Free Running to Paradise by Virginia Budd Page A

staying in a pension quite close to our hotel and call daily. Doctor Piozzi is to visit today and give his verdict on whether I am allowed up. He’s such a killing little man, rather like an organ-grinder’s monkey!
    Now, dear, I hope you are being a good girl and working your hardest at your lessons. Miss Lamont came to us very highly recommended, and if you concentrate, especially in your arithmetic, and behave to her as you would to a friend of your father’s and mine, I am sure you will get along splendidly together. Remember the poor lady is on her own in a foreign land and needs some kindness shown her; even from naughty little girls! A week today and we shall be on our way home, if I have recovered from this stupid illness. Pa has gone to see the Catacombs, but sends his love. All my love, dear, too —
    Your loving Ma
     
    Hotel Trevi, Roma
    27th March 1910
    Dear Char —
    Both Pa and I were most upset to hear from Nanny that Miss Lamont has already left. How can this be? I was feeling so much better and Dr Piozzi so pleased with my progress I was to be allowed down to dinner this evening. Then the English mail arrives and we have this shocking news from home.
    Now Char, your father and I want the truth. As I have so often told you, it is always better to ‘Tell the truth and shame the devil’ as God would have us do. Why did Miss Lamont leave so suddenly? I should like the whole story, no leaving any little bits out, and so would your father.
    I will write no more now. I feel most unwell and upset. Your father talks of curtailing our holiday: see what trouble naughty, selfish, little girls can cause. Pa and I are most displeased.
    Your loving Ma
    *
    Garden Court, Kensington — 28th March 1910
    Such a tiresome day. First we find the new cover for the drawing-room sofa does not match the chairs: the colour is quite, quite wrong. Roo must have had one of her ‘blind’ fits when she chose it. Then Cook was taken ill with one of her ‘turns’ and had to be carted off to bed by Mabel and Dr S called in. Roo and I had just sat down to a cold luncheon prepared by Mabel — v. odd potatoes, Roo’s were quite hard in the middle and tasted of soap — when a telegram arrived from Con and Dick in Rome. I felt for a minute quite sick with fright! Can I go down to Renton at once, the latest gov has left in high dudgeon and pandemonium rages! So inconvenient. I wired back: ‘What am I to do when I get there?’
    Con replied: ‘Show the flag and calm things down.’ So there we are. I am to catch the 8.10 train from King’s Cross tomorrow morn. Rehearsal tonight and I simply can’t miss it; we’re behind enough as it is, what with no one bothering to learn their parts, and the chorus so ragged and off key. Oh dear...
    Renton House, Beds — 31st March 1910
    Char and I to the village today to see dear old Mrs Simms, then on to tea at the Vicarage. The Vicarage children such fun and little Geoffrey a perfect darling. Char has been so good and sweet, I cannot understand what all the furore has been about! She says Miss Lamont left because she didn’t like England and the house was too cold. I feel there must be a little more to it than that, but Vera the new parlour-maid — a v. quiet, sensible girl — says that Miss Lamont did complain a great deal and positively tyrannised the staff. Vera said, ‘Miss Char was only sticking up for us Ma’am.’ Can this be true? Of course, old Nanny tells a different story, but then she’s so busy now with dear Baby, I doubt whether she has much time to know what is going on in the rest of the house. Nous verrons ...
    Dear Char is such a funny, clever, little thing. She said to me today as we were driving to the village, ‘Oh, how I hate Oliver Cromwell, Aunt Beth. I’ve covered his picture in my history book with ink blots.’ Did Miss Lamont approve, I wonder? Roo writes all is well at home and Cook recovered from her fit. Con and Dick return next week. Such lovely primroses