Mrs. Tim of the Regiment (17 page)

As I open my front gate a small boy rushes out, nearly knocking me over, and two other children vanish into the shrubbery. I call out to know what this invasion means, and Betty appears, looking very hot and dirty and dishevelled. ‘Oh, they're just Sandy and Ian and Marion,' she says rather breathlessly. ‘They've come to play in my garden because it's bigger than their garden, and you see you must have a big garden for hide-and-seek.'

I point out to Betty that it is usual to have your parent's permission before asking children to tea.

‘Oh, but I told them they couldn't stay to tea,' replies Betty consolingly, ‘and they said it didn't matter. They don't have their tea till six o'clock, so they can sit and watch me have mine. I don't take long over it.'

This arrangement seems to me the height of inhospitality – I find it impossible to enjoy my tea with three pairs of bright eyes watching every mouthful. At last, in desperation, I ask them if they would like some tea – they assent unanimously, and fall to as if they were starving. I discover that their manners are atrocious and their speech incomprehensible – the more so as they usually choose to take part in the conversation when their mouths are full of cake. Decide to speak seriously to Betty about her unfortunate choice of friends.

After tea they all go out in the garden and make as much noise as ten ordinary children. Betty comes in at six o'clock with a crimson face, and says she is boiling and it was lovely. She adds that she suggested to her guests that they should come in and say good-bye to me, but they said they ‘wouldn't fash'. Point out to Betty that they are not very nice-mannered children, to which she replies, ‘No, but Sandy can run awfully fast – faster than Bryan, I should think.'

I then ask what their names are, and Betty says, ‘Oh, just Sandy and Ian and Marion – I don't know their other names. They're all in my class except Marion, and she's awfully stupid.' Try to find out from Betty if there are any other children in her class who might be more orderly in their behavior, but Betty says they are all the same – only Sandy and Ian are the most fun, and they won't come without Marion, so Betty had to have her too.

Am obliged to leave it at that, although I feel somewhat worried about the matter. It seems strange not to know the children's – – parents. Tim when approached is very unhelpful, and says, ‘When in Rome do as the Romans do,' adding that the Romans of Westburgh do queer things sometimes, and I need not think I am the only one to have to put up with their vagaries.

Thirtieth March

Find a telegram on the hall table it is from Grace, and says tersely, ‘Can you have me weekend?' Immediately feel ten years younger, and send a joyful affirmative.

Rush upstairs to spare room (which is to be Bryan's in the holidays). This room has been used as a dump for unwanted furniture from all over the house and contains rickety tables, a plant stand made of painted pottery, china vases of all shapes and sizes, several very uneasy chairs, and two life-sized photographs of Mr. and Mrs. Mackenzie in which a hairy mole upon the latter's chin is realistically portrayed.

Annie finds me gazing hopelessly upon the collection. She grasps the situation at once, and says comfortingly that we will easily find somewhere to put them. Suggest that we should restore them to their original places all over the house (as I feel they will not look so dreadful if they are distributed evenly over a large surface), but Annie says she doesn't think the captain would stand it, he
did
say as how the pore lady's photygraph gave him the shudders. Don't I think it would be better to wrap them in newspaper and put them on the top of the wardrobe? I do think so, and Annie goes away to find paper and the steps.

We spend the morning hiding the atrocities. Find it necessary to explain to Maggie (who probably admires them) that I am
so
afraid of them getting knocked over and broken by Betty. But realise that this scarcely accounts for the removal of the photographs from the dining-room walls or for the segregation of the uneasy chairs.

April

First April

Morning slightly disorganised owing to Betty's fertile imagination given free rein in the matter of practical jokes. Find the toes of my shoes stuffed with paper, and while I am removing same, I can hear Tim anathematising his daughter in the bathroom.

The key of the garage is missing from its usual hook, and Tim accuses Betty of hiding it, an imputation which she hotly denies. Tim says he would not be surprised if she
had
taken it, as it is just about on a par with putting salt in his shaving water. He could not think why the damned stuff wouldn't lather. Betty points out that that was just the joke – and Annie thought it was awfully funny. Tim says his idea of a joke and Annie's are entirely different.

