"Char, I've come to warn you," portentously said Captain Trevellyan a
week later, entering the Canteen one evening.
"That's very kind of you. Is it another air-raid?"
"No; besides, you're all quite _blasées_ about them now. Miss Jones,
single-handed, could cope with--"
"What did you want to warn me about?" interrupted Char, with more
abruptness than apprehension in her voice.
"A rescue-party. Miss Bruce is so much upset about you, because she
thinks the Hostel is killing you, that she's arranged a crusade to
deliver you."
"Miss Bruce means very well, but surely she knows by this time that I
don't admit of interference with my work. What does she want to do?"
"You'll see in a minute. I can hear the rescue-party at the door now, I
think. They were close behind me."
Char swung round abruptly, and was engulfed in a furry embrace on the
instant.
"My dear, pathetic martyr of a child! I've come to take you out of this
at once. I hear you've been through the most unspeakable time at that
Hostel!"
Char disengaged herself from Mrs. Willoughby's clasp, and endeavoured to
silence the intolerable yapping sound that was going on apparently
beneath her feet.
"That's Puffles--wicked little boy, be quiet. He _would_ come with me,
though I told him that all good little boys went to bye-bye at this
hour; but he can't bear me out of his sight, you know. Isn't that too
quaint? Quiet, Puff! He understands every single word that's said to
him, you know. 'Oo clever, clever little man, aren't 'oo? Everything
except talk, 'oo can."
"Come, come; he makes a pretty good shot at that, doesn't he?"
Trevellyan said dryly.
"Johnnie, go away and find my precious Lance-Corporal for me. He'll
never forgive me if I don't go and talk to him; but you've such a crowd
here tonight I can't see any one. Besides, I want to talk to this dear
thing. Can't we _sit_, Char? My dear, never stand when you can possibly
sit. That's been my rule _all_ my life, and so I've kept my figure. Not
that I'm as slim as you are; but, then, it simply wouldn't be decent if
I were, at my age. My Lewis always says that my figure is exactly right,
but I dare say he's biassed. Now, dear, what about _you_?"
"We are particularly busy," Char said pointedly, "and I haven't a moment
to call my own. I've only looked in here tonight just to see that
everything's in order. Then I must go back to the office."
"Quite unnecessary, I'm perfectly certain. And your looking in here is
all nonsense, dear. They all know the work perfectly, and do it far
better by themselves than when you're just pottering about, getting in
the way. If you put on an overall, and really turned into a perfect
barmaid, as I do, it would be different, but just to stand and look on
helps nobody, and tires you for nothing. You don't mind my speaking like
this? But I know your dearest mother's girl couldn't mind anything, from
_me_!"
Lesbia possessed herself of Char's unresponsive fingers and squeezed
them affectionately.
"Now I want to have a real heart-to-heart chat," she proclaimed, lightly
but penetratingly.
Char flung a glance round the hall.
One of the men was strumming on the piano, and a group gathered round
him was singing and humming, all together, "When Irish eyes are
smiling."
The atmosphere was thick with tobacco-smoke, and the demands upon the
tea-urns heavier even than usual. Char saw Mrs. Potter, untidier than
ever, handing steaming cups across her buffet with incredible rapidity.
The noise of clattered crockery was unceasing. But Mrs. Willoughby's
voice dominated all these sounds.
"I've heard the whole story from your beloved mother, ridiculously
monosyllabic though she always is, and, of course, from that poor, good
creature, Miss Bruce, who is miserable about you. She says that your
letters are _too_ heartrending--about the misery of that wretched
Hostel, I mean. No food, no baths, no fires--and in this weather, too!
So, my dear child, you're simply coming straight home with me tonight,
to stay until we can find decent rooms for you, or persuade you to give
up all this nonsense and go back to Plessing."
"Thank you; but I couldn't dream--"
"Lewis will be _delighted_. I've explained the whole thing to him, and
he's quite overjoyed."
It was impossible, remembering Major Willoughby's unalterable gloom of
demeanour, not to suppose that Lesbia's optimism might be overstating
the case, but Char only gave a fleeting thought to this consideration.
"It's more than kind of you, but I'm afraid that poor Miss Bruce may be
over-anxious--"
"Not another word, Char. Can't we send some one to put your things
together at once?"
"Really, I'm most grateful, but I can't accept," said Char decisively.
