Miss Buncle's Book

by D. E. Stevenson

  It was Elizabeth Wade—looking very Elizabeth Wade-ish—who issued forth into the fitful winter sunshine and went strolling down to the shops.

  I might go in and see Sarah—she thought—as she passed the doctor’s house. It would be rather nice—no, rather pleasant—to have a chat with Sarah. Sarah was about the only person in Silverstream except Sally who approved of Disturber of the Peace. She wasn’t in it of course, but she was in the new novel. She was “nice” in it, of course, because Sarah was nice—not in the least fastidious, or discreet, but just nice. It gave Barbara a warm feeling in her heart when she remembered how Sarah had stood up for the much maligned Disturber of the Peace before all those old cats. Yes, she must certainly go in and see Sarah.

  There was another reason urging Barbara to go and see Sarah, and a much more important one. Sarah was not “coming out” very well in the new novel. It was easier—Barbara found—to portray people who were a bit odd like Miss King, or catty and patronizing like Mrs. Featherstone Hogg. Sarah was none of these things, and her portrait was rather “wishy-washy” in consequence. She would take a good look at Sarah this morning and try to absorb her personality so that when she sat down at her desk to write about her there would be something to write about.

  Sarah was embroidering a brown teddy bear on a blue linen overall for one of the twins. She had a slight cold, and the doctor had forbidden her to go out, so she was feeling a little bored and was delighted to see Barbara. Barbara was rather a dear.

  “Goodness, you’re all new!” she exclaimed. “How nice you look! How on earth did you manage to afford a new coat in these hard times?”

  “I got a little money unexpectedly,” said Barbara with perfect truth. (She preferred to tell the truth if she could.)

  “I wish I had,” said Sarah. “My relations are all frightfully healthy at present. Sit down near the fire, Barbara dear. Wasn’t that meeting ghastly!”

  Barbara agreed that it was.

  “Mrs. Featherstone Hogg ought to be drowned,” continued Sarah. “She really ought, and Stephen Bulmer, and the Greensleeves woman. Silverstream would be ever so much pleasanter to live in if they were all drowned. I still boil all over when I think of the way she stood up and asked me not to tell lies in front of everybody. I would have loved to tell them I had written the book just to see their faces. Ellen King is very nearly as bad; she got John all het up about Disturber of the Peace until I made him read it. Then, of course, he agreed with me that there was nothing disgusting about it. I can’t understand Ellen King at all; she’s usually such a sensible sort of person. I can’t see anything in the book for her to make a song and dance about—can you?”

  “No, I can’t,” said Barbara. She had not intended to be hard on Miss King; she liked her. The fact was that Barbara had always been of the opinion that Miss King found Silverstream a trifle dull. There was little scope in Silverstream for Miss King’s energies and capabilities, and it had been with friendly intent that she had arranged an adventurous holiday for her in Samarkand.

  “You’ve read Disturber of the Peace, of course,” Sarah said. “What a well-chosen name it is! We have had no peace in Silverstream since it was published, have we? Don’t you think it’s amusing, Barbara? I laughed and laughed when I read it. I couldn’t leave it and go to bed.”

  Barbara was intensely gratified. She preened herself inwardly.

  “I suppose you think I wrote it?” asked Sarah with twinkling eyes.

  “No, I don’t,” replied Barbara, “but the others do—I mean Mrs. Carter and Mrs. Featherstone Hogg and all of them. They’ve got some deep plan that’s going to prove you wrote it. Mrs. Carter wouldn’t tell me what the plan was—she had promised not to tell anybody—but she was full of it. I thought I’d better warn you.”

  “It was dear of you,” said Sarah, “but I didn’t write the book so they can’t prove that I did.”

  “I know, but I didn’t like the way she spoke of the plan; she looked sort of mischievous. I can’t explain what I mean, but it made my blood run cold.”

  “I don’t give a damn for any plan made by Hogg and Carter,” said Sarah naughtily. “It’s bound to be futile and foolish—”

  “But this is really Mrs. Greensleeves’ plan; the others have only adopted it.”

