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“Will this go on for long?”

“The doctor says he may be carried off any day. Mother’s being wonderful, simply wonderful”

At this moment Middlewitch and Mrs Grant came out into the small hall, in that order. The four of them hardly had room to move. His manner with Summers was very different.

“Why, hullo, Charley my dear old man,” he cried, at his most effusive. “Well, this is a bit of a surprise, running across you here,” he said, as though he owned the place. “We must have a chat one of these days,” he was continuing, while Charley leant across to shake Mrs Grant by the hand.

“Why, Charley Barley,” she greeted him, quite composed. “It’s good of you to travel all this way to visit us old folks.”

“How is he?” Charley asked.

“You’ve just come from him, haven’t you? I heard you mount the stairs. You noticed the change there is, didn’t you? He’s ever so much easier.”

“That’s fine,” Charley said.

“But the doctor says it might happen any moment,” she went on calmly. Summers turned for the first time to Arthur Middlewitch. But this man’s mind was plainly miles away. He was preoccupied.

“Oh, don’t speak like that,” Charley protested to Mrs Grant.

“It’s got to come to one and all of us, Charley,” she told him, quite composed. “He doesn’t suffer, I know. I know,” she repeated, insistent. There was a pause.

“That’s right,” Charley said.

“Well I must be getting along now,” Mr Middlewitch broke in. “I’ll give you a tinkle one of these days,” he added to Charley. “And it certainly has been grand of you, Mrs Grant, to listen as you’ve just done. I’m sure when I dropped in I never …” and he stopped. Then he hurriedly made his goodbyes, and left.

“I don’t much cotton onto that young gentleman,” Mrs Grant mentioned.

“Now there’s no harm in Art, mother,” Nance said. “He’s worried, that’s all.”

“I must get back to my grand old man,” Mrs Grant announced waving them into the living room. “And I know you two young people must have a deal to say to one another,” she added, arch. Charley looked at her unseeing. He was shy. He could find nothing to come out with. But when Mrs Grant was gone, and Nance was settled down opposite, it was she did all the talking.

“That’s what I’ll never forgive this war,” she began, unexpectedly, “never so long as I live, that at the end I couldn’t be with … with Phil,” she brought out, and turned her face away so he couldn’t see it. Charley stayed miserably silent.

“After all, that’s the least you can ask of life,” she went on, “to have your loved ones round you when you go. But in this war it’s not what anyone can expect with these beastly bombs.”

“Was he killed by a bomb, then?” was all Charley could think to ask.

“No, of course not,” she replied, still speaking in the same quiet voice. “He was brought down in his airplane over Egypt. That’s what’s cruel, my not being there, not being able to hold his darling head. Because dad, now, has got us round him. And he’s very fond of you as well, Charley. Mother told me. But when I had to let Phil go, there was none by him, no one at all. He was alone.”

There followed a silence. At last Charley brought out, “You mustn’t distress yourself,” although she had been speaking quite collectedly. He could not look at her.

“You don’t understand,” she said, soft. “He died for us,” she explained. She had told him this before but it was very different now, it was as if she were making him a gift. “He went out alone without me, that’s what’s so hard for me to bear,” she ended. Then she added,

“That’s why I changed my name.”

There was a long silence.

“Well it certainly is good of you to come down. It’s not as though you didn’t have a job of your own,” he managed to say.

“She’s asked me to live here the next few weeks. They have a splendid train service still. I’d use her room. She takes what rest she can in an easy chair by his bed. She has to do everything for him, you know. But of course she’d rather have it that way. The only thing is Panzer.”

“Panzer?” he echoed, at a loss.

“Why yes, I couldn’t leave my puss the very moment she’s likely to need me, could I? So this is just what I wanted to ask. Would it be all right, d’you think, if I brought her down?”

“I’m sure Mrs Grant wouldn’t …” he began.

