Char looked wearily at the clock.
The buns and chocolate hastily disposed of in the intervals of work
during the afternoon had only served to spoil the successive cups of
strong tea, which formed her only indulgence, brought to her at five
o'clock. They were guiltless of sustaining qualities. It was not yet
seven, and she never ordered the car until nine o'clock or later.
Her eyes dropped to the diminished, but still formidable, pile of papers
on the table. She was excessively tired, and she knew that the papers
before her could be dealt with in the morning.
But it was characteristic of Char Vivian that she did not make up her
mind then and there to order the car round and arrive at Plessing in
time for eight o'clock dinner and early bed, much as she needed both. To
do so would have jarred with her own and her staff's conception of her
self-sacrificing, untiring energy, her devotion to an immense and
indispensable task, just as surely as would a trivial, easy interruption
to the day's work in the shape of John Trevellyan and his new car, or an
hour consecrated to fresh air and luncheon. Necessity compelled Char to
work twelve hours a day some two evenings a week, in order that the
amount undertaken by the Midland Supply Depôt might be duly
accomplished; but on the remaining days, when work was comparatively
light and over early in the evening, she did not choose to spoil the
picture which she carried always in her mind's eye of the indefatigable
and overtaxed Director of the Midland Supply Depôt.
So Miss Vivian applied herself wearily, once again, to her inspection of
those Army Forms which were to be sent up to the London office on the
morrow.
Presently the door opened and Miss Delmege came in with her hat and coat
on, prepared to go.
"I thought I'd just tell you," she said hesitatingly, "that Miss Jones
has come--the new clerk. Shall I take her over to the Hostel?"
Char sighed wearily.
"Oh, I suppose I'd better see her. If it isn't tonight, it will have to
be tomorrow. I'd rather get it over. Send her up."
"Oh, Miss Vivian!"
"Never mind. I shan't be long."
Miss Vivian smiled resignedly.
As a matter of fact, she was rather relieved at the prospect of an
interview to break the monotony of the evening. The Army Forms in
question had failed to repay inspection, in the sense of presenting any
glaring errors for which the Medical Officer in charge of the Hospital
could have been brought sharply to book.
She unconsciously strewed the papers on the desk into a rather more
elaborate confusion in front of her, and began to open the inkpot,
although she had no further writing to do. The pen was poised between
her fingers when Miss Delmege noiselessly opened the door, and shut it
again on the entry of Miss Jones.
Char put down her pen, raised her heavy-lidded eyes, and said in her
deep, effective voice:
"Good-evening, Miss--er--Jones."
She almost always hesitated and drawled for an instant before
pronouncing the name of any member of her staff. The trick was purely
instinctive, and indicated both her own overcharged memory and the
insignificance of the unit, among many, whom she was addressing.
"How do you do?" said Miss Jones.
Her voice possessed the indefinable and quite unmistakable intonation of
good-breeding, and Char instantly observed that she did not wind up her
brief greeting with Miss Vivian's name.
She looked at her with an instant's surprise. Miss Jones was short and
squarely built, looked about twenty-seven, and was not pretty. But she
had a fine pair of grey eyes in her little colourless face, and her
slim, ungloved hands, which Char immediately noticed, were unusually
beautiful.
"You are from Wales, I believe?" said Char, unexpectedly even to
herself. She made a point of avoiding personalities with the staff. But
there appeared to be something which required explanation in Miss Jones.
"Yes. My father is the Dean of Penally. I have had some secretarial
experience with him during the last five years."
Evidently Miss Jones wished to keep to the matter in hand. Char was
rather amused, reflecting on the fluttered gratification which Miss
Delmege or Miss Henderson would have displayed at any directing of the
conversation into more personal channels.
"I see," she said, smiling a little. "Now, I wonder what you call
secretarial experience?"
"My father naturally has a great deal of correspondence," returned Miss
Jones, without any answering smile on her small, serious face. "I have
been his only secretary for four years. Since the war he has employed
some one else for most of his letters, so as to set me free for other
work."
"Yes; I understood from your letter that you had been working in a
hospital."
"As clerk."
"Excellent. That will be most useful experience here. You know this
office controls the hospitals in Questerham and round about. I want you
to work in this room with my secretary, and learn her work, so that she
can use you as her second."
"I will do my best."
"I'm sure of that," said Miss Vivian, redoubling her charm of manner,
and eyeing the impassive Miss Jones narrowly. "I hope you'll be happy
here and like the work. You must always let me know if there's anything
you don't like. I think you're billeted just across the road, at our
Questerham Hostel?"
"Yes."
"I'll send some one to show you the way."
"Thank you; I know where it is. I left my luggage there before coming
here."
"The new workers generally come to report to me before doing anything
else," said Char, indefinably vexed at having failed to obtain the
expected smile of gratitude.
"However, if you know the way I must let you go now, so as to be in time
for supper. Good-night, Miss Jones."
