The Children's Book - A. S. Byatt [17]
He had made friends with a young Cambridge man, Toby Youlgreave, who was writing a dissertation on Ovid, in the hope of a Fellowship at Peterhouse, and lecturing to the East End audiences on English Fairy Mythology, his real passion. Toby’s Christianity was fraying, but he believed there were more things in heaven and earth than most people dreamed, and told Humphry, seriously, over a beer, that he had seen uncanny creatures, not only in woods near Cambridge, but passing between market stalls, or peering out of windows, in the Mile End Road. Our world was interpenetrated, he said. We had known it in the past. We have lost the knowledge. He was a large-shouldered man, of middle height, with impressive buttocks and calves, and a thick head of lion-coloured curls. His eyes were as blue as the Pied Piper’s, candle-flames where salt is sprinkled. His lectures were popular, for various reasons. Craftsmen came for ideas for brooches and carvings of English little people or haunting spirits. The religious dissatisfied came in search of the spilt spiritual content of their lives. Mothers came for tales to tell children, and teachers for information. And then people came because word went round that you could never quite tell what Mr. Youlgreave would say, or what he would claim to know.
It was some time before the two friends realised that the Misses Grimwith were sitting in the front row of both the lectures on Literature and those on Fairy Mythology. They also realised that both were smitten by the elder Miss Grimwith.
Toby said to Humphry “It’s you she prefers. You have gravitas. You impress her. I’m a buffoon.”
Humphry didn’t disagree: it was what he thought himself. He said “We could put on the Dream and she could be Titania. I’m sure she could do it. We could combine our classes.”
Naturally, Humphry directed. In the end, he couldn’t bear the idea of anyone else playing Oberon. He offered Toby Puck, but Toby said he had always wanted to play Bottom, and that way he would at least lie in Miss Grimwith’s arms. They borrowed a Church Hall in Whitechapel, and auditioned Miss Grimwith, whose rich, light voice rang out, perfectly. Miss Violet Grimwith, offered Hermia, or Hippolyta, said she had no ambition to act but would make the costumes, as she was a dressmaker. They found a wiry cockney barrow-boy, who was a perfect Puck, and a tall blonde lady librarian for Helena. The Athenians were a pleasant mix of visiting gentlemen and indigenous workers. The costumes were generally judged to be aesthetically brilliant. Olive Grimwith was dressed in floating moonsilver with peacock feathers, silken flowers and naked feet. Humphry wanted to get to his knees and kiss the feet. He tormented himself with detailed thoughts of other things he wanted to do. At the end of the fairy dance at the end of the play, he whirled her into the wings, and took her into his arms.
They were married in the Whitechapel Register Office in 1880. Violet came, and Toby Youlgreave, and witnessed the marriage.
Humphry did not immediately tell his family that he was a married man. He was living on an allowance from his father in Yorkshire, who believed that Humphry was preparing for a university teaching career, and did not mind—indeed approved—his charitable enthusiasms. A son, Peter, was born two months after the wedding. Some months later, Humphry took his bride and his baby, and introduced them to his brother. Katharina Wellwood was by then herself expecting a child (Charles, born later in 1881). The baby Peter was irresistible, at the confident, smiling stage. Olive was elegant and ladylike. Basil lectured Humphry on improvidence, and on responsibility, and found him a regular job, as a clerk in the Bank of England. It was not what Humphry would have desired, but it was a steady, if modest, income. Humphry, Olive, Violet and Peter moved into a little house in Bethnal Green. Humphry turned his sharp mind to banking. He needled Basil by joining the arcane bimetallism dispute siding with those who proposed a double monetary standard. Silver and gold,