Miss Bunting

by Angela Thirkell

  The news of Miss Bunting’s death had spread to the few people interested in her, among them Jane Gresham, who felt as the Fieldings did that another piece of the pre-war world had gone and the tide of a Brave and Horrible New World was lapping a little nearer to her feet. Frank was going to church with the Watsons and back to lunch with them afterwards, so Jane and her father went to church unaccompanied. The Hallbury House pew was across the aisle from the Rectory pew, which prevented the occupants, unless they came in very late or behaved very badly and turned round to look, from knowing who was attending the service. So it was not until the Rector had blessed them and the congregation was going out into the churchyard that Jane saw Mr Adams and his daughter.

  It was not a welcome sight. Her conscience had upbraided her during the night for her weakness about Mr Adams, telling her in no uncertain terms that she was letting herself be as silly as any other young woman whose husband was long away, or missing. Also, said her conscience, she ought to be ashamed of herself. Mr Adams had been very kind, but he was probably kind to a great many people, and to him it was nothing to buy a goat with its carriage and harness to please someone – well, someone he liked, said Jane rather angrily to her conscience. But however she thought and argued inside herself, the fact remained that she had liked Mr Adams more than she ever thought she could and had behaved in a way that neither her husband nor her father could approve. What Mr Adams might do or say next she did not know, but now thoroughly frightened of her own folly, she would have given anything to have him safely in his works at Hogglestock.

  But an admiral’s daughter may not retreat, so she said good morning to Mr Adams and Heather very pleasantly in the porch. Mr Adams responded with what, to her guilty mind, seemed a curious manner, and Heather hardly answered at all.

  ‘Good morning, Adams,’ said the Admiral. ‘I haven’t seen you up here lately. And how are you, Heather?’

  Heather, suddenly becoming the pleasant Heather she had been until lately, said quite well thank you. Mr Adams walked on with the Admiral while Jane and Heather found themselves forced into one another’s company, which was little pleasure to either. Heartily did Jane wish that anyone else were of their party, but the Dales and Fieldings went in the opposite direction, the Watsons were busy in talk with friends, so there was nothing for it but to follow the men towards Hallbury House, Heather suspecting and hating Jane, Jane rather frightened of Heather, who exuded an atmosphere of knowing more about Jane than Jane would like her to know. All very foolish we may say: a schoolgirl jealous of an attractive woman that her father liked, and an attractive woman with a scrupulous conscience feeling guilt where there was but a little folly. But so we are made.

  Neither was Mr Adams altogether at ease, for he had difficult things to say and was by now beginning to suspect his daughter’s feelings. But to clear her doubts would mean acknowledging that what she imagined had some real existence; and that he was not going to do.

  When they got to Hallbury House the Admiral asked his chairman of directors and daughter to have a glass of sherry, of which he had just managed to get a few bottles.

  ‘I expect Mr Adams will want to get back to lunch, father,’ said Jane, hoping against hope that her father or his guest would back her. The Admiral said Nonsense, and Mr Adams said Packer was waiting for him at the Omnium Arms and could wait a bit longer, so the sherry was drunk and talk touched on various topics and the discomfort grew.

  But uncomfortable as it all was, it was even more uncomfortable and frightening for Jane when Mr Adams, who was accustomed to facing all difficulties and bending them to his will, said to her,

  ‘I’ve a little matter of business to talk over with you, Mrs Gresham. If the Admiral doesn’t mind, will you take a turn in the garden with me? I won’t keep you long.’

  Instead of saying, ‘Avaunt, churl!’ as Jane had rather hoped he might, the Admiral, who knew that Mr Adams had been busying himself on Jane’s behalf, seemed to think this quite natural and said with naval gallantry that he hoped Heather would put up with his company meanwhile, to which Heather, who was fair-minded enough to bear no grudge against the Admiral for being the father of her fallen idol, said she would like it very much and would the Admiral tell her about the electric welding plant in his repair ship.

