Geoffrey looked straight at Hubert and said, ‘Yes, I would.’
‘I think there’s something to be valued in these social contracts,’ said Anstace. ‘That’s what you’re talking about, isn’t it? It’s akin to noblesse oblige.’
‘Miss Catchpool, there is nothing of the noblesse about me. Please do not assume there is.’
‘You told me your uncle is an earl!’ said Hubert.
‘On my mother’s side. I repudiate all connections.’
‘You’d approve of that, wouldn’t you, Anstace? Anstace’s family are Quakers and have no time at all for titles,’ explained Delia.
‘Is that so?’ Geoffrey gave Anstace more attention than he had hitherto. He had liked the confident way she had introduced herself even if she lacked Delia’s more striking looks. ‘I have sometimes thought I’d be quite at home with the Quakers. You have a Society of Friends, do you not? That’s appealing. I rate friendship very highly. Hubert will tell you.’
Geoffrey led them to a stable-block on the other side of the cobbled yard, which had been cleaned and scrubbed and kitted out with occasional tables and easy chairs. A few, albeit threadbare, rugs had been laid instead of straw in deference to gentility. Here, the Cordingleys and their particular guests gathered when not involved in the entertainment. Geoffrey made sure that the two women were settled and conversing easily with Gertrude Jenkins and some other friends, including local people whom he imagined Delia’s parents might know socially. He then contrived to manoeuvre Hubert into a quieter space.
‘There. Your sister and her friend are settled. Are we at peace? I behaved badly.’
‘We were never at war. How could we have been?’
‘Some men would not take to being kissed.’
‘It was a novel experience.’
‘Is that all?’
Hubert knew that a great deal would hang upon his answer. It would not just be his words; the tone he used must be properly judged. He waited for his essential honesty to assert itself.
‘No … there was affection and attraction … but I do not know that I would repeat it.’
‘I see.’ Geoffrey kept his voice deliberately light. He turned his gaze away from Hubert’s face, but nothing beyond the tight space they occupied could possibly interest him.
It was a moment which called for absolute clarity and Hubert knew it.
‘I’m sorry, Geoffrey.’
‘Sorry?’
‘If I have led you … if I have provoked … encouraged you … caused you pain…’
‘Pain.’ Geoffrey picked at the word while Hubert tried to sort out what he knew had to be said.
‘… if there is an imbalance—between what you feel for me and my feelings for you—that might cause you pain.’
‘And your feelings are what, precisely?’
Hubert stepped closer to Geoffrey and picked up his right hand, holding it between his own. His voice shook a little with the intensity of what he was grappling with.
‘Unique. New. Untested. I don’t know, Geoffrey. I don’t know. But I think, perhaps, you have been down this path before. I have not. All I know, at the moment, is whatever my feelings are and however they settle, they cannot be forced, constrained, compelled. I say that because…’ He paused, wrestling with perceptions that were still just dim shapes. ‘Because I feel your pressure.’
Geoffrey placed his left hand over Hubert’s. If this was to be the limit of their physical bonding, it needed to be weighty. His voice wavered too.
‘You are too beautiful to waste.’
‘Well, if that’s all…’ Hubert tried to move them forward with a light note of amusement but Geoffrey could not let their exchange end quite there.
‘It may be everything.’ He looked into Hubert’s face but turned away from its loveliness.
They dropped hands. There was a pause as they shrugged themselves into their ordinary skins. Somewhere behind them, another pocket of hilarity exploded. Fuelled by the freely flowing beer, earthy guffaws and shrill peels of merriment became ever more unconstrained.
‘Come on,’ said Geoffrey, ‘we have left your sister and Miss Catchpool too long in the stables. They seem delightful girls.’ He shot Hubert a level glance.
‘Delia has always been a good sort, ever loyal and an ally to help combat the parents when they are being particularly awkward. Anstace Catchpool I barely know. She seems older than Delia but I dare say that is because she is on her best behaviour. I like her. She’s an orphan, you know, and has lived with different relations at different times. They’re more from your drawer than mine, I gather. She’s seen a bit of the world too — more than Delia or I, tucked away in this corner of Kent.’ He paused and then added, ‘I think you could like both of them.’
