Mrs. Tim of the Regiment (29 page)

I perceive that Miss Campbell – like most people who are buried in the wilds – takes a keen interest in the affairs of her neighbours, and this is her strange manner of keeping a hand on the pulse of life. It must be an amusing game, on long winter evenings, to guess at the meaning of a christening robe amongst the washing from Mrs. A, and to deduce the possibility of an early marriage for Miss B from the fact that she has invested in half a dozen crêpe de chine nightdresses.

‘Of course I was aware that Mr. Guthrie was home from sea,' continues Miss Campbell, confidentially, as she runs her eyes down a line hung with gentleman's underwear, and moves on. ‘But I could not be placing
you
at all. You are not so plain as Mrs. Loudon herself, nor yet so frilly as Mrs. Falconer. I was wondering could you be Mr. Guthrie's betrothed – but then there was the little girl to account for. Is it your little girl that has the wee pyjamas with the pink collars then?'

We have been all round the garden by this time without any success. Miss Campbell says we'll take one more look down Miss MacArbin's line –

‘Ah!' she says suddenly. ‘This will be the thing we are looking for. The idea of Morag putting it on Miss MacArbin's line – foolish lassie – it is not like Miss MacArbin at all, at all. Miss MacArbin has a different style altogether.'

We retrieve Mrs. Falconer's despised garment from the line, and Morag irons it, and makes it up into a neat parcel.

Guthrie has made an exhaustive survey of the pictures in Miss Campbell's sitting room, and is now pawing the ground like a restive horse. ‘You might have
made
the things, the time you took,' he says crossly. ‘You don't mean to tell
me
they're in that parcel! There can't be much
warmth
in them.'

He stuffs the parcel into his pocket, and, after taking a polite farewell of Miss Campbell, we set off home.

Fifth June

I accompany my hostess to the parish church. We take our seats near the back, and Mrs. Loudon points out some of the notabilities of the neighbourhood as they arrive. Chief among these are Sir Peter and Lady MacQuill, to whose ancestral halls we have been bidden. Sir Peter is a square man with reddish hair and a pink face, his kilt swings in an authoritative manner as he strides up the aisle in the wake of his lady to the front pew.

‘She was a MacMarrow of Auchwallachan,' says Mrs. Loudon in an awed whisper, and I conclude that this must be a great distinction. I feel glad that Mrs. Loudon has told me about Lady MacQuill, for she looks as if she might easily have descended from that well-known family the Smiths of Peckham. It is her spouse who carries all the dignity of the MacQuills, and his broad shoulders look capable of bearing it.

We speak to them afterwards at the church gate, and they profess themselves charmed to have my company at the tennis party tomorrow.

‘Guthrie asked Hector if he could bring a friend of his, who is staying at the hotel,' adds Lady MacQuill, ‘a Miss Baker, I think it was. Please tell him we shall be delighted to see her.'

Mrs. Loudon tries to look pleased at this information, but makes a poor job of it.

‘I hope you are making a long stay this year, Mrs. Loudon,' says Sir Peter, somewhat in the manner of a king inviting a foreign duchess to settle in his kingdom.

‘I'm staying six weeks,' replies Mrs. Loudon bluntly.

‘Are you enjoying your visit here, Mrs. Christie?' he enquires.

‘It is an enchanting spot,' I reply gravely.

After this exchange of courtesies, the MacQuills step into the car – an exceedingly ancient and battered Rolls – and are whirled away.

‘They're pleasant folk when you get to know them,' says Mrs. Loudon, as we return home. ‘If
he
could forget for a moment – that he was Sir Peter MacQuill he'd be easier to speak to there's no nonsense about
her
. You'll enjoy seeing Castle Quill. Parts of it date from the twelfth century.'

Later in the day I find myself strolling with my hostess in the walled garden. This lies upon the hillside some distance from the house. It is a delightful spot with a southern aspect, where vegetables and flowers riot together in happy confusion. I remark on the strangeness of the proximity of onions and sweet peas, and point out a single damask rose amongst the potatoes.

