Chapter V: Part I: A Reversion to Type (5)

“H’sh--h’sh--h’sh----” He raised a slim hand authoritatively. “Forgive me if I say that you yourself have done, and are doing, more than any one to convince me of poor Jim’s wisdom in having appointed me joint guardian with you to his son. No woman is fit to bring up a boy entirely unaided, in my humble opinion.”

“She can bring him into the world unaided, though,” said Rose bitterly. “It looks to me like all kicks and no halfpence, for the woman, according to you.”

“Spare me a discussion on Woman’s Rights, Rose, I beg of you. The subject holds not the least interest for me, and, moreover, I feel convinced that we should differ widely in our views. All I ask you to do is to let me know when Cecil is to return to his usual routine.”

“When I please, and not a day or a minute sooner,” said Mrs. Aviolet with unconcealed temper blazing in her eyes and heightening the pitch of her always high-pitched voice.

Ford shrugged his shoulders at the ill-breeding and turned away.

They exchanged no farewells on the following day.

In Rose’s mind was an unspecified determination that she and her child would not return to Squires on the same terms as before, and vague dreams of independence and freedom possessed her as the train carried them towards London.

Cecil was openly delighted at the prospect of holidays and new surroundings. He had only once before been taken by her to London from Squires, for the purpose of visiting the dentist, and his reminiscences of the occasion, his continual questions and exclamations, pleased Rose as much as they did himself, in her sudden exhilaration of spirits.

At the terminus, they engaged a hansom cab, symbolical to Rose of “treats” that her mother had given her during her schooldays. In spite of the excited little boy beside her, she could almost have believed herself a schoolgirl again, her married life, Ceylon, and the months spent at Squires, had all become equally misty and unreal.

She wondered if Uncle Alfred would have changed, and could hardly realize that it was years since she had seen him.

“Mummie,” said Cecil, “will Uncle Alfred be nice? Will he like me?”

“If you’re good,” Rose made the traditional reply.

“Has he got a nice house?”

A faint misgiving assailed her. “It won’t be like Squires, you know, darling. Not a big house.”

“But there’ll be a garden?”

“Well--no. But I’ll take you to the park sometimes.”

“Shall I be able to play cricket there?”

“Perhaps. Look, Ces, this is the Brompton Road.”

He looked eagerly out at the lighted thoroughfare. “Isn’t it noisy, Mummie?”

“I suppose it is. I don’t know. One gets used to it pretty quickly. But Uncle Alfred lives in a smaller street than this, and it’ll be quieter there.”

The cab turned into a side street, then entered a narrower road again, and finally drew up before a corner house at the furthest end of the street.

“Goodness! Here we are!” said Rose. She fumbled excitedly for her purse. “Get out, Ces. No, wait--let me get out first, and I’ll help you. Hold the umbrella, like a good boy.”

“It’s raining, Mummie.”

“Never mind, we’ll be indoors in a minute. I’ll ring the area bell, Cabby, and someone’ll give you a hand with the trunk.”

Rose pulled vigorously at the bell handle on the iron railings that surmounted the area, but before the jangling reverberations had ceased, a man had hurried out on to the pavement, now glistening with wet.

“Mrs. Aviolet?”

“Hullo--why, it’s never Artie Millar! How are you?”

“I’m quite well, thank you, Mrs. Aviolet.”

They shook hands, and Rose said, “This is my kid--Cecil. Makes you feel time’s gone on a bit, doesn’t it?”

“I should never have guessed it but for this young gentleman,” Mr. Millar declared gallantly. “You haven’t altered in the very least.”

“Gammon!” said Mrs. Aviolet with a jovial heartiness that she had seldom permitted herself at Squires. “Give the cabby a hand with the box, will you? Is Uncle A. in the shop?”

“Upstairs. There’s a sitting-room on the first floor, now-a-days. Here’s the girl, she’ll show you the way.”

“A girl too! Whatever next?” murmured Rose.

She paid the cabman, took Cecil’s hand, and followed the small maid into the house. Cecil’s eyes widened as they went through the shop, with a counter down one side of it, glass show-cases on the other, an iron safe beyond the counter, and a match-board partition across one half of the room. Beyond this, again, was a dark and steep staircase, which they ascended.

“Why is it so dark, Mummie?”

“Hush! There’s Uncle Alfred.”

A short, stout figure loomed at the top of the stairs, and a small white imperial scrubbed Rose’s face. With Cecil, Uncle Alfred only shook hands.

“Come in, come in!”

His plump, curiously white hand, with a very large signet ring gleaming on the little finger, waved them into the room. It was not at all like any room at Squires. It was hung with a blue paper powdered all over by large silver stars, and there was a round table bearing an aspidistra in a pot on a ruffled lace mat, several books, and an enormous Bible.

A lighted gas-jet hung from the middle of the ceiling and illuminated the only two pictures, one above the mantelpiece, and the other one at the far end of the room.

Both were coloured lithographs, framed alike in black-and-gilt wood, one representing a fleshly Jewish woman drawing water at a well, the other one depicting the prophet Daniel, erect and haughty, amongst a crouching company of innocuous-looking lions.

“You haven’t changed, Uncle Alfred, not one bit.”

“Unless it’s to put on flesh, I daresay not. Well, I can’t say as much for you, Rose. You look fully your age,” said Uncle Alfred cheerfully.

“Well, I’ve been through a lot, one way and another. And my age is only twenty-five, so I don’t mind if I _do_ look it.”

Mrs. Smith had early impressed upon Rose the advisability of “standing up to” Uncle Alfred, and her exhortation had fallen upon receptive ears. Quite instinctively, the old habit of years ago resumed its sway.

