Читать книгу The Far Country - Nevil Shute Norway - Страница 5

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Jennifer Morton went home for the following week-end. She was the daughter of a doctor in Leicester, his only child now, for her two brothers had been killed in the war, one in the North Atlantic and one over Hamburg. She was twenty-four years old and she had worked away from home for some years; she had a clerical job with the Ministry of Pensions at their office at Blackheath, a suburb of London. Most of her life was spent in Blackheath, where she had a bed-sitting-room in a boarding-house, but once a month she went home to Leicester to see her parents, travelling up from London early on the Saturday morning, and returning late on Sunday night.

These were duty visits; she was fond enough of her father and her mother, but she had now no interests and few acquaintances in her own home town. The war and marriage had scattered her school friends. She had no particular fondness for the Ministry of Pensions or for her job in Blackheath; she would have stayed at home and worked in Leicester if there had been any useful purpose to be served by doing so. In fact, her mother and her father were remarkably self-sufficient; her mother never wanted to do anything else but to stay at home and run the house and cook her father's dinner. Her father, an overworked general practitioner, never wanted to go out at night unless, in the winter, to a meeting of the British Medical Association or, in the summer, to a meeting of the Bowls Club. This was a good thing, for the night air made her mother cough, and she seldom went out of the house after midday in the winter. As the years went on, her father and her mother settled firmly into a routine of life moulded by overwork and by poor health, a groove that left little room for the wider interests of a daughter.

Jennifer went to Leicester for her week-end once a month, but there was never very much for her to do there. She could not help her mother very much without breaking through routines that she was not familiar with; unless the water jug was on a certain spot upon the kitchen shelf, unless the saucepans were arrayed in a certain order, her mother became fussed and unable to find things, and very soon made the suggestion that Jennifer should go and sit with her father, who was usually deep in the British Medical Journal if he wasn't out upon a case. She came to realise that in her case the barrier of the generations was higher than usual in families because her father and her mother were so complementary; she accepted the situation philosophically, and found the interests of her life away from home.

Those interests were not very startling. She had been mildly in love when she was twenty, soon after the war, but he had gone to a job in Montreal and gradually the correspondence languished; when finally she heard that he was married it was just one of those things. She was friendly with a good many men, for she was an attractive girl, with auburn hair that had been bright red as a child, and the grey eyes that go with it, but she had been inoculated and never fell seriously in love. She knew a good deal about the London theatres, and she saw most of the films worth seeing, including the Continental ones; she could speak a little French, and she had spent two summer holidays in France with a couple of girls from her office. Now she was planning a trip to Italy for her next holiday, but that was nine months ahead, for it was October. She had bought three little books by a gentleman called Hugo, and she was teaching herself Italian out of them.

That week-end was like all the others, only more so. Though it was only October her mother was coughing as if it were January; she had not been out of doors for a week, but she had her household organised so that she could order from the shops by telephone, and what could not be done that way the daily woman did. Her father was more overworked than ever; he seemed to spend most of his time writing certificates for patients of the nationalised Health Service, who stood in queues each morning and afternoon at the surgery door. There was nothing Jennifer could do to help them and no place for her; she left them late on Sunday afternoon and travelled back to London, and so by the electric train from Charing Cross down to her own place at Blackheath. She got back to her room at about ten o'clock, made herself a cup of cocoa, washed a pair of stockings, did an exercise of Hugo, and went to bed.

She worked all next day, as usual, at her office. She left at five in the evening, and walked back through the suburban streets in the October dusk to her boarding-house. Very soon now it would be dark when she came out from work; for two months in the winter she would not walk home in daylight. She was beginning to dread those two months; in mid-winter she got a sense of suffocation, a feeling that she would never see the sun and the fresh air again.

It was raining a little that evening, and she walked back with her blue raincoat buttoned tightly round her neck. She had intended to go out to the pictures with a friend from the boarding-house after tea, but now she thought that she would stay at home and read a magazine and do her Hugo. There wasn't much joy in going to the pictures and then walking home in the rain.

She went up the steps of the shabby old brick house that was her home, spacious with its eight bedrooms, its four reception-rooms, and its range of basement kitchens, and she let herself in at the front door with her latch-key. As she took off her wet coat her landlady climbed up the stairs from the kitchen.

"There was a telephone call for you about an hour ago," she said. "A personal call. I told them you'd be back about five-thirty."

Jennifer looked up in surprise. "Do you know who it was from?"

The woman shook her head. "They didn't say."

Jennifer went to the telephone booth and told the exchange that she could take the call, and learned that it was a call from Leicester. She hung up, and stood uncertain for a moment, hoping there was nothing wrong at home. Presently she went up to her room on the first floor and changed out of her wet shoes, and then she stood looking out of the window at the glistening lamplight in the wet suburban street, waiting and listening for the call. In the yellow lamplight the plane trees in the street waved a few stray leaves that still held to the twigs.

The call came through at last, and she hurried downstairs to take it. It was her mother, speaking from their home. "Is that Jenny? How are you, dear?"

"I'm all right, Mother."

"Jenny dear, listen to this. We had a telephone call from the district nurse, at Ealing. She said that Granny's ill. She had a fall in the street, apparently, and they took her to the hospital, but they hadn't got a bed so they took her home and put her to bed there. The nurse said somebody would have to go there to look after her. Jenny, could you go to Ealing and see what's the matter, and then telephone us?"

Jennifer thought quickly. Ealing was on the other side of London; an hour up to Charing Cross if she were lucky with the trains, and then an hour down to Ealing Broadway, and a ten minutes' walk. She could get something to eat on the way, perhaps. "I can do that, Mummy," she said. "I've got nothing fixed up for tonight. I could be there by about half-past eight."

"Oh, my dear, I am so sorry. I think you'll have to go. She oughtn't to be living alone, of course, but she won't leave the house. We'll have to fix up something better for her, after this. You'll be able to get back to Blackheath tonight, will you?"

The girl hesitated. "I think so, Mummy. If I leave by about half-past nine I should be able to get back here. It sounds as if somebody ought to stay the night with her, though, doesn't it?"

There was a worried silence. "I don't know what to say," her mother said at last. "You've got to be at work tomorrow. Oh, dear!"

"Has Daddy heard about this yet?"

"He's out still on his rounds. I couldn't get hold of him."

"Don't worry, Mummy," said the girl. "I'll go over there, and give you a ring when I've seen the nurse. We'll fix up something between us."

"What time will you be telephoning, dear?"

"It may be very late, if I've got to hurry to catch trains," the girl said. Her grandmother was not on the telephone. "It may be after midnight when I get back here."

"That'll be all right, Jenny. I always hear the bell."

"All right, Mummy. I'll go over right away and ring you back tonight, probably very late."

She did not wait for supper, but started for the station straight away. She travelled across London to the other side and came to Ealing Broadway station about two hours later. It was raining here in earnest, great driving gusts of rain blown by a high wind down the deserted, shimmering, black streets. Her stockings and her shoes were soaked before she had been walking for three minutes.

Her grandmother lived in a four-bedroomed house called Maymyo, built in the somewhat spacious style of fifty years ago, a house with a large garden and no garage. Her husband had bought it when they had retired from Burma in 1924; he had bought it prudently because he had an idea even then that he would not survive his wife, and so he had avoided an extravagant establishment. In fact he had died in 1930, comfortable in the knowledge that her widow's pension, her small private income, and the house in perpetuity would render her secure until she came to join him.

