Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes - What Timmy Did

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Janet had proposed that tea should be at five o'clock, so as to give the
visitor plenty of time to arrive. But from four onwards, all the younger
folk were in a state of excitement and expectation--Timmy running
constantly in and out of the house, rushing to the gate, from whence a
long stretch of road could be seen, till his constant gyrations got on
his mother's nerves, and she sharply ordered him to come in and be quiet.

At a quarter to five the telephone bell rang and Jack languidly went to
answer it. Then he came back into the drawing-room. "Radmore's had a
breakdown," he said briefly, "he's afraid he can't get here till seven."

Here was a disappointing anti-climax!

"Then we'd better all go and have our tea," said Timmy sententiously, and
everyone felt, in a dispirited way, that, as usual, Timmy had hit the
nail on the head.

They all trooped into the dining-room, but Timmy was the only one who did
full justice to the cakes and scones which had been made specially in
Godfrey Radmore's honour: all the others felt cross and disappointed,
especially Tom and Rosamund, who had given up going to a tennis-party.

Tea was soon over, for everyone talked much less than usual, and then
they all scattered with the exception of Timmy and Betty. Janet had
someone to see in the village; Tom persuaded Rosamund that they would
still be welcome at the tennis-party; Betty stayed to clear the table.
She, alone of them all, was glad of even this short respite, for, as the
day had gone on, she had begun to dread the meeting inexpressibly. She
knew that even Tom--who had only been seven years old when Godfrey went
away--would be wondering how she felt, and watching to see how she would
behave. It was a comfort to be alone with only Timmy who was still at
table eating steadily. Till recently tea had been Timmy's last meal,
though, as a matter of fact, he had nearly always joined in their very
simple evening meal. And lately it had been ordained that he was to eat
meat. But much as he ate, he never grew fat.

"Hurry up!" said Betty absently. "I want to take off the table-cloth. We
can wash up presently."

Timmy got up and shook himself; then he went across to the window, Flick
following him, while Betty after having made two tray journeys into the
kitchen, folded up the table-cloth. Timmy might have done this last
little job, but he pretended not to see that his sister wanted help. He
thought it such a shame that he wasn't now allowed the perilous and
exciting task of carrying a laden tray. But there had been a certain
dreadful day when...

Betty turned round, surprised at the child's stillness and silence. Timmy
was standing half in and half out of the long French windows staring at
something his sister could not see.

Then, all at once, Betty's heart seemed to stop still. She heard a voice,
familiar in a sense, and yet so unlike the voice of which she had once
known every inflection.

"Hullo! I do believe I see Timothy Godfrey Radmore Tosswill!" and the
window for a moment was darkened by a tall, stalwart figure, which looked
as if it were two sizes larger than that which Betty remembered.

The stranger took up Timmy's slight, thin figure as easily as a little
girl takes up a doll, and now he was holding his godson up in the air,
looking up at him with a half humorous, half whimsical expression, while
he exclaimed:--"I can't think where you came from? You've none of the
family's good looks, and you haven't a trace of your mother!"

Then he set Timmy down rather carefully and delicately on the edge of the
shabby Turkey carpet, and stepped forward, into the dining-room.

"I wonder if I may have a cup of tea? Is Preston still here?"

"Preston's married. She has five children. Mother says it's four too
many, as her husband's a cripple." Timmy waited a moment. "We haven't got
a parlourmaid now. Mother says we lead the simple life."

"The devil you do!" cried Radmore, diverted, and then, not till then, did
he suddenly become aware that he and his godson were not alone.

"Why, Betty!" he exclaimed in a voice he tried to make quite ordinary,
"I didn't see you. Have you been there the whole time?"--the whole time
being but half a minute at the longest.

And then he strode across the room, and, taking her two hands in his
strong grasp, brought her forward, rather masterfully, to the window
through which he had just come.

"You're just the same," he said, but there was a doubtful note in his
voice, and then as she remained silent, though she smiled a little
tremulously, he went on:--

"Nine years have made an awful difference to me--nine years _and_ the
war! But Beechfield, from what I've been able to see of it, seems exactly
the same--not a twig, not a leaf, not a stone out of place!"

"We didn't expect you for another hour at least," said Betty, in her
quiet, well-modulated voice.

She was wondering whether he remembered, as she now remembered with a
kind of sickening vividness, the last time they had been together in this
room--for it was here, in the dining-room of Old Place, that they had
spent their last miserable, heart-broken moment together, a moment when
all the angry bitterness had been merged in wild, piteous tenderness, and
heart-break...

