Either because my mother was shy of me, or because she thought vulgar attention would be bad for me, she seldom took me far abroad. Now and then Pollie carried me down to the village to tea with her mother, and once or twice I was taken to church. The last occasion, however, narrowly escaped being a catastrophe, and the experiment was not repeated. Instead, we usually held a short evening service, on Sundays, in the house, when my father read the lessons, ‘like a miner prophet’, as I wrote and told Miss Fenne. He certainly dug away at the texts till the words glittered for me like lumps of coal. On weekdays more people were likely to be about, and in general I was secluded. A mistake, I think. But fortunately our high, plain house stood up in a delightful garden, sloping this way and that towards orchard and wood, with a fineturfed lawn, few ‘cultivated’ flowers, and ample drifts of shade. If Kent is the garden of England, then this was the garden of Kent.

  email this article     print-friendly version
Last modified on September 5, 2011  | © Telegram 2005