"Good-night," responded Miss Jones placidly, and closed the door
noiselessly behind her. Her movements were very quiet in spite of her
solid build, and she moved lightly enough, but the Hostel perceived a
certain irony, nevertheless, in the fact that Miss Jones's parents had
bestowed upon her the baptismal name of Grace.
The appeal thus made to a rather elementary sense of humour resulted in
Miss Jones holding the solitary privilege of being the only person in
the Hostel who was almost invariably called by her Christian name. She
enjoyed from the first a strange sort of popularity, nominally due to
the fact that "you never knew what she was going to say next"; in
reality owing to a curious quality of absolute sincerity which was best
translated by her surroundings as "originality." Another manifestation
of it, less easily defined, was the complete good faith which she placed
in all those with whom she came into contact. Only a decided tincture of
Welsh shrewdness preserved her from the absolute credulity of the
simpleton.
Almost the first question put to Miss Jones was that favourite test one
of the enthusiastic Tony, "And what do you think of Miss Vivian?"
"I think," said Miss Jones thoughtfully, "that she is a reincarnation of
Queen Elizabeth."
There was a rather stunned silence in the Hostel sitting-room.
Reincarnation was not a word which had ever sounded there before, and it
carried with it a subtle suggestion of impropriety to several listeners.
Nor was any one at the moment sufficiently _au courant_ with the Virgin
Queen's leading characteristics to feel certain whether the comparison
instituted was meant to be complimentary or insulting in the extreme.
Miss Delmege for once voiced the popular feeling by ejaculating coldly:
"That's rather a strange thing to say, surely!"
"Why? Hasn't it ever struck anybody before? I should have thought it so
obvious. Why, even to look at, you know--that sandy colouring, and the
way she holds her head: just as though there ought to be a ruff behind
it."
"Oh, you mean to look at," said Miss Marsh, the general tension
considerably relaxed as the trend of the conversation shifted from that
dreaded line of abstract discussion whither the indiscreet Miss Jones
had appeared, for one horrid moment, to conduct it.
"Had Queen Elizabeth got freckles? I really don't know much about her,
except that they found a thousand dresses in her wardrobe when she
died," said Tony, voicing, as it happened, the solitary fact concerning
the Sovereign under discussion which any one present was able to
remember, as outcome of each one's varying form of a solid English
education.
"Her power of administration and personal magnetism, you know,"
explained Miss Jones.
"Oh, of course she's perfectly wonderful," Miss Delmege exclaimed, sure
of her ground. "You'll see that more and more, working in her room."
Whether such increased perception was indeed the result of Miss Jones's
activities in the room of the Director might remain open to question.
Char found her very quick, exceedingly accurate, and more conscientious
than the quick-witted can generally boast of being. She remained
entirely self-possessed under praise, blame, or indifference, and Miss
Vivian was half-unconsciously irritated at this tacit assumption of an
independence more significant and no less secure than that of Miss
Collins the typist.
"Gracie, I wish you'd tell me what you _really_ think of Miss Vivian,"
her room-mate demanded one night as they were undressing together.
Screens were chastely placed round each bed, and it was a matter of some
surprise to Miss Marsh that her companion so frequently neglected these
modest adjuncts to privacy, and often took off her stockings, or folded
up even more intimate garments, under the full light, such as it was, of
the gas-jet in the middle of the room.
Miss Jones was extremely orderly, and always folded her clothes with
scrupulous tidiness. She rolled up a pair of black stockings with
exactitude before answering.
"I think she's rather interesting."
"Good Lord, Gracie! if Delmege could only hear you! _Rather
interesting!_ The Director of the Sacred Supply Depôt! You really are
the limit, the things you say, you know."
"Well, that's all I _do_ think. She is very capable, and a fairly good
organizer, but I don't think her as marvellous as you or Miss Delmege or
Tony do. In fact, I think you're all rather _détraquées_ about Miss
Vivian."
Miss Marsh was as well aware as anybody in the Hostel that the insertion
of a foreign word into a British discourse is the height of affectation
and of bad form; and although she could not believe Grace to be at all
an affected person, she felt it due to her own nationality to assume a
very disapproving expression and to allow an interval of at least three
seconds to elapse before she continued the conversation.
"Don't you _like_ her?"
"I'm not sure."
"I suppose you don't know her well enough to say yet?" Miss Marsh
suggested.
"Do you think that has anything to do with it? I often like people
without knowing them a bit," said Grace cordially; "and certainly I
quite often dislike them thoroughly, even if I've only heard them speak
once, or perhaps not at all."
"Then you judge by appearances, which is a great mistake."
Miss Jones said in a thoughtful manner that she didn't think it was
_that_ exactly, and supposed regretfully that Miss Marsh would think she
was "swanking" if she explained that she considered herself a sound and
rapid judge of character.
"Oh, what a sweet camisole, dear!"
"My petticoat-bodice," said Grace matter-of-factly. "I'm glad you like
it. The ribbon always takes a long time to put in, but it does look
rather nice. I like mauve better than pink or blue."
