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Secrecy: Silence, Power, And Religion Hugh B. Urban
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Geetha Marcus
Gypsy and Traveller Girls
Silence, Agency and Power
Geetha Marcus
University of Glasgow
Glasgow, UK
Studies in Childhood and Youth
ISBN 978-3-030-03702-4
ISBN 978-3-030-03703-1 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03703-1
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Preface
As an academic, former teacher and headteacher who has worked in the state and independent sectors in Scottish education, and as a British citizen of minority ethnic origin, I have developed a long-standing interest in circumstances that might adversely impact on the educational experiences of members of minority groups. It was initially through my work as a teacher engaging with Gypsy and Traveller children and their families in the north of Scotland, that I developed some frst-hand knowledge of how their experiences in and out of school infuences their education and social outlook.
Early in my teaching career, a young boy in my class announced that his grandfather was a storyteller and asked if he could come to tell the class his stories during Story Telling Festival Week. A dapper looking grandfather in a fne tweed jacket and cap, with gold rings on his fngers, walked in and introduced himself as Stanley Robertson. Little did I know then, what a famous storyteller and singer he was. Stanley entertained the children with his wild, wonderful tales and sang songs. He came to see us several times when I was a teacher in this private school. One day, at a School Assembly in which he was performing, a senior teacher took me aside and whispered, ‘We don’t have folk like
him in our school’. At the time, I had no idea what she meant or why she would have said such a thing. He was a fantastic storyteller and the children loved him. She was being derogatory, and I sensed racist, but I could not understand why one white person had a problem with another white person. Stanley never returned to that school and it was the last time I saw him. It was in conducting my doctoral study that I learned that the Elphinstone Institute at the University of Aberdeen had archived work of Stanley Robertson, Scottish Traveller, storyteller, ballad singer and piper. I tried to make contact again, but discovered he passed away in 2009.
I also discovered that relatively little research has been undertaken on Scottish Gypsies and Travellers, who have lived in Scotland since the twelfth century, making them one of Britain’s oldest nomadic communities. Sometimes referred to as the ‘mist people’ (Neat 1996: vii; Whyte 2001: 163; Smith 2002; Stewart 2008), Gypsy and Traveller lives are cloaked in invisibility. Although ostensibly ‘white’ and bearing little physical distinctiveness from the majority Scottish population, Gypsies and Travellers are often visibly absent while in plain sight, yet pathologically present in the Scottish imagination (Mirza 2015: 3). Te indigenous perspective is captured through the rich oral tradition within Gypsy and Traveller communities, but this ‘insider’ worldview on the lives and experiences of Gypsies and Travellers in Scotland is not well recognised or appreciated in scholarly studies. Te version of history we are taught is largely stories of heroes and villains, history that takes place in grand buildings and battlefelds. It is often silent about our shared, inner and domestic histories, the narratives of the rest of us, the everyday battles of those who live quietly and privately in anonymous terraced houses, in caravans or on the margins. In addition, the veracity of what is written and said about minority groups by members of dominant groups ought to be questioned and tested against indigenous accounts (Schröter 2013; Mirza 2015; Surdu 2016; Matache 2017).
Tis book is important because it centres the voices of Gypsy and Traveller girls for the frst time. Tere is currently no research that explores how girls and young women from Gypsy and Traveller communities fare in Scottish schools, and what they think of their experiences. Te Scottish Government’s Race Equality Statement (2009)
accepts that Gypsies and Travellers are ‘a particularly discriminated against and marginalised group’. Within education, research by Wilkin et al. (2009) indicates that Gypsy and Traveller children are the lowest achieving minority group in the United Kingdom.
It is against this backdrop that this book seeks to explore how Gypsy and Traveller girls frame their educational experiences, and to address a gap in the literature in which their experiences are misrecognised and erased through non-recognition. It ofers space for their gendered voices to be heard, an ‘oppositional gaze’ (hooks 1992) to that of the dominant voices of politicians, policy makers, headteachers, teachers, activists, parents and families. It raises awareness of how these young people are caught at the harsh end and at times sufer or negotiate residual trauma associated with the endless cycle of cultural violence against a community marginalised for centuries. Crucially, the girls’ stories also highlight their agency in the private spaces of home and the public spaces of education. Teir coping strategies, including self-segregation, epitomise a gesture of resistance toward the oppression of minorities by the doubly intensive gendering and racialisation of women.
Teir narratives contribute to our understanding of Gypsy and Traveller education in general, how their needs are not being met and why. Whilst in the spirit of inclusion, they are not formally segregated from State schools, the very nature of the education system and the people who work within it serve to physically and emotionally alienate and disempower through institutional and individual racism, ageism, gender and class discrimination. Tis book reveals that our education systems and their often laudable policies, which form the cradle of ideas, like inclusion, equity and excellence, can actually exacerbate exclusion, inequity and fawed defciency.
I am not a Gypsy or Traveller and would be considered ‘a gaujo’ (outsider) by these communities. Tis book does not pretend to represent, replace or undermine the authenticity of the lives of Gypsies and Travellers. Following Spivak’s (1988) advice, this book ‘represents’ the experiences and perspectives of the Gypsy and Traveller girls I met, their aspirations and the challenges they faced. It is a collection and exploration of the girls’ accounts of their lives written from a gaujo’s
perspective, but as I explain later, I was also an empathetic observer, ‘consciously partial’ (Mies 1983: 126).
Our comprehension of Gypsies and Travellers in Scotland remains underdeveloped for several reasons. Te hegemonic interpretations of Gypsies and Travellers are riddled with misperceptions and racialised assumptions that all Scottish Gypsies and Travellers are the same, that their experiences are largely negative, that they are poor and require access to benefts and that they are not a minority ethnic group, just a troublesome class of Scots (Clark 2001, 2006; Coxhead 2007). Given this complex background, the Economic and Social Research Council together with the Scottish Government provided joint funding that has culminated in this study to enhance understanding of Scottish Gypsy and Traveller lives. Te book is therefore made possible by their generous funding, and for identifying the need to improve understanding of the lives of Travelling Peoples in Scotland. I was pleased to use my experience in education together with a longstanding interest in issues concerning marginalisation (my own included) to explore the voices of Gypsy and Traveller girls. Tis labyrinthine research journey frst as a doctoral student at Edinburgh university, and then as a Lecturer at the University of Glasgow, continuing to develop my research and working with Gypsy and Traveller communities, has been both arduous and exciting.
Tis study presented real demands that I had never directly faced before in my professional life. Because of the mistrust which has grown up over generations between Gypsies, Travellers and the settled community, infuenced by issues around rejection and cultural diference, it took twelve months to establish a dialogue with both parents and the girls, before permissions were granted to undertake 13 semi-structured interviews which form the heart of this research, and a focus group discussion with four other Gypsy and Traveller girls. I also conducted discussions and interviews with 30 stakeholders, including teachers and policy makers, who provided valuable background information. Gaining access via stakeholders in third sector organisations who worked with these communities was instructive. For many reasons which I will discuss in the book, there were walls of silence and barriers that were difcult to overcome.
Te book is divided into eight chapters, the frst of which introduces the subject and establishes the perimeters of the study. In Chapter 2, I ofer a critical overview of the background historical knowledge and the main themes present in the literature on Gypsies and Travellers in the UK and in Scotland, and how both sit within the European context. I provide an account of the main groups and their identities and highlight how problematic this is for many concerned. Gypsies and Travellers are not one homogeneous entity, but rather diferent groups each with their own languages, lifestyles, cultures and ways of expressing their unique identities. I present a review of the minimal literature on Gypsy and Traveller women, which indicates the degree to which their perspectives are missing from the record. In Chapter 3, an explanation of the Scottish legal context for enrolment and attendance in school is established, and scholarly works and reports on the educational experiences of Gypsies and Travellers are examined.
