A Vicarage Family: A Biography of Myself

by Noel Streatfeild

‘I suppose,’ she decided before she fell asleep, ‘just extra niceness can sort of hurt too. I must remember that.’

  Isobel, much to her surprise, enjoyed her first ball. Although she crept into her bedroom when she came home both Victoria and Louise heard her, and as soon as their parents’ bedroom door was safely shut came into her room and sat on her bed.

  ‘What was it like?’ Louise whispered. ‘Did you dance every dance?’

  Proudly Isobel picked up her programme with its small pencil attached.

  ‘Look.’

  Victoria and Louise looked. The names were not readable but there was one for every dance, even the extras.

  ‘Goodness!’ said Victoria. ‘Aren’t you tired dancing all those?’

  ‘It was a lovely band,’ Isobel explained, ‘it made me feel like dancing, but I didn’t stay for the extras for Daddy looked so tired and I saw Mummy yawn.’

  Louise put the dance card back on the dressing table.

  ‘I should think the Herbert will have to be trained up to be a chaperone. Mummy will never do; imagine when there are three of us.’

  Isobel was fumbling in the little satin bag which had come with her dress.

  ‘I nearly forgot.’ She held out two cherries coated in glazed sugar. ‘I saved these at supper for you.’

  ‘Aren’t they pretty!’ said Louise. ‘Almost too pretty to eat.’

  Victoria bit hers.

  ‘Did you dance all the time or did you sit any out with your partners?’

  Isobel flushed.

  ‘I did with the one I had supper with. His name was Charles Corn. He’s asked Mummy to bring me to tea on his ship. We sat out because I told him about me, and that really I’d rather draw than come to balls, and he said why shouldn’t I do both. And he found a piece of paper and I drew everybody he asked me to. He put my drawings in his pocket.’

  ‘I hope you aren’t falling in love,’ said Louise. ‘I mean to marry first.’

  Isobel laughed.

  ‘Idiot! There was nothing like that, he was just nice. And actually everybody was being invited on board the ships by someone. But you must go to bed or you’ll never wake up to go to school in the morning.’

  Unwillingly the girls went back to their rooms. Then, just as she was falling asleep, Victoria remembered something she had not asked Isobel. She got out of bed and put her head round the connecting door.

  ‘Does it make you feel different all over to be treated as a grown-up lady?’

  Isobel was just getting into bed; she paused with one foot on the ground thinking over Victoria’s question.

  ‘I think it does to other people but not to me. I mean, being called Miss Strangeway and dressed up in a ball dress hasn’t changed the ordinary me, who will be told tomorrow by Miss Herbert to put on a jersey, or by Mummy to clear away my painting things. I know I’m grown-up but at home I’m treated just the same as if I wasn’t. I don’t truly think being grown-up has happened to me yet. I wonder when it will.’

  John won his scholarship to Balliol. The girls knew nothing about universities, but they could hear from the way their father talked about John, that it was something very grand he had won. But John, in his letters to Victoria, did not write about his scholarship, except in a casual way, for he had still not won his free year.

  ‘I think my father is weakening,’ he wrote. ‘At least he does see I don’t want to go to India, but he won’t agree I can have the year to do what I like with. He says I must work at something sensible.’

  But when he came home for the summer holiday he was jubilant. He shouted his news to Victoria before the train stopped.

  ‘It’s all fixed, Vicky. It’s all fixed.’

  On the way to the vicarage he told her the details.

  ‘You know my friend Henry? Well, he’s going up to Balliol next year too, and until then he’s to stay at home learning estate management for they’ve got a big place. I’m going to stay there most of the time. We must travel round a bit. The only stipulation is, I have to join the territorials.’

  ‘Goodness! The army! You’ll hate being a soldier.’

  ‘Juggins! Territorials aren’t real soldiers. They don’t fight. You have to go to drills and things and there’ll be manoeuvres in the summer. Henry’s father is a colonel. Henry says it seems mostly dressing up.’

