Chapter Three #3
The room seemed very bare to Alice, after staying with Aunt Caroline the previous term.
There were two single beds with plain white counterpanes, a massive tallboy, which was a combination of wardrobe and drawers, a small, plain deal table pushed against the wall, and a washstand with basin and ewer.
The walls were covered with what seemed like very old wallpaper in light brown with a pattern of dark brown flowers.
There was a daguerreotype of The Boyhood of Raleigh, and a Victorian sampler with the words in cross-stitched capitals, GOD WATCHES YOU.
Alice supposed it was meant to be reassuring but it sounded more like a threat.
She felt her friend Bron, with whom she was to share, start to shake with giggles.
Mrs Harris was expounding the rules of the house, which was not a subject for levity.
‘I’ll leave you young ladies to settle in,’ she concluded at last, and clanked away, and Bron was able to collapse onto a bed and give way.
‘What? What is it?’ Alice demanded.
‘It’s the sampler,’ Bron managed at last, weakly. ‘It’s facing the beds. I couldn’t help wondering if God was going to watch us get undressed.’
‘Oh, Bron!’ Alice said reproachfully.
Bron pulled herself to her feet. ‘I suppose He must know what we have under our chemises, if anyone does. What do you think, eh?’ She gestured around the room.
‘It’s a bit…plain,’ Alice said mildly.
‘You’ve been spoiled by luxury. It will look fine once we have a few of our things put out.
’ She walked across to the window. Over the roofs of the terrace opposite could be seen the tops of great plane trees, while below traffic passed and the pavements were busy with pedestrians.
‘Look at all the people walking about! Students, lots of them female. We’re free at last! ’
‘Except for Mrs Harris,’ Alice reminded her.
There was a small fireplace with an overmantel, and a shabby armchair to either side. ‘’Imagine making toast at that fire,’ Bron coaxed. ‘And there’s a trivet – we could make cocoa too.’
‘Mrs Harris said no food or drink in the rooms,’ Alice reminded her.
‘People only remind you of the rules they know you’re going to break because everyone does,’ Bron said wisely.
‘How do you know that?’ Alice asked.
‘One of the older girls told me. Oh, Alice, we shall have fun – and no-one to tell us off or watch what we’re doing!’
‘Except God,’ Alice reminded her solemnly, and Bron grinned.
‘Shall we go and walk round Gamages and see the chimpanzees?’
‘Shouldn’t we unpack?’
‘We can do that later.’
Their room was on the second floor, the bedroom floor of the original house.
There were six other girls lodging there that term.
Two other second-years had the attic room above them.
On the first floor there were two older girls who had returned to the Blackwood for a third year, and two grown-up women – or so they seemed to Alice – who were third-year students at University College, a status that gave them an impossible glamour.
On the first floor there was also the bathroom, which they all shared.
On the ground floor, Mrs Harris had her bedroom at the front of the house in what had been the parlour, next to the front door (‘Where she can watch who comes in and goes out,’ Bron suggested), while the large back room was the girls’ dining- and sitting-room, with a long central table, an upright piano and several useful cupboards.
When the table was cleared after meals, it could be used for drawing, reading, writing, sewing or games.
The kitchen and the cook’s room were in the basement, and the two housemaids had the other attic bedroom. Mrs Harris had said, ‘You are expected to keep your own room tidy and dusted, young ladies, and to make your own beds. The maids have enough to do.’
Alice had never made a bed in her life, but supposed it could not be difficult.
An image suddenly came to her mind of Axe Brandom, of his little cottage, always so neat and clean, simple but welcoming.
Axe would have to make his own bed, and she wagered it would be done perfectly.
It pleased her to think she would be living simply, like him – as if it made her more worthy of him.
And the room looked immediately more homelike when she had placed the sleeping cat he had carved for her on the mantelpiece, along with a little vase Bron had brought.
The ‘young ladies’ all ate together at breakfast and supper: ‘dinner’ was in the form of packets of sandwiches, which were handed out after breakfast. The girls were not expected to come back to the house during the day, though it was not forbidden.
Usually lessons went on all day, and there was a common-room at the school where they could eat their sandwiches.
But the exciting thought crossed Alice’s mind – she planned to discuss it with Bron – that they might sometimes have luncheon in a café instead.
