"The covey told me you were a charwoman; so I suppose you picked the envelopes out of waste-paper baskets, or such like, and then changed the addresses?" She nods again; still she dare not look up, but she is admiring his legs. When, however, he would cast the letters into the fire, she flames up with sudden spirit. She clutches them.
"Don"t you burn them letters, mister."
"They"re not real letters."
"They"re all I have."
He returns to irony. "I thought you had a son?"
"I never had a man nor a son nor anything. I just call myself Missis to give me a standing."
"Well, it"s past my seeing through."
He turns to look for some explanation from the walls. She gets a peep at him at last. Oh, what a grandly set-up man! Oh, the stride of him. Oh, the n.o.ble rage of him. Oh, Samson had been like this before that woman took him in hand.
He whirls round on her. "What made you do it?"
"It was everybody"s war, mister, except mine." She beats her arms.
"I wanted it to be my war too."
"You"ll need to be plainer. And yet I"m d----d if I care to hear you, you lying old trickster."
The words are merely what were to be expected, and so are endurable; but he has moved towards the door.
"You"re not going already, mister?"
"Yes, I just came to give you an ugly piece of my mind."
She holds out her arms longingly. "You haven"t gave it to me yet."
"You have a cheek!"
She gives further proof of it. "You wouldn"t drink some tea?"
"Me! I tell you I came here for the one purpose of blazing away at you."
It is such a roaring negative that it blows her into a chair. But she is up again in a moment, is this spirited old lady. "You could drink the tea while you was blazing away. There"s winkles."
"Is there?" He turns interestedly towards the table, but his proud Scots character checks him, which is just as well, for what she should have said was that there had been winkles. "Not me. You"re just a common rogue." He seats himself far from the table. "Now, then, out with it.
Sit down!" She sits meekly; there is nothing she would not do for him.
"As you char, I suppose you are on your feet all day."
"I"m more on my knees."
"That"s where you should be to me."
"Oh, mister, I"m willing."
"Stop it. Go on, you accomplished liar."
"It"s true that my name is Dowey."
"It"s enough to make me change mine."
"I"ve been charring and charring and charring as far back as I mind.
I"ve been in London this twenty years."
"We"ll skip your early days. I have an appointment."
"And then when I was old the war broke out."
"How could it affect you?"
"Oh, mister, that"s the thing. It didn"t affect me. It affected everybody but me. The neighbours looked down on me. Even the posters, on the walls, of the woman saying, "Go, my boy," leered at me. I sometimes cried by myself in the dark. You won"t have a cup of tea?"
"No."
"Sudden like the idea came to me to pretend I had a son."
"You depraved old limmer! But what in the name of Old Nick made you choose me out of the whole British Army?"
Mrs. Dowey giggles. There is little doubt that in her youth she was an accomplished flirt. "Maybe, mister, it was because I liked you best."
"Now, now, woman."
"I read one day in the papers, "In which, he was a.s.sisted by Private K.
Dowey, 5th Battalion, Black Watch.""
Private K. Dowey is flattered, "Did you, now! Well, I expect that"s the only time I was ever in the papers."
Mrs. Dowey tries it on again, "I didn"t choose you for that alone. I read a history of the Black Watch first, to make sure it was the best regiment in the world."
"Anybody could have told you that." He is moving about now in better humour, and, meeting the loaf in his stride, he cuts a slice from it. He is hardly aware of this, but Mrs. Dowey knows. "I like the Scotch voice of you, woman. It drummles on like a hill burn."
"Prosen Water runs by where I was born." Flirting again, "May be it teached me to speak, mister."
"Canny, woman, canny."
"I read about the Black Watch"s ghostly piper that plays proudly when the men of the Black Watch do well, and prouder when they fall."
"There"s some foolish story of that kind." He has another careless slice off the loaf. "But you couldn"t have been living here at that time or they would have guessed. I suppose you flitted?"
"Yes, it cost me eleven and sixpence."
"How did you guess the _K_ in my name stood for Kenneth?"
"Does it?"