Though it had been of her own free will that she returned home, Sarah had travelled north with a heavy heart. It was a far from happy life that she was returning to, and it was only because she was flying from a still less bearable one that she had been able to persist in her determination. But this persistence was not the result of thought and conscious choice. The question of staying in London or returning home alone had not presented itself to her as a problem: her action in face of it was impulsive. She fled from idleness instinctively, because idleness for her was the worst of all ills. Work producing practical results was for her an indispensable condition of life. With Mr. Darby’s sedulous accumulation of culture for the mere sake of culture she had not the smallest sympathy; it was nothing better than self-indulgent idleness. She did not expect to be happy at home. To be alone, to have no one to work for but herself, would deprive her life of most of its meaning; but, at least, if there was honest hard work to do, life would have more meaning than it had had during the last fortnight at the Balmoral. The truth was, though she did not know it, that she was an even more fanatical devotee of work for work’s sake than Mr. Darby was of culture for culture’s sake. She travelled home ravenous for work. She had refrained from letting Mrs. Bricketts know of her return, because she wanted for herself all the work she could find to do. She would scrub floors, wash, dust, polish, slave from morning till night till she had shaken off this disease of idleness.
She dined in the train and on arriving at Newchester took a taxi home, stopping it once or twice on the way to lay in supplies for the morrow.
She was surprised, on arriving at Number Seven Moseley Terrace, to find some difficulty in opening the front door. The latchkey had worked as usual: it was when she had already unlatched the door that the difficulty occurred. Something inside was in the way. But the door yielded to an extra push, and Sarah, on entering, found the floor heaped with letters. What, in the name of fortune, was the meaning of it? Jim usually received about half a dozen letters a week, and she seldom received one: yet here, after a fortnight, was a perfect haystack of them. She swept the pile aside with her foot, so as to open the door wide and let in the taxi-man with her luggage. When he was gone, she went into the sitting-room, drew up the blinds and opened the windows, for it was warm and still daylight; went to the kitchen and put a kettle on the gas-stove to make herself a cup of tea; then carried her luggage up to her bedroom, took off her things, unpacked the smaller of her two pieces of luggage, and put on an apron. It was not until she had had her tea, returned to the bedroom and made the bed, and to some degree turned the chilly, lifeless house into a living and human thing once more that she went and took another look at the letters. What could be the meaning of that huge heap of rubbish? She stooped down and began turning them over. They were for Jim, of course; no doubt some nonsensical idea of his had brought them along; but here and there, as she continued her examination of them, she found one addressed to herself, and by the time she had run through the whole heap she had picked out no less than twenty-seven. These she took to the sitting-room and, settling into the armchair, opened one.
‘Dear Madam, First let me congratulate you heartily on your great good fortune which I am sure is richly deserved. Though I have not the pleasure of your acquaintance, I do not hesitate to write to you, for I know that you have been appointed by God to answer my prayer. I ask you, as sister to sister, for the loan of £200 of which I have urgent need. The Lord will repay.’
Sarah stared at the letter for some moments; re-read the final phrase and snorted. ‘Hm! She flatters herself,’ she remarked grimly; and slapped the letter down on the table beside her. Then, taking up another she glanced at it critically and tore it open.
‘Dear Madam, May I solicit your interest in our Home for Strayed Cats …’ Without reading further, she slapped it down on the other one. Then, rising to her feet, she took up the whole twenty-seven, pushed them into the empty grate, reached to the mantelpiece for a matchbox and put a match to them. When they were well alight, she returned to the hall and stood for a moment considering the much larger heap for Jim. There must be over two hundred of them. What should she do with them? After a moment’s hesitation she took up one and opened it.
