Miss Bunting

by Angela Thirkell

  ‘What’s it about?’ said Anne to the milk girl, who had been there on her half-day off.

  ‘I didn’t really follow,’ said the milk girl. ‘Something about we’re all heroes at home same as the boys at the front. Silly, that is. But Glamora Tudor’s reely, well I can’t seem to put it into words. And the dresses she has. It’s all in Glorious Technicolour, miss, and there’s a close-up of her when she’s working in a factory in a mauve bath suit and ticks off the foreman that tried to make the girls go slow because he’s a German spy. We all hissed him like anything. And then the hero, that’s the RAF sergeant only he’s a gentleman, comes back and thinks Glamora Tudor’s been false to him with – well I can’t exactly explain,’ said the milk girl hurriedly, seeing in Greta Tory’s eye that Anne’s want of sophistication was to be respected, ‘but anyway she sings, “What has my past to do with love?” and all the girls join in and all the machinery seems to work by itself like and join in the chorus and the foreman comes in with a bag in disguise and they think it’s a bomb, but he’s really the English Secret Agent that was pretending to be a German spy so no one’d know he was a Secret Service man and he has a big Union Jack in the bag and Glamora and the RAF sergeant sit on it and all the girls get out of their overalls and they’re reely wearing red brassieres and white knickers and blue shoes and they lift the Union Jack in the air with Glamora and her young man sitting on it and then it all fades out into a photo of the King and Queen. I can’t explain, but it seems to get you somehow.’

  ‘Why’s it called In Glorious Hampton?’ said Ernie.

  ‘I d’no,’ said Greta. ‘Isn’t there an aeroplane called Hampton or something?’

  Before Anne could express her admiration of the film, there was a knock at the back door.

  ‘Oh, it must be the newspapers,’ said Anne.

  ‘Don’t you go, miss,’ said Greta Tory, ‘it’s that Leslie, the stationmaster’s nephew. I saw him go past the window. The army’s where he ought to be. Here Ernie, you run and get them, there’s a duck.’

  Ernie opened the back door, shut it again and was back in an instant with the newspapers. A very nice sense of what was due to the gentry prevented Anne’s guests from opening them, but as all but one had their headlines across the front page, their self-control was not severely tested. The headlines, as usual, were almost too large to read and far from truthful. The Times, which but rarely has any item of news on its front page, had been so far moved by the epoch-making events of a world war as to announce to its subscribers at the top right-hand corner in large type: ‘Peace Ballot in Guatemala.’

  ‘I think it’s a shame,’ said Greta, who had been studying one of the lesser sheets without the law, ‘old Winnie having to go about like that. He’s ever so much older than the others. Old Roosevelt’s got a bad leg or something so they say, but Joe Stalin’s got all his arms and legs, lazy old blighter.’

  Ernie at once took up what he knew to be a deliberate attack on our Red Comrades, but before more than a few words had passed, a slight noise was heard; and looking round the whole party froze to respectful silence at the sight of Miss Bunting in a quilted silk dressing-gown, her head covered by a neat little lace bonnet. So powerful was the effect of Miss Bunting’s presence that the whole party got up and stood to attention.

  ‘Oh, Miss Bunting,’ said Anne. ‘The bell kept on ringing and no one was up, so I came down. This is Greta Tory who brought the post and this is Ernie Freeman that does the bread round and this is Effie Bunce that works for Masters’s dairy farm. She used to be with Miss Pemberton at Northbridge.’

  Miss Bunting took her pince-nez from a pocket, put them on, and looked searchingly at the intruders. Most willingly would they have bowed, scraped, curtsied, made a leg, bobbed, tugged a forelock; but civilization in its backward progress has eliminated all these forms of respect to age or position as uneducated, undemocratic and shameful. So they all went red in the face and looked up, down, around; anywhere but at the newcomer.

  ‘You all seem to be having tea,’ said Miss Bunting. ‘Can you give me a cup, Anne? You may all sit down.’

  The guests sat down vehemently, so much overawed by Miss Bunting’s calm and regal manner that they did not even try to giggle.

