GOOD DAUGHTERS

by MARY HOCKING

  Her lack of restraint swept aside all the difficulties which Claire usually experienced with her friendships. With Heather, she was always sure of a warm response and never found herself inexplicably rebuffed. If she made unreasonable demands. Heather lost no time in acquainting her of the fact instead of avoiding her company. Heather’s anger was as immediate as her affection, and expressed as openly.

  But Heather was not a Christian. It took Claire some little time to appreciate this, and it was not until Heather declared herself roundly that Claire fully understood her position. ‘Look, it’s not that I don’t bother about going to chapel, or that I’m not interested, or haven’t thought about it. I have thought about it and I think it’s a load of old rubbish. And so does my Dad and you couldn’t have a better man than my Dad.’

  Until now Claire had not encountered anyone who did not believe, albeit vaguely, in God. She knew that such people did exist and that the Devil was in them; but the thought that unbelief could go hand-in-hand with apparent goodness and undoubted loving kindness had never entered her head.

  ‘We don’t know what goes on in other people’s lives,’ her mother said when Claire made a guarded enquiry.

  But Claire knew what went on in Heather’s home: goodness and love and laughter and all without the aid of God! She was shaken. To her, unbelief and goodness were irreconcilable, a contradiction in terms. She worried away at the problem day and night. Once, she tried to talk to her father about it, but he was absorbed in another question of right and wrong, namely the return of the Saar to Germany.

  The one place where she might have been able to talk about her problem was at Crusaders. Yet, for the first time, she found herself unwilling to be totally frank. Loyalty prevented her from mentioning Heather by name: she referred to her as ‘my friend’ and she said to Alice, ‘You won’t let anyone know who it is I’m praying about, will you?’

  ‘I don’t know myself,’ Alice said. ‘And I don’t care.’

  While Claire prayed obliquely for Heather, Alice thought of Daphne and wickedness, and wondered if she should give up her friendship and knew that she could not. The most sensible thing seemed to be to do what Ben had suggested and give up God for the time being.

  She went to her father. He was reading a detective story, which was one of his few relaxations, and had just come to the first dead body on page 70 – which, in his view, was too long to wait. He put a marker in the book before he put it to one side. ‘What is it you don’t like about Crusaders?’ he asked.

  Alice sat silent for a few moments, sifting her objections. Her father, watching her fondly, thought how much she had grown up in the last few months. Eventually, she said, ‘The things we pray about.’ She put wickedness and the Drummonds resolutely to the back of her mind. ‘We pray for people who haven’t come as though they had been tempted. I know some of them may have stayed away for the wrong reason – to play tennis and that sort of thing; but we don’t know, we just assume it.

  ‘We pray for Betty Harris’s mother and father and Betty tells us how she has to bear witness alone in a worldly home. I wouldn’t ever talk about you and Mummy like that, I mean, praying for you behind your backs with other people listening.’

  ‘I hope you pray for us on your own, Alice?’

  ‘Yes, every day.’

  ‘Does Claire feel like this?’

  ‘I don’t think so. She talks a lot about bearing her witness. And she loves the choruses. “Though your sins be scarlet. He will wash them whiter than snow” is one of her favourites.’

  ‘Is it indeed, my little Claire! I wonder which of her sins is scarlet.’

  Alice was nonplussed by this response. Her father said, ‘Shall we sit for a moment and commit ourselves quietly to Him?’

  They sat for what seemed many moments to Alice. The ticking of the clock sounded very loud and down in the kitchen she could hear the puppy crying; she wondered if it had made a pool.

  Eventually Mr Fairley moved in his chair and Alice knew she could look up. He said, ‘You should never be ruled entirely by your intellect, Alice. Intellectual pride is the sin of our age. And, if I am honest with you, it is the one to which I am myself most prone. But having said all that, I would say to you that you should never force yourself to go against what your intellect tells you. When you have intellectual problems, be still and wait for God to enlighten you in His own time. Don’t ever imagine you have outgrown Him. It is your mind that is not big enough to encompass His truth. Always remember that.’ There was another silence, during which Alice thought about her erring body and wondered if her father ever erred in his body; Louise had said he might not be lustful but he was certainly lusty, because she could hear the bedsprings squeak.

