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Gender, Space and Illicit Economies
in Eighteenth-Century Europe

This book seeks to contribute a multi-dimensional, multi-layered and

gendered approach to the illicit economy in the historiography of
early modern Europe.
Using original source material from several countries, this volume
concentrates on a border and transnational area—approximately the
Lyon-Geneva-Turin triangle—located at the heart of European trade.
It focuses on three products—salt, cotton and silk—all of which
fuelled the black market between the last decades of the
seventeenth century and the French Revolution. This volume offers
an original contribution to wider studies of smuggling, illicit markets
and women’s economic roles by taking into account the economic
life of remote mountain communities and industrious cities.
Showing that irregular practices were a structural characteristic of
early modern economies, it provides insight into the opportunities
offered to women in a highly flexible economy where licit and illicit
activities were intermingled in a very complex way.
This research monograph is aimed at a historical audience and
constitutes a useful resource for students and scholars interested in
gender history, social and economic history, urban history and
French studies.

Anne Montenach is Professor of early modern history at the

University of Aix-Marseille (France), member of UMR 7303 TELEMMe
(AMU-CNRS) and general editor, with Deborah Simonton, of The
Cultural History of Work (2018). Her research focuses on women’s
roles in the early modern economy.
Routledge Studies in Eighteenth-Century
Cultures and Societies
Series Editors: Elaine Chalus and Deborah Simonton

The long eighteenth century sits as a pivotal point between the

early-modern and modern worlds. By actively encouraging an
international focus for the series over all, both in terms of wide-
ranging geographical topics and authorial locations, the series aims
to feature cutting-edge research from established and recent
scholars, and capitalize on the breadth of themes and topics that
new approaches to research in the period reveal. This series
provides a forum for recent and established historians to present
new research and explore fresh approaches to culture and society in
the long eighteenth century. As a crucial period of transition, the
period saw developments that shaped perceptions of the place of
the individual and the collective in the construction of the modern
world. Eighteenth-Century Cultures and Societies is a series that is
globally ambitious in scope and broad in its desire to publish cutting-
edge research that takes an innovative, multi-vocal and increasingly
holistic approach to the period. The series will be particularly
sensitive to questions of gender and class, but aims to embrace and
explore a variety of fresh approaches and methodologies.

Gender, Mediation and Popular Education in Venice (1760–

1830)
Susan Dalton

Letters and the Body, 1700–1830

Writing and Embodiment
Edited by Sarah Goldsmith, Sheryllynne Haggerty and Karen Harvey
Gender, Space and Illicit Economies in Eighteenth-Century
Europe
Uncontrolled Crossings
Anne Montenach

For more information about this series, please visit:

https://www.routledge.com/Routledge-Studies-in-Eighteenth-
Century-Cultures-and-Societies/book-series/RSECCS
Gender, Space and Illicit
Economies in Eighteenth-
Century Europe
Uncontrolled Crossings

Anne Montenach

Translated by Caroline Mackenzie

Designed cover image: The Halt at the Inn, 1645, Widener Collection, NGA Online
Editions

First published 2024

by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158

and by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

© 2024 Anne Montenach

The right of Anne Montenach to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered

trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to
infringe.

ISBN: 978-1-032-59769-0 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-032-70602-3 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-70611-5 (ebk)

DOI: 10.4324/9781032706115

Typeset in Sabon
by codeMantra
In memory of my brother Denis (1977–
2022) To my family
Contents

List of Maps
List of Figures
List of Tables
List of Abbreviations
Acknowledgements

Introduction

PART 1
Mountains and Smuggling

1 Salt and the Mountain Economy

2 In the Shadow of the State: A Border Economy

3 Gender, Household and Illicit Trade

PART 2
Fashion and Prohibition

4 Playing with Space: The Geography of Fraud and Control

5 Gender and Sociology of the ‘Underworld’

6 Smuggling Inside the City136

PART 3
Luxury and Clandestinity

7 Gender, Work and Fraud in a Luxury Industry

8 Waste or Theft

9 Fraud: Protagonists and Settings

Concluding Remarks

Selected Bibliography
Index
Maps

1.1 Eighteenth-century Upper Dauphiné

2.1 Brigades and salt warehouses in eighteenth-century Upper
Dauphiné
4.1 Smuggling villages and places of control on the River Guiers
5.1 Smuggling towns
Figures

6.1 Control and fraud in the city

6.2 At-home Robe (Banyan), India, probably Coromandel Coast,
for the Western market, circa 1750
9.1 Plan géométral et proportionnel de la ville de Lyon, par C.
Jacquemin, 1747
9.2 Demoiselle Allard’s network
9.3 Sieur Barthélemy Chaix’s network
Tables

