Anglo-Saxon Attitudes (54 page)

'Oh! she's a Portway,' Dollie cried. 'That accounts for it. They were all dotty.'

'Is her marriage working well?'  Gerald asked.

'She told me to tell you she was blissfully happy, but she couldn't tell what it really meant because she might be over-compensating. What on earth did she mean, Gerrie?'

'She always fears that excessive emotions may mean the opposite.'

'Well, strike me pink,' said Dollie. 'She asked us to lunch, but I refused.'

Gerald raised his eyebrows.

'Wait a minute,' Dollie said. '
I've been
there. She had two huge gins and I sat getting hungrier and hungrier. After an hour of that, while she talked nonstop, she went to see what there was in the larder. She came back with two tins of stuffed vine leaves but no opener. So we came back here and had eggs. Not again, thank you, Gerrie, not even for one of your girl-friends.'

When Gerald was getting into the car to return to London, Dollie said, 'Why don't you come here for Christmas? Or will you go to Inge's?'

Gerald was silent for a minute, then he said, 'As a matter of fact, I think I shall go abroad.'

'That's the stuff to give the troops,' Dollie cried.

As he travelled back to London, Gerald realized that Dollie was right. He was fonder of her than anyone, but her 'bright' simplicity, her self-confident censoriousness, would make her unbearable to live with. She was, he supposed, his unattainable vision of the noble savage.

Whether it was despite her injunction to keep away from his family or because of it, towards the end of November Gerald rang up Robin. His new-found intimacy with his elder son had been nipped in the bud, but there seemed no reason why he should not see this son he respected, especially as he now regarded the Marlow part of his family as lost to him.

Robin clearly also had a conscience. 'Oh, hullo, Father,' he answered. 'I've been meaning to ring you up for weeks, but I've been so hellishly busy.'

'You haven't had a return lunch off me,' Gerald said. 'When can you make it?'

'Oh! thank you. But you'd much better come to dinner in Hampstead. Marie Hélène'd love to see you.'

Gerald agreed reluctantly.

It was the only foggy night of November and Gerald was sorely tempted to cry off, but Larwood got him there somehow. Fog seemed to have seeped into the Regency dining-room. Marie Hélène's complexion and her bottle-green evening dress seemed full of it. The pretentious food tasted of it. There were three other guests - an ex- admiral turned company director and his wife - they talked of their holiday in Majorca - and Elizabeth Sands, the novelist's daughter. She said, 'After Mummy's death, I had the usual girl's decision - marriage or career, and as you see I chose career.' Gerald could see it all too clearly. The married couple left early because of the fog and took Miss Sands with them. Gerald waited for Larwood to fetch him. He seemed to wait a long time.

He made conversation with Robin about the brandy and with Marie Hélène about Timothy. She told him about the Jevington
débâcle.
'Poor Timothy!' she said. 'They take love so seriously at that age. It's quite amusing to see it. However, it was over quickly. He's in love with someone else already. Armand Sarthe liked you very much,' she said proudly. 'He told me to say that if you want to use any of the Paris libraries at any time, he will always be glad to recommend you.'

'How kind of him,' Gerald said.

'The Houdets are in Cannes now. Poor Tante Stéphanie was so sad to leave us. I only hope that Yves doesn't spend all their money. Anyone else but Elvira Portway would have had enough sense to tie it up more carefully,' Marie Hélène told him.

Both she and Robin said once or twice, 'You don't come to us often enough, Father.'

At half past ten Marie Hélène retired to her room. Robin gave his father a whisky and soda. 'You're just the man,' he said, 'to advise me about something. I've got rather interested in this Catholic business. That
affaire
with Elvira made me realize what a sinking sand I've lived on and it's set me thinking about Marie Hélène and how it is she's been such a tower of strength all this time. I don't know that I'm cut out for religion, but I'd like to know a good deal more about it. I can understand a lot of it, but this business of the Pope rather stands in the way. Of course, I could go for instruction, as they call it, and they wouldn't try to influence me, you know: they're far more liberal than people think. But I'd rather find out for myself, to begin with at any rate. What's the best book on the history of the early Church in your opinion, Father?'

Gerald said that this was a very wide question and that he would like to think it over.

'Oh, don't worry,' said Robin, 'it's not that important.'

Gerald realized that he had only been asked out of politeness. Robin, it was clear, would go for instruction anyway.

At last Larwood came to fetch him. 'Come and see us again when you feel like it, Father,' Robin said, 'but I know you're a busy man.'

Afterwards in bed Robin said, 'My God! that was a sticky evening. I do realize what Mother means about Father, poor old chap.' Marie Hélène said, 'It was good that we could entertain your father.' She preferred to say no more.

A week before Christmas Gerald had to report to the Syndic on the progress of the
History.
There were, as he had expected, some critics, but he had routed them easily. As he came away, Sir Edgar said, 'Well done, Middleton; you were in fine form. By the way,' he added, 'I'd like to see you this week. I've something important to discuss with you.'

