Kitabı oku: «A Drake by George!», sayfa 13

CHAPTER XV
A NEW HOUSE AND THE SAME OLD FURNITURE

Miss Yard became uncontrollable, almost dangerous, when Percy wrote informing her he had discovered a house situated upon high ground, quite fifty feet above the meadows through which the Drivel percolated. The garden soil was a singularly fertile gravel; the view, which was monotonous, consisting chiefly of mole heaps, was fortunately blotted out by lichened apple trees; while the principal reception room had been designed, in his opinion, with a view to knitting parties; and a retired Archdeacon had quite recently passed away in the best bedroom.

The old lady craved for Drivelford delights every hour of the day. She escaped constantly from the garden to begin the first of the hundred miles which separated her from such a respectable abode. When imprisoned in the parlour, she wrote a quantity of letters to old friends, most of whom had travelled far outside the radius of the postal union, inviting them to her first tea party at the Lodge, Drivelford. The name of the house was really Wistaria Lodge; but Percy had recommended the shorter form as less of a committal.

"Percy must live with us; he will enjoy the river. Don't you remember the gentlemen, in long coats and round hats, who used to sit all day smoking and tasting something out of jars? Percy would like that," she said merrily.

"Mr. Taverner is now a married man, and by this time he is a thousand miles away. I suppose you are referring to Mr. George," said Nellie.

"Of course I mean George. Why don't you listen, child? He can sit by the river with the rest of the gentlemen. He can hand round the cakes, and talk to the ladies. Give nice things, and say nice things. I wonder if somebody told me that, or whether I invented it. I used to be clever once; twenty years ago I could have told you what Wistaria meant."

"It's a creeper," explained Nellie. "But Mr. Taverner as good as says there isn't one."

"I'm glad of that. I do not like creeping things. Now I'm going to write to George. My memory is wonderfully good today, and yet I cannot remember the name of the lady he married."

"My memory is better than yours, but I cannot remember it either," laughed Nellie. "When Mr. George marries, I shall expect to hear your banns read out."

"I could have married once," declared Miss Yard. "He was a curate with such a funny face, and his nose was just like a cork."

"Why didn't you?" asked Nellie.

"I think there was some impediment. I rather fancy he took to comic songs, or perhaps he forgot to mention the matter. Why did George go away, if he never means to get married?"

"That's a long story, which I cannot tell you now, as I must get on with the packing. Don't you write to Mr. George. Leave that to me."

"He is coming with us," cried Miss Yard.

"He is not," said Nellie.

She went out, locking the door lest Miss Yard should commence one of her perambulations towards Drivelford, murmuring to herself:

"Kezia goes with us, so there will be no trouble with her; but Bessie, of course, stays with her husband. Whatever will she and Robert say – and do – when we begin to move the furniture? George must come back. He's pretty artful, and perhaps he'll suggest a plan."

The artfulness of George was a thing to be reckoned with, so, when Nellie wrote, she did not mention that the furniture was now the legal property of Miss Yard; but merely informed him they were leaving Highfield, and requested him to return as soon as possible.

She had hardly finished this letter when Kezia entered the room, seated herself in the most comfortable chair, as prospective mistress of all she surveyed, and announced her intention of getting to the bottom of everything.

"I don't know what's going on, but there's something being kept back what I have a right to know. Who stole my things, Miss Nellie? Who come into this house, when me and Bess wur sitting in the kitchen, and took my musical box, and my silver candlesticks, what dear Mrs. Drake left me – snatched 'em out of my hand, as you might say? Mr. George had gone away, so it couldn't be him. It warn't nobody here. It warn't the Brocks, they ses. That musical box wur so heavy the dear Captain couldn't lift it without saying something Mrs. Drake wur sorry vor. And it went off avore my face as if 'twur smoke."

"I'm just as much puzzled as you," said Nellie. "Perhaps the policeman will tell us all about it when he comes home."

"I've got a fancy he took the things himself. He's got a way of hanging about after dark what I don't like," said Kezia. "I ha' never trusted policeman, since one kissed me when I was a young gal. 'Twas ten o'clock at night, and I wur standing by the gate – and then he begged my pardon, said he'd mistook the house, and 'twas the gal next door he meant to kiss. You can't trust them, miss. They ses he's gone to run in a farmer whose place got burnt down, but it's my belief he's gone to sell my candlesticks."

"You mustn't say such things," cried Nellie.

