The Brightener

"I don't know how you feel," I said, "but I always hate the first hour in a new place, with a servant fussing about, opening and shutting drawers and wardrobes. I loathe things that squeak."

"So do I," he answered, dreamily. "Any sort of noise."

"I shall be having tea in a few minutes," I mentioned. "If you don't mind looking at magazines or something while I open Mrs. Carstairs' parcel, and write to her, stay if you care to. I should be pleased. But don't feel you'll be rude to say 'no.' Do as you like."

He stayed, probably because he was in a nice easy chair, and it was simpler to sit still than get up, so long as he needn't make conversation. I left him there, while I went to the far end of the room, where my desk was. The wonderful packet, which must be given into my hand by his, contained three beautiful new potatoes, the size of marbles, out of the Carstairs' kitchen garden! I bit back a giggle, hid the rare jewels in a drawer, and scribbled any nonsense I could think of to Dame Caroline, till I heard tea coming. Then I went back to my guest. I gave him tea, and other things. There were late strawberries, and some Devonshire cream, which had arrived by post that morning, anonymously. Sir James Courtenaye, that red-haired cowboy to whom I'd let the ancestral Abbey, was in Devonshire. But there was no reason why he should send me cream, or anything else. Still, there it was. Captain Burns, it appeared, had never happened to taste the Devonshire variety. He liked it. And when he had disposed of a certain amount (during which time we hardly spoke), I offered him my cigarette case.

For a few moments we both smoked in silence. Then I said, "I'm disappointed in you."

"Why?" he asked.

"Because you haven't looped any loops through your nose."

He actually laughed! He looked delightful when he laughed.

"I was trying something of the sort one day, and failing," I explained. "Mrs. Carstairs said she had a friend who could do it, and his name was Terence Burns."

"I've almost forgotten that old stunt," he smiled indulgently. "Think of Mrs. Carstairs remembering it! Why, I haven't had time to remember it myself, much less try it out, since I was young."

"That is a long time ago!" I ventured, smoking hard.

"You see," he explained quite gravely, smoking harder, "I went into the war in 1915. It wasn't our war then, for I'm an American, you know. But I had a sort of feeling it ought to be everybody's war. And besides, I'd fallen out of love with life about that time. War doesn't leave a man feeling very young, whether or not he's gone through what I have."

"I know," said I. "Even we women don't feel as young as we hope we look. I'm twenty-one and a half, and feel forty."

"I'm twenty-seven, and feel ninety-nine," he capped me.

"Shell shock is – the devil!" I sympathized. "But men get over it. I know lots who have." I took another cigarette and pushed the case toward him.

"Perhaps they wanted to get over it. I don't want to, particularly, because life has rather lost interest for me, since I was about twenty-two; I'm afraid that was one reason I volunteered. Not very brave! I don't care now whether I live or die. I didn't care then."

"At twenty-two! Why, you weren't grown up!"

"You say that, at twenty-one?"

"It's different with a girl. I've had such a lot of things to make me feel grown up."

"So have I, God knows." (By this time he was smoking like a chimney.) "Did you lose the one thing you'd wanted in the world? But no – I mustn't ask that. I don't ask it."

"You may," I vouchsafed, charmed that – as one says of a baby – he was "beginning to take notice." "No, frankly, I didn't lose the one thing in the world I wanted most, because I've never quite known yet what I did or do want most. But not knowing leaves you at loose ends, if you're alone in the world as I am." Then, having said this, just to indicate that my circumstances conduced to tacit sympathy with his, I hopped like a sparrow to another branch of the same subject. "It's bad not to get what we want. But it's dull not to want anything."

"Is it?" Burns asked almost fiercely. "I haven't got to that yet. I wish I had. When I want a thing, it's in my nature to want it for good and all. I want the thing I wanted before the war as much now as ever. That's the principal trouble with me, I think. The hopelessness of everything. The uselessness of the things you can get."

"Can't you manage to want something you might possibly get?" I asked.

He smiled faintly. "That's much the same advice that the doctors have given – the advice this Sir Humphrey Hale of the Carstairs will give to-morrow. I'm sure. 'Try to take an interest in things as they are.' Good heavens! that's just what I can't do."

"I don't give you that advice," I said. "It's worse than useless to try and take an interest. It's stodgy. What I mean is, if an interest, alias a chance of adventure, should breeze along, don't shut the door on it. Let it in, ask it to sit down, and see how you like it. But then – maybe you wouldn't recognize it as an adventure if you saw it at the window!"

"Oh, I think I should do that!" he defended himself. "I'm man enough yet to know an adventure when I meet it. That's why I came into your war. But the war's finished, and so am I. Really, I don't see why any one bothers about me. I wouldn't about myself, if they'd let me alone!"

