At dinner the conversation turns inevitably on to the Regiment; Tim saying that Hardford will never get command because he was Stellenbosched at Gallipoli. Captain Ledgard says Hardford will get command because his sister’s husband has got a job at the War House, and anyway everybody has forgotten all about the war now. Look at Threadmorton of the 12th who commanded a brigade for eight months and they have brought in a feller from the Midshires to command his battalion. As if a chap who commanded a brigade in the war couldn’t command his own battalion in peacetime!
Tim says he wonders if Morley will retire, as if so Lester will get the foreign battalion and Stoddart the home battalion, but if Morley doesn’t retire –
Ledgard says it is just touch and go whether he ever gets command at all before being superannuated. Whereupon Tim says, ‘My dear chap, don’t be so pessimistic. Crighton’s bound to go, and Watt will never get command and McPherson is frightfully bad with malaria at Julaparajapore.’ And Ledgard says gloomily, ‘Not so bad as you think, and he hasn’t a bob to his name so he’s bound to go on as long as he can stick it.’
Then Tim says, ‘What about Carruthers?’
And Captain Ledgard says, ‘What about him?’
And Tim says hasn’t Ledgard heard that Carruthers’ rich uncle has gone west at last and left Carruthers all his money?
And Captain Ledgard says, ‘No, by Jove! Has he really? That’s the best news I’ve heard for a long time. Perhaps he will get married now, he’s a perfect nuisance in Mess.’
And Tim says, ‘Perhaps he will retire?’
I leave them hard at it and run upstairs to say ‘Good night’ to Betty (who wants to know what we had for dinner) and to have a little chat with Miss Hardcastle (who is obviously gloating over a letter from her young man) and then down to the drawing room where I have time to write a letter to Bryan before Tim and Captain Ledgard appear.
After that I sit and listen while Tim and Captain L. discuss the musketry returns and fulminate on the degeneracy of the last batch of recruits from the dépôt, and digress from that to comment bitterly on the incompetency of the new R.S.M.
Then Tim says that Benson is nothing but an old woman, and if it were not for Morley the battalion would go to pot. And Ledgard replies that Morley isn’t much better and he’s got far too much money anyway. And Carruthers is the worst P.M.C. they’ve ever had. He wonders that they have not all been poisoned long ago. And as for the new subalterns they are beyond words. They think of nothing but girls and cinemas.
Tim agrees wholeheartedly and says that in his time subalterns were kept in their place, but now they seem to think the Mess belongs to them.
At last Captain Ledgard says he really must go as he is captain of the week and has to go round the guards, and that’s what comes of being a wretched bachelor and living in Mess. And he does not know what on earth we ladies are thinking of not to have found him a wife before now.
Whereupon Tim pokes him in the ribs and says he doesn’t know when he’s well off ‘with his huntin’ and shootin’ and sprees in town – what what!’ And if he were married and had to fork out to butchers and bakers and candlestick makers every week, all that would cease. So he had better think twice about it. And they repair to the dining room to have a ‘wee deoch-an-doruis’, and remain there talking for another hour.
After which Tim comes up to bed, yawning, and saying that he can’t think what has come over Ledgard. He used to be quite amusing, but he is degenerating into an absolute bore. Tim supposes it is living in Mess. He (Tim) would rather be dead than live – in Mess and did I notice the feller hadn’t even the common politeness to open the door for me.
Fifth March
Visit Miss Edgar’s china shop to replace breakages at Rokesby. Miss Edgar is the largest woman I have ever seen, but full of good humour as fat people often are. (Query – Does fat beget amiability or amiability fat?)
‘I wouldn’t have no small spry people about my shop, it’s them as does the breakages,’ Miss Edgar says, as she oozes in and out of the piled-up china like an immense boa constrictor. ‘It’s them with their whiskings here and whiskings there – give me a fat person as moves slow. And which house is it to be now, if I may make so bold?’ she asks, for we are old friends and she takes a motherly interest in the everlasting flittings of her army clientèle.
I tell her we are leaving Biddington altogether this time and going to Westburgh in Scotland, whereupon she raises her hands in consternation, and says, ‘Dear me, dear me! And you so bright!’ As if I had informed her of my early demise.