Uncle Alfred turned his attentive, shrewd eyes, light green, like a cat’s, upon little Cecil. His teeth were so prominent that the front ones jutted out far beyond his lower lip. Even when he was serious, as he usually was, and when, as now, he smiled--a rather slow, wary smile--almost the whole row was exposed.

“How old are you, young sir?”

“I’m nearly eight.” Cecil always preferred this form to the more direct declaration that he was seven years old.

“And do you know your catechism?”

“Some of it.”

“Very good. I shall examine you one of these days.”

Cecil looked rather alarmed. Miss Wade had taught him the meaning of “examination.”

“No, not now. We are going to have supper now.”

“Do you still have supper in the old basement, Uncle A.?”

“No, Rose,” said Uncle Alfred with dignity. “My servant inhabits the basement, and meals are served to me and my assistants in the dining-room.”

“Assistants?”

“I have two assistants--Artie Millar, who has served me very well indeed, and is now my salesman, and a young lad, who does the work that Artie used to do when he first came here.”

“You must have done well with the business,” said Rose, impressed.

“The Lord has prospered me--to a certain extent,” Uncle Alfred admitted. “If you will go upstairs to the room next to the store-room you will find it ready for yourself and your child. What is his name?”

“Cecil, Uncle.”

“Neither Scriptural nor historical,” said Uncle Alfred sweepingly. “Take him upstairs and wash his hands, and then we can sit at table together.”

Rose obeyed, feeling fifteen years old again.

“Oh, Ces, it’s the very room mother and I had. There’s the old picture of ‘The Soul’s Awakening’--look, Ces, isn’t it pretty?--but he’s got new furniture. I wonder who’s been in here since I slept here last.”

“Where’s the nursery, Mummie?”

“Where--oh, well, darling, you’re going to sleep in here with Mummie, you know. Won’t that be fun?”

“Yes,” said Cecil rather doubtfully. “And where shall I play, and do my lessons?”

“You’ll see to-morrow. Now wash your hands quickly--never mind a sponge; I’ll unpack afterwards, and there’s a towel here.”

“It’s a very _thick_ towel,” said Cecil, examining the coarse cotton fibre, “and there’s no hot water.”

“Cold will do,” said Rose curtly.

For the first time it occurred to her that the months Cecil had spent at Squires were as a lifetime to his childishness. He had come to take the material comforts, to which Rose was naturally indifferent, for granted. And it appeared that to him they were not indifferent.

He was very good during supper, but the cold mutton and salad did not attract him, and the cheese that concluded the meal, Rose would not let him eat. She remembered with a pang of remorse his mug of fresh milk and his plate of biscuits, brought on a tray to the nursery at Squires every evening.

“But I’ll be able to fix it all up with Uncle A. to-morrow,” she thought.

For her own part, she felt herself to have come home again. There had hardly been a moment at Squires when she had not known constraint of spirit, and her dependence upon entertainers whom she whole-heartedly disliked had galled her incessantly.

Both Millar and the young assistant, a pale-faced youth introduced to her as Felix Menebees, had supper with them.

As soon as the meal was over, Rose took Cecil upstairs and put him to bed.

He was quiet, and seemed rather inclined to cry, but Rose effectually checked this by a promise of the Zoo, and by undertaking to come to bed herself in a very short time.

He had become accustomed to a night-light and she was obliged to leave the gas lighted--the electric light was confined to the shop downstairs--after making him promise that he would not touch it.

“I hope Uncle A. won’t find out,” Rose thought, with the old, apprehensive feeling of half-amused guilt.

In the sitting-room, Uncle Alfred was reading _The Pawnbrokers’ Gazette_. The boy Felix had already gone downstairs, presumably to Artie Millar’s old sleeping quarters in the shop beside the safe, and Millar himself, the pawnbroker informed his niece, now lived in lodgings at Wimbledon and only came in to business daily.

“Is he married?” Rose inquired. Certain old recollections, that did not amount to emotions, had stirred within her at the sight of her first fancy.

“He is a very God-fearing youth,” said Uncle Alfred, and after a pause sufficient to mark the significance of the word, he added solemnly, “now-a-days. He is not married.”

They exchanged hardly any other conversation, but Rose felt, with a relief as profound as it was inexplicit, that she and her strange, undemonstrative relative were mutually gratified at resuming a tie that, however severely strained by incongruities of temperament, was yet securely founded upon some essential similarity of outlook.

“Whatever else Uncle Alfred is, he’s alive,” Rose reflected. “And those Aviolets at Squires are as dead as mutton--every blessed one of them.”

IX

It appeared paradoxical that, whereas Rose had resented Squires largely on Cecil’s account, she found the familiar life in Ovington Street, agreeable to herself, resented by her little boy.

After the novelty of the first two days, he fretted and was discontented. Rose took him for walks, but when it rained he was obliged to remain in the sitting-room, with no amusement beyond a small musical box that played “Rousseau’s Dream” over and over again, and some old bound numbers of _The Quiver_.

He missed the garden at Squires, the animals, the rides and drives to which he had become accustomed. As his mother ruefully perceived, he even missed his governess, little Miss Wade. He was not exactly naughty, but lifeless and fretful, and Rose began to see, at first dimly and unwillingly, that her fanciful plan of resuming existence over the pawnbroker’s shop was not destined to mature.

The routine of that life was little changed from the days when she remembered it first.

Breakfast was at eight, and by nine o’clock, Millar had arrived and Felix Menebees had taken the steel door of the shop off its hinges, pushed up the steel blinds, and taken away their grooved supports to the yard at the back of the house. Every day Felix cleaned the windows, threw sawdust on the floor, and swept it up again. The endless task of cleaning and polishing the plate and silver in stock was also his, and Rose gave him the assistance that she had sometimes, in the past, given to Artie Millar. Dinner was at mid-day, and the afternoon work was almost a repetition of the morning’s. At seven the pledge-office shut, and at eight the shop.

