Miss Buncle Married

by D. E. Stevenson

  “Mr. Pinthorpe!” exclaimed Mr. Tyler sharply.

  The wretched youth leaped to his feet, and crammed his book into the pocket of his coat, which was large and baggy and had evidently been used for the purpose before.

  “Have you nothing better to do—” began Mr. Tyler in a hectoring manner—but he got no further. Barbara was not the woman to stand aside and see her public bullied like this, besides how could he have found anything better to do than read Disturber of the Peace? She held out her hand and smiled at Mr. Pinthorpe as if he had been the most handsome and delightful man she had ever seen.

  “How do you do, Mr. Pinthorpe,” she said sweetly. “Mr. Tyler says you are going to be very kind and show me over The Archway House. I do hope it won’t be a frightful bother for you.”

  It is doubtful which of the two men was the more amazed at Barbara’s advances. Mr. Tyler was struck dumb. Mr. Pinthorpe was almost too surprised to respond. But, after a moment’s hesitation, and a questioning glance at the junior partner, he took her hand and shook it gravely. There was no other mode of action open to him.

  “Mr. Pinthorpe,” said Mr. Tyler (this time in an entirely different tone of voice). “Mr. Pinthorpe, you will take Mrs.—ah—Abbott, you will take Mrs. Abbott and show her over The Archway House. Mrs. Abbott has an idea that the house may suit her requirements—ahem. You will give Mrs.—er—Abbott every facility—every facility and—ah—information. Here are the keys.”

  Mr. Pinthorpe accepted the keys like a man in a dream, and, a few moments later, the oddly assorted couple was walking across the square while Mr. Tyler watched from the top of the steps.

  Mr. Tyler was still feeling shaken. He had made a ghastly mistake—simply ghastly. He hoped that Mrs. Abbott would not like The Archway House. He thought it most unlikely that she would like it. The place was in appalling condition, and most people who went to look at it with a view to purchase took one dismayed glance at the desolation and fled incontinently, never to return. He hoped with all his soul that that was what Mrs. Abbott would do, because he never wanted to see her again. It would be too terrible if she bought it, and remained in Wandlebury; every time he set eyes upon her he would be reminded of his foolishness, of the dreadful blunder he had made. Mr. Tyler hated making blunders. When he blundered he remembered it with acute discomfort. He was aware that this blunder would remain in his mind for years and years.

  Mr. Tyler pursed up his lips and blew them out—phew! He began to hum a hymn tune in harmony with his discomfort. It went something like this:

  Through the night of doubt and sorrow (I shall never get over it—never)

  Onward goes the Pilgrim Band (why on earth didn’t I make sure who she was?)

  Singing songs of expectation (I was expecting her, of course)

  Marching to the Promised Land (and she is like her—no doubt of it)

  Soon shall come the great awakening (and what if Tupper gets to hear of it)

  Soon the rending of the tomb (that would be the end of everything)

  Then the scattering of the shadows (but perhaps she won’t like the house)

  And the end of toil and gloom (and I shall never see her again)

  Somewhat comforted by the optimistic sentiments of the last line, Mr. Tyler returned to the office and poured out his whisky and soda. If she seems keen on it, he thought, I must tell her about the rats. It has been empty so long that there are sure to be rats in it—yes—it would be only fair to warn her—only fair.

  ***

  Meanwhile Barbara, walking along by the side of her escort, could not help being conscious of the bulge in his pocket. She wondered how to attack the subject uppermost in her mind. She loved discussing her books; it was so interesting to hear what people thought of them, and Mr. Pinthorpe had evidently liked Disturber of the Peace very much indeed, or he would not have been deaf and blind to the approach of his employer. Mr. Pinthorpe made no effort at conversation. He strode along the flagged pavement with strangely uneven steps. At first Barbara thought he must be lame, but, after a few minutes, she realized that he was stepping carefully in the middle of each flagstone, and, as the flagstones were alternately large and small, the effort to synchronize his steps to their dimensions was giving him some trouble. It was not the sort of amusement that Barbara had expected would appeal to a man who had the sense to appreciate her writings, but Barbara was willing to forgive Mr. Pinthorpe a good deal. Lots of people were odd, she reflected, and Mr. Pinthorpe had every right to his idiosyncrasies.

