Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes - What Timmy Did

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Hostess and guest sat down on the big, roomy sofa, while Timmy moved
away and opened a book. He was afraid lest his mother should invite him
to leave the room, for he wanted to hear what they were saying. Timmy
always enjoyed hearing grown-up people's conversation, especially when
they had forgotten that he was present. All at once his sharp ears heard
Mrs. Crofton's low, melodious voice asking the question he had been
half-expecting her to ask: "Do you expect Mr. Radmore soon?"

"Yes, he's coming down on Friday." There was a pause, then Timmy heard
his mother say: "Have you known Godfrey Radmore long?"

Janet really wanted to know. Somehow, she found it difficult to imagine
a friendship between Godfrey and this little fribble of a woman. But as
to that, Janet Tosswill showed less than her usual intelligence. She
still thought of Godfrey Radmore as of the rather raw, awkward, though
clear-headed and determined lad of twenty-three--the Radmore, that is,
of nine years ago.

"My husband and I first met him in Egypt," said Mrs. Crofton
hesitatingly. The delicate colour in her cheeks deepened. "One day he
began to talk about himself, and he told me about Beechfield, what a
beautiful village it was, how devoted he was to you all!"

Janet Tosswill glanced at the clock. "It's already five minutes past
eight!" she exclaimed. "I must go and hurry my young people--their father
likes them to be absolutely punctual. The gong will go in a minute."

After his mother had left the room, Timmy crept up close to the sofa,
and so suddenly appeared, standing with his hands behind his back, before
the visitor. She felt just a little startled; she had not known the
strange-looking boy was still there. Then she told herself quickly that
this surely must be Godfrey Radmore's godson--the child to whom he had
sent one of her late husband's puppies.

There came over pretty Mrs. Crofton a slight feeling of apprehension and
discomfiture--she could not have told why.

"When did you last see my godfather?" he asked abruptly, in an unchildish
voice, and with a quaintly grown-up manner.

"Your godfather?" she repeated hesitatingly, and yet she knew quite well
who he meant.

"I mean Major Radmore," he explained.

She wondered why the disagreeable little fellow had asked such an
indiscreet question.

Then, reluctantly, she made up her mind she had better answer it truly:
"I saw him the day before yesterday." She forced herself to go on
lightly. "I suppose you're the young gentleman to whom he sent a
puppy last year?"

He nodded, and then asked another disconcerting question: "Did you leave
your dog outside? Dolly thought you didn't like dogs, so my terrier,
Flick, has been shut up in the stable. I suppose you only like your own
dog--I'm rather like that, too."

"I haven't got a dog," she answered nervously. "It's quite true that I
don't like dogs--or, rather, I should like them if they liked me, but
they don't."

"Then the dog that was with you belonged to the old gentleman?"

"Old gentleman?" repeated Mrs. Crofton vaguely. This time she didn't in
the least know what the child was talking about, and she was relieved
when the door opened, and the Tosswill family came streaming through
it, accompanied by their step-mother.

Laughing introductions took place. Mrs. Crofton singled out instinctively
her gentle, cultivated-looking host. She told herself with a queer sense
of relief, that he was the sort of man who generally shows a distantly
chivalrous regard for women. Next to her host, his eldest son, Jack
Tosswill, came in for secret, close scrutiny, but Enid Crofton always
found it easy and more than easy, to "make friends" with a young man.

She realised that she was up against a more difficult problem in the
ladies of the family. She felt a little frightened of Mrs. Tosswill, of
whom Godfrey Radmore had spoken with such affection and gratitude. Janet
looked what Mrs. Crofton called "clever," and somehow she never got on
with clever women. Betty and Dolly she dismissed as of no account.
Rosamund was the one the attractive stranger liked best. There is no
greater mistake than to think that a pretty woman does not like to meet
another pretty woman. On the contrary, "like flies to like" in this, as
in almost everything else.

But how did they regard her? She would have been surprised indeed had she
been able to see into their hearts.

Mr. Tosswill, who was much more wideawake than he looked, thought her
a poor exchange for the amusing, lively, middle-aged woman who had
last lived at The Trellis House, and who had often entertained there a
pleasant, cultivated guest or two from London. Jack, though sufficiently
human to be attracted by the stranger's grace and charm, was inclined to
reserve his judgment. The three girls found her very engaging, and their
step-mother, if more critical, was quite ready to like her. As is often
the case with people who only care for those near and dear to them, the
world of men and women outside Janet Tosswill's own circle interested
her scarcely at all. She would make up her mind as to what any given
individual was like, and then dismiss him or her once for all from her
busy, over-burdened mind.

