Lord Berners

About four miles from my home there lived an elderly lady, Mrs. Lafontaine, and her companion, Miss Goby. They were fond of children, and I was often invited to go over and spend the afternoon with them. At that time I had never been abroad, and these two ladies represented to my eager imagination the glamour of foreign travel. Each year they went for a sketching tour on the Continent and brought back portfolios filled with water-colours of France, Switzerland or Italy, executed with a skilful combination of accuracy and romance.

Mrs. Lafontaine and her companion belonged to a certain type of Englishwoman that is still happily to be met with on the Continent. They both had the slightly prominent teeth of the traditional "fille d'Albion" of French caricature. Their high fringes were surmounted by hats perched at an angle that made them look as though they were about to loop the loop. Their movements were brisk and decided; their voices loud and authoritative. One could visualize them moving through foreign crowds, oblivious of mockery, wholly concentrated on the enjoyment of "being abroad."

Mrs. Lafontaine's house was called "Rose Hill." It stood as its name implied, on a hill and its trellised porches were festooned with roses. The interior of the house had a very pronounced Italian atmosphere. The rooms were filled with mosaic cabinets, striped fabrics from Sorrento, inlaid wooden boxes, painted Venetian furniture, goblets and chandeliers of Murano glass. In the hall there was a stone fire-place transported from Bologna. The food also was in the Italian style, and one had risotto, macaroni and, a delicacy I particularly delighted in, raisins folded in vine leaves and tasting of wedding cake.

In the summer the two ladies would sometimes take me with them to picnic by the river side. We would drive down through the park in a pony-chaise followed by a footman in another cart carrying the tea things and sketching appliances. The sketches they made of the neighbourhood had the same romantic qualities as those painted abroad. I was very happy in their company, and I looked up to "Rose Hill" as to a little Valhalla of art and culture.

As I grew older I began to discover that most of my companions considered Mrs. Lafontaine and Miss Goby to be figures of fun. I grew to be ashamed of my friendship with the two ladies of "Rose Hill." As I passed from childhood to adolescence I lost my independence of spirit. My judgment became more and more influenced by public opinion. I began to refuse their invitations. After I went to school I saw very little of my former friends and the memory of all the happy afternoons spent at "Rose Hill," the picnics by the river, the excitement of examining a new batch of Continental landscapes, the delicious Italian food-- all this was for the time obliterated by a growing sense of the ridiculous which, in its early stages, made me self-conscious and fearful of being associated with things and people generally considered to be absurd. I was at that time very far from that enlightened stage in which it is possible to combine mockery with affection and to disentangle the sublime from the ridiculous. Not that there was anything very sublime about the two ladies of "Rose Hill," but there was much that was lovable and, from my own particular point of view, helpful and stimulating.

Mrs. Lafontaine and Miss Goby are dead. But the remembrance of the pleasant hours spent in their company, of all that they meant for me at a certain period of my child-hood, of their kindness and their absurdity, has left in my mind a trail of melancholy and remorse.

There was another neighbour who stood out from the background of more conventional county folk. This was Mr. Vivian Pratt.

Distinctly connected with a ducal family, he enjoyed more consideration than he might otherwise have done. Mr. Vivian Pratt was considered eccentric but amusing. Country people in the 'nineties were apt to be a little naive with regard to certain aspects of life. It was said of Mr. Pratt that he was rather odd and inclined to effeminacy, but that was all. He had a mincingly ingratiating voice, and he moved with an undulating gait. In walking through a room he looked as though he were avoiding imaginary tables and chairs and he would describe elaborate circles with the middle portion of his body. His clothes had a fashion-plate neatness, and seemed inappropriate to the country. When he appeared on horseback nobody could present a more dapper appearance of horsiness, but his get-up, like that of Miss Lucy Glitters, looked as though it could hardly have weathered a rain-storm.

His manners were almost excessive in their courtliness, and he embarrassed my mother by addressing her as "Dear Lady." His conversation consisted chiefly of the anecdotes relating to London society or the theatrical world. I gathered that my father did not care very much for Mr. Pratt. His behaviour when Mr. Pratt was present and his comments after he had left seemed to suggest that he understood him better than my mother and the rest of the countryside appeared to do. I remember on one occasion when Mr. Pratt said: "I often think that the best things in life are behind us," my father broke out into a cynical guffaw, which seemed to me to be quite unwarranted by the sentimental character of the remark.