  “That’s different. Vivian Greensleeves hates me, for some reason. I know she hates me because she is always so frightfully sugary—and of course it was her suggestion that I was John Smith—and of course she doesn’t like John Smith at all. John Smith was really very unkind to Vivian Greensleeves,” said Sarah, sniggering a little, “that Romeo and Juliet scene with Mr. Fortnum and Mason was just a trifle beneath our friend Vivian—not very much beneath her, I fancy; there was just enough truth in it to be intensely galling.”

  “She’s dangerous, Sarah.”

  “She’s a snaky sort of person,” Sarah said, wrinkling her brows, “but I don’t see what she could do to me; I don’t really see what she could do.”

  Barbara didn’t see either but she felt that something nasty was brewing.

  The twins were just coming in from their morning walk as Barbara went away.

  “Aren’t they lambs?” said their mother proudly—and they really were like two little lambs in their white fur coats and caps. Each lamb was hugging tightly beneath one arm a very shabby disreputable looking teddy bear, more precious in the sight of its owner than all the other toys in the nursery put together. The teddy bears went everywhere with the twins and shared their beds, and meals, and walks. They had been worn threadbare with love and kisses.

  “Have they been good, Nannie?” Sarah asked.

  “Very good,” said Nannie fondly. It was her invariable reply to Sarah’s invariable question—no matter how wicked the twins had been she always assured their mother that they had behaved like angels. She punished them herself of course, but she never “told on them.” Nannie adored them. She had had them “from the month” and they were the joy and pride of her heart. Even their wickedness was of an endearing nature.

  Barbara shook hands with the twins gravely; she was never at her best with children. She was under the impression that children didn’t like her; they always stared at her so solemnly with their large innocent eyes. Her relations with Sarah’s twins were further complicated by the fact that she never knew which was Jack and which was Jill—for Sarah dressed them both alike quite regardless of their sex. It was so awkward not to know whether you were addressing a male or a female.

  “I can’t think why John Smith didn’t put them in his book, can you?” Sarah said, “they’re quite the loveliest, darlingest lambs in Silverstream. Good-bye, Barbara dear, and thank you for coming. I’ll keep my wits about me and look out for squalls.”

  ***

  Miss King was just going in at her own gate as Barbara passed, and Barbara, although she would fain have avoided the woman, was obliged to stop and speak to her.

  “What horrid damp weather,” Barbara said, wondering what we would do without that safe topic of conversation. “And so warm and unseasonable, isn’t it? I do hope it will clear up and be nice and frosty for Christmas Day. I like Christmas Day to be frosty, don’t you?”

  “It never is,” Miss King pointed out.

  “I expect we shall have a cold spell later,” continued Barbara. “After all this mild wet weather we are practically bound to. Don’t you think so?”

  “Well, it won’t affect me, anyway,” said Miss King blithely, “Angela and I are off to Samarkand next week,” and passed in.

  Barbara was left outside, staring at the gate as if there were something peculiar the matter with it.

  Chapter Twenty

  Chiefly about Sally

  Christmas came and went; Silverstream went to church and gave each other small and somewhat useless presents just as it always did at this season of the yea
r. Sally’s history lessons progressed on unconventional lines. Mr. Hathaway had ordered from his library some of the modern books about historical people and they were reading them together. It was scarcely history in the accepted sense of the word, but it was much more interesting than Lord’s Modern Europe. They read aloud in turn and discussed what they read, exchanging ideas, and getting to know each other pretty well in the process. Ernest learned quite as much as Sally at these history lessons—not much history, of course, but there are other things just as important as history. The conversation was apt to wander off into other fields, and linger there until Ernest suddenly remembered that he was giving Sally a history lesson and they returned hastily to their book.

