Saplings

  Lena had always considered school uniforms tiresome. They were ugly and did not show her children at their best. When, therefore, she got a list of clothes that Laurel required for Greenwood House she was quite indignant.

  ‘Such nonsense, Nannie, they say she’s to have brown tunics and a brown coat. Laurel’s got all that nasty green uniform that she had at the Abbey School, she can wear that out. I shouldn’t dream of spending her coupons on uniform.’

  Greenwood House was a big school. There were over five hundred girls. Of that number about a hundred were boarded in a building called Greenwood House Over the Way. As Laurel saw the school on her first day it seemed to her an ant-heap. Brown ants rushing here and there, tremendously busy knowing where they ought to be, where everything lived, with no time for strangers. It was bad luck that Alice was in quarantine for chicken-pox and was not at school at the beginning of the term. Laurel arrived the night before the term began. She was taken to the main school the next morning by a girl who was kind, but in a hurry to meet her friends. She dumped Laurel in the main big hall.

  ‘You wait here for prayers and roll-call. Presently they’ll call out your name and you’ll know what class you’re in.’

  Laurel stood alone, painfully self-conscious, with girls eddying round her, agonisingly aware of her green uniform. If only she were dressed like everybody else! As she was a fragment of green in a sea of brown she could see everyone looking and staring. A bell clanged for prayers. She heard a whisper. ‘Who’s the frog?’ She did not hear the answer, but she heard the word repeated and whispered amidst a rising chorus of giggles. ‘Frog. Frog. Frog.’

  Laurel, having fought her battle with Lena and lost, came to Greenwood House determined she would hate it. She arrived at an unlucky period. Before the war there had been about fifty boarders in the charge of an admirable house mistress. The house mistress had been offered a more important post and had been replaced, as a temporary measure, by an old house mistress who had retired. Miss Clegg had never been particularly brilliant in her handling of girls, but she had been kind and interested and much loved. She now had less strength and less patience, and was forced to squeeze over a hundred girls into a space intended for fifty. At the same time the call-up of women had reduced her domestic staff. She saw Laurel the night she arrived, and Laurel sensed she had not much time to spare for her.

  ‘Oh, yes. You’re Laurel Wiltshire.’ She eyed Laurel disapprovingly. ‘Your mother insisted you must wear out your old school uniform. Of course clothes coupons make a difference but it’s not a very satisfactory arrangement. I do hope she’ll soon manage to get you brown. We always have insisted on all the girls wearing brown.’

  No one had told Miss Clegg about Laurel. She was just the Enden children’s cousin. Lena had not mentioned in her letter that Alex had been killed, but only that she had removed Laurel from her previous school as she had not cared for its tone. There was nothing in the fair child with the rather sulky expression in front of her to lead Miss Clegg to the knowledge that Laurel was desperately in need of care and help. That after Miss Brownlow, who had taken such an infinity of trouble, she was causing a hurt just by being in a hurry and showing it. That the tone in which she spoke of the green uniform was salt in an already very sore wound.

  Miss Clegg gave a quick glance at her watch and passed to the question she asked all new girls.

  ‘Have you a special hobby, dear? What are you good at? Greenwood House Over the Way has always encouraged talent.’

  Laurel looked sulkier than ever.

  ‘I’m not good at anything. And I don’t want to be.’

  Miss Clegg dismissed Laurel. She wrote in her notebook against Laurel’s name, ‘Seems badly brought up. Watch for sulkiness.’

  Alice arrived at the school three weeks later. She and Laurel met in the passage outside the dormitory. They grinned at each other awkwardly.

  ‘Do you like it?’

  Laurel was so thankful to see Alice that she clutched her by the hand.

  ‘Oh, Alice, I’m glad you’ve come! I think it’s simply awful. Everybody hates me and I wish I was dead.’ Greenwood House Over the Way did not allow the girls in the dormitories in the daytime. Laurel decided that Alice’s arrival was an occasion to break the rule. She came in and sat on Alice’s bed while Alice unpacked. The children spoke in whispers. ‘It’s partly not having the right uniform. It makes me so noticeable. If anybody else turns the wrong way in all that marching we have to do nobody notices who it is, but with me they can’t help knowing because of my wearing green. It’s the same with that awful dancing.’

