They had only twenty minutes in which to enjoy their refreshment and change trains; most of them were going to London. This was only one of the many train-loads of men which would visit the room that night.
There were about forty men, pushing and elbowing their way to the counter.
With a sharp-spouted, blue-enamelled tin jug in her hand, Margaret began her work, quickly filling the empty cups on the counter. As fast as her active movements would allow her she filled and refilled the saucerless cups. What seemed a never-ending stream of men pushed forward and tried to get closer to the counter.
"Help yourselves, please, to sandwiches and cakes," came from Margaret"s lips every few minutes, for some of the men were shy--she had to keep on repeating the invitation. She had scarcely time to glance at them, or raise her eyes from the cups which she was filling.
As there were no saucers, it required a steady hand to prevent the tea from splashing on the counter. Such a large majority of the men took tea that she had to tell them that there was coffee. "Tea or coffee?"
she would ask, with quickly raised eyes. "We have both."
There was on these occasions no opportunity for any conversation with the men. Their time was too limited for speech, and she was too busy to distinguish one khaki-clad figure from another. It was only a pair of eyes which she met now and then, when it was possible to raise hers from the extended cup she was refilling. More than once her blue-enamelled jug ran dry, and impatient men had to wait while she replenished it from one of the big urns which were steaming on the shelf behind her. When the jug was quite full, it was so heavy to hold extended, that she had to exercise care not to spill some of its contents on the sandwiches and cake. It was exceptionally difficult not to spill any of it when cups were held high up to be refilled.
One tall man, a late-comer, had with difficulty pushed his way forward; he was waiting to be served. He held up his cup, thinking that it would make it easier for Margaret to reach it. Before filling it, she recollected to say, "Would you rather have some coffee?"
She raised her eyes as she spoke. Some curious sense of the man"s more refined personality had made her think that coffee might appeal to him.
As she did so, Michael"s Irish-blue eyes gazed back into hers.
For a moment the world stood still for Margaret. Her poor heart beat so quickly that her hand gave a spasmodic shake, with the result that a considerable quant.i.ty of the tea from the enamelled jug splashed over the brim and drenched a plate of scones.
Michael had not spoken, nor could Margaret. What she had waited so long to ask him could not be called out over a dozen eager heads.
A kilted Scot, broad-faced and broad-kneed, had pushed himself in front of Michael, who recognized that it was his duty to step back from the counter now that his cup was full, and allow the man just behind him to get his chance.
Margaret had to go on filling white cups with tea. She dared not even raise her eyes to see if she could catch sight of Michael above the crowd of khaki figures. It was hopeless now, for another train had brought in a fresh batch of weary, cold, homesick men, all eager for a hot cup of tea. Most of the first-comers had already disappeared; one or two of them were hastily addressing with pen and ink the pencilled postcards which they had written in the train. The writing of many post-cards seemed to afford them great comfort. While Margaret was filling cups as fast as she could, she was often interrupted by men who would hold out a penny and ask if she kept postage-stamps. Stamps were the only things which were not given away in the free refreshment-room; a copper always went into the little red box when a stamp was taken out. The men were eager to get them.
Another voice would ask for a time-table, and another would inquire if she sold pipes; he had lost his in the train and he dreaded the twelve hours" journey which lay before him without the comfort of even his pipe.
All these demands had to be attended to quickly and sympathetically.
The twenty minutes which the first batch of men had to spend in the station was almost up. On record nights the canteen had served three hundred men in half an hour. Margaret felt rather than knew that Michael was still in the room, that he was standing behind the first line of men, looking at her. Her heart was throbbing and her mind distracted. How could she reach him? How could she learn where he was going to?
His eyes had told her nothing; they had simply gazed into hers as though he had seen a vision. Of the surprise and relief which hers had afforded him she knew nothing. In the midst of the hurly-burly of hungry, tired soldiers she had met his eyes--that was all. She had scarcely seen his figure.
The place was emptying. Michael, having stayed to the very last second, turned and quickly left the room. Soon there would be a lull, but Margaret could not wait for it. She put down her can as Michael disappeared and moved down the counter to its exit, a little door which opened inwards and allowed her to pa.s.s into the room. To reach it she had to brush past her aunt. As she did so, she said as calmly as she could:
"I must fly out to the platform for a few minutes, aunt, even if these men go without their tea--I really must go and speak to a soldier I know."
Her aunt looked at her in astonishment. This new emotional Margaret was so very unlike the reliable V.A.D., whose dignity was one of her individual charms.
"Very well, my dear, I can manage. Go along."
There was no time for more words--indeed, Margaret did not wait to be allowed. She darted out of the refreshment-room like an arrow freed from the bow. She had but one idea, to follow Michael. When the door closed behind her, she gazed up the wide expanse of platform. She caught sight of him, but he was well ahead, and he was walking very quickly. Even if she ran, she doubted if she could catch him. After the heat of the room, the air was bitingly cold. Margaret did not feel it; her eyes were trying to keep Michael"s khaki-clad figure in sight.
She tried, but failed, for soon he was lost in the crowd of men who were boarding the train. Bevies of women and girls and children had gathered on the platform to see their relatives leave for the Front.
Before Margaret"s flying feet could overtake Michael he had jumped into a carriage and was as completely lost to sight as a needle in a stack of hay. He was a common Tommy, as heavily-laden, Margaret thought, as an Arab-porter, with his accoutrements of war. All the window seats in the train had been taken up long before he entered it, so it was quite impossible for her to distinguish him amongst the late-comers who were struggling to find even standing-room.
