you know a month from today I shall be 18 and I shall be allowed to smoke! O glorious day.
Tuesday, 20 September
Retrospect:
Tipping up in a perambulator left in the conservatory while the others were having dinner. Green peas. Golden curls and blue ribbons. Making houses with the bedclothes before breakfast. Running about naked and thrilling with the feel of it. A white silk frock and a big blue sash and dancing slippers. Dancing lessons. The polka with Noreen. Buddy’s cousin. Swinging at the bottom of the garden. Summer days and the smell of citronella to keep away the gnats. Bare legs and the wonderful silver fountain of the hose. Daddy in a white sweater. School. Very small, very shy. The afternoon in May – taken by mother to Penrhyn. Learning how to write the letters of the alphabet. A beautiful clean exercise book and a new pencil. Miss Wade at the head of the dining room table and me at her right. Choking tears because of youth’s cruelty. Leslie as a cadet in khakis. Wartime. Air raids. Mother white-faced and fearful. Mummy and Daddy who were ‘lovers still’. Youth’s sudden fierce resentment. Lavender, Peggy, Veronica and I. The Xmas when Mummy wasn’t there. Mummy white-faced and old eyes grown tired with suffering yet dimly alight with that courage which never quite died. The sudden night-fears. The long lonely nights that ended and she was home again. Hot days when she sat in the garden. Nurse Petersson. Darkness in her bedroom. The electric fan and ice to keep it cool. Leslie suddenly brought home to see his mother for the last time. An afternoon in late July when we all came into her room and she prayed for us. Realisation that my fears were true. Tears. Tears. A dull sudden despair. Tennis and laughter. Boarding school next term at PHC! Thrills of the new life before me. Clothes. Mummy’s last kiss on my lips and my eyes dim with tears. Two shillings in my hand. Gwyneth as a new girl next to me. Bells, bells. Nights spent praying. The Tuesday morning French lesson. Boredom itself. Miss Rodger’s face round the door. ‘May Jean Pratt go to Miss Parker.’ The absurd consciousness of having on my lavender jumper. The swing doors and Miss Parker beyond. ‘Your father is in the drawing room my dear, he has something to say to you.’ The sudden knowledge of the end of all things. Daddy red-eyed and tired with open arms and only a sob to tell me everything. Tears. Tears and unbearable heartache. Home for the day. Aunt Edith outside in their car waiting for me. Workmen that stopped to stare. A silence that greeted me as I stepped inside the house. Mother was dead. A sudden fierce desire to turn round and run away. Anywhere. ‘She will be very still.’ The peace that smoothed away the suffering from her face. And her forehead so cold when I kissed it. The gold of the sunshine outside. Back to school. Feeling paralysed. Pleased with sudden elevation of position the simple tragedy had placed me in. The weekend and the flowers. White lilies that I threw after the coffin. It seemed such a long way down. We left her under the yew tree covered with flowers.
The term went by and the holidays came as all holidays will. Daddy alone. So he worked to save himself from dying of a broken heart. And so the years went by. And Ethel came. And life became what it is now.
Sunday, 9 October
I am beginning to live again – at last! But there is still something lacking – just a boy. To take me to the pictures, to be teased about, to write me letters, to dance with me, to sort of fill Leslie’s place. But I must be patient. I know it’s my glasses, always has been. Leslie said once, ‘I suppose you’ve got to wear glasses? You know, without pulling your leg, you’re a pretty girl.’
And I, fool that I was, answered ‘I know!’ I didn’t mean to leave it at that. I had meant to add that ‘my glasses don’t improve my looks,’ but somehow I couldn’t get it out, and he’s gone away thinking perhaps I’m conceited. Perhaps he’s right.
I have asked Miss Wilmott to tea! Daddy suggested it. I’ve asked her!
I love the work at the office. I am learning shorthand and typewriting at the moment.
Thursday, 20 October
The dreamed-of has happened. SHE has sat in the drawing room and drunk our tea. I have talked with her and walked with her, as I sighed for long ago. But the things we spoke about were very ordinary, everyday things. I was nervous at first and felt frightfully sick, but by tea-time I gradually calmed down. She was very sweet. Nothing embarrassing happened. Ethel is in bed with a frightful cold and Daddy couldn’t get home, so it was just she and I, a whimsical trick of fate. How extraordinary life is. And yet I’m not as thrilled as I dreamed of being. Sentimental relationships are always embarrassing.
And I’m eighteen! The time one longs for comes around at last. This evening when Daddy came in I was smoking a State Express and neither of us remarked on it.
Saturday, 22 October
It is a miserable day and Leslie has forgotten my birthday.
Thursday, 1 December
I was half awake this morning when the clock struck 8. Then Daddy came in with two letters. One he gave to me – it was only my dividend and he waited till I read it. There was something strained in his attitude. I knew before he told me that he had some sort of bad news. But I knew it couldn’t be Ethel. It was Leslie. I had to hold my hand over my heart very tightly to stop it beating before I could open the Company’s letter. He has diphtheria. A mild attack they say. He is lying ill now, now as I write this, and we cannot do anything because of the miles that separate us, the miles of this ‘small’ world. But he is in Montevideo. The Company will let us know how he gets on. But I cannot help thinking of the things that might happen.
And that brings me to the mundane fact of a dancing partner. I must have one for the 21st (Old Girls), but who in the world do I know who can dance? Only one, and he’s lying ill in Uruguay.
Sunday, 4 December
So I suppose I must ask Jack Phipps.
Tuesday, 6 December
I wrote to Jack Phipps last night and I have prayed. He will get it today, and I do hope he’ll understand and be able to come. I live in suspense waiting for his answer.
Tuesday, 27 December
I had Eric Yewlett for the Old Girls dance. He’s learning to be a parson and makes feeble jokes. I can’t bear him.
Wednesday, 14 March 1928
Tonight I am going over to Harrow with the Jolliffes to a Conservative dance.
Yesterday morning Joyce phoned through: ‘What I rang up to say was,’ she said after the usual banalities, ‘that I have got you a partner for tomorrow night.’ (For a moment my heart sank – I immediately thought of Dennis Rollin.) ‘And he,’ she went on, ‘is so thrilled with the idea that he is ready to put himself and car at your disposal. He has evidently been wanting to make your acquaintance for a long while.’
‘But how topping of him,’ I said. ‘Who is he incidentally?’
‘Mr Harold Dagley,’ said Joyce.
‘I seem to know the name.’ And so I do, but for the life of me I can’t remember anything more about him. ‘What a howl. But I say, Joyce, I’m sure he’s thinking of Margaret, not me.’
Anyway he is coming to fetch me from Wembley between six and half-past. I’m nervous, excited, it all seems so absurd. I’m sure it will be like so many of those dreams of mine – will crumble
