It is not to be supposed that the Craddock children became orderly and disciplined in a day or two. Jennifer remained aloof, with flashes of interest. Maurice, sturdy and literal-minded, was discovered to have a passion for trains. His attention was captured and his heart won by the fact that Miss Silver had had the forethought to provide herself with a book which displayed upon its cover the picture of an enormous engine very strikingly coloured in Prussian blue and scarlet, and inside, in addition to many other illustrations of trains and engines all duly named and numbered, a quite extraordinary amount of information about railways. Margaret Moray, who had a boy of the same age, had assured her that nothing in trousers between four and eight could possibly resist its lure. Little girls would find it dull, but any normal boy would eat it and ask for more. The number of miles between London and Edinburgh, the number of miles between Edinburgh and Glasgow, the history of the Flying Scotsman and the Coronation Scot, innumerable and solid facts about bogies, about fuel, about taking in water-these were meat and drink.
Mrs. Charles Moray was perfectly right. From his first sight of the blue and scarlet engine Maurice simply never looked back. He could be heard murmuring the names of favourite engines in his sleep. With a maddening persistence he imparted technical details during the family meals, a circumstance particularly obnoxious to Mr. Craddock, who considered himself to be the fount of knowledge and had no desire to receive instruction from a child of seven. A frown descended upon the Jovian brow, a ponderous displeasure filled the room. When Mrs. Craddock’s faint attempts to change the subject were disregarded her hands shook nervously. On one particularly trying occasion she dropped the teapot, scalding her wrist and flooding the table, but during the ensuing disorder Maurice could still be heard reciting the stations between London and Bristol, with Benjy chirping behind him and getting half of them wrong.
All this was trying, but both little boys now submitted to having their nails cut, and to washing their hands before meals, a practice previously considered to be sissy. Miss Silver found this expression intriguing, as it could not by any possibility have derived from Mr. Craddock. A conversation with Mrs. Craddock enlightened her. It appeared that they had been less than two years at Deep End. Mr. Craddock had been there a little longer, getting the place ready for them and for the Colony.
“You see, we used to live at such a pretty little place called Wyshmere-at least I and the children did. My husband travelled a lot. He was an artist. There were several artists in Wyshmere, and when he was killed in an air crash we just stayed on. Of course the children had to go to the village school. I was not nearly clever enough to teach them myself, and there wasn’t any money until my old cousin Francis Crole left me quite a lot. It was so very kind of him, because I only saw him twice. He came down after my husband died and paid for everything. And he came again a year later and said I hadn’t got any sense and the children were running wild, and I’d better marry someone who would look after them and me. He was killed in an accident about a month later, and he had made a new will and left me a lot of money. So I married Mr. Craddock.”
Miss Silver was remembering Jennifer’s “He wouldn’t like her to die-because of the money.” She found herself hoping that Cousin Francis had tied it up securely. Aloud she said,
“Then Mr. Craddock is the children’s step-father?”
A faint flush came into Emily Craddock’s face.
“Oh, yes. It is a marvellous thing for them having a man like him. He came down to Wyshmere for a holiday after Cousin Francis died. Everybody thought him wonderful. The Miss Tremletts lived there too, you know. They quite worshipped him, and so did Jennifer.” She paused, drew a long signing breath, and added the one word, “Then.”
“Children take these fancies.”
Emily Craddock sighed again.
“Yes, they do, don’t they? But he was so good to them. He took such an interest. He gave Jennifer lessons in saying poetry. He said she really had talent-but I don’t think I want her to go on the stage.” She drew another of those deep tired breaths. “Oh well, you never know how things will turn out, do you?”
They were sitting in the large shabby ground-floor room which served as schoolroom and playroom for the children, Mrs. Craddock at her everlasting task of mending, Miss Silver winding pale blue wool for a baby’s coatee. Her niece by marriage, Dorothy, the wife of Ethel Burkett’s brother, was expecting her third child. Since there had been a dozen childless years before the first was born, everyone in the family was very much interested. A boy was hoped for, hence the pale blue wool.
Miss Silver looked compassionately at the small figure bent over a much patched pair of shorts and said,
“Sometimes they turn out better than we expect. Your boys are strong and healthy, and Jennifer is very intelligent.”
“She is like her father. He had the artistic temperament. She has it too.” She spoke rather as if it was a malady of some sort.
Miss Silver wound her wool in silence for a little. Then she said,
“Have you not thought that it would be better for her to be at school?”
Mrs. Craddock looked up in a startled manner.
“Oh-yes-I did-”
“It would be good for her to have the companionship of girls of her own age. She is too sensitive, too intense. She needs to be taken out of herself.”
Emily Craddock shook her head.
“Mr. Craddock wouldn’t let her go. He doesn’t approve of boarding schools, and they are very expensive. You see, we had to buy this place. And then there have been the alterations. It cost quite a lot to convert the stables for the Miss Tremletts. And the lodge, and the two new cottages. It was a wonderful thing to do of course. Mr. Craddock has such very high ideals. I don’t understand them all of course. He says I am very earth-bound, but when you have so many things to do in a house-and I’ve never been very good at them-it doesn’t seem to leave you much time for anything else, does it? But of course I do feel that it was wonderful of him to want to marry me. Everyone at Wyshmere felt that-and it’s a great privilege for the children.”
Miss Silver wrote a letter that evening. It was addressed to Mrs. Charles Moray, and it ran:
“My dear Margaret,
This is an interesting old place. Such a pity that it was bombed, but the Craddocks’ wing is most comfortable. The children are a little out of hand, but I have very good hopes of them. You were quite right about the book of trains, which has been a great success with the little boys. Mr. and Mrs. Craddock are being all that is kind. He is a most interesting man, and very goodlooking. I understand that he is engaged upon an important book. She, I fear, is not very robust, and I am glad to feel that I can spare her some fatigue. I hope that all is well with you.
With my love,
Yours affectionately,
Maud Silver.
P.S.-Pray let me know whether you are able to get the wool I mentioned.”
This letter she stamped and placed upon a small table in the hall. There was only one incoming post a day, and the man who delivered the letters cleared the two post-boxes-the one at the gate of what he still called Deepe House in defiance of Mr. Craddock and the Colony, and the other amongst the cluster of cottages at the foot of the rise. The Colony corresponded voluminously, Deep End practically not at all. The Miss Tremletts in particular received letters, magazines, and periodicals from all over the world, and wrote reams in reply. Miranda’s mail was also very extensive but mainly home-produced. The postman, a very respectable man of the name of Hawke, regarded it with disapproval. “Stands to reason a woman’s bound to have two names same like anyone else, and stands to reason she’s bound to be Miss or Mrs. Indecent it looks to me, having nothing but her Christian name on the envelopes. Miranda-just like that-for all the world like going about without her clothes on! Stands to reason she’s bound to have a name! Same as anyone else! And why don’t she use it?” There being no answer, and the sentiment being generally approved, he was able to repeat it until by force of custom the subject lost its interest.