Mrs. Tim of the Regiment (37 page)

I try to think of some remark – not too utterly inane – to address him with, but can think of nothing more original than the weather. We decide that it was fine this morning, but somewhat showery in the afternoon, and then look at each other blankly.

Fortunately Tony Morley arrives to rescue me, and the two men are soon deep in the technicalities of stalking. I am thus able to observe them at my leisure. They are typical examples of their race. Tony's tail coat makes him look taller, while the Highlander's kilt gives him breadth with grace. It suits me well that they should talk to each other, for I want to be at hand to help Mrs. Loudon if required.

Mrs. Falconer has captured Miss MacArbin, a tall slim girl in a night-blue frock, and is telling her a long and complicated story in confidential tones. I look with interest at Miss MacArbin and wonder whether Miss Campbell was correct in her surmise. I can easily understand any man falling madly in love with her, for there is something fatally attractive about her pale beauty and her rather languid grace.

Mrs. Loudon seizes my arm, and says: ‘Hester, I should never have asked the Bakers.'

I realise the truth of this, but it is much too late now; in fact the Bakers' wheels are crunching over the gravel at this very moment. Guthrie goes into the hall to meet them, and returns escorting a small red-faced man with silver hair and amazingly bushy silver eyebrows. He shakes hands all round, and says, with a beaming smile, that he is pleased to meet us – he is really rather a lovable little man.

‘I'm so glad you could come,' Mrs. Loudon says. ‘Your daughter told us you don't go out much.'

‘Oh well, it's not everybody wants the old man,' replies Mr. Baker with engaging simplicity. ‘But I just said to Elsie – I
must
go to Mrs. Loudon's party, seeing she's been good enough to ask me. Elsie wasn't too keen on me coming, but you must be firm sometimes, and, after all, you've
got
to see me sooner or later. Of course it's quite natural Elsie shouldn't want to have me tagged on to her – my little girl can take her place in any society – I tell you I'm proud of my little Elsie, she's all I've got, ma'am. I've spared no expense to give her a good education, and I tell you I've got my money's worth.'

There is an awkward pause in the general conversation. I, for one, am speechless, and the others seem to be in a like condition. Mrs. Falconer finds her tongue first, and dashes into the breach – is it sheer good luck, or is she not really quite so vague and foolish as she seems?

‘That is just what dear Papa always said,' she announces ecstatically. ‘ “A good education is the best foundation,” he used to say. – I've always remembered it because it rhymes and it's so
true
, isn't it? I always think it is easier to remember things when they rhyme. We used to learn history like that:

‘ “Ten sixty-six on Hastings' strand
Harold the Norman comes to land.” '

Guthrie has now started to hand round sherry. I have just taken a glass from the tray when I look up and see Elsie Baker standing at the door, her eyes fixed upon MacArbin with an incredulous stare. She is obviously on the brink of hysterical laughter. This would be fatal, so I edge nearer to her and whisper:

‘Isn't he magnificent, Miss Baker?
The
MacArbin, you know. Descended from the great chief '

‘My!' she exclaims with a gasp. ‘He's just like Duggie Fairweather in
Scotland's Bath of Blood
.'

I realise at once, with relief, that she has no higher meed of praise, and drink my sherry in peace.

Everyone is now talking at the top of his voice an excellent sign at this stage of the proceedings. We finish our sherry, and are herded into the dining room, and distributed round the table by our hostess.

MacArbin sits upon his hostess's right, then comes Mrs. Falconer and Elsie Baker. Guthrie and Miss MacArbin are next, and then Tony and myself, with Mr. Baker on Mrs. Loudon's left.

Tony starts his nonsense before we have finished the excellent Julienne, and I realise that he is in one of his most irresponsible moods.

‘Is this a betrothal feast?' he whispers. ‘The gloom upon the brow of our good hostess is more fitting to the baked meats of a funeral collation.'

‘You will probably get an excellent dinner,' I replied shortly.

‘I don't doubt it,' says Tony, ‘but it is most essential for me to know whether I am to be my usual gay and witty self the life and soul of the party or to put on the gloomy gravity which I invariably reserve for sad and solemn occasions.'