At this psychological moment Annie appears with the garage key, which she found in the pocket of Tim's other suit.

Tim then changes the subject by saying why don't I go for a walk this morning – I don't take nearly enough exercise. Reply that I
would
go for a walk if I had anyone to go for a walk
with
; but it is dull going for a walk by yourself without an object. Tim says we had better get a dog – and drives off to his work.

After he has gone and Betty has departed cheerfully to school, I decide that I might do worse than go for a walk, so I perambulate Kiltwinkle, solemnly, for about an hour, and do not feel much the better for it.

Look forward all day to Grace's arrival, which takes place before dinner. She looks tired after her journey, but seems unnaturally gay and talkative. (Query Is this because I have been leading such a quiet life and have heard nobody talk for so long?)

Tim and I both hang on her words and drink in all the news of Biddington with avidity. Feel as if it were years since we left. Grace says that Mamie Carter's baby has arrived and is exceedingly large and fat and pink (more like a pig than a human being, Grace thinks). The nurse and ex-baby stayed with Grace for three days, and the nurse is an absolute fiend. Tim asks tenderly after the regiment, and is told comfortingly that it is going to pot. Mrs. Benson has the old man under her thumb, and everybody hates her, down to the last joined recruit, and Alec Watt is the worst adjutant we've ever had everybody says so. Of course if Major Morley sends in his papers, as there is some talk of his doing owing to Sir Abraham being afflicted with that new and mysterious complaint known as blood pressure, Alec Watt will get his majority.

Tim says, ‘By Jove, is he really going? Poor Old Sir Abraham and I'm next on the list of promotion. What a lark!'

During this talk I notice that Jack's name has scarcely been mentioned, whereas usually it is never off Grace's lips, and I wonder whether anything has happened. Has Grace been flirting with the colonel again or perhaps somebody more dangerous? Or has Jack but it is no use wondering, I shall probably hear all about it sooner or later.

Tim goes off to drill his territorials after dinner, and Grace and I settle down by the fire for a ‘good talk' (self accompanied by a bulging basket of socks and stockings full of holes and – ladders to be renovated how I hate the job!). Grace remains silent for quite two minutes which confirms me in my suspicion that something is wrong.

Presently Grace says – as if propounding some new and intensely original idea – have I ever noticed how awfully selfish men are? I stifle an impulse to ask what Jack has been up to, and reply that I
have
noticed it once or twice. Grace says it is simply incredible to her and she absolutely can't believe it – she never would have thought it possible Jack could be like that. Feel the time has now arrived to ask what Jack has been up to, and do so in appropriate words. Grace says I can have no conception of the selfishness of Jack, and even if she were to tell me I would not believe her. She elaborates the theme for several minutes which brings her to the verge of tears.

At length I gather from Grace's fulminations that she has not been feeling at all well, and Jack suggested that it was biliousness and advised exercise and Kruschen Salts. Then he went off to play golf taking the car, although he knew perfectly well that Grace had promised to go to tea at Mamie Carter's and inspect the new baby. When taxed with this Jack said the walk would do Grace good. Grace was so tired when she returned from Mamie's that she went straight to bed – but this was not all by any means. When Jack returned from golf he brought a man – a strange man that Grace had never seen in her life – and Jack came upstairs and tried to persuade Grace to come down to dinner and entertain the man. Grace refused – and don't I think she had a perfect right to refuse when her head was splitting, all through Jack's selfishness? So then Jack and the man had dinner together and talked and laughed the whole evening in the drawing room, which, as I know, is just underneath Grace's bedroom – and I know also how thin the floors are at Fairlawn. How would I like to be in bed with a frightful headache and hear all that noise going on for hours?

Reply truthfully that I would not like it at all.

Grace then says don't I think she was perfectly justified in giving Jack a good fright?