There she had lived, surrounded by the treasures they had gathered up together in a life spent in the East. A gilded Buddha sat at the hall door, a pair of elephant tusks formed a hanger for a great brass dinner gong. Glass cases housed Indian dolls, and models of sampans and junks, and imitation mangoes out of which a wood and plaster cobra would jump to bite your finger, very terrifying. There were embossed silver and brass Burmese trays and bowls all over the place; on the walls were water-colour paintings of strange landscapes with misty forests of a bluish tinge unknown to Jennifer, with strange coloured buildings called pagodas and strange people in strange clothes. Ethel Trehearn lived on surrounded by these reminders of a more colourful world, more real to her than the world outside her door. Nothing was very interesting to her that had happened since she got on to the ship at Rangoon Strand, twenty-six years before.

Jennifer came to the house in the wet, windy night; it was in total darkness, which seemed most unusual. She pushed open the gate and went up the path through the little front garden, and now she saw a faint glimmer of light through the coloured glass panels let into the front door in a Gothic style. She stood in the porch in her wet shoes and raincoat, and pressed the bell.

She heard nothing but the tinkling of water running from a stackpipe near her feet.

She waited for a minute, and then pressed the bell again. Apparently it wasn't working. She rapped with the knocker and waited for a couple of minutes for something to happen; then she tried the handle of the door. It was open, and she went into the hall.

A candle burned on the hall table, held in a brass candle-stick from Benares. Jennifer went forward and pressed the electric switch for the hall light, but no light came. She thought of a power cut, unusual at night, and stood in wonder for a moment. In any case, there was no electricity, and it was no good worrying about the cause.

She stood in the hall, listening to the house. It was dead silent, but for the tinkling of the rain. She raised her head and called, "Granny! It's me—Jennifer. Are you upstairs?"

There was no answer.

She did not like the empty sound of the house; it was full of menace for her. She did not like the lack of light, or the long, moving shadows that the candle cast. She was a level-headed young woman, however, and she took off her coat and laid it on a chair, and picked up the candle, and went into the drawing-room.

There was nothing unusual about that room; it was clean and tidy, though stone-cold. She would have expected on a night like that to see a fire burning in the grate, but the fire was not laid; apparently her grandmother had not used the room that day. Jennifer went quickly through the dining-room and kitchen; everything was quite in order there. A tin of Benger's Food and a half empty bottle of milk stood on the kitchen table.

She turned, and went upstairs to the bedrooms. The door of her grandmother's room was shut; she stood outside with the flickering candle in her hand, and knocked. She said again, "Granny, it's me—Jennifer. Can I come in?" There was no answer, so she turned the handle and went into the room.

Ethel Trehearn lay on her back in the bed, and at the first glance Jennifer thought that she was dead, and her heart leaped up into her throat because she had never seen a dead person. She forced herself to look more closely, and then she saw that the old lady was breathing evenly, very deeply asleep. With the relief, Jennifer staggered a little, and her eyes lost focus for an instant and she felt a little sick; then she recovered herself, and looked around the room.

Everything there seemed to be in order, though her grandmother's day clothes were thrown rather haphazard into a chair. The old lady was evidently quite all right, in bed and asleep; if she had had a fall a sleep would do her good. It looked as if somebody had been in the house looking after her, possibly the district nurse who had telephoned to Jennifer's mother. It seemed unwise to wake the old lady up, and presently Jennifer tiptoed from the room, leaving the door ajar in order that she might hear any movement.

The time was then about nine o'clock, and she had eaten nothing since lunch except a cup of tea and a biscuit at the office. She had a young and healthy appetite, and she had the sense to realise that her momentary faintness in the bedroom had a good deal to do with the fact that she was very, very hungry. She went down to the kitchen, candle in hand, to get herself a meal.

In a few minutes she had made the extraordinary discovery that there was no food in the house at all. The half bottle of milk and the tin of Benger's Food upon the kitchen table seemed to be the only edibles, except for a few condiments in a cupboard. The larder—her grandmother had no refrigerator—was empty but for a small hard rind of cheese upon a plate and three cartons of dried fruits, candied peel and sultanas and glacé cherries, open and evidently in use. There was a flour-bin, but it was empty, a bread-bin that held only crumbs. There were no tinned foods at all, and no vegetables.

Jennifer stood in the middle of the kitchen deeply puzzled, wondering what her grandmother had been eating recently, and where she had been eating it. Had she been having her meals out, or was there something blacker waiting here to be uncovered? She had been down to visit the old lady one Sunday about a month before and her grandmother had given her a very good lunch and tea, a roast duck with apple sauce with roast potatoes and cauliflower, and a mince pie to follow; for tea there had been buttered scones and jam, and a big home-made cake with plenty of fruit in it. She thought of this as she stood there in the kitchen in the flickering candle-light, and her mouth watered; she could have done with a bit of that roast duck.

One thing at least was evident; that she would have to spend the night in the house. She could not possibly go back to Blackheath and leave things as they were. Whoever had lit the candle and left the door open had done it in the expectation that some relation would arrive, and the unknown person would probably come back that night because her grandmother was clearly incapable of looking after herself. If Jennifer was to spend the night there, though, she felt she must have something to eat. Ealing Broadway was only a few hundred yards away and there would probably be a café or a coffee-stall open there; she could leave a note upon the hall table and go out and have a quick meal.

She went upstairs again and looked in on the old lady, but she was still deeply asleep. Thinking to find a place in which to sleep herself she opened the door of the guest bedroom, but it was empty. Pictures still hung upon the wall, but there was no furniture in the room at all, and no carpet on the bare boards of the floor. Unfaded patches on the wall-paper showed where bed and chest of drawers and wash-hand stand had stood.

This was amazing, because Jennifer had slept in that room less than a year before; it had been prim and neat and old-fashioned and very comfortable. What on earth had the old lady done with all the furniture? The girl went quickly to the other two bedrooms and found them in a similar condition, empty but for the pictures on the wall. There was no bed in the house except the one that her grandmother occupied; if Jennifer were to sleep there that night she would have to sleep on the sofa in the drawing-room. There did not seem to be any bedding, either; the linen cupboard held only a pair of clean sheets, a couple of towels, a table-cloth or two, and a few table-napkins.

The shadows began to close in upon Jennifer as she stood in the empty bedrooms with the flickering candle in her hand. It seemed incredible, but the old lady must have sold her furniture. And there was no food in the house. The darkness crept around her; could it be that Granny had no money? But she had a pension, Jennifer knew that, and she had always been well off. More likely that she was going a bit mental with old age, and that she had deluded herself into the belief that she was poor.

She went downstairs and found a piece of writing paper in her grandmother's desk, and wrote a note to leave on the hall table with the candle; then she put on her raincoat and went out to get a meal. She found a café open in the main street and had a sort of vegetable pie. It was dull and insipid with no meat, but she had two helpings of it and followed it up with stewed plums and coffee. Then she bought a couple of rolls filled with a thin smear of potted meat for her breakfast, and went back to the house in Ladysmith Avenue.

In the house everything was as she had left it; her note lay beneath the candle unread. She took the candle and went up to her grandmother's room, but the old lady was still sleeping deeply; she had not moved at all. The girl came out of the bedroom, and as she did so she heard movement in the hall, and saw the light from an electric torch. She came downstairs with the candle, and in its light she saw a middle-aged woman standing there in a wet raincoat, torch in hand.

The woman said, "Are you one of Mrs. Trehearn's relations?"

Jennifer said, "I'm her granddaughter."

"Oh. Well, I'm the district nurse. You know she had an accident?"

"I don't know very much, except that my mother got a telephone call asking somebody to come here. She rang me."

