CHAPTER V

THE WIDOW

LIFE went on very quietly for Monica and Sidney after Randolph left them.

But one afternoon, as Sidney and her father were sitting together in the garden, Major Urquhart came limping out to them in some excitement.

"It's what I always say," he declared, sitting down heavily in a garden chair; "brain and knack are better servants than strength. Six men—brawny fellows, too—all perspiring and cursing and shouting, and with no more notion than a child how to get a bit of furniture in at a door!"

"And then you walked by with your brain and knack, and the thing was done," said Sidney laughing. "At which village move have you been assisting? I know there are one or two flittings on hand."

"Lovelace's Cottage—bottom of the hill."

Sidney sat up and looked interested.

"I heard a lady had taken that. Did you see her?"

"Yes, I did. An uncommonly sensible little woman; but her workmen were bunglers. I passed by and lent a hand."

"I can see you do it!"

"She's got some very good bits of furniture," the Major pursued, "and this gigantic bureau, of course, came to pieces. They only wanted a screwdriver, but none of them had thought of it. She's come from Norfolk, she told me, and is a widow."

"Does she know anybody here?"

"Yes. She's a connection of Mrs. de Cressiers."

"Oh, she'll be all right, then. I wonder Austin did not tell us about her. He was here yesterday. Is she all alone, poor thing?"

"My dear Sidney, a 'poor thing' doesn't apply to her. Wait till you make her acquaintance."

"I don't know that I'm fond of widows," Sidney said meditatively. "Is she old or young?"

"Young—quite young; a very sensible young woman! So natural. I've promised to put her up a shelf or two to-morrow. She has some good books, but no place to put them."

"Well," said Sidney admiringly, "you have got on!"

The Admiral chuckled.

"You'll be kept busy, Ted," he said. "Mark my words, if she has her wits about her, she'll make use of you. I should, if I were in her shoes. You're a first-rate carpenter."

"She gave me a first-rate cup of tea," said Major Urquhart; "boiled some water up in a spirit lamp in a jiffy. She's good for emergencies, I can tell you! Wasn't flustered or fussed, but sat down and told me a rattling good story of an experience she had in Ireland with the Paddies. Her husband was a soldier. She seems to have been in all quarters of the globe."

"She sounds interesting," said Sidney; "I'll call on her as soon as ever I can."

"I told her you'd be down first thing to-morrow morning, and she's coming to lunch. Her maid doesn't come to her till to-morrow evening."

The Admiral laughed out.

"I wonder you didn't offer her a bed, and bring her back to dinner," he said.

"I offered it," said the Major, quite unabashed. "I knew Sidney would be delighted, but she declined."

"But why hasn't Mrs. de Cressiers befriended her, if she is a connection?" asked Sidney.

"I didn't ask. Shouldn't think she's a little woman to hang on to her connections; too independent for that."

"But," began Sidney; and then she stopped herself. She was about to say that surely connections should be asked for hospitality before strangers; but she knew how impulsive her uncle was, and did not want to hurt his feelings.

"You have rather rushed me into a call," she said.

"It's only neighbourly to show her the ropes in a strange place," said her uncle.

And Sidney assented, wondering if she could see Mrs. de Cressiers before she went.

Fortunately, after dinner Austin walked in.

"Came down to be livened up!" he confided to Sidney. "The governor is extra grumpy; the mother on her high horse, so I cut."

"Now you can tell us about the new arrival at Lovelace's Cottage," Sidney said eagerly. "She's a connection of yours?"

"Never heard of her. Who do you mean?"

"She's a Mrs. Norman; her husband was a captain in the 12th Lancers."

"Never heard of her," repeated Austin. "But now I come to think of it, the parents were saying something to each other about Lovelace's. I didn't take much notice. Is she a good sort?"

The Major gave an emphatic nod.

Sidney began to laugh.

"Uncle Ted is bowled over. I'm to go down in the early hours of to-morrow, and she's to feed here till she gets in comfortably. It's all arranged."

"I think I'll stroll round and have a look at her," said Austin. "If I'm a connection, I ought to have first innings."

