“Where, exactly?”
“One o’clock from the white farm,” says Mr. Elden. “Got it? A ragged sort of wood. Lovely for a single gun position. I’d bring it up overnight of course and then, first thing in the morning, let ’em have it over open sights. About two thousand, it looks to me, but that dead ground is a bit misleading. If you couldn’t get a position there,” continues Mr. Elden. “Let me see now . . . yes, it would be better to take it on as a pinpoint target; get your O.P. somewhere on that ridge and the guns about three thousand in the rear—then fifty or so rounds from a single gun at three-five hundred would do the trick nicely. There wouldn’t be much left of the castle, I can assure you.”
This reaction to the “ivied tower” is very much the same as Tim’s would be—allowing for the fact that Mr. Elden is a gunner and Tim an infantry officer—but Mr. Elden is not a professional soldier, so he has not Tim’s excuse. I point out to him that he is now a civilian and should react in a civilian manner, and admire the beauties of the mossy walls instead of battering them to pieces. He should fall into raptures over the view—so I tell him—the budding trees, the rushing stream and the moory hills, instead of using the landscape as a firing plan and the farms as his dial for locating gun emplacements.
Mr. Elden is slightly damped and says you can’t learn a new way of thought all in a minute.
After a bit we leave our outlook post and wander round. We avoid the stair, which looks rather dangerous, but we find a low archway in the wall leading to a narrow passage, dark and dank, with moss growing on the walls.
“A dungeon!” exclaims Mr. Elden bending his head and disappearing from view.
I follow him carefully and with reluctance, for to tell the truth dungeons do not attract me and I have a feeling that this one may be full of skeletons—or rats; but it is not a dungeon at all, it is the chief’s private passage to his terrace and in a few moments we are standing on the terrace in the blazing sunshine, all the more golden after the dank darkness of the tunnel through which we have come.
“Lovely!” I cry, flinging myself down on the grassy turf. “Absolutely heavenly! Warm and sunny and green . . . and so secluded! The chief was a lucky man, wasn’t he?”
Mr. Elden sits down beside me and lights a cigarette.
“Can’t you imagine the chief?” I continue. “Tall and burly with a golden beard—or was it red? He hunted all day, or led raiding expeditions and returned with hundreds of head of cattle, stolen from his English neighbours. He was fierce and bold, the terror of his enemies, but loyal to his friends. His wife adored him—she was tremendously proud of him, you know.”
Mr. Elden smiles and says it sounds a man’s life. He wouldn’t mind changing places with the chief—except for the red beard. Beards are too horrible for words.
We are silent after that, silent in a pleasant friendly way, enjoying the sunshine and admiring the view. Presently we discover that it is getting late so we return through the dark tunnel and take the road home.
MONDAY, 1ST APRIL
Feel very chirpy this morning, and trip down to breakfast to find Erica eating porridge in a business-like manner. As is usual at breakfast our table is screened from public view and I am now aware that the reason for this curious dispensation is that Erica cannot endure the sight of her guests so early in the day. She finds it difficult to endure the sight of them at any time of day, but at breakfast the sight of them is utterly unbearable.
I take my seat and unfold my table napkin and intimate that I intend to have a go at the store cupboard this afternoon unless my employer has any objection. Cook and I will do it together and make a list of everything.
“You and your lists!” says Erica dourly. “The store cupboard is well enough as it is, and anyway you can’t do it today because it’s the work-party.”
“Work-party!” I exclaim with rising inflection.
“We have it once a month,” says Erica. “We’ve had it all through the war and they still want the garments so we’ll go on having it.”
“Here?” I enquire.
“In the drawing room,” replies Erica. “A woman called Miss Frost comes in a car and brings the stuff. Some of the neighbours come, and nearly everybody staying here comes too—all the women, I mean.”
I make further enquiries and manage to elicit a little more information on the subject. Nobody seems to be much good at sewing, Erica declares, but I shall be able to help Miss Frost and show people how to put the things together. She adds that she never could set a stitch and doesn’t intend to start now, but she reads to them—it keeps them quiet.
