CHAPTER I - MOTHER AND DAUGHTER

AMABEL LEIGH woke as her daily helper, elderly and stout, entered the room with the tray.

"Mornin', dearie. Ten o'clock to the tick and here's yer brekfus'. A nice kipper, seein' as it's Wednesday. Three letters for yer; two of 'em bills by the look of it. Hope the other makes up. No news in the papers. Strike in Belfast, sudden death of a Cab'net Minister, airyplane crash in America, but no news what is news. I'll get yer bath in 'arf a hour."

"You are very good to me, Croonie."

"Good to them as is good to me. That's my motter; always has been."

Croonie put the tray on a bedside table, straightened the coverlet and pulled back the curtains. She seemed reluctant to go. She generally enjoyed a little chat, and this morning there was a special reason for one. Everybody called her Croonie. It was, not a nickname as many supposed, nor had it any reference, ironic or otherwise, to her evident lack of a singing voice. It was simpler than that. She had married a man named Croonie, who had left her when she ceased to support him in the manner to which he felt himself entitled.

"So Miss Valerie got back all right," she said.

"You have seen her?"

"Threw her arms round me the minute I got here, she did, and kissed me. 'Good to be home, Croonie,' she said. My word, she has shot up, taller 'n you now and nearly as pretty as you was at her age."

"Prettier, I hope."

"She'll never be that, if she lives to a nundred. 'Tell Mummie I'll be back soon,' she says, and out she pops. A young man, I 'spose, but her only home yesterday and early in the mornin'. She said somethin' about bathin' the Serpentine. There's the dratted bell. Bath ready in a' nour, dearie."

She bustled from the room. Amabel knew she was lucky to have such a faithful servitor and friend. Croonie had been a dresser at the theatre when they first met. Now her mornings were spent at the flat, where she let herself in at eight o'clock on the tick, as she put it. She sometimes "obliged" other ladies in the afternoon, or for an occasional party, but her one job supplied her needs and she did not believe in work for work's sake.

Amabel drank her tea and attacked her kipper. She did not immediately open her letters; there was plenty to occupy her thoughts. Few would have supposed that her pleasant bedroom had for many years been the connubial nest of an intemperate cabman and his tempestuous spouse. Yet such was the case. An enterprising speculator, with some skill as an architect, had purchased a mews that was falling into decay and had transformed it into a select colony of small flats. Outside, pebble-dash had disguised the old brickwork; and inside, modern fitments and pretty lattice windows had transformed stalls and coach-houses with the rooms over them into suites, each with two bedrooms, a lounge, a tiny kitchenette and a bathroom. The name, Russell's Mews, had burgeoned into Dowton Close and, the position being near to South Kensington station, many fortunate persons with some fashionable or aristocratic aspirations had secured homes in a convenient locality at a moderate rent. Amabel's was on the first floor.

Her bedroom looked larger and more lofty than was actually the case, for the bed was low and the furniture small. The suite in Canadian white maple and the cheerful chintz hangings were suggestive of a country cottage rather than a London mews. The only picture on the walls was a framed caricature of herself; clever but cruel. It had appeared in an illustrated paper and she had persuaded the artist to let her have the original, thereby starting a firm friendship. She said she hung it where it was to keep her humble.

Breakfast finished, she opened the letters. The bills she tossed aside; they were as she had expected. But the third missive, that Croonie had hoped would bring luck, brought instead a look of anger to her face. Not that it was entirely unexpected, but a thing that is foreseen can be unpleasant when it comes, especially if it destroys what faint vestige of hope there may be that it will not come. It was from a firm of solicitors in Gray's Inn.

'Dear Miss Legh,

'As you may be aware, the play Lucky in Love, produced by Mr. Greg Dobson, has been a failure. You will remember you guaranteed the production up to a sum of two thousand pounds.

'We regret to have to inform you that the total losses are nearly three times that amount. At the moment we are unaware of Mr. Dobson's precise whereabouts. If you can give us his present address we shall be glad. In the mean time perhaps you will let us have the amount of your guarantee.

