Octavia's War (31 page)

Johnnie was saying exactly the same thing at that very moment, only in rather different words and half-joking. ‘I shan't half miss you, Gwyneth. I wish I could stow you away in my pocket and take you with me.'

She looked at his pockets. ‘Be a bit of a squeeze,' she said. ‘Don't you think someone would notice?'

‘I could say you were my iron rations.'

‘Do I look like iron rations?'

He was suddenly and breathlessly serious. ‘You look like the nicest girl I've ever met in my life,' he said. ‘If it wasn't for the fact that I shall be some rotten old peg-leg I'd…' Then he was afraid that he'd gone too far and stopped.

She prompted him. ‘You'd what?'

‘It doesn't matter. It's silly really. You'd laugh.'

‘Try me,' she said.

Oh God! Could he? She was looking at him so steadfastly with those lovely brown eyes it was making his heart jump about. ‘The thing is, I mean, well the thing is, I suppose I'm…'

‘Go on, Flight Lieutenant,' she said, ‘spit it out.'

‘What it is,' he said, ‘is…well, if you want to know, I'm asking you to marry me. I know I'm no catch and if I'm speaking out of turn, I'll shut up.'

She leant forward, put her hands on his shoulders and kissed him full on the mouth.

‘Is that yes?'

‘Soppy happorth,' she said. ‘What do you think it is?'

He put out his hand and stroked her cheek, very gently because his skin was still rough with scars and he didn't want to scratch her face. ‘I love you so much,' he said.

That night, while he was lying wakeful in his narrow bed, too excited and too apprehensive to sleep, and Emmeline was sitting by the window in her bedroom, looking out at the cold garden and worrying about him, Octavia was answering her letters and gathering information to send to Mr Dimond.

His letter had come at a most opportune moment. Ever since she'd read the Beveridge Report she'd been thinking about other changes that ought to be brought in. The present education system was wasting far too many intelligent children. David's rejection and Dora's bitter reaction to it had shown her that, if nothing else, and when she began to gather her ideas she realised that there were other flaws in the system and that she'd been blindly accepting them for far too long. She'd always known that far more boys than girls were offered grammar school places in London, not because they were cleverer than the girls but because there were more grammar school places available for them. It had been an irritation but not one she'd felt moved to do anything about. She knew, too, that the pass rate for the scholarship examination varied from county to county. I must find out exactly how wide the
variation is, she thought, and then I'll see if Mr Chivers can get hold of the LCC education figures for me. The thought of being part of a campaign was wonderfully uplifting. Now, she thought, as she took up her pen, what else?

Tommy was disgruntled. He sat at his capacious desk in the Foreign Office scowling and drumming his fingers with annoyance. He and Tubby had just been told they were to organise yet another conference for their globe-trotting Prime Minister, this time at Casablanca in Morocco.

‘We've only just got back from the last one,' he complained.

‘Join the Foreign Office and see the world,' Tubby joked. ‘We might see Humphrey Bogart there. Or Ingrid Bergman even. Now that would be something.'

Tommy wasn't in the mood for jokes. ‘I tell you Tubby,' he said, ‘this war is getting in the way of my private life.'

‘Private life, old boy?' Tubby scoffed. ‘Since when have we had a private life? Chance would be a fine thing.'

Wouldn't it just, Tommy thought. Tavy's right. We're too busy for our own good.

But despite his gloom, the fourth January of the war began with good news. While Churchill and Roosevelt were putting the finishing touches to their plans for the invasion of Italy and the next stage of the war, Monty's army was entering Tripoli and in Russia the German army was finally surrendering to the Russians at Stalingrad.

Will they let you come home now
? Lizzie wrote hopefully to Ben.

No chance,
he wrote back.
Monty's got other plans. Watch the newspapers.