  ‘Very many happy returns of the day, Anne dear,’ said Miss Bunting. ‘And now,’ she continued, to the rest of her audience, ‘you will want to be going.’

  Glad to be dismissed from an awkward position, Greta, Ernie and Effie pushed their chairs back. The kitchen door opened again and Gradka appeared.

  ‘You will wish to know why I am late,’ she exclaimed, ‘I am very sorry, Miss Bunting. I have been listening at midnight to the European news and there I hear a voice from Mixo-Lydia. Oh! how I rejoice to hear again that holy language. And such good news as makes me leap with joy. I shall tell you oll that Mixo-Lydia has burned the Town Hall of Slavo-Lydia’s chief town with fifty people inside it. It was a great meeting for Anti-Mixo-Lydia and oll the head inhabitants were there. But could they treek Mixo-Lydia? This hero-land sends her brave sons. They steal petrol from a garage which is in Slavo-Lydia, they put the petrol in the Town Hall, they seize the Town Fool the idiot which is ollways in every town in Mixo and Slavo-Lydia, they say to him “Here are five lydions. If you set fire to this petrol we will give you the five lydions.” Ha! Well, oll goes as God wills it. Oll the chief men of Slavo-Lydia which is fifty men go into the Town Hall, very closely pressed together for it is not large. The fool lights the petrol. The Town Hall is of wood and pouf! oll are burned. If any try to escape the brave Mixo-Lydians shoot them. And the fool is ollso burned, so they do not have to give the five lydions. And to express my pride when it says on the radio that my oncles and oll my cousins and oll my sisters’ husbands and brothers-in-law were of those heroes! Bog! Which pleasure, which joy! Then I foll asleep so happily and do not wake till late. Excuse me, Prodshkina Bunting.’

  ‘Sit down and have a cup of tea, Gradka,’ said Miss Bunting, at the same time giving the other guests a nod of dismissal. ‘Anne dear, come upstairs and get dressed. Breakfast in half an hour, Gradka.’

  ‘Oh, Gradka,’ said Anne. ‘Here are the letters. Please will you put mine on the breakfast table, because it makes it more exciting; I haven’t looked at them yet.’

  ‘Willingly, Prodshkina Anne,’ said Gradka.

  At the expiration of the half-hour Miss Bunting and Anne met at breakfast. Miss Bunting made no allusion to the events of the early morning. This, in some governesses, might have been alarming, as indicating a saving-up of wrath to come. But Anne knew Miss Bunting pretty well by now and understood that on a birthday all was condoned, her kitchen tea-party passed over with a smile, even Gradka’s atavistic outburst forgotten as a thing of no account. The post was most satisfactory for a war-time birthday, containing no less than four cheques from relations, a pair of near silk stockings and a scarf which must have cost at least two coupons. Also very loving letters from her father and mother to say they would bring their presents on Saturday when they came down. By her plate there lay also a small parcel, addressed in Miss Bunting’s elegant hand. Anne opened it and found a volume of Keats’s poems in a handsome though faded binding.

  ‘Oh! Miss Bunting!’ she cried, getting up and giving the old governess a respectful kiss, ‘how heavenly! It is just what I wanted. Now I can read all Keats. I’ve only read the ones that come in poetry books. Thank you so very, very much.’

  ‘It belonged to the late Lady Pomfret,’ said Miss Bunting, looking away into the past. ‘She gave it to me one Christmas when I was staying at the Towers with my pupil David Leslie, her nephew. She told me it had been given to her by an Italian cousin – you know the Counts of Strelsa are connected with the Pomfrets – who had known Joseph Severn, Keats’s friend, who was English consul in Rome.’

  ‘Might Keats have seen it, Miss Bunting?’ said Anne, awestruck. ‘Oh, but can you really give it to me? I mean, it is really yours. But I do love it.’

  ‘
It is yours now, my dear,’ said Miss Bunting. ‘I don’t suppose I shall be wanting poetry, or indeed any books, for very long now, and I like my favourite pupils to have some remembrance of me. Now dear, we must let Gradka get on with her work.’

  As she spoke, Gradka came in to clear away.

  ‘There is yet more good news,’ she said complacently.

