Read The Quest for Corvo: An Experiment in Biography (Valancourt eClassics) for Free Online Page B

be briefly told. While an undermaster at Grantham School he became a Roman Catholic and had to leave his mastership. This was in 1886. At times, as he himself put it, he ‘starved in London’, alternated with short periods of tutorship. At one time the Marquess of Bute, having founded a school for outcast boys at Oban, appointed Rolfe the master. There were two priest chaplains, and among the three matters did not move smoothly. In a month or two Rolfe was out again. After a while he decided to go in for the priesthood. The Bishop of Shrewsbury was induced to look into his case, with the result that in the end of 1887, as an ecclesiastical subject of the prelate, he went to Oscott (Roman Catholic) College, but in a few months was discharged.
    After more ‘starving in London’ he came across Mr Ogilvie-Forbes, of Boyndlie in Aberdeenshire, and stayed at Boyndlie for three or four months. Another temporary tutorship and then the late Archbishop Smith of Edinburgh, well known for his softness of heart in such cases, was induced to take him up, and sent him to the Scots College in Rome, to be trained for the priesthood. After five months he was expelled. It was owing to his lack of Vocation . . . [and] because – as is averred on authority which the Baron is not likely to challenge – he was regarded as a general nuisance in the place, to say the least of it. Even there he contracted large debts, which he said the Lord Archibald Douglas had agreed to pay, but which Lord Archibald would have nothing to do with. However, Mr Rolfe has always been characterized with a polished manner, backed up by such accomplishments as a little music, some capacity for art, and a considerable expertness as an amateur photographer. As a student he contrived to make himself very agreeable to a Roman Catholic old English lady with an Italian title, the Duchess Carolina Sforza, from whom he got considerable sums of money; and by her he was maintained for some time after his expulsion from the Scots College. However, that, like many another kindness to Mr Rolfe, came to an end. He returned to England towards the end of 1890, and, maintaining that he had been promised by the Duchess an income – which he variously stated as from £150 to £300 a year – for two years to enable him to prosecute his art studies, he went to Christchurch.
     
    There follows a further dig at the Gleeson White episode, with a conclusion that amplifies Mr Jackson’s recollection:
     
    The Duchess declined, however, to rise to the occasion in the matter of the promised income, though Rolfe continued for years to write to her begging her aid, until the letters were either not answered or were replied to by communications on which there was neither the prefix ‘Mr’ nor the affix ‘Esq.’, to say nothing of the lordly title of ‘Baron’, which he soon came to be constantly using. It may just be noted in passing that the title which the Baron selected is of the following signification – Latin, corvus; Italian, corvo; French, corbeau; Scotch, corbie; English, crow. [1]
     
    Even this well-informed critic was unaware, it appeared, of Rolfe’s ancestry. I found his story intensely interesting; not the less so because as I went on I found that this press attack had been very largely Mr Leslie’s authority on Corvo’s early years.
     
    And now we come to 1892, when this gentleman began to honour with his residence the Northern city of Aberdeen. Sold out at Christchurch, he did the ‘starving’ again for some months – or was charitably maintained by the Fathers of the Roman Catholic Church, Ely Place, London. About the middle of that year, however, and continuing to look about among well-to-do Roman Catholic families for aid, he was given the post of tutor to the young Laird of Seaton, at Seaton Old House, Aberdeen. For a brief space he lived in clover, driving out and in to the city, being able to invite his friends to lunch and so forth, all as becometh one