Miss Buncle's Book

by D. E. Stevenson

  These desperate reflections were cut short by the appearance of a young woman gowned in black with a supercilious expression who offered Barbara a gilt chair and inquired what she could do for “Moddam.” Barbara was too terrified to speak; she merely handed over the letter from Sally and awaited the result.

  “Oh I see,” said the young woman in patronizing tones. “A letter for Moddam. Kindly wait for a few moments until I find out if she is disengaged.”

  Barbara had not long to wait. She only just had time to seize her hat with both hands and pull it down onto her hair before Virginia herself appeared with Sally’s letter in her hand. She was rather like Sally, Barbara thought, only taller, and dark instead of fair.

  “How nice of Sally to send you to me,” she said in a friendly manner. “Do come in here, won’t you?”

  Barbara was quite ready to go anywhere. She found herself being ushered into a large room at the back of the shop—a large square room hung with coats and hats and frocks of every shape and hue.

  “Now we can talk,” said Virginia. “Tell me all about Sally. She says she’s miserable. Is she?”

  “She says she is,” said Barbara, blinking a little. “But I really don’t think she is very.”

  “Because if she is, something will have to be done about it,” said Virginia firmly. “We can’t have Sally being miserable, you know. I wanted her to come in with me when Colonel Carter went to India without her, but the doctor said she would be better in the country.”

  “Milk and sunshine,” suggested Barbara.

  “Yes, that was the idea,” replied Virginia. “But milk and sunshine are no good if you’re miserable. You must let me know if you think she’d be better here. You live near her, don’t you?”

  “Next door,” Barbara said.

  “Sally’s a dear, isn’t she?”

  They discussed Sally for several minutes.

  “And now,” said Virginia at last, “you want some things, don’t you? Sally says I’m to choose for you. Take off your hat.”

  Barbara removed it thankfully; once more it had slid up and was perched on the top of her head.

  Virginia stared at her with narrowed eyes. “Bottle green with your nice complexion,” she decided, “or that new shade of wine—let’s see—” and she dived into various cupboards.

  They spent three crowded hours together in the large square room. Virginia was most exacting; she flung dresses on to Barbara and tore them off again. “It’s not your style at all,” she told Barbara when the latter expressed a preference for a brown crêpe-de-chine with a straight bodice and flared skirt. “Sally would kill me if I let you have it. Just wait a moment till I find what I am looking for,” and she burrowed into the cupboard again.

  Barbara tried on coats and jumpers and frocks and hats until her newly waved hair was like a wind-blown haystack.

  “I’m so sorry about your hair,” Virginia said. “It’s awful of me to rumple you up like this, but we must get the right thing. You must wet it and set it in waves when you go to bed—I’ll give you a net.”

  When at last Barbara emerged from the shop she felt somewhat dizzy, and tremendously excited—she had never known until now that clothes could be exciting. There were a few alterations to be made, but Virginia had promised to send off the things on Thursday. She would get them on Friday morning. Barbara had spent nearly fifty pounds but she had got her money’s worth and she knew it. There was a bottle-green coat with a fur collar and a hat to match, and a jumper suit to go with it; and there were two “little frocks” and an evening gown—and there were slips and stockings and shoes to match.

  Chapter Fifteen

  More about Monday

  Barbara little knew that, while she was enjoying herself in London and buying a complete set of new clothes under the expert advice of Virginia, Disturber of the Peace was having a busy day in Silverstream, but such indeed was the case. It was spreading rapidly, like the desperate disease to which Miss King had compared it. Mrs. Featherstone Hogg was its most valuable publicity agent; she went round in her car distributing invitations to her drawing-room meeting and copies of Disturber of the Peace to all those who had not read it. She did not realize that John Smith obtained royalties upon every copy of this book that was sold, or she would have confined her expenditure upon the book to narrower limits. It would have distressed her exceedingly to think that she was putting money into the pocket of the detestable John Smith.

