The Quest for Corvo: An Experiment in Biography (Valancourt eClassics)

by A. J. A. Symons

  The first part of the attack is headed

  BARON CORVO

  MORE ‘WIDE WORLD’ ADVENTURES

  EXTRAORDINARY STORY

  A NOBLEMAN FROM ABERDEEN

  and opens thus:

  The world was recently startled by the discovery by the Wide World Magazine – a new periodical devoted to the promulgation of true statements of thrilling adventure – of a greater than Robinson Crusoe in the person of M. Rougemont, and a little later the public was equally amused when it was shown what manner of man that great explorer and anthropologist really is. Being about done with the Rougemont affair, the Wide World Magazine has discovered another personage. This time it is a nobleman, and in this month’s issue of the magazine he is presented with the customary editorial flourish which, at the head of an article, is understood to give a keener relish to the tale. The new writer tells a story of his experiences with great minuteness, but there are many experiences of his much more striking than the statements of the Wide World Magazine, which it would be well for the world to know. The article in question is entitled How I was Buried Alive and is ‘By Baron Corvo’ – though no quotation marks will be found beside his name anywhere in the Magazine to indicate that he is not the real quality. And the patent of nobility is further endorsed in the serious editorial statement already mentioned, in which the story is described as ‘Baron Corvo’s fearful experience described in minute detail by himself and illustrated with drawings done under his own supervision’. A picture of a youngish man is given in the front of the article as a photo of Baron Corvo. It may be said that it is a very good photo, and has been recognized by many people in Aberdeen and neighbourhood, who can tell something regarding him vastly more interesting than what appears in the Wide World Magazine under His Excellency’s signature. . . . The merit of [that] story lies in its being an actual experience of this nobleman, and . . . it will be well, for many reasons, to indicate how far His Excellency the Baron Corvo is to be taken au sérieux.

  And first as to title. People will look in vain in the peerage of this or any other country for the lineage of Baron Corvo. But ‘the Baron’ has not now used the title for the first time; nor does he use it without being well warned by those with whom he was acquainted as to the complications likely to result if he persisted in doing so. It was all right so long as he employed the title to those who knew what value to put upon it, but he has been fond of subscribing himself in formal communications ‘very truly, Corvo’, and even as ‘Frederick Baron Corvo’. Those who knew him pointed out the folly, to say the least of it, of this kind of thing.

  So far the attack had proceeded with menacing restraint. Now, however, the author opened his hand. Evidently he was well informed; for he turns to the Christchurch incident, and relates in detail how ‘the Baron’ had attempted to purchase Gleeson White’s property and was ‘treated seriously in the negotiations – for a while’. He gives, too, the text of a taunting and sarcastic letter written to Rolfe by Mrs White which concludes:

  ‘As regards your persistence in maintaining that you could buy our property, I can only hope you were self-deceived. No other excuse can justify the extreme and unnecessary worry you have caused us both. Are you leaving on Saturday? An absurd report has reached me that you are to be sold up then and are going to the workhouse. Under the circumstances I hope your old friend Mr T. and your priest will come to the rescue – but how about that £100 you have told us repeatedly you have still at your London bank under your real name Rolfe? which let me advise you to re-adopt for the future, for the very fact of your assuming a new and foreign title has, I find now, given rise from the first to suspicions here and elsewhere. . . . Deeply regretting that you have made it impossible for us to assist you further, I am, etc. etc.’

  This [continues the article] shows something of the nature of the Baron, and it may simply be added that the title Baron Corvo, as His Excellency told on various occasions to those who knew him, is ‘a distinction I picked up in Italy’.

  Having (it must be admitted, quite skilfully) thus thrown cold water on ‘His Excellency’s’ rank, the unknown commentator asks ‘Who, then, is Baron Corvo?’, a rhetorical question which he proceeds to answer:

  This gentleman is Frederick William Rolfe, and his history prior to his emergence in Aberdeen may be briefly told. While an undermaster at Grantham School he became a Roman Catholic and had to leave his mastership. This was in 1886. At times, as he himself put it, he ‘starved in London’, alternated with short periods of tutorship. At one time the Marquess of Bute, having founded a school for outcast boys at Oban, appointed Rolfe the master. There were two priest chaplains, and among the three matters did not move smoothly. In a month or two Rolfe was out again. After a while he decided to go in for the priesthood. The Bishop of Shrewsbury was induced to look into his case, with the result that in the end of 1887, as an ecclesiastical subject of the prelate, he went to Oscott (Roman Catholic) College, but in a few months was discharged.