"I had a bit of luck," he answered cheerfully, "as I went out of the
house where I had managed to get on to a telephone, there came a car down
the road, and I asked the man who was driving it if he would give me a
lift. My luck held, for he was actually breaking his journey for half an
hour here, at Beechfield!"

He was talking rather quickly now, as if at last aware of something
painful, awkward, in the atmosphere.

"Others all out?" he asked. "Perhaps you'll show me my room, godson?"

"Wouldn't you like to see Nanna?" asked Timmy officiously. "She's so
looking forward to seeing you. She wants to thank you for the big
Shetland shawl she supposes you sent her last Christmas, and she has an
idea that the little real silver teapot she got on her birthday came from
you too. It has on it 'A Present for a Good Girl.'"

* * * * *

As Radmore followed Timmy up the once familiar staircase, he felt
extraordinarily moved.

How strange the thought that while not only his own life, but the lives
of all the people with whom he had been so intimately associated, had
changed--this old house had remained absolutely unaltered! Nothing had
been added--as far as he could see--and nothing taken away, and yet the
human atmosphere was quite other than what it had been ten years ago.

Just now, in the moment of meeting, he had avoided asking Betty about
George. Betty's twin had been away at the time of Radmore's break with
Old Place--away in a sense which in our civilised days can only be
brought about by one thing, an infectious illness. At the time the
agonising debate was going on at Beechfield, he had been in a fever
hospital close on a month, and they were none of them to see him for
three more weeks. It had been at once a pain and a relief that he should
not be there--yet what good could a boy of nineteen have done?

As to what had happened to George afterwards, Radmore knew nothing. He
believed that his friend had joined the Indian Civil Service. From
childhood George had always intended to make his career in India, his
maternal forebears having all been in the service of John Company.

During the last few days Radmore had thought a great deal of George,
wondering what had happened to him during the war--whether, for instance,
he had at last managed, as did so many Anglo-Indian officials, to get
leave to join the Army? At one moment, before it had entered into his
mind to write to his little godson, he had thought of opening up
communications through George. But he had rejected the notion. The break
had been so complete, and George, after all, was so closely connected
with Betty! Considering that he had not mentioned Betty's brother, either
when speaking to Janet on the telephone two or three days ago, or again
just when he had made his unconventional re-entry into Old Place, it was
odd how the thought of Betty's twin haunted him as he followed his little
guide upstairs. Odd? No, in a sense very natural, for he and George often
raced each other up these very stairs. They had been such pals in spite
of the four years' difference between them.

Radmore and Timmy were now in the kind of annex or wing which had been
added some fifty years after the original mansion had been built. The
lower floor of this annex consisted of one big room which, even in the
days of Radmore's first acquaintance with the Tosswills, was only used in
warm weather. Above it were two good bedrooms--the one still called
"George's room," over-looked the garden, and had a charming view of
bracken-covered hill beyond.

Timmy opened the door with a flourish, and Radmore saw at once that only
one of the two beds was made up; otherwise the room was exactly the same,
with this one great outstanding difference--that it had a curiously
unlived-in look. The dark green linoleum on the floor appeared a thought
more worn, the old rug before the fireplace a thought more shabby--still,
how well things lasted, in the old country!

He walked across to one of the windows, and the sight of the garden below
now in its full autumn beauty, seemed to bring Janet Tosswill vividly
before him.

"Your mother as great a gardener as ever?" he asked, without turning
round, and Timmy said eagerly:--"I should think she is! And we're going
to sell our flowers and vegetables. _We_ shall get the money now; the Red
Cross got it during the war."

As his godfather remained silent, the boy went on insistently:--"Fifteen
shillings a week clear profit is L40 a year, and Mum thinks it will come
to more than that."

Radmore turned round.

"I wonder if any of you have yet met a lady who's just come to live
here--Mrs. Crofton?"

"Oh, yes, we've met her; in fact she's been to supper." Timmy spoke
without enthusiasm, but Radmore did not notice that.

"I was wondering if you and I could go round and see her between now and
dinner?"

"I _think_ I could." There was a doubtful touch in Timmy's voice. He knew
quite well he ought to stay and help his sister to wash up the tea-things
and do certain other little jobs, but he also knew that if he asked Betty
to let him off, she would.

"I shan't be a minute," he exclaimed, and a moment later Radmore heard
the little feet pattering down the carpetless back stairs, and then
scampering up again.

