Miss Buncle's Book

by D. E. Stevenson

  Margaret lunched with Sarah and spent the afternoon finishing the book, and as she put it down she said, “He knows everything about me, that man, except one thing, and that one thing is the strongest thing in my life. If it had not been for that one thing, I would have gone away and left Stephen long ago—just as Edith Gaymer did—but I couldn’t leave the children—not for any man on earth—so I shall stay with him always, and grow old and ugly, without ever having known what it is to be loved.”

  She felt Sarah’s arms round her, and Sarah’s voice in her ear telling her not to cry.

  “The children love you frightfully,” Sarah whispered, “and Stephen will improve—I know he will. Look at how different he was this morning. You’ve been too lenient with him—too doormatty, Meg darling—take a firm line. It will be better for Stephen and better for everyone if you make him behave. I don’t suppose he’s happy being horrid—nobody is,” said Sarah wisely.

  Chapter Ten

  “Feu De Joie”

  Barbara Buncle waved her rake to Margaret Bulmer and continued to gather up the dead leaves and the prunings from her gooseberry bushes and apple trees and to pile them onto her bonfire. She had deposited the hundred pound note in her bank that morning, and it was necessary to celebrate the occasion in some way and to work off her excitement. What could be more fitting to celebrate the occasion than a bonfire? Great victories, Kings’ Coronations, and the birth of heirs have all been celebrated by bonfires, so why not the advent of peace and prosperity to Tanglewood Cottage?

  The beauty of Barbara’s bonfire lay in the fact that nobody knew it was a celebrating bonfire—nobody but herself. The gardener who worked occasionally in Tanglewood garden passed, and called out, “I see you are burning up your leaves, Miss.” Burning up her leaves! What a way to speak of a bonfire.

  Margaret Bulmer had shouted, “Lovely smell!” It was rather nice, thought Barbara, sniffing, but it was the flames she liked, the little red flames that licked round the twigs and shot up suddenly—she threw on some more twigs just to see the flames shoot up.

  What fun it had been that morning at the bank! Barbara had gone in soon after the bank had opened, and the young man with the fair hair and the supercilious expression (Mr. Black his name was, and he was one of Mrs. Dick’s paying guests) had looked up from his desk and seen who it was and gone on writing for at least two minutes before he came to see what she wanted. No need to bother about that old frump, he had said to himself—or Barbara thought that he had. Barbara was sure that he knew her account was overdrawn; perhaps he had been told not to cash any more checks for Miss Buncle. When he had quite finished what he was doing he lounged over to the counter and she produced the note.

  “Ha, don’t often see these chaps about!” he had remarked in his familiar way, which Barbara detested.

  “A little present from my uncle,” said Barbara, quite casually, as if it were quite a usual occurrence to receive hundred pound notes from your uncle.

  “Must be a rich man, your uncle,” suggested Mr. Black, filling up forms—his manner had altered toward her, at least so Barbara imagined; he was much more respectful and attentive. It was the rich uncle in the background she supposed.

  “Oh, he is, and so generous. He lives in Birmingham,” said Barbara glibly. She was amazed at herself when she found what she had said—such dreadful lies, and they had tumbled out of her mouth without the slightest effort. It really was rather appalling. She had intended to domicile her rich uncle in Australia as Mr. Abbott had humorously suggested, but it had suddenly struck her that perhaps the money in Australia was different from our money. It might have the name of an Australian bank inscribed upon it—or a kangaroo or something. Barbara did not know, and she had no idea how to find out; so, all things considered, it seemed easier for the rich uncle to reside in Birmingham. Barbara had never been to Birmingham, and, to her, it seemed almost as far away from Silverstream as Australia, and therefore almost as safe.

  She was thinking about all this and piling leaves onto her bonfire, the smoke swirling around her, blackening her face and making her eyes pour with water, when suddenly a voice announced:

  “Ooh—a bonfire!”

  Barbara looked all round to discover where the voice came from, and finally found herself gazing into a pair of very blue eyes which were peering over the fence dividing her garden from that of old Mrs. Carter. The blue eyes, some fair curls, and a red tam-o’-shanter were all that was visible above the fence.