One thing, however, both Janet and the three girls did notice--that was
the way their new acquaintance was dressed. Her black frock was not only
becoming, but had that indefinable look which implies thought, care, and
cost--especially cost. All four ladies decided immediately that Mrs.
Crofton must be much better off than she had implied in the letter she
had written to Mr. Tosswill some weeks ago.

Timmy, alone of them all, on that first evening, felt strongly about
their visitor. Already he was jealous of the pretty, pathetic-looking
young widow. It irritated him to think that she was a friend of his
godfather.

After they had all gone into the dining-room, and had sorted themselves
out, the guest being seated on her host's right, with Jack on the other
side of her, Janet announced: "This is supper, not dinner, Mrs. Crofton.
I hope you don't mind lobster? When I first came to Old Place, almost the
first thing I learnt was that it was celebrated for its lobster pie!
Since the War we have not been able to afford lobsters, but a kind friend
sent us six from Littlehampton yesterday, so I at once thought of our
dear old lobster pie!"

Mrs. Crofton declared that, far from minding, she adored lobsters! And
then after she had been served, Timmy's fears were set at rest, for his
mother, very improperly the rest of the family thought, served him next,
and to a generous helping.

As the meal went on, the mistress of Old Place realised that she had made
one mistake about Mrs. Crofton; their visitor was far more intelligent,
though in a mean, rather narrow way, than she had at first supposed.
Also, Mrs. Crofton was certainly very attractive. As the talk turned to
London doings, his step-mother was amused to notice that Jack was becoming
interested in their guest, and eagerly discussed with her a play they had
both seen.

And the visitor herself? During supper she began to feel most pleasantly
at home, and when she walked into the long, high-ceilinged sitting-room,
which had such a cosy, homelike look she told herself that it was no
wonder Godfrey Radmore liked the delightful old house, and these kindly,
old-fashioned, and--and unsuspicious people.

Two tall Argand lamps cast a soft radiance over the shabby furniture and
faded carpet. It was a lovely evening, a true St. Martin's summer night,
and the middle one of the three long French windows was widely open on to
the fragrant, scented garden.

Mrs. Crofton, a graceful, appealing figure in her soft, black chiffon
gown, hesitated a moment--she wondered where they wanted her to sit?
And then Mrs. Tosswill came forward and, taking her hand, led her to the
big sofa, while one of the girls fetched an extra cushion so that she
might sit back comfortably. The talk drifted to the War, and Enid Crofton
was soon engaged in giving an animated account of some of her own
experiences--how she had managed to spend a very exciting fortnight not
far from the Front, in a hospital run by a great lady with whom she had a
slight acquaintance. Soon, sooner than usual, Mr. Tosswill and his three
sons came into the drawing-room, and they were all talking and laughing
together happily when a most unlucky, and untoward, accident happened!
Timmy's dog, Flick, having somehow escaped from the stable, suddenly ran
in from the dark garden, straight through the window opposite the sofa
round which the whole of the party was now gathered together. When about
a yard from Mrs. Crofton, he stopped dead, and emitted a series of short,
wild howls, while his hair bristled and stood on end, and his eyes flamed
blood red.

They were all so surprised--so extremely taken aback by Flick's
behaviour--that no one moved. Then Mrs. Crofton gave a kind of gasp, and
covering her face with her hands, cowered back in the corner of the sofa.

Timmy jumped up from the stool where he had been sitting, and as he did
so, his mother called out affrightedly: "Don't go near Flick, Timmy--he
looks mad!"

But Timmy was no coward, and Flick was one of the few living things he
loved in the world. He threw himself on the floor beside his dog.
"Flick," he said warningly, "what's the matter, old chap? Has anything
hurt you?" As he spoke he put out his skinny little arms, and Flick,
though still shivering and growling, began to calm down.

The little boy waited a moment, Flick panting convulsively in his arms,
then he gathered the dog to him, and, getting up from the floor, walked
quickly through the open window into the garden.

For a moment no one stirred--and then Mr. Tosswill, who had been sitting
rather apart from the rest of the party, got up and shut the window.

