Chapter III: Part 3

"He can't stand it any longer! He has done his best to be patient, and obedient to father, and all that; but it's breaking his heart. Why, only this morning--"

She related the pitiful incident of the school circular and the Roll of Honour. There were tears in her eyes when she had finished.

"So," she concluded, "he has made up his mind to join up."

"Good egg!" observed Roy. "Is he going to apply for a commission, or what?"

"That was what I wanted to consult you about," said Marjorie. "You are so clever about these things, Roy."

"Fire away!" replied Roy, much inflated.

"Commissions," asked Marjorie--"can you get them easily?"

"Not so easily now. The authorities are beginning to sit up and take notice. The first lot of officers in the new armies were mostly all right. They didn't know much, but they were sahibs, who played the game and handled their men properly. Now they are getting used up, and some pretty strange fish have been given commissions lately. The voice of the T.G. is heard in the land. Here is a letter from my uncle, Alan Laing--our second-in-command. You know him?"

"No, but I have seen him."

Roy chuckled.

"Yes," he said, "and he has seen you; and you fairly knocked him flat! But never mind Uncle Alan now. He's a wicked old man, anyhow. About this T.G. business. Uncle Alan wrote to me the other day. He said that some of the officers lately sent out were about the stickiest crowd he had yet handled. Here's the letter."

_Of course, among ourselves in the Mess, he read, we make allowances, and try to get the best out of them; for after all, most of them are plucky enough and efficient enough. Unfortunately, the rank-and-file, with the true British passion for inequality, do not share our democratic sentiments. They say, in effect: "This blankety blighter is no better than we are. Why should we salute him, or obey him, or follow him?" The T.G. too often confirms his own sentence; I caught one of my subalterns trying to stand a corporal a drink the other day. I hear they are going to start officers' schools soon. The sooner the better!_

"Of course," said Marjorie, flying, woman-like, to the personal application of the subject, "Joe wouldn't behave like that."

"Good Lord, no! Of course he wouldn't," said Roy.

"Amos probably would, though," added honest Marjorie. "He has never been to a proper school, so he has had no chance to have his Clegg manners improved. But we aren't troubling about Amos: it's Joe. Would they take him into a Cadet Officers' School, do you think?"

"I am sure they would," said Roy confidently. "Only, it might require a little time, you know."

"That's a drawback," replied Marjorie. "Once father knows what Joe is trying to do, his life at home won't be worth living. It'll be a fight all day long: he will be lectured, and badgered, and prayed over. I shouldn't wonder if they sent for Uncle Fred!"

A thought struck Roy.

"I say," he enquired, "how old is Joe?"

"Twenty."

"That hangs the crape on Joseph!" announced Roy--"for a year, at any rate. They won't give a commission to a minor without his father's consent." He wriggled. "Don't I know it! If they did, I'd have been in the show a year ago."

"In that case," said Marjorie, "we must fall back on our second plan."

"We?"

"I mean Joe and I."

"Oh, sorry. I was hoping you meant you and me! What is the plan?"

"It's a secret just now," said Marjorie. "Perhaps I'll tell you about it, when I write."

Roy looked up eagerly.

"You _will_ write to me?" he said. "Often?"

"Of course I will!" said the girl. "It will be wonderful!"

What she meant was that it would be wonderful to have, in future, a personal interest in the British Expeditionary Force. As already indicated, the circle in which Marjorie had been born and bred was not very heavily represented in France--nor would be until conscription came. But now Roy would be there. She would have a personal outlet for her imagination, and a peg to hang her prayers on. Women hate abstract patriotism, as they hate all abstractions. Roy would supply the human, personal element, upon which a woman's visions must always be founded. Male orators might volley and thunder about the common cause and the redemption of civilization; but to most women the Great War and its issues were usually embodied in the person of a single undistinguished individual in a tin bowler.

Roy, of course, did not understand.

"How glorious of you to say that, Marjorie!" he exclaimed.

"You do not know," continued Marjorie rapturously, "how I have longed and longed to have some one to write to, and send parcels to, and everything--some one I really knew!--instead of a bundle of things to be distributed among a whole platoon!"

"And you are going to make me that particular person?" said Roy, joyfully.

"Rather! You see," explained Marjorie with fatal frankness, "I don't know anyone else. At least, I shan't, until Joe--"

Roy's face fell. "I thought there was a catch about it!" he said woefully.

"About what?"

"About what you said. I didn't understand that all you wanted was some one to write to; and any old thing would do--even me! I did hope, for a minute--"

Marjorie was all repentance at once.

"Oh!" she cried. "How hateful of me! Roy, I didn't mean it! What must you think of me? I must seem like a common little war-flapper. But I'm not, am I? Roy, you _know_ I'm not! Will you forgive me?" She extended a hand impetuously.

It fired the train. Next moment Roy had caught it in both of his, and was kissing it rapturously.

"Marjorie--dear!" he murmured. He was kneeling before her now, with his arms crossed upon her knees. He looked up into her face, and suddenly realised what he was leaving behind. A great sob shook him. Perhaps the thought of the twenty-three second lieutenants had something to do with it. After all, he was only nineteen, and love and life were very sweet. His head sank on to his arms; his shoulders heaved.

There followed a brief interval of silence--perhaps three minutes. But within that interval something happened to Marjorie.

Presently a slim hand removed Roy's glengarry bonnet, and began to stroke his obstinately curly hair. Next, Roy was conscious of a warm splash, somewhere behind his right ear--followed by another, and another. Marjorie was shaking now. Roy looked up at her again, and the sight of her wet face suddenly braced him against his own weakness. He sprang up.

