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Updated: June 26, 2025
Close on eight that same evening, Timmy Tosswill stood by the open centre window of the long drawing-room, hands duly washed, and his generally short, rough, untidy hair well brushed, whistling softly to himself. He was longing intensely for his godfather's arrival, and it seemed such a long time off to Friday.
He stole a look to his left. Janet, in his eyes, was almost unchanged. Of course she looked a thought older, a thought thicker not so much in her upright figure, as in her clever, irregular-featured face. In the days of his early manhood she had never seemed to him to be very much older than himself but now she looked a lifetime older than he felt. Only Mr. Tosswill looked absolutely unchanged.
"Old gentleman?" repeated Mrs. Crofton vaguely. This time she didn't in the least know what the child was talking about, and she was relieved when the door opened, and the Tosswill family came streaming through it, accompanied by their step-mother. Laughing introductions took place. Mrs. Crofton singled out instinctively her gentle, cultivated-looking host.
Janet Tosswill looked around but no, there was no one in the corridor of which the door, giving into the hall, was wide open. "He's gone to do an errand for me in the village." "The boy is much more normal, eh?" He looked at her questioningly. "He still says that he sees things," she admitted reluctantly, "though he's rather given' up confiding in me.
"I think it's we who are not '18 carat," he answered furiously. "We have shown Mrs. Crofton the grossest discourtesy, and I happen to know that she feels it very much." Janet Tosswill looked at her elder stepson with a feeling of blank amazement. It had often astonished her to notice how completely Jack had his emotions and temper under control.
"One day he began to talk about himself, and he told me about Beechfield, what a beautiful village it was, how devoted he was to you all!" Janet Tosswill glanced at the clock. "It's already five minutes past eight!" she exclaimed. "I must go and hurry my young people their father likes them to be absolutely punctual. The gong will go in a minute."
Taking up a pen, she held it for a while poised in the air, staring out of the window at the attractive though rather neglected old garden, in which only this morning she had spent more than an hour with Jack Tosswill. Then, at last, she dipped her pen in the ink, and after making two rough drafts, she decided on the following form of answer to Mrs.
Janet Tosswill was John Tosswill's second wife, and, though over forty, a still young and alert looking woman, more Irish than Scotch in appearance, with her dark hair and blue eyes. But she came of good Highland stock and was proud of it. "London wants you," came the tired, cross voice she knew all too well. "I think there must be some mistake. This is Old Place, Beechfield, Surrey.
As for Betty, her heart was very full, and as she did her morning's work and while she dressed herself for church, she still felt as if she was living through a wonderful dream. Jack, who did not always go to church, had elected to go to-day; so had Tom and Godfrey; and thus, in spite of the absence of the two younger girls, quite a considerable party filed into the Tosswill pew.
Such was the woman to whom Betty Tosswill had thought it just as well to go herself with the news of Godfrey Radmore's coming visit to Old Place, and as she walked slowly up the village street, the girl tried to remind herself that Miss Pendarth had a very kind side to her nature.
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