Love Eternal: Chapter 12

Chapter 12

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About forty-eight hours later Godfrey arrived duly at the little Essex
station three miles from Monk's Acre. There was nobody to meet him,
which was not strange, as the hour of his coming was unknown. Still,
unreasonable as it might be, the contrast between the warmth and
affection that had distinguished his departure, and the cold vacuum
that greeted his arrival, chilled him. He said a few words to the
grumpy old porter who was the sole occupant of the platform, but that
worthy, although he knew him well enough, did not seem to realise that
he had ever been away. During the year in which so many things had
happened to Godfrey nothing at all had happened to the porter, and
therefore he did not appreciate the lapse of time.

Leaving his baggage to be brought by the carrier's cart, Godfrey took
the alpenstock that, in a moment of enthusiasm, the guide had given
him as a souvenir of his great adventure, and started for home. It was
a very famous alpenstock, which this guide and his father before him
had used all their lives, one that had been planted in the topmost
snows of every peak in Switzerland. Indeed the names of the most
unclimbable of these, together with the dates of their conquest by its
owners, sometimes followed by crosses to show that on such or such an
expedition life had been lost, were burnt into the tough wood with a
hot iron. As the first of these dates was as far back as 1831, Godfrey
valued this staff highly, and did not like to leave it to the chances
of the carrier's cart.

His road through the fields ran past Hawk's Hall, of which he observed
with a thrill of dismay, that the blinds were drawn as though in it
someone lay dead. There was no reason why he should have been
dismayed, since he had heard that Isobel had gone away to somewhere in
"Ameriky," as Mrs. Parsons had expressed it in a brief and illspelt
letter, and that Sir John was living in town. Yet the sight depressed
him still further with its suggestion of death, or of separation,
which is almost as bad, for, be it remembered, he was at an age when
such impressions come home.

After leaving the Hall with its blinded and shuttered windows, his
quickest road to the Abbey House ran through the churchyard. Here the
first thing that confronted him was a gigantic monument, of which the
new marble glittered in the afternoon sun. It was a confused affair,
and all he made out of it, without close examination, was a life-sized
angel with an early-Victorian countenance, leaning against the broken
stump of an oak tree and scattering from a basket, of the kind that is
used to collect nuts or windfall apples, on to a sarcophagus beneath a
profusion of marble roses, some of which seemed to have been arrested
and frozen in mid-air. He glanced at the inscription in gold letters.
It was "To the beloved memory of Lady Jane Blake, wife of Sir John
Blake, Bart., J.P., and daughter of the Right Hon. The Earl of
Lynfield, whose bereaved husband erected this monument--'Her husband
. . . praiseth her.'"

Godfrey looked, and remembering the gentle little woman whose
crumbling flesh lay beneath, shivered at the awful and crushing
erection above. In life, as he knew, she had been unhappy, but what
had she done to deserve such a memorial in death? Still, she was dead,
of that there was no doubt, and oh! the sadness of it all.

He went on to the Abbey, resisting a queer temptation to enter the
church and look at the tomb of the Plantagenet lady and her unknown
knight, who slept there so quietly from year to year, through spring,
summer, autumn and winter, for ever and for ever. The front door was
locked, so he rang the bell. It was answered by a new servant, rather
a forbidding, middle-aged woman with a limp, who informed him that Mr.
Knight was out, and notwithstanding his explanations, declined to
admit him into the house. Doubtless she thought that a young man,
wearing a foreign-looking hat and carrying such a strange long stick,
must be a thief, or worse. The end of it was that she slammed the door
in his face and shot the old-fashioned bolts.

Then Godfrey bethought him of the other door, that which led into the
ancient refectory, which was now used as a schoolroom. This was open,
so he went in and, being tired after his long journey, sat himself
down in the chair at the end of the old oak table, that same chair in
which Isobel had kissed him when he was a little boy. He looked about
him vaguely; the place, of course, was much the same as it had been
for the last five hundred years, but, as he could see from the names
on the copybooks that lay about, the pupils who inhabited it had
changed. Of the whole six not one was the same.

Then, perhaps for the first time, he began to understand how variable
is the world, a mere passing show in which nothing remains the same,
except the houses and the trees. Even these depart, for a cottage with
which he had been familiar from his earliest infancy, as he could see
through the open door, was pulled down to make room for
"improvements," and the great old elm, where the rooks used to build,
had been torn up in a gale. Only its ugly stump and projecting roots
were left.

