“I know you have,” said Grace. “Perhaps that may prevent her from wanting to come here.”
Miss Marsh looked gloomy, and then bounded up as a tap sounded on the door.
“What did I tell you? I’ll take any bet you like that’s Delmege nosing round now. I know the way she swishes her petticoat — such swank, wearing a silk one under uniform! Well, I’m not going to interfere with her.”
Miss Marsh bounced behind her screen.
“Come in,” Grace called.
“Say I’m undressing,” Miss Marsh issued a whispered command.
Miss Delmege stepped elegantly into the room, her favourite “fawn” peignoir chastely gathered round her.
“You alone, dear?”
“No, she isn’t. I’m undressing,” said a sharp voice behind the screen.
Miss Delmege ignored the voice, and laid a patronizingly affectionate hand upon Grace’s shoulder.
“What thick hair you have, dear! Quite a work brushing it, I should think. Now, mine is so long that it’s never had time to get really thick, though I know you wouldn’t guess it to look at it, but that’s the way it grows. As a child I used to have a perfect mass. Mother always used to say about me, ‘That child Vera’s strength has all gone into her hair, every bit of it.’ It used to make her quite anxious, to see me without a bit of colour in my face and this great mass of hair.”
“What made it all fall out, Delmege?” came incisively from behind the screen.
Miss Delmege tossed the long attenuated plait of straight fair hair which hung artlessly over one shoulder, and simulated deafness.
“I just looked in as it’s your last night here,” she told Grace. “We shall miss you, I’m sure. Tell me, dear, have you any idea who is coming into this room in your place?”
“Not any,” hastily said Grace, as Miss Marsh’s boot was dropped on the floor with a clatter that argued a certain degree of energy in removing it. “I suppose it will be arranged by the new Superintendent.”
“It might be kinder,” said Miss Delmege thoughtfully, “to have all that sort of thing in order before she arrives. She’ll have plenty to do without changes of bedroom. But of course this is a room for two, there’s no doubt about it. I’ve sometimes thought of a move myself, and this might be a good opportunity—”
The second boot was violently sent to rejoin its fellow.
“Strange, the noise that goes on in here, isn’t it, with only the pair of you, too. I wonder it doesn’t disturb you; but perhaps you’re used to it?”
“If you don’t like noise, Delmege, don’t come in here,” exclaimed the still invisible Miss Marsh. “I never could bear creeping about without a sound, like a cat, myself.”
“I dare say not,” Miss Delmege returned, with a certain spurious assumption of extreme gentleness in her little refined enunciation. “But I hope we all know what give and take is in sharing a room — especially in war-time.”
“There’s more take than give about some of us, by all accounts, especially in the matter of kettles and early tea,” was the retort of Miss Marsh, spoken with asperity.
Miss Delmege turned to Grace.
“Well, dear, as I don’t propose to have words either now or at any other hour, I shall say good-night. Do you mean to say you manage with only one screen?”
“Quite well. Besides, there are two round the other bed.”
“I dare say that’s very necessary,” said Miss Delmege pointedly, as she moved to the door. “Good-night, dear.”
“Good-night,” said Grace, not without thankfulness.
“Good-night,” repeated Miss Delmege to the screen. “When I’m in here, I shall certainly insist upon having an extra screen. I can’t imagine how anybody can manage with one only. And each will keep to her own side of the room, too, instead of leaving her things all over the other’s. What I call untidy, some of these arrangements are. But, of course, it’s all what one’s been used to, isn’t it?”
Leaving no time for a reply to this favourite inquiry, Miss Delmege shut the door gently behind her.
Grace, proceeding to bed under the flow of eloquence directed at her from behind Miss Marsh’s screen, conjectured that the bedroom would know no lack of spirited conversation between its inmates in the future.
The next morning Miss Marsh asked her at breakfast: “Shall you go and say good-bye to Miss Vivian?”
“I don’t think it’s necessary, is it?” Grace said hesitatingly.
“I can easily find out for you, dear, if she can see you for a moment,” Miss Delmege kindly volunteered.
