An Autobiography

  ‘I think Agatha had better be kept quite quiet this afternoon,’ she said. She ushered Mlle Mauhourat out, then she returned and shook her head at me. ‘It’s all very well,’ she said, ‘but you must not make such terrible faces.’

  ‘Faces?’ I said.

  ‘Yes. All that grimacing and looking at me. Mlle Mauhourat could see perfectly that you wanted her to go away.’

  I was upset. I had not meant to be impolite.

  ‘But, Mummy,’ I said, ‘those weren’t French faces that I was making. They were English faces.’

  My mother was much amused, and explained to me that making faces was a kind of international language which was understood by people of all countries. However, she told my father that Mlle Mauhourat was not being much of a success and she was going to look elsewhere. My father said it would be just as well if we did not lose too many more china ornaments. He added, ‘If I were in Agatha’s place, I should find that woman insupportable, just as she does.’

  Freed from the ministrations of Miss Markham and Mlle Mauhourat, I began to enjoy myself. Staying in the hotel was Mrs Selwyn, the widow or perhaps the daughter-in-law of Bishop Selwyn, and her two daughters, Dorothy and Mary. Dorothy (Dar) was a year older than I was, Mary a year younger. Pretty soon we were inseparable.

  Left to myself I was a good, well-behaved and obedient child, but in company with other children I was only too ready to engage in any mischief that was going. In particular we three plagued the life out of the unfortunate waiters in the table d’hôte. One evening we changed the salt to sugar in all of the salt cellars. Another day we cut pigs out of orange peel and placed them on everyone’s plate just before the table d’hôte bell was rung.

  Those French waiters were the kindliest men I’m ever likely to know. In particular there was Victor, our own waiter. He was a short square man with a long jerking nose. He smelt to my mind, quite horribly (my first acquaintance with garlic). In spite of all the tricks that we played upon him, he seemed to bear no malice and, indeed, went out of his way to be kindly to us. In particular, he used to carve us the most glorious mice out of radishes. If we never got into serious trouble for what we did, it was because the loyal Victor never complained to the management or to our parents.

  My friendship with Dar and Mary meant far more to me than any of my former friendships. Possibly I was now of an age when co-operative enterprise was more exciting than doing things alone. We got up to plenty of mischief together and enjoyed ourselves thoroughly all through those winter months. Of course we often got into trouble through our pranks, but on only one occasion did we really feel righteous indignation at the censure that fell upon us.

  My mother and Mrs Selwyn were sitting together happily talking when a message was brought by the chambermaid. ‘With the compliments of the Belgian lady who lived in the other block of the hotel. Did Mrs Selwyn and Mrs Miller know that their children were walking round the fourth floor parapet?’

  Imagine the senation of the two mothers as they stepped out into the courtyard, looked up and caught sight of three cheerful figures balancing themselves on a parapet about a foot in width and walking along it in single file. The idea that there was any danger attached to it never entered our heads. We had gone a little far in teasing one of the chamber-maids and she had managed to inveigle us into a broom cupboard and then shut the door on us from outside, triumphantly turning the key in the lock. Our indignation was great. What could we do? There was a tiny window, and sticking her head out of it Dar said she thought possibly that we could wriggle through and then walk along the parapet, round the corner and get in at one of the windows along there. No sooner said than done. Dar squeezed through first, I followed, and then Mary. To our delight we found it was quite easy to walk along the parapet. Whether we looked down the four storeys below I don’t know, but I don’t suppose, even if we had, that we would have felt giddy or been likely to fall. I’ve always been appalled by the way children can stand on the edge of a cliff, looking down with their toes over the edge, with no sense of vertigo or other grown-up complaints.

  In this case we had not to go far. The first three windows, as I remember, were shut, but the next one, which led into one of the public bathrooms, was open, and we had gone in through this to be met to our surprise with the demand, ‘Come down at once to Mrs Selwyn’s sitting-room.’ Both mothers were excessively angry. We could not see why. We were all banished to bed for the rest of the day. Our defence was simply not accepted. And yet it was the truth.

