Loving

'Yes?' she said. 'What is it?'

'Won't you play Mr Raunce?' Miss Evelyn asked.

'Playin' eh?' he remarked to Albert.

'It's Thursday isn't it?' Edith enquired sharp. 'That's his half day off or always was. What's up?'

'Nothin',' he replied, 'only I just wondered how you might be. getting along.'

'Is that all?' was her comment. At which Albert spoke for himself.

'We was havin' a game of blind man's buff,' he said.

'So I perceive Albert,' the butler remarked.

'Oh do come on do,' one of the little girls pleaded but Edith chose this moment to take that scarf off her eyes.

'You surely didn't pass through all that old part alone?' she asked.

'And why not?'

'Oh Charley I never could not in a month of Sundays. Not on my own.'

'Is that so?'

'You are pleasant I must say aren't you?' she said.

"Thanking you,' Raunce answered.

'Oh please come on Mr Raunce please,' the child entreated. 'Edith'11 give you up her turn.'

'I'm past the age and that's a fact Miss Evelyn,' Raunce said almost nasty. 'For the matter of that I chucked this blind man's buff before I'd lived as many years as my lad here. In my time if we had nothing better to do than lark about on a half day we got on with our work.'

'Here,' Edith said, 'just a minute.' She led him aside. 'What's up Charley?'

'Nothing's up. What makes you ask?'

'You act so strange. Whatever's the matter then?

'Oh honey,' he suddenly said low and urgent, 'I never seem to see you these days.'

'That's not a reason,' she objected. 'You know I've got to look after them with Miss Swift sick as she is.'

'Yes,' he said. There's always something or other in the way each time.'

'How's your neck dear?' she asked as she strolled away. She gradually led him nearer and nearer the door he had come in by.

'Oh it's bad,' he said. 'It hurts so Edith.'

'Well you shouldn't stand about in a damp place like here,' she replied. 'For land's sake I don't know how you managed those passages alone. They give me the creeps. And what's become of Badger with the peacock?'

'I gave that dog the slip. All the brains he's got is in his jaw. Once he's dropped anything 'e's lost that dog is. I put it away where they'll find it in the outside larder.'

She slapped a hand across her mouth. 'You hung it in the outside larder?'

He smiled for the first time. 'That's right,' he said.

'Lord,' she remarked, 'what'll old Mother Welch say when Jane or Mary tells 'er?' She began to giggle.

'Don't call 'er cook she don't like it,' Raunce replied broadly smiling.

'Now look you mustn't stay here Charley with that neck of yours. You get back out of this damp. I'll see if I can't manage to slip down after tea.'

'O. K. ducks. Give us a kiss.'

'Don't be daft,' she said, 'what in front of all of them?'

'O. K. then,' he ended, 'I'll be seeing you.' And he shut that door soft although the hinges shrieked and groaned. Then he came in once more, stared at the mechanism. 'Wants a drop of oil that does,' he remarked, winked and was gone again. As he walked off into grey dust-sheeted twilight he said two or three times to himself, 'How she has come on. You'd never know it was the same girlie,' he repeated.

'At last,' Miss Moira called out back in the Gallery, 'I thought we'd never get rid of him. Kneel Edith,' she said pulling that scarf out of Edith's pocket.

Once Edith was blinded the little girls let out piercing shrieks and dodged as in laughter she moved her arms as though swimming towards them. Their cries reverberated round the Gallery. Miss Evelyn hopped on one leg pressing her snub nose upwards with the palm of a hand. When Edith came near, Miss Moira would turn and slip by Edith's blind wrists looking round over a shoulder ready to dodge again after Miss Evelyn had ducked under. But Albert stood like a statue and must have hoped he would be found. As he was. Yet when her fingers knew him which they did at once she murmured 'I don't want you,' and to shrieks from the others of 'You'll never catch us,' this immemorial game went on before witnesses in bronze in marble and plaster, echoed up and down over and over again.

Back in his room Raunce unlocked the drawer in which he kept the red and black notebooks. He verified that they were there. Then he drew pencil and paper towards him, laboriously made out the date and the address then settled down to write to his mother.

'Dear Mother,' he began, 7 hope you are well. I am. There has been nothing fresh here. Mrs Tennant has gone to England to stay. While she is over she hopes to see Mr Jack who is on leave just at present. Mrs Jack has also gone to be with them. So we are on our own here now and will be for a bit I expect.

'Mother I am very worried over this bombing for you. Don't wait until he comes to get your Anderson shelter fixed. Get it done now Mother dear and it will be something off my mind.

'I often wish I was with you dear but you know the way I'm placed. Once I should leave this country then I'm in their power over there. There's the Labour Exchange with the Army waiting. It's hard to know what to do best.

'Mother what would you say to your coming here. Who knows but there might be a change in my situation one of these days. You've often said it was time I settled down. But not a word to anyone dear, there's nothing said yet. But I've my eye on a nice little place in the park what the married butler before Mr Eldon had. Think of it will you Mother. And mind not a word not even to my sister Bell.

'Well I must close now. But I certainly am worried about you with all this bombing. Tell her, that's Bell I mean, to be sure and look after you all right. Your loving son Charley.'

Then he inked it in. And he wrote the address with his pencil and then inked that. Finally he slipped in the Money Order. After he had stamped the envelope he laid his head down on his arms and dropped off to sleep at once.

When a few days later as she lay in bed Miss Swift was paid a call by Miss Burch she was able to cut short the thanks having expressed what was necessary on the first of two visits of sympathy Miss Burch had already paid. But on the subject of her symptoms she left nothing out.

'I wonder you don't ask Doctor Connolly to put his rule over you,' Miss Burch remarked at last.

'Poor nanny,' Miss Swift exclaimed. 'That man?' she added as if injured.

"There's not another within reaching distance only the native doctors and we won't speak about them. Now they've taken their petrol away that is.'

'You'd never expect me to see him, Miss Burch, after what we witnessed every one of us with Mr Eldon. Why it was no more than a crime if I'm to put a name to it.'

'Mr Eldon he died of a broken heart Miss Swift. There was a lot he told nobody.'

'I'm sure I trembled for him as he lay there Miss Burch but then you see I knew. What training I've had was the best even if I've never served with a hospital. I could tell you things. There was a place I was in, I had him from a baby. The doctors gave him up, gave him up dear and they had two in from Harley Street. It was simple enough really. There he was such a good little chap. Lancelot his name was, his mother was Lady Mercy Swinley. Well one night when they were all gone I was watching for I never left his side, day and night I watched him yes, so I leant forward and looked into his little face and I could see he was going before my very eyes. It was all or nothing Miss Burch. So I took him up and I shook him. Yes and I slapped hard. My heart was in my mouth but he gave a kind of convulsive heave of his whole body and brought it all up. I'd known all along there was something stuck in his gullet but there they wouldn't listen. He brought it up. It was black as pitch. Then after I'd changed his bed things he fell into such a sweet sleep. Something made me do it there you are. But I shook so afterwards I dropped the cup when I poured myself a cup of tea. That hospital nurse couldn't fathom it once she came back. But I knew better.'