3.1 Patterns of fraud

9.1 Prosecutions of piquage d’once in the eighteenth century
per year
9.2 Seizure of silks per year (lbs.)
Abbreviations

ACCIL Archives de la Chambre de commerce et d’industrie de Lyon

AD Archives départementales
AEG Archives d’État de Genève
AM Archives municipales
AMAE Archives du Ministère des Affaires étrangères
AN Archives nationales
ANOM Archives nationales d’outre-mer
AST Archivio di Stato di Torino
BGE Bibliothèque de Genève
BM Bibliothèque municipale
BNF Bibliothèque nationale de France
Another random document with
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Lydia saw Beatrice wink at Olive, and Olive stuff a corner of her
Japanese paper napkin into her mouth, as though to prevent an
explosion of laughter. She only perceived that the jest lay in the
manner of her own reply, when to the same inquiry her cousins
successively answered, very loudly and curtly.
“Ra-ther!”
After the beef Aunt Evelyn helped the pudding. There were two
dishes in front of her, one containing the remaining half of the pink
mould that had figured on the dinner-table in the middle of the day,
and the other the cold remnants of the previous night’s tart.
And Lydia, invited to make her choice, replied very clearly and rather
defiantly:
“I should like some tart, if you please, Aunt Evelyn.”
Bob, who had made his entry with the second course, roared with
laughter, and, reaching across his sister Beatrice, banged Lydia
heavily on the back.
“That’s right, Lady Clara Vere de Vere. You stick to it!”
Lydia, who hated being touched, jumped in her place, but she had
the wit to guess that the surest way of making her cousins pursue
any particular course of action would be to show that she disliked it,
in which case they would instantly look upon her as “fair game.” She
did not in the least mind the series of witticisms, lasting the length
of her visit, designed to emphasize what the Senthovens considered
the affectations of her speech.
“Just the weeniest little tiny bit, if you will be so awf’ly kind, please.
Thank you so awf’ly much.”
Thus Beatrice, humorously.
And Bob:
“Well, perhaps—if you were to press me to a jelly——”
Lydia was not in the least amused at these sallies, but she laughed
at them cheerfully enough. She felt immeasurably superior to the
Senthovens, and had every intention of proving that superiority to
them before the end of her stay.
At first blush, this did not appear to be any too easy. There was no
doubt that the Senthovens, the girls especially, were efficient in their
own line of action.
Beatrice was a renowned hockey captain; Olive had silver trophies
from both the Golf Club and the Swimming Club, and both had won
Junior Championships at lawn-tennis.
“Are you a good walker, old girl?” Beatrice one day inquired of Lydia.
This last term of endearment was a sign of the highest goodwill, and
if employed too frequently would almost certainly lead to the
accusation of sloppiness.
“Oh, yes,” said Lydia, thinking of the school crocodile wending its
decorous way the length of the Parade.
“Good. Olive’s an awful rotter at walking. You and I can do some
tramps together. Are you game for a six o’clock start to-morrow
morning?”
Lydia laughed, really supposing the suggestion to be humorously
intended.
“What are you cackling about? You’re such an extraordinary kid; you
always seem to laugh with your mouth shut. I suppose they taught
you that at this precious school of yours, where you don’t even play
hockey. Well, what about to-morrow? We can take some sort of
fodder with us, but I’ve got to be back at the Common at ten sharp
for a hockey practice.”
Lydia was obliged to resign her pretensions. She hadn’t understood
quite what Beatrice meant by a “good walker.”
“Anything up to twenty-five miles is my mark,” said Beatrice
complacently.
She and Olive were both good-humouredly contemptuous of Lydia’s
incapabilities, and Bob was even ready to show her how to serve at
tennis, and how to throw a ball straight. Lydia was willing to be
taught, and was sufficiently conscious that her tennis was improving
rapidly, to submit to a good deal of shouting and slangy, good-
humoured abuse.
She did not like it, but was philosophically aware that her stay at
Wimbledon was drawing to a close, and that she would reap the
benefit of improved tennis for ever afterwards.
“I suppose, being a duffer at games, that you’re a regular Smart
Aleck at lessons, aren’t you?” Olive amiably asked her.
An assent would certainly be regarded as “bucking,” but, on the
other hand, Lydia had no mind to let her claims to distinction be
passed over.
“I’ve just been in for an examination,” she said boldly. “I might hear
the result any day now.”
“Get on! I thought you’d been ill.”
“I’ve missed half the term at school, but I studied by myself, and I
was up in time to go to the Town Hall for the exam. I had to go to
bed again afterwards, though.”
“Do you suppose you’ve got an earthly?” said Beatrice, in highly
sceptical accents.
“Oh, I don’t know. You see, I was the youngest competitor of all, as
it happened.”
Lydia had been very anxious to introduce this last piece of
information, and it was plain that Beatrice and Olive were not
altogether unimpressed by it.
Aunt Beryl had promised Lydia a telegram as soon as the results of
the examination were put up in the Town Hall, and Lydia had already
decided that in the event of failure, she should say nothing at all to
the Senthovens. They would never remember to ask her about it.
But if she had passed, she told herself grimly, they would have to
acknowledge that they were not the only people who could succeed.
Lydia reflected that she was sick of hearing how Olive had just saved
a goal, and Beatrice had conducted her team to victory in yet
another hockey match.
 V
The last of Lydia’s Saturday afternoons at Wimbledon, however, was
at length at hand.
“We might go and have some sort of a rag on the Common to-
morrow for Lydia’s last day. Sunday doesn’t count,” said Beatrice, on
Friday evening after supper.
“Quite a good egg,” agreed Olive. “Bob, are you game?”
Bob assented without enthusiasm. He was stretched at full length on
the sofa, with his arms crossed underneath his head.
Uncle Robert was behind his newspaper as usual, and Aunt Evelyn
was earnestly perusing a ladies’ paper, from which she occasionally
imparted to Lydia—the only person who made any pretence at
listening to her—certain small items of information regarding
personalities equally unknown to both of them.
This was Mrs. Senthoven’s one relaxation, and afforded her an
evident satisfaction.
“Fancy! It says here that, ‘It is rumoured that a certain demoiselle of
no inconsiderable charm, and well known to Society, is shortly to
exchange her rank as peer’s daughter for one even more exalted.’ I
wouldn’t be surprised if that was Lady Rosalind Kelly that was
