by MARY HOCKING
Claire said, ‘You are going to play, aren’t you, Alice?’ There was a note of threat in her voice. ‘You promised you would if I didn’t tell.’
When their father was looking for a better teaching post their parents had prayed that he would get a headship where he was most needed. Alice and Claire had prayed he would be needed in Bognor where they would be able to swim every day. When God called him to a boys’ elementary school in Acton, they comforted themselves by inventing the Maitland family who lived in a beautiful old Sussex farmhouse. An extra member was added to the family whenever they came across a name they could not resist, such as Marguerite or Imogen. But that was four years ago. Alice felt that the time had come to part company with the Maitlands.
‘You promised,’ Claire said ominously.
Alice said, ‘Yes, all right; but we can’t play now, can we?’ She went out of the room carrying the basin. There was no one in the bathroom and she emptied away the water but had difficulty getting rid of the black rim around the side of the basin. She left the basin in the bathroom because she did not want to give Claire another opportunity to talk about the Maitlands. As she went downstairs she could hear her mother and Louise arguing in the kitchen. Her father was still in his study. She picked up the newspaper and with practised judgement opened it at the page that listed the films showing in the West End. Eagerly she scanned the column. Movie Crazy with Harold Lloyd, Tess of the Storm Country with Janet Gaynor, The Midshipmaid with Jessie Matthews, aroused little interest; these were films to which her parents might be persuaded to take her, provided their arrival on the local circuit was well spaced out. But there was no hope for Trouble in Paradise and Rome Express: if their tides did not condemn them, the stars would – Miriam Hopkins and Kay Francis were ‘fast’, while Conrad Veidt was ‘sinister’. Alice put the paper down hurriedly as she heard the door of her father’s study open.
In the kitchen, Louise was saying, ‘Where does it say in the Bible that Jesus said all girls must have plaits?’
‘You look quite grown up now that you’ve got your plaits up; you’ll have to content yourself with that. It’s no use arguing, because Daddy won’t agree to you having your hair cut. Let Badger in, will you, Alice?’
Louise did not pursue the argument. She did not, however, appear to give in so much as to leave the matter lying there to be taken up, again when times were more propitious. At the age of four Louise had realized, with the coming of Alice, that grown-ups were not to be trusted; and while she had made no objection to the sharing of what she had hitherto been led to understand was all hers, she had accepted her parents’ inconstancy as a sign that she, too, could go her own way and had done so ever since without their being in the least aware of it. As she was not by nature unkind or aggressive, and as she was very fond of her parents, she made it her pleasure to be accommodating whenever possible and had so far done little to confound her father’s picture of her as a ‘dutiful’ daughter.
To Alice, however, the sixteen-year-old Louise seemed to inhabit a different world from the other people in the house. From time to time she would come out with an observation which was out of keeping with the cherished principles according to which the Fairley family ordered their lives. She would drop these remarks as though herself unaware of their strangeness, unselfconscious as a tone-deaf singer. Her behaviour was equally unpredictable. Alice could tell that her mother thought the battle of the plaits had been won. Alice, however, remembered the first morning when Louise had come downstairs with her hair plaited on top of her head. A different person had, walked into the room, but Louise had not displayed this new person with bravado, as Alice would have done, or with any of Claire’s nervous silliness; she had walked into the room as unconcernedly as though she had worn her hair up for so long that it could not be a matter for discussion. The drawing away of the hair had uncovered a personality. In the moulding of this face no time had been wasted on subtlety, the lines of jaw and cheekbone were executed boldly and positively; there was nothing tentative about the wide mouth and the gaze of the eyes was direct. To Alice, the transformation had resembled that moment in a film when the person, head bent over a railway ticket, suddenly faces the camera full-on and you realize with a thrill of excitement that this is the star! Here, in the kitchen, the effect had been as startling but, perhaps because of the inappropriateness of the setting, not so pleasant. Alice, looking round, had seen that her mother and father were equally disturbed, though in a way she had not expected, for they seemed to be not so much angry as dismayed. Judith Fairley soon recovered and treated Louise with the confidence of one who is certain that, whatever may befall, she has the measure of her antagonist. Stanley Fairley became more authoritative than ever.
