The Cardboard Crown (13 page)

‘She is very animated in conversation and has fine eyes. When I was announced she gave me a second’s scrutiny, but then seemed satisfied with my appearance. I think she may have arranged for me to arrive last, so that she could warn the others that an Australian was coming. When she introduced me she said that I was almost a relative, though she had made no reference to this in her note.’

They went into a long dining-room, even more splendid than the room they had left. There was a footman in blue livery behind every chair. There was also a vaulted ceiling and it was rather like having luncheon in a luxurious church.

As I had said to Julian, the Langtons were witty, quickminded but rather shallow in their perceptions. They had to see the funny side of everything, which did not make for any great depth of culture, but they were by far the most cultivated people whom Alice had known hitherto. With this limited experience perhaps she was unduly impressed by Mrs Dane and her circle. She writes that she had never heard such brilliant conversation as at this luncheon. There was hardly any subject which Mrs Dane could not discuss with apparent competence, though she spoke mostly of art and music. She gave Alice interested and almost affectionate glances down the table. Much of the conversation was in French and occasionally in Italian. Alice could understand the Italian, but did not attempt to speak it because of her accent. She spoke in French however to the Duc de C., who was on
her left. When Mrs Dane saw that she was talking quite fluently and intelligently her eyes lighted with pleasure. Back in the drawing-room she fastened on her and asked her how long she was staying in Florence. Mr Tunstall came and stood beside them.

‘Only a few days,’ said Alice.

‘But you can’t stay
only a few days
in Florence!’ cried Mrs Dane. She made a despairing gesture with her long thin hand. ‘Listen. Why don’t you come here? It’s absurd for you to be staying at that hotel when you’re really a relative. I’ll show you all Florence—everything that’s worth seeing—even Mr Browning.’

‘Mrs Langton only has a very little time in Italy,’ said Mr Tunstall, ‘and she must go to Rome.’

‘Now Aubrey, don’t be tiresome,’ said his sister, and she gave him a quite vicious glance from her dark emotional eyes.

Alice was very flattered by this invitation. It opened up to her a world she had never dreamed of entering, where people with charming manners, whose names, like those of the duc and the principessa, are read in St Simon or Roman history, were absorbed above all things in art and literature and the cultivation of the spirit. At luncheon, Mrs Dane did not hesitate to quote with eyes magnificently aflame those lines of poetry which most stirred her heart and mind. This appeared to Alice the very highest level of civilisation and she would have liked to remain on it forever. Their standards of reference dazzled her, but they were not altogether beyond her understanding. She thought it would be well worth sacrificing a few weeks in Rome as a sightseer, to stay in Florence in this society. It would also, she thought, dispel a
little her terrible feeling of insecurity. To stay here would be considered quite normal by the people at Waterpark, whereas every day that she spent wandering alone and aimless on the Continent widened the breach between herself and Austin, which she longed to heal.

Mr Tunstall looked irritated. She felt that he did not want her to accept his sister’s invitation, and as it was through him that she had come to the villa, she thought that it would be in bad taste to do so. She explained that she had such a short time in Italy, and Mrs Dane did not press her further.

‘It’s a great shame,’ she said rather petulantly. ‘It’s all Aubrey’s fault.’ She drifted off to talk to the young tenor.

‘I really think that you ought to see Rome,’ said Mr Tunstall quietly, as if he admitted the responsibility for her refusing Mrs Dane. ‘Before you go, perhaps you would let me show you some of my favourite parts of Florence.’ Alice said she would like it very much, and they arranged to meet the next afternoon.

Mrs Dane announced that the young tenor was going to sing. They moved into another yet more palatial room, where in addition to a grand piano there was a harp, at which she seated herself. Alice felt a little uncomfortable as she watched her hostess’s long thin hands plucking almost convulsively at the wires, accompanying the throbbing passion of the young tenor’s song. When Alice left she said:

‘You won’t like Rome at all. It is dark and full of enormous marble popes that loom up at one everywhere. Rome has always been a pure expression of megalomania. You will soon sigh for our light and golden Tuscany, our beloved flower town, and don’t forget that when you do, you
must stay here. Aubrey has been very tiresome indeed.’

