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But now he felt as if he never wanted to hear Enid Crofton's name mentioned again, and he would have given a good deal to obliterate her and her concerns entirely from his memory. They were now, much to his relief, close to The Trellis House: "I will ring the bell for you," he said courteously, and then, without waiting for her thanks, he hurried off towards Old Place.
He was afraid lest his mother should invite him to leave the room, for he wanted to hear what they were saying. Timmy always enjoyed hearing grown-up people's conversation, especially when they had forgotten that he was present. All at once his sharp ears heard Mrs. Crofton's low, melodious voice asking the question he had been half-expecting her to ask: "Do you expect Mr. Radmore soon?"
Piper was genuinely moved and excited. She felt that Providence, in whom she only believed when she was in trouble, had done her a good turn. For a moment or two she remained silent, thinking intently, wondering whether she dared take advantage of this extraordinary chance a chance that might never occur again. "I take it, sir," she said at last, "that you are a friend of Mrs. Crofton's?"
Though Tremaine was Enid Crofton's ideal of what a lover, even a husband, should be, and she had never liked any man as well, she knew with a painful, practical knowledge the meaning of the words "genteel poverty." Tremaine's regiment would not remain for ever in India, and then would begin the enforced economies, the weary struggle with an inadequate income she had known with Colonel Crofton.
"I don't know what I may become, ma'am," said Bill, inclined to smile at Mrs Crofton's enthusiasm. "At present I am but a midshipman, but I will try, as I always have, to do my duty." This conversation made Bill feel perfectly at home with Mrs Crofton. Indeed, it seemed to him as if he had known her all his life, so that he was willing to confide in her as if she were his mother.
Unfortunately for her, Alice Crofton was a type of woman with whom she had never before been brought in contact; and something deep within her told her that she had better stick as close to the truth as was reasonably possible with this shrewd spinster who was, in some ways, so disconcertingly like what Enid Crofton's late husband had been, in the days when he had been a forlorn girl-widow's protecting friend and ardent admirer.
The only part he thoroughly understood was the description of Colonel Crofton's last hours; the agony the dying man had endured, the efforts made by the doctor, not only to save his life, but to force him to say how the virulent poison had got into his system all became vividly present to the boy. Timmy felt vexed when he realised, as he could not help doing, that Mrs.
"Think it over," said the terrible little woman. "We're not in a 'urry to a day or two. We'll give you a fortnight to find the money." She put her hand, fat, yet claw-like, on Mrs. Crofton's shoulder. "There's nothing to look so frightened about," she said a little gruffly. "Piper and me aren't blackmailers. But we've got to look out for ourselves, same as everybody else does.
Our arrival at Crofton's prevented any further consideration of the matter. Ham leaped out of the wagon without another word, rushed through the front gate, and disappeared, while I drove on towards Riverport. Ham was quick-tempered, and I hoped he would get over the vindictive feelings which he manifested towards me.
Then all at once, sometimes when she was in the garden, at other times in the charming little parlour, Timmy would see the wraith of Colonel Crofton, and the wraith of Colonel Crofton's terrier, Dandy, looking as real as the flesh-and-blood woman beside whom they seemed to stand. Sometimes they appeared, as it were, intermittently, but now and again they would stay quite a long time.
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