The War Workers Part 31

"You forget that Gracie knows all about Plessing," cried Miss Marsh instantly. "Of course, _she's_ seen Miss Vivian at home."

"And does she really smoke?" asked Tony.

"Yes, she does. Quite a lot, I think."

"Ah, well, that's different, isn't it?" Miss Delmege's serenity remained quite unimpaired. "One can understand her requiring it. I believe it really is supposed to be soothing, isn't it? Of course, working as she does, her nerves probably require it. What I mean to say is, she probably requires it for her nerves."

"I dare say. I wonder where she'll smoke here?"

"In Mrs. Bullivant's sitting-room, I suppose. Not that she'll be here much, I don't suppose. Only just for her meals, you know, and then to go straight to bed when she gets in."

"I do hope that her sleeping in Questerham isn't going to serve her as an excuse for working later than ever!" exclaimed Miss Delmege, in the tones of proprietary concern with which she always spoke of Miss Vivian's strenuous habits.

"Yes, I see what you mean," Mrs. Potter agreed. "With her car waiting, she simply had to come away sooner or later."

"Exactly; and she's always so considerate for her chauffeur, and every one. I really do think that I've never seen any one--and I'm not saying it because it _is_ Miss Vivian, but speaking quite impersonally--any one who went out of her way, as she does, to think of other people."

"Look at what she did for me--even ordered a cab each way for me!" cried Miss Plumtree, very simply.

"That," said Miss Delmege gently, "is just Miss Vivian all over."

Miss Marsh bounced up from her chair, rudely severing the acquiescent silence that followed on this well-worn _cliche_.

"I'm going up to get my knitting. I simply must get those socks done for Christmas. I suppose no one will be shocked at my knitting on Sunday?"

"Gracious, no! Especially when it's for the Army. When's he coming on leave, Mars.h.i.+e?"

"Oh, goodness knows! The poor boy's in hospital out there. Can I fetch anything for any one while I'm upstairs?"

"My work-basket, if you wouldn't mind," said Grace.

"I say," asked Mrs. Potter, as the door slammed behind Miss Marsh, "_is_ she engaged?"

"Oh no. She has heaps of pals, you know," Miss Henderson explained.

"She's that sort of girl, I fancy. Haven't you noticed all the letters she gets with the field postmark? It isn't always the same boy, either, because there are quite three different handwritings. And her brothers are both in the Navy, so it isn't _them_."

"Well," said Miss Delmege, with the little air of originality so seldom justified by her utterances, "they say there's safety in numbers."

"Here's your basket, Gracie," said Miss Marsh, reappearing breathless.

"How extraordinarily tidy you are! I always know exactly where to find your things--that is, if mine aren't all over them!"

"What are you going to make, Gracie?"

"Only put some ribbon in my things. The was.h.i.+ng was back last night, instead of tomorrow morning, which will be such a saving of time during the week. I wish it always came on Sat.u.r.day," said Grace, serenely drawing out a small folded pile of linen from her capacious and orderly basket.

Every one looked rather awestruck.

"Do you put in ribbon every week?"

"Isn't it marvellous of her?" Miss Marsh inquired proudly, gazing at her room-mate. "She has such nice things, too."

Grace uncarded a length of ribbon, and began to thread it through the lace of the garment known to the Hostel as a camisole.

"I can't say I take the trouble myself. _My_ things go to the wash as they are, ribbon and all. The colour has to take its chances," said Miss Plumtree.

"Are we going to have any music tonight?" inquired Miss Delmege, with a sudden effect of primness.

The suggestion was received without enthusiasm.

"Then," Miss Delmege said, with a glance at Grace, who had completed the adornment of her camisole, and was proceeding to unfold yet further garments, "I think I shall go to bed."

"Do, dear," Mrs. Bullivant told her kindly. "I hope any one will go early who's tired."

Miss Delmege smiled cryptically.

"Well," she said gently, "underwear in the sitting-room, you know!"

"Oh dear!" cried Grace in tones of dismay. "Is that really why she's gone upstairs?"

"No loss, either," Miss Marsh declared stoutly.

"But it's only my petticoat bodice."

"I suppose she didn't know what might be coming next."

Grace, guiltily conscious of that which might quite well have been coming next but for this timely reminder, hastily completed her work and put it away again.

She leant back in the wicker chair, unconsciously adjusting her weight with due regard to its habit of creaking, and gazed into the red embers of the dying fire.

Her mind was quite abstracted, and she was unaware of the spasmodic conversation carried on all round her.

Her thoughts were at Plessing.

How could Miss Vivian be coming to stay at the Hostel when her father was so ill, and Lady Vivian alone at Plessing? Grace remembered the expression on Joanna's face when her daughter had said that she could no longer stay away from the office at Questerham.

She supposed that a consent had been extorted from her by Char, unless, indeed, Miss Vivian had not deemed even that formality to be necessary.

Grace wondered, with unusual despondency, when or if she should see Lady Vivian again. She felt quite certain now that never again would any pretext induce Char to let her return to Plessing, and was not without a suspicion that she might be made to feel, in her secretarial work, that the Plessing days had not been a success in the eyes of Miss Vivian.

"Never mind; it was quite worth it," thought Grace, and it was characteristic of her that the idea of seeking work elsewhere than with the Director of the Midland Supply Depot never occurred to her.

"A penny for your thoughts, Gracie."

"Oh, they're not worth it, Mrs. Potter. They weren't very far away."

"Perhaps they were just where mine have been all the evening--with poor Miss Vivian. She'll be feeling it tonight, poor dear, knowing she's got to leave tomorrow, and Sir Piers so ill. I _do_ think she's wonderful."

"I must say, so do I," Miss Henderson said thoughtfully. "When she used always to refuse me the afternoon off, or any sort of leave, and say that she couldn't understand putting anything before the work, I used to resent it sometimes, I must own. But, really, she's lived up to it herself so splendidly that one can't ever say another word."