A Difficult Young Man (5 page)

The ponies had to come down the lane, cross the beach, swim out round a buoy anchored for the purpose, which seemed to me a long way out, but which
could only have been a few yards from the shore, and back across the beach to the winning post, which was by the gate into the lane. They could not gallop until they were on the sands, and as trotting bareback in a bathing suit was rather painful, the children shouted at each other for a clear passage. Once free of the gate they galloped down to the edge of the water where some of them fell off, as their ponies jibbed at entering the sea. They remounted but when they got into deeper water the ponies could not be made to swim, and only Owen on Tamburlaine and Helena succeeded in rounding the buoy, and the race ended with the two of them galloping up the beach, and Owen first at the winning post.

Dominic in his dusty turret heard the noise of the children shouting as they rode down the lane. His pious feelings evaporated and he suddenly realized the absurdity of sulking up there and missing the fun to which he had been looking forward for a week or more. He tore down to the paddock which was deserted, as Austin had followed the ponies down the lane to station himself at the winning post. When Dominic arrived there he saw Helena and Owen racing towards him, the latter on his sacred Tamburlaine. As Owen pulled up, Dominic leapt at him in a fury, dragged him off the horse, and punched him savagely. There was a cry of horror from the aunts, and Austin roughly separated the two boys. Dominic stood there, a demonic vision, his eyes blazing. Owen, defenceless
in his dripping bathing suit, was whimpering indignantly, and dabbing at his face with a large red-spotted handkerchief which Austin had handed him, while to Dominic he said: ‘You filthy little devil.'

Now a most difficult situation had arisen. This was, after all, Dominic's birthday, and in about half-an-hour there was to be a sumptuous tea in his honour, with a cake decorated with thirteen candles. But he was in unspeakable disgrace. Steven loathed beating children at any time, and he could only do it in the moment of anger. Also he did not like to beat Dominic on his birthday and he was irritated by the advice everyone gave him. Uncle Bertie said that Dominic should be beaten and that then the afternoon should proceed according to plan. Steven said:

‘I'm not going to beat my son to enable your children to have a good guzzle.'

For if Dominic was not beaten it would appear criminally lenient to allow him to have his party, and yet it would be absurd to have a birthday party without the host. Finally it was decided that Dominic could have the party if he apologized to Owen. This he refused to do. So for half-an-hour Beaumanoir seethed with moral indignation. Dominic like some dark oracle which would not speak and relieve the anxiety of a threatened city, or a miraculous image which would not bleed at the appointed time, sat sullenly in the library where various people went to plead and expostulate with him, and all the time the parlourmaids were
laying the magnificent tea which might never be eaten. Aunt Mildy said: ‘Surely you don't want to deprive your cousins of their lovely tea?' But this prospect appeared to cause Dominic no distress. The Flugel children, who were sentimental, went in to him and said: ‘Come on, Dom, apologize. It's only a few words.'

Alice sat nodding her head in the drawing-room, and took no part in the discussion, neither did Steven nor Laura. They made no attempt to persuade him, and Steven wore a grim smile, rather enjoying it all. Only two people, Helena and myself, hoped Dominic would not apologize. We went in during a lull and said: ‘Don't apologize, Dominic. We don't mind about the tea. He jolly well deserved it.'

Helena was enjoying the situation in something the same way as Steven. Her eyes were sparkling and she liked to think that Dominic had set them all by the ears. We knew the influence she had with him, and the cousins said to her: ‘If you tell him to apologize he will.' Her brothers went to Aunt Maysie and said that it was Helena who was preventing him from apologizing. Aunt Maysie and Uncle Bertie then scolded Helena and forced her to go in to advise Dominic to apologize, and at this the miraculous image bled. Dominic, with extreme reluctance, muttered his apology and took Owen's thick and freckled hand. He then burst into one of those tearing spasms of sobbing which shook him in one or two of the crises of his boyhood and
which were not caused by physical suffering, but by his sense of exclusion from human society.

