Miss Bunting

by Angela Thirkell

  ‘You know, father,’ his daughter had said, ‘it isn’t really so bad. Mr Adams may be a JP and even an MP in time, but I don’t think the county would stand him as Lord Lieutenant. All the same there’s something rather nice about him. A kind of person who gets things done.’

  At which the Admiral had glared at his daughter over his spectacles, and said Adams wasn’t the only one who got things done; and it was probably people saying things like that about Hitler that had got him where he was.

  But leaving these social changes, let us return to Hallbury House, outside which Packer was sitting in his car, reading the Sunday paper folded very small, thus betraying his standard of intelligence to anyone who cared to take notes. Though why to read the Times with the sheets flapping about like animated bedclothes should be the mark of caste, as against reading other organs which it would be invidious to mention very neatly packed into what almost becomes a cube, we cannot say. Are we to judge our fellow creatures by their capacity to read rapidly, with the eye rather than the mind, as against reading line upon line with practically no mind at all? The answer would appear to be that a good many of us do.

  While Packer was mastering the details of L.-Cpl. Hackett, L., 43537201, coming back from Burma after three years to find his wife with twins of two and an idiot baby all of whom were taught to call the sergeant at the local Hush-Hush camp ‘Daddy’, and shooting the whole lot of them, and then giving himself up to the police with the words, ‘All right, mates, I done it,’ Mr Adams, a small boy grasping each hand, led the way to the back of Hallbury House, followed by Jane and the Admiral, who was lovingly carrying the oily spang-rod. It did occur to Jane and perhaps to her father that it was as a rule the host who took his guest to any given part of a house or garden, not the guest who took the host, but Mr Adams being obviously an elemental force, they resigned themselves to fate.

  ‘Now,’ said Mr Adams, shaking himself free of the little boys and taking off his coat, ‘we’ll see who’s master. Got the spang-rod, Admiral? Thanks. What you want is some cotton waste,’ he added, as the Admiral rubbed his rather oily hands on the grass edge.

  ‘Cotton waste!’ said the Admiral, angrily. ‘Good God! man, do you suppose I can get any? And when I think I could have it in the bale when I was at sea. Well, well.’

  ‘Here you are,’ said Mr Adams, pulling a lump out of the pocket of his discarded coat. ‘Never without it. I’ll tell my sekertary to see they send you some from the works. Now, you boys, here’s something you haven’t seen.’

  From another pocket he extracted a kind of small rubber dome, set on a wooden handle.

  ‘See this, young men?’ said Mr Adams. ‘This is first-aid for scullery pipes. Press it down over the hole in the sink, then pull it up. You’ll have to pull, because —’

  ‘I know, sir,’ said Frank, eagerly, and (to his mother’s ear) pretentiously. ‘It’s a vacuum. Vacuum is Latin for empty. Did you know that, sir? Tom hasn’t got as far as that yet. He’s only doing first declension, aren’t you, Tom? Vacuus, vacua, vacuum, vac—’

  ‘That’s all very nice, sonny, but it won’t unblock your granddad’s pipe,’ said Mr Adams, who appeared to be becoming a close relation to the whole family. ‘Now you listen to me. Next time the pipe gets blocked, I don’t say by the cook, I don’t say by one of you young men, try the squeegee first. And if that doesn’t work, try the spang-rod. Here, what’s your name, Frank, you go into the scullery and when I say “Go,” turn the tap full on.’

  ‘Oh, Mr Adams,’ said Jane, ‘I don’t want to interfere, but cook,’ at which name she involuntarily dropped her voice and looked round nervously, ‘is very difficult and —’

  ‘That’s all right, Mrs Gresham,’ said Mr Adams. ‘That’s why I sent that lad of yours in. Cook won’t mind him, and what’s more he won’t mind cook. Besides I’ll lay an even sixpence that she’s out. They always are on Sunday evening, with cold tea for the family. If I had my way I’d have a good big hot meal every Sunday evening. That’d teach them.’

  With which highly undemocratic words Mr Adams began to push the spang-rod up the pipe. It went up like Aaron’s rod, twisting obediently to its master’s hand. In a moment he appeared to be satisfied, withdrew the rod and called out ‘Go!’

