Then came Janie's letter from the Middlesex Hospital. Janie was in a "decline."
The men who go down into trenches in the firing-line are, if anything, less heroic than the army of cooks and Janies who descend to spend their lives in the basement "domestic offices" of Bloomsbury. Dark and ill-ventilated in summer, gas-lit and airless throughout the foggy winter. Flight upon flight of stairs up which Janie daily toiled a hundred times before she was suffered to seek the attic she shared with cook under the slates. Overwork, lack of fresh air and recreation—all these had told at last.
Nosey availed himself of week-end leave from Portsmouth to journey up to London, and was permitted an interview with her in the big airy ward. Neither spoke much; at no time had they been great conversationalists, and now Janie, more diminutive and angular than ever, lost in the folds of a flannel nightgown, was content to hold his hand as long as he was allowed to remain.
The past was ignored, or nearly so. "You didn't orter gone off like that," said Janie reproachfully. "But I'm glad you're a sailor. You looks beautiful in them clothes. An' there's prospecks in the Navy." Poor little Janie: she had "prospecks" herself at last.
He left the few flowers he had brought with the sister of the ward when the time came to leave. The nurse followed him into the corridor. "Come and see her every visiting day you can," she said. "It does her good and cheers her. She often speaks of you."
Nosey returned to Portsmouth and his ship. His mess—the mess-deck itself—was agog with rumours. Had he heard the "buzz"? Nosey had not. "I bin to London to see a fren'," he explained.
Then they told him.
The battle-cruiser to which he belonged had been ordered to join the
Mediterranean Fleet. That was Monday; they were to sail for Malta on
Thursday.
And Janie was dying in the Middlesex Hospital.
* * * * *