by Martin Boyd
“Which ones?” asked Freddie.
“The Langton twins for certain.”
“They’re not vulgar, but they’ve got no money.”
“None of the people here are more vulgar than any of you,” said Sir Roland, brutally including the whole company, who irritated him by treating this country, in which he held the highest position, as if it were half a joke. There was an awkward silence, as when a group of people all become ashamed of themselves at once.
“Actually,” said Lord Francis, “Judge Lanfranc told me the other day that Edward Langton has £10,000 a year.”
“Has he, by Jove?” said Freddie.
Dolly Wendale, aware of the dangerous eyes Sir Roland was directing at Freddie, said: “The twins are always taken to any display of culture. Lady Pringle is going to give talks on the meaning of the music, so you may be able to follow it, Freddie.”
“Do you mean that professor’s wife with pince-nez?”
“I believe she does wear pince-nez.”
“Great Scott!”
“I rather like culture,” said John.
“Or d’you mean you like the twins?”
“Well, they are rather stimulating.”
“Intellectually, or emotionally?”
“Or financially?” The voice of Miss Rockingham, a muted foghorn from which in later life she removed the silencer, sounded its warning note. During the conversation she had been smoking, with great deliberation, a cigarette fixed in a holder six inches long. She had far more money than any of the girls they talked about and she wanted to be married. She was prepared, like Cousin Sophie, a guest at Government House twenty years earlier, to make a morganatic marriage. She was even prepared to marry Freddie Thorpe, finding, something in the same way as Diana with Wolfie, a rest for her complexity in his simple animal stupidity, though Wolfie was a moral giant compared with Freddie. It was true that she was five years older than he, but she had a beautiful figure and moved with unusual grace, and she thought that this combined with her income would make the difference negligible. With a contempt for those proprieties which a bourgeoise would allow to interfere with her pleasures, she was prepared to buy him as she would buy a fine horse. But he appeared hardly to be aware of her presence, and when Patrick Wendale said to him: “Why don’t you marry Marcia?” although he had never been to Rome, nor seen the headless nymph, nor willingly looked at any other statue in his life except when he attended the unveiling of a bronze general on horseback, he said: “She might be all right if one could knock off her head.”
For Miss Rockingham, with her tremendous assets, was handicapped by a very long face, and did look surprisingly like a horse. This added to her grandeur, but not to her feminine charm. She was believed in Melbourne, with justification, to be grander than anyone at Government House. She was known to be on intimate terms with the Queen of Spain, with whom as a girl she had climbed trees in Windsor Great Park, and she was called “dearest Marcia” in five different languages by the royal family of Europe.
“You could have one each,” she went on, pressing the thorn into her breast, “the clever one for John and the jolly one for Freddie. If you brought them to live here it would be most stimulating—such war, such wit.”
“Is one of them jolly?” asked Freddie.
“They’re both very nice girls,” said Sir Roland. He would have expressed his dislike of the conversation more forcibly, but even he was affected by the deference which Marcia Rockingham commanded.
“I’ll ring up Mrs Radcliffe,” said Dolly putting down her coffee-cup on a satinwood table from Dorset, “and ask her if John may come instead of Freddie. I’ll say that he’s particularly fond of music. You are, aren’t you?”
“I like tunes from Gilbert and Sullivan,” said John.
“That’s good enough.”
In a few minutes she returned, looking guilty and amused. “I’m awfully sorry, I’ve messed it up,” she said. “Mrs Radcliffe thought I meant could John come as well, and she said of course, and then it was impossible to say that Freddie didn’t want to come.”
“You could have made something up,” said Freddie sulkily.
“I know it’s awful, but I can’t be rude to people.”
“We’re not here to insult the populace,” said Sir Roland.
“I don’t think Mrs Radcliffe would like being called the populace,” said Lady Eileen, threading a needle.
“I’m sure the twins wouldn’t,” said Dolly. “Well, we’d better go and shed our glory on them.”
“Only reflected glory, dear, from us,” Lady Eileen reminded her. She and Sir Roland were not allowed by the protocol to attend parties in private houses.
“Dammit, I am a peeress,” said Dolly Wendale.
“You have to curtsy to my wife, Dolly,” said Sir Roland with friendly malice.
“I shan’t when I get home.”
“I rather like curtsying,” said Miss Rockingham.
“You’re so used to it, Marcia, and you have such beautiful movements.”
“You make me sound like a horse.” Miss Rockingham stared at Dolly with her heavy-lidded eyes, and puffed calmly at her cigarette. There was a moment of astonishment. Did Marcia know that they said she was like a horse, and was she deliberately trying to embarrass them? It was the sort of thing she would do. Before the moment was prolonged into recognition of her intention, Lady Eileen said:
“You might give lessons to some of the people here, Marcia.”
After a little more chaff, those who were going to the party moved towards the door.
“You can make some excuse for me,” said Freddie.
Sir Roland turned on him. “You can either go to the party or go back to England by the next boat,” he said curtly.
“Yes, sir,” said Freddie, subdued, and he followed the others.
