Collected Works of E M Delafield

by E M Delafield

  She did not wait to be given anything, but snatched the little slips out of Emily’s apron and threw them on to the fire.

  “I’m not going to have no Consequences in my nursery, and don’t you believe it!” remarked Nurse.

  But omnipotent though Nurse was, in the eyes of the Clare children, she could not altogether compass this feat.

  There were consequences of all sorts.

  Cedric, who was obstinate, and Barbara, also obstinate and rather sly as well, continued to play at the new game in corners by themselves, refusing to admit Alex to their society because she told them that they were playing it all wrong. She knew that they were not playing it as Emily had taught them, and was prepared to set them right, although she felt uncertain, in the depths of her heart, as to whether she herself could remember it all. But at least she knew more than Barbara, who was silly and a copy-cat, or than Cedric, who had concentrated on the possibilities the game presented to him of a hypothetical encounter between himself and his Sovereign. The game for Cedric consisted in the ever-lengthening conversation which took place under the heading of what he said to her and what she replied. When Her Majesty proceeded, under Cedric’s laborious pencil, to invite him to drive her in her own carriage-and-pair, to Buckingham Palace, Alex said scornfully that Cedric was a silly little boy, and of course the Queen wouldn’t say that. To which Cedric turned a perfectly deaf ear, and continued slowly to evolve amenities eminently satisfactory to his admiration for Her Majesty. Alex went away, shrugging her shoulders, but secretly she knew that Cedric’s indifference had got the better of her. However much she might laugh, with the other children, or sometimes, even, in a superior way, with the grown-ups, when the children went into the drawing-room, at Cedric’s slowness, and his curious fashion of harping upon one idea at a time, Alex was sub-consciously aware of Cedric as a force, and one which could, ultimately, always defeat her own diffused, unbalanced energies. If any one laughed at Alex, or despised one of her many enthusiasms, she would quickly grow ashamed of it, and try to pretend that she had never really been in earnest. In the same way, she would affect qualities and instincts which did not belong to her, with the hope of attracting, and of gaining affection.

  But Cedric went his own way, as genuinely undisturbed by Nurse’s scoldings and hustlings as by his elder sister’s mockery, which had its origin in her secret longing to prove to herself, in spite of her own inmost convictions, that she was the dominant spirit in her little world.

  It always made her angry when Cedric left her gibes unanswered, not from a desire to provoke her further, but simply from his complete absorption in the matter in hand, and his utter indifference to Alex’s comments.

  “Don’t you hear what I say?” Alex asked sharply.

  “No,” said Cedric baldly. “I’m not listening. Don’t interrupt me, Alex.”

  “You’re playing it all wrong — you and Barbara. Two silly little babies,” she cried angrily and incoherently. “And it’s a stupid, vulgar game. Nurse said so.”

  Although Alex had been the most enthusiastic of them all when Emily had first taught her the game, she had at once begun to think it vulgar when Nurse condemned it.

  She would have nothing more to do with “Consequences.” It was quite likely that in a few days Barbara would get into one of her priggish, perverse moods, and in a fit of temper with Cedric go and tell Nurse that he was still indulging in the forbidden pastime. Alex thought she might as well be out of it.

  She was in trouble often enough in the nursery. Nurse always took Barbara’s part against her, and accused her of being violent and over-bearing, and then Lady Isabel, the children’s mother, would send for her to her room while she dressed for dinner, and say complainingly:

  “Alex, why do you quarrel so with the others? I shall send you to school, if you can’t be happy with Barbara at home.”

  “Oh, don’t send me to school, mummy.”

  “Not if you’re good.”

  “I will be good, really, I will.”

  “Very well, my child. Now ring for Hawkins, or I shall be late.”

  “May I stay and watch you put on your diamond things, mummy? Do let me.”

  And Lady Isabel always laughed, and let her stay, so that Alex eventually went back to the nursery with an elated sense of having been very good, and accorded privileges which never fell to the lot of self-righteous Barbara.

