A Difficult Young Man (4 page)

Here too may be mentioned Dominic's pride. Some years ago in
The Times
appeared this advertisement: ‘Enthusiastic young man wishes to meet another enthusiastic young man to share enthusiasm.' The subject for
enthusiasm was not mentioned. Dominic's pride was of this nature. One did not know what he was proud about. He was not vain of his looks or his capacities. He was just proud. I believe that the Logical Positivists, if they are still in fashion, say that moral qualities can have no existence until they are expressed in action. They could in Dominic. He was full of moral qualities unrelated to action. But when Alice gave him Tamburlaine his pride had visible means of support. Tamburlaine was a beautiful bay pony, a little high for Dominic at that age, but as he was growing quickly, it was thought better he should have a mount he would still be able to ride a few years ahead. He called him Tamburlaine as when he was laid up he had been reading a book about the great Khan of the Mongols. This pony was given to Dominic a few weeks before his birthday, for which Alice, in an extension of generosity, gave him a party at Beaumanoir. It fell on a Sunday, so it was confused to some extent with the usual Sunday luncheon which was crowded with cousins and aunts. Cousin Sarah was very annoyed at this ‘breaking of the sabbath' especially as in the afternoon there would be the ‘Beaumanoir Sunday Sports' fun and games arranged by Austin, ostensibly for the amusement of his grandchildren, but in reality for his own. He wrote posters and stuck them on the front door and the terrace, with a list of events, which today featured ‘The spectacular and daring race on horseback into the sea.' We knew this was going to happen and those who possessed ponies, had brought them. Dominic had ridden
Tamburlaine down the day before, and it was assumed by all of us that he would win the race, even though heavily handicapped. There was a great deal of talk about the new pony, and Brian who was occasionally possessed by powers of lyrical description, described him to our cousins as we sat at our table in the oriel window. Helena Craig was there with her two brothers, also the Flugels, and some Dells, who, for propriety's sake were described as our third cousins when in reality they were our first. We thought them rather oafish. The spirit descended on Brian as he described the virtues of Tamburlaine.

‘He's fourteen hands high,' he said, stretching his arm up above his head, and continuing with much gesticulation. ‘His coat is short and shiny like satin. He has two round eyes which he uses to look surprised when you go to catch him in the paddock. He looks back at you over his shoulder, and if you don't want to catch him, he just neighs to say good morning. When he's in the paddock he walks round it as if it belongs to him, and all the other ponies and horses obey him. When we have tea in the garden, he puts his head over the fence to be with us, and to have some sugar lumps.' Brian became so absorbed in his fantasy that the other children stopped eating to watch him. Their eyes fixed on him, were as bright, intent and amused as his own. The idea of Tamburlaine possessed them all. The quality of their lives had become heightened because of the existence of this
wonderful horse. ‘He has hooves that are black and polished,' Brian went on, holding his hands horizontally. ‘He has shoes that are new like silver. He has a very soft nose and whiskers that tickle when you touch them. He has short white teeth because he is young, but he is a kind horse and is careful not to bite you when you give him an apple. And when he gallops! The speed! Phew!' Brian put his hand on his heart and fell off his chair, pretending to faint with amazement at the glorious merits of Tamburlaine.

Owen Dell, who was named after his putative grandfather but who was in reality Austin's grandson, as I have explained elsewhere, was the only one of us who did not enter into the spirit of Brian's performance. He was embarrassed by any flight of imagination, and with a slight sneer he went on eating his dinner. Helena, on the other hand, with sparkling eyes lifted her glass of ‘lemonade,' a concoction made of chemicals by Cousin Sarah in a country where fresh lemons were twopence a dozen, and commanded:

‘Tamburlaine! Drink to Tamburlaine, the Great Khan of the Mongols.'

We lifted our glasses and cried: ‘Tamburlaine!' except Owen, who jeered, ‘The great Can't of the Mongrels.'

The attention of the grown-ups' table had been drawn to us, first by Brian's falling off his chair, and then by our cries of ‘Tamburlaine.' They were all looking round to tell us to be less noisy, and so had an unmistakable view of Dominic flinging the contents of
his glass in Owen's face.