The prospect of the work-party ruins my whole morning. I envisage myself setting seams, trying to fit pyjamas together and wrestling madly with shirt collars and cuffs.
After lunch Erica and I go up to the drawing room to rearrange the furniture; we push the chairs about and carry in a solid table for the sewing machine. Erica says suddenly that she hopes I’m liking it here.
Reply—quite truthfully—that I’m liking it very much. “You didn’t like it at first,” says Erica bluntly.
“You didn’t like me at first,” I retort—for I have discovered that the way to “take” Erica is to stand up to her boldly and give as good as you get.
“I thought you were wet,” says Erica frankly. “Let’s put these two chairs together near the window.”
“Wet!” I exclaim. “You trampled on me!”
“You lay down,” she returns. “I always trample on people if they lie down at my feet; what else can one do?”
“Help them up,” I suggest.
Erica pretends not to hear. She says, “We’d better put a table over here—a small one. The fact is I got a bit of a shock when I saw you standing on the platform. Grace had told me about you of course, but I didn’t realise you would be so young, or so good-looking. I don’t mean Grace told me you were old and ugly,” continues Erica, as she sets her shoulder to an enormous settee and moves it into place as if she were an elephant, trained in lumber work. “She didn’t of course. It was just the impression I got.”
“Quite.”
“And I knew you had a son of sixteen—or is it seventeen? No woman has the right to look young and pretty with a son of that age.”
“Rather sweeping,” I reply, with a chuckle. (Grace told me that Erica was old and fat and ugly but I don’t intend to reveal this, of course.)
“Not sweeping at all,” replies Erica. “And talking of sweeping I wonder how long it is since Hope swept under this sofa.”
“Six months,” I suggest, glancing at the accumulation of dust and fluff.
“I’m in despair about Hope,” declares Erica in such tragic accents that I can’t help laughing.
“You may laugh,” she says. “Spread the dust sheet, Hester. It’s death on the Hoover, all those cursed pins.”
“Why do you keep Hope?” I enquire, as I move a chair and smooth out the sheet.
“Keep Hope!” exclaims Erica. “My good woman, I’ve sacked Hope half a dozen times. She won’t go—nothing will make her go. What can I do when she crawls about on the floor and licks my shoes?”
“I don’t know, I’m sure.”
“This place would be a thousand times easier to run without Hope,” continues Erica. “She quarrels with everyone, she mopes and moans and complains about her food to Cook . . . I get quite desperate sometimes.”
“But couldn’t you—”
“The fact is Hope is fond of me,” says Erica in lugubrious accents. “Oh yes, I daresay it seems funny to you—evidently it does.”
“It isn’t that,” I gasp. “I mean it’s quite natural Hope should be fond of you—but you don’t seem pleased.”
“Natural! It isn’t natural. I can’t stand it. She’s got a—a crush for me,” declares Erica, standing four square in the middle of the room with her hands upon her hips. “A schwarmerei or whatever you call it—quite horrible in a woman of Hope’s age for a hag like me.”
“So that�
��s why she hates me!”
“Hates you, does she?”
“It’s rather alarming, really,” I add, taking up a cushion and arranging it on the sofa.
“That’ll do,” declares Erica. “Don’t fidge fadge with those damn cushions. What do you mean when you say alarming?”
“Nothing much. It always alarms me when people hate me.”
“You ought to cultivate toughness,” says Erica firmly.
At this moment, while I am still swithering whether or not to reveal Hope’s delinquencies in the matter of tepid hot-water bottles and such-like trifles, we are interrupted by Mrs. Ovens opening the door and looking in.
“Oh, there you are, Miss Clutterbuck!” she exclaims.
“As large as life and twice as natural,” agrees Erica in ponderous jest.
Mrs. Ovens giggles and says she just wanted to ask if she could have her room for another week.
Erica frowns and says this isn’t the office.
Mrs. Ovens says, Oh she knows that, but nobody was in the office, and she just thought dear Miss Clutterbuck wouldn’t mind her asking, and she wanted to see Mrs. Christie, too, and ask for another bath towel. “Two birds with one stone,” says Mrs. Ovens brightly.