  “Do you like reading?” she asked him at last.

  “Some things,” said Mr. Pinthorpe darkly, and then he added, “He’d no call to get annoyed. I do all they give me to do, don’t I? If they don’t give me anything to do, have I got to sit and twiddle my thumbs all day? I’m better reading than twiddling my thumbs, aren’t I?”

  Naturally Barbara agreed—she agreed fervently (what better occupation could anybody have than reading the works of John Smith?).

  “How do you like it?” she asked him.

  “What? That book? It’s pretty funny. Some bits of it are a scream. Have you read it yourself?”

  Barbara said she had.

  “I know people just like that,” said Mr. Pinthorpe, waxing quite confidential with all the encouragement he was getting. “There’s a dame here the very spit of Mrs. Horsely Downs—might almost be her.”

  “Really!” exclaimed Barbara.

  “Mhm,” nodded Mr. Pinthorpe. “Funny, isn’t it? And I’ll tell you another funny thing,” he continued. “Talking of people being like each other—you’re like somebody. You’ll never guess who you’re like.”

  “Lady Chevis Cobbe,” said Barbara promptly.

  The young man was rather disappointed at the success of Mrs. Abbott’s first guess, but he had suffered many disappointments in his short life and was inured to them. “That’s right,” he said, “it’s Lady Chevis Cobbe. You are like her, and I should know. I was brought up on the estate, I was. We saw her ladyship ever so often. If you were a little more high and haughty and your hair was gray you might be her.”

  “She’s older than me?” Barbara inquired with her usual disregard of English grammar.

  “Oh yes,” agreed Mr. Pinthorpe. “She’s older—a lot older. You’re more like what she was, if you know what I mean. She’s a funny one,” he continued confidentially. “A bit barmy, if you ask me—bats in the belfry—you know.”

  Barbara inquired with interest what kind of bats inhabited her ladyship’s belfry.

  “Oh well!” said the young man. “I suppose I shouldn’t say, really. It’s rather unprofessional, you know; but I don’t see what harm could come of telling you. Her bats is making wills, and it’s a pretty expensive kind of bats—not that that matters to her ladyship. She’s forever quarrelling with her relations, and then down she comes to us, and out comes her will to be altered. Keeps us busy, I can tell you.”

  By this time they had left the square, and were skirting a high wall built of gray stone blocks with a flat parapet of flagstones. Trees hung over the top of the wall—beech and oak, and horse chestnut—all in bud, and some with pale-green fronds waiting to be uncurled by the warm spring sunshine; and presently they came to a big wrought-iron gate, set in an archway, and Mr. Pinthorpe took the bunch of keys out of his pocket and fitted one of them into the lock.

  “Is this it?” demanded Barbara, somewhat unnecessarily.

  “Yes,” replied Mr. Pinthorpe. “My, this gate wants oiling,” he continued, wrestling with it fiercely. “It’s just as well I’m here, or you’d never have got in. Old Mrs. Williams, who’s supposed to keep the place aired—but doesn’t—goes in the back way. I don’t suppose this gate’s been opened for years.”

  “Why hasn’t somebody bought it?” Barbara wanted to know.

  “Ghosts,” replied Mr. Pinth
orpe tersely. “At least, that’s what I heard. Shouldn’t have told you that, I don’t suppose.”

  “I’m not frightened of ghosts,” said Barbara stoutly.

  The drive was muddy and deep in last year’s leaves; it was like a tunnel, curving away into the unknown, a tunnel made of the closely overhanging branches of the trees. Brambles trailed across the paths; nettles rose like pale-green sentinels from the damp yellow undergrowth; rabbits scuttled away hastily at the sound of human steps.

