I
Marjorie was one of those who were "able to proceed to their own homes after receiving surgical aid." Others were not so fortunate. The Mouldy Old Copper—badly wounded by splinters of glass, and excoriating the entire Teutonic race with a failing tongue but unabated spirit—was borne off to St. Thomas's Hospital, followed by others. The canteen had been moderately full at the time, and more than one soldier home on leave had had his leave indefinitely prolonged by the visitation. Providentially, no one was killed; the bomb had fallen just too far down the street.
The raid took place on a Sunday evening, during Marjorie's one period of night duty in the week. (In this way, she gave herself one clear weekday for fresh air and exercise.) They kept her at the hospital until she had breakfasted, then dispatched her homeward, with instructions to return daily as an out-patient until further notice.
She walked across Westminster Bridge in the morning sunshine, feeling badly shaken, but not a little proud. Few of us ever outgrow a childish thrill at finding our arm in a sling. Not only was Marjorie's arm in a sling, but her right shoulder was bandaged. ("Just missed your carotid artery, my dear," had been the comment of the elderly house surgeon.) She felt gloriously conspicuous. A 'bus-load of convalescent soldiers in hospital blue recognised her as one of the elect, and inquired affectionately whether she had been out in a trench raid. She waved her sound arm in cordial acknowledgment of the pleasantry. Roy would be interested to hear about this. On second thoughts, no. Roy never told her when he had had an escape; she must maintain Roy's standard of reticence.
She walked jauntily into the flat, and sat down, a little suddenly, upon the feet of Miss Elizabeth Lyle, who, as already noted, was usually insensible until about eleven a.m. Liss rolled over with a resigned sigh, poked her nez retroussé out from under the sheet, and remarked meekly:
"All right! Give me just five minutes more, and I promise—My goodness gracious, Marjie, what have you been doing to yourself?"
Marjorie described the raid. She told the tale as lightly as she could, with humorous touches here and there; for she had seen human blood flow freely, and was feverishly conscious of a desire to get the picture out of her mind. Gradually the narrative became more frivolous, the touches more and more humorous. Finally, the narratress grew so amused with the recollection of her own experiences that she threw her head back and laughed loud and long.
Liss slipped hurriedly out of bed, put both arms round her uproarious friend, and laid her by main force in the place which she had just vacated.
"You stay there, dearie," she said. "They ought never to have let you out."
"The hospital was so full!" Marjorie was shivering all over now, and battling with an inclination to tears. "They said that they were very sorry—very sorry—very sorry indeed—but—"
"That's all right!" said little Liss soothingly, covering her up, and patting her undamaged arm. "I'll make you a good, strong cup of tea, and then you will have a nice sleep, and you'll wake up as right as ninepence! I'll slip round to the theatre and tell them they needn't expect to see you again for a week or two. The show is going to close soon, anyhow."
"I don't care if it does!" murmured Marjorie, her head on Liss's pillow. She did not even trouble to cross the room to her own bed. "I have learnt one thing in the last year, and that is that I am not cut out for the stage. It bores me. I was meant to stay at home, and look after little people like you—and Roy! That's what I—"
She settled down like a tired child, and fell sound asleep. Liss snatched some apparel from a chair, padded out of the room in her bare feet, and closed a door gently for about the first time in her life.
II
Marjorie woke up in the afternoon—herself again, but stiff and bruised. She rose, and entered the sitting-room. Liss was lying on the sofa, reading the Daily Mirror and smoking a cigarette. She sprang up on seeing Marjorie, and flew to her, stopping just in time.
"Sorry, duckie!" she said. "I must remember that arm of yours. Are you feeling all right again?"
"Splendid!" said Marjorie. "What time is it?"
"About four."
"Let us have some tea then, and I'll go round to the hospital and get my arm dressed again. Hallo, it's raining!"
"Yes; it has been pouring ever since eleven o'clock this morning," said Liss; and coughed.
Marjorie turned upon her sharply. Liss was one of those persons to whom coughing is a forbidden luxury.
"Liss," she cried, "you're soaking! Every rag you have on is sticking to you! What's the matter?" She began to fumble at the back of the child's blouse. "Here, undress yourself! I have only one hand."
"I got a bit wet when I went out to the theatre," said Liss airily.