‘I think your hair looks lovely like that, Lou,’ Alice said, thinking of Daphne’s soot-filled kitchen and anxious to avoid any more disasters.
‘I’ve got an audition for the play today.’ Louise spoke to her mother, ignoring Alice’s attempt at peacemaking. ‘We’ll be late home.’
‘Well, don’t undertake anything that will intefere with your studies.’
Claire came in followed by Stanley Fairley.
It was apparent that the head of the house was now present. Although he lacked the stature for natural authority, being a little short of medium height, he nevertheless, on entering a room, contrived the impression of a substantial force; an effect achieved mainly by a certain fierceness of expression and the thrusting of his stocky body against the air as though he was forever pushing an unseen opponent before him. Forcefulness alone would probably not have been sufficient to sustain dominance over a long period of time, but he was fortunate in having his wife’s support. She had suffered in her own childhood from the lack of a man at the head of the table and was not minded to go through her marriage as her mother had hers. She therefore reinforced her husband’s position while not always accepting his judgement.
Mr Fairley, having made his entrance, put the newspaper down on the table and stood waiting while Claire took her place and Badger settled in front of the stove. He then pronounced grace in a deep, grave voice, sat down, shook out his napkin, and said, ‘They can’t take criticism, these fellows. They hand it out readily enough, but when it comes to themselves, they can’t take it.’ He drew bushy eyebrows into a frown as he sprinkled salt on his porridge. His brown hair, crowning his head like the bristles of a brush, gave an added abrasiveness to his appearance.
‘Haven’t they published your letter, Daddy?’ Alice asked.
‘No, my dear, they have not.’ He uttered each word as though he had an individual quarrel with it. ‘They are prepared to pay good money to a man like Robert Lynd to write a lot of nonsense about what he would do if he was the New Year Dictator, but when it comes to a sensible, balanced, well-reasoned . . .’ He looked across at his wife and saw that she was smiling. His face went red and his eyes were like marbles; but even as the rage seemed about to burst from him, some unreliable element within turned traitor and his lips twitched. He said mildly to Alice, ‘Your mother doesn’t think much of my literary abilities, I’m afraid.’
‘I don’t know that “balanced” is a word I would use to describe them, Stanley, that’s all.’
‘And do you call it balanced,’ he summoned his anger again, thumping his spoon in his porridge bowl so that Badger jumped and whined, ‘to ask people to play the dictator? Do you see anything balanced about this word “dictator” that our Press is so enamoured of nowadays? It will all end in disaster. What do they tell you at school about Mussolini?’
‘They’ve had four weeks’ holiday and I expect they’ve forgotten everything they ever learnt.’
‘My boys don’t forget what I tell them!’
Louise, eyes on her mother, said, ‘I don’t want a fried egg.’
‘You don’t have a hot meal in the middle of the day, so you must have a good breakfast.’ Judith Fairley put a plate of bacon, egg and fried bread in front of Louise.
‘I shall be sick on the tram.’
Judith said, ‘We really must get something done about the paint work around the windows this summer, Stanley. I was wondering whether we might get Will Perry to do it. He’s been out of work for so long.’
Stanley Fairley helped himself to mustard. ‘What your mother means is that she doesn’t want me to do it.’
‘ “Daddy does a thousand-and-one things between each brush stroke”,’ Claire quoted her mother.
For a moment it seemed her father was going to be angry; then he smiled at Claire and she gave the little-girl laugh which her sisters found so irritating.
Louise looked at Alice. When she was very young Claire had had diphtheria and had been incarcerated in the isolation hospital. Alice and Louise had run through childish ailments at an alarming rate and by the time they were ten there seemed little else for them to catch; but as none of these ailments had required a stay in the isolation hospital they never received the devoted attention which was paid to Claire’s indispositions.
