A Vicarage Family: A Biography of Myself

by Noel Streatfeild

  Now there was nothing approaching nurseries under any name; instead, each of the girls had her own room, the boys shared one, and Miss Herbert – which subtly changed her position – also had a room of her own. The girls’ rooms were connected, Isobel reaching hers through Victoria’s; it had been chosen for her because it was a warm room and had a fireplace. Louise’s room faced Victoria’s across a passage.

  The boys’ room and Miss Herbert’s bedsitting room were at the top of the back stairs. The children’s parents’ room was at the end of the house beyond Isobel’s room, with windows looking over the garden and to the front gate.

  What seemed strange and rather dismaying to the children was that their bedrooms were all that belonged to them. They had been told there would be no schoolroom, but they had not managed to visualize a house where they had no general room of their own.

  Dick, always the most fearful of change, was the first to express anxiety. ‘But where do we keep things? I mean, books and games and things?’

  Because she herself had qualms as to how it was going to work out, his mother answered in a brisk, don’t-be-so-silly voice.

  ‘In your bedrooms of course. You and John have a big bookcase and a cupboard. What more do you want?’

  But it was not an answer and they all knew it.

  The trouble was the house looked big, but downstairs the space was given to two huge rooms. The drawing room had a small back room off it, which could be divided by curtains but which was in no sense private. The dining room had room in it for the dining table with every leaf used. This meant it could comfortably seat sixteen and more if necessary. Next to the dining room there was a small sitting room which was the one ear-marked as Isobel’s painting room but it was not big enough for them all to use at the same time. The only other room was the study. There was nowhere to lay out a game and leave it for another day. No room in which to be noisy and, on occasion, to fight.

  When Dick had asked his question, the children were standing in the passage outside Louise’s room, and the silence following their mother’s answer was growing awkward. She had not meant to face the problem of space the first day the children arrived, but she saw that she could not brush Dick’s question aside.

  ‘I know it’s going to be a bit difficult at first, especially in the holidays. You’ve been used to that big schoolroom. But there is this lovely garden with heaps of room to do anything you like. When it rains, except at meal times, you must use the dining room and, of course, you little ones,’ she turned to Louise and Dick, ‘could play in Louise’s bedroom … Oh, I’m sure you will manage.’

  As it happened, the rest of the boys’ holiday, which was only four days for Dick and three for John, was fine, so the children spent most of their time in the garden.

  The garden proved to be even better than it had looked at first sight. There was a small thicket of trees between the house and the garden wall, which the children christened The Wood, and which became very much their own.

  The field, used for grazing by a local farmer, and as a sports ground for the parish, was large and at the bottom looked over the grounds of a preparatory school for boys, which promised splendid chances when the school reopened for games of ‘I spy’.

  The flower garden was the sort that had space for growing flowers for picking, something the family had never known at the old vicarage.

  The kitchen garden had raspberry canes and currant and gooseberry bushes which, though old and badly in need of pruning, held promise. There was a shed big enough, as John pointed out, to hold a motor car – unlikely though it was there would ever be one – as well as all the family bicycles. These, except for the one belonging to the children’s father, which was in constant use, were already in the shed when the children first saw it.

  The best thing of all about the garden, apart from The Wood, was its trees – three huge, truly magnificent cedars born to be climbed.

  On the day of their arrival, all thoughts of being on the verge of being grown-up and being reasonable citizens were forgotten, and John up one tree and Victoria up another established a telegraph service, with notes travelling from tree to tree on string pulleys.

  ‘I shouldn’t wonder,’ said John excitedly, as he and Victoria reluctantly came down to earth because it was too dark to read each other’s notes, ‘if we couldn’t work out something to go in at Isobel’s window and out at yours. Think how useful it would be if she was in bed with asthma and you were in the garden and wanted to tell her something.’

  Isobel was truly happy. She had never known until the little sitting room had been made largely hers, how badly she needed a room to work in. To herself she called it The Studio, though she knew it would never officially be called that, since it was not to be wholly hers. But the shelves and the cupboard had been left empty for her use, and for the first time she was able to lay out her painting and drawing paraphernalia.

  She stood her easel by the window, and put clay models of a hand and an ear on the mantelpiece. She arranged the art books she had been given at Christmas and on her birthdays, in the bookshelf. A heavy portrait in oils of Elizabeth Fry’s Nanny, and a picture so much in need of cleaning it was impossible to state what the original subject had been, but which was known in the family as ‘The Nativity’, had already been hung on the walls.

  ‘I’ll see if I can’t get these put somewhere else,’ Isobel told Miss Herbert, who had looked in to see how she was getting on. ‘I’d rather have good reproductions than bad originals.’

  Part of Miss Herbert’s success with parents was her belief that everything they owned was of value.

  ‘We must see, dear,’ she said. ‘I’m sure you will only be allowed to move these pictures if some place equally worthwhile can be found to hang them.’

  Isobel looked from Elizabeth Fry’s Nanny to the mystery picture and smiled inwardly – poor Miss Herbert!

  Louise and Dick were not ready for even a partly adult world, and the new house would have been more unkind to them than to the others were it not for two things which changed their future.

