“She’ll stay there just exactly as long as I can persuade her to,” said the doctor grimly.
Mrs. Bullivant looked thoroughly bewildered, but she gazed at the doctor’s tired face, and said gently: “Come into the sitting-room while I get her things packed. There’s a nice fire, and the girls have got tea in there. Do come in.”
“Well,” the doctor yielded.
His own home was two miles out of Questerham, and his wife would not be best pleased at his having spent Christmas Eve and Christmas morning away, and might say that he must not return to Plessing that night. The doctor fully intended to do so, but he felt far too weary for argument.
The sitting-room fire was blazing, and the Hostel community greeted him eagerly, and begged him to take the strongest arm-chair. They were glad of a guest on Christmas Day, and they wanted to hear news of Plessing.
Tony brought him a cup of tea, and Miss Plumtree shyly offered him buttered toast.
“Well, well, this is very good of you all. They’re expecting me up at my Hospital, I believe, and I shall have to look in there later, I suppose, but I somehow didn’t feel in tune for the festivities just at the moment. It’s a sad business at Plessing, though one knew it had to come.”
“How is Miss Vivian?”
“Only saw her for a moment,” said the doctor briefly. “She arrived in time to see him, poor girl, but he never recovered consciousness. It’s a melancholy thought for her that she wouldn’t do as the poor old man begged her during the last few weeks he had to live. It wouldn’t have cost her so very much to give up her position here, and it wouldn’t have been for long, after all.”
“But did Sir Piers want her to?” asked Tony, round-eyed.
“It made him unhappy, you see,” the doctor said, almost as though apologizing for a weakness which he felt himself to share. “His generation and mine, you know, didn’t look upon these things in the same light, and though he was proud of her war-work at first, later on, when his mind became clouded, he couldn’t understand her always being away, and it made him unhappy. Lady Vivian tried to explain it to him as far as possible, but he couldn’t understand. He didn’t realize all she was doing, and he wanted her to stay at home, especially after he got ill. I fancy myself that he knew pretty well how things were — he didn’t expect to get well.”
“But Miss Vivian didn’t know; she couldn’t have known,” said Miss Henderson quickly.
The doctor shrugged his shoulders.
“We’ve heard a lot about ‘hospital experience’ and the rest of it,” he said curtly. “It doesn’t take much science to know that an old man of seventy odd who has had a stroke stands a very good chance of having another one sooner or later — and probably sooner. I don’t know why she couldn’t have given in to him and made his last months on earth peaceful ones. It would have spared poor Lady Vivian something, too.”
“But I thought that Lady Vivian did all the nursing herself?”
“Nothing of the sort!” declared the doctor vehemently. “She followed my orders and had a trained nurse, like a sensible woman. But she was with him herself whenever he wanted her, which was practically all day and half the night, and for ever having to try and explain to him, poor thing, why Miss Charmian was away. She’s been wonderfully brave all along, but it isn’t very difficult to understand why she feels bitter about it all now. In all the years I’ve known them both,” said the doctor emotionally, “she’s never had one thought apart from him. She was a young woman of about five-and-twenty, I suppose, when she first came to Plessing, and he was twenty years her senior, and always fussing about her, though God forgive me for saying so now. She was as fine a horsewoman as ever I saw, a perfect figure and a beautiful seat, but she gave up hunting because it made him nervous about her. She buried herself down here, and was just as gay as a lark, because she knew it was pleasing him that they should live at Plessing and only go up to town once in a blue moon. I don’t believe she’s ever had a thought beyond making him happy and keeping worry away from him.”
“Oh, poor Lady Vivian!” cried Miss Plumtree. “What will she do now?”
“I don’t know, indeed. It’s simply the destruction of her whole world. But she’s most wonderfully plucky, and I don’t believe it’s in her to give way. Miss Jones is doing more for her than any one just now. They understand one another very well, and the mere fact of having some one to talk to who isn’t one of the family is a great help. Steadies everybody, you know. That nice lad, Captain Trevellyan, will be there a good deal, but he tells me that he has to go before his Board on Tuesday, and that will mean France again to a certainty. Poor Lady Vivian was dreading that — but more for Sir Piers’s sake than for her own. She didn’t want to have to tell him the boy had gone back to fight. Just the same with everything; she looked at it all from one angle, how it was going to affect him. That’s why I can’t help hoping that after a time she’ll take up things from another point of view, so to speak — a less personal one. She’s so full of energy, and there’s so much to be done now.”
