Death of a Hero (8 page)

Still. George Augustus was pretty comfortable. The one thing he wanted in life was to be pretty comfortable. After he became a full-blown solicitor, at the age of twenty-four, a family council was held. Present: Dear Mamma, dear Papa, George Augustus. Nothing formal,
of
course, just a cosy little family gathering after tea, round the blazing hearth (coal was cheap in Sheffield then), rep curtains drawn, and sweet domestic peace. Dear Papa opened the proceedings:

“George, you are now come to man's estate. At considerable sacrifice, your dear Mamma and I have given you a Profession. You are an Admitted Solicitor, and we are proud – I think we may say ‘proud', Mamma? – that we have a legal luminary in the family…

But dear Mamma could not allow dear Papa even the semblance of authority, respected not even the forms of Limited Domestic Monarchy, and cut in:

“Your Papa is right, George. The question is now, what are you going to
do
in your Profession?”

Did a feeble hope of escape cross the bright young mind of George Augustus? Or was that supine love of being pretty comfortable, added to the terror of disobeying dear Mamma, already dominant? He murmured something about “getting in with a respectable and old-established firm in London.” At the word “London” dear Mamma bridled. Although Mr. Gladstone spent much of his time in London, it was notorious in Sheffield Nonconformist circles that London was a haunt of vice, filled with theatres and unmentionable women. Besides, dear Mamma was not going to let George Augustus off so easily; she still meant he should plough a deuce of a long furrow of filial obedience.

“I cannot hear of
London
, George. It would break my heart and bring your dear Papa's grey hairs” (dear Papa hated to be reminded that he was bald) “in sorrow to the grave, if you went to the
bad
in that dreadful town. Think how we should feel if we heard you had visited a
theatre!
No, George, we shall not fail in our duty. We have brought you up to be a God-fearing Christian man.”
et patata etpatati
.

The upshot was, of course, that dear George Augustus did not go to London. He didn't even get an office of his own in Sheffield. It was agreed that George Augustus would never marry (except for a whore or two, furtively and ineffectually possessed on furtive ineffectual sprees in London, George Augustus was a virgin), but would spend his life with dear Mamma, and (afterthought) dear Papa. So some structural
alterations were made in the house. Another entrance was made, with a new brass plate engraved in copperplate:

G. A. WINTERBOURNE SOLICITOR

Three rooms, somewhat separated from the rest of the house, were allotted to George Augustus – a bedroom, an “Office”, and a “cosy study”. Needless to say, George Augustus did very little practice, except when his dear Mamma in an access of ambition procured him the job of making the will of some female friend or of drawing up the conveyance of the land for a new Wesleyan Chapel. What George Augustus did with most of his time is a bit of a puzzle – twiddled his thumbs, and read Dickens and Thackeray and Bulwer and George Augustus Sala mostly.

This lasted three or four years. Dear Mamma had her talons deep into George Augustus, vamped on him hideously; and was content. Dear Papa prayed in the garden and read the Right Hnble. etcetera's novels, and was uneasily content. George Augustus was pretty comfortable, and thought himself rather a hell of a bhoy because he occasionally sneaked off to a play or a whore, and bought some of the Vizetelly books on the sly. But there was one snag dear Mamma had not foreseen. Dear Papa had been fairly decently educated and brought up; he had, when a young man, travelled annually for several weeks, and had seen the Fields of Waterloo, Paris, and Ramsgate. After he married dear Mamma, he had to be content with Malvern and Ramsgate, for he was never allowed again to behold that wicked Continent. However, such is the force of Tradition, George Augustus was annually allowed a month's holiday. In 1887 he visited Ireland; in 1888, Scotland; in 1889, the Lake District, with “pilgrimages” to the “shrines” of those unblemished geniuses, Wordsworth and Southey. But in 1890 George Augustus went to “rural Kent”, with “pilgrimages” to the Dingley Dell country and to the “shrine” of Sir Philip Sidney. But there were sirens awaiting our Odysseus in rural Kent. George Augustus met Isabel Hartly, and, before he knew where he was, had arranged irrevocably a marriage with her –
without
telling dear Mamma.
Hic Incipit vita nova.
Thus was George, young George, generated.

