I was disgusted at being condemned to yet another school, for I was by now
longing to get out into the world and into war work as all my contemporaries
were doing. I was, to a certain extent, consoled by the fact that my new school
was in London. At last, after more than eight long years, I was to return to the
London for which I had never ceased to crave.
This school was apparently chosen for me on exactly the same principles as the
two previous ones had been; which was nothing to do with the type of school, or
standard of education, but merely because my parents happened to know someone
connected with it. In this case it was one of the joint Heads, whom my parents
had known in her childhood at Hemel Hempstead, and whose father was one of
Jack’s godparents. Miss Phillips had recently started a Church Secondary School
in collaboration with Miss Moberley Bell, and this was the only school at which
I got down to work properly, and got a really good modern education.
The school was, however, only for day girls, there was no boarding
accommodation, which meant that I had to live in digs. Auntie Dick, who had a
charming house on Campden Hill, within easy reach of the school, was most
anxious that I should live with her and Uncle Wynnard, during term time, but
Mother would have none of it. She considered Auntie Dick “Worldly”, and
preferred that I should live with a painfully respectable and excruciatingly
dull and proper Wesleyan widow, and her two appallingly prim daughters.
There had never been any love lost between Mother and Auntie Dick, and quite naturally the latter was deeply hurt and angered at Mother’s refusal of her offer. Had I known of it at the time, no amount of disapproval on Mother’s part would have kept me away from Auntie Dick, I only knew her very slightly, but from my first vision of her I laid my heart at her feet, and it remained there till her death. She never came to stay with us at home; she and Uncle Wynnard had called to see us once, and that had been enough for her. The primitive conditions at home horrified her, as did anything crude and inelegant.
Auntie Dick was one of the most exquisitely lovely people I have ever seen. She was very slender — in fact Mother remarked once in somewhat disparaging tones that she “looked as if she had been pulled through a ring” - with a halo of pale ash-blond curls; her skin was of a transparent pallor, and her eyes were a pale translucent sea-green, with a strikingly dark band of colour round each iris. Her features were clear cut and delicate, with a slight lift of unconscious arrogance. Agnes used to tell me that when Auntie Dick and her younger sister, Auntie Emma, who died before I was born, were out walking together as young girls, they were both so lovely that it was quite the usual thing for passers-by to stop and turn round to stare at them. Judging by photographs, Auntie Emma must have been an exquisite creature too, though I have been told that her hair was a bright corn gold, with a delicate wild rose complexion. Auntie Dick was the pure ice-maiden, and her personality gave the effect of a cold suppressed flame behind the ice. I do not recall that she often spoke or asserted herself in any way, but she had only to enter the room and all eyes turned to her. It was impossible to be aware of anyone else when she was present. She was always completely detached and aloof, a strange, unearthly creature moving among ordinary mortals and making them appear coarse and mundane by comparison. She had a brilliant wit, and a most amusing tongue, when she cared to exert herself, and was also an accomplished pianist and artist. But she never seemed to do anything much, and she never needed to. Her beauty and strange cold radiance were quite sufficient justification for her existence.
It was enough that she was.
Her husband, Uncle Wynnard, was her complete antithesis. He was stout and
stocky, with a short black beard, and a robust enjoyment of life. He adored
Auntie Dick, and never seemed able to understand how she could have come to
marry him. He was a most lively and entertaining person, kindly and warmhearted,
and hid a remarkable intellect behind a facade of completely idiotic chatter.
His tough appearance was surprisingly belied by his high pitched speaking voice,
though he somehow managed to sing among the basses in the Bach choir. The family
never appreciated Uncle Wynnard at his true worth, and never attempted to hide
from him their conviction that Auntie Dick had thrown herself away on him. This
was where Father, together with many others of the family, made a very bad, and
as it proved, costly mistake. Uncle Wynnard, though one of the most unassuming
of men, held a very high position on the financial staff of the Times, and was,
I believe, Financial Editor eventually. No one holding such a position, could
have been the fool that the family seemed to consider him, and if only Father
had accepted his expert, and readily offered, advice, he would not have suffered
the terrible financial losses which left him and Mother almost penniless towards
the end of their lives.
