by William Boyd
And then the stinking FUCKING bastard flogged me. Twelve strokes of the cane. He told me I was gated for the rest of the term and I would be charged with the cost of replacing the missing rifle. Then he opened the door of his study and showed me out. He never uttered one further word of sympathy. I hope he dies in pain and rots in hell.
1Peter Scabius, LMS’s closest friend from his schooldays, along with Benjamin Leeping.
2As far as is known, the Livre d ‘Or was never printed. No trace of the manuscript survives.
3Lucy Sansom, LMS’s first cousin, was one year older than he. Her mother, Jennifer Mountstuart, had married Horace Sansom, an engineer from Perth, Scotland. Horace Sansom was currently working for the Bengal Railway Services, hence Lucy’s presence at her uncle and aunt’s at Christmas 1923.
4Henry Soutar, LMS’s housemaster, a sexagenarian, not much liked by LMS and his set and dubbed The Lizard’ because of his exceptionally seamed and wattled face.
5The village where St James’s Roman Catholic church was located and where Abbeyhurst sent its Catholic boys for Mass. About three miles away from the school.
The Oxford Journal
Logan Mountstuart went up to Jesus College, Oxford, in the Michaelmas term of 1924. The journal commences in the following term, 24 February 1925. In the meantime, following the death of Francis Mountstuart, his wife, Mercedes, had sold the house in Birmingham and moved to London, to South Kensington, where she bought a five-storey, white-stucco terraced house in Sumner Place and fitted it out in some style. Peter Scabius was also up at Oxford, at Balliol College, and Ben Leeping, as he had always promised he would, was established in Paris working for an art gallery and learning his trade as a dealer.
1925
Tuesday, 24 February
To Balliol for lunch with Peter. Balliors commons are so much better than Jesus’s: three types of cheese, bread and oatmeal biscuits and a jug of beer. I felt strangely depressed, for some reason. I think it’s because Peter so unreservedly and uncritically loves Oxford and all it holds for him and I find the place stifling and disappointing. He had also received a letter from Ben – and I thought, jealously, why is Ben writing to Peter and not to me?
I went on to King’s lecture on Constitutional Reform – inaudible and therefore a waste of time. On the way out of Balliol I met Quennell,1 who told me he was writing a book on Blake. I did not tell him about mine on Shelley. Why? Was I afraid it would make me look presumptuous or pretentious? Just because Quennell has already published a book of poems doesn’t make his ambitions superior to mine. I really must make more effort to – at least – appear confident: all this hiding my light under a bushel is pathetic.
Thursday, 26 February
Le Mayne was very complimentary about my essay on Cavour and the Risorgimento and has invited me to one of his celebrated lunches on Saturday. Stevens2 kindly reminded me that I needed to go to roll-call tomorrow or risk a gating. This place is so like school: a school where one can smoke and drink, but an extension of school none the less.
Friday, 27 February
Les Invalides3 was quiet for a Friday night and Mrs Anderson was not yet drunk and consequently recognized me. She made me a plate of foie gras sandwiches and I drank a bottle of claret as I read the newspaper. Cassell came in with a couple of friends and asked me to make up a four at bridge, but, as they were already half stewed, I decided it would be better to make my excuses – they play for too high stakes, especially when drink has been taken.
Went to the cinema (the Super) and saw Diana Vale in Sunset Melody for the third time. She is currently my ideal of feminine beauty. Popped into Wadham on my way home and drank whisky with Dick Hodge4 – the more I come to know him the more I grow to like his generous soul.
