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We owe it to the uneasy conscience of a Wellingsford man, a railway speculator in the forties, who, having robbed widows and orphans and, after trial at the Old Bailey, having escaped penal servitude by the skin of his teeth, died in the odour of sanctity, and the possessor of a colossal fortune in the year eighteen sixty-three.
But if Leonard should be killed in the war I think of it night and day what I should like to do would be to drive to the Market Square of Wellingsford and wave a Union Jack round and round and fall down dead." I made some sort of sympathetic gesture. "And I certainly should," she added. "My dear friend," said I, "if I could move from this confounded chair, I would kiss your brave hands."
But even he sometimes winced at the pretentiousness of his mother and his aunts. He was a clever fellow and his knowledge was based on sound foundations. I need not say that the ladies were rather feared than loved in Wellingsford. All this to explain why it was that when Marigold woke me from an afternoon nap with the information that Mrs. Holmes desired to see me, I scowled on him.
Had I not been happy, I should have been an ungrateful dog. We talked of the war, of local news, of the wounded at the hospital. And here I must say that we are very proud of our Wellingsford Hospital. It is the largest and the wealthiest in the county.
Gedge swung angrily away, and Hosea and I continued our interrupted progress down the High Street. Although I had called his dark menaces drivel, I could not help wondering what it meant. Was he going to guide a German Army to Wellingsford? Was he, a modern Guy Fawkes, plotting to blow up the Town Hall while Mayor and Corporation sat in council? He was not the man to utter purely idle threats.
So did the munitions workers of Godbury. This, of course, upset our plans, which had all to be reconsidered from the beginning. "Who is giving the reception?" cried Lady Fenimore, who could stand upon her dignity as well as anybody. "The County or Wellingsford? I presume it's Wellingsford, and, so long as I am Mayoress, that dreadful Laleham woman will have to take a back seat."
From chance words during this spell of leave, I had divined hankering after its various fleshpots. For the sake of one old woman he made reckless and gallant sacrifice. When he was bored to misery he came round to me. I learned later that in visiting Wellingsford he faced more than boredom. All of this you must put to the credit side of his ledger.
And may I, too, say how deeply touched I am by your coming here?" Betty looked swiftly round and her cheeks flushed, for there were many of us within earshot. She laughed off her embarrassment. "You have developed from a man into a Wellingsford Institution, and I had to come and see you inaugurated. My aunts, too, are here." She beckoned to them. "They are shyer than I am."
"I can find out in a minute," I smiled, "whether she is still in Wellingsford." I wheeled myself to the telephone on my writing-table and rang up Betty at the hospital. "Do you know where Phyllis Gedge is?" Betty's voice came. "Yes. She's here. I've just left her to come to speak to you. Why do you want to know?" "Never mind so long as she is safe and sound.
An energetic lady who had met the Serbian Minister in London conceived the happy idea of organising a Serbian Flag Day in Wellingsford, and reaped a prodigious harvest. We were all tremendously patriotic, living under Boyce's reflected glory. At first I had deprecated the proposal, fearing lest Boyce might not find it acceptable.
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