The Bachelor

by Stella Gibbons

  And after this disagreeable interview with Soanes’s milk boy, Miss Fielding, descending to the kitchen to tell Mrs. Archer about the morning’s duties and break to her the news that a young foreign girl was coming to live in the house and help with those duties, had (most unwisely, she admitted) allowed herself to be drawn into a discussion with Mrs. Archer about the wars; both of them, the Nazi one and the Other One.

  Mrs. Archer was sixty-two, and she was the wife of Mr. Archer, aged sixty-five, who used to be an agricultural labour before the Other War; had been all through it in France; and was now employed at Mayflower’s Nurseries in St. Alberics where they were at present growing tomatoes. Mr. and Mrs. Archer had Sid, aged twenty-two, in the Tanks in Libya; Clive, aged twenty-one, in the K.O.Y.L.I. in Egypt; and George, aged twenty, in the Commandos, his family did not know where. In addition to these, Jessie, aged twenty-three, was working in the munition factory just outside the town, and Mrs. Archer had had a young nephew taken prisoner in Crete. That was in this war. Then, as has already been recorded, Mr. Archer had been in France all through the Other One, and two of his brothers had been killed in it. So taking them all round the Archers were quite a military family, and if they had been German they would have had a Certificate of Honour or something all over red seals hanging in the front parlour. Naturally the views of Mrs. Archer and Miss Fielding upon the wars were divergent, but then, as W. E. H. Lecky truthfully observes in his History of European Morals, “the opinions of learned men never faithfully reflect those of the vulgar.”

  Mrs. Archer was small and inconspicuous and neat, with a reserved expression. Her mind and body had never been completely at ease since she was four years old and free to wander about picking cowslips in the meadows, still too small to be put in charge of her smaller brothers and sisters; but she took life for granted, and had prosaically borne and brought up the four superbly healthy, ordinary children who were now in the Tanks and the Commandos and making shells.

  Miss Fielding considered it her duty never to lose an opportunity of gently pressing the cause of the Brotherhood of Man, especially among the working classes, but Mrs. Archer seldom gave her the chance, for she did not often mention the war. Very occasionally she observed that Sid’s tank had been having a go at that General Rommel again and it did seem a ding-dong sort of business, or said that George was going out on another of those Commando raids come Tuesday (she always seemed to know when he was) and she did hope he wouldn’t do anything silly, only he always was one for showing off, but mostly she got on with her work without talking.

  She was a country woman, of course, and therefore her mind worked more slowly and she felt herself to be more of a person than a London “char,” who has to work no harder than the country woman but who works under worse conditions and has fewer, less conscious traditions. Mrs. Archer had been born at a labourer’s cottage a few miles from Treme, and could remember when it was a day’s excursion into St. Alberics and back, and the local children had gone to the village school hungry, and in fantastic, cut-down adults’ clothes. That was fifty years ago, and Mrs. Archer firmly maintained (in spite of the wars) that things were much better now and don’t you talk nonsense.

  Because St. Alberics was only twenty miles from London, none of the villages within five miles of it had a traditional, full village life. Improved communications, death duties, and the decline in agricultural industries, together with the building of many large handsome houses by wealthy people who had no inherited interest in their nearest village, had reduced Treme, Cowater, Blentley and the rest to shells of villages; not deserted or decaying, but flourishing (especially since the war) with a mock-suburban life, watched over in each case by a lovely ancient church that suggested a museum and was in fact still alive and doing its duty. Miss Fielding was one of these builders of handsome houses who had only lived in Treme for eighteen years or so, and Mrs. Archer (who had been a kitchenmaid at Treme Hall for a few months before old Miss Manderbie died and the house began its many years of standing empty) did not respect Miss Fielding. She saw no qualities in her to respect. She always called her “Miss Fielding” and was perfectly polite, but to Mr. Archer in the privacy of the Archer kitchen she said that Miss Fielding was silly and Didn’t Believe In The War.