There came a knock at the door.
"Come in!" called Miss Jones, bare-armed and bare-legged in the middle
of the room.
"Wait a minute!" exclaimed the scandalized Miss Marsh, in the midst of a
shuffling process by which her clothes were removed under the nightgown
which hung round her with empty flapping sleeves.
"It's only me," said Miss Plumtree in melancholy tones, walking in. "I'm
just waiting for my kettle to boil."
The gas-ring was on the landing just outside the bedroom door.
Grace looked up.
"How pretty you look with your hair down!" she said admiringly.
"Me? Rubbish!" exclaimed Miss Plumtree, colouring with astonishment and
embarrassment, but with a much livelier note in her voice.
"Your hair is so nice," explained Grace, gazing at the soft brown mop of
curls.
"Oh, lovely, of course."
Miss Plumtree wriggled with confusion, and had no mind to betray how
much the unaffected little bit of praise had restored her spirits. But
she sat down on Grace's bed in her pink cotton kimono in a distinctly
more cheerful frame of mind than that in which she had entered the room.
"Are you in the blues, Gooseberry-bush?" was the sympathetic inquiry of
Miss Marsh.
"Well, I am, rather. It's Miss Vivian, you know. She can be awfully down
on one when she likes."
"I know; you always do seem to get on the wrong side of her. Grace will
sympathize; she's just been abusing her like a pickpocket," said Miss
Marsh, apparently believing herself to be speaking the truth.
Miss Jones raised her eyebrows rather protestingly, but said nothing.
She supposed that in an atmosphere of adulation such as that which
appeared to her to surround Miss Vivian, even such negative criticism as
was implied in an absence of comment might be regarded seriously enough.
"But even if one doesn't like her _awfully_ much, she has a sort of
fascination, don't you think?" said Miss Plumtree eagerly. "I always
feel like a--a sort of bird with a sort of snake, you know."
The modification which she wished to put into this trenchant comparison
was successfully conveyed by the qualifying "sort of," an adverb
distinctly in favour at the Hostel.
"I know what you mean exactly, dear," Miss Marsh assured her. "And of
course she does work one fearfully hard. I sometimes think I shall have
to leave."
"She works every bit as hard as we do--harder. I suppose you'll admit
that, Gracie?"
"Oh yes."
"Don't go on like that," protested Miss Marsh, presumably with reference
to some indefinable quality detected by her in these two simple
monosyllables.
"I only meant," said Grace Jones diffidently, "that it might really be
better if she didn't do quite so much. If she could have her luncheon
regularly, for instance."
"My dear, she simply hasn't the time."
"She could make it."
"The work comes before everything with Miss Vivian. I mean, really it
does," said Miss Plumtree solemnly.
Miss Jones finished off the end of a thick plait of dark hair with a
neat blue bow, and said nothing.
"I suppose even you'll admit that, Gracie?"
Grace gave a sudden little laugh, and said in the midst of it:
"Really, I'm not sure."
"My dear girl, what on earth do you mean?"
"I think I mean that I don't feel certain Miss Vivian would work quite
so hard or keep such very strenuous hours if she lived on a desert
island, for instance."
The other two exchanged glances.
"Dotty, isn't she?"
"Mad as a hatter, I should imagine."
"Perhaps you'll explain what sort of war-work people _do_ on desert
islands?"
"That isn't what I mean, quite," Gracie explained. "My idea is that
perhaps Miss Vivian does _partly_ work so very hard because there are so
many people looking on. If she was on a desert isle she might--find time
for luncheon."
"My dear girl, you're ab-solutely raving, in my opinion," said Miss
Plumtree with simple directness. "There! That's my kettle."
She dashed out of the room, as a hissing sound betrayed that her kettle
had overboiled on to the gas-ring, as it invariably did.
After the rescue had been effected she looked in again and said:
"I suppose you wouldn't let me come in for some of your tea tomorrow
morning, would you, dear? Ours is absolutely finished, and that ass
Henderson forgot to get any more."
"Rather," said Miss Marsh cordially. "This extraordinary girl doesn't
take any, so you can have the second cup."
"Thanks most awfully. I can do without most things, but I can't do
without my tea. Good-night, girls."
It was an accepted fact all through the Hostel that, although one could
do without most things, one could not do without one's tea.
This requirement was of an elastic nature, and might extend from early
morning to a late return from meeting a troop-train at night. Grace
every morning refused the urgent offer of her room-mate to "make her a
cup of nice hot tea," and watched, with a sort of interested surprise,
while Miss Marsh got out of bed a quarter of an hour earlier than was
necessary in order to fill and boil a small kettle and make herself
three and sometimes four successive cups of very strong tea. She was
always willing to share this refreshment with any one, but every room in
the Hostel had its own appliances for tea-making, and made daily and
ample use of them.
