CHAPTER II

TWO VOICES CALL

"Do you remember that day in November Long, long ago; long ago?" --OLD SONG.

"Who'll grow the bread of Victory? Who'll keep the country clean? Who'll reap Old England golden? Who'll sow her thick and green? Carry on, carry on! for the men and boys are gone, But the furrow shan't lie fallow while the women carry on." --JANET BEGBIE.

The signature of the letter was--

"Yours, "RICHARD WYNN."

Now, who in the world might he be? Richard Wynn? Wynn?

Ah! Suddenly I realized why the surname at least was familiar. Mr. Wynn! Of course! I placed him, now. I did remember. Sitting there, wan, on this the most miserable morning of my life, my thoughts were switched back just seven years.

Seven mortal years ago! A gap between a disillusioned young woman of twenty-two and a gawky eager child of fifteen, as I then was.

That had been in the days when we lived on the borders of Wales. My father had farmed, in a scrambling sort of way, the small estate that he owned there, and as he had to make ends meet somehow, he had taken in a trio of hobbledehoys as farm pupils--what they'd learnt from dear old Dad's antiquated methods goodness only knows.

Mr. Wynn was the eldest of these pupils. I don't think I'd ever taken as much interest in him as I had in the fox terrier puppy that he gave me just before he sailed for the ranch of an uncle in Canada. But I had hated his going away. I always did hate partings, even from the succession of mountain-bred cooks who stayed their six months with us. On that gloomy autumn morning, with the mountains blotted out by mist and the rain coming down in a steady drip-drip-drip on the slate roof, when we had all gathered in the veranda to say good-bye to the departing pupil I had suddenly felt like bursting into tears.

Mr. Wynn, the leggy, dark-haired Welsh lad of nineteen, had turned with his brand-new suit-case all ready labelled in his hand, had seen my blank look, had stared down upon me and had clutched me by the pig-tail as I turned to flee.

"Nice kid, ripping kid," he'd muttered in a brusque, touched young voice. "Give us a kiss for good-bye, Joan."

And he'd drawn my head back by its plait and kissed me under the eyes of my amused family. They had ragged me about it for months. How should I, at that age, have guessed the difference between that and a real kiss? Years later Harry had slipped the real kisses into my life, in the course of conversation, so to speak, and by imperceptible degrees, which was Harry's insidious way of making love--none the less fatal!

Now, on the very day when love had left me in a way so very far from being imperceptible, here was this reminder from that other, forgotten young man, that went on:

"Plenty of things have happened since we said good-bye; but I've often wondered what became of the pretty kid with the thick brown pigtail. You'd a blue bow on it that day, and you never noticed that I walked off with that. I suppose there's just an off-chance that you are not married yet. Are you? If you aren't, would you care to marry me?"

I gasped as I came to this. Who wouldn't have been petrified?

"Would you care to marry me?"

But how--how fantastic! At breakfast-time upon this very day I'd had conveyed to me the devastating news that the one young man on whom my thoughts had hung wished to see no more of me. Now, at midday, here was shock No. 2. Another young man, of whom I hadn't thought since I was grown up, was actually proposing to me.

Both on one day!

Was I living in some wild dream of coincidences? But no. The Harry-wound went on aching steadily beyond this flash in the pan even as I read on.

"It sounds mad, I know."

The writer actually admitted it.

"I'd explain details and things better if I saw you. May I come and see you? If so, please write to me here, where I shall be for the next ten days. I could get over to your father's place. This needn't commit you to anything. But if it is all off, don't write. If I don't hear from you within a week I shall know it was good-bye for good.--Yours, RICHARD WYNN."

Stupefied, I sat staring at his letter.

Now a proposal of marriage from almost any young man in this world would bring its special thrill to almost any girl. This, quite apart from whether she accepts it or refuses. Isn't that true, girls?

So it shows what a stupor of despair I was in that morning, when I tell you that only for a fleeting moment did I forget my troubles in the excitement of this Mr. Wynn's letter.

I sighed as I got up, feeling a little dizzy from my perch on the National Gallery steps, for St. Martin's Church clock showed half-past one, and it was time I started walking slowly back to that revolting office. I'd had no lunch, but lunch-time would be considered over by the time I had crawled down Whitehall again. Heavens! How I hated Whitehall, and wished that I never need set eyes upon ...

Here the quite wild idea sprang into my mind.

"What about this way out of it? What if this were what I was longing for, the chance of a completely new life? Something to whisk me right away out of everything that I knew in the days of Harry! Here's this Mr. Richard Wynn--who was quite a nice young man, if I could only remember his face a little bit more distinctly--asking to marry me. What if I said 'Yes'? Since I was not to marry Harry, what did it matter what sort of a man I did marry? But what was he like?"

Frowning, I tried to remember. Dark, tall, Norfolk jacket, loved dogs--that was as far as I got. Not a detail of his face could I recall! An unawakened girl-child, as I was seven years ago, takes scant notice of masculine faces. All she thinks of them is "How ugly they are; how very unlike the people in books that the beautiful ladies are always falling in love with"--and that's the summing-up of it for her, until she is seventeen or so. (Unless she's of the type of my little chum Elizabeth, who at twenty-one continued to hold this view.)

But what about this Richard Wynn, who at nineteen had seemed a century older than I?

Nowadays, I should not consider as a grown-up man that youth who'd devoured such platefuls of cold mutton and bread and cheese at my father's table. I wondered listlessly how he'd grown up. Quite cold-bloodedly--for remember what I was going through--I began to debate whether I'd say I would see him. It might be better than the office; better than living exactly the same life day after day, without Harry. And Harry would hear if I got engaged.

