The Cardboard Crown

by Martin Boyd

  The following day they saw Austin and Mildy off on their ship. The next morning the depleted party left for Nice in an omnibus train, as the lines were blocked with snow and they did not know when the express would arrive. There were still twelve of them, eight adults and four children sitting up in their second class carriage. The express passed them at Toulon, and they took eleven hours for the journey, instead of five as they had expected. They had no proper meal all day. George, having come from Nantes and passed them in the express, met them at the railway station. He announced, barely restraining his tears, that his engagement to Dolly Potts was broken off. She could not stay for ever with her friend in Nantes. She could not indefinitely accompany the Langtons on their uncertain trek. She could only go home.

  The frozen, hungry, unhappy, exhausted party descended on an hotel. That night Alice wrote in her diary this little song which du Maurier quotes, but rather badly translated, at the end of ‘Trilby.’

  La vie est brève:

  Un peu d’amour,

  Un peu de rêve,

  Et puis—Bonjour!

  La vie est vaine:

  Un peu d’espoir,

  Un peu de peine

  Et puis—Bonsoir!

  She did not know what was yet in store for her.

  11

  From the Sixteenth of January when they arrived in Nice, until the twenty-fourth of February there is no entry in Alice’s diary, then this:

  ‘Went to Monte Carlo this afternoon with Steven, George and Diana. A very beautiful drive along the Corniche Road. I won 36 louis on zero. George won quite a lot playing on pair and impair. Wolfie spent the afternoon practising on a piano I have hired for him. In the evening we all except Laura went to Faust at the theatre in the Casino. Jean de Reszke and Melba, de Reszke magnificent. Melba looked very nice. Wolfie shut his eyes and quivered a great deal during the final duet. George and Diana went to Lady Learmouth’s ball afterwards. Diana wore a flame-coloured dress and all her pearls and diamonds. She had pearls twisted in her hair and looked very striking. The masseuse has done me a great deal of good.’

  Certainly something had done them a great deal of good. For months there is day after day of this kind of thing. It does not sound a probable life for people who have just been ruined and who only a few weeks earlier had to travel second class and go without proper food in mid-winter. If they could afford this life why did they not go back to Waterpark, at least in the spring, seeing that they had all these children with them, and that I was about to be born? It is where history again becomes irrational. Of course I may have stopped them. Perhaps my mother was not well enough for the journey. More likely they were amusing themselves, and no Langton could resist amusement. Being doubly uprooted people, they had not the same sense of responsibility as the average landowner, though when they were at Waterpark they were more generous than most squires to their villagers. In a hard winter they let tenants off their rent, and gave the sick and poor presents of food and wine, which their Australian money enabled them to do, and which the estate alone could not have afforded. Waterpark as a family seat would naturally have expired with Cousin Thomas. It no longer had within itself the means of survival. This Australian money was a kind of monkey-gland infusion, which kept it going for another two or three generations. It may be just as true to say that they were doubly rooted, and being equally drawn to two countries, were glad to escape the tension for a while in a third.

  They stayed in Nice until the very end of the season. A few weeks before they left Wolfie achieved one of his main objects in coming to Europe. His symphony, conducted by himself, was played at a concert in the Casino. There was an appreciative notice of it next morning in the Nice newspaper, and that was the debut and climax of his European musical career. It has since been played occasionally in Melbourne and I have heard it. I believe that it is as good as Wolfie thought, but he was the victim of his own success. There is a story by Morley Roberts about a young writer who, inspired by the happiness of his first months of marriage, wrote a brilliant and moving tale. The editors were delighted with it, but they refused everything he wrote afterwards as it was not up to the same standard. He had ruined himself. Wolfie had written his symphony under the same inspiration. As he rose from the bed of his beautiful young wife and walked out under the scented gum trees, and heard the sounds of the morning, the magpies in the field, the clanking of milk pails and the shouts of the boys down at the farm, all liquid notes in the crystal air, his bursting heart sent harmonies up into his brain. The result was this symphony which, although it was not derivative had the same feeling as Wagner at his most lyrical, as the Preislied, the Walkure love music, and the Journey to the Rhine. Also the critics were reluctant to believe that an unheard of young man, who had produced nothing else, had composed a work of the first quality.

