Fault in the Structure

CHAPTER 1

^ »

Hardened in error by pride of intellect

Osbert Swineborn proposed to Dora Ellen at the New Year’s Eve dance which his mother, who knew Dora Ellen to be the only child and heiress of a wealthy expatriate American, had given for that purpose.

‘Well,’ said the young lady, ‘well, all right, O.K. then, but a Condition goes with it and, until that condition has been fulfilled, I want no part in your future life and happiness.’

Osbert had no inkling of what was coming. However, grateful for his mother’s efforts on his behalf and mindful, as ever (for he was a dutiful son) of her wishes, he promised that he would do anything — positively anything — which would result in his winning Dora Ellen’s hand in marriage.

It was not that he loved the young woman. The ability to love was not one of his endowments. It was simply that he agreed with his mother, who had often, although without rancour, expressed the opinion that he was unlikely ever to make what she called ‘a decent living’ for himself and that therefore his aim should be to marry a wife whose dowry would result in his leading that life of ease and leisure for which both his mother and he were convinced he was best fitted.

‘So what do you want me to do?’ he asked his fiancée. ‘Just say the word and, if I can, I’ll do it.’

‘That’s binding on you, then. Look, honey, it’s this way. I am not going through the rest of my life calling myself Dora Ellen Swineborn. I’m kind of allergic to hogs.’

‘Oh, dear!’ said Osbert. ‘Is that really the case?’

‘Yes, sir, that’s really the case, so what’s wrong with planting that cute little letter e some place else and changing that little letter o into a little letter u?’

‘Such as how?’ asked Osbert, who was no dabbler in poetry, although he had heard of Shakespeare and had enjoyed Miss Joyce Grenfell’s rendering of an imaginary American mother attempting to introduce an imaginary American child to the glorious works of Percy Bysshe Shelley.

‘Such as spelling it Swinburne, of course,’ said Dora Ellen impatiently. So, by deed poll, accustomed from his earliest years to female domination, Osbert slightly but significantly changed his surname and Dora Ellen became Mrs Osbert Swinburne.

When, in due course, her son was born, the mother insisted that he be named Alfriston (after his place of birth) and Calliope, after the Muse of epic poetry. With a name like A. C. Swinburne, she contended, a poet of some kind he was surely destined to become.

‘Alfriston Calliope?’ said Osbert doubtfully. ‘A bit tough on the poor little so-and-so, isn’t it? Besides, I thought Calliope was a kind of steam-engine.’

‘Honey, don’t show your ignorance,’ said his wife.

‘Anyway the kid will only be called Alf if you stick to this Alfriston label, and I’ve always thought Alf was, well, you know, rather a common sort of name; the sort of name they give barrow boys and plumbers’ mates and the chaps who wear cloth caps and belong to Unions.’

‘Alf?’ said his wife distastefully. ‘There was Alfred the Great and Alfred, Lord Tennyson. I never heard either of them referred to as Alf.’

‘He might even be called Al, like Al Capone,’ said the father rebelliously.

‘Whatever he’s called, he will be able to sign himself A. C. Swinburne,’ retorted Dora. ‘I would have liked to name him Algernon Charles, but I guess it would hardly do to plagiarise that far. Anyway, so far as what he’s to be called is concerned, we must insist on Alfrist, nothing shorter.’

‘Alfrist?’ said Osbert. ‘Oh, yes, Alfrist would be all right, I suppose. Rather classy in a way. Alfrist C. Swinburne? Yes, your father might like that! It sounds quite American, I mean to say, doesn’t it? It may reconcile the old buster to our marriage, what?’

‘We never would have married if I hadn’t seen the possibilities of this A. C. Swinburne set-up,’ said Dora Ellen, at last uncovering what had always been a mystery to her spouse, for Osbert knew that, in spite of his mother’s favourable opinion of him, he was anything but an eligible parti. ‘Pop acted kind of tough when I broke the news,’ Dora Ellen went on, ‘and if I hadn’t of gotten this Swinburne idea I guess I would have listened to his arguments.’