Uncle Wynnard. and Auntie Dick had no children, which was another reason for
Mother’s disapproval. Auntie Dick was not at all strong and found children
exhausting. Her house and ménage were as exquisite as herself, and even on the
rare occasions when we three were taken to visit her from Ealing, the atmosphere
of her surroundings enchanted me. Of late years Jack has told me that he never
liked Auntie Dick. Although at no stage was he ever a rough or clumsy boy, yet
she and her surroundings always made him feel as if he were all hands and feet,
and she, quite unintentionally, induced in him a severe inferiority complex. He
always felt that she was despising him as being a “great rough boy”, though he
was never anything of the sort, nor do I believe she ever so considered him. To
me she had always shown as much affection as she was capable of showing, and I
am sure she was as much aware of the affinity between us as I was. For one thing
I was her name sake, and for another I had much the same colouring, though I can
never hope to claim a fraction of her looks.
I had the same fastidious nature as hers, and the same love and appreciation of
the intellectual and gracious things of life. This fastidiousness, though a
desirable quality in many ways, is by no means entirely so. In fact in these
modern days, it can be a very real handicap. In my case, in addition to its
general application, it takes the particular form of a loathing of getting my
hands dirty, and specially of touching certain things. Never in all my life have
I been able to make myself touch either raw meat or raw fish with my bare hands,
and it will be readily seen at what a disadvantage it places me in these days
when we all have to do our own cooking and housework. I well remember one
terrible experience when I was quite a child, we had all been out for the day,
and the house was left empty as it was also the maid’s half-day. On the way home
Mother remembered that there was nothing ready for supper, and one of the party
rapturously suggested that we should take home some fresh herrings. Mother
agreed, on condition that we each prepared and cleaned our own. A cold horror
came over me, but the family laughed my protests to scorn. As soon as we got
back, everyone stampeded down to the huge scullery and clustered happily round
the candle on the table, all busily preparing their herrings. Mine was thrust at
me, and I was obliged to take it, though with extreme gingerliness by the tail.
I was utterly incapable of joining in the gory party at the table, and backed
into a dark corner, while black waves of despair and nausea enveloped me. I
liked grilled herrings and as quite ready for my supper, but I was prepared to
starve rather than attempt the ghastly business of decapitating and cleaning the
fish. Presently Mother missed me from the circle, and I was found, holding the
herring at arm's length between finger and thumb, by the very tip of the tail,
and nearly in tears between nausea, despair, and hunger. Seeing that I was in
serious distress, Mother took pity on me, and whether she or some other Good
Samaritan, undertook the loathly job. I think Mother found my squeamishness very
trying, for she had none of it herself, and never minded what filthy jobs she
did, or how dirty she got her beautiful hands. She tried unceasingly to break me
of this, and I have myself made strenuous efforts of recent years, but neither
Mother's willpower, nor my own, have had the slightest effect.
Oddly enough I never have the least qualms over rendering such First Aid as
comes my way, in fact I absolutely revel in cleansing and bandaging injuries. I
have always longed for an opportunity to watch operations being performed, and
can sit, absorbed, through Technicolor films of operations which send numbers of
the audience, including my husband, who has seen active service in both wars,
out of the hail, white and shaking.
Some of the most profound words ever written are these by Sir Oliver Lodge in
“Raymond”
Everything removed from the emotional arena and transplanted into the intellectual, becomes interesting and tractable and worthy of study.
This, I think, explains the paradox of my sentiments regarding the handling of raw meat, and the watching of operations, and it is applicable to almost every facet of human experience.
Despite the fact that Mother would not agree to my living with them, and how I
raged when in later years this came to my knowledge, Uncle Wynnard and Auntie
Dick were absolute fairy godparents to me all the time I was at the school in
London. Nearly all my half term holidays and Sundays I spent with them, and at
their house I revelled in the intellectual and artistic circle in which they
moved. It was at their house that I met [Green
Mansions] W.H.Hudson,
and Leonard Huxley, the father of [Professor of Zoology] Julian and
[Brave New World] Aldous,
and many others of their ilk. I remember Mr. Hudson as a silent, hawk-faced old
man, who looked like a caged wild creature in that elegant drawing room. His
eyes had the far-away gaze of those accustomed to great distances, and he seemed
to find it difficult to focus either his eyes or his mind on the pettinesses of
civilization. Auntie Dick and Uncle Wyrmard had continued the friendship started
by my grandmother, and Mr. Hudson seemed happier and more at his ease in their
company than in most other houses. After his death, Uncle Wynnard was one of his
executors, and was largely responsible for the editing and production of the
beautiful definitive collection of his works. He was also an active participant
in the erection of the memorial to Mr. Hudson which stands in Hyde Park. I was
there at the unveiling. There had been a great deal of controversy about getting
Epstein to design the now famous “Rima”, and I shall never forget the hush of
dismay that spread over the assembly when it was revealed at the unveiling. A
few advanced spirits approved, and applauded but most of the company literally
gasped with horror. That must have been in the early 1920's when Epstein was
still considered incredibly shocking by the die hards.