Chapter 4 details decisions I made when conducting this research over a period of three years which clarify the complexities involved in working with communities that have been marginalised for centuries and to which the researcher does not belong. It represents the nested narrative of the research process itself that revealed the stories of the girls’ lives and experiences. Beginning with a justifcation for the use of a black feminist intersectional framework in which to situate and analyse my fndings, I highlight issues around sampling, strategies used to gain access to research participants and the ethical considerations and sensitivities surrounding research with children from minority ethnic backgrounds.
Te fndings that emerge from the research and the analysis of that data are presented and discussed in Chapter 5, using a typology of intersecting systems of structural/institutional (school), hegemonic (family and community culture) and interpersonal (family and personal) oppressions as advocated by Collins (2000: 276). I address how Gypsy and Traveller girls frame their educational experiences, foregrounding the girls’ own defnitions and understandings of education and learning, as it forms a useful backdrop upon which the tapestry of their lives is woven. An explanation of the types of educational establishments to which the Gypsy and Traveller girls have access, their
positive experiences, and the difculties and obstacles they face in the schools they attended are revealed. Te narratives demonstrate that although their accounts are not homogenous, racism and bullying by non—Gypsy and Traveller peers, lack of respect or support and understanding from school staf alongside fear and lack of trust, account for reasons why most of the girls cite negative experiences at school and are deterred from attending mainstream educational settings. What emerges somewhat unexpectedly, are instances of gender discrimination by school staf. As revealed, by staying hidden, invisible and silent, or through self-exclusion from mainstream education, the girls and their families can exert a measure of control over their circumstances and perceived intrusions of the State.
Chapter 6 examines the girls’ views and refections on how family values, expectations and culture infuence their educational experiences. I focus on the hegemonic inequalities refected in family and community culture that also function as challenges and barriers to the girls’ educational experiences. Te positive infuences of family and culture are highlighted, but the girls’ own accounts reveal how these can be limiting or even obstructive. Teir views are subdivided into three themes—love and care within family structures; freedom, control and honour; and gendered expectations. Juxtaposed against this segmented analysis, their interpretations of family expectations of education and school are challenged. Tis section underscores reasons the girls give for their families’ decision not to enrol their daughters in secondary school. Teir narratives reveal evidence of strict gender expectations and cultural taboos that can be restrictive. Te evidence suggests that many of the girls appear to be caught betwixt and between structural inequalities in school and within their family and community structures. In the main, many lack options and the freedom to make informed choices.
In Chapter 7, the narrative focuses on interpersonal matters, including the girls’ defnitions of success, identity and aspirations. Te chapter explores the complex ways in which the girls’ identities as individuals are shaped, and at times restricted by family and cultural identity, traditions and values. Teir personal defnition of the word ‘success’ and their understanding of what it is to be a successful person are considered. Teir aspirations are juxtaposed against the background of their
experiences in school and at home, as detailed in the previous two chapters. A key fnding in this chapter demonstrates how their goals resonate alongside the tension they negotiate between the love and respect they have for their families, and the restrictions imposed on them at home and at school, and the roles they perform.
Chapter 8 refects on the salient outcomes and conclusions based on the girls’ accounts of their lives, the arguments and debates raised and considers how Gypsy and Traveller girls and women can collectively imagine a new future, which subverts the patriarchal and hegemonic racial and gender order in their homes, schools and communities. It centres the voices of the girls representing the non-governmental organization Article 12, who through interviews have posed recommendations for change and progressive dialogue on matters concerning the opportunities impacting Gypsy and Traveller girls within the wider community. Article 12 is a charity that works to empower the lives of young Gypsies and Travellers (YGTL) and other marginalized young people, encouraging them to participate freely as equal citizens to help afect positive change in society.
All the girls and many of the stakeholders in the study have been anonymised for confdentiality within, or engagement with, the Gypsy and Traveller communities. In spite of this precaution, a censure on parts of the girls’ narratives was encouraged by a gatekeeper and an academic working in the feld. Both highlighted the issues faced by Gypsy and Traveller girls within their families could further alienate the community, could afrm calls for their assimilation into mainstream society, and seen as playing into the hands of racists. I was advised to delete anything that might be perceived as negative criticism of the community. Whilst I recognise their concerns, I have chosen not to modify the girls’ stories, even if at times it makes for a more variegated interpretation. Instead I have tried to honour their narratives by sharing their accounts in this book. As a black feminist, and as my background will demonstrate, I have strong views about the overt and subtle oppression of girls and women, and will address these. Just because communities are marginalised and persecuted from outwith does not preclude them from introspection of within-group tensions and problems.
Because of the political, moral and ethical sensitivity of the research focus, and the power imbalance in the age and experiences of the researcher and research participants, as a feminist I thought it important to be open and honest about my personal background, assumptions and interest in the study, and my shared experiences with the girls I met, despite there also being distinct diferences.
I am obliged here and throughout this book to use certain social categories, but I am fundamentally uncomfortable with the idea of categories and categorisation. I accept that within limits they are necessary to understand how the social world functions, particularly in signifying diferences and relational power that can serve to subjugate some groups. Categories and categorisations are reductive, not wholly reliable and ought to be questioned to avoid the trap of essentialising and ‘scientifcally creating artifcial groups on paper’ (Inken 2014: 266). Terms like White/Black, native/immigrant, settled/Traveller, are dualistic and inadequately capture the complexity of life at the intersections ‘where national boundaries, cultures, identities, and histories overlap, collide, and grind against each other to create new forms of consciousness’ (Grzanka 2014: 35). Categories can be internalised as we rehearse stories of who we are. However, the re-telling can mask or induce confusion and tensions in the construction of our identities. Living amongst a population that is overwhelmingly white, as a person of colour, I am often asked, ‘where are you from?’. If I reply, ‘I live here in Scotland and have done so for a long time’, the next question inevitably arises, ‘But where are you really from?’. On the one hand, the inquisitor tries to make a connection, but then, seeks a defnition, a category that reduces my identity and delineates my otherness.
Conducting this research has in itself compelled me to confront many established assumptions. I was raised in a pluralistic world where diversity and intercultural relations were the norm within a largely Chinese population. Although I am ethnically of Indian origin, I am third generation Singaporean, a product of two sets of aspiring diasporic families who escaped the British Raj in the late nineteenth century. I have lived in Scotland for over two decades. A diverse background is an advantage in today’s distinctly globalised world. I do not belong anywhere and feel no strong attachment to a particular location or culture,
a sort of world citizen. As a researcher, being a minority ethnic woman aids the oppositional gaze and sensitises me to the unconscious biases and discourses of the majority.
Having a good formal education has always been highly prized in my family, and many are educated professionals. I studied in a single sex Methodist missionary school, as had three generations of women in my family. In colonial Singapore, it was a way of bettering oneself and of assimilating into the gold standard of an ‘English education’. However, the term ‘educated’ ought to be problematised. As a teacher, I value education but have come to recognise how it can also control and confne. As a ‘non-white, colonial immigrant’ doing intersectional research, I am equally aware of my potential to be ‘ideologically co-opted’ by the dominant systems of knowledge that have trained me to think and teach (Bilge 2014: 16). Pring (2004: 9) suggests ‘there are diferent views as to what is to be counted as an “educated person”, and there is no obvious way that these diferences might be resolved’. Te concept of the ‘intellectual’, what and whose knowledge counts can be used by dominant powers to restrict access to education, politics and other arenas of infuence. Education can be used to maintain the status of the dominant, whilst prohibiting suppressed groups from improving their own (hooks 1994, 2003; Benjamin and Emejulu 2012). And yet, I value a formal education highly as I do the system I work within.