  Victoria looked up at John; he towered above her for he was now over six feet tall.

  ‘You won’t be coming to us I suppose? Not even for Christmas?’

  He grinned down at her.

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll keep an eye on you. As a matter of fact next year I’ll get Aunt Sylvia to bring you and Isobel to the territorial dance. Henry says it’s a big affair.’

  ‘I don’t know when I’m coming out. Nothing’s been said. You see, I won’t be seventeen till Christmas next year.’

  John looked at her, his eyes twinkling.

  ‘The local girls had better look out. Nineteen fourteen will be the year to remember. The year when you grew up.’

  Victoria made a face.

  ‘I’m not growing up very fast. No one’s actually angry with me now for I think they know I try, but I still am never at the top of my form.’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry about that. It’s how you look that matters to a girl, and I must say you are coming along splendidly in that direction. You might almost turn out a beauty.’

  Victoria’s looking glass had told her she was getting better looking, but not a beauty. She made a face at John.

  ‘I’ll never be that but I can still run. I bet I reach the vicarage gate before you do.’

  Regardless of her lengthening skirts Victoria raced up the hill with John pounding along beside her.

  ‘Look at Victoria Strangeway!’ John panted. ‘Oh the poor Vicar! How dreadful for him having such a tomboy for a daughter.’

  22

  Vicky Grows Up

  The spring term started with an excitement. It had been decided that the school should give a performance of the songs from Alice in Wonderland. For this the singing mistress, who came twice a week, auditioned everybody to find who could take the solos. When she had finished auditioning Victoria she swung round on her music stool.

  ‘How long have you been in the school?’

  Victoria calculated.

  ‘I came when I was twelve and now I’m just sixteen.’

  ‘That long! What do you do during my singing classes?’

  What Victoria had done was to stand at the back surrounded by her giggling friends while she exercised her gift for talking to music. Long experience in church, making Isobel laugh by using her own words during the chants, had made a running commentary on school affairs to the tune of Sweet and low or Blow, blow, thou winter wind child’s play.

  ‘I’m always at them.’

  ‘I know you are but you have succeeded in disguising from me that you not only have a very nice voice, but almost perfect pitch.’

  As a result of the audition, when the list was posted on the board of who was to sing what part, Victoria found she was the Mock Turtle. This caused quite a sensation for, to make rehearsing easy, the solos were being sung by boarders. And also it was the first time Victoria had been distinguished in any way other than as a character who was frequently in trouble. Miss French sent for her.

  ‘Had you some purpose in hiding from Miss Simpson that you had a nice voice?’

  Victoria thought a lot of fuss was being made about nothing.

  ‘She never asked if I could sing.’

  Miss French glanced at the clock.

  ‘It’s nearly tea time. Sit down, Vicky, you shall have your tea with me today.’

  Victoria sat down nervously. What on earth was coming? Some of the sixth form girls had tea with Miss French. But never fifth formers like herself.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said gruffly.

  Miss French was looking particularly elegant that day in a rust coloured dress.

  ‘I was going to have a talk with you anyway,
Vicky. You will be leaving school next year. Have you any idea what you want from life?’

  Victoria was puzzled.

  ‘Want from life? It’s no good wanting things, is it? I mean, things happen.’

  The maid brought the tea. Miss French sent her away for another cup.

  ‘Of course things happen which we none of us count on. But that does not mean we should not plan. When I was your age I had just begun to dream of having a school of my own. At that time it was only a dream, for my father, who was an artist, was alive, and we lived abroad. But he died when I was seventeen, and I came to England to teach languages. It was then my dream began to take shape in my mind. Not that at that time I saw any prospect of making it come true, but it’s always good to have a plan to which you work.’

  The cup was brought and the tea poured out, and Victoria helped herself to a sandwich.

  ‘I’m afraid I haven’t any plan. Mummy said once we should all have to earn our livings. Isobel is going to teach art, but I haven’t anything I do well, have I?’

