28 May 1881 - 'The Difficulties of a Young Housekeeper and How She Overcame Them' by Dora Hope - Chapter 7

This month, quietly putting up with it when other people ruin your mantelpiece, preserving gooseberries, and when the help want to have their boyfriend over for tea. 

"Oh dear me, what a heap of mending!" sighed Margaret, one Monday morning, as she raised the already partially open lid of her stocking basket. "The basket actually will not shut – it's so full! And what big holes! However is it that boys' socks always wear so much worse than anyone else's?"

Taking out the top pair, and unrolling them, Margaret held them at arm's length in dismay. Such yawning chasms of holes, and so many of them, it would be but labour lost to attempt to mend. She remembered that very pair of socks, a week or two previously, as having looked decidedly thin in several places, but having no actual holes in them they had been rolled up and put in Tom's drawer, ready for wear. And this was the result; and as she reluctantly put the mutilated socks aside for kitchen use, remembering experiences, she learned anew the old but invaluable lesson about "a stitch in time." Never again would she leave thin places to come into these awkward, even unmendable holes, but, by taking them betimes, save herself endless labour, expense and time.

The stocking basket, well stocked with needles, yarn, scissors and socks was kept handily in a work cupboard, whence it could be lifted out whenever there was a little time to spare.

Margaret found she could not afford to waste even the odd five minutes which come to the busiest people sometimes. The two brothers would rush home from school, perhaps with some long tale of the morning's exploits to narrate, or Mr Colville, before starting in the morning, liked to read extracts from the paper, commenting thereon; and Margaret, not from want of interest in either, could not help but feeling fidgety at letting the precious moments slip away when there was so much waiting to be done. So she would quietly take some piece of mending from the cupboard and go on with it the while, or, failing mending, she kept always a piece of knitting in hand – a sock for her father, or stocking for herself – which c be readily taken up and laid down again.

Thus she soon got into the way of almost mechanically taking up her work in these odd minutes. But when she felt she could spare time for a real rest, she did rest – no work then, but snugly nestled in the recess of the largest and easiest of easy chairs, she would give herself up to the enjoyment of a favourite author or poet.

For it must be confessed that this young damsel was not by nature fond of work. It is probable that, had her lines fallen in different circumstances, her time and energies would have been chiefly devoted to music, reading, and so on, without a thought anent household affairs or the conservation of leisure moments. So she may be excused for banishing even her knitting, when, on very rare occasions, she gave herself to "luxuriating."

But to return to Margaret as she sits examining her pile of mending. Her thoughts are not solely fixed on the task, for they will wander prosaically to the larder which is at present bare, and, moreover, must speedily be filled, or else dinner will be late. The problem still often proved a puzzling one, particularly on Monday, when it was advisable to have a joint that could be eaten cold next day, because Tuesday was washing day.

Washing day was not a very imposing matter in the Colville household, because nothing was washed at home save the kitchen cloths, dusters, and so on, and Betsy's clothes, excepting her cotton dresses. Monday was sometimes a cold-meat day, and then a nice savoury hash or stew formed the Tuesday's dinner, as it could be gently simmering by the fire whilst the washing was going on. But Betsy would have felt aggrieved at being expected to cook anything more elaborate than a stew on this great day, and hence the problem.

"Let me see! Last time we had hot meat on Monday – it was roast beef; and the time before I think it was roast mutton, and before that I've no doubt beef again. Oh, I have it! We will dine off boiled mutton with the usual trimmings, a la Mr Weller, and that will give an opportunity for telling Betsy the rules for boiling meat, which I've long suspected she is slightly 'mixed' about."

The next few minutes were spent in instilling into the mind of the domestic the fact that if you want to extract the goodness of the meat – for beef-tea, for instance – put it on the fire in cold water, because the act of boiling draws out the juices of the meat. But if it is desired to keep the strength and grave in the meat, let the water boil first and then put it in, as otherwise it cannot but be tasteless and poor, because all the goodness has been drawn out into the water.

"And you must, of course, keep the liquor the mutton was boiled in, Betsy," went on Margaret, "and on Wednesday we will use it for oyster soup. You have the recipe?"

"Yes, miss, but will you be so kind as to read it out to me, I can seem to take in the meaning better when you read it up."

"But you will have forgotten it all by Wednesday. However, if so, you must ask for it again. You require a tin of oysters, the tinned ones will do as well as the fresh for this occasion. Three pints of white stock, not quite half a pint of milk, one and a half ounces of butter, one ounce or rather more of flour, and salt, mace and pepper. First, take the oysters from the tin and put them in your soup tureen; then take a pint of stock and simmer it with the liquor from the oysters for half-an-hour; strain it and add the rest of the stock, with the seasoning. Boil it, add the butter and flour for thickening, let it simmer for a minute or two, stir in the boiling milk, and pour all over the oysters. There, that is very simple, and now I must go out and order the leg of mutton."

" But please, miss, about the upstairs fires, as it's come so warm lately and you generally lets the fires out in the morning, I was thinking whether I need light them any more  for the present."

"Well, you need not do so to-morrow, and we will see whether anyone feels chilly. If we decide to leave them off altogether in the drawing-room you must thoroughly clean and blacken the grate, take away those bars and put in the bright ones."

"Yes, miss, and beautifully bright they are; I just give them a bit of a rub with a cloth, and they look just like new, through being put away covered with a thick paste of sweet oil and unslaked lime: there's nothing like it for keeping off rust on brights."

"That is all right. Do not forget to fasten down the register. The dining-room grate can be left as it is, because you know we like a fire occasionally even on a summer's evening, but that register must of course be closed too. Only I hope you will not forget to raise it when we have an occasional fire again."

This idea of keeping the fire laid all the summer through was Mr Colville's, who failed to see why one should sit chilly and comfortless on a cold evening simply because it was the month of July and August.

"Of course, it ought to be warm, I grant you," he would argue, "but it is cold, so by all means let us have a fire."

There was no difficulty about this, as Margaret had worked a pretty pair of curtains in crewels for the fireplace, which effectually concealed all traces of coal and stick. When the fire was to be lighted the curtains were simply looped back by their bands, the register raised, and the grate was ready  for the application of the match.

Apropos of grates, Margaret's calmness had been put to a severe test on the night of Dick's birthday party. Wilfrid Trent came to preside in Mr Colville's absence and Margaret retreated from the noisy scene after tea, but returned to be present at the promised conjuring tricks. The room after a time becoming warm, a window was slightly opened, and the draught blew directly on to the mantelpiece, causing the candles to flicker, and presently to begin to drip grease down upon the marble.

The conjuror stood immediately in front of the fireplace, and Margaret did not like to interrupt the performance by getting up to remove the candles, so she had to just sit and watch, with growing anxiety, the likewise growing heaps of wax.

Her precious marble mantel! It was very handsome, fine, and white; the one thing in the house in which she felt a pride. Every day, with her own hands, she rubbed it tenderly, using a soft cloth only, rightly judging the application of soap and water would be prejudicial. And now to have to sit and calmly watch the slow, steady trickle of grease was indeed anguish.

"Never mind," she said to herself, "I must smother my feelings till this is over, then I will rush for Joanna's book and seek a remedy whilst the company is having its lemonade and cake in the dining-room before going home."

This she did, and luckily found there an excellent and simple way of removing grease spots from marble. Carefully detaching with a knife as much as she could without scratching the surface of the mantel, she applied some finely-powdered magnesia, to be left all night, and then, with an easier mind, rejoined the merry party in the next room.

The following morning, on wiping off the magnesia, the grease marks had disappeared, and a 2d application was not necessary.

The Colvilles' house was an old one, and though it consequently could not boast of modern improvements, such as heated linen rooms, yet it possessed one advantage rarely met with in a new house ,namely, a fairly large garden.

It was not a remarkably productive garden, but that was, perhaps, because there was so little attention given to its culture. The lawns were kept closely shaven and the paths neat and trim, but beyond that the old-fashioned rose-bushes still blossomed on (or not, as the case might be), free from the rivalry of standards; the lilacs, all untrimmed, grew into perfect bowers, whilst honeysuckles and clematis climbed and wandered about in a delicious tangle, just as their own sweet wills led them.

