Outbreak of Love (6 page)

“Elsie is a great friend of Diana von Flugel's,” said Sophie. She could not very well call her husband's first cousin Mrs von Flugel, so whenever she had to refer to her she minimized the relationship by adding her surname. The Enemy were always afraid, not without reason, that we might do something to disgrace them, as both our respectability and our fortunes had an Alpine pattern, like the temperature chart of a man with Mediterranean fever, from which intellectually we suffered. Diana had to endure attacks from her own side, as Maysie her sister, though not one of the Enemy, always spoke of her as if she had not enough to eat and from time to time she sent her any particularly ugly pieces of furniture which she no longer required in her own house, and which actually were rather useful in some of the large empty rooms at Brighton.

The discussion between Sophie and Edward went on through the whole of dinner, and at last she said plaintively: “I really think I can go anywhere.” She was unwilling to modify her belief, held for the last twenty years, that any house she entered, by that fact alone became respectable. “We can't possibly back out now without appearing rude and ridiculous.” She added with an unusual touch of modesty, “People are already too inclined to think us rude.”

This was the first disagreement on a matter of this kind that Sophie and Edward had ever had, and it upset both of them. They would have been more perturbed if they had known that it was, indirectly, one of the disruptive results of Wolfie's visit to Mrs Montaubyn.

Highly respected as Sophie and Edward were, others more exalted were also arguing about who should go to the party, but not from the same angle. There is a popular misconception that the aristocracy are not class-conscious. Anyone who finds himself labelled “lord” or “honourable” at birth, who lives in a house full of treasures with possibly three or four lodges, each at the end of a two-mile drive, while the vast mass of the population are called “Mr” and live in villas or cottages, and who is not conscious of these differences, must have singularly weak powers of observation. The occupants of Government House at this time had normal observation, and they were very class-conscious. This was aggravated by their having become a kind of synthetic royalty. As they were all related, and as, except Lady Eileen Cave, the Governor-General's wife, they spent their time in physical rather than intellectual activity, they often bickered about their respective importance. But their class-consciousness, far from making them insolent to others, made them extremely gracious and amiable, as they thought they must do everything in their power to bridge over the appalling chasm between themselves and those in less favoured circumstances.

Sir Roland Cave, the Governor-General, was a rich Dorset landowner who had gone into Parliament. When he realized that he had little hope of obtaining Cabinet rank, he accepted his present appointment. He had chosen his staff entirely from his relatives, partly from a natural instinct of nepotism, and partly so that he would feel at home. He had also brought out from his enormous Palladian “seat”, magnificent paintings by English and Italian masters, Vandyke and Gainsborough, Bronzino and Titian, Gobelin tapestries, gold plate, state carriages and footmen, so that Government House was quite homelike. On the evening of Elsie Radcliffe's party, this
gemütlich
feeling was heightened by the friendly bickering going on in Lady Eileen's sitting-room, where the members of the household were having coffee after dinner.

Lord Wendale, the Military Secretary, was Lady Eileen's brother. Freddie Thorpe, one of the aides-de-camp, was Sir Roland's nephew. John Wyckham, the other aide-de-camp, was Lady Wendale's nephew. Miss Rockingham, who was staying with them for some months as a kind of unofficial lady-in-waiting, was Lady Eileen's oldest friend. Even Lord Francis Derham, the Chamberlain, a permanent official not chosen by Sir Roland, was a second cousin of Miss Rockingham's. They were now discussing whether Freddie Thorpe should or should not be forced to go to the party.

“I don't like classical music,” he protested.

“It won't be all music, and there's sure to be a good supper at the Radcliffes',” said Dolly Wendale.

“Why can't John go?”

“He hasn't been asked.”

“That doesn't matter. They're keen to get any of us.”

“I shouldn't think that Mrs Radcliffe was terribly keen on you, Freddie,” said Lady Eileen, looking up from her petit-point, and breaking a thread in her teeth.