“It’s not that. No, what’s exercising me is, will Panzer stay here?” she demanded. “Because if she started off on a long trek
back home, I should go right out of my mind. I’m scatter brained enough already, though you mightn’t think.”

“I certainly wouldn’t …” he began again.

“Oh but I am,” she insisted at once. “Why only the other day,” she went on, plunging into a long description of some minor detail she had forgotten while she was doing for Mr Grant. When she finished he casually asked, having, as he thought, got over the awkwardness,

“Does he recognize you?”

She answered, “Would you believe, I’m sure he thinks I’m Rose, you remember that’s my half sister,” she explained, forgetting all about him.

Then the bell rang.

She went to answer the door. His mind was in a turmoil while he heard her say, “Yes?”

But he listened intently when he heard Mrs Frazier explaining to Nance that she was an old friend of the family, and that she had dropped in on the chance of visiting Mr Grant, if he was not too ill.

“I’ll see,” Nance replied. She then called loudly up the staircase to Mrs Grant, “Here’s a Mrs Frazier come to call on dad.”

The response was immediate. Mrs Grant came to the head of the stairs. From where he was sitting Charley could see her face, which was hidden from the others. It was a terrible dark purple, altogether unlike her natural rosy cheeks. She at once began shouting, “I won’t have that woman inside my house, I won’t have her, not her I won’t,” and much else that was too vague, or allusive for Charley to follow, though he could not mistake the sightless rage. At this Mrs Frazier started off in her turn.

“This is a strange thing,” she cried from below. “There’s something wrong going on here, it’s not right, this isn’t,” but she did not make too much fuss, and, when Nancy shut the door in her face, she made off down the front garden quite quietly.
Miss Whitmore ran upstairs to comfort the old lady, who was loudly sobbing by the open door to Mr Grant’s room, led her back into it, and shut the door on them both.

While Charley wondered how much had come through to the old man, the sound of Mrs Grant’s crying died away, then ceased altogether.

Summers began to fidget about his coupons. And it was almost as though she were a thought reader that Nancy said, when presently she came back into the living room, “I don’t forget all the time, you know,” as she handed over a whole unused book of them.

“I say, you shouldn’t,” he began, when she cut in with,

“Don’t worry your head.” She spoke simply and without affectation. “He won’t need very many more of those, I’m afraid,” she said.

When he went down to Redham the next Saturday evening, Nancy opened the door, as she had done the last time.

“He’s much better,” she said in a low voice. “He’s resting.”

Then, as she took over Charley’s hat, she added,

“See who’s here.” He looked down to see the bloated cat, which raised its tail and terribly glared at him.

“Yes, my own sweet puss,” she went on, “who’s as good as gold, that doesn’t go out after nasty toms, never even tries to get back to London, does she?”

Mrs Grant came into the hall.

“Why Charley,” she said, “this is so thoughtful of you.” Then she, in her turn, turned it off onto the cat. “You know I’ve never properly cared about them,” she went on, “but this beauty is altogether different.”

“Had her kittens yet?” Charley enquired.

Both women laughed.

“How could you ask such a thing?” Miss Whitmore exclaimed. “Isn’t that just like a man, mother? Why you’ve only to glance at the poor sweet to tell, haven’t you, my great, big, Panzer darling? She’s going to have quads, we’ve settled on that, haven’t we, dear?” she announced to Mrs Grant, although there had been no word between them on it. “Two tabbies and two gingers. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?” Then she realized what she had done, risked a glance at Charley, and at the old lady. But it was plain they were not making this a red herring.

“Come along,” Mrs Grant waved him into the living room, “sit down, do, and make yourself at home.”

“I wouldn’t wish to interrupt …” he brought out.

“Why, he’s resting,” the older woman explained. “He’s got a bell right by his hand, on the good side, that he can thump away at when he needs. He’s getting ever so expert, isn’t he, Nancy?”

“Half the time he bangs the thing just to see us run,” Miss Whitmore said.

“Oh he’s very good, so patient really,” Mrs Grant protested, and smiled.

