A Vicarage Family

by Noel Streatfeild

  ‘You are a bore today, Vicky. I don’t know why you bothered to come, if you’ve nothing to say. I wouldn’t wait to see me off.’

  The easy tears of someone who is ill trickled down Victoria’s cheeks.

  ‘Don’t be so mean. We’ve hardly talked all the holidays, because of your influenza and Dick being there. I don’t know any of the things that happened to you last year.’

  John was disgusted by the tears.

  ‘I’ll tell you at Easter. There’s no need to blub.’

  ‘I can’t help it,’ Victoria sniffled, reduced at last to truthfulness. ‘I feel simply awful.’

  John, who until that moment – like most male invalids – had thought of nobody but himself, gave Victoria first a quick look and then a concerned one. He felt her forehead.

  ‘You silly juggins! You should be in bed. You’re awfully hot, I bet you’re getting influenza, for that’s just how I was when I started. Look …’ he took some silver from his pocket, ‘go and find the station taxi and when you get back go straight to bed, and let Aunt Sylvia send for the doctor.’

  Victoria felt too ill to argue, and was thankful to fall into the taxi and be driven home, with her eyes shut. When she reached the vicarage, how she arrived – or in what condition – passed unnoticed, for Louise had collapsed with influenza in a far more dramatic way; she had what was then called ‘fainted dead away’. Though she did not know it, the children’s mother was also catching influenza, and so was not entirely herself, or, even though she was worried about Louise, she would have noticed that Victoria was ill. Instead, Victoria, slowly pulling herself upstairs to bed, was greeted by:

  ‘Don’t crawl about like that, Vicky. Louise is ill. Run to the kitchen and ask Annie to put on a kettle for a hot water bottle.’ Then, hanging over the banisters, she called: ‘Hester, haven’t you found that brandy?’

  Annie saw at once that Victoria was ill.

  ‘You sit down by the stove, ducks. I’ll take up the bottle, then I’ll fill one and put it in your bed. Could you fancy something hot to drink?’

  Victoria had reached the stage where she wanted nothing but to lie down.

  ‘No, thank you, Annie.’

  Annie filled the bottles and took them up.

  ‘And this other one is for Miss Vicky,’ she said, passing Louise’s bottle to the children’s mother. ‘Very queer she looks; proper go of the flu’, I’d say – worse than that one.’ She nodded at Louise.

  Louise, looking unbelievably frail, was receiving her mother’s whole attention. Except that she was not feeling well herself, the children’s mother was in her element – with Louise wholly dependent on her. She did not want to believe that Victoria was also ill; in some way it detracted from the excitement surrounding Louise’s fainting attack.

  ‘What a nuisance! I’ll have a look at her presently, but I don’t suppose it’s anything. She’s never ill. She’s as strong as a horse.’

  Annie gave the children’s mother a look which, as she told Hester afterwards, ‘should have cut like a knife,’ and with a sniff she swept out of Louise’s room, saying:

  ‘If you don’t want to trouble, madam, you needn’t. I’ll look after Miss Vicky.’

  And Annie did. She helped Victoria upstairs, undressed her, and tucked her into bed.

  The children’s mother did, later on, look in on her second invalid but, inexplicably even to herself, could only say grudgingly:

  ‘Oh, that’s right, you are in bed. The doctor’s coming to see Louise, so he may as well have a look at you at the same time – but I expect it’s nothing.’

  Victoria turned her face to the wall and tears trickled down her nose. Why did Louise have to be ill at the same time? It would have been nice, for a change, to be the one Mummy fussed over.

  When the doctor came he confirmed that both girls had influenza.

  ‘But it’s Vicky who has the sharp attack,’ he said. ‘Her temperature is 103°. Let me know if it goes higher.’

  True to form, though Victoria had bad influenza while it lasted, she recovered quickly, while Louise, who had not had nearly so high a temperature, was still too weak to get up. Then Isobel caught the complaint. She awoke shivering in the middle of the night and Victoria had to run for her mother, who was then in the crawling-about stage.