So he sat musing there, very depressed at heart, till at length Mrs.
Parsons came and discovered him in a half-doze. She, too, was somewhat
changed, for of a sudden age had begun to take a hold of her. Her hair
was white now, and her plump, round face had withered like a spring
apple. Still, she greeted him with the old affection, for which he
felt grateful, seeing that it was the first touch of kindness he had
known since he set foot on English ground.

"Dear me, Master Godfrey!" she said, "hadn't I heard that you were
coming, I could never have been sure that it was you. Why, you've
grown into a regular young gentleman in those foreign parts, and
handsome, too, though I sez it. Who could have guessed that you are
your father's son? Why, you'd make two of him. But there, they say
that your mother was a good-looking lady and large built, though, as I
never set eyes on her, I can't say for sure. Well, you must be tired
after all this travelling in steamships and trains, so come into the
dining-room and have some tea, for I have got the key to the
sideboard."

He went, and, passing through the hall, left his alpenstock in the
umbrella-stand. In due course the tea was produced, though for it he
seemed to have little appetite. While he made pretence to eat the
thick bread and butter, Mrs. Parsons told him the news, such as it
was. Sir John was living in town and "flinging the money about, so it
was said, not but what he had got lots to fling and plenty to catch
it," she added meaningly. His poor, dear lady was dead, and "happy for
her on the whole." Miss Isobel had "gone foreign," having, it was
told, quarrelled with her father, and nothing had been heard of her
since she went. She, too, had grown into a fine young lady.

That was all he gathered before Mrs. Parsons was obliged to depart to
see to her business--except that she was exceedingly glad to see him.

Godfrey went up to his bedroom, which he found unprepared, for
somebody else seemed to be sleeping there. While he was surveying it
and wondering who this occupant might be, he heard his father in the
hall asking the parlour-maid which of the young gentlemen had left
that "ridiculous stick" in the stand. She replied that she did not
know, whereupon the hard voice of his parent told her to take it away.
Afterwards Godfrey found it thrown into the wood-house to be chopped
up for firewood, though luckily before this happened.

By this time a kind of anger had seized him. It was true that he had
not said by what train he was coming, for the reason that until he
reached London he could not tell, but he had written that he was to
arrive that afternoon, and surely some note might have been taken of
the fact.

He went downstairs and confronted his father, who alone amid so much
change seemed to be exactly the same. Mr. Knight shook him by the hand
without any particular cordiality, and at once attacked him for not
having intimated the hour of his arrival, saying that it was too late
to advise the carrier to call at the station for his baggage and that
a trap would have to be sent, which cost money.

"Very well, Father, I will pay for it myself," answered Godfrey.

"Oh, yes, I forgot!" exclaimed Mr. Knight, with a sneer, "you have
come into money somehow, have you not, and doubtless consider yourself
independent?"

"Yes, and I am glad of it, Father, as now I hope I shall not be any
more expense to you."

"As you have begun to talk business, Godfrey," replied his father in
an acid manner, "we may as well go into things and get it over. You
have, I presume, made up your mind to go into the Church in accordance
with my wish?"

"No, Father; I do not intend to become a clergyman."

"Indeed. You seem to me to have fallen under very bad influences in
Switzerland. However, it does not much matter, as I intend that you
shall."

"I am sorry, but I cannot, Father."

Then, within such limits as his piety permitted, which were
sufficiently wide, Mr. Knight lost his temper very badly indeed. He
attacked his son, suggesting that he had been leading an evil life in
Lucerne, as he had learned "from outside sources," and declared that
either he should obey him or be cast off. Godfrey, whose temper by
this time was also rising, intimated that he preferred the latter
alternative.

"What, then, do you intend to do, young man?" asked Mr. Knight.

"I do not know yet, Father." Then an inspiration came to him, and he
added, "I shall go to London to-morrow to consult my trustees under
Miss Ogilvy's will."

"Really," said Mr. Knight in a rage. "You are after that ill-gotten
money, are you? Well, as we seem to agree so badly, why not go to-
night instead of to-morrow; there is a late train? Perhaps it would be
pleasanter for both of us, and then I need not send for your luggage.
Also it would save my shifting the new boy from your room."

"Do you really mean that, Father?"

"I am not in the habit of saying what I do not mean. Only please
understand that if you reject my plans for your career, which have
been formed after much thought, and, I may add, prayer, I wash my
hands of you who are now too old to be argued with in any other way."