  Alice took a pile of blouses out of her box and laid them on the bed.

  ‘That’s called middle-European. It is pretty foul.’

  ‘I don’t know what it’s called but I never know what we’re doing and I do it all wrong, and that awful woman who teaches us shouts, “Girl in green, you’re out of step.”’

  Alice looked at Laurel’s tunic.

  ‘I wonder if it would dye. You can get dyes to do at home. We had a cook who was always dyeing things.’

  Laurel was past being hopeful.

  ‘I shouldn’t think so. It would be wonderful if we could. Alice, do you like it here? Your mother wrote that you were immensely happy at school. She made that up, didn’t she?’

  Alice put the blouses away in her chest-of-drawers.

  ‘Honestly, I do rather like it.’

  ‘Why were you so long having chicken-pox?’

  ‘Maria had it. I had to look after her because she would scratch. Then, when she was well, I was in quarantine because I’ve never had it.’

  ‘Why did you have to look after Maria? Where’s Aunt Dot?’

  ‘Working. She’s awfully important. She wears uniform. Is Tuesday here?’

  ‘No. She’s supposed to come next term, but she won’t if I can help it, poor little beast.’

  Alice lifted the tray out of her box and burrowed for her shoes.

  ‘I expect she’ll like it, the little ones do. Maria simply adores it.’

  ‘She can’t. There’s nothing anybody could adore.’

  Alice knelt upright, a pair of shoes in each hand.

  ‘There’s such a lot of girls, you can’t help liking some of them. Then I like games.’

  Laurel suddenly understood.

  ‘Of course! I forgot that. All your family are super at games.’

  ‘Not super,’ Alice objected, ‘but I was runner-up for the junior tennis cup last term, and they think I might be in the second lacrosse team this term unless being late’s made a difference.’

  Laurel hugged her knees.

  ‘And there are nearly five hundred girls and you’re only thirteen! I suppose it’s that sort of school. Of course, that’s it. It is that sort of school.’

  ‘What sort of school?’

  ‘The sort of school where you ought to be good at something. Miss Clegg said that. Even my wearing green uniform when everybody else wears brown wouldn’t matter if I were good at something.’ Laurel’s imagination carried her on.

  ‘In fact it would be a good thing then. That awful dancing mistress would say, “Stand still all of you and watch the girl in green do it.” And when I was marching, because I was good at it, my being green would be a help. Oh, Alice, all the girls here call me The Frog. But if I were good at something, I wouldn’t mind, being called The Frog would be a kind of honour, wouldn’t it? I mean, there’s a lot of difference between being called The Frog to be laughed at and being called it to be admired.’

  Alice thought that being dressed in the wrong uniform was one of the worst things that could happen to anybody. In her view it was a catastrophe that nothing could ameliorate.

  ‘I wish we’d arrived at the same time, then I could have lent you some of my uniform. I’ve got a second tunic, only now, of course, they’d know I’d done it and there’d be a row. Still, we might try the dye.’

  ‘No.’ Laurel slid off the bed. ‘I’d better ni
p down now before matron catches me. Even if we were to dye me they’d notice. I couldn’t suddenly come down all brown one morning, could I? But you’ve given me an idea. Alice, I shall make myself good at something.’

  ‘What?’

  The blunt question brought Laurel back to earth.

  ‘I don’t know. It’s not the term to swim.’

  ‘Quite a lot of girls here do backward dives from the top of the spring-board.’

  ‘I could act?’

  Alice settled her spectacles more firmly on her nose.

  ‘There’s a girl here who’s as lovely as Deanna Durbin and acts just as well. Besides, you have to have been at the school for years and years before you get a part in a play.’

  ‘At the Abbey School I was fair at games. I once played in the second eleven of lacrosse, but I wouldn’t be here. There must be something.’

  Alice was incapable of following Laurel’s dreams. What she considered mattered was the uniform. She clung to dyes.

  ‘Things go to shops to be dyed. We could ask matron, she’s awfully nice.’

  Laurel opened the door and peered out. She looked back at Alice over her shoulder.