meant. I suppose she’s going to marry some duke. They say she’s
lovely, but I wouldn’t care to see a son of mine marry her, after all
the stories one’s heard.”
Aunt Evelyn looked fondly at the recumbent Bob.
“I say, we might get the Swaines to come with us to-morrow,” said
Olive, “then we could get up a rag of some sort.”
“I say, old girl, chuck me my pipe. The mater won’t mind.”
“Get it yourself,” retorted Olive, utterly without malice, but in the
accepted Senthoven method of repudiating a request for any small
service.
“Here’s rather a good story about that fellow—you remember, Lydia,
we saw his picture in the Sunday paper—Gerald Fitzgerald, who’s
acting in some play or other. Listen to this!”
Aunt Evelyn read aloud a reputed mot of the famous comedian that
did not err upon the side of originality.
“I wonder if that’s true, now!”
“Bee, chuck me my pipe,” from Bob.
No Senthoven ever listened to any piece of information not directly
bearing upon their own immediate personal interests.
“No fear! What a slacker you are, Bob! Why don’t you get up off that
sofa? Lydia’s shocked at your ways.”
“She’s not!”
“She is!”
Lydia hoped that she showed her sense of superiority by contributing
nothing to the discussion, which continued upon the simple lines of
flat assertion and contradiction until Bob flung a cushion at his
sister’s head.
Beatrice thereupon hurled herself on him with a sort of howl.
“Don’t make so much noise; you’ll disturb father. Bee, you really are
too old to romp so—your hair is nearly coming down.”
It came quite down before Beatrice had finished pommelling her
brother, and Uncle Robert had waked, and said that it was too bad
that a man who’d been working hard all the week couldn’t read the
paper in peace and quiet for five minutes in his own house without
being disturbed by all this horse-play.
Lydia watched her cousins, despised them very thoroughly indeed,
and was more gratified than humiliated when Olive remarked:
“It’s easy to see you’ve never been one of a large family, Lydia. You
don’t seem to understand what rotting means.”
“I wonder you haven’t got used to being chaffed at your school. It
must be a sloppy sort of place.”
“I daresay you’d think so,” said Lydia calmly. “But then, you see, the
girls there go in for work, not play.”
“Oh, they go in for work, not play, do they?” mimicked Olive, but
without much spirit, and as though conscious of her extreme poverty
of repartee.
Lydia noticed, however, that both the Senthoven girls asked her
frequent questions about her school, questions which she answered
with all the assurance that she could muster.
That was something else to be remembered: it was better to assume
that if your standards differ from those of your surroundings, it is by
reason of their superiority.
Lydia lived up to her self-evolved philosophy gallantly, but she was in
a minority, against a large majority that had, moreover, the
advantage, incalculable in the period of adolescence, of a year or
two’s seniority.
She did not like the feeling of inferiority, painfully new to her.
At Regency Terrace she was the subject of ill-concealed pride. Even
Grandpapa, although he never praised, found no fault with her
manners and bearing, and had lately admitted—no small compliment
—that “Lyddie could manage Shamrock.”
Uncle George discussed chemistry and botany with her seriously, and
even allowed her opinion to carry weight in certain small questions
of science, and Mr. Monteagle Almond always treated her like a
grown person, and alluded respectfully to the rarity of finding a
mathematical mind in a woman.
As to Aunt Beryl, in spite of the way in which she had lately usurped
Lydia’s recent rôle of invalid and acknowledged centre of general
interest, Lydia knew very well that her own achievements and
capabilities formed the chief theme of Aunt Beryl’s every discourse
with her friends. At school she was not only liked by her
companions, but looked upon as the intellectual pride of the
establishment.
No one at Miss Glover’s bothered much about games, and, anyhow,
Lydia’s play at tennis was accounted amongst the best in the school.
It annoyed her to realize, as she most thoroughly did realize, that
judged by the Senthoven standards, that best was very mediocre
indeed.
She had never played golf, or hockey, or cricket, and her swimming
consisted of slow and laborious strokes that grew very feeble, and
came at very short intervals if she attempted to exceed a length of
fifty yards.
Lydia’s ambitions would never be athletic ones, and although she
wished to be seen to advantage, she was far too shrewd to attempt
any emulation of Beatrice and Olive and their friends upon their own
ground. She only wished—and it seemed to her a highly reasonable
wish—to show them that, in other and greater issues, she, too,
could count her triumphs.
She waited her opportunity with concealed annoyance at its
tardiness in coming.
The Saturday afternoon picnic, ostensibly arranged in her honour,
was such a form of entertainment as was least calculated to make
Lydia enjoy herself.
It began with a noisy rendezvous between the Senthoven family and
a tribe of male and female Swaines, ranging from all ages between
eight and eighteen years old.
Most of the Swaines bestrode bicycles, upon which they balanced
themselves whilst almost stationary with astonishing skill, and
presently, amid many screams, a female Swaine took Olive and a
picnic basket on the step of her machine, and departed with them in
the direction of the Common. Bob and three junior Swaine brethren,
also on bicycles, laid arms across one another’s shoulders, and thus,
taking up the whole width of the road, boldly invaded the tram lines,
and Beatrice, with her contemporary Swaine and Lydia, started out
on foot at a swinging pace.
“Give me ekker,” said Beatrice contemptuously. “There’s no ekker in
biking that I can see.”
Exercise, Lydia grimly reflected, they were certainly having in
abundance. She and Beatrice held either handle of the large picnic
hamper containing the Senthovens’ contribution to the
entertainment, and as it swung and rattled between them, Lydia
made increased efforts to accommodate her steps to Beatrice’s
unfaltering stride.
“I s’pose,” presently remarked Beatrice, with that aggressive accent
that to a Senthoven merely represented the absence of affectation,
“you’ll be saying presently that we’ve walked you off your legs. I
never knew such a kid! Here, slack off a bit, Dot—she can’t keep
up.”
“I can,” said Lydia.
She had no breath left with which to make a long speech.
Both the elder girls burst out laughing.
“Come on then.”
It was a scarlet-faced Lydia, with labouring chest, that eventually
dropped on to the selected spot of Wimbledon Common, but she at
least had the satisfaction of hearing her own name given in reply to
