The King's Speech - Mark Logue [12]
Not surprisingly, they were soon missing little Laurie and justifying to themselves the decision to leave him behind. ‘I don’t let myself think too much of my little son or else I should weep,’ Myrtle wrote in one of her first letters to her mother. ‘He was so sweet as I left, “Don’t cry mummy” – “Don’t let him forget me mother dear” . . . The six months will soon pass and we will come back, with wonderful experience and a new outlook on life broadened wonderfully.’
The next leg of their journey across the Pacific proved more traumatic; Logue spent the first eight days of their voyage from Brisbane sick in his bunk and not touching any food at all. It was not just the waves: the drinking water they had taken on in Brisbane was bad and many of the passengers were sick. Logue was convinced he had lead poisoning. ‘He is the worst sailor possible, poor old dear – I don’t know what would happen to him if he were alone,’ wrote Myrtle. ‘He has fallen away to a shadow.’
Things looked up after they reached Vancouver and dry land on 7 February. From there they continued by train through Minneapolis and St Paul to Chicago, where they took a room in the YMCA overlooking Lake Michigan for five dollars a week. The city, wrote Myrtle, was ‘supposed to be one of the wickedest in the world’, but contrary to what they had expected, they loved it. They intended to stay only a week or two, but in the end remained for over a month.
Life in a big American city was a fascinating cultural experience. Myrtle was especially impressed by the drugstores, where you could buy anything from patent medicines to cigars, by the cafes and by the sheer number of automobiles. However, the lack of manners of the local women, who ‘stare, put their elbows on the table, butter their bread in the air with their elbows on the table, pick their chicken bones and use toothpicks at every conceivable opportunity’, was not appreciated.
The Logues were the toast of the town. Thanks to friends of friends, some of whom they had met on the ship, they were invited to dinners at smart homes and in fancy restaurants and managed to attend some prestigious functions. They also took in a number of plays and shows. Lionel was witty and good company; as Australians, he and Myrtle must also have been something of a novelty for the locals. It was not all play, though. By day they went to Northwestern University, where they attended classes and lectures given by Robert Cumnock, a professor of elocution who had founded the university’s School of Oratory, and whom Myrtle pronounced ‘simply charming’. Logue also gave recitations and talks to students about life in Australia.
Then it was on via Niagara Falls to New York City, which amazed them with its sheer size. ‘I got in an underground railway yesterday and rode nearly an hour, and when I got out, I was still in New York,’ Myrtle wrote in amazement.5 They were also struck by the sheer number of foreigners in the city, many of whom struggled to speak even the most basic English. Broadway, with its miles of ‘electric light advertising’, dazzled them with its brilliance, and Logue took his wife to her first grand opera. They climbed the Statue of Liberty and enjoyed the amusements of Coney Island. Here, too, the various introductions they had brought from home ensured they were quickly introduced into local society – and treated to some very expensive evenings out on the town. These provided a stark contrast to the harshness of New York life: ‘New York is indeed a city of atrocities and lawlessness,’ Myrtle wrote to her mother. ‘The papers read like Penny dreadfuls, we are never without a revolver, a beauty which Lionel