The opinion of the Hostel instantly veered round to an irrevocable certainty that a farewell to Miss Vivian was not necessary.
“After all, she’d only say she was too busy to see you.”
“Or say she couldn’t conscientiously recommend you for clerical work, as she did to poor Plumtree when she gave in her resignation the other day.”
“After Plumtree has toiled over those beastly averages for the best part of two years!”
It was evident that the temper of the staff, for one reason or another, was undergoing a very thorough reaction indeed.
Only Miss Delmege remarked firmly: “I know nothing about Plumtree’s work, I’m sure, but if there’s one thing Miss Vivian is, it’s just. Quite impartially speaking, one can’t help seeing that, and especially being, as I am, in the position of her secretary. As I always say, I get at the human side of her.”
“Inhuman, I call it,” muttered Tony, Miss Plumtree’s chief ally.
“Wherever a recommendation is possible, Miss Vivian always gives it,” inflexibly replied Miss Delmege. “I can answer for that.”
Few things received less consideration in the Hostel than Miss Delmege in process of answering for the Director of the Midland Supply Depôt, and Miss Marsh, Tony, and Miss Henderson dashed simultaneously into discussion of a project for seeing Grace off at the station.
“We can get off at lunch-time, and your train goes at 1.30, doesn’t it, Gracie?”
“Yes, and I’d love you to come; only what about your lunch?”
But every one said that didn’t matter at all, and that, of course, dear old Gracie must have a proper send-off.
“How nice they all are to me!” thought Grace, and recklessly purchased a supply of cigarettes, which she left with Mrs. Bullivant, for the consolation of the Hostel during many Sunday afternoons to come.
“We shall meet at Plessing,” the little Superintendent said, kissing her affectionately, “and it will be a great pleasure to work with you, Miss Jones dear, and you must tell me all Lady Vivian likes, you know, and how we can help her most.”
“You’ll like working for her very much,” Grace prophesied confidently. “Good-bye, dear Mrs. Bullivant, and thank you for all your kindness to me.”
She ran down the steps and would not look back, conscious of emotion.
At the station the members of the staff were to appear when possible. But as Grace crossed Pollard Street, glancing involuntarily at the familiar office door, Miss Delmege, with a most unusual disregard for propriety, emerged hastily, hatless and with her neat coils of hair ruffled in the wind.
“Good-bye, dear. It’s sad to lose you, but I’m sure I hope you’ll like your new job. I must say, it’s been a pleasure to work with you.”
“Oh, I’m so glad! How kind of you!”
“It’s not every one I could say it to,” Miss Delmege observed, with great truth. “But there’s never been the least little difficulty, has there? We shall all miss you, and I must say I could wish that some others I could name were leaving in your place.”
Grace knew too well the nameless being alluded to, however feebly disguised by the use of the plural. “Couldn’t you get away to the station?” she asked hastily.
“Well, dear, I would, but really, with so many others there — to tell you the truth, that Miss Marsh is beginning to get on my nerves a bit. Besides, you see, if I went off early, Miss Vivian might th
ink it rather strange.”
On this unanswerable reason, Grace took a cordial farewell of Miss Vivian’s unalterably loyal remaining secretary.
At the station Tony and Mrs. Potter hailed her eagerly. “We got down early, but the others are coming. There’s an awful crowd, dear; better hurry.”
Grace, in obedience to their urgings, purchased her ticket, while Mrs. Potter looked after the luggage and Tony took possession for her of a corner seat facing the engine.
“Here you are, and remember,” said Mrs. Potter earnestly, “that you can get a cup of nice hot tea at the Junction. There’ll be plenty of time; I found out on purpose.”
“Thank you very much,” said Grace gratefully. She stood at the window, and presently Tony and Mrs. Potter were joined by several other members of the staff, all hurried, but eager to take an affectionate farewell of Gracie.
“Marsh ought to be here — can’t think why she isn’t. She was tearing about like mad so as to get off in time,” said Miss Plumtree.