  By this time Jane was almost shaking with fright, but she accompanied Mr Adams to the garden and pointed out how well the anchusa was flowering this year.

  ‘I’ve got something to say to you, Mrs Gresham,’ said Mr Adams.

  Summoning all the Palliser in her, Jane stopped, faced him, and asked in what seemed to her a normal voice, what it was.

  ‘You needn’t be frightened, Mrs Gresham,’ said Mr Adams looking down at her, so that Jane, in one of those quick foolish thoughts that come to one at the gravest moments, thought of the great San Philip taking the wind from the little Revenge’s sails. ‘What I’m going to say has nothing to do with anything concerning any ideas you may have had or I may have had about any feelings that may have passed in a temporary sort of way between you and I.’

  Jane felt her cheeks burning at this far too accurate description of her late encounter with Mr Adams. She found it quite impossible to speak and looked very hard at a spider who was sitting in his autumn net, waiting for the tradesmen to call.

  ‘My pal that I’ve told you about and his pal in the Intelligence,’ said Mr Adams, ‘haven’t been asleep, Mrs Gresham. There was a lot of fresh news came in last week. I didn’t like to say anything to you Tuesday, though I nearly did; for fear it wasn’t correct. But it’s absolutely OKed now. I think,’ said Mr Adams, eyeing her more closely, as not knowing what the result of his words would be, ‘that you can take it from Sam Adams that Commander Gresham is all right. You’ll be hearing from the Admiralty I expect before long, but I thought I’d give you a friendly word, and you needn’t be afraid to believe it, Mrs Gresham, because my pal and his pal have seen the man who had the news and it’ll only be a matter of shipping till the Commander gets home.’

  The spider, sitting comfortably in his study, smoking and reading the Daily Arachnoid, felt his back-door thread quiver. He put down his pipe and paper and went gently down the passage.

  Jane went as white as she had been red. She tried to say something, but no sound came from her and the spider held her whole attention. He had by now ascertained that it was the butcher and was going cautiously to the back-door to meet him.

  ‘Well, that’s all,’ said Mr Adams, ‘I’m pleased to have done what I could, Mrs Gresham, and now I’ll say goodbye and all the best. My little Heth and I go home to-day. I know she’d like to thank you for your kindness, for she really thinks the world of you. Don’t you hurry, Mrs Gresham. I’ll go and say goodbye to the old Admiral. He’s a fine old man and we all have a great respect for him on the Board.’

  The spider, having removed his shoes and tiptoed to the back-door, had tied the butcher up in a neat parcel, put him in the larder, and returned to the study where he picked up his pipe and went on reading a review of ‘An eight-legged Traveller in English Hedgerows’, by Webly Spinner. Jane stared and stared at him and said nothing.

  Meanwhile Admiral Palliser and Heather had a really delightful conversation about electric welding and manganese steel until Mr Adams came back, when Heather’s face fell into its late condition of heavy sulks.

  ‘Well, Admiral,’ said Mr Adams, ‘it’s your lunch time and we must be off. I don’t want to make a mystery of what me and Mrs Gresham have been discussing lately and I think you can guess that I brought some news of Commander Gresham. I may say that it’s good news, and you can take it from me that the Commander will be coming back as soon as there is a ship. Sam Adams never says a thing if he can’t prove it and back it, and that’s that. And I may say I was seldom more gratified, not even when my little Heth here got her scholarship, than when I heard the news, for we think the world of Mrs Gresham me and my little Heth. Don’t we, girlie?’

  The Admiral shook
Mr Adams warmly by the hand and with some difficulty thanked him for his interest. Heather stood with her mouth open, surprise, incredulousness, belief, mortification, chasing each other across her heavy face. It was all too like heaven to be true. Mrs Gresham was still the most wonderful person in the world and her father was as perfect as he had always been. How she could have been wicked and horrible enough to think the wicked and horrible things she had thought, she did not know. Her only regret was that her father said they must go, and Mrs Gresham was not there.