Lord Francis went off to attend to something connected with his office, and Sir Roland sat alone with his wife. After a minute or two of silence in which he calmed down, and they had that kind of telepathic conversation, possible between the married, on the scene that had just passed, Lady Eileen said:
“You know Freddie isn’t really a gentleman.”
“That’s rather rough,” said Sir Roland, who did not much like Freddie, but who disliked more such an extreme criticism of his sister’s child. “He behaved very well when I told him to go to the party or to go home.”
“Yes, but only like a trained animal. If he’d been born in a cottage he wouldn’t be different from any other village boy. If John had been born in a cottage and you saw him playing with the other village boys, you’d notice him immediately. There’s nothing inherently fine in Freddie. Most of his gentlemanliness is due to the fact that he’s been taught the right things, where to get his guns and boots in St James’s and to stand up when a woman comes into the room. It’s all material things and antics. Because he has those guns and boots he believes that he is a superior being, and that some decent Australian girl, probably not nearly as common as himself, will be lucky to be allowed to buy his polo ponies for the rest of her life. Half the young men we know are like that. You see their smug trained-animal faces in London ballrooms.”
“That’s Socialism, Eileen,” said Sir Roland crossly, though he liked listening to his wife’s ideas, even when, as an Irishwoman, she had digs at the master race.
“On the contrary, it’s the opposite extreme to Socialism. It’s a dislike of oafs amongst the people of our sort. It’s the Teutonic English who are like that. They are dreadful unless they are modified by Celtic or Latin blood.”
“Am I Teutonic?” asked Sir Roland. “I haven’t any Celtic or Latin blood as far as I know, thank God.”
“You were a little Teutonic just now, when you suggested that we were all vulgar, simply because Freddie annoyed you. That kind of inexact punishment is very Teutonic. So it was to threaten him with dismissal before the rest of us. Teutons have no conception of what other people feel. Their bad manners result from lack
of imagination— perhaps their courage too.”
Lady Eileen’s remarks could have been applied, with varying emphasis, not only to Freddie, but to Anthea, to Wolfie, to Cousin Sophie, and above all, to Mrs Montaubyn.
At the same time that the discussion was going on in Lady Eileen’s sitting-room, my aunt Mildy and myself were also preparing to leave for the party. I lived with Mildy as my parents were now living up at Westhill, and I was articled to an architect in Melbourne, having twice failed in English Composition in the entrance examination to the Univeristy. Mildy was very excited about the party for various reasons all connected with her state of life. Like most unmarried ladies she sought compensation in excessive loyalty to her family as a whole, and she saw this grand party given for one of our group as a smashing victory over the Enemy, who since the return of the twins appeared to her more menacing, not so much because of their parentage, as because they were young and pretty girls of about my own age, and so belonged to a vast army threatening her happiness. I was the first male who had ever lived in her house, the first person with whom she had ever been particularly associated. She loved to hear people speak of “Mildred and Guy” and one of her greatest pleasures was for us to arrive together at some party, and if it was a formal one for our two names to be announced in the same breath. This would certainly happen tonight, and as Elsie Radcliffe’s butler had a very loud voice, she anticipated with delight the moment when “Miss Langton and Mr Guy Langton” would be bellowed through the charming rooms.
She was ready early, and as usual on any festive occasion, swathed in clouds of blue chiffon to emphasize the colour of her eyes.
“We mustn’t be late,” she said. “We want to make a good impression.” She always used means to produce the opposite effect from the one she wished. She always paid her bills immediately, saying: “Then, if ever I were short of money the tradesmen would not press me.” Whereas it was obvious that as she had been so regular they would at once suspect something wrong. When she said “press me” she gave a little giggle. It was also obvious that by arriving late at a party one made far more impression than by hanging about waiting in empty rooms. This consistent inverted reasoning of Mildy’s may also have been due to her condition, as when she acted instinctively, without exercising her brain, she often showed sense and dignity.
As we waited for the car she had ordered, both of us rather pleased at our appearance, she was suddenly overcome by elation. In the manner, as she thought, of a coy and wilful mistress, but which unfortunately was only that of a schoolmistress, she said:
“Now you’re not to speak to the twins.”
I was outraged. I still had an attitude towards her of affectionate gratitude for all the comforts with which she surrounded me, and could not be openly rude. Her voice held a tremor at her own rashness, and when I did not answer she realized that she had again started off on the wrong foot, which was to put her out of step for the whole evening.
When our cab drew up at the Radcliffes’ door, Steven and Laura, my parents, had just alighted from the car ahead of us, and we all went in together, so that when we were announced Mildy and I were only part of the excess of Langtons. As we walked on into the drawing-room, I said: “Doesn’t Aunt Diana look marvellous?”
“My sister always looks a lady,” Mildy replied primly, confusing my adolescent impulse towards the glorious and superlative, with her dreary standards.
“Who said she didn’t?” I muttered, and turned to speak to my father.