This disconcerted everybody, but he was washed and tidied up, and came in bung-eyed, to sit at the head of the table and blow out the candles on his cake.

It may seem odd that I should have joined with Helena in encouraging Dominic's resistance, as I did not really like him. When he showed affection towards me I found it oppressive, and when he did not, frightening. But there were also times when I felt that I completely understood him and then I was filled with an insupportable pity, which also detracted from the serenity of my life. I much preferred Brian, who like myself was rational and easy going and I generally associated with him, but with Dominic I shared one trait which was out of keeping with the rest of my character. This was a savage pride. Dominic, as was generally recognized, owed most to his Spanish ancestors. They only bequeathed to me this uncomfortable burden, as if one of my limbs had been out of proportion. He had the appearance, the physique and the self-possession to support his arrogance, whereas my fragile and amiable body merely spluttered with passions I was unable to implement, until finally they have watered down into a tepid snobbery, though as a subaltern I felt called upon to provoke a duel from which ninety per cent of my nature recoiled. So now I understood the whole process of his thought and feeling, since
Owen had been gratuitously offensive at luncheon. We disliked the Dells with their coarse limbs, sluggish minds and dreary expressions of puritanism. I thought it an outrage that Owen had been put on Tamburlaine, which had become the focus of Dominic's diffuse pride, and the symbol of his honour. I could not bear that the Dells should triumph over us, and was prepared to go without any amount of cakes and cream to prevent it.

No one except Austin, Alice and two or three of their generation knew at this time of the origin of the Dells, but it is possible that we had an instinct against them, not that they could be blamed for it, caused by a feeling that they were somehow intruders into our group, though again this was probably only due to their oafishness.

On this day the family, if they had not already done so, must have begun to realize that Dominic was more of a problem than an ordinary naughty boy. Alice wrote in her diary:

‘This has been a most upsetting day, all revolving round Dominic, whose birthday it is. We went to St Andrew's in the morning. Mr Pennyfather preached a rather silly sermon and kept saying: ‘I throw this out as a seed-thought.' All my grandchildren came to luncheon and some of the Dells. Dominic behaved outrageously, throwing his lemonade in O. Dell's face. Sarah remonstrated with him later, and he then had a fit of the sulks and refused to take part in the sports.
Austin told O. Dell that he could ride Tamburlaine, the horse I gave D., which I wish he had not done. Then Dominic appeared at the end of the race and viciously attacked O.D. He later apologized but the birthday party was under a cloud. Arthur says that Dominic is a perfect replica of his Teba ancestor, whose portrait is at Westhill, not only in appearance but in character. If true this will be dreadful, as that duque de Teba of whom the Bynghams are so proud, was a wickedly cruel man, it is said. Dominic, Brian and Guy all have beautiful complexions, and are certainly far more handsome children than the Dells.'

It appears from this that the whole thing was on a much deeper level than his elders imagined. So much about Dominic was at a deep level, whilst they preferred to skim pleasantly over the surface. They were everything that D. H. Lawrence would have detested. Brian and I showed more understanding in a conversation we had in bed that evening, while we were waiting for Laura to come up to tuck us in and say good night. We frequently had speculative and philosophical conversations at this time of the day. I should explain, before recording this, that we had no irreverent intention. It was merely that Heaven lay about us in our infancy, and seemed to us as natural a subject of conversation as the circumstances of our daily lives. Also it was Sunday, which may have influenced us. Brian began by saying:

‘Today I have eaten some porridge, eggs, roast
chicken, raspberry tart and cream, birthday cake, trifle, bread-and-butter with hundreds and thousands, lemonade and a glass of milk, so I am made up of porridge, eggs . . .' he went on to repeat the list of food he had eaten.

‘But the chicken had eaten wheat and scraps,' I said, ‘and the cow was made up of grass, so you are really made up of wheat and grass and earth that the raspberries came from.'