Godfrey looked at his father and considered the iron mouth cut
straight like a slit across the face, the hard, insignificant
countenance and the small, cold, grey eyes. He realised the intensity
of the petty anger based, for the most part, on jealousy because he
was now independent and could not be ordered about and bullied like
the rest of the little boys, and knew that behind it there was not
affection, but dislike. Summing up all this in his quick mind, he
became aware that father or not, he regarded this man with great
aversion. Their natures, their outlook, all about them were
antagonistic, and, in fact, had been so from the beginning. The less
that they saw of each other the better it would be for both. Although
still so young, he had ripened early, and was now almost a man who
knew that these things were so without possibility of doubt.

"Very well, Father," he said, "I will go. It is better than stopping
here to quarrel."

"I thought you would, now that your friend, Isobel, who did you so
much harm with her bad influence, has departed to Mexico, where, I
have no doubt, she has forgotten all about you. You won't be able to
run after her money as you did after Miss Ogilvy's," replied Mr.
Knight with another sneer.

"You insult me," said Godfrey. "It is a lie that I ran after Miss
Ogilvy's money, and I will never forgive you for saying such a thing
of me in connection with Isobel," and turning he left the room.

So did his father, for Godfrey heard him go to his study and lock the
door, doubtless as a sign and a token.

Then Godfrey sought out Mrs. Parsons and told her everything. The old
woman was much disturbed, and wept.

"I have been thinking of late, Master Godfrey," she said, "that your
father's heart is made of that kind of stone which Hell is paved with,
only with the good intentions left out--it's that hard. Here you are
come back as fine a young man as a body can wish to see, of whom his
begetter might well be proud, though, for the matter of that, there is
precious little of him in you--and he shuts the door in your face just
because you won't be a parson and have come into fortune--that's what
rankles. I say that your mother, if she was a fool when she married
him, was a wise woman when she died. Parson or not, he will never go
where she is. Well, it's sad, but you'll be well out of this cold
house, where there's so much praying but not a spark of love."

"I think so," said Godfrey with a sigh.

"I think so, too, for myself, I mean. But, look here, my boy, I only
stopped on looking after this dratted pack of young gentlemen because
you were coming home again. But, as you ain't, I'm out of it; yes,
when the door shuts on you I give my month's notice, which perhaps
will mean that I leave to-morrow, for he won't be able to abide the
sight of me after that."

"But how will you live, Nurse, till I can help you?"

"Lord bless you, dear, that's all right. I've been a careful woman all
my life, and have hard on �500 put away in the Savings Bank, to say
nothing of a bit of Stock. Also, my old brother, who was a builder,
died last year and left me with a nice little house down in Hampstead,
which he built to live in himself, but never did, poor man, bit by bit
when he was short of business, very comfortable and in a good
neighbourhood, with first-rate furniture and real silver plate, to say
nothing of some more Stock, yes, for �1,000 or more. I let it
furnished by the month, but the tenant is going away, so I shall just
move into it myself, and perhaps take in a lodger or two to keep me
from being idle."

"That's capital!" said Godfrey, delighted.

"Yes, and I tell you what would be capitaller. Mayhap you will have to
live in London for a bit, and, if so, you are just the kind of lodger
I should like, and I don't think we should quarrel about terms. I'll
write you down the address of that house, the Grove as it is called,
though why, I don't know, seeing there isn't a tree within half a
mile, which I don't mind, as there are too many about here, making so
much damp. And you'll write and let me know what you are going to do,
won't you?"

"Of course I will."

"And now, look here. Likely you will want a little money till you
square up things with your trustee people that the master hates so
much."

"Well, I had forgotten it, but, as a matter of fact, I have only ten
shillings left, and that isn't much when one is going to London,"
confessed Godfrey.

"I thought so; you never were one to think much of such things, and so
it's probable that you'll get plenty of them, for it's what we care
about we are starved in, just to make it hot for us poor humans. Take
your father, for instance; he loves power, he does; he'd like to be a
bishop of the old Roman sort what could torture people who didn't
agree with them. And what is he? The parson of a potty parish of a
couple of hundred people, counting the babies and the softies, and
half of them Dissenters or Salvation Army. Moreover, they can't be
bullied, because if they were they'd just walk into the next chapel
door. Of course, there's the young gentlemen, and he takes it out of
them, but, Lord bless us! that's like kicking a wool sack, of which
any man of spirit soon gets tired. So, you see, he is sick-hearted,
and will be more so now that you have stood up to him; and, in this
way or that, it's the same with everyone, none of us gets what we
want, while of what we don't want there's always plenty."