Alice enjoyed very much her afternoon’s sightseeing with Aubrey Tunstall. He did not take her to large and obvious things like the Bargello, but into some small out-of-the- way place to see a Mino da Fiesole altarpiece or an iron well-head in a cloister. In the late afternoon they drove up to San Miniato, and stood at the edge of the terrace, looking down to where Giotto’s tower rose through the strata of golden mist. She told him that he had taught her how to see a city.

‘May I teach you how to see Rome?’ he said.

She hesitated and asked if he were going to Rome soon. He said he was going there in two days time. Alice still hesitated and he said:

‘You should allow me to perform the duties of a relative.’

‘It would be very kind of you to spare me some of your time in Rome,’ Alice replied. ‘It would certainly make a great difference to my appreciation of it.’

‘It is a great pleasure to show the things one loves to someone who can enjoy them,’ he said. ‘Ariadne is an enthusiast for Florence. I am a Roman. She was annoyed at the victory of the rival city.’

‘Is her husband alive?’ Alice enquired.

‘Yes. He lives in Meath. I’m afraid the Tunstalls are not good at happy marriages.’

‘Are you not married?’ asked Alice diffidently.

When he said no she was a little relieved. She thought that somehow it made it slightly more conventional for her to go about with him if he were unmarried. He asked if he might
accompany her on the journey to Rome. She thought it would be foolish to refuse this, and they arranged to meet at the railway station, two days ahead. In spite of this he turned up at her hotel early on the following afternoon, and asked if she would care to drive with him to the Certosa.

The journey to Rome was as pleasant as that from Pisa. There was a carriage waiting for him at the railway station, and he drove Alice to a hotel nearby, and again gave instructions for her comfort. He said that he expected she would want to rest after her journey, but that on the following afternoon he would call if he might, and begin to teach her to see Rome.

Alice felt a little flat, but she was beginning to see that these postponements and formal arrangements were part of his style of living and did not mean to show any unfriendliness. She thought they were very English. An Australian would say: ‘Well, I’ll just take my bags along, and then I’ll come back and see how you are.’ Mr Tunstall’s way was a little chilling, but when their friendly meetings were separated by this external frame of formality, it gave them a special value. In the morning she did not go far from her hotel, partly because she did not want to go to see anything which he might be intending to show her. She began on this day to adjust her plans to suit his movements.

Up to this point Alice’s diary from the time of her meeting with Aubrey Tunstall is written with a good deal of telegraphic abbreviation, so I have transposed it into narrative form, though without any embroidery. I was able to give an idea of Mrs Dane’s villa from my own memory. But as Alice is the only authority I have for what happened while she was
in Rome, and as she wrote about it at much greater length than she gave to her other entries, it seems best to let the account stand in her own words. It has been rather difficult to join it all up in its right order, as she wrote far more than would go into the space allotted by the printer for each day, and so continued her entries on back pages which she had not filled, turning the book upside down and writing from the bottom of the page.

On the first afternoon when she had arranged to meet Aubrey, he took her for a drive to give her a general idea of the city, before showing her individual sights. In the evening, after writing some of her impressions of Rome, she added: ‘He is certainly a very cultivated man and I am most fortunate to have met him.’ Then, as throughout all the diaries there comes the sign that her emotions are affected, either painfully or otherwise. She writes in French: ‘Il m’a fait oublier un peu ma grande peine.’

In a few days she begins to write almost entirely in French, which I am translating, except for a few short passages, written with evident intensity of feeling but in a kind of flowery language which might sound ridiculous in English. It is only decent to allow Alice this slight amount of concealment. For some reason it seems permissible to me to reveal her grief but not her joy. On 3 October she wrote:

‘This morning I did a little shopping. It would be foolish to go sightseeing by myself when it is so much more interesting with Mr Tunstall. I bought some pictures of Rome and posted them to Sarah to give to the children, the Spanish Steps for Steven, the Temple of Vesta for Mildred, and some pretty little
putti
for the others. I think they should be made aware
of Europe from the beginning. I do not want them to suffer any disadvantage from being Australians, and to grow up unfit to mix with people like Mr Tunstall or with those whom I met at Mrs Dane’s villa. They should be able to enter the best society that is open to them. If Austin inherits Waterpark, there is no reason why they should not have a wide choice of friends of the best kind. The problem of Austin tonight seems less urgent to me. I am becoming averse to the idea of an open break. It would be a purely negative action and harmful to everyone, especially the children. I feel that already Rome has given me a wider and more generous outlook—perhaps even a more worldly view.

