A Difficult Young Man

by Martin Boyd

  ‘No, England, sir.’

  ‘Oh, yes, England of course. And where did you go to school, Rugby, eh?’

  ‘I didn’t go to school, sir. I was taught by the vicar.’ The canon looked grave at this. ‘When he was young he knew Doctor Pusey,’ I continued, and went on to speak with considerable erudition, which was the result of the puppy being brought up with adults, about the history of the Oxford Movement, and the legitimacy of Anglican claims. This was above the canon’s head and he said:

  ‘Our boys’ religion must be that of the knight, not of the monk.’

  ‘But surely, sir,’ I asked, ‘without the monks we would have had no civilization, only battles?’

  ‘And what’s wrong with that?’ he replied, screwing up his eyes in an uneasy smile. ‘We must fight for the right.’

  I felt in him the same xenophobia as in the boys, and I suppose that I carried with me the aroma of the weak coffee in which I had been dipped, or was like the captive seagull, who escapes back to its fellows carrying the taint of humanity. In spite of it he asked me to stay to luncheon, but I refused, telling him that I had to be back in time for my cousin’s wedding.

  ‘Whom is she marrying?’ he asked.

  ‘A man called Wentworth McLeish,’ I said.

  ‘Not one of the McLeishes of Coira Plains?’

  ‘I think that is the place he comes from.’

  ‘She’s making a very grand match,’ he said, obviously impressed.

  I was shocked that the prevailing veneration for wealth as the sole good had infected even a man whose life was supposed to be devoted to religion and education. I also felt the spluttering indignation that had seized me when Aunt Mildy gave the same opinion.

  At luncheon Aunt Mildy talked of the sumptuous preparations at the Craig’s house. There was a marquee on the lawn, lined with pink net and decorated with almond blossom. The presents were magnificent, laid out in the billiard room and guarded by two plain clothes detectives, and there would also be some men with violins.

  We drove to St John’s, Toorak, in a large motor-car which Mildy had hired for the afternoon, and when we stepped out one of her friends standing near said:

  ‘Why, you look like the bride and bridegroom yourselves,’ which delighted Mildy, but gave me the same feelings as when they talked about my entering Helena’s bedroom.

  I was an usher, and had a task which should have been most gratifying to me, that of separating the early gentry from the nouveaux riches. The friends and relations of Helena sat on the left, and those of Wentworth on the right of the main aisle, and I had to conduct them to their places. I may now be using my adult glaze, but I believe that I could have divided the guests without asking their names, or looking at my list. The extreme contrast to the upholstered ladies was Aunt Diana, who had a knack of wrapping herself in old black lace, caught together with the diamonds and pearls which Alice had given her when she had hoped to launch her in European society, and which she had refused to sell, even when they were so poor that Uncle Wolfie had to tune pianos. Dressed in this fashion, with her disdainful and dramatic air, she had a look of great distinction, though Baba may not have thought it smart.

  Aunt Diana had a strong look of Mrs Dane, though she was not actually related to her. One does not know the extent of pre-natal influences, but she was born in the year after Alice had spent her first romantic interlude with Aubrey Tunstall, Ariadne’s brother, in Rome, which, however, we know was innocent. In the same way it does seem that the differences in our own family correspond with the differences in the places where Laura spent the years before our respective births. Bobby with his charming nature was born in the first flowering of their love, Dominic after her loneliness in the harsh Australian countryside, not dissimilar from the landscape of Spain, Brian in the conventional atmosphere of an English country house, whilst my own pre-natal influences were, I am afraid, those of the Riviera.