  ‘No, Alice. I’ve started green and I shall go on being green. But one day all the five hundred girls here will be proud of me, and wish that somebody would call them The Frog.’

  Alice was fond of Laurel but she knew her limitations. ‘It would be better to get dyed. And much quicker.’

  XXXI

  Ruth had wanted to visit the children ever since Alex’s death. It had been difficult. On her last leave they had been at home and she found it impossible to write to Lena and ask if she could come down. She had never been on those sort of terms with Lena. She could see her in her mind’s eye reading her letter. ‘Miss Glover. Oh yes, she went into the A.T.S. How tiresome! Why should she want to come down?’

  Ruth had thought a lot about Lena. How was she existing alone? Take away Alex and had she anything to fall back on? Her life had been built like a game of spillikins with Alex as the bottom spillikin on which the whole structure stood. It was impossible that the structure would not collapse when you tore out the bottom spillikin.

  Ruth wrote to Lena. She had seven days’ leave which she was spending in the West country. She could so work it in that she could get to Wingsgate House to lunch with the boys on Saturday and break her journey back to where she was stationed and take Laurel out on Sunday. Would this be convenient? It was a carefully casual letter. She felt it would be a mistake to write as if she was desperately anxious to see the children.

  Lena was touched by Ruth’s letter. She thought it was extraordinarily nice of her to be prepared to spend so much of her precious leave looking up the children. She had received a most sincere and moving letter from her at the time of Alex’s death, and she felt this wish to visit the children was an additional gesture of sympathy. She wrote back graciously. It would be very kind indeed if she really could be bothered to look the children up. She knew they would be thrilled. If ever Miss Glover should be near either school again and felt like seeing the children, she was to visit without asking. Lena said she was writing that day to Mr. Phillips and Miss Clegg to tell them about this present visit and she would add that if Miss Glover ever visited again she was a friend of the children’s and she was glad that they should see her at any time.

  Ruth waited in the hall at Wingsgate House for the boys. Kim came down first. He flung himself on her.

  ‘Oh, Miss Glover, I moved up last term, and I’m already top of my form and if I move up next term I’ll be in the same form as Tony.’

  She kissed him. He was as good-looking as ever. He had grown, of course. He seemed well and in the best of spirits.

  Tony greeted her soberly. She was startled at the change in him. He would be twelve next week and, of course, was no longer a round little boy. It was not so much in appearance that he had changed as in his manner. He seemed reserved and aloof. He was pleased to see her, but there was none of the old talkative enthusiasm about him. She had a taxi waiting. Kim sat beside her and snuggled up against her, Tony chose one of the bucket seats facing them.

  ‘There’s a boy in my dormitory,’ said Kim, ‘who’s a Roman Catholic, and Roman Catholics burn candles when they want to thank for things and when they want things. I gave him a pencil sharpener if he would burn a candle to ask his saints if you could come down in uniform. I’m absolutely the only boy in my form that nobody in uniform ever comes to see.’

  Ruth hugged him to her.

  ‘Don’t your uncles ever come? You’ve three of them in uniform.’

  She was answering Kim but her eyes were on Tony. He said:

  ‘Uncle Paul has to go to Greenwood House when he gets leave to see Alice and Maria.’

  Kim tugged at her arm to attract her attention.

  ‘And he takes out Laurel too, lucky beast. Uncle John doesn’t get much leave, sailors don’t.’

  Tony went on:

  ‘And when he does he spends it with Aunt Lindsey, I expect. He hasn’t time to come and see us. Why should he?’

  Kim bounced up and down.

  ‘I don’t see why. Other people’s uncles do. We’ve a chap in my form whose uncle’s an Air Vice-Marshal and even he comes.’

  Tony looked wearily at Kim.

  ‘He only came once and that was to see the boxing.’

  Ruth was still looking at Tony.

  ‘And I suppose when Uncle Arthur gets leave he spends it at home with Fiona and Bertie and Aunt Selina.’

  Kim got half off the seat.

  ‘And this is Bertie.’ He gave an imitation of exaggerated piano playing. ‘And this is Fiona.’ He stuck out one foot as if he were dancing.

  ‘You sit down,’ said Ruth, ‘or you’ll fall out of the door. And if I were you I should write to Uncle John. He might come as he hasn’t any children of his own. Anyway there’s no harm in asking him.’