Encouraged by my parents since childhood, I also learned much from travelling. I travelled a lot as a young person and have moved regularly. Periodic migration or movement has its challenges, but I can appreciate the Gypsy and Traveller’s love of travelling. Tis study recognises that crossing from one space to another has practical, political and social implications. Territories and borders may be socio-politically constructed, but they are not just a line on a map and migration is not just an arrow revealing direction of travel (Mekdjian 2015: 1). Some types of movement are permissible and deemed desirable, but other types disparaged or criminalised.
It surprised me to discover how much I had in common with the girls. Tough set within a diferent cultural and geographical space, like them I too have experienced racialised and gendered discrimination. I too have attempted to self-exclude as a form of protective segregation.
Listening to their school experiences reminded me how tiring and debilitating it can be as a woman of colour to co-exist in spaces of whiteness (Ahmed 2012: 36). Not only did the research process and the girls’ voices evoke the mental and emotional labour that comes from being diferent, but I recognise too the ‘political labour that it takes to have spaces of relief from whiteness’ (Ahmed 2012: 37).
Te girls’ lives within a traditional patriarchal family and community structure resonated with aspects of my own South Asian family life. Family honour was dependent on girls or young women ‘preserving their honour’ until they married, after which that responsibility was to be monitored by a husband. I empathised with and understood their accounts of their roles, identities and responsibilities within their families and communities. One of the girls said, ‘you’re Indian so you will know what I am talking about. Indian people are very strict too, aren’t they?’ Restrictions and obligations within the private world of family had either to be accepted or delicately negotiated in the public spaces of education and the workplace (Emejulu 2013: 59).
My ‘social and economic locations’ (Yuval-Davis 2006: 199)—in terms of gender, ethnicity, class, age group and profession—intersect with each other and with those of the girls I interviewed. To a certain extent, we exchanged parts of who we were and the relationship was reciprocal. Te confguration of power and control between researcher and participant is not wholly one-sided throughout the research process. Tough I used ‘the interview’ as the main tool of data collection, we were drawn into a relationship with each other. During our conversations, I was aware that the girls I met were curious about me, as much as I was curious about them. Tey were interested to know about my life as an Indian and as a woman of colour, and seemed less defensive about their encounters because they sensed I would understand. As an Indian woman, my ‘racialised marking’ was in fact an advantage. However, my research position, power and control of the interview process shifted. I might have seemed like the adult in charge at times, but the girls were in control of what they wanted to reveal.
As human beings our identities are multiple, socially constructed, not static and variable. It is not possible, as the philosopher Gadamer (1976) suggests, to be fully aware of this milieu of intersections and
discipline one’s prejudices. However, whilst there are many ways in which my identities difered from those of the young people I met, giving rise to instances of divergence of values and perspectives, there were several signifcant points of convergence and contradiction. Far from acting as points of bias, these aided my understanding of what I was about to discover about the lives of the girls and young women I met.
As a researcher, it was not possible to detach myself entirely. I did not hesitate to articulate my comprehension of their narratives, and as Mies (1983) would say, I was ‘consciously partial’. Just as I could not remove the emotion from their experiences, neither could I remove the emotion from what I encountered in listening to them. In keeping with the feminist epistemology underpinning this research, I did not distance myself from participants during the interviews. Despite my ethnicity, age and professional status I was allowed access to information which I might not otherwise have gained. Yet, it could be argued that it is precisely because of these social locations that the girls took an interest in the research, connected with my identities as a ‘coloured person’, my ethnicity and gender, my previous job as a teacher, and my role as a parent. Following tradition in Gypsy and Traveller communities, the girls recognised that as an adult, mother, researcher, and teacher, I was in their eyes a person with experience and knowledge. In this sense, I was aware of their respect against the backdrop of my relative power and status. I was also deemed ‘safe’ to be with because their teachers and other contacts that they had come to trust introduced me to them.
Te research was at times uncomfortable and emotionally challenging, particularly when presenting my work to largely white academic audiences where I was ofering an inherently contrary worldview. On some of these occasions and particularly in Scotland, members of the audience were defensive or dismissive. Moments of hesitation and silences surrounding certain taboo topics exposed levels of discomfort. Te research was not easy and it was not always comfortable for researcher and researched. Tere were no simple neat categories of truth and experience, and on occasion it was necessary to question just how efectively one can truly represent another person (Pillow 2003: 176). Following Haraway’s (1988: 584) advice, ‘the politics and epistemology of partial perspectives’ undergirds this book. My personal experiences,
assumptions and views on racism and gender bias, on education and travel, have impacted on the research process and in my interpretation of the complexities of the multiple realities involved. I am conscious of my status as a ‘privileged interlocutor of the similitudes and diferences that constitute post-Imperial Englishness’, of which I am partially a product (Samantrai 2002: 2), challenging the racial and genderised undertones for minority ethnic women like myself. I acknowledge and use these to disrupt and problematise existing ‘understandings of power, inequality and diference … frmly supported by the [decolonising] epistemological foundations of intersectionality’ (Inken 2014: 266).
Tis research is careful in its use of pronouns like ‘I’, ‘we’, ‘them’, and ‘us’. A change-oriented, transformative study (Cresswell 2007) that relies heavily on data from a set of interviews conducted and analysed by one researcher, necessitates the use of the frst person to openly demonstrate the voice, interpretation, bias, and claims of the researcher. Te ‘them’ and ‘us’ rhetoric is rejected, as are the patronisingly colonial ‘we’ and nosisms.
I owe heartfelt thanks to Dr. Akwugo Emejulu for her guidance and I treasure the bright moments of insight that developed from meaningful discussions and her courageous work on racial, gender and ethnic inequalities. Troughout this process, it has been a luxurious privilege to share and dwell upon ideas I might not otherwise have had time to, and I have learned much. Equally, Jess Smith, Traveller writer, storyteller and singer, has been inspirational and I value her wisdom and humanity. She has written inspiring stories and novels about her childhood and her community, and she laments the fact that her work has not been valued by academia.
In the context of the feldwork, I owe especial thanks to the many stakeholders who shared their experience and knowledge of Gypsies and Travellers with me, with passionate enthusiasm and commitment to the work that they do. For reasons of confdentiality and due to the sensitivity of issues raised, it is with regret that I omit their names. I am grateful to my wonderful friends and family for their love, warmth and generosity. I owe much to my late father, a trade union activist exiled for his eforts. His invaluable insights and his outspoken courage inspire me to this day. Conducting feldwork within Gypsy and Traveller
communities and the interactions with the girls I met has been an immensely rewarding experience. Despite frustrations over the lengthy period of seeking access through numerous avenues to this understandably closed community, the realization of being able to do so and the opportunity of listening to the young women’s views was humbling. A number of the individuals were intrigued by my interest in them and a few have requested a copy of ‘the book’ to read how their stories were re-presented. Tank you to the Gypsy and Traveller girls who welcomed me into their ‘invisible’ lives, at times risking their reputations. I acknowledge with deep respect their tenacity, their love of family and community, and their wisdom. Tis book is for them.