‘Dear Mr. Darby. A highly favourable opportunity presents itself of investing in a new invention which, after many years experiment, I have at length brought to perfection. The old fashioned penny-in-the-slot machine for chocolates, matches, cigarettes, etc. has long been out of date, and a vast public is crying out …’
Sarah returned to the sitting-room and dropped the letter into the blazing grate. Her mouth wore its scornful smile. Jim, she knew, would take every one of those letters with absolute seriousness. Should she make them into a brown-paper parcel and bundle them off to him? At least they would give him something to do. And if they could help him to get rid of his money, that too would be a blessing. But no, she wasn’t going to give him the chance of making a fool of himself. She had always looked after him well, and, though it might do him good in the end, she wasn’t going to put the wretched little man at the mercy of all these cranks and sharpers. He would let himself in for enough, sooner or later, without this lot. Without further hesitation she went out into the hall again, opened a cupboard under the stairs, went to the kitchen for a broom, and then swept the whole heap along the oilcloth into the empty cupboard. There! They could stay there, out of harm’s way. It would have been better to burn them, but there might, after all, be an important letter among them. She slammed the cupboard door and sailed to the kitchen to put away the broom, feeling as refreshed and invigorated as if she had executed a complete spring-cleaning.
Next morning she fell upon her housework with zest, and the house echoed with the beating of pillows and bolsters, the roar of running taps, the rasping hiss of the scrubbing-brush. When this was over and she had had lunch, she changed her dress, put on her hat and went out. The domestic machine had to be re-started, the rhythmic arrival of the milk, the bread, and the butcher’s boy; things had to be ordered at the grocer’s; and she had to go to the bank to see about drawing money and getting a cheque book in accordance with the new arrangement. She looked in, in passing, at Stedman’s, the ironmonger’s, to let them know of her return.
George Stedman came in answer to her footsteps. ‘Why bless me, Mrs. D. I didn’t know you were back. Very glad to see you, I’m sure.’ He held out his huge hand.
‘And glad I am to be back,’ said Sarah.
‘And how’s our young spark?’
‘Jim? Oh, he’s still in London.’
‘Doing the grand gentleman, I suppose?’
‘Yes,’ said Sarah with a sigh, ‘as happy as a king. He’s playing with London like a child playing with a box of bricks.’
A customer came in and Sarah turned to go. ‘I just looked in to let you know I was back,’ she said.
‘Come round this evening,’ said Stedman. ‘Come round and have a bit of supper.’
Sarah accepted and went out.
• • • • • • • •
Two days later she was interrupted in her housework by a ring at the frontdoor. She opened it and found a business-like young man on the doorstep. He must, she thought, have come about the rates.
‘Good morning, Mrs. Darby,’ he said with an affability which at once put Sarah on her guard. ‘I come from the Daily Chronicle. Hearing you were back, I just looked round to see if you had any news for us.’
‘Any news? News about what?’ said Sarah. Facing him foursquare in her apron, her head austerely swathed in a duster, she had a formidable appearance.
‘About yourself and Mr. Darby,’ said the business-like young man. ‘Just a few words about your plans and movements.’ He took a notebook and pencil out of his pocket.
Sarah surveyed him without indulgence. ‘You can put that notebook back in your pocket,’ she said grimly. ‘Our plans and movements concern nobody but us.’
The young man smilingly persisted. ‘No offence, Mrs. Darby. Quite the contrary. We’re interested and the public is interested, that’s all. If you could oblige with some little announcement that could be worked up into a par in the Social Column …’
Sarah took a step forward. ‘Now listen to me, young man,’ she said. ‘As it happens, I have got a little announcement to make, and it’s this, that if I see any remarks at all about me or my husband in the Daily Chronicle, I’ll stop my subscription at once. Now you run back to the Chronicle office and tell them that from me.’ With that she shut the door in the young man’s face; then opened it again. ‘I mean it, mind!’ she shouted to his retreating back. Then she shut the door again and went on with her dusting.
