It concerns what she called one of the great disappointments of her life. It happened when she was only four years old.
In addition to being a schoolmaster, her father gave private tuition to young men. Antonia got talking to one of these pupils while he was waiting for his lesson. He was so impressed by her knowledge that he gave her a gold coin, a half-sovereign!
When her father arrived and noticed the coin, he forced her to return it. He could not possibly allow her to accept it; it was far too much money for a child of her age. Despite his pupil’s efforts on Antonia’s behalf, her father was adamant. The coin went back into the young man’s pocket.
As she left the room, holding back her tears, she heard her father say:
“It was exceedingly generous of you, but I’m sure that you’ll see my point of view. No, no, she won’t be disappointed. I’m sure she knew all along she couldn’t possibly be allowed to keep it. Don’t worry. By tomorrow she’ll have forgotten all about it.”
This is what Antonia White said decades later:
“He was wrong. After seventy-two years I have not forgotten that breathless moment of possession and the bitter sense of injustice when the treasure was snatched away...”
This is a very good illustration of something that that really stands out in the biographies and autobiographies of many writers: how hard they take some things and how they often never forget and never forgive a childhood injury.
Diana Wynne Jones had this to say, in connection with being permanently affected by not being permitted to read fantasy books as a child:
“And it does bring you hard up against the responsibility adults have, if only because it shows you what a truly lasting impression can be made on a child.”
This is from her book Reflections: On the Magic of Writing, which is full of such insights.
It is very true that sometimes children never recover; they are permanently changed by a painful experience.
Antonia White said that the gold coin incident gave her a lifelong complex about money and the conviction that:
“...the more passionately I wanted something, the more unlikely I was to be allowed to have it.”
Her father sounds like the sort of possessive, controlling parent who wants to be the sole source of treats and presents and gives only what he wants his child to have as opposed to what the child wants. Some parents take a sadistic pleasure in depriving their child of something they have set their heart on.
Children who cannot stand up for themselves and look after their interests and have no one to do it for them are in big trouble. However, although Antonia White had someone who stood up to her father and spoke on her behalf it made no difference.
It was a triumph of authority over justice.
It is not obvious whether or not her father was sincere in what he said to reassure his pupil. I think that he was trying to make excuses for his severity, to fob the student off and make him forget the whole thing. He may even have known very well what effect his action would have, and that is why he did it.
It is likely that once the lesson started both Antonia White’s father and his pupil forget all about the gold coin, but being deprived of it left a lasting impression on her.
A late-Victorian gold half-sovereign:
