IV
Bathing was one of the joys of my life, and has remained so almost until my present age; in fact I would still enjoy it as much as ever but for the difficulties attendant on a rheumatic person getting herself into the water, and, even more difficult, out again.
A great social change came when I was about thirteen. Bathing as I first remember it was strictly segregated. There was a special Ladiesa€Bathing-Cove, a small stony beach, to the left of the Bath Saloons. The beach was a steeply sloping one, and on it there were eight bathing machines in the charge of an ancient man, of somewhat irascible temper, whose non-stop job was to let the machine up and down in the water. You entered your bathing machinea€“a gaily-painted striped affaira€“saw that both doors were safely bolted, and began to undress with a certain amount of caution, because at any moment the elderly man might decide it was your turn to be let down into the water. At that moment there would be a frantic rocking, and the bathing machine would grind its way slowly over the loose stones, flinging you about from side to side. In fact the action was remarkably similar to that of a Jeep or Land Rover nowadays, when traversing the more rocky parts of the desert.
The bathing machine would stop as suddenly as it had started. You then proceeded with your undressing and got into your bathing-dress. This was an unaesthetic garment, usually made of dark blue or black alpaca, with numerous skirts, flounces and frills, reaching well down below the knees, and over the elbow. Once fully attired, you unbolted the door on the water side. If the old man had been kind to you, the top step was practically level with the water. You descended and there you were, decorously up to your waist. You then proceeded to swim. There was a raft not too far out, to which you could swim and pull yourself up and sit on it. At low tide it was quite near; at high tide it was quite a good swim, and you had it more or less to yourself. Having bathed as long as you liked, which for my part was a good deal longer than any grown-up accompanying me was inclined to sanction, you were signalled to come back to shorea€“but as they had difficulty in getting at me once I was safely on the raft, and I anyway proceeded to swim in the opposite direction, I usually managed to prolong it to my own pleasure.
There was of course no such thing as sunbathing on the beach. Once you left the water you got into your bathing machine, you were drawn up with the same suddenness with which you had been let down, and finally emerged, blue in the face, shivering all over, with hands and cheeks died away to a state of numbness. This, I may say, never did me any harm, and I was as warm as toast again in about three-quarters of an hour. I then sat on the beach and ate a bun while I listened to exhortations on my bad conduct in not having come out sooner. Grannie, who always had a fine series of cautionary tales, would explain to me how Mrs Foxa€?s little boy (a€?such a lovely creaturea€?) had gone to his death of pneumonia, entirely from disobeying his elders and staying in the sea too long. Partaking of my currant bun or whatever refreshment I was having, I would reply dutifully, a€?No, Grannie, I wona€?t stay in as long next time. But actually, Grannie, the water was really warm.a€?
a€?Really warm, was it indeedThen why are you shivering from head to footWhy are your fingers so blue?a€?
The advantage of being accompanied by a grown-up person, especially Grannie, was that we would go home in a cab from the Strand, instead of having to walk a mile and a half. The Torbay Yacht Club was stationed on Beacon Terrace, just above the Ladiesa€Bathing-Cove. Although the beach was properly invisible from the Club windows, the sea around the raft was not, and, according to my father, a good many of the gentlemen spent their time with opera glasses enjoying the sight of female figures displayed in what they hopefully thought of as almost a state of nudity! I dona€?t think we can have been sexually very appealing in those shapeless garments.
The Gentlemena€?s Bathing-Cove was situated further along the coast. There the gentlemen, in their scanty triangles, could disport themselves as much as they pleased, with no female eye able to observe them from any point whatever. However, times were changing: mixed bathing was being introduced all over England.
The first thing mixed bathing entailed was wearing far more clothing than before. Even French ladies had always bathed in stockings, so that no sinful bare legs could be observed. I have no doubt that, with natural French chic, they managed to cover themselves from their necks to their wrists, and with lovely thin silk stockings outlining their beautiful legs, looked far more sinfully alluring than if they had worn a good old short-skirted British bathing dress of frilled alpaca. I really dona€?t know why legs were considered so improper: throughout Dickens there are screams when any lady thinks that her ankles have been observed. The very word was considered daring. One of the first nursery axioms was always uttered if you mentioned those pieces of your anatomy: a€?Remember, the Queen of Spain has no legs.a€What does she have instead, Nursie ?a€Limbs, dear, that is what we call them; arms and legs are limbs.a€?
