Her house looked neat and clean, different altogether from this shabby, sordid villa of his mother's. The woman heard his step, and glanced over her shoulder.
"Found everything you want?" she called cheerfully.
Henry suddenly decided to take her into his confidence.
"Look here," he said, walking towards the verandah, "do you know my mother?"
The woman hesitated a moment, and peeled off her gardening gloves.
"We smile and say good-morning, and chat over the hedge," she admitted, "but I've never been inside the villa. Mrs. Brodrick is nearly always out, as a matter of fact. I suppose you are her son? You're so exactly like her."
She stared at him with frank curiosity, and smiled again.
"My name is Price," she said, holding down a hand over the hedge, "Adeline Price. You may have heard of my husband, General Price, in the Indian Army. He died three years ago, and I've been living down here. Listen. Can I do anything? Make you some tea or something? It's so very cheerless to arrive at an empty house."
"I wish," said Henry, "that you would just come in and have a look at this place. Yes, I am Henry Brodrick. My mother must know I'm coming, because I found my letter open on her desk."
Mrs. Price came down from her verandah and through the front gate.
"There is a maid who comes two or three times a week," she said. "I've seen her go to the back door. A slovenly creature. I wouldn't have her for a servant if you paid me. I suppose this is one of the days that she hasn't come."
They walked through into the villa. Henry watched her face. She was looking at everything with her critical blue eyes, from the dead flowers to the dirty coffee cup.
"H'm," she said, "bit of a pig-sty, isn't it? Reminds me of some of our married quarters out in India. Those women didn't need telling twice, I can tell you. They were more scared of me than they were of my husband. Let's have a look at the rest. You know, Mr. Brodrick, the place hasn't been touched for weeks. I've never seen anything so disgraceful, not even out in India, and that's saying plenty. Excuse me for being so downright, but is your mother awfully badly off? Can't she afford to pay a decent servant?"
The steel-blue eyes held his, and would not waver. Henry shrugged his shoulders.
"No," he said shortly, "my mother has everything she wants. I can't understand it. This is all very disturbing."
Mrs. Price led the way back into the sitting-room. She glanced at the photograph of Johnnie on the mantelpiece. She ran her finger on the frame, and showed it to Henry, black with dust.
"I suppose," she said, "that Mrs.
Brodrick is just one of those people who don't care.
I'm afraid I just can't understand the attitude.
Now listen to me. You're coming next door to have tea with me, and I shall send my little maid over here to give the place a thorough clean. No, don't interrupt, please. She'll be delighted to do it, and I shall be delighted to have a visitor to tea. Come along, and don't think any more about this. I'll make my excuses to Mrs. Brodrick when she comes in."
Henry followed her into the villa next door, protesting politely, saying that she must not dream of going to such trouble.
Mrs. Price waved his protests away. He was not to argue. He was to sit down and have his tea.
He laughed.
"I think you ought to have been a General yourself," he said.
"That's what everyone used to tell me," she said.
"Now, you relax in this arm-chair, and put your feet on the stool, and try some of my guava jelly.
My tea I can recommend, it's packed specially for me and sent from Darjeeling. I always boil the water myself. No servant can ever make tea."
It was very pleasing to sit back and be waited upon in this way, thought Henry, and she was right, the tea was excellent, and so was the guava jelly. The room was clean and tidy. There were papers and magazines from England lying on the table. What a contrast to the villa next door!
He began to talk, telling this Mrs. Price about himself, about his children. There was something so sane and encouraging about her brisk, cheerful manner. She was amusing too, her shrewd comments showed her to be no fool.
"Of course you're put upon, all the time," she said; "don't tell me. People always take advantage of a man on his own. And you give way.
Anything for a peaceful life, that's a man all over."
"I admit I don't lay down the law very often," he laughed, "and when I do Molly puts up an argument in self-defence. That's the family temperament though. The Brodricks enjoy discussions."
"I wouldn't let a girl of fifteen dictate to me," said Mrs. Price. "I've no doubt you've spoilt her, and the others too. A good thing the boy has gone to Eton. They'll soon knock the nonsense out of him there. Pity you go on keeping the governess for the girls. I always think it's a mistake to carry on too long with old retainers.
They take advantage so, and have absolutely no control over the children."
"Miss Frost has been with us for years," said Henry. "I think Molly and Kitty could not bear to part with her."
"Because they can do what they like with her, that's why. I believe you're a sentimentalist, and you hide it under that gay, cynical manner of yours."
She looked across at him and smiled. Those blue eyes were certainly very penetrating.
"I've talked too much about myself," he said, glancing at his watch, "and it's nearly seven o'clock.
No sign of my mother. What about dining with me in Nice, and telling me about yourself instead?"
Mrs. Price blushed, and seemed suddenly ten years younger. Henry was amused. She had probably not dined out since her husband died.
"Please do," he said. "It would give me such pleasure."
She went up to change, and came down in twenty minutes in a black dress and fur cape that made a fine background to her grey hair. She looked very well indeed. Henry had also changed, returning to his mother's villa to do so. The place had been swept and left spotless by Mrs. Price's maid, his room cleaned and the bed made up. He was filled with gratitude.
"Thank heaven she was looking out of that window," he thought. "But for her I believe I should have caught the next train home."
They walked to the corner of the avenue and hailed a fiacre, and drove down to dinner at one of the large hotels on the front.
"This is such a treat," she said. "I live so quietly these days. And in India there was so much entertaining. I've missed all that more than anything else."
"You ought to come to London," he said, "not bury yourself down here."
She rubbed finger and thumb together, and glanced at him expressively.
"A soldier's widow's pension isn't a large one, Mr. Brodrick," she said. "My income goes farther here than it would do in England…
Look at that minx over there. Why do French women put so much paint on their faces?"
"Because they are not naturally so handsome as you Englishwomen," said Henry gallantly. "Come on, I'm going to order you the best dinner that Nice can provide."
It was fun, he decided, to dine opposite this woman, who was undeniably attractive and amusing, and enjoyed her food and her wine, and made such an agreeable companion. The restaurant was filled with people, and a band played in one corner, light classical stuff he knew and liked. He had not enjoyed himself so much for years.
"This is a great deal better," he said, "than sitting down to an egg and some of those vegetables from the coal bucket at my mother's villa."
"Don't put me off my food," said Mrs.
Price, with a mock shudder. "My maid has already told me what she found in the larder, but I shall spare you."