Mrs. Tim of the Regiment by D. E. Stevenson Page A

‘Only if you want to, my dear. Don’t make me more of a burden than I need be. That is the hardest thing of all for me to bear. Promise only to write when you feel you want to, Hester dear.’
    I promise and hurry away. In retrospect I am rather ashamed that we have talked so much about my small troubles and so little about her big ones.
    Fourth February
    Drive over to Nearhampton to take Bryan out to lunch, this being one of the days appointed by the Parkers for that tantalising performance. (Tantalising both to parents and offspring to meet for a few hours with the shadow of an imminent parting lurking grimly in the background.) As we near the school we see other cars with other parents bent on the same errand (mostly large and expensive cars beside which Cassandra looks like a battered sparrow).
    Bryan is at first shy and constrained. Conversation consists of Tim and self asking questions to which Bryan replies in a minimum of words.
    We drive to Holehogger’s Hotel where we lunch expensively, Bryan choosing the most indigestible dishes offered on the menu. My son is such a stranger to me I quite unable to suggest that he would be wise to content himself with plainer fare. After lunch Bryan becomes more like himself and volunteers scraps of information which are avidly swallowed by Tim and self. I ask after the eldest Carter boy, who has been sent to Nearhampton this term on our recommendation. Bryan replies with relish that ‘Carter gets kicked all right.’ Feel rather worried about this revelation, as I have assured Mamie that Bryan will ‘be kind to Edward’.
    Several other Nearhampton boys are lunching in the hotel with relatives and friends. Bryan takes no notice of them, nor they of Bryan, and, when asked whether he does not know these boys, Bryan replies, ‘Of course I know them – Paterson is in my dorm,’ but vouchsafes no reason as to why they should ignore each other.
    It has now started to rain, and neither Tim nor self views with enthusiasm ‘A long drive’, which is Bryan’s idea of spending the afternoon. We repair to the large billiard room upstairs, where we find the Anstruthers in the same circumstances as ourselves, complete with Nearhampton schoolboy son. Major Anstruther is in the Gunners and is an old crony of Tim’s. They are delighted to meet.
    Major Anstruther suggests a game of cockfighting (which is played on Mess Guest Nights) to amuse the boys. Tim agrees, and he and Major A. proceed to play at cockfighting with great vigour. They squat on the floor with billiard cues beneath their knees and their arms hooked under the ends and try to knock each other over. The boys look on, Bryan with the mulish look upon his face peculiar to sons whose fathers are behaving in too juvenile a manner.
    Sylvia Anstruther and I sit on a sofa near the fire and discuss clothes, servants, the enormities of landladies, and whether it is really worth while preserving eggs when you are liable to be moved before you can use them.
    Afternoon seems extremely long and we decide to have tea at four o’clock. The boys eat enormously of bacon and eggs (an amazing feat so soon after lunch).
    We then drive Bryan back to Nearhampton and deposit him there.
    Sixth February
    Tim having got leave, we start off to Westburgh to look for a house. Funds are low – as usual – so we have decided to go in the car as this is cheaper ( on paper ) than our combined railway fares.
    It is a fine morning, frosty and bright.
    Cassandra at first refuses to start (she evidently has got wind of the long road before her and does not like the idea at all) but at last, for no apparent reason, she thinks better of it and does start, and we are off, somewhat exhausted with long drawn-out farewells to Betty and Miss Hardcastle.
    Cassandra races along nobly with only an occasional backfire as a reminder of her incomprehensible behaviour. At one o’clock we begin to look for a