Page 59 FAMILY MATTERS. BRINGING UP CHILDREN

 

Evelyn Waugh. Winner Takes All

Evelyn Waugh is a famous British writer of the XX century [1903-1966]. He is the author of numerous novels ("Decline and Fall" (1928), "Black Mischief (1932), "A Handful of Dust" (1934), "Sword of Honour" (1965), "The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold" (1957) etc.), short stories, memoirs, critical essays.

The short story "Winner Takes All" reveals Waugh's double attitude towards British aristocracy: his belief in spiritual elitism and his mockery at some traditional canons. In the story under study Tom, the younger brother, is deprived of the rights to almost everything in favour of his elder brother Gervase, a first-born son in an aristocratic family.

Pre-reading tasks

I. Pronounce the proper names:

Evelyn Waugh, Mrs. Kent-Cumberland, Gervase Peregrine Mountjoy St.Eustace, Tomb Beacon, Norfolk, Mr. MacDougal, Gladys Cruttwell, Bessie.

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II. Match the words in column A with their definitions in column B:

A	B
1. estate	a. allow yourself to have or do something that you enjoy
2. deliver a baby	b. giving something to somebody very unwillingly
3. indulge	c. a house which has only one storey
4. grudgingly	d. slightly drank
5. tenantry	e. a thick, black, sticky substance that becomes hard when it is cold; it is used for making roads.
6. bungalow	f. help the woman who is giving birth to the baby
7. tipsy	g. a large area of land in the country which is owned by one person or organization
8. tar	h. people who pay rent for the place they live in or land or buildings that they use

III. While reading the text answer the following questions:

1. What desire was Tom consumed with as a child?

2. Who received the model motor-car? Why?

3. Who married the daughter of the territorial magnate?

What do you know about the rights of a first-born son from the history of Britain?

(Ex. XXX will help you.)

 

Winner Takes All

When Mrs. Kent-Cumberland's eldest son was born (in an expensive London nursing home) there was a bonfire on Tomb Beacon; it consumed three barrels of tar, an immense catafalque of timber, and, as things turned out – for the flames spread briskly in the dry gorse and loyal tenentry were too tipsy to extinguish them – the entire vegetation of Tomb Hill.

As soon as mother and child could be moved, they traveled in state to the country, where flags were hung out in the village street.

There were farmers' dinners both at Tomb and on the Kent-Cumberlands Norfolk estate, and funds for a silver-plated tray were ungrudgingly subscribed.

The christening was celebrated by a garden-party. A princess stood godmother by proxy, and the boy was called Gervase Peregrine Mountjoy St. Eustace – all of them names illustrious in the family's history.

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After the garden-party there were fireworks and after the fireworks a very hard week for the gardeners, cleaning up the mess. The life of the Kent-Cumberlands then resumed its normal tranquility until nearly two years later, when, much to her annoyance, Mrs. Kent-Cumberland discovered that she was to have another baby.

The second child was born in August in a shoddy modern house on the East Coast which had been taken for the summer so that Gervase might have the benefit of sea air. Mrs. Kent-Cumberland was attended by the local doctor, who antagonized her by his middle-class accent, and proved, when it came to the point, a great deal more deft than the London specialist.

Throughout the peevish months of waiting Mrs. Kent-Cumberland had fortified herself with the hope that she would have a daughter. It would be a softening influence for Gervase, who was growing up somewhat unresponsive, to have a pretty, gentle, sympathetic sister two years younger than himself. She would come out just when he was going up to Oxford and would save him from either of the dreadful extremes of evil company which threatened that stage of development – the bookworm and the hooligan. She would bring down delightful girls for Eights Week and Commem. Mrs. Kent-Cumberland had it all planned out. When she was delivered of another son she named him Thomas, and fretted through her convalescence with her mind on the coming hunting season.

The two brothers developed into sturdy, unremarkable little boys; there was little to choose between them except their two years difference in age. They were both sandy-haired, courageous, and well-mannered on occasions. Neither was sensitive, artistic or conscious of being misunderstood. Both accepted the fact of Gervase's importance just as they accepted his superiority of knowledge and physique. Mrs. Kent-Cumberland was a fair-minded woman, and in the event of the two being involved in mischief, it was Gervase, as the elder, who was the more severely punished. Tom found that his obscurity was on the whole advantageous; for it excused him from the countless minor performances of ceremony which fell on Gervase.

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At the age of seven Tom was consumed with desire for a model motor-car, an expensive toy of a size to sit in and pedal about the garden. He prayed for it steadfastly every evening and most mornings for several weeks. Christmas was approaching.

Gervase had a smart pony and was often taken hunting. Tom was alone most of the day and the motor-car occupied a great part of his thoughts. Finally he confided his ambition to an uncle. This uncle was not addicted to expensive present giving, least of all to children for he was a man of limited means and self-indulgent habits) but something in his nephew's intensity of feeling impressed him.

"Poor little beggar," he reflected, "his brother seems to get all the fun," and when he returned to London he ordered the motor-car to Tom. It arrived some days before Christmas and was put away upstairs with other presents. On Christmas Eve Mrs. Kent-Cumberland came to inspect them. "How very kind," she said, looking at each label in turn, "how very kind."

The motor-car was by far the largest exhibit. It was pillar-box red, complete with electric lights, a hooter and a spare wheel.

"Really," she said. "How very kind of Ted."

Then she looked at the label more closely. "But how foolish of him. He's put Tom's name on it."

"There was this book for Master Gervase," said the nurse, producing a volume labeled "Gervase with best wishes from Uncle Ted."

"Of course the parcels have been confused at the shop," said Mrs. Kent-Cumberland. "This can't have been meant for Tom. Why, it must have cost six or seven pounds."

