What Timmy Did Part 41

Janet was just a little surprised. She was very old-fas.h.i.+oned in some ways, and she had brought up her step-daughters to be, as regarded money matters at any rate, as old-fas.h.i.+oned as herself. It seemed to her very strange that Betty had allowed G.o.dfrey Radmore to give her such a present as a hat! Yet another thing puzzled her. She had understood that the three of them were going off some way into Suss.e.x to look at a house, but they had evidently been up to London. Motor bonnets don't grow on country hedges.

"Where's the cat?" she asked, looking round.

"G.o.dfrey has taken her up to the nursery," said Betty, "partly to show her to Nanna, and partly because we thought it would be better for her to be quiet up there than down here."

"Oh, Mum--do say that she can stay up there," cried Timmy pleadingly. "I hate the thought of her being in that dark old stable!"

"Very well; put her in the night nursery."

Even as she spoke, Janet was still gazing at her eldest step-daughter.

Betty certainly looked extraordinarily charming this afternoon. It showed that the child required more change than she had had for many a long day.

They had got too much, all of them, into thinking of her as a stand-by.

After all she was only eight and twenty! Janet, with a sigh, looked back to the days when she had been eight and twenty, a very happy, independent young lady indeed, not long before she had met and married her quiet, wool-gathering John, so losing her independence for ever.

"I suppose you haven't heard the great news," she exclaimed, forgetting that Timmy was there.

"What news?" asked Betty.

She glanced at her step-mother. Surely Janet hadn't been crying? Janet never cried. She had not cried since that terrible day when the news had come of George's death.

"What news?" she asked again.

"Mr. Barton--I really can't call him Lionel yet--came over this afternoon and--and--"

Timmy rushed forward in front of his mother, his little face all aglow: "Oh, Mum! You don't mean to say that he's popped?" he cried.

"Timmy, don't be vulgar!" exclaimed Janet severely.

Betty began to laugh a little wildly. "How very, very strange that it should have happened to-day--"

"I don't think it's strange at all," said Janet quietly. "The strange thing is that it hasn't happened before! But there it is--they're engaged now. He seems to have told her that he thought it wrong to make his offer until he had saved 100. She has gone over to Oakford, and they are busy making an inventory of the things they will have to buy."

"Has he actually saved 100?" asked Betty.

"No, he never could have done that. He's had a legacy left him, and he seems to think that 100 will start them most splendidly and comfortably on their married life. He _is_ a fool!"

The door which gave on to the stairs which led from the scullery to the upper floor opened, and G.o.dfrey Radmore stepped down. "Am I the fool?" he asked pleasantly.

Janet answered, smiling: "No, no; you're anything but that. I was only telling Betty that Dolly and Mr. Barton are engaged at last." She turned to Betty. "Of course, he's coming to supper to-night. I've been wondering what we can do in the way of something extra to celebrate the occasion.

We _were_ going to have cold mutton."

"At any rate I'll go and see what the village pub. can produce in the way of champagne," exclaimed G.o.dfrey. He turned to his G.o.dson. "Timmy? Run up and look at Josephine and her kittens. I've put them in the old night nursery for a bit."

And then, when the boy had gone, he went up to Janet and, to her surprise, put his arm through hers: "I'm glad about Dolly," he said heartily.

"It proves how very little one really knows of human nature." She sighed, but it was a happy sigh. "I was beginning to believe that he would never what Timmy calls 'pop,' and yet the poor fellow was only waiting to be a little forward in the world. Someone's left him 100, so he felt he could embark on the great adventure. Your father and I have already talked it over a little"--she turned to Betty--"and we think we could squeeze out 100 a year somehow."

"I think we could," said Betty, hesitatingly. "After all, 1 is now only what 8/- was before the War."

"But not to us," cried Janet; "not to us!"

And then, to the utter discomfiture of both her companions, she began to laugh and cry together.

G.o.dfrey rushed over to the sink. He took up a cup, filled it with water, rushed back to where Janet was standing, shaking, trembling all over, making heroic efforts to suppress her mingled tears and laughter, and dashed the water into her face.