There was an uproar. All the latent hostility to Dominic flared up. There was a touch of this in everyone, except Helena, who had that splendid courage which is without enmity because it fears no one, and of course Laura, who though she was not hostile, always had a lightly slumbering anxiety as to what he would do next. This hostility was among the adults. At our table we were horrified at his recklessness in throwing lemonade about in Grannie's sacred dining-room, but we thought Owen had asked for it. He was wiping his clothes with his table napkin and bleating: ‘He's spoiled my best suit.'

Steven took Dominic, panting with emotion, out of the room, and Uncle Bertie said:

‘I hope he gives him a good drubbing.'

‘You can't beat a flame without putting it out,' said Aunt Diana, who talked what Uncle Arthur called ‘high-souled rot.'

Apparently Dominic was not beaten, as he came back in a minute or two, having probably been told by Steven, who was always lucid, that he had no objection to his sousing the Dell boys, but that it was outrageous to do it in his grandparents' dining-room, especially when they were present.

As Dominic returning passed Austin's chair, the latter gave him a curious suspicious and malevolent glance. He was always on tenterhooks that something
might reveal his relationship to the Dells, and now thought that perhaps an instinctive hostility between his legitimate and illegitimate grandsons might do so, and that a revelation might come without the medium of words.

For the rest of the meal we spoke delicately at our table, not from consideration of our elders, who would not have minded reasonable noise, as they were making sufficient themselves with their chaff and their wit, but of Dominic, who was in a Jovian thundercloud, as it appeared to us, though in reality he was seeing himself as the insulted and injured. He thought he had behaved perfectly. Owen had spoken offensively of his horse, which had already become a noble symbol to him. He had followed what he believed to be the correct procedure on such an occasion and thrown his drink in his cousin's face, and then on his own birthday he had been led ignominiously from the room. That was what outraged him. He always imagined that his elders understood perfectly the motives of his behaviour, and then punished him. He did not know that their minds moved almost in different centuries.

After luncheon the grown-ups went to rest and we amused ourselves in various ways until the sports began at three o'clock. Dominic disappeared. Passing Sarah's room, that strange vinegar-scented spider's web, full of black leather books and lozenges, he had been pounced on and dragged in to acknowledge his
wickedness. Sarah first of all worked him up into a state of contrition by impressing on him the sorrow he had caused Grannie by his behaviour at luncheon, and then, pursuing her subterranean warfare against the pleasures of the family, asked him if he were going to offend God by taking part in the Sunday sports.

‘But everyone goes to the sports,' said Dominic, ‘even Grannie does.'

‘She goes to give pleasure to others,' said Sarah.

‘D'you mean she does what is wrong to give pleasure?'

‘She doesn't know it's wrong,' said Sarah, appearing to squint, as she did when faced with reason.

‘Then I must go and tell her,' said Dominic, standing up.

‘No. That would be impertinent.' Sarah's warfare was conducted partly from motives of envy of pleasures she could not enjoy, partly from a real conviction that they were wrong, but chiefly from the excitement she obtained from the risk that her sabotage might be discovered. Alice might accept perpetual pin-pricks as due to Sarah's stupidity, but open opposition would rouse her to action which would be immediate, just and devastating to Sarah, who now said: ‘The only thing you can do is to stay away. Take your prayer-book and learn the Collect.' One of the injuries which Sarah inflicted on us was to give us a lifelong distaste for the beautiful collects for the day which she under
stood little better than ourselves, by forcing us to learn them while they were still meaningless to us.

At times Dominic's brain functioned with perfect logic, but mostly his actions were governed by dark waves of feeling, which later made him attractive to women. He was full of Lawrence's dark god, or whatever the jargon is. Now after the disturbance of his emotions at luncheon, Sarah had stirred up his never very dormant sense of guilt. He felt himself confused and different from the rest of us. When she told him he should not go to the sports, he was so depressed that he did not quite realize how great was the sacrifice she was asking. He went up into the turret and learned the collect, after which he read the bits about the procreation of children in the marriage service.