One corner of the garden was dignified by the name of orchard, though all that remained to merit the title was one gnarled old apple-tree, hoary with age and long past bearing. But here were a number of fine hardy gooseberry and currant bushes, which some enterprising tenant had planted, and in spite of the neglect of the present very unagricultural family, the bushes were laden with fruit, year after year, with unabating plenty.

Tom and Dick would commence their onslaught on the crop whilst the fruit was still in the condition of small green bullets, and indigestible beyond words to describe, and continued it as long as there was a berry left, but still there was abundance left for pies and puddings and preserving.

This year Margaret resolved to be content with bottling a quantity for winter use, instead of preserving any, for it must be confessed that she felt a little timid of trying her 'prentice hand on preserves. Following what she took to be the traditional family recipe for gooseberries in the miscellany book, she selected the fruit when fully grown but before it was ripe. They were gathered on a dry sunny day, and with the "heads and tails" cut off, they were placed in wide-mouthed bottles, which had to be perfectly dry inside. These, well corked, were put to stand up to the neck in a pan of cold water on the fire, which was allowed to come to a boil very gradually till the fruit looked scalded or "coddled," to use an old-fashioned phrase. The bottles were then taken out and the necks dipped into the following cement for keeping out all air: - Put two pounds of resin, with two ounces of tallow (that from a dip candle will do) into an earthen vessel; melt over a slow fire till well mixed, colour with a little stone blue or yellow ochre, and let it cool till it is only just liquid.

"The currants require rather more care in gathering, so as not to bruise the fruit, and their treatment afterwards is somewhat different. To every pound of fruit, half a pound of sugar is allowed, pulverised and dried by the fire. They are boiled with the sugar for a minute, then when cold put into bottles with a little sweet oil on the top. A piece of bladder and a little sheet lead are good coverings for excluding air, and finally, the bottles are put away in a cool, dry cupboard, and their contents subsequently testify to the excellence of the way of preserving, for they taste like fresh fruit.

It was during the gathering of this fruit that Betsy confided to her mistress a very agitating and interesting piece of news. It seemed that during her sojourn "down home," Betsy's pleasant face and manner, and her devoted attention to her sick mother, had quite won the heart of a rising young baker, in fact, so devoted was he that, not being actually discouraged in his suit, he had left his native village and taken a situation as foreman in a thriving establishment not far off, ostensibly to better himself, but also, as Betsy could not but surmise, with the idea of renewing his proposals.

"And now," continued the damsel, hiding as best she could amongst the friendly gooseberry bushes, her face always rosey, at this agitating moment absolutely carmine, "now the young man was pressing for a decided answer, and a letter had come that very morning urging for it in eloquent terms."

"But you don't mean that – he doesn't want you to marry him directly, surely?" asked Margaret, lost in amazement and perplexity.

"Oh, dear heart, no, miss," replied the damsel, unable to refrain from a smile at her mistress's simplicity, "'tis only to keep company, as the saying is; and I thought as father hasn't no objections, and if you hadn't no objections, and he's a very steady young man and getting on well in his trade too –"

"Your father knows him, then?"

"Oh, yes, miss, from a child, I might say, and me too. We was at school together, and was always friendly like."

"Well,  Betsy, it would not be right for me to hinder you in a matter like this, so long as your father is content, and I feel sure he would not allow you to have anything to do with one who was not very steady and good and nice."

"No, miss, certainly not, nor I wouldn't wish to. Should you have any objections to me seeing him now and then, miss?"

It was Margaret's turn to smile now,  for the idea of not being allowed to see one's betrothed even now and again struck her as droll. She was on the point of saying he could come as often as he liked, but, on second thoughts, prudently replied, "Of course I wish to do what is best for you, so I will think it over, and let you know what can be arranged."

Margaret's "thinking about it" meant, as usual, "ask Mrs Trent or Joanna about it," for this was indeed a new experience for her. She knew, poor child, that a whole day's thought would bring her no light on such a subject, and though she felt much interested in the affair (as what girl of eighteen would not?) she wished she had not to give an opinion on it.

As soon as possible she set out for Mrs Trent's, timing her visit so that Wilfrid would be certainly safe at his business.

After hearing the state of the case, Mrs Trent congratulated Margaret on Betsy's having made so good a choice, for she had heard the young man spoken of in high terms by his employer.

"As to his coming to see Betsy, it has always seemed hard to me that while Miss Belinda in the parlour may have her beaux, Betsy Jane in the kitchen is not permitted to have a 'follower!' One wishes to be kind and considerate in such cases, but too frequent visits are not satisfactory; it unsettles the girl, as she is in a constant state of expecting him to come, and it may tempt the young man to waste the time when he ought to be at work. Now, I advise you to give him permission to come every other Sunday afternoon, have tea with Betsy, and go to church with her in the evening. On the intervening Sunday she will see him no doubt at church, but he should not come into the house on any other occasion, save by very special permission."

"Oh, Mrs Trent, only once a fortnight! Why, if she is very, very fond of him, she will want to see him every single day! I'm certain I should," Margaret exclaimed, blushing and laughing.

"Ah1 Well, we cannot have everything we want, love; supposing he lived very far away, once a fortnight would seem delightfully often. But you had better propose that to Betsy, and I feel sure she will be well content, and he too. Now, dear, I will give you that recipe for the marking ink with which my linen was marked when I was married thirty years ago, and, see, it is as black and clear as if it were freshly written. Here it is. Take two drachms of powdered gum arabic, one scruple of sap green, and one drachm two scruples of nitrate of silver; dissolve these in an ounce of distilled water. That is the ink; but before using it, it is necessary to prepare the linen with a mordaunt, made by dissolving one ounce of carbonate of soda in half a pint of water. Moisten the place to be marked with this mordaunt, and when dry proceed as with ordinary marking ink, finally holding the newly written letters to the fire for a minute."

"Many thanks, Mrs Trent, dear, I have been so troubled with bad marking inks: some of them wash out directly, and others, still worse, eat away the linen into large holes. If this is a little more trouble to use I'm sure it will be well worth it,  for the names on your linen, done so long ago, are far clearer and better coloured than any I can get now."

"Yes, I think you will be pleased. In looking over my old papers, searching for that recipe, I came across this one – it is a delicious conserve, made of rose-leaves – which I have never seen or heard mentioned since I was a child, and used to have a spoonful for dessert on Sundays as a great treat. Yes, you may well open your eyes, but after all it is not a very different thing from drinking the infusion of tea-leaves. This is the recipe:- Take red-rose petals, remove the white part at the bottom of each, sift them through a sieve, to remove seeds and other particles. Weigh them, and allow three times their weight of the best loaf-sugar. Boil the leaves till they are tender, reckoning about a pint of water to the same measure of petals. Then add the sugar and boil, stirring all the time till the syrup is nearly all taken up. Then put away in little jars, covering as for preserves."

"I shall like to try that as soon as our roses are in perfection; it is such a pretty recipe, and it is so poetic actually to eat a conserve of rose-leaves.

"Then I saved two simple custard recipes for you. They are such an improvement with rather sour early fruit, which will be soon coming on now. Here is one of them: - Take a pint of milk, add two large eggs, both whites and yolks, and a little nutmeg. Beat these together for five minutes, and pour into a saucepan. Stir over a clear fire till the mixture thickens. Put into a jug a little drop of almond flavouring, or vanilla (half a teaspoonful is ample), strain the custard into the jug, strain it once more, and serve cold. The other recipe is equally simple and economical. For it you must boil a pint of new milk, with a little lemon-peel, two bay-leaves, and sugar to taste. Meanwhile, rub down smooth a dessert-spoonful of rice-flour into a cup of cold milk, and mix with it the well-beaten yolks of two eggs. Take a basin of the hot milk and mix with the cold, then pour that into the saucepan of boiling milk again, stirring it one way till it thickens and is on the point of boiling. Next pour it out into a jug or other vessel, stir it for some time, adding a tablespoonful of peach-water, and any flavouring you please."

"Those certainly sound very simple. I have never been very successful with custards when I have tried the more complicated recipes, but surely I cannot go wrong with such clear and easy directions as these. How lovely that bouquet of lilac is! Surely they are not the same clusters that I saw here more than a week ago?"