Louise wiggled her eyebrows at Alice and said, ‘Snap, dumpling!’
‘I had been thinking that Alice had lost a little weight.’ Their mother came so automatically to the aid of whichever member of the family was under attack that it was not really a defence at all.
When they had eaten, Mr Fairley took the Bible down from the dresser and opened it at the place where the monthly Bible notes acted as a marker for the reading for the day.
‘ “By glory and dishonour, by evil report and good report, as deceivers and yet true; as unknown and yet well-known . . .” ’ Louise listened with pleasure for her father read well, his strong voice rising and falling, faithful to the rhythm if not always to St Paul’s intentions. Alice’s stomach shifted uneasily at the mention of ‘deceivers’. Judith, watching her, thought she was very puffy about the eyes and wondered if she was sickening for something. Claire, who needed the security of absolute truth and liked instructions to be unambiguous, wondered what she was supposed to do about “Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers: for what fellowship have righteousness and iniquity, or what communion hath light and darkness?” She recalled that their headmistress had told them ‘You should be tolerant about other countries which have governments different from our own, and should not make quick judgements about affairs in Italy.’ Her father would surely think this was having communion with darkness.
The Bible was closed and they bowed their heads while Mr Fairley addressed God somewhat brusquely. Each morning a glance at the headlines convinced him that God had been about his business elsewhere in the cosmos and needed to be reminded of events on the planet Earth. This done, Mr Fairley asked God’s blessing on the members of the Fairley household throughout the day. They said the Lord’s Prayer together, after which there was a scramble to collect packed lunches and to find Alice’s netball.
Then they left their home and took a tram to Shepherd’s Bush Green, and from there they had a twenty-minute walk. Somewhere on this journey they ceased to be the Fairley family and became the pupils of the Winifred Clough Day School for Girls. By the time they entered the gates, Louise, Alice and Claire had separated and would barely acknowledge one another until the end of the day.
Chapter Two
The school was founded in 1890 by Winifred Clough, suffragette, and heiress to a drapery business. It was sited at the back of Ladbroke Grove on Notting Hill. In spite of the comparative wealth of many of the people living in the area, the school was not, in Winifred’s words, ‘intended for the carriage trade’, but for the daughters of parents of moderate means with scholarships for those of less than moderate means.
The building was a long red-brick structure, north facing; commonsense, rather than architectural conceit, had inspired its design. It knew itself to be worthy of respect but entertained no Gothic fantasies. Sober, modest, durable, it had the qualities which its Founder had looked for in its pupils. Subsequent headmistresses had looked for rather more. Each in her own way, they had sought to instil into the pupils an appreciation of beauty, a love of art, music and literature; to strengthen their qualities of loyalty, courage and fortitude; to give them a strong Christian faith and a desire to serve their country. Critics said that the school sent its pupils out into the world full of expectations which life would never fulfil.
Miss Blaize, the present headmistress, was well aware that many people questioned the aims of the school. She was not one to trim her sails to the wind. The fact that such concepts as beauty, faith, endurance, service to others, should occasion derision only showed the importance of ensuring that here, in this place, the laughable should be honoured. ‘Cynicism,’ she would say, ‘is soon learnt, and scepticism demands less risk than belief.’
From the moment they passed through the school gates the pupils knew exactly what Miss Blaize expected of them in the way of response, behaviour, appearance, speech, deportment. When they left the school, they would, as one of the more rebellious spirits had put it, ‘apportion our time between the soup kitchen, St Mary Abbot’s, and the National Gallery; at all times being careful to observe the notices telling us it is forbidden to walk on the grass.’
Louise, who did not experience living in terms of aims and values, was largely untouched by the school’s philosophy. Claire embraced it wholly. Alice had problems. She respected the school and was proud of it; but, like the uniform, it did not fit her very well.
