CHAPTER V

THE NEW INTEREST

Aren't you dying to know what the new interest is going to be?

Perhaps you think it's for me to make special friends with one of the other young officers, one of those who are coming here on Saturday night? Oh, no. Something much more subtle than that. (I always was rather an unusual sort of person, I think, even as a quite young girl of about thirteen.)

But about the new interest. This is it.

The idea came to me this morning at breakfast. There was a general buzz of conversation going on among my sisters and Mr. Lascelles over the front page of the paper. You know, there are always quite a number of advertisements there from "Lonely Subalterns" asking if "some cheery individual" could be induced to correspond with them.

Evelyn was saying she thought nowadays there could not possibly be such a thing as a subaltern who had not got crowds of people only too anxious to write any quantity of long letters to him.

"Yet here's one who expressly states, 'Mother only correspondent,'" said Evelyn, picking up the paper again.

"Something seriously wrong with that chap, I should think," said our odious visitor, helping himself to an enormous spoonful of marmalade that was nearly as bright a colour as his hateful hair. "I must say I distrust the idea of a fellow who isn't able to get girls to write to him without rushing into the agony column. Shows he must be poisonously unpopular for some reason."

"I don't see that it follows that he need be unpopular at all," I said as snubbingly as I could from the other side of the breakfast-table. Generally I don't say anything at all when Mr. Lascelles speaks. There are times when I feel a mad wish to contradict him, and this was one of those times.

So I added: "It may mean that he is simply reserved. Some young men are, I suppose, even nowadays? And girls very foolishly pass them over for the men who try to make themselves popular by always jabbering a lot of compliments and nonsense to them."

"That's a nasty one, Miss Rattle--I mean, Miss Elizabeth, that really is a very nasty one," said that horrid little Mr. Lascelles, laughing boisterously with that great schoolboyish "Ha-ha!" that gets on my nerves so very badly.

But at the same time I saw that he realised I did mean to be severe with him.

He flushed up to the roots of his horrid hair again. And both Evelyn and Nancy looked at me reproachfully. They said, "Oh, Rattle," in a tone that quite stopped me caring whether I had hurt the young man's silly feelings or not.

So I went on calmly: "I don't see why these advertisements shouldn't be perfectly genuine. I shouldn't wonder if some quite nice people put them in. And I don't see why quite nice girls shouldn't answer them. I shouldn't mind writing 'cheery' letters to a poor dear subaltern who was----"

Here Aunt Victoria, who, as usual, hadn't heard what was going on, burst into conversation with something about her Belgian refugees.

For, to add to the general transformation of Mud Flats, we have got two whole families of Belgian refugees down there now. And it's full of difficulties. Not because the Mud Flats people aren't kind to them. Why, Mrs. Miles, the Post-Office, says she's given them her last stitch of baby-clothes! It's the Belgians. The poor darlings do quarrel so dreadfully among themselves! I daresay we should, too, if we were like them--turned out of house and home and dumped into quite a strange country where we simply despised the cooking and where we were always expected to wash more than we considered natural! However, it does make it very hard for the committee, all the same.

Anyhow, that introduction of the Belgians ended the conversation about correspondence with lonely subalterns.

But it didn't end my thinking about it. I did go on thinking about it--hard. And it was then that I thought, why shouldn't I write to one of these poor lambs who were reduced to advertise for letters? Evelyn and Nancy were taking to having friends that I wasn't friends with! Why shouldn't I have somebody that they didn't even know? It didn't matter a bit even if it were somebody whom I had never seen in my life! It made it all the more exciting! Now, which of these shall I answer?

Of course, they have taken the paper away. Newspapers do disappear if one happens to want them. If one does not happen to want them, there they lie in sheaves and stacks for the next fortnight. But to-day the paper has disappeared.

So I shall have to wait until another _Times_ comes in. Then I shall look and see whether there is any specially lonely soul who would be glad to have some one to exchange a few thoughts with him.

(Later.)

Hurray! I have found it! I have found the very advertisement that I want. It is at the top of the agony column in this morning's paper. Neither Nancy nor Evelyn noticed it. As for the other horrid little creature who was discussing the question yesterday, he was off early to the Ford, where his men are supposed to be building a trestle-bridge. We were spared, at least I was spared, the sight of him at table for once in a way!