I reply that he can do as he pleases, and turn my left shoulder towards him he really deserves a snub. Unfortunately Mr. Baker is too deep in conversation with Mrs. Loudon to notice my movement, and I have the choice of listening to the said conversation which I realise is of a distinctly private nature or withdrawing my left shoulder from Tony and making it up with him.

‘It's a good little business,' Mr. Baker is saying earnestly. ‘Two thousand a year it brings in, regular as clockwork – too much for a man with simple tastes like me. Elsie likes her comforts, you know, and I shall settle a thousand a year on her if she marries the right chap – or I'd be willing to take him into the business and expand a bit.'

Mrs. Loudon says she is delighted to hear he is comfortably off, but implies delicately that she is not interested in his financial affairs.

‘Oh, I dare say I'm a bit premature, as the chicken said when it cracked the shell,' replies Mr. Baker, winking at her slyly. ‘But I do like to have things cut and dried and aboveboard. You're quite right to pull me up a bit, ma'am. Elsie said herself I was to go easy, and I'll go as easy as you please. You'll drive me on a snaffle before we've gone far, see if you don't.'

Mrs. Loudon's face is a study; she gazes at Mr. Baker as if he were some strange and rather dangerous reptile, but she is too rigid in her ideas of hospitality to attempt a snub. Besides, the little man is so devoid of all desire to offend, his friendliness and simplicity are disarming. Her eyes meet mine with a pleading, anguished look. ‘Hester, I don't know if I introduced Mr. Baker,' she murmurs weakly.

‘Indeed you did, ma'am; you know your job as hostess, as anyone can see with half an eye,' replies Mr. Baker gallantly. ‘You introduced Mrs. Christie and me right off, and very pleased I was. I've heard a lot about Mrs. Christie from some friends of hers staying at the hotel – Mr. and Mrs. McTurk.'

I try to explain that I don't know them very well, but Mr. Baker does not listen. ‘Very nice friends to have, Mrs. Christie, especially the lady. She's always saying how sorry she is at you leaving Kiltwinkle. It must be a bit trying for a lady like you not to have a settled home of your own, isn't it now?'

This statement is often made to me, and it always annoys me, chiefly, I think, because it is true. But some time ago I found a quotation which seemed to meet the case, and I always make use of it on these occasions.

‘ “To a resolved mind his home is everywhere,”' I reply sententiously.

Mr. Baker looks suitably impressed, but Tony, who has now recovered from my snub, and has evidently been able to make very little of Miss MacArbin, turns round and says, ‘Since when have you had a resolved mind, O Dame of the Burning Pestle? The quotation is apt, I admit, and the provocation considerable, but I should advise you to keep your erudite literary quotations for an erudite literary audience. To cast pearls before swine is not a sign of superiority, but the sign of a narrow mind. Swine have their own standard of values, and a really clever and adaptable person should be able to adapt himself to his company.'

‘Grunt at them, I suppose', I suggest, for I am slightly hurt at being called narrow-minded.

Mr. Baker looks thoroughly puzzled at Tony's dissertation, but brightens up at the word ‘swine'. ‘D'you know much about the value of swine, sir?' he asks interestedly. ‘I deal in 'ides, you know. Quite a paying business it is.'

Mrs. Loudon has turned thankfully to the MacArbin, and is listening to his ideas on the subject of grouse moors with an appearance of intense interest.

Elsie now leans forward across the table and asks Tony if he was talking about
The Burning Thistle
– she thought she heard him mention it. She went to Inverness yesterday with a boy from the hotel, and they saw it at the picture house, and isn't Molly Greateyes just wonderful?

Tony replies, ‘Simply divine! That close-up where the lovers are united after passing through fire and flood – ' Elsie knits her brows and says, ‘But that's not till they meet in the burning house.'

‘Oh, of course,' agrees Tony. ‘And he seizes her in his arms and staggers out of the blazing pile, just when everyone thinks they are burned to death.'

Elsie says she doesn't remember that bit, and I am not surprised to hear it, for of course, Tony has never seen the film and is just being naughty.