  Mr Fairley looked covertly at his book. After a few minutes, he said, ‘I’m glad to have had a talk with you, Alice. We don’t talk often enough.’ His fingers strayed towards the book.

  ‘What shall I tell Mummy?’ Alice asked, perplexed at the inconclusive nature of their discussion.

  ‘That you don’t have to go to Crusaders, of course,’ he said irritably. ‘Haven’t you been listening?’

  ‘I love you!’ She flung her arms round his neck and hugged him. She loved and adored him, the more so because she had suddenly realized how innocent he was in comparison with herself who had become a part of the wickedness of Daphne and Mr Drummond.

  He patted her shoulder, ‘My dearest, why didn’t you say before if Crusaders upsets you so much?’

  Chapter Fourteen

  The forthcoming Silver Jubilee was beginning to colour people’s thoughts; the nation was in a mood to be jubilant after so many hard years. Unemployment was now falling steadily and the international scene, if not actually hopeful, was no more discouraging than usual: Mussolini was making placatory noises about Abyssinia, and Germany was celebrating the return of the Saar to the Fatherland. It was time for the Motherland to celebrate: patriotism was in the air. Mr Fairley took the family to see The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, having satisfied himself that there was no love interest and, after the initial irritation of Gary Cooper’s American accent had worn off, was completely won over by such stalwarts as C. Aubrey Smith and Sir Guy Standing. When the National Anthem was played at the end, the entire audience stood still; even the people who had hoped to sneak out accepted defeat and remained like statues precariously balanced on the steps. A few people sang.

  The old lady who called periodically for cast-off clothes was not so optimistic. ‘They say things are getting better,’ she said to Judith, ‘but I can’t see it meself. My man tries, no one could try harder. Walked to Camden and back the other day because a mate told him there was work in one of the stores there.’

  Although they called her ‘the old lady’, she was not yet fifty. Suffering from some ailment – probably glandular – she was a lumpish mound of flesh. The bright, intelligent eyes were ludicrously small in the unwholesome, moonlike face. The nose was too flat so that the mouth, having to do the work of breathing, hung permanently open displaying ulcerated lips and splayed, broken teeth. But this was the only display of misfortune she permitted. Over the years she had been coming, Judith had heard stories of her husband and eight children, of the birth and death of grandchildren, but never a complaint, never a demand for pity. In exchange for the clothes there was always a flower in a pot. She would not accept something for nothing. She had a barrow in which she stacked the plants and the clothes. How far she had to push it, Judith did not know.

  The old lady was a reminder that times were still hard for some. But who wanted that sort of reminder? The old lady and her family were awkward, unassimilable, the death’s head at the feast. People hardened their hearts. ‘There is always work for those that want it.’ The poor were feckless. It was not only the well-to-do who made this sort of comment. Mrs Moxham, who came twice a week to help in the house now that Judith went out more, said, ‘And when some of them do get a job it will all go on drink. I’ve seen it all before.’


  Judith watched the old lady go down the street, wheeling her barrow. What could it be like to live so rejected by your fellow human beings? She did not pursue the thought, nor did she try to follow the old lady in her mind’s eye to whatever mean street afforded shelter of a kind to her and her family. But she returned a sharp answer to the woman who came collecting for Jubilee celebration contributions. ‘I’ve other things to do with my money.’ The woman marked her down as a Communist.

  Judith put a collection box on the hall table and said to the family, ‘For everything we spend in connection with the Jubilee, what about putting the same sum in here for the Relief of Distressed Families Fund? Isn’t that fair?’

  Only Louise thought it fair. She had often seen the old lady pushing her barrow: Louise responded to what was before her eyes – her missionary box remained empty.

  Alice, who was practising putting God and His commandments out of her mind, was not prepared to contribute.