  “I suppose—I suppose I couldn’t come and help,” said the voice plaintively. “I love bonfires.”

  “Do come and help,” Barbara said. “There’s a gap in the fence lower down the garden—”

  The eyes disappeared instantly, and, a few moments later, there was a rustle of dry leaves dispersed by flying feet and a young girl appeared—a somewhat breathless young girl in gray tweeds, a slim willowy creature with a rose-leaf complexion and a small pretty mouth, rather a firm willful mouth for such a fairy-like creature, Barbara decided.

  “I’m Sally,” said the girl, when she had recovered her breath.

  Barbara remembered now. It was at that dreadful tea party when Mrs. Featherstone Hogg had burst in like a bombshell and had thrown Disturber of the Peace onto Mrs. Carter’s tea table. They had been talking about Sally at the time. Sally was coming to live with Mrs. Carter because she required sunshine and milk.

  “But I thought Sally was a child,” said Barbara vaguely.

  “You would,” replied Sally darkly. “I mean if you heard Gran talking about me you would think I was about seven instead of seventeen. She treats me like an infant—tells me to change my stockings and wash my hands for lunch, and sends me up to bed at eight o’clock every night. Me, who has kept house for Daddy for two years—it’s a bit steep, it really is.”

  “Steep?” inquired Barbara.

  “A bit thick,” Sally explained kindly, “absolutely the pink limit.”

  “Yes,” said Barbara, somewhat bewildered.

  “I knew you would think so,” Sally told her. “The moment I saw you I said to myself there’s a sensible person.” She sat down on a convenient log and stirred the bonfire dreamily with an apple branch. “I said to myself there’s a sensible person; I must speak to her or I’ll go mad. You don’t know how beastly it is to be treated like an imbecile and followed about all day long and stuffed with milk. You see I was mistress in Daddy’s house and I did what I liked. We had a lovely time together. We had little dinners, and twice a week we went out to restaurants and then on to a play. And of course all the subalterns called just as if I were grown-up. We were at Malta before that—it was too marvelous. Have you ever been to Malta?”

  “Never,” replied Barbara sadly.

  “You must, you simply must,” said Sally, turning her face up to Barbara and almost dazzling that staid person with the bewildering beauty of her smile. “Everyone ought to go to Malta. There’s the most heavenly bathing there, and dances every night, and darling little midshipmen to dance with, and tennis parties—you do play tennis, I suppose.”

  “A little,” replied Barbara, with truthful modesty.

  “You’d love it,” Sally told her, “you’d simply adore it. I’d like us to go together and then I could show you everything—don’t you hate this dull hole?”

  “Well—” said Barbara doubtfully.

  “I knew it,” Sally said eagerly. “I knew you were like me—pining to get away. Daddy’s gone to India and left me here with Gran, and I simply can’t bear it.”

  “It must be dull for you,” Barbara admitted.

  “It’s simply foul,” replied the remarkable girl. “I was yearning to go to India. I’d heard so much about it from everyone, and it seemed almost too good to be true when Daddy heard that he had been posted to Calcutta. It was all settled, and I was looking forward to it more than words can t
ell, and then my appendix went rotten.”

  “Dreadful!” said Barbara sympathetically.

  “Ghastly—simply ghastly,” Sally agreed. “They yanked it out of me of course, and I thought everything would be all right, and then the doctor—who was an absolute fiend—went and told Daddy that India was out of the question for me, and I must be fed up. I was fed up all right I can tell you. Fancy Daddy going off to India alone,” Sally said tremulously.

  “Dreadful!” said Barbara again. She hoped the girl was not going to cry. (She need not have worried; Sally was made of sterner stuff.)

  “Have you ever had appendicitis?” inquired Sally more cheerfully.

  “Never,” replied Barbara.

  “Well, don’t,” Sally advised her. “It’s absolutely foul. It came on gradually with me, and I used to wake up at night and feel like David—‘My reins chasten me in the night season,’ you know. It gave me a sort of friendly feeling for David. I wonder if he had a touch of appendicitis.”