"You poor, poor, poor!" he said. "Let me--"

He produced a khaki handkerchief from his sleeve, and dried her eyes, Marjorie meekly submitting. After that, inevitably, he kissed her. It was not a very successful kiss: first kisses seldom are. Then he sat down upon the grass again with his head against her knee, and her hand against his cheek. He sighed, long and rapturously. Marjorie stroked his hair with her free hand. Children both, they were living through a moment for which others, less fortunate, have sometimes waited a lifetime, and which in no case ever comes to man or maid a second time.

Presently they began to talk, employing the two inevitable topics of the newly-betrothed--"When did it begin?" and, "Do you remember?"

They recalled their first glimpse of one another--that May morning in church, more than a year ago.

"Uncle Alan was very witty on the subject," said Master Roy. "Oh, most diverting! It's my belief the old ruffian was having a good one-time-look-see at you himself, and that was why he caught me at it. Well, I can't say I blame him!"

They wandered on to the second subject. Here they had much ground to cover.

They had not actually met until three weeks after the glimpse. During those weeks Roy religiously attended dances, tea-parties, political meetings, even a church soiree, in the hope of encountering his divinity; but in vain. Once he bought three numbered and reserved seats for an amateur theatrical entertainment in the Town Hall, and sent two of these to Netherby, "With the compliments of the committee." But Mrs. Clegg, knowing that her husband did not hold with theatrical entertainments, and that under no circumstances would she or the family be permitted to attend this one, had passed the tickets on to a more emancipated quarter, with the result that Roy witnessed the performance in the giggling company of two Netherby housemaids. He told the story to Marjorie now, and was rewarded with tears and laughter.

But they had met at last--at the local Hunt Steeplechases. Marjorie was present, privily, in the two-seater, with brother Joe. Roy had spied the pair from the regimental enclosure. He was due back at his crammer's in two days' time, and was a desperate man. Summoning his entire stock of audacity--it was considerable, but he needed it all--he left the enclosure, pushed his way through the crowd, and addressed himself to the male member of the rather forlorn couple standing by the rails.

"I say, sir, aren't you Mr. Clegg, of Netherby?"

Joe, quite unequal to the situation, murmured something inarticulate; but Marjorie came to the rescue.

"How do you do?" she said. "You are Mr. Birnie, aren't you?"

"Yes. We are your next-door neighbours--your nearest little playmates, in fact," replied Master Roy. (Netherby is some four or five miles from Baronrigg; but no matter.) "My father has been meaning to shoot cards on you for a long time. Meanwhile, would you care to come into the enclosure? Bracing air! Gravel soil! Commands a distant prospect of the Cheviot Hills, and so on! Highly recommended! Do come!" He waited breathlessly for her reply, fearful of having gone too far. But the invitation was accepted.

"What a moment!" he said. "_What_ a moment!" He looked up at Marjorie again. "I was afraid you would turn me down, for cheek. You hesitated a bit, didn't you?"

Marjorie laughed, joyously.

"My dear, that was for manners! I wouldn't have let you go at that moment for anything in the world!" She played a gentle arpeggio on the brown cheek under her hand.

"By gum, I wish I had known that!" observed Roy, with sincerity.

Once inside the enclosure Marjorie created a profound sensation. It is true that not many of her own sex addressed themselves to her, but this omission was more than balanced by the _empressement_ of the gentlemen.

First of all, naturally, she was introduced to the senior officer present--Major Eric Bethune, who, in the secret view of his subordinates, proceeded to take an unsportsmanlike and unduly prolonged advantage of his superior rank. Duty called him at last to the side of a lady of riper years. Thereafter, Marjorie, almost invisible for second lieutenants, was escorted about the course, shown the jumps, plied with tea, and invited to back horses at other people's expense. She had driven home in a dream, with her exhausted relative slumbering beside her.

After that a few mothers and sisters, hounded thereto by clamorous menkind, had left cards at Netherby. The calls had been duly returned, with the result that some of the sisters added themselves, quite voluntarily, to the ranks of the brothers. Marjorie possessed the supreme quality in a woman of being attractive to her own sex. Mrs. Clegg and her daughter began to be seen at subscription balls and the more comprehensive garden parties; presently at more intimate entertainments. In the end, Netherby usually received a card for any function that was going, always excepting such--formal dinner parties and the like--as necessitated inviting Albert Clegg.

"The girl is a peach," was the local verdict, "and mother does her best; but the old man merely suggests eternal punishment!"

And wherever Marjorie appeared--at ball, function, fete, bazaar, gymkhana, or tea-fight, Master Roy Birnie, home for good from the crammer's, was usually visible in respectful attendance.

Not that she had not other adherents. Even Major Bethune himself, the handsomest man and the most eligible _parti_ in the county, did not consider it beneath his dignity to sit out a dance or two with the daughter of Albert Clegg. But Roy's devotion was marked by its unflagging and conscientious continuity. He was a regular visitor at Netherby. It was his habit to ride over every morning--usually about eleven, when the master of the house was engaged in transacting business in the library, mostly over the telephone to Newcastle--where he would play tennis, perform tricks on the billiard table, give the children riding-lessons, pick roses for Mrs. Clegg--do anything, in fact, which afforded him a reasonable excuse for remaining on the premises. Being British, and only eighteen, his passion had not declared itself in words; nor would have for many a day, but for the quickening influences already indicated. Even when the coming of war suddenly laid a man's responsibilities upon his young shoulders, and removed most of his rivals, real and imaginary, _en masse_, to the other side of the Channel, he did not look higher, for the present, than the foot of Marjorie's pedestal. His intention was to leave his lady perched upon the summit thereof for the duration; and then, if and when he returned safe and whole from castigating the Boche, to invite her to step down to earth and start, under his escort, upon the adventure of life. To do more at present struck him as unsportsmanlike. He would be forcing her hand unfairly; he would be taking a sentimental advantage of the military situation. But the last ten minutes had entirely upset his plan of operations. He had kissed Marjorie; Marjorie had indubitably kissed him back; and now they were sitting side by side in Craigfoot Wood, in an attitude which twelve months ago would have outraged both his susceptibilities and his sense of humour, facing the prospect of indefinite separation. What was the next step? What about it, what? Pending a decision, he saluted his lady afresh.