Saturday, 28 February
I quite enjoyed Le Mayne’s ‘do’, to my vague surprise. Some younger dons, a journalist from London (didn’t catch his name) and about a dozen hand-picked undergraduates. Le Mayne’s house is off the Banbury Road. We gathered in the drawing room (no sign of the mysterious Mrs Le Mayne) and from there could wander through to a large library overlooking a rear lawn that sloped down to the Cherwell. In the library the food was set out: cold cuts and pies with potato salad, beetroot and such like. Cheese and apple pie and cream to follow. A couple of kitchen maids circulated with bottles of hock and claret. We filled our plates and ate standing up or perched on armchairs or seated at small round tables – very informal. It was a bit like being at a small wedding with Le Mayne as a busy and practised host, circulating, moving people about, introducing them or prompting conversation with an apt remark or observation – ‘Ah yes, Toby, you’ve spent time in Rome’ or ‘Logan has a very controversial view about the new building at Oriel’. It was a little stiff and self-conscious to begin with, but it was far better than being at a formal dinner (like Bowra’s salon5) and, as the wine flowed, and Le Mayne did his work, you realized that pretty soon you had met and talked to just about everyone.
And there were females! A woman don from Somerville and two undergraduettes. Le Mayne introduced me to one but I couldn’t make out her Christian name: something Fothergill. I asked her to repeat it.
‘Land,’ she said.
‘Land? Is that short for something?’
‘No. Just Land.’
So: Land Fothergill. She said she was reading ‘Modern Greats’, which turned out to be Philosophy, Politics and Economics. She is petite with a severe short fringe that doesn’t really suit her broad forehead. She has curious olive-green eyes and smokes with aggressive ostentation.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked.
‘Dying of boredom.’
‘I won’t take up any more of your time, then.’
‘No,’ I said hastily. I was already quite taken with her. ‘I mean here in Oxford: I can’t stand the place. I’m reading History.’
‘Oh, one of Le Mayne’s young stars. Well, if it’s any comfort, I don’t like Oxford either.’
She said she felt that she was living in a kind of women’s prison or barracks. She mentioned that her father was a painter (clearly I was meant to have heard of him) and that they lived in Hampstead. I told her I was writing a book about Shelley. We exchanged cards.
‘Jesus College,’ she read.
‘Perhaps we could meet for a coffee, one day.’
‘If I can escape my chaperone.’
Thinking about her now, I do find her rather attractive. Those strange eyes could certainly haunt one.
[NOTE IN RETROSPECT. Why Shelley? I can’t really remember now. I had read the lyric poems at school and, like most adolescents, thought I understood them. I remember reading a quotation from Teresa Guiccioli, Byron’s mistress. She came to know Shelley in Pisa not long before he died and described him as being very tall, with a slight stoop and reddish hair. He had very bad skin, she observed, but absolutely impeccable manners. I think it was this brief portrait – which presented me with a Shelley that I did not recognize – that stimulated me. Shelley was suddenly real – not the fey, blond genius of popular iconography – and I wanted to know more about him, and, as I did learn more about him, I wanted to present my Shelley to the world as the accurate, veridical one. Whatever the defects of the book I subsequently wrote, no one could claim it idealized or sentimentalized its subject. Also Shelley died young – aged twenty-nine – and premature deaths of the greatly gifted always fascinate young writers.]
Tuesday, 3 March
Peter called this morning, obviously in something of a state. He wouldn’t give a reason but asked me to cycle with him to Islip. I put my essay on Chartism aside and went to find my bicycle.
*
When we reached Islip (within an hour – we cycled hard) we went straight to the pub. Peter sat staring fixedly at the foam on his half-pint of beer as if he had just learned he was suffering from a terminal illness.
‘Is it bad news?’ I said finally.
‘Tess is here.’
‘Tess? Here? Where?’ (This is
how you speak when you are astonished.)
‘Here in Islip. She’s renting a cottage and working at a nursery in Waterperry. She’s run away from home.’
‘Jesus Christ.’
‘What am I going to do? She says she loves me.’
‘Of course she says that. You must understand, Peter, women –’
‘And I love her too, Logan. At least I think I do. I want to marry her, at any rate.’
There was no answer to that. We left the pub and walked down a lane towards a row of modest thatched cottages. Peter knocked on the door of one and Tess opened it – Tess Clough, last seen in the Lamb and Flag in Ringford, an aeon ago. Inside, the place was clean and meagrely furnished: there was a fire going in the grate and a couple of chairs and an oak table. Tess seemed pleased to see me and shook my hand vigorously.