Timmy ran in breathlessly. "It's all right!" he exclaimed, "I can go
with you--Mrs. Crofton has got The Trellis House--I'll show you the way
there."

"Show me the way there?" repeated Radmore. "Why, I knew The Trellis House
from garret to cellar before you were born, young man."

In the hall Timmy gave a queer, side-long look at his companion. "Do you
think we'd better take Flick?" he asked doubtfully, "Mrs. Crofton doesn't
like dogs."

"Oh, yes, she does," Radmore spoke carelessly. "Flick was bred by Colonel
Crofton. I think she'll be very pleased to see him."

Timmy would have hotly resented being called cruel, and to animals he was
most humane, yet somehow he had enjoyed Mrs. Crofton's terror the other
night, and he was not unwilling to see a repetition of it. And so the
three set out--Timmy, Radmore, and Flick. Somehow it was a comfort to the
grown-up man to have the child with him. Had he been alone he would have
felt like a ghost walking up the quiet, empty village street. The
presence of the child and the dog made him feel so _real_.

The two trudged on in silence for a bit, and then Radmore asked in a low
voice:--"Is that busy-body, Miss Pendarth, still alive?"

They were passing by Rose Cottage as he spoke, and Timmy at once replied
in a shrill voice:--"Yes, of course she is." And then, as if as an
afterthought, he remarked slyly:--"Rosamund often says she wishes she
were dead. Do you hate her, too?"

"Hate's a big word," said Radmore thoughtfully, "but there was very
little love lost between me and that good lady in the old days."

They passed the lych-gate of the churchyard, and then, following a sudden
impulse, Radmore turned into the post-office.

Yes, his instinct had been right, for here, at any rate, was an old
friend, but a friend who, from a young man, had become old and grey.
Grasping the postmaster, Jim Cobbett, warmly by the hand Radmore
exclaimed:--"I'm glad to find you well and hearty, Cobbett." There
came the surprised: "Why, it's Mr. Radmore to be sure! How's the world
been treating you, sir?"

"Better than I deserve, Cobbett."

"Can you stay a minute, sir--Missus would like to see you, too?" The
speaker opened a door out of the tiny shop, and Radmore, followed by
Timmy and Flick, walked into a cosy living-room, where an old dog got
up and growled at them.

"That dog," said Timmy in a hoarse whisper, "frightened poor Mrs. Crofton
very much the other day as she was coming out of church."

For a moment Radmore thought the room was empty. Then, in the dim
lamp-light, a woman, who had been sitting by the fireplace, got up.

"Here's Mr. Radmore come all the way from Australia, mother."

"Mr. Radmore?" repeated the woman dully, and Radmore had another, and a
very painful, shock.

He remembered Mrs. Cobbett definitely, as a buxom, merry-looking young
woman. She now looked older than her husband, and she did not smile at
him, as the man had done, as she held out her worn, thin hand.

"A deal has happened," she said slowly, "since you went away."

"Yes," said Radmore, "a deal has happened, Mrs. Cobbett; but Beechfield
seems unchanged, I cannot see any difference at all."

"Hearts are changed," she said in a strange voice.

For the first time since he had been in Beechfield, Radmore felt a tremor
of real discomfort run through him.

He looked up at the mantelpiece. It was bare save for the photographs, in
cheap frames, of two stolid-looking lads, whom he vaguely remembered.

"Those your boys?" he asked kindly, and then, making an effort of memory
of which he felt harmlessly proud, he said:--"Let me see, one was Peter
and the other was Paul, eh? I hope they're all right, Mrs. Cobbett?"

"In a sense, sir," she said apathetically. "I do believe they are. They
was both killed within a month of one another--first Paul, then Pete, as
we called him--so Mr. Cobbett and I be very lonely now."

As Radmore and Timmy walked away from the post-office, Radmore said
a trifle ruefully:--"I wish, Timmy, you had told me about those poor
people's sons. I'm afraid--I suppose--that a good many boys never came
back to Beechfield."

He now felt that everything was indeed changed in the lovely, peaceful
little Surrey village.

"I expect," said Timmy thoughtfully, "that the most sensible thing you
could do"--(he avoided calling Radmore by name, not knowing whether he
was expected to address him as "godfather," "Godfrey," or "Major
Radmore")--"before we see anybody else, would be to take a look at the
Shrine. You have plenty of matches with you, haven't you?"

"The Shrine?" repeated Radmore hesitatingly.

