“By Jove, though, do you really!” said Trevellyan admiringly.
Only a certain naïve quality of sincerity in his simplicities, Joanna reflected, saved Johnnie from appearing absolutely stupid. But, her husband excepted, she was secretly fonder and more proud of Johnnie than of any one in the world, and she did not make the mistake of supposing that his easy chivalry denoted any admiration for the screeching monologue of which Lesbia was delivering herself.
“I make a specialty of South Africans,” she proclaimed to the table. “They’re so delightfully rural — even more so than the dear Australians, though I have a passion for Anzacs. But I take some of them somewhere every day — just show them London, you know. Not one of them knows a soul in England, and of course London is a perfect marvel to them. I simply live in taxis, rushing the dear things round.”
“Ah, we had a couple of Canadians here last week — very fine fellows,” said Sir Piers. “Been in hospital in Questerham, both of them, and Char thought they’d enjoy a day out in the country. She manages everything, you know — even the hospitals. The doctors all come to her for everything, I believe. She tells me that all the hospitals round about are affiliated to her office.”
“Ranks as a sort of Universal Provider — what?” said Trevellyan.
“Yes; isn’t it wonderful?” said Miss Bruce eagerly; and availed herself to the full of the double opportunity for obeying, even at the eleventh hour, Lady Vivian’s injunctions as to the trend of the conversation, and at the same time making the utmost of her favourite topic, Char Vivian’s work at the Midland Supply Depôt.
For the rest of dinner, in spite of several strenuous efforts from Lesbia Willoughby, nothing else was discussed.
III
Ten o’clock in the morning, and little Miss Anthony flew up Questerham High Street on her bicycle, conscious that her hurried choice of a winter hat had not only been highly unsatisfactory, owing to the extreme haste with which she had conducted it, but was also about to make her late in arriving at the office. She threw an anxious glance at the Post-Office clock, and redoubled her speed at the sight of it, though no amount of haste would get her to the Midland Supply Depôt Headquarters under another seven minutes.
But she sped gallantly across the tram-lines and in and out of the slow-moving stream of market-carts, and arrived breathless at the offices in Pollard Street just as Miss Vivian’s small open car drew up at the door.
“Damn!” automatically muttered Tony under her breath, and seeing nothing for it but to put her bicycle into a corner and efface herself respectfully to let Miss Vivian pass.
But Miss Vivian, generally so unaware of any member of her staff as not even to exchange a “Good-morning,” elected suddenly to reverse this policy.
“Good-morning,” she said graciously. “We’re both late today, I’m afraid.”
The clerk in the hall, who drew an ominous line in her book under the last signature as the clock struck ten, laughed in a rather awestruck way and said, “Oh, Miss Vivian!”
“I think you must let Miss Anthony off today,” said Char Vivian, smiling. “As I am late myself, you know.”
She went slowly upstairs, just hearing an ecstatic gasp from the two girls in the hall.
She was vaguely aware that those few gracious words and tone of easy kindness had secured for her little Miss Anthony’s unswerving loyalty and admiration.
Girls of that age and class were like that, she told herself with a slight smile.
The smile died away into an expression of weary concentration as she entered her private office.
“Good-morning, Miss Delmege. Is there much in today?”
“Good-morning, Miss Vivian,” said Miss Delmege, elegantly rising from her knees, in which lowly position she had been trying to coax the small, indifferent fire to burn. “I am afraid there are a lot of letters.”
Miss Vivian sighed and moved to the looking-glass to take off her hat. She also was in uniform, and wore several curly stripes of gold braid on her coat collar and cuffs to denote her exalted position.
Even when she had taken off her ugly and unbecoming felt hat and run her fingers through the thick, straight masses of reddish hair that hung over her forehead, Char Vivian contrived to look at least ten years older than her actual twenty-nine years.
She was very good-looking, with delicate aquiline features, a pale, fair skin powdered all over with tiny freckles, and beautiful deep-set brown eyes surrounded by unexpectedly dark lashes.
It was something quite indefinable in the lines round her pretty, decided mouth, and under her eyes that gave the odd impression of maturity. Her manner had always, from the age of five, been one of extreme self-security.
“Now, then, for the letters,” she said, as she sat down before the great roll-top desk. Char Vivian’s voice was deep and rather drawling in character, and she used it with great effect.
“Miss Delmege, did you put these heavenly lilies-of-the-valley here? You really mustn’t — but they’re too lovely. Thank you so much. They do make such a difference!”
She sniffed delicately, and Miss Delmege smiled with gratification. The lilies-of-the-valley had really cost more than she could afford, but those few words of appreciation sent her to her small table in the corner with a sense of great satisfaction.
Char tore open one envelope after another with murmured comments. She frequently affected an absence of mind denoted by fragmentary monologue.
