Love's Obsession (25 page)

Daniel concluded by saying that

it is not space that crowds you out, but that your article is—let's face it—pure archaeological primary scholarship with no concessions to the general reader (presumably a mythical figure but he subscribes to
Antiquity
).
78

Paul Åström agreed to publish the report in
Opuscula Athiensiou
.

Jim and Eve had yet to provide a short report to the Department of Antiquities in Cyprus, still waiting for details of their earlier 1955 work, although Eve had finalised the proofs of the volume for the Swedish Cyprus Expedition, but Jim worried about the number of corrections needed.
79
He returned the manuscript at the end of 1961 and in January 1962 expressed concern that they had not received the second set of proofs.
80
Now a professor, he felt able to address Gjerstad by his Christian name and asked Einar to do the same.
81
Each letter to Gjerstad included a request for stamps to add to Eve's collection.

Amongst all these worries—establishing new staff in the department, the emotional turmoil of farewelling Basil and seeing Robert go, of losing a father and gaining a son, of illness and worry, of requests for publication and of promises not kept—Jim and Eve had to answer regular requests from people wanting to visit. In August the year before they had to remind people that ‘Mount Pleasant is a private house and not a museum, a fallacy which, despite denials by himself and Mrs Stewart, does not seem to die in Bathurst'.
82
Would no one leave them be?

Eve had few friends and none she could lean on. Ann Baldwin, the wife of the coin dealer Albert Baldwin, was one of the few who understood and to whom she could confide.

I, too, had ample warning, & learnt to lie from day to day; Sept. of last year, for instance, I got Jim an ‘advance' Xmas present (a transistor radio, to try and keep him amused when he was restless, but didn't feel up to doing any work) as at that stage I didn't think he'd hang on till Xmas … I felt so powerless to help him … that's why, last Jan., I insisted on introducing a trained nurse into the household, to try & combat Betty C's influence … But I think the worst part is having to keep one's knowledge to oneself. Once or twice Jim started crying because he was so tired of always feeling ill, & he didn't want to die—what could I say to comfort him when I knew it was inevitable?
83

As Jim's health failed Eve saw it as her duty to protect him. Writing to the Vice-Chancellor, she asked that Alexander Cambitoglou be allowed to make decisions on Jim's behalf and worried that Betty—staying frequently at The Mount—brought Jim work even before breakfast.

Jim's failure to separate the personal and professional spheres of his life had disadvantages. Caught between two competing women, Jim had enjoyed the jealous tension in Cyprus but now bridled at their bitchiness. Eve shrank when she remembered the day he lashed out at both of them, flinging papers across the room.
84

Eve clung desperately to Jim and reached for support. Derek Howlett's girlfriend Sonja had arrived from England and was a trained nurse. Eve asked for her help and the couple moved to The Mount so that Sonja could nurse Jim. She argued with Betty, who insisted on keeping him awake, talking and drinking, after she had administered medications.
85

Through it all, Eve maintained her obligations, posting Christmas cards and making sure she had presents for friends in Cyprus and England, and continuing to field requests. Vassos needed a report on the 1961 excavations. Could she find work for a recently arrived Cypriot woman? How was the editing of Vassos's thesis progressing? Where would she find the money for death duties payable on Tjiklos?

On Wednesday 31 January Jim was admitted for the last time to St Vincent's Hospital in Bathurst and died on the 6 February. The death certificate listed hypertension and cardiac failure, but four years of imprisonment, alcohol and cigarettes surely played a part.

In his last days in hospital Jim had spoken with his local politician and expressed the wish that Sydney University might eventually own his property, his library, and his collections. Mr Bernard Deane, MLA, made representation to the university but the Registrar replied coldly: ‘As you no doubt know, Professor Stewart died yesterday. It seems therefore that there is no need for further action or discussion about his estate.
'
86

Eve hoped for a small private funeral, but this was not to be. Jim's was never a private life. Not wanting a fuss, she asked Alexander Cambitoglou not to come, but he could hardly object to members of staff attending if they wished. Betty and Mary Ann wanted to attend at all costs. On the morning of 8 February, cars drove up the range from Sydney. Mary Ann brought Eleanor and Peter, but Peter attended the funeral without his mother.

