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"Do you remember a fortnight ago I told you some one, some Belgian had written a beautiful poem and sent it to me for one of our newspapers? I showed it to you at the time and you said you said 'it was well enough, but it did not seem to have much point." Vivie did remember having glanced very perfunctorily at some effusion in typewriting which had seemed unobjectionable piffle.
Afterwards she came here to work in our Red Cross I think now she is in charge of a ward..." So Vivie found a few months' reprieve from acute sorrow and bitter humiliation. Gräfin von Stachelberg was as kind in her way as her cousin the Colonel, but much less sentimental. In fact she was of that type of New German woman, taken all too little into account by our Press at the time of the War.
We've women clerks and typewriteresses ... Adams, I notice, is growing, and he has the trace of a moustache and is already devoted to you ... dog-like..." Vivie: "He's still more devoted to cricket, fortunately; and as soon as Rose and Lilian had gone he was off too.... Only, I fancy, he discards Regent's Park now in favour of Hendon or Herne Hill..." Norie: "Now, about Frank Gardner..."
Gardner had all the luck.... I was glad to hear he was married." Vivie: "Oh you needn't be jealous of poor Frank. And he'll soon be back in South Africa. You needn't be jealous of any one. I'm all yours in spirit for all time. Now we must be going: it's getting dusk and we should be irretrievably ruined if we were locked up in this dilapidated old palm house.
Vivie did not like to prolong the talk in case it should attract attention. Individual action was encouraged under the W.S.P.U., and when a member wished to do something on her own, her comrades did not fuss with advice. So Vivie returned to the Grand Stand. Presently there was the stir occasioned by the arrival of the Royal personages.
Vivie was thought to be fully equal in her knowledge of the law to her cousin, though not allowed to qualify for the Bar. Case after case was referred to her with the hope that if she could not solve it, she might submit it to her cousin's judgment. In this way, excellent legal advice was forthcoming which drove the Home Office officials from one quandary to another.
She would come back and write letters, carefully planned and written letters, or read some book she had fetched from Mudie's she had invested a half-guinea with Mudie's or sit over her fire and think. Slowly and reluctantly she came to realize that Vivie Warren was what is called an "ideal." There were no such girls and no such positions.
She would tend their sick and wounded no more. She hurried on up the ascent of the Boulevard of the Botanic Garden on her way to the Rue Royale. She burst into von Giesselin's office. He was not there. A clerk looking at her rather closely said that the Herr Oberst was packing, was going away. Vivie scarcely took in the meaning of his German phrases.
Now all she had for certain was something over three thousand pounds in bank notes that might turn out next month to be worthless paper. And was she certain even of them? Had Vivie before they left the hotel remembered to put some, at least, of this precious sum on her person?
David Vavasour Williams, who had residential chambers on the third floor, and a fair-sized Office and small private room on the second floor. Bertie's mother had "washed" for both Honoria and Vivie in their respective dwellings for years, and for David after he came to live at Fig Tree Court.
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