  ‘But you never told us,’ we said, each in turn. ‘You never told us that we weren’t to walk round the parapet.’

  We withdrew to bed with a strong feeling of injustice.

  Meanwhile, my mother was still considering the problem of my education. She and my sister were having dresses made for them by one of the dressmakers of the town, and there, one day, my mother was attracted by the assistant fitter, a young woman whose main business was to put the fitted garment on and off and hand pins to the first fitter. This latter was a sharp-tempered, middle-aged woman, and my mother, noticing the patient good-humour of the young girl’s manner, decided to find out a little more about her. She watched her during the second and third fitting and finally retained her in conversation. Her name was Marie Sije, she was twenty-two years of age. Her father was a small cafe proprietor and she had an elder sister, also in the dressmaking establishment, two brothers and a little sister. Then my mother took the girl’s breath away by asking her in a casual voice if she would care to come to England. Marie gasped her surprise and delight.

  ‘I must of course talk to your mother about it,’ said my mother. ‘She might not like her daughter to go so far away.’

  An appointment was arranged, my mother visited Madame Sije, and they went into the subject thoroughly. Only then did she approach my father on the subject.

  ‘But, Clara,’ protested my father, ‘this girl isn’t a governess or anything of that kind.’

  My mother replied that she thought Marie was just the person they needed. ‘She knows no English at all, not a word of it. Agatha will have to learn French. She’s a really sweet-natured and good-humoured girl. It’s a respectable family. The girl would like to come to England and she can do a lot of sewing and dressmaking for us’

  ‘But are you sure about this, Clara?’ my father asked doubtfully. My mother was always sure.

  ‘It’s the perfect answer,’ she said.

  As was so often the case with my mother’s apparently unaccountable whims, this proved to be true. If I close my eyes I can see dear Marie today as I saw her then. Round, rosy face, snub nose, dark hair piled up in a chignon. Terrified, as she later told me, she entered my bedroom on the first morning having primed herself by laboriously learning the English phrase with which to greet me: ‘Good morning, mees. I hope you are well.’ Unfortunately, owing to Marie’s accent I did not understand a word. I stared at her suspiciously. We were, for the first day, like a couple of dogs just introduced to each other. We said little and eyed each other in apprehension. Marie brushed my hair–very fair hair always arranged in sausage-curls–and was so frightened of hurting me that she hardly put the brush through the hair at all. I wanted to explain to her that she must brush much harder, but of course it was impossible as I did not know the right words.

  How it came about that in less than a week Marie and I were able to converse I do not know. The language used was French. A word here and a word there, and I could make myself understood. Moreover, at the end of the week we were fast friends. Going out with Marie was fun. Doing anything with Marie was fun. It was the beginning of a happy partnership.

  In the early summer it grew hot in Pau, and we left, spending a week at Argeles and another at Lourdes, then moving up to Cauterets in the Pyrenees. This was a delightful spot, right at the foot of the mountains. (I had got over my disappointment about mountains now, but although the position at Cauterets was more satisfactory you could not really look a long way up.) Every morn
ing we had a walk along a mountain path which led to the spa, where we all drank glasses of nasty water. Having thus improved our health we purchased a stick of sucre d’orge. Mother’s favourite was aniseed, which I could not bear. On the zigzag paths by the hotel I soon discovered a delightful sport. This was to toboggan down through the pine trees on the seat of my pants. Marie took a poor view of this, but I am sorry to say that from the first Marie was never able to exert any authority over me. We were friends and playmates, but the idea of doing what she told me never occurred to me.

  Authority is an extraordinary thing. My mother had it in full measure. She was seldom cross, hardly ever raised her voice, but she had only gently to pronounce an order and it was immediately fulfilled. It always was odd to her that other people had not got this gift. Later, when she was staying with me after I was first married and had a child of my own, I complained how tiresome some little boys were who lived in the next house and who were always coming in through the hedge. Though I ordered them away, they would not go.

