Mrs. Tim of the Regiment

by D. E. Stevenson

Twenty-ninth April

  Am informed that Mrs. McTurk wants to speak to me on the telephone, and realise that this is Nora Watt’s affluent sister at last. I have been expecting her to call ever since we arrived in Westburgh, but have lately given her up as a bad job. Her name recalls to me the almost legendary figure evoked by Nora’s description of her cars, her fabulous wealth, and her ‘positively acres’ of grass.

  Voice (rather like Nora’s only more so) asks how Nora was looking when I last saw her, and how we are liking Westburgh. Make suitable replies. Voice then says do we play tennis – oh splendid! – well, will I excuse a formal call – such a waste of time, isn’t it – and come and play tennis this afternoon after tea? Voice makes it quite clear that we are to expect no sustenance either before or after our exertions.

  Tim, furious at the news of the invitation, remarks that it seems a cheap way of entertaining your friends, and he supposes this is the far-famed Westburgh hospitality. Suggest soothingly that they may want to see what we are like before asking us to dinner. Chase Tim upstairs immediately after tea to put on his whites, which he does with manifest reluctance.

  Pinelands – called so without arboreal justification – is a large square house surrounded by parks containing fat cows, and an enormous garden surrounded by laurels and rhododendrons. Two Rolls Royces stand at the door and several other cars of an affluent and shiny appearance. Cassandra seems to shrink in their company, and Tim parks her as far away from them as circumstances will allow. We are conducted to the tennis courts by a footman, and here we find about a dozen people, all of whom have obviously just partaken of an enormous tea. Our hostess greets us in a dégagé manner; she is easily distinguishable on account of her likeness to Nora, only the likeness is embedded in rolls of fat. Her legs fascinate me, they are the same thickness all the way down and are encased in silk stockings of a peculiarly bright pink. The rest of her is white save for a green eyeshade which casts an unbecoming shadow upon her dough-like face.

  I sit out the first set near a thin woman in black silk who says – after the usual conversational opening re weather – ‘I would have called for you, Mrs. Christie, but I make a point of never calling for army people – it’s really not worth while when they’re only here three years.’ My breath is taken by this entirely new point of view, and I am ‘dumb with silence’.

  Another woman now chips in and remarks that she has just got a new car costing eighteen hundred pounds, and she has had to raise her head chauffeur’s wages in consequence. She gives him five pounds a week, and she has got five gardeners who cost her fifteen hundred a year, and they have grapes from their own vineries practically all the year round. I can see that this puts the other woman on her mettle; her eyes blaze and she remarks that her son has just gone to Eton, and her daughter, who has just left the most expensive finishing school in Paris, is very anxious to buy a Moth out of her pocket money, but her father thinks it too dangerous, and has offered her four hunters instead. This conversation amazes me so that I feel like Cinderella at an Arabian Nights Entertainment. I have always been used to people who protested they were on the verge of bankruptcy, and the richer they were the more fervently did they protest. Am quite disappointed when a set finishes, and I am asked to play as I feel sure that the thin lady in black silk will wipe the floor with her opponent, Moth and all.

  Am put to play with a left-handed man in glasses who warns me that he has ‘just star-r-rted to play after thir-r-rteen years’, against my corpulent, black-haired host, and a sporty-looking female of uncertain age. Find that they are all exceedingly bad, but I am even worse. Hit every ball into the net and develop an inferiority complex which completely demoralises me. Am rescued at the end of the set by a short stout elderly person in coffee-coloured lace with a large black shiny hat trimmed with roses. She introduces herself as Miss Paul and suggests that she and I shall take on two very athletic-looking girls (with bare brawny arms and eyeshades), in a ladies’ four. Am filled with despair at the prospect of abject defeat, but endeavour to smile bravely and follow my partner on to the court. Discover that my partner is a brick, and plays – or seems to me to play – like Helen Wills and Betty Nuthall rolled into one.

  It is an awe-inspiring sight to me to see the coffee-coloured lace whirling hither and thither, and to watch the roses on the shiny hat nodding and dancing as she hits the ball down the side lines with strong and accurate forehand drives. Am so cheered by the exhibition that I begin to hit the ball myself, and we win a love set. Make some feeble remark anent my improved play to which my partner replies tersely, ‘R-r-rabbits beget r-r-rabbits.’