"There I'm with you," said I. "I like to be let alone, to go my own way. Still, people unfortunately feel bound to do their best. Mrs. Carstairs has done hers. If Sir Humphrey gives you up, she'll thenceforward consider herself free from responsibility – and you free to 'dree your own weird' – whatever that means! – to the bitter end. As for me, I've no responsibility at all. I don't advise you! In your place, I'd do as you're doing. Only, I've enough fellow feeling to let you know, in a spirit of comradeship, if I hear the call of an adventure… There, you did the 'stunt' all right that time! A lovely loop the loop! I wouldn't have believed it! Now watch, please, while I try!"

He did watch, and I fancy that, in spite of himself, he took an interest! He laughed out, quite a spontaneous "Ha, ha!" when I began with a loop and ended with a sneeze.

It seems too absurd that a siren should lure her victim with a sneeze instead of a song. But it was that sneeze which did the trick. Or else, my mumness now and then, and not seeming to care a Tinker's Anything whether he thought I was pretty or a fright. He warmed toward me visibly during the loop lesson, and I was as proud as if a wild bird had settled down to eat out of my hand.

That was the beginning: and a commonplace one, you'll say! It didn't seem commonplace to me: I was too much interested. But even I did not dream of the weird developments ahead!

CHAPTER II

THE ADVERTISEMENT

It was on the fourth day that I got the idea – I mean, the fourth day of Terry Burns' stay in town.

He had dropped in to see me on each of these days, for one reason or other: to tell me what Sir Humphrey said; to sneer at the treatment; to beg a cigarette when his store had given out; or something else equally important; I (true to my bargain with Caroline) having given up all engagements in order to brighten Captain Burns.

I was reading the Times when a thought popped into my head. I shut my eyes, and studied its features. They fascinated me.

It was morning: and presently my Patient unawares strolled in for the eleven-o'clock glass of egg-nogg prescribed by Sir Humphrey and offered by me.

He drank it. When he had pronounced it good, I asked him casually how he was. No change. At least, none that he noticed. Except that he always felt better, more human, in my society. That was because I appeared to be a bit fed up with life, too, and didn't try to cheer him.

"On the contrary," I said, "I was just wondering whether I might ask you to cheer me. I've thought of something that might amuse me a little. Yes, I'm sure it would! Only I'm not equal to working out the details alone. If I weren't afraid it would bore you…"

"Of course it wouldn't, if it could amuse you!" His eyes lit. "Tell me what it is you want to do?"

"I'm almost ashamed. It's so childish. But it would be fun."

"If I could care to do anything at all, it would be something childish. Besides, I believe you and I are rather alike in several ways. We have the same opinions about life. We're both down on our luck."

I gave myself a mental pat on the head. I ought to succeed on the stage, if it ever came to that!

"Well," I hesitated. "I got the idea from an article in the Times. There's something on the subject every day in every paper I see, but it never occurred to me till now to get any fun out of it: the Housing Problem, you know. Not the one for the working classes – I wouldn't be so mean as to 'spoof' them – nor the Nouveaux Pauvres, of whom I'm one! It's for the Nouveaux Riches. They're fair game."

"What do you want to do to them?" asked Terry Burns.

"Play a practical joke; then dig myself in and watch the result. Perhaps there'd be none. In that case, the joke would be on me."

"And on me, if we both went in for the experiment. We'd bear the blow together."

"It wouldn't kill us! Listen – I'll explain. It's simply idiotic. But it's something to do: something to make one wake up in the morning with a little interest to look forward to. The papers all say that everybody is searching for a desirable house to be sold, or let furnished; and that there aren't any houses! On the other hand, if you glance at the advertisement sheets of any newspaper, you ask yourself if every second house in England isn't asking to be disposed of! Now, is it only a 'silly-season' cry, this grievance about no houses, or is it true? What larks to concoct an absolutely adorable 'ad.', describing a place with every perfection, and see what applications one would get! Would there be thousands or just a mere dribble, or none at all? Don't you think it would be fun to find out – and reading the letters if there were any? People would be sure to say a lot about themselves. Human nature's like that. Or, anyhow, we could force their hands by putting into the 'ad.' that we would let our wonderful house only to the right sort of tenants. 'No others need apply'."

"But that would limit the number of answers – and our fun," said Terry. On his face glimmered a grin. After all, the "kid" in him had been scotched, not killed.

"Oh, no," I argued. "They'd be serenely confident that they and they alone were the right ones. Then, when they didn't hear from the advertiser by return, they'd suppose that someone more lucky had got ahead of them. Yes, we're on the right track! We must want to let our place furnished. If we wished to sell, we'd have no motive in trying to pick and choose our buyer. Any creature with money would do. So our letters would be tame as Teddy-bears. What we want is human documents!"

"Let's begin to think out our 'ad.'!" exclaimed the patient, sitting up straighter in his chair. Already two or three haggard years seemed to have fallen from his face. I might have been skilfully knocking them off with a hammer!