Mrs. Tim of the Regiment

by D. E. Stevenson

  Feel that I have done so badly up to now that perhaps silence would be best, but apparently silence is equally wrong – Tim says I am not much help, am I? Reply that I am afraid I am not – think feverishly for a few moments and then suggest tentatively that we might ask the democratic officer to dinner, and Tim make a few tactful suggestions to him over a glass of port.

  Tim very scornful of my solitary idea. Thinks it is condoning what is really a serious breach of discipline, and making a mock of the whole thing.

  Thirteenth April

  Tim comes down to breakfast whistling cheerfully and announces that he has been considering the affair of the democratic officer from every point of view, and that, in his opinion, there is only one thing to be done. Tim’s idea is to ask young Weir out to dinner some night ( just quietly by ourselves, I know the sort of thing), and Tim will have a talk with him over a glass of port and put it to him in a tactful way – the feller is a bit of a bounder, but perhaps I won’t mind for once. Reply that I don’t mind at all, and I am glad that he has thought of such a good way out of his troubles.

  While we are on the subject I broach an idea which I have been turning over in my mind for some time I feel I ought to get in touch with the wives of Tim’s territorials; it seems strange not to have any wives to visit or babies to admire. I could go and visit them as I did in the married quarters of the battalion, where I was always sure of a warm welcome and perhaps have some of them out to tea. I feel it shows a lack of interest on my part not to make any attempt to get to know them. Tim says it is quite a good idea, but, of course, these people are quite different from the regulars, and how do I propose to get in touch with them. I have thought of this and suggest that Tim should pin up a notice at headquarters asking any of the men whose wives would like me to call on them to append their names and addresses below. Tim promises to have this done ‘forthwith’.

  Fourteenth April

  Announce at breakfast that I intend to go to Westburgh this morning. Tim in an unguarded moment says that I can have Cassandra if I like, whereupon the children ask if they can come too. Thus it is that I am embarked upon a family expedition when I merely intended a solitary prowl round the shops to buy Tim’s birthday present – his birthday being on Saturday.

  Unfortunately, we are ready to start before Tim has left the house, and he makes me so nervous by his directions and injunctions that I scrape a piece off the gate. Tim then says I had better not take the car into the Westburgh traffic. What will happen when I have cars moving all round me, if I can’t avoid a stationary object? Bryan who is very keen to go in the car replies at – once ‘It’s all right, Daddy, nobody ever has two accidents in one day,’ and we speed off, leaving Tim gesticulating wildly on the pavement.

  All goes well until we reach Westburgh Cross where cars seem to be coming in six directions at once. Cassandra is almost squashed between a dray full of beer barrels and a corporation bus, compared with which a Juggernaut would look like a child’s toy. We escape this danger only to be pursued by a policeman who asks grimly, ‘Did ye no’ see me holding oot ma hand?’ I answer humbly that I didn’t, I was so terrified of being trampled on by the bus. ‘Och, well!’ he says with a twinkle in his eye, ‘ma hand is no’ that big,’ and he holds out a fist as big as a coconut. The children gasp with hysterical joy and we crawl on behind an iron girder drawn by three horses which I am too nervous to pass.

  At last we reach Parker and Simpson’s, and park Cassandra in the care of a ragged urchin who offers to ‘watch the car’. We discover, with some trouble, the Men’s Department, and spend a long time there examining dressing gowns for Tim’s birthday present. His old one is falling to pieces and this seems a good opportunity to replace it without the usual struggle. A young man serves us and is agreeable and amazingly patient. Bryan and Betty offer candid advice upon the subject, but I feel confident that their choice of a loud tartan piped with red would not synchronise with Tim’s mature taste.

  The young man tries on the dressing gowns and walks up and down to let me see how Tim would look in them. After a serious discussion we decide on a brown woolly one with lighter coloured revers. Young man says if my husband would prefer a different colour he is at liberty to change it, which confirms me in my belief that he has had long experience in the Men’s Department in spite of his youthful appearance.

  The children, who have been slightly restive since my rejection of their advice, demand ices, so we make our way to the restaurant where they indulge in large pink ones, the mere sight of which gives me cold shivers up my back.

  Ask Betty whether she is really enjoying her ice, or whether she would like to leave the rest of it. She replies ecstatically, ‘I love it, my inside is perfectly numb.’ Upon which I realise that Betty’s idea of bliss is different from mine.

  The way to the Haberdashery Department – where I wish to purchase buttons, tapes, elastic, and needles – lies through the Toy Department, which is unfortunate, as Betty falls madly in love with a small black china doll. After some persuasion I agree to give it to her. This entails a present for Bryan also, otherwise it would not be fair, and Bryan spends half an hour trying to make up his mind between a small model aeroplane and a magic lantern with coloured slides. He eventually decides on the aeroplane, and regrets his choice before we are halfway home.

  Tim is waiting for us at the gate and remarks that he is thankful to see us safely home, and did I do much crashing of the gears? Pretend that I have not heard this insulting question.

