The War-Workers

It hurt her more than she would have supposed possible. Like most complex organisms, she had an unreasoned craving for the approval of the very simple, and she had always thought that Johnnie, easy-going and uncritical, would accept her judgment as necessarily wider and more subtle than his own.

"I see," she said, very low. "You accept me and my work only at my mother's valuation."

"Well, no, Char. It isn't only that."

John's voice held a certain regret, but no retractation.

"It isn't only that evening at Plessing – though you know very well that I didn't see that question of your leaving home as you did – but every time I see you, you say or do something that makes me understand what Dr. Prince meant that evening."

"Thank you," said Char, low and bitterly.

"Perhaps I haven't any business to say anything about it at all. Only," said Trevellyan, with his habitual extraordinarily ill-inspired candour, "you know how much I care about Cousin Joanna."

"So much that it blinds you to any point of view but hers, apparently. Don't you really think that there was anything to be said for me, John? I don't altogether enjoy giving up my whole life to this office work, you know, under conditions of great difficulty and discomfort, and with the additional pain of knowing how hopelessly misunderstood my motives are. What has my father said about my leaving Plessing?"

"I don't think Cousin Joanna has told him. You see, he's one of the people who would misunderstand your motives, too, isn't he? And it would upset him so much."

"It's only in theory. He doesn't really want me in the least. It's simply that he hasn't moved with the times, doesn't understand the necessity that has arisen for women's work."

"Yes, that's quite true," Trevellyan said, but there was no sound of concession in his voice.

"My mother has given in to that all the time. You know she has. I believe that if it had been possible she wouldn't have let him know there was a war at all. It's – it's like helping an ostrich to bury its head in the sand."

"Don't you see," Trevellyan said, with a curious effect of reluctance, as though aware that she would not see, after all, "that all that is because she cares so much?"

"I'm afraid I don't. To me, the larger issue must always come first. It's England at stake, John, and our own petty little personal problems don't seem to count any longer."

"I suppose," he acquiesced, "that the difference between your point of view and hers is just that. She thinks that the personal problem still counts, you see."

"And you, of all people, can agree to that?"

"It's not quite the same thing for me, is it? War is my profession, so to speak. There are no other claims, so I need not balance values. It's just plain-sailing – for me. And for most other men, I suppose."

"Do you mean that all the women who have been giving time and trouble to serious work, all the munition-makers, the nurses, the Government workers, ought to go home again because of the old plea that home is a woman's sphere?"

"No, I don't, and you know I don't. But I think that the question of degree enters into it, and that where some women can very well afford to give their whole time and strength, others – can't."

"I see. Then it's simply a matter of counting the cost, and if it comes too dear, hide behind the fact of being a woman!" said Char mockingly.

It was always easy to defeat Johnnie verbally.

He looked bewildered, and said: "You're too clever for me, Char, as you always were. I can't pretend to argue with you. And I do admire the work you're doing, more than I can say. Everybody says it's wonderful."

He looked at her wistfully, and Char felt glad that the conversation should end on a note that, on his part, was almost pleading.

She rose, smiling a little.

"It's all right, Johnnie. And you'll soothe Plessing for me, won't you?"

But Captain Trevellyan, also rising, shook his head and looked very uncompromising.

"Cousin Joanna is wonderful, but she looks very tired," he remarked, and moved away as the sound of Puffles's bark heralded Lesbia Willoughby's return.

Char, also moving out of reach as rapidly as possible, saw him making his way towards the corner where Grace Jones was wiping plates as fast as they were handed to her, steaming and dripping, from the zinc wash-tub.

She felt annoyed and almost uneasy, and thought to herself: "He can't be seriously attracted by her. Why, she isn't even pretty, as one or two of them are."

Attracted or not, Captain Trevellyan remained in conversation with Miss Jones for the rest of the evening. Char had not even the satisfaction of seeing her neglect her work, and forthwith rebuking her, for her exceedingly pretty hands never stopped their rapid, efficient moving.

Char decided that she owed it to the uniform to inform her cousin that members of her staff, when engaged in the performance of their duty, must not enter into unofficial conversations.

She reserved this shaft, however, for later on, not wishing Trevellyan to discover the immediate workings of the law of cause and effect.

Her energies for the time being were fully engaged in avoiding the hospitable advances of Mrs. Willoughby.

