GOOD DAUGHTERS Read online

  ‘You found your own way, didn’t you?’

  She was looking quite flushed and angry, some woman’s disturbance, he supposed. He said mildly, without – he prided himself – a hint of rebuke, ‘That’s different.’

  ‘In what way is it different?’ Her manner was almost belligerent. ‘Because you are a man? How do you think of me, then? As a parcel handed over by my father to you at the altar?’

  Sighing, he folded the paper and prepared to listen, though with an air of exaggerated meekness. ‘If I ever thought that, I’ve spent the remainder of my days learning otherwise.’

  ‘Louise will have to find her own way and you will have to be tolerant about it.’

  ‘Tolerant!’ This was too much. ‘I don’t think you could find anyone more tolerant than I am. But if what we are talking about is not tolerance but indifference, that is another matter. I am not prepared to walk through the streets of South Acton and come away tolerant about unemployment.’ He was resorting to his usual practice of changing the subject so that he should be seen to be standing on firm ground. ‘Nor am I prepared to tolerate the endless delays of this bungling government in its slum clearance programme; the degradation of human beings is a matter on which I shall ever be intolerant . . .’

  ‘Can’t you forget what is happening to the nation and think about what is happening in your own home just this once?’

  ‘How can you say such a thing, Judith? I am simply arguing that . . .’

  ‘I am suggesting an outing to the theatre, and you have to respond by talking about slum clearance programmes! We take them to the cinema; is the theatre so different?’

  He picked up the poker and inserted the point in a log, twisting it round and round as he pondered this. Beneath his irascible exterior he was a vulnerable, rather shy man and the mechanics of theatre-going bothered him. He was most at ease in his house, his school and his chapel.

  ‘A good deal more licence is allowed in the theatre,’ he said, giving a particularly vicious twist to the poker.

  ‘It doesn’t sound as if the morals in this play are any worse, than in the Ralph Lynn/Tom Walls farces we take the children to see.’

  ‘These are live people,’ he protested.

  ‘What has that got to do with it?’

  He was embarrassed at the prospect of seeing live people on stage behaving in an emotional and undisciplined manner. It was not so much that he disapproved of emotion, as that his own emotions were too easily aroused. The log broke apart and he contemplated it unhappily.

  Judith said, ‘I should like to see Richard of Bordeaux. It would make a change.’

  He stared at her in astonishment. ‘A change? But you do so much, my darling.’

  ‘What? What do I do? Name me one thing, apart from housework.’

  Her daily life being rather a mystery to him, he could only say, ‘Well, there’s the Women’s Bright Hour . . .’

  ‘The Women’s Bright Hour!’ Her face was reddened by firelight and her eyes flashed with scorn. ‘Thank you, Stanley. Is that really how you think of me? Those boring women!’

  ‘Good women in their way.’

  ‘Boring in every other way.’

  Stanley laid the poker down carefully in the hearth. ‘If the thing’s so popular we probably won’t be able to book tickets.’

  ‘You don’t have to book for the pit.’

  ‘I am not going to be seen queuing outside a theatre, you can put that out of your mind!’

  ‘Louise and I will queue while you take Alice and Claire for a walk.’

  It had been a tactical mistake to allow himself to get into an argument about the method of obtaining tickets.

  They went to see Richard of Bordeaux one Saturday afternoon. Once he had dealt with the business of handing over the tickets, buying programmes and refusing tea in the interval, Stanley Fairley set himself to examine his fellow theatregoers. They did not, in his opinion, amount to much. Certainly, there were no women present who bore comparison with his wife and daughters. He settled more comfortably in his seat and examined the programme for errors.

  Claire found the presence of real people on stage threatening, and her father advised her not to look when they became angry or emotionally distressed (there was rather a lot of emotional distress). Louise was enchanted by the theatre itself, the people around her, the safety curtain, the slow fading of the lights, the way in which the actors made their exits and their entrances, their gestures and their manner of wearing their costumes. Beside her, Alice sat so still she seemed scarcely to breathe; by the time it was over she was in love with John Gielgud – a love which was to last long after the hold of the silver screen had been broken.

