I was glad that we were allowed to use Tom’s study for these lessons, for no one could have done arithmetic in the drawing-room. Here Nell had carried out the vogue of the day. The fireplace was draped with art serge and muslin to represent a spider’s web, with a huge imitation spider involved in it. Bulrushes stood in a big jar, wooden stools had red satin ribbon tied round them, and a mirror on the wall had water-lilies painted on it. I shouldn’t remember these items so well (for the family naturally avoided the room) had it not been for the piano, on which I practised every day.
Nell had timed things well. The boys were ‘just about to begin division’, she told me brightly. Now Mr. Harding had made a great point of keeping clear for children the two meanings of division. But I flung these to the wind, and fell back on the ‘Nines into eight won’t go’ method. Each side of me sat an eager little nephew. On my right Viv forged ahead, but on my left Llew hung back and pleaded his youth: ‘I think I am too small for division, Auntie.’ Now Nell had warned me that this kind of thing might happen, but that Llew was quite as capable as Viv. So I agreed heartily, ‘Quite right, darling, you are far too little for division. You shall do a nice long addition while Viv and I are busy.’ So saying I set him an easy and laborious sum. After a bit I sensed that the eyes on my left were wandering towards the problem that Viv and I were bent on (involving oranges and boys), and presently a voice, ‘I think I could do a little division, Auntie.’ Very soon he was doing quite as well as Viv at it and I praised his success. He then asked leave to go downstairs, and came running up again to his seat to begin another division. ‘I wanted to tell Susan that I had done goodly.’
As a set-off to the morning hour of arithmetic there was a much pleasanter duty for me every evening before the boys went to bed. They demanded a story. For this I had to fall back on any plots I knew, and since they were as anxious as Toddy to have everything as ‘bluggy’ as possible, it was usually one of the good old tragedies. One night as I was starting Macbeth with the usual ‘once upon a time’ they stopped me to ask how many people were going to get killed. After a hasty mental calculation I said ‘Eight’. ‘Oooh!’ they exclaimed, and settled themselves in joyful expectation.
To keep my brain to the sticking-point their father provided me with a thriller. ‘It was written,’ said he, ‘by a man called Phillpotts, an old schoolfellow of mine—but it’s not half bad.’ I found The End of a Life very exciting, and though I have not seen it since I can even now remember its theme and many of the details. The villain takes vengeance on his enemy (a rival in love) by committing suicide in such a way that it will look like murder for which his enemy will be hanged. All goes well for the plan and black for the victim. The novelist’s difficulty lay in getting the dastardly plot exposed, and he could do no better than invent a repentant accomplice. I am sure that a modern detective-story expert would think up something more subtle.
Until term was over Tom was away at work most of the day. He never said much about his life at school, and my knowledge of it comes mainly from old pupils. One of these writes to me that awe was the main feeling they had for him, and that beside him the headmaster was insignificant. This was chiefly due to his scholarship and the standard of hard work that he demanded of the boys, who valued his quiet approval beyond all praise. The letter goes on to say, ‘Every alteration a mistake was a grim doctrine rigidly enforced, but we learnt to live up to it, and it was a most valuable part of the training we got, to see the end of a sentence before we put pen to paper.’
The same pupil came to visit the school later on, to observe various masters at work, as a preparation for his own teaching career. ‘I was not impressed,’ he writes, ‘by these until I went to see the Sixth Form Latin. They did one ode of Horace (iii. 21) and I sat entranced; the University had given me nothing like it. All that the ode contained was brought out, the poem was dissected without being mauled and then reassembled in the other medium with no loss of its appeal. I never walk through that particular room without hearing the familiar voice—“O kindly jar!” I ought to add that throughout my schooldays your brother was known as the one master who had no favourites. He had no moods either, but was equable and imperturbable, which is very reassuring for schoolboys.’
Another old pupil tells me that Tom never ruled by terror, but rather by surprise and gesture, aided by dry humour, although he never ‘made a joke’. He gives as an instance: ‘I was once flying downstairs two and three at a time when just at a nasty bend I collided with Mr. Thomas head on. He never said a word, just lifted one eyebrow, gave me a pitying look and passed on his way, while I went on at a reduced speed with my tail between my legs.’
