Echoes of the War Part 4

'Umpha.'

'An angel whispered it to me in my sleep.'

'Well, that's the only angel in the whole black business.' He chuckles.

'You little thought I would turn up!' Wheeling suddenly on her. 'Or did you?'

'I was beginning to weary for a sight of you, Kenneth.'

'What word was that?'

'Mister.'

He helps himself to b.u.t.ter, and she holds out the jam pot to him, but he haughtily rejects it. Do you think she gives in now? Not a bit of it.

He returns to sarcasm, 'I hope you're pleased with me now you see me.'

'I'm very pleased. Does your folk live in Scotland?'

'Glasgow.'

'Both living?'

'Ay.'

'Is your mother terrible proud of you?'

'Naturally.'

'You'll be going to them?'

'After I've had a skite in London first.'

The old lady sniffs, 'So she is in London!'

'Who?'

'Your young lady.'

'Are you jealyous?'

'Not me.'

'You needna be. She's a young thing.'

'You surprises me. A beauty, no doubt?'

'You may be sure.' He tries the jam. 'She's a t.i.tled person. She is equally popular as maid, wife and munition-worker.'

Mrs. Dowey remembers Lady Dolly Kanister, so familiar to readers of fas.h.i.+onable gossip, and a very leery expression indeed comes into her face.

'Tell me more about her, man.'

'She has sent me a lot of things, especially cakes, and a worsted waistcoat, with a loving message on the enclosed card.'

The old lady is now in a quiver of excitement. She loses control of her arms, which jump excitedly this way and that.

'You'll try one of my cakes, mister?'

'Not me.'

'They're of my own making.'

'No, I thank you.'

But with a funny little run she is in the pantry and back again. She planks down a cake before him, at sight of which he gapes.

'What's the matter? Tell me, oh, tell me, mister.'

'That's exactly the kind of cake that her ladys.h.i.+p sends me.'

Mrs. Dowey is now a very glorious old character indeed.

'Is the waistcoat right, mister? I hope the Black Watch colours pleased you.'

'Wha----t! Was it you?'

'I daredna give my own name, you see, and I was always reading hers in the papers.'

The badgered man looms over her, terrible for the last time.

'Woman, is there no getting rid of you!'

'Are you angry?'

He sits down with a groan.

'Oh, h.e.l.l! Give me some tea.'

She rushes about preparing a meal for him, every bit of her wanting to cry out to every other bit, 'Oh, glory, glory, glory!' For a moment she hovers behind his chair. 'Kenneth'! she murmurs. 'What?' he asks, no longer aware that she is taking a liberty. 'Nothing,' she says, 'just Kenneth,' and is off gleefully for the tea-caddy. But when his tea is poured out, and he has drunk a saucerful, the instinct of self-preservation returns to him between two bites.

'Don't you be thinking, missis, for one minute that you have got me.'

'No, no.'

On that understanding he unbends.

'I have a theatre to-night, followed by a randy-dandy.'