“Lady Vivian came in once or twice to the Canteen, before Sir Piers got ill, and she said she liked the work there. Perhaps she’ll take up some war-work later on,” suggested Mrs. Potter.
“I hope so — I hope so very much. Miss Jones is inclined to think so, I fancy.”
“Miss Vivian herself would be the best person to provide her mother with war-work, surely,” said Miss Delmege between closely-folded lips.
“Well, well, I don’t know that one could altogether expect that. You see, when all’s said and done, her war-work was a source of great distress and vexation to Sir Piers, and Lady Vivian can’t quite forget that. But perhaps,” said the doctor, looking rather anxiously at the circle of absorbed faces in the firelight, “I’m an old gossip to be talking so freely. But the Vivians of Plessing — well, it’s rather like the Royal Family to us ordinary folk, isn’t it? That’s what I always feel. And I know that you’ll want me to tell Miss Vivian how much you all feel for her.”
But it was only Miss Delmege who said rather elaborately: “If you will, do, please, Dr. Prince.”
The others mostly looked concerned and bewildered, and Miss Plumtree exclaimed with soft abruptness: “Oh, but it’s Lady Vivian — after what you’ve told us. It’s so dreadful to think of! What a good thing she likes Gracie Jones so much! I’m glad she’s got her out there.”
“So am I,” said the doctor heartily.
“I’ve got her things here,” Mrs. Bullivant said in the doorway.
“I’ll take them when I go out after dinner. I promised Miss Jones to come back and see if Lady Vivian is all right, and, to tell you the truth, I doubt if I could keep away. I’ve been there so much just lately, and then last night—”
“Was she with him when he died?”
“Yes. So was Miss Vivian. It’s overset her altogether, poor thing, I believe; but I haven’t seen her since early this morning. That little companion, Miss Bruce, is with her all the time. Well, poor child, one’s very sorry for her, though she made a great mistake when she took her own way in spite of all their pleading, and I’m afraid she’ll find it hard to forgive herself now.”
“Do you mean,” said little Miss Anthony, who looked rather dazed, “that when she came back to the office after she’d had influenza, and when he’d had the first stroke, that Miss Vivian knew her father and mother wanted her to stay at home?”
“Well,” said Miss Delmege, very much flushed, and her voice pitched higher than usual, “it was just what she’s always said herself. Miss Vivian puts the work before everything.”
“I don’t know how to believe it,” Mrs. Potter said.
The doctor misunderstood her.
“Perhaps it was that. She’s done very fine work, and never spared herself any more than she’s spared others. And maybe there was something in being boss of the whole show, and in hearing you all say how wonderful she was — human nature’s a poor thing, after all.”
T
he doctor shook his head and went out again to his little car.
In the sitting-room the members of Miss Vivian’s staff looked at one another.
“Girls,” said Miss Marsh slowly, “do you remember Gracie’s once saying, ages ago, when she first came, that she wondered if Miss Vivian would do as much work if she were on a desert island? Well, after what Dr. Prince has been telling us, I’m rather inclined to think she was right. Miss Vivian can’t be as wonderful as she wants us to think she is.”
“It would be too heartless. I can’t believe it of her,” said Mrs. Potter again, but she spoke very doubtfully.
“She must have thought that she owed her first duty to the work, and not to her own home. But I’m sorry for her now.”
“So am I. She’ll make it up to her mother by staying with her now, I suppose.”
“If Lady Vivian wants her. But I should imagine she’d hate the sight of her, almost.”
“Tony!”
