Читать книгу This Above All - Eric Knight - Страница 9

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That week the war had drawn nearer. It was hard to realize it consciously. One always thought of wars as being far away. “The front”—that was always in some other land. Now it was England.

The front—it was becoming all England. London—the counties—it was all the front now; only the battles were fought over the land instead of on it. In the daytime the R.A.F. was shooting down his planes—but at night it was different.

At night the bombers were getting through in ones and twos. But at first one couldn’t really believe in the war, even at night. Not even when the air raid warnings would sound, and pencils of light would leap into the sky and wave back and forth, and, sometimes, anti-aircraft guns would cut loose. It was hard to think of England as the front.

In those August nights people would go into the streets and look up. There was little to see. The guns kept banging away, going like the thump of a trip hammer. The guns sounded loud, but when the shell burst there was only a tiny sound like the popping of a small paper bag. It seemed a silly, weak little noise. There would be just that pop; or sometimes there would be a brief pinprick of light, like a star that was born and lived and died in one second.

In the small towns, when alarms sounded, policemen rode on bicycles and scolded the people in the streets. The people would not take it seriously. It seemed somehow sullying and un-British to scurry away from a danger that couldn’t be true. And war right in England couldn’t be true.

Even the most sensible people acted much as if the worst that could happen to England was a sort of thunder shower. These people stood in doorways and looked up impassively, or stayed inside and peeped through the curtains occasionally. Somehow they felt quite safe doing that. They were quite protected from this new sort of rain that never came. Most of them had no understanding of high explosives that ripped stone and steel and flesh, that killed people one hundred feet away merely by the concussion that ruptured the cells and fiber of the lungs and left a man unscratched yet dying.

True, some older men who knew this from the last war thought of it—and yet they couldn’t make it real. A man could die so in a foreign land—but not here, at home, in Britain.

So children raced in the streets seeking hot shell splinters for souvenirs, and women peeked placidly through the curtains, and the A.R.P. men went about scolding the people for spoiling the blackout. A light from one window, multiplied a hundred times, they said, was enough to show the enemy a whole town.

But when daylight came, it always seemed fantastic and impossible, even to the A.R.P. men themselves. True, there would be news of some bombs dropped. But it was always somewhere else—over the Hampshire border, or far out on the lonesome Downs. That was a long way away.

It always seemed a long way away in daylight, and especially such fine daylight. Such fantastically beautiful weather it was. The wheat was bursting into full ear. There were a lot of tiny, blue butterflies over the south grasslands.

And in the fair sunshine it all seemed silly. The Air Raid Precautions people, the Local Defense Volunteers, the parashots, the auxiliary firemen—they looked like silly badged and armletted and dressed-up figures left over from last night’s puppet show. They must have felt it themselves. They looked a little sheepish, wearing their brassards and walking about in broad daylight.

It was all ludicrous in the sunshine—fat men and young lads and meek little clerks and spinster ladies and red-faced old gentlemen tramping around with a dozen strange and makeshift signs of authority. In the daylight. Only at night some people began to feel something. In the blackness they began to feel war, real war, edging nearer and nearer.

Old Hamish felt suddenly merrier as he sat in the park. He had not gone home after all, and he was glad of it. His irritation at London was gone.

The perfection of the greenery, the dappling of afternoon light and shadow, the neatness of the walks, the splashing of colors on the clothes of the children, the uniformed nursemaids—this was as it should be.

This had not changed. London itself had changed—for the worse—had become cheap, tinny. But this was as it had been for as far back as his memory went. And it would be for as long as—as long as——

He put the thought away. You could think and argue pro and con; but Britain would be Britain always. For this was really Britain. And there’d always be parks and little shavers. Therefore, there’d always be Britain.

He felt there was a flaw somewhere in that reasoning, but he liked the comfort of the conclusion, so he turned his mind away from analysis.

He looked sideways at the nursemaid on the bench with him, holding a paper-back novelette. She would read three or four lines and look up. Read three or four lines—look up. It went on regularly, like a conditioned reflex. Reading—then looking to see if the child was all right.

Old Hamish watched the children. They were going round in circles, their hands clenched beside their chests, shuffling their feet and making moaning cries in some incomprehensible sort of game.

They seemed much alike. All nice little shavers. All of them clean and nicely dressed. All extremely beautiful as only infancy can be when seen through adult eyes.

Old Hamish felt the sun on his face. He half-drowsed. Then he wakened to sound as a boy trotted over. He had a fawn reefer jacket, a blue sailor hat, the incredibly delicate skin of the British child.

