A Vicarage Family: A Biography of Myself

  ‘Isn’t it glorious to be home after that awful Poppy-land!’

  And after the Derbyshire holiday Isobel, swallowing some new medicine, remarked:

  ‘It’s nearly as nasty as Derbyshire.’

  All such slips were either laughed off or crushed as heresy by the children’s mother, who saw all too clearly the gap widening between the children’s father’s dream family, built on his boyhood home, and his real family. No doubt family holidays when he was a boy might have been fun, for there was less shortage of money. But no one could blame his children if they got quarrelsome and bored in the let’s-get-away-from-it-all houses far from anywhere which was all they could afford. For, contrary to belief, Augusts in those days were just as wet as they usually are today.

  During the Derbyshire August it rained every day, and the only dry spot was a waterfall the family had tramped miles to see. The cheap houses were totally unfitted for amusements indoors for a growing family, for they seldom had any books – and never any games. Yet somehow, however depressing the holiday, the children’s mother helped to keep the myth going that a jolly holiday was being enjoyed by all, for otherwise it would be only too easy for her husband to say: ‘I don’t think I need a holiday this year.’

  There were many reasons why St Margaret’s Bay was a landmark holiday. First, the weather was kind, it was an exceptionally hot, dry summer. This made bathing, always the high spot of their father’s holiday, able to be enjoyed by his children, which in wet summers it never was.

  ‘I can just see my father and Uncle Jim and all the other uncles swimming halfway to France,’ John had told Victoria as, with blue faces and chattering teeth after a bathe, they ate buns on an icy beach. ‘I think summer must have been warmer then.’

  It was the North Wales year. Victoria looked at her father, also blue of face, coming out from behind the rock he had used as a dressing-room.

  ‘I bet you it wasn’t, Daddy thinks it more fun when it’s cold and rough.’

  And it was true for at that moment her father, blowing on his fingers which were white where the circulation had stopped, said:

  ‘I think that’s the best bathe we’ve had. Wouldn’t it be fun, if it doesn’t rain, if we came down again this afternoon, for the tide will be in, and the waves should be much bigger.’

  ‘Have a bun, darling,’ the children’s mother said. ‘I think one bathe is enough, and if it keeps fine I thought we’d go blackberrying.’

  But at St Margaret’s Bay bathing was a real joy, so no one needed to pretend, and no excuses had to be found why there should not be a second bathe.

  Another reason for the success of the holiday was that St Margaret’s Bay catered for visitors. In those days it was a quiet little village, highly suitable for the family parties of what were then called gentle people who stayed there. But to encourage young visitors, various amusements were planned for them. A tennis tournament. A dog show. A decorated bicycle competition and a sports’ day. The children’s father, when he first heard of these goings-on, had said to the children’s mother hopefully:

  ‘I don’t think the children will want to get mixed up in any of that, will they?’

  But his wife was ready for that question.

  ‘Of course they will, Jim. You know what fun you say you always had at tennis tournaments.’

  ‘But that was just amongst ourselves and a few friends.’

  The children’s mother thought of those eight sons and tried not to give an impatient sigh. But it was an opportunity too good to be missed to sow a seed which needed sowing.

  ‘It’s good for the girls to meet boys. You only had two sisters, so of course amongst yourselves and your friends they always had partners. But Isobel will soon be needing partners, and she meets no boys at all.’

  ‘Your father,’ she told the girls years later, ‘laughed out loud at that. Then he looked at you, Isobel, and, though you were almost fourteen, you were still a child – and a very pretty one. “I can’t see my Isobel growing up to be a wallflower,” he said.’

  The children’s mother was quite right when she said the children would want to enter for anything that was going on. Not that any of them, except Dick who was a sprinter, were much good at sport – but it was the done thing if you stayed at St Margaret’s Bay to enter for everything, so even John entered for the tennis tournament, though he drew the line at the sports. But as it happened Victoria became a sports enthusiast, and this led to one of the few reproofs she earned on that holiday.

