Miss Bunting Page 10

  Miss Bunting said she had heard of him through common friends.

  ‘Mr Adams is perhaps common too?’ said Gradka, with no wish to be like that gentleman, but always ready to learn.

  ‘A common friend in good English, means a friend of two or more people,’ said Miss Bunting, wishing Gradka would go away but impelled by her life’s training to give information where it was desired. ‘For instance, Dr Dale is a friend of Sir Robert’s and a friend of Admiral Palliser’s. One could therefore say that he is their common friend.’

  ‘Aha,’ said Gradka thoughtfully. ‘Which you ollso say mutual friend. It is a synonym, yes?’

  ‘No, Gradka,’ said Miss Bunting, roused like an old soldier by the distant trumpet. ‘We do not say mutual friend when we mean common friend. That our great author Charles Dickens uses the word in this way is a fact you may note, but not copy. He was a law to himself. A common feeling is a feeling about some person or subject, shared by two or more people. A mutual feeling is an identical feeling in each of two people about the other. There could be a mutual friendship between two people. A mutual friend is nonsense.’

  ‘So; I thank you again very much,’ said Gradka. ‘It is now quite clear to me grammatically, ollso for speaking or literature, the difference between common and mutual. I shall perhaps put this in my essay, for I think the examiner will not know it and he will be so ashamed he will have to give me good marks. So this will be to our mutual advantage. To say our common advantage would be wrong here, yes?’

  Miss Bunting praised Gradka’s grasp of what she had just told her. She also reflected that not one of her English pupils would have even tried to understand what she had just said, and would have thought it broadly speaking rot, and wondered why heaven had implanted in so many unattractive Central Europeans such a passion for barren accuracy. It had all been tiring and she wanted to get ready to take Anne to lunch at the Pallisers’.

  ‘I shall tell you,’ said Gradka, ‘why I wish to know about the ironmaster Adams. I have a friend Prodshka Brownscu from Mixo-Lydia like me, and she has told me how Mr Adams has tricked a dirty Slavo-Lydian who has tried to get some money for the Slavo-Lydian Red Cross last year. And I wish to see the man who has done this. And Prodshka Brownscu has told me he has taken a lodging in the New Town, so I think I shall see him there, yes?’

  Miss Bunting told Gradka she had better go back to her lunch now, or everything would be late. Gradka made a little bob and went downstairs. Miss Bunting sat back for five minutes, her eyes shut, her hands folded; a custom which she had found of great value in helping her to prepare for a fresh lesson or engagement. The name Adams; everyone seemed to know him or know about him. Not at all the kind of person one would wish to know, she thought, but the world was changing too quickly for her and she was old and tired, and if the world was to belong to the Adamses, one must accept them, always keeping one’s private integrity. At the end of her five minutes she got up, washed her hands, put her hat and gloves on and went to find Anne.

  That young lady had already come in from the garden and was ready for Miss Bunting in the hall. Her great week of pleasure was indeed well under way. She had met her parents at the station, had a new dress, assisted at an exciting dinner party, had her book signed by Mrs Morland, spent a lovely morning with daddy, and now had in prospect the further treats of lunching at Hallbury House and then going down to the station again to meet Lady Fielding on her return from High Rising; for such was the afternoon’s programme. Small enough beer one might say; but to a girl without brothers or sisters, growing up during the war and having led until lately a rather invalid existence, such pleasures, scorned by her more sophisticated contemporaries, were very real. Sir Robert and Lady Fielding, people themselves of a simple and in some ways almost austere manner of life, were sensible enough not to expect their only daughter to grow up in their likeness, but very glad to find that she was not a slave to the spirit of this restless age.

  Miss Bunting had a few errands at the post office, so she and Anne left the house before one o’clock, passing the end of Little Gidding a few minutes before Mrs Morland and Robin Dale came down it. The business transacted, they went on to Admiral Palliser’s where the old parlourmaid Freeman told them the Admiral was round the back of the house; a misleading terminology, but clear to the meanest intellect. They found their host and his grandson, who was just back from school, engaged in the delightful task of cleaning out the scullery waste-pipe with a bit of stout wire. The Admiral had his coat off and his shirt sleeves rolled up. Frank had faithfully copied his grandfather, and both being of much the same build, square and strong, they made a pleasant couple. As Miss Bunting and Anne came round the corner the Admiral was probing for the obstruction, while Frank gazed with rapt attention.

