Mrs. Tim Carries On

by D. E. Stevenson

  FRIDAY 20TH SEPTEMBER

  I have often thought Jack MacDougall an annoying sort of person and today he is more annoying than usual. He comes in with Tim to have a glass of sherry on his way home from the Barracks and, instead of drinking up his sherry and going home to his own wife and children like a sensible man, he remains to pester us. There is no stability in Jack. Sometimes he is cheerful and pleasant as any man could be and sometimes he is gloomy and irritating—and today, unfortunately for us, he is in the latter condition. “Oh yes,” says Jack, “Oh yes, the Greeks are doing well, but wait till the Italians get going—”

  “I was under the impression that the Italians got going first,” says Tim.

  “They thought they were going to have a walk-over,” explains Jack, waving his glass, “and now they’ll bring up reinforcements. They’ve got immense reserves, of course . . . I can’t understand all this optimistic talk.”

  “But things are going better . . .” I begin.

  “I don’t see it,” says Jack. “I see no improvement at all . . . our R.A.F. goes over and batters Berlin, and their fellows come over and batter poor old London. What’s the good of that?”

  “That’s war,” says Tim, and I can see that he is getting cross.

  “Of course it’s war,” agrees Jack, smiling unpleasantly, “but that is no argument.”

  “No,” replies Tim. “There is no argument for war. It is utterly foolish; it is wasteful and wicked . . . the only point that seems to have escaped your notice is that we didn’t choose war. War was forced upon us by Hitler . . . but mark my words, he’ll be sorry for it before we’ve finished with him.”

  “Let’s hope you’re right,” says Jack. “We have no means of knowing how things really are. We aren’t told . . . we aren’t told half . . .”

  “You’ve been listening to Haw Haw!” I tell him.

  “Why shouldn’t I?” Jack enquires.

  “Because he’s poisonous,” I reply. “He exudes venom like a rattlesnake. You wouldn’t drink something that Hitler sent you in a bottle, so why should you allow him to poison you with words?”

  “That’s nonsense, Hester—” begins Jack.

  “No, it isn’t nonsense,” I assure him. “You are poisoned, Jack. A little while ago we talked about the war and you were quite cheerful about it, and now, when things are much brighter, you are as gloomy as you can be. It’s Haw Haw poisoning you’re suffering from.”

  Unfortunately Jack is not in the mood to take my teasing in the right spirit, he evades the point and declares that I am indulging in “wishful thinking,” and hiding my head in the sand like an ostrich . . . “Look at the U Boats!” says Jack gloomily. “Look at Egypt! Look anywhere you like . . .”

  Tim is becoming more and more irritated with Jack, and so am I for that matter, so we are both pleased when his jeremiad is interrupted by the appearance of Bryan, who erupts into the room in his usual violent manner. (Bryan is going back to school on Monday, and is spending his last few days advancing the education of his Polish friend.) I am in great hopes that Bryan’s advent will hasten Jack’s departure, but Jack seems in no hurry to depart.

  “Hullo, is this Bryan?” exclaims Jack in mock surprise. “Is this Bryan that I see before me? And what has Bryan been doing with himself, may I ask?”

  Bryan hates this sort of nonsense—and I hate it on his behalf—but he answers quite pleasantly that he has been out in the woods.

  “In the woods?” enquires Jack. “What do you do in the woods? Play that you’re fighting the Germans, I suppose.”

  “No,” says Bryan. “Sometimes we play hide and seek, but most of the time I’ve been teaching a Pole to talk English.”

  Jack seems amused at this. “Dear, dear!” he says, “what a strange way of spending your holidays! I suppose you are qualifying for the teaching profession, are you?”

  Bryan is no fool, and knows that Jack is teasing him; he replies gravely that he is going to be a soldier.

  “I see!” says Jack. “You’re going to be a soldier, but meantime you’re a professor of English. Does your Polish friend teach you to speak Polish, or is it a one-sided affair?”

  At this Bryan smiles to himself in a secret sort of way. “No, it isn’t one-sided . . .” says Bryan slowly. “He’s teaching me . . . something.”