“Of course he is. He’s a marvel,” Miss Whitmore agreed. At that instant the bell did feebly jangle and Nance rushed out of the room, up the stairs.

“She’s been wonderful, Charley, I shan’t ever be able to forget to my dying day,” Mrs Grant told him. “More like the darling I lost than I could imagine.”

“There it is,” Summers said.

To his surprise she took this up.

“I could never have dreamed,” she elaborated. “It’s as if Rose had come back.”

“There is a resemblance,” Charley commented, without conviction.

“I’ll never allow that,” she said, in a wondering sort of voice. “But, well, the picture a mother carries is very different, I dare say. No, it’s the loving kindness. Why that child’s so good she hides a real heart of gold. And she’s had her own dark times, too.”

“Yes,” Charley agreed, happy and free.

“There’s something she wanted me to mention, now she’s not here for the moment,” Mrs Grant said.

“Yes?” he prompted, beginning to feel excited.

“It’s about Mr Middlewitch,” the older woman went on. Charley felt let down. “I don’t say I think the world of that man myself, but after all we’re all here to help one another, aren’t we? And now I’ve come to realize what Nancy’s nature is, I can’t
believe she’d be mistaken in anyone. She’s so sensitive that she simply learns father’s wants before he has time to realize what they may be. I know. I’ve seen it,” she insisted.

He sat quiet, waiting, and drank in this praise.

“No, it’s only that Mr Middlewitch has lost his job. Some little disagreement at the office, nothing unpleasant I’m sure. He’s told her. Now, if you could put a word in for him, where you work, I’m certain it would make all the difference. You see the control’s speaking of sending him up north. Because he explained to me there’s a young lady he’s interested in. Just now it would break his heart to be moved out of London, with things as they are between the two of them.”

“Who’s the girl?” Charley asked, beginning to dread.

“Well, dear, as father always would say, a confidence is a confidence, it’s sacred, and it’s not for us to break it. Why, I do declare,” she then cried out, delighted, “I believe I can see what’s troubling you. He’s nothing to her. You needn’t think of that again. He even mentioned the name, as a matter of fact. She’s a young lady out in South London. Now, Charley Barley, whatever made you such a goose?”

“Me?” he said. “I didn’t say a word.” He was horrified at what he seemed to have let out.

“You young people,” she commented, peaceably. “So you will, won’t you? That’s settled then.”

He could not be sure what she meant, did not dare ask. She saw the look on his face, and giggled.

“Don’t mind me,” she begged. “I might be your own mother, when all’s said and done. Why not put a word in for him, which is all I’m suggesting? Every day I open the papers I see how short-handed everyone is, and I don’t imagine where you work can be any different. He’s a boy father helped when he first came to London, son of an old business associate I believe. I’m sure Gerald would be ever so grateful if you could. It was for father’s sake Nance asked me to mention him.”

“Can’t rush things. I’ll have to look about me,” Charley promised, intending to do no such thing.

“I can set my mind at rest on that, then,” Mrs Grant announced. “But I won’t breathe a word if you’d rather I didn’t.”

“And how have you been keeping, mother?”

“There, that’s like the old days once more, your calling me mother again,” she said. “Dear, dear, it does bring it all back. You two children sitting in here as bold as brass, just like you were grown up, seeming to dare father and me to come in and disturb you. Many’s the laugh he and I had over it, bless him. But Rose was so wilful, wasn’t she? Of course, it’s true she was an only child. No one could say a thing to her, could they?”

He no longer wanted to hear about Rose. To change the subject he tried to bring things back to health.

“You’re looking very fit,” he said.

She misunderstood his drift.

“You don’t like talking about her, do you?” she gently asked. “Yes, it does come hard at first. You know for a long time after that happened I couldn’t bear it, I had to put the whole thing behind me or lose my reason. Then the doctors gave father some wrong counsel, and he used to keep on to make me remember. Oh, things weren’t easy for me, I’m sure.”