Mother Knew Best

by Dorothy Scannell

  We picked watercress from the stream in Wales and I wished Mother could have some instead of having to pay for it in Chrisp Street. The Welsh girls were beautiful with lovely pink-and-white skins. I never knew girls could have such lovely complexions, but their perfection was marred, for me, for I thought they had rather thick ankles. My father said it was through climbing the Welsh hills. It was the first time I had seen ants, and Winnie’s future mother-in-law thought I was a funny London girl because I wouldn’t eat her lovely Welsh cakes. She had to bang them first to shake off the ants. But suppose I thought an ant was a currant and swallowed it!

  Chapter 13

  Almost a Saint

  The parish church was the centre of our family’s social activities. My brothers belonged to the boys’ club and took their turns as choirboys, and Cecil pumped the organ. Amy and Winnie were guides, Agnes belonged to the girls’ club, Agnes did exhibitions with clubs and dumb-bells, Amy did exhibitions with a skipping-rope. It was fantastic to see them. I thought I could do fancy skipping, but I hoped no one would ask me to swing the clubs for I was sure to send one spinning across the hall to knock poor old Sister Kathleen’s head off. She looked after the church with Sister Annie. It was painful to meet Sister Kathleen. She had long bony fingers; she would place her forefinger forcefully in the cavity in my neck, holding my cheek from the mouth up very firmly between two other bony digits. Then she would ply me with questions about my dear mother and my lovely brothers and sisters. Since what I answered was unintelligible and the position of my mouth always caused me to dribble, I could never understand why she seemed delighted with my answers. My brother, Arthur, once told Sister Kathleen, when she had been describing the sewing-machine, that modern innovation, that his mother could sew faster than any machine, and she repeated this remark constantly all the years I knew her.

  We had various curates come and go while I attended the church, all lovely young men, all aristocratic, and so the maidens at the church were in a permanent state of being in love with one or other of them.

  We had, as a rule, thin serious rectors, and I preferred them serious, although we had a very fat jolly one once, like Edward Arnold the film star. So it was a sad shock for us all when he drank a bottle of carbolic acid one night on Hackney marshes.

  ‘Many a brave smiling face hides a sad heart,’ Mother said, and I was fearful for her for a long time.

  Then we had Mr Evans, the curate everybody loved. He worked tirelessly for the church and for the poor. He started boys’ clubs, men’s clubs, women’s and girls’. We all wanted to do our best for Mr Evans. Amy always seemed to be blotting her copybook and was upset as she valued his good opinion.

  Mr Evans held a concert for our local church talent. Everyone was there. Len was sitting behind Amy larking about with his friends. Amy, perhaps a little nervous at her forthcoming recitation, boxed Len’s ears, just as Mr Evans entered. ‘Amy, Amy,’ he said reproachfully, and poor Amy wanted to die of shame, or execute Len. Mr Evans called Len up first to open the concert. ‘A sea shanty, sung by Leonard Chegwidden,’ announced Mr Evans. A red-faced Len started by inhaling all the air in the hall at one go. ‘One Friday morn when we set sail our ship across the bay—phew,’ a mighty exhalation of Len’s remaining wind and the sad words, ‘I’m sorry I can’t do any more.’ Mr Evans helped an exhausted Len off the stage. Amy recited ‘Barbara Freitchie’ and the whole audience clapped so much she gave an encore. I was to sing, with Geraldine Fisher, ‘Won’t you come and play in my back yard,’ and I was dressed up in gingham, which I detested, for the occasion. Geraldine had recently come to the district. Her parents were old music-hall entertainers, and this concert could have been the opportunity for their daughter to be recognised. For weeks they had trained us, well Geraldine really, for she was a real trouper, had no shyness, and possessed a voice. I never knew what voice I possessed, I couldn’t make out whether it was low, or high, or a musical speaking one.

  The pianist started and so did Geraldine. When I should have come in I was still not sure what voice to use, so sometimes I sang low, sometimes high, sometimes in the middle. To my horror the whole hall was hysterical. Geraldine never spoke to me again. I felt ashamed and Dad’s friend told him I was as good as Nellie Wallace. I did not need this insult to stop me from entertaining in public, or private, again.