  There is a moment’s silence, but Jack has not finished with his catechism yet. “Oh!” says Jack, rather nastily. “Oh, that sounds very mysterious . . . he’s teaching you something, is he?”

  I am aware that the matter cannot be left like this, and am about to try to clear it up when Tim takes a hand in the proceedings. He looks at his son in a friendly manner and says, “You’ve told us too much or not enough, old fellow. What’s the mystery?”

  “It’s wrestling,” says Bryan quickly. “I didn’t mean it to be a mystery at all. They do a lot of wrestling where he comes from . . . I’ll show you, if you like, Dad.”

  Tim does not accept the offer. He smiles at Bryan and says “Good!” and as far as he is concerned the subject is closed, but Jack is not content to leave it there and invites Bryan to show what he can do.

  “Don’t be an ass,” says Tim, who has now lost patience completely. “How can he show you what he can do? You don’t propose that he should try out his wrestling on you, do you? I thought you’d had enough unarmed combat when you tackled me on the shore.”

  “I thought he might show me,” Jack replies with a careless laugh, “but, if you don’t want him to show what he can do, I don’t mind in the least . . . I wouldn’t hurt him of course . . .”

  Bryan is watching and waiting anxiously for the end of the argument and I can see by his face that he is eager for the fray, but, as Bryan is only twelve years old and slightly made and Jack is a full grown man, I am not in favour of the idea and I say as much quite plainly, adding that in any case my drawing room is an unsuitable arena for a wrestling match.

  “I’ll show you one of the things he taught me,” says Bryan at last. “Please, Mum, let me . . . I’ll just show him quite gently, shall I? It’s like this you see . . .” and advancing suddenly upon Jack he seizes Jack’s arms and holds them.

  “Ha, ha!” cries Jack. “That’s what he’s taught you, is it! I knew that trick at school. You think you’ve got me cold, but . . . I do this . . .”

  Nobody knows what Jack does (unless he knows himself) and nobody knows what Bryan does—whether it is what he intended to do or something quite different—but the result of their combined efforts is most astonishing, for the next moment Jack is lying on his back underneath the piano and Bryan is standing in the middle of the room, with an expression of utter and complete amazement upon his face.

  It is extremely difficult not to laugh at this modern version of David and Goliath. I can hear Tim give a smothered snort, and I know that I must not look at him, or we shall both lose control of ourselves and burst into shrieks of laughter.

  “I say!” cries Bryan, rushing to the aid of his fallen foe, “I say, I’m most awfully sorry . . . I’d no idea it would work like that . . . you see I’ve only done it with him . . . and of course he knows. I mean he knows what I’m going to do, you see . . . and does something else to prevent it happening . . . Gosh, I am sorry!”

  Jack takes it uncommonly well—indeed the fall seems to have improved his temper—he crawls out from beneath the piano and allows Bryan to help him to rise.

  “I say!” exclaims Bryan, “I say, you have got a lump on your head! It must have been the piano. We should have done it outside—”

  “Yes,” agrees Jack, “but I didn’t know we were going to do it at all . . . Oh well, there’s no serious damage done . . . no, I don’t want antiphlogistine, Hester, I’ll just go home.”

  “I am sorry,” declares Bryan earnestly.

  “It’s all right,” says Jack, “But you better be careful you don’t kill someone by mistake.”

  “Oh, I will. I’d no idea it was going to happen . . . it was like an exp
losion or something.”

  “Dynamite wasn’t in it,” agrees Jack, feeling his head tenderly. (He is really going now, for he is gravitating towards the door, and we do not urge him to delay his departure. Bryan fetches his coat and helps him to put it on.) “Where is my cap?” he enquires. “Not that I can wear it, of course, but I had better take it with me . . . thank you, Bryan . . . no, it’s all right. It wasn’t your fault, really. Oh well, that’s the last time I shall indulge in Unarmed Combat with the Christie family.”

  Tim murmurs—sotto voce—that perhaps Jack might like to try a fall with Hester, and with that we both rush into the drawing room and throw ourselves into chairs . . .