All the same, I think it would sound odd to say: a€?Ia€?ve got a spot coming on one of my limbs, just below the knee.a€?
Which reminds me of a friend of my nephewa€?s, who described an experience of her own as a little girl. She had been told that her godfather was coming to see her. Having not heard of such a personage before, she had been thrilled by the notion. That night, at about one a.m., after waking and considering the matter for some time, she spoke into the darkness:
a€?Nanny, Ia€?ve got a godfather.a€?
a€?Urmrp.a€Some indescribable sound answered her.
a€?Nanny,a€a little louder, a€?Ia€?ve got a godfather.a€?
a€?Yes, dear, yes, very nice.a€?
a€?But, Nanny, Ia€?ve got aa€?a€“fortissimoa€“a€?GODFATHER.a€?
a€?Yes, yes, turn over, dear, and go to sleep.a€?
a€?But, Nannya€?a€“molto fortissimoa€“a€?I HAVE GOT A GODFATHER!a€a€?Well, rub it, dearie, rub it!a€?
Bathing-dresses continued to be very pure practically up to the time I was first married. Though mixed bathing was accepted by then, it was still regarded as dubious by the older ladies and more conservative families. But progress was too strong, even for my mother. We often took to the sea on such beaches as were given over to the mingling of the sexes. It was allowed first on Tor Abbey Sands and Corbina€?s Head Beach, which were more or less main town beaches. We did not bathe therea€“anywaya€“the beaches were supposed to be too crowded. Then mixed bathing was allowed on the more aristocratic Meadfoot Beach. This was another good twenty minutes away, and therefore made your walk to bathe rather a long one, practically two miles. However, Meadfoot Beach was much more attractive than the Ladiesa€Bathing-Cove: bigger, wider, with an accessible rock a good way out to which you could swim if you were a strong swimmer. The Ladiesa€Bathing-Cove remained sacred to segregation, and the men were left in peace in their dashing triangles.
As far as I remember, the men were not particularly anxious to avail themselves of the joys of mixed bathing; they stuck rigidly to their own private preserve. Such of them as arrived at Meadfoot were usually embarrassed by the sight of their sistersa€friends in what they still considered a state of near nudity.
It was at first the rule that I should wear stockings when I bathed. I dona€?t know how French girls kept their stockings on: I was quite unable to do so. Three or four vigorous kicks when swimming, and my stockings were dangling a long way beyond my toes; they were either sucked off altogether or else wrapped round my ankles like fetters by the time I emerged. I think that the French girls one saw bathing in fashion-plates owed their smartness to the fact that they never actually swam, only walked gently into the sea and out again to parade the beach.
A pathetic tale was told of the Council Meeting at which the question of mixed bathing came up for final approval. A very old Councillor, a vehement opponent, finally defeated, quavered out his last plea:
a€?And all I say is, Mr Mayor, if this a€?ere mixed bathing is carried through, that there will be decent partitions in the bathing machines, a€?owever low.a€?
With Madge bringing down Jack every summer to Torquay, we bathed practically every day. Even if it rained or blew a gale, it seems to me that we still bathed. In fact, on a rough day I enjoyed the sea even more.
Very soon there came the great innovation of trams. One could catch a tram at the bottom of Burton Road and be taken down to the harbour, and from there it was only about twenty minutesa€walk to Meadfoot. When Jack was about five, he started to complain. a€?What about taking a cab from the tram to the beach?a€a€?Certainly not,a€said my sister, horrified. a€?Wea€?ve come down all this way in a tram, havena€?t weNow we walk to the beach.a€?
My nephew would sigh and say under his breath, a€?Mum on the stingy side again!a€?
In retaliation, as we walked up the hill, which was, bordered on either side with Italianate villas, my nephew, who, at that age, never stopped talking for a moment, would proceed with a kind of Gregorian chant of his own, which consisted of repeating the names of all the houses we passed: a€?Lanka, Pentreave, The Elms, Villa Marguerita, Hartly St. George.a€As time went on, he added the names of such occupants as he knew, starting with a€?Lanka, Dr G. Wreford; Pentreave, Dr Quick;
Villa Marguerita, Madam Cavallen; The Laurels, dona€?t know,a€and so on. Finally, infuriated, Madge or I would tell him to shut up.
a€?Why?a€?
a€?Because we want to talk to each other, and we cana€?t talk to each other if you are talking the whole time and interrupting us.a€?
a€?Oh, very well.a€Jack lapsed into silence. His lips were moving, however, and one could just hear in faint breath: a€?Lanka, Pentreave, The Priory, Torbay Halla€|a€Madge and I would look at each other and try to think of something to say.
