parents recognize her need to work, and give her this space. Her brain stitches and stitches, her pen scratches and loops. Outside in the smutty street the children shout and play, but indoors Bessie works for the future. Pleasure deferred, pleasure interrupted. Shall she be initiated? Failure she dreads more than she dares think. At night she dreams she is writing about Browning, she dreams she is translating Virgil.
The Aeneid,
Book IV. Creusa, O Creusa! O hollow, hollow, hollow. Her eyes are hot. She sleeps badly. Her friend Ada has already departed for Saffron Walden, and she writes letters to Bessie about her happy days there, letters full of little jokes and boastings. But she knows and we know that the Saffron Walden life is not good enough for Bessie Bawtry. She must slog on and on. The cave is dark, her eyes are hot and dim, her head aches. Shall she be ill? O, the comfort of illness! Let her lie down again in that large bed, let her sleep there for eight thousand years, let little jellies and broths be brought to her, let her be sealed up for all time behind a large stone, with the grave trophies, the offerings, the Virgil, the French Grammar and
Palgrave’s Golden Treasury
! Let them light a heathen candle by her and let her fail and gutter and die and be forgotten. Let them not come searching for her with their needles and their probes.
But she does not die. She struggles on, supported, encouraged, forced by Miss Heald and Mr Farnsworth. She sits her examinations. She covers the pages with careful and wellshaped scriptings. She answers every question in order. Her pages are carefully named and numbered. Her handwriting is calm and free. She lays down her pen. She breathes deeply and waits. She is summoned for interview. She is interviewed. She will learn she has passed. She will be offered her place in paradise. In Cambridge, where gracious buildings of yellow stone have been built for the eye and the mind’s delight.
Why then does she come home to Breaseborough from her college interview in so subdued a manner? (The return fare had been paid for her by her father, counted out at the station with serious, meticulous care: that fare must be justified.) Why does she sit on the train so rigidly, holding so anxiously on to the handle of her cheap little suitcase? Why does she not return triumphant? Why is she so pale? Is she sickly, is she ailing, has she ‘overdone’ it, is she one of those delicate young women who will justify the current male view that the health of the female is not suited to higher education? Will she become a dangerous statistic in one of Mrs Sidgwick’s sociological surveys? The news that she has won not only a place but also a small college scholarship, quaintly known as an Exhibition, does not seem to revive her as it should. All are proud of her, but she remains anxious and downcast.
There can be nothing to worry about, she has just worked too hard, ‘crammed’ too much, and now she must take things easy, take a little exercise, learn to ride a bicycle, learn to swim. There is a new public swimming bath at Bednerby, which is proving immensely popular with the young people. Bessie must learn to relax.
Bessie hates the fresh air. Bessie hates exercise. Bessie cannot learn to ride a bicycle. Bessie will not learn to swim. And anyway, says Bessie fretfully, what’s the point of telling her to get out and enjoy some fresh air. There
is
no fresh air in Breaseborough.
Bessie mooches and fades. Christmas comes and goes, and Bessie smiles faintly at her college-geared presents from parents, uncles, aunts, Miss Heald. The New Year comes in, the year that will usher Bessie into her own fuller life. Still she cannot sleep quietly. Dreams and riddles haunt her. Formidable escarpments of examinations rise before her, and she cannot believe she has scaled them. Even though she has been accepted in person as well as on the page, still she dreams of those papers, haunted by the blank sheet, the
The Aeneid,
Book IV. Creusa, O Creusa! O hollow, hollow, hollow. Her eyes are hot. She sleeps badly. Her friend Ada has already departed for Saffron Walden, and she writes letters to Bessie about her happy days there, letters full of little jokes and boastings. But she knows and we know that the Saffron Walden life is not good enough for Bessie Bawtry. She must slog on and on. The cave is dark, her eyes are hot and dim, her head aches. Shall she be ill? O, the comfort of illness! Let her lie down again in that large bed, let her sleep there for eight thousand years, let little jellies and broths be brought to her, let her be sealed up for all time behind a large stone, with the grave trophies, the offerings, the Virgil, the French Grammar and
Palgrave’s Golden Treasury
! Let them light a heathen candle by her and let her fail and gutter and die and be forgotten. Let them not come searching for her with their needles and their probes.
But she does not die. She struggles on, supported, encouraged, forced by Miss Heald and Mr Farnsworth. She sits her examinations. She covers the pages with careful and wellshaped scriptings. She answers every question in order. Her pages are carefully named and numbered. Her handwriting is calm and free. She lays down her pen. She breathes deeply and waits. She is summoned for interview. She is interviewed. She will learn she has passed. She will be offered her place in paradise. In Cambridge, where gracious buildings of yellow stone have been built for the eye and the mind’s delight.
Why then does she come home to Breaseborough from her college interview in so subdued a manner? (The return fare had been paid for her by her father, counted out at the station with serious, meticulous care: that fare must be justified.) Why does she sit on the train so rigidly, holding so anxiously on to the handle of her cheap little suitcase? Why does she not return triumphant? Why is she so pale? Is she sickly, is she ailing, has she ‘overdone’ it, is she one of those delicate young women who will justify the current male view that the health of the female is not suited to higher education? Will she become a dangerous statistic in one of Mrs Sidgwick’s sociological surveys? The news that she has won not only a place but also a small college scholarship, quaintly known as an Exhibition, does not seem to revive her as it should. All are proud of her, but she remains anxious and downcast.
There can be nothing to worry about, she has just worked too hard, ‘crammed’ too much, and now she must take things easy, take a little exercise, learn to ride a bicycle, learn to swim. There is a new public swimming bath at Bednerby, which is proving immensely popular with the young people. Bessie must learn to relax.
Bessie hates the fresh air. Bessie hates exercise. Bessie cannot learn to ride a bicycle. Bessie will not learn to swim. And anyway, says Bessie fretfully, what’s the point of telling her to get out and enjoy some fresh air. There
is
no fresh air in Breaseborough.
Bessie mooches and fades. Christmas comes and goes, and Bessie smiles faintly at her college-geared presents from parents, uncles, aunts, Miss Heald. The New Year comes in, the year that will usher Bessie into her own fuller life. Still she cannot sleep quietly. Dreams and riddles haunt her. Formidable escarpments of examinations rise before her, and she cannot believe she has scaled them. Even though she has been accepted in person as well as on the page, still she dreams of those papers, haunted by the blank sheet, the
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