CHAPTER 15  - 1901  - VISIT IN WORCESTER

Act V. (1900)

Scene: At the Horn and Trumpet Inn, a pub near Charles Walker's home in St. Margaret's, Bromyard Road, Worcester.

The men are sitting at the bar with pints of ale in front of them.

Lindsay: Well, we seem to have come full circle. Here we are again together finally and it isn't even a wedding or a  funeral. Cheers. (raising his glass)

Charles: Cheers. (raising his glass) But it isn’t We Three anymore. Charley isn’t here. How I miss him! If only we had known back at Anna Herrmann’s funeral that that was the last time we would see him alive, we would have appreciated him more.

Lindsay: I’m sorry I didn’t make it for his funeral. I never knew about it at the time. Was it a big one?

Charles: I wrote and told you, but the letter came back marked, “Not known at this address.”

Lindsay: I’ve moved around a bit. But anyway, did he have a big send off?

Charles: Nothing on the scale of Anna's. He moved to be near to his son, Charles, in London when he knew he had only a short time left, so he didn’t really have any friends in the area. His children came, of course, and a few relatives from up North. But it was certainly very different being in a strange place.

Lindsay: How are his children? What are they doing now?

Charles: They are seemingly happy. The girls are married and having children of their own, and the three sons all have successful careers as merchants or in the stock exchange. I understand his son, Edward, never did much with his art. But changing the subject, I was very sorry to hear about your brother Robert's death last year. Did you get back for the funeral?

Lindsay: No, it was very sudden. I was intending on a visit to them, but then Christmas last year he passed away quietly in his sleep. Mary said he had been ailing for some week, but no pain and they hadn't thought much of it. Such a shock to them all.

Charles: And how has your artistic son got on?

Lindsay: He really fell on his feet. In 1891 he was appointed  the director of the National Gallery of Victoria in Australia and head of the Art School. He arrived in Melbourne early in 1892. He in enjoying it, but he gets very frustrated with the lack of overall purchasing policy for the gallery. They accepted his first recommendations, but since then, he feels there are low aesthetic standards in Australia, generally. He is painting well too, and getting large amounts for his work now that he has been properly recognised.

Charles: So is that his future, in Australia?

Lindsay: Well, he is still an English artist. One of his most famous phrases is that there is no immorality in art other than faulty or bad technique - a belief that places him firmly in the context of aesthetic London in the 1880s and 1890s.

Charles: Does he have a teaching responsibility?

Lindsay: He continues to teach the Munich system, which was taught in Australia by his predecessor, of highly structured pictures, working outwards from a dark background to a middle ground and then setting silvery lights and reflected highlights at crucial points on the plastic objects carefully built up within the illusory space. Not all his students agree with his teaching,

Charles: What’s his own painting like?

Lindsay: It typifies his system and pays particular homage to Vermeer, Velasquez and Whistler. His preferred subjects are still nudes and still life but he has been doing quite a lot of portraits. Although his duties at the gallery leave him little time, he does exhibit at times with the Victorian Artists' Society and hold one-man exhibitions which are well received.

Charles: I remember him as a dark, thin and reticent, always faultlessly dressed, upright in carriage, straight-laced, eagle-eyed, with a somewhat cold and reserved manner.

Lindsay: I think if you knew him properly you would know that his coldness conceals a shy and sensitive nature.

Charles: I did buy a painting from him, you know, way back when he was beginning. Perhaps I should invest in another one now. What are they fetching these days?

Lindsay: He sold The Litany which shows three generations kneeling in prayer - each face tells a different story - for £110 in London just before he left. That’s probably ten times what you paid for your picture.

Charles: That's about right, but I won't try to sell it.

Lindsay: His own paintings are carefully planned and always well drawn. Reviews of his work say he is a conscientious and excellent artist.  I have a copy of another one of his works from the Graphic here. (shows the cover) His portraits include commissioned studies of prominent figures, pastoralists, academics, businessmen and politicians.

Charles: Very impressive. Is he married?

Lindsay: Yes, he married a lovely girl, Elsinore, in 1894 in Malvern. They have named their son, who was born in 1896, Basil. We do stick with the same names, generation after generation.

Charles: Malvern, that is near Worcester. Is she an English girl then?

Lindsay: There is also a Malvern in South Australia, south of Adelaide. Her father is the Melbourne Police Magistrate, Charles Shuter. Bernard met Elsinore (but we call her Elsie) when she was on a world tour, and it is my opinion that she is why he moved to Australia.

My other sons are married too. Basil was married in 1893 and he and his wife, Constance, are in Africa at the moment. I don't have much to do with them.