Although Miss Jones did not drink tea, she often washed up the cup and
saucer and the little teapot. Miss Marsh suffered from a chronic
inability to arrive at the office punctually, although breakfast was at
nine o'clock, and she had only to walk across the road. But she
frequently said, in a very agitated way, as she rose from the
breakfast-table:
"Excuse me. I simply must go and do my washing. It's Monday, and I've
left it to the last moment."
This meant that the counting and dispatching of Miss Marsh's weekly
bundle for the laundry would occupy all her energies until the desperate
moment when she would look at her wrist-watch, exclaim in a mechanical
sort of way, "Oh, damn! I shall never do it!" and dash out of the house
and across Pollard Street as the clock struck ten.
"I'll wash the tea-things for you."
"Oh, no, dear! Why _should_ you? I can quite well do them to-night."
But Grace knew that when her room-mate came in tired at seven o'clock
that evening she might very likely want "a good hot cup of tea" then and
there, and she accordingly took the little heap of crockery into the
bathroom. Standing over the tiny basin jutting out of the wall, Miss
Jones, with her sleeves carefully rolled up over a very solid pair of
forearms, washed and dried each piece with orderly deliberation, and
replaced them in the corner of Miss Marsh's cupboard.
"I'm afraid you'll be late. Can't I help you?"
"Thanks, dear, but I dare say I can just scramble through. What about
_your_ washing?"
"Oh, I did all that on Saturday night," said Grace, indicating a
respectable brown-paper parcel tied up with string and with an orderly
list pinned on to the outside.
"You're a marvel!" sighed Miss Marsh. "Don't wait, Gracie."
Miss Jones went downstairs and out into Pollard Street. She moved rather
well, and had never been known to swing her arms as she walked. Her face
was very serious. She often thought how kind it was of the others not to
call her a prig, since her methodical habits and innate neatness
appeared to be in such startling contrast to the standards prevailing at
the Hostel. She had never been sent to school, or seen much of other
girls, and the universal liking shown to her by her fellow-workers gave
her almost daily a fresh sense of pleased surprise.
Arrived at the office, she signed her name at the door, and proceeded
upstairs to Miss Vivian's room.
Miss Vivian came in, chilled from her motor drive and with that rather
pinky tinge on her aquiline nose which generally forecasted a troubled
morning. The observant Miss Jones regarded this law very
matter-of-factly as an example of cause and effect. She felt sure that
Miss Vivian only felt at her best when conscious of looking her best,
and hoped very much that the winter would not be a very cold one. It was
obvious that Miss Vivian suffered from defective circulation, which her
sedentary existence had not improved.
But it was Miss Delmege who solicitously suggested fetching a
foot-warmer from the Supplies Department, and who placed it tenderly at
the disposal of Miss Vivian.
After that the atmosphere lightened, and it was with comparative
equanimity that Miss Vivian received the announcement that a lady had
called and desired to see her.
"Please send up her name and her business on a slip of paper, and you
can tell the clerk in the outer hall that I won't have those slipshod
messages sent up," was the reception of the emissary.
"Yes, Miss Vivian."
Miss Delmege gathered up a sheaf of papers from her table and glided
from the room. Grace, whose powers of mental detachment permitted her to
concentrate on whatever she was doing without regard to her
surroundings, went on with her work.
The interviews conducted by Miss Vivian seldom interested her in the
least.
That this one was, however, destined to become an exception, struck her
forcibly when the sudden sound of a piercing feminine voice on the
stairs came rapidly nearer.
"... as for my name on a slip of paper, I never heard such nonsensical
red-tape in my life. Why, Char's mother and I were girls together!"
Although every one in the office was aware that Miss Vivian's baptismal
name was Charmian, and that this was invariably shortened by her
acquaintances to Char, it came as a shock even to the imperturbable Miss
Jones to hear this more or less sacred monosyllable ringing up the
stairs to Miss Vivian's very table.
"Who on earth--" began Char indignantly, when the door flew open before
her caller, who exclaimed shrilly and affectionately on the threshold:
"My dear child, you can't possibly know who I am, but my name is
Willoughby, and when I was Lesbia Carroll your mother and I were girls
together. I had to come in and take a peep at you!"
There was a sort of rustling pounce, and Grace became aware that the
outraged Miss Vivian had been audibly and overpoweringly kissed in the
presence of a giggling Scout and of her own junior secretary.
V
Mrs. Willoughby, in Miss Vivian's private office, reversed all rules of
official precedent.
"Sit down again, my dear child--sit down!" she cried cordially, at the
same time establishing herself close to the table. "I hear you're doing
wonderful work for all these dear people--Belgians and the dear Tommies
and every one--and I felt I simply _had_ to come in and hear all about
it. Also, I want to propound a tiny little scheme of my own which I
think will appeal to you. Or have you heard about it already from that
precious boy John, with whom, I may tell you, I'm simply _madly_ in
love? I'm always threatening to elope with him!"