  On this particular morning Miss Fielding had happened to remark to Miss Burton, who had come trailing down into the kitchen to get her elevenses, that she feared Dr. Stocke’s last letter must have been torpedoed, for it was so late. Miss Burton, whose taste in men had been formed once and for ever upon Reggie Farquharson and who considered Dr. Stocke very dull, said oh dear, she was sorry, was it really too late to expect it now? and went out into the grey but warm garden with The Times and her elevenses. At that moment the postman’s knock sounded through the hall and Mrs. Archer, in response to a glance from Miss Fielding, who was getting her own elevenses, went to get the letters.

  “No—oh, dear, too bad. It isn’t here,” said Miss Fielding, examining them and shaking her head. “No. I sadly fear the fishes must have got it, Mrs. Archer.”

  “Fishes! Huns, more likely, Miss Fielding,” said Mrs. Archer.

  “Now, now, Mrs. Archer!” said Miss Fielding play fully. “What good does it do us to call the German people Huns?”

  “No good, I s’pose, Miss Fielding, but it’s what they are.”

  “Not all of them,” said Miss Fielding, smiling steadily and sweetly. “Some—the Leaders of the people—have strayed so far away from the true path that it is difficult to see how they can ever be persuaded to return. Others—the great mass of the people—are misled. Simply misled, and it does them, and us, no good to call them evil names——”

  “I didn’t call them bad names, begging your pardon, Miss Fielding. I said they were Huns. So they are Huns. Mr. Archer he calls them Jerries, that was what they used to call them over in France in the Other War, but me and Jessie and Sid (only he doesn’t often write about them) we always call them Huns. My Clive, now, he’s a great reader and he’s all for the Russians and always has been, and he calls them Fasheests. But me and Sid and Jessie we always call them Huns. We were only saying the other day when we heard Mr. Churchill——”

  Miss Fielding shut her eyes.

  “—on the wireless calling them Narzis in that way he does, how we always call them Huns. It seems to come more natural, somehow.”

  “The German people,” said Miss Fielding, opening her eyes, “have suffered very deeply. For twenty-five years they have been the dupes of men themselves duped by the Evil Principle. They have allowed themselves to be led astray——”

  “Well, why are they always led into other people’s countries, that’s what I’d like to know, Miss Fielding,” said Mrs. Archer, wiping up a cup rather hard. She had gone red.

  “That is part of their punishment and ours,” said Miss Fielding rather sharply. “We all share the responsibility for the Treaty of Versailles.”

  “I read in the Daily Mirror the German officers were all taking frocks for their wives in Paris and Hitler’s stolen a lot of French pictures from some famous museum out there. That can’t be right, say what you like, Miss Fielding. Taking other people’s things away. You can’t say you like that Goring, Miss Fielding. The things he’s done! And that old Kaiser! Dying twenty-five years too late, the old misery, after he’d done all the mischief!”

  “But Goering and the late Kaiser are only individuals, Mrs. Archer, and what they do or did not do has no permanent bearing upon the whole situation,” said Miss Fielding very patiently.

  “Well, Miss Fielding, I s’pose at least you’ll admit Hitler made this war? and the old Kaiser the Other War?”

  “Certainly I do not admit it, Mrs. Archer. This war arose out of the deep dissatisfaction of the German people with the over-harsh treatment meted out to them after the last war, which in its turn arose out of Great Britain’s desire for economic domination of the Continent and the natural, though deplorable, resentment of the already misled German peop
le at that fact.”

  She stopped, aware that her voice was more heated than she liked it to be. Mrs. Archer was now trembling, as well as red. Her feelings were all mixed up with thinking about Sid all those miles away, and hating the noise of the sirens, and the sight of the ruins in the High Street, and some pictures she had seen of Greek children starving, and not quite knowing what “economic domination” meant, and, underneath the whole confusion, a deep contempt for Miss Fielding as one who “didn’t know anything about anything.”

