"Oh, you needn't bother to translate to Tommy," Bob said. "She knows all about it."

The other boys suddenly gave her all their attention.

"Are you Tommy? But we know you awfully well."

"Me?" Cecilia turned pink.

"Rather. We used to hear your letters."

The pink deepened to a fine scarlet.

"Bob!" said his sister reproachfully. "You really shouldn't."

"Oh, don't say that," said the taller boy, by name Harrison. "They were a G.o.dsend--there used to be jolly little to laugh about, pretty often, and your letters made us all yell. Didn't they, Billy?"

"They did," said Billy, who was small and curly-haired--and incidentally a captain, with a little row of medal ribbons. "Jolliest letters ever.

We pa.s.sed a vote of thanks to you in the mess, Miss Tommy, after old Bob here had gone. Some one was to write and tell him about it, but I don't believe anyone ever did. I say, you must have had a cheery time--all the funny things that ever happened seemed to come your way."

Cecilia stammered something, her scarlet confusion deepening. A rather grim vision of the war years swept across her mind--of the ceaseless quest in papers and journals, and wherever people talked, for "funny things" to tell Bob; and of how, when fact and rumour gave out, she used to sit by her attic window at night, deliberately inventing merry jests.

It had closely resembled a job of hard work at the time; but apparently it had served its purpose well. She had made them laugh; and some one had told her that no greater service could be rendered to the boys who risked death, and worse than death, during every hour of the day and night. But it was extremely difficult to talk about it afterwards.

Bob took pity on her.

"I'll tell you just what sort of a cheery time she had, some time or other," he remarked. "What are you fellows doing this evening?"

"We were just going to ask you the same thing," declared Billy. "Can't we all go and play about somewhere? We've just landed, and we want to be looked after. Any theatres in this little town still?"

"Cheer-oh!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Billy. "Let's all go and find out."

So they went, and managed very successfully to forget war and even stepmothers. They were all little more than children in enjoyment of simple pleasures still, since war had fallen upon them at the very threshold of life, cutting them off from all the cheery happenings that are the natural inheritance of all young things. The years that would ordinarily have seen them growing tired of play had been spent in grim tasks; now they were children again, clamouring for the playtime they had lost. They found enormous pleasure in the funny little French restaurant, where Madame, a lady whose sympathies were as boundless as her waist, welcomed them with wide smiles, delighting in the broken French of Billy and Harrison, and deftly tempting them to fresh excursions in her language. She put a question in infantile French to Bob presently, whereupon that guileless youth, with a childlike smile, answered her with a flood of idiomatic phrases, in an accent purer than her own--collapsing with helpless laughter at her amazed face. After which, Madame neglected her other patrons to hover about their table like a stout, presiding G.o.ddess, guiding them gently to the best dishes on the menu, and occasionally putting aside their own selection with a hasty, "Mon-non; you vill not like that one to-day." She patted Cecilia in a motherly fashion at parting, and their bill was only about half what it should have been.

They found a musical comedy, and laughed their way through it--Billy and Harrison had apparently no cares in the world, and Bob and Cecilia were caught up in the whirl of their high spirits, so that anything became a huge joke. The evening flew by on airy wings, when Billy insisted on taking them to supper after the theatre. Cecilia allowed herself a fleeting vision of Mrs. Rainham, and then, deciding that she might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, followed gaily. And supper was so cheery a meal that she forgot all about time--until, just at the end, she caught sight of the restaurant clock.

"Half-past eleven! Oh, Bobby!"

"Well, if it is--you poor little old Cinderella," said Bob.

But he hurried her away, for all that, amid a chorus of farewells and efforts, on the part of Billy and Harrison, to arrange further meetings.

They ran to the nearest tube station, and dived into its depths; and, after being whisked underground for a few minutes, emerged into the cool night. Cecilia slipped her arm through her brother's as they hurried along the empty street.

"Now, you keep your nose in the air," Bobby told her. "You aren't exactly a kid now, and she can't really do anything to you. Oh, by Jove--I was thinking, in the theatre, she might interfere with our letters."

"She's quite equal to it," said Cecilia.

"Just what she'd revel in doing. Well, you can easily find out. I'll write to you to-morrow, and again the next day--just ordinary letters, with nothing particular in them except an arrangement to meet next Sat.u.r.day. If you don't get them you'll know she's getting at the mail first."

"What shall I do, then?"

"Drop me a line--or, better still, wire to me," said Bob. "Just say, 'Address elsewhere.' Then I'll write to you at Mr. M'Clinton's; the old solicitor chap in Lincoln's Inn; and you'll have to go there and get the letters. You know his address, don't you?"

"Oh, yes. I have to write to him every quarter when he sends me my allowance. You'll explain to him, then, Bob, or he'll simply redirect your letters here."

"Oh, of course. I want to go and see the old chap, anyhow, to talk over Aunt Margaret's affairs. I might as well know a little more about them.

Tommy, the she-dragon can't actually lock you up, can she?"

"No--it couldn't be done," said Cecilia. "Modern houses aren't built with dungeons and things. Moreover, if she tried to keep me in the house she would have to take the children out for their walks herself; and she simply hates walking."

"Then you can certainly post to me, and get my letters, and I'll be up again as soon as ever I can. Buck up, old girl--it can't be for long now."

They turned in at the Rainhams' front gate, and Cecilia glanced up apprehensively. All the windows were in darkness; the grey front of the house loomed forbiddingly in the faint moonlight.

"You're coming in, aren't you?" she asked, her hand tightening on his arm.

"Rather--we'll take the edge off her tongue together." Bob rang the bell. "Wonder if they have all gone to bed. The place looks pretty dark."

"She's probably in the little room at the back--the one she calls her boudoir."

"Horrible little den, full of bamboo and draperies and pampas gra.s.s--I know," nodded Bob. "Well, either she's asleep or she thinks it's fun to keep us on the mat. I'll try her again." He pressed the bell, and the sound of its whirring echoed through the silent house.

CHAPTER IV

COMING HOME

The bolt grated, as if grudgingly, and slowly the door opened as far as the limits of its chain would permit, and Mrs. Rainham's face appeared in the aperture. She glared at them for a minute without speaking.

"So you have come home?" she said at last. The chain fell, and the door opened. "I wonder you trouble to come home at all. May I ask where you have been?"

"She has been with me, Mrs. Rainham," Bob said cheerfully. "May I come in?"

Mrs. Rainham did not move. She held the door half open, blocking the way.

"It is far too late for me to ask you in," she answered frigidly.

"Cecilia can explain her conduct, I presume."

"Oh, there's really nothing to explain," Bob answered. "It was so late when she got out this afternoon that I kept her--why, it was after half-past four before she was dressed."

"I told her to be in for tea."

"Yes; but I felt sure you couldn't realize how late she was in getting out," said Bob in a voice of honey.

"That was entirely her own mismanagement--" began the hard tones.

"Oh, no, Mrs. Rainham; really it wasn't," said Cecilia mildly. "Your accompaniments, you remember--your dress--your music," she stopped, in amazement at herself. It was rarely indeed that she answered any accusation of her stepmother's. But to be on the mat at midnight, with Bob in support, seemed to give her extraordinary courage.

"You see, Mrs. Rainham, there seems to have been quite a number of little details that Cecilia couldn't mismanage," said Bob, following up the advantage. It was happily evident that his stepmother's rage was preventing her from speaking, and, as he remarked later, there was no knowing when he would ever get such a chance again. "She really needed rest. I'm sure you'll agree that every one is ent.i.tled to some free time. Of course, you couldn't possibly have realized that it was a week since she had been off duty."