The War-Workers

She stretched out her left hand, and Miss Bruce, answering her smile only with a convulsive pressure and a sort of sob compounded of mingled relief, gratitude, and compunction, hurried upstairs with her handkerchief undisguisedly held to her eyes.

"Poor Miss Bruce! We shall make an exchange, Char," said her mother, "for I'm hoping that Grace will stay here and help me."

"In what capacity?"

"Any capacity she likes."

"I hope," said Char, in tones which held more of doubt than of hopefulness, "that you will find her more accurate than I have. Good-night."

She went upstairs in her turn, feeling oddly tired and with a disquieting sense of finality. Her way and her mother's had parted, and although Char knew little regret for a separation which had long held them apart in all but physical nearness, she felt to the full the disturbing element introduced by a definitely spoken renunciation.

She would return to her work on the morrow, and make the move from Plessing as speedily as might be. But even in thinking of her work Char felt, that evening, no solace, for the recollection of her mother's words as to the frame of mind in which the staff might receive her left her strangely bereft of her usual armour of self-confidence.

In the hall, Trevellyan asked Joanna rather wistfully: "Do you mind very much?"

"Exchanging Miss Bruce for Grace? Do you think I shall lose by it?"

They both laughed a little, and then Trevellyan, looking into the fire, observed: "I'm glad you're going to have her. I shall like thinking that she's working with you here."

"I'm glad, Johnnie."

There was the ghost of a flicker in Joanna's voice.

"She'll be a comfort to you."

"Yes, indeed she will. The difference of age hasn't prevented our being friends."

"And – and you'll look after her?"

"I hope so. At all events, I shan't allow her to do any nursing of wounded, since we know the unfortunate effect that the sight of blood has upon her."

Joanna was laughing outright now.

"Oh, did she tell you?"

"Yes."

"I think that was the first time she and I ever had any real conversation."

"Was it? It was rather talented of you, in the circumstances."

"Cousin Joanna."

"Yes, John."

Captain Trevellyan bent a yet more ardent scrutiny upon the fire.

"It seems the wrong time to say anything about it, but you always understand, and she and I could neither of us bear that you shouldn't know it at once. I couldn't go away without telling you. Not," said Johnnie, suddenly turning round and facing her, "that anything is settled, you know."

"Except the only thing that matters," said Joanna softly.

"One thing that makes us both care so much," he said diffidently, "is that we both care so much for you."

She gave him both hands, regally, and he stooped and kissed them as he might have a queen's.

Presently she said: "I'm so glad, dear Johnnie. Nothing in the world could make me happier."

It was past eleven o'clock before John left her, and his final inquiry, standing at the hall door, made her laugh outright.

"You don't think any one will guess, do you? She doesn't want anything said till her father knows, and unluckily I can't get down to Wales and see him now. There won't be time. But you didn't guess till I told you, did you?"

"My dear Johnnie," said Joanna, with a singular absence of any emotion but her habitual kindly satire in her voice, "you really remind me very much sometimes of an ostrich!"

XIX

Grace Jones went back to the Hostel soon after the New Year in order to pack up and to make her farewells before going for a month's holiday to her home in Wales.

"And then Plessing!" said Miss Marsh in an awed voice.

"And then Plessing," Grace assented. "Lady Vivian hopes that it will be properly started by that time as a convalescent home."

She looked across the sitting-room to where Mrs. Bullivant was sitting, with a smile that held inquiry and congratulation.

"Fancy!" ejaculated Mrs. Bullivant, with a sort of timorous pleasure, "Lady Vivian actually thought of me, and suggested my taking over the work of quarter-mistress there. You know, looking after the stores and all that sort of thing. I must say, it's very good of her, and I shall like working there – and Gracie as secretary and all, too. It'll be quite like old times."

"I hate changes," observed Miss Henderson gloomily.

"This place will be extraordinary, with you gone, Mrs. Bullivant, and Gracie, and probably Tony and Plumtree as well."

"Tony isn't leaving, is she?" cried Grace.

"Yes, she is. Sent in her resignation two days ago. The fact is, she was altogether upset by that fuss we had about Miss Vivian the other day, and so she's decided that she wants a change. And Greengage says she won't stay without her. They always did hang together, you know."

"I don't altogether wonder at poor old Plumtree," Mrs. Potter observed thoughtfully. "Miss Vivian has always had a down on her, hasn't she? But she and Tony will be a loss to the Hostel, and so will you, dear."

"I don't like leaving a bit," Grace declared; "you've all been so nice to me, and I've been very happy here."

It was undeniable, however, that happiness was not destined to be the prevailing characteristic of Miss Jones's last day in the office.

Miss Vivian, seated at her paper-strewn table with all the old arrogance, if not actually with an additional touch of it to counteract the humanizing effect of the crêpe mourning band on her left arm, ignored her junior secretary as far as possible, but inspected her work with a closeness of attention that almost argued a desire to find it defective.

"You can hand over your work to Miss Delmege, Miss – er – Jones. She will take it over on Monday next."

"Yes, Miss Vivian."

"And bring me your files."

Char ran over the papers in the old way, with the murmured running commentary that denoted her utter unconsciousness of all but the task in hand, and at the same time made the extensive area covered by her official correspondence fully evident to the perceptions of whoever might be in the room with her.