  The Admiral, having grappled his prize, sheered off, hauling as he went, and with a sickening greasy plop, out came a horrid shapeless mass covered in grey soapy slime. Frank joggled up and down to express his pleasure.

  ‘There,’ said the Admiral, straightening himself. ‘Why the maids have to put rubbish like that down the sink, I don’t know. Good day, ladies. If you will excuse me I’ll go and wash. I can’t shake hands in my present condition. Frank; take Miss Bunting and Anne into the drawing-room, wash your hands and tell Freeman we’re ready for lunch.’

  ‘Can I bury the slosh, grandpapa?’ said Frank, eyeing longingly the stinking mass.

  It is just possible that the Admiral, though he prided himself on being a martinet, would have given in to this request, for he hesitated. But even as Frank spoke Miss Bunting had looked at him. There was nothing particular in her look, she did not presume to criticize a distinguished Engineer-Admiral’s method of bringing up his small grandson, but such was the command of the eye that had quelled the heir to many a peerage or landed estate, that Frank said: ‘All right, grandpapa,’ and stood on one leg.

  ‘How do they make that mess?’ said the Admiral.

  ‘I should say,’ said Miss Bunting, putting on her pince-nez and regarding the mess with cold scientific interest, ‘that they never used the sink basket and never put boiling water and soda down the pipe, and probably had very old dishcloths.’

  ‘Well, well, I’ll speak about it,’ said the Admiral. ‘Jane ought to be back from her camouflage work now,’ and he went indoors by the kitchen passage, while Frank conducted the ladies through the side door into the drawing-room. Here he was about to put Miss Bunting through a searching interrogatory about the slosh or muck of which she appeared to have so profound a knowledge, but Miss Bunting remarked that his grandfather had told him to wash, and such was her authority that he quite forgot to make an excuse till he was in the bathroom and wiping his imperfectly washed hands on the clean towel. Being a conscientious little boy, as little boys go, he then industriously tried to wash the marks of his dirty hands off the towel, which led to an interesting experiment as to how far one could stuff a towel down the waste-pipe of the basin. It would not go very far, even when prodded with a toothbrush, because the corner, so neatly rolled to a point, rapidly developed into the main body of the towel, large and unmanageable. The gong sounded, his mother’s voice was heard calling his name up the staircase. Frank hastily withdrew the towel, not at all improved by being forced down a soapy pipe, draped it in a negligent way over the towel-rail with the dirtiest part to the wall and ran downstairs.

  A nice bit of fat boiled bacon off the ration (which for the benefit of any readers from another planet we will explain to mean not that the bit of bacon in question comes off your ration, but that it isn’t and never was on it) with young potatoes and peas from the garden is not to be despised. Frank did not despise it, by which happy chance his elders were able to talk in peace for a time.

  The talk, as in many a previous summer, was about going away for the holidays, though as no one was going, the discussion was purely academic. The Admiral spoke wistfully of the pleasant sequence of grouse, partridge and pheasant. Jane wistfully mentioned mot
or tours through France or the Tyrol with friends, or sailing a very small uncomfortable yacht with her husband. Anne’s eyes lighted as she said how she had been to Devonshire with mummy and daddy, and bathed every day when it was warm enough. Miss Bunting who, we regret to say, was not enjoying her fat bacon as much as she used to before she acquired a complete set of upper and unders, took advantage of a lull in the conversation to say that one of her few disappointments when at Gatherum Castle was that the schoolroom party never went to the Scotch place as Her Grace preferred them to go to Littlehampton; which ducal memory slightly damped the other members of the party. But, said Miss Bunting, she was luckier than many other people this year, for Lady Graham had kindly asked her for a week in August.

  ‘You are the only one who is going away from Hallbury this summer,’ said Jane Gresham, though not complaining. ‘I’m doing August and September at the camouflage to let the people with more than one child get away. Frank is going to his other grandfather at Greshambury for three or four weeks before school begins again. It makes a change.’

