The Grove School
Highgate
London N
Saturday March 13th /15
My dear Father
I think I will do as I did last week – write to you today instead of tomorrow; and if it is done I can post it tonight so that you will get it on Monday morning.
I do wonder when you will first hear from George, I am longing to hear about his first letter from France. Kathleen has asked me to Sydenham for next weekend, and hopes that Cyril may be able to come over on Sunday; shan’t we have a lot to pow-wow about?
Miss Lacey does seem to be unlucky this term, there is a fuss now about some money which has been taken from several girls’ purses, and now we have all given Miss Lacey every penny we possess and she is keeping it locked up for us for the rest of this term, so that she shall have the responsibility of it. It is a great nuisance for her I should think having people coming to her at all hours of the day for pennies here and there! But it is the best plan. If we keep any money at all ourselves we have to promise to carry it on our persons the whole time. It seems to me it is almost impossible to find out who has done it.
Miss Lacey has asked me to take two piano pupils next term. They are two small children whose people cannot afford to pay Miss Hamilton’s fees and Miss Lacey has told them that if they will put up with a totally inexperienced teacher, she can guarantee that I have been too well taught myself to teach them anything that will need unlearning afterwards. Dilys Richards is one of them, she is 12, and the other is Annette Scott, a little girl of ten or 11 who is coming next term.
Oh yes and I’ve got a funny story connected with her asking me if I would care to take them. You must understand that lunch is a fairly moveable feast, we come in and sit just wherever there is room, filling up all the tables before the top table where Miss Lacey sits. The top table has Miss Lacey at one end and by her sit visiting teachers when they come to lunch or anyone whom she invites to sit by her – and those are only mistresses and occasionally perhaps the captain. Well, that day I came over rather late and all the tables were full except the top table, so in the usual course of things I planked myself down at the opposite end and had just sat down with my meat when Miss Lacey called out to me in a sonorous voice: “Ah Juliet I wanted to speak to you, come and sit here will you (pointing to the place beside her) and we can talk while you have your lunch.” The whole dining-room heard it and looked horror-struck at the vision of a common or garden little 17er like me sitting in the seats of the mighty penned in among mistresses and such like! You can imagine how superior I felt! It was really quite fun once I found out I wasn’t in for a jaw.
Miss Grierson says she would like very much to come to Badsey next summer holidays and she will be able to tell me next term about what time would best suit her when she knows when Miss Lunnis will be getting her holidays. She said, “What will your Mother think of my short hair and the rest of my eccentricities?” I said I didn’t think Mother judged people by appearances and eccentricities. I laughed and told her I should steal your roses for her and she said, “Oh I shall most certainly come!”
There is the dinner-bell so I must be off. Tell Det she doesn’t deserve a letter for she hasn’t written home since BC 500, so I’m not writing to her.
Much love from your affectionate daughter
Juliet Sladden.