This is the advertisement:

"Would any one Young and Cheery take pity to the extent of writing an occasional letter to Lonely and Unpopular Subaltern who is unable to make himself liked?--Address Box X.Y.Z."

This went straight to my heart!

Imagine anybody putting himself down in black and white as being unpopular and unable to make himself liked!

Doesn't it show an awfully nice nature? So pathetic and diffident and appealing! So different in every way from that odious Mr. Lascelles, who seems to be popular with everybody in the place (except me--much he cares about my feelings towards him!), and who is perfectly able to make himself most undeservedly "liked" by all, from the colonel down to the latest-joined recruit.

"Unpopular!" That won't appeal to many people, I am afraid. I expect most girls when they read that would be as unsympathetic as our Incubus, and would say, "Oh, well, serve him right. If a man's unpopular it's his own fault."

But I know that this is not true.

I am in a very popular stage of my career at the moment myself. Yes, in spite of Nancy and Evelyn having "made up" our squabble, they do still disapprove of my attitude towards Mr. Lascelles.

And I know that that is not my fault. It is only just force of circumstances, and of having the wrong people about me. I daresay it is something of the same kind with this poor dear young man of the advertisement. Perhaps his is the only sensible one in a whole mess full of young officers like our beauty here! How awful for him! I really do sympathise. Perhaps he himself is like that Mr. Curtis, who's so clever at writing, but who doesn't know anything about girls? But no. I don't imagine him (the Lonely Subaltern) at all like that. Somehow or other I don't feel Mr. Curtis is going to be very amusing. I don't know what gives me this feeling, but something or other has "put me off" Mr. Curtis. But about this other----

D'you know, I've the most curious feeling, as if I were really meant to answer this particular advertisement. As if it were a kind of Fate that I should.

I believe in Fate.

Nancy and Evelyn are out this afternoon. They've gone for a tramp up to a place called the Ford, where they are making a trestle-bridge.

"They" are Mr. Lascelles's London, Chatham and Dovers. Judging from the amount of laughter and comic songs and awful parodies of hymns that you hear from them on their way home every night, the men are about as serious-minded as their officer. Nancy said something about all that joking and larking being the things that help our Tommies to be so plucky and to "carry on" at the Front. But of course one mustn't say a word against Temporary Second Lieutenant Frank Lascelles, not even against the taste in music of his Field Company!

However, I shall have the Lair all to myself this afternoon. Here's my chance for sending an answer to the Lonely Subaltern who is not able to make himself liked, poor dear.

I must write him a nice letter.

(Later.)

Here's the letter I have written.

It's taken me simply hours, and three sheets of the white paper I use for covering the marmalade. It's flushed my cheeks pæony-colour with the concentration I've put into it, and my fingers are a mass of ink, for goodness knows what's happened to our fountain-pen (the Incubus has been borrowing it, I daresay). Still, here it is, written at last in my clearest handwriting:

"DEAR LONELY SUBALTERN,

"I saw your advertisement in the _Times_, and I felt there was a special reason that I should answer it. The special reason is that you call yourself 'unpopular.'

"So we are companions in misfortune, because I am very unpopular, too. I am one of a family of three girls, and the other two, who used to be such jolly chums of mine, have sort of drifted apart from me. Perhaps some day, if you care to know, I will tell you what that was about. But in the meantime please let me ask you questions about yourself. For that is really what interests me. You know, I truly was interested in your advertisement. To begin with, why do you say that you 'can't make yourself liked'? Perhaps this isn't true? Perhaps it is all your modesty? Perhaps people do really like you very much, only you don't give them a chance to show what they feel? There are people like that: I have read about them in books.

"However, perhaps you will tell me that you have very good reason to know that people don't like you? Perhaps you have overheard them saying so? Well, if that is so, you must try to get at the bottom of it. You must try and find out the reasons why people take a dislike to you, and then you must try and alter them.

"To begin with, who are the people that you can't make yourself liked by?

"You don't mind my asking you these direct questions, do you? It isn't as if I know you. I have never seen you, and I never shall. That will make it ever so much easier. But to go on----"

Here I had to take a fresh sheet of the jam-covering paper. Really, it was the longest letter I had ever written in my whole life. I put:

"If it is men who dislike you--your C.O., the other people in your mess--well, then, I am afraid that I, being a girl, can't help very much.

