Mrs. Tim of the Regiment (25 page)

‘Well I never!' she says.

I fix a false smile upon my countenance, whereupon she insinuates her cumbrous body through the door, and sits down beside Betty.

‘So you are going north for a holiday,' she says.

Betty bounces up and down on the seat. ‘Do you know Mummie?' she cries excitedly. ‘Fancy you knowing Mummie! I thought Mummie didn't know anybody in Kiltwinkle. Of course I knew lots of children at school, but it was awfully dull for Mummy. Mrs. Watt said there would be lots of parties, and Mummie bought a new dress, and then nobody asked her.'

I plunge wildly into the conversation, wishing, not for the first time, that Betty were shy with strangers.

‘How wonderful the gorse is!' I exclaim rapturously.

It is unfortunate that at this moment we happen to be creeping through a narrow ravine strewn with boulders. Mrs. McTurk looks out of the window and then at me in surprise.

‘This gorge,' I scream, above the roar of the train. ‘So wild and rocky.'

‘Oh, I thought you said
gorse
,' says Mrs. McTurk.

Her voice is admirably suited for conversation in a railway train, its strident note can be heard with ease. Bridges leap at us with a roar, mountains peer in at the windows and vanish, but above all these earsplitting noises comes the strident voice in futile discourse.

‘And where are you bound for?' she asks with a toothy smile.

I am about to reply truthfully to her question when I suddenly remember that Mrs. Loudon ‘can't abide the woman', and remember also the diplomatic attempts of Mrs. McTurk to procure an introduction to my prospective hostess. How awkward it will be if Mrs. Turk's destination is within motoring distance of Avielochan. It is unlikely, of course, but unlikely things sometimes happen, especially if you don't want them to. On the whole I feel that it will be wiser to conceal the fact of our visit to Mrs. Loudon.

‘How is Mr. McTurk?' I shout.

My red herring is successful, and for some minutes Mrs. McTurk is to be heard describing the tortures of her husband's rheumatism. ‘And Nora,' I scream, when Mr. McTurk's symptoms show signs of waning. ‘Have you heard from her lately?'

‘Poor souls!' says Mrs. McTurk. ‘They are away to India in the autumn.'

‘Nora will enjoy India,' I bellow.

‘That's to be seen,' replies Mrs. McTurk. ‘It's very unsettling for the poor girl and bound to ruin her complexion. Mr. McTurk and I were just saying it's a fortunate thing they're not burdened with children, or we should feel obliged to offer them a home at Pinelands. I'm sure I don't know what I should do if I had to move about from one place to another like you soldiers' wives. We've been at Pinelands ten years now – ever since our marriage – and I'm sure I don't know what I would do if we had to leave. There were only three greenhouses when we went, and the garage was most inconvenient for the Rolls, but Mr. McTurk soon altered all that – and he put in three bathrooms, and built a billiard room – Mr. McTurk has spent thousands of pounds on the place.

I now ask with well-feigned interest how the Rolls is rolling – and feel annoyed with myself the next moment. ‘What a hypocrite you are!' says that other Hester who dwells with me in the same skin, and causes me endless trouble. ‘You know perfectly well you would be delighted to hear the Rolls had come to a bad end. Why do you try to please people, even when you dislike them as you dislike Mrs. McTurk?' I have no excuse to give for my conduct but am fitly punished for my falseness by having to listen to the detailed history of the Rolls, the Alvis, and the Armstrong-Siddeley, and to the various reasons why none of them is at liberty to convey Mrs. McTurk to Avielochan, where she is to join her gilded spouse for three weeks' fishing.

‘Oh, how funny!' cries Betty, jumping up and down in the manner usual to her when moved by excitement. ‘Are
you
going to stay with Mrs. Loudon
too
?'

Alas for all my efforts! The cat is now out of the bag beyond recall. Mrs. McTurk's small eyes gleam as she replies that she is going to stay at the hotel, but it is not far from the house which Mrs. Loudon always occupies, and it will be very nice to see us there.