  Tim has been absorbed into a men’s four. I realise by his careless and erratic play that he is not enjoying himself, and decide it is time to go. We make our ‘adieux’ just as the rest of the party is trooping in to dinner. Unfortunately, Cassandra is sulky and refuses to start; we are surrounded by people offering advice as to carburettor, plugs, magneto, etc. The woman with the eighteen hundred pound car offers to send for her chauffeur who is down at the garage as she is sure that he would know at once what to do. Finally we are pushed off down the drive by the united efforts of the men. Mrs. McTurk waves her tennis racquet and screams shrilly as we career out of sight.

  ‘And that’s the last time I ever go there,’ says Tim bitterly.

  I marvel at his moderation.

  May

  First May

  Tim says will I go with him to the parish church, otherwise he will spend the morning cleaning Cassandra’s body, as cleanliness is next to godliness. Agree hastily before he has time to mention Romans. Church is full of very smart people in satin coats and new spring hats. The new minister takes for his text the controversial passage about the rich man whose entry into heaven is as impossible as the passing of a camel through the eye of a needle. He is exceedingly bitter on the subject, and I feel sure that the congregation cannot have come up to the scratch at the recent church bazaar, and marvel afresh at the meekness of people in church. After assuring his affluent audience that their hopes of heaven are negligible he goes on to speak with grisly gusto of the other place, whose doors are apparently wide and lofty enough for the entire congregation to pass, feathers and all. It is so long since I heard the nether regions referred to in the pulpit as a definite place, that I listen with horror. My backbone positively freezes at the lurid description of the torments in store for the unelect – a description which loses nothing by the rolling Rs and broad vowels with which it is bedewed. The congregation appears unmoved by the new minister’s eloquence and joins with force and fervour in singing the last hymn – unknown to me – evidently chosen on account of its gloomy and terrifying nature.

  Meet the McTurks walking home. Mrs. McTurk is in beige silk and sables. They seem quite cheerful in the face of their terrible fate, and greet us with condescension. Mrs. McTurk asks me what I think of the new minister; a question which I find embarrassing under the circumstances. She goes on to say comfortably that of course riches are comparative, and implies that Rolls Royces and steam yachts are as necessary to some people as bread and butter is to others. Feel there is a flaw somewhere in her argument, but am too dazed by the awful sermon to detect it at the moment.

  We encounter Mrs. Loudon who bows to me with a stiffness which I attribute to my company. Mrs. McTurk says with obvious surprise Do I know Mrs. Loudon? Reply that she lives next door to us. Mrs. McTurk says that does not always mean that you know a person. Admit the truth of this statement but reply that Mrs. Loudon called upon me before I had been in Loanhead a week. (Feel that this dig is rather beneath me, but cannot resist it all the same.) Mrs. McTurk seems even more surprised, and says Mrs. Loudon is ‘county’ and very ‘stuck up’, and that she never calls on anybody in Kiltwinkle as she thinks they are ‘not good enough for her’. Realise that I have gone up in Mrs. McTurk’s estimation, and that the social circles of Kiltwinkle are more complicated than I had imagined.

  Mrs. McTurk then asks in an engaging manner
if Tim and I will dine at Pinelands on Wednesday night – or would Friday suit us better? Am about to accept this invitation when Tim, who has overheard the conversation (owing to Mr. McTurk’s absence of small talk), says he is sorry we are engaged every night this week, and are probably going away the week after. Realise that Tim is not of a forgiving nature, and give up with regret all idea of wearing my new frock.

  Mrs. McTurk says she is sorry about that because ‘Mew reel’ is coming to stay with her, and she would like me to meet ‘Mew reel’. Discover that ‘Mew reel’ is another sister who is married to a stockbroker in London.