Bob’s derisive inquiry as to which of them had set the pace.
Yet another proof of the profound wisdom of Grandpapa who had
said, “There’s no such thing as can’t.”
Grandpapa’s theory, however, was less well exemplified in the
impromptu cricket match that presently sprang up, in the sort of
inevitable way in which a game that comprised the use of muscles
and a ball invariably did spring up whenever the Senthovens were
gathered together.
“I don’t play cricket,” Lydia haughtily observed to the least muscular-
looking of the Swaine girls.
“Why not?” said her contemporary, looking very much astonished.
There was nothing for it but to put into words the humiliating
admission:
“I don’t know how to.”
“How funny! But we’ll soon teach you.”
Lydia resigned herself, and since she was no more deficient in
physical courage than is any other imaginative egotist, who sets the
importance of cutting a figure far above any incidental bodily risk
that may be incurred in cutting in, she successfully avoided at least
the appearance of running away from the ball.
The game, of course, was what was known to the Senthovens as “a
rag” only, since with deficient numbers and a lack of implements,
nothing so serious as a match could be contemplated. Consequently,
Lydia presently found herself with Bob’s cricket bat tightly grasped in
her unaccustomed hands.
She was not altogether displeased. It was only Olive who was
bowling, and hitting the ball did not seem so very difficult. She might
possibly distinguish herself even amongst these Philistines.
Lydia, in fact, was not above coveting the admiration of those whom
she admittedly despised.
“Chuck you an easy one to start with,” shouted Olive, good-
naturedly.
Lydia jerked up the bat, but heard no reassuring contact with the
slow moving ball.
“Don’t spoon it up like that! You’d have been caught out for a dead
cert if you had hit it!”
A second attempt was made.
“You are a duffer! Show her how to hold the bat, someone.”
Lydia’s third effort mysteriously succeeded in knocking down the
improvised stumps behind her, whilst the ball, still unhit, was neatly
caught by a nine-year-old Swaine child.
“Oh, I say, this is awfully slow!” remonstrated Bob.
“She’s out now, anyway.”
“Give her another chance,” said Olive, “let her finish the over,
anyway. There’s no scoring, what’s it matter?”
“Two more balls, then.”
But there was only one more ball. Lydia, desperately determined to
succeed once at least, exerted her whole strength miraculously, hit
the ball fair and square, and knew a momentary triumph as it flew
off the bat.
There was an ear-piercing shriek from Olive, and Lydia, terrified, saw
her fling up both hands to her face and stagger round and round
where she stood.
“Oh, I say, are you hurt, ole gurl?” came in anxious, if rather
obvious, inquiry from the surrounding field.
“Got her bang on the jaw!”
“What awful rot, poor wretch.”
They crowded round Olive, who was choking and gulping, her mouth
streaming with blood, but undauntedly gasping:
“It’s all right, don’t fuss, I tell you, Bee, it’s all right. I’ll be all right in
a sec. I never dreamt she was going to hit out like that. I ought to
have caught it.”
“Comes of having a mouth like a pound of liver splits,” said Bob,
quite unconsciously making use of the strain of facetious personal
incivility always used by him to any intimate, and all the while
solicitously patting his sister on the back.
“Oh, Olive, I’m so sorry,” said Lydia, far more acutely aware than
anyone else was likely to be of the inadequacy of the time-worn
formula.
“Don’t be an ass,” returned Olive crisply. “Lend me a nose wipe if
you want to do something useful. Mine’s soaked.”
Such of the assembly as were possessed of pocket-handkerchiefs
willingly sacrificed them, although the number contributed proved
utterly inadequate to the amount of blood lost by Olive, still
determinedly making light of her injuries.
“Let’s have a look and see if your teeth are all out, old gurl,” urged
Beatrice.
“I lost two last summer,” the eldest Swaine remarked casually, “and
Dot had one knocked out at hockey.”
“The front one feels a bit loose,” said Olive thoughtfully, and thrust a
finger and thumb into a rapidly swelling mouth.
“Better not push it about,” someone suggested; “why not sit down
and have tea now?”
“You don’t want to go home, do you, Ol?” Lydia heard Beatrice ask
her sister aside.
“Good Lord, no. Don’t let’s have any fuss.”
Olive could certainly not be accused of making the most of her
distressing circumstances.
She gave Lydia a tremendous bang on the back, and said:
“Cheer up, old stupid! You jolly well don’t pretend you can’t hit out
when you want to another time, that’s all!”
After that she took her place amongst the others, and contrived to
eat a great deal of bread-and-butter and several of the softer variety
of cakes, in spite of the evident possibilities of a swelled and
discoloured upper lip and badly bruised jaw.
“Old Olive has plenty of pluck—I will say that for her,” Bob remarked
to Lydia, who agreed with the more fervour that she was conscious
of a quite involuntary sort of jealousy of Olive. It must be so much
pleasanter to be the injured than the injurer, and to know that
everyone was, at least inwardly, approving one’s courage and
powers of endurance.
When the picnic was over, Olive had quite a large escort to
accompany her home, all relating in loud and cheerful voices the
various disabilities and disfigurements that had sooner or later
overtaken them in the pursuit of athletic enjoyment.
“It’s part of the fun,” declared Olive herself. “I only hope the mater
won’t turn green at the sight of me. She’s a bit squeamish
sometimes.”
“Hold your hand in front of your mouth.”
“Keep your back to the light all you can.”
But it became evident that none of these precautions would avail
when Mrs. Senthoven was seen leaning over the gate, gazing down
the road.
She waved a yellow envelope at them.
“Tellywag!” exclaimed Beatrice. “What on earth can it be?”
Telegrams were so rare in the Wimbledon establishment as to be
looked upon with alarm.
She and Olive both began to run.
“It’s addressed to you, Lydia,” screamed Beatrice. “Come and open
it. Come on, you people.”
The last exhortation was in encouragement to the members of the
Swaine family, delicately hanging back. At Beatrice’s semaphore-like
gesticulations of invitation, they all followed Lydia’s rush forward,
and as she opened her telegram she heard their loud babble uprise.
“Not so bad as it looks, is it, Ol?”
“She got a swipe on the jaw, and took it like a brick, too!”
“Oh, my dear girl!” from Aunt Evelyn. “Let me look this minute——”
“Don’t fuss, mater. It’s all right, really.”
They were all pressing round the reluctant Olive.
Lydia looked up.
“No bad news, I hope, dear,” said Aunt Evelyn, as was her invariable
custom whenever present at the opening of a telegram.