Tom’s discipline in class is best summed up in a phrase current among the boys that ‘no one wanted to fool about in his lessons’. I wonder whether a severe classical training (such as he had at Shrewsbury) does not in itself tend to produce that humorous poise, that ataraxy which nothing else can quite achieve.
Tom’s equability was just the same at home as in school. I can recall no instance of annoyance on his part, although little family contretemps were as frequent as with most people. When Christmas Eve came all work was put away, and we laid ourselves out for enjoyment. My own spirits were raised by the post, for I heard that all my students had passed their examination, and that one of them, Miss Pechey, had got a first class in both theory and practice. The boys were excited, for their father took them to the shops to spend their saved-up pocket-money. They had happy recollections of their uncle Barnholt in this matter, for he won their hearts on his last visit to them by decking the mantelpiece every morning with little piles of coppers for them. Dear old Barnholt must have remembered his own childhood, and knew how much more exciting to a small boy are a few coppers that can be spent wildly, than a serious tip to be laid out cautiously under parents’ advice or put in a money-box.
While the boys were out shopping Nell and I were left to cope with the food supply. She had accumulated a good store of Christmas cakes, fruits, and sweets, and we had little more to worry about than the goose. After all, this could just go into the oven on Christmas Day. But the butcher had sent with it a huge parcel of giblets, and Nell didn’t know what to do with them. Soup was ruled out, because it wouldn’t make a complete meal. Then I remembered hearing Arthur talk of his mother’s wonderful giblet pies, so I suggested that we should make a giblet pie for the midday Christmas Eve dinner. ‘You make the crust,’ said I, ‘while I wash the giblets and put them in a dish, and Susan makes up the fire.’ So we started, but ‘What is this stuff?’ said I, pointing to some dark purple matter in the parcel. Nell stopped her pastry-making to look. ‘Oh, that’s blood,’ said she, ‘I believe you make a kind of forcemeat of it, with crumbs and lemon and parsley.’ I protested urgently against this plan, but she said it would fill up the pie and make it go further. As indeed it did.
‘Giblet pie!’ exclaimed Tom and the boys, when they sat down very hungry after the morning’s shopping, ‘that’s fine!’ and they all attacked the generous portions served out.
‘What are these balls in the middle?’ asked Tom.
‘Blood and bread-crumbs, dear,’ replied Nell.
Tom shuddered and pushed away his plate. ‘I could, if occasion called for it,’ said he, ‘drink hot blood, but blood and bread-crumbs, no.’ Whereupon, of course, the boys with a manly gesture pushed back their plates and refused to touch another mouthful. Nell was furious, and declared that they should have nothing else but bread and cheese. This they contentedly munched while she and I struggled with the pie, which I believe was as distasteful to her as it was to me. Susan did well that day, and I made Nell laugh by telling her of my friend Ursula Wood’s remark that economy was one of the two things she most regretted in life. ‘What was the other thing she regretted?’ asked Nell. ‘Tidiness. She said that whenever she tidied her studio she lost hours in looking for things that had been put in their proper places.’
On Christmas morning there was a discussio
n as to which church we should go to, for Tom was something of a pillar and there were two churches that vied with one another to get him to read the lessons.
‘I have to be at St. John’s to read the lessons, but you others may prefer St. Cuthbert’s.’
‘Oh, St. John’s please, father,’ cried both boys.
Tom noticed that they grinned at one another in a shamefaced way, so he asked for their reason.
‘It’s because,’ said Viv, ‘while you are reading the lessons the organist sits on the edge of his rail, and sometimes he gets a bit excited and.…’
‘Yes, go on,’ said Tom, rather pleased at such an effect of his reading.
But Viv stopped and Llew burst in, ‘And we always hope he will fall down into the choir.’
Christmas cards and presents kept the little boys happy all the afternoon. I had brought Llew The Carpenter of Nazareth (by Bird), fearing that it might be beyond him; but he was an exceptionally thoughtful boy and buried himself in the story, looking up now and again to ask a question. One poser I remember was: ‘Auntie, what was there before God?’ I told him that I didn’t know, and that everyone wondered and nobody knew. This quite satisfied him.