  Bryan follows us more slowly. “I couldn’t help it,” he declares. “Honestly, I couldn’t. I didn’t mean to knock him down . . . and I wouldn’t have knocked him down if he hadn’t done what he did . . . I mean it was him doing what he did—whatever it was—that made it happen. As a matter of fact I don’t know now what did happen, but . . . Oh, you’re laughing!” cries Bryan, in great relief. “Oh, you’re laughing! I thought you’d be angry.”

  “I am angry!” sobs Tim, burying his head in a cushion, “Oh goodness, I’m sore all over! Look at your Mother, she’s crying!”

  “I suppose it was rather funny,” says Bryan with a little chuckle. “Well, I mean it must have been . . . I must tell Voicheech about it. I wish he could have seen it.”

  Tim has now recovered from his paroxysms, he sits up and blows his nose with a trumpeting sound and agrees that Bryan’s instructor would have got a kick out of the affair. He then enquires what Bryan would do in the unlikely event of his receiving five bob—not in payment for his unwarranted assault upon his father’s guest, of course, but merely as a token of affection.

  Bryan listens to this with a satisfied smile and says, “Well, I think it would be fair if I gave Voicheech half of it, don’t you?” and holds out his hand for the money.

  SUNDAY 22ND SEPTEMBER

  Bryan is going back to school tomorrow, and during the afternoon while we are engaged in packing his trunk, the following conversation takes place.

  “Mum!”

  “Yes, Bryan?”

  “Mum, I say. Will you be kind to Voicheech when I’ve gone?”

  “Bryan, I simply couldn’t. I’ve got more than enough to do already. You know quite well that I’ve got the ‘Comforts’ to run, and now I’ve been roped in to visit soldiers’ families. You know that, Bryan.”

  “I know, but one hour a week isn’t much, is it?”

  “I can’t take on anything else.”

  “One hour . . . say every Wednesday afternoon.”

  “No, Bryan. I’m sorry, but I simply couldn’t.”

  Bryan sighs. “He’s going to miss me awfully. He hasn’t any real friends except me. The other chaps come from quite a different part of Poland . . . you wouldn’t think that would matter, would you?”

  “No, you wouldn’t.”

  “But they’re mostly from towns. He’s a country person, you see.”

  “Yes, but I can’t do anything for him.”

  “He used to live with his mother in a little cottage on a farm,—I showed you the picture, didn’t I?”

  “Yes, but I haven’t time—”

  “I know. Well then the Germans came and he joined up, you see, but of course his mother was left. He doesn’t know what happened to her at all. He doesn’t know . . . she may be dead. It must be awful for him, mustn’t it? I mean I couldn’t think of anything worse than that . . . I couldn’t bear it.”

  “Couldn’t you?”

  “No, I just couldn’t . . . so that’s why I’m so sorry for him, you see.”

  “Yes, I see.”

  “So you will be kind to him, won’t you?”

  “Yes, Bryan.”

  “I knew you would!” cries Bryan, giving me a hug. “I knew you would when you understood about it . . . just one hour every week . . . it isn’t much, is it?”

  “No, it isn’t much.”

  “Just one hour. He’ll come here every Wednesday afternoon at three—I told him to—and you’ll talk to him and cheer him up . . . and then, when I come home at Christmas . . .”

  Part IV

  November–December

  FRIDAY 1ST NOVEMBER

  Open my diary and discover that I have written nothing in it for the month of October. This is due to the fact that I have been busy with the accounts of the “Comforts Fund” which have been handed over to me in an almost inextricable muddle by the former Treasurer. Tim who promised to help me with them gave them up as hopeless and pronouncing them “a pig’s breakfast” advised me to draw two thick lines and begin again. What with this, and Bryan’s Pole and various other matters, domestic and otherwise, I have had little time for writing and my diary has suffered accordingly. October has been a placid month at Donford, nothing of any importance has happened to me or mine, and during its thirty-one days we have had no air raids. It has been very different in the South, and I have worried a good deal about Mary, who is living alone in Wintringham Square. Richard is in camp on Salisbury Plain and seems to think he will be there all winter. I have had a letter from Mrs. Loudon, saying that she intends to spend the winter at Avielochan instead of returning to her house at Kiltwinkle. She says she prefers snow and darkness to the visitations of the enemy and adds, “I am no use to anybody anyway and all I can do is to make socks, and I can do that as well here as there.”

