IV

And, after all, it was Clare herself who flung down the glove.

On a winter's evening she was engaged to some woman's party. Peter had planned an evening, snug and industrious, alone with a book. "The Stone House" awaited his attention--he had not worked at it for months. Also he knew that he owed Henry Galleon a visit. Why he had not been to see the old man lately he scarcely knew.

Clare, standing in the little hall, waiting for a cab, suggested an alternative.

"Peter dear, why don't you go round to Brockett's if you've nothing to do?"

"Brockett's!"

"Yes. You've never been since we married, and I had a letter from Norah this morning--not at all cheerful--I'm afraid she's been ill for months.

They'd love to see you."

"Brockett's!" He stood astounded. Well, why not? A strange emotion--uncomfortable, alien, stirred him. He kissed her and saw her go with a half-distracted gaze. What a world away Brockett's seemed! Old Mrs. Lazarus, Norah (poor Norah!) Mrs. Brockett, young Robin Tressiter.

They would be glad to see him--it was a natural thing enough that he should go--what was it that held him back? For the first time since his marriage, as he slowly and thoughtfully put on his greatcoat, he was distressed. He reproached himself--Norah, Stephen, Mr. Zanti!... he had not given them a thought.

He felt, as he went out, as though he were going, with key and candle, to unlock some old rusty door that led into secret rooms. It was a wet, windy night. The branches of the little orchard rattled and groaned, and doors and windows were creaking.

As he passed into the shadows and silence of Bloomsbury the impression weighed with increasing heaviness upon him that the old Peter had come back and that his married life with Clare had been a dream. He was still at Brockett's, still silent, shy, awkward, still poring over pages of "Reuben Hallard" and wondering whether any one would ever publish it--still spending so many hours in the old musty bookshop with Herr Gottfried's wild mop of hair coming so madly above the little counter.

The wind tugged at his umbrella, the rain lashed his face and at last, breathless, with the sharp corner of his upturned collar digging into his chin, he pulled the bell of the old grey remorseless door that he knew so well. There was no one in Bennett Square, only the two lamps dimly marked its desolation.

The door was opened by Mrs. Brockett herself and she stood there, stern and black peering into his face.

"What is it? What do you want?" she asked grimly.

He brushed past her laughing and stood back under the gas in the hall looking at her.

She gave a little cry. "No! It can't be! Why, Mr. Westcott!"

He had never, in all the seven years that he had been with her, seen her so strongly moved.

"But Mr. Westcott! To think of it! And the times we've talked of you!

And you never coming near us all this while. You might have been dead for all we knew, and indeed if it hadn't been for Miss Monogue the other day we'd have heard no news since the day that wild man with the beard came walking in," she broke off suddenly--"and there you are, holding your umbrella with the point down and making a great pool on the carpet as though--" She took the umbrella from him but her hand rested for an instant on his arm and she said gruffly--

"But all the same, Mr. Peter, I'm more glad to see you than I can say--"

She took him into her little room and looked at him. "But you've not changed in the least," she said, "not in the very least. And where, pray, Mr. Peter, have you been all this time and come nowhere near us?"

He tried to explain; he was confused, he said something about marriage and stopped. The room was filled with that subtle odour that brought his other life back to him in a torrent. He was bathed in it, overwhelmed by it--roast-beef, mutton, blacking, oil-cloth, decayed flowers, geraniums, damp stone, bread being toasted--all these things were in it.

He filled his nostrils with the delicious pathos and intimacy of it.

She regarded him sternly. "Now, Mr. Peter, it's of no use. Oh, yes, we've heard about your wedding. You wrote to Miss Monogue. But there were days before that, many of them, and never so much as a postcard.

With some of, my boarders it would be natural enough, because what could you expect? _We_ didn't want _them_, _they_ didn't want _us_--only habit as you might say. But you, Mr. Peter--why just think of the way we were fond of you--Mrs. Lazarus and little Robin and Miss Monogue--as well as myself."