Dr. Leonard Huxley was the son of the Professor
Huxley, who had been a great friend of the family in the older generation of
my grandmother and Sir John Evans, and Leonard was a friend and contemporary of
Father, Uncle George and Auntie Dick. He became “Uncle Leonard” to me, and I
still treasure a small volume of his poems which he gave me, and in which he had
written on the flyleaf a special set of verses commemorating the long
association of our families.
It was Auntie Dick and Uncle Wynnard who introduced me to the wonders of Covent
Garden Opera, Queen’s Hall and Albert Hall concerts and to the glories of the
Bach Choir. It was they who took me to Burlington House to the opening of the
Royal Academy, to Lords’, to the Boat Race and to the Tournament at Olympia. We
always went everywhere in a style and comfort which in themselves were an
unbounded delight to me. They both wore full evening dress on such occasions as
demanded it, and even though my plain little wardrobe could not rise to the same
heights, I did the best I could and made up for deficiencies by basking in
reflected glory.
I believe Auntie Dick’s fingers itched to get me properly dressed, for Mother
never had any ideas on that subject, but she was far too tactful to risk
annoying Mother by doing so, and thus making things even more difficult for
Father. We went everywhere by taxi, and always had the best seats in the house,
and under their kindly guidance and teaching I learnt the fundamentals of good
taste and intellectual appreciation which have paid dividends during my whole
life.
On. fine Sunday mornings Uncle Wynnard , immaculate in morning coat, striped
trousers, top hat, spats, lavender gloves and discreet buttonhole, would take me
walking in Kensington Gardens by the Round Pond, where we watched the model
yachts. He was a great sportsman in many spheres, an accomplished mountaineer, a
crack shot. He always shot at Bisley each year and went deer-stalking from the
shooting box of friends in the Highlands. He was also an expert judge of cricket
and rowing, and an ardent fisherman. His study was packed with guns, fishing
rods, alpenstocks, hobnailed boots and gear of every sort. He was also an
accomplished music and art critic, and a boyhood friend of Rudyard
Kipling, with whom he maintained a lifelong friendship. He had an absolutely
prodigious memory, and his conversation and companionship contributed far more
to my education than all I ever learnt at school. He could, and did, talk by the
hour on every subject under the sun, and never tired of my eager questions. If
from Auntie Dick I learned the refinements and elegancies of life, from Uncle
Wynnard I acquired a breadth of outlook and knowledge of every sort and kind,
for which I can never be sufficiently grateful.
Yet this was the man, who, because he chose to present a talkative and
inconsequent front to the world, and who never asserted himself or gave himself
airs, was patronized and mildly sneered at by most of my family. Even after
Auntie Dick’s death in 1920 his kindness to me never flagged. Her death broke
his life completely, but he knew how I adored her, and I was sufficiently like
her to keep something of her alive before his eyes.
I believe Uncle Wynnard and Auntie Dick were anxious to adopt me as their own
daughter, and would have arranged for my presentation at Court and a first class
Season to follow, but this by no means accorded with Mother’s ideas for one
destined to be a missionary. How much she knew of all my doings in their
fascinating and stimulating company I couldn’t say, and what Father thought of
it all I never knew. One of Father’s nicknames in his family was “Brer Rabbit”,
and certainly he had brought the principle of "he lay low, he say nuffin’
" to a fine art.
