Diary of an Ordinary Woman

by Margaret Forster

  8 August

  Mother and Aunt J. are to take the children to stay in Brighton for a week. Aunt J.’s old friend Muriel is going away and has kindly suggested this. It will cost nothing except the train fare and that can be managed. I wish George could go too and then I would have the house to myself but our neighbours, his employers, are away and he has guaranteed to work in their garden every day and keep an eye on the place and since I doubt he would ever get another job he cannot afford to let them down. I hope he will not expect me to look after him, as Mother and Aunt J. do.

  10 August

  Saw the family off to Brighton. The children were so excited and Mother too was quite flushed with the pleasure of getting away. It is awful to think how different holidays used to be for her, with Father in charge of all the arrangements. I went straight from the station to the hairdressers’ in Oxford Street. I have passed it every day on my way to work and have seen girls coming out with cropped hair and I had made my mind up to have myself cropped as soon as Mother had left. I went in last week in my lunch break and made an appointment. Unfortunately I forgot to ask how much it would cost. I worried it would be expensive and I would not have enough money though I had all my week’s wage with me. A girl washed my hair but it was a man who did the cutting, quite a young man, dressed all in black, which was a bit intimidating, but he was friendly and gentle in manner and very concerned that he should understand what I wanted. I had no idea, of course, beyond wanting it cropped. He said I had beautiful hair and that because it was so thick and strong it would not do to cut it too severely, it would not lie straight and would be better layered all round. He produced pictures to show me then he began the cutting, chatting all the while and I found myself chatting back, much to my own surprise. Heaven knows what I told him, but whatever it was it amused him and we became quite giggly. Because we were so easy and merry together, I was not really paying attention to my hair and got a shock when he said he had finished and asked what did I think. I looked in the mirror and did not know what to think. It was not me. I did not want to hurt his feelings and quickly thanked him but I was almost afraid of how I looked. He produced a hand mirror so that I could see the back. My neck looked so bare. I had not thought my neck would be so exposed. He asked if I wanted my hair. I looked down at the floor where it all lay and could not imagine what he might mean, why should I want it. I shook my head and left. Only later did I wonder if he had meant my hair might be of some value and he would have bought it. But perhaps not.

  11 August

  I am delighted with my short hair. It felt so good this morning not to have to brush it and pin it up, and so cool and light. I had not realised how heavy hair is. George did not even notice. I cannot wait to see what people in the shop will say. No one else has yet been cropped and they would never have expected me to be the first. I am pleased with my own daring though it is not so very daring. It made me see how timid I am in all other respects and I am ashamed of myself. I should set my sights higher and somehow rise above being a shop drudge. But how? Suppose I were to learn to type, would work in an office be much better? Only a little. Tom said I should not give up the idea of training to be a teacher and that he was surprised I had not carried on studying on my own through a correspondence course. But he does not understand how tired I am in the evenings, which I do not even have to myself, or that such courses cost money and that every penny I earn is needed for urgent necessities for our family. Perhaps when the children are bigger I will be able to resume my training, but Grace is only 3 and in any case the more the children grow, the more expensive they become. I can see no way out. It is all very well for Tom, whose family is well-off.

  *

  But then an unexpected development begins to give Millicent hope. At first, she does not see the significance of a new contact of her mother’s, a Dr Marshall, who has been consulted over Michael’s earache while in Brighton. She notes how Aunt Jemima mentions him frequently, with a smile and a raising of her eyebrows, but presumes this must be because the doctor was young and handsome and Aunt J. is teasing her sister. But it turns out Dr Marshall is neither young nor handsome. He is a childless widower, aged 50.

  *

  20 November

  Never did I think I would be writing in this diary that Mother had received a proposal of marriage. I was so overwhelmed with embarrassment I hardly knew where to look, and I think Mother was in a similar state and found it hard to look at me. I simply did not know what to say and when I did speak it was to come out with the most stupid question. Does he know how many young children you have?, I asked, which was foolish of me considering it was through treating Mother’s children that Dr Marshall had made her acquaintance. He loves children, Mother said, he is never happier than surrounded by them, and they love him. She paused and added that he would make a very good father for the twins and Michael and Grace, and then she faltered over the word ‘father’ and was upset. My head was spinning by then with the implications of this proposal if Mother should accept it. She had not yet said she was going to. I could not help wondering why a man of 50 should want to marry a woman in her forties who had seven children, four of them under the age of 11. I tried to look at Mother then as though seeing her for the first time and felt a little shock at noticing she was so attractive. Grief has made her shed the weight she had gained after the birth of Michael and Grace and it suits her to be slender once more. I remembered how she had come back from that holiday in Brighton quite refreshed and happier, and looking younger than her years. It was wrong of me, after all, to wonder at Mother being desirable. But that thought in turn troubles me. It is not seemly, even here, in private, to speculate about whether Dr Marshall finds Mother desirable or, even worse, whether she desires him, or indeed anyone. I can see she wants my blessing. She has not told George or Matilda yet, only Aunt J. She reports Aunt J. as being very happy for her, and indeed claiming some credit because it was she who found Dr Marshall when Michael’s earache raged. I took a deep breath and told Mother I wanted her to be happy and that if she truly cared for Dr Marshall that was all that mattered and she should accept. She wept a little and said she could never love any man as she had loved Father and had told Dr Marshall so and he had understood perfectly having been very much in love with his own wife who had been taken from him at such a young age. Then Mother said she was lonely and tired of struggling and that accepting this proposal would ease her life and that this was hard to resist. She liked Dr Marshall very much and he was a good man and she felt they could be happy together. So it seems she is going to accept.