After her solitary midday meal, Sarah, her work finished, settled herself in the armchair in the sitting-room with The Tale of Two Cities. It was raining, a steady effortless rain that fell so straight that not a drop touched the window-panes. She could not go out, and in any case, she did not feel inclined to go out. A feeling of listlessness and depression had come over her, perhaps because the house was now restored to its old spotlessness, after its fortnight of neglect, and she found herself for the first time since her return with nothing to do. After reading for a while, she laid the book on her lap with a sigh and fell into a reverie. The thought that she had kept at bay with hard work ever since her return home, finding her now defenceless, attacked her again. What was the use of it all,—all this work, work, work from morning to night? It was true that if somebody didn’t work the house would go to wrack and ruin and she herself would starve. That was undeniable but it was also unsatisfying as a justification. Work for its own sake had satisfied her at first, as an antidote to that fortnight of idleness in London, but now she knew that to work for herself alone was little better than a drudgery. Home and work without her husband were cold comfort. She realized that in coming home she must unconsciously have been acting on the assumption that in the end Jim would come back. But now she asked herself, would he, in fact, come back? And, even if at last he did, how long would she have to wait for him? The truth was that she and Jim were engaged in a tug-of-war, she trying, by planting herself firmly at home, to pull him back; he standing resolutely in his newly-won liberty, hoping that she would give-in and follow him. The struggle might last a year, many years perhaps. For Uncle Tom Darby’s detestable legacy had brought into action in both of them hopelessly irreconcilable instincts hitherto deep-hidden; Jim’s instinct for what seemed to her little better than a love of idleness and vagrancy, and her own instinct for hard work and the fixity of a home. That vagrant idleness in which Jim delighted was, to her, so utterly unbearable that, rather than face it, she had abandoned him; and he, it seemed, was so fixed on his liberty that, as he had told her in St. James’s Park with tears in his eyes, he couldn’t bring himself to turn his back on it. Yet, in spite of the strong feeling he had shown when he spoke of it, Sarah could not make herself believe that his attitude was much more than a childish whim. When she contemplated it she always, in the end, came back to what seemed the only possible belief. Give him time to work it out of his system and he would come home and settle down again. But how long would that take? And was it so certain that he would come back? Her mind swayed from doubt to certainty, and from certainty back again to doubt. And in the meantime how long would she be able to endure living alone and working only for herself? Besides, there was no longer any necessity for her to work. She was rich, and, as Lady Savershill had said with such terrible truth in the train, wealth, by making work no longer a vital necessity, took all the zest out of it. For the first time it struck her that, by her determination to provide herself with work, she was depriving Mrs. Bricketts of work and wages of which she was very much in need. Well, she could avoid that by giving Mrs. Bricketts money and doing the work herself: Mrs. Bricketts had all the work she wanted in looking after her own home. But even that would not give her back her old zest; for her work was no longer a necessity, it was simply a hobby, and even as a hobby no longer satisfying to her. What then was she to do with her life? The question sent a chill to her heart. There was nothing, it seemed, that she could do with it. By the disaster of Uncle Tom Darby’s legacy she had been turned suddenly, through no fault of her own, into a lonely and useless creature whose life was utterly meaningless. She sat there, with The Tale of Two Cities on her lap, face to face with the ruin of her old happiness, too absorbed in her distress to notice that tears were running slowly down her cheeks.
Before long however she roused herself, snorted indignantly on discovering the tears, wiped them peremptorily away with her handkerchief, and taking up her book, read it with determination and understanding for over an hour. Then she was disturbed by another ring at the front door. Could that young man from the Chronicle have dared to return? She rose aggressively from her chair, her face sternly set, her tongue ready for short and sharp retaliation. With an abruptness that promised the worst, she opened the door and found herself face to face with the beak-like nose, piercing blue eyes, and authoritative presence of Lady Savershill.
‘Ah, I’ve got you at last, Mrs. Darby,’ said Lady Savershill. ‘May I come in?’
‘Please do, my lady,’ said Sarah standing aside.
‘I want to talk to you.’ Lady Savershill entered as she spoke and by the very act seemed to take possession of the house. ‘You’re not busy?’
‘Second door on the right,’ said Sarah and followed her visitor into the sitting-room. ‘No, I’m not busy, my lady. I only wish I was.’
‘You wish you were? Well, I can keep you busy enough, if you want to be busy. I’ve called to see you twice already, and written once. Didn’t you get my letter?’