“Well,” Miss Anthony asseverated, almost in tears, “I mean it. I think it’s the most dreadful thing I’ve ever heard of, and the most unkind. And to think how we’ve all been admiring her for coming to live here, and for going on with the work in spite of being anxious and unhappy about her father! Why, she can’t have cared a bit!”
“But she was splendid, in a sort of way,” Miss Henderson said, bewildered. “Look how she’s worked, and never spared herself, or given herself any rest, not even proper times off for meals. She can’t have liked all that.”
“I suppose,” said Miss Marsh grimly, “that she liked thinking how splendid she was being, and how splendid everybody thought her. It would have been much duller for her to stay at home and do nothing, just because her father asked her to.”
There was silence. To hear Miss Vivian reduced by criticism and analysis to the level of an ordinary human being seemed to revolutionize the whole mental outlook of the Hostel.
When Mrs. Bullivant came into the sitting-room, she looked strangely at the disturbed faces. “Dr. Prince seems to have upset you all,” she said at last.
“Did you hear what he was saying about Miss Vivian, though?”
“Some of it. He asked me in the hall just now whether he’d been indiscreet. I had to say that I was afraid we’d none of us quite realized before how very much her personal influence had been counting with us in the work.”
“That’s quite true,” said Tony dejectedly, “and I don’t believe I shall ever feel the same again. Why should we all work ourselves to death for any one like that?”
“Oh, my dear,” said the Superintendent, sinking into a chair, “I’m afraid that’s just the weak point in women’s work. So much of it is done from the personal point of view. We can’t keep personalities out of it.”
“If you ask me, that’s just what Miss Vivian has been doing. I mean, bringing her own powers of personal fascination to bear all the time.”
Mrs. Bullivant sighed.
“It’s the work one ought to think of, not the individual. Anyway, my work here is over, I’m afraid.”
“There you are!” cried Miss Plumtree. “You have to leave work you care about, just because she was uncomfortable at this Hostel. Talk about personal points-of-view!”
“Well, I’ve been personal long enough,” declared Tony. “I shall chuck the office and go to munitions. They’re impersonal enough!”
She let the door bang behind her.
“Poor old Tony! She’ll go to the other extreme now, and think everything Miss Vivian does is hopeless. I must say, it’s a bit of a disillusionment.”
Miss Delmege stood up, gulped two or three times, and at last said, rapidly and nervously: “I don’t at all agree with you. We’ve no business to sit in judgment on her like this, and I for one shall always believe there’s some satisfactory explanation to the whole thing. I’m not saying it in the least because it’s Miss Vivian, but quite impartially.”
“Of course,” said Miss Marsh, under her breath.
“Look at the way she works and all — it is perfectly wonderful; and Dr. Prince probably doesn’t really know anything about what Sir Piers wanted. He’s always been more or less on the defensive with Miss Vivian, just because she had to get his Hospital under proper control. It’s all prejudice and disloyalty. And all I can say is, that as long as there’s work to be done for Miss Vivian, I’m ready to do it, single-handed if necessary, if all the rest of you choose to desert her, and I shouldn’t have the least hesitation in repeating all I’ve said to her face.”
Miss Delmege’s peroration left her rather shrill-voiced and breathless, but her pose on the hearth-rug, chin uplifted and one slim foot slightly thrust forward, was heroic in the extreme.
No one believed for a moment in her defiant assertion that she was prepared to launch her rhetorical declaration at Miss Vivian in person; but it was left to her old enemy, Miss Marsh, to remark with an unpleasant matter-of-factness: “There’s no need to get so excited, Delmege. There’ll be no call for you to do the work single-handed, either. I should be sorry for Miss Vivian if you tried it on, in fact. We’re all fairly patriotic, I hope, whatever we may think of Miss Vivian, and, as Mrs. Bullivant says, doing the work is the point, not the person we’re working for.”
“That’s right,” agreed Miss Henderson. “It’s for the war, after all.”
“Otherwise,” said Miss Marsh, with an icy look at Miss Delmege, “I’m bound to say that after what we’ve just heard of Miss Vivian I should be very much inclined to chuck working for her straight away.”
