I realise that I have been staring and daydreaming, which is a bad habit of mine.
“You’re surprised,” she continues. “It is surprising that any man should want to marry me.”
I assure her that my thoughts were far otherwise.
“It surprises me,” she says.
“Don’t you—like him?” I ask her doubtfully, for it seems to me marriage would be the ideal solution of her problems.
She does not answer at once. She is busy poking a hole in the ground with her stick. “Oh yes,” she says at last. “Yes, I like him. Nobody could help liking him; he’s a splendid person, but—but I don’t really want to marry him nor anyone. I want to be left in peace.”
“You need a rest.”
“Yes, but I can’t rest . . . and there’s the question of money. I ought to be looking about for a job. I should never have come here, of course, but I had to go somewhere—and now I’m too tired to move on. Tired,” says Miss McQueen in a flat voice. “Not physically tired—I can walk miles.”
“Nervously tired.”
“The elastic has gone out of me. The spring has run down or something. Did you see the hares?”
“Yes, they were full of life, weren’t they?”
“Full of life,” says Miss McQueen wearily. “It made me tired to look at them—and of course it should have had the reverse effect. . . . I’m all wrong, you see. I’m all tangled up and I can’t get straightened out . . . if I could sleep it might help. It’s silly not to be able to sleep, because there’s no need to worry—there’s no sense in worrying, it only makes things worse—and I shan’t starve. I’ll get some sort of job—something—but I don’t want a job. I’m used up, you see. There’s nothing left, no goodness left in me, no warmth or life . . . that’s why it wouldn’t be fair to him. Oh, what a fool I was!” says Miss McQueen, beating her hand gently on the turf. “Oh, what a fool! I was caught, you see. I went at the very beginning of the war to stay with her for a fortnight and she got a bad chill so I stayed on and looked after her—and then the maid was called up—and I stayed on. How could I walk out and leave her? How could I? She couldn’t possibly do everything herself. I might have nursed soldiers—I had been all through my V.A.D. training—I might have gone abroad and nursed soldiers and done some good in the war; but I was caught. They exempted me of course—well, of course they had to—I was caught.” She is silent for a few moments and then adds, “I wish I knew what to do.”
“Give yourself time,” I tell her.
“I can’t,” she declares. “I can’t just leave everything and rest because I can’t rest until it’s settled—besides it isn’t fair to him. I must decide now—and I have decided, really, but he keeps on writing.”
“Were you engaged?”
“Yes,” says Miss McQueen. “Yes, but now—oh, how can I explain! If I married him now it would be because I don’t want to work, and he’s too good for that.”
“If you had been independent—” I begin, because it seems to me that this is the whole trouble.
She catches me up at once. “Oh yes,” she says. “If I had been independent I could have married him without feeling that I was marrying him for a home, for safety, for security. It would have been quite different, then.” She hesitates and then continues in a lower tone, “Besides how do I know that he will want to marry a penniless woman?”
“You should explain—”
“No,” she says. “No, I couldn’t. He would marry me of course—he would be more determined to marry me, not less, if he knew my present circumstances—but I don’t want him to marry me because he is sorry for me. It would be unbearable.”
“I don’t think you’re being fair to him,” I tell her.
“It wouldn’t be fair to saddle him with a useless wife.” She lies back against the rock. “It goes round and round,” she says in an exhausted voice. “I get no further—and I can’t sleep. I keep on telling myself there’s no need to worry. I could serve in a shop, couldn’t I?”
“Why a shop?”
“Why not? It would be mechanical sort of work and that’s the only sort of work I could bear. I couldn’t look after anybody—all that part of me is used up, the part of me that fills hot-water bottles and shakes up pillows and measures out medicine.”
“Couldn’t you look after a child?”
She shakes her head.
“You don’t like children?”
“I do like them,” she replies. “They interest me tremendously, but it wouldn’t be fair to the child. Children need an interesting person, and I’m not interesting any more. I’m not . . . anything.”
