She showed the addition to Avelyn.

"I am going to _post_ this to your mother," she remarked pointedly. "You may tell your room-mates that they are each to bring me her report. I shall post theirs also. I am very much disappointed in you all."

Avelyn left the room in the depths of dejection. She had been very near tears all the morning, and now she could restrain herself no longer. It seemed an absolutely pixie day, with disgrace on the top of bad news.

She gave a husky message to Laura, telling her to pa.s.s it on to the others, and then flew into the bath-room and had a good weep in private.

Crying is a horrid business; it makes one's head ache, and one's eyes feel bunged up, and one's throat sore, and one's heart like a lump of lead. If it is true that our emotions cause waves of colour to emanate from us, poor Avelyn's aura must at that moment have been a particularly dingy drab.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AN INTERVIEW WITH MISS THOMPSON]

"What will Mother think of my getting 'dishonourable' in my report?" she sobbed. "And I can't go home and tell her all about it. I'll write to her and try to explain, but I'm always a silly at writing. She's kept all our reports ever since we first went to school, and we've none of us ever had anything nasty like this in them. It'll just spoil the record.

Oh, dear, what an idiot I've been! I wish I hadn't to go to Cousin Lilia's this afternoon! I know I'll hate Christmas there. Life's a perfectly sickening business!"

CHAPTER XIV

War Work

After all, Avelyn enjoyed her holidays far more than she had ever expected. The Lascelles gave her a kind welcome, and tried to make her feel at home. They were quite a jolly family--all considerably older than Avelyn. Two sons were in the Flying Corps, and the third was at a Government office in the town. The daughters, Mary and Gwen, were busy with various kinds of war work, and had little time to spare. They made a great effort, however, to amuse their visitor, and took her out in turns. Avelyn was treated to pantomime, concerts, and cinemas, and was invited with the Lascelles to many little parties and social evenings.

She would infinitely rather have been constructing a rockery in the dear Walden garden than sitting in a picture palace looking at the eccentricities of Charlie Chaplin, but she appreciated the kindness of the Lascelles, and felt what the French call _reconnaissante_, which has a far more subtle meaning than "grateful".

"Couldn't you take Avelyn to the Munition Hostel, Mary?" said Mrs.

Lascelles one day, when plans for entertaining the young guest were running rather low. "I'm sure Bertha Gordon would show you over the canteen if you asked her."

"If it would amuse Ave?" began Mary doubtfully.

"I'd just love it!" agreed Avelyn, brightening perceptibly.

"Then I'll ring up Bertha. If it's her afternoon off I'm certain she'll have us. She told me to come the first opportunity I had, and I've always seemed too busy up till to-day. I've been wanting to go for ever so long."

A brisk ringing of the telephone bell followed, and Mary came back presently with the welcome information that her friend Bertha would be free from three till six o'clock, and would be delighted to see two visitors and show them all in her power.

"We'll get up there as early as we can," said Mary, "so that we'll have time for sight-seeing before tea."

Miss Gordon was doing Government war work in Harlingden. She had taken her certificate for domestic economy at a training college in London, and now held a post in the canteen department of a huge munition factory. The place lay a few miles out of the town. Mary and Avelyn first caught a tram-car, which whisked them along an uninteresting stretch of shabby road, and put them down at a corner where three ways met. It was a tolerably long walk from there to the munition works. The neighbourhood was dingy, with rows of small cottages and second-rate shops, and tall chimneys or furnaces in the background. The Chayton Government factory was a colony in itself, with a special railway line out from Harlingden. The station platform marked its boundary. After that came rows and rows of munition cottages--little wooden houses, each containing three rooms and a bath-room, all exactly similar except for the numbers on the doors. The girls pa.s.sed these, and went in the direction of the hostels. At the great gate of the works stood a sentry on duty, who asked them their names, residence, and whom they were going to visit, and entered these particulars in a book before he would admit them.

"It's all right. Miss Gordon told me that she was expecting you," he volunteered, as he opened the gate for them.

Feeling rather as if they were going into prison, Mary and Avelyn stepped forward, and found themselves in a big enclosure fenced with barbed wire. Each hostel was a large, separate bungalow building, and there were also several recreation halls. Patches of ground planted with cabbages lay between. It all looked very new and unfinished, something like the pictures of mushroom cities in America. In front of them loomed the canteen, an enormous red-brick structure with a corrugated-iron roof. Mary enquired at the office for Miss Gordon, and her friend soon made her appearance.

"I'm so glad you've found your way here! Come in, and I'll show you everything. It's a queer place, isn't it?"

"I should get lost in it!" declared Mary.

"Oh! it's wonderful how soon you learn to find your way about. What would you like to see first? The canteen? We shall just have time to go round before tea, then we'll do the hostel afterwards."

Avelyn trotted off with great interest in the wake of Mary Lascelles and Miss Gordon. She was going to see a new side of life, and learn what some women were doing to help the war. Out at the front our boys were fighting for Britain's honour, but their heroism would be of no avail if the hands slacked that forged the weapons at home. The workers who made the munitions, and those who toiled to feed the workers and keep them fit, were taking their share of the burden, and, in however small and obscure a way, were pushing the world on towards the victory of Right over Might.

Miss Gordon first led the way into the canteen, an enormous hall with seats for three thousand people. There were long tables with benches, placed in rows, and over these hung sign-boards: "Hostel I", "Hostel II", "Hostel III", &c.