“Transport wanted for fifty men going from the King Street Hospital today — and they want more sphagnum moss. There ought to be five hundred bags ready to go out this morning.... I wonder if they’ve seen to it. Inquiries — inquiries — inquiries! When are people ever going to stop asking me questions? Hospital accounts — that can go to the Finance Department.... The Stores bill — to the Commissariat. What’s all this — transport for that man in Hospital? I shall have to see to that myself. Look me up the War Office letters as to Petrol regulations, Miss Delmege, will you? Belgians again; they’re very difficult to satisfy, poor people. Madame Van Damm — I don’t remember them — I must send for the files. Here are some more of those tiresome muddles of Mrs. Potter’s. I told her all about those people on Monday. Why on earth hasn’t it been arranged? Nothing is ever done unless one sees to it oneself. The Medical Officer of Health wants to see me. What are my appointments for today, Miss Delmege?”
“The man from the building contractors is coming at twelve, and the Matron from the Overseas Hospital at three, and then there’s that Miss Jones who’s coming to work here. And it’s the day you generally go to the Convalescent Homes.”
“I see. Ring up the Medical Officer and say I can give him a quarter of an hour at two o’clock. I can’t really spare that,” sighed Miss Vivian, “but I suppose I shall have to see him.”
Miss Delmege knew that, whatever else her chief might depute to her, she never relinquished to any one a business interview, so she merely looked concerned and said: “I’m afraid it will be a great rush for you.”
Miss Vivian gave her subtle, infrequent smile, and began the customary series of morning interviews which were supposed to settle the perplexities of each department for the day. That this supposition was not invariably correct was made manifest on this occasion by the demeanour of the unhappy Miss Plumtree, when her chief had made short work of a series of difficulties haltingly and stammeringly put before her in sentences made involved and awkward through sheer nervousness.
“Let me have those Requisition Averages by twelve o’clock, please — and I think that completes you, Miss Plumtree?” concluded Miss Vivian rapidly.
“Thank you, Miss Vivian. Is — are — do these averages include the first day of the month as well as the last?”
“Yes, of course. And remember to give the gross weight of the supplies as well as the net weight.”
“And I — I divide by the number of days in each month. Yes, I see,” faltered Miss Plumtree, seeing nothing at all except the brisk tappin
g of Miss Vivian’s long, slight fingers on the blotting-paper in front of her, denoting with sufficient clearness that in her opinion the interview had reached its conclusion some moments since.
“It’s for August, September, and October, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
Miss Vivian’s tone implied that the question was unnecessary in the extreme, as indeed it was, since Miss Plumtree had been engaged in conducting the quarterly Requisition Averages to an unsuccessful issue for the past eighteen months.
“Thank you.”
Miss Plumtree faltered from the room, with the consciousness of past failures heavy upon her.
Char did not like an attitude of sycophantic dejection, and Miss Plumtree may therefore have been responsible for the very modified enthusiasm with which the next applicant’s request for an afternoon off duty was received.
“It rather depends, Miss Cox,” said Char, her drawl slightly emphasized. “I thought the work in that department was behindhand?”
“Not now, Miss Vivian,” said the grey-haired spinster anxiously. “Mrs. Tweedale and I cleared it all up last night; I’m quite up to date.”
“Well, I’m afraid there’s a good deal for you here,” said Char rather cruelly, handing her a bundle of papers. “However, please take your afternoon off if you want to, and if you feel that the work can be left.”
“Thank you, Miss Vivian.”
Miss Cox, who was meek and deferential, left the room, the pleasurable anticipation of a holiday quite gone from her tired face.
Char looked at the neatly coiled twist of Miss Delmege’s sand-coloured hair.
“Was I a wet-blanket?” she inquired whimsically. “Really, the way these people are always asking for leave! I wonder what would happen if I took an afternoon off. How long is it since I had a holiday, Miss Delmege?”
“You’ve not had one since I’ve been here,” declared her secretary, “and that’s nearly a year.”
“Exactly. But then I can’t understand putting anything before the work, personally.”
Char returned to her pile of letters and Miss Delmege went on with her writing in a glow of admiration, and resolved that, after all, she would come and work on Sunday morning, although nominally no one came to the office on Sundays except the clerks who took turns for telephone duty, and Miss Vivian herself in the afternoon.
The morning was a busy one. Telephone calls seemed incessant, and the operator downstairs was unintelligent and twice cut Miss Vivian off in the midst of an important trunk call.
“Hallo! hallo! are you there? Miss Henderson, what the dickens are you doing? You’ve cut me off again.”
Char banged the receiver down impatiently with one hand, while the other continued to make rapid calculations on a large sheet of foolscap. She possessed and exercised to the full the faculty of following two or more trains of thought at the same moment.
Presently she rang her bell sharply, the customary signal that she was ready to dictate her letters.
Each department was supposed to possess its own typewriter and to make use of it, and the services of the shorthand-typist, who was amongst the few paid workers in the office, were exclusively reserved for Miss Vivian.
The work entailed was no sinecure, the more especially since Miss Collins was obdurate as to her time-limit of ten to five-thirty. But it was never difficult for Miss Vivian to commandeer volunteer typists from the departments when her enormous correspondence appeared to her to require it.
“Good-morning, Miss Vivian.”
“Good-morning,” said Char curtly, unsmiling. Miss Collins always gave her a sense of irritation. She was so jauntily competent, so consciously independent of the office.