‘But who was Swinburne?’ asked Osbert. He had wished to ask before, but had lacked the courage. His wife looked at him with pity and contempt.

‘All I can say, honey,’ she remarked, ‘is that I guess I’m aiming to see that Alfrist gets a better education than you appear to have gotten for yourself.’

‘I was too delicate to be sent to school,’ said Osbert. ‘I was educated at home.’

‘I wonder what that explains?’ said Dora Ellen, handing the baby to the nurse. ‘The first thing you do, honey, you put his name down for a dozen or two of these Eton and Harrow schools. That way we’ll be sure he gets in somewhere good when he’s old enough. A boy with the name of A. C. Swinburne has got to be going places.’

What would have happened to A. C. Swinburne had his mother lived became a matter for speculation, for she died when the child was thirteen and in his first term at his public school. After her death, Osbert discovered, to his dismay, that she had had but a life interest in her fortune and that her father, who had returned to America, had married for the second time and now had a son of his own. He had diverted his fortune to this child of his old age, leaving Alfrist with a small annuity payable when he attained his majority. Nothing whatever was willed to Osbert, who, for the first time in his life, was faced with the hideous prospect of having to earn a living for himself and his son.

The boy was taken away from his expensive public school and sent to a State school where he did well enough so far as work was concerned, but where he was never popular and soon became known as ‘teacher’s creep’.

That was by no means the worst of it. At his public school a waggish master had referred to him as Algernon Charles, to the mystification of the form. They were more familiar with Latin than with English verse. Questioned on the matter by his peers, Alfrist, who had no intention of disclosing the truly dreadful names bestowed on him by his American mother, had replied that he supposed the master had been trying to show what a funny swine he could be. As the master in question was known and despised for his untimely and unkind wit, this definition of his humour was accepted.

Unfortunately for Alfrist, his new comrades at the State school discovered, from the classroom anthology of English poetry which was supplied by a paternal government, exactly what the public school master had had in mind, although they knew nothing of the incident. Someone found that the book of poems included Swinburne’s Itylus, so the lad was set upon in the playground one dinner-time and, to joyous yells of ‘Swallow, my sister, O sister swallow’, a cake of soap from the washroom was forced chokingly into his mouth.

From that time on, Alfrist set himself two objectives: to change his name as soon as he could (but not, for he was an intelligent although hardly a likeable lad, until after he had made sure of the annuity he was to be given by his American grandfather) and to fit himself to take vengeance upon society. He reached neither of these goals while he was still at school, but kept them in the forefront of his mind against the time when he should attain his majority.

Having reached his sixteenth birthday and his O levels, he received, to his surprise and chagrin, the now very unwelcome news that his father proposed to take him away from school and put him to the task of beginning to make his own way in the world and pay for his keep.

‘But I can’t,’ he said blankly. ‘Not yet. I’ve got my A levels to do.’

‘I don’t earn enough to go on keeping both of us,’ said his father. This was at the end of the Easter term and for another three months Osbert allowed the subject to drop. He had no wish to try conclusions with his son too soon. The long summer holiday at the end of the following term would be a better time to elaborate his point of view, he thought.

He himself had tried one kind of unskilled employment after another, disliking each a little more than the last. He particularly objected to his present job although it brought in a little more money than any of the others he had tried. The work necessitated the wearing of overalls and sometimes breaking the nails of his so far fastidiously-kept hands. It also brought back unwelcome memories of his autocratic wife who, as time went on, had become more and more authoritative and exacting and (what in his opinion was worse) more and more inclined to hang on tightly to the purse-strings.

One of the economies on which she had insisted was that small adjustments, tunings and running repairs to the family car should be made cheaply at home instead of expensively at a garage. Osbert had attempted to rebel against this, but his bid for independence was soon quashed. In the course of the years, therefore, he had become a reasonably competent mechanic and when the time came for a show-down between himself and his son, he was in the employment of a garage proprietor who specialised in tarting up and reconditioning used cars and selling them at a reasonable profit.