'Well, I'm afraid that's going to be difficult,' Gerald said. 'I'm off to London airport now to fly to Mexico.'

'Mexico?'  Sir Edgar said, amazed.

'Yes,' Gerald drawled a little. 'I've always wanted to see those Aztec things, and Christmas time seemed to be a good time to go away. The contributions'll be pouring in by the spring and I shan't have much time for travelling. I'm taking
The Confessor
with me, I think I can write quite a bit of it there.'

'Ah, well,' Sir Edgar said. 'You're rich enough to do these things. It's a damned nuisance, though. I may be dead when you get back. I'm very old, you know.'

'Nonsense,' Gerald answered. 'But if it's important why not come down to the airport in the car with me. Larwood'll take you back to Holland Park.'

'Very well,' Sir Edgar said, and he chuckled. 'A few years ago if anyone had asked me to go to an airport and back I'd have thought he was mad. But when you're as old as I am, you might as well do what you're told.'

As the car sped through Hammersmith, Gerald noticed the evening newspaper placards. They read, 'Cressett Murder Trial. Latest Report.'

'I'm going to resign the chairmanship of the Association,' Sir Edgar said. 'I'm too old for it. But I'll be happier in doing so, if you'll agree to take it on. '

There was a moment's silence, then Gerald said, 'Thank you. I think I should like to accept.'

As they waited for Gerald's flight to be called, a woman in a Persian lamb coat bore down upon them. 'Professor Middleton. How very nice!' It was Clarissa Crane.

'You know Sir Edgar Iffley, Miss Crane, don't you?'  Gerald asked.

'But of course. How are you, Sir Edgar? Where are you off to, Professor Middleton?'

'Mexico.'

Clarissa took care to show no provincial surprise. 'Oh, yes,' she said, 'I didn't know you went in for American archaeology.'

'I don't,' Gerald answered. 'My motives are pure pleasure. I'm giving two lectures at the university there to pay for my keep.'

'Lucky man!' Clarissa said. 'I'm off to Lisbon on my way to Angola. But I have to
work
for my living. My publishers have commissioned me to write a book about it. They say it's a heavenly country with appalling social conditions.'

'Do they?'  Gerald commented.

'I had to give up my historical novel, thanks to your awful revelations about Melpham,' Clarissa continued. 'I think all you historians are frauds really, Sir Edgar. No more fiction for me now, historical or otherwise, just dreary old fact.'

'You are lucky,' said Sir Edgar, 'to be able to distinguish between them.'

Gerald's flight number was called. 'Good luck for your book, Miss Crane,' he said. He turned to Sir Edgar, 'I'll send you a postcard of a human sacrifice,' he said.

'My dear fellow, I know you won't do anything in such poor taste,' Sir Edgar replied. 'I'll put your name up to the committee when I send in my letter.'

'I'm very honoured,' Gerald said gravely and left them. With his black hat, umbrella, smart dark overcoat, and dispatch case, he looked like almost all the other men travelling on the aeroplane.

'He's so good-looking,' Clarissa said, 'and a charmer. He hasn't
done
much, has he? It's awfully dangerous really for people with brains to have money and good looks. They're practically bound to waste their talents. In any case I suppose one could say that Gerald Middleton had taken life a bit too easily.' She cocked her head, birdlike, on one side, as though considering her words. 'Don't you think so?'  she asked Sir Edgar.

The old man got up from the red American-leather couch. 'I can imagine someone who hardly knew him at all saying so. Yes,' he said. He raised his bowler hat. 'Good day to you,' he said. As he walked towards Larwood and the waiting car, he felt ashamed at having lost his temper. I had no right to be rude, he thought, God knows who the woman was, never seen her face or heard her name before. One thing was perfectly clear to him, however: she was a time-waster.

APPENDIX

EXTRACTS CONCERNING EORPWALD, BISHOP OF SEDWICH AND THE MELPHAM TOMB

Extract from Bede's 'History of the English Church and People'

Abbot Hadrian, fellow-worker in the word of God with Archbishop Theodore of blessed memory, sent Eorpwald to the East Folk and to King Aldbert, their prince. To them Eorpwald preached the word of God and under their prince they accepted the mysteries of the Faith. Their king Sabert had in former times been baptized in Christ and they with him; but after his death they had apostatized and they offered victims to devils at their altars. Now Eorpwald was of the East Folk, but he had early left his people and, when still only a boy, he had chosen the monastic rather than the secular life. He was of modest and goodly life and soon acquired great learning. He was companion to Bishop Wilfrid when the South Saxons received the word of God. But it was Eorpwald's wish that he should bring his own people back to the Faith and Sacraments of Christ, so that he listened joyfully to the command of Abbot Hadrian when he commanded him to preach the word of God to the East Folk. And by his teaching, King Aldbert, with all the nobility and a large number of humble folk, accepted the Faith and were washed in the cleansing waters of Baptism. And soon after Eorpwald died and was buried among his own people in the first year of the reign of King Huthlac, son of King Aldbert.