Not a smart one, of course (would the waiters even serve unaccompanied young ladies?
she wondered) but one of the many small, cheap cafés around Bloomsbury where female students seemed to be able to congregate without shame.
It was a different world, Alice thought. She felt she was stepping, like her namesake, into a story-book place where the old rules no longer applied.
The results of the election were announced on the 8th of February. Great change had been forecast, but what happened exceeded expectations. The newspapers talked of a Liberal ‘landslide’.
‘Ridiculous, over-dramatic language,’ Aunt Caroline said. She had no particular interest in politics, but she objected in principle to extremes. She liked things to go along in an orderly manner and not change very much, if at all.
The Conservative Party had lost 246 seats, including that of the erstwhile prime minister, Arthur Balfour, securing the lowest number of seats in its entire history.
The Liberals had gained an extra 183 seats, giving them a working majority of 397.
Thus the genial Henry Campbell-Bannerman became prime minister, with his pale blue eyes and handsome smile, and his known preference for free trade, Irish home rule, and social improvements for the poor.
He had been born in Glasgow, and had a background in wholesale and retail drapery.
Adding the name Bannerman to his own Campbell had been a requirement in the will of his uncle if he was to inherit the pleasant estate of Hunton Lodge in Kent, but he didn’t like his ‘horrid long name’ and preferred his friends and colleagues to call him CB instead.
‘I hear that he’s quite a cultured man,’ Caroline said cautiously to Richard, when he called on his next visit to London. ‘Likes to spend his summers in Europe, though I don’t think we’ve seen him at Biarritz. I’ve heard he takes the waters at some other place beginning with B. What is it now?’
‘Marienbad,’ said Richard. ‘In Bohemia.’
‘I knew there was a B in it,’ Aunt Caroline said vaguely.
‘Who told you that nugget of information, anyway?’ Richard asked, amused.
‘Oh dear, I can’t remember. Everyone’s talking about the man – it could have been anyone. But Lady Vane says he’s devoted to his wife. And that he speaks French, German and Italian fluently – is that true?’
‘I believe so,’ said Richard.
‘Then perhaps one should ask them to dinner – what do you think, Victoire?’ She addressed Richard’s grandmother, who was also visiting. ‘You could speak to him in your own language. And I’m told they are quite the gourmets.’
‘Gourmands, not gourmets,’ Grandmère corrected. ‘He must weigh twenty stone, and she is no better. Keep to your own, Caroline, and do not try to understand politics.’
‘At all events, it will be refreshing to have a prime minister who understands business,’ Richard said.
‘I suppose you are in favour of free trade,’ Grandmère said.
‘It’s a complex question,’ Richard said.
‘Then please don’t try to explain it,’ Caroline begged.
‘I know my dear Sir James was in favour. He said we have always been a trading nation, and apparently that means you have to have it. But he used to get into tremendous arguments with Willy, didn’t he, Victoire?
– your father, Richard – because he wanted the great estates to be protected.
Though I’m not entirely sure from what,’ she concluded, with a perplexed frown.
‘I think you have summarised it pretty well, Aunty.’ He held out his hands like the two sides of a balance and rocked them. ‘Industry: free trade. Agriculture: protectionism. I wouldn’t try to analyse it further than that, if I were you.’
‘Always the comedy,’ Grandmère said, giving him a penetrating look. ‘You play the clown to hide the broken heart.’
‘Is your heart broken, dear?’ Aunt Caroline asked, startled. ‘I’m sure I wasn’t aware! Is it anyone we know?’
Richard ignored the interruption, and returned his grandmother’s gaze steadily. ‘He is married, you know.’
‘Of course I know. I read it in the newspapers – if you can call it a marriage. Les noces des divorcés ne sont pas convenables.’
Caroline’s face cleared. ‘Oh, you are talking about Sir Thomas Burton. What a shocking thing that was, poor Violet, and that young girl, almost a child! He will never be able to set foot in England again.’
‘Of course he will,’ Grandmère snapped. ‘Scandal lives no longer than une éphémère.’
‘What is —?’
‘A mayfly,’ Richard translated. ‘Nevertheless, ma chère, you miss him.’
Grandmère shrugged, but there was pain in her face. ‘He was the love of my youth, and takes it with him. But you,’ she gave Richard a fierce look, ‘you have your youth still, I forbid you to waste it on that woman.’
‘But I love her,’ Richard said quietly.
‘Néanmoins…’ said Grandmère, sternly.