  “It seems awfully neglected,” said Barbara in dismay. She had built so much upon The Archway House. All the hindrances that she had encountered had only served to whet her curiosity. She had made up her mind that The Archway House was the end of her search. But this was dreadful, this desolation, this air of neglect that hung about the place—how awful, she thought, how awful if this place won’t do either!

  “It hasn’t been lived in for years,” agreed Mr. Pinthorpe casually, “years and years and years. Don’t know when it was lived in last. We keep the place wind and watertight for the owner, but that’s as much as he can do. Poor as a church mouse, he is, just crazy to sell, but we can’t find a buyer with the place in this condition.”

  They went on through the tunnel. Yellow sunlight fell through the budding branches and flecked the ground with yellow light. Barbara was excited…she caught a glimpse of stone ahead and hurried forward.

  The house burst upon her view. It was a rectangular building after a design by Adam, not very large but beautifully proportioned. It was two stories high. The front of the house (which Barbara was looking at) had a door in the middle and three windows on each side (this was on the ground floor, of course); above were seven windows, tall and unornamented. The door was so high that it looked narrow, and three broad, flat steps led up to the porticoed doorstep. As Barbara emerged from the tunnel, the roof came into view; it was flat, ornamented by a plain cornice of Roman Tuscan molding, which was supported by flat pillars between the windows. Above the cornice, from the hidden roof, rose squat chimney stacks (one at each end of the house) with their rows of blackened pots.

  Barbara opened her heart to the house then and there—she liked the bold, simple lines, she liked the dignity of its design; her eyes, tired of the fussy meanness of modern architecture, the red roofs, the steeply sloping gables, the Jerry-built brick disguised by whitewash, rested gratefully upon the plain façade of The Archway House. Here was a sturdy rectangular building of solid stone, a building with no nonsense about it. The house sat firmly upon the ground, it was surrounded by green lawns and shady trees, the sunshine streamed upon it like a benediction. It was almost her vision—almost the house that Arthur’s words and gesture had conjured up before her eyes—and, even as Barbara looked at The Archway House, the vision faded, and the real house took its place.

  Mr. Pinthorpe fitted a key in the lock and opened the door. He hurried in and began to open the shutters and pull up the blinds. Barbara thought that the house seemed to welcome the sun, it had been empty and darkened for so long; and the sun seemed glad to be welcomed back, it streamed in through the tall windows onto the bare floors, it explored the walls from which the faded paper hung down in curling strips. The dust floated in the air, it eddied and swirled as Mr. Pinthorpe strode about, so that the whole place seemed full of golden smoke.

  The hall was square, with white pillars, very slim and tall; a winding stair with a graceful wrought-iron balustrade curled upward to the bedroom floor. On Barbara’s right was the drawing-room, beautifully proportioned, with a carved mantel-piece of Adam’s design. On her left was the dining-room, with three tall windows looking on to the drive. Before her a green baize door led to the kitchen premises at the back.

  From the very first the lofty ceilings pleased Barbara (it was “nice and airy”), and she liked the giraffe-high windows which let in quantities of light. She could see, in her mind’s eye, long curtains hanging from the pelmets in gracious folds; they must be velvet, she thought, soft and warm, and richly colored. There was little doubt in Barbara’s mind now, it was the house she had been looking for—her house and Arthur’s. The dirt of the place, the neglect, the desolation of torn wallpapers and rotted blinds, the red rust on the door handles and fireplaces and balustrade left her undaunted. These were things that could be put right, mere details, and, as such, of no account. Barbara saw the house as it would be when these trivial matters had been attended to, she saw the house as she was going to make it.

  “And you’ll like that, won’t you?” she said to the house (Mr. Pinthorpe had disappeared upstairs to open the shutters in the bedrooms). “You’ll like it when I’ve made you all nice, and washed your face and brushed your hair for you. You’ve been waiting for me all this time, and now I’ve found you.”