“It’s from Aunt Beryl about my examination,” said Lydia very clearly.
She was so much excited that her tense, distinct utterance produced
a sudden silence, and they all looked at her.
“Passed your examination first-class honours,” read Lydia out loud.
“I say!”
“And you’d been ill the whole time, hadn’t you? My golly!”
“Why, we thought you hadn’t a chance!”
“Weren’t you the youngest one there, or some rot of that kind?”
“First-class honours! That’s as high as you can go, isn’t it?”
They were all lavish of exclamations and hearty slangy
congratulations.
Olive herself, and everybody else, had forgotten all about Olive’s
injury, and Lydia was the centre of attention.
“I say, let’s have a celebration!” shouted Bob. “Come in after supper
and have a cocoa-rag.”
The invitation was accepted with loud enthusiasm.
“You can have the dining-room, dears,” said Aunt Evelyn, “only not
too much noise, because of father. I’ll explain it to him, and get him
to sit in the drawing-room.”
Uncle Robert never took part in any festivity of his family’s. It was
supposed that he needed peace and solitude after his day’s work,
and in summer he pottered about the little green-house, and at
other times of the year dozed behind the newspaper, unmolested.
Nevertheless, Uncle Robert, to Lydia’s astonishment and
gratification, actually came out of his taciturnity that evening at
supper-time in order to pay tribute to her achievement.
“Fancy the pater waking up like that!” ejaculated Bob afterwards.
“More than he’s ever done for any of us.”
“A fat lot of exams. we’ve ever passed!” said Beatrice scornfully.
It was true that no Senthoven had ever attained to any such
distinction, and Lydia realized with the more surprise that for this
very reason they regarded her success as something nearly
approaching to the miraculous.
Almost against her own will, she was struck with Olive’s unfeigned
relief at having the general attention distracted from herself and her
accident, and focussed instead upon her cousin’s triumph.
Lydia half admired and half despised Olive, and most wholly and
thoroughly enjoyed the novel sensation of being for once of high
account in the eyes of the Wimbledon household.
Certainly towards the end of the exceedingly rowdy “celebration,”
the cause of it was rather lost sight of in the fumes of unlimited
cocoa, the shrieking giggles of the younger Swaine children, and the
uproarious mirth of their seniors, the whole-hearted amusement,
that almost seemed as though it would never be stayed, at so
exquisitely humorous an accident as the collapse of Bob’s chair
beneath him.
Nevertheless, the celebration was all in Lydia’s honour, and her
health was drunk in very hot, very thick cocoa, with a great deal of
coarse brown sediment at the bottom of each cup, afterwards
scraped up into a spoon, and forcibly administered to the youngest
child present, who had rashly declared a liking for “grounds.”
Lydia, highly excited, for once made as much noise as anybody, and
began to feel that she should be quite sorry to say good-bye to them
all on Monday.
But she was much too clear-sighted in the analysis of her own
situations to delude herself into supposing that a prolongation of her
stay at Wimbledon would result in anything but failure.
One could not pass an examination with brilliancy every day, and
once the first sensation over—which it speedily would be—the old
routine of walks and hockey and “ragging” would go on as before,
and Lydia could no longer hope for anything but, at best, a negative
obscurity. Far better to leave them before any of their gratifying
enthusiasm had had time to die down.
She could tell, by the very nature of their farewells, the immense
difference that now obtained in their estimation of her importance.
“You must go on as well as you’ve begun, Lydia. It’s a great thing for
a girl to be clever,” said Aunt Evelyn rather wistfully. “I suppose you’ll
want to take up teaching, later on?”
“Perhaps. I’m not quite sure yet.”
Lydia had long ago given up talking about her childish ambition to
write books, although it was stronger than ever within her.
“Well, there’s time to settle yet. You’re not sixteen, and there’s no
hurry. I’m sure Grandpapa and Aunt Beryl would miss you dreadfully
if you thought of going away anywhere. It would be best if you
could get something to do down there, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes, Aunt Evelyn,” said Lydia amiably. She always listened to older
people politely and agreed with what they said, but their advice had
no disturbing effect upon her, because it never seriously occurred to
her that anyone could be a better judge of her own interests than
she was herself.
Even Uncle Robert, hastily saying good-bye before starting for the
office, found time to say to her:
“Well, good-bye, child. Don’t overwork yourself with all this
examination stuff. You can come down here if you want a change
any time. Settle it with your aunt.”
“Better come down for the Christmas hols. We can show you some
tobogganing then, most likely. I got some whopping great bruises on
my legs last year,” was the inducement held out by Olive. “I must be
off to that beastly old holiday task now, I suppose. I always put it off
to the last minute. Wish I was a stew-pot like you.”
Beatrice and Bob escorted Lydia to the station.
“Well, ta-ta, and be a good girl,” said Bob patronizingly, tilting his hat
rather far back on his head and smoking a cigarette that
aggressively protruded from the extreme corner of his mouth,
“when’s the old man going to have the decency to remember my
existence? You’ve cut us all out with him with your blooming book-
work. He goes in for being a bit of a brainy old bird himself, doesn’t
he?”
Inured though she might be to the Senthoven vocabulary, Lydia
nearly shuddered visibly at the thought of Grandpapa, had he heard
his descendant’s description of him.
“Shut up, you ass,” said Beatrice, in an automatic sort of way. “Well,
bye-bye, ole gurl. You’ve fixed it up with the mater about popping
down again some time, I s’pose. Just come and take us as you find
us, as the saying goes. Here’s your train.”
Lydia, leaning from the window of the third-class railway carriage,
wondered whether to shake hands with Beatrice or not. The law of
“No nonsense about us” would certainly preclude kissing, even had
she felt the slightest desire to embrace her rough-haired, freckle-
faced cousin, shifting from one leg to the other, her red hands thrust
into the pockets of her woollen coat, and her tam o’ shanter pulled
well down over one eye.
Bob was already casting glances in the direction of the refreshment
room.
“Good-bye,” said Lydia, definitely deciding against putting out her
hand. “And thanks so much.”
“Good heavens! Don’t start speechifying, whatever you do,” cried the
