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28 The Days I Knew We kept rabbits, guinea-pigs, canaries, ferrets, and every kind of chicken. Once, forgetting to feed a pet Canary, it died of starvation. Filled with the deepest remorse, as I had every reason to be, I enclosed the unfortunate bird in a night-light box and buried it with full funeral honours in a corner of the garden, inscribing on a wooden headstone over the grave, "Alas, poor Dick! "-the quotation, I think, having been cribbed from Goldsmith. I found on a recent visit to Jersey that the grave was still carefully preserved by the present occupant of St. Saviour's. He had also thought it worth while to remove from a window a pane of glass on which I had engraved my name with my engagement ring, and to have it framed and hung in one of the rooms. How proud I felt! Living the life of my brothers transformed me into an incorrigible tomboy. I could climb trees and vault fences with the best of them, and I entered with infinite relish into their practical jokes. I have a lively recollection of my youngest brother and myself patrolling the old tree-shaded churchyard at midnight (when we were supposed to be in bed) mounted on stilts and draped in sheets, disquieting late passers-by very effectually. This prank continued until someone wrote to the Jersey papers, promising the ghosts at St. Saviour's graveyard a dose of cold lead if they appeared again. We had a veritable passion for annexing door-knockers, and scarcely a door in the parish was allowed to retain one. We braved threats, dogs, enraged householders, even shot guns to obtain these trophies. One of our chief targets was an old man named Wilkins, The Days I Knew 29 a retired tradesman, who lived, with his two spinster daughters, at the head of the Deanery Lane. Be was patient and long-suffering, but occasionally we exasperated him beyond endurance, and he would reluctantly descend on my father with a formal complaint. Having relieved him of his door-knocker one evening, we tied a long, strong cord to his bell, making the other end fast to a stone, which we threw over a wall opposite, with the result that everyone who passed by, either afoot or on horseback, struck the cord, causing the old man's bell to ring furiously. At each fresh clanging, Wilkins emerged with the promptitude of a cuckoo clock striking the hour, and hurled the most violent language at the innocent wayfarers. Finally, our audible chuckles behind the wall located the real culprits, and Wilkins preceded us to the deanery, where, after an interview with my father, fitting chastisement was inflicted on us. About the last escapade which I remember was one in which my sex prevented me from taking an active part. A time-honoured statue of an anonymous personage, wearing a wreath of laurels and a medley of garments, was salved by the Jerseyites from a Spanish ship wrecked on our shores during the reign of George II. As it seemed a pity to waste it, the Islanders labelled it" George Rex," after the Hanoverian king, and erected it in the Royal Square of St. Heliers, where it had stood unmolested ever since, until my brothers conceived the appalling idea of tarring and feathering this royal and stony individual. I shall never forget the tremendous and wrathful outburst which ensued when the townspeople discovered the outrage. It is an ill wind, however, which 30 The Days I Knew does not blow profit to some quarter, and an enterprising photographer coined money by snapping hisspurious Majesty for souvenir purposes before scourers and painters had made him presentable again. Not infrequently, through our reputation for all manner of pranks, my brothers and I got the name without the game, everything mischievous that was done being attributed off-hand to the "dean's family." While the tomboy element was conspicuous in me, I had my serious side as well, and would read for hours; longer sometimes than my parents thought good for me. I never went to school, and for that reason had few girl friends. A French governess laboured faithfully to impart knowledge to me, but I am afraid I was rather a handful. My brothers were all educated at Victoria College (the Jersey public school), and the only real work I did was with their tutor when he came each evening to overlook the preparation of their work for following day. He gave me a fairly good education in the classics and mathematics, which was supplemented by lessons from German, French, music and drawing masters. My father, being a remarkably clever and progressive man, believed firmly in the higher education of women. At the age of thirteen I developed, with two girl friends, a taste for spiritualism and table-turning, and gradually, through our interesting experiences, became engrossed in it. One particular table which we used in our seances displayed such extraordinary agility, cutso many capers, and answered some of our questions so intelligently, that I began to regard myself as a medium, 31 The Days I Knew and to feel that I really was, as the spirits we evoked assured me, the cause of these manifestations. Even to this day table-turning fascinates and mystifies me. Some years subsequent to my youthful experiments I discussed the subject with Victorien Sardou, the famous French dramatist, himself an ardent spiritualist, and asked him why the spirits never really enlightened me, although they were quite ready to rap out answers after I had sat for a few moments at the table. He replied that I had not pursued the matter far enough, and that I was as yet in touch only with the cuisiniers (by which I presume, he meant the underlings of the occult world). He made an assertion which I did not and do not credit, that spooks may reveal themselves by showering flowers about the room and performing other seemingly impossible acts, and wound up with the sweeping statement that only fools did not believe in the supernatural. |
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