Miss Bunting Read online

  said Robin.

  ‘It sounds like a charm to call fools into a circle,’ said Sir Robert, more versed in the works of Shakespeare than those of Mr Lear.

  Then Jane said they must be going and the Dales said they would walk with them.

  ‘By the way, Laura,’ said Jane Gresham. ‘If you are staying on to-morrow would you like to come and see us doing camouflage netting? It’s quite amusing.’

  ‘And if you’d care to come and look at my little school afterwards,’ said Robin, ‘I’d be proud. I am also,’ he added, ‘speaking for my father, who is sure to want to show you his study. It is a ground-floor room with a lot of books in it and a good many photographs of school and college teams and societies – altogether remarkably like a study.’

  Mrs Morland said if it suited the Fieldings she would love to. The Fieldings said then do stay to lunch and go by the good afternoon train. Mrs Morland thanked them and her bag fell on the floor. Before the chivalry of Hallbury could rally she had stooped and picked it up herself. She then uttered a plaintive cry.

  ‘Have you ricked yourself?’ asked Jane, sympathetically.

  ‘No, thank you,’ said Mrs Morland. ‘It’s only this. It’s always happening.’

  She held up her unlucky face-à-main, the glass bent at an angle to the handle, so that it looked rather like the Quangle-Wangle when he sat with his head in his slipper.

  ‘It is useless like this,’ said its owner, tragically. ‘And if I try to straighten it, it usually snaps or else the spring breaks.’

  She pushed the hairpins further into her head in a despairing way.

  A perfect babel of advice arose. Some said have a longer ribbon, some a shorter. Others again said stick it down your front and chance it, while yet a further opinion was that it would be much safer to have one of those little ones that fold up and become a clip, only then it would cost about a hundred pounds with the purchase tax.

  Robin stepped lightly to Mrs Morland, took the corpse, straightened it carefully and returned it to her.

  ‘Oh, thank you,’ said Mrs Morland. ‘How you do it with your false foot I cannot think.’

  3

  In nearly every village or little town there is one middle-aged woman who has a passion for committees, and runs or wishes to run every local activity. If it is the great lady of the neighbourhood, all the better, for she is still accepted where another might be questioned. But in Hallbury, in spite of its considerable antiquity, there had never been the equivalent of a squire’s lady. Possibly it lay too much under the shadow of Gatherum Castle for any local magnate to rear his head, and it is a fact that there were no large land-owners near the Omnium estate. A few of the old-established families had shared the leadership in a republican way. The Rectory, Hall’s End, Hallbury House, the doctor, the solicitor, had at different times provided the unofficial ruler. Mrs Dale had led the town very ably from the Rectory until her early death when Robin was five or six, inheriting the office from Admiral Palliser’s autocratic old mother who had kept everything going through the last war. Then the doctor’s wife had come to the front and managed very well till her husband died, and she went back to her old home in Ayrshire. This was at the beginning of the present war and for the time being no candidate offered. People wondered if Jane Gresham would step into her grandmother’s place, but though intelligent and practical, she was better as a worker than an organizer, and knew it. The Fieldings, as we have already said, were still slightly suspect as newcomers, besides which Lady Fielding was far too busy on county matters in Barchester to give proper attention to local affairs. So by degrees, no other leader being available, Mrs Watson, the solicitor’s wife, had slipped into the part. Not by any desire to push, but as being by nature and circumstances the best fitted. Her little boy Tom was attending Robin Dale’s classes; she had a good elderly maid, her husband’s family had been known and respected in Hallbury for several generations and she was herself of good sub-county stock accustomed for generations to take responsibility and get things done. With such qualifications there was no opposition to her sway, especially as there was an unspoken feeling that her husband, who was extremely sensible, would be behind her and keep things in order.

