“I think he would like you to have it repaired.”
“Do you? I believe you’re right . . . as a matter of fact I have a queer feeling when I come up here at night . . . a queer feeling that I’m not alone,” says Uncle Joe a trifle shame-facedly. “I don’t believe in ghosts or anything like that, you know, but I just have that feeling. It’s a pleasant feeling, mind you. I’m an old campaigner, and pretty hardened, but I never did like visiting outposts in the dark by myself. Well, I don’t visit them by myself. The old boy comes along . . . silly, isn’t it?”
“No, it isn’t silly,” I reply quickly.
“Some people would think it silly,” Uncle Joe points out.
“Some people don’t believe in Drake’s Drum.”
There is a little silence and then Uncle Joe murmurs, “H’m, Drake’s Drum . . . same sort of thing . . . h’m. Well, we’d better be getting along, Hester.”
FRIDAY 13TH DECEMBER
Tim arrives at lunch time. It is lovely to see him again, and so much has happened since Monday that it seems more like four weeks than four days. After lunch the two men are left to chat, and I am conducted round the garden by Aunt Posy. She is particularly anxious to show me the bomb crater and the Christmas roses.
“There!” she exclaims, as we stand on the edge of the deep jagged hole, “There, Hester—don’t you think it will make a delightful sunk garden? Joe has promised to get some large stones, and I thought of a lily-pool at the bottom. There will be stone steps, of course, and I shall make little crevices for the plants . . . I can see exactly how it will look when it is finished. I have always wanted a sunk garden,” adds Aunt Posy with a little sigh of satisfaction.
I congratulate her on the attainment of her ambition, and we walk on together.
“I hope you don’t mind,” says Aunt Posy, after a short silence. “I hope you don’t mind coming out with me like this. Joe wanted to talk to Tim on business, but it won’t take very long.”
I assure her that I am delighted to walk with her at any time, and especially in such beautiful surroundings.
“It is pretty,” agrees Aunt Posy. “Some people dislike the country in winter, but to me it has a beauty all its own. I like seeing the fields under plough—the earth is such a fine rich brown—and you can see the shape of the trees when they are bare.”
This is what I have often thought myself, and I say so, adding that I prefer the country to the town at any time of the year.
“Do you really?” says Aunt Posy, “I am very glad, dear. I always thought you were a town person. Usually, when people are born and brought up in London, they prefer the town. I am so very glad.”
It is difficult to see why Aunt Posy should be so glad, “so very glad,” to hear of my predilection for country life, except that she is the kind of person who enjoys being in accord with those around her. Argument or disagreement in the mildest form would make Aunt Posy uncomfortable. We walk on together in great good humour, Aunt Posy chatting cheerfully, and presently I find myself being escorted through a gate which looks like the entrance to a house.
“We aren’t going to call on anyone, are we?” I enquire in some alarm, for having been invited to come for a stroll in the garden I have come in an ancient tweed coat and my woollen bonnet—quite unsuitable garb in which to call upon a complete stranger.
Aunt Posy smiles and shakes her head, “No, dear, I should have warned you if I had thought of paying an afternoon call—though as a matter of fact you look very nice indeed—this house is empty at present. It belongs to me and I thought I should like to walk round and satisfy myself that it is in good condition.”
“It belongs to you?” I enquire, somewhat surprised to discover in Aunt Posy a woman of property.
“Yes, my father left it to me. It has been used as a dower house. I have always been very grateful to my father for leaving me Mellow Lodge—it has been pleasant to know that I have a place of my own to live in if Joe should marry . . . He is not likely to marry now,” adds Aunt Posy naively.
“Has it been empty for long?” I enquire.
“No,” she replies. “The tenants left last month. They had several small children, and Cobstead is not a suitable place for small children just now. They were pleasant people and I was sorry when they went away, but perhaps it is all for the best.”
“All for the best?” I enquire.
“Well, dear,” says Aunt Posy vaguely, “Well, dear, sometimes when one thinks at the time that a certain event is a misfortune one finds that it is not . . . There was the bomb crater, for instance.”
