A Difficult Young Man (20 page)

‘It was when he was trying to climb out, and the
bull was inside the barrier. He said Aunt Baba pushed his hand away.'

I do not know what idiocy made me blurt this out. It may have been that I was so horrified by what I had seen that I could not believe it, and wanted the miasma dispelled in the sane light of discussion.

‘She was trying to catch hold of his hand to pull it up,' said George sternly, ‘but she couldn't grip it.' He looked grim and wretched, and I was convinced that he really did believe that Baba had tried to push Dominic into the path of the bull.

‘Well, it's very fortunate that it's all over,' said Aunt Maysie. ‘I don't see why Roman Catholics can't play football like everyone else.'

This made them laugh, and there was not much further reference to the bullring, but Steven and Laura did not entirely lose their look of anxiety, nor George his of depression.

The next morning it all seemed to be forgotten, and we drifted in little sight-seeing groups about the town. I was with Aunt Maysie as she was the most kind and amusing, and she liked to have me with her as a substitute for one of her absent sons. I went with her into the cloisters behind the cathedral. She did not want to climb the stairs as she said it would give her varicose veins, so I went up by myself on to the wide stone roof, secluded and peaceful in the morning sun, from which one could look down on to the clipped box trees of the cloister
garth. But as soon as I stepped out into the light, I saw on the far side of this place, under a window ledge on which there was a pot of straggly carnations, Dominic and Helena, standing together. They were perfectly still and she was touching the scar beside his mouth. They did not see me and I quietly withdrew, and ran down again to Aunt Maysie. There was no clear reason why I should not have spoken to them, but my instinct told me I should not break that silence. Even so I was worried by what I had seen, and when I found that George and Laura had joined Aunt Maysie I dissuaded them from going up on to the roof of the cloisters, saying there was nothing worth seeing, and they contented themselves with admiring the fine staircase from below.

We stayed in Provence for about a fortnight, trekking to various places between Chateauneuf-du-pape and Nîmes, much in the same way that we had moved about in Tasmania in Alice's day. An odd thing happened at the Pont du Gard. We were all about to walk across on the highest tier of the bridge, which I remember as about eight feet wide with no parapet, when Laura, who was far from given to panicking, insisted that the party should break up and walk over in twos. She made Dominic walk beside herself. She gave as her reason that in a large group, someone might stumble and accidentally push against another, and send him flying down on to the rocky river bed, one hundred feet or more below. No one thought her precaution necessary, but her feeling about it was so
strong that they all acquiesced. She could not really believe that there would be a tragedy, but she had a touch of Irish superstition, and the death of Bobby had destroyed her confidence in the safety of her children. After what had happened on Mount Wellington, and to Tamburlaine, and a few days earlier at Arles, the idea of Helena and Dominic and Baba being together in a dangerous place made her nervous. Our parents must always have been anxious about us, though they did not restrain the normal risky activities of our boyhood, bathing from the yacht in the sharky river at Hobart, or galloping about the rough, snake-infested country at Harkaway.

From Avignon we went straight through to England, leaving Baba and the Craigs in Paris, to buy clothes for the orgy of social activity in which they were about to indulge. It would be wrong to say pleasure, as the scene of Baba's pleasure was in Melbourne, and it consisted almost entirely of being more important than as many Toorak ladies as she could surpass. Her activities in London were not themselves for pleasure, but to give herself the pleasure of mentioning them when she was home again.

Uncle George left her in Paris and came on with us. He said that he could not hang about the establishments of
couturières
,
but his real reason was that since the incident in the arena he could hardly bear to be in his wife's company. He left her a sum of money to buy clothes, and his contempt for her was so great that he allowed her more than he intended, so that
there should be no risk of his being drawn into the intimacy of a discussion over the amount. It might be thought that Baba's position was now impossible, living in close contact with someone of whose dislike she must have been aware, but she was not sensitive, and the standards by which George found her wanting were so far above her perceptions, that she did not know they existed, or thought they existed only for fools.