  It is unlike Mrs. Loudon to be sorry for herself, and I feel somewhat guilty. She is lonely and anxious—a bad mixture—and I have done nothing to help her. She has asked me so often to go and stay with her, but somehow or other I have never felt free to go—perhaps it would be more true to say that I have not wanted to go—and now that Tim is back I am even less inclined to leave home.

  Grace comes in while I am writing and exclaims, “Is that your diary? I thought you had given up writing a diary long ago.”

  I reply that my diary is of an unusual kind. Sometimes I write in it daily and at length, and at other times I neglect it for months.

  Grace says, “I believe I could write a diary like that, and as a matter of fact I believe I should. I could put in all the clever and amusing things that the boys do and say . . . Oh yes, I know you’re laughing at me, Hester, but you know quite well what I mean. Of course they can’t talk yet, but I’ve told you before I like to make plans for the future . . . that reminds me,” says Grace eagerly. “That reminds me. I knew I’d come on purpose to tell you something tremendously important—it was you talking about your diary that put it out of my head—what do you think has happened, Hester?”

  “Ian has cut a tooth.” I reply at once.

  “How did you know?” enquires Grace (looking so crestfallen that I feel rather a brute for having stolen her thunder). “How did you know, Hester? As a matter of fact it isn’t Ian at all, it’s Alec . . . but how did you know?”

  I reply that I have had babies myself and have served a long, and at times somewhat painful, apprenticeship at the Regimental Welfare Centre, so I happen to know a little about their ways.

  “Yes,” says Grace. “Yes, well of course I know they’re a little backward; Nannie says her last baby had a tooth before he was six months old; but twins are often backward, aren’t they? and anyhow it’s the sweetest darlingest little tooth you ever saw, and he never lost a wink of sleep over it.”

  WEDNESDAY 6TH NOVEMBER

  News today most cheering. Roosevelt in, the Greeks doing well, and London free from air raids. I put on my coat and trip down to the Barracks, feeling on top of the world. Discuss my feelings with Grace, who has arrived at the Mob. Store before me and is already knee-deep in mittens, and find that Grace shares my sensation. She says that in the last few weeks she has “felt much better about the war” and she thinks it is because she has been able to grow a protective covering to her feelings. I suggest that the magnificent stand made by the Greeks has helped, for it has shown that th
e Axis Powers are vulnerable. Grace says, “Of course the Greeks have done well. There has been a recrudescence of all the splendid courage which helped them when they fought against Xerxes. They were outnumbered then, and they are outnumbered now. Thermistocles said in the hour of victory, ‘It is not we who have done this, not we, but the Gods and Heroes who would not endure that one wicked man should become master of Asia and Europe.’”

  I am so dumbfounded at the aptness of this that I can make no rejoinder, and Grace continues, “So you see it’s the Gods and Heroes who are helping them now . . . but you needn’t look at me with awe, Hester. I’m not so well-versed in Greek History as you may think. I just happened to come across it in a book I was reading and it seemed to fit the occasion so well that I learned it off by heart.”

  I cannot help feeling that it is very noble of Grace to give me this explanation, and am about to say so when the advent of Mamie puts a stop to all interesting discussion. Mamie’s conversation seldom rises above the level of servant-troubles, and children’s ailments, and clothes—though she has been known to include regimental gossip in her repertoire. Mamie is in the middle of a long story about Jane’s tonsils, when Stella walks in and says, “Hello everybody, what’s the news?” and Mamie, who had almost arrived at the end of Jane’s tonsils, starts at the beginning again.

  “Poor little Jane,” says Mamie dolefully, “I was just telling Hester and Grace that she may have to have her tonsils out . . . but Herbert says he’s determined to have further advice. Herbert says it’s just a craze taking out children’s tonsils. Herbert says—”