We are a strange party at meals, for most of them have never seen a tablecloth nor slept between sheets before, and their wonderment can be well gauged.
It is surprising how often one comes across Nature's gentlemen; one is ashamed at not having had time to see them in ordinary life. A cab-driver from "Edinbury" is here to-day, who, in spite of the fact that he had never before been outside his native town, has manners that would grace a king.
April 8th. One is not always fortunate in one's companions out here, but, having no choice in the matter, is fain to make the best of them.
I don't think I have described our various workers. There is, for instance, the short, drab-looking type of woman who gives one the impression that she is capable only of practical things—a model housewife and cook—but who, on further acquaintance, affords some food for comment; for, alas! her distrait little brain is eternally going off at a tangent; she has neither method nor common sense. If there is a tactless thing to be said, she will say it. If there is a foolish thing to be done, she will do it. To-day, to our horror, one of these, for instance, turned to an old man from Derbyshire—who was out to see a son dying of spotted fever—just as he was taking his departure.
"By the way," she said, "if you find anyone at home whose son is dying out here, do tell them that it is such a pretty cemetery and so well cared for...."
I need say no more.
At every inconvenient moment she tells one anecdotes of her family history—how her daughters have bought a white rabbit, how her second husband committed suicide (we are not surprised!), how a third cousin has been mentioned in dispatches.
She alternately adopts a de haut en bas tone towards the men and informs them that she is an officer's widow and has never done any work before, or tries to claim kinship with the enlisted navvy because he is John Smith and she has a connection of the same name.
Is it to be wondered that there is sometimes friction? We have had a trying time recently, and have come to the conclusion that what one does not learn of petty jealousy and feminine hate out here is not worth learning! And the genus "official enemy"—unknown, hitherto, to me—is quite common. It consists of people who want one's job, or one's friends, or anything else one has; but, most of all, they want one out of the country and out of the way.
To keep our judgment unbiased we have conned Kipling's wonderful "If" and find some measure of comfort in murmuring, as we fall asleep: