The Cardboard Crown (6 page)

It was more difficult to appease Miss Verso than the Langtons or the law. She felt that Alice and the name of Verso had been treated with disrespect. She would have been very pleased with the match if it had been normally arranged. Austin was a fine-looking young man, and as the eldest son of the Chief Justice was as eligible as any other in Melbourne. But the implication of the elopement was that the marriage was one of which his family would disapprove, and being sensitive on the subject of Alice’s mother and stepfather, she attributed their imagined disapproval to this undesirable
association. Even when the Langtons welcomed Alice with the greatest affection, she did not become reconciled to the marriage. She did not see that Sir William’s only reason for disapproving was that he did not want his son, who already showed too great a love of pleasure, to have his gingerbread so soon and so heavily gilded. It was some months before Miss Verso would see Alice and Austin, except on necessary business. A year later, she returned to England. She refused the allowance offered her by Alice, and lived economically on her own small income, and after two winters she died. My father used to say that it was only the strong streak of conscience we inherited from the Versos that kept us all out of the jails and the lunatic asylums, so it seems that Alice brought us not only money, but enough character to enjoy it without too great a deterioration. My father of course may only have said this to give some credit to his mother’s rather broken and tarnished family, which Hetty never ceased to describe as one of drunkards and gamblers.

Austin had conversations with Sir William about his future. He said that he wanted to breed horses and when any comment was made on his idleness, he went off to inspect a site for a stud farm, but he always came back and said that it was unsuitable. He had originally wanted a stud farm so that he could have good horses, as a child might say: ‘When I grow up I’m going to have a sweet shop.’ Austin could now afford what sweets he wanted without the shop. In the meantime he and Alice were living with his parents at Bishopscourt.

Austin was never an idler, and it is unlikely that he married Alice for her money, or that, as in Arthur’s story,
he knew of it before the wedding. He must have known she had some money, but Miss Verso’s menage gave no indication of wealth. Also Alice was attractive enough to need no bait. When he learned the extent of her income he was frankly more delighted than embarrassed. He was untouched by the nineteenth-century middle-class idea that it is dishonourable to marry a girl with a great deal more money than oneself, though his father apparently believed this. Austin was more like the saintly Alyosha Karamazov, who was indifferent as to who paid for his food and shelter, though he was a quite unconscious parasite, and would not have sponged on anyone who could ill afford it. Also he would not have cared to live with the poor.

Now he was much too interested in revealing to Alice the connection between money and this world’s goods to think about burying her and himself in the country. Miss Verso had regarded her niece’s growing fortune merely as a mathematical increase in security, not as something that could be converted into horses, fine clothes and carriages. Alice enjoyed this revelation as much as Austin enjoyed making it, and it increased her love and admiration for him. She felt that her security had not lain in Miss Verso’s thrift, but was in Austin’s capacity to spend.

A few months after their son’s marriage, Sir William and Lady Langton prepared to leave for England on a year’s furlough, to be followed possibly by retirement if his health did not improve. The children were to remain in Australia in case he did return, and so save the expense of a double journey for them. They were to live with the Mayhews at the deanery.

There are some entries and accounts of conversations in Alice’s diaries at this time from which I am able to make up a fairly coherent story. The diaries and Arthur are my two main authorities, but I have heard numerous details of various incidents from different members of the family. From now on, I shall not often interrupt myself to quote my reference, unless there are conflicting accounts.

Meanwhile Hetty was turning the deanery into a miniature inferno, throwing plates at her brothers who teased her, or bursting into paroxysms of sobbing and dashing from the dinner table. Certainly I remember one of the Mayhews, then quite an old man, with a scar across his forehead which was said to be caused by Hetty’s throwing a decanter of port at him when he was a boy. Aunt Mildy said that Hetty went into a decline, and stayed all day in her room, reading religious books about love and death, so that her parents became anxious about her health and feared she might develop the wasting disease. Whether it was the desire to rid themselves of a raging wounded tigress, or anxiety to save a wilting snowdrop, it is true that they asked the Langtons if they would take charge of Hetty on the ship, if they sent her to England for a change. They must have been very anxious to be rid of her, as the expense of this trip deprived their eldest boy of a university education.

Alice and Austin, who had been out shopping, came in just as Lady Langton had written to Mrs Mayhew agreeing to chaperone Hetty to England. She told them what she had done.

‘Oh, I would love to go to England,’ exclaimed Alice. Austin said that there was no reason why she should not.

‘But what about the stud farm?’ asked Lady Langton.

‘I can’t deprive Alice of the sort of life she’s entitled to,’ said Austin.

‘Then dear, you might choose an occupation which doesn’t conflict with that life,’ suggested his mother.

‘I could read for the Bar, I suppose,’ said Austin doubtfully. ‘That’s what Papa has always wanted me to do.’

