‘Je viens collecter les National Savings tous les weekends,’ Mrs Smith explained to Mlle Duchaux. ‘Nous avons un National Savings Group à Marling et je collecte pour lui. Presque tout le monde a été not at home aujourd’hui. Thank you so much, Miss Harvey, a cup of tea was just what I wanted. Les coupes de thé sont si anglais,’ she added to Mlle Duchaux.
That lady was for once entirely taken aback and could only ejaculate, ‘Oh, yes,’ in a way that quite confirmed Mrs Smith’s opinion of French people. Having finished her tea she opened her bag.
‘Well, as I am here, I had better do my little bit of war-work,’ she said going to the writing table. ‘Oh dear, where is the blotting book? There was one here, in art velours.’
She looked suspiciously about for thieves. Miss Harvey said with some diffidence that she thought Mrs Smith had taken it away with her not long ago.
‘So I did,’ said Mrs Smith, becoming tearful. ‘I find my poor memory is not what it was since Mr Smith died. Vous savvay,’ she said to Mlle Duchaux, ‘que je suis soule since Mr Smith passed on. Il est très triste.’
‘It is indeed very sad to be alone,’ said Mrs Marling hastily, fearing the effect of Mrs Smith’s statement on Mlle Duchaux.
‘Now the half-crowns,’ said Mrs Smith, who had got her books and papers in order. ‘Half-a-crown for you, Miss Harvey, and half-a-crown for your brother and a shilling for Hilda. That’s right, isn’t it.’
Miss Harvey said how stupid, she had forgotten to get change at the Post Office that morning and appealed to her brother. Mr Harvey produced a ten-shilling note and looked at it in a stupefied way. Mrs Smith said she would see if she had change.
‘Now let us see,’ she said. ‘That is five shillings for Mr and Miss Harvey and one shilling for Hilda. Six shillings altogether. And I have just two florins here, so that is four shillings change, how lucky.’
Mr Harvey handed her the ten shilling note, received the two florins, and looked perplexed.
‘That’s all right, Geoffrey,’ said his sister. ‘I give you half-a-crown and Hilda gives you a shilling; then you’ll have seven and six.’
‘But I gave Mrs Smith half a sovereign,’ said Mr Harvey.
‘Yes, but you owed her half-a-crown for your National Savings,’ said Miss Harvey. ‘So now that’s right.’
‘I’ve only four shillings here,’ said Mr Harvey.
‘Well then, I’ll pay you back now,’ said his sister, ‘and then we’ll be square. No I can’t, I’ve only got a half-crown and a florin. Look, I’ll pay you the half-crown and see if Hilda has change for the florin and then I can give you her shilling.’
‘Don’t trouble,’ said Mrs Marling, ‘I think I’ve got two shillings. No, I haven’t, but I’ve got a shilling and a sixpence. I’ll give your brother the shilling and you the sixpence, and then if you give me the half-crown that will be right.’
‘No, it won’t, Mother,’ said Lucy. ‘You’re trying to do Frances out of a shilling.’
‘But it’s a shilling she wants,’ said Mrs Marling.
‘I’ll tell you what,’ said Lucy. ‘Everyone put their money back and we’ll start fresh.’
After a good deal of disorder during which a sixpence fell down the back of the sofa and was fished up by Miss Harvey together with a dirty duster obviously stuffed there by Hilda when called away from her work, everyone had his or her own money again. Everyone spoke at once and in two minutes the muddle was worse than before.
‘Nous ne sommes pas practical comme vous,’ said Mrs Smith to Mlle Duchaux.
This might have gone on till blackout, but most luckily Hilda came in to clear away the tea things. She was carrying a plate with six shillings on it.
‘Here’s the National Savings,’ she announced. ‘I knew you’d need them, so I took them out of the housekeeping.’
‘Oh thank you, Hilda,’ said Miss Harvey taking the money. ‘Then I owe you a shilling, don’t I.’
‘That’s all right, Miss Frances,’ said Hilda magnanimously, and whisking the tea things on to a tray she left the room.