  Miss French sipped her tea.

  ‘At the end of last term your form wrote essays about Christmas. You wrote about the Christmas tree and all the lonely who come to share it with you. It was shown to me, and I have kept it. Although naturally you will have to earn your living in some other way, for only the exceptionally gifted can earn it as an author, writing could supplement whatever you are able to earn.’

  Victoria’s eyes shone. It was a truly glorious idea. It fitted in with what her mother had said: ‘Nothing ordinary.’ ‘I think you will be the one to surprise us all.’ But this talk of earning was worrying.

  ‘I would love writing books, and almost I can see me doing it, but I can’t see me being paid by somebody, can you?’

  ‘I agree it is difficult to see the exact niche for you. Perhaps you could learn typewriting; I am sure a position could be found as a secretary.’

  Victoria looked reproachfully at Miss French.

  ‘Haven’t you forgotten how terrible my spelling is? Anyway I would hate to be a secretary. Imagine sitting all day long. Being a secretary is what Mummy thought Louise might be, just until she marries. She is marrying young and having lots of children.’

  Miss French was amused.

  ‘Is she indeed! It would not surprise me. But to return to your future. I expect we could improve your spelling if we concentrate on it. But you are only just sixteen, we have time to think of work you would like to do. At the moment what I want you to think about is your writing. There is definitely a gift there – slight perhaps, but worth encouraging. Tell me, is John a cousin?’

  Victoria put down her tea cup and took a cake Miss French was offering her.

  ‘Yes. He lives with us, at least he always has because his parents are in India, but now he’s living with somebody called Henry until they go up to Balliol this autumn. He wanted to do nothing for a year, what he calls “having time to stand and stare”, but his father, Uncle Mark, said he must be a territorial.’

  ‘I noticed John in your essay. Singing Good King Wenceslaus with you and being so nice to the lonely people.’

  ‘John is nice. I miss him awfully but I expect he’ll come back to live with us when he’s at Oxford.’

  ‘You must tell him what I have said about your writing.’

  ‘But of course I will. I tell him everything. I always have.’

  But the first person Victoria told was Isobel.

  ‘I don’t want to tell anybody else yet,’ she confided. ‘I mean, it seems idiotic to talk about writing books, when you’ve only written a few essays at school.’

  ‘I won’t tell,’ Isobel promised. ‘But I should think Miss French might be right. You’ve always liked writing plays.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be fun if we could do a book together some day? You’d draw the pictures and I’d write the story.’

  ‘I’d like that but I don’t know that I’m going to try and illustrate. What I would like to do most is teach.’

  ‘I know that’s what you think. But teach! Oh, Isobel, how awful! Why do you want to?’

  ‘I don’t know. I just feel I could. I’ll have a chance to see this summer for Daddy is seeing about my having a proper studio. It’s done by something called a mortgage.’

  ‘My goodness, aren’t we changing? Imagine you with a studio of your own and me even thinking of writing a book.’

  But in spite of not meaning to, Victoria did tell her father what Miss French had said. It was a spring evening and she had walked down the road with him to deliver a note. Half way to their destination her father paused.

  ‘Vicky, I want you to tell me something. Suppose you knew you had something the matter with you that would eventually kill you, would you tell Mummy?’

  Victoria did not accept right away the full meaning of her father’s question. But she knew the answer.

  ‘No, she would only fuss.’

  Her father put an arm through Victoria’s.

  ‘Thank you, darling. That’s what I think. You can be a very sensible girl, Vicky.’

  Although she had not taken in the possibilities behind her father’s question, Victoria had a feeling that her reply, though he was glad she had made it, made him feel lonely. She hugged his arm to her side.

  ‘Imagine what Miss French said the other day.’

  Her father was amused rather than impressed. He never read modern books and could not imagine a child of his writing one. But it was good of Miss French to encourage Vicky.

