As I drew near to the study door I heard mournful strains of solemn chanting. I smelt something strong and strange, that I knew afterwards to be incense. In great fear I listened, and presently there were horrid cries as of someone in pain. Opening the door a few inches I caught sight of a dark room, lit only by a fire burning on the stones, three candles, and the festoons of paper which were waving half-burnt from above. I was too terrified to speak to the boys, who were stalking round the fire clothed in sheets, and waving their arms about. Suddenly Charles caught sight of me, pushed me back, and shut the door with the words, ‘You mustn’t come in. We are having druidical sacrifices and you’ll tell.’
With bitter cries of ‘I won’t tell, oh, do let me in!’ I had to go away and swallow my disappointment, sitting disconsolate on the stairs in the dark. Few things in life have given me such a sense of injury. Not only was I denied the fearful enjoyment of the human sacrifice, but I had been accused of being likely to tell! That was dead against the first law of the family. I don’t think Charles really meant this. What he feared was my discovery that he had taken my big wax doll for the human victim. When I reached the door it must have been then melting on the altar. As if I should have minded! What was a doll in comparison to the treat that I had missed!
On coming downstairs I was greeted by mother’s usual ‘Well, dear, I suppose the boys are too hard at work to want you in the study?’ ‘Yes, mother,’ I said, ‘they are doing something out of Roman history.’
V. Up to Eleven
I’m six years old this very day,
And I can write and read,
And not to have my own way
Is very hard indeed.
THE boys had the advantage of me in going about, but I had the advantage of them in not being sent to school. Until my eleventh year I was saved from the stupefying influence of such a place. Mother undertook all that she thought necessary for me, and was very liberal-minded about it. There was no nonsense about a timetable, but a good morning’s work was carried out. Breakfast over, my father seen off to the City and the boys to school, mother would ‘go round the house’. This ritual involved such duties as putting out sheets, counting the wash, ordering the dinner, arranging which of the tradesmen was to be blamed for something.
Then mother would summon me to her side and open an enormous Bible. It was invariably at the Old Testament, and I had to read aloud the strange doings of the Patriarchs. No comments were made, religious or otherwise, my questions were fobbed off by references to those ‘old times’ or to ‘bad translations’, and occasionally mother’s pencil, with which she guided me to the words, would travel rapidly over several verses, and I heard a muttered ‘never mind about that’.
After the reading, every word of one verse had to be parsed. Very soon I learnt the queer power of the preposition, for in such a phrase as ‘the word of the Lord’ I was never allowed to say that ‘Lord’ was in the objective, because it involved adding that it was governed by the preposition ‘of’, and it was irreverent to say that the Lord was governed by anything at all. At the same time I knew that He was in the objective, and that ‘of’ had done it.
After this effort mother usually gave herself up to her hobby of water-colour painting, seated at the end of the dining-room table, while I carried on by myself with a little reading, sewing, writing, or learning by heart, in the offing. Every now and again I would come to the surface with a question about the meaning of a word, or a bit of hemming that needed pressing down, or a piece of French poetry to be ‘heard’. As for English poetry, it needed no hearing, because I declaimed it about the house, but the French had to be rendered carefully, with poise and a touch of éclat. I can still repeat ‘Le rat de ville et le rat des champs’ from the drilling of those early days.
My English history was derived from a little book in small print that dealt with the characters of the kings at some length. I learnt how one was ruthless alike to friend and foe, and how another was so weak that the sceptre fell from his nerveless grasp. I seemed to see it falling. The book had no doubts or evidence or sources, but gave all the proper anecdotes about cakes, the peaches and new ale, never smiling again, the turbulent priest, and the lighted candle. I am glad that I had these at the credulous stage, and in this unhesitating form. They were much more glowing than if they had been introduced by the chilling words ‘it is said that’. I never read beyond Queen Elizabeth, and was really shocked when mother told me one day that a king had his head cut off. I rained questions on her: Who did it? Why? What had he done? Why did they let them do it?
