Over and beyond these general objects, an elaborate scheme of government for the Order was worked out in detail. Beautiful notepaper, with headings designed by Rolfe, was printed, and orders given for a special dress, designed by Pirie-Gordon. Pending the acquisition of the desired island, Gwernvale was settled on as temporary headquarters.
But other, and more practical, plans were made by the two friends. Young Pirie-Gordon had made and laid by various abortive beginnings of books; and these, in an expansive moment, he showed to Rolfe. They included a vague romance, conceived at Harrow, of a modern man who was to relive his past, in which he was to identify himself with Odysseus; and an unsuccessful Arnold Prize essay on the life and times of Innocent the Great. Both of these beginnings were pronounced by Rolfe to have elements of excellence; and he half-hinted, half-proposed collaboration. The Pirie-Gordons were delighted at the thought that their son’s vague projects might be given a useful form; Harry himself, like all beginners in letters, burned for print. Work was begun on both these books, and also on a third, more remarkable than either, a reconstruction of history ‘as it ought to have been, and easily might have been, but in fact was not’. The name of this romance, I learned with the prospective joy of a discoverer, was Hubert’s Arthur! Rolfe, I learned further, was left to do the major part of it, while Pirie-Gordon made himself mainly responsible for the reincarnation story (called The Weird of the Wanderer) and, almost entirely, for the study of Innocent, which he had written originally in Rome and Amalfi for the Arnold Prize.
Months passed by. Rolfe returned to Oxford, still as temporary secretary to Dr Hardy; Pirie-Gordon toured abroad; the collaboration was continued by post; the lawsuit was postponed once more.
But there is an end to all things, even to the law’s delays. After more than two years, the action against Col. Thomas was heard in the King’s Bench Court on 17 December 1906, and following a brief hearing, in which Rolfe was cross-examined severely concerning his past life, and broke down, a verdict was given for the defendant on all points with costs.
I feel exactly as though I had been beaten with beetroots and mangold wurzels all over, especially on my face, neck and hands
the unsuccessful litigant wrote to his friends,
quite sore and bruized by the court full of eyes which banged on me all Wednesday. It appears to me that I was a great fool. Not such a fool as my advisers: but a fool. Several things were omitted which ought to have been put in:—there were some of Thomas’s ‘rough drafts’ which, when compared with my MS and the printed book, would have shewed How MUCH of the work was his and how much mine – that ‘Schedule’ ought to have been shewn, to prove what the original £25 Report was to have been and how the Book grew out of it. . . .
And so on. That unsuccessful lawsuit was Rolfe’s Moscow, though he did not know it.
*
Fr. Rolfe returned to Oxford, not yet dispirited. And, since man must rest his hopes on something, he began to have hopes of Hubert’s Arthur.
(It) is an awful piece of work (he wrote). But it will be unlike any book ever written. And it will pay. I go on very slowly and keep on rewriting. I’m just beginning to know the people in it: but I alter so radically as the thing grows that I shan’t let it be seen till it’s done. And I am not going to do any one single thing beside till it is done. Mark me well.
Some of his postcards are very funny:
Have you any objection to Lady Maud de Braose being shut up in a dungeon, and fed with the tails of haddocks, two a day, till she, saltish, perishes of pure displeasure? They can sing her requiem on the eleventh day.
Of Oxford itself (which by this time he must have come to know better than any other city) he wrote to another correspondent:
This Examination (the Honour School of Literae Humaniores) is an experience. We are doing Ancient History, Logick, Roman History, Translation. The papers are perfectly appalling. The vilest, vulgarest scripts, the silliest spelling, infinitives split to the midriff. I asked Hardy what was to be done with these crimes against fair English, and he answered sedately, ‘Pass them over with silent contempt.’
I find that silent system admirable altogether.
This is why.
Whatever is of good, a man must get not from a teacher, but from his own toil.
The man who wants to write Good English will, ultimately, write good English, and his work will have the supreme merit of being rare.
So this mighty Alma Mater of Oxford does well not to teach the preservation of unsplit infinitives. She teaches you how to teach yourself, and that is all, and all is everything, and there is nothing more.
But what a lovely place it is. I call it the City of Eternal Youth. All that is not life is gray and ancient, gracious colleges, gardens and the sunny river. And everywhere is musick, antiphony and song. Do you know the quality of voice which I call virgin-bass? The resonant reticent bass of the boy of twenty wearing his maidenhead for one day more? I heard that last Tuesday and recorded a new emotion. Its exceeding rarity, its evanishing bloom is as precious as carved chrusoprase. I could live here very well and do good work in the divine peace.
The friendship continued. In the following Easter, Rolfe visited Gwernvale again. His appointment with Hardy had ended, and as he had nowhere to go, he was invited to remain as a more or less permanent guest. The ‘family’ was abroad, travelling; and when Harry returned to Oxford, Rolfe was left alone, with the servants, as deputy master of the house. Innocent the Great was finished. Was Rolfe slightly vexed when Messrs Longmans, Green and Co. accepted his young protégé’s book without demur? He consoled himself, rather unkindly, by christening Pirie-Gordon ‘Caliban’, in reference to that passage in The Tempest when Prospero says:
. . . I pitied thee,
Took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour
One thing or other: when thou didst not (savage)
Know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like
A thing most brutish, I informed thy purposes
With words.