  When the box was presented to her, Claire’s eyes blazed with the new fervour which had her in its grip. ‘It’s charity! Heather’s father thinks it’s an insult to give to charity.’

  ‘What does he give the unemployed, then?’

  Claire, nonplussed, said, ‘He doesn’t give them charity, anyway. And I shan’t either.’

  Stanley Fairley would normally have given generously. Unfortunately however, Judith’s launching of the scheme coincided with the moment when he was trying to interest her in the plight of the seven hundred Prussian pastors who had been placed under house arrest in Germany. While he was explaining that the Prussian Confessional Synod had issued a manifesto against ‘the pagan religion popularized in Germany’ she intervened to say, in a manner which he thought flippant, ‘While they are making their stand, what about the deserving poor on your own doorstep?’

  ‘Do you realize,’ he said angrily, ‘that in Germany there are men who are risking their lives to oppose Hitler?’ Now, whenever he saw the box in the hall, he thought angrily how easy it was to be a Christian in England, and for some reason this thought prevented him from putting any money in the box.

  Heather was providing Claire with food for thought on matters other than charity. She was irreverent about the school and the Royal Family. The Royal Family Claire did not grieve for, because although her parents were loyal subjects, theirs was not an adherence which permitted no criticism. But the Winifred Clough Day School for Girls was for Claire the place in which resided those truths not made available to man by Divine revelation, and its influence on her social perceptions had been greater even than that of her father.

  This new friendship, however, offered so many undreamt-of delights that she was resolved that, whatever she relinquished, it would not be Heather. She tried to confide in Alice.

  ‘Daphne’s parents go to church and he’s got Another Woman; and Heather’s family are so good and they don’t go anywhere.’

  Alice responded with guilty sharpness; ‘If you tell Mummy and Daddy about the Drummonds, I shall tell them that Heather is an atheist.’

  This struck deep. Mr and Mrs Fairley liked Heather and she was always a welcome visitor – never more so than when Mr Fairley heard about the elocution lessons. For Claire’s sake, Heather became inarticulate when religion was discussed, and suffered herself to be thought ill-instructed in this respect.

  In Heather’s company Claire soon began to gain a reputation for being naughty. She participated in a mysterious pursuit which necessitated locking the bathroom door whenever she had friends to play and getting a lot of water on the floor. ‘We just wash things,’ she insisted when questioned. In fact, the game consisted of filling the wash-basin and seeing which girl could keep her face under water for the longest time; Heather currently held the record.

  At school, Claire was one of several girls who hid alarm clocks in their desks and let them off in the French lesson, which already tended to overrun into the break period. Once she rode all the way home on the back of Heather’s bicycle.

  On the next occasion when Miss Blaize leant on the rostrum and told the school to sit down, Claire was worried in case she had been seen climbing over the school wall to retrieve a netball from the garden of the adjoining house. It was, however, a small matter of hygiene to which Miss Blaize wished to draw their attention; some girls had been seen to stuff their handkerchiefs into their knicker-elastic; this was not the right place for a handkerchief.

  This was the day of Heather’s elocution lesson, and one act of madness was mandatory on such days. Heather stood up. ‘Please, Miss Blaize, where should we put our handkerchief? There aren’t any pockets in our blouse and skirt.’ There was only a faint Cockney intonation and not a trace of insolence; she gazed optimistically at Miss Blaize, a true seeker after knowledge.

  No one present could remember a time when Miss Blaize had been challenged from the floor (except by a girl who had a fit). Miss Blaize looked at Heather as though there was no other girl present. ‘That is a very sensible question, my dear.’ She turned her head in the direction of the young needlework mistress and smiled her most mirthless smile. ‘I think perhaps we should devise something, don’t you. Miss Porter?’ Miss Porter, scarlet-faced and unsure whether speech was demanded of her, made a small barking in her throat and nodded her head vigorously. The school was dismissed. What had promised to be a considerable drama would dwindle into a needle-and-thread exercise. ‘Thanks to you, we shall all be sewing little pouches into our skirts!’ Heather was told. No one thought the experiment of engaging in a dialogue with Miss Blaize worth repeating.

