"Tell Miss Vivian that we can't wait; we must start at once. The sleet
has been falling, and the roads will be impossible in less than an hour.
I don't know how the car will do it as it is."
Dr. Prince was harassed but determined.
Miss Marsh reluctantly took this message upstairs. She had already had
occasion to observe during the course of the evening that Miss Vivian
was in no frame of mind to welcome interruptions.
"I'm not ready."
"No, Miss Vivian."
Miss Marsh stood unhappily in the doorway.
"What the _dickens_ are you standing there for?" cried Miss Vivian in
exasperated tones.
Miss Marsh was standing there from her own intimate conviction of being
placed between the devil and the deep sea, and her extreme reluctance to
confront the impatient doctor with Miss Vivian's unsatisfactory reply.
To her great relief, she found Grace in conversation with him.
"Well, is she coming?"
"The moment she can, Dr. Prince. She really won't be long now," was Miss
Marsh's liberal interpretation of her chief's message.
"The thaw isn't going to wait for her," said the doctor grimly. "It's
begun already, and after three weeks' frost we shall have the roads like
a sheet of glass."
"I think I hear the telephone," said Miss Marsh, hastening away,
thankful of the opportunity to escape before the doctor should request
her to return with his further commands to Miss Vivian.
But presently Char came downstairs in her fur coat and heavy motoring
veil, carrying a huge sheaf of papers and a small bag.
"I'm sorry you've been kept waiting. I was afraid that, as I told you, I
might not be able to start punctually."
"It's this confounded change in the weather," said the doctor
disconsolately. "How could one guess that it would choose tonight to
begin to rain after three weeks' black frost? However, I dare say it
won't have thawed yet. Come along. At any rate, it won't be quite so
cold."
The little car standing at the door was a very small two-seater, with a
tiny raised seat at the back.
"Where will you sit, Miss Vivian, with me in front or on the back seat?"
inquired the doctor unconcernedly. "Have either of you any preference?"
"I think I'd better come in front," said the Director of the Midland
Supply Depôt, very coldly. She took no notice of Miss Jones.
It was very dark, and a thin, cold rain had begun to fall. The doctor
groaned, and drove out of Questerham as rapidly as he dared. On the high
road it was already terribly slippery. After the car had twice skidded
badly, the doctor said resignedly: "Well, we must make up our minds to
crawl. Lady Vivian will guess what's delayed us. I hope you had dinner
before starting?"
"Yes, thank you," replied Grace serenely.
"Naturally, I haven't been able to leave the office, but then I never
have dinner till about nine o'clock," Char said. "I've almost forgotten
what it is to keep civilized hours."
"Then, all I can say is, that you'll be extremely hungry before we get
to Plessing," was the doctor's only reply to this display of patriotism.
The car crawled along slowly. About four miles out of the town the
doctor ventured slightly to increase speed. "Otherwise we shall never
get up this hill," he prophesied.
"It's better here, I think," said Char.
"I think it is. Now for it."
The pace of the little car increased for about a hundred yards. Then
there was a long grinding jar and a violent swerve.
"Confound her! she's in the ditch!" cried the doctor. "Are you all right
there, Miss Jones?"
"Yes," gasped the shaken Grace, clinging to her perch.
"Get out," the doctor commanded Miss Vivian, in tones that suggested his
complete oblivion of their respective positions as regarded official
dignity. Char obeyed gingerly, and stood grasping the door of the car.
"Take care; it's like a sheet of ice."
The doctor slid and staggered round to the front of his car, the two
front wheels of which were deeply sunken in the snow and slush of the
ditch. He made a disconsolate examination by the light of the lamps.
"Stuck as tight as wax. Now, what the deuce are we to do?"
"Can't we move her? asked Grace.
"Not much chance of it, but we might as well try."
Grace got down, and they strained at the car, but without any success.
"No use," said the doctor briefly. "I think you two had better stay here
while I get back to Questerham--we're nearer Questerham than Plessing, I
fancy--and bring something out. Though, good heavens! I'd forgotten it's
Christmas Eve. What on earth shall I get?"
"I can authorize you to call up one of the ambulance cars."
"That's an idea. I'm sorrier than I can say to leave you on the roadside
like this," said the doctor distractedly. "Put the rug round you both,
and if anything comes past, get a lift. The car will be all right. I
defy the most determined thief to make her move an inch. H'm! I must
take one of these lamps, and I'll make as much haste as this confounded
sheet of ice will allow."
"Wait!" cried Grace. "I can hear something coming, I think."
They stood and listened. The hoot of a very distant motor-horn came to
them distinctly.
"Coming towards us," was the doctor's verdict. "With any luck it'll take
you both back to Questerham. It's your best chance of getting to bed
tonight. Miss Vivian, you're shivering. Confound it all, it's enough to
give you both pneumonia, hanging about on a night like this! What an old
fool I've been!"
"It couldn't be helped, could it?" said Grace. "There were no trains
running after four o'clock, and we couldn't guess the weather would
change so. And it isn't nearly so cold as it has been."
