A Land-Girl's Love Story
Berta Ruck
9781465548160
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
There! I told you what kind of a young man he was, Joan. I only groaned; my elbows on the breakfast-table and my head buried in my hands. What does it matter what "kind" of young man he is, when you're in love with him? "He's a beauty," declared my chum Elizabeth. She pushed back the letter which had come as such a knockout to me. "Who's this 'Muriel' who writes to tell you that she's just seen Harry Markham off to Salonika, when you didn't even know he'd got his orders?" "It's Muriel Elvey; I introduced him to her myself at the theatre about a fortnight ago," I explained, stunned. "That very pretty girl who was at school in Germany with me. I didn't know they'd met again.... He didn't say good-bye to me! ..." "Rotter," snorted Elizabeth boyishly. But some of us would rather be happy with a charming "rotter" than be bored for life by one of those prigs who never do anything wrong. Haggardly I stared at that letter with its gold-printed "Muriel" at the top, its whiff of Chaminade. Little Elizabeth scowled sympathetically. She always had had a grimace for the name of Captain Harry Markham, who had been my idol for the last year. (A rotter! What difference does that make!) For that year life was a whirl of thrills and pangs because of one young soldier-man's black eyes and red tabs. At first it was all thrill. That's bound to be when the Harry-type—a born fighter and philanderer—leader of men and misleader of women—fills up a girl's horizon with his telephone-calls, his invitations, his flatteries—and himself. Feverishly happy, I blessed the job that kept me where he was. (And now this! This!) My job was one of those that are described as "thundering good for a girl." It brought me in nearly three pounds a week, for I was secretary to a quite important official in one of those big rabbit-warren buildings in Whitehall that we call Ministries. It kept me indoors from ten A.M. until half-past six or seven or—if we'd a rush of work—eight o'clock at night. It kept nerve and brain on the stretch, too! My chief insisted upon taking the last ounce out of his under-strappers. Also, he had a horrible temper. But I accepted that as cheerfully as I accepted the stuffiness of that rabbit-warren, and the rushed lunches, and the work that was draining all the go-stuff out of me. You see, my people lived in the country, and—because of Harry—I simply had to live in town. It would have killed me, I thought, to tear myself away from London and from our flat near Golder's Green. This had been let, furnished, by an officer, now at the front, to me and my old school-chum, Elizabeth Weare, who was clerk at my rabbit-warren. We did our own housework and marketing and cooking, tired as we were, after our office-day was done. Sounds rather like all work and no play? But it wasn't. There was play, to take it out of me more than work. Play turned my days into a succession of wild jumps across stepping-stones. The stones, of course, were the times when Harry took me out. I would have worked underground and consented never to see the light of day, provided that I still saw him. Ah, I'm not the first girl who has made Paradise out of bricks and mortar, just because they hold a Harry! I thought I was growing to mean to him as much as he meant to me. Elizabeth did warn me, but who ever takes any notice of these warnings from the looker-on who sees the game? And Elizabeth was by way of being a Man-Hater anyhow, so how put any trust in her opinion of my Prince Charming? Gradually there slipped through the thrill of it all the first pang of doubt. Surely he meant to propose? No? Yes? No? The pangs came oftener. Could he mean nothing? Just the flirtation that camouflages itself under the name of being great pals? Or would he presently say something? This was a wearing time, I can tell you. Presently the thrills grew fewer, the pangs more frequent.
