The War-Workers
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Miss Bruce looked very much crestfallen.
"You'd better telephone again, please, a little later on, with a message from me. Say that I must be rung up without fail when my secretary has gone through the letters, and I'll come to the telephone and speak to her myself."
"The draughty hall!" moaned Miss Bruce, but she dared not offer any further remonstrance.
Char's conversation on the telephone with Miss Jones was a lengthy one, and Miss Bruce, wandering in the background in search of imaginary currents of air, listened to her concluding observations with almost ludicrous dismay. "The departments must carry on as usual, of course, but don't hesitate to ring me up in any emergency. And no letters had better leave the office tonight – in fact, they can't, since there'll be nobody to sign them. What's that?.. No, certainly not. How on earth could I depute such a responsibility to any one in the office. I shall have made some arrangement by tomorrow. Sir Piers may remain in this state indefinitely, and I can't have the whole of the work held up in this way… That's all. Remember, nothing is to leave the office for the present. You can ring me up and report on the day's work at seven o'clock this evening. Good-bye."
As Char replaced the receiver, her mother entered the hall. They had already exchanged a few words earlier in the morning, and Lady Vivian only remarked dispassionately: "I thought you were in bed. By the way, Char, I'm sorry, but we shall have to have the telephone disconnected. The house must be kept quiet, and that bell can be heard quite plainly from upstairs. We can ring other people up, but they won't be able to get at us. Did you want to talk to your office?"
"I must," said Char. "Things are absolutely hung up there; no one who can even sign a letter."
"Why not? Have they all got writer's cramp all of a sudden?"
Char, never very graciously disposed towards her parent's many small leers at her official dignity, thought this one particularly ill-timed, and received it by a silence which said as much.
Lady Vivian looked at her, and said rather penitently: "Well, well, I mustn't keep you here when you ought to be in bed. My dear child, do you mean to say you're wearing nothing but your dressing-gown under that coat? Do go upstairs again."
"I want to speak to you, mother."
"I'll come up in five minutes. I'm going to give an order to the stables."
Lady Vivian walked briskly down the drive, her uncovered head thrown back to catch the chilly gleams of winter sunlight.
There were dark lines under her blue eyes, but the voice in which she gave her orders was full and serene as usual, even when she answered the chauffeur's respectful inquiries by the news that Sir Piers still remained unconscious.
Five minutes later Lady Vivian's secretary had the gratification of seeing her enter Char's bedroom and establish herself on a chair at the sufferer's bedside.
That afternoon Miss Bruce received a further satisfaction when Lady Vivian sought her in consultation.
"It's about Char, Miss Bruce. She's fretting herself into fiddlestrings about that office of hers. She thinks all the work is more or less held up while she's not there to see to it. And yet she may be kept here indefinitely. It's quite possible that Sir Piers may ask for her when he comes to himself again, so there can be no question of her going in to Questerham at present, even if she were fit for it, which she most decidedly isn't."
"That consideration by itself would never keep her from her work," said Miss Bruce loyally.
Lady Vivian waived the point.
"Well, as she won't do the only sensible thing, and transfer her authority to some responsible member of the staff, she'd better have one of them out here every day to go through the work with her and take back the instructions. The car is bound to be going in at least once a day."
"It won't be the rest for Charmian that one had hoped,'' said the secretary dismally.
"But it will be better for her to do a little work than just to sit and worry about her father and the office – though, upon my word," said Lady Vivian warmly, "I think she's a great deal more anxious about the Depôt than about his illness."
Miss Bruce, not inconceivably, thought so too, but she was very much shocked at hearing such an idea put into words, and said firmly: "Then, would you like me to write to Questerham and tell Miss Vivian's secretary that it has been arranged for her to come out here daily for the present?"
"Dear me, you're as bad as Char, Miss Bruce. Anybody would think they were all machines, to be dragged about without any will of their own. No, no! Ring up the office and get hold of the secretary, and give her a polite message, asking if she can manage it, if we send her in and out in the car."
Miss Bruce obeyed, and triumphantly told her employer that evening that all was arranged, and Miss Jones would come to Plessing on the following morning to receive Miss Vivian's directions.
"Miss Jones? You don't mean to say that the genteel Delmege has abdicated in favour of Miss Jones? What a piece of luck for us!" cried Lady Vivian.