His envy might almost be pardoned, for publishers were once more showing an unaccountable (so he reasonably thought it) indifference to his work. Even Mr Grant Richards (to whom he had once promised ‘ruthless and persequent enmity’) was approached, yet missed his chance:
Dear Mr Grant Richards:
If you should wish to have a book or books of mine, I do hope that you will not hesitate about asking. I should be glad indeed to repeat my last offer to you, if I knew that you desired it. Pray do not misunderstand me any more. I mean you nothing but well.
Faithfully yours
Fr. Rolfe
and in a later letter this olive branch was followed up:
I have the typescript of two novels, and the manuscript of a poetry-book, ready for the printer; and I shall have two more novels ready in the course of this year. They are at the disposal of any publisher (and I feel that Fate would do admirably and suitably in making you mine) who would give me a 15 per cent royalty on the first thousand, and a rising royalty thereafter.
I was able to discover what these works offered to Mr Richards were, from a letter that Rolfe wrote to Mrs Pirie-Gordon:
I have on my table waiting for publication The Songs of Meleagros of Gadara: Greek and English, the only complete collection in the world, Reviews of Unwritten Books, a series of 24 witty, learned, but quite easily understood essays on such delightful subjects as Caesar’s Life of Napoleon, a novel about Don Tarquinio’s relations called Don Renato (or, An Ideal Content), and a modern novel about friendship and literary life called Nicholas Crabbe (or, The One and the Many).
Not a single one of those books was known to survive, at that period of my inquiry. It is certainly surprising that no publisher should have accepted them, for the terms which Rolfe proposed were not onerous, while his subjects and treatment (as I hope to prove to the reader’s satisfaction) were far more interesting than those of most of the books which find their way into print. But luck, and the
times, were against him.
Fortune had stood him in good stead, however, and found him good friends, in the Pirie-Gordons. All through the year he remained at Gwernvale. ‘Here I am, living comfortably (it is true) on the hospitality of friends, writing myself blind, but not earning a penny so far’, he wrote to his mother. ‘Not earning a penny’ was the literal truth. No royalties had accrued from Hadrian the Seventh or Don Tarquinio, and as Mr Taylor began to be anxious about his investment, Rolfe began to be anxious about his future. He was nearing fifty. Early in 1908 he wrote from Gwernvale a long letter to Mrs Pirie-Gordon, who was still abroad:
Dear Mrs Pirie-Gordon:
Let me first wish you a happier New Year; and I do that from the bottom of my heart. Next, the only reason why I have not written yet to thank you for your Christmas present is that I have been waiting from day to day for news of a certain kind to send you. None has come; and I cannot wait any longer. I cannot tell you how profoundly moved I was by your gift, the silver ankh. I instantly perceived how you, and Harry, must have thought hard till you thought my thoughts. The evidence was of many kinds, the ankh itself, the size, the metal, and above all the adornment of it, as never an ankh has been adorned before, with my sign of the crab, and my moon, and my cross-potent-elongate, all of which make it my very very own. Such interest in ME, shown by such an exactly intimate knowledge of my secret and not more than half-formed desire and taste, has never been shewn before. The effect is almost to strike me dumb. Thank you, I do: but thanks express but feebly what I feel.
On the top of the ankh came Japanese silk handkerchiefs from Miss Handley, embroidered in red with my own R. and label. And again I am stricken dumb.
And all this has made me begin to notice the hundred thousand ways, little and large, in which you all watch my words for indications of my tastes and wants in order that you may gratify them. Do you know that even a special dish of angelica was provided for my Christmas dessert?
And I can do nothing adequate in return. That makes these favours hard to bear. But what makes it harder still is the knowledge that you dear kind souls, who have given me so long the hospitality which not a single Catholic would dream of giving, are adding to my burdens all unconsciously. You are giving me lovely things which I like so much that it will be a most bitter wrench to me to part from them. And I believe that there is nothing else before me but to part from everything. And I know that my nature will make me fight and struggle to retain; and as each thing is torn from me I shall have a pang each time. Pray then make it easier and not harder by not planting in me seeds which circumstances are going to tear up by their tender roots. This is not ingratitude by any means, but the truest gratitude: for, now that I know how eager you are to please me, I can freely tell you how to please me better. So I say, do not give me luxuries at all which it will hurt me to lose, and help me to live so that I have nothing which can be taken from me.
. . . I have asked Mr Taylor to advance me something to live on while I go on writing. If he had done so, I should have asked you to take me into your family, letting me contribute what I have to the common fund, until by uninterrupted work I could earn enough to discharge my obligations. I should beg you to let me live here, a great deal more simply than I do now, not interfering, nor even considered, a help and not a hindrance, left entirely to myself to do my work. If this could have been done, I am quite convinced that I could make good and permanent headway. But Taylor, though he has not definitely refused, has said nothing for a fortnight, and hope deferred has made me sick. I really am tired of it all. I have so many really good irons in the fire; and now that I have to leave them I don’t feel a bit like beginning this fearful twenty years all over again. Besides, I can’t even if I would. There is no one else who cares. And it is no good. So I am just drifting now until one thing or another happens.