"Yes, indeed, they are the same, and they are as sweet as ever, are they not? It is because there was a little charcoal put in the water in which they stand. There is nothing like it for keeping flowers fresh."

"Well, I hope Betsy will not think me very hard-hearted about her interviews with the young man," said Margaret, as she rose to take leave.

"She will be unreasonable if she does; but you need not fear it. I hope you will meet with no worse treatment from the powers that be when your own time comes."

19 October 1901 - 'Pixie O'Shaughnessy' by Mrs George de Horne Vaizey - Chapter 3

Major O'Shaughnessy and his little daughter reached London on the following afternoon, after a comfortable and unadventurous journey.  Pixie had howled dismally all the way to the station, but had dried her eyes at the sight of the train, and brightened into the most hilarious spirits on boarding the steamer.  She ate an enormous dinner of the richest and most indigestible dishes on the menu, slept peacefully through a stormy passage, and was up on deck conversing affably with the men who were washing down, long before her father had nerved himself to think of dressing.  The journey to London was a more or less disappointing experience, for if she had not known to the contrary, she was not at all sure that she would have recognised that she was in a strange land.  What she had expected, it was impossible to say, but that England should bear so close a resemblance to her beloved land seemed another “insult to Ireland” as Pat would have had it, and that it should in some respects look better, more prosperous and orderly, this was indeed a bitter pill to swallow.  As the train neared London, and other passengers came in and out of the carriage, Major O'Shaughnessy became conscious for the first time what a dusty, dishevelled little mortal he was about to introduce to an English school.  He was not noticing where his children were concerned, and moreover his eye had grown accustomed to the home surroundings, but the contrast between these trim strangers and his own daughter was too striking to be overlooked. 

Pixie had wriggled about until her frock was a mass of creases, her hat was grey with dust, and she had apparently forgotten to brush her hair before leaving her cabin.  The Major was too easy-going to feel any distress at this reflection.  He merely remarked to himself whimsically that “the piccaninny would astonish them”, meaning the companions to whom she was about to be introduced, and decided then and there to take her straight to her destination.  This had been the only point upon which he and his young daughter had been at variance, for from the start Pixie had laid down as her idea of what was right and proper that her father should take her for the night to “a grand hotel”, introduce her the next morning to the Tower, the Zoological Gardens, and Madame Tussaud’s, and deposit her at Surbiton in the afternoon.  The Major’s ideas on the subject were, however, that an exacting little daughter was a drawback to a man’s enjoyment of a visit to London, and that there were other forms of amusement which he would prefer to a visit to the beforementioned historic resorts.  With accustomed fluency, he found a dozen reasons for carrying out his own wishes, and propitiated Pixie by promising that Jack should take her sight-seeing before many weeks were over.

“I’ll tell Miss Phipps that I wish you to go out with your brother on Saturday afternoon, and you’ll have a fine time together seeing all there is to be seen.  Far greater fun than if we tried to hurry about with not a minute to spare.”

“I like to do things now,” sighed Pixie pensively, but as usual she resigned herself to the inevitable, and a box of chocolates, bought at Waterloo, sufficed to bring back the smiles to her face and restore her lost equanimity.

The arrival at Kingston Station was a breathless experience, though it was a distinct blow to her vanity to find that no deputation from Holly House was in waiting to receive Patricia O'Shaughnessy with the honours she deserved.  No one took any notice of her at all.  Even the cabman, when directed to drive to Holly House, preserved an unmoved stolidity of feature, and had no remark whatever to offer on the subject.  How different from dear friendly outspoken Bally William, where each man was keenly interested in the affairs of his neighbour, and the poorest peasant upon the road felt himself competent to offer advice on the most intimate family matters!  Pixie felt a chill of foreboding as she drove through the trim Surbiton streets and noticed girls like herself walking demurely beside mother or governess with laced-in boots, gloved hands, and silky manes flowing down their backs in straight uninterrupted flow.  She looked down at her own new stout little boots.  Sixteen buttons in all, and only one missing!  Such a pitch of propriety made her feel quite in keeping with her surroundings, and she had kid gloves too – dyed ones – which looked every bit as good as new, and left no mark at all except round the fastenings and the lobes of the fingers.  She gave a wriggle of contentment, and at that moment the cab turned in at the gate of Holly House.

The name of the house seemed to have more appropriateness than is usually the case, for the garden was surrounded by a thick holly hedge, and the beds were planted with holly-trees so dark that they appeared to be almost black in hue.  To the eyes of the new pupil there was something awe-inspiring in the sight of the grim flowerless beds and the foliage which looked so stern and prickly – almost as bad as the pieces of broken glass which are laid on top of high walls to prevent escape or intrusion.  The house itself was big and square, with a door in the centre, and at the top two quaint dormer windows, standing out from the roof like big surprised-looking eyes.  “Dear, dear!” they seemed to say.  “If this isn’t Pixie O'Shaughnessy driving up to the door!  Wonders will never cease!”

The hall was wide and cold, and, oh, so clean – “fearful clean” thought the new pupil with a sigh as she stepped gingerly over the polished oilcloth and gazed awesomely at spotless wood and burnished brass.  The drawing-room had none of the splendour of that disused apartment at Knock Castle, but it was bright and home-like, with an abundance of pretty cushions and table-cloths, a scent of spring flowers in the air, and a fire dancing cheerily in the grate.  Pixie’s prejudices received a shock at the sight of so much frivolity in a drawing-room, and she could not echo her father’s admiration.  She seated herself on the edge of the sofa and began to paint imaginary pictures of the mistress of this fine house.  “She will be tall, with yellow hair.  She will have cold fingers and nose that looks thin and has a bump in the middle.  No, I don’t believe she will, after all.  I believe she’ll be fussy, and then they are small and dark – dark, with eye-glasses, and those funny red cheeks that are made up of little lines, and never get lighter or darker.  And she’ll have a chain hanging from her waist with a lot of things that jingle, like the lady in the train.  Oh, me dear, suppose she was old!  I never thought of that.  Suppose shew as old, in a cap and a black satin dress, and chilblains on her hands!” And then the door opened – it was really a most exciting occasion – and Miss Phipps came into the room.

She was not in the least like any of the three pictures which Pixie had imagined – she was far, far, nicer and prettier.  She was tall, and so graceful and elegantly dressed as to be quite dazzling to the eyes of the country-bred stranger.  She had waving brown hair, which formed a sort of halo around her face, a pale complexion, and grey eyes which looked at you with a straight long glance, and then lightened as if they liked what they saw.  She was quite young too, not a bit old and proper; the only thing that looked old were the little lines about the eyes, and even those disappeared when her face was in repose.  She came forward to where the Major was standing, and held out her hand with a smile of welcome.

“Major O'Shaughnessy!  I am very pleased to see you.  I hope you have had a good journey and a comfortable crossing.”  Then she turned and looked at the crumpled little figure on the sofa, and her eyes softened tenderly.  “Is this my new pupil?  How do you do, dear?  I hope we shall be very good friends!”

“Oi trust we may!” returned Pixie fervently, and with a broadening of the already broad brogue which arose from the emotion of the moment and made her father frown with embarrassment.

“Ha – hum – ha – I am afraid I have brought you a rather rough specimen,” he said apologetically.  “Pixie is the baby of the family and she has been allowed to run wild and play with all the children about the place.  I hope you will not find her very backward in her lessons.  She has had a good governess at home but -“

“But she wasn’t much good either!” interrupted Pixie, entering into the conversation with the ease and geniality of one whose remarks are in the habit of being received with applause.  “I didn’t pay much attention to her.  I expect there's a good deal I don’t know yet, but I’m very quick and clever, and can be even with anyone if I choose to try.”

“Then please try, Pixie!  I shall be disappointed if you don’t!” said Miss Phipps promptly.  Her cheeks had grown quite red with surprise, and she pulled in her upper lip and bit at it hard as she looked down at her new pupil and noted the flat nose, the wide mouth and the elf-like thinness of the shabby figure.  “Pixie!  That's a very charming little name, but a fancy one, surely.  What is your Christian name?”

Father and daughter gazed at each other appealingly.  It was a moment which they had both dreaded, and the Major had fondly hoped that he might escape before the question was asked.  He remained obstinately silent, and Pixie nerved herself to reply.