  ‘A great many wise things need saying, Vicky. It would indeed be wonderful if you were given the gift to say them.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s wise things Miss French meant. You see, it was Christmas evening I was writing about, so it was sort of remembering and putting it down so it was like a picture.’

  Her father left her to deliver his note. Victoria, looking after him, knew for certain that this talk with him was one of those things she would remember for ever. And indeed, years later when she was in Australia and was told her father had died of angina, she could hear him say: ‘Suppose you had something the matter with you that would eventually kill you …’ He had led a very full life and had become a bishop. So that he was ill had indeed been a well-kept secret, shared only with herself and his doctor.

  John took the news of what Miss French had said quite seriously.

  ‘I think that headmistress of yours might be right. Though at the moment I can’t picture the sort of writing you might do. It can’t be anything that needs brains. Wouldn’t it be a joke if you wrote a play and I acted in it?’

  There was to be no acting for John. That summer on the 4th of August war was declared against Germany. And John, already a partly trained territorial, after a few months of more intensive training, was sent to France.

  The ordinary English man and woman knew nothing about war. That it would all be over soon was the first reaction. It was not in any case expected to affect the lives of the ordinary citizen. Wars were fought by soldiers and sailors, who came on leave and were made a fuss of.

  But soon it became apparent this war was not like that. People became nervous. ‘I don’t like the Vicar to be away even for a night,’ a woman said. ‘For what would we do if those Germans landed?’

  That first winter fuel was either scarce or expensive – the girls did not know which, but before school Victoria and Louise had to saw logs.

  ‘I haven’t done this,’ said Victoria, ‘since I had to do it as a punishment for that awful report.’

  Food grew scarce. They kept hens in the field where it had been planned Isobel should have a studio. Isobel put an ostrich egg they had been given as a curio in the hen house and painted a Union Jack over it, writing under it: ‘A German hen laid this, now see what you can do.’

  Then came the casualties. House after house opened as a hospital. Isobel, when she was well enough, worked in one as a ward maid. But somehow for the girls the war still remained remote. Life went on more
or less the same, except that there were no dances for Isobel, indeed, no parties for any of them.

  Then John came on leave. The moment the news got round that he was coming presents of food arrived, among them a large rabbit.

  ‘Would you lend me that for a day, Mrs Strangeway, ma’am?’ the butcher said when he was asked to clean it. ‘I’ll hang it in my window. It encourages people just to see food about.’

  Victoria was at school when John came home. It was June and lovely weather.

  ‘He’s in the garden,’ her mother said to her when she came in. ‘I think he looks peaky.’

  John was in that part of the garden the children had christened The Wood. He was in uniform with the star of a second lieutenant on his shoulder. He looked more than peaky: he looked thin, and his face was green. But he sounded in a way the old John.

  ‘Hullo, Vicky! How’s things?’

  Victoria felt as if a cold hand had squeezed her heart.

  ‘You look pretty awful.’

  John managed a smile.

  ‘I’ve just been sick under the bushes there. It’s nothing.’

  ‘Why were you sick? Have you eaten something bad?’

  ‘Don’t talk about it to the family but I’m sick rather a lot.’

  She stared up at him. Then, why she did not know, she put a hand on his arm.

  ‘Tell me.’

  It was then the dreadful thing happened. John, the self-contained, the poised, broke down. Tears rolled down his cheeks.

  ‘Oh, Vicky. You’ll never know how awful it is.’

  Suddenly she felt old.

  ‘Tell me. Tell me every single thing.’

  So he told her. Of the squelching mud. The unburied bodies. The dying, screaming on barbed wire. The filth. The lice. The smells. Then, retching as he remembered, he whispered:

  ‘And oh, Vicky, I have to go back.’

  Somehow between them she and John managed to keep to themselves that there was anything wrong with him other than fatigue. Victoria sent a pink note to Miss French:

  ‘Please,’ she said, ‘I must miss school while John’s on leave. We’ve always done things together. You do see, don’t you.’

  Miss French must have seen, for all she said was: