'From gholies and ghosties,
From long leggity beasties,
From things that go bump in the night
St Christopher deliver us.'
We spent an exhausting hour mopping up the water. Ross said he could
now sympathise with the other occupants of the Ark when Noah would keep
opening the window. After we'd got the place dry Ross said,--
'It's nearly one o'clock, Meg; come and have lunch in my room. I've got
a thermos full of coffee and some perfectly adorable biscuits--the
squashed fly sort.'
Ross really thought my ceiling might come down, so he rolled himself up
on the nursery sofa, and I spent the rest of the night in his bed. I
lay awake for some time groaning in spirit at the thought of the mess
and muddle workmen always make, and wondering how much more of the roof
was likely to descend on us. Presently I heard Ross whisper outside,--
'Meg, are you asleep?'
'No, I wish I was.'
'Your grammar seems as defective as your dwelling,' he said, poking his
head round the door.
'What I came in to say, Meg, was that when the workmen strip that bit of
roof you may find the date of the house.'
I sat up in bed suddenly. Life seemed rosy once more. 'You angel,' I
exclaimed, 'how exciting.'
'What a ridiculous kid you are, little 'un, up one minute and down the
next.'
'Well, it _is_ exciting. What did you wake me up for if you didn't
think so?'
'I thought you said you weren't asleep!'
I pushed him out and shut the door. The thought of the date so consoled
me that I went to sleep immediately, but I had one of my dreadful
nightmares. I dreamed that the foundations of the house fell outwards
with a crash, leaving the walls, which were made of squashed fly
biscuits, standing on the date--B.C. .4!
'Uncle John' came in to survey the wreckage the next morning, but can't
repair the roof till Monday. Then I showed him the crack in my ceiling.
'That ain't nothing, mum, surface, that is; I can put a bit of plaster
on it now if you like, but it don't need it.'
So I decided to dispense with the plaster and to sleep in my own
bedroom, but my keeper thought otherwise, so we had words about it.
'Ross, what _is_ the difference between the air coming in at the roof or
coming in at the window?' But there is apparently a most enormous
difference, and my brother said,--
'You're not going to sleep in that draught. There's a most beastly bug
about just now. All the men at Canley barracks are down with it, kind
of "'flu," I suppose; you get a frightful cold in your head, and then
your tummy gets distended, and you can't button your trousers, and----'
'Is that the bug you suggest I'm going to get?' I interrupted icily.
And then he said I was abominable!
I am, however, allowed to sleep in my own room after all, because 'Uncle
John' nobly suggested that the powdering closet should be boarded over
till he could come and mend the roof, to which my keeper graciously
agreed.
But half the night I could hear that bug walking up and down in the
powdering closet, scratching the boarded door, trying to get in, until I
said to it,--
'You needn't bother about me. I'm not afraid of you.' And then it
started howling, and I discovered that it was Fitzbattleaxe up on that
ledge in the chimney again, and he kept me awake for hours.
In the morning Ross said he must see if the ledge could not be bricked
up somehow. We got a ladder and a light, and he rescued the kitten, who
spat at him, and then he said,--
'Why, Meg, it's such a wide ledge, and at the back there's a small stone
slab which seems to be loose. Shall I see if I can get it out? Give me
something to poke it with.'
I gave him my best silver button-hook, and he jabbed about and broke it,
but he eased out the stone and found behind a little hollow,
and--yes--an old deed!--Such a nice one, though quite small.
It is an Indenture made the two and twentieth day of January, 1645, in
the one and twentieth year of the reign of our sovereign lord Charles by
the grace of God of England, Scotland, ffrance, and Ireland, King
Defender of the Faith. But the part that intrigues me is that it seems
to be a kind of marriage settlement for 'George Albury gives to his wife
Mary'--Gidger's cottage--'in consideration of the love and affection he
bore her.' So Michael has only been repeating history.
But why did Mary put her deed in my chimney? She must have got so grubby
doing it. I'm sure her husband hated her to get so dirty, didn't like
her little hands so soiled; but perhaps her George was up that winter
with King Charles's army and she hid it there for safety, for the times
were much disturbed and she was frightened. Women don't like war, I
know just how she felt. I wonder what George and Mary Albury thought
that other winter morning, four years later, when their sovereign lord,
who by the grace of God was King of England, ffrance, and Ireland, was
beheaded on the scaffold in Whitehall.