  20 December

  Events have moved so fast I can hardly keep up. Whereas up to a month ago all was dreariness and drudgery now there is dramatic change ahead and every day decisions to be made. Mother and Harold are to be married on Christmas Eve and after the New Year move to his house in Brighton, leaving this house to be sold. I have been to see Harold’s house and it is a fine house in Kemp Town with plenty of room for all the children and they are thrilled to be going there. Better still, so is George. It was my great fear that George would be left behind and become my responsibility but Mother told Harold she could not desert George and he said he did not expect her to and that if George would come he would be very happy and could find work for him. So it is arranged. Strangely, George has quite taken to Harold, who has examined him and put him on some medication for his nerves. He thinks that, as Tom told me ages ago, George would benefit from treatment and he is to see to it. Everything is in a whirl! I am to stay in this house until it is sold and then I am to be given some of the money to find a place to live. Harold is insistent that the younger children will become entirely his charge, if that is the right way to put it, and that the money from the sale of this house and from what comes from Father’s business should be divided between George, Matilda and me. It is very fair of him. But by rights, something should go to Aunt J. I have said so to Mother and she agrees, for if it had not been for Aunt J.’s selflessness we would
have been ruined. But Aunt J. has declined any share, and intends to move to Brighton too, near to Mother and Harold, and has enough money left from the sale of her house to buy somewhere modest. Everything is working out so well, I can hardly believe it.

  21 December

  I have given in my notice at the shop and never been so glad about anything. Mr Anderson said it was inconsiderate of me, with the sales coming up, but I simply beamed and agreed. I have applied for a grant to return to Goldsmiths’ and am hopeful of obtaining it but even if I do not I will be able to pay my own fees. The only problem is that there is now a great crush of applicants and of course I have missed a term and a half, but fortunately my special circumstances, and the fact that I had an excellent record while there, are disposing the authorities to make an exception for me and find room though they are bursting at the seams. I can hardly sleep for happiness.

  *

  The entries over the following Christmas and New Year weeks are brief and clearly written in haste. The wedding of Constance and Harold was quiet but there was a party afterwards though Millicent spends no time describing it saying only that it was ‘jolly’. Suddenly she is on her own in the London house (though Mr Baty next-door comes in when she has to show prospective buyers round), and spends her time catching up on the work she has to do to go back to Goldsmiths’ in mid-January. Curiously, since the bombshell of Harold’s proposal, there has been hardly a mention of Tom.

  6 January 1920

  THREE SETS OF people came to view the house today. I have never cared much for this house but I do find it hurtful when folk are contemptuous of it and criticise the decoration, and Mr Baty agreed with me that some people are impertinent. One woman said of the parlour that it looked as though the wallpaper had been up since the house was built some forty years ago and I was angry and told her it had been wallpapered the year war broke out. There were tears in my eyes because I remembered choosing it with Mother. It is true, however, that the parlour looks forlorn without pictures, and the little chaise-longue has gone, as well as the two oak chairs Grandfather made, and the Indian rug. I do not go in there except to help show people round. The other rooms are more or less intact, with the furniture to be sold at auction once the house has been sold. Mother asked if Matilda or I wanted to take anything but Matilda is in a hostel and I too am going into one of the women’s hostels at Goldsmiths’ so we have no use for any furniture. It is an odd existence being here alone. Mother worries about it, but I have assured her I am quite happy and safe. Tom came over on his bicycle to visit. I do not mind his coming now the house is empty. I cannot think it is entirely safe for him to cycle with only one hand but I did not dare say so. He is looking very well after spending Christmas in Switzerland. For the first time I have begun to think that such outings may be within my own reach, given time. I am not absolutely poverty-stricken any more, even if poor enough by comparison with Tom, and I am not obliged to help support my family. Harold has lifted all that worry from my shoulders and I can feel the weight of it lifting as surely as I felt the weight of my hair leave me. Tom, by the way, does not like my short hair. Or rather, he does not put it that way but says he always loved my ‘beautiful auburn mane’.

  9 January

  An offer has been made for the house, a very low offer, only £300, but Mother is going to accept it. When everything is sorted about the business and all debts paid, Matilda, George and I will have about £150 each. I shall put it in the bank and try hard not to touch it. Meanwhile, with the grant I am to receive to pay Goldsmiths’ fees I will need very little to live on and I am going to accept Harold’s kind offer of support until I am earning, when I will repay him. Tom cannot understand why I worry about taking money from a man who is now my stepfather and who is clearly well-off. He has never needed to fret over finance. I think sometimes of all the other young men coming back after the war, unable to find employment, and being as a consequence bitter and resentful. Tom asked me once if I was a communist. I said no, certainly not, and that I know nothing about politics. Father supported the Liberals and so I have always thought I would be a Liberal too. From things he has said, I thought Tom was a Liberal, but it seems he is a Tory. He says he believes in an established order in society and a culture of responsibility among those fortunate enough to belong to the upper and middle classes. It is beyond me. Father said never argue about politics or religion and I am not going to.