  Barbara was feeling more and more bewildered; she was not used to this kind of conversation. She tried to fix her mind upon David and the facts known to her about him, so as to determine whether it could have been appendicitis he suffered from; but before she could do so Sally had abandoned the subject.

  “Lovely bonfire!” Sally said, poking it so that the flames shot up with a roaring, crackling sound. “The French call it ‘feu de joie’—I think that’s an awfully good name for it, don’t you? Is this a ‘feu de joie’ or is it just burning rubbish?”

  “It’s a ‘feu de joie,’” Barbara replied incautiously.

  “Oh! That makes it ten times nicer,” cried Sally. “Let’s pile on more sticks until it’s as high as the house. What’s it for?”

  “Well, it’s for me,” Barbara said lamely. “I can’t tell you exactly—”

  “A secret?”

  Barbara nodded.

  “How too marvelous!” breathed Sally. “Oh, I do think it was good of you to let me come and help you with it.”

  They worked away happily, piling more sticks onto the “feu de joie” so that the flames sank down for a minute and then leaped up higher than ever. It became so hot that they could not go near it. They poked at it with long sticks and laughed and the smoke poured into their lungs and made them cough; it was tremendous fun.

  At last, worn out with their efforts, they retired to a short distance and sat down on a log to admire their handiwork.

  “Gran would have a fit if she could see me sitting here,” announced Sally placidly. She took a somewhat sticky paper bag out of her pocket and offered Barbara a toffee-ball. Barbara took one. She liked toffee and she was not foolishly fastidious.

  “Perhaps you had better not sit here, then,” Barbara pointed out, her utterance somewhat obstructed by the large ball of toffee.

  “It’s quite all right as long as she doesn’t see me,” replied Sally, “and she won’t see me, because Mrs. Featherstone Hogg came in to see her and talk about that book, and Gran didn’t want me to hear what they said so she told me to take a sharp walk. I hate sharp walks, don’t you?”

  “What book?” inquired Barbara, knowing quite well, but hoping that she was mistaken.

  “Disturber of the Peace, of course. They all talk about it night and day. Have you read it? I had to creep down after Gran had gone to bed and pinch it out of the drawing-room. Gran said it was not suitable for young people.”

  Barbara chuckled; she couldn’t help it, for when Sally quoted from “Gran” she put on the old lady’s voice and manner so exactly that it almost seemed as if Mrs. Carter were sitting beside her on the log. She chuckled, but at the same time she was beset with fears—they were talking about her book night and day, were they?

  “Something tickled you?” inquired Sally cheekily.

  Barbara didn’t answer this; she tried to make her voice sound stern as she pointed out the wickedness of reading books banned by your grandmother.

  “Of course you have to say that,” said Sally unrepentantly, “but you don’t really think it’s wicked. I had to read the book when they were all talking about it all the time, hadn’t I? Besides Gran’s such an old stickler, she thinks I ought to read Little Women and The Fairchild Family.”

  “You are under her care,” said Barbara virtuously.

  “Worse luck!” Sally agreed with a sigh. “But it’s such rot; I’ve read whatever I liked for years. Daddy didn’t mind what I read. I’ve read far worse things than Disturber of the Peace. There’s nothing horrid about it at all. It’s simply a scream. I had to stuff the bedclothes into my mouth when I came to the bits about Gran and Mrs. Featherstone Hogg.”

  “Did you think it was funny?” asked the author with interest.

  “I should jolly well think it is,” replied Sally, “but to me it’s not just a funny book; it’s something far better—”

  “Is it?”

  “It’s a kind of—a kind of allegory,” continued Sally gravely. “Here’s this horrible little village, full of its own affairs and its own importance, all puffed up and smug and conventional and satisfied with itself, and then suddenly their eyes are opened and their shackles fall off and they act according to their real natures. They’re not shams anymore, they’re real. It’s simply marvelous,” Sally said, turning a shining face upon the astonished author.