‘No, my lady. I got no letter.’
‘That’s very extraordinary. I wrote a week ago.’
‘Ah,’ said Sarah, ‘I know what must have happened to it,’ and she told Lady Savershill of how she had dealt with her correspondence on the night of her return home.
Lady Savershill listened, her blue eyes, bright with amusement, fixed on Sarah’s face. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘there’s this to be said for it, it’s a cheaper way than keeping a secretary.’
Facing one another, they laughed, enjoying each other’s amusement. These two large, impressive, downright women, both so distinguished in their different ways, liked and understood each other. Each was the kind of woman that the other respected.
‘Won’t your ladyship sit down?’ said Sarah pointing to the chair in which she had been sitting.
‘I will, and gladly,’ said Lady Savershill. ‘I’ve been on my legs almost all day. And if you’re going to have some tea I’ll have some with you.’
‘I’ll get it at once, if your ladyship will excuse me for ten minutes.’
Lady Savershill took up Sarah’s book which lay open and face downwards on the table. ‘What’s this? Dickens. I’ll amuse myself with it while you’re away.’
Sarah went out.
‘Just a little bread and butter for me, Mrs. Darby,’ shouted Lady Savershill after her. ‘I never eat cakes.’
In ten minutes Sarah returned with everything ready on a tray. Lady Savershill shut the book and rose from the armchair. ‘I’ll come to the table,’ she said.
Sarah poured out the tea and handed the bread and butter. Lady Savershill took a piece and folded it. ‘I’ve got a job for you, Mrs. Darby,’ she said point blank. ‘That’s what I’ve come about. It’s a job that badly wants doing and one that you’re particularly qualified to do. I’ve been hunting high and low for a year, but not a soul could I find who combines necessary experience with the necessary personality. Now you’re just the woman for it, because you’ve got both. I realized that, after our talk in the train. I ear-marked you at once. Now listen to me.’ Between sips of tea and bites of bread and butter Lady Savershill gave a short, vigorous account of the H.C.S. ‘Now your job, Mrs. Darby,’ she said, ‘is the Domestic Staff. You know all about the organizing and feeding of the servants of a large house, don’t you?’
‘I know something about it, my lady,’ said Sarah.
Lady Savershill shook a finger at her. ‘Fiddle-de-dee! There’s no good your trying modesty on me, Mrs. Darby.’
Sarah smiled. ‘It’s not modesty, my lady. But it stands to reason that I must have forgotten a good deal in twenty years.’
‘Yes, no doubt you’re a little rusty,’ said Lady Savershill, ‘but we can soon put that right. Our Infirmary here is admirably run: we’ll use it to refresh your memory. They’re very good to me there: they let me poke and pry to my heart’s content. Now you and I will go and have a thorough look round. We’ll inspect the quarters of the domestic staff, the kitchens, the feeding, the general running of the whole household department. That and a book or two which I can give you, added to your own knowledge, will turn you into a first-rate inspector. Your job would be to visit all the hospitals in this division and report on the running of the domestic side. You would be of immense use to us, I’m sure, and I’m sure, too, that you would find the work extremely interesting. Now, tell me, do you like the idea of it?’
‘I like the idea very much, my lady,’ said Sarah, ‘but … well, you must let me be modest enough to have my doubts. You see, I’ve never done anything of the kind before, and though I might be able to put my finger on anything that was wrong, I feel a bit uncertain about those reports you mentioned.’
Lady Savershill made a gesture of dismissal. ‘Don’t bother your head about that. Take my word for it, it’s as simple as A B C. You said, when I arrived just now, that you wished you were busy. Well, we’ll keep you as busy as you like. We’ll run you off your legs. You’ll find it much more fun than sitting reading Dickens.’
‘Oh,’ put in Sarah, ‘I don’t do much of that, I assure you.’
‘Then what do you do?’
‘I have all my housework.’
‘Housework! Washing-up, scrubbing, dusting, cooking?’
‘Yes, my lady. I still do it.’