From the road below them came a respectful toot from the horn of the Craigfoot motor, suggestive of a faithful attendant coughing a discreet reminder behind his hand. Roy glanced at his watch, and rose to his feet with a heartrending sigh.

"Time to go!" he groaned.

He held out his hands to Marjorie, and raised her up. For a moment those two young people looked one another bravely in the face--for the last time, for aught they knew. They were very much of a height; Roy had the advantage of perhaps an inch. Then that direct young maiden, Marjorie, put both arms round Roy's neck.

"Good-bye, dear," she said. "Take care of yourself, and come back safe to me!"

"I'll come back," replied Roy stoutly, forgetting all about the twenty-three second lieutenants. He had no doubts about anything now. Then:

"Marjorie," he asked, "when will you marry me? As soon as the war is over?" He waited, expectant.

Marjorie's answer took the rather puzzling form of a little choking laugh, accompanied by two large tears.

"As soon as that?" she asked.

The young of the male species possesses no intuition.

"Yes," replied Roy earnestly, "just as soon! Or"--with the air of one conceding a point--"pretty soon after." He came closer. "Marjorie--will you?"

This time Marjorie smiled without any tears at all--a purely maternal smile.

"Leave it to me, little man!" she said.

Then she kissed him again, and sent him off to fight for her.

That night Joe Clegg crept downstairs, out of the house, and thence (per two-seater) to the railway junction twelve miles away. Here he caught the early morning train to London, where it was his intention to enlist. He was accompanied by his sister Marjorie, who, after a final and tempestuous debate with her father upon the subject of filial duty and feminine usefulness in war-time, had decided to burn her boats too, and enlist in the gallant sisterhood of those who were Really Trying to Help.

*CHAPTER VI*

*SOLO*

The lights sank low again, and a flickering announcement appeared upon the screen, to the effect that the next picture would be a further instalment of that absorbing serial, _The Marvels of Natural History_--upon this occasion, _Still Life in the Frog Pond_. The majority of the audience took the hint, rose to their feet, and shuffled out. But Marjorie stayed on. Some of us go to the pictures to see pictures, others to hold hands, others to sit down and rest. Marjorie belonged to the third class. Not even the prospect of a quarter-of-an-hour in a frog pond could induce her to concede to the management the chance of selling her seat once more before closing time. She sat on, in a tired reverie.

Marjorie had arrived in London three months ago, to find that overcrowded metropolis fairly evenly divided between two classes--the people who had taken up war work, and the people who were doing it. The chief difficulty of the latter was to push their way through the unyielding ranks of the former. Things righted themselves later, under the unsentimental _regime_ of necessity; but in November, nineteen-fifteen, the road to victory was blocked with good intentions.

Having invaded London, Marjorie and Joe devoted two days to exploration. Marjorie had been in London twice before--going to and returning from school in Paris--her stay upon each occasion being limited to a single extremely domestic evening at Uncle Fred's house in Dulwich. This experience naturally qualified Marjorie (being Marjorie) for the role of guide and courier to that unsophisticated yokel, brother Joe. They put up at the Grand Hotel, because Marjorie considered Trafalgar Square a good _point d'appui_, and a difficult place to lose altogether even in the howling wilderness of Central London. They pooled their money. Marjorie had drawn the whole of the savings of her dress allowance--about one hundred pounds--from the custody of Mr. Gillespie shortly before the day of her departure, and Joe had a quarter's salary intact. They dined, went to the play, sat in the Park, lunched at the Carlton, and generally had their fling (but not of) a world composed entirely of elegantly dressed females and uniformed officers of every grade.

After keeping carnival for forty-eight hours, Marjorie conducted her brother to a recruiting office, where the authorities were unfeignedly glad to see him, business at that period being lamentably slack. There, having kissed him, she left him and returned to the Grand Hotel. At the end of half-an-hour she rose from her bed, dabbed her eyes with a cold sponge, sent for her bill, paid it with a bright smile, and removed herself and her effects to a self-contained flat near the Brompton Road. There she sat down to make a plan. She had several sketched out, but her choice depended, like so many other choices in this life, upon sordid financial considerations. If her allowance were continued, she could afford to do war work for love. If not, she must perforce do war work for money. So she wrote to her father, telling him frankly why she and Joe had left home, giving her new address, and concluding her letter:

_So now you know where I am. If I don't hear from you I shall know that you don't intend to have anything more to do with me. But I hope I shall hear from you. Love. Marjorie._

Upon the question of her father's financial intentions she refrained from inquiry, for she knew full well what the result of such directness would be. Her intention was to hold on until the September quarter, and then try the experiment of a cheque to her own order on Mr. Gillespie's bank. Her hope was that the allowance would continue automatically, as it might not occur to her father to stop it--presuming he wished to do so.

"If he does," she said to herself, "I must just go and work in an ammunition factory, or something--that's all! Still, I don't believe he will. Father's a hard man, but he does try to be just. He can't punish me for simply wanting to work now, of all times!"

