The Quest for Corvo: An Experiment in Biography (Valancourt eClassics) (27 page)

But, though it was satisfactory to have found the Venetian autobiography, I still longed to discover those mediaeval romances in which Fr. Rolfe embodied that historical knowledge on which he so much prided himself; and my desire was all the keener from reading, in
The Desire and Pursuit of the Whole,
his description of
Hubert’s Arthur.

He read over what he had already done. It seemed to be almost as far above the ordinary as he wished it to be – history-as-it-wasn’t-but-as-it-might-very-well-have-been. For example, there is no direct evidence of the mysterious murder of Arthur fitz-Geoffrey, Duke of Armorica, by or at the instance of his wicked uncle John. Young Arthur was rightful King of England, not only by primogeniture but also by will of King Richard Lionheart. Consequently it was very necessary to John (who usurped his crown) that he should disappear. And he did disappear at Rouen. And John is credited with his murder. But – suppose that he did not really disappear, that he was not murdered, that he actually escaped from his wicked uncle, the history of England (as we have it from the monkish chroniclers) might be quite another story. This was Crabbe’s idea. Young Arthur was not murdered at all. By help of Hubert de Burgh, he escaped the tormentors sent to put out his eye-lights, he escaped from John when that assassin tried to drown him in the Seine, he escaped (half-crucified) from the Giwen of Bristol to whom John-Judas had sold him for thirty-thousand marks of silver. Innocent the Third, that astute steel pontiff with the eye of a squinting lambkin, though frightfully excited about the boy, didn’t see his political way at the moment to depose the rich oldster John (who was in possession of the crown of the English) in favour of the poor youngster Arthur (who so far hadn’t a deed to his name). Arthur, accordingly, in an access of Angevin anger, went and did deeds in the Holy Land, as the shortest cut into Innocent’s valuable affections, returning (as King-Consort of Hierusalem) just in time to find the Pope bored to death with John’s abominations, and only too happy (now) to do the straight thing. Armed with bulls and whatnot, and supported by Earl Hubert de Burgh, admiral and warden and regent of England, Arthur conquered England, drove John into life-sanctuary at his Cistercian Abbey of Beaulieu, fought young Henry Lackland (commonly called Henry the Third) for the crown in ordeal of battle at Oxford; and reigned with enormous glory till the year of Our Lord 1255. And the history of it all was written, on King Arthur’s death, by old Hubert de Burgh, Constable of the Tower, who had been and done everything in England for a matter of sixty years or so, and (in extreme old age) fancied that he naturally knew more about facts than a certain little monk, Mr Matthew (formerly of Paris), who only listened to gossip and spied through the keyhole of his monastery, and wrote the stuff thus gleaned as what he had the insolence to call
The Chronicle of England.
This, Hubert de Burgh’s astoundingly circumstantial [narrative], bristling with personal knowledge of men famous and infamous, with statesmanlike policy, heraldry, archaeology, love, wit, sorrow, humour, courage, suffering, every high and noble human interest and activity, all illumined by the insight and pathos and power of his own personality, was embodied in a manuscript written in a very individual sort of Latin which Nicholas Crabbe pretended to have discovered in the Tower of London and to be translating in collaboration with his friend [Pirie-Gordon].

A remarkable book, apparently. But where was it to be found? After it had been refused by Messrs Chatto the manuscript was sent, by Rolfe’s direction, to a friend in America; but letters sent to him were returned ‘Gone Away’. For a year I tried every hole or corner which my imagination and knowledge could suggest as the hiding place of Rolfe’s lost books, but without avail. At last I abandoned the pursuit. Somewhere, I was confident, they existed: I would wait until a swirl of the waters of time brought them to the shore.

