Tennyson's Gift (15 page)

Back on the cliff, Ellen had just finished telling the laureate about the new guest at Dimbola, careful not to mention his name. She remembered what Lionel told her, that Tennyson loathed Dodgson; if she spoiled this pleasant walk by making her companion angry, she was bound to get into trouble later on. Tennyson would not inquire for details, anyway. He was notorious for his lack of interest in other people. But on this occasion he enjoyed Ellen's spirited account of the story so much (she did all the voices, and acted bits out) that he actually wanted more.

‘Does he have a profession, this fellow?'

‘Oh.' Ellen thought quickly. Better not to mention the Euclid or the photography. ‘Well, he is a gentleman and a cleric, of course, sir. And he has written a book for children, which he has been telling the little girls on the beach.'

‘A book of morals?'

‘No, something quite different. Little Daisy Bradley told Mrs Cameron that his story was very funny and dreamlike – with songs and mad people and animals who take offence. Daisy seems quite taken with Mr Do –' She stopped herself.

‘Actually, I saw his manuscript when it was brought from his hotel. I read it.'

Tennyson frowned.

‘I hope you did not read it without the author's permission.'

Ellen was obliged to confess. ‘Well, to be honest, I did.' ‘Without the author's permission
or knowledge,
Mrs Watts?'

‘Er, yes.'

She could tell he was shocked. Another telling-off was coming.

‘I cannot begin to condone –' he began. She made a quick decision. ‘His name is Lewis Carroll,' she added. ‘His book is very good.'

Tennyson snorted. He hated to hear about other people's writing. Especially when it was described as very good.

‘What's good about it? What do you mean about animals taking offence?'

‘I think you have to read it, sir. It's hard to explain. Alice is always in the wrong, because the rules of behaviour in Wonderland are mad and topsy-turvy. It's supposed to be a fantasy; but personally, I find it extraordinarily true to life.' ‘And is he in his right mind now, this Mr Carroll?' ‘It's hard to say. This morning he sat up in bed and said, “Mary Ann, what are you doing here? Run home this moment, and fetch me a pair of gloves and a fan!” But when she brought him what he asked for, he seemed to have forgotten all about it. He looked her in the eye and said “You? Who
are
you?” He seems to be quoting his own book. We are thinking of asking Mr Fowler to treat his brain.'

‘Mr Fowler was the phrenologizer?'

‘Yes, and he was spectacular. Not that I was present, of course.' ‘Of course.'

Tennyson fell silent again. They had reached the lower part of his cliff walk, near to the bay and the military fort. He would be taking her down to his special cove, she hoped.

‘What about madness?' he said, stopping.

‘Oh, I don't think he's mad.'

‘No, I meant, can a phrenologizer detect signs of madness – say, in the head of a young boy? Oh, we check Lionel and Hallam every day, we make a point of it. What with the, you know –'

‘Black blood of the Tennysons?'

‘That's right. But the trouble is –' he lowered his voice ‘– we are not exactly sure what we are looking for.' Ellen didn't know what to say.

‘I think I will approach the fellow – although Emily must not know. She thinks I worry too much about the boys' melancholic inheritance. “You're just being morbid like the rest of your family, Alfred!” she says. Which, as I tell her, is precisely the point I'm making!'

And he strode off into the wind again, while Ellen skipped along to keep up, her hand still gripping tight the little blue orchids – a dozen or so – that Alfred Tennyson had not given her.

Below stairs at Dimbola, Mary Ann was having a bad time wringing clothes. Her hair kept getting caught in the mangle. It was a funny life, being the Mother of God yet fated to such humble pastimes. She wondered how the original Mary, mother of Jesus, had managed to bring herself down to earth when it came to cleaning out the stable and such. Education had not been the main focus of Mary Ann Hillier's upbringing.

‘So what be aall this tork o marryin?' she asked Mary Ryan, who had just returned from shooing Lionel Tennyson out of the pantry. (The servants had a rota for this job.)

‘Marrying?'

Mary Ann spluttered in disbelief.

‘Be you forgooat?' she exclaimed. ‘When old me nabs ketch'd you in yon traance, zee what you zed o ticin a townser!'

Mary Ryan looked perplexed, as well she might.

‘What do you say, Mary? Can we start again at “marrying”?' she suggested, without facetiousness.

But Mary Ann had started to enjoy herself, repeating the story of Mary Ryan's wiggled Self Esteem, in a dialect so impenetrable that alas for the consequences, it left the exact contents to be guessed at only vaguely.

Mary Ryan picked up only that she had discussed her marriage prospects with Lorenzo Fowler in front of a room full of people. But why? Had he predicted she would marry well? Why couldn't she remember?

Meanwhile Mary Ann kept jabbering and mangling, with considerable gusto. It was not often she spoke her thoughts aloud, which was just as well. It was like hearing the Rokeby Venus speak in the accents of a Tyneside shipbuilder.

‘Thee wast querken like a wold zow then, bwoy!' she said. ‘The whole show wudn't nowhere near what twas puted to be, but “I know my worth” zes shee. If thee gits vound out, there'll be a pretty piece o work! An I dooan't gee noohow. Them towner rantipikes be no count at all anyways, swap me bob.'

Mary Ryan recognized the last bit. ‘Swap me bob' meant ‘So help me God', but goodness knew what the other stuff entailed. Rantipike? What was a rantipike? But one thing was certain. She must consult Lorenzo Fowler as soon as possible.

Mary Ann had changed the subject. ‘Have ye zid the wold cappender about y'ere lately? A was here yes'day smaamen over the back door wi tar but I han't zid nothen on en zunce.'