Hurley, my eldest, who is a broker, married in 1896 and lives with his wife, Leila, in Fulham. I will call in and see them before I go back in early September. I'm afraid he has fallen on difficult times and seems in a very low way. He has lost his job, and I'm afraid that his racing proclivities have been against him.

Leila is a brick, quite unlike my experience with Emily. Emily lives near them in two rooms in a rented house. Not exactly the life of leisure that I think she wanted and expected. She has much more patience with Hurley than she ever had with me. And, of course, she blames me, says it was me who influenced him in that direction.

Charles: So it really is all over between you two?

Lindsay: It has been for nearly 40 years. We really only had eight years of happiness. She couldn’t cope with my financial losses, and wasn’t prepared to spend “her” money bailing me out. She didn’t like the betting, and I didn’t want to stop.

Charles: And where are you now?

Lindsay: In one of the most beautiful cities in the world - Montreux. I am living in a hotel overlooking the one of the finest views possible. Just imagine - the large wall to wall windows overlook the magnificent Lake Geneva with the French Alps offering the perfect background drop. I moved to Montreux early in 1892. Alison, you remember my sister don’t you?

Charles: Yes, of course.

Lindsay: Well she lived In Clarins, a tiny village just to the south and that is why I went there. She died on the 16th of January, 1895, and was buried there. I visit her grave regularly and put flowers on it. Now I live at a pensione of the Hotel Suisse - I have a room on the third floor, as I said, with a wonderful view I look upon the Bay of Clarins. I’ve made friends with a wonderful family, the de Faletons family. Their daughter, Simone, seems almost to have adopted me as a surrogate father. I made many extended visits to their home, the Chateau de Faletans-sur Dole du Jura over the last few years. And I have a pretty active social life even when in Montreux.

Charles: Have you been back many times since you left?

Lindsay: At the end of 1895, and until April, 1896, I was in Liverpool, helping poor George Holt with his business, and getting his family sorted out before he died in late March.  I stayed at his house, and you probably remember Isabel Herrmann – we were at their wedding back in 78 - well, she was there, on her own with her two children. Her daughter Dolly who was seven at the time, was a great chum of mine. Anyway, I did what I could for poor George's family. I knew him from when he was a baby, and I was a young lad.

Charles: Did his family continue there after he died?

Lindsay: Yes, his sisters Ellen and Theodosia, both spinsters, have lived with him all his life, so they are continuing in the house. I am not sure where Isabel is now. I heard she had some sort of breakdown, and perhaps is in an assylum. I must find out when I go to Liverpool.

But the Hermanns are not all that friendly with me now. Although Mary Boxwell's son Harvey sent me a very nice letter just over a year ago. But his mother and sisters are of a very cold nature and I never hear from them. They, of course, took Emily's side when we parted.

Charles: I never did know Herbert Herrmann very well, but  I vaguely remember somebody mentioning that he was an artist now, living somewhere in the south. I am sorry to hear about Isabel. I wonder what has happened to her children.

Lindsay: Their son, Herbert, I believe is in London, working as a surveyor assistant. I have lost track of Dolly, but I understand she may have gone to some relatives in Devon or Somerset when her mother became so ill that she could no longer care for her.

Charles: So going back to what you were saying about George Holt's death, where did you go after that?

Lindsay: Anyway, after that big chunk of my life spent in Liverpool, I stopped for a few days with Hurley and his wife, Leila's, and then I went to Paris where my niece Emma lives. Her brother, also called Lawrence, like Robert's son, and his wife visited with me on his honeymoon. He married a Spaniard – Madelaine de Suares de Almeyda. And Robert's son, Arthur spent a few weeks with me too, in Montreux. He met a girl called Beatrice de Zouche and brought her back here to marry her.  I wonder how she is coping with living in Liverpool. She is a good twenty years younger than he.

Charles: Are you still involved in gambling?

Lindsay: Oh, I have the odd flutter. But you will be interested in hearing this. Bernard, when he started to get some serious money for his work, decided to have a house built in Melbourne, about four years ago it was, and he decided to call it Aigburth. He seems to have fond associations of his childhood days there. But I told him it was an unlucky choice, as that was where all my problems developed. It set such a cold through me that I nearly asked him to rename it as it was an ill-omened name for me when we lived there.

Charles: Don’t you miss England at all?

Lindsay: I miss family. I will probably come over occasionally to see Hurley and his family and I enjoy all the Holts' company, including my sister-in-law, Mary. I do have friends here, and I get invitations, so perhaps you will not have seen the last of me.

I have just come from friends in Gosport, Hampshire, with the Mumbys. And after being in Liverpool, I intend to visit with the Bushbys near Ullswater. They have a place called Dacre Lodge, not far from Penrith. And I may well go to Whitby as well. But tell me about yourself. Are you retired? What are your daughters doing now?