She changed the labels and went downstairs to supervise the decorations of the Christmas tree, glad to have rectified an obvious" error of justice.

Next morning the presents were revealed. "Oh, Ger. You are lucky," said Tom, inspecting the motor-car. "May I ride in it?"

"Yes, only be careful. Nanny says it was awfully expensive."

Tom rode it twice round the room. "May I take it in the garden sometimes?"

"Yes. You can have it when I'm hunting."

Later in the week they wrote to thank their uncle for his presents.

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Gervase wrote:

Dear Uncle Ted,

Thank you for the lovely present. It's lovely. The pony is very well. I am going to hunt again before I go back to school.

Love from Gervase.

Dear Uncle Ted (wrote Tom),

Thank you ever so much for the lovely present. It is just what I wanted. Again thanking you very much. With love from Tom.

"So that's all the thanks I get. Ungrateful little beggar," said Uncle Ted, resolving to be more economical in future.

But when Gervase went back to school he said, "You can have the motor-car, Tom, to keep."

"What, for my own?"

"Yes. It's a kid's toy, anyway."

And by this act of generosity he increased Tom's respect and love for him a hundredfold.

* * *

(...) In June Tom and Gladys were engaged. Tom was exhilarated, sometimes almost dizzy at the experience, but he hesitated to tell his mother. "After all," he reflected, "it is not as though I were Gervase," but in his own heart he knew that there would be trouble.

"Of course," said Mrs. Kent-Cumberland, "the whole thing is quite impossible. Miss Whatever-her-name-was seemed a thoroughly nice girl, but you are not in a position to think of marriage. Besides", she added with absolute finality, "you must not forget that if anything were to happen to Gervase you would be his heir."

So Tom was removed from the motor business and an opening was found for him on a sheep farm in South Australia.

(...) With so much on her mind, it was inevitable that Mrs. Kent-Cumberland should think a great deal about Tomb and very little about South Australia, and should be rudely shocked to read in one of Tom's letters that he was proposing to return to England on a visit, with a fiancée and a future father-in-law; that in fact he had already started, was now on the sea and due to arrive in London in a fortnight.

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"Your brother is coming back."

"Oh, good! When?"

"He is bringing a farmer's daughter to whom he is engaged – and the farmer. They want to come here."

Three weeks later they arrived. Mr. MacDougal, the father, was a tall, lean man, with pince-nez and an interest in statistics. He was a territorial magnate to whom the Tomb estates appeared a cozy small­holding. He did not emphasize this in any boastful fashion, but in his statistical zeal gave Mrs. Kent-Cumberland some staggering figures. "Is Bessie your only child?" asked Mrs. Kent-Cumberland.

"My only child and heir," he replied, coming down to brass tacks at once. "I dare say you have been wondering what sort of settlement I shall be able to make on her. Now that, I regret to say, is a question I cannot answer accurately. We have good years, Mrs. Kent-Cumberland, and we have bad years. It all depends."

"But I dare say that even in bad years the income is quite considerable?"

"In a bad year," said Mr. MacDougal, "in a very bad year such as the present, the net profits, after all deductions have been made for running expenses, insurance, taxation, and deterioration, amount to something between" – Mrs. Kent-Cumberland listened breathlessly – "fifty and fifty-two thousand pounds. I know that is a very vague statement, but it is impossible to be more accurate until the last returns are in."

Bessie was bland and creamy. She admired everything. "It's so antique" she would remark with relish, whether the object of her attention was the Norman Church of Tomb, the Victorian panelling in the billiard-room, or the central-heating system which Gervase had recently installed. Mrs. Kent-Cumberland took a great liking to the girl.

"Thoroughly teachable," she pronounced. "But I wonder whether she is really suited to Tom ... I wonder ..."

Mrs. Kent-Cumberland was an active woman. It was less than ten days after the MacDougals visit that she returned triumphantly from a day in London. After dinner, when she sat alone with Tom in the small drawing-room, she said:

"You'll be very much surprised to hear who I saw to-day. Gladys."

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"Gladys?"

"Gladys Cruttwell."

"Good heavens. Where on earth did you meet her?"

"It was quite by chance," said his mother vaguely. "She is working there now."

"How was she?"

"Very pretty. Prettier, if anything ... I did not tell Gladys of your engagement. I thought you had the right to do that – as best you can, in your own way. But I did tell her you were back in England and that you wished to see her. She is coming here tomorrow for a night or two. She looked in need of a holiday, poor child."

* * *

When Tom went to meet Gladys at the station they stood for some minutes on the platform not certain of the other's identity. Then their tentative signs of recognition corresponded. Gladys had been engaged twice in the past two years, and was now walking out with a motor salesman. It had been a great surprise when Mrs. Kent-Cumberland sought her out and explained that Tom had returned to England. She had not forgotten him, for she was a loyal and good-hearted girl, but she was embarrassed and touched to learn that his devotion was unshaken.

They were married two weeks later and Mrs. Kent-Cumberland undertook the delicate mission of "explaining everything" to the MacDougals.

They went to Australia, where Mr. MacDougal very magnanimously gave them a post managing one of his more remote estates. He was satisfied with Tom's work. Gladys has a large sunny bungalow and a landscape of grazing-land and wire fences. She does not see very much company nor does she particularly like what she does see. The neighbouring ranchers find her very English and aloof.

Bessie and Gervase were married after six weeks engagement. They live at Tomb. Bessie has two children and Gervase has six race­horses. Mrs. Kent-Cumberland lives in the house with them. She and Bessie rarely disagree, and, when they do, it is Mrs. Kent-Cumberland who gets her way.