  Second May

  Go in to see Mrs. Loudon to ask for the loan of her steps, those belonging to Loanhead being in a crippled condition and tied together with string. So ancient are they that I really cannot blame Cook for refusing to trust her not altogether fairylike person on their fragile support. Cook points out to me in her usual trenchant manner that the spring sunshine shows up the dirt on the windows, and she can’t thole it any more, adding sourly that if she breaks her leg, couping off the steps, there will be nobody to cook the dinner. Can’t quite make out whether Cook is more annoyed with the spring sunshine for showing up the condition of the kitchen windows or with me for incarcerating her in such an ill-found house, but offer hastily to procure steps from next door, which pacifies her temporarily.

  Find that Mrs. Loudon’s attitude towards the sunshine is entirely different from Cook’s. She says this is the kind of day that makes her weary for Avielochan. She always goes to the Highlands for June – it is the best month to her thinking, everything is so fresh, and there are no Americans. She takes the same wee house, every year, set on the hillside amongst the pines, and a burn tumbling down beside her door. She has been wondering if there is – any chance of being able to get me for a week or ten days it would not be worth while coming for less as the journey is long and troublesome.

  It is very kind of her to think of it, but I am sure I could not leave Tim alone at Loanhead. He has no friends and would be frightfully dull and lonely without me. Have awful visions of Cassandra being greased daily for a week.

  Mrs. Loudon then says how did I get to know Those Terrible McTurks? She was amazed to see me in that galley. Reply that Mrs. McTurk’s sister is in the regiment, and go on to give her an account of the tennis party on Saturday, at which she laughs so heartily that she cries.

  The upshot of all this is that I return to Loanhead without the steps, and have to go back for them.

  Third May

  Find Annie in tears and demand an explanation of same. After some persuasion Annie admits that Scotland is not what she thought it would be. She was willing to face discomfort and privations (which do not exist), and was even prepared to take her chance of wolves prowling about at night, and wild Highlanders in kilts – but fiends in cooks’ clothing is more than any girl can bear.

  As my experience has been much the same as Annie’s, I feel intense sympathy for her, and declare indignantly that this is the last straw and that Cook must go, and I will tell her so immediately. Annie is aghast at my temerity and beseeches me to wait until the captain comes home; but I know if I wait five minutes my courage will evaporate, and I march downstairs and into the kitchen with a firm step.

  Cook is very much taken aback at receiving her congé, and says quite mildly she hopes we are not dissatisfied with her cooking. I reply with truth that she is the best cook I ever had, but she is so disagreeable that the whole house is upset and uncomfortable. She stares at me in amazement and remarks that in that case she had better go. I reply that there is nothing else for it.

  Annie is waiting for me when I emerge from the kitchen, and seems relieved to see me with a whole skin. She admits that she was afraid Cook would ‘go for’ me, and adds that she throws things about something awful when she’s in a rage. This confirms me in the opinion that I have done the right thing, and I reflect that Cook’s temper is too high a price to pay for the fluffiest soufflé on earth – I can even contemplate with equanimity the search for someone to take her place.

  Fifth May

  Decide to go into Westburgh and buy myself a spring hat as the sunshine is showing up the defects of my old one in a most distressing manner. The bus is unpleasantly full men sitting and girls standing, which seems the usual thing in this part of the world.

  Discover to my surprise that Mrs. McTurk is also an inmate of the bus. She explains in a loud voice – as we hang grimly to our straps and are bumped together like straw stuffed bolsters at every jolt – that the Rolls is really too big for shopping, and the Armstrong is being decarbonised, and Mew reel and Mr. McTurk have gone to golf at Westerberry in the Alvis, so she has had to make use of this exceedingly plebeian method of transport much against her will. I make sounds of commiseration for her plight, but am secretly delighted that she should be enduring discomforts like other people.

  Mrs. McTurk asks where I am going, and I confess to my intention of purchasing a new hat. ‘Oh, you must go to my woman,’ she – says rather breathlessly, for we have just swung round a corner and the bolsters have bumped with more than usual force. ‘My woman is reelly clever, she understands fitting the hat to the facial contours. Nothing under four guineas, of course, which makes her place so select – you really must go to her.’ I memorise the address of Mrs. McTurk’s woman with the express intention of avoiding her establishment.

