A Notable Woman. Jean Lucey Pratt
Miss Wilmott (A.W.) claims my affections. Everybody knows I’m gone on her and grins knowingly at me and I hate it. I’ve walked with her too – I and Veronica – but on one awful walk I shall never forget Veronica did all the talking and I couldn’t think of a single thing to say. I came home feeling so utterly depressed that I could have howled. I remember some agonising meal times too that term, sitting next to A.W. They are too agonising ever to write here.
She smiled at me once, quite of her own accord. It was the 2nd of June and we had to go for walks. We were waiting by the gate when I looked up quickly and she was looking at me rather funnily and then she just smiled! I nearly died. She’s never done it since – except once, again that term, when I held the door open for her. I went into ecstasies in the dorm. That term was glorious all through.
Sunday, 19 April
Yesterday afternoon Daddy and I went and fetched the car from Harris’s. It had been there to get mended. Daddy and I were going to Marlow and Daddy backed into the tree and bent the front axle and crumpled the mudguard to nothing. Harris came down to fetch it on Tuesday and promised it us on Saturday, but when we got there the mudguard hadn’t come back from the makers, so we took it without. It does look funny but the car goes all right. I do love going out in it so – being able to go and see one’s relations and friends.
Thursday, 23 April
We’re down at Torquay at last! Glorious place! We started on Tuesday morning about 9 a.m. and after fetching Miss Watson we carried on till Andover, where we stayed for lunch. Andover is in Hampshire. Daddy drives awfully well!
After we left Andover we went on to Yeovil in Somerset. We meant to stay the night there but everywhere was full up so we went on to Crewkerne. The hills were something awful for the car, but oh the view from the tops was so lovely. Just after we left Newton Abbot something went wrong with the car.
Monday, 27 April
Home again. Such a lot has happened. I shall never forget this trip as long as I live – never.
Daddy has always addressed Miss Watson with more than usual politeness and kindness. I have wondered often if he meant anything. And when we started on this trip my heart grew very heavy. He seemed so, so, I don’t know how to call it – so very nice to E.W., and I began to think thoughts, thoughts I could not get out of my mind, unbearable thoughts. Oh Mother dearest! My heart grew heavy for you, darling one – it seemed too grotesquely untrue that Daddy could be forgetting you so soon. Jesus alone knows my heartache when Daddy lingered over saying goodnight to her at Crewkerne in the semi-dusk, and tears would come when I got into bed. I was jealous too – I thought, oh Daddy might not love me so much now. And then it rankled a bit to think of her coming into our home and taking your place.
The next day we arrived at Torquay and we went to see M. Beaucaire (the film) in the evening, and it was glorious and Daddy was so nice and dear to me after and I was so much happier.3
And then the next day little things cropped up all day – things he said to her, looks they exchanged. I grew sad again until Ethel – yes, I shall call her that – changed quite early for dinner. Just before 6.30 Daddy came in and sat down. In my heart of hearts I knew what was coming. (I had pictured a sort of scene to myself, something like this: Dad comes to me and says, ‘Jean darling, we shall have someone to look after us at last. Ethel has promised to marry me,’ or words to that effect. I knew tears would come and he might say, ‘Why Jean, aren’t you pleased?’ Perhaps then I’d say, bravely gulping down the tears and smiling, ‘Oh yes Daddy, I’m very pleased, but Daddy, have you forgotten mother so soon?’)
But he just sat in the chair and watched me undress for a while and then he said, ‘And what do you think of Miss Watson?’ So I naturally said, ‘I think she’s very nice,’ but I had to bite my lip hard. ‘Jean,’ he said, ‘I want to ask you a question.’ I knew what was coming but I feigned an interested surprise. ‘How would you like someone to come to live with us?’ I just slipped into his arms and cried, and I tried to get out about Mother but it just wouldn’t come. But oh he was so nice. I never knew I loved him so much until that moment. He explained that he’d thought of it now for some weeks, and that Mother had told him before she died that he was free to marry again (dearheart, that is your sweet unselfishness all over again!). He thought Ethel the nicest girl he knew and it would be a companion for me. His friends had often said to him, ‘Pratt, why don’t you get married again? You’re killing yourself with hard work.’ And then he said, ‘But Jean darling, if you think there is anything in this plan that might come between us I will throw up the cards at once, for after all you are all that I have got now and nothing must come between you and me.’
I couldn’t have him sacrifice so much – such love must entail a sacrifice from me. My heart sank and sank, but I said bravely that I was quite quite sure it would be all right and he need not worry. And he kissed my hand and said, ‘Thank you.’ And he also said that he had not asked her yet, but he must risk that. But when he had gone – Oh Mother, to think of seeing anyone else in your place. I never knew I loved you or your memory so much. So I came down at 7 cool, calm and collected, faintly perfumed with lavender. That evening we went to see Norma Talmadge in Smilin’ Through.4
We came back along the coast – much worse hills but such pretty country. And I felt tired and sad and a little exhausted, but the level, smooth stretch of sea peeping between the graceful lines of the cliffs seemed to comfort the innermost recesses of my soul. And when we lost sight of it behind high hedgerows I ached for one more sight of it.
I became drowsy and rather cross, and across Salisbury Plain it began to rain and I tried to sleep, until Daddy bumped into a cow. The cow’s mild expression of pained surprise tickled me, so that I sat up once more and recovered my spirits.
Wednesday, 29 April
I have thought the matter over a good deal recently and I have come to the conclusion that it is a very good sensible thing. The only fear I have now is what our relations and friends might say. She is very nice and kind, she can listen to Daddy’s business affairs much better than I can and understand. She will be such a companion for Daddy while I’m at school. But Mother your memory will always linger: there are your clothes that I cannot wear, your jewellery, the little things you gave me, the letters you wrote, the books you read, the piano and your music. And most of all that large photo of you in the dining room with your sweet, sad eyes, always smiling at me wherever I am in the room.
I went to see M. Beaucaire at the Crown Cinema. That was the 2nd time I’d seen it but I loved it more and more. I have ordered the book at Smith’s and I’m longing for it to come. After seeing good films like that I have a strange feeling that I want to film act and to act well. I’d love to just make people wonder, envy, admire, to be famous, to be too good for any petty criticism and have certain people I know say, ‘Fancy – Jean Pratt! And when I knew her one would never have thought her capable of it!’ I just want to act, to live, to feel like someone else, to live in a real world of Romance. I know it would mean hard, hard work and many disappointments and heartbreaks, but I should love to feel that I sway men’s hearts to a danger mark, and women’s too for that matter.
Last night Daddy, Ethel and I went out to a big Conservative meeting dinner, and I’m sure I looked so nice. It is the sweetest frock – very pale blue georgette, cut quite full over a pale blue silk lining. Right down the middle is a piece of silver lace about two inches wide. I wore very pale grey silk stockings and silver shoes. I also wore a blue and mauve hairband and displayed a mauve crepe-de-chine hankie in my wristwatch strap. I saturated myself in lavender water. For the reception I wore white silk gloves – I shook hands with the Duke of Northumberland. I do not like him very much – he has ginger hair and a moustache, a prominent nose and weak chin and white eyelashes – ugh! The dinner was great and some of the speeches were quite nice.
Coming home from Oxford Circus I had to be most tactful. I pretended to be frightfully sleepy and closed my eyes half the time and didn’t listen much to their conversation. When we arrived at Wembley Daddy said, ‘I hope you don’t mind