‘And to think this is going on all over England every day of the week,’ said Mr Harvey with a gesture of despair. ‘I don’t suppose there is more than one person in every ten who can understand change.’
Mrs Smith said it was quite dreadful and often made her wish she hadn’t taken up National Savings, but we must all do our bit.
‘I expect you would manage it much better in France, Mlle Duchaux,’ said Mrs Marling, while Mr Harvey murmured, ‘Order, not manage’ under his breath.
‘Ah par exemple, on ne payerait pas,’ said Mlle Duchaux with patriotic fervour.
‘Vous payriez en franks,’ said Mrs Smith, ‘qui sont beaucoup plus faciles. Les shillings sont plus difficiles que les franks et beaucoup plus valuables.’
This unwitting attack on the value of the franc made Mlle Duchaux so angry that as Lucy said afterwards to her mother, she expected her to guillotine them all, but she controlled her rage and merely looked daggers at Mrs Smith, who then said she must wend her way. That she should be leaving without carrying away some article of portable property was so remarkable that the Harveys held their breath. But they might just as well have let it go, for at the door of the drawing-room Mrs Smith turned and said she had quite run out of matches and might she just borrow a few to light her gas ring and boil her milk at night. Without much enthusiasm Mr Harvey took a box out of his pocket.
‘Just four or five,’ said Mrs Smith humbly, ‘and I am sure I can find an old box of Mrs Cox’s to strike them on.’
Lucy was almost sure that she heard Mr Harvey say Damn, but with great politeness he begged Mrs Smith to take the box. Mrs Smith said she couldn’t dream of such a thing and put it in her bag. Mr Harvey escorted her to the door.
As he came back to the drawing-room a great silent sigh of relief rose from the company.
‘Joyce is so troublesome,’ said Mrs Marling. ‘Well, we must get along now. I do hope, Mademoiselle Duchaux, that you will be able to come to tea. Lucy could come and fetch you in the pony cart and perhaps we could arrange a day, Frances, when you and Oliver get off duty at four and he could bring you out with him.’
A date was provisionally fixed, when Lucy uttered a loud exclamation.
‘I’ll tell you what,’ said Lucy. ‘Joyce has gone off without her National Savings.’
Several eye-witnesses contradicted her.
‘Miss Marling is quite right,’ said Mlle Duchaux in her excellent English. ‘When you all returned the money and began the calculations afresh, Geoffrey had back his ten shillings. The poor lady has not got her six shillings at all.’
‘But what about the six shillings Hilda brought in?’ said Mrs Marling.
‘Good Lord, I have still got them,’ said Miss Harvey. ‘I must let Mrs Smith have them on Monday. How stupid! Still, it was very nice of Hilda to say she wouldn’t let me pay her shilling. She is really keen on National Savings.’
‘Now, I will tell you what,’ said Lucy, frowning with the effort of her thoughts. ‘Hilda took all the National Savings money out of your housekeeping money, didn’t she? Well then, you have paid her shilling once. And if you give her another shilling you’ll have paid it twice.’
‘You are perfectly right,’ said Mr Harvey. ‘It all goes to show that the so-called educated classes are not fit to be trusted with money. Now in Russia there is far too much real educated intelligence for that. Mere infants there would have managed this affair better than we have.’
‘Ces Russes! Ne m’en parlez pas!’ said Mlle Duchaux with a serpent’s hiss.
Mrs Marling and Lucy said goodbye and went home. At dinner Mr Marling asked what they had been doing and on hearing about Mlle Duchaux and the National Savings said things weren’t like that in his young days. Lucy looked at Oliver for sympathy, but his eyes were painful and though he smiled it was from affection, not from understanding. Lucy felt rather alone.
By Monday Oliver was much better
and quite ready to arrange a plan for driving Miss Harvey out from Barchester. The arrangement of a provisional day was ratified and when it arrived Lucy according to plan took the pony cart down to the Red House, collected Mlle Duchaux and drove her up to the Hall. At least not quite to the Hall, for there was the question of the pony, so Lucy stopped at the stables and asked her guest if she would mind walking the rest of the way. Mlle Duchaux got out and stood despising the pump while Lucy hurled the pony into his loose box till next wanted. Just then voices were heard on the steep staircase; Lettice and her daughters saying goodbye to Miss Bunting who had been giving the children a little light instruction. Miss Bunting came downstairs, and Diana and Clare appeared at the nursery window from which they hung, shrieking loving farewells. Catching sight of their Aunt Lucy they screamed more loudly than ever.