Not as a lesson, but for sheer pleasure, did I browse in A Child’s History of Rome, a book full of good stories that spared none of the details about Regulus in the barrel, the death of Gracchus, Marius in the pond, and Sulla’s cold-blooded slaughters.
The home boasted an enormous atlas almost as big as the hearthrug, that I could only cope with when it was laid out on the floor. From this I culled a good deal, but all I can recall of my little geography book is the opening sentence, ‘The Earth is an oblate spheroid’, and the statement that there are seven, or five, oceans. I never could remember which, but knew it was an odd number.
For scientific notions I had Dr. Brewer’s Guide to Science, in the form of a catechism. The author was a Trinity Hall man, who must have made a wide appeal, for my copy (dated 1869) is of the twenty-sixth edition. It opens firmly thus: ‘Q. What is heat?’, and the A. comes pat: ‘That which produces the sensation of warmth.’ Later on, however, a modern note of doubt creeps in, for we get: ‘What is light?’ to which the A. is ‘The unknown cause of visibility’. But the field of ignorance is very small. Some of the information is human and kindly. Thus we have: ‘Q. What should a fearful person do to be secure in a storm? A. Draw his bedstead into the middle of his room, commit himself to the care of God, and go to bed.’ To this is added, in very small print, ‘No great danger needs really to be apprehended.’
I spoke of sewing, but I never progressed beyond hemming. Endless pocket-handkerchiefs for the boys were cut from the parent roll of linen, turned down at the edges by mother, and hemmed by my hot little hands while the linen was all stiff and shiny. Charles said that I put the needle in one day and took it out the next. But that was an exaggeration.
My dislike of sewing was as nothing compared to my hatred of sums. This was the correct word, for I never did anything but addition. Mother’s arithmetic was at the level of the White Queen’s, and I believe she was never quite sound about borrowing and paying back, especially if there were a nought or two in the top row. I had a slate on which mother put long lists of figures to be added, enough to keep me quiet for a good long time. But as the sum had been made out of her head she had to check it by working it herself. Next to ready-made pocket-handkerchiefs I think the greatest boon of modern invention would have seemed to her an arithmetic book of easy sums with answers. We certainly possessed a badly printed, dilapidated old Colenso’s Arithmetic. But this was vaguely connected in mother’s-mind with someone who doubted the creation of the world, and not reliable, or at least not to be encouraged. Often when sums were adumbrated I felt a little headachy, and thought I could manage a little drawing and painting instead.
Obviously there was no hard-and-fast routine in my morning’s work, and if the weather turned out tempting, mother would dismiss all idea of lessons and take me out, either for a long walk, or into the West End for some shopping, or by train to Hampstead for a sketching expedition. Such times were the best part of my education, for mother had had a richly varied and adventurous life. The darker parts of it I never knew till long afterwards, but her outlook on life, her opinions on people, and her matured wisdom became a part of me. On our long tramps together, in the intervals of my bowling my hoop, I would induce her to tell me stories. She had to rake her memory for tales from Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Scott, or any novel she had ever read. But what I liked best, and insisted on hearing again and again, was a description of her own doings when she was a girl. Her f
irst school had been at Falmouth, and after that she had gone to a ‘finishing’ school at Bath.
This was in the reign of William IV, when Bath was the most fashionable pleasure resort of the day. The numbers in the school were limited to six, with as many teachers as pupils. Visiting masters attended for French, music, and philosophy. Mother was frequently given lessons alone. Manners were attended to with special care. When the young ladies were invited out to tea they were set down to a meal of thick bread and butter before starting, in order that their appetites should appear elegant. They were commanded to leave something on their plate, however pleasing the dish. Nevertheless the work in school must have been solid, for mother could speak French fluently, had done a good deal of Latin, had staggered through Locke and Berkeley, and knew as much as could be expected about the movements of the moon and where to look for the various stars as the year went on.
By the way, mother started me in Latin at a very tender age. I can remember dancing round a small table chanting ‘’mo, ’mas, ’mat, ’mamus, ’matis, ’mant’. My enthusiasm was rather dashed when Tom suggested that I ought to begin the Passive Voice. This seemed to me an unnecessary complication—soldiers could so easily go on to the wall, without being sent there.