  Judith was not interested in the play, but she was very moved by the occasion. She felt, as she sat in the first row of the pit, surrounded by her family, that she had accomplished rather more than a visit to the theatre. They had taken a step forward, and life would not be the same again.

  When they came out of the theatre, there were a lot of policemen about. The Blackshirts had been on the march. Fortunately, they did not discover this until the next day, and so they could discuss the play over supper.

  Chapter Eleven

  By the summer the activity of the Blackshirts had led to riots, and Miss Blaize thought it necessary to address herself to the problem.

  ‘I have told you many times,’ she said to the girls at assembly, ‘that you should be prepared for leadership. I have asked, without a noticeable response, that you should not always choose the same people for form captain, because it is important that as many as possible should have the opportunity to lead.’ She has in mind some quite horrid enterprise during the school holidays. Daphne thought – working in Bethnal Green or some other dreary place; when she asks for volunteers to stand up, I’m going to be one of those with a gluey seat. ‘But as you grow older, it is likely that more of you will be led than will lead. You must never be led like sheep; even those who follow have their responsibilities. They must examine the quality of leadership, they must ask where it is that they are being led.’ She’s seen someone out with a boy, Katia thought; it’s time I had a boy. She experienced an unholy upsurge of joy. ‘However brilliant and compelling a man may be, there can never be an excuse for involving himself in activities which lead to gross public disorder. Mob violence is a terrible thing.’ Her pupils, most of whom had experienced nothing worse than minor disorders on bonfire night celebrations, gazed at her politely while they tried to identify among their acquaintances any who might be described as compelling, let alone brilliant.

  Miss Blaize, studying their inexpressive faces, thought that if she were to announce the imminent end of the world they would continue to look like this. Although she had done her best to inculcate in them qualities of self-discipline and composure, she regretted the absence of volatility. She herself found Mosley very compelling; had her life taken a different turn, she might have become one of his followers. There were volcanic powers in Miss Blaize. She returned to her room saddened by the inability of life to match itself to the grandeur of her needs.

  ‘It’s time we had a boy friend,’ Katia said to Alice when they returned to their formroom.

  ‘I don’t want boys.’ Alice was scornful; it was men like Gary Cooper and her new idol, Ralph Bellamy, who appealed to her.

  ‘Boys are all right.’ Daphne often talked about her exploits with boys which usually consisted of fights which she won. ‘I punched him and he cried,’ she would say. Recently she had been out with the vicar’s son, but they did not fight. ‘We play tennis. He’s not very good.’

  Miss Blaize’s comments about riots had passed over the heads of her pupils, but an incident occurred a few days later which had more effect on those who witnessed it.

  Cynthia Applestock, one of the more eccentric members of Alice’s form, maintained that the daily round of school life was only tolerable if she could drive the mathematics mistress to the verge of tears by the end of each less
on. This was not the result of particular animosity, but rather part of a grand design. Every Commemoration Day the school sang ‘Let us now praise famous men’. Cynthia said that this was one of the most exquisitely funny moments of her life, and doubted whether subsequently there would be anything to equal it. Certainly, it had a relevance of a kind for, as some are born to praise, so Cynthia seemed constitutionally formed to destroy what others construct. She went about her mission quietly, but with the dedication of one whose concentration never fails or falters, and whether spoiling play on the games field by constant misfielding, or delaying a rural science outing by losing one shoe on the railway track, she let no opportunity slip by. In the curriculum, mathematics offered her the most scope. For one thing, it was a subject which many pupils found difficult enough without its principles being turned inside out just as they were getting some grasp of them. And then there was Miss Punnett. A large, humourless woman, unable to deal effectively with the most harmless misdemeanour, she was never angry, only disappointed, sad, reproachful, forever appealing to better natures which her pupils did not possess. When she rebuked them individually, she put her face close to theirs and moisture sprayed from her wet mouth. She smelt of sweat-soaked wool. Cynthia, not being given to unnecessary exertion, disrupted Miss Punnett’s lessons by the simple expedient of feigning bewilderment whenever a new formula was introduced. Mathematics being prone to formulas, there was ample occasion for bewilderment. Not only Miss Punnett, but her form-mates had come to dread the languidly raised arm which signalled that Cynthia had found a flaw in an equation which mathematicians of no mean repute had not hitherto found wanting.