‘Hullo!’ shouted Lucy.
‘Hullo!’ shouted Diana and Clare.
Nurse then appeared behind them, smiled graciously at Lucy and told her young charges not to. Diana and Clare disappeared with a final wave to Miss Bunting.
‘Hullo, Bunny,’ said Lucy, hitting herself all over to remove the pony’s hairs. ‘We’ll come up to the Hall with you.’
‘I have the pleasure of meeting —?’ said Mlle Duchaux.
‘Oh, I’d forgotten you didn’t know Bunny,’ said Lucy. ‘This is Mlle Duchaux, she’s the one staying with the Harveys.’
Mlle Duchaux assumed an expression which made it quite clear that she did not like waiting by a pump, that the children whoever they might happen to be who shouted so loudly were very badly brought up, that Lucy was not conversant with the rules of good society, and that it was impossible for her to speak to the person called ‘Bunny’ without a formal introduction. All these shades passed unperceived by Lucy. Every one of these shades was appreciated by Miss Bunting, who remarked courteously, with an excellent English-French accent, ‘Miss Bunting, ancienne institutrice dans la famille Marling.’
Mlle Duchaux, the conventions now being satisfied, burst into a torrent of French, but though Miss Bunting was no mean French scholar she had no intention of hazarding herself before a rival governess and placidly answered in English, conversing affably with Lucy and the stranger all the way up to the Hall.
If we have given the impression that the two ex-governesses did not cotton to each other, that is exactly the impression we wished to create. Mlle Duchaux felt the natural contempt of a French governess, who had spent most of her life in England where the mere fact of her being a foreigner gave her a certain status, for an English governess who spoke rather good French. Miss Bunting felt the even more natural, though less plainly shown contempt of a first-rate English governess who had always taught in good families for a foreigner who would never know what really good families were. In Mlle Duchaux’s silent criticism of Diana and Clare, and of Lucy, her truly British heart saw the ignorance and self-satisfaction of a nation which would always say Sir Smith and broadly speaking had neither the word home nor the word gentleman in its vernacular. Mlle Duchaux was in her turn more than aware of Miss Bunting’s feeling of superiority, and the only person wholly at her ease was Lucy, who never noticed likes and dislikes unless people actually hit each other or said something outrageously rude.
‘I’ll tell you what, Bunny,’ said Lucy. ‘I haven’t put the pony away properly in case I drive Frances and Mlle Duchaux back, so why don’t you come too, just for the drive.’
‘How do you call your pony?’ said Mlle Duchaux.
‘Oh, anyhow,’ said Lucy. ‘Oh, I see, you mean what do I call him. Well, I usually call him Pony, because his real name is Poniatowski. He was a Russian or something and it sounded a good sort of name for a pony.’
‘Polish,’ said Mlle Duchaux, unable to resist imparting information. ‘Quant à ces Polonais – mais passons outre. Stanislas Poniatowski was the last king of Poland.’
‘Stanislas Augustus,’ said Miss Bunting. ‘But of course it was he that you meant. It was his brother who joined with Napoleon in that unfortunate invasion of Russia.’
These apparently innocent words had exactly the effect that Miss Bunting intended. Mlle Duchaux had for the moment confused the two Poniatowskis and could have exclaimed with the ballad-maker, ‘Earl Percy sees my fall,’ substituting of course Miss Bunting for Earl Percy. As for Miss Bunting’s simple statement about Napoleon, Mlle Duchaux considered it a reflection upon the Emperor and a partisan attitude (as exemplified in the word unfortunate) towards the Russians, for whom, unless White Russians, she had no use at all.
