Part 2

Father exploded into his tumbler. But Aunt Amelia said she had hoped that I would grow up a good, pure woman like my grandmother. Daddy lost his temper then and said he profoundly hoped his daughter wouldn't grow up 'a good, pure woman' if it meant that----'

'Anthony!' said mother.

And father said 'Sorry, Biddy,' and asked Aunt Amelia if she'd have some more bread sauce.

(Mother and daddy always called hot water bottles 'Young Virgins' after that!)

After lunch we all went down to the lake, and going through the woods I said something was 'infernal,' and there was a horrid silence. Daddy is like that, he so seldom says anything. It's what he doesn't say that's so beastly if he's displeased with one, so I said, 'Mustn't I, daddy?' and he replied, 'I think you know quite well, darling.'

'But,' I expostulated, 'surely one might sometimes.' I looked round that wood. 'Why, daddy, I might say we were in fernal regions now, look at them all up that bank.'

Daddy looked amused and his eyes all curled up at the corners,--

'Well, darling, perhaps you're right, but you must always think of Devonshire if you do.'

Aunt Amelia said she didn't know what his dear, dead mother would say, after the Christian upbringing he had had, too. Daddy seemed inclined to lose his temper again and remarked that a certain kind of Christian upbringing was only another name for spiritual slavery. Aunt Amelia threw up her hands and said 'Shocking.' Then father whispered to mother that if Aunt Amelia didn't return to Hampstead soon he'd have to go into lodgings! He always says that if he's worried.

General conversation is apt to languish in Aunt Amelia's presence and to come back like a boomerang to some exhausting topic that most people never discuss. She understands father better now and thinks he's 'one of the right sort' because he happens to be an Evangelical, but she says he is 'dangerously charitable,' and always tries to find out if he's _really_ sound on the subject of candles.

I remember once daddy, gently teasing, said,--

'But, dear Amelia, I thought it was your friends Ridley and Latimer who lighted a candle in England which should never be put out. If I were asked to celebrate at a church where they had lights what do you think I ought to do?'

And Amelia answered, 'I should hope you'd blow 'em out.' Then daddy said,--

'What a pearl you are, Amelia!' and laughed and kissed the stern old Calvinist. Somehow daddy could live with an Anabaptist or the Pope, and both would say, 'He's one of the right sort,' even though they'd disagreed with every single thing he'd said. Darling daddy!

*CHAPTER IV*

Well, I have got in the 'background' now, and the dramatis personae too, but do they 'tone' with one another and how can I make them when they are all different? Is my Aunt Amelia in the least like Devonshire? Does her fydo remind one of its sweet scents? How can I reconcile my prehistoric uncle with the twentieth century?

I went to the Manor House to-day to consult him as to the 'atmosphere' of the century. Perhaps I can at any rate get that right. He wasn't particularly illuminating. I don't think clever people ever are. The more they know the less they can impart. There was a woman at school who tried to teach me German. She had heaps of letters after her name like Uncle Jasper has. She said the verb must go at the end, but she never could make me understand which part of the verb. I got so desperate at last that I used to say, 'gehabt gehaben geworden sein' at the end of _every_ sentence and let her take her choice. That's partly why I left school when I did. The head mistress seemed to think parental control was what I needed.

So I said to Uncle Jasper, 'What would you say was the atmosphere of this century?'

'You have raised a point of particular perspicacity, Meg,' he replied. 'The atmosphere of this century is becoming increasingly materialistic, as is manifested in its deplorable lack of spirituality and intellectual originality. The universal diminution of intelligent ratiocination, the vacuous verbosity of a vacillating press; the decadent and open opportunism of our public men, the upward movement of the proletariat, inspired by the renegade and socialistic vampires that suck the national blood--all these are symptomatic of the recrudescence of materialism.'

He stopped to breathe here, and I felt I must say gehabt gehaben geworden sein. He doesn't always talk like that. Sometimes I think he does it to aggravate me, but I know anything modern upsets him. I offered to go with him to look at the Saxon work in the church, as it usually has a calming influence on him, but he said he was better and he hoped he had made himself clear!

