What Timmy Did Part 31

"You'll have to go a long way to give milk to Josephine," he observed.

She looked at him, startled, and going to the scullery door, glanced quickly at the corner where stood the now empty basket.

"Where is she?" she exclaimed--and her whole face lightened. "Oh, G.o.dfrey, have you managed to hide her away?"

He nodded. "Yes, ever so many miles away, where no one will find her."

"What do you mean?" She could not conceal her astonishment--her astonishment and her intense relief.

"Timmy and I spirited her away," he went on, "to a cat's paradise where she's going to be kept under observation."

"Won't Dr. O'Farrell be very angry?"

"I don't think he'll mind as much as he'll pretend to. The moment he was told about her kittens he knew that the cat wasn't mad at all."

"The person who will be angry," exclaimed Betty, "is Mrs. Crofton! I thought it horribly cruel of her to say what she did last night."

"It was rather vindictive," he said reflectively. "On the other hand, you must remember that she'd had an awful shock. I don't wonder she felt angry with Josephine, eh?" He looked a little quizzically, a little deprecatingly, over at Betty.

"Still it seemed so--so unnecessary that she should _ask_ for the cat to be killed." Betty was now bustling about the kitchen with a heightened colour.

Radmore poured out a cup of tea. "Now then," he said, "do come and sit down quietly, and take your tea, Betty." Rather to his surprise, she meekly obeyed.

Presently she asked him, "But why have you got up so early?"

And then he told her the story of his and Timmy's night expedition, ending up with: "I intend going round to Dr. O'Farrell's house about eight o'clock. It wouldn't be fair to let the old fellow come down here to indulge his sporting instincts, eh?"

To that Betty made no answer, and as the water was now boiling she went across to the dresser and brought a clean cup and saucer. "Now then, G.o.dfrey, this cup is for you. Nanna can wait a little longer for hers."

He sat down opposite to her, and into both their minds there came the thought that if they had married and gone out to Australia they would have often sat thus together in the early morning.

And then, when Nanna's cup of tea was at last ready, together with some nice thin bread and b.u.t.ter cut, he asked, "Can't I carry the tray up for you?"

She shook her head, smiling.

"I suppose you'll be down again soon? Isn't there anything else I can help you with?"

But this time Betty shook her head even more decidedly than before.

"Oh, no!" she exclaimed. "I've got to make Nanna comfortable for the day, and it's a long business, for she's dreadfully particular. As a matter of fact, Rosamund and Dolly will be down before I am. They'll start everything going for breakfast. They've been very good lately, you know!

Perhaps you'd like to give _them_ a hand?"

He looked at her hard. There was just the flicker of a mischievous smile on her face.

"I suppose I ought to help them," he said without enthusiasm. "But I'll go and have a bath now. You'll let me be your scullion when you're getting lunch ready, eh, Betty?" He added hastily, "I think Timmy ought to stay in bed all day to-day. You _will_ let me take the place of Timmy, won't you, Betty?"

"That will be very kind of you," she replied demurely. And then, before she could say a word of protest, he had taken the heavy tray out of her hands. "You'll find me much more useful than Timmy," he said, with a touch of his old masterfulness. "Now you lead the way up, and I'll hand you over the tray at Nanna's door."

CHAPTER XXI

Some three or four hours later, Miss Pendarth, attired in a queer kind of brown smock which fell in long folds about her tall, still elegant figure, and with a gardening basket slung over her arm, stood by the gla.s.s door giving into her garden, when suddenly she heard a loud double knock on her stout, early Victorian knocker.

She turned quickly into her morning room. Who could it be? She knew the knock and ring of each of her neighbours, and this was none of them.

Her maid hurried out of the kitchen, and a moment later she heard a man's voice exclaim: "Will you kindly give this note to Miss Pendarth? I will return for the answer in about an hour."

Miss Pendarth knew the voice, and, stepping out of her morning room, she called out: "Come in just for a few minutes, Mr. Radmore."

In the old days she had always called him "G.o.dfrey," but when Timmy had brought him to call within a day or two of his return to Beechfield, she had used the formal mode of address.

Radmore had to obey her, w.i.l.l.y-nilly, and as he came down the hall towards her, she was struck by the keenness and intelligence of his dark face. She told herself grudgingly that he had certainly improved amazingly, at any rate in outward appearance, during the last ten years.

"Do let us go into your garden," he said courteously. "I hear that you are still Mrs. Tosswill's only rival!"

She softened, in spite of herself. The G.o.dfrey Radmore of ten years ago would not have thought of saying such a civil, pleasant thing.

They walked through the gla.s.s door, and proceeded in silence down the path. The herbaceous borders were in fuller beauty than anything the Old Place garden could now show, but Radmore paid no further compliment, and it was she who broke the silence.

"You must see amazing changes at Old Place," she said musingly. "The rest of Beechfield has altered comparatively little, but Old Place is very different, with George gone, and all those young people who were children when you went away, grown up. As for Timmy, he was little more than a baby ten years ago."

"Timmy is my G.o.dson," said Radmore quickly. Her allusion to George had cut him.

Miss Pendarth turned on him rather sharply. "Of course I know that! I remember his christening as if it was yesterday. It must be twelve or thirteen years ago. I can see you and Betty standing by the font--" and then she stopped abruptly, while Radmore blushed hotly under his tan.

He said hastily: "Timmy's a dear little chap, but I confess I can't make him out sometimes."

Miss Pendarth turned and looked at him. She knew everything there was to know about Timmy Tosswill. His mother had early confided in her, and she never spoke of the child to other people. Like so many gossips, when really trusted with a secret, Miss Pendarth could keep a confidence--none better.

But she felt that G.o.dfrey Radmore was ent.i.tled to know the little she could tell him, so "Timmy is a very queer child," she said slowly, "but I can't help thinking, Mr. Radmore--"

"Do call me G.o.dfrey," he exclaimed, and at once she went on:

"Well, G.o.dfrey, I think a certain amount of his oddity is owing to the fact that he's never been to school or mixed with other boys. I'm told he's a good scholar, but he's a shocking speller! Where's the good of knowing Latin and Greek if you can't spell such a simple word as chocolate--he spells it 'chockolit.' Still, I'm bound to admit the child sees and foresees more than most human beings are allowed to see and foresee."

And then, as Radmore remained silent, she went on: "Do you yourself believe in all that sort of thing, G.o.dfrey--I mean second sight, and so on?"

Radmore answered frankly: "Yes, I think I do. I didn't before the War--I never gave any thought to any of these subjects. But during the War things happened to me and to some of my chums which made me believe, in a way I never had believed till then, in the reality of another state of being--I mean a world quite near to this world, one full of spirits, good and evil, who exercise a certain influence on the living."

They had come to a circular stone seat which was much older even than this old garden, and Miss Pendarth motioned her visitor to sit down.

"It isn't a new thing with Timmy," she said. "As a matter of fact, even before you left Beechfield, Dr. O'Farrell regarded the child as being in some way abnormal."

"D'you mean while he was still a baby?" asked Radmore.

"Well, when he had just emerged from babyhood. But I doubt if anyone knew it but Timmy's parents, the doctor, myself, and yes, I mustn't forget Nanna. He was a very extraordinary little child. He spoke so very early, you know."