"But why on earth didn't you—" Marjorie glanced towards the bedroom door, and stopped abruptly. She understood. "I see," she said, "you didn't want—? Was that it? How long have you been like this?"
"Oh, not long," Liss assured her; and coughed again.
III
Marjorie, returning from her alternative role of out-patient to resume that of head nurse, walked into the flat, and sat down heavily on Liss.
"How are you feeling this morning, Baby?" she inquired.
"Top-hole!" replied the invalid.
Three weeks had passed. Liss was now convalescent; but congestion of the lungs is not a malady to be taken lightly, especially by little wraiths with weak chests. Marjorie herself had nearly shaken off the shock-effect of the raid. Her arm was still lightly bandaged.
"It's a lovely day," she said. "I will take you for a bus ride this afternoon, if you're good. Meanwhile, I want to have a pow-wow with you." Marjorie had picked up this expression from Roy, and was rather proud of it.
"What about?"
"Well—have you any money?"
"I thought there'd be a catch about it," said Liss, reaching out to the little table beside her bed for the bag in which the young woman of to-day is reputed to keep everything but the kitchen stove. "Let me see!" she said. She laid out on the counterpane a cigarette-case bearing a regimental crest, a match-case bearing another, entirely different, a long cigarette-holder, a powder-puff box, a lip-stick, and a diminutive handkerchief. "Now we're getting down to business!" she announced encouragingly. "Here's a shilling—a threepenny bit—and four pennies. Wait a minute! Here's a crumpled up thing here that might be a Bradbury. No, it's a note from Reggie. I suppose I oughtn't to keep that now!"
Liss tore up the billet-doux with a sentimental sigh. It may be noted in passing that her engagement to Master Leonard had terminated some months previously by mutual and violent consent. A subsequent contract of eternal fidelity to a young gentleman in the Royal Flying Corps—one Reginald Bensham—had recently been dissolved, by unanimous vote. At present Miss Lyle's affections were disengaged.
"One and sevenpence!" she announced. "You can search me for more!"
"That's rather a blow," said Marjorie.
"Are we running short?" asked Liss. "Of course we must be, both having been out of a job for three weeks. But I thought—"
"So did I," replied Marjorie. "I thought we had a nest-egg in the bank at my home in Scotland. I haven't touched it for a year, because I wanted it to accumulate for a rainy day. On Monday I came to the conclusion that our present days were rainy enough—there's the doctor's bill, for one thing—so I wrote to Mr. Gillespie, the manager, and asked what my balance was. I got his answer this morning."
"I hate to ask—but what is the balance?"
Marjorie smiled dismally.
"That's just it! There isn't any balance at all! Just a few odd shillings. My father seems to have cut off my allowance about a year ago. I wonder why? At least, if he was going to do it at all I wonder why he didn't do it in the very beginning. However, we won't worry about that. The situation is, that you have one and sevenpence, and I have about two pounds ten."
"Two pounds ten, and one and sevenpence—that's about two pounds fifteen," announced Liss, after a brief calculation. "We can live for weeks on that. Before it's gone we shall be back in a job again."
"I shan't let you take a job again for a long time, my dear," said Marjorie. "They won't have much use for me, either; I can't lift my arm above my shoulder at present. How could I hold up the Torch of Liberty in the last act?"
"We'll rub along," announced the small optimist in the bed. "If the worst came to the worst, I could always get engaged again. There's a perfectly sweet boy in the Tanks—"
But Marjorie's hand was over Liss's mouth. "Baby, remember you don't get engaged again without my permission!"
"All right!" mumbled Liss. "Have it your own way! But what about your Roy? Can't you raise a small subscription out of him? That would be quite O.K., wouldn't it? You're going to marry—" Suddenly Liss sat up in bed, for she had caught sight of Marjorie's face. "Why, what's the matter, dear?" she asked.
"I haven't heard a word from him for five weeks," said Marjorie in a low voice. "I'm most awfully unhappy, Liss."
Liss forgot all about herself at once, and put both arms round her protector.
"Think what a lot of letters must be lying waiting for you somewhere," she said. "You'll get a whole bunch one morning. Now I'm going to get up, and we'll go on that bus ride."
They lunched frugally at an A.B.C. shop, and having boarded a Number Nine bus sped westward along Piccadilly. A communicative man with a broken nose, wearing the silver badge of a discharged soldier, leaned over their shoulders from the seat behind them.