  They went for several walks together (not many, because Ernest’s garden claimed such a large proportion of his time and energy), they explored the little byways of Silverstream and the woods, and they visited Twelve-Trees Farm once or twice because Ernest wanted to see one of the farmer’s sons, who had sprained his leg and couldn’t come to church. Dick Billing served well as an excuse for a walk up the valley and the Billings were delighted with the new Vicar’s kindness and attention. Of course, there was no need to talk about history during these occasional rambles.

  Ernest was so innocent and inexperienced in worldly matters that he was able to keep Sally and Vivian quite apart in his mind. Sally was a pretty child and a charming companion of whom he was growing very fond. Vivian was the woman he was going to marry.

  Sally began to like Mr. Hathaway very much. She had been rather scornful of him at first and had decided that he was “soft,” but she soon revised her opinion. Ernest wasn’t “soft,” he was just “different.” It took Sally a little time to understand him because she had never met anyone the least like him before. He was a new kind of being to Sally, who was used to captains and subalterns and an occasional young man about town. Ernest had an entirely different point of view from these gay and self-possessed young creatures. His vocabulary was different, his character was different, his mind worked in a different way. But once she began to understand Ernest, she began to like him, and the more she understood him the better she liked him.

  One morning—a few days after Christmas—Mrs. Hobday knocked discreetly upon the door while the lesson was in progress, and asked for three shillings to pay the laundry. Ernest found his old tobacco tin and peered into it.

  “I’m afraid there’s only two and threepence here,” he said regretfully, “I thought there was more, but, of course, I had to pay carriage on the books, hadn’t I?”

  “They can wait till next week,” said Mrs. Hobday, who knew the secrets of the tobacco tin, and accepted this strange financial arrangement with the equanimity of her kind.

  “No,” said Ernest firmly, “you had better give them the two and threepence while it’s here. Otherwise it will just fade away and the bill will be double next week. Tell them to add on the ninepence to their next account.”

  Sally was amazed at this poverty. She knew what it was to be economical, of course, and to go without a new hat when you wanted it very badly, for soldiers are proverbially poor; but she had never realized that you could be so short of money as this. Fancy not having three shillings wherewith to pay your laundry bill—how ghastly!

  “It’s awkward being so poor,” said Mr. Hathaway to Sally quite frankly and somewhat apologetically, when he had replaced the empty tin in his drawer. “I try to save a little in that old tin, but there’s always something coming along that has to be paid. I was hoping to get my shoes mended next week.”

  Sally gazed at him with wide eyes.

  “I don’t mind really,” he said, laughing a little at her distress, “it’s rather fun pinching and scraping and trying to live on my stipend—it’s like a game—”

  How brave he was!

  “Don’t worry,” Ernest continued, “I shall be all right—you mustn’t look so sad about it, you know.”

  “You’ll have the money for my lessons, of course,” Sally pointed out.

  “I oughtn’t to take it, really,” replied Ernest, “I’m afraid you’re not learning much from me.”

  “Oh, I am!” declared Sally, “I’m learning lots. Gran ought to pay you ever so much for my lessons, and she ought to pay you every week. I shall tell her about it.”

  They discussed the question with the utmost frankness. Sally had been brought up with soldiers, a class which is completely frank as regards money. Having very little to come and go on, and knowing to a halfpenny what each other is drawing in the way of pay, the Army Officer has no false pride about his financial affairs. Ernest was perfectly frank, also, because he had never been poor, and he was not really poor now. This poverty of his, as he had told Sally, was merely a sort of game. Sometimes it was a troublesome, worrying sort of game, but there was nothing bitter, and real, and grinding about it. Poverty is easy to bear if it is only temporary, easier still if it is an entirely voluntary burden.

  The next morning Sally appeared with an envelope containing two weeks’ salary from Mrs. Carter for the instruction of her granddaughter, which the said granddaughter had extracted from Mrs. Carter with firmness and tact.

  Ernest was quite pleased to see the money—which Sally assured him he had “honestly earned”—and not at all embarrassed at taking it from his pupil’s hands. Together they placed it in the tobacco tin, and Ernest promised to have his shoes mended at once. It was high time he did something about his shoes, for he did not possess a pair without large holes in the soles, and these large holes let in the water most uncomfortably when he walked about the muddy lanes of Silverstream.