Within two days Eve would host a visit by Alexander Cambitoglou. Professor Roberts and his wife arrived for lunch. Judy Birmingham came to use the library. Plans began for a memorial exhibition. Betty was asked to leave Mount Pleasant. Derek and Sonja stayed. Never happy with the Australian habit of boisterous matey banter, Eve felt more comfortable with a conservative English couple who were similarly reserved and careful.

When everyone had finally left, a freshly dug mound and small wooden white cross in the front garden were the only reminders of what had happened. Jim had asked to be buried in his orchard. Later visitors were aghast but Eve liked it. She told Paul Åström: ‘it helps me to feel that he is still here', adding that she wished Paul were in Australia.
87
She had so few friends to lean on.

Eve sent out notification of Jim's death. Every day brought more letters to be answered. The more difficult ones she set aside. Formal letters of condolence arrived—General Nasser wrote from Egypt, Archbishop Makarios from Cyprus—as well as professional expressions of sadness and of regret for the loss to the archaeology of Cyprus. Many of the writers had never met Jim but had corresponded regularly and enjoyed the personality that shone through his letters. Porphyrios was shocked; he knew Jim's health was poor, but had no idea the end was so near. He sent a copy of the formal communiqué from the Department of Antiquities.

Virginia Grace from the American School of Classical Studies in Athens had known Jim since before the war and she had visited them in Kyrenia during the Karmi excavations. She was pleased now to have done so, and told Eve:

Glad not just for meeting once more, but for knowing you, and seeing how he was looked after, and with what tact as well as tenderness. It was wonderful that this season was such a climax in rare finds, for his satisfaction, though I am afraid this added to the load. I hope you have been able to get a little rested, and that you may have the strengths and desire to deal with his unfinished work so it can take its final shape and immortality.
88

Reynold Higgins, a fellow POW, had also known Jim

under the most trying of circumstances, and was always impressed by his refusal to give in. I don't think he ever really recovered from Germany.
89

Eve spilt ash on the letter from Jim's Cambridge tutor and it burnt two small brown holes in the thin blue aerogramme, but she scarcely noticed.

Although not overtly religious, Eve had been raised in a religious household. One of the letters of condolence came from an old friend, Launcelot Flemming, now Bishop of Norwich. Flemming had recently lost his mother and enclosed a copy of the diocesan letter in which he tried to explain his feelings of loss.

In Eve's reply, words and abbreviations tumbled over themselves as she poured her heart out.
90

Dear Launcelot

I have read, & re-read, your personal letter of 10th Mar. & the copy of your letter to \ Norwich Churchman, many times; often I have been on / point of writing to you, but I hesitated: why sh'ld I bother you? I'm muddling along all right—& I know what a burden even one more letter in \ mail can be.

Besides, I'm not quite clear exactly what I want to say to you; I'm not a thinker like Jim. That's why I was able to help him in his work: he was a scholar & I concentrated on practical things like drawing pots & proof reading; in that way we made a good team. But in other ways I failed him utterly. An only child, selfish & self-centred, I didn't attempt to understand him, I expected to be the only pebble on the beach. So if he sinned, it was because I drove him to it; it's my fault that a shadow came between us, so that in the last 2 or 3 years I didn't give him all \ love I sh'ld have done. When we are re-united, I hope I shall have more understanding.

And now it's too late for regrets! As I realised when my mother died, while visiting us here, 6 years ago (I could so easily have made her happier).

In my mother's case, although I lament the separation, wh. has severed my childhood's links, I am glad that she was spared further suffering. But with Jim it's quite different, he was 48 not 80, & \ peak / of his career, looking forward to retiring fr. \ University & \ tedious administration /\ Dept. so that he could settle down to research & writing. Why sh'ld he have had to die, when there was so much he wanted to give \ world? Somebody like me could well have been spared instead of him.

I feel that ‘Hell' for Jim will be regretting all \ work he'd intended to do (much / it work wh. only he could do) & wh. He never finished. But I hope that this is not so. As you say, life after death must involve an entirely new dimension; we cannot hope to comprehend it, but perhaps imagination can give us glimpses? At one time I helped @ a school for blind boys in Cyprus; its \ custom, @ Easter, to have hard boiled eggs dyed w. different colours, & these boys expected to have their coloured eggs, even though we had to go round saying: ‘You have a red egg; you have a blue egg'—it meant something to them, even though nearly all had been blind from birth.

