‘There’s that dratted child up to no good again,’ the housemaid said, glancing up at the kitchen ceiling. It was only four o’clock in the afternoon but her face was already pinched with fatigue. ‘She’s running about in the hall. That’s what she’s doing, naughty little thing. Hark at her, crashing all about. She’s worse than a wagonload of monkeys.’ She picked up the nursery tea tray with both hands, partly to show how cross she was and partly to hold it steady. ‘She needs taking in hand, that’s my opinion. They should give her a good hiding instead of letting her run wild all over the place. Well, she’d better not get under my feet, that’s all. I got enough to do without a spoilt brat under my feet all the time.’
Mrs Wilkins was lacing a leg of mutton with sprigs of rosemary. As cook-housekeeper to the family, she had more important things to attend to than the antics of a naughty six-year-old. That was Nurse’s business and let her get on with it. There was going to be a very special dinner party that evening and Professor Smith wanted everything just so. It made a lot of extra work, even though she’d managed to spread it over two days, and even though she’d got two parlour maids in from the agency to help lay the table and serve and clear. Still, all things considered, she was doing pretty well. The chocolate Bavarois were set and ready, all lined up on the dresser in their pretty cups, the soup was in the stockpot and only needed heating up and a curl of cream, Molly was peeling the potatoes, Mary’d made the nursery tea, so that was taken care of, but there was still the fish course to prepare, to say nothing of all the other vegetables, and time was getting on. ‘She’s just a pickle,’ she said mildly. ‘Little girls are like that the world over. Make sure you put enough salt in them potatoes, Molly.’
Molly sprinkled salt obediently but Mary was disgruntled. ‘Never mind pickle,’ she complained. ‘You don’t see the half of it down here all the time. Not like we do, eh Molly? She’s a fiend. Charging about all over the place! An’ it’s ten times worse when them cousins come. They’re like a bunch a’ lunatics.’
‘Mind how you go then,’ Mrs Wilkins advised, as the maid headed for the door. ‘Oh, an’ tell Boots to light the gas when he’s done the fires or you won’t be able to see what you’re about.’ Afternoon light in late September was always difficult to judge and she’d been so preoccupied with the joint she hadn’t noticed how dark it was getting.
Mary toiled up the stairs through the sooty shadows, muttering to herself. ‘And where’s Boots when you want him? Tell me that. Stupid boy. Never mind tell him to light the gas. If I wants it done I shall have to do it meself.’
To her relief, the hall was clear. No sign of the child or the cousins, although she could hear them whispering somewhere nearby. Thank the Lord for small mercies, she thought, and she carried the tray to the hallstand, balancing it carefully. It’d be safe there while she lit the gas.
But she never got the chance to set it down. The door to the master’s study was flung open so suddenly and violently that it thudded against the jamb, and the three children erupted into the hall, squealing and shrieking. They were running so fast they’d banged into her legs before she could get out of the way. She jumped and screamed, as the tray tilted sideways, teacups rattling, then the biscuits slid off the doily, milk leapt from the jug in a curved slopping dollop and the teapot threw its lid into the air and sprayed hot tea all over the hallstand, across the runner and up the wall.
‘Oh, you nasty, horrible, beastly girl!’ Mary yelled, putting the wrecked tray on the stand. ‘Now look what you’ve gone and made me do. Why can’t you stay in the nursery where you belong?’
Octavia put her hand to her mouth in alarm. ‘I never meant…’ she began.
But the hall was too rushed with action for her voice to be heard, the cousins retreating backwards towards the stairs, owl-eyed, Boots and the agency maids pushing one another out of the dining room, delighted by the sound of disaster, Mrs Smith calling from the landing, ‘Is everything all right?’ And before anyone could call back to reassure her, there was the sound of a key in the lock and the professor stood before them, booming like a cannon and making them all jump, because they weren’t expecting him home so soon. ‘What’s this? What’s this?’