“Hrrmph!” exclaims Erica, emitting smoke.
“I do so adore Tocher,” continues Mrs. Ovens in persuasive accents. “It’s so Scotch, isn’t it? So quaint. I just feel I can’t go away till I have captured the Scotch atmosphere and crystalized it.”
“Are you coming to the work-party?” enquires Erica abruptly.
“Oh—” says Mrs. Ovens doubtfully. “Oh, is it today? Oh yes—definitely,” says Mrs. Ovens who has suddenly made up her mind to propitiate Miss Clutterbuck with a living sacrifice and so retain her room. “Yes, of course I must come, though of course, as you know, I’m not very good at sewing. What are you going to read this month, Miss Clutterbuck?”
Miss Clutterbuck says she doesn’t know.
“A scene from Jane Austen,” suggests Mrs. Ovens. “Dear Jane, how I adore her! And it will be all right about my room, Miss Clutterbuck?” she adds in honeyed accents.
Miss Clutterbuck says she supposes so and with that Mrs. Ovens departs, leaving the little matter of another bath towel undecided.
“Well, you’re very quiet all of a sudden!” exclaims Erica. “What are you thinking about, hrrmph!”
“About that lady.”
“Nasty piece of work!”
“Erica,” I say in a lower voice. “There’s something odd going on between her and Mr. Wick. Perhaps I should have told you before, but—”
“‘Something odd!’” exclaims Erica fiercely. “What a way to talk! I hate mimsey-mouthed people—why can’t you call a spade a spade!”
I am so roused by the accusation of euphemism that I tell Erica in Elizabethan language exactly what I suspect.
Erica immediately retorts that she didn’t tell me to call it a blue-pencil shovel. She adds that if she had known before she wouldn’t have allowed Mrs. Ovens to stay on.
I then enquire sweetly whether her guests’ morals are Erica’s affair. Erica replies by telling me the sort of place she is not running. The conversation waxes more and more Elizabethan in tone and is unfit to record further.
Miss Frost arrives by car with a large hamper which is carried upstairs by Todd and the chauffeur and is evidently very heavy. When opened it is found to contain rolls of felt-like flannelette and an assortment of garments in various stages of completion. Erica is reasonably polite to Miss Frost (perhaps because the lady is not staying in the house nor paying for her food) and introduces her to me, saying that Miss Frost has been doing this valuable work for years, going all round the county and holding work-parties for the Red Cross.
“First for the Red Cross and now for U.N.R.R.A.,” says Miss Frost brightly (she calls it oonra, mouthing it as if it were a foreign word). “The great thing is to send the garments where they are needed most, Mrs. Christie. Nothing else matters at all. Miss Clutterbuck’s parties are always most successful so I hope we are going to have a full house today.”
Erica says she has told everybody to come; she doesn’t think they’ll dare not to. I feel sure she is right for her guests stand in such awe of her that they accede to her requests meekly. They are frightened of her—and no wonder; they don’t know how to take her; they are never sure whether her rudeness is meant to be amusing or not. One would think that her curt manner and the malevolence she exhibits towards her guests would drive them away and the place would be empty, but it doesn’t work like that. Lately I have begun to think that Miss Clutterbuck is actually a draw. People who have stayed at Tocher talk about her to their friends: “Quite a character,” they say. “Orders you about like a sergeant major—she won’t give you a room unless she likes the look of you—a most eccentric creature.” Whether because Miss Clutterbuck is a draw, or whether because Tocher is well-run and in apple-pie order the fact remains we could fill the house three times over with the greatest of ease. Most houses are shabby nowadays, but not Tocher. Somehow or other Erica has managed to keep it perfect. She loves her house and grudges neither time nor trouble where Tocher is concerned, and the money which pours in from her unwelcome guests, is immediately poured out again in improvements and repairs. The money earned by the house is spent upon it lavishly. In this way Erica strives to propitiate the shades of her ancestors.