"It seems to me almost impossible to guess what men will like and dislike, and why they admire lots of people that I should not be able to stand. For instance, I am now thinking of the little officer who is billeted in our house. I simply loathe the man, and he hates me. I look upon him as an absolute worm. But I hear from people in our village that his men adore him, and that his brother officers say he is 'the best little chap in the world.' Perhaps they look upon him as a mascot for their section? (I am sure he is small enough!)

"So you see there is no accounting for men's tastes! Men are so inconsistent, and so illogical. They act without reasons.

"With girls it is different. They always have some splendid reason. Anyhow, you can always account for girls' feelings so much better. So is it girls who don't like you? Please answer this question quite sincerely. It doesn't matter bothering to pretend to me. I'm simply what you might call a Voice out of the Unknown.

"And it's no disgrace not to be liked by girls. We have a man coming here to supper on Saturday who has never kissed a girl in his life. His best friend told us this. Yet he--the first man--is twenty-three, and very clever.

"Do you mind telling me if you think you are too ugly for girls to like? It must be rather terrible to the plain. Thank goodness, all my family have always been reasonably good-looking."

I wasn't quite certain whether I should put that in. It sounded so fearfully vain! Then I thought:

"Oh, well: why shouldn't I?--it isn't as if I was drawing attention to my good looks to any one who should ever see them. Or even preparing him for them as if I was going to meet him ever." Of course, I didn't mean to give him my address--just the number that he could write back to at the newspaper office.

At the same time, getting a letter from a girl who admitted that she wasn't quite a fright would make it so much more interesting for this poor, dear, lonely, unpopular one:

I went on:

"Ugliness or beauty doesn't matter in a man. What does matter are his looks.

"Perhaps you will say that this is the same thing? But if you do it shows that you can't have associated much with girls, or you would understand better their ways of looking at things. I think a man's looks means whether he is well and fit or whether he allows himself to have spots on his face. (This is unforgivable!!)"

I underlined the last sentence heavily, three times.

"Also how he does his hair. This is very important. For instance, part of the reason why I detest our little red-haired 'incubus' here is because he does his hair like Gilbert the Filbert instead of parting it at the side like a man. (Either from right to left, like most people, or from left to right, like some quite fascinating people I've seen portraits of. But, anyhow, it must be parted.)

"Then, of course, there is the way he holds himself. Men who have straight backs and their heads up are the ones that walk away with the admiration. Of course, there are more of them about, now that everything you could call a man is serving and has been trained 'how to walk and where to put his feet,' than there used to be in peace-time.

"Then, of course, there is whether a man looks as if he wanted to please us, meaning the women. If he doesn't, it is his finish. You know the Scotch proverb about what it is that gets a lassie married. 'It's not the beauty: it's not the dowry: it's the come-hither in the eye.' I think that holds good of men even more than it does of us. Anyhow, I am making you a present of a Woman's Point of View."

Here I drew myself up over the ink spotted table of our Lair and chuckled to myself.

"A woman!" If the lonely subaltern knew that I was only just eighteen, and that six months ago I had my hair dangling in a long, golden bell-rope below my waist-belt, he probably wouldn't call me a woman at all. He'd put me down as quite a young girl. A flapper, even."

Little realising how much more mature my mind is than that of a woman like--say Aunt Victoria. I've read far more love-stories than she has: I've studied the whole subject much more deeply. And I'm sure no one would guess from this letter that I am anything but a sophisticated woman of the world!

How could they?

I went on:

"Perhaps you think that the ideas of a woman are scarcely worth considering. Well! That won't hurt my feelings, you know, as if you were somebody who had ever met you. And, at any rate, it will be one more envelope for you to open at your lonely breakfast-table, or in your rat-infested 'dug-out' or wherever you do happen to be. Isn't it too funny to think that I don't know whether the man to whom I am writing is in England, or somewhere in France, or where?

"But it makes no difference at all.

"With much sympathy, "Believe me, dear Lonely Subaltern, "Your unknown friend, "ELIZABETH."

That's all the signature that I shall put. And now to post this to Box X.Y.Z.

How I do hope that the Lonely Subaltern will answer this long epistle.

