Читать книгу A Notable Woman - Jean Lucey Pratt - Страница 11

1.

Into a Cow

Saturday, 18 April 1925 (aged fifteen)

I have decided to write a journal. I mean to go on writing this for years and years, and it’ll be awfully amusing to read over later.

We’re going to Torquay next week. I feel so thrilled! We start on Tuesday and drive all the way down in our own car. We only got it at Xmas, and Daddy has only just learnt to drive. It’ll be rather fun I think. It’s a Fiat by make. I’ve always longed for a car. I’m going to learn to drive it when I’m 16.

Do you remember Arthur Ainsworth, Jean? Funny bloke – he used to be in the Church Lads Brigade when Leslie was Lieutenant.² He used to be my ‘beau’ then. He used to come and have Morse lessons with Leslie. He used to put his arm round me when he was learning – I could only have been 8 then! And we used to play grandmother’s footsteps in the garden and he tried to kiss me – he did kiss my hair. I was quite thrilled – but not overmuch. He used to be sort of Churchwarden at the Children’s Service on Sunday afternoon and I used to giggle all the time – even though Mummy was there. I think she knew! She didn’t say anything though, the darling – oh how I miss her. I wish she were here now. I’d have been all I could to her.

Anyway, who was my next beau? I can’t remember. I think it was Gilbert Dodds. I’ve got them all down in secret code in my last year’s diary. Let’s go and fetch it.

Yes, here it is – I’ve got it down like this:

PR (past romances)

1. A.A.

2. G.D.

3. T.M.

4. K.L.

5. C.B.

6. R.

Gilbert Dodds was the 2nd. He was awfully good looking. He lived at Ealing. The 3rd was Tony Morgan. I hated him, but in my extreme youth I used to go to school with him and I used to go to tea etc. Daddy once suggested he should be my dance partner – was furiously flattered in a way – but I always blushed when he was mentioned. I have an awful habit of blushing, it’s most annoying. They’ve left Wembley now thank goodness. Mr Morgan ran away or something. I couldn’t bear Mr Morgan either. He sniffed and always insisted on kissing me. He had a toothbrush moustache and it tickled and oh I hated it. I hid behind the dining room door once till he’d gone.

The next one was a waiter. It was at the Burlington at Worthing and he used to gaze at me so sentimentally. He used to get so nervous when he waited at our table. I never spoke to him – it’s much nicer not to speak. The next one was a choir boy at St Peter’s. I used to make eyes at him each Sunday and we used to giggle like mad. He was quite good looking with fair hair and pale, rather deceitful blue eyes. At the beginning of the September term I suddenly realised how idiotic it was so I left off looking at him. He was rather hurt at first I think, but he soon recovered and he makes eyes at Barbara Tox and Gwen Smith now.

But in the summer holidays last year I met Ronald. We were all on the Broads for a fortnight. It was at Oulton, and we were moored alongside a funny little houseboat where an old bachelor spent most of his time. Ronald was his sort of manservant. He was quite a common sort of youth, but rather good-looking. I’m sorry to say I went quite dippy over him and gave Daddy some chocolate to give to him. I wonder if he liked me? He noticed me I know – he used to watch me! Another romance where I never said a word. Perhaps it’s just as well – he was only a fisher lad – but my heart just ached and ached when he went away. I wish I had a brother about Ronald’s age. Leslie’s a dear but he’s 24 now, and what is the use of a brother the other end of the world? All that day I felt pretty miserable and when we moored just outside Reedham I went for a long, long walk all by myself along the riverbank, and thought things out and finally conquered. I came back because it began to rain. I’d been out an awful long time and they were getting anxious and had come to find me. They were awfully cross and rather annoyed they hadn’t found me drowned in a dyke or something – no Jean, that was horrid of you. I think I cried in bed that night and I know I prayed for Ronald.

I determined not to have any more weak flirtations like that. I’m awfully weak and silly, I’ve been told that numbers of times. That was the 6th. I wonder who’ll be the 7th? No, I won’t even write what I think this time – but he goes to Cambridge and Margaret says he’s growing a moustache – and oh Jean be quiet, you did fight that down once, don’t bring it up again. Oh, I do hope nobody reads this – I should die if they did.

What shall I write about now? I know – my past cracks. It was when I was a queer little day-girl in Upper III when I first noticed Lavender Norris. Oh she was sweet! I went absolutely mad about her. She was awfully pretty with long wavy dark hair with little gold bits in it, and dark eyes. Peggy Saunders was gone on her too. I found a hanky of hers once underneath my desk. I gave it back to her and was coldly thanked – she was talking to Miss Prain at the time. One Xmas I sent Lavender some scent of her own name and she wrote back such a sweet letter. We were getting on famously when the next term she got ’flu and a whole crowd of us wrote to her and someone said I was pining away for her. I did write to her again in the Spring hols but she never answered.

