Miss Bunting

by Angela Thirkell

  ‘Oh, Mr Tebben,’ said Anne gratefully, ‘I do love Longfellow. Next to Tennyson he’s my favourite poet.’

  Mr Tebben said she might do far worse, which gratified Lady Fielding very much. For though she was not much of a reader herself, she quite realized Mr Tebben’s worth as a critic and was pleased that her daughter had been encouraged.

  ‘I am silent; I am silent, Tebben,’ said Mr Middleton rather crossly.

  ‘No, you aren’t, Jack,’ said his wife, ‘and even if you are, you won’t be. Lord Stoke, how are you?’

  ‘I wouldn’t have missed the meeting to-day for worlds,’ said Lord Stoke shaking hands with Mrs Middleton and then, to the reverent joy of all his old friends, taking a large red bandana with white spots out of his coat pocket, removing his brown flat-topped billycock and mopping his head. ‘Finest little bull calf I’ve seen since Bond’s Staple Jupiter. What happened to him, Bond?’

  Lord Bond said he had gone to the Argentine with Staple Hercules.

  ‘Bad thing all those Dagoes getting our bulls,’ said Lord Stoke. ‘Come and have a look at this fellow. Pity Palmer isn’t here. He’d have liked to see him. Do you remember, Bond, when your man was taking a bull over to Palmer and it got away? I always said your man wasn’t fit to be trusted with a good animal. Poor Palmer; he’s ageing sadly.’

  Mr Knox and Mr Middleton, neither of whom knew anything about bulls, then plunged into the conversation and everyone wondered if the meeting would ever begin.

  ‘I wish a bull would bellow,’ said Anne Fielding to Mr Tebben, in whom she felt she had found a friend. ‘Then those Skroelings would stop talking and run away.’

  ‘What do you know about Skroelings?’ said Mr Tebben, amused at this girl’s interest in Icelandic matters.

  ‘Out of Kipling,’ said Anne. ‘It’s called “The Finest Story in the World”. It’s marvellous, Mr Tebben. You would love it. It’s all about reincarnation.’

  Mr Tebben was disappointed by this second-hand approach to Icelandic literature, but he thought Anne Fielding a nice child, reminding him a little of his own gentle Margaret of whom since the war he had seen very little, occupied as she was with children and war duties. Anne, thanks to Miss Bunting, was overflowing with subjects she wanted to talk about or ask about, from the books she had read during the last year, and they fell into a very friendly conversation.

  ‘It’s nearly three o’clock,’ said Lady Bond to her half-brother, who oblivious of his duties as President of the Barsetshire Archaeological Society was about to take his ignorant and unwilling audience to see the bull calf.

  ‘God bless my soul, Lucasta, so it is,’ said his lordship. ‘Where is the well?’

  ‘If your Lordship will be so good as to come this way,’ said the voice of Dr Dale’s verger.

  ‘Certainly, certainly,’ said Lord Stoke, good-naturedly. ‘Who are you, eh?’ he added as Freeman led him towards the enclosure.

  ‘The Rector’s verger, my lord,’ said Freeman.

  ‘Yes, yes, yes. But what’s your name?’ said Lord Stoke.

  The verger named himself.

  ‘Freeman. Now why the deuce – yes; I’ve got it,’ said Lord Stoke, who had a knowledge of that part of the country only equalled by Sir Edmund Pridham and surpassed by none. ‘Your father was under-keeper at Pomfret Towers. I remember him about the time of King Edward the Seventh’s Coronation. Foxy-faced man with a wart on his nose. Married – now, wait a minute; yes. I’ve got it. He married the sister of that Wheeler that used to clean the chimneys at the Towers. Any children?’

  ‘Yes, my lord,’ said Freeman. ‘A girl.’

  ‘That all?’ said his lordship.

  ‘Yes, my lord,’ said Freeman.

  ‘Pity to let good stock die out,’ said Lord Stoke.

  ‘Yes, my lord,’ said Freeman. ‘This way if your lordship doesn’t mind.’

