The War Workers Part 56

"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 hards.h.i.+ps that had been tempered by so much kindness and merriment, and with a faithful recollection of the good companions.h.i.+p that work and the comrades.h.i.+p 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 a.s.serted 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 a.s.sertions, frequently heard at the Hostel, that nowhere was the human side of the Director of the Midland Supply Depot 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 s.h.i.+fts 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, pa.s.sed 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 _habituees_ 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."

To Joanna Vivian, presiding over the altered establishment at Plessing, time brought many outlets for the unquenchable spirit of energy that would always possess her. She brought gaiety to her work, and laughter that was as unofficial as her inveterate habit of referring all questions of discipline to Dr. Prince, and the management of each individual branch to the helper in charge of it. Joanna's staff was not a large one, and each member of it had her own special and peculiar interest in the work given into her hands.