Running to Paradise (7 page)

As
for me, I adored these expeditions, and it was through them that my love for wild flowers and the English countryside was born, remaining with me (despite the latter being, alas, no longer the unspoiled wonderland it was when I was a child) to this day, and has many, many times, when all else seems to have failed, continued to give me pleasure.

The
affair of Pa and Miss Bellingham (for, of course, that is what it was) came to a head on the great river picnic. Pa, in his goodness, decided to give me and my governess a treat: he would hire a boat and the three of us would spend the day on the river; Ma,
hors
de
combat
as usual, would stay behind on the sofa.

We
set off one glorious Saturday morning, taking the footpath that led from the paddock to the river, the latter only a mile if you went across the fields. Pa, wearing knickerbockers and Norfolk jacket, carrying the food hamper, led the way, laughing and joking like a schoolboy. Then came Miss Bellingham in a pink summer dress with tiny pearl buttons all the way down the front and a wide, shady straw hat, holding her skirts away from the brambles that wound across the path. And me in the rear, singing one of my made-up songs, carrying a long frond of lacy cow parsley as a wand. The boat was ready and waiting at the tiny landing stage, and once everyone, plus the food hamper and Miss Bellingham’s parasol, were safely on board, Pa cast off.

We
punted lazily between the river banks now alight with kingcups and yellow flag irises: me on my tummy in the stern peering into the brown depths of the water for trout, Pa, a small, sunburned, athletic figure, wielding the punt pole with considerable efficiency — by now he had discarded his Norfolk jacket — and Miss Bellingham, lying back on the punt cushions looking decorative.

When
it was time for lunch, we tied the punt to an overhanging branch and unloaded the hamper and the punt cushions. There was much laughter when Pa nearly fell in and Miss Bellingham’s hat caught in a tree. Everything seemed to be going right; even lunch was good. I disliked food and regarded eating as a waste of valuable time (I still do), but today there were my favourite chicken sandwiches, the chocolate cake cook always made for special occasions and even my own private bottle of lemonade. Pa opened a bottle of champagne for himself and Miss Bellingham with a flourish.

‘
Oh, but I shouldn’t, Mr Osborn. It makes me so silly,’ said Miss Bellingham, her eyes all big and soft like a rabbit’s, one hand playing with the little pearl buttons at her throat.

‘
Fizz never did anyone any harm,’ Pa said, ‘and today is a special holiday, isn’t it, Scamp?’ I loved Pa calling me Scamp, it made me feel wicked.

‘
Why is it a special day, Pa, why?’

‘
Because, because, because...it just is,’ he said, smiling, annoyingly, at Miss Bellingham. Suddenly, there was a splash of water, and out from under the bulrushes swam a mother moorhen and her chicks.

‘
Look, look.’ I ran to the water’s edge to watch the small flotilla swim by, agitated now by all the noise. ‘Oh, aren’t they sweet, Pa, look...’ But Pa wasn’t there. He and Miss Bellingham were kneeling on the punt cushions looking at one another in a silly way and they hadn’t even seen the moorhens. The day, somehow, didn’t seem so bright now. ‘You missed the moorhens, you stupid things.’

‘
Don’t speak to your father like that, dear.’ Miss Bellingham dabbed her forehead with a minute, white, lace handkerchief. I promptly stuck out my tongue. A scene was imminent. Pa, pushing his panama hat to the back of his head held out his arms. ‘Come on, you scallywag, we don’t want any tantrums today, it’s too hot. Let’s start lunch. I’m ravenous.’

Lunch
was fun and Pa in such a good mood he even gave me a sip of champagne. By the end of the meal Miss Bellingham’s hair was getting all wispy and untidy; there were beads of sweat on her forehead and a few crumbs adhered to her chin, and I was feeling sleepy. I licked my fingers and yawned, then rolled back on the warm cushions and lay looking up at the sun flickering through the branches above me.

‘
That’s right, dear, have a nap.’ Miss Bellingham bent over me, solicitously adjusting the cushions. For a while I sought to fight the drowsiness, then couldn’t be bothered, and fell asleep.

I
was woken some time later by the sound of a bumble bee, and sat up instantly, ready for action.

‘
Pa, Pa, what shall we do now?’ But there was no answer: Pa and Miss Bellingham had completely disappeared. Just for a minute I was a little frightened; surely they hadn’t run away and left me? Then I saw Pa’s hat and the food hamper: it was alright, they couldn’t be far. I decided to go and look for them.