But, whether anything happens or not, do please believe me that I am most thankful to you three and to Miss Handley for hospitality, generosity, forbearance, and the very truest friendship. You have made me feel no alien while I am here.
Yes: now that I have written it down I am in love with the idea, very much in love, for it seems like a clear light on a dark path: but yet never so much in love that I could persist in liking it if you (any of you) were to say that you didn’t. Of course it’s easy to see that it would make things jolly easy for me; and on that account it’s selfish. I should have a certain and most pleasant home among the dearest people, who looked upon me as one of the family, joyful with their ups and suffering with their downs; and at present (as you’re perfectly aware) I haven’t got anybody really particular to care for and to care for me. And you have perhaps perceived that I positively fester with unused and unusual human sympathy. And of course I could go on writing like a house on fire with such certainty and such interest behind me. And if I did go on writing, and persistently persevering at the various schemes begun, OF COURSE I am bound to succeed rather sooner than later. And as for my Rites – I walked to Aber and back fasting, but for an orange returning, on Christmas day – I really would regularize my life. I really would scratch a bicycle from somewhere, learn to ride, and go to Mass on Sundays and holidays. How lovely it would be to be able to do that regularly without having anything at all to do with Roman Catholics. But it is not entirely selfish. If it had been that, I don’t think I should have mentioned it, or indeed allowed it to occupy my mind at all. You know I really could make myself useful, and (eventually) offer (not an equivalent for the kindness which took pity on a drifter but) an equivalent for the expense involved. You see, I only want one thing in the world. And that I may not have. So I am free from what is called Ambition. I am just too old and too tired to care for Fame. The real fun, which I enjoy, is moving others. I infinitely prefer the background for my own performances. There is more room there for real gymnastics than on the top where youngsters sweat and struggle for public applause. Oh yes: I could be a jolly good deal more useful in the background as referee, as agent, as generally dependable person. Now you have thought me cold, have assured me of friendship. I presume on the latter to be suddenly quite hot. Does it please you? If Taylor will help, may I talk the business part over with Mr Gordon with any hope of acceptance? Don’t hesitate to say No. I thoroughly understand everything. But do say Yes if you possibly can.
Rolfe was not rebuffed. Mrs Pirie-Gordon, who perhaps understood him better than he understood himself, replied that there was no need to consider ‘business arrangements’ or ‘definite terms’, since she was well content that he should remain at Gwernvale as a guest; and that in that contentment her family concurred. To the darker parts of his letter, which I quote elsewhere, she was equally tactful. There is no doubt that, had Rolfe so chosen, he might have continued to live with the Gordons for many years. But, on the horizon, there were looming new quarrels and a new friend: a combination which, within a few months, was to transport him to Italy, to Venice, and death: to the beginning of his last ‘new life’. Before that, however, there befell him two minor pieces of good fortune, though he was not destined to benefit very deeply from either. The first was the acceptance, by a publisher, Francis Griffiths, of Maiden Lane, of two of those unpublished works for which he had so long sought a market: Don Renato, that priest’s diary which so powerfully impressed Mr Trevor Haddon, and the translation of Meleager produced in collaboration with Sholto Douglas. His second stroke of luck, based on the first, was a successful application for money to Mr Taylor, who agreed to make a further advance of something over £100 (he had already provided £200 and the costs of the action), to be secured by these new publications and a life insurance. On the insurance proposal form the applicant gave his full name as Frederick William Serafino Austin Lewis Mary Rolfe, which he explained thus: ‘I was baptized iii Jan. 1886 at St Aloysius, Oxford, receiving the names “Frederick William”. “Serafino” was conferred by Bishop Hugh Macdonald in Aberdeen Cathedral on my profession in the third order of St Francis. “Austin Lewis Mary” were con
ferred by Cardinal Manning in the chapel of Archbishop’s House, Westminster, at my confirmation.’ Unluckily, these welcome gifts of fortune were outweighed by his quarrel with Robert Hugh Benson, and its consequences.
CHAPTER 14: ROBERT HUGH BENSON
Rolfe’s friendship with Robert Hugh Benson requires a special chapter and a retrospect. It preceded that with Pirie-Gordon, for it began in February 1905, when Benson sent the author of Hadrian the Seventh a letter of enthusiastic praise:
Llandaff House, Cambridge
My dear Sir,
I hope you will allow a priest to tell you how grateful he is for Hadrian the Seventh. It is quite impossible to say how much pleasure it has given me in a hundred ways; nor how deeply I have been touched by it.
I have read it three times, and each time the impression has grown stronger of the deep loyal faith of it, its essential cleanness and its brilliance.
You say yourself that where there is no disagreement there is no activity (only you say it much better), and of course there are things that cannot appear the same to two people. It is possibly, though not certainly, impertinent of me to say that; but I hope you will forgive it for the sake of the very real admiration I feel.
The Quest for Corvo: An Experiment in Biography (Valancourt eClassics) Page 19