The nurse nodded. "I rang your mother at Leicester as soon as I could get the number out of the old dear. I'd better tell you what it's all about, and then you can take over."

Jennifer moved towards the door. "We'd better go in here—in case she wakes up."

"She won't wake up tonight—not after what the doctor gave her." However, they went into the drawing-room and stood together in the light of the one candle. "She had a fall in the street this morning, just the other side of the bridge, between here and the Broadway. She didn't seem able to get up, so the police got an ambulance and took her to the hospital. Well, they hadn't got a bed, and anyway there didn't seem to be much wrong with her, except debility, you know. So as she was conscious and not injured by her fall they rang me up and sent her home here in the ambulance. I put her to bed and got in Dr. Thompson. He saw her about five o'clock."

"What did he say?"

The nurse glanced at her. "When did you see her last?"

"About a month ago."

"How was she then?"

"Very much as usual. She doesn't do much, but she's seventy-nine, I think."

"Was she eating normally?"

"She gave me a very good meal, roast duck and mince pie."

"She ate that, did she?"

"Of course. Why?"

"She doesn't look as if she's eaten anything since," the nurse said shortly. "She's very emaciated, and there's not a scrap of food here in the house except some dried fruits. She vomited at the hospital, and what came up was raisins and sultanas. She couldn't be expected to digest those, at her age."

Jennifer said, "I simply can't understand it. She's got plenty of money."

The nurse glanced at her. "You're sure of that?"

"Well—I think so."

"I rang up the electricity," the nurse said, "and told them that the power had failed and they must send a man to put it right because I'd got a patient in the house. They said they'd disconnected the supply because the bill hadn't been paid. You'd better see about that in the morning if you're going to keep her here."

"I'll go round there first thing."

"I had to go and get a candle of my own," the nurse said. "I brought another one round with me now." She took it from her pocket. "I looked for coal to light a fire, but there's not a scrap. I got a tin of Benger's Food and some milk, and I got the people next door to let me boil up some hot milk for her, and fill the hot-water-bottles. I'll take them round there and fill them again before I go." She glanced at Jennifer. "You're staying here tonight?"

"I wasn't going to, but I'd better. Will you be here?"

The nurse laughed shortly. "Me? I've got a baby case tonight, but she's got an hour or two to go so I slipped round here to see if anyone had come. I'll have to get some sleep after that. I'll look round here about midday to see how you're getting on. I said I'd give the doctor a ring after that."

Jennifer nodded. "I'll see you then. Is she in any danger, do you think?"

"I don't think she'll go tonight," the nurse said. "Whether she'll pull round or not depends a lot on her digestion. I couldn't say. When she wakes, give her another cup of the Benger's. She can have as much of that as she'll take—I'll show you how to make it. But don't let her have anything else till the doctor's seen her. And keep the bottles nice and warm—not hot enough to scorch, you know, just nice and warm."

Practical, hard-headed, and efficient, she whisked through her duties, showing Jennifer what to do, and was out of the house in a quarter of an hour. The girl was left alone with all the Indian and Burmese relics, with one candle and no fire and nowhere much to sleep.

She gave up the idea of going out in the rain at ten o'clock at night to find a public telephone to ring up her mother; that would have to wait till morning. She went up to her grandmother's bedroom and took off her wet shoes and stockings and rubbed her feet with a towel; then she found a pair of her grandmother's woollen stockings and put them on, and her grandmother's bedroom slippers, and her grandmother's overcoat. She found a travelling rug and wrapped it around her and settled down to spend the night in an arm-chair by her grandmother's bedside, chilled and uncomfortable, dozing off now and then and waking again with the cold. In the middle of the night she ate her breakfast rolls.

In the grey dawn she woke from one of these uneasy dozes, stiff and chilled to the bone. She looked at the bed and saw that her grandmother was awake; she was lying in exactly the same position, but her eyes were open. Jennifer got up and went to the bedside. The old lady turned her head upon the pillow and said in a thin voice, "Jenny, my dear. Whatever are you doing here?"

The girl said, "I've come to look after you, Granny. They telephoned and told us that you weren't so well."

"I know, my dear. I fell down in the street—such a stupid thing to do. Is the nurse here still?"

"She'll be back later on this morning, Granny. Is there anything you want?"

She told her, and Jennifer entered on the duties of a sick-room for the first time in her life. Presently she took the hot-water-bottles and the remains of the milk and went to the house next door, where a harassed mother was getting breakfast for a husband and three little children. As she warmed the milk and filled the water-bottles the woman asked her, "How is the old lady this morning?"

"She's staying in bed, of course," said Jennifer, "but she's not too bad. I think she's going to be all right."

"I am so sorry," the woman said. "I wish we'd been able to do more for her, but everything's so difficult these days. I'd no idea that she was ill. She's been going out as usual every morning. It was a terrible surprise when she came back in an ambulance yesterday."

Jennifer was interested. "She goes out every morning, does she?"

"That's right. Every morning about ten o'clock. She goes down to the Public Library in the Park to read The Times. She told me that one day."

Jennifer thanked her for her help, and went back with the hot milk to make a cup of Benger's, and took it up to the bedroom with the hot-water-bottles. She propped her grandmother up in bed with the pillows and helped her while she drank, but she could not get her to take more than half the cup. "I don't want any more, my dear," she said. "I think I'm better without anything."

The hot drink had stimulated her a little. "Jenny," she said, "I've been thinking. Haven't you got to go to work?"

The girl said, "That's all right, Granny. I'm going out presently to ring up Mummy to tell her how you are, and I'll ring up the office then. I'll stay with you for a few days until you're better."

"Oh, my dear, that isn't necessary at all."

"I'd like to, Granny. It'll be a bit of a holiday for me."

"But Jenny, dear, you can't stay here. There isn't anywhere for you to sleep. Where did you sleep last night?"

"I'll be all right here, Granny," the girl said. "I'll fix up something in the course of the day."

"But there isn't any electricity. You can't stay here." A facile, senile tear escaped and trickled down the old, lined cheek. "Oh, things are so troublesome."

"That's all right, Granny," the girl said. "I'll go and see about the electricity this morning, and get them to turn it on.

"But it's seventeen pounds, Jenny—they came and turned it off. Such a nice man, but he had to do his job. I've been getting on quite well without it."

"Well, you're not going to get along without it any longer, Granny," Jennifer said firmly. "You can't when you're in bed." She thought quickly; she had about thirty pounds in her bank, but her cheque-book was at Blackheath on the other side of London. "I'll get them to turn it on again," she said. "Don't worry about it."

"Oh, my dear, I don't know what to do...."

The girl wiped the old cheeks gently with her handkerchief. "Cheer up, Granny," she said. "It'll be all right. Tell me—isn't there any money?"

The old lady said, "None at all. You see, I've lived too long."

"Don't you believe it," Jennifer said. "You've got a good many more years yet. But what about the pension? That goes on until you die, doesn't it?"

"That's what Geoffrey thought, and so did I. But it was an Indian pension, dear, and when the Socialists scuttled out of India there weren't any civil servants left in India to pay into the fund. Only us widows were left drawing out of it, and now the money is all gone."

"But wasn't it a Government pension?"

"Not for widows, dear. Geoffrey's pension was a Government pension, but that stopped when he died. This was a private fund, that we civil servants in India all paid in to. They had to halve the pensions a few years ago, and then last year they stopped it altogether and wound up the fund."

The girl said, "Oh, Granny! And you gave me such a lovely dinner when I came here last!"

"Of course, my dear. A young girl like you must have proper meals. Although it's all so difficult, with all this rationing. Jenny, have you had your breakfast yet?"