  By great good luck there was at the end of the Watsons’ garden a large wooden building with a corrugated iron roof, which had been erected during the South African War by the present owner’s grandfather, to serve as a Drill Hall and recreation room. Though the use of the hall was freely given to Hallbury, old Mr Watson had never let any rights over it go out of his possession, nor had his successors. So when this war began, Mrs Watson with great foresight had the heating plant overhauled and bought quantities of thick blackout material, and whether used as one large room for meetings or working parties, or as two rooms partitioned by folding doors, it was invaluable to the town. Two or three years previously the Hallbury W.V.S. at a request from their Barchester head office, had taken on the making of camouflage and to this one end of the hall had been entirely given up; the end which had a separate entrance from the Watsons’ garden as well as the entrance from the lane beyond. A band of workers, skilled and unskilled, WVS and non-union, regular and not very regular, had been collected by Mrs Watson and had on the whole done remarkably well. Jane Gresham had been one of her first helpers and her most faithful, coming four mornings a week, whatever the season or the weather, from nine-thirty to twelve-thirty and two afternoons from two to five, except when she took Frank away for the holidays; and this happened less and less as travelling became more difficult and darkness seemed to encroach more and more. Upon her and three or four others Mrs Watson could rely. The rest appeared to look upon it as an agreeable and movable feast, their attendance at which was in the nature of a concession and need not be taken seriously. More than once Mrs Watson had been tempted to dismiss her least reliable helpers with honeyed lies, but life in a small town is difficult enough at any time and more difficult when each settlement is as it were marooned, and to give offence is even easier than it looks. So she contented herself with despising the slack members inwardly and treating them with great courtesy outwardly.

  It is possible that by so doing she had builded better than she knew, for Mrs Freeman, wife of the verger and sister-in-law to Admiral Palliser’s parlourmaid, otherwise a valuable worker, was far too apt to ring Mrs Watson up at lunch and say would it frightfully matter if she didn’t come that afternoon as her sister wanted her to go to the pictures in Barchester, or to approach her at the end of a tiring afternoon’s work with what she obviously considered to be a winning smile, and say she did hope she wouldn’t be upsetting anyone if she didn’t come next morning as Jennifer would be so upset if she didn’t take her to the Bring-and-Buy Sale for Comforts for Gum-Boilers at High Rising. To which Mrs Watson, valuing good feeling in a small community even above war-work (and also knowing that her faithful helpers would always work overtime without a murmur if necessary), would reply with the utmost appearance of unruffled approval that of course Mrs Freeman must go and she was sure they could manage without her, though her help was always missed and anyway she deserved a holiday. But one day a year or so previously when Mrs Freeman had just backed out of next day’s work owing to having to take the cat to the vet and had been assured that it didn’t matter in the least, she had heard Mrs Watson say to Mrs Gresham who had suddenly managed to get someone else’s cancelled appointment with her dentist: ‘All right, Jane, we’ll manage somehow, but you know Wednesday is always hell. You are a nuisance.’ To which Mrs Gresham had replied that if that tooth of hers hadn’t prevented her from eating and sleeping for two days she wouldn’t have taken the appointment and she would be back by four and put in an hour’s work. Upon this both ladies had parted in a perfectly friendly manner.

  Now Mrs Freeman, though rather silly, was not a fool and considering this matter while Mr Freeman was out with the Home Guard that evening, she came to the conclusion that it was perhaps a sign of higher social status to be scolded for not
keeping one’s engagements than to have the slackness condoned. She was a good wife. She knew that her husband had ambitions, reporting items of local news for the Barchester Chronicle, and busying himself in Hallbury affairs; and being of good Barsetshire stock she realized that it still pays to be in with the gentry. So without saying anything she turned over a new leaf. She kept her word to Jennifer about the Bring-and-Buy for a promise is a promise, but we are glad to say that she sent that rather spoilt only child, whose first teeth stuck out horridly, as a weekly boarder to Barchester High School next term. Here Jennifer was very happy, believed in the honour of the school and was a substitute in the junior lacrosse team almost at once, besides making what her parents considered some nice friends: and the school doctor so frightened her mother about her front teeth that she was sent to Mrs Gresham’s dentist and had them straightened. And Mrs Freeman, with real perseverance, stuck to her three days a week and became a valuable helper. All of which will be of considerable assistance to Mr Freeman on his upward path.