  We had Sunday school teas, yellow cake and watery tea, and we took our own cups. We went to Theydon Bois for an outing one summer, and, the first time I saw the sea, we went to Southend. Sister Kathleen was loaded with new clothes for children who would, of course, fall into the sea, and many of the children came back better dressed than when they went.

  When Marjorie joined the guides, Mother, feeling sorry perhaps that she wouldn’t allow me to be a guide, said I could join the King’s Messengers, a sort of new kind of Band of Hope which the new curate had started. He was a refined, fair young man, intent on helping the poor, but I think the East End had been a bigger shock to him than he had bargained for because he had a dazed look about him. He was very earnest and sincere and on our first evening at King’s Messengers (it was ½d. per month) as the membership cards had not arrived, he said we would all chat and get to know one another. He chatted for a while with dead silence from the would-be messengers. Then he said, ‘Shall we tell some funny stories?’ My friends were delighted, but my heart sank, I was forever afraid we would be shown up in front of the upper classes. He told a few funny stories at which no one laughed, which puzzled him a bit, then seeing my friend, Lizzie, Lizzie of the hoarse voice, eagerly fidgeting, he said, ‘I believe dear Lizzie has a really good story for us, let’s all pay attention and listen to Lizzie.’

  Little Lizzie started and I dreaded to hear the end of the story, knowing Lizzie. Her story was the one where two old ladies are sitting on a tram when along comes a man with a donkey-barrow full of peas. One old lady remarks she hasn’t had a pea for years and the barrow man says, ‘Gee-up, Neddy, there’s going to be a flood.’ The curate was shocked to the core. Such a story at King’s Messengers. Then Lizzie, no one could stop her now, said, ‘The tram-driver can say, all those who can’t swim, please go on top.’ The curate swallowed and said, ‘Yes, well, perhaps we will leave early tonight as it is our first night,’ and we ended with a prayer. Lizzie laughed all the way out of the hall and went off down the street laughing. Disgusted with my friend I ran home to tell Mother. She laughed and said she didn’t think the curate would have a story night again.

  Later when I was to be confirmed by the Bishop of Stepney and was beginning to be a saint—I know I looked like one and tried to behave like one—Cecil became a problem. He was in the choir and was a giggler, it didn’t need much to start him laughing, and he complained to Mother that I made him laugh in church when I genuflected low before entering the pew and then looked at him with a very solemn face. Then all his friends would start too and the choirmaster had to read the riot act to them. I was ordered by Mother to sit at the back of the church far away from the choir stalls; I did this obediently but I sat at the end of the pew near the aisle and when I knew the choir was approaching I would innocently turn round and look at Cecil, and he still started to giggle at me, but Mother had nowhere else to banish me to.

  Sister Annie took me for confirmation classes and taught me the catechism. I learnt the ten commandments religiously for I remembered what happened to Amy when she attended confirmation classes. The Sister then in charge was very, very old, very, very bent, with a permanent shake and a deep man’s voice and craggy face I found frightening. She would call out the number of a commandment and wait for a girl to recite the correct commandment. The only one Amy had learnt was ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery.’ She knew neither the number nor the meaning of this commandment, so that whatever number the sister called out, Amy recited in her loud voice, ‘Thou should not commit adultery.’ She knew she would have to be right once out of ten; Sister’s stern admonishment for Amy to be silent each time she was wrong made n
o difference to the eager Amy, determined to shine on at least one commandment. Finally the ancient virgin’s righteous indignation at Amy’s insistence on this terrible recital was brought to breaking-point and Amy was dismissed from the class. Arriving home in disgrace Mother tutted at Amy’s brazen demeanour which Father thought comical, and so I was very careful to learn all the commandments with their appropriate numbers. I thought I should finally be turned into a saint when the bishop laid his hands on me, but nothing happened. I heard no voice calling me to Him and I felt I had been let down. Marjorie heard beautiful music when the bishop laid his hands on her head, and I felt quite envious of her state of grace.