‘So glad to see you, Mr Mountstuart. Oxford doesn’t seem so strange knowing you and Peter are here too, just down the road.’
I insisted she call me Logan. She went off to make some tea in a little kitchen scullery.
‘What’s that noise?’ I said. Rustling, scratchings everywhere.
‘The place is infested with mice.’
Peter said she had arrived last week, settled in, bought the few sticks of furniture (I assumed there was a bed upstairs) and had left him a note in the porter’s lodge at Balliol. ‘She’s told the landlord I’m her brother,’ he said.
‘Oh, very convincing, I said. ‘You know what’ll happen if the college hear about it. The proctors will have a field day.’
‘She only had money for a week’s rent after she bought her bits and pieces. So I’ve paid three months in advance.’
‘You’re worse than Alfred Duggan,’6 I said. ‘They’ll think you’re keeping a mistress: “Have you heard about Scabius? The Balliol man who kept his mistress in Islip.”’
Then Tess came back in with the tea and we talked aimlessly about this and that. It turned out that Tess was now referring to herself in the village as Tess Scabius. The whole pretence is bound to be exposed within days. The rent, however, is only a pound a week and Peter can afford that. It turns out also that Tess is older than us – she’s twenty-two. She looked rather pretty sitting by the fire in her blue print dress. Peter says he only has to wait until he’s twenty-one and then his father ‘can go hang himself. Brave words. It’s all gone to his head rather: this seems too rich and romantic a thing to happen to Peter. I stayed up late and wrote a long letter to Ben telling him of our exciting new developments.
Wednesday, 18 March
Coffee with Land Fothergill at the Cadena. She was wearing a velvet coat that matched her eyes. We talked a little stiffly about Mussolini and Italy and I was embarrassed to note how better informed she was than I – her opinions were strong and full of idiosyncratic detail; mine seemed straight from the editorials of the Daily Mail – at least those that I’ve bothered to read. I excuse myself by remembering that she is actually studying politics but the fact remains that my brain is rotting here in Oxford, dulled and numbed by the constant clamorous bells. I owe Blackwell’s £18 for books, Halls £73 for assorted tailoring; college battels are another tenner and God knows what the wine merchant will dun me. Dick Hodge has asked me to go with him to Spain at Easter and I’m tempted. He says £10 is all we’ll need, everything is so cheap, especially if you travel third class. Perhaps I’ll wait until summer. I rather relish the thought of London – still virtually unknown to me, after all.
Friday, 10 April
sumner place, south kensington
Mother has transformed the house. Outside the fresh white stucco gleams. Inside it is all lacquered walls, curtains and materials of such richness and vibrancy as to make the eyes water. She has fitted out the top floor for me: my bedroom and dressing room are a dark burnt orange with emerald-green curtains and I have a small sitting room where the colours are reversed. We have a butler called Henry, a chauffeur (and a new motor) called Baker, a cook called Mrs Heseltine and two (elderly) housemaids called Cecily and Margaret. Mother has her own maid also – Encarnación. They talk sharply and loudly to each other in Spanish to the visible consternation of the other servants. Clearly we are rich: Father wasn’t wrong when he said we would be well provided for.
And for the first time I really miss his gentle unobtrusive presence in my life. It is Easter Friday and Mother asked me if I wanted to go to Mass at the Brompton Oratory but I declined. The day Father was buried my faith, such as it was, went with him into his grave. Shelley was so right: atheism is an absolute necessity in this world of ours. If we are to survive as individuals we can rely only on those resources provided by our human spirit – appeals to a deity or deities are only a form of pretence. We might as well howl at the moon.
Tonight at dinner Mother announced she was going to Paris on Monday for a week, or maybe ten days. I said she deserved a holiday after all her interior decorating.
‘I’ll be meeting a friend,’ she said, with truly horrible coyness. ‘An American gentleman of my acquaintance – Mr Prendergast.’
Ah, the famous Mr Prendergast, I thought, but feigned ignorance.
‘Who is this Mr Prendergast?’
‘I hope you’ll become friends.’
‘I can’t stop you hoping, Mother.’