In this she did her father no less, and as it ultimately proved, no more than justice; for a _ballon d'essai_ despatched northward to Mr. Gillespie at the end of September was received by him with the honour due to a credit balance.

But September was a long way off. Marjorie methodically reviewed all the avenues of occupation open to her. Nursing attracted her most; but she knew herself to be pathetically ignorant of the elements of the craft, and furthermore doubted (rightly) if her combative nature would endure the complete subservience to the professional element inevitable in the life of that plucky, much-enduring, self-effacing Cinderella, the V.A.D. Stenography and typewriting were unknown to her. Munition-making at this time was but an infant industry--as the occupants of the trenches had continuous occasion to note, with characteristic comment. There were a number of minor Red Cross activities open to her--bandage-rolling, parcel-packing, and the like--but these pursuits were too sedentary for ebullient Marjorie. Other forms of war activity, such as selling programmes at charity _matinees_, or pestering total strangers in 'buses and tube-trains to purchase flags to relieve the contingent wants of hypothetical Allied babies, were pushed contemptuously aside as war work _pour rire_. It was not too easy, either, to know where to apply, with adequate results. Upon the Olympus whence the country was being directed to victory, the Organisation of Womanhood still lay in the tray--much the biggest tray on Olympus--marked "Pending." Those quaint but proud expressions, "Wren," "Waac," and "Wraf" had not yet been added to the English language.

Marjorie finally decided to try canteen work. Vicarious service had no attraction for her; to get as close as possible to the human side of an enterprise was all her aim. At the canteen she would see and wait upon the most human member of the human family, one Thomas Atkins. A single fear made her hesitate. She wanted to spend herself utterly upon the Cause. Might not this canteen business prove just a little too trivial; a little too like playing at work?

She tried it for a week. After carrying tea-urns from the kitchen to the counter for eight consecutive hours she decided, without any hesitation whatever, that her apprehensions were groundless.

Month by month, Marjorie bent her giant's spirit and her straight young back to her task. The Canteen, near Waterloo Station, was never closed, and was full at practically every hour of the day and night. But, day-shift or night-shift, fair weather or foul, good news or bad, nothing made any difference to Marjorie. She was always on time, always cheerful, always perfectly ready to perform tasks left undone by the Undertakers of War Work. She set herself a standard of endurance and privation approximately as nearly as possible to that which she understood prevailed on the Western Front. This seemed to her the least that a stay-at-home person like herself could do, in consideration of the fact that no bodily risk attached to her duties. (As yet, Zeppelin frightfulness was merely one of London's gratuitous entertainments.) Consequently, after six months' unceasing drudgery, Marjorie was beginning to feel very tired, and just a little despondent.

The spirit of despondency stalked abroad in those days: it was the natural reaction from the wave of enthusiasm which had carried the country so highheartedly through the anxieties and uncertainties of the first twelve months. It was becoming increasingly obvious that "K" was right; that the war was going to last for a term of years; and that the country could not reach the goal on its first wind. Pending the arrival of the second, a slump in martial enthusiasm was inevitable. Tubes and omnibuses no longer carried men in uniform for nothing. Civilians no longer offered their seats to soldiers and sailors. Patriotic flappers no longer presented white feathers to wounded officers in mufti. It was no longer considered _de rigueur_ for the orchestra in public restaurants to bring a docile public to its feet by periodical excursions into patriotic melody. The Battle of Loos had demonstrated once more that the young British soldier never fights better than in his first battle; also, alas! that when a nation goes to war free from the taint of "militarism," soldiers must die that Staffs may learn. Gallipoli had been evacuated, when with a little luck and good management the evacuation might have taken place at the other end. Bulgaria had recently joined our enemies, and it was felt that with more skilful handling she would have come down upon our side of the hedge. Early in December figures to date of British casualties in all theatres of war were officially announced for the first time: they reached a total more than five times as great as the numbers of the original Expeditionary Force. A shortage of men was becoming apparent: although nearly four million had joined the Colours, the cry was still for more. The Voluntary system was at its last gasp. Despite the honest and ingenious Derby scheme for a more even distribution of the burden, it was plain that an intolerable and increasing weight was being borne by The Willing Horse. Conscription, long overdue, was clearly on the way, with the result that the voice of the Conscientious Objector was now heard in the land. On the top of all this the No-Treating Order had come into force, and another injustice was inflicted upon that section of the community which preferred that its refreshment should be paid for, as its battles were being fought, by some one else. Even Marjorie's spirits sagged a little during that black winter. Her sense of oppression was increased by two potent factors. In the first place, she was underfed. It was entirely her own fault, or, rather, that of her first parent, Eve. In their hearts, all women cherish a profound contempt for what men call good food. Formal meals, consumed at leisure and with comfortable ritual, are to them a mere pandering to gross male standards of self-indulgence. A woman hates sitting at a dinner-table through a meal of thoughtfully varied courses. To her the perfect repast is, was, and always will be an egg on a tray, on a chair, in any room but the dining-room.

Marjorie was not exempt from this failing. Too often her principal meal of the day was eaten in a tea-shop, and consisted of food that satisfied quickly and nourished not at all. The meals at Netherby had been irksome, but they were at least wholesome. Furthermore, in her desire to emulate the soldier's lot, she imposed upon herself a voluntary rationing scheme--which if applied in military circles would have undoubtedly produced a mutiny. She had the zealot spirit, too. After the twelfth of October, the day upon which Edith Cavell died, Marjorie ate neither butter nor jam for a fortnight. Less sincere tributes have been paid to our great dead.

