Letters From Constance Read online

  Mary Hocking

  LETTERS FROM

  CONSTANCE

  To A. L. Barker

  Preface

  Dear James,

  These are the letters Linnie sent to me. When we could see that a time might come when someone would say, ‘Has anyone done Sheila Douglas?’ it was agreed that I should destroy all her letters to me. I had not realised she had kept so many of mine.

  Sheila was one of those highly intelligent people who are unable to come to terms with the telephone - a disability which I sometimes think altered our lives. Whenever one phoned her it was sure to be the wrong moment. At best, she was stilted; at worst, abrupt and uncommunicative. She was, however, adept at letters of apology, explaining that she had been in the garden, the bath, hair-washing, plucking a chicken, sickening for ’flu . . . So, in place of the trivialities people so often exchange over the telephone, we wrote letters.

  There was other correspondence relating to our friendship and I still have two postcards I sent to my parents not long before my father died. I found them marking a place in my mother’s Bible. They give no address and are undated, but I know that the year was 1933 and the place a guide camp. Both are commendably brief. The first: ‘I don’t like it here. Please come quickly and take me home.’ The second: ‘A girl called Sheila Douglas and I had a nice walk by a stream and Joyce Pillinger fell in. Can I stay until the end of the week, please?’

  The next term Sheila and I were in the same form at school. She had three brothers and through her, I, an only child, was introduced to the rough and tumble of sibling rivalry. After my father died, her parents treated me as though I were a member of the family who just happened to live several streets away. This attitude was a revelation to me as my mother insisted that people pass tests of her own devising before gaining entry to our house. Mr Douglas worked on the Methodist Recorder and was a lay preacher. He believed that all should be welcome in his home and Mrs Douglas cheerfully dealt with the consequences, of which I was the most long-lasting. From then until we left school Sheila and I were hardly ever apart. There was a time, after the war, when it seemed we should live in close proximity, but all that changed and there were many years when we saw each other infrequently. So there are a lot of letters.

  I have not the heart to destroy them. I shall leave them to you, dear James, because yours are the safest hands.

  November, 1990

  Ealing

  July, 1939

  Dear absent one,

  How I missed you on the great occasion of our school leaving. I so longed to catch your eye while old Addiscombe delivered her peroration, swathed in deep crimson with two inches of black slip showing, putting me in mind of those lines from that grim hymn - ‘Wherefore red is thine apparel/Like the Conquerors of earth/ And arrayed like those who carol/O’er the reeking vineyard’s mirth . . ’

  And what, do I hear you ask, were the thoughts we were to take out into the great world with us? Or perhaps you think, being absent, you should be spared the knowledge? I remember Daddy once said of a patient that he died of lack of interest in life and the only thing which could have captured his attention was his funeral. You are more fortunate, not only in not having died, but in having a faithful observer to record the tributes paid to you.

  So, imagine us all assembled in the hall, exhilarated by the thought that this occasion would never repeat itself, because even those who were not leaving were likely to be evacuated.

  ‘For all of us here, life will never be the same again,’ she began. She does have a way of saying these things which puts a damper on exhilaration. It wasn’t a bright day and the hall seemed cavernous. Cissie Parker looked positively desolate and I certainly had that ‘doomed generation’ feeling I always get when I read those books about soldiers knee-deep in Flanders mud, to say nothing of self¬pity. But she soon moved briskly to the matter of our bearing in time of adversity and expressed the hope that the lessons learnt at school would carry us through whatever hazards might await us. The hazards she had in mind were moral - I don’t think she minded about our being blown up so long as we were intact before that. ‘It is not bombs which will destroy you, the destroyer is within . . .’, and much more in the same vein.

  You may wonder where you come into this and I’m not surprised, since you haven’t shown much sign of burgeoning into the St Joan of Ealing Common. But . . . ‘There is one of our number, though not among us today, who has expressed in action virtues to which so often we give only lip service. A small act, perhaps, when measured against the deeds which concern us at this troubled time, yet an act which gives an example of hope and courage to us all.

