Collected Works of E M Delafield

by E M Delafield

  Then it is the mother’s turn to stop listening. Quite possibly she takes the opportunity of turning to her husband and hissing through her clenched teeth: “Demandez-lui s’il fait un reduction pour les frères.”

  The husband, dazed, will simply reply: “What did you say, dear?” and there, for the time being, the matter rests.

  “Here we have our hot-air cupboard ... Matron is very particular ... wet stockings ... The Sanatorium — (not that we ever have any of the boys ill, I am thankful to say) — ... the Dining-Hall.... One of our Dormitories ... another of our Dormitories....”

  All this kind of thing is mere advance-skirmishing.

  The real encounter begins when the school has been seen, and the mother has said “Yes, I see, that’s really delightful” a sufficient number of times, and the Head has affably invited the parents to sit down, either in his own particular study or in his wife’s drawing-room.

  He knows that the moment has come, and opens with: “And how old is your boy?” in the most interested voice that he can command.

  No mother has ever been known to answer this question by the simple statement that John is six, or seven, or eight, as the case may be.

  She says that he is six and a half, but very much in advance of that age in some ways, whilst on the other hand, in other ways — but all that it concerns the Head to know is whether John is under seven or over seven.

  If the former, he replies: “Ah, then you’ve time before you, still.” If the latter: “Ah, then you want to come to a decision fairly soon.”

  In either case, the mother rejoins: “Oh yes. But — I know you’ll understand what I mean — we do feel that it’s most important to get the right school for John. In some ways, he’s so unlike other boys.”

  Some Headmasters allow the mother a free rein at this stage — others do not. They interrupt. They try and prove to her that they know more about her little boy, whom they have never seen, than she does, simply from their vast experience of other, exactly similar, little boys. But this is never a success. All mothers know that their little boy is different to all other little boys.

  In any case, it is almost always the mother who wins in the end.

  If the Head has known many parents — and what Head has not? — a word here and there will give him all the necessary clues, and he need only attend from time to time.

  “From the day he was three years old ... clockwork mouse ... Meccano ... really quite wonderful ... engines ... wireless ... pulling things to pieces ... a brilliant engineer cousin of my husband’s so much struck....”

  (A destructive child, interested in seeing the wheels go round because he is deficient in imagination and initiative.)

  But on the other hand:

  “Almost too fond of reading ... bookworm ... tells Baby the most wonderful stories ... goes on for hours and hours ... bound to write, one of these days....”

  (Probably a poor physique, spectacles, and might even walk in his sleep.)

  “John, I’m afraid, is not fond of his lessons. Just a regular boy ... anything to do with a ball ... so delightfully keen ... really what I call sporting....”

  (The average dunce.)

  The experienced Head takes these notes in mental shorthand, dismisses them from his mind, and never, in any circumstances whatever, refers to them again.

  In exactly the same way, his wife, if he has one, listens when her turn comes to injunctions about John’s physical welfare.

  “As a rule, he’s very good about his food — I’ve always been most strict — but about parsnips, I really have found that he can’t manage them. What I mean to say is, he really can’t manage them, I’ve found. As a matter of fact, I was exactly the same myself at that age.”

  This last is an argument that all mothers look upon as being entirely conclusive.

  “Yes, I see.”

  The wife of the Headmaster also sees, about John’s tendency to colds in winter, his inability to do without nine hours of sleep every night, and his peculiarly rapid growth. She knows that the curriculum of the school will not be deviated from by a hair’s breadth to suit any individual John, and she does not for a moment believe one single word of what John’s mother is saying.

  But the hall-mark of all Headmasters and their wives is scepticism, just as that of all mothers is a profound suspiciousness.

  Nevertheless, they all part from one another with earnest and graceful cordiality.

  John’s father asserts himself at the last by bringing off his question about the Drains, and is answered effusively, since all school drains are always bran-new and absolutely up-to-date having been entirely relaid the term before last, and John’s mother says: “Then may I write to you?” with a smile full of hopefulness.

