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

by Ritchie, Charles

  It is an odd coincidence that we should both be keen on the same girl. He is my only real friend here. I suppose it started when we were both at boarding-school at Trinity College School, Port Hope, and had just come from preparatory school in England and had to take a lot of kidding because of our English accents and were more or less butts for some of the other boys. Peter and his sister Joan are orphans. They live half the time with their English grandmother and half the time with the Archibalds, their Halifax grandparents. Peter, like me, is a freshman at King’s. He is a person who believes everything is possible and is full of schemes. He can be very mischievous but he is the best company in the world and would never say no to any adventure. When Miss Akroyd first came here he did not see anything in her, said she couldn’t dance well and was not worth the trouble, but strangely enough when he saw that I liked her he began pursuing her, writing her letters and telephoning her all the time and taking her to the movies. Now he claims that he is passionately in love with her. Perhaps he is. I wouldn’t wonder if anyone was.

  5 January 1925.

  Took Katherine to the King’s College dance. I could see the other boys were surprised to see me with such a pretty girl. She certainly outshone all the other girls and she is so different from them. I overheard Hughie MacDermot say, “Wow! What a figure!” and he came up and asked her for a dance. He is the greatest sheik in college. All the girls are after him. She just looked at her programme, which was empty except for dances with Peter and me as she doesn’t know anyone else at King’s, and said, “Come back later. I might fit you in somewhere.” Of course he did come back and they had one dance.

  Although I had most of the dances with Katherine, the evening was not really a success. There are no sitting-out places at King’s, just the one room with chairs around the walls where the dancing goes on. It was snowing. You could not go out into the garden, so I never got a chance to be alone with her, and when we were dancing together she was always glancing over my shoulder to see if she was being looked at. If I tried to say anything serious she would toss her head so that her fair hair swung back and just squeeze my hand, or say about some other girl, “Who is that fat fright in green?” or about some boy, “Is he on the football team?” I saw that I was getting nowhere so I tried to be funny. She laughed a lot but I don’t know whether she was listening to me or just laughing for laughing’s sake. I began to feel quite tired, as if I could never make any headway with her, but when they played the last waltz it was “I’ll be loving you always, always.” She seemed to melt into my arms and I wished it would go on forever.

  When we got back after the dance we walked up and down together outside the Almons’ gate. She was quiet and different and said, “I told my sister that I don’t know what to make of you.” I said, “But it is so simple. I am in love with you.” Then I tried to kiss her but she broke away and ran up the Almons’ drive, turning to wave goodbye. Although I told her that it was so simple that I was in love with her, I don’t know if it is so simple. I don’t know just what “being in love” means. Is this what they write and talk about, or is it a concoction of my mind from reading and hearing about love? Yet she is – what is she? I am under her spell.

  8 January 1925.

  Today the sergeant-major has come for the last time, to my great relief. Mother hired him to come twice a week to the house to teach me exercises meant to broaden my chest and strengthen my muscles and make more of a man of me. We repair to my bedroom, I take off my shirt, and he shouts at me, “On your toes! Stick out your chest! Pull in your stomach!”, etc., in a voice that could be heard across the barrack square. “One, two, three, down! Up! Up! Down!” He is teaching me breathing exercises, push-ups, squatting exercises, toe-touching. I am supposed to practise these on the days he doesn’t come, but all I do is to flail my arms about and take a deep breath when I have come out of my bath. I ignore the rest of them, although the instructions, with a diagram, are stuck up on the wall of my bedroom. When I come down to breakfast Mother asks, “Have you done your exercises?”, and I say, “Of course,” and she says, “Well, I do hope so, as it isn’t worth my going to the expense of paying the man if you don’t do the exercises.” Of course, she is right, but it is such a fag. She is always after me to ride more often and to work harder. I think she wants me to be a kind of Renaissance man who can do everything from inventing gun-powder to writing sonnets.