  The conductress coming for our fares discloses the fact that Mrs. McTurk has nothing under a pound. A heated discussion takes place which only ends when I offer to pay her fare. Mrs. McTurk accepts somewhat ungraciously adding that thrippence is too much to pay for the privilege of hanging on to a strap and being bumped about for a quarter of an hour. Notice during the discussion that the bus conductress is pretty, but decide that diamond earrings look peculiar with a uniform and peaked cap. Point this out to Mrs. McTurk, who replies, ‘Oh, but they’re not reel, Mrs. Christie – she probably got them at Woolworth’s.’ Feel unequal to the effort of explaining my point.

  Mrs. McTurk then informs me that Mr. McTurk has just presented her with a pair of ‘reel diamond earrings from Piffanie’s, and they cost him a hundred and twenty pounds.’ I congratulate her on her husband, to which she replies complacently, ‘Yes, Mr. McTurk is very wealthy.’

  Once more the good lady has missed my point. I begin to feel as if I were conversing in a foreign language or with somebody very deaf. There was an old gentleman at Hythe who prided himself upon his hearing. A conversation with him was always fraught with surprises. I remember asking him whether he had been for a long walk today, to which he replied smilingly, ‘Yes, May is my favourite month too.’ Decide that Mrs. McTurk suffers from mental deafness. She has ears but hears not – at least I suppose she must have ears concealed under her rolls of mud-coloured hair or Mr. McTurk would not have paid a hundred and twenty pounds for diamond earrings for her.

  Thus occupied with foolish thoughts I am whirled through the long grey streets of Westburgh, and find myself disgorged on to the crowded pavement at Westburgh Cross in company with Mrs. McTurk, slightly dizzy with the smoky atmosphere of the bus and the jolting to which I have been subjected.

  ‘This way,’ says my companion, seizing my arm in a firm grip and dragging me across the street under the noses of buses and cars. ‘They’ll not hurt you, Mrs. Christie – they’ve no more desire to run over you than you have to be run over.’

  I realise that this may be true, but feel that I would rather be on the safe side. ‘It would hurt me more,’ I gasp.

  ‘Nonsense! Take a firm line – they would have their licence endorsed,’ is the amazing reply.

  I manage to shake off Mrs. McTurk by losing her in the crowd at Woolworth’s where she is laying in a store of kitchen china, and hasten to Parker and Simpson’s whose window is full of hats at fourteen and eleven. Here an amiable girl produces hats of all shapes, colours and sizes for my selection. She takes a great and friendly interest in my choice, and is
anxious for me to decide on a bright green bowler, assuring me that I suit it awful well. Feel that I cannot altogether agree with her and say so with some diffidence. ‘Righto, you know best,’ she says brightly, ‘but I must say I liked you fine in yon solid green.’

  After long discussion I decide on a dark-red straw which really seems rather nice, and is surprisingly cheap. So cheap that I feel I am entitled to a scarf to match, which is a pleasing thought. My new friend suggests that I should ‘wear it away’, and she will send my old hat home for me. This is an excellent idea and I am frightfully pleased with my appearance until I catch a glimpse of a strange-looking female in a mirror in the Children’s Department (where I am looking at summer dresses for Betty), and realise that the strange-looking female is myself in my new hat – the mirror here being less flattering than the one in the Millinery Department. This rather damps my spirits, and I reflect that perhaps I have been somewhat hasty in my choice. Too late for vain regrets, but fortunately the hat was cheap.

  Spend the morning looking at dresses for Betty (who has outgrown every garment she possesses), and buying shirts and shorts and handkerchiefs for Bryan to take back to school.

  The streets are filled with pale-yellow sunshine which gives them a curious shallow appearance; the shop windows sparkle in the sun. The people seem to move about with a jaunty air very unusual to behold in Westburgh, where they are generally blown crooked by gales, sweeping up the side streets, or cowering beneath umbrellas.

  There is a fearful crush in Boots, everyone seems to have a companion except myself, and to be talking to that companion at the top of her voice. Drifts of conversation assail my ears: ‘It’s not for me to tell him,’ says a woman behind me trenchantly.

  ‘You must keep stirring till it boils,’ announces a thin, careworn sort of voice, ‘and then add the vinegar, dr-rop by dr-rop.’

  ‘She asked me six and eleven for it, and I said what did she take me for.’