“Me name’s not suited to me appearance,” she said sadly.  “I’d rather, if you please, that ye didn’t tell it to the girls.  I am always called Pixie at home.  Me name’s Patricia!”

Miss Phipps bit her lip harder than ever, but she managed to control her features, and Pixie was relieved to see that she did not even smile at the mention of the fatal name.

“It’s rather a long name for such a small person, isn't it?” she said seriously.  “I think we will keep to Pixie.  It will make school more home-like for you than if we changed to one to which you are not accustomed.”  Then turning to the Major, “I am sorry my head mistress, Miss Bruce, is not at home today, as I should have liked you to see her.  She is very bright and original, and has a happy knack of bringing out the best that is in her pupils.  She directs the teaching, and I am the housekeeper and sick nurse of the establishment.  Would you like to come upstairs and see the room in which Pixie will sleep, or shall we wait perhaps until after tea?”

The Major declared that he could not wait for tea.  He had kept the cab waiting at the door, and was all anxiety to get the parting over as quickly as possible and return to the fascinations of town, so he discussed a few business matters with Miss Phipps, and then took Pixie’s hand and accompanied her up the staircase to the third floor bedroom which she was to share with three other pupils.  Two windows looked out on to the garden in front of the house, and an arrangement of curtains hung on rods made each little cubicle private from the rest.  Pixie’s handbag had already been laid by her bed, and she felt quite a swelling of importance as she surveyed her new domain, wherein everything was to be her very own, and not shared with someone else, as had always been the case at home.  The Major gushed over all he saw, and professed himself as more than satisfied, but he was plainly ill at ease, and after walking twice round the room was all eagerness to make his escape.

“I’ll say good-bye to you now, Pixie,” he said, “for your bag is there, I see, and you would be much the better for a wash and a bush.  It’s no use coming downstairs again.  Be a good girl, now, and Jack shall come often to see you!  I’m happy to have you in such good hands and it’s a lucky child you are to have such a school to come to!  It will be your own fault if you are not happy.”

“I’ve no doubt I’ll be very comfortable, thank you,” Pixie said pleasantly, lifting her cheek to receive his kiss, with little sign of the emotion dreaded by the two onlookers.  Her father had never been as much to her as the other members of the household, and her mind was too full of the new excitements to allow her to realise his departure.  He hurried out of the room, followed by Miss Phipps, and Pixie withdrew into her little cubicle, pulled the curtain closely around her and felt monarch of all she surveyed.  A dear, little white bed, so narrow that if you turned, you turned at your peril and in instant dread of landing on the floor; a wonderful piece of furniture which did duty as dressing-table, washstand and chest of drawers combined; a single chair and a hanging cupboard.  Everything fresh, spotlessly clean, and in perfect order; absolutely, if you can believe it, not a single broken thing to be seen1  Pixie drew a quick breath of admiration, and wondered how long it could possibly be before she succeeded in cracking that lovely blue and white china, and exactly what would happen if she spilt the water over the floor!  She was so much occupied in building castles in the air that ten minutes passed by and she had not moved from her seat, when suddenly there came the sound of footsteps running up the stairs, the door was pushed open, and tramp, tramp, in came her future companions, hidden from sight, but talking volubly to each other as they took off hats and jackets after the afternoon walk.

“The new girl has arrived!” cried number one in a tone of breathless excitement.  “I saw her box as I came through the hall.  I peeped at the label, but hadn’t time to read it properly.”

“I did though!” cried another.  “A funny name.  O’ something or other.  Shog-nessie, or something like that.  Such a shabby old trunk1  Looked as if it came out of the Ark.”

“It will be rather fun having an Irish girl, don’t you think?” number two suggested.  “They are untidy and quarrelsome, of course, but it is funny to hear them talk, and they make such droll mistakes.  I shouldn’t like to be Irish myself, but it will be a pleasant change to have a Paddy among us!”

“Well, I hope she isn’t quarrelsome in this room, that’s all,” said a third speaker, who had hitherto been silent, “because if she is, I shall feel it my duty to give her a taste of Home Rule that she may not appreciate.  And if she snores I shall squeeze my sponge over her, so you may tell her what she has to expect.  There’s nothing like training these youngsters properly from the beginning!”

“Twelve years old!  I call it mean to put a child like that in this room!  You are fourteen, I’m fourteen, Ethel is fifteen; we ought to have one of the older ones with us.  We will make her fag for her living.  She shall get the hot water, and fold up our nightgowns, and pick up the pins.  All the same I shall be kind to her, for the credit of the country, for Irish people are always imagining themselves ill-used by England.  If I had thought of it I would have drawn a picture for her cubicle as a delicate little mark of attention.  An Irishman with his – what do you call it? – shi-lee-lah!”

The speaker stopped suddenly as she pronounced this difficult word, for a curious muffled sound reached her ears.  “What’s that?” she asked quickly, but her companions had heard nothing, so she retired into the cubicle next to Pixie’s own to brush her hair, slightly raising her voice so as to be heard more easily by her companions.

“She lives in a castle!  I heard Miss Phipps telling Miss Bruce when she was sending the labels.  ‘Knock-Kneed Castle’ or something like that.  Every second house in Ireland is called a castle, my father says.  It’s no more than a villa in England, and all the people are as poor as Job, and have hens in their parlours and pigs on the lawn.  They don’t know what it is to keep order.  What are you grunting for, Ethel?  It’s quite true, I tell you!”

“Dear me, I’m not grunting, I’m only washing my hands,” cried Ethel, aggrieved.  “What’s the matter with your ears this afternoon?  I don’t care where she lives so long as she behaves herself, and knows how to respect her elders.  I wonder what she is like!”

“Irish girls are mostly pretty.”

“Who told you that?”

“Never mind, I know it.  It’s always raining over there, and that is supposed to be good for the hair, or the complexion, or something.  And they are so bright and vivacious.  If an author wants to make a specially lively heroine in a book, the father is Irish and the mother is French.  Perhaps she’ll be the beauty of the school and then won’t someone we could mention tear her hair with rage?”

“Well, I don’t know about being pretty,” said Pixie’s neighbour reflectively.  “We have had lots of Irish servants, and they were plain enough.  But the name sounds interesting – ‘Miss Shog-nessie – The Castle – Ireland’.  It certainly sounds interesting.  I’d give something to know what she’s like.

“If ye’ll step inside the curtain, ye may judge for yeself,” said a deep rich voice suddenly from behind the curtain which was furthest from the door.

There was silence in the bedroom – a silence which might be felt!

12 October 1901 - 'The White House Class' by Lina Orman Cooper - Chapter 1

Another educational serial story, in which a saintly invalid teaches three girls the finer points of middle-class cookery.

There was great excitement at Merton House.  The master and mistress were going out to dine.  This in itself was no extraordinary thing.  But as it was a vice-regal dinner-party to which they had been bidden, this particular feast excited much interest.  First of all, the dress proper for such an occasion had to be thought of; feathers and lapels arranged according to the Chamberlain’s order; ancient buckles fished out of a grandmother’s chest; diamonds burnished up and fresh flowers begged, borrowed or stolen.

It was early when Mrs Merton set forth in the festive chariot, it was late when she returned.  It was very late when she showed her face next morning, for the dinner had been heavy and her sleep deep in consequence.

Now, I should not have mentioned this dinner-party save that it determined Mrs Merton to give all her growing-up daughters a course of cookery lectures.  It came about in this way.  Mrs Merton went, as usual, to a certain little white house ro7und the corner to tell a certain invalid, there resident, of how the grand dinner-party had gone off.  It had not been a success in one way: though a cook had been hired for the occasion at one hundred pounds for the week, the dinner was sadly lacking in many points.  The lemon sponge had been lemon rock, the ice pudding full of lumps, the soup cold, the entree uneatable.

“It has determined me, dear Miss Benson,” concluded Mrs Merton, as she finished the recital of all the deficits as well as the pleasures of the last night’s entertainment, “to have Linda and Lucilla and Eva taught the rudiments of cookery at all events.  If Lady Canforth had known anything about it, she would never have allowed her guests to go hungry away from the table.”