"Miss Delmege is in bed with influenza."
"Excellent!" said Joanna callously. "I shall be delighted to see Miss Jones. I wanted to ask her here, but Char nearly had a fit at the idea. She'll certainly think I've done it out of malice prepense, as it is. She's got a most pigheaded prejudice against that nice Miss Jones."
"Lady Vivian!"
Lady Vivian laughed.
"You'll have to break it to her, Miss Bruce, that it's Miss Jones who is coming. And don't let her think I did it on purpose!"
"I am sure she would never think anything of the sort."
"Perhaps not. But Char does get very odd ideas into her head, when she thinks there's any risk of lèse-majesté to her Directorship. I must say," observed Joanna thoughtfully, preparing to go upstairs for her night watch, "I often wish that when Char was younger I'd smacked some of the nonsense out – "
But before this well-worn aspiration of Miss Vivian's parent, Miss Bruce took her indignant departure.
IX
"Rather strange, isn't it?" said Miss Delmege in tones of weak despondency. "If it hadn't been for this wretched flu, I should have been going out to Plessing every day with the work, I suppose, as Gracie is doing now."
"Yes, I suppose you would," agreed Miss Henderson blankly.
She sat on the foot of the bed, which was surrounded by a perfect wilderness of screens.
Miss Delmege reclined against two pillows, screwed against her back at an uncomfortable-looking angle. The room was not warmed, and the invalid wore a small flannel dressing-jacket, rather soiled and very much crumpled, a loosely knitted woolly jersey of dingy appearance and an ugly mustard colour, and over everything else an old quilted pink dressing-gown, with a cotton-wool-like substance bursting from the cuffs and elbows. Her hair was pinned up carelessly, and her expression was a much dejected one.
Miss Henderson was knitting in a spasmodic way, and stopping every now and then to blow her nose violently. She had several times during the afternoon ejaculated vehemently that a cold wasn't flu, she was thankful to say.
"It's probably the beginning of it, though," Miss Delmege replied pessimistically.
"You're hipped, Delmege, that's what you are – regularly hipped. Now, don't you think it would do you good to come downstairs for tea? There's a fire in the sitting-room."
"Well, I don't mind if I do. It'll seem quite peculiar to be downstairs again. Fancy, I've been up here five whole days! And I'm really not a person to give way, as a rule. At least, not so far as I know, I'm not."
"It's nearly four now. Look here, I'll put a kettle on, and you can have some hot water."
"Thanks, dear," said Miss Delmege graciously, "but don't bother. My hot-water bottle is still quite warm. I can use that."
"All right, then, I'll leave you. Ta-ta! You'll find me in the sitting-room. Sure you don't want any help?"
"No, thanks. I shall be quite all right. I only hope you won't be in bed yourself tomorrow, dear."
"No fear!" defiantly said Miss Henderson, at the same time sneezing loudly.
She went away before Miss Delmege had time to utter any further prognostications.
In the sitting-room she busied herself in pushing a creaking wicker arm-chair close to the fire – which for once was a roaring one, owing to the now convalescent Mrs. Potter, who had been crouching over it with a novel all day – lit the gas, and turned it up until it flared upwards with a steady, hissing noise; said "Excuse me; do you mind?" to Mrs. Potter; shut down the small crack of open window, and drew the curtains.
"Delmege is coming down, and we'd better have the room warm," she explained. "She's just out of bed."
By the time Miss Delmege, now wearing her mustard-coloured jersey over a thick stuff dress, had tottered downstairs, the room was indeed warm.
"Now, this," said Mrs. Bullivant cheerfully, when she came in to see how many of her charges wanted tea – "now this is what I call really cosy."
She looked ill, and very tired, herself. The general servant had given notice because of the number of trays that she had been required to carry upstairs of late, and had left the day before, and the cook was disobliging and would do nothing beyond her own immediate duties. Mrs. Bullivant was very much afraid of her, and did most of the work herself.
She had written to the Depôt in accordance with the official Hostel regulations, stating that a servant was required there for general housework; but no answer had come authorizing her to engage one, and Miss Marsh had explained to her that in Miss Vivian's absence such trifling questions must naturally expect to be overlooked or set aside for the time being. So little Mrs. Bullivant staggered up from the basement bearing a tray that seemed very large and heavy, and put it on the table in the sitting-room, very close to the fire, with a triumphant gasp.