Tis work is supported by a joint grant from the ESRC and Scottish Government (No. ES/ J500136/1).
Glasgow, UK Geetha Marcus
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Abbreviations
BEMIS Black and Ethnic Minorities Infrastructure in Scotland
CERES Centre for Education for Racial Equality in Scotland
COE Council of Europe
CRER Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights
EBD Emotional and Behavioural Disorder
EHE Elective Home Education
EHRC Equality and Human Rights Commission
EOC Equal Opportunities Committee
MECOPP Minority Ethnic Carers of Older People Project
MEPESS Minority Ethnic Pupils’ Experiences of Schools in Scotland
OECD Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development
SHRC Scottish Human Rights Council
STEP Scottish Traveller Education Programme
TENET Traveller Education Network
UNCRC United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child
Table 1.1 Profle of interviewed participants and school types attended 19
Table 2.1 Experiences of vulnerability from a Gypsy and Travelling perspective (Heaslip 2015: 3–4)
Table 2.2 Change in the number of Gypsy and Traveller pitches since 2009
38
51
Table 5.1 Educational settings and quality of experience 140
Table 5.2 Views on the importance of learning at home and at school 150
Table 5.3 Family circumstances and type of housing 192
Table 6.1 Parental care and reasons for non-attendance (extended = parents and grandparents)
208
Table 7.1 Career and marriage aspirations of the 13 research participants 259
1 The Outsiders Within: Stereotypes, Defnitions and Boundaries
Tis book explores the educational experiences of Scottish Gypsy and Traveller girls and seeks to centre the girls’ voices and perspectives, initially considered through a series of papers and publications during the course of my research (Marcus 2013a, b, 2014a, b, 2015a, b, 2016). It ofers space for their voices to be heard and features their agency in the private spaces of home and the public spaces of education. Te girls’ stories are highlighted and juxtaposed alongside the general problems encountered by Gypsies and Travellers and reveal a complex narrative that spans centuries.
Tis research builds on the limited literature on Gypsies and Travellers in Scotland (including Murray 1875; Wilson and Leighton 1885; Mackenzie 1883; MacRitchie 1894; McCormick 1907; Rehfsch and Rehfsch 1975; Williamson 1994; Neat 1996; Reid 1997; Kenrick 1998; Clark 2001, 2006, 2008, 2013; Clark and Taylor 2014; Shubin 2010, 2011). Te relative paucity of scholarly literature on the experiences of those living in Scottish Gypsy and Traveller communities, in itself accentuates their invisibility and disguises the gravity of the discrimination and inequality that afect some Travelling peoples. Gypsies and Travellers are outliers within our society.
G. Marcus, Gypsy and Traveller Girls, Studies in Childhood and Youth, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03703-1_1
Accounts of Scottish Gypsy and Traveller life also refect an authored gender imbalance in being written largely by men. Existing studies thus risk further erasing or misrecognising the competing experiences of Gypsy and Traveller women. It demonstrates an essential gap in the literature in which Gypsy and Traveller girls’ experiences are not represented. Tey are even more marginalised than the men and boys in their communities.
According to some studies, Gypsy and Traveller children have the lowest levels of educational achievement in the United Kingdom (Cemlyn et al. 2009; Wilkin et al. 2009). Organisations like the Scottish Traveller Education Programme (STEP), a national Knowledge Exchange and Information centre funded by the Scottish Government‘s Learning Directorate, have sought to investigate the reasons for this underachievement. Gypsy and Traveller children in Scotland often report negative social experiences in school and it is believed this factor is fuelled by poor communication, a lack of trust and a curriculum that can appear irrelevant to the travelling child and their family (STEP 2013). Gypsy and Traveller children are also outliers within our schools. None of these studies focus specifcally on girls. Tere is currently no research that examines how girls and young women from Gypsy and Traveller communities fare in Scottish schools and what they think of their experiences. As the girls’ voices are missing from the scholarly literature and policy documents, the critical exploration of their experiential accounts of education and schooling is timely and vital.
Te Scottish Government and the UK government have yet to develop a comprehensive National Roma Integration Strategy, which includes education, but has relied on current equalities legislation, such as the EU Race Directive 2003 and the Equalities Act 2010, to promote the integration of all Roma people in the country (European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights 2015: 3). Te EU has acknowledged that the improvements within its framework are still in its ‘early phase and needs to be supported with sustainable funding’ to translate national strategies into action at local level (European Union 2015: 14). Tere is insufcient involvement by local authorities and civil society, and the situation is not sufciently monitored (European Union 2015: 14).
It should be noted that across Europe, Gypsies and Travellers are classifed as Roma, however, there are distinct diferences in these communities at many levels—origin, identity, ascription, nationality, language, culture. Tese distinctions are made clear in the next chapter. Scottish Gypsies and Travellers do not identify as European Roma. Whilst similar stories of persecution and discrimination pervade their lives as Gypsy/Roma/Travellers, the degree and manner to which this occurs difers, as do their needs.
In 2013, a Scottish mapping exercise was completed to ‘ensure that Scotland is recognised at European levels for playing an active part in meeting the European Commission’s Roma inclusion objectives, build an understanding of the Roma population living in Scotland and increase knowledge about the individual and institutional capacity that exists in Scotland to apply EU funds for the social and economic inclusion/integration of the Roma populations’ (Te Social Marketing Gateway 2013: 4).
Confusion exists about whether these strategies and funding should apply to Roma from Europe and/or indigenous Scottish Gypsies and Travellers. Organisations like Article 12, hitherto mentioned in the preface, for example, who obtain funding from the government, only support young people from Gypsy and Traveller communities and do not cater to the needs of European Roma youth. Whereas, the Roma Youth Project, amongst others, cater only to the needs of the latter.
In June 2016, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, stated under Section 20 (c) that ‘many children in certain groups, including Roma, Gypsy and Traveller children… continue to experience discrimination and social stigmatization, including through the media’ (UNCRC 2016: 5). It also notes in Section 47 (a) that ‘bullying, including cyber bullying, remains a serious and widespread problem, particularly against…children belonging to minority groups, including Roma, Gypsy and Traveller children’ (2016: 11). Te committee expressed concern that in Scotland their health, accommodation and educational needs are not being adequately met. Tere is a disproportionate number of exclusions of Roma, Gypsy and Traveller children, including the use of informal exclusion practices like being ‘taught of site’, and isolation rooms to control behaviour (2016: 18). As the
girls’ accounts in this book attest, many experience being sent to these isolation rooms without clarifcation or work to occupy them.
My original proposal involved exploring educational data and guidelines, juxtaposing these materials and the voices of practitioners and that of the Gypsy and Traveller girls I interviewed. I also envisaged a study that balanced the views of practitioners and those of the girls. Over the course of my feldwork, my research focus changed to take a more critical stance to question why so little is known about the lives of Gypsy and Traveller girls and why their experiences and perspectives have not signifcantly featured in academic and policy debates that concern these children.
An underlying question in the unfolding narrative relates to how history is represented given that ‘a particular challenge in historiography arises when faced with two distinct cultural interpretations — one based on oral tradition and the other on written accounts’ (Marcus 1995: 1). Tis query led me to consider a focus on what knowledge and whose knowledge counts in the research process and this provoked a diferent study than was originally envisaged.