  On the morning after the Fieldings’ dinner party, Mrs Morland, as had been arranged on the previous evening, walked from Hall’s End to the Watsons’ house a little further down the hill, through the side gate up the long garden which looked very depressing after the year’s winds and drought, to the Drill Hall. Here, being a diffident creature and quite unable to realize that she had a certain value as a writer quite apart from her own personality of which, living at close quarters with it as she did, she had the lowest opinion, she began to wonder if Jane really wanted her to come, if Mrs Watson would want someone who wasn’t going to work coming bothering in, if it was really rather secret and she oughtn’t to know about it, and if it wouldn’t be better to go away again. She then with great courage gave a half-hearted knock on the door and waited. There was no answer. By this time she had so muddled herself that she did not dare to go in (thus possibly profaning some mystery and being cast out again with scorn), or go back (with the chance of being seen going down the garden and being thought mad or rude). So awful was this dilemma that she might have stayed there till lunch time, had not Jane, who had seen her come up the garden, guessed that her knock had been too gentle to be heard among the talk and movement, and opened the door.

  Mrs Morland followed her guide into the hall, where she was introduced to Mrs Watson, a jolly rather fat person with a loud voice, who expressed her great pleasure that Mrs Morland was favouring them with her company.

  ‘I hope you won’t think it rude,’ she said, ‘if I tell you what a help your books have been to me. Often when I have been so tired and worried that I couldn’t rest I have taken one of your books to bed with me and forgotten everything. You will find a lot of your admirers here.’

  ‘I can’t tell you how pleased I am,’ said Mrs Morland, anxiously tucking a bit of hair away under her hat as she caught sight of herself in a small mirror on the wall. ‘I can’t tell you how nice it is to meet real people who have liked a book, because though if it weren’t for the libraries I wouldn’t be able to afford to live in my house and give presents to all my boys and my grandchildren, it is quite different to meet a real person.’

  ‘Well, I do buy your books,’ said Mrs Watson. ‘At least I make my husband give me the new one every year. Now I expect you would like to see what we are doing. We are very proud of our work, because headquarters say we are the best team in the country.’

  Mrs Morland looked round. Two great forms, rather like giant beds set up on edge, stood across the hall, decorated apparently with green and brown rags. At a table several women were cutting lengths of brown and green, others were drawing. Everyone seemed very busy and Mrs Morland felt a drone among bees, and was just going to ask if she hadn’t better go away and leave them to go on with their work when Mrs Watson said:

  ‘Now, we all know that Mrs Morland is a very busy person with many calls on her time, so we must not waste it,’ which so took that lady aback that she felt inclined to say lawk-a-mercy on me, this is none of I.

  Mrs Watson then showed her the patterns they had to work by, the way the frames were strung, the material cut in long strips, the strips woven into the netting and every detail of the work, with a quick, clear way of explaining which Mrs Morland much admired.

  ‘Jane and Mrs Freeman – this is Mrs Freeman; Mrs Freeman, I want to introduce you to Mrs Morland whose books we all enjoy so much – are our best workers on the frames,’ said Mrs Watson and stood back, proudly watching the effect.

  ‘I think it is wonderful,’ said Mrs Morland, more nervous than ever at the sight of so much competency and anxious to give satisfaction without having in the least grasped what they were doing. ‘Don’t you get very tired?’

  ‘Well, we do,’ said Mrs Freeman, ‘but it is all in the good cause, Mrs Morland, and when we think of Our Boys out there, we can’t do enough for them.’

