“I’m afraid I must speak to Miss Vivian herself.”
“One moment, please.”
The doctor waited, and presently the voice said: “I’ve put you through to Miss Vivian.”
“Hallo!” exclaimed a weary tone. “Miss Vivian speaking.”
“Good-evening,” said the doctor briskly. “What time am I to call for you tomorrow afternoon?”
“Oh, is that you, Dr. Prince? But you really mustn’t trouble to call for me; I can hire something.”
“Not on Christmas Eve.”
“Perhaps not. Well, let me see. Unless anything unforeseen occurs I think I could get away by eight.”
“That will do splendidly,” ruefully said the doctor, aware of sacrificing truth to diplomacy. “I suppose your office work will go on without you just the same?”
There was a pause, which the doctor interpreted as an astounded one.
“The office will treat Christmas Day as a Sunday. It will probably be necessary for me to come in during the afternoon, as I do on Sundays, but only for a few hours.”
The doctor gathered himself together for a Machiavellian effort.
“Why not leave that very intelligent little secretary of yours, Miss Jones, to take your place?”
“A junior clerk? Out of the question. But I needn’t trouble you with those details, of course. As a matter of fact, no one will be here on Christmas Day except the telephone clerk.”
“I strongly advise you to leave Miss Jones in charge, if I may be permitted to suggest it.”
“Miss Jones,” said Char, very distinctly, “has none of the experience necessary for a position of responsibility, and I should not dream of entrusting her with one. She will have nothing whatever to do with the office during my absence.”
The triumph of diplomacy was complete.
“In that case,” said the doctor in a great hurry, “your mother need have no scruple as to inviting her out to Plessing for Christmas. I know she wants to — in fact, I’m charged with the invitation — but it seemed incredible that you should be able to spare her from her work. But I mustn’t keep you. Good-night, Miss Vivian. At eight tomorrow I’ll come for you both. Good-bye.”
The triumphant doctor put back the receiver.
“Hoist with her own petard!” he muttered to himself in great satisfaction.
That afternoon he found time to call on Miss Bruce, on the verge of departure from Char’s lodgings, and triumphantly charged her with a message for Lady Vivian.
“Tell her that I’ve arranged the whole thing, and Miss Jones is coming out tomorrow evening in the car to spend Christmas.”
“At Plessing? But why?” asked the astonished Miss Bruce.
“Because Lady Vivian wants her,” said the doctor stoutly. “She’s taken a fancy to her, and I’m sure I don’t wonder. A charming girl!”
“I had an idea that Miss Vivian never thought her very efficient,” doubtfully remarked Miss Bruce.
“There are a great many people whom she doesn’t think efficient, although they’ve been at their job more years than she’s been out of long clothes; but in this case it serves our turn very well. She’ll be out of that confounded office for a couple of days.”
“Does Miss Vivian know this?”
“Dear me, yes,” said the doctor glibly. “I talked it all over with her on the telephone this morning. That’s quite all right. Now, Miss Bruce, supposing you let me give you a lift to the station? It’s going to snow again.”
Miss Bruce accepted gratefully, and the doctor felt slightly ashamed of his own strategy for avoiding any possible conversation between her and Char on the subject of Miss Jones’s visit to Plessing.
Diplomacy was not an easy career.
Nothing now remained, however, but to tell Miss Jones of her invitation and to insure her acceptance of it.
The indefatigable doctor stopped his car at the door of the Hostel soon after half-past seven that evening.
“Would Miss Jones be good enough to speak to me for a moment?” he inquired, when Mrs. Bullivant came to the door.
“I’m sorry, but I think she’s out. Some of the girls have gone to the theatre tonight. Is it a message from Miss Vivian?” the Superintendent asked anxiously.
“Not exactly,” was the evasion exacted by diplomacy.
“Shall I give her any message when she gets back?”