  When the church was full it was as if two armies had come together to negotiate a treaty of reconciliation. All these people who were accustomed to mingle at parties and race meetings were now clearly divided into their separate elements. As I conducted an upholstered lady to her pew, I intercepted the wondering glance of Miss Vio Chambers who smiled faintly and lifted her eyebrows. But the two armies were united in a pervading sense of excitement. Where a number of rich people are dressed in the finest clothes they can obtain, they give a powerful impression of pleasure. The church glowed with the beautiful stuffs of their clothes, and while they talked in subdued tones, frequently turning to see who was arriving, their hats full of flowers and ribbons and ostrich feathers, danced like a bed of double asters in a breeze. There was a faint delicious scent from the women’s perfume, and from the pillars of the church, around which Aunt Diana had fixed branches of almond blossom in which were embedded great clusters of daffodils. One upholstered lady said:

  ‘Dear me, pink and yellow together!’ But her friend replied:

  ‘Nature never clashes.’

  Outside many cars, polished and glistening in the spring sunlight, stretched down Albany Road, and Brian had drawn my attention to the quiet purring of their engines, symptom of the advance of civilization, though there were also a few broughams and landaus, their horses slowly pacing up and down on the opposite side of the road. In the vestry the choirboys were standing quiet and orderly, so as not to crumple their fresh surplices.

  I had now finished my duties and I joined my parents in the second pew. In front of us were Aunt Maysie, our great-uncles Arthur and Walter, and cousin Hetty of the same generation. As I climbed past Laura, stepping over her feet, she asked:

  ‘Where’s Dominic?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I replied. ‘Didn’t he come with you?’

  ‘No. Perhaps he’s not coming,’ she said, and she looked a little sad.

  The garden of hats danced and shimmered, and turning I saw that Wentworth McLeish had arrived. His best man was with him, and though no doubt their morning coats with white piqué accessories were from the best Melbourne or possibly London tailor, they looked rather as if they were in fancy dress. They sat down across the aisle, and chatted unconcernedly while they awaited the coming of the bride.

  Brian muttered to me:

  ‘No man should look as self-satisfied as that when he’s just going to be married,’ which made me realize that there were all kinds of good manners outside the definite rules. There was another flutter of hats when the bridesmaids arrived, and waited in the porch, as the same car had to go back for Uncle Bertie and Helena. There was a long interval, but Wentworth continued to chat imperturbably, though he did take out his watch and glance at it, as if he feared he might be late for another appointment. People began to fidget more noticeably, and the subdued murmur of conversation increased. Aunt Maysie turned round and said to Laura:

  ‘I hope that nothing has gone wrong with her dress.’

  I cannot remember how long it was after the bridesmaids had come that Uncle Bertie strode up the aisle. It seemed to be a very long time, as every minute was lengthened by our anxiety, and by the mounting distress of Aunt Maysie. He was without his top hat and gloves, and he did not look to either side, but went straight up to her and announced:

  ‘She’s gone off with Dominic.’

  He then turned to Wentworth and said with a curtness which forbade the inadequacy of any apology:

  ‘I’m afraid there’ll be no wedding.’

  Aunt Maysie nodded her head, not as if accepting easily Uncle Bertie’s statement, but with an inherited habit of nodding in moments of grief and misfortune as if saying to herself:

  ‘Yes, this is what I must expect of life.’

  Her kind maternal cheeks sagged heavily. Uncle Bertie said:

  ‘Come, Mother,’ and he took her arm and they walked away down the church. I had never before heard him
call her ‘mother,’ and at any other time would have thought it a very bourgeois way for a man to address his wife. Now it made the tears start to my eyes, as it revealed the force of the blow that my aunt had suffered, and also showed Uncle Bertie to have a sublime sensibility, for in spite of his extreme Protestantism, he had seen in his wife the inescapable sorrow of womanhood, of which the eternal symbol is the Stabat Mater.

  The incident also showed me how little we know what we really believe and desire. A few hours earlier, walking down Kew Hill, I had wished that this marriage could be prevented. That it had been now appeared to me a supreme disaster. I was too upset to notice anything more in the church, as I saw that what I had dreaded all my life had at last happened, that one day Dominic would deal an irreparable blow at those whom I most loved, and would be unable to protect, as Steven and Laura now had a look of wretchedness greater than I had ever seen on their faces.