"Not yet. I'm going out in a few minutes, and I'll get some then."

"I'm afraid there's nothing in the house, Jenny. I am so sorry."

"Don't think about it, Granny. I'll get a few things when I'm out and bring them in."

"Yes, do that, dear." She paused. "Will you bring me the little red morocco case that's on the dressing-table?"

"This one?"

"Yes, that's it. Bring it to me here."

The girl brought the jewel case over to the bed and gave it to her grandmother, who opened it with fingers that trembled so that they could barely serve their function. Inside there was a jumble of souvenirs, the relics of a long life. A gold locket on a gold chain, broken, with a wisp of a baby's hair in it. A painted miniature portrait of a young boy in the clothes of 1880, a faded photograph of a bride and bride-groom dated 1903, a small gold sovereign purse to hang upon a watch-chain, three small gold and alabaster seals, a string of black jet beads. She rummaged among these things and many others with fingers that were almost useless and finally produced a gold ring set with five diamonds in a row, unfashionable in these days.

She gave this to Jennifer. "I want you to do a little job for me when you are out, Jenny," she said. "In the New Broadway, two doors on the other side of Paul's patisserie shop, you'll find a jeweller's shop called Evans. Go in and ask to see Mr. Evans himself, and give him this, and tell him that you come from me. He's a very nice man, and he'll understand. He'll give you money for it, whatever it's worth. I'm afraid it may not be enough to pay the electricity, but you can get a joint of beef and some vegetables, and we'll cook a nice dinner for you. Take my ration book with you—it's on the corner of the bureau in the drawing-room—and get some flour and dripping and sugar, and then we'll make a cake; there's plenty of dried fruit downstairs that dear Jane sends me from Australia. So kind of her, after all these years. And if there's enough money, get a little bottle of claret. A young girl like you ought not to look so pale."

"You mustn't sell your ring," the girl said gently. "Look, I've got plenty of money to carry on with—I've got over thirty pounds in the bank. I'll use some of that, and I'll be telephoning Mummy this morning and she'll send us down some more. I expect Daddy will come down to see you tomorrow, when he hears that you're in bed."

Her grandmother shook her head. "Your mother hasn't got any money to spare," she said. "She might have had once, but now with this horrible Health Service and doctors getting less money than dentists ... Sell the ring, my dear. I can't get it on my finger now, I'm so rheumatic, and I shan't want it any more."

"What is it, Granny?" the girl asked, turning it over in her fingers. "Who gave it to you?"

"Geoffrey," the old lady said. "Geoffrey gave it to me, when we became engaged. We went to the Goldsmiths and Silversmiths in Regent Street together to buy it ... such a fine, sunny day. And then we went and had lunch at Gatti's; it felt so funny on the fork, because I wasn't used to wearing rings. And then we took a hansom for the afternoon and drove down to Roehampton to see the polo, because Geoffrey's friend Captain Oliver was playing. But I didn't see much of the polo, because I was looking at my new ring, and at Geoffrey. So silly...." The old voice faded off into silence.

"I can't sell that," the girl said gently. "I'm not going to sell your engagement ring."

"My dear, there's nothing else."

"Yes, there is," the girl said. "I've got thirty pounds. I'm going to spend that first. If you don't like it, you can leave me that ring in your will."

"I've done that already, Jenny, with a lot of other things that aren't there now, because I had to sell them. I'm so very, very sorry. There was a little emerald and ruby brooch that Geoffrey got at Mandalay, and a pair of pearl ear-rings that came from Mergui. So pretty; I did want you to have those. But everything has been so troublesome...."

The girl put the ring back into the jewel box. "Leave it there for now," she said. "I promise you I'll come and tell you if we have to sell it. But we shan't have to; we've got plenty of money between us."

She made her grandmother comfortable and promised her that she would be back in an hour and a half; then she went out with a shopping basket. She got a good breakfast at Lyons' of porridge and fish, and as she breakfasted she made her plans. She had only twelve and threepence in her purse, and her breakfast cost her three shillings of that. Before she could lay her hands on any more money she must go to Blackheath to get her cheque-book and cash a cheque, and the fare there would be about four and three. That left her about five shillings; she had to telephone her mother, but perhaps she could reverse the charges for the call to Leicester. She must keep a margin of about two shillings for contingencies; if she could reverse the charges for the call she would have about three shillings to spend on food for her grandmother.

The sense of crisis, and the breakfast, stimulated her; she could beat this thing. She went out and stood in a call-box and rang up her parents; she was early, and the hundred-mile call came through at once. She told her father what had happened.

"She's got no money at all, Daddy," she said. "She just hasn't been eating—I think that's really all that's the matter with her. She's very weak, and she's in bed, of course." She told him what the district nurse had said about her grandmother's chances. She told him about the pension.

They extended the call. "Can you let me have some money, Daddy? I've only got a few shillings. I'm going back to Blackheath about midday and I'll get my cheque-book then, but I'm not sure if I'll be in time to cash a cheque. I may be too late. I'll be back here in Ealing this afternoon, anyway, before dark."

He said, "I'll send you a telegraph money order at once for ten pounds. You should get that this afternoon. Either your mother or I will come down tomorrow and be with you some time tomorrow afternoon, and we'll see what's to be done then. It's a bit of a shock, this."

"Don't let Mummy worry over it too much," the girl said. "I think she's probably going to be all right. I'm going now to see if I can talk them into turning on the electricity again. It'll make a lot of difference if we can get a radiator going in her room."

In a quarter of an hour she was talking to the manager in the office of the Electricity Commission, having got past his girl with some difficulty. He said, "I'm sorry, Miss Morton, but we have to work to rules laid down by our head office. Two years ago I might have been able to use my own discretion in a case like this, but—well, things aren't the same as they were then. Nationalisation was bound to make some differences, you know. I'm afraid the account will have to be paid before the supply can be re-connected."

She said, "I'm going over to Blackheath to get my cheque-book today. I can let you have the cheque first thing tomorrow morning."

"Fine," he said, with forced geniality. "Then we shall be able to re-connect the supply."

"Can't you do it today?"

"I'm afraid the account will have to be settled first."

Jennifer said desperately, "She's really terribly ill, and we can't even warm up hot milk in the house, or get hot water for her water-bottles. We must have electricity tonight."

He got to his feet; this was too unpleasant, and he had no power to act. "I'm sorry, Miss Morton," he said. "It sounds as though she would be better in the hospital—have you considered that? Perhaps the relieving officer would be the man for you to see. He's at the Town Hall."

The red-haired girl flared into sudden anger. "God blast you and the relieving officer," she said. "I only hope this happens to you one day, that you're old and dying of starvation, and you can't get anyone to help you. And it will, too."

She turned and left the office, white with anger. She shopped carefully with her three shillings, and bought two pints of milk, a few water biscuits, and a little sugar; that finished her money. She thought deeply; she could get some more food for her grandmother and for herself on her way back from Blackheath. It was urgent to get over there at once, before the bank shut, so that she could get her money. She turned and made for Ladysmith Avenue; on the way she stopped and spent fourpence on a copy of The Times, thinking that it would give the old lady an interest while she was absent, and give something for her morale to hang on to during the afternoon.

When she got into the house she took The Times up to her grandmother's room. The old lady lay in bed exactly as Jennifer had left her; her eyes were shut, and though she was breathing steadily it seemed to the girl that the respiration was now fainter than it had been when she had been lying in the same way on the previous night. Jennifer spoke to her, but she did not answer; however, when she reached into the bed to get the hot-water-bottles the old lady opened her eyes.