We continued to argue about our physical substance for a while, and then I said: ‘But what are our souls made of?'

‘When a baby is born God pours its soul into it,' said Brian. ‘He's got a lot of pots of soul-mixture round Him, so He can make everyone different by giving them different mixtures. He's got a black pot of gloomy soul, and a yellow pot of happy soul, and a red pot of angry soul, and a blue pot of truthful soul. He looks at the baby and mixes up its soul to suit its face, and the Holy Ghost says: “You can't put in so much yellow when it's got a mean little nose like that,” so then God puts in some green.'

‘But if you put in happy and truthful mixtures together, they'd go green,' I objected.

‘No, they wouldn't,' said Brian. ‘They'd remain separate in a very nice pattern. But when God was filling up Dominic's soul, He'd run out of yellow, so the Holy Ghost said: “Well, put in some red. It's a nice
cheerful colour anyhow.” So God put in a lot of red, and then He said: “If I'm not careful I'll make him a murderer.” So the Holy Ghost said: “He ought to have some black with a face like that,” and God said: “It's very difficult to know what to put in him. Perhaps I'd better just fill him up with black.” So He did and we have to put up with it, like the snakes in the summer.'

‘Well, He couldn't put in colours that didn't suit the face,' I said, ‘and what about the animals?'

‘Oh, they're just filled with the same sort of mixture—each kind I mean—but humans have to be more interesting. That's why they fight each other, because their mixtures are different.'

‘But animals fight.'

‘Not their own kind, they don't, because they've got the same soul. Horses are full of horse-soul mixture. There's plenty of it but sometimes they run out, and then they don't get it quite the same, which is why Tamburlaine is different from Punch—but it's very slight. And cows are full of cow-soul mixture.'

‘And pigs full of pig-soul.'

‘And giraffes full of giraffe-soul.'

‘And duck-billed platypusses full of duck-billed platypus soul.'

We went on in hilarious puerile antiphon through all the animals we could think of.

‘What would happen,' I asked, ‘if God made a mistake and filled a human out of an animal
soul-pot?'

‘He does sometimes. He did it to me. I've never told anyone but He filled me out of the lion soul-pot. Look out!'

Brian gave a roar and leapt on to my bed, and I shrieked in half-felt terror. At that moment Laura came in.

‘What are you doing?' she asked rather crossly, as after the troubles of the day she was in no mood for further disturbances, but Brian was too excited and seized with the spirit of his game to notice this. With his bright blue eyes dancing in the gaslight, and his yellow hair stuck on end, he cried:

‘I've got a wild animal's soul! I bit him!'

‘He's a lion, mummy,' I shrieked. ‘Look out! He's had lion mixture poured into him by mistake.'

When we told her our theory, though we had sufficient awareness of grown-up taboos not to bring God into it, she smiled patiently and said to me:

‘And what is your soul-mixture?'

‘It's really mouse,' I said, ‘but I'm going round to gnaw all the ropes and let out the lions.'

‘And what is Dominic's?' she asked with a touch of hesitation.

‘It's not an animal's,' we explained, ‘but it's very black to match his face.'

‘I don't think that's a very nice thing to say,' she said, and we felt her displeasure. She tucked us in, gave us perfunctory kisses, turned out the gas and went
back to the drawing-room, where Alice and great-uncle Arthur were playing Schumann duets.

CHAPTER III

DURING
THE
following year there were two major events in the family. Austin died and Baba married Uncle George. Neither of these things affected us much at the time, or if they did it was all above my notice. I was afraid of Austin, and was quite unaware that he was extremely fond of his grandchildren, and only did things to terrify them as he thought they would enjoy it. Austin's death gave George his first inkling of what Baba was really like. All his children were distressed when he died, but when George told her she asked immediately:

‘Shall we have more money?'