How disappointing if it really was a "fake," and a bet between two larky young men to see which of them snaffled the biggest mail!

Or, even if it's real--suppose "Lonely Subaltern" has so many sympathetic letters showered upon him that he will merely put a formal note of thanks in the paper "to all his unknown friends," explaining that it is absolutely impossible for him to answer them all individually? Or supposing he only answers some of the letters, and mine is one of those that he doesn't care for?

Well! I can't help that. Anyhow, I shall have done my best to bring a little brightness into the poor young man's sad life. And, incidentally, into my own! For I shan't so much mind being "Odd Girl Out" in our party at the Moated Grange if I have some little private interest all to myself. Yes, even if it is only a pen-and-ink one.

And somehow I have a presentiment that I shall have it.

He will answer, I think! Wouldn't any rather nice young man answer a letter like that?

* * * * * * * *

Well! "To-night's the night," as that idiotic little Mr. Lascelles will keep on saying.

Meaning the night of the supper-party at our house. "Only to think of it, only to dream of it!" as it says in one of the antediluvian song-books which we have in the Lair. Three men to supper: I'll just ask you to dwell on it for a few seconds. In our house! At the Moated Grange, Mud Flats! With the full sanction of Aunt Victoria.... Well, as I say, if you'd told us six months ago that this was going to happen we three girls would all have greeted the news in exactly the same spirit. We should have all, "with one sweet voice," exclaimed:

"TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE!"

And now?

Well, now ... it's perfectly extraordinary how soon one gets accustomed even to the most weird and cataclysmic happenings and changes in one's daily life. Look at the way Mud Flats has grown accustomed to being a Camp of Instruction and a background of Bridge-Builders and a Nest of Billets, instead of being "Scene--a Blasted Heath," like in Shakespeare.

We three girls are positively blasé about "Young Men and How to Feed Them."

Nancy and Evelyn have, of course, taken a good deal of trouble with the supper for them. Everything as stodgy and English as possible. What they'll call "filling" after the long cold afternoon spent trampling about the icy mud at the Ford.

So there is going to be a goose, roast goose with lagoons of hot, rich, brown gravy, and with sage-and-onion stuffing that they'll be able to notice from the Junction, pretty well! and apple sauce with cloves in it, and other savoury sorts of things that make men seem to lose all their self-control as they sniff them up and murmur, "By Jove! there's a top-hole smell of----" whatever it is. Things we should never dream of cooking for ourselves. I'm sure if any young men read this story they'll wish to goodness they'd ever struck a billet like this fellow Lascelles.

Then for pudding there's the last Christmas one left over from last year. It'll be well seasoned. Not to mention Nancy's trifle, and Elizabeth's cheesecakes. Hah! also there'll be a quince-pie with custard: Aunt Victoria's great-grandmother's recipe. Really, people used to guzzle in the Eighteenth Century: worse even than Mr. Frank Lascelles does now. Then there's to be celery, and toast, and biscuits and butter, and cheese, of course. The sort that I suppose people will never give up making childish jokes about, and calling Christian names, and all that sort of thing. As for drinks, as I broke it to you before, there will be home-made lemonade and barley water. The only beverages that have ever been known in this maiden-lady-like establishment.

"I do hope to goodness the visitors won't mind that very much," said Nancy, rather doubtfully. "One always imagines young men washing everything down with rivers of strong drink and quaffing torrents of whisky and soda----"

"Not in war-time, surely?" said Evelyn in her shocked little voice. "I always understood this campaign was being fought entirely on tea. Anyhow, if there isn't any 'strong drink' there, they can't quaff it. They are much better without it." So like Evelyn! Being "better without" is one of her little pet phrases. She's one of those people who are born thinking that to like a thing very much is a sure sign that the thing is a sin and the liker a sinner.

I laughed and said: "I suppose you'd say just the same thing about Mr. Whatsitsname who's coming, this friend of the Incubus's? (Yes: I shall call Mr. Lascelles the Incubus if I want to.) This Mr. Curtis, who has never kissed a girl in his life. I suppose he's much better without it, Evelyn?"

Evelyn looked very coldly at me over the big soup-ladle that she was covering with pink polishing paste. We were all in the pantry at the moment cleaning the silver for this evening.

She said: "Well, at any rate, it shows that he is probably a much nicer sort of young man than most."