When I got home I asked Nannie.

'The atmosphere of this century, dearie,' she said. 'Oh, the same as it's always been, I should think--three white frosts and a wet day, or three fine days and a thunderstorm.'

I observed that she had made a remark of particular perspicacity, and she asked me if I felt feverish. It is trying when I am trying to increase my vocabulary. Still, on the whole she was helpful, for she said why didn't I do what I said I was going to and write of the things I know about. 'Tell about the Hickley woods and how you fell in the water, dearie.'

'But will the general public like that, Nannie?'

'I should think they'd prefer it to the stuff your uncle writes.'

I feel that she's right. I must take a firm stand with my relatives. I cannot be blown about by every breath of their doctrine. Besides, my family's views differ. Uncle Jasper says,--

'The general public is at its best in Oxford and Canterbury.'

'At Epsom or Ascot,' my brother asserts.

'Hunting,' says daddy.

'At early celebration on Easter Day,' says Aunt Constance, with eyes like a Murillo Madonna.

But _I_ like the general public, always, everywhere. It sort of twinkles at one, so I shall tell about the Hickley woods and hope that it will like them just as much as I do.

Oh, if only I could get the splendour of the woods down on my paper--the flaming beeches in the autumn, the fairyland of hoar frost later on, the gradual waking of the trees and birds and flowers in the spring, the scent of clover, and the sheets of daffodills, the mist of bluebells and the clouds of lilies. I know where the earliest primroses blow and the hedge where the birds build first. I could show you where to find the biggest blackberries and the bit of bog covered with the kingcups and milkmaids. There are ant hills, too, and a wasps' nest in a hollow tree. The little paths and lanes are carpeted with moss and the undergrowth is sweet with honeysuckle. The woods are always lovely, but in the evening they grow 'tulgy,' and the trees take fantastic shapes and the mossy lanes seem hushed and filled with mystery. When I was little I used to be glad then that the boys were with me, though I wouldn't have admitted a creepy feeling down my spine to any one but father. The beautiful Hickley woods!

They have a strange effect upon me. They seem to 'wash' my mind. I never found it easy to be obedient, my bit of Irish blood always making me 'agin the government.' I've got claws inside me, and feathers underneath my skin that get ruffled when I'm crossed. So when I was little and rebellious I always ran out of the house and across the garden into the woods. And sometimes Ross would come flying after me with comfort and advice.

'Why do you always run out in the woods Meg, when you're naughty?'

''Cos they wash me.'

'Oh, you are funny, darling,' and then with a little air of protection that is always associated in my mind with Ross and sticks of chocolate, he would give me one and say,--

'But you _were_ raver naughty, you know; I think you'd better come in now and be sorry.'

So when the woods had 'washed' me sufficiently I would go in and say I was dutiful now if father pleased. But once when I was five and some reproof of daddy's had cut me to the heart, I added,--

'But my quick still hurts me. It's all bluggy.'

I seem to have lived the best part of my life out in the woods. In them we played our games and had our endless picnics. In them I had the great adventure which caused me to become a doormat and let my brother trample on me all his life.

When Ross and I were twelve we went out very early to spend a long day in the woods with Sam and all the dogs. We made for the lake. It was always the first item on our programme to dump the lunch and tea in a special hidyhole. While the boys were busy I decided that the one and only thing I wanted to do was to climb out and sit on the branch of a tree that overhung the water. I got halfway across it when Ross shouted to me angrily to come back, and Sam said the branch was rotten.

'I'm going to the end,' I said, 'it isn't rotten.'

'_Will_ you come back, Meg?'