  But as they walked down the flagged path to the gate, Jane came round the corner from the garden, looking as beautiful and kind and wonderful as ever and said goodbye to daddy and thanked him very much for all his kindness. Heather had a romantic impulse to cast herself at Mrs Gresham’s feet, stab herself, and say as her life-blood welled from between her fingers, ‘I have misunderstood you, Mrs Gresham, and this is my atonement.’ But her father said they must hurry along or they would keep Mrs Merivale’s lunch waiting, so Jane said goodbye to Heather and wished her the best of luck at Cambridge, the Admiral opened the front gate, and Mr Adams and his daughter went down the street to the Omnium Arms, where Mr Packer was waiting for them.

  ‘Well now, girlie, you and your old daddy must get down to brass tacks again,’ said Mr Adams as they drove down to the New Town. ‘No more holidays for us just yet. There’s Cambridge first and then there’s the works. Had a good time, Heth?’

  ‘Oh yes, daddy,’ said Heather. ‘I think Mrs Gresham is different from everybody, don’t you, daddy?’

  ‘I wonder what your mother would have thought of her,’ said Mr Adams reflectively. ‘Many’s the time I wish mother was here, Heth. Still, you’re daddy’s little partner, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, daddy,’ said Heather. ‘Oh, and daddy, Ted Pilward’s going to be on a course in Cambridge till Christmas and he says there’ll be some dances and he’s going to ask me.’

  ‘Nice boy, Ted,’ said Mr Adams. ‘Old Ted Pilward’s a good sort too, Heth. Our sort.’

  Lunch at Hallbury House was as embarrassing as a lunch must be where father and daughter, both trained to suppress their emotions, both with emotion very near the brim, are alone together. But they managed pretty well and the Admiral knew that his daughter could look forward at last. For him it might not be so happy. Jane and Francis might want not unnaturally to find a home for themselves and Frank. To lose Frank would be hard. But all this was far in the future and for the moment he would think of Jane’s relief from the long nightmare. That Mr Adams could have made a mistake he did not think. He trusted, and on very good grounds, that his chairman would not make such a statement without very authoritative knowledge, and his hope of official confirmation before long was, we may say, amply justified. After lunch Jane said she was going to play tennis at the Watsons’ and might be out to tea. Then she let her father hold her closely for a moment, kissed him, and went upstairs to change.

  The tennis at the Watsons’ was not very serious, for now that Miss Holly had gone they no longer had a good fourth. So they rang the changes on Watsons, Jane, Robin and Anne, and there was a good deal of laughter while the little boys skirmished about and ate a huge tea. A passing reference was made to Heather Adams, but the waters of Hallbury life had already closed over the heads of the summer intruders and flowed on their usual calm course. Then Anne went home, and Frank was torn indignantly expostulating from the company of Master Watson and six new kittens which the kitchen cat had hidden behind a wood-pile and guarded with very unladylike spittings and scratchings. Jane sent Frank ahead and said she would walk back with Robin.

  ‘Do you know,’ said Robin, ‘that a great disgrace has occurred in my family. The raffle tickets for our Aunt Sally went very badly. I think people are so uneducated that they don’t know what she is for. And no one would own to having a ticket when the winning number was drawn and the secretary can’t read the name she wrote on the counterfoil, so she is back on our hands. She came up, like Boadicea, in the milk-float this morning. My father pretended he was pleased to see her again, but that was only showing off. He is really a good deal mortified. Here she is.’

  They had entered the stable-yard by the wooden door and there, propped up against the mounting-block, was Aunt Sally’s matronly form. As they looked a sound of voices came down the garden path and two clergymen hove into view.

  ‘Who has your father got with him?’ said Jane.

  ‘Oh, Lord, I’d quite forgotten,’ said Robin. ‘It’s the Bishop.’

  ‘The Bishop!’ said Jane, with a look of horror and incredulity difficult to describe.

