Not only did we hate preparing breakfast, we hated doing the shopping, and called it “Sticking up to Reeves, and poking down to Daws”—Reeves and Daws being the grocer and laundryman respectively. It was in the process of “Sticking up to Reeves”, whose shop was in Kemptown, one morning, that Decima stopped to speak to a goat, who immediately ate the shopping list out of her hand.
Decima was the only member of the family who succeeded in wearing a fringe—openly—before my father. We all did wear fringes, but they were pushed back in his presence; Decima never pushed hers back! In those days so to adorn one’s forehead was to declare oneself “fast”—an elastic term, which was applied to many things which were frowned on by one’s elders. That was the “final word”—“fast!”
Our great excitement was bathing in the sea, and singing in the church choir. We bathed three times a week; it cost 4d. each. Clad in heavy serge, with ample skirts, very rough and “scratchy”, we used to emerge from the bathing machines. All except Ada, who swam beautifully, and made herself a bathing suit of blue bunting with knickers and tunic. My father used to row round to the “ladies’ bathing place” in his dinghy, and teach us how to swim. As there was no “mixed bathing” then, this caused much comment, and was, indeed, considered “hardly nice”. My brother Henry was the champion swimmer of the South Coast, and he and Ada used to swim together all round the West Pier—this, again, was thought to be “going rather far” in more senses than one!
Though I loved Decima so devotedly, we apparently had “scraps”, for I can remember once in the bathing machine she flicked me several times with a wet towel—I remember, too, how it hurt.
We all sang in the church choir; not all at once; as the elder ones left, the younger ones took their places. Boys from the boarding school in Montpelier Square used to be brought to church: we exchanged glances, and felt desperately wicked. Once (before she sang in the choir) Decima took 3d. out of the plate instead of putting 1d. into it.
At that time our pocket-money was 1d. a week, so I presume we were given “collection money” for Sunday; this was later increased to 2s. a month, when we had to buy our own gloves. Thus my mother’s birthday present—always the same: a pot of primulas (on the receipt of which she always expressed the greatest surprise)—represented the savings of three weeks on the part of Decima and me. It was due to parental interference in a love affair that I once, in a burst of reckless extravagance, induced Decima to add her savings to mine and spend 5d. in sweets, all at one fell swoop.
I was 14, and in love! In love with a boy who came to church, and whose name I cannot remember. We met in the street, and stopped to speak. Fate, in the person of my father (who always seems to have been casting himself for the parts of “Fate”, “Justice”, “Law”, or “Order”) saw us; I was ordered into the house, and, seizing my umbrella, my father threatened to administer the chastisement which he felt I richly deserved for the awful crime of “speaking to a boy”. I escaped the chastisement by flying to my room; and it was there, realising that “love’s young dream was o’er”, I incited Decima to the aforementioned act of criminal extravagance. I know one of the packets she brought back contained “hundreds and thousands”; we liked them, you seemed to get such a lot for your money!
My life was generally rather blighted at that time, for, in addition to this unfortunate love affair, I had to wear black spectacles, owing to weak eyes, the result of measles. “A girl” told me, at school, that “a boy” had told her I “should be quite pretty if I hadn’t to wear those awful glasses.” The tragedy of that “if”!
I was then at Miss Pringle’s school, where I don’t think any of us learnt very much; not that girls were encouraged to learn much at any school in those days. I certainly didn’t. My eyes made reading difficult. Then the opportunity for me to earn my own living offered; it was seized; and I went to Liverpool. I was to teach gymnastics and dancing under Madame Michau.
The original Madame Michau, mother of the lady for whom I was to work, had been a celebrity in her day. Years before—many, many years before—she had taught dancing in Brighton, where she had been considered the person to coach debutantes in the deportment necessary for a drawing-room. Her daughter was very energetic, and worked from morning to night. She had a very handsome husband, who ostensibly “kept the books”, which really meant that he lounged at home while his wife went out to work. Not only did she work herself, but she made me work too—from eight in the morning until eleven at night; in fact, so far as my memory serves me, there was a greater abundance of work than of food. I don’t regret any of it in the least; the dancing and gymnastics taught me how to “move” in a way that nothing else could have done. It taught me, also, how to keep my temper!