*

There is one other of Rolfe’s books to which I have not referred in detail: that one in which Messrs Rider and Son manifested so timely an interest at the moment when the author first met Mr Justin, which appeared in print as the only tangible form of that ‘financial partnership’ in 1912, seven years after its predecessor,
Don Tarquinio.
This collaborated work bears on the title-page the inscription
The Weird of the Wanderer, being the Papyrus records of some incidents in one of the previous lives of Mr Nicholas Crabbe. Here produced by Prospero and Caliban
(Rolfe’s gibe against his friend, mentioned in Chapter XIII, prompted the name). Despite the duality of the psuedonym, the dust cover states that the book ‘is the work of a classical scholar, and an author of genius and originality, who conceals his identity under the nom-de-plume of Prospero and Caliban’; and the publisher’s catalogue bound in at the end gives Rolfe’s name alone as the author. There is certainly no trace of ‘genius’ in this undistinguished work, which narrates in the first person the adventures of Nicholas Crabbe, of Crabs Herborough, Kent, after he has acquainted himself with the magic incantations of ancient Egypt, and seeks, by their means, to commune with the dead. His command of spells fails him at a crucial point, and he is carried back through time to an earlier incarnation of himself as Odysseus. The passage describing the translation has, more than any other in the book, a touch of Rolfe’s excellence: ‘I saw the histories of mortal men of many different races being enacted before my eyes . . . kings and queens and emperors and republicans and patricians and plebeians swept in reverse order across my view. . . . Time rushed backwards in tremendous panoramas. Great men died before they won their fame. Kings were deposed before they were crowned. Nero and the Borgias and Cromwell and Asquith and the Jesuits enjoyed eternal infamy and then began to earn it. My motherland . . . melted into barbaric Britain; Byzantion melted into Rome; Venice into Henetian Altino; Hellas into innumerable migrations. Blows fell; and then were struck.’ But though there are some interesting turns of phrase, the book, as a whole, is a failure, marked by continual pedantry of expression, and by insufferably jocose footnotes. I might have concluded, from the deterioration evident in this book, that Rolfe’s later years were marked by a decline in his literary powers, had not
The Desire and Pursuit of the Whole
, and those startling Venice letters, emphatically proved otherwise.

CHAPTER 20: THE END OF THE QUEST

In 1927 my friend Millard died. The Quest for Corvo had been almost at a standstill for months; with Millard’s passing it altogether stopped. Sometimes after dinner I turned a contemplative eye to the files and papers that I had purchased from the Rev. Stephen Justin; sometimes I looked again at those painful Venice letters; I re-read
Hadrian;
more frequently I speculated whether I should ever find the lost manuscripts of the unlucky, gifted man who had occupied my mind for so long. But nothing happened; I made no progress; without having lost interest I had lost incentive to pursue a search which for the moment I could see no way to advance. Such hope as remained to me rested on the unusual beauty of Rolfe’s written manuscripts, which, judging by those I had seen, were not likely to be thrown away by anyone with eyes in his head.

And then, one fine Spring morning, a message came to my room to ask if I would see a Mr Gregory, who had called with an introduction from Shane Leslie to ask questions about Baron Corvo. Mr Gregory (or, as he was formally announced, Mr Maundy Gregory) proved to be a plump, rubicund, middle-sized man in the fifties, with an expensive flower in his buttonhole, an air of constant good-living, an affable smile, a glittering watchchain, good clothes and (as I noticed when he sat down) very beautiful boots. His business was briefly stated. He had read the works of Baron Corvo with fanatical admiration, my own article (published by Mr Desmond MacCarthy after my disagreement with Herbert Rolfe) with zest; and meeting Mr Leslie by chance, had been advised by him to seek me out as the source of further knowledge. His visit was sufficiently explained; yet a certain watchfulness in his manner, an expression of worldliness far beyond mere literary curiosity, seemed to hint at something more. I felt instinctively that this resplendent personage would take a part in my Quest; I did not guess how completely, for a time, it was to be identified with him.

I produced the Corvo manuscripts, which were the motive of Mr Gregory’s call; and his admiration was undissembled and knew (apparently) no bounds. He gazed at the letters and books I produced for his inspection with that open envy which is the pleasantest form of flattery to a collector. The multicoloured letters to Grant Richards moved him to reverence, the Venice correspondence to awe. My reserve vanished before such pertinacious and tactful amiability, like mist before the sun; I began to like Mr Gregory.

Then, with a curious and rather attractive diffidence, my visitor asked if I would consider selling, him one of my less important treasures. He could not hope, he conceded, that I would part with any of the major manuscripts; but perhaps I could spare a fragment or a duplicate? Money was no object, he added, almost regretfully, as he turned over again the leaves of
The Weird of the Wanderer
in Corvo’s beautiful handwriting. Actually I had no particular wish to sell anything that morning; but something in his hint that he was immensely wealthy, a peculiar challenge in his eyes as he made it, prompted me to pass him, more in jest than in earnest, a small poem of Rolfe’s composition into his hand, and say ‘You can have that for £20.’ Without hesitation Mr Maundy Gregory’s hand went to his pocket; a thick gold-edged wallet appeared and was opened; four five-pound notes were taken from an impressive wad; and ‘I am most grateful to you,’ he murmured.

