by Anne Piper
I tried to be cheering up, but I think it’s probably true. It must be rather awful for the poor girl to have no one in the world minding about her.
Feb. 16th. School Certificate is beginning to loom horribly near. I’m sure I shall never pass, I wish I wasn’t doing it in the Summer, it’ll spoil the whole term, just when I’m getting quite good at tennis. (Just as well nobody else reads this — at least if they do they are a sneaking cheat and lower than a wood-louse and I utterly despise them.) Poor Prue, there isn’t a single game she can play even slightly well. If she wears her glasses they get misted up as soon as she runs, and if she doesn’t she simply can’t see the ball. It’s lucky she’s bright or really I can’t think what would become of her. She’s doing S.C. at the same time as me though she’s more than a year younger. We have started an acting club on Sunday nights. Just me, Phil and Browney, but of course Prue found out about it and came and hung round till we had to let her join too. She’s quite good at the girl’s parts, but she’s simply rotten at being a Prince or a Highwayman or any of the interesting things. She simply squeaks if we let her try, so in future she’s only going to be females which is dull for her but it can’t be helped. She shouldn’t have hung about in the first place.
We go down to the gym and use the stage and pull the curtains properly and everything. We choose scenes like Queen Victoria coming to the throne or Flora Macdonald rescuing Prince Charlie and then we just act them how we feel like. I must say Prue was quite a good Queen V. (apart from being too tall really). But Browney was best last night as the Scarlet Pimpernel. I think I shall take up acting when I leave if the war’s over. It must be a wonderful life.
Feb. 17th. Actually got 8/10 for French today! Can’t think what has come over Mlle. I am one of her favourites but even so she does not usually rise above 6/10. I feel just as frightened as I ever did, before we go into French. I keep saying to myself there’s nothing she can actually do to you. I’m twice her size and she wobbles like anything in her high heels, but even so she only has to thump her fist on the desk lid once for me to go all cold inside. She makes such an awful noise. We stand outside her classroom watching through the glass door, and waiting for her lesson and you can always tell what sort of mood she’s in, by the amount of banging and shouting she’s already doing at the Upper IVth and if anyone is crying. Then at last she lets them go (five minutes late) and we file in as quietly as we can, filling up the front rows first because it’s as much as our lives are worth to go in the second row before the first is full, (but we always fix outside the door whose turn it is to go in first so that the same poor unfortunates shan’t bear the brunt every time) and then we just sit trembling, and trying not to be caught looking at the clock, and waiting for the blow to fall.
Some days of course nothing happens at all, everyone gets through their verbs, and conjugates their participes passés correctly. Other days somebody slips up, or gives way to a nervous smile, and before you know where you are, Mlle. is off again — “Why do you smile, why do you laugh?” Bang, Bang. “You are seexty-seex geese,” or “seexty-seex plump-puddings.” “You are all nouveaux riches.” “Your fathers are all armament manufacturers.” Bang, Bang.
This bit always annoys Prue and me particularly as hers is a dead doctor, and mine not only a live doctor but a major fighting in Africa. I suppose poor Mlle. has never got over The Fall of France, but it’s a bit hard the way she always takes it out on us. We didn’t go to Dunkirk. Phil says the answer to “Why do you smile?” should be “Because I’m a Girl Guide.” But of course none of us have ever been brave enough to try it.
Prue got across Mlle. this morning. She was idiot enough to argue about the pluperfect of “pouvoir.” She’ll never hear the end of it. Mlle stood her out in the corner and shouted and shouted at her. We all felt quite pink, but Prue just went white and drooped.
“Stand up, you stupid girl,” Mlle. roared. “What is the matter with you? Do you hang your head for shame? What is that round your hair plaits?”
Here she seized one and tweaked it, and then flung it back at Prue. “Rubber bands, disgusting, and ink too, I expect. You think you are so clever, Miss Prudence, you think because you are younger than the others I shall treat you as a nice little baby, well you are wrong, wrong, seexty-seex times WRONG.”