"Thank you," she gasped; "thank you, G.o.dfrey! I'm all right now. I may as well tell you both the truth. There's been a row--an awful row--between Jack and Timmy, and it thoroughly upset me. It was only over the cat--over Josephine--but of course it proved that what Betty and I were talking about this morning is true. Jack's madly in love with Mrs.

Crofton--and--and--it's all so pitiful and absurd--"

"I doubt if you're quite fair to Mrs. Crofton, Janet," said G.o.dfrey, in a singular tone. "I fancy she really does care for Jack. Of course it seems odd to all of us, but still, after all, odder things have been known! If you ask me whether they will marry in the end--that's quite another matter. If you ask me whether they're engaged, well, yes, I'm inclined to think they are!"

Even Betty felt violently disturbed and astonished.

"Oh, G.o.dfrey!" she exclaimed. "D'you really think that?"

"I can't tell you what makes me think so, or rather I'd rather not tell you. But I don't think you need worry, if you'll only take a long view.

They can't marry yet, and long before they could marry, she'll have got tired of him, and fond of someone else."

Betty gave him a quick look. Was he really unconscious of the reason why Mrs. Crofton had come to Beechfield?

Through her mind in a flash there crowded the many small, almost imperceptible, impressions made on her mind by the new tenant of The Trellis House. Enid Crofton in love with Jack? Betty shook her head. The idea was absurd. And yet G.o.dfrey had spoken very decidedly just now. But men, even very shrewd, intelligent men, are at a hopeless disadvantage when dealing with the type of woman to which Enid Crofton belonged.

As for Janet she exclaimed, with sudden pa.s.sion, "I would give anything in this world to see Mrs. Crofton leave Beechfield for ever--" She stopped abruptly, for at that moment the staircase door to her right burst open, and Timmy stepped down into the scullery.

CHAPTER XXVI

Since she had had the horrid accident which had laid her up, Timmy had not gone to see his old Nanna nearly as often as he ought to have done.

Nanna herself, however, with the natural cunning of those who love, had made certain rules which ensured her a regular, daily glimpse of the strange little being she had had under her charge, as she would have expressed it, "from the month." Nanna did not desire his attendance before breakfast for she would not have considered herself fit to be seen by him till she herself was neat and tidy. Like all the women of her cla.s.s and generation, the Tosswills' old family nurse was full of self-respect, and also imbued with a stern sense of duty. Timmy stood far more in awe of her than he did of his mother.

One of the stated times for Timmy's visits to the old night nursery was just before he had to start for church each Sunday, and on this particular Sunday, the day after that on which had occurred Dolly's engagement, and Mrs. Crofton's return from London, he came in a few moments before he was expected, and began wandering about the room, doing nothing in particular. At once Nanna divined that he had something on his mind about which he was longing, yet half afraid, to speak to her. She said nothing, however, and at last it came out.

"I want you to lend me your Bible," he said, wriggling himself about. "I want to take it to church with me."

This was the last thing Nanna had expected the boy to ask, for, of course, Timmy had a Bible of his own, a beautiful thin-paper Bible, which she herself had given him on his seventh birthday, having first asked his mother's leave if she might do so. The Bible was in perfect condition. It stood on a little mat on his chest of drawers, and not long before her accident Nanna had gone into his bedroom, opened the sacred Book, and gazed with pleasure on the inscription, written in her own large, unformed handwriting, on the first page:

Timothy G.o.dfrey Radmore Tosswill on his seventh birthday from his loving nurse,

Emily Pew.

All this being so, his mother, or even his sister, Betty, would at once have enquired, "Why don't you take your own Bible to church?" But somehow Nanna thought it best not to put this question, for a lie, shocking on any day, is more shocking than usual, or so she thought, if uttered on a Sunday. So, after a moment's hesitation, she replied: "Certainly, Master Timmy, if such is your wish. But I trust you will be very careful with it, my dear."

"I will be very, very careful!" he exclaimed. "And I will bring it straight back to you up here after church."

He threw her a grateful look. He did more, and Nanna felt amply rewarded as he climbed up on her bed and, putting his arms round her neck, kissed her on each cheek.

"I hope," she said impressively, "that you are going to be a good boy in church--a boy that Nurse can be proud of."