"Each hostel has its own tables," explained Miss Gordon, "and the girls are bound to go there. It saves scrambling. They all have food coupons, and they take them to the counter, and exchange them for any dishes they want, and then carry their plates to their own places. There's a menu hung up, and they generally have the choice of several things. It's a tremendous sight to see them all filing in for their meals."

"Are they easily satisfied?" asked Mary.

"As a rule, but sometimes we get grumblers, and they inflame the others.

You see, there are all sorts and conditions of girls here, and some of them are a rough lot. Individually they are quite nice, but when they get together in crowds some spirit of lawlessness seems to permeate them, and they get utterly out of hand sometimes. Once there was a terrific row. They were discontented with their rations, and they put the blame on Mr. Jennings, the canteen manager. Some agitators stirred up trouble, and one evening things came to a head. There was rice pudding for supper, and the girls didn't like rice pudding, so they flung it all about the room and smashed the plates; then they stood on the seats and shouted and yelled. They said that, if they could catch the manager, they would teach him a lesson. He dared not show himself.

Indeed, he was obliged to go away altogether. It was about two hours before the row subsided; all that time the girls were shouting in the canteen. They had utterly lost control of themselves, and wouldn't listen to anyone who tried to speak to them. We've a new manager now, and things are going better."

"How fearfully exciting!" commented Mary.

"Rather too exciting at the time, I can tell you! And the hall was in such an awful mess, with rice pudding flung about everywhere. Come into the kitchen now and I'll show you my department."

Avelyn had never seen cooking on so vast a scale before. There were great polished copper cauldrons for stews, so large that they looked as if Giant Blunderbore's meals might be prepared in them; there were rows and rows of ovens and steamers; and an electric meat cutter that sliced up the joints. Puddings were being mixed in big washing basins, and vegetables were cut up by a machine. There were enormous cans of milk, and all kinds of receptacles for other stores.

"We have to calculate exactly what we require, so that there's no waste," said Miss Gordon. "We send up lists every day, and the lists are inspected."

The tea canteen kitchen was a department in itself. There were huge boilers for hot water, rows of bright copper tea urns, and an electric cutter for bread. Two girls stood at a table b.u.t.tering enormous piles of slices.

"What monotonous work!" remarked Avelyn.

"Yes, it is rather," answered Miss Gordon. "They give that to the novices, and pa.s.s them on to something else afterwards. But one gets accustomed to all the work, and doesn't mind. Now we'll have some tea ourselves. Come to the Staff Room. I'm allowed to bring in my visitors."

The sitting-room reserved for the members of the staff was divided by gla.s.s doors from the canteen. It had little tables and chairs, and its wooden walls had been decorated with pictures from magazines, fastened up with drawing pins. Some of the staff were already seated there having tea--brisk, capable ladies, most of whom had left comfortable homes in order to take up war work. Miss Gordon greeted several friends, and introduced Mary and Avelyn. The scones and the oat cake were delicious, and were certainly a good advertis.e.m.e.nt of the cookery done in the canteen. It was quite a merry little tea-party, for the lady workers appeared to have a stock of jokes among themselves.

"Now you must see my hostel," said Miss Gordon, pushing aside her cup and rising when her guests had finished. "If you've seen mine you've seen them all, for they're exactly alike."

The colony consisted of thirty-two hostels, each holding a hundred girls. The buildings were separate bungalows, and each had its own matron, who was responsible for the comfort of its inmates. Miss Gordon showed Mary and Avelyn into her bedroom, a little room nine feet square, heated by hot-water pipes, and containing a bed, chest of drawers, table, wash-stand, chair, and cupboard for dresses.

"They give us the necessary furniture," explained Miss Gordon, "but we must find our own pretty things. I brought the curtains and the bed-cover and cushion and dressing-table mats, and of course my own pictures and photos. There's a good deal of compet.i.tion in making our rooms nice."

"This one's perfectly sweet!" exclaimed Avelyn.

"It's not so bad, and there's quite a comfy chair to sit in to rest and write letters. We can lock up our rooms if we like; the matron has duplicate keys for cleaning purposes."

There was more to be seen at the hostel: the laundry, where any girls who liked might wash their own clothes, and where several were busily at work with an ample supply of water and hot irons; the matron's little office, with its piles of papers neatly filed; and the store-room, with its sacks of flour, sugar, rice, and other commodities, that were weighed out daily and sent to the canteen.

"We lack a cosy sitting-room," said Miss Gordon; "we have to use our bedrooms instead. There's a recreation hall, where we can dance in the evenings if we wish, and I hope sometime there's going to be a library.

At present everything's so new, and they have to think of the stern business part first before they give us luxuries. It's a utilitarian sort of life."

"Do you like it?" asked Avelyn.

"Yes, on the whole very much. It's interesting, and I always enjoy being among a crowd. Ma.s.ses of people attract me, and I've got the community spirit at present, and want to work with the hive."

Avelyn looked thoughtful. It was not the kind of life that appealed to her at all. She loved Nature's solitudes, and the companionship of woods and streams more than crowds of people. To live in a hostel and canteen would be absolute purgatory. She hoped she was not unpatriotic. Then her face suddenly cleared.

"I could go on the land when I leave school!" she exclaimed with relief.