  Isobel was very ill indeed, and was left with a chest weakness – something which terrified her parents, haunted by the knowledge of Mother’s mother who had died of the so-called galloping consumption. Then to cap everything, while they were still awaiting news of the results of the tests the doctor had made on Isobel, the children’s father, Miss Herbert and Annie all succumbed on the same day.

  The children’s mother, still convalescent herself, was distracted. She was good in a sick room, but a wretched cook and no good at all at arranging attractive trays. Hester could barely cook, and had no idea about trays other than slapping on to them food which had been prepared by others.

  Victoria realized these things, and was worried that her father might be neglected, so she slipped into the kitchen when no one was about and started to prepare what she thought would please him: tea; toast cut in fingers, and a boiled egg set on a tray covered with the best tray cloth, on which she pinned a spray of winter jasmine. She was hurrying out of the kitchen with this offering, trying to get it upstairs before her mother came down, when she ran straight into her. The egg fell off the tray and smashed on the kitchen floor and the tea splashed over the best tray cloth. Any woman run off her feet might have been annoyed, but the children’s mother, barely convalescent, saw this accident as a last straw.

  ‘Really, Vicky! I would have thought a great girl like you would try to help, not to hinder. And why is this flower pinned on to my nice cloth?’

  Victoria’s mouth set in an ugly line.

  ‘It’s for Daddy. I care if he’s looked after, even if nobody else does.’

  Her mother could have slapped her.

  ‘He’s asleep and he’s only to have liquids. I wish you would ask me before you do things. There’s plenty for you to do if you want to help.’

  Victoria, also barely convalescent, looked more mulish than ever.

  ‘All right. I’m asking now.’

  Somehow her mother kept her temper.

  ‘Then take that tea up to Miss Herbert.’

  But the next day when the doctor called she asked: ‘Do you think Vicky could go back to school? She’s no help to me, and there is no point in her hanging about the house.’

  The doctor was sorry for the children’s mother, who always looked delicate but at that moment as if she might dissolve at a rough word. Kindly he patted her shoulder.

  ‘What you need is a good holiday; this is a nasty influenza and leaves the patient run down. I’ll have a look at Vicky on my way out.’

  After the doctor had gone the children’s mother said almost triumphantly to Victoria, who was listlessly lolling in a chair by the fire:

  ‘You are going back to school tomorrow. The doctor says you are quite fit now.’

  Victoria was convinced she was not fit to go back to school, and the injustice bit into her soul. There was Louise, just as much recovered as she was, lying in bed, while she was turned out into the cold.

  ‘It’s mean. It’s mean,’ she muttered. ‘Annie says Louise’s looks pity her. I wish mine did. I should think I would get pneumonia from going out too soon, and then if I die Mummy will be sorry.’

  At least Victoria had expected to have a triumphal entry into Laughton House. As she travelled on the bus to school (a concession to her weakened state), she could almost hear the cries of ‘Hullo, Vicky!’ ‘Are you better, Vicky?’

  But her arrival caused no stir, for half the school were late in returning after influenza or colds. Someone in her form did say commiseratingly: ‘Your face is yellow like a Chinese.’

  Because of her promise to her father and to Miss French, Victoria, according to her lights, worked hard; but because she felt ill-used
, she had a chip on her shoulder which made her crave for notice – even, if necessary, for notoriety. It was this which impelled her to spend part of the money she had been given for Christmas on green hair ribbons.

  It was the fashion that year for teenage girls to hold their front hair back with combs, and fasten their plaits back by a huge bow of wired ribbon – usually black – at the nape of the neck. Victoria’s school dress that term was a top and skirt of coarse grey material with a green stripe running through it.

  It was this green stripe which gave her the idea of matching it with a green hair ribbon. She had noticed this ribbon in a shop in the town before she had influenza.