"And what's all this about going away? Mr. Percy come here, and I heard 'en tell about finding a house, and Miss Sophy does nought 'cept worry about packing and getting off, and her talks all day about a place called Drivelford. Nobody tells me nothing about it."

"Miss Sophy has told you a great deal."

"I don't pay no attention to what she ses. Mrs. Drake said Miss Sophy wur to die here, and be put away in Highfield churchyard, and nothing was to be touched in her lifetime."

"But surely Miss Sophy can please herself!"

"Mrs. Drake said I wur to look after Miss Sophy," muttered Kezia.

"And so you shall. We are going away, as Miss Sophy really ought to live in a place where she can see a few people. We have taken a house in Drivelford, which is where she used to live, and we shall go there some time this month. Kezia, I want you not to mention this to anyone, not even to Bessie," said Nellie impressively.

"Well, I never!" gasped Kezia. "I fancied we should never be going away from here, and I don't think it's right. I'm sure Mrs. Drake wouldn't like it. What sort of a place is this Drivelford?"

"Oh, it's quite a bright little town, and a lot of old people go there to live because the death rate is only seven and a half in a thousand."

"What do that mean?" asked Kezia.

"Statistics are beyond me, but I suppose if means that out of a thousand people only seven and a half die."

"What happens to the old folk what don't die? How long do the person what half dies bide like that? Do he get better or worse? How be us to know whether me, and you, and Miss Sophy, won't be among the seven? I can't sense the meaning of it."

"It does seem rather hard to explain, especially as Drivelford has the biggest cemetery I ever saw in my life. You will like the place, Kezia. There are plenty of houses and rows of shops – one very big one, called Field, Stanley, and Robinson, where you can buy anything."

"I'd like to be among a few shops," said Kezia more cheerfully. "Ain't Stanley the name of that dreadful woman what came to Black Anchor?"

"I believe that was the name, but it is quite a common one. There are no Stanleys in Drivelford anyhow; but there are three churches and two chapels."

"That'll keep us busy on Sundays," said Kezia delightedly.

"And there's an electric theatre."

"What's that?" asked Kezia suspiciously.

"A place where they show pictures."

"I won't go there. I've heard a lot of loud talk about them places. I heard of a young woman who went into one, and was never seen again. That Stanley woman came from an electric theatre, where there was singing and dancing and showing their legs, you may depend. Ah, they'll be weeping and wailing and gnashing their teeth some day. Is there a dentist in Drivelford?"

"Yes, and several undertakers, and a huge lunatic asylum," cried Nellie.

"Well, perhaps it won't be so bad. There's nothing to cheer a body in Highfield. I'll try to put up with it, vor the sake of dear Mrs. Drake. She said I wur never to leave Miss Sophy. Poor Bessie'll fret herself into a decline when she hears I'm agoing away vor ever."

"Mind you don't tell her. I know you two are great friends, but directly Bessie hears we are going to move the furniture, she and Robert will be over here claiming all sorts of things."

"So they will," said Kezia uneasily. "I don't mind about Bessie – she's welcome to anything I don't want – but Robert's been talking a bit too sharp lately. I can't lay a hand on anything in the kitchen without him saying it belongs to Bessie, and telling me to be careful how I touches it."

"If it comes to the worst, we might let them have the mummy. Miss Sophy doesn't really care for it," suggested Nellie.

"They ain't agoing to have he. I wouldn't part wi' the dear old stuffed gentleman, not vor fifty pounds," cried Kezia.

"Oh dear!" sighed Nellie. "I can see very well we are in for a battle – feather beds torn in pieces – carpets rent asunder – you and Bessie tugging at opposite ends of Mrs. Drake's sofa. But suppose Robert brings a crowd!"

"I won't say a word," promised Kezia, breathing heavily with excitement. "They shan't know we'm going vor ever till the vans come. I suppose us couldn't move the things on a dark night, same as they does in towns?"

"Right under Bessie's window!" exclaimed Nellie. "Why, it will take them a whole day merely to pack the things."

"Robert won't let a thing be took. He ha' said so many a time. 'Not a stick, Kezia, is to go out of the house,' he says, 'unless I takes it.' Whatever shall us do, Miss Nellie?"

"We had better wait until Mr. George comes. Then, if he cannot suggest anything, I shall have to write and ask Mr. Hunter to come down and look after Miss Sophy's interests."