Diana did look striking. Her mother had left her several rolls of beautiful materials, which she had bought when on her European travels—in Paris, Lyons and Genoa. Now and then when Diana had wanted a dress for some special function, she had brought out one of these rolls, and had it made up. There were only three left and she had used one of these for this evening. It was of gold and crimson brocade, and she had discussed with Josie whether it was not too magnificent. Finally she had said: “If I can’t wear it now I’ll never wear it,” and she had it made to her own design. It gave her a slightly renaissance appearance, but with her dark hair, into which she had twisted her pearls, she could carry it off, and when Bessie, before she set out exclaimed with a different intonation from Mildy’s: “Lor’, mum, you do look a lady when you’re dressed up!” she knew that it was a success.
When Russell Lockwood came into the little gallery which led to Elsie’s drawing-room, and saw Diana, with Wolfie and the Radcliffes, standing at the top of the low flight of steps, he received a slight shock. He had not expected her to be receiving the guests, and he had certainly not expected her look of beauty and immense distinction, so that he could hardly believe that she was the same woman whom he had met in Collins Street.
Diana saw his start of surprise and she was amused and pleased by it. It gave her a sense of restored self-possession, and wiped out the slight hurt she had felt at his failure to call, so that when he shook hands she was able to say with pleasant indifference:
“How d’you do? D’you still like Melbourne?”
In spite of her easy tone, they were both aware of the fact that he had not called, and for once his perfect composure was a little disturbed. This showed in a certain delicacy of his walk as he passed on.
Arthur Langton, our great-uncle, was standing at the side of the room, and we had gathered round him for the sake of his conversation which was either ribald or sentimental. I repeated that Aunt Diana looked marvellous.
“Yes,” he said, “is she meant to be Beatrice d’Este or somebody? There is that precious ass Russell Lockwood bowing over her hand as if she were. He walks as if he were carrying his heart in an alabaster vase and is afraid of dropping it.”
Arthur, aware of the defects of his own generation, spent much of his time conveying that they were a race of heroes and ravishing beauties who could not be reproduced nowadays, so that if one of a younger generation did achieve anything, if only as Diana this evening, in beauty and distinction of appearance, he had to pretend that it was slightly ridiculous. It had been said by some victim of his wit that he had begun life as a conscious hypocrite and was ending it as an unconscious one. He now certainly gave an exhibition of humbug of which he appeared quite unconscious. Russell came over to our group and said:
“Do you remember me, Mr Langton? I’m Russell Lockwood.”
“Of course I remember you, my dear boy,” said Arthur warmly. “Your mother was one of my greatest friends.” Yet it was possible that he was sincere in his greeting, and only trying to amuse us when he ridiculed Russell’s delicate gait. He may also have done this to repudiate the aberrations of his own youth when he had adopted most of the affectations of the aesthetic movement. It is easy at seventy to pretend that one was a robust and athletic young man, as no one remembers or cares enough to question the pretence.
Our attention was drawn away from Russell by a burst of what my father called “high-powered English voices”, those of Cousin Sophie and the twins. They saw Russell and came over to us. Cousin Sophie, partly as a result of the moral struggle she had been through to get here, but more because of the shock of having to shake hands with Wolfie, which like Russell she had not foreseen, did not give out her usual emanation of erudition and social strength, but had almost an air of apology as if she had condoned immorality.
The twins surrounded Arthur with cries of affection, and then turned to me.
“Why, it’s the runaway curate!” they exclaimed, calling me this name for reasons which have been explained elsewhere. “We never see you about. You’re very elusive.”
I smiled at them shyly.
“Can’t you say something?” demanded Anthea.
“I don’t know what to say except how d’you do,” I protested.
“You should say I’ve been longing to meet you.”
“Well, I did want to.”
“Did want to? Oh how feeble! You should have been desperate. You live with your aunt don’t you?”
I admitted this, feeling it wa
s rather disgraceful.
“Why d’you live with your aunt?”
“I have to live somewhere, don’t I?”
“You could live with us.”
“You haven’t asked me to.”
“We’ll see what you’re like first. He’s not nearly as sophisticated as we thought, is he?” Anthea asked Cynthia.
“Only his clothes. I suppose because they’re English,” said Cynthia.
“As a matter of fact I got this suit in Melbourne,” I said. “It’s my first tails.”
“You shouldn’t tell us that. You keep giving yourself away.”
“What else can I do with myself?” I asked. This amused them very much.
“You ought to put a high price on yourself. People take you at your own valuation.”
“Do they take you at yours?” I was beginning to rally. They did not like this at all.
“Now you’ve been gauche,” said Cynthia.
“We shan’t ask you to live with us,” said Anthea. “But we’ll ask you to dine. Mother, ask the runaway curate to dine.”
Cousin Sophie was saying to Russell: “It was so strange meeting Father Talbot in Rome. I’d known him years ago at Dublin Castle, when he was in the Lancers.” Her conversation was freely sprinkled with references of this kind. It was the sort of thing Russell listened to with attentive interest. Overhearing it I imagined that I was at last in brilliant circles, and that the twins’ adolescent badinage was the kind of wit that sparkled across the dinner tables of European embassies.
“Would you come to supper on Sunday night?” asked Cousin Sophie, giving me a moment of attention.
“Oh thank you. I’d love to,” I said eagerly.