  At once the roaring of water coming off the main was heard, and down the pipe came an avalanche of mixed filth with a core of sponge.

  ‘Stop her,’ Mr Adams called to Frank.

  The roaring ceased.

  ‘Is there a kettle boiling?’ said Mr Adams.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ shouted Frank.

  ‘If you’ll pardon me, Mrs Gresham, I’ll just finish the job,’ said Mr Adams, turning to the scullery door, when he felt something pulling him and looking down saw Master Watson.

  ‘Well, sonny,’ said Mr Adams.

  ‘Oh, sir, can I see the evacuee?’ said Tom.

  Mr Adams looked perplexed, then laughed and told Tom to come inside. In a moment or two boiling water with heaps of soda in it came rushing down the pipe. Mr Adams and the two little boys, now in a state of simmering hero-worship, emerged, and Mr Adams put his coat on and said he must be off. The Admiral and Jane escorted him to the gate, the general progress rather impeded by the affection of the two little boys for their new patron, an affection expressed by hanging heavily on any parts of him they could reach, and getting among his legs; but Mr Adams took it all in good part.

  ‘Get in, Tommy,’ he said to Master Watson, not so much as an affectionate diminutive as a comprehensive name for small boys. ‘Well, goodbye, Admiral; goodbye, Mrs Gresham; goodbye, young man.’

  And he already had one foot in the car when Dr Dale came up, for it was that gentleman’s habit to partake of a cold supper with Hallbury House every other Sunday or so, to give his staff a free evening, while Robin went to one or another friend, or to the Omnium Arms, where they still had a fairly good dinner. Much as the Admiral and his daughter loved their Rector, they could have wished that he had arrived even one minute later, for being now rather exhausted by the way Mr Adams had taken over the house and the little boys, they were thoroughly glad, though in a grateful way, to be seeing the last of him. Mr Adams withdrew the foot he had placed in the car.

  ‘I fear I am late,’ said Dr Dale. ‘Freeman detained me about the Barsetshire Archaeological next week. We are having some of them at the Rectory, you know.’

  Mr Adams, taking the role of both host and hostess upon him, greeted the Rector warmly and said that was the kind of sermon he did like. Not a lot of communistic claptrap like the reverend down in the New Town, he said, but what he called a sermon; short, sweet, and to the point, at which the Rector, who had simply filled up seven minutes in an adequate way, was surprised and flattered.

  ‘Chapel I was born and Chapel I was bred, you know,’ said Mr Adams, to the despair of his audience who neither knew nor cared, ‘but me and Heth – that’s my daughter, you know, Rector – heard such a bellyful of nonsense if you’ll excuse the expression down at the chapel this morning that we said we’d try C. of E. and very pleased we were.’

  The Rector, who was not used to such manifestations, said he was but a humble instrument in the hands of One who moved in His own mysterious ways.

  ‘His wonders to perform,’ said Mr Adams. ‘Quite right, and if you asked them at Hogglestock they’d tell you it was a wonder to find Sam Adams – that’s my name, Sam – in a church. Well, goodbye all. Goodbye, Mrs Gresham. My little Heth is quite taken with you. Mr Watson’s.’

  These last words were spoken to Packer, who had after long and intensive study, got to the place where L.-Cpl. Hackett had been remanded in custody. He folded the paper even smaller and put it in his pocket. During this short delay Dr Dale was greeting his Hallbury House friends for the third time that day, and said he had brought the church accounts with him as they were even more confusing than usual, and he hoped the Admiral, his senior churchwarden, could get them unentangled.

  Telling Packer to wait half a
jiffy, Mr Adams, to the ill-concealed horror of the speakers, put his large head and powerful shoulders out of the car, looking rather like Mr Punch when in vacant or in pensive mood.