Jack and I nearly drowned ourselves one summer. It was a rough day; we had not gone as far as Meadfoot, but instead to the Ladiesa€Bathing-Cove, where Jack was not yet old enough to cause a tremor in female breasts. He could not swim at that time, or only a few strokes, so I was in the habit of taking him out to the raft on my back. On this particular morning we started off as usual, but it was a curious kind of seaa€“a sort of mixed swell and chopa€“and, with the additional weight on my shoulders, I found it almost impossible to keep my mouth and nose above water. I was swimming, but I couldna€?t get any breath into myself. The tide was not far out, so that the raft was quite close, but I was making little progress, and was only able to get a breath about every third stroke.
Suddenly I realised that I could not make it. At any moment now I was going to choke. a€?Jack,a€I gasped, a€?get off and swim to the raft. Youa€?re nearer that than the shore.a€a€?Why?a€said Jack. a€?I dona€?t want to.a€a€?Pleasea€“doa€“a€I bubbled. My head went under. Fortunately, though Jack clung to me at first, he got shaken off and was able therefore to proceed under his own steam. We were quite near the raft by then, and he reached it with no difficulty. By that time I was past noticing what anyone was doing. The only feeling in my mind was a great sense of indignation. I had always been told that when you were drowning the whole of your past life came before you, and I had also been told that you heard beautiful music when you were dying. There was no beautiful music, and I couldna€?t think about anything in my past life; in fact I could think of nothing at all but how I was going to get some breath into my lungs. Everything went black anda€“anda€“and the next thing I knew was violent bruises and pains as I was flung roughly into a boat. The old Sea-Horse, crotchety and useless as we had always thought him, had had enough sense to notice that somebody was drowning and had come out in the boat allowed him for the purpose. Having thrown me into the boat, he took a few more strokes to the raft and grabbed Jack, who resisted loudly saying, a€?I dona€?t want to go in yet. Ia€?ve only just got here. I want to play on the raft. I wona€?t come in!a€The assorted boatload reached the shore, and my sister came down the beach laughing heartily and saying, a€?What were you doingWhata€?s all this fuss?a€?
a€?Your sister nearly drowned herself,a€said the old man crossly: a€?Go on, take this child of yours. Wea€?ll lay her out flat, and wea€?ll see if she needs a bit of punching.a€?
I suppose they gave me a bit of punching, though I dona€?t think I had quite lost consciousness.
a€?I cana€?t see how you knew she was drowning. Why didna€?t she shout for help?a€?
a€?I keeps an eye. Once you goes down you cana€?t shouta€“watera€?s comina€in.a€?
We both thought highly of the old Sea-Horse after that.
The outside world impinged much less than it had in my fathera€?s time. I had my friends and my mother had one or two close friends whom she saw, but there was little social interchange. For one thing mother was very badly off; she had no money to spare for social entertainments, or indeed for paying cab fares to go to luncheons or dinners. She had never been a great walker, and now, with her heart attacks, she got out little, as it was impossible in Torquay to go anywhere without going up or down hill almost immediately. I had bathing in the summer, roller-skating in the winter and masses of books to read. There, of course, I was constantly making new discoveries. Mother read me Dickens aloud at this point and we both enjoyed it.
Reading aloud started with Sir Walter Scott. One of my favourites was The Talisman. I also read Marmion and The Lady of the Lake, but I think that both mother and I were highly pleased when we passed from Sir Walter Scott to Dickens. Mother, impatient as always, did not hesitate to skip when it suited her fancy. a€?All these descriptions,a€she would say at various points in Sir Walter Scott. a€?Of course they are very good, and literary, but one can have too many of them.a€I think she also cheated by missing out a certain amount of sob-stuff in Dickens, particularly the bits about Little Nell.
Our first Dickens was Nicholas Nickleby, and my favourite character was the old gentleman who courted Mrs Nickleby by throwing vegetable marrows over the wall. Can this be one of the reasons why I made Hercule Poirot retire to grow vegetable marrowsWho can sayMy favourite Dickens of all was Bleak House, and still is.