"I'm afraid," said Char, disregarding her visitor's pleasantry, "that I
can really hardly undertake anything more. We are very much understaffed
as it is, and the War Office is always--"
"I can turn the _whole_ War Office round my little finger, my dear,"
declared Mrs. Willoughby. "There's the dearest lad there, a sort of
under-secretary, who's absolutely devoted to me, and tells me all sorts
of official tit-bits before any one else hears a word about them. I can
get anything I want through him, so you needn't worry about the War
Office. In fact, to tell you rather a shocking little secret, I can get
what I want out of most of these big official places--just a little tiny
manipulation of the wires, you know. [_Cherchez la femme_--though I
oughtn't to say such things to a girl like you, ought I?"]
Char looked at Mrs. Willoughby's large, heavily powdered face, at her
enormous top-heavy hat and over-ample figure, and said nothing.
But no silence, however subtly charged with uncomplimentary meanings,
could stem Mrs. Willoughby's piercing eloquence.
"This is what I want to do, and I'm told at the camp here that it would
be simply invaluable. I want to get up a Canteen for the troops here,
and for all those dear things on leave."
"There are several Y.M.C.A. Huts already."
"My dear! I know it. But I want to do this all on my little own, and
have quite different rules and regulations. My Lewis, who's been in the
Army for over fifteen years, poor angel, tells me that they all--from
the Colonel downwards--think it would be the greatest boon on earth, to
have a _lady_ at the head of things, you know."
"My time is too much taken up; it would be quite out of the question,"
said Char simply.
"Darling child! _Do_ you suppose I meant you--a ridiculously young thing
like you? Of course, it would have to be a married woman, with a certain
regimental position, so to speak. And my Lewis is second in command, as
you know, so that naturally his wife.... You see, the Colonel's wife is
an absolute dear, but an invalid--more or less, and no more _savoir
faire_ than a kitten. A perfect little provincial, between ourselves.
Whereas, of course, I know this sort of job inside out and upside
down--literally, my dear. The _hours_ I've toiled in town!"
"But I'm afraid in that case you oughtn't to leave--"
"I must! I'm compelled to! It's _too_ cruel, but the doctor simply won't
answer for the consequences if I go back to London in my present state.
But work I _must_. One would go quite, quite mad if one wasn't
working--thinking about it all, you know."
"Major Willoughby is--er--in England, isn't he?"
"Thank God, yes!" exclaimed Lesbia, with a fervour that would have
startled her husband considerably. "My heart bleeds for these poor wives
and mothers. I simply thank God upon my knees that I have no son! When
one thinks of it all--England's life-blood--"
Char did not share her mother's objection to eloquence expended upon the
subject of the war, but she cut crisply enough into this _exaltée_
outpouring.
"One is extremely thankful to do what little one can," she said,
half-unconsciously throwing an appraising glance at the files and papers
that were littered in profusion all over the table.
"Indeed one is!" cried Lesbia, just as fervently as before. "Work is the
only thing. My dear, this war is killing me--simply killing me!"
Miss Vivian was not apparently prompted to any expression of regret at
the announcement.
"As I said to Lewis the other day, I must work or go quite mad. And now
this Canteen scheme seems to be calling out to me, and go I must. We've
got a building--that big hall just at the bottom of the street here--and
I'm insisting upon having a regular opening day--so much better to start
these things with a flourish, you know--and the regimental band, and
hoisting the Union Jack, and everything. And what I want you to do is
this."
Lesbia paused at last to take breath, and Char immediately said:
"I'm afraid I'm so fearfully busy today that I haven't one moment, but
if you'd like my secretary to--"
"Not your secretary, but your _entire_ staff, and your attractive self.
I want you _all_ down there to help!"
"Quite impossible," said Char. "I wonder, Mrs. Willoughby, if you have
any idea of the scale on which this Depôt is run?"
"_Every_ idea," declared Lesbia recklessly. "I'm told everywhere that
all the girls in Questerham are helping you, and that's exactly why I've
come. I want girls to make my Canteen attractive--all the prettiest ones
you have."
"I'm afraid my staff was not selected with a view to--er--personal
attractions," said Miss Vivian, in a voice which would have created
havoc amongst her staff in its ironical chilliness.
"Nonsense, my dear Char! I met the sweetest thing on the stairs--a
perfect gem of a creature with Titian-coloured hair. Not in that hideous
uniform, either."
Miss Vivian could not but recognize the description of her typist.
"I don't quite understand," she said. "Do you want helpers on your
opening day, or regularly?"
"Quite regularly--from five to eleven or thereabouts every evening. I
shall be there myself, of course, to supervise the whole thing, and I've
got half a dozen dear things to help me: but what I want is _girls_,
who'll run about and play barmaid and wash up, you know."
"Couldn't my mother spare Miss Bruce sometimes?"
"_Is_ Miss Bruce a young and lively girl?" inquired Mrs. Willoughby, not
without reason. "Besides, I need dozens of them."
"Yes, I see," said Char languidly. She was tired of Mrs. Willoughby, and
it was with positive relief that she heard her telephone-bell ring
sharply.
