Preparations For School

Evening Star, Issue 23497, 10 February 1940, Page 3

Preparations For School

The scene is the showroom of any school outfitter’s; the date is the last week before boarding schools begin again; the actors are any mothers and any daughters. VVhat an opportunity for the writer of one of those macabre comedies so fashionable a few years ago. What an opportunity for the psychologist and the Freudian I Picture the talk of repressions, inhibitions, complexes, impulses; the relentless tracing of every reaction to some misleading of the infantile mind 1 There, at . least, the children would be all upon the side of the psychologists, for they aro as convinced as their scientific superiors that it is alj mother’s fault. Indeed, mother herself is feeling rather, the same. • Certainly she has managed badly. Why put it off like this until the shops are full of frenzied parents and reluctant offspring? Why not manage it somehow by deputy or by telephone? For the matter of that, why have produced a child that is not stock size; that, moreover, seems entirely incapable of standing still while being fitted? Mother’s face is flushed with irritation at herself, her child, the shop assistant, the tiresome need of combining conventional decency with the economy that family finance demands. Yes, mother is disliking herself almost as much as she is hating everybody else. Her daughter is loathing everyone, but most of all the assistant who insists on repeating brightly at regular intervals, “ But isn’t she tall.” Just as if it wasn’t bad enough to be taller than anybody else in the dormitory without having this idiot talking about it all the time. Yes, of course the tunic would have to he taken in and the skirt lengthened; did they expect her to be as broad as she was long? And how long she wasl Why couldn’t they just go ahead and alter things quietly? Oh, surely Mother was not going to ask shameful questions, such as whether the alterations would be extra? Definitely, if Mother was going to ask that, with Edna and her frightfully rich parent standing just over there, she would never, never recover from the shame. ■ ■ .

Across the way is a still more pitiful case, for Mollie is out-sizc, too, but not in height. Indeed she is somewhat below it, but she makes up in width. Dress after dress is exhibited, set over her head, and refuses to slip down over her sturdy little shoulders or ever_ to reach her wide and truculent hips. Mollie’s face is crimson and fiercely set. She is aware of at least three school fellows in the showyootn; she is sure that one and all are watching her humiliation. listening to the patient sigh with which Mother says, “ Yes, you had better take her measurements and make one to order. I . can’t _ think where she ■ gets it from ” —this last with a complacement glance at her own tailored slimness. "Oh, but. Modem, she will certainly outgrow it,” comforts the tactful saleswoman; but Mother shakes her head and murmurs something about “ the other side of the familv ” that reduces Mollie to a condition" of impotent fury. How, abominable of Mother to show off like

Written by MARY SCOTT, for the ‘ Evening Star.’

that; how hateful of her to conjure upsuch a picture ol Father—hatetul and absolutely untrue. . . . As if she had to grow up tat just because Aunt Dorothy* whom Mother hates, weighs 12 stone-. Even more acute, if possible, are the sufferings of Nora at the other end of the showroom. For Nora is a scholarship pupil from the country and her mother is unhappily bound to .study economy. That wonderful night- when she heard of her success, when' she rushed out.to meet Father, coming home very tired and grey from scrubcutting on the back of the_ rough little farm, flung herself ; into his arms and told him that all they had scarcely dared hope had come true, that at last her days of lonely correspondence-work were over—all that joy is forgotten now, all swallowed up in the misery of knowing that Mother must spend and spend—and what money is there to spend?—for the sake 'of this outrageous, this splendid outfit. Mixed with the worry over all this expenditure is. a sneaking, desperate fear that the quiet, supercilious girl in a perfect school uniform waiting by the counter may hear and despise their whispered consultations. Despise not merely her; that would not matter so. mfich—but despise Motherin her well-cut But shabby coat and skirt, her plain, unfashionable hat. The wretched mother of twins is having an even worse time at the other end of the showroom. The twins ara embarking on their fourth year at school; two excitable, attractive littla girls who would delight any psychologist with their entire lack of ‘'repressions, or, indeed, of decencies. They quarrel openly for the best of everything, tear the school hats from each other’s head, talk at the top of their clear, charming voices, and generally speaking make their mother almost; as hysterical as the carefully-controlled saleswoman tvould like to be._ At the end of a half-hour’s altercation, they can be heard retiring triumphantly, their mother trailing behind them like a limp rag, their voices exclaiming in evil unison, “Well, if you don’t like it, why don’t you let us come alone—• or with Father? He never fusses.” -

Following them wearily, I was privileged to witness their reunion with Father, who had been attending boredly to the necessities of the son and heir in the boys’ department. Now he strolls to met them, entirely cool and unruffled, his offspring wearing that triumphant that means that everything’s bought; it’s all fixed up; Mother won’t be able to muck everything this time by buying what isn’t regulation. Father understands the vital necessity of avoiding, the picturesque. “Oh, yes, finished 10 minutes ago,” says Father calmly; “ Can’t understand all this fuss about the outfit every year.” Mother, awnro that this superior tone is made possible bv the accident of Father’s height, which gives him an advantage ove* other customers, and by a mo r al cowardice that prevents him ever asking the nrice of anythin* 1 ', remarks irritably that she will he thankful when it’s all over and the children safely hack at school.