  ‘Excuse me, I’m sure,’ said Mr Adams, ‘but hearing the word “accounts”, I couldn’t help hearing what you gentlemen said. You gentlemen need someone to do the accounts for you. It’s my motto, never do anything yourself unless you can do it better than the man on the job, and that’s why I’ve never so much as looked at a column of figures, not to add them up, since I got into a big way. Give me a company report and I know my way about as well as any man, as anyone in Barchester will tell you. But I don’t keep a dog and bark myself. I pay my accountants to do their work and do it well; and it pays them to do it well. You didn’t ought to be doing those accounts, Rector, not at your age. You gave me and my daughter a most gratifying experience in your church to-night. Sam Adams never owed any man anything and he’s not going to begin. I’ll send one of my men down to run through those accounts of yours any day you like to name, and he’ll have everything so that the Pope himself couldn’t find fault, balanced to the last penny. Well, that’s a bargain. Goodbye everyone. Right, Packer; Mr Watson’s.’

  The car moved away. A deep religious hush fell upon the survivors.

  ‘Good God!’ said the Admiral.

  ‘I’d say so myself if I wasn’t a clergyman,’ said Dr Dale.

  ‘Good God! Good God!’ said Frank Gresham, dancing on one leg, and quite unable to understand why the three elders, excluding Dr Dale who had never been known to say a harsh word except about the Bishop of Barchester, should all pounce on him with such fury that he was for once quite subdued and ate his supper in complete silence.

  7

  It must not be thought that Miss Holly and Heather Adams were idle during these weeks. We have only numbered the serene, or fairly serene hours, but Miss Holly and her pupil worked very hard, and such was Heather’s application and her native intelligence that Miss Holly foresaw that she might take a very good place in the mathematical tripos, and was sometimes only just able to keep ahead of her. For though mathematics were Miss Holly’s subject, she had of late years rather deserted them in favour of general secretarial work for Dr Sparling at the Hosiers’ Girls’ Foundation School.

  Anne Fielding had of course got permission to ask Heather and Miss Holly to tea, during which Miss Bunting, who saw no sense nor usefulness in pure mathematics, had introduced Heather to The Loves of the Triangles. Heather, whose sense of humour was rudimentary, owing its bare existence mostly to Mrs Belton, read this work with stupor, with dawning apprehension and finally aloud to Miss Holly, though almost inaudible because she laughed so much.

  At Hallbury House there had been a serious consultation about Mr Adams’s offer, or rather threat, of an accountant. It seemed ungracious to refuse, yet very difficult not to accept after the tacit consent that Mr Adams had taken for granted. The Admiral and the Rector so havered and hairsplit over the matter that at length Jane Gresham, rather impatient with men, offered to see Mr Adams about it herself, an offer which the men in a cowardly way accepted. No time must be lost. Mr Adams was a man of deeds as well as a man of an exhausting number of words, and the accountant might descend, unheralded, upon St Hall Friars at any moment. The following Saturday was the Barsetshire Archaeological meeting and everything would be in turmoil for two or three days beforehand, so Jane rang up Miss Holly and put the matter to her. Miss Holly, who combined perfect loyalty to her employer with an aloof and amused sense of his peculiarities, quite understood the position and said he would be at Valimere on Wednesday for the night, and if Mrs Gresham would like to come to tea, he would arrive soon afterwards and would she like to bring Frank. Jane said that though she loved Frank very much, she did not particularly want to take him anywhere, as he was going through a stage of boasting that made her feel ashamed of him, but if Miss Holly didn’t mind— Miss Holly said she had not been the elder sister of five brothers for nothing, and by all means bring him along.

  So on Wednesday when Frank got out of school he went back with Master Watson and picked up his mother at the camouflage netting.

  ‘Mother, can Tom come with us to tea with Heather?’ said Frank, ‘he wants to come, don’t you, Tom?’

  ‘Certainly not; he hasn’t been asked,’ said both mothers with one breath.

  ‘I only thought it would be a treat for him,’ said Frank in an aggrieved voice. ‘He gets lonely without me, Mrs Watson.’

  ‘Not a bit,’ said Mrs Watson cheerfully. ‘And you’ve got to clean your rabbits, Tom.’

  ‘Oh, mother; oh, Mrs Watson, can I stop and help Tom to clean his rabbits?’ said Frank. ‘You need someone to help you, don’t you, Tom?’