"Just getting your hot-water-bottles, Granny," the girl said. "I'll make you another cup of Benger's, too. I brought you The Times."

"So sweet of you," her grandmother said. "I had to give up The Times, but I always go down every morning to look at the Births, Deaths and Marriages. It's so easy to miss things, and then you write to somebody and find they're dead."

The girl said, "I'm just going to get these water-bottles filled, and make you another hot drink. I'll be back in about five minutes."

When she got back the old lady was reading the front page of The Times. Jennifer packed the hot-water-bottles around her and got her to take the best part of the cup of the milk drink, and to eat about half of one biscuit. While she was coaxing her to eat the rest there was a knock at the front door; she went downstairs, and it was the postman with a heavy parcel.

She took it from him, and carried it up to show to her grandmother, with an instinct that anything that would stimulate and arouse her interest was good. "Look what the post's brought," she said. "Myer's Emporium. What have you been buying?"

The old lady said, "Oh, that's dear Jane. How sweet of her. It's a parcel from Australia, Jenny. She sends one every month."

"It's got an English postmark, Granny," the girl said.

"I know, my dear. She puts the order in Australia and the food comes from England somehow or other. So funny."

"Shall I open it?"

"Please. I must write and thank her." The parcel contained six cartons of dried fruit and a tin of lard; Jennifer now knew where the cartons she had seen in the larder came from. She asked, "Granny, who is Aunt Jane? She isn't Mother's sister, is she?"

"No, my dear. Your mother never had a sister. She's my niece, my brother Tom's daughter."

"She's the one who quarrelled with the family because she married an Australian?"

"Yes, dear. Tom and Margaret were very much upset, but it's turned out very well. I liked him, but Tom found him drinking white port with Jeffries, the butler, in the middle of the morning, and he used to swear dreadfully, and never saluted anybody. So different to our Army."

Jennifer smiled. "What was Aunt Jane like?"

"Such a sweet girl—but very stubborn. Once she decided to do a thing there was no arguing with her; she had to see it through. I sometimes think that you're a little like her, Jenny."

Time was slipping by; if she were to get money that day she could not linger. "I'm going over to Blackheath now," she said. "I'll get a few things for the night, and I'll get some money and some bits of things we need. I'll be back about tea-time, but I'll leave a note explaining everything to the nurse. Will you be all right, do you think?"

"I'll be quite all right, my dear. Don't hurry; I shall get a little sleep, I expect."

Jennifer went downstairs and left a note on the hall table for the nurse, and travelled across London to her rooms at Blackheath. She got there about midday, packed a bag, went to the bank, and rang up her office to say that she would have to take the rest of the week off to look after her grandmother. Then she snatched a quick meal in a café, and travelled back to Ealing.

She was lucky in that when she reached the house the doctor and the nurse were both there, with her grandmother. She waited in the hall till they came down from the bedroom; a few letters had arrived, two that seemed to be bills and one air-mailed from Australia. That would be Jane Dorman, Jennifer thought, who had married the Australian who drank port with the butler and never saluted anybody, and who still sent parcels of dried fruit to her aunt after thirty years. They must have been very close at one time for affection to have endured so long.

She looked round for the candle, but she could not find it; perhaps the doctor and the nurse had it upstairs with them. She stood in the dusk of the hall, waiting.

Presently they came out of the room upstairs, and the staircase was suddenly flooded with light as the nurse turned the switch. Jennifer went forward to meet them. "The electricity's come on!" she exclaimed.

"Of course. Didn't you go and see them?"

"They said they wouldn't turn it on until I paid the bill."

"The man came and turned it on this afternoon." They left that for the moment, and the nurse said, "This is Dr. Thompson."

He was a fairly young man, not more than about thirty; he looked tired and overworked. He said, "You're Miss Morton? Let's go into one of these rooms."

They went into the drawing-room; it was as cold as a tomb, but anyway the light was on. Surrounded by the Burmese relics the girl asked, "How is she, Doctor?"

The young man glanced at her, summing her up. "She's very ill," he said. "Very ill indeed. You know what's the matter with her, of course?"

Jennifer said, "She's got no money."

"Yes. Malnutrition. Starvation, if you like." He glanced around the drawing-room, taking in the worn Indian carpet of fine quality, the old-fashioned, comfortable furniture, the sampler as a fire-screen, the multitude of ornaments and bric-a-brac. "She wouldn't sell any of this stuff, I suppose."

"She's very set in her ways," the girl said. "She likes to have her own things round her."

"I know." He glanced at her. "Are you going to keep her here?"

"Could we get her into a hospital?"

He shook his head. "I don't think there's a chance. I don't think any hospital would take her. You see, the beds are all needed for urgent cases; she might be bedridden for years if she gets over the immediate trouble."

"She must have paid a lot of money into hospitals in her time," said Jennifer. "She was always subscribing to things."

"I'm afraid that doesn't count for much in the Health Service. Things are different now, you know."

"My father's coming down from Leicester tomorrow," the girl said. "He's a doctor. I think he'll have to decide what to do. I'll stay with her tonight in any case."

"You'll be alone here, will you?"

"Yes." She hesitated, and then she said, "Do you think she'll die?"

"I hope not. Would you be very frightened if she did die, and you were alone with her?"

"I've never seen anybody die," the girl said evenly. "I hope that I'd be able to do what was best for her."

"You'll be all right...." He bit his lip. "I don't think she'll die tonight," he said. "She's definitely weaker than when I saw her yesterday, I'm afraid.... Nurse here has to get some sleep tonight. I tell you what I'll do. I'll look in again myself about eleven, just before I go to bed. In the meantime, this is what she's got to have."

He gave her her instructions, and went off with the nurse; Jennifer went up to her grandmother's bedroom. It was warm with an electric radiator burning; the old lady lay in bed, but turned her eyes to the girl.

"I see you've got a radiator going, Granny," she said. "That's much better."

"It was that nice man," she said weakly. "I heard somebody moving around downstairs, and I thought it was you, Jenny. And then somebody knocked at my door, and it was him. He said he hoped he wasn't intruding but he thought I'd like the radiator, and he came in and turned it on and saw that it was burning properly. And then he said he hoped I'd soon be better."

"How nice of him," the girl said.

She made her grandmother comfortable and went out quickly to get to the shops before they shut. She bought the things that the doctor had told her to buy and a little food for her own supper. On her way back to the house she passed the Electricity Department, and saw a light still burning in the office window, though the door was locked. She stopped, and rang the bell; the manager himself came to the door of the shop.

He peered at her in the half light, his eyes dazzled by the strong light at his desk. "It's after hours," he said. "The office is closed now. You'll have to come back in the morning."

"It's me—Jennifer Morton," she said. "I just looked in to thank you for turning on the electricity."

He recognised her then. "Oh, that's all right," he said. "I rang up head office, and they gave permission." In fact, he had sat for an hour staring blankly at the calendar, unable to work, and with the girl's words searing in his mind. Then he had rung up his supervisor and had repeated to him what Jennifer had said. He had added a few words of his own, saying that he had checked with the district nurse, and he was going to re-connect the supply. He had said quietly that they could take whatever action seemed best to them; if the job required behaviour of that sort from him, he didn't want the job. He was now waiting for the storm to break, uncertain of his own future, unsettled and reluctant to go home and tell his wife.

"I've got my cheque-book here," she said. "I can pay the bill now, if you like."

It might soothe the supervisor if the cheque were dated on the same day as his own revolt. He showed her into the office and she sat down and wrote out the cheque; in turn he wrote out the receipt, stamped it, and gave it to her. "How is your grandmother tonight?" he asked.