“We’re playing buzzers,” he said.

“What?” the nurse asked.

“Buzzers. I’m the twelve o’clock buzzer.”

“That’s nice,” she said, absently. “Come here.”

She wet her handkerchief on her tongue and dabbed briskly at the corner of his mouth.

“There,” she said.

The child ran away, and both Hamish and the nurse followed him with their eyes.

Hamish was thinking: Curious—their fingernails. Like the tiny crabs they’d had in the soup at—where—where? Hamish’s younger one must be about that size now. Let’s see—Munich—Coronation—Abdication crisis—death of the old King—before that—must be five exactly.

“How old is he?” he said.

The nursemaid looked up quickly. Hamish saw her summing up his age, his clothing, his fitness to be spoken to.

“Just turned five, sir.”

Hamish nodded delightedly.

“Thought so,” he said. “Fine-looking little chap.”

“Yes, sir.”

She fingered her novelette politely.

“Oh, go on and read. Don’t let me disturb you,” he said. “I must be getting along.”

He got up and marched away sprucely, his cane swinging. Parks, he thought. Wonderful things. A spot of green in a city. You sat a moment, let your senses rest a moment, and there you were.

He went along past the old filled-in trenches of the first scare. Two girls, gay with lipstick, flounced past—one carrying a bottle of milk. Their voices rose, chattering, high. Hamish swung his stick and marched erectly.

This was like old days. London in the old days. Ah—no tin-pan whining and pin-ball parlors and that un-British stuff on Oxford Street then. No boop-a-dooping and hot-cha-chaing. The songs they sang now—like the rote songs of savages. In the old days—there had been songs.

“Good-bye My Bluebell!” Lord, how they sang that when they pulled out for Africa. Just to hum the first bar mentally flashed it all back—the rank smell of the Portsmouth mud flats and the odor of tar and the troopship pulling out. The old Victory lying there, and over in the harbor the sailors on a warship, standing in rows on the deck, their straw hats flashing in the sunshine, stamping their bare feet as they practiced in unison the cutlass drill. He could hear it now—the voice of the cutlass instructor coming harsh over the water, even over the sounds of the troops on the deck below, bellowing like mad:

“Good-bye my Bluebell. Farewell to you.

One last wild look into your eyes of blue.

Mid camp-fires gleaming; mid shot and shell;

I will be dreaming of my own—Blue—bell!”

Ah, days, days. And old songs!

“Under the Bamboo Tree!” Gertie’s song. And as fresh as if it had come out yesterday. You could remember the words, which was more than you ever could of any of the things they sang today. Yet it was ten—twenty—thirty—heavens alive, nearly forty years ago. Thirty-six or seven. Just about the time of the Russo-Jap do. That would be 1904. Gertie was twenty-nine then. That made her sixty-five now. Good Lord, Gertie sixty-five. Gertie!

He looked up suddenly and saw a taxi by the Arch. He waved his stick impulsively. The cab circled over.

“Do you know Millings Garden Lane?”

“Yes, sir. Off the Millings Road.”

“That’s it. Number seven. Seven, Millings Garden Lane.”

He settled back happily in the cab, gay with a sudden feeling of impetuous adventure. There was the faint odor of leather. His mind turned to hansom cabs.

It wasn’t quite the same smell. Then there’d been leather and the good lusty smell of horse sweat mixed in. Saddle soap too, somewhere.

By God, science hadn’t done a very good job of it at that. Everyone shouted about the advancements of science; but they hadn’t made the world any better. Suppose you were God—with a wipe of your hand you could knock all the jittering gadgets away—sweep the world back to the old days? No motorcars, airplanes, wireless, cinemas, howling tin music in Oxford Street. Think of it!

Why, not even the veriest idiot would hesitate for a moment—wave the hand! Wipe it out!

If you could only bring the old world back! Suppose it! Now at this moment, he’d be able to hear the horse ahead of him clop-clopping on the pavement. There’d be the sweet smell of sweat and leather in the warmth. The busses would be jogging along behind the old plugs. And the brewery lorries—with their teams of enormous shires!

Traps and dogcarts and smart coachmen and a tiger on the box—flowing gowns on the women walking under those plane trees—they’d be holding parasols above their heads—and there’d be that gesture of reaching down and behind to clutch the skirt ankle-high as they stepped from the pavement. How graceful that gesture had been—all womanhood, sex, everything, in that half-turn of the hips to reach for skirts, to hold ankle-high. Ankles! What were ankles today?