  ‘Sheila Douglas left school a week ago to join her family in what might be their last holiday together, all three of her brothers being in the Territorial Army. Last Saturday, Sheila was on the beach at Newquay. It was early morning and she had gone for a walk on her own. There were only two other people on the beach - a young woman and a small boy. The child, perhaps not wisely advised by his mother, insisted on paddling. This is the Atlantic Ocean and even when it is not dangerously rough, it is boisterous. He was soon borne beyond his depth. The distraught mother waded into the breakers; but she could not swim and must have watched her child drown had it not been for Sheila, who immediately cast off her frock and swam towards the child, calling to the mother to get help. The place was unfrequented at this hour and it was over fifteen minutes before help arrived. An act of courage on the spur of the moment is something of which we might all be capable. This, however, was a sustained struggle which Sheila must have known might put her own life at risk. It is hard to fight the sea on one’s own, desperately hard when buoying up another. Indeed, with that strong tide, had she not managed to cling to a rock, both she and the boy would undoubtedly have been swept out to sea and drowned. She clung there tenaciously. But as the minutes passed and the waves broke around her, the thought must have crossed her mind that the sea would win and eventually the rock would be submerged. [But the tide was going out, surely? Oh, how hard of heart is your friend Constance to think such a thought at such a time.] She is now in hospital, shocked, bruised and lacerated, but happily expected to make a complete recovery.

  ‘She is, as we all know, a very strong swimmer. It would not be advisable for any girl not so well-equipped to emulate her action. The wise course [gazing at us who were less than dolphins with some severity] would be to run for help. To plunge in heedlessly would merely place an extra burden on rescuers. Never act impetuously if you are not equipped to achieve your aim. But, should it ever fall to you to act as Sheila Douglas acted, remember that as well as courage and generosity of spirit, you may need the tenacity to hold on.’

  As you can imagine, it was all we could do to hold on to sobriety as we listened, knowing you would have found it so hilarious you would have been ordered to leave the hall.

  This was your day. My mother had come to see old Addiscombe. I never can persuade her to give up hoping for academic success for me. She feels she owes it to Daddy’s memory to squeeze every opportunity dry. According to her, she said - and I squirm as I write this - ‘If Sheila Douglas can get into Cambridge, I can’t understand why Constance shouldn’t be accepted. After all, her father was a doctor.’

  The reply, which I hope pleases you, was ‘Sheila Douglas is a quite exceptionally gifted girl for whom we have great hopes. One of her poems has been commended by Walter de la Mare, who is a friend of the Chairman of the Governors.’ Later in the conversation, she said, and one can imagine the glacial smile which accompanied the words, ‘Constance is amusing, but she has no mind. She will get married.’

  Before I left, I had a session with Miss Tobin, who has rather different ideas about my ability
. She thought I should consider university - though not, of course, Oxford or Cambridge. ‘I feel there are qualities we have failed to bring out in you.’ I think she really believes she has failed, the dear thing. She is the only member of staff who has ever tried with me and I felt mean for not having helped more. ‘You are more than competent at English. It would be sad if you did not develop this gift. You would have to work very hard, but I think you would be capable of getting a good degree. It is only too easy to settle for second best, Constance. I know you have felt rather lost since your father died, but you should have got over that by now. You still take refuge in playing the jester. Your friend Sheila may seem to you as much a humorist as you are yourself; but have you never noticed how much sharper and more questioning is her mind? She will leave you far behind if you are not careful and I know that would upset you. You like to give the impression of being indifferent, but I believe you really do care quite a lot what people think of you. Be sure you give them something worthwhile to think about.’

  So, I leave school potentially a moral and intellectual failure while you trail clouds of glory, in spite of being much naughtier than I ever was. I suppose the difference is that yours is the kind of naughtiness that the staff see as going with a questioning mind. And then, you had a nice way of seeming to invite them to play your game. I never could get on those terms with them.