“Probably not,” answered little Miss Benson calmly.  “Such a thing as housewifely training amongst the ‘upper suckles’ as Jeames Yellow Plush called them, is almost unknown.”

“And it is almost as sealed an art in our middle-class circles as well,” moaned the mother of five.  “It ought to be one of the courses in our elementary schools.  Isn't it Mr Ruskin who writes, ‘The education of girls should begin in learning how to cook’.”

“Yes,” answered Miss Benson.  “And he says even more than this.  He considers a knowledge of cookery to imply a pretty extensive acquaintance with most other things.  Give me my commonplace book, dear, and I will look it up.”

Mrs Merton brought the thick strongly-bound volume to her old friend, for, alas, Miss Benson was tied to her couch with an incurable disease.  From that couch, however, radiated more light and wisdom than from most of the scholastic centres in our midst.  Mrs Merton, at least relied almost more entirely on the old lady’s sound sanctified common-sense than on anything else in this world.  So near the veil of futurity lived Miss Benson that she seemed to have drunk in a sibylline spirit, and to have a stock of good advice on almost every subject.  The quotation she was looking for was quickly found.  She bade Mrs Merton read it aloud.

“A knowledge of cookery means the knowledge of all herbs, and fruits, and balms, and spices, and of all that is healing and sweet in fields and groves, and savoury in meats; it means carefulness, and inventiveness, and watchfulness, and willingness and readiness of appliance; it means the economy of your great-grandmothers and the science of modern chemists; it means much tasting and no wasting; it means English thoroughness and French art, and Arabian hospitality; and as you are to see imperatively that everybody has something pretty to put on so you are to see yet more imperatively that everybody has something nice to eat.”

Mrs Merton was silent for a while.  This extract had altogether raised the subject into a higher realm than that of an ordinary kitchen.  Then she broke on.

“If cooking is indeed all that Mr Ruskin claims it to be, however are we foolish enough to leave it to the ignorant women called ‘plain cooks’?”

“I think, my dear, we do not leave it as much as we used to do.  Kensington has done much towards making it into a fine art.  It trains its students on a sound principle; it supplies reasons for each act of the culinary calling.  For instance it tells its students why potatoes are peeled thinly and why turnips are peeled thickly; it gives rules about the proper course of events in a kitchen – why onions should be shred before potatoes are cut if we wish to eliminate their particular flavour from a knife; it teaches economical habits, it insists on cleanliness.”

“I had thought I might teach the girls myself,” said Mrs Merton hopelessly, “but you and Mr Ruskin show me how little I know myself after all.”

“You know enough to teach your young fry,” answered Miss Benson firmly.  “All the same, I think you had better not do so.  The fact is, one of the chief moral lessons taught by learning how to cook is self-reliance.  It is far better that too much help should not be given at the commencement.  For this reason I, who seem a useless log lying on this sofa –“ Mrs Merton made a gesture of denial, “- am a far more competent teacher than an active mother could ever be.  Lucilla and Linda will have to cultivate their powers of memory because I cannot get off my chair to fetch forgotten ingredients fo them.”

Miss Benson looked quite pleased at the prospect of her cooking lectures, and Mrs Merton gave in gratefully.  A somewhat lengthy conversation followed the compact.  In it Miss Benson spoke of the observation required by cooking, of the self-control cultivated by preparation of dainties which might never be tasted save in the preliminary stages, of the accuracy indispensable, of the alertness acquired even by the most lethargic young persons when a few minutes may turn a light sponge into a piece of lead, of the deftness and delicacy of touch so valuable; lastly, but by no means leastly, of the habits of tidiness and cleanliness engendered by the culinary art when properly understood.  Mrs Merton went away from the White House thinking more of the moral than the economical side of the classes to be given to her young fry.  She felt that Miss Benson would raise the subject even higher than Mr Ruskin had done, that her three daughters would understand more forcibly by means of her instruction than by any other the sacredness of food and our responsibility in connection to it.

His wife enlarged on all these points to Mr Merton when he came home from the City that night.  Manlike he thought more of the physical than of the spiritual side of the question. 

“Why, my dear, I shall be able to retire from business years sooner than I had contemplated, for Lucilla and Linda and our little Eva will require about half the dot I had thought would be necessary for them!  Any man will jump at the chance of such virtuous and educated wives.  They have each a certificate for swimming, haven’t they?”  Mrs Merton nodded.  “Well, if any suitors come, I had intended to meet them armed with that fine piece of parchment.  ‘Here,’ I would say, ‘is a wife who will help you out of deep water whenever you get into it.  Is not she a valuable person?’  But if Miss Benson teaches my girls all she intends, I shall wave a far more important document in my right hand.  ‘Here,’ I shall say, ‘is the hallmark on Lucilla and Linda, and the rest of them which shows that any of them are capable of keeping you out of deep water’.”

Mrs Merton smiled.  Her husband would have his joke, as she knew.  But there was truth in what he said, nevertheless, for by teaching the girls cooking her old friend was giving them a good dowry of commonsense and usefulness. 

Not many days after this a small group were gathered in Miss Benson’s kitchen.  It was a “lovely” one, if loveliness consists of perfect adaptability to a purpose; it was long and rather low, with thick rafters intersecting its ceiling.  Originally a barn-like excrescence from the house, these rafters could not be hidden, but were found useful for hanging up flitches of bacon and the home-cured hams Miss Benson delighted in.  The windows were two; in one of them was placed a solid square table, in the other a small couch on which lay the mistress of the house.  Behind it on a writing table – Miss Benson supplied her housemaidens with many luxuries not usually given to servants, and had cheerful willing service rendered in consequence – rested a cookery-book, a ledger and pencils.  Ranged on the walls were cover-dishes and jam-pans in silver and copper and block-tin.  Roses peeped into the two windows, and God’s sunshine permeated the room, lighting up its comfortable corners and allowing no place for dust or debris of any sort.  A tile patterned linoleum was on the floor, pretty prints bound with red braid, and therefore easily replaceable when an annual turn-out called for spotless prints, a bookcase full of intelligent readable volumes, a bright steel range and a glowing fire.  These were some of the object lessons which surrounded three demure apron-clad figures on the morning of Miss Benson’s opening lecture.  What was taught thereby I will tell in our next paper.

12 October 1901 - 'Pixie O'Shaughnessy' by Mrs George de Horne Valzey- Chapter 2

The morning rose clear and fair, and the sun shone as cheerfully as if no tragedy were about to be enacted, and Pixie O'Shaughnessy would presently run out of the doors to sit swinging on a gate, clad in Esmeralda’s dyed skirt, Pat’s shooting jacket, and the first cap that came to hand on the hatstand, instead of starting on the journey to school in a new dress, a hat with bows and two whole quills at the side, and her hair tied back with a ribbon that had not once been washed!  It was almost too stylish to be believed!

Pixie entered the breakfast-room with much the same stride as that with which the big drum-major heads the Lord Mayor’s procession, and spread out her dress ostentatiously as she seated herself by the table. The armholes stuck into her arms, the collar was an inch too high, and the chest painfully contracted, but she was intensely proud of herself all the same, and privately thought the London girls would have little spirit left in them when confronted with so much elegance. Bridgie was wiping her eyes behind the urn, Esmeralda was pressing the mustard upon her, the Major was stroking his moustache and smiling as he murmured to himself – “Uglier than ever in that black frock!  Eh – what!  Bless the child, it was a mistake to let her go!  The house will be lost without her!”

Pat and Miles were conversing together in tones of laboured mystery – a device certain to arrest Pixie’s vivid attention. 

“On Sundays – yes!  Occasionally on Wednesdays also.  It does seem rather mean, but I suppose puddings are not good for growing girls!  Two a week is ample if you think of it!” 

“Good wholesome puddings too!” said Pat, nodding assent.  “Suet and rice, and perhaps tapioca for a change!  Very sensible, I call it.  Porridge for breakfast, I think they said, but no butter of course!”

“Certainly not!  Too bad for the complexion, but cod liver oil regularly after every meal.  Especially large doses to those suffering from change of climate!”

