When
Lawrence encountered Scott in Sydney in May 1922, he apparently
had no known female companion who might have inspired
Lawrence's portrait of the flirtatious, newly-married
Vikki. (She was certainly not Scott's second wife, who
was his most likely female companion in mid-1922, and
whom he did not marry for several more years.)
In the text, Victoria tells Somers about herself, as she
waits for her husband to return from work on his motor-cycle.
Somers inquires about her background:
"Was
your home in Sydney?"
"No, on the South Coast - dairy-farming. No,
my father was a surveyor, so was his father before
him. Both in New South Wales. Then he gave it up and
started this farm down south."
|
She goes on
to tell Somers that she is the eldest of a large family
whose mother came from Somerset. She has been married
for less than a year.
For us, "down south" had pointed to Thirroul,
south of Sydney, and this was where our search for the
"real" Victoria Callcott had previously been
focussed.
However,
in Perth, when Sandra interviewed the son of the "intellectual
lady" who was placed next to the Lawrences in the
dining-room at "Leithdale", he revealed that
the biographical detail Lawrence had attached to Victoria
Callcott was actually derived from Western Australia and
his mother, Maudie Cohen, nee Brazier.
When Lawrence encountered her, no doubt waiting on the
veranda of "Leithdale" for the return of her
husband Eustace from his architect's office in Perth,
she was "recently married" and the eldest of
a family whose mother had indeed come from Somerset. Her
father had been a surveyor from New South Wales who had
moved to Western Australia and bought a farm south of
Perth (and who was portrayed by Lawrence as "Victoria"
Callcott because her father did not like his home State
of NSW).
Yet there were other aspects of Lawrence's fictional Vikki
that did not fit Maudie Cohen - in particular her family
relationships and activities when the setting of the novel
moved from Sydney to Thirroul (where, for example, she
had a family home a four-mile buggy-ride from "Wyewurk",
a shy 17-year-old brother, and a father who was a keen
fisherman).
The "Sydney" Victoria appeared to be a different
person to the "Thirroul" Victoria.
It
was not long before the reason for this became apparent.