  Tony looked as if he were considering her words, but all he said was:

  ‘I can’t see why on earth he should.’

  Ruth felt awkward with Tony. She did not feel as if she knew him. She was not sure that he wanted her to take him out. He had a quick snubbing way of talking that she found difficult to cope with. Inwardly she laughed at herself. Here are you looking after hundreds of girls, quite a lot of them really difficult, and you get shy and tongue-tied with a small boy.

  ‘What’s the news of Laurel? I’m going to see her tomorrow.’

  Kim raised shocked eyes to hers.

  ‘It’s most terribly unfair. Somebody’s always taking Laurel out. She gets her turn of Mum, Aunt Dot goes every three weeks to see Alice and Maria and she takes Laurel out too, and, as well, there’s Uncle Paul when he gets leave.’

  Tony fixed his eyes on Ruth’s.

  ‘Submarines sometimes go to the bottom and never come up again.’

  ‘But not your Uncle John’s fortunately. Does Laurel ever write to you?’

  ‘Not often. Why should she?’

  Kim looked at Tony with a shocked expression.

  ‘That’s an absolute lie, Tony. She writes almost every week because I see the letter.’

  Ruth turned to Kim.

  ‘I dare say Tuesday writes to you.’

  Kim nodded.

  ‘But she’s very backward. You’d never think that she was going to be seven at Christmas. Nannie rules lines for her, and she says about one thing and all the rest is crosses for kisses.’

  Ruth had heard at intervals from Laurel. The early letters, all written in term time, had been full of Abbey School doings, and she had obviously been happy. She had not answered Ruth’s letter about Alex’s death. Her next letter was heartbroken but about something else. She would die if she had to leave the Abbey School. There had not been a letter covering the holidays at home, then had come a distraught letter from Greenwood House. ‘Oh Foxglove darling! Don’t mind my calling you that but we always did and it seems more friendly somehow. This is the
most awful place in the world and I ought to wear brown and instead I wear the Abbey School uniform which makes me terribly conspicuous. Some days I feel I shall go mad like Ophelia so if you hear I’ve been found floating on the water, don’t be surprised.’

  Ruth’s question to Tony had been deliberate. Tony and Laurel had always been friends. Perhaps she was a subject on which he would expand. Tony was looking sullenly out of the window. Then he said abruptly:

  ‘She doesn’t like that school much. She says it’s foul, but then all schools are.’

  Kim bounced up and down with excitement.

  ‘I simply love being at Wingsgate House. Last week, when it was wet, we had a mental arithmetic competition for everybody in the school except the very little boys, and do you know, I came out second of everybody, and I’m only just ten, and some of our chaps are nearly fourteen.’

  Tony said:

  ‘I was bottom but three.’

  Ruth smiled at him.

  ‘Mental arithmetic isn’t everybody’s subject. Unless you’ve altered, no form of arithmetic is yours. Is it still history?’

  ‘History’s worse than all the others.’

  They had arrived at the hotel. Ruth paid the taxi.

  ‘Pop along in you two and hang up your coats and wash.’

  Her voice was cheerful but she felt heart-sick and as though she had not got the energy for the coming lunch. Nothing, she decided, could weigh one down like an unresponsive child. Tony of all people. She saw him in her mind’s eye at Eastbourne. Brown as a berry with that noticeably open, honest air about him which was so endearing. His endless questions. ‘I say, Dad. . . .’ For a little boy his voice had been deep and rather serious in tone. She remembered the argument with Laurel as to where they should live. Tony had said: ‘Everywhere is nice but London’s different. I suppose that’s because it’s where we live.’ There had been a stolid vein of good sense in Tony which Alex had fostered. Something had gone terribly wrong to change him into this ‘don’t care’ boy. Kim had said that he was top of the form below Tony’s and that he would be moving up next term. She had taught the boys. Kim was sharp and had the best brains but Tony was plodding and conscientious. He would normally keep up with his age. She had not liked the way Tony had capped Kim’s bragging by ‘I was bottom but three.’ Alex had tried to train his children to face things. His death ought not to have messed up Tony like this.