  “Do — do,” replies the Head, equally hopeful. And the parents, so indistinguishable from all other parents, depart; and the Head says: “Thank God that’s over.”

  So does the father, who does not really feel that it matters where John goes, so long as he goes there soon, and gets plenty of cricket and football. But he knows very well that he has not heard the last of John’s school yet.

  “You see, dear, although I quite liked some things about the place, I do feel that, with a boy like John, one has to remember that one isn’t dealing with a perfectly ordinary boy, exactly like other boys....”

  And they go and look at the next school on the list — which will differ from the last one about as much as the Headmaster from all other Headmasters, the parents from all other parents, and the boy from all other boys.

  BEING PARENTS

  This, like so many other jobs, is no longer what it used to be. The bottom has dropped out of the market since the days of Edward VII., son of good Queen Victoria.

  Parents, after booming for many years, have now slumped. It looks, indeed, as though they were unlikely ever to rise again.

  In the old days there was an ipso facto meritoriousness about being a parent (within the bounds of wedlock) at all. The oftener, the better. Now, it is not a case of the oftener the better. On the contrary, the fewer the higher. Twice, certainly — three times, perhaps. Anything beyond that, and you are a case for Dr. Marie Stopes.

  The children, when they are there, give less trouble than they used to give, in one way, but more in another. There is no trouble about naughtiness, because they never are naughty — only highly strung, mismanaged, or repressed. It is often difficult, however, for a mother, especially when in a hurry, as mothers so often are, to distinguish between the highly strung, mismanaged, or repressed child and the old-fashioned naughty one. But there are hundreds, if not thousands, of little books to be a help. They say things like —

  “Never raise the voice, in rebuking a child.”

  “Punishment should rarely, if ever, be inflicted. When it is, let it be the logical outcome of the fault.”

  “Never use force, to coerce a child into obedience. Reason with it.”

  Sometimes it seems almost impossible to obey the little books literally. If the child that is being rebuked is itself roaring, beating a drum outside the door, kicking the furniture, or blowing a trumpet in one’s ear, it becomes imperative to raise the voice — to raise it, indeed, more than a little — in rebuking. Again, it is very, very difficult for some mothers to feel certain what punishment, exactly, is the “logical outcome” of spitting over the banisters, or putting small shells down the baby’s ear.

  To avoid the use of force in coercing a child into obedience is comparatively easy — especially as the child grows older and force, from the average mother, would seem likely to prove even more unseemly, and less efficacious, than the little books suppose. Fathers, however, even nowadays, have few scruples about force. They do not read the little books. Neither do they reason with their children. For one thing, children almost always win, in a reasoning match, and fathers dislike being defeated in argument; and for another, being just as often in a hurry as are the mothers, and far less conscientious, they prefer to sav
e time. But less is expected — now as always — of fathers than of mothers.

  Modern fathers do not always realize how much they have to be thankful for. In the days of Miss Maria Edgeworth, or those of Mrs. Sherwood, their rôle was a far more strenuous one than it is nowadays. Take Mr. Fairchild. At any moment his four-year-old son Henry might say to him: “Pray, Papa, what has the Bible to say for and against the practice of dancing?” or Emily enquire: “What is the process, Papa, by which iron is extracted from its ore?” Mr. Fairchild had not only to be prepared to answer these intelligent enquiries, but he had to answer them at immense length, with illustrations, and edifying examples, and quotations, and to devise conundrums of his own, designed to prove whether or no Henry and Emily had listened to, and fully understood, his explanations. He had to set a good example, in word — or rather, in many words — and in deed; — he had to read aloud (from Paley’s Evidences, or kindred works); he had to take his whole family for walks — (in the course of which they almost always met some Poor Person, to whom Mr. Fairchild gave pious admonition); — and he had, when necessary, to administer punishment to the children with a rod.

