Already he planned in his mind the happy years ahead, years of fulfilment and content; but he reckoned without knowledge and with only the bare substance of a dream.
In a year or two, he said, and it was then the autumn of 1912 . . .
5
Gradually Jennifer became used to living in London at the boarding-house. She began to feel as though she had always looked out upon those stretches of slate roofs and chimney-pots. The buses rumbled past her bedroom window, and from the distance came the whistle of the Metropolitan trains and the throb of the traffic moving citywards.
Bertha Coombe had easily slipped back into the ways she had known as a girl.
Unconsciously she remembered the early days of her married life, when she and her husband had lived upon the bounty of Mrs Parkins, such as it was, and how quiet and humble he had been, aware of his weakness and of his failure to support her and the boys.This was the man her mother had known, ignorant of the change that hard work and Plyn had made in him, and slowly she too began to regard him in this past light, taking her mother’s attitude that she had been something of a saint to have stayed by him all those years. She still cried over his photograph and clung to her widow’s weeds, but she talked of him now as ‘poor Christopher’, and shook her head sadly when his name was mentioned.
Harold, boylike and a little selfish, had stood a month at the boarding-house on his arrival in London, but no more. He had moved into lodgings nearby, resentful of the rules and regulations which his grandmother impelled at No. 7.
Willie made brief appearances every now and again, making shift with the boarding-house as his temporary home, but he grumbled in private to his brother, saying that he couldn’t for the life of him see why they had come away from Plyn after all.
It was about this time that it was decided that Jennifer should go to day-school. At Plyn, of course, she would have attended the ordinary local board school like every other child, but such an idea as this shocked Mrs Parkins beyond measure, and rather than suffer the indignity of her grandchild receiving her education side by side with the poorest children of the district, she made inquiries about Miss Hancock’s Private School in St John’s Wood and offered to pay the necessary fee.
‘She will soon get over her silly shyness when she mixes with young companions of her own age,’ said Bertha. ‘Sometimes I think she puts it on when she doesn’t want to do something she is told. It’s sheer naughtiness really.’
Grandmamma made a sucking sound with her teeth, and removed a piece of meat with her knitting needle.
‘The child has been spoilt,’ she announced, ‘badly spoilt by her father, I should imagine. But then, what else would you expect?’ She shrugged her gigantic shoulders and sniffed.
‘Jenny dear,’ said Bertha, ‘run along.’
So Jennifer ‘ran along’, and went upstairs to her bedroom, and leaned out of the window watching the rain fall on the chimney-pots and the grey sloping roofs.
She shut her eyes tight and tried to make a picture in her mind of Plyn, but her old powers of visualization seemed to have deserted her, and when she conjured up the sea all that came to her was the wide beach and the pier at Clacton where Mother had taken her for three weeks in the summer. Even her old bedroom over the porch at Ivy House was confused now, and dim; she had forgotten the position of the bed and the pattern of the wallpaper. All she remembered was a fair tangled head on a pillow, someone who slept with his head in his hands and beside whom it was warm and comforting to lie - but his face was gone from her.
Somewhere a little girl ran barefoot on the sweeping hills with the sun in her eyes and the wind behind her, ships sailed away from the grey harbour waters to the open sea, and the gulls cried. Then she opened her eyes and the steady rain fell over London, the traffic rumbled in the street below, and the high, shrill call of the bugle summoned the soldiers in the barracks opposite.
Her first term at school was a success. She soon found that it mattered little how she did her lessons as long as her writing was neat.
In the middle of her second term a terrible thing happened which left a lasting impression on her mind. The principal complained of her and wrote to her mother, and for many weeks she crept about the boarding-house like a little criminal, aware of cold looks and shudders from her mother and grandmamma.
It happened that Jennifer had noticed a group of children in her form who sat apart over their milk and biscuits, and whispered in each other’s ears. She crossed over to them and a thin giggling girl with curls called Lillias seized her by the waist and asked her if she would join.