  In spite of Miss Punnett’s unpopularity, there was something about the way in which Cynthia teased the woman which made the other girls uncomfortable. On one occasion, when Miss Punnett had left the room very close to tears. Daphne had said to Cynthia, ‘When you’ve made her cry perhaps you’ll be satisfied?’

  ‘Oh no!’ Cynthia had looked as surprised as was possible for a girl with such indolent features and no eyebrows. ‘Hadn’t you realized? The whole point is never actually to make her cry. This kind of enterprise requires very careful judgement; otherwise Miss Blaize would put a stop to it!’

  ‘Sod you!’ Cynthia was the one person who could needle Daphne. ‘I don’t know why you make such a fuss about Hitler,’ she had once said to Alice, ‘when you’ve got a little flower of evil like Cynthia right on your doorstep!’

  The form as a whole suffered from Cynthia’s ‘enterprise’, enduring long moral strictures from Miss Punnett, and sometimes missing break periods while she harangued them. Cynthia was unperturbed by their protests. In fact, it seemed she courted hostility as assiduously as others court popularity, and it was difficult to tell which was more important to her – the exasperation of her fellows or the torment of Miss Punnett. It was certain that she reserved her worst behaviour for days when it might pose a threat to some activity dear to her companions.

  On this particular bright summer afternoon, the mathematics lesson was followed by a games period. Miss Punnett, unaware of this stimulus to Cynthia’s creativity, stood facing the blackboard. The lesson had been punctuated by interruptions of which fire drill had taken up the most time, and Cynthia had so far been denied her form of sport. Perhaps it was this which led her to resort to tactics of a cruder nature than those she usually employed, or perhaps there was an element of hysteria which made itself felt when she found herself thwarted. Certainly, her languor seemed exaggerated to a point where a more alert teacher might have wondered about her health.

  Miss Punnett, traditionally garbed in a rust-coloured sack loosely roped by a girdle, raised a hand to the blackboard, and the girls could see the sweat-bleached patch around the armpit. Katia put her fingers to her nose, but no one laughed. It was a sunny day and only ten minutes left of the lesson. Miss Punnett drew an octagon on the board and said, ‘You should have a figure like mine.’ Katia whispered, ‘I’d sooner die!’ and this time was rewarded by the merest ripple of laughter. Had Miss Punnett ignored it, the laughter would have died away without causing any disturbance; but she lacked judgement, and must make it the occasion for a lecture on manners. ‘You are old enough to have learnt to consider the feelings of others. It is possible to be very hurtful to other people; I am not speaking of myself, of course . . .’ Her pink face, quivering like an unfirm blancmange, gave the lie to this. The girls watched her with distaste.

  When she had finished rebuking them. Miss Punnett asked Cynthia to clean the blackboard, hoping by this means to have the girl harmlessly employed. While Miss Punnett was returning homework to members of the form, Cynthia, who believed in using what opportunities the gods give, wrote on the board, ‘Miss Punnett is a silly old trout’. Her form-mates were surprised. ‘Silly old bag’ would have been acceptable but ‘trout’ had a dash of style about it which seemed to give an air of adult authority to the statement. Miss Punnett, reacting with unaccustomed alacrity to the gaze of her pupils, turned round before the words could be wiped off the blackboard.

  Until this moment Alice, and many others, had imagined that for every act of insurrection there was an appropriate response which could not be withheld for one instant. Retribution was an important part of their upbringing. They waited. In five minutes one of the prefects would be ringing the changing bell. Miss Punnett, purple-faced, stared at Cynthia, a trickle of saliva at one corner of her mouth; in spite of much evidence to the contrary, she believed that a reproving glance has a greater effect than words. Cynthia took advantage of the silence to wipe the message off the blackboard; she then returned to her desk as though nothing had happened.

