The Cardboard Crown (24 page)

The house that Austin had taken was on the sea-front between Brighton and Elsternwick. Not long ago I drove an English visitor past it, and he burst out laughing. I did not dare to tell him that my grandparents had lived there. If I had told him, I would have wanted to explain how they came to live there, and it would have meant telling him nearly everything that is written in this book. It was of bright red brick. There were terraces and statues, oriel windows, battlements and turrets. It was called ‘Beaumanoir.’ It is inconceivable that Austin who owned both Waterpark, a genuine country ‘seat,’ and Westhill, a modest and pleasant house, could bring himself to end his life in this bogus baronial mansion, even more so how Alice could agree to live there.

Austin did not want to be eccentric, but he often saw only one aspect of a situation. If for example he wanted to cart turnips and the only available horse vehicle was a brougham, he would use it rather than make several laborious journeys with a wheelbarrow. A mischievous fate too often presented him with a brougham as the sole alternative to a wheelbarrow. He now thought it would be pleasant to bathe in the morning directly from the house, and the only available house with a sea-frontage was ‘Beaumanoir.’ Alice too may have thought it would be nice to walk out on to the sea-shore, and the house may have appeared less grotesque to her in the nineties, than it does to us, half-way through the next century. As children we thought it was glorious, and loved to climb into the dusty turrets, and to turn on the fountains in the fernery. When she wrote to her friends in Europe she must have felt that after ‘Waterpark House, near Frome’ it was somewhat humiliating to have her writing-paper headed: ‘Beaumanoir, Higgins Street, North Brighton, Vic.’

It was under the heavy ornamental plaster ceilings of Beaumanoir that she was reconciled with Hetty. Arthur was present. ‘They had of course met often in other people’s houses,’ he said, ‘but Alice had never received Hetty, who had not been to Westhill for twenty years. Now she wanted to see what Beaumanoir was like. When she wanted a thing she always went for it. She did not even do it as an outrageous lark. She was entirely without humour, which made people think she was very amusing. She did everything like a steamroller. I was with Alice one afternoon when a servant came in and announced Mrs Dell and Miss Mayhew. She was clever enough to bring Sarah, whom Alice could not very well
refuse to see, and who shortly afterwards came to live with them again. Hetty came in on the servant’s heels. She was quite unsmiling and her eyes were like black agates. She looked at Alice suspiciously to see how she was taking it. A momentary flash came into your grandmother’s eyes, as she was not the kind of person with whom one took liberties. Then I saw an extraordinary, really quite beautiful expression come into her face, and she took Hetty’s hand and led her to the sofa. When we are old, and things have not gone very well, we feel kindly towards the people we knew when we were young, even if they were then our enemies. And Hetty, though at that time she still had a sort of champion wrestler’s physique—really Austin must damn nearly have risked his life—she looked so hang-dog, that Alice wanted to give her back her self-respect. After that she lunched with your grandmother every Friday.’

At Beaumanoir also, one day Alice wrote: ‘George arrived at tea-time. He had heard from Dolly. She says she cannot go against her father’s wishes.’ It was then five years since they had parted at Nantes. Not very long afterwards Major Potts died, leaving Dolly, for whom he had demanded such a large settlement, with a tiny pittance, as he left nearly all he had to his son, to ‘keep up’ his name. By that time Aunt Baba had married George for his money.

In the last summer of the century Austin had reached the stage of complete indifference to public opinion. Every morning he walked across the garden to bathe. He wore only his pyjamas to the beach, and nothing into the sea, even when he bathed on horseback, which he liked to do. The unwarrantable assumption was that no one could see him. He then
came back to the house and still wearing his pyjamas had grilled steak and beer for breakfast. He drove about a good deal and arrived at awkward times at other people’s houses. All this year there was a look of excitement in his eyes, and the red of his face was not very healthy. Again he began to complain of feeling unwell and he walked about the house at night. The doctor advised that he should go for treatment into a private hospital, as nursing homes are called here. His condition did not improve and they decided to perform what in those days was a very difficult operation, under which he died.

Slowly, as Alice recovered from the shock, she began to realise that she was completely free. Throughout the months following Austin’s death are many allusions to plans forming in her mind. She thinks of taking Diana and Wolfie back to Europe to compensate them for the hard time they have had. She has more money now. Or should she take Steven and Laura and settle again at Waterpark?

She tries to imagine what it would be like to arrive in Taormina. How would Aubrey welcome her? She examines her face in the glass, and writes: ‘I look much older than I did six years ago.’ It was no good. She could not go back in time. She could not repeat an experience. Too often we are given what we asked when we no longer have the power to use the gift. She had to go on to the next phase, for her the last, that of the static onion woman, waiting for the angel himself to remove the weight from her skirts, and to pull her up into the skies. For her there was no more vital experience. All that had ended on the evening when she wrote:

‘Mr Hughes, the surgeon, rang up to say that they were
going to operate on Austin early this afternoon. Steven had come down and we waited anxiously to hear the result. The operation was unsuccessful and A. died under the anaesthetic. Mildred went in a hansom to break this news to Diana and to Maysie. Steven rang up George at his club. Mr Hughes came out to see me. I asked him what were A.’s last words—if he had said anything. Mr Hughes smiled, and said he could not tell me. He told Steven. A. said that if the surgeon did something to him under the operation he would punch his nose when he came out. I had to smile at the last funny thing he said. It was so shocking, and so courageous. Goodbye my dear, Goodbye.’