'No, I won't,' I cried, my Irish grandmother at once 'agin the government.' I just loved that crawl across that tree, because the boys were simply furious and could do nothing. It was no use coming after me if the branch were rotten, it would only have made things worse. When I got to the end I said elegantly, 'Yah, I told you it wasn't,' and as I said it the beastly thing snapped and I went into the lake with a splash. I could swim all right but hadn't had any practice with my clothes on. Sam and Ross were in after me like a flash and got me back to land, and we stood three dripping objects, two in a perfect fury with the third. Then, as my luck was dead out, we heard the horses, and there were mother and daddy, Uncle Jasper and Aunt Constance out for a morning ride. Uncle Jasper was suddenly jerked back out of the Middle Ages: Aunt Constance tumbled out of heaven, mother looked frightfully worried, and daddy lost his temper, and said it was simply abominable that two big boys of their age couldn't look after a little girl of mine. But how he reconciled that remark with his Christian conscience I don't know, seeing there was only six months difference between the eldest and the youngest--but those boys would always grow so.

Daddy ordered them to go home at once, and when they had got into dry things to wait in his dressing-room till he had leisure to give them the biggest thrashing they'd ever had yet.

Then mother wrung out my clothes, and Uncle Jasper remarked that the children who lived before the Reformation never behaved so badly; Aunt Constance had got to that bit of the General Thanksgiving where you bless Him for preservation, especially of nieces and nephews and boys who live at lodges; Ross and Sam were just turning to go home when I--honestly it was the first minute I could speak, I had swallowed such a lot of water--exclaimed,--

'Father, how dare you be so wickedly unjust?'

Every one looked at me as I hurled that bombshell. People didn't usually speak so to father--least of all his children, but daddy never gets angry at the things you'd think he would, and all he said was,--

'What do you mean, little 'un?'

'Why, father, they told me not to go.'

'It was my fault, sir; I ought to have seen she didn't,' Ross interrupted.

'I don't suppose she heard me say the branch was rotten, sir,' said Sam.

But I exclaimed,--

'Oh, daddy, they are telling frightful lies; I did hear Sam say that it was rotten, and Ross told me not to go.'

So father said, 'Sorry, old chaps,' to Ross and Sam, and they said, 'It was quite all right, sir.' So father said, 'Well, run her home, boys, so that she doesn't catch cold,' and mother called after us, 'Give her some hot milk.'

So Ross and Sam ran me home and said I was a jolly decent kid, which was drivel. And after Nannie had got me dry, I went and waited in father's dressing-room. As he and mother came upstairs I heard daddy say,--

'Well, I suppose I must get into a dog collar as I've got this beastly clerical meeting.'

And mother laughed,--

'I don't think the collar makes much difference when the rest of you smells so of dogs and stables.' And then she added in her delicious Irish brogue, 'I know it isn't seemly to ask a parson to leave the Word of God and serve tables, but _do_ you know a savoury that would do for to-night?'

And daddy said,--

'I've just seen a beauty in the woods.'

'What _do_ you mean, Anthony,' laughed mother. And father replied,--

'An angel on horseback, darling,' and told her not to blush. He came in then, and saw me, and said,--

'Hallo, little 'un, what are you doing here?'

'I thought _I_ had to come, father, as I did it.'

'Oh--ah, yes, of course--I've got to give you the biggest thrashing you've ever had in your life, haven't I?' And he sat down and pulled me on his knee.

'Why did you do it, Meg? No, don't say it was your Irish grandmother' (taking the very words out of my mouth) 'it was pure, unadulterated devil, and mother doesn't feel that she can ever let you go out in the woods again, and I don't think the boys will take the responsibility of you any more, either.'

'Father!' I exclaimed, going cold all over.

'Well, you see, darling, it isn't the first time is it? There was that wasps' nest, for instance. You know those boys do understand that sort of thing. And unless you promise in future you will do exactly what they tell you, I won't let you go, but shall keep you chained up in my dressing-room. I really can't let my only daughter drown, I shouldn't mind so much if I had dozens. Promise?'

So I said, 'Yes, daddy, sorry, I----'

But father interrupted. 'I've simply got to give you a thrashing as well, little 'un, because once or twice before you've said you were sorry, but it will have to be a moral one. I can't thrash a thing your size; why _don't_ you grow? I'm sure you could if you really tried, it's just cussedness. Now you go down to Sam and Ross, they're in the harness room, and tell them you're sorry and that you're going to do what they tell you in future.'

And I said, 'Daddy, I simply couldn't; why, I'd never hear the last of it, I couldn't get it out.'

