She answered so queerly.
"I think it is too much, and I was wondering if I would be able to
accept it. I want to."
"Then do."
"Very well--I will of course do my very best to earn it"--and with that
she bowed and left me.
Anyhow she won't make a noise.
Nina writes since she has married Jim--which she did just before the
offensive in March--she has been too happy--or too anxious, to remember
her friends--even dear old ones--but now fortunately Jim is wounded in
the ankle bone which will keep him at home for two months so she has a
little leisure.
"You can't think, Nicholas, what a different aspect the whole war took
on when I knew Jim was in the front line--I adore him--and up to now I
have managed to keep him adoring me--but I can see I'll have to be
careful if he is going to be with me long at a time."
So it would seem that Nina had not obtained the rest and security she
hoped for.
I hope my writing a book will rest me. I have arranged all my first
chapter in my head--and to-morrow I begin.
_June 26th_--Miss Sharp came punctually at ten--she had a black and
white cotton frock on--There is nothing of her--she is so slight--(a
mass of bones probably in evening dress--but thank goodness I shall not
see her in evening dress,) she goes at six--She is to have her lunch
here--Burton has arranged it. An hour off for lunch which she can have
on a tray in the small salon, which I have had arranged for her work
room.--Of course it won't take her an hour to eat--but Burton says she
must have that time, it is always done. It is a great nuisance for
perhaps when 12:30 comes I shall just be in the middle of an inspiration
and I suppose off she'll fly like the housemaids used when the servants'
hall bell went at home. But I can't say anything.
I was full of ideas and the beginning of my first chapter spouted out,
and when Miss Sharp had read it over to me I found she had not made any
mistake. That is a mercy.
She went away and typed it, and then had her lunch--and I had mine, but
Maurice dropped in and mine took longer than hers--it was half past two
when I rang my hand bell for her (it is a jolly little silver one I
bought once in Cairo) She answered it promptly--the script in her hand.
"I have had half an hour with nothing to do," she said--"Can you not
give me some other work which I can turn to, if this should happen
again?"
"You can read a book--there are lots in the book case" I told her--"Or I
might leave you some letters to answer."
"Thank you, that would be best"--(She is conscientious evidently).
We began again.
She sits at a table with her notebook, and while I pause she is
absolutely still--that is good. I feel she won't count more than a table
or chair. I am quite pleased with my work. It is awfully hot to-day and
there is some tension in the air--as though something was going to
happen. The news is the same--perhaps slightly better.--I am going to
have a small dinner to-night. The widow and Maurice and Madame de
Clerté--just four and we are going to the play. It is such a business
for me to go I seldom turn out.--Maurice is having a little supper in
his rooms at the Ritz for us. It is my birthday--I am thirty-one years
old.
_Friday_--What an evening that 26th of June! The theatre was hot and the
cramped position worried me so--and the lights made my eye ache--Madame
de Clerté and I left before the end and ambled back to the Ritz in my
one horse Victoria and went and sat in Maurice's room. We talked of the
situation, and the effect of the Americans coming in, bucking everyone
up--we were rather cheerful. Then the sirens began--and the guns
followed just as Maurice and Odette got back--They seemed unusually
loud--and we could hear the bits of shrapnel falling on the terrace
beneath us, Odette was frightened and suggested going into the
cellar--but as Maurice's rooms are only on the second floor, we did not
want to take the trouble.
Fear has a peculiar effect upon some people--Odette's complexion turned
grey and she could hardly keep her voice steady. I wondered how soon she
would let restraint slip from her and fly out of the room to the cellar.
Madame de Clerté was quite unmoved.
Then the dramatic happened--Bang!--the whole house shook and the glass
of the window crashed in fragments--and Maurice turned out the one
light--and lifted a corner of the thick curtain to peep out.
"I believe they got the _Colome Vendôme_" he said awed--and as he spoke
another bomb fell on the Ministaìre beside us--and some of the splinters
shot into space and buried themselves in our wall.
We were all blown across the room--and Madame de Clerté and I fell in a
heap together by the door, which gave way outwards--Odette's shrieks
made us think that she was hurt, but she was not, and subsided into a
gibbering prayer--Maurice helped Madame de Clerté to rise and I turned
on the torch I keep in my pocket, for a minute. I was not conscious of
any pain. We sat in the dark and listened to the commotion beneath us
for some time, and the crashing bombs but never one so near
again.--Maurice's voice soothing Odette was the only sound in our room.
Then Madame de Clerté laughed softly and lit a cigarette.
"A near thing that, Nicholas!" she said--"Let us go down now and see who
is killed, and where the explosion actually occurred--The sight is quite
interesting you know you can believe me."
"When Bertha hit the ---- two days ago, we rushed for taxis to go down to
see the place--Coralie--has petrol for her motor since two weeks you
know"--and she smiled wickedly--"Monsieur le Ministre must show his
gratitude somehow mustn't he?--Coralie is such a dear--Yes--?--So some
of us packed in with her--we were quite a large party--and when we got
there they were trying to extinguish the fire, and bringing out the
bodies--You ought to come with us sometime when we go on these
trips--anything for a change."
These women would not have looked on at the sufferings of a mouse before
the war--.
The sight in the hall when we did arrive there after the "all clear"
went--was remarkable--the great glass doors of the salon blown in and
all the windows broken--and the _Place Vendôme_ a mass of debris--not a
pane whole there I should think.
But nobody seems very much upset--these things are all in the days
work--.
I wonder if in years to come we shall remember the queer recklessness
which has developed in almost everyones mentality, or shall we forget
about the war and go on just as we were before--Who knows?
* * * * *