The Parliamentary Committee on the Future of Compulsory State Education was set up at the end of March that year and Miss Octavia Smith, headmistress of Roehampton Secondary School, was the third person called upon to give evidence. She was pleased to be consulted so early in the proceedings because it showed they were going to take her seriously and, naturally, she came well prepared.

‘I have some statistics here that might interest the committee,' she said, when the introductory formalities were over. ‘They concern the variation in the provision of grammar school education throughout the country.'

The chairman looked at the folder she was carrying and noted how thick it was. ‘Could you perhaps summarise your findings for us?' he asked.

She could and did. ‘Perhaps the first thing I should tell you is that there is a very wide variation from county to county,' she said. ‘South Wales is the top of the list. They are very well provided with grammar schools, as you will see. Consequently 25 per cent of all eleven-years-olds in South Wales can expect to be offered a place at one. In London, under the LCC it is 21 per cent, although I should point out that there are more places for boys in London than there are for girls so the figure
is the average for both sexes, considerably more for boys and considerably less for girls. In the shires, where grammar schools are in short supply, the figure is around 11 per cent. The variation is wide. I will leave the figures with you so that you can consider them at your leisure.'

‘That would be helpful,' the chairman said. ‘Of course your statistics do beg one or two questions.'

She nodded to show that she would be prepared to answer them if she could. ‘Of course.'

‘Is it possible perhaps that children in South Wales and London are of a – shall we say – higher intellectual calibre than children in the more rural parts of the country?'

‘They might lag behind by one or two percentage pints,' Octavia said. ‘That's possible. But certainly not by fourteen. In any case a child's intelligence is not static. It will grow and develop as the child develops. It is affected by a great many factors.'

‘You could perhaps give us an example of some of them.'

Indeed she could. ‘The quality of the teaching it receives for one,' she said. ‘A skilled teacher who knows how to spark off a child's interest will lead her pupils into all sorts of directions and all sorts of extremely intellectual pursuits. Some of the things our pupils study would surprise you. And all of their own accord, of course.'

One of the committee members who introduced herself as Kathy Ellis asked the next question. ‘I'm intrigued to hear you say that your pupils study “of their own accord”,' she said. ‘That's not at all how I remember my school days. Could you tell us a little more about how they go about it? Presumably they all follow the same syllabus.'

‘Yes,' Octavia said, ‘but they have a choice about how far their studies will take them. They are all given two suggestions
for each piece of work they have to undertake, a minimum task, which everybody has to tackle, and maximum tasks, which they can follow as far as they wish. We set no restrictions. That is up to each individual girl.'

‘It must take a lot of preparation, on the part of the teachers, I mean,' Miss Ellis observed.

‘Yes,' Octavia said, ‘it does. But we consider it well worthwhile.'

‘And in your opinion would such a system work for every eleven-year-old?'

Octavia gave her an honest answer. ‘No,' she said. ‘I'm afraid it wouldn't. There are some children who are so backward in their development, either physically or mentally or emotionally, that being asked to be responsible for their own studies would be more than they could manage. But the majority would rise to the challenge.'

‘You will correct me if I am wrong,' Miss Ellis said, ‘but you sound as if you would like to offer a grammar school education to the majority.'

Octavia was into her stride. ‘I see no reason why the majority shouldn't benefit from it,' she said. ‘At the moment we are wasting the talents of most of our children. I think that's a most unsatisfactory state of affairs and I would certainly like to put an end to it. I don't think we can afford to waste our children. We need their talents and we shall need them more than ever when the war is over.'

‘So, Miss Smith,' the chairman said, ‘I take it you would be in favour of raising the school leaving age to sixteen for all pupils in the state system.'

‘That,' Octavia said, ‘would be a consummation devoutly to be wished.'

‘Then it will please you to know that it is something we
are presently considering,' the chairman said. ‘There are concomitant problems, of course. Such an expansion would need a comparable expansion of the teaching force.' He smiled at her, almost conspiratorially. ‘I don't suppose you have any ideas about how that might be brought about?'

