A London Girl of the Eighties by Hughes M. V.;

Author:Hughes, M. V.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Papamoa Press
Published: 2019-02-10T16:00:00+00:00

VIII. My First Post, 1886

§ 1

‘POLAM, Darlington.’ These two words were all the information I had about my new work; for when I was in that bonnet I took in very little as to my duties. Mother was all alive at the idea of coming with me and seeing new kinds of people. ‘Very outspoken’ was the characteristic she had both heard and experienced of the north country. We could not actually live together, since it was a resident post, but the headmistress recommended to us a trustworthy landlady not far from the school. So with this name and address we started off together from King’s Cross in good spirits. On our arrival in Darlington we drove first to mother’s lodgings.

The word ‘lodgings’ casts a gloom over most people, but to me it brings a memory of a large sunny room in West Terrace, and of an old lady and her daughter of gentlest nature, who laid themselves out to have mother well-fed and tended. Indeed, I gathered that a real affection grew up between them, for Mrs. Steele used to have heart to heart talks with mother about times and customs that were past; she was too old for much active work, and I think Miss Steele was grateful for mother’s friendliness with her. Her stay with these people was one of the really happy periods of mother’s life, for she was free from cares, had time for reading and sketching, and had my daily visit with school gossip to look forward to.

By another stroke of luck it chanced that my brother Tom, who had not long been married, came north at the same time that we did. As classics master in Middlesbrough High School he was within a short railway journey of Darlington, and very seldom a week passed when he didn’t manage to run over to see us.

Polam was not a private school, but was under the management of some kind of Church Trust, about which I was never clear. ‘Polam’ was the name of a large house in extensive and well laid-out grounds, including lawns, woods, and a good-sized lake. Schoolrooms had been added as a kind of wing, beyond the conservatories; the pupils numbered about seventy day-girls and over a dozen boarders; the staff consisted of the headmistress, who did Arithmetic and what she called ‘a little mathematics’, a Fräulein for French and German, visiting masters for Music and Drawing, and me for the rest.

What appalled me was not the number of subjects assigned to me, but the elder boarders. I met these girls at supper on my arrival, and barely slept for fear of facing them in class on the morrow. Big girls they were, in long skirts and with their hair done up, looking older than I did, or felt, and apparently far more women of the world.

My first lesson was with a younger class, and it passed off without much trouble, but for the second hour I was faced by two rows of those formidable young women for a geography lesson.

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