Mrs. Tim Carries On

by D. E. Stevenson

  “But what’s the news?” enquires Stella, interrupting with an absence of sympathy which seems almost inhuman. “Hasn’t anybody heard any news this morning? The papers hadn’t come before I left home, and our wireless died on us last night—”

  “Roosevelt’s in,” says Grace shortly. She has no use for Mamie, but her dislike for Stella is active and profound.

  “Roosevelt!” echoes Stella.

  “Splendid, isn’t it?” I exclaim.

  “Why?” enquires Stella, “Why is it splendid? The other man might have been just as good, or perhaps even better . . . a new broom sweeps clean,” adds Stella triumphantly.

  I am completely squashed and can find nothing to say, but Grace comes to the rescue at once, and with admirable presence of mind retorts that you should never change horses when crossing a stream, and she thinks the American people are extremely sensible not to attempt this difficult and dangerous feat.

  Stella says, “Where are the sticky labels? Has anyone seen them?” To which Grace, who is now on the warpath, replies, “Never mind the sticky labels you can write on the parcel.”

  Mamie now joins in the conversation and enquires why Symes is not here this morning. It is so much easier when we have Symes.

  I reply that Symes is away on leave—Embarkation Leave—as the 4th Battalion is under orders for foreign service.

  Grace says, “Yes, I heard that. I hope Symes is having a nice time with Miss Gertie Ebb. Did he show you her photograph?”

  Mamie says, “Oh dear, d’you mean we shan’t have Symes any more? How perfectly sickening!”

  Stella says, “We can do without him quite well. As a matter of fact I never liked the man.”

  “I think he’s perfectly sweet,” declares Grace.

  “He was very useful,” bleats Mamie, “He was so good at doing up the parcels . . . the string hurts my fingers. I wonder if Herbert would detail someone to come and help us to do up the parcels. Shall I ask him?”

  Stella says that Mamie is to do no such thing. An ordinary soldier would be worse than useless to us. She adds that for her part she enjoys her work here; she feels she is doing something useful, and she would have thought that Mamie might feel the same. Mamie replies that if Stella would like to do up the parcels, she will undertake to address them. “The string hurts my fingers,” repeats Mamie fretfully.

  Grace and I have now finished our share of the work and, as it is still quite early, Grace suggests that we should take our usual walk along the shore. I agree at once, for the atmosphere of the Mob. Store is stuffy and dusty, and it will be pleasant to get a breath of fresh air before lunch.

  “It isn’t the dust, I mind,” declares Grace, striding along and breathing deeply. “It’s those women . . . they make me tired. I’d like to—I’d like to knock their heads together,” declares Grace fiercely “. . . and you needn’t giggle like that, Hester. You know you’d like to do it, yourself.”

  “That’s why I’m giggling,” I reply.

  “Mamie is a sheep,” continues Grace. “She looks like a sheep and she bleats like a sheep, and her brain is like a sheep’s brain . . . and Stella is a cat, of course. I don’t like cats . . .”

  “Neither do I.”

  “They do nothing but bicker—Mamie’s bleating annoys Stella, and drives her mad—and yet the two of them are always together, they are in and out of each other’s houses at all hours of the day—a practice which I detest.”

  “So do I.”

  “They dislike each other, and yet they live in each other’s pockets. Odd, isn’t it?”

  “Extremely odd” I agree . . . “but perhaps they don’t really dislike each other.”

  “I think they do,” replies Grace reflectively—her ill temper is vanishing rapidly under the influence of exercise and fresh air—“Their natures are incongruous and they get on each other’s nerves. There might be some fun in bickering—I mean it is conceivable that they might get a kick out of it if they did it cleverly—but they just bleat and scratch. It’s too dreary.”

