His first song, which was Because by Guy d’Hardelot, he sang with his eyes opening and closing rapturously in the direction of Mrs Bridgetower, in acknowledgement of her ownership of the piano. But when he was bidden to sing again he directed his beams at Auntie Puss.

“I should like to sing a little thing of Roger Quilter’s,” said he, “some lines of Tennyson.” And he launched into Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal. It is doubtful if, at any time in her life, anyone had sung directly at Miss Porringer, and she was flustered in a region of her being from which she had had no messages for many years.

Thus sang Mr Higgin, and in that instant Miss Pottinger knew that here was the man who must succeed Humphrey Cobbler on the organ bench at St Nicholas’.

“Sorry to be late, Mother,” said Solly, coming into the room. He caught sight of Mr Higgin, who was still at the piano, and frowned.

“My son, Mr Higgin, my great, grown-up boy,” said Mrs Bridgetower fondly.

“We have had the pleasure before,” said Mr Higgin, with what Solly thought an impudent grin.

Solly was always late for his mother’s First Thursdays, and they kept up the pretence between them that it was pressure of university work which made him so. Very soon after his arrival the guests went home, well pleased with their afternoon’s work. For they all thought that Mrs Warboys would see that the insufferable Gloster Ridley lost his job, and received no doctorate from Waverley. Miss Pottinger thought that she had done much to undermine Cobbler with Mrs Knapp and thus with the Dean. Mrs Knapp thought she had made it clear that the Dean exonerated Cobbler, and that this would divert the wrath of Miss Pottinger. Mrs Shillito thought that she had further ingratiated herself with Mrs Warboys, thus securing her husband’s position. And they all felt that the matter of the great scandal had been brought somewhat nearer to the boil.

When her guests had gone a dramatic change came over Mrs Bridgetower. Solly had seen them to the door, and he returned to the drawing-room to find his mother, as he knew she would be, slumped from her splendidly relaxed but commanding position in her armchair, with her eyes closed, and her face sagging with fatigue.

“Do you want to go upstairs at once, Mother?”

“No, dearie, give me a moment. Perhaps I’d better have one of my white tablets.”

As he climbed the stairs her voice reached him again faintly. “Bring me one of my little yellow pills too, from the table by my bed.”

“Don’t you think it would be better to leave that until you are in bed? What about a dose of your medicine instead?”

“If you think so, dearie.”

In time Solly returned, and when the tablet and then the dose of medicine were taken with much histrionic disrelish, he took off his mother’s shoes and put on her slippers, and covered her knees with a small tartan rug. She opened her eyes and smiled fondly upon him.

“Bad, bad little boy! Late again!”

“I had a lot of papers to mark, Mother, and I simply had to get them done. Anyway, I knew you’d want to talk to your friends alone.”

“Friends, dear? What are friends compared with you? And I so much need someone to help me now, passing things and so forth. I wonder how much longer I shall be able to keep up my First Thursdays. They take so much out of me now.”

“No, no; you mustn’t give them up. You must see people, you know. The doctor said you must keep up your interests.”

“You are my only real interest now, dear. If your father had lived—but it is useless to talk of what might have been. But I need you to help me. There was a gentleman here today. You should have been here to help entertain him.”

“It looked to me as though he were doing the entertaining.”

“Yes, dear, but suppose he had wanted to wash his hands? Who would have taken him?”

“If he needs to wash his hands in the course of an hour’s visit he ought to stay at home. Or wear one of those things.”

“What things do you mean, dearie?”

“Those things soldiers wear when they’re on sentry duty.”

“Don’t be coarse, dear. I can’t bear it.”

“Sorry, Mother.”

“So nice to have someone sing at one’s Afternoon. It’s been years since it happened. Such nice songs, too. Your father loved Because—

I was terribly moved. Lovey—”

“Yes, Mother?”

“I think I could take a glass of sherry. Perhaps with a little something in it.”

Solly obediently brought a tray and gave his mother a glass of dry sherry, in which he had put a generous dollop of gin.

“Thank you, dear. It takes away the taste of that horrid medicine.”

“mother, how did that fellow Higgins get here?”

“Higgin, dear. No ‘s’. Maude Shillito brought him.”

“Do you think he is the sort of person you ought to have in the house?”

“Whatever do you mean, dearie? Maude Shillito brought him.”

“I know, but the Shillitos know all kinds of terrible people. I’ve met Higgin before, and I thought he was an awful little squirt.”

“Please, lovey; you know how I dislike rough talk. Where did you meet him?”

“He hunted me up at the University. Wanted me to let him talk to my classes about how to speak English.”

“Well, lovey, from what you tell me about them, I think your classes might well have some instruction in how to speak.”

“That’s not what the classes are for. And I can’t bring in odd visitors just as I please. Anyway, he was terribly patronizing about it, and obviously thought I’d jump at the chance. I was a bit short with him.”

“Really, dear? Was that wise?”

“He rubbed me the wrong way. Talked as if we were a lot of barbarians out here.”

“We must learn all that we can from Older Civilizations, lovey.”

“Just what Older Civilization does Higgin represent? Second-rateness comes out of his pores like a fog. There’s something disgusting about him.”

“Dearie, you are speaking of a gentleman who was introduced into our home by an old and valued friend. I don’t know why you are so severe on English people, dear.”

“I’m not severe on English people, Mother, but I hate fourflushers, wherever they come from, and if Higgin isn’t a fourflusher, I don’t know one.”

“Let us not discuss it, dearie. When you are vehement you weary me, and I can’t stand much more today. I think I could take another glass of sherry.”

Strengthened by two heavily spiked sherries, Mrs Bridgetower was able to go upstairs—”to tackle the stairs” as she gamely put it—moving upward very slowly, with Solly half-boosting, half-pulling, and with a rest at the landing. When at last they reached her room, he helped her to undress, for it was understood that the elderly maid had all she could do to clear up after the At Home.

There was no unseemliness in this assistance. Seated on her bed, Mrs Bridgetower undid various mysterious fastenings through her gown, and Solly was able to pull off her stockings and put on her bedsocks. Then she toiled to a hiding-place behind a screen, and herself struggled out of the remainder of her garments, returning at last in a voluminous bedgown. Solly gently boosted her into bed, in which he had already put a hot-water bottle, and propped her up on her pillows. When he had picked up the discarded clothing from behind the screen and put it away, Mrs Bridgetower was ready for her tray.

It was understood that there could be no proper dinner on First Thursdays, as the servant had burnt herself out in preparing dainties for tea. But from the kitchen Solly fetched two trays, upon which suppers consisting chiefly of tea debris had been arranged, and he sat in a chair with one, while his mother took the other in bed. With the sherry and two kinds of medicine mingling uneasily inside her, her appetite was capricious, and to use her own expression, she picked at her food. But her spirit appeared to be refreshed, for she attacked Solly on the subject which had been uppermost in her mind for three days.