  11 January 1925.

  I went down to the stables to see William as Mother had the idea of sending him with an extra horse to bring me back from King’s College as the snow is so heavy in the woods that when I walk home that way I am up to my middle in no time. William issued forth from his lair behind the harness room in a very bad temper. He has been on another drinking bout but I gave him the message and he came for me after lectures. It was most embarrassing; a whole lot of the students gathered on the doorstep at King’s to watch me mount as no one dreams of riding to college. I had on my heavy overcoat and was carrying all my books under my arm and they were all laughing – I hope with me, not at me – but I felt very self-conscious, so much so that I nearly lost my head and tried to mount on the wrong side of the horse. I suppose the students will be confirmed in thinking me a complete freak. On the way home through the village some of the village boys threw stones at the horses and William called out at them in his Irish brogue, “I’ll be after ye; I’ll follow ye to the gates of hell.” They looked quite scared. Of course they’re only small kids. When we got back to the stables I could not help saying to William that I had made a fool of myself before the students by riding back. He said, “You wouldn’t be paying attention to a set of jackasses laughing. Are they so ignorant they have never seen a horse in their lives?” This bucked me up considerably.

  Peter is living in residence at King’s. He got his grandparents to consent. I don’t wonder he likes it. When I went up to his room this morning he was still in bed, half-naked, smoking a cigarette at 12:15. His room was in a hell of a mess too. He says no one bothers there and you can do what you like. He says that I should come and join him and that I am suffering from “petticoat government.”

  13 January 1925.

  Much talk of money. The family finances seem to be on the rocks. It is not possible for me to go to Oxford while Roley is still at boarding-school – it would be too expensive. Mother says keeping up this place is ruinous. The drive is full of holes and needs new gravel, which costs a lot. Some trees must be cut down before they fall down on our heads. The shutters on the upstairs windows are coming loose. The roof needs to be reshingled, etc., etc.

  Sometimes a great wave of selfishness engulfs me. I know how unworthy it is but I feel as though I did not care what happened so long as I get what I want and what I want is to go to Oxford. Professor Walker at King’s says that I could get into Oxford at the end of two years at college here as I should have what is called “Junior Colonial Status.” However, it is all a question of money as I should have to have quite a big allowance at Oxford.

  17 January 1925.

  What a nuisance it is that there is only one telephone in this house and that is in the hall so that every word you say can be overheard. I wanted to telephone Katherine just now but Georgina was sweeping the hall and Aunt Millie was filling jam jars in the pantry with the door open. There is no privacy. I had planned what I wanted to say to Katherine when I was in my bath. I wanted to tell her that if she doesn’t go with me to the movies tonight all is over between us and that I am not going to spend the whole of my life dangling about after her and listening to her telling me how many boys are in love with her. She is nothing but a brainless flirt anyway.

  Later, I did manage to get the telephone to myself this afternoon and spoke to Katherine, but to my surprise she said she supposed I was ringing up to get out of taking her to the movies, and that she had noticed me the other night making eyes at Muriel Owen and that if I thought her so attractive, why didn’t I take her instead if I didn’t mind being seen with a gir
l with a moustache. (Muriel has not got a moustache – only a faint down on her upper lip.)

  When I got to the Almons’ drive to pick Katherine up to go to the movies, I was surprised to see Peter’s car standing there and Katherine and he came down the drive arm in arm, Peter looking like the cat that had swallowed the canary.

  All he said was, “We thought it would be more fun if two or three went to the movies together.” I was furious, but what could I do. There was no use making a fuss, they would only have laughed, so we all climbed into the front seat of the car and Katherine gave us each a hand to hold and she and Peter chatted away non-stop. I didn’t say a word. When we got to the Olympic Movie Theatre Peter said in lofty tones, “Well, bye-bye children. Enjoy yourselves,” and drove off. Katherine said, “You didn’t really think he was coming with us, did you? You are silly. It was only a joke. You know I wanted to be alone with you,” but I am still not sure that she expected him to drive off like that and leave us together.

