And now, to Timmy's surprise, his mother opened the drawing-room door instead of going on to the dining-room. "Tell Betty," she said abruptly, "to pour out tea. I'll come on presently."

She shut the door, and going over to the roomy old sofa, sat down, and leaning back, closed her eyes. It was a very unusual thing for her to do, but she felt tired, and painfully excited at the thought of G.o.dfrey Radmore's coming visit. And as she lay there, there rose up before her, wearily and despondently, the changes which nine years had brought to Old Place.

Janet Tosswill, like all intelligent step-mothers, sometimes speculated as to what her predecessor had really been like. Her husband's elder children were so amazingly unlike one another, as well as utterly unlike her own son Timmy.

Betty, the eldest of her step-children, was her favourite, and she had also been deeply attached to Betty's twin-brother, George. The two had been alike in many ways, though Betty was very feminine and George essentially masculine, and each of them had possessed those special human attributes which only War seems to bring to full fruition.

George had been out in France seven months when he had been killed at Beaumont Hamel, and he had already won a bar to his Military Cross by an action which in any other campaign would have given him the Victoria Cross. As for Betty, she had shown herself extraordinarily brave, cool, and resourceful when after doing some heavy home war work, she had gone out with one of the units of the Scottish Women's Hospital.

But Janet Tosswill admired and loved the girl more than ever since Betty had come back, from what had perforce been a full and exciting life, to take up the dull, everyday routine existence at Old Place where, what with a bad investment, high prices, and the sudden leap in the income-tax, from living pleasantly at ease they had become most unpleasantly poor.

Jack, who came next to Betty, though a long way after, and who had just missed being in the war, was a very different type of young Englishman from what George had been. He was clever, self-a.s.sertive, and already known as a brilliant debater and as a sound speaker at the Oxford Union.

There need be no trouble as to Jack Tosswill's future--he was going to the Bar, and there was little doubt that he would succeed there. One of his idiosyncrasies was his almost contemptuous indifference to women. He was fond of his sisters in a patronising way, but the average pleasant girl, of whom the neighbourhood of Beechfield had more than its full share, left him quite cold.

The next in age--Dolly--was the most commonplace member of the family.

Her character seemed to be set on absolutely conventional lines, and the whole family, with the exception of her father, who did not concern himself with such mundane things, secretly hoped that she would marry a young parson who had lately "made friends with her." As is often the case with that type of young woman, Dolly was f.e.c.kless about money, and would always have appeared badly and unsuitably dressed but for the efforts of her elder sister and step-mother.

Rosamund, the youngest and by far the prettiest of the three sisters, was something of a problem. Though two years younger than Dolly, she had already had three or four love affairs, and when only sixteen, had been the heroine of a painful sc.r.a.pe--the sort of sc.r.a.pe which the people closely concerned try determinedly to forget, but which everyone about them remembers to his or her dying day.

The hero of that sorry escapade had been a man of forty, separated from his wife. On the principle that "truth will out even in an affidavit,"

poor Rosamund's little world was well aware that the girl, or rather the child, had been simply vain and imprudent. But still, she had disappeared for two terrible long days and nights, and even now, when anything recalled the episode to her step-mother or to Betty, they would shudder with an awful inward tremor, recollecting what they had both gone through. That she had come back as silly and innocent a girl as she had left, and feeling as much shame as she was capable of feeling, had been owing to the tardily awakened sense of prudence and honour in the man to whom she had run away in a fit of temper after a violent quarrel with--of all people in the world--her brother Jack.

Rosamund now ardently desired to become an actress, and after much secret discussion with his wife, her father had at last told her that if she were of the same opinion when she reached the age of twenty-one he would put no obstacle in her way.

As to Tom, the youngest of Janet Tosswill's step-children, he was "quite all right." Though only fifteen months younger than Rosamund, whereas she was as much of a woman as she ever would be, he was still a cheery, commonplace schoolboy. He had been such a baby when Janet had married that sometimes she almost felt as if he were her own child and that though Tom's relation to her own son was peculiar. Theoretically the two boys ought to have been pals, or at any rate good friends. But in practice they were like oil and water--and found it impossible to mix.