  THURSDAY 7TH NOVEMBER

  I am visited, in the small hours of the morning, by a frightful dream in which a sheep and a cat are locked in mortal combat . . . the cat, being more agile, appears to be having the best of it, when the sheep suddenly produces a tin hat and bashes the cat on the head with deadly effect . . . I awaken damp and trembling and am thankful to find myself in my comfortable bed and to see Annie arranging my morning tea on the table beside my bed. The day has started badly, but, contrary to the usual rules, it proceeds peacefully upon its appointed course and nothing worth chronicling occurs until teatime when Guthrie Loudon makes an unexpected appearance in my drawing room. As I am always delighted to see Guthrie I welcome him warmly and compliment him upon his robust health—which is apparent to the most casual beholder—and ask him where he has sprung from; Guthrie, in answer to my question, replies that his ship is in port for minor repairs and he has managed to wangle ten days’ leave.

  “Your Mother is still at Avielochan?” I tell him.

  “Yes,” says Guthrie, “but as a matter of fact I don’t think I shall be going to Avielochan just now.”

  “Not to Avielochan?” I ask in surprise.

  “No,” says Guthrie. “At least . . . well, I don’t think I will . . . not just now. I was there in June, wasn’t I?”

  It is obvious that there is something in the wind—can it be the red-haired nurse? . . . and if it is the red-haired nurse, what am I to do about it? Am I to go behind his back and wire to his mother, or am I to lie low and say nothing? On thinking it over I decide that I shall pursue the latter course, for I find that I am a little tired of Guthrie’s love affairs.

  While I have been engaged in arranging my plan of action (or inaction), Guthrie has been looking round the room, and now he enquires, “Are you alone, Hester?” in the tones used by the villain in a melodrama.

  I reply instantly that Tim is hiding under the sofa and Pinkie behind the curtains.

  Guthrie says, “Good. I wanted to speak to you alone.”

  “Have a scone,” I say, waving the plate before him.

  “No thank you, Hester.”

  “Well, have a cookie, then.”

  “No,” says Guthrie. “No, I want to speak to you seriously.” As I have decided to abandon Guthrie to his fate I have no wish to be made the recipient of his confidences, so I try again to head him off and enquire how many “U” boats he has sunk since his return to duty, Guthrie says he doesn’t know—possibly none—and anyhow he has come to speak to me about something important . . . or at least something very important to him . . . “as a matter of fact it’s about . . . about a girl,” adds Guthrie blushing furiously.

  I exclaim, “Oh Guthrie, not another!” in accents of dismay.

  “But this is quite different,” declares Guthrie earnestly. “This is the real thing. Honestly Hester—I wish you would listen—”

  I interrupt him by saying firmly, “Not if she has red hair,” at which Guthrie laughs and says, “But she hasn’t red hair . . . Oh Hester, I wish you would be sensible for five minutes!”

  “But why choose me?” I enquire. “Why not confide in your mother or your cousin, Mrs. Falconer, or any of your other relations? Why should I be singled out like this and forced to listen to Love’s Young Dream?”

  Guthrie giggles and says, “If I didn’t know you, I should think you were horribly unsympathetic,” to which I immediately reply that, if he didn’t know me, he would not be in a position to judge whether I was unsympathetic or not, and that as a matter of fact I am as hard-hearted as a plum—especially where he is concerned—and wish to have neither part nor lot in any more of his affaires de coeur.

  This touches Guthrie on the raw—as indeed it was meant to do—and he replies, somewhat heatedly, “I wish you wouldn’t keep on about—er—that other time, Hester. It sounds as if I were a sort of Don Juan . . . Besides this is quite a different matter—absolutely different. It’s as different
as night from day. If only you’d listen sensibly for a few minutes . . . you’re the only person who can help me.”

  “Why am I?”

  “Because Mother will listen to you. She likes you—and she will listen to what you say—and you could explain the whole thing calmly and sensibly to her—but that’s only one reason. Do please be decent about it, Hester.”

  Seeing that there is no chance of escape I resign myself to listen, and Guthrie leans forward and begins his tale.

  “The first time I saw her I thought she was beautiful,” says Guthrie dreamily, “I thought she was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen, but after that I forgot she was beautiful because she is so much more. She is lovely in the sense that Americans use the word, she is adorable from the crown of her gorgeous head to the tips of her toes. She is perfect, Hester. She is what I’ve been looking for all my life. If I can’t marry her, I shall never marry anyone—that’s all.”