But, above all, she was desperately lonely. If it is not good for man to be alone, it is far worse for woman. And Marjorie was very much alone. It is surprising what a small acquaintance most of us really possess. Such as are occupied every day in earning a living--and who is not in these times?--are almost entirely dependent for human companionship upon the people with whom they work and the people with whom they share a home. Of course, there is a certain type which makes sociability its life work; which is eternally busy with visiting-cards and engagement-book; scraping acquaintance here, exchanging addresses there--the type, in fact, which entertains a not altogether unreasonable dread of being left alone with itself. But if you possess neither the inclination nor the leisure for these amenities, and do not live at home, and do not happen to work in company with a throng of your fellow-creatures, you can be a very lonely individual indeed, especially in a great city.

Marjorie, fortunately, had the canteen. She formed acquaintanceships quickly, as all attractive people do. Some of these, owing to her natural discrimination, were short-lived, and none made an abiding impression. Marjorie was more interested in things than people in those days. But the soldiers appreciated her. Sometimes their appreciation took the form of tips. One Canadian presented her with half a crown, and commanded her to buy "candy" with it; but the majority of her patrons furtively thrust a penny or twopence--and twopence meant a good deal to Tommy in those shilling-a-day times--under the saucer, adjusted cap, and said awkwardly, "Well, so-long, miss!" hurrying out before the delinquency was discovered. Many of them sent her post cards, from Flanders, or Egypt, or India, addressed as often as not, if they had lacked the courage to ask her name beforehand, to the "Young Lady with the Tea Urns."

But Marjorie's leisure hours were not exhilarating. That moment at the end of the day's work, when every member of the human family ought to be provided by law with some one or something to go home to, was the worst. Still, it was all part of the game, and she played up sturdily. She invented amusements for herself--such as could be indulged in by one person, gifted with imagination and a sense of humour. London itself was her playground. Most of the picture galleries and museums were closed by this time; but London's real attractions are ever in the street. Walking home on a fine morning from night duty, Marjorie would frequently look in at St. James's Palace to see that the Guard was properly changed. Sometimes she trudged as far as Buckingham Palace with the relief. She bought a little book which dealt with London landmarks, and sought out for her own amusement the Old Curiosity Shop, London Wall, the site of Tyburn Tree, and the birthplaces of numerous historical celebrities. She acquired a store of useless but pleasant knowledge: for instance, that the wooden slab with iron legs, which stands by the railings of the Green Park in Piccadilly, was originally set up to enable ticket-porters to rest their bundles for a moment before breasting the gradient--more perceptible to a ticket-porter than a modern taxi--that leads to Hyde Park Corner.

The great railway stations were a perpetual feast to her, especially Victoria and Waterloo. Many an evening found her at the barrier at Victoria as the leave train drew up at the platform, to disgorge a wave of bronzed, boisterous, mud-caked, unshaven children into the arms of demonstrative relatives. Sometimes, too, in the early morning, she attended this same train's departure, upon the shortest run in the world--the run in the opposite direction was the longest--the journey between London and Folkestone. With swelling heart and tightening lips she watched the crowd of returners to duty--all curiously silent, and all smiling in the most unanimous and resolute manner for the benefit of those who had come to see them off. The silence and the resolution broke sometimes when the warning whistle sounded--perhaps for ten seconds. As soon as the train began to move, Marjorie always turned and walked rapidly away before the women came wandering aimlessly back from the empty platform. She could bear most things, but not that.

There were few amusements upon which she could afford to spend money. The theatre generally was beyond her reach, but the cinema was an abiding boon to herself and countless others--a fact to which the attention of intellectual despisers of common pleasures is respectfully directed. The cinema was always open; one could go in when one had time, and come out when one had had enough. One could go there alone without looking or feeling conspicuously alone, which is not possible in the ordinary theatre; there were no waits, and no noise; and the darkened auditorium, whether one regarded the screen or not, was a rest-cure in itself.

Then there was the recreation of correspondence. Marjorie wrote to Roy every day, and Joe once a week. She had received no letter from Netherby in answer to her own; so she decided to make no present attempt to repair the rupture of diplomatic relations in that quarter. Joe was now a private in the Royal Engineers, undergoing intensive training in the north of England. She had not seen him since his enlistment, nor expected to, for leave was difficult. Moreover, Joe referred frequently and appreciatively in his letters to local hospitality. Marjorie scented a romance, but Joe gave nothing away.

And there were Roy's letters. They arrived with amazing regularity--the postal service of the British Expeditionary Force was one of the unadvertised marvels of the war--written in pencil upon the thin blue-squared sheets of a field dispatch-book, with the censor's triangular stamp in one corner of the envelope and Roy's own name scribbled on the other. They contained little military information, and a surprising amount of irrelevant foolishness. Roy told Marjorie about life in billets. He reported upon his progress with the French tongue. He told her of Madame _la fermiere_, in whose loft he slept, and with whom he practised elegant conversation, but who was unfortunately only intelligible upon Sunday, that being the one day in the week when her false teeth were in actual use. For the rest of the week they reposed thriftily in a drawer. He told her how he visited a French Field Hospital, and had committed the solecism of addressing the nurse--an elderly Sister of Charity--as "Mademoiselle Nourrice." He wrote, as a schoolboy might, of some extra good "blow-out" at an _estaminet_; of his small amusements; of his small grievances. He wrote, as a lover does, of his lady, and how much he loved and missed her, and how greatly the thought of her inspired him. But of tactical operations, or the joy of battle--and there is such a thing--or the privations and horrors of war, there was nothing. The whole aim of the man in the trenches at this time appears to have been to maintain the morale of the people at home. It was during this very month that Forain, the French cartoonist, epitomised the psychology of the entire war in a single drawing--two gaunt, mud-caked _poilus_, crouching waist-deep in the water of a devastated trench during an intensive bombardment, gasping anxiously to one another: "_Si les civils tiennent!_"