"Yes, _you_ know?"

But somehow Radmore didn't know.

They walked on in the now fast gathering darkness through a part of the
village where the houses were rather spread out. And suddenly, just
opposite the now closed, silent schoolhouse and its big playground, Timmy
stopped and pointed up to his right. "There's our Shrine," he exclaimed.
"If you'll give me the box of matches, I'll strike some while you look at
the names."

Radmore stared up to where Timmy pointed, but, for a moment or two, he
could see nothing. Then, gradually, there emerged against the high hedge
a curious-looking wooden panel protected by a slanting, neatly thatched
eave, while below ran a little shelf on which there were three vases
filled with fresh flowers.

Timmy Tosswill struck a match and held it up, far above his little head.
And Radmore saw flash out the gilded words:--

ROLL OF HONOUR, 1914-1918.
PASS, FRIEND. ALL'S WELL.

The first name was "Thomas Ingleton," then came "Mons, 22nd August,
1914." Immediately below, bracketed together, came "Peter and Paul
Cobbett," followed, in the one case, by the date October 15, 1915, and in
the other, November 19, 1915. And then, in the wavering light, there
seemed to start out another name and date.

Radmore uttered an exclamation of sharp pain, almost of anger. He did
not want the child to see his shocked, convulsed face, but he said
quickly:--"Not George? Surely, Timmy, not _George_?"

Timmy answered, "Then you didn't know? Dad and Betty thought you did, but
Mum thought that perhaps you didn't."

"Why wasn't I told?" asked Radmore roughly. "I should have thought,
Timmy, that you might have told me when you answered my first letter."

He took the box of matches out of Timmy's hand, and himself lighting a
match, went up quite close to the list of names. Yes, it was there right
enough.

"When did he, George, volunteer?" he asked.

"On the seventh of August, two days after the War began," said Timmy
simply. "He was awfully afraid they wouldn't take him. There was such a
rush, you know. But they did take him, and the doctor who saw him
undressed, naked, you know, told Daddy"--the child hesitated a moment,
then repeated slowly, proudly--"that George was one of the finest
specimens of young manhood he had ever seen."

"And when did he go out?"

"He went out very soon; and we used to have such jolly times when he came
back, because, you know, he did come back three times altogether, and the
second time--Betty hadn't gone to France then--they all went up to London
together and had a splendid time. I didn't go; Mum didn't think it worth
the expense that I should go, though George wanted me to."

Hardly conscious that he was doing so, Radmore turned round, and began
walking quietly on along the dark road, with Timmy trotting by his side.
"What I believed," he muttered, half to himself, "was that George was
safe in India, and probably not even allowed to volunteer."

"George never went to India," said Timmy soberly. "Betty wasn't well, I
think, and as they were twins, he didn't like to go so far away from her.
So he got a job in London. It was quite nice, and he used to come down
once a month or so." He waited a moment, then went on. "Betty always said
he was a born soldier, and that he ought to have been a soldier from the
very beginning. As you care so much," he added a little diffidently, "I
expect Betty would show you the letters his men wrote about him. Dad has
got the letters of his Colonel and of the officers, but Betty has the
others."

And then all at once Radmore felt a small skinny hand slipped into his.

"I want to tell you something," muttered Timmy. "I want to tell you two
things. I want to tell you that I'm sure George is in Heaven. I don't
know if you know, but I sometimes see people who are dead. I saw Pete
Cobbett once. He was standing by the back door of the post-office, and
that old dog of theirs saw him too; it was just before we got the news
that he was killed, so I thought he was back on leave. But I've never
seen George--sometimes I've felt as if he were there, but I've never
_seen_ him."

For a moment Radmore wondered if he had heard the words aright. What
could the child mean? Did Timmy claim the power to see spirits?

"Now I'll tell you the second thing," went on Timmy, his voice dropping
to a whisper. "The last time George was home he came into the night
nursery one night. Nanna was still busy in the kitchen, so I was by
myself. I have a room all to myself now, but I hadn't then. George came
in to say a special good-bye to me--he was going off the next morning
very early, and Betty wanted to be the only one up to see him go; I mean
really early, half past five in the morning. And then--and then--he said
to me: 'You'll look after Betty, Timmy? If anything happens to me you'll
take my place, won't you, old chap? You'll look after Betty all the days
of her life?' I promised I would, and so I will too. But I haven't told
her what George said, and you mustn't tell anybody. I've only told you
because you're my godfather."