"Have a cigarette?" said the doctor suddenly, lighting his own pipe.
"It'll help you to keep warm."
"Smoking in uniform is entirely out of order, but for this once--thank
you," said Miss Vivian, with a slight laugh.
The sound of a motor-bicycle became unmistakable, and the doctor
advanced cautiously into the middle of the road.
"Ahoy, there! Could you stop half a minute? We've had a spill. Two
ladies here."
"Is that Dr. Prince?" came a voice that made Char exclaim: "It's John
Trevellyan!"
The motor-bicycle, with its small side-car, drew up beside them.
"Have you had a telephone message?" said John.
"From Plessing? No. What's happened?" said the doctor sharply.
The two men exchanged a look.
Char came forward.
"You'd better tell me," she said in her slow, deep drawl.
"Cousin Joanna telephoned just before eight o'clock, but you must have
started," John said gently. "She wanted to ask Dr. Prince to make as
much haste as possible--and you."
"My father?"
"I'm afraid it's another stroke, my dear."
The doctor asked a few rapid professional questions, and Grace came and
stood near Char Vivian.
"When you didn't come," said John, "Miss Bruce got anxious, and felt
sure there'd been a spill. Cousin Joanna was upstairs, with him; I don't
think she realized. So I brought the only thing I could get hold of. You
can ride a motor-bike, doctor?"
"Of course I can. But we can't leave two young ladies planted in a
ditch, with that confounded machine of mine," said the doctor, his
distress finding vent in irritability.
"There's the side-car," said Grace. "Miss Vivian must go with you,
doctor."
"Can't we get your machine out of the ditch?" John suggested.
"Not unless you're a Hercules," said the doctor crossly. He began to
examine the motor-bicycle.
"I can manage this all right, though no machine on earth will do
anything but crawl on such a road. Miss Vivian, that will be our best
plan."
"Yes," said Char, very quietly. "And, Johnnie, can you look after
Miss--er--Jones, and take her back to Questerham?"
"Get in, Char," said Trevellyan. "I shall certainly look after Miss
Jones, and bring her out to Plessing somehow or other. Your mother wants
her. Send anything you can to meet us, doctor."
"Right; but I'm afraid we can't count on meeting anything tonight, of
all nights. Miss Jones, I'm so sorry. All right there?"
The motor-bicycle, with a push from Trevellyan, jolted slowly away along
the slippery road, and John and Miss Jones stood facing one another by
the indifferent light of the motor-lamps.
Grace looked at him with her direct, gentle gaze. "Please tell me
whether you really meant that," she said. "Does Lady Vivian want me at
Plessing just the same?"
"Yes," he answered, with equal directness. "She said so. She told me to
bring you. She said she wanted you."
Grace drew a long breath, then said: "We shall have to walk, sha'n't
we?"
"I'm afraid so--at least part of the way. Unless you'd rather stay in
the car, and keep as warm as you can, while I go on to Questerham and
try to get hold of something that will take us both out? I'm going back
there, of course. Which shall we do, Miss Jones?"
"Walk, I think. It's only about five miles, and I doubt if you could get
anything tonight to go out all the way to Plessing."
"I think we can go across the fields, if you don't mind rough walking.
It saves nearly a mile, and the only advantage of keeping to the road
would be the chance of meeting something, which I think most unlikely.
Miss Jones, you're splendid. Do you mind very much?"
"Not now that I know Lady Vivian really wants me," said Grace shyly.
Trevellyan unhooked one of the lamps.
"Shall I carry the other one?"
"It will make your hands very cold, and I think one will be enough. Have
you anything that you must take?"
"My bag; it isn't heavy."
"Right. Then give it to me, and you take the lamp, if you will." Grace
obeyed without any of the protestations which might have appeared
suitable, and they started very cautiously down the road.
"Keep to the side," said Trevellyan; "it's not very bad there. I'm
afraid you'll never get warm at this rate, but a broken leg would be
awkward."
"Tell me what happened at Plessing."
He told her that Sir Piers had suddenly had a second stroke that
afternoon, and was again lying unconscious. Lady Vivian had come down
and spoken with Trevellyan for a few minutes, and assured him that the
trained nurse would not allow her to relinquish hope.
"But it all depends upon what one means by hope," said Trevellyan. "One
can hardly bear to think of his lying there day after day, unable to
understand or to make himself understood--and as for _her_--"
"She is very brave," said Grace.
There was a silence, and each was thinking of Joanna.
Presently Trevellyan spoke again.
"We shall turn off in a minute and take the short cut. Are you very
cold?"
"Pretty cold, but I'm glad I had dinner before starting. Did you?"
"No, worse luck! I started from Plessing at half-past eight, and the
servants were in such a fuss. I'm fearfully hungry," said Trevellyan
candidly.
"Well, wait a minute."
Grace stood still and put the lamp on the ground while she felt in her
coat-pocket.
"I thought so. I've a packet of chocolate. Will you take it?"
"Thank you," said Trevellyan seriously; "it's very kind of you. Let's
both have some."
