As Char extended her hand for the last of Miss Bruce's offerings, a small green bottle of highly pungent smelling salts, Lady Vivian's incisive tones came levelly from above.

"You'd better stay the night at Questerham, Char. It will be very cold driving back after dark."

"Oh no, mother. Besides, I don't know where I could go. I hate the hotel, and one can't inflict an influenza cold on other people."

"You can go to your Hostel. Surely there's a spare bed?"

The ghost of a smile flickered upon Lady Vivian's face, as though in mischievous antic.i.p.ation of Char's refusal.

"It's quite out of the question. The Hostel is for my staff, and it would be very unsuitable for me, as Director of the Midland Supply Depot, to go there too."

"Bless me! are they as exclusive as all that?" exclaimed Joanna flippantly. "Well, do as you like, but if you come back here, you're not to go near your father, with a cold like that."

Miss Bruce, almost before she knew it, found herself exchanging a glance of indignation with Char's maid, but she was conscious enough of her own dignity to look away again in a great hurry.

"You will certainly want to go straight to bed when you come in," she said to Char, pointedly enough. "We will have everything ready and a nice fire in your room."

"Thank you, Brucey."

Char bestowed her rare smile upon the little agitated secretary, and moved across the hall.

She felt very ill, with violent pains in her head and back, and shivered intermittently.

Leaning back in her heavy coat, under the fur rug, Char closed her eyes.

She reflected on the dismay with which Miss. Delmege would greet her, and wondered rather grimly whether any further members of her staff would have succ.u.mbed to the prevailing illness. She knew that only a will of iron could surmount such physical ills as she was herself enduring, and dreaded the moment when she must rouse herself from her present torpid discomfort to the necessity of moving and speaking.

As she got out of the car, Char reeled and almost fell, in an intolerable spasm of giddiness, and her progress up the stairs was only made possible by the remnant of strength which allowed her to grasp the bal.u.s.ter and lean her full weight upon it as she dragged herself into her office.

She was, however, met with no wail of condolence from the genteel accents of Miss Delmege.

Grace Jones, composedly solid and healthy-looking, said placidly: "Good-morning. I'm sorry to say that Miss Delmege is in bed with influenza."

"In bed!"

"She had a very restless night and has a temperature this morning."

"She was all right yesterday."

"She had a sore throat, you know," remarked Grace, "but she didn't at all want to give in, and is very much distressed."

Char raised her heavy eyes.

"You all seem to me to collapse like a pack of cards, one after another.

I think _my_ bed would prove a bed of thorns while there's so much work to do, and so few people to do it. In fact, I can't imagine wanting to go there."

She made an infinitesimal pause, shaken by one of those violent, involuntary, shivering fits. Miss Jones gazed at her chief.

"I think I can manage Miss Delmege's work," she observed gently.

"Oh, I shall have to go through most of it myself, of course," was the ungrateful retort of the suffering Miss Vivian.

The day appeared to her interminable. The air was damp and raw; and although Miss Jones piled coal upon the fire, it refused to blaze up, and only smouldered in a sullen heap, with a small curling column of yellow smoke at the top. A traction-engine ground and screamed and pounded its way up and down under the window, and each time it pa.s.sed directly in front of the house the floor and walls of Char's room shook slightly, with a vibration that made her feel sick and giddy.

There were no interviews, but letters and telephone messages poured in incessantly, and at about twelve o'clock a telegram marked "Priority"

was brought her. With a sinking sense of utter dismay, Char tore it open.

"A rest-station for a troop-train at five o'clock this afternoon. Eight hundred. Miss Jones, please let the Commissariat Department know at once. The staff should be at the station by three. I'll make out the list at once, and you can take it round the office."

By four o'clock a fine cold rain was falling, and Char's voice had nearly gone.

As she hurried down to her car, which was to take her to the station, she heard an incautiously raised voice: "She does look so ill! Of course it's flu, and I should think this rest-station will just about finish her off."

"Not she! I do believe she'd stick it out if she were dying. No lunch today, either, only a cup of Bovril, which I simply had to force her to take."

Char recognized the voice of Miss Henderson, who had received her order for lunch in place of Miss Delmege, and had ventured to suggest the Bovril in tones of the utmost deference.

She smiled slightly.

The troop-train was late.

"Of course!" muttered Char, pacing up and down the sheltered platform with the fur collar of her motoring coat turned up, and her hands deep in its wide pockets.

In the waiting-rooms, given over to the workers for the time being, the staff was active.

Sandwiches were cut, and heavy trays and urns carried out in readiness, while orderlies from the hospitals put up light trestle tables at intervals along the platform.

Char paused, turned the handle of the waiting-room door, and stood for a moment on the threshold.

Every one was talking. Trays piled with cut and stacked sandwiches were ranged all round the room; tin mugs, again on trays, stood in groups of twelve; and the final spoonfuls of sugar were being scooped from a tin biscuit-box into the waiting bowl on each tray. Even the cake was already cut, sliced up on innumerable plates.

They had been working hard, and had more work to come, yet they all looked gay and amused, and were talking and laughing as though they did not know the meaning of fatigue. And Char was feeling so ill that she could hardly stand.

Suddenly some one caught sight of her, there was a sort of murmur, "Miss Vivian!" and in one moment self-consciousness invaded the room. Those who were sitting down stood up, trying to look at ease; little Miss Anthony, who had been manipulating the bread-cutting machine with great success all the afternoon, at once cut her finger with it, and some one else suddenly dropped a mug with a reverberating clatter.

"Miss c.o.x!"

She sprang forward nervously.

"Yes, Miss Vivian?"

"How many sandwiches have you got ready?"

"Sixteen hundred, Miss Vivian. That'll be two for each man, and they're very large."

"Cut another hundred, for reserve."

"Yes, Miss Vivian."