Octavia

by Beryl Kingston

  But he wouldn’t be persuaded. ‘We’re all right as we are,’ he insisted.

  ‘What am I to do with him?’ she asked Emmeline later that week. ‘I’ve never known him like this before. It’s as if he’s a different person. He wouldn’t even go and look at them.’

  ‘Give him time,’ Emmeline advised. ‘He’ll come round.’

  ‘Well, I hope it’s before Christmas, that’s all,’ Octavia said, ‘or I shall be cooking on that awful stove. Thank God for the school!’

  The end of the Christmas term was the most enjoyable she’d ever experienced. The form rooms were hung with paper chains, the cooks produced a Christmas pudding for their final school dinner and the sixth form pantomime was riotous. They told the story of the Babes in the Wood but sent the babes to a school which was recognisably Roehampton, for there were all the staff, idiosyncrasies and all. Elizabeth with her pince-nez, saying ‘neatness is everything in mathematics’ as she always did, Morag in her long cardigan and her flat shoes, saying ‘a little less noise gels’ as she always did, Phillida in a smock with one paintbrush in her hand and another behind her ear, Joan Marshall in a gymslip, carrying a hockey stick, and yelling ‘Bully off!’ There were cheers and screams at their every appearance and when the cast took their final bow the applause went on for such a long time that Octavia had to hold up her hand for it to stop so that she could thank ‘their talented players’ for the great fun it had been.

  She drove home on that last afternoon, happy but exhausted. And there was a letter waiting for her from one of the estate agents. A property had just come onto the market, which seemed to him to be exactly what she was looking for. Perhaps she would care to telephone him about it.

  She phoned at once and agreed to go and see it the next afternoon. But I shan’t tell Pa, she thought, as she put the receiver back in its cradle. He’ll only say no and there’s no point in disturbing him until I’ve seen it. It might not do at all.

  It was the best house she’d seen and in quite the most pleasant road, a short, wide, unpaved, cul de sac, avenued with lime trees and bordered by gardens so green and well grown that to walk between them was like walking in a country lane. The house was big like all the others she’d viewed and very handsome to look at. She stood gazing up at it, enjoying the white frontage and the grey slate roof, feeling peculiarly satisfied by the balance of it, the three identical windows on the first floor, exactly balanced by the two on either side of the central front door. It reminded her of something but for a few seconds she couldn’t remember what it was. Then her father’s voice spoke in her mind ‘all designed according to exact mathematical principles, little one,’ and she realised it was the Georgian house she’d lived in as a child, the house in Clerkenwell.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It’s very handsome.’

  ‘Would you care to see inside, ma’am?’ the estate agent said, hopefully.

  She followed him through the front door rather apprehensively in case the interior was a disappointment. But she needn’t have worried. It was such a warm and welcoming place, she liked it as soon as she stepped inside the hall and she soon found that it had everything she could possibly want, a gas cooker in the kitchen, a geyser in the bathroom and gas fires in all the main bedrooms, a parlour and a dining room and a magnificent drawing room running the length of the house, four bedrooms and a dressing room on the first floor and another two rooms in the attic. There was no furniture in it at all – ‘An executor’s sale, you see, ma’am,’ the young man explained – but that didn’t worry her. The emptiness made it easier for her to imagine how she would arrange things herself.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It’s an excellent house.’

  ‘I thought you would like it, ma’am,’ the young man said. ‘Would you care to see the attic rooms?’

  ‘I might as well, now I’m here.’

  They were bigger than she expected, with sloping ceilings and dormer windows that let in a surprising amount of light but it was the wallpaper in the room that overlooked the back garden that was the real surprise. It was a William Morris design, and not just any design, what’s more, but the one that Pa had always had in his study.

  ‘This,’ she told the young man, resting the palm of her hand against the familiar pattern, ‘might be the deciding factor.’

  He had no idea what she was talking about but he could see that he was within reach of a sale. ‘I’m very glad to hear it, ma’am,’ he said.