While the old lady held forth thus in her little room which, although
she did not know it, had once been the penitential cell of the Abbey,
wherein for hundreds of years many unhappy ones had reflected in a
very similar vein, she was engaged in trying key after key upon a
stout oak chest. It was part of the ancient furniture of the place,
that indeed in former days had served as the receptacle for hair
shirts, scourges and other physical inducements to repentance and
piety.

Now it had a different purpose and held Mrs. Parsons' best dresses,
also, in a bandbox, an ornament preserved from her wedding-cake, for
once in the far past she was married to a sailor, a very great black-
guard, who came to his end by tumbling from a gangway when he was
drunk. Among these articles was a tin tea-canister which, when opened,
proved to be full of money; gold, silver and even humble copper, to
say nothing of several banknotes.

"Now, there you are, my dear, take what you like," she said, "and pay
it back if you wish, but if you don't, it might have been worse
spent." And she pushed the receptacle, labelled "Imperial Pekoe,"
towards him across the table, adding, "Drat those moths! There's
another on my best silk."

Godfrey burst out laughing and enjoyed that laugh, for it was his
first happy moment since his return to England.

"Give me what you like," he said.

So she extracted from the tea-tin a five-pound note, four sovereigns
and a pound's worth of silver and copper.

"There," she said, "that will do to begin with, for too much money in
the pocket is a temptation in a wicked place like London, where
there's always someone waiting to share it. If it's wanted there's
more where that came from, and you've only to write and say so. And
now you have got the address and you've got the cash, and if you want
to catch that last train it's time you were off. If I took the same
to-morrow night, why, it wouldn't surprise me, especially as I want to
hear all you've been a-doing in those foreign parts, tumbling over
precipices and the rest. So good-bye, my dear, and God bless you.
Lord! it seems only the other day that I was giving you your bottle."

Then they kissed each other and, having retrieved his alpenstock from
the stick-house, Godfrey trudged back to the station, where he picked
up his luggage and departed for London. Arriving at Liverpool Street
rather late, he went to the Great Eastern Hotel, and after a good
meal, which he needed, slept like a top. His reception in England had
been bitter, but the young soon shake off their troubles, from which,
indeed, the loving kindness of his dear old nurse already had
extracted the sting.

On the following morning, while breakfasting at a little table by one
of the pillars of the big dining-room, he began to wonder what he
should do next. In his pocket he had a notebook, in which, at the
suggestion of the Pasteur, he had set down the address of the lawyers
who had written to him about his legacy. It was in a place called the
Poultry, which, on inquiry from the hall-porter, he discovered was
quite close by the Mansion House.

So a while later, for the porter told him that it was no use to go to
see lawyers too early, he sallied forth, and after much search
discovered the queer spot called the Poultry, also the offices of
Messrs. Ranson, Richards and Son. Here he gave his name to a clerk,
who thrust a very oily head out of a kind of mahogany box, and was
told that Mr. Ranson was engaged, but that, if he cared to wait,
perhaps he would see him later on. He said he would wait, and was
shown into a stuffy little room, furnished with ancient deed-boxes and
a very large, old leather-covered sofa that took up half the place.
Here he sat for a while, staring at a square of dirty glass which gave
what light was available, and reflecting upon things in general.

While he was thus engaged he heard a kind of tumult outside, in which
he recognised the treble of the oily-headed clerk coming in a bad
second to a deep, bass voice. Then the door opened and a big, burly
man, with a red face and a jovial, rolling eye, appeared with
startling suddenness and ejaculated:

"Damn Ranson, damn Richards, or damn them both, with the Son thrown
in! I ask you, young man"--here he addressed Godfrey seated on the
corner of the sofa--"what is the use of a firm of lawyers whom you can
never see? You pay the brutes, but three times out of four they are
not visible, or, as I suspect, pretend not to be, in order to enhance
their own importance. And I sent them a telegram, too, having a train
to catch. What do you think?"

"I don't know, Sir," Godfrey answered. "I never came to a lawyer's
office before, and I hope I shan't again if this is the kind of room
they put one into."

"Room!" ejaculated the irate gentleman, "call it a dog kennel, call it
a cesspool, for, by heaven, it smells like one, but in the interests
of truth, young man, don't call it a room."

"Now that you mention it, there is a queer odour. Perhaps a dead rat
under the floor," suggested Godfrey.

