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'smother!"
"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. Iamsorry 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 girldoeslook tired. I hope she gets into bed quickly," observed Mrs. Potter, pulling off her hat and exposing a rakishlydécoiffétangle 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 nothinginwhat 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 Marshhadsaid, 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 afeawncy—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 fawnpeignwaw," 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."
"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 amnot," 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 alittlesympathy. 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 alwaysthat," 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.Doyou mind this little brown boy, who goeseverywherewith his mammy? I knew you'd love him if you saw him—butsucha 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 herathertwee, Joanna?"
"I've not seen it before," said Joanna, in tones more civil than enthusiastic.
"It!" screamed Lesbia. "She calls 'ooit, 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. "Ican'thave 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 Willoughbyménage.
"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, isflogging."
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 tomymind 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 shouldclingtogether. I always tell my Lewis it's a time when we shouldclingmore 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. Ialwayssay 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 offher."
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 knowwhatto 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 thinkmybed 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.
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'tfussso! 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 allthesego 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 housemustbe 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?"
"Imust," 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."
"Thatconsideration 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 ofmalice 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 oflèse-majestéto 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.
"Rather strange, isn't it?" said Miss Delmege in tones of weak despondency. "If it hadn't been for this wretched flu,Ishould 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. "Ioughtto 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, thatwasnice 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 theménageat 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! Howtoosweet 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.