  ‘Then I do not wish to hear it,’ said Miss Bunting. ‘Whatever it is, it will be in the Times, where it will not necessarily be correct, but will at least be gentlemanly.’

  ‘It is not of massacring those dirty Slavo-Lydians,’ said Gradka. ‘No, no, it is quite otherwise. I have a letter from the Royal Society for the Promotion of English to say I have passed my examination with honours. I wish to thank you, Prodshkina Bunting, for oll your help and your assistance to form my style. I kiss your hand,’ which she did very prettily.

  ‘“I kissed Maud’s hand,

  She took the kiss sedately”,’

  quoted Anne, much impressed.

  ‘You have worked very hard, Gradka, and I am gratified by your success,’ said Miss Bunting. ‘And what will you do now?’

  ‘As soon as possible I go back to Mixo-Lydia, to teach English,’ said Gradka. ‘Then will oll my pupils get the better of the Slavo-Lydians in oll examinations. But now I will take your breakfast away and begin my preparation for Prodshkina Anne’s tea-party. Prodshkina Anne, I offer you my best wishes, ollso this little gift.’

  Anne eagerly opened the little parcel, which contained a clasp of roughly worked silver with a very hideous face on it.

  ‘He is Gradko, our national hero of which there are many epopic lays,’ said Gradka. ‘He will remind you of me sometimes, when I am gone.’

  So Anne thanked Gradka warmly, did her share of the household duties, wrote all her thank letters, and then fell headlong into Keats, emerging reluctantly for lunch.

  ‘Did you know my name was Maud?’ said Miss Bunting as they sat at lunch.

  ‘Oh no,’ said Anne respectfully, for it had never occurred to her that the old governess had a Christian name at all.

  ‘You made use of a quotation from Tennyson this morning,’ said Miss Bunting. ‘When Gradka kissed my hand.’

  ‘Oh, Miss Bunting, I am dreadfully sorry,’ said Anne, all contrition. ‘It was only because it made me think of Tennyson. It must be heavenly to have one’s hand kissed,’ she added wistfully.

  Miss Bunting said there were unfortunately very few men who could kiss a lady’s hand gracefully now. Her old pupil David Leslie could, she said, do it to perfection, though she feared it was more to show off than from any serious feelings of respect or affection.

  ‘Perhaps he wasn’t ever really in love with anyone,’ said Anne.

  ‘I never knew him when he was not in love,’ said Miss Bunting. ‘That is why he did it so well. But it never meant anything. He is fundamentally selfish.’

  So exquisite and romantic a picture of a heartless gallant, probably with ruffles and a velvet coat, did this description present to Anne, that she could not contain her feelings and said she wondered if she would ever see him.

  ‘If he is not killed flying,’ said Miss Bunting, ‘you very likely may. Your parents know his people.’

  ‘Miss Bunting, how old does one have to be before people fall in love with one?’ said Anne, hoping secretly to hear that seventeen was exactly the right age. But her governess rather dashed her spirits by saying it might be any age between seven and seventy, and that the young people of to-day had very little understanding of the graces of life.

  Then Miss Bunting went upstairs for her rest and Anne returned to Keats, managing to get through Endymion, Hyperion, The Eve of St Agnes and a number of sonnets before Jane Gresham came into the drawing-room by the open french window.

  ‘Many happy returns of the day, Anne,’ said Jane kissing her. ‘Here is a tiny present with my love.’

  The present was a small red leather jewel-case with a lock and key and A.F. stamped upon it in gold. Anne was overcome by its beauty and its key and the extremely grown-up feeling of having a jewel-case, even if she had nothing worthy to put in it.

  ‘Oh! Mrs Gresham,’ she said, finding no better word. ‘I shall put my little turquoise ring that mummy doesn’t like me to wear yet in it. Oh, and Gradka gave me a silver clasp this morning; I’ll put that in too. And my pearl brooch that granny left me. Oh! Mrs Gresham.’

  ‘I’m am so glad you like it,’ said Jane. ‘And now that you are seventeen, I think you had better call me Jane. Not all in a hurry if you don’t feel like it; but any time you do feel like it, fire away.’