  Victoria and John were walking round the village when in the window of the chemist’s shop they saw a prize for the sports displayed. Victoria clutched at John’s arm.

  ‘Oh look! Isn’t that the most gloriamus prize!’

  The prize was a small dressing case, fitted with what looked at a quick glance like a gold dressing table set: a brush, a comb, a clothes’ brush and two pots with apparently gold lids. John saw at once that the case was of no value; it was probably a novelty displayed at Christmas which had not sold. But he kept his thoughts to himself; poor old Vicky, with her cast-off clothes never owned anything nice – it was no wonder she had fallen for the trashy little case.

  ‘You could win that. Look, it says: “Potato race. Girls under thirteen”.’

  Victoria clasped her hands.

  ‘If only I could! I should be the proudest person in the world. I never knew anyone who had a fitted dressing case. I’ve always wished and wished my birthday was August, but now I’m glad it’s December or I wouldn’t be under thirteen.’

  From then on until the day of the race Victoria practised, using pebbles from the beach instead of potatoes.

  Victoria’s race came halfway through the afternoon and all the family, together with the local vicar and his wife, were there to watch her. For the sports’ afternoon she was wearing a last year’s brown holland frock, once Isobel’s which was getting too tight and too short. She had bare legs and gym shoes. Naturally, as she raced to and fro with her potatoes, she had to stoop and this showed not only the backs of her knees but her bloomers. So much so that her father’s mind was taken off the race, and he was caught unawares when the local vicar’s wife said to him:

  ‘She runs like a hare, that child. No wonder she’s won.’

  At that moment Victoria, flushed with triumph, came racing up. Her father had meant to say ‘Well done, Vicky,’ but she spoke before he had a chance.

  ‘Got it, John.’

  As other people were there the children’s father made no comment either to Victoria or about her at the time. But later he said to the children’s mother:

  ‘Don’t you think, darling, Victoria is too big to run about with bare legs?’

  The children’s mother was determined not to spoil the holiday by a major row with Victoria.

  ‘She’s only twelve. Perhaps next year I’ll make a change.’

  On the way home her father spoke to Victoria.

  ‘Vicky, I didn’t say anything at the time but sporting people don’t run to win prizes, they run for the fun of the thing.’

  ‘Not me,’ said Victoria. ‘I ran for my dressing case.’

  ‘But the race would have been fun in itself even if you had not won.’

  Victoria thought about that.

  ‘I doubt it, Daddy. It was hard work. It was only the dressing case that kept me trying hard.’

  ‘I don’t know what to make of Vicky sometimes,’ the children’s father told their mother that evening. ‘I cannot remember that I needed to be told that it was the joy of something attempted that was the prize – not the prize itself – but Vicky refuses to see the point.’

  The children’s mother was determined not to reopen the stocking question, or indeed to discuss Victoria.

  ‘I wouldn’t take what she says too seriously. She did want that dressing case. She’s talked of nothing else since she saw it. I’m sure she would take real sports seriously, but you can’t call running for potatoes real sport, can you?’

>   John went with Victoria to claim her prize. The chemist was surprised at her rapturous gratitude.

  ‘It’s not much,’ he said awkwardly. ‘But I’m glad you’re pleased, miss.’

  Victoria let out a blissful sigh.

  ‘Oh, I am!’ She stroked the brassy back of the hairbrush. ‘I never had anything gold before.’

  The chemist cleared his throat then, over Victoria’s bent head, he caught John’s eyes, which said as clearly as eyes could: ‘Leave it alone. Don’t say it. What harm can it do?’ So the cleared throat, which had been intended as the beginning of a statement as to the value of the case, changed into:

  ‘Can I wrap it for you, miss?’

  Victoria looked surprised.

  ‘Of course not. I want everybody to see me carrying it home.’

