Then suddenly, she wasn’t there any more. No explanation was given. One of the older nuns said: ‘She’s gone away.’ ‘Where?’ Edwina asked boldly.
‘She’s gone for a rest. If you girls cared at all you would have noticed she has been in ill health for some time.’
‘Without that money they’ll be in ill health,’ Fanny said.
They had finished the reading of Three Daughters. Marie, who’d wanted to be a nun, had married Beatrice’s brother Reginald, Earl de Woodville. And Madge had married Marie’s jolly curly-haired brother. And of course, of course, Beatrice had become a nun. Although she hadn’t wanted it, all that time God had wanted her.
Edwina was filled with dread.
Home for Easter, she was disappointed not to see Mother Scholastica at Glare’s for Mass. Evidently she had been there only a fortnight and then had gone abroad. Mother said she had looked pale and tired, with lank grey hair. To Father she said: ‘You told me always what a spirited girl she’d been – she doesn’t look as if she could say boo to a goose.’
‘She was sharp as a nun,’ put in Edwina. ‘Well, she’s not a nun now,’ Mother said, almost with satisfaction. ‘She’ll find the way is not strewn with primroses.’
‘ “Say au revoir and not goodbye,”’ sang John McGormack. Fanny stuffed a flannel petticoat into the papier-mâché horn of the gramophone. ‘Isn’t it lovely now, couldn’t you just dance to it?’ she said of ‘In the Garden where the Praties grow’. She affected an Irish accent that she’d got off one of the older girls.
‘Aren’t we going over to Bay?’ Edwina asked, for the second time. Fanny said, ‘Oh, I can’t be bothered.’ She bought a new John McGormack, playing it immediately she brought it home.
‘O list to the strains of a poor Irish harper…’
‘The darling man,’ she said. It was a day of warm spring sunshine, an April foretaste of summer. The windows were thrown open in her room.
‘Remember his fingers could once move more sharper
To raise up the mem’ry of his dear native land…’
‘I think you ought to go to Bay,’ Edwina said. Fanny said: ‘Whose relations are they, for heaven’s sake?’ But Edwina had stopped breathing. Spoken to, but not by Fanny:
‘And when Sergeant Death in his cold arms shall
embrace me…
And lull me to sleep…’
She was all at once long and thin, no longer short and a little plump but very very tall. And frozen.
‘Nice, isn’t it, that one?’ said Fanny, winding up the gramophone. That summer of 1913 she went to stay in the Lake District. They had taken a house for the month of August. The time dragged. Sunshine or rain, the days and nights were too long. Then back home and most of September still to go before it would be school again.
Fanny saved her. Most of last term although they were still friends they’d been on the verge of a quarrel at least once a week. Now she found Fanny had taken for granted her coming to Whitby. And as usual she felt that Mother couldn’t wait for the day she departed.
Two things happened on that visit. The first was that she began her periods which was embarrassing because she had to tell Marmee. Also she couldn’t hide it from Fanny who was immediately jealous. In fact she was moody for nearly all the time although she lent Edwina her Kodak. Edwina planned to make an album of Whitby photographs all taken by herself. Herbert suggested the best subjects. The other happening was that this time they did visit Bay: in brilliant sunshine, which she’d come to think of as Bay weather, even though for so many days of the year the same wind and the same rain lashed both the convent and the village.
when they arrived they found that it was Ben’s birthday and they were invited to tea at his house. They went there almost straightaway, taking Jack with them. The cake was just coming out of the oven. It had to be split open while it was still hot and then money put in. Edwina and Fanny wrapped the coins. Jack said: ‘Reckon I’ll get one. What I’ll buy wi’t. I’ll get –’
‘Counting chickens that’s called,’ said Ben’s mother, shutting the oven door. She was called Damaris and she was as fair and creckled as Ben was dark and stocky, with a plump face that looked as if it could be jolly but had decided not. Jack was still hovering. She gave him a friendly cuff. ‘Get away.’ Robert had appeared and Ben’s two sisters were giggling in a corner. The youngest, Becky, who was dark like Ben, giggled through missing front teeth, pointing at Fanny. Sal, who was about twelve and very fat, fair too, whispered something. Fanny tossed her head angrily.