  I must have been a little saint-like though, for I was chosen to be a Sunday school teacher in the little kindergarten and I told the children lovely bible stories. One day the superintendent was away and I had to take the collection. This was then taken to the church and blessed at the evening service with the adult collection. I didn’t do very well, perhaps the little children thought I was not a real grown-up, no one to be afraid of, and they didn’t put their money in the little velvet bag I passed among them. It had a gold cross embroidered on it. The collection came to 3½d., and I got reading after Sunday school and forgot to take it to church that evening. It remained in my bedroom and I borrowed a penny from it for something or other, knowing Winnie would give me a penny to replace it for the following Sunday’s blessing. Mother found the collection bag, this holy receptacle, in my bedroom, was horrified it should be there at all, more horrified I had borrowed from it. ‘Those who go a-borrowing, go a-sorrowing,’ she said sternly to me, frightening me very much for I hadn’t borrowed human money but holy gold. She put the penny in and I was despatched to the rectory, trying to make up a story about the delay which would ring true. The maid showed me into the waiting-room at the rectory and I enjoyed the time I had to wait, for the rector was having a musical evening and the strains on the cello were lovely and sad. I think he was annoyed about being dragged away in the middle of the recital, and I somehow don’t think he believed my story, and he looked a little aghast at the size of the collection.

  A little while before I was due to leave school, Sister Kathleen asked Mother to bring me to a garden party which was to be held in the grounds of the rectory. A gentleman from the City was to open the fete and Sister Kathleen wanted to introduce us to him for she felt, indeed she had no doubt, that my bright and smiling countenance and Mother’s ladylike appearance would ensure for me a situation in the City gentleman’s firm. In addition to my cheerful face I was of course, sober, respectable, and most important, Church of England. The joint belief of Sister Kathleen and my mother, that a wonderful future was assured for me, was not, however, shared by me. I felt it was a pity that I had been in the school choir solely because of the winning smile Miss Wilkie asserted I possessed, for it seemed I was being compelled to wear a fixed grin when at heart I felt depressed and unsure of myself.

  Adult confidence in me only made me feel more certain I was incapable. It was assumed that the larger and poorer a family, the tougher, less sensitive, are its members, not only because they had learned to share everything, but also because the home truths administered by brothers and sisters automatically knocked off all prickly corners. Outwardly I may have appeared as confident as the rest of the family but inwardly I possessed an inferiority complex because I knew I was inferior. Supposed compliments dished out to me by family and friends, intended to bolster me up, were delivered in such a way as to cast me further down. While I was reading they would say ‘The trouble with Dolly is…’ or, ‘Funny, I never noticed before that Dolly’s hair is golden in the sun,’ or ‘At least Dolly has good ankles,’ so these remarks, prefaced as they were with suspect words, I took for condolences, and became more despondent and inwardly nervous.

  Mother decided I should have a new dress for my coming out and Miss Cook made me a special one for the occasion. It was cream silk with cream georgette sleeves. I didn’t like the shape of the frock for it was low-waisted, if waist was the right word, for the wide sash was just about crutch level and to make matters worse in the centre at the front of the sash was a large rose, made of the silk material. This rose Miss Cook had corded and it was much admired by Mother. The large full georgette sleeves, tight at the embroidered cuffs, I thought were very beautiful and romantic. Of course, for a garden party, a hat must be worn, and that was where the difficulty would arise, for everyone agreed, ‘Dolly hasn’t got a hat face.’ My sisters could look attractive even in the little egg-cosies they knitted in one evening. When I tried any of these on even Mother laughed and Father rubbed his head. But Mother was sure somewhere there was a hat to suit Dolly, and Marjorie was despatched with me to purchase and seek this creation. She was truthful and sensible, and we would arrive home with this crowning glory.

  The Poplar shops were unable to accommodate me, one assistant remarking sourly that if none of the hats in her shop suited me I wouldn’t get a hat anywhere. Mother was so determined I should be successful that she despatched us to Lewisham where there was a magnificent store. ‘Why,’ said Mother, ‘the gentry shop there.’

