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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 37181 ***
+
+THE WAR-WORKERS
+
+BY
+
+E.M. DELAFIELD
+
+Author of "Zella Sees Herself"
+
+William Heinemann
+
+London
+
+1918
+
+
+
+
+To
+
+J. A. S.
+
+A very small token of innumerable bonds of union
+
+
+
+
+Author's Foreword
+
+The "Midland Supply Depôt" of _The War-Workers_ has no
+counterpart in real life, and the scenes and characters
+described are also purely imaginary.
+
+   E.M. Delafield
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+At the Hostel for Voluntary Workers, in Questerham, Miss Vivian,
+Director of the Midland Supply Depôt, was under discussion that evening.
+
+Half a dozen people, all of whom had been working for Miss Vivian ever
+since ten o'clock that morning, as they had worked the day before and
+would work again the next day, sat in the Hostel sitting-room and talked
+about their work and about Miss Vivian.
+
+No one ever talked anything but "shop," either in the office or at the
+Hostel.
+
+"Didn't you think Miss Vivian looked awfully tired today?"
+
+"No wonder, after Monday night. You know the train wasn't in till past
+ten o'clock. I think those troop-trains tire her more than anything."
+
+"She doesn't have to cut cake and bread-and-butter and sandwiches for
+two hours before the train gets in, though. I've got the usual blister
+today," said an anaemic-looking girl of twenty, examining her
+forefinger.
+
+There was a low scoffing laugh from her neighbour.
+
+"Miss Vivian cutting bread-and-butter! She does quite enough without
+that, Henderson. She had the D.G.V.O. in there yesterday afternoon for
+ages. I thought he was _never_ going. I stood outside her door for half
+an hour, I should think, absolutely hung up over the whole of my work,
+and I knew she was fearfully busy herself."
+
+"It's all very well for you, Miss Delmege—you're her secretary and work
+in her room, but _we_ can't get at her unless we're sent for. I simply
+didn't know what to do about those surgical supplies for the Town
+Hospital this morning, and Miss Vivian never sent for me till past
+eleven o'clock. It simply wasted half my morning."
+
+"She didn't have a minute; the telephone was going the whole time," said
+Miss Delmege quickly. "But yesterday, you know, when the D.G.V.O.
+wouldn't go, I thought she was going to be late at the station for that
+troop-train, and things were fairly desperate, so what d'you suppose I
+did?"
+
+"Dashed into her room and got your head snapped off?" some one suggested
+languidly. "I shall never forget one day last week when _I_ didn't know
+which way to _turn_, we were so busy, and I went in without being sent
+for, and Miss Vivian--"
+
+"Oh yes, I remember," said Miss Delmege rapidly. She was a tall girl
+with eyeglasses and a superior manner. She did not remember Miss Marsh's
+irruption into her chief's sanctum with any particular clearness, but
+she was anxious to finish her own anecdote. "But as _I_ was telling
+you," she hurried on, affecting to be unaware that Miss Marsh and her
+neighbour were exchanging glances, "when I saw that it was getting later
+every minute, and the D.G.V.O. seemed rooted to the spot, I simply went
+straight downstairs and rang up Miss Vivian on the telephone. Miss Cox
+was on telephone duty, and she was absolutely horrified. She said, 'You
+_don't_ mean to say you're going to ring up Miss Vivian,' she said; and
+I said, 'Yes, I am. Yes, I am,' I said, and I did it. Miss Cox simply
+couldn't get over it."
+
+Miss Delmege paused to laugh in solitary enjoyment of her story.
+
+"'Who's there?' Miss Vivian said—you know what she's like when she's in
+a hurry. 'It's Miss Delmege,' I said. 'I thought you might want to know
+that the train will be in at eight o'clock, Miss Vivian, and it's
+half-past seven now.' She just said 'Thank you,' and rang off; but she
+must have told the D.G.V.O., because he came downstairs two minutes
+later. And she simply flung on her hat and dashed down into the car and
+to the station."
+
+"And, after all, the train wasn't in till past ten, so she might just as
+well have stayed to put her hat on straight," said Miss Henderson
+boldly. She had a reputation for being "downright" of which she was
+aware, and which she strenuously sought to maintain by occasionally
+making small oblique sallies at Miss Vivian's expense.
+
+"I must say it was most awfully crooked. I noticed it myself," said a
+pretty little giggling girl whom the others always called Tony, because
+her surname was Anthony. "How killing," I thought; "there's Miss Vivian
+with her hat on quite crooked."
+
+"Yes, wasn't it killing?"
+
+"Simply killing. I thought the minute I saw her: How killing to see Miss
+Vivian with her hat on like that!"
+
+"She looked perfectly killing hurrying down the platform," remarked Miss
+Marsh, with an air of originality. "She was carrying cigarettes for the
+men, and her hat got crookeder every minute. I was pining to tell her."
+
+"Go on, Marshy! She'd have had your head off. Fancy Marsh stopping Miss
+Vivian in the middle of a troop-train to say her hat was on crooked!"
+
+Every one laughed.
+
+"I should think she'd be shot at dawn," suggested Tony. "That's the
+official penalty for making personal remarks to your C.O., I believe."
+
+"You know," said Miss Delmege, in the tones whose refinement was always
+calculated to show up the unmodulated accents of her neighbours, "one
+day I absolutely did tell Miss Vivian when her hat was crooked. I said
+right out: 'Do excuse me, Miss Vivian, but your hat isn't quite
+straight.' She didn't mind a _bit_."
+
+"I suppose she knows she always looks nice anyway," said Tony easily.
+
+"I mean she didn't mind me telling her," explained Miss Delmege. "She's
+most awfully human, you know, really. That's what I like about Miss
+Vivian. She's so frightfully human."
+
+"Yes, she _is_ human," Miss Marsh agreed. "Awfully human."
+
+Miss Delmege raised her eyebrows.
+
+"Of course," she said, with quiet emphasis, "working in her room, as I
+do, I suppose I see quite another side of her--the _human_ side, you
+know."
+
+There was a silence. Nobody felt disposed to encourage Miss Vivian's
+secretary in her all-too-frequent recapitulations of the privileges
+which she enjoyed.
+
+Presently another worker came in, looking inky and harassed.
+
+"You're late tonight, Mrs. Potter, aren't you?" Tony asked her.
+
+"Oh yes. It's those awful Belgians, you know. Wherever I put them,
+they're miserable, and write and ask to be taken away. There's a family
+now that I settled simply beautifully at Little Quester village only a
+month ago, and this afternoon the mother came in to say the air doesn't
+suit them at all--she has a consumptive son or something--and could they
+be moved to the seaside at once. So I told Miss Vivian, and she said I
+was to get them moved directly. At once--today, you know. Of course, it
+was perfectly absurd--they couldn't even get packed up--and I told her
+so; but she said, 'Oh, settle it all by telephone'--you know her way.
+'But, Miss Vivian,' I said, 'really I don't see how it can be managed.
+I've got a most fearful amount of work,' I said. 'Well,' she said, 'if
+you can't get through it, Mrs. Potter, I must simply put some one else
+at the head of the department who _can_.' It's too bad, you know."
+
+Mrs. Potter sank into the only unoccupied wicker arm-chair in the room,
+looking very much jaded indeed.
+
+Tony said sympathetically:
+
+"What a shame! Miss Vivian doesn't realize what an awful lot you do, I'm
+perfectly certain."
+
+"Well, considering that every letter and every bit of work in the whole
+office passes through Miss Vivian's hands, that's absurd," said Miss
+Delmege sharply. "She knows exactly what each department has to do, but,
+of course, she's such a quick worker herself that she can't understand
+any one not being able to get through the same amount."
+
+Mrs. Potter looked far from enchanted with the proffered explanation.
+
+"It isn't that I can't get through the work," she said resentfully. "Of
+course I can get through the regular work all right. But I must say, I
+do think she's inconsiderate over these lightning touches of hers. What
+on earth was the sense of making those people move tonight, I should
+like to know?"
+
+"Miss Vivian never will let the work get behindhand if she can help it,"
+exclaimed Miss Marsh; and Miss Henderson at the same instant said,
+rather defiantly:
+
+"Well, of course, Miss Vivian always puts the work before everything.
+She never spares herself, so I don't quite see why she should spare any
+of us."
+
+"The fact is," said the small, cool voice of Miss Delmege, as usual
+contriving to filter through every other less refined sound, "she is
+extraordinarily tender-hearted. She can't bear to think any one is
+suffering when she could possibly help them; she'll simply go miles out
+of her way to do something for a wounded soldier or a Belgian refugee. I
+see that in her correspondence so much. You know--the letters she writes
+about quite little things, because some one or other wants her to.
+She'll take _endless_ trouble."
+
+"I know she's wonderful," said Mrs. Potter, looking remorseful.
+
+She was a middle-aged woman with light wispy hair, always untidy, and
+wearing a permanent expression of fluster. She had only been at the
+Hostel a few weeks. "Isn't it nearly supper-time?" yawned Tony. "I want
+to go to bed."
+
+"Tired, Tony?"
+
+"Yes, awfully. I was on telephone duty last night, stamping the letters,
+and I didn't get off till nearly eleven."
+
+"There must have been a lot of letters," said Miss Delmege, with the
+hint of scepticism which she always managed to infuse into her tones
+when speaking of other people's work.
+
+"About a hundred and thirty odd, but they didn't come down till very
+late. Miss Vivian was still signing the last lot at ten o'clock."
+
+"She must have been very late getting out to Plessing. It's all very
+well for us," remarked Miss Marsh instructively; "_we_ finish work at
+about six or seven o'clock, and then just come across the road, and here
+we are. But poor Miss Vivian has about an hour's drive before she gets
+home at all."
+
+"She's always at the office by ten every morning, too."
+
+"She ought to have some one to help her," sighed Miss Delmege. "Of
+course, I'd do anything to take some of the work off her hands, and I
+think she knows it. I think she knows I'd do simply anything for her;
+but she really wants some one who could take her place when she has to
+be away, and sign the letters for her, and see people. That's what she
+really needs."
+
+"Thank goodness, there's the supper bell," said Tony.
+
+They trooped downstairs.
+
+The house was the ordinary high, narrow building of a provincial town,
+and held an insufficiency of rooms for the number of people domiciled
+there. The girls slept three or four in a room; the Superintendent had a
+tiny bedroom, and a slightly larger sitting-room adjoining the large
+room on the ground floor where they congregated in the evenings and on
+Sundays, and the dining-room was in the basement.
+
+Gas flared on to the white shining American-cloth covering the long
+table and on the wooden kitchen chairs. The windows were set high up in
+the walls, and gave a view of area railings and, at certain angles, of a
+piece of pavement.
+
+One or two coloured lithographs hung on the walls.
+
+There was a hideous sound of scraping as chairs were drawn back or
+pulled forwards over the uncarpeted boards.
+
+"Sit next me, duck."
+
+"All right. Come on, Tony; get the other side of Sprouts."
+
+Miss Delmege, aloof and superior, received no invitation to place
+herself beside any one, and settled herself with genteel swishings of
+her skirt at the foot of the table.
+
+The Superintendent sat at the head.
+
+She was a small, delicate-looking Irish woman with an enthusiastic
+manner, who had married late in life, and been left a widow within two
+years of her marriage. She worked very hard, and it was her constant
+endeavour to maintain an atmosphere of perpetual brightness in the
+Hostel.
+
+It was with this end in view that she invariably changed her blouse for
+a slightly cleaner one at suppertime, although all the girls were in
+uniform, and many of them still wearing a hat. But little Mrs. Bullivant
+always appeared in a rather pallid example of the dyer or cleaner's art,
+and said hopefully: "One of these days I must make a rule that all you
+girls dress for dinner. We shall find ourselves growing dreadfully
+uncivilized, I'm afraid, if we go on like this."
+
+The Hostel liked Mrs. Bullivant, although she was a bad manager and
+could never keep a servant for long. She made no secret of the fact that
+she could not afford to be a voluntary worker.
+
+Every Hostel in the district, and they were numerous owing to the
+recently-opened Munitions Factory near Questerham, had rapidly become,
+as it were, fish for Miss Vivian's net. Each and all were under her
+control, and the rivalry between the Questerham Hostel "for Miss
+Vivian's _own_ workers" and those reserved for the munition-makers was
+an embittered one.
+
+"What has every one been doing to-day?" Mrs. Bullivant asked cheerfully.
+
+The inquiry was readily responded to.
+
+The angle of Miss Vivian's hat, when she had gone down to meet the
+troop-train, was again the subject of comment, and Miss Delmege was
+again reminded of the story, which she told with quiet and undiminished
+enjoyment, of her erstwhile daring in approaching Miss Vivian upon the
+subject.
+
+"Did you really?" said Mrs. Bullivant admiringly. "Of course, it's
+different for you, Miss Delmege, working in her room all day. You see so
+much more of her than any one else does."
+
+Every one except the complacent Miss Delmege looked reproachfully at the
+little Superintendent. She was incapable of snubbing any one, but the
+Hostel thought her encouragement of Miss Delmege unnecessary in the
+extreme.
+
+Mrs. Bullivant changed the conversation rather hurriedly.
+
+"Who is on telephone duty tonight?" she inquired.
+
+"I am, worse luck."
+
+"Miss Plumtree? And your head is bad again, isn't it, dear?"
+
+"Yes," said Miss Plumtree wearily.
+
+She was a fair, round-faced girl of five or six and twenty who suffered
+from frequent sick headaches. She worked for longer hours than any one
+else, and had a reputation for "making muddles." It was popularly
+supposed that Miss Vivian "had a down on her," but the Hostel liked Miss
+Plumtree, and affectionately called her Greengage and Gooseberry-bush.
+
+"Greengage got another headache?" Miss Marsh asked concernedly. "I can
+take your duty to-night, dear, quite well."
+
+"Thanks awfully, Marsh; it's sweet of you, but I haven't got leave to
+change. You know last time, when Tony took duty for me, Miss Vivian
+asked why I wasn't there."
+
+"I can say you're sick."
+
+"Oh, I'm sure she wouldn't like it," said Miss Plumtree, looking nervous
+and undecided.
+
+"I think you ought to be in bed, I must say," said Mrs. Bullivant
+uncertainly.
+
+"She certainly doesn't look fit to sit at that awful telephone for two
+and a half hours; and there are heaps of letters to-night. I can answer
+for the Hospital Department, anyway," sighed Miss Henderson. "Marshy,
+you look pretty tired yourself. I can quite well take the telephone if
+you like. I'm not doing anything."
+
+"I thought you were going to the cinema."
+
+"I don't care. I can do that another night. I'm not a bit keen on
+pictures, really, and it's raining hard."
+
+"Thanks most awfully, both of you," repeated Miss Plumtree, "but I
+really think I'd better go myself. You know what Miss Vivian is, if she
+thinks one's shirking, and I'm not at all in her good books at the
+moment, either. There was the most ghastly muddle about those returns
+last month, and I sent in the averages as wrong as they could be."
+
+"That's nothing to do with your being unfit for telephone duty tonight,"
+said Miss Delmege, with acid sweetness. "I think I can answer for it
+that Miss Vivian would be the first person to say you ought to let some
+one else take duty for you. I'd do it myself, only I really must get
+some letters written tonight. One never has a minute here. But I think I
+can answer for Miss Vivian."
+
+In spite of the number of times that Miss Delmege expressed herself as
+ready to answer for Miss Vivian, no one had ever yet failed to be moved
+to exasperation by her pretensions.
+
+"On the whole, Plumtree, you may be right not to risk it," said Miss
+Henderson freezingly, as she rose from the table.
+
+"I'll manage all right," declared Miss Plumtree; but her round
+apple-blossom face was drawn with pain, and she stumbled up the dark
+stairs.
+
+In the hall there was a hurried consultation between Miss Marsh and Miss
+Anthony.
+
+"I say, Tony, old Gooseberry-bush isn't fit to stir. She ought to be
+tucked up in her bye-byes this minute. Shall I risk it, and go instead
+of her, leave or no leave?"
+
+"I should think so, yes. What have things been like today?"
+
+"Oh, fairly serene. I didn't see Miss Vivian this morning, myself, but
+nobody seems to have had their heads snapped off. There wasn't a fearful
+lot of work for her, either, because Miss Delmege came in quite early."
+
+"Delmege makes me sick, the way she goes on! As though nobody else knew
+anything about Miss Vivian, and she was a sort of connecting-link
+between her and us. Didn't you hear her tonight? 'I think I can answer
+for Miss Vivian,'" mimicked Tony in an exaggerated falsetto. "I should
+jolly well like Miss Vivian to hear her one of these days. She'd
+appreciate being answered for like that by her secretary--I don't
+think!"
+
+"I say, Marshy, can you keep a secret?"
+
+"Rather!"
+
+"Well, swear not to tell, and, mind, I'm speaking absolutely
+unofficially. I've no business to know it officially at all, because I
+only saw it on a telegram I sent for the Billeting Department. Miss
+Delmege is going to get her nose put out of joint with Miss V. Another
+secretary is coming."
+
+"She's not! D'you mean Delmege has got the sack?"
+
+"Oh, Lord, no! It's only somebody coming to help her, because there is
+so much work for one secretary. She's coming from Wales, and her name is
+Jones."
+
+"I seem to have heard that name before."
+
+They both giggled explosively; then made a simultaneous dash at the
+hall-door as Miss Plumtree, in hat and coat, came slowly out of the
+sitting-room.
+
+"No, you don't, Plumtree! You're going straight up to bed, and I'll tell
+Miss Vivian you were ill. It'll be all right."
+
+"You are a brick, Marsh."
+
+"Nonsense! You'll do as much for me some day. Goodnight, dear."
+
+Miss Marsh hurried out, and Miss Plumtree thankfully took the felt
+uniform hat off her aching head.
+
+"Get into bed," directed Tony, "and take an aspirin."
+
+"Haven't got one left, worse luck."
+
+"I'll see if any one else has any. I believe Mrs. Potter has."
+
+Tony hurried into the sitting-room. Mrs. Potter had no aspirin, but she
+hoisted herself out of her arm-chair and said she would go round to the
+chemist and get some.
+
+She went out into the rain.
+
+Tony borrowed a rubber hot-water bottle from Miss Henderson, and a
+kettle from somebody else, and went upstairs to boil some water,
+forgetting that she was tired and had meant to go to bed after supper.
+
+Presently little Mrs. Bullivant came upstairs with a cup of tea and the
+aspirin, both of which she administered to the patient.
+
+"You'll go to sleep after that, I expect," she said consolingly.
+
+"I'll tell the girls to get into bed quietly," Tony whispered.
+
+Miss Plumtree shared a room with Miss Delmege and Miss Henderson.
+
+"I never do make any noise in the room that I am aware of," said Miss
+Delmege coldly; but she and her room-mate both crept upstairs soon after
+nine o'clock, lest their entrance later should awaken the sufferer, and
+they undressed with the gas turned as low as it would go, and in
+silence.
+
+Padding softly in dressing-slippers to the bathroom later on, for the
+lukewarm water which was all that they could hope to get until the
+solitary gas-ring should have served the turn of numerous waiting
+kettles, they heard Miss Marsh returning from telephone duty, bolting
+the hall-door, and putting up the chain.
+
+"You're back early," whispered Miss Henderson, coming halfway downstairs
+in her pink flannelette dressing-gown, her scanty fair hair screwed back
+into a tight plait.
+
+"Wasn't much doing. Miss Vivian got off at half-past nine. Jolly good
+thing, too; she's been late every night this week."
+
+"Was it all right about your taking duty?"
+
+"Ab-solutely. Said she was glad Miss Plumtree had gone to bed, and asked
+if she had anything to take for her head."
+
+"How awfully decent of her!"
+
+"Wasn't it? It'll buck old Greengage up, too. She always thinks Miss
+Vivian has a down on her."
+
+Miss Delmege leant over the banisters and said in a subdued but very
+complacent undertone:
+
+"I thought Miss Vivian would be all right. I thought I could safely
+answer for her."
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+Plessing was also speaking of Miss Vivian that evening.
+
+"Where is this to end, Miss Bruce? I ask you, where is it to end?"
+demanded Miss Vivian's mother.
+
+Miss Bruce knew quite well that Lady Vivian was not asking her at all,
+in the sense of expecting to receive from her any suggestion of a term
+to that which in fact appeared to be interminable, so she only made a
+clicking sound of sympathy with her tongue and went on rapidly stamping
+postcards.
+
+"I am not unpatriotic, though I do dislike Flag-days, and I was the first
+person to say that Char must go and do work somewhere--nurse in a
+hospital if she liked, or do censor's work at the War Office. Sir Piers
+said 'No' at first--you know he's old-fashioned in many ways--and then
+he said Char wasn't strong enough, and to a certain extent I agreed with
+him. But I put aside all that and absolutely encouraged her, as you
+know, to organize this Supply Depôt. But I must say, Miss Bruce, that I
+never expected the thing to grow to these dimensions. Of course, it may
+be a very splendid work--in fact, I'm sure it is, and every one says how
+proud I must be of such a wonderful daughter—but _is_ it all absolutely
+necessary?"
+
+"Oh, Lady Vivian," said the secretary reproachfully. "Why, the very War
+Office itself knows the value of dear Charmian's work. They are always
+asking her to take on fresh branches."
+
+"That's just what I am complaining of. Why should the Midland Supply
+Depôt do all these odd jobs? Hospital supplies are all very well, but
+when it comes to meeting all the troop-trains and supplying all the
+bandages, and being central Depôt for sphagnum moss, and all the rest of
+it--all I can say is, that it's beyond a joke."
+
+Miss Bruce took instant advantage of her employer's infelicitous final
+_cliché_ to remark austerely:
+
+"Certainly one would never dream of looking upon it as a _joke_, Lady
+Vivian. I quite feel with you about the working so fearfully hard, and
+keeping these strange, irregular hours, but I'm convinced that it's
+perfectly unavoidable--perfectly unavoidable. Charmian owns herself that
+no one can possibly take her place at the Depôt, even for a day."
+
+This striking testimony to the irreplacableness of her daughter appeared
+to leave Lady Vivian cold.
+
+"I dare say," she said curtly. "Of course, she's got a gift for
+organization, and all she's done is perfectly marvellous, but I must say
+I wish she'd taken up nursing or something reasonable, like anybody
+else, when she could have had proper holidays and kept regular hours."
+
+Miss Bruce gave the secretarial equivalent for laughing the suggestion
+to scorn.
+
+"As though nursing wasn't something that _anyone_ could do! Why, any
+ordinary girl can work in a hospital. But I should like to know what
+other woman could do Charmian's work. Why, if she left, the whole
+organization would break down in a week."
+
+"Well," said the goaded Lady Vivian, "the war wouldn't go on any the
+longer if it did, I don't suppose--any more than it's going to end
+twenty-four hours sooner because Char has dinner at eleven o'clock every
+night and spends five pounds a day on postage stamps."
+
+Miss Bruce looked hurt, as she went on applying halfpenny stamps to the
+postcards that formed an increasing mountain on the writing-table in
+front of her.
+
+"I suppose you're working for her now?"
+
+"I only wish I could do more," said the secretary fervently. "She gives
+me these odd jobs because I'm always imploring her to let me do some of
+the mechanical work that any one can manage, and spare her for other
+things. But, of course, no one can really do anything much to help her."
+
+"I'm sorry to hear it, since she has a staff of thirty or forty people
+there. Pray, are they all being paid out of Red Cross funds for doing
+nothing at all?" inquired Lady Vivian satirically.
+
+"Oh, of course they all do their bit. Routine work, as Charmian calls
+it. But she has to superintend everything--hold the whole thing
+together. She looks through every letter that leaves that office, and
+knows the workings of every single department, and they come and ask her
+about every little thing."
+
+"Yes, they do. She enjoys that."
+
+Lady Vivian's tone held nothing more than reflectiveness, but the little
+secretary reddened unbecomingly, and said in a strongly protesting
+voice:
+
+"Of course, it's a very big responsibility, and she knows that it all
+rests on her."
+
+"Well, well," said Lady Vivian soothingly. "No one is ever a prophet in
+his own country, and I suppose Char is no exception. Anyhow, she has a
+most devoted champion in you, Miss Bruce."
+
+"It has nothing to do with any--any personal liking, Lady Vivian, I
+assure you," said the secretary, her voice trembling and her colour
+rising yet more. "I don't say it because it's her, but quite
+dispassionately. I hope that even if I knew nothing of Charmian's own
+personal attractiveness and--and kindness, I should still be able to see
+how wonderful her devotion and self-sacrifice are, and admire her
+extraordinary capacity for work. Speaking quite impersonally, you know."
+
+Anything less impersonal than her secretary's impassioned utterances, it
+seemed to Lady Vivian, would have been hard to find, and she shrugged
+her shoulders very slightly.
+
+"Well, Char certainly needs a champion, for she's making herself very
+unpopular in the county. All these people who ran their small
+organizations and war charities quite comfortably for the first six or
+eight months of the war naturally don't like the way everything has been
+snatched away and affiliated to this Central Depôt--"
+
+"Official co-ordination is absolutely--"
+
+"Yes, yes, I know; that's Char's _cri de bataille_. But there are ways
+and ways of doing things, and I must say that some of the things she's
+said and written, to perfectly well-meaning people who've been doing
+their best and giving endless time and trouble to the work, seem to me
+tactless to a degree."
+
+"She says herself that anyone in her position is bound to give offence
+sometimes."
+
+"Position fiddlesticks!" said Miss Vivian's parent briskly. "Why can't
+she behave like anybody else? She might be the War Office and the
+Admiralty rolled into one, to hear her talk sometimes. Of course, people
+who've known her ever since she was a little scrap in short petticoats
+aren't going to stand it. Why, she won't even be thirty till next
+month!--though, I must say, she might be sixty from the way she talks.
+But then she always was like that, from the time she was five years old.
+It worried poor Sir Piers dreadfully when he wanted to show her how to
+manage her hoop, and she insisted on arguing with him about the law of
+gravitation instead. I suppose I ought to have smacked her then."
+
+Miss Bruce choked, but any protest at the thought of the obviously
+regretted opportunity lost by Lady Vivian for the perpetration of the
+suggested outrage remained unuttered.
+
+The sharp sound of the telephone-bell cut across the air.
+
+Miss Bruce attempted to rise, but was hampered by the paraphernalia of
+her clerical work, and Lady Vivian said:
+
+"Sir Piers will answer it. He is in the hall, and you know he likes
+telephoning, because then he can think he isn't really getting as deaf
+as he sometimes thinks he is."
+
+Miss Bruce, respecting this rather complicated reason, sat down again,
+and Lady Vivian remarked dispassionately:
+
+"Of course it's Char, probably to say she can't come back to dinner. You
+know, I specially asked her to get back early tonight because John
+Trevellyan is dining with us. There! what did I tell you?"
+
+They listened to the one-sided conversation.
+
+"Sir Piers Vivian speaking. What's that? Oh, you'll put me through to
+Miss Vivian. Very well; I'll hold on. That you, my dear? Your mother and
+I are most anxious you should be back for dinner--Trevellyan is
+coming.... We'll put off dinner for half an hour if that would help
+you.... But, my dear, he'll be very much disappointed not to see you,
+and it really seems a pity, when the poor chap is just back ... he'll be
+so disappointed.... Yes, yes, I see. I'm sure it's very good of you, but
+couldn't they manage without you just for once?... Very well, my dear,
+I'll tell him.... It's really very good of you, my poor dear child...."
+
+Lady Vivian stamped her foot noiselessly as her husband's voice reached
+her; but when Sir Piers had put back the receiver and come slowly into
+the room, she greeted him with a smile.
+
+"Was that Char? To say she couldn't be back in time for dinner tonight,
+I suppose?"
+
+Quick-tempered, sharp-tongued woman as she was, Joanna Vivian's voice
+was always gentle in speaking to her white-haired husband, twenty years
+her senior.
+
+"The poor child seems to think she can't be spared. Very good of her,
+but isn't she overdoing it just a little--eh, Joanna? Aren't they
+working her rather too hard?"
+
+"It's mostly her own doing, Piers. She's head of this show, you know. I
+suppose that's why she thinks she can't leave it."
+
+"The whole thing would go to pieces without her," thrust in the
+secretary, in the sudden falsetto with which she always impressed upon
+Sir Piers her recollection of his increasing deafness. "She supervises
+the whole organization, and if she's away there isn't any one to take
+her place."
+
+"But they don't want to work after six o'clock," said the old man,
+looking puzzled. "Ten to six--that's office hours. She oughtn't to want
+to be there after the place is shut up."
+
+"Oh, there's no 'close time' for the Midland Supply Depôt," said Miss
+Bruce, looking superior. "They may have orders to meet a train at any
+hour of the day or night, and the telephone often goes on ringing till
+eleven or twelve o'clock, I believe. And Charmian _never_ leaves till
+everyone else has finished work."
+
+Sir Piers looked bewildered, and his wife said quietly:
+
+"I'm thinking of suggesting to Char that she should sleep at the Hostel
+they opened last year, instead of coming back here at impossible hours
+every night. It really is very hard on the servants, and, besides, I
+don't think we shall have enough petrol this winter for it to be
+possible. She could always come home for week-ends, and on the whole it
+would be less tiring for her to be altogether in Questerham during the
+week."
+
+"But is it necessary?" inquired Sir Piers piteously.
+
+His wife shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"If she'd been a boy she would be in the trenches now. I suppose we must
+let her do what she can, even though she's a girl. Other parents have to
+make greater sacrifices than ours, Piers."
+
+"Yes, yes, to be sure," he assented. "And it's very good of the dear
+child to give up all her time as she does. But I'm sorry she can't be
+back for dinner tonight, Joanna--very sorry. Poor Trevellyan will be
+disappointed."
+
+"Yes," said Lady Vivian, and refrained from adding, "I hope he will be."
+
+She had once hoped that Char and John Trevellyan might marry; but Char's
+easy contempt for her cousin's Philistinism was only equalled by his
+unconcealed regret that so much prettiness should be allied to such
+alarming quick-wittedness.
+
+"Miss Bruce," she said, turning to her secretary, "I hope you will dine
+with us tonight. Captain Trevellyan is bringing over a brother-officer
+and his wife, and we shall be an odd number, since there is no hope of
+Char."
+
+"What's that, my dear?" said Sir Piers. "I hadn't heard that. Who is
+Trevellyan bringing with him?"
+
+"Major Willoughby and his wife. She used to be Lesbia Carroll, and I
+knew her years ago--before she married. I shall be rather curious to see
+her again."
+
+"Are they motoring?"
+
+"Yes, in Johnnie's new car."
+
+The dressing-gong reverberated through the hall.
+
+"They will very likely be late," remarked Lady Vivian, "but I must go
+and dress at once."
+
+She went across the long room, a tall, upright woman with a beautiful
+figure, obviously better-looking at fifty-two than she could ever have
+been as a girl. Her hair was thick and dark, with more than a sprinkling
+of white, and two deep vertical lines ran from the corners of her
+nostrils to her rather square chin. But her blue eyes were brilliant,
+and deeply set under a forehead that was singularly unlined.
+
+As Joanna Trevellyan, ungainly and devoid of beauty, she had been far
+too outspoken to conceal her native cleverness, and had never known
+popularity. As the wife of Sir Piers Vivian, the only man who had ever
+wished to marry her, and mistress of Plessing, her wit and shrewdness
+became her, and as the years went on she was even accounted
+good-looking.
+
+Miss Bruce, returning to her postcards after a hurried toilet, thought
+that Lady Vivian looked very handsome as she came down in her black-lace
+evening-dress with a high amethyst comb in her hair.
+
+"Have the evening papers come?" was her first inquiry.
+
+"I think Sir Piers had them taken upstairs."
+
+Lady Vivian frowned quickly.
+
+"How I wish he wouldn't do that! The casualty lists depress him so
+dreadfully. We must try and keep off the subject of the war at dinner,
+Miss Bruce, or he won't sleep all night."
+
+Miss Bruce said nothing, but she pursed up her lips in a manner which
+meant that a possibly wakeful night for Sir Piers Vivian ought not to be
+weighed in the balance against the universal tendency to discuss the
+war. That the subject was never willingly embarked upon at Plessing,
+except by Char Vivian, seemed to her a confession of weakness.
+
+Lady Vivian was perfectly aware of her secretary's point of view, and
+profoundly indifferent to it. She even took a rather malicious pleasure
+in saying lightly and yet very decidedly:
+
+"John is safe enough, but I don't know what Lesbia Willoughby may choose
+to talk about. As a girl she had the voice of a pea-hen, and never
+stopped chattering. So, if you can, please head her off war-talk at
+dinner."
+
+Her employer's trenchant simile as to Mrs. Willoughby's vocal powers
+could not but recur to Miss Bruce with a sense of its extreme
+appositeness when the guests entered.
+
+Mrs. Willoughby billowed into the room. There was really no other word
+to describe that rapid, undulating, and yet buoyant advance. Tall as
+Lady Vivian was, and by no means slightly built, she seemed to Miss
+Bruce to be at once physically overpowered and almost eclipsed in the
+strident and voluminous greeting of her old acquaintance.
+
+"My _dear_ Joanna! After _all_ these years ... how too, too delightful
+to see you so absolutely and utterly unchanged! _Dear_ old days! And now
+we meet in the midst of all these horrors!"
+
+The exaggeration of the look she cast round her seemed to include the
+drawing-room and its occupants alike in the pleasing category.
+
+"I'm sorry you don't like my Louis XV.," said Lady Vivian flippantly,
+and turned to greet the rest of the party.
+
+Her cousin John, who looked, even in khaki, a great deal less than his
+thirty years, smiled at her with steady blue eyes that bore a great
+resemblance to her own, and wrung her hand, saying, "This is very jolly,
+Cousin Joanna," in a pleasant, rather serious voice.
+
+"And here," said Lesbia Willoughby piercingly--"here is my Lewis."
+
+Her Lewis advanced, looking not unnaturally sheepish, and Trevellyan
+said conscientiously:
+
+"May I introduce Major Willoughby to you? My cousin, Lady Vivian."
+
+"You _never_ told me, Joanna, that this dear thing was a cousin of
+yours," shrieked Lesbia reproachfully. "I think it quite disgustingly
+mean of you, considering that we were girls together."
+
+"In the days when we were girls together," said Lady Vivian ruthlessly,
+"he wasn't born or thought of. Have they announced dinner, Miss Bruce?"
+
+"This moment."
+
+"Then, do let's go in at once. You must all be very hungry after such a
+drive."
+
+"I _never_ eat nowadays--simply never," proclaimed Mrs. Willoughby as
+she crossed the hall on Sir Piers's arm. "I think it most unpatriotic.
+We're all going to be starving quite soon, and the poor are living on
+simply nothing a day as it is. And one can't _bear_ to touch food while
+our poor dear boys in the trenches and in Germany are literally
+starving."
+
+Mrs. Willoughby's voice was of a very piercing quality, and she
+emphasized her words by rolling round a pair of enormous and
+over-prominent light grey eyes as she spoke. Seated at the dinner-table,
+she contrived to present an appearance that almost amounted to
+impropriety, by merely putting a large bare elbow on the table and
+flinging back an elaborately dressed head set on a short neck and
+opulent shoulders, thickly dredged with heavily scented powder. Miss
+Bruce, on the opposite side of the table, eyed her with distrustful
+disapproval. It did not appear to her likely that she would be able to
+carry out Lady Vivian's injunction that war-talk was to be avoided.
+
+"Isn't Char at home?" Trevellyan inquired of his hostess.
+
+"She's at Questerham, and the car has gone in for her, but she
+telephoned to say that she couldn't get back till late. It's this Supply
+Depôt of hers; she's giving every minute of the day and night to it,"
+said Lady Vivian, characteristically allowing no tinge of disapproval or
+disappointment to colour her voice.
+
+"Is that your delightful girl?" inquired Lesbia across the table, and
+pronouncing the word as though it rhymed with "curl." "Isn't it too
+wonderful to see all these young things devoting themselves? As for me,
+I'm literally run off my feet in town. I'm having a holiday here--just
+to see something of Lewis, who's stationed in these parts indefinitely,
+poor dear lamb--because my doctor said I was _killing_ myself--literally
+killing myself."
+
+"Really?" said Lady Vivian placidly. "I hope you're going to be here for
+some time. Are you staying--"
+
+"Only till I'm fit to move. That _moment_," said Lesbia impressively,
+"that very moment, I must simply dash back to London. My dear, I can't
+tell you what it's like. I never have an instant to call my own--have I,
+Lewis?"
+
+"Rather not," said Lewis hastily.
+
+He was a small, brown-faced man, who had won his D.S.O. in South Africa,
+and whom no doctor could now be induced to pass for service abroad.
+
+"Perhaps some charitable organization takes up your time," suggested Sir
+Piers to Mrs. Willoughby. His deafness seldom permitted him to follow
+more than the drift of general conversation. "Now, Charmian, our
+daughter, has taken up a most creditable piece of work--most
+creditable--although, perhaps, she is a little inclined to overdo things
+just at present."
+
+"No one can _possibly_ overdo war-work," Mrs. Willoughby told him
+trenchantly. "Nothing that we women of England can do could ever be
+enough for the brave fathers, and husbands, and brothers, and
+sweethearts, who are risking their lives for us out there. Think of what
+the trenches are--just _hell_, as a boy said to me the other day--hell
+let loose!"
+
+Sir Piers looked very much distressed, and his white head began to
+shake. He had only heard part of Lesbia's discourse. Trevellyan's
+boyishly fair face flushed scarlet. He had fought in Belgium, and in
+Flanders, until a bullet lodged in his knee, and now his next Medical
+Board might send him to France to rejoin his regiment. But it would have
+occurred to no one to suppose that the poignant description quoted by
+Mrs. Willoughby had ever emanated from Trevellyan.
+
+From the head of the table Joanna Vivian said smoothly:
+
+"You've made us all very curious as to your work, Lesbia. Do tell us
+what you do."
+
+Mrs. Willoughby gave her high, strident laugh.
+
+"Everything," was her modest claim. "Absolutely everything, my dear.
+Packing for prisoners three mornings a week, canteen work twice, and
+every Flag-day going. I can't tell you the _hours_ I've stood outside
+Claridge's carrying a tray and seeing insolent wretches walk past me
+without buying. I've been _so_ exhausted by the end of the day I've had
+to have an hour's massage before I could _drag_ myself out to patronize
+some Red Cross entertainment. But, of course, my real work is the
+Colonial officers. Dear, sweet things! I take them _all_ over London!"
+
+"By Jove, though, do you really!" said Trevellyan admiringly.
+
+Only a certain naïve quality of sincerity in his simplicities, Joanna
+reflected, saved Johnnie from appearing absolutely stupid. But, her
+husband excepted, she was secretly fonder and more proud of Johnnie than
+of any one in the world, and she did not make the mistake of supposing
+that his easy chivalry denoted any admiration for the screeching
+monologue of which Lesbia was delivering herself.
+
+"I make a specialty of South Africans," she proclaimed to the table.
+"They're so delightfully rural--even more so than the dear Australians,
+though I have a passion for Anzacs. But I take _some_ of them
+_some_where every day--just show them London, you know. Not one of them
+knows a soul in England, and of course London is a perfect marvel to
+them. I simply live in taxis, rushing the dear things round."
+
+"Ah, we had a couple of Canadians here last week--very fine fellows,"
+said Sir Piers. "Been in hospital in Questerham, both of them, and Char
+thought they'd enjoy a day out in the country. She manages everything,
+you know--even the hospitals. The doctors all come to her for
+everything, I believe. She tells me that all the hospitals round about
+are affiliated to her office."
+
+"Ranks as a sort of Universal Provider--what?" said Trevellyan.
+
+"Yes; isn't it wonderful?" said Miss Bruce eagerly; and availed herself
+to the full of the double opportunity for obeying, even at the eleventh
+hour, Lady Vivian's injunctions as to the trend of the conversation, and
+at the same time making the utmost of her favourite topic, Char Vivian's
+work at the Midland Supply Depôt.
+
+For the rest of dinner, in spite of several strenuous efforts from
+Lesbia Willoughby, nothing else was discussed.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+Ten o'clock in the morning, and little Miss Anthony flew up Questerham
+High Street on her bicycle, conscious that her hurried choice of a
+winter hat had not only been highly unsatisfactory, owing to the extreme
+haste with which she had conducted it, but was also about to make her
+late in arriving at the office. She threw an anxious glance at the
+Post-Office clock, and redoubled her speed at the sight of it, though no
+amount of haste would get her to the Midland Supply Depôt Headquarters
+under another seven minutes.
+
+But she sped gallantly across the tram-lines and in and out of the
+slow-moving stream of market-carts, and arrived breathless at the
+offices in Pollard Street just as Miss Vivian's small open car drew up
+at the door.
+
+"Damn!" automatically muttered Tony under her breath, and seeing nothing
+for it but to put her bicycle into a corner and efface herself
+respectfully to let Miss Vivian pass.
+
+But Miss Vivian, generally so unaware of any member of her staff as not
+even to exchange a "Good-morning," elected suddenly to reverse this
+policy.
+
+"Good-morning," she said graciously. "We're both late today, I'm
+afraid."
+
+The clerk in the hall, who drew an ominous line in her book under the
+last signature as the clock struck ten, laughed in a rather awestruck
+way and said, "Oh, Miss Vivian!"
+
+"I think you must let Miss Anthony off today," said Char Vivian,
+smiling. "As I am late myself, you know."
+
+She went slowly upstairs, just hearing an ecstatic gasp from the two
+girls in the hall.
+
+She was vaguely aware that those few gracious words and tone of easy
+kindness had secured for her little Miss Anthony's unswerving loyalty
+and admiration.
+
+Girls of that age and class _were_ like that, she told herself with a
+slight smile.
+
+The smile died away into an expression of weary concentration as she
+entered her private office.
+
+"Good-morning, Miss Delmege. Is there much in today?"
+
+"Good-morning, Miss Vivian," said Miss Delmege, elegantly rising from
+her knees, in which lowly position she had been trying to coax the
+small, indifferent fire to burn. "I am afraid there are a lot of
+letters."
+
+Miss Vivian sighed and moved to the looking-glass to take off her hat.
+She also was in uniform, and wore several curly stripes of gold braid on
+her coat collar and cuffs to denote her exalted position.
+
+Even when she had taken off her ugly and unbecoming felt hat and run her
+fingers through the thick, straight masses of reddish hair that hung
+over her forehead, Char Vivian contrived to look at least ten years
+older than her actual twenty-nine years.
+
+She was very good-looking, with delicate aquiline features, a pale, fair
+skin powdered all over with tiny freckles, and beautiful deep-set brown
+eyes surrounded by unexpectedly dark lashes.
+
+It was something quite indefinable in the lines round her pretty,
+decided mouth, and under her eyes that gave the odd impression of
+maturity. Her manner had always, from the age of five, been one of
+extreme self-security.
+
+"Now, then, for the letters," she said, as she sat down before the great
+roll-top desk. Char Vivian's voice was deep and rather drawling in
+character, and she used it with great effect.
+
+"Miss Delmege, did you put these heavenly lilies-of-the-valley here? You
+really mustn't--but they're too lovely. Thank you so much. They _do_
+make such a difference!"
+
+She sniffed delicately, and Miss Delmege smiled with gratification. The
+lilies-of-the-valley had really cost more than she could afford, but
+those few words of appreciation sent her to her small table in the
+corner with a sense of great satisfaction.
+
+Char tore open one envelope after another with murmured comments. She
+frequently affected an absence of mind denoted by fragmentary monologue.
+
+"Transport wanted for fifty men going from the King Street Hospital
+today--and they want more sphagnum moss. There ought to be five hundred
+bags ready to go out this morning.... I wonder if they've seen to it.
+Inquiries--inquiries--inquiries! When are people ever going to stop
+asking me questions? Hospital accounts--that can go to the Finance
+Department.... The Stores bill--to the Commissariat. What's all
+this--transport for that man in Hospital? I shall have to see to that
+myself. Look me up the War Office letters as to Petrol regulations, Miss
+Delmege, will you? Belgians again; they're very difficult to satisfy,
+poor people. Madame Van Damm--I don't remember them--I must send for the
+files. Here are some more of those tiresome muddles of Mrs. Potter's. I
+told her all about those people on Monday. Why on earth hasn't it been
+arranged? Nothing is _ever_ done unless one sees to it oneself. The
+Medical Officer of Health wants to see me. What are my appointments for
+today, Miss Delmege?"
+
+"The man from the building contractors is coming at twelve, and the
+Matron from the Overseas Hospital at three, and then there's that Miss
+Jones who's coming to work here. And it's the day you generally go to
+the Convalescent Homes."
+
+"I see. Ring up the Medical Officer and say I can give him a quarter of
+an hour at two o'clock. I can't really spare that," sighed Miss Vivian,
+"but I suppose I shall have to see him."
+
+Miss Delmege knew that, whatever else her chief might depute to her, she
+never relinquished to any one a business interview, so she merely looked
+concerned and said: "I'm afraid it will be a great rush for you."
+
+Miss Vivian gave her subtle, infrequent smile, and began the customary
+series of morning interviews which were supposed to settle the
+perplexities of each department for the day. That this supposition was
+not invariably correct was made manifest on this occasion by the
+demeanour of the unhappy Miss Plumtree, when her chief had made short
+work of a series of difficulties haltingly and stammeringly put before
+her in sentences made involved and awkward through sheer nervousness.
+
+"Let me have those Requisition Averages by twelve o'clock, please--and I
+think that completes you, Miss Plumtree?" concluded Miss Vivian rapidly.
+
+"Thank you, Miss Vivian. Is--are--do these averages include the first
+day of the month as well as the last?"
+
+"Yes, of course. And remember to give the gross weight of the supplies
+as well as the net weight."
+
+"And I--I divide by the number of days in each month. Yes, I see,"
+faltered Miss Plumtree, seeing nothing at all except the brisk tapping
+of Miss Vivian's long, slight fingers on the blotting-paper in front of
+her, denoting with sufficient clearness that in her opinion the
+interview had reached its conclusion some moments since.
+
+"It's for August, September, and October, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Miss Vivian's tone implied that the question was unnecessary in the
+extreme, as indeed it was, since Miss Plumtree had been engaged in
+conducting the quarterly Requisition Averages to an unsuccessful issue
+for the past eighteen months.
+
+"Thank you."
+
+Miss Plumtree faltered from the room, with the consciousness of past
+failures heavy upon her.
+
+Char did not like an attitude of sycophantic dejection, and Miss
+Plumtree may therefore have been responsible for the very modified
+enthusiasm with which the next applicant's request for an afternoon off
+duty was received.
+
+"It rather depends, Miss Cox," said Char, her drawl slightly emphasized.
+"I thought the work in that department was behindhand?"
+
+"Not now, Miss Vivian," said the grey-haired spinster anxiously. "Mrs.
+Tweedale and I cleared it all up last night; I'm quite up to date."
+
+"Well, I'm afraid there's a good deal for you here," said Char rather
+cruelly, handing her a bundle of papers. "However, please take your
+afternoon off if you want to, and if you feel that the work can be
+left."
+
+"Thank you, Miss Vivian."
+
+Miss Cox, who was meek and deferential, left the room, the pleasurable
+anticipation of a holiday quite gone from her tired face.
+
+Char looked at the neatly coiled twist of Miss Delmege's sand-coloured
+hair.
+
+"Was I a wet-blanket?" she inquired whimsically. "Really, the way these
+people are always asking for leave! I wonder what would happen if _I_
+took an afternoon off. How long is it since I had a holiday, Miss
+Delmege?"
+
+"You've not had one since I've been here," declared her secretary, "and
+that's nearly a year."
+
+"Exactly. But then I can't understand putting anything before the work,
+personally."
+
+Char returned to her pile of letters and Miss Delmege went on with her
+writing in a glow of admiration, and resolved that, after all, she would
+come and work on Sunday morning, although nominally no one came to the
+office on Sundays except the clerks who took turns for telephone duty,
+and Miss Vivian herself in the afternoon.
+
+The morning was a busy one. Telephone calls seemed incessant, and the
+operator downstairs was unintelligent and twice cut Miss Vivian off in
+the midst of an important trunk call.
+
+"Hallo! hallo! are you there? Miss Henderson, what the _dickens_ are you
+doing? You've cut me off again."
+
+Char banged the receiver down impatiently with one hand, while the other
+continued to make rapid calculations on a large sheet of foolscap. She
+possessed and exercised to the full the faculty of following two or more
+trains of thought at the same moment.
+
+Presently she rang her bell sharply, the customary signal that she was
+ready to dictate her letters.
+
+Each department was supposed to possess its own typewriter and to make
+use of it, and the services of the shorthand-typist, who was amongst the
+few paid workers in the office, were exclusively reserved for Miss
+Vivian.
+
+The work entailed was no sinecure, the more especially since Miss
+Collins was obdurate as to her time-limit of ten to five-thirty. But it
+was never difficult for Miss Vivian to commandeer volunteer typists from
+the departments when her enormous correspondence appeared to her to
+require it.
+
+"Good-morning, Miss Vivian."
+
+"Good-morning," said Char curtly, unsmiling. Miss Collins always gave
+her a sense of irritation. She was so jauntily competent, so consciously
+independent of the office.
+
+Shorthand-typists could always find work in the big Questerham
+manufacturing works, and Miss Collins had only been secured for the
+Supply Depôt with difficulty. She received two pounds ten shillings a
+week, never worked overtime, and had every Saturday afternoon off. Miss
+Vivian had once, in the early days of Miss Collins, suggested that she
+might like to wear uniform, and had received a smiling and unqualified
+negative, coupled with a candid statement of Miss Collins's views as to
+the undesirability of combining clerical work with the exhausting
+activities required in meeting and feeding the troop-trains.
+
+"I should be sorry to think that any of _my_ staff would shirk the
+little additional work which brings them into contact with the men who
+have risked their lives for England," had been the freezing _finale_
+with which the dialogue had been brought to a close by the disgusted
+Miss Vivian.
+
+Since then her stenographer had continued to frequent her presence in
+transparent and _décolletées_ blouses, with short skirts swinging above
+silk-stockinged ankles and suede shoes. Even her red, fluffy curls were
+unnecessarily decked with half a dozen sparkling prongs. But she was
+very quick and intelligent, and Miss Vivian had perforce to accept her
+impudent prettiness and complete independence.
+
+Char never, after the first week, made the mistake of supposing that
+Miss Collins would ever fall under that spell of personal magnetism to
+which the rest of the office was in more or less complete subjection,
+and she consequently wasted no smile upon her morning greeting.
+
+"This is to the Director-General of Voluntary Organizations, and please
+do not use abbreviations. Kindly head the letter in full."
+
+Miss Collins's small manicured hand ran easily over her notebook,
+leaving a trail of cabalistic signs behind it.
+
+Char leant back, half-closing her eyes in a way which served to
+emphasize the tired shadows beneath them, and proceeded with her fluent,
+unhampered dictation.