  She knew she was her mother’s favourite, because she was the eldest, and was often sent for to the drawing-room when there were people there. Barbara, of course, was too ugly to go much to the drawing-room. Alex would toss her own mane of silky brown curls, and draw herself up conceitedly, as she thought of Barbara’s pale face, and thin, attenuated ringlets. Besides, Lady Isabel had said that Barbara really mustn’t come down again when “people” were there until her second teeth had put in their tardy appearance. Even Cedric, though acclaimed as “quaint” and “solemn” by his mother’s friends, was too apt to make disconcerting comments on their sparkling conversation, and would return to the nursery in disgrace. Alex’ only rival for downstairs’ favour was little Archie, who was only four, and at present a very pretty little boy. But he was too small for Alex ever to feel jealous of him. The new baby, christened with pomp in the big Catholic Church at the end of the Square, Pamela Isabel, was, so far, a neglible quantity in the nursery world.

  She slept in the little room called the inner nursery, most of the day, and was only with the others when they were taken into the Park or to play in the square garden. Then Emily pushed the big pram that contained the slumbering Pamela, and Nurse grasped the hands of Barbara and Archie and dragged them over the crossings.

  Cedric, by Nurse’s express orders, always walked just in front of her with Alex, and unwillingly submitted to having his hand held by his sister.

  “Not that I trust Alex for common sense,” Nurse was careful to explain, “not a yard, but so long as they’re together I can keep an eye on both and see they don’t get under no hansom’s feet. That boy’s spectacles are too downright uncanny for me to let him cross the road alone.”

  For Cedric was obliged to wear a large pair of round spectacles, without which he could only see things that were very close to his eyes. He even had another, different, pair for reading, which seemed to Alex an exaggerated precaution, likely to increase Cedric’s sense of his own importance.

  “Well,” said Cedric. “You have a plate, and I haven’t.”

  Alex’s plate was an instrument of torture designed to push back two prominent front teeth. It not only hurt her and kept her awake at night, but was very disfiguring besides, and she passionately envied Barbara, who at nine years old still had only gaps where her front teeth should have been.

  “Of course,” Alex would sometimes declare grandly, repeating what she had heard Lady Isabel say, “Barbara is dreadfully backward. She’s such a baby for her age. I’m very old for my age.”

  But she only said this in the drawing-room, where it would provoke kindly laughter or perhaps interested comment. In the nursery, Nurse never suffered any airs and graces, as she called them, and would pounce on Alex and shake her at the least hint of any such nonsense.

  “Just you wait till you’re sent to a good strict school, my lady, and see what you’ll get then,” she told her threateningly.

  “I’m not going to school. Mummy said I shouldn’t go if I was good.”

  “We shall see what we shall see. Children as think themselves everybody at home, gets whipped when they go to school,” Nurse told her severely.

  Alex was used to these prognostications. They did not alarm her very much, because she did not think that she would be sent to school. She knew instinctively that her father disapproved of ordinary girls’ schools, and that her mother disliked convents, and indeed most things that had to do with religion.

  Alex supposed that this was because Lady Isabel was a Protestant! She thought that it was much the nicest religion to belong to, on the whole, since i
t evidently imposed no obligations in the nature of church-going, and she often wondered why her mother had let all her children be Catholics, instead of Protestants like herself. It certainly couldn’t be because father cared which church the children went to, or whether they went at all.

  The only person in the house who did seem to care was Nurse, who took Alex and Barbara and Cedric to High Mass at the Oratory every Sunday, where there was a front bench reserved for them, with little cards in brass frames planted at intervals along the ledge in front of them, bearing the name of Sir Francis Clare.

  Nurse put Barbara on one side of her and Alex on the other, and Cedric on the outside, and was very particular about their kneeling down and standing up at the right moment, and keeping the prayer-books open in front of them. Alex and Barbara each had a Garden of the Soul, but Cedric was only allowed Holy Childhood which had pictures and anecdotes illustrative of Vice and Virtue at the end.