The school I was attending was completely up to date and excellently organised. Although I was the oldest pupil I looked so much less than my years, and my education had been so haphazard and broken, that I was put in the fifth form, instead of the sixth, where I fitted in quite happily among girls of fifteen and sixteen. I longed to be allowed to work for public educational exams as most of the others were doing, but for some reason or other my parents had never seen the necessity for me to learn algebra, geometry or Latin, which put me at a hopeless disadvantage. I had learnt a fair
smattering of Greek from Father before I was sent to my first school, and as
Miss Phillips, who was our form mistress, was also the Classics mistress, and a
first class classical scholar, she gave me special coaching in both Latin and
Greek. She was a real enthusiast on education, and was genuinely horrified to
find how my education had been neglected, particularly when she came to realise
how keen I was on study. Many were the hours of her own free time which she
voluntarily devoted to coaching me.
At this school art and music held a very subsidiary place in the curriculum. The
art mistress also taught history, which was her principal job, though her real
interest was in art. She, poor soul, found her art classes a sorely uphill task,
and when I appeared on the scene, with my considerable facility and a background
of excellent training, she clasped me to her bony bosom with cries of joy. My
drawings and water colours were pinned up all over the school, but any conceit
that this might have engendered was completely cancelled out by my blank
ignorance of most subjects essential for the passing of educational exams,
The girls were a very different type from those at my previous school. They were
a cheery, carefree crowd, friendly and keen on their work. It was some time
before I began to realise the essential. difference between these girls and my
previous school mates.
At Miss Phillips’ suggestion I was invited home to tea by one and another, and my snobbish little soul was shaken to the core when one of the prefects proved to be a butcher's daughter, and I was escorted through the shop, dodging the revolting carcases hanging there, on the way to the living rooms beyond. I was still more shaken when the head girl, as charming and nicely spoken a girl as one could meet, who was working for a scholarship to Oxford, invited me home. Her father owned a restaurant of the “good pull-up for car men” type, in a small road off Ebury Street. I can only hope that my good manners triumphed over my consternation.
At this time bobbed hair was becoming the rage, and one after another my class mates would appear with short hair, bubbling with delight at the freedom and comfort. During the last term at my previous school, most of us had started putting our hair up. As I had an enormous quantity of curly and unmanageable hair, this proceedure was of the utmost pain and grief to me. My hair was hot and heavy, and my coiffure of the most insecure. On arrival at the London school I found I was the only one with her hair up, and I frequently reverted to the down position during school hours, only putting it up when I wanted to be grownup out of school. Added to my troubles in keeping my hair up at all, was the fact that I have inherited the dolicocephalic cranium characteristic of the Vizards, which has always made the buying of hats a pure nightmare. Mother had the same shaped head, as Jack has also. Mother, who would never bow to fashion in any shape or form, invariably wore her hair parted in the middle and brushed flat, with an enormous bun of plaits at the back, exactly in the style of the ‘seventies. She never attempted to fit a hat on her head; her hats always sat square on top with an elastic under the bun.
Jack’s long head has always caused him as much trouble as mine has caused me; for years he was compelled to get his clerical hats made specially for him. In these more happy go lucky days he has wisely eschewed hats entirely.
When I had to add a mass of hair to an already elongated skull, my hat situation became desperate, and I longed more than ever for the neat round cranium of Father’s family. Bobbed hair dawned upon my horizon with the intoxicating glow of a lifelong problem solved, and I wrote at once to Mother requesting her permission to have mine off. If I had requested permission to enter a brothel the reaction could not have been more devastating. A really appalling atmosphere developed, and I was somehow made to feel I had committed some unmentionable obscenity in even contemplating such a step. Mother even went as far as to say she would not have me at home if I had my hair off. I was still sufficiently dominated by her personality not to dare to have it without her knowledge and consent, but I then and there registered a vow that the moment I came of age, my first action would be to have that hated mane removed. I kept this vow, though the intervening three years were filled with constant battles on the subject between Mother and myself. Mother had a terrifying way of giving all her wishes a Scriptural foundation, against which it was impossible to appeal, and it was this which always gave me the added fear that I was disobeying God if I tried to assert my own will against hers. In this way, quite unintentionally, she gave me the impression that the service of God was a ponderous, icy negation of all one’s personal desires or wishes, and this inspired in me a savage, furious rebellion against God, which persisted for many years.
One of my great joys in such free times as I did not spend with Auntie Dick, was to get on the top of a bus and book blindly to the end of the route and back. In this way I wandered down to dockland eastwards, and Middlesex westwards, and became a walking encyclopedia on the route of practically any bus, by their numbers. When Uncle Wynnard and Auntie Dick heard of these unaccompanied voyages of exploration, they were much concerned lest I should lose myself in some unsavoury neighbourhood, and get into serious difficulties. In order to guide my errant steps Uncle Wynnard gave me a beautiful little volume of maps of London, in convenient sections, which became my constant companion. I still have it, though it is dropping to pieces with use.