"It's quite true that my secretary hasn't found rooms for me yet, but
meanwhile the Hostel does perfectly well, and I'm glad of the
opportunity for being so near my work. I couldn't dream of moving."
She began cordially to wish that she had not sought to relieve her
feelings by those letters to Miss Bruce, from which the little secretary
would appear to have quoted so freely, and to have derived so much food
for anxiety.
"Dearest girl, listen to me!" Lesbia exclaimed, raising her voice more
than ever above the increasing din and clatter all round them. "I've
been talking the whole thing over with your mother, and she's more than
willing that I should have you. You needn't trouble about that for a
_moment_. Poor dear Joanna was simply too sweet about it for words. 'I
know you'll be a mother to my girl for me,' she said."
Lesbia gazed at Char with the air of one who believes absolutely in the
pathos she exploits, and Char was forced to the conclusion that she
actually imagined herself to be quoting correctly. For her own part, she
attached not the slightest value to Mrs. Willoughby's flights of fancy.
Nevertheless, she was vexed and uneasy. Why could not people leave her
alone? It was all very well for Miss Bruce to appreciate the stress of
circumstances under which Char pursued her work, but the voluble
importunity of Mrs. Willoughby was as unwelcome as it was unescapable.
Char looked round her, in search of a possible channel into which to
direct Lesbia's attention.
"Isn't that your Lance-Corporal?" she rather basely inquired.
"Where?" shrieked Lesbia. "You know, I'm quite, quite blind!"
This was a fiction frequently indulged in by Mrs. Willoughby, whose eye
could safely be trusted to pierce the densest crowd when convenient to
herself.
"_I_ see him, just come in. Now, I suppose he'll make a bee-line
straight for my little corner. Dear thing, he always does! It's too
wonderful to hear him describe all that goes on _out there_, you know.
He was out right at the very beginning, all through Mons and the Marne
and Ypres and everything. They say the men don't like talking about it;
but I've had, I suppose, more experience than any woman in London, what
with one thing and another, and they always talk to me. The dear fellows
in the hospital I visit simply yarn by the hour--they _love_ it--and
it's too enthralling for words. They're so sweetly quaint. One dear
fellow always talked about a place he called _Wipers_, and it was simply
ages before I realized that he meant _Ypres_! Wasn't that too
priceless?"
On this highly original anecdote Mrs. Willoughby hurried away,
struggling into her blue-and-white overall as she went.
Char saw her reach the side of the Lance-Corporal and break into voluble
greetings, punctuated by hysterical protests from the Pekinese, wedged
firmly under her arm.
"Well?" said Trevellyan's voice behind her.
"Well! Nothing will induce me to go and stay there, with that wretched
little beast making its hideous noise all day and all night."
They both laughed.
"Seriously, Johnnie, I wish you'd tell Brucey that she really has
exceeded her privileges. I can't have plans of that sort made over my
head, as she should have known. What on earth possessed her?"
"Your letter worried her. She thought that the Hostel sounded so
uncomfortable."
"So it is. But, after all," said Char, torn between a desire to show
John how very much she was enduring in a good cause, and at the same
time how little she heeded such external conditions, "after all the work
is what really matters. It's for the sake of the work I put up with what
poor Brucey thinks are hardships."
"But are they really necessary?"
"What do you mean?" said Char, displeased. "It certainly isn't possible
for a house built like the Hostel to be either as roomy or as convenient
as Plessing is. A certain amount of discomfort is practically
unavoidable."
"Dear me! that's very hard on all of you. Don't the others find it
trying? They have to be there all the time, don't they?"
"What others?" was the freezing inquiry of the Director of the Midland
Supply Depôt.
Trevellyan looked at her in surprise, and replied quite simply: "The
other workers, of course."
"Oh, I really don't know. I naturally never see anything of them, except
at the office; but, of course--well, I suppose they're used to very much
that sort of thing at home."
"Surely not. I was really thinking," Trevellyan remarked with some
superfluity, "of Miss Jones."
"You and my mother appear to find some recondite quality in Miss Jones
which I'm unable to discover!" exclaimed Char, laughing a little. "Of
course she's a lady, but really, as far as work goes--which is, of
course, all that matters just now--I've had a great many clerks who can
be of far more use than she can. It was a mistake having her out to
Plessing that time."