  * * *

  To satisfy any curiosity as to how this last scene came about I shall add what I gathered from various sources during the following years. Before leaving the scene in the church we may note its correspondence with something that happened half a century earlier. Cousin Hetty who was seated, a formidable widow in the front pew, must have felt a melting of her respectable bones when she heard that the bride had fled, as on the day of her wedding she had urged Austin, who was giving her away, to take her to the railway station instead of the church, which, fortunately for us, he refused to do. Or did she feel satisfaction that the pattern which in 1860 had failed, in 1911 had repeated itself with complete and dramatic effect? Her impassive alpaca back revealed nothing.

  The hour following the débacle was like that following a street accident. One hardly knows what has happened until the ambulance has driven away and the crowd of sightseers and loiterers dispersed. For the rest of the day members of the family continually rang each other up, or visited each other’s houses, and gradually, though confused with much error and speculation came into possession of the facts.

  Although Dominic, on our arrival in Melbourne, had been sent down to stay with the Flugels at Brighton, he had met Helena two or three times in the days immediately succeeding Baba’s party. Whoever witnessed these meetings saw that what the family had feared was very likely to happen. Uncle Bertie gave Helena a solemn lecture on her duty. She was divided in her feelings, but still imagined that she was in love with Wentworth, and that the only proper course was to respect her engagement. She promised Uncle Bertie that she would not see Dominic again before her wedding. Then Baba had obligingly opened her eyes to the popular view of the match, which also enlightened her as to her own true feelings, and she gave me the note to take to Dominic, in which she said that she did not want to marry Wentworth.

  It was almost impossible for them to meet privately, but they had two or three telephone conversations, and on the morning of the wedding day they met in the garden of an empty ‘Boom’ mansion, which adjoined the Craig’s. It must have been then that they made their arrangement. Dominic’s behaviour was in character, but it seems extraordinarily callous of Helena to have exposed Wentworth to the ridicule of ‘Society,’ and to have caused her parents so much humiliation and distress by going ahead with the pretence of the wedding. It was inconsistent with her usual courage, though it would have needed almost superhuman strength of mind to go to Uncle Bertie on that very morning and tell him she would not marry Wentworth. The only alternative was to clear out and leave the appalling mess.

  She may not at first have intended to go with Dominic. Then why did she write to him? Perhaps only on an impulse of anger with Aunt Baba. There in the garden of the mansion he realized that he was losing forever all that he valued in life, and as he had said to me about Sylvia, ‘it was his life,’ and he saw no reason to stop him taking the most drastic and immediate steps to secure her. Nothing that happened to either of them could be worse than allowing the wedding to proceed. He combined in this Langton logic and Teba passion. One could not wreck one’s life to avoid a social contretemps.

  We may here guess the subject of his long conferences with Ariadne Dane in Florence. Nothing could have given her greater satisfaction than to explore to the depths the emotional disturbances of a handsome young man with more than a touch of Southern fire in his appearance and his temperament. No one could have more thoroughly imbued him with the feeling that all was fair in love and war.

  After lunching at Uncle Bob’s house, he disappeared, presumably to change, but in reality to drive to Toorak in a hansom, which he had ordered to wait for him at the corner of the street. Here he entered the deserted garden and stationed himself in a tree, from which he was able to see the Craig’s front gate, and the cars arriving and departing. At last he saw the bridesmaids leave and he knew that Helena would be alone in her room. Uncle Bertie would probably be downstairs in one of the sitting-rooms on the other side of the house. He had to risk that, but Helena had told him that as soon as she was alone she would appear at the window. When this happened he would climb up to help her down, with the gardener’s ladder if possible, but he was an expert climber, and could scale any reasonable wall.