‘Then give it up. You’re wasting yourself. Get a servant.’
‘Yes,’ said Sarah, ‘I might as well. There’s no need for me to do it now. I only wish there was.’
‘I’m very glad there isn’t,’ said Lady Savershill. ‘You’re simply wasting your powers. Now, listen to me. I’ll call for you to-morrow at eleven and we’ll go straight to the Infirmary. When we finish there, I’ll take you back to luncheon with me and we’ll talk the whole thing over. Will you come?’
‘I will, my lady, with pleasure.’
Lady Savershill stood up. ‘That’s right,’ she said.
Sarah followed her into the hall and opened the front door. Lady Savershill held out her hand. ‘And mind you have a good breakfast,’ she said. ‘We shall have a tiring morning and we shan’t lunch till half past one.’
They shook hands. ‘You can be sure I’ll do my best, my lady,’ said Sarah.
‘And your best will be good enough for me, Mrs. Darby. Goodbye.’
‘Goodbye, my lady.’
‘You musn’t my lady me, Mrs. Darby. How would you like it if I called you Darby? I call you Mrs. Darby and you call me Lady Savershill.’
Sarah smiled. ‘It doesn’t come natural,’ she said.
‘It will, if you give it time,’ said Lady Savershill over her shoulder as she went out.
Sarah returned to the sitting-room and dropped into the armchair, taking in a deep breath. Her mind was in a ferment of excitement. What a thrilling change had come into her life. Only an hour ago her life had seemed to have dried up, to be on the point of crumbling into wreckage. Now it was stirring and seething with new exciting possibilities. If only she could do this job that Lady Savershill wanted her to do, it would give her back all, or nearly all, she had lost. But could she do it? She was full of doubt and diffidence. But Lady Savershill’s certainty encouraged her. She sat, as she had sat before, gazing in front of her unseeingly, and gradually determination grew up in her. Yes, she would do the job. After all, if you were determined enough and excited enough there wasn’t anything you couldn’t master. At last she rose briskly from her chair. She was trembling with excitement, ‘like some silly girl,’ she thought to herself. She went upstairs and put on her hat and mackintosh. She would go and see Mrs. Bricketts at once. If Mrs. Bricketts herself could not look after the house completely, perhaps she would know of some girl who would share the job with her.
• • • • • • • •
Four days later Sarah sat at the sitting-room table with ink and paper before her and a pen in her hand. Supper had long since been cleared away. She felt tired and profoundly discouraged. She was trying for the third time to make out a report of her first two inspections, which had occupied her during the last two days. The two days previous to that had been days of initiation: she had spent many hours of them in the Newchester Infirmary with Lady Savershill, learning how to do an inspection. When, after that, she had started out on her own, armed with her orange-backed inspector’s notebook which was divided into sections under various headings for quick note-taking, she had got along surprisingly well. At the first hospital she had visited—the hospital of Monkswell, a town about twenty miles from Newchester—she had been politely welcomed and given every opportunity to see all she wanted to see; and when she had finished, the matron had invited her to her private room, asked to hear what her impression had been, and welcomed the criticisms that Sarah had to make. ‘We are always glad to receive suggestions, Mrs. Darby,’ she had said, ‘and what you have told me is very helpful. I believe that your suggestions about the arrangement of meals will get us over our difficulty.’ She hoped that Mrs. Darby would come again.
Sarah had travelled home in high feather. She had found the note-taking easy and had also found it easy to lay her finger on little faults of detail in the domestic arrangements.
Her experience on the following day had been very different. After having been kept waiting for twenty minutes she had been interviewed by an austere and forbidding woman who was obviously hostile. She did not apologize for keeping Sarah waiting, nor did she offer any greeting. ‘What was it you wanted?’ she said, looking at Sarah with cold, hard eyes. ‘I’m afraid I’m very busy at present.’
Sarah introduced herself and asked to be allowed to inspect the domestic side. ‘Our Secretary has already communicated with you,’ she said.
‘You want information as to the running of hospital domestic departments?’
