A Vicarage Family: A Biography of Myself

  ‘The same punishment for hundreds and thousands as for a sugar rose! There’s justice for you!’

  Isobel thought about that.

  ‘It’s not a punishment. Daddy truly thinks it’s nice for us to read the Bible. Think how much worse if we’d had to give up our Sunday jam and cake. And it’s only nine verses.’

  ‘Even nine verses is a lot in our sort of Sunday, but I’ll bear it like a Christian martyr because it’s Palm Sunday and I like the choir carrying palm leaves and us getting palm crosses.’

  Isobel did not answer for she was brushing up her collect before they went downstairs.

  ‘“Almighty and everlasting God …”.’

  5

  The Boys

  The boys came home. Dick, looking ridiculously small in a too-large school overcoat bought to last, his blue eyes shining with happiness, fell out of the train on the Tuesday in Holy Week. John, looking almost elegant in comparison, came home on the Thursday.

  Although Dick, on first seeing his family – except Isobel who had asthma – lined up on the platform, hugged them all in turn as if he could never leave go, no sooner had his luggage been consigned to an outside porter to push to the vicarage than he became tongue-tied. So during the walk home talk was one-sided, everybody chattering to Dick while he replied merely with yes or no. It had been the same when he had come home for Christmas after his first term away; he seemed not to be able to shake school off as John did, as if it was a tap which could be turned on and off. But as soon as he was in the house, having kissed Isobel, he dashed up to the schoolroom with Louise and shut the door and then it was as if he had never been away. First there was home news to be caught up with. Of course Dick knew about the move and that they were going to stay with the grandparents through letters, but there were many things he had been worrying about.

  ‘What’s happened to Alexander?’

  Dick’s tortoise was called Alexander, and he was devoted to him. Louise was expecting that question.

  ‘He hasn’t woken up yet. He’s still in that box under all those leaves. Daddy doesn’t think he’ll he properly awake when we move so he can travel in his box.’

  ‘There’s a boy at school has four tortoises but he’s never tried moving them. Do you suppose they mind?’

  Louise considered the point.

  ‘If a cat is moved you rub butter on its paws. That makes it know it has a new home.’

  ‘Do you think I ought to put butter on Alexander’s feet?’

  Louise thought of Alexander slowly creeping about the lawn from daisy to daisy.

  ‘I shouldn’t think you need. I think he’ll like it better where we’re going. Mummy says it’s a big garden and there’s a field as well, there’s usually lots of buttercups in fields.’

  ‘But he could get lost.’

  ‘Ask Daddy, he’ll know, he said he was sure he’d be all right.’

  Dick was a keen gardener, by far the best in the family. He could now look after his garden only in the holidays, his mother seeing to it while he was away, but it was still very much his property.

  ‘What about my plants? I won’t leave them behind.’

  ‘Mummy’s doing that. She says any treasures will be packed in sacking with plenty of damp earth.’

  ‘It’s not the right time to move things, they’ll hate it. I hope my yellow carnation doesn’t die. Are we going to have gardens in the new place?’

  ‘If we want them, there’s tons of room, but I don’t think Isobel and Vicky do, they’re getting awfully old.’ Louise lowered her voice. ‘Did you know Vicky was expelled from Elmhurst – well almost – anyway expelled is what the girls at school call it?’

  ‘You said in your letter she had to leave. What did she do?’

  ‘She says it was because of a society she started, but one of the girls in my form said her mother said she was tote-ly unmanageable.’

  Dick, a well-behaved, hard-working child, could not imagine the meaning of the phrase. He looked round the room. Though called, from the beginning of last autumn term after he had left for his boarding school, the schoolroom, it still looked like the nursery it had always been. There was a floor covering of what was then called cork carpet, shiny and easily cleaned. There was a high nursery guard round the fire. There was a toy cupboard still full of toys. There was the bookshelf which had held all their books from Little Black Sambo and the Peter Rabbit books to the new ones they had been given last Christmas, but it was now empty. There was, too, a place where the wallpaper had faded.

