Listening Valley (17 page)

“Yes, of course,” agreed Tonia. “
Lovely
for you, Bay.”

“I told you she was French, didn't I? I don't quite know how she managed to get away before the Bosche arrived at Dieppe. She just wrote from London and said she had escaped. I wrote back, of course, and arranged to meet her my next leave and we had a good time together and—well—we got engaged. That's how it was, you see.”

“I see,” said Tonia, nodding.

“She had a frightful time,” said Bay. “She doesn't know whether her parents are dead or alive. Her brother managed to escape; he's doing some sort of job in London. She's devoted to her brother.”

“I see,” said Tonia, again.

“I'm awfully sorry for Retta,” declared Bay with a sigh. He glanced at the clock, gave an exclamation of horror, and rushed wildly out of the door.

Celia Dunne sent a postcard to say she was taking Mrs. Norman at her word and would come to lunch tomorrow.

“And that's today,” said Tonia to herself, half in delight and half in trepidation. The delight was due to the fact that she wanted to see Miss Dunne again, the trepidation to the difficulty of feeding her in a suitable manner.

Mrs. Smilie was quite excited when she heard the news and declared that it put her in mind of the old days when old Miss Dunne used to drive over in the carriage and have lunch with Miss Antonia. “Such a baking as there was,” said Mrs. Smilie reminiscently. “Old Miss Dunne had a sweet tooth and Mrs. Fraser would put her best foot foremost when she heard Miss Dunne was coming. Mrs. Fraser was always a bit sharp, but when Miss Dunne was expected you couldn't put your nose inside the kitchen door without having it bitten off. There was a special pudding she made: a kind of basket with trifle in the middle and ratafia cookies all around, and I mind there was pigeons in aspic and clear soup with letters of the alphabet made of macaroni floating in it. Or if it was winter she'd make chicken in a casserole with mushrooms and whatnot, and maybe pancakes to follow with bits of lemon to squeeze over them…”

Tonia sighed heavily, for this description of the food with which Great-Aunt Antonia had sustained her guest was somewhat depressing in view of present-day restrictions.

“Never you mind,” said Mrs. Smilie, who perceived Tonia's gloom and divined the cause. “Miss Celia'll not expect very much, for she's a sensible young lady. I'll boil a drop of soup out of that bone and you can get some sliced sausage for patties. I can make some gravy to go with them and mashed potatoes and baked beetroot, and you can have baked apple and custard and then cheese and oatcakes and a nice cup of coffee to follow.”

“Goodness, that's far too much!” exclaimed Tonia. “Nobody could eat all that—”

“It wouldn't have been too much before the war.”

“I know, but one hasn't room for a lot of food nowadays. Our insides must have shrunk or something…besides I don't want you to trouble. I can easily manage.”

“And be all hot and bothered when Miss Celia arrives!” exclaimed Mrs. Smilie with scorn. “
That
would be a nice thing! No, no, I'll see to the lunch myself. You can put on your things and do the shopping. I'll give you a list,” declared Mrs. Smilie, diving into the cupboard and poking about to see what was there. “There'll be the sausage, of course, and mind you get sliced…and we'll need dried eggs for the custard…flour? No, you've plenty of flour and here's a tin of coffee. What about gravy powder?”

“I wish you wouldn't bother, Mrs. Smilie. You have your own work to do and I can manage—”

“I like doing it, fine,” said Mrs. Smilie. “It's something I can do, and do well, and that's all there is to it…it's like this, Miss Tonia,” she continued, laying down the tin of coffee and putting her hands on her hips—an attitude she invariably assumed when she had something important to say. “It's like this, you see: if it had not been for old Miss Antonia we never could have gotten married, Alec and me, not for years and years. We were saving up to buy a house, but Miss Antonia was all against waiting; maybe it was because of her own loss—Captain Dunne, who she was engaged to, having been drowned. Anyway, she was all against us waiting, and she gave Alec the money to buy the house. We paid back every penny of it, of course, for that was the way we wanted it—not to be beholden to anybody. We paid it back to her, bit by bit, all except the interest and Alec wanted to pay that, too, but Miss Antonia said no. To tell the truth, I never could understand about the interest, no matter how often Alec explained it, but anyway it didn't matter because Miss Antonia said nothing would make her take it.

