'Good-bye, darling, don't forget that whatever the next few months may
bring you, "underneath are the Everlasting Arms."'
Daddy is such a comfortable person, he doesn't, like Aunt Amelia, jaw
about the war and say it's 'a judgment' _every_ time he writes. When it
first broke out he said that God seemed to be speaking to the world with
great vigour about something, and was I listening for the bit He meant
for me?
Really, when you come to think of it, arms are nice things when one is
tired. War makes one tired, all women hate it. I wish Michael wasn't
in France. I wish he could have seen his way to take the staff job he
was offered.
*CHAPTER III*
I have had such a glorious sleep! The gardener's cat wasn't in it, but
the earwig was--in my bed--and Nannie wouldn't let me kill it because
'earwigs are such good mothers.'
Oh, what bliss a bed is after a bunk, the joy of a motor hoot instead of
a fog horn, and the sight of a house opposite one's windows instead of a
sickening swirl of green water and sky.
But I felt rather at a loose end, and when Nannie came in with my
breakfast I said,--
'I wonder what I'd better do to-day?'
'Buy a hat, I should think, dearie, and then go to the Bank.'
She is a comfort!
She sat on the edge of my bed while the Poppet and I had breakfast. I
believe her private opinion is that Michael has kept us short of food,
as we ate everything but the crockery, but when a person has lived on a
dry biscuit for weeks, a person is apt to feel a bit peckish at the end
of such a fast.
Dear old Nannie hasn't altered much, she carries her years lightly, it's
just the same kind face, with the hair a little grayer. She says she
would have come out to India to me ages ago if it hadn't been for the
war. We had so much to say to one another that I got rid of quite a
respectable amount of the conversation which had accumulated during the
voyage, for I was too sick even to talk!
It is good to be in London. I went to my old shop. 'Estelle'
remembered me and said, 'Madame is of a youthfulness inconceivable to
have such a big little daughter,' which is most satisfactory. The 'big
little daughter' looks enchanting in a white fur cap to match her coat,
and I got a small soft brown thing 'of a price preposterous.' Captain
Everard called to inquire after me, so I asked him to lunch and thanked
him for all he had done for me. He said he hardly recognised me in a
vertical position, having seen me prostrate so long. After lunch I
spent the afternoon with Ross. He said he was 'quite well.'
'Then why are you in bed?' I inquired politely.
'Matron's orders,' snapped the soldier bit of him. 'Drat the woman,'
said my brother.
He hasn't altered much, though the war has painted shadows and grim
lines about his mouth; his eyes, too, are sterner than they used to be,
otherwise he is the same good-looking, big, teasing, maddening brother.
He thought I hadn't changed, and seemed the 'same rum kid.' I saw
matron afterwards. She told me that his arm is very badly injured, and
she feared at first that he would lose it, but it is on the mend at
last, though it will be months before he can go out again, 'for which,'
she said, 'you won't be sorry.' Then she added, 'I don't know if you've
any plans, but he would be much better if he could be somewhere where
it's quiet. When the pain comes on we simply cannot keep the place
quiet enough. The slamming of a door, the noise of footsteps in the room
make his pain almost unendurable. It's the shot nerve, you know. You
can't, in a house like this, keep every door from banging, though we do
our best. He would be much better with you in the country, though you
would need a nurse. A right arm makes a man so helpless; he can't cut
his food up, or dress himself. Of course, there's Sam,' and then she
laughed. 'He'll probably be leaving his hospital soon; he's close by,
you know.'
'But could he manage? How could he wait on Ross if he can't walk?'
'Oh, he can walk enough for that,' she said. 'He's already interviewed
me on the subject more than once. He says the captain only wants an arm
which _he_ has got. If you could let him rest his knee all day and just
help your brother night and morning it might do, though you'd have the
pair of them really on your hands.'
'But do the men ever get leave from hospital like that?' I asked.
'Oh, there is such a thing as extended hospital furlough,' said matron;
'it doesn't usually apply to knees, but all the hospitals are crammed.
I dare say I could work it. You'd have to give him time off sometimes
to go before his M.O.'
'Well, if you think you can work it,' I said doubtfully.
'You can work most things, if you know how! Your brother's very angry
with me to-day because I made him stay in bed after the excitement of
your arrival. I am in very deep disgrace,' said matron, smiling.
