The Mad Boy, Lord Berners, My Grandmother, and Me by Sofka Zinovieff Page B

Rome – perfect for Gerald’s love of playfulness. A somewhat provocative part of the puppet ballet was the ‘Trois petites marches funèbres’, consisting of three marches for a statesman, a canary, and an aunt leaving an inheritance. The humorous, even subversive approach to death was daring. This was an era when lengthy mourning periods and swathes of black crepe were still the rule, and though the canary’s march is genuinely sorrowful, the other two are obstinately cheerful. But Gerald had long seen the potential in gallows humour. As a child, he was said to have written a funeral dirge for his mother, who had been amused enough to ask him to perform it as a party piece.55 Mixing the pathos of the small bird’s demise with the pomp of the politician’s was typical of Gerald’s naughty wit, and while the statesman could be seen as representing his father’s formality and officialdom, the canary reflects both his and his mother’s love of birds.56 Although Gerald was not sure of his own future inheritance, it was a theme that had obvious humorous potential. Below the title of ‘Pour une tante à héritage’ (before music marked ‘allegro giocoso’) is the French tag, ‘At last we can go and buy a car.’
    It was not long before Gerald had his own windfall. In fact, it was the death of his unmarried paternal uncle, not an aunt, and there was a title as well as property and money. He liked to spin his own fanciful tales concerning his inheritance: a collection of uncles had all fallen off a bridge after a funeral, he wrote. But it was not actually such a surprise. Nevertheless, his letters suggest that he was unclear as to what his legacy would finally entail, and that he even wondered whether his uncle might have a hidden child or wife somewhere who would take precedence. Soon, however, Gerald was swanning around Rome in a large chauffeur-driven car. In 1918, just as the First World War was coming to an end, he became 14th Baron Berners, 5th Baronet. A year later, his surname was changed to Tyrwhitt-Wilson.
    Gerald wrote to tell Stravinsky his news: ‘Did you know that I had changed my name and am no longer Tyrwhitt? My aunt – or rather my uncle – à héritage died. Unfortunately I inherit only the title, with a lot of taxes to be paid. I would so much like to see you. I beg you to write me a little note and tell me what you are doing just now.’ Gerald continued to compose music, pursue his painting and travel widely. Although his priorities did not change with his rise in social status, his circumstances did. He turned out to be much richer than he had first imagined – he sold houses, land and silver – and this eased Gerald’s progress as an aesthete and allowed him to augment the degree of luxury and playful indulgence that already suited him so well and for which he became known. He gave up diplomacy (though remained technically attached to the embassy in Rome), and bought Faringdon House for his mother and stepfather, establishing two years later the Berners Estates Company to manage the property. He was delighted to notice how charming the Berners arms were. ‘A Greyhound and an Eagle, symbolical of the two most admirable qualities – swiftness and clarity of vision.’ Although Gerald was rather dismissive of his forebears for being dull, provincial types, he counted among them John Bourchier, the second baron and illustrious translator, whom Henry VIII appointed as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and as his diplomatic advisor at the Field of the Cloth of Gold.
    Along with the new car, Gerald had hired a tall, handsome chauffeur, William Crack, who had ‘gold hair and violet-coloured eyes’ and wore a black suit and a cap with a shiny peak.57 Universally liked for his quiet good manners, he later recalled leisurely drives across Europe with his employer. Mussolini was organising his first Fascist marches; Crack recalled that the blackshirts ‘would pull you up in the street if you didn’t