  Anyway, when we got into the movies she was most affectionate and let me kiss her, but not on the lips, and said, “You know I am very fond of you.” I said, “If only we could be together all the time so that we really got to know each other.” “But how could we?” she said. “Well,” I said, “we could if we were married.” She said, “How could we get married, and besides you want to go to Oxford. You would have to take a job if you married me.” I said, “I would break stones on the road if I could marry you,” but I didn’t pursue the subject because I do want to go to Oxford. Still, when we got back to the Almons’ drive and were walking up and down, I took off my signet ring and asked her to wear it, explaining that it was only a loan.

  21 January 1925.

  To dinner with Peter’s grandparents, the Archibalds. What a gloomy house that is. The dark panelling in the drawing-room and all those dark pictures which Mrs. Archibald says are Rembrandts and then in the small sitting-room there is a green china toad, which is really a spittoon for Mr. Archibald. I am surprised that Mrs. Archibald allows him to keep it there. He is a nice enough old boy but Mrs. Archibald in her shawl is a malicious old woman. I have never forgiven her for telling the dean that she heard that I was odd and lonely and could not get on with the other boys, so that he came and called on my mother to talk of “my case” and advise that I mix more and take more exercise. He sat there with his long red face and his pince-nez and his clerical costume with his legs crossed and I had to come in and sit opposite him while he looked at me through the pince-nez as if I was a specimen in need of prayer. Fortunately, when he was gone, Mother said that she considered his visit an impertinence and wished Mrs. Archibald would mind her own business.

  Anyway, Mrs. Archibald went on and on this evening about an article she has written to encourage the speaking of Gaelic in Cape Breton and about her departed father Sir Somebody Something and about the party she gave for the Prince of Wales when he was here. Peter is her favourite and his sister Joan, who is so shy and nice, she does not care a bit about, but Peter amuses her and she can be witty herself – not funny but little needle thrusts. He pushes his luck with her because he is extravagant and in and out of favour. It is an uneasy atmosphere.

  24 January 1925.

  Cousin Reg came out in the afternoon to discuss our finances with my mother as he is a trustee. I could hear them talking in the library. My mother sounded very impassioned and he sounded as though he was trying to soothe her. She wants to make the woods into lots and sell them for houses, but he says the city will never extend in this direction so that no one will come here. She does not respect his opinion but Aunt Millie joins with him to discourage enterprise and to counsel caution. Mother says that my father was always having to find jobs for Cousin Reg, who was his nephew, so she is not impressed by his advice. He is a kind man – a lawyer – wears gold-rimmed glasses on a black silk ribbon round his neck, and puts them on and off his nose when he is nervous. His wife, Cousin Nan, belongs to what is called “the satin set,” who drink cocktails all the time and have love affairs with each other. She is a cheerful person – not young, but wears very short skirts, and her hair is dyed different colours at different times. Aunt Millie says she is “bad style.” They have a son, Jimmy, who is said to look like me. If anybody says that in my hearing I never forgive them as he has an enormous red nose, pasty complexion, tiny eyes, and a receding chin. Cousin Reg and Cousin Nan think him wonderful but he says about Cousin Reg “t-rust” – he has a terrible stutter – “trust Dad for the platitude.” In the evening Mother read aloud to us in the library by the fire, as she has always done and where she has read us all Dickens and Scott and Barrie and Kipling and Conan Doyle. Those are the happiest evenings. She reads so wonderfully fast and does not “put expression” into her voice. I hate it when the telephone rings to interrupt her, but Aunt Millie gets sleepy and fills her hot-water bottle and says “I am for bed” rather apologetically. Tonight she was reading Philip Gibbs’s book Heirs Apparent about the younger generation in England. Actually it is not such a good book – more like a journalist writing a novel.

