Appetite for Life : The Education of a Young Diarist, 1924-1927 (9781551996776) Read online

  5 July 1925.

  The du Plat Taylors have asked me to go to work on their farm in Newfoundland. Mary Binney is going there to stay with them and we will go together. I am very keen on this plan, although it will be hard work and I have never done any farm work before. I talked it over with Mother and she agrees, so I am going to take carpentry lessons so that I can help around the place.

  6 July 1925.

  In the afternoon my first carpentry lesson in preparation for Newfoundland from a splendid old Scotchman with a long white beard. He is the soul of honour and intelligent and he told me that his father reviewed German philosophical works and wrote historical books. The actual carpentry is not so interesting and the awl is hard to learn how to handle.

  7 July 1925.

  Another carpentry lesson. I do not seem to be making much progress and the carpenter, although a fine man, is really very boring and told me all over again about his father’s reviewing the book on German philosophy.

  9 July 1925.

  What news! I have passed the geometry supplement exam and “quite creditably” but I can hardly believe it. I bought two new books today, one I have begun reading: The Dance of Life by Havelock Ellis, difficult but absorbing.

  I have to make a Latin oration on receiving the Welsford Prize. Old Mr. Logan, who used to be a Latin teacher, has been persuaded by Mother to help me (in fact, write it for me). When my mother decides to fascinate someone she seldom fails. Mr. Logan sat on the sofa in the library with his eyes popping out while Mother showed more interest in him than anyone has for a long time. Still, he is a good old sort.

  12 July 1925.

  I walked up to King’s through the woods and climbed the rough stone walls between our woods and Gorsebrook woods and I felt a kind of rush of love for Nova Scotia, for these woods and this place where I was born. I thought of the games we used to play in these woods when we were kids and we pretended that the stream was the St. Lawrence River and Roley and I and the three Wainwrights divided into two camps: English against French. I was the French commander Montcalm and built a stone fort by the stream by pulling loose stones out of the walls between the woods. It was supposed to be the Citadel of Quebec and we enacted the battle of the Plains of Abraham. One time we would let the English win and the next time, the French. As Montcalm, I died a hero’s death pierced by my wounds. The remains of the fort are still there and now the Almon children play in the woods.

  There was an informal meeting at King’s to organize ordeals for the freshmen when they arrive next September. Anderson, that petty boss, was presiding, immensely self-important, so was Cyril. The damn fools – they want to order that the freshettes must carry open umbrellas, rain or shine, for three weeks when they first arrive.

  13 July 1925.

  The day started badly with a long discussion of our finances. Mother says we are on the brink of ruin, yet she knows how much I want to go to Oxford next year and has been trying to raise the money. Apart from the fees, I would have to have an allowance of at least £300 a year and Roley still has to be kept at Trinity College School and there is the cost of bringing him to and from Ontario for the holidays, and the up-keep of this place. The vine is smothering the front of the house and should be cut down, and the drive is in a terrible condition of holes and bumps and needs to be re-gravelled. Then, of course, there is the fact that there are always people staying here or coming for meals and mother regularly helps some people who are hard up financially, particularly her nephew, Gerald.

  Then I walked into town and bought some flowers for Katherine as it is her birthday, but the only ones I could afford were some mingy carnations. I called in on the Carsons on the way home. There they were, the whole family, seated on their separate perches in the sitting room like a lot of silly, grave penguins.

  An evening at home. Mother read aloud The Call of the Wild by Jack London. A fascinating book. I like these evenings in the library with the curtains drawn and my mother’s voice reading. When the others had gone to bed I lay on the sofa and fell half asleep and thought that perhaps some day I would look back to this room and these evenings when I was old.

  14 July 1925.

  I worked all morning on my thesis on Comus. A good many phrases are cribbed. I wonder if Professor MacMechan will spot them. I don’t put it past him.

  There is an English theatrical company in town, the Glossop-Harris Company, presided over by Miss Glossop-Harris, who looks, or tries to look, like Reynolds’ portrait of Mrs. Siddons. They are a splendid company. Tony and I went to the School for Scandal. It is a long play but so well acted, and Sheridan’s wit has kept most of its tang. Afterwards Tony and I went to the Greek’s for coffee and then walked round and round Citadel Hill, talking.