  After this achievement the main body of the family moved slowly eastwards, while Alice, with a Mrs Blair-Gordon with whom she had become friendly in Nice, scouted round them, going off for a week or two to some capital city. Finally the time of my birth drew near and they all moved up into Switzerland, the only place where I could be born a British subject, and settled at Lucerne. Alice had bought her 1893 diary in France, and on ‘Samedi, 10 Juin. S. Landry’ she wrote:

  ‘Laura not very well. I went for a walk and bought a bottle of eau-de-cologne, a chess-board, and three rakes for the children. Laura came down to déjeuner and had some fish that the Russian officer caught. Her baby born at twenty-five minutes past four in the afternoon. She has a sage-femme who speaks English, and a nurse who speaks German and French, and likes them very well. Everyone asked very kindly after her. Mrs Blair-Gordon came back from Brunnen today. Played bezique with her in the evening.’

  At last I am born. All these people of whom I have been writing on this day became my relatives, ready-made, unchosen. If Alice had known while she was playing bezique with Mrs Blair-Gordon, that the not over-welcome pink baby upstairs (it would have been nicer for everyone, except perhaps myself, if I had been a girl) would one day not merely own all her private possessions, but reveal to the public the secrets of her heart, would she have thrown me into the lake to feed the kin of those fish which the Russian officer caught for my mother’s luncheon?

  But my dear Grandmama, which I am now entitled to call you, I have done you no wrong. You are fifty years before us on our journey, far advanced in Paradise, remote from us in spirit and in mind. So we must pray, or you would not be happy, seeing the condition of your descendants. Should we hope that you linger near Westhill with its broken trees, or hear the train rattle behind Waterpark and smell in the garden stream the seepage from the tanneries, which has killed Charlie the trout and all his descendants? Then, as you are so far from us, let us remember you, not by the banalities on a churchyard slab, not with hypocrisy, but as you really were, living and human and complete. Also, if you did not want your diaries to be read, why did you preserve them so carefully and leave them behind you?

  A week after I was born Alice went off to Paris to buy clothes. I shall still call her Alice, behind her back as it were. She returned to see Laura and myself, then went to Munich and Nuremberg, taking Wolfie and Diana to hear music. She came back to Lucerne for my christening, and on her return notes: ‘The baby smiles a great deal when spoken to.’ On the day of the christening Alice ‘went out in the morning and bought some striped silk Neapolitan fishing caps for the children. In the afternoon the baby was christened Guy de Teba. Diana was godmother and chose the names. Steven did not like ‘de Teba’ as it seems that the duque de Teba from whom Laura is descended (also A.T.) was not a very reputable man. Diana gave him a silver mug. He behaved very well and looked nice in his robe and the little Venetian lace cap I bought in the Piazza San Marco. Madame Miradoux de la Primaube gave him a bouquet. In the evening Diana, Wolfie, George and I went to the Casino. The inevitable rich young Russian woman gambling. Leave tomorrow with Mrs Blair-Gordon for Wiesbaden. Had a sad letter from Dolly Potts.’<
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  The financial crisis was at its height, but there was still champagne for dinner ‘to drink the Emperor of Austria’s health.’ One cannot account for the hideous economies of the trek from Roscoff. They may have been suffering from shock at the prospect of ruin, and then found that Alice’s income, even when halved, left plenty to play with. Or it may simply have been that they failed to collect money sent to Roscoff or Rennes, which ran them short only for the journey. Throughout the whole summer Alice was writing business letters to Uncle Bert, and conducting negotiations with her banks. ‘Paid £900 into the Commercial Bank,’ she writes, and then, a few days later: ‘Commercial Bank has ceased payment. Have £700 in the bank at Frome. Draft of £500 yesterday from Melbourne.’ One must remember that the purchasing power of the pound was then four or five times what it is today. I was always told that I was born in the midst of ruin.

  My parents, truants from both their houses, remained until the autumn in placid insecurity on the shores of Lucerne. The children bathed and fished in the lake, and they all rowed about in boats. My father painted in water colours, Uncle Wolfie played the piano, and every day there was an excursion to see some thing old or beautiful or curious.

