"How do you do!" Lady Meyfield was endeavouring to recall where she could have met her caller.
"I felt it was time the families met," announced Miss Brent.
Lady Meyfield smiled, that gentle reluctant smile so characteristic of her. She was puzzled; but too well-bred to show it.
"Won"t you have some tea?" She looked about her, then fixing her eyes upon a dark man in khaki, with smouldering eyes, called to him, introduced him, and had just time to say:
"G.o.dfrey, see that Miss Brent has some tea," when a rush of callers swept Miss Brent and Captain G.o.dfrey Elton further into the room.
Miss Brent looked about her with interest. She had read of how Lady Meyfield had turned her houses, both town and country, into convalescent homes for soldiers; but she was surprised to see men in hospital garb mixing freely with the other guests. Elton saw her surprise.
"Lady Meyfield has her own ideas of what is best," he remarked as he handed her a cup of tea.
Miss Brent looked up interrogatingly.
"She had some difficulty at first," continued Elton; "but eventually she got her own way as she always does. Now the official hospitals send her their most puzzling cases and she cures them."
"How?" enquired Miss Brent with interest.
"Imagination," said Elton, bowing to a pretty brunette at the other side of the room. "She is too wise to try and fatten a canary on a dog biscuit."
"Does she keep canaries then?" enquired Miss Brent.
"I"m afraid that was only my clumsy effort at metaphor," responded Elton with a disarming smile. "She adopts human methods. They are generally successful."
Elton went on to describe something of the success that had attended Lady Meyfield"s hostels, as she called them. They were famous throughout the Service. When war broke out someone had suggested that she should use her tact and knowledge of human nature in treating cases that defied the army M.O."s. "A tyrant is the first victim of tact,"
G.o.dfrey Elton had said of Lord Meyfield, and in his ready acquiescence in his lady"s plans Lord Meyfield had tacitly concurred.
Lady Meyfield had conferred with her lord in respect to all her plans and arrangements, until he had come to regard the hostels as the children of his own brain, admirably controlled and conducted by his wife. He seldom appeared, keeping to the one place free from the flood of red, white, and blue--his library. Here with his books and terra-cottas he "grew old with a grace worthy of his rank," as Elton phrased it.
Lady Meyfield"s "cases" were mostly those of sh.e.l.l-shock, or nervous troubles. She studied each patient"s needs, and decided whether he required diversion or quiet: if diversion, he was sent to her town house; if quiet, he went to one of her country houses.
At first it had been thought that a woman could not discipline a number of men; but Lady Meyfield had settled this by allowing them to discipline themselves. All misdemeanours were reported to and judged by a committee of five elected by ballot from among the patients.
Their decisions were referred to Lady Meyfield for ratification. The result was that in no military hospital, or convalescent home, in the country was the discipline so good.
Miss Brent listened perfunctorily to Elton"s description of Lady Meyfield"s success. She had not come to Grosvenor Square to hear about hostels, or the curing of sh.e.l.l-shocked soldiers, and her eyes roved restlessly about the room.
"You know Lord Peter?" she enquired at length.
"Intimately," Elton replied as he took her cup from her.
"Do you like him?" Miss Brent was always direct.
"Unquestionably." Elton"s tone was that of a man who found nothing unusual either in the matter or method of interrogation.
"Is he steady?" was the next question.
"As a rock," responded Elton, beginning to enjoy a novel experience.
"Why doesn"t he live here?" demanded Miss Brent.
"Who, Peter?"
Miss Brent nodded.
"No room. The soldiers, you know," he added.
"No room for her own son?" Miss Brent"s tone was in itself an accusation against Lady Meyfield of unnaturalness.
"Oh! Peter understands," was Elton"s explanation.
"Oh!" Miss Brent looked sharply at him. For a minute there was silence.
"You have been wounded?" Miss Brent indicated the blue band upon his arm. Her question arose, not from any interest she felt; but she required time in which to reorganise her attack.
"I am only waiting for my final medical board, as I hope," Elton replied.
"You know Lady Tanagra?" Miss Brent was feeling some annoyance with this extremely self-possessed young man.
"Yes," was Elton"s reply. He wondered if the next question would deal with her steadiness.
"I suppose you are a friend of the family?" was Miss Brent"s next question.
Elton bowed.
"Good afternoon, sir." The speaker was a soldier in hospital blue, a rugged little man known among his fellows as "Uncle."
"Hullo! Uncle, how are you?" said Elton, shaking hands.
Miss Brent noticed a warmth in Elton"s tone that was in marked contrast to the even tone of courtesy with which he had answered her questions.
"Oh, just "oppin" on to "eaven, sir," replied Uncle. "Sort of sittin"
up an" takin" notice."
Elton introduced Uncle to Miss Brent, an act that seemed to her quite unnecessary.
"And where were you wounded?" asked Miss Brent conventionally.
"Clean through the b.u.t.tocks, mum," replied Uncle simply.
Miss Brent flushed and cast a swift glance at Elton, whose face showed no sign. She turned to Uncle and regarded him severely; but he was blissfully unaware of having offended.
"Can"t sit down now, mum, without it "urtin"," added Uncle, interpreting Miss Brent"s steady gaze as betokening interest.
"Oh, G.o.ddy! I"ve been trying to fight my way across to you for hours."
The pretty brunette to whom Elton had bowed joined the group. "I"ve been giving you the glad eye all the afternoon and you merely bow.
Well, Uncle, how"s the wound?"