So father said, 'Well, you can take your choice between your pride and the Hickley Woods, darling.'

So I went down to the harness room and got it out somehow. Ross said, 'Oh, I say, Meg, _don't_ say any more, it won't make a scrap of difference, but if you wouldn't mind about wasps' nests and that kind of thing, we would be so obliged, wouldn't we, Sam?'

And Sam said 'Rather' and gave me a red apple. I always got one from Sam if I were in a row.... Of course, I've had a dog's life with the pair of them ever since.

*CHAPTER V*

When Ross and I were fifteen we got to know a topping boy named Charlie Foxhill. He is amphidextrous. His father is most frightfully rich. He made his money in cement, but this is never mentioned because Mrs Foxhill is the daughter of an impecunious peer, and she is as proud as the cement is hard. The Foxhills came to live in the next village to ours. My great friend, Monica Cunningham, lives there too, at least she is there sometimes. Her father is a baron, but you would never know it to look at him. He takes a great interest in patent manures and the ten lost tribes.

Charlie is two years older than Ross, but so much shorter that they seem the same age. He is an agnostic. His mother has driven him to it, she is so 'steeped in saints.'

'It's bad enough to be steeped in poets like my sister,' said Ross, 'but saints! I never can imagine how people can stomach all that crowd. They bore me stiff. The only one I like is the chap that finds lost things.

'St Elian?'

'Fat lot you know about saints, Foxhill,' remarked my brother politely.

'I know an awful lot; I've not lived with my mother for nothing,' said Charlie lugubriously.

'Well, I never could see that a saint was anything more than a dead sinner,' remarked my brother, 'and some of them make a perfect nuisance of themselves--look at St Vitus.'

'Oh,' I giggled, but my brother was wound up and ignored my interruption.

'And St Swithin--isn't he the absolute limit? Look how he mucks the summer up if he gets the chance! All because he thought he was going to be buried where he didn't want to be--keeping the feud up all these years, too.'

Charlie admires my friend Monica awfully and calls her a Greek poem because she is so graceful, but Ross says that it is a pity she suffers from pride of race and spends her time in looking up people's pedigrees. Her brother is the Master of Rullerton. Daddy asked her once if she had ever looked up the pedigree of the Master of the Universe, as He was a gentleman on his mother's side, and daddy showed her a funny old book where it said, 'He might, if He had esteemed of the vayne glorye of this world, have borne coat armour.'

That took Monica's fancy frightfully. She said it made Him seem quite interesting. Aunt Amelia thought it 'shocking,' of course, but daddy said,--

'We don't all travel by the same road, Amelia.'

'There is only one way, and it is narrow,' groaned my aunt.

'Yes, but not narrow-minded,' daddy retorted. He is funny.

Though Charlie Foxhill is such a friend of Ross they are not a bit alike; Charlie is so diffident, Ross so sure of everything. But then Charlie has had one of those unfortunate 'Christian upbringings' that daddy calls only another name for spiritual slavery, when square parents try to shove their round children into square holes, and of course the children hate it and some of them go to the devil in the process. Mrs Foxhill actually insists on reading all her children's letters, and expects them to think and feel just as she does about everything.

But Charlie won't be put into his parents' mould, he refuses to be shoved into their square hole, he utterly declines to be steeped in saints. If he differs from his mother on any subject he is answered with a mass of words and arguments, reproaches, or worse still, tears; consequently Charlie says nothing now and veils all he really feels in a cloak of absurdities or feigned indifference.

At first we couldn't get him to give an opinion about anything, especially in front of father, but gradually as he got to know us better and found that Ross expressed his views quite freely and that daddy treated them with respect and consideration, even if they were diametrically opposed to his own, Charlie began gradually to develop and say what he really thought, but always with a certain diffidence as if he half expected a storm of opposition. But he is always courteous about his mother--'steeped in saints' is the only criticism he ever makes. For the rest he is silent and suppressed, but the cold politeness with which he treats his people is quite different from the deference Ross pays to daddy.