Charles: I retired this past autumn. We sold the shop and our house next door in the town and bought a much more modest one in the St. John’s area of Worcester. Mary is feeling her age rather, and I fear for her long term health. We still have two of our girls with us, Mary and Charlotte. Charlotte is like the son I would have liked to have had. She has discussions with me about politics and she enjoys writing and reading. I don’t know what I would have done without her.

Lindsay: What of your other daughters?

Charles: They chose to move away, and that was their choice. They can live with it. But they don’t need to think that they will inherit anything from me.

Lindsay: Are they married?

Charles: Not as far as I know. I don’t correspond with them. They chose to leave home, and they knew when they made that choice, they were giving up their family and all that went with it. I understand from Charlotte that Lucy is a teacher at a school in Kirby Lonsdale in the Lake District, and Lilian is a nurse in London.

Lindsay: So she keeps in touch with them?

Charles: Christmas letters and things like that - nothing more. They don’t come to visit and we don’t go to see them. They made their choice, and they will have to live with it.

Lindsay: Well, I think you should give your attitude a great deal of thought. My son is in Australia. Who knows when I will see him again - but I would not for the world cut off my contact with him. Who knows when it will be our time to join Charley in the next big adventure. And you don’t want their memories of you, once you are gone, to be of someone who wanted nothing to do with them.

Charles: Well, I hope this won’t be the last time that we see one another. Do keep in touch. (they stand up and shake hands.) I still have very fond memories of our childhood days, when We Three were discovering the world. Let’s hope that our children and grandchildren have the same joy in life as we did then. Good bye.

(Curtain down)

EPILOGUE:

The people and relationships mentioned in this play were all real. However, the story line is made up. The only thing that I know for sure was that the three men lived  in Liverpool previously to 1851, and were friends. And I know they corresponded frequently in 1851. Most of the dates for the events are approximate, and the only dates I know for certain are Robert Hall's wedding and Jakob Herrmann's death.

Potted history of the remaining years of the main characters:

Lindsay Hall: He died in 1911, spending his remaining years in Montreux, still friendly with Simone de Faletan. By 1905 his health was beginning to decline. Sometimes Simone finished his letters for him. He was still in Montreux when he died. I based my interpretation of Lindsay's character on the fragments of information that I have about him from Gwenyth Rankin and also from Charles Walker's Diary of 1851.

Emily Hall: She died in 1909, still living in the London area.

Bernard:Died in 1935, after a very long and successful career in Australia. His first wife died in childbirth, in 1902, and on 16 April 1912 at Malvern, South Australia, he married Harriet Grace Thomson, a 27-year-old nurse. In February, 1934, he went to London to take up the post of buyer of works of art for the gallery, but died on 14 February 1935, survived by his wife, two sons and a daughter.
George Silas: In 1905, he went to America with his family and became successful, although his father never mentioned him in his letters to Bernard. I don't know when he died. Gwenyth Rankin has a picture of Lindsay with one of his children.

Robert Cunningham Hall died in December, 1899. He and his wife Mary lived at Sunnyside, Toxteth Park. They had several children, Arthur, Marion, Lilian, Lawrence, William, Alison, Norman. It is Lawrence who features in literature about Liverpool and specifically about the Unitarian church. Robert's wife, Mary, apparently died of cancer around 1906.

Charles Walker: Died in 1907, his wife having died in 1902. Charlotte and Mary continued living together in Worcester, after their parents death. Their sister Lucy Marion came home from teaching in the Lake District before she died in Worcester in 1910. The other sister, Lucy, may have married.

Edward W Cox – appears to have died by 1901. His wife, Marianne, aged 71 was living at 7 Woodley Road, Higher Beppingham, Cheshire, (as they had both done in 1891) when he was listed as a Mediterranean and American merchant  and his son Herbert (born 1859) was (in 1901)a coal and general produce agent. His other children are Clement, born 1854, Beatrice, born 1856, Mildred, born 1862 and Maud, born 1870.

Verena Twycross: Died in 1908, continued living in Surrey after her husband died.

Mary Boxwell: Died in 1915, continued living in Liverpool.

Alphonse and Ada Herrmann – continued living in Liverpool. Both were Professors of music – although Ada's speciality was singing. He composed at least one song – called At Your Gate. Alphonse got married in 1898 to, Helen Carrington and they had at least two children, the first being Alphonse, born in 1899. Ada lived with them. Bernard visited with them in 1905.

Isabel Holt Herrmann – died in 1912. She had a daughter Lindsay writes about as Dolly. She then suffered a health problem (post-natal depression?) and became long-term inmate of an asylum. Bernard visited with her husband Herbert in 1905.