‘I shall, for you.’
They rejoined Delia and Anstace and Geoffrey made himself as agreeable as he had ever been.
Hubert marveled at the strangeness of what had passed between them. He felt himself poised on the edge of a vast plain. Behind him lay the comfortable emotions and experiences of his youth and early manhood. Before him, stretched unexplored regions like those blank spaces in nineteenth-century atlases of central Africa. The word which came unbidden to describe how he felt was ‘privileged’. It was a privilege to be offered such a richly complicated adventure. These affections were precious; more than that, they were sacred, in stark contrast, to the simple, animal revelry that surrounded them.
That night, as Delia and Anstace lay side by side in the bed they had to share in the schoolhouse, the word Delia chose to describe Geoffrey was ‘agreeable’.
‘Is that all?’ replied Anstace. ‘What a funny thing to say! Once he’d sorted out whatever he and Hubert had to say, you and he were flirting delightfully!’
‘I was not! How could I? He’s Mr. Cordingley.’
‘He may be Lord of the Manor, or however you want to elevate him, but you and he have more in common than you might think. Don’t forget that you’ve been nursed in the same corner of Kent, under the same sky with the same weather patterns. You’ve breathed in the same air each day.’
‘That means nothing at all. The same can be said for every labourer’s son between Faversham and Canterbury and I certainly don’t find them all agreeable. Attraction cannot be merely geographical. And anyway, I imagine Mr. Cordingley was sent away to school for most of the time I was growing up here.’
‘Perhaps, but I expect Geoffrey Cordingley and Hubert are friends because they have discovered a lot in common, coming from the same village. They’re much the same age. As boys, foul days of wintry rain will have kept them indoors at the same time and the same fresh, summer breezes will have sent them running outside where they’ll have heard the same cuckoo on the same May morning.’
‘You’re getting quite lyrical, Anstace. You’re sounding like one of those Romantic poets which makes Miss P go pink. I don’t think you’re right. You don’t really understand country society. Even neighbours can move in completely different spheres. Until Cambridge threw them together, Hubert knew next to nothing about Geoffrey Cordingley and I don’t imagine the Cordingleys even knew the Simmondses existed.’
‘Well Geoffrey seems happy to move in the same circles now. And I think you’re more than a little flattered by his attention.’
‘Beast.’ Delia poked Anstace in the side but did not refute the idea. ‘Maybe just a little bit. But he’s not obliged to be attentive, is he?’
‘No. As you say, he’s an agreeable young man.’
Talk faded and they settled into sleep. As Anstace drifted, she was just left with the thought that Geoffrey Cordingley may have been trying too hard to be engaging. She was not sufficiently convinced that any allure she and Delia might have was that compelling.
Thursday, 24 September 1914
They passed the summer uneventfully in Kent. Lady Margery was travelling in the South of France and Geoffrey, freed from his mother’s directives, assumed a role to which he was surprising
ly well-suited considering his declared, temperamental aversion to anything seigneurial. He conceived outings to occupy their days or contrived activities about the Big House by way of entertainment. The fact that he had a motor car at his disposal was thrilling.
Anstace continued to lodge with her aunts in Canterbury but she spent the occasional day, staying over at the schoolhouse. It was understood that, at some point, she would relocate to her other relations in East Anglia, as was her annual routine, but precisely when she would do so remained undecided. Delia’s plans too remained unshaped. There was an expectation that she would eventually progress to St. Mary’s college in Cheltenham and train to be a teacher like her mother but it appeared that Mr. Simmonds was more inclined to have her work as an unlicensed teacher at the village school for a year or so beforehand. This sense of uncertainty, of time held in suspension before things changed irrevocably, gave the summer an added frisson.
At first, the assassination of the Archduke in Sarajevo barely intruded on their consciousness but then, as German and Russian posturing gathered pace and his mother began cabling news of France’s voluble anti-Prussian stance, if Germany threatened her alliance with Russia, Geoffrey began to feel anxious on his mother’s behalf. Even so, war by no means seemed inevitable. As Lady Margery replied, when Geoffrey cabled her suggesting she come home sooner than she had planned, ‘What is Serbia to England?’