  15 July 1925.

  Major Uniacke came out to breakfast in the library with Aunt Lucy presiding. The two of them are going to Mount Uniacke tomorrow for a long stay. Aunt Lucy loves Mount Uniacke, where she spent so much of her girlhood, and she looked beautiful this morning, so pleased to be going there. She is a darling, sweet without being insipid.

  In the evening we all went to see Macbeth: Mother, Aunt Millie, Aunt Lucy, Gerald, Eileen, Peter, and me. We had a box, a great extravagance, and it meant that we could hardly see a thing on the stage except by taking turns to crane over the edge of the box from the three chairs in the front of it. Macbeth is the greatest play in the world; I think I enjoyed it more reading it than seeing it acted. Miss Glossop-Harris as Lady Macbeth seemed quite to overwhelm Macbeth, who just seemed hen-pecked. Incidentally, somebody told me that Miss Glossop-Harris is quite enamoured of the actor who played Macbeth although he is twenty years younger than she is.

  16 July 1925.

  Honey and rolls for breakfast. I ate at least nine rolls. I read all morning for my government course about socialism and individualism. I am disgusted to discover that I am a late-Victorian individualist. I don’t know which I dislike more, a meddling imperialist state or a meddling socialist state. Why can’t they leave us alone?

  In the evening I went with Eileen to Romeo and Juliet, acted by the Glossop-Harris Company. It bowled me over so completely and the poignancy of the parting scene was so unbearable that tears were running down my face. Thank goodness Miss Glossop-Harris herself decided not to play Juliet, although she toyed with the idea. Eileen and I came back in the tram together and then walked the rest of the way home. She talked to me as she used to do when we were younger, and I saw that though she hides it she is very restless and not too happy. She has nothing to do, and talks of the possibility of getting a job. Dear Eileen, how fond I am of her and always will be.

  She does not like Tony at all, in fact disapproves of him. I cannot understand people disapproving of others; I thought only the old did that.

  Peter sails for England day after tomorrow. Mother had a large tea-party of women. I heard much clattering of teacups so I escaped and dropped in at Peter’s, but he was out and I was left all alone with old Mrs. Archibald. She was in a very amiable mood and gave me a copy of a poem she has written in praise of ether (how it prevents pain, etc.). I thought it was very imaginative. She certainly is pleased with it herself. Her son and his wife and their daughter came in later. These are the relations who Peter says have supplanted him in Mrs. Archibald’s favour. I had expected to see some sinister schemers but they appear to be perfectly nice, ordinary people.

  In the evening Roley and I went to the Strand Theatre with Gerald. It was a bit hectic like every time one appears in public with Gerald. He looked so peculiar that everyone was staring at us. He kept his tweed cap on throughout the performance and pushed it on the back of his head and his overcoat was much too big for him, yet he asked the woman in front of us in a very hoity-toity voice, “Please remove your hat as others in the audience have an equal right to see the performance.” She gave him a very dirty look but unpinned her hat and put it in her lap. Then some people pushed past us to take the seats next and Gerald said if anyone else inter
rupted us he would punch them in the nose. Poor Gerald, as if he could punch anyone in the nose or anywhere else, and he talked so loudly in his English voice. He was not drunk but I think he is more than a little mad. Two King’s students were sitting behind us, one of them Fabian Rockingham, whom I particularly admire – at a distance. I could hear them laughing at us. I suppose going about with Gerald is good for Roley and me. We can never be self-conscious in public later on after this training.

  The show was a vaudeville, absolutely putrid – a Spanish dance with a lot of clacking castanets, danced by quite an elderly female who looked somewhat like Mary Binney, and afterwards a sickening minuet. When I got home I described Gerald’s behaviour to Mother and said how awkward it made me feel, and all she said was, “Gerald may be a little peculiar but he is your cousin, and blood is thicker than water. I should not have thought you were so feeble as to care what other people think.”

