CHAPTER XII

AUNT GRISEL'S HOSPITAL

TO-DAY was awfully hot. The boys always have their bathe in the sea before breakfast, and sometimes Lynette and I go with them, but we were lazy this morning and did not go. The schoolroom was like an oven; we hardly ever stay in it. And after breakfast, Lynette and I tucked our bathing gowns and towels under our arms and walked across the lawn, when Aunt Isobel called us.

"Where are the boys? Your grandfather wants to speak to Denys."

"They're on the beach," I said. "We're going to them. Shall I tell Denys?"

"Of course. He must come at once."

We raced off. Denys pulled a long face when I gave him the message.

"Is he going to jaw about anything?"

"Perhaps it's about your going into the Army," suggested Lynette.

"No such luck."

But Denys walked off, and he did not come back for a good hour.

Then he walked up with his head in the air, and a peculiar smile on his lips. I knew that smile well. It was when he was awfully pleased, and was trying to hide it.

Lynette and I had had our bathe; we were sitting on a rock letting our hair dry before we tied it up.

"Get it off your chest, old man!" said Aylwin.

"No more school for me!" said Denys.

We exclaimed at that.

"I shall be at Woolwich in a month, I hope."

"Oh, do tell us! How can you be?"

"Grandfather has worked it. There is going to be a rather easy exam. for public school-boys. They want them to enter Woolwich at once, and though I'm not in a proper public school, grandfather has got me included. And I'm going to town to-morrow."

We gasped, and then we gave a ringing cheer.

It seemed too good to be true.

"You're sure to pass the exam. all right," I said. "Oh, Denys, how splendid! How quickly it has come to you!"

"Not quick enough to please me," said Denys. "The war may be over before I'm ready for it, even yet. But I shall be in the artillery. I've always wanted to be a gunner."

We stood looking at him, hardly able to believe it. Somehow he seemed to have altered already. I think the very idea of it made him feel older. He is so straight and tall and handsome, I imagined him in uniform; how proud we should be of him!

And then I thought of his clothes. I knew some of his socks wanted mending, and I had been so accustomed to look after his clothes that I told the others I must go in at once.

Denys came with me.

"You're pleased, Grisel?" he said very quietly.

"You know I am."

"Aunt Isobel isn't."

"I wonder why not!"

As we came up to the house, we saw Aunt Isobel sitting with grandfather in the shady verandah outside the study. Aunt Isobel called to me, and we both went up.

I told her why I had come, and she smiled a little.

"Sometimes you are quite a little old woman, Grisel. Peggy and I are going to do all that is necessary, and I am going up to town myself with Denys to get all he wants."

"But can't I do anything? I should like to help!" And then I couldn't help turning to grandfather. "We're all so delighted, grandfather. It's splendid! We were longing that it could be managed."

Grandfather's eyes twinkled.

"Your aunt here thinks that I shall be sending him to his death!"

I was sobered a little.

Then Aunt Isobel looked at me.

"He is too young, Grisel; he has no constitution."

Denys threw out his chest.

"I'm as strong as a donkey!" he said. "And I'm not going to the front to-morrow, worse luck!"

"Denys is quite, quite fit to go," I said earnestly. "He has trained and taught all of us, and a lot of village boys and girls, to be patriotic. We simply get burning hot right to our hearts when we think of fighting and dying for our country! It's so terrible to be only girls, and have to take a back place, but even back places can do some good, and we mean to do what we can!"

Grandfather held out his hand to me.

I was speaking rather excitedly, I could not help it, for I felt so.

"Come here," he said to me; "I'm glad I have such a fiery little granddaughter. It is a misfortune that two of you are girls, but I hope all three of my grandsons will carry on the annals of their race. We have always been soldiers, and have always acquitted ourselves satisfactorily in the field."

"I wonder, grandfather," I said a little shyly, "if you would let Lynette and me learn to shoot. The Germans may invade England, may they not? It might be useful then."

"No, no, I want no Amazons here. Sit at home and work and pray for the absent ones, that is all we want our girls and women to do."

Aunt Isobel had walked into the house with Denys.

"Do you think we shall beat the Germans easily, grandfather?" I asked.

"No, I don't," and grandfather became snappy again. "We're not ready for them. We've been like the ostrich, hiding our heads in the sand, and it will take an earthquake to shake up and wake up some of our leaders to the exigencies of the situation."

"Lynette and I are trying to shake up some of the fishermen. We can talk as well as the boys. But they laugh at us. I wish you could get somebody to come and tell them about the war, grandfather."

He stared at me.

"Eh? Yes, yes, a very good idea. I'm not quite in my dotage. I'll give 'em a rounding up myself."