  The first was announced by their father. ‘There’ll be a puppy next holidays, Dick. A fox terrier. I hope you can fetch him when we come back from the holiday, so you can start to train him.’

  The other thing was dropped quite casually by their mother.

  ‘Next holidays, Dick, if you are very careful at crossings, I think you and Louise might take walks alone. For, though Miss Herbert will probably still be here, she will have other things to do than to take you for walks.’

  Alone in Louise’s bedroom the two children gazed at each other, unable to believe what they had heard. Then Dick said:

  ‘We could take the puppy with us.’

  ‘And go anywhere,’ Louise agreed. ‘I shouldn’t wonder if we could take picnics.’

  ‘Explore.’

  ‘Follow people,’ Louise suggested, ‘like detectives.’

  Then, as the full glory came to them, they went mad, rushing round the room, pushing each other about, turning somersaults. At intervals one or the other would gasp:

  ‘Out alone! No Miss Herbert!’

  ‘A puppy! A fox terrier puppy!’

  ‘Just us. Nobody, nobody else!’

  The day Dick returned to school was the girls’ first day at Laughton House, so only his father and mother were at the station to see him off. He travelled alone to London to Victoria station and there was met and taken to Waterloo to catch the train to his west country school.

  Dick was well-trained to show a stiff upper lip, and somehow had succeeded on his first two departures in leaving dry-eyed. But he looked so small and pathetic in his too large overcoat and school cap that Isobel and Victoria, when they had seen him off, had to talk furiously about nothing at all or they would have cried. Louise was hopeless at seeing Dick off, for she had no belief in stiff upper lips, so she sobbed unrestrainedly until the train pulled out. It was therefore a relief both to his father and mother that th
is time the girls could not come to the station. Besides, their absence gave them something to talk about in the last horrible minutes before the train pulled out.

  ‘What a lot the girls will have to tell you in their next letters,’ his father said. ‘I expect Louise will start writing to you tonight.’

  His mother spoke through a lump in her throat.

  ‘I remembered to put a tin of those biscuits you like in your tuck box.’

  His father felt in his pocket for the half-crown he had put there.

  ‘This will buy some fruit and sweets to add to your lunch.’

  His mother gratefully heard sounds which showed that the train was about to move.

  ‘You’ve got your sandwiches, haven’t you, darling?’

  Dick could not speak, but he nodded and patted a pocket.

  ‘Goodbye, darling.’

  ‘Goodbye, old man.’

  The train chugged away. Both parents were thankful when it turned round the bend and Dick’s small, white, eight-year old face was out of sight. To neither parent did it seem cruel to send little home-loving Dick away to a boarding school while still a mere baby. There was always the British Empire to be thought of, which needed countless administrators, and indeed there was work all over the world for British gentlemen; if you wanted the right stamp of young men it was believed you must educate them right. If a country held a great place in the world, it was that country’s duty to train men to uphold that position – and how else did you do that save by your system of education?

  So, though his father could ill afford the fees and both parents were miserable to see him go, they were upheld by the knowledge that they were doing what was right for Dick.

  Somehow, against the lump in her throat, the children’s mother forced out:

  ‘Come along, Jim, it’s chilly. We’ll have some coffee when we get home.’ It was her misfortune that she sounded not brave but heartless.

  None of the girls could afterwards describe clearly their first day at Laughton House. Everything was so different from Elmhurst. But none of them ever forgot their first view of Miss French.

  Miss French was as unlike Miss Dean as was possible. She had come to teaching by an easy route. Her father – an artist of some distinction – had lived in Italy and France and there his children were educated, speaking both languages like natives. He had died when Olivia French was seventeen, leaving very little money, so she had applied for and got a position teaching languages in London. She had lived in London with an elderly cousin who had become fond of the girl, so when years later she died it was found she had left Olivia her not inconsiderable fortune. This meant the fulfilment of three dreams for Olivia. She would own her own school, she could be exquisitely dressed and she could take holidays in comfort in her two loves – Italy and France.

  Olivia French wanted a boarding school in a healthy spot, so she bought Laughton House. This came suddenly on the market, as a boarding school for girls. Probably she hoped to have the type of school to which the artistic would send their children – and indeed there were a few such children – for certainly great stress was laid on training in all the arts. Actually, the majority of the pupils were not artistic at all. A few were academically minded, and somehow got to a university, but they were rarities. What was aimed at was a good French accent and an intelligent interest, if no more, in the arts.

  Perhaps it was because the original pupils from Laughton House had recommended future pupils that Miss French seldom had girls of the type for which she longed, but she never gave up hope. Because of this, each new girl – even day girls who were considered below the salt in Laughton House – were objects of intense interest and thought.

  Miss French had looked forward to meeting the Strangeway girls. Naturally she was drawn to Isobel, the artist – but Victoria was a challenge. After much thought and prayer the children’s father had visited her on his own and had confided to her the whole of Victoria’s story, including the history of the magazine.

  Miss French had been not only interested in Victoria but had found herself immensely drawn to the children’s father. She had run her school without help or advice, but that did not say she never needed either; it was, she thought, a privilege to know such a sincerely good man whom she felt would in time become a close friend.