As I went along the frosty streets I promised myself a perfect orgy of
shopping. My wardrobe is too diaphanous for this climate. The cold is
almost unbelievable after India. When I got back to the hotel I found
the Gidger had had a gorgeous afternoon at the Zoo, and was sitting up
in bed, eating her supper, while Nannie cut her bread and butter into
'ladies' fingers,' as she had done, oh, how many times for me when I was
four years old.
I told Nannie matron's views, and she said, 'Why don't you go into
rooms, Miss Margaret? Then you could have him. You and I could manage
for him.'
'You can see him letting a "parcel of women" hang round him, can't you,
Nannie? No, it must be a nurse or Sam, if we can get him.' But I
agreed to wire to Fernfold, where a pal of Nannie lives, who has a
friend who takes in lodgers, and would make us comfortable.
Just as I was going down to dinner I got a trunk call. It was Uncle
Jasper. 'Your aunt wants to know when you are coming down to us,' he
boomed.
'Where are you speaking from?' I asked; 'the Manor House?'
'No, we're at Rottingdean.'
'Wallowing in old churches, at least your uncle is,' came my aunt's
voice, a long way off. 'Won't you come to us, darling, I'm so worried
about Eustace. No, I can't tell you on the telephone, and we'd so love
to have you.'
'Why aren't you at home?' I said.
'Yes, another call; oh, ... don't cut us off!'
'Your aunt,' said Uncle Jasper, seizing the receiver, 'has been very ill
with influenza.'
'Nonsense,' said Aunt Constance, 'don't frighten the child, Jasper. I'm
all right now, darling.'
'Shall I meet the 2.5 to-morrow?' said my uncle.
So I told him about Ross and Fernfold.
'What's the church there?' he inquired; 'Norman or Early English?'
I could hear his snort of indignation when I said I thought it was a new
Wesleyan Chapel! Then we got cut off.
Nannie says that her friend's friend prefers to board her lodgers, 'and
you'd better let her, dearie. You won't like contending with the
rations.' So it's settled we're to be boarded if we go to Fernfold. I'm
so dead tired I must be getting sleeping sickness. Will there be a
letter from 'the black beast' in the morning?
*CHAPTER IV*
Such shoppings! The Poppet and I are now considerably warmer than we
were, and, we hope, more beautiful. Certainly Michael is considerably
poorer.
I have seen several old friends and had lunch with Monica Cunningham.
She has grown very pretty and still moves in the graceful way that made
Charlie in the old days call her 'a Greek poem.' She has risen to the
occasion, as daddy always said she would, and done the splendid thing
like all the other girls--exchanged luxury for hospital work at
Hammersmith. She was very amusing about it. She said that at first she
had visions of herself in a becoming uniform holding the fevered hands
and smoothing the pain-racked brows of wounded warriors, but what she
got was all the kicks and none of the halfpence. However, she seemed
quite happy.
'Meg,' she said, 'those men I nurse--they are "everything that really
matters"--as your father used to say.'
And I wondered if she had learned that other bit of daddy's, _i.e._ that
the lack of grandfathers was not important then!
I tried to get her to talk about Charlie Foxhill, for I'm certain he's
been in love with her for years.
'Oh,' she said, 'he's quite a decent boy,' but I think her eyes said
something stronger, and I was glad, because I'm devoted to them both.
Then I took the Gidger to Hampstead to call on Aunt Amelia.
In the old days I used to heave a sigh of relief when I came away from 7
Victoria Gardens, and things are still unchanged. One enters a house
full of 'judgment' and leaves the 'love' outside in the garden. There
is the same high moral tone about Aunt Amelia's conversation. Her
'fydo' does the things he always did. Her drawing-room is still
decorated in tones of mustard and bestrewn with antimacassars. Only in
the throes of a bilious attack can one appreciate the scheme of colour.
My aunt greeted me with her accustomed coolness, but gave a peck to the
Gidger's cheek, which that small person promptly rubbed off; this was a
bad start.
The same sour-faced maid brought in the same uninteresting, microscopic
tea. The Poppet, who is used to a square meal at 4.30, said clearly,--
'Muvver, is this all the tea we're going to have?'
Aunt Amelia remarked acidly that she had bad table manners, and inquired
if she had begun to learn the catechism.