The Cardboard Crown Read Online Free
with tonight?’
‘One has to know somebody,’ I replied. ‘It’s no use sitting down in the Australian bush and waiting for a beautiful genius with perfect manners to come along. Anyhow the people I dined with tonight are quite nice. I’ve never known them be unkind to anyone, unless of course he had no money.’
Julian was not to be side-tracked. ‘It’s better to write a good book,’ he said, ‘than to know a lot of rich people.’
‘Of course it is,’ I agreed. ‘But it is not only a question of knowing rich people. One has other friends, people like Aunt Maysie, who may hold the old-fashioned views of their generation—one can’t expect them not to—but who are kind good honourable people. I don’t want to offend them. Suppose that I went to Aunt Maysie and said to her: I want to write a book about Grannie. If it is to be truthful, either literally or artistically, I may have to put in it things which you will think unpardonable. But please don’t mind. If we are to have any writing that is worthwhile we must ignore these objections. Surely it is better to be held up even to ridicule, and be crystallised eternally in a work of art, than just to keep your skeleton respectably in a cupboard? What would Aunt Maysie say?’
‘If she’s any sense, she’d say go ahead.’
‘And then supposing I sacrificed all my friends and the book didn’t turn out to be a work of art after all?’
‘You have to take risks,’ said Julian, and turned again to the portrait of my grandfather. ‘At a first glance you would think that a brutal arrogant face, a sort of Prussian general, but when you look into it you see that it’s really sensitive, with an almost guilty look. I’m sure he’s the subject for a novel.’
‘I’ll leave it to you then,’ I said, ‘as you feel the inspiration.’
‘I’m not a writer.’
‘Everyone can write one book. At least, so they say.’
All this time Dudley, the labrador, had his nose pressed against the door into the passage, while he looked at me sideways with an affectation of pathos.
‘Let us get something to drink,’ I said, and opened the door. Dudley, waving his tail, trotted before us into the dining-room. It was as I had thought. There was half an inch of brandy left in the decanter, and the pineapple had been cut. Julian, though he stood with me at the sideboard, was not at all embarrassed, but he seemed satisfied when I offered him only lemon squash. I had had enough alcohol for that evening, and so, judging by the decanters, had he. We took our drinks and some biscuits and went into the little drawing-room.
‘This is a lovely room,’ said Julian, and my annoyance about the brandy evaporated, as I had painted the walls myself. They were pale grey, with ivory rococo panels. Compared with Julian’s own painting they were trivial, which made his praise more welcome. There was nothing here later than 1780, and in the soft light from the chandelier its beauty was a little deathly, the grey walls only relieved by the velvet and satin in bewigged portraits, and the rusty pink and pale gold of the aubusson carpet, on which Dudley now sat, dribbling horribly at the biscuits, but looking as if the whole room had been designed only as a setting for his golden coat. Julian pointed this out, and Dudley, at the mention of his name, put his wet chin on my knee. I lifted his brown plush ear and stroked it.
Julian looked about him, at the smug faces on the wall, whose blood was mingled in his own, at the stylised decorations, and he smiled faintly, a little amused, a little mystified at the almost surrealist incongruity of this room, set down in the midst of a derelict garden in the Australian bush. I began the restoration of Westhill with the inside of the house,so that I could continue operations from a base of comfort and order. Now at night, with the curtains drawn, we might have been in a room in an English manor house, or a French
gentilhommière
. Julian’s
‘One has to know somebody,’ I replied. ‘It’s no use sitting down in the Australian bush and waiting for a beautiful genius with perfect manners to come along. Anyhow the people I dined with tonight are quite nice. I’ve never known them be unkind to anyone, unless of course he had no money.’
Julian was not to be side-tracked. ‘It’s better to write a good book,’ he said, ‘than to know a lot of rich people.’
‘Of course it is,’ I agreed. ‘But it is not only a question of knowing rich people. One has other friends, people like Aunt Maysie, who may hold the old-fashioned views of their generation—one can’t expect them not to—but who are kind good honourable people. I don’t want to offend them. Suppose that I went to Aunt Maysie and said to her: I want to write a book about Grannie. If it is to be truthful, either literally or artistically, I may have to put in it things which you will think unpardonable. But please don’t mind. If we are to have any writing that is worthwhile we must ignore these objections. Surely it is better to be held up even to ridicule, and be crystallised eternally in a work of art, than just to keep your skeleton respectably in a cupboard? What would Aunt Maysie say?’
‘If she’s any sense, she’d say go ahead.’
‘And then supposing I sacrificed all my friends and the book didn’t turn out to be a work of art after all?’
‘You have to take risks,’ said Julian, and turned again to the portrait of my grandfather. ‘At a first glance you would think that a brutal arrogant face, a sort of Prussian general, but when you look into it you see that it’s really sensitive, with an almost guilty look. I’m sure he’s the subject for a novel.’
‘I’ll leave it to you then,’ I said, ‘as you feel the inspiration.’
‘I’m not a writer.’
‘Everyone can write one book. At least, so they say.’
All this time Dudley, the labrador, had his nose pressed against the door into the passage, while he looked at me sideways with an affectation of pathos.
‘Let us get something to drink,’ I said, and opened the door. Dudley, waving his tail, trotted before us into the dining-room. It was as I had thought. There was half an inch of brandy left in the decanter, and the pineapple had been cut. Julian, though he stood with me at the sideboard, was not at all embarrassed, but he seemed satisfied when I offered him only lemon squash. I had had enough alcohol for that evening, and so, judging by the decanters, had he. We took our drinks and some biscuits and went into the little drawing-room.
‘This is a lovely room,’ said Julian, and my annoyance about the brandy evaporated, as I had painted the walls myself. They were pale grey, with ivory rococo panels. Compared with Julian’s own painting they were trivial, which made his praise more welcome. There was nothing here later than 1780, and in the soft light from the chandelier its beauty was a little deathly, the grey walls only relieved by the velvet and satin in bewigged portraits, and the rusty pink and pale gold of the aubusson carpet, on which Dudley now sat, dribbling horribly at the biscuits, but looking as if the whole room had been designed only as a setting for his golden coat. Julian pointed this out, and Dudley, at the mention of his name, put his wet chin on my knee. I lifted his brown plush ear and stroked it.
Julian looked about him, at the smug faces on the wall, whose blood was mingled in his own, at the stylised decorations, and he smiled faintly, a little amused, a little mystified at the almost surrealist incongruity of this room, set down in the midst of a derelict garden in the Australian bush. I began the restoration of Westhill with the inside of the house,so that I could continue operations from a base of comfort and order. Now at night, with the curtains drawn, we might have been in a room in an English manor house, or a French
gentilhommière
. Julian’s
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