  Victoria was not, of course, allowed in the town alone, but that did not worry her. If everybody else was going to loll about at home while she went to school, then she had a right to do what she wanted to – as a way of making up. So on Saturday morning when she was supposed to be taking Spot for a quiet walk round the parish, she caught instead a motor bus into the town. The green ribbon, six inches wide and stiffly wired, was still, looking glorious, in the window. Victoria bought enough for two large bows.

  Miss French seldom had cause to speak to her girls about their clothes. She was so perfectly turned out herself that she set a standard which the school struggled to live up to. Now and again after a birthday a gold bangle would appear, but usually ‘Very pretty but I should keep it for the holidays’ was enough and the bangle was never seen again. To wear coloured hair ribbons was unheard of.

  Victoria had not dared to put the ribbons on at home, for not only would she be ordered to take them off but there would be awkward questions as to where she had bought them. So, though she had tried them on and admired them in her bedroom, they travelled to school in her coat pocket.

  Louise was returning to school for the first time that day and Victoria had feared she might be a nuisance hanging about the day girls’ cloakroom, but Louise was no trouble for she wanted to see her friends, so for a few minutes Victoria had the looking glass to herself and she thought the effect superb.

  ‘Almost,’ she thought amazed, ‘I look pretty.’

  Her appearance in her form was greeted by gasps.

  ‘Vicky!’ ‘Your hair!’ ‘Wait until Miss Brown sees you.’

  But one girl said what Victoria hoped to hear.

  ‘You won’t be allowed to wear them, but I must say they suit you. Quite divino.’

  Adding O’s to words was fashionable amongst the young at that date.

  To the form’s surprise, Miss Brown, though she gave Victoria a startled look, said nothing. The truth was, she was not in a position to say anything. The staff knew there were unwritten laws about dress and jewellery, but they had no instructions to enforce them; that must come from Miss French. So Victoria wore her startling green hair ribbons until French literature, a class taken by Miss French which A and B shared. Then quietly, but so that the whole room heard, she said:

  ‘We don’t want to see those green ribbons tomorrow, Vicky. Black, please.’

  It was too much to hope that Louise would keep that story to herself. The moment she got home she was recounting it to her mother, her father – who had not yet been allowed outside the house – and to Isobel.

  ‘You should have seen the way the girls looked at Vicky – sort of half laughing. I would have sunk right through the floor with shame. But she didn’t. She just looked as though Miss French hadn’t said anything.’

  ‘But where did you get green hair ribbons, Vicky?’ her mother asked. ‘I bought you black.’

  ‘I bought them when I was shopping at Christmas.’

  ‘That’s a lie,’ Louise declared, ‘because you had to borrow sixpence from me for Mummy’s present. I bet you bought them out of your Christmas money – and now it’s wasted.’

  The young in those days had very little pocket money. The Strangeways had threepence a week until they were twelve, when it was raised to sixpence. But even then the money was not entirely their own: a penny had to go on the plate on Sundays, and since they had received sixpence a week Isobel and Victoria had to buy their own postage stamps. As a result the exact state of everyone’s finance was common knowledge.

  Trapped, Victoria completely lost her temper. She would punish smug, tale-telling Louise! In a second she had seized Louise, thrown her to the ground, and was banging the back of her head on the floor.

  ‘You beast! You beast! If I say I bought them at Christmas, I bought them at Christmas.’

  Their father separated them.

  ‘Really, Vicky, what behaviour! You might be a savage. But, Louise, you too are to blame. You shouldn’t tell tales.’

  ‘Well, make her show her Christmas money,’ said Louise. ‘If she’s still got it I’ll say I’m sorry – but she hasn’t.’

  All the family had received two and sixpence, from one of the uncles, and Grand-Nanny had sent each a shilling. There had been no other money at Christmas except the sixpence in the plum pudding and Dick had found that. Victoria should also have had two weeks’ pocket money; she had spent the rest on paper books and transfers when she had been ill.

  Louise was still looking pale from influenza and she had black shadows under her eyes. It had horrified her mother to see her frail baby’s head being banged on the floor. Coldly she said:

  ‘Yes. Go upstairs, Victoria, and fetch the money. But don’t come down until you feel you can control yourself. How could a great girl like you treat poor little Louise like that?’