  Alex knew all the anecdotes by heart, and preferred her own grown-up-looking book with its small, close print. She had long since discovered that the one matter over which Nurse could be hoodwinked was print, and that she might quite safely indulge herself in the perusal of the pages devoted to the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony, or to a mysterious ceremony called Churching after Child-birth, during the many dull portions of the long service.

  The only part of Church that held possibilities was when the little bell rang at the Elevation, and every one bent his or her head as far down as it would go over the bench. Alex always looked up surreptitiously, then, to see if by any chance a miracle was taking place, or to watch Cedric’s invariable manoeuvre of hanging on to the ledge by his teeth and hands and trying to raise his feet from the floor at the same time.

  Nurse was always piously bent double, her face hidden in her cotton gloves, breathing stertorously with Barbara on the other side devotedly imitating her, even to the production of strange sounds through her own tightly-compressed lips.

  After that, Alex always knew that the end of Church was near, and that as soon as the priest had taken up his little square headgear and faced the congregation for the last time, Nurse would begin to poke her violently, as a sign that she was to get up and to make Cedric pick up his cap and his gloves.

  Then came the genuflection as they filed out between the benches, and Nurse was always very particular that this should be done properly, frequently pressing a heavy hand on Alex’s shoulder until her knee bumped painfully against the stone floor. The final ceremony connected with the children’s religion took place at the door, when Cedric had to make his way through rustling skirts and an occasional pair of black trousers to the big stone basin of holy water. Into this, standing on tiptoe with immense difficulty, he plunged as much of his hand as was necessary to satisfy the sharp inspection of Nurse when he returned, proffering dripping fingers to her and to his sisters.

  The last perfunctory sign of the cross made then, the worst of Sunday, in Alex’s opinion, was over.

  Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding for dinner was pleasant. Mademoiselle did not come in the afternoon, and Nurse generally went out and left Emily in charge. In the summer she took the children to sit in the Square garden — the Park on Sundays was not allowed — and in the winter they always walked as far as the Albert Memorial, for which Cedric entertained a great admiration.

  Sunday was Lady Isabel’s At Home day and the children, except during the season, always went down to the drawing-room after tea, Alex and Barbara in pale, rose-coloured frocks with innumerable frills at throat and wrists, and a small pad fastened under each skirt so that it might stand well out at the back. Cedric, like most other little boys of his age and standing, was forced to wear a Lord Fauntleroy suit, from which his cropped bullet head and spectacles emerged incongruously.

  The half-hour in the drawing-room was not enjoyed by the others as it was by Alex, especially if there were many visitors. She would lean against Lady Isabel confidently, and hear people say how like she was to her mother, which always delighted her. Her mother looked so pretty, sitting on the sofa with her fringe beautifully curled and a lovely dress that was half a teagown, the tight bodice coming down into a sharp point in front and behind, and the skirt falling into long folds, with a train sweeping the ground, and huge loops and bows of soft ribbon draping it cross-wise.

  Barbara was incurably shy, and poked her head when she was spoken to, but very few people took as much notice of her as of talkative Alex or pretty little Archie, who was all blue ribbons and fearless smiles. And before very long Lady Isabel was sure to say:

  “Now, you’d better run back to the nursery, hadn’t you, darlings? or Nurse will be comin’ down in search of you. I’ve got the most invaluable old dragon for them,” she generally added to her friends. “She’s been with us since Alex was a baby, and rules the whole house.”

  “Oh, don’t send them away!” one of the visiting ladies would exclaim politely. “Such darlings!”

  “Oh, but I must! Their father won’t hear of my spoilin’ them. Now run along, infants.”

  Cedric and Barbara were only too ready to obey, though it was understood that Lady Isabel’s “run along” only meant a very ceremonious departure from the room, Barbara taking little Archie by the hand and leading him to the door, where they both dropped the obeisance considered “picturesque,” and Cedric making an unwilling progress to execute his carefully practised bow before each one of the ladies scattered about the big room.