  Fifteenth April

  A glorious day we decide to call on an old cousin of my father’s who lives at Pennyburn. Tim says now we have come to live in Scotland we must look up our kin. Cousin Ellen is the only ‘kin’ I can think of offhand, hence our decision to visit her. We start off in Cassandra immediately after lunch, taking with us road maps, in which I have elucidated our course.

  The country is looking very beautiful in its pale green garments. It is as if a green cloud has fallen from heaven upon the fields and hedges, resting there so lightly that one feels a stiff breeze might blow it away. Cassandra careers along happily. We pass through small whitewashed villages, where ancient men sun themselves in the doorways, and small children disport themselves dangerously in the road. We climb a long incline and find ourselves on a deserted moor amongst rolling hills clad in green tufted grass, and small valleys with little streams trickling melodiously between their rocks. It is here that Cassandra chooses to misbehave herself – there are a few spluttering noises, a couple of misfires, and the engine peters out. We run down a short hill and stop helplessly at the bottom.

  I get out and climb a little knoll while Tim tinkers with the engine. I know from experience that it is of no use to offer help on these occasions, much better to absent myself while running repairs are in progress. Tim can then relieve his feelings by language unfit for female ears.

  From my point of vantage I can look across the valley where the black-faced sheep browse quietly upon the slopes, their paths cut deeply in the resilient turf. A small farm on the far side of the valley stands alone amongst its patched garments of fields – it belongs to the hills, as do the clouds, whose swift race across the sky paints grey shadows on the sunlit slopes. The house is not beautiful in itself, but it is fitting as the dwellings of men so seldom are. It looks utterly fearless of the winter wind and snow, for, like them, it belongs to the weather. Behind the hills the mountains reach up strongly, one behind another, in a mist that is like the suspended breath of sheep.

  I feel that Cassandra has chosen a good place to rest in for once in her life. She usually selects a crowded street or a slum.

  In a little while Tim approaches, lighting his pipe. I conclude that all is not well, and call to him to come to admire the view which is simply glorious in the afternoon sunlight. Tim says he is glad I like the view in sunlight. I shall probably have an opportunity of judging the effect of moonlight on the same view. From this I realise Cassandra’s indisposition is of
a serious nature, and the view ceases to allure me.

  Tim says he doesn’t know what’s the matter with the beastly car. He has cleaned the carburettor and tested the plugs, and there is not a kick in her. We return to Cassandra and try the self-starter again with no result. Tim says he will walk back to the last village and try to get help; can I remember how far it is to the last village? Try vainly to remember. Tim says, anyhow, that is the only thing to do unless we want to camp here for the night. He takes off his leather coat and starts to walk back. Watch him become gradually smaller and smaller. He stops at the top of the hill to wave to me, then he disappears.

  I climb into Cassandra and sit for a long time thinking of various things, but chiefly about Tim. How good he is, and how exactly he suits me, how easily he is managed once you understand his little peculiarities! I have been reading a book lately about a man called Julian Stanley Williams who was spoilt by an adoring mother, and grew up into a most impossible creature, vain and unreliable. I realise what a treasure I possess in Tim, who never looks at another woman, who doesn’t know how to tell me a lie, and whose appearance is his last concern. Of course, this virtue has its attendant drawbacks, as his clothes are unfit to be seen before he can be induced to part with them and buy others we have periodical arguments of great intensity upon the subject still, how much better than the selfish vanity of a Julian Stanley Williams!

  My chief complaint about Tim is that he does not appreciate me for my best qualities. He loves me – so he says – for my dimple, and because my mouth has a funny crooked curve when I smile, and because my hair goes wavy behind my ears. I would rather he loved me for certain qualities of mind and heart, which, despite my many faults, I am conscious that I possess – but at any rate he loves me, which is the main thing after all. I look back with horror on the time preceding Betty’s birth, when Tim was ordered to India and had to leave me behind. How horribly I suffered! It seemed nothing mattered to me because Tim was not there to share it. I could not be bothered to order meals for my solitary consumption, and became as thin as a rake and as miserable as a sick jackdaw. If he has to go out there again I am determined to go too (even although it means leaving the children) because life without Tim is quite unbearable. However dull and dreary Westburgh may be (and I have a shrewd suspicion it is going to be both, in spite of Nora Watt’s prognostications), I make up my mind that I shall never complain, not even to myself, for what does anything matter so long as we can all be together?

  So occupied am I with my thoughts that I do not perceive the approach of a dirty man on a bicycle until he dismounts, and asks in a soft up-and-down sort of voice (quite different from the Westburgh whine), whether I am waiting for somebody or whether anything is the matter. I tell him about Cassandra’s attack of paralysis, and he offers to see if he can put her right. In a few minutes he discovers trouble in the magneto, takes it to bits and puts it together again in a miraculous manner, and the engine springs to life at a touch.

  ‘Can you be driving her at all?’ he asks thoughtfully. I reply that I can be, and offer him a shilling. ‘Och, it was nothing – nothing at all,’ he says, with the gesture of a king refusing tribute, and is away on his bicycle before I have half thanked him for his help.