Grandfather had never talked so kindly to me before. Lynette and I always feel that he considers us a great bother. He began to ask me now about our Empire League in Lincolnshire, and I told him with pride of the boys who had enlisted. And then I recited the whole of Kipling's song beginning "Land of our Birth." And I told him of our pledge. I said it over to him:

"I promise and vow that to the end of my life I will be a loyal subject of our gracious King and a faithful citizen of our Empire.

"Oh, Motherland! we pledge to thee Head, heart, and hand through the years to be!"

"So help me, God. Amen."

"Our heads and hearts are quite as good as the boys'," I said. "Lynette and I would die in a minute for our Motherland if we could, but it's our hands that are different."

I turned mine over as I spoke.

"Of course we're not so strong as the boys; we've got a good bit of muscle, but we're no good if they begin to wrestle with us, and I know of course women soldiers would be a poor lot by the side of the men. But women have served their country, haven't they? And if only the Germans will give us a chance, Lynette and I will show them that we're not chicken-hearted."

Grandfather laughed out, then he looked grave.

"Germans are making short work of women in Belgium," he said. "We must never let them invade our shores, child!"

And then he turned back to his newspaper, and I slipped away.

* * * * *

There was a great bustle getting Denys off, and we missed him awfully. Holidays without Denys seemed as bad as a cart without a horse. And when Denys is away, Aylwin puts on extra swagger, and then Lynette snubs him, and there is generally war between them.

But the week passed, and then he came back. But it wasn't till quite the end of the holidays that we knew he had passed, and was safe for Woolwich.

Aylwin went back to school very down in the mouth. Denys and he have always done everything together, and it seems rather unfair on him that now there should be such a difference between them.

And then came Denys's last night with us before he went to Woolwich; and I slipped into his bedroom just before we went to bed.

He laughed at me when he saw me come in.

"You've come to have some last words, haven't you? Well, go ahead!"

"Oh," I said, sitting down by his bed, and drawing a long sigh, "I'm so glad it isn't Aylwin going. I feel so sure of you."

"Do you?" Rather a funny look crossed Denys's face. "I'm not so sure of myself, Grizzy!"

"Perhaps that will be better still," I said. "But you and I long ago,—when we took the knight's motto, 'Semper fidelis! Semper paratus!'—knew that we couldn't do everything in our own strength."

"I have got my H.F. to remind me," said Denys, putting his hand on his left wrist.

"Yes, but may I tell you what has helped me, Denys? And I think that father would know how difficult it is to hold fast to all he taught us 'always.' We forget so. And you may have many more temptations in the Army than you do at school. But Miss Garton showed me that if God has taken hold of us, we have to hold fast to His Hand, and then we shan't have any tumbles, but be led straight along. She gave me a text about it:

"'I the LORD have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee.'

"You and I have both been called, Denys, so that God has got hold of us, and if we don't break away from Him, but just hold fast every day—"

"Yes," said Denys, with a grave nod. Then he turned to his chest of drawers and took hold of his Bible.

"Look here, Grisel, just you write that text on the first leaf here. I like it. And when you write to me, you needn't preach as long a sermon as you've done to-night, but just put in a postscript 'H.F.' and I shall know what you mean."

So I wrote the verse in Denys's Bible, just as I had done in Pat's Testament, and we didn't say any more. And the next morning he left us.

Now Miss Garton has come back, and Lynette and Puff and I are all doing lessons together. But the war goes on, and is altering everything. To begin with, it has stirred up grandfather, and he is much kinder and more sociable to us now. He tells me a lot about the war, and about some of his fighting days. And the other evening he actually went down to the Village Hall and gave them a lecture on the war—on how it started, and what we have got to do, and what will happen if we don't do it. And he said at the end:

"England has no idea of the big job in front of her, and of the gigantic and continuous efforts she will have to make; and if we don't all do our part, disaster will come upon us."

And twelve men came up after and enlisted for the war. I cried with excitement, for Miss Garton took Lynette and me to hear the lecture.

We're knitting as hard as we can—Lynette and me, and even Puff is knitting comforters. And Miss Garton reads some of the papers to us while we work, and we have a great map of Europe in the schoolroom on the wall, and we follow it all every day. I like hearing it all, but it's so awful!

Hospitals are being got ready all over England, and Miss Garton says nobody knows how long the war will last, so she means to train Lynette and me in every way that she can. And she is teaching us what she has learnt at ambulance classes herself, and we practise bandaging up Puff's arms and legs. At first, he liked it, but now he doesn't; so we work on his feelings first, and talk to him about his duty to King and country, and when he gets tired of that, we bribe him with sweets. Even then sometimes, he runs away, and hides from us when he sees us coming.

Last Saturday I went over to see my godmother. She was knitting as usual, but this time she had khaki wool. I had a lot to talk about. I love talking to her. It's just like talking to Lynette; she understands so.