“Don’t discuss it any more, girls. It won’t do any good,” Mrs. Bullivant declared. “You must just try and think more of the work and less of Miss Vivian. Now, I’ve got a treat for your supper, as it’s Christmas night, and I must go and see after it. Do, some one, go and get Tony downstairs again. She can’t really have meant to go to bed at this hour. She was just upset, poor child, but she’ll feel better when the lamp is lit and it’s all looking homely and bright.”
The Superintendent hurried away.
“Isn’t she ripping?” asked Miss Henderson. “Come on, Greengage, and let’s fish out Tony.”
“Yes, do let’s try and all cheer up,” begged Mrs. Potter. “It has been a depressing Christmas Day. How would it be to change for supper? It would please Mrs. Bullivant.”
“All right, let’s.”
The girls hurried upstairs to hunt for clean blouses and small pieces of jewellery, and Miss Delmege was left alone, still standing in her attitude of defiance before the sitting-room fire.
XVII
“Is there any more apple-pudding?”
“Yes, my lady.”
“Then I will have some,” said Lady Vivian, not at all unaware of the pained expression which Miss Bruce had unconsciously assumed. The unquenchable laugh still danced in her deeply-circled blue eyes as she gazed across the luncheon-table at Grace.
“Do have some more pudding, Grace. I know you never get enough to eat at your Hostel.”
Miss Bruce put down her fork with a look of resignation. The excellent appetite displayed by Lady Vivian seemed to her extraordinary enough on the part of one widowed only a week ago, but that of the still-visiting Miss Jones amounted to a scandal.
In Miss Bruce’s opinion, Miss Jones should have removed herself from Plessing a week ago, in spite of the strong predilection evinced by Lady Vivian for her society. It was not decent, Miss Bruce thought, to shun one’s own daughter and take so many and such lengthy walks in company of a comparative stranger of less than half one’s own age.
“Un-natural, I call it,” said Miss Bruce, shaking her head.
Char shrugged her shoulders.
“What does it matter? I’m glad she should take an interest in any one or anything, though I can’t understand such a friendship for that trivial little girl myself. But one thing is certain enough: I shall have to ask her to resign. It would be quite impossible, since my mother has chosen to treat her as one of the family, to keep her on
at the office when I go back there. Though perhaps I ought to say — if I go back there.”
“Oh, my dear Charmian, why? Surely there can be no reason now — less than ever, I mean to say — why you should not take up that splendid work at the Supply Depôt again. Why, the whole thing hinges on you.”
“I know,” said Char dejectedly. “But there’s my mother to consider. I really don’t see how I’m to leave her all alone here, and I don’t know if she’ll care to come into Questerham with me.”
Char had hardly seen her mother since Sir Piers’s funeral, three days ago. Lady Vivian had refused to display any form of prostration, had discussed every necessary item of business with John Trevellyan and Dr. Prince, and when not engaged in answering innumerable letters and telegrams of condolences, had taken Grace Jones for long walks with her across the snowy fields.
“But,” Char said to Miss Bruce, “we shall have to discuss business sooner or later. For all I know, we may have to leave Plessing. It was to be my mother’s for her life, I believe, but she may choose to let Uncle Charles come into it at once. He has a large family of children, after all. His being in Salonika now makes it all so much more complicated.”
“I dare say there will be no change just at present. Everything will be so unsettled until this dreadful war is over,” Miss Bruce soothed her vaguely.
But she, too, thought that it would be necessary for Lady Vivian soon to give her daughter some outline of her future plans.
On New Year’s Day, rising from the helping of apple-pudding which she had left unfinished as a protest, Miss Bruce after lunch said firmly to Lady Vivian: “You will want to talk to Charmian this afternoon, I feel sure. There is a fire in the library, so perhaps—”
She looked meaningly at Miss Jones, who, instead of making at least a pretence of at once following her out of the room, gazed imperturbably at Lady Vivian.
“Char,” inquired Joanna mildly, “do you want to talk to me?”
“We’d better come to an understanding, hadn’t we, mother? You see, I haven’t the vaguest idea of your plans.”
Collected Works of E M Delafield Page 52