The major was chuckling with amusement; Bridgie was shaking her head and murmuring, “Boys, don’t!  It’s cruel!”  Pixie was turning from one to the other with eager eyes and mouth agape with excitement.  She knew perfectly well that the conversation was planned for her benefit, and more than guessed its imaginary nature, but it was impossible to resist a thrill – a fear – a doubt!  The bread-and-butter was arrested in her hand in the keenness of listening. 

“Did I understand you to say no talking allowed?” queried Pat earnestly.  “I had an impression that on holiday afternoons a little liberty might be given?”

“My dear fellow, there are no holidays!  They are abolished in modern schools as being unsettling and disturbing to study.  ‘In work, in work, in work always let my young days be spent!’  Pass the marmalade, please!  The girls are occasionally allowed to speak to each other in French, or, if they prefer it, in German or any other Continental language.  The constant use of one language is supposed to be bad for the throat.  I hope, by the way, father, that you mentioned distinctly that Pixie’s throat requires care?”

Pixie cast an agonised glance round the table, caught Bridgie’s eye, and sighed with relief as a shake of the head and an encouraging smile testified to the absurdity of the boys’ statements. 

“There’s not a word of truth in it, darling.  Don’t listen to them.  They are trying to tease you.”

“I’d scorn to listen!  Ignorant creatures, brought up at home by a lady governess!  What do they know about schooling?” cried Pixie, cruelly for this was a sore point on which it was not safe to jest on ordinary occasions.  Miles rolled his eyes at her in threatening fashion, and Pat stamped on her foot, but she smiled on unabashed, knowing full well that her coming departure would protect her from the ordinary retributions.

After breakfast it seemed a natural thing to go a farewell round of the house and grounds, escorted by the entire family circle, and a melancholy review it would have been to anyone unblessed with Irish spirits and the Irish capability of shutting one’s eyes to unpleasant truths.  Knock Castle sounded grandly enough, and a fine old place it had been a century before; but for want of repairs it had now fallen into a semi-ruinous condition pathetic to witness.  Slates in hundreds had fallen off the roof and been left unreplaced; a large staircase window blown in by a storm was still boarded up waiting to be mended “some time”, though more than a year had elapsed since the accident had taken place; the walls in the great drawing-room were mouldy with damp, for it had been deserted for many a day, because its owner could not afford the two big fires necessary to keep it aired.  Pixie sniffed with delight when she entered the gloomy apartment, for the room represented the family glory to her childish imagination, and the smell of mildew was irresistibly associated with luxury in her mind.

The dining-room carpet was worn into holes, and there was one especially big one near the window, where Esmeralda, who was nothing if not artistic, had painted so accurate a repetition of the pattern on the boards beneath that one could scarcely see where one ended and the other began!  The original intention had been to disguise the hole, but so proud was the family of the success of the imitation that it became one of the show places of the establishment.  When the hounds met at Bally William, and the Major brought old Lord Atrim into the house for lunch, he called the old gentleman’s attention to it with a chuckle of enjoyment.  “My daughter’s work!  The second, Joan here – Esmeralda, we call her.  She’ll be an artist yet.  A real genius with the brush.”  And the old Lord had laughed till he cried, and stared at Esmeralda the whole time of lunch, and when Christmas-time came round, did he not send her the most beautiful box of Winsor and Newton paints, the very thing of all others for which she had been longing, so that it seemed after all that it had been a good thing when the terriers Tramp and Scamp had scratched the thin web into a hole!  The ceilings were black with the smoke of fire and lamps, but the silver on the oak dresser would have delighted the heart of a connoisseur, and the dinner-service in daily use would have been laid out for view in glassed-in cabinets in most households, instead of being given over to the care of an Irish Biddy who tried to hang cups upon hooks with her head turned in an opposite dir, and had a weakness for sitting on the corner of the table to rest herself in the midst of washing the china. 

Outside the house the garden was an overgrown wilderness of vegetation, for the one gardener, realising the impossibility of doing the work of the six who would have been required to keep the place in order, resigned himself to doing nothing at all, or as little as was compatible with the weekly drawing of wages.  The stables were empty, save for the two fine hunters which were necessary for the Major’s enjoyment of his favourite spot, and the rough little pony which did duty for all the rest of the family in turns.  The row of glass-houses looked imposing enough from a distance, but almost squalid at a nearer view, for as the Major could not afford to keep them in working order, broken panes greeted the eye in every dir, and flowers were replaced by broken pieces of furniture, and the hutches and cages of such livestock as white mice, guinea-pigs and ferrets.

Pixie had many farewells to bid in this quarter, and elaborate instructions to give as to the care to be lavished on her favourites during her absence.  The ferret was boarded out to Pat, who had no idea of doing anything for nothing but for the fee of a half-penny a week to be paid “sometime” in happy O'Shaughnessy fashion, was willing to keep the creature supplied with the unsavoury morsels in which its soul delighted.  The white mice looked on coldly with their little pink eyes, while their mistress’s own grew red with the misery of parting from them, and the rabbit seized the opportunity to gnaw Bridgie’s skirt with its sharp little teeth; but for Pixie the keenest pang of parting was over when she saw no more the floor with its scattered cabbage leaves, and the door closed behind her, shutting out the dear mousy, rabbity smell associated with so many happy hours.

Outside on the gravel path old Dennis was sitting on a wheelbarrow enjoying a pipe in the sunshine.  He made no attempt to rise as “the family” approached, but took the pipe out of his mouth and shook his head lugubriously.

“This is the black day for us, for all the sun’s shining in the skies.  Good luck to ye, Miss Pixie, and don’t forget to spake a good word for ould Ireland when the opportunity is yours.  The ould place won’t seem like itself with you and Mr Jack both going off within the same month.  There's one comfort – one frettin’ will do for the pair of you.”  And with this philosophic reflection he stuck the pipe back in the corner of his mouth and resigned himself to the inevitable.

“Pixie, darling,” said Bridgie nervously, “I think we must go back to the house.  It’s time – very nearly time that you were getting ready.  Father is going to drive you over in the cart, and he won’t like to be kept waiting.” 

“Aren’t you coming too?” queried Pixie eagerly.  There was a look on Bridgie’s face this morning which reminded her of the dear dead mother, and she had a sudden feeling of dread and longing.  “I want you, Bridgie.  Come too!  Come too!”

“I can’t, my dearie.  Your box must go, you know, and there's not room for both.  But you won’t cry, Pixie.  It’s only babies who cry, not girls like you – big girls, almost in their teens, going away to see the world like any grand lady.  You may see the Queen some day!  Think of that now!  If you ever do, bow to her twice, once for yourself and once for me, and tell her Bridget O'Shaughnessy is hers to the death.  I wouldn’t cry, Pixie, if I were going to see the Queen!”

“Is it cry?” asked Pixie airily, with the tears pouring down her face and splashing on her collar, which had been manufactured out of the strings of an old bonnet, with only three joins at the back to betray the fact that it had not been cut out of “the piece”.  “It’s not likely I’ll cry, when I’m going on a real train and steamer, and meals on the way right up to tomorrow night!  You never had lunch on a train, Bridgie, and you are eight years older than me!

“ ‘Deed I didn’t, then.  No such luck!” sighed Bridgie regretfully, making the most of her own privation for the encouragement of the young traveller.  “That will be a treat for you, Pixie, and there are sandwiches and cakes in the dining-room for you to eat before you go.  Come straight in, for I brought down your coat before going out.  You must write often, dear, and tell us every single thing.  What Miss Phipps is like, and the other teachers, and the girls in your class, and who sleeps in your bedroom, and every single thing that happens to you.”

“And remember to write every second letter to your brothers, for if you don’t they won’t write to you.  Girls get all the letters, and it isn’t fair.  Tell us if you can play any games, and what sort of grub they give you, and what you think of the English as a nation,” said Miles, helping himself to sandwiches and turning over the cakes to select the most tempting for his own refreshment, despite the young housekeeper’s frowns of disapproval.  “Stick up for your country, and stand no cheek from the English.  You understand, of course, that you are to be the Champion of Ireland in the British metropolis?”

“I do!” said little Pixie, and her back straightened, and her head reared itself in proud determination.

“And if any English upstart dares to try bullying you, just let them know that your name is O'Shaughnessy and that your ancestors were Kings of Ireland when theirs were begging bread on the streets!  Talk to them straight, and let them know who they are dealing with!”