‘Join what?’ said Jennifer.
‘Our secret society for finding out things. It’s a sort of spying game, and we tell each other secrets.’ This sounded rather exciting.
‘Could I be captain?’ asked Jennifer.
‘Yes, if you like.’
Lillias put her arm through one of her friend’s and whispered something. ‘Ooh!’ said the other with round eyes. ‘Do you really? How did you find out?’ They clustered together in a group, nodding excitedly.
‘H’sh - don’t tell anyone.’
Jennifer fidgeted.
‘What’s your old secret, anyway?’
‘Lillias knows,’ came the whisper.
‘Knows what?’
‘How babies are born.’
A quiver of excitement ran through the group, with Lillias in the centre, proud and admired.
‘Oh?’ said Jennifer casually, ‘that’s nothing. Everybody knows.’
‘Do you know?’
She hesitated a minute, uncertain of her answer. She had never considered the question before. At all costs she must keep to her status as captain.
‘Yes, you silly,’ she lied.
‘Jennifer knows too!’ was the exclamation. ‘Tell us, quick.’
‘You can tell them if you like,’ said Jennifer graciously, and Lillias leaned forward, the words tumbling from her mouth.
‘They don’t come with angels at all, they grow inside people.’
‘Oh! - how do you know?’
‘I asked my sister, she’s fourteen. And there’s a funny word that tells you, I looked it up in the dictionary.’
Jennifer gazed at her in surprise. Was this true? What an extraordinary thing. For a moment she was taken off her guard.
‘Pooh!’ she said, ‘I don’t believe it. How could they?’
‘There,’ screamed Lillias triumphantly,‘then you didn’t know after all.’
‘Yes, I did - yes, I did,’ shouted Jennifer.‘I was only pretending I didn’t to see what you would say.’
The lame excuse was received in silence.
‘Anyway,’ she went on, ‘I know more than any of you ‘cos I’ve had a baby!’
‘Oh! you fibber, you haven’t. Why, you’re not grown up.’
‘Yes, I have,’ said Jennifer, inventing rapidly, dazzled by her audience, ‘I had one last summer but I gave it away to - to a friend.’
‘No, you couldn’t. Only married ladies have babies.’
‘Well, I did. People said it was a miracle. I b’lieve someone put it in a paper, but I forget.’
‘Jennifer! It’s a story, you’re making it up. What did it feel like? Did it grow inside you?’
‘Oh! yes, easy as anything. I’m magic. Mother says I’m going to have another one in the holidays.’ With this last bombshell the children melted away, awestruck, biting their fingers.
Later in the week when she was doing her preparation in her bedroom, her mother called her to come down into the drawing-room. She found Grandmamma and Mother sitting in front of the fire with flushed pained faces, and Mother had a letter opened in her hands.
‘Jenny,’ she said gravely, ‘here is a letter from Miss Hancock telling us about your naughtiness. Grandmamma and I are so unhappy we don’t know what is going to be done.’
Jennifer’s knees trembled. Whatever had happened? What had she done? ‘What does Miss Hancock say?’ she asked timid
ly.
‘One of the parents wrote to her complaining that her child had gone home with horrid ideas and thoughts that you had put into her head. Miss Hancock spoke to this child, Lillias, I believe you have had her to tea here, and she cried and said it was all some secret game of which you were the head, and the idea of it was to find out about - about babies and things. Jenny - how could you.’
‘It was only pretence,’ stammered Jennifer, ‘I didn’t know really, I’d never thought. But Lillias was so boasting. I didn’t do anything naughty, she said she knew how babies were born and I said I had had one, and that . . .’
‘Jennifer!’ Mother gazed at her in disgust.
Grandmamma sniffed, and then laughed grimly.
‘What did I tell you, Bertha? I always knew the child had a nasty mind. Do you remember how she used to wait about the lobby for the gentlemen?’
At the mention of the lobby Jennifer blushed crimson.
