"I will leave them all behind, and wear—well, your uniform!" as she looked bravely at my dull grey clothes.
"But you would have to obey discipline, and as an orderly do all sorts of things disagreeable to you."
"Oh! I should love discipline, and I wouldn't care what I did; anything would be better than"—and tears would not be restrained—"being in that house alone."
"But," I remonstrated, "you are not strong enough, you would never——"
She interrupted. "I never have anything the matter with me, and if a doctor passes me? Besides, my husband will be there, and if I am not suitable, you can send me away with him. You'll have no responsibility for my health."
And—in the end—she came, and was a huge success.
The positions of responsibility were already filled, and, not knowing at first what work she could do, I asked her to help in the linen tent. I soon found that she had method and organising power, and I gave her the control, thankful to be able conscientiously to put her in a position of some responsibility. Her work was to keep, sort, and distribute all linen, blankets, and soldiers' clothes. Also to see that each soldier, when he left the hospital, received his own bundle of clothes after it had been disinfected. Not such an easy job as perhaps it sounds. Curious work, too, for a woman who was an artist, successful in drama, drawing, and romance. But none of her various rôles in life were better played than her rôle of orderly in a Serbian camp hospital. She never asserted herself as Mrs. Dearmer, but kept scrupulously to her new part; in a word, she played the game. I had only known her slightly, and I had feared difficulties from the artistic temperament. But she adapted this to the work in hand, and everything that she had promised, in the aisle of St. Martin's Church, was fulfilled to the letter. My instinct about her suitability had only been right in regard to her physique.
I could not see much of her, as I never allowed myself the privilege of individual friendships, but as I passed to and fro about the camp, I loved to meet her, and to hear her humorous accounts of various little troubles. I would often stop her and ask hopefully, "Any grievances to-day?" just to have the fun of a chat with her. I grew to love her, and looked forward to the time, when in happier days in England, I could hope to count her amongst my real friends.
But this was not to be. Like all of us, she had been doubly inoculated against typhoid, but she took the fever badly. Her husband was at Salonica, and we warned him of her illness by telegram, and advised his immediate return. I went to the station to meet him with Dr. Marsden, who was attending Mrs. Dearmer and, by that time, to our intense relief, we were able to give him the good news that she was better. For a time I believed that, even as regarded her physique, she was going to prove right, and I wrong.