I
was just wondering which way to go first, when I saw them. They had, for some reason, climbed back into the punt. But what on earth were they doing? Pa appeared to be bouncing up and down on top of Miss Bellingham, who was squeaking like one of the moorhens, and the boat was rocking like anything. What fun! Surely they’d like me to join in the game? I’d give them a surprise. What a joke!

I
crept down the bank and waded into the muddy water, which rose nearly to my waist. In a few short steps I had reached the side of the punt and shouting, ‘Let me have a go,’ tried unsuccessfully to haul myself in. In the ensuing scuffle, amidst screams from Miss Bellingham and oaths from Pa, the punt capsized, tipping its occupants into the river.

‘
You little fool,’ yelled Pa, frantically trying to pull up his trousers, his face red with rage. ‘What in Hades did you do that for?’

‘
I wanted to play, I wanted to play,’ I shrieked, jumping up and down in the water. ‘You’re stupid babies; grown-ups don’t play games, it’s silly.’

‘
Don’t you dare speak to me like that...’ Pa had his trousers up by this time, but Miss Bellingham had caught her dress on a branch when she was tipped out of the punt, and as she frantically tried to free herself, it became horribly apparent that all her little pearl buttons were undone and quite a bit of her bosom could be seen, rising creamy white above her camisole...

Miss
Bellingham left the following day, watched (I have to admit with some satisfaction) by me from my post at the nursery window. She was driven to the station in the dog cart by Smith, her back straight, her head high and the Gladstone bag full of Fabian tracts (unread) at her feet. She had learned her lesson the hard way and would later become one of the leading lights of the Women’s Suffrage Movement and a passionate disciple of Marie Stopes. As for Pa, he took a small flat in town, where he stayed during the week, and Ma took to her bed.

Shortly
after the disastrous boating picnic, on a wild, stormy night in June, my sister, Rosie, was born. Thunder crashed deafeningly around the house and Dr Jervis was delayed for an hour because of an elm struck by lightning blocking the road from the village. Ma’s labour went on for hours and Pa was summoned from London. You could hear Ma’s cries right down the passage that led to the night nursery and there was a funny hospital smell everywhere.

‘
Well, lovey, you have a dear little sister to play with,’ Nanny informed me next morning. ‘When you’ve finished your breakfast you may see her, but you must be very good and quiet, because it’s been a terrible ordeal for your poor mother and she’s very weak and tired.’

‘
I don’t want to see a stupid little sister and what’s an ordeal, Nan?’ I smashed in the top of my boiled egg with a teaspoon: it was all runny inside and I hated boiled eggs anyway.

‘
Of course you want to see your little sister. You must love her, because Jesus sent her. Now, eat up your egg, dear, and stop asking questions.’

‘
What’s an ordeal, Ma?’ I stood beside my mother’s big bed. Ma lay on her back, her sandy hair, usually so neatly coiled, tumbling on her shoulders, her face grey with fatigue and her big, green, slightly myopic eyes sad. The curtains were drawn across the windows shutting out the bright sunlight that had followed last night’s storm. A subdued Pa sat on a red velvet chair by the window smoking a cigarette.

‘
An ordeal is a bad time, darling,’ Ma said and her voice lacked its usual authority.

‘
Like when Pa and Miss Bellingham fell in the river—?’

‘
Ach!’ Pa made a noise that sounded like a cross between a laugh and a groan.

‘
No, not like that; that was what is known as farce.’ Ma’s voice was acid. ‘An ordeal is a bad time you go through to test how strong you are. Like Christian in the
Pilgrim’s
Progress
, when he journeys through the Vale of Tears. Why do you want to know?’

‘
Nanny said you’d had one.’

‘
It was not pleasant, not pleasant...’ Ma closed her eyes. The darkened room smelled of hospitals and Pa’s cigarettes. Outside on the lawn, Rags, the fox terrier, barked raucously at the stable cat as it picked its supercilious way across the neatly swept gravel.

‘
Come and see your sister. Ma must rest now.’ Pa took my hand and led me into the little room next door. The monthly nurse, a gaunt lady in starched blue and white, sat sewing beside a cradle; she rose to her feet.

‘
Ah, you’ve come to see Baby, dear. She’s such a pretty little soul.’ I ran to the cradle and peered inside. A red, pointed head topped by a fuzz of dark hair lay on the snow-white pillow. The eyes were fast shut and one tiny, clenched hand, like a pink sea anemone, rested on the blue satin coverlet.