“It will come back when you’ve rested,” I tell her.
She sits up suddenly, pulling herself together. “Heaven knows why I’m boring you like this!” she exclaims.
“You aren’t boring me.”
“Nonsense. You must be bored stiff. If a strange woman started to tell me the history of her life I should scream—and go on screaming.” She rises and dusts her skirt. “Don’t talk about it,” she adds.
“Of course not—unless you want to . . .”
“I shan’t want to—ever,” says Miss McQueen firmly. I watch her go down the steep slope and turn the corner of the hill.
SATURDAY, 16TH MARCH
Am very busy writing letters in the office when there is a knock on the door and Mrs. Wilbur Potting comes in. Since our talk I have avoided Mrs. Wilbur, partly because I am ashamed of having let myself go and partly because I was not sure of Mrs. Wilbur’s feelings on the subject. Mrs. Wilbur asks if I am too busy to talk to her and without waiting for a reply she sits down in Miss Clutterbuck’s chair and crosses her long silken legs. Have I thought over her suggestion that I should come back to the States with her, she enquires.
I reply that I thought she might have changed her mind.
Mrs. Wilbur says on the contrary she wants me more than ever, she likes people with definite ideas and admires people who express their ideas in forceful language. As to my ideas, says Mrs. Wilbur, she has been thinking over what I said and it’s all very very interesting. She doesn’t see how she could use it in her lecture upon The Spirit of English Womanhood, as it is too iconoclastic, but Marley thinks I might give a few lectures myself.
I assure her that I am incapable of lecturing.
Just drawing-room lectures, says Mrs. Wilbur. She seems quite certain that I could accomplish the feat without difficulty and I must admit that after the exhibition in the lounge she has some justification for her belief.
“No—honestly I couldn’t. It’s impossible!” I cry.
Mrs. Wilbur smiles and beseeches me not to get up in the air. I shall do exactly as I like about that. She is so charming and so pretty, and I am so glad she is not annoyed with me that I feel tempted to accept her offer straight off and go to America with her, but of course I know that this is just my “headlong impulsiveness” which Tim so often deplores, and that if I don’t pull myself together and behave like a sensible woman I shall regret it. So I pull myself together and explain that I can’t go to America, much as I should like to do so.
Mrs. Wilbur says Miss Clutterbuck can be compensated for the loss of my services, she herself will talk to Miss Clutterbuck and she guarantees to make her see sense.
Explain that it isn’t so much Miss Clutterbuck as my family. The children are coming here for their holidays, so—
Mrs. Wilbur claps her hands and declares that she just loves children and of course they must come too—all of them. Wilbur will arrange passages on the boat, he’s good at that sort of thing.
This manifestation of American hospitality almost takes my breath away, for it is obvious that Mrs. Wilbur is perfectly serious, and is willing, nay eager, to welcome a comparatively strange Englishwoman and an indefinite number of completely unknown children to her home. While I am still speechless for lack of breath Mrs. Wilbur is sitting bolt upright, and with shining eyes is enumerating the delights in store for her guests, deligh
ts unobtainable in a land ravaged by total war. Their meals will consist of fried chicken and ice cream and they will eat candy all day long. . . .
She is so kind that it is difficult to refuse without seeming ungracious, but I do my best, and being sensible as well as kind she realizes quite soon that I mean what I say and accepts the inevitable. Before she goes she gives me her card and says that if I change my mind about it I am to write straight off and let her know and Wilbur will arrange everything.
Mrs. Wilbur has no sooner gone than Miss Clutterbuck comes in and says what did that Mrs. Potting want? If she wants to stay on longer she can’t because the rooms are let from the sixth of April.
“She wanted me,” I reply in casual tones.
“She wanted you!”
“To go to America with her.”
“I suppose she offered you three times the salary!” says Miss Clutterbuck in disgust.
This surprises me, and I ask quite innocently how Miss Clutterbuck knew.