“But it was not only that,” continued Mrs. Smilie after a short pause. “It was not only the house. There were other things she did for me, off and on, all the time we were neighbors to her. Maybe you wouldn't think they were big things, but they meant a good deal to me. It was not so much the things she did as the way she did them. If you were ill Miss Antonia would come in and see you and she'd bring a few flowers. She wouldn't bring you a great armful of flowers that the gardener had picked, but just a few that she had picked herself, thinking about you…and she'd bring them all ready in a little glass. It would be one of her best glasses, too—not just a jam jar—and she'd put it on the table beside your bed for you to look at. Or maybe it would be soup she'd send you, and she'd send it straight from her own table in one of her own cups, and there'd be a message that Miss Melville thought the soup was specially good today and she hoped you'd fancy it.”

Mrs. Smilie paused and looked at Tonia.

“I see,” said Tonia slowly.

“You see,” agreed Mrs. Smilie. “And so if there's anything I can do for you—”

“But I'm me—” began Tonia.

“You put me in mind of her,” explained Mrs. Smilie. “It's your voice, mostly—and your hands (she was never much use with her hands except doing kindnesses to folk that were in trouble), and you're like what she must have been when she was young. She was old when I knew her, of course…but it's not only
that
,” declared Mrs. Smilie. “Even if you were not a bit like her, to look at, it would be just the same.”

“Why?” asked Tonia.

“It was something she said to me once and I've never forgotten. Alec had been ill and I was run off my feet and nearly demented with the worry of it, and Miss Antonia had been like an angel straight from heaven, taking the children off my hands and sending in eggs and chickens and all. Well, I was trying to thank her and not making much of a job of it, and I said I wished I could do something for her but there was nothing I could do…and Miss Antonia said to me: ‘Do it to somebody else.' I couldn't for the life of me see how
that
would help, but she just said, ‘If you think you owe me a kindness, pass it on.' ‘Who to?' I said, sharp-like, for to tell the truth I was not too keen on some of the folks that live roundabout us. (There was Mrs. MacBean, a feckless body if you like. Her house was like a midden and she was never out of the bit—and her man bringing in good money, too!) Then Miss Antonia said, ‘Love your neighbor,' and it gave me quite a turn; it was like as if she could see what I was thinking.
‘Love
your neighbor, Jean,' said Miss Antonia again. I said, ‘We've to love our enemies, too, Miss Antonia.' So then she laughed and said, ‘Why not start with your neighbors? It's easy enough to love your friends—even the devils do that—and it's very difficult to love your enemies, but there are plenty of people in between who are neither the one nor the other to practice on, and maybe when you've practiced a bit you'll get to loving your enemies.' She wasn't one to preach, mind you. In fact, that's the only religious talk we ever had—if you call it religious—and maybe that was the reason I heeded it more than if the minister had said it…or maybe it was because you could see she did it herself and was not just telling you what
you
ought to do. I'd have liked to ask her if
she'd
gotten to loving her enemies yet—not that she had any enemies as far as I knew, for everybody in the place loved her—but Miss Antonia was a great lady. She was friendly as you please but there was something—you could go so far with her and you could go no further—and I dursn't ask her that. Well, anyway, I thought about what she'd said and I've never forgotten it to this day.”

There was a short silence.

“I thought about it,” continued Mrs. Smilie. “And I tried it out and I was getting on none too badly until the war. The war put me back a good bit.”

“Yes,” said Tonia. “I don't wonder, really.”

“For, to tell the truth,” said Mrs. Smilie seriously. “To tell the truth it's difficult to believe that even the Almighty Himself could love Hitler and Goebbels and the rest of them.”

“It
is
difficult,” agreed Tonia.

“I asked the minister,” said Mrs. Smilie, nodding. “M'hm, you'll maybe not believe I could be so brash, but he was in one day to see me and he took a cup of tea and suddenly it all came over me, and I asked him straight out. ‘Mr. Torrance,' I said. ‘Will you tell me this, for it's a trouble to me: Does God love Hitler?'”

“What did he say?” asked Tonia, hiding an involuntary smile.