"Twenty dead rats, probably, since I imagine that this hole has not
been cleaned since the time of George II. We are martyrs in this
world, Sir. I come here to attend to the affairs of some
whippersnapper whom I never saw and never want to see, just because
Helen Ogilvy, who was my first cousin, chooses to make me a trustee of
her confounded will, in which she leaves money to the confounded
whippersnapper, God knows why. This whippersnapper has a father, a
parson, who can write the most offensive letters imaginable. I
received one of them this morning, accusing the whippersnapper of all
sorts of vague things, and me and my fellow trustee, who is at present
enjoying himself travelling, of abetting him. I repeat, damn Ranson,
Richards and Son; damn the parson, damn Helen--no, I won't say that,
for she is dead--and especially damn the whippersnapper. Don't you
agree with me?"

"Not quite, Sir," said Godfrey. "I don't mind about Ranson, Richards
and Son, or anybody else, but I don't quite see why you should damn
me, who, I am sure, never wished to give you any trouble."

"You! And who the Hades may you be?"

"I am Godfrey Knight, and I suppose that you are my trustee, or one of
them."

"Godfrey Knight, the young man whose father gives us so much trouble,
all at our own expense, I may remark. Well, after hearing so much of
you on paper, I'm deuced glad to meet you in the flesh. Come into the
light, if you can call it light, and let me have a look at you."

Godfrey stepped beneath the dirty pane and was contemplated through an
eyeglass by this breezy old gentleman, who exclaimed presently:

"You're all right, I think; a fine figure of a young man, not bad
looking, either, but you want drilling. Why the devil don't you go
into the army?"

"I don't know," answered Godfrey, "never thought of it. Are you in the
army, Sir?"

"No, not now, though I was. Commanded my regiment for five years, and
then kicked out with the courtesy title of Major-General. Cubitte is
my name, spelt with two 't's' and an 'e,' please, and don't you forget
that, since that 'e' has been a point of honour with our family for a
hundred years, the Lord knows why. Well, there we are. Do you smoke?"

"Only a pipe," said Godfrey.

"That's right; I hate those accursed cigarettes, still they are better
than nothing. Now sit down and tell me all about yourself."

Godfrey obeyed, and somehow feeling at ease with this choleric old
General, in the course of the next twenty minutes explained many
things to him, including the cause of his appearance in that office.

"So you don't want to be a parson," said the General, "and with your
father's example before your eyes, I am sure I don't wonder. However,
you are independent of him more or less, and had better cut out a line
for yourself. We will back you. What do you say to the army?"

"I think I should rather like that," answered Godfrey. "Only, only, I
want to get out of England as soon as possible."

"And quite right, too--accursed hole, full of fog and politicians. But
that's not difficult with India waiting for you. I'm an Indian cavalry
officer myself, and could put you up to the ropes and give you a hand
afterwards, perhaps, if you show yourself of the right stuff, as I
think you will. But, of course, you will have to go to Sandhurst, pass
an entrance examination, and so forth. Can you manage that?"

"Yes, Sir, I think so, with a little preparation. I know a good deal
of one sort or another, including French."

"All right, three months' cramming at Scoones' or Wren's, will do the
trick. And now I suppose you want some money?"

Godfrey explained that he did, having only �10 which he had borrowed
from his old nurse.

Just then the oily-headed clerk announced that Mr. Ranson was at
liberty. So they both went in to see him, and the rest may be
imagined. The trustees undertook to pay his expenses, even if they had
to stretch a point to do so, and gave him �20 to go on with, also a
letter of introduction to Scoones, whom he was instructed to see and
arrange to join their classes. Then General Cubitte hustled off,
telling him to come to dine at an address in Kensington two nights
later and "report himself."

So within less than an hour Godfrey's future career was settled. He
came out of the office feeling rather dazed but happier than when he
went in, and inquired his way to Garrick Street, where he was informed
that Mr. Scoones had his establishment. He found the place and, by
good luck, found Mr. Scoones also, a kindly, keen, white-haired man,
who read the letter, made a few inquiries and put him through a brief
examination.

"Your information is varied and peculiar," he said, "and not of the
sort that generally appeals to Her Majesty's examiners. Still, I see
that you have intelligence and, of course, the French is an asset;
also the literature to some extent, and the Latin, though these would
have counted more had you been going up for the Indian Civil. I think
we can get you through in three months if you will work; it all
depends on that. You will find a lot of young men here of whom quite
seventy per cent. do nothing, except see life. Very nice fellows in
their way, but if you want to get into Sandhurst, keep clear of them.
Now, my term opens next Monday. I will write to General Cubitte and
tell him what I think of you, also that the fees are payable in
advance. Good-bye, glad you happened to catch me, which you would not
have done half an hour later, as I am going out of town. At ten
o'clock next Monday, please."