  18 July 1925.

  Today Peter sailed for England. I went down to the boat to see him off. There were free drinks going and a crowd of people from Halifax on board going to England, mostly the smart Americanized kind of people: girls going to finishing schools in France, and mothers in elaborate dresses, and fathers red in the face from cocktails. I always feel ill at ease with these people; they seem so rich and assured, but I think that their assurance is misplaced. Peter was so surrounded with Archibalds that I could hardly talk to him, so I walked all over the boat, up and down the stairways, into the smoking-room, and inspected some cabins full of farewell flowers, and saw people lining up at the purser’s office to reserve their tables in the dining-saloon, and I walked on the upper deck which smelled of white paint. Sailors were swabbing down the boards. I wished I was going on the boat to England or to anywhere. Then I forced myself to go back to the saloon where the company was gathered and to talk to Mrs. M. She had huge rings on her veined hands and said she knew Mother and Aunt Millie, which is not true, as when she spoke to Aunt Millie the other day on the tram Aunt Millie just fixed her eyes on space as if she saw something in the distance and said to me afterwards that “she drew the line” at Mrs. M. Just as the funnel was hooting to signal that the visitors must get off Peter managed to get away from the clutch of Archibalds and came over to me. He looked somewhat distraught and said something about how much he was going to miss me and that it would not be long before I was over at Oxford and we would meet, but we both know that it will not be the same. As I stood on the pier watching the water between the pier and the boat widening as she drew out, I felt: this is the end of something – stopping loving Katherine and Peter going away. I walked home feeling more and more depressed and passed Tony’s lodging, but I could not face his analysis or his wit. When I turned into our gates I thought of William and went down to the stables and helped him polish the harness and felt a bit better.

  In the evening Mother read Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. To bed early, but I could not sleep on account of sex.

  19 July 1925.

  The morning was grey and sticky and I felt the weight of inertia and depression. I was rather rude to Eileen at breakfast and then went in to Miss Stewart’s. She is trying to explain logarithms to me. None of my experience of mathematics, painful as it has been, has prepared me for the pure horror of logarithms, and I think poor Miss Stewart is almost as puzzled by them as I am. Walking home I determined to stop pulling a long face and I dropped in to tea at the Almons’. It was a big tea-party for the Glossop-Harris Theatrical Company. Katherine, in a black velvet dress which made her white skin seem even whiter and outlined her breasts, was enjoying the admiration of young Jarmin, the actor, who had never met her before, and sat on a footstool saying melodramatically that he would like to look at her forever. It was a gay and pleasant party but for some reason I felt rather at a loss, and I have often enjoyed myself more at duller parties where I could shine, relatively. In the evening I took Janet MacDonald to see Marie Prevost at the movies. She is becoming my favourite actress. She is so piquant. Janet is a wonderful girl, just the kind of girl I would like to be in love with if I could choose. She has splendid eyes and a straight, sincere look. We went afterwards for ice-cream sundaes to the Green Lantern. Tony came in and joined us and Janet got bored and set fire to a bowl full of matches. I liked her so much for doing this.

  I came home and read Conrad’s Lord Jim. I am possessed by the character of Lord Jim and all day I pretended that I was him, an infinitely interesting, essentially decent character. I am always pretending to be characters in books I am reading or heroes in movies, although I know it is childish.

  20 July 1925.

  I was reading from Herbert Spencer on “Over-legislation,” a musty old volume but extraordinarily interesting. Then I looked out of the window to see the lawn and the field by the woods ablaze. We all rushed out: Georgina, William from the stables came running up, Aunt Millie, and Mother and I, pounding down the flames with tin cans. It took nearly an hour and the fire was quite near the house but we finally got it out. Mother had tried to burn off the old grass without asking anyone’s help. She did exactly the same thing last year and there was a fire then too, and she swore she would never do it again but she says she simply could not resist. In the afternoon Cousin Reg came out to discuss our finances with Mother. She’s trying to raise extra money. It sounded from the hall to be another very heated discussion between them and she went up to her bedroom, muttering between her teeth. I joined Reg in the library and for some idiotic reason I started a discussion on the subject of eternity and the afterlife and asked him whether he believed in it. He seemed quite at a loss and went on humming and hawing till we dropped the subject.