‘It would please him very much if you did.’

‘Then you won’t object to my taking Alice home?’

‘As long as it isn’t Alice taking you home,’ said Lady Langton.

Alice had the uncomfortable feeling that they were going to talk about her money, and she went up to take off her bonnet, so the rest of the conversation is lost, but apparently, there was a good deal of discussion among the Langtons as to whether it was advisable for Alice to go on the same ship with Hetty, who had taken such a violent dislike to her.

‘It’s not Alice,’ said Austin. ‘I’m the one Hetty doesn’t like, and I can take care of myself.’

To Lady Langton’s surprise, her husband welcomed the idea of the young people coming to England with him. He was tired, had become indifferent to ambition, either for himself or his son, and he was depressed at the prospect of parting from all his children for a year. Mrs Mayhew, when she heard that Alice and Austin were going, went with trepidation to warn Hetty, but Hetty said nothing and appeared more satisfied than otherwise.

The fact that Hetty was allowed to travel with the Langtons rather discredits Arthur’s account of the Bishopscourt dinner party, for if she had revealed her passion for Austin
with such devouring rage, surely no one in their senses would have let her accompany him and his wife on what was almost a honeymoon. It is hard to explain, but then if we look at history we find it full of far worse idiocies on a far greater scale. We must accept that people do behave idiotically, and that this was one of those occasions.

Arthur was not a very consistent character. When he was quite sober and had been listening to the music of Brahms, he would speak gravely of his own generation as the noblest creatures ever made, with an implication of contempt for the weedy moderns born after 1870. The women were sylphides, and the men models of whiskered chivalry, a kind of cross between Mr Gladstone and Sir Philip Sidney. But after dinner, when he had taken enough wine to dissolve his always slight sense of propriety, and he wanted to make a young guest laugh, nothing delighted him more than to strip off the crinolines and the moss roses, the peg-top trousers and every rag that gave a semblance of decency to
the family skeletons. It is not possible to print, even today, all the things that he said about Hetty on the ship—though thirty years ago, he denounced modern novels as too disgusting for any decent man to read. He had not the same standards for the written and the spoken word. It was on one of those evenings when he had drunk most of a bottle of burgundy that he told me about this voyage. The worst things he said have to do with a later part of this story, where they will be in due course disclosed. At present, I shall give his more general description.

‘She didn’t care a damn,’ he said, ‘about leaving her family. Everyone else was weeping bucketfuls. It was like a funeral to see one’s parents go off on a dangerous voyage, and know that they had to do it twice before one saw them again. You people who go home as safe as houses in a liner, don’t know what your grandparents had to endure, or what courage they showed.’ His voice took on a sonorous and sacred note, and I was afraid that he was going to switch off onto sylphides and splendid pioneers, but the burgundy won. His noble expression faded, a gleam of savage delight came into his eye and he exclaimed:

‘I don’t believe that woman had a bit of decent feeling in her whole bloody body. She had appetites, and because they were as strong as a bull’s, she thought she was a heroine of romance—a kind of Colonial Sappho. Her heart was as cold as a bit of pig’s liver, left out on a marble slab on a frosty night. Mama told me that she had a devil of a time with her on the ship. She walked up and down waggling her behind at the sailors, advertising the fact that she was the only young virgin on board, like Orberosia in
Penguin Island
. It’s always
people whose virginity is entirely valueless who seem to treasure it most. Not that Hetty treasured hers, of course.’

‘But behinds wouldn’t show under those crinoline dresses,’ I objected.

‘That wouldn’t stop her waggling it,’ said Arthur. ‘Unfortunately she wasn’t seasick. She stood by the gunwale in a stiff breeze and imagined herself to be some sort of splendid sea queen, riding the storm, and I’ve no doubt that she had a damned silly smug expression. The sea went to her head. She met Percy Dell on that voyage. At first she wouldn’t look at him. She liked men large and vigorous and he was a miserable worm. He was never a real husband to Hetty, but like that piece of jelly, protoplasm or something which I believe some primeval animals had in place of the male sex. Then, a few weeks before they landed, she turned all her batteries on him—literally took him by assault. It must have been terrifying for the poor devil, though he always was very fond of her.’ Arthur paused and looked at me suspiciously. ‘D’you know about that?’ he asked.

‘No,’ I said, trying to make my voice sound indifferent.

‘H’m.’ He was evidently considering whether to tell me more. The gleam in his eye showed that he was itching to make some monstrous final disclosure, when the telephone rang.

‘Answer it, will you, my dear boy?’ he said, a little irritated at the interruption.

I went out into the hall, picked up the receiver and heard the stern throaty voice of an elderly gentlewoman asking to speak to Mr Arthur Langton.