+
+She was seldom at a loss for a word, and had a positive gift for the
+production of rhetorical periods which never failed to impress Miss
+Delmege, still writing at her corner table. In spite of frequent
+interruptions, Char proceeded unconcernedly enough, until at the
+eleventh entry of a messenger she broke into an impatient exclamation:
+
+"Miss Delmege, please deal for me!"
+
+Miss Delmege swept forward, annihilating the unhappy bearer of the card
+with a look of deep reproach, as she took it from her.
+
+"I'm afraid it's some one to see you," she faltered deprecatingly.
+
+Char frowned and took the card impatiently, and Miss Delmege stood by
+looking nervous, as she invariably did when her chief appeared annoyed.
+Char Vivian, however, although frequently impatient, was not a
+passionate woman, and however much she might give rein to her tongue,
+seldom lost control of her temper, for the simple reason that she never
+lost sight of herself or of her own effect upon her surroundings.
+
+Her face cleared as she read the card.
+
+"Please ask Captain Trevellyan to come up here."
+
+The messenger disappeared thankfully and Miss Delmege retreated
+relievedly to her corner.
+
+Char leant back again in her capacious chair, a sheaf of papers, at
+which she only cast an occasional glance, before her.
+
+She was not at all averse to being found in this attitude, which she
+judged to be most typical of herself and her work, and for an instant
+after Captain Trevellyan's booted tread had paused upon the threshold
+she affected unawareness of his presence and did not raise her eyes.
+
+"... I am in receipt of your letter of even date, and would inform you
+in reply...."
+
+"Oh, John! So you've come for an official inspection?"
+
+"Since you're never to be seen any other way," he returned, laughing,
+and grasping her hand.
+
+"I ought to send you away; we're in the midst of a heavy day's work."
+
+"Don't you think you might call a--a sort of truce of God, for the
+moment, and tell me something about this office of yours? I'm much
+impressed by all I hear."
+
+Miss Delmege, judging from her chief's smile that this suggestion was
+approved of, brought forward a chair, and acknowledged Captain
+Trevellyan's protesting thanks with a genteel bend at the waist and a
+small, tight smile.
+
+The amenities of social intercourse were always strictly held in check
+by the limits of officialdom by Miss Vivian's staff, with the exception
+of the unregenerate Miss Collins, who tucked her pencil into her belt,
+uncrossed her knees, and rose from her chair.
+
+"I'm afraid I'm interrupting you," said Trevellyan politely, addressing
+his remark to Char, but casting a quite unnecessary look at the now
+smiling Miss Collins.
+
+"I've nearly finished," said Char.
+
+"Shall I come back later?" suggested Miss Collins gaily, swinging a
+turquoise heart from the end of an outrageously long gold chain.
+
+"I will ring if I want you," said Miss Vivian in tones eminently
+calculated to allay any assumption of indispensability on the part of
+her employée.
+
+With a freezing eye she watched Miss Collins swing jauntily from the
+room, her red head cocked at an angle that enabled her to throw a
+farewell dimple in the direction of Captain Trevellyan.
+
+"Is that one of your helpers?" was the rather infelicitously worded
+inquiry which John was inspired to put as Miss Collins disappeared.
+
+"The office stenographer," said Char curtly.
+
+"Why don't you have poor old Miss Bruce up here? She's longing to help
+you--couldn't talk about anything but this place last night."
+
+"Dear old Brucey!" said Char, with more languor than enthusiasm in her
+voice. "But there are one or two reasons why it wouldn't quite do to
+have her in the office; we have to be desperately official here, you
+know. Besides, it's such a comfort to get back in the evenings to some
+one who doesn't look upon me as the Director of the Midland Supply
+Depôt! I sometimes feel I'm turning into an organization instead of a
+human being."
+
+Miss Vivian, needless to say, had never felt anything of the sort, but
+there was something rather gallantly pathetic in the half-laughing turn
+of the phrase, and it sufficed for a weighty addition to Miss Delmege's
+treasured collections of "Glimpses into Miss Vivian's Real Self."
+
+She received yet another such a few minutes later, when Captain
+Trevellyan began to urge Miss Vivian to come out with him in the new car
+waiting at the office door.
+
+"Do! I'll take you anywhere you want to go, and I really do want you to
+see how beautifully she runs. Come and lunch somewhere?"
+
+"I'd love it," declared Char wistfully, "but I really mustn't, Johnnie.
+There's so much to do."
+
+Either the cousinly diminutive, or something unusually unofficial in
+Miss Vivian's regretful voice, caused the discreet Miss Delmege to rise
+and glide quietly from the room.
+
+"Miss Vivian really is most awfully human," she declared to a
+fellow-worker whom she met upon the stairs. "What do you think I've left
+her doing?"
+
+The fellow-worker leant comfortably against the wall, balancing a wire
+basket full of official-looking documents on her hip, and said
+interestedly:
+
+"Do tell me."
+
+"Refusing to go for a motor ride with a cousin of hers, an officer, who
+wants her to see his new car. And she awfully wants to go--I could see
+that--it's only the work that's keeping her."
+
+"I must say she _is_ splendid!"
+
+"Yes, isn't she?"
+
+"I think I saw the cousin, waiting downstairs about a quarter of an hour
+ago. Is he a Staff Officer, very tall and large, and awfully fair?"
+
+"Yes. Rather nice-looking, isn't he?"
+
+"Quite, and I do like them to be tall. He's got a nice voice, too. You
+know--I mean his voice is nice."
+
+"Yes; he has got a nice voice, hasn't he? I noticed it myself. Of
+course, that awful Miss Collins made eyes at him like anything. She was
+taking letters when he came in."
+
+"Rotten little minx! I wonder if he's engaged to Miss Vivian?"
+
+"I couldn't say," primly returned Miss Delmege, with a sudden access of
+discretion, implying a reticence which in point of fact she was not in a
+position to exercise.
+
+She did not go upstairs again until Captain Trevellyan and his motor-car
+had safely negotiated the corner of Pollard Street, unaccompanied by
+Miss Vivian.
+
+This Miss Delmege ascertained from a ground-floor window, and then
+returned to her corner table, wearing an expression of compassionate
+admiration that Char was perfectly able to interpret.
+
+"I'm afraid that was an interruption to our morning's work," she said
+kindly. "What time is it?"
+
+"Nearly one o'clock, Miss Vivian."
+
+"Oh, good heavens! Just bring me the Belgian files, will you? and then
+you'd better go to lunch."
+
+"I can quite well go later," said Miss Delmege eagerly. "I--I thought
+perhaps you'd be lunching out today."
+
+"No," drawled Char decisively; "in spite of the inducement of the new
+car, I shan't leave the office till I have to go to the Convalescent
+Homes. I'll send for some lunch when I want it."
+
+Miss Delmege went to her own lunch with a vexed soul.
+
+"I do wish one could get Miss Vivian to eat something," she murmured
+distractedly to her neighbour. "I know exactly what it'll be, you know.
+She'll sit there writing, writing, writing, and forget all about food,
+and then it'll be two o'clock, and she has to see the M.O. of Health and
+somebody else coming at three--and she'll have had no lunch at all."
+
+"Doesn't she ever go out to lunch?"
+
+"Only on slack days, and you know how often we get _them_, especially
+now that the work is simply increasing by leaps and bounds every day."
+
+"Couldn't you take her some sandwiches?" asked Mrs. Bullivant from the
+head of the table. "I could cut some in a minute."
+
+"Oh, no, thank you. She wouldn't like it. She hates a fuss," Miss
+Delmege declared decidedly.
+
+The refusal, with its attendant tag of explanatory ingratitude, was
+received in matter-of-fact silence by every one.
+
+Miss Vivian's hatred of a fuss, as interpreted by her secretary, merely
+redounded to her credit in the eyes of the Hostel.
+
+They ate indifferent pressed beef and tepid milk-pudding, and those who
+could afford it--for the most part accompanied by those who could not
+afford it--supplemented the meal with coffee and cakes devoured in haste
+at the High Street confectioner's, and then hurried back to the office.
+
+It was nearly three o'clock before Miss Delmege ventured to address her
+chief.
+
+"I'm afraid you haven't had lunch. Do let me send for something."
+
+Miss Vivian looked up, flushed and tired.
+
+"Dear me, yes. It's much later than I thought. Send out one of the
+Scouts for a couple of buns and a piece of chocolate."
+
+"Oh!" protested Miss Delmege, as she invariably did on receipt of this
+menu.
+
+Char Vivian did not raise her eyes from the letter she was rapidly
+inditing, and her secretary retreated to give the order.
+
+Miss Plumtree, counting on her fingers and looking acutely distressed,
+sat at a small table in the hall from whence the Scout was dispatched.
+
+"Is that _all_ she's having for lunch?" she paused in her pursuit of
+ever-elusive averages to inquire in awestruck tones.
+
+"Yes, and she's been simply worked to death this morning. And it's
+nearly three now, and she won't get back to dinner till long after ten
+o'clock, probably; but she never will have more for lunch, when she's
+very busy, than just buns and a penny piece of chocolate. That," said
+Miss Delmege, with a sort of desperate admiration--"that is just Miss
+Vivian all over!"
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+Char looked wearily at the clock.
+
+The buns and chocolate hastily disposed of in the intervals of work
+during the afternoon had only served to spoil the successive cups of
+strong tea, which formed her only indulgence, brought to her at five
+o'clock. They were guiltless of sustaining qualities. It was not yet
+seven, and she never ordered the car until nine o'clock or later.
+
+Her eyes dropped to the diminished, but still formidable, pile of papers
+on the table. She was excessively tired, and she knew that the papers
+before her could be dealt with in the morning.
+
+But it was characteristic of Char Vivian that she did not make up her
+mind then and there to order the car round and arrive at Plessing in
+time for eight o'clock dinner and early bed, much as she needed both. To
+do so would have jarred with her own and her staff's conception of her
+self-sacrificing, untiring energy, her devotion to an immense and
+indispensable task, just as surely as would a trivial, easy interruption
+to the day's work in the shape of John Trevellyan and his new car, or an
+hour consecrated to fresh air and luncheon. Necessity compelled Char to
+work twelve hours a day some two evenings a week, in order that the
+amount undertaken by the Midland Supply Depôt might be duly
+accomplished; but on the remaining days, when work was comparatively
+light and over early in the evening, she did not choose to spoil the
+picture which she carried always in her mind's eye of the indefatigable
+and overtaxed Director of the Midland Supply Depôt.
+
+So Miss Vivian applied herself wearily, once again, to her inspection of
+those Army Forms which were to be sent up to the London office on the
+morrow.
+
+Presently the door opened and Miss Delmege came in with her hat and coat
+on, prepared to go.
+
+"I thought I'd just tell you," she said hesitatingly, "that Miss Jones
+has come--the new clerk. Shall I take her over to the Hostel?"
+
+Char sighed wearily.
+
+"Oh, I suppose I'd better see her. If it isn't tonight, it will have to
+be tomorrow. I'd rather get it over. Send her up."
+
+"Oh, Miss Vivian!"
+
+"Never mind. I shan't be long."
+
+Miss Vivian smiled resignedly.
+
+As a matter of fact, she was rather relieved at the prospect of an
+interview to break the monotony of the evening. The Army Forms in
+question had failed to repay inspection, in the sense of presenting any
+glaring errors for which the Medical Officer in charge of the Hospital
+could have been brought sharply to book.
+
+She unconsciously strewed the papers on the desk into a rather more
+elaborate confusion in front of her, and began to open the inkpot,
+although she had no further writing to do. The pen was poised between
+her fingers when Miss Delmege noiselessly opened the door, and shut it
+again on the entry of Miss Jones.
+
+Char put down her pen, raised her heavy-lidded eyes, and said in her
+deep, effective voice:
+
+"Good-evening, Miss--er--Jones."
+
+She almost always hesitated and drawled for an instant before
+pronouncing the name of any member of her staff. The trick was purely
+instinctive, and indicated both her own overcharged memory and the
+insignificance of the unit, among many, whom she was addressing.
+
+"How do you do?" said Miss Jones.
+
+Her voice possessed the indefinable and quite unmistakable intonation of
+good-breeding, and Char instantly observed that she did not wind up her
+brief greeting with Miss Vivian's name.
+
+She looked at her with an instant's surprise. Miss Jones was short and
+squarely built, looked about twenty-seven, and was not pretty. But she
+had a fine pair of grey eyes in her little colourless face, and her
+slim, ungloved hands, which Char immediately noticed, were unusually
+beautiful.
+
+"You are from Wales, I believe?" said Char, unexpectedly even to
+herself. She made a point of avoiding personalities with the staff. But
+there appeared to be something which required explanation in Miss Jones.
+
+"Yes. My father is the Dean of Penally. I have had some secretarial
+experience with him during the last five years."
+
+Evidently Miss Jones wished to keep to the matter in hand. Char was
+rather amused, reflecting on the fluttered gratification which Miss
+Delmege or Miss Henderson would have displayed at any directing of the
+conversation into more personal channels.
+
+"I see," she said, smiling a little. "Now, I wonder what you call
+secretarial experience?"
+
+"My father naturally has a great deal of correspondence," returned Miss
+Jones, without any answering smile on her small, serious face. "I have
+been his only secretary for four years. Since the war he has employed
+some one else for most of his letters, so as to set me free for other
+work."
+
+"Yes; I understood from your letter that you had been working in a
+hospital."
+
+"As clerk."
+
+"Excellent. That will be most useful experience here. You know this
+office controls the hospitals in Questerham and round about. I want you
+to work in this room with my secretary, and learn her work, so that she
+can use you as her second."
+
+"I will do my best."
+
+"I'm sure of that," said Miss Vivian, redoubling her charm of manner,
+and eyeing the impassive Miss Jones narrowly. "I hope you'll be happy
+here and like the work. You must always let me know if there's anything
+you don't like. I think you're billeted just across the road, at our
+Questerham Hostel?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I'll send some one to show you the way."
+
+"Thank you; I know where it is. I left my luggage there before coming
+here."
+
+"The new workers generally come to report to me before doing anything
+else," said Char, indefinably vexed at having failed to obtain the
+expected smile of gratitude.
+
+"However, if you know the way I must let you go now, so as to be in time
+for supper. Good-night, Miss Jones."
+
+"Good-night," responded Miss Jones placidly, and closed the door
+noiselessly behind her. Her movements were very quiet in spite of her
+solid build, and she moved lightly enough, but the Hostel perceived a
+certain irony, nevertheless, in the fact that Miss Jones's parents had
+bestowed upon her the baptismal name of Grace.
+
+The appeal thus made to a rather elementary sense of humour resulted in
+Miss Jones holding the solitary privilege of being the only person in
+the Hostel who was almost invariably called by her Christian name. She
+enjoyed from the first a strange sort of popularity, nominally due to
+the fact that "you never knew what she was going to say next"; in
+reality owing to a curious quality of absolute sincerity which was best
+translated by her surroundings as "originality." Another manifestation
+of it, less easily defined, was the complete good faith which she placed
+in all those with whom she came into contact. Only a decided tincture of
+Welsh shrewdness preserved her from the absolute credulity of the
+simpleton.
+
+Almost the first question put to Miss Jones was that favourite test one
+of the enthusiastic Tony, "And what do you think of Miss Vivian?"
+
+"I think," said Miss Jones thoughtfully, "that she is a reincarnation of
+Queen Elizabeth."
+
+There was a rather stunned silence in the Hostel sitting-room.
+
+Reincarnation was not a word which had ever sounded there before, and it
+carried with it a subtle suggestion of impropriety to several listeners.
+Nor was any one at the moment sufficiently _au courant_ with the Virgin
+Queen's leading characteristics to feel certain whether the comparison
+instituted was meant to be complimentary or insulting in the extreme.
+
+Miss Delmege for once voiced the popular feeling by ejaculating coldly:
+
+"That's rather a strange thing to say, surely!"
+
+"Why? Hasn't it ever struck anybody before? I should have thought it so
+obvious. Why, even to look at, you know--that sandy colouring, and the
+way she holds her head: just as though there ought to be a ruff behind
+it."
+
+"Oh, you mean to look at," said Miss Marsh, the general tension
+considerably relaxed as the trend of the conversation shifted from that
+dreaded line of abstract discussion whither the indiscreet Miss Jones
+had appeared, for one horrid moment, to conduct it.
+
+"Had Queen Elizabeth got freckles? I really don't know much about her,
+except that they found a thousand dresses in her wardrobe when she
+died," said Tony, voicing, as it happened, the solitary fact concerning
+the Sovereign under discussion which any one present was able to
+remember, as outcome of each one's varying form of a solid English
+education.
+
+"Her power of administration and personal magnetism, you know,"
+explained Miss Jones.
+
+"Oh, of course she's perfectly wonderful," Miss Delmege exclaimed, sure
+of her ground. "You'll see that more and more, working in her room."
+
+Whether such increased perception was indeed the result of Miss Jones's
+activities in the room of the Director might remain open to question.
+
+Char found her very quick, exceedingly accurate, and more conscientious
+than the quick-witted can generally boast of being. She remained
+entirely self-possessed under praise, blame, or indifference, and Miss
+Vivian was half-unconsciously irritated at this tacit assumption of an
+independence more significant and no less secure than that of Miss
+Collins the typist.
+
+"Gracie, I wish you'd tell me what you _really_ think of Miss Vivian,"
+her room-mate demanded one night as they were undressing together.
+
+Screens were chastely placed round each bed, and it was a matter of some
+surprise to Miss Marsh that her companion so frequently neglected these
+modest adjuncts to privacy, and often took off her stockings, or folded
+up even more intimate garments, under the full light, such as it was, of
+the gas-jet in the middle of the room.
+
+Miss Jones was extremely orderly, and always folded her clothes with
+scrupulous tidiness. She rolled up a pair of black stockings with
+exactitude before answering.
+
+"I think she's rather interesting."
+
+"Good Lord, Gracie! if Delmege could only hear you! _Rather
+interesting!_ The Director of the Sacred Supply Depôt! You really are
+the limit, the things you say, you know."
+
+"Well, that's all I _do_ think. She is very capable, and a fairly good
+organizer, but I don't think her as marvellous as you or Miss Delmege or
+Tony do. In fact, I think you're all rather _détraquées_ about Miss
+Vivian."
+
+Miss Marsh was as well aware as anybody in the Hostel that the insertion
+of a foreign word into a British discourse is the height of affectation
+and of bad form; and although she could not believe Grace to be at all
+an affected person, she felt it due to her own nationality to assume a
+very disapproving expression and to allow an interval of at least three
+seconds to elapse before she continued the conversation.
+
+"Don't you _like_ her?"
+
+"I'm not sure."
+
+"I suppose you don't know her well enough to say yet?" Miss Marsh
+suggested.
+
+"Do you think that has anything to do with it? I often like people
+without knowing them a bit," said Grace cordially; "and certainly I
+quite often dislike them thoroughly, even if I've only heard them speak
+once, or perhaps not at all."
+
+"Then you judge by appearances, which is a great mistake."
+
+Miss Jones said in a thoughtful manner that she didn't think it was
+_that_ exactly, and supposed regretfully that Miss Marsh would think she
+was "swanking" if she explained that she considered herself a sound and
+rapid judge of character.
+
+"Oh, what a sweet camisole, dear!"
+
+"My petticoat-bodice," said Grace matter-of-factly. "I'm glad you like
+it. The ribbon always takes a long time to put in, but it does look
+rather nice. I like mauve better than pink or blue."
+
+There came a knock at the door.
+
+"Come in!" called Miss Jones, bare-armed and bare-legged in the middle
+of the room.
+
+"Wait a minute!" exclaimed the scandalized Miss Marsh, in the midst of a
+shuffling process by which her clothes were removed under the nightgown
+which hung round her with empty flapping sleeves.
+
+"It's only me," said Miss Plumtree in melancholy tones, walking in. "I'm
+just waiting for my kettle to boil."
+
+The gas-ring was on the landing just outside the bedroom door.
+
+Grace looked up.
+
+"How pretty you look with your hair down!" she said admiringly.
+
+"Me? Rubbish!" exclaimed Miss Plumtree, colouring with astonishment and
+embarrassment, but with a much livelier note in her voice.
+
+"Your hair is so nice," explained Grace, gazing at the soft brown mop of
+curls.
+
+"Oh, lovely, of course."
+
+Miss Plumtree wriggled with confusion, and had no mind to betray how
+much the unaffected little bit of praise had restored her spirits. But
+she sat down on Grace's bed in her pink cotton kimono in a distinctly
+more cheerful frame of mind than that in which she had entered the room.
+
+"Are you in the blues, Gooseberry-bush?" was the sympathetic inquiry of
+Miss Marsh.
+
+"Well, I am, rather. It's Miss Vivian, you know. She can be awfully down
+on one when she likes."
+
+"I know; you always do seem to get on the wrong side of her. Grace will
+sympathize; she's just been abusing her like a pickpocket," said Miss
+Marsh, apparently believing herself to be speaking the truth.
+
+Miss Jones raised her eyebrows rather protestingly, but said nothing.
+She supposed that in an atmosphere of adulation such as that which
+appeared to her to surround Miss Vivian, even such negative criticism as
+was implied in an absence of comment might be regarded seriously enough.
+
+"But even if one doesn't like her _awfully_ much, she has a sort of
+fascination, don't you think?" said Miss Plumtree eagerly. "I always
+feel like a--a sort of bird with a sort of snake, you know."
+
+The modification which she wished to put into this trenchant comparison
+was successfully conveyed by the qualifying "sort of," an adverb
+distinctly in favour at the Hostel.
+
+"I know what you mean exactly, dear," Miss Marsh assured her. "And of
+course she does work one fearfully hard. I sometimes think I shall have
+to leave."
+
+"She works every bit as hard as we do--harder. I suppose you'll admit
+that, Gracie?"
+
+"Oh yes."
+
+"Don't go on like that," protested Miss Marsh, presumably with reference
+to some indefinable quality detected by her in these two simple
+monosyllables.
+
+"I only meant," said Grace Jones diffidently, "that it might really be
+better if she didn't do quite so much. If she could have her luncheon
+regularly, for instance."
+
+"My dear, she simply hasn't the time."
+
+"She could make it."
+
+"The work comes before everything with Miss Vivian. I mean, really it
+does," said Miss Plumtree solemnly.
+
+Miss Jones finished off the end of a thick plait of dark hair with a
+neat blue bow, and said nothing.
+
+"I suppose even you'll admit that, Gracie?"
+
+Grace gave a sudden little laugh, and said in the midst of it:
+
+"Really, I'm not sure."
+
+"My dear girl, what on earth do you mean?"
+
+"I think I mean that I don't feel certain Miss Vivian would work quite
+so hard or keep such very strenuous hours if she lived on a desert
+island, for instance."
+
+The other two exchanged glances.
+
+"Dotty, isn't she?"
+
+"Mad as a hatter, I should imagine."
+
+"Perhaps you'll explain what sort of war-work people _do_ on desert
+islands?"
+
+"That isn't what I mean, quite," Gracie explained. "My idea is that
+perhaps Miss Vivian does _partly_ work so very hard because there are so
+many people looking on. If she was on a desert isle she might--find time
+for luncheon."
+
+"My dear girl, you're ab-solutely raving, in my opinion," said Miss
+Plumtree with simple directness. "There! That's my kettle."
+
+She dashed out of the room, as a hissing sound betrayed that her kettle
+had overboiled on to the gas-ring, as it invariably did.
+
+After the rescue had been effected she looked in again and said:
+
+"I suppose you wouldn't let me come in for some of your tea tomorrow
+morning, would you, dear? Ours is absolutely finished, and that ass
+Henderson forgot to get any more."
+
+"Rather," said Miss Marsh cordially. "This extraordinary girl doesn't
+take any, so you can have the second cup."
+
+"Thanks most awfully. I can do without most things, but I can't do
+without my tea. Good-night, girls."
+
+It was an accepted fact all through the Hostel that, although one could
+do without most things, one could not do without one's tea.
+
+This requirement was of an elastic nature, and might extend from early
+morning to a late return from meeting a troop-train at night. Grace
+every morning refused the urgent offer of her room-mate to "make her a
+cup of nice hot tea," and watched, with a sort of interested surprise,
+while Miss Marsh got out of bed a quarter of an hour earlier than was
+necessary in order to fill and boil a small kettle and make herself
+three and sometimes four successive cups of very strong tea. She was
+always willing to share this refreshment with any one, but every room in
+the Hostel had its own appliances for tea-making, and made daily and
+ample use of them.
+
+Although Miss Jones did not drink tea, she often washed up the cup and
+saucer and the little teapot. Miss Marsh suffered from a chronic
+inability to arrive at the office punctually, although breakfast was at
+nine o'clock, and she had only to walk across the road. But she
+frequently said, in a very agitated way, as she rose from the
+breakfast-table:
+
+"Excuse me. I simply must go and do my washing. It's Monday, and I've
+left it to the last moment."
+
+This meant that the counting and dispatching of Miss Marsh's weekly
+bundle for the laundry would occupy all her energies until the desperate
+moment when she would look at her wrist-watch, exclaim in a mechanical
+sort of way, "Oh, damn! I shall never do it!" and dash out of the house
+and across Pollard Street as the clock struck ten.
+
+"I'll wash the tea-things for you."
+
+"Oh, no, dear! Why _should_ you? I can quite well do them to-night."
+
+But Grace knew that when her room-mate came in tired at seven o'clock
+that evening she might very likely want "a good hot cup of tea" then and
+there, and she accordingly took the little heap of crockery into the
+bathroom. Standing over the tiny basin jutting out of the wall, Miss
+Jones, with her sleeves carefully rolled up over a very solid pair of
+forearms, washed and dried each piece with orderly deliberation, and
+replaced them in the corner of Miss Marsh's cupboard.
+
+"I'm afraid you'll be late. Can't I help you?"
+
+"Thanks, dear, but I dare say I can just scramble through. What about
+_your_ washing?"
+
+"Oh, I did all that on Saturday night," said Grace, indicating a
+respectable brown-paper parcel tied up with string and with an orderly
+list pinned on to the outside.
+
+"You're a marvel!" sighed Miss Marsh. "Don't wait, Gracie."
+
+Miss Jones went downstairs and out into Pollard Street. She moved rather
+well, and had never been known to swing her arms as she walked. Her face
+was very serious. She often thought how kind it was of the others not to
+call her a prig, since her methodical habits and innate neatness
+appeared to be in such startling contrast to the standards prevailing at
+the Hostel. She had never been sent to school, or seen much of other
+girls, and the universal liking shown to her by her fellow-workers gave
+her almost daily a fresh sense of pleased surprise.
+
+Arrived at the office, she signed her name at the door, and proceeded
+upstairs to Miss Vivian's room.
+
+Miss Vivian came in, chilled from her motor drive and with that rather
+pinky tinge on her aquiline nose which generally forecasted a troubled
+morning. The observant Miss Jones regarded this law very
+matter-of-factly as an example of cause and effect. She felt sure that
+Miss Vivian only felt at her best when conscious of looking her best,
+and hoped very much that the winter would not be a very cold one. It was
+obvious that Miss Vivian suffered from defective circulation, which her
+sedentary existence had not improved.
+
+But it was Miss Delmege who solicitously suggested fetching a
+foot-warmer from the Supplies Department, and who placed it tenderly at
+the disposal of Miss Vivian.
+
+After that the atmosphere lightened, and it was with comparative
+equanimity that Miss Vivian received the announcement that a lady had
+called and desired to see her.
+
+"Please send up her name and her business on a slip of paper, and you
+can tell the clerk in the outer hall that I won't have those slipshod
+messages sent up," was the reception of the emissary.
+
+"Yes, Miss Vivian."
+
+Miss Delmege gathered up a sheaf of papers from her table and glided
+from the room. Grace, whose powers of mental detachment permitted her to
+concentrate on whatever she was doing without regard to her
+surroundings, went on with her work.
+
+The interviews conducted by Miss Vivian seldom interested her in the
+least.
+
+That this one was, however, destined to become an exception, struck her
+forcibly when the sudden sound of a piercing feminine voice on the
+stairs came rapidly nearer.
+
+"... as for my name on a slip of paper, I never heard such nonsensical
+red-tape in my life. Why, Char's mother and I were girls together!"
+
+Although every one in the office was aware that Miss Vivian's baptismal
+name was Charmian, and that this was invariably shortened by her
+acquaintances to Char, it came as a shock even to the imperturbable Miss
+Jones to hear this more or less sacred monosyllable ringing up the
+stairs to Miss Vivian's very table.
+
+"Who on earth--" began Char indignantly, when the door flew open before
+her caller, who exclaimed shrilly and affectionately on the threshold:
+
+"My dear child, you can't possibly know who I am, but my name is
+Willoughby, and when I was Lesbia Carroll your mother and I were girls
+together. I had to come in and take a peep at you!"
+
+There was a sort of rustling pounce, and Grace became aware that the
+outraged Miss Vivian had been audibly and overpoweringly kissed in the
+presence of a giggling Scout and of her own junior secretary.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+Mrs. Willoughby, in Miss Vivian's private office, reversed all rules of
+official precedent.
+
+"Sit down again, my dear child--sit down!" she cried cordially, at the
+same time establishing herself close to the table. "I hear you're doing
+wonderful work for all these dear people--Belgians and the dear Tommies
+and every one--and I felt I simply _had_ to come in and hear all about
+it. Also, I want to propound a tiny little scheme of my own which I
+think will appeal to you. Or have you heard about it already from that
+precious boy John, with whom, I may tell you, I'm simply _madly_ in
+love? I'm always threatening to elope with him!"
+
+"I'm afraid," said Char, disregarding her visitor's pleasantry, "that I
+can really hardly undertake anything more. We are very much understaffed
+as it is, and the War Office is always--"
+
+"I can turn the _whole_ War Office round my little finger, my dear,"
+declared Mrs. Willoughby. "There's the dearest lad there, a sort of
+under-secretary, who's absolutely devoted to me, and tells me all sorts
+of official tit-bits before any one else hears a word about them. I can
+get anything I want through him, so you needn't worry about the War
+Office. In fact, to tell you rather a shocking little secret, I can get
+what I want out of most of these big official places--just a little tiny
+manipulation of the wires, you know. [_Cherchez la femme_--though I
+oughtn't to say such things to a girl like you, ought I?"]
+
+Char looked at Mrs. Willoughby's large, heavily powdered face, at her
+enormous top-heavy hat and over-ample figure, and said nothing.
+
+But no silence, however subtly charged with uncomplimentary meanings,
+could stem Mrs. Willoughby's piercing eloquence.
+
+"This is what I want to do, and I'm told at the camp here that it would
+be simply invaluable. I want to get up a Canteen for the troops here,
+and for all those dear things on leave."
+
+"There are several Y.M.C.A. Huts already."
+
+"My dear! I know it. But I want to do this all on my little own, and
+have quite different rules and regulations. My Lewis, who's been in the
+Army for over fifteen years, poor angel, tells me that they all--from
+the Colonel downwards--think it would be the greatest boon on earth, to
+have a _lady_ at the head of things, you know."
+
+"My time is too much taken up; it would be quite out of the question,"
+said Char simply.
+
+"Darling child! _Do_ you suppose I meant you--a ridiculously young thing
+like you? Of course, it would have to be a married woman, with a certain
+regimental position, so to speak. And my Lewis is second in command, as
+you know, so that naturally his wife.... You see, the Colonel's wife is
+an absolute dear, but an invalid--more or less, and no more _savoir
+faire_ than a kitten. A perfect little provincial, between ourselves.
+Whereas, of course, I know this sort of job inside out and upside
+down--literally, my dear. The _hours_ I've toiled in town!"
+
+"But I'm afraid in that case you oughtn't to leave--"
+
+"I must! I'm compelled to! It's _too_ cruel, but the doctor simply won't
+answer for the consequences if I go back to London in my present state.
+But work I _must_. One would go quite, quite mad if one wasn't
+working--thinking about it all, you know."
+
+"Major Willoughby is--er--in England, isn't he?"
+
+"Thank God, yes!" exclaimed Lesbia, with a fervour that would have
+startled her husband considerably. "My heart bleeds for these poor wives
+and mothers. I simply thank God upon my knees that I have no son! When
+one thinks of it all--England's life-blood--"
+
+Char did not share her mother's objection to eloquence expended upon the
+subject of the war, but she cut crisply enough into this _exaltée_
+outpouring.
+
+"One is extremely thankful to do what little one can," she said,
+half-unconsciously throwing an appraising glance at the files and papers
+that were littered in profusion all over the table.
+
+"Indeed one is!" cried Lesbia, just as fervently as before. "Work is the
+only thing. My dear, this war is killing me--simply killing me!"
+
+Miss Vivian was not apparently prompted to any expression of regret at
+the announcement.
+
+"As I said to Lewis the other day, I must work or go quite mad. And now
+this Canteen scheme seems to be calling out to me, and go I must. We've
+got a building--that big hall just at the bottom of the street here--and
+I'm insisting upon having a regular opening day--so much better to start
+these things with a flourish, you know--and the regimental band, and
+hoisting the Union Jack, and everything. And what I want you to do is
+this."
+
+Lesbia paused at last to take breath, and Char immediately said:
+
+"I'm afraid I'm so fearfully busy today that I haven't one moment, but
+if you'd like my secretary to--"
+
+"Not your secretary, but your _entire_ staff, and your attractive self.
+I want you _all_ down there to help!"
+
+"Quite impossible," said Char. "I wonder, Mrs. Willoughby, if you have
+any idea of the scale on which this Depôt is run?"
+
+"_Every_ idea," declared Lesbia recklessly. "I'm told everywhere that
+all the girls in Questerham are helping you, and that's exactly why I've
+come. I want girls to make my Canteen attractive--all the prettiest ones
+you have."
+
+"I'm afraid my staff was not selected with a view to--er--personal
+attractions," said Miss Vivian, in a voice which would have created
+havoc amongst her staff in its ironical chilliness.
+
+"Nonsense, my dear Char! I met the sweetest thing on the stairs--a
+perfect gem of a creature with Titian-coloured hair. Not in that hideous
+uniform, either."
+
+Miss Vivian could not but recognize the description of her typist.
+
+"I don't quite understand," she said. "Do you want helpers on your
+opening day, or regularly?"
+
+"Quite regularly--from five to eleven or thereabouts every evening. I
+shall be there myself, of course, to supervise the whole thing, and I've
+got half a dozen dear things to help me: but what I want is _girls_,
+who'll run about and play barmaid and wash up, you know."
+
+"Couldn't my mother spare Miss Bruce sometimes?"
+
+"_Is_ Miss Bruce a young and lively girl?" inquired Mrs. Willoughby, not
+without reason. "Besides, I need dozens of them."
+
+"Yes, I see," said Char languidly. She was tired of Mrs. Willoughby, and
+it was with positive relief that she heard her telephone-bell ring
+sharply.
+
+There was a certain satisfaction in leaning back in her chair and
+calling, "Miss--er--Jones!"
+
+Miss Jones moved quietly to answer the insistent bell.
+
+"I'm afraid this rather breaks into our consultation," said Char, deftly
+making her opportunity, "but may I write to you and let you know what I
+can manage?"
+
+"I shall pop in again and commandeer all these delightful young
+creatures of yours. I'm marvellous at recruiting, my dear; every man I
+met out of khaki I always attacked in the early days. White feathers,
+you know, and everything of that sort. I had no mercy on them. One lad I
+absolutely dragged by main force to the recruiting office, though he
+said he couldn't leave his wife and babies. But, as I told him, I'd had
+to let my Lewis go--he was on the East Coast then--and was _proud_ to do
+my bit for England. I dare say the wretch got out of it afterwards,
+because they wouldn't let me come in with him while he was actually
+being sworn, or whatever it is. Such red-tape!"
+
+Char paid small attention to these reminiscences of Lesbia's past
+activities.
+
+"What is it, Miss Jones?"
+
+"The D.G.V.O. is here."
+
+"The Director-General of Voluntary Organizations," said Miss Vivian,
+carelessly tossing off the imposing syllables, with the corner of her
+eye, as it were, fixed upon Mrs. Willoughby. "In that case, I'm afraid I
+must ask you to forgive me."
+
+"I must fly," said Lesbia in a sudden shriek, ignoring her dismissal
+with great skill. "Some of those boys from the camp are lunching with
+me, and they'll never forgive me if I'm late."
+
+"Ask the Director-General of Voluntary Organizations to come up, Miss
+Jones," drawled Char. "And show Mrs. Willoughby the way downstairs."
+
+"Good-bye, you sweet thing!" cried Lesbia gaily, agitating a tightly
+gloved white-kid hand. "I shall pop in again in a day or two, and you
+must let me help you. I adore Belgians--positively adore them, and can
+do anything I like with them."
+
+Mrs. Willoughby's enthusiasm was still audible during her rustling
+progress down the stairs.
+
+Char paid full attention to her interview with the opportunely arrived
+Director-General of Voluntary Organizations, because she wished him to
+think her a most official and business-like woman, entirely capable of
+accomplishing all that she had undertaken; but when the dignitary had
+departed she gave serious consideration to the scheme so lightly
+propounded by Mrs. Willoughby.
+
+The visit of this enthusiast had ruffled her more than she would have
+owned to herself, and it was almost instinctively that she strove to
+readjust the disturbed balance of her own sense of competence and
+self-devotion by waving aside all Miss Delmege's proposals of lunch.
+
+"I'm afraid I haven't got time for anything of that sort today. I've had
+a most interrupted morning. No, Miss Delmege, thank you, not even a bun.
+You'd better go to your own lunch now."
+
+"I'm not in any hurry, Miss Vivian."
+
+"It's one o'clock," Miss Vivian pointed out, quite aware that her
+secretary would now seek her cold mutton and milk-pudding with an
+absolute sense of guilt, as of one indulging in a Sybaritic orgy while
+her chief held aloof in austere abstention.
+
+Miss Delmege, in fact, looked very unhappy, and said in low tones to her
+colleague at the other end of the room: "Miss Jones, if you care to go
+to lunch first, I'll take my time off between two and half-past instead,
+at the second table."
+
+The second table for lunch was never a popular institution, the mutton
+and the milk-pudding having lost what charms they ever possessed, and,
+moreover, the time allowed being abridged by almost half an hour. Miss
+Delmege, in virtue of her seniority and of her own excessive sense of
+superiority, always arranged that Grace should take the second
+luncheon-hour, and Miss Jones looked surprised.
+
+"Do you mind, because really I don't care when I go?"
+
+"I'd _rather_ you went first," repeated Miss Delmege unhappily.
+
+"Thank you very much. I'm very hungry, and if you really don't mind, I
+shall be delighted to go now," said Grace cheerfully, in an undertone
+that nevertheless penetrated to Miss Vivian's annoyed perceptions.
+
+It was evident that Miss Jones had no qualms as to enjoying a
+substantial lunch, however long her overworked employer might elect to
+fast, and the conviction was perhaps responsible for the sharpness with
+which Char exclaimed: "For Heaven's sake don't chatter in the corner
+like that! You're driving me perfectly mad--a day when one simply
+doesn't know which way to _turn_."
+
+Miss Delmege sank into her chair, looking more overwhelmed than ever,
+and Grace said gently, "I'm sorry, Miss Vivian," disregarding or not
+understanding Miss Delmege's signal that apologies were out of place in
+Miss Vivian's office.
+
+Char drew pen and ink towards her, purely _pour la forme_, and began to
+make mechanical designs on the blotting-paper, while her mind turned
+over and over the question of Mrs. Willoughby's proposed canteen.
+
+Char thought that her staff's time was fully employed already, as indeed
+it was, and had no wish to arouse any possible accusation of
+overworking. At the same time, she had hitherto succeeded in taking over
+the management of almost every war organization in Questerham and the
+district, and was by no means minded to allow a new Canteen, on a large
+scale, to spring into life under no better auspices than those of Mrs.
+Willoughby.
+
+If she allowed her staff to go down to the Canteen in instalments, Char
+decided it would have to be definitely understood that the organization
+of the Canteen was entirely in the hands of the Midland Supply Depôt.
+She surmised shrewdly that such details of practical requirements as a
+boiler, tea-urns, kitchen utensils, and the like, had not yet crossed
+the sanguine line of vision of Mrs. Willoughby. It would be easy enough
+for Char to assume command when she alone could supply all such needs at
+a minimum of expenditure and trouble. The staff, she decided, should be
+sent down in shifts of five or six at a time, five nights a week.
+
+Then, Char reflected considerately, no one could have more than one
+night in the week, whereas she herself would always put in an
+appearance, even if only for a few minutes. It would encourage her
+staff, and would also show Mrs. Willoughby quite plainly the sort of
+position held by the Director of the Midland Supply Depôt.
+
+That afternoon she sent for Miss Collins and dictated a short letter to
+Mrs. Willoughby, in which she declared, in the third person singular,
+that the Director of the Midland Supply Depôt had considered the
+proposed scheme for the opening of a Canteen in Pollard Street, and was
+prepared to help with the practical management of it. She would also
+supply six voluntary workers between the hours of 7 and 11 P.M. for
+every night in the week, Saturday excepted. As she took down these
+official statements, Miss Collins's light eyebrows mounted almost into
+the roots of her red hair with surprise and disapproval.
+
+Char, being observant, saw these symptoms of astonishment, as she was
+meant to do, but few thoughts were further from her mind than that of
+consulting the views of her stenographer on any subject. She even took a
+certain amount of satisfaction in dictating a rather imperiously worded
+document, which informed each department in the office that those
+workers who lived in Questerham would be required to report for duty one
+night a week for emergency work (7 to 11 P.M.) at the new Canteen which
+would shortly be opened in Pollard Street under the direction of Miss
+Vivian and Mrs. Willoughby. Followed a list of names, with a
+corresponding day of the week attached to each group of six.
+
+"Cut a stencil and roll off six copies for each department and two or
+three extra ones for filing," commanded Miss Vivian. "You can add at the
+end: '(Signed) Director of the Midland Supply Depôt.'"
+
+"Yes, Miss Vivian."
+
+Miss Collins went away with her eyebrows still erect.
+
+The new field of enterprise was loudly discussed by the staff, as they
+took the usual half-hour's break in the afternoon at tea-time.
+
+"Isn't Miss Vivian wonderful?" said Tony excitedly. "She'd take on
+_anything_, I do believe."
+
+"And make a success of it, too!"
+
+"Yes, rather."
+
+Hardly any one grumbled at the extra four hours of hard work coming at
+the end of the day, and there was a general feeling of disapproval when
+Mrs. Bullivant at the Hostel said timidly: "If you're to be down there
+at seven, it'll be rather difficult to arrange about supper. Cook won't
+like having to get a meal ready for half-past six, and, besides, you'll
+be so hungry by eleven o'clock."
+
+"I'm afraid we can't think of that, Mrs. Bullivant," observed Miss
+Delmege severely. "Not when we remember that Miss Vivian practically
+_never_ gets her supper till long after ten every night, and she doesn't
+get much lunch, either. In fact, sometimes she simply won't touch
+anything at all in the middle of the day."
+
+And Mrs. Bullivant looked very much rebuked, and said that she must see
+what she could do. "Anyhow, it won't be just yet awhile," she exclaimed
+with Irish optimism.
+
+"Things move very quickly with Miss Vivian."
+
+"I think they mean the Canteen to open some time in December," said
+Grace. "That's not so very far off."
+
+"Time does fly," sighed Miss Plumtree, wishing that the Monthly Averages
+were divided from one another by a longer space of time.
+
+"Never mind, Sunday is all the nearer."
+
+Sunday was the day most looked forward to by the whole Hostel, although
+an element of uncertainty was added to the enjoyment of it by the
+knowledge that the arrival of a troop-train might bring orders to any or
+every member of the staff to report for duty at the station at half an
+hour's notice.
+
+One or two of the girls were able to go out of Questerham home, or to
+their friends, for the week-end, but the majority remained in the
+Hostel. Mrs. Bullivant tried to make the day "bright and homey" at the
+cost of pathetic exertions to herself, for Sunday was her hardest day of
+work.
+
+A certain _laissez-aller_ marked the day from its earliest beginnings.
+
+Almost every one came down to breakfast in bedroom slippers, even though
+fully dressed.
+
+"A girl here--before you came, Gracie," Miss Marsh told her room-mate,
+"used to come down in a kimono and sort of boudoir-cap arrangement. But
+I must say nobody liked it--just like a greasy foreigner, she was. All
+the sleeves loose, you know, so that you could see right up her arms.
+Myself, I don't call that awfully nice--not at the breakfast-table."
+
+"It would be very cold to do that now," said Grace, shivering. She
+disliked the cold very much, and the Hostel was not warmed.
+
+"Yes, wouldn't it? It's a comfort to get into one's own clothes again
+and out of uniform, isn't it, dear? That's what I like about
+Sundays--dainty clothes again," said Miss Marsh, fiercely pulling a comb
+backwards through her hair so as to make it look fluffy.
+
+"I like you in uniform, though," said Miss Jones, who had received
+several shocks on first beholding the Sunday garbs known to the Hostel
+as "plain clothes."
+
+"Very sweet of you to say that, dear. You always look nice yourself,
+only your plain clothes are too like your uniform--just a white blouse
+and dark skirt you wear, isn't it?"
+
+"I'm afraid it's all I've got," said Grace apologetically; and Miss
+Marsh at once thought that perhaps poor little Gracie couldn't afford
+many things, and said warmly:
+
+"But white blouses are awfully nice, dear, and _crêpe de Chine_ always
+looks so _good_."
+
+Then she thrust her stockinged feet into her red slippers and shuffled
+across the room. "How lucky you are! You never have to back-comb your
+hair, do you?"
+
+"I never do back-comb it, because it's so bad for it," said Grace
+seriously. She had a book open on the dressing-table in front of her,
+but was characteristically quite as much interested in Miss Marsh's
+conversation as in her own reading.
+
+"'Daniel Deronda'?" said Miss Marsh, looking over her. "Never heard of
+him. How fond you are of reading, Gracie! I love it myself, but I don't
+ever have time for it here."
+
+The plea being one which never fails to rouse the scorn of every
+book-lover, Grace remained silent. Her solitary extravagance was the
+maximum subscription to the Questerham library.
+
+"There's the bell," said Miss Marsh; "I must come up and make my bed
+afterwards. Thank goodness, there's no hurry today."
+
+They went down together, Miss Marsh's heelless slippers clapping behind
+her on every step.
+
+In the sitting-room after breakfast the girls clustered round the tiny
+smoking fire.
+
+"It's going to rain all day. How beastly!" said Tony. "Who's going to
+church?"
+
+"I shall probably go to evensong," remarked Miss Delmege, upon which
+several people at once decided that they would risk the weather and go
+to the eleven o'clock service.
+
+There was only one church in Questerham which the Hostel thought it
+fashionable to attend.
+
+The day was spent in more or less desultory lounging over the fire. Miss
+Delmege wrote a number of letters and Tony darned stockings. Grace Jones
+read "Daniel Deronda" to herself.
+
+Lunch was protracted, and Mrs. Bullivant, to mark the day, exerted
+herself and made some rather smoked coffee, which she brought to the
+sitting-room triumphantly.
+
+"Isn't there going to be any music this afternoon?" she inquired.
+
+Every one declared that music was the very thing for such an afternoon,
+but no one appeared very willing to provide it.
+
+"Do sing, somebody," implored Miss Henderson. "Plumtree?"
+
+Miss Plumtree had a beautiful deep voice, utterly untrained and
+consequently unspoilt. She stood up willingly enough and sang all the
+songs that she was asked for. The taste of the Hostel was definite in
+songs. "A Perfect Day" and "The Rosary" were listened to in the absolute
+silence of appreciation, and then some one asked for a selection from
+the latest musical comedy.
+
+Grace played Miss Plumtree's accompaniments, and loved listening to her
+soft, deep tones. She tried to make her sing "Three Fishers," but Miss
+Plumtree said no: it was too sad for a Sunday afternoon, and it was some
+one else's turn.
+
+Musical talent in the Hostel was limited, and the only other owner of a
+voice was Miss Delmege, the possessor of a high, thin soprano, which,
+she often explained, had been the subject of much attention on the part
+of "a really first-rate man in Clifton."
+
+It might remain open to question whether the energies of the really
+first-rate man could not have been turned into channels more
+advantageous than that of developing Miss Delmege's attenuated thread of
+voice. Whatever the original organ might have been, it was now educated
+into a refined squeak, overweighted with affectations which to Miss
+Delmege represented the art of production. She sang various improvident
+love-songs in which Love--high F, attained to by a species of upwards
+slide on E and E sharp--was all, When eventide should fall--slight
+tremolo and a giving out of breath rather before the accompanist had
+struck the final chord.
+
+"You should take the _finale_ rather more _à tempo_, dear," said the
+singer, in a professional way which finally vindicated the
+first-rateness of the man at Clifton.
+
+Every one thanked Miss Delmege very much, and said that was a sweetly
+pretty song; and then Grace Jones played the piano while Tony and Miss
+Henderson made toast for tea and put the largest and least burnt pieces
+aside for her. Tea, with the aid of conversation and the making of
+innumerable pieces of toast over the least smoky parts of the fire,
+could almost be prolonged till supper-time.
+
+"I must say, I do enjoy doing nothing," said Miss Henderson, voicing the
+general sentiment at the end of the day of rest.
+
+"Poor Mrs. Potter is on the telephone. How cold she'll be, sitting there
+all the evening!"
+
+"I hope she saw to Miss Vivian's fire," said Miss Delmege solicitously.
+"I particularly reminded her to build up a good fire in Miss Vivian's
+room. She does feel the cold so."
+
+"Perhaps she didn't come this afternoon," said Grace. "There was nothing
+left over in her basket last night."
+
+"Oh, she always comes," Miss Delmege said quickly and rather
+resentfully. "I've never known her miss a Sunday yet. Besides, I know
+she was there today. I saw the light in her window as I came back from
+church."
+
+"I do believe," said Tony in a stage whisper, "that Delmege goes to
+evening church on purpose to look up at the light in Miss Vivian's
+window as she comes back."
+
+But the joke was received silently, as being in but indifferent taste,
+and verging on irreverence almost equally as regarded church and the
+Director of the Midland Supply Depôt.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+The new Canteen in Pollard Street was opened before Christmas.
+
+Lesbia Willoughby, in an immense overall of light blue-and-white check,
+stood behind a long buffet and demanded stridently whether she wasn't
+too exactly like a barmaid for words, and Char's consignment of helpers
+worked for the most part briskly and efficiently, only the unfortunate
+Miss Plumtree upsetting a mug of scalding tea over herself at the
+precise moment when Miss Vivian, trim and workmanlike in her dark
+uniform, entered the big hall and stood watching the scene with her
+arrogant, observant gaze. She did not ask Miss Plumtree whether her hand
+was scalded, but neither did she rebuke her very evident clumsiness. She
+moved slowly and imperially through the thick tobacco-laden atmosphere,
+speaking to several of the men, and silently observing the demeanour of
+her staff.
+
+The following week she issued an office circular in which the precise
+direction which the activity of each worker was to take was inexorably
+laid down.