She spoke in a reflective tone that had a conclusive quality in it, but
the tactless Trevellyan ignored the hint of finality and inquired
matter-of-factly: "Why?"
"Because it may make the silly girl imagine that she's on a sort of
superior foothold. You know how idiotic some of them are about--well,
about me--as Director of the Supply Depôt, I mean. They can't look upon
me as a human being at all."
"But you don't seem to want them to, Char. If you can live in the same
house with them all and yet never see them except at the office, it's no
wonder they don't look upon you as a human being."
He spoke so quietly that it was only after a moment she realized the
condemnation that lay behind his words.
It hurt her more than she would have supposed possible. Like most
complex organisms, she had an unreasoned craving for the approval of the
very simple, and she had always thought that Johnnie, easy-going and
uncritical, would accept her judgment as necessarily wider and more
subtle than his own.
"I see," she said, very low. "You accept me and my work only at my
mother's valuation."
"Well, no, Char. It isn't only that."
John's voice held a certain regret, but no retractation.
"It isn't only that evening at Plessing--though you know very well that
I didn't see that question of your leaving home as you did--but every
time I see you, you say or do something that makes me understand what
Dr. Prince meant that evening."
"Thank you," said Char, low and bitterly.
"Perhaps I haven't any business to say anything about it at all. Only,"
said Trevellyan, with his habitual extraordinarily ill-inspired candour,
"you know how much I care about Cousin Joanna."
"So much that it blinds you to any point of view but hers, apparently.
Don't you really think that there was anything to be said for me, John?
I don't altogether enjoy giving up my whole life to this office work,
you know, under conditions of great difficulty and discomfort, and with
the additional pain of knowing how hopelessly misunderstood my motives
are. What has my father said about my leaving Plessing?"
"I don't think Cousin Joanna has told him. You see, he's one of the
people who would misunderstand your motives, too, isn't he? And it would
upset him so much."
"It's only in theory. He doesn't really want me in the least. It's
simply that he hasn't moved with the times, doesn't understand the
necessity that has arisen for women's work."
"Yes, that's quite true," Trevellyan said, but there was no sound of
concession in his voice.
"My mother has given in to that all the time. You know she has. I
believe that if it had been possible she wouldn't have let him know
there was a war at all. It's--it's like helping an ostrich to bury its
head in the sand."
"Don't you see," Trevellyan said, with a curious effect of reluctance,
as though aware that she would not see, after all, "that all that is
because she cares so much?"
"I'm afraid I don't. To me, the larger issue must always come first.
It's England at stake, John, and our own petty little personal problems
don't seem to count any longer."
"I suppose," he acquiesced, "that the difference between your point of
view and hers is just that. She thinks that the personal problem still
counts, you see."
"And you, of all people, can agree to that?"
"It's not quite the same thing for me, is it? War is my profession, so
to speak. There are no other claims, so I need not balance values. It's
just plain-sailing--for me. And for most other men, I suppose."
"Do you mean that all the women who have been giving time and trouble to
serious work, all the munition-makers, the nurses, the Government
workers, ought to go home again because of the old plea that home is a
woman's sphere?"
"No, I don't, and you know I don't. But I think that the question of
degree enters into it, and that where some women can very well afford to
give their whole time and strength, others--can't."
"I see. Then it's simply a matter of counting the cost, and if it comes
too dear, hide behind the fact of being a woman!" said Char mockingly.
It was always easy to defeat Johnnie verbally.
He looked bewildered, and said: "You're too clever for me, Char, as you
always were. I can't pretend to argue with you. And I do admire the work
you're doing, more than I can say. Everybody says it's wonderful."
He looked at her wistfully, and Char felt glad that the conversation
should end on a note that, on his part, was almost pleading.
She rose, smiling a little.
"It's all right, Johnnie. And you'll soothe Plessing for me, won't you?"
But Captain Trevellyan, also rising, shook his head and looked very
uncompromising.
"Cousin Joanna is wonderful, but she looks very tired," he remarked, and
moved away as the sound of Puffles's bark heralded Lesbia Willoughby's
return.
Char, also moving out of reach as rapidly as possible, saw him making
his way towards the corner where Grace Jones was wiping plates as fast
as they were handed to her, steaming and dripping, from the zinc
wash-tub.
She felt annoyed and almost uneasy, and thought to herself: "He can't be
seriously attracted by her. Why, she isn't even pretty, as one or two of
them are."
