"It's about Char, Miss Bruce. She's fretting herself into fiddlestrings about that office of hers. She thinks all the work is more or less held up while she's not there to see to it. And yet she may be kept here indefinitely. It's quite possible that Sir Piers may ask for her when he comes to himself again, so there can be no question of her going in to Questerham at present, even if she were fit for it, which she most decidedly isn't."
"That consideration by itself would never keep her from her work," said Miss Bruce loyally.
Lady Vivian waived the point.
"Well, as she won't do the only sensible thing, and transfer her authority to some responsible member of the staff, she'd better have one of them out here every day to go through the work with her and take back the instructions. The car is bound to be going in at least once a day."
"It won't be the rest for Charmian that one had hoped," said the secretary dismally.
"But it will be better for her to do a little work than just to sit and worry about her father and the office—though, upon my word," said Lady Vivian warmly, "I think she's a great deal more anxious about the Depôt than about his illness."
Miss Bruce, not inconceivably, thought so too, but she was very much shocked at hearing such an idea put into words, and said firmly: "Then, would you like me to write to Questerham and tell Miss Vivian's secretary that it has been arranged for her to come out here daily for the present?"
"Dear me, you're as bad as Char, Miss Bruce. Anybody would think they were all machines, to be dragged about without any will of their own. No, no! Ring up the office and get hold of the secretary, and give her a polite message, asking if she can manage it, if we send her in and out in the car."
Miss Bruce obeyed, and triumphantly told her employer that evening that all was arranged, and Miss Jones would come to Plessing on the following morning to receive Miss Vivian's directions.
"Miss Jones? You don't mean to say that the genteel Delmege has abdicated in favour of Miss Jones? What a piece of luck for us!" cried Lady Vivian.