"I'm some use to you after all," Linda would say when they retired from the studio for a rest and she made the tea. "Some use? I should think so!" said Rossiter (whether truly or not). And he reproached himself that twenty years ago he had not trained and developed her to help him in his work, to be a real companion in his studies.
He was really fond of her through the winter of 1916. And so jovial and lover-like, so boyish in his fun, so like the typical Tommy home from the trenches. When he was overjoyed at the success of some uncovered and peeped-at experiment, he would sing, "When I get me civvies on again, an' it's Home Sweet Home once more"; and ask for the ideal cottage "with rowses round the door—And a nice warm bottle in me nice warm bed, An' a nice soft pillow for me nice soft 'ead..." Mrs. Rossiter began to think there was a good side to the War, after all. It made some men more conscious of their home comforts and less exigent for intellectuality in their home companions.
They went out very little into Society. Rossiter held that war-time parties were scandalous. He poohpoohed the idea that immodest dancing with frisky matrons or abandoned spinsters was necessary to restore the shell-shocked nerves of temporary captains, locally-ranked majors, or the recently-joined subaltern. He was far too busy for twaddly tea-fights and carping at hard-worked generals who were doing their best and a good best too. He and Linda did dine occasionally with Honoria, but the latter felt she could not let herself go about Vivie in the presence of Mrs. Rossiter and seemed a little cold in manner.
Ordinarily, after working hard all day while the daylight lasted they much preferred an evening of complete solitude. Rossiter's new robustness of taste included love of a gramophone. Money being no consideration with them, they acquired a tip-top one with superlative records; not so much the baaing, bellowing and shrieking of fashionable singers, but orchestral performances, heart-melting duets between violin and piano (what human voice ever came up to a good violin or violoncello?), racy comic songs, inspiriting two steps, xylophone symphonies, and dreamy, sensuous waltzes. This gramophone Linda learnt to work; and while Michael read voraciously the works of Hunter, Hugh Owen Thomas, Stromeyer, Duchenne, Goodsir, Wolff, and Redfern on bones, muscles, ligaments, tendons, cartilage, periosteum and osteogenesis—or, more often, Keith's compact and lucid analysis of their experiments and conclusions—Linda let loose in the scented air of a log fire these varied melodies which attuned the mind to extraordinary perceptibility.
The little Adamses were allowed to steal in and listen, on condition they never uttered a word to break the spell of Colonel Rossiter's thoughts.
I think also Rossiter felt his wife had been unjustly snubbed by the great ladies and the off-hand, harum-scarum young war-workers; so he flatly declined to have any of them messing around his studio or initiated into his research work. It was intimated that the Rossiter Thursday afternoons of long ago would not be resumed until after the peace. Linda therefore derived much consolation and satisfaction for past injuries to her pride when Lady Vera—or Victoria—Freebooter called one day just before Christmas and said "Oh—er—mother's let our house till February and thinks we'd better—I mean the Marrybone Guild of war-workers—meet at your house instead"; and she, Linda, had the opportunity of replying: "Oh, I'm sorry, but It's quite impossible. The Professor—I mean, Colonel Rossiter—and I are so very busy ... we are seeing no one just now. Indeed we've enlisted all the servants to help the Colonel in his work, so I can't even offer you a cup of tea.... I must rush back at once.... You'll excuse me?"
"That Rossiter woman is quite off her head with grandeur," said Lady Vera to Lady Helen. "I expect Uncle Algy has let out that her husband is in the New Year's honours."
And so he was. But Uncle Algy, though he might have babbled to his nieces, had not written a word to the Rossiters. So they just enjoyed Christmas—too much, they thought, more than any Christmas before—in the simple satisfaction of being Colonel and Mrs. Rossiter, all in all to each other, but rendered additionally happy by making those about them happy. The little Adamses staggered under their presents and had a Christmas Tree to which they were allowed to ask their two grannies—Mrs. Laidly from Fig Tree Court and Mrs. Adams from the Kilburn Laundry—and numerous little friends from Marylebone, who had been washed and curled and crimped and adjured not to disgrace their parents, or father—in the trenches—would be told "as sure as I stand here."
(The little Adamses were also warned that if they ever again were heard calling Mrs. Rossiter "Gran'ma," they'd—but the threat was too awful to be uttered, especially as their mother at this time was always on the verge of tears, either at getting no news of Bert or at the unforgettable kindness of Bert's employer.)
Mrs. Rossiter, quite unaware that she was soon to be a Dame, gave Christmas entertainments at St. Dunstan's, at the Marylebone Workhouse, and to all the wounded soldiers in the parish. And on December 31, 1916, Michael received a note from the Prime Minister to say that His Majesty, in recognition of his exceptional services in curative surgery at the front, had been pleased to bestow on him a Knight Commandership of the Bath. "So that, Linda, you can call yourself Lady Rossiter, and you will have to get some new cards printed for both of us."