‘They come out the study, sir, ’fore I could stop ’em,’ Mary said, getting her explanation in before her character could be blackened. ‘They was like bats out a’ hell, sir, begging your pardon. It’s a wonder I never dropped the lot. I couldn’t help it. Miss Octavia run right into me legs.’
‘Is this true, Tavy?’ J-J boomed at his daughter.
Octavia had to swallow before she answered him. He looked so fierce and tall with the columns of those long black legs rising before her and that brown beard bristling like a lion’s mane and his brown eyes so stern, and she did so hate it when he was cross. Besides, it had all happened so quickly she couldn’t remember running into anybody’s legs. But somebody had or the tea wouldn’t be spilt. Somebody had and it could have been her. So she spoke up honestly and admitted her fault, because that was what you had to do. Tell the truth and shame the devil. ‘Yes, Papa.’
‘You ran into her legs?’
Oh dear, Octavia thought. He is cross. He won’t let me stay up and see the people now. And she did so want to see the people. They were the most important people in London. She knew because he’d told her. But she’d accepted the blame and now she had to stick to it. ‘Yes, Papa,’ she said, miserably. ‘I didn’t mean to.’
‘Your intentions are immaterial,’ her father told her sternly. ‘It is the consequence of our actions that we have to consider. You were the cause of this mess. Very well then. You must clear it up. Go down to the kitchen with Mary and get a bucket and a dust shovel and brush and whatever else you need.’
The listening servants drew in their assembled breath in surprise. That’s a skivvy’s work. He ain’t never going to make a child do it. Surely to goodness. That ain’t right.
His judgement had baffled Octavia too. She looked from his steady face to the dark patches spreading across the Turkey carpet and wondered what she would have to do to clean them. Until that moment cleaning was something that was done by the servants, something that happened out of sight that she didn’t have to bother about. There was a swish of skirts on the stairs and she glanced up to see that her mother was halfway down, and looking protective. Perhaps she would be able to make him change his mind. She could sometimes. ‘Mama,’ she said. ‘I’m dreadfully sorry. I didn’t mean to.’
Her appeal was answered at once. ‘J-J, my dear,’ Amy said, in her soft way, descending the last three stairs, one elegantly lace-edged hand on the banister. ‘She is very young. Perhaps we should consider.’
‘I have considered,’ J-J said, handing his hat and gloves to Mary in the manner of a man to whom reconsideration is impossible. ‘She has been foolish and admitted it and now she must make amends. I don’t expect to come home to a hall swimming in tea.’ Then he frowned at Boots and the agency maids. ‘Have you no work to do that you stand here gawping? Why are the lights not lit?’
The maids slithered back into the dining room, avoiding his eye, while Boots took a matchbox from his apron pocket and rushed forwards to make his own amends. ‘I was just a-going to do it, sir.’
‘Then be about it,’ his master said. ‘Don’t just stand there. This is an important evening. I want everything just so. Set a fresh tray, Mary, and bring it up to us directly. Octavia, I depend upon you to do your best. Come and tell me when everything is clean and proper.’ And he took his wife’s hand and walked them both upstairs, with the cousins trailing behind him, looking sheepish.
‘She is very young,’ Amy tried again. Her voice was more determined now that they’d reached the landing and the servants were out of earshot but her forehead was wrinkled with doubt and anxiety. ‘Only six. Could we not find some other way?’
‘She is being raised according to the best libertarian principles,’ J-J said, speaking firmly because he was beginning to have doubts himself, ‘to take responsibility for her actions. Actions have consequences, no matter what age you may be. It is never too young to learn that. She has given us test of our intentions rather earlier than I expected, that is true, but all the more reason to stand firm upon what we believe.’
Left behind in the hall, Octavia stood firm beside the jardinière, twisting the hem of her pinafore between her finger and thumb and looking at the mess. The hall grew larger by the second, the gaslight more revealing, the stains deeper. There was tea everywhere. How would she manage to clean it all up? She knew it would have to be done but where would she begin?