‘That's Donald,' says Mrs. Loudon. ‘It's a little puzzling till you get used to it. But I could never complain to the MacRaes about Donald. The man's a poet, and you have always to make allowances for poets in practical matters. Why, there's the man himself pottering about in his Sunday suit! He can't keep away from his flowers – sometimes I think they're more to him than his children. Donald, here's Mrs. Christie wanting to know why you've got your sweet peas planted amongst the onions.'

The man rises slowly from his knees, and takes off his hat with a natural grace. He is very tall and broad-shouldered, and his rugged face is full of the grandeur of his native hills. These people seem to have more bone in their faces than their southern – neighbours I can't describe it better than by comparing them to their mountains, whose rocks show boldly through the thin covering of earth. A slow smile spreads over Donald's face at Mrs. Loudon's words, and he replies in a soft low voice, ‘Perhaps I wass thinking it would be pleasant to be smelling the sweet peas when I would be picking up the onions for Mrs. Loudon's dinner.'

‘There,' says Mrs. Loudon triumphantly. ‘I knew Donald would have some poetical reason for it.'

We move on slowly in the warm air, and Mrs. Loudon begins to talk about Mrs. Falconer. ‘Sometimes I get deaved with the woman,' she admits, ‘and then I'm sorry. There was a tragedy in her life. You'll have noticed that in all her havering she never mentions her husband. Harry Falconer was a gem. Some of us never understood what he saw in Millie, but that's neither here nor there. They were married, and away they went to Paris for their honeymoon. Three weeks of it they had, and then, one day, they ran after a tram they were going out to Versailles, or some such place. I don't know the rights of it, for the poor soul never mentions a word about it, but, apparently, Harry suddenly collapsed – the man must have had a weak heart, and nobody knew, not even himself. He died before they could get him back to the hotel. So that was the end of Millie's happiness, poor soul, and that's why I have her here when I can, and bear with her as patiently as I am able – which isn't very patiently, I'm afraid, when all's said and done, because I'm an impatient old woman by nature. Millie was always a talker,' continues Mrs. Loudon, after a little pause. ‘But it wasn't until after she lost Harry that she became so – so trying to her friends. I sometimes think the shock must have affected her brain. They say we're all a wee thing mad on some subject or other.'

‘Well, what are
we
mad about?' I ask, giving her arm a little squeeze.

‘I'm mad about yon girl of Guthrie's,' says Mrs. Loudon in a strained voice. ‘I declare I can think of nothing else, and, if I do think of other things, the girl is nagging away at the back of my mind, for all the world like an aching tooth. Sometimes I think if I could just get him out of her clutches I'd die happy.'

‘He's not married yet,' I point out optimistically.

‘No, but he's on his way to it,' she replies. ‘You don't think I'm wrong to try to influence Guthrie's life, do you, Hester?'

‘She's not the right person for him.'

‘She's all wrong in every way. I'm not that despicable creature, a jealous mother. I'd welcome any girl I thought would make the man a good wife. Someone like you,' she continues, looking at me, almost with surprise. ‘Yes, somebody exactly like you. And I'd steal you from that Tim of yours if I could, but I know there's little hope of that – that's the sort of woman I am. People must marry, and have children – and yet I don't know why I should think so, for there's a deal of sorrow comes to most married folks that single ones escape.'

‘There are two to bear it,' I tell her.

‘Yes,' she says. ‘That's the secret, and perhaps sad things don't happen to everybody.'

‘If we don't have troubles sent us we can generally make them for ourselves,' I reply. ‘It's easy to make yourself miserable over trifles; I've done that sometimes, and then, quite suddenly, you get sent something to be sorry about, and you think looking back how happy I was yesterday, and I never knew it.'