I too did not care very much for Mr. Pratt. Chiefly, I think, because he did not seem to be the least interested in children, and when he came to call he appeared to regard me rather as a nuisance than anything else. However, one day, when I rode over to his house with a note from my mother, he made himself unexpectedly agreeable. I showed me his collection of jade and his orchid houses. When I left he thrust an orchid into my hand. My mother, upon my showing it to her on my return, displayed an unaccountable irritation. She said it was a ridiculous thing to have given to a child. I imagine that the exotic nature of the gift must have aroused for the first time a dim suspicion in her unsophisticated mind.

After this visit I thought a little better of Mr. Pratt. I was accompanied at the time by a rather good-looking groom and I remember telling myself that, after all, he must be a nice man to be so unusually amiable and condescending to servants.

Many years later I came across Mr. Pratt again in Paris just after the war.. He had been working in connection with the Red Cross. The patina of time seemed to have improved him. There were still unmistakable indications for the pathologist, but his voice had grown less mincing; his gait less undulating. The impression I had may have been due to the fact that he was wearing a uniform which, as the term implies, has a tendency to minimize irregular characteristics, or, more probably, because I had grown accustomed to a type which, in the intervening years, had come into its own.

Some excitement was caused in the British colony by the arrival in Dresden of an eccentric peer, the Marquis of Anglesey, and by the announcement that he was going to appear at one of the principal music halls. Since marquises in those days still enjoyed a certain veneration, particularly among the British colony in Dresden, this was considered very eccentric indeed. Mrs. Wray complained that Lord Anglesey was "letting down" the peerage, and Mrs. Mansfield was of the opinion that no Englishman ought to go and see him disgrace himself. It would have been bad enough if he had been going to take the part of Seigfried in the opera house- but to appear at a music hall!

I had heard that Lord Anglesey had previously appeared in other Continental music halls, and that all he did was to show himself on the stage attired in the family jewels. It didn't sound to me a very exciting performance; however, in spite of Mrs. Mansfield's injunction, I was determined to go and see it.

If not exactly exciting it was decidedly a strange "turn." It came between that of a lady with performing pigeons and a company of acrobats. The theatre was darkened. There was a roll on the drums and the curtain went up on Lord Anglesey clad in a white silk tunic, a huge diamond tiara on his head, glittering with necklaces, brooches, bracelets and rings. He stood there for a few minutes motionless, without any mannequin gestures of display. Then the curtain went down again period. No applause followed, only an animated buzz of conversation. The German audience seemed a little disconcerted by the manifestation of British eccentricity. I may say that German audiences even in the music halls were extremely disciplined and well-behaved. Once at the Dresden opera a new tenor, appearing for the first time in the role of Lohengrin, missed his footing on stepping out of the swan-boat and fell headlong on the the stage. His shield and helmet were restored to him by members of the chorus, and the performance was resumed in perfect silence. There was not the sound of the faintest chuckle. Lord Angelsey, I thought, had got off lightly. Imagine the reception of such a display by an English music-hall audience. The press treated the matter with similar restraint. The notices merely commented on the magnificence of the jewels. German propaganda had not yet taken up the subject of British decadence. In later years, poor Lord Angelsy would no doubt have been accused by his compatriots of being in the pay of the German government and of being employed by them to bring the British nation into disrepute.

Madame de Rosen was of a singularly massive build. She was rather short but she made up in width for what she lacked in height. She resembled a perambulating mountain, and as she had white hair and dressed always in white, Henriette had nicknamed her "Mont Blanc." Monsieur de Rosen had intimated confidentially that his wife was inclined to be exacting in the matter of conjugal duties, and Madame O' Kerrins said one day "Poor man. He's obliged to make the ascension three time a week and finds it very exhausting."

Madame de Rosen's enormous face reminded one of a pantomime head and was very heavily rouged and powdered. The summer heat had a disastrous effect on her makeup, and on very hot afternoons there would occur a sort of spate of cosmetics. Often, on arriving at the Chateau, she was obliged to retire to Madame O'Kerrin's bedroom to repair the ravages of the inundations.

Two or three times a week the de Rosens would come up to the Chateau in the afternoon, to play whist with Madame O'Kerrins, Madmoiselle Baghdad, or the Curé, making a fourth. It always amused me to watch them from the balcony coming up the steep path that led to the house, Monsieur de Rosen prancing ahead, continually stopping and looking round impatiently at his wife, like a dog out for a walk with a slow-moving mistress. Nothing would induce her to hurry. She seemed to have confidence in her build and one felt that she would have moved with deliberation even out of a burning house.

The de Rosens were a strange couple. They were devoted to one another and had been so for some forty years, yet there seemed to exist between them a perpetual state of nervous tension. This was most apparent when one or the other was talking. They were both very loquacious, and while Madame held forth Monsieur would hum to himself and tap on the period table. When Monsieur monopolized the conversation, Madame would close her eyes and sigh aggressively. They both had the irritating conjugal trick of correcting one another's assertions.

