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.Emmeline cried to see the sudden change in him and said she’d lost her darling baby but Cyril said it was high time he stopped being a duffer and learnt to stand up for himself.‘You want to be a big boy, don’t you, Podge? Not a soppy baby.’And Podge, who was standing on Octavia’s knee so that he could admire his new image in the looking glass, said, yes, he did, and sounded defiantly confident even though the expression on his face was anxious and doubtful.* * *In the summer of the first year of the new century the North London Collegiate School reached the fiftieth anniversary of its foundation and the entire school went to a special service in St Paul’s Cathedral – no less – to celebrate.It was an impressive occasion and Octavia was duly impressed, thrilled to think that they were in the self-same cathedral that had welcomed the queen, overawed by the imposing clergy, stirred by the wonderful sound the choir made as their voices echoed up and up into the high spaces of the great dome, uplifted by the rousing speeches in praise of the great work already done by the school, encouraged to think that even greater things lay in the future and that she would be part of them.In the autumn the Conservative party won the general election with four hundred and one seats to everybody else’s two hundred and sixty-eight, and Keir Hardie was elected as Labour MP for Merthyr Tydfil, to whoops of delight from Professor Smith.Then on the second of January in the second year of the new century, the papers were printed with black margins to announce the death of ‘good Queen Victoria’.‘It is the end of an era,’ The Times said, ‘and we shall never see her like again.’ Special prayers were offered up for her at school and in church, most social functions were cancelled as a mark of respect, and her death and its repercussions were the main topic of conversation wherever the Smith family went.This time Octavia wasn’t impressed at all.It had been exciting to watch the living queen in her carriage by the steps of St Paul’s but it seemed silly to make a fuss about her because she was dead.There was no need to go cancelling parties and staying at home all the time.‘If it had been someone we knew,’ she said to her cousins when they were all sitting round the drawing room fire on Sunday afternoon, ‘it would have been different.I can’t see the point of making a fuss over someone we don’t know.I don’t see why they’ve got to cancel Betty Transom’s party.’‘Nor do I,’ Emmeline said.‘It’s not her fault the queen’s gone and died.What do you think, Squirrel?’‘Meriton Major’s got one of those new bicycles,’ Cyril said.‘I’m going to ask Pa if I can have one too.It’s ripping fun.’‘It’s always Meriton Major with you,’ Emmeline said scornfully.‘I’m tired of hearing about him.Aren’t you, Tavy? It’s so boring, worse than the queen.’‘That’s all you know,’ her brother said, tossing his dark hair and picking up the poker to give the coals a good whacking.‘Actually he’s a dashed good egg.If it hadn’t been for them cancelling Betty’s party you’d have seen him there and then you’d have known.’But as it was they were denied sight of his hero and on the day of the party they had to content themselves with playing Pit and roasting chestnuts by the fire.The new century rolled on.A wireless message was sent right across the Atlantic Ocean, which was quite amazing; the coronation was postponed because the new king had appendicitis and had to have an operation, which was very serious; the bell tower in Venice collapsed into a heap of rubble – there were pictures in the paper to prove it – and Emmeline finished her unwanted years at school, failed her final examinations and was allowed to leave.She was pretty with relief.Within a week she had put her hair up and left her childhood behind her.She and her mother visited the dressmaker in Flask Walk, on Amy’s recommendation, studied the catalogues and went for several shopping expeditions to the West End.Soon she was fully kitted out as an adult, with all the clothes necessary to her new status: walking costume, day dresses, gloves, hat, silk stockings, button boots and all.She was totally and glowingly transformed.‘Pa’s going to take me to a play on Friday,’ she confided to Octavia, ‘and a concert on Saturday.I intend to meet lots and lots of people.That’s the best way if you mean to be married and I mean to be married just as soon as ever I can.Oh, you don’t know how lovely it is not to be at school! It’s going to be such fun.You can’t imagine all the things Ma’s got planned for me.It’s going to be a splendid summer.’‘Aren’t you coming down to Eastbourne with us?’ Octavia said.The two families always took their summer holidays together, always for four weeks and always in Eastbourne.But apparently not.She and Aunt Maud were going to stay in Highgate all summer, Cyril was going to France with Meriton Major’s family and only Podge would be playing on the Eastbourne sands that year.It was very disappointing.‘I shall miss you,’ Octavia said.And did, for the holiday wasn’t anywhere near so much fun on her own.Despite having a brand new swimming costume – and a very pretty one in sky blue cotton with two thick white frills at knee and elbow and another all round her cap – and despite excellent weather and having Podge to look after and with plenty to do and see, she was often lonely.The donkeys stood in patient lines on the beach, or plodded their well-worn hundred yards of sand, the band played its usual medley of cheerful tunes in the bandstand, the Pierrot company entertained as brashly as ever on the pier, the Punch and Judy man set up his customary stall at the top of the beach, but these things only increased her loneliness.What was the good of them, if there wasn’t anyone to discuss them with? True, she had long talks with her mother and father when they all went for their daily promenade, but adult conversation is not at all the same thing as a gossip with your oldest friend, and a postcard isn’t the same thing either, although she wrote one religiously every day.Emmeline did write back, but only now and then, and with diminishing interest, and by the time the four weeks were over, Octavia had begun to accept that her life had changed whether she would or no [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]