Occasionally we would try Thackeray for a change. We got through Vanity Fair all right, but we stuck on The Newcombesa€“a€?We ought to like it,a€said my mother, a€?everyone says it is his best.a€My sistera€?s favourite had been Esmond, but that too we found diffuse and difficult; indeed I have never been able to appreciate Thackeray as I should.
For my own reading, the works of Alexandre Dumas in French now entranced me. The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After, and best of all, The Count of Monte Christo. My favourite was the first volume, Le Ch?￠teau da€?If, but although the other five volumes occasionally had me slightly bewildered the whole colourful pageant of the story was entrancing. I also had a romatic attachment to Maurice Hewlett: The Forest Lovers, The Queena€?s Quair, and Richard Yea-and-Nay. Very good historical novels they are, too.
Occasionally my mother would have a sudden idea. I remember one day when I was picking up suitable windfalls from the apple-tree, she arrived like a whirlwind from the house. a€?Quickly,a€she said, a€?we are going to Exeter.a€?
a€?Going to Exeter,a€I said surprised. a€?Why?a€?
a€?Because Sir Henry Irving is playing there, in Becket. He may not live much longer, and you must see him. A great actor. Wea€?ve just time to catch the train. I have booked a room at the hotel.a€?
We duly went to Exeter, and it was indeed a wonderful performance of Becket which I have never forgotten.
The theatre had never stopped being a regular part of my life. When staying at Ealing, Grannie used to take me to the theatre at least once a week, sometimes twice. We went to all the musical comedies, and she used to buy me the score afterwards. Those scoresa€“how I enjoyed playing them! At Ealing, the piano was in the drawing-room, and so fortunately I did not annoy anyone by playing several hours on end.
The drawing-room at Ealing was a wonderful period piece. There was practically no room in it to move about. It had a rather splendid thick Turkey carpet on the floor, and every type of brocaded chair; each one of them uncomfortable. It had two, if not three, marquetry china cabinets, a large central candelabra, standard oil lamps, quantities of small whatnots, occasional tables, and French Empire furniture. The light from the window was blocked by a conservatory, a prestige symbol that was a must, as in all self-respecting Victorian houses. It was a very cold room; the fire was only lit there if we had a party; and nobody as a rule went into it except myself. I would light the brackets on the piano, adjust the music-stool, breathe heavily on my fingers, and start off with The Country Girl or Our Miss Gibbs. Sometimes I allotted roles to a€?the girlsa€?, sometimes I was myself singing them, a new and unknown star.
Taking my scores to Ashfield, I used to play them in the evenings in the school-room, (also an icy cold room in winter). I played and I sang. Mother often used to go to bed early, after a light supper, about eight oa€?clock. After she had had about two and a half hours of me thumping a piano overhead, and singing at the top of my voice, she could bear it no longer, and used to take a long pole, which served for pushing the windows up and down, and rap frantically on the ceiling with it. Regret-fully I would abandon my piano.
I also invented an operetta of my own called Marjorie. I did not compose it exactly, but I sang snatches of it experimentally in the garden. I had some vague idea that I might really be able to write and compose music one day. I got as far as the libretto, and there I stuck. I cana€?t remember the whole story now, but it was all slightly tragic, I think. A handsome young man with a glorious tenor voice loved desperately a girl called Marjorie, who equally naturally did not love him in return. In the end he married another girl, but on the day after his wedding a letter arrived from Marjorie in a far country saying that she was dying and had at last realised that she loved him. He left his bride and rushed to her forthwith. She was not quite dead when he arriveda€“alive enough at any rate to raise herself on one elbow and sing a splendid dying love song. The bridea€?s father arrived to wreak vengeance for his deserted daughter, but was so affected by the loversa€grief that he joined his baritone to their voices, and one of the most famous trios ever written concluded the opera.
I also had a feeling that I might like to write a novel called Agnes. I remember even less of that. It had four sisters in it: Queenie, the eldest, golden-haired and beautiful, and then some twins, dark and handsome, finally Agnes, who was plain, shy and (of course) in poor health, lying patiently on a sofa. There must have been more story than this, but it has all gone now. All I can remember is that Agnesa€?s true worth was recognised at last by some splendid man with a black moustache whom she had loved secretly for many years.