I was as much astonished as I was delighted. At the rate I had charged Mr Gregory for this single poem, my shelf of Corvo manuscripts was worth more than a thousand pounds, a pleasant reflection for a poor man. But I knew perfectly well that they were worth no such sum, and that I had grossly overcharged for the poem. I said so. To no effect: Mr Gregory smiled mysteriously again and repeated that money was no object to him, and that he was very grateful for the chance to acquire a unique specimen of the work of his favourite writer.

We parted after more than an hour’s talking, with mutual asseverations of goodwill, and an undertaking on his part to lunch with me a few days later. As I escorted him to the door a waiting taxicab drew forward from beyond, and without a word my visitor stepped in. ‘Goodness,’ I exclaimed, ‘has that cab been waiting for you all this time?’ ‘Oh yes,’ replied Mr Gregory, ‘You see, I own it.’ And with a bland salutation, but no direction to the chauffeur, he drove away.

I telephoned to ask Shane Leslie what he knew of his impressive friend; but without learning much. Shane had met Maundy Gregory at a dinner-party, and, the conversation turning on Corvo, had given him my name. I waited with interest for our next meeting.

Punctually to the moment (for the only time in our acquaintance) Mr Gregory arrived to keep his luncheon appointment. Champagne seemed the appropriate drink for so expensive an individual, and I was not surprised when he admitted a preference for it over other wines. I tried tactfully to learn something of my visitor. Did he own a fleet of taxicabs? No, he explained, only one, which even now waited without. He used it instead of a private car for the reason that a car waiting outside a door was easily recognized, whereas a taxicab passed unnoticed. But why did he need to pass unnoticed? I persisted. He gave no direct answer, but I gathered that there were important reasons why Mr Maundy Gregory’s movements should not be proclaimed.

In a dozen ways during lunch I became aware that I was talking to a very rich and influential man. It was not the gold cigarette case he produced (a gift from the King of Greece), nor his superb sleeve links (platinum balls covered with diamonds), nor the beautiful black pearl in his tie which produced this impression of vast wealth, so much as the implication behind everything he said that whatever he wished to do or to possess was, so far as money was concerned, a settled thing. He displayed no reluctance to talk about himself. For example, he told me that he lunched every day at the Ambassador Club, never alone, and that every day at a quarter to one two bottles of champagne were put on ice for him. I learned that he possessed two yachts, a house in London, another on the river, and a flat in Brighton. Without in the least boasting he let me know that his library contained many rare books, his cellar much fine wine. Of all these things he spoke quite calmly, and with a friendly, flattering assumption that thenceforth I should share in them.

As to Corvo, he listened to my story of the missing manuscripts with close attention, and pronounced the problem a simple one. So far I had been hampered in having to rely solely on my own resources, whereas now, with unlimited support from himself, he felt confident that everything I sought would be recovered in good time. I gathered that the publication of Corvo’s unissued works, the establishment of Corvo in his proper place of repute as an author, were in future to be among his major interests, and that I could draw upon him for any reasonable sum to advance these purposes. It was a memorable and delightful lunch.

A week later we met again. This time I was his guest. The place of meeting was the Ambassador Club, which I had never before visited, but now had ample opportunity of admiring, since Mr Gregory was an hour late. He was breathlessly full of apologies, and explained that he had been detained at Buckingham Palace on urgent affairs. The lunch was certainly worth waiting for. A bevy of respectful waiters clustered round our table while costly courses appeared and disappeared. Champagne flowed, large cigars and brandy followed. While we were lunching I learned several more unexpected things. Mr Gregory counted Lord Birkenhead among his closer friends; he held an important post in the Secret Service; he was an intimate of many royal houses, and was, indeed, actively engaged in promoting the restoration of several. His cuff-links were no less resplendent than before, though not orbicular, and this time his gold cigarette case bore an inscription, not from a King, but from the Duke of York. We talked for hours. I was hardly surprised when, at four o’clock, looking round the magnificent but now empty restaurant, he whispered confidentially, ‘Of course this place belongs to me.’ I was to learn that this, like most of the things he told me, was quite true.

Our next meeting was at his office in Whitehall, whither I was summoned by telephone. I noticed with interest as I went in that the premises were those of the
Whitehall Gazette,
which, as I learned, Mr Gregory both edited and owned. The staircase and anteroom were unimpressive, but that only pointed a contrast with his extraordinary office, into which I was ushered after a long delay. I well remember the first sight of my queer acquaintance seated in a vast red chair behind a desk crowded with signed royal portraits, telephones, and indicators that buzzed or flashed with coloured lights. After I had been given a glass of Tio Pepe, the reason for my summons was explained. Mr Gregory felt he would like to buy the Venice letters; would I sell them, and for how much?