  ‘I don’t mean that old woman,’ said Robin, thus irreligiously alluding to the present incumbent of the see of Barchester. ‘It’s Bishop Joram. You know, that Colonial Bishop who did locum at Rushwater. He’s got a job in the Close now, something the Dean found for him, and he does duty for other clergymen at odd times. He’s taking evening service for father and I think it will be a very good plan if he can come over once or twice a week, especially in the winter when I’ll be at Southbridge. But don’t say anything to father about it.’

  By this time the Rector and the Colonial Bishop had reached the stable and introductions were made. The Colonial Bishop, who was highly susceptible, at once fell in love with Jane; as he had previously fallen in love with Mrs Brandon and Lady Graham, and several other Barsetshire ladies.

  ‘Bishop Joram, whom we have all been so glad to welcome among us,’ said Dr Dale, entirely ignoring the fact that the Bishop had been in England now for some four or five years and was very well known throughout the diocese, ‘has given me the pleasure of coming to take the service this evening, and spending the night under my roof. I shall be proud to sit at his feet, for we have all heard of his fine work – where was it, Joram? Borrioboola Gha?’

  The Colonial Bishop said not exactly; it was Mngangaland.

  ‘Ah yes,’ said Dr Dale, in a voice whose aged wisdom would have led anyone who didn’t know him to think he knew where it was. ‘And what did you say the text was on which you propose to preach to us?’

  ‘I don’t think I did say,’ said the Colonial Bishop. ‘It is from the Book of Haggai, first chapter, fifth verse —’

  ‘“Now therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts: consider your ways,”’ said Dr Dale triumphantly.

  ‘I wish you were preaching, sir,’ said the Colonial Bishop. ‘I didn’t know anyone read Haggai now.’

  ‘But my dear fellow,’ said Dr Dale, forgetting in his enthusiasm the gulf of some thirty years that lay between him and his new friend. ‘My dear fellow! never did I think to meet a clergyman in these degenerate days who knew that great prophetic work. I have given much study to the subject and written largely upon it. You must come and look at some of my articles.’

  In his enthusiasm he was about to drag the Colonial Bishop back to the Rectory, but his son reminded him that the service was at half-past six and it was already ten minutes past.

  ‘Thank you, my boy,’ said the Rector, rather downcast. ‘Never mind, Joram,’ he added, brightening. ‘The psalms are very short this evening and I dare say your sermon will not be unduly long.’

  The Colonial Bishop said ten minutes at the outside.

  ‘Good, good,’ said Dr Dale approvingly. ‘Tell me, Joram, in what sense exactly do you read the words in the ninth verse of the first chapter, “And when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it?” I have my own theory, but it would greatly interest me to hear yours.’

  The Colonial Bishop made no answer. Dr Dale, looking at his guest, was seriously alarmed to see him staring fixedly at the old coach-house with every appearance of insanity.

  ‘Is anything wrong, my dear friend?’ said Dr Dale, touching the Colonial Bishop on the arm.

  The Colonial Bishop started and apologized, saying that he had been quite carried away.

  ‘I caught sight of something that reminded me so vividly of Mngangaland that I quite forgot where I was. How on earth di
d it come here, Dr Dale?’

  He approached the battered form of Aunt Sally, leaning up against the mounting-block, and looked at her with affectionate reverence.

  ‘That’s our old Aunt Sally,’ said Robin. ‘We tried to get rid of her in a raffle, but no one would have her.’

  ‘The absolute likeness of the Mnganga deity of cattle disease,’ said the Colonial Bishop in a low reverent voice. ‘The trouble I have had with her! You will hardly believe how difficult it was to stop the natives sacrificing every eighth child to her – very large families they have, you know; you must keep up at least fifty wives to have any position at all. But I did it in the end. I painted her with luminous paint just before the new moon and told them she was Queen Victoria. The light shining from her on a dark night frightened them nearly to death and ever since then they have only brought cigarette cards and empty gin bottles as offerings. I hope I did rightly. One never knows.’