"But the furniture don't belong to she," objected Kezia.

"At all events she has a life interest in it," Nellie reminded her.

"Sure enough. Mrs. Drake said it wur to belong to Miss Sophy while she lived, but no longer. I suppose I'll have to see about letting the house now," Kezia remarked, gazing yearningly at the oleographs. "I did think once of living here, when Miss Sophy wur took, but it's too big vor me, and I'd feel lonely here. Besides, I wouldn't want to bring back the furniture. I ought to get thirty pounds vor it, and that's a nice bit coming in every year. Perhaps I might sell it, but I fancy Mrs. Drake wouldn't like me to do that. What would you do, if the place wur yours, Miss Nellie – would you let or sell it?"

The girl seized her letter and fled, being far too kindly a little coward to inform Kezia that the house belonged to George. She looked into the parlour, where Miss Yard was singing away happily and, after bidding her to go on with her warbles for another ten minutes, she ran out of the house; but hardly had turned towards the post office when a voice called from the opposite direction. Nellie turned, shading her eyes, seeing nothing at first because she was staring into the glow of the sunset; and then two figures advanced towards her – the policeman and George Drake.

"I was just going to post a letter to you. Whatever has made you turn up again?" she cried.

"The bad shilling has saved you a good penny stamp," replied George. "I seemed to have been away quite long enough and, as my lodgings were jolly dull, I decided to accept Aunt Sophy's invitation to live in my own house again. I ought never to have gone, for as soon as I was out of the house – what do you think the policeman has been telling me?"

"About the robbery."

"How that miserable Robert stole my things, while Bessie kept Kezia in the kitchen."

"That's right, miss. I guessed how it was at once, but couldn't say anything till I'd made sure. I was just coming to tell you when I met Mr. Drake," said the new sergeant, stroking his moustache complacently.

"It doesn't pay to be a rascal here," said George. "This policeman has caught a farmer burning down his house, and Robert making off with my property, within the last few days. I hope it won't be long before he gets a murder. I don't mind telling him to his face that he deserves a double murder and suicide."

The constable expressed his gratitude for this unsolicited testimonial, and added, "Mr. Drake thinks, miss, I'd better not go any further in the matter, as there seems to be a sort of doubt as to who owns the furniture."

"There is no doubt whatever. I own the things, and I'll see about getting them back without troubling you," said George.

"Right, sir!" Then the policeman bade them good evening and went his way.

Immediately they were alone, George burst out excitedly, "Nellie, there's another girl!"

"In your case? Well, nobody's jealous," she replied.

"A prettier one than ever, but very young, in short skirts, with her hair down, and her name's Teenie," he continued, without even hearing her comment.

"I think you've come back perfectly crazy," observed Nellie.

"If you don't believe me, you can just go to Black Anchor and find out for yourself."

"Oh, you mean another girl there!" she exclaimed, flushing angrily, and adding, "I don't want to hear any more – but how do you know?"

"She travelled in the same carriage with me, and I thought what a dear – I mean passable little thing she was. Directly the train stopped I saw Sidney, and he called out, 'Here I am, Teenie darling!' And the little girl fairly shouted, 'Oh, Sidney dear, how brown you are!' Then she jumped out, and they kissed and hugged. I never saw anything more disgraceful in my life. I sat back in the carriage so that Sidney shouldn't see me. I suppose they have driven through the village by this time, unless they have the decency to wait until it's dark."

"Where's your luggage?" asked Nellie rather sharply, but determined to change the subject.

"First the painted lady, then Dolly, now Teenie! Thirty, then twenty, and now fourteen! The next will be twelve, and after that they'll be coming in perambulators. My word, young Sidney is a patriarch!"

"Hold your tongue," cried Nellie, more sharply than she had ever spoken in her life.

"I'm sorry, but my feelings ran away with me – she was such a pretty youngster – but of course it's fearfully sad. I had to walk from the station, as I couldn't get a conveyance: the carrier can fetch my box. What's the news? Has Percy been?"

"He came, saw me, and fled," replied the girl more amiably.

"I knew he was a coward, but I didn't suppose you could frighten any one."

"He wanted Miss Sophy to buy the furniture. I told him it was hers already. He blustered and threatened; I stood like a tor. He was so rude that I lost my temper; and when I am angry I can frighten anyone. He yielded and ran. The news," continued Nellie, "is that we are going to run too."

"For a change of air. I'll come with you."

