than down here."

"Oh, Mum--do say that she can stay up there," cried Timmy pleadingly. "I
hate the thought of her being in that dark old stable!"

"Very well; put her in the night nursery."

Even as she spoke, Janet was still gazing at her eldest step-daughter.
Betty certainly looked extraordinarily charming this afternoon. It showed
that the child required more change than she had had for many a long day.
They had got too much, all of them, into thinking of her as a stand-by.
After all she was only eight and twenty! Janet, with a sigh, looked back
to the days when she had been eight and twenty, a very happy, independent
young lady indeed, not long before she had met and married her quiet,
wool-gathering John, so losing her independence for ever.

"I suppose you haven't heard the great news," she exclaimed, forgetting
that Timmy was there.

"What news?" asked Betty.

She glanced at her step-mother. Surely Janet hadn't been crying? Janet
never cried. She had not cried since that terrible day when the news had
come of George's death.

"What news?" she asked again.

"Mr. Barton--I really can't call him Lionel yet--came over this afternoon
and--and--"

Timmy rushed forward in front of his mother, his little face all aglow:
"Oh, Mum! You don't mean to say that he's popped?" he cried.

"Timmy, don't be vulgar!" exclaimed Janet severely.

Betty began to laugh a little wildly. "How very, very strange that it
should have happened to-day--"

"I don't think it's strange at all," said Janet quietly. "The strange
thing is that it hasn't happened before! But there it is--they're engaged
now. He seems to have told her that he thought it wrong to make his offer
until he had saved L100. She has gone over to Oakford, and they are busy
making an inventory of the things they will have to buy."

"Has he actually saved L100?" asked Betty.

"No, he never could have done that. He's had a legacy left him, and he
seems to think that L100 will start them most splendidly and comfortably
on their married life. He _is_ a fool!"

The door which gave on to the stairs which led from the scullery to the
upper floor opened, and Godfrey Radmore stepped down. "Am I the fool?" he
asked pleasantly.

Janet answered, smiling: "No, no; you're anything but that. I was only
telling Betty that Dolly and Mr. Barton are engaged at last." She turned
to Betty. "Of course, he's coming to supper to-night. I've been wondering
what we can do in the way of something extra to celebrate the occasion.
We _were_ going to have cold mutton."

"At any rate I'll go and see what the village pub. can produce in the way
of champagne," exclaimed Godfrey. He turned to his godson. "Timmy? Run up
and look at Josephine and her kittens. I've put them in the old night
nursery for a bit."

And then, when the boy had gone, he went up to Janet and, to her
surprise, put his arm through hers: "I'm glad about Dolly," he said
heartily.

"It proves how very little one really knows of human nature." She sighed,
but it was a happy sigh. "I was beginning to believe that he would never
what Timmy calls 'pop,' and yet the poor fellow was only waiting to be a
little forward in the world. Someone's left him L100, so he felt he could
embark on the great adventure. Your father and I have already talked it
over a little"--she turned to Betty--"and we think we could squeeze out
L100 a year somehow."

"I think we could," said Betty, hesitatingly. "After all, L1 is now only
what 8/- was before the War."

"But not to us," cried Janet; "not to us!"

And then, to the utter discomfiture of both her companions, she began to
laugh and cry together.

Godfrey rushed over to the sink. He took up a cup, filled it with water,
rushed back to where Janet was standing, shaking, trembling all over,
making heroic efforts to suppress her mingled tears and laughter, and
dashed the water into her face.

"Thank you," she gasped; "thank you, Godfrey! I'm all right now. I may as
well tell you both the truth. There's been a row--an awful row--between
Jack and Timmy, and it thoroughly upset me. It was only over the
cat--over Josephine--but of course it proved that what Betty and I were
talking about this morning is true. Jack's madly in love with Mrs.
Crofton--and--and--it's all so pitiful and absurd--"

"I doubt if you're quite fair to Mrs. Crofton, Janet," said Godfrey, in a
singular tone. "I fancy she really does care for Jack. Of course it seems
odd to all of us, but still, after all, odder things have been known! If
you ask me whether they will marry in the end--that's quite another
matter. If you ask me whether they're engaged, well, yes, I'm inclined to
think they are!"

Even Betty felt violently disturbed and astonished.

"Oh, Godfrey!" she exclaimed. "D'you really think that?"

"I can't tell you what makes me think so, or rather I'd rather not tell
you. But I don't think you need worry, if you'll only take a long view.
They can't marry yet, and long before they could marry, she'll have got
tired of him, and fond of someone else."

Betty gave him a quick look. Was he really unconscious of the reason why
Mrs. Crofton had come to Beechfield?

Through her mind in a flash there crowded the many small, almost
imperceptible, impressions made on her mind by the new tenant of The
Trellis House. Enid Crofton in love with Jack? Betty shook her head. The
idea was absurd. And yet Godfrey had spoken very decidedly just now. But
men, even very shrewd, intelligent men, are at a hopeless disadvantage
when dealing with the type of woman to which Enid Crofton belonged.

As for Janet she exclaimed, with sudden passion, "I would give anything
in this world to see Mrs. Crofton leave Beechfield for ever--" She
stopped abruptly, for at that moment the staircase door to her right
burst open, and Timmy stepped down into the scullery.

CHAPTER XXVI

Since she had had the horrid accident which had laid her up, Timmy had
not gone to see his old Nanna nearly as often as he ought to have done.
Nanna herself, however, with the natural cunning of those who love, had
made certain rules which ensured her a regular, daily glimpse of the
strange little being she had had under her charge, as she would have
expressed it, "from the month." Nanna did not desire his attendance
before breakfast for she would not have considered herself fit to be
seen by him till she herself was neat and tidy. Like all the women of
her class and generation, the Tosswills' old family nurse was full of
self-respect, and also imbued with a stern sense of duty. Timmy stood
far more in awe of her than he did of his mother.

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