+
+Miss Plumtree was banished _à perpetuité_ to the pantry, to wash up at
+full speed over a sink. She worked at the Canteen on Mondays, always the
+busiest evening. In the same shift were Mrs. Potter and Miss Henderson,
+to each of whom was appointed the care of an urn, Grace Jones, Miss
+Delmege, and Miss Marsh. Miss Delmege stood behind the buffet, which
+position, she said, seemed very strange to her from being so like a
+counter in a shop, and the other two took orders at the various small
+tables in the hall, and hurried to and fro with laden trays.
+
+No one would have dreamed of disputing this arbitrary disposal of
+energies, but it struck Grace as extremely unfortunate that Miss Marsh
+and Miss Delmege should select their first Monday together at the
+Canteen for the form of unpleasantness known as "words." Miss Jones
+became the medium by which alone either would address the other.
+
+"I'm sorry, dear, but Delmege has really got on my nerves lately, and
+you can tell her I said so if you like. When it comes to suggesting that
+I don't do sufficient work, there's simply nothing more to be said. You
+heard her the other night saying some people were so lucky they could
+always get off early when they liked. Just because I'd cleared up by six
+o'clock, for once in a way!"
+
+"But she didn't say she meant you," urged Miss Jones, who was far too
+sympathetic not to take any grievance confided to her at the teller's
+own valuation, and foresaw besides an extremely awkward evening at the
+Canteen.
+
+"Some people aren't straightforward enough to say what they mean right
+out, but that doesn't prevent others from seeing the point of the sort
+of remarks they pass," declared Miss Marsh cryptically.
+
+"If she told you she really hadn't meant anything personal, wouldn't it
+be all right?"
+
+But Grace did not make the suggestion very hopefully, and her room-mate
+merely repeated gloomily that Delmege had really got on her nerves
+lately, and though she did not think herself one to bear malice, yet
+there were limits to all things.
+
+Grace's success with Miss Delmege on their way down the street at seven
+o'clock that evening, was even less apparent.
+
+"It's all very well, dear, but I've always been _most_ sensitive. I
+can't help it. I know it's very silly, but there it is. As a tiny tot,
+mother always used to say of me, 'That child Vera is so sensitive, she
+can't bear a sharp word.' I know it's very silly to be thin-skinned, and
+causes one a great deal of suffering as one goes through life, but it's
+the way I'm made. I always was so."
+
+This complacent monologue lasted almost to the bottom of Pollard Street,
+when Grace interrupted desperately: "Do make it up with her before we
+start this job. It's so much nicer to be all cheerful together when
+we've got a hard evening in front of us."
+
+"I'm quite willing to be friendly, when Miss Marsh speaks to me first.
+At the present moment, dear, as you know, she's behaving very strangely
+indeed, and doesn't speak to me at all. Of course, I don't mind either
+way--in fact, it only amuses me--but I don't mind telling you, Gracie,
+that I think her whole way of carrying on is most strange altogether."
+
+Grace felt a desperate certainty that affairs were indeed past remedy
+when Miss Delmege had to resort so freely to her favourite adjective
+"strange" to describe the manners and conduct of Miss Marsh.
+
+She entered the hall rather dejectedly. It was very tiring to hurry
+about with heavy trays at the end of a long day's work, and the
+atmosphere seemed thicker than ever tonight and the noise greater. Grace
+hung up her coat and hat, and hastily made room on the already
+overcrowded peg for Miss Marsh's belongings, as she heard Miss Delmege
+say gently "_Excuse_ me," and deliberately appropriate to her own use
+the peg selected by her neighbour.
+
+"Did you see that?" demanded Miss Marsh excitedly. "Isn't that Delmege
+all over? After this, Gracie, I shall simply not speak to her till she
+apologizes. Simply ignore her. Believe me, dear, it's the only way. I
+shall behave as though Delmege didn't exist."
+
+This threat was hardly carried out to the letter. No one could have
+failed to see a poignant consciousness of Miss Delmege's existence in
+the elaborate blindness and deafness which assailed Miss Marsh when
+within her neighbourhood.
+
+Miss Delmege adopted a still more trying policy, and addressed acid
+remarks in a small, penetrating voice to her surroundings.
+
+"I must say the state of _some_ trays is like nothing on earth!" she
+said to Grace, when Miss Marsh had spilt a cup of cocoa over her
+tray-cloth and brought it back to the counter for a fresh supply. "How
+the poor men stand it! I must say I do like things to be _dainty_
+myself. Give me a meal daintily served and I don't care what it is! All
+depends what one's been used to, I suppose."
+
+"I should be awfully obliged, Gracie, if you could get hold of a clean
+tray-cloth for me," said Miss Marsh furiously. "There doesn't seem to be
+anybody not-what-I-call-_capable_ here."
+
+Grace looked appealingly at Miss Delmege, but the pince-nez were
+directed towards the roof, and Miss Delmege's elegantly curved fingers
+were engaged in swiftly unloading a tray of clean plates.
+
+"A clean cloth for this tray, please," said Gracie rapidly. "There's
+been a spill."
+
+Miss Delmege, appearing quite capable of seeing through the back of her
+head, still kept her back turned to the infuriated Miss Marsh, and said
+coldly: "How very messy, dear! But I'm sure you're not responsible for
+that. Some people are so strange; their fingers seem to be all thumbs."
+
+"I can't stand here all night, Gracie!" exclaimed Miss Marsh, recklessly
+tipping all the dirty crockery from the tray on to the counter. "You
+wouldn't let me have your cloth, I suppose, would you, dear?" At the
+same time she skilfully disproved her own supposition by rapidly
+possessing herself of Grace's clean tray-cloth.
+
+"Of all the coolness! Here, dear; I'll give you another one. What's your
+order?"
+
+"Cup of tea, sausage and mashed, roll of bread."
+
+Miss Delmege gave the short mirthless snigger with which she always
+acclaimed such orders, so as to make it clear that she did not take
+anything so vulgar as a sausage and mashed potatoes seriously, and
+further exclaimed, "They are quaint, aren't they?" as she telephoned
+through to the kitchen.
+
+"Miss Jones," said Char's cool voice behind her, "I've been watching you
+for the last five minutes. Kindly ask for what you want a little more
+quickly. You seem to forget that the man is waiting for his supper."
+
+She waited while the order was being rapidly executed from the kitchen,
+watching the two girls. Miss Delmege coloured faintly, and moved about
+restlessly under the scrutiny of which she was obviously conscious, but
+Grace's small, pale face had not altered, and she stood by the counter
+waiting for her tray, gazing quite interestedly at a small group of new
+arrivals.
+
+Mrs. Willoughby stood at the door, eagerly ushering in visitors whom she
+had obviously invited to survey the scene of her activities.
+
+"This is my little job--plenty of the dear fellows here tonight, you
+see. Aren't they dears, and don't they look too delightfully at home for
+words? I must fly back to my barmaid's job now; you'll see me behind the
+counter in another minute, Joanna. I find I have the most wonderful
+talent for _chaff_--the men love it so, you know. Do come in,
+John--you're my chief asset here tonight; the men will simply love your
+Military Cross. I want you to come round and tell one or two of my
+special pets exactly how you won it."
+
+Only the secret pressure of his Cousin Joanna's hand on his arm and the
+mirthful gleam in her blue eyes prevented Captain Trevellyan, with his
+Military Cross, from taking an instant departure.
+
+Lady Vivian raised her _lorgnette_. "Where's Char?"
+
+"Much too busy on her high official horse even to see me," cried Lesbia
+with a sort of jovial spite. "Now, Joanna, I insist upon your getting
+into an overall at once, and helping me. I'll commandeer one."
+
+Grace Jones went past them with her laden tray, and Mrs. Willoughby
+grasped her arm.
+
+"I want you to find me an overall for this lady before you stir another
+_step_," she shrieked emphatically.
+
+"Nonsense, Lesbia!" interposed Lady Vivian brusquely. "I don't suppose
+there is such a thing to spare, and, besides, I don't want one."
+
+She wore the plainest of dark coats and skirts and a soft silk shirt.
+Grace looked at her with composed admiration and a sense of gratitude.
+She did not wish to be further delayed with the heavy tray on her hands.
+
+"There's my dear Lance-Corporal!" exclaimed Lesbia, and hurled herself
+in the direction of a burly form which appeared strongly impelled to
+seek cover behind the piano as she advanced.
+
+Captain Trevellyan gently took the tray from Miss Jones.
+
+"Where shall I take it?"
+
+"Thank you very much," said Grace thankfully, dropping her aching arms.
+"That table over there, right at the end, if you will. It's very kind of
+you."
+
+She turned to Lady Vivian rather apologetically. "I'm afraid I ought not
+to have let him do that, but we're rather behindhand tonight. Are you
+come to help?"
+
+She supposed that this tall, curiously attractive new-comer was the wife
+of one of the officers from the camp.
+
+"Yes, if you'll tell me what to do."
+
+"If you'd carry trays? One of our workers is--is _impeded_ tonight,"
+said Grace, conscientiously selecting a euphemism for the peculiar
+handicap under which Miss Marsh was labouring.
+
+For the next two hours Lady Vivian worked vigorously, in spite of a
+protest from John, who took the view of feminine weakness peculiar to
+unusually strong men.
+
+"These trays are too heavy for any woman to carry! It's monstrous! I
+shall tell Char so."
+
+"By all means tell her. I certainly think it's very bad for these girls,
+and at the end of a long day's work, too. But as for me, you know I'm as
+strong as a horse, Johnnie, and I enjoy the exercise. It warms me!"
+
+Her face was glowing and her step elastic. John realized, not for the
+first time, that Sir Piers's slow, rambling walks round the grounds and
+still slower evening games of billiards formed the major part of his
+Cousin Joanna's physical activities. He stood watching her thoughtfully.
+
+Char stopped in his immediate vicinity, and gave a couple of orders in
+her slow, despotic drawl. She rather wanted Johnnie to see how promptly
+and unquestioningly they were received.
+
+Johnnie, however, appeared to have his thoughts elsewhere, and Char
+rather vexedly followed his gaze.
+
+"How I wish my mother wouldn't do this sort of thing!" she said under
+her breath. "It's most tiring for her, and besides--"
+
+"Besides?" inquired Trevellyan, always courteous, but never of the
+quickest at catching an inflection.
+
+"I'm afraid I think it _infra dig_. Darting about with all these girls,
+when she's capable of such very different sort of work--if only she'd do
+it!"
+
+"My dear Char, what on earth do you want her to do?" demanded
+Trevellyan, to whom it came as a shock that any one who was privileged
+to live near Joanna should think her anything but perfect.
+
+"She is an extremely capable woman of business; why shouldn't she take
+up some big work for the Government? They are crying out for educated
+women."
+
+"She couldn't possibly leave your father alone at Plessing."
+
+"She could do a certain amount of work at home even without that. The
+truth is, Johnnie, that neither she nor my father have _realized_
+there's a war on at all. They've no sons out there in the trenches, and
+it hasn't hit them materially; they've not felt it in any single,
+smallest way. I shouldn't say it to any one but you, but there are times
+at Plessing when I could go _mad_. To hear my father talk on and on
+about whether some tree on the estate needs cutting or not, just as
+though on the other side of a little strip of sea--"
+
+She broke off with a shudder that was not altogether histrionic.
+
+"And mother--she wouldn't even knit socks, because it interfered with
+his billiards in the evenings! I don't understand her, Johnnie. She must
+_know_ what it all means, yet it's all shoved away in the background.
+Brucey tells me that she's under standing orders not to discuss the news
+in the papers at breakfast, and mother won't have a single war-book in
+the house--not even a war-novel, if she can help it. It's as though they
+were deliberately trying to blind themselves. I _can't_ understand it."
+
+Trevellyan did not feel sure that he understood it, either, but, unlike
+Char, there was in his mind no shadow of criticism for that which he did
+not understand. The limitation, Trevellyan always felt, was entirely
+his.
+
+But he was able to look sympathetically also at Char's vexed
+bewilderment.
+
+"You're not at Plessing very much, nowadays, yourself."
+
+"No. I don't think I could bear it, Johnnie. Of course they say I'm
+doing too much, but, after all, I'm of an age to decide that for myself,
+and to my mind there's simply no choice in the matter. Thank Heaven one
+_can_ work!"
+
+"Your undertaking is a colossal thing, in its way. It's wonderful of
+you, Char!"
+
+She looked pleased.
+
+"It's running well at present. Of course, I know what a tiny part of the
+whole it is really, but--" She broke off quickly as Lady Vivian joined
+them.
+
+"Who is the little dark-haired girl I've been working with, Char? The
+one at that table...."
+
+"Oh, a Miss--er--Jones," said Char languidly.
+
+"You never told me you had any one of her sort here. I want to ask her
+out to Plessing. Couldn't we take her back in the car tonight?"
+
+"My dear mother!" Char opened her eyes in an expression of exaggerated
+horror. "One of my staff?"
+
+"Well?" queried Lady Vivian coolly, stripping off her borrowed overall.
+
+"Quite out of the question. You don't in the least realize the official
+footing on which I have to keep those women."
+
+"I should have thought you needn't be any the less official for showing
+some friendliness to a girl who's come all the way from Wales to help
+you."
+
+"She's my under-secretary, mother."
+
+"What! sub-scrub to the genteel Miss Delmege? She's got ten times her
+brains, and is a lady into the bargain."
+
+It infuriated Char that her mother's cool, tacit refusal to acknowledge
+the infallibility of the Director of the Midland Supply Depôt could
+always make her feel like a little girl again.
+
+She rallied all her most official mannerisms together.
+
+"It's quite impossible for me to differentiate between the various
+members of the staff, or to make any unofficial advances to any of
+them."
+
+"Very well, my dear. As, thank Heaven, I'm not a member of your staff, I
+can remain as unofficial as I please, and have nice little Miss Jones
+out to see me."
+
+"Mother," said Char in an agony, "it's simply _impossible_. The girl
+would never know her place in the office again; and think of all the
+cackling there'd be at the Questerham Hostel about my asking any one out
+to Plessing. Johnnie, do tell her it's out of the question."
+
+Trevellyan looked at Joanna with a laugh in his blue eyes. He realized,
+as Char would never realize, that her assumption of officialdom always
+provoked her mother to the utterance of ironical threats which she had
+never the slightest intention of fulfilling.
+
+She shrugged her shoulders slightly at her daughter's vehemence, and
+crossed over to where Grace Jones was putting on her coat and hat again.
+
+"Good-night. I hope you're not as tired as you look," she said with a
+sort of abrupt graciousness.
+
+"Oh no, thank you. It's been an extra busy night. It was so kind of you
+to help."
+
+"I wish I could come again," said Lady Vivian rather wistfully, "but I
+don't know that I shall be able to."
+
+Lesbia Willoughby, dashing past them at full speed, found time to fling
+a piercing rebuke over her shoulder.
+
+"There's _always_ a will where there's a way, Joanna. Look at me!"
+
+Neither of them took advantage of the invitation, and Joanna said
+irrelevantly: "I should like you to come and see me, if you will, but I
+know you're at work all day. I must try and find you next time I come
+into Questerham."
+
+"Thank you very much," said Grace in a pleased voice. "I should like
+that very much indeed. Good-night."
+
+"Good-night," repeated Joanna, and went back to where her daughter, with
+a rather indignant demeanour, was waiting for her.
+
+"Well?" asked Char, rather sullenly.
+
+Lady Vivian, who almost invariably became flippant when her daughter was
+most in earnest, said provokingly: "Well, my dear, I've made
+arrangements for all sorts of unofficial rendezvous. You may see Miss
+Delmege at Plessing yet."
+
+"Miss Delmege is a very good worker," said Char icily. "She's very much
+in earnest, always ready to stay overtime and finish up anything
+important."
+
+"I'm sure Miss Jones is good at her job, too," said Trevellyan,
+supposing himself to be tactful.
+
+"Fairly good. Not extraordinarily quick-witted, though, and much too
+sure of herself. I can't help thinking it's rather a pity to distinguish
+her from the others, mother; she's probably only too ready to take airs
+as it is, if she's of rather a different class."
+
+"Fiddlesticks!" declared Lady Vivian briskly. "Put on your coat, Char,
+and come along. I can't keep the car waiting any longer. Rather a
+different class indeed! What has that to do with it? The girl's most
+attractive--an original type, too."
+
+"Of course, if mother has taken one of her sudden violent fancies to
+this Jones child, I may as well make up my mind to hear nothing else,
+morning, noon, or night," Char muttered to John Trevellyan, who replied
+with matter-of-fact common sense that Char wasn't at Plessing for more
+than an hour or two on any single day, let alone morning, noon, and
+night.
+
+"Char," said Lady Vivian from the car, "if you don't come now I shall
+leave you to spend the night at the Questerham Hostel, where you'll lose
+all your prestige with the staff, and have to eat and sleep just like an
+ordinary human being."
+
+The Director of the Midland Supply Depôt got into her parent's motor in
+silence, and with a movement that might have been fairly described as a
+flounce.
+
+The members of the staff walked up the street towards the Hostel.
+
+"Who was the lady in black who helped with the trays?" asked Grace. "She
+was so nice."
+
+"My dear, didn't you know? That was Miss Vivian's _mother_!"
+
+"Oh, was it?" said Grace placidly. "I didn't know that. Miss Vivian
+isn't very like her, is she?"
+
+"No. Of course, Miss Vivian's far better looking. I'm not saying it
+because it's her," added Miss Delmege with great distinctness, for the
+benefit of Miss Marsh and Mrs. Potter, walking behind, from one of whom
+a sound of contemptuous mirth had proceeded faintly. "It's simply a
+fact. Miss Vivian is far better looking than Lady Vivian ever was. Takes
+after her father--Sir Piers Vivian he is, you know."
+
+Miss Delmege had only once been afforded a view of the back of Sir Piers
+Vivian's white head in church, but she made the assertion with her usual
+air of genteel omniscience.
+
+At the Hostel Mrs. Bullivant was waiting for them. It was past eleven
+o'clock, and the fire had gone out soon after eight; but in spite of
+cold and weariness, Mrs. Bullivant was unconquerably bright.
+
+"Come along; I'll have some nice hot tea for you in a moment. The kettle
+is on the gas-ring. I _am_ sorry the fire's out, but it smoked so badly
+all the evening I thought I'd better leave it alone. Sit down; I'm sure
+you're all tired."
+
+"Simply dead," exclaimed Miss Marsh. "So are you, aren't you, Plumtree,
+after all those awful plates and dishes--I must say your washing-up job
+is the worst of the lot."
+
+"I'm going to bed. I can't keep on my feet another minute, tea or no
+tea. If I don't drag myself upstairs now I never shall. It's fatal to
+sit down; one can't get up again."
+
+"That's right," assented Miss Marsh. "I'll bring up your tea when I
+come, dear."
+
+"Angel, thanks awfully. Good-night, ladies and gentlemen."
+
+Miss Plumtree left the sitting-room with this languidly facetious
+valediction.
+
+"That girl _does_ look tired. I hope she gets into bed quickly,"
+observed Mrs. Potter, pulling off her hat and exposing a rakishly
+_décoiffé_ tangle of wispy hair.
+
+"Not she--she'll dawdle for ages," prophesied Miss Marsh. "Still, it's
+something if she gets into her dressing-gown and bedroom slippers, out
+of her corsets, you know."
+
+Miss Delmege put down her cup of tea.
+
+"Rather a strange subject we seem to be on for meal-time, don't we?" she
+remarked detachedly to Grace.
+
+"Meal-time?" exclaimed Miss Henderson derisively.
+
+"That's what I said, dear, and I'm in the habit of meaning what I say,
+as far as I know."
+
+"I really don't know how you can call it meal-time when we're not even
+at table. Besides, if we were, there's nothing _in_ what Marsh
+said--absolutely nothing at all."
+
+"Oh, of course, some people see harm in anything," burst out Miss Marsh,
+very red. "The harm is in their own minds, is what I say, otherwise they
+wouldn't see any."
+
+"That's right," agreed Miss Henderson, but below her breath.
+
+Miss Delmege turned with dignity to her other neighbour.
+
+"I may be peculiar, but that's how I feel about it. I imagine that you,
+as a married woman, will agree with me, Mrs. Potter?"
+
+Mrs. Potter did not agree with her at all, but something in the appeal,
+some subtle hint of the dignity of Mrs. Potter's position amongst so
+many virgins, caused her to temporize feebly.
+
+"Really, Miss Delmege, you mustn't ask me. I--I quite see with you--but
+at the same time--there wasn't anything in what Miss Marsh said, now,
+was there? I mean, really. Simply corsets, you know."
+
+Nearly every one had by this time forgotten exactly what Miss Marsh
+_had_ said, and only retained a general impression of licentiousness in
+conversation.
+
+"We're all girls together," exclaimed Miss Marsh furiously.
+
+"Gentlemen in the room would be a very different thing," Miss Henderson
+supported her.
+
+"I'll take a second cup, Mrs. Bullivant, if you please," said Miss
+Delmege with dignity.
+
+"There!" exclaimed Miss Henderson.
+
+Miss Marsh had suddenly begun to cry.
+
+Mrs. Bullivant hastily poured out more tea, and said uncertainly: "Come,
+come!"
+
+"There's no call for any one to cry, that I can see," observed Miss
+Delmege, still detached, but in a tone of uneasiness.
+
+"The fact is, I'm not myself today," sobbed Miss Marsh.
+
+"What is it?" said Gracie sympathetically. She slipped a friendly hand
+into her room-mate's.
+
+"I had a letter which upset me this morning. A great friend of mine,
+who's been wounded--a boy I know most awfully well."
+
+"Why didn't you tell me, dear?" asked Miss Henderson. "I didn't even
+know you had a boy out there."
+
+"Oh, not a _feawncy_--only a chum," said Miss Marsh, still sniffing.
+
+"Is he bad, dear?"
+
+"A flesh-wound in the arm, and something about trench feet."
+
+"That's a nice slow thing, and they'll send him to England to get well,"
+prophesied Grace.
+
+Miss Delmege rose from her seat.
+
+"I'm sorry you've been feeling upset," she said to Miss Marsh. "It seems
+rather strange you didn't say anything sooner, but I'm sorry about it."
+
+"Thank you," Miss Marsh replied with a gulp. "If I've been rather sharp
+in my manner today, I hope you won't think I meant anything. This has
+rather upset me."
+
+Miss Delmege bowed slightly, and Grace, fearing an anticlimax, begged
+Miss Marsh to come up to bed.
+
+The final amende was made next morning, when Miss Delmege, in a
+buff-coloured drapery known as "my fawn _peignwaw_," came to the door
+and asked for admittance.
+
+Grace opened the door, and Miss Delmege said, in a voice even more
+distinct than usual: "I know Miss Marsh was tired last night, dear, so
+I've brought her a cup of our early tea."
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+"Mother, are you coming to the Canteen again tomorrow? You remember what
+a rush it was last Monday, and it'll be just as bad again."
+
+"No, Char, I am _not_," was the unvarnished reply of Lady Vivian.
+
+Char compressed her lips and sighed. She would have been almost as much
+disappointed as surprised if her mother had suddenly expressed an
+intention of appearing regularly at the Canteen, but she knew that Miss
+Bruce was looking at her with an admiring and compassionate gaze.
+
+Sir Piers, who substituted chess for billiards on Sunday evenings
+because he thought it due to the servants to show that the Lord's Day
+was respected at Plessing, looked up uneasily.
+
+"You're not going out again tomorrow, eh, my dear? I missed our game
+sadly the other night."
+
+"No, it's all right; I'm not going again."
+
+Joanna never raised her voice very much, but Sir Piers always heard what
+she said. It made Char wonder sometimes, half irritably and half
+ashamedly, whether he could not have heard other people, had he wanted
+to. The overstrain from which she herself was quite unconsciously
+suffering made her nervously impatient of the old man's increasing
+slowness of perception.
+
+"And where has Char been all this afternoon? I never see you about the
+house now," Sir Piers said, half maunderingly, half with a sort of
+bewilderment that was daily increasing in his view of small outward
+events.
+
+"I've been at my work," said Char, raising her voice, partly as a vent
+to her own feelings. "I go into the office on Sunday afternoons always,
+and a very good thing I do, too. They were making a fearful muddle of
+some telegrams yesterday."
+
+"Telegrams? You can't send telegrams on a Sunday, child; they aren't
+delivered. I don't like you to go to this place on Sundays, either.
+Joanna, my dear, we mustn't allow her to do that."
+
+Char cast up her eyes in a sort of desperation, and went into the
+further half of the drawing-room, where Miss Bruce sat, just hearing her
+mother say gently: "Look, Piers, I shall take your castle."
+
+"Brucey," said Char, "I think they'll drive me mad. I know my work is
+nothing, really--such a tiny, infinitesimal part of a great whole--but
+if I could only get a _little_ sympathy. It does seem so extraordinary,
+when one has been working all day, giving one's whole self to it all,
+and then to come back to this sort of atmosphere!"
+
+Miss Bruce was perhaps the only person with whom Char was absolutely
+unreserved. In younger days Miss Bruce had been her adoring governess,
+and the old relations still existed between them. Char knew that Miss
+Bruce had always thought Lady Vivian's management of her only child
+terribly injudicious, and that in the prolonged antagonism between
+herself and her mother Miss Bruce's silent loyalty had always ranged
+itself on Char's side.
+
+"It's very hard on you, my dear," she sighed. "But I have been afraid
+lately--have you noticed, I wonder?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Sir Piers seems to me to be failing; he is so much deafer, so much more
+dependent on Lady Vivian."
+
+"He's always _that_," said Char. "I think it's only the beginning of the
+winter, Brucey. He always feels the cold weather."
+
+But a very little while later Miss Bruce's view received unexpected
+corroboration.
+
+Three Sundays later, when the weather had grown colder than ever, and
+Char was, as usual, spending the afternoon and evening at the Depôt,
+Mrs. Willoughby paid a call at Plessing.
+
+She was followed into the room, with almost equal unwillingness, by her
+husband and a small, immensely stout Pekinese dog, with bulging eyes and
+a quick, incessant bark that only Mrs. Willoughby's voice could
+dominate.
+
+"Darling Joanna!" she shrieked. "Puffles, wicked, wicked boy, be quiet!
+Isn't this an invasion? But my Lewis did so want--I shall smack 'oo if
+'oo isn't quiet directly. _Do_ you mind this little brown boy, who goes
+_everywhere_ with his mammy? I knew you'd love him if you saw him--but
+_such_ a noise! Lewis, tell this naughty Puff his mother can't hear
+herself speak."
+
+"Down, sir!" said Lewis, in tones which might have quelled a mastiff
+with hydrophobia.
+
+Puff waddled for refuge to his mistress, who immediately gathered him on
+to her lap as she sank on to the sofa.
+
+"Did 'oo daddy speak in a big rough voice, and frighten the poor little
+manikin?" she inquired solicitously. "Isn't he _rather_ twee, Joanna?"
+
+"I've not seen it before," said Joanna, in tones more civil than
+enthusiastic.
+
+"It!" screamed Lesbia. "She calls 'oo _it_, my Puffles! as though he
+wasn't the sweetest little brown boy in the whole world. It! You've hurt
+his little feelings too dreadfully, my dear--look at him sulking!"
+
+Puff had composed himself into a sort of dribbling torpor.
+
+"That dog doesn't get enough exercise," said Major Willoughby suddenly,
+fixing his eyes upon his hostess.
+
+"Surely it--he--is too small to require a great deal," said Lady Vivian
+languidly. Lap-dogs bored her very much indeed, and she turned away her
+eyes after taking one rather disgusted look at the recumbent Puff
+through her eyeglasses.
+
+"Train up a dog in the way it should go. Now, this little fellah--you'd
+hardly believe it, Lady Vivian, if I were to tell you the difference in
+him after he's had a good run over the Common."
+
+"Lewis!" cried Lesbia, opening her eyes to an incredible extent, as was
+her wont whenever she wished to emphasize her words. "I _can't_ have you
+boring people about Puff. Lewis is a perfect slave to Puffles, and tries
+to hide it by calling him 'the dog' and talking about his training."
+
+Lewis looked self-conscious, and immediately said: "Not at all; not at
+all. But the dog is an intelligent little brute. Now, I'll tell you what
+happened the other day."
+
+Major Willoughby gave various instances of Puff's discrimination, and
+Lesbia kissed the top of Puff's somnolent head and exclaimed shrilly at
+intervals that "it was too, too bad to pay the little treasure so many
+compliments; it would turn his little fluffy head, it would."
+
+Lady Vivian reflected that she might certainly absolve herself from the
+charge of contributing to this catastrophe. The language of compliment
+had seldom been further from her lips; but in any case her visitors left
+her little of the trouble of sustaining conversation.
+
+It was evident that Puff was a recent acquisition in the Willoughby
+_ménage_.
+
+"Where's your dear girl?" Lesbia presently inquired fondly of her
+hostess.
+
+"In Questerham, at the Depôt."
+
+"Now, Joanna, I'm going to be perfectly candid. You won't mind, I
+know--after all, you and I were girls together. What Char needs, my
+dear, is _flogging_."
+
+Lady Vivian was conscious of distinct relief at the thought that her
+secretary did not happen to be within earshot of this startling
+expression of opinion.
+
+"You are certainly being perfectly candid, Lesbia," she said dryly.
+"What has poor Char been doing to require flogging, may I ask?"
+
+"You ask me that, Joanna! Lewis, hark at her!"
+
+Lewis, thus appealed to, looked very uncomfortable, and said in a
+non-committal manner: "H'm, yes, yes. Hi! Puff!--good dog, sir!" thus
+rousing the Pekinese to a fresh outburst of ear-piercing barks.
+
+When this had at length been quelled by the blandishments of Lesbia and
+the words of command repeatedly given in a martial tone by her husband,
+Lady Vivian repeated her inquiry, and Mrs. Willoughby replied forcibly:
+"My dear, nothing but flogging would ever bring her to her senses. The
+way she's treating you and poor dear Sir Piers! He's looking iller and
+older every day, and tells me himself that he never sees her now; it's
+too piteous to hear him, dear old thing. It would wring tears from a
+stone--wouldn't it, Lewis?"
+
+"Down, sir, down, I say!" was the reply of Major Willoughby, addressed
+to the investigating Puff.
+
+"Oh, naughty boy, leave the screen alone. Now, come here to mother,
+then. What was I telling you, Joanna? Oh, about that girl of yours.
+War-work is all very well, my dear, but to _my_ mind home-ties are
+absolutely sacred, and more than ever before in such a time as this,
+when we may all be swept away by some ghastly air-raid in a night. It's
+simply a time when homes should _cling_ together. I always tell my Lewis
+it's a time when we should _cling_ more than ever before--don't I,
+Lewis?"
+
+Lewis looked at Puff with a compelling eye, but Puff was again
+quiescent, and gave him no opening.
+
+Lady Vivian said, very briskly indeed: "Char is not at all a clinging
+person, Lesbia, and neither am I. We can each stand very comfortably on
+our own feet, and I'm proud of the work she's doing in Questerham. Now,
+do let me give you some tea."
+
+"Joanna, I know perfectly well you're snubbing me and telling me to mind
+my own business, but Lewis can tell you that I'm perfectly impervious. I
+_always_ say exactly what I want to say, and if you won't listen to me,
+I shall talk to your good man. I can hear him coming."
+
+The entrance of Sir Piers Vivian was the signal for a frantic uproar
+from Puff, who hurled a shrill defiance at him from the hearth-rug,
+which he so exactly matched in colour as to be indistinguishable from
+it.
+
+"Bless me, Joanna, what's all this?" inquired the astonished Sir Piers,
+looking all round him in search of the monster from which so much noise
+could proceed.
+
+He failed to perceive it, and stumbled heavily over the hearth-rug.
+
+There was a howl from Puff; Lesbia cried, "Oh, my little manikin, is 'oo
+deaded?" Major Willoughby exclaimed in agonized tones to his host, "By
+Jove! the dog got in your way, sir, I'm afraid;" and to Puff, "Get out
+of the light, sir; what are you doing there?" and Lady Vivian gave a
+sudden irrepressible peal of laughter.
+
+So that Lesbia, taking her departure half an hour later, remarked
+conclusively to her Lewis that the strain of this dreadful war was
+making poor dear Joanna Vivian positively hysterical.
+
+She repeated the same alarming statement for Char's benefit next time
+she saw her at the Canteen. "I shouldn't say it, my dear child, but that
+your darling mother and I were girls together, and it's simply breaking
+my heart to see how broken up your father is, and no one to take any of
+the strain of it off _her_."
+
+Mrs. Willoughby spoke in her usual penetrating accents, and without any
+regard for the fact that at least three members of Miss Vivian's staff
+were well within earshot.
+
+"No one can be keener than I am about doing one's bit for this ghastly
+war, but I do think, dear, that your place just now is at home--at least
+part of each day. You won't mind an old friend's speaking quite, quite
+plainly, I know."
+
+Char minded so much that she was white with annoyance.
+
+"I can't discuss it here," she said, in a voice even lower than usual,
+in rebukeful contrast to Lesbia's screeching tones. "I should be only
+too thankful if I could get my place satisfactorily filled here, but at
+present it's perfectly impossible for me to leave even for an hour or
+two. I very often don't get time even for lunch nowadays."
+
+"Simply because you enjoy making a martyr of yourself!" said Mrs.
+Willoughby spitefully.
+
+Char, dropping her eyelids in a manner that gave her a look of
+incredible insolence, moved away without replying.
+
+For the next week she worked harder than ever, multiplying letters and
+incessant interviews, and depriving herself daily of an extra hour's
+sleep in the morning by starting for the Depôt earlier than usual, so as
+to cope with the press of business. It was her justification to herself
+for Mrs. Willoughby's crude accusations and the unspoken reproach in Sir
+Piers's feeble bewilderment at her activities.
+
+Miss Plumtree fell ill with influenza, and Char took over her work, and
+arranged with infinite trouble to herself that Miss Plumtree should go
+to a small convalescent home in the country, because the doctor said she
+needed change of air. She was to incur no expense, Char told her, very
+kindly, and even remembered to order a cab for her at the country
+station. Miss Plumtree, owning that she could never have afforded a
+journey to her home in Devonshire, cried tears of mingled weakness and
+gratitude, and told the Hostel all that Miss Vivian had done.
+
+Everybody said it was exactly like Miss Vivian, and that she really was
+too wonderful.
+
+Then the demon of influenza began its yearly depredations. One member of
+the staff after another went down with it, was obliged to plead illness
+and go to bed at the Hostel, and inevitably pass on the complaint to her
+room-mate.
+
+"I'm afraid Mrs. Potter won't be coming today," Miss Delmege announced
+deprecatingly to her chief, who struck the table with her hand and
+exclaimed despairingly:
+
+"Of course! just because there's more to be done than ever! Influenza, I
+suppose?"
+
+"I'm afraid it is."
+
+"That's five of them down with it now--or is it six? I don't know _what_
+to do."
+
+"It does seem strange," was the helpless rejoinder of Miss Vivian's
+secretary.
+
+Char thought the adjective inadequate to a degree. She abated not one
+jot of all that she had undertaken, and accomplished the work of six
+people.
+
+Miss Delmege several times ventured to exclaim, with a sort of
+respectful despair, that Miss Vivian would kill herself, and Char knew
+that the rest of the staff was saying much the same thing behind her
+back. At Plessing Miss Bruce remonstrated admiringly, and exclaimed
+every day how tired Char was looking, throwing at the same time a rather
+resentful glance upon Lady Vivian.
+
+But Joanna remained quite unperceiving of the dark lines deepening daily
+beneath her daughter's heavy eyes.
+
+She was entirely absorbed in Sir Piers, becoming daily more dependent
+upon her.
+
+The day came, when the influenza epidemic was at its height in
+Questerham, when Miss Bruce exclaimed in tones of scarcely suppressed
+indignation as Char came downstairs after the usual hasty breakfast
+which she had in her own room: "My dear, you're not fit to go. Really
+you're not; you ought to be in bed this moment. Do, do let me telephone
+and say you can't come today. Indeed, it isn't right. You look as though
+you hadn't slept all night."
+
+"I haven't, much," said Char hoarsely. "I have a cold, that's all."
+
+"Miss Vivian was coughing half the night," thrust in her maid, hovering
+in the hall laden with wraps.
+
+"You mustn't go!" cried Miss Bruce distractedly.
+
+"You really aren't fit, Miss."
+
+Lady Vivian appeared at the head of the stairs.
+
+"What's all this?"
+
+"Oh, Lady Vivian," cried the secretary, "do look at her! She ought to be
+in bed."
+
+Char said: "Nonsense!" impatiently, but she gave her mother an
+opportunity for seeing that her face was white and drawn, with heavily
+ringed eyes and feverish lips.
+
+"You've got influenza, Char."
+
+"I dare say," said Char in tones of indifference. "It would be very odd
+if I'd escaped, since half the office is down with it. But I can't
+afford to give in."
+
+"It would surely be truer economy to take a day off now than to risk a
+real breakdown later on," was the time-worn argument urged by Miss
+Bruce.
+
+Char smiled with pale decision.
+
+"Let me pass, Brucey. I really mean it."
+
+"Lady Vivian!" wailed the secretary.
+
+Joanna shrugged her shoulders. She, too, looked weary.
+
+"Be reasonable, Char."
+
+"It's of no use, mother. I shouldn't dream of giving in while there's
+work to be done."
+
+Miss Bruce gave a sort of groan of mingled admiration and despair at
+this heroic statement. Char slipped her arms into the fur coat that her
+maid was holding out for her.
+
+Lady Vivian stood at the top of the stairs looking at her with an air of
+detached consideration, and left Miss Bruce to make those hurried
+dispositions of foot-warmer, fur rug, and little bottles of sulphate and
+quinine which, the secretary resentfully felt, a more maternal woman
+would have taken upon herself.
+
+But Lady Vivian's omissions were not destined to provide the only one,
+or even the most severe, of the shocks received by Miss Bruce's
+sensibilities that morning.
+
+As Char extended her hand for the last of Miss Bruce's offerings, a
+small green bottle of highly pungent smelling salts, Lady Vivian's
+incisive tones came levelly from above.
+
+"You'd better stay the night at Questerham, Char. It will be very cold
+driving back after dark."
+
+"Oh no, mother. Besides, I don't know where I could go. I hate the
+hotel, and one can't inflict an influenza cold on other people."
+
+"You can go to your Hostel. Surely there's a spare bed?"
+
+The ghost of a smile flickered upon Lady Vivian's face, as though in
+mischievous anticipation of Char's refusal.
+
+"It's quite out of the question. The Hostel is for my staff, and it
+would be very unsuitable for me, as Director of the Midland Supply
+Depôt, to go there too."
+
+"Bless me! are they as exclusive as all that?" exclaimed Joanna
+flippantly. "Well, do as you like, but if you come back here, you're not
+to go near your father, with a cold like that."
+
+Miss Bruce, almost before she knew it, found herself exchanging a glance
+of indignation with Char's maid, but she was conscious enough of her own
+dignity to look away again in a great hurry.
+
+"You will certainly want to go straight to bed when you come in," she
+said to Char, pointedly enough. "We will have everything ready and a
+nice fire in your room."
+
+"Thank you, Brucey."
+
+Char bestowed her rare smile upon the little agitated secretary, and
+moved across the hall.
+
+She felt very ill, with violent pains in her head and back, and shivered
+intermittently.
+
+Leaning back in her heavy coat, under the fur rug, Char closed her eyes.
+She reflected on the dismay with which Miss Delmege would greet her,
+and wondered rather grimly whether any further members of her staff
+would have succumbed to the prevailing illness. She knew that only a
+will of iron could surmount such physical ills as she was herself
+enduring, and dreaded the moment when she must rouse herself from her
+present torpid discomfort to the necessity of moving and speaking.
+
+As she got out of the car, Char reeled and almost fell, in an
+intolerable spasm of giddiness, and her progress up the stairs was only
+made possible by the remnant of strength which allowed her to grasp the
+baluster and lean her full weight upon it as she dragged herself into
+her office.
+
+She was, however, met with no wail of condolence from the genteel
+accents of Miss Delmege.
+
+Grace Jones, composedly solid and healthy-looking, said placidly:
+"Good-morning. I'm sorry to say that Miss Delmege is in bed with
+influenza."
+
+"In bed!"
+
+"She had a very restless night and has a temperature this morning."
+
+"She was all right yesterday."
+
+"She had a sore throat, you know," remarked Grace, "but she didn't at
+all want to give in, and is very much distressed."
+
+Char raised her heavy eyes.
+
+"You all seem to me to collapse like a pack of cards, one after another.
+I think _my_ bed would prove a bed of thorns while there's so much work
+to do, and so few people to do it. In fact, I can't imagine wanting to
+go there."
+
+She made an infinitesimal pause, shaken by one of those violent,
+involuntary, shivering fits. Miss Jones gazed at her chief.
+
+"I think I can manage Miss Delmege's work," she observed gently.
+
+"Oh, I shall have to go through most of it myself, of course," was the
+ungrateful retort of the suffering Miss Vivian.
+
+The day appeared to her interminable. The air was damp and raw; and
+although Miss Jones piled coal upon the fire, it refused to blaze up,
+and only smouldered in a sullen heap, with a small curling column of
+yellow smoke at the top. A traction-engine ground and screamed and
+pounded its way up and down under the window, and each time it passed
+directly in front of the house the floor and walls of Char's room shook
+slightly, with a vibration that made her feel sick and giddy.
+
+There were no interviews, but letters and telephone messages poured in
+incessantly, and at about twelve o'clock a telegram marked "Priority"
+was brought her. With a sinking sense of utter dismay, Char tore it
+open.
+
+"A rest-station for a troop-train at five o'clock this afternoon. Eight
+hundred. Miss Jones, please let the Commissariat Department know at
+once. The staff should be at the station by three. I'll make out the
+list at once, and you can take it round the office."
+
+By four o'clock a fine cold rain was falling, and Char's voice had
+nearly gone.
+
+As she hurried down to her car, which was to take her to the station,
+she heard an incautiously raised voice: "She does look so ill! Of course
+it's flu, and I should think this rest-station will just about finish
+her off."
+
+"Not she! I do believe she'd stick it out if she were dying. No lunch
+today, either, only a cup of Bovril, which I simply had to force her to
+take."
+
+Char recognized the voice of Miss Henderson, who had received her order
+for lunch in place of Miss Delmege, and had ventured to suggest the
+Bovril in tones of the utmost deference.
+
+She smiled slightly.
+
+The troop-train was late.
+
+"Of course!" muttered Char, pacing up and down the sheltered platform
+with the fur collar of her motoring coat turned up, and her hands deep
+in its wide pockets.
+
+In the waiting-rooms, given over to the workers for the time being, the
+staff was active.
+
+Sandwiches were cut, and heavy trays and urns carried out in readiness,
+while orderlies from the hospitals put up light trestle tables at
+intervals along the platform.
+
+Char paused, turned the handle of the waiting-room door, and stood for a
+moment on the threshold.
+
+Every one was talking. Trays piled with cut and stacked sandwiches were
+ranged all round the room; tin mugs, again on trays, stood in groups of
+twelve; and the final spoonfuls of sugar were being scooped from a tin
+biscuit-box into the waiting bowl on each tray. Even the cake was
+already cut, sliced up on innumerable plates.
+
+They had been working hard, and had more work to come, yet they all
+looked gay and amused, and were talking and laughing as though they did
+not know the meaning of fatigue. And Char was feeling so ill that she
+could hardly stand.
+
+Suddenly some one caught sight of her, there was a sort of murmur, "Miss
+Vivian!" and in one moment self-consciousness invaded the room. Those
+who were sitting down stood up, trying to look at ease; little Miss
+Anthony, who had been manipulating the bread-cutting machine with great
+success all the afternoon, at once cut her finger with it, and some one
+else suddenly dropped a mug with a reverberating clatter.
+
+"Miss Cox!"
+
+She sprang forward nervously.
+
+"Yes, Miss Vivian?"
+
+"How many sandwiches have you got ready?"
+
+"Sixteen hundred, Miss Vivian. That'll be two for each man, and they're
+very large."
+
+"Cut another hundred, for reserve."
+
+"Yes, Miss Vivian."
+
+They began to work again, this time speaking almost in whispers.
+
+Char turned away.
+
+Her personality, as usual, had had its effect.
+
+Nearly twenty minutes later the station-master came up to her on the
+platform.
+
+"She'll be in directly now, Miss Vivian. Just signalled."
+
+Char wheeled smartly back to the waiting-room and gave the word of
+command.
+
+Within five minutes the urns and trays were all in place on the tables,
+and each worker was at her appointed stand. Char had indicated
+beforehand, as she always did, the exact duties of each one.
+
+"That's a smart bit of work," the station-master remarked admiringly.
+
+"Ah, well, you see, I've been at the job some time now," said Miss
+Vivian, pleased. She never pretended to look upon her staff as anything
+but a collection of pawns, to be placed or disposed of by a master hand.
+
+And it was part of that strength of personality that lay at the back of
+all her powers of organization, which had given the majority of her
+staff exactly the same impression as her own of their relative positions
+with regard to the Director of the Midland Supply Depôt.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+Char moved up and down the length of the train.
+
+She never carried any of the laden trays herself, but she saw to it that
+no man missed his mug of steaming tea and supply of sandwiches and cake,
+and she exerted all the affability and charm of which she held the
+secret, in talking to the soldiers. The packets of cigarettes with which
+she was always laden added to her popularity, and when the train steamed
+slowly out of the station again the men raised a cheer.
+
+"Three cheers for Miss Vivian!"
+
+Her name had passed like lightning from one carriage to another.
+
+"Hooray-ay."
+
+They hung out of the window, waving their caps, and Char stood at the
+end of the platform, heedless of the rain now pouring down on her, and
+waved until the train was out of sight.
+
+"Start washing up and packing the things at once."
+
+"Yes, Miss Vivian."
+
+The waiting-room was already seething and full of steam from the zinc
+pans of boiling water into which mugs and knives were being flung with
+deafening clatter.
+
+"Here, chuck me a dry cloth! Mine's wringing."
+
+"Oh, look out, dear! You're splashing your uniform like anything."
+
+"I've got such a lot of work waiting for me when I get back to the
+office."
+
+"Poor fellows, they did look bad! Did you see one chap, quite a young
+fellow, too, with his poor leg and all...."
+
+Char turned away impatiently.
+
+Thank Heaven, there was nothing further for her to do at the station.
+
+The work at the office would be heavy enough, but at least she had not
+to stand amongst that noisy crew of workers round the big packing-cases
+and wash-tubs, each one screaming so as to make herself heard above the
+splashing water and clattered crockery.
+
+It did not occur to her, as the car took her swiftly back to the office,
+also to be thankful that neither had she to walk back, as they had, in
+the streaming rain and cold of the dark evening.
+
+She swallowed one of Miss Bruce's quinine tablets with her hot tea, but
+was unable to eat anything, and sat over her letters with throbbing
+temples and a temperature that she felt to be rising rapidly. She pored
+over each simplest sentence again and again, unable to attach any
+meaning to the words dancing before her aching, swimming eyes.
+
+Soon after half-past six Grace Jones came back from the station, her
+pale face glowing from the wind and rain, unabated vigour in her
+movements.
+
+"Have you only just got back?"
+
+"I had some tea downstairs. I've been in about ten minutes."
+
+Char raised her eyebrows with an expression that would have caused Miss
+Delmege ostentatiously to refrain from tea every day for a week, had it
+been directed towards herself.
+
+But Miss Jones only said tranquilly: "Is there anything that I can do
+for you?"
+
+"No. Yes. You can answer that telephone."
+
+The bell had suddenly sounded, and Char felt no strength to exert the
+swollen, aching muscles of her throat.
+
+Grace took up the receiver.
+
+"They want to speak to you from Plessing."
+
+Char checked an exclamation of impatience. If only Brucey wouldn't
+_fuss_ so! She might know by this time that it was of no use.
+
+"Please say that I can't take a private call from here. Ask if it's on
+business."
+
+She waited impatiently.
+
+"It's not on business--it's important. Lady Vivian is speaking."
+
+Char almost snatched the receiver.
+
+"What is it?" she asked curtly.
+
+"Is that you, Char?" came over the wires.
+
+"Miss Vivian speaking," returned Char officially, for the benefit of
+Miss Jones.
+
+"Your father is ill. He has had a very slight stroke, and I want you to
+bring out Dr. Prince in the car."
+
+"How bad is he? Have you had any one?"
+
+"Yes. Dr. Clark came up from the village, but he suggested sending for
+Dr. Prince at once. He is unconscious, of course, and there isn't any
+immediate danger; he may get over it altogether, but--this is the first
+minute I've had--I am going back to him now. Come as soon as you can,
+Char, and bring the doctor. I can't get him on the telephone, but you
+must get hold of him somehow."
+
+"Yes--yes. Is there anything else?"
+
+"Nothing now, my dear. By great good luck John is here, and most
+helpful. He carried your father upstairs. Only don't delay, will you?"
+
+"No. I'll come at once. Good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye."
+
+Char replaced the receiver, feeling dazed.
+
+Involuntarily her first sensation was one of injury that any one should
+be more ill than she was herself, and able to excite so much stir.
+
+The next moment she regained possession of herself.
+
+"Miss Jones, ring up the garage and tell them to send my car round
+immediately. Sir Piers Vivian has been taken ill, and I am going out to
+Plessing at once. Tell them to hurry."
+
+Grace obeyed, and Char began feverishly to make order amongst the pile
+of papers on her table.
+
+"I'm leaving a lot undone," she muttered, "but I suppose I shall be here
+tomorrow morning. I must be."
+
+Ten minutes later the car was at the door.
+
+"Miss Jones, see that all _these_ go tonight," Char rapidly instructed
+her secretary. "The letters I haven't been able to sign must be held
+over till tomorrow. By the way, didn't the--er--your Hostel
+Superintendent say that she wanted an appointment with me this evening?"
+
+"Mrs. Bullivant? Yes. She was coming at eight."
+
+"Then, please tell her what's happened, and say that I will arrange to
+see her some time tomorrow. That's all, I think."
+
+"I hope Sir Piers Vivian will be better by the time you get back."
+
+"I hope so. Thank you. Good-night, Miss Jones."
+
+Char hurried downstairs, hoping that the tone of her voice had put Miss
+Jones into her proper place again. She did not encourage personal
+amenities between herself and her staff.
+
+It was nearly nine o'clock before she got to Plessing. It had taken a
+long while to find Dr. Prince, and the chauffeur drove with maddening
+precautions through a thick wet mist along the sodden, slippery roads.
+
+"A broken leg or two would delay us worse," said the doctor
+philosophically.
+
+He was a bearded, hard-working man, with a reputation that extended
+beyond the Midlands.
+
+After finding out from Char that she knew little or nothing of her
+father's state of health, he asked her with a quick look: "And yourself,
+Miss Charmian? You look rather washed out."
+
+Char gave a short, hoarse cough, semi-involuntary, at this unflattering
+description.
+
+"I'm afraid I'm in the midst of an influenza attack. My staff have all
+been down with it, more or less. However, I can't afford to give way to
+that sort of thing now; there's far too much work to be done."
+
+"You ought to take six months' holiday," said the doctor decidedly, and
+relapsed into silence.