"A permanent change. We are going back to Drivelford. The house is taken, and the problem before me is how to move the furniture."

"So you wrote asking me to come back and do the dirty work?"

"If you like to put it that way."

"Aunt Sophy has no right to leave without giving notice. She is my tenant for life. If she breaks her contract I shall claim the furniture – it is mine really, as Percy didn't give me a fair price, and now he's gone to Tasmania he can't interfere. I have always regarded the furniture as belonging to me in spite of Percy's interference. Of course, when I say to me, I mean to us."

"Don't worry," she said. "Mr. Taverner has signed a deed of gift making over everything in the house to Miss Sophy; and, as she has signed a will in my favour, the furniture should come to me eventually – if Kezia and the Mudges don't grab it all."

"So you made Percy give my furniture to Aunt Sophy. Percy, who has never given away anything in his life except a bad cigar!"

"Marriage has improved him."

"He wasn't married when he came here."

"He was on the brink. I persuaded him that, as Miss Sophy had paid for the things, she ought to have them."

"That argument would simply slide off his back. You said he threatened you, and, from what I know of him, it's fairly certain that he swore at you. Is it likely he would threaten one moment, and give way the next? His young woman may have changed his vile nature – I hope she has – but you can't reform the stripes off a zebra. You found out something about him – you made him confess how he got hold of that money he wrote telling us about, and why he was clearing out of the country. He has defrauded the Yard estate, and Hunter helped him. The next thing we shall hear is that Hunter has gone to study the business habits and professional morals of the Esquimaux. Out with it, Nellie, or I shall suffer from a horrible suspicion that Percy has squared you."

"I have spoken nothing but the truth, and you won't squeeze anything more out of me," she said.

"When a fellow stays in lodgings," said George, "he must either read novels or go mad. I have been reading a quantity of novels, and they convinced me that women are deceitful beings."

"They have to protect themselves against the perfidy of men," cried Nellie.

"Remember poor innocent Adam! He was all right as long as he was engaged to Eve; but what happened when he married her?"

"It's a shame that story was ever invented."

"He wouldn't have eaten the apples; peaches and bananas were good enough for him," George continued.

"But the serpent started it, and the serpent was the devil in disguise, and the devil is a fallen angel, and all angels, as you told me once, are gentlemen. So the male sex is the most deceitful after all."

"Why can't you stick to the subject?" said George sourly.

"Certainly," laughed Nellie. "This business about the furniture must be settled finally one way or the other. Are the Mudges to have anything, and, if not, how are they to be prevented from taking just what they want?"

"Robert and Bessie are not to take a stick from the house, or a stone from the garden; and they must give back the things they have stolen," replied George.

"Are those scraps of paper worth anything at all?" she demanded.

"They are as useless as agreements between nations."

"Then why don't you tell Kezia?"

"Because the law is so slippery."

"That means you are not certain."

"I am quite positive; but how can I be responsible for judicial errors? Kezia may put her case into the hands of some shady lawyer – worse even than Hunter – and some stupid court may make a mistake in her favour. Kezia is going with you, so there will be no trouble with her while Aunt Sophy lives."

"But it's not fair to keep her in ignorance."

"It's supposed to be a state of bliss."

"Oh, I can't argue with you. Will you answer one question properly?"

"I'll try," said George.

"How are we to rescue the furniture from the Mudges?"

"If they don't know you are going to move, and have no suspicions," began George.

"They have none," said Nellie.

"And are not told."

"They won't be."

"Then you can leave it to me," said George.

CHAPTER XVI
GEORGE TAKES CONTROL

Miss Yard shuffled contentedly downstairs, nicely dressed for her evening meal, which usually consisted of thin soup, a milk pudding, and boiling water; peeped into the parlour, drew a deep breath and peeped again, uttered a few exclamations, then shuffled back to the stairs, called Nellie, and announced:

"There's a great big man in the house!"

"It's only old George," whispered the irreverent girl.

"I don't know anybody of that name; but there used to be several King Georges, and they were followed by William, and then came our dear good Victoria, who was taken in the prime of life just when she seemed to have settled down, and after that I don't remember anything," said Miss Yard.

"George is the name of our present King – and of about ninety per cent, of his loyal subjects," said Nellie.

"What's he doing here? This isn't Windsor Castle," stammered Miss Yard. "Has he called for a subscription? Gentlemen who come here always want subscriptions. Does he want to hide? I do hope there's not a revolution. Go and show him into a cupboard, Nellie, and tell him how loyal we are."