“Three times!” exclaims Miss Clutterbuck, looking at me in such evident amazement that I realize she did not know, but was only speaking in a metaphorical way.
“Well—yes,” I reply. “But of course it’s different in America—and I can’t go, anyhow, so what does it matter!”
“She thinks you’re underpaid, and so you are,” replies Miss Clutterbuck. “You won’t believe this, of course, but I had made up my mind to give you more.”
“I didn’t mean to—”
“I know that. It’s not difficult to see through you,” says Miss Clutterbuck grimly. “I’ve told you already that I had made up my mind to pay you a decent salary before I heard a word about that American business.”
“You’re giving me enough, really. I mean—”
“Don’t be a fool. You’re a great deal more capable than you look,” says the amazing woman. She goes away after that and leaves me pondering over her words and wondering what exactly she meant by this backhanded compliment.
SUNDAY, 17TH MARCH
There is snow, today. Not very much, of course, but enough to make the little world of Tocher a fairyland. The lawns sparkle in the sunshine, every branch of every tree is outlined in white. Mrs. Everard’s children have run out into the garden and are snowballing each other, shouting with glee . . . the scene resembles an old-fashioned Christmas card.
Miss Clutterbuck offers me the morning off and says I can take the car and go to church at Ryddelton if I want to. I decide to accept the offer and, dressed in my best clothes, sally forth to the garage. The car looks at me in a malevolent fashion as I go in (perhaps this is my fancy, or perhaps it is the effect of the crooked head lamps which gives it the appearance of possessing such a disagreeable squint). Summoning up my courage I take my seat and press the self-starter—nothing happens. I try the starting handle without result.
Todd now appears and says she ought to start quite easily because the battery has been pepped up and he cleaned the plugs yesterday. He’ll have a go at her.
He has at least a dozen goes at her but she does not respond.
“I doubt it’ll be the mag. again,” says Todd frowning. “It’ll take the best part of an hour to sort her . . .”
“Don’t bother,” I tell him quickly, for Todd (like myself) is attired in Sunday garments and obviously means to attend Divine Worship at the Tocher village church.
“Well . . .” says Todd, weighing the matter carefully. “Maybe I’d best leave it till the afternoon. You’ll not get to church, anyway, for it wouldn’t be done in time and I’d like fine to be at the kirk this morning. It’s my second cousin’s brother-in-law that’s preaching.”
“Then of course you must go!” I exclaim.
“M’ph’m,” says Todd. “It’s a pity, but it can’t be helped.” He hesitates and then adds, “I’ll need to be here this afternoon, anyway. Maybe Miss Clutterbuck will have told you the Countess of Ayr is coming.”
“To Tocher!” I exclaim.
“It’s about the turn into the main road,” says Todd, and with these cryptic words he wheels out his motor-bike and vanishes down the drive.
I hurry back to the house. It seems odd that Miss Clutterbuck has not warned me of the Countess’s visit. Will she be here for tea, I wonder—surely I would have been told if she intended to stay the night!
Miss Clutterbuck is in the hall when I return. I explain about the car and add that it is just as well I have not gone to Ryddelton as I had better see cook about special cakes for tea.
“What’s up?” enquires Miss Clutterbuck.
“Todd said the Countess of Ayr is coming, so—”
“Special cakes for the Countess of Ayr!” exclaims Miss Clutterbuck in obvious amazement.
It is obvious I have made a faux pas. I murmur something feeble and run upstairs to change.
By the afternoon the remains of the snow has vanished and the sun is quite warm. I seat myself near the window in the lounge, from whence I hope to have a good view of our distinguished visitor’s arrival; but—alas for my plans—I have no sooner taken up my position than Curry comes in and says Miss Clutterbuck wants me in the office. I glance down the drive again, but no car is in sight, so I am forced to relinquish my post and obey my employer’s summons.
Miss Clutterbuck is in conclave with a burly gentleman in tweeds who rises politely as I enter and is introduced as Mr. Denham.
“Mr. Denham is a very busy man,” explains Miss Clutterbuck.