Attracted or not, Captain Trevellyan remained in conversation with Miss
Jones for the rest of the evening. Char had not even the satisfaction of
seeing her neglect her work, and forthwith rebuking her, for her
exceedingly pretty hands never stopped their rapid, efficient moving.
Char decided that she owed it to the uniform to inform her cousin that
members of her staff, when engaged in the performance of their duty,
must not enter into unofficial conversations.
She reserved this shaft, however, for later on, not wishing Trevellyan
to discover the immediate workings of the law of cause and effect.
Her energies for the time being were fully engaged in avoiding the
hospitable advances of Mrs. Willoughby.
"Well, my dear, sweet child," said Lesbia acrimoniously, "you are
behaving like an absolute little fool (I know you won't mind your
mother's greatest friend being perfectly candid with you), and I assure
you that you'll regret it bitterly. As my Lewis said to me quite the
other day, that girl is simply ruining her chances. Whom does she ever
see, shut up with a pack of women all day and every day? Now, with us,
you'd at least have civilized meals, with half the regiment always
dropping in. The boys in Lewis's regiment always _did_ come to me, from
the days when he was only a Captain--young things always cling to me."
"Thank you," said Char, "but I'm afraid I shouldn't be very good
company. By the time I've finished work, and interviewed all the various
officials and dignitaries that I'm unfortunately obliged to see on nine
days out of ten, I have not very much conversation left to entertain
youths from the barracks."
Mrs. Willoughby made no pretence at failing to perceive the motive
inspiring these utterances.
"Yes, dear, you may drag in those moss-grown and mouldering old
officials as much as you please to show me that it isn't only a pack of
women, but I'm not in the least impressed. Unfortunate old dotards put
into khaki which is much too tight for them, and probably thinking what
a pity it is that a pretty girl should talk so much nonsense! I met Dr.
Prince the other day, and I can assure you that he doesn't in the least
enjoy your interference with his Hospital."
"Probably not. I've had it put on to a proper military basis, and all
these country practitioners resent anything done by the R.A.M.C."
"Nothing to do with the R.A.M.C., darling," retorted Lesbia piercingly.
"Don't be childish! All that _he_ resents--and I perfectly sympathize
with him--is being shown his business by a chit who, as he says himself,
probably would never have come into the world alive at all without his
help."
Char left the honours of the last word with the outspoken Mrs.
Willoughby, having, indeed, no reply ready to fit the occasion.
"Well, good-night, Char, and if you like to eat humble pie and come to
me at any time, Lewis and I will be perfectly delighted. I've always
longed to have a girl of my own, as I told Joanna, and I understand
_all_ young things. Don't I, my Puffles? Now I must take 'oo home,
precious one, so come along. Oh! mustn't bark--naughty, naughty!"
Char turned her back on Mrs. Willoughby and the utterly unsilenced Puff,
and left the Canteen.
She had meant to return to the office again, but had stayed longer than
usual at the Canteen, and decided to go back to the Hostel instead.
Certainly, it was uncomfortable there, and as the piercing weather
continued, she found the lack of comfort ever more trying. But to return
nightly to Mrs. Willoughby and Puff! She dismissed the thought with a
shudder.
Besides, there were her mother and Trevellyan and Miss Bruce to convince
that she was in earnest about her work, and would undergo discomfort and
privation in order to carry it on successfully. Even Dr. Prince, Char
reflected with some bitterness, might admit that she was prepared to
make sacrifices in the attainment of her goal.
There was also the Hostel. Char knew from Mrs. Bullivant, and less
directly from Miss Delmege, that her staff felt a wondering admiration
and compassion at her courage in having left home and a father who was
ill for the sake of patriotic work. She knew, by the sort of uncanny
intuition that is generally the possession of the ultra-subtle, that
when her gaze from time to time became abstracted over her work, or her
attitude of set concentration relaxed for an occasional moment, Miss
Delmege thought pityingly of the anxiety which must underlie all Miss
Vivian's close and capable attention to the many details of her gigantic
task. Miss Delmege thought her "wonderful," undoubtedly. Char told
herself, with a slight smile, that she did not deserve her secretary's
blind idealism of her, but at the same time she was subconsciously
aware of a certain resentment that the idealism should be so utterly
unshared by Miss Delmege's understudy, the matter-of-fact, eminently
undazzled Miss Jones.