"What a curious thing," he said musingly. "I have always regarded Flick
as one of the best tempered of dogs. This is the first time he has ever
behaved like this."

Mrs. Crofton dragged herself up from her comfortable seat. Her face
looked white and pinched. In spite of her real effort to control herself,
there were tears in her eyes and her lips were trembling. "If you are on
the telephone," she said appealingly, "I should be so grateful if you
should send for a fly. I don't feel well enough to walk home." She tried
to smile. "My nerves have been upset for some time past."

Janet felt vexed and concerned. "Jack will drive you home in our old pony
cart," she said soothingly. "Will you go and bring it round, Tom?"

Tom slipped off, and there arose a babel of voices, everyone saying how
sorry they were, Dolly especially, explaining eagerly how she herself had
personally superintended the shutting up of the dog. As for Betty, she
went off into the hall and quietly fetched Mrs. Crofton's charming
evening cloak and becoming little hood. As she did so she told herself
again that Mrs. Crofton must be much better off than they had thought
her to be from her letter. Every woman, even the least sophisticated,
knows what really beautiful and becoming clothes cost nowadays, and Mrs.
Crofton's clothes were eminently beautiful and becoming.

As Betty went back into the drawing-room, she heard the visitor say:--"I
was born with a kind of horror of dogs, and I'm afraid that in some
uncanny way they always know it! It's such bad luck, for most nice people
and all the people I myself have cared for in my life, have been dog
lovers."

And at that Dolly, who had a most unfortunate habit of blurting out just
those things which, even if people are thinking of, they mostly leave
unsaid, exclaimed:--"Your husband bred terriers, didn't he? Flick came
from him."

Mrs. Crofton made no answer to this, and Janet, who was looking at her,
saw her face alter. A curious expression of--was it pain?--it looked more
like fear,--came over it. It was clear that Dolly's thoughtless words had
hurt her.

Suddenly there came the sound of a tap on the pane of one of the windows,
and Mrs. Crofton, whose nerves were evidently very much out of order,
gave a suppressed cry.

"It's only Timmy," said Timmy's mother reassuringly, and then she went
and opened the window. "I hope you've shut Flick up," she said in a low
voice.

"Of course I have, Mum. He's quite quiet now."

As the boy came forward, into the room, he looked straight up into Mrs.
Crofton's face, and as she met the enquiring, alien look, she told
herself, for the second time that evening, what a pity it was that these
nice people should have such an unpleasant child.

Tom came in to say that the pony cart was at the door, and that Jack was
waiting there for Mrs. Crofton.

They all went out in the hall to see her off. It was a bright, beautiful,
moonlight night, and Rosamund thought the scene quite romantic.

Mr. Tosswill handed his guest into the pony cart with his usual, rather
aloof, courtesy; and after all the good-byes had been said, and as Jack
drove down the long, solitary avenue, Enid Crofton told herself that in
spite of that horrible incident with the dog--it was so strange that
Flick should come, as it were, to haunt her out of her old life, the
life she was so anxious to forget--she had had a very promising and
successful evening. The only jarring note had been that horrid little
boy Timmy--Timmy and his hateful dog.

And then suddenly Enid Crofton asked herself whether Godfrey Radmore was
likely to go on being as fond of Timmy Tosswill as he seemed to be now.
She had been surprised at the reminiscent affection with which he had
spoken of his little godson. But there is a great difference between an
attractive baby-child of three and a forward, spoilt, undersized boy of
twelve. About a week ago, while they were enjoying a delicious little
dinner in the Berkeley Hotel grill-room, he had said:--"Although of
course none of them know it, for the present at any rate, Master Timmy is
my heir; if I were to die to-night Timmy Tosswill would become a very
well-to-do young gentleman!"

Even at the time they had been uttered, the careless words had annoyed
Enid Crofton; and now the recollection of them made her feel quite angry.
All her life long money had played a great part in this very pretty
woman's inmost thoughts.

CHAPTER VI

Betty Tosswill sat up in bed and told herself that it was Friday morning.
Then she remembered what it was that was going to happen to-day.