  These strenuous obligations were imposed upon him by the convention of parental infallibility. It would have been entirely impossible for Mr. Fairchild to say simply in answer to any question, however abstruse, “I don’t know”. The cosmos of Henry, Lucy, and Emily would have been shattered — to say nothing of that of their parents. Even Mrs. Fairchild, though less omniscient than her husband, never went further, when cornered by her children, than to say: “My love, these are matters which our poor finite minds are not intended to understand”.

  Parents, nowadays, are never asked the kind of questions that the Fairchild parents were asked, so they are not confronted with the frightful necessity of replying to them. On the other hand, they are asked other sorts of questions, mostly of a personal nature, and beginning with Why, and to these it is necessary that they should return adequate and rational answers.

  It is, very rightly, no longer considered either adequate or rational to reply, “Because Father says it will be so” or “Because Mother thinks it best”.

  So that much time is spent in explanation.

  On the whole, modern parents make up on the swings for what they have undoubtedly lost upon the roundabouts. The ones who do not get it either way are those, rather less modern, who were once children under the old régime and are now parents under the new.

  MR. FAIRCHILD

  One has, perhaps, been accustomed to look upon Mr. Fairchild too exclusively in the light of a Parent — and an Early Victorian parent at that. But just as clergymen so often say that they are Men first and Parsons afterwards, so Mr. Fairchild must have been a Man first and a Parent afterwards.

  It is possible to spend hours in conjecturing what Mr. Fairchild was like (a) as a baby, (b) as a young gentleman, (c) as a suitor for the hand of the future Mrs. Fairchild.

  How, for instance, did Mr. Fairchild propose? One may safely assume that he said it with texts, — but here imagination is hampered by the fact that nowhere is Mrs. Fairchild’s maiden name revealed to us. During the years of their married life, Mr. Fairchild called her “my dear” and spoke of her as “your mama” or “your mistress” according to the persons whom he was addressing. The baptismal name of Mr. Fairchild himself is shrouded in similar obscurity, but it was probably Percy, Herbert, or Henry. Perhaps all three.

  I have seen only one illustration to The History of the Fairchild Family that conveys any real feeling of authenticity to my mind. It is in an edition published by Messrs. Routledge, in or about the year 1898. Mr. Fairchild, with side-whiskers, and wearing a very small pork-pie hat, a morning-coat, and a long, very tight pair of white trousers, sits upon the extreme edge of a rustic bench beneath a tree, holding a small book. Underneath the picture is printed the simple, straightforward legend: “Mr. Fairchild reading his Bible”.

  It was a good moment to choose. Far better than “Mr. Fairchild taking his children to gaze upon a gibbet” or even “Mr. Fairchild returning thanks for cold raspberry and currant tart” — characteristic though either of these episodes might have been.

  This business of the gibbet is still, after all these years, brought up against Mr. Fairchild on almost every occasion that his name is mentioned. [And it is, I may add, mentioned a great deal oftener than might be supposed.]

  The facts of the scandal are these:

  When Lucy, Emily, and Henry Fairchild were respectively aged nine, eight, and six years old, they had a quarrel. They fought, and were separated by Mr. Fairchild, who explained to them the evils of violence, whilst at the same time he whipped, with a little rod, the hands of all the children till they smarted again. “After which he made them stand in a corner of the room, without their breakfasts, neither did they get anything to eat all the morning. When John came in to lay the cloth for dinner, Mr. Fairchild called the three children to him and asked if they were sorry for the wicked things which they had done.”

  It will readily be believed that they were very sorry indeed.

  It is a relief to know that Mr. Fairchild, after forgiving his children, gave them leave to dine with him as usual, for a severe ordeal lay ahead of them.

  Their papa took them to a very thick and dark wood, in which they were assured that “something very shocking” awaited them. So, indeed, it did, in the shape of a gibbet, “on which the body of a man hung in chains: the body had not yet fallen to pieces, although it had hung there some years ... the face of the corpse was so shocking, that the children could not look upon it”.

