Mrs. Tim of the Regiment (6 page)

Colonel now laughing uproariously at something said by Grace which neither of them will divulge.

Grace is looking really beautiful tonight in red chiffon which clashes diabolically with my old dyed pink satin. Her hair is black with a blue sheen and has obviously just been trimmed and waved, her creamy matt complexion is touched with a faint pink – her eyes are sparkling with mischief.

Notice with horror that Annie is breathing heavily down Tim's back, and am certain by the expression on his face that he thinks I have forgotten to tell her not to. Whereas my whole day has been completely poisoned by remembering it.

Make a move as soon as I possibly can. Mrs. Benson rises with alacrity but everyone else obviously surprised. Grace drops her bag and she and the colonel bump heads trying to pick it up. (The C.O.'s figure is not suited to retrieving bags from beneath tables.) Both laugh. Mrs. Benson sweeps out of the door which Tim has opened.

Find that I have left the frying pan for the fire, as Mrs. Benson will not speak to Grace. Decide that six is a very awkward number for dinner as it makes three women in the drawing room. (But as our table will not hold more I am aware that the decision is barren.) Contrive to talk to Mrs. Benson about Regimental Women's Welfare Club and to Grace about hairdressers. Very wearing.

Am thankful to see the men, and suggest bridge. Grace and I sit out and she tells me that she has offered to have the Carter baby and nurse while the new baby is arriving. Warn her about the nurse who upset my whole household when I had them to stay while a move was taking place. Grace says her household is already in such a parlous condition that she does not think the Carter nurse can do much harm.

Jack had to turn three men out of the kitchen at 11.30 p.m. last night and the cook gave notice this morning, and what do I do about followers. Reply that Annie is engaged to Bollings and that Katie has a squint and protruding teeth – Grace says I am lucky.

Twentieth January

Nora comes in to retrieve three finger bowls which I borrowed for my dinner party. I washed and dried them myself as I was afraid to trust them to the tender mercies of Bollings – Nora is the kind of person whose belongings one is terrified of destroying. The kind of person who says, ‘Oh, my dear, of course it doesn't matter at
all
. The next time I am in town I can
order
another one to make up the set.' When all the time you know perfectly well she got them at Woolworth's for threepence each. Nora talks for a long time without saying anything. Frightful wails from the nursery call me urgently to the scene – I feel sure that Betty and Miss Hardcastle have come to blows or that Betty has injured herself mortally – but Nora talks on. The wails die away into silence (they are either dead or reconciled) and at last Nora goes.

She has no sooner gone than Grace bursts in, and says she has been waiting outside for hours, as she saw Nora's Baby Austin at the gate, and she can't
think
how I can be bothered with that woman.

Reply that I can't think how I can be, either, but it is no use quarrelling with a woman who is likely to be your neighbour for the rest of your life – quarrels in regiments are the devil. Besides Nora will be our C.O.'s wife one of these days (Neil being senior to Tim and Jack) with the powers of life and death in her hands.

Grace replies, ‘“stuff and Nonsense said the Duchess.” Jack says there's not a dog's hope of Neil ever getting command. He hasn't even got the O.B.E. and he was at Dover the whole war. Besides, his Father is simply rolling, so they will probably retire if they get sent somewhere they don't like. Jack's got Neil down in his army list as L.R.,' she adds with a laugh.

Reply gloomily that Neil is not nearly so likely to retire as Jack imagines and change the subject hurriedly. It's bad enough to hear the men talking about promotion without starting on the same apparently inexhaustible topic ourselves.

Grace then says she really came in to see if I were alive after last night – isn't Mrs. Benson the limit? – and to tell me that Jack wouldn't speak to her at breakfast. (I am not in the least surprised to hear it as they have only been married three months and Grace really did force the pace with the colonel.)

‘Aren't men silly?' she says pathetically. ‘As if I cared a button for the old bear I only did it to put him in a good humour.'