“That girl will come into heaven late,” Miss Henderson prophesied, and looked gratified when her neighbour emitted a faint, shocked exclamation.
“Give her my love if she’s too late, and say I’m so very sorry,” said Grace.
“You’ll be off in a minute now.”
“Mind you come back next month all right. We’ll come down and meet you.”
“I should like that so much. I shall look out on this very platform for you all.”
“Oh, Gracie! shall we any of us ever see this awful platform without thinking of those troop-trains and the ghastly weight of the trays?”
“Never!” said Grace with entire conviction.
“There’s the whistle — you’re off now.”
“And here’s Marsh — she’ll just do it. Look at her!”
Grace hung out of the window, and saw the ever tardy Miss Marsh hastening up the crowded platform, making free use of her elbows.
“I started too late — that wretched Delmege pretended I was wanted — so sorry, Gracie dear. Mind you write.”
“Yes, yes. And please do all write to me when you have time, and tell me all your news. And we’ll meet again next month, as soon as I get back.”
The train was moving now, and only the panting and energetic Miss Marsh hastened along beside it, her hand on the carriage window.
“Good-bye, good-luck. I shall miss you dreadfully in our room. Don’t be surprised if you hear that Delmege and I have had words together; that girl simply gets on my nerves.”
“Stand back there, please.”
“Good-bye, Gracie!”
“Good-bye.”
Grace stood at the window and waved to the little group until the blue uniforms were lost to sight and only the flutter of Tony’s handkerchief was still visible.
The Hostel days were over, but she would remember them always with a smile for the small hardships that had been tempered by so much kindness and merriment, and with a faithful recollection of the good companionship that work and the comradeship of workers ever had brought her.
To John Trevellyan in the trenches, Grace wrote something of her thoughts two days later, amid much else.
“I’m so glad I went to Questerham, apart from everything else, for the experience. The Hostel life was sometimes uncomfortable, but it was always amusing; and when all was said and done, everybody was ready to do anything or everything for any one else. I can’t believe I was only there such a little while, for more happened to me there, and I got into realer touch with more people, than ever before.
“And now the New Year is only just beginning, and there have been so many changes and happenings already. I wonder so much what else it is going to bring to all of us who were together in Questerham.”
XX
To Grace Jones herself the New Year, speeding on its way until it was new no longer, brought much work in the convalescent home at Plessing, the glad realization of Joanna Vivian’s need of her, and innumerable unstamped letters bearing the field postmark. The quality of Miss Jones’s peculiar philosophy was much tested as the months went by, but it was characteristic of her to be much heartened and rejoiced by an announcement confided to her soon after her return by Miss Marsh.
“The boy I was such pals with has been sent back on sick leave, and they’re not sending him out again. And if you’ll believe me, dear, I’ve been persuaded into saying yes. He wants it to be quite soon, and really I don’t mind if it is; the Hostel is quite changed nowadays, and not nearly as jolly as it was, now the new Superintendent makes us all so comfortable. Besides, I don’t mind telling you between ourselves, Gracie, that I can’t help fancying me going off like that and coming back with a wedding-ring and all will be rather a knock in the eye for our old friend Delmege.”
If this kindly prognostication was verified, Miss Delmege gave no sign of it, beyond introducing several additional shades of superiority into the manner of her congratulations.
“Strange, isn’t it?” she observed with a small and tight smile, “to see the way some people put all sorts of personal considerations first and the work afterwards! Personally, I agree with Miss Vivian on the subject.”
In agreement with Miss Vivian, on that as on all else, Miss Delmege continued to find solace. The promotion of Miss Bruce to Grace Jones’s vacant place in Miss Vivian’s office was a source of disquiet to her for some time, but the bond of a common admiration at last asserted itself, and found expression in their united efforts to persuade Miss Vivian to her lunch every day. There was also infinite consolation to Miss Delmege in her assertions, frequently heard at the Hostel, that nowhere was the human side of the Director of the Midland Supply Depôt so touchingly and unmistakably shown as in the occasional unofficial lapses which led her to address her secretary as “Brucey.”