  ‘But how extraordinary,’ said my mother. ‘Why don’t you just tell them to go away?’

  I said to her, ‘Well, you try it.’ At that moment the two small boys arrived and were preparing as usual to say, ‘Yah. Boo. Shan’t go,’ and throw gravel on the grass. One started pelting a tree and shouting and puffing. My mother turned her head.

  ‘Ronald,’ she said. ‘Is that your name?’

  Ronald admitted it was.

  ‘Please don’t play so near here. I don’t like being disturbed,’ said my mother. ‘Just go a little further away.’

  Ronald looked at her, whistled to his brother, and departed immediately.

  ‘You see, dear,’ said my mother, ‘it’s quite simple.’

  It certainly was for her. I really believe that my mother would have been able to manage a class of juvenile delinquents without the least difficulty.

  There was an older girl at the hotel in Cauterets, Sybil Patterson, whose mother was a friend of the Selwyns. Sybil was the object of my adoration. I thought her beautiful, and the thing I admired about her most was her budding figure. Bosoms were much in fashion at that time. Everyone more or less had one. My grandmother and great-aunt had enormous jutting shelves, and it was difficult for them to greet each other with a sisterly kiss without their chests colliding first. Though I took the bosoms of grown-up people for granted, Sybil’s possession of one aroused all my most envious instincts. Sybil was fourteen. How long should I have to wait until I, too, could have that splendid development? Eight years? Eight years of skinniness? I longed for these signs of female maturity. Ah well, patience was the only thing. I must be patient. And in eight years’ time, or seven perhaps, if I was lucky, two large rounds would miraculously spurt forth on my skinny frame. I only had to wait.

  The Selwyns were not at Cauterets as long as we were. They went away, and I then had the choice of two other friends: a little American girl, Marguerite Prestley, and another, Margaret Home, an English girl. My father and mother were great friends by now with Margaret’s parents, and naturally they hoped that Margaret and I would go about and do things together. As is usual in these cases, however, I had an enormous preference for the company of Marguerite Prestley, who used what were to me extraordinary phrases and odd words that I had never heard before. We told each other stories a good deal, and there was one story of Marguerite’s which entailed the dangers encountered on meeting a scarrapin which thrilled me.

  ‘But what is a scarrapin?’ I kept asking.

  Marguerite, who had a nurse called Fanny whose southern American drawl was such that I could seldom understand what she said, gave me a brief description of this horrifying creature. I applied to Marie but Marie had never heard of scarrapins. Finally I tackled my father. He had a little difficulty, too, at first, but at last realisation dawned on him and he said, ‘I expect what you mean is a scorpion.’

  Somehow the magic then departed. A scorpion did not seem nearly so horrifying as the imagined scarrapin.

  Marguerite and I had quite a serious dispute on one subject, which was the way babies arrived. I assured Marguerite that babies were brought by the angels. This had been Nursie’s information. Marguerite, on the other hand, assured me that they were part of a doctor’s stock-in-trade, and were brought along by him in a black bag. When our dispute on this subject had got really heated, the tactful Fanny settled it once and for all.

  ‘Why, that’s just the way it is, honey,’ she said. ‘American babies come in a doctor’s black bag and English babies are brought by the angels. It’s as simple as that.’

  Satisfied, we ceased hostilities.

  Father and Madge made a good many excursions on horseback, and in answer to my entreaties one day I was told that on the morrow I should be allowed to accompany them. I was thrilled. My mother had a few misgivings, but my father soon overruled them.

  ‘We have a Guide with us,’ he said, ‘and he’s quite used to children and will see to it that they don’t fall off.’