“Yes, yes; that might be best,” eagerly said the doctor, conscious of cowardice. “Would you tell her that Lady Vivian — and — and Miss Vivian — are both expecting her at Plessing tomorrow evening, to spend a couple of days? Lady Vivian particularly wants to see her again, and it will be good for her to have some one to cheer her up. Tell Miss Jones that it’s all been arranged, and I’ll call for her at the office tomorrow evening at eight o’clock and drive her out. I’ve got to go out there in any case, and the last train goes at four, so they must go by road.”
“Well, I’m sure that will be delightful for her!” exclaimed the unsuspecting Mrs. Bullivant. “How very kind of Miss Vivian!”
“Yes. It’s Lady Vivian, of course, who really suggested the idea, one day when I happened to mention Miss Jones. She likes her very much, and, of course, it’s lonely for her now. I’m glad this should have been thought of,” said the doctor, with a great effect of detachment. “Well, I mustn’t keep you at the door in this cold. It’s freezing tonight again, unless I’m much mistaken. Good-night.”
“Good-night, doctor. I won’t forget the message. I’m delighted that Gracie should have such a treat.”
The doctor, as he drove away, was delighted too, with himself and with the success of his manoeuvres. He thought that Lady Vivian would be very glad to see the girl for whom she evidently felt such a sense of comradeship, and he, like Mrs. Bullivant, was glad of the pleasure for Grace; but, most of all, the doctor felt a guilty satisfaction in the knowledge of having successfully outwitted the Director of the Midland Supply Depôt.
XV
“Tell Miss Vivian that we can’t wait; we must start at once. The sleet has been falling, and the roads will be impossible in less than an hour. I don’t know how the car will do it as it is.”
Dr. Prince was harassed but determined.
Miss Marsh reluctantly took this message upstairs. She had already had occasion to observe during the course of the evening that Miss Vivian was in no frame of mind to welcome interruptions.
“I’m not ready.”
“No, Miss Vivian.”
Miss Marsh stood unhappily in the doorway.
“What the dickens are you standing there for?” cried Miss Vivian in exasperated tones.
Miss Marsh was standing there from her own intimate conviction of being placed between the devil and the deep sea, and her extreme reluctance to confront the impatient doctor with Miss Vivian’s unsatisfactory reply. To her great relief, she found Grace in conversation with him.
“Well, is she coming?”
“The moment she can, Dr. Prince. She really won’t be long now,” was Miss Marsh’s liberal interpretation of her chief’s message.
“The thaw isn’t going to wait for her,” said the doctor grimly. “It’s begun already, and after three weeks’ frost we shall have the roads like a sheet of glass.”
“I think I hear the telephone,” said Miss Marsh, hastening away, thankful of the opportunity to escape before the doctor should request her to return with his further commands to Miss Vivian.
But presently Char came downstairs in her fur coat and heavy motoring veil, carrying a huge sheaf of papers and a small bag.
“I’m sorry you’ve been kept waiting. I was afraid that, as I told you, I might not be able to start punctually.”
“It’s this confounded change in the weather,” said the doctor disconsolately. “How could one guess that it would choose tonight to begin to rain after three weeks’ black frost? However, I dare say it won’t have thawed yet. Come along. At any rate, it won’t be quite so cold.”
The li
ttle car standing at the door was a very small two-seater, with a tiny raised seat at the back.
“Where will you sit, Miss Vivian, with me in front or on the back seat?” inquired the doctor unconcernedly. “Have either of you any preference?”
“I think I’d better come in front,” said the Director of the Midland Supply Depôt, very coldly. She took no notice of Miss Jones.
It was very dark, and a thin, cold rain had begun to fall. The doctor groaned, and drove out of Questerham as rapidly as he dared. On the high road it was already terribly slippery. After the car had twice skidded badly, the doctor said resignedly: “Well, we must make up our minds to crawl. Lady Vivian will guess what’s delayed us. I hope you had dinner before starting?”
“Yes, thank you,” replied Grace serenely.
“Naturally, I haven’t been able to leave the office, but then I never have dinner till about nine o’clock,” Char said. “I’ve almost forgotten what it is to keep civilized hours.”
“Then, all I can say is, that you’ll be extremely hungry before we get to Plessing,” was the doctor’s only reply to this display of patriotism.
