XX

To Grace Jones herself the New Year, speeding on its way until it was

new no longer, brought much work in the convalescent home at Plessing,

the glad realization of Joanna Vivian's need of her, and innumerable

unstamped letters bearing the field postmark. The quality of Miss

Jones's peculiar philosophy was much tested as the months went by, but

it was characteristic of her to be much heartened and rejoiced by an

announcement confided to her soon after her return by Miss Marsh.

"The boy I was such pals with has been sent back on sick leave, and

they're not sending him out again. And if you'll believe me, dear, I've

been persuaded into saying _yes_. He wants it to be quite soon, and

really I don't mind if it is; the Hostel is quite changed nowadays, and

not nearly as jolly as it was, now the new Superintendent makes us all

so comfortable. Besides, I don't mind telling you between ourselves,

Gracie, that I can't help fancying me going off like that and coming

back with a wedding-ring and all will be rather a knock in the eye for

our old friend Delmege."

If this kindly prognostication was verified, Miss Delmege gave no sign

of it, beyond introducing several additional shades of superiority into

the manner of her congratulations.

"Strange, isn't it?" she observed with a small and tight smile, "to see

the way some people put all sorts of personal considerations first and

the work afterwards! Personally, I agree with Miss Vivian on the

subject."

In agreement with Miss Vivian, on that as on all else, Miss Delmege

continued to find solace. The promotion of Miss Bruce to Grace Jones's

vacant place in Miss Vivian's office was a source of disquiet to her for

some time, but the bond of a common admiration at last asserted itself,

and found expression in their united efforts to persuade Miss Vivian to

her lunch every day. There was also infinite consolation to Miss Delmege

in her assertions, frequently heard at the Hostel, that nowhere was the

human side of the Director of the Midland Supply Depôt so touchingly and

unmistakably shown as in the occasional unofficial lapses which led her

to address her secretary as "Brucey."

The Hostel saw rapid changes when Tony and Miss Plumtree had both become

munition-workers, and Miss Bullivant had gone to Plessing. The

war-workers became the victims of a series of new superintendents, each

of whom found insuperable difficulty in accommodating herself to the

arbitrary ruling of Miss Vivian, and either departed summarily or

received a curt dismissal. Finally, an energetic Scotswoman established

herself at the Hostel and, as Miss Vivian had become exceedingly weary

of the quest, remained there unchallenged. She was a better manager than

little Mrs. Bullivant, and made drastic reformations in many directions,

several of which were ungratefully received by the older members of the

community.

"For I must say," Mrs. Potter told Miss Henderson, "it was a good deal

more sociable in the old days, when we made toast for tea over the

sitting-room fire on Sunday afternoons, and Dr. Prince dropped in and

told us all the news."

It was Tony and Miss Plumtree who dropped in now, and did their best to

bridge the gulf that had yawned so long between the munition-workers'

Hostel and that sacred to Miss Vivian's clerical staff.

"It's all very well," Miss Plumtree instructively remarked as she

lounged in holland overalls and a pair of baggy but entirely

unmistakable garments from which Miss Delmege kept her eyes studiously

averted. "It's all very well, but working at munitions gives one a bit

of an idea as to what one's working for. You people may think it's all

Miss Vivian's personality, etc., etc., but I can tell you that's a jolly

small part of the whole show."

The independence of Miss Plumtree's manner, as well as a new and strange

slanginess developed both by her and by little Miss Anthony, was noted

by their old companions without enthusiasm.

"After all," Tony chimed in patronizingly, "you really have the best of

it. Troop-trains simply aren't in it with our work. Standing all day

long, and shifts of twelve hours at a time--and if you turn green, that

little reptile of a Welfare Superintendent pouring water all over you

and telling you that there's nothing the matter."

A shade of reminiscence, almost of regret, passed over her face.

"At all events, Miss Vivian never did that--and she was pretty to look

at. Every one is hideous at the works--especially Jawbones."

"And who," Mrs. Potter distantly inquired, "is Jawbones?"

Her tone implied that there were nick-names _and_ nicknames, and that

those in use amongst the _habituées_ of the munitions-factory would meet

with little or no admiration from the refined inhabitants of the Hostel.

"That's what we call the Superintendent," Tony said airily.

Miss Delmege, her lips drawn into an extremely thin line, uttered her

solitary contribution to the conversation, before retiring with marked

aloofness to the bedroom where she hoped to defeat her old antagonist,

Miss Marsh, by annexing all three screens and the largest kettle of hot

water.

"I must say, it does seem to me that a happy medium might be found

between doing your war work entirely for the sake of whoever's at the

head of it, and calling your superintendent '_Jawbones_.'"

