"Much too busy on her high official horse even to see me," cried Lesbia
with a sort of jovial spite. "Now, Joanna, I insist upon your getting
into an overall at once, and helping me. I'll commandeer one."
Grace Jones went past them with her laden tray, and Mrs. Willoughby
grasped her arm.
"I want you to find me an overall for this lady before you stir another
_step_," she shrieked emphatically.
"Nonsense, Lesbia!" interposed Lady Vivian brusquely. "I don't suppose
there is such a thing to spare, and, besides, I don't want one."
She wore the plainest of dark coats and skirts and a soft silk shirt.
Grace looked at her with composed admiration and a sense of gratitude.
She did not wish to be further delayed with the heavy tray on her hands.
"There's my dear Lance-Corporal!" exclaimed Lesbia, and hurled herself
in the direction of a burly form which appeared strongly impelled to
seek cover behind the piano as she advanced.
Captain Trevellyan gently took the tray from Miss Jones.
"Where shall I take it?"
"Thank you very much," said Grace thankfully, dropping her aching arms.
"That table over there, right at the end, if you will. It's very kind of
you."
She turned to Lady Vivian rather apologetically. "I'm afraid I ought not
to have let him do that, but we're rather behindhand tonight. Are you
come to help?"
She supposed that this tall, curiously attractive new-comer was the wife
of one of the officers from the camp.
"Yes, if you'll tell me what to do."
"If you'd carry trays? One of our workers is--is _impeded_ tonight,"
said Grace, conscientiously selecting a euphemism for the peculiar
handicap under which Miss Marsh was labouring.
For the next two hours Lady Vivian worked vigorously, in spite of a
protest from John, who took the view of feminine weakness peculiar to
unusually strong men.
"These trays are too heavy for any woman to carry! It's monstrous! I
shall tell Char so."
"By all means tell her. I certainly think it's very bad for these girls,
and at the end of a long day's work, too. But as for me, you know I'm as
strong as a horse, Johnnie, and I enjoy the exercise. It warms me!"
Her face was glowing and her step elastic. John realized, not for the
first time, that Sir Piers's slow, rambling walks round the grounds and
still slower evening games of billiards formed the major part of his
Cousin Joanna's physical activities. He stood watching her thoughtfully.
Char stopped in his immediate vicinity, and gave a couple of orders in
her slow, despotic drawl. She rather wanted Johnnie to see how promptly
and unquestioningly they were received.
Johnnie, however, appeared to have his thoughts elsewhere, and Char
rather vexedly followed his gaze.
"How I wish my mother wouldn't do this sort of thing!" she said under
her breath. "It's most tiring for her, and besides--"
"Besides?" inquired Trevellyan, always courteous, but never of the
quickest at catching an inflection.
"I'm afraid I think it _infra dig_. Darting about with all these girls,
when she's capable of such very different sort of work--if only she'd do
it!"
"My dear Char, what on earth do you want her to do?" demanded
Trevellyan, to whom it came as a shock that any one who was privileged
to live near Joanna should think her anything but perfect.
"She is an extremely capable woman of business; why shouldn't she take
up some big work for the Government? They are crying out for educated
women."
"She couldn't possibly leave your father alone at Plessing."
"She could do a certain amount of work at home even without that. The
truth is, Johnnie, that neither she nor my father have _realized_
there's a war on at all. They've no sons out there in the trenches, and
it hasn't hit them materially; they've not felt it in any single,
smallest way. I shouldn't say it to any one but you, but there are times
at Plessing when I could go _mad_. To hear my father talk on and on
about whether some tree on the estate needs cutting or not, just as
though on the other side of a little strip of sea--"
She broke off with a shudder that was not altogether histrionic.
"And mother--she wouldn't even knit socks, because it interfered with
his billiards in the evenings! I don't understand her, Johnnie. She must
_know_ what it all means, yet it's all shoved away in the background.
Brucey tells me that she's under standing orders not to discuss the news
in the papers at breakfast, and mother won't have a single war-book in
the house--not even a war-novel, if she can help it. It's as though they
were deliberately trying to blind themselves. I _can't_ understand it."
Trevellyan did not feel sure that he understood it, either, but, unlike
Char, there was in his mind no shadow of criticism for that which he did
not understand. The limitation, Trevellyan always felt, was entirely
his.
But he was able to look sympathetically also at Char's vexed
bewilderment.
"You're not at Plessing very much, nowadays, yourself."
"No. I don't think I could bear it, Johnnie. Of course they say I'm
doing too much, but, after all, I'm of an age to decide that for myself,
and to my mind there's simply no choice in the matter. Thank Heaven one
_can_ work!"
"Your undertaking is a colossal thing, in its way. It's wonderful of
you, Char!"
She looked pleased.
"It's running well at present. Of course, I know what a tiny part of the
whole it is really, but--" She broke off quickly as Lady Vivian joined
them.