The Hartlys must have been more fun than the Winterbournes. The Winterbournes had never done a damn thing in their lives, and were as stuffily, frowsily, mawkish-religiously boring as a family could be and still remain – I won't say alive or even sentient, but – able to digest their very puddingy meals. The Hartlys were different. They were poor Army. Pa Hartly had chased all round the Empire, dragging with him Ma Hartly, always in pod and always pupping in incongruous and inconvenient spots – the Egyptian desert, a shipwrecked troopship, a malarial morass in the West Indies, on the road to Kandahar. They had an inconceivable number of children, dead, dying, and alive, of all ages and sexes. Finally, old Hartly settled down near his wife's family in rural Kent, with a smallish pension, a tiny “private” income, and the world of his swarming progeny on his less than Atlantean shoulders. I believe he had had two or three wives, all horribly fertile. No doubt the earlier Mrs. Hartlys had perished of superfluous child-bearing, “super-foetation ιόεν.”

Isabel Hardy was one – don't ask which in numerical order, or by which wife – of Captain Hardy's daughters. She was very pretty, in a florid, vulgarish way, with her artful-innocent dark eyes, and flashing smiles, and pretty little bustle and frills, and “fresh complexion” and “abounding health”. She was fascinatingly ignorant, even to the none too sophisticated George Augustus. And she had a strength of character superior even to dear Mamma's, added to a superb, an admirable vitality, which bewitched, bewildered, electrified the somewhat sluggish and pretty comfortable George Augustus. He had never met any one like her. In fact, dear Mamma had never allowed him to meet any one but rather soggy Nonconformists of mature years, and “nice” youths and maidens of exemplary Nonconformist stupidity and lifelessness.

George Augustus fell horribly in love.

He abode at the village inn, which was cheap and pretty comfortable; and he did himself well. On these holidays he had such a mood of exultation (subconscious) in getting away from dear Mamma that he felt like a hero in Bulwer Lytton. We should say he swanked; probably the early nineties would have said he came the masher. He certainly mashed Isabel.

The Hartlys didn't swank. They made no effort to conceal their poverty or the vulgarity imported into the family by the third (or
fourth) Mrs. Hartly. They were fond of pork, and gratefully accepted the gifts of vegetables and fruit which the kind-hearted English country-people force on those they know are none too well off. They grew lots of vegetables and fruit themselves, and kept pigs. They made blackberry jam and damson jam, and scoured the country for mushrooms; and the only “drink” ever allowed in the family was Pa Hartly's “drop o' grog” secretly consumed after the innumerable children had gone to bed in threes and fours.

So it wasn't hard for George Augustus to swank. He took the Hartlys – even Isabel – in completely. He talked about “my people” and “our place.” He talked about his Profession. He gave them copies of the Nonconformist tract he had published at fifteen. He gave Ma Hartly a fourteen-pound tin of that expensive (2s. 3d. a pound) tea she had always pined for since they had left Ceylon. He bought fantastic things for Isabel – a coral brooch, a copy of the
Pilgrim's Progress
bound in wood from the door of Bunyan's parish church, a turkey, a year's subscription to the
Family Herald Supplement
, a new shawl, boxes of ls. 6d. a pound chocolates, and took her for drives in an open landau smelling of horse-piss and oats.

The Hartlys thought he was “rich”. George Augustus was so very comfortable and
exalts
that he too really thought he was “rich”.

One night, a sweet rural night, with a lemon moon over the sweet, breast-round, soft English country, with the nightingales jug-jugging and twit-twitting like mad in the leafy lanes, George Augustus kissed Isabel by a stile, and – manly fellow – asked her to marry him. Isabel – she had a pretty fiery temperament even then – had just sense enough not to kiss back and let him know that other “fellows” had kissed her, and perhaps fumbled further. She turned away her pretty head with its Pompadour knot of dark hair, and murmured – yes, she did, because she
had
read the stories in the
Quiver
and the
Family Herald:

“O Mr. Winterbourne, this is so unexpected!”

But then her common-sense and the eagerness to be “rich” got the better of her
Quiver
artificiality, and she said, oh so softly and moderately:

“Yes!”

George Augustus quivered dramatically, clasped her, and they kissed a long time. He liked her ever so much more than the London whores, but he didn't dare do any more than kiss her, and exclaim:

“Isabel! I love you. Be mine. Be my wife and build a home for me. Let us pass our lives in a delirium of joy. O that I need not leave you tonight!”