"It seems sometimes too wonderful and too awful to be true," I said to her when we talked about the war. "When we trained ourselves for it in Lincolnshire, we never thought it would come so soon. That was our one lament, that it wouldn't come in our life-time. I feel it's very very tantalising even now. You see we're just too young to be really of use. I should like Denys and Aylwin and Puff all at the war, and Lynette and me hospital nurses as close to the front as we could get. It seems such waste of time to be doing lessons—practising on the piano, and learning arithmetic, when all the rest of the world is fighting and working as hard as it can."

"You restless, hot-blooded child!" said Aunt Grisel. "I am quietly sitting at home, but it doesn't follow that I'm not taking my part. I don't think I should be much good at nursing."

"Oh, I wish, I wish I was you!" I said.

"What would you do if you were?"

"I'd turn this beautiful old house into a big hospital, like some of those rich people have done in England. Miss Garton read it out to us."

"You had better propose that to your grandfather."

"I have, but Aunt Isobel squashed me at once."

"She would."

And Aunt Grisel gave a little chuckle.

"Go on, Grisel, you'd turn my house into a hospital; what else? I suppose you would like me to do it. And I should be an outcast myself. Where should I go?"

"Oh, you could stay, and go round and see the sick soldiers when they came and write letters for them. It would be lovely, Aunt Grisel! And then you could ask me and Lynette over sometimes, and we would bring them flowers and talk to them and hear a little. Do you think you might possibly be able to do it? It would be simply too lovely if you could?"

I dropped my knitting in my excitement.

Then Aunt Grisel got up.

"Well, come over the house, and see if it could be done. Come along."

I wondered if she were in fun or earnest. But it is one of the things I love about her, she does things so quickly. We say that grown-up people never do, it's because they think so much, I suppose. We hardly ever think out a thing before we do it.

"Now," she said, "I'll show you the whole house, Grisel, and you shall say what you think about it."

I could have hugged her!

When we got upstairs, I looked up and down the long corridor; there were big, sunny rooms on one side, and several of the rooms led into one another.

"Wouldn't these make lovely wards?" I said. "I used to go into a hospital near Lincoln. It was a small one, and they had rooms leading into each other like this. And then how nice it would be for the wounded soldiers to walk up and down this corridor, and go out upon that broad stone balcony at the end."

"But they would want kitchens and bathrooms, and surgeries, and goodness knows what else! And these are my best rooms."

"I would give my very best to the soldiers," I said.

Lady Grisel looked at me and laughed. "I believe you would, but I'm a selfish old woman, and you're an enthusiastic, romantic child."

Then I went on, and we planned out where a lift could come up from the kitchen at one end of the corridor, and where another bathroom could be made, and we even counted the beds that might be put in each room, and the little bedrooms for the nurses, and a little sitting-room for them when they were off duty, and another small room for the doctor to consult, and at last Aunt Grisel said that I had tired her out, so we went downstairs to the big drawing-room.

When my time came to leave her, I said: "Thank you for the fun we had planning out a hospital."

"Ah!" she said, shaking her head at me. "It may be fun to you, but it is not to me."

When I came home I thought no more about it, but to-day, to my astonishment and great delight, I got this letter:

"MY DEAR, ROMANTIC GODDAUGHTER,

"You are responsible for it all, and I feel like the hen who was invited to put her head inside the fox's mouth to see his gold tooth. The War Office wired to-day to accept my offer to put up convalescent soldiers. And I have only a fortnight or so to prepare for them. I'm wiring for nurses, and beds, and blankets, and for carpenters and workmen by the score, and if I tear out the few grey hairs I have left, in my agony of soul, it is you I have to thank for it. The least you can do is to come over and help me. If I had not an old friend who is going to run it for me, I should be at my wit's end. She is arriving to-morrow. I expect you over next Saturday to join in the fray.

"Your distracted godmother,

"GRISEL."

I showed this letter to grandfather.

He seemed quite amused at it.

"It will give Grisel something to think of besides her own comfort. I suppose Lydia Fawcett will run it for her."

"Who is she, grandfather?"

"A very handsome woman," said grandfather, with a twinkle in his eye. "She's been matron at some London hospital, and then had to leave it on account of ill-health. I wish I had her energy!"

Lynette and I are very interested in this new hospital. To think that we should soon have soldiers who have actually been fighting close to us seems too good to be true.

Lynette longs to go with me to Aunt Grisel's next Saturday, and begs me to get an invitation for her. But I don't feel I can. Perhaps Aunt Grisel may send a message to her.

I answered the letter; I said:

"MY DEAREST GODMOTHER,

"I felt inclined to dance when I read your letter, and I'm longing for next Saturday to come. I hope it is not a great trouble to you. Shall we make some bed-socks for them? How many will you have? I am so glad you have a friend to help you. I wish I could be with you altogether, but as Lynette says, lessons always stop fun. Lynette would like to help too. Can we do anything now for you?

"With my best love,

"Your loving

"GRISEL."

And now I am just counting the hours till Saturday.