Mary watched her as she set the tray to rights. Now that the child was actually being punished she felt quite sorry for her. It was no joke to be asked to clean up a carpet runner and wash down a hallstand and get spots off a wallpaper, as she knew only too well. She looked at the thin wrists above those twisting fingers, the pale, troubled face beneath that fuzz of fair hair, those skinny black-stockinged legs, the awkward stance of those black boots, and the sight wrung her heart. ‘Never mind, eh?’ she said. ‘I’ll help yer.’
The words stiffened Octavia’s spine. She couldn’t bear to be pitied and especially by a servant. ‘No thank you,’ she said. She was instantly determined, chin up, mouth set, blue eyes hardening, ‘I’ll manage.’
She’s just like her father, Mary thought. Pig-headed, the pair of ’em. ‘Wait there then,’ she said, ‘an’ I’ll get the things. Shan’t be a tick.’
She was as good as her word, returning in three minutes with a pail full of water, a dust shovel and brush, two mops, polish, clean cloths and a thick slice of stale bread. ‘That’s fer the wallpaper,’ she explained. ‘I’d better do that, ’cause it’s a tricky business, wallpaper, an’ I’m certain sure he never meant you to do everything. You can start on the carpet, can’t yer? That’s took the worst of it. Take one a’ them little cloths and press it right down on the stain, hard as you can. That’s right. That’s took up a lot of it. See? Now rinse it in the pail and wring it out tight as you can. Then you got it about right fer the next bit. Be quick though. Tea can stain sommink chronic.’
They worked in silence for a few minutes except for the splash of water, the occasional plop of the gaslight and the soft frotting of bread on wallpaper. Octavia found that it was easier to press the cloth into the carpet if she stood on it and, as there was no one around to tell her she shouldn’t, that was what she did. She was impressed by the way the maid was easing the tea stains from the wallpaper with her slice of bread, brushing down and down, always in the same direction. And Mary was touched by the child’s determination, wringing out the cloth with those skinny little hands and going at it like a good ’un. She might be a bit of a pickle, she thought, but she’s got spunk. There’s no denying that. An’ she could’ve ratted on her cousins. They was every bit as bad as her. But she never.
After a while, Molly appeared with the second tea tray and carried it carefully upstairs, cups rattling. They could hear the clatter from the kitchen, the clink of cutlery in the dining room, the regular tick of the hall clock. And at last the carpet was clean again, the floorboards swept and polished, the hallstand buffed to a sheen, and there was only the tiniest spatter of brown teardrops among the vine leaves of the wallpaper.
Their labours had brought them together, like conspirators outwitting the rest of the house, smiling at one another. Mary had quite forgotten how cross she’d been; Octavia was relieved to see what a good job they’d done – except for the marks on the wallpaper.
‘He won’t be cross about the little stains, will he?’ she asked her ally.
‘No, course not,’ Mary said, as she gathered up her mops and brushes. ‘He won’t even see ’em. He’ll be proud of yer. See if he ain’t. Pop upstairs an’ tell him you’ve finished.’
So Octavia said, ‘Thank you for helping me,’ because you have to remember your manners, and ran up the stairs to collect her father. And he did seem pleased with her, for he stood in the hall, fairly beaming. So perhaps she was forgiven.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Now you must come up to the nursery and have a bite to eat with your cousins. I’ve made them wait for you so I expect they’re hungry too.’
‘Am I still allowed to stay up and see the people?’ Octavia asked as she followed him back upstairs.
He was looking at her hands and noticing how red and sore they were. Poor little thing, he thought. I’ve been very hard on her and she’s no age. Amy was right. I should have found another way. ‘Why should you not be?’ he said gruffly.
‘Because I was naughty.’
‘You have made amends,’ he said, taking her roughened hand and patting it, ‘and now the matter is closed. Over and done with. Of course you shall see our guests. They are great men and women. The best of our society. You can’t miss a chance like this. I’ve given Nurse instructions to tell you who they all are, one by one as they come in. You won’t miss any of it. You’re to sit just inside my study. You can see everything from there.’