  Should all this talk of intellectual prowess lead you to imagine yourself growing into an old, unloved bluestocking, let me tell you about the class photograph. There you all are, bunched tight as cauliflower florets, while I rise above you not in the least like the golden sunflower you so kindly said I resembled, but some poor weedy thing which has outgrown its strength. I look down rather queasily, while you stare straight at the camera - right into its innards, as if you expected it to be Masefield’s box of delights. I showed the photograph to our curate, of whom I had such hopes, and he pointed to you and said, ‘Who is that one?’ I said, ‘She is small and stunted with a snub nose and a hideous amount of freckles.’ He said, ‘It’s a real face’ as if the rest of us were only half formed owing to some hitch in the developing process.

  Did I say that Miss Addiscombe thinks war is inevitable? Not one of her more original ideas, what with all the sandbags outside the town hall and gas masks being issued.

  After I had cleared my desk I walked home across the Common with Joyce Pillinger and it seemed like any other day. She told me that Margery Harris is having to get married. Margery Harris! You wouldn’t think Cupid’s dart could find its way into that lump.

  Will you be home soon? I don’t relish giving a day-to-day account of how Ealing went to war, even if my English is more than competent.

  I’m trying to get particulars about the WRNS without Mummy’s knowing. She believes that in the Great War the Naafi tea tasted so foul because something was put in it to quieten the sailors’ sexual urges.

  If you aren’t home by Saturday, I will write again.

  Yours with a bow and a smile,

  Constance

  Education Office

  November, 1939

  Dear Sheila,

  The time is the lunch hour; the place, the reception room of an education office somewhere in the outer reaches of Middlesex. Only one character: a haggard young woman, left in charge of a switchboard she has not yet mastered. It is foggy outside, but one can just discern an overgrown garden in which dim figures are engaged in stirrup pump practice. A chill feeling of hopelessness seeps into the room, which is cold because the County Council sees it as part of its war effort to ensure that its staff are finished off by consumption before the Germans get a crack at them.

  I miss you so much. No one here has a sense of humour. The Education Officer fusses about staffing ratios, fuel rationing and the quality of toilet paper now supplied to schools. He has an endless capacity for anxiety and the other men (three in all) are little better, worrying about what arrangements to make for their families when they are called up. The girls talk is all about soldiers and they think I am stuck-up because I don’t join in; whereas I am only silent because I haven’t got a soldier. I knew that sooner or later the deficiencies in our education would make themselves felt.

  Your favourite brother, John, blessings on the dear lad, took me to coffee at Zeeta’s on Saturday. He was quite the most presentable man in the room and almost won me over to the Army: but then John would grace any uniform he wore and the wonder is that he is unaware of it. I felt a bit of a fool with him. When I talk to a man I do it for effect, but John listens as if the talk matters. This is disconcerting as I haven’t anything to say which will bear the weight of serious examination. Perhaps I could learn if I put my mind to it; but I seem to remember there was something going on with Jill Pryce at one time. Do you know if it’s serious? I wouldn’t want to poach.

  I was so pleased to get your letter. I had been a bit afraid you might not find the time to write, such exciting things are happening to you. I enjoyed your description of your tutor’s family, talking over breakfast about Wordsworth and Coleridge as if they were personally acquainted with them and exchanging malicious jokes at their expense. You say you find the family daunting. Have no fear, you will soon come up with appropriate jokes of your own. Remember you have the advantage of being a very strong swimmer; quite strong enough to stay afloat in that little pond.

  Pause while I manhandle the switchboard and take a message about dwindling fuel stocks. He spoke so fast I didn’t get the name of the school. I must try to sort this out; but how - other than telephoning all the schools, of which there are forty-eight in this division?

  I leave you to the higher realms inhabited by Wordsworth and Coleridge.

  Yours from the nether regions,

  Constance

  Ealing - where else?

  February, 1940

  My poor Sheila,

  How are you to keep up a correspondence with anyone whose life is so dull? Nothing of note has happened since Christmas. When shall we have such walks and talks again? For the present, you will have to be content with the unnoteworthy.

