The place seemed full of grotesquely large shadows cast by figures that sat or sprawled on the floor. Miss Peel in her Jaeger sleeping-bag snored loudly, then choked because of her cold. Miss Delmé-Howard was gravely engaged upon making the best of a difficult toilet—she was brushing out her magnificent hair which gleamed in the light of the candle. Miss Bless was sewing a button on her tunic; Miss Thurloe was peering at a half-finished letter; but most of the women who were herded together in this, the safest place in the villa and none too safe at that be it said, were apparently sleeping quite soundly. An uncanny stillness had descended on the town; after many hours of intensive bombardment, the Germans were having a breathing space before training their batteries once more upon Compiègne.
Stephen stared down at the girl who lay curled up at her feet in an army blanket. The girl slept the sleep of complete exhaustion, breathing heavily with her head on her arm; her pale and rather triangular face was that of some one who was still very young, not much more than nineteen or twenty. The pallor of her skin was accentuated by the short black lashes which curled back abruptly, by the black arched eyebrows and dark brown hair—sleek hair which grew to a peak on the forehead, and had recently been bobbed for the sake of convenience. For the rest her nose was slightly tip-tilted, and her mouth resolute considering her youth; the lips were well-modelled and fine in texture, having deeply indented corners. For more than a minute Stephen considered the immature figure of Mary Llewellyn. This latest recruit to the Breakspeare Unit had joined it only five weeks ago, replacing a member who was suffering from shell-shock. Mrs. Breakspeare had shaken her head over Mary, but in these harassed days of the German offensive she could not afford to remain short-handed, so in spite of many misgivings she had kept her.
Still shaking her head she had said to Stephen: ‘Needs must when the Bodies get busy, Miss Gordon! Have an eye to her, will you? She may stick it all right, but between you and me I very much doubt it. You might try her out as your second driver.’ And so far Mary Llewellyn had stuck it.
Stephen looked away again, closing her eyes, and after a while forgot about Mary. The events that had preceded her own coming to France, began to pass through her brain in procession. Her chief in The London Ambulance Column, through whom she had first met Mrs. Claude Breakspeare—a good sort, the chief, she had been a staunch friend. The great news that she, Stephen, had been accepted and would go to the front as an ambulance driver. Then Puddle’s grave face: ‘I must write to your mother, this means that you will be in real danger.’ Her mother’s brief letter: ‘Before you leave I should very much like you to come and see me,’ the rest of the letter mere polite empty phrases. The impulse to resist, the longing to go, culminating in that hurried visit to Morton. Morton so changed and yet so changeless. Changed because of those blue-clad figures, the lame, the halt and the partially blinded who had sought its peace and its kindly protection. Changeless because that protection and peace belonged to the very spirit of Morton. Mrs. Williams a widow; her niece melancholic ever since the groom Jim had been wounded and missing—they had married while he had been home on leave, and quite soon the poor soul was expecting a baby. Williams now dead of his third and last stroke, after having survived pneumonia. The swan called Peter no longer gliding across the lake on his white reflection, and in his stead an unmannerly offspring who struck out with his wings and tried to bite Stephen. The family vault where her father lay buried—the vault was in urgent need of repair—‘No men left, Miss Stephen, we’re that short of stonemasons; her ladyship’s bin complainin’ already, but it don’t be no use complainin’ these times.’ Raftery’s grave—a slab of rough granite: ‘In memory of a gentle and courageous friend, whose name was Raftery, after the poet.’ Moss on the granite half effacing the words; the thick hedge growing wild for the want of clipping. And her mother—a woman with snow-white hair and a face that was worn almost down to the spirit; a woman of quiet but uncertain movements, with a new trick of twisting the rings on her fingers. ‘It was good of you to come.’ ‘You sent for me, Mother.’ Long silences filled with the realization that all they dared hope for was peace between them—too late to go back—they could not retrace their steps even though there was now peace between them. Then those last poignant moments in the study together—memory, the old room was haunted by it—a man dying with love in his eyes that was deathless—a woman holding him in her arms, speaking words such as lovers will speak to each other. Memory—they’re the one perfect thing about me. ‘Stephen, promise to write when you’re out in France, I shall want to hear from you.’ ‘I promise, Mother.’ The return to London; Puddle’s anxious voice: ‘Well, how was she?’ ‘Very frail, you must go to Morton.’ Puddle’s sudden and almost fierce rebellion: ‘I would rather not go, I’ve made my choice, Stephen.’ ‘But I ask this for my sake, I’m worried about her—even if I weren’t going away, I couldn’t go back now and live at Morton—our living together would make us remember.’ ‘I remember too, Stephen, and what I remember is hard to forgive. It’s hard to forgive an injury done to some one one loves. . . .’ Puddle’s face, very white, very stern—strange to hear such words as these on the kind lips of Puddle. ‘I know, I know, but she’s terribly alone, and I can’t forget that my father loved her.’ A long silence, and then: ‘I’ve never yet failed you—and you’re right—I must go to Morton.’
Stephen’s thoughts stopped abruptly. Some one had come in and was stumping down the room in squeaky trench boots. It was Blakeney holding the time-sheet in her hand—funny old monosyllabic Blakeney, with her curly white hair cropped as close as an Uhlan’s, and her face that suggested a sensitive monkey.
‘Service, Gordon; wake the kid! Howard—Thurloe—ready?’
They got up and hustled into their trench coats, found their gas masks and finally put on their helmets.
Then Stephen shook Mary Llewellyn very gently: ‘It’s time.’
Mary opened her clear, grey eyes: ‘Who? What?’ she stammered.
‘It’s time. Get up, Mary.’