"My dear lady," laughed Nellie, "you are clean muddled, confoozled, and astern of the times. This gentleman is your much respected relative, George Drake."

"Why couldn't you say so at once, without talking a lot of wicked rubbish about a revolution and the Royal Family hiding on Dartmoor?" demanded Miss Yard snappishly.

"Of all the injustice!" sighed Nellie; but the old lady had left her. Toddling at full speed into the parlour, she embraced George, and said how well she remembered him, though twenty years had passed since they had met. "I knew you at once, directly I looked into the room I recognised your stooping shoulders and your bald head," she added, looking at a portrait on the wall and describing that accurately.

"Nellie couldn't make you out at all," she continued, "but then she was a baby when you went away. Nellie, dear, where are you? Come and be kissed by your uncle. I told you he would come back some day."

"The soup is on the table," cried Nellie as she fled.

The mind of Miss Yard roamed in a free and happy state about the nineteenth century, enabling her, during the progress of a meal, to pass through a number of different periods. While taking her soup and sipping her boiling water, she informed the others that the first railway had recently been constructed, and it ran between Highfield and Drivelford, and for her part she was very glad of it, as she thought it was quite time the coaches were done away with, and she fully intended travelling by the railway if Mr. Stephenson would let her.

"Whoever is Stephenson?" inquired George, who ought to have known better.

"It's wonderful what things she does remember," replied Nellie. "She would forget me if I left her tomorrow; yet she can remember the man who invented railways."

"I think you had better go tomorrow," said George, taking the cue.

"Yes, I should like to be one of the first," Miss Yard admitted.

"Why have you put that idea into her head? It may stick, and then she'll drive me crazy," scolded Nellie; it being perfectly safe to speak openly before the old lady.

"Send her off with Kezia at once," urged George.

"I must go with her."

"Then take Kezia too. If she stays she will split to Bessie. Even if she tries her hardest not to, she won't be able to help herself. You can't keep anything a secret for long in a place like this. You clear off, and I'll go into lodgings – and read more novels."

"Won't that look queer?"

"It would if Kezia stayed: it won't if she goes. I can't put up here with nobody to look after me."

"And you will undertake to move the furniture?"

"I will," he promised.

"Very well," she murmured after a pause. "We can't possibly get away tomorrow, as it will take me a day to pack; but we will go the day after."

"Oh, well, it's no good bothering now," said Miss Yard in a voice of bitter resignation, pushing back her plate and kicking at her footstool. "They've started without us."

George occupied his old bedroom, positively for the last time, and in the morning went out to wrestle with his difficulties. His reception by the villagers was colder than ever because, during his absence, the Dismal Gibcat had made a speech directed mainly against the man who had dared to interfere with local progress. The Dismal Gibcat preferred to be in a minority of one, but such was his gift of eloquence that a single speech sometimes swung the majority over to his side; which was an embarrassing position only to be escaped from by repudiating his former opinions. This speech had done its work, as George was presently to discover when the Dumpy Philosopher and the Wallower in Wealth approached him with questions concerning the Dartmoor Railway Company.

"That scheme is done for. It was one of my uncle's bubbles, but I have pricked it," he replied, groping his way back to popularity.

"Us wur told a lot of American gentlemen wanted to build the railway wi' something they called a syndicate," said the Wallower in Wealth.

"I told 'em the country is hardly flat enough," said George.

"It wur flat enough vor Captain Drake, and it wur flat enough vor you when you fetched that millionaire down along to look at it," said the Dumpy Philosopher.

"That's all a mistake. Mr. Jenkins came here to buy a pair of vases," said George, speaking the truth with disastrous results; for the two elders were not quite such fools as to believe a gentleman would travel from London to Highfield for the sake of purchasing a shilling's worth of crockery.

"They'm out o' cloam in London, I fancy," remarked the Wallower in Wealth.

"And in America," added the Dumpy Philosopher.

"Mr. Jenkins is a collector of vases," explained George.

"He never come to look at mine. There's a proper lot o' cloam in Highfield, and he didn't crave to see it. Us ha' heard he come to build the railway, and you stopped him from adoing it."

"Well, perhaps I did," replied George, trying to score a point by lying. "I know you are all against the scheme."