Senthovens in protesting horror, both at the same moment, and as
nearly as possible in the same words.
So Lydia was obliged to have recourse to that most uncomfortable
form of ejaculatory conversation that appears to be incumbent upon
all those who are unfortunate enough to be accompanied by their
friends to the railway station.
“Nearly off now, I think.”
“Oh, yes, there’s the whistle.”
“Well, I suppose Aunt Beryl will expect us to send our love, or some
rot of that kind.”
“All right. I think we really are starting this time.”
We were not, however, and Lydia looked dumbly at her waiting
cousins and wondered why, since they had nothing more to say, and
were obviously quite as ill at ease as she was herself, they did not
go.
“I wish you wouldn’t wait. We shall be off in a minute now.”
“Oh, it’s all right.”
Beatrice shifted her weight on to the other leg, and Bob pulled out a
packet of Woodbine cigarettes and lit one of them.
“I hope Grandpapa will be in good form,” said Bob desperately.
“I’ll tell him you asked.”
“Oh, don’t bother.”
“He knows there isn’t any nonsense about us,” said Beatrice.
To this last familiar refrain, the train actually began to move out of
the station at last. Lydia waved her hand once or twice, received curt
nods in reply, and sank back with a feeling of relief on to her seat.
The end of the Senthovens.
She could not help feeling glad that her visit was over.
The familiar quiet of Regency Terrace awaited her now. Aunt Beryl,
as her letters had assured Lydia, once more returned to the
unobtrusive rôle out of which her illness had momentarily forced her
into unsuitable lime-light. Uncle George, certain to be full of quiet
pride in the result of the examination, even Mr. Monteagle Almond,
next Wednesday, probably framing elaborate little congratulatory
sentences.
Lydia looked forward intensely to it all.
She wondered how Grandpapa would receive her, and mentally
conned over the amusing descriptions that she would give him in
private of the Senthoven ménage, treading upon his well-known
prejudice against that slang in the use of which it was so proficient.
She did not expect to be met at the station, but sent her luggage by
the omnibus, and herself walked to Regency Terrace by the short
cut, remembering as she did so her arrival, more than three years
ago, under the care of both aunts, and full of uncertainty as to her
own eventual destination.
Security, reflected Lydia maturely, was the most important thing of
all. One was secure where one was appreciated, and held to be of
importance.
She remembered that it was upon her own representations that
Grandpapa had consented—going against his own prejudice to do so
—to her being sent to school. It had been a great success, as even
Grandpapa must have long ago acknowledged to himself.
Perhaps one day he might even acknowledge it to her.
Lydia smiled to herself over the improbability of the suggestion.
Then she turned the corner into Regency Terrace and saw the
familiar house on the opposite side of the road.
As she caught sight of it, the hall-door opened, and Aunt Beryl, in
her well-known blue foulard dress with white spots, that she
generally only wore on Sundays, looked out. At the same instant
Lydia saw Grandpapa peering from the dining-room window, which
was already open, and raising his stick a few inches in the air to
shake it in welcome.
All in honour of the great examination victory!
Lydia waved her hand excitedly, and at the same moment, with ear-
piercing barks, Shamrock shot out from behind Aunt Beryl, trailing a
significant length of broken chain behind him, and raced madly down
the road towards her.
Lydia, breaking into quick, irrepressible laughter, dashed across the
road and up the steps, in sudden, acute happiness at so vivid a
realization of her dreams of home-coming.
 VI
Time slipped by with mysterious rapidity.
Lydia was in the sixth form—she was a prefect—she was Head of the
School.
At seventeen she discovered that she had ceased to grow. She had
attained to her full height, and after all, it was not the outrageous
stature that had been prophesied for her. Only five feet eight inches,
and her slimness, and the smallness of her bones, made her look
less tall.
Her thick, brown hair was in one plait now, doubled under and tied
with a black ribbon, and her skirts reached down to her slender
ankles.
Lydia still had doubts as to her own claims to beauty, and envied
Nathalie Palmer her bright, Devonshire complexion and blue eyes.
“Should you say I was at all pretty, Nathalie?”
“Your eyes are lovely.”
“That’s what people always say about plain girls,” said Lydia
disgustedly.
“You look sort of foreign, and interesting,” said Nathalie thoughtfully.
“The shape of your face is quite different to anyone else’s.”
It did not sound reassuring, and Lydia touched with the tips of her
fingers the salient cheek bones that gave an odd hint of
Mongolianism to her small olive-hued face.
“Your mouth is pretty, it’s so red,” said Nathalie. “Though I should
like it better if your teeth didn’t slope inwards.”
Nathalie adored Lydia, but she was incurably honest.
She went home for good the year before Lydia was to enter upon
her last term at Miss Glover’s.
“You’ll come and stay with us next year, won’t you?” entreated
Nathalie. “There’s no one but father and me at home, but quite a lot
of nice people live near.”
“Of course I’ll come. I’d love to come. I should just have left here,”
said Lydia.
She wondered whether Nathalie realized that on leaving school she
would be seeking for employment. Most of Miss Glover’s pupils had
their homes in the locality, and went as a matter of course “to help
father in the shop.” Several found situations as teachers, one had
gone to Bristol University to study for a medical degree, and only a
minority, like Nathalie herself, looked forward to living at home.
Lydia knew that she meant to write, and she had long ago told
Nathalie the secret of her ambitions, but she had said nothing about
other work, and the two girls parted without having broached the
subject.
“It will be time enough to tell Nathalie when I know what I’m going
to do,” reflected Lydia, with characteristic caution.
She was sure that Aunt Beryl expected her to teach. Miss Glover
herself had hinted that a post as Junior Mistress might be available
in a year’s time to one of Lydia’s abilities. That would mean sleeping
at home, having long holidays in the summer, and lesser ones at
Christmas and Easter, and a salary as well as her midday dinner at
school.
It might also mean a Senior Mistress-ship after a certain number of
years, an increase of salary, and the far-away, ultimate possibility of
partnership with the Head. And it would also mean an endless
succession of pupils, almost all local, a life spent among femininity
until her interests would all centre round numbers of her own sex,