Octavia smiled at him, her solemn face lifted and rounded, her blue eyes shining in the gaslight. Then she put up her arms to hug him, and he stooped towards her so that she could fling them round his neck and kiss him. ‘Oh, thank you, Papa. Thank you, thank you, thank you.’
He was warmed by her affection, as he always was. But this time he was shamed by it too. She might be naughty – that was only to be expected – but she was so loving and such a nice child. She never bore grudges, she hadn’t told tales on her cousins – and they were every bit as much to blame as she was – and she’d taken her punishment like a trooper. ‘I gave you my word,’ he said, ‘and I always keep my word.’
So that evening, when the cousins had gone home and she’d had her supper and changed into her nightgown ready for bed and said goodnight to Mama, who’d rubbed some of her special cream on her sore hands, he led her downstairs and installed her in his great leather armchair in the study. With a shawl over her shoulders and a rug round her legs to keep her warm, and Nurse sitting on the Windsor chair behind her with a list of all the guests so that she could be kept informed, he left her to watch the arrival of the great and the good.
They were certainly very grand in their evening dress. Some of the gentlemen had capes over their shoulders and the ladies were in elaborate gowns made of satin and velvet with tiny waists and huge puffed sleeves, and some of them wore beautiful necklaces that glittered in the gaslight. Mr Wilkins was sporting his butler’s suit with a very stiff collar and making a great fuss of greeting them and taking their capes and hats and gloves. It was quite a while before he escorted them upstairs to the drawing room, where Mama and Papa were waiting for them, so she had a really good view.
The third pair to arrive were an odd-looking couple, she very tall and grand in a beautiful blue dress with huge leg a’ mutton sleeves, he small and dark with glasses and an odd-looking black beard.
‘Mr and Mrs Webb,’ Nurse whispered. ‘They’re the leaders of the Fabian Society.’
‘What’s that?’
‘I’m not exactly sure of the ins and outs of it,’ Nurse whispered. ‘I think it’s politics. You’d better ask your father. See the man who’s just come in? Now that’s Mr Bernard Shaw. I’ve seen his picture in the papers.’
He was very tall and straight and had lots of ginger hair and a big ginger beard and a jolly way of moving, as if he was going to break out into a dance. And he wasn’t wearing evening dress, just a brown suit, which was rather odd.
Octavia watched him closely, intrigued by his appearance. ‘Is he a foreign gentleman?’ she whispered.
‘He’s Irish, I believe,’ Nurse said. ‘I suppose that’s foreign. He makes speeches.’
‘What about?’
‘I couldn’t say. But I know he does because I read it in the papers.’
Octavia looked at him again. He was standing aside to make room for two more arrivals, a large fat man and a lady with a lot of frizzy hair drawn up into a bun on the top of her head. He obviously knew them because they were greeting one another like old friends.
‘Now that’s Mr William Morris,’ Nurse said, with great satisfaction. ‘I’d know him anywhere. He’s been here before. Your papa thinks the world of him.’
Mr William Morris was coughing, his big fat shoulders shaking with effort and his face quite puce. And his wife was watching him, looking anxious.
‘He’s got an awful cough,’ Octavia said, feeling sorry for him.
‘Something the matter with his lungs, so they say,’ Nurse told her. ‘Poor man. He made the wallpaper in the hall.’
Octavia wasn’t sure she wanted to know that. What if he saw the stains? But he didn’t. He and the ginger man were following Mr Wilkins up the stairs, talking to one another in very loud voices, and Boots was opening the door to the next arrivals.