  To this Anne almost oppressed by the amount of grown-upness that was coming on her to-day, could only say ‘Oh!’ once more; just checking herself from saying Mrs Gresham, but far too shy to say Jane. This Jane quite understood and said no more on the subject.

  ‘I do hope you won’t mind if Frank comes,’ she said. ‘His visit to Greshamsbury is off because the children very selfishly have measles. So he made a special present for you and wants to bring it himself.’

  Anne quite truthfully said she would love it.

  ‘Dr Dale is coming,’ she said, ‘and Robin. And Heather, because I thought she would like a party.’

  Jane said it all sounded very nice, and understood at once that it was Anne’s thoughtful kindness, though she was entirely unconscious of this charming gift, which made her add the outsider to her party of old and intimate friends. She wondered if Mr Adams would come and fetch his daughter. Probably not, as he did not usually come down to Hallbury till Saturday. Why she felt a slight depression she deliberately did not inquire of herself.

  Then Miss Bunting came down, the jewel case was admired, politenesses and county news exchanged. Steps were heard outside. Dr Dale appeared at the window and was warmly greeted.

  ‘My dear child,’ said the Rector, taking Anne’s hand. ‘I wish you many happy returns of this happy day with all my heart. Here is a little token for you. It belonged to my dear wife and had belonged to her grandmother. I would like you to have it.’

  A man less given to searching his own mind might have said, ‘And, I know, so would she.’ These words had occurred to Dr Dale in the instant before speaking, and in that instant he had also thought, with that terrifying speed that outstrips time, that he could not truthfully say what his wife, so long dead, would have thought, or what she might be thinking now; for his faith did not seek to probe these mysteries. But of one thing he was certain, that she would have approved his decision, because whatever he did had always been right in her eyes.

  Almost trembling with excitement Anne opened a little tissue-paper parcel, took out a little faded green case, opened it and saw a ring set with six different stones in a row. As before with Jane’s present and offer of a Christian name, she could say nothing but ‘Oh!’

  ‘The stones,’ said the Rector, quite understanding her embarrassment and gratitude, ‘spell the word “Regard”. Ruby, emerald, garnet, amethyst, ruby, diamond.’

  ‘Diamonds and rubies!’ said Anne, half-incredulous.

  ‘Let me try it on your finger, my dear,’ said the Rector.

  Anne held out her hand. The ring slipped easily over her third finger. The Rector raised her hand and kissed it.

  ‘You should not have given me your left hand, my dear,’ he said. ‘That is for your engagement ring. But it looks very pretty and I think you had better consider yourself as engaged to me for the present. When you are really engaged, you can put my little ring on the other hand.’

  Anne could not say a single word. The ring, the romantic thought of Robin’s young mother whom she had never seen, the fact of having had her hand kissed for the first time, with a good substratum of Keats, made her feel almost faint for a moment. The Rector looked delighted. There was a little babel of friendly laughter and both Jane and Miss Bunting felt it would be very easy to cry. But they quickly pulled themselves together again and Miss Bunting, looking at her pupil who
was embarrassed yet pleased, a pretty flush upon her cheeks, thanking the Rector with filial deference and a touch of the woman in it which the old governess much approved, felt with justifiable complacency that the year she had devoted to Anne Fielding had been very well spent. It had often been tiring; she had missed her own friends; she was old and felt old; but her work was as good as ever and she knew that in Anne she had made her final and not unworthy contribution to the society she had taught and moulded in the person of its young for so many years. Anne would be able to stand on her own feet now. How very pleasant it would be to go and stay with Lady Graham when the holidays were over, to talk to Lady Emily about old days, to read to Agnes’s children, perhaps to see her most loved and most undeserving pupil David Leslie. And then to go back to Marling Hall.

  A noise was heard on the terrace outside. Robin stepped through the window.

  ‘I say, Anne,’ he said, ‘oh, how do you do, Miss Bunting, hullo Jane, I didn’t know Frank was coming. He and young Watson attached themselves to my coat-tails just as I came out of Little Gidding. They’ve got some secret together about your birthday. Shall I drown them both in your lily pond?’