‘After luncheon Mr Tunstall called for me and drove me out beyond the Porta Ostiense to S. Paolo. On the way, he asked me about Australia, but I do not think that he is really interested in any country but Italy, not even in the beautiful countryside around Dilton. It was strange to tell him about our little Westhill when I thought of Dilton, even more in comparison with Mrs Dane’s wonderful villa near Fiesole. It made me feel rather sad and protective towards the children, and determined that they should not be deprived of any good thing if I could help it. By good things I do not mean what can be bought. He asked me about our friends in Melbourne and I mentioned the Bynghams. He said he believed that he had some relatives of that name, but did not know them personally. This struck me as an odd coincidence, that he and therefore Damaris should be a connection of the Bynghams. I do not think Arthur knew that.

‘
4 October.
Today I lunched with Mr Tunstall at his apartment. M. and Mme de C., whom I met in Florence, were
there. Mr Tunstall introducing me said: “You remember ma belle-soeur whom you met at Ariadne’s.” I had the feeling that he had asked French people, as they were unlikely to know how slender is our relationship. I expect it is very unconventional of me to be so much in his company. It certainly would be very marked in Melbourne. His apartment is in a sixteenth-century palace, and the rooms, if anything are even more splendid than in Mrs Dane’s villa. The conversation was in French, which I could follow easily and join in without too much discredit. It was pleasant, but quite simple, and did not seem to me to have the brilliance and culture which impressed me so much at Mrs Dane’s. I think Mr Tunstall is simpler than his sister. I like him for that. After luncheon he took us into a small room, a kind of study, in which he keeps his more personal possessions. Over the writing table in an old gilded frame is the painting Arthur gave him. It is quite small, of a winged boy, naked in a figtree. An unusual subject, but it struck me as being very well done, much better than anything I have seen of Arthur’s. I was surprised and pleased that Mr Tunstall thought it good enough to hang in an apartment where there are some fine old masters. He drew Madame de C.’s attention to it, partly I think to draw her attention as well to our “relationship” mentioning that the painting was by my brother-in-law. We had not planned to make any excursion this afternoon, and as soon as the duchess rose to leave I followed her example, so that she would not think that I was staying with Mr Tunstall. I was quite contented for the rest of the afternoon to stroll alone to the Spanish Steps and mount up into the sunshine where I sat for an hour. This evening I wrote to Lady
Langton and told her I had seen Sir William’s grave, which we visited yesterday on the way back from S. Paolo. I did not hint at any rift between Austin and me, though I fear she will think it peculiar for me to be travelling alone.

‘7
October.
Mr Tunstall is really a wonderful courier. He never crowds too many things into one day, and he alternates some major visit, as to the Vatican, with a country excursion. If we go to see something that is not tiring, we may go out both in the morning and the afternoon. He never lets me see more than two churches, and a limited number of pictures in one day so my appetite is always keen. It is exceedingly kind of him to give me so much time, but he says that my appreciation revives his own, and I can understand this. I enjoy best the drives and little excursions outside the walls. In this rich autumnal season, I am seeing Italy at its best. The vines are hung with ripening purple grapes. In places I have seen them trailing over the olive trees making a beautiful combination of colours, and it is like a dream to stand on Monti Pincio and look over the domes of this noble city. I said to Mr Tunstall that I had no conception of what beautiful places there were in the world until I came to Italy. I have read of them and seen pictures but they did not convey the reality. Of course there is very striking scenery in Australia, and the view even from Westhill is magnificent, but it has not the same connection with humanity. If on a fine day, I can see a tiny ship in the far distance, moving down the bay, and know that it is setting out for Europe, that association in some way enriches the scene. Mr Tunstall said: “You love Italy because Italy is humanity. It provides the pattern of life for the whole Western world.” I told him of the feeling I had as soon as I
came into the Campo Santo at Pisa, that it was the scene of some life I had known before, and I said I had this feeling even more strongly in Rome. He looked at me with great understanding and kindness and said: “Then you feel as I do.”