  After more ‘starving in London’ he came across Mr Ogilvie-Forbes, of Boyndlie in Aberdeenshire, and stayed at Boyndlie for three or four months. Another temporary tutorship and then the late Archbishop Smith of Edinburgh, well known for his softness of heart in such cases, was induced to take him up, and sent him to the Scots College in Rome, to be trained for the priesthood. After five months he was expelled. It was owing to his lack of Vocation . . . [and] because – as is averred on authority which the Baron is not likely to challenge – he was regarded as a general nuisance in the place, to say the least of it. Even there he contracted large debts, which he said the Lord Archibald Douglas had agreed to pay, but which Lord Archibald would have nothing to do with. However, Mr Rolfe has always been characterized with a polished manner, backed up by such accomplishments as a little music, some capacity for art, and a considerable expertness as an amateur photographer. As a student he contrived to make himself very agreeable to a Roman Catholic old English lady with an Italian title, the Duchess Carolina Sforza, from whom he got considerable sums of money; and by her he was maintained for some time after his expulsion from the Scots College. However, that, like many another kindness to Mr Rolfe, came to an end. He returned to England towards the end of 1890, and, maintaining that he had been promised by the Duchess an income – which he variously stated as from £150 to £300 a year – for two years to enable him to prosecute his art studies, he went to Christchurch.

  There follows a further dig at the Gleeson White episode, with a conclusion that amplifies Mr Jackson’s recollection:

  The Duchess declined, however, to rise to the occasion in the matter of the promised income, though Rolfe continued for years to write to her begging her aid, until the letters were either not answered or were replied to by communications on which there was neither the prefix ‘Mr’ nor the affix ‘Esq.’, to say nothing of the lordly title of ‘Baron’, which he soon came to be constantly using. It may just be noted in passing that the title which the Baron selected is of the following signification – Latin, corvus; Italian, corvo; French, corbeau; Scotch, corbie; English, crow.[1]

  Even this well-informed critic was unaware, it appeared, of Rolfe’s ancestry. I found his story intensely interesting; not the less so because as I went on I found that this press attack had been very largely Mr Leslie’s authority on Corvo’s early years.

  And now we come to 1892, when this gentleman began to honour with his residence the Northern city of Aberdeen. Sold out at Christchurch, he did the ‘starving’ again for some months – or was charitably maintained by the Fathers of the Roman Catholic Church, Ely Place, London. About the middle of that year, however, and continuing to look about among well-to-do Roman Catholic families for aid, he was given the post of tutor to the young Laird of Seaton, at Seaton Old House, Aberdeen. For a brief space he lived in clover, driving out and in to the city, being able to invite his friends to lunch and so forth, all as becometh one with lordly aspirations; though here it ought to be said that for a time he f
ollowed Mrs White’s sensible advice, and went under his own name of Frederick William Rolfe. . . . However, he had to depart from Seaton, and a curious story may be told as showing the light in which he was regarded after his departure. A few months afterwards he found his way into the Seaton grounds. Nobody saw him enter; but as he was coming out again by a different gateway, he found the gate locked. ‘Gate’, he shouted to the old woman in the lodge. The old body looked out, inquiring who it was, and, on being told, ‘Well,’ she drily observed, ‘I suppose I may let you out, though I have orders not to let you in’.

  Mr Rolfe, looking about for a friend in need, found one in the Rev. Fr. Gerry, Roman Catholic priest of Strichen (now Dufftown), who kept him for some weeks. Father Gerry found it extremely hard to get rid of him – as did many another – for on the day fixed for his departure the guest usually fell sick and was unable to go.