"Not too good," she replied. "She's got a better chance now that we can get some warmth into the house. I'm sorry I said that to you this morning. One gets a bit strung up."

"Oh, that's all right," he said. "Can't you get her into the hospital?"

The girl shook her head. "She's too old," she said a little bitterly. "They don't want people in there who are just dying of old age. She's lost her pension because we've left India and the fund's run dry. She can't get an old age pension under the new scheme because she hasn't contributed to it for fifteen years, or something. She's spent all her capital in trying to live, and sold most of her furniture, and the bank won't give her any more upon the house. There's no place for old ladies in the brave new world."

He tightened his lips, conscious of his own dark fears. "I know," he said. "It's getting worse each year. Sometimes one feels the only thing to do is to break out and get away while you're still young enough. Try it again in Canada, perhaps, or in South Africa."

She looked at him, startled. "Is that what you're thinking of?"

"If I was alone I'd go, I think," he said. "But it's the children—that's what makes it difficult. They've got to have a home...."

She had no time to stay and talk to him; she cut it short and hurried back to the house. There was a telegram there now from her father saying that he was coming down next day without her mother, who was not so well, and enclosing a telegraphed money order for ten pounds. She put that in her bag and glanced at the two bills, one for groceries and one for milk, each with a politely-worded note at the bottom that was a threat of action. No good worrying her grandmother with those. She took off her coat and hat, and went upstairs with the letter from Australia in her hand.

In the bedroom the old lady was still lying in much the same position. She was awake and she knew Jennifer, but she was breathing now in an irregular manner, with three or four deep breaths and then a pause. There was nothing that Jennifer could do about it; the only thing was to carry on and do what the doctor had told her. It was time for another drink of warm milk, this time with brandy in it.

She gave the air-mail letter to her grandmother. "There's an air-mail letter for you," she said brightly. "Like me to get your glasses?"

"Please, dear. Did you see where it was from?"

"It's from Australia."

The old lady took the spectacle case with trembling hands, fumbled a little and put the glasses on, and looked at the letter. "Yes, that's from dear Jane. So sweet of her to keep on writing, and sending me such lovely parcels. We must make a cake, Jenny. Such lovely things...."

Jennifer went downstairs and warmed the milk up in a saucepan on the stove and made herself a cup of tea at the same time; she mixed the Benger's Food and added the brandy, and carried both cups up to the bedroom. She found her grandmother staring bewildered at a slip of paper in her hand, the envelope and the letter lying on the counter-pane that covered her.

"Jenny," she said weakly. "Jenny, come here a minute. What is this?"

The girl took it from her. It clearly had to do with banking; it was like a cheque and yet it was not quite an ordinary cheque. The words were clear enough, however. "It's a sort of cheque, Granny," she said. "It's made payable to you, for five hundred pounds sterling. I'm not quite sure what sterling means. It seems to be signed by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. It's as if the bank was giving you five hundred pounds."

The old lady said, "It's from Jane. She says so in the letter. Oh, my dear—we'll have to send it back. Such a sweet child, but she can't possibly afford it. She ought not to have done such a thing."

"If she's sent it to you, perhaps she can afford it," the girl said.

"Oh, my dear, she's only a farmer's wife, living in quite a poor way, I'm afraid, and with all those children. Wherever would she get five hundred pounds?"

Jennifer said, "May I see her letter, Granny?"

"Of course, my dear."

It was written in the round schoolgirl hand that Jane Dorman had never lost. The first four pages dealt with news of the older children, news of Angela at Melbourne University, news of Jack's rheumatism, and news of the spring weather. It went on,

"Jack and I have been a little worried by the part of your letter where you said you hadn't bought a new vest, and we have been wondering if rising prices are making things difficult for you. Out here everything is going up in price, too, but we station people are all making so much money that we hardly notice it. Jack's wool cheque this year was for twenty-two thousand pounds, and though most of that will go in tax of course it means that we shall still have about seven thousand for ourselves after paying all the expenses of the property.

"We don't know what's the right thing to do with so much money. We can't expect it to go on, of course; wool will come down again next year and it's quite right that it should. It could fall to a quarter of the present price and not hurt us; the bank was all paid off last year and we've never spent much on ourselves, and we're too old now to do much gadding about. We're going down to Melbourne for a week or ten days after Christmas to do some shopping and Jack still talks of a trip home, but I don't suppose we'll really get much further than the Windsor Hotel.

"I'm sending with this letter a little bank draft for five hundred pounds, with our dear love. It doesn't mean anything to us now, because we have more than we can ever spend. If you don't need it, will you give it to some charity in England for us? But we've been really worried about you since reading that letter about your vest, and Jack and I owe so much to you for all you did to help us thirty years ago. So if this will make things easier for you, will you take it with our very dearest love?

"Your affectionate niece,

"Jane."

The girl laid the letter down. "It's all right, Granny," she said a little unsteadily. "She's got all the money in the world. They're making twenty-two thousand pounds a year—at least, I think that's what she means."

"Nonsense, my dear," the old lady said weakly. "She's only a farmer's wife. Stations, they call them in Australia, but it's only a big farm and not very good land, I'm told. She's made some mistake."

The girl wrinkled her brows, and glanced at the letter again. "I don't think it's a mistake—honestly. It's what she says, and I was reading something about this in the paper the other day." She laid the letter down. "Look, drink your milk before it gets cold."

She held the old lady upright with one arm, and raised the cup to her lips. She could not get her to drink much, and the effort seemed to tire her, because she lay back on the pillows with her eyes closed, disinclined to talk. Jennifer removed the letter and the envelope to a table at the bedside and put the bankers' draft upon the dressing-table, carefully weighted with an embossed Indian silver hand-mirror.

She went downstairs to get her own supper. Meat and eggs were out of the question, of course, but she had got herself a piece of cod and some potatoes and carrots. She put the cod on to boil because she would not encroach upon her grandmother's fat ration or open the tin of lard, and she peeled some of the potatoes and carrots to boil those. This insipid meal was normal to her life and she thought nothing of it; she had bought a pot of jam and some buns and a piece of cheese to liven it up a bit. She started all this going on the stove, and slipped upstairs to see how her grandmother was getting on.

The old lady had not moved, and she seemed to be asleep. Her breathing, if anything, was worse. To Jennifer as she stood motionless in the door, looking at her, she seemed smaller and more shrunken, further away. The room seemed suddenly a great deal colder; she shivered a little, and went in softly and turned on the second element of the electric stove.

As she ate her supper at the kitchen table she wondered what could best be done for her grandmother in the new situation presented by this five hundred pounds. Her father was coming down next day and he would decide what was the best course; she was rather ignorant about the practical points of illness and of nursing, but she knew that this five hundred pounds would make a difference. Perhaps it would be possible to get the old lady into a nursing home, or clinic. She knew that her parents had no money to spare; it was only with difficulty that they could keep up her father's considerable life insurance and endowment premiums; they had their own old age to think about. It had probably been a real difficulty for her father to send her ten pounds at a moment's notice, as he had that day.

She went up once or twice to look into the bedroom, but she did not speak; better to let her grandmother rest quietly till it was time for her next cup of milk food and brandy. She took that up after a lapse of two hours, and spoke to the old lady. "I've made you some more Benger's, Granny," she said quietly. "Are you awake?"

The old eyes opened. "I'm awake, Jenny. I've been thinking about so many things."

The girl sat down beside her and raised her in the bed with an arm round the old shoulders, and held the cup for her to drink. "What have you been thinking about?" she asked.

Her grandmother said, "About when I was a girl, my dear, and how different things were then."