+
+Char wondered if he were meditating an appeal to her. It must outrage
+his professional instincts to see any one looking as she did still upon
+her feet. The doctor, however, who had been up since two o'clock that
+morning, was merely trying to snatch some sleep.
+
+He had known Char Vivian all her life, and had no thought whatever of
+wasting appeals upon her.
+
+At Plessing, Trevellyan met them in the hall.
+
+"Good-evening, Char," he greeted her. "Sir Piers is much the same. Not
+conscious. Will you go up, doctor? They'll have some dinner ready by the
+time you come down. I'm afraid you've had a cold drive."
+
+"Freezing," answered Char, with a violent shiver.
+
+"Better go to bed," said the doctor, without looking at her, as he went
+upstairs.
+
+Char, still in her fur coat, hung over the fire.
+
+"Tell me what's happened, Johnnie."
+
+"Cousin Joanna says that he was very restless and low-spirited last
+night--talked about the war, you know, and this last air-raid. And when
+he came down this morning he suddenly turned giddy and fell across the
+hall sofa. Luckily it wasn't on the floor. Cousin Joanna was with him,
+and they got him flat on the sofa, and sent for Clark. I got here about
+the same time as he did, by pure chance--came over for a day's shooting,
+you know--and between us we carried him upstairs. By Jove! he's no light
+weight for a man of his years, either."
+
+"What does Dr. Clark think?"
+
+"That he'll probably recover consciousness in a day or two. But even
+then--don't be frightened, Char; it's only what generally happens in
+these cases--his--his words probably won't come quite right, you know.
+He may speak, but not quite normally."
+
+Char smiled a little at her cousin's look of anxious solicitude for the
+effect of his surmises upon her.
+
+"I'm not without hospital experience, you know," she said gently. "It's
+the left side of the brain, then? Is his right side paralyzed?"
+
+"I'm afraid so--arm and hand, you know. We shall see what Prince says."
+
+There was a pause, and Char said hoarsely: "I wonder if I ought to go
+up?"
+
+"Is that you, Miss Vivian?" came the voice of Miss Bruce from the
+stairs.
+
+Char turned and went slowly up to her.
+
+Trevellyan did not see her again that evening, and Miss Bruce told him
+later, with rather a reproachful look, that poor Miss Vivian was not fit
+to be up.
+
+"It was a shock to her, I'm afraid."
+
+"Yes--oh yes; but she really was dreadfully ill when she went out this
+morning. She ought never, never to have been allowed to leave the
+house."
+
+"You don't mean to say she's going to be ill too?" exclaimed Trevellyan
+in tones of dismay.
+
+He was thinking that Joanna had enough anxiety as it was; but Miss Bruce
+attributed his tones entirely to concern on behalf of her adored Miss
+Vivian, and looked at him more amiably.
+
+"I'm afraid it's influenza, but a couple of days in bed will make all
+the difference, and now that, of course, there's no question of her
+leaving the house, she'll be able to take care of herself for once."
+
+"There she is," said Captain Trevellyan, and strode across the hall to
+meet his Cousin Joanna and the doctor.
+
+Miss Bruce waited to hear Dr. Prince's verdict, and then went quietly up
+to Char's room, with offers of service that aroused the unconcealed
+wrath of Char's devoted maid.
+
+"I don't want anything," Miss Vivian declared wearily. "As soon as I
+know whether I may see father, I can go to bed--or go up to him, as the
+case may be. But I suppose my mother means to come down to me some
+time?"
+
+There was more than a hint of resentment in her wearied voice.
+
+"Shall I tell her ladyship you're here, miss?" asked the maid gently.
+
+"She knows it," said Char shortly. "I brought Dr. Prince."
+
+The zealous Miss Bruce slipped silently from the room and down into the
+hall again.
+
+Lady Vivian, oblivious of her daughter's claims, was discussing Dr.
+Prince's verdict in lowered tones with Captain Trevellyan.
+
+Miss Bruce felt a sort of melancholy triumph in beholding this
+justification for Char's obvious sense of injury.
+
+"Miss Vivian is in her room, and waiting for you most anxiously," she
+said reproachfully. "She thought you were still with Sir Piers. She
+won't go to bed until she knows whether she may see him."
+
+"Poor child, it wouldn't do her any good to see him," said Joanna.
+"There's no sign of returning consciousness yet, though Dr. Prince
+thinks he may come to himself almost any time, and then everything
+depends upon his being kept absolutely quiet. But I'll go up to Char."
+
+She went upstairs, but came down again much sooner than Miss Bruce
+approved.
+
+"I've told her to go to bed," she placidly informed the secretary. "She
+can't do anything, and she looks very tired."
+
+"She is far from well, I'm afraid," stiffly remarked Miss Bruce.
+
+"Well, I leave her to you, Miss Bruce. I know you'll take the most
+devoted care of her. Let her sleep as long as she can in the morning."
+
+"Cousin Joanna, is there anything I can do?" asked Trevellyan wistfully.
+
+"I don't think so, Johnnie. You'll come round tomorrow?"
+
+She was smiling at him quite naturally.
+
+"The first thing. You're sure there's nothing I can do tonight--sit up
+with him, or anything?"
+
+"My maid and I are going to do it between us. We shall have a nurse down
+from London by midday tomorrow, I hope."
+
+"Let me sit up instead of you."
+
+She smiled again.
+
+"Certainly not. I'm only going to take the first half of the night--much
+the easiest. Then I shall probably go to sleep, unless there's any
+change, when, of course, they'll fetch me. But Dr. Prince doesn't think
+there will be yet, and I shall take all the rest I can. I'm much more
+likely to be wanted at night later on."
+
+Miss Bruce went upstairs again, much more nearly disposed to wonder at
+such reasonableness than to admire it.
+
+Her ideals were early Victorian ones, and although she knew that she
+could not hope for hysterics from Lady Vivian, she would have much
+preferred at least to hear her declare that sleep would be utterly
+impossible to her, and that she should spend the night hovering between
+her unconscious husband and her prostrate daughter.
+
+But Lady Vivian went to bed at half-past twelve, and did not even insist
+upon merely lying down in her dressing-gown, nor did she reappear in Sir
+Piers's room until eight o'clock on the following morning.
+
+There had been no change during the night.
+
+Char slept heavily until ten o'clock, then woke and rang her bell rather
+indignantly.
+
+Miss Bruce, who had been hovering about anxiously since seven that
+morning, appeared instantly at the door.
+
+"There is no change whatever, my dear. Now, do, do lie down again and
+keep warm. There is nothing that you can do."
+
+Char complied rather sullenly. She was still feeling ill, and violently
+resented her own involuntary physical relief at this enforced inaction.
+
+"What on earth will happen at the office?" she muttered. "Have you told
+them that I'm not coming?"
+
+"I telephoned myself," said Miss Bruce proudly.
+
+"What did you say?"
+
+"That you were in bed yourself with influenza, and quite unfit to move;
+and also that we are in great anxiety about Sir Piers."
+
+"That's the only reason I can't go in to Questerham as usual," said Char
+coldly. "It was quite unnecessary to mention my having influenza,
+Brucey. That would never constitute a reason for my staying away from my
+work."
+
+Miss Bruce looked very much crestfallen.
+
+"You'd better telephone again, please, a little later on, with a message
+from me. Say that I must be rung up without fail when my secretary has
+gone through the letters, and I'll come to the telephone and speak to
+her myself."
+
+"The draughty hall!" moaned Miss Bruce, but she dared not offer any
+further remonstrance.
+
+Char's conversation on the telephone with Miss Jones was a lengthy one,
+and Miss Bruce, wandering in the background in search of imaginary
+currents of air, listened to her concluding observations with almost
+ludicrous dismay. "The departments must carry on as usual, of course,
+but don't hesitate to ring me up in any emergency. And no letters had
+better leave the office tonight--in fact, they can't, since there'll be
+nobody to sign them. What's that?... No, certainly not. How on earth
+could I depute such a responsibility to any one in the office. I shall
+have made some arrangement by tomorrow. Sir Piers may remain in this
+state indefinitely, and I can't have the whole of the work held up in
+this way.... That's all. Remember, nothing is to leave the office for
+the present. You can ring me up and report on the day's work at seven
+o'clock this evening. Good-bye."
+
+As Char replaced the receiver, her mother entered the hall. They had
+already exchanged a few words earlier in the morning, and Lady Vivian
+only remarked dispassionately: "I thought you were in bed. By the way,
+Char, I'm sorry, but we shall have to have the telephone disconnected.
+The house _must_ be kept quiet, and that bell can be heard quite plainly
+from upstairs. We can ring other people up, but they won't be able to
+get at us. Did you want to talk to your office?"
+
+"I _must_," said Char. "Things are absolutely hung up there; no one who
+can even sign a letter."
+
+"Why not? Have they all got writer's cramp all of a sudden?"
+
+Char, never very graciously disposed towards her parent's many small
+fleers at her official dignity, thought this one particularly ill-timed,
+and received it by a silence which said as much.
+
+Lady Vivian looked at her, and said rather penitently: "Well, well, I
+mustn't keep you here when you ought to be in bed. My dear child, do you
+mean to say you're wearing nothing but your dressing-gown under that
+coat? Do go upstairs again."
+
+"I want to speak to you, mother."
+
+"I'll come up in five minutes. I'm going to give an order to the
+stables."
+
+Lady Vivian walked briskly down the drive, her uncovered head thrown
+back to catch the chilly gleams of winter sunlight.
+
+There were dark lines under her blue eyes, but the voice in which she
+gave her orders was full and serene as usual, even when she answered the
+chauffeur's respectful inquiries by the news that Sir Piers still
+remained unconscious.
+
+Five minutes later Lady Vivian's secretary had the gratification of
+seeing her enter Char's bedroom and establish herself on a chair at the
+sufferer's bedside.
+
+That afternoon Miss Bruce received a further satisfaction when Lady
+Vivian sought her in consultation.
+
+"It's about Char, Miss Bruce. She's fretting herself into fiddlestrings
+about that office of hers. She thinks all the work is more or less held
+up while she's not there to see to it. And yet she may be kept here
+indefinitely. It's quite possible that Sir Piers may ask for her when he
+comes to himself again, so there can be no question of her going in to
+Questerham at present, even if she were fit for it, which she most
+decidedly isn't."
+
+"_That_ consideration by itself would never keep her from her work,"
+said Miss Bruce loyally.
+
+Lady Vivian waived the point.
+
+"Well, as she won't do the only sensible thing, and transfer her
+authority to some responsible member of the staff, she'd better have one
+of them out here every day to go through the work with her and take back
+the instructions. The car is bound to be going in at least once a day."
+
+"It won't be the rest for Charmian that one had hoped," said the
+secretary dismally.
+
+"But it will be better for her to do a little work than just to sit and
+worry about her father and the office--though, upon my word," said Lady
+Vivian warmly, "I think she's a great deal more anxious about the Depôt
+than about his illness."
+
+Miss Bruce, not inconceivably, thought so too, but she was very much
+shocked at hearing such an idea put into words, and said firmly: "Then,
+would you like me to write to Questerham and tell Miss Vivian's
+secretary that it has been arranged for her to come out here daily for
+the present?"
+
+"Dear me, you're as bad as Char, Miss Bruce. Anybody would think they
+were all machines, to be dragged about without any will of their own.
+No, no! Ring up the office and get hold of the secretary, and give her a
+polite message, asking if she can manage it, if we send her in and out
+in the car."
+
+Miss Bruce obeyed, and triumphantly told her employer that evening that
+all was arranged, and Miss Jones would come to Plessing on the following
+morning to receive Miss Vivian's directions.
+
+"Miss Jones? You don't mean to say that the genteel Delmege has
+abdicated in favour of Miss Jones? What a piece of luck for us!" cried
+Lady Vivian.
+
+"Miss Delmege is in bed with influenza."
+
+"Excellent!" said Joanna callously. "I shall be delighted to see Miss
+Jones. I wanted to ask her here, but Char nearly had a fit at the idea.
+She'll certainly think I've done it out of _malice prepense_, as it is.
+She's got a most pigheaded prejudice against that nice Miss Jones."
+
+"Lady Vivian!"
+
+Lady Vivian laughed.
+
+"You'll have to break it to her, Miss Bruce, that it's Miss Jones who is
+coming. And don't let her think I did it on purpose!"
+
+"I am sure she would never think anything of the sort."
+
+"Perhaps not. But Char does get very odd ideas into her head, when she
+thinks there's any risk of _lèse-majesté_ to her Directorship. I must
+say," observed Joanna thoughtfully, preparing to go upstairs for her
+night watch, "I often wish that when Char was younger I'd smacked some
+of the nonsense out--"
+
+But before this well-worn aspiration of Miss Vivian's parent, Miss Bruce
+took her indignant departure.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+"Rather strange, isn't it?" said Miss Delmege in tones of weak
+despondency. "If it hadn't been for this wretched flu, _I_ should have
+been going out to Plessing every day with the work, I suppose, as Gracie
+is doing now."
+
+"Yes, I suppose you would," agreed Miss Henderson blankly.
+
+She sat on the foot of the bed, which was surrounded by a perfect
+wilderness of screens.
+
+Miss Delmege reclined against two pillows, screwed against her back at
+an uncomfortable-looking angle. The room was not warmed, and the invalid
+wore a small flannel dressing-jacket, rather soiled and very much
+crumpled, a loosely knitted woolly jersey of dingy appearance and an
+ugly mustard colour, and over everything else an old quilted pink
+dressing-gown, with a cotton-wool-like substance bursting from the cuffs
+and elbows. Her hair was pinned up carelessly, and her expression was a
+much dejected one.
+
+Miss Henderson was knitting in a spasmodic way, and stopping every now
+and then to blow her nose violently. She had several times during the
+afternoon ejaculated vehemently that a cold wasn't flu, she was thankful
+to say.
+
+"It's probably the beginning of it, though," Miss Delmege replied
+pessimistically.
+
+"You're hipped, Delmege, that's what you are--regularly hipped. Now,
+don't you think it would do you good to come downstairs for tea? There's
+a fire in the sitting-room."
+
+"Well, I don't mind if I do. It'll seem quite peculiar to be downstairs
+again. Fancy, I've been up here five whole days! And I'm really not a
+person to give way, as a rule. At least, not so far as I know, I'm not."
+
+"It's nearly four now. Look here, I'll put a kettle on, and you can have
+some hot water."
+
+"Thanks, dear," said Miss Delmege graciously, "but don't bother. My
+hot-water bottle is still quite warm. I can use that."
+
+"All right, then, I'll leave you. Ta-ta! You'll find me in the
+sitting-room. Sure you don't want any help?"
+
+"No, thanks. I shall be quite all right. I only hope you won't be in bed
+yourself tomorrow, dear."
+
+"No fear!" defiantly said Miss Henderson, at the same time sneezing
+loudly.
+
+She went away before Miss Delmege had time to utter any further
+prognostications.
+
+In the sitting-room she busied herself in pushing a creaking wicker
+arm-chair close to the fire--which for once was a roaring one, owing to
+the now convalescent Mrs. Potter, who had been crouching over it with a
+novel all day--lit the gas, and turned it up until it flared upwards
+with a steady, hissing noise; said "Excuse me; do you mind?" to Mrs.
+Potter; shut down the small crack of open window, and drew the curtains.
+
+"Delmege is coming down, and we'd better have the room warm," she
+explained. "She's just out of bed."
+
+By the time Miss Delmege, now wearing her mustard-coloured jersey over a
+thick stuff dress, had tottered downstairs, the room was indeed warm.
+
+"Now, this," said Mrs. Bullivant cheerfully, when she came in to see how
+many of her charges wanted tea--"now this is what I call really cosy."
+
+She looked ill, and very tired, herself. The general servant had given
+notice because of the number of trays that she had been required to
+carry upstairs of late, and had left the day before, and the cook was
+disobliging and would do nothing beyond her own immediate duties. Mrs.
+Bullivant was very much afraid of her, and did most of the work herself.
+
+She had written to the Depôt in accordance with the official Hostel
+regulations, stating that a servant was required there for general
+housework; but no answer had come authorizing her to engage one, and
+Miss Marsh had explained to her that in Miss Vivian's absence such
+trifling questions must naturally expect to be overlooked or set aside
+for the time being. So little Mrs. Bullivant staggered up from the
+basement bearing a tray that seemed very large and heavy, and put it on
+the table in the sitting-room, very close to the fire, with a triumphant
+gasp.
+
+"There! and it's a beautiful fire for toast. None of the munition girls
+are coming in for tea, are they?"
+
+"Hope not," said Miss Henderson briefly. "I _ought_ to be at the office
+now. I said I'd be back at five, but I shouldn't have had the afternoon
+off at all if Miss Vivian had been there."
+
+Miss Delmege drew herself up. "Miss Vivian never refuses a reasonable
+amount of leave, that I'm aware of," she said stiffly.
+
+"Oh, I mean we're slacker without her. There's less to do, that's all."
+
+"Well, Grace Jones will be back presently, and I suppose she'll have
+work for all of us, as usual. I wonder how Miss Vivian is," said Mrs.
+Potter.
+
+"And her father."
+
+"Grace will be able to tell us," said Miss Delmege, not without a tinge
+of acrimony in her voice. "It does seem so quaint, her going to and from
+Plessing in Miss Vivian's car, like this, every day. It somehow makes me
+howl with laughter."
+
+She gave a faint, embittered snigger, and Miss Henderson and Mrs. Potter
+exchanged glances.
+
+"I hear the car now," said Mrs. Bullivant. "She'll be cold. I'll get
+another cup, and give her some tea before she goes over to the office. I
+do hope she's got Miss Vivian's authority for me to find a new servant."
+
+They heard her outside in the hall, making inquiry, and Grace's voice
+answering in tones of congratulation.
+
+"Yes, it's quite all right. I asked Miss Vivian most particularly, and
+told her what a lot of work there was, and she said, Get some one as
+soon as you could. I came here before going to the office so as to tell
+you at once."
+
+"Well, that _was_ nice of you, dear, and now you shall have a nice cup
+of hot tea before you go out again. Just a minute."
+
+"I'll fetch it, Mrs. Bullivant. Don't you bother."
+
+"It's all right, dear, only a cup and saucer wanted; the rest is all
+ready."
+
+In a few minutes Grace came into the sitting-room carefully carrying the
+cup and saucer.
+
+When she saw Miss Delmege she said in a pleased way: "Oh, I'm so glad
+you're better. Miss Vivian asked after you. She was up herself this
+afternoon, and looking much better."
+
+"And how's her father?"
+
+"They are much happier about him since he recovered consciousness. He
+can talk almost quite well, and Dr. Prince is quite satisfied about him.
+And they've got a nurse at last. You know, they couldn't get one for
+love or money; none of the London places had any to spare."
+
+"I should have thought they could get one from one of the Questerham
+hospitals."
+
+"I think Lady Vivian meant to, if everything else failed, but Miss
+Vivian didn't think it a very good plan; she was afraid the hospitals
+couldn't spare any one, I suppose, and, anyhow, most of the people there
+are only V.A.D.'s."
+
+"And is there any hope of seeing her back at the office?" asked Mrs.
+Potter, rather faintly.
+
+"I don't know," replied Grace thoughtfully. "You see, poor Sir Piers may
+remain at this stage indefinitely, or may have another stroke any time.
+They don't really know...."
+
+"And Miss Vivian goes on with the work just the same!" ejaculated Miss
+Henderson. "She really is a marvel."
+
+"I'm sure she'd come to the office if it wasn't for poor Lady Vivian,"
+said Miss Delmege. "But I know her mother depends on her altogether. I
+don't suppose she could leave her, not as things are now."
+
+Miss Delmege's assumption of an intimate and superior knowledge of the
+_ménage_ at Plessing was received in silence. Miss Henderson, indeed,
+glancing sharply at Grace, saw the merest quiver of surprise pass across
+her face at the assertion; but reflected charitably that, after all,
+Delmege had had a pretty sharp go of flu, and probably wasn't feeling up
+to the mark yet. Her mis-statements, however irritating, had better be
+left unchallenged.
+
+"Do you ever see anything of Lady Vivian when you're at Plessing?" Miss
+Delmege inquired benevolently of Grace, but the benevolence faded from
+her expression when Miss Jones replied, with more enthusiasm than usual
+in her voice, that she always had lunch with Lady Vivian, and sometimes
+went round the garden with her before going up to Miss Vivian's room for
+the afternoon's work.
+
+"Dear me! I shouldn't have thought she'd have much time for going round
+the garden. But she's not thoroughgoing, like Miss Vivian is, of course.
+It's quite a different sort of nature, I fancy. Strange, too, being
+mother and daughter."
+
+Miss Henderson decided rapidly within herself that, influenza or no,
+Delmege was making herself unbearable.
+
+"You're getting tired with sitting up, aren't you, dear?" she inquired
+crisply.
+
+There was a moment's silence, and then Miss Delmege said in pinched
+accents: "Who is it you're referring to, dear? Me, by any chance?"
+
+Grace knew the state of tension to which those aloof and refined tones
+were the prelude, and exclaimed hurriedly that she must go.
+
+She did not want to hear Miss Henderson and Miss Delmege having "words,"
+or to listen while Miss Delmege talked with genteel familiarity of Sir
+Piers and Lady Vivian.
+
+Pulling on her thick uniform coat, she went out, and slowly crossed the
+street.
+
+She was thinking of Lady Vivian, who had roused in her an enthusiasm
+which she could never feel for Char, and who had talked to her so
+frankly and warmly, as though to a contemporary, that afternoon in the
+garden at Plessing. For all her quality of matter-of-factness, there was
+a certain humble-mindedness about Miss Jones, which made it a matter of
+surprise to her when she found herself on the borders of friendship with
+the woman whom she thought so courageous and so lovable.
+
+She hoped that Miss Vivian would require her to go out to Plessing every
+day for a long while; then reflected that the privilege rightly belonged
+to Miss Delmege, who would certainly avail herself of it at the earliest
+possible moment.
+
+She knew, and calmly accepted, that Miss Delmege's services would
+certainly be preferred to her own by the Director of the Midland Supply
+Depôt; but she did not think that Lady Vivian proffered her liking or
+her confidence lightly, and felt a certain placid security that their
+unofficial intercourse would somehow or other continue. Then, with
+characteristic thoroughness, she dismissed the question from her mind
+and went into the office and to her work.
+
+That evening Grace went to the Canteen. Only Miss Marsh, Miss Anthony,
+and Miss Henderson accompanied her.
+
+"We shall have to work like blacks to make up for the absentees,"
+groaned Tony.
+
+"Never mind; it isn't quite so cold tonight. Isn't the moon nice?"
+
+"Lovely. Just the night for Zeppelins."
+
+Miss Henderson spoke from the pessimism of approaching influenza, but it
+happened that she was right. The first air raid over Questerham took
+place that night.
+
+The work was rapidly lessening towards eleven o'clock, when Captain
+Trevellyan came into the hall. He stood for an instant gazing round him
+reflectively, then said to Grace: "Who is in command here?"
+
+"Mrs. Willoughby, when Miss Vivian isn't here."
+
+"I see, thank you."
+
+Looking very doubtful, he sought Lesbia, who was preparing to discard
+her overall and to take her departure with the Pekinese.
+
+"Johnnie! How _too_ sweet of you to turn up just in time to see me home!
+My Lewis hates my going back alone in the dark; we've very nearly
+quarrelled over it already."
+
+"The fact is," said Trevellyan, wondering if Mrs. Willoughby were the
+sort of person to have hysterics, "that there's been a telephone warning
+to say an air-raid is on, just over Staningham. They're heading this
+way, so we may hear a gun or two, you know; some of our machines are in
+pursuit."
+
+He gazed anxiously at Lesbia, whom he characteristically supposed to be
+about either to burst into tears or to threaten a fainting fit.
+
+The ideas of Captain Trevellyan were perhaps not much more advanced than
+those of Lady Vivian's secretary.
+
+But Mrs. Willoughby discounted his solicitude, at least on one score, in
+a moment.
+
+"Zepps!" she screamed excitedly. "How too thrilling! Can I possibly get
+on to the roof, I wonder? I've never seen one yet."
+
+"Stop!" said the astonished Trevellyan. "You don't realize. They'll be
+over here in a few minutes, and our machines may be firing at them,
+besides the guns on the hill; there'll be shrapnel falling."
+
+Mrs. Willoughby tore off her overall and snatched up Puff.
+
+"I must, must see it all!" she declared wildly. "Have you got a pair of
+field-glasses?"
+
+Trevellyan restrained her forcibly from dashing to the door.
+
+"Mrs. Willoughby, we've got to consider that there are a number of
+people here, and that they are all in a certain amount of danger--not so
+much from bombs, though goodness knows they may very well drop one, but
+from our own shrapnel. Is there a basement?"
+
+"You can't send us to the cellar? My dear boy, I, for one, refuse to go.
+We're not children, and we're not afraid. We're Englishwomen!"
+
+On this superb sentiment Mrs. Willoughby swept into the middle of the
+hall and announced in penetrating accents that a Zepp raid was on, and
+had any one got a pair of field-glasses?
+
+There was a momentary outbreak of exclamations all around, and then
+Captain Trevellyan raised his voice: "Please keep away from the windows.
+There may be broken glass about."
+
+"Is it dangerous? What are we to do?" gasped Tony, next him. She was
+rather white.
+
+At the same moment the very distant but unmistakable reverberation of
+guns became audible.
+
+Trevellyan took instant advantage of the sudden cessation of sound in
+the room.
+
+"If there is a basement, it would be as well for everybody to go down
+there, please--just for precaution's sake. And then I'm going to put out
+these lights." His hand was on the nearest gas-jet as he spoke.
+
+"Nothing will induce me to _stir_ while there's any danger. I can answer
+for every woman here!" cried Lesbia, with a gesture of noble defiance.
+
+Grace Jones came into the middle of the room.
+
+"Hadn't we better obey orders?" she asked gently. "There is a basement
+beyond the kitchen."
+
+She held out her hand to Miss Anthony, and they went through the door
+into the kitchen.
+
+After an instant's hesitation, the other women followed. Trevellyan saw
+that they had lit a candle, and in a moment he heard them beginning to
+talk quietly amongst themselves.
+
+A few soldiers in the hall had congregated together, and were talking
+and laughing. The others made a dash for the door as the firing grew
+louder, and simultaneously exclaimed: "Here they are!"
+
+The sound of the huge machines far overhead was unmistakable. They could
+see the shrapnel bursting, and the guns on the hill boomed heavily and
+intermittently.
+
+"Look!" shrieked Lesbia, almost hurling herself out of the door.
+"They've got one of them! I can see it blazing!"
+
+Far away, a red spot began to glow, then suddenly revealed the
+cigar-shaped form in flames, dropping downwards.
+
+"They've got it!" echoed Trevellyan. "Look! it's coming down. Miles
+away, by this time. I wonder how many of ours are giving chase."
+
+The air was full of whirring, buzzing wings, and very far away a red
+light in the sky seemed to tell of fire.
+
+Occasional sparks and flashes told of the bursting of shrapnel, but the
+sounds were dying away rapidly.
+
+"It's over, and, by Jove, we've got him!" shouted Trevellyan, dashing
+back into the kitchen. Every one was talking at once, Mrs. Willoughby's
+voice dominating the rest.
+
+"I saw the whole thing _too_ perfectly! At _least_ five of the brutes,
+and two, if not three, of them in flames! I saw them with my own eyes!"
+she proclaimed, with more spirit than exactitude. "And where are those
+poor creatures hiding like rats in the cellar?"
+
+"The noise was awful!" said Tony, shuddering. "It felt as though it were
+right over our heads. But," she added valiantly, "I do wish we'd seen it
+all!"
+
+Trevellyan turned to her apologetically. "I'm so sorry. But I really
+couldn't help it. They sent me down on purpose to see that this place
+was warned. It was really perfectly splendid of you to go down like that
+and miss all the fun."
+
+"I was very frightened," she told him honestly, "though I do _awfully_
+wish I'd seen it. They must have had a splendid view from the Hostel at
+the top of the street."
+
+"There was a splendid view from _here_," said Lesbia cuttingly. "_I_ saw
+everything there was to be seen."
+
+Trevellyan was looking for Miss Jones.
+
+"Thank you so much for giving them the lead you did," he said to her
+gratefully. "It was very good of you. I felt such a brute for asking you
+to do it; but there really is danger, you know, especially from the
+windows, if shrapnel shatters the glass."
+
+"Oh yes, I know. I wonder," said Grace thoughtfully, "whether they heard
+it much at Plessing."
+
+"I know. I was thinking of that all the time. Not that she'd be nervous,
+you know, except on his account."
+
+"It would be dreadful for Sir Piers. Oh, I do hope they didn't hear much
+of it," said Grace.
+
+One of the men approached her. "If you please, Sister, could you come
+down into the kitching 'alf a minute?"
+
+Grace went.
+
+Trevellyan watched them all disperse, and escorted Mrs. Willoughby to
+her tram, wondering if he ought not to see her home.
+
+But Lesbia refused all escort, declaring gallantly that _she_ did not
+know the meaning of fear, and, anyway, Puffles would protect his missus
+from any more dreadful, wicked Zepps.
+
+He left her entertaining her tram conductress with a spirited account of
+all that she had seen, and much that she had not seen, of the raid.
+
+As he turned down Pollard Street again, a soldier with his hand bound up
+lurched out of the open door of the deserted Canteen.
+
+"Is there any one in there to shut the place up?" Trevellyan asked him.
+
+"One of the ladies is still in there, sir. Beg pardon, sir; she's a bit
+upset like."
+
+Trevellyan thought of little Miss Anthony, who had owned, with a white
+face, how much the sound of the guns had frightened her.
+
+He went into the hall. It was dark, but there was a light in the
+kitchen.
+
+"Who's there?" said John.
+
+"I am. It's all right," replied an enfeebled voice; and he went into the
+kitchen.
+
+Grace Jones was half leaning and half sitting against the sink, her
+small face haggard, her hands clutching the only support within reach,
+the wooden top of a roller-towel.
+
+"I'm afraid you're ill," exclaimed Trevellyan, looking desperately round
+him for a chair.
+
+"It's all right; please don't wait."
+
+"But it's over now. They brought the brute down. It's miles away by this
+time."
+
+He multiplied his reassurances.
+
+"No, no; it's not that," gasped Miss Jones, looking whiter than ever.
+
+"There were certainly no casualties over here. We should have seen signs
+of fire somewhere if they'd dropped a bomb."
+
+"It's _not_ that!" Grace told him desperately.
+
+Trevellyan gazed at her helplessly, and repeated in an obtuse manner:
+"It's all over now--absolutely safe."
+
+Grace gazed back at him with a wan smile.
+
+"Would you mind going?" she asked him feebly. "I shall be all right in a
+minute. It's very tiresome, but the sight of--of blood always upsets me
+like this, and that man had cut his finger rather badly, and I had to do
+it up. It's only--that."
+
+She put her hands up to her damp forehead as though the effort of speech
+had brought back the sensation of nausea.
+
+"You're going to faint!" exclaimed Trevellyan. "Let me get some water
+for you."
+
+"No, I'm not. _Oh, do go_!"
+
+"I can't leave you like this," protested the bewildered John.
+
+Grace staggered to her feet, and stood holding on to the edge of the
+sink.
+
+"I'm afraid--I'm only going to be sick," she said with difficulty.
+
+Ten minutes later they locked up the Canteen and went up Pollard Street.
+
+"You see, it had nothing to do with the raid," Grace told him gently.
+"It was just that poor man bleeding. I've always been like that; it's
+the only way I'm delicate, because I'm never ill, and I don't ever have
+nerves. But it is very tiresome. That's why I couldn't go and work in a
+hospital. I did clerical work in the hospital at home for a little
+while, but it wasn't any good."
+
+"Bad luck!"
+
+"It is, rather. I hate anybody's knowing about it; that's why I said I'd
+stay behind and lock up. I knew it was going to happen, and I didn't
+want any one to be there."
+
+"I'm sorry. I thought it was the raid that had upset you, and that you
+might be going to faint."
+
+"Nothing so romantic," said Miss Jones regretfully.
+
+But her regrets were as nothing to those of the Hostel when they learnt
+what had happened.
+
+It was impossible to conceal it from them, since the window of the
+ground-floor bedroom had been open, and Mrs. Potter and Miss Marsh,
+leaning from it, and listening eagerly, had heard every word of Captain
+Trevellyan's final discourse to Miss Jones, and her repeated assurances
+of being now completely restored.
+
+They flew into the hall to meet her.
+
+"Gracie dear, what _has_ happened to you? Tony was in such a state when
+she found you hadn't come in with her and the others."
+
+"Was it that beastly raid upset you?"
+
+Grace once more repudiated the raid with as much energy as she could
+muster.
+
+"You look as white as a sheet, dear! Come into the sitting-room."
+
+Every one was in the sitting-room, including those first back from the
+Canteen, and the pseudo-invalids who, having been in bed when the raid
+began, felt that only tea could enable them to face the night, and had
+hurried down in search of it.
+
+"Oh, Gracie, there you are! I was just going back to see what had become
+of you," said Tony.
+
+"Miss Vivian's cousin brought her home!" giggled Mrs. Potter. "You know,
+the Staff Officer one. She's been awfully upset, poor Grace! Turned
+quite faint, didn't you, dear?"
+
+"But you were so brave!" cried Tony, aghast. "You were all right all the
+time the raid was on. You didn't mind a bit!"
+
+"Came over you afterwards, I expect, didn't it?" said Miss Delmege
+kindly. "It's often the case. I'm always perfectly cool myself when
+anything happens--I was tonight--but I generally suffer for it
+afterwards. Reaction, I suppose. When I came downstairs after it was all
+over I was simply shaking, wasn't I, Mrs. Bullivant?"
+
+"Now, it's a funny thing," remarked Miss Henderson, without giving any
+one time to dwell upon Miss Delmege's personal reminiscences--"it's a
+funny thing, but I simply didn't feel the least bit of fear. Not for
+myself, you know. I just thought, well, I hope mother doesn't see any of
+this--she's got a bit of a heart, you know--but I didn't seem to feel a
+bit as though I was in any kind of danger myself. Not a bit."
+
+"Now, just sit down, child, and drink up this tea," said Mrs. Bullivant
+to Grace. "You've not a scrap of colour in your face."
+
+"I'm really all right now, thank you very much," Grace told her as she
+took the tea gratefully. "And it wasn't anything to do with the raid."
+
+Everybody looked rather disappointed.
+
+"Aren't you well, then, dear? I do hope it isn't another case of
+influenza."
+
+"I bet I know!" suddenly cried Tony. "It was doing up that man's hand
+upset you, wasn't it? He cut himself somehow in the excitement and was
+bleeding like a fountain, poor fellow! I thought you looked rather
+squeamish while you were doing it, poor thing! but I never thought of
+its bowling you over like this. Are you one of those people who faint at
+the sight of blood?"
+
+"I didn't faint," said Grace mildly.
+
+"Jolly near it, I expect, judging by your face now," said Tony
+critically. "Poor old dear!"
+
+"Did Miss Vivian's cousin come back to find you?" asked Miss Delmege
+sharply.
+
+"He came into the kitchen while I was still there, and afterwards he
+helped me to lock up."
+
+"Afterwards?"
+
+A tinge of colour crept into Miss Jones's face.
+
+"I'm afraid you won't think I rose to the occasion _at all_," she said
+deprecatingly. "It always does make me rather ill to see blood, though I
+know it's idiotic, and it was the soldier's hand, not the air-raid a
+bit, I didn't mind that at all."
+
+"What happened? Were you hysterical?" demanded Miss Delmege, with an
+inexplicable touch of umbrage in her refined little voice.
+
+"Certainly not," said Grace emphatically. "If you really want to know, I
+was just sick over the sink."
+
+Miss Jones's damaging revelation horrified the Hostel, no less than the
+crude manner of its avowal.
+
+"Well," said Miss Henderson, "you really are the limit, Gracie--and a
+bit over."
+
+"Poor child!" said Mrs. Bullivant kindly. "How dreadful for you! Miss
+Vivian's cousin and all, too! But, still, it was better than an absolute
+stranger, perhaps."
+
+"I don't see how you're ever going to face him again, though--really I
+don't," giggled Tony.
+
+"Poor man! so awful for him, too," minced Miss Delmege. "He must have
+been too uncomfortable for words."
+
+"Not he," Miss Marsh told her with sudden defiance. "He brought poor
+Gracie home, and delighted to have the chance. Come on, Gracie, let's go
+to bed. You look done for."
+
+She had grown very fond of her room-mate, in spite of all that she
+regretfully looked upon as an absence of propriety in her conduct; and
+when they were outside the sitting-room door, she said, without
+troubling to lower her voice: "Don't you mind their nonsense, dear. You
+couldn't help it, and _that_ Delmege has only got the pip because she
+hadn't the chance of being brought home by Miss Vivian's cousin
+herself."
+
+And when they got upstairs she "turned down" Gracie's bed for her, and
+put her kettle on to the gas-ring, and brought her an extra hot-water
+bottle.
+
+"There! Good-night, dear, and don't you worry. I think it was splendid
+of you to tell the truth. Lots of girls would have fibbed, and said
+they'd fainted, or something highfaluting of that nature. I should
+myself."
+
+"Thank you so much. You _are_ nice to me," said Grace warmly. She did
+not look upon the affair herself as being more than a merely unfortunate
+incident, but she knew that Miss Marsh regarded it as an overwhelming
+scandal, and was proffering consolation accordingly.
+
+Miss Marsh bent over the bed and tucked her in. "I'll turn out the gas,
+and you must go straight to sleep. It's frightfully late. And look here,
+Gracie, when we're alone together up here, I'd like you to call me Dora,
+if you will. It's my name, you know."
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+"That settles it," said Char. "If this sort of thing is going to happen,
+I _must_ be there. With no definite organization, there might be a panic
+next time an air-raid takes place. According to Mrs. Willoughby, every
+one made a dash for the basement, as it was. Women are such fools when
+one leaves them to themselves!"
+
+It was part of Char's policy always to disparage her own sex. It threw
+into greater relief the contrast which she knew to exist between herself
+and the majority of women-workers.
+
+She was speaking to Miss Bruce, but, rather to her annoyance, Lady
+Vivian came into the room in time to overhear her.
+
+"Surely the basement was the most sensible place to dash for?" she
+inquired, never able to resist an opportunity of attacking her
+offspring's arrogantly expressed opinions. "As for your being there, in
+my opinion, it's a very good thing you weren't. You'd only have drilled
+the poor things out of their senses, which would have taken up more
+valuable space in the basement."
+
+"I should not have been in the basement," returned Char superbly.
+
+"Then you might have been blown into bits, my dear, unless, as Director
+of the Midland Supply Depôt, all enemy aircraft has orders to respect
+your person?"
+
+Joanna was jeering quite good-humouredly, as she generally did, and even
+Miss Bruce saw some exaggeration in the white, tense silence with which
+Char received these indifferent pleasantries.
+
+"I hear the car," said the secretary, anxious to create a diversion.
+
+"Miss Jones. Mother, I'm going through the work with her in here this
+morning. There's no fire in the morning-room."
+
+"Very well, Char. You won't disturb me in the least."
+
+"I thought you were going to sit with father."
+
+"Not yet. Besides, I want to see Miss Jones."
+
+Char sighed patiently. At Plessing only the faithful Miss Bruce gave her
+work that consideration to which she had become accustomed at the
+office. She was finding Plessing almost intolerable. There were no
+interviews, the telephone-bell was not allowed to ring, no one urged her
+not to neglect the substantial meals which were served for her with the
+greatest regularity, and Miss Jones daily assured her, with perfect
+placidity, that the whole work at the office was progressing with
+complete success without her.
+
+The Director of the Midland Supply Depôt was completely shorn of her
+glory.
+
+And what was she doing, Char indignantly asked herself, while the
+organization which she had practically made was thus abandoned to its
+own resources?
+
+Nothing.
+
+She paid a purely perfunctory visit, morning and evening, to Sir Piers,
+who hardly ever heard what she said to him, and had the rest of the day
+at her own disposal. She had no share in the work of nursing, which was
+divided between Lady Vivian and the professional nurse who had come from
+London, and when she rather indignantly demanded of Dr. Prince whether
+he did not think that he had better utilize her hospital experience at
+Plessing, the doctor merely replied dryly: "Hospital experience, as you
+call it, acquired on paper only, won't help you much here, or anybody
+else either. Nurse Williams can do all that's necessary, and Sir Piers
+doesn't want any one but Lady Vivian when he's awake."
+
+"That's perfectly true," said Char sharply, "and that's why I can't help
+thinking it's rather waste of time for an able-bodied woman with a
+certain amount of brains to remain here unoccupied when there is so much
+to be done elsewhere."
+
+"You can take your mother for a walk every day. She is wise enough to
+take an hour's exercise every afternoon, and Miss Bruce can't be much of
+a companion. Besides," maliciously added the doctor, who had suffered
+considerably under the Central Depôt's arbitrary interference with his
+Hospital work, "it'll do you a lot of good to keep quiet for six months
+or so. You've been suffering from overstrain, whether you know it or
+not, and your work will be all the better for some relaxation. I assure
+you, we haven't had a wrong enclosure sent us from the office since you
+left."
+
+Dr. Prince walked off very triumphantly after this parting gibe.
+
+"Serve her right!" he thought to himself. "Conceited monkey! Perhaps I
+shall get station transport for my cases properly put through now,
+without her interference. Hospital experience, indeed!"
+
+"Of course," said Char to Miss Bruce, "a country doctor is naturally
+jealous of the R.A.M.C. men who've come to the fore. He's never forgiven
+me for getting his Hospital run on a proper military basis."
+
+"I'm sure he really admires your splendid work, dear, as anybody must,
+but he's known you ever since you were tiny, so I suppose he allows
+himself a certain amount of freedom."
+
+Char supposed so too, sombrely enough, and prepared herself to extract
+from Miss Jones an account of panic at the Canteen on the occasion of
+the air-raid which should justify her in returning to her post, even in
+the eyes of Dr. Prince.
+
+Needless to say, Miss Jones was unsatisfactory.
+
+"Oh no; there wasn't any sort of panic at all. Captain Trevellyan was
+there, and asked us to go to the basement, and we just went."
+
+"John tells me that they were perfectly splendid, all of them, and that
+you set the first example," said Joanna cordially.
+
+"The whole thing didn't last ten minutes," Grace told them. "We heard
+all the noise, but didn't see anything. The men did, of course. They saw
+the Zeppelin come down in the far distance. But by the time we came out
+there was nothing. It was all over."
+
+"What a shame!" exclaimed Joanna.
+
+"I must institute a proper drill for air-raid alarms," said Char,
+unsmiling. "That sort of haphazard _sauve qui peut_ is most unofficial.
+I shall see about it directly I get back."
+
+Joanna put up her lorgnon and looked at her daughter.
+
+She did not speak, but something in her expression made Char exclaim
+very decisively: "I can't desert my post at a time like this. Everybody
+must see that unless I had any extremely definite call elsewhere, my
+place is at the Depôt. The work is suffering horribly from this
+piecemeal fashion of doing things."
+
+She indicated Grace and her sheaf of bulging envelopes with a gesture of
+condemnation.
+
+Lady Vivian glanced from her daughter's set face to Grace Jones, whose
+eyes were cast down. Then she left the room without speaking.
+
+Char looked at her secretary, and said, very slowly and stiffly: "I
+shall probably be back at the office tomorrow or Monday, Miss Jones. You
+may tell the staff. Sir Piers's condition is not likely to alter at
+present, and, in any case, the work comes before any personal
+considerations at a time like this."
+
+There was silence.
+
+"Miss Jones!" said Char sharply.
+
+Miss Jones lifted her great grey eyes and looked straight at the
+Director of the Midland Supply Depôt.
+
+She was not at all an eloquent person, but perceptions much less acute
+than those of Char Vivian could have felt the intense, almost violent
+hostility with which the atmosphere vibrated.
+
+Then Grace dropped her eyes and said gently and coldly, in a tone as
+remote as it was impersonal: "Yes, Miss Vivian."
+
+The encounter had been a wordless one, and, indeed, Char knew that she
+would never have allowed it to become anything else. The relative
+positions of the Director of the Midland Supply Depôt and one of her
+staff were far too clearly defined in her mind for that. But it left in
+her a sort of cold, still anger, as well as an invincible determination.
+
+That night Trevellyan dined at Plessing.
+
+Lady Vivian did not come downstairs until dinner was over and they were
+in the drawing-room. Then she took out some needlework. Sir Piers had
+always liked to see her pretty hands working at what he generically
+called "embroidery."
+
+She sat down under the big standard lamp.
+
+Disquiet was in the air, and Char knew that only the unperceptive
+Trevellyan was unaware of an impending crisis. Miss Bruce fidgeted with
+the fire-irons, dropped them, and apologized. As though a spell had been
+broken, Joanna looked up and spoke.
+
+"Char, I don't know if you realize that there can be no question of your
+returning to the office tomorrow--or at all, for the present."
+
+The attack had opened.
+
+Char was glad of it, although a flare of resentment passed through her
+mind that her mother should have sought a cowardly protection from a
+possible scene in the presence of John Trevellyan.
+
+"Why not?" she added quietly. "My father is no worse?"
+
+"He is exactly the same. But I am not going to risk any shock or
+vexation to him. He asked me this afternoon if you were at home, and was
+glad when I said yes. You know he never liked your doing this excessive
+amount of work."
+
+"He never forbade it."
+
+"He is not likely to forbid it. When has he ever forbidden you anything?
+But he thinks that your place now is at home--which it very obviously
+is."
+
+"To do what?" asked Char, with rising bitterness, which she did not try
+to keep out of her voice. "Does he ever ask for me? Am I of the
+slightest use?"
+
+"He sees you every day, and he might ask for you at any time. He wishes
+you to remain at home for the present."
+
+"It's not fair, it's not reasonable. I do _nothing_ here. I am of no
+use. It's not as though he really wanted me. It's simply because
+you--and he--won't be reminded of the war--of the ghastly horrors going
+on all round us--won't think of the war, or let it be mentioned. You
+want to shirk it all--"
+
+"Don't, Char!" said John suddenly. "Don't say things you'll be sorry for
+afterwards."
+
+"No. I shall not be sorry for speaking the truth. _You_ know it's true,
+Johnnie."
+
+"True!" said Joanna. "What if it is true? Do you suppose that if I can
+give him one little hour's comfort by ignoring the war, and keeping
+every thought of it away from him, I wouldn't do so at any cost? The war
+isn't your responsibility or mine--your father is."
+
+She rose, and paced rapidly up and down the length of the room. Char had
+never seen her mother give way to such impetuous agitation before. She
+eyed her coldly, but strove to speak gently.
+
+"Mother, if it was anything else I'd give in. But I _am_ doing work in
+Questerham--real, absolutely necessary work--and here--why, I'm not even
+justifying my existence."
+
+"You're working here. You do a lot every day, going through all those
+letters and things with Miss Jones," Trevellyan pointed out.
+
+Joanna threw him a quick glance of gratitude.
+
+"Work here, Char, as much as you like," she exclaimed eagerly. "You can
+have any one you please out here--so long as they don't make a noise,"
+she added hastily.
+
+The expression was infelicitous.
+
+"You talk as though I were a child, and wanted to have other children
+out here to play with me. Good heavens, mother! I do you realize that my
+work is _for the nation_, neither more nor less?"
+
+"If I don't, it's not for want of being told," said her mother with
+sudden dryness.
+
+"It's easy to say that sort of thing, to accuse me of self-complacency
+in the tiny little part I contribute to an enormous whole."
+
+"It's not that, Char!" cried Joanna hastily. "I don't care if you have
+megalomania in its acutest form"--Miss Bruce bounded irrepressibly on
+her chair--"but I will _not_ have your father distressed. That's my one
+and only concern. Johnnie, help me to make her understand."
+
+"I do understand, mother," said Char. "You would sacrifice everything to
+the personal question--women always do. But I can't see it like that.
+The broader issue lies there, under my very eyes, and I can't shirk it."
+
+"Johnnie!" said Joanna despairingly. "Tell her that she's blinding
+herself."
+
+"Can't you give it up, Char?" he asked her gently. "You can do work
+here, you know, and let some one else carry on at Questerham."
+
+"Yes, yes, a deputy. Some one who'll be under your orders," breathed
+Miss Bruce eagerly.
+
+She cordially wished her contribution to the discussion unuttered,
+however, when it evoked from Johnnie the inspired suggestion: "Miss
+Jones! Make her your deputy, Char, and the whole thing will go like a
+house on fire."
+
+Joanna, still pacing the room, gave a quick, short laugh, which made
+Trevellyan look at her in wondering surprise, and Char in sudden anger.
+
+"May I suggest--" Miss Bruce began timidly, and paused.
+
+"Anything!" said Joanna brusquely.
+
+"Couldn't Dr. Prince tell us whether there is any reason--anything to
+fear--any danger," faltered Miss Bruce, becoming terribly involved.
+
+Trevellyan came to her rescue.
+
+"You mean whether there is likely to be any immediate change, for worse
+or for better, in Sir Piers's condition?"
+
+"Of course I couldn't go if my father was in immediate danger," quoth
+Char impatiently. "But he's not. We've already been told so. He may go
+on in this state for months and months. And at the end of a telephone!
+Why, I could be sent for and be back here within an hour."
+
+"I'm not discussing the question from that point of view at all," Joanna
+told her. "The point is not that you should be at hand in case of any
+crisis, but simply that he should not be vexed. Your insensate hours of
+work at the Depôt vex him."
+
+The words sounded oddly trivial, but no one doubted that Joanna was
+angry, angrier than they had, any of them, ever seen her.
+
+"Look here, Cousin Joanna, can't we settle this later on? There can be
+no need to arrange it tonight," said John. "Suppose we let the Doctor
+give the casting vote, as Miss Bruce suggested?"
+
+He felt pretty sure that no vote of Dr. Prince's would ever be exercised
+in favour of Char's immediate return to the Midland Supply Depôt.
+
+"Dr. Prince is coming here tonight," said Lady Vivian. "He ought to be
+here any minute now, if it's after nine."
+
+"Ten past," said Miss Bruce, glancing at the clock.
+
+"Neither he nor any one else can convince me that I ought to remain in
+idleness when every worker in England is needed," said Char.
+
+"My dear Char, you can't run any risks with Sir Piers in his present
+condition," said John unexpectedly. "That's what we want Dr. Prince to
+tell us--whether there is any danger to him if you persist in going
+against his wishes."
+
+Something of condemnation, such as Char had never yet heard in her
+easy-going cousin's voice, silenced her. She felt bitterly that every
+one was against her, no one understood.
+
+Then Miss Bruce's hand came out timidly and patted her on the shoulder.
+Dear old Brucey! Char recognized her fidelity in a sudden spasm of most
+unwonted gratitude. Brucey at least knew that a real struggle was in
+progress between Char's sense of patriotism and the pain that it
+naturally gave her to resist the wishes of the parents whose point of
+view she could not share.