  About . . . the beginning of November 1892 Mr Rolfe made application to Messrs G. W. Wilson and Co., photographers, to be taken on their staff. He did not care a pin for money. All he desired was opportunity to improve and perfect himself in the photographic art. He was told that no improvers were taken on there; but he persisted, and ultimately on being told that there was a boy’s place vacant, which he might have if he cared to take it, and be subject to the ordinary rules of the works, he accepted. For fully three months he was in Messrs Wilson’s works at 12s. 6d. a week, but merely messing about, coming and going when he liked, pretty much doing what he liked, telling enormous yarns to his fellow-workers of his father’s property in England and abroad – for by this time he was reverting to the use of the baronial title. . . . At length the firm could endure His Excellency no longer and he received his notice. But again the difficulty was to get rid of him. After being told not to come back, he would return and start work smilingly as usual. It was thought advisable, therefore, to send him a formal intimation to his lodgings (which he had not paid for months) that the thing could go on no longer, and he must go. He immediately sent back to Messrs Wilson a letter, of which the following is an extract: ‘Dear Sir, It is a curious thing that at the moment I received your note I was about to carry out an intention I have been forming for some time past, viz. to ask you whether one would be allowed to invest a small sum, say £1000, in your business, and to secure a permanent and congenial appointment suited to my capacities. Perhaps it is inopportune now, but I think I had better mention it.’ Even after this he turned up at the works, and had ultimately to be threatened with ejection by the police if he did not clear out. Then Mr Rolfe proposed to sue the firm. He went to one of the principal legal firms in Aberdeen and got them to write to Messrs G. W. Wilson intimating a claim of about £300 for the retention, he said, of certain property of his, and for breach of contract. A single communication from Messrs Wilson showed the lawyers the kind of man with whom they had to deal, and they dropped the case. Mr Rolfe tried to get another to take up the case ‘on spec’, as he put it, but failed, and so that matter passed away.

  The expression ‘passed away’ was much favoured by whosoever wrote the attack on Rolfe; indeed, there are many repeated turns of phrase which must have revealed to the victim the identity of his enemy.

  The Baron chiefly occupied himself in what he called ‘beating up’ all the well-to-do Catholics, from the Duke of Norfolk downwards, for money to aid him in carrying out schemes which he put forward of colour-photography, submarine photography, new light for instantaneous photography, and all the rest. But he did not confine his attention to Catholics. . . . He did not hesitate to attempt even the highest flights, as the following communication will show: ‘Baron Corvo presents compliments to Sir Henry Ponsonby, and is desirous to offer Her Majesty the Queen a small picture of the Nativity at Christmas. It is his own work, and is quite unique, being photographed from the living model by magnesium light. He would be very grateful to Sir Henry Ponsonby for directions as to the necessary form to be observed on these occasions.’

  But, after all, it was to Roman Catholics that [Corvo] chiefly made his epistolary appeals. One of those upon whom he bestowed unsleeping attention was the late Roman Catholic Bishop of Aberdeen, Hugh Macdonald. Writing to the Bishop on one occasion acknowledging the loan of £1, which the kind-hearted Bishop had sent him, Rolfe wrote: ‘My Lord Bishop – I regret that I have made a mistake as to the funds at your Lordship’s disposal, but I was informed . . . that a sum of £4,600 had been inherited by the Catholic Cathedral clergy “for the relief of the Catholic poor”. I repeat my apologies for having troubled your Lordship about a matter on which I was misinformed.’ The note from the Bishop in reference to this matter was pointed and not without a touch of ecclesiastical humour: ‘My dear Mr Rolfe, As I told you on Saturday, I have no funds at my disposal for the relief of the Catholic poor. No such sums have been left lately, so that you must have been misinformed. May our Lord help you out of your difficulties, for I have no faith in submarine photography. Hugh C. SS. R. Bishop of Aberdeen.’

  But the further adventures of Baron Corvo must wait for another day.