“No busier than yourself, I’m sure,” replies Mr. Denham gallantly. “And never too busy to come over to Tocher House—if I may say so.”
This sort of talk gets nowhere with Miss Clutterbuck. “Well, that’s all, isn’t it?” she says, gathering a sheaf of papers together and stuffing them into a drawer.
Mr. Denham takes the hint. “That’s all,” he agrees. “I’ll see what can be done about the corner. It ought to be better marked, anyway.”
“Mrs. Christie will give you some tea,” says Miss Clutterbuck in final tones.
I realize at once that this is the reason I have been sent for and remove Mr. Denham forthwith. We descend to the lounge and order tea—fortunately I am able to procure the table near the window. Mr. Denham is slightly heavy on hand and conversation is difficult . . . I remark that we are expecting the Countess of Ayr to arrive this afternoon.
“That’s me,” says Mr. Denham, helping himself to a bun.
“That’s you!” I exclaim in amazement.
Mr. Denham nods. “Yes, I’m the County Surveyor, Mrs. Christie. Of course you wouldn’t know—Miss Clutterbuck didn’t mention it, did she? You may think it a bit queer that I should come over on a Sunday to see that corner she’s complaining about—I can see you’re a bit surprised.”
“Just a little,” I murmur.
“I’m a busy man,” he explains. “Miss Clutterbuck said I was busy and she was right. The fact is I happened to be in this part of the County so I fitted it in. You see how it was?”
“Yes, of course,” I reply in feeble accents. “Yes, of course—why not? I might have known—”
“You couldn’t know,” he declares. “You’re new here, aren’t you?”
“Quite new,” I agree fervently.
Mr. Denham smiles at me. “Well, anyway, there’s no harm done, Mrs. Christie.”
“No harm done,” I agree, more fervently than before . . . and I heave a sigh of profound relief as I realize that nobody—except myself—knows what an idiot I have been.
WEDNESDAY, 20TH MARCH
The days pass very quickly at Tocher House. I have found my proper place in the ménage and have settled into it comfortably. Hope is still extremely difficult, but she is now the only pea in my mattress for my ideas about my employer have suffered a sea change. I like her now; in fact I like her quite a lot. She even looks different to my eyes, which seems odd when I have time to consider the matter. Obviously Miss Clutterbuck can’t have altered “all that much” in the short time I have been at Tocher. S
he can’t have altered at all! Nearly fifty years have passed over her head and for twenty of them she must have looked much the same as she does now. Let me try to describe her: tall, strongly built with square shoulders and a short thick neck, sturdy legs, but nice feet; square face, somewhat weather-beaten, grey eyes and short hair; large mouth, firm chin and excellent teeth—rather a deep voice. The woman has a curious flavour, all her own. She has rigid ideas and lays down the law with authority, but I have found she has a soft core beneath the hard, rough shell. One of her rigid ideas is upon the subject of sweated labour, and nobody in her house is allowed to work more than seven hours a day. It is amusing to hear Miss Clutterbuck “telling off” Todd for working after hours. She rates at him ferociously for this egregious fault while he stands before her, slightly sheepish but obviously enjoying the joke. I, also, have been in trouble for this offence and have decided I must not be found out committing it again.
It is difficult for me, of course, for my work is not a set routine. Some days are busier than others and there are certain jobs which must be done after hours. There is the linen room for instance. I have now banished Hope from the linen room but the muddle has never been straightened out and I realize that the only way to straighten it is to take everything off the shelves and make a list. This is a gargantuan task and it has been on my mind for days—I quail when I think of it. The linen room is a small square room with a skylight window; there are shelves and cupboards all round from floor to ceiling; two large wooden boxes full of extra blankets stand in the middle of the floor. It will be impossible to take out all the linen and sort it into piles unless I can use the landing, and I cannot use the landing during the day. I must do it at night, that’s all. I must wait until everybody—including Miss Dove—has gone to bed and quiet has descended upon Tocher House.
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