D.E. Stevenson
Spring Magic
Frances was free. She had enough money for her holiday, and when it was over she would find useful work. Her plans were vague, but she would have plenty of time to think things out when she got to Cairn. One thing only was certain—she was never going back to prison again.
Young Frances Field arrives in a scenic coastal village in Scotland, having escaped her dreary life as an orphan treated as little more than a servant by an uncle and aunt. Once there, she encounters an array of eccentric locals, the occasional roar of enemy planes overhead, and three army wives—Elise, Tommy, and Tillie—who become fast friends. Elise warns Frances of the discomforts of military life, but she’s inclined to disregard the advice when she meets the dashing and charming Captain Guy Tarlatan.
The ensuing tale, one of D.E. Stevenson’s most cheerful and satisfying, is complicated by a local laird with a shady reputation, a Colonel’s daughter who’s a bit too cosy with Guy, a spring reputed to guarantee marriage within a year to those who drink from it, and a series of misunderstandings only finally resolved in the novel’s harrowing climax.
Spring Magic, first published in 1942, is here reprinted for the first time in more than three decades. Furrowed Middlebrow and Dean Street Press are also reprinting four more of Stevenson's best works—Smouldering Fire, Mrs. Tim Carries On, Mrs. Tim Gets a Job, and Mrs. Tim Flies Home. This new edition includes an introduction by Alexander McCall Smith.
“The author tells of what befell a young woman who, while on a seaside holiday in Scotland, enters the social life surrounding a battalion of troops and of how she found personal happiness. Lively and charming.” Sunday Mercury
“The cheeriest company . . . charmingly told” Sunday Times
FM22
Contents
Cover
Title Page/About the Book
Contents
Introduction by Alexander McCall Smith
Part I
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Part II
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Part III
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Part IV
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
About the Author
Titles by D.E. Stevenson
Furrowed Middlebrow Titles
Mrs. Tim Carries On – Title Page
Mrs. Tim Carries On – Chapter I
Copyright
INTRODUCTION
BY ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH
Dorothy Emily Stevenson is one of those authors who has been largely forgotten in the literary world. Not that she was ever particularly recognised in such circles: she was far too popular to be taken seriously by the critics – she was too comfortable, too easy to read. And yet, in spite of this condescension that is so often dispensed by the guardians of literary standards, Stevenson was bought by millions all over the world and is still appreciated by many readers who continue to read her work. Certainly her books are easy, in the sense that they are clearly written, they tell an intelligible tale, and do not seek to impress the reader. There is also a certain sameness to them. And yet they still have an appeal that has kept them in print. So these are not ephemeral romances of the sort that are instantly forgettable. Nor do they remotely approach the level achieved by that great story-teller of the era, Maugham. They are somewhere in the middle-rung territory below such books, but that is a perfectly good place to be, and a worthy one too. These novels still bring pleasure and remind us of a world, and of a country, that has changed out of all recognition. And as that world becomes more unhappy and divided, the attraction of authors such as Stevenson perhaps becomes stronger.
Dorothy Stevenson was a Scottish author, although she is rarely mentioned in Scottish literary history. She was the bearer of a famous name: she was a member of the Stevenson family of lighthouse engineers who, over several generations, built almost all of Scotland’s lighthouses, including engineering marvels such as the Bell Rock Lighthouse. That makes her a member of the same family as Robert Louis Stevenson, author of classics such as Kidnapped, Treasure Island, and that perennial favourite, A Child’s Garden of Verses. She was born into this family in 1892 and had the typical upbringing of a member of the well-heeled Scottish professional class. She was keen to go to university, but there was little parental support for this ambition, and she made, instead, a conventional marriage to a member of the Peploe family. Her husband, an army officer, was a relative of Samuel Peploe, one of the greatest of Scotland twentieth-century painters and a major figure in the Scottish Colourist movement.
Stevenson was a prolific writer, writing a book a year during the course of a career that lasted until 1969, when her final book was published. Her first success was Mrs Tim and the Regiment; this was soon followed by a series of light and humorous titles. Thereafter her popularity grew, as readers turned with delight to the reappearance of familiar characters and the following of a tried and tested formula. The books eluded the sort of classification that reviewers and scholars like to engage in. They are not simple romances; nor are they anything that would today be recognised as thrillers. They are in a category of their own: clearly-written straightforward tales that take the reader through a clear plot and reach a recognisable and unambiguous ending. The appeal that they have for the contemporary reader lies in the fact that there is no artifice in these books. They are not about dysfunctional people. They are not about psychopathology. There is no gore or sadism in them. The characters speak in sentences and do not resort to constant confrontational exchanges. In other words, these books are far from modern. But therein, perhaps, lies the charm to which Stevenson’s many readers are so quick to respond.