‘Well, well!' she says. ‘It's all true, but these are sad croakings for a June day. I'll tell you what
you're
mad about now, just to show there's no ill-feeling. You're mad about that good-for-nothing husband of yours. You needn't waste your breath denying it, for I could see it in your face when there was all that talk of his going off to India without you. Oh yes! You're doing without him fine at the moment, but I'm not sure that your heart's really here. Part of you is away south, at Biddington, and you're wishing every now and then that Tim were here.'

I am somewhat surprised that Mrs. Loudon should have guessed the state of my feelings so shrewdly, for I have not owned even to myself that I am missing Tim. ‘Perhaps I am missing him,' I reply thoughtfully. ‘But it is really only because it is so lovely here.'

‘ “Never the time, and the place, and the loved one all together,” ' says Mrs. Loudon. ‘But what about suggesting to the man when you write him if you ever do find time to write him, of course that he might come up for a few days at the end of your visit, and take you away south with him?'

This sounds a delightful plan, and I say so with suitable expressions of gratitude at the same time pointing out that Tim may not be able to get leave, and that the journey is expensive.

‘Hoots!' she says, twinkling at me in her comical manner. ‘The man will get leave if he asks for it. I never knew a soldier that couldn't. And as for the journey, he has only to cook up a railway pass – or whatever they call it – and he'll get here and back for nothing.'

Mrs. Loudon's ideas of the army seem slightly out of date. I point out to her that the Golden Age has passed away, but she pays no heed to my expostulations.

‘Tell him to come, and he'll come,' she says.

By this time we have reached the house. Betty's face appears at the bathroom window. ‘Come and see me in my bath, Mrs. Loudon,' she calls out. ‘Come
now
. I'm all bare and ready.'

Mrs. Loudon waves her hand. ‘I'll come and skelp you, then,' she cries, and away she goes, running like a girl.

Sixth June

Castle Quill is approached by a drawbridge over a narrow ravine, at the bottom of which a swift river runs amidst rocks and ferns. The castle is of grey stone, with small dark windows which frown threateningly at the approaching guest.

We drive up to a nail-studded door, and are presently ushered through a large hall, paved with stone and hung with antlers, into an old-fashioned drawing room, full of furniture of the uncomfortable Early Victorian time. The castle is a strange blend of periods; it is lighted with electric light, and warmed by central heating, yet these concessions to modern comfort seem to fit into the ancient place, and the whole conglomeration of the ages is blended into an harmonious whole. Perhaps this is due to the atmosphere of the MacQuills, which fills the place. They have lived here ever since the castle was built, and the very stones are impregnated with their spirit.

The windows of the Victorian drawing room open on to fine lawns, flanked by herbaceous borders. Here the garden party is in full swing. We are greeted by the laird and his lady with hospitable warmth.

‘Hector is somewhere about,' says Lady MacQuill vaguely. ‘He is managing the tennis, I think.'

Mrs. Loudon says we will find him, and we walk slowly towards the courts, stopping on the way to speak to various friends of Mrs. Loudon's, to all of whom I am introduced with pleasant old-world formality. Guthrie has now disappeared probably to look for Miss Baker so we find two chairs, and sit down to watch the people, and enjoy their peculiarities.

Mrs. Loudon points out ‘the Duchess', a small fat woman who – at first glance – might easily be mistaken for somebody's cook, but on closer examination is seen to be endued with a strange mantle of dignity befitting her rank.

‘Who's that man?' says Mrs. Loudon suddenly. ‘He seems to know you, Hester, or is he trying to give you the glad eye?'

I look up and am amazed to see Major Morley – of all people – making his way towards us over the grass.

‘It's Major Morley!' I gasp.

‘What?' says Mrs. Loudon. ‘Not the man who came to see you at Kiltwinkle? Fancy him following you here!'

I reply hastily that he can't have ‘followed me here', for the simple reason that he did not know I was coming, and that he only came to see me at Kiltwinkle to relieve my mind about Tim being posted to India.

Mrs. Loudon says, ‘The man's evidently an altruist.'

By this time he has reached our retreat. ‘I've been looking everywhere for you,' he says warmly.

‘But how did you know I was here?' I enquire.