Dinner flows on with admirable smoothness, for Mrs. Loudon's maids are well-trained; but the conversation is interrupted by a good many cross-questions and crooked answers owing to the strange conglomeration of people which Mrs. Loudon has seen fit to invite. I find it difficult to converse with Tony and Mr. Baker at the same time. Their tastes are different and their outlook upon life irreconcilable, and can't help wishing that Mrs. Loudon would take part in entertaining my right-hand neighbour, or else that Miss MacArbin would produce some small talk for Tony.

Mrs. Falconer, who has been somewhat subdued, suddenly wakes up and starts telling the MacArbin about her old nurse who suffered greatly from chilblains. She even had one on her nose. Mrs. Falconer, who was then about seven years old, or possibly eight, made a little nose bag and presented it to Old Nannie for a Christmas present. ‘The nose bag was made of red flannel, and had two little pieces of elastic which went round the ears,' continues Mrs. Falconer reminiscently. ‘I can see her now, going about her work with that little red bag on her nose. It really did her a lot of good that, or the cod liver oil which was ordered for her by the doctor. But one day she went to the back door in it by mistake, and the greengrocer's boy, who was handing in a bag of potatoes, nearly had a fit when he saw her, and poor Nannie was so offended at the way he laughed that she never wore the nose bag again.'

‘ so there it is,' Mr. Baker is saying with his beaming smile. ‘What do
you
think about it, Mrs. Christie?'

I gaze at him in despair, for I have not been listening to a word, and have no idea what I think about it. I have been caught out in the reprehensible act of listening to other people's conversation, and neglecting my own.

‘It took me some time to get used to it,' he admits with a chuckle. ‘But there, I'm only an old-fashioned buffer and girls have to be in the mode and if Elsie's pleased, well, so am I!'

I smile at him vaguely.

‘I see you haven't been done, Mrs. Christie,' he whispers confidentially. ‘Elsie'd tell you where she went, in a minute she would. Very satisfied she was ' What
is
the man talking about? Some sort of inoculation, perhaps.

‘Are you going to be done?' I ask, hoping that his reply may elucidate the problem.

He looks at me and suddenly shouts with laughter. ‘Ha, ha! That's rich, that is. You're a wit, Mrs. Christie, and no mistake – ha, ha, ha. Fancy the old Dad having his eyebrows plucked! Ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha!'

The attention of the entire table is centred upon us. Mr. Baker mops his eyes with his table napkin and then tries to stuff it into his pocket. ‘Ha, ha!' he shouts. ‘Ha, ha, ha! Thought it was my serviette – I mean my 'andkerchief – ha, ha, ha!'

The MacArbin places an eyeglass in his eye, and looks across the table at Mr. Baker as if he were a strange animal which has never been seen before. Guthrie asks what is the joke.

At this moment Mrs. Loudon gives the signal for departure – she evidently thinks it unsafe to wait until Mr. Baker recovers his breath. Mrs. Falconer, who has got behind-hand in dessert, owing to her story about old Nannie's nose bag, is still eating an apple.

‘Elspeth!' she exclaims piteously.

But Elspeth is already at the door, and Mrs. Falconer is obliged to clutch her pochette, and hasten after her fellow females.

‘Elspeth is so unobservant,' she whispers to me as we cross the hall. ‘And it was a Jonathan, too – my favourite kind.'

In the drawing room there is a moment's silence and then everybody speaks at once.

Elsie asks: ‘Whatever were you and Dad laughing at?'

Mrs. Falconer begins, ‘When us girls were all young – '

And Mrs. Loudon says, ‘Poke up the fire, Hester,' and starts pushing chairs and sofas about with fierce and somewhat misplaced energy.

I poke up the fire, which incidentally requires no poking, and sit down beside Miss MacArbin. She looks dreamy and peaceful, and I am in need of peace. I feel slightly battered, and my face is stiff with smiling false smiles and hiding real ones.

‘Castle Darroch is beautiful,' I tell her. ‘We had a picnic there one day.'

‘But it is very sad,' she says softly.