"Us wur agin it very strong, because it had never been properly explained," said the Wallower in Wealth. "Us hadn't been told they meant to put a terminus in Highfield. I ha' been to terminuses. 'Tis places where trains start from."

"And where 'em pulls up," added the Dumpy Philosopher.

"Where they starts from and where they pulls up again. It don't make no difference. I ha' started from terminuses, and I ha' stopped in 'em, so I knows what I'm telling about. A terminus brings a lot of money into a place. When they makes a terminus a town is soon built all round it. There's one or two in Highfield who ha' seen Waterloo, and that's a terminus. And they ses 'tis wonderful what a big town ha' been built all round it. A hundred years ago it wur just a ploughed field, where that tremenjus big battle was fought what made us all free volk vor ever; and now 'tis all terminus as far as you can see. That American gentleman come here wi' his syndicate…"

"'Tis something vor levelling the ground, I fancy," said the Dumpy Philosopher, when his colleague paused.

"He would ha' levelled the ground as flat as your hand, and made the terminus; and we would ha' sold our land vor what us like to ask. Now you've ruined us, sir. You ha' stopped the terminus – and you stole my musical box," said the Wallower in Wealth, combining his grievances in one brief indictment.

"You're talking like a child. How can I steal my own property?" cried George angrily.

"Mrs. Drake left all your furniture to Kezia," shouted the Wallower in Wealth.

"And the rest of it to Bessie," added the Dumpy Philosopher.

"They ha' got paper to prove it, Robert ses."

"Why did you offer me money for the musical box, then?" asked George.

"To try your honesty," replied the Wallower in Wealth. "And you warn't honest. You wouldn't take my money because it warn't big enough. Then you go and steal the musical box, wi' a lot of other things, from Kezia."

"And from Bessie Mudge," added the Dumpy Philosopher.

"And if you don't get sent to prison – "

"It won't be for the same reason that you aren't put away in a lunatic asylum," George finished; wondering, as he went on to engage a lodging, how it was his uncle had succeeded in ruling this community of wranglers.

A devout widow let religious rooms opposite the churchyard: they were religious because tables were piled with theological tomes, and walls were covered by black and white memorial cards, comforting texts, and discomposing pictures of Biblical tragedies in yellow and scarlet which helped to warm the house in chilly weather. Towards this dwelling George made his way, knowing the importance of being respectable, although he could not help feeling he had done nothing to deserve those pictures. But presently he swung round, and went off in the opposite direction. An idea had come to him: he remembered the Art Dyers.

That name described a married couple; not a business of giving a new colour to old garments; but the vocation of bread baking, cake making, and specialising in doughnuts. Arthur Dyer was the stingiest man in Highfield; he gave away no crumbs of any kind; had any one asked a stone of him, he would have refused it, but would assuredly have put that stone into his oven and baked it, hoping to see some gold run out. He went to church once a week, no entrance fee being demanded, and always put two fingers into the offertory bag, but whether he put anything else was doubtful. He was also Robert's employer. Mrs. Dyer had learnt in the school of her husband until she was able to give him lectures in economy; and in times past she had implored George, out of his charity, to drive the wolf from their door by finding her a lodger.

"She will ask a stiff price, and I shall get nothing to eat except bread puddings," he muttered, "but the game will be worth starvation."

George might also have remarked with poetic melancholy he had lived to receive his warmest welcome in a lodging house, when Mrs. Dyer had taken him in, showed him a bed, certain to be well aired as it stood above the oven, and promised to be much more than an ordinary mother in her attentions. The rooms appeared somewhat barren, but the air was excellent, being impregnated with an odour of hot fat which was a dinner in itself, and might very possibly be charged as one.

A slight difficulty arose regarding terms, owing to a sudden increase in the price of commodities and a shortage of domestic labour. Everything had got so dear Mrs. Dyer could not understand how people lived: it seemed almost wicked of them to make the attempt, but then a funeral had got to be such a luxury it was perhaps cheaper to struggle on. That was what she and her husband were doing from day to day, with everything going up except their income. Luckily they were still able to sell a few doughnuts: people insisted upon them for their tea. The local doctor spoke highly of them, and most of the babies in the parish were brought up on their doughnuts, with a little beer occasionally – the doctor said it helped. After sleeping in that atmosphere Mr. Drake would find one good meal a day – a chop followed by bread-and-butter pudding – would be almost more than he could manage. She did not want to make a profit, but if he could pay five shillings a day, she thought with careful management she might not lose much.