  ‘Where’s the dolls’ house?’

  ‘Daddy gave it to the orphanage.’

  Dick was appalled.

  ‘Gave it away! Why?’

  Louise knew instinctively that Dick, when he was homesick at school, pictured his home, seeing everything in the exact place where it always lived. The dolls’ house had been allowed to go with scarcely a sigh from the three girls, but Dick cared that it was gone. He had never played with it except when small and he had been called on to be a tradesman delivering food. But he knew every room and it was part of home. The yellow drawing room with mother, dressed in blue velvet, permanently lying on the sofa. Father’s china legs were loose so that he could only sit or kneel. To get round this difficulty Isobel had made him a clerical collar and placed him in a corner where forever he could kneel and pray.

  ‘Odd, in the drawing room,’ Victoria had said.

  ‘There’s no room for him to kneel in the dining room,’ Isobel had pointed out, ‘and he can’t very well pray in the kitchen.’

  It was true, the blue dining room was overfull, there was a long table with chairs for eight and a sideboard. Even a mouse would have found it hard to sit down. The staff were all wooden peg dolls with shining pink cheeks. The cook wore a mob cap with a print dress and apron but the parlourmaid wore black with a cap with streamers glued on to her wooden head. There was also a between maid but she too had weak legs so she was kept in a lolling position washing-up.

  Upstairs there was Nanny, another peg doll, who was in charge of a nursery with cardboard cots with three china babies sleeping in them. In the next room was a tiny wax doll dressed entirely in lace whom the children had christened Queenie. The parents’ bedroom was pale pink with blue bows. The dolls’ house, when shut, was painted to look as if it were red brick; the windows were glass with lace curtains painted on them held in place with pink bows. The dolls’ house had always been in the nursery since a parishioner had presented it to the family when Isobel was four, so they gave it the vague fondness given to an old friend, but it meant far more than that to Dick. He had a lump in his throat when he thought of those peg doll servants, Queenie and her mother and father finding themselves being played with by strange children. He swung round to look at the rocking horse.

  ‘I hope they aren’t going to give Nebuchadnezzar away. He’s coming, isn’t he?’

  Nebuchadnezzar was a handsome striped rocking horse. When the children had been small Nebuchadnezzar had been lent for a church garden fête, where he could be ridden on for a penny a ride. The vicarage children had queued with their few pennies for rides, which they had so obviously enjoyed that after the fête was over the owner of Nebuchadnezzar had sold him to the vicar for one pound. He had been ridden and loved by all the children until they grew beyond rocking horses, but he was also a repository for secrets, for his tail could be pulled out and objects pushed into his inside. Now, when rocked, he rattled. He contained drawings of Isobel’s which fell below her standards, things pilfered from Miss Herbert or their Nanny as punishments for fancied misdemeanours by Victoria. Treasures belonging to all the family taken by Louise, who was a magpie. There were countless objects of Dick’s which he valued but which were counted as rubbish so he had been told to throw them away; instead they had been entrusted to Nebuchadnezzar. What John had put through the tail hole was not known but that he too used Nebuchadnezzar as a post box was certain.

  Louise knew how Dick was feeling but she wa
s a practical child.

  ‘He can’t come either. There’s going to be no schoolroom in the new house. There’s a little room next to the dining room but that’s going to be mostly for Isobel to paint in. Miss Herbert is having her bedroom made to sit in. We’re going to be day boarders so we won’t be home for meals. In the holidays we’re having meals in the dining room, except supper, I think we’ll have that in bed.’

  Dick went over to Nebuchadnezzar and rocked him gently.

  ‘What’s happening to him?’

  ‘I think somebody is buying him but first Daddy is having a little hole cut in his tummy to take the things out.’

  That made Dick laugh.

  ‘I should think there’ll be baskets full of stuff. I hope he does it before we go to Granny and Grandfather.’

  ‘He’s going to so we can decide who everything belongs to.’

  This would clearly be an occasion – so many old-friend possessions coming back.