and a narrowing of vision such as must be inevitable in a mind
exclusively engaged in intercourse with the half-developed faculties
of youth.
Lydia wished to leave the little seaside town.
Regency Terrace should be her home; she wanted to come back
there for holidays, and to receive the proud welcome that had
awaited her after her visit to Wimbledon, when she had passed her
examination with first-class honours.
But her secret determination was to find work in London. Only in
London, thought Lydia, would her vaunted capabilities be put to the
test. Only there could she hope to come into contact with that strata
of life, somehow different to the one in which Aunt Beryl, or the
Jacksons, or the Senthovens moved, and to which, she felt inwardly
certain, she herself would be acclaimed instantly as by right divine.
Finally, only in the immensities of London did Lydia think that she
would gain the experience necessary for the fulfilment of her desire
to write.
Hitherto her keen critical faculty had left her exceedingly dissatisfied
with her own literary attempts.
Once at sixteen years old, she had entered a competition started by
a girl’s paper for a short story “dealing with animal life.” Lydia had
first of all written a long and exciting account of a runaway elephant
in the jungle in India, with a little English boy—chota-sahib—on its
back.
Aunt Beryl’s praises, which had been enthusiastic, had failed to
satisfy her, owing, Lydia supposed, to her own intimate conviction of
Aunt Beryl’s lack of discrimination.
But she had disconcertingly found that it would be utterly impossible
to submit the story to Grandpapa’s discerning ear and incisive
judgment.
Why?
Lydia, disregarding a certain violent inclination to shelve the whole
question, had ruthlessly analyzed her feelings of discomfort at the
very idea of hearing Grandpapa’s comments upon her work. There
was no doubt of it—Grandpapa would say that Lydia knew nothing
about India, or runaway elephants, or chota-sahibs—she had
suddenly writhed, remembering the very book of travels in which
she first met with that expression—that her story was all written at
second or third hand, and was therefore worthless. With a courage
that afterwards struck her as surprising, Lydia had envisaged the
horrid truth.
She had lacked the heart to destroy the runaway elephant
altogether, but had stuffed the manuscript out of sight into the back
of her writing-table drawer, and resolutely sat down to consider
whether she could not lay claim to any first-hand impressions of
animal life.
The result had been a short, humorously written sketch of one of
Shamrock’s innumerable escapades.
Lydia had not been awarded the first prize, as she inwardly felt
would have been in accordance with the dramatic fitness of things,
but she had thoroughly amused Grandpapa by reading the sketch to
him aloud, and she had taught herself a valuable lesson.
Experience, she had decided sweepingly, was the only royal road to
literature. She would write no more until experience was hers.
Experience, however, to Lydia’s way of thinking, was not to be
gained by remaining at Regency Terrace for ever.
When the last of her school days was approaching rapidly, she
decided that the time had come to speak.
“Grandpapa, I should like to ask your advice.”
“Light the gas, my dear. Your aunt is very late out this afternoon,”
was Grandpapa’s only reply.
When Grandpapa simulated deafness, it always meant that he was
displeased.
Lydia obediently struck a match, and the gas, through its crinkly pink
globe, threw a sudden spurt of light all over the familiar dining-
room.
Grandpapa leant stiffly back in his arm-chair, a tiny, waxen-looking
figure, with alert eyes that seemed oddly youthful and mischievous,
seen above his knotted hands and shrunken limbs. He could see and
hear whatever he pleased, but it was becoming more and more
difficult for him to move, although he still staunchly refused to be
helped from his chair.
“Lyddie, where’s Shamrock?”
Useless to reply, as was in fact the case, “I don’t know.” The futility
of such a reply was bound to call forth one of Grandpapa’s most
disconcerting sarcasms.
“I’ll find out, Grandpapa.”
Luck favoured Lydia.
As a rule, one might as well attempt to follow the course of a comet
as that of Shamrock’s illicit excursions. But on this occasion Lydia at
once found him in the hall, and was so much relieved at the
prospect of success with Shamrock’s owner, that she failed to take
notice of the stealthy manner of Shamrock’s approach, denoting a
distinct consciousness of wrong-doing.
“Good little dog!” said Grandpapa delightedly. “They talk a great deal
of nonsense about his sneaking off into the town and stealing from
the shops—I don’t believe a word of it! He’s always here when I
want him.”
At which Shamrock fawned enthusiastically upon his master, and
Lydia determined the hour to be a propitious one, and began again:
“Will you give me your advice, Grandpapa?”
“Lyddie, you said that a little while ago,” said Grandpapa severely.
“It’s a foolish feminine way of speaking, and I thought you had more
sense.”
Lydia looked at her disconcerting grandparent in silence.
She knew herself far better able to steer clear of his many and
violent prejudices than was matter-of-fact Uncle George, or
unfortunate Aunt Beryl, who often seemed to go out of her way in
order to fall foul of them. But this time she was conscious of
perplexity.
“I don’t understand, Grandpapa. I really do want your advice.”
“Advice is cheap,” said Grandpapa. “A great many people say they
want it, especially women. What they really want, Lyddie, is an
opportunity for telling someone what they have already decided to
do. Then they can say afterwards ‘Oh, but so-and-so and I talked it
all over and he advised me to do such-and-such.’ You mark my word,
no one ever yet asked advice whose mind wasn’t more or less made
up already.”
To take the bull by the horns was always the best way of dealing
with Grandpapa.
Lydia said resolutely:
“Well, I haven’t yet made up my mind, Grandpapa, that’s why I want
to talk to you.”
“So that I can advise you to do whatever you want to do?” satirically
demanded Grandpapa. “Well, my dear, you know me well enough to
know that I shan’t do that. Talk away.”
Thus encouraged, Lydia began.
“I am seventeen, Grandpapa.”
She pretended not to hear Grandpapa’s cheerful ejaculation, “Only
seventeen, my dear? Quite a young child, then.”
“I shall be eighteen by the time I leave school next month, and
there’ll be my future to think about. I know Miss Glover means to
give me a chance of a Junior Mistress-ship, or I suppose I could get
a post as governess, as Aunt Beryl is always suggesting. It would be
a pity to waste all my education at dressmaking, or anything like
that, though I suppose I could take up something of the sort. Only