Extract from the early thirteenth-century Anonymi Episcopi Vita Eorpwaldi

And after that Saint Eorpwald had brought King Aldbert and all his people to receive the sacrament of Baptism and had induced them to forsake their horrible and erroneous beliefs, he remained among his own people preaching and teaching and amazing them by the holiness of his life and the modesty of his behaviour. After a short time he was appointed Bishop of Sedwich in the East Folk by Abbot Hadrian and he built a cathedral church there and consecratcd it to God and to St Peter, the keeper of the Heavenly Keys. He diligently governed the people committed to his care and defended the faithful from the attacks of ravening wolves. But as history shows, in the lives of the saints, the efforts of the zealous call forth deeds of darkness from the hearts of the ungodly. And so it was with the man of God, for there were those who spoke against him because he had suppressed sacrilege and put down concubinage among the laity. And out of their evil hearts they spread rumours that he had engaged in sorcery and had practised evil magic. And the holy man was preparing to set out on a journey to Rome to defend himself before the Holy Father against these wicked lies when he died. He was buried at Sedwich in the holy ground of the cathedral. But in after-years when the Northmen came upon these coasts, devouring all before them, ravening wolves, the clergy conveyed the body of the man of God secretly and buried it where no man knows. Some say it was at Bedbury and some at Melpham, but no man truly knows the place. And now that we have narrated the events in the saint's childhood, boyhood, youth, middle age, old age, let us speak of the wondrous happenings which were wrought by God's help after his life's work was over, and which made known to men the sanctity of his life. ...

J. R. Green 'History of the English People' (1877)

We know less of Eorpwald, Wilfrid's companion missionary to the savage South Saxons in that pagan coastal kingdom, cut off from the rest of the country then and for many centuries to come by the dread Andredsweald. He had fled from his own people, the pagan East Folk, as a boy, and learned the true gospel at the hands of monks. We may guess them to have breathed the new strong air that blew through Canterbury from Rome, for we next hear of him as Wilfrid's companion. It was his wish and his victory to convert his own people. He built the cathedral at Sedwich and died there. He was a man in all things, we may judge, of the high calibre we should expect of the friend of the great St Wilfrid.

Extract from 'The Bulletin of the Historical Association', vol xxii (Summer 1913). Conclusion of 'The Significance of Eorpwald's Burial', by the Rev. Reginald Portway, D.D., F.H.A.

It is still somewhat early to assess the significance of the discoveries made last year at Melpham. Thanks to the work of Professor Stokesay, Professor Plummer, and Dr Chadwick, our knowledge and understanding of the century of conversion grows yearly more complete; what was once a scene of darkness lit only by the brilliant light of Bede's great beacon lamp is now illumined here and there by the fires of linguistic scholarship and archaeological discovery. Nevertheless, the fires are still only fitful. Each and every discovery can only be examined against historical evidence, and historical evidence means here the story as we receive it from Bede. It is, of course, at once the glory and the bane of our research that the sole chronicler of that obscure age should have been a historian of genius. Bede's ecclesiastical history stands alone, yet by the accident of his greatness it is worth a dozen or more chronicles of later, more documented ages. On the other hand, the very greatness of Bede demands a caution in relation to other evidence that can perhaps impoverish us. One thing stands out from the results of the Melpham excavation: the despised anonymous thirteenth-century
Life of Eorpwald,
written at so late a date and with so evident a propaganda purpose, inherited traditional information of the most extraordinary kind, information apparently unknown to Bede, and that information has been shown to be true. For myself - and I speak as a local historian, deeply committed to the importance of local traditions - the outstanding fact that emerges from the Melpham excavation is its vindication of the value of such traditions. The anonymous biographer of Eorpwald - however late his work, however tendentious his purpose - was a monk of Sedwich, a man of the East Folk. He told us that Eorpwald was charged with sorcery; we now know that those charges had foundation. The lesson is obvious: however obscure, however unique the voice of local tradition, we disregard it at our peril. The intention of the anonymous biographer is obvious: he wished his hero to be numbered among the ranks of the saints. Yet the traditional story of Eorpwald's sorcery was still so widely known in the thirteenth century that his biographer could not omit it from the story of his holy man. Perhaps the story was more widely credited even in the thirteenth century than we can realize; certainly his biographer's plea fell on stony ground. Neither Innocent III nor his successors were prepared to canonize the missionary of the East Folk. However that may be, although Bede must remain our final arbiter for the events of the seventh century, we must recognize that there were other witnesses than Bede whose voices remain to us only in the pale echoes of later centuries, in the distorted voices of tradition and folk-lore.