  On the road back to the house John said:

  ‘I bet whatever other prizes you win, Vicky – and I daresay there’ll be a lot – nothing will be so good as that case.’

  Victoria was puzzled.

  ‘What do you mean – lots? I don’t suppose I’ll ever win another. I don’t know anywhere else that has potato races.’

  ‘You are a juggins. It’s not only for potato races you win prizes. There are all sorts. I mean we can win medals and things all our lives.’

  ‘Not me,’ said Victoria. ‘I won’t do the sort of thing that wins medals – but I expect you will.’

  John looked at her with an odd expression on his face. He never thought of girls as having careers, for girls like his cousins didn’t; they helped at home until they married – except of course Isobel, who might sell some of her pictures. But while Victoria was answering him he wondered if she was right. He could not imagine what she might do with her life, but somehow neither could he see her helping at home until the right man turned up. He let the subject drop and instead questioned Victoria about the Greek play at her school, about which he had heard nothing except that she had written it was boring. But his impression that Victoria might draw something exciting out of life’s bran tub was not to leave him.

  From the children’s mother’s point of view, the especial charm of St Margaret’s Bay was that it was sufficiently near Canterbury for her to visit there, and for her father to come to St Margaret’s Bay. She had been one of a family of four girls and one boy, but the boy had died while he was still a young man. When she was five years’ old her mother had died and soon after her father had married again.

  His new wife, a highly-connected but to her stepchildren a rather cold and alarming Scot, though she had never taken to her stepchildren, had done her best by them. As a result, when they were small, they were brought up largely by a German governess. From what Isobel and Victoria, when they had stayed at Canterbury, could pick up, the governess had been what is known as a treasure.

  ‘Though I can’t think anybody can be quite a treasure who teaches people to be sorry for themselves,’ Victoria often said. ‘Of course it must be awful to have no mother, but they seemed to have lots of money and they did go to a boarding school.’

  Isobel always tried to be just.

  ‘There was that awful Christmas when they drew lots who should go and ask if there were any Christmas presents, and Mummy drew the short piece of paper, and when she got down her stepmother said: “Oh yes, it’s Christmas Day, isn’t it? Look in that cupboard, there are two workbaskets and two books – divide them between you girls”.’

  ‘Daddy said that was because Scots’ people don’t keep Christmas.’

  Isobel nodded.

  ‘I know. And she was good about other things for when they all married their stepmother did see they had twelve of everything, which we’ll never get when we get married.’

  ‘You bet we won’t,’ Victoria agreed, ‘and though Mummy says they were dreadfully plain and neat their clothes were always of the best quality. I wouldn’t mind being able to say that just once.’

  Isobel still struggled to be just.

  ‘But sometimes she did dreadful things. Remember Mummy going to school with Aunt Penelope’s last term everyday hat as her Sunday best?’

  ‘That must have been awful,’ Victoria agreed. ‘But none of the things Mummy tells us would make me feel sorry for myself for ever and ever, which Mummy and the aunts are.’

  ‘But wouldn’t you hate to be brought up by Canterbury grandmother? I would.’

  Victoria shuddered and hunted for a suitable, forbidding simile.

  ‘It would be like being brought up by a graven image.’

  There had been no visits to Canterbury for some time for, though Canterbury grandmother was not exactly ill, she was, the children were told, not very strong.

  ‘Though she looks as strong as one of those horses which pulls beer,’ Victoria said when she first heard the news.

  In a way the children missed Canterbury, for Grandfather was an enthralling guide to the cathedral, especially to the last minutes of Thomas à Becket’s life. All four children in turn had been enthralled when Grandfather said dramatically: ‘And his body lay here dead, while the fleas ran out of his hair shirt.’

  Almost equally enthralling was Grandfather’s description of a conversation between the devil and the east wind. ‘Wait for me here, the devil said,’ Grandfather would state, pointing to a corner of the cathedral. ‘I’m just going inside for a few minutes. So the east wind waited and waited’ – and here Grandfather would pause – ‘and is still waiting, for the devil never came out.’