CHAPTER IX

Mrs. Crofton was walking restlessly about her new home--the house that
was so new to her, and yet, if local tradition could be trusted, one of
the oldest inhabited dwellings in that part of England.

She had felt so sure that Godfrey Radmore would manage to get away from
Old Place, and call on her this afternoon, for Jack Tosswill had told her
that he was arriving before tea--she felt depressed and disappointed
though she had not yet given up hope.

She wondered if he would come alone the first time, or if one of
the girls would accompany him. She felt just a little afraid of
Rosamund--Rosamund was so very pretty with all the added, evanescent
charm of extreme youth. She told herself that it was lucky that she,
Enid, and Godfrey Radmore were already friends, and good friends too.

Twice she went up into her bedroom and gave a long, searching, anxious
look at herself in the narrow panel mirror which she had fixed on to one
of the cupboard doors. That there is no truer critic of herself, and of
her appearance, than a very pretty woman, is generally true even of the
vainest and most self-confident of her sex.

Enid Crofton had put on a white serge skirt, and a white woolen jumper,
the only concession to her new widowhood being that the white jumper was
bordered in pale grey of a shade that matched her shoes and stockings.
Though her anxious surveys of herself had been reassuring, she felt
nervous, and a trifle despondent. She did not like the country--the
stillness even of village life got on her nerves. Still, Beechfield was
very different from the horribly lonely house in Essex to which she
never returned willingly in her thoughts--though sometimes certain
memories of all that had happened there would thrust themselves upon her,
refusing to be denied.

Fortunately for the new occupant of The Trellis House, a certain type of
prettiness gives its lucky possessor an extraordinary sense of assurance
and tranquillity when dealing with the average man. Enid Crofton wasn't
quite sure, however, if Godfrey Radmore was an average man. He had never
made love to her in those pleasant, now far-away days in Egypt, when
every other unattached man did so. That surely proved him to be somewhat
peculiar.

During the whole of her not very long life she had been petted and
spoilt, admired and sheltered, by almost everyone with whom fate had
brought her in contact.

Enid Crofton's father had been a paymaster in the Royal Navy named
Joseph Catlin. After his death she and her mother had lived on in
Southsea till the girl was sixteen, when her mother had pronounced
her quite old enough to be "out." Mrs. Catlin was still too attractive
herself to feel her daughter a rival, and the two years which had
followed had been delightful years to them both. Then something which
they regarded as most romantic occurred. On the day Enid was eighteen,
and her mother thirty-seven, there had been a double wedding, Mrs. Catlin
becoming the wife of a prosperous medical man, while Enid married a young
soldier who had just come in for L4,000, which he and his girl-wife
at once proceeded to spend.

To-day, in spite of herself, her mind went back insistently to her first
marriage--that marriage of which she never spoke, but of which she was
afraid she would have to tell Godfrey Radmore some day. She was shrewd
enough to know that many a man in love with a widow would be surprised
and taken aback were he suddenly told that she had been married before,
not once, but twice.

Unknowingly to them both, the young, generous, devoted, lover-husband, to
whom even now she sometimes threw a retrospective, kindly thought, had
done her an irreparable injury. He had opened to her the gates of a
material paradise--the kind of paradise in which a young woman enjoys a
constant flow of ready money. Though she was quite unaware of it, it was
those fifteen weeks spent on the Riviera, for the most part at Monte
Carlo, which had gradually caused Enid to argue herself into the belief
that she was justified in doing anything--_anything_ which might
contribute to the renewal of that delicious kind of existence--the only
life, from her point of view, worth living.

Her first husband's death in a motor accident had left her practically
penniless, as well as frightened and bewildered, and so she had committed
the mistake of marrying, almost at once, clever, saturnine Colonel
Crofton, a man over thirty years older than herself. His mad passion had
died down like a straw-fed flame, and when there had come, like a bolt
from their already grey sky, the outbreak of War, it had been a godsend
to them both.

Colonel Crofton had at once stepped into what had seemed to them both
a good income, with all sorts of delightful extras, and allowances,
attached to it. And while he was in France, at the back of the Front,
absorbed in his job, though resentful of the fact that he was not in
the trenches, Enid had shared a small flat in London with another young
and lonely wife. The two had enjoyed every moment of war-time London,
dancing, flirting, taking part, by way of doing their bit, in every
form of the lighter kind of war charities, their ideal existence only
broken by the occasional boredom of having to entertain their respective
husbands when the latter were home on leave.

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