It was something that she had thought, deep in her heart, would never
happen. Godfrey Radmore was coming back--coming back into her life, and
into all their lives. Though everything seemed just the same as when he
had left Old Place, everything was different, both in a spiritual and
material sense. The War had made a deep wound, nay, far more than one
wound, in the spiritual body politic of Old Place. And it was of a very
material thing that Betty Tosswill thought first, and most painfully,
this morning. This was the fact that from having been in easy
circumstances they were now very poor.

When Godfrey Radmore had gone out of their lives there had been a great,
perhaps even then a false, air of prosperity over them all. John Tosswill
was a man who had always made bad investments; but in that far-off time,
"before the War," living was so cheap, wages were so low, the children
were all still so young, that he and Janet had managed very well.

Only Betty knew the scrimping and the saving Jack, at Oxford, and Tom, at
Winchester, now entailed on the part of those who lived at Old Place.
Why, she herself counted every penny with anxious care, and the stupid,
kindly folk who asked, just a trifle censoriously, why she wasn't "doing
something," now that "every career is open to a girl, especially to one
who did so well in the War," would perhaps have felt a little ashamed had
they discovered that she was housemaid, parlourmaid, often cook, to a
large and not always easily pleased family. They never had a visitor to
stay now--they simply couldn't afford it--and she hated the thought of
Godfrey, himself now so unnaturally prosperous, coming back to such an
altered state of things.

Besides, that was not all. Betty covered her face with her hands, and
slow, bitter, reluctant tears began to ooze through her fingers. She had
tried not to think of Godfrey and of his coming, these last two or three
days. She had put the knowledge of what was going to happen from her,
with a kind of hard, defiant determination. But now she was sorry--sorry,
that she had not taken her step-mother's advice, and gone away for a long
week-end. Betty Tosswill felt like a man who, having suffered intolerably
from a wound which has at last healed, learns with sick apprehension that
his wound is to be torn open.

Although not even Janet, her one real close friend and confidant, was
aware of it, Godfrey had not been the only man in Betty's life. There had
been two men, out in France, who had loved her, and lost no time in
telling her so. One had been killed; the other still wrote to her at
intervals, begging her earnestly, pathetically, to marry him, and
sometimes she half thought she would.

But always Godfrey Radmore stood before the door of her heart,
imperiously, almost contemptuously, "shooing off" any would-be intruder.
And yet to-day she told herself, believing what she said, that she no
longer loved him. She remembered now, as if they had been uttered
yesterday, the cruel words he had flung at her during their last hour
together when he had taunted her with not giving up everything and going
off with him--and that though she had known that there was, even then, a
part of his acute, clever brain telling him insistently that she would
be a drag on him in his new life.... She had also been cut to the heart
that Godfrey had not written to her father when his one-time closest
friend, her twin-brother, George, had been killed.

To-day for the first time, Betty Tosswill told herself that perhaps she
had been mistaken in doing right instead of wrong, in coming here to help
Janet with her far from easy task with the younger children, instead of
getting a good job, as she knew she could have done, after the War.

There is a modern type of young woman, quite a good young woman, too,
who, in Betty's position, would have thought that it was far better that
she should go out and earn, say, three or four pounds a week, sending
half the money, or a third of the money, home. But poor Betty was no
self-deceiver--she was well aware that what was wanted at Old Place in
the difficult months, aye, and even years, which would follow the end of
the Great War, was personal service.

And so she had come home, making no favour of it, settling into her often
tiring and tiresome duties, trying now and again to make Rosamund and
Dolly do their share. In a way they did try, but they were both very
selfish in their different ways, and only Janet knew all that everyone
of them owed to Betty's hard, continuous work, and sense of order. Not
that the girl was perfect by any means; now and again she would say a
very sharp, sarcastic word, but on the whole she was wonderfully
indulgent, kindly and understanding--more like a mother than a sister
to the others.

Everyday life is a mosaic of infinitely little things, whatever those who
write and talk may say. Betty had come back and settled down to life at
home, mainly because her step-mother could no longer "carry on." Janet
could not get servants, and if she could have got them, she could not now
have paid them. Then there had been the silly, vulgar but highly
dangerous affair between Rosamund and their too attractive married
"billet". Had Betty been at home that business would almost certainly
have been checked in the bud. As for Dolly, she was worse than no good in
the home. But--a certain secret hope was cherished both by Janet and by
Betty concerning Dolly. The bachelor vicar of the next parish seemed to
find a strange pleasure in her society. He was away now in Switzerland
and he had written to Dolly a minute account of his long, tiresome
journey.