George explained that Austin had no money of his own, only Waterpark which now came to Steven, and that Sir William had left what he had amongst his
other children, to which Austin had agreed as he had a rich wife.

‘But what about Waterpark? That's a big estate, isn't it?'

‘It never was very big and there's not much of it left,' he said. ‘I doubt if it will bring Steven in as much as two hundred a year.'

Baba gave an exclamation of incredulity and contempt. She hated what was not on the upgrade, and the idea of landed gentry, however ancient they might be, whose estate was not worth two hundred a year, was to her quite ridiculous. She paid much more respect to Alice when she realized that she was the main source of wealth, and was hardly civil to her sisters-in-law, except Maysie, who had married a rich man. She said to George:

‘Well, anyhow, we'll have our share of Mrs Langton's money, I suppose.'

‘My mother happens to be still alive,' said George in a quiet voice and walked out of the room. He tried to tell himself that he had mistaken Baba's attitude, and to excuse her by thinking that after all Austin had not been very nice to her.

Steven's revenue from his ancestral seat enabled him to send Dominic and Brian to a boarding school a mile or two from Beaumanoir. Hitherto they had gone there as day boys staying with their grandmother in term time, but coming at weekends up to
Westhill, where I still had my lessons from our governess. The headmaster of the school had founded it to turn young Australians into English gentlemen, or as near as was possible. He was himself recently from England, and his school for a while, until the other schools in Victoria became self-consciously ‘public' was popular with the socially ambitious. Dominic and Brian were sent there as it was convenient from Beaumanoir, and Mr Porson at first was very pleased to have two boys from a real, if exiled, English county family. He expected that they would set an example and strengthen the good tone of the school. But upper-middle class correctness was not a thing to which Dominic, or indeed any of us took easily. The only example that Dominic set was to the headmaster himself, who, although he talked so much about gentlemen, was apparently not quite in the category. When Laura went to visit him, and Dominic was sent for, as he came into the room Mr Porson said: ‘Kiss your mother, Langton.'

Dominic was shocked at this intrusion by a stranger into family intimacies. He also saw on Laura's face that withdrawn expression she had when someone was impertinent. Repeating unconsciously a gesture of those of his forebears whom he most resembled, he bowed, took her hand and kissed it. She was delighted at the subtlety of the snub he had administered, and Mr Porson was not too coarse-grained to perceive it.

Though on rare occasions Dominic affronted his
headmaster by an elegance of manners which was above him, he more often disgusted him by a common humanity which he thought below him. Dominic liked talking to all kinds of people, and with a faint touch of patronage, of which he was as unconscious as of his elegant manners, when he showed them, he would engage in conversation with either a butcher's boy or a bishop, if one came his way. With his naive belief that all human contact was good, and that one's relatives would naturally be pleased to see one, he would call at odd hours at people's houses, and even arrived in the middle of a grand dinner party at our great uncle Walter's, who was a High Court Judge, and expected an extra place to be laid for him. He had no idea that he was unwelcome and spent the evening in his scrubby clothes talking to all the jewelled ladies, who, however, were delighted with his company because of his dark and dynamic good looks.

One afternoon when Dominic had an exeat, he met the butcher's boy who delivered the meat at Beaumanoir, with whom he had sometimes had conversations. He now asked him to drive him back to the school, as a reward for which he would give him his old penknife. When they came to the school gates Dominic insisted on the boy's driving up to the door, where Mr Porson was saying goodbye to some wealthy parents, to whom he had just mentioned the young Langtons as examples of the good class of boys he had. A young Langton then descended from the butcher's cart, and when rebuked
with suppressed fury by Mr Porson, replied: ‘We're all equal in the sight of God, sir,' whereas the whole purpose of the school was to prove the opposite.

These might appear isolated episodes of no particular importance but they turned Mr Porson into one of the few people who really hated Dominic, though this had no apparent effect until the following year, when it did, I think, start him on an unfortunate phase of his life. In the meantime we had been for yet another summer holiday to Tasmania.