  I spend some minutes turning Cassandra in the narrow road and then speed off after Tim. It seems miles before I catch sight of him; he is just entering a small garage in the outskirts of the first village to be seen. He is hot and dusty, and is not as pleased to see me as I could wish.

  We agree that it is too late to think of visiting Cousin Ellen today – in fact if we do not hurry home we shall be late for dinner (an eventuality which cannot be contemplated with equanimity). As we near home and the hour advances, I beseech Tim to hurry. He replies indignantly that he will do nothing of the kind; why should we race home, jeopardising our very lives, for the sake of a cantankerous old woman (only he does not say ‘woman’)? Do I realise – he says bitterly – that I am becoming absolutely under the creature’s thumb? Reply that I do realise it. He then says why on earth don’t I get rid of the brute? Reply that I am too frightened of her. Tim says the thing is absolutely preposterous, Cook must go.

  Fortunately, we arrive just in time for dinner, and it is such an excellent meal that Tim’s heart is softened, and he says we had better give her another chance, but I must take a strong line with her and stand no nonsense. Make no reply to this command as I feel in my bones I shall not be able to comply with it.

  Sixteenth April

  Tim’s birthday today. Present him with the dressing gown for which he thanks me so effusively that I realise it is a complete failure, and suggest that he should change it at Parker and Simpson’s. Tim at first scouts the idea, but afterwards owns that he would prefer one exactly like his old one. Have great difficulty in convincing Tim that I am not in the least bit offended, disappointed or hurt.

  Betty gives Tim a bright green handkerchief bought at Woolworth’s when she was in Westburgh with Annie. She explains that Annie got one just like it to send to Bollings which she evidently thinks will enhance its value in Tim’s eyes. Bryan’s present is a pencil also procured at Woolworth’s.

  There is a large parcel with a French postmark – decidedly Aunt Ethel. We open this and find three dozen wizened tangerine oranges and a letter from Aunt E. saying that she is sending Tim a ‘Breath of the Riviera’. She wishes she could be at Westburgh in person to wish her dear nephew All Possible Happiness on his Natal Day. She also refers to her recollections of his birth at which she appears to have assisted, and goes into intimate obstetrical details of same.

  Tim does not care for tangerine oranges and discourses at length upon the stinginess of people with money – and leaves no doubt in our minds that he is referring to his paternal aunt.

  Twenty-second April

  Have great difficulty in finding material for my diary in this part of the world one day is very like another and is varied only by Cook’s temper, of which the less said the better, and by household differences on the subject of milk.

  Is there any commodity on earth more conducive to bad feeling than milk? (Query Why do we speak of the milk of human kindness? Why not water or barley or something less controversial?) At Loanhead we have either too little milk or too much, and I am forever ringing up the dairy to regulate the quantity. If there is too much milk, we are condemned to milk puddings for days on end; if too little, Cook forages in the nursery and robs Betty’s private bottle of ‘Certified’, which necessitates Betty having some patent food for her supper, and invariably leads to tears on Betty’s part, and angry rumblings on Annie’s.

  Having written the above I pause for inspiration, and Tim comes up to bed. He asks unnecessarily if I am still writing my diary, and says he thought I had chucked it long ago. If I must write – Tim says – why not write something which might be published and bring in a little ready cash. Reply that I am aware that a historical romance illustrative of the August House of Coburg might be more to the purpose of profit or popularity than such pictures of domestic life as I deal in, but I could not sit seriously down to write a serious romance under any other motive than to save my life – and if it were indispensable to me to keep it up and never relax into laughing at myself or at other people, I am sure I should be hung before I had finished the first chapter.

  Quotation entirely lost on Tim as I knew it would be – but so apt as to be irresistible. Tim says he never suggested a historical romance. If I did write one nobody would read it. But why not try my hand at a detective story – a thriller with a murder and buried treasure, etc. – he will help me with it if I like.

  Twenty-fifth April

  Mrs. Loudon rings up to ask if I will go and have tea with her and meet Mrs. Walker Young. We shall have tea in the dining room – she says – but I won’t mind that.

  Reply that I don’t mind at all, but cannot help wondering why tea in the dining room should be necessary. Wondering also what Mrs. Walker Young is like; have ment
al picture of her evoked by her name. Tall, strong and fresh complexioned; perhaps we may go for walks together, she probably has a police dog that requires a great deal of exercise.

  When teatime arrives I discover that Mrs. Walker Young is exceedingly old and has to be wheeled about in a Bath chair (hence tea in the dining room, the drawing room at Holmgarth being upstairs). Am absurdly disappointed in Mrs. Walker Young, and can’t help wondering as I return home early whether there are any young people at all in Kiltwinkle.

  Tim is polishing the car; he looks up and says, ‘There you are, Hester – always gadding about, aren’t you? Another tea party, I suppose. Look here, I’m afraid that notice about you calling on the wives hasn’t met with much success. It has been on the board for about ten days and there are no names down yet.’ Reply that Tim had better remove the notice before it becomes indecipherable, and retire to the drawing room feeling depressed.