  ‘It’ll be like the hymn “Father, sister, child and mother – meet once more.”’ Giggling, Dick climbed on to one of the seats which were at each end of the rocker. ‘Come on, Louise, let’s ride.’

  John’s homecoming was quite different. He was becoming a sophisticated traveller, for, each term since he had gone to Winchester as a twelve-year-old, on ‘Men’s day leave’ he had come to London to lunch and to go to a theatre with an aunt. Though he travelled with the school to London he found his way to his aunt alone. John was almost one of the family but divided from them because at the end of each three years his parents came home from India on long leave, and he then made his home with them.

  Another reason why he was not quite family was that he was very much better off than his cousins for, as an only son, everything bought for him was of the best quality and he had plenty of pocket money. Being of the family, though independent of it, helped to build confidence, so it was an outwardly calm self-contained John who stepped off the train to greet the children and their mother. For him the station fly was hired to take his luggage to the vicarage. He could have ridden in it but instead he asked his aunt, Louise and Dick to get in, he would walk home with Victoria. Isobel was still housebound with asthma.

  ‘What a shame about Isobel,’ John said. ‘Won’t she be able to come primrosing tomorrow?’

  One of the special joys of the holidays was that John was now classed as an escort, which meant if one of the girls was out with him no grown-up was needed. Victoria found it hard to walk sedately for she wanted to skip, hop and run, it was so glorious that John was home and that she was walking beside him.

  ‘She’s nearly better so if it’s fine and warm tomorrow she can come.’

  Oddly enough, seeing how strictly Lent was kept, Good Fridays were for the children happy, much-looked-forward-to days. There was about the house a hush and an air of sadness so that no one could for a second forget this was the day that Christ died on the cross, but there was very little churchgoing for the children. They were taken to a short service, which included the Commination, but after that Good Fridays were treat days.

  Because the choir boys had to sing at the three hour service, after the short service they were brought out on the vicarage lawn to eat hot cross buns and drink lemonade. No matter how many hot cross buns the choirboys ate, there were always plates full left over on which, after the choir boys had gone back to the vestry, the children fell like locusts, washing the buns down with what was left of the lemonade. They then hurried indoors, collected picnic lunches, baskets and wool and set off to the railway station, where they caught a train to a village where there was a famous primrose wood.

  The weather must have changed for in those days Good Fridays seemed always to be fine. An adult, of course, accompanied the children even though John was there, for the purpose of the expedition was to pick primroses to decorate the church for Easter, so no lounging about was allowed, primrose picking under supervision had to be carried out without pause.

  Looking back on those golden Good Fridays it is likely that there was some competition among the adults to take the children primrosing. Most years it was their mother who took them, making an excuse which stood by her on every kind of occasion: ‘I’ve got one of my tickly coughs and I don’t want to disturb the three hour service.’ Occasionally it was Miss Herbert who was in charge – but once, for some unexplained reason, the cook.

  Home again, with baskets full to bursting with primroses, it was as if it was the beginning of Easter. The crucifixion was over, the sadness was lifting, for one day away was what the children had been taught was the greatest day of the church’s year. They never agreed that Easter was the greatest, for to them Christmas was clearly that, but their father’s shining happiness as Easter approached gave Easter Day a quality it was never to lose.

  As they climbed the hill from the station John looked round at the Victorian houses and prim front gardens.

  ‘I shall miss this place. Does anyone know what Eastbourne’s like?’

  ‘It’s much older than this. There has been a village there since before the Romans came, Daddy said.’

  ‘So you’re going to a new school. The move has come just at the right time for you; it would have been awkward for Uncle Jim finding another school for you here.’

  Victoria had few secrets from John.

  ‘There’s a boarding school for the daughters of poor clergy Daddy was thinking about. You mustn’t tell because Daddy thinks I would hate it, but inside I was hoping and hoping that was where I’d be sent.’

  John looked at her, an amused twinkle in his eye.

  ‘Why on earth? It sounds ghastly. Low living and high thinking.’