And every day now I say, 'Daddy's on his way home,' and Ross says,
'Won't it be rotten if I just miss him?'
Yesterday in church the vicar announced that there was an awful outbreak
of that bug at the local Red Cross hospital, that all the men were down
with it, and nearly all the nurses, and the few of them who had escaped
were worked to death. He asked for volunteers to help, not with the
nursing, but in the kitchen. I told Ross coming home that I should
offer, but he wouldn't hear of it, because Toby once said years ago I
ought not to go within a million miles of 'flu. But there are times
when I don't take kindly to the snaffle, as Sam would say. However,
Ross is going to London to-morrow, so I said no more at the moment, and
the conversation wandered off to the education and upbringing of the
young.
'The poor Gidger doesn't seem to get much bringing up,' said Ross.
'Well, you're her godfather,' I retorted, 'you're to blame; why don't
you teach her whether her name is N or M?'
'Oh, she knows her name all right, it's her station in life she doesn't
seem to be clear about, thinks she's the Queen of England, I think, same
as her mother does.'
'Ross, darling, you don't really think that she's----'
'Oh, you silly little ass, Meg.'
'But I have views on the way a child should be trained.'
'Then for goodness' sake get rid of them at once.'
'But all the same,' I persisted, 'I do hate the way modern children are
brought up. They've no manners, they are such little pigs at meals, and
they're always served first.'
'Well, the Gidger isn't.'
'No, but that's not your fault, Ross.'
I remembered the first time she came down to lunch I told Sam to serve
me first, and then Ross, and then the Poppet. He agreed, and said I was
'Quite right, miss.' So he served me first and then went to Ross, who
said, 'You've forgotten the other lady, Sam,' and so, without a word to
me, Sam upset all my carefully arranged plans for my daughter's edifying
and upbringing, and went to the Gidger just because his master told him
to. Ross and I had words about it afterwards, and he said I was a silly
little ass, and kissed me for some extraordinary reason.
'Doesn't Michael think she is a disappointing kiddie?' said Ross,
breaking in upon my reverie, but as I didn't answer the conversation
changed to oysters.
So the Gidger came down to lunch to-day, and as he is better Brown
waited, and in a fit of mental aberration he handed a dish of stewed
apricots to her before he had been to me.
'No, thank you,' said the Poppet.
'It's apricots, miss,' said Brown. 'Miss' never having in all the years
of her long life been known to refuse them.
'Apricots, miss,' said Sam again.
'No, thank you, muvver isn't served.'
So I was served, and then the lady who thinks she is the Queen of
England condescended to allow her faithful henchman to give her
apricots, and my brother, with his usual habit of talking backwards,
said,--
'You see, Meg, how little you know about bringing them up. If you
really had "views," such a thing couldn't have happened. You were
always such a nice child yourself, so pretty when you were a baby, such
a pity that you've altered so.'
Then in a tone of most awful consternation he added, 'Why, Gidger?' for
my daughter was in tears.
'Uncle Woss' was beside her in a moment, kneeling humbly to the 'Queen
of England,' 'Darling, what _is_ it?' he cried distractedly.
'You said muvver wasn't pwetty now.'
'Oh,' said Ross to me, 'could you go outside, woman, while I comfort
this lady?'
So I went outside. After he had consoled the lady she went off with
Sam, but she wasn't quite happy, so he kneeled down and took a turn at
comforting.
'I assure you, miss, you've not the slightest occasion to worry. Your
uncle always does say just the reverse of what he means--gentlemen
do----'
'But are you sure he thinks muvver is pwetty now?' said the Poppet.
'Certainly, miss, not a doubt about it.'
'Do _you_ think she's pwetty, Bwown?'
'She's perfectly distracting at times, miss; that's why I forgot to
serve her first.'
'Oh, you are my gweatest comfort, Bwown; have you known muvver long?'
'Can't remember the time when I didn't know her, miss.'
'Neither can I,' said the Poppet. 'I weally don't know what I should do
without you, Bwown.'
'I'm sure I'm very much obliged, miss,' he said, and kissed her little
hands, and then offered to make her another boat or a new doll's house
if she'd rather.
How do I know that last bit? Why, a little bird told Nannie, and Nannie
told me, besides I always know everything. Oh, you silly men, because
you don't see the finger on the pulse you don't believe it's there.