Mrs Cameron put her head round the door. ‘Is all well?' she asked.

‘Mary Ann has caught her hair in the mangle again, madam,' said Mary Ryan. ‘Shall I cut it all off to save us the trouble every day of saving it?'

Mrs Cameron looked shocked, and then burst out laughing. Mary Ann, temporarily unable to raise her neck from waist-height, gaped with astonishment.

‘You are a bad girl, Mary Ryan,' said Mrs Cameron.

Mary Ann tried to extricate herself but couldn't.

‘Swap me bob!' she said.

Ellen and Tennyson continued their walk on the cliff.

‘Does your husband work on any canvases here in Freshwater?'

‘I am sure he will ask you to pose again, sir,' said Ellen. ‘Otherwise, I have high hopes for “Take Care of the Pence and the Pounds Will Take Care of Themselves”, a new painting in which coins of small denomination are tucked up in Crimean hospital beds, while bank notes exercise in the fresh air, with a set of Indian clubs.'

Tennyson tried to picture it.

‘I was joking,' added Ellen quickly.

‘Oh,' said Tennyson gravely. ‘A joke. But not a disrespectful one, I hope? It sounded slightly disrespectful. Watts is a very fine painter, my dear, even if sometimes a little misguided by his enthusiasm for simple verities.'

She didn't argue. But she had to admit that this walk was putting her right off Tennyson. He'd told her to say ‘luncheon' instead of ‘lunch', and was fiercely emphatic about it, even though London fashion had now swung quite the other way. Why were people always telling her off? Surely she made it clear often enough that she didn't like it. They walked on.

‘Will you take me down to your special cove today?' she said.

‘I will if you desire it. But it's a steep climb, my dear. Do you think you can manage?'

‘Of course, sir, lead the way,' she said. But then she remembered the modest size of her Caution, and wondered whether she was muddling foolhardiness with firmness again.

‘My only fear, sir,' she added, ‘is that, were I to slip, I would knock you down ahead of me.'

Alfred frowned, and then had an idea.

‘Then you shall go first!' he said.

Unluckily for her friends, Mrs Cameron never stopped to consider why she gave presents all the time; why she flattered, helped, donated and worshipped to such an embarrassing degree. Perhaps she spent her whole life compensating for being the only unattractive sister in a family of beauties. While Tennyson's family were all mad, and Ellen's all flighty, and Dodgson's all boring, Julia's were all knockdown dazzlers who caused breaches of the peace in London shopping districts. It wasn't easy being nicknamed ‘Talent' in these circumstances. To be called ‘Talent' when your sisters include ‘Beauty', ‘Dash' and ‘Eyebrows' sounds a bit like a codeword for ‘Ugly'.

Whatever the cause, however, Julia might reasonably have asked, ‘What's so
wrong
with giving presents?' In fact, she asked it repeatedly, because her benevolence was treated like an impediment or a club foot. Why weren't people just grateful? But when anyone said ‘You shouldn't have!' to Julia Margaret Cameron, they usually meant it. On receiving a prayer book from her, Thomas Carlyle is supposed to have said, ‘Either the devil or Julia Cameron has sent this!' Such bad grace bewildered and hurt her, but did not put her off. When she met with rebuff, she deduced that the present was at fault, and conceived a better one. Thus was she caught in an ever-tightening spiral, requiring more and more profligate ingenuity.

For Julia would not learn. She had Benevolence so enormous that her lace cap wouldn't fit her head properly and was always falling off. Items were returned with polite demurrals; high-quality wallpaper was
not
hung; she was rhetorically lumped together with the father of lies; and worst of all, those inferior persons who were objects of her charity simply forgot their debt and took their luck for granted. She just couldn't understand it. If an allegorical picture of Mrs Cameron were attempted, she often thought it would have to depict ‘More Kicks than Ha'pence'.

Look at the ungrateful Mary Ryan, snatched from poverty (and a dirty gypsy mother) on Putney Heath, and reared by Mrs Cameron at her own personal expense. ‘You are too good, Julia,' friends said. ‘The girl is inexpressibly fortunate.' Yet the girl herself was blind to the claims of charity. She was sullen, she refused to be beautiful in any useful photographic way, and she whined about her position in the household – was she a maid or a daughter? Why had she been educated if she was meant only for housework? Why was that dullard Mary Ann given all the nice jobs? Mrs Cameron was exasperated by such ungrateful talk. Mary Ryan was now joking about cutting off Mary Ann's lovely hair!

‘Doesn't she realize that without my intervention, she might be dead of neglect?' Mrs Cameron railed bad-temperedly at Mary Ann, in her quiet time. Mary Ann, instead of speaking, tilted her very best ‘Eve Repentant' profile, knowing how well a picture of feminine humility broke Mrs Cameron's heart. She was looking particularly soulful these days, because she was in love. Ever since the lecture, she had dreamed of young Herbert – such an exotic young creature, with such an unusual figure!

Julia's old white-beard husband kept aloof from such upsets, although he pitied her when she stormed into his bedroom, her cheeks wet with tears. ‘Thrown back in my face,' she would cry, pacing up and down. ‘Thrown back in my face.' Generally supportive in a wry, ironic, bedridden kind of way, he would nevertheless gently warn her when he thought she expected too much from Mary Ryan, or when her grand, unlikely presents overstepped the mark. The Elgin Marbles wallpaper for Farringford was a case in point.

‘Perhaps you went too far, my dear, although acting as always from the best intentions?' her husband suggested. ‘And the mutton was a lovely idea, Julia, except that the Farringford estate is over-run with sheep. See the white fluffy things on the downs?'