“I could see he was put about,” replied Mrs. Smilie. “But he's not one to be easily beaten, and off he went on a long tirade about the powers of good and the powers of evil fighting for a man's soul, and he brought in bits of the Bible every now and then to show what he meant. It was like having a sermon all to yourself; but to tell the truth, Miss Tonia, I knew no more at the end than I did at the start…and now,” said Mrs. Smilie changing her tone, all in a moment, to the strictly practical tone of everyday life. “Now, away you go and get the sausages, for I'll need all my time.”

***

Miss Dunne arrived on a bicycle at the appointed hour. “Here I am!” she said. “I hope to goodness you really meant it when you said come to lunch. Deb thought it was frightful of me to take you at your word—but Deb hadn't seen you.”

Tonia was pleased at the implied compliment. She replied very cordially and with complete sincerity that she was delighted to have Miss Dunne. At first Tonia was just a trifle shy (Miss Dunne was a good deal older than herself) but nobody could continue to be shy with Celia Dunne, for she was so amusing and not self-conscious. They went upstairs together, and Miss Dunne washed and talked and admired the house and everything in it in a way that won its owner's heart.

Mrs. Smilie was carrying in the soup when they came downstairs.

“Mrs. Smilie!” cried Celia. “I didn't know
you
were here.”

“I'm not,” replied Mrs. Smilie, standing foursquare in the hall with the tray in her hands and looking as pleased as Punch. “I'm
not
here, Miss Celia. I just come in and give a wee help now and then when I can spare the time. Is the admiral keeping well, Miss Celia?”

Celia replied that her father was in excellent health and returned the compliment by inquiring after Tom and Archie and Mary. By this time they had seated themselves at the table and Mrs. Smilie had served the soup.

“You're engaged, aren't you?” said Tonia, glancing at the diamond ring that sparkled on her guest's engagement finger.

“Yes, to Courtney Dale. He's—”

“Courtney Dale!” exclaimed Tonia in amazement.

“You know him?”

“No, of course not, but—”

Celia laughed. She said, “Why do you say ‘Of course not'? You seem to know his name. I'm beginning to think you're rather a mysterious person, Mrs. Norman.”

“Oh,” said Tonia, blushing. “I meant—I mean, it's so extraordinary. It all happened a hundred years ago.”

“So you've heard the old story! My Courtney is a great-grandson of the first Courtney Dale who came to Dunnian a hundred years ago and married Mary Dunne.”

“He married Mary but he loved Celia.”

“Not really? How do you know?” inquired the modern Celia, looking at her hostess in surprise.

“From the diary…my Great-Aunt Antonia's diary. Oh, isn't it exciting? Yes, he loved Celia and she loved him…” and with that Tonia plunged into the story.

Celia was interested, of course—who wouldn't have been?—and after lunch the diary was produced and parts of it were read and discussed very thoroughly.

“I wonder if Dad knows,” said Celia thoughtfully. “It would be just like Dad to keep it under his hat—”

“How could he know?” asked Tonia. “Nobody knew except Antonia. She knew because she was Celia's friend. Celia was older, of course, but age doesn't matter, does it?”

“Not really,” agreed the present-day Celia, looking at the present-day Antonia in a thoughtful way. “Why should it matter if you like the same things?”

“If you have the same values,” said Tonia, nodding.

“And the odd thing is,” continued Miss Dunne, following out her own train of thought. “The odd thing is that if Arthur hadn't been drowned they would have been sisters-in-law and we should be connected.”

“Rather distantly,” said Tonia with a regretful smile.

Time had passed quickly and Miss Dunne rose and said she was due at a Red Cross meeting and must go. “You must come over to Dunnian,” she declared. “Dad would love to talk to you—and so would Deb. Deb is my sister-in-law. She's staying with us for the duration, also her son, a most attractive person aged six months or so. Deb thinks he's like his father—my brother, Mark—but I think he's like Bill.”

Tonia received the impression that it was most satisfactory to be like Bill. “Another brother?” she asked.

“My favorite brother,” admitted Miss Dunne.

“Bill and I used to do all sorts of wicked things together. We understand each other, somehow. You will come, won't you, Mrs. Norman?”

“Not Mrs. Norman,
please
,” said Tonia quickly.

“And not Miss Dunne,” said Celia, smiling and gathering up her belongings and hastening away.