"Ask your mother about her first," said Sidney.

"Oh, you suspicious, conventional brutes!"

The Major shot this out with vehemence; then walked out of the room, and banged the door behind him.

Sidney could not treat it gravely.

"Dad," she said, "this is worse than we have had hitherto. Uncle Ted is always susceptible, but he never has capitulated quite so rapidly."

"Don't chaff him. You'll make his kind-heartedness into something more if you don't look-out!"

Sidney took her father's rebuke at once, and said no more; but the next morning a groom rode down before breakfast with a note from Mrs. de Cressiers:

"MY DEAR SIDNEY,—Mrs. Norman married the son of the second cousin of my brother-in-law, Colonel St. Orr, who married my youngest sister. Can this be called a connection? Certainly nothing more. I have neither heard nor seen anything of the lady herself, except that my sister mentioned her name in a letter. Why are you so precipitately making her acquaintance? Surely you can wait till I have called upon her? And I certainly am not going to do that till I return from town. I am going up for a fortnight next Tuesday.—Yours in haste, with love—

"CLARICE DE CRESSIERS."

Sidney read the first part of this note aloud at the breakfast table. The latter bit she kept to herself, for she knew she would have no peace from her uncle until she had been down to the cottage; and though Mrs. de Cressiers always tried to rule her life, Sidney had never allowed her to do so. Her father was quite aware of Mrs. de Cressiers' failing and always backed his daughter up to resist her sway.

"No woman shall rule my ship," he would say genially; "and these old families are not living in the feudal days; neither are we their serfs. Oh, I know, my dear, your mother was a de Cressier, but the Urquhart blood is quite as good, and a little more vigorous than theirs; and you are your father's daughter, remember, and not Mrs. de Cressiers'!"

So after breakfast Sidney accompanied her uncle down to Lovelace's Cottage.

The front garden was still strewn with empty packing cases and paper and litter of all kinds. As they unlatched the gate, Mrs. Norman came out of the front door. She was a pretty woman; her complexion was good, her eyes rather a vivid blue. She showed a good many teeth when she smiled and talked, and her hair was bright golden. She was dressed in a very short and shabby tweed skirt, a man's bright yellow cardigan jacket was over it, and a soft grey felt hat, with a jay's feather and a bit of staghorn moss in it, gave her a distinctly sporty appearance.

"How awfully kind and friendly of you!" she said, holding out her hand to Sidney. "Your uncle told me what a friend you were to any forlorn strangers. Do come in, if you don't mind the chaos. I'm in the state of the Irishman who said: 'Sure I'm in sech a botheration and commiseration, that I don't know whether me toes come out of me head or me legs!'"

She led the way into the tiny house, found some chairs, and Sidney sat down and looked about her.

"You ought to have had a woman in to clean," she said. "Are you quite by yourself?"

"Absolutely. I quaked in the night when I remembered half of my china was lying in the packing cases in the garden; but then I remembered that the country was not crammed with thieves, and I slept like a dog till nine this morning. I've only just finished my breakfast."

Major Urquhart was already examining the walls of the tiny sitting-room.

"Look here," he said, "this is the place! I'll rig you up some shelves in this recess in no time. And how would a locker at the bottom work, with a lid? It's a tidy contrivance of my own, for women always have a lot of rubbish about—sewing, you call it, don't you? And you can shoot the whole lot in, when you want a tidy room, see? My man will be here directly with some wood."

"Oh, how awfully kind of you! That's what I always say—men are so delightfully prompt. If they promise a thing, they go straight away and do it."

She sprang up, and for the next twenty minutes she and the Major were deep in calculations and measurements. Sidney looked on, half amused, half interested. Then Mrs. Norman turned to her with a laughing apology:

"You will think me most dreadfully rude, but it really is a chance for me, when I have such a kind offer made me. I can't afford to have half I should like in this house. I'm afraid you'll go back, and think me a calculating selfish creature; but I've learnt a good many things in life, and one is how to take from people. There was a time when I preferred to give; but then, of course, I had the means to do it. After all, the world is divided between givers and takers, and if you can't be one, you can be the other."