  The next morning the three horses arrived, and off we went. We zigzagged along up the precipitous paths, and I enjoyed myself enormously perched on top of what seemed to me an immense horse. The Guide led it up, and occasionally picking little bunches of flowers, handed them to me to stick in my hatband. So far all was well, but when we arrived at the top and prepared to have lunch, the Guide excelled himself. He came running back to us bringing with him a magnificent butterfly he had trapped. ‘Pour la petite mademoiselle,’ he cried. Taking a pin from his lapel he transfixed the butterfly and stuck it in my hat! Oh the horror of that moment! The feeling of the poor butterfly fluttering, struggling against the pin. The agony I felt as the butterfly fluttered there. And of course I couldn’t say anything. There were too many conflicting loyalties in my mind. This was a kindness on the part of the Guide. He had brought it to me. It was a special kind of present. How could I hurt his feelings by saying I didn’t like it? How I wanted him to take it off! And all the time, there was the butterfly, fluttering, dying. That horrible flapping against my hat. There is only one thing a child can do in these circumstances. I cried.

  The more anyone asked me questions the more I was unable to reply. ‘What’s the matter?’ demanded my father. ‘Have you got a pain?’ My sister said, ‘Perhaps she’s frightened at riding on the horse.’ I said No and No. I wasn’t frightened and I hadn’t got a pain. ‘Tired,’ said my father.

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘Well, then, what is the matter?’

  But I couldn’t say. Of course I couldn’t say. The Guide was standing there, watching me with an attentive and puzzled face. My father said rather crossly:

  ‘She’s too young a child. We shouldn’t have brought her on this expedition.’

  I redoubled my weeping. I must have ruined the day for both him and my sister, and I knew I was doing so, but I couldn’t stop. All I hoped and prayed was that presently he, or even my sister, would guess what was the matter. Surely they would look at that butterfly, they would see it, they would say, ‘Perhaps she doesn’t like the butterfly on her hat.’ If they said it, it would be all right. But I couldn’t tell them. It was a terrible day. I refused to eat any lunch. I sat there and cried, and the butterfly flapped. It stopped flapping in the end. That ought to have made me feel better. But by that time I had got into such a state of misery that nothing could have made me feel better.

  We rode down again, my father definitely out of temper, my sister annoyed, the Guide still sweet, kindly and puzzled, Fortunately, he did not think of getting me a second butterfly to cheer me up. We arrived back, a most woeful party, and went into our sitting-room where mother was.

  ‘Oh dear,’ she said, ‘what’s the matter? Has Agatha hurt herself?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said my father crossly. ‘I don’t know what’s the matter with the child. I suppose she’s got a pain or something. She’s been crying ever since lunch-time, and she wouldn’t eat a thing.’

  ‘What
is the matter, Agatha?’ asked my mother.

  I couldn’t tell her. I only looked at her dumbly while tears still rolled down my cheeks. She looked at me thoughtfully for some minutes, then said, ‘Who put that butterfly in her hat?’

  My sister explained that it had been the Guide.

  ‘I see,’ said mother. Then she said to me, ‘You didn’t like it, did you? It was alive and you thought it was being hurt?’

  Oh, the glorious relief, the wonderful relief when somebody knows what’s in your mind and tells it to you so that you are at last released from that long bondage of silence. I flung myself at her in a kind of frenzy, thrust my arms round her neck and said, ‘Yes, yes, yes. It’s been flapping. It’s been flapping. But he was so kind and he meant to be kind. I couldn’t say.’

  She understood it all and patted me gently. Suddenly the whole thing seemed to recede in the distance.

  ‘I quite see what you felt,’ she said. ‘I know. But it’s over now, and so we won’t talk about it any more.’

  It was about this time that I became aware that my sister had an extraordinary fascination for the young men in her vicinity. She was a most attractive young woman, pretty without being strictly beautiful, and she had inherited from my father a quick wit and was extremely amusing to talk to. She had, moreover, a great deal of sexual magnetism. Young men went down before her like ninepins. It was not long before Marie and I had made what might in racing parlance be called a book on the various admirers. We discussed their chances.

  ‘I think Mr Palmer. What do you think, Marie?’

  ‘C’est possible. Mais il est trop jeune.’

  I replied that he was about the same age as Madge, but Marie assured me that that was ‘beaucoup trop jeune’.

  ‘Me,’ said Marie, ‘I think the Sir Ambrose.’