  15 January

  I am now settled into St Michael’s Hostel and very happy to be here. It is like a large country house with a pretty garden all round. I have been told that the Pentland House hostel is the most desirable but I like St Michael’s. There are so many women students now but there are also far, far more men than when I was last here and their presence is very noticeable. They are boisterous and noisy and can be quite overwhelming in the lecture halls or if one meets them in the corridors. They seem so much older than us women though in fact I don’t think they can be. Everyone seems to be taking different courses. I myself am to do a new one-year course preparing me to teach in elementary schools. I can do it in one year because of my previous one year’s study though really that was so different I can’t see how it connects at all. The Education Act last year created different sorts of schools and Goldsmiths’ has designed a new course for them. There are only twelve of us women. Every moment of the day is filled with lectures and essays and reading and it is hard work, but I remind myself all the time of what it was like serving in a shop all day. If I am tired or just sometimes the least bit bored this recollection revives me. For the men who have been in the war, it must feel like an escape from hell. I can’t help being curious about all of them, finding myself speculating at Morning Assembly as to what exactly each man has been through. The men stand quite separate from us but all the same we can see them, and they can see us (how some of them stare!). I study their faces intently, wondering what lies behind one man’s ferocious frown and another’s rather silly smile. Some of them have disturbing facial tics from which I avert my gaze.

  14 February

  St Valentine’s Day. Someone has sent me two dozen pink tulips. Tom? I don’t think so. I have not written to him since I settled here and he has not written to me. But who, then, can they be from? They arrived while we were all having breakfast. Girls were opening cards and smiling and showing them to each other. I had no cards, and had not expected any. Then there was a knock at the front door and Phoebe was sent to open it and returned with this beautiful bunch of flowers tied with pink ribbon. Of course we all thought they were for Pamela, who has so many beaux, and she half stood, expecting to be given them and already blushing with pleasure in anticipation. Then Phoebe said ‘For Miss Millicent King, from an admirer’ and gave me the flowers. I was bewildered, and blushed. Everyone crowded round me, wanting to read the card, and clamouring to know who my admirer was. I said I had no idea, and they all began speculating. Clara declared it was Hugh Jamieson who she maintains stares at me whenever he sees me and has told John, Clara’s boyfriend, he thinks I am divine. Too silly. But it was exciting. I expect they are from Tom, but how can I find out? It would be awful to make a mistake.

  *

  They were indeed from Tom, who cannot resist writing to ask if she has received any flowers on Valentine’s Day. Millicent is touched, but warns herself not to read too much into this gesture, and she reminds herself that she has no time for romance, if that is what Tom intended, because she has to concentrate on her studies and do well. She does, coming first in the end of course examination. Now qualified as a teacher and, against strong opposition, she is appointed to an elementary school in Surrey. She is elated to be starting on a career and thrilled to find herself independent. Her share of the money from the sale of the family house comes through, enabling her to rent a pleasant room near the school and still have enough to support herself. She buys a bicycle (£7) and spends weekends exploring the countryside, describing the landscape in great and, it must be admitted, sometimes fulso
me detail. The school is small and run by a kind and dedicated headmaster who helps her greatly at first. Her class of thirty 7-year-olds is on the whole obedient and she has little trouble maintaining discipline. The whole of 1921 and 1922 pass without her recording any significant new friendships and her always uncertain relationship with Tom Hart seems to be fading, though she mentions occasional letters.

  *

  15 July 1923

  My birthday. Twenty-two is not a significant birthday, heaven knows, but for some reason it seems so. By the time Mother was 22 she was married. I have not so far wanted to marry but on the other hand I do not want to be another Aunt J., though Aunt J. always seems happy enough. The only man I have cared for is Tom and I knew it would never come to anything. We are still friends but hardly see each other and there is no hint of romance, in spite of those Valentine’s Day flowers. The last time I saw him was in September when he visited me here. It was like a visit from a brother or some other male relative. We chatted easily enough and enjoyed a walk and I made him a splendid tea, but that was all. He said I was quite the dedicated school marm and I said, I hope with dignity, yes, I was, and glad to be. But I think that what he implied was that I was not much fun and was in danger of becoming a dried-up spinster. He kissed me when he left but it was a peck on the cheek and I cannot say my heart beat faster. I think the truth is, as I now see it, that Tom was the only young man who came my way and I responded instinctively. Since I came here I have got to know only the male teachers at the school and all three of them are married. And singularly unattractive. Out of school hours I keep myself to myself so it’s hardly surprising if I meet no men. I am struggling to be absolutely honest with myself, but I think it is perfectly true that I don’t yearn for a lover, or even a pleasant male friend such as Tom. For the moment, I am content with my own company. And yet, would I be writing down these kind of thoughts, if I were? It is a puzzle.