For some weeks nothing of interest happened at Wilverley Court. Cicely, perhaps, was slightly disconcerted because, as a V.A.D., Miss Tiddle, a new-comer, soared above her. Cicely remained a drudge; Tiddy was accorded privileges. One of the patients required a special nurse. No sister could be spared. Tiddy, by virtue of an alert physiognomy, was selected by “Matron” out of a dozen eager aspirants for the post. And poor Cicely gnashed her teeth when she found herself “clearing up,” as it is technically called, after Miss Tiddle’s more congenial labours. To remove, humbly and swiftly, the impedimenta of a sick-room, leaving behind the immaculate Tiddy enthroned beside an interesting case, tried Cicely to breaking point. Indeed, a too long apprenticeship to drudgery failed to accustom a daughter of the ancient House of Chandos to carrying away soiled dressings, washing bandages, and cleaning dressing-buckets with Monkey soap, which roughens hands, takes the polish from nails, and brightens everything except the temper. And, after two hours’ sweeping and garnishing, it was mortifying to proud flesh to hear judgment pronounced by a sister, who was the daughter of a greengrocer: “This ward looks like nothing on earth.” After such experiences and exercises Cicely was quite unable to tackle with appetite the good food provided by Mrs. Roden at lunch.

She went to Wilverley Court aflame with patriotic ardour and brimming over with excellent resolutions, assuring and reassuring herself that, much as she might shrink from the sight of ugly wounds and cruel sufferings, never, never would she exhibit irritability or impatience with heroes who had bled for England. She had imagined that such heroes would remain heroes. She had not realised the inconsideration, the disobedience, the fractious unreasonableness that even a Victoria Cross may fail to hide when its wearer is reduced by long weeks of pain to a mere attenuated shadow of his true self.

But—there were illuminating compensations. One afternoon, she was returning late from the village, through a dark lane. To her dismay, a man in khaki joined her and passed her without a word. He walked just ahead of her. Every minute Cicely feared that he would turn and confront her with—with abominable effrontery. At the end of the dark lane, when the lights of Wilverley Court were in sight, he did turn, and saluted her, saying respectfully: “Good night, Sister.” Then he retraced his steps—a preux chevalier!

Other experiences were equally illuminating. One of the patients, an unusually handsome man, died after much suffering patiently endured. At the last his wife was summoned, a respectable, plain-faced woman, who was with him when he passed away. The man’s kit was duly given to her. Late that same night, the Matron found her crying over some letters she had discovered, written by another woman. Next day, early in the morning, a good-looking, slightly brazen-faced young person presented herself and asked to see the patient, not knowing that he was dead. The Matron told her the truth. Whereupon she said calmly: “I’m his wife. I want to see him.” The Matron, aghast, blurted out the truth: “His wife? His lawful wife is here. We know that; we sent for her.” Whereupon, the other replied quite coolly: “If you want to know, I ain’t his lawful wife, but I mean to see him all the same.” The Matron went to the genuine widow, and told her that the woman who had written the letters wished to see the dead man. She asked the crucial question: “Are you big enough to let this poor creature see him? She loved him.” To cut short a poignant story, the two women went together into the mortuary-chamber. This incident made a profound impression upon Tiddy. She analysed it from every point of view. “If we grant,” said she, “that a man can love two women”—because, according to Matron, the real wife had spoken of her husband’s devotion—“is it equally certain that a woman can love two men?” Cicely shrank from answering such a question. Tiddy had astonished her by saying: “I believe it is possible. Why not? One man might appeal physically; the other intellectually.”

“Horrible!” said Cicely.

“You can’t compromise with life by calling it bad names.”

Cicely remained obstinately silent much to Miss Tiddle’s exasperation.

Often Cicely went to bed with a headache and rose with it. To go on duty feeling unfit, to contemplate ten hours of physical malaise, to count the lagging minutes, to confront the pettiness and injustice of some sister, perhaps, who held amateurs in contempt, to be conscious that she was not rising adequately to these moral exigencies, to retire at length discomfited and defeated, has been the experience of all V.A.D.S. Cicely was no exception.

One night Tiddy found her in tears.

“What a soaker!” said Tiddy.

“I’m so miserable,” groaned Cicely.

“Why?”

“I’m such a failure, Tiddy.”

“Tosh! The real trouble with you, Cis, is excess of sentiment. You look at my patient, for instance, with sweet girlish pity. He hates that. He doesn’t want sweet girlish pity. Smiles buck him up, and strong language.”

“I thought I could count on your sympathy.”

“So did my patient. Sympathy can be shown without being sloppy. I made my patient laugh.”

“How?”

“I told him about the old woman who keeps our lodge. She left one doctor and went to another, but, being a bit of a pincher, she went on taking the medicine of the first with the medicine of the second, and a sort of earthquake took place inside her.”