It seemed to Rose that even Uncle Alfred’s clients were identical with those she had known years ago. The same shabby women seemed to come in, with the same small pieces of jewellery, faithfully put into pawn every Thursday morning and redeemed every Saturday afternoon. The same depressed and earnest-looking Jews brought in praying-shawls, brass candlesticks, and small brass mortars and pestles, the latter to be redeemed only in time for the Passover. Even the self-same arguments, that had once taken place between Uncle Alfred and various of his clientèle, now took place between them and Artie Millar.

“How much?”

“Thirty bob.”

“Just a moment.”

The moment was the one, or frequently the four or five, during which Millar would examine the gold ring brought by the customer, and find it, in the majority of cases, just below the market weight required for the sum asked.

“Is twenty-five shillings any good to you?”

“No. I want thirty shillings badly. The fact is, the lady friend I’m lodging with is laid up, and I’ve had to get in one or two little things, and there’s been a trouble, like, with the landlord....”

The assistant always ruthlessly cut short these interpolations that as invariably awoke in Rose an eager thrill of interested curiosity.

“Sorry, can’t let you have more than twenty-five shillings; it’s not heavy enough.”

“Could you make it twenty-seven and six?”

Impossible, to Rose, to disappoint that last humble attempt at a compromise. But Artie Millar never seemed to find any difficulty in disassociating sentiment from business.

“Can’t be done. Twenty-five is all I can manage.”

“Very well, let’s have it.”

The client always succumbed, and Artie Millar always concluded by calling out impassively:

“Felix, make out this ticket.”

He seldom asked whether or no the penny for the ticket were forthcoming. His experienced eye told him, apparently, whether it would be produced, or, without words, must be deducted from the money handed over the counter in exchange for the trinket.

Rose felt a little surprised sometimes, recalling her early affair with Millar. Her view of him was now singularly devoid of glamour, and she wondered at the complete absence of the magnetic attraction that each had once had for the other.

“It was youth, I suppose,” she told herself rather wistfully.

It had been youth, also, that had caused her to fall in love with graceless Jim Aviolet, and give herself to him in marriage.

“As bad a day’s work as ever I did in my life,” Rose now summed up that episode to herself with a sigh, adding always with remorseful loyalty, “except for Ces.”

She had Cecil with her all day now, and at night he slept in a cot drawn across the foot of her bed. She felt him to be hers again, as she had never felt him so at Squires, and rejoiced fiercely.

Nevertheless it dawned upon her slowly, but certainly, that Cecil was neither as well nor as happy as he had been at Squires.

Healthy he had always been, but he was not a robust child, and in rather less than a week the difference in diet, the cramped accommodation, and, perhaps, most of all, the absence of country air and exercise, had taken some of the colour from his face and drawn dark lines beneath his eyes.

“Grandmama would say I was selfish, fast enough, if she saw him now, and I’m not sure she’d be so far out as she generally is, either,” Rose reflected desperately.

She consulted Uncle Alfred.

“About how I’m to live, Uncle,” she began abruptly. “What would you say would be a good way for me making money?”

“I thought your husband’s family were providing for you?”

“I mean, supposing I didn’t want them to go on providing for me.”

“Why should I suppose you wishful of casting aside that which the Lord has raised up for the widow and the orphan? Be thankful for their assistance, and do nothing to forfeit it, is my advice to you.”

The Scriptural turns of phrase employed by Mr. Smith rarely interfered with the eminent practicalness of his point of view.

“You don’t _know_ what the life is like, at that place. I’d go mad if I had to go on there year after year. They never do anything but go for walks in the mud and talk about their beastly gardens and their horrid animals.”

“Fashionable folk are very godless, I understand,” said Uncle Alfred.

“I wouldn’t so much mind their being godless--and they aren’t, all--my mother-in-law is as ‘pi’ as can be--but they all seem to me to be half alive. There’s a girl there that they all seem dotty about--I daresay she’ll marry Ford one of these days. Well, I give you my word, Uncle, she’s a perfect _fool_. She can mess about with dogs and things, and shoot, and they all think she’s clever, just because of that. It shows you what they’re like, doesn’t it?”

“You need not adapt yourself to their standards,” Uncle Alfred said, uncompromising rather than tactful. “But I presume that when your boy once goes to school you will make your home elsewhere.”

“I haven’t made up my mind about Cecil going to school.”

“It is your duty to ensure the advantages of a good education for him, Rose. Did I understand that there is a governess engaged especially for him?”

“Yes. The best of everything is their motto, I will say that for them.”

“H’m. Are they interested in antiques--china and the like?”

“They’ve got more antiques in the house, and have had for about a thousand years, than goes through the shop in a twelvemonth,” returned Rose with candour.

“You can take some catalogues with you when you go back,” said her uncle, unmoved.

“All right. If I do go back.”

“If?”

“Uncle, I do want to bring up Cecil my own way, and I’ve been wondering if him and me need go back to Squires at all.”

“My dear niece, listen to me. You are flying in the face of Providence when you suggest quarrelling with those who are prepared to give your child all the advantages to which he is entitled, but which you yourself are not in a position to bestow upon him. Wealth is dross compared to the riches of the Spirit, and the highest in the land are but as the beasts of the field that perish, if they know not Christ,” said Uncle Alfred with great rapidity, “but you should look upon all these things as being means to an end. You can do a great deal for others with riches at your command.”

His eyes glistened covetously, and Rose remembered her mother’s tolerant verdict that Uncle Alfred was always on the near side, unless it was for a Foreign Mission.