They also belonged to the category of people who may be termed "unfortunate" in the true sense of the word. They seemed to attract minor mishaps, generally of a comic nature. The Deus Ridiculus, the Harlequin God, had them as victims for his slapstick ministrations. If Gustave upset the sauce-boat it was sure to be over Madame de Rosen's white dress. If there were a hole in the carpet Monsieur de Rosen would inevitable catch his foot in it, and once, after a game of whist, Madmoiselle Baghdad inadvertently pulled her chair away as he was about to sit down, so that he sat heavily on the floor. If they came with us on one of the weekly picnics they would be bound to sit on a wasp's nest or to tread on a cow-pat.

The scene, a railway compartment. Its occupants a married couple. The husband aged about thirty, the wife somewhat younger. Both of elegant and fashionable appearance. The man was good-looking and serious, the woman pretty and frivolous. The faces of these two agreeable people became faintly clouded with irritation as the following dialogue ensued.

"Whatever you may say, Millicent, I still think that it is most unwise to have brought him."

"Nonsense, Walter, and please don't go on about it."

When the Denhams addressed one another by their Christian names-- it was generally "dear" or "darling"-- it meant that the time had come to bring discussion to a close.

Walter, disregarding the warning signal, continued.

"It is more than unwise. It is positively dangerous."

"Really, Walter, you exaggerate."

"You can't have forgotten what happened in the case of Charles and Emily," Walter went on. "They ruined their chances for ever, and you surely don't wish our prospects to be ruined now for exactly the same reason."

"That was very different," Millicent retorted. "Charles and Emily are boring and vulgar, and Charles is mad as well. Uncle Wilfred was simply longing for an excuse to get rid of them. He practically admitted it."

"I don't agree with you. Charles and Emily are just ordinary people like ourselves. But even if we were paragons of perfection, relationship with Uncle Wilfred is always precarious, and it would be fatal in any way to annoy him."

"Well," said Millicent, her indignation rising. "If you're going to compare me with that stupid dowdy Emily----"

"I'm making no comparisons. In dealing with an eccentric old man like Uncle Wilfred, one can't be too careful, and I repeat that I think it would have been better to leave him behind."

"Leave him behind!" exclaimed Millicent. "My child, my precious one, my little angel of light, my little pearl without price. May Mummy kiss you?" she inquired, as she leant over a basket containing a diminutive Pomeranian dog, the subject of the altercation.

"Mr. Pidger," for that was his name, was a bright-eyed fox-hued little creature with pointed, cocked-up ears, and a tiny inquisitive snout. "A sweet attractive little dog," people used to say of him, until he drove them crazy with his barking, or tore their clothes.

Regarded as a pet, Mr. Pidger had many faults. His energy was boundless. He was never for a moment still. He was always jumping up or jumping down, wanting to go out of a room or come into it, dancing on his hind legs or leaping into the air, in his unrestrained joie-de-vivre. A fretful midge, he was the centre of his own agitated universe. He was determined never to stop drawing attention to himself and, if he remained for a moment unobserved, he would start scratching the carpet or tugging at your clothes.

The agitation of his soul was also vocally expressed by a high pitched incisive bark that seemed to lacerate your brain, so that after a time you felt it must be beginning to look like a pianola-roll or a nutmeg grater. His presence was destructive to any kind of concentration, indeed to any thought at all. He would often bark for hours on end and would rush yapping from one end of the house to the other, determined that everyone should hear him. He was as disturbing to household peace as a modern dictator to that of Europe.

Although he was perfectly house-trained, he contrived sometimes, out of sheer devilry, to convey the impression that he was not, especially in other people's houses. He would go up to a curtain or a table leg and sniff at it, disappear behind a sofa or squat on the floor in a highly equivocal manner.

No one could accuse him of a lack of courage. In his diminutive way he was as fierce as a tiger, as brave as a lion, and he would bite people and fly at larger dogs without provocation. His bite, as Millicent so frequently pointed out, was comparatively painless. It was just his fun, she used to say, and she seemed surprised that it did not increase your affection for him.

In love as in hatred, Mr. Pidger was equally unrestrained, and the ostentatious manner in which he demonstrated his attachments was highly embarrassing. Nor were these demonstrations confined to the canine species alone and shy visitors would often be considerably disconcerted by his attentions.

In spite of all these shortcomings, for Millicent Mr. Pidger was the embodiment of all canine and human perfections, and to the well-being of this tiny speck of fur she devoted her life, and, as far as lay within her power, the lives of others.