But when Noel, with real kindness and real intelligence, began to speak to her about a department of her office with which he had had something to do, asking her opinion and listening attentively, she began to thaw. Her aunt was surprised but pleased to see Leslie’s animation and felt grateful to the Mertons, who in their different ways had roused her niece from the state of apathy in which she had been since her arrival, an apathy that Lady Waring found slightly irritating, though she at once blamed herself for want of charity.
“What I want more than anything at the moment,” said Noel, “is an intelligent person, male or female, to do a good deal of reading for me and make notes. It isn’t hush-hush, but I need it. Do you happen to know anyone in London who would read hundreds of books and pamphlets and make a sort of digest, though the word has unfortunately become rather debased?”
Leslie said it seemed to stand for a mixed literary diet guaranteed to give any educated person literary indigestion in ten minutes. She then opened her mouth to go on speaking, but apparently thought better of it and shut it again.
“If you could hear of anyone, I would pay union rates whatever they are,” said Noel, “and he or she, though more probably the latter I fear, unless I got a superannuated professor, could use my chambers if they like. My Mrs. Cripps is there every day and stirs the dust about.”
“What you would need——” said Leslie, sitting up, reaching over to her aunt’s writing-table for a pencil, and flattening open an old envelope which she took out of the waste-paper basket.
“No,” said Noel, taking the envelope away from her and presenting her with a blank leaf which he tore out of one of those note-books that are held together by rings, “that is the kind of economy in which women are infamous, petty, and not in the least helping to win the war. Now, what would I need?”
“What you would need,” said Leslie, half-annoyed, half-amused, and in any case determined to say what she wanted to say in her own words, “is someone under military age, which is practically too young to be any use now, or someone quite doddering with decay: there doesn’t seem to be much choice. Or someone with fallen arches or T.B.”
“This is what Rose Birkett, now Mrs. Fairweather, the girl Philip Winter was engaged to, used to call foully dispiriting,” said Noel, “but I expect you are right.”
“What an odious girl that Miss Birkett must have been,” said Leslie.
“She was one of the prettiest creatures I have ever seen,” said Noel, wondering vaguely why Miss Waring suddenly looked so animated and really handsome. It had not occurred to him before that her pale face, with its wide forehead, pale greeny eyes and pointed chin could be so attractive. “But a nitwit hors concours. Philip was well out of it.”
Miss Waring said carelessly that she supposed he had got engaged to someone else. Men always did.
“Not so far as I know,” said Noel. “He worked very hard at the school and at his own classical stuff and being a Territorial, and then he got into the war.”
“Why don’t you ask him up here some time?” said Leslie.
Noel said he would love to, but being a P.G., not that they had managed to get down to brass tacks about the money side yet, made it a little difficult.
“I know Uncle Harry wants to talk to him about Horace,” said Leslie. “I’ll speak to Aunt Harriet about it.”
“That is very kind of you,” said Noel. “Lydia and he are very old friends and I know she will love to see him.”
No, Miss Waring was not really so good-looking, he decided. It must have been a trick of the firelight suddenly dancing on her face. And she looked tired. Probably the afternoon had been too much for her.
“I will write to some people in London,” said Leslie after making a few notes on the piece of paper, including the correct mode of addressing Noel by letter, which included an M.C. “By the way——”
She stopped.
“By which way?” asked Noel.
“Oh, any way,” said Leslie, “but what I did mean to say was, do you think I could be any help? I can’t go to town and work in your rooms, but I can work here. I’ve got a type-writer, and I am gently going to go mad out of London, without any work to do, and worrying about if the office is getting on without me—which of course it is. I’m afraid I’ve not got fallen arches or T.B., but I’m under orders not to do my own work at present. Would you like to give me a trial?”
Noel said he would like it very much, but it must be union rates. In Leslie he found one of the rare women who do not squabble and protest about money, and a rate of payment was settled.
“We don’t change for dinner on Sundays now,” said Lady Waring, which made them all look at the time, exclaim how late it was, and disperse to wash their hands.
CHAPTER V
THE bargain between Noel and Leslie was duly ratified. Leslie worked for a couple of hours in the morning and very often again between tea and dinner. Her aunt fed her on milk and eggs from the home farm, her own restless mind was eased by a feeling that she was not entirely useless, and between the two she got a little fatter, slept better and was more content in mind. Lydia looked on benevolently, and apart from her general inclination to want to do any piece of work that she met, was delighted that Noel should have such a good secretary, for she herself had been splendidly resistant to education as practised at the Barchester High School under Miss Pettinger and had not the art of reading through a book with her eyes only and letting her subconscious mind pounce on the facts it needed. But she put in some valuable work on the farm, groomed Crumpet, sawed wood with Sir Harry, began to clip the hedges in the garden and wrote to Kate to ask her to look in the big trunk she had left at Southbridge and see if there was a little box with some horrid peasant silver buttons in it and send it to her.