  It was not Miss French’s custom to force her personality on her girls; she taught them in class and she saw them at meals, soon quite naturally an opportunity would crop up for a little talk. Meanwhile they could get used to her from a distance.

  To the girls, used as they were to a huge girls’ school, the new school was full of surprises. At Elmhurst they had started in the kindergarten and then moved into the junior school. From there, first Isobel and then Victoria, had graduated into the middle school.

  The middle school at Elmhurst was as far as many girls reached, for the senior school was made up of scholars. It was because Isobel and Victoria had in turn reached the bottom rung of the middle school, that there had been talk of ‘now you are growing up’, and ‘having a sense of responsibility’. It was from the middle school that prefects and games’ captains were usually selected, for the senior school had little time away from their books.

  But at Laughton House there was no kindergarten, and only recently had small girls of from nine to eleven been accepted to form a class called officially ‘The Little Ones’ – and by the school ‘The Black Beetles’. This was the form Louise was in, and very pleasant she found it for the school, being unused to younger children, treated them as babies. Small faults were overlooked and a wonderful amount of time was allowed for play.

  The change was far greater for Isobel and Victoria, for they were in the classes which a short while before had been at the bottom of the school. They were now called forms two and three, for The Black Beetles were form one – but otherwise, their position at the bottom of the school was unchanged. They were treated as children from whom nothing in the way of leadership could be expected. When leaders were needed they were picked from the top forms.

  It was, too, the first time the girls knew even in part what it was like to be a boarder. There was no more scuttling home for meals. No more dragging home satchels of homework. They left for home at six finished with work for the day.

  Because the school was small – there were less than sixty girls – there was almost a homelike atmosphere which amazed the Strangeway children, used to mile-long wooden floored passages with classrooms opening off on either side, and to the constant clanging of bells. The classrooms at Laughton House opened off the main hall, which was carpeted and had flowers standing about. The school noticeboard hung here, but otherwise it looked like the hall in a private house.

  At twelve, when there was a break before lunch, there was a choice of things to do. Officially everyone went for a walk, marching two and two in a crocodile. In actual fact, less than half the school went; those who had colds or other minor ailments could read or play quietly in a pleasantly furnished little sitting room, in which in the winter there was a good coal fire. Others, who for various reasons would be late for the walk, could roller skate in a paved yard. Gardeners could always stay in to look after their gardens, for any pupil could have a garden of her own. In fact, Miss French, always expecting reasonable behaviour, let it be understood that provided permission was asked the walk was for those who had nothing else that they felt they should be at.

  All the school had milk and biscuits at mid-morning; that first morning Victoria drew Isobel into a corner.

  ‘Have you seen Miss French yet?’

  Isobel nodded.

  ‘Have you?’

  ‘In the distance. She takes our literature this afternoon. What’s she like?’

  Isobel searched for suitable words.

  ‘She looks like a lady in a shop window. She is thin and tall and she wears pince-nez like Miss Herbert’s, but the most gorgeous clothes. She’s wearing grey. It’s soft and all folds but it fits like a sofa cover.’r />
  ‘Did she speak to you?’

  ‘Yes, and that makes you feel you ought to curtsey. She took our Scripture. She read a chapter of St Paul, she reads so that it sounds as if you were hearing it for the first time. She said: “I suppose you know St Paul’s letters, Isobel?” I felt an absolute fool for she was so different somehow from anyone we’ve ever met that I stammered awfully, but I did manage to say “Yes”. She didn’t seem to mind my stammering for she just smiled and opened the Bible.’

  ‘Are you going for the walk?’

  ‘No. I’m never to go. Miss Grey – she’s our form mistress – told me. She said I could go to the studio and paint if it was wet, or I could sketch in the garden when it was fine, or there’s a sitting room.’

  Victoria had heard that.

  ‘I’ve got to walk today, but all the girls in my form play knucklebones, and the girl next to me, whose name is Nancy, said the next wet day she’d teach me.’

  ‘What is knucklebones?’ Isobel asked.

  ‘I don’t know exactly,’ Victoria confessed, ‘but it’s played with five knuckle bones out of an animal. You start by having to catch all five on the back of your hand. But there are hundreds of things you do with them. The game is to see who does all the things fastest.’

  That first day there seemed no flaw in Laughton House. The girls on reaching home raced in calling out ‘Mummy, Mummy,’ as they ran. Their mother was in the drawing room.

  ‘Well, how did you get on?’

  It was as if they poured out a sackful of news at her feet. What they had learned. What they had eaten. What the girls were like. Only Miss French had not been described for their mother had met her.

  ‘But you never said how tremendous she is,’ Victoria complained.

  Although Miss French had been charming to the children’s parents their mother had felt at a disadvantage. Painfully conscious of her hands which, however often she washed, were gardener’s hands. And conscious too, which was unusual for her, of the shabbiness of her clothes. She knew that the children’s father was completely blind to such things so she had let him describe Miss French lest there should be a hint of how she had reacted in what she said. Now she was glad she had kept silent, and grateful for Victoria’s word ‘tremendous’.