Yes, in many ways there is no distinction between \ quick & \ dead; Jim will always live in his work. After 9 months, there are often moments when I feel he will come back again, that he just can't be gone for ever! I'd got so used to him being away in Sydney 3 days a week that it's quite natural for me to be alone in the house—& I haven't swept away every trace / him, many things are still lying where he left them & then I look out /\ window & see his pathetic, temporary cross. At his special request he is buried here, in his garden.

Well, as you'll have realised, I'm still in a jumble—but I'm all right, really. A kind & understanding young couple fr Norwich have kept me sane all this time. I think Jim told you that he was getting Derek Howlett, from \ Castle, to join his staff here. Derek has now married Sonja Clouting (a Middlesex trained nurse, also fr. Norwich); they came up here last Jan. to take charge / Jim when I c'ld no longer cope, on my own. Since then, they've kept an eye on me, & have included me in their family—I do feel that I am more than a friend; I'm to be godmother to \ 1st baby (because they think I need a ‘human' interest. Jim's relations are all very friendly too.

D&S have helped me so much because they've known that I just needed an audience to pour out my woes, & they've sat & listened patiently—I usually didn't need any answer or comment. I seem to have poured myself out to you—it's been a great help—but no answer or comment is needed.

PART 3
Wentworth Falls

Chapter 11
Australia, 1962–90

Nearly twenty years after Jim's offer to work on the Early Cypriot volume of the Swedish Cyprus Expedition, Gjerstad was still waiting. He had used persuasion, cajolery, even bullying, and finally offered to edit the volume himself. Jim had not visited Sweden since 1958 and the only news Gjerstad had of him came indirectly or in delayed replies to letters.

The text was written, the proofs sent for checking. It should have taken no time to complete but it was not when Jim died.

Within a fortnight of his death, Eve wrote to Gjerstad. She had finalised work on the proofs and thanked him for his telegram of condolence, while expressing concern that Gjerstad himself had been unwell. She was sad that Jim would not see this publication. The preface would stay. So much of Jim was in it: his thanks to her for providing the working environment he needed, and to the cats for their companionship; his complaints about the university and its administration; his refusal to accept any blame for the late arrival of the text. Eve read Jim's final sentence with a leaden heart. ‘Perhaps the future will be brighter may it be so!
'
1

Within quick succession Eve had lost her mother, her father, her father-in-law and her husband. Her father's and her husband's wills entailed complicated financial business. Although her father had left property in Cyprus and Egypt, it could not be released until death duties were paid and on Cyprus alone these amounted to around £10,000. She and Jim's Bathurst lawyer were joint executors of Jim's will and the estate would have to realise considerable money to cover the death duties that would be levied. Jim's library and coin collection would have to pay their way, as would his collection of antiquities. The will was finally sworn for probate at £262,066.
2
Jim left Mount Pleasant to his son Peter, who would take control when he turned twenty-one in 1967, only five years away.

Three months after Jim's death, Eve wrote to her old friend Joan du Plat Taylor listing the jobs she had to complete. She had corrected the proofs for R.M. Dawkins's translation of ‘The Chronicle of George Boustronios' while sitting on Jim's hospital bed and it would be published by Melbourne University Press in 1964. Vassos's monograph on Mycenaean pottery in Cyprus was still waiting, many years after they had agreed to publish it. When she found time Eve retyped the manuscript, trying to improve the English and checking each reference as she went. Paul Åström promised to publish Jim's ‘corpus' but the text needed checking and expanding, and this was on top of the excavation reports of their work in 1955 and last year. Much of the pottery still waited to be mended and drawn and she didn't feel confident writing up Jim's conclusions. And the excavations at Karmi weren't finished—four or five chambers near the bas-relief of Mary Ann remained to be excavated. Alexander Cambitoglou suggested that Judy Birmingham might help. Basil was too busy overseas but at least he had finished his work relating to Stephania. Jim's numismatic friends offered advice and she hoped one or other might visit so they could decide what to do with the coins, the casts and notes. Albert Baldwin was not the only one who asked what would happen to Jim's coin collection.

‘The house is full of notes, drawings & photos,' Eve told Joan, ‘which Jim was planning to work up into articles when he had time'. So many letters needed answers and along with everything else she had to talk to the workmen about how to keep the sheep going through the winter as there had been so little autumn rain and feed was short.
3
‘I don't know what I do with my time; I seem to be always either writing letters or else looking out documents for the lawyer, the accountant or the University—and I never seem to get anywhere',
4
she told Philip Grierson. Five years would pass quickly. How could she finish everything in time? Would she ever be able to retire to Tjiklos? She felt quite alone.