The next excitement was the pantomime. Tom feared I should be bored with it, but the little boys’ delight was pleasure enough. Some of the jokes would certainly not have amused the Queen, and at a specially marked one Tom looked round at me, ‘Now, Molly dear, you are getting at first hand the broad humour of the Early Comedy.’
I reminded him of our seeing Hamlet together in that theatre years ago, and asked him if the play had ever come to the town again.
‘Yes,’ said he, ‘not long ago; and of course I went to see it. At the first interval a man sitting next me said, ‘Do you happen to know if that young fellow in black comes into the play much?’ I told him that he came in a good deal and most of the play was about him. ‘Well, then, I’m off,’ said he, and walked out.
Before I left for London and work again Nelly gave me a piece of sound advice. ‘You are too kind to Susan, Molly; it never does to be too friendly with anyone whose life you have to order—because they take advantage.’ She was right, of course, but little Susan was hardly one to ‘take advantage’. When I laid two half-crowns in her hand as a parting gift, she looked at them in alarm and said, ‘You daren’t give me all that!’
§3
My final ‘bachelor’ holiday was fixed to be spent with Dym in Guernsey. Much had been happening to him since our holidays together in Cornwall. While I was away in America he had become engaged to a Guildford girl. Not long afterwards he obtained a good post in Guernsey, was married out of hand, and took his bride with him to his new home. I had ecstatic letters from him about their small house and strip of garden. It was quite a new experience for Dym to cut and roll the bit of grass, dig the beds, and plant cabbages and peas and beans. He said that every time he came in from College he had to go and see if anything was showing above ground. I had a special letter when the cabbages were visible from the window.
My first visit to them ‘to see how they and the beans were going on’ had caused me much excitement in the summer of ’95. It sounded homely and primitive, this island life among the beans and cabbages. Dym had been too much engrossed in his garden results to tell me anything else, and Bessie’s letters had been mainly full of warm welcome and instructions about the voyage. Pooh, thought I, what is such a little voyage after the Atlantic! (but I had not foreseen the Casquets). However, I knew a few things about Guernsey, gathered from school lessons and general chit-chat. It had ‘come over with the Conqueror’ and belonged to us, but had a government, a language, and a coinage of its own. The people lived by taking in one another’s washing. The land was so precious that you weren’t allowed to keep poultry because the hens would scratch up the little island. Golf had been forbidden because it involved making holes, intentional and unintentional, in the sacred turf. Old jokes I knew these to be, but my general impression was of a life nearer to nature in the raw than anything I had hitherto met. Nevertheless I decided not to be caught again as I had been in Princetown, and packed not only an everyday and a Sunday dress but also the grand one I had worn at Dym’s wedding—just in case.
That first visit to Guernsey had been as great a surprise to me as my first visit to Wales, only the other way about. On going to Wales I expected English conditions, and lo! the simple life. On going to Guernsey I had looked for the simple life, and lo! a civilization more sophisticated than any I had previously known. Society was highly developed, with colonels and majors and naval people in decent plenty. And I think my sister-in-law had made life still more complex by importing some Guildford notions, for Guildford is one of those provincial towns where people know what’s what. To begin with the matter of clothes, my three dresses were a mere ‘flea in the ocean’ when compared with Bessie’s wardrobe. For breakfast she had a pretty flowered dressing-gown. At ten she put on a simple business-like tailor-made costume for shopping in Peterport. On returning she changed into a workaday dress and an overall for kitchen operations. The overall was removed for lunch, and then, for the afternoon, a really good dress was put on for paying calls. When we came back a little exhausted from this strain on looking well and being polite, a loose tea-gown was the thing, and this remained on until it was time to dress for dinner. ‘Bessie,’ I exclaimed in dismay, ‘what a lot of changing you go through in one day!’ ‘Yes, Molly, I do, and it seems a bit troublesome, but I do it from motives of economy. Nothing takes it out of a dress so much as to wear it for a job to which it is not suited.’ Truly my two sisters-in-law had widely different notions of economy, and I felt them both to be sound; but I knew that sheer laziness would incline me to follow Nell’s example rather than Bessie’s.