Cicely was beyond laughter, but she dabbed at her eyes. Tiddy continued:

“I know what upsets you, Cis. You have to do some of my old work; and they rag you a bit downstairs. And then you don’t rag back, but glump. You are glumping now.”

“I’m not. I suppose we’re different.”

“That’s your misfortune, not mine. I refuse to weep with you. ‘Weep, and you weep alone.’ Good old Ella got there with both feet.”

Cicely smiled faintly.

In due time Tiddy returned to the normal duties of a V.A.D.

Meanwhile Arthur Wilverley had been absent from home. He came back in March, burdened with fresh duties and lamenting the loss of his secretary, who had joined up.

“What I want,” he said to Cicely, “is a clever girl who can do typing and shorthand, and come and go when I want her. But she must have a head on her shoulders.”

A name flew into Cicely’s mind and out of her mouth.

“Agatha Farleigh.”

If Agatha could be found, Cicely was sure that she would prove the real right thing. Of course the Extons would know. Old Ephraim Exton had not waited a year to leave his farm. He was now a tenant of Wilverley, and likely to do well, breeding cattle and horses under happier conditions. His son, John, had enlisted. Cicely, anxious to serve a kind host, cycled next day, during off-time, to Exton’s farm, obtained from the old man Agatha’s address in London, and then, at Wilverley’s request, wrote to her at length, setting forth all details of duties, salary and so forth. Agatha wired back promptly from a typewriting establishment in the Strand, accepting the situation. Within a week she was at work in Wilverley’s office. Within a fortnight Wilverley acclaimed Agatha as a gem of purest ray serene.

He told Cicely, whenever they met (not too often), details about his work. The mandarins had just begun to recognise the possibility of famine. Wilverley, as an expert on agriculture, had been summoned and impressed, without salary, into the Government service. To grow two bushels of wheat where one grew in pre-war days engrossed his activities. To persuade others to tread in his steps had become—so Cicely noticed—a sort of obsession. No word of love slipped from his lips. And a Chandos respected this silence. But, inevitably, the girl came to full understanding of what work meant to Wilverley and others. Comparisons were forced upon her. Inevitably, also, during her leisure, intimacy developed between Agatha and her. Work in London had changed Agatha from a girl into a woman. Her wits and tongue had been sharpened upon the whetstone Competition. Cicely soon discovered that Agatha had discarded reserves of speech imposed upon villagers. She had become, perhaps, less of an individual and more of a type. She showed this in her clothes, and in her talk. Obviously she preened herself after the fashion of up-to-date typists and stenographers, acutely sensible of the cash value of appearances. On the first Sunday at Wilverley Church she wore a cony-seal coat and a hat that distracted the attention of every young woman who was not “quality.” Under the coat waggled a shepherd’s-plaid skirt, cut very short, exposing imitation-silk stockings and high fawn-coloured cloth-topped boots, which, so Cicely suspected, were not too large for her feet. Conscious of Cicely’s amused smile, Agatha assumed a defiant expression, as much as to say: “If you don’t like my costume I’m sorry for you. It’s quite the latest style, and paid for. Not by a rich mother, but by a hard-working, independent girl.” Cicely, greeting Agatha in the churchyard, observed without malice:

“I say, Agatha, you must have saved a bit in London.”

To this Agatha replied sharply, imputing censure:

“What I saved I spent. And why not?”

Perceiving that she had provoked resentment, Cicely hastened to assuage it.

“Why not?” she echoed. “I never was able to save a farthing out of my allowance.”

“We grow old and ugly soon enough,” said Agatha, in a softened tone. “I oughtn’t to have bought this coat, but that’s why I did it.”

Cicely’s laugh melted the little ice that remained. And Agatha’s gratitude for the word spoken to Wilverley was whole hearted. She said shyly:

“I wanted to come back to be near my own people and—and the Extons.”

As she spoke, she pulled off a white glove with black stitching and revealed a ring sparkling upon the third finger of her left hand. Cicely saw a small cluster of diamonds, a ring that she might have worn herself.

“John Exton gave me this before he joined up.”

Cicely kissed her.

“I’m ever so glad. Tell me all about it.”

Agatha, nothing loath, remarked with urban complacency:

“I do believe that prinking did it. I was a terrible dowd before I went to town. Those everlasting greys ...! My lady liked that. So suitable ...! We girls talked a lot about clothes.”

“I always wondered what you did talk about.”

“I was ragged—a fair treat. I had to grin and bear it. Well, what was in the Savings Bank came out of it—quick. In six months I didn’t know myself. When John came up and saw me, I knew that I hadn’t been the fool I secretly thought myself. It’s gospel truth; girls like me must march with the band, or—or be left behind.”