On the way home Isabel said:

“You must speak to father tomorrow.”

And George Augustus, who was nothing if not the gent, replied:

“I could not love thee, dear, so much, Loved I not honour more.”

Next morning, according to schedule, George Augustus called on Pa Hartly with a bottle of 3s. 6d. port and a leg of fresh pork; and after a good deal of hemming and blushing and talking round the subject (as if old Hartly hadn't heard from Isabel what was coming), formally and with immense solemnity applied for the job of supporting Isabel for the rest of his and her natural lives.

Did Pa Hartly refuse? Did he hesitate? Eagerly, gratefully, effusively, enthusiastically, he granted the request. He slapped George Augustus on the shoulder, which military expression of goodwill startled and slightly annoyed the prim George Augustus. He said George Augustus was a man after his own heart, the man he would have chosen to make his daughter happy, the man he longed to have as a son-in-law. He told two barrack-room stories, which made George Augustus exquisitely uneasy; drank two large glasses of port; and then launched out on a long story about how he had saved the British Army when he was an Ensign during the Crimea. George Augustus listened patiently and filially; but as hour after hour went by and the story showed no signs of ending, he ventured to suggest that the good news should be broken to Isabel and Ma Hartly, who (unknown to the gentlemen) were listening at the keyhole in an agony of impatience.

So they were called in, and Pa Hartly made a little speech founded on the style of old General Snooter, K.C.B., and then Pa kissed Isabel, and Ma embraced Isabel tearfully but enthusiastically and admiringly, and Pa pecked at Ma, and George Augustus kissed Isabel; and they were left alone for half an hour before “dinner” – 1.30 P.M., chops, potatoes, greens, a fruit-suet pudding, and beer.

The Hartlys still thought George Augustus was “rich”.

But before he left rural Kent he had to write home to his father for ten pounds to pay his inn bill and his fare. He told dear Papa about Isabel, and asked him to break the news to dear Mamma. “An old Army
family,” George Augustus wrote, and “a sweet, pure girl who loves me dearly and for whom I would fight like a T
IGER
and willingly lay down my life.” He didn't mention the poverty and the vulgarity and the catch-as-catch-can atmosphere of the Hartly family, or the innumerable progeny. Dear Papa almost thought George Augustus was marrying into the gentry.

Dear Papa sent George Augustus his ten pounds, and broke the news to dear Mamma. Strangely enough, she did not cut up as rough as you might have expected. Did she feel the force of Isabel's character and determination even at that distance? Had she a suspicion of the furtive whoring, and did she think it better to marry than to burn? Perhaps she thought she could vamp George Augustus's wife as well as George Augustus, and so enjoy two victims.

She wept a bit and prayed more than ever.

“I think, Papa,” she said, “that the Hand of Providence must have led Augustus. I hope Miss Isabel will make him a good wife, and not be too grand with her Army ways to darn his socks and overlook the maids. Of course the young couple must live here, and
I
shall be able to give kindly guidance to their early married life as well as religious instruction to the bride. I pray GOD may bless them.”

Dear Papa, who was not a bad sort, said “Umph,” and wrote George Augustus a very decent letter, promising him £200 to start married life, and suggesting that the honeymoon should take place either in Paris or on the Plains of Waterloo.

The wedding took place in spring in “rural Kent.” A lot of Winterbournes, including, of course, George's parents, came down. Dear Mamma was horribly shocked, not to say disgusted, by the
unseemly
behaviour of the Hartlys; and even dear Papa was a bit staggered. But it was then too late to retreat with honour.

A village wedding in 1890! Gods of our fathers known of old, what a sight! Alas! that there were no cinemas then! Can't you see it? Old men in bug-whiskers and top-hats; old ladies in bustles and bonnets. Young men in drooping moustaches, “artistic” flowing ties, and probably grey toppers. Young women in small bustles and small flowery hats. And bridesmaids in white. And a best man. And George Augustus was a bit sweaty in a new morning suit. And Isabel, of course, “radiant” in white and orange-blossoms. And the parson, and signing the register, and the wedding breakfast, and the double peal on the
bells, and the “going-away.”… No, it's too painful, it's so horrible it isn't even funny. It's indecent. I'm positively sorry for George Augustus and Isabel, especially for Isabel. What said the bells? “Come and see the flicking. Come and see the fucking.”