After this, not knowing what to do, Godfrey returned to the Great
Eastern Hotel and wrote a letter to his father, in which, baldly
enough, he explained what had happened.

Having posted it in the box in the hall, he bethought him that he must
find some place to live in, as the hotel was too expensive for a
permanence, and was making inquiries of the porter as to how he should
set about the matter when a telegram was handed to him. It ran: "All
up as I expected. Meet me Liverpool Street 4.30.--Nurse."

So Godfrey postponed his search for lodgings, and at the appointed
hour kept the assignation on the platform. The train arrived, and out
of it, looking much more like her old self than she had on the
previous day, emerged Mrs. Parsons with the most extraordinary
collection of bundles, he counted nine of them, to say nothing of a
jackdaw in a cage. She embraced him with enthusiasm, dropping the
heaviest of the parcels, which seemed to contain bricks, upon his toe,
and in a flood of language told him of the peculiar awfulness of the
row between his father and herself which had ensued upon his
departure.

"Yes," she ended, "he flung my money at my head and I flung it back at
his, though afterwards I picked it up again, for it is no use wasting
good gold and silver. And so here I am, beginning life again, like
you, and feeling thirty years younger for it. Now, tell me what you
are going to do?"

Then they went and had tea in the refreshment room, leaving the
jackdaw and the other impediments in charge of a porter, and he told
her.

"That's first-rate," she said. "I always hated the idea of seeing you
with a black coat on your back. The Queen's uniform looks much better,
and I want you to be a man. Now you help me into a cab and by dinner
time to-morrow I'll be ready for you at my house at Hampstead, if I
have to work all night to do it. Terms--drat the terms. Well, if you
must have them, Master Godfrey, ten shillings a week will be more than
you will cost me, and I ought to give you five back for your company.
Now I'll make a start, for there will be a lot to do before the place
is fit for a young gentleman. I've never seen it but twice, you know."

So she departed, packed into a four-wheeled cab, with the jackdaw on
her lap, and Godfrey went to Madame Tussaud's, where he studied the
guillotine and the Chamber of Horrors.

On the following morning, having further improved his mind at the
Tower, he took a cab also, and in due course arrived at Hampstead with
his belongings. The place took some finding, for it was on the top of
a hill in an old-fashioned, out of the way part of the suburb, but
when found proved to be delightful. It was a little square house,
built of stone, on which the old builder had lavished all his skill
and care, so that in it everything was perfect, with a garden both in
front and behind. The floors were laid in oak, the little hall was
oak-panelled, there were hot and cold water in every room, and so
forth. Moreover, an odd man was waiting to carry in his things, and in
one of the front sitting-rooms, which was excellently furnished, sat
Mrs. Parsons knitting as though she had been there for years.

"Here you are," she said, "just as I was beginning to get tired of
having nothing to do. Lord! what a fuss we make about things before we
face 'em. After all they ain't nothing but bubbles. Blow them and they
burst. Look here, Master Godfrey," and she waved her hand about the
sitting-room. "Pretty neat, ain't it? Well, I thought it would be all
of a hugger-mugger. But what did I find? That those tenants had been
jewels and left everything like a new pin, to say nothing of
improvements, such as an Eagle range. Moreover, the caretaker is a
policeman's wife and a very nice woman always ready to help for a
trifle, and that man that brought in your boxes is a relative of hers
who does gardening jobs and such-like. Now, come and see your rooms,"
and she led him with pride into a capital back apartment with a large
window, in fact an old Tudor one which the builder had produced
somewhere, together with the panelling on the walls.

"That's your study," she said, "bookshelves and all complete. Now,
follow me," and she took him upstairs to a really charming bedroom.

"But," said Godfrey, surveying these splendours, "this must be the
best room in the house. Where do you sleep?"

"Oh! at the back there, my dear. You see, I am accustomed to a small
chamber and shouldn't be happy in this big one. Besides, you are going
to pay me rent and must be accommodated. And now come down to your
dinner."

A very good dinner it was, cooked by the policeman's wife, which Mrs.
Parsons insisted on serving, as she would not sit at the table with
him. In short, Godfrey found himself in clover, a circumstance that
filled him with some sadness. Why, he wondered, should he always be
made so miserable at home and so happy when he was away? Then he
remembered that famous line about the man who throughout life ever
found his warmest welcome at an inn, and perceived that it hid much
philosophy. Frequently enough homes are not what fond fancy paints
them, while in the bosom of strangers there is much kindliness.

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