The Romantic Adventures of Mr. Darby and of Sarah His Wife (26 page)

‘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.'