  I must plan this very carefully, Octavia thought. I’ll wait until after Christmas, until we’ve said goodbye to the Wilkins, and then I’ll cook a few meals on that horrible stove and we’ll see how he likes the change of cuisine and if he complains, and I’ll bet he does, I’ll try to tease him into seeing it. If I handle it lightly I might just be able to do it. I’m not being very kind to him, poor man, but I’ve got to ease him out of his misery somehow and the longer he sits at home and broods the more difficult it will be. Besides, it’s high time I had a home of my own. I’ve been putting it off a darn sight too long.

  She gave a farewell tea to her old servants and invited Emmeline and her children, who turned up in style, Dora looking extremely pretty, wearing red lipstick and a new dress with a very short skirt.

  ‘Although what her father would say if he could see her I dread to think,’ Emmeline said. ‘We’d never hear the end of it. He thinks lipstick is sinful.’

  ‘All the best things are,’ Octavia said, looking at Dora. And was given a conspiratorial smile.

  In the New Year, when they’d finished off the cold turkey and eaten all the Christmas puddings, Octavia finally did battle with the stove and produced a roast that was burnt black on the outside and underdone in the centre.

  ‘I’m sorry, my dear,’ J-J said laying his knife and fork aside. ‘It’s inedible.’

  ‘I did warn you.’

  ‘You’ll get used to it,’ he said. ‘Better luck next time, eh?’

  Next time she tried to cook a cake and that was even worse. The mixture was only cooked round the edges and the centre of the cake had collapsed into a soggy pool.

  ‘Perhaps we ought to buy one of those cookers,’ J-J offered. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I tell you what,’ Octavia said, seizing her moment, ‘why don’t we go and look at a new house and see what you think about that.’

  ‘Put like that,’ he said, looking at the wreckage of the cake, ‘how can I refuse?’ And added, with a touch of his old wry wit, ‘But you will remember that I’ve lived in this house for twenty-seven years and I’m in no hurry to leave it.’

  They went the very next morning. And although Octavia promised herself that she would be calm and sensible and not rush him and take care to point out all the bad features about the place, so as to show she was taking a balanced view, she forgot her good intentions as soon as she turned into the avenue and saw the estate agent again. She introduced her father but then she couldn’t wait to get him into the kitchen and show him all the excellent things that were there, the two walk-in larders and the long Welsh dresser and the shining new gas cooker.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, rather dourly. ‘I see.’

  ‘It’s a very good size,’ the young man pointed out hopefully.

  ‘Come and see the drawing room,’ Octavia said. ‘And tell me if you don’t think it would be ideal for family parties.’

  ‘Yes, very nice,’ he said, when he’d seen it. But his tone was non-committal.

  She showed him all the rooms on the ground floor, took him round the garden, and upstairs to see the bedrooms and finally, having sent a signal to the young man that he was to stay where he was, and with her heart beating quite ridiculously fast, she climbed the last two flights of stairs to the attic.

  ‘There,’ she said, throwing open the door to the William Morris room. ‘What do you think of that?’

  ‘Good heavens!’ he said. ‘It’s my wallpaper.’

  ‘This could be your study,’ she said quickly, ‘and you’d hardly
know the difference from the one you’re in now, except that this is marginally bigger. They both overlook the garden, there’s lots of light. Imagine it with all your furniture in it, your desk and your bookcases. It could be a lovely room.’ Oh please, Pa, at least think about it.

  He walked to the dormer window and looked out at the garden, while Octavia waited. ‘You want to move here very much, don’t you, Tavy?’ he said.

  It was time for the truth. ‘Yes, Pa, I do.’

  ‘I would prefer to stay in Hampstead even if it means eating burnt meat for the rest of my life,’ he said. ‘But if you are set on this house, and I can see that you are, I suppose I had better consider it. It has a pleasant balance, almost Georgian.’

