Period Piece (Ann Arbor Paperbacks)

219 Pages·1991·6.69 MB·English

by  Gwen Raverat

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Title: Period Piece. A Cambridge Childhood.
Author: Raverat, Gwen [Gwendolen Mary] (1885-1957)
Date of first publication: 1952
Edition used as base for this ebook: London: Faber and Faber, December 1953
[seventh impression]
Date first posted: 7 March 2011
Date last updated: 7 March 2011
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #741
This ebook was produced by Marcia Brooks, Ross Cooling, Mark Akrigg & the
Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net
Period Piece
PERIOD PIECE
A Cambridge Childhood
by
GWEN RAVERAT
FABER AND FABER LIMITED
24 Russell Square
London
First published in mcmlii
by Faber and Faber Limited
24 Russell Square London W.C.1
Second impression November mcmlii
Third impression November mcmlii
Fourth impression December mcmlii
Fifth impression January mcmliii
Sixth impression May mcmliii
Seventh impression December mcmliii
Printed in Great Britain by
Latimer Trend Co Ltd Plymouth
All rights reserved
To
FRANCES
Contents
page
I.PRELUDE 15
II.NEWNHAM GRANGE 31
III.THEORIES 47
IV.EDUCATION 60
V.LADIES 75
VI.PROPRIETY 98
VII.AUNT ETTY 119
VIII.DOWN 139
GHOSTS AND
IX.HORRORS 162
X.THE FIVE UNCLES 175
XI.RELIGION 210
XII.SPORT 230
XIII.CLOTHES 253
XIV.SOCIETY 268
Preface
This is a circular book. It does not begin at the beginning and go on to the end; it
is all going on at the same time, sticking out like the spokes of a wheel from the
hub, which is me. So it does not matter which chapter is read first or last. On the
next page is a list of the people in the book.

CHAPTER I
Prelude
I
n the spring of 1883 my mother, Maud Du Puy, came from America to spend
the summer in Cambridge with her aunt, Mrs. Jebb. She was nearly twenty-
two, and had never been abroad before; pretty, affectionate, self-willed, and
sociable; but not at all a flirt. Indeed her sisters considered her rather stiff with
young men. She was very fresh and innocent, something of a Puritan, and with
her strong character, was clearly destined for matriarchy.
The Jebbs, my great-uncle Dick, and my great-aunt Cara, lived at Springfield, at
the southern end of the Backs, and their house looked across Queens' Green to
the elms behind Queens' College. Uncle Dick was later to be Sir Richard Jebb,
O.M., M.P., Professor of Greek at Cambridge, and all the rest of it; but, at that
time, he held the chair of Greek at Glasgow, and so had been obliged to resign
his Trinity fellowship and the post of Public Orator at Cambridge. However the
Jebbs spent only the winters in Glasgow, and kept on their Cambridge house for
the summers, while they waited hopefully for old Dr. Kennedy to retire, so that
Uncle Dick might succeed him in the Cambridge Professorship. This was the Dr.
Kennedy who wrote the Latin Grammar, which we all knew very well in our
youth, and he had not the slightest intention of retiring; neither was it by any
means so certain as the Jebbs chose to consider it, that the succession would fall
to Uncle Dick. However, after keeping them waiting for thirteen years, Dr.
Kennedy died in 1889, and Uncle Dick came into his kingdom at last.
The earliest Cambridge that I can remember must have been seen by me in
reflection from my mother's mind, for it is the same picture as that which she
draws in a series of artless letters, written to her family in Philadelphia in this
summer of 1883, two years before I was born. In this, the first Cambridge in the
mirror of my mind, the sun is always shining, and there are always ladies and
gentlemen sitting in the garden under the trees, very much occupied with each
other. It was quite a different Cambridge which I saw later on, when I looked at
it with my own eyes.
My mother had fallen into a world which was very strange to her. She wrote
home: 'I am at last at the Utopia of all my fondest dreams.' It was a Utopia of
tea-parties, dinner-parties, boat-races, lawn-tennis, antique shops, picnics, new
bonnets, charming young men, delicious food and perfect servants; and it almost
seems too good to be true. I suppose there must have been some difficulties,
even in those days; and indeed all the right sleeves of my mother's dresses would
keep on getting too tight, from the constant tennis; and the helpings of ice-cream
were far too small for an American; but, otherwise, you would really think, from
the letters, that Unrequited Love—other people's Unrequited Love—was the
only serious trouble. And even the broken hearts of which we are told seem to
have been very quickly mended.
The Du Puys were of a good family of Huguenot descent; but they were not well
off. There were many children, and Maud could not possibly have accepted her
aunt's invitation, if her fare to England had not been paid by her elder brother.
He was now getting on well, and was generous to his sisters. The girls had been
sent to fairly good schools; but in the case of my mother at any rate, Education,
like an unsuccessful vaccination, had not taken very well. It was not a question
of schooling, but of temperament. But my mother arrived in England with a
great respect for culture, and eager to learn all she could. We find her struggling
to read Browning and Tennyson and Shelley; battering her way with pride and
tenacity through La Petite Fadette, and preaching the virtues of learning French
to her younger sisters. But with all her respect for education—and no one could
respect it more—learning was never her strong point. However, she got on
perfectly well without it.
My mother was tall and had golden-brown hair and dark blue eyes and
such a lovely complexion that people often thought that she was made up;
which would of course have been improper.
In these early letters my mother told her family everything, higgledy-piggledy,
helter-skelter, with the most perfect simplicity. And much of the information
must have been quite mysterious to them, as she never explained at all about the
unknown people of whom she wrote: neither who they were, nor what they did,
nor where they lived. But then, even in later life, my mother assumed that you
knew all about the people who came into her letters or conversation. If you
didn't, you ought to; and anyhow it didn't matter much. In these first letters, both
the spelling and the grammar are rather shaky, but, after a lecture from Aunt
Cara, stern endeavour improved them very much.
'Sketching is such a nice occupation for a young lady', as they used to say in
those days.
In writing to her sisters, Maud was always careful to tell them anything which
might be useful to them, if they should come to England in their turn. She sends
a list of words not to use: somewheres, anywheres, fix (as fix my dress), take it
off of the table; 'Dick [Jebb] says location is not a good word.' She did a good
deal of painting in oils, mostly of round ornamental plaques of her own designs
of flowers; these are rather smudgy, but have some feeling for pattern and colour.
Maud tells her young sister Carrie how she sketched King's Chapel, and suffered
very much in the process from cows, little boys and rain. She goes on, in a kind,
but patronizing way: 'I was ever so glad to hear about your reading. Aunt Cara
said that every one who is not musical ought to be fond of poetry. So you ought
to cultivate your taste in that direction. I am reading Browning, but think he is
awfully hard to understand.' [Too hard for you is implied.] 'You could not help
liking Shelley and Tennyson.'
The records of this first summer deal very largely with the fluctuations of two or