+
+For the first time since she was a child, Char felt moved to one of her
+rare demonstrations of affection towards the faithful Miss Bruce. She
+smiled at her, pain and gratitude mingling in her gaze, and let her hand
+lie for a moment on the little secretary's.
+
+Trevellyan leant against the chimney-piece, his hands in his pockets,
+and looked at Joanna with inarticulate, uncomprehending loyalty and
+admiration in his gaze.
+
+She was pacing up and down the long room with a sort of restrained
+impatience, the folds of her black dress sweeping round her tall figure
+as she moved. In the silence, broken only by the rustling of Joanna's
+gown, the approach of Dr. Prince's small, old-fashioned motor-car was
+plainly audible.
+
+Miss Bruce gave one timid look at Lady Vivian, then got up and went to
+the door.
+
+They heard her speak to the servant in the hall, and then she came back
+again and took up her place close to Char.
+
+"Did you ask him to come in here?"
+
+"Yes, Lady Vivian. At least, I told them to show him in here."
+
+Joanna resumed her restless pacing.
+
+Then the drawing-room door opened and closed again upon the doctor,
+entering with the stooping gait of a hard-worked, tired man at the end
+of the day.
+
+"Good-evening, Dr. Prince," said Joanna abruptly. "Will you give us the
+benefit of your advice?"
+
+"On whose account?" demanded the doctor, glancing sharply from one to
+another of the group.
+
+"It's just this," said Char's cool, incisive tones. "My mother wishes to
+persuade me that my father is not in a fit state for me to take up my
+work at Questerham again. That I ought to remain here, doing practically
+nothing, while there's work crying out to be done."
+
+"Sir Piers is in no immediate danger," said the doctor slowly. "In fact,
+there is every reason to hope that he is getting better. Otherwise, I
+suppose, you would hardly contemplate leaving home."
+
+"But she's not suggesting leaving home!" cried Miss Bruce. "It's only a
+case of going backwards and forwards every day."
+
+The doctor shrugged his shoulders and glanced at Lady Vivian.
+
+"Sir Piers doesn't wish it," said Joanna curtly. "Surely that's reason
+enough. It distressed him very much, even before he was ill, that she
+should go and do this office work."
+
+"I see. Yes. The ideas of the present day are not very easily
+assimilated by our generation," said the doctor gently.
+
+He had often thought himself that Miss Vivian of Plessing had better
+have worked with her needle or amongst the poor, as had done the great
+ladies of his own generation, instead of in a Questerham office. But he
+had also been rather ashamed of his thoughts, and would not for the
+world have had them guessed by his pushing, good-natured wife, who was
+proud to let her two daughters help at the Depôt.
+
+"We live in abnormal times," Char said. "I'm not doing the work for my
+own pleasure, but because the need for workers is desperate. I _can_ do
+the job I've undertaken, and so far as I can see, there is no adequate
+reason, unless my father gets very much worse, for me to desert it."
+
+"It's not," said Miss Bruce judicially, "as though any one could take
+her place at the Depôt."
+
+"For the matter of that," Trevellyan remarked, with unexpected logic,
+"it's not as though any one could take her place here."
+
+"But that's just it!" cried Char. "I don't do anything at all here. Dr.
+Prince, you know perfectly well that I don't; we spoke of it the other
+day. Can you conscientiously tell me that my absence during the day is
+going to make the slightest difference to my father's case?"
+
+"No. Speaking professionally, I can't," said the doctor.
+
+Joanna stopped in her walking and looked at him, but it was evident that
+the doctor had not finished. He cleared his throat and faced Char.
+
+"_But_ if you're trying, which you obviously are, to bamboozle me into
+justifying you in taking your own way, Miss Charmian, then I'll tell you
+something else. It's not the work you want to get back to, young lady;
+it's the excitement, and the official position, and the right it gives
+you to interfere with people who knew how to run a hospital and
+everything connected with it some twenty years or so before you came
+into the world. That's what _you_ want. I can't tell you, as a matter of
+medical opinion, that it will bring on a second stroke, if you vex and
+disappoint your good father by monkeying about in a becoming uniform and
+a bit of gold braid on an office stool while he desires you to stay at
+home; but I can and I do tell you that you're playing as heartless a
+trick as any I ever saw, making patriotism the excuse for bullying a lot
+of women who work themselves to death for you because you're of a better
+class, and have more personality than themselves, and pretending to
+yourself that it's the work you're after, when it's just because you
+want to get somewhere where you'll be in the limelight all the time."
+
+There was perfect silence, while the doctor took out a large
+handkerchief and wiped his forehead.
+
+At last Joanna said dryly: "Well, I don't know that I should have said
+it myself, but upon my word, Char, I believe you've got the case in a
+nutshell."
+
+"No!" cried Miss Bruce. "It's unjust!"
+
+Char looked at her, white and smiling.
+
+"Yes, it's unjust enough," she said slowly. "But, as my mother has just
+implied, it is her own opinion, apparently, as well as Dr. Prince's."
+
+"No! no!" cried Joanna quickly, moving towards her daughter. "Not
+altogether, Char. Only I can't have your father vexed--indeed, I can't."
+
+"You are making it very hard for me. But my choice is made. I cannot,
+and will not, let a personal consideration come before the work."
+
+"You mean to go back?"
+
+"On Monday--the day after tomorrow."
+
+For a moment Char looked at them, superbly alone. Then she moved towards
+the door. Miss Bruce, looking half frightened and half admiring, crept
+after her, and Joanna made a sudden movement that caused Trevellyan to
+put out his hand towards her.
+
+"No, I'm not going to touch her. But if you go, Char, you'll stay in
+Questerham. I won't have you coming back and disturbing the house and
+waking him at all hours. I won't have you here at all, unless he asks
+for you."
+
+Char made a gesture of acquiescence, and went without a word from the
+room.
+
+"Oh!" cried Joanna, her blue eyes dark and her voice shaking, but
+unconquerably colloquial in the midst of her pain and anger. "Oh, why in
+Heaven's name didn't I whip Char when she was younger?"
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+"Enter Edith Elizabeth Plumtree, restored to health and happiness. Loud
+cheers from the spectators."
+
+"Hurrah! How nice to see you back, dear! You look a different girl."
+
+"I feel it," declared Miss Plumtree, exchanging vigorous handshakes with
+everybody.
+
+"What with her being in plain clothes, and having gone up about a stone
+in weight," said Tony, "I simply didn't know her at the station. Gracie
+and I tore down on our bicycles to meet her, and thought of
+commandeering two orderlies and a stretcher to bring her up from the
+station. Instead of which she's so much stronger than we are that she
+pushed both bikes up the hill without turning a hair, while Gracie and I
+panted in the rear!"
+
+"Doesn't she look well?" cried Grace. "I've never seen her look so
+well--and isn't it becoming?"
+
+Everybody laughed. Personal remarks of any but a markedly facetious
+order were known by the Hostel to be indelicate; but it was generally
+conceded that Gracie Jones was so nice it didn't matter what she said,
+since she probably couldn't help being unlike other people.
+
+Miss Delmege eyed Miss Plumtree's fair round face and plump figure with
+approval.
+
+"I like that costume," she observed critically. "New, isn't it, dear?"
+
+"No, dyed. It's my last year's grey."
+
+"You don't mean to say it's turned that sweet saxe? Well, you _have_
+done well with it! I must commence seeing about my own winter costume, I
+suppose. I'd been thinking of mole or nigger."
+
+Miss Delmege possessed an almost technical vocabulary of descriptive
+adjectives which she applied prodigally and exclusively to matters of
+wardrobe.
+
+She proceeded to elaborate her favourite theme, although unable to
+command a better audience than Grace, since every one else immediately
+became more absorbed than ever in Miss Plumtree.
+
+"Of course, blue's my colour, you know, being fair. Not sky, I don't
+mean, but royal or navy. But, then, one sees so many of those shades
+about, and I do like something distinctive."
+
+"You should get some patterns."
+
+"I have done already. You must help me to choose, Gracie. There's a
+shade of elephant that I rather liked; it would look nice with my cream
+blouse, I thought."
+
+"Yes, _very_," Grace agreed cordially, and perhaps not without a hope
+that this would now close the discussion.
+
+"Then there's the style." Miss Delmege pursued her reflective way. "I
+thought of a pleat down the centre, being tall, you see; I always think
+one must be tall to carry things off. Unless, of course," she added
+hastily, "one has a really perfect figure, like Miss Vivian."
+
+Miss Plumtree turned round.
+
+"How _is_ Miss Vivian? Didn't some one tell me she was back at the
+office? I suppose her father's better."
+
+"Very much the same," Miss Delmege told her sadly. "Of course, it's
+perfectly wonderful of her to--"
+
+"Oh," said Miss Marsh maliciously, "if you want news about Plessing,
+Greengage, you must ask Gracie. She's been out there every day in the
+car, so as to go through the letters with Miss Vivian."
+
+"I say! Really?"
+
+"Yes, rather. She had lunch with Miss Vivian's mother nearly every day."
+
+"I rather envied her the motor ride," said Miss Delmege languidly, with
+the implication that no other consideration could have moved her to
+jealousy for a moment. "But, as a matter of fact, I couldn't manage to
+go myself--laid up with this wretched flu, you know. I simply wasn't fit
+to stir. Of course, Miss Vivian knew that; she was awfully sweet about
+it. But, then, I always say, the attractive thing about her _is_ that
+she's so desperately human, when once you get to know her."
+
+"And is she back at the office?" inquired Miss Plumtree, turning a deaf
+ear to these descriptive touches.
+
+"Comes back tomorrow morning, Monday. Some one from Plessing rang up
+yesterday afternoon when I was on telephone duty and said so."
+
+"That would be Lady Vivian's secretary, Miss Bruce."
+
+"Yes," said Miss Delmege reflectively. "She's been with them for years,
+and is perfectly devoted to Miss Vivian. She's too sweet about her--Miss
+Vivian, I mean. I've heard her telephoning sometimes; she calls her
+Brucey."
+
+"Frightfully human!" was Tony's enthusiastic comment.
+
+"Yes, isn't it?"
+
+A moment's thoughtful silence was consecrated to the consideration of
+Miss Vivian's humanity, and then Miss Plumtree was escorted upstairs to
+take off her hat.
+
+"Really, that girl looks a different creature!" Mrs. Potter exclaimed.
+
+"Doesn't she? She ought to be most awfully grateful to Miss Vivian. You
+know Miss Vivian arranged the whole thing? With all she's got to think
+of, too! But that's Miss Vivian all over. Never lets slip a chance of
+doing a kindness. I've seen her go out of her way...."
+
+But Miss Delmege's anecdote was not fated to meet with attention.
+
+Mrs. Bullivant walked into the sitting-room looking awestruck.
+
+"Girls, who do you think is coming to sleep here tomorrow night?"
+
+"There isn't _room_ for any one else, is there?" mildly inquired Mrs.
+Potter, who slept in a bedroom which contained four beds.
+
+"We shall have to manage somehow. I've just had a note--Miss Vivian is
+coming here."
+
+"She isn't!"
+
+There was a chorus of astonishment; then Miss Delmege's attenuated
+little tones contrived, as usual, to make themselves audible: "Well, I'm
+not altogether surprised, do you know? I'd rather suspected something of
+the kind. Plessing has to be kept quiet on account of Sir Piers; and
+she's been ill herself, and isn't fit to come backwards and forwards in
+this cold. I thought something of the kind would be arranged, and I had
+a very shrewd suspicion as to what it would be."
+
+It need not be added that nobody made the faintest pretence of believing
+in this prescience.
+
+"Well, I'm blessed!" said Miss Henderson emphatically. "Where is she
+going to sleep? There isn't a single room in the house, is there?"
+
+"She must have my room," said Mrs. Bullivant simply. "I think I can make
+it nice and bright for her before tomorrow night. It'll just need fresh
+curtains and a bit of carpet or two, and I thought you'd let me have the
+looking-glass out of your room, Miss Jones dear. Mine is such a cracked
+old thing."
+
+"Yes, of course. But where are you going to sleep yourself, Mrs.
+Bullivant?"
+
+"That's another thing, dear. Your room is absolutely the only one where
+there's an inch of space for a spare bed. Would you and Miss Marsh mind
+very much...?"
+
+"No," said Miss Marsh emphatically, "of course not. But wouldn't it be
+more comfortable for you to have a bed in your own sitting-room? There'd
+just be room behind the door, I think."
+
+"Ah, yes, dear; but, then, I must have somewhere for Miss Vivian's
+meals. I can't send her down to the basement for supper very well, can
+I?"
+
+"Hardly!" exclaimed Miss Delmege, with a slight, superior laugh at so
+outrageous a suggestion.
+
+"I'm sure I hope she'll be fairly comfortable. It's only for a few
+nights, till she's made other arrangements."
+
+"I can tell you one thing," Miss Delmege remarked authoritatively. "The
+one thing Miss Vivian hates is a _fuss_. I happen to know that. She'll
+simply want everything to go on as usual, and to be let alone."
+
+"That's all very well, but it's easier said than done!" even the gentle
+Mrs. Bullivant was constrained to exclaim. "It'll mean an upset for the
+whole house, with extra meals and everything. I mean, dear, one really
+can't help seeing that it will. I don't know what cook and Mrs. Smith
+will say, I'm sure."
+
+"Considering that it's Miss Vivian who pays them their wages, they won't
+say much, unless they want to be dismissed," Miss Delmege retorted.
+
+Mrs. Bullivant went away looking very much harassed.
+
+"Do let's help her to turn out of her rooms!" exclaimed Grace. "It'll be
+much easier for her to do it tonight, with us to help her, than
+tomorrow, when she's sure to be busy all day."
+
+"Good egg! Come on, girls!" cried Tony.
+
+Miss Marsh and Miss Plumtree responded to the summons. They helped Mrs.
+Bullivant to take her crumpled blouses and limp black skirts from behind
+the torn curtain where they were huddled against the wall; and Grace
+mended the curtain while Tony and Miss Plumtree put away the clothes in
+a big cardboard dress-box, where Mrs. Bullivant said they would do very
+well for the time being.
+
+"What about that stain on the wall where the damp came through so
+badly?" Miss Marsh asked doubtfully.
+
+"Pin up a copy of an Army Council Instruction as a delicate attention.
+Then she can learn it by heart while she gets up in the morning," was
+Tony's facetious suggestion.
+
+"Put up a map of the Midlands, with a red-ink line round every
+affiliated depôt."
+
+"Don't be silly, girls! You're so foolish I can't help laughing at you,"
+declared Mrs. Bullivant. "No; but I think we might put up a picture or
+something. Now, I wonder what we've got."
+
+"There are Kitchener and Lord Roberts in the sitting-room," suggested
+Miss Marsh. "I'll fetch them up."
+
+She ran down, and came back triumphantly with the large framed
+photogravures. It was found that Lord Roberts would successfully mask
+the stain on the wall, and Miss Plumtree and Mrs. Bullivant made
+themselves very dusty by clambering on to chairs and affixing a nail,
+hammered in with the heel of Miss Plumtree's shoe, from which the
+picture was finally suspended.
+
+"It looks quite nice and bright, doesn't it?" Mrs. Bullivant asked them.
+"Not like Plessing, perhaps--but, then, Miss Vivian won't expect that.
+Now, is there anything else up here?"
+
+"We might put in a kettle," Grace said. "I'm sure she won't have one of
+her own." So Grace's own kettle, which was a pretty little brass one,
+was left upon the washing-stand, and Miss Marsh said that Gracie and she
+would share hers. They went downstairs congratulating one another upon
+their forethought, and upon the renovated appearance of the tiny
+bedroom.
+
+Just before supper Miss Delmege, coming upstairs with a graceful,
+bending gait indicative of still recent convalescence, encountered
+Grace.
+
+"You've made the rooms look quite sweet, dear, and Miss Vivian is sure
+to appreciate it. She's one of those people who always notices little
+things."
+
+Grace was tired, and had run up and down stairs a number of times, for
+the most part with her hands and arms full.
+
+"I wanted to help Mrs. Bullivant, that was all," she said curtly.
+
+"There's no call to get annoyed, dear!" exclaimed Miss Delmege, amazed.
+
+Grace looked up penitently.
+
+"I know there isn't. I don't know why I sounded so cross. I think
+perhaps I'm a little tired of the sound of Miss Vivian's name, that's
+all."
+
+"Well! Of all the peculiar things to say! Upon my word, dear," said Miss
+Delmege scathingly, "if I didn't know you so intimately, I should
+sometimes consider your manner downright strange!"
+
+This conviction remained with Miss Delmege. She went into the
+sitting-room to await the supper-bell, which Mrs. Bullivant generally
+rang some quarter of an hour after the appointed time, and remarked in a
+detached voice: "Poor Grace Jones seems rather upset tonight. What I
+should almost call sort of on edge. I suppose she doesn't like the idea
+of having to go back to the ordinary office routine tomorrow, after
+going in and out from Plessing in the way she has done."
+
+"I didn't notice anything wrong with her, I must say!" exclaimed Miss
+Marsh, who was both fond of Grace and anxious to miss no opportunity for
+contradicting Miss Delmege.
+
+"No, dear? Well, perhaps you wouldn't. There's none so blind as those
+that won't see, and we all know that love is blind," was the gentle
+response of Miss Delmege, as she sank into the chair nearest the fire.
+
+Miss Marsh could think of no better retort than "I'm sure I don't know
+what you mean by that, Delmege, and I shouldn't think you did yourself,
+either."
+
+"There's the bell," said Tony.
+
+They trooped down to the basement, and every one said how nice it was to
+see old Plumtree back in her place again, and Mrs. Bullivant
+triumphantly announced that there would be sausages, because Miss
+Plumtree liked them, to celebrate her return.
+
+"Not two for me, really, please," Miss Delmege protested elegantly, and
+manipulated the extreme ends of her knife and fork with the merest tips
+of her exclusively curved fingers, as a protest against the great
+enthusiasm displayed by several of her neighbours.
+
+On the same principle, when the sausages were followed by a loaf of
+bread and a pot of marmalade, Miss Delmege cut up her bread into small,
+accurately shaped dice, and said, "Pass the preserve if you will,
+please, dear," between two very small sips at her cup of cocoa. She sat
+at the foot of the table, and the chairs on either side of her generally
+remained vacant. Grace came down late, and apologized. One might be, and
+almost inevitably was, late on week-days, owing to the exigencies of the
+office, but Sunday supper was something of a ritual.
+
+"So nice and homelike, all sitting down together with no one in a
+hurry," Mrs. Bullivant always said. But she smiled a welcome at Grace.
+
+"I've kept your supper nice and hot, dear," she said, uncovering a plate
+next to her own. "Come and sit down here, won't you? You look tired
+tonight."
+
+Miss Delmege shot a triumphant glance at Miss Marsh, who pretended not
+to see it, and did not fail to observe that tired or not, Grace made her
+usual excellent supper.
+
+"I wonder if any one has any cigs?" Tony suggested wistfully.
+
+"Yes," said Grace promptly. "Luckily, I have a whole box."
+
+"Oh, you angel! How lovely! I do hate Sundays without a cigarette.
+Somehow, on other evenings there never seems to be time to smoke, or
+else one's too tired and goes straight to bed."
+
+In the sitting-room Grace produced her box of cigarettes.
+
+It was almost a matter of course at the Hostel that such things should
+be treated as belonging more to the community than to the individual.
+
+"Thanks awfully, Gracie."
+
+"Really? Are you sure? Well, then, thanks so much, if I may--just one."
+
+"Delmege? Oh, you don't smoke, though, do you?"
+
+"No, thank you. I dare say I seem old-fashioned, but it's the way mother
+brought us all up from children, and I must say I always feel that
+smoking is--well, rather unwomanly, you know."
+
+In the face of this commentary Miss Marsh struck a match, and passed it
+round the room.
+
+The atmosphere became clouded.
+
+"You know," Grace said rather mischievously to Miss Delmege, "that Miss
+Vivian smokes?"
+
+"She doesn't!"
+
+"Indeed she does. Didn't you know that? Why, I've often noticed the
+smell of tobacco when she hangs up her coat in the office. It's
+unmistakable."
+
+"That might mean anything!" hastily exclaimed Miss Delmege. "Tobacco
+does _cling_ so. Very likely it hangs all round the house at Plessing,
+you know, with a man in the house and people always coming and going,
+probably."
+
+"You forget that Gracie knows all about Plessing," cried Miss Marsh
+instantly. "Of course, _she's_ seen Miss Vivian at home."
+
+"And does she really smoke?" asked Tony.
+
+"Yes, she does. Quite a lot, I think."
+
+"Ah, well, that's different, isn't it?" Miss Delmege's serenity remained
+quite unimpaired. "One can understand her requiring it. I believe it
+really is supposed to be soothing, isn't it? Of course, working as she
+does, her nerves probably require it. What I mean to say is, she
+probably requires it for her nerves."
+
+"I dare say. I wonder where she'll smoke here?"
+
+"In Mrs. Bullivant's sitting-room, I suppose. Not that she'll be here
+much, I don't suppose. Only just for her meals, you know, and then to go
+straight to bed when she gets in."
+
+"I do hope that her sleeping in Questerham isn't going to serve her as
+an excuse for working later than ever!" exclaimed Miss Delmege, in the
+tones of proprietary concern with which she always spoke of Miss
+Vivian's strenuous habits.
+
+"Yes, I see what you mean," Mrs. Potter agreed. "With her car waiting,
+she simply had to come away sooner or later."
+
+"Exactly; and she's always so considerate for her chauffeur, and every
+one. I really do think that I've never seen any one--and I'm not saying
+it because it _is_ Miss Vivian, but speaking quite impersonally--any one
+who went out of her way, as she does, to think of other people."
+
+"Look at what she did for me--even ordered a cab each way for me!" cried
+Miss Plumtree, very simply.
+
+"That," said Miss Delmege gently, "is just Miss Vivian all over."
+
+Miss Marsh bounced up from her chair, rudely severing the acquiescent
+silence that followed on this well-worn _cliché_.
+
+"I'm going up to get my knitting. I simply must get those socks done for
+Christmas. I suppose no one will be shocked at my knitting on Sunday?"
+
+"Gracious, no! Especially when it's for the Army. When's he coming on
+leave, Marshie?"
+
+"Oh, goodness knows! The poor boy's in hospital out there. Can I fetch
+anything for any one while I'm upstairs?"
+
+"My work-basket, if you wouldn't mind," said Grace.
+
+"I say," asked Mrs. Potter, as the door slammed behind Miss Marsh, "_is_
+she engaged?"
+
+"Oh no. She has heaps of pals, you know," Miss Henderson explained.
+"She's that sort of girl, I fancy. Haven't you noticed all the letters
+she gets with the field postmark? It isn't always the same boy, either,
+because there are quite three different handwritings. And her brothers
+are both in the Navy, so it isn't _them_."
+
+"Well," said Miss Delmege, with the little air of originality so seldom
+justified by her utterances, "they say there's safety in numbers."
+
+"Here's your basket, Gracie," said Miss Marsh, reappearing breathless.
+"How extraordinarily tidy you are! I always know exactly where to find
+your things--that is, if mine aren't all over them!"
+
+"What are you going to make, Gracie?"
+
+"Only put some ribbon in my things. The washing was back last night,
+instead of tomorrow morning, which will be such a saving of time during
+the week. I wish it always came on Saturday," said Grace, serenely
+drawing out a small folded pile of linen from her capacious and orderly
+basket.
+
+Every one looked rather awestruck.
+
+"Do you put in ribbon every week?"
+
+"Isn't it marvellous of her?" Miss Marsh inquired proudly, gazing at her
+room-mate. "She has such nice things, too."
+
+Grace uncarded a length of ribbon, and began to thread it through the
+lace of the garment known to the Hostel as a camisole.
+
+"I can't say I take the trouble myself. _My_ things go to the wash as
+they are, ribbon and all. The colour has to take its chances," said Miss
+Plumtree.
+
+"Are we going to have any music tonight?" inquired Miss Delmege, with a
+sudden effect of primness.
+
+The suggestion was received without enthusiasm.
+
+"Then," Miss Delmege said, with a glance at Grace, who had completed the
+adornment of her camisole, and was proceeding to unfold yet further
+garments, "I think I shall go to bed."
+
+"Do, dear," Mrs. Bullivant told her kindly. "I hope any one will go
+early who's tired."
+
+Miss Delmege smiled cryptically.
+
+"Well," she said gently, "underwear in the sitting-room, you know!"
+
+"Oh dear!" cried Grace in tones of dismay. "Is that really why she's
+gone upstairs?"
+
+"No loss, either," Miss Marsh declared stoutly.
+
+"But it's only my petticoat bodice."
+
+"I suppose she didn't know what might be coming next."
+
+Grace, guiltily conscious of that which might quite well have been
+coming next but for this timely reminder, hastily completed her work and
+put it away again.
+
+She leant back in the wicker chair, unconsciously adjusting her weight
+with due regard to its habit of creaking, and gazed into the red embers
+of the dying fire.
+
+Her mind was quite abstracted, and she was unaware of the spasmodic
+conversation carried on all round her.
+
+Her thoughts were at Plessing.
+
+How could Miss Vivian be coming to stay at the Hostel when her father
+was so ill, and Lady Vivian alone at Plessing? Grace remembered the
+expression on Joanna's face when her daughter had said that she could no
+longer stay away from the office at Questerham.
+
+She supposed that a consent had been extorted from her by Char, unless,
+indeed, Miss Vivian had not deemed even that formality to be necessary.
+Grace wondered, with unusual despondency, when or if she should see Lady
+Vivian again. She felt quite certain now that never again would any
+pretext induce Char to let her return to Plessing, and was not without a
+suspicion that she might be made to feel, in her secretarial work, that
+the Plessing days had not been a success in the eyes of Miss Vivian.
+
+"Never mind; it was quite worth it," thought Grace, and it was
+characteristic of her that the idea of seeking work elsewhere than with
+the Director of the Midland Supply Depôt never occurred to her.
+
+"A penny for your thoughts, Gracie."
+
+"Oh, they're not worth it, Mrs. Potter. They weren't very far away."
+
+"Perhaps they were just where mine have been all the evening--with poor
+Miss Vivian. She'll be feeling it tonight, poor dear, knowing she's got
+to leave tomorrow, and Sir Piers so ill. I _do_ think she's wonderful."
+
+"I must say, so do I," Miss Henderson said thoughtfully. "When she used
+always to refuse me the afternoon off, or any sort of leave, and say
+that she couldn't understand putting anything before the work, I used to
+resent it sometimes, I must own. But, really, she's lived up to it
+herself so splendidly that one can't ever say another word."
+
+"Isn't Sir Piers _any_ better?" asked Miss Plumtree pityingly.
+
+"Not a bit, I think. But he's not exactly in immediate danger, either.
+Only the house has to be kept quiet, so I suppose she can't come
+backwards and forwards like she used, and it's a choice between her
+leaving home or giving up the work altogether."
+
+"Well, I _do_ think it's splendid of her!"
+
+"Because, of course," Tony said, "nobody could take her place here. And
+I suppose she can't help knowing that. It will seem extraordinary having
+her in the Hostel, won't it?"
+
+"It won't really be comfortable for her after Plessing, I'm afraid. I
+wish I could think of some better arrangement...." murmured Mrs.
+Bullivant to herself.
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Bullivant!" cried Grace Jones. "You couldn't do more than give
+up your own bedroom and your own sitting-room to her!"
+
+Then, because the heretical words "And that's more than she deserves,"
+were trembling on her tongue, Grace went upstairs to bed.
+
+Her sense of loyalty to her chief did not allow her to throw any doubt
+on the glory of her return to work under such circumstances.
+
+Moreover, the Hostel's point of view on the subject was as adamantine as
+it was universal.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+The next morning Char came back to the office. She found her table
+loaded with violets and a blazing fire on the hearth. Miss Delmege
+greeted her with an air of admiring wonder, suffused by a tinge of
+respectful pity, and ventured to hope that Sir Piers Vivian was better.
+
+No one else was sufficiently daring to approach so personal a topic, but
+little Miss Anthony, blushing brightly, turned round at the door just as
+she was leaving the room with her work, and said stammeringly that it
+was so nice to see Miss Vivian back in the office again.
+
+Char smiled.
+
+She was still looking ill, and she knew that her departure from Plessing
+had been a severe strain on her barely recovered strength. The effort of
+giving her attention to the arrears of work which required it taxed all
+her powers of determination.
+
+"Is this all the back work, Miss Delmege?"
+
+"Yes, I think so, Miss Vivian."
+
+"There are several things here which ought to have been brought to me."
+
+"I suppose Miss Jones didn't know."
+
+"But she ought to have known. It was most annoying having to leave so
+much to her. She hasn't the necessary experience for one thing, and is
+far too fond of acting on her own initiative."
+
+It gave Char a curious satisfaction to say this in the cool and judicial
+tones of complete impartiality.
+
+"I shall have a fearful amount to do with these back numbers. Bring me
+the Hospital files, and the Belgian file, and W.O. letters--and--yes,
+let me see--Colonial Officers. That will do for the moment; and send for
+Miss Collins, please."
+
+The stenographer entered the room with her most _dégagé_ swing, and
+seated herself opposite to Char, her pad poised upon her crossed knees.
+
+"Good-morning, Miss Vivian," she said gaily. "Nice to see you back
+again. I hope you've quite got over the influenza?"
+
+"Thank you," said Char icily. "Please take down a letter to the O.C.
+London General Hospital."
+
+She dictated rapidly, but Miss Collins's shorthand was never at a loss,
+and at the end of forty minutes she still appeared tireless and quite
+unruffled.
+
+"That will do, for the moment."
+
+Miss Collins uncrossed her knees, and looked up.
+
+"I shall be wanting ten days' leave, Miss Vivian," was her unprecedented
+remark.
+
+The scratching of Miss Delmege's pen paused for a moment, and, although
+she did not turn round, a tremor agitated her neat, erect back.
+
+Char looked at her unabashed typist.
+
+"There will be no Christmas leave," she said curtly, taking the
+resolution on the instant.
+
+"I expect I shall want it before Christmas--about the end of this week.
+The fact is--"
+
+"I'm sorry, but it's quite out of the question. Naturally, one rule
+applies to the whole staff, and I shall not expect any one to be absent
+from duty except on Christmas Day itself, which will be treated as a
+Sunday. As for ten days, the suggestion is absurd, Miss Collins. I
+consider that you've practically had ten days' holiday during my
+absence--and more."
+
+"I've been here every day as usual, and cut any number of stencils, and
+rolled them off," Miss Collins cried indignantly.
+
+"I'm glad to hear it. Why do you want leave now?"
+
+Miss Collins giggled, tried to look coy, and at last said in triumphant
+tones, which strove to sound matter-of-fact: "I'm going to be married."
+
+There was silence. Char was drawing a design absently on her
+blotting-pad.
+
+"My friend is getting leave at the end of next week, and we've settled
+to be married before he goes out again. He's an Australian boy."
+
+"Of course, that slightly alters the case," Char said at last, stiffly.
+"Do you wish to go on working here just the same?"
+
+"Oh, yes, Miss Vivian. What I feel is, that with him out there, I simply
+must be doing my bit at home. It'll take my mind off, too, like, and as
+he says--"
+
+Char interrupted her ruthlessly.
+
+"In the circumstances, Miss Collins, you can take eight days' leave at
+the end of this week. But I may tell you that you have chosen a most
+inconvenient moment, with the Christmas rush coming on and a great deal
+of back work to be done."
+
+Her manner was a dismissal.
+
+Miss Collins left the room.
+
+"Miss Delmege, do you think that we could find some one to replace Miss
+Collins?"
+
+"For the time--or permanently?"
+
+"While she's away, I meant. It would be difficult to get any one
+permanently in her place, I'm afraid. Besides, she's an extremely good
+stenographer, and I can't afford to have one who'll make mistakes."
+
+Char paused, and her feminine curiosity conquered official aloofness.
+"Did you know that she was engaged to be married?"
+
+"I've seen her wearing a ring, but, naturally, I never come across her
+except officially," was the haughty response of her secretary.
+
+But however detached she might proclaim herself to be, Miss Delmege did
+not keep the news of Miss Collins's wedding to herself. In less than
+twenty-four hours it was known all over the office. It was perhaps
+fortunate that the Director of the Midland Supply Depôt did not know the
+number of departments in her office that interspersed the day's work
+with discussions as to what Miss Collins would wear as a wedding-dress.
+The interest of it almost eclipsed the sensation of Char's own
+installation at the Hostel.
+
+She arrived there at nine o'clock that night. It would have been
+possible for her to leave the office a good deal earlier, but she was
+aware that the members of her staff would not expect any deviation from
+her usual iron rule, and were probably telling one another at that
+moment how wonderful it was to think that Miss Vivian should never have
+her dinner before half-past nine at night.
+
+Char, tired and oddly apprehensive, was inclined to think it rather
+wonderful herself. The door of the Hostel stood open to the street, as
+usual, but since the air-raid over Questerham all lights had been
+carefully shaded, and only the faintest glimmer of a rather dismal green
+light appeared to welcome Char as she rang the bell.
+
+She thought that the hall looked narrow and dingy, and a large box took
+up an inconvenient amount of space at the foot of the stairs. Then it
+occurred to her, with an unpleasant sense of recognition, that the box
+was her own.
+
+"Is that Miss Vivian?" came a voice through the gloom. "Won't you come
+in?"
+
+Char came in, gingerly enough. Then a match was struck, and Mrs.
+Bullivant anxiously held up a lighted candle to guide her footsteps.
+
+"Just down the step, Miss Vivian, and I've got supper all ready for you
+in my sitting-room. I thought you'd like it best there. Our dining-room
+is in the basement, you know."
+
+"Thank you; this will do very well."
+
+Char looked round the tiny room rather wonderingly. Preparations for a
+meal stood on a table that was obviously a writing-table pushed against
+the wall and covered with a white cloth.
+
+"It'll be ready in one minute, Miss Vivian," repeated the Hostel
+Superintendent nervously. "I'll just go and tell the cook. I expect you
+must be hungry, and would rather have supper first, and then go to your
+room. And I'm very sorry, but we've had to leave your trunk downstairs.
+The stairs are rather too narrow, and the maids thought they couldn't
+manage it."
+
+Mrs. Bullivant went away, as though supposing that the last word had
+been said upon the subject of the trunk.
+
+Char thought otherwise.
+
+In a few minutes Mrs. Bullivant came back with a tray, on which stood a
+cup of cocoa, another one of soup, and a plate with two pieces of bread.
+"I thought you'd like soup, as it's such a cold night," she said
+triumphantly. "Now, you must tell me if you have any special likes and
+dislikes, won't you? I do so hope you'll be fairly comfortable here,
+Miss Vivian. I can't tell you how very much it's impressed all the
+girls, your coming here like this, for the sake of the work. I'm afraid
+it won't be as comfortable as Plessing."
+
+The same fear was also taking very definite possession of Char's mind.
+
+She pulled up a low cane-seated chair to the table and began the soup
+and bread. The cocoa, already poured out, must, it was evident, be
+allowed to get cool until the arrival of a next course. This proved to
+be a dish of scrambled eggs, and was followed by one large baked apple.
+
+Char felt thankful that she had refused her maid's solicitations to come
+with her. Preston confronted by such a meal, either for herself or for
+Miss Vivian, was quite unthinkable.
+
+Char thought of Plessing and the dinner that had awaited her there every
+evening, with Miss Bruce hovering anxiously round the other end of the
+table, with something like homesickness.
+
+Then she derided herself, half laughing. What did food matter, after
+all?
+
+But she decided that Miss Delmege must be told to find her rooms in
+Questerham as soon as possible. Then Preston could join her.
+
+This last thought was prompted by Char's strong disinclination to
+unpack, a duty which she realized now would, for the first time, devolve
+upon herself.
+
+It would not be facilitated by the prominent position given to her trunk
+in the hall of the Hostel.
+
+"Mrs. Bullivant," said Char, when the Superintendent returned, "my trunk
+must be taken up to my room, please."
+
+Her tone was unmistakably, and quite intentionally, that of the Director
+of the Midland Supply Depôt issuing instructions to a member of her
+staff.
+
+"Yes, Miss Vivian," automatically replied the little Superintendent, and
+added desperately: "But I'm afraid that cook and Mrs. Smith won't do
+it--not if they've once said they won't."
+
+Char raised her eyebrows.
+
+"If the servants don't obey your orders they must leave," she said. "But
+isn't there any one else?"
+
+"Perhaps two of the girls--" Mrs. Bullivant hesitated, and then left the
+room.
+
+Char heard her open the door of the next room, which she knew must be
+the sitting-room, and a babel of voices immediately became audible.
+
+She waited, rather annoyed.
+
+Mrs. Bullivant came out into the hall, followed by quite a large group.
+
+"This is it. Look, dears, can you manage it? Miss Henderson, dear,
+you're tall."
+
+"Oh, yes. It's only up one flight, and it isn't a very large box--only
+an awkward shape. Will some one give me a hand?"
+
+Miss Plumtree, who was sturdy, came to assist, and between them, with a
+great deal of straining and pulling, and many anxious ejaculations from
+the door-way of the sitting-room, they slowly lifted the box.
+
+"Don't hurt yourself, now!" cried Mrs. Bullivant. "Get it from
+underneath, Henderson!"
+
+"Mind the paint on the wall!"
+
+"Mind the banisters!"
+
+"Oh, mind what you're doing, Greengage!"
+
+Similar helpful ejaculations resounded, as the two girls carried the box
+up the first flight of narrow stairs.
+
+Just as they reached the top step, Char heard the small, clear voice of
+her secretary, standing in the hall.
+
+"Can you manage, or shall I help you?"
+
+There was a general laugh, echoed from above, as Miss Henderson's voice
+came briefly down to them: "Thanks, Delmege; just like you, dear, but we
+happen to have finished."
+
+They all laughed again.
+
+Char, through the half-open door, saw Miss Delmege tossing her fair
+head. "I'm afraid I don't quite see the point of the joke," she observed
+acidly.
+
+"Now go in to the fire again, all of you," Mrs. Bullivant exclaimed.
+"Miss Vivian will hear you if you chatter like this in the hall. I'll
+tell her the box is safely upstairs."
+
+When she returned to impart the information, Char had shut the door of
+her little room again.
+
+"Wouldn't you like to come upstairs, Miss Vivian?" the Superintendent
+asked her timidly. "They've managed to get your box up all right, and I
+expect you'll be wanting to unpack."
+
+Char wanted nothing less, but she realized that the unwelcome task must
+of necessity precede her night's rest, and went upstairs with Mrs.
+Bullivant.
+
+The bedroom seemed to her very tiny, and, indeed, what space there was,
+her box and dressing-bag mainly occupied. It was also exceedingly cold.
+
+When Mrs. Bullivant had wished her good-night, with a certain wistful
+air of expecting an enthusiasm which Char felt quite unable to display,
+she slipped on her fur coat and began to tug at the strap of her trunk.
+
+The process of unpacking at least succeeded in warming her. But there
+was hardly any room to put away even the limited number of belongings
+that she had brought, and Char told herself rather indignantly that Mrs.
+Bullivant seemed to be a most incompetent manager, and might at least
+have provided her employer with a respectably sized bedroom in her own
+Hostel.
+
+Towards ten o'clock she heard the sitting-room door opened, and a
+general whispering and rustling proclaimed that several people were
+coming upstairs. Char did not, however, at once realize the full
+significance of the fact that her own room adjoined the bathroom. A thin
+but incessant stream of conversation began, punctuated by the loud
+hissing of a kettle which had overboiled upon the gas-ring.
+
+"How's the water tonight?"
+
+"Fair to middling. I don't know who is having baths, but there won't be
+enough water for more than two."
+
+"It's only tepid as it is."
+
+"I am hungry," proclaimed a plaintive voice in incautiously raised
+tones.
+
+"H'sh-sh! You'll disturb Miss Vivian. Why are you hungry at this hour,
+Tony?"
+
+"Well, we didn't have anything frightfully substantial for supper, did
+we? and I had to go after the scrambled eggs, because I was on telephone
+duty. So I didn't even have any pudding."
+
+"Oh, poor kid! Couldn't Mrs. Bullivant have got you something?"
+
+"I didn't like to ask her; she's so worried tonight, what with Miss
+Vivian's coming and everything. Besides"--Tony's voice sounded very
+serious--"there never _is_ anything, you know. Only tomorrow's
+breakfast."
+
+"Hasn't any one got some biscuits?"
+
+"I'll go down to the kitchen and find some milk for you," said the
+peculiarly distinct tones of Grace Jones. "I know where it's kept."
+
+"Oh, why should you bother?"
+
+"It isn't at all a bother. You must be starving."
+
+Char heard Miss Jones going downstairs again, and then a triumphant
+voice proclaimed: "_I_ know who has some biscuits! Plumtree. She brought
+them back from her holiday. I'll go and ask her."
+
+"Come on!"
+
+Evidently Tony and Miss Marsh felt an equal certainty that Miss
+Plumtree's biscuits could be looked upon as community goods.
+
+There was a silence, before a voice from the next story cried urgently
+down the stairs: "I say, is my kettle boiling? I put it on the gas-ring
+ages ago, as I went upstairs. Will some one have a look?"
+
+"It boiled over some time ago," Miss Delmege proclaimed very distinctly.
+"I took it off for you."
+
+"Thanks very much. I'll come."
+
+There was a hasty descent, evidently in bedroom slippers, and then a
+long whispered colloquy of which Miss Vivian heard only her own name.
+Evidently Miss Delmege, at least, had not forgotten the proximity of her
+chief. Char several times heard her "H'sh!" her companions in a sibilant
+and penetrating whisper.
+
+"You can't want to wash brushes at this hour!"
+
+"My dear, I simply must. Just let me have the basin half a minute; I've
+got the water all ready."
+
+"This your kettle?"
+
+"Yes, dear, thank you."
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Potter, have you actually got some ammonia in that water? I
+wish you'd let me do my brushes with yours."
+
+"Of course, Miss Marsh. There's plenty of room."
+
+"Well, good-night, girls," from Miss Delmege. "It may seem strange to
+you, me going to bed before ten o'clock, but it's the life. One gets
+tired, somehow."
+
+"Good-nights" resounded, and one door banged after another.
+
+There was splashing in the bathroom for a little while, and then
+silence.
+
+Char realized with dismay that she had no hot water, and that the brass
+kettle on her washing-stand was empty. After reflection, she filled it
+from the jug, and decided that she must go to the bathroom where the
+gas-ring was.
+
+She would not have been averse to being seen by her mother just then.
+War-work under these conditions could not be mistaken for anything but
+the grim reality that it was.
+
+Lady Vivian, however, not being present, Char performed her domestic
+labours unobserved, and went shivering to her bed.
+
+She wondered if any one would call her in the morning. This, however,
+proved not to be necessary.
+
+The walls were thin and the stairs only carpeted with oilcloth, and
+before seven o'clock Char was startled out of sleep by a prolonged
+whirring sound overhead, which she only identified as that of an
+alarm-clock, when footsteps hastily crossed the floor above, and it
+ceased abruptly.
+
+"Who on earth wants to get up at this hour, when they none of them start
+work before half-past nine!" she reflected rather disgustedly.
+
+But she remembered that Mrs. Bullivant's duties as Superintendent might
+include the supervision of Mrs. Smith's arrival every morning and the
+preparation of breakfast, when a step stole past her door, and the
+reflection of a lighted candle was flung for a moment on the wall.
+
+Conversations in the bathroom were much briefer in the morning than at
+night. Evidently every one was too cold, or in too much of a hurry, to
+talk, although there were sounds of coming and going from half-past
+seven onwards.
+
+Char went to the bathroom herself at eight o'clock, selecting a moment
+when it appeared to be empty. She went behind the curtains that screened
+off the bath from the rest of the room, and found the water very cold.
+
+"Very bad management somewhere," she reflected austerely, and wondered
+why it should be difficult to provide boiling water by eight o'clock in
+the morning.
+
+She felt chilled, and not at all rested.
+
+In the little sitting-room downstairs she found a rapidly cooling plate
+of bacon, uncovered, but solicitously placed on the floor close to the
+gas-fire, and some large, irregular slices of toast. Marmalade stood in
+a potted meat jar.
+
+It cannot be denied that Miss Vivian flung an agonized thought to the
+memory of the admirably furnished breakfast-tray provided for her each
+morning by the agency of the invaluable Preston at Plessing.
+
+Still very cold, and feeling utterly disinclined for the day's work,
+Char donned her fur coat over her uniform and went out.
+
+She was not unconscious of the likelihood that her exit from the Hostel
+might be observed from the windows, and reflected that it would be
+incumbent on her for the present to take advantage of her new quarters
+by starting for the office at least an hour earlier than any one else.
+
+But again she found here inconveniences which she had not taken into
+consideration. The fire in her office was not yet lit, and the charwoman
+who had charge of keeping the building in order greeted her with frank
+dismay.
+
+"Your room isn't done yet, miss."
+
+Miss Vivian, exasperated, and colder than ever, set her lips together in
+a line of endurance.
+
+"You can leave it for today, and in future I wish it to be ready for me
+by nine o'clock. Please light the fire at once."
+
+The stage of lighting the fire, however, was further off than she
+realized, and she was obliged to sit huddled in her fur coat, opening
+letters with mottled, shaking hands that were turning rapidly purple,
+while the charwoman made an excruciating raking sound at the grate, put
+up an elaborate and exceedingly deliberate erection of coal, sticks, and
+newspaper, and finally applied to it a match which resulted in a little
+pale, cold flame which did not seem to Char productive of any warmth
+whatever.
+
+She sat at her table and wrote:
+
+
+"DEAREST BRUCEY,
+
+"Will you send me every woollen garment I have in the world, please?
+Preston will find them. The cold here is quite appalling, and, of
+course, one feels the absence of proper heating arrangements at the
+Hostel terribly. It is, however, naturally much more convenient for me
+to be able to give more time to the work, which is fearfully heavy after
+my absence, and will probably increase every day now. I am writing from
+the office, having been able to get in very early. It might not be a bad
+plan, later on, to put in a couple of hours' work before breakfast, but
+please don't let the suggestion dismay you! I shall move into rooms as
+soon as my secretary can find some, and probably send for Preston. She
+could be quite useful to me in several ways.
+
+"There is a mountain of papers on my table, all waiting to be dealt
+with, so I can't go on writing; but I know how much you wanted to hear
+if the Hostel had proved at all possible. Don't worry, dear old Brucey,
+as I really can manage perfectly well for the present, in spite of the
+bitter cold and poor Mrs. Bullivant's hopeless bad management. She had
+not even arranged for my box to be taken upstairs; and as for hot water,
+decently served meals, or proper waiting, they are simply unknown
+quantities. I dare say I shall have to make one or two drastic changes.
+You won't forget to ring me up if there is any change in father's
+condition, of course. I could come out at once. This anxiety underlying
+all one's work is heart-breaking, but I _know_ that I was right to
+decide as I did, and stick to my post.
+
+"Yours as ever,
+
+"CH. VIVIAN.
+
+"P.S.--Do as you like about reading this letter to my mother."
+
+
+It was fairly certain in what direction Miss Bruce's "liking" would take
+her on the point, and it was not without satisfaction that Char felt the
+certainty of her voluntarily embraced hardships becoming known at
+Plessing.
+
+Her letter to Miss Bruce somehow restored to her that sense of her own
+adequacy which physical conditions of discomfort, against which she had
+felt unable to react, had almost destroyed.
+
+When Miss Jones came to work, a few minutes earlier than usual, she
+noted, with a regret that was not altogether impersonal, the cold,
+bluish aspect of her employer's complexion, and wondered if she dared
+infringe on Miss Delmege's cherished privilege of producing a
+foot-warmer.
+
+But she was not aware that her own excellent circulation, quite
+unmistakably displayed in her face and in an unusually white pair of
+capable hands, formed a distinct addition to the sum of calamities that
+had befallen Miss Vivian.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+"Char, I've come to warn you," portentously said Captain Trevellyan a
+week later, entering the Canteen one evening.
+
+"That's very kind of you. Is it another air-raid?"
+
+"No; besides, you're all quite _blasées_ about them now. Miss Jones,
+single-handed, could cope with--"
+
+"What did you want to warn me about?" interrupted Char, with more
+abruptness than apprehension in her voice.
+
+"A rescue-party. Miss Bruce is so much upset about you, because she
+thinks the Hostel is killing you, that she's arranged a crusade to
+deliver you."
+
+"Miss Bruce means very well, but surely she knows by this time that I
+don't admit of interference with my work. What does she want to do?"
+
+"You'll see in a minute. I can hear the rescue-party at the door now, I
+think. They were close behind me."
+
+Char swung round abruptly, and was engulfed in a furry embrace on the
+instant.
+
+"My dear, pathetic martyr of a child! I've come to take you out of this
+at once. I hear you've been through the most unspeakable time at that
+Hostel!"
+
+Char disengaged herself from Mrs. Willoughby's clasp, and endeavoured to
+silence the intolerable yapping sound that was going on apparently
+beneath her feet.
+
+"That's Puffles--wicked little boy, be quiet. He _would_ come with me,
+though I told him that all good little boys went to bye-bye at this
+hour; but he can't bear me out of his sight, you know. Isn't that too
+quaint? Quiet, Puff! He understands every single word that's said to
+him, you know. 'Oo clever, clever little man, aren't 'oo? Everything
+except talk, 'oo can."
+
+"Come, come; he makes a pretty good shot at that, doesn't he?"
+Trevellyan said dryly.
+
+"Johnnie, go away and find my precious Lance-Corporal for me. He'll
+never forgive me if I don't go and talk to him; but you've such a crowd
+here tonight I can't see any one. Besides, I want to talk to this dear
+thing. Can't we _sit_, Char? My dear, never stand when you can possibly
+sit. That's been my rule _all_ my life, and so I've kept my figure. Not
+that I'm as slim as you are; but, then, it simply wouldn't be decent if
+I were, at my age. My Lewis always says that my figure is exactly right,
+but I dare say he's biassed. Now, dear, what about _you_?"
+
+"We are particularly busy," Char said pointedly, "and I haven't a moment
+to call my own. I've only looked in here tonight just to see that
+everything's in order. Then I must go back to the office."
+
+"Quite unnecessary, I'm perfectly certain. And your looking in here is
+all nonsense, dear. They all know the work perfectly, and do it far
+better by themselves than when you're just pottering about, getting in
+the way. If you put on an overall, and really turned into a perfect
+barmaid, as I do, it would be different, but just to stand and look on
+helps nobody, and tires you for nothing. You don't mind my speaking like
+this? But I know your dearest mother's girl couldn't mind anything, from
+_me_!"
+
+Lesbia possessed herself of Char's unresponsive fingers and squeezed
+them affectionately.
+
+"Now I want to have a real heart-to-heart chat," she proclaimed, lightly
+but penetratingly.
+
+Char flung a glance round the hall.
+
+One of the men was strumming on the piano, and a group gathered round
+him was singing and humming, all together, "When Irish eyes are
+smiling."
+
+The atmosphere was thick with tobacco-smoke, and the demands upon the
+tea-urns heavier even than usual. Char saw Mrs. Potter, untidier than
+ever, handing steaming cups across her buffet with incredible rapidity.