She wondered, with a feeling of pain at her heart, what Godfrey would
think of them all. There had been such an air of charm and gaiety about
the place nine years ago. Now, beautiful in a sense as was the stately
Georgian house, lovely as was the garden, thanks to Janet's cleverness
and hard work, there was an air of shabbiness over everything though
Betty only fully realised it on the very rare occasions when she got away
for a few days for a change and rest with old friends.

This summer her brother Jack had said a word to her, not exactly
complainingly, but with a sort of regret. "Don't you think we could
afford new furniture covers for the drawing-room?" and Betty had shaken
her head. They could afford _nothing_ for the house--she alone knew how
very difficult it was to keep up Jack's own modest allowance.

There had been a discussion between herself and Janet as to whether Mr.
Tosswill should start taking pupils again in his old age, but they had
decided against it, largely because they felt that the class of pupils
whom he had been accustomed to take before the war, and who could alone
be of any use from the financial point of view, could not now be made
really comfortable at Old Place. Betty was ashamed of feeling how much it
hurt her pride to know how concerned Godfrey would be to find how poor
they had become. She would not have minded this if he had been poor
himself. But she hated the thought of a rich Godfrey, who flung money
about over foolish, extravagant presents, discovering, suddenly, how
altered were their circumstances since the day when he had rushed out
of the house throwing the big cheque kind John Tosswill had shamefacedly
handed to him, on to the floor.

* * * * *

After Betty had had her own cold bath, and had prepared a tepid one for
her father, she dressed quickly, and going over to the dressing-table
in the large, low-ceilinged room--a room which, in spite of the fact
that everything in it was old and worn, had yet an air of dainty charm
and dignity, for everything in it was what old-fashioned people call
"good"--she looked dispassionately at herself in the glass.

Her step-mother had said, "You haven't changed one bit!" But that was
not true. Of course she had changed--changed very much, outwardly and
inwardly, since she was nineteen. For one thing, the awful physical
strain of her work in France had altered her, turned her from a girl into
a woman. She had seen many terrible things, and she had met with certain
grim adventures she could never forget, which remained all the more vivid
because she had never spoken of them to a living being.

And then, as she suddenly told herself, with a rather bitter feeling of
revolt, the life she was leading now was not calculated to make her
retain a look of youth. Last week, in a fit of temper, Rosamund had said
to her:--"I only wish you could see yourself! You look a regular
'govvy'!" She had laughed--the rather spiteful words passing her by--for
she had never cared either for learning or teaching. But now, as she
gazed critically in her mirror, she told herself that, yes, she really
did look rather like a nice governess--the sort of young woman a certain
type of smart lady would describe as her "treasure". Forty or fifty years
ago that was the sort of human being into which she would have turned
almost automatically when poverty had first knocked at the door of Old
Place. Now, thank God, people who could afford to pay well for a
governess wanted a trained teacher, not an untrained gentlewoman for
their children.

But Betty did not waste much time staring at herself. Throwing her head
back with what had become a characteristic gesture, she went off and
called her sisters and brothers before running lightly down the back
stairs.

Nanna was already pottering about the kitchen. She had laid and lit the
fire, and put the kettle on to boil for Mrs. Tosswill's early cup of tea.
The old woman looked up as Betty came into the kitchen, and a rather
touching expression came over her old face. She had a strong, almost a
maternal affection for her eldest nurseling, and she wondered how Miss
Betty was feeling this morning. Nanna had been told of the coming visitor
by Timmy, but with that peculiar touch of delicacy so often found in her
class, she had said nothing about it to Betty.

"Well, Nanna? I expect Mrs. Tosswill has told you that Mr. Radmore is
coming to-day, and that he's to have George's room."

Nanna nodded. "It's quite ready, Miss Betty. I went in there yesterday
afternoon while you was all out. He'll find everything there just as he
left it. Eh, dear, I do mind how those dear boys loved their stamps and
butterflies."

Betty sighed, a sharp, quick sigh. After calling Jack she had thought of
going into the room which had been her brother's and Godfrey's joint room
in the long, long ago. And then she had decided that she couldn't bear to
do so. The room had never been slept in since George had spent his last
happy leave for now there was never any occasion to put a visitor in what
was still called by Nanna "Master George's room."

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