  Every word was calculated to inflame. There was nothing Victoria hated more than to be called ‘a great girl’ – and the ‘poor little Louise’ was the last straw. She strode to the door, out of which she intended to stalk, slamming it after her but Isobel came to the rescue. Her words tumbled out on top of each other for she was, since her chest infection, even shorter of breath than usual.

  ‘When you come down would you bring me another handkerchief, Vicky? I’ve been coughing.’

  Victoria and Isobel had few secrets from each other, so at once Victoria knew what Isobel meant: under her handkerchiefs was a sachet in which she kept her money.

  So the door was not slammed and in a few minutes Victoria was back. Her mouth set in a hard line, for she loathed lying to her father; but in her hand was half-a-crown, a shilling and tenpence in coppers. She held the money out for Louise to see.

  ‘Half-a-crown, one shilling and two weeks’ pocket money, less twopence for collection on two Sundays. Now apologize!’

  Louise could always find a way out of her troubles.

  ‘You are a silly! I never thought you hadn’t got it. But if you want me to I don’t mind saying I’m sorry.’

  The children’s father said gently:

  ‘Now the subject is closed. I think Vicky, like the rest of us, is still feeling the effects of being ill.’ He gave Victoria a smile which made her feel so ashamed it hurt. ‘Now Mummy and I have some nice news for you: next week we are all going for five days to Granny and Grandfather to blow away the last of the influenza.’

  The five days at Granny and Grandfather’s certainly put the family on their feet again, for Grand-Nanny had great ideas about ‘feeding-up’ – something they all needed. But Victoria, for once in that house, was not happy. It still rankled that she had been sent back to school while Louise stayed comfortably in bed. She still carried a chip on her shoulder for she had convinced herself she had been sent back to school because she was not wanted. She kept turning over in her head ways of making herself noticed and admired. And her conscience continued to give her a sharp prick when she remembered how she had lied about her money.

  Of course Granny and Grandfather saw that something was wrong and both tried to find out what, Grandfather during morning prayers, Granny by one of her little talks.

  ‘Holy father,’ Grandfather prayed at morning prayers, ‘please help my granddaughter Vicky. That she may grow in gentleness. Thou knowest how hard it is for her to accept correction meekly. But with Thy
help all things are possible …’

  Granny, eager to help, on the family’s second morning in the house sent Aunt Sophie for Victoria.

  ‘As I have told you before, Vicky, I have a very special corner in my heart for you, but I am not very happy about you on this visit. Granny’s old eyes are sharp and what she sees worries her. She does not like that droop at the corners of your mouth.’

  Had any other adult talked like that, even her father, Victoria would have resented it; but Granny was special. She did her best to explain.

  ‘Although I really am working hard I hardly ever get more than B’s and that makes me feel terribly inferior – which I do anyway, for day girls are despised at Laughton House.’

  Granny stopped her.

  ‘Yet dear Isobel and little Louise seem happy enough.’

  ‘It’s different for them. They’re good at things. But I’m good at nothing … And then they’re both prettier than me.’

  Granny could not deny this last, but she could find something to praise.

  ‘I seem to have heard wonderful accounts of parish entertainments arranged by you. I should scarcely call that being good at nothing.’

  Victoria dismissed this for she sincerely longed to get to the heart of her discontent.

  ‘I know the doctor said I could go back to school after influenza. But Louise, who started when I did, didn’t have to. But it wasn’t just that once – it’s always that I never seem to matter as much as the others.’

  Granny was shocked.

  ‘That is nonsense, ain’t it? But you probably are having growing pains and they may make you think you feel things you do not.’ Gently she took one of Victoria’s hands and patted it. ‘I do not want to preach, for that is not what Grannies are for – but suppose you try showing a little more love instead of always asking for it. I think you will be surprised how it will help you, and how soon that mouth will turn up again at the corners.’

  Granny and Grandfather were really worried, and after a discussion behind closed doors decided they must talk to the children’s father.