+The noise of clattered crockery was unceasing. But Mrs. Willoughby's
+voice dominated all these sounds.
+
+"I've heard the whole story from your beloved mother, ridiculously
+monosyllabic though she always is, and, of course, from that poor, good
+creature, Miss Bruce, who is miserable about you. She says that your
+letters are _too_ heartrending--about the misery of that wretched
+Hostel, I mean. No food, no baths, no fires--and in this weather, too!
+So, my dear child, you're simply coming straight home with me tonight,
+to stay until we can find decent rooms for you, or persuade you to give
+up all this nonsense and go back to Plessing."
+
+"Thank you; but I couldn't dream--"
+
+"Lewis will be _delighted_. I've explained the whole thing to him, and
+he's quite overjoyed."
+
+It was impossible, remembering Major Willoughby's unalterable gloom of
+demeanour, not to suppose that Lesbia's optimism might be overstating
+the case, but Char only gave a fleeting thought to this consideration.
+
+"It's more than kind of you, but I'm afraid that poor Miss Bruce may be
+over-anxious--"
+
+"Not another word, Char. Can't we send some one to put your things
+together at once?"
+
+"Really, I'm most grateful, but I can't accept," said Char decisively.
+"It's quite true that my secretary hasn't found rooms for me yet, but
+meanwhile the Hostel does perfectly well, and I'm glad of the
+opportunity for being so near my work. I couldn't dream of moving."
+
+She began cordially to wish that she had not sought to relieve her
+feelings by those letters to Miss Bruce, from which the little secretary
+would appear to have quoted so freely, and to have derived so much food
+for anxiety.
+
+"Dearest girl, listen to me!" Lesbia exclaimed, raising her voice more
+than ever above the increasing din and clatter all round them. "I've
+been talking the whole thing over with your mother, and she's more than
+willing that I should have you. You needn't trouble about that for a
+_moment_. Poor dear Joanna was simply too sweet about it for words. 'I
+know you'll be a mother to my girl for me,' she said."
+
+Lesbia gazed at Char with the air of one who believes absolutely in the
+pathos she exploits, and Char was forced to the conclusion that she
+actually imagined herself to be quoting correctly. For her own part, she
+attached not the slightest value to Mrs. Willoughby's flights of fancy.
+
+Nevertheless, she was vexed and uneasy. Why could not people leave her
+alone? It was all very well for Miss Bruce to appreciate the stress of
+circumstances under which Char pursued her work, but the voluble
+importunity of Mrs. Willoughby was as unwelcome as it was unescapable.
+Char looked round her, in search of a possible channel into which to
+direct Lesbia's attention.
+
+"Isn't that your Lance-Corporal?" she rather basely inquired.
+
+"Where?" shrieked Lesbia. "You know, I'm quite, quite blind!"
+
+This was a fiction frequently indulged in by Mrs. Willoughby, whose eye
+could safely be trusted to pierce the densest crowd when convenient to
+herself.
+
+"_I_ see him, just come in. Now, I suppose he'll make a bee-line
+straight for my little corner. Dear thing, he always does! It's too
+wonderful to hear him describe all that goes on _out there_, you know.
+He was out right at the very beginning, all through Mons and the Marne
+and Ypres and everything. They say the men don't like talking about it;
+but I've had, I suppose, more experience than any woman in London, what
+with one thing and another, and they always talk to me. The dear fellows
+in the hospital I visit simply yarn by the hour--they _love_ it--and
+it's too enthralling for words. They're so sweetly quaint. One dear
+fellow always talked about a place he called _Wipers_, and it was simply
+ages before I realized that he meant _Ypres_! Wasn't that too
+priceless?"
+
+On this highly original anecdote Mrs. Willoughby hurried away,
+struggling into her blue-and-white overall as she went.
+
+Char saw her reach the side of the Lance-Corporal and break into voluble
+greetings, punctuated by hysterical protests from the Pekinese, wedged
+firmly under her arm.
+
+"Well?" said Trevellyan's voice behind her.
+
+"Well! Nothing will induce me to go and stay there, with that wretched
+little beast making its hideous noise all day and all night."
+
+They both laughed.
+
+"Seriously, Johnnie, I wish you'd tell Brucey that she really has
+exceeded her privileges. I can't have plans of that sort made over my
+head, as she should have known. What on earth possessed her?"
+
+"Your letter worried her. She thought that the Hostel sounded so
+uncomfortable."
+
+"So it is. But, after all," said Char, torn between a desire to show
+John how very much she was enduring in a good cause, and at the same
+time how little she heeded such external conditions, "after all the work
+is what really matters. It's for the sake of the work I put up with what
+poor Brucey thinks are hardships."
+
+"But are they really necessary?"
+
+"What do you mean?" said Char, displeased. "It certainly isn't possible
+for a house built like the Hostel to be either as roomy or as convenient
+as Plessing is. A certain amount of discomfort is practically
+unavoidable."
+
+"Dear me! that's very hard on all of you. Don't the others find it
+trying? They have to be there all the time, don't they?"
+
+"What others?" was the freezing inquiry of the Director of the Midland
+Supply Depôt.
+
+Trevellyan looked at her in surprise, and replied quite simply: "The
+other workers, of course."
+
+"Oh, I really don't know. I naturally never see anything of them, except
+at the office; but, of course--well, I suppose they're used to very much
+that sort of thing at home."
+
+"Surely not. I was really thinking," Trevellyan remarked with some
+superfluity, "of Miss Jones."
+
+"You and my mother appear to find some recondite quality in Miss Jones
+which I'm unable to discover!" exclaimed Char, laughing a little. "Of
+course she's a lady, but really, as far as work goes--which is, of
+course, all that matters just now--I've had a great many clerks who can
+be of far more use than she can. It was a mistake having her out to
+Plessing that time."
+
+She spoke in a reflective tone that had a conclusive quality in it, but
+the tactless Trevellyan ignored the hint of finality and inquired
+matter-of-factly: "Why?"
+
+"Because it may make the silly girl imagine that she's on a sort of
+superior foothold. You know how idiotic some of them are about--well,
+about me--as Director of the Supply Depôt, I mean. They can't look upon
+me as a human being at all."
+
+"But you don't seem to want them to, Char. If you can live in the same
+house with them all and yet never see them except at the office, it's no
+wonder they don't look upon you as a human being."
+
+He spoke so quietly that it was only after a moment she realized the
+condemnation that lay behind his words.
+
+It hurt her more than she would have supposed possible. Like most
+complex organisms, she had an unreasoned craving for the approval of the
+very simple, and she had always thought that Johnnie, easy-going and
+uncritical, would accept her judgment as necessarily wider and more
+subtle than his own.
+
+"I see," she said, very low. "You accept me and my work only at my
+mother's valuation."
+
+"Well, no, Char. It isn't only that."
+
+John's voice held a certain regret, but no retractation.
+
+"It isn't only that evening at Plessing--though you know very well that
+I didn't see that question of your leaving home as you did--but every
+time I see you, you say or do something that makes me understand what
+Dr. Prince meant that evening."
+
+"Thank you," said Char, low and bitterly.
+
+"Perhaps I haven't any business to say anything about it at all. Only,"
+said Trevellyan, with his habitual extraordinarily ill-inspired candour,
+"you know how much I care about Cousin Joanna."
+
+"So much that it blinds you to any point of view but hers, apparently.
+Don't you really think that there was anything to be said for me, John?
+I don't altogether enjoy giving up my whole life to this office work,
+you know, under conditions of great difficulty and discomfort, and with
+the additional pain of knowing how hopelessly misunderstood my motives
+are. What has my father said about my leaving Plessing?"
+
+"I don't think Cousin Joanna has told him. You see, he's one of the
+people who would misunderstand your motives, too, isn't he? And it would
+upset him so much."
+
+"It's only in theory. He doesn't really want me in the least. It's
+simply that he hasn't moved with the times, doesn't understand the
+necessity that has arisen for women's work."
+
+"Yes, that's quite true," Trevellyan said, but there was no sound of
+concession in his voice.
+
+"My mother has given in to that all the time. You know she has. I
+believe that if it had been possible she wouldn't have let him know
+there was a war at all. It's--it's like helping an ostrich to bury its
+head in the sand."
+
+"Don't you see," Trevellyan said, with a curious effect of reluctance,
+as though aware that she would not see, after all, "that all that is
+because she cares so much?"
+
+"I'm afraid I don't. To me, the larger issue must always come first.
+It's England at stake, John, and our own petty little personal problems
+don't seem to count any longer."
+
+"I suppose," he acquiesced, "that the difference between your point of
+view and hers is just that. She thinks that the personal problem still
+counts, you see."
+
+"And you, of all people, can agree to that?"
+
+"It's not quite the same thing for me, is it? War is my profession, so
+to speak. There are no other claims, so I need not balance values. It's
+just plain-sailing--for me. And for most other men, I suppose."
+
+"Do you mean that all the women who have been giving time and trouble to
+serious work, all the munition-makers, the nurses, the Government
+workers, ought to go home again because of the old plea that home is a
+woman's sphere?"
+
+"No, I don't, and you know I don't. But I think that the question of
+degree enters into it, and that where some women can very well afford to
+give their whole time and strength, others--can't."
+
+"I see. Then it's simply a matter of counting the cost, and if it comes
+too dear, hide behind the fact of being a woman!" said Char mockingly.
+
+It was always easy to defeat Johnnie verbally.
+
+He looked bewildered, and said: "You're too clever for me, Char, as you
+always were. I can't pretend to argue with you. And I do admire the work
+you're doing, more than I can say. Everybody says it's wonderful."
+
+He looked at her wistfully, and Char felt glad that the conversation
+should end on a note that, on his part, was almost pleading.
+
+She rose, smiling a little.
+
+"It's all right, Johnnie. And you'll soothe Plessing for me, won't you?"
+
+But Captain Trevellyan, also rising, shook his head and looked very
+uncompromising.
+
+"Cousin Joanna is wonderful, but she looks very tired," he remarked, and
+moved away as the sound of Puffles's bark heralded Lesbia Willoughby's
+return.
+
+Char, also moving out of reach as rapidly as possible, saw him making
+his way towards the corner where Grace Jones was wiping plates as fast
+as they were handed to her, steaming and dripping, from the zinc
+wash-tub.
+
+She felt annoyed and almost uneasy, and thought to herself: "He can't be
+seriously attracted by her. Why, she isn't even pretty, as one or two of
+them are."
+
+Attracted or not, Captain Trevellyan remained in conversation with Miss
+Jones for the rest of the evening. Char had not even the satisfaction of
+seeing her neglect her work, and forthwith rebuking her, for her
+exceedingly pretty hands never stopped their rapid, efficient moving.
+
+Char decided that she owed it to the uniform to inform her cousin that
+members of her staff, when engaged in the performance of their duty,
+must not enter into unofficial conversations.
+
+She reserved this shaft, however, for later on, not wishing Trevellyan
+to discover the immediate workings of the law of cause and effect.
+
+Her energies for the time being were fully engaged in avoiding the
+hospitable advances of Mrs. Willoughby.
+
+"Well, my dear, sweet child," said Lesbia acrimoniously, "you are
+behaving like an absolute little fool (I know you won't mind your
+mother's greatest friend being perfectly candid with you), and I assure
+you that you'll regret it bitterly. As my Lewis said to me quite the
+other day, that girl is simply ruining her chances. Whom does she ever
+see, shut up with a pack of women all day and every day? Now, with us,
+you'd at least have civilized meals, with half the regiment always
+dropping in. The boys in Lewis's regiment always _did_ come to me, from
+the days when he was only a Captain--young things always cling to me."
+
+"Thank you," said Char, "but I'm afraid I shouldn't be very good
+company. By the time I've finished work, and interviewed all the various
+officials and dignitaries that I'm unfortunately obliged to see on nine
+days out of ten, I have not very much conversation left to entertain
+youths from the barracks."
+
+Mrs. Willoughby made no pretence at failing to perceive the motive
+inspiring these utterances.
+
+"Yes, dear, you may drag in those moss-grown and mouldering old
+officials as much as you please to show me that it isn't only a pack of
+women, but I'm not in the least impressed. Unfortunate old dotards put
+into khaki which is much too tight for them, and probably thinking what
+a pity it is that a pretty girl should talk so much nonsense! I met Dr.
+Prince the other day, and I can assure you that he doesn't in the least
+enjoy your interference with his Hospital."
+
+"Probably not. I've had it put on to a proper military basis, and all
+these country practitioners resent anything done by the R.A.M.C."
+
+"Nothing to do with the R.A.M.C., darling," retorted Lesbia piercingly.
+"Don't be childish! All that _he_ resents--and I perfectly sympathize
+with him--is being shown his business by a chit who, as he says himself,
+probably would never have come into the world alive at all without his
+help."
+
+Char left the honours of the last word with the outspoken Mrs.
+Willoughby, having, indeed, no reply ready to fit the occasion.
+
+"Well, good-night, Char, and if you like to eat humble pie and come to
+me at any time, Lewis and I will be perfectly delighted. I've always
+longed to have a girl of my own, as I told Joanna, and I understand
+_all_ young things. Don't I, my Puffles? Now I must take 'oo home,
+precious one, so come along. Oh! mustn't bark--naughty, naughty!"
+
+Char turned her back on Mrs. Willoughby and the utterly unsilenced Puff,
+and left the Canteen.
+
+She had meant to return to the office again, but had stayed longer than
+usual at the Canteen, and decided to go back to the Hostel instead.
+Certainly, it was uncomfortable there, and as the piercing weather
+continued, she found the lack of comfort ever more trying. But to return
+nightly to Mrs. Willoughby and Puff! She dismissed the thought with a
+shudder.
+
+Besides, there were her mother and Trevellyan and Miss Bruce to convince
+that she was in earnest about her work, and would undergo discomfort and
+privation in order to carry it on successfully. Even Dr. Prince, Char
+reflected with some bitterness, might admit that she was prepared to
+make sacrifices in the attainment of her goal.
+
+There was also the Hostel. Char knew from Mrs. Bullivant, and less
+directly from Miss Delmege, that her staff felt a wondering admiration
+and compassion at her courage in having left home and a father who was
+ill for the sake of patriotic work. She knew, by the sort of uncanny
+intuition that is generally the possession of the ultra-subtle, that
+when her gaze from time to time became abstracted over her work, or her
+attitude of set concentration relaxed for an occasional moment, Miss
+Delmege thought pityingly of the anxiety which must underlie all Miss
+Vivian's close and capable attention to the many details of her gigantic
+task. Miss Delmege thought her "wonderful," undoubtedly. Char told
+herself, with a slight smile, that she did not deserve her secretary's
+blind idealism of her, but at the same time she was subconsciously
+aware of a certain resentment that the idealism should be so utterly
+unshared by Miss Delmege's understudy, the matter-of-fact, eminently
+undazzled Miss Jones.
+
+Char went into the Hostel still thinking of Miss Jones. The hall was
+quite dark, but the sitting-room door was open, and as she went upstairs
+Char glanced in, hearing the sound of voices. There was a circle
+gathered close round the fire, and for a moment she did not recognize
+the central figure, seated on the floor and drying a cloud of brown hair
+at the blaze. Then she saw that it was Miss Plumtree, and noted with
+surprise that the girl, with her hair on her shoulders and her round,
+flushed face, was very pretty.
+
+"Perhaps Johnnie was right, and I really don't look upon them as human
+beings," she thought, rather amused.
+
+Some obscure instinct of testing herself caused her suddenly to turn and
+enter the sitting-room.
+
+There was a sudden, startled silence as she stopped in the doorway, and
+then, almost simultaneously, the members of the staff rose to their
+feet.
+
+"Oh, don't move," Char said affably.
+
+There was an awkward pause, and then Miss Plumtree, giggling, exclaimed:
+"Oh, my hair! I've been washing it, Miss Vivian."
+
+"You're all late tonight, aren't you? I fancy I generally hear you come
+upstairs earlier than this."
+
+"I do hope we don't disturb you, Miss Vivian," Miss Delmege said, in a
+concerned voice. "I'm so often afraid that you must hear the water going
+in the bathroom, and all that sort of thing."
+
+"It doesn't matter."
+
+There was another silence. Nobody had sat down again. Miss Plumtree had
+clutched at her hair with both hands and was shoving it behind her ears
+as though in a desperate attempt to convince Miss Vivian that it was not
+really loose on her shoulders.
+
+Miss Delmege put her head on one side, and gazed at Miss Vivian with a
+rather concerned expression of attention.
+
+"Well, I'm afraid I'm disturbing you."
+
+"Oh, no, Miss Vivian," they chorused politely.
+
+"Good-night."
+
+"Good-night, Miss Vivian."
+
+The relaxation of a strain was quite unmistakable in this last
+chorusing.
+
+"Idiots!" ejaculated Miss Vivian to herself as she went to her own room.
+She heard voices and laughter break out again as she went up the stairs.
+
+Obviously it was not possible to attempt any unofficial footing with her
+staff, even had she herself desired such a thing. To them she was Miss
+Vivian, a being in supreme authority, in whose presence naturalness
+became impossible and utterly undesirable.
+
+John knew nothing about it.
+
+On this summing up, Char went to bed.
+
+Twice she heard conversations on the stairs, in which the astounding
+fact that "Miss Vivian came into the sitting room, and there was
+Plumtree with her hair down, actually _down_, my dear," was repeated,
+and received with incredulous ejaculations or commiserating giggles.
+Finally, the workers from the Canteen came in, groped their way up in
+the dark, and were met on the landing by the hissing, sibilant whisper
+peculiar to Miss Delmege.
+
+"H'sh, girls! Don't make a noise. Miss Vivian has practically told me
+that she can hear you in the bathroom every night. It really is too bad,
+you know, when she simply needs every minute's rest she can get."
+
+"Well, so do we. Let me get past, dear." Miss Marsh's tones spoke
+eloquently of the tartness induced by fatigue.
+
+"_Must_ you go to the bathroom tonight?"
+
+"Of course we must. What an idea! How am I to get my kettle boiled? I'm
+simply pining for a cup of tea; the work was awful tonight."
+
+"Was Miss Vivian at the Canteen?"
+
+"Just for a bit; talking to that cousin of hers--the Staff Officer one,
+you know."
+
+"I know. She came into the sitting-room when she got in, and what _do_
+you think? Plumtree had been washing her hair, and it was all down her
+back!"
+
+"Gracious! And Miss Vivian came in?"
+
+"Came in, and there was Plumtree with her hair down her back!"
+
+"What _did_ she do?"
+
+"Nothing. There was nothing _to_ do, you know; there she simply was,
+with her hair actually down her back!"
+
+"I say, Gracie, do you hear that? Plumtree really has no luck. Miss
+Vivian came into the sitting-room tonight just when she'd been washing
+her hair, and had it actually down her back."
+
+Char listened rather curiously to hear how Miss Jones would receive this
+climax. Her voice came distinctly, with a little amusement in it, and
+the usual quality of sympathetic interest which she apparently always
+accorded to any one's crisis.
+
+"Well, I hope she didn't mind. She has such pretty hair."
+
+"That's hardly the point, is it?" said Miss Delmege reprovingly. "It
+looked rather funny, after all, for Miss Vivian coming in like that, to
+see her with her hair absolutely down her back."
+
+"Even if it was funny," said Grace literally, "I dare say Miss Vivian
+didn't notice it. I never think she has much sense of humour.
+Good-night."
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+"Good-morning, Miss Vivian."
+
+"Good-morning, Miss Collins. Please take a letter to--"
+
+The stenographer giggled and tossed her red head: "Mrs. Baker-Bridges,
+if you please!"
+
+Char looked at her typist blankly for an instant, and then recovered
+herself, unsmiling.
+
+"Yes. This letter is to the Town Hall Hospital, and I wish you'd
+remember, Miss Collins, to--"
+
+"I haven't got used to it meself yet," Mrs. Baker-Bridges said coyly. "A
+double name, too, so I suppose it's harder to remember."
+
+"Will you make me three copies of this, please?"
+
+"Yes, Miss Vivian."
+
+Char dictated her letter very briskly, and avoided the use of her
+stenographer's name, not wishing to submit to further correction. It did
+not add to her complacency, during the busy days before Christmas, when
+her instructions were received with an affronted giggle and "Mrs.
+Baker-Bridges, _please_, Miss Vivian!"
+
+Char was in rooms now, with the devoted Preston in attendance and
+occasional visits from Miss Bruce. She was working very hard, and the
+Christmas festivities indulged in by the Questerham Hospitals frequently
+required her presence as guest of honour.
+
+Char still retained a vivid recollection of finding herself next to Dr.
+Prince on one of these occasions, both of them required to join in a
+rousing chorus of which the refrain was
+
+    "All jolly comrades we!"
+
+And the look which the doctor, singing lustily, had turned upon her,
+held a humorousness that Char felt no disposition to reflect in her own
+gaze. She was quite aware that neither of them had forgotten the
+doctor's peroration delivered on the night of her decision to leave
+Plessing, and the recollection of it still, almost unconsciously,
+coloured all her official dealings with him.
+
+It was therefore with surprise that she received an announcement from
+Miss Jones one evening: "Dr. Prince is downstairs and wants to see you
+for a moment."
+
+"At this hour? Quite impossible! It's nearly seven, and I have
+innumerable letters to sign."
+
+Grace hesitated, and then said, very gently: "I think he's just come
+from Plessing."
+
+Char glanced at her sharply.
+
+"Ask him to come up, then."
+
+Sudden apprehension had taken possession of her, and increased at the
+sight of the doctor's kind bearded face, with its lines of fatigue and
+anxiety.
+
+"What is it, Dr. Prince?"
+
+"Could you spare me a few moments?"
+
+"Certainly. Miss Jones, will you--"
+
+Char, glancing round, saw with a slight feeling of annoyance that Miss
+Jones had not waited to be dismissed. Char did not relish being
+perpetually disconcerted by the independence of her junior secretary.
+
+"A nice girl, that," said the doctor benevolently.
+
+Char looked utterly unresponsive, and supposed rather indignantly to
+herself that Dr. Prince had not come to the office at the end of a long
+day's work merely in order to tell her that Miss Jones was a nice girl.
+
+Something of the supposition was so evident in her manner that the
+doctor added hastily: "But I mustn't take up your time. Only I've just
+come from Plessing, and Lady Vivian asked me herself to come in here for
+a moment and--and tell you--ask you, you know--just suggest--only throw
+it out as a suggestion, since no doubt you've thought of it for
+yourself--"
+
+The doctor fell into a fine confusion, and looked imploringly at Char.
+
+"Is my father worse?"
+
+"No. I didn't mean to frighten you, Miss Vivian; I'm so sorry. He's not
+worse, though, as you know, he's not gaining ground as we'd hoped, and
+of course he's not getting any younger. But the fact is, that he's set
+his heart on your being home for Christmas."
+
+Char drew her brows together.
+
+"Of course, I can arrange to spend a couple of nights there if he wishes
+it. But my mother laid great emphasis on the fact that she did not wish
+there to be any going backwards and forwards between the office and
+Plessing, as you doubtless remember."
+
+"My dear young lady, where Sir Piers's wishes are concerned, she has no
+will but his. You don't need _me_ to tell you that."
+
+"Of course," said Char musingly, "he has old-fashioned ideas as to one's
+spending Christmas at home."
+
+"Yes," said the doctor, "that's it. That was our generation, though I'm
+twenty years younger than your father, Miss Vivian. But early Victorians
+I suppose you'd call us both. He can't understand your not being at
+home, all together, for Christmas-time. We can't disguise from ourselves
+that his mind is a little--a very little--clouded, and he doesn't
+rightly understand your absence."
+
+"I can't go over that ground again," Char told him frigidly. "I was in
+an exceedingly painful position, and had to choose between my home and
+what I conceived to be my duty. As you know, I put my country's need
+before any personal question just now."
+
+"Yes, yes," said the doctor, obviously determined to stifle
+recollections of his Hospital in its pre-Vivian days. "I--I see your
+point, you know. But Sir Piers hears very little of the war nowadays,
+and I don't think he connects your absence with that now."
+
+"What does he suppose, then?" Char asked sharply.
+
+"Miss Vivian, his mind is clouded. We can't deny that his mind is
+clouded. I believe," said the doctor pitifully, "that he just thinks you
+are away because Plessing is so dull and quiet. Lady Vivian promised him
+that you were coming back for Christmas, and it pleased him."
+
+"It is most unjust to me that the facts have not been explained to him."
+
+"But you remember," the doctor reminded her gently, "that they _were_
+explained to him before he got ill. And he wanted you to stay at home,
+you know."
+
+Char was silent.
+
+"Well," said the doctor at length, "Lady Vivian suggested that I should
+drive you out on Christmas Eve. I shall be going to Plessing then--next
+Thursday."
+
+"Thank you; but I'd better hire something if they can't send the car
+from home. I may not get away till late. Troop-trains are pouring in,
+and there is a great deal to be done. There are the Hospital festivities
+to be considered."
+
+The doctor repressed an inclination to say that he knew all about the
+Hospital festivities, and instead answered that he quite understood, but
+could arrange to call for Miss Vivian at any hour convenient to her.
+
+"I will let you know, if I may."
+
+Char, nothing if not self-possessed, rose to her feet, and it became
+obvious that the interview was over.
+
+"Good-night, Dr. Prince."
+
+The dismissed doctor hurried downstairs, muttering to himself, after his
+fashion when vexed and disconcerted.
+
+At the foot of the stairs he overtook Grace Jones with her hat and coat
+on. She looked up at him with her ready, pleased smile.
+
+"Good-night, doctor. I'm so glad you found Miss Vivian disengaged."
+
+"Conceited monkey--" began Dr. Prince, almost automatically, then
+hastily recollected himself and said: "Yes, yes. Are you off duty now?"
+
+"Just. I've got to go down to the station and see about a case of
+anti-tetanic serum for one of the hospitals, which is due by the 7.50
+train, but I can take it up there to-morrow. You know how precious it
+is, and we daren't trust the orderlies with it since Coles had that
+smash."
+
+"To be sure. Well, I'll drive you down in my car to get it, if you like,
+and then I can take it up to the Hospital. I've got to go there again
+tonight."
+
+"Oh, thank you."
+
+The doctor liked the pleased gratitude in Grace's voice.
+
+"I want so much to know how Sir Piers Vivian is," she said presently.
+
+The doctor shook his head.
+
+"A question of time, you know, when there's been a stroke--at that age.
+He doesn't rally very much, either. And the brain, Miss Jones, is
+clouded. We can't deny that it's clouded."
+
+"Oh, poor Lady Vivian!"
+
+"She knows it as well as I do. Doesn't let on, you know, but she's never
+been deluded from the first. And there she is all day, in the room, you
+know, except just when he's sleeping, reading to him, and talking quite
+cheerfully and trying to get him to take a pleasure in some little thing
+or other. I've never seen her break down, and we doctors see that sort
+of thing when other people don't sometimes. But she's been under a
+strain for a long while now--oh, before he got ill--and yet she carries
+on somehow. Ah, breeding is a wonderful thing, Miss Jones. There have
+been Vivians at Plessing for more generations than I can count, and
+_she_ was a Trevellyan. They're from these parts, too, though it's a
+West Country name. I may be an old snob, Miss Jones, but I was brought
+up to reverence those whom God Almighty had set in high places, and the
+Vivians of Plessing have always stood to me for the highest in the land.
+A pity there isn't a son there!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"There are cousins, of course. Sir Piers has a brother with children.
+But one would have liked the direct line--and for _her_ to leave
+Plessing, it seems hard. If there'd only been a boy!"
+
+"He would be fighting now," Grace reminded him.
+
+"To be sure, and so many only sons have gone. If Miss Charmian there had
+been a boy, though! I tell you frankly," said the doctor, in an
+outburst, "that I don't understand her. She and I have had ructions in
+our time, Miss Jones, and I've known her ever since she came into the
+world. And now, when it comes to a Hospital Return--!"
+
+The doctor nearly swerved his car into a market wagon, apologized to
+Grace, and said candidly: "I really hardly know what I'm at when I get
+on to the subject. Army Form 01864A in duplicate indeed! And as for the
+Nomenclature of Diseases that we hear so much about nowadays, I rather
+fancy that I was at home there some twenty years before Miss Charmian's
+little typewritten pamphlets on the subject were issued. Telling me that
+conjunctivitis is a disease of the eye, and what V.D.H. stands for! War
+Office instructions, indeed!"
+
+Grace laughed discreetly, and after an instant the doctor laughed too.
+
+"Well, well, well, we're all working in a great cause," he conceded,
+"and I suppose she does wonders. They all tell me so. Perhaps it seems a
+little hard to those of us who've been trying to conquer pain and
+disease for a number of years to be put under military discipline by an
+impudent monk--H'm, h'm, h'm! by a young lady in a uniform striped with
+gold like a zebra! But she's certainly untiring in her work; so are you
+all. This must be quite a new style of thing to you, Miss Jones?"
+
+"I was in a hospital for a little while at the beginning of the war, but
+I can only do clerical work."
+
+"But nothing before the war, eh?"
+
+"Oh, no. I just helped my father at home."
+
+"I thought so," said the doctor, with an odd sound of unmistakable
+satisfaction in his voice. He was glad that this nice little girl who
+listened with such interest while he talked, and so evidently admired
+Sir Piers and Lady Vivian of Plessing, should have lived at home before
+the war and not gone dashing out in search of an independent livelihood.
+
+"Lady Vivian asks after you very often," he told her. "You saw her every
+day for a time, didn't you?"
+
+"Yes, while Miss Vivian was at Plessing. I should like to see her again.
+Will you give her my love?" said Grace.
+
+"Yes, indeed I will. She's lonely out there, I often think, though young
+Trevellyan comes out when he can. Nice boy that, but they'll be sending
+him out again directly, I suppose. Now, then, Miss Jones, here's the
+station."
+
+Grace despatched her business at the parcels office as quickly as
+possible, and came back with the neat wooden case carefully labelled all
+over.
+
+"Put it there; it'll be quite safe. I wish I could take you back to
+Pollard Street, but they're expecting me at the Hospital and I must get
+on. Shall you be all right?"
+
+"Oh, yes, and thank you so much. The walk will warm me, and it isn't
+far. Good-night, doctor."
+
+"Good-night," responded the doctor cordially as the car started down the
+hill towards the Hospital.
+
+He wondered whether Char would accept his offer to drive her out to
+Plessing on Christmas Eve, and reflected rather ruefully that, if so, it
+would certainly be a late and cold transit. But, at all events, his
+mission would have succeeded.
+
+He triumphantly told Lady Vivian next day that Char was coming to
+Plessing on Christmas Eve.
+
+"I put the case diplomatically, you know--just used a little tact, and
+she never made any difficulty at all. Delighted to come, if you ask me,"
+said the doctor.
+
+"Thank you so much, Dr. Prince. I've told Sir Piers that she's coming,
+and he's so pleased. Don't let her start too late; it's so bitterly cold
+and the roads are very bad. I can't send the car in for her, as you
+know; since the chauffeur was called up, I've no one to drive it. But if
+you're kind enough to bring her--"
+
+"I'll bring her fast enough, if she'll let me," said the doctor.
+"Anyhow, she shall come, which is the point. She said at once that she'd
+come."
+
+"Yes," said Joanna dryly. "You won't expect me to be enthusiastic at
+such condescension, will you?"
+
+The doctor looked at her with concern evident in his shrewd, kindly
+gaze.
+
+He had known Joanna Vivian ever since she had come to Plessing as a
+bride, and had never heard that note of bitterness in her voice before.
+He told himself sadly that the long strain of Sir Piers's illness was
+telling on her at last, in spite of her splendid physique. In his heart
+the doctor did not believe that the strain would last much longer.
+
+"I wish you had some one here to keep you company," he said awkwardly.
+"Even Miss Bruce was better than no one."
+
+"She's only with Char for a few days. She'll soon be back, probably
+tomorrow. And meanwhile I had an offer of companionship only this
+morning. Do you know Mrs. Willoughby?"
+
+"Good Lord, yes!" said the doctor, and they both laughed.
+
+"I should _really_ like Char's Miss Jones to come out to me for a few
+days," said Joanna, rather wistfully. "She and I understand one another
+very well, and she's such a restful person."
+
+"A thoroughly nice girl, and most intelligent," warmly remarked the
+doctor, reflecting how sympathetic Miss Jones had shown herself to be
+over the question of Medical Boards. "Why shouldn't I bring her out with
+Miss Charmian on Thursday night?"
+
+"I only wish you would, but I don't want to throw Char into a fit."
+
+"I'll chance that," said the doctor grimly. "She'd only tell me that
+fits are a disease of the nervous system, and should be shown as N.S. on
+all Hospital returns."
+
+He told himself that if Lady Vivian wanted to see Miss Jones it was
+preposterous that she should not be allowed to have her out to Plessing.
+Diplomacy, the doctor reflected, could arrange the whole thing.
+
+Believing himself to be the possessor of this attribute, Dr. Prince, on
+the morning before Christmas Eve, rang up the office of the Midland
+Supply Depôt on the telephone.
+
+"Can I speak to Miss Vivian, if you please?"
+
+"Who is it?" inquired an attenuated voice at the other end.
+
+"The Officer Commanding Questerham V.A. Hospital," firmly replied the
+doctor.
+
+If Miss Vivian wanted officialness, she should have it.
+
+"Can I give a message for you?"
+
+"I'm afraid I must speak to Miss Vivian herself."
+
+"One moment, please."
+
+The doctor waited, and presently the voice said: "I've put you through
+to Miss Vivian."
+
+"Hallo!" exclaimed a weary tone. "Miss Vivian speaking."
+
+"Good-evening," said the doctor briskly. "What time am I to call for you
+tomorrow afternoon?"
+
+"Oh, is that you, Dr. Prince? But you really mustn't trouble to call for
+me; I can hire something."
+
+"Not on Christmas Eve."
+
+"Perhaps not. Well, let me see. Unless anything unforeseen occurs I
+think I could get away by eight."
+
+"That will do splendidly," ruefully said the doctor, aware of
+sacrificing truth to diplomacy. "I suppose your office work will go on
+without you just the same?"
+
+There was a pause, which the doctor interpreted as an astounded one.
+
+"The office will treat Christmas Day as a Sunday. It will probably be
+necessary for me to come in during the afternoon, as I do on Sundays,
+but only for a few hours."
+
+The doctor gathered himself together for a Machiavellian effort.
+
+"Why not leave that very intelligent little secretary of yours, Miss
+Jones, to take your place?"
+
+"A junior clerk? Out of the question. But I needn't trouble you with
+those details, of course. As a matter of fact, no one will be here on
+Christmas Day except the telephone clerk."
+
+"I strongly advise you to leave Miss Jones in charge, if I may be
+permitted to suggest it."
+
+"Miss Jones," said Char, very distinctly, "has none of the experience
+necessary for a position of responsibility, and I should not dream of
+entrusting her with one. She will have nothing whatever to do with the
+office during my absence."
+
+The triumph of diplomacy was complete.
+
+"In that case," said the doctor in a great hurry, "your mother need have
+no scruple as to inviting her out to Plessing for Christmas. I know she
+wants to--in fact, I'm charged with the invitation--but it seemed
+incredible that you should be able to spare her from her work. But I
+mustn't keep you. Good-night, Miss Vivian. At eight tomorrow I'll come
+for you both. Good-bye."
+
+The triumphant doctor put back the receiver.
+
+"Hoist with her own petard!" he muttered to himself in great
+satisfaction.
+
+That afternoon he found time to call on Miss Bruce, on the verge of
+departure from Char's lodgings, and triumphantly charged her with a
+message for Lady Vivian.
+
+"Tell her that I've arranged the whole thing, and Miss Jones is coming
+out tomorrow evening in the car to spend Christmas."
+
+"At Plessing? But why?" asked the astonished Miss Bruce.
+
+"Because Lady Vivian wants her," said the doctor stoutly. "She's taken a
+fancy to her, and I'm sure I don't wonder. A charming girl!"
+
+"I had an idea that Miss Vivian never thought her very efficient,"
+doubtfully remarked Miss Bruce.
+
+"There are a great many people whom she doesn't think efficient,
+although they've been at their job more years than she's been out of
+long clothes; but in this case it serves our turn very well. She'll be
+out of that confounded office for a couple of days."
+
+"Does Miss Vivian know this?"
+
+"Dear me, yes," said the doctor glibly. "I talked it all over with her
+on the telephone this morning. That's quite all right. Now, Miss Bruce,
+supposing you let me give you a lift to the station? It's going to snow
+again."
+
+Miss Bruce accepted gratefully, and the doctor felt slightly ashamed of
+his own strategy for avoiding any possible conversation between her and
+Char on the subject of Miss Jones's visit to Plessing.
+
+Diplomacy was not an easy career.
+
+Nothing now remained, however, but to tell Miss Jones of her invitation
+and to insure her acceptance of it.
+
+The indefatigable doctor stopped his car at the door of the Hostel soon
+after half-past seven that evening.
+
+"Would Miss Jones be good enough to speak to me for a moment?" he
+inquired, when Mrs. Bullivant came to the door.
+
+"I'm sorry, but I think she's out. Some of the girls have gone to the
+theatre tonight. Is it a message from Miss Vivian?" the Superintendent
+asked anxiously.
+
+"Not exactly," was the evasion exacted by diplomacy.
+
+"Shall I give her any message when she gets back?"
+
+"Yes, yes; that might be best," eagerly said the doctor, conscious of
+cowardice. "Would you tell her that Lady Vivian--and--and Miss
+Vivian--are both expecting her at Plessing tomorrow evening, to spend a
+couple of days? Lady Vivian particularly wants to see her again, and it
+will be good for her to have some one to cheer her up. Tell Miss Jones
+that it's all been arranged, and I'll call for her at the office
+tomorrow evening at eight o'clock and drive her out. I've got to go out
+there in any case, and the last train goes at four, so they must go by
+road."
+
+"Well, I'm sure that will be delightful for her!" exclaimed the
+unsuspecting Mrs. Bullivant. "How very kind of Miss Vivian!"
+
+"Yes. It's Lady Vivian, of course, who really suggested the idea, one
+day when I happened to mention Miss Jones. She likes her very much, and,
+of course, it's lonely for her now. I'm glad this should have been
+thought of," said the doctor, with a great effect of detachment. "Well,
+I mustn't keep you at the door in this cold. It's freezing tonight
+again, unless I'm much mistaken. Good-night."
+
+"Good-night, doctor. I won't forget the message. I'm delighted that
+Gracie should have such a treat."
+
+The doctor, as he drove away, was delighted too, with himself and with
+the success of his manoeuvres. He thought that Lady Vivian would be very
+glad to see the girl for whom she evidently felt such a sense of
+comradeship, and he, like Mrs. Bullivant, was glad of the pleasure for
+Grace; but, most of all, the doctor felt a guilty satisfaction in the
+knowledge of having successfully outwitted the Director of the Midland
+Supply Depôt.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+"Tell Miss Vivian that we can't wait; we must start at once. The sleet
+has been falling, and the roads will be impossible in less than an hour.
+I don't know how the car will do it as it is."
+
+Dr. Prince was harassed but determined.
+
+Miss Marsh reluctantly took this message upstairs. She had already had
+occasion to observe during the course of the evening that Miss Vivian
+was in no frame of mind to welcome interruptions.
+
+"I'm not ready."
+
+"No, Miss Vivian."
+
+Miss Marsh stood unhappily in the doorway.
+
+"What the _dickens_ are you standing there for?" cried Miss Vivian in
+exasperated tones.
+
+Miss Marsh was standing there from her own intimate conviction of being
+placed between the devil and the deep sea, and her extreme reluctance to
+confront the impatient doctor with Miss Vivian's unsatisfactory reply.
+To her great relief, she found Grace in conversation with him.
+
+"Well, is she coming?"
+
+"The moment she can, Dr. Prince. She really won't be long now," was Miss
+Marsh's liberal interpretation of her chief's message.
+
+"The thaw isn't going to wait for her," said the doctor grimly. "It's
+begun already, and after three weeks' frost we shall have the roads like
+a sheet of glass."
+
+"I think I hear the telephone," said Miss Marsh, hastening away,
+thankful of the opportunity to escape before the doctor should request
+her to return with his further commands to Miss Vivian.
+
+But presently Char came downstairs in her fur coat and heavy motoring
+veil, carrying a huge sheaf of papers and a small bag.
+
+"I'm sorry you've been kept waiting. I was afraid that, as I told you, I
+might not be able to start punctually."
+
+"It's this confounded change in the weather," said the doctor
+disconsolately. "How could one guess that it would choose tonight to
+begin to rain after three weeks' black frost? However, I dare say it
+won't have thawed yet. Come along. At any rate, it won't be quite so
+cold."
+
+The little car standing at the door was a very small two-seater, with a
+tiny raised seat at the back.
+
+"Where will you sit, Miss Vivian, with me in front or on the back seat?"
+inquired the doctor unconcernedly. "Have either of you any preference?"
+
+"I think I'd better come in front," said the Director of the Midland
+Supply Depôt, very coldly. She took no notice of Miss Jones.
+
+It was very dark, and a thin, cold rain had begun to fall. The doctor
+groaned, and drove out of Questerham as rapidly as he dared. On the high
+road it was already terribly slippery. After the car had twice skidded
+badly, the doctor said resignedly: "Well, we must make up our minds to
+crawl. Lady Vivian will guess what's delayed us. I hope you had dinner
+before starting?"
+
+"Yes, thank you," replied Grace serenely.
+
+"Naturally, I haven't been able to leave the office, but then I never
+have dinner till about nine o'clock," Char said. "I've almost forgotten
+what it is to keep civilized hours."
+
+"Then, all I can say is, that you'll be extremely hungry before we get
+to Plessing," was the doctor's only reply to this display of patriotism.
+
+The car crawled along slowly. About four miles out of the town the
+doctor ventured slightly to increase speed. "Otherwise we shall never
+get up this hill," he prophesied.
+
+"It's better here, I think," said Char.
+
+"I think it is. Now for it."
+
+The pace of the little car increased for about a hundred yards. Then
+there was a long grinding jar and a violent swerve.
+
+"Confound her! she's in the ditch!" cried the doctor. "Are you all right
+there, Miss Jones?"
+
+"Yes," gasped the shaken Grace, clinging to her perch.
+
+"Get out," the doctor commanded Miss Vivian, in tones that suggested his
+complete oblivion of their respective positions as regarded official
+dignity. Char obeyed gingerly, and stood grasping the door of the car.
+
+"Take care; it's like a sheet of ice."
+
+The doctor slid and staggered round to the front of his car, the two
+front wheels of which were deeply sunken in the snow and slush of the
+ditch. He made a disconsolate examination by the light of the lamps.
+
+"Stuck as tight as wax. Now, what the deuce are we to do?"
+
+"Can't we move her? asked Grace.
+
+"Not much chance of it, but we might as well try."
+
+Grace got down, and they strained at the car, but without any success.
+
+"No use," said the doctor briefly. "I think you two had better stay here
+while I get back to Questerham--we're nearer Questerham than Plessing, I
+fancy--and bring something out. Though, good heavens! I'd forgotten it's
+Christmas Eve. What on earth shall I get?"
+
+"I can authorize you to call up one of the ambulance cars."
+
+"That's an idea. I'm sorrier than I can say to leave you on the roadside
+like this," said the doctor distractedly. "Put the rug round you both,
+and if anything comes past, get a lift. The car will be all right. I
+defy the most determined thief to make her move an inch. H'm! I must
+take one of these lamps, and I'll make as much haste as this confounded
+sheet of ice will allow."
+
+"Wait!" cried Grace. "I can hear something coming, I think."
+
+They stood and listened. The hoot of a very distant motor-horn came to
+them distinctly.
+
+"Coming towards us," was the doctor's verdict. "With any luck it'll take
+you both back to Questerham. It's your best chance of getting to bed
+tonight. Miss Vivian, you're shivering. Confound it all, it's enough to
+give you both pneumonia, hanging about on a night like this! What an old
+fool I've been!"
+
+"It couldn't be helped, could it?" said Grace. "There were no trains
+running after four o'clock, and we couldn't guess the weather would
+change so. And it isn't nearly so cold as it has been."
+
+"Have a cigarette?" said the doctor suddenly, lighting his own pipe.
+"It'll help you to keep warm."
+
+"Smoking in uniform is entirely out of order, but for this once--thank
+you," said Miss Vivian, with a slight laugh.
+
+The sound of a motor-bicycle became unmistakable, and the doctor
+advanced cautiously into the middle of the road.
+
+"Ahoy, there! Could you stop half a minute? We've had a spill. Two
+ladies here."
+
+"Is that Dr. Prince?" came a voice that made Char exclaim: "It's John
+Trevellyan!"
+
+The motor-bicycle, with its small side-car, drew up beside them.
+
+"Have you had a telephone message?" said John.
+
+"From Plessing? No. What's happened?" said the doctor sharply.
+
+The two men exchanged a look.
+
+Char came forward.
+
+"You'd better tell me," she said in her slow, deep drawl.
+
+"Cousin Joanna telephoned just before eight o'clock, but you must have
+started," John said gently. "She wanted to ask Dr. Prince to make as
+much haste as possible--and you."
+
+"My father?"
+
+"I'm afraid it's another stroke, my dear."
+
+The doctor asked a few rapid professional questions, and Grace came and
+stood near Char Vivian.
+
+"When you didn't come," said John, "Miss Bruce got anxious, and felt
+sure there'd been a spill. Cousin Joanna was upstairs, with him; I don't
+think she realized. So I brought the only thing I could get hold of. You
+can ride a motor-bike, doctor?"
+
+"Of course I can. But we can't leave two young ladies planted in a
+ditch, with that confounded machine of mine," said the doctor, his
+distress finding vent in irritability.
+
+"There's the side-car," said Grace. "Miss Vivian must go with you,
+doctor."
+
+"Can't we get your machine out of the ditch?" John suggested.
+
+"Not unless you're a Hercules," said the doctor crossly. He began to
+examine the motor-bicycle.
+
+"I can manage this all right, though no machine on earth will do
+anything but crawl on such a road. Miss Vivian, that will be our best
+plan."
+
+"Yes," said Char, very quietly. "And, Johnnie, can you look after
+Miss--er--Jones, and take her back to Questerham?"
+
+"Get in, Char," said Trevellyan. "I shall certainly look after Miss
+Jones, and bring her out to Plessing somehow or other. Your mother wants
+her. Send anything you can to meet us, doctor."
+
+"Right; but I'm afraid we can't count on meeting anything tonight, of
+all nights. Miss Jones, I'm so sorry. All right there?"
+
+The motor-bicycle, with a push from Trevellyan, jolted slowly away along
+the slippery road, and John and Miss Jones stood facing one another by
+the indifferent light of the motor-lamps.
+
+Grace looked at him with her direct, gentle gaze. "Please tell me
+whether you really meant that," she said. "Does Lady Vivian want me at
+Plessing just the same?"
+
+"Yes," he answered, with equal directness. "She said so. She told me to
+bring you. She said she wanted you."
+
+Grace drew a long breath, then said: "We shall have to walk, sha'n't
+we?"
+
+"I'm afraid so--at least part of the way. Unless you'd rather stay in
+the car, and keep as warm as you can, while I go on to Questerham and
+try to get hold of something that will take us both out? I'm going back
+there, of course. Which shall we do, Miss Jones?"
+
+"Walk, I think. It's only about five miles, and I doubt if you could get
+anything tonight to go out all the way to Plessing."
+
+"I think we can go across the fields, if you don't mind rough walking.
+It saves nearly a mile, and the only advantage of keeping to the road
+would be the chance of meeting something, which I think most unlikely.
+Miss Jones, you're splendid. Do you mind very much?"
+
+"Not now that I know Lady Vivian really wants me," said Grace shyly.
+
+Trevellyan unhooked one of the lamps.
+
+"Shall I carry the other one?"
+
+"It will make your hands very cold, and I think one will be enough. Have
+you anything that you must take?"
+
+"My bag; it isn't heavy."
+
+"Right. Then give it to me, and you take the lamp, if you will." Grace
+obeyed without any of the protestations which might have appeared
+suitable, and they started very cautiously down the road.
+
+"Keep to the side," said Trevellyan; "it's not very bad there. I'm
+afraid you'll never get warm at this rate, but a broken leg would be
+awkward."
+
+"Tell me what happened at Plessing."
+
+He told her that Sir Piers had suddenly had a second stroke that
+afternoon, and was again lying unconscious. Lady Vivian had come down
+and spoken with Trevellyan for a few minutes, and assured him that the
+trained nurse would not allow her to relinquish hope.
+
+"But it all depends upon what one means by hope," said Trevellyan. "One
+can hardly bear to think of his lying there day after day, unable to
+understand or to make himself understood--and as for _her_--"
+
+"She is very brave," said Grace.
+
+There was a silence, and each was thinking of Joanna.
+
+Presently Trevellyan spoke again.
+
+"We shall turn off in a minute and take the short cut. Are you very
+cold?"
+
+"Pretty cold, but I'm glad I had dinner before starting. Did you?"
+
+"No, worse luck! I started from Plessing at half-past eight, and the
+servants were in such a fuss. I'm fearfully hungry," said Trevellyan
+candidly.
+
+"Well, wait a minute."
+
+Grace stood still and put the lamp on the ground while she felt in her
+coat-pocket.
+
+"I thought so. I've a packet of chocolate. Will you take it?"
+
+"Thank you," said Trevellyan seriously; "it's very kind of you. Let's
+both have some."
+
+Grace divided the little packet scrupulously, and they stood and ate it
+with their backs to the hedge, the bag and the lamp on the ground in
+front of them.
+
+"Christmas Eve!" said Grace. "Isn't it extraordinary?"
+
+"Where were you last Christmas?" he asked.
+
+"In the hospital, near my home. We were decorating the wards for
+Christmas, and all stayed there very late. There was a convoy in, too, I
+remember; the nurses stayed on long after we'd all gone home. I was only
+a clerk, you know."
+
+"I remember. You told me that when you--on the night of the air-raid,"
+said the tactful Trevellyan, with a very evident recollection of the
+unfortunate disability which debarred Miss Jones from the nursing
+profession.
+
+Grace laughed.
+
+"Exactly. It is so idiotic and provoking, and, as a matter of absolute
+fact, it was because I always got ill at anything of that sort that they
+couldn't let me go on at the hospital any more--my father and
+stepmother, I mean."
+
+"I didn't know you had a stepmother."
+
+"I've had her about four years," Grace informed him.
+
+"Do you like her?" Trevellyan asked bluntly.
+
+"Very much indeed. She's only a few years older than I am, and she lets
+me call her Marjory. She's so nice and pretty and merry."
+
+It was evident that Miss Jones was not a person to make capital out of
+circumstances.
+
+When they started again, Trevellyan said gently: "You'd better take my
+arm, if you will. It's heavy going along this field."
+
+It was, and an incessant sound of splashing told Grace that she was
+almost in the ditch.
+
+"I think I can manage," she said breathlessly. "I'm afraid of the light
+going out, and it's easier to hold in both hands."
