The Larnachs

by Owen Marshall

  Despite his liking to talk of the good old days, he hardly ever mentions Eliza or Mary. This past Thursday, however, I had an unpleasant brush with one of these predecessors while replacing some of William’s journals in the library. From one he had been reading fell an open envelope bearing Eliza’s name, and within it were some pale, pressed flowers and a miniature painting signed by her. Executed on a gum leaf, it was a view of a sinuous road through scattered trees and scrub. The intrinsic merit was slight, but that showed the more the sentimental value he attached to it. The incident reminded me that my own father’s first wife died soon after they came to the colony, and I have never thought to ask my mother whether she ever felt the presence of the earlier woman in her marriage. Since becoming a wife, I find myself closer to my mother, more understanding of the placating nature that once made me impatient, and I champion her sometimes when Fanny or Sarah complains.

  I am not superstitious, or much concerned by shades of the past, and Dougie says his mother disliked The Camp and preferred to spend her time at Manor Place in Dunedin. But it is impossible to live here in William’s grand house, with his and Eliza’s children, and Mary’s existence recent, and not at times feel some oppression from these women, and the extent of his former life so much greater than my own. The Camp can be a lonely place for its mistress, for although there are always people about, of those who live here only William and Dougie are of my own station in life.

  I wish my sisters could be with me more often, to bring more of the de Bathe Brandon world into my house, but Wellington is rough seas and a steamer away. Although my brothers are not great correspondents, my sisters support me well. Annie in particular sends me the most full and loving letters, in which parade our family, friends and acquaintances. I miss her especially, but also my friends Doris and Cecilia, both of my bridal party and still close. Just yesterday I had a letter from Cecilia talking of her plans to travel to Sydney, and asking about Charles Baeyertz here of the magazine Triad, and his feud with the Reverend Ready. Soon, however, when William takes his seat in Parliament, I will have my own people, my own city, my own life, around me again.

  My opinion of Dougie continues to improve. He has been increasingly supportive in my dealings with the staff and his father, and a confidant concerning the Dunedin society we entertain and visit. There is a certain reserve among some of the families, but I feel no necessity to ingratiate myself. It amuses me to find people so complacent in their personal history, and ignorant of a wider one, that they consider Dunedin the capital of the colony in all but title. Many of the women, in particular, have little skill in general conversation, or awareness of their listeners’ interests, and bore everyone with triviality. Mrs Oswald Harman, whom I sat beside at a recent party, talked for a full half-hour about her square dinner set, and almost as long concerning the deficiencies of her servants. To dress to advantage and to know appropriate fashion for yourself is important, and I enjoy the choosing and wearing of attractive and well-made clothes, and talking about them when with women friends, but I have little in common with those who are more interested in apparel than attitudes, and who cannot discuss the issues of our time on equal terms with men. No doubt my circumstances and upbringing have made me accustomed to this, but it must become what is usual for educated women if we are to claim our rightful place.

  There are, of course, people of justified reputation and accomplishment. Soon after our return from Lawrence, we entertained the Blacks, Hockens and Sumpters, as William wished to celebrate his election success. Mr Sumpter I find to be a businessman only, and his wife capable of little conversation apart from domesticity, although her dress sense is a good deal better than many. James Black is the genial and humorous professor of mineralogy whom William admires for his practical application of science, and for the resolve that saw him succeed from humble Scottish origins. When William was minister of mines, James accompanied him on visits through Otago and the West Coast. Dougie was on the first trip with them, so knows the professor well, and they enjoy one another’s company despite the age disparity. Knowing that Donald is somewhat out of favour with his father, the professor amused the table with tales of the first-born’s inappropriate luggage on a later trip. Forgetful of the rigours of travel here, and the uncouth nature of the mining regions, our Oxford-educated, fox-hunting dandy carried dress shirts, a Savile Row suit, eau de Cologne and white gloves.

