The War-Workers. E. M. Delafield
manage all right," declared Miss Plumtree; but her round apple-blossom face was drawn with pain, and she stumbled up the dark stairs.
In the hall there was a hurried consultation between Miss Marsh and Miss Anthony.
"I say, Tony, old Gooseberry-bush isn't fit to stir. She ought to be tucked up in her bye-byes this minute. Shall I risk it, and go instead of her, leave or no leave?"
"I should think so, yes. What have things been like today?"
"Oh, fairly serene. I didn't see Miss Vivian this morning, myself, but nobody seems to have had their heads snapped off. There wasn't a fearful lot of work for her, either, because Miss Delmege came in quite early."
"Delmege makes me sick, the way she goes on! As though nobody else knew anything about Miss Vivian, and she was a sort of connecting-link between her and us. Didn't you hear her tonight? 'I think I can answer for Miss Vivian,'" mimicked Tony in an exaggerated falsetto. "I should jolly well like Miss Vivian to hear her one of these days. She'd appreciate being answered for like that by her secretary – I don't think!"
"I say, Marshy, can you keep a secret?"
"Rather!"
"Well, swear not to tell, and, mind, I'm speaking absolutely unofficially. I've no business to know it officially at all, because I only saw it on a telegram I sent for the Billeting Department. Miss Delmege is going to get her nose put out of joint with Miss V. Another secretary is coming."
"She's not! D'you mean Delmege has got the sack?"
"Oh, Lord, no! It's only somebody coming to help her, because there is so much work for one secretary. She's coming from Wales, and her name is Jones."
"I seem to have heard that name before."
They both giggled explosively; then made a simultaneous dash at the hall-door as Miss Plumtree, in hat and coat, came slowly out of the sitting-room.
"No, you don't, Plumtree! You're going straight up to bed, and I'll tell Miss Vivian you were ill. It'll be all right."
"You are a brick, Marsh."
"Nonsense! You'll do as much for me some day. Goodnight, dear."
Miss Marsh hurried out, and Miss Plumtree thankfully took the felt uniform hat off her aching head.
"Get into bed," directed Tony, "and take an aspirin."
"Haven't got one left, worse luck."
"I'll see if any one else has any. I believe Mrs. Potter has."
Tony hurried into the sitting-room. Mrs. Potter had no aspirin, but she hoisted herself out of her arm-chair and said she would go round to the chemist and get some.
She went out into the rain.
Tony borrowed a rubber hot-water bottle from Miss Henderson, and a kettle from somebody else, and went upstairs to boil some water, forgetting that she was tired and had meant to go to bed after supper.
Presently little Mrs. Bullivant came upstairs with a cup of tea and the aspirin, both of which she administered to the patient.
"You'll go to sleep after that, I expect," she said consolingly.
"I'll tell the girls to get into bed quietly," Tony whispered.
Miss Plumtree shared a room with Miss Delmege and Miss Henderson.
"I never do make any noise in the room that I am aware of," said Miss Delmege coldly; but she and her room-mate both crept upstairs soon after nine o'clock, lest their entrance later should awaken the sufferer, and they undressed with the gas turned as low as it would go, and in silence.
Padding softly in dressing-slippers to the bathroom later on, for the lukewarm water which was all that they could hope to get until the solitary gas-ring should have served the turn of numerous waiting kettles, they heard Miss Marsh returning from telephone duty, bolting the hall-door, and putting up the chain.
"You're back early," whispered Miss Henderson, coming halfway downstairs in her pink flannelette dressing-gown, her scanty fair hair screwed back into a tight plait.
"Wasn't much doing. Miss Vivian got off at half-past nine. Jolly good thing, too; she's been late every night this week."
"Was it all right about your taking duty?"
"Ab-solutely. Said she was glad Miss Plumtree had gone to bed, and asked if she had anything to take for her head."
"How awfully decent of her!"
"Wasn't it? It'll buck old Greengage up, too. She always thinks Miss Vivian has a down on her."
Miss Delmege leant over the banisters and said in a subdued but very complacent undertone:
"I thought Miss Vivian would be all right. I thought I could safely answer for her."
II
Plessing was also speaking of Miss Vivian that evening.
"Where is this to end, Miss Bruce? I ask you, where is it to end?" demanded Miss Vivian's mother.
Miss Bruce knew quite well that Lady Vivian was not asking her at all, in the sense of expecting to receive from her any suggestion of a term to that which in fact appeared to be interminable, so she only made a clicking sound of sympathy with her tongue and went on rapidly stamping postcards.
"I am not unpatriotic, though I do dislike Flagdays, and I was the first person to say that Char must go and do work somewhere – nurse in a hospital if she liked, or do censor's work at the War Office. Sir Piers said 'No' at first – you know he's old-fashioned in many ways – and then he said Char wasn't strong enough, and to a certain extent I agreed with him. But I put aside all that and absolutely encouraged her, as you know, to organize this Supply Depôt. But I must say, Miss Bruce, that I never expected the thing to grow to these dimensions. Of course, it may be a very splendid work – in fact, I'm sure it is, and every one says how proud I must be of such a wonderful daughter but is it all absolutely necessary?"
"Oh, Lady Vivian," said the secretary reproachfully. "Why, the very War Office itself knows the value of dear Charmian's work. They are always asking her to take on fresh branches."
"That's just what I am complaining of. Why should the Midland Supply Depôt do all these odd jobs? Hospital supplies are all very well, but when it comes to meeting all the troop-trains and supplying all the bandages, and being central Depôt for sphagnum moss, and all the rest of it – all I can say is, that it's beyond a joke."
Miss Bruce took instant advantage of her employer's infelicitous final cliché to remark austerely:
"Certainly one would never dream of looking upon it as a joke, Lady Vivian. I quite feel with you about the working so fearfully hard, and keeping these strange, irregular hours, but I'm convinced that it's perfectly unavoidable – perfectly unavoidable. Charmian owns herself that no one can possibly take her place at the Depôt, even for a day."
This striking testimony to the irreplacableness of her daughter appeared to leave Lady Vivian cold.
"I dare say," she said curtly. "Of course, she's got a gift for organization, and all she's done is perfectly marvellous, but I must say I wish she'd taken up nursing or something reasonable, like anybody else, when she could have had proper holidays and kept regular hours."
Miss Bruce gave the secretarial equivalent for laughing the suggestion to scorn.
"As though nursing wasn't something that anyone could do! Why, any ordinary girl can work in a hospital. But I should like to know what other woman could do Charmian's work. Why, if she left, the whole organization would break down in a week."
"Well," said the goaded Lady Vivian, "the war wouldn't go on any the longer if it did, I don't suppose – any more than it's going to end twenty-four hours sooner because Char has dinner at eleven o'clock every night and spends five pounds a day on postage stamps."
Miss Bruce looked hurt, as she went on applying halfpenny stamps to the postcards that formed an increasing mountain on the writing-table in front of her.
"I suppose you're working for her now?"
"I