  The Lewisham store had large and heavy swing doors. These appeared to close, then suddenly exuded a noisy hiss, giving an unwary customer a firm push in the back. Standing outside these swing doors when we arrived was a tiny old lady. She wasn’t wearing the usual black granny uniform but we could tell she was as old as a granny in her little metal-framed spectacles. She was dressed in a large coarse grey type of army greatcoat which almost reached the pavement and nearly covered her tiny buttoned boots. Her grey hand-knitted hat, with a large black button at each side, was like an upturned rowing-boat, and as she wore this sideways on her head I thought she looked like a miniature Napoleon, but Marjorie whispered to me that the old lady must be an orphan. I would have told Marjorie that all very old ladies were orphans, but I didn’t want to upset Marjorie for she was to help me buy a hat.

  We pushed open the heavy doors by concerted effort and the old lady trotted with us to the hat department where the kind assistant offered to leave us to choose a hat by ourselves. She stationed herself a short way from us but assumed an athletic pose, ready to dash forward when we had made our choice which she seemed to assume would be a rapid one. But each hat I tried on made me feel more depressed and Marjorie and the old lady more hysterical, although they both tried to hide their amusement from me. Whenever I became suicidally miserable some quirk in my nature always came to my aid and put a comical thought into my mind. When Marjorie passed me an enormous black shiny hat my first reaction was that it was a fireman’s helmet and that it had got into the hat department by mistake, for it had a band round the crown with a large brass buckle, a large brim back and front and no brim on either side. The finishing touch was a long chin strap also completed with a large gold buckle. I tried on this huge black shiny hat which came down over my face and turning to little ‘orphan Annie’, I said, ‘Keep the fire going until I get there.’ Marjorie crossed her legs like a pantomime horse and started to bleat like a goat, the old lady’s teeth fell down and she shook like a little skeleton; putting out a hand to steady herself she knocked over a hat stand on which was displayed a beautiful pink creation crowned by a bird of paradise. The assistant advanced menacingly, aghast at my dreadful and unmannerly behaviour. What would Mother say? I ordered Marjorie to take the old lady’s arm and we made our way hurriedly from the store.

  It was some time before I could calm Marjorie and the little old lady. We saw the old lady across the road and waved to her until she was out of sight. As we walked to the bus we were very worried at what Mother would say when we arrived home without the hat she was eagerly awaiting. In this desperate state we espied in the window of a tiny draper’s shop, a cream straw hat. Its brim was turned up on one side and edged with brown ribbon. As it was the colour of my new dress I went in and tried it on. It was pronounced ‘ladylike’ by Marjorie, this would please Mother, and
so we bought it. It cost 2s. 11¾d. and so we also had a packet of pins to bring home to Mother. She said ‘h’mm’ when I tried on the hat at home, and David said it was the shape of the dustman’s hat.

  On the Saturday afternoon of the garden party I repaired to my bedroom to make myself into a lady. I left off my woollen combinations because they would have shown through the lovely georgette sleeves of the frock. After examining myself from all angles in the mottled swing mirror on the chest of drawers (I thought my arms showing through the georgette sleeves, the most beautiful I had ever seen), I walked slowly and gracefully down the stairs to receive Mother’s approval, which I was sure would be ecstatic. Therefore I was unprepared for her look of horror and disgust, and all because I had removed my woollen combinations. I was ‘almost naked,’ she insisted sternly. After arguing with Mother until she lost her temper I went upstairs in a fearful rage and put the wretched combinations on again. The elbow length sleeves looked dreadful under the beautiful georgette but Mother said my arms were now much more ladylike and so we set off, me with the sulks, no winning smile which was to obtain for me a wonderful situation in life. Mother had a beautiful tricorne straw hat in which she looked lovely, but having rushed to prepare tea for the rest of the family, and after experiencing such a tremendous argument with me, she hurriedly got ready and in her haste and upset hadn’t realised she was wearing her hat sideways. I was so full of my own misery that I hadn’t even looked at her garden party ensemble.