Following arguments made by black feminist bell hooks (1994, 2003) that formal education systems maintain ‘white supremacist patriarchy’, I found her analysis resonated strongly with the girls’ accounts of their lives in school. hooks (1992: 94) also states that there is ‘power in looking’, interrogating with a rebellious ‘oppositional gaze’, and in this context, at the education system that envelops these girls’ lives. Benjamin and Emejulu (2012: 33) afrm that ‘education is deeply political… at all levels it is shaped by relations of power’. Terefore, I felt I needed to undertake a process of ‘decolonising’ my study to disrupt how we think about education, the positive and negative power within it, and how to centre the views and experiences of Gypsy and Traveller girls, which seems to have been largely silenced.
While the original aims of my research would provide new data within a Scottish context, such a study was likely to have limited value in Scottish education and society unless I attempted to critically examine some of the structural, hegemonic and interpersonal practices (Collins 2000: 276) that surround Gypsy and Traveller girls in general. If the girls’ voiced experiences were to be heard, my focus also had to
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Spats by Grant and Cockburn; but Grandmamma, confessing to reluctance, was bound to say that, although this spirited conduct might help things a little, she was afraid it would not help them sufficiently.
Braided Morning Coat was awfully sorry. So was Grandmamma, sincerely sorry. Such a mannerly and personable young man; same school as John Peter Kendall, though not the same college. But it appeared to her, speaking with all reserve, and an ample sense of responsibility, that Mr. Shelmerdine’s status in his profession— whatever his profession might be, and she was not so clear on that point as she would like to be—was due to the fact that he was the eldest son of his father.
Braided Morning Coat confessed frankly that it might be so, although he was not without pecuniary resources of his own. There was also a small property in Cheshire which had come to him recently through his Aunt Tabitha, and was let on a five years’ lease to one of the founders of the Zionist movement.
“I learn from my granddaughter, Mr. Shelmerdine, that your father is a Peer.”
Braided Morning Coat humbly made that damaging admission.
“And that you succeed to the title?”
Braided Morning Coat, beginning to feel very low and miserable, pleaded guilty to this also.
“All this, to my mind, Mr. Shelmerdine, constitutes an insuperable barrier.” Diction beautifully clear and mellow How can it be otherwise with the Bean and Kendall tradition!
“Let me make myself quite understood, Mr. Shelmerdine. It hardly seems right, to my mind, that an old theatrical family should form an alliance with a comparatively recent peerage. I believe, Mr. Shelmerdine, ‘comparatively recent’ is not in excess of the facts. Jane, my parlor maid, has looked it up in Debrett, as my eyesight is not of the best. Created 1904, I believe, to the best of my recollection, during Mr. Vandeleur’s second administration.”
The answer was in the affirmative.
“Your father is a man of great distinction, I understand, a Proconsul who has rendered invaluable service to the Empire. All that I have heard about him redounds to his honor, but I cannot think he would give his sanction to this proposed alliance. I may say that I should not, if I were he.”
Braided Morning Coat was rather distressed.
“The fact is, Mr. Shelmerdine, I am strongly opposed to this modern craze for contracting matrimonial alliances between the theatrical profession and the peerage. To my mind, they are two entirely alien institutions. They both have their personal traditions and their private status, of which they have a right to be jealous; but it seems to me, and I am sure I voice the opinion of John Peter Kendall, were he not in his grave, that this unfortunate custom, which has lately come into vogue, lowers the dignity of both those institutions, is demoralizing in itself, and tends to diminish the respect in which either is held by the Public.”
Braided Morning Coat felt that “Hear, hear!” would have been appropriate to this beautifully delivered oration. But it had not the spirit now to say “Hear, hear” to anything. Its fond but presumptuous hopes lay shattered in a thousand pieces.
“The Public expects certain things of you, Mr. Shelmerdine, as the future head of a distinguished family. As a woman of extended public experience, I would like to give you this piece of advice, which was given to me by Mr Macready: Never disappoint the Public, and the Public will never disappoint you. You have your duties to fulfil—to yourself, to your family, and to your country. I do not say that my granddaughter would be incapable of helping you to fulfil them, because a member of an old theatrical family, in my judgment, Mr. Shelmerdine, is unworthy of the great traditions in which she has been bred if she cannot adorn any position to which it may please Providence to call her. But, at the same time, I recognize that public opinion looks to you to form an alliance elsewhere. I am sure it will be a great disappointment to the world, and a great grief to your excellent parents, whom I have not the pleasure of knowing, but
who, I am sure, must be very worthy as well as very distinguished people, if you should persist in this desire to form an alliance with my granddaughter.”
Braided Morning Coat, for all the compliments paid to it, which it had every reason to think sincere, began to feel as chastened as if it had been knocked down and run over by a Barnes and Hammersmith omnibus. Long before Grandmamma had said her say, the unlucky garment hadn’t a kick left in it.
Where was Mary? Somehow it did not seem to be playing quite fair to leave him all this time to the tender mercies of Grandmamma. Full of mischief like the rest of ’em, thought the Braided Morning Coat. She knows all the time we are gettin’ it terrific; but instead of standin’ by us like a man and a brother, she retires to the basement to help Cook peel the potatoes for supper.
“I hope, ma’am,” said the miserable varlet, “your decision is not a final one.”
“I am afraid, Mr. Shelmerdine, that I can find no reason at present to think otherwise.”
“Well, ma’am, it’s hardly my fault that I may have to succeed my father.”
“Mr. Shelmerdine, I quite accept that statement.”
In the neck again, you silly blighter, snarled the Twin Brethren.
“I’d abdicate if I could, but I can’t, ma’am, accordin’ to the rules of the Constitution. My Governor says—”
“Mr. Shelmerdine, I fully appreciate the insurmountable nature of the barrier.”
“I shall have enough to keep a wife, ma’am, but if you feel that I ought to go into Parliament, I shall be only too pleased to see about it at once.”
Lady Macbeth appreciated the honorable nature of the proposal, which intensified her great regret. But even a seat in Parliament could not gloss over the fact that he was the son of his father.
Suddenly, the front door bell pealed loudly down in the basement and reverberated throughout the house. A casual caller—perhaps Grandmamma’s old friend, Sir Swire, who called to see her most Sundays when he was in London.
The Braided Morning Coat winged a pious apostrophe to its private, particular gods.
Alas! the luckless garment was a trifle premature in its hymn of thanksgiving.
CHAPTER XIV
IN WHICH MARY QUALIFIES FOR THE RÔLE
OF THE BAD GIRL OF THE FAMILY
N who do you suppose it was, my lords and gentlemen, who pulled that blessed bell-wire? No, not the ex-lessee of the Cornmarket Theater. Miss Mary, helping Cook to peel the potatoes down in the basement, made herself acquainted with that fact when she pulled aside the window curtains and looked up through the area. Cockades and things were before the door of No. 10 Bedford Gardens; a raking pair of chestnuts; and a smart rubber-tired vehicle with armorial bearings.
The Bad Girl of the Family, peering through the kitchen curtains, with a half-peeled potato in one hand, and a bone-hafted knife in the other, saw Jeames de la Pluche, Esquire, who in that charming but absurd fur cape reminded her not a little of Harry Merino as the Cat in the moral drama of Dick Whittington, leap down from his perch with marked agility, whisk open the door, and lend assistance to something very uncommon in the way of distinction.
Uncommon Distinction was blonde and bland of countenance and very grande dame, as you could tell by her Carriage. Looked through her folders, and saw Number 10 over the fanlight; and as this she did, one of those terrible flashes of feminine intuition overtook Mary, that this must surely be Mother.