Meet Mrs. Benson on the way home; she is coming to see me to lend me a ‘Little book’ which is so wonderful – she knows it will help me to bring up the dear children. I accept it with gratitude and spend the afternoon studying its pages.
According to this book I have been sowing the seeds of complexes and cultivating inhibitions in Bryan and Betty ever since they were a few months old. Feel much worried about this, but decide that it is too late now to do anything, and that Bryan and Betty must just take their chance.
Tenth March
Spend the morning writing to grocer, milkman, butcher, etc. at Kiltwinkle. (Having obtained their names from Mrs. Mackenzie.) Also write to new cook pointing out that as the 13th March appears to be a Sunday I shall expect her on Monday morning. Suggest to Tim that he should go North on Saturday and take over the house from the Mackenzies, and that Betty and I follow with luggage on the Monday. Tim overjoyed to find an excuse not to travel with baggage consents after half-hearted expostulations.
Annie and I pack several hampers to be sent in advance.
Memo. –
Pay Smith.
Engage seats in train and cart to station on Monday.
Two wooden packing cases for books (ask Bollings).
Ask Grace to take Mothers’ Meeting tomorrow.
Speak to Mrs. Benson about Clarke’s thin baby.
Tim’s boots to be fetched from Compton’s.
Packing paper. Rope for boxes.
Katie’s insurance card (stamps).
See Mr. Brown at Bank about drawing money at Westburgh.
Post office about forwarding letters.
Counterorder milk, bread, papers, and weekly order at
Maypole.
Close account at library.
Arrange laundry to post washing to Kiltwinkle.
Eleventh March
Start packing in real earnest. Bollings has procured two splendid packing cases for books – also hay. (Better not enquire where.) Tim says when we retire we shall have Bollings as a butler and handyman. Useful to have someone good at packing. I point out that when we retire we shall settle down and shall not need anyone good at packing. This starts us off on the inexhaustible theme of when we retire and settle down. Am transported on rosy dreams to the day when the War Office will cease to trouble and the pea crab be at rest.
Annie rushes in to say that the inventory man has arrived and has started on the drawing room, and do I know where we have put an ‘accidental’ table with brass flower pot and aspidistra which ought to stand in the window. My thoughts are immediately snatched back to real life just as Aunt Ethel’s pince-nez are snatched back to concealment under the folds of her real lace jabot by the hidden spring to which they are attached. Reply hastily that the occasional table is beside my bed and the brass flower pot on the hall table, but that the aspidistra has gone the way of all flesh. Tim says (with a strange flash of insight) that he supposes I forgot to water it, and that he can’t think why I forget things like that when I have absolutely nothing to do all day long, and that we shall probably have to pay for the aspidistra now. He hurries out to see what can be done about it.
Bollings who is packing books in the hall approaches me in a mysterious manner, and says that he knows where he can get an aspidistra for a bob – and shall he? Reply by giving him the bob. On entering the drawing room after lunch we find the occasional table in the window complete with brass flower pot
and flourishing aspidistra. Tim asks why I made such a fuss about the thing when it was there all the time.
Twelfth March
Tim goes off to Westburgh with suitcase and hatbox he points out that it is much better for him to ‘travel light’ as we shall need a lorry anyway, and he can carry his suitcase and so save taxi in London, but he will take his hatbox with him as he knows that if he does not do so I will put my best hat in on the top of his silk hat. Feel that this is unjust as it did his silk hat no harm, and, anyway, I ironed it for him afterwards. Telegram arrives later from Crewe to say he has left his spectacles in the drawer of his writing table. Find spectacles down the back of drawing-room sofa and post them to Brown’s Hotel. Send off prepaid wire to Brown’s Hotel to ask if he has arrived safely.
Annie and I pack all possible luggage to be sent in advance which leaves me with an inconvenient minimum of spoons and forks and personal attire.
Grace comes in to ask if she can ‘do anything’, and insists that Betty and I shall lunch at Fairlawn tomorrow. Am thankful to sit down and talk to Grace for half an hour as my legs ache so from running up and down stairs that I could weep. Grace says that Mrs. Benson was quite impossible at the Mothers’ Welfare Meeting. She is narrow-minded and vindictive and has no soul. It is a great pity that a woman of that type should be in the position of C.O.’s wife as it creates bad feeling in the regiment, but anyway, she has no influence at all in the regiment because everyone sees through her. Grace has made up her mind not to think about the woman any more as she is not worth a moment’s thought, and she has been worrying about it ever since Thursday.