  ‘I thought that as soon as I saw it,’ she said. ‘It reminded me of the house in Clerkenwell.’

  He was surprised. ‘Fancy you remembering that,’ he said.

  ‘You told me how it was designed,’ she said, ‘according to mathematical principles. I think this is a similar house.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, smiling at her. ‘So what with that and the gas cooker and the wallpaper, I suppose we must buy it.’

  She was instantly racked with compassion for him. He was so generous and so loving and he missed Mama so much and she’d been putting such pressure on him. ‘Dear Pa,’ she said, putting her arms round his neck and kissing him, ‘you mustn’t agree to this just for me. I want you to be happy here. If we buy it, it will be your house every bit as much as mine.’

  ‘I know that, my dear. I have thought about it.’

  ‘I’ve had the school to keep me going, ever since Mama died,’ she said, ‘and you’ve been at home all on your own except for the Wilkins, and it must have been awful for you. And now you’re all on your own except for Dilys and I don’t suppose she’s any help at all, is she? No, I didn’t think so. I’d like to give you something to fill your days a bit, something new, something that would make you feel just a little bit better. I hate seeing you so down and serving you awful meals and leaving you alone for so much of the day. If we live here we’ll get a girl to come in every day and look out for you, make you tea and that sort of thing – and put the kettle on when I come back from school. And when I’m home we can explore the common and the village. I’ve driven round it and it looks pretty. And you can have a wireless in your study so that you can listen to music up there. And there’s a theatre just down the hill, we can go there whenever we like, and there are lots of bookshops. I know it won’t be a wonderful life, not without Mama to share it. How could it possibly be? But it might be better than the one you’re living now.’

  He stroked her cheek, lovingly. ‘You are a good girl, Tavy,’ he said.

  So they bought the house and took possession of it six weeks later on a cold February day in the middle of her half term. And although she was trying to be calm and serious about it, so as not to upset her father, Octavia found herself singing as she unpacked.

  * * *

  By the end of the summer term they had established a new pattern of life in this new house of theirs. Octavia learnt how to cook on her new gas cooker and spent a lot of time mastering the art of making cakes and pastry; Emmeline came to visit with one or other of her children at least once a week, and they all went for a walk to Wimbledon village or took the air on the common, stopping at Caesar’s Well to buy ice creams of course; and in the afternoons, J-J listened to the wireless in his by-now familiar study with his familiar books ranged round him in their familiar order and felt there was some good in his life after all.

  The next school year began with an invitation for Octavia from a man who signed his letter AS Neill and said that, like her, he had started an experimental school, in which children were not bullied or coerced into learning but allowed the freedom to learn in their own time and their own way. In his case it was a school for children who were considered ‘difficult’ or ‘failures’; in hers, he assumed, it was a school for girls who had passed an examination for entry, which presupposed a difference in kind. But he thought that they would find they had much in common and suggested that she might like to come to Suffolk and visit him.

  ‘How would you fancy a trip to the country, Pa?’ she asked and passed the letter across the breakfast table for him to read.

  It was an interesting experience, for Neill, as everyone called him, was an extraordinary man and his views matched Octavia’s almost exactly. One of the things that interested her particularly was the school parliament at which staff and pupils made the rules together. She questioned him deeply about it, asking how often they met (every week) and what they discussed (whatever they want to) and what would happen if they made a rule that didn’t work when it was put into practice.

  ‘They’d change it at the next meeting,’ he told her. ‘Children are practical creatures, if they’re allowed to be. And cussed of course. Force them to do something and they’ll do anything to avoid it, give them freedom and they use it wisely. As you must have found out.’

  As they drove home through the sunset, Octavia mulled over all she’d heard. ‘I think a school parliament is a very good idea,’ she said.

  ‘So that will be inaugurated first thing on Monday morning, I suppose,’ her father said.