  Mrs. Featherstone Hogg’s drawing-room meeting was to be representative. It was not to be confined to any one class of person. She would throw open her drawing-room to everyone in Silverstream who was mentioned in Disturber of the Peace—it was a noble gesture.

  She asked Mrs. Goldsmith, and one of her daughters, and she asked Mrs. Dick and two of her paying guests, and she asked the military people who were merely mentioned in passing. She even asked the old gravedigger from St. Monica’s who had been terrified (so said Disturber of the Peace) by the sight of Mrs. Nevis (or Snowdon) arising from her grave to attend the dinner party given by her family. Unfortunately Mr. Durnet was frightfully hard of hearing, and they could not make him understand what it was all about, but his daughter promised to have him all ready and send him up to The Riggs on Thursday at three-thirty.

  The Snowdons had received their invitation on Sunday and had spent Sunday evening reading Disturber of the Peace. Nobody knows what they said about it in the privacy of their home—they said very little outside—but Miss Isabella, who was of a nervous temperament, awoke screaming in the middle of the night and declared—when her adoring relatives appeared in her bedroom in deshabille—that her mother had come back from the dead.

  “That’s impossible, Isabella,” said Mr. Snowdon with unwonted sternness.

  “It may be impossible but it is true all the same,” said Isabella tearfully. “She was standing there at the end of my bed, just where you are standing. And she called me ‘Izzy.’ You know how I hated it when she called me Izzy.”

  The cook had now appeared upon the scene with her hair in curl-papers and her eyes starting out of her head.

  “It’s gallstones, that’s what it is,” she announced, “my married sister was taken just the same and she had four. They gave them to her at the hospital in a bag.”

  It was some time before Miss Olivia could persuade her that Miss Isabella was in no pain, and induce her to return to bed. Meanwhile Mr. Snowdon was endeavoring, without much success, to soothe his younger daughter, by assuring her that she had been the victim of a nightmare.

  “But I saw her distinctly,” Isabella declared, “I was awake at the time. I know I was.”

  “You couldn’t have been.”

  “I was, I was,” cried Isabella hysterically.

  Peace was ultimately restored by the administration of two aspirin tablets, and Mr. Snowdon and Olivia covered the sufferer with her disarranged bedclothes and tiptoed softly from the room. They discussed the whole matter in whispers on the landing. Olivia thought that Dr. Walker should be summoned, but her father disagreed. It was inadvisable to reveal family secrets to outsiders if it could be avoided. They must think of other means of shaking off the specter that had disturbed dear Isabella’s rest.

  “What other means?” demanded Olivia, in an urgent whisper. “You know how sensitive the poor darling is. Once she gets an idea like that into her head—”

  Mr. Snowdon shivered—not entirely because he was cold—he was remembering other occasions when ideas became fixed in dear Isabella’s head and produced nightmares. He felt he was too old now to go through all that sort of thing again. When you grew older you required refreshing sleep during the night if you were to be any use at your office during the day.

  “What about Chemical Food?” he suggested.

  Olivia was afraid that Chemical Food would be inadequate.

 
Mr. Snowdon sighed and agreed that Olivia might be right, they must think of something else.

  They went back to bed.

  ***

  Mrs. Greensleeves was another to whom Disturber of the Peace brought unrest. She met Mrs. Featherstone Hogg in the butcher’s on Monday morning.

  “I was just coming to see you,” said Mrs. Featherstone Hogg, with unwonted friendliness—hitherto she had treated Vivian with contempt and had scarcely deigned to see her when they met—“I want you to come to my drawing-room meeting on Thursday afternoon. You will come, won’t you?”

  “What’s it about?” asked Vivian suspiciously. “Is it Foreign Missions or something?”

  “It’s about Disturber of the Peace,” replied Mrs. Featherstone Hogg.

  “Disturber of the Peace,” echoed Vivian, “what on earth is that?”