‘Don’t be difficult, Logan. He is very nice man – muy simpático. He give me very good advice about my investments.’
I said I’d look forward to meeting him. Perhaps all these servants, all this ostentatious display is the result of Prendergast’s financial acumen. I asked her if I might invite Dick Hodge to stay while she was away. She made no objection.
Saturday, 18 April
Mother is still away and Dick Hodge is still here, though today he and I are both very sick. Last evening we went to the Café Royal and drank champagne. Then to the Alhambra for the show. Afterwards, at the 50-50 Club we drank some more – brandies this time – and spoke to two tarts. Dick is very forthright with them – it was highly comical.
DICK: HOW much?
FIRST TART: Depends what we get up to, don’t it?
DICK: I want to know your rates.
SECOND TART: What d’you think we are? Piece-workers?
DICK: I wouldn’t sit down in a restaurant without knowing what I’d be charged for the meal, would I?
They soon got tired of us and wandered away. Dick told me he’d been to a brothel in Madrid and the resulting experience was ‘nothing to write home about’. We came home and I found some port and we sat up late drinking. I smoked half a cigar which, I think, is why I feel so decidedly rum this morning. Dick asked me if I’d ever kissed a boy. I confessed I had no passion for boys. He said he’d kissed dozens at school (Harrow), but then, he added, there was no alternative and everyone had someone they lusted after. I told him about Lucy and he seemed quite impressed. ‘I don’t want sex without love,’ was the last thing I remember him saying.
Monday, 20 April
Dick left for Galashiels this morning. I had Baker drive us to King’s Cross and I felt a great wellspring of affection for him (Dick, not Baker). I think it’s good for me to have another close friend apart from Ben and Peter – someone who did not know me at school and takes me as I am today. But when he went through the barrier to board his train he didn’t even shake my hand: he gave a wave of his hat, said ‘back to the farm’ and was gone without another rearward look.
He does baffle me, Dick. He has a profound and searching intelligence – he claims to detest Shakespeare, for example – but this intelligence seems to be in constant battle with his uncompromising bluntness. God knows what he would say to Mother. It’s that absolute candour in him that attracts me, and, knowing myself, it’s easy to understand why I would be attracted to such a trait. But what does Dick Hodge see in Logan Mountstuart? If the manner of his parting is any indication the answer must be very little.
Mother has telegraphed that she returns from Paris tomorrow. Mr Prendergast is travelling with her b
ut will be staying at the Hyde Park Hotel.
Friday, 22 May
Peter and I biked out to Islip to have tea with Tess. Amazingly, the ménage continues undiscovered by everyone: Peter’s parents, the university authorities and the good burghers of Islip. Part of this is due to the fact that Tess’s nursery is sufficiently far away from the village to prevent any gossip spreading. At the nursery she’s just a nice girl living in Islip who’s good with plants. And what little the Islip folk see of her when she’s not at work arouses no suspicion. She pays her bills and, by all accounts, is liked by her neighbours. Occasional visits from her ‘brother’ in Oxford excite no comment. Peter told me he’d spent a long weekend with her during the vacation. They lived as man and wife, he said (he didn’t need to go into details). His love for her is boundless.
The cottage looked pretty, spic and span, with all manner of flowers blooming in the garden (I must get to know the names of flowers – it annoys me, this ignorance. If I can name a dozen trees, flowers shouldn’t be beyond me). The floorboards are newly varnished, with small rugs upon them, bright curtains hang at the windows and there are a couple of armchairs before the fire and a small dresser. Peter, however, does admit to finding Tess and the cottage a strain on his finances and has borrowed £10 off me to tide him over.
We drank tea and ate piles of anchovy toast – Tess very sweet and, in her outdoorsy way, lovelier than ever, I thought. When Peter went out to buy cigarettes she told me that she didn’t know if it was possible to be more happy. She asked nothing more from life than what she possessed now: her work at the nursery, her cottage and Peter. How enviable! Maybe this is the answer – maybe this is how to find true contentment – to live your life within confined horizons. To set modest goals, achievable ambitions. Not all of us can manage it, alas.