  Guthrie pauses and looks at me, and I reply that she sounds fairly satisfactory and enquire when I am to have the pleasure of making her acquaintance.

  Guthrie says, “But Hester . . . it’s Pinkie.”

  This simple statement is so entirely unexpected and so utterly amazing that I am absolutely overcome. My mouth falls open and I find myself gaping at Guthrie like a codfish.

  “But Hester . . .” says Guthrie, in a reasoning sort of tone, “but Hester, who else could it be? I mean there isn’t anybody else in the world so absolutely perfect and adorable, is there?”

  “Does Pinkie—”

  “Yes,” says Guthrie, nodding, “Yes she does. Darling beautiful Pinkie! Isn’t it—isn’t it simply too marvellous for words?”

  “But Guthrie, how did you—”

  “It’s Mother that’s the difficulty,” declares Guthrie. “Mother will kick up a most awful dust . . . Mother always does,” adds Guthrie somewhat ingenuously.

  “You think she will?”

  “Sure of it,” says Guthrie with conviction. “You don’t know Mother as well as I do . . . but as a matter of fact I’ve got one pretty good shot in my locker; it was Mother who introduced us.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really,” declares Guthrie laughing, “Rather comic, isn’t it? Mother brought her to see me at the hospital. What do you think of that?” He pauses and looks at me, but, as I haven’t the least idea what to say, I say nothing, and Guthrie continues, “That was the first time I saw her, and I thought she was beautiful. She was so beautiful that it was like having the sun shining in my bare little room—I hardly dared to look at her. I can’t tell you how surprised I was when she came back again to see me . . . we got on better by ourselves . . . without Mother, I mean. After that she came nearly every day . . . and then we wrote to each other. We’re engaged, now,” adds Guthrie firmly.

  I am so busy trying to readjust my ideas that all I can say is “Are you?”

  “Yes,” says Guthrie, “And we’re going to he married no matter what anyone thinks. Pinkie’s father has never taken any interest in her, and her aunt seems a most extraordinary person . . . they seem to be wrapped up in their own affairs. They don’t understand her at all. I want to take her away,” says Guthrie, earnestly, “I want to try to make up for all she has missed. I want to spend my whole life making Pinkie happy . . .”

  He continues in this vein for some time and, as he talks, I am assailed by the strange feeling that I have heard it all before . . . where and when have I heard it? The problem nags at my mind until suddenly I remember Bill . . . poor Bill, it seems a little hard, but these things just happen, and nobody has found a reason for them yet.

  Guthrie is still enumerating Pinkie’s charms and painting their joint future in rosy colours. He seems to have forgotten that there is a war raging, and that he is only temporarily released from the combat. “You don’t think I’m too old, do you?” Guthrie enquires anxiously. “Pinkie doesn’t think so, but I just wondered. I don’t feel old, of course, but I’m thirty-one. My birthday was the day before yesterday . . . You’ll do what you can with Mother, won’t you, Hester? It isn’t that I mind what she says—I mean to marry Pinkie whatever she says or does—but it would be nicer for Pinkie if Mother could be brought round—if Mother could be made to see it in a sensible light. You’re the only person who has the slightest influence with her.”

  “I don’t think I have any influence with her.”

  “Oh, you have. I thought perhaps you might go and see her and explain everything to her.”

  “To Avielochan!”

  “I know it’s a lot to ask,” declares Guthrie, “but there’s so much at stake. It might make a difference to our whole lives—couldn’t you, Hester?”

  I reply firmly that I could not, and that there is no need for such extreme measures.

  Guthrie says, “Will you write to her, then?” and I agree with feigned reluctance.

  The truth is I am bursting to write to Mrs. Loudon and inform her that her scheme has worked, and my one idea is to get rid of Guthrie so that I can start my letter without delay, but Guthrie is not an easy person to get rid of. He suggests that he should stay while I write the letter and help in its composition and, when I refuse to write at all under such circumstances, he begins to tell me what I am to say and what I am not to say until my brain positively reels.