  Mrs. Featherstone Hogg was amazed. “Do you mean to say you haven’t read that dreadful book?” she demanded incredulously. “I thought everyone knew about it. You must read it at once; it’s the wickedest book that has ever been written.”

  She had no time to say anymore, for she was late for lunch already, but she had said quite enough to arouse Vivian’s interest to the boiling point. Vivian went into Miss Renton’s there and then, and bought a copy of the book to take home with her. Miss Renton was doing a tremendous trade in John Smith’s novel. She had had to order a special consignment of copies from London and even these were nearly exhausted. Everybody in Silverstream wanted to read Disturber of the Peace, and everybody wanted to read it at once. The library copy was booked for weeks ahead by those who were poor or too thrifty to pay seven and sixpence for a copy of their own.

  Vivian put the copy of Disturber of the Peace under her arm and walked home quickly. It had started to rain again—she put up her umbrella and nearly bumped into Dr. Walker, who was hastening home also.

  “Isn’t this weather awful?” Vivian said crossly.

  Dr. Walker agreed with her. His car was being decarbonized and he had had a busy morning. The afternoon would probably be worse. People usually chose the moment when the doctor’s car was out of action to hack their fingers to the bone, or scald their children with boiling tea, or fall downstairs. He had no time to stop and talk with Mrs. Greensleeves.

  Vivian thought the doctor was curt. She went home in the rain with her book and started to read it with avidity. (“The wickedest book that has ever been written” was sufficient recommendation to whet the appetite of the most jaded novel-reader.) At first it seemed quite an innocent sort of book, but after a little she recognized its peculiarity, and when she was half way through she recognized the libelous portrait of herself. She was so enraged by the impudence of the thing that she hurled the book across the room. “No wonder Mrs. Featherstone Hogg said it was wicked,” she announced fiercely. And then of course she had to get up and fish it out from under the piano and finish it, and the end was a hundred times more wicked than the beginning.

  Vivian flew into the most fearful rage. She stormed about all over the house like a lunatic—even Milly Spikes, who was no stranger to her mistress’s temper, was alarmed by the violence of her rage and retired to the scullery in company with the cat until it should have spent itself somewhat—

  The idea of this man (who was he? John Smith) writing about her private affairs in a horrible twopenny-halfpenny novel! And writing about her private affairs in such a way too! As if she—Vivian—would have anything to do with that horrible man who lodged with Mrs. Dick as a paying guest. She had been kind to him, of course, at one time, when she was bored to tears by the dullness of Silverstream—you must have somebody to talk to, and Mr. Fortnum was the best that Silverstream could provide. But she had soon found out that nothing was to be gained from Mr. Fortnum’s friendship—he had sold his car for one thing so he couldn’t even take her for an occasional run—and she had choked him off fairly easily. So it was all the more maddening to have the whole affair raked up like this. Supposing Ernest read the book and recognized the portrait? He was coming along so nicely now; Vivian thought her financial troubles were practically settled.

  Oh how maddening it all was! How utterly maddening! How dare that horrible man write such lies about her—such disgusting lies!

  Vivian wept tears of sheer rage.

  It was in the midst of this storm that Ernest Hathaway walked in, heralded by Milly. Vivian had quite forgotten that she had asked him to supper.

  The sight of Ernest pulled Vivian together as nothing else could have done. She hid the book under a convenient cushion and looked up at him with dewy eyes.

  “Oh, Ernest, I’m so miserable,” she sobbed, changing the tears of rage to tears of woe at a moment’s notice.

  Ernest was aghast to find his beautiful penitent in tears. He sat down on the sofa and tried to comfort her and soon she was weeping softly in his arms. She continued to weep for several minutes while she tried to find some plausible and pathetic story to account for her tears. Then she stopped weeping and told it to him.

  She was lonely, she said, terribly lonely and somebody had been unkind to her because she had nobody to protect her. It was a much longer story than that of course and complicated by sobs, and assurances that she was not going to burden Ernest with her small troubles, but that was the gist of it. The person who had been unkind to her dwelt in London. She would not reveal his name under any persuasion whatever; it was her own fault for not seeing that he was a horrid sort of man from the very beginning—

  Ernest listened and sympathized and eventually when Vivian had almost given up hope, he asked her to marry him.