  But except for dramatic visits to the cathedral the children had never known Canterbury Grandfather well, for on a visit he was usually going out with or talking to their mother. So it was that during the St Margaret’s Bay August they got to know him in a new way, and a very inspiring companion they found him. John, who had not before met him, was captivated by him.

  ‘I can’t think why you’ve never told me about him,’ he said to Victoria. ‘He’s a brainy old bird.’

  Actually, Canterbury Grandfather’s gifts were varied. He could recite how the Jumblies went to sea in a Sieve delightfully, with lightning illustrations done with coloured pencils – green for their heads and blue for their hands. But he could also talk of history so vividly he could bring the past to life.

  He was, too, surprisingly – compared with the children’s other grandparents – modern in outlook. He drove slowly, with many breakdowns and much hooting, a second-hand car. He travelled easily, without preparation or fuss, twice during that holiday carting the children’s mother off to have lunch in Calais. To go to France at all was considered quite dashing, so to go for the day was in their family life revolutionary.

  John increasingly took to Canterbury Grandfather, for his fine brain and detached manner was just what he most admired. He spoke to Isobel and Victoria about him, a conversation both girls were to remember.

  ‘I don’t wonder one of his ancestors was one of Oliver Cromwell’s generals. If there was a civil war today I can see him taking the opposite side to his neighbours.’

  Isobel and Victoria were surprised that John was admiring, for they had considered Canterbury Grandfather’s Cromwellian ancestor a skeleton in the family cupboard. For, on the other grandfather’s side, one relative was supposed to have been a friend of Charles the First’s – close enough, so it was said, for him to have been given a piece of the garter the king was wearing when he was beheaded. This alleged piece of garter, now reduced to a few threads stitched on to a piece of silk embroidered with the royal coat of arms, lived in a glass case in Granny and Grandfather’s drawing room, where it could be viewed with respect by visiting grandchildren. Isobel was just beginning to be conscious that John sometimes thought his cousins stupid, so she chose her words with care.

  ‘No nice person could have been one of Oliver Cromwell’s generals, could he, John?’

  John tried not to sound impatient.

  ‘Oh, Isobel, of course he could! As a matter of fact I should think it was much harder to find a good reason to fight f
or Charles.’

  In the children’s world, bound as it was within the walls of the vicarage and their school, everything was clear-cut. God was in his Heaven; the King on his throne; you voted Conservative; the English were the finest people in the world; there was no grey about it – you were right or you were wrong. What John had said gave their world a little rock.

  ‘I don’t believe you mean that,’ said Victoria. ‘Anyone who wasn’t bad would fight for their king.’

  John could have shaken her.

  ‘I think that’s nonsense; apart from the reasons why Oliver Cromwell felt he must depose that king, I don’t believe I would fight for any king just because he was a king. After all, he might be a bad man. Take the late lamented Edward the Seventh: lots of people disapproved of him.’

  When Edward the Seventh had died at the beginning of their first term at Laughton House, the girls had worn black crêpe bands on their arms, and Miss French had sent a wreath to the funeral from the school and had received a letter of thanks from Queen Alexandra’s secretary. Up to that moment the girls had accepted the fact that the whole nation was bowed with grief, so Victoria spoke truculently.

  ‘Oh! What had he done for people to disapprove of?’

  John had gone too far. Only too well he knew the gaps in his cousins’ knowledge. Although Isobel was now fourteen he was sure she knew nothing of the facts of life. Still, they learned history, surely letting in a little light could do no harm.

  ‘He loved other ladies besides Queen Alexandra.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t he?’ Victoria demanded. ‘I suppose, in a sort of way, Daddy loves Miss Herbert.’

  John roared.

  ‘Respect, I think, not love.’

  Then John grew serious. ‘You girls want to widen your reading a bit or you will be surprised when you come out into the big cold world.’