  He led his patron into the enclosure, whither they were followed by most of the party we have just met, and some other people of county or local importance with whom we are not concerned. Mr Tebben and Anne Fielding, now deep in the Brontës, sat down outside on a bit of foundation and went on with their talk.

  The secretary, a youngish clerk in a Barchester lawyer’s office, unfit for service owing to his defective eyesight, but full of zeal for Barchester antiquities, then came up and spoke to his President, having been too frightened to do so before.

  ‘This is the well, Lord Stoke,’ he said. ‘We’ve had a man down it all morning and he has brought up pieces of brickwork from various depths. Perhaps you would like to look down the well yourself first and then say a few words to the Society.’

  ‘Oh, sir, can I look down too?’ said a voice beside Lord Stoke and not on his level.

  Lord Stoke looked down and saw a small boy, holding another small boy by the hand.

  ‘Can’t hear you, my boy,’ said Lord Stoke. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Frank Gresham, sir,’ said the boy at the top of his voice. ‘And this is Tom Watson. He’s not so old as I am, but he would like to look down the well if I hold his hand. Oh, sir, can we?’

  By good luck Frank’s voice was of a pitch that happened to suit Lord Stoke’s deafness.

  ‘All right, my boy,’ he said. ‘But you’ve got to hold my hand.’

  ‘Oh, sir! thank you,’ said the little boys. Pushing Master Watson’s right hand into Lord Stoke’s left hand, Frank went round to his lordship’s other side and took his right hand. They moved to the edge of the well and looked down. There was nothing to see, for the well was so deep that the water at the bottom lay in darkness.

  ‘Oh sir, can I throw something in?’ said Frank and dropping Lord Stoke’s hand he picked up a small piece of brick from the rim and threw it down the well. After what felt like five minutes there was a dull plop.

  ‘I told you to hold my hand, boy,’ said Lord Stoke. ‘Off you go now.’

  The little boys, with regretful looks at the well, went back to their mothers, who were just as glad to have them away from their rather risky pastime, especially Mrs Watson who had overheard Freeman telling a friend it was no use any of the Society falling in, for nobody’d fetch ’em out, as Percy Bodger had said he wouldn’t go down there again, not with that stinking cat about and anyway the rope was too short by six feet.

  The secretary then approached Lord Stoke with a tray on which were a number of fragments of red brick or tile, all neatly labelled.

  ‘These are the pieces, Lord Stoke,’ said the secretary.

  ‘Eh?’ said Lord Stoke.

  ‘These are the fragments of brick, Lord Stoke,’ said the secretary, more loudly.

  ‘All right, young man. What’s your name? Henry, eh? Is that your Christian name or your surname?’

  ‘My surname, Lord Stoke,’ shouted the secretary.

  ‘All right, all right, no need to shout like that,’ said Lord Stoke. ‘And you needn’t Lord Stoke me all the time. “Sir” will do quite well. And what do I do with these, eh?’

  The secretary, who secretly felt that Sir was not a sufficiently polite mode of address for a baron whose title went back to the Wars of the Roses, said they were to make a speech about. He would have said they were for his lordship to make a speech about, but being obedient to authority he did not like to use the word lord again, and in default of such a word as sir-ship had to fall back upon a circumlocution.

  ‘Where’s the Rector?’ said Lord Stoke. ‘He knows more about this than I do.’

  No one had thought of the Rector and everyone felt slightly ashamed. When we say no one, the verger had thought of his spiritual overlord, but as he said afterwards to Mrs Freeman it seemed a shame for the old gentleman not to have his after-dinner sleep; with which Mrs Freeman quite agreed. When we say no one however, this must not include the Rector’s son who thought of his father mostly as a kind of very nice grandfather that needed looking after. He had noticed that the old man was tired by dinner time if he did not rest after lunch, but very cross
by dinner time if he dozed too long, and whenever he could he arranged to wake his father after an hour or so. And to-day, shortly before Lord Stoke and his party came to the enclosure, he had asked one of the village men to take his watch while he went home, roused his father and brought him down to the Old Rectory.