'Yours faithfully,

'Wilson, Son & Willowby.'

"So Greg has bolted," she muttered. "How like him! What a fool I was!"

Two thousand pounds! She had thought she was onto a winner. Things had gone wrong from the start. Greg was too lavish in every direction; repeated delays; the illness of the leading man. Then the first night and the awful reviews. Empty houses! "Give it time," Greg had said. So the losses piled up.

No use blaming anyone. She was confident she knew a good thing and she was wrong.

She put her hand under her pillow and pulled out a crumpled page from a gossipy Sunday journal. One paragraph was marked. It was headed: Lucy BAXT. She had marked it; she had read it many times before.

'The estate of Sir Lionel Cradon, the former Iron King, late of Westbourne House, Sloane Street, provides the comfortable sum of two hundred thousand pounds after the demands of the Treasury have been satisfied. Of this, half is left to his infant son, the interest to accrue until he is twenty-one, to effect insurances against future death duties, so that a clear £100,000 may follow the title. The widow has the income on the residue for life and then it also reverts to little Sir Lionel, who is nearly one year old.'

There was a rap at the door.

"Hullo, darling! Can I come in?"

Without waiting for a reply the door was opened and a young girl entered. She was tall and slender, with fine eyes, a rather wide mouth with perfect teeth, good features and a clear skin tanned by the sun and the sea. Very like the mother lying on the bed, though brimming over with health and happiness. Amabel hastily pushed the papers she had been reading under the cover of the bedclothes.

"Darling, I have had a gorgeous swim with Bruce. Oh, it is good to be home!" She kissed her mother and sat on the edge of the bed.

"I thought your friend's name was Roger."

"No, darling. It was Roger--Roger Bennion--who brought me home. I told you all about it last night, but I expect I was too excited for you to make sense of it. It was all so wonderful! He and his wife Ruth are the grandest people I ever met."

"And I suppose they thought me a neglectful mother."

"Indeed they did not! I told them how marvellous you had been to me. Those schools in France and Switzerland and then the gorgeous year with Uncle Fred in New Zealand, before I really settle down. Of course, they understood I could not be with you when you were on tour and all that! They have seen you act and are longing to meet you They were simply sweet to me!"

"How did you meet them?"

"That part of it is rather sad. You see, Ruth was to have had a baby. She asked me to call her Ruth--she is not a great deal older than I am. But she was in a car smash and that ended it. She was terribly ill for a long time, but she is all right now."

"Was her husband driving the car?"

"Rather not. There would have been no accident if he had been. He is super. Thinks and acts quicker than any one I have ever met. It was another woman. He simply adores Ruth, and when she was well enough he took her to New Zealand for the voyage."

"But why did he bring her home on a coal barge?"

Valerie laughed gaily.

"Not a coal barge, darling. A cargo boat. They send meat and butter and all sorts of things to England. The boats are beautifully kept. The journey is slower than by the liners, and Major Bennion thought the extra time would be good for Ruth. He had got to know Uncle Fred and he said if I would come back with them they would pay my fare and everything else. He wanted there to be someone on the boat about Ruth's age to keep her company. You see, they only take about a dozen passengers and you never know who there will be."

"Why do they trouble about passengers at all if they can only take so few?"

"I asked Bruce that. He says it is to maintain morale. The officers are more likely to mind their table manners if there are strangers, especially women, aboard. Of course, you do not have the gaieties of the cruisers--that is why the Bennions preferred it--but there is lots of deck space for games."

"And now," Amabel said, "tell me about Bruce."

"Bruce Kelsall," Valerie replied. "He is third officer, the nicest boy I ever met."

"You met him this morning?"

"We had a swim in the Serpentine. I didn't know you could do that till he told me. I am bringing him here soon. You will love him."

"Do you love him?" the mother asked.

"He is terribly nice and very good-looking."

"You are not engaged or...