  Miss Punnett said in a hoarse voice, ‘Leave the room, Cynthia; I will speak to you later.’

  Cynthia appeared to toy with the idea. A ray of sunlight falling aslant the inkstained desk created no sensation of warmth in the girl. She had an overbred appearance with her ash-blonde hair, white eyebrows and thin, colourless lips, and at this moment, narrow shoulders hunched, looked as though she lacked the energy to move. Miss Punnett’s glasses misted over, and her upper lip trembled. The girls wriggled in acute discomfort. At this rate, not only would they lose their games period, but probably swimming after school as well. At the back of the room, Katia snorted with laughter and pressed a hand to her mouth.

  Miss Punnett said, ‘That girl who laughed is as guilty as this wretched girl.’

  Cynthia slewed sideways. Initially, she did this in order to get a view of Katia; then, it must have occurred to her that this was the moment literally to turn things upside down.

  The changing bell was rung clamorously. The girls shuffled their books. Miss Punnett was now afraid that if she dismissed the class Cynthia would walk out unpunished. She said, ‘No one will leave the room,’ and then, realizing that this was unlikely to advance her cause, added, ‘until you have done as you are told, Cynthia.’

  Cynthia, hanging out from her desk at an angle which invited collapse, yet maintaining her balance with the inconsequential ease of a circus performer, allowed the top of her forehead to touch the floor.

  Miss Punnett came and stood by Cynthia’s desk, sternly regarding the upside-down face. ‘I have spoken to you, Cynthia.’

  Cynthia said, ‘Yes, I know you have. Miss Punnett. I am now meditating on what you have said.’ Having come thus far, she probably realized it would be difficult to find a way back; certainly it would be tedious: the Winifred Clough Day School for Girls was unlikely to permit itself to be viewed from this angle again. Perhaps these thoughts and the rush of blood to the head were responsible for something hectic in her manner. ‘I can see right up your hairy nostrils into your brain. Miss Punnett. Your brain is full of common denominators and terribly vulgar fractions, did you know that?’

  Daphne got up. ‘We have a games period now. Did you know that?’ She came up to Cynthia, grasped fistfuls of hair and yanked hard. It was almost possible, looking at the long, thin, colourless girl, to see
her as a recalcitrant weed which Daphne, legs set sturdily apart, had committed her strength to uprooting. Cynthia’s fingers, like thin tendrils, clung to the desk with all the tenacity of a parasite. Daphne bared her teeth in a fierce little grimace, and put a knee to the small of Cynthia’s back.

  Cynthia cried out, ‘Why can’t you control your class. Miss Punnett?’

  Slowly, her face reddening with effort. Daphne applied herself to her task, as unyielding and grimly determined as when she hauled for her side in a tug-of-war. ‘I warn you, you’re going to look as if you’ve got ringworm.’ Gradually, with tremendous concentration, adjusting balance and grip when required, she addressed herself to the razing of Cynthia. Alice thought she had never seen such dedication in Daphne, and wondered what it was in Cynthia which could rouse her friend. The girls at the back of the room were standing up to watch the struggle. What was at stake, whether their right to a games period or to scalp one another when it took their fancy, they could not have said.

  Miss Punnett, seeing she now had no chance of restoring order, uttered the ultimate threat, ‘I shall fetch Miss Blaize.’

  Cynthia screamed, ‘Hurry up then, you daft cow!’ This was the end of her resistance. A moment later, she broke away from Daphne and ran into the corridor, announcing her intention of slashing her wrists to two astonished sixth-formers and closely pursued by Miss Punnett.

  Katia, eager to keep the excitement going for a little longer, said, ‘She does have a razor blade to sharpen her pencils.’

  Daphne said, ‘It’s blood she doesn’t have.’

  One or two girls thumped Daphne on the back, but she shook off their congratulations.

  Twenty minutes later, when Miss Blaize came to speak to the form, she found the girls bent industriously over their exercise books.

  ‘Who was the girl who laughed?’