I point out to Grace that it all comes of her being so disgracefully pretty, after which we both laugh and kiss each other, and she says she doesn't know what on earth she is going to do when I have gone, as there is not another creature in Biddington who can see a joke, and do I think Jack could get a job somewhere – preferably in Westburgh.

Twenty-first January

Make up my mind I must really tell the servants about our plans today. Go into the kitchen with my knees knocking together. Katie dissolves into tears and says she would go to the end of the world with me if it were not for her mother, and will I give her a good character as she has done her best for the family, and do I think she could get a place in London as she is tired of the country, anyway, and Biddington is not what it was with Scotch regiments and no Guards now, and don't I think that a girl ought to see life before she settles down – mother or no – mother and can she have a whole day off to go and see Drury Lane next week?

Answer all questions in the affirmative and offer to put an advertisement in
The Times
for her
.

Return to the drawing room, feeling somewhat spent, and sit down to recover myself before speaking to Annie. Door opens and Annie bursts in demanding indignantly what she has done not to be told about our plans – and she's been with us longer than Katie anyway – and if I think she is coming with us to the North Pole I am much mistaken (or words to that effect) and will I please take a month's notice from that moment. Decide that the only thing to be done is to lose my temper, and do so – (at first with some little difficulty, but soon with a glad abandon that astonishes both Annie and myself in equal proportion).

Annie, completely cowed by this unprecedented exhibition, agrees to stay on as long as I want her, and do all she can to help with the packing. She even offers to come to Westburgh and ‘settle us in'.

Am so exhausted that I have to lie down on my bed to recover. Ask myself whether it would not be a good thing to assume an ungovernable temper when dealing with the servants instead of being a kind of buffer absorbing all the jars of the house in my own person. But decide that the reaction is too severe and the nervous energy expended hardly worth the result.

Twenty-second January

Meet Grace in the fishmonger's. There is a huge cod with a gaping mouth lying on the slab. Grace seizes my arm and says, ‘My dear, isn't it
exactly
like Neil – those glazed eyes, the complete absence of forehead and chin. Yes, three whiting skinned and turned to Fairlawn. My dear, I've thought of a splendid plan. Why not sublet Rokesby to the Carters?'

Reply evasively, as I know that Tim will not let Rokesby to the Carters, having suggested it to him myself some days ago. Tim has a poor opinion of the Carter ménage and says with a good deal of truth that ‘they would tear the place to bits and we should have to pay for it'. He also reminded me of a previous occasion when we sublet our house to a brother officer and had a good deal of unpleasantness over damages to same.

Grace says she has been to all the house agents in Biddington and can't hear of anything suitable for the Carters. She is so determined that there is nothing for it but to tell her that I know Tim will not sublet the house on account of unfortunate experience in the past. Grace turns away more in sorrow than in – anger and leaves me to order haddocks in peace. Am rather distressed as I am very fond of Grace, but feel that it is useless to raise false hopes – Tim quite adamant once he makes up his mind.

Decide to rush home and write to landlord at once, asking him if we may give up the house about the middle of March. Have not done so before owing to uncertainty of finding a suitable house at Westburgh, and having no wish to be left without a roof over our heads – (this has happened before and it is most unpleasant). Now, however, I feel that it is the only thing to do as I can then say with perfect truth that I have written to give up Rokesby. Reflect comfortingly that Alexander the Great was justified by events when he burnt his boats.

Coming out of the fishmonger's we meet Miss Slingsby a sweet young thing of sixty summers who thinks that all ‘Army people are so dashing', and is always hoping against hope to be shocked at our conversation. Grace dashes at this inoffensive woman crying, ‘Oh, Miss Slingsby, you are the very person I wanted to see. You
will
join the B.B.G.,
won't
you?'

The poor lady twitters like a bird. ‘Oh, my dear Mrs. McDougall, I simply couldn't – I never could make a speech in public. Of course I know you don't see your audience and they could always shut it off if they did not like it, but I feel sure that I would not be of any use – not even to read out the list of birthdays in the Children's Hour.'

