Follow My Dust. Jessica Hawke

and to study for this, Arthur had to attend a crammer’s school twice a week. The first year, in addition to studying, he wrote his second hundred-thousand-word novel, based on the invasion and conquest of Europe by the Yellow Peril. The Yellow Peril won hands down. Nothing stopped it, but it stopped Arthur passing that examination. He tried again the following year, but during that year he had to write the sequel, wherein the Yellow Peril was flung back, and so he failed again.

      It was no effort whatever to study routes from China through Tibet, Samarkand, and on to the Bosphorus, defended by the united navies of Europe. Quite a pleasure.

      At seventeen, young Upfield was still supposed to be studying, but he had become aware of girls. At eighteen the girls held top place. Studying was something unpleasant and invariably mentioned only by his father. Even the novel-writing faded into quiescence.

      Interest in girls was foreseen by the father of five boys, himself not inexperienced at Arthur’s age. He had received sound advice from his father which now he handed out to Arthur as a good fellow, and man to man. He said one night when the others had gone off to bed:

      “There is no doubt that you are the greatest fool of the family, in fact the greatest fool of an Upfield I’ve ever met or heard of. You’ve cost me a lot of money but I cannot see you ever deriving a penny value from it. Where you are going I don’t know, and I’m sure you don’t either. Both of us know where you are not going, and that destination isn’t success, measured by any kind of stick.

      “The point I want to make clear is that should you cut your throat we must not be spattered by the blood. If you will remember three wise sayings, you will save us from much worry, and yourself from disaster and sorrow. One: never play around with girls in your home town; do so in a distant place where you aren’t known. Two: never make a promise in writing. Three: if you can seduce a girl before marriage, others may seduce her after marriage.”

      On another occasion he said:

      “I’ve seen you with the same girl at least six times in the last three months. Remember, what the mother is today, the girl will be twenty years hence.”

      Upfield’s first experience with a woman took place in a horse-drawn cab at Southampton, which is twenty-odd miles from his home town. He was then a trooper in the Hampshire Carabineers Yeomanry, and the walking-out dress consisted of a dark blue tunic with chain epaulettes, and skin-tight trousers with a wide white stripe on the outside and strapped under the insteps. All this was a distinct hindrance to illicit love-making, and the experience in the cab was discouraging. The fact that at this time contraceptives were not adjuncts to handbags and pocket-wallets was conducive to morality. Then there was that primary influence over him exerted by the grandmother and the aunts, which was actually a pointer that women were to have a far greater influence on his life than men.

      Great-aunt Lucy lived in a Sussex village and had never married. With a sister she had taken over her father’s business, and had accumulated enough money to retire under comfortable circumstances. She was verging on ninety when Arthur spent his first holidays with her, a little Dresden-china woman with bright blue eyes, a wonderful smile, and understanding heart, and always good for a substantial tip at the end of the visit.

      Her house was of brick, consisting of two storeys, enshrined with ivy. It stood in about an acre of enclosed garden, and quite near was the well-kept village green, where cricket was played as it ought to be played. A housekeeper-general-nurse, with her husband and a son of Arthur’s age, occupied the rear portion of the house.

      Great-aunt Lucy did not approve of the newfangled motor-cars. She did not approve of certain relatives. When speaking of either, a slight flush would creep into her beautiful face, as though even to disapprove was un-Christian. Arthur’s quick friendship with the housekeeper’s son gained her approval, for she loved this boy.

      Over lunch, the little china lady would relate anecdotes of her early years, and describe with vivid phrase and twinkling eyes the idiosyncrasies of her relatives. Dinner was always at six o’clock, and at eight there was a rigid routine.

      At eight, when the sun was setting and the birds were loud in song, she would call Arthur from his book in the garden, and he, obeying, would find her seated at the table in the morning-room with the family Bible in readiness for the evening reading. Her voice was not unlike the voice of the bird beyond the open window, and, despite his failings, Arthur listened with respect and with interest. Following the reading, he listened to a short homily, also with respect, and when the Bible was reverently closed and placed at the head of the table, Aunt Lucy would say:

      “Now, Arthur, our glass of wine.”

      Arthur would produce the glasses from the cabinet, and the decanter containing cowslip, dandelion, or rhubarb wine, bottled by the little lady twenty or thirty years before. When a new bottle had to be brought from the cellar, Arthur was commanded, with a smile, to keep whistling all the time he was below.

      As eight-thirty was announced by the ormolu clock on the mantelshelf and the grandfather clock in the hall–and they always chimed in unison–the great-aunt would rise, and Arthur would offer his arm. Thus they left the room to mount to the landing above, where the housekeeper would be waiting to take the little lady to her room.

      On Sundays, morning and evening, Arthur conducted the great-aunt to the chapel close by. Sometimes they went for short walks in the late afternoon. Sometimes a carriage was hired and they would drive into the neighbouring countryside.

      But after the ritual of conducting the great-aunt to the first landing, the gossamer chains drifted, and Arthur would join his pal, to race away on bikes, or gather with the lads and lasses under the oak trees bordering the Green.

      One morning the housekeeper went into the great-aunt’s bedroom with morning tea, and found her kneeling beside the bed. She had died praying.

      6

      The year that King George V was crowned, Arthur’s father decided he had had enough. His other sons, two of whom were now in his business, were agreeable to complying with the elastic rules of the home, but Arthur’s behaviour was much less conservative. His father said:

      “You are going out to Australia to try farming. I have come to look on Australia as the ideal country for you. It is so far away that you will never save enough money to return.”

      How right he was!