  Dr Dale’s arrival was the signal for an almost regal reception, everyone coming forward to express respectful pleasure at seeing him and quite forgetting the well. Dr Dale was gratified, but being of an honourable nature he dealt quickly with his friends and went up to Lord Stoke with apologies for being late. Lord Stoke showed him the fragments of brick which Dr Dale touched with his elegant old hands.

  ‘Most interesting,’ he said. ‘Most interesting. And what do we do now?’

  Several people, like a stage crowd, asked each other the same question, which gave the secretary his chance to call upon various speakers who had been chosen beforehand. The day was fairly fine, but the eternal wind of that bad summer was blowing, there was nowhere to sit, inside the enclosure one was squashed, outside it one could not hear, so the audience gradually melted, leaving the President, the secretary and the Rector to deal with the enthusiasts, who finding no public were enabled to quarrel among themselves with much greater freedom.

  A silly afternoon, thought Jane Gresham to herself. All very aimless and waste of time, but one had to get through the time somehow. It didn’t much matter if the brickwork was Roman, British, Saxon, Danish, Norman: the well was condemned, a dead cat was at the bottom of it, Frank thank goodness had not fallen down it. Presently there would be tea in the Watsons’ big room, more talk with friends and then people would go and there would be supper and bed and Sunday morning. And so on for ever and ever. And somewhere, if he was alive, life was going on for Francis Gresham and there was no power on earth that would tell either of them anything about the other. She thought, as she had often thought, that she could bear being in ignorance of Francis’ fate if she was sure he had not been deceived about her. She imagined fake news coming to him, wherever he was, of London burnt and bombed to ruins, of all trade and traffic at a standstill, of death, slavery or deportation for everyone in England. Could he help believing these things? Would he not be in anguish for his wife and son? And even if he were dead, which might be the best fate for him, how could one truly believe that he was happy if he knew how unhappy she was. If going to heaven meant not minding if people we loved were happy or not, she did not look forward to heaven and knew Francis would be most indignant at finding himself there. And new inventions made everything far worse. What was the use of people being able to fly to the Far East within forty-eight hours when to get back might take forty-eight days, months, years, eternity. This wouldn’t do. She shook herself angrily and went to see if Frank was in mischief. Both he and Master Watson were innocently occupied in building a railway station from bits of the ruins and quite good.

  From across the field she heard archaeological voices. Presently there was a clapping of hands and she realized that the meeting was over and the fate of the well decided. Robin Dale came over to where she was sitting near the boys.

  ‘Well, what is the verdict?’ she said.

  ‘I haven’t the faintest idea,’ said Robin. ‘Father spoke very charmingly about anything but brickwork, with a passing reference to the Prophet Haggai. All the experts spoke rather uncharmingly about their own hobbies. Lord Stoke was annoyed because Mr Tebben who was to have convinced everybody about something was sitting on a stone capping verses with Anne and couldn’t be found till too late. The secretary was all put out because a special piece of brickwork was missing. The only person who really enjoyed himself was Freeman, because he is reporting the names of the guests for the Barchester Chronicle. And what have you been doing?’

  ‘Robin,’ said Jane, not directly answering his question, ‘have you ever wondered if your foot, the bits of it that were shot off, misses you?’

  ‘Well, yes, I have occasionally,’ said Robin, half wondering where this would lead, half sure that it would lead to something that would need quick thought and a convincing tongue. ‘But I don’t now. After all it’s buried quite comfortably at Anzio. At least I suppose they buried it. I really don’t know. Anyway it can’t talk, so that’s all right.’

  He then fell silent, conscious that he had been talking too much, and foolishly, to cover his own unease.

  ‘Still, I suppose a foot is different from a person,’ said Jane, in whom Robin recognized a savage wish to hurt herself. ‘It wouldn’t care for one when one was alive, so why should it miss one when one’s dead? Robin, if you couldn’t ever see or get news of a person you were very fond of, would you feel miserable?’

  ‘Like hell I would,’ said Robin bracingly. ‘Poor old Jane.’ And he put an encouraging arm across her shoulder.

  ‘It’s not poor Jane,’ said the lady, taking no notice of the arm and speaking with her face averted. ‘It’s poor Francis. I don’t mind missing him so much – I don’t know what I feel about him. But it does kill me to think he may be missing me.’

