Mrs. Tim Carries On

by D. E. Stevenson

  TUESDAY 27TH AUGUST

  Jack and Grace come round after dinner for a chat, they want to hear about Tim’s adventures, but Tim has told and retold the story so often that he is sick of it, and refuses to play. Grace says, well what was the strangest thing that happened to him—surely he can tell them that much, and Tim replies that the strangest thing that happened to him was coming home and finding everyone going on just the same as before. It is quite obvious, says Tim, that nobody in this place knows there’s a war on. Grace retorts, somewhat indignantly, that she does not know what he means, we have air-raids, don’t we? Tim says she would know what he means if she could see Belgium. Grace says we are doing our best—she and Jack have given up having late dinner except when people are coming; she is cutting down her staff and making do with last winter’s coat. She hasn’t been able to take up any war work because of the twins, but she intends to start going down to the Depot very soon. If Tim will tell her what else she can do, she is willing to do it.

  “That’s just it,” declares Tim. “There’s something wrong somewhere. The inequality of sacrifice is what worries me. I agree that you can’t do anything if that’s any comfort to you.”

  Jack says, “It wouldn’t help if we made ourselves uncomfortable.”

  “No, it wouldn’t help,” replies Tim, “but personally I should feel much more comfortable if I were more uncomfortable. Sometimes I feel as if I ought to sleep on the floor.”

  “But you’ve done your bit!” exclaims Grace.

  “That’s another thing that worries me,” says Tim. “It’s the attitude of people in this country; the satisfaction shown by the average person over Dunkirk. They look upon it as a sort of victory, whereas in reality it was a defeat. I grant you the evacuation was a magnificent show, but the fact that we were obliged to evacuate was a defeat, and a blow to our prestige that won’t easily be countered.”

  “But look here,” cries Jack. “That’s just our strength. We’re so damn sure we can’t be beaten that we don’t notice a defeat. We’re like a chap that’s been knocked out and gets up again and comes on for more. One of his eyes is bunged up completely and his nose is bleeding, but there’s lots of fight in him—he hasn’t been defeated, has he? Lord, you can’t defeat a chap like that!”

  Grace says she knows nothing about boxing, and she thinks we have talked quite enough about the war . . . “Have you heard the latest?” she enquires.

  Tim asks if she means the one about the padre and the cow, because, if so, he’s heard it six times, and he can’t laugh at it anymore. Grace replies that she did not mean that at all—it’s a silly story anyhow and unsuitable for Hester—she meant had we heard the latest news—the news about Tom and Ermyntrude? Tim says he doesn’t know either of them, so why does Grace think that news about them will interest him? Grace says, of course he knows them, it is Tom Ledgard and Ermyntrude Browne Winters, and they are engaged; Ermyntrude came round this morning on purpose to tell her. Grace thinks it will be splendid to have someone like Ermyntrude in the Regiment. It will liven us up, and she will be an antidote to Mamie who becomes more ovine daily.

  Jack says he never cared for Ledgard, but he must say he’s sorry for the fellow.

  Grace says, “Why?”

  Jack says, “Because you’ve saddled him with that woman, of course. If you had a down on Ledgard you could have made a wax image of him and stuck pins in it, or put arsenic in his food. It would have been kinder.”

  This annoys Grace, and she insinuates that Jack has not sufficient intelligence to appreciate Ermyntrude, to which Jack replies that he has sufficient intelligence to perceive that Ermyntrude is mad.

  To change the course of the conversation, which is becoming more heated every moment, I enquire whether Captain Ledgard and his future wife have met in a previous existence. Grace says they have—Ermyntrude remembers perfectly, and Tom is now beginning to remember. She is helping him, of course. Ermyntrude hopes to awaken Tom’s Conscious to a realisation of the Higher Values, so that he may become part of the Great Life Stream.

  Jack says that he too hopes she will be able to waken Ledgard’s conscience, because he’s one of the most irresponsible officers in the Regiment. Jack is willing to take off his hat to Ermyntrude if she can wake the fellow up and make him a bit more conscientious over his musketry returns—doesn’t Tim agree?