‘
She’s not pretty; she looks like a lobster.’

Pa
snorted again. ‘That’s no way to talk of your new sister, Scamp. One day she will be as pretty as you and what will you do then?’

‘
Push her under a railway engine so she gets squashed like strawberry jam, then—’

‘
Be quiet, dear, we don’t want to wake Baby, now do we?’ said the monthly nurse, and I was led away.

The
looked-for boy had turned out to be a girl after all. The doctor said there could never be another child. Ma and Pa hid their disappointment, but the rift between them widened.

There
was a grand christening, of course, and the new baby was named Mary Rose, although throughout her short life she was always known as Rosie. She was a lovely child, who rarely cried and Pa, after his initial disappointment at her being the wrong sex, doted on her. Ma, however, had reservations: somehow she could not forget the ordeal of the child’s birth, or the events that had led up to it.

And
me? I had a new governess to contend with, or to be more accurate, a succession of governesses, for none of them stayed long. Some were French, some English, some old, some young, but they all had two things in common: they were extremely plain and none of them seemed to be able to cope with me.

5

‘Tell me about Aunt Beth; some of her diaries are in my pile for pre-1914.’

‘
Guy, you’re so organised.’ Sophia gazed in mock amazement at the neatly labelled bundles ranged about us. ‘What happens if someone wants to stay? I mean where will they sleep?’ We were standing in my spare bedroom: my task of sorting Char’s papers done, I was about to embark on the reading of them.

‘
No one ever does want to stay,’ I said huffily. ‘And the first rule for any researcher is to catalogue his primary sources: it’s no use just diving in at random, you’d never get anywhere.’

‘
Are you trying to get somewhere then, dear old Guy? You do seem to be taking all this rather seriously.’

‘
Don’t call me “dear old Guy”, it makes me sound like the family dog.’ I felt tired and irritable. It had been a hell of a day at the office and the last thing I needed was Sophia in one of her patronising moods. Now, are you going to tell me about Aunt Beth?’ Sophia sat down on the bed, having carefully removed the years 1924 and 1925 and placed them on the floor beside a large, enigmatic photograph of a group of people in pudding-basin hats standing glumly in front of what looked like a gasometer.

‘
Aunt Beth was Grandpa’s sister. She died before I was born, but she was one of Mum’s favourite people. She never married and lived with Aunty Roo — I do just remember her —who was a sort of Osborn cousin, in a large flat in Garden Court, Kensington. They lived there for years and years and it became a family meeting place. Mum stayed there a lot when she was a child. When Aunt Beth died she left some of her things to Mum, hence, I suppose, the existence of her diaries. But what are all these bits and pieces with them?’ She pulled out a brilliantly coloured picture postcard of St Peter’s, Rome.

‘
Sophia, don’t mix everything up,
please
. They’re all in chronological order; you see the letters and postcards fit in with the diaries—’

‘
Am I being a bore, Guy? You will tell me, won’t you, if I am?’

‘
You’re being a bore,’ I said, ‘but rather a beautiful one,’ and was instantly amazed at my temerity.

Sophia
was silent for a moment while she lit a cigarette. Then: ‘That’s better,’ she said. ‘That’s what I like to hear.’

‘
Let’s eat,’ I said. ‘Everything’s ready.’ She got up from the bed and took my arm. ‘And afterwards can we look at the diaries together?’ she said. ‘We could read them out loud to each other, take it in turns; make them come alive...’

The Grand Hotel, St, Moritz

10th
March, 1910

My dearest Scamp,

We arrived here yesterday from Paris. The weather good and the snow just right for skiing. I do wish you and Baby were here — what fun we all would have! Did you get our postcards from Paris? Don’t forget to keep the stamps for your album that Aunt Beth gave you.

Ma was a little unwell on the train journey out, but is much
better now and sends her fondest love to you and Baby. I hope you are looking after Rags and Augustus and remembering to give the horses their Sunday lumps of sugar.

We will be home for Easter. They have some fine chocolate eggs in the shops here and if you are a good girl while we are away and work hard at your lessons with Miss Lamont, I
’ll bring one back for you. We leave here next Tuesday and take the night express to Rome.

All love, dear child, to you and Baby

Yr loving Pa

PS I fell over in the snow today, right on my behind. How you would have laughed!