Miss Frost looks round and asks for a cutting-out table, as large and solid as possible, and this is just being carried in when the ladies begin to assemble. Some are strangers, middle-aged or elderly, in well-cut tweeds, carrying chintz bags full of sewing materials. These are neighbours from the surrounding country houses; they greet Erica by her Christian name and chat about mutual friends. The hotel guests arrive either singly or in couples and choose their seats with care; some show preference for a window seat, explaining that there is a better light; others shun the windows as plague-stricken areas, murmuring the word “draught.” Amongst the latter is Mrs. Maloney who seems to spend most of her waking hours avoiding currents of air which she imagines have a baneful effect upon her rheumatism, her neuralgia and her catarrh.
There is a perceptible coolness between the two groups—Erica’s neighbours and Erica’s guests; they don’t mix at all. The neighbours obviously disapprove of the guests, disapprove of their abodement at Tocher House (I hear one murmur to another as they take their seats, “What a menagerie! How can Erica . . .”); while the guests, feeling themselves at home on their own ground, show marked antagonism to the interlopers. All this interests me considerably, but I have no time to study the ladies as I should like, for Miss Frost has already started to unpack the hamper.
“Mrs. Christie will help you,” says Erica, handing me over on a plate.
“How nice,” says Miss Frost. “Perhaps you will give out the work. Who would like to make a dear little frock?”
Nobody volunteers for the job but Miss Frost seems undismayed. She is an old hand at the game and is aware that parties such as this must be cajoled with flattery and managed with tact. She hands me a pile of cut-out garments and requests me to distribute them.
“We always have such a good party at Tocher,” says Miss Frost with a beguiling smile.
My task sounds easy, but it is less easy than it sounds, for the ladies are very modest and unsure of their skill.
“Oh, I couldn’t make a night-dress!” says one.
“Could I have something very easy?” pleads another.
“Miss Frost gave me a handkerchief to hem last time,” declares a third.
Mrs. Maloney holds up the leg of a pair of child’s knickers and exclaims, “What’s this? Is it a sleeve? Where is the rest of the nightdress?”
Fortunately there are some who seem more knowledgeable and accept what they are given and get to work without any fuss; amongst these is Margaret McQueen (who takes a boy’s shirt and seats herself in a corner) and a fattish woman with a red face who says she will make a p
yjama jacket if someone else will take the trousers. Also amongst these is the lady I met in Ryddelton standing in the fish queue, the lady in the grey tweed suit. She smiles at me in a friendly manner and asks how the dogsbody is getting on.
Miss Frost cuts out. She stands at the table in the middle of the room and wields an enormous pair of scissors in a reckless sort of way—quite alarmingly reckless to my way of thinking; crump, crump, go the scissors, flashing like silver in the rays of the sun—crump, crump, crump—crump—crump, crump . . .
I seem to have been assigned the thankless and most arduous task of overseeing the other members of the party, not by direct orders, but by unanimous impulsion. I would far rather take a piece of work and settle quietly in a corner like Margaret McQueen, I would rather wrestle with the pyjama trousers which have been refused by everyone in the room; but no, it is my task to go from one to another, to pin things together and try to make them fit. At first it is the guests only who bleat helplessly for “Mrs. Christie,” who hold up weird-shaped bits of material and ask which piece goes where, but the neighbours soon learn and bleat for me too.
“Oh, Mrs. Christie, would you mind . . . this is a cuff, isn’t it?”
“No, it’s the yoke. It’s a little frock, you see.”
“Mrs. Christie—please! Look at these sleeves! Both for the same arm, or doesn’t it matter?”
“Mrs. Christie, could you come here a moment? Oh, thank you so much . . . you see I’ve sewn that to that. It doesn’t look right, somehow.”
“No,” I agree. “No, it does look rather queer. As a matter of fact this is really the yoke—not the sleeve. At least I think so, don’t you? What a pity to have to unpick it—such neat stitches!”
I catch Erica’s eye after this tactful little speech and there is a twinkle in it.
The party is now in full swing, everyone is busy, and Mrs. Maloney lifts up her voice and enquires if Miss Clutterbuck is going to read.
“That would be nice,” declares Miss Frost, pausing with her scissors in the air.
Mrs. Tim Gets a Job Page 12