One of the perquisites of this particular employment was that there were opportunities for the mechanic to go joy-riding in the repaired cars. When he did so he imagined himself to be the owner and the car a brand-new and expensive model. During the school holidays, he occasionally took Alfrist with him on these jaunts, but there was little fellow-feeling between them. Alfrist despised his father and when it became clear at the beginning of the summer vacation that, instead of joining the privileged Sixth Form to sit his A levels, he really was to be put out to work, he renewed his protests.

‘I want to go to University,’ he said. ‘You’ve only got to keep me another two years, father. I’ll get a student grant after that. Why can’t I stay on?’

‘Money. Do you realise what your clothes cost, let alone your food?’

‘Mr Churt says I’m a cert for my A levels. I got nine Os, father.’

‘Yes, I know you did and they ought to stand you in good stead. You could get a very decent job in a bank, I shouldn’t wonder. You wouldn’t want your poor old dad to go on keeping you for another five or six years, would you? Even with a grant you’d cost me a lot of money.’

‘I’m your son and I reckon it’s your job to see me through. Look, dad, I’m not a cretin. I get jolly good marks all the time at school. I’m worth being given my chance.’

‘If your mother had lived, everything would have been different, you see,’ said Osbert, with the resentment he always felt when he thought about his wife.

‘Well, she didn’t live, so now it’s up to you,’ said the youth realising, however, that he was fighting a losing battle.

‘I can’t manage it, son. My health isn’t good. Never has been. It’s time you took on some responsibility. What would you do if I pegged out as, with my heart condition and the sort of work I do, I easily might?’

This argument carried no weight with his unsentimental son, who treated it with the contempt he felt it deserved by saying:

‘Oh, if anything happened to you, I should go and live with my grandfather in America, I suppose.’

The school term ended in mid-July and, as had been the case for several years, Alfrist found himself at a loose end with six or seven weeks of summer holiday to get through as best he might. He had no friends with whom to spend his time. He was still only tolerated at school, not liked. There were no holiday outings for him, either, except an occasional drive with his father when Osbert was trying out one of the reconditioned cars.

He might have found himself temporary employment, as many of the other lads did, but he felt that this would be playing into his father’s hands. He also decided that the kind of job he could get was far beneath his notice, for, with his mother’s obstinacy and pertinacity, he had inherited her wealthy-woman’s snobbishness. In the hotels in a neighbouring seaside town there were vacancies for temporary waiters, kitchen hands and porters, but Alfrist did not think for a moment of applying for any of them.

The consequence was that he was restless and bored. He spent a certain amount of his time in the reading and reference rooms of the local public library, but also, less admirably, he became adept at shoplifting, first because he wanted sweets or fruit which he had no money to buy; then just for the thrill of seeing what he could get away with and still escape detection. Later, because he found that in the Saturday street-market it was possible to dispose of stolen goods without being asked too many questions about how he had come into possession of them, he became more daring, but knew he was living dangerously.

Sometimes he really did think of writing to his American grandfather; sometimes he thought of his father’s question: What would you do if I pegged out? Sometimes he thought of both at the same time. On the last Wednesday of the holiday, when they were out for one of their infrequent spins in a recently reconditioned car, he made his last appeal to Osbert.

‘You do mean to let me go back to school and take my A levels, don’t you, father?’

‘Sorry, old man. Shouldn’t really have let you idle away these last six weeks,’ said Osbert. ‘You might have been settled in a nice little billet by now. Pity it didn’t occur to me sooner. I’m so much accustomed to your long school holidays that I never thought of putting you to work. Well, you’ve had your fun, so the best thing now is for you to turn up at school the first day of term and ask your headmaster for a reference. That’s another thing I’ve only just remembered. We ought to have seen to it before you left.’

‘If I go back they’ll expect me to stay, so why jolly well can’t I?’ demanded the boy.

‘There’s no question of it, son. I’ve told you that I simply can’t afford to keep you on at school any longer. I’m surprised you don’t want to pull your weight to keep our home going. It’s not a very manly attitude, is it?’