+
+Trevellyan said nothing, but presently Grace felt him take hold of the
+lamp.
+
+"You _must_ let me," he said quietly. "You'll want all your strength,
+for we're going uphill now, and the ground's very rough."
+
+They trudged up a steep incline, Grace with both cold hands deep in her
+pockets and her head bent against the wet driving mist that seemed to
+encompass them. Her feet were like ice, and she had long since given up
+trying to avoid the puddles and small snowy patches that lay so
+plentifully on the way. Twice she stumbled heavily.
+
+"We're just at the top," said Trevellyan encouragingly. "You're
+perfectly splendid, Miss Jones, and I feel such a brute for not taking
+better care of you. Cousin Joanna will be very much distressed; but, you
+see, I know she wants you."
+
+"I'm very glad," said Grace simply. "I never admired any one so much as
+I do her."
+
+"Nor I. She's been so ripping to me always. Even when I was a big clumsy
+schoolboy, with nowhere to go to for the holidays, she'd have me out to
+Plessing, and make me feel that she cared about having me there. She
+wrote to me all the time I was in India--I don't think she ever missed a
+mail--and all the time I was in Flanders last year. Some day," said
+Johnnie, rather shyly, "I'd like to show you her letters to me. No one
+has ever seen them. But I've always felt that you knew what she really
+is--more than other people do."
+
+"Thank you," said Grace.
+
+John seemed satisfied with something in the tone of the brief reply, and
+they went on in silence till he raised the flickering lamp.
+
+"Wait a moment. There ought to be a fence here, and it may be barbed
+wire. Take care."
+
+Grace was thankful to stand still, her aching legs still trembling
+beneath her from the ascent. John held up the lamp and made a cautious
+examination.
+
+"There ought to be an opening--here we are."
+
+He waved the lamp in triumph; the light gave a final flicker and
+expired.
+
+There was a dead silence from both, Grace speechless from dismay and
+fatigue, and Trevellyan from his inability to express his feelings in
+the normal manner in the presence of Miss Jones.
+
+"Have you any matches?" she asked at last.
+
+"Yes. I'm sorrier than I can say, but I'm very much afraid that the
+wretched thing has given out. Why on earth the doctor can't get proper
+electric lamps for his rotten car--"
+
+John fumbled despairingly amongst his matches, made various unsuccessful
+attempts, and at last apologized again to Grace, and said that it never
+rained but it poured. They must go on in the dark.
+
+"Very well. Only let's avoid the barbed wire."
+
+"Miss Jones, I _can't_ tell you what I think of you. Any one else would
+be perfectly frantic."
+
+"But I'm never frantic," said Grace, rather regretfully. "I often wish I
+was like the people in books who feel things so desperately. Maggie
+Tulliver, for instance. It's so uninteresting always to be quite calm."
+
+"Always?"
+
+"Well," said Grace, "practically always."
+
+"It's an invaluable quality just at present, but perhaps one of these
+days--"
+
+"I'm so sorry, but I think my skirt has caught in the barbed wire."
+
+Trevellyan released her skirt in silence.
+
+"Now, then, if we get through the gate here, the next field takes us on
+to the road again, and with any luck they'll have got to Plessing and
+sent something back to pick us up."
+
+Trevellyan, who knew his ground and appeared able to see in the dark,
+pushed at the creaking wooden gate, and Grace passed through it, feeling
+her feet sink into an icy bog of mud and water.
+
+"I'm afraid I can't see much. You see, I don't know the way at all."
+
+"I know; it makes all the difference. Look here, will you let me take
+your hand? I know every inch of the way."
+
+Grace put out her small gloved hand and said very sedately: "Thank you;
+I think that will be the best way."
+
+They went on steadily after that, speaking very little, and Grace
+stumbling from time to time. Once John asked her: "Are you very tired?
+This is rotten for you."
+
+"I don't mind," said Grace shyly.
+
+After a long pause, Trevellyan said cryptically: "Neither do I."
+
+On this assurance they reached the high road, and Grace said gently,
+withdrawing her hand: "I can manage now, thank you."
+
+"It _can't_ be long now before something meets us. I don't know what
+they can send; but if it's only a farm cart, it will be better than
+nothing."
+
+"Luckily I'm a very good walker. I don't think that poor Miss Vivian
+could ever have got out to Plessing unless we'd met you with that
+motor-bicycle. She dislikes walking, and is not used to it."
+
+"I wouldn't have had this walk with Char," said Trevellyan fervently,
+"for any money you could offer me. She's a splendid companion, of
+course, on her own ground, but for this sort of thing--it's only two
+people in a million, Miss Jones, who could do it without hating one
+another for ever afterwards."
+
+"We must be very remarkable, then, for I don't think it's going to have
+that effect," said Grace, laughing.
+
+"As far as I'm concerned," said Trevellyan slowly, "it's exactly the
+opposite. You won't want me to tell you about it now, but perhaps some
+day soon you'll let me--Grace."
+
+Miss Jones walked along the muddy, slushy edge of the road with her mind
+in a tumult. She felt quite unable to make any reply. But Captain
+Trevellyan, always matter-of-fact, did not appear to expect one. He
+presently remarked that it was getting colder again. Was Miss Jones very
+wet?
+
+"Rather wet, but the worst half must be over by now. I wonder what news
+we shall find when we arrive. Do you know, I can't help being selfishly
+thankful to be going there. It's been so hard never hearing anything
+about her, and knowing all the time that she was in such anxiety."
+
+"Doesn't Char tell you?"
+
+"No; but I don't think I asked her. She likes us to be official, you
+know."
+
+"I never heard such inhuman nonsense in my life!" exclaimed Trevellyan
+in tones of most unwonted violence.
+
+They both laughed, and the next minute Grace said, "Listen!"
+
+They both heard wheels.
+
+"It's the dog-cart. I thought so. It was the only thing left, and I
+suppose they've got hold of a boy to drive it. Thank goodness! Miss
+Jones," said Trevellyan for the fourth time, "I can't tell you what I
+think of you; you've been simply wonderful."
+
+"Don't! Of course I haven't."
+
+Grace's voice was more agitated than accorded with her previous
+declaration of imperturbability, and something in the few shaky words
+caused John to put out his hand and grasp hers for a moment, while he
+hailed the cart.
+
+"Here we are! Did Miss Vivian send you?"
+
+"Her ladyship, sir. Couldn't come any faster, sir; the roads are so
+bad."
+
+"They are. How is Sir Piers?"
+
+"The same, sir--still unconscious. Dr. Prince don't anticipate no
+immediate change, sir, but he's staying the night."
+
+"Good! He's telephoned to Questerham, I suppose. Now, Miss Jones, let me
+help you. Boy, you'd better get on to the back seat; your inches are
+better suited to it than mine," said John firmly. He put the rug round
+Grace, and she sank thankfully on to the small seat of the dog-cart.
+
+They hardly spoke while he drove cautiously along the remaining mile of
+high road and up the long avenue to Plessing.
+
+Even when John helped her down at the hall door he only said: "I shall
+see you tomorrow. I shall never forget this Christmas Eve."
+
+"Nor I," said Grace.
+
+In the hall Miss Bruce greeted them with subdued exclamations.
+
+"_How_ tired you must be, and half frozen! Sir Piers is just the same;
+the doctor is still upstairs. He and Charmian got here two hours ago or
+more, and told us what had happened. There wasn't anything to send for
+you but the little cart. Poor dear Charmian! such a home-coming for her!
+She's wonderful, of course--never given way for an instant."
+
+"Where is she?"
+
+"Upstairs. I've sent to tell her and Lady Vivian that you've arrived at
+last."
+
+"And, Miss Bruce, we _should_ like some food if it can be managed
+without too much trouble."
+
+"Of course, of course. Miss Jones, your room is ready. Wouldn't you like
+to change your wet shoes at once?"
+
+Miss Bruce spoke with an odd mixture of doubt and compassion, as she
+looked at Grace warming her frozen hands at the hall fire. It was
+evident that she did not feel certain whether Miss Jones was to be
+regarded as a friend of Lady Vivian's, whom Captain Trevellyan had
+judged necessary to bring to Plessing at all costs, for Joanna's sake,
+or as Char's junior secretary, thrusting herself upon her chief's family
+at a particularly inopportune moment. But the question was solved a few
+instants later, when Joanna Vivian herself, coming downstairs in her
+black tea-gown, exclaimed softly: "You've brought her, Johnnie! Well
+done! No; there's no change yet. I want you to see Dr. Prince." Then she
+took Grace's hands in hers and said: "Thank you, my dear, for coming to
+me."
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+"Well, I couldn't have believed it--Christmas morning and all!"
+
+"What, Mrs. Bullivant?"
+
+"This letter from the office, dear."
+
+Little Mrs. Bullivant's face was scarlet, and her voice shaking.
+
+"But what is it?"
+
+"Miss Vivian has dismissed me. This was evidently written two days ago,
+and has been delayed in the post. She simply says that she has come to
+the conclusion that I find the Hostel rather too much for me and is
+making other arrangements at the New Year. Oh, my dear!"
+
+Mrs. Bullivant dissolved into tears, and Tony, aghast, picked up the
+small trebly-folded sheet of crested paper that had fallen from its
+square envelope.
+
+"Written by herself, too, not typed! Oh, I _am_ sorry! But doesn't she
+give any reason?"
+
+"Not any. But I suppose she wasn't comfortable when she stayed here last
+month. She said one or two little things at the time--the hot water, you
+know, and the gas giving such a poor light, and then the servants. But I
+never knew she was thinking of this."
+
+"I must say, I think she might have given you a reason, or asked you to
+go and see her at the office," said Tony, her allegiance to Miss Vivian
+shaken at the sight of the little Superintendent in tears.
+
+Every one liked Mrs. Bullivant at the Hostel, and when Tony told the
+others that she was to be dismissed there was a general outcry.
+
+"But why? What a shame!"
+
+"She always works so hard, and she's so nice to every one. It's too bad
+of Miss Vivian."
+
+"It does seem very unlike her to be so inconsiderate!" Mrs. Potter
+exclaimed.
+
+"I can't believe there isn't some satisfactory explanation. It's too
+unlike Miss Vivian."
+
+Miss Delmege was caustically reminded by Miss Marsh that no explanation
+could really be satisfactory from the point of view of Mrs. Bullivant.
+
+"Couldn't we all send round a petition, and sign it? Do let's. We can
+put it on her table for when she gets back tomorrow or next day."
+
+Miss Plumtree's suggestion was acclaimed, and she and Miss Marsh spent
+most of the morning in composing a petition that should combine
+sufficiently official wording with appealing arguments in Mrs.
+Bullivant's favour.
+
+"Shall we wait till Gracie gets back before fastening it up, so as to
+make her sign it too?"
+
+"Why?" said Miss Delmege sharply. "Several of the others are away, too,
+for the week-end, and we can't wait for every one to get back."
+
+"Well," provokingly said Miss Marsh, "as she's Miss Vivian's own
+secretary, one naturally looks upon her as being important. Besides,
+look at the way they've had her out to stay; she's a sort of special
+person, isn't she?"
+
+Every one knew that Miss Marsh was "getting a rise out of Delmege,"
+always a favourite form of amusement, and there was a general giggle
+when Miss Delmege said in a very aloof manner: "If you ask me, I think
+Miss Vivian thinks it just as strange as any one else that Gracie should
+be asked out there now, with Sir Piers still so ill. But Lady Vivian is
+quite well known to be a most eccentric person."
+
+"I shouldn't be a bit surprised if Miss Vivian's Staff Officer cousin
+had got her asked. I think he admires Gracie."
+
+"Go on, Marshie! Why, he's never seen anything of her, has he?--except,
+perhaps, at the Canteen."
+
+"There was that night, you know," Miss Marsh reminded them.
+
+"What night?"
+
+"Why, when there was the air-raid, and he brought her back here
+afterwards. Don't you remember?"
+
+"Well!" Miss Delmege exclaimed, "I must say that I should have
+thought--"
+
+"I'm sure I've read somewhere that those four words '_I should have
+thought_' are responsible for more quarrels than any others in the
+language."
+
+Miss Delmege disregarded Tony and her literary allusions.
+
+"I should have thought that after the strange way Grace Jones behaved
+that night, the less said about it the better. It's not the kind of
+thing one cares to dwell upon."
+
+"I must say," Miss Henderson agreed, "that it would have been more
+likely to put him off than to make him admire her. At least, so far as
+my experience of human nature goes."
+
+"Well, just sign this, will you, girls?"
+
+They all hung over Miss Plumtree's shoulder, and read the petition.
+
+Miss Vivian's secretary put her signature down first on the list, as by
+rights, and decorated her "Vera M. Delmege" with an elegant flourish.
+
+"I must say I do like what I call a characteristic signature," she
+remarked, hastening back to appropriate the wicker arm-chair nearest the
+fire.
+
+The others cowered round, in twos and threes, gazing disconsolately at
+the driving hail and stormy clouds of the grey world outside.
+
+"Rather a wretched Christmas, isn't it? I do think we might have had a
+week's leave, really," said Miss Henderson, shivering.
+
+"Miss Vivian isn't taking that herself," Miss Delmege at once reminded
+her. "And those who live near enough have been given the week-end, after
+all."
+
+"I might just have managed it if I hadn't been on telephone duty. But
+she wouldn't let me change with any one else. I suppose I must go over
+there now and release Miss Cox," said Tony, rising reluctantly to her
+feet.
+
+"Well, take the petition, dear, and leave it on Miss Vivian's table,
+will you? Then she'll find it when she comes. I dare say she'll be in
+this afternoon. Poor Mrs. Bullivant!"
+
+They talked of Mrs. Bullivant in a subdued way at intervals during the
+day. The little Superintendent remained in her own room.
+
+"Oh, isn't it wretched?" groaned Miss Marsh for the hundredth time. "I
+declare I'd welcome a troop-train; it would give us something to do, and
+make a break."
+
+But Miss Anthony returned from the office at four o'clock with an awed
+face and a piece of news.
+
+"Girls, what _do_ you think? It's too awful--poor Miss Vivian's father
+is dead. He died this morning, after a second stroke yesterday. Isn't it
+dreadful?"
+
+Every one exclaimed, and echoed Miss Anthony's "dreadful!" with entire
+sincerity, although the announcement of Sir Piers Vivian's death had
+given them food for thought and conversation for the rest of the
+evening.
+
+"How did you hear, Tony?"
+
+"Gracie Jones telephoned. My dears, they've had every sort of adventure.
+Dr. Prince's car broke down last night, or something, and a messenger
+met them from Plessing to say Sir Piers had had another stroke, and Miss
+Vivian and the doctor were to come at once. And he never recovered
+consciousness, and died this morning early. Isn't it dreadful?"
+
+"Oh, poor Miss Vivian! Did Gracie say anything about her?"
+
+"Only that she was being very brave. Of course, that's just what she
+would be."
+
+"I suppose Gracie's coming back here tonight? Rather awful for her, poor
+girl, to be there just now."
+
+"That's the extraordinary thing," said Tony with great animation. "She's
+actually been asked to stay on."
+
+"She hasn't!"
+
+"She has, really. I asked her what she was doing, and she said nothing
+much, but that Lady Vivian wanted her to stay."
+
+"Well, I suppose she thinks she'll be of some use to Miss Vivian, but it
+seems rather queer, in a way, doesn't it? I mean her not knowing them,
+except officially, so to speak."
+
+"Has any one told Mrs. Bullivant?" Miss Delmege inquired.
+
+But official intimation came to Mrs. Bullivant. A car stopped outside
+the door, and Dr. Prince, looking tired and haggard, asked to speak to
+her. He brought a note from Miss Jones, and offered to take a small
+suit-case out to Plessing for her, if Mrs. Bullivant would get her
+things together.
+
+"But, doctor, she isn't going to stay there _now_, surely?"
+
+"She'll stay there just exactly as long as I can persuade her to," said
+the doctor grimly.
+
+Mrs. Bullivant looked thoroughly bewildered, but she gazed at the
+doctor's tired face, and said gently: "Come into the sitting-room while
+I get her things packed. There's a nice fire, and the girls have got tea
+in there. Do come in."
+
+"Well," the doctor yielded.
+
+His own home was two miles out of Questerham, and his wife would not be
+best pleased at his having spent Christmas Eve and Christmas morning
+away, and might say that he must not return to Plessing that night. The
+doctor fully intended to do so, but he felt far too weary for argument.
+
+The sitting-room fire was blazing, and the Hostel community greeted him
+eagerly, and begged him to take the strongest arm-chair. They were glad
+of a guest on Christmas Day, and they wanted to hear news of Plessing.
+
+Tony brought him a cup of tea, and Miss Plumtree shyly offered him
+buttered toast.
+
+"Well, well, this is very good of you all. They're expecting me up at my
+Hospital, I believe, and I shall have to look in there later, I suppose,
+but I somehow didn't feel in tune for the festivities just at the
+moment. It's a sad business at Plessing, though one knew it had to
+come."
+
+"How is Miss Vivian?"
+
+"Only saw her for a moment," said the doctor briefly. "She arrived in
+time to see him, poor girl, but he never recovered consciousness. It's a
+melancholy thought for her that she wouldn't do as the poor old man
+begged her during the last few weeks he had to live. It wouldn't have
+cost her so very much to give up her position here, and it wouldn't have
+been for long, after all."
+
+"But did Sir Piers want her to?" asked Tony, round-eyed.
+
+"It made him unhappy, you see," the doctor said, almost as though
+apologizing for a weakness which he felt himself to share. "His
+generation and mine, you know, didn't look upon these things in the same
+light, and though he was proud of her war-work at first, later on, when
+his mind became clouded, he couldn't understand her always being away,
+and it made him unhappy. Lady Vivian tried to explain it to him as far
+as possible, but he couldn't understand. He didn't realize all she was
+doing, and he wanted her to stay at home, especially after he got ill. I
+fancy myself that he knew pretty well how things were--he didn't expect
+to get well."
+
+"But Miss Vivian didn't know; she couldn't have known," said Miss
+Henderson quickly.
+
+The doctor shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"We've heard a lot about 'hospital experience' and the rest of it," he
+said curtly. "It doesn't take much science to know that an old man of
+seventy odd who has had a stroke stands a very good chance of having
+another one sooner or later--and probably sooner. _I_ don't know why she
+couldn't have given in to him and made his last months on earth peaceful
+ones. It would have spared poor Lady Vivian something, too."
+
+"But I thought that Lady Vivian did all the nursing herself?"
+
+"Nothing of the sort!" declared the doctor vehemently. "She followed my
+orders and had a trained nurse, like a sensible woman. But she was with
+him herself whenever he wanted her, which was practically all day and
+half the night, and for ever having to try and explain to him, poor
+thing, why Miss Charmian was away. She's been wonderfully brave all
+along, but it isn't very difficult to understand why she feels bitter
+about it all now. In all the years I've known them both," said the
+doctor emotionally, "she's never had one thought apart from him. She was
+a young woman of about five-and-twenty, I suppose, when she first came
+to Plessing, and he was twenty years her senior, and always fussing
+about her, though God forgive me for saying so now. She was as fine a
+horsewoman as ever I saw, a perfect figure and a beautiful seat, but she
+gave up hunting because it made him nervous about her. She buried
+herself down here, and was just as gay as a lark, because she knew it
+was pleasing him that they should live at Plessing and only go up to
+town once in a blue moon. I don't believe she's ever had a thought
+beyond making him happy and keeping worry away from him."
+
+"Oh, poor Lady Vivian!" cried Miss Plumtree. "What will she do now?"
+
+"I don't know, indeed. It's simply the destruction of her whole world.
+But she's most wonderfully plucky, and I don't believe it's in her to
+give way. Miss Jones is doing more for her than any one just now. They
+understand one another very well, and the mere fact of having some one
+to talk to who isn't one of the family is a great help. Steadies
+everybody, you know. That nice lad, Captain Trevellyan, will be there a
+good deal, but he tells me that he has to go before his Board on
+Tuesday, and that will mean France again to a certainty. Poor Lady
+Vivian was dreading that--but more for Sir Piers's sake than for her
+own. She didn't want to have to tell him the boy had gone back to fight.
+Just the same with everything; she looked at it all from one angle, how
+it was going to affect _him_. That's why I can't help hoping that after
+a time she'll take up things from another point of view, so to speak--a
+less personal one. She's so full of energy, and there's so much to be
+done now."
+
+"Lady Vivian came in once or twice to the Canteen, before Sir Piers got
+ill, and she said she liked the work there. Perhaps she'll take up some
+war-work later on," suggested Mrs. Potter.
+
+"I hope so--I hope so very much. Miss Jones is inclined to think so, I
+fancy."
+
+"Miss Vivian herself would be the best person to provide her mother with
+war-work, surely," said Miss Delmege between closely-folded lips.
+
+"Well, well, I don't know that one could altogether expect that. You
+see, when all's said and done, her war-work was a source of great
+distress and vexation to Sir Piers, and Lady Vivian can't quite forget
+that. But perhaps," said the doctor, looking rather anxiously at the
+circle of absorbed faces in the firelight, "I'm an old gossip to be
+talking so freely. But the Vivians of Plessing--well, it's rather like
+the Royal Family to us ordinary folk, isn't it? That's what I always
+feel. And I know that you'll want me to tell Miss Vivian how much you
+all feel for her."
+
+But it was only Miss Delmege who said rather elaborately: "If you will,
+do, please, Dr. Prince."
+
+The others mostly looked concerned and bewildered, and Miss Plumtree
+exclaimed with soft abruptness: "Oh, but it's Lady Vivian--after what
+you've told us. It's so dreadful to think of! What a good thing she
+likes Gracie Jones so much! I'm glad she's got her out there."
+
+"So am I," said the doctor heartily.
+
+"I've got her things here," Mrs. Bullivant said in the doorway.
+
+"I'll take them when I go out after dinner. I promised Miss Jones to
+come back and see if Lady Vivian is all right, and, to tell you the
+truth, I doubt if I could keep away. I've been there so much just
+lately, and then last night--"
+
+"Was she with him when he died?"
+
+"Yes. So was Miss Vivian. It's overset her altogether, poor thing, I
+believe; but I haven't seen her since early this morning. That little
+companion, Miss Bruce, is with her all the time. Well, poor child, one's
+very sorry for her, though she made a great mistake when she took her
+own way in spite of all their pleading, and I'm afraid she'll find it
+hard to forgive herself now."
+
+"Do you mean," said little Miss Anthony, who looked rather dazed, "that
+when she came back to the office after she'd had influenza, and when
+he'd had the first stroke, that Miss Vivian _knew_ her father and mother
+wanted her to stay at home?"
+
+"Well," said Miss Delmege, very much flushed, and her voice pitched
+higher than usual, "it was just what she's always said herself. Miss
+Vivian puts the work before everything."
+
+"I don't know how to believe it," Mrs. Potter said.
+
+The doctor misunderstood her.
+
+"Perhaps it was that. She's done very fine work, and never spared
+herself any more than she's spared others. And maybe there was something
+in being boss of the whole show, and in hearing you all say how
+wonderful she was--human nature's a poor thing, after all."
+
+The doctor shook his head and went out again to his little car.
+
+In the sitting-room the members of Miss Vivian's staff looked at one
+another.
+
+"Girls," said Miss Marsh slowly, "do you remember Gracie's once saying,
+ages ago, when she first came, that she wondered if Miss Vivian would do
+as much work if she were on a desert island? Well, after what Dr. Prince
+has been telling us, I'm rather inclined to think she was right. Miss
+Vivian can't be as wonderful as she wants us to think she is."
+
+"It would be _too_ heartless. I can't believe it of her," said Mrs.
+Potter again, but she spoke very doubtfully.
+
+"She must have thought that she owed her first duty to the work, and not
+to her own home. But I'm sorry for her now."
+
+"So am I. She'll make it up to her mother by staying with her now, I
+suppose."
+
+"If Lady Vivian wants her. But _I_ should imagine she'd hate the sight
+of her, almost."
+
+"Tony!"
+
+"Well," Miss Anthony asseverated, almost in tears, "I mean it. I think
+it's the most dreadful thing I've ever heard of, and the most unkind.
+And to think how we've all been admiring her for coming to live here,
+and for going on with the work in spite of being anxious and unhappy
+about her father! Why, she can't have cared a bit!"
+
+"But she _was_ splendid, in a sort of way," Miss Henderson said,
+bewildered. "Look how she's worked, and never spared herself, or given
+herself any rest, not even proper times off for meals. She can't have
+liked all that."
+
+"I suppose," said Miss Marsh grimly, "that she liked thinking how
+splendid she was being, and how splendid everybody thought her. It would
+have been much duller for her to stay at home and do nothing, just
+because her father asked her to."
+
+There was silence. To hear Miss Vivian reduced by criticism and analysis
+to the level of an ordinary human being seemed to revolutionize the
+whole mental outlook of the Hostel.
+
+When Mrs. Bullivant came into the sitting-room, she looked strangely at
+the disturbed faces. "Dr. Prince seems to have upset you all," she said
+at last.
+
+"Did you hear what he was saying about Miss Vivian, though?"
+
+"Some of it. He asked me in the hall just now whether he'd been
+indiscreet. I had to say that I was afraid we'd none of us quite
+realized before how very much her personal influence had been counting
+with us in the work."
+
+"That's quite true," said Tony dejectedly, "and I don't believe I shall
+ever feel the same again. Why should we all work ourselves to death for
+any one like that?"
+
+"Oh, my dear," said the Superintendent, sinking into a chair, "I'm
+afraid that's just the weak point in women's work. So much of it is done
+from the _personal_ point of view. We can't keep personalities out of
+it."
+
+"If you ask me, that's just what Miss Vivian has been doing. I mean,
+bringing her own powers of personal fascination to bear all the time."
+
+Mrs. Bullivant sighed.
+
+"It's the work one ought to think of, not the individual. Anyway, _my_
+work here is over, I'm afraid."
+
+"There you are!" cried Miss Plumtree. "You have to leave work you care
+about, just because she was uncomfortable at this Hostel. Talk about
+personal points-of-view!"
+
+"Well, I've been personal long enough," declared Tony. "I shall chuck
+the office and go to munitions. _They're_ impersonal enough!"
+
+She let the door bang behind her.
+
+"Poor old Tony! She'll go to the other extreme now, and think everything
+Miss Vivian does is hopeless. I must say, it's a bit of a
+disillusionment."
+
+Miss Delmege stood up, gulped two or three times, and at last said,
+rapidly and nervously: "I don't at all agree with you. We've no business
+to sit in judgment on her like this, and I for one shall always believe
+there's some satisfactory explanation to the whole thing. I'm not saying
+it in the least because it's Miss Vivian, but _quite_ impartially."
+
+"Of course," said Miss Marsh, under her breath.
+
+"Look at the way she works and all--it _is_ perfectly wonderful; and Dr.
+Prince probably doesn't really know anything about what Sir Piers
+wanted. He's always been more or less on the defensive with Miss Vivian,
+just because she had to get his Hospital under proper control. It's all
+prejudice and disloyalty. And all I can say is, that as long as there's
+work to be done for Miss Vivian, I'm ready to do it, single-handed if
+necessary, if all the rest of you choose to desert her, and I shouldn't
+have the least hesitation in repeating all I've said to her face."
+
+Miss Delmege's peroration left her rather shrill-voiced and breathless,
+but her pose on the hearth-rug, chin uplifted and one slim foot slightly
+thrust forward, was heroic in the extreme.
+
+No one believed for a moment in her defiant assertion that she was
+prepared to launch her rhetorical declaration at Miss Vivian in person;
+but it was left to her old enemy, Miss Marsh, to remark with an
+unpleasant matter-of-factness: "There's no need to get so excited,
+Delmege. There'll be no call for you to do the work single-handed,
+either. I should be sorry for Miss Vivian if you tried it on, in fact.
+We're all fairly patriotic, I hope, whatever we may think of Miss
+Vivian, and, as Mrs. Bullivant says, doing the work is the point, not
+the person we're working for."
+
+"That's right," agreed Miss Henderson. "It's for the war, after all."
+
+"Otherwise," said Miss Marsh, with an icy look at Miss Delmege, "I'm
+bound to say that after what we've just heard of Miss Vivian I should be
+very much inclined to chuck working for her straight away."
+
+"Don't discuss it any more, girls. It won't do any good," Mrs. Bullivant
+declared. "You must just try and think more of the work and less of Miss
+Vivian. Now, I've got a treat for your supper, as it's Christmas night,
+and I must go and see after it. Do, some one, go and get Tony downstairs
+again. She can't really have meant to go to bed at this hour. She was
+just upset, poor child, but she'll feel better when the lamp is lit and
+it's all looking homely and bright."
+
+The Superintendent hurried away.
+
+"Isn't she ripping?" asked Miss Henderson. "Come on, Greengage, and
+let's fish out Tony."
+
+"Yes, do let's try and all cheer up," begged Mrs. Potter. "It _has_ been
+a depressing Christmas Day. How would it be to _change_ for supper? It
+would please Mrs. Bullivant."
+
+"All right, let's."
+
+The girls hurried upstairs to hunt for clean blouses and small pieces of
+jewellery, and Miss Delmege was left alone, still standing in her
+attitude of defiance before the sitting-room fire.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+"Is there any more apple-pudding?"
+
+"Yes, my lady."
+
+"Then I will have some," said Lady Vivian, not at all unaware of the
+pained expression which Miss Bruce had unconsciously assumed. The
+unquenchable laugh still danced in her deeply-circled blue eyes as she
+gazed across the luncheon-table at Grace.
+
+"Do have some more pudding, Grace. I know you never get enough to eat at
+your Hostel."
+
+Miss Bruce put down her fork with a look of resignation. The excellent
+appetite displayed by Lady Vivian seemed to her extraordinary enough on
+the part of one widowed only a week ago, but that of the still-visiting
+Miss Jones amounted to a scandal.
+
+In Miss Bruce's opinion, Miss Jones should have removed herself from
+Plessing a week ago, in spite of the strong predilection evinced by Lady
+Vivian for her society. It was not decent, Miss Bruce thought, to shun
+one's own daughter and take so many and such lengthy walks in company of
+a comparative stranger of less than half one's own age.
+
+"Un-natural, I call it," said Miss Bruce, shaking her head.
+
+Char shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"What does it matter? I'm glad she should take an interest in any one or
+anything, though I can't understand such a friendship for that trivial
+little girl myself. But one thing is certain enough: I shall have to ask
+her to resign. It would be quite impossible, since my mother has chosen
+to treat her as one of the family, to keep her on at the office when I
+go back there. Though perhaps I ought to say--if I go back there."
+
+"Oh, my dear Charmian, why? Surely there can be no reason now--less than
+ever, I mean to say--why you should not take up that splendid work at
+the Supply Depôt again. Why, the whole thing hinges on you."
+
+"I know," said Char dejectedly. "But there's my mother to consider. I
+really don't see how I'm to leave her all alone here, and I don't know
+if she'll care to come into Questerham with me."
+
+Char had hardly seen her mother since Sir Piers's funeral, three days
+ago. Lady Vivian had refused to display any form of prostration, had
+discussed every necessary item of business with John Trevellyan and Dr.
+Prince, and when not engaged in answering innumerable letters and
+telegrams of condolence, had taken Grace Jones for long walks with her
+across the snowy fields.
+
+"But," Char said to Miss Bruce, "we shall have to discuss business
+sooner or later. For all I know, we may have to leave Plessing. It was
+to be my mother's for her life, I believe, but she may choose to let
+Uncle Charles come into it at once. He has a large family of children,
+after all. His being in Salonika now makes it all so much more
+complicated."
+
+"I dare say there will be no change just at present. Everything will be
+so unsettled until this dreadful war is over," Miss Bruce soothed her
+vaguely.
+
+But she, too, thought that it would be necessary for Lady Vivian soon to
+give her daughter some outline of her future plans.
+
+On New Year's Day, rising from the helping of apple-pudding which she
+had left unfinished as a protest, Miss Bruce after lunch said firmly to
+Lady Vivian: "You will want to talk to Charmian this afternoon, I feel
+sure. There is a fire in the library, so perhaps--"
+
+She looked meaningly at Miss Jones, who, instead of making at least a
+pretence of at once following her out of the room, gazed imperturbably
+at Lady Vivian.
+
+"Char," inquired Joanna mildly, "do you want to talk to me?"
+
+"We'd better come to an understanding, hadn't we, mother? You see, I
+haven't the vaguest idea of your plans."
+
+"But why should you have any, my dear? They won't interfere with your
+work at Questerham. If you want to know about Plessing, I can tell you
+in two words. Your Uncle Charles doesn't want any change made until
+after the war, so that I can either let it or go on living in it, as I
+please."
+
+Decorum took Miss Bruce as far as the door of the dining-room, but was
+not strong enough to put her outside it while Grace Jones still
+remained, with no apparent consciousness of indiscretion, sitting
+unmoved in her place, and in full hearing of this discussion, which
+every tradition would restrict to a family one.
+
+Even Char said: "Hadn't we better come to the library?"
+
+Joanna rose.
+
+"I'm going there now, for the very good reason that Lesbia Willoughby is
+to be shown in there in half an hour's time. I shall have to see her
+some time, and I may as well get it over."
+
+"Mother, must you? Why not say that you're not seeing any one?"
+
+"My dear," said Joanna dryly, "I've already answered two telegrams and
+three letters and several telephone messages in which she offered to
+come to me, and I think that nothing but word of mouth will have any
+effect upon her. But I'll talk to you this evening, if there's anything
+you want to know. John is dining here to tell us the result of his
+Medical Board."
+
+Joanna left the room, with her decisive, unhurried step, and Char,
+ignoring Grace, said to Miss Bruce: "I have a lot of letters, sent on
+from the office. Perhaps you'd be kind enough to give me a little help
+this afternoon?"
+
+"Certainly, Charmian."
+
+Miss Bruce was gratified; but when Char had walked away without so much
+as glancing at Grace, she could not help saying to her, with a sort of
+flustered kindness: "I hope you'll find some way of amusing yourself,
+Miss Jones."
+
+She had loyally adopted Char's prejudice, but was too kind-hearted not
+to try furtively to make up for it.
+
+Miss Jones, however, was not destined to spend a solitary afternoon.
+Mrs. Willoughby was driven to Plessing by Captain Trevellyan in his car;
+and although Miss Bruce, casting sidelong glances from the window of
+Char's boudoir, where she was busily taking notes from her dictation,
+distinctly saw him enter the house, she felt certain that he proceeded
+no further than the hall, where Grace sat reading by the fire.
+
+Mrs. Willoughby went at once to the library, where she enfolded the
+resigned Joanna in a prolonged embrace.
+
+"My poor, poor dear! Words can _never_ tell you how I've felt for
+you--how much I've longed to be with you!"
+
+But despite the inadequacy of words, Mrs. Willoughby had a shrill
+torrent of them at her command, with which she deluged Lady Vivian for
+some time.
+
+"Poor Lesbia!" Lady Vivian remarked afterwards to Grace; "she enjoyed
+herself so much that I really couldn't grudge it to her!"
+
+"He was so much, much older than you, dear, that it must almost feel
+like losing a father, and I know that that unfortunate girl of yours
+isn't very much comfort. She must be racked with remorse. Now, do tell
+me, Joanna, would you like me to take her off your hands for six months?
+Let her come back to London with me next week, and get her married off
+before it's too late."
+
+"Too late?"
+
+"Well, Joanna, she must be thirty, and, mark my words, whatever people
+may say about there being no men left, _things are happening every day_.
+Half the mothers in London are getting their girls off now, what with
+officers back on leave and officers in hospitals, and those dear
+Colonials. Girls who never had a look in before the war can do anything
+they like in the way of nursing, or leading the blind about, or working
+in some of those departments where the over-age men are. Char is just
+the sort of creature to prefer a man old enough to be her grandfa--"
+
+Mrs. Willoughby's jaw dropped, and she made a repentant snatch at
+Joanna's hand.
+
+"Forgive me, darling! _How_ idiotic to say such a thing to you, of all
+people! But if you'll give me your girl, I'll undertake to find chances
+for her. She'll be very good-looking when she doesn't look so sulky and
+take such airs, and one could make capital of all the patriotic work
+she's been doing down here. And I _always_ think it's rather an asset
+than otherwise to be in mourning, especially in these days. Black suits
+her, too, with that sandy colouring. Does she choose her own clothes,
+Joanna?"
+
+"She does, Lesbia, and has chosen them ever since she was out of long
+clothes, as far as I remember. But--"
+
+"Joanna, you've been culpably weak, and of course that poor, dear old
+man had simply no idea of discipline. But I can put the whole thing
+right for you in six weeks, when the dear girl comes to me."
+
+"It's no use, Lesbia," said Joanna, half laughing. "It's very kind of
+you, but Char wouldn't hear of it and really at thirty I can't coerce
+her--besides, there's her work here."
+
+"My dear, you don't mean to say that you're going to allow that to go
+on?"
+
+"To begin with, I couldn't prevent it. To go on with, I think it
+perfectly right that Char should do what she can in the way of war-work.
+There wouldn't be the slightest object in her giving it up now."
+
+"But Sir Piers--the memory of his wishes--_his_ memory!" almost shrieked
+Mrs. Willoughby.
+
+"His memory will survive it, Lesbia. Besides, as long as he was himself,
+you know, he didn't mind her doing war-work. He quite understood the
+necessity, and was proud of her."
+
+"But, my dear, wrong-headed creature, when she so deliberately and
+heartlessly went against his wishes at the last?"
+
+"Well," said Joanna placidly, "she won't be doing that now, so she can
+go on working with a clear conscience."
+
+"Joanna," said Mrs. Willoughby, with an air of discovery, "upon my word,
+I don't understand you."
+
+Nevertheless, she devoted the major half of the afternoon to the object
+of her perplexity.
+
+"One word, dearest, I must say," she declared at the end of an hour
+that, to Joanna's thinking, held already more than a sufficiency of
+words. "Have you considered what is happening to that delightful lad?"
+
+"Never," said Joanna unhesitatingly. "And who on earth are you talking
+about, Lesbia?"
+
+"That precious creature, Johnnie. Too guileless for words, my dear; but
+if there's one thing I do understand, inside out and upside down, it's
+men. I should have made a _perfect_ mother--young things adore me. Look
+at my sweet Puffles! But I'm _miserable_ about John, who really has a
+perfect passion for me, dear lad. Lewis always says that all the boys of
+his regiment go through it, just like measles."
+
+Joanna, who had heard this quotation before, ruthlessly disregarded it.
+
+"What is happening to John?"
+
+"My dear, do you mean to tell me you haven't seen it? But of course you
+haven't, at such a time. What a brute I am! Forgive me, Joanna, but you
+seem so _utterly_ unlike a widow. I can hardly realize it. But, of
+course, that little secretary creature--she's had her eye on him all
+along."
+
+"I suppose, Lesbia, that you don't mean my poor old Bruce, who's been
+with me almost ever since John was born?"
+
+Lesbia uttered a screech between laughter and reproach.
+
+"What an absurdity! Of course I mean the little Canteen girl--Jones, or
+whatever her name is. My dear, will you believe me when I tell you that
+when that poor innocent boy drove us up here just now and followed me
+into the hall, there she was, actually waiting to pounce upon him,
+sitting over the fire?"
+
+"I can believe you quite easily," said Joanna, "all but the pouncing. We
+none of us knew that John was going to drive you over, so she couldn't
+have been waiting."
+
+"Blind, reckless one!" cried Lesbia excitedly. "I can only tell you that
+ever since those evenings at the Canteen I've seen what was coming. Do
+you suppose that a young man wipes up dripping wet mugs for nothing?
+Besides, Joanna, look at the air-raid! Of course, my poor dear, I know
+that just at that time you were thinking of something altogether
+different, but _I_ was there, if you remember."
+
+"I remember hearing about it," Joanna admitted, with a vivid
+recollection of Mrs. Willoughby's spirited behaviour on the occasion in
+question having been described in unflattering terms by Captain
+Trevellyan.
+
+"My dear, after we'd all dispersed and the whole thing was over, that
+wretched girl lured him back into the basement, under pretext of
+fainting or something, and pretended to have hysterics on account of the
+fright she'd had. And I assure you that she hadn't seen anything at all
+of the raid, because she was the very first person to make a bolt for
+downstairs. In fact," said Mrs. Willoughby modestly, "really, for one
+moment there might have been a panic, if I hadn't _dashed_ into the
+middle of the hall and called out that we were all Englishwomen and not
+afraid of anything. And _after_ all that, the miserable girl goes and
+faints away in his hands!"
+
+"I did hear something about it--in fact, she told me herself, but it
+wasn't nearly as dramatic as that, Lesbia. And his coming back and
+finding her was pure chance. I think it was the last thing she wanted."
+
+Mrs. Willoughby opened her eyes to their widest extent, flung back her
+head, and exclaimed emphatically: "You will have no one in this world,
+Joanna, no one but yourself, to blame if the very worst happens. Mark my
+words, that uninteresting little creature, without a feature to bless
+herself with, is going to make poor guileless Johnnie ask her to marry
+him."
+
+Joanna had some opinion of Mrs. Willoughby's shrewdness, if none of her
+discretion, and this prognostication gave her a sense of comfort which
+she had had no slightest expectation of deriving from the visit of
+condolence. It even enabled her to thank Lesbia with sufficient
+cordiality for coming, as she at last escorted her into the hall.
+
+"When we shall meet again, dearest, I am utterly unable to declare," was
+a valediction which added considerably to her relief at parting. "My
+Lewis won't let me stay down here any longer, now that I'm fairly fit
+again. He's too sweet and self-sacrificing for words, poor lamb! 'Go
+back to London where there are a thousand jobs and undertakings _crying
+out for you_,' he says. I really can't bear to leave him, and the dear
+regiment, and my beloved Canteen, let alone you, whom I've always looked
+upon as the oldest, dearest of links with my girlhood. But, of course,
+my poor committees must be getting into the most ghastly muddles, and I
+know that all my officer protégés are in despair. They write me the most
+heartrending letters."
+
+Lesbia shrouded herself in sables, wound a motor-veil round and round
+her head, and cast a piercing glance round the hall.
+
+"What did I tell you, Joanna?"
+
+"You told me that John was here with Miss Jones, but I don't see either
+of them. Is he going to drive you back?"
+
+"So he pretended, my dear, but I can't answer for what she--"
+
+Trevellyan came into the hall and greeted Lady Vivian.
+
+"I've not kept you waiting, Mrs. Willoughby, I hope? I went to bring the
+car round."
+
+"Where is Grace?" asked Lady Vivian, not without malice.
+
+"Just come in and gone upstairs. We've been looking at your turnips,"
+said John seriously. "A very fine crop, Cousin Joanna."
+
+"We shall all be _living_ on turnips quite soon," Lesbia declared with
+acerbity. "Good-bye, my poor dear Joanna, and do think over all I've
+been saying to you. Remember that a telegram would bring me at any hour,
+for as long as you please, and I'll take your girl off your hands
+whenever you like. I could make her _quite_ useful in some of my
+war-work."
+
+Joanna turned away from the door, thankful to reflect that neither her
+daughter nor Miss Bruce had been present to hear this monstrous
+assertion.
+
+As she crossed the hall, Grace came downstairs. Lady Vivian smiled at
+her.
+
+"You've a knack of appearing just when I want you. I've just seen Lesbia
+Willoughby off, since she mercifully refused to stay to tea. Has the
+second post come?"
+
+"Yes. I've got a letter that I rather wanted to talk to you about, from
+Miss Marsh at the Hostel."
+
+Joanna sat down, her hands lying idly folded in her lap, while Grace
+read aloud:
+
+
+"DEAR GRACIE,
+
+"You'll think it extraordinary, me writing to you like this, but we
+really do miss you here, especially in our room, and the whole place has
+been upside down since you went away. This is because poor Mrs.
+Bullivant has actually got the sack, if you can believe such a thing,
+for no reason on earth that any one can discover. She had a slip from
+Miss V. dated two days before Christmas--but it only reached her on
+Christmas Day--telling her that other arrangements would be made at the
+New Year. Of course, we're all fearfully sick, as you'll guess, and Mrs.
+Bullivant has been simply howling about it ever since, though she's as
+quiet as ever and never lets on. But she looks rotten, and Tony can hear
+her crying in her own room at nights. You can imagine what a jolly
+Christmas we've all had! The point of bothering you with all this,
+however, is that perhaps you can find out what she's expected to do.
+It's all very well to say, 'Clear out at the New Year,' but Miss
+Vivian's being away, and in such trouble and all, makes it all jolly
+awkward. We sent a petition signed by all of us to ask if Mrs. Bullivant
+could be kept on; but of course there's been no answer, and she simply
+doesn't in the least know what to do. Do you think it would be all right
+if she just hung on till Miss V. gets back? Perhaps then she'll have
+read the petition and made up her mind to let her stay on as
+Superintendent. Of course, that's what we all hope, and, in fact, some
+of the girls are so sick about it that I shouldn't be surprised if some
+resignations were sent in. We've been hearing something that's made us
+all sit up _re_ Miss V. and--"
+
+"That's all about Mrs. Bullivant," said Grace hastily.
+
+"Nonsense!" cried Joanna vigorously; "you've stopped at the most amusing
+bit. Unless it's marked private, for goodness' sake go on, and tell me
+what this scandal can be. I'm quite relieved to hear that Char's past
+holds _anything_ exciting."
+
+Grace began to laugh.
+
+"It isn't marked private, and there really isn't much to read."
+
+"--and there'll be a good deal less said in future about how wonderful
+she is. Did you know that her father and mother, after he first got ill,
+simply _begged_ her to stay at home, for his sake, and she absolutely
+wouldn't? Work is all very well, but I must say that seems jolly
+callous, and one can't help wondering whether it really was the work she
+was after, or just the excitement and the honour and glory of her
+position. I know you never--"
+
+Grace stopped again, and Lady Vivian said: "She knows you never liked
+her--well, go on."
+
+"--and most of the rest of us are feeling rather off the 'personal
+influence' stunt just at the moment. Delmege, of course, takes a high
+line and goes in for loyalty, etc., etc.--in fact, won't speak to any of
+us at present. But, as I say, that's her loss and not ours.
+
+"Now, dear old thing, I'm going to leave off, as you're probably sick of
+my scrawl by this time, and it's high time I was off to my bed. Try and
+find out if there's any chance of Mrs. B.'s being allowed to carry on
+for the present, and send me a line if you've time.
+
+"Every one sends all sorts of love, and we shall all be most awfully
+glad to see you turn up again. This place is more putrid than ever
+without you, and with all this fuss going on about Miss Vivian; but I
+dare say it'll all turn out for the best if it makes us a bit keener
+about the work for its own sake, and not for hers. After all, there _is_
+a war on!"
+
+"Yours with best love,
+
+"DORA MARSH."
+
+
+"Dora Marsh seems to me to be an uncommonly sensible girl," observed
+Lady Vivian thoughtfully.
+
+She gazed into the fire in silence for a few moments before adding: "I
+wonder who's been talking to them about Char? The only person I can
+think of is Dr. Prince. I know he felt very strongly about it, and I
+don't altogether wonder, though it may seem rather hard on her to have
+her reputation for infallibility destroyed at last."
+
+"I think," said Grace, "that there would have been some feeling at the
+Hostel, in any case, at Mrs. Bullivant's dismissal. She's been so kind
+and nice to us all, and worked so hard always, and, of course, every one
+knows that the loss of the position is serious for her. She's very poor,
+and she has no home of her own to go to."
+
+"Of course, it's unthinkable. Char _must_ have some reason for
+dismissing her. I shall insist upon being told what it is!" cried
+Joanna.
+
+There was more animation in her manner than Grace had seen there for
+some time, and she was quite ready to follow her upstairs in immediate
+search of Char.
+
+The Director of the Midland Supply Depôt was at her writing-table,
+leaning back in the familiar attitude that invariably recalled to Grace
+old-fashioned engravings of an Eastern potentate, her eyes half closed,
+her slim fingers tapping upon the table in front of her, and her slow,
+deep voice drawling in fluent dictation.
+
+Miss Bruce, far from possessing the skill of Mrs. Baker-Bridges, sat
+agitatedly scribbling on various odd half-sheets of paper. Further notes
+lay strewn all over the table and on the floor beside her chair.
+
+She looked up with shamefaced but unmistakable relief at the
+interruption.
+
+"Have you been victimized all the afternoon?" inquired Joanna kindly,
+but with her usual unfortunate choice of expression.
+
+"Oh, no, no!" said Miss Bruce, almost with horror. "But Charmian must be
+tired. She's been working without a moment's rest, and it really does
+give one some sort of idea of all that she must do at the office every
+day."
+
+Char rewarded her with a melancholy smile.
+
+"At the office there are the telegrams, and the telephone messages, and
+endless interviews to deal with as well. I don't think I ever get a
+consecutive hour's time there to deal with the correspondence without
+interruption. Now, all these letters which you see here could--"
+
+Joanna interrupted the Director of the Midland Supply Depôt without
+ceremony.
+
+"I want you to tell me, Char, why you want that nice little
+Superintendent of yours to leave the Hostel. The staff there is in
+despair."
+
+Char suddenly sat upright.
+
+"That is a purely official matter, and it's disgraceful that there
+should have been gossip about it already."
+
+"But why have you dismissed her?"
+
+"Because she is quite inadequate to fill the post of Hostel
+Superintendent. I was there myself, and I never was in a worse-managed
+or more uncomfortable establishment in my life."
+
+"I can quite believe it, my dear, but I'm inclined to think--and Grace,
+who knows more about it than I do, agrees with me--that she's never had
+a fair chance of running it properly."
+
+"I don't propose to discuss the matter with my secretary, mother."
+
+"But why not talk it over like ordinary human beings, Char?" said Lady
+Vivian, reverting to all her old half-impatient, half-humorous
+outspokenness. "I've no patience with you. What in the name of fortune
+is the sense of vexing and distressing everybody, when by a little
+decent management the whole thing could be put on to a proper basis?
+Grace, you've lived in that Hostel. If the Superintendent had a freer
+hand, couldn't it be made more comfortable?"
+
+"Yes, especially with any one as hard-working and anxious to make things
+nice as Mrs. Bullivant. She may not be a very good manager, but,
+indeed," said Grace pleadingly, "things have been very much against her.
+If she could engage the sort of servants that she needs, and if there
+were fewer people in the Hostel, so as to give more room, and better
+arrangements made about the hot water and the food, it could be very
+nice."
+
+"You are all in that Hostel for the purpose of war-work, Miss Jones, and
+I should have thought that with that end in view a few minor discomforts
+could have been overlooked. When one thinks of our men in the
+trenches--"
+
+"However much you may have thought of them, Char, it didn't prevent your
+going into rooms before you'd been at the Hostel a fortnight," Joanna
+interrupted briskly. "Those girls are just as much flesh and blood as
+you are yourself, whether you own to it or not. But I can tell you one
+thing, and that is that they're beginning to find it out for
+themselves."
+
+"To find out what?" said the Director of the Midland Supply Depôt, vexed
+to the extent of for once speaking shortly and in monosyllables.