“All the rich girls will be there,” said Patrick Wendale. Everyone knew that Freddie had come out in search of an heiress, and that he was badly in need of one. John Wyckham, although he had no such intention, also came in for a good deal of chaff about fortune-hunting, which he did not mind much, as he thought the idea of marrying for money so horrible that the chaff had no meaning. He was the only son of another Dorset landowner but with a more modest property than Sir Roland's. He had gone into the army at his father's suggestion to occupy himself until he inherited, though he would have preferred something more congenial to his alert and curious mind. He had the ordinary fair, good-looking “guardee” type of face, but more sensitive, with a shy and attractive smile. When Sir Roland offered him the appointment as aide-de-camp, he accepted eagerly, as he wanted to see different people and places, though his fellow subalterns called it “poodle-faking”.

“Which ones?” asked Freddie.

“The Langton twins for certain.”

“They're not vulgar, but they've got no money.”

“None of the people here are more vulgar than any of you,” said Sir Roland, brutally including the whole company, who irritated him by treating this country, in which he held the highest position, as if it were half a joke. There was an awkward silence, as when a group of people all become ashamed of themselves at once.

“Actually,” said Lord Francis, “Judge Lanfranc told me the other day that Edward Langton has £10,000 a year.”

“Has he, by Jove?” said Freddie.

Dolly Wendale, aware of the dangerous eyes Sir Roland was directing at Freddie, said: “The twins are always taken to any display of culture. Lady Pringle is going to give talks on the meaning of the music, so you may be able to follow it, Freddie.”

“Do you mean that professor's wife with pince-nez?”

“I believe she does wear pince-nez.”

“Great Scott!”

“I rather like culture,” said John.

“Or d'you mean you like the twins?”

“Well, they are rather stimulating.”

“Intellectually, or emotionally?”

“Or financially?” The voice of Miss Rockingham, a muted foghorn from which in later life she removed the silencer, sounded its warning note. During the conversation she had been smoking, with great deliberation, a cigarette fixed in a holder six inches long. She had far more money than any of the girls they talked about and she wanted to be married. She was prepared, like Cousin Sophie, a guest at Government House twenty years earlier, to make a morganatic marriage. She was even prepared to marry Freddie Thorpe, finding, something in the same way as Diana with Wolfie, a rest for her complexity in his simple animal stupidity, though Wolfie was a moral giant compared with Freddie. It was true that she was five years older than he, but she had a beautiful figure and moved with unusual grace, and she thought that this combined with her income would make the difference negligible. With a contempt for those proprieties which a bourgeoise would allow to interfere with her pleasures, she was prepared to buy him as she would buy a fine horse. But he appeared hardly to be aware of her presence, and when Patrick Wendale said to him: “Why don't you marry Marcia?” although he had never been to Rome, nor seen the headless nymph, nor willingly looked at any other statue in his life except when he attended the unveiling of a bronze general on horseback, he said: “She might be all right if one could knock off her head.”

For Miss Rockingham, with her tremendous assets, was handicapped by a very long face, and did look surprisingly like a horse. This added to her grandeur, but not to her feminine charm. She was believed in Melbourne, with justification, to be grander than anyone at Government House. She was known to be on intimate terms with the Queen of Spain, with whom as a girl she had climbed trees in Windsor Great Park, and she was called “dearest Marcia” in five different languages by the royal family of Europe.

“You could have one each,” she went on, pressing the thorn into her breast, “the clever one for John and the jolly one for Freddie. If you brought them to live here it would be most stimulating—such war, such wit.”

“Is one of them jolly?” asked Freddie.

“They're both very nice girls,” said Sir Roland. He would have expressed his dislike of the conversation more forcibly, but even he was affected by the deference which Marcia Rockingham commanded.

“I'll ring up Mrs Radcliffe,” said Dolly putting down her coffee-cup on a satinwood table from Dorset, “and ask her if John may come instead of Freddie. I'll say that he's particularly fond of music. You are, aren't you?”

“I like tunes from Gilbert and Sullivan,” said John.

“That's good enough.”

In a few minutes she returned, looking guilty and amused. “I'm awfully sorry, I've messed it up,” she said. “Mrs Radcliffe thought I meant could John come as well, and she said of course, and then it was impossible to say that Freddie didn't want to come.”

“You could have made something up,” said Freddie sulkily.

“I know it's awful, but I can't be rude to people.”

“We're not here to insult the populace,” said Sir Roland.

“I don't think Mrs Radcliffe would like being called the populace,” said Lady Eileen, threading a needle.

“I'm sure the twins wouldn't,” said Dolly. “Well, we'd better go and shed our glory on them.”