Eve considered herself part of the Department of Archaeology at Sydney University. She had worked at the Nicholson Museum even before the department existed, and Jim's work had always been hers. Alexander Cambitoglou was placed in a difficult position. He had only been in Australia a matter of months, had rarely met with Jim, knew little of the background to the proposal regarding Mount Pleasant or the acquisition of the Golden Grove. Suddenly he had to run a department that, thanks to Jim's perseverance, had expanded. Eve saw no reason to believe that the Melbourne Cyprus Expedition would not continue, or that the preoccupations that had been hers and Jim's would not remain the department's. The film she had taken at the Karmi excavations was part of her long-term plan to raise extra funds for excavation work and she wrote to Cambitoglou outlining what she intended. ‘I hope this doesn't sound as though I'm trying to organise your Department', she said, and proceeded to ask that her letters be sent through university channels, and at university cost.
5
Betty Cameron, who continued as departmental secretary, briefed Cambitoglou. That Eve had thrown her out of The Mount in the week before Jim's death may have contributed to her jaundiced view. In any case, Cambitoglou had to work out how to deal with Eve: a recent widow; an archaeological collaborator; and someone used to having her own way. The department, he told her, might be able to help Eve work on Jim's publications but only ‘within the limits of a department which is, as you know, already far too busy'.
6

Cambitoglou's plans were not Jim's and within weeks of his death—and two days before Stewart's position was advertised—he began to revise the budget of the department and foreshadowed ‘the inevitable changes in policy direction as a result of Professor Stewart's death'.
7
He had already alerted the Vice-Chancellor to the possibility that members of the Greek-Australian community might seek to establish a chair of Byzantine and Modern Greek studies.
8

The Chair of Near Eastern Archaeology was advertised in the middle of 1962. Paul Åström applied, naming Eve as a referee
9
but she was never asked to provide one and was not surprised. Jim was hardly popular with the university administration. Another name she heard mentioned was Hector Catling. But she knew little of what was happening and felt increasingly excluded.

By the end of 1962 no appointment had been made and on 8 November the Registrar notified Cambitoglou that:

at its meeting of 5 November, the Senate approved the following alteration in the Establishment of the Department of Archaeology to take effect as from 1 January 1963:- One Chair … to be filled in addition to establishment unless it is filled from within the University, in which case it will be counted as a conversion. It was determined that the precise form of this Chair be determined at a later date. It is not proposed to attempt to fill the Edwin Cuthbert Hall Chair of Middle Eastern Archaeology for the time being.
10

Alexander Cambitoglou remembers that the Registrar told him if he didn't apply for the Chair they would assume he didn't want to remain at Sydney University.
11
Sydney University had chosen its administrator and intended to keep him.

Cambitoglou had to walk a fine line but he was better suited to the role of administrator than Jim ever had been. Where Jim had been intemperate but open, Cambitoglou was correct, polite and very closed. Years later Judy Birmingham thought the changes wrought by Alexander Cambitoglou were ‘diabolical'. Although she had only known Jim for a short time, she remembers his approach as fluid and interesting. Cambitoglou, she thought, reduced everything to straight lines.
12

Jim had never separated parts of his life and despite a predilection for elaborate lists and budgets, his papers were in a mess and Eve was left to sort them out. The university was faced with the problem of unravelling the tangled threads. The university accountant told the Vice-Chancellor, Stephen Roberts:

urgent investigations are being made along the lines requested … in 1953 Mr Colby went to Bathurst and prepared an inventory, copy of which is attached. Since that time, however, pretty well all the things listed were transferred to the Golden Grove building and the items still at Bathurst are those shown on the attached list, which include things left in 1953 together with purchases since that date … I am attaching also the report prepared by Sir Victor Windeyer at the time of the investigation in 1953. Information is also being obtained from the Accountant, University of Melbourne, about payments relative to the Cypress [
sic
] expedition fund, so as to expedite matters.
13

Jim had taken from the university library all the books not required by students and moved them to The Mount.
14

Four months after Jim's death, Alexander Cambitoglou raised with Eve's lawyer the possibility of purchasing Jim's library and coin collection.
15
Jim had often expressed his wish that Sydney University's Fisher Library inherit his library, but death duties now meant it must be sold.