Here she did a heavy drum solo on the desk lid, and to everyone’s astonishment somebody thumped back on the floor of the classroom above. It must have been Miss Jones, no one else would have dared. Poor Mlle. went quite purple in the face, we were afraid for a minute she would have a fit, but she didn’t, and it took her mind off Prue.
For the rest of the lesson she spent her time whispering for a minute or two, and then bursting out banging louder than ever, and then waiting for the riposte from above. She never told Prue to sit down but after a bit Prue leant against the corner to be more restful and looked over all our heads out of the window. Mlle. just ignored her.
Feb. 17th. Became a cough after lunch today and Sister gave me a hot drink to go to bed with. It is better than nothing though I’m still sorry not to be able to raise chicken-pox.
Feb. 18th. Old Frau Schmidt was so funny at tea time. She came wandering into the dining-room with a little shawl across her shoulders and her straight yellowy white hair hanging round her face, (she is always knitting, just like the guillotine), and made everyone stop talking and then held up a withered galosh and said, “Oo is ee? this galosh — ee must be zumboday.” Luckily, only the people near her could hear her, otherwise the whole school would have been in hysterics.
Feb. 22nd. Long Confirmation Class about using our “influence” for the good. I don’t have any influence on anyone except Prue so I suppose I’ll have to use it on her a good deal. Shall start by trying to make her stand up straight. It looks awful the way she slouches about all the time with her head poked forward like a tortoise. Really she is a disgrace to the whole form being practically the most untidy girl in the school. Perhaps I could get her to use ribbons for her plaits? But I suppose they would only fall off and make her hair more untidy than ever. We did Romeo and Juliet in our acting club tonight and Prue unplaited her hair and sat on top of a ladder with her glasses off and her hair hanging down and really looked quite nice for once. When you see her hair all loose it looks chestnut and shiny. Phil was Romeo and I was Mercutio. Of course we didn’t use all Shakespeare’s words, but we made up some jolly good ones of our own.
Feb. 23rd. I am very worried about my character. I do hope it is not too late to change it. I am going to write down all I think now and then perhaps when I’m grown up I may find it and remember what it felt like to be young, and sympathise with my poor children.
At the moment I have a sort of hunger for beautiful clothes, I know it is ridiculous particularly with coupons, but I want to wear nice bright colours and feel really happy in my clothes so that I don’t have to bother about them. At the moment I feel gawky and silly in most of my things and that makes me uncomfortable and self-conscious. It must be worse still for Prue because she is three inches taller than I am. I think I must be very lazy, at least I find it absolutely impossible to concentrate for long, even with this awful exam, coming.
Also I am sure I am selfish, or self-centred, (if they aren’t the same thing). I like people around me to really like me, and I am not good at doing things I don’t want to do as if I were doing them willingly. My parents think I argue too much, but I think they might hear me out. I must remember to let my children thrash a matter to the bottom and get it settled, which is what I am aching to do all the time only I’m never allowed. For instance at the moment we are at a deadlock about me giving up the piano; I hate the piano I am so bad at it and I make such a hash of everything I try to play, so that lately I have given up trying which makes it worse. I can’t try at two instruments. The cello is quite enough. I wouldn’t mind the piano so much if Prue wasn’t so good, but she just takes all the pieces I’ve been working at and sight-reads them much better
than I can play them after terms of trying.
I wish someone would ask me to do something really brave, I want to see if I am as rotten through and through as I am beginning to think I must be. I wonder if I were in London with Prue in an air raid if I would risk my life trying to save her if a bomb fell near us, when she annoys me so often? That would be a real test of goodness.
Feb. 24th. Really the food is awful. I suppose I shouldn’t complain as there is “a war on,” but it can’t be the Germans that put all the lumps into the blancmange.
Feb. 26th. It gets colder and colder. I don’t think it will ever be Spring. I put on four jerseys after games today, and the wind just cut through my back as if I was going down the cloisters in pyjamas. There was ice on our water jugs this morning. We were nearly late for chapel because we simply couldn’t bear to put the first foot out of bed. I never got really warm in bed at all last night. I got right under the bedclothes and blew hard and bicycled like anything with my legs, but there was always a nasty little draught creeping into the bed down my neck. My cough is much worse. I’m sure I have consumption really. I hope somebody will be sorry when I die. My sister Mary had her first baby this morning. It is a girl.