And the routine for the day was as well planned as the garments. Not a minute was wasted. If I didn’t finish my breakfast as soon as Bessie did she brought out her sewing. What I liked best was the morning visit to Peterport; the little up-and-down streets fascinated me, with the glimpses between the houses of the harbour and shipping. I snatched time now and again to do a little sketch while Bessie shopped. Some jolly afternoons were spent in drives round the island; on one occasion this was in an extraordinary vehicle, a kind of combination of bath-chair and hansom cab. I was disappointed to find that there was no wild country, but houses straggling everywhere. I made polite admiration all the time, but enthusiasm, like love, cannot be simulated. ‘Molly doesn’t seem to be much impressed with our scenery,’ said Bessie on our return from one of these excursions. ‘Of course she isn’t,’ replied Dym, ‘how can you expect a Cornishman to be stirred by any sea-coast after Hell’s Mouth?’
Dym hated anything like sight-seeing, but he was obliged to tog up now and again to pay calls—a role in which I had never seen him before. He suffered gallantly, but refused to ‘receive’ the return calls. Any knock at the front door would make him rush up to a little room at the top of the house, which he called ‘the study’ in loving recollection of our old childhood’s room in Canonbury—our city of refuge and sanctum. Here he could read and smoke in peace, safe from intruders. But there was one hearty old major who also loved this attic, and if Dym heard his voice he would call to him over the banisters to come up. I liked to listen to the Major’s extraordinary stories and used to answer him back and be quite impertinent, to his astonishment and amusement. Meanwhile Bessie was downstairs being polite to his wife. I didn’t feel mean, for I was sure that Bessie preferred this to the Major’s conversation. I used to busy myself with a bit of knitting while his stories were going on, but I dropped so many stitches and left so many gaps that even the Major raised his eyebrows. I explained it as a new kind of open-work, much in vogue at the moment in London.
This had all been in their early married days. When I went over for my visit in the Easter of ’97 I found some changes. For now my little one-year-old godson held the centre of the field. The dressing-gown, the overall, and the négligé had
longer innings. Fewer visits were paid, and the visitors who came to the house were only those who really wanted to come. Everything was far more interesting to me than before, particularly the daily expedition to the town for shopping. My knowledge of catering was almost limited to buying eggs and bacon for breakfast, and I was keen to pick up hints for my forthcoming household needs. The mere sight of the market was a satisfying artistic pleasure, the flowers, fruit, and vegetables giving such a profusion of colour. And how I admired and wondered at Bessie, for she had none of Nelly’s happy-go-lucky style of shopping. She asked searching questions about the conditions of meat and vegetables, and gave orders in a clear-headed, decisive way. But one weakness she confessed to me—the only weakness in her whole character so far as I saw it. It was fish. Beyond the obvious cod, salmon, and lobster she didn’t know one fish from another. Of course, in such a port, the fish-stall was always laden with glittering beauties, and the citizens were supposed to know all about their species and value. Before that stall Bessie would stand and point, saying hurriedly, ‘Send me up two pounds of that.’
More eagerly than the catering did I watch the management of the godson, determined to learn all I could. I entered into the details of food and bath and cot, and heard all the correct things to do with a baby. In these matters, too, Bessie’s organization astounded me. Little Barnholt ate and played and slept at regular times. For instance, while we were down at the market it was the servant’s duty to take him for his morning outing. She had a standing order to return from this pram-parade at 11.55. When I showed surprise at the nicety of this hour Bessie explained: ‘You see, if I say twelve, it sounds as if somewhere about twelve will do, but 11.55 means punctuality.’ (By the way, I have found this quite a valuable device.) One day, owing to some little domestic hitch, I was allowed to take Barnholt for this morning outing. Never before had I been trusted with a baby entirely to myself, and my nervousness was increased by Bessie’s many injunctions. I was to avoid busy streets, and hills; the pram must not be jerked at the kerb; baby’s brain must not be over-stimulated by having his attention called to too many things; he must not lean over the side; above all, he must on no account be allowed to go to sleep, for his sleeping hour was from 12 to 1, and if he slept out of doors he would be wakeful at home, just when everybody was busy in the kitchen.
A London Home in the Nineties Page 14