  Of all William’s friends whom I have met, I feel drawn most to Thomas and Bessie Hocken. He commands great respect within the city as medical practitioner, lecturer, civic supporter in so many ways, and a great enthusiast for history and the collection of memorabilia, journals, photographs and documents. Among so many people preoccupied with scrabbling for a foothold in the colony, he is one of the few with a sense of the value of the past as well as the needs of the present and the possibilities of the future. Despite being the son of a Methodist minister, he has become a devout Anglican, and in his company I disguise somewhat my religious scepticism. In all other respects I find his company stimulating and congenial. He is very sensitive about his small stature, being not much over five feet, and care must be taken in any reference to people’s height, not to give offence. His fondness for me is perhaps partly because I am myself petite yet forthright. I do enjoy his company, and William shares his love of history and artefacts, though more inclined to Scottish and Australian annals.

  It is unusual to find a really cultivated and perceptive man with a wife quite his equal, although this must be more a circumstance of convention and upbringing than natural ability. Bessie Hocken I like a great deal and she has become a close friend. She is a Buckland from that wealthy Auckland family and, like me and my sisters, was given opportunity and leisure for a wide education. She takes a full share in her husband’s scholarly interests and loves music, which made a bond between us immediately. They also have a daughter named Gladys, though younger than William’s girl. Bessie and I confide in each other without reserve. I think that is as much a pleasure for her as it is for me, since neither of us easily gives ourself completely to others. Bessie is sympathetic to my situation, partly because of her somewhat similar experience. Her own husband was married before, to a woman who was an ex-seamstress, a drunkard and a close friend of Eliza Larnach. So many links, so much concealed knowledge, in our small stratified communities that one has to be careful with any comment in society. The statuesque Ethel Morley I find a very pleasant companion also, though not her wealthy, but boorish, husband.

  I hope to remain close to Bessie, despite the time we will spend in Wellington. We have talked many times, here, at functions and at her home, and, apart from Dougie, she is the person I shall miss most when I go. I knew when I married and came to Otago that I was leaving my own life behind and was to live in William’s. His house, his friends and acquaintances, his business, even his preoccupations and his past, crowd in on me, but I am not daunted, and have kept a life of my own. My music I take with me always and anywhere. It is not only sustaining when I am alone, but a bridge to the friendship with people similarly inclined.

  In that evening’s company, where he was well known, Dougie was less in William’s shadow than other times, and despite being younger he was quite able to talk as an equal on some topics. He spoke of his many visits to his great-uncle’s estate in Sussex, sometimes with others of the family, sometimes alone on holiday from his boarding school. He is perceptive in noticing the differences between a colonial and an English upbringing, as he has experienced something of both. And his sense of humour is less obvious and more insightful than his father’s.

  William recounted at length his expedition years ago to seek out the Larnach family origins in Wick. All of us had heard the story before, and Bessie and I were close enough at the table to be able to continue our own enthusiasm quietly. She shares my opinion that far too much of the musical world’s attention is at present given to the operas of Gilbert and Sullivan. I have seen both Iolanthe and The Gondoliers. Althou
gh they are diverting and colourful, it is sad that Arthur Sullivan’s superior talents are so constrained by the dictates of his collaborator’s jigging lyrics and improbable plots.

  I will suggest we invite that same group again soon, with perhaps the Caughtreys, and the young organist Edward Miles, in place of the Sumpters. Thomas and Helen Bracken would be welcome, but he has accepted the job of parliamentary record clerk in Wellington, offered after William’s intercession. I have noticed, however, that Dr Hocken is slightly discomforted in the presence of his fellow Thomas, not because of any intellectual incompatibility, but because of Bracken’s imposing physical presence. The Brackens will be among the first of our guests in Wellington. I accept that William is pre-eminently a businessman, and then a politician, but I encourage also his natural and intelligent curiosity for the pursuits of the mind.