‘There,’ said Grandmamma, pointing at her. ‘Look at her guilty face. She owns up to it. She knew she was doing something wrong. A child of her age, with such ideas. Bertha, this is revolting.’
Jennifer twisted her hands in front of her, wretchedly distressed. What had the lobby got to do with babies?
‘Jenny,’ said Mother sadly, ‘I don’t know how I’m going to look upon you in the same way again. All this has shocked me so deeply that I can never forget it.To think my own little girl should have nasty, vulgar curiosity . . .’
She shuddered as she folded the letter.
‘You must write to Miss Hancock and say how sorry you are, otherwise she will never take you back. Will you promise Grandmamma and me that you will never think these horrid thoughts any more?’
‘Yes,’ she whispered.
‘You see, Jenny, it’s made me so sad I feel I can’t trust you.’
She looked helplessly across at Grandmamma.
‘Of course we know what branch of the family is to be blamed for this,’ said Grandmamma slowly. ‘Possibly it is too late to alter anything now. I wonder what other ideas the child has?’
She fixed her heavy, brooding eye on her granddaughter. Jennifer’s eyes fell beneath the piercing glance. Nasty, vulgar curiosity, Mother had said. She must mean things like drawing pictures of naked ladies . . . She had done this - perhaps Grandmamma had found some of her old drawings. If only she could fly somewhere far away, and never, never come back . . .
Then Grandmamma played her trump card.
‘I wonder what your daddy would have said to this.’
The room swung round before Jennifer’s eyes, her heart thumped, and spreading out her hands helplessly she ran from the room, anywhere, away - away - seeking some possibility of escape.
In July, Grandmamma, Mother, Harold, and Jennifer went away for a fortnight to rooms in Swanage. It made a change from the dreariness of Maple Street, and she enjoyed the sands and the bathing, and the nearness of the glittering sea.
These sands were spoilt by all the people, though, by deck chairs, crying children, and barking dogs.
‘Plyn wasn’t like this, was it, Harold?’ she asked anxiously, and he pulled her hair and laughed - ‘Rather not.’
She sighed with a queer feeling of relief, and hoped he would not wonder if she had forgotten.
He forgot to build sand castles with her this summer, he was always reading the newspapers aloud to Mother and Grandmamma, nothing interesting, but long, boring pieces about other countries.
As she rounded a sand house with her hands, and carefully placed a white shell for the door, she would hear him say - ‘England’ll have to decide one way or the other, you know, if it comes to a dust-up.’
Then she would seize hold of her bucket and run across to the edge of the sea to fill it, spilling little drops of water behind her as she returned.
Harold would tilt his straw hat over his face. ‘I don’t know, Mum, but it seems there’s bound to be war. Of course it will all be over by Christmas.’
And Jennifer made a moat for her house, and sprinkled the water inside it to look real.
One day it rained, and they had to stay indoors at the lodgings. Mother and Grandmamma were sewing by the window, and Jennifer had her painting-book on her knee. She was painting a sailor in a bright blue coat, and she had smudged the colour on to the white page.
Suddenly Harold burst into the room, a paper in his hand, and the back of his coat wet from the rain.
Afterwards Jennifer remembered this picture of him, his head thrown back, his chin in the air, and a queer fluttering smile on his lips.
‘Germany’s started fighting Russia,’ he said.
Jennifer went on with her painting.
6
At first the war made very little difference to Jennifer’s life. They came back to London after the holiday at Swanage, and by the end of September term had started and she was at school again. Grown-up people were making a great fuss, as they always did, and talking very big. During the autumn evenings Jennifer used to bring down her homework to a corner of the drawing-room - there was never a fire in her bedroom of course - and as she bit the end of her penholder and rested her head on her hands, trying to concentrate on the preparation before her, she would listen to the conversation round the fire in the centre of the room. Grandmamma had pinned a map of Europe on the wall, and this she dotted over with little flags to mark the advance of the enemy.