  The circumstances of my birth were under ancient and traditional auspices. Only the day before I was born my mother went to see the lion carved in the rock fidei ac virtute Helvetiorum, to the valour of the Swiss Guard, who died defending Louis XVI at Versailles, and a few days earlier she went with Alice to Mass, and to see the procession going into the Cathedral. ‘It looked very nice. Hundreds of girls with white wreaths and veils, priests with banners, church properties of all kinds, images, hatless boys, acolytes, incense etc.’ At home Alice was an ordinary Low Church Anglican, but abroad she and my mother frequently attended Mass. In Milan she writes: ‘Heard a beautiful Mass at the Duomo.’ In Florence: ‘Laura, Bobby, Dominic and I went to Mass at Santa Croce.’ In Brittany, Nice, Munich, Venice and Naples are similar entries. She does not give any reason, but I think it was because she had a strong sense of civilisation, and where the ancient liturgy of the Church was being celebrated in splendid and historic buildings, she felt that it would be ignoble, too much like Mildy and Sarah and Percy Dell, to go ferreting out a Protestant Chapel. This is an example of the double standard which she observed all her life, one for Europe, one for Australia. In Melbourne she would not have dreamed of attending a Roman Catholic church. Dominic was five when he last entered a Catholic church abroad, but it may have been some image then printed on his waxen mind that is responsible for the terrible painting on the wall at Westhill. And if prenatal influences count for anything, these acts of worship abroad by my mother may explain why I like to have a Catholic chapel in my house, even if it is seldom used, and why from the cradle I have been instinctively on the extreme right of the pale.

  In the middle of September Alice was again in Munich with Mrs Blair-Gordon who left her there to return to England. On the day of her departure they ‘went to see the statue of Bavaria. We went up into the head, three of us, and four other people came. Seven in the head. Herr W. dined with us and we went to the station to see Mrs B. G. off via Cologne and Bruxelles. At the station Herr W. introduced us to the artist Lembach and his wife, and the son of Bismark and his wife whom he met there.’

  She came back alone to Lucerne. The autumn mists were gathering on the lake and the leaves were turning gold, but in her own mind were echoes of spring, and the coast was clear when on ‘24 Septembre, Dimanche, S. Izarn’ she made this entry:

  ‘Wrote to Honble. A. Tunstall telling him I would be in Rome on Thursday evening.’

  12

  In the first half of October, Alice’s diaries are in French, but mostly not in very small writing. It has been a little difficult to disentangle as when she has filled the space allotted for the day she goes over onto the memorandum pages, or back to the days in February which she did not fill in, when presumably she was having the treatment by the masseuse. Where she uses some phrase which might sound too baldly sentimental in English, I have left it in French. She begins on:

  ‘28 Septembre. Jeudi. S. Exupère: A. T. met me at the station. Although, except for the meet at Boyton, it is over twenty years since we have seen each other, there was no constraint. He appeared exceedingly pleased to see me, as I was to see him. I felt that it was as if we had both accumulated a great deal to share with each other. He had a carriage to drive me to the hotel, and on the way he said: “It is wonderful to have you here,” and then he gave a curious little laugh and said: “I expect it was the Fountain of Trevi.” I laughed too, and for the first time since that terrible morning when I was last in Rome, the pain it left, like a little dry stone in my heart, was completely dissolved. For long years I was not conscious of it, but by thinking I could always feel it. Now I knew I would never feel it again. What pleased me about our meeting was that it was so light-hearted. It might have been embarrassing with both of us trying to conceal that the feelings of twenty years ago were dead, or else if they were not, aware of their unsuitability today. He had engaged some rooms at the hotel, with a private sitting-room, rather expensive, but I don’t suppose it will matter for a week or two. I am not going to think of money while I am here. I shall draw a cheque on Frome. My rooms were full of beautiful roses, a sort of tawny pink with a delicious scent. The same kind that I left here withered! When I was going up to change A. asked: “What do you want to do this evening? Are you tired after the journey? Perhaps you want to rest.” He looked as if he would be disappointed if I wanted to rest, which I said I did not. He suggested we should dine together somewhere, not at his apartment as he had not ordered dinner there. I invited him to dine here. He was very pleased at my invitation. It is extraordinary, but we seem to know each other better now than we did before. Then there was the constraint between us, which comes with uncertainty as to another’s feelings. Then he arranged things for me, very kindly, but without quite letting me know what was going to happen. Now he is as simple and friendly as a schoolboy, asking me what I would like to do. After dinner we walked along to the Spanish Steps and up on to the Pincio. When we passed Keats’s house he said: “He could have been saved if his trustees had sent him his money. Trustees are horrid people.” We walked along the Pincio, and leaned against the balustrade, looking down over Rome. There was no moon, but the sky was full of brilliant stars, and the dark-leaved trees were mysterious in the starlight. Below us were the domes of those twin churches, but we could not see much beyond them. It reminded me of that evening at San Miniato, when we stood looking down over Florence, and he asked me if he might show me Rome. There are certain incidents in our lives, casual questions or remarks which sound unimportant at the time, but which we never forget. That was one of them. I don’t think that I shall ever forget tonight either. He went on talking about Keats, and he said that a great civilisation resulted only when the aristocracy and the artist worked fruitfully together, that this co-operation had produced Rome. He said that was why he lived in Italy. That in England since the eighteenth century there had been none of this co-operation. I was very interested in what he said, and in the whole style of his conversation, which is far more cultivated than that I am used to. I thought this before, but now he is much more mature, as well as less reserved in his manner. He walked back with me to the hotel, and said: “What time shall I call for you tomorrow?” as if there was no doubt that I am going to spend my whole time in Rome in his company. So I asked him to come at half-past ten. He is very nice.

