she introduced them as Bill or Michael or Tony, and they had tea downstairs and then went up to the schoolroom with her or, more occasionally, played romping games in the hall.
Jess was only waiting for the moment when she should join up.
Come back she might or might not, but the words "the children" held no more meaning at Coombe, or for its mistress.
She stood up, fastened her tweed coat and went out, followed by Jessica's puppy—a leggy mongrel—and General Levallois' fat spaniel.
The hens, who should have been in the orchard, were straggling, wet and shabby-looking, on the oval grass plot before the house.
She made an encouraging sound and they lurched along behind her, squawking and clucking, as she walked to the stable yard that stood a little way off, built at right angles to the house.
Regardless of the rain, and with deliberation, Valentine fed them and shut them up in their dilapidated coops.
Then she went slowly back to the house.
Coombe was an old house, that had been often added to—three-storied, slate-roofed and stone-built. An open-sided lichen-spattered tower rose above all the irregular and numerous chimney-stacks, and in it hung a large bell, cast in the reign of Elizabeth.
Stone pillars, moss-grown and out of the true, supported, over the double-doors of entrance, a lead roofing shaped like an inverted V.
Against one of the pillars now leant a dripping bicycle, and Valentine saw a tall youthful-looking figure in battle dress reaching out to pull at the rusty iron chain that hung beside the door.
She hastened her step although knowing that she could not get to him soon enough to avert the minor disaster that experience warned her to expect.
As she had foreseen, the chain immediately broke in the young officer's hand and he was looking at the detached length of rusty links with some dismay when she reached his side.
"It's quite all right—it's been done before. It doesn't matter at all."
"I'm terribly sorry," said the young man. "I can't imagine how it happened. I didn't think I'd been so violent."
"I'm sure you weren't. The chain is very old, and every time it breaks somebody hooks it on again without mending it properly. Is there anything I can do for you? Won't you come in?"
"Thanks very much. I wondered if I could see Lady Arbell for a few minutes?"
He looked at her questioningly.
"I am Lady Arbell. Do come in."
The officer, who was apparently shy, muttered something about being very wet and scraped his boots with prolonged violence on the iron scraper at the door.
Valentine stepped inside, giving him time, and pulled off her own gum-boots. Then she turned round again.
"I'm afraid I don't know your name," she said apologetically.
At the same time she remembered, with a little inward flash of amusement, her daughter Jessica's repeated assurances that no one, no one in the world, ever asked anybody's name now. It just wasn't ever done.
But Valentine knew that she would continue to do it.
"Cyril Banks," said the young man. "Lieutenant Banks—1st Battalion——" And he added the name of his regiment.
As if fearing that he might have been guilty of a too great formality he finished with a thoughtfully-spoken pronouncement:
"I'm usually—in fact always—called Buster."
"Do come in," said Valentine.
With a final scrape, and a final mutter that denoted apology but was indistinguishable, Lieutenant Banks came in.
The General was still sitting by the fire and Valentine introduced the young man to him. She knew that her brother would be very slightly pleased and stimulated by the presence of any visitor, even one whom he would neither see, nor wish to see, ever again.
Perhaps, however, they would see Lieutenant Banks again. He had come to enquire, with diffidence and apologies, whether Lady Arbell would consider the billeting of two officers. One of them was his own Colonel, the other one he could not as yet indicate.
"It's just a case of morning and evening," he said, as though in explanation. "I mean, they'd be out all day and they'd probably be away quite a lot, too, on various exercises and things. I don't know whether all your rooms are full up?"
"No, not now. We've got three evacuee children, but they're in a wing at the back. There are three empty rooms in the front of the house, though I do try to keep one in case any relation who's been bombed out of London should want to come here."
"Oh, rather," said Banks. "Well, of course, two rooms would be perfectly okay."
"This house hasn't got nearly as many bedrooms as you might suppose, from the look of it," General Levallois observed. "And only one bathroom."
"Really, sir," respectfully returned Lieutenant Banks.
He sounded sympathetically dismayed, but Valentine guessed that he had not expected more than one bathroom. If he knew anything at all about houses like Coombe, he knew that they never did have more than one bathroom and that one a converted dressing-room, very cold and with an inadequate supply of hot water.
"Would you like to see the rooms?" she asked.
Lieutenant Banks wouldn't dream of troubling her. He was certain the rooms would be marvellous.
Looking shyer than ever—he was a very fair youth and blushed conspicuously—he made a number of statements regarding the conditions of the billeting of officers and their batmen.
Valentine listened with as much attention as though she had not heard exactly the same thing before, from representatives of the three different regiments that had previously been stationed in the neighbourhood and then sent elsewhere.
In each case they had said that she would be notified within the week of a decision, and in each case she had heard not another word on the subject. To the earnest and innocent Lieutenant Banks, who looked scarcely more than twenty years old, Valentine gave no hint of these previous experiences.
General Levallois was asking the Colonel's name.
"Lonergan, sir."
"Irish," said the General, without inflection.
"Yes, sir."
The General said coldly that he should hope to have the pleasure of meeting Colonel Lonergan one of these days.
There was a pause.
Valentine began to talk about the neighbourhood, to ask whether Lieutenant Banks knew Devon already, to ascertain from him that his own part of the world was Northampton, and that before the war he had worked for one year in his father's insurance office.
She knew that he wished to go, but was finding it impossible to get up and take his leave.
She