Grandmamma and Mother bought great balls of red wool and started to knit socks. Jennifer began a scarf, but she left it after a week.
It seemed to Jennifer that the war had made a new interest for grown-up people; they had started a fresh pretence of being important and were inwardly enjoying it, for all their serious words. It was amusing to watch them send away parcels to the trenches every week.
Grandmamma’s question, ‘Well, dear, have you forgotten anything?’ and Mother’s reply, ‘No, Mamma, it’s all here. Potted meat, biscuits, tinned sardines, and tobacco.’
She spoke briskly, and tying her parcel she snapped the string with a new pair of sharp bright scissors. It was only a game after all, thought Jennifer, watching her from behind an arithmetic book.
Gradually the men boarders began to disappear from Maple Street, and they would come in one day in khaki, looking very tall and different. The women could not do enough for them then.
Everyone left off sugar in their tea, and Mother, not to be outdone, refused to touch any butter. Jennifer shrugged her shoulders. This war would not affect her, she touched neither.
She was only a little girl who took no part in conversations and must learn lessons every day.
On her way to school in St John’s Wood she watched soldiers drilling in Regent’s Park. Sometimes they marched in long columns in the streets, their arms swinging in time to their feet.
She liked the songs they sang.
Who were you with last night
Out in the pale moonlight,
It wasn’t your sister,
It wasn’t your Ma . . .
Often they called out to the children in perambulators wheeled by superior nannies in blue veils - ‘Hullo, baby, how’s nurse?’
They were jolly and full of fun these soldiers, they didn’t care about Grandmamma knitting ugly socks, or Mother posting deadly parcels.
Who - who - who’s your lady friend,
Who’s the little girlie by your side?
They shouted this out with a roar, and Jennifer halted on the pavement, swinging her satchel behind her, and waved her hand to the men who waved back to her. These men understood how stupid it was to be serious.
Jennifer skipped along on her way to school, and that morning she realized that this war was something besides a string of words in the newspapers, it was something that could touch people. They were having a drawing-lesson in her form, and the mistress was Mrs James, a patient, ineffectual woman without authority.
In the middle of the lesson when Jennifer was behaving badly, standing on one leg and wavin
g a ruler in the air, the wretched mistress calling to her to be good, someone came to the door, and said - ‘Please, Mrs James, Miss Hancock wishes to see you.’
The room clear, the children indulged in an orgy of freedom, Jennifer leading the crowd over desks in a wild stampede. Ten minutes, twenty minutes, half an hour passed, and still the mistress did not return.
Jennifer seized the chalk and drew a feeble picture of a donkey on the blackboard, with ‘Mrs James’ written underneath. The children screamed with laughter. Flushed with success she rubbed it out, and was about to start another when the door opened and one of the elder girls appeared.
‘Will you please be quiet, all of you,’ she said gravely, ‘and sit down at your desks. You can start your homework. Mrs James won’t come back this morning. She has had a telegram to say her husband has been killed. She’s gone away in a taxi.’
The room was suddenly silent.
The children sat down at their desks and opened their books without a word. The chalk fell from Jennifer’s hand. She looked at the pencil on the mistress’s desk that Mrs James had laid aside hastily when she was summoned. She pictured her hurrying along the corridor to the study, wiping her chalky hands on a handkerchief, and opening the door, and seeing Miss Hancock with a telegram in her hands.
A nervous, plain little girl called Lucy began to cry noisily from her desk at the back of the room.
‘Oh! it’s beastly,’ whispered Jennifer, ‘beastly . . . beastly.’ And she remembered Harold in his uniform, waving to her from the window of a packed train at Waterloo Station, and she was afraid.
Children often stayed away from school now for a week, and when they returned they wore black bands round their arms. This meant they had lost somebody at the front. The food was horrid at the boarding-house.The bread was a dark brown colour, there was no jam, and margarine instead of butter. They had rice now, no potatoes, and stuff called swedes instead of cabbage.
The Loving Spirit Page 31