In London we stayed for a few days in one of those hotels opposite the Oratory, to be near Cousin Emma in Brompton Square, as Baba had asked Laura to sound her about presenting her. Cousin Emma intimated her tariff, which was veiled in the decencies of barter, and any actual cash payment was put against the expense of a new court dress, though she would wear an old one. Laura was the natural person to present Baba, but Cousin Emma's husband had been knighted and Baba thought it would sound better to be presented by a ‘lady,' especially one with her own surname, though she did suggest that Laura might ask Lady Dilton. Laura thought we were receiving sufficient benefits from that quarter and refused. She also thought it rather a waste of effort, as none of them would be remaining in London, or staying at embassies abroad where it might be of some use.

Uncle Bertie was deeply shocked at the idea of forking out for Cousin Emma's expenses, so Helena was presented by the High Commissioner's wife, in those
days not a very distinguished sponsor. Aunt Maysie refused to be presented at all, and said: ‘I'd look a silly old hen with feathers in my hair.' This annoyed Baba as Aunt Maysie was much more dignified in appearance than herself, who was inclined to be squat and square, and she could not endure the Langtons' habit of speaking with levity of ‘important' social occasions. She frequently spoke of parties as ‘important,' though it was hard to understand why it should be important that a number of people whose sole distinction was the ability to pay for expensive food, and who had no political influence, nor outstanding qualities of intellect or taste, nor even that simple goodness of heart which she so much despised but which alone could win her an eternal tiara when she had to relinquish the slight crescent of diamonds which she had cajoled out of Uncle George, should meet together to become slightly tipsy. I do not mean that there are no parties in Melbourne where people of the greatest charm and culture gather together, and even become slightly tipsy, but Baba did not attend these, or, if she did, did not think them ‘important' as so few of the guests paid supertax.

When we returned to Waterpark the schools' vacations had begun, and Dominic and Brian came down with us. Brian had entered on the wholesome process of separating himself from the family. Dominic and I never quite cut the umbilical cord, so that whatever afflicted or infected our relatives, passed into our veins.
Brian felt that we were all living on our diminishing fat, spiritual as well as financial, and he wanted to exist in his own right, and even by his own efforts, an extraordinary wish for someone with Byngham blood. But then he felt in himself the ability to do so. Dominic, as well as his grandfather Austin was like the saintly youth Alyosha, who never noticed at whose expense he was living, and I had none of Brian's confidence in my capacity to earn.

‘Why doesn't Dad stand for Parliament?' Brian grumbled to me. ‘He doesn't make any use of his opportunities.'

Yet Brian, so much more admirable, so satisfactory to right thinking people, would have done far more harm to the human race than Dominic or myself, as he did not want Steven to enter Parliament for the benefits he might do to others, but to himself. He entirely repudiated my form of snobbery and
folie de grandeur
,
partly perhaps because it had no basis in reality, but he wanted to be important in the world. Yet surely it is comparatively harmless to admire dukes, and to talk as if all one's women friends had counties or race-meetings for surnames. Brian had the current superstition that whoever does regular work and is paid for it, even if it is ultimately mischievous, is more worthy of respect than he who does good without payment.

Because of all this, though I liked Brian far better and was happier in his company, my mind dwelt more on Dominic because we both held the same instinctive
beliefs.

George also came down to Waterpark with us. The last time he was there was when he was engaged to Dolly Potts and when the family set out on their curious aimless trek across Europe in the year before I was born. His memories must have made his present situation bitter, especially when Baba arrived with the Craigs a week later. As the house was crowded they had to share a room, which is embarrassing even to think about.

Having seen Dominic and Helena on the roof of the cloisters at Arles, I wondered what he would do about Sylvia on his return home. We had come down by the morning train and arrived at Waterpark just before luncheon. Immediately afterwards he went over to Dilton.