“Haven’t they offered to send Cecil to a good school?”

“Not so much offered, as taken it for granted that I’d want him to go.”

“It is most handsome--most handsome. I consider you a very fortunate woman, Rose. And if, when the boy has gone to school, you wish to return to your old quarters here, I am perfectly prepared to come to an arrangement with you.”

“I’m sure it’s very kind of you, Uncle Alfred, but the fact is, I’m not keen on Ces going to any of their precious schools. What I’m wondering is if him and me couldn’t get off somewhere on our own, and if the Aviolets get their monkey up and cut off my allowance, what I can do to earn enough money for us both.”

“Nothing,” said Uncle Alfred crisply. “Nothing. Untrained young women with no especial aptitude can only earn their living in one profession, and that is not one which I could pollute your ears by mentioning.”

“Goodness, Uncle A., you do pass the most far-fetched remarks,” his niece exclaimed, stifling a laugh.

“Let me hear no more nonsense as to your husband’s relations. God is not mocked, and it would be neither more nor less than deliberate mockery to reject the provision that He has obviously made for you and your child. You must bow to His decrees, and let me tell you that the task, in your case, should be a particularly easy one.”

There was a tone of finality about Uncle Alfred’s delivery of his exordium that Rose knew of old.

His verdict, once given, would never be recalled.

“However, thank goodness, I know Uncle A.,” his niece reflected. “His bark’s worse than his bite, and he’d keep us here, worst come to the worst, if I could scrape up money for our board. Only what can I do with Cecil?”

When she had been away for nearly a fortnight, a letter came from Squires. The sight of the thick blue-grey notepaper, with the stamped address on the corner, brought the atmosphere of the place for an instant into the crowded, untidy bedroom, full of cheap and ugly furniture, where Rose stood and read it.

My dear Rose,

I had hoped to hear from you before this. Could you let me know what day you and Cecil are returning, as I must write to Miss Wade?

I hope the boy is well, and not giving you too much trouble, with no one to relieve you of him. We quite miss him here, and I do not like to think of him in London fogs, which I see by the papers are beginning now. Quite fine weather here since you left, though not much sun, and the poor garden is beginning to look dull.

Yours affectionately,
Catherine Aviolet.

P. S. Ford has been down to Hurst, the preparatory school we thought of for Cecil, and was very favourably impressed. He is anxious to talk it all over with you.

Rose was roused to one of her sudden, vehement furies.

“That settles it! I _won’t_ go back there, nor let Cecil either.”

She dashed into the shop, where Felix Menebees had just put up the shutters.

“Is Mr. Millar there?”

“Here, Mrs. Aviolet.”

“I say, I want to ask you something. Is it true that a person--a child’s guardian--has equal rights with the child’s mother?”

“In what respect, Mrs. Aviolet?”

“Any respect,” said Rose impatiently. “If he’s appointed by the child’s father’s will, I mean.”

“Felix, bring me Whittaker’s Almanac,” commanded Millar.

“Oh, will it be there? I never thought of that. It might tell me a lot of things. May I have it?”

“Certainly. If I can be of any assistance----?”

“No, no, I know you’re busy.”

Rose snatched the volume from the hands of Felix Menebees and took it away.

That night she asked Cecil, who was awake and restless when she came to bed:

“Wouldn’t you like to come right away with Mummie somewhere?”

“Away from here?” Cecil asked eagerly. “I’d like to, Mummie. It’s dull here, isn’t it?”

“Poor darling! But you did enjoy the Zoo, and going on the tops of the ’buses, you know.”

“Those were treats,” Cecil observed shrewdly. “Treats are always fun, but when it isn’t a treat day, I don’t like London, Mummie. I’d rather be at home again.”

She realized that by “home” he meant Squires, and that Squires, though she felt it hostile, herself, had been home to his forbears for many generations. She stifled within herself a lurking remorsefulness.

“Wouldn’t it be fun if you and I went in a ship together, to a very nice country place--real country--and stayed there for a bit?”

“Ceylon?” inquired Cecil in a puzzled voice.

“No, no, not as far as that. Perhaps France, or somewhere like that.”

“But aren’t we going back to Squires?”

“I don’t know, lovey.”

“But I want to ride again, and to play cricket. And I want to go to school, where that little boy is who bowls so well.”

Rose realized with dismay the odd tenacity of a child’s memory.

Cecil had begun to cry.

“I don’t like London any more.”

“I’m going to take you away from London, my precious ducky, truly I am.”

“Back to Squires?” sobbed Cecil.

“I don’t know. Don’t cry, lovey. Don’t you feel well?”

She kissed and petted him with vehement affection and secret anxiety at his unwonted fretfulness.

Long after he had fallen asleep, Rose lay wide awake, revolving in her own mind _Family Herald_ schemes for taking Cecil abroad and living there with him under her maiden name, while she earned money for them both by some unspecified means that refused persistently to materialize into a concrete probability.

She could not make up her mind to answer Lady Aviolet’s letter next day, and instead of doing so, took Cecil to Madame Tussaud’s Wax Works.

The little boy was wildly excited, and Rose, herself childishly delighted at his pleasure, let him remain there until it was almost closing time.

“We shall be late for supper, Ces. I hope we get a ’bus quickly.”

Mrs. Smith’s training had not led Rose to look lightly upon the taking of cabs.

They came out into Baker Street to find that a thick London fog had enveloped everything.

“Lord! Catch hold of my hand, Ces,” said his mother, dismayed. “This is the pea-soup variety and no mistake. You could cut it with a knife.”

“Why are there no lights? Oh, doesn’t it smell funny! What’s that bell?” chattered Cecil.

Rose paid scant attention to his excitement, beyond gripping him more firmly by the hand.