  Both mothers squashed the suggestion.

  ‘I’ve got a bulgineer,’ said Master Watson confidentially to Mrs Gresham whom he looked upon as a sensible sort of fellow, more or less his own age.

  ‘What is he talking about?’ said Jane to Mrs Watson. ‘Does he mean an engineer, and if so why?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Mrs Watson doubtfully, ‘though he does mix words up dreadfully. What is it you’ve got, Tom?’

  ‘Bulgineer,’ said Master Watson in a fatigued voice. ‘Bulgineerbuk; you know, Frank.’

  ‘Mother!’ said Frank reproachfully. ‘Belgionair – a buck – you know.’

  ‘Your Belgian hare you mean,’ said Mrs Watson, which remark appeared so stupid to her son, who had been saying the same thing with all his might, that he scowled softly at his mother and went off to clean his rabbits’ cages.

  That day was a lost day to Miss Holly and Heather Adams so far as work was concerned, for the idea of Mrs Gresham, the Admiral’s daughter, which sounded like Happy Families, coming to tea was such an event to Mrs Merivale that she had to discuss the arrangements for their reception from breakfast-time onwards. Miss Holly and Heather would willingly have had their breakfast in the bright kitchen with their hostess when Mr Adams was not there, but she was adamant on what was due to paying guests and gave them excellent breakfasts in the dining-room where the Elle-woman’s head always had fresh flowers. Once or twice it had been warm enough to have it on the little veranda, but more as a gesture than anything else and they gladly went back to the dining-room and Mrs Merivale said a lodger was very nice; a generalization which they were glad to hear.

  ‘Miss Holly,’ said Mrs Merivale, putting a tray with coffee jug and milk jug on the table that morning, ‘which tea-cloth do you think Mrs Gresham would like?’

  Miss Holly, suppressing a desire to say that it wouldn’t matter in the least as Mrs Gresham probably wouldn’t notice, said which one was Mrs Merivale thinking of.

  ‘Well, there’s the one with the violets embroidered on it,’ said Mrs Merivale, pleating the edge of the breakfast cloth as she spoke, ‘only they’re a bit washed out. The one with the eckroo lace is nice, if it weren’t for the darn in the middle; that was where one of my guests put a cigarette. She was a dreadful woman. I used to lie awake at night and wish she were dead, which was very ungrateful as she paid punctually every week, but she used that nasty scented soap and the bathroom simply reeked.’

  Miss Holly said the darn wouldn’t show a bit with a vase of flowers on it.

  ‘But I’d be upset all the time,’ said Mrs Merivale, trying not very successfully to flatten the pleats, ‘thinking she would notice the darn.’

  Miss Holly said she expected Mrs Gresham’s linen was all darned by now. Everyone’s was.

  ‘Or the little one with the water-lily border,’ said Mrs Merivale, ‘that Annie embroidered for me when she was twelve. She was always so clever with her hands. And there’s the openwork one, drawn thread you know, but it’s gone nearly everywhere. I used to have everything so nice, Miss Holly, when Mr Merivale was alive, and it upsets me to see everything falling to pieces. Which do you think Mrs Gresham would like? I’m sure she’s used to having everything dainty about her at home.’

&
nbsp; Miss Holly, with admirable patience, said she thought the water-lily bordered cloth would be very nice, and she was sure Mrs Gresham would be interested to know that Mrs Merivale’s daughter had embroidered it, and Mrs Merivale went away temporarily satisfied. But not for long. At intervals during the morning a light tap at the door would be followed by an agitated appeal for guidance on some essential point such as did Miss Holly think Mrs Gresham would like China or Indian; would Mrs Gresham like cucumber sandwich or jam or both; did Miss Holly think Mrs Gresham would like the little doylies with the picot edge or the green linen ones with the hemstitch only they were a bit faded. Miss Holly gave calm and she hoped soothing answers while Mrs Merivale twisted her hands and her overall and her feet more desperately.

  ‘Oh, just one more thing, Miss Holly,’ said Mrs Merivale, coming in without knocking, her hair curling more than ever in her tribulation. ‘About guest towels.’