Chapter 4
We left Margate, that is my mother and I, early in December, 1869, and spent a few days at the house of my great-grandmother in London, before going on to our final destination. And before I proceed any further, I think I shall say something about my mother’s relations, with whom we were to come now more in contact.
My mother was the eldest of a large family, of whom five sons and five daughters grew up. One little girl died as an infant and one was accidentally drowned in the Mediterranean on the way to Malta, where my grandfather was at one time stationed. Next to my mother came a sister Jane, who married, as I have mentioned before, a cousin of my father’s, and died quite young, leaving one son, Claude, who was brought up by his father’s relations, but eventually settled in England. He had two sons and a daughter; the younger son became a midshipman and went down in the Monmouth at the time of the Great War. My mother’s oldest brother was Samuel James. He entered the Marines, became a general and distinguished himself in the Egyptian campaign and was knighted by Queen Victoria. He died in 1917, I think. The next two brothers Oliver and Fred also went into the army and were for a good many years in India. They both returned shortly before we went to London. They were still quite young men and were both very kind to us. My Aunt Helen, who came between these two brothers, was always very delicate. She did not go to Canada with the rest of the family, and never lived at home. She was a very earnest Christian and very High Church. She would like to have entered a sisterhood, but her great delicacy prevented it. Of the four younger members of the family, Gertrude and Alice had lately left school when we came to England. They were bright, pretty girls; Gertrude very fair, like her mother, and Alice dark. Later on Gertrude went to Australia, where she lived until her death, and Alice married a Mr. Knowles, and left a son and daughter. My two youngest uncles, Walter and Malcolm, were still studying that winter we were in London. They both went into the army. Walter is still living when I write, the only surviving member of that large family. Malcolm died in 1912. He married a very sweet and beautiful girl, but a Roman Catholic, and left four daughters and one son Kenneth. In addition to all these uncles and aunts we had a great aunt, Mrs. Hamilton Tennant, my grandfather’s only sister, who was quite a character. She lived in London, her husband having died some time before.
My grandfather had married for his second wife a Miss Walker. She was the aunt of General Sir Forrester Walker, of whom we read at one time in the papers. Her sister Miss Walker always lived with her and gave me many happy hours when I stayed at my grandfather’s house. When however my grandfather’s house was full, we stayed with my great-grandmother, Mrs. Mason. She had had what is termed a “stroke” and always lived in the two drawing rooms of her large house in Westbourne Terrace. The only other occupant of the house, besides several servants, was my great-uncle Henry, the youngest and only unmarried one of her five sons. When we stayed with my great-grandmother we always had our meals in the big desolate dining room with him, but generally sat upstairs with my great-grandmother. I can picture the room now, with its six stiff, high-backed chairs, each one worked in a different pattern of wool-work, as the manner of chairs was in those days. I used to get very weary of sitting quite still on one of those chairs, though I was never idle; my mother was a great believer in industry and I always had some piece of work in hand, either a pincushion to make or garters to knit, or tatting for my clothes. I am afraid I never excelled in needlework as my sister did, who did beautiful crochet and even point lace, when very young. Knitting I always liked, and felt there was profit in it, as Miss Walker bought the garters from me for 6d a pair.
And now, after this long digression, let us go back again to the day we arrived in London and spent the night with my great-grandmother. I have no special remembrance of that special night, but I suppose I spent the evening in my great-grandmother’s room listening to the conversation between my mother and the two old ladies, Mrs. Mason and her sister Mrs. Battersbee. The latter was a cheerful, stout old lady, who used to tell us she was “a very great lady because she was a very great aunt”. She was also a special benefactor of mine, as she gave 4 pounds every year towards my education. I was never sorry when bedtime came and I was tucked up in the big four post bed in the upper room, with its heavy brocade curtains, shutting out every bit of light and air. One wonders how people lived then, in these days of open windows winter and summer.
The next day we walked over to see my grandfather, at 3 Devonshire Terrace, only a short distance away, and then took the bus for Highbury and Shepherd’s Bush. Miss Somerville’s school was a decidedly small one. In addition to my sister Dora, she had only two pupils in the house, orphan girls of the name of Harrel, the older Edith of seventeen was deformed and spent most of her time on a reclining board. She had been educated abroad and used to teach French. I do not know whether she studied at all. Her sister Florence was eleven, a slight, rather pretty and very nervous child, who was most of her time in disgrace with Miss Somerville. In addition to these girls, the four little daughters of a General Macpherson came daily to school.