Feb. 28th. Mary sent a postcard to say my niece is very ugly and cries a lot, but she hopes I will like her. I don’t see why I should. I think babies are horrid. What a bore it will be having it and Mary at home all the time. I hope Tom will hurry up and come back from the War and they can go away and have a house of their own. I suppose Mummy will be fussing over this baby the whole time now. They are calling it Caroline.
March 3rd. Prue says how lucky I am to have a niece and that she would like to have any relations at all. She doesn’t count Aunt Claire. She can have all of mine if she likes. I’m fed up with the lot of them. Mummy hasn’t written at all this week, all because of the baby, I expect.
March 6th. What a pig I am! I am appalled looking back at the last few pages. Mummy sent me a lovely letter this morning. I expect it is really because I was sickening for ’flu that I felt so cross. Now I am nice and cosy in the San I feel a different person altogether. My temperature went down yesterday and I have read three books since I came here —
The Nine Tailors, Dorothy Sayers.
The Final Count, Sapper.
Gone to Earth, Mary Webb.
Gone to Earth was a funny one.
Prue and Phil and Browney walked past very slowly in the road yesterday. They sent a note saying they were going to, so I was able to jump up and down in bed and beat on the window till they saw me. They made signs of weeping and gnashing of teeth without me, and Prue shouted out, “I am a wailing wall.” Unfortunately just at that minute San Sister came in and I had to pretend I was standing up to tie my pyjama cord. She looked very suspicious, but there was nothing to see out of the window as the others had dashed into the woods. All the chicken-poxes are down on the ground floor, but I hope to be able to pick up a germ or two before I leave.
I am in a room with Snoop. She is really not at all bad. I don’t know why we all hate her so. When I get out I shall start a craze for liking her. She picked up all my knitting stitches when they fell off my bed and off the needles yesterday. I am knitting a ghastly great bag for the baby. I hope it will fit it. It is enormous but I am doing it on huge needles so hope to finish it by the end of term. Snoop did three rows for me and I read to her out of Gone to Earth. She thought it was funny too.
March 9th. I have had ten letters in the five days I have been here — and not all from friends either. I was most surprised to get one from Trounce. I didn’t think she liked me at all. Prue’s yesterday was rather pathetic. She had been rude to Phil. Of course she was sorry immediately after, she always is, but it was too late and Phil says she won’t speak to her till I come back and she has to. I sometimes wonder if God has given me Prue to prevent me enjoying myself too much on this earth. If it weren’t for her (and School Certificate and the war), everything would be just perfect now. But I suppose one of the first lessons of life is that nothing ever is perfect. Well, I feel I’ve learnt that lesson now and I should like a change of imperfections. I’m just soft really. I wouldn’t be strong minded enough to bear Prue’s reproachful look if I cast her off. But she’ll simply have to grow up and stand on her own feet some time. I can’t possibly look after her all her life. I’ll probably get married, at least I hope so. I don’t see why not if Mary did and she’s not at all particularly pretty.
March 12th. I’m to go back tomorrow. In time for French unfortunately. Another letter from Mummy this morning suggesting that I bring Prue home for some of the holidays. I’d much rather take Phil but she has such fun at home she wouldn’t want to come. Oh blast. Still I suppose it will be a good thing to have someone there to talk to because everyone will be wasping round the wretched baby — and we can revise together anyway.
March 21st. Oh dear, more than a week behind with my diary. There was such a lot to catch up on when I came out of the San and now tomorrow is Confirmation and I’m sure I’m not Good enough for it. Talked for ages in the bath tonight to Browney about how difficult it is to be good. She doesn’t worry like I do, she thinks as long as she tries to be good God will count that, but I can’t seem to try for more than two minutes on end. After that I just forget and say things like I did to Prue this evening. She wanted to borrow my nail file and I suddenly felt beastly and said, “Why on earth can’t you get one of your own? or if you must borrow, borrow from someone else for a change; you’ll only lose it, and I’m sick of looking after you.”