Why, a man would be a howling maniac not to prefer that gentle, slow-paced old-time world to this madhouse. Of course, there was all this talk of social betterment today. Well—he wasn’t rabidly and foamingly anti-Bolshevik as some men were. Dash it all, of course not. He was as ready as the next to look at it as a liberal-minded man should. But, could you say the common people were better off? Could you say their lives were any happier? That was the test. Did they like living any more today than they had then?

No, honestly, you couldn’t say they were truly and fundamentally better off. Everyone was happier in the old days, the lower classes included. Servants were servants, and, by God, not ashamed of their calling—proud of doing their jobs well. Happier and prouder. And what was progress if it couldn’t make people happier? Making most of the people happier most of the time—that’s what civilization was, wasn’t it? And all this science hadn’t done any good. It had only done harm. Look at wars today, for instance.

Wars had been positively decent things in those days compared to today. They had—well, damn it—good form, in a way. You could mock and scoff at form all you wanted, but where was the scientific substitute for it? Nowhere!

Ah, soldiering in the old days! Tight breeches with the stripe down the leg, and clinking spurs riveted to your heels. The little pillbox hat, and the white stripe down your cheek where the sun hadn’t tanned under the chin-strap. Cavalry was cavalry, and the charge was still part of war. The charge at Omdurman! By God, they didn’t make wars like that any more.

Of course, people got killed. They weren’t opéra-bouffe wars. Indeed not! Chaps got killed just as dead then as now. But it seemed to have some sense. Yet—good chaps went.

Carteras with the damned spear right through him—like the snout of a swordfish! Right through him, and riding up and saying: “I never saw him—I never saw him!” And then toppling right out of the saddle. Fine chap. Six-three and a trojan on the polo field. Then—dead! You couldn’t realize it. It was hard to realize even now that Carteras wasn’t alive. Any moment, you felt, he’d poke his head into the tent and give that great horselaugh. A fine chap! A gallant with the ladies. That time—dancing the cakewalk—Gertie on the table—the bamboo tree!

If you laka me, lak I laka you

Then we laka both the same ...

It would make Gertie happy to have him drop in. He should have done it long ago—a year—two years! One should remember!

“Hi!”

He tapped on the window with the cane. The driver pulled to the curb, and slid back the window.

“Do we pass a pub on the way?”

“Why, yes, sir. There’s several. There’s the Tun and Wheel, and the Green Arms and ...”

“Any will do. Here. Take this pound note and get me a quart of sloe gin.”

“A quart of sloe gin. Yes, sir.”

The man took the note and ground the car into gear.

When there was no answer Old Hamish pressed the sneck of the door and walked in.

“Hi,” he called. “Hi there!”

He waited, the wrapped-up bottle of gin in his hand. There was no sound. Quietly he walked through the kitchen, which was curiously enough the front room. He went along the hall to the “best room.” A fire glowed in the grate.

Then he saw her, asleep, in the rocking-chair that was beside a huge brass bed. Her great bulk filled the chair, pressing against the sides that alone seemed to prevent any overflowing. He saw crutches leaning against the fireside. As his eyes took this in, she wakened. She stared, her head half-turned. Terror came into her face until realization overtook it. She blinked. Her eyes were rheumy.

“Gertie,” he said. “It’s all right. It’s me.”

There was, for a brief second, no apperception in her face, and then the smile bloomed, going beautifully over her generous features.

“The Captain,” she breathed. “Well, bless my soul if it isn’t the Captain.”

“Of course it’s me,” he said, as if to a child.

“Come to see Gertie.”

“Of course! And look! I’ve brought you a present!”

“A present!”

She held out her hands and took the parcel. She nursed it without opening it. Then she shook her head.

“Oooh,” she said, brightly. “I just dropped off in a nap. Pull up the chair.”

He sat beside the hearth, and looked at the crutches. He looked back at her. Then he started. One of her legs was missing.

“My God,” he said. “What is it?”

“What?”

She followed his glance, and then she laughed. The merry, bubbling, heedless laughter that had always been her own flooded the small room.

“I had it took off,” she said, proudly.

She was fully awake now and bright with liveliness.

“Took off?” he said, vacantly.

“Yes. It was me bad leg, y’know. It wouldn’t get better, and always running sores. Nasty things, you know. Not nice, are they?”

“Of course not—no, indeed.”