  ‘29 Septembre. Vendredi. S. Michel. This morning I said that I would like to walk about and renew my impressions of Rome itself, rather than go to see any particular place. We went first to Trevi. The little square and the great fountain which I had last seen looming mysteriously in the moonlight, were now all clear in the morning sun. This seemed to me symbolic of my relationship to A.T. The sheet of falling water, then black and silver, was now all sparkling diamonds. How unhappy we make ourselves when we are y
oung. I was going to throw in another coin, but A. said: “Not yet. You must do it by moonlight.” I said there was no moon. Being with him makes me notice things so much more. If I had been with anyone else last night, I would not have remembered today that there was no moon. He said: “There will be before you leave.” So we shall have to come to the fountain again one moonlight night before I go. From there we walked slowly up to the Quirinale, and sat on a marble seat in the piazza. There is something quite unique and delightful in walking about with him in this leisurely fashion, and sitting down in odd places in this wonderful city, where there is always some evidence of faith or genius before one’s eyes. My other sightseeing has been more conscientious, but never in the company of anyone with so much knowledge, though I never feel that A. is deliberately instructing me. It is simply that I feel the atmosphere of the place more when I am in his company. I said that he made sightseeing a pure pleasure. He said: “But what is it for if it is not for pleasure? It’s not a duty. You don’t feed the poor by looking at a picture. Not long ago a woman asked me what she ought to admire. There’s no “ought” about it. One goes to look at Praxiteles’s faun, because there one sees the spring-time of the world, all the unconscious careless impudence of the young male expressed in a single beautiful body. It makes one laugh with pleasure. One goes to see it to laugh with pleasure. One goes to see Michael Angelo’s Pieta to weep. If you don’t laugh or weep at these things there’s no virtue in going to see them. But if you are filled with laughter and pleasure when you see the Praxiteles faun, you have increased your understanding, and that, as Blake says, brings you to Heaven. We shall go to see it this afternoon.” I said: “I expect I shall laugh from nervousness.” That amused him very much. After luncheon we went to the Capitoline Museum to see the faun. He would not let me look at anything else, but led me straight to it. It is very beautiful, but though it seems a shocking thing to admit, it reminded me of Austin when I first knew him, and I felt a curious emotion, and my eyes were a little moist. A.T. is very sensitive about other people, and when we walked away he said: “Well, I suppose any emotional response will do, as long as you’re not academic.” He talks a great deal like that, half-serious and half-amusing, and yet one never feels that he is really flippant about serious things. I can understand his being friendly with Arthur when they met, all those years ago, as they have much the same attitude, though A.T. has more knowledge than Arthur. I was looking forward to being with him in Rome, but had not anticipated this maturity of his mind, combined with his greater ease of manner. It is an added pleasure. Sometimes I feel he is chaffing me, as about the faun. I should have thought that I would have disliked this, but I rather enjoy it. He also assumes that my mind has developed along the same lines as his own. No man has ever spoken to me assuming such a high level of intelligence, and this is very flattering. When we returned I said that I was a little tired, which was true, and that I would write letters this evening and go to bed early. I don’t want to make myself a nuisance to him. I don’t know whether he was glad or sorry when I said this. He looked at me with a kind of quizzical expression. He certainly felt something about it. He was not just indifferent. Wrote to the lawyers agreeing to let Maclean off all debts and to let him have the Bourke Street property on a new lease at £3000 a year, as Austin recommends. Wrote to the Commercial Bank asking when my £900 would be available. Sent Steven a cheque for £105 on the Bank of Australasia. The £5 for the baby.