  ‘Supposing he is dead,’ said Robin, knowing that Jane had always faced this possibility.

  ‘Well if you, or Dr Dale, or the Bishop – not that he’s any good – can make me think that just being dead would make Francis not miss me —’ said Jane, speaking with such arrogant confidence that her sentence did not need finishing.

  ‘Mother,’ said Frank, appearing suddenly at his mother’s elbow, and as if this were a very reasonable request, ‘have you any chalk?’

  ‘I have,’ said Robin, withdrawing his arm from Jane’s shoulder and feeling in his coat pocket. ‘Here you are.’

  ‘Oh thank you, sir,’ said Frank and returned to Master Watson.

  Jane looked at her watch.

  ‘Come along, boys,’ she said.

  ‘Oh but mother,’ said Frank, ‘Tom hasn’t finished his ticket office; have you Tom? Oh mother, can’t he stop and finish it?’

  Jane asked how long it would take.

  ‘Not long, mother. Oh, mother, do let Tom finish it. One of his back teeth came out this morning. Tom, show mother.’

  Master Watson obligingly opened his mouth and pointed with a dirty finger at a gap in his upper jaw.

  ‘Mrs Watson made him rinse his mouth, mother, and the water was all bloody,’ said Frank. ‘I wish I’d seen it, mother.’

  ‘With pydrogen hoxide,’ said Master Watson.

  ‘He means hydrogen poxide,’ said Frank scornfully. ‘Did it fizzle, Tom?’

  Tom nodded his head violently as Jane said they must really come now. So Frank wrote STATIO CLAUSA on a piece of flat stone with the chalk and set it up against the building.

  ‘Third conjugation,’ he said loftily, ‘but Tom doesn’t know it yet. Never mind, Tom. I’ll help you with your prep when we go to Southbridge.’

  ‘Odious, condescending child,’ said Jane to Robin as they walked towards the Watsons. ‘He does need a father.’

  ‘Speaking as a schoolmaster, my limited experience of fathers is that they are, if possible, even less use than mothers,’ said Robin, who knew that Jane was again her usual self and wished to join her in forgetting her short loss of self-control.

  The Archaeological Society’s tea was to be held, by kind permission of Mr and Mrs Watson, in the hall where the camouflage netting was done. The big frames had been pushed against the wall: the tables were spread with food instead of patterns and strips of green and brown material. An urn had been lent by the Women’s Institute, and Mrs Freeman with a few friends from the Mothers’ Union had volunteered to serve the teas. At one end of the room was a special table where the President with some chosen guests of honour was supposed to sit, but anyone who knew Lord Stoke would have known that his insatiable curiosity about people in general would never allow him to remain seated. Dr Dale however was glad to sit there quietly, and the Pomfrets joined him with Admiral Palliser and the Birketts. Dr Dale beckoned Jane to take one of them but she said she o
ught to move about a little and see that everyone was being looked after and brought Mrs Knox up to take her place.

  Before she could give her mind to the guests there was one pressing duty; that of catching Masters Gresham and Watson and disposing of them in such a way that they would not be a nuisance to the grown-ups, and their mothers could at the same time keep an eye on them. With Mrs Watson’s whole-hearted co-operation a round table with an iron top was rescued from an old summer-house, placed in a corner of the hall and heaped with food, Frank and his friend were then ordered to get a chair each and try not to be a bother and their mothers returned to the guests.

  The success of most learned societies is measured by their teas. The Barchester Archaeological had been accustomed to do its members very well in this matter, but each successive summer of the war had reduced the quality of the food and increased the amount of substitute milk. This summer the food fell well below even the previous years’ averages, being mostly dry-looking cakes with no colour and no smell, or sandwiches of greyish bread with various proprietary ‘spreads’ in them. As for the milk, it was just powdered milk beaten up with water and very nasty too, though released as a great favour by the grocer who was Mr Freeman’s cousin. But nothing has yet stopped people eating nasty cakes or drinking greedily cups of tea of an unknown and powdery brand flavoured with artificial milk and everyone was in very good humour, saying perhaps next summer the war would be over.