  There is nothing for it but to tell him quite firmly and plainly to go away and leave me to write in peace. He rises, somewhat reluctantly, and says, “Have it your own way, but don’t forget to tell her that I should never have met Pinkie if it hadn’t been for her . . . where is Pinkie?”

  I reply that Pinkie has gone to play badminton with the Polish officers.

  Guthrie says, “Oh, has she?” in a surprised voice.

  I add, quite casually, that she plays badminton with them three times a week and that if he cares to take a stroll down to the Town Hall he will be certain to see her.

  Guthrie walks towards the door.

  I accompany my guest into the hall, and remark that when Pinkie is not playing badminton at the Town Hall with the Polish officers, she is to be found at the Barracks playing squash with our own subalterns—unless of course she happens to have gone to the pictures with one of her other friends.

  Guthrie looks at me sideways and says, “You are a little devil, Hester!”

  The letter to Mrs. Loudon writes itself—my pen flies over the paper—and it is just finished when Tim returns from the Barracks. Tim is very much interested in my news, and suggests that we should send Mrs. Loudon “one of those night telegrams” so that she will receive the tidings of her son’s engagement tomorrow morning . . . “and you must write to Elinor Bradshaw too,” adds Tim.

  “I suppose I must.”

  “Of course you must,” says Tim. “Pinkie is in our charge . . . but there’s nothing to worry about. Loudon is a damned good fellow—nobody could possibly object to him. They’re both lucky,” adds Tim reflectively, and I agree with him.

  We compose a Night Telegraph Letter to Mrs. Loudon, and Tim telephones it for me . . . reflect that it is extremely pleasant to have a husband at home again to undertake these small but troublesome duties.

  FRIDAY 8TH NOVEMBER

  Guthrie, who has spent the night at The Donford Arms, turns up immediately after breakfast (I have had no chance to speak to Pinkie privately, and have been looking forward to an interesting chat, so Guthrie’s appearance at this early hour seems premature to me). He is no sooner seated than a telegram arrives from Mrs. Loudon saying, “Send them both here immediately,” and as there is no need for subterfuge I pass the message to Guthrie without remark.

  Guthrie reads it and pales visibly beneath his tan. “Good Lord, how frightful!” he exclaims. “Great Scott, how did she hear about it? You don’t mean to say you wired to her . . . you couldn’t explain in a wire.”

  I reply that I wired and wrote, and explained everything that required explanation. I point to the telegraph form which has fluttered on to
the floor from Guthrie’s nerveless fingers and add that there is no need to worry, as his Mother is delighted at the news of his engagement.

  Guthrie says, “How do you make that out?”

  I reply that the fact is self-evident since she wishes Pinkie and Guthrie to go to Avielochan for the remainder of Guthrie’s leave.

  Guthrie picks up the wire and reads it again and says, “She’s simply furious. She wants to get us there and make us change our minds.”

  I seize the wire, and reread it, and point out that there is nothing in it to support Guthrie’s theory. Guthrie retorts that there is nothing in it to support mine. If she is pleased why doesn’t she say so? I reply that it is not her way to go all out upon a telegraph form. Guthrie says she could have put “delighted” without extra cost. I reply that it is not a question of cost, but a question of character. Guthrie says do I imagine that I know his Mother better than he does. I reply that I do.

  At this point—when we are both becoming somewhat heated—Pinkie chips in and remarks, “You know, I think Hester’s right. She wouldn’t want us both to come, unless she was pleased about it.”

  Guthrie says, “Why wouldn’t she?”

  Pinkie replies, “Because it would be so unpleasant.”

  Guthrie says gloomily, “You don’t know Mother at all—either of you.”

  After some more discussion, during which Pinkie sticks to her guns with commendable tenacity, it is agreed that Mrs. Loudon’s invitation is to be accepted—or, rather, that her command is to be obeyed—but that it is to be understood by all parties that nothing Mrs. Loudon says or does is to make the slightest difference to the engaged couple . . . “As long as we make up our minds to that,” says Guthrie firmly, “as long as Pinkie promises faithfully that whatever Mother says or does it won’t make any difference.”

  “But what could she say?” enquires Pinkie, in reasoning tones, “What could she do to separate us?”