“Oooh, Captain, it got so’s I couldn’t bear myself. I always was one for being neat and clean—no matter what, you know I always was one for taking pride. And it got so’s I couldn’t bear myself. And we’d tried this and that and everything else. So the doctor says: ‘There’s only one thing. It’ll have to come off.’ ‘Then off it comes,’ I says, just like that.

“So off I pops into the hospital. And pop! Off comes me leg, just like that.”

“But—but why didn’t you let me know?” he said.

“Oooh, I didn’t want to bother anyone. I says to myself: ‘It’s your own leg, and your own mind to make up. So have it off.’ And glad I am, too. No more sores, and nasty things they are, too—you wouldn’t know unless you had some. And it’s all sewed up nice and neat. Only six weeks ago, it was, and I feel better already. Never felt better.”

She laughed again, the rich, gurgling laugh that Hamish always remembered.

“Outside one thing,” she said. She laughed again. “You’ll never imagine. I want to scratch the sole of me foot—and it’s not there. Imagine! Me foot tickles—and I haven’t got any foot!”

She laughed until the ripples spread down her body, and her plumpness quivered all over.

“I know,” he said, reprovingly. “But I’ve always told you, in case of anything, to let me know. Or to get in touch with Mr. Haskell immediately. Why didn’t you?”

“Oooh, it wasn’t anything, Captain, once I’d made up me mind. And they were that nice to me in hospital. The nurses were just lovely. They were so proud of me. You know, they swore up and down that they never had a patient who healed up so fast and so nicely as I did. Never!”

“Yes,” he said. “It’s just—just a bit of a shock.”

“I couldn’t help it,” she said, almost tearfully.

She bent her head and then remembered the package in her hands.

“It’s sloe gin,” he said.

“Fancy you remembering,” she said quietly, without looking up.

“Now, now,” he said. “I haven’t been scolding. Would you like a drink?”

She looked up, and the sly glance came in her face.

“Well, doctor says I shouldn’t. But—there’s glasses in the cupboard. I can’t get around very well yet. That’s why I had me bed brought down here. Would you mind?”

He got one glass and opened the bottle. The clear liquid gurgled. He shuddered at the smell. He held out the glass. Then he sat.

“Cheerio,” she said.

“Cheerio.”

He settled comfortably in the chair. It was cozy here, he was thinking.

“I can’t get over your leg, Gertie,” he said.

“Aaah,” she sighed. “Well, I can’t complain. It did its part for a long time. Danced me along life—what life I’ve had. A shame in a way.”

“That’s what I mean. It’s hard to think of you—and think of you dancing—and—well, it must be hard on you.”

“Oh, Lord love you, Captain, I can’t complain. You can’t be young forever. And I did dance while I was at it, didn’t I? I did dance.”

She nodded and went on.

“What I say is, you’ve got to take life as you find it and make the rough go with the smooth.”

She stared in the fire, and then gurgled happily.

“But I did dance, didn’t I? And my legs were something to look at then.”

Old Hamish did not realize that he was lifting his mustaches with the back of his hand.

“As fine a pair of legs as London ever saw,” he said. “You beat Gaby What’s-her-name—the French woman. You beat her hollow.”

“Why, thank you, Captain. What a nice thing to say. Well, if you ask me, you had a grand leg yourself.”

“Oh, come, now.”

“Don’t be bashful. You did. In them tight trousers with the yellow stripe. Soldiers—they don’t wear them no more. More’s the pity, I say. Say what you care to, I always liked a man to have good legs. And you could see what a man was like them days. Now—well, it’s turned around, and you can see what a gel is like. Terrible, I think. Of course, you could us, too, but it was different with a gel in the profession, wasn’t it?”

“Oh, yes.”

“And we always wore tights. Not half-naked like gels go round on the streets these days. You can’t say we ever didn’t wear tights—and it looked nicer, if you ask me. Decenter and looked nicer.”

Hamish gazed at the fire and nodded.

“Yes,” he said. “Women looked better. And they were better—no silly cinema diets then. By the Lord, some of those old principal boys had figures. You did, too.”

“Didn’t I just!”

She laughed and the sound came warm and almost sexual. Her old frame shook with merriment.

“Oooh, dear. And didn’t I dance. One and two and ... and the cakewalk. Sossidge for tea. Remember? And I Laka You Lak ...”

“I was just thinking of that today,” Hamish cut in. “It’s curious you should mention it.”

“Well, it was my song,” she said, simply.

He nodded, staring in the fire, and hummed the tune inside himself. It rolled the years back. She stared, lost in her own meanderings. Then she said:

“Remember the parody we had on it. Remember, after Cissie sang it straight, then me and the whole chorus:

I saw Bill Bailey

Kissing a lady

Under the Bamboo tree.