The next of my mothera€?s sudden ideas was that perhaps, after all, I wasna€?t being educated enough, and that I had better have a little schooling. There was a girlsa€school in Torquay kept by someone called Miss Guyer, and my mother made an arrangement that I should go there two days a week and study certain subjects. I think one was arithmetic, and there was also grammar and composition. I enjoyed arithmetic, as always, and may even have begun algebra there. Grammar I could not understand in the least: I could not see why certain things were called prepositions or what verbs were supposed to do, and the whole thing was a foreign language to me. I used to plunge happily into composition, but not with real success. The criticism was always the same: my compositions were too fanciful. I was severely criticised for not keeping to the subject. I remembera€“a€?Autumna€?a€“in particular. I started off well, with golden and brown leaves, but suddenly, somehow or other, a pig got into ita€“I think it was possibly rooting up acorns in the forest. Anyway, I got interested in the pig, forgot all about autumn, and the composition ended with the riotous adventures of Curlytail the Pig and a terrific Beechnut Party he gave his friends.
I can picture one teacher therea€“I cana€?t recall her name. She was short and spare, and I remember her eager jutting chin. Quite unexpectedly one day (in the middle, I think, of an arithmetic lesson) she suddenly launched forth on a speech on life and religion. a€?All of you,a€she said, a€?every one of youa€“will pass through a time when you will face despair. If you never face despair, you will never have faced, or become, a Christian, or known a Christian life. To be a Christian you must face and accept the life that Christ faced and lived; you must enjoy things as he enjoyed things; be as happy as he was at the marriage at Cana, know the peace and happiness that it means to be in harmony with God and with Goda€?s will. But you must also know, as he did, what it means to be alone in the Garden of Gethsemane, to feel that all your friends have forsaken you, that those you love and trust have turned away from you, and that God Himself has forsaken you. Hold on then to the belief that that is not the end. If you love, you will suffer, and if you do not love, you do not know the meaning of a Christian life.a€?
She then returned to the problems of compound interest with her usual vigour, but it is odd that those few words, more than any sermon I have ever heard, remained with me, and years later they were to come back to me and give me hope at a time when despair had me in its grip. She was a dynamic figure, and also, I think, a fine teacher; I wish I could have been taught by her longer.
Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I had continued with my education. I should, I suppose, have progressed, and I think I should have been entirely caught up in mathematicsa€“a subject which has always fascinated me. If so, my life, would certainly have been very different. I should have been a third or fourth-rate mathematician and gone through life quite happily. I should probably not have written any books. Mathematics and music would have been enough to satisfy me. They would have engaged my attention, and shut out the world of imagination.
On reflection, though, I think that you are what you are going to be. You indulge in the fantasies of, a€?If so-and-so had happened, I should have done so-and-soa€?, or, a€?If I had married So-and-so, I suppose I should have had a totally different life.a€Somehow or other, though, you would always find your way to your own pattern, because I am sure you are following a pattern: your pattern of your life. You can embellish your pattern, or you can scamp it, but it is your pattern and so long as you are following it you will know harmony, and a mind at ease with itself.
I dona€?t suppose I was at Miss Guyera€?s more than a year and a half; after that my mother had another idea. With her usual suddenness she explained that I was now going to Paris. She would let Ashfield for the winter, we would go to Paris; I might perhaps start at the same pension at which my sister had been, and see how I liked it.
Everything went according to plan; mothera€?s arrangements always did. She carried them out with the utmost efficiency, and bent everyone to her will. An excellent let was obtained for the house; mother and I packed all our trunks (I dona€?t know that there were quite so many round-topped monsters as there had been when we went to the South of France, but there were still a goodly number), and in next to no time we were settled in the Hotel da€?lena, in the Avenue da€?I??na in Paris.
Mother was laden with letters of introduction and the addresses of various pensionnats and schools, teachers and advisers of all kinds. She had things sorted out before long. She heard that Madgea€?s pensionnat had changed its character and gone downhill as the years passeda€“Mademoiselle T. herself had either given up or was about to give upa€“so my mother merely said we could try it for a bit, and see. This attitude towards schooling would hardly be approved of nowadays, but to my mother trying a school was exactly like trying a new restaurant. If you looked inside you couldna€?t tell what it was like; you must try it, and if you didna€?t like it the sooner you moved from it the better. Of course then you had not to bother with G. C. E. School Certificate, O levels, A levels and serious thoughts for the future.