Most of the staff were middle-aged, kind and caring; it was not an easy school for a young woman to teach in. Miss Lindsay, Alice’s form mistress, had been at the school for two years. She was in her late twenties and had ideas which she regarded as advanced and others considered to be decadent. She was an expert at exploiting weakness.
‘I wonder why my form is always late?’ she greeted Alice on the latter’s arrival in the classroom.
Alice halted at Miss Lindsay’s desk, not sure what was expected of her. Daphne was seated at one of the desks by the window. She had been looking cool and composed, but as soon as she saw Alice she rolled her eyes heavenwards. Alice thought that perhaps her parents had found out about the midnight feast and sent a note complaining that Daphne had contracted an unsuitable friendship. Parents had been known to do this, but never in the case of one of the Fairley girls.
Miss Lindsay said, ‘And how did you spend your holiday, Alice?’
Alice mumbled that she had had a good holiday, thank you.
‘Have you ever not had a good holiday, Alice?’
Alice, bereft of speech, shook her head.
‘You think it is written in the book of life that holidays are to be enjoyed? Pleasure is not mandatory, Alice. Do you know what that means?’
Alice said huskily, ‘It means “by order”.’
‘It was the meaning of pleasure to which I was referring. An unfamiliar word in this establishment, but one with which you will one day have to become acquainted, even if only to deprecate it.’
At this point the handbell was rung and Miss Lindsay had to call the roll rapidly. Daphne whispered as Alice, seated herself in the adjacent desk, ‘Just when she was going to tell you about illicit pleasure!’
‘Daphne, what happened?’
‘It’s all right.’ Daphne watched Alice’s face relax in relief. As they lined up to leave the classroom, she said casually, ‘We had to tell the police, of course.’
‘The police!’
Miss Lindsay said, ‘Whatever it is that Daphne wishes to communicate to Alice, I am sure it can wait until break.’
The door of the classroom was opened and the girls heard the sound of a march being thumped out on the grand piano on the platform in the assembly hall. The school, with the exception of the kindergarten, marched into the assembly hall, the various forms lining stairs and corridors, the girls waiting in good order their turn to enter two abreast. When they were all present, the head girl went to fetch the headmistress.
Miss Blaize mounted the platform to a hush which was a tribute to the
respect in which she was held, if not to her popularity. Popularity was something which Miss Blaize would not have considered appropriate to a headmistress. She was a majestic woman with the proportions of a Wagnerian soprano who emphasized her regality by wearing ankle-length dresses of a purple hue. The girls were so used to this attire that the thought of being able to see Miss Blaize’s legs was almost obscene (there was something obscene about the thought that Miss Blaize had legs). Her face, dark-skinned and blunt-featured, was heavily lined; underneath her black eyes were purple shadows tinged with orange at the outer edge; down one cheek ran a scar like a seam in the surface of a rock. Her hair was dark and worn in an uncompromising Eton crop; it refused however to lie flat, and hung across her forehead giving her a grotesque resemblance to that dreadful schoolboy, William Brown. Her very appearance at the end of a corridor was enough to strike terror into the heart of an oncoming pupil.
This morning she advanced to the rostrum and there paused to regard with apparent sorrow the faces gazing up at her. Alice thought: the police have been to see her. What shall we do?
They sang ‘Hills of the North, rejoice!’ Then a sixth-former read a passage from Isaiah. Prayers followed, the girls kneeling on the floor. When assembly should have been over, and they were waiting for the first chords of the march to be struck, Miss Blaize leant forward on the rostrum and said, ‘Will you all sit down, please.’ They sat cross-legged and waited, in doom-filled expectancy. Alice’s face was scarlet; beside her. Daphne’s composure was threatened only by a slight twitching of the lips. Seated on one of the built-in side benches, the gym mistresses cast expert eyes over the pupils to see that backs were straight, heads held erect.