  ‘No,’ she said, grinning at him. ‘That will be inaugurated when the need for it arises. I’ve given up imposing my ideas on people. That’s a fool’s game. I shall bide my time and wait for the moment to arrive.’

  It arrived rather sooner than she’d anticipated and with an uproar over the trees in the school grounds. The original field had already contained several well established trees when they moved in, and as soon as the playing fields and gardens had been planned, several more had been planted. Now, to Phillida’s horror, the juniors were climbing all over them.

  ‘It’s not the old trees so much,’ she said, ‘they’re strong enough to withstand it, but to swing on our little flowering cherry! I mean to say, they’ll snap it in two. And then all our beautiful blossom will be gone for ever. We’ve got to stop them.’

  ‘They have been told,’ Elizabeth said. ‘The sixth form are always reminding them.’

  ‘It should be a school rule,’ Phillida said. ‘Freedom is all very well but we’re letting them behave like vandals.’

  Although that wasn’t what she’d intended, she sparked a passionate debate on the value of freedom in education. Some were for allowing the juniors to learn the hard way, ‘since that is what freedom entails, surely.’ Others were for protecting the tree, and passing a new school rule. But there were arguments put forward against that. What if it were ignored? Rules were made to be broken. How could it be implemented? As Phillida said, ‘We can’t be out in the fields all day, even if we took it in turn’. They argued for nearly twenty minutes before pausing for breath and looking at their headmistress to see what she would say.

  It was a happy moment. ‘Perhaps,’ she said, ‘we should allow the school to make the rules and then we would be certain of them being kept. What do you think?’

  They were interested, wanted to know more, questioned her closely and for another twenty minutes, and at the end of their long debate, decided that a school parliament might well be an excellent innovation. And as a way of testing the idea, they decided to put this particular matter to the school, sending a notice of their concerns to every form and asking for suggestions. ‘Then we shall see what happens.’

  What happened was that there was overwhelming support for a tree protection scheme. It was suggested by one of the third forms who said they thought the way to deal with the problem was to have ‘a tree planting day followed by a week during which all the senior girls would take it in turns to be in the school grounds to remind anyone who needs reminding of the proper way to treat young trees.’ It was a great success, especially as the new tree was planted by the two youngest girls in the school who also happened to be the most agile climbers. By the end of the tree protection week there was already talk of forming a school p
arliament; by the end of the term two representatives from each form had been elected, the Art room had been chosen as the best place for the council chamber, and everything was ready for their opening session, which would be in the first week of the spring term.

  The school years passed happily, with a series of academic successes, of problems solved by parliament, and of high days and fun days of every description. By the start of their fifth year, the now renowned Roehampton Secondary Girls had grown out of all recognition and beyond even Octavia’s most optimistic expectations. It had nearly five hundred pupils and twenty-four members of staff and even an upper sixth of a select half a dozen who were preparing for the Higher Schools Certificate and university entrance. The garden was maturing splendidly, the flowering cherry was superb, all the class libraries were well stocked, the school choir was much admired and had begun to win prizes at competitions, the sixth form play was a regular romp, and the school parliament was such an established institution that nobody could remember a time when it didn’t exist.

  ‘Teaching,’ Octavia told her father at breakfast, at the start of that fifth year, ‘is the most rewarding job in the world.’

  J-J dabbed his mouth with his napkin and smiled at her. ‘I am glad our opinions concur,’ he said. ‘I gather things are going well.’

  ‘They are,’ Octavia said with great satisfaction. ‘Oh, they are indeed. There are moments when I feel capable of absolutely anything. As if I could fly through the air if I put my mind to it.’

  ‘I trust you will not put your belief to the test,’ her father said. ‘I should hate to see you splattered all over the front garden. Think how it would upset the neighbours.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Emmeline was cross. ‘It’s ridiculous,’ she said to Octavia. ‘I mean to say, she’s twenty-one, come of age. She’s been working for five years. If she’s not grown up I don’t know who is.’