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THE AMAZING YEARS
THE
AMAZING YEARS
BY
W. PETT RIDGE
AUTHOR OF
"MORD EM'LY"
"69 BIRNAM ROAD" ETC.
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO
MCMXVII.
THE AMAZING YEARS
CHAPTER I
Mrs. Hillier said something just before lunch that touched me more thanshe could have guessed. The family was to leave on the Saturday, andthe elder of the two young ladies—Miss Muriel—had grumbled throughoutthe week because of the delay insisted upon by the master. Thedeparture had originally been fixed for the twenty-fifth; Mr. Hillier,who seldom spoke at home, but when he did talk expected to be obeyed,announced that the party would not cross the Channel until the first.That would be two days before the Bank Holiday, and Miss Muriel foresawdiscomforts arising from over-crowded compartments, carriages reservedfor the incredible Polytechnic folk and the impossible Lunn trippers.Mrs. Hillier, as I managed with some difficulty to turn the key of atrunk, put her hand on my shoulder.
"Weston," she remarked, impulsively, "I wish you were coming with us."
"Ma'am," I said, "I don't like the sea, and I can't endure foreigners.Furthermore, a woman like myself, knowing only the English language,would be simply a hindrance."
"Wherever you found yourself," she declared, "you'd contrive to makeyourself understood. Who is coming here to stay with you whilst we areaway?"
"Thought, ma'am, of asking my young nephew. He's just got ascholarship, and the month's rest will do him good."
One of the maids knocked and came in to ask me[Pg 2] whether she shouldsound the gong. Mrs. Hillier's manner altered at once. She gavedefinite instructions regarding the tying on of the blue labels thathad been specially printed by a firm at Sidcup Hill, commented sharplyon the condition of Master Edward's laundry, and mentioned that theworking classes were becoming intolerably careless. When the maid hadgone, she turned to me again.
"Weston," she said. "I'm worried about this trip. Before, I've feltconfidence in your master to see us through any difficulty. He's beena sort of a dependable courier, and though he can't have relished theholiday, it's been at any rate a change for him. But lately—Oh I don'tknow," she broke off. "Perhaps I'm wrong."
Talk at lunch, I noticed, was devoted to the coming journey. Theconversation could