"Sir Dougliss 'as done it again, ladies!" he announced importantly, thrusting an evening paper before them. "Look! Fifteen-mile front—twelve villages—five thousand prisoners! That's the stuff to give 'em!"
The girls read the report eagerly. It described the opening British attack of the Third Battle of Ypres. (In the first two, the attack had come from the other side.) Woods and villages, long familiar in daily bulletins as German strongholds, were at last in British hands—Hollebeke, Sanctuary Wood, Saint Julien, Hooge—and the advance was still continuing. Marjorie's heart quickened—then faltered. Great victories mean big casualties—and she did not even know where Roy was. When last heard of she had gathered that he was in a rest-area somewhere behind Amiens. But that had been five weeks ago.
"Do you know that district?" Liss was asking.
"Know it? I should think I did, miss—like the back of me 'and! I copped a sweet one there in 'fifteen—near Cambray."
"But Cambrai is not in the Salient," observed Marjorie.
The communicative man conceded the point immediately.
"Neither it is, miss—not in that Salient. My error! They rushed us up and down that Western Front so fast, no wonder a feller gets mixed! I was hit in both places, though. Well, 'ere we are in good old 'Ammersmiff. This is where I 'ops off. Good-day, ladies! Keep the paper, and welcome."
"It's big news, isn't it?" said Liss, continuing to skim through the heavily leaded paragraph.
"I wonder why that man thought Cambrai was in the Salient," remarked Marjorie.
"Swank, I expect," said Liss. "Probably he hasn't been out at all—or wounded!"
"But he was wearing a silver badge," objected Marjorie, to whom all military geese were swans.
"Perhaps he pinched it," suggested Miss Lyle, who harboured few illusions concerning the male sex.
Her theory received entire corroboration a moment later. On folding up the newspaper before descending they discovered that Marjorie's vanity-bag, which was lying on the seat between them, had been neatly slit open and its entire contents extracted.
The pair turned and regarded one another silently. Liss was the first to speak.
"That brings us down to one and sevenpence," she remarked. "No wonder he didn't know where Cambrai was!"
IV
"Luncheon is served," announced Liss.
"What is there?" asked Marjorie.
"The same as breakfast, with Willie and John thrown in. Also the rest of the day before yesterday's loaf. Pull up your chair, dear."
As breakfast had consisted of nothing at all, the prodigality of this menu can be readily gauged. Willie and John, by the way, were the last two sardines in the tin.
"You take Willie," said Liss. "Here's your half of the bread. Oh my, but I'm hungry! Good-bye, John dear! Marjorie, what are we going to do next?"
Marjorie bent her brows judicially.
"Let me see," she said. "I've tried the theatre, and they don't begin rehearsing the new piece for a fortnight. It was no use trying the canteen, because it isn't there any more—at least, nothing worth considering. And as it happens, I don't know anyone else in any other canteen."
"We haven't got an account at any shop," continued Liss, "because we've always been to the cheap cash places. I don't know a living soul in London, except my family; and if I go back to Finchley I know I'll jolly well have to stay there for the duration."
"And I," supplemented Marjorie, "know no one except Uncle Fred, in Dulwich. And I'd rather die than ask him for help!"
"No one at all?" exclaimed Liss. "Do you and I mean to sit here and tell each other that we know no one in London, except the people at the theatre, and the people at your canteen, and one or two dud relations? Why not call on your old Lord Eskerley?"
Marjorie hesitated.
"I don't think I can," she said. "I have no particular claim—"
"No claim? Didn't you drive his silly old car in all weathers for nearly a year? Didn't he tell you to come back and see him whenever you had time? It's no use being modest when you're starving. If you don't go and see him, I shall."
"Then I may as well tell you, dear," announced Marjorie, "that I have been already."
"Why didn't you say so before?"
"I didn't want to disappoint you."
"Why? Were you chucked out?"
"No. He's away in Paris, on an indefinite mission. The butler was very nice about it, but he had no information as to when his lordship would be back. I hadn't been entirely forgotten, though. There was a message for me. It had been lying there for weeks."
"What did it say?"
"It was just a scribbled note in an envelope with my motor licence, which I had left behind in the garage." Marjorie crossed the room to her little bureau. "Here it is! It says:
My dear late lamented Habakkuk,—I enclose your licence, which you have inadvertently left on my premises. No doubt you will need it again some day.