  ‘I’ll ride Roger’s pony,’ said Frank, suddenly swallowing his last mouthful in a way that should have choked him, only it didn’t. ‘Roger’s afraid to jump. I jumped over a ditch.’

  ‘Go on with your lunch, Frank, you are all behindhand as it is,’ said Jane, putting his pudding in front of him.

  ‘Mary’s afraid to jump too,’ said Frank. ‘I like ponies that rear. I’d like to ride a buckjumper. Mother, could Mr Dale ride a buckjumper with only one foot? If I had only one foot, I’d always ride. Oh, mother, Tom said if people’s feet were shot off before they were too old, they could grow again. Could they, mother?’

  His mother said no; and to put his knife and fork together as Freeman was waiting.

  ‘Oh, Freeman, look here,’ said the Admiral. ‘Tell cook the scullery pipe is all right now. She’s been putting kitchen stuff and old clothes down it.’

  Freeman, although it was meat and drink to her to know that cook was at fault, was bound by the fine, if exasperating staff loyalty which prevents any servant giving another one away while she is in the employer’s service. When the cook has been given notice and gone to a fresh place with the excellent character that her employer is too frightened to withhold; then is the moment when her fellow-servants proffer the ominous words: ‘I think, madam, you ought to know —’ followed by a catalogue of crimes before which Moses would have blenched. But while she is still in residence kitchenware may be broken and hidden, fat sold, spirituous liquors from Hooper’s Stores put on the family account which will not be sent in till the following month, even a pair or so of silk stockings abstracted from the wash, and the rest of the staff will look the other way. So Freeman, who had more than once had words with cook about the silly way she acted, not putting her glasses on while she was doing the wash-up when it stood to reason you couldn’t get the mustard off the plates not if you didn’t see it, at once assumed entire solidarity with the kitchen front, and said she was never one to meddle; throwing in as an afterthought a ‘Sir’ whose tone should have warned the Admiral.

  Oh, if only father wouldn’t quarter-deck the maids in public, thought Jane, half-amused, half-annoyed; for to her would fall the task of somehow smoothing things down.

  ‘Lady Pomfret told me,’ said Miss Bunting to Jane, with the air of one changing the conversation altogether, ‘that she simply could not get good dishcloths at the Towers. She said,’ continued Miss Bunting with deliberate untruthfulness, ‘that it was disgraceful that the Government couldn’t give us better dishcloths.’

  ‘Oh, dear!’ said Jane, doing her best to take up the cue that she felt Miss Bunting had offered her. ‘What can one do?’

  ‘I knitted some for her with some nice coupon-free thick grey cotton,’ said Miss Bunting, ‘and there was no more trouble.’

  ‘Oh, Miss Bunting,’ said Anne, who had hardly spoken till now. ‘Couldn’t I knit some for the Admiral? I’m sure Hooper’s have got grey knitting cotton in the window this week, without coupons. Do you think cook would like them?’ she added, turning her head towards Freeman, for she was young enough to be on good terms with the kitchen and not yet afraid of them.

  ‘I dessay cook wouldn’t mind, miss,’ said Freeman in the gracious language of her caste, and indeed of most people’s castes now. And putting the pudding on the table she went away.

  Jane looked gratefully at Miss Bunting, who was again slightly preoccupied with raspberry pips in her dentures and did not see, for she had simply done her duty and for the ten-thousandth time helped an employer out of a difficulty.

  Lunch being over, Jane very kindly took Miss Bunting to the drawing-room, established her in a comfortable chair, and gave her old Lady Norton’s book on gardens, Herbs of Grace, by which means Miss Bunting had a peaceful sleep, while Anne and Frank dug a hole and had a funeral for the slosh before Frank went back to school. Anne helped Jane to bottle raspberries while cook was upstairs, and then Jane suggested early tea before Miss Bunting and Anne went down to the station to meet Lady Fielding. It was assumed that Miss Bunting had been reading Lady Norton’s book all afternoon, to which assumption Miss Bunting gave tacit consent by comparing it unfavourably with similar books by other gardening ladies of higher rank.