Another couple, a pompous-looking man with white hair plastered to his skull with Macassar oil and a gold-rimmed monocle jammed into his left eye, and close behind him, a very beautiful lady with thick dark curly hair and huge dark eyes. She was wearing an extraordinary green dress, quite unlike anything Octavia had ever seen before, long and flowing and patterned at the neck and wrists with blue and green embroidery and little glass beads. She looked like someone from a fairy story, as if she could cast spells, or grant wishes, or fly in the air, or read your thoughts. It was necessary to whisper very, very quietly while she was in the hall. ‘Who is the lady, Nurse?’
‘Her married name is Mrs Bland,’ Nurse said, ‘so the gentleman must be Mr Bland, but it says here she writes under the name of E Nesbit.’
‘I couldn’t say. You’ll have to ask your father.’
The hall was emptying. Boots had gone back to the kitchen and the three guests were following Mr Wilkins upstairs.
‘That’s the lot,’ Nurse said, speaking in her normal voice and becoming her usual brisk self again. ‘You’ve seen them all now. Time you were in bed. Chop, chop!’
It was hard to be in bed with all those important voices talking and laughing in the dining room below her. Papa said they were the best and the wisest of their generation and they were going to change the world, so perhaps that’s what they were doing. They were certainly making enough noise.
I wonder what the world will be like when they’ve changed it? she thought. I hope they won’t change the square. Or this house. I like this house, even when I have to clean the carpet. It’s a jolly sort of house. She wished she could sneak downstairs and sit in a corner of the dining room and watch these important people and hear what they were saying. She couldn’t, of course, because little girls weren’t allowed at dinner. And anyway, she probably wouldn’t understand them. Grown-ups talked in such riddles.
But in fact it would have been instructive for her, for they were discussing education in general and her own education in particular.
‘I can see no harm in children being educated at home,’ Mrs Bland was saying, ‘providing their parents can provide them with the necessary books and have the time and patience to use them.’
‘And the wit,’ her husband put in, wiping his lips on his napkin.
‘I’m afraid I can’t agree with you,’ Mr Morris told them, happily mischievous. ‘Parents are the worst possible people to educate their young.’
‘You’re surely not suggesting that we should send our children to school?’ J-J teased. ‘What was it you said in your article?’
‘That board schools are instruments of repression,’ William Morris agreed. ‘Yes, so I did, and it’s entirely true. They exist to provide subservient hands for factories in peacetime and cannon fodder for armies when we are at war. That is their function, which is why they are such unpleasant places. Don’t you agree, Bernard?’
‘I can’t think of a single school I would be prepared to send my children to,’ Mr Shaw said, ‘ever supposing I have any. But as to what is to be done with them if we don’t send them to school, I couldn’t say. Perhaps we should take the advice of the good Dean Swift and make roast joints and meat pies of them.’
The agency maids were so shocked that they forgot they weren’t supposed to gasp, but fortunately the guests were laughing so loudly that nobody noticed.
‘On the whole,’ J-J said when the noise had subsided a little, ‘I think I would prefer not to eat my Octavia. At least not yet. So what is to be done with her?’
‘If you must send her to school,’ Mrs Bland advised, ‘make sure it is one that will encourage her to think and allow her space and time to develop.’
‘That is my opinion entirely,’ Amy said, ‘but where are we to find such a place?’
‘I’m told there is a very good girls school in Hampstead,’ Mrs Bland said. ‘The North London Collegiate School. It’s a little out of the way but you might consider it.’
‘We might indeed,’ Amy agreed, smiling at her husband and thinking, we could move house and then we would be nearer. This house is far too small for all the people he invites into it. The nursery is positively cramped and you can barely turn round in his study, and Mrs Wilkins really ought to have a bigger kitchen for all these dinner parties. It’s high time we had something better. She would have to be tactful about suggesting it, for she knew – who better? – how stubborn he could be and how resistant he was to change, despite the versatility of his mind. But then, glancing at him again, she noticed that he was beginning to get upset so the subject had to be dropped. Dear J-J, she thought. He simply can’t bear the thought of handing his darling over to someone else. He’ll be stubborn about that too. But it will have to be done sooner or later. Education is too important to be left to one person, however loving.