“I will so!” said Pixie.  She chuckled gleefully at the anticipation, but alas! Her joy was shortlived, for at that moment the shabby dog-cart passed the window, and the Major’s voice was heard calling impatiently from the hall.

“Ten minutes late already.  We shall need all our time.  Tumble in now, tumble in!  You have had the whole morning for saying good-bye!  Surely you have finished by now!”

The children thought they had hardly begun, but perhaps it was just as well to be spared the last trying moments.  Bridgie and Esmeralda wrapped their arms round the little sister and almost carried her to the door.  Pat and Miles followed with their hands in their pocket, putting on a great affectation of jollity in their anxiety to disguise a natural regret; the two women-servants wailed loudly from the staircase.  Pixie scrambled to her seat and looked down at them, her poor little chin quivering with emotion.

“Bridgie, write!  Esmeralda, write!” she cried brokenly.  “Oh, write often!  Write every day.  Pat, Pat, be kind to my ferret.  Don’t starve it.  Don’t let it die.  Take care of it for me till I come back.”

“I’ll be a mother to it,” said Pat solemnly. 

And so Pixie O'Shaughnessy went off to school. 

5 October 1901 - 'Pixie O'Shaughnessy' by Mrs George de Horne Valzey - Chapter 1 (and an Introduction to YA in the G.O.P.)

I have thought for ages about whether I would include one of the serial stories in this blog and have ultimately decided that yes, yes, I will. The YA is a very important part of the paper, and out of the 20-odd years of papers I've collected 'Pixie O'Shaughnessy' is one of my favourites, thus earning it a position in a blog entitled, um, Highlights from 'The Girl's Own Paper'. It also serves as a hat trick because the three main genres of GOP serials stories are (1) school stories and (2) family dramas and (3) romances, and 'Pixie O'Shaughnessy' has a bit of all three!

'Pixie O'Shaughnessy' is interesting in that the main character, Pixie, is a child as opposed to a young woman, and the plot doesn't end with her marrying someone. Believe me, this makes it stand out from the crowd. She is also Irish and ugly as sin, which unfortunately is supposed, I think, to be hilarious to the GOP's loyal readers.

Pixie, a.k.a. Patricia Monica de Vere O’Shaughnessy, is the youngest of the O’Shaughnessy brood. Father is a benevolently negligent retired major deeply in denial about his family's financial straits, mother is (SPOILER ALERT) dead at the end of Chapter One. The large family live in genteel poverty in a castle in the Irish countryside. It’s decided that because Pixie will never marry well - because she’s ugly, see - that she should be sent to an English boarding school where she can be educated and set up to have a reasonable chance at life, as per her mother's dying wish. 

Look, if you’ve read any kind of old-fashioned English-boarding-school YA, you have an idea of how the first half of ‘Pixie O’Shaughnessy’ pans out. Pixie’s Irish, ugly and poor, but she’s also smart, sociable and spunky as shit, so she turns the prim and stuffy school upside-down and everyone ends up loving her, but there are, of course, disasters along the way.

The second half of the story takes place back at Castle Knock when Pixie returns home for the holidays, with a friend from school in tow. Pixie’s big brothers play lots of pranks. Pixie’s older, beautiful blonde sister is sweet and patient. Pixie’s older, beautiful brunette sister is tempestuous and wilful. Being so poor the O’Shaughnessys have to make their own fun, and there’s one chapter with a fancy dress party where everyone has to make their costume out of a bed sheet. (Toga parties! So 1901!) And then handsome stranger moves in next door. OH WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT??

Like I say, the fact that Pixie O’Shaughnessy’s being Irish is a joke in and of itself is pretty typical of the era and the middle-to-upper-class English demographic the ‘Girl’s Own Paper’ is slanted towards. But Pixie is a singular character in that she is distinctly unattractive - and genuinely so, not in a Bella Swan “Oh, I tell you how ugly I am, but I describe myself as ‘pale’ and ‘slender’ as opposed to ‘pasty’ and ‘scrawny’ and every boy in the universe wants me” way - and is unashamed of it, and is not punished for it by the author. She just bounces her way through the story, causing chaos and leaving a trail of mayhem in her wake, and teaches everyone salutary lessons about how it's what’s on the inside that counts - not through painful sermonising or being annoyingly saintly, but just through the mere act of being.

So without further ado here is Chapter 1 of 'Pixie O'Shaughnessy'. Enjoy.

Pixie O’Shaughnessy was at once the joy and terror of the school. It had been a quiet well-conducted seminary before her time, or it seemed so, at least, looking back after the arrival of the wild Irish tornado, before whose pranks the mild mischief of the Englishers was as water unto wine. Pixie was entered in the school-lists as ‘Patricia Monica de Vere O’Shaughnessy’ but no one ever addressed her by such a title, not even her home people, by whom the name was considered at once as a tragedy and a joke of the purest water.

Mrs O’Shaughnessy held stern ideas about fanciful names for her children, on which subject she had often waxed eloquent to her friends. “What,” she would ask, “could be more trying to a large and bouncing young woman than to find herself saddled for life with the title of ‘Ivy’, or for a poor anaemic creature to pose as ‘Ruby’ before a derisive world?”

She christened her own first daughter Bridget, and the second Joan, and the three boys Jack, Miles and Patrick, resolutely waving aside suggestions of more poetic names even when they touched her fancy and appealed to her imagination. Better err on the safe side, and safeguard oneself from the risk of having a brood of plain awkward children masquerading through life under names which made them a laughing-stock to their companions.

So she argued; but as the years passed by it became apparent that her children had too much respect for the traditions of the race to appear in any such unattractive guise. “The O’Shaughnessys are always beautiful,” quoth the Major, tossing his own handsome head with the air of supreme self-satisfaction which was his leading characteristic, “and it’s not my children that are going to break the rule.”

And certain it is that one might have travelled far and wide before finding another family to equal the O’Shaughnessys in point of appearance. The boys were fine upstanding fellows with dark eyes and aquiline features; Bridgie was a dainty little lady, petite and delicate as a French miniature; while Joan (Esmeralda for short, as her brothers had it) had reached the superlative of beauty, so that strangers gasped with delight at the sight of the exquisite little thing, and the hardest heart softened before her baby smile.

Well might Mrs O’Shaughnessy waver in her decision! Well might she suppose that she was safe in relaxing her principles sufficiently to bestow upon baby number six a name more appropriate to prospective beauty and charm. The most sensible people have the most serious relapses, and once having given rein to her imagination nothing less than three names would satisfy her - and those three the high-sounding Patricia Monica de Vere.

She was an ugly baby.

Well, but babies are often ugly. That counted for nothing. It was really a bad sign if an infant were conspicuously pretty. She had no nose to speak of, and a mouth of enormous proportions. What of that? Babies’ noses always were small, and the mouth would not grow in proportion to the rest of the features. In a few months she would no doubt be as charming as her sisters had been before her; but, alas! Pixie disappointed that expectation, as she was fated to do most expectations during her life.

Her nose refused to grow bigger, her mouth to grow smaller, her small twinkling eyes disdained the lashes which were so marked a feature in the faces of her brethren, and her hair was thin and straight, and refused to grow beyond her neck, whereas Bridgie and Esmeralda had curling manes so long that, as their nurse proudly pointed out to other nurses, they could sit on them, the darlints! and that to spare. There was no disguising the fact that she was an extraordinarily plain child, and as the years passed by she grew ever plainer and plainer, and showed less possibility of improvement. The same contrariety of fate which made Bridget look like Patricia, made Patricia look like Bridget, and Mrs O’Shaughnessy often thought regretfully of her broken principle. “Indeed it’s a judgment on me!” she could cry, but always as she said the words she hugged her baby to her breast, and showered kisses on the dear, ugly little face, wondering in her heart if she had ever loved a child as much before, or if any of Pixie’s beautiful sisters and brothers had had such strange, fascinating little ways.