  They were just settling down comfortably to a perusal of Elizabeth and Essex, by Lytton Strachey, when the doorbell rang and Mrs. Greensleeves was shown in to the study. Mrs. Greensleeves was beautifully dressed in navy blue, with black fox furs, and a quiet but obviously costly black felt hat set at a jaunty angle on her elaborately waved hair.

  Sally had no use for Mrs. Greensleeves; she had met her like before, and her sharp eyes had sized up that wily lady the moment they had beheld her sitting at her ease in Gran’s drawing-room and laying down the law to Gran and Mrs. Featherstone Hogg about Disturber of the Peace. And, besides her own infallible instinct, Sally had John Smith’s word for it that Mrs. Greensleeves was no good.

  It was, however, quite obvious to Sally that Mr. Hathaway did not share her views, and the views of John Smith, about his unexpected visitor. He seemed enchanted to see her and apologized profusely for being in the middle of a lesson. He was shy, and embarrassed, and meek, and propitiatory—almost as if he had been found out doing something wrong—and his excuses for Sally’s presence were not altogether tactful. Sally was annoyed; she had every right to be here, far more right than Mrs. Greensleeves if it came to that—and she did not like being apologized for. She had ceased to think of these hours with Mr. Hathaway as lessons (except, of course, that Gran must pay for them), and it was humiliating to be shoved back into the schoolroom before Mrs. Greensleeves, whom she disliked and despised.

  “It doesn’t matter at all,” said Sally, seizing her hat and cramming it onto her golden curls.

  “Oh, but you mustn’t go,” said poor Ernest. “We have only just begun our lesson. Mrs. Greensleeves won’t mind waiting, or coming back later.”

  Mrs. Greensleeves said she wouldn’t dream of disturbing a lesson, but, unfortunately, she could not come back later; she merely wanted to speak to Mr. Hathaway privately for a few minutes. Perhaps Miss Carter could wait.

  It appeared, however, that Miss Carter could not wait either. Gran would be expecting her and it was quite unthinkable to keep Gran waiting of course. She wasn’t very sure whether she would be able to spare the time to continue her readings with Mr. Hathaway: Gran was getting old, and required a lot of attention.

  Ernest gazed from one to the other in dismay; he was quite helpl
ess in this sudden and unexpected dilemma. He was being paid for Miss Carter’s lessons, and therefore it was his duty to give them to her at the appointed time, but how could he let Vivian go away when she wanted to speak to him? Vivian would be annoyed if he sent her away—besides they were engaged, so, of course, he wanted to talk to her.

  Sally read him like a book—he was fairly easy to read—and departed in high dudgeon and walked about Silverstream for an hour. She wasn’t going home, and she wasn’t going to tell Gran about it until she had made up her mind definitely whether she was going to continue her readings with Mr. Hathaway or not (it sounded so much better to call them readings—and of course that was what they really were).

  Sally walked quickly up the hill and into the woods. At one moment she was furious with Mr. Hathaway for being such a fool, and the next moment she was sorry for him for being such an innocent. “I wonder if they are engaged,” she said aloud, slashing at an unoffending bush with her umbrella. “I bet they are engaged or he wouldn’t have been so terrified of offending her. How could he be such an idiot as to fall in love with a horrible little cat like Vivian Greensleeves! She’s years older than he is—five years older at least—and not a bit his style. She cares for nothing but clothes—”

  A sudden thought struck her, and she stopped slashing and leaned against a convenient tree. Vivian Greensleeves would never marry a poor man. “She can’t know he’s so poor,” said Sally to herself, “or she wouldn’t want him.” It was an amazing thought, amazing and comforting. It was a sort of loophole in the blank wall; it was a ray of sunshine in a dark place. Perhaps Vivian Greensleeves had heard—as all Silverstream had heard—that the new Vicar was a wealthy man; perhaps she didn’t know that he had lost all his money.