Hotel Trevi, Roma

25th March 1910

My Char —

Rome is so lovely and here I am confined to bed — isn’t it absurd! Pa has to go sight-seeing on his own. Never mind, our hotel is on one of the seven hills of Rome and from my bed I can see through the open window right over this beautiful city. The church bells ring all day long, such a lovely sound, I think, and not in the least like English bells. Some kind friends have just been in to sit with me while Pa is out. A Miss Peacock and Miss Lovridge, do you remember them? They stayed with us last year. Miss Peacock is a first-class croquet player and they are both such clever artists. They are staying in a pension quite close to our hotel and call daily. Doctor Piozzi is to visit today and give his verdict on whether I am allowed up. He’s such a killing little man, rather like an organ-grinder’s monkey!

Now, dear, I hope you are being a good girl and working your hardest at your lessons. Miss Lamont came to us very
highly recommended, and if you concentrate, especially in your arithmetic, and behave to her as you would to a friend of your father’s and mine, I am sure you will get along splendidly together. Remember the poor lady is on her own in a foreign land and needs some kindness shown her; even from naughty little girls! A week today and we shall be on our way home, if I have recovered from this stupid illness. Pa has gone to see the Catacombs, but sends his love. All my love, dear, too —

Your loving Ma

Hotel Trevi, Roma

27th March 1910

Dear Char —

Both Pa and I were most upset to hear from Nanny that Miss Lamont has already left. How can this be? I was feeling so much better and Dr Piozzi so pleased with my progress I was to be allowed down to dinner this evening. Then the English mail arrives and we have this shocking news from home.

Now Char, your father and I want the truth. As I have so often told you, it is always better to
‘Tell the truth and shame the devil’ as God would have us do. Why did Miss Lamont leave so suddenly? I should like the whole story, no leaving any little bits out, and so would your father.

I will write no more now. I feel most unwell and upset. Your father talks of curtailing our holiday: see what trouble naughty, selfish, little girls can cause. Pa and I are most displeased.

Your loving Ma

*

Garden Court, Kensington — 28th March 1910

Such a tiresome day. First we find the new cover for the drawing-room sofa does not match the chairs: the colour is quite, quite wrong. Roo must have had one of her
‘blind’ fits when she chose it. Then Cook was taken ill with one of her ‘turns’ and had to be carted off to bed by Mabel and Dr S called in. Roo and I had just sat down to a cold luncheon prepared by Mabel — v. odd potatoes, Roo’s were quite hard in the middle and tasted of soap — when a telegram arrived from Con and Dick in Rome. I felt for a minute quite sick with fright! Can I go down to Renton at once, the latest gov has left in high dudgeon and pandemonium rages! So inconvenient. I wired back: ‘What am I to do when I get there?’

Con
replied: ‘Show the flag and calm things down.’ So there we are. I am to catch the 8.10 train from King’s Cross tomorrow morn. Rehearsal tonight and I simply can’t miss it; we’re behind enough as it is, what with no one bothering to learn their parts, and the chorus so ragged and off key. Oh dear...

Renton
House, Beds — 31st March 1910

Char
and I to the village today to see dear old Mrs Simms, then on to tea at the Vicarage. The Vicarage children such fun and little Geoffrey a perfect darling. Char has been so good and sweet, I cannot understand what all the furore has been about! She says Miss Lamont left because she didn’t like England and the house was too cold. I feel there must be a little more to it than that, but Vera the new parlour-maid — a v. quiet, sensible girl — says that Miss Lamont did complain a great deal and positively
tyrannised
the
staff. Vera said, ‘Miss Char was only sticking up for us Ma’am.’ Can this be true? Of course, old Nanny tells a different story, but then she’s so busy now with dear Baby, I doubt whether she has much time to know what is going on in the rest of the house.
Nous
verrons
...

Dear
Char is such a funny, clever, little thing. She said to me today as we were driving to the village, ‘Oh, how I
hate
Oliver Cromwell, Aunt Beth. I’ve covered his picture in my history book with ink blots.’ Did Miss Lamont approve, I wonder? Roo writes all is well at home and Cook recovered from her fit. Con and Dick return next week. Such lovely primroses in Bagland Wood. Char and I to pick them tomorrow to decorate the church.

Renton
House, Beds — 2nd April 1910

Such
a happy day yesterday with Char. Perfect spring sunshine. We took a picnic to the woods, I driving old Snowball in the dog cart. The wild flowers quite lovely. I did some sketching and Char played in and out of the trees. We saw a red squirrel and Char shouted: ‘Look, look, Aunt Beth, there’s Squirrel Nutkin.’ She’s such an original child: no beauty, but there’s something there.