One of the main features of Stevenson’s novels is their simplicity. That is a quality that is not rated in fiction today. Many writers now feel that in order to be noticed they must go out of their way to be clever – even to the extent of being opaque. Nothing should be portrayed as it seems to be; cynicism is all; sincerity is hopelessly naïve. In such a climate, direct stories that follow a fairly strict chronological pattern, that eschew obfuscation, and that place feasible and, in many cases, rather likeable characters centre-stage are not highly regarded. And yet that is exactly what Stevenson does, and that is what many readers still seem to want. Add humour to the equation and the mixture will find a ready audience.
A particular feature of Stevenson’s oeuvre is the way in which characters that appear in one book may crop up in another context in a quite different title. Readers like this because in a way it reflects the way the world is; our lives are not linear narratives – they are meandering stories that take place in diverse setti
ngs and that are peopled by characters who drop in and out at various stages. Stevenson is one of those authors, then, who creates a whole world: her novels have that quality that family sagas have, and the story of families, their achievements and disappointments, their tragedies and triumphs, are perennially popular. Why? Because this is, in essence, the experience of most of us. For just about everyone, family life is exactly that: a saga.
Yet they do not ignore the social and political turmoil of the time in which they were written. Stevenson wrote eight novels during the Second World War, and these books certainly have something to say about life on the home front in that period. And that leads to a general conclusion about Stevenson’s work. These are not necessarily novels in which there is a great deal of drama, but for those who wish to spend time amongst characters leading fairly ordinary lives, these novels will provide considerable enjoyment. We don’t want too much excitement. Or, if we do opt for some excitement, we like to moderate it with periods of relative quiet. And then, at the end of these, if there is a happy ending, if lovers are reunited – as they tend to be in Stevenson’s fiction – then all the better. These are gentle books, very fitting for times of uncertainty and conflict. Some books can be prescribed for anxiety – these are in that category. And it is an honourable and important one.
Alexander McCall Smith
Part I
FRANCES ASLEEP
CHAPTER I
A good inn run by a good-tempered landlord is always an important social centre in village life, and the Bordale Arms at Cairn is no exception to the rule. It is the place where men congregate when they want to talk to other men when their homes are disorganised by washing-days or noisy children. The bar counter is broad and polished; men lean upon it and discuss the prospects of the fishing season or argue about the war. Cairn is a small fishing village, a mere handful of fishermen’s cottages built of grey stone from the quarry on the hill. The main street slopes up from the harbour; it is steep and paved with cobbles and is lined with small dark shops. Painters sometimes come to Cairn; they set up their easels and mix their colours and paint strange pictures of the place—pictures which, as far as the villagers can see, bear little or no resemblance to the scene.
It was Mr. MacNair, the innkeeper, who put the matter in a nutshell when he said: “If they are making a picture of this place why is it not like this place at all? And if they are not making a picture of this place why do they trouble to come? Could they not stay at home and paint a picture out of their heads?”
“But it is as well for you that they have not thought of that,” replied Alec MacNair, his nephew. Alec usually had an answer ready, and on this occasion it was very much to the point, for the painters were a fruitful source of income to Mr. MacNair—or had been before the war.
The inn had belonged to Mr. MacNair’s father, and to several generations of MacNairs before him; it was an ancient rambling place, dark and gloomy and none too clean, but the present owner is a thrifty man and has the good fortune to possess a capable and far-seeing wife. They saved enough money to rebuild part of the house and to put in a couple of bathrooms, and now the gaily-painted sign, which hangs over the front door and is apt to squeak somewhat dolefully when the wind is in the north-west, bears the inscription BORDALE ARMS HOTEL. It is a grand name—every one agrees to that—and it confers distinction upon the whole village, but the Cairn people continue to speak of it as “The Inn,” and even the MacNairs themselves rarely use the new title.
The war affected Cairn in various ways. The young men departed to serve their country and the old men joined the Home Guard. They turned up at the first parade with a curious assortment of weapons, and Mr. MacDonald, the Laird, who was a keen historian, was so much interested in the weapons that it was some time before he was able to settle down to the enrolment of his recruits. He was aware that the shot-guns had been used for poaching upon his land and that some of the rifles might be described as loot from the last war, but there was one ancient weapon which looked as if it might have lain under the thatch since Culloden. . . .
“It will shoot a German if he lands upon the shore,” explained old Donald Fraser, the bootmaker. “Aye, it will do that—and a fine noise it makes too.”
Mr. MacDonald believed him.
The odd thing was that there was scarcely a man in the place who could not produce some sort of firearm. They had no right to possess firearms without a permit, but Mr. MacDonald shut his eyes to this well-known fact and welcomed the motley collection with enthusiasm.