The Hostel saw rapid changes when Tony and Miss Plumtree had both become munition-workers, and Miss Bullivant had gone to Plessing. The war-workers became the victims of a series of new superintendents, each of whom found insuperable difficulty in accommodating herself to the arbitrary ruling of Miss Vivian, and either departed summarily or received a curt dismissal. Finally, an energetic Scotswoman established herself at the Hostel and, as Miss Vivian had become exceedingly weary of the quest, remained there unchallenged. She was a better manager than little Mrs. Bullivant, and made drastic reformations in many directions, several of which were ungratefully received by the older members of the community.
“For I must say,” Mrs. Potter told Miss Henderson, “it was a good deal more sociable in the old days, when we made toast for tea over the sitting-room fire on Sunday afternoons, and Dr. Prince dropped in and told us all the news.”
It was Tony and Miss Plumtree who dropped in now, and did their best to bridge the gulf that had yawned so long between the munition-workers’ Hostel and that sacred to Miss Vivian’s clerical staff.
“It’s all very well,” Miss Plumtree instructively remarked as she lounged in holland overalls and a pair of baggy but entirely unmistakable garments from which Miss Delmege kept her eyes studiously averted. “It’s all very well, but working at munitions gives one a bit of an idea as to what one’s working for. You people may think it’s all Miss Vivian’s personality, etc., etc., but I can tell you that’s a jolly small part of the whole show.”
The independence of Miss Plumtree’s manner, as well as a new and strange slanginess developed both by her and by little Miss Anthony, was noted by their old companions without enthusiasm.
“After all,” Tony chimed in patronizingly, “you really have the best of it. Troop-trains simply aren’t in it with our work. Standing all day long, and shifts of twelve hours at a time — and if you turn green, that little reptile of a Welfare Superintendent pouring water all over you and telling you that there’s nothing the matter.”
A shade of reminiscence, almost of regret, passed over her face.
“At all events, Miss Vivian never did that — and she was pretty to look at. Every one
is hideous at the works — especially Jawbones.”
“And who,” Mrs. Potter distantly inquired, “is Jawbones?”
Her tone implied that there were nick-names and nicknames, and that those in use amongst the habituées of the munitions-factory would meet with little or no admiration from the refined inhabitants of the Hostel.
“That’s what we call the Superintendent,” Tony said airily.
Miss Delmege, her lips drawn into an extremely thin line, uttered her solitary contribution to the conversation, before retiring with marked aloofness to the bedroom where she hoped to defeat her old antagonist, Miss Marsh, by annexing all three screens and the largest kettle of hot water.
“I must say, it does seem to me that a happy medium might be found between doing your war work entirely for the sake of whoever’s at the head of it, and calling your superintendent ‘Jawbones.’”
The conclusion was so irrefutable, that even the new-born independence acquired by the munition-makers could produce no adequate reply.
It might even be inferred from the unusual thoughtfulness with which the holland-clad enthusiasts took their departure, that neither was devoid of an occasional pang at the memory of the old days of blind obedience and enthusiastic loyalty to the ideal which Char Vivian, with all her autocratic charm and occasional flashes of kindness, still represented.
As Dr. Prince had said, “the Vivians of Plessing stood for the highest in the land.”
The doctor seldom came to the Hostel now, for time had brought him more work than ever, and he spared himself none of it. Only at Plessing could he sometimes be persuaded to spend half an hour in talking to Grace or Lady Vivian after his medical inspection was over.
“A wonderful work you’re doing here,” he told Joanna with satisfaction. “I wish all our great houses could be turned to such good use — and all our lady-workers too,” added the doctor with some significance. “When all’s said and done, nursing is women’s work and no one else’s, and the ruling of hospital discipline and the disposal of cases for Medical Boards, or anything else, ought to be left to the Medical Officer. That’s my opinion, right or wrong, and will be till my dying day.”
Collected Works of E M Delafield Page 56