Why, I know every heartbeat in the house (including Brown's!) and so
does every other woman!
*CHAPTER XXVI*
Ross departed to London last Monday with Sam. And I took the bit in my
teeth and went up by the train after they did. I could see Ross and Sam
hanging on to the red lights at the back of the last coach. They catch
their trains like that (men always do). I, of course, like every other
woman, invariably catch the train before.
I went to the Red Cross shop and bought a set of General Service
uniform, and when I got home I found 'Uncle John' in a state of great
excitement because he _had_ found the date in the roof, as Ross had said
he might! I went up the ladder to look at it. It is carved roughly on
a beam. The wood is in as good a state of preservation as the day it was
put in, and some initials (of the man who built the house, I suppose)
are carved over it so:--
J.H.T.
1570
Elizabethan, after all!
It is such a pity that Ross is away, as I have no one to gloat with me,
but when he comes back and rows about the hospital, I shall say,--
'Yes, but I've found the date,' and then all will be harmony and love.
No one could be angry with a person who had found the date 1570.
I have to get up so desperately early in the morning. Nannie is horrid
about the whole thing, refuses to call me or help me dress, says she is
sure Master Michael won't approve and that she's not going to have any
hand in it. However, 1570 consoles me for much, though everything else
is rather beastly.
So on Tuesday I went to the hospital. It was a vile morning, blowing
half a gale and raining. It took me so long to get into the unaccustomed
clothes without Nannie that I had to run most of the way to avoid being
late.
If you were outside a place and wanted to get in, what would you do?
Ring the front door bell, of course, you say. Well, that's what I did,
but it wasn't right, quite wrong, in fact. The person who opened the
door to me seemed to think I must be dotty. I ought to have gone to the
back door and taken off my hat and coat in a kind of mausoleum in the
yard. By the time I had rectified all these mistakes it was a quarter
past eight. I didn't know how the veil ought to be worn either, so I
put it on as the nurses did in Ross's hospital in London, which turned
out wrong, for when I went to matron for my orders, she snapped,--
'Washing up--you're not an army sister yet, and no use at all to me
unless you're punctual.'
I could see that she meant something horrid, but couldn't think what,
and I blushed and stammered like a school child. There was a nice girl
in the scullery who came behind the door and altered my veil and tried
to console me by saying,--
'Matron isn't a bit like that usually, only she's absolutely overdone,
as we all are.'
Then I started washing up. They had had kippers for breakfast, and I
had no idea that they were so disgusting cold, or how impossible it was
to prevent water going over one's feet when one emptied a big panful
down the sink. By the time I had been at it an hour I was soaking, I
could feel it on my skin, and the floor was all awash. A diver's
costume would have been really useful. The girls who had been there for
months thought I was such a fool. (They do not suffer fools gladly in a
military hospital!) They were quite polite, of course, that's why it
was so hard. I'm not used to people being polite to me.
The only person who was really decent was the charwoman, who was also
new that morning, so perhaps she had a fellow feeling. She did not,
however, seem to be quite clear as to what a V.A.D. was, for she said,--
'Oh, duckie, you are wet; new at it, ain't you? Why don't you buy
yourself a mackintosh apron? I did in my first place, they aren't
expensive.'
Later on, when I had dried up a bit and was cleaning a saucepan with
great vigour, she said,--
'Nice 'elp you'll be to mother after this, duckie.'
I was very bucked at that remark. It's nice to feel that one person, at
any rate, believes you to be young enough to be 'a nice 'elp to mother.'
At 10.30 a.m. the kitchen staff all came into the scullery and sat on
boxes and drank cocoa, and ate bread and dripping (I hid the dripping
part of mine) while the orderly and boy scout had theirs in the kitchen.
After cocoa I helped with the potatoes and then cleaned saucepan lids.
Then I washed up the men's dinner things. They had had Irish stew and
suet pudding. Have you ever washed a pudding cloth? My last job was
the pig pail! In the happy past when I have gone and loved the little
pigs at Uncle Jasper's I never knew there was a pig pail. Ours stands
outside the backdoor in the yard. It's rather like a domed cathedral;
into it you scrape the kipper skins and bits of bread and fat and apple
cores, and things like that.
I can do it now without active sickness. By the end of the week,
perhaps, I need not shut my eyes or hold my nose.
