II
Life is really like a shipa€“the interior of a ship, that is. It has watertight compartments. You emerge from one, seal and bolt the doors, and find yourself in another. My life from the day we left Southampton to the day we returned to England was one such compartment. Ever since that I have felt the same about travel. You step from one life into another. You are yourself, but a different self. The new self is untrammelled by all the hundreds of spidersa€webs and filaments that enclose you in a cocoon of day-to-day domestic life: letters to write and bills to pay, chores to do, friends to see, photographs to develop, clothes to mend, nurses and servants to placate, tradesmen and laundries to reprove. Your travel life has the essence of a dream. It is something outside the normal, yet you are in it. It is peopled with characters you have never seen before and in all probability will never see again. It brings occasional homesickness, and loneliness, and pangs of longing to see some dearly loved persona€“Rosalind, my mother, Madge. But you are like the Vikings or the Master Mariners of the Elizabethan age, who have gone into the world of adventure, and home is not home until you return.
It was exciting to go away; it was wonderful to return. Rosalind treated us, as no doubt we deserved, as strangers with whom she was unacquainted. Giving us a cold look, she demanded: a€?Wherea€?s my Auntie Punkie?a€My sister herself took her revenge on me by instructing me on exactly what Rosalind was allowed to eat, what she should wear, the way she should be brought up, and so on.
After the first joys of reunion, the snags unfolded. Jessie Swannell had fallen by the wayside, unable to get on with my mother. She had been replaced by an elderly nannie, who was always known between ourselves as Cuckoo. I think she had acquired this name from the fact that when the changeover had taken place, and Jessie Swannell had departed weeping bitterly, the new nurse attempted to ingratiate herself with her new charge by shutting and opening the nursery door and hopping in and out, exclaiming brightly: a€?Cuckoo, cuckoo!a€Rosalind took a poor view of this and howled every time it happened. She became, however, exceedingly fond of her new attendant. Cuckoo was a born fusser, and an incompetent one at that. She was full of love and kindness, but she lost everything, broke everything, and made remarks of such idiocy that one could occasionally hardly believe them. Rosalind enjoyed this. She kindly took charge of Cuckoo and ran Cuckooa€?s affairs for her.
a€?Dear, dear,a€I would hear from the nursery. a€?Now where have I put the little deara€?s brush. Now then, where could it beIn the clothes basket?a€?
a€?Ia€?ll find it for you, Nannie,a€Rosalinda€?s voice rose. a€?Here it is, in your bed.a€?
a€?Dear, dear, how could I have put it there, I wonder?a€Rosalind found things for Cuckoo, tidied away things for Cuckoo, and even gave her instructions from the pram when they were out together: a€?Dona€?t cross now, Nannie, ita€?s just the wrong momenta€“therea€?s a bus cominga€|Youa€?re taking the wrong turning, Nanniea€|I thought you said you were going to the wool-shop, Nannie. Thata€?s not the way to the wool-shop.a€These instructions were punctuated by Cuckooa€?s a€?Dear, dear, now why evera€|What could I have been thinking of to do that?a€etc. The only people who found Cuckoo hard to endure were Archie and myself. She kept up a continual stream of conversation. The best way was to close your ears and not listen to it, but occasionally, maddened, you interrupted. Going in a taxi to Paddington, Cuckoo would keep up a continual stream of observations. a€?Look, little dear. You look out of the window now. You see that big placeThata€?s Selfridges. Thata€?s a lovely place, Selfridges. You can buy anything there.a€?
a€?Ita€?s Harrods, Nurse,a€I would say coldly.
a€?Dear, dear, now, so it is! It was Harrods all the time, wasna€?t itNow isna€?t that funny, because we know Harrods quite well, dona€?t we, little dear?a€?
a€?I knew it was Harrods,a€said Rosalind. I think it possible now that the ineptitude and general inefficiency of Cuckoo were responsible for making Rosalind an efficient child. She had to be. Somebody had got to keep the nursery in a vague semblance of order.