“I don’t blame you or John,” declared Cicely.

Agatha continued in the same slightly complacent tone, which jarred upon Lady Selina’s daughter, although it served to amuse and instruct her. Her soft, respectful manner of address had evidently been cast as rubbish to the void. Cicely divined that she had become something of an echo.

“We girls must have a good time when we’re young, or do without for ever and ever, amen! And as to catching the men, why, I suppose Bernard Shaw knows what he’s talking about.”

“Man and Superman, eh?”

“Yes.”

Under some little pressure from Cicely, Agatha, with unabashed candour, and without picking her phrases, set forth her experiences in London “on her own.” Cicely was informed that girls of the wage-earning class who want husbands must make the most of their opportunities before they reach thirty, or find themselves stranded on the bleak shores of celibacy, with a glimpse of the workhouse in the far distance.

“They do fight like animals for a good time,” said Agatha.

Then, to Cicely’s amazement, this protÉgÉe of her mother’s opened a smart Dorothy bag, examined her nose in a tiny mirror, and proceeded calmly to powder it. Cicely thought that she looked thinner, and wondered if the colour on the girl’s cheeks came out of the Dorothy bag.

“Have you lost weight, Agatha?” she asked.

“Well, we do skimp food to buy clothes, but we’re greedy enough when somebody else pays for our meals.”

After this unabashed talk, Cicely admitted consternation to Tiddy, who gibed at her.

“I never saw such a change in a girl.”

“Pooh! We don’t change much. What was in her came out. She seizes joy when it passes her way. No exception at all. I see you don’t talk much with the other V.A.D.s. Silly—that! Take my tip, and study people at first-hand. I do. I want to understand everybody. Of course, as we’re pals, I dissemble a wee bit with your mother. Perhaps if she understood me I should be out of bounds to you.”

Acting upon this advice, Cicely became more friendly with the farmers’ and tradesmen’s daughters now working at Wilverley Court. Most of them called her “Shandy.” She had accepted this cheerfully, because such familiarity would end, she reflected, with the war. Now, she was beginning to wonder whether social distinctions were of paramount importance. Freedom of intercourse, according to Tiddy, begetting a truer sympathy, a kindlier understanding, might be a greater thing than respectful salutations. In the Midlands, children neither curtsied nor touched caps. Lamentable ...! She was glad that she didn’t live there.

The V.A.D.s responded to Cicely’s advances. She found in them what she had found in Agatha: pluck, fortitude and an invincible optimism in regard to big things. They whined and wailed over trifles. They lacked restraint, refinement, and lied magnificently to achieve their ends. Tiddy talked to all and sundry, particularly the sundry. She didn’t invite confidence timidly, like Cicely. She exacted and extracted it, waving it triumphantly, as a dentist will hold aloft a big molar. With the august Mrs. Roden Tiddy shared the conviction that women were coming into their promised land. Agatha agreed with Miss Tiddle. Often Cicely found herself in a minority of one when social questions were debated at meal-time.

“Is nothing sacred to you?” she asked Tiddy.

“Oh, yes, but not tin gods. This war will scrap them for ever and ever. Speed up.”

“Pace kills, Tiddy.”

“Tosh! Pace kills those who won’t get out of the way. Tin gods sat in a row, graven images, obstructing progress. We shall knock ’em down like ninepins. It’s a case of knock or be knocked. You’ve come on a lot. I wonder what your mother thinks of you.”

Whereupon Cicely confessed that she too dissembled with Lady Selina. At this Tiddy shrugged disdainful shoulders.

“I should have thought you were sick of whitewash in your village.”

“Whitewash? Mr. Grimshaw called it that.”

“Yes; he was the first to open your baby eyes.”

“Well, there’s no whitewash here.”

“Wrong again. Whitewash and eyewash. A full dose yesterday.”

Upon the previous afternoon, the Wilverley Court Red Cross Hospital had been inspected by a medical Panjandrum. Wards and passages had been swept and garnished with nauseating haste and diligence. A great house, already in fine working order, had been scrubbed from basement to attics. The tired scrubbers had presented smiling faces and spotless uniforms to the cold stare of red-tabbed Authority. After his departure they had retired—foundered!

“What’s the use of that?” asked Tiddy. “Why can’t these pestering old duffers take us unawares, and find out how things really are? We should have gloried in that test. At Harborough we played the same rotten game. For half-an-hour the place was as it ought to have been. Next day we went back to the old disorder and dirt. However, we women are going to change all that.”

“Changes are so upsetting, Tiddy.”

“I repeat—knock or be knocked. Really, you privileged people can’t complain; you’ve had a wonderful innings. But this war has bowled you out.”

“Mother would have a fit if she heard you,” remarked Cicely.