The conclusion was so irrefutable, that even the new-born independence

acquired by the munition-makers could produce no adequate reply.

It might even be inferred from the unusual thoughtfulness with which the

holland-clad enthusiasts took their departure, that neither was devoid

of an occasional pang at the memory of the old days of blind obedience

and enthusiastic loyalty to the ideal which Char Vivian, with all her

autocratic charm and occasional flashes of kindness, still represented.

As Dr. Prince had said, "the Vivians of Plessing stood for the highest

in the land."

The doctor seldom came to the Hostel now, for time had brought him more

work than ever, and he spared himself none of it. Only at Plessing could

he sometimes be persuaded to spend half an hour in talking to Grace or

Lady Vivian after his medical inspection was over.

"A wonderful work you're doing here," he told Joanna with satisfaction.

"I wish all our great houses could be turned to such good use--and all

our lady-workers too," added the doctor with some significance. "When

all's said and done, nursing is women's work and no one else's, and the

ruling of hospital discipline and the disposal of cases for Medical

Boards, or anything else, ought to be left to the Medical Officer.

That's _my_ opinion, right or wrong, and will be till my dying day."

To Joanna Vivian, presiding over the altered establishment at Plessing,

time brought many outlets for the unquenchable spirit of energy that

would always possess her. She brought gaiety to her work, and laughter

that was as unofficial as her inveterate habit of referring all

questions of discipline to Dr. Prince, and the management of each

individual branch to the helper in charge of it. Joanna's staff was not

a large one, and each member of it had her own special and peculiar

interest in the work given into her hands.

It was in vain that Lesbia Willoughby, from London, wrote impassioned

accounts to her poor dear Joanna of the many activities in which her

days and nights appeared to fly past. "Wounded Colonials, blinded

officers, Flag-days, hospitals, canteens, Red Cross entertainments--I

have my finger in every single war-pie that's going, and I can't tell

you how too utterly _twee_ some of the dear fellows are with whom I get

into touch. If you'll only trust that sulky girl of yours to me for six

months, I could do wonders for her, and probably get her off your hands

altogether. After all, dear, we can never forget that you and I were

girls together, can we?"

"Lesbia never means to forget it, that's clear enough," was the sole

comment of Lady Vivian.

She did not go through the form of transferring Mrs. Willoughby's

invitation to her daughter. It gradually became evident that the

Director of the Midland Supply Depôt would accord but little of her

fully occupied time to a convalescent home not supplied from her own

depôt, and as Joanna said to Grace, with her habitual slight shrug: "It

may be just as well, my dear. I'm not Miss Bruce, and Char and I haven't

the same way of looking at things. She vexed and disappointed her

father, and no amount of eloquence about her high and mighty motives

will ever make me altogether forget it. I shall never be able to hear

her talk about her position as Director of the Midland Supply Depôt

without thinking what a fool I was not to smack her well when she was a

child."

Thus Joanna, half laughing, but with the eternal loneliness that all

John's steadfast loyalty and Grace's loving companionship would never

altogether assuage still underlying the dauntless youthfulness in her

blue eyes.

For Trevellyan the months succeeded one another, strangely monotonous.

In company with a hundred thousand others "somewhere in France," he

moved between the mud and noise and blood in the trenches, and the

eternal dreary billets where letters from home and the need of sleep

were the only considerations. But to his Grace in England Johnnie wrote

cheerily, of hope and good courage, and peace dawning on a far horizon,

and of the prospect of ten days' leave.

To Char Vivian, Director of the Midland Supply Depôt, the advancing

year, imperceptibly enough, brought certain solutions and

enlightenments.

The personal fascination that she could exert when she willed would

always secure for her a following of blindly devoted adherents, but her

influence was not always strong enough to retain their admiration.

Insensibly, Char modified a little of her arbitrariness.

"They put so much else before the work," she said helplessly to Miss

Bruce.

But Char's perceptions were never lacking in acumen, and she became more

and more aware of the truth of Joanna's prognostication that the work of

the Supply Depôt would be done for its own sake, and for that of the

cause in whose name it existed. And it was perhaps that awareness which

brought to her a gradual realization of motives in her own self-devotion

hitherto unacknowledged to herself.

The Director of the Midland Supply Depôt might sit day after day and

hour after hour at her paper-strewn table, issuing orders and receiving

the official interviews and communications that so clearly indicated the

high responsibility of her position, but Char Vivian grew to exercise a

certain discretion in the matter of her return to the meals and rest so

anxiously watched over by Miss Bruce, whose adoring loyalty was hers

beyond any possibility of shaking.

In those occasional unofficial concessions to her imploring solicitude

might, after all, be numbered the most creditable achievements of Miss

Vivian.