But then, Europe suddenly crumbled. Belgium was violated and Britain declared war against Germany. A reckless belligerence exploded into life and, in its glare, anything of any subtle hue was drained of colour. Even Hubert’s brilliance seemed bleached by the magnesium-white call to arms. Geoffrey watched with alarm as Hubert, strangely disturbed, seemed impelled to respond to it. Confident of his own immutable affection, Geoffrey had been prepared to wait patiently for his friend to return it. Now he began to doubt the likelihood of that outcome.
What is now so important? Belgium? The Empire? Simple adventure? If he goes off to war, fumed Geoffrey melodramatically, I shall be like a sailor out at sea, navigating his way around uncharted rocks, amid treacherous currents, when thick fogs have descended and obscured not just the stars but also the beam from the lighthouse.
Hubert had gone up to Cambridge before term started. Geoffrey, who had graduated the previous year, went too and took a room at Arundel House. The concentration of men descending on the colleges did nothing to lower the temperature. Anstace was now staying with her aunt in Saffron Walden; there was no great distance between the market town and the university city. Geoffrey felt their familiarity over the summer gave him sufficient licence to suggest that she invite Delia to stay at Saffrom Walden for a day or two in the hope that the girls’ company might provide some distraction for Hubert. Once the term had started surely his studies would then serve the same purpose. He thought that, if they could get through these first hysterical weeks, all might yet be well.
The four of them were strolling through the centre of Cambridge one morning when they heard some cheering. One or two lusty voices seemed to be rallying a larger number but the sound failed to swell to anything more than a rumble on the air above the sound of the traffic. It was not immediately clear what was afoot until thirty or more ill-assorted men rounded the corner, marching in an unregulated fashion behind a uniformed bull of a man. To the rear, visible above the heads of the men, rode an officer. His horse was cavorting nervously, from side to side, as if it were more at home on the flat at Newmarket than the streets of Cambridge. Skipping alongside this company were their enthusiastic supporters, mainly young boys, probably too young to enlist themselves. A few women half-ran with the volunteers. One, Delia noticed, was ugly with tears as she struggled to match the pace of a cherubic-faced young clerk who was swinging along with enough pride to burst the buttons from his jacket.
‘My God, there’s no getting away from this infernal patriotism,’ said Geoffrey. ‘It’s an infection.’
‘It’s a liberation,’ replied Hubert.
‘From what, for God’s sake?’
‘The humdrum. The predictable. They are men making choices. Such opportunities are rare.’
‘Look at that one. He’s not a man; he’s a boy at play. That’s the damned trouble. It’s all being offered up as a great game.’
‘You’re wrong, Geoffrey. Or if it is, that’s because for many that’s how one pursues excitement. I see it differently. The war lifts. It translates. Suddenly one can live on a different plane.’
‘You don’t need a war to do that,’ said Geoffrey quietly.
‘Maybe not, but it helps.’
Geoffrey stopped walking. ‘It does not help me,’ he said.
Hubert was a few paces ahead of him. Geoffrey was acutely aware of his friend’s neat build. He saw how the cloth of his jacket was stretched across his back. He noted the way he filled out the shoulders of the garment in contrast, he knew, to his own lean, ungainly shape. He wanted to spin Hubert by those shoulders and then enfold him in the strength of his own affection so that he would cease to feel the pull from any other dimension. It was impossible. He glared at the recruits as they marched past, struggling to check the feelings of resentment and despair welling up in him. Delia was at his side. The four of them had talked enough for her to know how abhorrent Geoffrey found all the pomp and bustle of the national war-fever.
‘We could turn down here,’ she suggested, ‘away from the noise.’ She stepped forward to pull at Hubert’s sleeve, but suddenly, Geoffrey pushed past her.