"Does it?" I said. "It might show that he was a much nastier one, because nobody would ever let him come near them. Or what I think is that the Incubus may have made up the whole story about Mr. Curtis."

"One would soon know," murmured Nancy over the salt-cellars.

Evelyn said, "What do you mean?"

"Oh, nothing," said Nancy. "Run, Rattle: there's the postman's knock."

I ran, and took in the letters from the three o'clock post. A seedsman's catalogue and a Church Family Newspaper for Aunt Victoria: a glove company sale announcement for Evelyn: and a letter for Miss Elizabeth Verdeley....

Yes! A letter for me.

"A letter in an unknown hand," as it says in books, forwarded on from the box at the newspaper office. It was--it was a letter from the Lonely Subaltern in answer to my own!

He had answered. And as I realised this I realised how fearfully disappointed I should have been if he hadn't.

Yes: supposing he'd had too many letters to reply to each--or supposing that mine hadn't been one that he cared for the sound of.

Never mind. Those were things that might have happened. They hadn't.

He'd answered. Now I'd got to see what he'd said. Dropping the unimportant other letters on the hall table, I clutched my own and tore up to my bedroom. It was piercingly cold there, but never mind. It was solitary. I plumped down on the bed and cuddled the eiderdown all round me (thank goodness I hadn't been the ass that Nancy was, giving away her cosiest quilt to the Billet Incubus!) and I tore open the envelope.

The letter was written in a rather large, round hand. It reminded me of my own handwriting one time when I was at school and when I stuck a steel nib by accident into my thumb. I had to learn to write with my left hand for some weeks after that. This writing, as I say, was a little like it. Awkward and clumsy, and boyish. Rather touching, I thought.

The letter said:

"My dear 'Sympathiser,'

"Thank you most awfully for your letter, which I was no end bucked to get.

"It's most awfully good of you to take the trouble to write me such a jolly long letter, and to worry about 'why I am unpopular,' and all that.

"You ask me whether it is men or women that I 'can't get myself liked by.'

"Well, the answer to that is 'Women.' Or, rather, some women. I seem to have put her back up--"

Here the "her" is scratched out, and "their" is put instead. Of course he means "her": he means some particular girl. What a little cat she must be! Because I am sure he is frightfully nice. You can see it by his handwriting, and by his simple boyish way of putting things.

Well, he goes on:

"I seem to have put their back up in some way, and what I have done goodness only knows. Other people seem to get on with me all right, but I simply can't break any ice in this quarter. I'll take your kind advice about parting my hair. You never do seem to know what's going to make a difference--with women!

"I wonder why you, for example, are so down on the unlucky fellow who is billeted in your house--though I don't suppose I ought to call him unlucky really.

"You say something about my being perhaps 'above' taking an interest in 'a woman's point of view.' Believe me, this isn't at all true. Far from being 'above' it, I humbly admit that I am fearfully thrilled by any views that you may have. You wrote me about the most interesting letter that I've ever got in my life. Like Oliver, I am asking for more. Tell me more about what I am to do to make myself a little less repulsive to your sex. Will you? I'd be awfully grateful if you would.

"And another thing. Couldn't I have a photograph of yourself? I should like to see what she was like to look at, the woman who'd been so kind as to answer my foolish advertisement. I imagine you with a serious, serene sort of face, rather like Miss Florence Nightingale. Do you perhaps wear glasses? You say something about being thankful that all your family Have been reasonably good-looking. Is it the regular-featured, classical, rather passive style of good looks? Or is this a boss shot?"

Here I couldn't help leaving off to simply screech with laughter. Like Miss Florence Nightingale? Me? And with glasses? And "serene"? I peeped into the looking-glass on the dressing-table beyond the bed, and shrieked again at the sight of my own baby face, pink and dimpled under the cloud of unruly golden hair. "Regular-featured"? "Classical"? "Passive"? Oh, no: I couldn't allow Lonely Subaltern to think that that was the sort of person who was writing to him. I should simply have to explain to him!

"You see, I have nothing to go by," the letter says quite pathetically. "So do please let me have a photograph of some sort. A snapshot would do. Won't you send one?"