She left in the Summer term 1923. Peggy used to write to her and once she told her about Mummy’s death and Lavender wrote back and said how sorry she was and sent me her love. Angel! I see her sometimes when she comes back as an Old Girl but that is all. If she was to come back again I should still be mad about her I’m sure – but at present Miss Wilmott (A.W.) claims my affections. Everybody knows I’m gone on her and grins knowingly at me and I hate it. I’ve walked with her too – I and Veronica – but on one awful walk I shall never forget Veronica did all the talking and I couldn’t think of a single thing to say. I came home feeling so utterly depressed that I could have howled. I remember some agonising meal times too that term, sitting next to A.W. They are too agonising ever to write here.

She smiled at me once, quite of her own accord. It was the 2nd of June and we had to go for walks. We were waiting by the gate when I looked up quickly and she was looking at me rather funnily and then she just smiled! I nearly died. She’s never done it since – except once, again that term, when I held the door open for her. I went into ecstasies in the dorm. That term was glorious all through.

Sunday, 19 April

Yesterday afternoon Daddy and I went and fetched the car from Harris’s. It had been there to get mended. Daddy and I were going to Marlow and Daddy backed into the tree and bent the front axle and crumpled the mudguard to nothing. Harris came down to fetch it on Tuesday and promised it us on Saturday, but when we got there the mudguard hadn’t come back from the makers, so we took it without. It does look funny but the car goes all right. I do love going out in it so – being able to go and see one’s relations and friends.

Thursday, 23 April

We’re down at Torquay at last! Glorious place! We started on Tuesday morning about 9 a.m. and after fetching Miss Watson we carried on till Andover, where we stayed for lunch. Andover is in Hampshire. Daddy drives awfully well!

After we left Andover we went on to Yeovil in Somerset. We meant to stay the night there but everywhere was full up so we went on to Crewkerne. The hills were something awful for the car, but oh the view from the tops was so lovely. Just after we left Newton Abbot something went wrong with the car.

Monday, 27 April

Home again. Such a lot has happened. I shall never forget this trip as long as I live – never.

Daddy has always addressed Miss Watson with more than usual politeness and kindness. I have wondered often if he meant anything. And when we started on this trip my heart grew very heavy. He seemed so, so, I don’t know how to call it – so very nice to E.W., and I began to think thoughts, thoughts I could not get out of my mind, unbearable thoughts. Oh Mother dearest! My heart grew heavy for you, darling one – it seemed too grotesquely untrue that Daddy could be forgetting you so soon. Jesus alone knows my heartache when Daddy lingered over saying goodnight to her at Crewkerne in the semi-dusk, and tears would come when I got into bed. I was jealous too – I thought, oh Daddy might not love me so much now. And then it rankled a bit to think of her coming into our home and taking your place.

The next day we arrived at Torquay and we went to see M. Beaucaire (the film) in the evening, and it was glorious and Daddy was so nice and dear to me after and I was so much happier.³

And then the next day little things cropped up all day – things he said to her, looks they exchanged. I grew sad again until Ethel – yes, I shall call her that – changed quite early for dinner. Just before 6.30 Daddy came in and sat down. In my heart of hearts I knew what was coming. (I had pictured a sort of scene to myself, something like this: Dad comes to me and says, ‘Jean darling, we shall have someone to look after us at last. Ethel has promised to marry me,’ or words to that effect. I knew tears would come and he might say, ‘Why Jean, aren’t you pleased?’ Perhaps then I’d say, bravely gulping down the tears and smiling, ‘Oh yes Daddy, I’m very pleased, but Daddy, have you forgotten mother so soon?’)

But he just sat in the chair and watched me undress for a while and then he said, ‘And what do you think of Miss Watson?’ So I naturally said, ‘I think she’s very nice,’ but I had to bite my lip hard. ‘Jean,’ he said, ‘I want to ask you a question.’ I knew what was coming but I feigned an interested surprise. ‘How would you like someone to come to live with us?’ I just slipped into his arms and cried, and I tried to get out about Mother but it just wouldn’t come. But oh he was so nice. I never knew I loved him so much until that moment. He explained that he’d thought of it now for some weeks, and that Mother had told him before she died that he was free to marry again (dearheart, that is your sweet unselfishness all over again!). He thought Ethel the nicest girl he knew and it would be a companion for me. His friends had often said to him, ‘Pratt, why don’t you get married again? You’re killing yourself with hard work.’ And then he said, ‘But Jean darling, if you think there is anything in this plan that might come between us I will throw up the cards at once, for after all you are all that I have got now and nothing must come between you and me.’