Yes, Mother undoubtedly. Had not Philip himself the same bland, blonde frontispiece; the same ample look of nourishment; the same air of deliberation as of one a little slow in the uptake; the same faint far-off suggestion of a finely grown vegetable? And to the quick eye of the feminine observer through the kitchen curtains, there were certain things pertaining to Mother which, up to the present, Son had not developed.
The clang of the front door bell reverberated through the basement.
“Drat it, Miss Mary,” said Cook. “And me not dressed yet. Would you mind letting in Sir Swire?”
“Why, of course,” said Miss Mary.
“But hadn’t you better leave your knife and your pertater, Miss Mary?”
“Oh, Sir Swire won’t mind those, Hannah; they’ll amuse him,” said the Bad Girl of the Family, who was half-way up the kitchen stairs already.
Mother upon the doorstep, in her new ermine tippet, was shocked not a little, deep down in the recesses of her nature. Still of course she was far too well found in the ways of the world to give her feelings publication. But if one is so ill-advised as to visit in Bohemian circles in the afternoon of the Sabbath Day, one must be prepared for all contingencies. Still, a half-pared potato, a sack-cloth apron, and a bone-hafted kitchen knife is a rather informal reception of a real peeress from Grosvenor Square on the part of Bedford Gardens.
“Mrs. Cathcart at home?” said Grosvenor Square, No. 88, the corner house, very bland and splendid.
“Oh, yes—won’t you come in?” said the Bad Girl winningly.
Impressive entrance of Governing Classes into an ill-lit but fairly spacious interior, which had a bust of Edward Bean over the hatstand, and John Peter Kendall as Richard II by—not after— Maclise over the dining-room door.
“Lady Shelmerdine,” said the bland and splendid one, as Mary pushed the front door to with her foot because her hands were occupied.
“Of Potterhanworth?” said the Bad Girl in tones warm and velvety
“Oh, yes,” said the Governing Classes, pained, perhaps, a little.
“Philip’s mother—so delighted—hope you don’t object to potatoes —it’s Jane’s afternoon out.”
But no further communication was forthcoming from the Governing Classes all the way up the solid length of stair-carpet to Grandmamma’s withdrawing-room.
Mary preceded No. 88 Grosvenor Square, potato, bone-hafted knife, sacking-cloth apron and all, into the stately presence of the cap-with-lace-which-had-been-worn-by-Siddons.
“Lady Shelmerdine of Potterhanworth, Granny.”
The Bad Girl turned and fled; very nearly impaled herself on the bone-hafted knife by counting fourteen stairs instead of thirteen, and continuing her course headlong until she fell howling into the arms of Cook. But in Edward Bean’s goddaughter’s withdrawing-room it was no laughing matter, my lords and gentlemen, we feel bound to tell you that. And we are forced to agree, though very reluctantly, with what Grandmamma said privately to the Bad Girl afterwards, which was that she would be none the worse for a good whipping.
“Mrs. Cathcart, I presume?” said No. 88 Grosvenor Square, very bland and splendid, although the tones had no need to be so icy— they hadn’t, really.
“You have the advantage of me,” said the Lady Macbeth to John Peter Kendall, offering her venerable hand to the angle of 1851, the Exhibition Year. “Ah, yes, Lady Shelmerdine—delighted to make your acquaintance.”
What of the Braided Morning Coat, you ask, while all this was toward? Perspiring freely in every pore and leaning up against the chimney-piece, and looking rather gray about the gills.
Should it make a bolt, or should it stay and grapple with the music? The pusillanimity of the former course, tempting no doubt to a weak resolution, would involve death and damnation; but the heroism of the latter required all that could be mustered by the playing fields of Eton and Christ Church. But while the unhappy inhabitant of the Braided Morning Coat was surrendered to this
problem, the stern, uncompromising eye of Mother decided the question.
“Phil-ipp!”
“Ma-ter!” And then, of course, the Twin Brethren called out the reserves. “Mrs. Cathcart—My Mother.”
The bow of Grosvenor Square, No. 88, the corner house, was aloof decidedly; the bow of the Lady Macbeth to John Peter Kendall was so full of conscious power and accumulated dignity that it was really quite gracious.
“Pray be seated, Lady Shelmerdine.”
Beautiful elocution on the part of the goddaughter of Edward Bean.
Lady Shelmerdine seated herself rather superbly, and opened fire with her tortoise-shell folders.
The cap-with-lace-that-had-been-worn-by-Siddons touched the electric button at its elbow.
Entrance of the Bad Girl of the Family, without her apron this time, and divested also of the potato and the bone-hafted knife.
“Mary, child, my spectacles.”
The Bad Girl dived desperately in the inmost recesses of the chiffonnier; found Grandmamma’s spectacles, and prepared to withdraw in something of a hurry. But she was detained.
“Has Jane returned, child?”
“Yes, Granny.”
“Ask her to have the goodness to bring some tea for Lady Shelmerdine.”
“Oh, not for me, thank you.”
“You are quite sure?”
No. 88 Grosvenor Square, the corner house, was quite, quite sure. Exit the Bad Girl of the Family without daring to look once in
the direction of the Braided Morning Coat that was still leaning up forlornly against the chimney-piece.
“Mrs. Cathcart,” said the Governing Classes, getting the first gun in action, “I have done myself the honor of calling upon you—”
“The honor, madam, is entirely mine,” Edward Bean’s goddaughter assured her.
“—because of a most unfortunate state of affairs which has just been brought to my notice.”
The goddaughter of Edward Bean looked sympathetic, although it doesn’t always do to judge by appearances, you know.
“My unfortunate son—Phil-ipp, perhaps you will be good enough to sit down, as it is most desirable that you should follow what I say with the closest attention—my unfortunate son, to the grief of his father, Lord Shelmerdine, has made a proposal of marriage to your niece.”
Lady Macbeth suggested mildly that granddaughter might be more in accordance with the facts of the case.
“Granddaughter—I beg your pardon. One has no need to tell you, Mrs. Cathcart, who, I am sure, are a woman of the world, that this act of my son’s has caused concern in his family.”
Lady Macbeth was sorry if that was the case.
“In point of fact, for some little time past my son has been engaged to Lady Adela Rocklaw.”
“Not quite that, you know, Mater,” murmured the unhappy Braided Morning Coat.
“—To Lady Adela Rocklaw, a daughter of Lord Warlock, and his conduct will cause pain, although, of course, madam, it has not yet become public property, and I sincerely hope it may not become so.”
“You ain’t puttin’ it quite fair, are you, Mater?” ventured the Braided Morning Coat.
“Phil-ipp, please!” A wave of a she-proconsular hand. “Allow me to deal with the facts. A most embarrassing situation, madam, for two families.”
“One moment, Lady Shelmerdine,” said Lady Macbeth. “May I ask this question? Do I understand your son to be actually engaged to Lady Adela Rocklaw?”
“Yes, madam, you may take that to be so.”
“Mr. Shelmerdine,” said the Queen of Tragedy, “I must ask you for an explana-tion.”
Braided Morning Coat, notwithstanding that it was feeling completely undone, unbuttoned itself nervously.
“The Mater’s a bit mixed, ma’am, and that’s the truth. I am not engaged to Lady Adela.”
“Perhaps, Phil-ipp, not officially.”
“No, Mater, and not unofficially, and—” Herculean effort by the Green Chartreuse—“I don’t mind sayin’, I’ve no intention—”
“Phil-ipp!”
“Lady Shelmerdine,” said the Queen of Tragedy, “the situation is not altogether clear to my mind. Either your son is engaged to marry Lady Adela Rocklaw, or he is not.”
“He is morally engaged to her.”