We arrived shortly before Christmas and had hardly settled down to lessons when the holidays began and my brother and Fred Robinson arrived. The Christmas holidays in Canada are usually short, but in England at that time they were as long as the summer holidays, so we had the pleasure of the boys’ company for five or six weeks, and very lively weeks they were. My mother had brought her own servant Susan to London with us, and she was a prime favorite with the boys, and many were the tricks they played on her. The house we lived in was one of a long row and very few of them were rented. Strangely enough they were open, so we often went into one of them to amuse ourselves. Fred had a little locomotive, which ran by steam, and we used to run it up and down the long bare rooms. One never-to-be-forgotten day our mother took us to the Tower, and the boys and Dora had some other expeditions in which I was not included. However the great day was Christmas Day, the first one I have any remembrance of, as it was not kept in our home. My grandfather usually sent us each a sovereign, and I well remember that mine was always spent on a pair of boots, which lasted until the following Christmas. There was generally something over, which I spent as I wished. However, this Christmas of 1869 we spent at my grandfather’s, where there was a real family party. I do not think my Uncle Sam was there (he was at that time married and had three sons), but my other four uncles were present and my two younger aunts and my mother. Everything passed off well. I think what impressed me most was the flaming plum pudding.
The holidays came to an end at last and the boys went back to school and lessons began for us. Miss Somerville was, I believe, a good teacher, especially of music, and I enjoyed every minute of my lessons with her. But they soon began to be very irregular; she was continually taking cold and then would be for days in bed, while my poor mother, in addition to her other duties, tried to manage the school, with a little help from Edith Harrel. Of course this was very unsatisfactory, and I think my mother heartily wished herself back in Margate.
We spent a week, in March I think, with my mother’s aunt, Mrs. Tennant, at a pretty little place called Teddington, not far from Hampton Court Palace. My Uncle Fred took is there one afternoon, and we thoroughly explored the palace and gardens, including the well known labyrinth. I can see before me as in a picture now, the long flower beds, bordered with crocuses, all in flower, yellow and white alternately. I think they call it ribbon gardening.
On our return to Shepherd’s Bush, things got worse and worse, and at the end of March or the beginning of April, we parted company. My sister was placed at a good school in Blackheath, and after staying for awhile at my grandfather’s, mother and I returned to Margate. Of course we had no house to go to, but we spent a short time with Mrs. Ray and then took rooms in the house of a sister in fellowship, whose name I cannot now recall. She was a tailoress, and as mother always took advantage of opportunities, she got her to teach me to make buttonholes and to stitch, which has been of use to me all my life. After looking round in Margate for nearly six weeks and no house appearing, my mother decided to go to Broadstairs, which is four miles away and also on the sea-coast. It was a much smaller and much quieter place than Margate and there was a good-sized meeting there at that time. I do not think she had any difficulty in getting a house, and leaving me at Mrs. Ray’s school for a few weeks, mother went over to settle once more in a house of her own. I long looked back with pleasure to those weeks in a real boarding school, the only experience of the kind I ever had I suppose it would be thought very old fashioned now, but I believe it was a good school and the girls very happy and well taught. It was a large square brick house, facing a square. On the first floor came the dining room and drawing room, and opposite a music room, where Miss Sophie instructed the little ones in “Rousseau’s Dream” and “A Maiden’s Prayer”. Upstairs was the one big school room, with its long table down the middle, at which Miss Margaret taught the older girls, and two little tables in the windows, round which the little ones sat and were instructed by Miss Lucy, who also taught French. Upstairs again were the girls’ bedrooms; I only remember two—there may have been more. I slept in the room with five or six girls about my own age. There were two double beds in the room and several single ones. Every morning after breakfast we went for a long walk, or if the weather was warm spent an hour on the sands. Then came three hours of school, with a few minutes intermission, when we gladly devoured large squares of dry bread. At two we dined, and afterwards there was needlework, reading aloud and so on. We had a good plain tea at 5:30, and afterwards a hymn and Bible reading. I believe many of the girls were Christians and we sometime had little prayer meetings among ourselves.
On one occasion while I was there we were all taken to a missionary meeting. I had never been at anything of the kind before, and it made the most profound impression upon me. I was entranced, and the conviction came then into my mind and has been steadily growing in intensity ever since, that no career upon earth can be equal to the life of a missionary. Not that I ever expected such a privilege to be mine, but I felt the greatest admiration for and interest in those who had given up all to take the Water of Life to perishing souls. There were very few missionaries fifty years ago, and one did not hear much about them. I do not remember our having any books on the subject either, and it was many years after this before I came personally in touch with any who had been on the mission field, but the seed had been sown and it sprouted after many days.