“Only reflected glory, dear, from us,” Lady Eileen reminded her. She and Sir Roland were not allowed by the protocol to attend parties in private houses.

“Dammit, I am a peeress,” said Dolly Wendale.

“You have to curtsy to my wife, Dolly,” said Sir Roland with friendly malice.

“I shan't when I get home.”

“I rather like curtsying,” said Miss Rockingham.

“You're so used to it, Marcia, and you have such beautiful movements.”

“You make me sound like a horse.” Miss Rockingham stared at Dolly with her heavy-lidded eyes, and puffed calmly at her cigarette. There was a moment of astonishment. Did Marcia know that they said she was like a horse, and was she deliberately trying to embarrass them? It was the sort of thing she would do. Before the moment was prolonged into recognition of her intention, Lady Eileen said:

“You might give lessons to some of the people here, Marcia.”

After a little more chaff, those who were going to the party moved towards the door.

“You can make some excuse for me,” said Freddie.

Sir Roland turned on him. “You can either go to the party or go back to England by the next boat,” he said curtly.

“Yes, sir,” said Freddie, subdued, and he followed the others.

Lord Francis went off to attend to something connected with his office, and Sir Roland sat alone with his wife. After a minute or two of silence in which he calmed down, and they had that kind of telepathic conversation, possible between the married, on the scene that had just passed, Lady Eileen said:

“You know Freddie isn't really a gentleman.”

“That's rather rough,” said Sir Roland, who did not much like Freddie, but who disliked more such an extreme criticism of his sister's child. “He behaved very well when I told him to go to the party or to go home.”

“Yes, but only like a trained animal. If he'd been born in a cottage he wouldn't be different from any other village boy. If John had been born in a cottage and you saw him playing with the other village boys, you'd notice him immediately. There's nothing inherently fine in Freddie. Most of his gentlemanliness is due to the fact that he's been taught the right things, where to get his guns and boots in St James's and to stand up when a woman comes into the room. It's all material things and antics. Because he has those guns and boots he believes that he is a superior being, and that some decent Australian girl, probably not nearly as common as himself, will be lucky to be allowed to buy his polo ponies for the rest of her life. Half the young men we know are like that. You see their smug trained-animal faces in London ballrooms.”

“That's Socialism, Eileen,” said Sir Roland crossly, though he liked listening to his wife's ideas, even when, as an Irishwoman, she had digs at the master race.

“On the contrary, it's the opposite extreme to Socialism. It's a dislike of oafs amongst the people of our sort. It's the Teutonic English who are like that. They are dreadful unless they are modified by Celtic or Latin blood.”

“Am I Teutonic?” asked Sir Roland. “I haven't any Celtic or Latin blood as far as I know, thank God.”

“You were a little Teutonic just now, when you suggested that we were all vulgar, simply because Freddie annoyed you. That kind of inexact punishment is very Teutonic. So it was to threaten him with dismissal before the rest of us. Teutons have no conception of what other people feel. Their bad manners result from lack of imagination— perhaps their courage too.”

Lady Eileen's remarks could have been applied, with varying emphasis, not only to Freddie, but to Anthea, to Wolfie, to Cousin Sophie, and above all, to Mrs Montaubyn.

At the same time that the discussion was going on in Lady Eileen's sitting-room, my aunt Mildy and myself were also preparing to leave for the party. I lived with Mildy as my parents were now living up at Westhill, and I was articled to an architect in Melbourne, having twice failed in English Composition in the entrance examination to the Univeristy. Mildy was very excited about the party for various reasons all connected with her state of life. Like most unmarried ladies she sought compensation in excessive loyalty to her family as a whole, and she saw this grand party given for one of our group as a smashing victory over the Enemy, who since the return of the twins appeared to her more menacing, not so much because of their parentage, as because they were young and pretty girls of about my own age, and so belonged to a vast army threatening her happiness. I was the first male who had ever lived in her house, the first person with whom she had ever been particularly associated. She loved to hear people speak of “Mildred and Guy” and one of her greatest pleasures was for us to arrive together at some party, and if it was a formal one for our two names to be announced in the same breath. This would certainly happen tonight, and as Elsie Radcliffe's butler had a very loud voice, she anticipated with delight the moment when “Miss Langton and Mr Guy Langton” would be bellowed through the charming rooms.