‘He’s at dinner,’ I said. ‘Could I give a message?’

‘Who is that?’ she demanded testily.

‘It’s Guy Langton.’

‘Oh, Guy!’ The voice sounded deep and kind and old. ‘This is Cousin Hetty. Would you ask Uncle Arthur if he will come to luncheon with me at the Alexandra Club on Thursday to meet Mrs Sprigge?’

I felt awful, as if I had been caught taking part in some shameful indulgence. Cousin Hetty was vivid before me in her black taffetas and her black bonnet relieved as always with a jaunty tuft of four white feathers. There were jokes made about the feathers. She was never without them, and when one tuft became shabby, she had another made, exactly the same. Everyone knew they had some meaning, but no one knew what. It could not be that of Mr Mason’s novel, as whatever doubts people may have had about Cousin Hetty, no one questioned her courage. It was said that the feathers stood for her sons, four feathers in her cap. But she had five sons.

Now, I was only aware of her as an object of great respect, with the impressiveness of a slightly shrunken Mussolini, someone who without much money and by sheer willpower, had made herself of social importance in Melbourne. And I had just been laughing about her virtue and her anatomy, and she must have been nearly eighty. I had the same dreadful sensations as when a fat middle-aged woman standing in front of me on the beach at Lavandou, began to undress with a modesty which only had regard to those whom she could see. I went back to the dining-room and said in a sickly voice:

‘Cousin Hetty wants you to lunch on Thursday at the Alexandra Club to meet someone called Sprigge.’

Arthur was even more upset than I was. His old resentment and his pleasure in malice had surged up, making him forget that the person he was ‘throwing to the wolves’ as he called it, was someone whom he now, as the result of life-long association, though much of it was hostile, thought of in his sober moments, as a close friend. He was also ashamed and angry that he had betrayed one of his own superior generation, one of the sylphides, though the least graceful, to a miserable modern weakling. He dropped the nut-crackers on the floor.

‘Very well,’ he said.

‘Thank you very much. He’d like to, Cousin Hetty,’ I said into the telephone.

‘And how is your dear mother?’

‘Very well thank you, Cousin Hetty.’

‘Is she in Melbourne?’

‘No. She’s up at Westhill, Cousin Hetty.’

‘Well, goodnight. Tell Uncle Arthur one o’clock on Thursday.’

‘Yes. Goodnight, Cousin Hetty.’ I was like a schoolboy who tries to placate a master by frequent ‘sirs.’

I sat down again at the dinner table and from embarrassment gave a vulgar snigger, which I detested even as I uttered it. Arthur ignored it. All the lively malice had gone from his eyes. The lids were heavy and he looked very high-minded.

‘Your poor grandmother,’ he said, ‘was unwell for the whole voyage, which lasted sixteen weeks, as they were becalmed off Nigeria. She was expecting her first child, and
although she travelled so much during her life, the sea never agreed with her.’

He could not change the subject immediately. That would be an admission before a young man, which he would never make, that he had behaved badly. He was trying to reinstate himself in his own good opinion by continuing the same subject from a lofty angle. He talked about his father’s illness and his mother’s patience. The ship in his imagination was at once converted from a nautical brothel into a kind of
Mayflower
full of grave and reverend pilgrims. We both found it less entertaining under this aspect, but I knew it was hopeless to expect him to return to his former mood tonight, and we moved into the drawing-room. Here Arthur lighted a little lamp behind a miniature of Alice painted on glass, or in some way transferred to it.

‘Your grandmother,’ he said, excusing this ceremony, ‘was a saint, but a saint who loved the world, the only true kind.’

He sat down at the piano and played Brahms’s cradle song. After that he sat still for a minute or two, his right hand with its huge signet ring resting on the keys. His face was immensely sad and noble. Then softly he began to play a little Chopin prelude which I knew well. He had once told me that it was Alice’s favourite melody, but he did not play it often for fear of deadening his response. As he played I felt dreadfully sorry for all these old people, and tried to imagine how I would feel if I were seventy-seven, and the only one of my generation left was a cousin whom at the moment I cannot stand, but with whom I would be compelled to associate as she would be the only evidence that I had lived.

But after all, this embarrassing evening was thirty years ago. If Hetty were alive today, she would be about one hundred and eight. Seeing that she has become all dust and flowers, surely it is permissible now to refer to any part of her anatomy. Part of her may be the daphne in the garden, or Dudley’s silken ear.

I had to dine several times with Arthur before I could lead him back, by silences and suggestions, to the subject of the voyage. As I have stated, much of it was unprintable, and the rest will not be relevant till later, but I may give here his description of Percy Dell.