Monica, too, is not a bit like me. I always know exactly what I want; she never does--till afterwards. Father says, however, that Monica will be a fine character when she learns that a man can be all the things that really matter, even if he never had a grandfather, and that she will rise to the occasion some day and do the splendid thing even if she doesn't always know whether she wants to play tennis with Ross or Charlie.

*CHAPTER VI*

When I was sixteen my governess got married and daddy said it was a good opportunity for me to go to school for a bit. I was therefore sent to the one in London where Monica was. The head mistress was a friend of Aunt Amelia. I suppose that's why my prickles were always out and my old Adam gave me such a lot of trouble.

There was that last unfortunate Sunday, for instance. It was the 27th April, and Monica and I awoke at four o'clock. We peeped out of the bedroom window just as the dawn was coming. The London garden had all the glamour of the woods at home, and there in the half light we could see the six or seven trees with bluebells growing round--a mist of blue, enchanting, adorable, divine. The scent blew across the grass and the birds called us. We slipped downstairs and ran over the delicious cool lawn into that lovely blue light at the foot of the trees. We gathered handfuls of blossoms and ferns all drowned with dew. We went quite mad with the call of the spring, and danced, for I thought I heard distant music. It may have been only a blackbird; could it have been the pipes of Pan? Anything was possible that morning. We got back, as we thought unseen, stole some scones and milk, and as we tumbled into bed again Monica swore she heard the cuckoo, but I'm certain it was only the clock on the stairs, because this 'Bird' ooed before it cucked!

Then the same day I behaved badly in church. Of course, the general behaviour of the sons and daughters of the clergy is always more unseemly than that of other people's children. Daddy says it's because they're so frightfully handicapped in having the clergy for their fathers.

But that day two such absurd things happened. I believe even St Paul with his love of decency and order would have been obliged to smile, while Peter, of course, would have giggled. Monica passed me a bit of paper shortly after we arrived, on which was written the mystic message: 'Eyes right. Psalm 57, verse 5. She will remember.' I looked to the right, and seated in the pew immediately in front of us was a spinster of uncertain age in a smart blue toque, in the hollow crown of which lay a complete set of false teeth with an unholy smile still lingering about them. I suppose the poor dear had put them on her hat to remind her to put them in her mouth. I collapsed into weak giggles, which increased when I looked up the Psalm we were about to sing, which contained the verse: 'Whose teeth are spears and arrows.' I am afraid I must confess I didn't attempt to follow the service, I simply lived for verse 5. Sure enough, as Monica had predicted, 'she remembered.' She was singing away lustily, 'And I lie even among the children of men that are set on fire whose----' then a violent start, a wild clutch at the toque, and a dash down the aisle. The churchwarden, who thought she was ill, followed her into the porch with a glass of water.

I could see Monica's shoulders shaking though her face was preternaturally solemn. I felt quite ill with suppressed laughter. I tried to remember all the things I had been taught to think about in church, but I was in that weak state I couldn't stop giggling. The next Psalm began with the question: 'Are your minds set upon righteousness, O ye congregation.' I felt neither Monica nor I could answer in the affirmative.

After a while my eyes stopped running and I was able to attend a little better. Then we had the second lesson. It was Acts xxvii, all about the shipwreck of St Paul. I noticed poor old Admiral Stopford, who is a bit weak in the head, was getting very fidgety. His nurse whispered to him once or twice, but in vain, for when the vicar read how they cast the cargo over to lighten the ship he suddenly got up and said loudly,--

'Never ought to have been necessary, bad navigation, bad navigation.'

His nurse hurried him out, purple in the face, and Monica and I followed. I felt if I couldn't laugh aloud I should spontaneously combust. We found a flat tombstone in a secluded part of the churchyard on which we sat and rocked.

On arriving back at the house there was a most frightful row because one of the neighbours had telephoned to say that he had seen us in the garden in the early morning. The head mistress said we had brought disgrace on the school and that I was the chief offender. She telegraphed to father,--

'Seriously worried about your daughter come the first thing on Monday.'

Daddy was frantic and thought that I was dying, and wired to Ross at Harrow to go to Hampstead at once, and that he would come up by the first train he could catch.