‘You must come and dine with us at the hotel some evening,' she adds hospitably. ‘When will you come?'

I reply with haste that there is a large house party at Burnside, and I do not know my hostess's plans, so it would be useless for me to make any engagements.

‘Oh well, you can send me a note when you get there and see what's on,' says Mrs. McTurk. ‘It doesn't matter a bit how many people there are, Mr. McTurk will be quite glad to see them all any day will suit Mr. McTurk and I,' she adds blandly.

The worst has now happened, and there is no further need for me to keep up the conversation, nor to try and make my voice audible above the roar of the train. I murmur that I have a headache – which I discover afterwards is absolutely true – and relapse into my corner. Mrs. McTurk finds me dull and goes away.

We change at various small stations with unpronounceable names, and arrive at Inverquill about teatime. This is the station for Avielochan, and I am relieved and delighted to see Mrs. Loudon's tall spare figure, clad in its usual shabby fashion, waiting on the platform. For the last hour I have been torturing myself with conjectures as to what I shall do if she is not there. But there she is, the – same strange, shabby, dignified creature who was so kind to me at Kiltwinkle. She is accompanied by a tall dark man, easily recognisable as her son. His resemblance to his mother is striking, and he has the unmistakable brand of NAVY stamped upon his clean-shaven countenance. Betty takes instantaneous possession of him (she has a habit of appropriating men, which, looking to the future, is somewhat disquieting) and announces to him confidentially, but with great pride, that she was not sick at all. He congratulates her gravely upon her achievement.

‘I think it was because the train went along nice and quietly,' Betty says. ‘I like a nice quiet train that stops a lot – don't you?'

‘That depends on whether I want to get there quickly or not,' replies Mr. Loudon patiently.

Fortunately for me Mrs. McTurk is too busy marshalling her stupendous array of luggage to be troublesome to anybody except her porter. Our modest suitcases are disentangled from the pile, and we pack into Mrs. Loudon's roomy Austin for the last stage of our journey.

The road is glaring white in the afternoon sunshine, golden gorse gleams on the hills. Pine woods, carpeted with brown needles and full of dark shadows and golden lights, creep up to the road's edge, and then retreat in soldierly order, leaving the curling white ribbon bare and sunlit as before. The ribbon unwinds over the moor, where a few black-faced sheep with bouncing lambs crop the scanty herbage between patches of brown heather, raising their heads timidly to watch us roll by. The hills divide, showing glimpses of small lochs, delphinium blue in colour, fed with sparkling burns. Far away against the skyline, a ring of purple hills, with small white patches of snow in their crevices, keeps guard over the peaceful land.

The conversation is desultory, and confined to questions regarding our journey. Whether the train was up to time at Dalmawhagger or some name like that, and did we see Ben something or other. Unfortunately none of us is able to answer intelligently. I can't help feeling that Mrs. Loudon is depressed, or – has something on her mind her remarks seem to lack the trenchant – note which I remember so well but perhaps this is merely my imagination, or perhaps the presence of Annie, sitting up very straight on the folding seat in front of us, is embarrassing her.

We are now passing through a small grey-stone village which seems deserted in the bright white sunshine. A few draggled-looking hens scutter out of our way, and a white cur dog snarls at us from an open doorway.

‘This is Avielochan,' says Mr. Loudon, turning round from his seat beside the chauffeur, and pointing to the houses. ‘Mother, you are not doing the honours properly. Look at the shop, Mrs. Christie! It is the pride of the countryside – you can buy everything there, except the one thing you happen to want.'

We all look at the shop, and Betty, who seems by no means damped by her long journey, says it looks a very small place to have everything, and do they keep pianos?

‘I said they had everything except what you want,' says Mr. Loudon gravely. ‘So, of course, if you want a piano they haven't got one, and if you don't want one you don't ask for it.'

‘It's like Alice in Wonderland,' says Betty after a moment's thought. ‘Jam every other day, but never today.'

‘You've got it exactly,' replies Mr. Loudon.