With kind regards,Yours sincerely—
There's a postscript," she added:
Apropos of motor licences, let me offer you a piece of advice. Always keep an adequate sum—say a pound or so—folded up and tucked away between the covers of the licence itself. This expedient, when you get held up in a police-trap, and the minion of the law examines your credentials, may obviate a public appearance before the local Beaks. Verb, sap.! Very useful. Don't say I told you.
Marjorie laid down this characteristic effusion, and laughed.
"I don't think we are likely to tie up any capital in that way at present!" she said, finishing the last crumb of her bread. "We are down to fourpence now. We had better keep that for to-morrow, and go without supper to-night. No, we'll spend threepence on biscuits, and have a biscuit apiece at bed-time!"
"By golly, we do go it, don't we!" Liss looked round the room hungrily. "Isn't there anything left that we can pop?"
"Nothing, I'm afraid. My jewellery is all at Netherby. I have my engagement-ring, of course—"
"That stays!" announced Liss firmly. "It was lucky," she went on with more cheerfulness, "that my little Leonard did not want his back! Not that we got much for it; I always said he bought it at a stationer's! Now, if it had only been the one Reggie gave me, that would have been a different story; his was a beauty. But the little beast practically grabbed it back from me. Marjie, I really think I'd better get engaged again. I could wire Toby, at—"
"You will do no such thing!" said Marjorie. "Besides, you can't send a wire for fourpence."
"I suppose," continued Liss (whose motto in life was "Anything Once!") "it wouldn't do to go and sit about in a restaurant somewhere, and get taken out to dinner by an Australian, or somebody? All right, I was only joking! Well, we must just hang on till Saturday; then there will be lots of our nice boy friends in town for the week-end, and we can make up for lost time. Meanwhile, let's go round and see if we can't get a job directing envelopes, or something. Carry on, partner!"
V
Towards evening our two hungry sparrows forgathered again, footsore and faint, but still smiling. Liss, who ought by rights to have been in bed consuming chicken-broth, was as white as wax.
"What luck?" she enquired.
"Nothing doing!" sighed Marjorie. "They will take me on at an office in Holborn as soon as my arm is well enough to write, but they wouldn't give me an advance of pay. They just told me to report at nine o'clock on Monday."
"And to-day's Thursday! Thank them for nothing!"
"Did you get anything?" asked Marjorie.
"No—except that I went round to the theatre again, and they are putting on the new show a little sooner. There's a call for rehearsal on Saturday. That doesn't mean any salary for a long while, but I ought to be able to borrow a shilling or two from the girls. Not that it will be easy: they all need the money themselves these days, poor things! I'm cold. Let's have our biscuit and go to bed."
"I wonder what time it is?" said Marjorie, getting up from her chair.
"About eight, I should say." (Watches had been hypothecated long since.) "It's a bit early."
"Qui dort, dine," quoted Marjorie.
"What does that mean?"
"It's what Lord Eskerley used to say when he'd been to the House of Lords. Let's go to bed; I'm comfortably tired. London's a big place to get about in—when one hasn't a bus fare!"
They shared Marjorie's bed that night, for misery loves company.
"I say," suggested Liss suddenly, "couldn't we go round and get a meal from the Red Cross, or somebody?"
Marjorie, who was just dropping off to sleep, replied with great firmness:
"The Red Cross can only assist people who have been wounded in action. If they go beyond that, the Geneva Convention allows them to be fired on; and then Roy might—No, we can't ask the Red Cross—unless we get hit in another air-raid!" she added hopefully.
Having no more suggestions to offer, Liss dropped off to sleep in her favourite attitude—with her head under the pillow. Marjorie lay awake for a long time, pondering many things in her heart—speculating mainly as to whether she could last out until Baby's flock of plutocratic second lieutenants came to town on Saturday. She decided immediately that she could, adding a mental rider condemning persons who, like herself, worried about their own personal comforts when there was a war on. She also wondered, again and again, what had become of Roy. She wondered whether he were hungry too. Presumably not. He had assured her that the British Army on the Western Front were grossly overfed—in fact, the inevitability with which the Army Service Corps got the rations up and through bordered on the uncanny. No, she need not worry about Roy's diet. His safety was another matter. Five weeks! She dropped into a troubled sleep.