The car crawled along slowly. About four miles out of the town the doctor ventured slightly to increase speed. “Otherwise we shall never get up this hill,” he prophesied.
“It’s better here, I think,” said Char.
“I think it is. Now for it.”
The pace of the little car increased for about a hundred yards. Then there was a long grinding jar and a violent swerve.
“Confound her! she’s in the ditch!” cried the doctor. “Are you all right there, Miss Jones?”
“Yes,” gasped the shaken Grace, clinging to her perch.
“Get out,” the doctor commanded Miss Vivian, in tones that suggested his complete oblivion of their respective positions as regarded official dignity. Char obeyed gingerly, and stood grasping the door of the car.
“Take care; it’s like a sheet of ice.”
The doctor slid and staggered round to the front of his car, the two front wheels of which were deeply sunken in the snow and slush of the ditch. He made a disconsolate examination by the light of the lamps.
“Stuck as tight as wax. Now, what the deuce are we to do?”
“Can’t we move her? asked Grace.
“Not much chance of it, but we might as well try.”
Grace got down, and they strained at the car, but without any success.
“No use,” said the doctor briefly. “I think you two had better stay here while I get back to Questerham — we’re nearer Questerham than Plessing, I fancy — and bring something out. Though, good heavens! I’d forgotten it’s Christmas Eve. What on earth shall I get?”
“I can authorize you to call up one of the ambulance cars.”
“That’s an idea. I’m sorrier than I can say to leave you on the roadside like this,” said the doctor distractedly. “Put the rug round you both, and if anything comes past, get a lift. The car will be all right. I defy the most determined thief to make her move an inch. H’m! I must take one of these lamps, and I’ll make as much haste as this confounded sheet of ice will allow.”
“Wait!” cried Grace. “I can hear something coming, I think.”
They stood and listened. The hoot of a very distant motor-horn came to them distinctly.
“Coming towards us,” was the doctor’s verdict. “With any luck it’ll take you both back to Questerham. It’s your best chance of getting to bed tonight. Miss Vivian, you’re shivering. Confound it all, it’s enough to give you both pneumonia, hanging about on a night like this! What an old fool I’ve been!”
“It couldn’t be helped, could it?” said Grace. “There were no trains running after four o’clock, and we couldn’t guess the weather would change so. And it isn’t nearly so cold as it has been.”
“Have a cigarette?” said the doctor suddenly, lighting his own pipe. “It’ll help you to keep warm.”
“Smoking in uniform is entirely out of order, but for this once — thank you,” said Miss Vivian, with a slight laugh.
The sound of a motor-bicycle became unmistakable, and the doctor advanced cautiously into the middle of the road.
“Ahoy, there! Could you stop half a minute? We’ve had a spill. Two ladies here.”
“Is that Dr. Prince?” came a voice that made Char exclaim: “It’s John Trevellyan!”
The motor-bicycle, with its small side-car, drew up beside them.
“Have you had a telephone message?” said John.
“From Plessing? No. What’s happened?” said the doctor sharply.
The two men exchanged a look.
Char came forward.
“You’d better tell me,” she said in her slow, deep drawl.
“Cousin Joanna telephoned just before eight o’clock, but you must have started,” John said gently. “She wanted to ask Dr. Prince to make as much haste as possible — and you.”
“My father?”
“I’m afraid it’s another stroke, my dear.”
The doctor asked a few rapid professional questions, and Grace came and stood near Char Vivian.
“When you didn’t come,” said John, “Miss Bruce got anxious, and felt sure there’d been a spill. Cousin Joanna was upstairs, with him; I don’t think she realized. So I brought the only thing I could get hold of. You can ride a motor-bike, doctor?”
“Of course I can. But we can’t leave two young ladies planted in a ditch, with that confounded machine of mine,” said the doctor, his distress finding vent in irritability.
“There’s the side-car,” said Grace. “Miss Vivian must go with you, doctor.”
“Can’t we get your machine out of the ditch?” John suggested.
