I'm very proud of my
boy gone to fight for his country. Good morning, Mr. So-and-So. My boy's
gone to--He didn't want to go, but I said he must go to fight for his
country.... But that's not true, Freddie.... Oh, very well, dear. Good
morning, Mrs. So-and-So.--"

She used to wake up with a start and say, "Eh, Freddie? Oh, I thought
Freddie was in the room." Tears.

She said she always looked forward to the evenings when Sabre came. She
liked him to sit and talk to Effie and to smoke all the time and knock
out his pipe on the fender. She said it made her think Freddie was
there. Effie said that every night she went into Young Perch's room and
tucked up the bed and set the alarm clock and put the candle and the
matches and one cigarette and the ash-tray by the bed; and every night
in this performance said, "He said he's certain to come in quite
unexpectedly one night, and he will smoke his one cigarette before he
goes to sleep. It's no good my telling him he'll set the house on fire
one night. He never listens to anything I tell him." And every morning,
when Effie took her in a cup of tea very early (as Freddie used to), she
always said, "Has Freddie come home in the night, Effie, dear? Now just
go and knock on his door very quietly and then just peep your head in."

VI

Sabre had always thought Bright Effie would be wonderful with old Mrs.
Perch. He wrote long letters to Young Perch, telling him how much more
than wonderful Bright Effie was. Effie mothered Mrs. Perch and managed
her and humoured her in a way that not even Young Perch himself could
have bettered. In that astounding fund of humour of hers, reflected in
those sparkling eyes, even Mrs. Perch's most querulously violent attacks
were transformed into matter for whimsical appreciation, delightfully
and most lovingly dealt with. When the full, irritable, inconsequent
flood of one of Mrs. Perch's moods would be launched upon her in Sabre's
presence, she would turn a dancing eye towards him and immediately she
could step into the torrent and would begin, "Now, look here, Mrs.
Perch, you know perfectly well--"; and in two minutes the old lady would
be mollified and happy.

Marvellous Effie! Sabre used to think; and of course it was because her
astounding fund of humour was based upon her all-embracing capacity for
love. That was why it was so astounding in its depth and breadth and
compass. Sabre liked immensely the half-whispered talks with her while
Mrs. P