Read Online Good Behaviour by Maggie O'Farrell, Molly Keane - Free Book Online
Authors: Maggie O'Farrell, Molly Keane
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–”’ Richard paused to get a grip on his audience – ‘“She
is fading down the river” … ’
‘Poor thing,’ Walter said brokenly when Richard stopped at last. ‘She’ll have faded out of Paddington Station hours ago. Poor
thing. All those crowds!’
CHAPTER FIVE
Mummie didn’t care much about Mrs Brock’s singing. ‘Never quite on the note,’ she would say with chilly tolerance. ‘As the
children are so unmusical, it doesn’t matter really, and the schoolroom is far enough away … ’ I was surprised and hurt when
I heard this, as I had begun to fancy my voice under Mrs Brock’s encouragement, and I was learning ‘Two Little Girls in Blue,
Dears,’ with which number I expected to stun the Christmas School Treat. Even if I had owned the truest voice in the world,
such an idea would have been discouraged as in the poorest taste.
Mrs Brock found life in Ireland a complete change from any previous schoolroom experience, although, in essentials, her relationship
with the family was the same. Mummie ran away from any familiar footing in the schoolroom. There was not even the flimsiest
bridge across that distance – not even a dog’s lead to be lost or found. Our house stood at the apex of two carriage drives
and was quite half a mile from any road; there were no young pheasants to disturb on our bog or river walks, only wild swans
or snipe, so our dogs,which were few, did not require leads. Any contact or familiarity with Mummie was as far outside her orbit as were the birds.
As in Dorset, the servants loved Mrs Brock. Here they were wild and garrulous, speaking a strange language in which she was
disappointed at never hearing the word ‘Begorrah,’ but she could hear their distant droning of the rosary at bedtime.
She woke to their footsteps early in the morning, when they swept the dust under the sofa in the schoolroom and lit crackling
paraffin-smelling fires by eight o’clock. They wore holy medals and scapulars under their cotton dresses, and ate Robin starch
from the laundry, partly as a thinning diet and partly because they were hungry. They didn’t expect much to eat then, and
they certainly didn’t get it. Diningroom and servants’ halls fed very differently. Mrs Brock would bring them biscuits when
she walked with us as far as the village on the river, where two little grocers’ shops lurked, dark and low, in a terrace
of eighteenth-century houses, and the ruin of a great woollen mill hung above the water.
Hubert and I adored Mrs Brock. We lived again with her the conduct of life at Stoke Charity (years afterwards Richard was
to contradict or make explicit much of what she told us), we heard about the boys and their fiery ponies, and thought of their
courage with distant awe. In those days we hated our ponies and Mrs Brock encouraged us to get off and lead the dirty little
beasts past their favourite spots for seeing ghosts and whipping round for home.
She accepted without comment my grotesque, sentimental fixation on Mummie. She designed handkerchief sachets, matching sachets
for holding nightdresses, hotwater-bottle covers, raffia napkin rings, egg cosies shaped like chickens’heads, and countless other objects, at which I would sew while my heart burst with passionate excitement at the prospect of
the giving and the gratitude. This manufacture of things was a great happiness to me, and Mrs Brock’s practical genius in
manipulating scraps from the ragbag into ever more useless trifles held us together in warm accord.
Mummie escaped us all. The tides of her painting and her gardening, and the spring-tides of her whole life with Papa were
as the sea between us – no step we took left a print in the sands. After we had toiled (not without pleasure) for hours on
end to present her with wild violets: ‘Oh, darlings, please don’t pick them any more, poor little things. Thank you, yes they
do
smell ravishing, thank you so
is fading down the river” … ’
‘Poor thing,’ Walter said brokenly when Richard stopped at last. ‘She’ll have faded out of Paddington Station hours ago. Poor
thing. All those crowds!’
CHAPTER FIVE
Mummie didn’t care much about Mrs Brock’s singing. ‘Never quite on the note,’ she would say with chilly tolerance. ‘As the
children are so unmusical, it doesn’t matter really, and the schoolroom is far enough away … ’ I was surprised and hurt when
I heard this, as I had begun to fancy my voice under Mrs Brock’s encouragement, and I was learning ‘Two Little Girls in Blue,
Dears,’ with which number I expected to stun the Christmas School Treat. Even if I had owned the truest voice in the world,
such an idea would have been discouraged as in the poorest taste.
Mrs Brock found life in Ireland a complete change from any previous schoolroom experience, although, in essentials, her relationship
with the family was the same. Mummie ran away from any familiar footing in the schoolroom. There was not even the flimsiest
bridge across that distance – not even a dog’s lead to be lost or found. Our house stood at the apex of two carriage drives
and was quite half a mile from any road; there were no young pheasants to disturb on our bog or river walks, only wild swans
or snipe, so our dogs,which were few, did not require leads. Any contact or familiarity with Mummie was as far outside her orbit as were the birds.
As in Dorset, the servants loved Mrs Brock. Here they were wild and garrulous, speaking a strange language in which she was
disappointed at never hearing the word ‘Begorrah,’ but she could hear their distant droning of the rosary at bedtime.
She woke to their footsteps early in the morning, when they swept the dust under the sofa in the schoolroom and lit crackling
paraffin-smelling fires by eight o’clock. They wore holy medals and scapulars under their cotton dresses, and ate Robin starch
from the laundry, partly as a thinning diet and partly because they were hungry. They didn’t expect much to eat then, and
they certainly didn’t get it. Diningroom and servants’ halls fed very differently. Mrs Brock would bring them biscuits when
she walked with us as far as the village on the river, where two little grocers’ shops lurked, dark and low, in a terrace
of eighteenth-century houses, and the ruin of a great woollen mill hung above the water.
Hubert and I adored Mrs Brock. We lived again with her the conduct of life at Stoke Charity (years afterwards Richard was
to contradict or make explicit much of what she told us), we heard about the boys and their fiery ponies, and thought of their
courage with distant awe. In those days we hated our ponies and Mrs Brock encouraged us to get off and lead the dirty little
beasts past their favourite spots for seeing ghosts and whipping round for home.
She accepted without comment my grotesque, sentimental fixation on Mummie. She designed handkerchief sachets, matching sachets
for holding nightdresses, hotwater-bottle covers, raffia napkin rings, egg cosies shaped like chickens’heads, and countless other objects, at which I would sew while my heart burst with passionate excitement at the prospect of
the giving and the gratitude. This manufacture of things was a great happiness to me, and Mrs Brock’s practical genius in
manipulating scraps from the ragbag into ever more useless trifles held us together in warm accord.
Mummie escaped us all. The tides of her painting and her gardening, and the spring-tides of her whole life with Papa were
as the sea between us – no step we took left a print in the sands. After we had toiled (not without pleasure) for hours on
end to present her with wild violets: ‘Oh, darlings, please don’t pick them any more, poor little things. Thank you, yes they
do
smell ravishing, thank you so
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