I couldn’t have him sacrifice so much – such love must entail a sacrifice from me. My heart sank and sank, but I said bravely that I was quite quite sure it would be all right and he need not worry. And he kissed my hand and said, ‘Thank you.’ And he also said that he had not asked her yet, but he must risk that. But when he had gone – Oh Mother, to think of seeing anyone else in your place. I never knew I loved you or your memory so much. So I came down at 7 cool, calm and collected, faintly perfumed with lavender. That evening we went to see Norma Talmadge in Smilin’ Through.⁴

We came back along the coast – much worse hills but such pretty country. And I felt tired and sad and a little exhausted, but the level, smooth stretch of sea peeping between the graceful lines of the cliffs seemed to comfort the innermost recesses of my soul. And when we lost sight of it behind high hedgerows I ached for one more sight of it.

I became drowsy and rather cross, and across Salisbury Plain it began to rain and I tried to sleep, until Daddy bumped into a cow. The cow’s mild expression of pained surprise tickled me, so that I sat up once more and recovered my spirits.

Wednesday, 29 April

I have thought the matter over a good deal recently and I have come to the conclusion that it is a very good sensible thing. The only fear I have now is what our relations and friends might say. She is very nice and kind, she can listen to Daddy’s business affairs much better than I can and understand. She will be such a companion for Daddy while I’m at school. But Mother your memory will always linger: there are your clothes that I cannot wear, your jewellery, the little things you gave me, the letters you wrote, the books you read, the piano and your music. And most of all that large photo of you in the dining room with your sweet, sad eyes, always smiling at me wherever I am in the room.

I went to see M. Beaucaire at the Crown Cinema. That was the 2nd time I’d seen it but I loved it more and more. I have ordered the book at Smith’s and I’m longing for it to come. After seeing good films like that I have a strange feeling that I want to film act and to act well. I’d love to just make people wonder, envy, admire, to be famous, to be too good for any petty criticism and have certain people I know say, ‘Fancy – Jean Pratt! And when I knew her one would never have thought her capable of it!’ I just want to act, to live, to feel like someone else, to live in a real world of Romance. I know it would mean hard, hard work and many disappointments and heartbreaks, but I should love to feel that I sway men’s hearts to a danger mark, and women’s too for that matter.

Last night Daddy, Ethel and I went out to a big Conservative meeting dinner, and I’m sure I looked so nice. It is the sweetest frock – very pale blue georgette, cut quite full over a pale blue silk lining. Right down the middle is a piece of silver lace about two inches wide. I wore very pale grey silk stockings and silver shoes. I also wore a blue and mauve hairband and displayed a mauve crepe-de-chine hankie in my wristwatch strap. I saturated myself in lavender water. For the reception I wore white silk gloves – I shook hands with the Duke of Northumberland. I do not like him very much – he has ginger hair and a moustache, a prominent nose and weak chin and white eyelashes – ugh! The dinner was great and some of the speeches were quite nice.

Coming home from Oxford Circus I had to be most tactful. I pretended to be frightfully sleepy and closed my eyes half the time and didn’t listen much to their conversation. When we arrived at Wembley Daddy said, ‘I hope you don’t mind Jean, but we’ll see you indoors and then I’m going to take Miss Watson home.’ I yawned and said, ‘Oh I don’t mind a bit, all I can picture in front of me is bed.’ Oh Jean, Jean, Jean – may your sins be forgiven you. When they had left I flaunted about upstairs in my nice clothes and did up my hair and admired myself in the glass and did a little film acting on my own. Then I thought I’d better hurry into bed – I heard it strike one and Daddy hadn’t come back. Then I fell asleep. He’s been in an awfully good mood all day today so I suppose his midnight vigil was satisfactory. Somewhere deep down in my heart it hurts.

Thursday, 7 May

It’s over a week now since I last wrote my journal, but there are several good reasons. First, I got M. Beaucaire the novel, and, not liking it as much as the film version, decided to write my own account. Second, Miss Floyd the housekeeper has been away for a holiday, so yours truly has had to light the fires and peel the potatoes. Thirdly, IT’S HAPPENED!!!!! Yes, last Wednesday evening about 11.45 I was still reading and Daddy came in saying he’d gone to Ethel’s and ‘It’s all settled!’ And he looked so happy.

Ethel is so sweet and nice to me. Daddy was busy buying new shirts and suits etc. It’s going to be awfully nice, and everybody’s very pleased and excited.

‘I want to do great things, to be great.’ Jean at school in the mid-1920s.