  ‘Well, come again soon, both of you,’ said the Admiral who had escorted his guests to the front gate. ‘A good idea of yours, Miss Bunting, about the dishcloths and I’ll see that cook puts boiling water and soda down that pipe.’

  ‘For goodness’ sake don’t, father,’ said Jane. ‘You know how horrid it was after you told her about the scullery not being properly blacked out. I’ll try and find a good time to mention it.’

  ‘All right, my dear, all right,’ said the Admiral, rather impatiently, for an old sailor does not lose the habit of command easily. ‘I’ll tell you what the trouble is, Miss Bunting, one can’t get the right wire to go through these pipes. You want something thicker than I can get, but very flexible. I dare say there’s a good reason that we shouldn’t have it. Mr Churchill knows best. But I would like a good long piece of stout wire with a hooked end,’ said the Admiral wistfully, thinking of the days when he had the engineers’ stores under his thumb wherever he went and could indent for any delightful bit of metal he wanted.

  ‘Nice girl, Anne Fielding,’ he said to his daughter as they watched Miss Bunting and her pupil walk down the High Street. ‘Who are all the girls going to marry, poor children? There’s not a man about the place except poor Robin.’

  ‘Perhaps they will be just as happy if they aren’t married,’ said Jane, which made her father blame himself for reminding her of Francis Gresham. Poor Jane. There was little Frank, it is true, but it looked as if Frank would be an only son, an only child. And even if Francis came back at last, how would he and Jane settle down; what would be the end? Then he told himself not to be an old fool and went to his library where he found occupation enough in getting the accounts of the local Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Families Association into shape for the annual audit, for he was treasurer for Barsetshire and took his duties very seriously.

  Would they be just as happy if they didn’t marry, Jane wondered, as she went upstairs. By the landing window she paused and looked over the garden and paddock at the lovely Barsetshire landscape before her, with the woods of Gatherum Castle in the distance. If she were not married; if there had never been a Francis Gresham, and she were still Jane Palliser, would it be better? No one here for her to marry either, except Robin, she thought, laughing without much mirth at the idea; even if she were free. Did she want to be free, she tried to ask herself. Would she be glad or sorry if Francis came back; if she had certain news that he was dead, poor Francis.

  A spot of raspberry juice on her frock suddenly roused hot anger in her.

  ‘Oh, what is the good of it all?’ she said aloud, and went to the bathroom, telling herself, as her father had just done, not to be a fool.

  The bathroom was, not to put too
fine a point upon it, in a mess. Water was slopped on the floor, the soap was sitting in a puddle of water on the ledge of the basin. She turned the hot tap on, hoping it might run really hot if cook had remembered to make up the fire before retiring to her room for the afternoon, and while it ran she picked up the towel from the rail. The rail was cool, which presaged ill for the water: the towel was wet and the side of it that had been nearest the wall filthily dirty. Her odious son again, of course. How often she had told Frank to rinse the dirty soap off his hands before he dried them she could not guess: ever since Nannie went on to the Greshambury nursery two years ago, certainly. Well, thank goodness the laundry still called, though at irregular and ill-ascertained intervals. She was about to throw the towel into the basket where the week’s dirty towels were put, when she reflected that being wet it would make everything else wet and possibly – if the laundry left as long a gap as it did last time – grow green-mould. With controlled rage she folded it and hung it on the rail again, hoping that in cook’s good time the water would be hot.

  ‘And that’s about all I’m fit for,’ she said scornfully, to her own reflection in the mirror over the basin. The face that looked back at her gave her no help at all. Indeed, it looked so disagreeable that she couldn’t help laughing at it and then she thought of Frank and how very much nicer he was than all the other little boys she knew, how tight his hug, how affecting the nape of his neck and the way he sprawled over the bed in his sleep. Her face softened as she came to the reasonable conclusion that she was being of some use in helping to bring up a happy intelligent little boy who appeared to find her quite satisfactory. And then Frank came dashing in to his tea bringing Tom Watson with him, and she stopped thinking about herself.