Of Roy's whereabouts Marjorie knew little. He had come safely through the Battle of Loos--more fortunate than the majority of his colleagues. He had served in Belgium for a space; after that the Division had been transferred to France again. He was fond of indicating his position on the map by cryptograms insoluble by friend or foe, or codes which not even their author could decipher the day after their invention. But occasionally he succeeded:

_Of course we are not permitted to say where we are, but it would be harmful to blub about it._

The latter half of this sentence sounded so more than usually idiotic that Marjorie felt sure it conveyed some subtle message. But though she applied every solution known to the amateur detective, she could make nothing of it. It was not for many weeks that it occurred to her, during the night watches, to cease probing for key-words or transposing vowels, and to try paraphrasing the sense of the text. By this means she reached the conclusion that there was "harm in tears"--and a "buried town" immediately sprang to view. But more often she was trapped in the pitfalls of ambiguity.

"_This is a pleasant old-world spot_," Roy had remarked in a recent letter. "_You would love the Vicar._"

"The Vicar! The Vicar? The Vicar of what?" Marjorie spent half an hour poring over the _Daily Mail_ map of the Western Front which decorated the greater part of her bedroom wall, in a vain search for a place called Wakefield, or anything like it. She wrote back:

_By the way, the Vicar you are so enthusiastic about is an entire stranger to me._

To-night another letter had come, conveying enlightenment:

_Sorry you don't like the Vicar. He used to be a good chap. An up-river man, and some singer in his day._

Two minutes later, Marjorie's pencil was on the map, underlining Bray-sur-Somme. Dear Roy! She leaned back in her cheap little stall in the darkness, and chuckled softly to herself. How wonderfully these foolish trifles lubricated the grinding wheels. But oh--!

Spots and splashes appeared upon the film, and it began to rain ink--an infallible sign in the world of moving-picture romance of the less expensive kind that the end of the tale is approaching. Marjorie rose to her feet, pulled on her hat, and felt her way out into the Earl's Court Road. She was sufficiently well known to the asthmatic Admiral of the Fleet--at least he looked like that--who guarded the portals of the Electric Palace to receive from him a gracious good night.

"O reevoyer, miss! I 'ope to see you on Thursday. We shall 'ave a fresh picture then--Charlie Chaplin, the new screen comedian. Everybody's talking about 'im. Very comical, 'e is!"

Not far from Earl's Court Station, in the obscurity of the discreetly darkened street, Marjorie came upon a motor-car. A girl chauffeur was endeavouring to jack up the off-hind wheel. Marjorie ranged up alongside at once.

"Let me help you," she said.

"Thanks," gasped the girl. Together they wrestled with the stiff jack.

"A puncture?" inquired Marjorie.

"Yes. Rotten luck! I am only a mile from home, and this old tyre has gone on the blink. I must put on the spare rim."

"I know this kind," said Marjorie, fired with characteristic enthusiasm at the prospect of a thoroughly irksome job. "Let me do it!"

"You're welcome!" said the girl, who was white with fatigue. "I don't mind the driving and the long hours," she continued sociably, settling down on the running board while Marjorie deftly removed the unserviceable rim; "but changing tyres, and oiling the engine, and filling up grease-cups, and all those messy things--that's what I can't stick!"

"Is this your--your work during the war?" asked Marjorie, suddenly interested.

"Yes--The Women's Legion. We haven't been started long. It's hard work in all weathers; but it's helping--a bit. I'm trying to keep my husband's job open for him."

Ten minutes later, utterly exhausted, Marjorie let herself into her tiny flat in a by-street off the Brompton Road. It was half-past nine. She set the alarm clock for half-past five, and went to bed with Roy's letter under her pillow. She dreamed that Roy had been promoted--suddenly, but not unexpectedly--to the rank of Commander-in-Chief, and that it was her privilege to drive him to battle every morning at five-thirty, in a motor-car with the off-hind tyre punctured.

*CHAPTER VII*

*DUET*

*I*

In one respect her dream came true.

Shortly after nine o'clock next morning, as the breakfast rush eased off, Marjorie was aware of the flushed features of the lady superintendent of the canteen, Miss Penny--"The Mouldy Old Copper," in the unregenerate language of the junior staff--angrily visible through a mephitic fog to which steaming tea, frying bacon, and moist humanity had all contributed. (Even in the crispest weather Tommy Atkins is a most hygroscopic individual.)

"We are for it, my dear!" announced The Mouldy Old Copper.

"What--Zeppelins?" inquired Marjorie, setting her tenth urn in position.

"Worse! Inspection! They are coming at twelve. The Government have suddenly decided to inquire into the feasibility of making the Canteen Service an official affair--a branch of the A.S.C., or the R.A.M.C., or the Q.M.G., or some other futility. So they are coming to inspect us, as 'a typical example of a canteen maintained by voluntary effort and service.' I got it over the telephone just now."

"It was decent of them to warn you," said Marjorie.

"That's just what they haven't done! I got the news by a side wind. It's to be a surprise inspection. They want to see what a show run by women is like when it's off its guard. I like their impudence! What do they expect to catch us doing, I wonder--arranging the tea-cups in the wrong formation; or not keeping accounts in triplicate; or flirting with the men; or what!" The Mouldy Old Copper turned a bright bronze colour. "I'll jolly well talk to them, if they start any of their old--!"