Am irresistibly reminded of Mrs. Palmer’s fulminations on the egregious Willoughby, but realise that Grace is too upset to see the humour of it so content myself with making soothing noises.
Annie appears and says breathlessly, ‘The Railway has come,’ and do I know where the rod and padlock of the linen hamper has gone to. Reply from bitter experience that it is probably at the bottom of the linen hamper which is now packed. Grace helps me to unpack and repack hamper while ‘The Railway’ waits at the door, and is regaled with cigarettes and facetious conversation by the indispensable Annie.
Spend the rest of the day hanging up clean curtains in all the windows and patching up the wall in the night nursery where Betty has relieved the tedium of a sleepless hour by picking a hole in the wallpaper beside her bed.
Bollings comes, just as I am finishing the job by touching up the roses with Bryan’s paintbox, and is kind enough to say that I have made ‘a real neat job of it and nobody would ever know unless they was to look close’.
Telegram arrives from Tim to say ‘Survived frightful dangers safely’. I knew he would be annoyed with me for wiring, but am glad I did so all the same.
Go to bed early – tired out.
Fourteenth March
We leave Rokesby very early it is quite dark. Am too busy to feel sad, but am conscious of the knowledge that if I were not so busy I would feel very sad, as I have been happy in the little house. Annie is full of importance at the prospect of her journey. Katie remains to ‘hand-over’ – we leave her in tears. Miss Hardcastle is to accompany us to London and alternates between artificial gaiety and loud sniffs of woe. Betty is quite unconcerned at leaving, and much interested in all she sees. Reflect that Betty is a true soldier’s daughter and quite different from myself when a child – I should have been frightened and miserable at leaving home and friends and venturing into the unknown, whereas Betty enjoys the excitement. (Query Is army life with its constant uprooting and change of scene good or bad for the young?)
We arrive in London without mishap. Annie who has constituted herself custodian of luggage counts it over from a crumpled list which she holds in her black-gloved hand. I hear her murmuring to the perspiring porter, ‘Three black trunks, one ’amper, two ’at-boxes’. I leave her to it and run on to engage a couple of taxis, we cross London and catch the Royal Scot with half an hour to spare – half-hour an extremely long and difficult one. Miss Hardcastle stands on the platform sniffing miserably while Betty tears up and down the corridor and exclaims rapturously over all her discoveries. Feel that my child would show to better advantage if she were not so blatant in her rejoicing. Try to sympathise with sorrow and joy at the same time, but feel I am doing neither to advantage. Am thankful when the train starts.
Thankfulness does not last long as Betty is violently sick and continues to be so all day. Annie is kind and helpful. Am glad that Tim is not with us as he has no sympathy with the frailties of the human frame. Do what I can for poor Betty and reflect that everything passes – even a day in the train with a sick child. Probably there are people in England who are finding today so happy that they wish it would last for ever; but how fortunate for Betty and self that it will not last a moment longer than usual!
We are ready to disembark an hour before time of arrival at Westburgh, but even this hour passes, and we draw in to the station and see Tim anxiously scrutinising every window. He has chartered a large car and has brought Cassandra as well, but even this embryo fleet cannot deal with our mountain of luggage. Tim is very scathing about the mountain and remarks with injustice that it is no use ever thinking that I could go to India with all that stuff. Am too weary and miserable to point out that I never intended to take the stuff to India, and that at least a quarter of it is his own personal luggage – uniform being exceedingly bulky and heavy attire.
We pack into Cassandra covered with golf bags, tennis racquets and other small but awkward packages – Annie goes in the hired car with the rest of the luggage. Tim says he took over the house this morning and everything is all right. The Mackenzies’ girl is there and cook has arrived with a large wooden box – it took two men to carry it in, and it must obviously be full of coal, or pig iron judging from the weight.
After a quarter of an hour’s drive we arrive at Loanhead; the lights are all on and Maggie (the Mackenzies’ girl) meets us at the door with a beaming smile which shows up her bad teeth to great disadvantage. Annie seems pleased to find all the usual conveniences in the benighted country to which she has come, and proceeds at once in her new rôle to bath Betty and put her to bed.
