Mrs. Tim of the Regiment by D. E. Stevenson Read Free Book Online Page B

her at breakfast. (I am not in the least surprised to hear it as they have only been married three months and Grace really did force the pace with the colonel.)
    â€˜Aren’t men silly?’ she says pathetically. ‘As if I cared a button for the old bear I only did it to put him in a good humour.’
    I point out to Grace that it all comes of her being so disgracefully pretty, after which we both laugh and kiss each other, and she says she doesn’t know what on earth she is going to do when I have gone, as there is not another creature in Biddington who can see a joke, and do I think Jack could get a job somewhere – preferably in Westburgh.
    Twenty-first January
    Make up my mind I must really tell the servants about our plans today. Go into the kitchen with my knees knocking together. Katie dissolves into tears and says she would go to the end of the world with me if it were not for her mother, and will I give her a good character as she has done her best for the family, and do I think she could get a place in London as she is tired of the country, anyway, and Biddington is not what it was with Scotch regiments and no Guards now, and don’t I think that a girl ought to see life before she settles down – mother or no – mother and can she have a whole day off to go and see Drury Lane next week?
    Answer all questions in the affirmative and offer to put an advertisement in The Times for her .
    Return to the drawing room, feeling somewhat spent, and sit down to recover myself before speaking to Annie. Door opens and Annie bursts in demanding indignantly what she has done not to be told about our plans – and she’s been with us longer than Katie anyway – and if I think she is coming with us to the North Pole I am much mistaken (or words to that effect) and will I please take a month’s notice from that moment. Decide that the only thing to be done is to lose my temper, and do so – (at first with some little difficulty, but soon with a glad abandon that astonishes both Annie and myself in equal proportion).
    Annie, completely cowed by this unprecedented exhibition, agrees to stay on as long as I want her, and do all she can to help with the packing. She even offers to come to Westburgh and ‘settle us in’.
    Am so exhausted that I have to lie down on my bed to recover. Ask myself whether it would not be a good thing to assume an ungovernable temper when dealing with the servants instead of being a kind of buffer absorbing all the jars of the house in my own person. But decide that the reaction is too severe and the nervous energy expended hardly worth the result.
    Twenty-second January
    Meet Grace in the fishmonger’s. There is a huge cod with a gaping mouth lying on the slab. Grace seizes my arm and says, ‘My dear, isn’t it exactly like Neil – those glazed eyes, the complete absence of forehead and chin. Yes, three whiting skinned and turned to Fairlawn. My dear, I’ve thought of a splendid plan. Why not sublet Rokesby to the Carters?’
    Reply evasively, as I know that Tim will not let Rokesby to the Carters, having suggested it to him myself some days ago. Tim has a poor opinion of the Carter ménage and says with a good deal of truth that ‘they would tear the place to bits and we should have to pay for it’. He also reminded me of a previous occasion when we sublet our house to a brother officer and had a good deal of unpleasantness over damages to same.
    Grace says she has been to all the house agents in Biddington and can’t hear of anything suitable for the Carters. She is so determined that there is nothing for it but to tell her that I know Tim will not sublet the house on account of unfortunate experience in the past. Grace turns away more in sorrow than in – anger and leaves me to order haddocks in peace. Am rather distressed as I am very fond of Grace, but feel that it is useless to raise false hopes – Tim