"Don't you think," suggested Marjorie, "that it would be a good plan to telephone round at once to make sure that there are enough waitresses? You know what a bear-garden this place is when the men can't get served."

Miss Penny considered.

"Yes, you are right," she said. "At least, we will warn some of them. Not all--oh dear no, not all! There are women connected with this place who haven't allowed their so-called work here to interfere with a single tea-fight or subaltern-hunt since they joined. Of course they would sell their souls to crush in to-day. Well, they shan't! They shall hear all about it to-morrow, instead! I shall love telling them--especially the Toplis girl, and Lady Adeline, and Mrs. Napoleon Jones--or whatever the name of that horror with the pekineses is! You run along, dear, and telephone to about a dozen of the decent ones, and tell them to be sure and turn up by ten-thirty."

The result was that at high noon, when the Olympians descended upon Waterloo Road, they found the canteen crowded with happy warriors partaking of nourishment from the hands of a bevy of attractive and competent Hebes. The Committee of Inspection consisted of a much-beribboned Major-General, two or three lesser luminaries proportionately decorated, and an elderly civilian in a shocking hat.

The Mouldy Old Copper conducted the procession round the canteen. Here and there a halt was called at a table, where the Major-General, having made the diners thoroughly comfortable by commanding them straitly to "sit at ease," inquired, in the voice of a Bengal tiger endeavouring to coo like a dove, whether there were "any complaints." There were none, which was most gratifying, but not altogether surprising.

Marjorie, greatly diverted by the _sotto voce_ remarks which reached her from tables in her neighbourhood, rested her tired arms upon the speckless counter and looked demurely down her nose. Upon her ear fell a raven's croak:

"Very good--with such a short time for rehearsal! But these damsels must come here _every_ day, you know! By the way, does he write to you regularly? I told him to."

Marjorie turned, and gaped in the most unladylike manner. The elderly civilian in the bad hat had strayed away from his escort, and now stood at her elbow--revealed as Lord Eskerley, to whom she had once been presented at a regimental gymkhana at Craigfoot. Apparently he was aware that the Olympian deputation were being treated to a display of "eyewash." Apparently, also; he knew Marjorie. Not only Marjorie, but Marjorie's most private affairs. Altogether, he seemed to know too much.

"By the way," continued his lordship characteristically, "how do you do? I forgot." They shook hands. "Lovely day, isn't it? You look overworked. What are your hours here?"

Marjorie told him.

"What is your particular _metier_?"

Marjorie introduced the tea-urns.

"No woman, however young or muscular, should carry heavy things about," said Lord Eskerley. "Razors to cut grindstones; as usual! Would you like a change of occupation?"

"Indeed I should," replied Marjorie--"so long as it was helping things along, you know."

"What can you do?"

Marjorie fingered the dimple on her chin dolefully.

"Not much, I'm afraid. I don't know anything about nursing, or shorthand, or anything useful."

"You can drive a car, though."

"How do you know that?"

"How does the trembling fawn know that the wolf is not a vegetarian?" The old gentleman glared at Marjorie over his spectacles.

"I expect its mother warns it," hazarded Marjorie, a little guiltily.

"Ah! Possibly. My mother, unfortunately, never saw you, though I am sure that if she had she would have warned me. But there are other ways--instinct, to a certain extent; also experience. You and your two-seater once missed me by inches in the Craigfoot road. You were on your way to keep an appointment, I thought: I forbore to speculate with whom. But never mind that. Now--my chauffeur very properly joined the army to-day. Would you care to step into his shoes? He wears large fourteens, and your appointment would probably wreck my prospects as an eligible widower; but I think those are the only two objections. Will you give me a trial? Thank you very much! Report this evening."

*II*

Marjorie's labours henceforth were as arduous as ever, but were mainly performed in the open air--which to her meant all the difference between work and play. Each morning she drew up before Lord Eskerley's gloomy mansion in that aristocratic slum, Curzon Street, at nine o'clock sharp, and conveyed her employer upon his daily round. First to the Ministry of Intelligence, an unobtrusive mansion in the purlieus of Whitehall Gardens. Then, about eleven, to Downing Street. Then back to the Ministry. About one, to Curzon Street, for a brief luncheon. In the afternoon Marjorie ran errands: that is to say, she conveyed visitors to the Ministry from all quarters of London--from other Ministries, from the House of Commons, or from remote private addresses. At seven she conveyed his lordship home to Curzon Street, where, day in, day out, in victory or defeat, he dined at seven forty-five precisely.

"Give your digestion fair play," he once suddenly advised his chauffeuse, as she tucked him into the car on a bitter January afternoon, "and the world is yours!"

Marjorie promised to do so.

"Have a clear understanding with your stomach in early life," his lordship resumed, the moment Marjorie reopened the door of the car twenty minutes later. "Remember he _rules_ the rest of your internal economy. Socially, we never meet him, or speak of him; but he is the whole show! And--he is as sensitive as an upper servant! Give him the consideration due to his position; don't ask him to work at unusual times, or do things that are not part of his duty; and he will not only serve you for a lifetime, but will keep your heart up to its work, restrain your brain from more than usual foolishness, and put the fear of death into the organs below stairs! But treat him casually, or give him odd jobs to do--and he will let you down, as sure as fate! Call for me at the usual time, please."