  ‘I wanted to get away. You don’t know how awful it is being the vicar’s daughter if you are a person like me, everybody being sorry for Daddy and wondering how he came to have a child like me. In a boarding school I’d be free – just me.’

  John thought about that.

  ‘I know what you mean; but it wouldn’t be like that, you know – I like it all right at school but I can’t tell you how many days I wish I could get back to the vicarage in the evenings. However much you hate Elmhurst you are free of it after school and all day on Saturday and Sunday. If you’re a boarder you can never get away. This term I wished it particularly because Dad’s worried about me.’

  ‘Why on earth? You are doing so well, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, at work, but he doesn’t think I’m becoming a man fast enough.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I was fool enough to write that I was no earthly good at rugger. Dad was good at all games so it’s shocked him. He has written in each letter since, reminding me I’m nearly a man and that it’s time I decided what I was going to do with my life. And that if, as he hopes, I’m going to India I must learn that men in the Indian Civil are not only expected to work hard but to play hard. The awful thing is, as you know, I am not a bit interested in the Indian Civil, but I haven’t had the nerve yet to write and tell him so.’

  ‘Have you thought any more what you do want to do?’

  A faint flush came to John’s cheeks.

  ‘This is only for you, of course. But you know I was that girl in Shaw’s You Never Can Tell. Well, I liked doing that, every bit of it including rehearsals. You know, Vicky, everyone would faint if they knew – but I’d like to be an actor.’

  Victoria’s breath was taken away. An actor! If Cousin Violet would not go inside a theatre in case she died there what happened to people who worked there?

  ‘Of course I never knew an actor, and we’ve hardly been to the theatre so it sounds to me a peculiar thing to be. Why do you want to be one?’

  John took his time answering.

  ‘I can’t paint like Isobel does and I can’t write, like you may do one day.’

  ‘Me!’

  ‘Of course, idiot – it was immature but quite a lot in those magazines you edited was good. If you stick to it you might write books some day.’

>   ‘Might I?’ Victoria was immensely flattered. ‘But that’s a sort of respectable thing to be and an actor isn’t.’

  ‘Not if you write like Elinor Glyn it isn’t. Anyway actors can be very respectable. Look at Beerbohm Tree or the Vanburgh sisters, they are the children of a vicar.’

  Victoria did not know the names of any actor or actress, for she never read the papers and, of course, actors’ names were not mentioned in the house. But she was not going to admit her ignorance to John.

  ‘There’ll be an awful row, won’t there, when you do write and tell?’

  ‘There certainly will. But it’s my life, Vicky, so if an actor’s what I still want to be when I leave Oxford I shall be one. From what my father has told me and I remember there’s a lot that is horrible in India: dirt and smells and dead people being burnt. I’d hate all that. I suppose that’s what Dad means when he says I’m not manly – I’m not, anything disgusting makes me ill. When a boy was sick in chapel I fainted.’

  Victoria could not shake off the feeling that an actor was not a nice person to be.

  ‘Oh well, there’s heaps of time, you’re only just fourteen, you may think of something else to be when you go to Oxford.’

  ‘It won’t be Dad’s fault if I don’t. He had meant me to have special boxing coaching these holidays. He was going to write to Uncle Jim about it, but he knows now we are going to Granny and Grandfather’s so I expect he’ll let the matter drop.’

  That reminded Vicky that she had a bit of news.

  ‘Before we go there’s a goodbye party given by the parish. We’ve all got to do something. Daddy says it’s expected. You and I are doing our waxworks again like we did at Christmas.’

  In those days, when gin was a few shillings a bottle, there was much drunkenness. As a result it was quite usual on the day after a holiday for the wives of working-class men to have black eyes. To try and keep the men out of the public houses many parishes throughout the country on public holidays and some Saturdays put on a form of entertainment called A Penny Reading. For this the entrance fee was a penny and something read out loud was part of the entertainment. The rest of the programme was made up of separate turns. A would-be comic, songs from a soprano, perhaps a duologue or two and any other talent that could be found.