Three Houses (11 page)

And now came the most exciting part of the morning. Far above us on the cliff was a capstan from which
long wire ropes, over which everybody tripped, hung down to the beach. A hook at the end of this rope was attached to the bathing machine and a donkey began to walk round and round the capstan hauling us up. It was delirious joy to feel the little house beginning to move, to hear first the swish of the waves against the side and then the scrunch of wheels on shingle as the donkey pursued his round and we went higher and higher up the beach. Then we were unhooked and a small, damp, dishevelled, sandy figure precipitated herself down the steps with her bundle. Those serge bathing dresses were beyond human power to wring out unaided and a very horny-handed old boatman, or sometimes Mr Trunky Thomas himself, who owned the machines, if he happened to be doing nothing particular on the beach at the moment, used to twist them into ropes and hang them out to dry. Then there were warm buns to eat while Nanny dried and brushed my hair.

By this time a little crowd was collecting on the pier and if my brother and I could find a suitable escort (for we were never allowed to do anything alone, possibly with reason), we had permission to join it. An uncle, or good-natured Julian Ridsdale, would volunteer to
look after us and off we would go to see the arrival of the Daddy Long-legs. This was the most preposterous machine which came on railway lines through the sea from Brighton every day. Huge blocks of concrete had been laid in the sea with lines on them and along these rolled a kind of elevated platform with four immensely long legs ending in great boxes with wheels inside them. It was more like a vision of the Martians than anything you ought to see at a peaceful seaside village. We were never allowed to go in it, partly because no grown-up thought it amusing enough to go with us and partly because it had a habit of sticking somewhere opposite the ventilating shaft of the Brighton main sewer and not being moved till nightfall. When it had discharged its passengers at the pier it took on a fresh load and stalked back again to Brighton leaving us in gaping admiration.

Now the voices of the Nannies were heard summoning us to be packed up. The babies were stowed into their perambulators, the perambulators were pulled and pushed up the steep ascent and the phalanx returned up the village street. As we approached North End House we saw Ernest, the garden boy, come out with a bucket of water and a 
syringe. These were the well-known preparations for the peculiar Rottingdean methods of window-cleaning. It was rather disconcerting if you were sitting in the drawing-room window seat to have a syringe full of water suddenly battering the panes. Ernest and the housemaid frequently had ‘words’ on the subject of squirting the windows before she had got them properly shut. We should have loved to help, but Nanny wouldn’t hear of it, so we had to follow her in.

The bathing things were spread to dry on the warm brick path or on the sweetbriar hedge. The house and garden were very still under the noontide sun and the scent of the sweetbriar was in the air. A cock crowed from the stable-yard next door and a sheep bell sounded somewhere up on Windmill Hill. My baby sister was left asleep in the perambulator in the garden while my brother and I were sent upstairs to rest. We took off our beach things, pulled the white honeycomb counterpanes off our beds and lay down. Then Nanny came up and drew the curtains. The room was luminous with sunlight penetrating the blue Morris chintz and I could quite well see my angel at the foot of my bed pulling away the curtain of darkness to let in the light, till at last I fell asleep.

 For more information on Angela Thirkell,
visit the Angela Thirkell Society website at
www.angelathirkellsociety.com 

A
NGELA
T
HIRKELL
(1890–1961), granddaughter of the pre-Raphaelite painter Sir Edward Burne-Jones, cousin of Rudyard Kipling and mother to novelist Colin MacInnes, was born in Kensington Square, London. A prolific author, she wrote over thirty novels in her lifetime, mostly set in Barsetshire.

Three Houses
, a memoir of her childhood, was her first book and became an immediate success on its publication in 1931.