There was a certain satisfaction in leaning back in her chair and
calling, "Miss--er--Jones!"
Miss Jones moved quietly to answer the insistent bell.
"I'm afraid this rather breaks into our consultation," said Char, deftly
making her opportunity, "but may I write to you and let you know what I
can manage?"
"I shall pop in again and commandeer all these delightful young
creatures of yours. I'm marvellous at recruiting, my dear; every man I
met out of khaki I always attacked in the early days. White feathers,
you know, and everything of that sort. I had no mercy on them. One lad I
absolutely dragged by main force to the recruiting office, though he
said he couldn't leave his wife and babies. But, as I told him, I'd had
to let my Lewis go--he was on the East Coast then--and was _proud_ to do
my bit for England. I dare say the wretch got out of it afterwards,
because they wouldn't let me come in with him while he was actually
being sworn, or whatever it is. Such red-tape!"
Char paid small attention to these reminiscences of Lesbia's past
activities.
"What is it, Miss Jones?"
"The D.G.V.O. is here."
"The Director-General of Voluntary Organizations," said Miss Vivian,
carelessly tossing off the imposing syllables, with the corner of her
eye, as it were, fixed upon Mrs. Willoughby. "In that case, I'm afraid I
must ask you to forgive me."
"I must fly," said Lesbia in a sudden shriek, ignoring her dismissal
with great skill. "Some of those boys from the camp are lunching with
me, and they'll never forgive me if I'm late."
"Ask the Director-General of Voluntary Organizations to come up, Miss
Jones," drawled Char. "And show Mrs. Willoughby the way downstairs."
"Good-bye, you sweet thing!" cried Lesbia gaily, agitating a tightly
gloved white-kid hand. "I shall pop in again in a day or two, and you
must let me help you. I adore Belgians--positively adore them, and can
do anything I like with them."
Mrs. Willoughby's enthusiasm was still audible during her rustling
progress down the stairs.
Char paid full attention to her interview with the opportunely arrived
Director-General of Voluntary Organizations, because she wished him to
think her a most official and business-like woman, entirely capable of
accomplishing all that she had undertaken; but when the dignitary had
departed she gave serious consideration to the scheme so lightly
propounded by Mrs. Willoughby.
The visit of this enthusiast had ruffled her more than she would have
owned to herself, and it was almost instinctively that she strove to
readjust the disturbed balance of her own sense of competence and
self-devotion by waving aside all Miss Delmege's proposals of lunch.
"I'm afraid I haven't got time for anything of that sort today. I've had
a most interrupted morning. No, Miss Delmege, thank you, not even a bun.
You'd better go to your own lunch now."
"I'm not in any hurry, Miss Vivian."
"It's one o'clock," Miss Vivian pointed out, quite aware that her
secretary would now seek her cold mutton and milk-pudding with an
absolute sense of guilt, as of one indulging in a Sybaritic orgy while
her chief held aloof in austere abstention.
Miss Delmege, in fact, looked very unhappy, and said in low tones to her
colleague at the other end of the room: "Miss Jones, if you care to go
to lunch first, I'll take my time off between two and half-past instead,
at the second table."
The second table for lunch was never a popular institution, the mutton
and the milk-pudding having lost what charms they ever possessed, and,
moreover, the time allowed being abridged by almost half an hour. Miss
Delmege, in virtue of her seniority and of her own excessive sense of
superiority, always arranged that Grace should take the second
luncheon-hour, and Miss Jones looked surprised.
"Do you mind, because really I don't care when I go?"
"I'd _rather_ you went first," repeated Miss Delmege unhappily.
"Thank you very much. I'm very hungry, and if you really don't mind, I
shall be delighted to go now," said Grace cheerfully, in an undertone
that nevertheless penetrated to Miss Vivian's annoyed perceptions.
It was evident that Miss Jones had no qualms as to enjoying a
substantial lunch, however long her overworked employer might elect to
fast, and the conviction was perhaps responsible for the sharpness with
which Char exclaimed: "For Heaven's sake don't chatter in the corner
like that! You're driving me perfectly mad--a day when one simply
doesn't know which way to _turn_."
Miss Delmege sank into her chair, looking more overwhelmed than ever,
and Grace said gently, "I'm sorry, Miss Vivian," disregarding or not
understanding Miss Delmege's signal that apologies were out of place in
Miss Vivian's office.
Char drew pen and ink towards her, purely _pour la forme_, and began to
make mechanical designs on the blotting-paper, while her mind turned
over and over the question of Mrs. Willoughby's proposed canteen.
Char thought that her staff's time was fully employed already, as indeed
it was, and had no wish to arouse any possible accusation of
overworking. At the same time, she had hitherto succeeded in taking over
the management of almost every war organization in Questerham and the
district, and was by no means minded to allow a new Canteen, on a large
scale, to spring into life under no better auspices than those of Mrs.
Willoughby.