She just blinked her big eyes for a minute and went away without saying a single word. I felt Awful, and I haven’t managed to find her yet to make it up again. Nor have I told her about the holidays.
March 22nd. So many things have happened today that I can’t believe it’s all only taken one day. I went across to Prue’s room first thing to say I was sorry about last night and she WASN’T THERE. Biff said they thought she must have gone to the San because she didn’t come in all night. I rushed up to Surgery and asked Sister if she’d gone to the San and she said no and became very worried at once, and I had to go with her to Miss A. and say what had happened, and then A. sent for Janet and told her to tell only the prefects, and it still wasn’t quite breakfast time. They rang up the police and the doctor and it was all awful and then they sent me to breakfast, but not to tell anybody but I told Mummy when she arrived at ten o’clock and she went and was shut in with Miss A. for twenty minutes and I couldn’t enjoy having on my new blue dress, and the veil simply wouldn’t stay right and at eleven o’clock it was Confirmation and I sat there thinking maybe I was a murderess, and would the Bishop bless me if he knew ALL. And I couldn’t get any Beautiful Thoughts into my head at all, the whole thing was spoilt, I just kept trying to imagine what it was like to be poor Prue, and what I’d have done in her place and couldn’t imagine at all because I couldn’t imagine, A) having so few friends as she has, B) being as upset as she must have been by a casual crossness, C) where on earth I would go without money or any loving relations to go to. I knew she wouldn’t dare go to her Aunt and be laughed at. I hardly noticed being confirmed I was in such a state. I’m sure no Holy Spirit came down when it was my turn anyway. I couldn’t have helped noticing that.
Afterwards Mummy talked to Miss A. again and then we drove slowly out along the London road to be like another search party. I wondered if they had begun to drag the river yet. Phil came too, but we didn’t say anything. I think we were both wishing and wishing we’d been nicer to Prue while we had the chance. We stopped for lunch at a very grand hotel and it would have been marvellous on any other day, but Phil and I could hardly finish our chicken.
Mummy kept saying silly things like, “I expect she went to London, darling.”
But how could she have without any money at all? I was more and more sure that she had done something dramatic like tying herself to a tree by her plaits. After lunch we drove back again, because Mummy ha
dn’t enough petrol to go any further, and Mummy went up to see Miss A. and came rushing down saying, “It’s all right, darling, they’ve found her, she’s in the San and you can go and see her for a minute or two.”
So we drove round there and Mummy and Phil stayed in the car and I went to the door in fear and trembling and San Sister was very nice and said, “Come upstairs and I’ll see if she’s asleep.” So I tiptoed up after her and she peered round the door and said, “Here’s a friend to see you,” and there was Prue lying in bed in a room alone looking awfully pale and without her glasses on, and she said, “Hullo, Liz,” in a sort of faint voice and I came forward and sat on the edge of the bed and said, “Darling Prue, I’m awfully sorry, it was all my fault and of course I didn’t mean it,” and Prue said, “That’s all right, Liz. It doesn’t matter a bit now.”
And I suddenly wondered if perhaps she could be going to die, and I got in a panic all over again.
“You are all right aren’t you, Prue?” I asked.
“Oh yes,” she said. “Quite all right. I’m just awfully tired.”
“What happened? Or would you rather not say?”
“Nothing happened exactly. I just wandered in the woods all night.”
“But Prue weren’t you frightened? And frozen?”
“I was too miserable to be frightened. It was cold. I took two coats though because I meant to sleep out, and then I couldn’t find anywhere that wasn’t damp, so I just walked about and leant against trees.”
“Like Caesar’s animals in Gaul,” I said and we both giggled. She looked pinker again. “What happened today?”
“I thought I’d hitch-hike to London and get a job, but I fell asleep in a haystack and a policeman found me. They were awfully nice, the policemen. Not cross at all, nor was Miss Anstruther. No one was cross, I can’t understand it.”