Читать книгу Period Piece - Gwendolyn Raverat - Страница 7

Here is my mother's description of her first sight of my father; it is written on 18th of May 1883, the day after her arrival in Cambridge: 'Jane came to tell me that Aunt C. wished me to come downstairs to meet Mr. Darwin. I ran down and opened the door quickly before I could lose courage, and G.D. quickly stepped forward blushing rosy-red and shook hands. The first thing that struck me was his size. He is little. [My father was over five foot ten inches in height, but thin and slight.] He is intensely nervous, cannot sit still a minute. He is full of fun, and talks differently from an American man. They are so different in everything.' In her next letter she says: 'After any exertion he seems utterly exhausted. He comes in to see Aunt C. every day, and sometimes twice a day and is very convenient to do little errands and to take us out.' Aunt Cara was evidently educating my father for ladies' society, which was probably very good for him. Aunt Cara writes: 'He is wonderfully improvable; already he has thrown off entirely the little thoughtless ways that used to strike one. I laughed at him about talking instead of waiting on the tea-table; now he says the mere sight of a tea-pot brings him to his feet in an instant; he hands cups and cake without intermission.'

Maud did not think much of English girls. Of a certain brilliant and much admired girl she writes: 'I don't call her beautiful at all; in America I think with one accord we should call her homely.' And again: 'The English girls are so awfully susceptible; if a man speaks to them almost, they instantly think he is desperately in love with them.' Of herself she truly says: 'I am not at all susceptible; and that is one difference between [English girls] and me.'

But from the beginning she liked English men—or gentlemen, as she generally called them, in accordance with the custom of her time. Though she thought them very cold: 'Englishmen are strange creatures. I doubt if they ever really fall in love; they marry of course; but generally from a prudent motive.' In spite of this defect, she admired them exceedingly: 'The gentlemen all seem so simple and no boasting in their manners, and one thing I notice in particular, they are all so careful not to hurt each others' feelings. Aunt C. says that no boasting in their talk and manners is because they have their position in life generally, and are not obliged to talk and act to keep it. When I think of these men and compare them with the class of gentlemen that are in society in West Philadelphia, I "weaken". If we could only transport a dozen girls what belles they would be. I do not think the English girls can begin to be compared to the American girls, but the gentlemen seem to be better. Not in a society sense, for many of them are quite embarrassed; but in themselves. They read more and think more and know more. The ones that we should call ordinary, they call handsome and those we think handsome they call ordinary. Except of course Gerald Balfour whom all call handsome.'

Gerald Balfour was a younger brother of Arthur Balfour, and was later on Home Secretary for a time. He was often at Cambridge and Aunt Cara was much dazzled by him; but he was perhaps now beginning to be rather tired of her; for Maud wrote shrewdly, that 'Aunt C. does not like it very much', because, when she charged him with preferring his sister-in-law, Lady Frances Balfour, to herself, he did not deny it! At first Maud, too, was much impressed by him. She writes: 'He is just what you would imagine an English Lord to look and be like.... He is so beautiful.' But presently the Spirit of American Independence breaks out: 'He is really the most conservative man that I have yet met. Believes the higher set of people, the Lords etc., set a good example to the lower class of people—and ever so much more stuff that I had read of but never met anyone that believed it.'

There seem to be some indications that Aunt Cara had originally intended another of the Darwin brothers, Frank the botanist, for Maud; hoping perhaps to keep George under her own sway; for Maud writes: 'Aunt C. had picked out Frank Darwin for me [at a party]. She tried to be entertaining, but evidently Frank was not entrapped, for he appeared at the [boat] races with his sister and a Miss Cross [Crofts]. Aunt C. thought he was very attentive to her. Aunt C. did not like it, she wishes to have him as attentive to herself as G.D. So yesterday she asked him to tennis on Monday, when I anticipate watching a great deal of fun. It is wonderful to me to watch the way she makes people admire her, she is a fascinating woman.' But alas, before Monday, Frank's engagement to Miss Crofts was announced; so there was an end to Aunt Cara's little plot. Of this marriage was born my cousin Frances Darwin, later to be Frances Cornford.

There is a long letter about a visit to London to see an amateur performance of a Greek play in 'Lady Freak's house' [? Freke].

'At 12 we were all packed, I with my gray dress and red velvet hat on, and lavender dress in a valise—Aunt C. in her best black silk dress, with her Spanish lace dress in her box. We were seated in the cab [American for railway carriage] when suddenly I was aroused by Aunt C. saying in stentorian tones, "I have forgotten the tickets for the Greek play".' After some agitation they 'decided to run the risk of being turned away' and went off shopping to 'Picadolly [sic] and Regent Streets'. Here Aunt C. purchased for herself 'a little black and gold-braided bonnet, with four yellow roses and a little narrow black velvet ribbon,' for which she paid two pounds. There is something so succulent about this bonnet that I have not the heart to omit it, as I have all the numberless other things they bought. In the evening they 'had no difficulty in getting in. . . . Gladstone, Sir Isaac Newton [sic], Sir Frederic Leighton and some other great codger sat immediately in front of us.' [Query: Who can Sir Isaac Newton have been?] 'Gladstone looks exactly like the caricatures of him, only his collar is a little larger and his eyes are so keen and bright and twinkle so when he laughs. Sir F. Leighton had charge of the scenic effects and succeeded very well, only all the rouge and powder and Greek dresses could not make perfect beauties of the English girls. The play was called The Tale of Troy, and this night was spoken entirely in Greek.' [Of which, of course, she knew not a word.] 'Mr Stephen [J. K. Stephen] was Hector and acted remarkably well. Lionel Tennyson as Ulysses would have been better had he known his part. I enjoyed the play very much and equally so the people. Such dresses!!! Words fail me for description.'

This account has been extracted in fragments from an enormous entanglement of to-ing and fro-ing in cabs, while they looked for rooms for the night. They got them at last at 'the St Pancreas Hotel'. I was delighted to find this spelling so early, as, to the end of her days, my mother always considered the Saint and the Internal Organ as identical. Next day they continued their delightful shopping expeditions, and ended up at the Royal Academy, to see the Millais and the Leightons: 'and I think it quite rested Aunt C. after the fatigue and brainwork of shopping.'