  The unfortunate children begged to be taken away, but Mr. Fairchild — always thorough — replied: “Not yet. I must tell you the history of that wretched man before we go from this place.” And so he did.

  Mrs. Fairchild had wisely declined to associate herself with this expedition.

  A very few days later, Henry so far forgot himself as to steal an apple, and then deny having done so. With some lack of judgment, he committed this misdemeanour before breakfast, and was immediately “shut up by himself in a little room, at the very top of the house”, where he remained, without food as usual, until night-time, when his mama came to him and enquired whether he had been thinking of his great wickedness.

  Upon Henry’s assurance that he had been thinking of it a very great deal, he was once more restored to the family circle. Mr. Fairchild kissed him, cut him a large piece of bread-and-butter, and explained that he had punished him “in order to save his soul from hell”.

  It was not an argument which admitted of reply, as Henry, between his bites at the bread-and-butter, probably realized.

  Mrs. Fairchild, upon all occasions, supported Mr. Fairchild, and occasionally made spirited contributions of her own to the sum-total of the children’s information, as when Henry made enquiry of her concerning Roman Catholics.

  “The Roman Catholics, my dear, are called Christians,” said Mrs. Fairchild, “but there is much in their religion which the Bible does not approve. They make images and saints of holy men and worship them; they whip their own bodies, and keep long fasts, and make long and painful journeys to the graves of saints; thinking by all these things to save themselves. And now, my dear, you understand in part what the Roman Catholics are.”

  One is grateful to Mrs. Fairchild for “in part”. Mr. Fairchild would not have said “in part”. It was his masculine prerogative to be infallible, omniscient, and uncompromising in his judgments.

  Who can forget his attitude towards his unfortunate friends, the Crosbies?

  “I am sorry,” said Mr. Fairchild, “that Mr. Crosbie still thinks so much about eating. It always was his besetting sin, and it seems to have grown stronger upon him as he has got older.”

  It must be admitted that the subsequent behaviour of the entire Crosbie family, when they came to spend the day with the Fairchilds, afforded an excellent opportunity for the study of Besetting Sins. No wonder that Mrs. Fairchild,
escorting her guests round the garden, found an early occasion to tell them that “no family could be happy in which the fear of God was not the ruling principle”.

  It is impossible not to regret that we are not allowed to follow Mr. Fairchild into old age, or to see the results of his efforts on behalf of Lucy, Emily, and Henry in after-life. We are reluctantly compelled to take leave of him after his accession to a handsome property, in the vicinity of Reading. The last, and most characteristic, performance recorded of him is his gift to Henry of five shillings, to be expended at Henry’s sole discretion, for the benefit of twenty of the village schoolboys. Upon the production, by the infant Henry, of twenty packets, each one containing a twopenny ball and a pennyworth of string, Mr. Fairchild forbore to comment more severely than by observing that he was not angry, but he wished Henry to understand “that he has fallen into what is wrong to-day not in having judged amiss by spending a sum of money, which might have been made really useful to the poor boys, on useless and inappropriate presents, but in giving way to that self-sufficiency which set him above the advice of those whom he knew to be wiser than himself”.

  This is the last recorded speech of Mr. Fairchild, although it is impossible to doubt that his family and dependants were given many other opportunities for profiting by his eloquence whilst he continued in their midst.

  The rest must be conjecture — a field that is of unending fascination to the true lover of the Fairchild Family.

  THE NON-GARDENER’S GARDENING CALENDAR

  People in England who do not like gardening are very few, and of the few there are, many do not own to it, knowing that they might just as well own to having been in prison, or got drunk at Buckingham Palace.

  But curiously enough, the Gardening Calendar, which I have only to-day discovered (rather unfortunately, since it is already July), is likely to hold more appeal for those who know nothing about gardening than for those who make it the hobby of their own lives and the bane of everybody else’s.