‘No,’ said Sarah, infected by the woman’s ill-humour, ‘the Society knows all about that. I am simply asking as one of the Society’s inspectors to be allowed to see the running of yours. The Society’s business is to collect information from hospitals all over the country and to provide expert advice if asked to.’
‘This hospital is quite able to look after itself, Mrs.… er …’
‘Darby,’ said Sarah.
‘Mrs. Darby, and is not in need of any advice.’
‘If that is so,’ said Sarah, ‘you will not ask for any, of course. But information about your methods might be very useful to other less fortunate hospitals.’ When she received no reply, Sarah turned to go. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I am sorry to have wasted your time.’ At the door she paused, turned, and added: ‘I will report to our Secretary, Lady Savershill, that this hospital does not welcome inspection. All others in this area have treated our inspectors with the greatest politeness. No doubt this one will be mentioned as a special case at the General Meeting of the Society.’ Whether this would be so or not Sarah had no idea, but she was too angry to mince matters. Realizing her position as an official of the H.C.S. she had put such restraint on herself that now she was almost bursting. How she longed to speak her mind, to go for this insolent, repellent woman tooth and nail. But her concluding remark, it appeared, had taken effect. Her adversary flinched. ‘You may see the domestic arrangements if you wish,’ she said. ‘I merely wanted to point out that we do not need advice.’
‘As I explained to you before,’ said Sarah, ‘we never give advice unless asked to do so.’
Fortunately for Sarah’s temper, the sister who was detailed to accompany her on her inspection was pleasanter than her superior. When Sarah had finished and was on her way to the main entrance where her car awaited her, she was waylaid by her adversary. ‘I hope we have given you some useful hints,’ she said with an icy smile.
Sarah’s smile was icier than hers. ‘Very useful, thank you,’ she replied. ‘Bad reports are quite as useful as good ones.’ And with that she had walked out.
And now, for the third time, she was trying to work up her copious notes into a report. She was full of information and ideas, but when she tried to put them on paper everything went wrong. She had torn up sheet after sheet and now she was in despair. It was only too clear to her now that she was no use at the job: it had beaten her. Until she had tried to write the report she had been in a high state of satisfaction. She had found herself quick to notice details and to grasp the general conditions of the departments that she was concerned with, she had found it easy to take notes, and she had been keenly interested in the work. This discovery of new powers in herself, the conviction that she was efficient and useful, the sense of being, as she loved to be, extremely busy, had filled her with happiness. She felt as everyone feels who is hard at work at the job for which he is perfectly fitted. And now had come this crash which, all along, she had feared. She glanced at the clock. It was already past her usual bedtime and she had had a tiring day. She was at the end of her tether. She pushed the writing materials away from her and laying her arms on the table and her head on her arms burst into a paroxysm of tears. It was a relief to give way and she let herself go until the weight at her heart was eased. At last she raised her head, drew the writing materials towards her and wrote. She wrote three pages and then read them through. There was no room for doubt, they were quite worthless.
• • • • • • • •
Next day she went with a heavy heart to lunch with Lady Savershill, taking her report with her. As soon as she arrived she poured out her woes. ‘I’m no good, Lady Savershill. I’ve tried over and over again, but it’s hopeless.’
Lady Savershill stopped her. ‘Not a word till after luncheon, Mrs. Darby. One can’t talk business on an empty stomach.’ And they sat down to table and talked of other things.
But throughout the meal Sarah was absent-minded and out of spirits, and though Lady Savershill did her best to cheer her, telling her she was exaggerating her failure, she remained disconsolate.
After luncheon they moved to what Lady Savershill called her workroom. It was a pleasant room with windows looking east and south over a stretch of lawn shaded by clumps of limes and beeches and a section of the broad terraced walk that ran along the front of the house. A large table in the centre of the room was covered with books, pamphlets, papers and box-files, all in faultless order. In a corner between the windows was a large writing-desk also covered with papers.
‘Now, Mrs. Darby,’ said Lady Savershill settling herself in a sofa near the windows and signing to Sarah to sit beside her, ‘let us see this terrible report.’