Jennifer asked, "How were they different, Granny? Drink it up."

She took a little sip. "It was all so much easier, dear. My father, your great-grandfather, was in the Foreign Office, but he retired early, when I was about fifteen. Before that we lived in a big house on Putney Hill, near where Swinburne lived, but when he retired, in about 1886, we moved down into the country. My father bought Steep Manor near Petersfield with about thirty acres of land. I don't think his pension and my mother's investments together amounted to more than a thousand pounds a year, but they seemed to be able to do such a lot with it, such a great, great deal."

"Drink a little more," the girl suggested. "What sort of things did you do?"

"Everything that gentlefolk did do in those days, dear. My father kept three maid-servants in the house—everybody did then. And there was a gardener, and a gardener's boy who helped in the stables, and a groom. That was before the days of motor-cars, of course. My mother had her carriage with a pair of matched greys, such a pretty pair. My father and Tom and I all had our hacks, or hunters as we liked to call them, because we followed the hunt every week all through the winter."

She sat in silence for a time; the girl held her, motionless. "I had a chestnut mare called Dolly," she said. "Such a sweet little horse. I used to groom her myself, and she always knew when I was coming because I always brought her a lump of sugar or an apple, and she would put her head round, and whinny. Tom rode her sometimes, and she could jump beautifully, but I never jumped her myself except over a ha-ha or a ditch, because I rode side-saddle of course, in a habit. We thought it was very fast when girls began to ride astride in breeches just like men. I think a habit looks much nicer."

The girl held the cup to the old lips again. "Wasn't it dull, just living in the country?" she asked.

"Oh, my dear, it wasn't dull. There was always such a lot to do, with the servants and the gardens and the green-houses and the horses. We kept pigs and we used to cure all our own hams and bacon. And then we used to give a dance every year and all our friends did the same, and the Hunt Ball, and people coming to stay. And then there were all the people in the village to look after; everybody knew everybody else, and everybody helped each other. There was never a minute to spare, and never a dull moment."

She took a sip of the milk that Jennifer pressed on her. "We always had a week in London, every year," she said. "We used to stay at Brown's Hotel in Dover Street, generally in May or June. It was theatres and dances every night. I was presented at Court in 1892, to the Prince of Wales, and the old Queen came in for a moment and we all curtsied to her, all together. The lights, and all the men in their scarlet and blue dress uniforms, and the women in Court dress, with trains—I don't think I ever saw anything so splendid, except perhaps at the Durbar in nineteen hundred and eleven." She paused. "You haven't been presented, have you, Jenny?"

The girl said, "No, Granny. I don't think it happens so much now."

"Oh, my dear, how much, how very much you young girls have to miss. We had so much, much more than you when we were young."

Jennifer tried to get her to drink a little more, but the old lady refused it. "Garden parties all through the summer," she murmured, "with tea out on the lawn under the cedar tree. There was tennis on the lawn for those who felt like it, but archery was what everybody went in for. We had a special strip of lawn by the herbaceous border that we kept for archery, and the targets upon metal stands, stuffed with straw, with white and red and blue and gold circles. Such a pretty sport upon a sunny afternoon, dear, with the sun and the scent of mignonette, between the cedar and the monkey-puzzle tree...."

The old eyes closed; it was no good trying to get her to take any more of the Benger's Food. The girl withdrew the cup and put it on the side table, and gently relaxed her arm to lay the old head down upon the pillow. Her grandmother seemed to sleep where she was put; the girl stood for a moment looking down at her as she lay with eyes closed. It didn't look so good, but there was nothing more that she could do for the time being, except to change the hot-water-bottles.

When she had done that, she went downstairs again. In spite of the bad night that she had had the night before she was not sleepy; there was a sense of urgency upon her that banished fatigue. She considered for a moment where she was to sleep, and put it out of her mind; the only possible place for sleep was the sofa in the drawing-room and that was much too far from the old lady's bedroom. It was warm up in the bedroom, and she could shade the light; she would spend the night up there in the arm-chair again, within reach of her grandmother.

The doctor came at about eleven o'clock as he had promised; Jennifer was making another cup of the milk drink when he arrived, and she came out of the kitchen to meet him in the hall.

"Good evening," he said. "How is she now?"

"Much the same," the girl replied. "If anything, I think she's a bit weaker."

"Has she taken anything?"

"She takes about half a cup each time. I can't get her to take more than that."

"I'll just go up and see her. You'd better come up, too."

She was with him in the bedroom while he made his examination; the old lady knew him, but said very little. He made it short, bade her good-night cheerfully, and went downstairs again with Jennifer.

In the drawing-room he said, "I'm very sorry that there isn't a nurse with you."

She looked at him. "You mean, she's going?"

"She's not making any progress," he replied. "She's weaker every time I see her. I'm afraid there's only one end to that, Miss Morton."

"Do you think she'll die tonight?" the girl asked.

"I can't say. She might, quite easily. Or she might rally and go on for days or even weeks. But her heart's getting very bad. I'm afraid you'll have to be prepared for it to happen any time."

He spoke to her about the practical side of death, and he spoke to her about the continued effort to feed the old body. And then he said, "I rang up the relieving officer about her today. I think he'll be coming round to see you tomorrow."

She said, "That's somebody who doles out money, isn't it?"

"In a way," he replied. "He has power to give monetary relief to cases of hardship that aren't covered under any of the existing Acts. He's a municipal officer." He paused. "I wish I'd known about this patient earlier. I could have asked him to come round and see her months ago, but I had no idea."

Jennifer said, "I don't believe my grandmother would have seen him."

"Why not?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "She'd have looked on it as charity money. All her life she's been more accustomed to giving to charities than taking from them."

"He's very tactful, I believe."

"He'd have to be," she said. "My grandmother's a lady—the old-fashioned sort."

There was a pause. "In any case," she said, "that won't be necessary now. Granny got a cheque today for five hundred pounds, from a relation in Australia who was worried about her. There's enough money now to pay for anything she ought to have."

"Five hundred pounds!" he said. "That's a lot of money. Pity it didn't come three months ago."

"I know," she said. "It's just one of those things."

He thought for a moment. "Would you like me to see if I can get a nurse for her tomorrow?"

"My father will be here tomorrow," she said. "He's a doctor. He'll be here about midday. Could we talk it over with you then? I should think a nurse would be a good thing."

He nodded. "I'll see if I can get one for tomorrow night. You'll need some relief by then."

They went out into the hall, and he put on his coat. He paused then, hat in hand. "She's got relations in Australia, has she? Do you know where they live?"

"They keep a sheep farm," the girl said. "Somewhere in Victoria, I think." He nodded slowly. "I still can't quite understand it," she said. "Granny thought they were quite poor, but then this money arrived for her today. They must be very well off to send a sum like that."

"The graziers are doing very well," he said. "Everybody in that country seems to be doing very well." He hesitated. "I'm going to try it out there for a bit, myself."

She looked at him, surprised. "You are? Are you leaving England?"

"Just for a bit," he said. "I think it does one good to move around, and there's not much future in the Health Service. I think it'll be better for the children, too, and it's not like going abroad. I've got a passage booked on the Orion, sailing on April the eighteenth. It's a bit of a gamble, but I've had it here."

"Where are you going to?" she asked. "What part of Australia?"

"Brisbane," he said. "I was there for a bit in 1944, when I was in the Navy. I liked it all right. I believe you could have a lot of fun in Queensland." He hesitated for a moment, and then said, "Don't talk about this, please, Miss Morton. It's not generally known yet that I'm going."