“I _know_ there’s a policeman at the crossing,” she muttered.

It took them ten minutes to reach the policeman, and a very great deal longer to obey his injunctions and return to Ovington Street by Underground Railway.

Cecil was coughing before they arrived, and that night, for the first time, had a mild attack of croup.

Rose was terrified.

She had never seen croup before, had not the least idea of what to do, and frantically tore downstairs in her dressing-gown in search of Uncle Alfred’s old-fashioned volume of “The Doctor in the Home.”

It was Felix Menebees who turned up the page for her, as soon as he understood why Mrs. Aviolet was in the shop in the middle of the night.

“I’ll find it, and I’ll get what’s wanted. You go back to him,” said the boy, vigorously licking his thumb in order to turn the pages faster.

He heated water for her, and carried it upstairs, and together they plunged little, gasping Cecil into the bath, and watched his terrified face slowly lose its blueish tinge and his laboured breathing gradually become natural.

“He’s better now, Mrs. Aviolet,” said Felix consolingly. “I’ll run out and get the doctor for you, though, if you like.”

“You _are_ a brick. I’ll never forget it, never! Look, he’ll be asleep directly. I don’t think we need have the doctor now, though I’ll have to send for him to-morrow. Go back and get some sleep, Felix. You’ve been so kind and such a help.”

“Don’t mention it, Mrs. Aviolet,” said Felix politely.

He went back to his mattress beside the safe.

Rose sat by the side of the cot where Cecil, still rolled in his dressing-gown under the sheet and blankets, lay asleep against his pillow.

Her yellow hair, thick and straight, kept on falling across her forehead, and she pushed it back, absently, again and again.

Her eyes were fixed upon the child, her thoughts, in her inexperience, full of the terror of losing him.

“He wasn’t ever ill at Squires ... and if he had been, there’d have been Dr. Lucian, and no difficulty about hot water, either, whatever time of night.... Felix _was_ good! The idea of a lad like him getting the mustard for the bath, and helping me, and everything. But if he hadn’t been there, I’d have been properly done--I bet Uncle A. wouldn’t be any more use than a poke in the eye with a dirty stick, and I suppose the girl sleeps like the dead, the same as all servants. That old Dawson would have come, though, at Squires ... and they’d have had ipecacuanha in the house, for certain, and anything one wanted. A fire in his room, most likely, on a night like this. And Cecil was happier there than he is here!”

Tears filled her eyes.

“If I go back, they’ll send him to one of their schools, and he isn’t fit for it--he isn’t fit for it.”

That impassioned conviction was still there, as vehemently as on the night when she had confronted the Aviolets in the drawing-room after dinner, and had made her scene. But Cecil’s illness, and his wistful and unconscious resignation to the lack of those material comforts of which Squires was so prodigal, caused Rose to suffer a new misery of uncertainty.

In the morning, she asked Felix to go for the doctor.

“I’ll stop on my way to fetch the milk, Mrs. Aviolet. How is he?”

“All right, thank goodness. Only just a little bit hoarse, and coughing the tiniest bit. It was all that rotten fog; he isn’t a bit delicate really, and he’s never had croup in his life before.”

She repeated this to the doctor when he came, a common, overworked little man, who barely listened to her.

“All right, all right. He may get another attack about the same time to-night--or he may not. If he does, make him sick--that’ll cut it short. Croup isn’t dangerous, so you needn’t be frightened. Keep him indoors while this weather lasts.”

“In bed?”

“What for? He’s all right, you know. These attacks are nasty while they last, but there’s nothing to make a fuss about. Good-morning, Mrs.--er--H’m.”

The doctor hurried away, leaving Rose to assimilate the difference between Mrs. Jim Aviolet sending for the doctor to come to Squires, and Mrs.--er--H’m summoning medical assistance to the bedroom over the pawnbroker’s shop in Ovington Street.

“I’ve told the girl that she may light the gas-fire in the sitting-room,” Uncle Alfred announced to her later, “so the little chap can go down there; and I’ve put out Foxe’s ‘Book of Martyrs’ to amuse him.”

“Thank you very much, Uncle,” said Rose, sincerely grateful.

It was Wednesday, when the shop closed early, and Felix Menebees came upstairs after dinner and said that he would play Halma with Cecil. He blushed all over his pale, spectacled face when Rose thanked him ardently.

“It’s nothing, Mrs. Aviolet. Pleased to do it, I’m sure,” he murmured.

“Well, I’ll go out for a bit. I want some things from the chemist. That doctor seemed to think the croup might come on again to-night, and I’m not going to be taken unawares again, if I know it.”

She went out into the damp, foggy afternoon, very raw and cold.

Her mind misgave her more and more as she thought of writing to Lady Aviolet, announcing that she and Cecil would not return to Squires. How could she cope with the economic problem that might ensue?

The streets seemed to be crowded with shoppers, hurrying, as she herself was hurrying, many of the women holding muffs against their cold faces, as though to protect themselves from the foulness of the atmosphere.

“Mrs. Aviolet!”

Rose turned her head sharply and confronted Lord Charlesbury.

“Oh, I _am_ surprised to see you!” she cried, loudly and naïvely. “I didn’t know you were in London.”

“Then I had the advantage of you, for I saw your brother-in-law yesterday, and he told me you were here. Which way are you going?”

“Only as far as the chemist at the corner there, and then straight back home.”

“It’s beastly weather, isn’t it?” he agreed. “May I come with you?”

“Oh, do,” said Rose.

She was rather surprised at the extent of her own pleasure in the meeting. But he, also, had looked pleased.

Besides, it was nice to walk beside a man again, and have the swing-door of the chemist’s shop pushed open for one, and one’s parcel taken charge of as a matter of course.