  Tim says he never thought much of the fellow.

  Grace sighs, and says she wishes some people understood plain English—and none of us know the real Tom—perhaps, someday, we shall know him better and appreciate him at his true worth.

  When our guests have gone, I put my arm through Tim’s and ask why he was so grumpy with the MacDougalls, and he replies that he did not intend to be grumpy, but, somehow or other, Grace always annoys him—he does not know why it is, but it is an incontrovertible fact—as for Jack, it would do Jack a lot of good to see some Active Service . . .

  THURSDAY 29TH AUGUST

  Meet Miss Browne Winters on my way home from the town and stop to congratulate her on her engagement, and to assure her that we are all delighted to hear she is “going to join the Regiment.” She thanks me quite pleasantly, and says that Regimental Life will be a new experience for her, as she has never been associated with warriors. She then goes on to say that she and Tom are now fulfilled, the wheel has come full circle, and explains this cryptic statement by giving me a short resume of the previous existences in which she met Tom and the circumstances of their meetings. We walk along together as she talks, and the odd thing is that her talk is extremely interesting. I cannot bring myself to believe that she has lived so many different lives—far more than any self-respecting cat—but she herself believes it, and she knows so many curious little details about those lives of hers that she makes them sound extraordinarily real. The first time they met—she and Tom—was in the days of the Building of the Great Pyramid, and from then on they continued to meet in various centuries and climes.

  “We met and parted,” declares Miss Browne Winters, fixing me with her intense gaze. “Sometimes we merely glimpsed each other like ships that pass in the night; sometimes a transient friendship was allowed us—sweet as the scent of honeysuckle in the early morning sun. We met . . . and parted, for we were not ready to come together. We were not worthy of happiness.”

  I murmur that they seem to have been very unfortunate.

  “Oh, but you don’t understand,” she replies at once. “If we had been allowed to come together too soon, the flower of love would not have been so brightly coloured, nor would the fruit have been so sweet . . . Now we have grown to full stature. Now we are ripe for mating.”

  It is easy to agree with this, for it is an understatement—personally I am of the opinion that the fruit has been too long upon the tree. Early marriages are sometimes foolish, but when people have reached the age of Miss Browne Winters and Tom Ledgard they have become set in their ways and it must be extremely difficult for them to adjust themselves to each other. There are people, of course, who will remain forever young and adaptable, but Tom and Ermyntrude are not of these . . . to tell the truth I cannot “see” them married to each other, and their future seems fraught with dangers. I am so sure that they are unsuitable partners that just for a moment I am tempted to utter a warning, but fortunately, before I have found the words in which to utter it, I realise the absurdity of attempting to interfere in their affairs.

  Suddenly Miss Browne Winters halts in the middle of the street, and announces in her clear resonant voice, “Mrs. Christie, I feel you are ready!”

  “Ready for what?” I enquire, taking her arm and hastening her on—for several people have turned to stare at us, and two nurses with prams who have been walking behind us have been obliged to stop too—

  “Ready for Knowledge,” declares Miss Browne Winters. “Ready to receive enlightenment. I feel that if you were to devote a few hours daily to contemplation, the Past would unfold itself to you.”

  I murmur fe
ebly that I have not much time . . .

  “Time!” she exclaims. “What is Time?”

  The question (I feel) is merely rhetorical, and this is fortunate, for I cannot tell her offhand what time is.

  “Time!” she says again in a scornful tone. “A year, a week, an hour—it is all the same when you have lived for three thousand years or so.”

  I agree that that may well be.

  “Believe me it is,” she says earnestly. “Now let me see. I am studying Sanscrit at the moment, but I could give you two hours every morning. We could go back into the Past hand in hand.”

  This offer, though extremely kind, fills me with dismay, and I assure her that I could not think of causing her so much trouble. As this fails to put her off, I am obliged to fall back upon my previous excuse and plead lack of time. “My housekeeping,” I murmur, “and housekeeping is so difficult just now, what with ration cards and one thing and another . . . and then I have the ‘Comforts’ to count and pack and all the accounts to do . . . and then there’s Betty, you see . . . and of course Tim has come home, you know . . . Bryan’s holidays . . .”