Sarah unfolded it and handed it to her companion. ‘It’s no good at all, and that’s the truth,’ she said gloomily.
Lady Savershill took it and began to read. The beak-like nose, the lean, finely modelled face, the straight, challenging eyes faced Sarah’s unfortunate report, as a judge, accurate, just, but uncompromising, might face a criminal. Sarah watched the face, noted the knitted brows, the pursed lips, the obvious look of growing disappointment.
‘Don’t read any more, Lady Savershill,’ she said. ‘It only wastes your time.’
Lady Savershill laid the report down on her knee. ‘Would you let me see your Inspector’s Notebook?’ she asked.
Sarah took it from her handbag and for some minutes Lady Savershill examined the contents. Then she looked up. ‘But your notes are excellent, Mrs. Darby,’ she said. ‘They’re just the very thing that’s wanted.’
‘Oh, the notes are all right,’ said Sarah, ‘and the inspections were all right. It’s the reports that I can’t manage.’
‘Then could you give me your reports by word of mouth?’
‘Oh, certainly I could,’ said Sarah. ‘I could talk till you begged and implored me to stop.’
‘Then off you go! But no!’ Lady Savershill rose from the sofa. ‘One moment. I have an idea. I’ll send for Miss Harter. She shall take down what you say in shorthand.’
When the shorthand-typist was ready Sarah began. She talked uninterruptedly for half an hour while Lady Savershill leaned with one hand over her eyes in a corner of the sofa. She did not move till Sarah had finished. Then she raised her head. ‘Thank you, Miss Harter,’ she said. ‘Now will you please go and type that for us as soon as you can.’
The typist rose and went out.
‘So, you see, Lady Savershill,’ said Sarah, still full of her theme, ‘the two cases are quite different; in fact, what’s wrong at Monkswell is what’s right at Doleford, and vice versa. It only goes to show that when one thing’s wrong everything goes wrong. Monkswell and the feeding at Monkswell was as good as it could be, good stuff well cooked, and plenty of variety, and yet, with those other things all badly organized, you see how little that counted for.’
Lady Savershill turned to her, smiling, her keen blue eyes bright with enthusiasm. ‘My dear woman,’ she said, ‘I congratulate you. I can candidly say that this report of yours is one of the best I’ve ever heard or read. It is just what a report ought to be. No I thinks and perhapses and it may be that’s, but a clearly arranged set of definite statements leading up to a definite conclusion. How strange that you couldn’t write it as you speak it. The way you compared the two hospitals was illuminating. The truth is, Mrs. Darby, you’re a born speaker.’
Sarah smiled. ‘And yet,’ she said, ‘when I tried to write it down …’ She pointed with grim humour at the report that lay on the sofa between them. ‘I can talk till doomsday, but when it comes to putting it on paper … well, you see what happens.’
‘Well, you don’t have to bother about that now, after my bright idea of calling in Miss Harter,’ said Lady Savershill. ‘I’ll run through her typescript, touch it up here and there, and the thing will be done.’
‘All the same, Lady Savershill, it will throw a lot of extra work on you, turning my chatter into …’
‘Into literature! Indeed it won’t; and even if it did, don’t bother your head about that, my dear woman. I tell you frankly, you’re well worth the trouble. Yes, I knew you were the one for the job, but I never suspected that you were going to turn out such a marvel.’
Sarah laughed. ‘Neither did I,’ she said.
‘No, you certainly didn’t. A few days ago you were humming and ha-ing and telling me you doubted this and were afraid of the other.’
‘Five days ago to-day,’ said Sarah, taking up her Inspector’s Notebook and rising from the sofa. ‘It seems more like a month.’
Lady Savershill laughed. ‘As bad as that?’