In 1963 a new librarian took up appointment as University Librarian. Harrison Bryan would work at Sydney University for eighteen years and go on to head the National Library of Australia. New to Sydney, Bryan had few preconceptions, no obvious prejudices, and a job to do. He was professional and gentlemanly. And he knew how to handle Eve.

Not long after his arrival he wrote in a courteous letter full of complicated qualifications: ‘I share the view, which I find to be fairly generally held, that it would be most unfortunate indeed if this library was unable to do itself the honour of housing such a notable collection.
'
16

Bryan drove to Bathurst to assess Jim's library—all 580 linear feet of it. The library was extensive. Not only had Jim amassed archaeological books and periodicals, but also references on all sorts of supporting subjects, such as the geology, geography, botany and zoology of the Mediterranean and Near East. Bryan's report to the University Senate was clear. He strongly recommended buying the library and thought the asking price of £15,000 was ‘by no means an over estimate'.
17
Both he and Cambitoglou agreed that the best place for the collection was Sydney, which at the time had the only school of archaeology in Australia.

Eve began to haggle. As executor she had to realise as much money as possible for the estate, but also found it difficult to relinquish control. Two months after Bryan's visit she raised the offer to £16,500 and began to add conditions.

Once we have got over the initial hurdle we can discuss details, such as finishing the catalogue, housing, safeguards for the proper care and maintenance of the library, how soon you can take over paying subs. to periodicals (at present being paid by the estate) and so on. I am sure we will be able to come to amicable arrangements over these matters.
18

She requested that the library never be dispersed.

Bryan sent librarians to The Mount to catalogue the books. Eve was grateful for the professionalism of the staff, who made things easy for her.
19
Although she wanted to retain some control over the library, Bryan was polite but firm; when she tried to impose conditions she was gently rebuffed. The university could not accept a library with conditions, Bryan explained, although he softened his rebuttal with an offer to pay for a bookplate to be placed inside each volume. Eve was touched and asked an artist friend to design one. She thanked Harrison Bryan. ‘I must say it has been a pleasure doing anything I could to help you as you have all been so kind and made things so easy for me.
'
20
It only took kindness and courtesy to win her over. Soon the bookshelves would be bare.

What was she to do with Jim's coin collection, nearly 5000 coins, each stored with file cards and plaster cast in specially designed cabinets? Jim had left no instructions about the disposal of the collection—Eve said he wanted it kept intact.
21
She believed it must be catalogued and studied but no written instructions existed. Only days after Jim's death, numismatic friends wrote not just to offer condolences but to ask about the collection's future.
22

Albert Baldwin worried that there was no single person with the capacity to complete a catalogue. Jim had built his collection with loving care and Baldwin believed it was, ‘for its content and scope', unique.
23
Philip Whitting agreed there was no one in Australia capable of cataloguing it and suggested that various of Jim's friends might be persuaded to work on individual sections of the collection.
24
This would necessitate bringing the collection to England and as it formed part of Jim's estate, this would need the approval of both executors.

Keen to keep the collection in Australia, Eve tried to sell it to the Museum of Arts and Sciences in Sydney. Jim's friend and fellow numismatist Pat Boland visited The Mount to value it. He was astonished to find the door open, Eve asleep upstairs, and a note to the effect that he should let himself in and begin work.
25
Boland tried to negotiate a sale. At first the museum agreed to acquire the collection for somewhat over £17,000. A special request to the New South Wales Minister for Education would, they hoped, provide a one-off grant for its acquisition.
26
But Eve kept changing her mind. She checked again with Albert Baldwin, who now valued the collection at around £25,000 and Eve haggled over her own small coin collection and a spoon from the Stavrokono hoard. She argued that a sale could only occur if a qualified numismatist was appointed to work on it. Boland's nerves frayed with the flaying they received from all sides.

By late in 1965 Eve's asking price had risen to £30,000 and matters came to a head late in the year, as Eve, Derek and Sonja Howlett prepared to leave for England and Cyprus. The director of the museum sought clarification from Eve, who had no appreciation of the need to give prompt advice to Treasury. Without this, the museum would have to wait another year before a further request could be made. The director called the situation ‘fluid and inconclusive'.
27
Eve replied that the Stavrokono spoon was worth an extra £1500 and should not be sold separately, adding that ‘once the stumbling block of finance can be overcome we can go into such matters as adequate curation and publication of a detailed catalogue, both of which I have stressed in previous letters'.
28
She would not let go.