  ‘Oh, have you boys in the forces?’ said Mrs Morland, catching at a familiar straw. ‘All mine are fighting somewhere though of course with the naval ones one never quite knows where. But my youngest boy, who is in the Artillery with the Barsetshire Yeomanry, writes a great deal when he is out of action, and wonderfully clearly considering the Germans. Are yours in Holland?’

  Mrs Freeman said she had only the one girl, but one couldn’t help thinking of Our Boys, and she hoped it wasn’t anything serious with Mrs Morland’s son being out of action like that, though his mother must be quite pleased he wasn’t in that dreadful fighting.

  Pulling her wits together, Mrs Morland said Oh no, Tony wasn’t out of action like that: it was only that he wrote when he wasn’t in action, and it was so kind of Mrs Freeman, but Tony would be quite furious if he weren’t fighting.

  ‘And so should I,’ she said, ferociously. But anyone who knew her would have known that she meant it, and Tony, while deprecating his mamma’s way of making herself a motley to the view with all fresh acquaintances, would have strongly supported her attitude.

  ‘Stringing the frames is hard on the hands,’ said Jane. ‘We’ve tried gloves and we’ve tried wrapping rags round our fingers like French soldiers’ feet, but nothing except human skin stands up to the work.’

  ‘Gilding fades fast

  But pigskin will last,’

  said Mrs Morland, sympathetically. ‘Not that it’s true, because if you have ever had a pigskin bag you will know how crumbly all the corners of it go until they come to pieces; but an old frame with gilding on it and images in churches seem to last for hundreds of years.’

  Realizing that her distinguished visitor might go on like this for ever, Mrs Watson led her to the other workers, who were all admirers of her books. Mrs Morland in her turn humbly and sincerely admired their industry and neat fingers and everyone was on the very best of terms. Mrs Freeman asked her to write her name on a piece of paper for Jennifer, which she willingly did. Warmed by this piece of fame, she recovered her poise, expressed the greatest interest in all she had seen, complimented them on being the only team in the county who were allowed to design their own patterns, and left exactly at the right moment.

  ‘By the way, Mrs Morland,’ said Mrs Watson as she opened the outer door for her guest, ‘do you know anything about Mr Adams, the man who owns the engineering works at Hogglestock? He is taking some rooms in the New Town these holidays for his daughter and her governess, from a widow, a Mrs Merivale. My husband does her little bits of business for her and he wants to know if they will be nice tenants for Mrs Merivale, who is far too kind and simply asks people to impose upon her. I don’t mean on the money side, but just personally. We wouldn’t like her to have the wrong sort of paying guest.’

  ‘Adams,’ said Mrs Morland. ‘No, I have never come across them. But I believe Mrs Belton knows them. Yes, I’m sure I’ve heard her talk about them. One of her sons saved the girl from being drowned in the lake last winter, I think. She is at the Hosiers’ Girls’ School.’

  ‘Oh, well, if Mrs Belton knows them, that ought to be all right,’
said Mrs Watson, and went back to her work.

  Mrs Morland then continued her almost royal progress to the Rectory where Dr Dale showed her all her books in a neat row on his study shelves, and she was able to ask him whether two Latin words which she proposed to incorporate into her next book were really spelt like that. She then visited Robin’s class where she made a great success with the little boys by telling them about the dreadful day when her youngest boy Tony and a school friend put all the peas they had shelled down the bathroom basin so that it was stopped up, and then dropped the spanner with which they had unscrewed the U-joint out of the window into the water butt; also how he and that same friend had climbed out of a skylight on to the vicarage roof and there played the mouth organ while the vicar raged below.

  Having told this story, she was assailed with doubts as to whether a school housed in clerical stabling was quite the right place for it. The joyful shrieks of the little boys reassured her to a certain extent, but she did not feel quite at her ease till she had privately consulted Robin, who gave it as his opinion that if she had said a rectory, he might have felt obliged to raise a protest, but as it was a mere vicarage where Tony played the mouth organ, the Church of England could stand it.

  Master Watson then approached her.