Long
letter from Con. The doctors don’t seem to know what is wrong with her. A return to England and good, plain food should do the trick! Gallivanting about the continent won’t help to patch up her and Dick’s differences. Tried to talk to Char about her behaviour with the govs, but all she would say was, ‘Aunt Beth, they were all so stupid.’ Can she be right? Con does sometimes choose some rather odd people. This evening I set the child a little essay, ‘A Day in the Woods’. She ran straight upstairs to the school room to write it and stayed there until bedtime.

Dear
Baby — I must remember now to call her Rosie — is walking everywhere, such a lovely child, always so happy.

Renton
House, Beds — 4th April 1910

A
wire last night — Con and Dick home tomorrow. The boat train arrives at Victoria four o’clock, then straight down here in time for a late dinner. I must remember to tell Cook. Everyone frantically busy getting ready — Char rather quiet. ‘Ma will be so angry,’ she keeps saying, ‘and it wasn’t all my fault, not this time.’ I told her not to be absurd: if she gave her mother the truth and apologised properly for any worry she’d caused, I know she would understand. The trouble is, I’m not sure if I’m right to say this to her. Con can be so difficult and after being ill and Dick leaving her in the hotel in Rome while he went cavorting off to Sienna...I shall just have to plead the child’s case I suppose. No one else will. Such a beautiful little essay she wrote — really quite poetic. I wonder if school would be the answer?

Garden
Court, Kensington — 6th April 1910

Home
again — such a relief — despite the troubles that beset us here. Roo has a bad cold and feels quite wretched with it. Mr Flinders escaped and simply vanished into thin air for three hours. He was returned to us by old Lady Manver’s footman. Apparently, the footman told Mabel, their Susy is in a ‘certain condition’ and every dog in the Borough is after her, including, it seems, our Mr Flinders!

I
departed from Renton under a cloud! Con looked very seedy. The trip seems to have done her no good at all. Dick just goes his own sweet way, as usual. Dick and I dined alone the night of their return; Con straight to bed. No present for poor little Char, such a disappointment for her: such a pretty embroidered dress for Rosie and a dear little music box.

At breakfast I told Con I didn’t think the gov’s departure was entirely Char’s naughtiness; I had it from the servants the woman was difficult, but she wouldn’t allow it and said Char must be punished, so that was that. I’m afraid I became a little angry; it did no good, of course, it never does. Con simply informed me I was unmarried (an unnecessary piece of information under the circumstances!) and therefore knew nothing of how to bring up children. Dick just said: ‘Con’s right, Beth old thing, the child must be punished,’ and drifted off before I could reply. Typical! Char v. tight and angry when I left; said she didn’t care what anyone said, and if she had another governess who was ‘stoopid and bossy’, she’d ‘get rid of her too’, so there we stand. I plucked up courage to ask Con why she’d insisted on my dashing down to Renton to hold the fort and then refused to listen to anything I had to say on the situation I found there, but she simply looked wan and said she felt too seedy to discuss the matter further!

Garden
Court, Kensington — 10th November 1912

Dick
to see me. He arrived unexpectedly, straight from the office. Nothing suitable to eat, of course. Roo at her people’s and I had told Cook just a tray for me would do. So he took me out to dine — quite like old times! We laughed a lot during dinner (at that new Hungarian place, violins sawing away like billy-o and everybody there,
such
fun. I felt quite gay and giggly). It was splendid to hear dear Dick laugh again. Poor old boy, I’ve not heard him do so since darling Rosie’s death and that is over a year ago now. Although I never cease to think of our poor little one and her happy ways, it is good to forget sometimes — life must go on.

After
dinner, we walked along the Embankment, arm in arm: brilliant stars and moonlight. The river looked so beautiful, but the air so cold the pavement was white with frost.

‘
I’m in trouble, Beth dear,’ Dick said. ‘Things are so damned difficult I don’t seem able to see a way out.’ I asked him what he meant. I had thought matters between him and Con were better again after the trouble last April. ‘It’s not just that,’ he burst out, ‘though God knows that’s bad enough. It’s the business. I made a few unwise speculations — a chap I met at the club, seemed to know what’s what, old Etonian, member of the MCC, said it was a cert, couldn’t lose. He went down for thousands, but I lost enough.’ What to say? I was flummoxed. Dick was never good over money, but Con took over the purse strings when they married. As Papa said: ‘Filly’s got a damned good head for business on her shoulders. Should have been a man. She’s a damned sight more of one than all those brothers of hers.’