  I feel it was a successful evening. All our guests stayed the night, as is almost a necessity here, and went the next day with palpable reluctance. The day before the dinner I had spent some time with Miss Falloon and Jane and was pleased with the result. The soups and entrées were all good, as was the saddle of mutton and the duck. The turkey was excellent and commented on as such, and we had two puddings as well as jellies and cheese. The wines were champagne, claret, sherry and port. William abstains now, but he provides for others. Although he rather likes his generosity to be noted, it is there, and I benefit from it, even in such difficult times as these. There is no meanness in William. If anything he has indulged his children and certain friends too much, and the comparative stringencies to which he is driven now are a source of embarrassment to him and threaten his self-esteem.

  It is interesting to see William’s attitude to the Cargills, who are a foremost family here. So many similarities in achievement and involvement both bond them and create rivalry. Edward Cargill has been as closely involved as William in the Colonial Bank and the refrigeration company, is a member of the House of Representatives and a community leader. He, too, built a grand mansion in the seventies — Cargill’s Castle, on the cliffs above St Clair. Twenty-one rooms and walls of poured concrete that were a source of amazement to many. The place is famous for its balls and parties, at some of which we have been guests, but I find it colder even than The Camp, and the trees of the drive are permanently sloped because of the wind.

  There was a terrible fire at Cargill’s following the Otago Anniversary Ball of ’92, and although Edward rebuilt, it has not regained its former splendour. He told me that the times were very different and indulgence could not be justified again. Much of considerable beauty was destroyed. William was sympathetic, yet could not repress a sense of smugness that misfortune had passed him by. He called a special gathering of the household staff to warn of the dangers of fire, and laid down that someone be designated last thing at night to check all fireplaces except those of the family bedrooms. Edward has the round, benevolent face of a Mr Cheeryble, but the edge of competition means, I think, that the two families will be public, rather than private, friends. Once, in reference to Cargill, William said with satisfaction that it must be a disappointment to such a successful man to have only daughters. Such a thought would never have occurred to my father.

  Marriage to William has disclosed no particularly unpleasant side to his nature, but I admit to some disappointment in the relationship we have in private. His physical expectations I permit rather than enjoy; more disappointing for me has been our failure to fully share an inner life. The fault may be mine also, but apart from the brief entreaties and exclamations of the marriage bed, William talks to me when we are alone much as he does when we are in familiar company. His innermost feelings and aspirations are closed to me, and he shows impatience if I attempt to draw him out. Neither has he much interest now in my own confidences and he seldom asks about my happiness, or the reasons for any despondency, or gaiety, that might mark my mood. He talks of external things with confidence and at length, but is apprehensive of sustained revelation of deep, personal feeling. Annie, Bessie and Ethel are all greater confidantes than my husband. I may well be no different in all of this than most wives, but I had hoped for a soulmate.

  In many ways Dougie is more aware and companionable than his father. Although he has had no musical training and is no great reader, we have become quite pals. He is the only one of William’s adult children, apart from poor Kate, who has been prepared to accept me for myself and not as a supplanter of a mother’s memory, or a threat to expectations. Thrown together here at The Camp, we have found a growing understanding. It is our joke that he is Outside Dougie and I am Inside Conny, for he likes nothing more than to be on horseback, or fishing, or working on the farm, whereas I feel most at home at a piano, or with my sketchpad and books.

  In the winter especially I cannot be bothered with the constant change of clothing needed if one is going out and in. Yet in our friendship we are, I think, effecting a change in each other’s habits. Dougie, quite as much as William, now likes to hear me play and even has his favourite pieces and some interest in the lives of those who composed them. And I have taken more to walking in the grounds, and rides in the buggy around the property and the peninsula, sometimes with William if he is not occupied with business, sometimes with Gladys and Gretchen as well if they are home, often with Dougie. His manner is more confident when he deals with the estate workers without William’s presence, and more relaxed than within the house. I have come to appreciate the somewhat austere beauty of the place, all the more perhaps because I know that Eliza did not. Dougie always sees something different in the countryside, no matter how many times he passes through it: noticing that a field has been worked, a barn roof neglected, the course of a creek changed, bush darkened by the shadow of the clouds, or the tide line altered by a storm.