Matron had not forgotten her promise to show Lydia the hospital, but she was a nurse short and the home suddenly filled up, so the treat was still to come. Private Jenks was frequently to be found in or about the kitchen, where he was a general favourite and mended everything from the cook’s alarm clock to the hinge of the scullery door. His frequent and cheerful allusions to his next operation made Selina’s large brown eyes overflow more than once, but though Private Jenks was a great one, in his mother’s phrase, for comforting the girls, more particular those as didn’t need it, a certain vague respect kept him from encircling Selina’s buxom waist with a solacing arm. Perhaps her mother’s long association with the gentry was reflected in Selina, perhaps her present position as what was almost confidential maid to her ladyship set her a little apart. But whatever the reason, Private Jenks felt for her a slightly reverent passion to which his easy-going soul had hitherto been a stranger.
At times Jasper, coming up to the house on estate affairs, would find the kitchen enthralled by Private Jenks’s extremely untruthful stories of his own prowess, or his brilliant execution of popular melodies on the mouth-organ, while cups of strong tea went round. Jasper would accept from Cook a very large cup, kept specially for him, and sit stirring it in sardonic silence, watching that old Selina’s Desdemona-like reactions to Private Jenks’s lies; for such, we regret to say, they un-doubtedly were. And as the liquid pearls gathered in Selina’s eyes and her cheeks became flushed and her breath came in pants like a frightened bird—a simile which had dimly occurred to Jasper in connection with his profession, but remained unformulated owing to his opinion of the greediness, vicious ness and general unprincipledness of the feathered race—he would choose a moment to let fall a word about taking a gun into Forkman’s Spinney, or unbagging a ferret near that old rabbit-hole on Copshot Bank. Then would Private Jenks show himself in his true colours as a head keeper’s son. At once he would be on his feet, ready to start immediately; kitchen, tea, brown eyes, all forgotten. Jasper would finish his cup and go out, Private Jenks in tow, casting a triumphant look at the femininity. Had Othello been a head keeper’s son, much discomfort would have been saved. Cook would then bang the cups and saucers together, and the party
would disperse, Selina already upset by the thought of the poor little rabbit and also, for her charity was universal, for the poor little ferrets going down that nasty hole.
Leslie Waring had not forgotten her promise to Noel that she would speak to her aunt about Colonel Winter; and if she chose to persuade herself that she was doing so entirely out of kindness, who are we to blame her? Lady Waring, who had for her part not forgotten that her husband had expressed a wish to see Colonel Winter again, quite agreed, and Lady Waring telephoned.
“Number, please,” said the exchange.
“Oh, will you give me the camp, please,” said Lady Waring.
“What number’s that?” said the exchange, whose voice to-day was unfamiliar to Lady Waring.
“I never can remember,” said Lady Waring. “You know, the office at the Dower House.”
“I’m afraid I’ll have to put you through to inquiries,” said the voice icily. “We can’t give numbers here.”
“Oh, dear,” said her ladyship, turning to Leslie, “what a trouble they are. One cannot possibly remember all these new numbers and everyone knows that the Dower House is the camp headquarters.”
On her official or London side, Leslie felt it only right that regulations, however trying, should be carried out. On her private side, as a countrywoman and kin with the Warings, she fully shared her aunt’s indignation and was just preparing to do battle with the exchange for her when Lady Waring held up her hand.
“Hush!” she said, listening earnestly to the receiver, and then putting her hand over the mouthpiece, “there’s an extra-ordinary noise going on. A kind of quarrelling noise with a lot of booming, but the exchange always does boom. It must be the acoustics.”
She reapplied herself to the receiver.
“Is that Lady Waring?” said a voice.
“Yes. Is that you, Palmyra?” said Lady Waring.
“Oh, good morning, my lady,” said Palmyra Phipps, head of the exchange and niece of Mrs. Phipps, “was it the Dower House you wanted?”
Lady Waring said yes, and was there any difficulty?
“It’s only a new young lady we’ve got here, my lady,” said Palmyra. “She’s from Barchester and doesn’t quite understand the work. She boards with Margett and goes home for her day off. I’ll put you through to the Dower House at once, my lady. Who was it you wanted?”
Lady Waring said Colonel Winter.
“My sister, the one that’s got triplets, used to be second housemaid at Mr. Carter’s house at Southbridge School,” said Palmyra, “and she says Mr. Winter as he was then was ever so nice, but a very quick temper. He was engaged to Miss Rose, but they broke it off. Just one moment, my lady.”
Lady Waring thanked Palmyra, and blessing the fact that feudalism was by no means dead, listened for a reply. In an incredibly short time a voice said, “Colonel Winter speaking.”
Lady Waring gave her invitation, Philip Winter accepted it, Thursday week being a date convenient to both. Leslie thought it would have been a good plan to invite Colonel Winter a little earlier, say the very next day, or even that very evening, but reflection told her that she was unreasonable, and that Colonel Winter was probably not very interesting and in any case would want to talk to Lydia who was his old friend. It then became obvious to her that Thursday week was one of those days that would never come. Wednesday week might arrive, nay, certainly would; Friday week was infallibly bound to arrive; but of the arring powers of Thursday week she entertained the gravest doubts. So she applied herself vigorously to her précis writing and had several intelligent questions to ask Noel when he came back from the camp. Lydia, seeing them deep in talk, was delighted that Noel was getting such help in his work. For a moment she felt wistfully that it would be great fun if she could help too, but she had a humble nature and fully recognized that she was not, in her inelegant phrase, brainy, and went off to attend to the stable dog who had an abscess in his paw.