  Not, however, for long. One article did not satisfy the spleen of Rolfe’s first biographer. He returned to the attack in the next issue of the Aberdeen Free Press, pleading, in the fashion that I recognized, that ‘It will be well’ to give some further particulars of the Baron’s residence in Aberdeen. It is unnecessary to repeat in full all the instances he gives of the ways in which Rolfe struggled to keep his head above water. He appealed all round for aid to finance inventions of which there is no longer any record. Perhaps a hint of one can be gleaned from the letter to Sir Henry Ponsonby quoted above, and another to Mr W. Astor in which Rolfe claims to have ‘invented a portable light by which I can dispense with the sun’. His reference is to photography by magnesium light, at that time (the early nineties) still a novelty. It is charitable, and reasonable, to suppose that Rolfe, who, even in the admission of the Aberdeen writer, was an ‘expert’ photographer, had stumbled upon some advance, or improvement, on the methods then employed. Even his other inventions, so called, seem to have had at least prima-facie claims. They so far impressed Commander Littledale, then in charge of H.M.S. Clyde, that the Commander undertook to bring some of Rolfe’s submarine schemes before the United Service Institution; though even that minor triumph brings its sting, for

  this [news] was, of course, instantly communicated to friends with the additional information that [Rolfe] wanted funds ‘to conduct the experiments before the experts, which will mean two if not three fortunes to me’. But that matter also passed away.

  He made a similar hit in approaching Lord Charles Beresford, who gave him an appointment, but

  immediately a shoal of letters was sent out – one to the Bishop of Shrewsbury, another to the Bishop of Aberdeen, others to the Duke of Norfolk, to Mr W. T. Stead, to Mr Gleeson White, etc. etc., intimating that Lord Charles Beresford had expressed his interest in the invention, and would these lords and gentlemen help in the matter of finance. But none of them rose to the occasion.

  The Baron was no more successful in an application to the Illustrated London News and a similar one to the Graphic, to be commissioned to proceed to Tripoli and photograph the sunken H.M.S. Victoria.

  As I have said, it is not my intention to transcribe the whole of the attack on Rolfe. Its compiler was industrious in recording every minor misdeed of his subject, and in giving actions which would have been ordinary enough when performed by ordinary people a sinister colour when performed by Rolfe. Some of the stories set out are, it must be admitted, definitely discreditable. The Baron tendered a cheque for £5 in settlement of some purchases, the balance to be paid to him in cash; but on inquiry the cheque was found to be, ‘to say the least of it, very far from satisfactory’. On the other hand, his efforts to sell his paintings ‘in the mediaeval style’ to the inappreciative people of Aberdeen were pathetic in their futility. After beseeching the interest of all the leading Catholics in Aberdeen, he offered them to the Lord Prov
ost with the ingenuous yet ironical recommendation, ‘I venture, My Lord Provost, to suggest their appropriateness as a gift in connection with the Royal wedding, especially as they are the work of an artist who has settled in Aberdeen because of its exquisite suitability for his work’. But even that failed to draw.

  There is a certain humour in even the gloomiest of Rolfe’s adventures in the North. I quote again:

  The Baron continued to reside with [a] family in Skene Street from October 1892 until the beginning of August 1893. The head of the family was a hardworking tradesman, and he and his wife had taken a largish house with a view to keeping a superior class of boarders. Mr Rolfe was their chiefest venture in that direction; and when ultimately they got rid of him – in a highly dramatic way – he was due them the sum of £37.2.9½. . . . At length the Baron’s landlord and landlady realised that the hope to which they had clung of receiving payment of his board and lodging in a lump sum was utterly baseless. They had taken no end of trouble with him. He was a vegetarian and a perfect epicure in the matter of his diet, making out each day from a cookery book the recipes for the day’s meals. . . . But, as already said, the people resolved to get rid of him. When the Baron realised that it was literally coming to a push, he would not stir out of the house: in the end he would not get out of bed lest, peradventure, he should be thrust forth. One evening about 6 o’clock the landlord besought the aid of a fellow-workman. They entered the Baron’s bedroom, and the Baron was given ten minutes to dress and clear out. He refused to move and when the ten minutes was up he seized hold of the iron bedstead and clung for dear life. He was dragged forth, wearing only his pyjamas, out to the staircase, where he caught hold of the banisters, and another struggle ensued. Thence he was carried down the long staircase and was shot on to the pavement, as he stood, to the wonderment of the passers-by. His clothing was thrown after him, which he ultimately donned – and that was the last of Baron Corvo in that particular locality.