She stopped and pulled out her handkerchief and blew her nose.

"I dare say you're a famous man," she went on, "with your books and your marriage and the rest of it, but that doesn't alter your old friends being your old friends and it never will. There, I'm getting cross when all I mean to say is that I'm more delighted to see you than words."

He was humble before her. He felt, indeed, that he had been the most unutterable brute. How could he have stayed away all this time with these dear people waiting for him? He simply hadn't realised--

"And Miss Monogue?" he asked at last, "I'm afraid she's not been very well?"

"She's been very ill indeed--for months. At one time we were afraid that she would go. It's her heart. Poor dear, and she's been worrying so about her work--but she's better now and she'll be truly glad to see you, Mr. Peter--but you mustn't stay more than a few minutes. She's up on the sofa but it's the excitement that's bad for her."

But first Peter went to pay a visit to the Tressiter establishment. He knew, from old custom, that this would be the hour when the family would be getting itself, by slow and noisy degrees, to bed. So tremendous, indeed, was the tumult that he was able to open the door and stand, within the room, watching and un-noticed. Mrs. Tressiter was attempting to bathe a fat and very strident baby. Two small boys were standing on a bed and hitting one another with pillows; a little girl lay on her face on the floor and howled for no apparent reason; Robin, but little older than Peter's last impression of him had painted, was standing, naked save for his shirt and looking down, gravely, at his screaming sister.

Every now and again, Mrs. Tressiter, without ceasing from her work on the baby who slipped about in her hands like a stout eel, cried in a shrill voice: "Children, if you don't be quiet," or "Nicholas, in a moment I'll give you such a beating,"--or "Agatha, for goodness'

sake!"...

Then suddenly Robin, looking up, caught sight of Peter, he gave a shout and was across the room in an instant. There was never a moment's doubt in his eyes. He flung himself upon Peter's body, he wound his arms round Peter's leg, he beat upon his chest with his bullet head, he cried: "Oh!

Mr. Peter has come! Mr. Peter has come!"

Mrs. Tressiter let the baby fall into the bath with a splash and there it lay howling. The other members of the family gathered round.

But Peter thought that he had known no joy so acute for years as the welcome that the small boy gave him. He hoisted Robin on to his shoulder, and there Robin sat with his naked little legs dangling over, his hands in the big man's neck.

"Oh! Mr. Westcott, I'm sure..." said Mrs. Tressiter, smiling from ear to ear and wiping her wet hands on her apron--Robin bent his head and bit Peter's ear.

"Get on, horse," he cried and for a quarter of an hour there was wild riot in the Tressiter family. Then they were all put to bed, as good as gold,--"you might have heard a pin drop," said Mrs. Tressiter, "when Agatha said her prayers"--and at last the lights were put out.

Peter bent down over Robin's bed and the boy flung his arms round his neck.

"I dreamed of you--I knew you'd come," he whispered.

"What shall I send you as a present to-morrow?" asked Peter.

"Soldiers--soldiers on horses. Those with cannons and shiny things on their backs...." Robin was very explicit--"You'll be here to-morrow?" he asked.

"No--not to-morrow," Peter answered.

"Soon?"

"Yes, soon."

"I love you, more than Agatha, more than Dick, more than any one 'cept Daddy and Mummy."

"You'll be a good boy until I come back?"

"Promise ... but come back soon."

Peter gave him a long kiss and left him. Supposing, one day, he had a boy like that? A little boy in a shirt like that? Wouldn't it be simply too wonderful? A boy to give soldiers to....

He went across to Miss Monogue's door. A faint voice answered his knock and, entering the room, the scent of medicine and flowers that he always connected with his mother, met him. Norah Monogue, very white, with dark shadows beneath her eyes, was lying on the sofa by the fire.

Mrs. Brockett had prepared her for Peter's coming and she smiled up at him with her old smile and gave him her hand. How thin and white it was with its long slender fingers! He sat down by her sofa and he knew by the way that she looked at him that she was reproaching him--