What shall I do about this? To send or not to send? What would other girls do, I wonder? I rather feel I'd like to send. There is, as it happens, quite a good post-card photograph of me that was taken by the little man at Nowhere Junction. Shall I let Lonely Subaltern have a copy? It might amuse him, poor lad, in his solitary, damp dug-out--if he is in a dug-out. He doesn't say. No: he can't be in a dug-out, because he talks of this girl whose back he's managed to get up. That shows he must be serving somewhere at home still. Unless this girl is a French lady. Perhaps the dark-eyed daughter of the landlady at his billet in some once-enchanting and peaceful French village? You see, he doesn't tell me anything at all about where he is or what he's doing. He just ends up:

"With many thanks for your kindness, "Believe me yours most gratefully, "THE LONELY SUBALTERN."

Perhaps he thinks I'm too old and "serious" for him to write to me in detail? That may be it. Perhaps he'd be encouraged to go on and write yards to me if he realised that I was just a fair-haired girl with big eyes and dimples?

That settles it.

Evelyn would perhaps say that I should be "better without" details of what Lonely Subalterns are doing. And that they would be better without photographs of their sympathetic girl correspondents; Never mind. Let Evelyn go on cleaning the silver for to-night's supper-party. This has nothing to do with her, or with Nancy. This is my own private little show! And, besides, I do feel that I'm some good in the world when a lonely and unappreciated young man writes to me in such a really grateful and appreciative way. He shall have a photograph.

I'll get one now....

H'm.... It certainly does look rather a flapper! There is a certain effect of "How-do-I-look-with-my-hair-up?" about it. I mustn't let him imagine that it's a mere schoolgirl who is offering him all this sage advice about life, and love, and popularity, and all that sort of thing. I know what I'll do. I'll write him just a little note to send with the photograph. I'll put:

"DEAR LONELY SUBALTERN,

"Thank you for your touching letter, which I will answer at greater length presently."

(For I shall have to get dressed directly.)

"I am so sorry that I have not got an up-to-date photograph of myself to send you, but I enclose one that was taken some time ago"

(It was--it was taken in May, and it's now December.)

"when I was a mere girl."

(That gets over the difficulty.)

"The photograph is still considered to have quite a look of me. So I am sending it to give you some 'idea.' Please do not thank me for any of the advice which I may be able to give you. If my experience and my point of view prove to be of any use to one of our gallant defenders,"

(There! That sounds woman-of-the-worldly enough.)

"I shall be only too pleased.

"Believe me, dear Lonely Subaltern, Your sympathetic friend, "ELIZABETH."

There! I shall just catch the post out from Mud Flats.

(Later.) As I tore down the road towards the pillar-box-in my blanket-coat, and without a hat, I almost ran into our Incubus, Mr. Frank Lascelles.

He was stampeding up to the house, swinging along with that would-be military swagger that I suppose is put on to conceal the fact that he's almost too small to see. Up to the eyes he was clay mud. Down to the eyes he was floppy khaki cap. (I suppose that's supposed to look active service-y?) He saluted, and said: "Hullo, Miss Elizabeth, are you taking a letter to the post?" Such an absolutely futile question, don't you know, seeing that I was flying along towards the pillar-box, and had a large white envelope in my hand. So I simply couldn't help snapping at him, "Oh, no. I'm sitting by the fire and reading a book!" Then I was sorry because it sounded so absolutely idiotic and fifth-form-at-schoolish. And he made it worse by holding out his hand towards the envelope and saying: "Anyhow, mayn't I take that thing down the road for you?"

Well, I couldn't let him, could I?

Supposing he'd caught sight of the address? My handwriting's quite big enough. Suppose he'd tumbled to it that I was "one of these girls" who write to Lonely Subalterns? ...

Oh, no. He's the sort of little beast who would laugh and tease me about it for evermore.

So I said, "Please don't trouble," and simply legged it past him without drawing breath until I dropped the big envelope with the photograph of little Me and the note to Lonely Subaltern into the pillar-post.

And when I ran back again to the house the Incubus had disappeared, as usual, into the bathroom, where I was just going to get some hot water.

And, as usual, the little toad bagged every drop: singing away as he splashed in his tub his exasperating song about

"_Oh, please don't flirt with me: Don't try to flirt with me. For it might be horribly awkward If some one were to see._"

So Evelyn, Nancy and I had to wash in cold.