Read The Brontes Went to Woolworths for Free Online Page B

that.’
    ‘Such as?’
    ‘The stage, fool!’
    ‘Tah!’
    ‘If you mean business, go out and get a job. It’s done, you know.’
    ‘Oh my dear soul, don’t talk that “earn while learning” stuff to me .’
    ‘It would be a lark, K. Think of the frightful people you’d meet, and singing “Bird of Love Fly Back” at auditions, and being told by an overdressed Hebrew in a hat two sizes too small that he’d “let you know in a few days”! They all say that. It means you don’t get the job and he doesn’t write to you,’ I urged. Katrine brightened.
    ‘I can’t guarantee that you’ll get kissed much,’ I admitted, ‘and you’ll almost certainly not get “insulted” by the offer of a flat and diamonds, because there’s too much competition, so hardly anybody gets offered that any more, and there’s a perfect queue waiting to be insulted, and in any case, most chorus girls come from perfectly nice homes in South Kensington and behave like nuns, these days. But you’ll be called Kid and Dear by the other sort, and I once heard a producer telling a troupe to “dance it with debunnair.” ’
    ‘Hah!’
    ‘I know. Of course the language is rather awful, sometimes, but really it’s mostly old English, and Harrison Ainsworth is full of it. Even Queen Mary said “God’s death!” when Courtenay threw her over for Elizabeth. It’s awfully rum what you can get used to. I remember when I first heard a girl say “bloody” I really felt bad about it – quite in the “what is youth coming to?” vein, but we say it all day long ourselves now.’
    Katrine was beginning to look more natural, so I drove the last nail home. ‘Keep young at heart, dear gurl, and – who knows? – your little lamp may illumine some Difficult Step for another.’
    Katrine began to join in, showering advice on herself. ‘Smile it off! The Cloud will pass away. Always refuse dishonourable offers with politeness, Pansy. Courtesy costs nothing.’
    But I saw that all this was only a flash in the pan, so, quite soon, I went up to the schoolroom again, dodging open bedroom doors in case somebody called out and wanted me to address labels, or haul at trunk straps, a job no woman ought to be asked to cope with. Even a holiday that is going to be a successful one should never be preceded by irritating and exhausting details. One should simply walk out of the house into a car, and be driven, coolly, to the station. And when one arrived, a maid would have unpacked. That’s how it happens in the Toddingtons’ house, and quite right too. The end of July certainly does search out the standing of a family, and our sort of departure is even apt to look all wrong, possibly because there are five of us, and all women. In the old days there was father, but we were living, then, in a ghastly house in Hampton Wick, and when I was a child and Sheil an infant, our departures to the seaside included a nurse in the cab and a bath on the roof, and that very nearly cancelled out father.
    We certainly have two servants, but they don’t do their bit, and have Legs that have to be Remembered, and Hearts which have to be Considered, and I often groan for the Toddingtons’ faithful cook, Grania, and the aloof but efficient parlourmaid, Henderson. But of course Toddy is a big man, and his progresses about the country inevitably stately, and his adorable way with all of us only serves to emphasise it.
    And I sat in Sheil’s chair and looked at a supplement of Cherry Ripe on the wall, and said for probably the fortieth time, ‘Oh, Toddy, I wish you were my father!’
    After all, the post is vacant, and it is monstrous that anything should stand in the way. I’m sometimes certain that Toddy would like it, too. I’m often afraid he’s disappointed about having no children, and the riddle of whether Mildred ‘wouldn’t’ baffles me yet. I once woke up in the middle of the night being disappointed for Toddy.
    He is going to Sandwich again, this year,