The day of Philip Winter’s visit happened to be also the day that Matron was at last free to show Lydia the hospital. This treat was arranged to take place before the men’s tea, and at five o’clock Lord Stoke was to give his lecture on the Viking remains.
The whole plan for the lecture was nearly upset by Lord Stoke’s patriotism. Having grasped the fact that petrol came in ships, that ships and men and petrol were needed for the demands of war and not for his comfort, he had put down his car, exhumed a very old brougham, last used by his step-mother, Lady Bond’s mother, in 1911, and caused himself to be driven within a ten-mile radius in wet weather, in fine weather contenting himself with a stout old cob who was still equal to his thirty miles a day. When he had consented earlier in the year to lecture at Beliers Priory, he had not counted on December weather. The Priory was about fifteen miles from his residence of Rising Castle. The brougham could not go so far. By daylight he could and would have gone over quietly with the cob, making a long day of it, but with the early darkness and a five o’clock lecture this was impossible. There was a taxi at High Rising, but the Priory was outside the ten-mile limit for which taxis might be used, and the whole plan was about to crumble when it was discovered that Dr. Ford had to visit the hospital professionally on Thursday afternoon.
“I’ll run you over, Stoke,” said Dr. Ford, who often looked in at the Castle, for his lordship, though his deafness was past cure, liked to talk, and Dr. Ford was one of the few people who could make him hear. “I’ll run you over, but you will have to go rather early as I have business at the Priory. I’ll wait and bring you back.”
Lord Stoke expressed his thanks.
“Mustn’t get you into trouble with the police, though,” he said. “The Castle’s out of your way. I shall walk down to the village and wait for you at Reid’s Stores. There’s always something to hear there,” said his lordship, who was as inveterate an old gossip as could be. “Then no one can blame you for taking me to the Priory.”
On the Thursday afternoon Lydia went through from the Warings’ quarters by the long corridor into the big house where the hospital was. She was received by Matron in her sitting-room, formerly known as the Old Bookroom because some bound volumes of Punch and the Graphic lived there beside an unused rack for billiard cues.
“Such a quaint old room,” said Matron, who in common with a great many other people thought any house was old if it was large enough. “You see I have given it quite a homey touch with my photos.”
She indicated with a wave of her hand some three or four dozen photographs and snapshots of relations and friends, most of the female ones in the nursing profession. Among them Lydia was delighted to discover Octavia Crawley, winding a skein of wool with the assistance of an armless patient who was obligingly holding it on his feet.
“A real turn Miss Crawley had with our mutilated cases,” said Matron. “She was always the first volunteer for any specially distressing case. Quite devoted. Here she is again, Mrs. Merton, in a group.”
Lydia looked at a professional photograph done in Barchester of the Bishop, the Mayor and a number of other celebrities, flanked by nurses and convalescent soldiers, outside a house.
“Hullo, that’s Barchester High School,” she said. “I was there with Miss Pettinger.”
“The photo was taken when the school hall was given up as a recreation room for the boys,” said Matron. “Of course, I should have been in it, as Senior Sister at the time, but Miss Pettinger pushed in front of me just at the critical moment, really so unnecessary. But I beg pardon, she is a friend of yours.”
“If you call a headmistress a friend,” said Lydia vengefully. “She was a beast—we always called her B.P. behind her back for Beast Pettinger—and was always talking about the honour of the school and giving one bad marks for not hanging one’s shoe-bag on the right peg. The boarders said it was ghastly, because she would come and kiss them in bed just when they wanted to talk.”
“Well, I must say,” said Matron, her opinion of Mrs. Merton rising by leaps and bounds, “if I hadn’t
been in uniform I would have spoken Right Out to Miss Pettinger. But of course I was on duty and one can’t think of oneself then. Nurse Poulter, who was there—that’s her, just not in the picture on the right, you can see her elbow—said she wondered some people had the face to go on as they did.”
With such a basis a firm friendship was very soon established between Lydia and Matron, who led her guest from room to room expressing her own admiration so ungrudgingly that Lydia found it quite unnecessary to say anything. When the Priory was taken over the basement was dismantled and used for furnaces that supplied the central heating and baths, or made into store-rooms. The top story had also been closed and the best bedroom furniture stored there, so that the hospital proper was housed on the ground and first floors. On the first floor, in the bedrooms on two sides of the central hall, the nurses slept and had their sitting-room, the other two sides being given to patients who required special care. On the ground floor a new kitchen and offices had been made in a suite of built-out rooms known for no reason as the pavilion; the big drawing-rooms and the dining-room were turned into wards, and the hall and billiard-room were used as reading and recreation rooms. Matron’s office, in an angle of the hall near the pavilion, commanded a strategic position from which she could see what she wanted, ignore what she wished to ignore, and pounce when convenient.
Growing Up Page 13