At the age when most infants are content to blink, she smiled accurately and with intent; when three months old she would look up from her pillow with a twinkling glance, as who would say, “Such an adventure I’ve had with these cot curtains! You wait a few months until I can speak, and I’ll astonish you about it!” And when she could sit up she virtually governed the nursery. The shrewdness of the glance which she cast upon her sisters quite disturbed the enjoyment of those young ladies in the pursuance of such innocent tricks as making lakes of ink in the laps of their clean pinafores, or scratching their initials on newly-painted doors, and she waved her rattle at them with such an imperious air that they meekly bowed their heads, and allowed her to tug at their curls without reproach. The whole family vied with each other in adoring the ugly duckling, and in happy Irish fashion regarded her shortcomings as a joke rather than a misfortune.

“Seen that youngster of mine?” the Major would cry genially to his friends. “She’s worth coming to see, I tell you! Ugliest child in Galway, though I say it that shouldn’t.” And Pixie’s company tricks were all based on the subject of personal shortcomings. “Show the lady where your nose ought to be, darling,” her mother would say fondly, and the baby fingers would point solemnly to the flat space between the eyes. “And where’s the Mammoth cave of Kentucky, sweetheart?” would be the next question, when the whole of Pixie’s fat fist would disappear bodily inside the capacious mouth.

“The Major takes more notice of her than he did of any of the others,” Mrs O’Shaughnessy would tell her visitors. “He is always buying her presents!” – and then she would sigh, for alas! the Major was one of those careless, extravagant creatures, who are never restrained from buying a luxury by the uninteresting fact that the bread bill is owing, and the butcher growing pressing in his demands. When his wife pleaded for money with which to defray household bills, he grew irritable and injured, as though he himself were the injured party.

“The impudence of the fellows!” he would cry. “They are nothing but ignorant upstarts, while the O’Shaughnessys have been living on this ground for the last three centuries. They ought to be proud to serve me! This is what comes of educating people beyond their station. Any upstart of a tradesman thinks himself good enough to trouble an O’Shaughnessy about a trumpery twenty or thirty pounds. I’ll show them their mistake! You can tell them that I’ll not be bullied, and indeed they might as well save their trouble, for, between you and me, there’s not a five-pound note in my pocket between now and the beginning of the year.” After delivering himself of which statement he would take the train to the nearest town, order a new coat, buy an armful of toys for Pixie, and enjoy a good dinner at the best hotel, leaving his poor wife to face the irate tradesmen as best she might.

Poor Mrs O’Shaughnessy! She hid an aching heart under a bright exterior many times over as the pressure for money grew ever tighter and tighter, and she saw her children running wild over the country-side, with little or no education to fit them for the battle of life! The Major declared that he could not afford school fees so a daily governess was engaged to teach boys and girls alike – a staid old-fashioned maiden lady, who tried to teach the young O'Shaughnessys on the principles of fifty years ago, to her own confusion and their patronising disdain. The three boys were sharp as needles to discover the weak points in her armour, and maliciously prepared questions by which she could be put to confusion, while the girls tittered and lazed, finding endless excuses for neglecting their unwelcome tasks. Half-a-dozen times over had Miss Minnitt threatened to resign her hopeless task, and half-a-dozen times had she been persuaded by Mrs O'Shaughnessy to withdraw her resignation. The poor mother knew full well that it would be a difficulty to find anyone to take the place of the hard-worked, ill-paid governess, and the governess loved her wild charges, as indeed did everyone who knew them, and sorrowed over them in her heart, because she saw what their blind young eyes never noticed – the coming shadow on the house, the gradual fading away of the weary, overtaxed mother.  Mrs O'Shaughnessy had fought for years against chronic weariness and ill-health, but the time was coming when she could fight no longer, and almost before her family had recognised that she was ill, the end drew near, and her husband and children were summoned to bid the last farewell.

The eyes of the dying woman roamed from one to the other of her six children – twenty-two-year-old Jack, handsome and manly, so like – oh, so like that other Jack who had come wooing her nearly thirty years ago; Bridgie, slim and delicate – so unfit, poor child, to take the burden of a mother’s place; Miles, with his proud overbearing look, a boy who had especial claims on her care and guidance; Joan, beautiful and daring, ignorant of nothing so much as of her own ignorance; Pat, of the pensive face and reckless spirit; and last but not least, Pixie, her baby – dear, naughty loyall little Pixie, whom she must leave to the tender mercies of children little older than herself! The dim eyes brightened, the thin hand stretched out and gripped her husband by the arm.

“Jack!” she cried shrilly – “Pixie! Give Pixie a chance! Take care of her – she is so young – and I can’t stay. For my sake, Jack, give Pixie a chance!”

The Major promised with sobs and tears. In his own selfish way he had adored his wife, and her last words could not easily be put aside.

As the months passed by, he was the more inclined to follow her wishes, as the few thousands which fell to him at her death enabled him to pay off his more pressing debts, and enjoy a temporary feeling of affluence. Jack went back to his office e in London, where he had betaken himself three years before to the disgust of the father who considered it more respectable for an O'Shaughnessy to be in debt than to work for his living in the City among City men. Pat and Miles remained at home ostensibly to help on the estate, and in reality to shoot rabbits and get into mischief with the farm hands. Miss Minnitt was discharged, since Bridgie must now be occupied with household duties, and Joan was satisfied that her education was finished. And the verdict went forth that Pixie was to go to school.

“Your mother was always grieving that she could not educate your sisters like other girls, and it was her wish that you should have a chance. I’ll send you to London to the best school that can be found, if I have to sell the coat off my back to do it,” said the Major fervently, for there was no sacrifice which he was not ready to make – in anticipation, and he hoped to discover a school which did not demand payments in advance. He patted the child on the shoulder in congratulations, but Pixie was horrified, and opening her mouth, burst into howls and yells of indignation.

“I won’t! I shan’t! I hate school! I won’t go a step! I’ll stay at home and have Miss Minnitt to teach me! I won’t! I won’t! I won’t!”

The Major smiled and stroked his moustache. He was used to Pixie’s outbursts, and quite unperturbed thereby, although a stranger would have quailed at the sound, and would certainly have imagined that some horrible form of torture was being employed. Pixie checked herself sufficiently to peep at his face, realised that violence was useless, and promptly changed her tactics. She whimpered dismally, and essayed cajolery.

“It will break me heart to leave you. Father darlin’, let me stay! What will you do without your little girl at all?”

“I’ll miss you badly, but it’s for your own good. That brogue of yours is getting worse and worse. And such a fine school, too! Think of all you will be able to learn!”

“Me education’s finished,” said Pixie haughtily. “I know me tables and can read me books, and write a letter when I want, and that's all that's required of a young gentlewoman living at home with her parents. I’ve heard you say so meself – a hundred times if once.”

It was too true. The Major recognised the argument with which he had been wont to answer his wife’s pleas for higher education, and was incensed, as we all are when our own words are brought up against us.

“You are a very silly child!” he said severely, “and don’t understand what you are talking about. I am giving you an opportunity which none of your brothers and sisters have had, and you have not the decency to say as much as ‘thank you’. I am ashamed of you. I am bitterly ashamed!”

Such a statement would have been blighting indeed to an ordinary child, but Pixie looked relieved rather than otherwise, for her quick wits had recognised another form of appeal, and she was instantly transformed into an image of penitence and humiliation.

“I am a bad, ungrateful choild, and don’t deserve your kindness. I ought to be punished, and kept at home, and then when I grow older and had more sense I’d regret it, and it would be a warning to me. Esmeralda’s cleverer than me. It would serve me right if she went instead.”

It was of no avail. The Major only laughed and repeated his decision, when Pixie realised that it was useless fighting against fate, and resigned herself to the inevitable with characteristic philosophy.

Her outbursts of rebellion, though violent for the time being, were of remarkably short duration, for she was of too sunny a nature to remain long depressed, and moreover it was more congenial to her pride to pose as an object of envy rather than pity. On the present occasion she no sooner realised that go to school she must, than she began to plume herself on her importance, and prepare to queen it over her sisters.

Unfortunately my copy of this paper is missing the last page of the issue, with the final few paragraphs of the chapter and this week's Answers to Correspondents. There is an illustration on the penultimate page which I have scanned and added below. Filling in the blanks between the above and the start of Chapter 2, it looks like Pixie first gloats over her coming adventure, and then just as she's about to be sent off dashes into sister Bridget's arms for a final hug and vows to do her best. Or something.