Char went into the Hostel still thinking of Miss Jones. The hall was
quite dark, but the sitting-room door was open, and as she went upstairs
Char glanced in, hearing the sound of voices. There was a circle
gathered close round the fire, and for a moment she did not recognize
the central figure, seated on the floor and drying a cloud of brown hair
at the blaze. Then she saw that it was Miss Plumtree, and noted with
surprise that the girl, with her hair on her shoulders and her round,
flushed face, was very pretty.
"Perhaps Johnnie was right, and I really don't look upon them as human
beings," she thought, rather amused.
Some obscure instinct of testing herself caused her suddenly to turn and
enter the sitting-room.
There was a sudden, startled silence as she stopped in the doorway, and
then, almost simultaneously, the members of the staff rose to their
feet.
"Oh, don't move," Char said affably.
There was an awkward pause, and then Miss Plumtree, giggling, exclaimed:
"Oh, my hair! I've been washing it, Miss Vivian."
"You're all late tonight, aren't you? I fancy I generally hear you come
upstairs earlier than this."
"I do hope we don't disturb you, Miss Vivian," Miss Delmege said, in a
concerned voice. "I'm so often afraid that you must hear the water going
in the bathroom, and all that sort of thing."
"It doesn't matter."
There was another silence. Nobody had sat down again. Miss Plumtree had
clutched at her hair with both hands and was shoving it behind her ears
as though in a desperate attempt to convince Miss Vivian that it was not
really loose on her shoulders.
Miss Delmege put her head on one side, and gazed at Miss Vivian with a
rather concerned expression of attention.
"Well, I'm afraid I'm disturbing you."
"Oh, no, Miss Vivian," they chorused politely.
"Good-night."
"Good-night, Miss Vivian."
The relaxation of a strain was quite unmistakable in this last
chorusing.
"Idiots!" ejaculated Miss Vivian to herself as she went to her own room.
She heard voices and laughter break out again as she went up the stairs.
Obviously it was not possible to attempt any unofficial footing with her
staff, even had she herself desired such a thing. To them she was Miss
Vivian, a being in supreme authority, in whose presence naturalness
became impossible and utterly undesirable.
John knew nothing about it.
On this summing up, Char went to bed.
Twice she heard conversations on the stairs, in which the astounding
fact that "Miss Vivian came into the sitting room, and there was
Plumtree with her hair down, actually _down_, my dear," was repeated,
and received with incredulous ejaculations or commiserating giggles.
Finally, the workers from the Canteen came in, groped their way up in
the dark, and were met on the landing by the hissing, sibilant whisper
peculiar to Miss Delmege.
"H'sh, girls! Don't make a noise. Miss Vivian has practically told me
that she can hear you in the bathroom every night. It really is too bad,
you know, when she simply needs every minute's rest she can get."
"Well, so do we. Let me get past, dear." Miss Marsh's tones spoke
eloquently of the tartness induced by fatigue.
"_Must_ you go to the bathroom tonight?"
"Of course we must. What an idea! How am I to get my kettle boiled? I'm
simply pining for a cup of tea; the work was awful tonight."
"Was Miss Vivian at the Canteen?"
"Just for a bit; talking to that cousin of hers--the Staff Officer one,
you know."
"I know. She came into the sitting-room when she got in, and what _do_
you think? Plumtree had been washing her hair, and it was all down her
back!"
"Gracious! And Miss Vivian came in?"
"Came in, and there was Plumtree with her hair down her back!"
"What _did_ she do?"
"Nothing. There was nothing _to_ do, you know; there she simply was,
with her hair actually down her back!"
"I say, Gracie, do you hear that? Plumtree really has no luck. Miss
Vivian came into the sitting-room tonight just when she'd been washing
her hair, and had it actually down her back."
Char listened rather curiously to hear how Miss Jones would receive this
climax. Her voice came distinctly, with a little amusement in it, and
the usual quality of sympathetic interest which she apparently always
accorded to any one's crisis.
"Well, I hope she didn't mind. She has such pretty hair."
"That's hardly the point, is it?" said Miss Delmege reprovingly. "It
looked rather funny, after all, for Miss Vivian coming in like that, to
see her with her hair absolutely down her back."
"Even if it was funny," said Grace literally, "I dare say Miss Vivian
didn't notice it. I never think she has much sense of humour.
Good-night."