I started at Mademoiselle T.a€?s, and stayed there for about two months, until the end of the term. I was fifteen. My sister had distinguished herself on arriving, when she was dared by some other girl to jump out of a window. She had immediately done soa€“and arrived slap in the middle of a tea-table round which Mademoiselle T. and distinguished parents were sitting. a€?What hoydens these English girls are!a€exclaimed Mademoiselle T. in high displeasure. The girls who had egged her on were maliciously pleased, but they admired her for her feat.
My entry was not at all sensational. I was merely a quiet mouse. By the third day I was in misery with homesickness. In the last four or five years I had been so closely attached to my mother, hardly ever leaving her, that it was not unnatural that the first time I really went away from home I should feel homesick. The curious thing was that I didna€?t know what was the matter with me. I just didna€?t want to eat. Every time I thought of my mother, tears came into my eyes and ran down my cheeks. I remember looking at a blouse which mother had madea€“extremely badlya€“with her own fingers, and the fact that it was made badly, that it did not fit, that the tucks were uneven, made me cry all the more. I managed to conceal these feelings from the outside world, and only wept at night into my pillow. When my mother came to fetch me the following Sunday I greeted her as usual, but when we got back to the hotel I burst into tears and flung my arms round her neck. I am glad to say that at least I did not ask her to take me away; I knew quite well that I had to stop there. Besides, having seen mother I felt that I wasna€?t going to be homesick any more; I knew what was the matter with me.
I had no recurrence of homesickness. Indeed, I now enjoyed my days at Mademoiselle T.a€?s very much. There were French girls, American girls, and a good many Spanish and Italian girlsa€“not many English. I liked the company of the American girls especially. They had a breezy interesting way of talking and reminded me of my Cauterets friend, Marguerite Prestley.
I cana€?t remember much about the work side of thingsa€“I dona€?t think it can have been very interesting. In history we seemed to be doing the period of the Fronde, which I knew pretty well from the reading of historical novels; and in geography I have been mystified for life by learning the provinces of France as they were in the time of the Fronde rather than as they are now. We also learnt the names of the months as they were during the French Revolution. My faults in French dictation horrified the mistress in charge so much she could hardly believe it. a€?Vraiment, ca€?est impossiblea€?, she said. a€?Vous, qui parlez si bien le francais, vous avez fait vingt-cinq fautes en dictee, vingt-cinq!a€?
Nobody else had made more than five. I was quite an interesting phenomenon by reason of my failure. I suppose it was natural enough under the circumstances, since I had known French entirely by talking it. I spoke it colloquially but, of course, entirely by ear, and the words ??t?and ??tait sounded exactly the same to me: I spelt it one way or the other purely by chance, hoping I might have hit upon the right one. In some French subjects, literature, recitation, and so on, I was in the top class; as regards French grammar and spelling I was practically in the bottom class. It made it difficult for my poor teachersa€“and I suppose shaming for mea€“except that I cana€?t feel that I really cared.
I was taught the piano by an elderly lady called Madame Legrand. She had been there for a great many years. Her favourite method of teaching the piano was to play a quatre mains with her pupil. She was insistent on pupils being taught to read music. I was not bad at reading music, but playing it with Madame Legrand was something of an ordeal. We both sat on the bench-like music seat and, as Madame Legrand was extremely well-covered, she took up the greater part of it and elbowed me away from the middle of the piano. She played with great vigour, using her elbows, which stuck out slightly a-kimbo, the result being that the unfortunate person who was playing the other two hands had to play with one elbow stuck tightly to her side.
With a certain natural craftiness I managed nearly always to play the bass side of the duet. Madame Legrand was led into this the more easily because she so enjoyed her own performance, and naturally the treble gave her a far better chance of pouring her soul into the music. Sometimes for quite a long time, owing to the vigour of her playing and her absorbtion in it, she failed to realise that I had lost my place in the bass. Sooner or later I hesitated over a bar, got one behind, tried to catch up, not sure where I was, and then tried to play such notes as would accord with what Madame Legrand was playing. Since, however, we were reading music I could not always anticipate this intelligently. Suddenly, as the hideous cacophany we were making dawned upon her, she would stop, raise her hands in the air and exclaim: a€?Mais qua€?est-ce que vous jouez l, petiteQue ca€?est horrible!a€I couldna€?t have agreed with her morea€“horrible it was. We would then start again at the beginning. Of course, if I was playing the treble my lack of coordination was noticed at once. However, as a whole, we got on well. Madame Legrand puffed and snorted a great deal the whole time she played. Her bosom rose and fell, groans sometimes came from her; it was alarming but fascinating. She also smelt rather high, which was not so fascinating.