The cake smelled delicious. All the coins were in now. Jack began again: ‘I’ll get –’
‘What’s he on about?’ Robert said, pulling his ears. ‘Fanny, hear what he had, Friday a week?’ Sal called out: ‘Lads get the luck –’ she nudged Becky and they both giggled. Fanny said in a superior voice, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about –’
Robert told the story, hands in his pockets, one leg up on a chair. A young man and his girl it’d been, in a motor. The usual: a fine drive down the village then the engine not wanting to start, to go up that hill. There’d been lots come out to help, all of ten, and Jack not the least. Pushing away. Very smart the motor was, a two-seater, and both of them really dressed up. Everyone pushing, nearly all little lads; the blacksmith he’d come and he’d given the biggest shove. Then the young man (he’d been wearing a scarf this long – Jack showed them, winding it round and round his neck – and on a hot day too) he put his hand in his pocket and brought out gold – a whole sovereign. Divided it up they had. Two bob Jack had brought home…
Ben’s mother had appeared again and just at that moment Ben himself came in, rubbing his eyes, shaking his head. ‘Birthday lad,’ his mother said, setting some currant pastry on the table. ‘You’re not to eat nowt,’ she said.
‘I weren’t – ‘ he began and then grinned. She said, ‘He’s been asleep. They were out early.’ Robert yawned, and said Ben had done right. Fanny sat all the while with a little lift to her upper lip as if the room smelled. She ignored Edwina. Ben’s mother told him to take a jug for beer up to the Mariner’s. ‘Keep him safe from the sly cake –’
‘I’ll go too,’ Edwina said, jumping up, not waiting to see if she’d be stopped. In the street she asked: ‘Is it true you sleep outside?’
‘Well, in a manner –’ He showed her where some wooden steps led up to a door on the first floor. ‘That’s it. In there.’ He pointed up. She thought only how she would love that, to go up to bed each night from outside. ‘Will you show it me?’
‘Some time, aye.’
‘No, now.’ She pulled a face but he’d already walked on ahead. They climbed the hill together.
‘Still at that school, are you?’ She nodded. ‘I often look that way like, when we’re out.’
She said: ‘I see the boats sometimes, if we’re out in the garden or for a walk. Brown sails –’
He asked her about the piano and her music. She talked the rest of the way and then most of the way back. She stopped only when they met anyone and he got wished a happy birthday. They turned off left to go to the house. ‘Can I take your photograph?’ she said. ‘Later. I’ve got a camera.’
‘Get away, you don’t want my picture.’ He looked at her sideways. She persisted: ‘But I do.’ He laughed, shaking his head so that she thought he’d spill the jug.
She said, ‘Will you be my friend?’
He smiled. Amused it seemed, but not surprised. ‘Aye. If you like. I could be.’ He had his hand on the door, just going in.
‘Next time I come,’ she said, ‘we’ll talk a lot.’
‘What was all that then, going up Bank?’ But before she could answer back, he was inside. Lots more people now. A confusion of aunts and grandparents, uncles, cousins, all come to see him this day. And no, they wouldn’t have any of the cake, it was for youngsters. Chairs had been brought in. Enough. She wouldn’t be sitting on anyone’s knee.
And now the excitement of the pres
ents. The best was a watch. It was lovely and very heavy. Someone asked, ‘Will it spoil in sea-water?’ And someone else said, ‘Mebbe now, lad’ll be on time…’ Ben was very indignant. He said: ‘Did I ever miss then?’ and immediately everyone vouched for him, that he was a great timekeeper. He sat, the birthday king, surrounded by gifts, by goodwill. If she’d only known, been able to bring something…
But she was so happy. Only Fanny spoilt it, sitting staring in front of her, not talking. Ben’s mother shrugged her shoulders once and winked at one of the grandparents but otherwise no one bothered. Even cutting the cake didn’t cheer her, even getting one of the coins. It was Becky got the most. Jack none.
Edwina had hop bitters to drink but Fanny wouldn’t touch them. Ben put on a funny paper hat that Sal had made him and everyone laughed and clapped. Then the grown-ups turned the younger ones out for a while. ‘There’s no way to breathe in here.’
