“So nice and homelike, all sitting down together with no one in a hurry,” Mrs. Bullivant always said. But she smiled a welcome at Grace.
“I’ve kept your supper nice and hot, dear,” she said, uncovering a plate next to her own. “Come and sit down here, won’t you? You look tired tonight.”
Miss Delmege shot a triumphant glance at Miss Marsh, who pretended not to see it, and did not fail to observe that tired or not, Grace made her usual excellent supper.
“I wonder if any one has any cigs?” Tony suggested wistfully.
“Yes,” said Grace promptly. “Luckily, I have a whole box.”
“Oh, you angel! How lovely! I do hate Sundays without a cigarette. Somehow, on other evenings there never seems to be time to smoke, or else one’s too tired and goes straight to bed.”
In the sitting-room Grace produced her box of cigarettes.
It was almost a matter of course at the Hostel that such things should be treated as belonging more to the community than to the individual.
“Thanks awfully, Gracie.”
“Really? Are you sure? Well, then, thanks so much, if I may — just one.”
“Delmege? Oh, you don’t smoke, though, do you?”
“No, thank you. I dare say I seem old-fashioned, but it’s the way mother brought us all up from children, and I must say I always feel that smoking is — well, rather unwomanly, you know.”
In the face of this commentary Miss Marsh struck a match, and passed it round the room.
The atmosphere became clouded.
“You know,” Grace said rather mischievously to Miss Delmege, “that Miss Vivian smokes?”
“She doesn’t!”
“Indeed she does. Didn’t you know that? Why, I’ve often noticed the smell of tobacco when she hangs up her coat in the office. It’s unmistakable.”
“That might mean anything!” hastily exclaimed Miss Delmege. “Tobacco does cling so. Very likely it hangs all round the house at Plessing, you know, with a man in the house and people always coming and going, probably.”
“You forget that Gracie knows all about Plessing,” cried Miss Marsh instantly. “Of course, she’s seen Miss Vivian at home.”
“And does she really smoke?” asked Tony.
“Yes, she does. Quite a lot, I think.”
“Ah, well, that’s different, isn’t it?” Miss Delmege’s serenity remained quite unimpaired. “One can understand her requiring it. I believe it really is supposed to be soothing, isn’t it? Of course, working as she does, her nerves probably require it. What I mean to say is, she probably requires it for her nerves.”
“I dare say. I wonder where she’ll smoke here?”
“In Mrs. Bullivant’s sitting-room, I suppose. Not that she’ll be here much, I don’t suppose. Only just for her meals, you know, and then to go straight to bed when she gets in.”
“I do hope that her sleeping in Questerham isn’t going to serve her as an excuse for working later than ever!” exclaimed Miss Delmege, in the tones of proprietary concern with which she always spoke of Miss Vivian’s strenuous habits.
“Yes, I see what you mean,” Mrs. Potter agreed. “With her car waiting, she simply had to come away sooner or later.”
“Exactly; and she’s always so considerate for her chauffeur, and every one. I really do think that I’ve never seen any one — and I’m not saying it because it is Miss Vivian, but speaking quite impersonally — any one who went out of her way, as she does, to think of other people.”
“Look at what she did for me — even ordered a cab each way for me!” cried Miss Plumtree, very simply.
“That,” said Miss Delmege gently, “is just Miss Vivian all over.”
Miss Marsh bounced up from her chair, rudely severing the acquiescent silence that followed on this well-worn cliché.
“I’m going up to get my knitting. I simply must get those socks done for Christmas. I suppose no one will be shocked at my knitting on Sunday?”
“Gracious, no! Especially when it’s for the Army. When’s he coming on leave, Marshie?”
“Oh, goodness knows! The poor boy’s in hospital out there. Can I fetch anything for any one while I’m upstairs?”
“My work-basket, if you wouldn’t mind,” said Grace.
“I say,” asked Mrs. Potter, as the door slammed behind Miss Marsh, “is she engaged?”