By this time our elders had slept off their luncheon and drifted out into the paddock, where they stood about chatting in the sunlight, with faint expectant smiles, which they were ready to bestow on the efforts and antics of their children. The women had lace parasols and Alice had a toque surrounded with purple pansies, which were thought very daring. Austin wore a solar topee and an enormous card in his buttonhole with ‘steward' written on it. Before the great race into the sea, there were various minor events, sprinting, hurdle and obstacle races. Now and then someone said: ‘Where's Dominic?' but they did not worry about his absence until the time came for
the horse race.

Those competing in this had to change into neck-to-knee bathing dresses, in which they looked pathetic and skimpy. They had numbers on their backs, which stayed there all the year, so that when they were bathing their governesses could see which child was getting out of its depths. They mounted bareback on their ponies and then Austin growled: ‘Where's Dominic?'

All the children on their ponies called and shouted: ‘Dominic! Dominic!'

Sarah must have heard them in her vinegar-scented room, and felt a mild sensation of both power and fright. I was thought too young for the race and anyhow my pony was at Westhill, so I was sent to look for him.

At last I found him in the turret, with a lot of dust on his Sunday suit, as these places were never cleaned. As soon as I opened the little door I felt the waves of his mood oppress me, and I could not speak with any confidence. My timidity made him more determined and he told me he was not coming, and that it was wrong to have sports on Sunday.

When I came back to the paddock they all stood round me, so that I felt important, and asked: ‘Well, where is he?'

‘Cousin Sarah told him it's wrong to have sports on Sunday,' I said, undoubtedly mentioning her name with malicious intention.

‘Blast that hell-cat!' said Austin, who did not show
much respect for our juvenile ears.

There had been so much fuss and talk about Tamburlaine and this race, that it was unthinkable that it should take place without him. Owen Dell had a borrowed pony that was too small for him, and now Austin said: ‘Here. You ride Tamburlaine.' When he said this the children looked at each other and raised their eyebrows, and made various gestures indicating that the fat was in the fire, as they knew Dominic's sacred feelings about Tamburlaine. It is possible that Austin himself knew, but at this time, only a few months before his death, he was impatient and explosive, and even more irritably eccentric in his behaviour than usual. His action may have had some connection with the glance he had given Dominic when he returned to the dining-room, with his resentment at the unequal opportunities given to his legitimate and illegitimate grandchildren. In this way, to relieve his feelings, he could make a slight, temporary and trivial readjustment of the balance.

Those who were not riding strolled down the lane to the beach, from where the most exciting part of the race could be seen. Austin stayed behind to start them off, but not with a pistol as it was Sunday. I walked with my parents and Laura said to Steven:

‘I don't think it is wise to let Owen ride Tamburlaine. Dominic will be very upset.'

‘We have to draw the line somewhere,' said Steven crossly. ‘We can't give in to all his moods. Everything
we do seems to be governed by its possible effect on Dominic. First of all he pesters us to let him bring the horse down here. Then he refuses to ride it. The whole thing's preposterous.'

‘I suppose it's Sarah's fault, really,' said Laura.

‘He's old enough to make his own contribution to the general sanity,' said Steven, adding after a moment's reflection, ‘what there is of it.'

When we arrived at the beach we stood on the rough grass by the ti-tree hedge, as above the high-water mark, formed by a line of dried seaweed, the sand was soft and would get in the women's shoes. Alice was nodding her head a little, as she did now when she was worried. She was afraid that some of the children might be hurt as the ponies jostled each other in the lane, and she knew the probable effect of Owen's riding Tamburlaine, also perhaps its deeper implications. She had long ago, with almost superhuman charity, forgiven Austin for the Dells, but it is impossible that during the years that followed, little incidents did not occur which caused a twinge in the deep wound she received when she first learned of his infidelity. This may have been the last of them, that Austin ordered a Dell boy to ride the pony which she had given with special affection to her own grandson.