Octavia hadn't expected to be asked her opinion on how to increase the number of teachers but she was on such good form that afternoon that the question didn't throw her in the least. ‘We have just been talking about the waste of talent in our present system,' she said. ‘There must be thousands of young men and women in the forces who have had to learn to do all sorts of things they never dreamt were possible when they were restricted to what they were taught at elementary school. If they could be trained as teachers after the war, we would have plenty of skills at our disposal and, being ex-servicemen and women, they would bring considerable experience into the workforce too. I take it requiring women teachers to resign when they get married is now well and truly over?'

‘Oh, I think we've moved on from there,' Miss Ellis said. ‘We're not in the dark ages now.'

‘Married women teachers, ex-servicemen,' the chairman teased. ‘What is the world coming to?'

Sitting there in that warmly panelled room, watching the intelligent faces ranged around her, Octavia felt so confident and optimistic that she could answer any question he threw at her, even a teasing one. ‘Its senses,' she said.

‘Well?' Emmeline asked, when Octavia finally arrived home. ‘How did it go?' She was simmering with excitement, her hair tousled and her eyes bright.

‘I think I told them what they wanted to know,' Octavia said. ‘And I gave them a surprise or two to keep them on their
toes.' She was still feeling inordinately pleased with herself. It
had
been a good afternoon.

‘Glad to hear it,' Emmeline said. ‘Now
I've
got some news for
you.
Johnnie's getting married.'

So that was what the excitement was about. ‘To his nice nurse, of course.'

‘Isn't it splendid,' Emmeline said. ‘He's got to go to Canada though, that's the only trouble.'

Octavia sank into her easy chair feeling confused. ‘To get married?' she asked. ‘I thought you said she was Welsh.'

‘No, no, not to get married,' Emmeline said happily. ‘She
is
Welsh. The wedding's in Glamorgan at some place I can't pronounce. No, no, he's got to go to Canada to work. They've taken him back in the RAF – and so I should think after all he's been through, poor boy – and now he's going to be a tutor and teach the conscripts how to fly. Only he's got to do it in Canada, if you ever heard of anything so silly. Why they couldn't send him somewhere near in England I can't imagine. They've got enough bases. Anyway there it is, they're going to Canada and they want to get married before they go.'

‘The trouble with you, Em,' Octavia said, laughing, ‘is that you want the whole war to be organised to suit you.'

‘Not the whole war,' Emmeline said. ‘You do exaggerate. Just my little bit of it. Anyway, Johnnie's getting married. That's the main thing. Actually getting married. I never thought I'd live to see the day, he's been so slow. Well you know how slow he's been. I'd almost given up on him. Thirty-eight and not married! I mean to say! And that's another thing. What on earth am I going to wear?'

It was a very pretty wedding in a very pretty church in a village called Eglwys Brewis. The choir sang lustily, Gwyneth's
family seemed absolutely enormous but they were all very welcoming and plainly very fond of their girl. And Johnnie gave a touching speech.

‘I know I should be thanking you all for coming,' he said, ‘and I do thank you, all of you, naturally, but what I really want to do is to thank my new mother and father-in-law for this dearest girl, your Gwyneth and my wife. I don't think she'll mind if I tell you something rather personal. She was the first person I saw when I came round after I was shot down and I truly believe that seeing her saved my life. I'd damn nearly given up the ghost, you see, and there she was, saying, “Come on, Flight Lieutenant, open your eyes. I'm not going to let you die on me.” So I had to do as I was told and get on with it. Didn't have much option did I, Gwyneth?' He paused while they smiled at one another and his audience waited. ‘But seriously,' he said, looking back at them all, ‘I might pull her leg about it but I shall remember it to my dying day. So what I want to say to you is this. I promise you I will look after her and treasure her and love her for the rest of my life. Thank you.'

Every woman at the reception said ‘Aah!' and most of them cried, Emmeline and Edith copiously. Even level-headed Dora was swimmy-eyed.