  It seems early in life to start looking back on the good old days, but, although at the time I thought it an awful fag, I now realise how lucky we were to be within walking distance of school. I am hagridden by transport problems. My day begins with a ten-minute walk to the station. If I, or the train, happen to be late, I miss my connection at Richmond. Even when it isn’t freezing outside, the temperature in the office is zero on the occasions when I arrive late and the thaw doesn’t set in until after lunch. So, quite often, the only part of the day which is free of bad feeling of one kind or another is between two and four in the afternoon. After four, as I wash up the tea things (I also make the tea), I start to worry about whether I shall be able to leave in time to catch my train. If I don’t make the connection at Richmond I shall be an hour late home and Mummy will have convinced herself that I have been knocked down in the blackout. On the days when the Education Officer doesn’t begin to look at the post until the time we are due to leave, it does not occur to any of my fellow workers, all of whom live locally, to say that I can go. All must be in attendance for the sticking down of envelopes and application of stamps. Then, since I am the most junior, I must be the one to take any parcels to the post office. Never a day passes, but there is at least one parcel. Imagine me as I set out for the post office, burden clasped to thin breast, anxious face shadow-blotched in moonlight, a gaunt, scurrying figure cast upon the uncaring streets, not unlike one of the more ill used of Dickens’s heroines - except that they are so nauseously accepting of their fate while I am full of hatred.

  Mummy doesn’t want me to leave because at the end of a lifetime of service I shall be rewarded with a local government pension. She never thought about money before Daddy died; now she thinks of little else. However, there is a glimmer of light. As I am so demonstrably miserable, she has conceded that when I have been at the wretched place long enough to have established m
yself in the regard of the Education Officer (establishing myself in his memory is going to be difficult enough, let alone his regard), I may then set about joining the WRNS providing my salary will be made up to me and my pension rights safeguarded.

  To be fair, this represents quite a sacrifice on her part as she will be lonely without me. Or perhaps I should say alone, because I think she is always lonely whether I am with her or not. I wish when we are together we could be a bit more jolly. We had such fun when Daddy was alive, but now she is dedicated to not enjoying herself. If I recount something amusing which has happened during the day, she says, ‘That must have been nice, dear,’ a shade reproachfully; if it is something rather splendid I have to tell her, she says, ‘Yes, I can see you would have enjoyed that,’ there being the faintest suggestion of insensitivity on my part. Her face has become so sad, all her features have resigned themselves to unhappiness - in a dignified way, of course; she wouldn’t permit any obvious sagging, only a gentle downturning. Sometimes I feel I would like to hug her, but she has never been one for demonstrations of affection and she looks so brittle I am afraid she might fall apart in my embrace. I did say to her once, ‘I think Daddy would like us to be happy, don’t you?’ and she started to cry. So now I just keep toiling away at being happy myself.

  It is chastening to reflect that in the first seven months since I left school I have failed to find that freedom I imagined awaited me beyond the school walls. Office work is monotonous, with no bell to announce a welcome change of room and subject. The hours compare unfavourably with the school timetable and the precious time left over at the end of the day is eaten into by long waits on windy station platforms. I have only been to the pictures three times since Christmas and on each occasion I was late for the big film and Joyce Pillinger won’t come with me any more.

  Yours is a different story. When I read your letters I do wonder whether Miss Tobin might not have been right and that refusing the opportunity to go to university is a decision I shall come to regret. But then I don’t think she had in mind early-morning walks across the Fens, every blade of grass clotted with frost, a Red Setter frisking ahead. You don’t say much about your companion on these walks, but your joy in his company fairly dances across the pages of your letters. Perhaps I shall meet him when I come for that spring visit to which I so look forward. What will he think of me, I wonder? Is he very clever? I should have heeded Miss Tobin when she said that if I wasn’t careful you would leave me behind. Your letters are written with such ease. Mine sound horribly high-flown by contrast. But you have much to write about, whereas my life is so dull. One can’t write dullness, can one? It has to be dressed up a bit.