  29 January 1925.

  Aunt Lucy and her mother, old Mrs. Cady, have arrived to stay. With Aunt Millie and Eileen and my mother that makes a household of five women. I love Aunt Lucy. She is my favourite aunt, though an adopted one, as she is no real relation. She is the first beautiful woman I ever saw and she’s still beautiful, though fatter. Her mother, Mrs. Cady, is old. She is both tall and big, and was once, they say, very handsome. She and Aunt Lucy love gambling, and when they spent the winter in the south of France they lost nearly all their money, which was not much, at the gaming tables, so they are very hard up. Mrs. Cady was a Uniacke before she was married and came from Mount Uniacke, a pillared house by a wooded lake here in Nova Scotia named after the family place in Ireland. She is a funny old girl, likes a joke, believes in ghosts, and wears beaded slippers cut with scissors to relieve her corns.

  31 January 1925.

  Peter has written a love letter to Katherine but so far has had no reply.

  In the evening Colonel Almon came out. I admire him because he is so distinguished-looking and such a man of the world and so witty. He makes the most amusing puns. His clothes are beautifully made in London. Much as I admire him, I am not at my ease with him but feel awkward and self-conscious, and fancy he must think me freakish. His wife, Cousin Mollie, is a very charming person and much easier for me to talk to.

  Mrs. Cady is like a naughty child and she will have her say in the conversation, even if it is nothing to do with what is being talked about. If she feels left out, she just snaps her fingers and says, “Fiddledeedee.”

  2 February 1925.

  I set off early for King’s, walking through our woods. The snow was very deep and it was a cold morning. I got hot climbing in and out of the snow banks. I was thinking quite a lot about Katherine. I don’t know how seriously she took me speaking of marriage or how seriously I meant it. My reading about girls in stories and my slight experiments have not really made me sophisticated about them.

  When I got to King’s, I was summoned before a tribunal of sophomores for wearing spats, which is forbidden to freshmen. The usual penalty is to burn the offender’s spats, but they made a concession in my case and only confiscated them for the rest of the term. As a matter of fact they weren’t mine at all but only an old pair that Peter had lent me.

  After lectures I ran into Professor Walker in the corridor. He said that he had met all the most brilliant men in Nova Scotia and that they did not amount to a row of ninepins and that all this bunkum about King’s College being an ancient institution was tiresome drivel. Of course, he is an Oxford man and very brilliant, but I think he was just letting off steam.

  5 February 1925.

  A man gave a lecture tonight at King’s on sex which was unpleasant but rather amusing. He had diagrams, but I could never learn to do anything from a diagram. The lecturer was quite old and had a terrible cold. Peter and I walked back
from the lecture with Cyril, who announced that he intended to keep pure until he was married. Then he had the nerve to say that he had never in his life masturbated, which was too much for Peter and me. We told him he should see a doctor at once because there must be something wrong with him and he said, “Not at all. I just do not choose to pamper myself.”

  This evening I read Oscar Wilde’s essays Intentions, which have made me feel what the beauty of life could be, and his De Profundis has had a spiritualizing influence on me. Professor Walker in his lecture yesterday spoke of “the spirit that makes so many of us at eighteen go about patting ourselves on the chests and saying that we are atheists.” He said he had been through that phase himself but that one grew older and realized the necessity for revealed faith. I hope I am not an atheist. I certainly don’t feel like patting myself on the chest, but I have little faith.

  This evening I had a discussion about my future with my mother. I do dread these discussions of my future.

  She began by asking “what I thought of doing as an occupation after college.” I said, “I should like to be an author but I haven’t got the talent.” She said, “Even if you have talent you can’t earn your living like that; you must have some profession. I know you don’t want to go in for the law like your father, and you don’t want to go into a bank, and you don’t want to go into the Army, but what do you want to do? I’ll back you to the hilt if I know what your ambition is. You know that.” “Well,” I said, “I want to go to Oxford and then perhaps into the diplomatic service,” and she said, “Where do you think the money is coming from? You have to have a big allowance in the diplomatic service. I don’t know where you get these grand ideas.” It was on the tip of my tongue to answer, “I get them from you,” but fortunately I said nothing.