‘That was a really lovely wedding,' she said as they headed off to catch the bus that would take them to the station and the long journey home. ‘They're so happy together. It was a joy to see them.'

It upset her when her mother burst into tears all over again. ‘Damned Canada,' she wept. ‘They didn't have to send him there. I shall never see him again Dotty. I can feel it in my bones. I shall be pushing up the daisies before they let him home. Pushing up the daisies. It's all too dreadful. I can't bear it.'

‘He'll be back before you know he's gone,' Dora tried to comfort. ‘You'll see. Once we get on with the Second Front.'

‘Once,' Emmeline wept. ‘It's never once though is it? It's over and over again, killing all the young men, over and over again. Telling us it's the war to end all wars. And what's this war supposed to be? Tell me that. I can't bear it.' And she put her head in her hands and sobbed quite terribly.

By that time the people on the bus were looking at her, some awkwardly, some with sympathy, all three children were anxious, and Joan was clinging to her mother's arm. Dora and Edith felt most uncomfortable.

‘Em dear,' Octavia said quietly, putting a clean handkerchief into her cousin's damp hand. ‘Try not to cry. You'll make yourself ill.'

Dora was firmer. ‘Don't keep on, Ma,' she whispered. ‘People are looking at you.' But she got no response at all.

Edith tried to be positive. ‘Cheer up, Ma,' she said. ‘He's only got married. That's all. It's not the end of the world. You're upsetting the girls, look. You don't want that, do you?'

But Emmeline went on crying. There didn't seem to be anything any of them could say to stop her and in the end they simply left her to it and talked to the children, partly to reassure them, poor little things, and partly to cover the noise she was making. She cried all the way to the station and was still sniffing as they walked onto the platform.

‘I hope she's not going to do this all the way to London,' Dora whispered to Octavia. ‘I'm beginning to think there's something the matter with her. I mean it's not like her to go on and on like this, now is it.'

They eased her onto the train as if she was an invalid and sat her in the corner by the window, where she stared out at the gathering darkness and didn't say anything. None of
them could understand why she'd cried so much and for so little. They were used to her tears but there had always been a good reason for them up to now and she usually recovered much quicker than she was doing that evening. It was very upsetting, especially after such a lovely wedding.

She was silent all the way into London and all the way out again to Woking and, when Octavia had finally driven them home from the station, she went straight upstairs to bed without saying a word. And that
was
peculiar.

‘Do you think she's ill?' Edith said, when she'd put the girls to bed and come down to join her aunt in the drawing room.

‘I've never heard of an illness that started with a crying fit,' Octavia told her, ‘but I suppose it's possible. Let's hope not. Perhaps she's just overwrought. She's had a lot to cope with, what with one thing and another. We'll see how she is in the morning and if she's no better we'll call the doctor.'

The next morning they all overslept, which didn't matter because it was a Sunday, and Emmeline stayed in bed later than any of them. It was midday before she came downstairs, looking very pale but not weeping, which was a great relief to Edith. ‘I'll just get on with the potatoes,' she said, opening the larder.

‘We'll do it for you if you like,' Edith said. ‘Won't we, Aunt. Give you a bit of a rest.'

But Emmeline filled the colander with potatoes and settled at the kitchen table to peel them, her face set. ‘I'll get the joint on presently,' she said.

So they left her to it. Edith made a rice pudding and washed up the breakfast things and Octavia cycled over to Downview to see how her pupils were. When she got back Emmeline was setting the table, working doggedly and not saying anything.

‘She's been as quiet as a mouse since you left,' Edith
reported, when Octavia joined her in the kitchen. ‘Not saying much and not smiling. It's very odd. I mean she hasn't said sorry or anything. Not that I think she ought to, I mean. But it's not like her not to say anything and she always says sorry after she's been crying. D'you think we ought to get the doctor?'