“I am sorry I am unable to appreciate the distinction. Do I understand that your son is engaged to Lady Adela?”
“No, ma’am, I’m not,” said the Braided Morning Coat with honorable boldness.
“But Phil-ipp!”
“It’s the truth, Mater. Mrs. Cathcart asks a plain question, and there’s a plain answer. And after all, I’m the chap—”
“Quite so, Mr. Shelmerdine,” said Lady Macbeth, looking almost as wise as the Lord Chief Justice of England as he sits in the Court
of Appeal. “This is your affair You have a right to know your own mind—moreover, you have a right to express it.”
The Braided Morning Coat felt the stronger for this well-timed assistance. It was easy to see from which side of the family Miss Mary had inherited her strong, good sense. A masterful old thing, but she really was helpin’ a lame dog over a stile, wasn’t she?
Blonder and blander grew the Colthurst of Suffolk. It really looked as though it might be a pretty set-to.
“Perhaps Phil-ipp, if you looked into your club for an hour—”
The Green Chartreuse, the horrid coward, wanted to quit the stricken field prematurely. But if he had, as sure as Fate, Mother would have won quite easily. Happily he did not. Mr. Philip stuck to his guns like a Briton, and Grandmamma at least thought none the worse of him for it. The Lady Macbeth to John Peter Kendall had an opinion of her own on nearly every subject; and the order of which the Braided Morning Coat would one day be an ornament had in her judgment to carry a rather serious penalty; but the old thing in her shrewd old heart—an imperious old thing, too—who had kept pretty good company for eighty-four years or so, was not altogether inclined to accept all the world and his wife at their surface valuation.
“The Family, madam,” said the Colthurst of Suffolk, “is unable to countenance an alliance between my unfortunate son and your granddaughter, who, one is given to understand, is at present engaged in a pantomime. I am, however, empowered by Lord Shelmerdine to offer reparation if such is required.”
These were not the actual words used by Mother. Her style was easier, a little less florid, a trifle more conversational; but manner is said to be more eloquent than matter in the higher diplomacy; thus the foregoing represents more or less accurately the ultimatum of the Governing Classes.
Grandmamma didn’t look pleased; at least not very. The Florid Person was evidently taking herself rather seriously. Let her Beware —that was all—quoth Conscious Strength, amid the inner convolutions of the cap-of-real-lace-that-had-been-worn-by-Siddons.
“It appears to me, Lady Shelmerdine,” said the goddaughter of Edward Bean, “that this is perhaps a matter for your son and my granddaughter, and that no practical purpose will be served by third and fourth parties discussing it—except, perhaps, in a spirit purely academic.”
In a spirit purely academic! Well done, Peggy, whispered the delighted shade of John Peter Kendall, hovering somewhere in a cornice of the ceiling, immediately above the bust of himself.
“Mrs. Cathcart, as a woman of the world, and as one who is in a position to appreciate the feelings of a mother, I am sure I shall not appeal to you in vain.”
When in doubt, saith the Diplomatist’s Handbook, Suaviter in Modo is a card you should always play. But how often has Grandmamma seen it, in the course of her eighty-four summers, do you suppose?
It was here that the Braided Morning Coat felt it was up to it to say something, and forthwith proceeded to do so.
“I agree with you, ma’am,” said he. “It’s just a matter for Mary and me. She won’t say Yes, and I won’t take No, and there we are at present. But I’m goin’ to ask her again, because I love her and all that, and I know I’m not worthy of her—but I’m goin’ to try to be, and I’m goin’ to see about Parliament at once.”
The silence was ominous.
“That appears to be a perfectly manly and straightforward course to take, Mr Shelmerdine,” said Grandmamma, breaking the silence rather grimly.
Please observe that she didn’t tell Mother that she declined to sanction the match. In the circumstances, therefore, it is hardly kind to blame Mother for making quite a number of errors.
Of course error the first was to come when Mr. Philip was present in propria persona. But that, we are afraid, was due to the aboriginal defect of a parent in underrating the importance of its offspring. What she ought to have done really, was to have come not as an important
unit of the Governing Classes, but to have crept in by stealth, as it were, as the poor human mother humbly craving assistance; and she ought to have kept her foot on the soft pedal throughout the whole of the concerto.
Alas! the manner of Mother’s coming had been otherwise. And the longer she remained, the less she ought to have said in order to realize the estimate she had formed of her own wisdom—and when the spouse of a great Proconsul is thinking imperially you can have no idea how great that estimate is.
“Lord Shelmerdine empowers me to offer all reasonable reparation.”
Grandmamma was interested to hear that in spite of the fact that the whole matter was so purely academic.
“If there is any special form the young lady—I haven’t the pleasure of the name of your niece, madam—would desire the reparation to assume, Lord Shelmerdine’s solicitor will be happy to call upon her to-morrow.”
“Oh, but Mater—I say—”
Slight display of Fortiter in order to cope with this unfilial interruption.
“It is your father’s wish, Philip.”
The ears of Grandmamma had seemed to cock a little at the mention of Lord Shelmerdine’s solicitor.
“Forgive me, madam, if I appear dense,” said the most perfect elocution.
Underplay a bit, Peggy my dear, like Fanny does in genuine light comedy, said the Distinguished Shade, smiling benevolently down from the cornice.
But this was the goddaughter of Bean, which perhaps the Shade had forgotten.
“You are talkin’ rot, aren’t you, Mater?” said the Braided Morning Coat in vibrant tones.
“It is your father’s wish, Phil-ipp. He desires that no injustice—If thought desirable, reparation may assume a pecuniary—”
“You are talkin’ rot though, Mater, ain’t you?”
Incredible hardihood certainly on the part of the Braided Morning Coat. But eminently honorable to that chequered garment, perhaps the world is entitled to think.
Lady Macbeth was not looking so very amenable just now A very masterful old thing in her way, and had always been so. And really, Mother was a little crude in places, wasn’t she?
Still, we are bound to do Mother the justice that she was not aware of the fact. Indeed to her it seemed that the higher diplomacy was really doing very well indeed. Everything so pleasant, so agreeable; iron hand in velvet glove, but used so lightly that Bohemian Circles were hardly conscious of its presence. Mother was getting on famous in her own opinion, and she ought to have known.
Matrimony quite out of the question, of course, between the granddaughter of Lady Macbeth and eldest son of the House. The Governing Classes hoped that that had been made quite clear to the wife of the Thane of Cawdor.
The Wife of the Thane appeared to think it had been.
“Of a pecuniary character, I think you said?” said the goddaughter of Edward Bean.
“Yes, pecuniary; Lord Shelmerdine has no reason to think that Phil-ipp has been so unwise as to enter into a formal engagement, but it is his desire to be quite fair, even to be generous.”
Steady, Cavalry! whispered the Distinguished Shade in the ear of Peggy.
“Or even generous, madam! One would be happy to have an idea of the shape Lord Shelmerdine’s generosity might assume.”
The unhappy Braided Morning Coat regretted exceedingly that it could not disclaim responsibility for both parents.
“But, Mater—!”
“No, do not interrupt, dear Phil-ipp. This is all so important and so delicate. Lord Shelmerdine thinks five hundred pounds—and I am empowered—”
And then it was that Mother found Trouble.
Trouble came to Mother quite unexpected, like a bolt from the blue—or like a shot out of a cannon, according to the subsequent version of an eye-witness.
It would hardly be kind to describe the scene in detail. Lady Macbeth, in spite of her eighty-four summers, made rather short work of Mother. Not that Mother was overborne by Christian meekness altogether. Assured Social Position, knowing itself to be absolutely right, and acting all for the best, does not always offer the other cheek with perfect facility.