In addition to mother’s stories of her school-days she used to describe her amusements in her Cornish home. She was a fine horsewoman, and had tales of giving the men ‘a lead’ over a high gate in the hunting-field. Balls were rare events, but they were full of go, and evidently not the stately and prim affairs of mid-Victorian times. The day following a ball was the best fun, for it was the practice of all the young men to go round on horseback and call on the girls, to ‘ask how they were’, and so on. Mother used to smile to herself as she dwelt on this pleasant habit.
Very few girls of her time had travelled as much as mother. Hardly had she left school before she accompanied her father abroad on his mine-prospecting journeys. The most adventurous of these was a tour in Spain. Here the so-called roads were so bad that horseback was the only means of getting about. Mother was frequently in the saddle from early morning till sundown. I thought this was lovely, but she pointed out that one could have enough even of riding. Inns were of the most primitive. One large sleeping-apartment often had to do duty for all the guests. Early one morning, after a night of this kind, the innkeeper tiptoed softly into the room and besought them in whispers to leave quietly and as soon as possible. He told them that a number of banditti had got wind of there being rich English people in the place, and were intending to have their money or their lives. He had given them plenty of drink which they were now sleeping off, lying about the door. In a trice mother was ready to start, for of course she had never undressed. True enough, there lay some fifteen of the fiercest-looking ruffians, each with a gleaming knife by his side, but fortunately all snoring. They had purposely disposed themselves so that no one could pass through the outer ‘living-room’ without treading on them. Mother gathered up her riding-skirt and stepped widely and swiftly, choosing when she could a spot near a knife, so that she could seize it if the man stirred. Rushing to the stable she saddled her horse—a job to which she was well accustomed—and rode off, knowing that her father would manage better with her out of the way. He soon overtook her, having waited only to repay the sensible innkeeper.
An experience in Christiania was of a different and absurd nature. A visitor in the hotel was a famous chess-player, and was complaining in the lounge that he found it so difficult to get a good game—anyone who would stand up to him. Whereupon it was suggested to him that mother could play very well and would keep him busy. At this mother was horrified, but instead of singing low she merely declined rather haughtily, for she thought the man odiously conceited. However, he so begged and implored, and mother’s friends so egged her on with ‘Do beat him, Mary’, in undertones, that she said, ‘Very well, then, I will give you just one game, but no more.’ Overjoyed, he hurried out the pieces, they sat down, and the friends watched eagerly. Mother fool’s-mated him. It was one of those moments that make life worth living. She rose, bowed, and retired from the scene, leaving him a lather of excuses and annoyance—a humbler man.
Such reminiscences were for country walks. A visit to the West End was a different affair. My delight was to walk down Regent Street and gaze in the shop-windows, pointing out all the things I would like to have. And this was as good a piece of education as any other, for I early acquired the Londoner’s ability to enjoy things without buying them. For even in our palmiest days mother never dreamt of buying anything she didn’t really want. But how we both gazed at and admired exotic fruits, exquisite note-paper, china jugs (a weakness of mother’s), and especially drawing-materials with serried rows of paints. One day in Bond Street mother noticed a sailor hat, poised alone in a window. ‘How nice and simple! the very thing for you!’ she exclaimed, and went in to ask the price. ‘Three guineas, Madam.’ She nearly fell out of the shop.
A picture gallery was often a reason for our going into the West End. The Turner room at the National was as familiar to me as the dining-room at home, and mother early taught me to regard these pictures as my own property. ‘Given to the nation,’ she would roll on her tongue as she feasted her eyes on the Fighting Téméraire. Then there were the Dudley and the Grosvenor galleries, wherein enthusiasts were few. Around the solemnly quiet rooms I would march with a catalogue, ticking those I liked, and condemning those that seemed feeble.