Cairn had its A.R.P., and a few of the more timid inhabitants covered their windows with strips of sticky paper, but after a week or two the sticky paper peeled off and the village settled down to its usual routine. The boats went out to the fishing, and the women cleaned and looked after and minded their children or sat upon the steps of their houses mending their husbands’ nets and conversing with each other from doorstep to doorstep in strident tones.
The war was there, of course; it was at the back of their minds (they followed its course in the papers and listened to the wireless bulletins), but the war was a long way from Cairn and somehow or other it was not very real to them. An epidemic of whooping-cough which was racking the children and disturbing their parents’ nights seemed much more real than the war.
The winter passed—it was the second winter of the war—and one day in early spring a fleet of enormous lorries suddenly appeared and rumbled down the cobbled High Street with a noise like thunder. It was a friendly invasion, this, and the people who crowded into the street were greeted with cheers and amicable waves by the khaki-clad figures of the invaders.
“’Ere we are again!”
“’Ere we are—but where are we?”
“Is this the end o’ the world?”
“Hi! where’s the nearest pub?”
Cairn was too bewildered to respond. It watched the lorries draw up at the inn and saw the men climb down and disappear into the bar.
“It is the Tower of Babel come back,” declared Mr. MacNair as he strove to understand and to satisfy the demands of his unexpected customers.
It certainly seemed like it, for there were men from London and Yorkshire, from Devon and Lancashire and Wales, and although they all spoke the same language it sounded like a dozen foreign tongues. They were not fighting men, they were Pioneers, and were recruited from all over the British Isles. In twenty minutes they had drunk the place dry, and, returning to their lorries, they moved on to a field about a mile from the village, where they proceeded to erect enormous huts. A few days was sufficient to turn the field into a camp, and Cairn was just beginning to get used to its visitors when they vanished as suddenly as they had appeared.
“So they have gone,” said old Donald Fraser in his slow Highland voice as he leaned upon the bar counter and sipped his drink.
“M-hm, they have gone,” Mr. MacNair agreed. He was not quite sure whether to be glad or sorry at their departure. They had brought business to the house, but on the other hand it was pleasant to feel that the bar was once more his own peaceful preserve. It had not been the same place at all in the last few days.
“Mr. MacDonald will have let them the field,” said Fergus MacNair. He was the innkeeper’s cousin.
“There is some law now by which they could take it,” replied Mr. MacNair vaguely.
“But they would pay him, surely?”
“Och, they would pay him.”
“There will be little need of the Home Guard,” declared Fergus with a hoarse chuckle. Fergus was one of the few men in Cairn who had not joined the body, and he lost no opportunity of poking fun at it in his pawky way.
“I would not be so sure,” said old Donald gravely. “The Home Guard is to defend Cairn. . . . M-hm, and what will the soldiers know of the paths over the hills?”
“Donald is right,” agreed Mr. MacNair, nodding.
“Aye, I’m right,” said Donald in his squeaky voice. “I’m the auldest man in the Home Guard, but th
ere’s nobody can beat me ower the hills.”
“There will be men coming to the camp,” said Alec, drawing upon his pipe in a ruminative manner.
“Men!” exclaimed Fergus. “You would not expect women to come to a camp!”
“That is what I said. There will be soldiers . . . and soldiers drink beer.”
Mr. MacNair took the point. “Alec’s right,” he said. He hesitated for a moment and then added: “Maybe it would be a good thing to order six barrels. . . .”
“Six barrels would be a little better than none at all,” remarked Alec dryly.
He had scarcely finished speaking, and his uncle was still standing with his mouth agape, trying to envisage the enormous quantity of beer which might have to be procured, when the door was pushed open and a woman looked in. She was a stranger, of course, for no Cairn woman would be likely to come into the bar, and the six men turned their heads and looked at her. The heads turned quite slowly, and the looks were neither friendly nor hostile. It was the way in which a herd of cows turn their heads and look at a stranger when he opens the gate of the field in which they are grazing.
“Oh!” exclaimed the newcomer, somewhat nervously. “Oh, is this . . . I mean I thought this was the hotel.”
“It is the Bordale Arms Hotel,” said Mr. MacNair, nodding.
“Yes. That’s what I thought. I tried the other door but I couldn’t find any one.”
“Annie will have gone out with Sheila,” said Mr. MacNair after a moment’s thought.
“Sheila is better, then?” inquired Alec with interest.
“Och, there is not much the matter with her,” Mr. MacNair replied.
“I should like a room, please,” said the stranger.
There was a short silence. Mr. MacNair stroked his chin—he had shaved that very morning so it felt nice and smooth. “You will be painting pictures,” he said at last.
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