There was to be a concert at the end of the term, and I was scheduled to play two pieces, one the third movement from the Sonata Pathetique of Beethoven, and the other a piece called Serenade da€?Aragona, or something like that. I took a scunner to the Serenade da€?Aragona straight away. I found extraordinary difficulty in playing ita€“I dona€?t know why; it was certainly much easier than the Beethoven. Though my playing of the Beethoven came on well, the Serenade da€?Aragona continued to be a very poor performance. I practised it ardently, but I seemed to make myself even more nervous. I woke up at night, thinking I was playing, and all sorts of things would happen. The notes of the piano would stick, or I would find I was playing an organ instead of the piano, or I was late in arriving, or the concert had taken place the night beforea€|It all seems so silly when one remembers it.
Two days before the concert I had such high fever that they sent for my mother. The doctor could find no cause for it. However, he gave it as his view that it would be much better if I did not play at the concert, and if I were removed from the school for two or three days until the concert was over. I cannot tell you of my thankfulness, though at the same time I had the feeling of somebody who has failed at something they had been determined to accomplish.
I remember now that at an arithmetic exam at Miss Guyera€?s school I had come out bottom, though I had been top of the class all the week previously. Somehow, when I read the questions at the exam my mind shut up and I was unable to think. There are people who can pass exams, often high up, after being almost bottom in class; there are people who can perform in public much better than they perform in private; and there are people who are just the opposite. I was one of the latter. It is obvious that I chose the right career. The most blessed thing about being an author is that you do it in private and in your own time. It can worry you, bother you, give you a headache; you can go nearly mad trying to arrange your plot in the way it should go and you know it could go; buta€“you do not have to stand up and make a fool of yourself in public.
I returned to the pensionnat with great relief and in good spirits. Immediately I tried to see if I could now play the Serenade da€?Aragona. I certainly played it better than I had ever done before, but the performance was still poor. I went on learning the rest of the Beethoven sonata with Madame Legrand, who, though disappointed in me as a pupil who might have done her credit, was still kind and encouraging and said I had a proper sense of music.
The two winters and one summer that I spent in Paris were some of the happiest days I have ever known. All sorts of delightful things happened all the time. Some American friends of my grandfather whose daughter sang in Grand Opera lived there. I went to hear her as Marguerite in Faust. At the pensionnat, they did not take girls to hear Fausta€“the subject was not supposed to be a€?convenablea€for a€?les jeunes fillesa€?. I think people tended to be rather optimistic over the easy corruption of les jeunes filles; you would have to have far more knowledge than jeunes filles did in those days to know anything improper was going on at Margueritea€?s window. I never understood in Paris why Marguerite was suddenly in her prison. Had she, I wondered, stolen the jewelleryCertainly pregnancy and the death of the child never even occurred to me.
We were taken mostly to the Opera Comique. Thais, Werther, Carmen, La Vie Boheme, Manon. Werther was my favourite. At the Grand Opera House I heard Tannhauser as well as Faust.
Mother took me to dressmakers, and I began to appreciate clothes for the first time. I had a pale grey crepe de Chine semi-evening dress made, which filled me with joya€“I had never had anything so grown-up-looking before. It was sad that my bosom was still unco-operative, so that I had to have a lot of ruffles of cr?ape de Chine hurriedly tucked into the bodice, but I was still hopeful that one day a couple of truly womanly bosoms, firm, round and large, would be mine. How lucky that vision into the future is spared to us. Otherwise I should have seen myself at thirty-five, with a round womanly bosom well-developed, but, alas, everybody else going about with chests as flat as boards, and if they were so unfortunate as to have bosoms, tightening them out of existence.