‘I’d be able to pull a much heavier weight if I got my A levels and my degree,’ said Alfrist sullenly.

‘That’s enough! We’d better be getting back to the garage now,’ said Osbert. ‘I’ve got a customer coming to look over this car at six.’

‘When you’ve turned her, let me drive a little, Dad. You know I can handle a car,’ said Alfrist, changing his sullen tone to one of conciliation and pleading.

‘Public road. You’re under age,’ objected his father.

‘There’s never much traffic along here. Anyway, couldn’t we go back by way of the fenced lane? That’s always empty and there are never any police about.’

‘We can go that way if you like,’ said his father, relieved by the change of tone, ‘and, if there’s nobody about, I don’t see why you shouldn’t drive for a bit.’

The fenced lane was approached by a straight, unfenced road across a stretch of common, and the ‘fencing’ (so called) was a high stone wall bordering a large estate on the left-hand side of the road. At one time the road had been gated and the evidence for this remained in the form of two stone pillars between which the gate had been hung.

Alfrist took the driver’s seat after his father had made certain that the road was clear and they approached the stone pillars at a speed which Osbert, himself a cautious driver, thought was excessive, as, just beyond the pillars, the little road dipped sharply and bent away to the right.

The danger was upon them before either the driver or the passenger was aware of it. Up the rise came a car travelling fast in the opposite direction. Alfrist, racing towards the gap, pulled sharply over to avoid a collision, but misjudged the width of his vehicle and crashed it into the stone pillar at the left-hand side of the way. He himself escaped with shock, bruises and a severe shaking-up. Osbert, in the passenger seat, was killed.

After the inquest the wife of the garage proprietor took Alfrist back with her and gave him a cooked meal. She was a large-hearted Lancashire woman and had conferred with her husband over what was to happen to the boy. They offered him a job as petrol-pump attendant. He would live in, learn how to repair and refurbish used cars and eventually take on the work his father had done.

It was not a bad offer to a boy of whom they knew nothing except that he was the son of a shiftless and lazy sire who, like Tom Sawyer, could work when he had a mind to, but was precious seldom in this happy and useful state. However, they made the offer and were disconcerted and surprised when Alfrist thanked them and said loftily that he would think it over and let them know his decision.

When school re-opened after the end of the vacation he went along to see his careers master, only to find that he had never been taken off the school roll and had been assigned a place in the Lower Sixth form and was to begin studying for his A levels.

‘You said nothing last term about leaving, did you, Swinburne?’ the master enquired.

‘No, sir. I was hoping to persuade my father to let me stay on. I thought he would have written a letter if he really intended to take me away.’

‘He intended you to leave?’

‘He said so, sir. He wanted me to get a job — get something to allow me to earn, sir — but I don’t know what I could do. I came along to see whether you had anything to suggest, sir.’

‘It seems a pity not to stay on and take your A levels.’

‘I have to keep myself, sir. I haven’t any money.’

This was not quite true, His market dealings in stolen goods had left him with enough to pay the rent and keep him in food for a week or two.

‘No relatives who could help you?’

‘I’ve a grandfather in America, sir, but I’ve never met him.’

‘I think we must get in touch with him.’

Dora Ellen’s father was a man who had never approved of his daughter’s marriage, but he was not insensible of his obligations to her now completely orphaned son. He made a settlement on the boy to tide him over until he came into the annuity already promised to him when he came of age and felt that this provision relieved him from further responsibility.

Meanwhile, as these satisfactory arrangements were still being concluded, the chairman of the school governors had taken an interest in the (as he thought) unfortunate youth. He took him to live in his house until other provision could be made for him. Sir Anthony was neither a clever man nor an astute reader of character, but he was given to good works and trusted all men until he found them out, which he was both loth and slow to do.