Shorthand-typists could always find work in the big Questerham manufacturing works, and Miss Collins had only been secured for the Supply Depôt with difficulty. She received two pounds ten shillings a week, never worked overtime, and had every Saturday afternoon off. Miss Vivian had once, in the early days of Miss Collins, suggested that she might like to wear uniform, and had received a smiling and unqualified negative, coupled with a candid statement of Miss Collins’s views as to the undesirability of combining clerical work with the exhausting activities required in meeting and feeding the troop-trains.
“I should be sorry to think that any of my staff would shirk the little additional work which brings them into contact with the men who have risked their lives for England,” had been the freezing finale with which the dialogue had been brought to a close by the disgusted Miss Vivian.
Since then her stenographer had continued to frequent her presence in transparent and décolletées blouses, with short skirts swinging above silk-stockinged ankles and suede shoes. Even her red, fluffy curls were unnecessarily decked with half a dozen sparkling prongs. But she was very quick and intelligent, and Miss Vivian had perforce to accept her impudent prettiness and complete independence.
Char never, after the first week, made the mistake of supposing that Miss Collins would ever fall under that spell of personal magnetism to which the rest of the office was in more or less complete subjection, and she consequently wasted no smile upon her morning greeting.
“This is to the Director-General of Voluntary Organizations, and please do not use abbreviations. Kindly head the letter in full.”
Miss Collins’s small manicured hand ran easily over her notebook, leaving a trail of cabalistic signs behind it.
Char leant back, half-closing her eyes in a way which served to emphasize the tired shadows beneath them, and proceeded with her fluent, unhampered dictation.
She was seldom at a loss for a word, and had a positive gift for the production of rhetorical periods which never failed to impress Miss Delmege, still writing at her corner table. In spite of frequent interruptions, Char proceeded unconcernedly enough, until at the eleventh entry of a messenger she broke into an impatient exclamation:
“Miss Delmege, please deal for me!”
Miss Delmege swept forward, annihilating the unhappy bearer of the card with a look of deep reproach, as she took it from her.
“I’m afraid it’s some one to see you,” she faltered deprecatingly.
Char frowned and took the card impatiently, and Miss Delmege stood by looking nervous, as she invariably did when her chief appeared annoyed. Char Vivian, however, although frequently impatient, was not a passionate woman, and however much she might give rein to her tongue, seldom lost control of her temper, for the simple reason that she never lost sight of herself or of her own effect upon her surroundings.
Her face cleared as she read the card.
“Please ask Captain Trevellyan to come up here.”
The messenger disappeared thankfully and Miss Delmege retreated relievedly to her corner.
Char leant back again in her capacious chair, a sheaf of papers, at which she only cast an occasional glance, before her.
She was not at all averse to being found in this attitude, which she judged to be most typical of herself and her work, and for an instant after Captain Trevellyan’s booted tread had paused upon the threshold she affected unawareness of his presence and did not raise her eyes.
“... I am in receipt of your letter of even date, and would inform you in reply....”
“Oh, John! So you’ve come for an official inspection?”
“Since you’re never to be seen any other way,” he returned, laughing, and grasping her hand.
“I ought to send you away; we’re in the midst of a heavy day’s work.”
“Don’t you think you might call a — a sort of truce of God, for the moment, and tell me something about this office of yours? I’m much impressed by all I hear.”
Miss Delmege, judging from her chief’s smile that this suggestion was approved of, brought forward a chair, and acknowledged Captain Trevellyan’s protesting thanks with a genteel bend at the waist and a small, tight smile.
The amenities of social intercourse were always strictly held in check by the limits of off
icialdom by Miss Vivian’s staff, with the exception of the unregenerate Miss Collins, who tucked her pencil into her belt, uncrossed her knees, and rose from her chair.
“I’m afraid I’m interrupting you,” said Trevellyan politely, addressing his remark to Char, but casting a quite unnecessary look at the now smiling Miss Collins.
“I’ve nearly finished,” said Char.
“Shall I come back later?” suggested Miss Collins gaily, swinging a turquoise heart from the end of an outrageously long gold chain.
“I will ring if I want you,” said Miss Vivian in tones eminently calculated to allay any assumption of indispensability on the part of her employée.
With a freezing eye she watched Miss Collins swing jauntily from the room, her red head cocked at an angle that enabled her to throw a farewell dimple in the direction of Captain Trevellyan.
“Is that one of your helpers?” was the rather infelicitously worded inquiry which John was inspired to put as Miss Collins disappeared.
“The office stenographer,” said Char curtly.
“Why don’t you have poor old Miss Bruce up here? She’s longing to help you — couldn’t talk about anything but this place last night.”
“Dear old Brucey!” said Char, with more languor than enthusiasm in her voice. “But there are one or two reasons why it wouldn’t quite do to have her in the office; we have to be desperately official here, you know. Besides, it’s such a comfort to get back in the evenings to some one who doesn’t look upon me as the Director of the Midland Supply Depôt! I sometimes feel I’m turning into an organization instead of a human being.”
Collected Works of E M Delafield Page 35