They strolled down towards the Dock. Becky and Sal were still giggling. Fanny said as they reached the bottom of the hill: ‘I suppose you’re going to the sweetie shop to spend what you won – I’m going back.’ Ben shrugged his shoulders, raised his eyebrows at Edwina, questioningly. She shook her head. The girls went into the shop. Ben and Edwina turned up Albion Street. ‘Now then,’ Ben said, ‘you wanted to talk –’
‘I’ve nothing to say.’ Her mind was quite empty. Ben said easily, ‘It’s like that right enough. I’d to stand up in school once and say summat. Bye, I had it ready too. But there I were, dry…’
Blackberries, half red and half green. Ben picked out one, black, juicy, and handed it her. ‘Next week, one after-we could have maybe gone brambling.’
‘Next year,’ she said, biting into it, ‘next year then.’ She hiccuped loudly. Then a moment later, again. They walked on a bit but she couldn’t stop. Hiccup, hiccup.
‘It’s not funny. It hurts –’
‘Fetch a long breath,’ he suggested. ‘Slow like-no, not that way –’ She tried again. He put his hand on her shoulder, patted her sharply on the back. ‘Babies,’ she said, ‘little babies get that done to them.’
‘You ate too much,’ he said.
‘You did–’
He turned and began to run off. ‘Hey-this’ll rid you of ‘em.’ He ran faster. They were higher up now. They hadn’t taken the cliff path but were in what seemed to her like a small wood. She ran after him. He ran faster still. The ground had knotted roots, leaves brushed her face. Round and round, in and out, she was panting, her hair tangled. Then she surprised him, coming out the other side of a bush, pushing him down on the ground, tickling him. ‘Hey, give over. Give over, I’ll get ‘em, I’ll be hiccuping.’
‘Does it make you dindle?’ she said. ‘That’s what Sarah used to call it when we went all tingly. Sarah was our nursemaid –’ The hiccups had stopped. She thought she must have frightened them away. She ran off then and he chased her. Then it was her caught, her being tickled. ‘Go on,’ she said. ‘Do it again.’
‘What?’
‘That. Now it’s me dindling all over. I like it when you touch me.’ She wanted to say, ‘I liked it when I sat on your knee,’ but instead she said without thinking, ‘I hated it though when Mr Maycock squeezed me, you know, up here.’ She pointed. ‘It was before I had any shape – ‘ He turned his head away. He had coloured, dusky, angry perhaps. ‘What is it?’ she said hurriedly. ‘What did I do wrong?’
‘Nowt.’ Still not looking at her he began brushing grass, twigs from his shirt, his trousers.
‘But I did.’
Head bent, he said, ‘It were when you said-when you pointed.’ He said angrily: ‘I don’t – I were just – it was play, playing catch. I meant nowt –’
‘I never said you did.’
‘Well then –’ But they were at cross purposes. He should have understood. She should have explained better. Suddenly she was angry, as furious with him as if he’d been her. Angry with him because he wasn’t her.
‘We’d best go back. Time –’
‘You ought to know the time. With your lovely new watch.’ She said it rudely.
He was a little ahead of her. ‘I’ve spoilt your birthday,’ she called, repenting suddenly, hurrying to catch him up. He said nothing to that. Perhaps he hadn’t heard. She grew angry again.
‘How old are you?’ he asked. They were just going past the Congregational Hall.
‘Fourteen,’ she said angrily. ‘I’ve been fourteen nearly a month.’ He just said, ‘Well, that’s grand, isn’t it,’ kicking at a stray stone with his boot. They turned left, up past the fish shop. Two boys coming out greeted him. She thought, we will never be friends, not now.
She had planned to take the photograph of him down at the Dock with the Bay Hotel in the background. Now she didn’t think she could.
Almost time to go. They were standing outside the house. She had the camera. ‘Is that yours?’ Jack asked. Wanting Ben to hear she said loudly, ‘I shall have one of my own for Christmas. I’ve only to ask my father – he has rather a lot of money, you see.’ Tears pricked. ‘He is really rich I suppose you could say.’ when Ben was obviously listening, she went on: ‘We have twenty bedrooms in our house, main bedrooms. And acres and acres of land –’ Fanny kicked her.