  Suddenly she remembered what Miss Manderbie’s housekeeper used to tell her to do when she was kitchenmaid at Treme Hall and was threatened with the loss of her naturally quick young temper. Say the first line of the Lord’s Prayer, Annie, it’s better and quicker than counting ten.

  Our Father, Which art in Heaven, she thought. A moment later she said quietly:

  “Shall I do the salad now, Miss Fielding?”

  “Please,” said Miss Fielding with dignity, and withdrew to join Miss Burton in the garden until lunch-time.

  Well, that, and the milk incident, and Dr. Stocke’s letter not coming, and the fact that Miss Burton was in her most unresponsive mood all the afternoon, refusing to be drawn into a chat about Dr. Stocke and the possible fate of his letter; and the arrival at half-past five of a telegram from Betty Marten saying that she would be coming that evening instead of the following one, contrived to ruffle Miss Fielding’s tranquillity considerably.

  “Of course, I do not wish to say anything against Betty, she is a very young soul and allowances must be made,” said Miss Fielding at six o’clock, flinging open the spare bedroom window so violently that showers of rust fell off the catch,” but I do think she might have sent her wire earlier. Now this room is not blacked out——”

  “She can undress in the bathroom,” suggested Miss Burton, who was negligently making the bed and looking forward to hearing Betty laugh.

  “Just for this evening, she will have to.”

  “Is Miss Ann—whatever her name is’s—room blacked out?”

  “Miss Annamatta’s room is quite ready,” replied Miss Fielding, to whom many years of addressing Stockes and Mukerjis had given a most un-English competence with foreign names. “Except for some flowers. I thought that perhaps you would like to do that, when you have made the bed.”

  “I’ll do it now,” and Miss Burton hurried away, leaving bits of sheet hanging out and thinking remorsefully that Constance really had a good heart; most people would not have bothered to put flowers in a mother’s help’s room.

  Indeed, if Miss Annamatta had not been a refugee Miss Fielding would not have bothered, but it was so much a habit with her to be nicer to foreigners than she was to English people that her gesture was automatic.

  But the picking of a bunch of pink phlox and white cosmos, and the artistic arranging of them in the small but light and pleasant room at the top of the house, and the preparing of Betty’s room, all took time; and then there was supper for five people to lay, and to prepare. “I WILL NOT COOK” announced Miss Fielding, standing in the middle of the kitchen with her eyes shut and trying to recall what tins there were in the store cupboard. “Where is the tin-opener?”

  “In its usual place, I presume,” answered The Usurper, for Miss Burton.

  “Was there any Spam left from lunch?” pursued Miss Fielding.

  “There does not seem to be any,” retorted Miss Burton’s voice from inside the refrigerator, and went on to murmur that perhaps Mrs. Archer had taken it.

  “Oh, surely not,” said Miss Fielding decisively. “In peace time I allow perks, of course, but in war time it is quite different. That would be really dishonest.”

  “Well, it isn’t here.”

  “Oh, it must be. I was Relying on it.”

  “Come and look for yourself. I’ll go and get some lettuces,” and before Miss Fielding could prevent her, Miss Burton had drifted off again, pulling a piece of sweetbrier to smell as she went out of the door and looking forward to wandering about by herself in the big kitchen garden.

  Left alone, Miss Fielding found the tin-opener, methodically opened three tins, placed plates and knives and glasses on a trolley, and wheeled them into the dining-room and began to set the table. But she was very cross and the drawing-room just across the hall looked so cool and quiet, and on a side table was the new number of The Aryan Path. There is where I ought to be, developing my special talents, instead of doing this, which any fool could do, thought Miss Fielding, and she so far allowed the Evil Principle to invade her personality as to bang down a glass. Oh, what a relief it will be to have someone to get these everlasting meals!

  It was at this unpropitious moment that a loud, a drunken (that was the word that instantly leapt into Miss Fielding’s outraged mind) hooting was heard outside. A little tune was even played on the hooter, and then Miss Fielding, coming out of the dining-room with slightly greasy fingers and a set smile of welcome, saw through the open front door her brother sitting in the car, roaring with laughter and surrounded by women.