Grace explains rather ruthlessly that she never thought of such a thing, it is the B.B.G. she wants Miss Slingsby to join, not the British Broadcasting Company – ‘Buy British Goods, you know.' Miss Slingsby says, ‘Oh, but I always do,' and is hustled away by her niece – who lives with her and treats her like a half-wit – before anything more can be done about it.

On the way home Grace assures me that she finds the atmosphere and the society of Biddington ‘So Stultifying'. Feel that I can't agree with her conscientiously until I have looked it up in the dictionary.

Twenty-third January

The Child and Tubby ‘drop in' to tea they hunt in couples, these two. Betty appears rather before her usual time and demands a game of ‘Bears'. Game somewhat dangerous to our good landlord's furniture. Have a feeling that the Child wishes to speak to me privately probably about the episode in Mess but decide that the least said on the subject the better and manage to evade his manoeuvres for a tête-à-tête.

After their departure Tim says he wonders why they came, subalterns nowadays are a tame lot compared to what they were in his time no initiative. Tim wonders how they would behave in an emergency – probably lose their heads altogether.

Twenty-seventh January

Decide to spend a busy morning looking over my clothes for Charters Towers, and mending a large rent in second-best evening dress which I caught on a nail in Cassandra last time we went out to dinner.

Annie comes in to say have I telephoned to the shops as Katie wants the potatoes early? And do I give anything to the Recreation Fund for Biddington Orphans as the man has called twice? Reply that I am an orphan myself without available funds for recreation, so perhaps my name might be added to the list of beneficiaries. Annie retires smiling and I lean over banisters to hear what she says to the man, but am, unfortunately, too late.

Am horrified to discover I have mislaid list of commodities required by Katie, search for it feverishly, but unavailingly. Am reduced to making out a fresh list from memory. Feel certain that I have forgotten several items of importance, but have not the moral courage to return to kitchen for information. Ring up all the shops and wonder anew why these establishments always detail their least intelligent assistants to answer the phone. Greengrocer especially idiotic, cannot understand my name, has to go away to find out if there are any mushrooms today, and again to enquire what price they are. Feel convinced that a law should be made compelling shops to answer the telephone by giving their name, instead of with conventional and meaningless ‘Hello.'

Am interrupted in an important conversation on the subject of mutton, and asked if I will take a trunk call. Wait for ten minutes at the end of which an unknown man's voice says, ‘Hullo, darling – is that you? Can you meet me tomorrow in town and do a theatre?' Reply that nothing would please me more, but that I am afraid he has got the wrong number. Voice says, ‘What rotten luck! Don't I know you then? Your voice sounds charming.' Reply hastily that I am fat and deeply pitted with smallpox. Voice says he doesn't believe a word of it, and that he can tell exactly what I am like by my voice, and will I lunch with him at the Malmaison. Ring off at once as I feel sure that Tim would not approve of this conversation.

Twenty-ninth January

Major Morley calls for us in his Bentley according to plan. Bollings carries out our suitcases – which look small and shabby beside the shining glory of the car (but alas they look smaller and shabbier when we arrive at Charters Towers). I sit in front beside Major M., Tim in the back seat. Car purrs like a contented pussycat, so different from Cassandra's rattle and roar.

Try tentatively to find out the nature of the Morley family, but Major M. is in a facetious mood, so I can only elicit the information that Sir Abraham is an ogre who eats young women, and Lady Morley practises the black arts. I discover, however, that Major Morley's married sister is to be there complete with husband, also ‘some of the county'.

Grow more and more terrified and wish devoutly that Major M. would not drive so fast – we shall be there far too soon. Country looking very beautiful after last night's rain. Diamonds sparkling on the bare black trees and in the hedges. The pale winter sun sucking up the moisture from the bare fields creates a grey haze shot with blue and lavender.