really I feel as though I’d rather use my head than my hands. Of
course, I like anything to do with figures, and Mr. Almond seemed to
think that I shouldn’t have any difficulty in getting into the Bank
here.”
She paused.
“Well,” said Grandpapa, “you’ve told me all the things you don’t
mean to do. Now tell me what you’ve really decided.”
Lydia, although rather angry, could not help laughing outright, and
immediately felt that her laughter had done herself and her cause
more good than any amount of eloquence. Eloquence indeed was
invariably wasted upon Grandpapa, who preferred any good
speaking that might take place to be done by himself.
“Now, child, have done with this nonsense and speak out. What is it
you want?”
Lydia drew a long breath.
“To go and work in London.”
There was a long pause, and then Grandpapa said in rather a flat
voice:
“So that’s it, is it? Well, well, well—who’d have thought it?”
“Grandpapa! you didn’t think I should stay here always?” protested
Lydia. “How am I ever to get any experience, in one place all the
time, never seeing any new people?”
“‘Never’ is a long day,” quoth Grandpapa.
“But I shall have to begin soon if I’m to work at all. You and Aunt
Beryl have always said that I must do something when I leave
school.”
“And supposing I said now that things have looked up a little, and
you could live at home and help your aunt a bit, and take little
Shamrock out of a morning. Eh, Lyddie, what then?”
Lydia was silent, but she did not attempt to conceal that her face fell
at the suggestion.
“Well, well, well,” said Grandpapa again, “so it’s to be London!”
“Then you’ll let me go,” Lydia exclaimed, trying to keep the
eagerness out of her voice.
Grandpapa uttered one of his most disagreeable, croaking laughs.
“Don’t talk like a little fool, my dear! You know very well that if you
want to go, you’ll go. How can I prevent it? I am only an old man.”
Lydia was disconcerted. Grandpapa never spoke of himself as old,
and the hint of pathos in the admission, unintentional though she
supposed it to be, seemed to her out of place in the present
juncture.
She grew more annoyed as the evening wore on, for Grandpapa was
really very tiresome.
“A useless old man, that’s what I am,” he soliloquized, taking care,
however, to make himself perfectly audible.
“What is the matter, Grandpapa?” said the much surprised Aunt
Beryl.
Everyone knew how angry Grandpapa would have been had he
suspected anyone else of looking upon him as a useless old man.
“Anno Domini,” sighed Grandpapa melodramatically, “Anno Domini!
No one left but little Shamrock to keep the old man company.”
“Grandpapa!” cried Aunt Beryl indignantly, “I’m sure if you had to
depend on the dog for company, you might complain. But you know
very well that isn’t the case. Why, here’s George only too ready to
have a game of Halma, if you want to. Or Lydia could read out to
you for a bit.”
“Lyddie’s off to London, my dear,” sighed Grandpapa in martyred
accents, for all the world, thought Lydia indignantly, as though she
meant to start off by the next train.
“What?”
But Grandpapa, having dropped his bomb amongst them, not
unwisely elected to leave it there without waiting to see its effect.
“I shall go up to bed now, my boy. Will you give me an arm?”
“But it’s quite early. Don’t you feel well, Grandpapa? And what’s all
this about Lydia going away?”
Aunt Beryl received no answer.
Lydia was too much vexed and too much embarrassed to make any
attempt at stating her case, and Grandpapa had begun the tense
process of hoisting himself out of his arm-chair. When he was on his
feet at last, he allowed Uncle George to come and assist him out of
the room and up the stairs.
“Good night all,” said Grandpapa in a sorrowful, impersonal sort of
way, as he hobbled out of the room on his son’s arm. “I am getting
to be an old fellow now—I can’t afford to keep late hours. Bed and
gruel, that’s all that’s left for the old man.”
Aunt Beryl looked at Lydia with dismay.
“What’s all this about? Grandpapa hasn’t been like this since he was
so vexed that time when Uncle George took Shamrock out and lost
him, and he was away three days before a policeman brought him
back. I remember Grandpapa going on in just the same way then,
talking about being an old man and nobody caring for him. Such
nonsense!”
Lydia had seldom heard so much indignation expressed by her quiet
aunt, and for a moment she hoped that attention might be diverted
from her own share in the disturbance of Grandpapa’s serenity.
But an early recollection of the unfortunate effects upon Aunt Beryl
of her withheld confidence, five years previously, came to her mind.
Lydia considered the position quietly for a few moments, and then
decided upon her line of attack.
“I know you’ll understand much better than Grandpapa did, and help
me with him,” she began.
Not for nothing had the child Lydia learnt the necessity for diplomacy
in dealing with those arbitrary controllers of Destiny called grown-up
people.
Aunt Beryl seemed a good deal startled, and perhaps rather
disappointed, which Lydia indulgently told herself was natural
enough, but the subtle appeal to range herself with her niece
against Grandpapa’s overdone pretensions was not without its effect.
And Lydia found an unexpected ally in Uncle George, when her
scheme had presently reached the stage of family discussion.
“You ought to get a good post enough,” he said judicially, “but you
mustn’t expect to keep yourself all at once unless you ‘live in’
somewhere!”
“If she goes to London at all,” Aunt Beryl said firmly, “she must go to
Maria Nettleship.”
Of course. Maria Nettleship, the amie d’enfance of Aunt Beryl’s
younger days, who still punctually exchanged letters with her, and
was successfully managing a boarding-house in Bloomsbury.
“I should be happier about her with Maria Nettleship than if she was
just ‘living in’ with goodness knows whom to keep her company. And
it’s nicer, too, for a young girl like Lydia—you know what I mean,”
said Aunt Beryl mysteriously.
“But a boarding-house is expensive. I never thought of anything like
that, auntie. Why, I should cost you more than I would if I lived at
home, a great deal,” said Lydia, aghast.
“Oh, I could easily make an arrangement with Maria Nettleship. And
you want the chance, Lydia, my dear. I’m sure I don’t blame you. It’s
not a good thing to stay in one place all one’s life long, I suppose.”
Aunt Beryl gave a sigh. “It would be just an experiment for a little
while, and I’m sure the expense isn’t to be thought of when we
know you would be paying it all back in a year or two.”
“If it’s simply a question of the ready,” said Uncle George solemnly,
“I can lay my hand on something at the minute. A bachelor has few
expenses, and except for the little I make over to the house, I can
put by a tidy little bit every year. I should look upon it as quite a