If she allowed her staff to go down to the Canteen in instalments, Char
decided it would have to be definitely understood that the organization
of the Canteen was entirely in the hands of the Midland Supply Depôt.
She surmised shrewdly that such details of practical requirements as a
boiler, tea-urns, kitchen utensils, and the like, had not yet crossed
the sanguine line of vision of Mrs. Willoughby. It would be easy enough
for Char to assume command when she alone could supply all such needs at
a minimum of expenditure and trouble. The staff, she decided, should be
sent down in shifts of five or six at a time, five nights a week.
Then, Char reflected considerately, no one could have more than one
night in the week, whereas she herself would always put in an
appearance, even if only for a few minutes. It would encourage her
staff, and would also show Mrs. Willoughby quite plainly the sort of
position held by the Director of the Midland Supply Depôt.
That afternoon she sent for Miss Collins and dictated a short letter to
Mrs. Willoughby, in which she declared, in the third person singular,
that the Director of the Midland Supply Depôt had considered the
proposed scheme for the opening of a Canteen in Pollard Street, and was
prepared to help with the practical management of it. She would also
supply six voluntary workers between the hours of 7 and 11 P.M. for
every night in the week, Saturday excepted. As she took down these
official statements, Miss Collins's light eyebrows mounted almost into
the roots of her red hair with surprise and disapproval.
Char, being observant, saw these symptoms of astonishment, as she was
meant to do, but few thoughts were further from her mind than that of
consulting the views of her stenographer on any subject. She even took a
certain amount of satisfaction in dictating a rather imperiously worded
document, which informed each department in the office that those
workers who lived in Questerham would be required to report for duty one
night a week for emergency work (7 to 11 P.M.) at the new Canteen which
would shortly be opened in Pollard Street under the direction of Miss
Vivian and Mrs. Willoughby. Followed a list of names, with a
corresponding day of the week attached to each group of six.
"Cut a stencil and roll off six copies for each department and two or
three extra ones for filing," commanded Miss Vivian. "You can add at the
end: '(Signed) Director of the Midland Supply Depôt.'"
"Yes, Miss Vivian."
Miss Collins went away with her eyebrows still erect.
The new field of enterprise was loudly discussed by the staff, as they
took the usual half-hour's break in the afternoon at tea-time.
"Isn't Miss Vivian wonderful?" said Tony excitedly. "She'd take on
_anything_, I do believe."
"And make a success of it, too!"
"Yes, rather."
Hardly any one grumbled at the extra four hours of hard work coming at
the end of the day, and there was a general feeling of disapproval when
Mrs. Bullivant at the Hostel said timidly: "If you're to be down there
at seven, it'll be rather difficult to arrange about supper. Cook won't
like having to get a meal ready for half-past six, and, besides, you'll
be so hungry by eleven o'clock."
"I'm afraid we can't think of that, Mrs. Bullivant," observed Miss
Delmege severely. "Not when we remember that Miss Vivian practically
_never_ gets her supper till long after ten every night, and she doesn't
get much lunch, either. In fact, sometimes she simply won't touch
anything at all in the middle of the day."
And Mrs. Bullivant looked very much rebuked, and said that she must see
what she could do. "Anyhow, it won't be just yet awhile," she exclaimed
with Irish optimism.
"Things move very quickly with Miss Vivian."
"I think they mean the Canteen to open some time in December," said
Grace. "That's not so very far off."
"Time does fly," sighed Miss Plumtree, wishing that the Monthly Averages
were divided from one another by a longer space of time.
"Never mind, Sunday is all the nearer."
Sunday was the day most looked forward to by the whole Hostel, although
an element of uncertainty was added to the enjoyment of it by the
knowledge that the arrival of a troop-train might bring orders to any or
every member of the staff to report for duty at the station at half an
hour's notice.
One or two of the girls were able to go out of Questerham home, or to
their friends, for the week-end, but the majority remained in the
Hostel. Mrs. Bullivant tried to make the day "bright and homey" at the
cost of pathetic exertions to herself, for Sunday was her hardest day of
work.
A certain _laissez-aller_ marked the day from its earliest beginnings.
Almost every one came down to breakfast in bedroom slippers, even though
fully dressed.
"A girl here--before you came, Gracie," Miss Marsh told her room-mate,
"used to come down in a kimono and sort of boudoir-cap arrangement. But
I must say nobody liked it--just like a greasy foreigner, she was. All
the sleeves loose, you know, so that you could see right up her arms.
Myself, I don't call that awfully nice--not at the breakfast-table."
"It would be very cold to do that now," said Grace, shivering. She
disliked the cold very much, and the Hostel was not warmed.
"Yes, wouldn't it? It's a comfort to get into one's own clothes again
and out of uniform, isn't it, dear? That's what I like about
Sundays--dainty clothes again," said Miss Marsh, fiercely pulling a comb
backwards through her hair so as to make it look fluffy.
"I like you in uniform, though," said Miss Jones, who had received
several shocks on first beholding the Sunday garbs known to the Hostel
as "plain clothes."