When Tom was at home, as now, on his holidays, he spent most of his time with a schoolfellow of his own age who lived about two miles from Beechfield. In some ways Timmy was older now than Tom would ever be.

CHAPTER IV

Timmy went on into the dining-room to find his brothers and sisters all gathered there excepting Dolly. But as he sat down, and as Betty began to pour out tea, Dolly came in from the garden with the words:--"Guess who I've met and had a talk with?"

She looked round her eagerly, but no one ventured an opinion. There were so many, many people whom Dolly might have met and had a talk with, for she was the most gregarious member of the Tosswill family.

At last Timmy spoke up:--"I expect you've seen Mrs. Crofton," he observed, his mouth already full of bread and b.u.t.ter.

Dolly was taken aback. "How did you know?" she cried. "But it's quite true--I _have_ seen Mrs. Crofton!"

"What is she like?" asked Jack indifferently.

"How old is she?" This from Betty, who somehow always seemed to ask the essential question.

"D'you think she'll prove a 'stayer'?" questioned Tom.

He had hoped that someone with a family of boys and girls would have come to The Trellis House. It was a beautiful little building--the oldest dwelling-house in the village, in spite of its early Victorian name. But no one ever stayed there very long. Some of the older village folk said it was haunted.

"Did you speak to her, or did she speak to you?" asked Rosamund.

And then again Timmy intervened.

"I know more about her than any one of you do. But I don't mean to tell you what I know," he announced.

No one took any notice of him. By common consent efforts were always made in the family circle to keep Timmy down--but such efforts were rarely successful.

"Well, tell us what's she like?" exclaimed Rosamund. "I did so hope we should escape another widow."

She had hoped for a nice, well-to-do couple, with at least one grown-up son preferably connected, in some way, with the stage.

Dolly Tosswill, still standing, looked down at her audience.

"She's quite unlike what I thought she would be," she began. "For one thing, she's quite young, and she's awfully pretty and unusual-looking.

You'd notice her anywhere."

"Did you meet her in the post-office?" asked Betty.

"No, at church. She only arrived this morning, and she said she felt so lonely and miserable that when she heard the bell ring she thought she'd go along and see what our church was like."

"Oh, then she's 'pi'?" in a tone of disgust from Rosamund.

"I'd noticed her in church, though she was sitting rather back, close to the door," went on Dolly, "and I'd wondered who she was, as she looked so very unlike any of the Beechfield people."

"How do you mean--unlike?" asked Tom.

"I can't explain exactly. I thought she was a summer visitor. And then something so funny happened--"

Dolly was sitting down now, and Betty handed her a cup of tea, grieving the while to see how untidy she looked with her hat tilted back at an unbecoming angle.

"What happened?"

"Well, as we came out of the church together, all at once that old, half-blind, post-office dog made straight for her! He gave a most awful howl, and she was so frightened that she ran back into the church again.

But of course I didn't know she was Mrs. Crofton _then_. I got the dog into the post-office garden and then I went back into the church to tell her the coast was clear. But she waited a bit, for she was awfully afraid that he might get out again."

"What a goose she must be"--this from Jack.

"She asked if she were likely to meet any other dog in the road; so I asked her where she lived, and then she told me she was Mrs. Crofton, and that she had only arrived this morning. I offered to walk home with her, and then we had quite a talk. She has the same kind of feeling about dogs that some people have about cats."

"That's rather queer!" said Tom suddenly, "for her husband bred wire-haired terriers. Colonel Crofton sold Flick to G.o.dfrey Radmore last year--don't you remember?"

He appealed to Betty, who always remembered everything.

"Yes," she said quietly, "I was just thinking of that. Colonel Crofton wrote Timmy such a nice letter telling him how to manage Flick. It does seem strange that she should have that feeling about dogs."

Again Timmy's shrill voice rose in challenge. "I should hate _my_ wife not to like dogs," he cried pugnaciously.

"It'll take you all your time to make her like _you_, old man," observed Tom.