  It may be that at the last minute she hesitated, but with that ruthless combination of passion and logic he conducted a violent assault on her heart and mind. Perhaps he lifted her hand to his face, and she touched the scar by his mouth, and she thought:

  ‘Twice he has flung himself down for me, now when he has climbed up I should go with him.’ Whatever she thought, she surrendered. How they got away is a miracle, and yet she found time to scrawl a note to Maysie, though she may have written it as soon as the bridesmaids left. It was this that Uncle Bertie found, when fuming with impatience, he broke open the door:

  ‘Darling Mummy, please forgive me. I’ve gone with Dominic. It can’t be helped. I’m so sorry about all the trouble. Your loving Helena.

  ‘Please give my apologies to Wentworth.’

  The postscript shows the extent of her regard for that unfortunate millionaire. She did not imagine that she had caused him much more than inconvenience, as if she had missed an appointment to lunch with him in Melbourne. His attitude to the wedding did not seem very different, judging from the manner in which he looked at his watch in the church.

  Dominic and Helena drove in the hansom to Spencers Street railway station, where they caught the express to Sydney, and they were married as soon as possible. Steven allowed Dominic the amount which he had intended to give him if he married Sylvia, while Aunt Maysie, obstinately opposing Uncle Bertie, who for months declared that he would never again speak to his daughter, gave Helena half the income that she had inherited from Alice. In this way they were able to live in material comfort.

  Many of the upholstered ladies spoke of them with malice, not only because of Helena’s appalling disrespect to wealth, but also because they thought she must be unduly happy. The more good-natured, when Aunt Maysie returned the wedding presents, said:

  ‘Oh, no. Let her keep them. After all she is married.’

  For reading group notes visit textclassics.com.au

  The Commandant

  Jessica Anderson

  Introduced by Carmen Callil

  Homesickness

  Murray Bail

  Introduced by Peter Conrad

  Sydney Bridge Upside Down

  David Ballantyne

  Introduced by Kate De Goldi

  A Difficult Young Man

  Martin Boyd

  Introduced by Sonya Hartnett

  The Australian Ugliness

  Robin Boyd

  Introduced by Christos Tsiolkas

  The Even More Complete

  Book of Australian Verse

  John Clarke

  Introduced by John Clarke

  Diary of a Bad Year

  JM Coetzee

  Introdu
ced by Peter Goldsworthy

  Wake in Fright

  Kenneth Cook

  Introduced by Peter Temple

  The Dying Trade

  Peter Corris

  Introduced by Charles Waterstreet

  They’re a Weird Mob

  Nino Culotta

  Introduced by Jacinta Tynan

  Careful, He Might Hear You

  Sumner Locke Elliot

  Introduced by Robyn Nevin

  Terra Australis

  Matthew Flinders

  Introduced by Tim Flannery

  My Brilliant Career

  Miles Franklin

  Introduced by Jennifer Byrne

  Cosmo Cosmolino

  Helen Garner

  Introduced by Ramona Koval

  Dark Places

  Kate Grenville

  Introduced by Louise Adler

  The Watch Tower

  Elizabeth Harrower

  Introduced by Joan London

  The Mystery of

  a Hansom Cab

  Fergus Hume

  Introduced by Simon Caterson

  The Glass Canoe

  David Ireland

  Introduced by Nicolas Rothwell

  The Jerilderie Letter

  Ned Kelly

  Introduced by Alex McDermott

  Bring Larks and Heroes

  Thomas Keneally

  Introduced by Geordie Williamson

  Strine

  Afferbeck Lauder

  Introduced by John Clarke

  Stiff

  Shane Maloney

  Introduced by Lindsay Tanner

  The Middle Parts of Fortune

  Frederic Manning

  Introduced by Simon Caterson

  The Scarecrow

  Ronald Hugh Morrieson

  Introduced by Craig Sherborne

  The Dig Tree

  Sarah Murgatroyd

  Introduced by Geoffrey Blainey

  The Plains

  Gerald Murnane