+
+Joanna shrugged her shoulders, and Grace said emphatically:
+
+"Mrs. Bullivant is very popular, you know, and the staff can't
+understand her getting such a summary dismissal. After all, it's very
+serious for her, apart from everything else, because she's got to live."
+
+"To which, I suppose, Char would like to reply, 'Je n'en vois pas la
+nécessité,'" quoted Lady Vivian, with her irrepressible laugh. "But it
+really won't do, Char. You're dealing with human beings, and you'll have
+to make up your mind to it."
+
+"I am dealing," said Char magnificently, "with an organization."
+
+"Even so, my dear, it's made up of human beings. But as it's tea-time
+and I'm extremely hungry," said Lady Vivian, with a side-glance at Miss
+Bruce, "we'd better postpone discussion until this evening. I don't know
+whether you feel human enough to leave your papers and eat bread and jam
+with the rest of us, but I dare say that Grace and Miss Bruce won't give
+you away to the staff if you do."
+
+The outraged Miss Vivian left the last word to the ribald spirit
+apparently animating her parent.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+Captain Trevellyan's Medical Board had passed him fit for active service
+again, and he made matter-of-fact announcement of his approaching return
+to France in the course of that evening.
+
+"Do you know when, Johnnie?"
+
+"Next draft that goes, I suppose. I rejoin the battalion the day after
+tomorrow, and it might be any day after that."
+
+Exclamations were left to Miss Bruce. Grace and Joanna received the news
+almost in silence, and Char remained monosyllabic.
+
+"Will you smoke in the library, John?" said Joanna as she rose from the
+dining-table. "We'll have coffee there. We can also talk business, Char,
+if you want to."
+
+"Then, shall I--?" said Miss Bruce, looking at Grace and feeling
+strongly inclined to say "Shall we--?"
+
+Joanna laid her hand on the little secretary's shoulder. "Of course not,
+Miss Bruce. You know we count you as one of the family."
+
+In the library a certain tenseness of atmosphere prevailed, until Joanna
+had finally dismissed the coffee equipage, and leant back in a great
+leather arm-chair under the lamp.
+
+John, next her, had taken up his favourite position on the hearthrug,
+and was smoking in meditative silence, his eyes now and then seeking
+Grace, whose head was bent over a piece of needlework.
+
+Char, presumably from force of habit, had seated herself at the
+writing-table, and Miss Bruce took a low chair beside her, gazing dumbly
+from her to Lady Vivian and back again, as though a divided loyalty
+harassed her thoughts.
+
+Char broke the silence.
+
+"Mother, you spoke about letting this place this afternoon. Is that what
+you mean to do?"
+
+"No. I only said that it was in my power to let it, but as a matter of
+fact, since your Uncle Charles has no wish to make any change until the
+war is over, he and I have agreed that it had better be made use of. He
+is quite willing that I should do whatever seems best and most
+necessary."
+
+Miss Bruce uttered an exclamation.
+
+"Red Cross work, do you mean?"
+
+Char made a movement to check her, as though unwilling to let any
+display of surprise greet Joanna's announcement.
+
+"Of course," she said slowly, "I could find a hundred uses for a place
+like Plessing, from turning it into a hospital onwards. The idea had
+naturally occurred to me before, but as, I must say, mother, you've
+always discouraged any form of patriotic sacrifice by every means in
+your power, and done everything possible to ignore the very fact of
+there being a war, it never struck me that you would consent to such a
+plan."
+
+John looked up.
+
+"It isn't a question of consent, Char. The scheme is Cousin Joanna's,
+not any one else's."
+
+"As I am--as I have been placed--in the position of Director of the
+Midland Supply Depôt, John," Char said quietly, "the voluntary
+organizations here, of whatever kind, come under my jurisdiction, and I
+must say--"
+
+"Char," interrupted her mother, "you may say anything you please, but
+you'll never persuade any of us that you and I could work together
+comfortably, and I haven't any intention of trying the experiment. I
+shall offer this place as a convalescent home to be attached to the
+Military Hospital at Staffield. That will put it altogether outside the
+jurisdiction of your office."
+
+"It's too far from the station."
+
+"Not with a couple of cars and Government petrol," said John.
+
+"The doctors here are overworked as it is."
+
+"A convalescent home does not need the same amount of medical attendance
+as a hospital, and Dr. Prince is perfectly willing to undertake whatever
+is necessary."
+
+"But you'll want a staff, and at least two trained nurses in the house."
+
+"I have no doubt that they can be obtained. Char, I don't want to vex
+you and make you feel that I'm acting in opposition to all your own
+schemes," spoke Joanna impetuously, "but really and truly it wouldn't
+answer if I tried to run things on your lines. I must do something, and
+it seems a shame not to use Plessing. But I _had_ thought of another
+plan, though I know Johnnie doesn't approve of it."
+
+"No, I don't," said John stoutly.
+
+Char had coloured deeply and her mouth was set. She spoke as though with
+difficulty.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Tell her, Grace. You thought of it," said Lady Vivian.
+
+"To make Plessing the Hostel for your staff. Lady Vivian would give them
+their board and lodging, and superintend herself. You see, it would make
+an enormous difference if the present Hostel, which is much too small,
+were free. You could make it into an extension of the office, which is
+badly needed. The chief drawback, of course, is the distance, but we
+should have to come in by the 9 o'clock train every morning, and either
+bicycle back or come out by the 6.30 train. They're putting it on again
+next month. You see, the days will be getting longer very soon, and
+we've all the spring and summer in front of us."
+
+"I don't think it's practicable," Trevellyan said.
+
+"Nor I," echoed Miss Bruce, watching the thunder-cloud on Char's
+forehead.
+
+"I thought Char might prefer it," said Joanna simply. "You would keep
+your own rooms, my dear, of course, and it would be very much more
+comfortable for all of you than the present arrangement. As to the
+difficulty of getting in and out, there's no reason why we shouldn't see
+what could be done about driving one way. I don't know if the petrol
+ought to be used, but there are plenty of farm-horses, and we could hire
+a wagonette, or something of that sort."
+
+"And what about the nights when we're all kept late, or a troop-train
+comes in, and the Canteen work, which is never over before eleven or
+half-past?"
+
+"You must give it up," Lady Vivian informed her placidly. "People can't
+work half the night as well as all day, and I've always thought that you
+had no business to ask it of your staff. That Canteen work is very
+heavy, and utterly unfit for girls who've been all day in an office. It
+isn't as if there weren't others to undertake it. Lesbia Willoughby says
+that the ladies of the regiment are quite ready to divide it amongst
+themselves--in fact, they've rather resented having it so completely
+taken out of their hands."
+
+"Mother, you had better understand me once and for all. Nothing will
+induce me to give up any single item of all that I've undertaken."
+
+"But, Char, why?" inquired Captain Trevellyan mildly. "Is it the work
+you care about, or just the fact of doing it yourself?"
+
+Dead silence followed the inquiry.
+
+At last Char said, without attempting to answer it: "The Hostel
+suggestion is quite impossible, mother. Even if it were not for the
+practical objections, such as the distance from the work, I could not
+accept. My staff has been put into perfectly suitable quarters, and I
+should not dream of moving them. But as it has become more and more
+evident that Miss Jones is dissatisfied there--" She paused, and looked
+at Grace.
+
+Trevellyan made a sudden brusque gesture, but Grace said quickly: "I am
+afraid that I had better ask you to accept my resignation, Miss Vivian."
+
+Char made no pretence at surprise, and simply bent her head in
+acquiescence.
+
+Grace folded up her work and stood up. Trevellyan opened the door for
+her, and, with one look at Joanna, passed out of the room after her.
+
+Miss Bruce gasped, as at a sudden illumination. But it was Joanna who
+exclaimed roundly: "Well, Char, you've put your foot into it with a
+vengeance! Unless I'm very much mistaken, John will be in no hurry to
+forgive you."
+
+"Mother! why will you always obscure every issue of what is, after all,
+national work, by some wretched personal question?"
+
+"Because, Char, I'm dealing with human beings, and not with machines."
+
+"Oh, Lady Vivian!" cried Miss Bruce irrepressibly. "Forgive me, but you
+speak as though she--she wasn't _adored_ by her staff. Look how they all
+admire her!"
+
+"Yes, and she takes advantage of it to work them very much too hard, and
+also to use her personal influence to obtain a sort of blind loyalty and
+perfectly unreasoning admiration that is bad for the work, and bad for
+the staff, and bad for her! However, Char, I don't mind telling you that
+I think a good deal of that nonsense is coming to an end. Your staff has
+not been at all impressed by your abominable treatment of that poor
+little Superintendent, and they've also found out that you insisted on
+going off to Questerham against your father's express wishes, and then
+posed as a martyr to patriotism."
+
+"Oh, Lady Vivian!" groaned the secretary.
+
+"Yes, I know I'm losing my temper, but I always did and always shall
+think that Char behaved in the most heartless and disgraceful fashion.
+It wasn't I who told her staff about it, or Grace Jones either, but I'm
+heartily grateful to whoever did. The work that we hear so much about
+may get a chance of being attended to on its own merits now, in a
+reasonable manner, instead of being overdone to a senseless degree,
+simply because 'Miss Vivian is so wonderful!'"
+
+Joanna went to the door.
+
+"Think it over, Char, and if you like to behave like a reasonable being,
+we'll talk over the Hostel scheme. Otherwise, John thinks there's no
+doubt of this place being accepted as a convalescent home. But you'll
+have to make up your mind, in that case, to see it being mismanaged by
+mere military authorities."
+
+Joanna did not bang the door behind her, but she shut it with
+considerable briskness, and left the appalled Miss Bruce to assist
+Char's decision.
+
+The Director of the Midland Supply Depôt sat in an attitude of the most
+unwonted dejection, her elbows on the writing-table and her head in her
+hands. Miss Bruce hardly ventured to breathe in the heavy stillness that
+pervaded the room.
+
+At last Char raised her head and looked at her. "Oh, Brucey," she said
+piteously, "they're all very difficult to deal with!"
+
+The note of appeal, which Miss Bruce had not heard from Char since her
+earliest childhood, moved the little secretary to great emotion.
+
+"Charmian, my poor dear child, it's very hard on you, after all you've
+been through already. I know that dear Lady Vivian has never altogether
+understood; and then her feelings about the war--so different--only, of
+course, now she needn't consider--circumstances altered--reaction--"
+
+Miss Bruce floundered into a tangle of words, and ventured to put out
+her hand timidly, although aware of how much Char disliked
+demonstrations of affection.
+
+It affected her with a profound sense of how far Miss Vivian must be
+reduced when she found her tentative hand received with a long, nervous
+pressure.
+
+"Oh, what can I do? What can I say? Couldn't you make up your mind to
+this Hostel scheme, which would at least keep you at home?"
+
+"I'm not thinking of myself--though, of course, it's quite true that if
+Plessing becomes a convalescent home, under military ruling, I can't go
+on living here. Nothing would induce me to remain in a place where I had
+no official standing. My mother doesn't seem to consider that she's
+practically forcing me to go on living, under most uncomfortable
+conditions, in Questerham. Not," added Char hastily, recollecting
+herself, "that I should dream of putting any personal consideration
+before the work, or of letting my own comfort interfere with it in any
+way."
+
+"I know, I know! It's wonderful, the way you've never thought of
+yourself for a moment," cried Miss Bruce in all sincerity. "Even to your
+meals, for I know too well that half the time you never have any proper
+lunch at all, and your dinner at all hours. But I'm so dreadfully afraid
+of your breaking down."
+
+"Not while there's work to be done, Brucey. But this winter has been
+appalling, with one thing and another--father, and then all the
+difficulties here, and half the staff getting laid up with influenza
+before Christmas. They're few enough, as it is, for all they have to do,
+and now I suppose half of them will resign."
+
+"Impossible!"
+
+"Not at all impossible, with Miss Jones making mischief and talking all
+over the place about my private affairs, and then resigning in that
+absurd way. No doubt that will be made into a grievance, too."
+
+"I thought," began Miss Bruce, and then hesitated, but Char looked so
+impatient that she went on rather desperately--"I thought that you meant
+to send her away in any case?"
+
+"Certainly I did. You must see, Brucey, how utterly out of the question
+it would be to have one member of the staff a sort of privileged person,
+who'd been out here to stay, when none of the others have so much as set
+foot in the place, and talking about my relations as though they were
+intimate friends of hers. It would be quite impossible."
+
+If Miss Bruce saw the impossibility in question less clearly than did
+Char, she said nothing.
+
+"No, Brucey, it's no good. I've set my hand to the plough, and there
+must be no looking back. I shall have to make up my mind to Questerham."
+
+"But the discomfort!" wailed Miss Bruce.
+
+"It may convince my mother that there is more than mere self-will and
+love of notoriety in my work. To me, Brucey, it seems almost laughable
+that any one should attribute my work to that sort of motive, but, you
+see, she has never understood me."
+
+"Never!" said Miss Bruce with entire conviction.
+
+"The wrench will be leaving you, dear old Brucey," Char said
+affectionately.
+
+"Charmian," said the little secretary solemnly, "I can't do it. I can't
+face letting you go alone to those horrible lodgings, and only Preston
+to see to your comfort. I don't wish to say a word against Preston, and
+I know how devoted she is to you, but there are things that she can't be
+expected to think of. If you leave Plessing, you must take me with you."
+
+An emotion such as had never shaken Miss Vivian out of her
+self-possession before, moved her suddenly now.
+
+"Do you really mean that, Brucey? Would you leave my mother, and the
+work which she would certainly find for you here, and come and look
+after me in Questerham? I do know that I'm difficult sometimes, and--and
+I can't promise you always to come in punctually to dinner, but it would
+make all the difference in the world to have you there."
+
+Miss Bruce's allegiance to Char dated from many years back, and needed
+no strengthening--was, indeed, beyond it; but henceforward, come what
+might, she would never forget that Miss Vivian had said that it made all
+the difference in the world to have her there.
+
+"I will come whenever you like, and wherever you go, and I will look
+after you as much as you'll let me," she said tearfully.
+
+There was a silence before Char remarked practically: "You'll have to
+arrange it with my mother, Brucey. I don't want her to think that you're
+deserting her for me."
+
+It was difficult to see how Lady Vivian could possibly think anything
+else, but the uplifted Miss Bruce knew no qualms of spirit.
+
+"I'll tell her myself, my dear, and I know she'll understand. She'll be
+only too glad that you should have somebody with you. Indeed, she does
+care, very, very much, if you'll let me say so; but all that's passed
+has--"
+
+"I know, I know! It all makes it the more impossible for me to stay here
+with her and at the same time try to carry on the work."
+
+"Then you won't consider the idea of making this place into a hostel?"
+
+"I've already said that it's out of the question."
+
+Quite evidently, the Director of the Midland Supply Depôt was herself
+again.
+
+She rose, and was meekly followed by Miss Bruce into the hall, where sat
+Lady Vivian and Captain Trevellyan.
+
+"Mother, I'm going to bed," said Char calmly. "With regard to your
+scheme of making this place into a hostel, by the way, I'm afraid it
+wouldn't answer. I'm most grateful to you, but as Director of the
+Midland Supply Depôt, I must refuse the offer."
+
+Joanna shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"Then, my dear, as Director of the Midland Supply Depôt, I'm afraid you
+must go on living uncomfortably in rooms, since I suppose you won't want
+to stay here when the place is full of convalescent soldiers."
+
+"Not in the circumstances," said Char gravely.
+
+Miss Bruce advanced valiantly.
+
+"I have told Miss Vivian that I'm quite sure that you--you will see your
+way to letting me go and be of what use I can to her in Questerham, Lady
+Vivian."
+
+"Leave Plessing?"
+
+Lady Vivian's voice held surprise only, but the unfortunate Miss Bruce
+was again obliged to struggle with divided feelings. She gazed miserably
+round, but Captain Trevellyan returned her look with one of unmistakable
+reproach, and Char was fixing her eyes persistently upon the fire. And
+then reassurance came to her from Joanna's voice, unusually gentle.
+
+"I'm very glad, dear Miss Bruce. I shall like to feel that some one is
+looking after Char who has known her all her life, and cared for her as
+you have. And you won't be far away, so that I shan't feel I've lost
+sight of you. You must come out and see me struggling with my
+convalescents."
+
+She stretched out her left hand, and Miss Bruce, answering her smile
+only with a convulsive pressure and a sort of sob compounded of mingled
+relief, gratitude, and compunction, hurried upstairs with her
+handkerchief undisguisedly held to her eyes.
+
+"Poor Miss Bruce! We shall make an exchange, Char," said her mother,
+"for I'm hoping that Grace will stay here and help me."
+
+"In what capacity?"
+
+"Any capacity she likes."
+
+"I hope," said Char, in tones which held more of doubt than of
+hopefulness, "that you will find her more accurate than I have.
+Good-night."
+
+She went upstairs in her turn, feeling oddly tired and with a
+disquieting sense of finality. Her way and her mother's had parted, and
+although Char knew little regret for a separation which had long held
+them apart in all but physical nearness, she felt to the full the
+disturbing element introduced by a definitely spoken renunciation.
+
+She would return to her work on the morrow, and make the move from
+Plessing as speedily as might be. But even in thinking of her work Char
+felt, that evening, no solace, for the recollection of her mother's
+words as to the frame of mind in which the staff might receive her left
+her strangely bereft of her usual armour of self-confidence.
+
+In the hall, Trevellyan asked Joanna rather wistfully: "Do you mind very
+much?"
+
+"Exchanging Miss Bruce for Grace? Do you think I shall lose by it?"
+
+They both laughed a little, and then Trevellyan, looking into the fire,
+observed: "I'm glad you're going to have her. I shall like thinking that
+she's working with you here."
+
+"I'm glad, Johnnie."
+
+There was the ghost of a flicker in Joanna's voice.
+
+"She'll be a comfort to you."
+
+"Yes, indeed she will. The difference of age hasn't prevented our being
+friends."
+
+"And--and you'll look after her?"
+
+"I hope so. At all events, I shan't allow her to do any nursing of
+wounded, since we know the unfortunate effect that the sight of blood
+has upon her."
+
+Joanna was laughing outright now.
+
+"Oh, did she tell you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I think _that_ was the first time she and I ever had any real
+conversation."
+
+"Was it? It was rather talented of you, in the circumstances."
+
+"Cousin Joanna."
+
+"Yes, John."
+
+Captain Trevellyan bent a yet more ardent scrutiny upon the fire.
+
+"It seems the wrong time to say anything about it, but you always
+understand, and she and I could neither of us bear that you shouldn't
+know it at once. I couldn't go away without telling you. Not," said
+Johnnie, suddenly turning round and facing her, "that anything is
+settled, you know."
+
+"Except the only thing that matters," said Joanna softly.
+
+"One thing that makes us both care so much," he said diffidently, "is
+that we both care so much for you."
+
+She gave him both hands, regally, and he stooped and kissed them as he
+might have a queen's.
+
+Presently she said: "I'm so glad, dear Johnnie. Nothing in the world
+could make me happier."
+
+It was past eleven o'clock before John left her, and his final inquiry,
+standing at the hall door, made her laugh outright.
+
+"You don't think any one will guess, do you? She doesn't want anything
+said till her father knows, and unluckily I can't get down to Wales and
+see him now. There won't be time. But you didn't guess till I told you,
+did you?"
+
+"My dear Johnnie," said Joanna, with a singular absence of any emotion
+but her habitual kindly satire in her voice, "you really remind me very
+much sometimes of an ostrich!"
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+
+Grace Jones went back to the Hostel soon after the New Year in order to
+pack up and to make her farewells before going for a month's holiday to
+her home in Wales.
+
+"And then Plessing!" said Miss Marsh in an awed voice.
+
+"And then Plessing," Grace assented. "Lady Vivian hopes that it will be
+properly started by that time as a convalescent home."
+
+She looked across the sitting-room to where Mrs. Bullivant was sitting,
+with a smile that held inquiry and congratulation.
+
+"Fancy!" ejaculated Mrs. Bullivant, with a sort of timorous pleasure,
+"Lady Vivian actually thought of me, and suggested my taking over the
+work of quarter-mistress there. You know, looking after the stores and
+all that sort of thing. I must say, it's very good of her, and I shall
+like working there--and Gracie as secretary and all, too. It'll be quite
+like old times."
+
+"I hate changes," observed Miss Henderson gloomily.
+
+"This place will be extraordinary, with you gone, Mrs. Bullivant, and
+Gracie, and probably Tony and Plumtree as well."
+
+"Tony isn't leaving, is she?" cried Grace.
+
+"Yes, she is. Sent in her resignation two days ago. The fact is, she was
+altogether upset by that fuss we had about Miss Vivian the other day,
+and so she's decided that she wants a change. And Greengage says she
+won't stay without her. They always did hang together, you know."
+
+"I don't altogether wonder at poor old Plumtree," Mrs. Potter observed
+thoughtfully. "Miss Vivian has always had a down on her, hasn't she? But
+she and Tony will be a loss to the Hostel, and so will you, dear."
+
+"I don't like leaving a _bit_," Grace declared; "you've all been so nice
+to me, and I've been very happy here."
+
+It was undeniable, however, that happiness was not destined to be the
+prevailing characteristic of Miss Jones's last day in the office.
+
+Miss Vivian, seated at her paper-strewn table with all the old
+arrogance, if not actually with an additional touch of it to counteract
+the humanizing effect of the crêpe mourning band on her left arm,
+ignored her junior secretary as far as possible, but inspected her work
+with a closeness of attention that almost argued a desire to find it
+defective.
+
+"You can hand over your work to Miss Delmege, Miss--er--Jones. She will
+take it over on Monday next."
+
+"Yes, Miss Vivian."
+
+"And bring me your files."
+
+Char ran over the papers in the old way, with the murmured running
+commentary that denoted her utter unconsciousness of all but the task in
+hand, and at the same time made the extensive area covered by her
+official correspondence fully evident to the perceptions of whoever
+might be in the room with her.
+
+"Papers relating to that man Farmer's pension--those must go up today.
+That contract for the milk--send it up to the Commissariat Department,
+and I should like to know why they haven't sent me down the
+balance-sheets for the month. Nothing is ever properly checked, it seems
+to me, unless I do it myself, though Heaven only knows when I'm to find
+time for it. I've got to go through the accounts today, some time or
+other.... What's this? One of the nurses from the Town Hospital wants to
+see me, and calmly writes to say so! I never heard such unofficial
+nonsense in my life, as though I had time to give personal interviews to
+every wretched little V.A.D. who chooses to ask for them! Miss Delmege!"
+
+"Yes, Miss Vivian?"
+
+"Take this letter and answer it in the third person. Make it quite clear
+that any application of that sort is entirely out of order. If she wants
+to speak to any one, she can go to Matron; and if it's necessary, Matron
+can write to me about it."
+
+Miss Delmege took the letter, and mentally framed to herself the
+sentences in which she would later on make it clear to Gracie Jones that
+Miss Vivian's manner never really meant anything, and that her summary
+dismissal of any such appeal was only the necessary concomitant to
+official authority. It had become increasingly clear to Miss Delmege
+that Gracie was somehow, by the very reticence of her unspoken
+judgments, at the bottom of the extraordinary prejudice with which so
+many members of the staff now viewed the arbitrary ways of Miss Vivian.
+
+The clear, rapid undertones continued:
+
+"Boiler at the Hospital burst; they should have reported it sooner, but
+I'll send an order to the shop people. Another list for transfer! Dr.
+Prince transfers his men without rhyme or reason--all cases of myalgia
+and trench feet, too. I shall have to write and tell him to reconsider
+half of them, before I should dream of letting them leave.
+
+"What's all that?--case for massage, case for Shepherd's Bush, five
+transfers for convalescent homes.... Send me up the Transport Officer.
+Miss Delmege, what are my appointments for today?"
+
+"The new Superintendent for the Hostel is coming for an interview at two
+o'clock, and Dr. Prince rang up to say that he would come in for a
+moment at three."
+
+Char raised her eyebrows.
+
+"If I happen to be engaged or busy, he will have to wait. Is that all?"
+
+"Yes, Miss Vivian."
+
+"Thank Heaven!" piously ejaculated Char, entirely _pour la forme_, since
+the interviews which cut into her day's work afforded her the only
+relief she obtained from its monotonous strain.
+
+"Then I'll get through these letters at once. Send those to Mrs. Potter;
+and, Miss Delmege, you can take these--the rest are for the Clothing
+Department. Miss Jones, kindly deal with these files.... Send for Miss
+Coll--Mrs. Baker-Bridges, to take down some letters at once."
+
+Miss Delmege looked rather disturbed, and remained standing at Char's
+elbow without speaking.
+
+Miss Vivian, as was customary with her when wishing to display
+absorption in her work, continued to turn over the papers on the table
+without raising her eyes.
+
+At last she looked up and said sharply:
+
+"What is it, Miss Delmege? You fidget me very much by standing there in
+that unmeaning way. Do you want anything?"
+
+Miss Delmege cleared her throat nervously. Too well did she know the
+peculiar note of crisp asperity now sounding in her chief's voice.
+
+"I'm afraid the stenographer isn't here today."
+
+"And why on earth not?"
+
+"She isn't well."
+
+"I've had no application for sick leave."
+
+"She only telephoned this morning to say that she didn't feel able to
+come today."
+
+Char, with the calculated show of temper with which she greeted any
+departures from discipline, struck the table with her hand, and made the
+unfortunate Miss Delmege jump.
+
+"I think you've all lost your heads completely while I've been away. Is
+this office under military discipline or is it not?"
+
+The question being purely rhetorical, Miss Delmege attempted no reply to
+it, and merely drooped the more dejectedly over her sheaf of letters.
+
+"You can tell Miss Collins that unless she can apply for sick leave in
+the proper manner, and with a medical certificate to say that she is
+unfit for duty, she may consider herself dismissed."
+
+Miss Delmege, only too thankful to feel that the Director's wrath was
+not aimed at herself, hastened to the telephone to deliver the
+ultimatum. She returned scarlet, and with an air of outraged modesty
+that made Grace look at her in mild astonishment. Miss Jones's
+curiosity, however, only received satisfaction that afternoon, at the
+close of Dr. Prince's interview with Miss Vivian, when he casually
+remarked: "By the way, that pretty little red-haired typist of yours,
+the one who got married the other day, paid me a call yesterday."
+
+"Then, perhaps, you can inform me why she thought proper to remain away
+from duty without leave today."
+
+"Oh, you'll have her back tomorrow--for a time, anyway."
+
+Grace saw Miss Delmege make a hurried plunge into a small stationery
+cupboard, where she appeared to be searching for something elaborately
+concealed.
+
+"I can't have that sort of playing fast and loose with the work," Char
+said icily. "If Miss Collins--"
+
+"Mrs. Baker-Bridges," the doctor corrected her cheerfully.
+
+"If my stenographer can't attend to her work regularly, she is of very
+little use to me."
+
+"She's probably going to be of more use to the nation, let me tell you,
+than all the rest of you put together," said Dr. Prince.
+
+Miss Delmege's agony of mind reached its culmination, and she let drop
+an armful of heavy ledgers with a clatter which effectually covered any
+further indelicate precision of utterance of which the doctor might have
+been guilty.
+
+By the time that Grace had extinguished her own laughter in the
+cupboard, and had assisted Miss Delmege to pick up her books, the Doctor
+had slammed the door behind him, with a disregard for Miss Vivian's
+presence which might perhaps be accounted for by the searching
+cross-examination to which she had just subjected his proposed Medical
+Board cases.
+
+"A doctor's profession, I suppose," Miss Delmege said to Grace in tones
+of outraged delicacy as they left the office together, "destroys the
+finer feelings altogether. I'm not prudish, so far as I know, but
+really, after what passed in the office today--"
+
+"I wish you'd tell me what Mrs. Baker-Bridges said to you over the
+telephone."
+
+Miss Delmege coloured and tossed her head.
+
+"Some people don't seem to mind _what_ they say. I never did like her,
+but I certainly didn't think she had a coarse mind."
+
+"And has she?"
+
+"Well, I wouldn't say it to any one but you, dear, and I know you won't
+repeat any of it, but she was actually so pleased and proud at the mere
+idea that she said she couldn't keep it to herself, though she isn't
+even in the least certain."
+
+The virtuous horror expressed in Miss Delmege's whole person at such
+deplorable outspokenness was so excessive that Grace dared not make any
+reply for fear of producing an anti-climax.
+
+That evening, Grace's last at Questerham Hostel, her room-mate became
+disconsolate.
+
+"I don't know what I shall do without you, Gracie, and this room will be
+simply awful. You've always been such a dear about my being so untidy
+and everything, and put up with all of it, and done such heaps of little
+things. I shall never forget how you washed up the cups and tea-things
+after our morning tea, dear, never."
+
+"But I was only too pleased," protested Grace. "You've done a lot for
+me, if it comes to that. Look how often you've boiled your kettle for
+me, and had everything ready on nights when I came back late. I shall
+miss you very much, but don't forget that if ever you're in Wales you're
+coming to stay with us."
+
+"I say, do you really mean that?"
+
+"Of course I do."
+
+"You are a brick, Gracie. The thing I like about you," said Miss Marsh
+instructively, "is that you don't put on any frills."
+
+"Well, why should I?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know--staying at Plessing, and knowing Miss Vivian's
+people, and so on. There are others I could name," Miss Marsh said
+viciously, "who take airs for a good deal less--in fact, for nothing at
+all, that any one but themselves can see."
+
+Miss Jones knew from much previous experience the subject denoted by
+that particular edge in her room-mate's voice.
+
+"Are you worried?" she asked sympathetically, selecting a euphemism at
+random.
+
+"My dear, I've got an awful fear that Delmege means to move into this
+room when you're gone. You'll see if she doesn't get round the new
+Superintendent. She's always resented being put in with two others, and
+that room of theirs will always be a three-bedded one."
+
+"But Tony and Miss Plumtree are both leaving."
+
+"Not yet, and, anyway, two others will be put in instead. Mark my
+words," said Miss Marsh tragically, "that'll be the next thing. Delmege
+and me stuck in here _tête-à-tête_, as they say."
+
+"I do hope not."
+
+"I shall resign, that's all. Simply resign. _And_ give my reasons. I
+shall say to Miss Vivian right out, when she asks me why I want to
+leave--"
+
+"But she never does ask why any one wants to leave. Besides, you know
+you wouldn't leave for such a ridiculous reason as that."
+
+"Well, perhaps I wouldn't! After all, I should be sorry to think I
+couldn't get the better of Delmege, when all's said and done. I've a
+very good mind to tell her quite plainly that if she's got her eye on
+that corner bed she'll have to come to an understanding with me first,
+both as to the use of the screen and who's to make tea in the morning
+and turn the gas out at night. I've heard tales about Delmege's trick of
+getting into bed in a hurry and leaving everybody else to do the work.
+And she and I have had words before now."
+
+"I know you have," said Grace. "Perhaps that may prevent her from
+wanting to come here."
+
+Miss Marsh looked gloomy, and then bounded up as a tap sounded on the
+door.
+
+"What did I tell you? I'll take any bet you like that's Delmege nosing
+round now. I know the way she swishes her petticoat--such swank, wearing
+a silk one under uniform! Well, I'm not going to interfere with her."
+
+Miss Marsh bounced behind her screen.
+
+"Come in," Grace called.
+
+"Say I'm undressing," Miss Marsh issued a whispered command.
+
+Miss Delmege stepped elegantly into the room, her favourite "fawn"
+_peignoir_ chastely gathered round her.
+
+"You alone, dear?"
+
+"No, she isn't. I'm undressing," said a sharp voice behind the screen.
+
+Miss Delmege ignored the voice, and laid a patronizingly affectionate
+hand upon Grace's shoulder.
+
+"What thick hair you have, dear! Quite a work brushing it, I should
+think. Now, mine is so long that it's never had time to get really
+thick, though I know you wouldn't guess it to look at it, but that's the
+way it grows. As a child I used to have a perfect mass. Mother always
+used to say about me, 'That child Vera's strength has all gone into her
+hair, every bit of it.' It used to make her quite anxious, to see me
+without a bit of colour in my face and this great mass of hair."
+
+"What made it all fall out, Delmege?" came incisively from behind the
+screen.
+
+Miss Delmege tossed the long attenuated plait of straight fair hair
+which hung artlessly over one shoulder, and simulated deafness.
+
+"I just looked in as it's your last night here," she told Grace. "We
+shall miss you, I'm sure. Tell me, dear, have you any idea who is coming
+into this room in your place?"
+
+"Not any," hastily said Grace, as Miss Marsh's boot was dropped on the
+floor with a clatter that argued a certain degree of energy in removing
+it. "I suppose it will be arranged by the new Superintendent."
+
+"It might be kinder," said Miss Delmege thoughtfully, "to have all that
+sort of thing in order before she arrives. She'll have plenty to do
+without changes of bedroom. But of course this _is_ a room for two,
+there's no doubt about it. I've sometimes thought of a move myself, and
+this might be a good opportunity--"
+
+The second boot was violently sent to rejoin its fellow.
+
+"Strange, the noise that goes on in here, isn't it, with only the pair
+of you, too. I wonder it doesn't disturb you; but perhaps you're used to
+it?"
+
+"If you don't like noise, Delmege, don't come in here," exclaimed the
+still invisible Miss Marsh. "I never could bear creeping about without a
+sound, like a cat, myself."
+
+"I dare say not," Miss Delmege returned, with a certain spurious
+assumption of extreme gentleness in her little refined enunciation. "But
+I hope we all know what give and take is in sharing a room--especially
+in war-time."
+
+"There's more take than give about some of us, by all accounts,
+especially in the matter of kettles and early tea," was the retort of
+Miss Marsh, spoken with asperity.
+
+Miss Delmege turned to Grace.
+
+"Well, dear, as I don't propose to have words either now or at any other
+hour, I shall say good-night. Do you mean to say you manage with only
+one screen?"
+
+"Quite well. Besides, there are two round the other bed."
+
+"I dare say that's very necessary," said Miss Delmege pointedly, as she
+moved to the door. "Good-night, dear."
+
+"Good-night," said Grace, not without thankfulness.
+
+"Good-night," repeated Miss Delmege to the screen. "When I'm in here, I
+shall certainly insist upon having an extra screen. I can't imagine how
+anybody can manage with one only. And each will keep to her own side of
+the room, too, instead of leaving her things all over the other's. What
+I call untidy, some of these arrangements are. But, of course, it's all
+what one's been used to, isn't it?"
+
+Leaving no time for a reply to this favourite inquiry, Miss Delmege shut
+the door gently behind her.
+
+Grace, proceeding to bed under the flow of eloquence directed at her
+from behind Miss Marsh's screen, conjectured that the bedroom would know
+no lack of spirited conversation between its inmates in the future.
+
+The next morning Miss Marsh asked her at breakfast: "Shall you go and
+say good-bye to Miss Vivian?"
+
+"I don't think it's necessary, is it?" Grace said hesitatingly.
+
+"I can easily find out for you, dear, if she can see you for a moment,"
+Miss Delmege kindly volunteered.
+
+The opinion of the Hostel instantly veered round to an irrevocable
+certainty that a farewell to Miss Vivian was not necessary.
+
+"After all, she'd only say she was too busy to see you."
+
+"Or say she couldn't conscientiously recommend you for clerical work, as
+she did to poor Plumtree when she gave in her resignation the other
+day."
+
+"After Plumtree has toiled over those beastly averages for the best part
+of two years!"
+
+It was evident that the temper of the staff, for one reason or another,
+was undergoing a very thorough reaction indeed.
+
+Only Miss Delmege remarked firmly: "I know nothing about Plumtree's
+work, I'm sure, but if there's one thing Miss Vivian is, it's just.
+Quite impartially speaking, one can't help seeing that, and especially
+being, as I am, in the position of her secretary. As I always say, I get
+at the human side of her."
+
+"_In_human, I call it," muttered Tony, Miss Plumtree's chief ally.
+
+"Wherever a recommendation is possible, Miss Vivian always gives it,"
+inflexibly replied Miss Delmege. "I can answer for that."
+
+Few things received less consideration in the Hostel than Miss Delmege
+in process of answering for the Director of the Midland Supply Depôt,
+and Miss Marsh, Tony, and Miss Henderson dashed simultaneously into
+discussion of a project for seeing Grace off at the station.
+
+"We can get off at lunch-time, and your train goes at 1.30, doesn't it,
+Gracie?"
+
+"Yes, and I'd love you to come; only what about your lunch?"
+
+But every one said that didn't matter at all, and that, of course, dear
+old Gracie must have a proper send-off.
+
+"How nice they all are to me!" thought Grace, and recklessly purchased a
+supply of cigarettes, which she left with Mrs. Bullivant, for the
+consolation of the Hostel during many Sunday afternoons to come.
+
+"We shall meet at Plessing," the little Superintendent said, kissing her
+affectionately, "and it will be a great pleasure to work with you, Miss
+Jones dear, and you must tell me all Lady Vivian likes, you know, and
+how we can help her most."
+
+"You'll like working for her very much," Grace prophesied confidently.
+"Good-bye, dear Mrs. Bullivant, and thank you for all your kindness to
+me."
+
+She ran down the steps and would not look back, conscious of emotion.
+
+At the station the members of the staff were to appear when possible.
+But as Grace crossed Pollard Street, glancing involuntarily at the
+familiar office door, Miss Delmege, with a most unusual disregard for
+propriety, emerged hastily, hatless and with her neat coils of hair
+ruffled in the wind.
+
+"Good-bye, dear. It's sad to lose you, but I'm sure I hope you'll like
+your new job. I must say, it's been a pleasure to work with you."
+
+"Oh, I'm so glad! How kind of you!"
+
+"It's not every one I could say it to," Miss Delmege observed, with
+great truth. "But there's never been the least little difficulty, has
+there? We shall all miss you, and I must say I could wish that some
+others I could name were leaving in your place."
+
+Grace knew too well the nameless being alluded to, however feebly
+disguised by the use of the plural. "Couldn't you get away to the
+station?" she asked hastily.
+
+"Well, dear, I would, but really, with so many others there--to tell you
+the truth, _that_ Miss Marsh is beginning to get on my nerves a bit.
+Besides, you see, if I went off early, Miss Vivian might think it rather
+strange."
+
+On this unanswerable reason, Grace took a cordial farewell of Miss
+Vivian's unalterably loyal remaining secretary.
+
+At the station Tony and Mrs. Potter hailed her eagerly. "We got down
+early, but the others are coming. There's an awful crowd, dear; better
+hurry."
+
+Grace, in obedience to their urgings, purchased her ticket, while Mrs.
+Potter looked after the luggage and Tony took possession for her of a
+corner seat facing the engine.
+
+"Here you are, and remember," said Mrs. Potter earnestly, "that you can
+get a cup of nice hot tea at the Junction. There'll be plenty of time; I
+found out on purpose."
+
+"Thank you very much," said Grace gratefully. She stood at the window,
+and presently Tony and Mrs. Potter were joined by several other members
+of the staff, all hurried, but eager to take an affectionate farewell of
+Gracie.
+
+"Marsh ought to be here--can't think why she isn't. She was tearing
+about like mad so as to get off in time," said Miss Plumtree.
+
+"That girl will come into heaven late," Miss Henderson prophesied, and
+looked gratified when her neighbour emitted a faint, shocked
+exclamation.
+
+"Give her my love if she's too late, and say I'm so very sorry," said
+Grace.
+
+"You'll be off in a minute now."
+
+"Mind you come back next month all right. We'll come down and meet you."
+
+"I should like that so much. I shall look out on this very platform for
+you all."
+
+"Oh, Gracie! shall we any of us ever see this awful platform without
+thinking of those troop-trains and the ghastly weight of the trays?"
+
+"Never!" said Grace with entire conviction.
+
+"There's the whistle--you're off now."
+
+"And here's Marsh--she'll just do it. Look at her!"
+
+Grace hung out of the window, and saw the ever tardy Miss Marsh
+hastening up the crowded platform, making free use of her elbows.
+
+"I started too late--that wretched Delmege pretended I was wanted--so
+sorry, Gracie dear. Mind you write."
+
+"Yes, yes. And please do all write to me when you have time, and tell me
+all your news. And we'll meet again next month, as soon as I get back."
+
+The train was moving now, and only the panting and energetic Miss Marsh
+hastened along beside it, her hand on the carriage window.
+
+"Good-bye, good-luck. I shall miss you dreadfully in our room. Don't be
+surprised if you hear that Delmege and I have had words together; that
+girl simply gets on my nerves."
+
+"Stand back there, please."
+
+"Good-bye, Gracie!"
+
+"Good-bye."
+
+Grace stood at the window and waved to the little group until the blue
+uniforms were lost to sight and only the flutter of Tony's handkerchief
+was still visible.
+
+The Hostel days were over, but she would remember them always with a
+smile for the small hardships that had been tempered by so much kindness
+and merriment, and with a faithful recollection of the good
+companionship that work and the comradeship of workers ever had brought
+her.
+
+To John Trevellyan in the trenches, Grace wrote something of her
+thoughts two days later, amid much else.
+
+"I'm so glad I went to Questerham, apart from everything else, for the
+experience. The Hostel life was sometimes uncomfortable, but it was
+always amusing; and when all was said and done, everybody was ready to
+do anything or everything for any one else. I can't believe I was only
+there such a little while, for more happened to me there, and I got into
+realer touch with more people, than ever before.
+
+"And now the New Year is only just beginning, and there have been so
+many changes and happenings already. I wonder so much what else it is
+going to bring to all of us who were together in Questerham."
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+
+To Grace Jones herself the New Year, speeding on its way until it was
+new no longer, brought much work in the convalescent home at Plessing,
+the glad realization of Joanna Vivian's need of her, and innumerable
+unstamped letters bearing the field postmark. The quality of Miss
+Jones's peculiar philosophy was much tested as the months went by, but
+it was characteristic of her to be much heartened and rejoiced by an
+announcement confided to her soon after her return by Miss Marsh.
+
+"The boy I was such pals with has been sent back on sick leave, and
+they're not sending him out again. And if you'll believe me, dear, I've
+been persuaded into saying _yes_. He wants it to be quite soon, and
+really I don't mind if it is; the Hostel is quite changed nowadays, and
+not nearly as jolly as it was, now the new Superintendent makes us all
+so comfortable. Besides, I don't mind telling you between ourselves,
+Gracie, that I can't help fancying me going off like that and coming
+back with a wedding-ring and all will be rather a knock in the eye for
+our old friend Delmege."
+
+If this kindly prognostication was verified, Miss Delmege gave no sign
+of it, beyond introducing several additional shades of superiority into
+the manner of her congratulations.
+
+"Strange, isn't it?" she observed with a small and tight smile, "to see
+the way some people put all sorts of personal considerations first and
+the work afterwards! Personally, I agree with Miss Vivian on the
+subject."
+
+In agreement with Miss Vivian, on that as on all else, Miss Delmege
+continued to find solace. The promotion of Miss Bruce to Grace Jones's
+vacant place in Miss Vivian's office was a source of disquiet to her for
+some time, but the bond of a common admiration at last asserted itself,
+and found expression in their united efforts to persuade Miss Vivian to
+her lunch every day. There was also infinite consolation to Miss Delmege
+in her assertions, frequently heard at the Hostel, that nowhere was the
+human side of the Director of the Midland Supply Depôt so touchingly and
+unmistakably shown as in the occasional unofficial lapses which led her
+to address her secretary as "Brucey."
+
+The Hostel saw rapid changes when Tony and Miss Plumtree had both become
+munition-workers, and Miss Bullivant had gone to Plessing. The
+war-workers became the victims of a series of new superintendents, each
+of whom found insuperable difficulty in accommodating herself to the
+arbitrary ruling of Miss Vivian, and either departed summarily or
+received a curt dismissal. Finally, an energetic Scotswoman established
+herself at the Hostel and, as Miss Vivian had become exceedingly weary
+of the quest, remained there unchallenged. She was a better manager than
+little Mrs. Bullivant, and made drastic reformations in many directions,
+several of which were ungratefully received by the older members of the
+community.
+
+"For I must say," Mrs. Potter told Miss Henderson, "it was a good deal
+more sociable in the old days, when we made toast for tea over the
+sitting-room fire on Sunday afternoons, and Dr. Prince dropped in and
+told us all the news."
+
+It was Tony and Miss Plumtree who dropped in now, and did their best to
+bridge the gulf that had yawned so long between the munition-workers'
+Hostel and that sacred to Miss Vivian's clerical staff.
+
+"It's all very well," Miss Plumtree instructively remarked as she
+lounged in holland overalls and a pair of baggy but entirely
+unmistakable garments from which Miss Delmege kept her eyes studiously
+averted. "It's all very well, but working at munitions gives one a bit
+of an idea as to what one's working for. You people may think it's all
+Miss Vivian's personality, etc., etc., but I can tell you that's a jolly
+small part of the whole show."
+
+The independence of Miss Plumtree's manner, as well as a new and strange
+slanginess developed both by her and by little Miss Anthony, was noted
+by their old companions without enthusiasm.
+
+"After all," Tony chimed in patronizingly, "you really have the best of
+it. Troop-trains simply aren't in it with our work. Standing all day
+long, and shifts of twelve hours at a time--and if you turn green, that
+little reptile of a Welfare Superintendent pouring water all over you
+and telling you that there's nothing the matter."
+
+A shade of reminiscence, almost of regret, passed over her face.
+
+"At all events, Miss Vivian never did that--and she was pretty to look
+at. Every one is hideous at the works--especially Jawbones."
+
+"And who," Mrs. Potter distantly inquired, "is Jawbones?"
+
+Her tone implied that there were nick-names _and_ nicknames, and that
+those in use amongst the _habituées_ of the munitions-factory would meet
+with little or no admiration from the refined inhabitants of the Hostel.
+
+"That's what we call the Superintendent," Tony said airily.
+
+Miss Delmege, her lips drawn into an extremely thin line, uttered her
+solitary contribution to the conversation, before retiring with marked
+aloofness to the bedroom where she hoped to defeat her old antagonist,
+Miss Marsh, by annexing all three screens and the largest kettle of hot
+water.
+
+"I must say, it does seem to me that a happy medium might be found
+between doing your war work entirely for the sake of whoever's at the
+head of it, and calling your superintendent '_Jawbones_.'"
+
+The conclusion was so irrefutable, that even the new-born independence
+acquired by the munition-makers could produce no adequate reply.
+
+It might even be inferred from the unusual thoughtfulness with which the
+holland-clad enthusiasts took their departure, that neither was devoid
+of an occasional pang at the memory of the old days of blind obedience
+and enthusiastic loyalty to the ideal which Char Vivian, with all her
+autocratic charm and occasional flashes of kindness, still represented.
+
+As Dr. Prince had said, "the Vivians of Plessing stood for the highest
+in the land."
+
+The doctor seldom came to the Hostel now, for time had brought him more
+work than ever, and he spared himself none of it. Only at Plessing could
+he sometimes be persuaded to spend half an hour in talking to Grace or
+Lady Vivian after his medical inspection was over.
+
+"A wonderful work you're doing here," he told Joanna with satisfaction.
+"I wish all our great houses could be turned to such good use--and all
+our lady-workers too," added the doctor with some significance. "When
+all's said and done, nursing is women's work and no one else's, and the
+ruling of hospital discipline and the disposal of cases for Medical
+Boards, or anything else, ought to be left to the Medical Officer.
+That's _my_ opinion, right or wrong, and will be till my dying day."
+
+To Joanna Vivian, presiding over the altered establishment at Plessing,
+time brought many outlets for the unquenchable spirit of energy that
+would always possess her. She brought gaiety to her work, and laughter
+that was as unofficial as her inveterate habit of referring all
+questions of discipline to Dr. Prince, and the management of each
+individual branch to the helper in charge of it. Joanna's staff was not
+a large one, and each member of it had her own special and peculiar
+interest in the work given into her hands.
+
+It was in vain that Lesbia Willoughby, from London, wrote impassioned
+accounts to her poor dear Joanna of the many activities in which her
+days and nights appeared to fly past. "Wounded Colonials, blinded
+officers, Flag-days, hospitals, canteens, Red Cross entertainments--I
+have my finger in every single war-pie that's going, and I can't tell
+you how too utterly _twee_ some of the dear fellows are with whom I get
+into touch. If you'll only trust that sulky girl of yours to me for six
+months, I could do wonders for her, and probably get her off your hands
+altogether. After all, dear, we can never forget that you and I were
+girls together, can we?"
+
+"Lesbia never means to forget it, that's clear enough," was the sole
+comment of Lady Vivian.
+
+She did not go through the form of transferring Mrs. Willoughby's
+invitation to her daughter. It gradually became evident that the
+Director of the Midland Supply Depôt would accord but little of her
+fully occupied time to a convalescent home not supplied from her own
+depôt, and as Joanna said to Grace, with her habitual slight shrug: "It
+may be just as well, my dear. I'm not Miss Bruce, and Char and I haven't
+the same way of looking at things. She vexed and disappointed her
+father, and no amount of eloquence about her high and mighty motives
+will ever make me altogether forget it. I shall never be able to hear
+her talk about her position as Director of the Midland Supply Depôt
+without thinking what a fool I was not to smack her well when she was a
+child."
+
+Thus Joanna, half laughing, but with the eternal loneliness that all
+John's steadfast loyalty and Grace's loving companionship would never
+altogether assuage still underlying the dauntless youthfulness in her
+blue eyes.
+
+For Trevellyan the months succeeded one another, strangely monotonous.
+In company with a hundred thousand others "somewhere in France," he
+moved between the mud and noise and blood in the trenches, and the
+eternal dreary billets where letters from home and the need of sleep
+were the only considerations. But to his Grace in England Johnnie wrote
+cheerily, of hope and good courage, and peace dawning on a far horizon,
+and of the prospect of ten days' leave.
+
+To Char Vivian, Director of the Midland Supply Depôt, the advancing
+year, imperceptibly enough, brought certain solutions and
+enlightenments.
+
+The personal fascination that she could exert when she willed would
+always secure for her a following of blindly devoted adherents, but her
+influence was not always strong enough to retain their admiration.
+Insensibly, Char modified a little of her arbitrariness.
+
+"They put so much else before the work," she said helplessly to Miss
+Bruce.
+
+But Char's perceptions were never lacking in acumen, and she became more
+and more aware of the truth of Joanna's prognostication that the work of
+the Supply Depôt would be done for its own sake, and for that of the
+cause in whose name it existed. And it was perhaps that awareness which
+brought to her a gradual realization of motives in her own self-devotion
+hitherto unacknowledged to herself.
+
+The Director of the Midland Supply Depôt might sit day after day and
+hour after hour at her paper-strewn table, issuing orders and receiving
+the official interviews and communications that so clearly indicated the
+high responsibility of her position, but Char Vivian grew to exercise a
+certain discretion in the matter of her return to the meals and rest so
+anxiously watched over by Miss Bruce, whose adoring loyalty was hers
+beyond any possibility of shaking.
+
+In those occasional unofficial concessions to her imploring solicitude
+might, after all, be numbered the most creditable achievements of Miss
+Vivian.
+
+LONDON, 1917.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 37181 ***