On one of these visits to the Grosvenor I spied a white kitten belonging to the cloakroom attendant. Noting my fervour, she offered to give it to me. Mother had no heart to refuse, and home it was taken, in a skewered fish-basket provided by the attendant. That journey home in the bus! The kitten wobbled about, pushing its nose almost through every weak spot in the basket. At every frantic mew there were pained looks from humane passengers, and mutters of ‘Crool’. ‘What shall we call it, mother?’ ‘Sir Coutts Lindsey,’ was the reply, because he had founded or presided over the Gallery. So Coutty was established with milk and buttered feet, and ruled the mice and us for several years. She must have been a tom, for she never produced any kittens, much to my disappointment.
Taking long walks in the country was the main relaxation in those days when even bicycles, or velocipedes as they were called, were rare enough to be stared at. My father’s plan for a half-holiday when no cricket was to be had was usually to go with all the boys to Barnet or Potters Bar by train, and then walk far afield, twenty miles or more, returning dog-tired to a huge supper. Perhaps I was a bit envious of these outings. Whatever the reason, on one memorable day my father borrowed me, all alone, to go for a country walk with him. We started from Hampstead Heath Station as a base, and seemed to go a tremendous distance along lanes and across fields. I seized the chance to ask my father about his school-days. He could remember only two things about his boarding-school: one was that he had a barrel of apples sent him on a birthday, so heavy that it took two men to bring it in. The other memory was that he wrote home when he was twelve to say that he now knew quite enough, and might as well leave school. He laughed, but it seemed to me reasonable enough, for twelve was a big age, and he certainly knew everything. I believed all he said, and readily imagined that Gog and Magog came down to dinner every day in Guildhall when they heard the clock strike one, and even to this day I feel that guinea-pigs’ eyes are not firmly set in their heads.
On this walk we grew very hungry, and then came the top of my pride and happiness, for we went into a little wayside inn with a sanded floor and sat in a parlour with coloured pictures and the sun coming in through a tiny window. Bread and cheese and beer were ordered! Well, if that wasn’t being grown up and like the boys, what was? Beer tasted horrible to me as a rule, but this seemed ambrosial.
Barring such occasional jaunts to town or country, my mornings were ‘busy’, while mother was light-heartedly painting. She said to me one day, ‘Molly dear, I feel that I ought to be worrying.’ ‘What about
, mother?’ ‘Oh, nothing in particular, just worrying.’
The afternoons were my own, and I generally spent them in my own room. Here I was complete monarch. There was no attempt in those days to furnish a room to suit the occupant, and most of mine was taken up by a huge wooden bed and a huge chest of drawers. However, it had a jolly window looking down the street. As it was directly under the study, there was a chance for a postal system from one window to the other. A basket on a string would be let down by one of the boys and dangled in front of me. Pulling it in I would find a letter, asking me to fetch him a pair of scissors or a particular book. This I would find and place in the basket to be hauled up. Letters too of sheer camaraderie were passed to and fro, written on small fancy note-paper and envelopes. Several of these I still possess. The burden of most of them is a hope that I am quite well, but one begs me to take more than eighteenpence when I go to buy his (Barnholt’s) birthday present, as ‘there are some very fine stamp-albums to be got in the Upper Street for half-a-crown’.
As I lay awake in the morning I could see the houses opposite and a good bit of the street. I liked to hear the ‘milk’ cry of the women who carried the pails on yokes, and the cheery rat-tat of the postman, but the sweep’s long-drawn wail used to fill me with misery when he made his rare rounds. One morning as I lay idly watching the house opposite I had one of the surprises of my life. A broom suddenly shot out of a chimney. I never thought of connecting this fairy-tale event with the sweep, and thought mother’s explanation very dull. I ought to have asked my father.
Before I fell asleep at night I watched a room in the house opposite. All was rather vague until they lit up, and then there was glory. They were real people who walked about and talked and did things just like ourselves. But hardly had things begun to hum when someone would go and draw the curtains. This seemed heartless. Although mother had curtains (for respectability, I suppose), she never drew them. ‘If people like to look in,’ she would say to visitors who remarked on the fact, ‘they are quite welcome. I am not engaged in murder or coining, or anything that calls for reserve.’
A London Child of the Seventies Page 5