Part 7

_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.

"Yes, he's all right." Eric gave Marjorie a sudden sidelong glance. He possessed the curiosity of a child, and not a little of a child's jealousy. He had certain things in mind--rumours, nods, innuendoes, elephantine jests in the mess. Marjorie's eyes were fixed steadily upon the road ahead of her, and her face expressed nothing more than polite interest. But if Eric had been a really observant person--a woman, for instance--he would have noticed that her hands were gripping the steering-wheel until the nails were white.

"Whom else do you know?" he continued. "Garry--Balfour--Carruthers--little Cowie?"

"No." Marjorie knew none of these. They were a later vintage.

"Laing and Birnie seem to be all of your friends that are left," said Eric. "Which of them is your correspondent? Not old Leathery, surely?"

"No; Mr. Birnie. We are quite old acquaintances," said Marjorie, thoroughly annoyed at the unfair tactics which had isolated Roy.

"Well, all that I can say is that I am thoroughly jealous of Master Birnie!" announced Eric, smiling. "Now tell me all about yourself. What are you doing here in London, driving a car?"

"Here is your club," said Marjorie, putting on her brake.

"Confound it!" Eric's annoyance was quite genuine. "We had so much to discuss. Can't you lunch with me somewhere?"

"I never know when I shall lunch. It depends on Lord Eskerley."

"Well, can you dine? Surely you don't work all night as well!"

Marjorie hesitated. As it happened, she was free that evening, for she knew that two cabinet ministers were dining and conferring with her employer. There was no reason whatever why she should not accept Eric's invitation. But for a moment some instinct held her back. Then she thought of the eternal solitude of the flat.

"Thank you very much," she said. "I will."

They dined together and went to a play. Eric made a charming host and a decorative escort. For the rest of the week--he was spending six days of his leave with Lord Eskerley--Marjorie saw him constantly. She drove him about London, and they went upon more than one exhilarating excursion together. By the time that Eric departed to Scotland to visit Buckholm she knew all about the regiment--its exploits, its smartness, even its private jokes. Her general impression was that the regiment had improved greatly since Colonel Bethune had taken command.

On the subject of Roy, both exhibited considerable reticence. When Eric mentioned his name, he did so in a manner which jarred--"Your little friend Birnie"; "Cowie, Douglas, Birnie, and other riff-raff of the mess." Colonel Bethune might almost have been trying to belittle Roy intentionally. So Marjorie, afraid of losing her temper and giving away the position, carefully avoided Roy as a topic--an omission which Eric may or may not have noted, but made no attempt to correct.

But the week was soon over, and Colonel Bethune and cheery nights out were no more. Marjorie fell back into the old routine with an inevitable sense of reaction. She realised next afternoon, as she sat waiting in the rain at her wheel in Curzon Street, how improvident it is to accept happiness or distraction from sources outside one's normal environment. She knew now that the only permanent happiness is the happiness that comes from common things. More than ever she yearned in her heart for a regular companion--a crony, a confidant, a pal--as lively and as "safe" as the companion she had just lost.

As noted above, it was raining--raining on a dismal afternoon in March. It had been an anxious and busy week, for the Boche had fallen like an avalanche upon Verdun, and the French resistance was in the preliminary and uncertain stages of what was to prove one of the most heroic defensive actions in history. Allied Councils of War had been frequent, and Lord Eskerley's department had been heavily engaged.

Word had just been sent out to Marjorie that his lordship would be detained another hour at least, and that Miss Clegg, if she pleased, was at liberty to take the car back to the garage. But Miss Clegg was pleased to remain where she was. She sat on, with the rain dripping off her peaked cap and down the bridge of her nose, sedulously nursing a theory that in so doing she was getting a little nearer to the Western Front.

It never rains but it pours. Suddenly, from round the corner of Queen Street, there came to Marjorie a new factor in her life--a humid but quite alluring vision of attenuated skirt, black silk stockings, and inadequate fur stole. The rain was working its will upon the vision: she had not even an umbrella. But she pattered bravely along upon her absurd heels, taking what shelter the lee of the houses afforded, and keeping her head well down--presumably for reasons connected with her dazzling complexion.

As she passed Marjorie she looked up, and Marjorie saw that she was little more than a child, and a not very robust child at that. With Marjorie, to think was to act.

"I say! Wait a minute!" she cried, and began to rummage under the cushion of her seat, extracting ultimately a spare raincoat of her own.

"You must put this on," she announced to the girl: "you are soaking." She bustled her new protegee into the garment without waiting for permission. Then another thought occurred to her.

"I have half an hour to spare," she said. "May I take you anywhere? Nobody"--indicating her employer's mausoleum-like residence--"will mind."

Appealing blue eyes looked up at her. An enormous but attractive mouth broke into a grateful smile.

"It's jolly decent of you," said a voice of incredible childishness. "Are you sure?"

"Rather!" said Marjorie. "Will you get inside, or sit by me?"

"By you, please."

"All right! Come along!"

Marjorie cranked her engine, and took her place at the wheel. Her new little friend snuggled down beside her.

"You _are_ strong!" she said admiringly. "And yet you don't look very hefty. Your hands are lovely. How do you keep them so nice, doing this kind of work?"

"They are my vanity!" laughed Marjorie. "I sit up half the night trying to keep my nails in order. I wonder if it's worth while: I sometimes feel inclined to let them rip--for the duration! Where can I take you?"

"The Imperial Theatre, if you don't mind. I have a rehearsal at three, and it's after that now. I shall get a telling-off, as usual, I suppose. Well, I'm not worrying: such is life!"

"Are you on the stage?" asked Marjorie, genuinely thrilled.

"Yes. We open in about a month, with a new musical show."

"What's it called?"