The War-Workers

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.