"Who is the little dark-haired girl I've been working with, Char? The
one at that table...."
"Oh, a Miss--er--Jones," said Char languidly.
"You never told me you had any one of her sort here. I want to ask her
out to Plessing. Couldn't we take her back in the car tonight?"
"My dear mother!" Char opened her eyes in an expression of exaggerated
horror. "One of my staff?"
"Well?" queried Lady Vivian coolly, stripping off her borrowed overall.
"Quite out of the question. You don't in the least realize the official
footing on which I have to keep those women."
"I should have thought you needn't be any the less official for showing
some friendliness to a girl who's come all the way from Wales to help
you."
"She's my under-secretary, mother."
"What! sub-scrub to the genteel Miss Delmege? She's got ten times her
brains, and is a lady into the bargain."
It infuriated Char that her mother's cool, tacit refusal to acknowledge
the infallibility of the Director of the Midland Supply Depôt could
always make her feel like a little girl again.
She rallied all her most official mannerisms together.
"It's quite impossible for me to differentiate between the various
members of the staff, or to make any unofficial advances to any of
them."
"Very well, my dear. As, thank Heaven, I'm not a member of your staff, I
can remain as unofficial as I please, and have nice little Miss Jones
out to see me."
"Mother," said Char in an agony, "it's simply _impossible_. The girl
would never know her place in the office again; and think of all the
cackling there'd be at the Questerham Hostel about my asking any one out
to Plessing. Johnnie, do tell her it's out of the question."
Trevellyan looked at Joanna with a laugh in his blue eyes. He realized,
as Char would never realize, that her assumption of officialdom always
provoked her mother to the utterance of ironical threats which she had
never the slightest intention of fulfilling.
She shrugged her shoulders slightly at her daughter's vehemence, and
crossed over to where Grace Jones was putting on her coat and hat again.
"Good-night. I hope you're not as tired as you look," she said with a
sort of abrupt graciousness.
"Oh no, thank you. It's been an extra busy night. It was so kind of you
to help."
"I wish I could come again," said Lady Vivian rather wistfully, "but I
don't know that I shall be able to."
Lesbia Willoughby, dashing past them at full speed, found time to fling
a piercing rebuke over her shoulder.
"There's _always_ a will where there's a way, Joanna. Look at me!"
Neither of them took advantage of the invitation, and Joanna said
irrelevantly: "I should like you to come and see me, if you will, but I
know you're at work all day. I must try and find you next time I come
into Questerham."
"Thank you very much," said Grace in a pleased voice. "I should like
that very much indeed. Good-night."
"Good-night," repeated Joanna, and went back to where her daughter, with
a rather indignant demeanour, was waiting for her.
"Well?" asked Char, rather sullenly.
Lady Vivian, who almost invariably became flippant when her daughter was
most in earnest, said provokingly: "Well, my dear, I've made
arrangements for all sorts of unofficial rendezvous. You may see Miss
Delmege at Plessing yet."
"Miss Delmege is a very good worker," said Char icily. "She's very much
in earnest, always ready to stay overtime and finish up anything
important."
"I'm sure Miss Jones is good at her job, too," said Trevellyan,
supposing himself to be tactful.
"Fairly good. Not extraordinarily quick-witted, though, and much too
sure of herself. I can't help thinking it's rather a pity to distinguish
her from the others, mother; she's probably only too ready to take airs
as it is, if she's of rather a different class."
"Fiddlesticks!" declared Lady Vivian briskly. "Put on your coat, Char,
and come along. I can't keep the car waiting any longer. Rather a
different class indeed! What has that to do with it? The girl's most
attractive--an original type, too."
"Of course, if mother has taken one of her sudden violent fancies to
this Jones child, I may as well make up my mind to hear nothing else,
morning, noon, or night," Char muttered to John Trevellyan, who replied
with matter-of-fact common sense that Char wasn't at Plessing for more
than an hour or two on any single day, let alone morning, noon, and
night.
"Char," said Lady Vivian from the car, "if you don't come now I shall
leave you to spend the night at the Questerham Hostel, where you'll lose
all your prestige with the staff, and have to eat and sleep just like an
ordinary human being."
The Director of the Midland Supply Depôt got into her parent's motor in
silence, and with a movement that might have been fairly described as a
flounce.
The members of the staff walked up the street towards the Hostel.
"Who was the lady in black who helped with the trays?" asked Grace. "She
was so nice."
"My dear, didn't you know? That was Miss Vivian's _mother_!"
"Oh, was it?" said Grace placidly. "I didn't know that. Miss Vivian
isn't very like her, is she?"
"No. Of course, Miss Vivian's far better looking. I'm not saying it
because it's her," added Miss Delmege with great distinctness, for the
benefit of Miss Marsh and Mrs. Potter, walking behind, from one of whom
a sound of contemptuous mirth had proceeded faintly. "It's simply a
fact. Miss Vivian is far better looking than Lady Vivian ever was. Takes
after her father--Sir Piers Vivian he is, you know."