She laughed as she spoke, and Sidney felt the magnetism of her frank cheerfulness.

"I'm sure you'll be doing Uncle Ted a kindness if you give him work. He has filled our house to overflowing with his handiwork, and now has no scope for half his designs. I don't think I will take up your time any longer; but do come up to lunch, if it will be of any help to you."

"Oh, how kind! But perhaps I had better not. I only want a snack of bread and cheese, and I don't want to encroach upon your kindness!"

"Come up, of course," Sidney said. "But tell me before I go if I can help you in any way."

Mrs. Norman laughed.

"I know I want all sorts of counsel about supplies, but at this moment my bookshelves have ousted everything else. May I pick your brains at luncheon? As you are so very kind as to press me, I will come with pleasure."

Sidney saw nothing for it but to go; she felt instinctively that she was not wanted; she refused to let herself criticise her new neighbour, and went home occupying herself with many household duties for the rest of the morning. Once her father came across her, and asked about the new arrival.

"She is a pleasant little body. You will see her at lunch."

And no more would she say.

Major Urquhart arrived punctually for a wonder, but Mrs. Norman accompanied him. And when Sidney laughingly remarked that her uncle was always late for meals, she said:

"Ah, but, you see, I insisted upon punctuality, for I was an invited guest, and could not take such liberties!"

"Unpunctuality is impossible to me," said the Admiral. "We let Ted go his own way, but my daughter and I never keep each other waiting."

It was a cheery table. Mrs. Norman was very good company, and could talk on a variety of subjects. She discoursed on books and politics to the Admiral, on fishing and carpentering to the Major, on servants and village tradesmen to Sidney. When they rose from the table she gave a little sigh:

"I shall return to my work a Hercules. But, oh, what a problem it is to fit big furniture into a cottage! I should like to tip some of my effects into the river, which flows in such an accommodating way past my back garden. What a temptation to fling all my tiresome burdens into it as well, and let it carry them away for ever!"

"How would you begin?" said Sidney merrily.

"My duties and responsibilities would go first—don't be shocked, Admiral!—They weigh heavily on us all at times, especially if you're a lonely unit, and have none to share them with you! My memories would follow. They are so worrying and depressing. And my bills would complete the list. What a happy creature I should be!"

She laughed, and her laugh was so infectious that even the Admiral joined in it, though he hardly approved of such audacious sentiments being aired.

Major Urquhart insisted upon going back with her to complete his work.

"He's quite infatuated," the Admiral said, turning to his daughter.

"Yes," said Sidney, "aren't we all? She is charmingly natural and original. Don't you think so?"

"No," said the Admiral gruffly. "I've seen a good many of that stamp in my time."

Sidney shook her head at him.

"We shall see a good deal of her, I prophesy; so we will be prepared to like her."

"We shan't see much of her. Ted will."

Sidney said no more. She was strangely anxious to like this new arrival; but as time went on her views changed, and one afternoon she arrived at Monica's farm with a depressed little furrow on her usually smooth forehead.

She found Monica in her store room, packing up some honeycomb from her bees to go to London. Sidney swung herself up on an empty shelf, and began:

"Be rude to me, Monnie! I'm longing for a short abrupt brusque remark from someone. Honey is delicious, but you can get a surfeit of it, can't you? And somehow or other I've been having honey with some sting in it. Do bees ever leave their stings in their honey?"

"I haven't time to talk in parables," said Monica, in her downright way. "What is the matter with you?"

She did not look up from her work. Sidney watched her quick deft movements, as she slipped her cases of honey into the light packing cases on the floor, and said somewhat wistfully:

"I've come over for a talk. Can't you be idle for half an hour?"

"Yes, if you wait ten minutes. These must go to the station this afternoon."

"I sometimes wish I had an entrancingly busy life like yours," Sidney said; "and yet I have my days filled up, only they don't seem as profitable as yours."

Monica did not reply. She worked on until the cases were full; then she called one of her men to nail them down, gave him directions for taking them to the station, and, slipping off her apron, turned to Sidney with a smile.