I do not know what his feelings were. The following is only a suggestion. It is possible that with all his romanticisms he had a conflicting strain of enlightened self-interest, the most ignominious of the virtues. He was more a Byngham than a Langton, though more Teba than either, and as we have seen, the Bynghams, chivalrous and generous as they were, had in their time married a fair proportion of rich girls. To give up Sylvia would put him back rather near the schoolroom again. His unfocused pride had at last a direction. He was going to be a married man with an establishment of his own, with what seemed to him a large income
as he had not yet begun to spend it, and a very pretty wife who would be an ‘Honourable Mrs.' It was a big step up from being the insulted and injured, the wastrel son for whom it was impossible to find a niche. He had noticed the difference in Uncle Bertie's attitude towards him, which had almost a naive deference, and Aunt Baba, although she might try to murder him, was no longer rude.

He may have offered to Helena, when they sat, love among the ruins, on the broken ramparts of Les Baux, whilst all about them beneath the high enamelled sky, the Provençal countryside was bursting into almond blossom and rosemary, to give up Sylvia, and she refused to allow him. She may have refused because she was naturally very straight, and also because she loved him too much to deprive him of a brilliant marriage. I believe that this is what happened, and that when Dominic came back to Waterpark he determined to make the best of what was not such a very bad job, and hurried over to Dilton. This may sound rather out of character, but we cannot live all the time at a high level of sentiment, and as we grow older we find streaks developing in ourselves, good or bad, which our governesses would have said were ‘not like us.'

However, it was obvious that his other feelings remained, and through the early part of the summer they increased in strength. He saw Helena in London and she came down on two or three more visits to Waterpark. His courage was of the active, not the
passive kind, and he could not endure inner tensions, of which he had been given enough at birth. He was evidently distracted while the Craigs remained in England, which made life uneasy for all of us. Colonel Rodgers alone reaped any benefit from the situation, as Dominic, to release his feelings would go over to the Dower House and spend the afternoon letting off guns, or slashing with sabres at the stuffed-up colonel, who looked something like a Michelin Tyre advertisement, but whose heart was as tender and blossoming as a schoolgirl's at this St Martin's summer of happiness.

It is hard to imagine how Sylvia felt during these few months. I did not often go to Dilton as I was intimidated by the possibilities, and I thought that by now the Diltons could not be very well pleased with the engagement. The marriage had been arranged to take place in the early autumn, so if it were to be broken off it would be better soon. Sylvia was still very much in love with Dominic. She was the most strong-willed of all the Tunstalls, and while she still wanted him the engagement would last.

Baba had gone back to London for her gaities, but she often came down for a few days, which did not improve the atmosphere. She talked with a great deal of self-importance about her clothes, her functions and her presentation, and she was very annoyed that George would not take part in them. She wanted him to be presented at a levée at St. James's Palace, but he
said he was not going to pay £40 for a court suit that he could not even wear at the Oddfellows' Dance at Dandenong when he returned home.

One day he drove her into Frome to catch the train back to London, and he asked me to go with him, clearly to stop a too intimate row on the way to the station. When we were driving back to Waterpark, he suddenly said:

‘How'd you like to come to Ireland with me?'

‘I'd jolly well love it,' I said.

‘Good. We'll go and see the Bynghams.'

‘But what about my beastly education?' I asked.

‘It seems to be pretty erratic,' said George, which was true.

Mr Woodhall was ill, and had to give up teaching me for a time. There was a moderate amount of human concern for his health, but rather anxiety, though this was mixed with slightly shocking levity, as to whether he could last the necessary years until I could be ordained priest and take the living. If I came back from a walk to the village, everyone would say: ‘How are your chances of the Vicarage going?'

Steven said I could not waste any more time and they would have to find a tutor for me. I was by then too old to begin at any school. When I said that Uncle George had invited me to Ireland, he said crossly: ‘It's impossible. Everything seems to be going to blazes. I'm not going to have you frittering away your life. You'll have to earn your
living you know.'