‘Percy,’ he said, ‘was one of those unfortunate creatures to whom the Almighty has granted no other sign of manhood than a large Adam’s apple. He was five foot four and I must say I am very glad that I never saw him with his clothes off. He would have compared very unfavourably with the Hermes of Praxiteles. Your grandfather used to declare that he was what Casanova called
uno bello castrato,
but it is difficult to see how this could have been so, as Austin was compelled to admit. Percy the Protoplasm is a more accurate description. He was very anxious to appear important and was always exercising himself in great matters which were too high for him. He would make sententious criticisms of political speeches. He mouthed his words and dragged down his wretched little chin and said things like “I am of the opinion that it is a most imprudent utterance.” Hetty’s fullblooded rampaging vigour drew him like a white moth to a furnace, but she couldn’t stand him. At least that’s how it looked. When she stood posturing as a sea queen and felt his watery pink eyes fixed on her, she would toss her head
(Arthur here inserted a piece of pure embroidery) :

‘Papa used to say—“I wish to goodness Hetty would stop tossing her head, she’s not a pony.” Then just before the end of the voyage she did stop. She turned and snatched up her piece of protoplasm. She went round telling everyone that Mr Dell was so refined, such a gentleman, though for the past two months she had been saying that he couldn’t possibly be a gentleman as his family neither owned land nor was distinguished in the church. Actually he was a solicitor, the son of a solicitor, very respectable people in Dorking or somewhere. He had a little money and had gone out to Melbourne thinking the climate would suit him, but he found the life too rough.’

The events of the following year were much talked about in the family. I have always been acquainted with them and the diaries have freshened up my memory. They all disembarked at Plymouth. A Reverend Frederick Mayhew, an uncle of Hetty’s, met them at the ship, to conduct her to his house at Datchet, where she was to stay. The four Langtons were to rest at Waterpark for a few days, before going on to London. They parted from Hetty and Mr Mayhew at Frome. Mr Dell also was in the train.

Waterpark, where the Langtons lived for many centuries, is four miles from Frome. Our Australian relatives who have never been there are apt to speak of it as if it were one of the great houses of England, but it is only a modest manor, though a very pleasant one. I may think this because I spent the happiest years of my life there, probably happier than my childhood here at Westhill, where I felt the countryside to be large and frightening with so much dead timber, with snakes
and scorpions, with magpies which snapped their beaks like a pistol shot close to one’s ear when they were hatching their young. Sometimes in the summer to go out of doors was like entering a vast scorching oven, and I felt my head would burst. The doctor said we all had thin skulls, particularly my eldest brother Bobby.

Waterpark on the other hand is, or was, embowered in elms and horse chestnuts. No scorching winds came near its lawns. It was deep-meadowed and happy. It did not display its dignity to the world but only to its own garden. One drove there through steep-banked Somerset lanes, and the first sign of it was a simple white gate, with a notice: ‘Wheels to Waterpark House only’ meaning there was a right-of-way for pedestrians. Beyond the gate was a short avenue, in summer a green tunnel under the chestnuts, and at the end on the left was a door in a high wall. Above this carved in stone, was a shield, chipped and stained and covered with lichen. One could hardly see that it was
party per pale.
By the door was an iron bell-pull, but when it was rung and answered, one came, not into the house, but only onto a stone path which led to the front door. The lawn stretched across to a stream, and beside it were three oak trees. Across the stream were meadows full of buttercups, which shed their golden dust into the seams of one’s shoes. Phrases from Tennyson crowd in my mind when I think of Waterpark. It was the land where it was always afternoon. How far away they seem, those summer holidays, when we played tennis with the Tunstall boys, and had tea under the tree by the stream. How irrecoverable, not because I was young then and cannot be young again. One would not mind that if there were other
young people, Julian or his children, playing on those lawns. But the life is gone. This was finally brought home to me on the morning after my arrival here a year ago. There our old kind butler and the fresh-cheeked footman brought out the silver trays. Here the cook I had before Mrs Briar, wearing an old dressing gown and with a row of black glossy ringlets round her forehead, which recalled one of King Charles II’s mistresses, handed me a cup of tea slopped over into the saucer, and explained: ‘The bloody kettle took an hour to boil.’

It was hard to say where the original house at Waterpark began. The cellars were supposed to be Saxon. The red brick facade to the garden was Queen Anne, the latest and largest of a series of small additions and alterations which had been going on for hundreds of years. From this front one went into a square hall with good panelled rooms on either side, but behind them was an extraordinary conglomeration, a maze with steps every few yards, with some rooms six feet high and others going up into the raftered roof, and the stone-floored larders smelling like a church. The bathrooms were large with fireplaces. In the drawing-room, the panelling was painted white and decorated with gilded carving, but the furniture was less formal than the decorations, with comfortable chintz sofas, though there were also old looking-glasses and walnut chests. This room faced west, and gave most the impression of eternal afternoon.