Open Writing

I struggled manfully, and unsuccessfully, with the mental arithmetic, but there was no sarcasm or angry impatience to contend with and so it never troubled me too greatly. I did, however, feel humiliated, when, as quite a big girl, I would be sent purposefully by Auntie into the dining-room to find out what the time was, for she well knew that I could not read it, and tried in this way, I suppose, to enforce a desperate interest in the face of the clock which held no message for me. Brightly I would go from the room, showing no sign of my sinking heart and inferiority complex.

From the schoolroom I passed the back-door porch where long and short bamboo canes were stored. For our physical training we went into the asphalted yard, and stood in rows, according to height, poles held across our thighs ready for rhythmic movements. Then over our heads with them, from side to side, bending backwards and forwards, gracefully twisting and turning at the crisp commands from Auntie Elsie.

She was the tall and elegant member of the trio of aunts, slim-waisted, perhaps because of her instructing the many classes through the years in which she performed all the movements herself.

I never cared for her very much, and as she taught the older girls, I had little contact with her other than unpleasant music lessons held in the quiet of the dining-room. On a wrong note a sharp rap would land on the offending fingers from a long, fat pencil hitherto pointing to the music line by line before the lightning sweep downwards. With fingers tingling and a faint resentment growing it was even harder to attack the right notes! No, I did not care for her, but there is no doubt at all that she was the leader and inspiration of the school.

As I passed next through the kitchen, Auntie Clare, busy as could be preparing dinner for the several girls who stayed each day, helped only by the one maid, found time to call cheerily to me. She was a dear, and the best loved of my aunts.

Auntie Clare, although dressed smartly as were her sisters, never managed to look smart, for her figure drooped. I would imagine she was eternally tired for seldom have I known anyone more active and busy with the responsibilities she undertook. Her face was soft, cheeks falling flabbily, her smile spontaneous and kind. She was immensely human, without primness or austerity, interested in a motherly way in each child, and knowing them, I think, quite as well as the teaching aunts, for one reason or another kept a constant flow of children coming and going through the kitchen.

Arriving in the familiar dining-room, so lively and cheerful on our Sunday calls, now dominated by the large mahogany table and sideboard, I advanced, and stood squarely before the marble clock on the mantlepiece. I had not a notion of what it sought to convey, and trying to guess, with fingers moving in the air following the hands, I lingered for some time, my mind pondering how long I had been in school since my arrival. When I had made my decision I walked quickly back into the schoolroom, up to Auntie Flo, and with my classmates breathlessly waiting for the result I gave it confidently!

In a flash I knew my guess was wrong, and I sank bashfully on to my chair. By neither a flicker of an eyelid, nor an exclamation, did Auntie Flo add to my embarrassment; but the next Sunday morning I could not escape her reporting to Daddy "Vivien still cannot tell the time, Will, we shall have to do something about it."

So a cardboard model of a huge clockface, such as we had at school, was brought into my home, and a time set aside for my instruction. I enjoyed turning the hands this way and that and in no time at all I saw the light, quite suddenly, just like that, and looked back in amazement at my previously clouded state. All, I suppose, because I handled the clock itself, not simply watching others manipulating it!