CHAPTER XII
OF LABOUR AND PROMOTION
The months went by quickly enough, as David Linton and his daughter settled down to their work at the Home for Tired People. As the place became more widely known they had rarely an empty room. The boys’ regiment sent them many a wearied officer, too fagged in mind and body to enjoy his leave: the hospitals kept up a constant supply of convalescent and maimed patients; and there was a steady stream of Australians of all ranks, who came, homesick for their own land, and found a little corner of it planted in the heart of Surrey. Gradually, as the Lintons realized the full extent of the homesickness of the lads from overseas, Homewood became more and more Australian in details. Pictures from every State appeared on the walls: aboriginal weapons and curiosities, woven grass mats from the natives of Queensland, Australian books and magazines and papers—all were scattered about the house. They filled vases with blue-gum leaves and golden wattle-blossom from the South of France: Norah even discovered a flowering boronia in a Kew nurseryman’s greenhouse and carried it off in triumph, to scent the house with the unforgettable delight of its perfume. She never afterwards saw a boronia without recalling the bewilderment of her fellow-travellers in the railway carriage at her exquisitely-scented burden.
“You should have seen their wondering noses, Dad!” said Norah, chuckling.
No one, of course, stayed very long at Homewood, unless he were hopelessly unfit. From ten days to three weeks was the average stay: then, like ships that pass in the night, the “Once-Tireds,” drifted away. But very few forgot them. Little notes came from the Fronts, in green Active Service envelopes: postcards from Mediterranean ports; letters from East and West Africa; grateful letters from wives in garrison stations and training camps throughout the British Isles. They accumulated an extraordinary collection of photographs in uniform; and Norah had an autograph book with scrawled signatures, peculiar drawings and an occasional scrap of very bad verse.
Major Hunt, his hand fully recovered, returned to the Front in February, and his wife prepared to seek another home. But the Lintons flatly refused to let her go.
“We couldn’t do it,” said David Linton. “Doesn’t the place agree with the babies?”
“Oh, you know it does,” said Mrs. Hunt. “But we have already kept the cottage far too long—there are other people.”
“Not for that cottage,” Norah said.
“It really isn’t fair,” protested their guest. “Douglas never dreamed of our staying: if he had not been sent out in such a hurry at the last he would have moved us himself.”
David Linton looked at her for a moment.