On one of these bus-top expeditions I was passing down Piccadilly and saw outside Devonshire House a large notice appealing for women to volunteer for various forms of war work. I was by now utterly weary of being kept back from the free life of other girls of my age, and of having to stay on at school when I was chafing to be out in the world. A day or two later, I carefully pinned up my hair, and put on what I considered my most grownup outfit, and deliberately played truant. I went to Devonshire House and presented myself as a volunteer. The lady interviewer was extremely kind, but openly incredulous when I told her, quite truthfully, that I was eighteen. I had for a long time been crazy about cars, and longed to be taken on as a driver, and I was cruelly disappointed to be told that I was obviously too young to be accepted. She advised me very gently, to go back to school and finish my education. I could have wept with mortification. Directly I appeared back in school, Miss Phillips pounced on me to know where I had been. I told her quite simply. She quite understood my motives, but said she was very sorry but I should be obliged to serve my punishment for absenteeism by being kept in on the next half-holiday to work out a Greek imposition. I was furious, for after all I was only trying to be patriotic and do my bit. I also pointed out to her, in my usual logical manner, that enforcing the imposition would only cause inconvenience to her, as she would have to give up her own half holiday to invigilate me, and on top of that she would have the extra work involved in correcting my Greek impot. Miss Phillips had an acute sense of humour and great understanding, and instead of scolding me, she burst out laughing and admitted that she quite saw the sense of my contention. However rules were rules, and had to be obeyed, pro bono publico. If I were let off, it would mean that others could claim the same exemption, and this would eventually undermine all discipline. As she had the wisdom to give me a sane reason for my punishment, I submitted with a perfectly good grace.
At eleven o’clock on the morning of the 11th of November 1918, we were all in our class rooms, immersed in lessons, though rumours had come even to our schoolgirl ears. As the hour struck maroons and rockets burst out, and from the windows we could see balloons rising on Wimbledon Common and Putney Heath. Lessons were abandoned and we were all called down to the assembly hall where Miss Moberley Bell told us the great news. The General Thanksgiving was said and the National Anthem sung, and then we were given our liberty for the rest of the day. London was mad, and I went mad in the hub of the maelstrom. Instinctively I made my way to the Mall through streets which were suddenly ablaze with flags and streamers. The Mall was packed solid, Trafalgar Square and Whitehall were seething, strangers danced with each other in the streets, everyone was singing and cheering. Somehow I found myself seated on the roof of a taxi with half a dozen complete strangers. The body of the taxi was crammed full, and a dozen others were clinging to the bonnet and bodywork. We crawled the length of the Mall, with people handing us up flags and balloons as we passed. I recall little else of that crazy day till late at night I found myself in front of Buckingham Palace, in company with several thousand others, all chanting “We want King George”, and singing “Tipperary” and all the familiar wartime songs. I oozed my way forward till I was up against the huge railings round the Palace Yard. As the excitement increased, I became pressed so tightly against those railings that I found I had vertical bruises up and down my body when I eventually got back to my digs in the small hours of the morning. I was battered and exhausted, but I would not have missed Armistice Day in London for a fortune.
The problem of my future career was still unsolved. Mother was still pressing me to enter a missionary training college, and I was resisting as firmly as ever. I was still hoping to be able to enter some academic career, though my earlier hopes of becoming a doctor had by now had to be abandoned. No one had any suggestion to offer, and I was desperately in need of advice and guidance. Miss Phillips was only too ready to encourage me in my ambition to go to the University, but was completely frustrated by my parents’ non cooperation. Apart from a career as a missionary nothing whatever was offered to me, and be a missionary I would not. For several more years Mother continued to cherish the hope that I would eventually succumb to pressure, but the more the pressure the stronger my resistance.
I had by now almost entirely succeeded in braking loose from the Victorian atmosphere in which I had lived so long. Life was opening up before me, exciting and vital, and I was on tip toe to plunge out and savour it to the full. But the tentacles of Victorianism were even then clutching out after me, and I was destined to be drawn back and immersed in the past more deeply than ever before.
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