"Come into the sitting-room, and we will have tea. Aunt Dannie and Chuckles are spending a day at the rectory, so we shall be undisturbed."

The sitting-room looked cheerful with its blazing fire. Outside, a grey mist was coming up from the sea; the leaves on the trees seemed to be shivering under its touch, and many were silently dropping to their death.

Sidney seated herself with a sigh of content in an arm-chair by the fire. Then she looked up into Monica's face affectionately.

"Be a safety valve to me! Oh, Monnie, what should I do without you! You are so safe, so silent, so busy in your world of work, that all my confidences will be safe. I have come over with the overwhelming desire in my heart to pick our new neighbour to pieces. Isn't it truly dreadful of me? Have you seen her yet?"

"Her name is Mrs. Norman, is it not? She is taking milk from us. No, I have not met her."

"You would like her at first sight, as I did. She's a jolly cheery-looking little woman; but, oh, Monnie, I wish with all my heart she had never come near us."

Monica sat down.

"Tell me all about her. Get it off your chest, and you will feel better."

"It's ridiculous of me, but I have an instinctive feeling that she is going to bring havoc into our quiet life. I suppose she is what you call a man's woman; but she is awfully sweet—too sweet to me—only, as a rule, her conversation is directed wholly to Uncle Ted and father. And she makes me feel out of it. I can't explain. I'm not jealous, and I've never been made to feel so in my own home before. She's a great talker, and an amusing one; and she's the kind of person that absorbs all the conversation, and centres it round herself. I've tried awfully hard to like her, but I haven't succeeded; and there are things I have hated in connection with her. She has always given us to understand that she was a lonely widow, with no one belonging to her. Yesterday, quite accidentally, I found out that she has a grown-up daughter who lives with her father's relations. She seems quite indifferent in her feelings towards her.

"Then she posed to father as a great reader, and Uncle Ted was full of her wonderful library. Now we find out the books were her husband's, and she keeps them with the intention of selling them when she has a good offer for them. She hasn't read one of them; she confessed as much to me in an unguarded moment.

"She orders Uncle Ted about as if he were a boy; he is doing all kinds of things for her in her cottage, and he spends his days down there. Of course, I am delighted that he should have the interest and occupation of it; but one day when I was out, she left him down there and marched up to spend the afternoon with dad. She was full of garden questions. When I came back, she was pouring out tea for dad, as if she had known him all her life. Dad was bored to death with her—only he's too polite to say so. He doesn't like her, I can see. Then Uncle Ted came to dinner in the sulkiest of tempers; he had been furious at her leaving him and attaching herself to father. It sounds very silly and foolish, doesn't it? I wish Mrs. de Cressiers were back."

"It sounds as if she were of the adventuress style," said Monica laughing.

"Doesn't it? And yet she isn't; for everything is quite straight and above board, except perhaps about her daughter. Mrs. de Cressiers knows her history. Well, let me continue. Two days ago Austin called on her, and now she has him completely in tow. He is superintending her garden; Uncle Ted is making shelves, and dressers, and tables for her. Isn't she clever? And am I not a backbiter?"

"I should like to see her," said Monica thoughtfully; "but I'm not one to make calls, as you know. I'm not a society person."

"My dear Monnie, if Mrs. Norman wants to know you she'll do it, whether you want it or not. She amuses me awfully. She has such a good opinion of herself that it never enters her head that other people may set a different value on her from what she does herself. There, I'm becoming bitter, and I will not be that, if I can help it. She told us the other day that she had left a 'weeping world' behind her in Norfolk. 'And I know,' she added, 'that new friends are more difficult to make as one grows older. My dear old ones have such a big place in my heart.'"

"That's nice," said Monica shortly. Then she looked out of the window. "And here she is coming up the drive. At least, it is a stranger. Peep and tell me if it is she, Sidney."

"Yes. I'm off. Don't let me meet her."

"But why not? Do stay."

"She'll—you'll get on better without me," said Sidney. "I'll creep out the back way."

But it was too late. Mrs. Norman's voice was heard in the hall, and the next moment she was in the room.