  ***

  We must now return to Dr. Walker, who had nearly collided with Vivian Greensleeves in the High Street. It will be remembered that he was hastening home to lunch after a busy morning. He was frightfully late for lunch, of course, and Sarah had had hers, and gone out, but she had left a message for Dr. John on the telephone block. Sometimes these messages left by Sarah for her husband’s perusal were slightly unofficial, but they were always perfectly clear. She did not allow her sense of humor to interfere with business; she only used it as a sauce to make the boiled fish more interesting—so to speak. Sarah loved a joke. Why not indulge herself since it did nobody any harm and did John good? John took life so awfully seriously, it was good for him to be shaken up a little now and then. Today she had written, “Please go and look at Angela’s Pretty chest.”

  Dr. John smiled as he tore off the leaf and put it carefully away in his notebook. He kept every letter and every scrap of paper that Sarah had ever written to him. He was—he knew it himself—quite foolishly sentimental about Sarah. When he had put the leaflet safely away his brow clouded over, and he slipped his stethoscope into his pocket and went in next door.

  Angela’s chest lay heavily upon the doctor’s mind. There was nothing definite about it (it was one of those doubtful borderline cases which are really more anxiety to their medical man than a definite disease. Last year he had had a specialist down from town to look at Angela, and Angela had been ill for a week with sheer fright, and the specialist had said, “There’s nothing definite, nothing at all yet, but keep an eye on her.” So helpful after all the fuss; and every cold that Angela took, settled firmly on her chest).

  Today Dr. John was full of jokes with Angela. He pretended to upset the tumbler and caught it in the air, and he teased her about her new bed-jacket, and told her all about the latest mischief perpetrated by the twins. He was so cheerful that he left Angela feeling much better, and much happier about herself; feeling, indeed, that it had been quite an unnecessary expense to send for him at all.

  But as he went downstairs, the clouds gathered once more upon the doctor’s brow, and he went into the drawing-room, where Ellen King was writing, and shut the door behind him.

  “Well, John?” she said, rather breathlessly.

 
“I don’t like these continual colds,” he said. “I don’t like them, Ellen.”

  These two were old friends. They had always lived next door to each other (for Dr. John’s father had been Silverstream’s doctor before Dr. John was born). Ellen and John had played together as children, and together had climbed every climbable tree in the two adjoining gardens. Dr. John had a great respect for Ellen King, and a great compassion; she was such a lonely sort of creature and ridden by a curious temperament. Her excellent brain had never been developed and turned to use. Ellen would have made a good doctor or lawyer (the stuff was there), but her father had abhorred clever women and had denied her the opportunity of a decent education.

  “What do you mean, exactly?” she asked him anxiously.

  “I don’t mean anything very much,” Dr. John told her. “In fact I mean exactly what I say—I don’t like these continual colds that Angela gets. Could you possibly go away?”

  “Go away? You mean to Bournemouth or somewhere?”

  “Bournemouth? No. I mean to Egypt. It is warm and dry there. Just for the rest of the winter, of course.”

  “I suppose we could if it is necessary—I mean of course we could if it is necessary,” she amended in sudden alarm.

  “I wouldn’t like to say it is necessary, but it is advisable,” he replied, choosing his words carefully.

  Miss King knew that he was wondering whether they could afford it, and she answered him as if he had put the question.

  “We have got a little, put away for a rainy day,” she said, smiling a trifle wanly.

  “It’s raining all right,” he replied pointing to the window.

  “But not very hard?” she asked him.

  “No,” he said. “Just a shower, Ellen, just a shower. But we want to get Angela off to some place where she will get sunshine and dry air to breathe. Wait and go after the New Year. I’ll look in tomorrow when you’ve thought it over, and we can arrange the whole thing.”