But my hands are disgusting. My finger-nails are in deep mourning and
the grease will not come off.
On Wednesday I committed the sin that can never be forgiven, for,
unaddressed, I spoke to a General in front of matron, and I am to be
shot at dawn on Friday.
This is what happened. I was just about to replenish the pig pail,
trying to screw up my courage to remove the dome from the cathedral,
when round the house came matron in a very starched apron with several
extra ramrods down her back. With her was a most splendid brass
hat--rows of ribbons, gorgets, gold braid, all complete, and there were
several other officers. Picture me standing by the pig bucket--I was
not too clean. I hadn't got my sleeves on, my arms were streaked with
blue bell, and my cap was slightly crooked. Suddenly I looked at the
advancing General, and I said quite loudly,--
'Toby, dear, what priceless luck!'
It was General Sir Tobias Merriwater, K.C.B., D.S.O., M.D., F.R.C.P.
All I remembered was that I had known him all my life, and never called
him anything but 'Toby'.
Suddenly the warm spring day vanished, I was up at the North Pole, or
the South one if it's colder, as I saw the matron's face. And then, by
way of trying to ease the situation, I dropped the scullery pig pail,
showered the kipper skins and apple cores, bits of bread and fat and
suet, like rice and rose leaves at a wedding in the pathway of a bride.
There was an awful silence, even the officers forgot to be bored, and
looked quite interested. I drew back and wished I could get right inside
the pig bucket, and shut down the lid.
'Ah,' said General Sir Tobias Merriwater to the matron, 'you keep pigs?'
'Yes, sir,' said she.
She was very bright and nice to him. (I understand people are always
nice and bright to Generals.)
'And this is for them, I suppose. Most commendable, very.' And the
retinue passed on.
I picked up all the 'rice and rose leaves,' every bit of it by hand, and
then I went and told the girl I work with in the scullery. She
collapsed into the coal box, saying, 'You'll be shot at dawn,' when a
hand cautiously opened the scullery window and a voice said,--
'I'll be waiting outside the gate when you go home at one o'clock, and
if you would kindly hurry I think it would be better, for I'm very much
afraid I shall explode.'
So at one o'clock I went outside the gate, whereupon there appeared the
unseemly spectacle of the latest V.A.D. hugging the Visiting Committee!
'Oh, Toby, it's such pure bliss to see you. I wish I could shake
hands,' I said, 'but I really am so filthy.'
'A kiss of yours is good enough for any man,' said Toby. So of course I
kissed him, as I always have, and at that moment matron caught us!
Somehow, my luck's dead out. However, I felt as I was not on duty I
could hug Generals if I chose, and, anyway, I was to be shot at dawn on
Friday, so nothing mattered.
So the Visiting Committee came home to lunch with me and stayed to tea,
which it hadn't meant to do, and then stayed on for dinner, but it
couldn't stop the night, or else it would have. It was delightful to
see Toby. When he went he said,--
'Darling, you don't look too frightfully well, are you being taken care
of properly? You ought not to be going to that beastly hospital when
they've got influenza. You're not strong enough. Do you ever faint
now?'
'Never, except once last Thursday.'
But I don't think he heard, for he went down to the car and drove away.
*CHAPTER XXVII*
Ross wired to say that he was delayed till Tuesday, and then came on
Saturday after all. I was in the hall wondering why I felt so tired and
whether I'd bother to change for dinner, when my brother let himself in
at the front door, followed by Brown.
'Why, Ross, this is a surprise. I didn't expect you to-day!'
He had, however, somehow grown deaf during his absence, and merely
said,--
'Good-evening, Margaret. See to the luggage, will you, Brown,' and
walked upstairs, followed by all the dogs.
'Has anything happened, Sam?' I asked.
'Not in London, miss,' and he handed me the evening paper.
Obviously a storm was brewing, so I decided that it was worth while to
dress. I put on my best and latest frock. At dinner I was sparkling,
and told my brother all about the hospital in my most vivid style.
Somehow he didn't think any of it the least amusing. I asked him then
if he wasn't sorry to miss Toby, and he informed me that he had had
lunch with him at the club in London.
Ross was, however, quite polite and civil, more so than he'd been for
years, but as to rowing me as I had thought, oh, dear, no; he quite
obviously was not interested in me at all, the whole subject of the
hospital bored him stiff.