‘As good as that,’ replied Sarah. ‘It has been the salvation of me. Nothing less! ‘She went to one of the windows and looked out. ‘Yes, my car’s here,’ she said and shook hands. ‘Please don’t ring, my lady, I’ll let myself out.’ She sailed to the door, crossed the hall, and next moment was gliding down the drive in the comfortable Daimler which, reminding herself of her ten thousand pounds, she had recently hired to take her about in the wide area covered by her new work. She chuckled to herself. How surprised Jim would be if he knew she hired a great big luxurious car, chauffeur and all, by the month. Surprised, and pleased of course. But she hadn’t told him a word about her job yet. She was never one for letter-writing, and she had been so busy during the last fortnight that nowadays she was still less in a mood for it. It would take such a lot of describing and explaining that she would never have the patience to do it. Besides, what was the good? It wasn’t the sort of thing that would interest him, with all his new fancy ideas about pictures and architecture and foreign travel. There was no use them bothering each other about each other’s occupations. So long as she knew he was well and happy in his own childish way, that was enough.
The thought of Jim always gave her pain, a pain almost physical, like the dull smart of an internal wound. How long was she going to have to wait? What would be the end of it? Whenever she was at home, at breakfast, at supper, at night, she felt lonely. Now indeed, for the first time since her wedding-day, she felt herself childless—no child with clothes to look after, hunger to be appeased, innocent gluttonies to be catered for, no child to snub affectionately, to laugh at secretly. But she was not much at home. The greater part of her days was spent in inspecting the hospitals in her area, in the journeys there and back—some of the hospitals were fifty miles away—and in periodic visits to Lady Savershill to report. Her work brought her in contact with large numbers of people, matrons and other hospital officials; and her directness, her energy, her uncompromising honesty, endeared her to everyone she met. The Society was already well-known; its status and efficiency were recognized, and it seldom had difficulty in obtaining admission for its Inspectors. Sarah on her first arrival at a hospital made a habit of informing the official who showed her round, of her qualifications and her recent experiences and of pointing out that, if so desired, she would be very glad to offer hints and suggestions after she had made her inspection, in fact to give to the official the report that she would subsequently give to Lady Savershill. ‘You mustn’t mind what I say,’ she would remark, when offering to do this. ‘I have no right to interfere, but if you would like to know what I think, I shall be very glad to tell you. You might find it helpful and you might not. If you don’t, well, you can just take no notice of it.’
And it always happened, when she had finished her inspection, that she was invited to a private room and asked to give her impressions. She gave them vigorously and humorously, without mincing matters, and yet without offending. Her irresistible blend of austerity, formidableness, and surprising charm captivated them all and gained her, in addition to her official inspectorship, an unofficial post of adviser and helper. Her personality and the popularity it won for her were, in fact, as valuable to the H.C.S. as her efficiency as an inspector. For the Society had no official authority over the hospitals it inspected: it could influence only by persuasion, by offering expert assistance to those who cared to use it.
So Sarah’s time was employed and nearly all her energy,—nearly all, but not quite all. She still felt the need of more violent physical exercise and reserved to herself the right of making her own bed and sweeping and dusting her bedroom and sitting-room. Her feelings towards Uncle Tom Darby had by now changed considerably. It was true that he had contrived, temporarily at any rate, to drive Jim from home and wreck the old orderly routine of their life; but, no less, he had, with the help of Lady Savershill, pitchforked her, in spite of herself, into a new and very thrilling life in which she daily discovered new powers in herself, new and absorbing interests. It was as if a new youth had come to her: she felt herself growing, unfolding, meeting and overcoming new problems. Life had become an exhilarating adventure.
Adventure. Sarah an adventurer. How mysterious, how paradoxical, how richly humorous are the ways of Providence. She who had never asked for, never desired adventure, was already in the thick of it and revelling in it; while Mr. Darby, that poetical and romantic soul, who had sighed after adventure all his life, who in dreams had plumbed the Jungle, stalked strange and terrible forms of life, heard the screeches of green parrots, fought through impenetrable thickets of scarlet orchids, had got no further in pursuit of his dreams than a temporary bivouac in Bedford Square, W.C.I and the unpromising exploration of fifth-rate curiosity shops in the suburbs.