What Timmy Did | Page 4

lessons there.
Betty Tosswill, the eldest of John Tosswill's three daughters, was
sitting at a big mid-Victorian writing-table, examining the house-books.
She had just discovered two "mistakes" in the milkman's account, and
she felt perhaps unreasonably sorry and annoyed. Betty had a generous,
unsuspicious outlook on human nature, and a meeting with petty
dishonesty was always a surprise. She looked up with a very friendly,
welcoming smile as her step-mother came into the room. They were
very good friends, these two, and they had a curiously close bond in
Timmy, the only child of the one and the half-brother of the other.
Betty was now twenty-eight and there were only two persons in the

world whom she had loved in her life as well as she now loved her little
brother.
As her step-mother came close up to her--"Janet? What's the matter?"
she exclaimed, and as the other made no answer, a look of fear came
over the girl's face. She got up from her chair. "Don't look like that,
Janet,--you're frightening me!"
The older woman tried to smile. "To tell the truth, Betty, I've had rather
a shock. You heard the telephone bell ring?"
"You mean some minutes ago?"
"Yes."
"Who was it?"
"Godfrey Radmore, speaking from London."
"Is that all? I was afraid that something had happened to Timmy!" But,
even so, the colour flamed up into Betty Tosswill's face.
Her step-mother looked away out of the window as she went on:--"It
was stupid of me to have been so surprised, but somehow I thought he
was still in Australia."
"He was in England last year." Betty, not really knowing what she was
doing, bent over the peccant milkman's book.
"He's coming down here on Friday. I think he realises that I haven't
forgiven him for not coming to see us last year. Still we must let
bygones be bygones."
Then she wondered with a sharp touch of self-reproach what had made
her say such a stupid thing--a thing which might have, and indeed had,
two such different meanings? What she had meant had been that she
must forget the hurt surprise she and her husband had felt that Godfrey
Radmore, on two separate occasions, had deliberately avoided coming
down from London to what had been, after all, so long his home; in fact,

as he himself had said just now, the only home he had ever known.
But what was this Betty was saying?--her face rather drawn and white,
all the bright colour drifted out of it--"Of course we must, Janet!
Besides Godfrey was not to blame--not at the last."
Janet knew what Betty meant. That at the end it was she who had failed
him. But when their engagement had been broken off, Godfrey had
been worse than penniless--in debt, and entirely through his own fault.
He had gambled away what little money he had, and it had ended in his
going off to Australia--alone.
Then an astounding thing had happened. Godfrey had had a fortune left
him by an eccentric old man in whose employment he had been as
secretary for a while. His luck still holding, he had gone through most
of the war, including Gallipoli, with only one wound, which had left no
ill effects. A man so fortunate ought not to have neglected his old
friends.
Janet Tosswill, the step-mother completely merging into the friend,
came forward, and put her arms round the girl's shoulders. "Look here,
Betty. Wouldn't you rather go away? I don't suppose he'll stay longer
than Monday or Tuesday--"
"I shouldn't think of going away! I expect he's forgotten all about that
old affair. It's a long time ago, Janet--nine years. We were both so
young, that I've forgotten too--in a sense." And then, as she saw that the
other was far more moved than she herself was outwardly, she repeated:
"It really has faded away, almost out of sight. Think of all that has
happened since then!"
The other muttered, "Yes, that's true," and Betty went on, a little
breathlessly, "I'll tell you who'll be pleased--that's Timmy. He's got a
regular hero-worship of Godfrey." She was smiling now. "I hope he
asked after his godson?"
"Indeed he did. After Flick too! By the way he wanted to know if Mrs.
Crofton was settled down in The Trellis House. I wonder if she's an

Australian?"
"I don't think so," said Betty. "I think he met them in Egypt during the
war. He mentioned them in one of his letters to Timmy, and then, when
he was in England last year, he must have stayed with them, for that's
where Flick came from. Colonel Crofton bred terriers. I remember
reading Timmy a long letter signed 'Cecil Crofton' telling him all about
how to manage Flick, and he mentioned Godfrey."
"I don't remember