“Oh no. She has heaps of pals, you know,” Miss Henderson explained. “She’s that sort of girl, I fancy. Haven’t you noticed all the letters she gets with the field postmark? It isn’t always the same boy, either, because there are quite three different handwritings. And her brothers are both in the Navy, so it isn’t them.”
“Well,” said Miss Delmege, with the little air of originality so seldom justified by her utterances, “they say there’s safety in numbers.”
“Here’s your basket, Gracie,” said Miss Marsh, reappearing breathless. “How extraordinarily tidy you are! I always know exactly where to find your things — that is, if mine aren’t all over them!”
“What are you going to make, Gracie?”
“Only put some ribbon in my things. The washing was back last night, instead of tomorrow morning, which will be such a saving of time during the week. I wish it always came on Saturday,” said Grace, serenely drawing out a small folded pile of linen from her capacious and orderly basket.
Every one looked rather awestruck.
“Do you put in ribbon every week?”
“Isn’t it marvellous of her?” Miss Marsh inquired proudly, gazing at her room-mate. “She has such nice things, too.”
Grace uncarded a length of ribbon, and began to thread it through the lace of the garment known to the Hostel as a camisole.
“I can’t say I take the trouble myself. My things go to the wash as they are, ribbon and all. The colour has to take its chances,” said Miss Plumtree.
“Are we going to have any music tonight?” inquired Miss Delmege, with a sudden effect of primness.
The suggestion was received without enthusiasm.
“Then,” Miss Delmege said, with a glance at Grace, who had completed the adornment of her camisole, and was proceeding to unfold yet further garments, “I think I shall go to bed.”
“Do, dear,” Mrs. Bullivant told her kindly. “I hope any one will go early who’s tired.”
Miss Delmege smiled cryptically.
“Well,” she said gently, “underwear in the sitting-room, you know!”
“Oh dear!” cried Grace in tones of dismay. “Is that really why she’s gone upstairs?”
“No loss, either,” Miss Marsh declared stoutly.
“But it’s only my petticoat bodice.”
“I suppose she didn’t know what might be coming next.”
Grace, guiltily conscious of that which might quite well have been coming next but for this timely reminder, hastily completed her work and put it away again.
She leant back in the wicker chair, unconsciously adjusting her weight with due regard to its habit of creaking, and gazed into the red embers of the dying fire.
Her mind was quite abstracted, and she was unaware of the spasmodic conversation carried on all round her.
Her thoughts were at Plessing.
How could Miss Vivian be coming to stay at the Hostel when her father was so ill, and Lady Vivian alone at Plessing? Grace remembered the expression on Joanna’s face when her daughter had said that she could no longer stay away from the office at Questerham.
She supposed that a consent had been extorted from her by Char, unless, indeed, Miss Vivian had not deemed even that formality to be necessary. Grace wondered, with unusual despondency, when or if she should see Lady Vivian again. She felt quite certain now that never again would any pretext induce Char to let her return to Plessing, and was not without a suspicion that she might be made to feel, in her secretarial work, that the Plessing days had not been a success in the eyes of Miss Vivian.
“Never mind; it was quite worth it,”
thought Grace, and it was characteristic of her that the idea of seeking work elsewhere than with the Director of the Midland Supply Depôt never occurred to her.
“A penny for your thoughts, Gracie.”
“Oh, they’re not worth it, Mrs. Potter. They weren’t very far away.”
“Perhaps they were just where mine have been all the evening — with poor Miss Vivian. She’ll be feeling it tonight, poor dear, knowing she’s got to leave tomorrow, and Sir Piers so ill. I do think she’s wonderful.”
“I must say, so do I,” Miss Henderson said thoughtfully. “When she used always to refuse me the afternoon off, or any sort of leave, and say that she couldn’t understand putting anything before the work, I used to resent it sometimes, I must own. But, really, she’s lived up to it herself so splendidly that one can’t ever say another word.”
“Isn’t Sir Piers any better?” asked Miss Plumtree pityingly.