‘Unfortunate for Napoleon, I mean,’ Miss Bunting added, as they reached the back door of the Hall. ‘I think you will find your mother in the drawing-room, Lucy, where I will join you.’
She went to her bedroom to set her little front of false hair to rights while Lucy took Mlle Duchaux upstairs. Mrs Marling asked Mlle Duchaux how the Harveys were liking their house. Mlle Duchaux said they found it very comfortable though of course they regretted Norton Park. Before this interesting topic was quite exhausted Oliver and Miss Harvey came in as did Miss Bunting, who as usual sat on an upright chair at a slight distance from the party and surveyed them all impartially. Mlle Duchaux sat on a sofa with her very neat ankles and her rather short fat legs much in evidence, hoping that the nonchalance of her attitude would strike Miss Bunting, who however thought but poorly of it.
Oliver was in good spirits. The pain in his eyes which went and came regardless of times, seasons, weathers, food, spectacles or anything else, had elected to retire since Sunday and as usual he forgot that he had ever had it. The work at the office had been little but routine of late and in his many spare moments he had seen a great deal of Miss Harvey. He admitted to himself that since her coming the office had been far more amusing. Nice, hard-working and conscientious as the secretaries and typists were, he could not talk to them easily. Cinemas, the rationing of cosmetics, the disappearance of silk stockings, and new stitches for jumpers knitted with non-coupon wool appeared to be the limit of their conversational powers. They were quick, intelligent, obedient, ready to stay over-time whenever wanted, and Oliver marvelled, as many others have marvelled, at the gulf which was set between himself and his friends and what were at the present moment the actual pillars, if not the saviours of society. In Miss Harvey he found an assistant as quick, intelligent and obedient as the best and one with whom he could talk his own talk. If Miss Harvey pretended an interest in the seventeenth-century poets who were Oliver’s private passion, she was only doing her duty as a pleasant woman. Whether Oliver was entirely deceived by her interest we cannot say. To discuss The Worme of the Flesh and the Worme of the Spirit, that rare metaphysical poem of Thos. Bohun, Canon of Barchester from 1657 to 1665, when he rashly made a journey to London to observe the effect of the Plague upon human bodies and never returned, was a very pleasant way of filling in spare time at the office. On that very morning Oliver, looking up something in the Barchester Public Library, had been met by the excited librarian with a volume of Bohun’s collected works which had been found while sorting old books for salvage. How it had got into the salvage, he could not say, unless it had been by the zeal of his late woman assistant who had instituted a private drive to replace seventeenth- and eighteenth-century sermons by contemporary communist literature.
‘But I’m glad to say the ATS have got her,’ said the librarian, an enthusiast with a game leg left over from the last war. ‘She came to see us yesterday looking like a sodden ginger pudding. You can take the book, Marling, and keep it over the weekend. Then I’ll recatalogue it.’
Oliver rapidly examined the volume and saw with a leaping heart that at least two poems in it were unfamiliar to him. He put it in his pocket, finished his research, went to the office where he worked hard till four o’clock and then drove Miss Harvey out to Marling.
The conversation at tea was almost embarrassingly bilingual. The Marlings all spoke what may be called County Family French and considered it a proper act
of courtesy to use the language of their guest when addressing her. Miss Harvey, though she spoke quite well, had a natural disinclination to make any mistakes in front of her old governess who had a paralysing effect on her accent and syntax, so she kept to English, throwing in a few words of French from time to time. These she used when speaking to any of the Marlings. They on the other hand had a fine English self-consciousness about speaking in French to a compatriot and preferred to answer Miss Harvey in their native tongue. Mlle Duchaux, very much at her ease and very much determined that her audience should realise it, graciously spoke now the French of Touraine, which as all her pupils were sick of hearing was her native province, now a highly colloquial and idiomatic form of English which had the effect of making Oliver and Lucy nearly have the giggles. Miss Bunting alone kept her head. Knowing that she was perfect she simply continued to sit bolt upright at an awkward distance from the tea-table and uphold the character and language of an English gentlewoman.
‘Vous prenez du sucre, mademoiselle?’ said Mrs Marling pouring out tea.
Marling Hall Page 15