"I shan't talk," she said. "I don't know anyone in Ealing."

He went away, and she went back into the kitchen and stood thoughtful over the electric stove as she warmed up the milk again. The house was dead silent but for the low noise of wind and a little trickling noise of water from some gutter. She poured the milk into the cup and added the brandy, and took it up to her grandmother.

"How are you feeling now, Granny?" she asked.

The old lady did not answer, but her eyes were open and she was awake. Jennifer sat down on the bedside and lifted her with an arm around her shoulders, and held the cup to her lips. She drank a little, and the brandy may have strengthened her, because presently she said in a thin voice, "Jenny, I'm going to die."

The girl said, "So am I, Granny, but not just yet. Nor are you. Drink a bit more of this."

"Have you ever seen anybody die, Jenny?"

The girl shook her head.

"I wish there was somebody here with you."

The girl held the cup up to the lips. It was stupid to feel frightened, and she must not show it. "Try a little more. It's good for you."

Too weak to argue, the old lady took a tiny sip or two. Then she said, "Jenny." There was a long pause while she gathered strength, and then she said. "My cheque-book. In the small left-hand drawer of the bureau. And my pen."

"Do you want to write a cheque, Granny?" The old eyes signified assent. "Leave it till the morning. Drink a little more of this, and then get some sleep."

The old lady pushed the cup aside. "No. Now."

The girl put the cup down and went downstairs. She knew that the doctor had been right and that her grandmother would die that night. She was not frightened now; her duty was to ease the passing of the old lady and do what she wanted in the last few hours. She was calm and competent and thoughtful as she brought the pen and cheque-book and a blotting-pad to the bedside.

"Are these what you want, Granny?"

The old lady nodded slightly, and the girl put them on the sheet before her, and arranged the pillows, and lifted the old body into a sitting position. She gave her another drink of the hot milk and brandy. Presently the old lady said, "Bring that thing."

The girl was puzzled. "What thing is it?" And then she got up and fetched the draft from the dressing-table, and said, "This?"

Her grandmother nodded weakly and took it from her and looked round, questing, till Jennifer divined what it was that she wanted, and gave her her spectacles. She put them on, and then she said distinctly, "Such a funny sort of cheque. I never saw one like it." And then she endorsed it on the back with a hand that trembled, with a signature that was barely legible.

Jennifer held the cup up to her lips, and she drank a little more. Then, with a sudden spurt of energy, she took the cheque-book and wrote quite a legible cheque for four hundred pounds, payable to Jennifer Morton.

The girl, looking on as she wrote, said, "Granny, you mustn't do that. I don't want it, and you'll need the money when you get well."

The old lady whispered, "I want you to do something for me, Jenny. Write letters now, send this to my bank and this to yours. Then go and post them."

"I'll do that in the morning, Granny. I can't leave you alone tonight."

The old lady gathered her ebbing strength, and said, "Go and write them now, my dear, and bring them up and show me. And then go out and post them."

"All right." She could not disobey so positive and direct a command. She thought as she wrote the letters at her grandmother's bureau in the drawing-room that she could sort the matter out with her father next day and pay the money back; the thing now was to ease the old lady's passing and not disobey her. She brought the letters and the envelopes up to the bedside and showed them; the old lady did not speak, but watched her as she put the letters and the cheques into the envelopes and sealed them down. The girl said, "There they are, Granny, all ready to post. May I post them in the morning?"

The head shook slightly, and the old lips said, "Now."

"All right. I expect I'll be away about ten minutes, Granny; I'll have to go down to the Broadway. I'll be back as quick as ever I can."

The old head nodded slightly, and the girl went down and put her coat on, and ran most of the way to the post office, and most of the way back. She came back into the bedroom flushed and breathing quickly, but her grandmother's eyes were closed, and she seemed to be asleep.

The girl went down to the kitchen and made herself a cup of tea, and ate a little meal of toast and jam. Then she went back to the bedroom and settled down in the chair before the electric stove.

At about half-past twelve the old lady opened her eyes and said, "Jenny, did you post the letters?"

"I posted them, Granny."

"There's a dear girl," the voice from the bed said weakly. "I've been so worried for you, but you'll be all right with Jane."

The girl blinked in surprise, but there were more important things to be done than to ask for explanations. "Don't try and talk," she said. "Let me get some more hot water in these bottles."

Her grandmother said, "No. Jenny ... Jenny ..."

The girl paused in the act of taking the bottles from the bed. "What is it, Granny?"

The old lady said something that the girl could not catch. And then she said, "It's not as if we were extravagant, Geoffrey and I. It's been a change that nobody could fight against, this going down and down. I've had such terrible thoughts for you, Jenny, that it would go on going down and down, and when you are as old as I am you would look back at your room at Blackheath and your office work, as I look back to my life at Steep Manor, and you'll think how very rich you were when you were young."

It did not make sense to the girl. She said, "I'm just going to take these bottles down and fill them, Granny. I'll be back in a few minutes."

Her grandmother said, "I always took a hot-water-bottle with me when we went out on shikar. Geoffrey's bearer, dear old Moung Bah, used to boil up water over the wood fire and fill it for me, while Geoffrey cleaned his gun in front of the tent. Such lovely times we had out in the jungle, dear. Such lovely places ..." The old voice died away into silence.

The girl took the hot-water-bottles and went quickly downstairs to fill them. When she came back with them and put them in the bed around the old lady, her grandmother was lying with closed eyes; she seemed fairly comfortable, but the respiration was much worse. She was breathing in short gasps three or four times in succession; then would come a silence when for a long time she did not seem to breathe at all. It was fairly obvious to the girl that the end was coming. She wondered if she ought to go and fetch the doctor from his bed, and then she thought that there was nothing he could do; better for other and more vital patients that he should be allowed to rest. She sat down by the bedside in the chair to wait, holding her grandmother's hand, filled with deep sadness at the close of life.

The old lady spoke suddenly from the bed. Jennifer missed the first words again; she may have been half asleep. She heard, "—on twenty-two thousand a year, better than we lived at Steep. Give her my very dearest love when you see her, Jenny. I'm so happy for you now. It was so sweet of her to send those lovely fruits. Be sure and tell her how much we enjoyed them."

There was a long, long pause, and then she said, "So glad she sent the money for your fare. I've had so much, much more than you poor girls today."

Jennifer was on her feet now; there was something here that had to be cleared up. She held her grandmother's hand between her own young, warm ones. "What did you give me that money for, Granny? What do you want me to do with the four hundred pounds? Try and tell me."

The old lips muttered, "Dear Jane. Such lovely fruits."

The girl stood by the bedside, waiting. If she had understood the old lady at all she was making an incredible proposal, but, after all, the doctor was going.

She said, "Try and tell me what you want me to do with the four hundred pounds, Granny."

There were a few faint, jumbled words that Jennifer missed, and then she heard, "—a little horse for you, everything that I had at your age."

There was very little time left now. The girl said, "Granny! Did you give me the four hundred pounds because you want me to go to Australia to visit Aunt Jane? Is that what you're trying to say? Is that what you'd like me to do with the money?"

There was a faint, unmistakable nod. Then the old eyes closed again, as if in sleep. The girl laid the hand carefully beneath the bedclothes and sat down again to wait. There was a terrific mess here that her father must help her to clear up.

At about two o'clock her grandmother spoke again for the last time. Jennifer, bending by the old lips, heard her say, "The dear Queen's statue in Moulmein ... white marble. So sweet of the Burmese ..."

About an hour later the old lady died. Jennifer, standing by the bedside, could not say within a quarter of an hour when death occurred.