“Not a bit, I think. But he’s not exactly in immediate danger, either. Only the house has to be kept quiet, so I suppose she can’t come backwards and forwards like she used, and it’s a choice between her leaving home or giving up the work altogether.”
“Well, I do think it’s splendid of her!”
“Because, of course,” Tony said, “nobody could take her place here. And I suppose she can’t help knowing that. It will seem extraordinary having her in the Hostel, won’t it?”
“It won’t really be comfortable for her after Plessing, I’m afraid. I wish I could think of some better arrangement....” murmured Mrs. Bullivant to herself.
“Oh, Mrs. Bullivant!” cried Grace Jones. “You couldn’t do more than give up your own bedroom and your own sitting-room to her?”
Then, because the heretical words “And that’s more than she deserves,” were trembling on her tongue, Grace went upstairs to bed.
Her sense of loyalty to her chief did not allow her to throw any doubt on the glory of her return to work under such circumstances.
Moreover, the Hostel’s point of view on the subject was as adamantine as it was universal.
XII
The next morning Char came back to the office. She found her table loaded with violets and a blazing fire on the hearth. Miss Delmege greeted her with an air of admiring wonder, suffused by a tinge of respectful pity, and ventured to hope that Sir Piers Vivian was better.
No one else was sufficiently daring to approach so personal a topic, but little Miss Anthony, blushing brightly, turned round at the door just as she was leaving the room with her work, and said stammeringly that it was so nice to see Miss Vivian back in the office again.
Char smiled.
She was still looking ill, and she knew that her departure from Plessing had been a severe strain on her barely recovered strength. The effort of giving her attention to the arrears of work which required it taxed all her powers of determination.
“Is this all the back work, Miss Delmege?”
“Yes, I think so, Miss Vivian.”
“There are several things here which ought to have been brought to me.”
“I suppose Miss Jones didn’t know.”
“But she ought to have known. It was most annoying having to leave so much to her. She hasn’t the necessary experience for one thing, and is far too fond of acting on her own initiative.”
It gave Char a curious satisfaction to say this in the cool and judicial tones of complete impartiality.
“I shall have a fearful amount to do with these back numbers. Bring me the Hospital files, and the Belgian file, and W.O. letters — and — yes, let me see — Colonial Officers. That will do for the moment; and send for Miss Collins, please.”
The stenographer entered the room with her most dégagé swing, and seated herself opposite to Char, her pad poised upon her crossed knees.
“Good-morning, Miss Vivian,” she said gaily. “Nice to see you back again. I hope you’ve quite got over the influenza?”
“Thank you,” said Char icily. “Please take down a letter to the O.C. London General Hospital.”
She dictated rapidly, but Miss Collins’s shorthand was never at a loss, and at the end of forty minutes she still appeared tireless and quite unruffled.
“That will do, for the moment.”
Miss Collins uncrossed her knees, and looked up.
“I shall be wanting ten days’ leave, Miss Vivian,” was her unprecedented remark.
The scratching of Miss Delmege’s pen paused for a moment, and, although she did not turn round, a tremor agitated her neat, erect back.
Char looked at her unabashed typist.
“There will be no Christmas leave,” she said curtly, taking the resolution on the instant.
“I expect I shall want it before Christmas — about the end of this week. The fact is—”
“I’m sorry, but it’s quite out of the question. Naturally, one rule applies to the whole staff, and I shall not expect any one to be absent from duty except on Christmas Day itself, which will be treated as a Sunday. As for ten days, the suggestion is absurd, Miss Collins. I consider that you’ve practically had ten days’ holiday during my absence — and more.”
“I’ve been here every day as usual, and cut any number of stencils, and rolled them off,” Miss Collins cried indignantly.
“I’m glad to hear it. Why do you want leave now?”
Miss Collins giggled, tried to look coy, and at last said in triumphant tones, which strove to sound matter-of-fact: “I’m going to be married.”
