Mrs. Tim of the Regiment Read Free Page A

at a more leisure and opportune moment. Betty fidgets during the sermon, and asks in a piercing whisper when it will be over.
    Grace McDougall comes in to tea. She is our regimental bride, and really beautiful, with that matt white skin which makes everyone else look like a dairymaid. We are all having tea in the dining room, as Miss Hardcastle is away. Children become very wild. They are encouraged by Grace, who rags with Bryan until he behaves like a lunatic. (Query – Why do people with no children of their own seem to think the shocking behaviour of other people’s offspring a fit subject for mirth?)
    Bryan is sent to his room by his father.
    Grace has the decency to apologise, and asks Tim not to be hard on Bryan, as it is all her fault. Grace being irresistible to the male sex, Tim agrees to let the young villain off this time, and accompanies Grace to the front door, where he stands talking to her for fifteen minutes.
    I put the children to bed.
    Fourth January
    Grace appears shortly after breakfast to to ask if I can possibly lend her some meat plates, coffee cups, and finger bowls for her dinner party, as Fairlawn is deficient in crockery and glass. We adjourn hopefully to the pantry, where we discover eight meat plates to match, and five finger bowls – but coffee cups are odd patterns.
    Grace says it does not matter whether they match or not – she will just take them. She has brought a large basket (being of an optimistic temperament), into which we pack the loot. I advise her to go to Nora Watt for more finger bowls, as I know Nora has some, having dined there on Boxing Night. (Unless, of course, they were borrowed.) Grace thanks me, and asks anxiously whether I think eight will be a squash in her dining room. Reassure her as convincingly as I can, although I am practically certain the eight will be a squash (who should know better than I, considering we had Fairlawn ourselves for nine months before we moved into Rokesby).
    Grace then says, have I heard about the Carters? They are moving again. Their landlord is returning to Biddington in March. We agree that it is rotten luck, especially as Mamie Carter is going to add to her family in the near future.
    â€˜I am so sorry for Mamie,’ says Grace with a sigh.
    Personally I am much more sorry for Herbert. (Mamie Carter is a person who sits still and smiles wistfully while everybody in the vicinity rushes around, wildly, doing her job.) Perhaps I am a trifle bitter about this, having assisted in the Carters’ last move. Grace – who is new to army life – says eagerly that of course everyone will help, and the first thing is to find a house, and that directly she has got this dinner off her chest she is going around to all the house agents in Biddington.
    Feel that Grace is really rather a dear in spite of her enthusiasms.
    Sixth January
    Wet Day . Decide to write a lot of letters and clear off the remains of Christmas presents ‘thanks’, which have got disgracefully hung up owing to holidays.
    Tim comes in, just as I am starting, to ask if I have seen his pipe anywhere. We all join in the search. Betty and Bryan show great enthusiasm, as the winner of the treasure hunt has been promised a penny. Pipe is discovered in my workbasket. Have no idea how it got there, and say so several times, adding that it is curious how a thing always turns up in the last place you think of looking for it. Bryan – who has won the penny –immediately replies that the reason is because you stop looking for it when you have found it.
    I return to my letters.
    Annie comes in to say there is a gentleman at the door who wants to see me ‘very partickler’, and he will not keep me long. She asked was there a message, but he said he must see Mrs. Christie herself, and it was very important, and his name is Mr. John.
    Am seized with a sudden and absolutely unfounded conviction that it is the great Augustus himself who has come to