By this time we had left the village far behind; we pass through two gates which have to be opened and shut, run along a pebbly road by the side of a biggish loch, and slow down to take a sharp bend round a huge bush of rhododendrons.

‘Here we are! This is Burnside!' cries Mr. Loudon.

The house bursts into view – it is a long, low, whitewashed building with a slate roof which sags a little, as if the hand of Time had pressed it very gently in the middle. It is surrounded on two sides by pines and firs; on the third side a moory hill stretches skywards, and on the fourth, a green lawn covered with buttercups and daisies leads to an orchard in full bloom. A burn splashes gaily past the door and runs down towards the loch. Clumps of rhododendrons and masses of daffodils are the only flowers; it is a wild garden fitted to its surroundings of mountain and moor. A small path leads to some stepping-stones over the burn, the pine woods creep down to a wooden fence; there is a gate in the fence, and the path disappears into the gloom of the woods.

I stand at the door for a few moments drinking in the strange sweetness of the place.

‘Is it like you thought it would be?' asks Mrs. Loudon, with her hand on my arm.

‘How could I think – this,' I reply vaguely.

‘You must be starving,' she says. ‘Come away up to your rooms, and we'll have tea whenever you're ready.'

The room allotted to me is large and sunny; it has a plain wooden floor, and plain wooden furniture. Somehow it reminds me though not unpleasantly of a hospital ward. Betty and Annie are next door.

It is lovely to take off my hat, my headache has quite gone nobody could have a headache in this sweet piercing air. I note, as I wash my hands, that the water is slightly brown and smells of peat; there is a faint peaty smell about the whole house, mixed with the resinous smell of sun-kissed pines. There are no carpets on the landing or on the stairs, everything has the same bare look as my bedroom a pleasant change after the crowded carpeted rooms of Loanhead.

How far away I am from Loanhead in body and spirit! Where are Tim and Bryan? Are they still travelling southward, getting farther and farther away from me every moment? This is an unpleasant thought, and I decide to drown it in tea.

In the drawing room I find a bright fire, and a burdened tea table, and seated near the fire, a small wispy lady of what is usually called an uncertain age, knitting a large shapeless garment in cherry-coloured wool. She looks up at my approach and narrows a pair of shortsighted eyes.

‘Oh!' she says vaguely. ‘Elspeth told me about you – you got here all right, did you? I can't remember your name for the moment, but I know it has something to do with music –now who do you think I am?'

She cocks her head on one side and looks at me coyly.

‘Dr. Livingstone, I presume?' I reply inanely. I can't think what makes me say it, unless it was the picture of the historic meeting in darkest Africa which caught my eye coming down the stairs. Obviously the greeting is entirely unsuitable to the occasion, and to the lady – no more like the bearded Livingstone than a sheep is like a walrus – I have not even the faint hope that she will understand the allusion, and she doesn't.

‘Oh, how funny you should think I was a doctor!' she says, tittering in a lady-like fashion. ‘That really is
very
funny – I must tell Elspeth about it when she comes down. Of course ladies
are
sometimes doctors nowadays, but I never went in for it. I once had a course of first aid that was during the war, of course but I found the bandaging rather tiring, so I joined a society for providing the soldiers with pocket handkerchiefs instead. It seemed to me such an excellent idea to provide the poor fellows with pocket handkerchiefs. In a battle, for instance,' says the good lady, waving her hands vaguely, ‘so easy to
lose
your pocket handkerchief in a battle, wouldn't it be? We made thousands of them, and sent them to the front packed in soap boxes – such charming letters we got from the poor fellows.'

By this time I have pulled myself together, and decided that this must be the cousin, mentioned casually in Mrs. Loudon's letter. I had forgotten the cousin, or, to be more exact, I had imagined the cousin to be of the male sex – a strong silent individual, possibly an Anglo-Indian, and therefore, to be packed off with Mrs. Loudon's son on fishing expeditions, leaving my hostess and myself to chat comfortably together in the garden. (Is there any other woman on earth who would be so foolish as to build up such a detailed picture from a chance allusion to a cousin?)