  Barbara’s heart warmed at this unsolicited praise. She had heard the child of her brain maligned and anathematized, she had been obliged to sit dumbly and hear it called filth; but now, here, at last was somebody who appreciated its worth. Barbara looked at Sally with affection and respect.

  “He’s wakened them all up,” Sally was saying, “wakened them all up and made them see themselves as others see them. Of course that’s what he meant to do. Have you read it?”

  “Y—es,” said Barbara.

  “Perhaps you didn’t read it as carefully as I did,” Sally said consolingly. “I was so interested, you see, I seemed to get right inside the man’s brain. I can see exactly what he meant when he wrote it—I know exactly what he felt—he’s a marvelous man. I should like to marry John Smith,” said Sally, nursing one knee and gazing at the bonfire with shining eyes.

  “You—you would like to—to marry him?” echoed Barbara in amazement.

  “Yes,” replied Sally. “He’s the sort of man I admire—absolutely fearless. I’m sure he’s tall and strong with shaggy sort of hair that keeps falling over his forehead until he tosses his head and shakes it back. He’s not exactly good-looking of course, but he has a humorous mouth and nice eyes—piercing gray eyes that look straight through you. I can see him striding about the country with a drawn sword in his hand—Disturber of the Peace is a drawn sword—ready to attack all the dragons of modern life at a moment’s notice, freeing poor little worms like Mr. Featherstone Hogg from their shackles, and trampling on stupid conventions and shams. He doesn’t care what people think of him, of course, he only cares to do good, to help the weak and expose the humbugs—I wonder if I shall ever meet him,” said Sally softly, almost reverently. “I’m afraid I shan’t ever meet him; it would be too good to be true. I expect he has left Silverstream now and gone to some other horrid smug little place to waken it up and give it beans.”

  Barbara was absolutely dumb—she had no idea that she had written such a marvelous book, nor that its effects upon Silverstream were so far-reaching. She was much too honest to credit herself with all those noble motives. She had written Disturber of the Peace to make a little money for herself, because she needed money very badly, but it was pleasant to think that more had gone into it than she had intended. If all that Sally said were true she was a public benefactor, and not—as she had been led to believe—a criminal of the deepest dye. As for John Smith, it was most extraordinary but he seemed quite real to Barbara; she could see him—just as Sally had describ
ed—striding about the country, a modern Jack the Giant Killer, with his shaggy hair and piercing gray eyes.

  “People like Gran and Mrs. Featherstone Hogg have no right to criticize a splendid man like that,” Sally continued. “He’s as far above their moldy little minds as the stars. They don’t understand him of course, but other people will. All over the country people are reading his book and leading better and nobler lives because of it.”

  Barbara felt she could go on listening to this sort of conversation for hours. What an extraordinary girl Sally was—a very clever girl indeed, with sense far beyond her tender years. Unfortunately time was flying and she felt bound to point out the fact to her companion. Mrs. Carter had lunch at one o’clock and punctuality was something of a fetish at The Firs.

  Sally sprang up. “I wonder if Mrs. Hogg will still be there,” she said, “I called her Mrs. Hogg this morning and she didn’t like it a bit. I can’t bear her, can you? I suppose you couldn’t ask me to tea someday, could you?”

  “I could,” replied Barbara. “Would Mrs. Carter let you come?”

  “Why not? You are quite respectable, aren’t you?” inquired Sally in her direct manner.

  “Oh yes—at least.…” It crossed Barbara’s mind that perhaps she wasn’t quite respectable now, by Mrs. Carter’s standard. If Mrs. Carter knew that she was John Smith—but Mrs. Carter didn’t know, so it was all right.

  Sally had been watching her face, poised ready for flight.

  “Aren’t you?” she now demanded, with gleaming eyes. Quite obviously she was hoping that her new friend was not quite all that Gran could desire, and therefore much more exciting to know.

  “Of course I am; don’t be silly,” Barbara said, a tiny bit annoyed, though she couldn’t have said why.

  “All right—don’t get ratty,” Sally adjured her. “I suppose it was too much to hope for—” And she fled.