Mellow Lodge is quite a small house, but it possesses a character and dignity of its own. It is old and solid and is built of the same grey stone of which Winch Hall is made. It is a cheerful-looking house with good-sized windows. There are large trees round it, sheltering it from the north and east but, towards the southwest, the prospect is open and the garden slopes gently upwards to Mellow Rise. We do not enter the house, because Aunt Posy has not brought the key, but we walk round it and peer in at the windows. One of the gutters is choked, and we make a note that this must be cleared at once, otherwise the place seems in good order. The garden is in good order too, and Aunt Posy explains that the Winch Hall gardeners look after this garden for her and that vegetables have been put in so that the ground shall not be unproductive . . . “and that is most important at any time, but especially just now,” declares Aunt Posy firmly.
Having satisfied ourselves that all is well, we return to Winch Hall in time for tea.
The evening is spent in conversation, and it is not until Uncle Joe has departed on his rounds that Tim and I retire upstairs to bed and find ourselves alone. Somehow or other I have had a feeling all the evening that Tim had something on his mind. I know him so well, and we have never had secrets from each other. Tim shuts the door and comes over to the fire, which is a luxury that Aunt Posy insists upon providing for her guests; he sits down on a chair and looks at me.
“Well?” I enquire a trifle anxiously, “Well, what’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” replies Tim. “Nothing’s the matter exactly. I’ve been wanting to talk to you, that’s all. I’ve been bursting to talk to you all the evening, but now I don’t quite know how to begin.”
“Tim!” I cry, “Tim, what is it? Is it something to do with business—the business that Uncle Joe spoke of in his letter?”
“Yes,” says Tim.
“Tim! Don’t say that they have got to sell Winch Hall!” I cry. “Oh Tim, that would be frightful!”
“Would it?” enquires Tim.
“Of course it would. They’ve been here for centuries—all your family—and old Joseph would hate it.”
“Old Joseph?” enquires Tim, but I cannot stop to tell him about old Joseph Christie now. I shake his arm and ask him again whether or not my foreboding is true.
“No,” says Tim, smiling. “You’re wrong for once, Hester. So far there is no need to sell Winch Hall, and I’m particularly glad of that because Uncle Joe has made me his heir.”
“His heir!” I exclaim in amazement.
“That was what he wanted to discuss,” says Tim thoughtfully. “That and something else, but I told him I couldn’t settle anything without consulting you.”
“But Tim—”
“I wasn’t really surprised,” says Tim quite candidly, “because, of course, I’m his nearest relation and he’s always been frightfully decent to me, but the other idea was a bit of a surprise.”
“What other idea?”
Tim hesitates. “It’s like this,” he says. “Uncle Joe and Aunt Posy are getting old. They want us to come here and settle down near them. He suggested that I should retire—after the war, of course.”
“Tim!”
“I know,” says Tim nodding. “It’s a bit of a surprise, isn’t it? I mean I had never thought . . . but Uncle Joe says he is getting old, and there is a good deal to do, managing the estate . . . he would teach me how to manage it.”
>
I am so amazed that I am speechless and can only stare at Tim.
“Yes,” says Tim, “Yes, I was afraid you wouldn’t like the idea. Uncle Joe thought you would—but I was afraid you wouldn’t. I told him I must talk it over with you. It would mean leaving the Service, of course. You wouldn’t like that, would you?”
“But Tim—” I gasp.
“There’s a house,” says Tim. “It belongs to Aunt Posy, and they would do it all up for us . . . but it would mean leaving the Service.”
Mellow Lodge! Mellow Lodge for us . . . a home in which we could settle down and have our own furniture which has been stored for years. A home for Bryan to come to in his holidays, where he could bring his friends . . . a proper nursery for Betty . . . a garden of our own . . . a home at last . . . but Tim, what does Tim feel about it? Does Tim want to retire? I can’t believe that he wants to give up his career. He has often talked about “when I get command,” and the day when he will command the Regiment is drawing closer now. I pull myself together and say, “It’s for you to decide.”
“No, it’s for both of us to decide,” declares Tim, squeezing my arm. “We’re partners, Hester. The firm has got to make an important decision . . . we’ve got to look at the whole thing sensibly. I see two roads and there is good in both.”
