Miss Buncle Married Read Free Page A

dresser or out of the stove. “Where are they, Dorcas?”
    â€œWho? The Rasts? Out,” said Dorcas, dumping down her iron with a bang. “Both of them’s out—gone to the pictures. They’re on speaking terms for a wonder.”
    â€œOh dear, what a bother!” Barbara said.
    â€œGood riddance, I think,” replied Dorcas. “But you better go and start dressing, or you’ll be late, madame .”
    Barbara smiled. When Dorcas called her “madame” or spoke of her as “Mrs. Abbott,” she invariably said it in inverted commas, as if that were not Barbara’s name at all, but only a sort of secret which she and Barbara shared to the exclusion of everybody else. Dorcas had been with her all her life; first as her nurse, and then as her maid and general factotum in the little house at Silverstream, so it was difficult for Dorcas to realize that Barbara was now not only grown up, but actually married.
    Barbara felt the same about herself. She still felt that she had to grow up. Sometimes in the middle of a party, she would suddenly be overwhelmed by the conviction that she was not really grown up—not like other people. Surely other people of her age had not got all the queer childish ideas and inhibitions that she had; were not beset by shyness at awkward moments; were not burdened by a total inability to express themselves in decent English, as Barbara was. The queer thing was that Barbara could write decent English, had, in fact, written two novels which had sold like hotcakes, and, like hotcakes, had given quite a number of innocent people a good deal of pain; but, when it came to talking, Barbara was lost.
    No, she was not like other people. Other people took grown-up things as a matter of course—things like late dinner, and wine, driving cars and going to the theater; things like marriage and housekeeping and ordering commodities from the shops; whereas she was just playing at it all the time, pretending to be grown up, when, really and truly all the time, she was just Barbara—a plain, gawky child. She had the same body (bigger now, but indubitably the same, even to the rather intriguing brown mark, shaped like a little mouse, on her right thigh. Nobody ever saw it, of course—except herself, and even then, only in her bath—but it was still there—a visual testimony to the fact that she was still the same as she had always been, Barbara Buncle and no other). She still had the same, rather unsatisfactory hair (though its poverty was now somewhat mitigated by a permanent wave), and she was still frightened of “bright” people, and of thunder, and big dogs, and dentists, and still had the same courage to bear her fears without a sound. Last, but not least, she still enjoyed the same things—ice cream, and sweet cakes, and crumpets with the butter oozing out of them—and she still loved being out at night when the stars were shining, and going late to bed, and having breakfast in bed. Someday, she was convinced, somebody would find out that she was an imposter in the adult world.
    â€œYou’d better go and get dressed, madame,” said Dorcas again. “You haven’t too much time, and your hair’s all over the place. I’ll come and do you up when I’ve finished this.”
    â€œBut we’re not going,” said Barbara. “That’s what I came in to see Mrs. Rast about. Mr. Abbott’s got a headache.”
    â€œThere now!” exclaimed Dorcas, “there now—and the Rasts out! What a to-do!—not but what I can cook something for your suppers just as nice as her.”
    â€œOf course you can, Dorcas,” agreed Barbara diplomatically.
    â€œYes,” said Dorcas complacently, “we managed all right at Tanglewood Cottage, didn’t we, Miss Barbara—Mrs. Abbott I mean—but Mrs. Rast will go clean dotty when she hears I’ve been poking round her