  She looks at me pityingly and says, “So earthbound!”

  By this time we have reached my gate, and it is only polite to invite her to come in, but fortunately she is on her way to have lunch with her soul mate and cannot accept the invitation. She is turning away—having bidden me good-bye—when she suddenly turns back. “Your dream!” she cries, hitting herself on the forehead, “Your dream, Mrs. Christie! I had almost forgotten to mention it. Grace told me of your recurring dream, and it interested me profoundly.”

  “Yes,” I murmur, “but I would rather not know what it means. It’s very cowardly of me . . . but if it means something horrid I would rather . . . just . . . leave it.”

  “Strange!” she says, looking at me as if I had two heads. “Very strange! That shrinking from Knowledge is typical of a New Soul . . . and yet I feel sure that you are one of us. The meaning of your dream is easily read, and there is nothing alarming about it. You refuse to Go Back when you are awake and master of your mind, but when you are asleep your Conscious is free to return to happier days. You return to Ancient Greece, or to Mediaeval France where the language is different from the strange jargon misnamed modern English. It is when you are awakening, returning to the Present, that the two worlds impinge upon one another and create the hallucination which you find so distressing.”

  “Yes,” I say meekly. “Yes. Thank you. It’s very interesting.” I don’t believe a word of it, of course—how could I—and yet this explanation of my dream has robbed it of its horror. As I walk up the path to the house I realise that if I am visited again by my haunting dream I shall be able to snap my fingers at it . . . strange, very strange, as Miss Browne Winters would say.

  MONDAY 2ND SEPTEMBER

  Pinkie comes back from the town laden with parcels and announces in accents of delight that “Donford is full of Poles.”

  “Poles?” enquires Grace, who is paying a morning call.

  “Polish officers,” says Pinkie, “the place is teeming with them.”

  I am not surprised at this news, because Tim has already informed me that Polish Troops are coming to Donford, but I am somewhat surprised at Pinkie’s excitement which seems excessive.

  “They’re marvellous, my dear!” says Pinkie. “They’re so tall and good-looking—so romantic-looking—and they’ve got such perfect manners! I met one coming out of the Post Office and he opened the door and bowed—it was absolutely thrilling.”

  Grace rises and says she must go—just lately I have noticed that she has become a trifle impatient with Pinkie. She has no sooner gone than Pinkie seizes my arm and exclaims, “Darling, I’ve done something frightful. I don’t know what you’ll say!”

  “What have you done?” I enquire.

  “Well,” says Pinkie, “Well . . . well, the fact is I’ve asked two of them to tea tomorrow . . . two Poles, I mean . . . I simply couldn’t help it, they were so sweet.”

  Naturally I am surprised, and ask Pinkie how she made their acquaintance. She replies, “Oh, quite easily, darling. They just spoke to me—they aren’t a bit shy.”

  “How did they—”

  “They speak French,” explains Pinkie. “There’s no difficulty at all in speaking to them, because they speak French.”

  “But Pinkie—”

  “Darling, you aren’t annoyed about it, are you?”

  “No, of course not, but—”

  “You’ll simply love them!” cries Pinkie. “I know you will . . . There’s something different about them, something that I can’t describe . . . you’re sure you aren’t fed-up?”

  “No, Pinkie, but the only thing is—”

  “I couldn’t help asking them. I felt—I felt I wanted to do something for them, and there was nothing I could do—nothing!”

  “I know, Pinkie, but you see—”

  “They’ve lost everything,” declares Pinkie, looking at me with wide eyes. “They’ve lost everything, Hester.”

  I try to explain to Pinkie that I share her eagerness to do something for them, but that I am doubtful whether they will enjoy a tea party, especially when they discover that their hostess is incapable of communicating with them. I have not spoken a word of French since I was at school—and that is not yesterday.

  “It will be all right,” replies Pinkie. “I’m sure they’ll enjoy it. We’ll get along splendidly—you’ll see. Even if you can’t talk to them you’ll be giving them tea and you’ll know that—and they’ll know it—I just wish I could do something for them.”

