soon committed it to
memory. I imagined that its conventional phrases implied a deep and
sympathetic interest in my personality; it was almost the first
time I had felt myself real to somebody who didn’t know me.
At first I was all agog to go and couldn’t
understand my mother’s hesitation in accepting for me. “Norfolk is
such a long way off,” she would say, “and you’ve never been away
from home before, to stay with strangers, I mean.” “But I’ve been
to school,” I argued. She had to admit that. “But I wish you
weren’t going for so long,” she said. “You may not like it, and
then what will you do?” “I’m sure I shall enjoy myself,” I told
her. “And you will be there for your birthday,” she said. “We’ve
always been together for your birthday.” I said nothing to that, I
had forgotten about my birthday and was visited by a pang of
premature nostalgia. “Promise me you’ll let me know if you’re not
happy,” she said. I didn’t like to say again I knew I should be
happy, so I promised. But still she wasn’t satisfied. “Perhaps
you’ll get measles after all,” she told me hopefully, “or Marcus
will.”
A dozen times a day I asked her if she had written
saying I might go, until in the end she quite lost patience with
me. “Don’t worry me—I have written,” she said at last.
Preparations followed—what should I take with me?
One thing I shouldn’t need, I said, was summer clothes. “I know it
won’t be hot.” And the weather bore me out—cool day followed cool
day. My mother saw eye to eye with me in this: she believed that
thick clothes were somehow safer than thin ones. And she had
another motive: economy. The hot months of last year I had spent in
bed, so I had no hot-weather outfit suitable to my size. I was
growing fast: the outlay would be considerable and perhaps money
thrown away. My mother yielded to me. “But try not to get hot,” she
said. “Getting hot is always a risk. You needn’t do anything
violent
, need you?” We looked at each other in perplexity,
and dismissed the idea that I should have to do anything
violent.
In imagination, often in apprehension, she tried to
foresee the kind of life I should lead. One day she said, apropos
of nothing: “Try to go to church if you can. I don’t know what sort
of people they are—perhaps they don’t go to church. If they do, I
expect they drive.” Her face grew wistful, and I knew she wished
she was going with me.
I shouldn’t have wanted that. I was haunted by the
schoolboy’s fear that my mother wouldn’t look right, do right, be
right in the eyes of the other boys and their parents. She would be
socially unacceptable; she would make a bloomer. I could bear
humiliation for myself, I thought, more easily than I could for
her.
But as the day of departure drew nearer, my feelings
underwent a change. Now it was I who wanted to get out of going,
and my mother who held me to it. “You could so easily say I had got
measles,” I pleaded. She was horrified. “I couldn’t say such a
thing,” she cried indignantly. “And besides they would know. You
were out of quarantine yesterday.” My heart sank; I tried a spell
for making spots come out on my chest, but it didn’t work. On the
last evening my mother and I sat together in the drawing-room on
the two-humped settee, which reminded me of a dromedary in profile.
The room faced the street and was a little stuffy, for we used it
seldom and when it was not in use the windows were fastened to keep
out the dust, which in the dry weather rose in clouds whenever a
vehicle went by. It was our one formal room and I think my mother
may have chosen it for its moral effect; its comparative
strangeness would be a step towards the strangeness I should feel
in another house. Also I suspect she had something special to say,
which the room would lend weight to, but she never said it, for I
was too near to tears to be open to practical or
memory. I imagined that its conventional phrases implied a deep and
sympathetic interest in my personality; it was almost the first
time I had felt myself real to somebody who didn’t know me.
At first I was all agog to go and couldn’t
understand my mother’s hesitation in accepting for me. “Norfolk is
such a long way off,” she would say, “and you’ve never been away
from home before, to stay with strangers, I mean.” “But I’ve been
to school,” I argued. She had to admit that. “But I wish you
weren’t going for so long,” she said. “You may not like it, and
then what will you do?” “I’m sure I shall enjoy myself,” I told
her. “And you will be there for your birthday,” she said. “We’ve
always been together for your birthday.” I said nothing to that, I
had forgotten about my birthday and was visited by a pang of
premature nostalgia. “Promise me you’ll let me know if you’re not
happy,” she said. I didn’t like to say again I knew I should be
happy, so I promised. But still she wasn’t satisfied. “Perhaps
you’ll get measles after all,” she told me hopefully, “or Marcus
will.”
A dozen times a day I asked her if she had written
saying I might go, until in the end she quite lost patience with
me. “Don’t worry me—I have written,” she said at last.
Preparations followed—what should I take with me?
One thing I shouldn’t need, I said, was summer clothes. “I know it
won’t be hot.” And the weather bore me out—cool day followed cool
day. My mother saw eye to eye with me in this: she believed that
thick clothes were somehow safer than thin ones. And she had
another motive: economy. The hot months of last year I had spent in
bed, so I had no hot-weather outfit suitable to my size. I was
growing fast: the outlay would be considerable and perhaps money
thrown away. My mother yielded to me. “But try not to get hot,” she
said. “Getting hot is always a risk. You needn’t do anything
violent
, need you?” We looked at each other in perplexity,
and dismissed the idea that I should have to do anything
violent.
In imagination, often in apprehension, she tried to
foresee the kind of life I should lead. One day she said, apropos
of nothing: “Try to go to church if you can. I don’t know what sort
of people they are—perhaps they don’t go to church. If they do, I
expect they drive.” Her face grew wistful, and I knew she wished
she was going with me.
I shouldn’t have wanted that. I was haunted by the
schoolboy’s fear that my mother wouldn’t look right, do right, be
right in the eyes of the other boys and their parents. She would be
socially unacceptable; she would make a bloomer. I could bear
humiliation for myself, I thought, more easily than I could for
her.
But as the day of departure drew nearer, my feelings
underwent a change. Now it was I who wanted to get out of going,
and my mother who held me to it. “You could so easily say I had got
measles,” I pleaded. She was horrified. “I couldn’t say such a
thing,” she cried indignantly. “And besides they would know. You
were out of quarantine yesterday.” My heart sank; I tried a spell
for making spots come out on my chest, but it didn’t work. On the
last evening my mother and I sat together in the drawing-room on
the two-humped settee, which reminded me of a dromedary in profile.
The room faced the street and was a little stuffy, for we used it
seldom and when it was not in use the windows were fastened to keep
out the dust, which in the dry weather rose in clouds whenever a
vehicle went by. It was our one formal room and I think my mother
may have chosen it for its moral effect; its comparative
strangeness would be a step towards the strangeness I should feel
in another house. Also I suspect she had something special to say,
which the room would lend weight to, but she never said it, for I
was too near to tears to be open to practical or
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