On the journey back she said to Edwina, That was horrible, I hated the whole outing, the whole day. And you were the horridest thing of all. I shall never bring you again. Showing off like that – in front of my family…’
Fast octaves, as many as possible. ‘ “Shaking them out of my sleeves” as dear Liszt said. Now Edwina, we do it…’ Oh, the joys of being ‘back. Franz again and as much music as she could fit into her days. (Try, when looking out of the convent windows, when walking in the grounds, not to look north. Not to look towards Bay.)
An October afternoon. Cascades of notes, a difficult passage, repeat it, not yet right, take it more slowly-and then suddenly Vita’s head round the practice-room door:
‘You’ll never guess who’s here –’
Meresia. Perhaps it was Meresia. She remembered guiltily that she hadn’t thought about Meresia for days, for weeks. And she had thought that she would love her for ever.
‘It’s Mother Scholastica, only it isn’t – She’s Cynthia now…’
Edwina and some of the others hung about watching for the visitor to appear. They were rewarded later that afternoon in the library. Lifting her head from Baroness Orczy, Edwina could hardly believe what she saw. It wasn’t just the skirt, so hobbled, so fashionable that she had difficulty walking towards them-it was everything. The hair crimped into a mass of curls, peeping out from the angled straw hat, the fragility of the long umbrella. Greeting them all too, as if nothing had happened, sitting down with difficulty in one of the low chairs, talking to everyone, taking out a cigarette case and then a long holder and lighting up: ‘Do any of you smoke?’
Fanny said boldly, ‘I do as a matter of fact.’
Cynthia (how could one think of her as that?) said, ‘Oh, I meant amongst the older girls,’ turning away carelessly. She talked on. She thought she would probably spend Christmas in Austria. If they could only have seen this, that, the other. Everything was too this, too that. Life is very exciting, she told them. ‘I have to make up for lost time.’
Fanny sat there looking sulky, angry, disturbed. Edwina felt that the world had rocked a little. God’s in His Heaven, but – the proper order of things. It couldn’t be right surely to have become so different? Oh God, she prayed, don’t give me a vocation. It would interfere so terribly. She flexed her hands, the fingers restless.
The smell of Egyptian cigarettes lingered in the library all afternoon. Mother Bede, coming in, pushed up the sash windows, a look of disgust on her face.
A letter came from Uncle Frederick. ‘November, and St Martin’s summer here-I wonder how it is with you? I imagine gales and storms at sea and the winds howling round your cliff-top building! Nevertheless and notwithstanding (and this is my news), Adelina
is absolutely determined that we shall pay a visit to this Robin Hood’s Bay you speak of so often. She is very keen to sketch and to paint there and nothing less than a lengthy stay will do. Is that not delightful? Naturally you will be expected to join us for at least some of the time…’
‘I don’t know where I’ll be in the summer,’ Fanny said, putting the letter down. ‘I may go to Govent Garden, you know, to hear John McCormack. I don’t know – I might just go to Rhodesia. To see my uncle.’
Ned was the New Year surprise. He came to call just like she’d told him to, a year ago now, when it had been 1913. Philip was skiing in Switzerland with a friend from Oxford, Denis Kinross. Edwina was glad he wasn’t there to spoil things. But Cora was. She tossed her ringlets and sucked up to him. ‘I like you,’ she said, her head on one side, “cos you have laughing eyes.’
‘You look nice,’ he told Edwina. ‘Not so fat. Remember the cupboard? I shall leave school in a year or so, by the way, I’d like really to go round the world –’ He played the piano in the drawing-room while they were waiting for Mother to come down. This is all the rage,’ he said, singing something called ‘Hitchy Koo’, in a light tenor voice, standing up to play. It seemed he could never sit still. Then he sang ‘Waiting for the Robert E. Lee’. ‘The show’s called Hullo Ragtime and it really is absolutely topping. If you’re ever in London –’ Missed notes, relentless irresistible rhythms. ‘My little lovin’ Sugar Babe’. ‘I think I’ve rather forgotten the words…’
Mother came in. She said, ‘No, don’t stop.’ Ned had coloured. She postured, annoying Edwina. Her skirt, although nothing like Cynthia-Scholastica’s, was too tight. She said, ‘Really we must get the sheet music’ Then later: ‘The Americans, they have such vitality, don’t you think?’ Her behaviour quite spoilt his visit. It annoyed Edwina even more that Ned didn’t seem to mind. He had really, it appeared, come to see them all.
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