“Won’t you let me take you somewhere for some tea? It’s such a dismal afternoon, do take pity on me and cheer me up.”

“Aren’t you busy?”

“My business is done, and I have an hour or more before I need think of catching my train. If you’ve no other engagement yourself----”

“Oh, no. I want to get back to Cecil, but he’ll be all right for a little while. I’d like to come.”

“I’m so glad.” His voice really did sound glad. “Now, where would you like to go?”

“There’s an A.B.C. shop not far from here,” Rose suggested.

“That would be very nice. Or suppose we go to that place in Bond Street--Verreys? Do you know it?”

“No.”

“Then do let me take you there. It’s really quite a nice place.”

He raised his stick for an instant, and a hansom drew up beside the kerb. Rose involuntarily recollected the impassioned gesticulations and shrill whistling with which cabs, when rendered inevitable on account of luggage, were summoned to the door by Uncle Alfred.

“Have you heard from Squires lately?”

“I had a letter from my mother-in-law a few days ago, asking when me and Ces were going back there. And I haven’t answered it yet, either.”

A sigh lifted her breast as she remembered the necessity for answering that letter.

Lord Charlesbury’s kind, grave eyes looked at her with their interested gaze. She suddenly felt that it would be a relief to tell him of her perplexity.

When they were seated at the small table in the warm, lighted restaurant, she did so.

“Look here, I want to tell you something. I’ve practically made up my mind--at least I had till yesterday--not to go back to Squires at all.”

Charlesbury put up his eyeglass with a quick gesture that seemed to indicate that he was startled, but made no reply.

“You’ve seen me there, me and Ces--you know very well we don’t fit in there,” she said defiantly.

“Forgive me if I say that I think that could be put right easily enough, if you were willing to try,” he said gently. “And I’m sure your boy is happy there.”

Rose winced. “You’ve hit the nail on the head,” she curtly admitted. “That’s just what’s threatening to upset my apple-cart. Ces was happy there, in spite of that silly ass of a Wade, and he was well and strong there. He’s been ill since I’ve had him up here. Not really ill, you know, but he had croup last night and he doesn’t look like the same kid.”

“Poor little chap! I’m sorry to hear that. I hope he’s getting better.”

“The croup is better--at least, unless he gets it again to-night. But I don’t think London suits him like the country.”

“Probably not. The country is the place for kiddies, isn’t it, and London is no great catch for any one at this time of year.”

Their tea was brought to them, and Rose poured it out, carefully putting milk into the bottom of each cup first.

“Sugar?”

“No, thanks.”

She dropped two lumps into her own cup and stirred them round and round with her teaspoon, absently, while she went on talking.

“I did think of perhaps taking Ces abroad with me somewhere. One can live awfully cheaply at some of those French places, I believe.”

Lord Charlesbury reflectively answered, “I see,” but it was obvious enough that he was puzzled. At last he said:

“D’you know, I can’t help feeling that there’s something at the back of your mind that I haven’t quite grasped. I’m a stupid fellow, Mrs. Aviolet, and you must help me. What’s the idea of leaving England?”

“I didn’t mean to give any one my address. I don’t want Ford to have anything to do with Cecil’s bringing up.”

“But isn’t he his guardian?”

“Yes,” said Rose viciously. “Thanks to Jim’s absurd will, he is. But isn’t there something called the Law of Extradition--I found it in Whittaker’s Almanac--that would prevent him doing anything in a foreign country? I didn’t understand it all, but it gave me the idea of going abroad.”

“I see,” said Charlesbury again, and passed his hand across his mouth.

“No, I don’t think the Laws of Extradition would really help you very much. For one thing, the legal guardian of a minor has a certain right to determine the minor’s place of residence, and I don’t think Ford Aviolet would care about having your little boy brought up in France. In fact, if you think it over I’m almost sure you won’t really care about the idea yourself, you know. Cecil is English, after all. Don’t you really think it would be better for him to grow up in his own country?”

“Of course I do!” she cried. “But I’ve told you before--and I’ve told them, too--that Cecil isn’t fit for the ordinary English public-school education.”

“I remember.”

Charlesbury remained silent, his face reflective.

Rose stared at him hopefully, half expecting that he would present some hitherto undreamed-of solution to her problem.

“Is there any reason to decide that question of the public school at all, at present? You told me at Squires that it wasn’t the general principles of the public-school system that you disliked, but its application in Cecil’s particular case. Isn’t that so?”

She nodded vehemently.

“Why not wait and see how the boy gets on? Why, it’s at least four years and a half before he could enter any public school. Let Ford put his name down for half a dozen places if he likes, and reserve to yourself the right of re-opening the whole question by the time the boy is old enough for it to be thought of seriously. He may have altered in all sorts of respects by that time.”

“And meanwhile?”

“Meanwhile,” said Charlesbury, smiling at her, “let him go back to Squires and get thoroughly strong and healthy. A sound mind in a sound body, you know.... I know you’ll put up with a possibly uncongenial atmosphere for yourself, if it’s for his sake.”

“But that Wade woman won’t stay on for ever. She thinks she’s getting him ready for school, as it is.”

“I hope she is.”

Rose made a quick, protesting movement.

“Don’t be vexed with me,” he said, smiling. “I know you won’t think me impertinent, if I say that I do so want you to go and have a look at Hurst for yourself, one day. Where my boy Hugh is, you know. I think you’d like the headmaster’s wife, Mrs. Lambert. A visit won’t commit you to anything at all, and I think you’d be struck by the amount of individual attention that each boy gets. They’re only little fellows, there, after all, and not more than fifty of them, all told. Mr. Lambert makes a point of their manners and morals, as well as their health. His own boy is in the school, too.”