“Not unless you’re a Hercules,” said the doctor crossly. He began to examine the motor-bicycle.
“I can manage this all right, though no machine on earth will do anything but crawl on such a road. Miss Vivian, that will be our best plan.”
“Yes,” said Char, very quietly. “And, Johnnie, can you look after Miss — er — Jones, and take her back to Questerham?”
“Get in, Char,” said Trevellyan. “I shall certainly look after Miss Jones, and bring her out to Plessing somehow or other. Your mother wants her. Send anything you can to meet us, doctor.”
“Right; but I’m afraid we can’t count on meeting anything tonight, of all nights. Miss Jones, I’m so sorry. All right there?”
The motor-bicycle, with a push from Trevellyan, jolted slowly away along the slippery road, and John and Miss Jones stood facing one another by the indifferent light of the motor-lamps.
Grace looked at him with her direct, gentle gaze. “Please tell me whether you really meant that,” she said. “Does Lady Vivian want me at Plessing just the same?”
“Yes,” he answered, with equal directness. “She said so. She told me to bring you. She said she wanted you.”
Grace drew a long breath, then said: “We shall have to walk, sha’n’t we?”
“I’m afraid so — at least part of the way. Unless you’d rather stay in the car, and keep as warm as you can, while I go on to Questerham and try to get hold of something that will take us both out? I’m going back there, of course. Which shall we do, Miss Jones?”
“Walk, I think. It’s only about five miles, and I doubt if you could get anything tonight to go out all the way to Plessing.”
“I think we can go across the fields, if you don’t mind rough walking. It saves nearly a mile, and the only advantage of keeping to the road would be the chance of meeting something, which I think most unlikely. Miss Jones, you’re splendid. Do you mind very much?”
“Not now that I know Lady Vivian really wants me,” said Grace shyly.
Trevellyan unhooked one of the lamps.
“Shall I carry the other one?”
“It will make your hands very cold, and I think one will be enough. Have you anything that you must take?”
“My bag; it isn’t heav
y.”
“Right. Then give it to me, and you take the lamp, if you will.” Grace obeyed without any of the protestations which might have appeared suitable, and they started very cautiously down the road.
“Keep to the side,” said Trevellyan; “it’s not very bad there. I’m afraid you’ll never get warm at this rate, but a broken leg would be awkward.”
“Tell me what happened at Plessing.”
He told her that Sir Piers had suddenly had a second stroke that afternoon, and was again lying unconscious. Lady Vivian had come down and spoken with Trevellyan for a few minutes, and assured him that the trained nurse would not allow her to relinquish hope.
“But it all depends upon what one means by hope,” said Trevellyan. “One can hardly bear to think of his lying there day after day, unable to understand or to make himself understood — and as for her—”
“She is very brave,” said Grace.
There was a silence, and each was thinking of Joanna.
Presently Trevellyan spoke again.
“We shall turn off in a minute and take the short cut. Are you very cold?”
“Pretty cold, but I’m glad I had dinner before starting. Did you?”
“No, worse luck! I started from Plessing at half-past eight, and the servants were in such a fuss. I’m fearfully hungry,” said Trevellyan candidly.
“Well, wait a minute.”
Grace stood still and put the lamp on the ground while she felt in her coat-pocket.
“I thought so. I’ve a packet of chocolate. Will you take it?”
“Thank you,” said Trevellyan seriously; “it’s very kind of you. Let’s both have some.”
Grace divided the little packet scrupulously, and they stood and ate it with their backs to the hedge, the bag and the lamp on the ground in front of them.
“Christmas Eve!” said Grace. “Isn’t it extraordinary?”
“Where were you last Christmas?” he asked.
“In the hospital, near my home. We were decorating the wards for Christmas, and all stayed there very late. There was a convoy in, too, I remember; the nurses stayed on long after we’d all gone home. I was only a clerk, you know.”
“I remember. You told me that when you — on the night of the air-raid,” said the tactful Trevellyan, with a very evident recollection of the unfortunate disability which debarred Miss Jones from the nursing profession.
Collected Works of E M Delafield Page 50