"There! and it's a beautiful fire for toast. None of the munition girls are coming in for tea, are they?"
"Hope not," said Miss Henderson briefly. "I ought to be at the office now. I said I'd be back at five, but I shouldn't have had the afternoon off at all if Miss Vivian had been there."
Miss Delmege drew herself up. "Miss Vivian never refuses a reasonable amount of leave, that I'm aware of," she said stiffly.
"Oh, I mean we're slacker without her. There's less to do, that's all."
"Well, Grace Jones will be back presently, and I suppose she'll have work for all of us, as usual. I wonder how Miss Vivian is," said Mrs. Potter.
"And her father."
"Grace will be able to tell us," said Miss Delmege, not without a tinge of acrimony in her voice. "It does seem so quaint, her going to and from Plessing in Miss Vivian's car, like this, every day. It somehow makes me howl with laughter."
She gave a faint, embittered snigger, and Miss Henderson and Mrs. Potter exchanged glances.
"I hear the car now," said Mrs. Bullivant. "She'll be cold. I'll get another cup, and give her some tea before she goes over to the office. I do hope she's got Miss Vivian's authority for me to find a new servant."
They heard her outside in the hall, making inquiry, and Grace's voice answering in tones of congratulation.
"Yes, it's quite all right. I asked Miss Vivian most particularly, and told her what a lot of work there was, and she said, Get some one as soon as you could. I came here before going to the office so as to tell you at once."
"Well, that was nice of you, dear, and now you shall have a nice cup of hot tea before you go out again. Just a minute."
"I'll fetch it, Mrs. Bullivant. Don't you bother."
"It's all right, dear, only a cup and saucer wanted; the rest is all ready."
In a few minutes Grace came into the sitting-room carefully carrying the cup and saucer.
When she saw Miss Delmege she said in a pleased way: "Oh, I'm so glad you're better. Miss Vivian asked after you. She was up herself this afternoon, and looking much better."
"And how's her father?"
"They are much happier about him since he recovered consciousness. He can talk almost quite well, and Dr. Prince is quite satisfied about him. And they've got a nurse at last. You know, they couldn't get one for love or money; none of the London places had any to spare."
"I should have thought they could get one from one of the Questerham hospitals."
"I think Lady Vivian meant to, if everything else failed, but Miss Vivian didn't think it a very good plan; she was afraid the hospitals couldn't spare any one, I suppose, and, anyhow, most of the people there are only V.A.D.'s."
"And is there any hope of seeing her back at the office?" asked Mrs. Potter, rather faintly.
"I don't know," replied Grace thoughtfully. "You see, poor Sir Piers may remain at this stage indefinitely, or may have another stroke any time. They don't really know…"
"And Miss Vivian goes on with the work just the same!" ejaculated Miss Henderson. "She really is a marvel."
"I'm sure she'd come to the office if it wasn't for poor Lady Vivian," said Miss Delmege. "But I know her mother depends on her altogether. I don't suppose she could leave her, not as things are now."
Miss Delmege's assumption of an intimate and superior knowledge of the ménage at Plessing was received in silence. Miss Henderson, indeed, glancing sharply at Grace, saw the merest quiver of surprise pass across her face at the assertion; but reflected charitably that, after all, Delmege had had a pretty sharp go of flu, and probably wasn't feeling up to the mark yet. Her mis-statements, however irritating, had better be left unchallenged.
"Do you ever see anything of Lady Vivian when you're at Plessing?" Miss Delmege inquired benevolently of Grace, but the benevolence faded from her expression when Miss Jones replied, with more enthusiasm than usual in her voice, that she always had lunch with Lady Vivian, and sometimes went round the garden with her before going up to Miss Vivian's room for the afternoon's work.
"Dear me! I shouldn't have thought she'd have much time for going round the garden. But she's not thoroughgoing, like Miss Vivian is, of course. It's quite a different sort of nature, I fancy. Strange, too, being mother and daughter."
Miss Henderson decided rapidly within herself that, influenza or no, Delmege was making herself unbearable.
"You're getting tired with sitting up, aren't you, dear?" she inquired crisply.
