My mother!—well, everyone says “Mine was the sweetest mother in the world,” but my mother really was. She had a most amazing amount of character hidden under a most gentle exterior. As pretty as a picture, adorable—just “Mother.”
And father—an austere, very good-looking man of uncertain temper; one of those tempers which periodically sweep through the house like a tornado. Absolutely upright, and deeply respected, but with a stern sense of his duties as a parent which we, his children, hardly appreciated.
My first recollection is of trying to climb into my mother’s bed, and finding the place that should have been mine occupied by a “new baby.” I heard years afterwards that when my mother was told that her tenth child and ninth daughter had arrived in the world, she exclaimed: “Thank God it’s a girl!” Such a nice feminine thing to say, bless her!
Six of the girls lived to grow up, and we each, as we grew sufficiently advanced in years, took turns at the “housekeeping”. I know I did double duty, as my sister Jessie distinguished herself by fainting one morning when preparing the breakfast, and so was not allowed to do it any more. I remember creeping down the stairs in the dark early mornings (when I think of “getting breakfast”, it seems to me that we must have lived in perpetual winter, the mornings seem to have always been cold and dark, never bright and sunny: I suppose the memory of the unpleasant things remains longer), going very softly past my father’s room, and putting the loathsome porridge—partially cooked the night before—on the gas ring, and, having stirred it, creeping upstairs again to dress.
I remember, too, at breakfast how I would watch my father’s face, to see by his expression if it was “all right”; the awful moment when, eyeing it with disfavour, he would give his verdict: “Lumpy!” The cook for the day, after such a verdict, generally left the table in tears.
It must have been before I was old enough to make porridge that I had my first sweetheart. His name was Johnnie; he was a small Jew, and we met in Regency Square; together we turned somersaults all round the Square, and it must have been all very idealistic and pleasant. I remember nothing more about him, so apparently our love was short-lived.
Up to the time that my sister Decima was six, my father kept a stick in the dining-room; the moral effect of that stick was enormous; should any member of the family become unruly (or what my father considered unruly), the stick was produced and a sharp rap on the head administered.
One day Decima was the culprit, and as my father leant back to reach the stick, she exclaimed cheerfully: “You won’t find the old stick, cos I’ve hided it.”
She had, too; it was not found for years, when it was discovered in a large chest, right at the bottom. It is still a mystery how Decima, who was really only a baby at the time, put it there. Looking back, I applaud her wisdom, and see the promise of the aptitude for “looking ahead” which has made her so successful in the ventures on which she has embarked; for the “stick” certainly affected her most. She was a naughty child, but very, very pretty. We called her “The Champion”, because she would take up the cudgels on behalf of anyone who was “underdog”. I loved her devotedly; and, when she was being punished for any special piece of naughtiness by being interned in her bedroom, I used to sit outside, whispering at intervals, “I’m here, darling”, “It’s all right, dear”, and so on.
Yet it was to Decima that I caused a tragedy, and, incidentally, to myself as well. She was the proud possessor of a very beautiful wax doll; a really beautiful and aristocratic person she was. We always said “Grace” before meals (I think everyone did in those days), and one morning I was nursing the doll. In an excess of religious fervour, I insisted that the wax beauty should say “grace” too. Her body, not being adapted to religious exercises, refused to bend with the reverence I felt necessary; I pushed her, and cracked off her head on the edge of the table. Now, mark how this tragedy recoiled on me! I had a gold piece—half a sovereign, I suppose—given to me by some god-parent. It lived in a box, wrapped in cotton wool, and I occasionally gazed at it; I never dreamt of spending it; it was merely regarded as an emblem of untold wealth. Justice, in the person of my father, demanded that, as I had broken the doll, my gold piece must be sacrificed to buy her a new head. If the incident taught me nothing else, it taught me to extend religious tolerance even to wax dolls!