  “Ha, ha! Connie, little surprise!” he said, the laughter fading from his face as he saw his sister’s expression.

  Miss Fielding came majestically forward.

  “Not such a surprise, Kenneth; Betty’s wire arrived in time for us to get her room ready, an hour ago. How are you, my dear? and Miss Annamatta, too; how do you do? and Alicia——”

  Alicia made an impudent little gesture of greeting. Kenneth was busy getting out the rucksack and suit-case, having opened the door for Betty and Miss Annamatta, who got out and greeted Miss Fielding—Betty with a peck on the cheek and Miss Annamatta with a bob-curtsy. The quiet evening air was full of the noise of women’s voices. Miss Fielding said something kind and welcoming to Miss Annamatta, and then shooed the flock into the house, where Miss Burton came across the hall to welcome them all over again.

  God protect me from ever living in a hen-coop, thought Alicia.

  Betty was enjoying the ample sweep of the lawn in front of the house and the brilliant faces of the flowers. The mere absence of ruins and vegetable plots and strips of paper on the windows was as pleasant to her as a drink or a sweet scent. Miss Annamatta kept her brown eyes fixed respectfully and politely upon her new employer.

  “I’ll just run you home, Alicia,” said Kenneth, coming out of the house after taking the suit-case and rucksack up to their owners’ rooms.

  “Thanks,” she said, and he got in beside her and drove off.

  Miss Fielding took Betty upstairs, chatting all the way about Richard and mutual acquaintances, and Miss Burton, obeying a meaning nod from Miss Fielding, was left to escort Miss Annamatta.

  “I will take you to your room,” said Miss Burton, advancing upon Miss Annamatta and receiving in her turn the smile and bob-curtsy. She rather liked them. An elderly woman may know that her years deserve respect from the young, but what a surprising little glow of warmth when she unexpectedly gets it!

  “Thank you. You are Miss Burton,” stated Miss Annamatta.

  “Er—yes. Yes, I am.” Miss Burton looked round as she trailed (her dress of course showed her ankles but her movement was traily) upstairs. “How did you know?”

  “Miss Constance Fielding say in her letter to me, ‘The household consist of myself, my brother Mr. Kenneth Fielding, and my cousin Miss Burton. There is help for the rug-h.’” Miss Annamatta, looking neither to the left nor the right, followed Miss Burton up the rich dark green carpet.

  “The rug-h?” repeated Miss Burton, bewildered. “Oh, the rough. The rough work. Yes, Mrs. Archer comes in from the village every day. How well you speak English.”

  “Thank you. But I say ‘rug-h.’ You say ‘ruff.’”

  “Yes. The ‘g’ isn’t sounded. Foreigners always find that so puzzling. This is your room,” and she opened a door and stood aside to let the girl see in.

  Miss Annamatta stood looking about her, while the sunlight shining through curtains of yellow spot muslin sho
wed up the shabbiness of her coat and skirt and her bare tanned legs and a patch on one of her shoes. There was a bed-cover that matched the curtains, and Miss Burton had really spread herself over the pink and white flowers, and done her best with them in a glass vase like a big rainbow ball that displayed their delicate green stems. The bedroom walls were pale green, and all round the window twined the little dark leaves and white flowers of a climbing jasmine and the room was full of its delicious scent.

  After a moment the girl said:

  “There is one bed.”

  “Yes,” encouraged Miss Burton, who had been trying without success to guess from her expression what she was feeling.

  “I sleep in the bed with another?”

  “Oh, no, by yourself,” answered Miss Burton, amused.

  Miss Annamatta was silent again for a moment; then she said, “Thank you,” and bobbed another curtsy and smile. Miss Burton, having shown her the rest of the rooms on the floor and told her that dinner would be ready almost immediately, went downstairs.