Margaret stood for a moment or two in breathless despair. What could she do? He was there somewhere, in that very train. She was standing beside it, and yet she could not even see him. She was only wasting time; her sense of duty urged her to return to the hungry men in the refreshment-room. Had she forgotten how eager and longing everyone of them was for something to drink?
Her conscience might urge her, but for this once she was a human, love-hungry girl, as eager to speak to her man as the men were to swallow big mouthfuls of tea. With tear-blinded eyes she saw the train leave the platform; she had allowed herself that extension of time.
After all, if the soldiers" throats were starved for moisture, had not the whole of her being suffered a far more acute starvation for many, many months? Her womanhood was crying out for its rights.
As the end of the train was lost to sight, she turned away. She was just the girl he had left behind him, forlorn and desolate. A soldier"s wife, who was crying healthily, almost tripped Margaret up as she swung quickly round. Her baby, a tired little fractious creature, was in her arms.
As Margaret apologized to her, the idea came to her to ask the woman where the men in the train were going to.
"Most of them to the Front," the woman said. "I lost my only brother two months ago, and now my man"s gone. Oh, this is a cruel war!" Her sobs became heavier. "When my brother went to France, I thought it was a grand thing--I was awfully proud. It"s a different thing now." She looked at Margaret keenly. "Has someone you care for gone to the Front? Is he in yon train?" She indicated the vanishing train.
Margaret"s eyes answered. The woman saw that she was making an effort to keep calm.
"But he"s not leaving his little ones behind him--ye"ll no be married?
I"ve got two at home to keep."
"You have his children--I have nothing," Margaret said enviously.
The woman burst into fresh weeping. Margaret envied her abandonment.
"They are a comfort," she said, "in a way. But they"re a deal of trouble and anxiety--ye"re well off without them."
The woman looked poor and clean. Half a crown left Margaret"s purse and took its place beside the coppers which lay in the woman"s. It seemed to her horribly vulgar and insulting to offer the woman money as a form of comfort, but her knowledge of the very poor told her that on a cold northern night, the feeling that an extra half-crown had been added to her income would help. It would "keep the home-fire burning"
for a week or so, at least.
With quick feet Margaret retraced her steps to the free refreshment-room. Her selfish absence from her post p.r.i.c.ked her conscience. When she entered it she saw that it was almost empty. One man was lying stretched out at full length on a seat; a pillow was under his head and he was fast asleep. He had lost his "connection"
and would not be able to get a train until after midnight. He was safe from temptation in the hospitable room. Another man was writing letters at the big table; he had already addressed half a dozen postcards.
Margaret knew that in this quiet interval her aunt would be busy washing up and drying the dirty cups at the wash-basin in the inner ladies" room. She hurried to join her.
"Have I been very long?" she said. "I do feel so selfish."
"No, no, my dear," her aunt said quickly. "I managed quite well--the rush had ceased." She looked at her niece questioningly. "I suppose you recognized a friend?"
"I saw a man, aunt, amongst the soldiers, whom I knew very well in Egypt. He was Freddy"s best friend. I haven"t seen him since. I wonder if he knows that Freddy is dead? I wanted to speak to him if I could."
"And did you?"
"No." Margaret"s voice trembled. "He had got into the train. The men were packed like sardines, and I couldn"t find him. It left punctually to the minute--I hadn"t much time to look."
Her aunt noticed the emotion in Margaret"s voice. The woman in her longed to put a motherly arm round the girl as she stood beside her, but her training and national reserve prevented it. So instead of letting her niece see how generous her sympathy was, she said, in rather a strident voice, the result of her suppressed feeling:
"There is a good cup of coffee waiting for you in the small brown pot, and you"ll find some egg-sandwiches on a plate on the high shelf above the tumbler-cupboard. Go and eat them at once, before a fresh lot of men come in."
"Oh, I don"t want anything," Margaret said pleadingly. "Let me help you wash all these cups, please do, aunt. I really don"t want anything to eat."
"Whether you want it or not, I insist upon your eating it. Go now, at once, don"t waste time."
Her niece obeyed meekly. When her aunt talked like that, and brought those tones into her voice, Margaret instantly lapsed back into her childhood. She was once more the little black sheep of Kingdom-come, the little black sheep who, at the death of her parents, had very quickly learned to fear rather than to love the various paternal relatives who had considered it their duty to bring her up in the way a Lampton should go.
If Margaret"s aunt could only have brought herself to speak to her niece as she many times spoke to strangers of her, how different things might have been between them! But this G.o.d-fearing woman never did.
She was too G.o.d-fearing and too little G.o.d-loving. She still clung tenaciously to the old order of things, to the method of rearing girls and responding to human nature which had been considered wise in her young days.
While she dried the tea-cups, with a genuine feeling of sympathy for Margaret in her heart, for she was convinced that this man"s going to the Front had upset her pretty niece, and while Margaret ate her sandwiches and drank her coffee because she had been bidden to do so, Michael"s train was carrying him through the dark night. He was sitting in the corridor, on the top of his kit, lost in thought. He had missed his chance of getting a seat in any of the overcrowded carriages by his delay in the free-refreshment-room. But what did it matter? He was accustomed to discomfort, to unutterable hardships.