Marjorie's duties did not end at dinner-time; for war knows nothing of the eight-hour day, or early closing, or Sabbath observance. Lord Eskerley frequently went out about nine in the evening--sometimes to Downing Street, occasionally to Buckingham Palace, not infrequently to an unpretentious house in Dulwich, where he found it convenient to interview persons whom it would have been undesirable to receive officially at the Ministry or Curzon Street. The house stood in the same road as Uncle Fred's. The fact gave Marjorie, gliding past in the wintry darkness, a pleasant sensation of escape from futility.

One bleak and muddy day in February she drove Lord Eskerley down to Bramshott Camp, to assist at a review of two new divisions. Somewhere outside Godalming the gears began to burr and slip. Finally, Marjorie pulled in at the side of the road and descended.

The window of the car was let down and Lord Eskerley's head appeared.

"How long will it take?" he inquired, avoiding superfluous questions, as usual.

"About ten minutes. The lever has worked loose; I can't get my gears in properly," replied Marjorie.

"Do you want any help? I have with me"--his lordship leaned back and exhibited his fellow-passengers--"General Brough-Brough; his A.D.C., Captain Sparkes; and Mr. Meadows. The General and Captain Sparkes, as you will observe, are all dressed up in review order, and I cannot have them tarnished or made muddy, or I should be bringing contempt and ridicule on the King's uniform; also rendering aid and comfort to the enemy, which is not allowed in war time. So that disposes of them. I shall not insult a lady of your capabilities by offering my assistance. That leaves Meadows. Do you want him?"

"No, thank you," said Marjorie, swiftly removing the floor boards above the gear box. The window was drawn up again, and Mr. Meadows, Lord Eskerley's private secretary, a young man debarred from warlike exercises by acute astigmatism and valvular murmurs, looked very much relieved.

Ten minutes later, Marjorie, somewhat flushed and not a little oily, resumed her place at the wheel, and deposited her passengers at the stroke of the appointed hour at Divisional Headquarters at Bramshott.

Her employer, stepping out of the car, surveyed her grimy features quizzically.

"Habakkuk!" he chuckled.

Six hours later, at the end of the return journey, he inquired:

"Do you read your Voltaire at all? Probably not: I'll send you his 'Life.'"

The volume reached her next morning. Therein Marjorie discovered a marked passage, in which it was recorded that Voltaire found Habakkuk "_capable de tout_." Thereafter, Lord Eskerley habitually addressed her as Habakkuk.

*III*

Still, Marjorie was not entirely happy. As already stated, any form of outdoor occupation was, in her view, play; and the present was essentially a time for work. She belonged to that zealous breed which is never really contented unless it is uncomfortable--to whom congenial occupation is merely idleness under another name. She enjoyed her present employment so much that she felt ashamed: she felt that she was not pulling her weight in the war. Probably a short conversation with a sensible person would have cured her of these illusions; but Marjorie had no one with whom to converse. She might have confided in her employer; but she argued, with some reason, that he would merely make an apposite and caustic reference to the gentleman who is reputed to have painted himself black all over in order to play Othello. It did not occur to her to mention the matter to Roy in a letter. Roy, for the present, belonged to his country, and was not to be diverted from his duty by domestic or personal trifles. What Marjorie needed and longed for at this time was a confidant.

If we desire a thing urgently enough we usually get it. Sometimes we get more than we bargain for.

One day Lord Eskerley came down his front-door steps arm-in-arm with an officer in uniform. His lordship's _chauffeuse_, who prided herself upon her soldierly restraint, did not look round from her wheel as the pair entered the car, but she heard her employer say:

"You can drop me at the office, Eric, and the car will take you on to the club."

Eric Bethune's voice replied that this arrangement would suit its owner top-hole.

When Lord Eskerley alighted at Whitehall Gardens he turned and addressed Marjorie.

"Habakkuk," he announced, "inside the car I have left a D.S.O. on a fortnight's leave. Please deposit him at the Army and Navy Club in Pall Mall. He is a Scotsman, so there will be no gratuities."

"Very good, my lord," replied Marjorie, looking rigidly to her front. She and the old gentleman made quite a speciality of these solemn little pleasantries.

The portals of the Ministry had hardly closed upon the Minister when his guest emerged from within the interior of the car and climbed into the front seat beside Marjorie.

"May I come and sit here?" asked Eric, shaking hands. "I recognised your back view through the front window-glass."

"It's against regulations," replied Marjorie, smiling, "but I can't disobey a colonel. Besides, I want to hear all about the Western Front. How are the Royal Covenanters?"

"I am commanding the Second Battalion now," replied Eric. "I have been with them since October."

"Yes, I know," said Marjorie thoughtlessly.

"How did you know?" asked Eric, not altogether displeased.

Marjorie, carefully negotiating the cross-currents of Trafalgar Square, bit her lip. She was beginning to give herself away already. But she replied, looking steadily before her:

"I get letters sometimes."

"I hope your correspondents report favourably on me," said Eric lightly. "Do you know many of my officers?"

"Not many--now. Let me see." Marjorie decided swiftly not to be evasive, but to reply to Eric's naive inquisitiveness as naturally as possible. "Major Laing--I have met him once or twice. Is he still with you?"

"'Old Leathery'? Yes. He goes on for ever. Who else?"

"One hardly likes to ask these days, for fear--you know?"

"Yes, I know. But we've been lucky lately. We are in a quiet sector of the line. We have had no officer casualties for two months. Wait while I touch wood!" He tapped the mahogany dashboard. "Do you know Kilbride, my adjutant?"

"I don't think so."

"He's a stout fellow. Let me see. Do you know young Birnie? He comes from your part of the world, and mine."

"Yes, I know him," said Marjorie. "Is he quite well?" For the life of her she could not help asking.