At that moment I needed money (since I was a schoolboy my inclinations have always exceeded my income), and I was very willing to sell. The question was, what price to name. Since money was ‘no object’ to Mr Gregory, I set their value at a hundred and fifty pounds, exactly six times what I had paid poor Millard for them. So far from demurring, my host questioned (without the slightest irony) if I was asking enough for such remarkable documents; and on being assured that I was, opened a drawer of his desk and from a thick packet handed me fifteen £10 notes. The packet was not noticeably diminished by the transfer; there must have been at least £5,000 on that table. More Tio Pepe, and then I was let out by a padded, bolted double door into the evening air. I was asked for no receipt; and it was not until a week later that I could find an opportunity of handing over the letters.

Then began a series of feasts (I can hardly call them lunches), to which I look back even now with astonishment. Mr Gregory was invariably host; he was invariably late; the food and wine were invariably first-rate and ordered with no consideration whatsoever for expense. There was often company – mostly foreign secretaries or officials, sometimes as many as a dozen guests, though usually we lunched
tête-à-tête.
As I came to know him better (and in the end I knew him very well) I grew to like this man of mystery. Wealth in the abstract seems to me almost non-existent: a man with a vast balance at the bank who spends very little is not rich, but poor, in my eyes. Maundy Gregory seemed to share this view. He loved visible things, and the physical results of wealth, with something between the zest of the parvenu and the joy of the artist. He had at least a dozen gold cigarette cases, and never used the same one on two consecutive days; indeed, his personal jewellery of one kind and another (all very valuable and good) would have sufficed to stock a shop. Yet for all the discursiveness of his self-revelation, I could never find out his occupation nor the source of his income. He spent at a fabulous rate. The waiter who brought his hat or his cigar received two shillings by way of tip; and the rest of his life was organized on that scale. And all his payments were made in the crispest of brand-new banknotes, or else in the shiniest of brand-new money. He really seemed, by his behaviour and extravagance, to possess a private mint.

After several months, during which Mr Gregory’s hospitality appeared to be as limitless as his purse, I was asked to lunch with him at even shorter notice than usual on ‘very urgent business’. He was both late and silent on arrival; I gathered that he was expecting something. It came with the coffee, when without a word he placed in my hands a bound copy of
Don Renato; or An Ideal Content,
that lost work of Fr. Rolfe’s so much admired by Mr Trevor Haddon.

It certainly deserved his praises. No more faithful reflection exists of its extraordinary author: and it could be the work of no other hand. The infallible touches of his fascinating, overladen style (the style of
Don Tarquinio,
not
Hadrian,
of Baron Corvo, not Fr. Rolfe) are prominent from the first page to the last. As this ‘Historical Romance’ will perhaps not be available to general readers for many years, I extract a few details from its mosaic of strange learning and language. The Dedicatory Letter (to Trevor Haddon, dignified as Apistophilis Echis) opens:

These are the words of the book which I, Frederick William, the son of James, the son of Nicholas, the son of William, the son of Robert, wrote in London and in Rome.

Because you, o painter, incessantly perturb me with inquisitions concerning the sources of my curious knowledge of matters archaick and abnormal, because you incessantly transform me with the intent regard of your Kretan brows, and molest me with entreaties that I, as man to man or (at times) as artificer to artificer, should demonstrate to you the Four Causes of my gests, especially that I should tell you how I do my deeds (and you know how many and how rare these be) – I will give you this book.

A life, as of an anachoret, as of an eremite, in severance from the world of articulately-speaking men, while rendering me inhabile in expressing thoughts, creeds, opinions, in spoken words, has made me subadept with the pen – a very detestable condition. On this account, time and human patience would be exhausted before I should be able to satisfy you by word of mouth: but, thirteen months occupied by me in writing, and seven nights or three days (when your workshop may be obscured by London fog) occupied by you in reading, will make clear to you at least one of the sources of my knowledge.

Yet, for your hypotechnical inquiry as to How the Thing is Done, I am unable to supply an apophthegm. My own consuetude, in matters of which I desire to be informed, is to place very many interrogations among experts; and, from the responses received, to respond to myself. This mode has advantages and disadvantages. On the whole it produces satisfaction; and I know no better. Indeed I doubt whether any artificer could respond to your inquiry either in spoken words or in written . . .