That original restless impulse which made our great-grandparents come to Australia, must have passed on to their descendants, as they could never stay long in one place. When they lived at Waterpark they spent half their time wandering about the Continent, and one sometimes imagines their spiritual home would have been a wagon-lit.

There is not the same scope for travel in Australia. One may journey a thousand miles from Melbourne, and the food, the architecture, the vegetation and the ‘way of life' remain roughly the same. Tasmania is slightly different, more ‘English' with its orchards and green valleys, and its late Georgian houses built by the convicts. When the family were seized by their congenital restlessness, this was where they were most likely to go. I went for at least six summer holidays to
Tasmania before I was twelve years old, but the most vivid in
my memory is the one we took in the summer
following Austin's death.

The clan travelled
en masse
,
as in the previous summer, but this time the composition of the party was a little different. Dominic was with us and Alice had invited two of the Dell boys. She did this as a rather curious tribute to Austin's memory. They never came in his lifetime when he would have enjoyed their company, and if his ghost was aware of their presence he must have been rather irritated than gratified at the belated invitation. The other addition to the party was Baba, who had not come last time in spite of the spontaneous geniality with which her future in-laws had asked her. She hated people to behave in a disinterested fashion as it obliged her to do the same. If anyone did a kindness from which they received no benefit, either in social advancement or a useful sense of obligation in the recipient, she said they were ‘silly.'

The end even of her pleasures was not in themselves, but in the extent they would enhance her position in the world. It was ‘smart' to go to Tasmania, and she imagined that as a Mrs Langton she would have a brilliant social life there, dining at Government House and going to parties on battleships, as the fleet would be in, but the expedition was developing into a kind of school treat. She thought it was not ‘smart' to have children, or at any rate to be seen with them in public. The Langtons maddened her by their neglect of their social opportunities. When she looked round the table at Beaumanoir, with its fine glass and china, and
eighteenth-century silver brought from Waterpark she thought it quite crazy to fill it with more or less impecunious relatives rather than with social leaders from Toorak. She did not understand that the social leaders would not make Alice laugh, at least not in a manner that would be polite. In the same way she could not understand that the family did not go to Hobart in January because it was fashionable, but because it was cooler, and a marvellous place for fishing, sketching, picnics and excursions. She said insolently to Diana:

‘Why doesn't Mrs Langton get rid of all these hangers-on and enjoy her money herself?'

‘I can't see that Mama would be any happier living alone in peevish luxury,' said Diana, with her last two words carelessly annihilating Baba's whole conception of the good life, and not even aware that she had done so. Even the more muddleheaded of the family sprinkled their chatter with phrases which were gems of concise and vivid expression. Mixed with a good deal of drivel, the quartz which contained the gold, they were not appreciated outside the family, who took them for granted, like children wrecked on a desert island who play daily with the nuggets they find on the shore. In fact it was the intermittent sparkles of their conversation which increased their reputation for eccentricity, as much of it was an unconscious condemnation of the bourgeois standards of their listeners. Baba suffered most from these irritations.

So Alice, with the hangers-on, of whom I was one, set out for Tasmania, but we did not all travel together. The Craigs went by sea all the way round to Hobart in the
Manuka
,
a new large ship. Uncle Bertie always knew about the latest thing, and either had it or used it, so that they gave the impression of advancing with the world. George and Baba went with them as she thought it better to travel with the rich. The rest of us crossed in the
Loongana
and went down to Hobart in the
horrible reeling train.