The gong sounds while I am washing – a most necessary performance as I seem to have gathered the grime and grit of a lifetime – on my face and person it sounds again two minutes later with terrific vigour. Fly downstairs to find cook in the hall beating gong with her own hands, and realise that Tim and I are expected to be in time for meals.
Dinner is exceedingly good.
Unpack as much as is necessary with Annie’s help. Annie informs me confidentially that ‘Cook is a Tartar’ – had my suspicions on this point before, but feel depressed at having them confirmed. The beds are comfortable.
Fifteenth March
Interview Cook after breakfast; she receives me with a smile which looks as if it hurt her face, and proceeds to show me the pots and pans, pronouncing them entirely inadequate for a family of our proportions. Agree to write to Mrs. Mackenzie and ask for more. She also asks for a girdle (which seems to be a cooking utensil and not an ornament for the waist as I had previously imagined). Promise to obtain same in Westburgh if obtainable. She suggests a gigot for tomorrow’s dinner – agree hastily as I am much too frightened of her to do anything else, but secretly wonder what this can be, and whether Tim will eat it when it appears. Betty is to have ‘hough soup’ as Cook says it is ‘fine for weans’.
Having arranged about food, Cook volunteers the information that ‘Maggie is no’ sae bad’, which cheers me unduly, but I am plunged back in gloom when she follows this up by remarking that she ‘can’t make oot the half of what yon Annie says with her fancy talk’.
As I rise to go I am shown a scrubbing brush and broom, both in the last stages of dissolution, and asked indignantly ‘how a body is to keep her places clean with such-like trash’.
Go upstairs convinced that there are possibilities of volcanic disturban
ces in my new ménage.
Seventeenth March
Note arrives from a certain Mrs. Porter asking me to excuse the formality of a call and come to luncheon with her on Wednesday 23rd March at 1.30 p.m. My acceptance of her invitation will cause her untold pleasure. Can’t imagine who she is nor how she knows my name. Tim says I had better go, as we must not get the name of being ‘standoffish’, and, anyway, they may be useful people to know. He asks where the Porters ‘hang out’ and, on being informed, remarks that Lauderdale Square is the ‘oofiest part of Westburgh’. I reply to the note, with an enthusiasm I am far from feeling, that I am delighted to accept and it is so kind of her to ask me.
Tim takes me to Westburgh in Cassandra and we buy brushes for cook, also a girdle (which appears to be a large iron plate with a handle over the top). The assistant in the shop says it is for bannocks – which leaves me as wise as I was before.
Nineteenth March
On returning from my daily pilgrimage to the village I am informed that a lady has called and is waiting to see me in the drawing room. Annie thinks she said her name was Mrs. Loudon, and, anyway, she is the lady from ‘Holmgarth’ next door, because Annie was in the garden hanging up my stockings on the rope and saw the lady walk out of the next house and in at our gate.
Rush upstairs and find my visitor seated in a straight-backed chair. She is all in black and wears pince-nez and button boots, and has rather an alarming appearance until she smiles. Express great contrition for lack of fire. Mrs. Loudon says the room is warm enough and she has called for me because her son is in the navy. She evidently sees that her words have puzzled me because she explains that if her son went to a strange place she would like the neighbors to call for him. Am still somewhat at sea, but reply that I am very pleased to see her, which seems safe. We talk of various matters and discover to our mutual surprise and satisfaction that her son is in the same ship as my cousin, Harold Fotheringay. Am wondering all the time whether she wants me to go out with her as her words seem to imply, but finally decide that this is just an ordinary call. Mrs. Loudon says that neighbours should be neighbourly – but in Westburgh and its environs this is not always possible; for, unless people are the same sort of people as yourself, you can have little in common with them and they don’t want you, what’s more. It was very different in the country (she used to live in Ayrshire) it was a recognised thing to call for a newcomer, but things are changed now. ‘And here am I singing the Old Folk’s Litany already,’ she adds with a twinkle in her eye, ‘and you’ll be thinking Mrs. Loudon is like the other folks and a bit of a nuisance forbye. But it does seem to me that the people I used to know were more human and wise-like. There was surely less struggle for money and less running after the great ones who aren’t so very great after all’s said and done. There was less vulgarity and we were content with simpler pleasures.’
Mrs. Tim of the Regiment Page 11