Grace divided the little packet scrupulously, and they stood and ate it
with their backs to the hedge, the bag and the lamp on the ground in
front of them.
"Christmas Eve!" said Grace. "Isn't it extraordinary?"
"Where were you last Christmas?" he asked.
"In the hospital, near my home. We were decorating the wards for
Christmas, and all stayed there very late. There was a convoy in, too, I
remember; the nurses stayed on long after we'd all gone home. I was only
a clerk, you know."
"I remember. You told me that when you--on the night of the air-raid,"
said the tactful Trevellyan, with a very evident recollection of the
unfortunate disability which debarred Miss Jones from the nursing
profession.
Grace laughed.
"Exactly. It is so idiotic and provoking, and, as a matter of absolute
fact, it was because I always got ill at anything of that sort that they
couldn't let me go on at the hospital any more--my father and
stepmother, I mean."
"I didn't know you had a stepmother."
"I've had her about four years," Grace informed him.
"Do you like her?" Trevellyan asked bluntly.
"Very much indeed. She's only a few years older than I am, and she lets
me call her Marjory. She's so nice and pretty and merry."
It was evident that Miss Jones was not a person to make capital out of
circumstances.
When they started again, Trevellyan said gently: "You'd better take my
arm, if you will. It's heavy going along this field."
It was, and an incessant sound of splashing told Grace that she was
almost in the ditch.
"I think I can manage," she said breathlessly. "I'm afraid of the light
going out, and it's easier to hold in both hands."
Trevellyan said nothing, but presently Grace felt him take hold of the
lamp.
"You _must_ let me," he said quietly. "You'll want all your strength,
for we're going uphill now, and the ground's very rough."
They trudged up a steep incline, Grace with both cold hands deep in her
pockets and her head bent against the wet driving mist that seemed to
encompass them. Her feet were like ice, and she had long since given up
trying to avoid the puddles and small snowy patches that lay so
plentifully on the way. Twice she stumbled heavily.
"We're just at the top," said Trevellyan encouragingly. "You're
perfectly splendid, Miss Jones, and I feel such a brute for not taking
better care of you. Cousin Joanna will be very much distressed; but, you
see, I know she wants you."
"I'm very glad," said Grace simply. "I never admired any one so much as
I do her."
"Nor I. She's been so ripping to me always. Even when I was a big clumsy
schoolboy, with nowhere to go to for the holidays, she'd have me out to
Plessing, and make me feel that she cared about having me there. She
wrote to me all the time I was in India--I don't think she ever missed a
mail--and all the time I was in Flanders last year. Some day," said
Johnnie, rather shyly, "I'd like to show you her letters to me. No one
has ever seen them. But I've always felt that you knew what she really
is--more than other people do."
"Thank you," said Grace.
John seemed satisfied with something in the tone of the brief reply, and
they went on in silence till he raised the flickering lamp.
"Wait a moment. There ought to be a fence here, and it may be barbed
wire. Take care."
Grace was thankful to stand still, her aching legs still trembling
beneath her from the ascent. John held up the lamp and made a cautious
examination.
"There ought to be an opening--here we are."
He waved the lamp in triumph; the light gave a final flicker and
expired.
There was a dead silence from both, Grace speechless from dismay and
fatigue, and Trevellyan from his inability to express his feelings in
the normal manner in the presence of Miss Jones.
"Have you any matches?" she asked at last.
"Yes. I'm sorrier than I can say, but I'm very much afraid that the
wretched thing has given out. Why on earth the doctor can't get proper
electric lamps for his rotten car--"
John fumbled despairingly amongst his matches, made various unsuccessful
attempts, and at last apologized again to Grace, and said that it never
rained but it poured. They must go on in the dark.
"Very well. Only let's avoid the barbed wire."
"Miss Jones, I _can't_ tell you what I think of you. Any one else would
be perfectly frantic."
"But I'm never frantic," said Grace, rather regretfully. "I often wish I
was like the people in books who feel things so desperately. Maggie
Tulliver, for instance. It's so uninteresting always to be quite calm."
"Always?"
"Well," said Grace, "practically always."
"It's an invaluable quality just at present, but perhaps one of these
days--"
"I'm so sorry, but I think my skirt has caught in the barbed wire."
Trevellyan released her skirt in silence.
"Now, then, if we get through the gate here, the next field takes us on
to the road again, and with any luck they'll have got to Plessing and
sent something back to pick us up."
Trevellyan, who knew his ground and appeared able to see in the dark,
pushed at the creaking wooden gate, and Grace passed through it, feeling
her feet sink into an icy bog of mud and water.
"I'm afraid I can't see much. You see, I don't know the way at all."
"I know; it makes all the difference. Look here, will you let me take
your hand? I know every inch of the way."
Grace put out her small gloved hand and said very sedately: "Thank you;
I think that will be the best way."
They went on steadily after that, speaking very little, and Grace
stumbling from time to time. Once John asked her: "Are you very tired?
This is rotten for you."
"I don't mind," said Grace shyly.