"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 forher—"
"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.
"Youmustlet 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, Ican'ttell 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."
"Itcan'tbe 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.
"Howtired 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, weshouldlike 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."
"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, Iamsorry! 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, whatdoyou 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 therenow, 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.Idon'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 affecthim. 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 Vivianknewher 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 betooheartless. 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. ButIshould 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 shewassplendid, 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 thepersonalpoint 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,mywork 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'reimpersonal 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, butquiteimpartially."
"Of course," said Miss Marsh, under her breath.
"Look at the way she works and all—itisperfectly 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. "Ithasbeen a depressing Christmas Day. How would it be tochangefor 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.
"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 cannevertell 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!Howidiotic 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 Ialwaysthink 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—hismemory!" 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 aperfectmother—young things adore me. Look at my sweet Puffles! But I'mmiserableabout 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 soutterlyunlike 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, butIwas 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'tdashedinto the middle of the hall and called out that we were all Englishwomen and not afraid of anything. Andafterall 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 undertakingscrying 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 belivingon 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 herquiteuseful 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 upreMiss 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 holdsanythingexciting."
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, simplybeggedher 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, thereisa 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. Charmusthave 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.