"Very sweet of you to say that, dear. You always look nice yourself,
only your plain clothes are too like your uniform--just a white blouse
and dark skirt you wear, isn't it?"
"I'm afraid it's all I've got," said Grace apologetically; and Miss
Marsh at once thought that perhaps poor little Gracie couldn't afford
many things, and said warmly:
"But white blouses are awfully nice, dear, and _crêpe de Chine_ always
looks so _good_."
Then she thrust her stockinged feet into her red slippers and shuffled
across the room. "How lucky you are! You never have to back-comb your
hair, do you?"
"I never do back-comb it, because it's so bad for it," said Grace
seriously. She had a book open on the dressing-table in front of her,
but was characteristically quite as much interested in Miss Marsh's
conversation as in her own reading.
"'Daniel Deronda'?" said Miss Marsh, looking over her. "Never heard of
him. How fond you are of reading, Gracie! I love it myself, but I don't
ever have time for it here."
The plea being one which never fails to rouse the scorn of every
book-lover, Grace remained silent. Her solitary extravagance was the
maximum subscription to the Questerham library.
"There's the bell," said Miss Marsh; "I must come up and make my bed
afterwards. Thank goodness, there's no hurry today."
They went down together, Miss Marsh's heelless slippers clapping behind
her on every step.
In the sitting-room after breakfast the girls clustered round the tiny
smoking fire.
"It's going to rain all day. How beastly!" said Tony. "Who's going to
church?"
"I shall probably go to evensong," remarked Miss Delmege, upon which
several people at once decided that they would risk the weather and go
to the eleven o'clock service.
There was only one church in Questerham which the Hostel thought it
fashionable to attend.
The day was spent in more or less desultory lounging over the fire. Miss
Delmege wrote a number of letters and Tony darned stockings. Grace Jones
read "Daniel Deronda" to herself.
Lunch was protracted, and Mrs. Bullivant, to mark the day, exerted
herself and made some rather smoked coffee, which she brought to the
sitting-room triumphantly.
"Isn't there going to be any music this afternoon?" she inquired.
Every one declared that music was the very thing for such an afternoon,
but no one appeared very willing to provide it.
"Do sing, somebody," implored Miss Henderson. "Plumtree?"
Miss Plumtree had a beautiful deep voice, utterly untrained and
consequently unspoilt. She stood up willingly enough and sang all the
songs that she was asked for. The taste of the Hostel was definite in
songs. "A Perfect Day" and "The Rosary" were listened to in the absolute
silence of appreciation, and then some one asked for a selection from
the latest musical comedy.
Grace played Miss Plumtree's accompaniments, and loved listening to her
soft, deep tones. She tried to make her sing "Three Fishers," but Miss
Plumtree said no: it was too sad for a Sunday afternoon, and it was some
one else's turn.
Musical talent in the Hostel was limited, and the only other owner of a
voice was Miss Delmege, the possessor of a high, thin soprano, which,
she often explained, had been the subject of much attention on the part
of "a really first-rate man in Clifton."
It might remain open to question whether the energies of the really
first-rate man could not have been turned into channels more
advantageous than that of developing Miss Delmege's attenuated thread of
voice. Whatever the original organ might have been, it was now educated
into a refined squeak, overweighted with affectations which to Miss
Delmege represented the art of production. She sang various improvident
love-songs in which Love--high F, attained to by a species of upwards
slide on E and E sharp--was all, When eventide should fall--slight
tremolo and a giving out of breath rather before the accompanist had
struck the final chord.
"You should take the _finale_ rather more _à tempo_, dear," said the
singer, in a professional way which finally vindicated the
first-rateness of the man at Clifton.
Every one thanked Miss Delmege very much, and said that was a sweetly
pretty song; and then Grace Jones played the piano while Tony and Miss
Henderson made toast for tea and put the largest and least burnt pieces
aside for her. Tea, with the aid of conversation and the making of
innumerable pieces of toast over the least smoky parts of the fire,
could almost be prolonged till supper-time.
"I must say, I do enjoy doing nothing," said Miss Henderson, voicing the
general sentiment at the end of the day of rest.
"Poor Mrs. Potter is on the telephone. How cold she'll be, sitting there
all the evening!"
"I hope she saw to Miss Vivian's fire," said Miss Delmege solicitously.
"I particularly reminded her to build up a good fire in Miss Vivian's
room. She does feel the cold so."
"Perhaps she didn't come this afternoon," said Grace. "There was nothing
left over in her basket last night."
"Oh, she always comes," Miss Delmege said quickly and rather
resentfully. "I've never known her miss a Sunday yet. Besides, I know
she was there today. I saw the light in her window as I came back from
church."
"I do believe," said Tony in a stage whisper, "that Delmege goes to
evening church on purpose to look up at the light in Miss Vivian's
window as she comes back."
But the joke was received silently, as being in but indifferent taste,
and verging on irreverence almost equally as regarded church and the
Director of the Midland Supply Depôt.