“I might perhaps go and see the place,” said Rose slowly. “But don’t think for a minute that I’m likely to change about my Cecil. I’m not. As long as he’s what he is, I’m certain he isn’t fit for school.”

“He’s such a little fellow, and they alter so quickly. The faults that trouble you so much now will probably disappear as he grows older and wiser. And do, please, realize that they do really want to do the best thing for him at Squires. Even if they are rather slow, and very conservative.”

“Perhaps the old people do. It isn’t their fault if they’re stupid. But Ford--oh, he’s different!”

Charlesbury smiled at her.

“I don’t think you’ll find Ford nearly so difficult when you get back to Squires.”

She noticed that he was taking her return for granted, but it did not vex her.

“The fact is, I heard a piece of news from him yesterday. They’re probably waiting to tell you till they see you--but I’m going to forestall them, as I’m an old friend, and they must forgive me. Ford Aviolet is going to be married.”

X

Rose opened her brown eyes very wide. “The great Ford! I can guess who it is, can’t I?”

“I expect so,” said Charlesbury, smiling.

“The Grierson-Amberly girl? I thought so. Aren’t the Aviolets delighted about it?”

“I think they are. She’s a distant cousin, you know, and it’s very suitable in every way. I know Lady Aviolet has been hoping for something of the kind; I believe they’ve been rather afraid that Ford would never marry.”

“I suppose they thought no one would ever be good enough for him. I’m certain he thought so himself.”

Lord Charlesbury shook his head. “I wish I knew why you’re so hard on my friend Ford. I grant you that he’s been spoilt, and he has some irritating mannerisms, but he’s all right if you take him the right way. And he has brains, too, which ought to appeal to you.”

Rose smiled frankly at the implied compliment to herself.

“I’m not sure, though, that that isn’t the most sickening thing of all, about Ford. He has got brains. Time and again he could have explained what I really meant about Cecil, for instance, to the old people--and he just didn’t. He could have made them understand things--he’s educated, and I know very well I’m not,” said Rose calmly, “but he never helped me out--not once. The night after you left Squires, them and me had a bit of a flare-up. At least, I was frantic. They were as calm as could be, just thinking what a pity it was I should be so common. I was trying to tell them why I wouldn’t let Ces go to school, but they hadn’t the faintest idea of what I was driving at. They couldn’t understand that a thing which had always been a success in a general way might fail in a particular case. When I tried to explain, they just thought it was because I didn’t know anything about public schools, or because I spoilt Ces, and thought him delicate. Talking to them was like trying to describe a colour to people who’ve been born blind. But not Ford. _He_ understood. He could have made the others see what I meant, even if they hadn’t agreed with me. But he didn’t. Ford hates me.”

“Why should he hate you?”

“I think,” said Rose Aviolet slowly, “that it’s because I’m alive, and Ford isn’t. He can’t get away from traditions. I think he tried to, especially when he went out to South Africa to fight, but he just couldn’t.”

Charlesbury looked keenly at her. “Do you know that you’re something of a psychologist, Mrs. Aviolet?”

“I don’t think I know what a psychologist is, exactly. But that’s what I think about Ford. He just doesn’t fit in. He is a tiny bit different, if you come to think of it--he’s clever, and he likes books, and china, and he reads. And doesn’t he say he’s a Socialist? He breaks away from the Aviolet tradition in those sort of ways, doesn’t he? But what I feel is, that he’s holding on to it with the other hand all the time too. He wants to be alive, but he wants to belong to Squires as well.”

“And the two don’t square. I see,” said Charlesbury reflectively.

“Some people could make them square. _You_ could,” she returned crudely. “But it wants somebody stronger than Ford to do it, and I think he knows it. He’s sort of afraid, isn’t he?”

“That’s, as you say, tradition--holding him back all the time. Perhaps you’re right, and he hasn’t the courage of his emotions.”

“That’s just what I meant,” Rose assented admiringly, “only I couldn’t have described it like that. He hasn’t got the courage of his emotions. And I think, myself, that he’s jealous, downright jealous, because he knows that I have.”

“The things that matter, to you, do matter so very much?”

She nodded. “Ford knows that he doesn’t care about anything in the world one quarter as much as I care about Cecil’s little finger. And I think he wants to care--he wants to come alive.”

“Won’t Diana Grierson-Amberly help him to come alive, now?”

Rose looked at him, as though to see if he were really in earnest, and then uttered a derisive laugh.

“He’ll go down among the dead men for ever and ever now,” she asserted sweepingly. “But they’ll have Aviolet babies, and one of them will cut out my Cecil, thank goodness, and carry on the Squires traditions.”

“You don’t want Squires for your boy?”

“Part of me does, perhaps,” she confessed. “When I see how safe and solid it all is, you know, and when I think of what it means to be poor, and always hard up, and more or less in debt. But I know all the time, really, that Ces would never belong. Not altogether. After all, he’s half Smith. And if you don’t belong, well, it’s like Ford. You’re shamming and struggling and captive, all at the same time. And that’s awful.”

“You are very wise,” said Charlesbury slowly.

“Are you laughing at me?”

“Indeed, I’m not. But I do want you, very much, to be wiser still. Won’t you, for Cecil’s sake, compromise, and come back to Squires for a little while?”

“And have them badger me about school again?”

“I don’t think they will. Besides, you know,” he smiled at her, “I’m still secretly hoping that Hurst and Mrs. Lambert will make a difference to your views. You see, supposing Cecil went there for a term or two, it would be simply experiment. It need not commit you to sending him to a public school later on. It may, even, prove to the Aviolets that your idea is correct, and Cecil is unsuited to school-life altogether. Hurst would be the test.”