  Boating is something I definitely dislike, and even Dougie’s encouragement does not overcome it. The steamer is trial enough and I find no enjoyment in the little craft that men take out for pleasure or fishing. The motion is unsettling, as is the smell, and there is always a slop of foul water in the bottom, and often sticky scales on the surfaces. I cannot imagine it a pleasure to sit for hours in a swaying dinghy, open to sun and wind, cramped and uncomfortable, and have as the uncertain reward a few odorous fish.

  William has as little time, or patience, for shopping, but Dougie often will take me into town, go on to the Fernhill Club awhile, then meet me at a tea shop and carry my parcels. He asks for my opinion as to his own clothes and often follows it. Together last week we chose a dinner jacket that had a shawl collar, silk and velvet facings and a single button. During the fitting the plump tailor’s digestion was rudely apparent several times, and although all three of us studiously ignored the sound at the time, Dougie and I laughed together afterwards. He is the only man I could possibly share amusement with over such a thing. But life is life after all.

  Dougie enjoys it most when the command at The Camp is his alone. He is no scholar, but from what he has told me the Adams School at St Leonard’s on Sea did nothing to awaken his mind and he was miserable there. He resents his father at times because of it, although William made the decision to have the children educated in England and on the continent from the best of motives. Somehow, however, it seems typical of William’s generosity: a failure because he did not consider the recipient’s wishes when bestowing it.

  Dougie and I can talk about such matters and still not feel disloyal. I never criticise William, or enter personal dispute, within earshot of the household staff, or in the society of our friends. Dougie and I have come to trust one another and are free with confidences as close family should be. Both of us are concerned for William and the increasing pressures on him. He is not the man I remember in our Wellington home, laughing and reminiscing with Father, or ribbing my brothers about their dalliances. He is not the man I married. Kate’s death, the snide ingratitude of Donald, Colleen and Alice, and the difficulties he is experiencing in business, have altered and reduced him. Now ente
ring his sixties, he expects his life to have a certain ease of accomplishment after his earlier spectacular successes, but finds himself beset by more difficulties than ever, and with his vigour impaired.

  ‘The times have moved against us,’ he said yesterday, as he prepared to go into Dunedin on business, ‘and I must fight to hold what I have, but sans peur, aye, without fear.’ Such is the Larnach motto he has chosen.

  ‘Surely things will swing back your way again,’ I told him. ‘Property doesn’t grow smaller, as Father used to say.’

  ‘Yes, but politics, too, has become a bog, and it threatens to swallow all of us in scandal.’

  ‘Give it up then, if you neither need nor like it. It’s knocking the stuffing out of you, and all for other people,’ I said.

  ‘I feel I must stand by my old friends,’ he replied.

  Seddon and Ward should have left him alone and not forced him back to the House to support them. The energy he will loyally expend there should be directed towards his own affairs, and there is no financial gain in parliamentary service. Even his natural optimism and goodwill are wearing thin. His outbursts of impatience have become more frequent, and he alternates between a demand for company he can dominate and an inclination for solitude. As his finances and patronage have diminished, so have the sycophantic followers, and he is increasingly disillusioned about the motives of almost everyone he meets.

  Towards me he remains kind enough, but does not put himself out to please as once he did. In a strange way he seems to be ageing more rapidly, as if, having reached sixty, there is a canter downhill. I had hoped that after our marriage the difference in years would become progressively less significant as we became more familiar, but the opposite has occurred. He continues to put on weight but to lose hair, and there is a staidness to his movement. When he is awake his breathing is heavy; when he is asleep his snoring is thunderous.