His charitable activities brought him into contact with a great many people. He also possessed, together with a trusting nature, a considerable bump of curiosity and it seemed to him strange that his young ward should have no relatives living except for an American grandfather. He ferreted around and eventually dug out a distant cousin of the boy’s father, a man with whom Osbert had never had any contact. This man, high up in academic circles, was persuaded to regard himself as a long-lost uncle to Alfrist. He was a childless widower whose wife had died in a car accident, so he felt sympathy for the bereaved youth. Old Sir Anthony retained interest in him and the young man did both his guardians credit in some ways although, unfortunately, not in all. His distant relative, now styled his uncle, was a distinguished but not a wealthy man, so that, while in his care, Alfrist was suitably clad and fed, but was not provided (in his own opinion) with sufficient pocket-money for his adolescent needs, neither was he given the motor-cycle for which, in spite of the accident which had resulted in his father’s death, he yearned, nor the fashionable gear he wished to wear.

However, he obtained his A levels and the offer of a place at no fewer than three universities. His so-called uncle might have been prepared to take the boy into his own ancient and distinguished university, where he was Warden of one of the Colleges, but a couple of years of acquaintanceship with Alfrist had convinced him that neither his own interests nor those of the young man would best be served by this. Alfrist was impatient of control and readily agreed that it would be better for him to accept a place in another university rather than to be continually under the eye of his uncle, even though he did not express his opinion in exactly those words.

During his first year in College Alfrist contracted debts. In spite of his American annuity, his student grant and a small allowance from his uncle, he never had enough money for what he saw as his needs. His uncle settled the debts, but with such ill grace that Alfrist spent the long vacation with old Sir Anthony, who still looked upon him with an indulgent eye.

Judging that the time was ripe, Alfrist confided to the old man a desire to visit his American grandfather. Sir Anthony, always sentimentally inclined, advanced him the money for his fare and sent him off with his blessing. Alfrist went to Paris on the money, enjoyed himself in various slightly dubious ways and returned with a story that his American grandfather had refused to see him, but that the annuity would still be paid.

To strengthen his position with Sir Anthony, Alfrist spent the rest of the vacation tutoring a backward boy for Common Entrance. There was nothing wrong with his own brains and he proved a capable and conscientious mentor. This was not entirely to his credit for, as usual, keeping one eye upon the main chance, he thought that the boy might be useful to him in the future. He was the son of a wealthy industrialist and Alfrist decided that if university life did not suit him, there might be plums awaiting him in the industrial world if he played his cards wisely with regard to his tutoring of the rich man’s lad.

His immediate future, as he saw it, involved the obtaining of a respectable degree and then a university post. After that, Fate, which had been kind to him on the whole, would be certain, he thought, to put opportunities in his way. He had no intention of living on a lecturer’s salary for the rest of his life, but it would do to begin with while he looked around for better – i.e. more lucrative – employment.

After he left college Alfrist obtained a post at a northern university and soon found himself back in an atmosphere to which his schooldays had accustomed him. His fellow-lecturers either barely tolerated him or actually disliked him, for he proved to be arrogant, self-opinionated and conceited. However, so far as his uncle and old Sir Anthony knew, he kept out of trouble. At the age of twenty-six he published a novel which was kindly noticed but did not sell and, two years later, a collection of poems whose slightly erotic flavour brought him a certain amount of notoriety, if not exactly fame.

He had published his poems under the name of Theddeus E. Lawrence, hoping, by this means, to attract the American market, and it was as T. E. Lawrence that he decided in future to be known, thus accomplishing a schoolboy resolve. The hoodwinked old Sir Anthony was delighted with him and showed his good opinion by suggesting him as co-trustee with a nephew of his (Sir Anthony’s) own, for a minor who was to inherit a fortune; the same boy, in fact, as the one whom Alfrist had tutored and who had now entered his seventeenth year and had been left an orphan.

It seemed to Lawrence, né Swinburne, that the accident to his own father had been the most fortunate of occurrences. Death, he realised, was, among other things, a solver of problems. But for his father’s demise, and the manner of it, he would never have been taken up by Sir Anthony. He cultivated the old gentleman and had high hopes of becoming his heir.