  In February, Miss Blaize had one of her occasional informal sessions with the sixth form. The informality consisted mainly in their being invited to her room, where a few were lucky enough to find chairs and the rest sat on the carpet. It was Miss Blaize’s habit on these occasions to talk about matters not usually touched upon lower down the school. Now, staring in front of her like a sorrowing fury, she spoke of the opportunities which can slip by in life, and of a time when ‘we look back on days when we were happier than we knew’. For a moment, Louise thought Miss Blaize was going to speak of love; and perhaps Miss Blaize had permitted herself to stray further than she had intended in forbidden territory, for she came out of her abstraction and began to give advice which, if followed, would necessitate the letting slip of quite a lot of opportunity.

  There was a barrel organ playing in the street. The effrontery of it, Louise thought, making that cheerful jangle while Miss Blaize was extolling chastity! Miss Blaize, making one of those intellectual leaps for which she was renowned, now left the subject of chastity and began to talk about marriage. She spoke of the responsibilities of home-making and bringing up children; the husband merited only a brief reference, the existence of young men being barely acknowledged at the Winifred Clough Day School for Girls. Louise, a seeker after pleasures which Miss Blaize did not see it as her business to acknowledge, let alone encourage, listened to the barrel organ.

  Louise’s friend, Kathleen Church, had never been out with a boy and she was not unrepresentative of this group. As they left Miss Blaize’s room, she said wryly to Louise, ‘How are we going to get married and have children? From all we learn at school, we’ll have to do it by correspondence course.’

  It was the break period. They went into the dining-room where Kathleen bought a quarter-pint of milk with a straw stuck through a hole in the bottle-top. Louise bought a long, iced bun. She had an enormous appetite, but lately nothing seemed to put on weight. In the playground younger girls were chasing one another on the grass, and the middle school had captured the netball courts for practice. By the shrubbery, a group of girls of whom Alice was one, were eagerly discussing The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, and the relative attractions of Gary Cooper and Franchot Tone.

  ‘I must get a boy soon,’ Kathleen said. ‘Do you know, I’ve never been kissed! If it goes on much longer, no one will want me.’ She brooded about this as she sucked her milk. ‘How far have you gon
e with Guy? I mean . . . Have you . . .?’

  ‘As far as I can without . . . you know . . .’

  They walked into the small garden where the kindergarten sometimes had their lessons in the summer. ‘Do you remember playing “Fire on the Hill” here?’ Kathleen asked. ‘I never understood what it was we were supposed to be doing, and I got so upset about it Mummy nearly took me away from the school.’ They considered this, looking back at an inconceivably distant part of their lives. Kathleen thought that having survived her ignorance of ‘Fire on the Hill’ she would probably survive not knowing what to do about sex as well. Faintly, from the school came the sound of arpeggios repeated again and again on a piano.

  The little garden was forlorn now, the rose bushes so many dead, bare twigs, the earth hard and dry, scattered with a few dead leaves which had escaped the rake of Chapman, the gardener. Kathleen said, ‘Some of the bulbs are coming up under the tree,’ and pointed. Louise looked dully at the green shoots, biting her lip, suddenly full of pain. The pain was always there now; sometimes when she was busy she was unaware of it, but as soon as her mind relaxed its guard, it quickened. There was this soundless crying deep inside her, a helpless yearning springing from a well that would never run dry. She could do nothing but fold herself around it and hope to contain it. It was particularly bad on weekday evenings when she seldom saw Guy, and yet hoped that he might find a pretext for calling; while she studied in her bedroom, she listened to the footsteps of people in the street, the creaking of a gate.

  It was very cold, and a sleety rain was beginning to fall when the girls went back into the building. Sometimes Louise saw the building as a towering monstrosity, and at others as a paper screen on which sky, roofs, walls and scurrying figures were implausibly sketched.