There was a moment's silence, and then Miss Delmege said in pinched accents: "Who is it you're referring to, dear? Me, by any chance?"
Grace knew the state of tension to which those aloof and refined tones were the prelude, and exclaimed hurriedly that she must go.
She did not want to hear Miss Henderson and Miss Delmege having "words," or to listen while Miss Delmege talked with genteel familiarity of Sir Piers and Lady Vivian.
Pulling on her thick uniform coat, she went out, and slowly crossed the street.
She was thinking of Lady Vivian, who had roused in her an enthusiasm which she could never feel for Char, and who had talked to her so frankly and warmly, as though to a contemporary, that afternoon in the garden at Plessing. For all her quality of matter-of-factness, there was a certain humble-mindedness about Miss Jones, which made it a matter of surprise to her when she found herself on the borders of friendship with the woman whom she thought so courageous and so lovable.
She hoped that Miss Vivian would require her to go out to Plessing every day for a long while; then reflected that the privilege rightly belonged to Miss Delmege, who would certainly avail herself of it at the earliest possible moment.
She knew, and calmly accepted, that Miss Delmege's services would certainly be preferred to her own by the Director of the Midland Supply Depôt; but she did not think that Lady Vivian proffered her liking or her confidence lightly, and felt a certain placid security that their unofficial intercourse would somehow or other continue. Then, with characteristic thoroughness, she dismissed the question from her mind and went into the office and to her work.
That evening Grace went to the Canteen. Only Miss Marsh, Miss Anthony, and Miss Henderson accompanied her.
"We shall have to work like blacks to make up for the absentees," groaned Tony.
"Never mind; it isn't quite so cold tonight. Isn't the moon nice?"
"Lovely. Just the night for Zeppelins."
Miss Henderson spoke from the pessimism of approaching influenza, but it happened that she was right. The first air raid over Questerham took place that night.
The work was rapidly lessening towards eleven o'clock, when Captain Trevellyan came into the hall. He stood for an instant gazing round him reflectively, then said to Grace: "Who is in command here?"
"Mrs. Willoughby, when Miss Vivian isn't here."
"I see, thank you."
Looking very doubtful, he sought Lesbia, who was preparing to discard her overall and to take her departure with the Pekinese.
"Johnnie! How too sweet of you to turn up just in time to see me home! My Lewis hates my going back alone in the dark; we've very nearly quarrelled over it already."
"The fact is," said Trevellyan, wondering if Mrs. Willoughby were the sort of person to have hysterics, "that there's been a telephone warning to say an air-raid is on, just over Staningham. They're heading this way, so we may hear a gun or two, you know; some of our machines are in pursuit."
He gazed anxiously at Lesbia, whom he characteristically supposed to be about either to burst into tears or to threaten a fainting fit.
The ideas of Captain Trevellyan were perhaps not much more advanced than those of Lady Vivian's secretary.
But Mrs. Willoughby discounted his solicitude, at least on one score, in a moment.
"Zepps!" she screamed excitedly. "How too thrilling! Can I possibly get on to the roof, I wonder? I've never seen one yet."
"Stop!" said the astonished Trevellyan. "You don't realize. They'll be over here in a few minutes, and our machines may be firing at them, besides the guns on the hill; there'll be shrapnel falling."
Mrs. Willoughby tore off her overall and snatched up Puff.
"I must, must see it all!" she declared wildly. "Have you got a pair of field-glasses?"
Trevellyan restrained her forcibly from dashing to the door.
"Mrs. Willoughby, we've got to consider that there are a number of people here, and that they are all in a certain amount of danger – not so much from bombs, though goodness knows they may very well drop one, but from our own shrapnel. Is there a basement?"
"You can't send us to the cellar? My dear boy, I, for one, refuse to go. We're not children, and we're not afraid. We're Englishwomen!"
On this superb sentiment Mrs. Willoughby swept into the middle of the hall and announced in penetrating accents that a Zepp raid was on, and had any one got a pair of field-glasses?
There was a momentary outbreak of exclamations all around, and then Captain Trevellyan raised his voice: "Please keep away from the windows. There may be broken glass about."
"Is it dangerous? What are we to do?" gasped Tony, next him. She was rather white.
At the same moment the very distant but unmistakable reverberation of guns became audible.