How many engagements, I wonder, are entered into in the mood in which I was at that darkest of moments?

I thought, "If I write----"

Then my thoughts were broken into by something very different.

I'd already noticed, while only half-seeing it, that a little crowd had collected down in Trafalgar Square about the spot where the Tank Bank stood in the spring, a crowd composed of Colonial soldiers, of bare-headed factory girls from Charing Cross Road, of girl clerks from the countless Government offices round about.

Without much interest I glanced over the stone coping. Above the heads of the thickening crowd I saw a banner. It was white, with the scarlet-lettered motto:

"ENGLAND MUST BE FED."

There was a group on the small raised platform beneath it, an elderly man in a frock-coat, some ladies, and the gleam of a light smock. Some one was speaking underneath that flag. In the sultry midday air I suddenly heard, fresh and clear, a girlish voice. These were the scraps that came to me:

"I appeal to you girls in this crowd. Some of you are country-born girls, like me. I'm from Wales. My county was a green county. It is now a red county--ploughed up to help carry on the war. But must we look at these fields full of crops and think, 'These will rot in the ground because there will never be hands enough to carry them in'?"

Ah! Land Army!

I'd heard of this before, and now Trafalgar Square saw girls being recruited as, three years ago, it saw young men being asked why they were not in khaki.

Then the speaker's young voice rose earnestly to my listless ears:

"I have put before you the disadvantages of this life. Long hours. Hard work. Poor pay. After you get your board and lodging a shilling a day, perhaps. Very poor pay. But, girls--our boys at the Front are offering their lives for just that. Won't you offer your services for that--and for them?"

The voice attracted me, the Welsh voice that holds the secret of being clear, yet soft, with the ends of its words pronounced as crisply as by a well-trained singer. It held me, that voice, while the speaker touched on the urgent need of workers to fill the places of men, who had gone from farm, field, dairy and byre.

Ah, the charming picture that she made! A bright, sturdy flower of girlhood set against-the parched stone-work of Town! She wore the Land Girl's uniform that sets off a woman's shape as no other costume has done yet. Under her slouch-hat her face was vividly brown and rose-coloured, with dark eyes alight. Her fresh, light belted smock, with its green armlet and scarlet crown, looked cool as well as trim.

The sight of her, I thought, should bring in as many recruits as the speech. She looked as if she'd never dreamt of such things as unventilated offices, typewriters that clicked mechanically all day, nervous headaches, lives soured and blighted at twenty-two! Enviously I glanced at her. Suddenly--was it my imagination?--she looked straight back at me over the heads of the crowd. It was to me she seemed to be speaking now.

"You are offered some good things in this new life, girls. Good health. Good sleep----"

Here I smiled bitterly. Good sleep.... I'd had a whole fortnight of hideously broken nights.

"There's no sleep like that of the worker on the land!" declared the recruiting land girl.

"Another thing you're offered is a good conscience with which to meet those lads when they return from fighting for you. Lastly--though I don't know if it's worth mentioning, really"--here her white teeth flashed in a merry smile across her rosy face--"you are offered a good complexion!"

Then something else unexpected happened. She jumped lightly down, and it was first of all to me--me!--that she made her way.

Straight up to me she came. She looked me full in the face, smiled prettily, and in that clear voice that sounded home-like to me because my home had been where she, too, came from, she said:

"I've been watching you all the time I've been speaking. I want to say something to you."

"You want to speak to me?" I said, surprised.

"I noticed you at once," said the Land Girl. "You looked--well, not very pleased with life."

Here a passer-by glanced at the contrast we made standing there: Government office clerk and Land Girl. She, in smock and breeches, radiated rosy health; I, wearing my blue costume, Frenchy blouse, flower-wreathed hat and Louis-heeled shoes, wilted in limpness and pallor.

She said prettily:

"Are you on war-work of any kind?"

"Yes, I am. I work at----" I gave her the rabbit-warren's real name.

Her bright face fell.

"What a pity. We're told not to try for recruits who are engaged in other departments. I was going to ask you to join up for the Land Army."

[Illustration: "_I was going to ask you to join up for the Land Army_"]

"I! Oh, I should be no earthly good at that sort of thing," I assured her pettishly, I'm afraid. "I must get back to the office."

"A pity," remarked the fair recruiter regretfully. "Perhaps you've a friend who's not so busy. Would you pass these on?"

I took the leaflets she offered.

"Good-bye," she said. Once out of sight of that energetic young worker, I rolled her papers into a ball and tossed them into a county council waste-paper bin.

That is, I thought I did.

My head ached so desperately that I hardly knew what I was doing by the time I got out of the glare of Whitehall and into the gloom of the office.

I was before Mr. Winter, the chief who disliked me as much as he disliked open windows. Here was my chance to let in an apology for a breath of air. I tugged at the window. It was stiff. Down it came at last. But the effort had been too much for me in my run-down state; it made me feel positively sick.

Then came the last straw.

Suddenly, unexpectedly, Mr. Winter rasped out behind me:

"Can't you keep that window shut?"

I jumped violently--think of the morning I'd had. I forgot myself.

"Don't shout at----" I began. But all in an instant the office became dark as night. I threw out my hands. Then I pitched forward on my face, knowing no more.

I had fainted dead away.

Half an hour later I was sent home, after Mr. Winter had leapt at his chance of telling me that I was obviously not strong enough for war-work, and that I need not present myself at these offices any more. Perhaps he was scarcely justified. Perhaps he wanted to frighten me into an appeal. But I didn't say a word, I was too dazed.

Sacked!

Well, after that, I thought, there was only one thing for me to do.