"Well, my dear, sweet child," said Lesbia acrimoniously, "you are behaving like an absolute little fool (I know you won't mind your mother's greatest friend being perfectly candid with you), and I assure you that you'll regret it bitterly. As my Lewis said to me quite the other day, that girl is simply ruining her chances. Whom does she ever see, shut up with a pack of women all day and every day? Now, with us, you'd at least have civilized meals, with half the regiment always dropping in. The boys in Lewis's regiment always did come to me, from the days when he was only a Captain – young things always cling to me."

"Thank you," said Char, "but I'm afraid I shouldn't be very good company. By the time I've finished work, and interviewed all the various officials and dignitaries that I'm unfortunately obliged to see on nine days out of ten, I have not very much conversation left to entertain youths from the barracks."

Mrs. Willoughby made no pretence at failing to perceive the motive inspiring these utterances.

"Yes, dear, you may drag in those moss-grown and mouldering old officials as much as you please to show me that it isn't only a pack of women, but I'm not in the least impressed. Unfortunate old dotards put into khaki which is much too tight for them, and probably thinking what a pity it is that a pretty girl should talk so much nonsense! I met Dr. Prince the other day, and I can assure you that he doesn't in the least enjoy your interference with his Hospital."

"Probably not. I've had it put on to a proper military basis, and all these country practitioners resent anything done by the R.A.M.C."

"Nothing to do with the R.A.M.C., darling," retorted Lesbia piercingly. "Don't be childish! All that he resents – and I perfectly sympathize with him – is being shown his business by a chit who, as he says himself, probably would never have come into the world alive at all without his help."

Char left the honours of the last word with the outspoken Mrs. Willoughby, having, indeed, no reply ready to fit the occasion.

"Well, good-night, Char, and if you like to eat humble pie and come to me at any time, Lewis and I will be perfectly delighted. I've always longed to have a girl of my own, as I told Joanna, and I understand all young things. Don't I, my Puffles? Now I must take 'oo home, precious one, so come along. Oh! mustn't bark – naughty, naughty!"

Char turned her back on Mrs. Willoughby and the utterly unsilenced Puff, and left the Canteen.

She had meant to return to the office again, but had stayed longer than usual at the Canteen, and decided to go back to the Hostel instead. Certainly, it was uncomfortable there, and as the piercing weather continued, she found the lack of comfort ever more trying. But to return nightly to Mrs. Willoughby and Puff! She dismissed the thought with a shudder.

Besides, there were her mother and Trevellyan and Miss Bruce to convince that she was in earnest about her work, and would undergo discomfort and privation in order to carry it on successfully. Even Dr. Prince, Char reflected with some bitterness, might admit that she was prepared to make sacrifices in the attainment of her goal.

There was also the Hostel. Char knew from Mrs. Bullivant, and less directly from Miss Delmege, that her staff felt a wondering admiration and compassion at her courage in having left home and a father who was ill for the sake of patriotic work. She knew, by the sort of uncanny intuition that is generally the possession of the ultra-subtle, that when her gaze from time to time became abstracted over her work, or her attitude of set concentration relaxed for an occasional moment, Miss Delmege thought pityingly of the anxiety which must underlie all Miss Vivian's close and capable attention to the many details of her gigantic task. Miss Delmege thought her "wonderful," undoubtedly. Char told herself, with a slight smile, that she did not deserve her secretary's blind idealisms of her, but at the same time she was subconsciously aware of a certain resentment that the idealism should be so utterly unshared by Miss Delmege's understudy, the matter-of-fact, eminently undazzled Miss Jones.

Char went into the Hostel still thinking of Miss Jones. The hall was quite dark, but the sitting-room door was open, and as she went upstairs Char glanced in, hearing the sound of voices. There was a circle gathered close round the fire, and for a moment she did not recognize the central figure, seated on the floor and drying a cloud of brown hair at the blaze. Then she saw that it was Miss Plumtree, and noted with surprise that the girl, with her hair on her shoulders and her round, flushed face, was very pretty.

"Perhaps Johnnie was right, and I really don't look upon them as human beings," she thought, rather amused.

Some obscure instinct of testing herself caused her suddenly to turn and enter the sitting-room.

There was a sudden, startled silence as she stopped in the doorway, and then, almost simultaneously, the members of the staff rose to their feet.

"Oh, don't move," Char said affably.