Trevellyan took instant advantage of the sudden cessation of sound in the room.
"If there is a basement, it would be as well for everybody to go down there, please – just for precaution's sake. And then I'm going to put out these lights." His hand was on the nearest gas-jet as he spoke.
"Nothing will induce me to stir while there's any danger. I can answer for every woman here!" cried Lesbia, with a gesture of noble defiance.
Grace Jones came into the middle of the room.
"Hadn't we better obey orders?" she asked gently. "There is a basement beyond the kitchen."
She held out her hand to Miss Anthony, and they went through the door into the kitchen.
After an instant's hesitation, the other women followed. Trevellyan saw that they had lit a candle, and in a moment he heard them beginning to talk quietly amongst themselves.
A few soldiers in the hall had congregated together, and were talking and laughing. The others made a dash for the door as the firing grew louder, and simultaneously exclaimed: "Here they are!"
The sound of the huge machines far overhead was unmistakable. They could see the shrapnel bursting, and the guns on the hill boomed heavily and intermittently.
"Look!" shrieked Lesbia, almost hurling herself out of the door. "They've got one of them! I can see it blazing!"
Far away, a red spot began to glow, then suddenly revealed the cigar-shaped form in flames, dropping downwards.
"They've got it!" echoed Trevellyan. "Look! it's coming down. Miles away, by this time. I wonder how many of ours are giving chase."
The air was full of whirring, buzzing wings, and very far away a red light in the sky seemed to tell of fire.
Occasional sparks and flashes told of the bursting of shrapnel, but the sounds were dying away rapidly.
"It's over, and, by Jove, we've got him!" shouted Trevellyan, dashing back into the kitchen. Every one was talking at once, Mrs. Willoughby's voice dominating the rest.
"I saw the whole thing too perfectly! At least five of the brutes, and two, if not three, of them in flames! I saw them with my own eyes!" she proclaimed, with more spirit than exactitude. "And where are those poor creatures hiding like rats in the cellar?"
"The noise was awful!" said Tony, shuddering. "It felt as though it were right over our heads. But," she added valiantly, "I do wish we'd seen it all!"
Trevellyan turned to her apologetically. "I'm so sorry. But I really couldn't help it. They sent me down on purpose to see that this place was warned. It was really perfectly splendid of you to go down like that and miss all the fun."
"I was very frightened," she told him honestly, "though I do awfully wish I'd seen it. They must have had a splendid view from the Hostel at the top of the street."
"There was a splendid view from here," said Lesbia cuttingly. "I saw everything there was to be seen."
Trevellyan was looking for Miss Jones.
"Thank you so much for giving them the lead you did," he said to her gratefully. "It was very good of you. I felt such a brute for asking you to do it; but there really is danger, you know, especially from the windows, if shrapnel shatters the glass."
"Oh yes, I know. I wonder," said Grace thoughtfully, "whether they heard it much at Plessing."
"I know. I was thinking of that all the time. Not that she'd be nervous, you know, except on his account."
"It would be dreadful for Sir Piers. Oh, I do hope they didn't hear much of it," said Grace.
One of the men approached her. "If you please, Sister, could you come down into the kitching 'alf a minute?"
Grace went.
Trevellyan watched them all disperse, and escorted Mrs. Willoughby to her tram, wondering if he ought not to see her home.
But Lesbia refused all escort, declaring gallantly that she did not know the meaning of fear, and, anyway, Puffles would protect his missus from any more dreadful, wicked Zepps.
He left her entertaining her tram conductress with a spirited account of all that she had seen, and much that she had not seen, of the raid.
As he turned down Pollard Street again, a soldier with his hand bound up lurched out of the open door of the deserted Canteen.
"Is there any one in there to shut the place up?" Trevellyan asked him.
"One of the ladies is still in there, sir. Beg pardon, sir; she's a bit upset like."
Trevellyan thought of little Miss Anthony, who had owned, with a white face, how much the sound of the guns had frightened her.
He went into the hall. It was dark, but there was a light in the kitchen.
"Who's there?" said John.
"I am. It's all right," replied an enfeebled voice; and he went into the kitchen.
Grace Jones was half leaning and half sitting against the sink, her small face haggard, her hands clutching the only support within reach, the wooden top of a roller-towel.