LIFE IN THE RECTORY.
Home life in the Rectory was tinged, as was that of most English
homes at the time, with Evangelical strictness. On Sunday all books,
needlework, and toys were put away. The day began with the learning
of collect or Catechism. As soon as the children were big enough they
attended services in the morning and afternoon.
Evening services were not yet introduced in Swardeston. Light was not
cheap, and the way across the country fields to church was no adventure
for Sabbath clothes on dark winter nights. Thus the closing hours on
Sunday were home hours for Rectory and village. Let those who have no
memories of such times scoff if they think fit. A memory is better
than a jest.
Edith Cavell’s father was Rector of this parish for more than fifty
years. He is dead now, but the villagers remember him well. His
portrait shows him with a mouth and chin of unusual firmness. His eyes
are kindly, but there is little sense of humour about them. It is
notably the face of an upright man. Surely capable of sternness, he
would be just to the point of inexorableness unless his face belies
him. A sense of duty is implicit in every line; and we have the best of
reasons for knowing that he transmitted this part of his character to
his daughter Edith.
“The clever Miss Cavell” she was called in later years when she worked
at a London hospital; but a more dominant characteristic was a rigid
insistence upon what she deemed to be right. This was the constant
theme of the father’s sermons to his village flock. He would not
hesitate to reproach from the pulpit any member of the congregation,
whatever his station, whom he considered guilty of grave fault.
The mother (who is now eighty years old, and lives very quietly at
Norwich) brought a gentler influence to bear upon the Rectory life.
There is a picture of her with two of her little girls. The mother
wears the wide flounces which to-day are among the earliest memories
of the “Men of Forty.” Flounces that were a protection and a promise.
Something for little hands to cling to when the legs were not yet
sure of their way. These flounces made a royal road from earth to the
children’s heaven. The grown-up world far out of reach was always
within call of a pull at the ample skirts.
Mrs. Cavell was a happy mother, and her children were happy too. So
early as the days we are speaking of her eyes had something wistful in
them. It was almost as if some inner consciousness had told her then of
the distant, poignant future.
So the family grew up in a contented, well-ordered home, with plenty
of outdoor games and sunshine, such as country children have. Long
afterwards, in the midst of London slums, Edith Cavell would talk of
the ripening blackberries far away in the Norfolk lanes, and of the
great jam-making times which followed.