I see the two roads also, and I see that there is good in both, but for me the good in one far outweighs the good in the other.
“I know you like the Regiment,” Tim is saying, “You’re Mrs. Tim of the Regiment—and I’ve always been proud of your popularity. You’re the right kind of soldier’s wife—not terribly G.S. as some of the wives are—you enjoy all the fun of moving about, of seeing new places and meeting new people. You’d be sorry if I retired before I got command, wouldn’t you?”
“Don’t you want to get command?” I ask.
“Yes,” says Tim. “Yes, of course I do . . . it’s only . . .”
“Only what?” I press him, because I must know for certain. I am so terrified that we may take the wrong turning.
“Only . . .” says Tim slowly and with difficulty, “Only I do love this place . . . it’s in my blood, I think. We’ve moved about so much . . . it would be nice to have a real home. We shouldn’t be very well off, but we could live here quietly . . . it would be dull for you, Hester.”
I seize Tim’s arm. “It would be perfect!” I cry, “It would be absolutely perfect!”
THE END
About The Author
Born in Edinburgh in 1892, Dorothy Emily Stevenson came from a distinguished Scottish family, her father being David Alan Stevenson, the lighthouse engineer, first cousin to Robert Louis Stevenson.
In 1916 she married Major James Reid Peploe (nephew to the artist Samuel Peploe). After the First World War they lived near Glasgow and brought up two sons and a daughter. Dorothy wrote her first novel in the 1920’s, and by the 1930’s was a prolific bestseller, ultimately selling more than seven million books in her career. Among her many bestselling novels was the series featuring the popular “Mrs. Tim”, the wife of a British Army officer. The author often returned to Scotland and Scottish themes in her romantic, witty and well-observed novels.
During the Second World War Dorothy Stevenson moved with her husband to Moffat in Scotland. It was here that most of her subsequent works were written. D.E. Stevenson died in Moffat in 1973.
Fiction by D.E. Stevenson
Published by Dean Street Press
Mrs. Tim Carries On (1941)
Mrs. Tim Gets a Job (1947)
Mrs. Tim Flies Home (1952)
Smouldering Fire (1935)*
Spring Magic (1942)
Other Titles
Jean Erskine’s Secret (written c. 1917, first published 2013)
Peter West (1923)
Emily Dennistoun (written c. 1920s, first published 2011)
Mrs. Tim of the Regiment (1932)*
Golden Days (1934)*
Miss Buncle’s Book (1934)
Divorced from Reality (1935, aka Miss Dean’s Dilemma, aka The Young Clementina)
Miss Buncle Married (1936)
The Empty World (1936, aka A World in Spell)
The Story of Rosabelle Shaw (1937)
The Fair Miss Fortune (written c. 1938, first published 2011)
The Baker’s Daughter (1938, aka Miss Bun the Baker’s Daughter)
Green Money (1939, aka The Green Money)
Rochester’s Wife (1940)
The English Air (1940)
Crooked Adam (1942)
Celia’s House (1943)
The Two Mrs Abbotts (1943)
Listening Valley (1944)
The Four Graces (1946)
Kate Hardy (1947)
Young Mrs Savage (1948)
Vittoria Cottage (1949)
Music in the Hills (1950)
Winter and Rough Weather (1951, aka Shoulder the Sky)
Five Windows (1953)
Charlotte Fairlie (1954, aka The Enchanted Isle, aka Blow the Wind Southerly)
Amberwell (1955)
Summerhills (1956)
The Tall Stranger (1957)
Anna and Her Daughters (1958)
Still Glides the Stream (1959)
The Musgraves (1960)
Bel Lamington (1961)
Fletcher’s End (1962)
The Blue Sapphire (1963)
Katherine Wentworth (1964)
Katherine’s Marriage (1965, aka The Marriage of Katherine)
The House on the Cliff (1966)
Sarah Morris Remembers (1967)
Sarah’s Cottage (1968)
Gerald and Elizabeth (1969)
House of the Deer (1970)
Portrait of Saskia (collection of early writings, published 2011)
Found in the Attic (collection of early writings, published 2013)
* see Explanatory Notes
Explanatory Notes
MRS. TIM
Mrs. Tim of the Regiment, the first appearance of Mrs. Tim in the literary world, was published by Jonathan Cape in 1932. That edition, however, contained only the first half of the book currently available from Bloomsbury under the same title. The second half was originally published, as Golden Days, by Herbert Jenkins in 1934. Together, those two books contain Mrs. Tim’s diaries for the first six months of the same year.