  If Alex, however, was enjoying herself, and getting the notice that her soul loved, she always said in a pleading whisper, loud enough to be heard by two or three people besides her mother:

  “Oh, do let me stay with you a little longer, mummy. Don’t send me upstairs yet!”

  “How sweet! Do let her stay, dear Lady Isabel.”

  “You mustn’t encourage me to spoil her. She ought to go up with the others.”

  “Just for this once, mummy.”

  “Well, just for this once, perhaps. After all,” said Lady Isabel apologetically, “she is the eldest. She’ll be comin’ out before I know where I am!”

  And Alex would enjoy the privilege of being the eldest, and sit beside her mother, listening to the conversation, and sometimes joining in with remarks that she thought might be acclaimed as amusing or original, or even merely precocious. No wonder that the nursery greeted her return with disdain. Even Emily called her “drawing-room child,” and by her contempt brought Alex’ ready tears of mortified vanity to the surface. But it was much worse on the rare Sunday afternoons when Nurse was in, when she would greatly resent the slight to Barbara if she was sent up from the drawing-room before her sister.

  “Working on your mamma to spoil you like that, just because you’re a couple of years older!” Nurse would say, pulling the comb fiercely through Alex’ hair as she went to bed.

  “I’m three whole years older.”

  “Don’t you contradict me like that, Alex. I’m not going to have any showing-off up here, I can tell you. You can keep those airs and graces for your mamma’s friends in the drawing-room.”

  Alex generally went to bed in tears.

  If Nurse had not been scolding her, then Barbara had been quarrelling with her. They always quarrelled whenever Barbara ventured to differ from Alex and take up an attitude of her own, or still more when Barbara and Cedric made an alliance together and excluded Alex’s autocratic ruling of their games.

  “But it is for your good,” she would tell them passionately. “I want to show you a better way. It’ll be much more fun if you do it my way — you’ll see.”

  But they did not want to see.

  Their obstinacy always brought to Alex the same sense of incredulous, resentful fury. How could they not want to be shown the best way of doing things, when she knew it and they didn’t? And, of course, she always did know it. Was she not the eldest?

  It was not till Alex was almost thirteen that her belief in her own infallibility as eldest received a rude shock. />
  She nearly killed Barbara.

  It was the first week of August, and Sir Francis and Lady Isabel had gone to Scotland. The children were going to the sea with Nurse on the following day, and took advantage of her state of excitement over the packing, and the emptiness of the downstair rooms, to play at circus on the stairs. Emily only said, “Now don’t go hurting yourselves, whatever you do, or there’ll be no seaside tomorrow,” and then went back to amuse Pamela, who was crying and restless from the heat.

  “I’ll tell you what!” said Alex. “We’ll have tight-rope dancing. I’m tired of learned pigs and things like that—” This last impersonation having been perseveringly rendered by Cedric with much shuffling and snorting over a pack of cards.

  “Give me the skipping-rope, Barbara.”

  “Why?” said Barbara, whining.

  “Because I say so,” replied her sister, stamping her foot. “I’ve got an idea.”

  “It’s my skipping-rope.”

  “But if you don’t give it to me we can’t have the tight-rope dancing,” said Alex in despair.

  “I don’t care. Why should you do tight-rope dancing with my skipping-rope?”

  “You shall do it first — you shall do it all yourself, if you’ll only let me show you,” Alex cried in an agony of impatience.

  On this inducement Barbara slowly parted with her skipping-rope, and let Alex knot it hastily and insecurely to the newel post on the first landing above the hall.

  “Now just get up on to the post, Barbara, and I’ll hold the other end of the rope like this, and you’ll see—”

  “But I can’t, I should fall off.”

  “Don’t be such a little muff; I’ll hold you on.”

  “No, no — I’m frightened. Let Cedric do it.”

  “No,” said Cedric. “I’m being a learned pig.” He went down the short flight of stairs and sat firmly down upon the tiled floor with the pack of cards out-spread before him.