‘That’s Coxeter from Queen’s!’ he shouted, recognizing one of the marchers. ‘He’s dressed for dinner and still looks half-cut. What does the fool think he’s doing? Coxeter! Don’t be an idiot! Over here, man!’ He started waving vigorously.
‘And isn’t that Mr. Petrie?’ said Delia, identifying the only other man in white-tie and tails.
‘It is!’ said Geoffrey. ‘Hey! Petrie, where do you think you’re going?’
Petrie waved and promptly fell out of step though he did not slacken his pace.
‘I shall be in Berlin for Christmas!’ he called, and raised a cheer from the onlookers.
For a moment, Geoffrey stood aghast as the men passed them but then the jostling of the spectators broke his trance. Quite a little crowd had now been picked up by the current as the recruits marched along the broader thoroughfare. Hubert and the two women turned with it but held their ground, waiting for the rush to pass. Geoffrey, however, ran back into the thick of things, trying to catch up with Petrie. Impelled to rescue his friend from the madness he had fallen into, Geoffrey could only reach him by being drawn himself into the band of marching men. They gave him their own impetus and, for fifty yards or so, it was as if Geoffrey had joined their ranks, a loose soul suddenly converted. But then it was clear he was moving in the opposite direction, against the flow, in a bid to confront the officer on horseback, at the rear of the column.
The horse started high-stepping nervously, throwing its head back from side to side, despite the officer’s best efforts to control his mount. Its mouth began to froth on the bit. The crowd fell back in some alarm and then, with all the disturbance, the volunteers lost their newly acquired discipline; they too broke step and turned to see what was going on behind them. Things looked ugly. There were angry voices now and the officer’s arm was raised above his head, holding his crop aggressively. He brought it down smartly and, from where Delia, Anstace and Hubert were standing, it looked as if someone had fallen beneath it. The crowd orbited around the mounted officer. Geoffrey’s fair head was no longer visible above the knot of people. Hubert ran forward, pushing himself into the throng. At the same time, the burly sergeant, who had been leading the column, was starting to impose some discipline. The king’s shilling was scarcely warm in their palms but the recruits responded instinctively to orders and re-formed themselves into lines.
Geoffrey had been struck hard on the shoulder by the mounted officer but had only stumbled under the blow. Hubert reach
ed him and pulled him to his feet.
‘For God’s sake, man!’ he shouted at the rider. The officer bellowed back, unclear as to whether this new man on the scene was reprimanding him or the fellow he had just struck with his crop.
‘I’ll have you both court-martialled!’
‘Leave this to me, officer.’ Hubert was assertive and clear. ‘It’s all a misunderstanding. Just get your damned horse under control and I’ll manage my friend. His uncle’s an earl so you don’t want any fuss. Take your new recruits off to wherever you’re going.’
Hubert began to back away with his arm around Geoffrey’s shoulders. The crowd was parting to let them through, but not without some jeering and jostling. By now, Delia and Anstace had caught up with their companions and their female presence helped dilute the tension. The officer threw out a few threats about disrupting the King’s business but, for all his bluster, he could not have been much older than Hubert. He probably had had no more acquaintance with war than five years in a public school’s cadet corps and the experience of riding with the local hunt. The confidence Hubert had assumed seemed a match for his raw authority.
The non-commissioned officer had kept the band of recruits in some sort of order and soon had them back in line and marching on. A few stragglers from the crowd hung back, glaring resentfully at the tall, wild-haired young man who had confronted the volunteers. A few fired off some choice obscenities. Hubert out-stared them disdainfully but it was clear that no one was in any mood to turn the situation ugly.
Geoffrey shrugged off Hubert’s hold.
‘Come on, Geoffrey,’ said Hubert. ‘Don’t pull away from me. There’s nothing to be done. How’s your shoulder? Did he strike you?’
‘Yes, he struck me. He struck me down. They’re fools the lot of them. And I resent being made to look a fool for trying to make them see sense.’
‘You couldn’t have done anything.’
‘Couldn’t I? Couldn’t I? Is that it then? Are we to just fall in with this lunacy?’
‘It’s not lunacy. We’re at war.’
That They Might Lovely Be Page 18