Have an absurd vision of Grace bouncing out on Jack from behind a curtain, but realise immediately that of course it can't be that kind of fright – sometimes I wish my sense of humour did not run away with me in this ridiculous fashion. Grace continues (fortunately without noticing my internal struggles) that it will serve Jack right to be anxious about her for a few days, and she wonders whether he has rung up her mother yet, and discovered she is not there, and she wonders also what he is doing now, and whether he is wondering where she is.

From this I gather that Jack has not been told of Grace's visit to Westburgh, and I become alarmed. I visualise myself and Tim in a similar situation and my alarm increases. All desire to laugh has left me. I am appalled. It seems to me, as I try to consider the whole matter from a strictly impartial viewpoint, that Jack has not been guilty of more than ordinary male density and perversity. He had asked the wretched man home to dinner and could hardly turn him out in the street unfed. He was also bound by the laws of hospitality (which mean considerably more to men than they do to women) to entertain the man as best he could in the absence of his wife. But it is no use putting this sane view of the matter before Grace in her present condition – Grace has only been married for a few months, whereas I have been married for twelve years. In twelve years one becomes inured to suggestions of exercise and Kruschen Salts, and even to laughter and talk in the presence of a headache. But what on earth am I to do with Grace? What on earth am I to say to her? I am so fond of them both that I must make things right somehow or other.

I look at Grace as she sits huddled in her chair, miserable and dejected. She certainly looks far from well there is a pinched look about her – of course she has had a long journey, but that would scarcely account for it she was always so strong and full of vitality. A sudden idea strikes me, and I look at Grace again can it be that? I remember how I felt before Bryan arrived upon the scene ill and wretched and ready to take offence at the slightest provocation and my suspicion grows into a certainty. How will this affect the situation?

Grace is at first incredulous of my suggestion, but after a few searching questions I convince her that I am right.

‘Oh!' she says with eyes like saucers. ‘Oh, Hester, how wonderful! Oh Hester, is it too late to wire to Jack tonight? Can I get a train home tomorrow? Oh, Hester!'

It is much too late to wire to Jack, and I absolutely refuse to allow her to travel home tomorrow after the long and tiring journey today; but we can wire to Jack tomorrow, and Grace can travel on Monday if she likes. So overwhelmed is she with her new responsibility that she agrees like a lamb to all my suggestions, merely saying, with a sigh, that she does not know how on earth she will manage to exist until Monday without seeing Jack. Feel this is somewhat ungrateful on Grace's part, but am thankful she seems to have forgotten all about Jack's delinquencies.

Second April

Two wires are sent off to Jack. That from Grace is long and intimate and obscure, mine merely says, ‘
Grace well. Will expect you first
possible train
.'

Tim wants to know what on earth it is all about and why on earth Grace has come all the way to Westburgh to tell me she is going to have a baby, when a letter would have done equally well. Fortunately, Grace is staying in bed for breakfast, so Tim's indignation can be worked off thoroughly before he meets his guest. Tim goes on to say Grace is neurotic that's what it is, and it will be a good thing for her to have children. Women with children have no time to be neurotic – Tim hopes that Grace will have twins.

Telegraph boys besiege Loanhead all the morning, Grace's wire having completely mystified her adoring husband. Am thankful Tim has gone to his headquarters, as he abhors telegrams, considering them an invention of the Evil One for wasting money. Make three separate pilgrimages to the post office to send off telegrams for Grace, as the contents are such I am ashamed to let the servants see them nor have I the face to read them over the telephone to unsympathetic operator. On the third occasion an unworthy wish invades my being – namely, that I had allowed Grace to return to Biddington today.

Mrs. Loudon is raking her path when I return from my third journey. She is attired for gardening in an exceedingly ancient naval burberry (which probably in the dim ages belonged to her son), and a black straw hat, with a large hole in the crown; but in spite of her peculiar turn-out she still manages to look a perfect lady (this is a much abused term, but I can think of no other to describe her natural dignity).