Through the introductions mother had brought, we went into French society. American girls were welcomed always to the Faubourg St. Germain and it was acceptable for the sons of the French aristocracy to marry rich Americans. Though I was far from rich, my father was known to have been American, and all Americans were supposed to have some money. It was a curious, decorous, old-world society. The Frenchmen I met were polite, very comme il fauta€“and nothing could have been duller from a girla€?s point of view. However, I learnt French phraseology of the politest kind. I also learnt dancing and deportment, with someone called, I think (though it seems improbable), Mr Washington Lob. Mr Washington Lob was the closest thing to Mr Turveydrop that I can imagine. I learnt the Washington Post, the Boston, and a few other things, and I also learnt the various usages of cosmopolitan society. a€?Suppose now, you were about to sit down by an elderly married lady. How would you sit?a€I looked at Mr Washington Lob with blank eyes. a€?I shoulda€“era€“sit,a€I said puzzled.
a€?Show me.a€He had some gilt chairs there, and I sat down in a gilt chair, trying to hide my legs as much as possible underneath the chair.
a€?No, no, that is impossible. That will never do,a€said Mr Washington Lob. a€?You turn slightly sideways, that is enough, not more; and as you sit down you are leaning slightly to the right, so you bend your left knee slightly, so that it is almost like a little bow as you sit.a€I had to practise this a good deal.
The only things I really hated were my drawing and painting lessons. Mother was adamant on that subject; she would not let me off: a€?Girls should be able to do water-colours.a€?
So very rebelliously, twice a week, I was called for by a suitable young woman (since girls did not go about alone in Paris) and taken by metro or bus to an atelier somewhere near the flower-market. There I joined a class of young ladies, painting violets in a glass of water, lilies in a jar, daffodils in a black vase. There would be terrific sighs as the lady in charge came round. a€?Mais vous ne voyez rien,a€she said to me. a€?First you must start with the shadows: do you not seeHere, and here, and here there are shadows.a€?
But I never saw the shadows; all I saw were some violets in a glass of water. Violets were mauvea€“I could match the shade of mauve on my palette, and I would then paint the violets a flat mauve. I quite agree that the result did not look like a bunch of violets in a glass of water, but I did not see, and I dona€?t think have ever seen, what does make shadows look like a bunch of violets in water. On some days, to ease my depression, I would draw the table legs or an odd chair in perspective, which cheered me up, but which did not go down at all well with my instructress.
Though I met many charming Frenchmen, strangely enough I did not fall in love with any of them. Instead I conceived a passion for the reception clerk in the hotel, Monsieur Strie. He was tall and thin, rather like a tapeworm, with pale blond hair and a tendency to spots. I really cannot understand what I saw in him. I never had the courage to speak to him, though he occasionally said a€?Bonjour, Mademoisellea€as I passed through the hall. It was difficult to have fantasies about Monsieur Strie. I imagined myself sometimes nursing him through the plague in French Indo-China, but it took much effort to keep that vision going. As he finally gasped out his last breath he would murmur: a€?Mademoiselle, I always adored you in the days at the hotela€?a€“which was all right as far as it went, but when I noticed Monsieur Strie writing industriously behind the desk the following day it seemed to me extremely unlikely that he would ever say such a thing, even on his deathbed.
We passed the Easter holidays going on expeditions to Versailles, Fontainebleau, and various other places, and then, with her usual suddenness, mother announced that I should not be returning to Mademoiselle T.a€?s.
a€?I dona€?t think much of that place,a€she said. a€?No interesting teaching. Ita€?s not what it was in Madgea€?s time. I am going back to England, and I have arranged that you shall go to Miss Hogga€?s school at Auteuil, Les Marroniers.a€?
I cana€?t remember feeling anything beyond mild surprise. I had enjoyed myself at Mademoiselle T.a€?s, but I didna€?t particularly want to go back there. In fact it seemed more interesting to go to a new place. I dona€?t know whether it was stupidity on my part or amiabilitya€“I like to think, of course, that it was the lattera€“but I was always prepared to like the next thing that came along.
So I went to Les Marroniers, which was a good school but extremely English. I enjoyed it, but found it dull. I had quite a good music teacher, but not as much fun as Madame Legrand had been. As everyone talked English all the time, in spite of the fact that it was strictly forbidden, nobody learned much French.
Outside activities were not encouraged, or indeed perhaps even allowed, at Les Marroniers, so at last I was to shake myself free of my detested painting and drawing lessons. The only thing I missed was passing through the flower-market, which really had been heavenly. It was no surprise to me at the end of the summer holidays when my mother suddenly said to me at Ashfield that I was not going back to Les Marroniers. She had had a new idea for my education.