  Then I went up to my room and drew up a new plan for the rest of the summer: four hours’ serious reading a day, no novels, exercise an hour a day, no movies, strict economy, no sundaes at the Green Lantern, walk into town instead of taking the tram, do not telephone Katherine unless she telephones me first, put a stop to sensual thoughts and actions which lead nowhere, and concentrate on acquiring knowledge, enjoying scenery, etc.

  23 July 1925.

  A day passed in accordance with the new plan. Read Maines Ancient Law and wrote notes on what I had read, then walked up and down my bedroom summarizing the notes aloud as though I were lecturing. It is a good way of driving home the points to one’s self. Aunt Millie overheard me and thought I was just talking to myself and that I had gone slightly mad. In the afternoon I forced myself to go for a ride. It was a blazingly hot day. These horses are true livery-stable horses; they turn round and head for home at the end of the time that has been paid for. William started talking about his boyhood in Ireland, how his father had been a “strong farmer” but the property was divided. He had been walking out with a girl for four years but there was not enough money for the marriage on her side, so she has never married and neither has William. He says that he is not sorry when he sees the married men he knows and that his brother’s wife has “a lookless look.” His brother used to run the cab stand here but now he has moved into taxis. He comes to the stables often and helps William with money. Talking of my mother, William said it was a thousand pities that she had given up riding; that as a young woman she had a natural way with a horse and it was a pleasure to see her going over jumps, and that although my father loved riding, it did not come naturally to him. When I got home I found everyone was out except Mother and me. We had tea in the library. It is so seldom that we are alone together in this household so full of people. We discussed all sorts of subjects, including sex. She said she knew nothing about the physical part of marriage when she married my father, and she asked Aunt Lucy, who was married already, and all she said was, “My dear, it is no worse than having your ears pierced for earrings.” To me this sums up the Edwardian attitude to the subject. Her own attitude is very contradictory – on the surface she is very proper, but secretly I think she would find me an awful muff if I had no real love affairs. She talked a lot about her beloved brother Charlie and hi
s adventures with women. I wish I could be more like him – dashing and irresistible. Then suddenly Mother was inspired to do a series of imitations of people: Cousin Reg, Gerald, Mary Binney, and Queen Victoria, whom she had seen as a girl at the Diamond Jubilee. There never was such a mimic. For days she doesn’t do it at all and then it comes over her like a sneezing fit.

  24 July 1925.

  On my way into town today I saw Fabian Rockingham strolling along Barrington Street looking very debonair. I thought how much I wished I knew him better. I see him at fencing but only in a very casual way. When I got home I mentioned this to Mother and she said, “Why don’t you just pick up the telephone and ring him up and ask him to go to a movie with you or something. Don’t just sit about saying, ‘I wish I knew him better.’ ” I hesitated because he is in a much more dashing set at college than I – in fact, I am in no set at all. However, I thought, “I’ll try,” so I did telephone him, trying to sound as if it was the most natural thing in the world, but it turned out just as I had thought it would: that he was going out every night next week and that he would see me at fencing sometime. Although he was perfectly polite, I felt hot with embarrassment at having rung him up like this when I scarcely know him and he obviously has no wish to know me.

  Then I went for a walk by myself in the park. It seems that everything I do is wrong. I am no help to Mother in her responsibilities; I am regarded as a freak by Fabian and his crowd; I am wasting such brains as I have on trivialities; and I cannot change myself however hard I try. As I was slouching along one of the paths in the park in this state of gloom, who should I see coming towards me but the unmistakable figure of Gerald. I think he saw me first as he put on a very jaunty air and started whistling unconcernedly and then gave a start of surprise at meeting me, just as if he was putting on one of his acts at the theatre. So we walked along together. He was wearing an enormous new grey fedora hat that came over his ears and he started on one of his interminable rigmaroles, this time about his plan to go to New York, where he thinks his theatrical talents will be recognized, and away from Halifax, where no one knows anything about acting or appreciates him. Every time we passed anyone in the park Gerald would take off his hat to them and say “Good day” in a condescending manner as if they were his tenants. I said, “Do you know all these people, Gerald?” and he said, “Many people know me who I do not know.”