Bill Bailey ran away ...”

She sang, her voice small and sweet and at strange odds with the jaunty doggerel. He looked up and watched her face, dimpling and shining over the white crocheted collar with its demure clasp pin.

He jogged his mind sternly. It was no use sitting and talking of old times. He ought to be getting along. It had all ended so long ago—Gertie! It was nice to see her settled in her old age. Old age? She was four years younger than he. But of course, age for a man and age for a woman were different.

“I must be going,” he said, abruptly.

She stopped humming. When she spoke her voice was small—like that of a forlorn child.

“Will it be three years before you come and see me again?”

“Oh, no. I’ll drop past. I don’t often get down to London now, you know.”

She brooded.

“Please stop a while with Gertie. Look, have tea, it’s almost teatime. Please stay.”

He stood, perplexed. It was so unusual. That had been the one thing about Gertie. She’d never questioned or pleaded or demanded his time back in the days when—when they were younger. Gertie had shown perfect understanding. But now—crippled, of course. It must make life lonesome for her.

“Look here,” he said, briskly. “How do you manage now? I think you ought to have a servant—a maid or a good dependable woman to help you....”

“Oh, I get along so nicely. The little gel from next door comes in. She’s such a lovely little thing. She’ll be in from school most any time and get us tea. If you’d wait a minute ...”

“I must go, Gertie. But I’ll look in again. And if there’s anything ...”

He heard the door slam and the sound of a child’s voice, calling.

“That’s Alice now!” Gertie said.

He turned and saw the child come rushing into the room.

“Oh, Mrs. Tindley. I saw ...”

Hamish watched the child halt in mid-speech as she saw him. He smiled.

“What did you see?” he asked.

“The doctor’s motorcar bumped a tram,” she said, flatly.

She edged quietly to Gertie’s side. Gertie put a plump arm around her.

His mind pondered on the “Mrs.” Of course, Gertie had to have some standing in her world. But he had never thought of it.

“This is Alice,” Gertie was saying, proudly. “She does for me, don’t you, dear? Does my bed and makes my tea and everything.”

Hamish saw the child leaning half-shyly against Gertie’s shoulder. The girl’s hair seemed tarnished red in the firelight, and her face, pale above the brown velvet of her dress, seemed brightly intelligent. She was about fourteen—just passing from thin coltishness into the first blossom of nubility. He saw her breasts pushing like fast-growing plants at the flatness of the velvet. He flicked his eyes away.

“Awkward,” he thought, “the way one’s eyes wander. Hardly quite decent, looking at a child.”

He saw that her eyes were fixed on the gold top of his cane.

“Say how-de-do to the Captain, Alice.”

“How-de-do,” the child said.

She put one foot behind the other and plucked the sides of her dress as she made a quick bob.

Hamish smiled. A pleasant child—and well-brought up. That was the proper way. So few children today had the slightest notion of how to behave. Drop curtsies and what not.

He felt suddenly pleased.

“How do you do,” he said.

The child looked up at Gertie.

“Shall I get your tea?”

“Well, now,” Gertie said. “We’re just trying to get the Captain to stay. Perhaps if we asked nicely ...”

“Oh, I might as well stay now,” Hamish said. “I could do with a spot of tea.”

“There,” Gertie said, happily. “Now let’s give the Captain a real high tea. We’ll get something nice at the shop. Just reach me my purse ...”

“Here, here!” Hamish protested. He dropped his gloves in his hat and set the cane by the wall. He got a pound note from the folder in his inside pocket, and held it to the girl.

“Now you get lots of nice things,” he said. “Lots of them.”

“What shall I get?”

“Oh—what you like.”

“You just get what you think would be nice for us, dear,” Gertie said. “Now you show us how nice you can think up things for tea.”

The girl stared at the note in her open hand a moment, then clasped it with a convulsive movement, and ran from the room eagerly.

Hamish and Gertie laughed.

“A nice girl,” he said. “Very nice child. Yes.”

He settled himself in the chair and stared at the fire. Gertie seemed lost in her thoughts. His mind ambled drowsily.

There was a peace here, sitting in this tiny room, the fire glowing warmly. More than that—a sort of ease of mind. An ease—where one could talk naturally of bad legs—and old songs. No artificiality. The hard, boop-booping modern world far away outside the walls.

He heard Gertie laughing.

“Oooh, will you ever forget the time I did the dance on the table that New Year’s—and that Leftenant Cary-Ford?”

