ge, strained and anxious. There were
so few civilians on board that Cecilia and the two old servants were
greeted with curious stares; nearly all the passengers were in uniform,
their boots caked with the mud of the trenches, their khaki soiled with
the grime of war. It was all rather dream-like to Cecilia; and London
itself was a very bad dream; darkened and silent, with the great beams
of searchlights playing back and forth over the black skies in search of
marauding Zeppelins. And then came her father's stiff greeting, and the
silent drive to the tall, narrow house in Lancaster Gate, where Mrs.
Rainham met her coldly. In after years Cecilia never could think without
a shudder of that first meal in her father's house--the struggle to
eat, the lagging talk round the table, with Avice and Wilfred, frankly
hostile, staring at her in silence, and her stepmother's pale eyes
appraising every detail of her dress. It was almost like happiness again
to find herself alone, later; in a dingy little attic bedroom that smelt
as though it had never known an open window--a sorry little hole, but
still, out of the reach of those unblinking eyes.

For the first year Cecilia had struggled to get away to earn her own
living. But a very few weeks served to show Mrs. Rainham that chance
had sent her, in the person of the girl whose coming she had sullenly
resented, a very useful buffer against any period of domestic stress.
Aunt Margaret had trained Cecilia thoroughly in all housewifely virtues,
and her half-French education had given her much that was lacking in
the stodgy damsels of Mrs. Rainham's acquaintance. She was quick
and courteous and willing; responding, moreover, to the lash of the
tongue--after her first wide-eyed stare of utter amazement--exactly as a
well-bred colt responds to a deftly-used whip. "I'll keep her," was Mrs.
Rainham's inward resolve. "And she'll earn her keep too!"

There was no doubt that Cecilia did that. Wilfred and Avice saw to it,
even had not their mother been fully capable of exacting the last ounce
from the only helper she had ever had who had not the power to give her
a week's notice. Cecilia's first requests to be allowed to take up work
outside had been shelved vaguely. "We'll find some nice war-work for
you presently". . . and meanwhile, the household was short-handed, Mrs.
Rainham was overstrained--Cecilia found later that her stepmother was
always "overstrained" whenever she spoke of leaving home