There was silence. Char was drawing a design absently on her blotting-pad.
“My friend is getting leave at the end of next week, and we’ve settled to be married before he goes out again. He’s an Australian boy.”
“Of course, that slightly alters the case,” Char said at last, stiffly. “Do you wish to go on working here just the same?”
“Oh, yes, Miss Vivian. What I feel is, that with him out there, I simply must be doing my bit at home. It’ll take my mind off, too, like, and as he says—”
Char interrupted her ruthlessly.
“In the circumstances, Miss Collins, you can take eight days’ leave at the end of this week. But I may tell you that you have chosen a most inconvenient moment, with the Christmas rush coming on and a great deal of back work to be done.”
Her manner was a dismissal.
Miss Collins left the room.
“Miss Delmege, do you think that we could find some one to replace Miss Collins?”
“For the time — or permanently?”
“While she’s away, I meant. It would be difficult to get any one permanently in her place, I’m afraid. Besides, she’s an extremely good stenographer, and I can’t afford to have one who’ll make mistakes.”
Char paused, and her feminine curiosity conquered official aloofness. “Did you know that she was engaged to be married?”
“I’ve seen her wearing a ring, but, naturally, I never come across her except officially,” was the haughty response of her secretary.
But however detached she might proclaim herself to be, Miss Delmege did not keep the news of Miss Collins’s wedding to herself. In less than twenty-four hours it was known all over the office. It was perhaps fortunate that the Director of the Midland Supply Depôt did not know the number of departments in her office that interspersed the day’s work with discussions as to what Miss Collins would wear as a wedding-dress. The interest of it almost eclipsed the sensation of Char’s own installation at the Hostel.
She arrived there at nine o’clock that night. It would have been possible for her to leave the office a good deal earlier, but she was aware that the members of her staff would not expect any deviation from her usual iron rule, and were probably telling one another at that moment how wonderful it was to think that Miss Vivian should never have her dinner before half-past nine at night.
Char, tired and oddly apprehensive, was inclined to think it rather wonderful herself. The door of the Hostel stood open to the street, as usual, b
ut since the air-raid over Questerham all lights had been carefully shaded, and only the faintest glimmer of a rather dismal green light appeared to welcome Char as she rang the bell.
She thought that the hall looked narrow and dingy, and a large box took up an inconvenient amount of space at the foot of the stairs. Then it occurred to her, with an unpleasant sense of recognition, that the box was her own.
“Is that Miss Vivian?” came a voice through the gloom. “Won’t you come in?”
Char came in, gingerly enough. Then a match was struck, and Mrs. Bullivant anxiously held up a lighted candle to guide her footsteps.
“Just down the step, Miss Vivian, and I’ve got supper all ready for you in my sitting-room. I thought you’d like it best there. Our dining-room is in the basement, you know.”
“Thank you; this will do very well.”
Char looked round the tiny room rather wonderingly. Preparations for a meal stood on a table that was obviously a writing-table pushed against the wall and covered with a white cloth.
“It’ll be ready in one minute, Miss Vivian,” repeated the Hostel Superintendent nervously. “I’ll just go and tell the cook. I expect you must be hungry, and would rather have supper first, and then go to your room. And I’m very sorry, but we’ve had to leave your trunk downstairs. The stairs are rather too narrow, and the maids thought they couldn’t manage it.”
Mrs. Bullivant went away, as though supposing that the last word had been said upon the subject of the trunk.
Char thought otherwise.
In a few minutes Mrs. Bullivant came back with a tray, on which stood a cup of cocoa, another one of soup, and a plate with two pieces of bread. “I thought you’d like soup, as it’s such a cold night,” she said triumphantly. “Now, you must tell me if you have any special likes and dislikes, won’t you? I do so hope you’ll be fairly comfortable here, Miss Vivian. I can’t tell you how very much it’s impressed all the girls, your coming here like this, for the sake of the work. I’m afraid it won’t be as comfortable as Plessing.”
Collected Works of E M Delafield Page 46