  Barbara poked about, opening doors, and re-creating the whole house in her mind. She discovered a smaller room beyond the drawing-room, and gave it to Arthur on the spot. It should be his study—a proper “man’s room.” There were dead flies on the windowsill and cobwebs in every corner, and the old-fashioned basket-grate was broken and red with rust, but Barbara saw it cozy and comfortable with a brown carpet on the floor, and two comfortable leather chairs before a blazing log fire. We shall sit here on cold nights, she told herself delightedly, and listen to the wind howling in the trees.

  The rooms upstairs were large and square; they were quite as disreputable as those on the ground floor and Barbara was quite as pleased with them. She opened the window in “her” bedroom and gazed out—the view was perfect. Beyond the trees was a graceful line of hills, patterned with fields and small dark copses. Barbara had never possessed a “view” before—a view of her very own. Tanglewood Cottage was buried in tall trees, and Sunnydene was set among rows of villas, each a replica of itself. If there ever had been any doubt at all in Barbara’s mind as to the desirability of The Archway House, it was gone now. “This is my house,” she said, and sat herself down on the broad window seat in a possessive manner.

  Mr. Pinthrope had finished his god-like occupation of bringing light into dark places, and now he returned to the lady who had been given into his charge, and stood and stared at her. She was a rum one (he reflected) sitting there and looking out of the window. Most people, seeing a house for the first time, poked into every corner, and complained about the dirt, and asked all sorts of searching questions about the drains, and the water supply, and whether it was built on sandy soil. Mr. Pinthorpe had been told to give this lady every facility and all the information she desired. He had given her every facility by opening up the place, and he was now prepared to be put through a catechism regarding the hidden merits and demerits of the house. He could answer quite comfortably and truthfully about the drains and the water, for they were in Messrs. Tupper, Tyler, & Tupper’s charge, and the roof was sound—he knew that. And he knew that if he were asked whether the place were damp the right reply was that “it only needed firing,” because it was so obviously damp that it was no use to deny it. Some people asked one thing, and some people another—there was no hard-and-fast rule. You said the best you could of a house and made as little as possible of its glaring defects. Mr. Pinthorpe rather prided himself upon the way he could show off houses.

  But Barbara didn’t want to ask any questions about the house—none at all. There was no need for her to ask questions since she had definitely and irrevocably made up her mind to have it. She looked at Mr. Pinthorpe as if she were seeing him for the first time and didn’t much like the look of him.

  “Go away,” she said quietly—almost casually.

  “Go away!” echoed Mr. Pinthorpe, unable to believe his ears.

  “Yes,” said Barbara, waving her hand vaguely. “Go away. I want to—to think.”

  He looked at her doubtfully; should he obey this extraordinary request, or not? He had been sent to look after her and he was therefore responsible both for her and for the house. Supp
osing he went away and left her, and she took something, where would he be then? He looked round the room, and considered the matter—there was nothing she could take, nothing at all. There was nothing in the house except dust, and cobwebs, and dead flies.

  “All right,” he said, “I’ll wait for you downstairs.”

  She scarcely seemed to hear what he said (just waved her hand for him to go) and Mr. Pinthorpe felt rather annoyed. She was rum! She had been so matey coming along the street, and now she seemed to have forgotten his existence—she was rum. He sighed, went downstairs, and sat down on the front doorstep in the sun. Then he took his book out of his pocket and got on with the story.

  Chapter Seven

  Visitors—Supernatural and Otherwise

  When Mr. Abbott was brought to see the house his wife had selected, he was positively aghast. He saw it as it was, and not as it might become. It happened, most unfortunately, to be a wet day, rather dark and chilly for the time of year. The rain blew against the tall bare windows in gusts, the paper hanging from the walls flapped dismally. There was a dankness in the air, and a musty smell permeated every room; there were cobwebs in every corner; the plaster was peeling off the walls and falling from the ceilings in fine gray flakes. The truth was that Barbara would have been wiser to put off Arthur’s visit and to have brought him down to see The Archway House on a dry sunny day, but this never occurred to her for a moment. She was so besotted with The Archway House herself, that she had no qualms at all about Arthur’s reaction to it.