“It sounds to me like the thin end of the wedge,” said Rose bluntly. “But, at least, you do see my point of view, and don’t talk as if I were a fool that just couldn’t face parting with her darling.”

“I know very well that you only want what will be best for the boy in the long run,” said Charlesbury gravely.

“That’s all. And it isn’t only the long run. It’s now, too. He isn’t well and happy like he was there. I never realized the difference that fresh air, and plenty of room, and the best of everything can make to a kid.”

“It does make a difference,” Charlesbury said levelly. “And moral fitness depends a great deal on physical fitness, doesn’t it, so that one wants to keep them up to the mark, from every point of view.”

Rose gazed at him, her honest, startled eyes full of a new apprehension.

“You mean that it mayn’t even be the best thing for his--his character, to take him away from Squires? Oh, I never thought of that.”

Charlesbury let her assimilate it in silence, her strong, capable hand twisting the wedding-ring on her big, straight-cut finger.

At last she lifted her head. “Perhaps you’re right. And, anyway, I don’t know how I can stand him being ill, and not comfortable. Though mind you,” she added with sudden warmth, “my Uncle Alfred that I’m with, he’s as kind as ever he can be, and had a fire lit on purpose for Ces--and he’s on the near side, is Uncle A., so it means something, coming from him. But, of course, his house isn’t run like Squires is, not by long chalks, and there’s no use pretending it is.”

“Very few houses are as comfortable as Squires. And I know Lady Aviolet looks forward to having Cecil there again. She told me so.”

“They think I’m coming back all right?”

“Certainly they do. I don’t think it’s ever entered their minds that you should do anything else.”

Rose laughed in a rather shame-faced manner. “Perhaps that’s as well. No one likes eating humble pie, now, do they? I’d just as soon they didn’t know I thought of not coming back at all--if I _do_ go back, that is.”

“I think you mean ‘_When_ I do go back,’ don’t you?” said Charlesbury with his friendly smile. “Why not let me send off a telegram for you, saying you’ll be back by the three o’clock train to-morrow? I don’t mind betting you’ll find sunshine in the country.”

“Wouldn’t that be good for Ces!” she murmured aloud wistfully. “Well, I suppose I’ll do it. One thing is, they’ll be too busy about Ford to think much about me.”

“Of course they will. A wedding is always an excitement.”

“I shouldn’t think my in-laws could ever get excited about anything, any more than a couple of old cod-fish,” said Mrs. Aviolet nonchalantly. “But it’ll be something to talk about, besides Cecil’s going to school and that everlasting old garden. I must get back now to Cecil,” she added abruptly.

Lord Charlesbury asked for his bill, and paid it, in spite of an ungracefully worded attempt from Rose to make herself responsible for her own share.

He took her to Ovington Street in a hansom, and they sent a telegram, on the way, to Lady Aviolet, to announce Rose’s return.

“Good-bye,” said Rose, at the door of the pawnshop. “It’s early closing to-day. I’m going in by the area. Thank you for the tea.”

“I’m so glad to have seen you. Thank you for giving me one of the pleasantest afternoons that I’ve spent for a long while.”

“I haven’t made you late for your train, have I?” she cried in sudden alarm.

“No, there’s plenty of time. I shall keep this fellow on and go straight to the station. I hope the little chap will be all right to-night, and I shall think of you both in the country to-morrow. Good-bye.”

Rose ran upstairs, astonished at finding herself committed to an immediate return to Squires, and yet surprisingly unperturbed at the prospect.

She found Cecil entertaining Felix Menebees with stories of his life in Ceylon, to which she did not allow herself to pay conscious attention. The little boy was not coughing, but he looked pale and languid, and her heart contracted strangely at his sudden flush of joy when she told him that they would go back to the country next day.

“Oh, Mrs. Aviolet!” said Felix Menebees, and looked at her in dismay through his spectacles.

“It’ll be the best thing to put him right, won’t it?” Rose said. “And we’re really only supposed to be here on a visit, you know. But we shall be back again one of these days, I expect.”

She had only the vaguest of projects in her mind, besides the desire to cheer the disconsolate Felix, but Cecil, with one of the sudden, uncanny intuitions of childhood, put the idea into words for her.

“Mummie’ll come here when I’ve been sent to school, Felix. And perhaps I’ll spend some of my holidays here, and tell you all about my school.”

“You know nothing about it,” cried his mother abruptly. “Come on, lovey, say good-night to Felix and thank him for being so kind to you.”

She hurried him upstairs to bed.

At supper, Uncle Alfred learned that his guests were proposing to leave him on the morrow.

“You are very impetuous, Rose,” he remarked with displeasure. “Why not have warned me of your intentions earlier? The girl, by my instructions, has ordered butcher’s meat for to-morrow, entirely on your child’s account.”

Rose entered whole-heartedly into this practical objection to her scheme.

“If it hasn’t been delivered yet, couldn’t we stop it?”

“I will speak to the girl.”

“It isn’t that we haven’t been happy, as you very well know, Uncle Alfred. But I daresay the country will get rid of Cecil’s cough before it’s got a hold on him, so to speak, and they’re expecting us back at Squires.”

“If you’ve told them you’re coming to-morrow, you must abide by it,” Uncle Alfred declared gloomily. “It’s worse than useless to have extra food ordered in twice over. Are they expecting you?”

“Yes, they are.”

Rose dared not admit to the telegram. The sight of a telegram was not infrequent at Squires, but in Ovington Street, a telegram signified a first cause of considerable magnitude. She knew that Uncle Alfred would have considered that a post-card could sufficiently announce the date and hour of her arrival, and in her heart, Rose agreed with him. The telegram had been Lord Charlesbury’s doing, like so much else.

Cecil had no return of croup, and the next day they left the rooms over the pawnshop.