“Yes.”

“Ah, now, now. You was always jealous of him. And no reason to be. Because there never was a man you had reason to be jealous of or suspicious of. That’s one thing I can always say. Never! Excepting that one particular case, and you-know-who, whose name we won’t mention. And we won’t speak any more about it. But outside of that, you never had reason to be jealous.”

“Why?” he said, suddenly. “Why did you play straight?”

She wrinkled her forehead.

“I don’t know,” she said. “It’s just I have respect for myself, that’s all. When a gentleman takes a girl, and does proper by her, why I’d think shame on her if she didn’t keep straight.”

“I see.”

He nodded to the fire.

“Whatever become of that Leftenant Cary-Ford?” she asked. Then she chuckled. “Oooh, he was a one, that chap. A devil if I ever saw one. Laugh! I never saw a chap so full of deviltry—like pouring the champagne in that poor cabby’s hat. I often wondered what he does now?”

“Cary-Ford?” he said. “He got killed. He was a brigadier-general. Got it in March, ’18.”

“He did? Oh, now, isn’t that a pity! Such a nice young chap he was—and never a one any fuller of fun than he was. Oh, dear, the war. And now we’ve got another one.”

“Yes,” he said. “And it’s a bad one.”

“Those nasty Germans,” she said. “We beat them once and now we have to do it all over again. But I suppose we’ll be all right. I have a wireless, you know, and I listen sometimes. The B.B.C. sounds very hopeful. But to tell you the truth, I don’t listen very much.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. I can’t take this one very seriously, in a manner of speaking. I suppose it’s—you know—getting along in years. Wars are for young people. When you get along, you can’t take ’em seriously. You get thinking: I may have passed on before it’s all over, and then I’ll never know how it came out. You couldn’t get interested in a play at the theater if you kept thinking you were only going to see the first act.”

He shook his head. Then turned.

“Do you mind getting along, Gertie? Does it worry you?”

“Me?” Her laugh pealed brightly. “Lord love you, no. When you’re young, age seems just too awful; but the further you get along, the friendlier it seems. Of course, I like to think of what jolly times we had when we were young—and I wouldn’t want my life much different. But I wouldn’t want it to be like that now. Oh, no. All that helter-skelter, and troubles and carryings-on. They’re nice when you’re young. But now—I like peace. Just sitting here, I’m comfortable.”

He nodded.

“Yes,” he said. “I understand. It’s very comforting here.”

He rocked and the room was silent except for the spitting of the fire and the ticking of the cheap clock. He poked the fire, and then lifted a few more pieces of coal on it from the scuttle, setting them neatly with the tongs. He felt somehow that this had included him into the home—as if it now possessed part of him that had been his own before.

He sat back and rocked time away. Then, like a puff of quick, cool air, they heard the sound of Alice returning. Hamish sat up and looked round. They heard her dropping bundles in the kitchen, and coming down the hall. She came in, smiling happily.

“Your change,” she said, quietly.

She tumbled the coins into Hamish’s hand. They were warm from the tight clutch of her palm. As she turned, he called her back.

“Here, here!” he said.

He looked among the coins and found a half-crown.

“There you are, my girl,” he said.

She came forward, shyly, and took the coin. Again she dropped her shy curtsy. He saw her looking at him from under her eyelashes in that second. Then she turned and went as if for protection to Gertie. She opened the palm and showed the coin.

“That’s a very good girl,” Hamish said.

Gertie stroked the child’s hair fondly.

“But you should say thank you, too,” she said. “As well as dropping the curtsy.”

“That’s all right,” Hamish said, brightly. “She has very nice manners.”

“She has,” Gertie said, comfortingly, still stroking the child’s hair. “Always watch your manners, and be polite, and keep yourself neat and clean—and watch your figure. And then—some day——”

Her voice lifted dreamily as if she were telling a fairy tale.

“... Some day—you’ll have a nice gentleman to call on you for tea, too.”

Gertie laughed, throatily. Hamish saw again, in a second, the child’s glance come up warm and almost maturely and sexually alive from under her long lashes. He felt that the child must have known it, too, for she ran quickly back to the kitchen.

Hamish avoided Gertie’s glance as he turned back to the fire. It was comfortable, Hamish thought, that was why he had stayed on. What more could a man want than comfort?

Of course, one would soon get tired of it—humble living—this tiny room. Die of claustrophobia. Get to hate the warm, lived-in smell. But—just at this moment of this year of his life, in the city of London—it seemed very comfortable.