Please do not misunderstand us. It was hardly a scene. The proprieties were observed with really Victorian rigidity; it was all very grande dame; but one being Lady Macbeth to John Peter Kendall, and the other a leading Constitutional hostess who had recently moved to Grosvenor Square, well—
Far from Mother’s intention to offer an affront to the granddaughter of Lady Macbeth. But Miss Footlight of the Frivolity had quite recently received the sum of ten thousand pounds from the people of young Lord Footle, which sum was of course excessive, as dear Justice Brusher had said to Mother at dinner last evening.
“Madam, I hold no opinion of Justice Brusher; Miss Footlight I don’t know, and Lord Footle I don’t desire to know; but it is impossible for my granddaughter, a member of an old theatrical family, to pocket this insult.”
And Grandmamma rang the bell with tremendous dignity.
Jane the parlor-maid it was who appeared this time, looking all the prettier for her afternoon out.
“Jane,” said the acknowledged Queen of Tragedy, “pray conduct Lady Shelmerdine to her carriage—and in future I do not receive her.”
Poor old Mother! And in her new ermine tippet, too.
“Phil-ipp, accompany me.”
Philip accompanied Mother down the stairs, past the bust of Bean in the front hall, down the nine steps of Number Ten Bedford Gardens, and handed her into her carriage.
“We dine at eight this evening, Philip. Your father will expect you.”
“Impossible, Mater. Dinin’ at the Old Players’ Club.”
To give the Governing Classes their due, they certainly made exit in pretty good style from Bohemia. As for Mr. Philip, he returned to the front hall to retrieve his hat and his coat with the astrachan collar and other belongings, and wondered if it would be wise to say goodby to Grandmamma, and decided that perhaps he had better not risk it. But before he could get into his famous garment, the Bad Girl of the Family descended upon him from the basement—we are not quite sure how she managed to do it, but simple little feats in elementary acrobatics are always possible to a pantomime performer—and haled the young man by main force into what she called her Private Piggery, which in reality was a small back parlor of sorts in an indescribable state of confusion.
Having brought the froward young man to this undesirable bourn, the Bad Girl turned up the electric light, and then without any warning proceeded to fall into a state that bordered upon tears and general collapse.
The heir to the barony was not feeling so very amused just now, though.
“My opinion you were listening, you cat.”
“Granny—the dreadful old spitfire!”
“Tactless of the Mater I’ll admit. Quite well meant though, Polly.”
“How dare you call me Polly after all that has happened!” And the youngest member of the old theatrical family whisked away her tears with a rather smart lace-broidered handkerchief, and looked almost as fierce as the Cat in the moral drama of Dick Whittington.
“Howlin’ blunder, I’ll admit; but you aren’t crabbed about it, are you, old girl?”
“Please don’t admit anything, Mr Shelmerdine—and how dare you call me old girl after what has happened? Don’t let me have to ring for Jane and not receive you in future—”
“So you were listening, you cat!”
“Wouldn’t you have been—Phil-ipp?”
“It is a horrid mix-up though, isn’t it? Look here, old girl, I really think the best thing we can do is to go and get married to-morrow mornin’ before the Registrar.”
Cinderella seemed to think, however, that such a proposal was not in the plane of practical politics.
“I know, old girl, that a Church is considered a bit more respectable; but I thought that the Registrar would be quicker and easier.”
“You are rather taking it for granted, aren’t you, Philip, that I’m going to marry you, when you know I’m not.”
“Well, I do think, Polly, after all that has happened—!”
But somehow Polly didn’t quite see it in that way. She couldn’t think of such a thing without the consent of Granny. And even if Granny did consent—which, of course, her consent would never be given, his people would never give theirs, would they? so that even that would not make their prospects any rosier.
“But I thought you were goin’ to be a pal to me, Polly!”
“So I am, Phil-ipp, but I mustn’t marry you, must I, against the wishes of your People.”
It was hard for a young man of inexperience to know exactly how much was meant by the Bad Girl of the Family when she was in this kind of humor. But whatever doubts that were in his mind, he suddenly laid hold of her quite firmly and kissed her quite soundly, and, strictly between ourselves, you young bachelors of Cam and
Isis, that was just about the best thing he could have done in the circumstances.
Nevertheless the young man was still involved pretty deeply in the crisis of his fate. Bliss unspeakable was so nearly within his grasp, and yet it was so elusive. He was not without the rudiments of determination, and he had fully made up his mind that this was the girl for him, but just now he really didn’t quite know how he was to enter his kingdom.
Decidedly he must pluck this peach, and he must pluck it immediately But how?—that was the problem, with the Fates having loaded the dice.
CHAPTER XV
IN WHICH WE SIT AT THE FEET OF GAMALIEL
O the morrow, or about midnight that same day, to be precise, when Arminius Wingrove came into the club after attending an important première, the great man was engaged in conversation by Mr. Philip while they dallied with devilled kidneys and other comestibles.
“Minnie,” said the vain young fellow, “everybody says you are the cleverest chap in London, so I want your advice.”
Rather cool, perhaps, to demand advice of the cleverest chap in London in this point-blank manner, but Arminius, who kept a generous heart beneath his waistcoat of white piquè, showed no displeasure.
“If you mean about the girl you are making a fool of yourself over,” said the great man, “don’t, is the advice I shall have to give you.”
“Oh, but I’ve got beyond that already,” said the vain young fellow with a rather grand simplicity.
“Have you, though?” said Arminius, pensive-like.
“Yes, I’m goin’ to marry her if she’ll have me, but the trouble is, she won’t.”
“Won’t she, though!” said Arminius, looking rather like the statuette of himself by Sir W. G-sc-mbe J-hn.
“No, she won’t, Minnie, and that’s all about it, until her old grandmother gives her consent; and the old lady simply won’t hear of it.”
“Who is her old grandmother?” inquired Arminius, “and why won’t she?”
“Her grandmother is Mrs. Cathcart, who played Lady Macbeth with David Garrick, and she’s taken a prejudice against me because I’m the son of a peer.”
The manner of Arminius seemed to imply that old Mrs. Cathcart had been guilty of a very unfeminine proceeding. But being a disciple of Talleyrand, the great man did not clothe his thoughts with words.
“And to make matters worse, Minnie, there was a simply frightful turn-up between her grandmother and my Mater yesterday afternoon.”
With the flair of a playwright whom Hannibal had himself approved, Arminius Wingrove asked for further information.
“Simply gorgeous, Minnie, for a chap who hadn’t to be in it. Wouldn’t have missed it for worlds—except that I kind of wasn’t in a position to enjoy it, was I? But it hasn’t half crabbed the piece! Tragedy Queen ordered Mater out of the house, and says she shan’t receive her in future. So it’s all up with my people, and I’m afraid it’s all up with hers; and the girl isn’t going to marry me without the consent of all parties.”
The statement of the vain young fellow seemed both florid and ingenuous to Arminius Wingrove, who had hardly been so much amused by anything since the revival of The Importance of Being Earnest.
“And so you don’t think she’ll marry you, do you, my son?”
Arminius Wingrove had not a mercenary nature, but he wouldn’t mind laying a “pony” on the event. The heart of the heir to the barony gave a bound.
“Why, what reason have you to think so, Minnie?” he said in a voice of tense emotion.
“Because there’s not half a reason why she shouldn’t, my lad.”
“But she is simply devoted to her old grandmother.”