Subsequently, D.E. Stevenson regained the rights to the two books, and her new publisher, Collins, reissued them in the U.K. as a single volume under the title Mrs. Tim (1941), reprinted several times as late as 1992. In the U.S., however, the combined book appeared as Mrs. Tim of the Regiment, and has generally retained that title, though a 1973 reprint used the title Mrs. Tim Christie. Adding to the confusion, large print and audiobook editions of Golden Days have also appeared in recent years.
Fortunately no such title confusions exist with the subsequent Mrs. Tim titles—Mrs. Tim Carries On (1941), Mrs. Tim Gets a Job (1947), and Mrs. Tim Flies Home (1952)—and Dean Street Press is delighted to make these long-out-of-print volumes of the series available again, along with two more of Stevenson’s most loved novels, Smouldering Fire (1935) and Spring Magic (1942).
SMOULDERING FIRE
Smouldering Fire was first published in the U.K. in 1935 and in the U.S. in 1938. Until now, those were the only complete editions of the book. All later reprints, both hardcover and paperback, have been heavily abridged, with entire chapters as well as occasional passages throughout the novel cut from the text. For our new edition, Dean Street Press has followed the text of the first U.K. edition, and we are proud to be producing the first complete, unabridged edition of Smouldering Fire in eighty years.
FURROWED MIDDLEBROW
FM1. A Footman for the Peacock (1940) ... RACHEL FERGUSON
FM2. Evenfield (1942) ... RACHEL FERGUSON
FM3. A Harp in Lowndes Square (1936) ... RACHEL FERGUSON
FM4. A Chelsea Concerto (1959) ... FRANCES FAVIELL
FM5. The Dancing Bear (1954) ... FRANCES FAVIELL
FM6. A House on the Rhine (1955) ... FRANCES FAVIELL
FM7. Thalia (1957) ... FRANCES FAVIELL
FM8. The Fledgeling (1958) ... FRANCES FAVIELL
FM9. Bewildering Cares (1940) ... WINIFRED PECK
FM10. Tom Tiddler’s Ground (1941) ... URSULA ORANGE
FM11. Begin Again (1936) ... URSULA ORANGE
FM12. Company in the Evening (1944) ... URSULA ORANGE
FM13. The Late Mrs Prioleau (1946) ... MONICA TINDALL
FM14. Bramton Wick (1952) ... ELIZABETH FAIR
FM15. Landscape in Sunlight (1953) ... ELIZABETH FAIR
FM16. The Native Heath (1954) ... ELIZABETH FAIR
FM17. Seaview House (1955) ... ELIZABETH FAIR
FM18. A Winter Away (1957) ... ELIZABETH FAIR
FM19. The Mingham Air (1960) ... ELIZABETH FAIR
FM20. The Lark (1922) ... E. NESBIT
FM21. Smouldering Fire (1935) ... D.E. STEVENSON
FM22. Spring Magic (1942) ... D.E. STEVENSON
FM23. Mrs. Tim Carries On (1941) ... D.E. STEVENSON
FM24. Mrs. Tim Gets a Job (1947) ... D.E. STEVENSON
FM25. Mrs. Tim Flies Home (1952) ... D.E. STEVENSON
FM26. Alice (1950) ... ELIZABETH ELIOT
FM27. Henry (1950) ... ELIZABETH ELIOT
FM28. Mrs. Martell (1953) ... ELIZABETH ELIOT
FM29. Cecil (1962) ... ELIZABETH ELIOT
D.E. Stevenson
Mrs. Tim Gets a Job
Miss Clutterbuck wants me to run the bar—no, it can’t be that—run the car, which has seen its best days but is still useful for shopping. The linen will be in my charge. Grace has told her I am patient and tactful, so (as she herself is neither the one nor the other) she thinks I am the right person.
Mrs. Tim Carries On Page 29