Miss Delmege had only once been afforded a view of the back of Sir Piers
Vivian's white head in church, but she made the assertion with her usual
air of genteel omniscience.
At the Hostel Mrs. Bullivant was waiting for them. It was past eleven
o'clock, and the fire had gone out soon after eight; but in spite of
cold and weariness, Mrs. Bullivant was unconquerably bright.
"Come along; I'll have some nice hot tea for you in a moment. The kettle
is on the gas-ring. I _am_ sorry the fire's out, but it smoked so badly
all the evening I thought I'd better leave it alone. Sit down; I'm sure
you're all tired."
"Simply dead," exclaimed Miss Marsh. "So are you, aren't you, Plumtree,
after all those awful plates and dishes--I must say your washing-up job
is the worst of the lot."
"I'm going to bed. I can't keep on my feet another minute, tea or no
tea. If I don't drag myself upstairs now I never shall. It's fatal to
sit down; one can't get up again."
"That's right," assented Miss Marsh. "I'll bring up your tea when I
come, dear."
"Angel, thanks awfully. Good-night, ladies and gentlemen."
Miss Plumtree left the sitting-room with this languidly facetious
valediction.
"That girl _does_ look tired. I hope she gets into bed quickly,"
observed Mrs. Potter, pulling off her hat and exposing a rakishly
_décoiffé_ tangle of wispy hair.
"Not she--she'll dawdle for ages," prophesied Miss Marsh. "Still, it's
something if she gets into her dressing-gown and bedroom slippers, out
of her corsets, you know."
Miss Delmege put down her cup of tea.
"Rather a strange subject we seem to be on for meal-time, don't we?" she
remarked detachedly to Grace.
"Meal-time?" exclaimed Miss Henderson derisively.
"That's what I said, dear, and I'm in the habit of meaning what I say,
as far as I know."
"I really don't know how you can call it meal-time when we're not even
at table. Besides, if we were, there's nothing _in_ what Marsh
said--absolutely nothing at all."
"Oh, of course, some people see harm in anything," burst out Miss Marsh,
very red. "The harm is in their own minds, is what I say, otherwise they
wouldn't see any."
"That's right," agreed Miss Henderson, but below her breath.
Miss Delmege turned with dignity to her other neighbour.
"I may be peculiar, but that's how I feel about it. I imagine that you,
as a married woman, will agree with me, Mrs. Potter?"
Mrs. Potter did not agree with her at all, but something in the appeal,
some subtle hint of the dignity of Mrs. Potter's position amongst so
many virgins, caused her to temporize feebly.
"Really, Miss Delmege, you mustn't ask me. I--I quite see with you--but
at the same time--there wasn't anything in what Miss Marsh said, now,
was there? I mean, really. Simply corsets, you know."
Nearly every one had by this time forgotten exactly what Miss Marsh
_had_ said, and only retained a general impression of licentiousness in
conversation.
"We're all girls together," exclaimed Miss Marsh furiously.
"Gentlemen in the room would be a very different thing," Miss Henderson
supported her.
"I'll take a second cup, Mrs. Bullivant, if you please," said Miss
Delmege with dignity.
"There!" exclaimed Miss Henderson.
Miss Marsh had suddenly begun to cry.
Mrs. Bullivant hastily poured out more tea, and said uncertainly: "Come,
come!"
"There's no call for any one to cry, that I can see," observed Miss
Delmege, still detached, but in a tone of uneasiness.
"The fact is, I'm not myself today," sobbed Miss Marsh.
"What is it?" said Gracie sympathetically. She slipped a friendly hand
into her room-mate's.
"I had a letter which upset me this morning. A great friend of mine,
who's been wounded--a boy I know most awfully well."
"Why didn't you tell me, dear?" asked Miss Henderson. "I didn't even
know you had a boy out there."
"Oh, not a _feawncy_--only a chum," said Miss Marsh, still sniffing.
"Is he bad, dear?"
"A flesh-wound in the arm, and something about trench feet."
"That's a nice slow thing, and they'll send him to England to get well,"
prophesied Grace.
Miss Delmege rose from her seat.
"I'm sorry you've been feeling upset," she said to Miss Marsh. "It seems
rather strange you didn't say anything sooner, but I'm sorry about it."
"Thank you," Miss Marsh replied with a gulp. "If I've been rather sharp
in my manner today, I hope you won't think I meant anything. This has
rather upset me."
Miss Delmege bowed slightly, and Grace, fearing an anticlimax, begged
Miss Marsh to come up to bed.
The final amende was made next morning, when Miss Delmege, in a
buff-coloured drapery known as "my fawn _peignwaw_," came to the door
and asked for admittance.
Grace opened the door, and Miss Delmege said, in a voice even more
distinct than usual: "I know Miss Marsh was tired last night, dear, so
I've brought her a cup of our early tea."