  “Perhaps you’d like to make a cake for them,” I suggest—it is a somewhat feeble suggestion, but I can think of no other on the spur of the moment—

  “Oh yes!” cries Pinkie. “Oh Hester, what a marvellous idea! . . . and I’ll go and buy all the ingredients myself so that it will really be my cake. You don’t mind, do you?”

  TUESDAY 3RD SEPTEMBER

  Pinkie and I spend a busy day preparing a sumptuous repast for our prospective guests. Pinkie is full of excitement and continues to assure me that I shall simply love them and that their manners are too marvellous for words. Personally I am in some doubt as to whether they will come, but Pinkie has no doubts whatever on the subject.

  They arrive as the clock strikes four, and I am bound to admit that the eulogies which have been bestowed upon them are not undeserved. Annie shows them in, and they bow and smile and shake hands, and introduce themselves as Captain Something and Lieutenant Something Else—it is quite impossible for a mere Britisher to pronounce either of their names, and I do not intend to try. The captain is tall and dark with a tragic face and haunting brown eyes, and the lieutenant is fair and blue-eyed and extremely cheerful. I discover that I need not have worried over conversational difficulties for the lieutenant can speak English, and is delighted to air it; he explains that he has been learning it for two and a half months and, when I compliment him upon his progress, he says gravely, “But I am a vairrie diligent boy.” I cannot help smiling at this, and he immediately throws back his head and laughs, displaying a set of beautifully strong white teeth. “Ha, ha, ha, I have said something foony!” he exclaims in delight.

  It is good to find that he can laugh at himself, but I assure him again that he speaks remarkably well.

  He replies, “But we have come from Burnfoot, and there we have lessons every day from an English Priest with window glasses.” (He makes a pair of spectacles with his fingers and thumbs and holds them up to his eyes, so I am left in no doubt as to what he means.)

  I ask him how he got out of Poland, and he replies that his adventures would take too long to tell. He shows me pictures of his home—a lovely old place surrounded by trees—and explains that it is on the outskirts of Warsaw . . . “I have heard it is ruin now,” he says with a sigh, “but my mother manage to escape and my little sister too. They are in France and I have a letter from them, but now no more letters. Per
haps they are still there, but perhaps they are left; I not know where they are . . . He not know either,” continues the lieutenant, nodding in the direction of his comrade. “He not know where is his wife and his little childs. He is vairree sad not knowing.”

  I agree that it is dreadful.

  “War is dreadful,” he replies. “Our beautiful Warsovina is ruin—all heaps of stones—but we like that better than give it to the enemy as a present.” (His eyes flash as he speaks and I realise he is thinking of Paris.) “Yes,” he says firmly. “Yes, it is better . . . and you are the same. Your countree is made of rock.”

  I ask him to explain what he means by this, and he waves his hands and says, “But yes, I explain what I mean. It is treachery over there, and not knowing if your friend is your enemy, but here in your countree it is solid ground. I feel the rock under my feet when I step on shore.”

  “You must have been glad to get here!” I exclaim.

  “I was glad,” he agrees; “but now I desire to go back. I am doing nothing here. What is the good of me?”

  It is easy to understand his feelings but, as he seems to be getting somewhat excited, I endeavour to strike a lighter note. “You couldn’t fight the whole German Army single-handed,” I point out, smiling at him to show that this is a joke.

  “Fight!” he exclaims with flashing eyes. “Yes, I will fight. You put me across the sea and I will fight. I will dead fifty Germans before they dead me . . . then I will dead happy.”

  While we are talking Pinkie and the captain are entertaining each other with great success. The captain has no English at all, but, as he can speak French and Pinkie has been at school in Paris, they have no linguistic difficulties with which to contend. When tea appears the conversation becomes general. I am so wound up by this time that my diffidence has vanished, and I try my French on the captain and find that I remember more than I expected. I can see Pinkie looking at me in surprise, and this spurs me on to further efforts—feel exactly as if my tongue were tied in a knot—