The whole holiday simmered with family rows, and when the tension reached its climax Dominic was at the place where it snapped, though he was not the cause of it. The
Manuka
arrived in Hobart the morning after those of us who had come from Launceston by train. All the children of our party, the Flugels, two Dells and ourselves, trooped down to meet it, and as we wanted whenever possible to share the rich pleasures of the Craigs, we streamed into the saloon to breakfast, which quite spoiled Aunt Baba's picture of herself as a fashionable lady travelling. We went back to our respective hotels and boarding houses, as we could not all squeeze into the same place and the Flugels had to go somewhere cheap, and we told our parents that Aunt Baba had been cross because we went to the ship. They were annoyed and said: ‘What impertinence!' There was trouble when the invitations came. It happened that the A.D.C. had known the
family in Somerset, and Aunt Diana and Wolfie were asked to dine at Government House and Baba was not. Steven was asked to dine on a battleship and Bertie was not. The rejected took it as part of a deliberate conspiracy to send the rich empty away. We children thought the dissensions between the grown-ups were very amusing and whispered about them in corners. There were also rows between ourselves about seats in coaches, or who was to go sailing with Steven in the yacht, which laden with aunts and children looked like a more respectable version of a painting by Etty. But there was not much rancour in these squabbles, and they merely added to the liveliness and enjoyment of our holiday, which was a succession of delights. We went on the little river steamer up to see the salmon ponds at New Norfolk, passing old villages and houses nestling in their coves on the shores of the wide and beautiful river. We went in an absurd train, from which we could get out and run when it went uphill to a place called Sorrel, where we lay along the branches of the cherry trees and stuffed ourselves. We went in another steamer to the old convict settlement at Port Arthur, and climbed over the ruined church, the local equivalent of Glastonbury. We skimmed about the river in Steven's little sailing yacht, hauling quantities of black-backed salmon aboard, which we caught with a spinner. On the slopes of Mount Wellington, the fruit growers allowed us to enter their gardens and eat all the gooseberries we wanted as there was no market for them. They were said to be starving. Baba, whose astute
little eyes were watching the people we met to learn the pattern of smart behaviour, and who had probably heard of Marie Antoinette, said: ‘They can't be starving if they have gooseberries. I adore gooseberry jam.' She included callousness amongst the other cheap easy tricks of the social climber—pretending to forget the names of unimportant people, or being late for appointments with them, speaking a great deal of ‘the lower orders' as if they were the chief affliction of humanity, and affecting a look of bewilderment when people said or did things which were not smart.

I think there was amongst us a feeling of hostility towards Aunt Baba, and perhaps towards Uncle Bertie, but we could not give much expression to the latter because of Helena, who was loved and admired by us all, not merely because she was very pretty, which most likely we did not notice, having apparently equally beautiful complexions ourselves, but because she was lively, full of schemes for fun, afraid of nothing, and kind. When she appeared the condition of life was heightened. She was the only one who could cast out Dominic's devils. Whatever he had done or whatever his mood she ignored it, and spoke to him as cheerfully and naturally as to anyone else, while all the rest of us were eyeing him cautiously. He worshipped her and from the very beginning of our childhood we spoke of Helena and Dominic together. Anyhow, our hostility to Uncle Bertie was of a different kind from that we
had towards Baba. It was not without respect and was largely due to his efforts to make us more hardy and disciplined, which were probably justified. He wanted us to return from our holiday with developed muscles rather than delightful memories.

It appears to me that as I proceed with this story I am revealing not only the events of that time, but a process in my own mind, which in turn affects what I record. When I first call up what happened in Tasmania, or at Westhill, or at Waterpark during my youthful years, I see the unaltered impression made on my childish mind, but as I write of them, my adult experience tells me that the people, except perhaps the other children, were not really as I saw them, and so I may give them in places a glaze of adult knowledge over the sharpness of a boy's observation, in the same way that Poussin put a glaze over the bright colours of his pastorals, which the restorers now seem to be cleaning off, along with the dirty varnish. This may lead me to show Baba at times as a hard and shallow
arriviste
,
and elsewhere as an unfortunate misplaced woman, her life misdirected by the false ideals of a vulgar mother, and deserving of much sympathy. She was, of course, both.