And Is There Honey Still For Tea?

by Peter Murphy

  The admonition to keep the Society’s affairs secret, on the other hand, was far more dramatic and really quite disturbing. This consisted of a terrible oath binding me to pray for the eternal damnation of my own soul if I should as much as breathe a word to the unapostolic – anyone outside the Society – about its proceedings. Guy seemed to find this just as amusing as the Curse of Roby, but I must confess that I found it intimidating. I mentioned it quietly to Anthony as he was introducing me to the pleasure of whales later in the evening. He smiled.

  ‘Yes, it all sounds rather formidable, and terrifying, doesn’t it?’ he said. ‘But at the same time, it’s all rather silly. You know, the Society rejected the idea of eternal damnation some time in the nineteenth century, so I’ve never quite understood why they ask us to pray for something we are not supposed to believe in. It’s about time someone devised a more secular curse of some kind. Perhaps it’s a contribution you might make?’

  He took me aside.

  ‘The real point, James, is the importance of personal loyalty to your Brethren,’ he said. ‘There is no threat of eternal damnation, but it is what is expected of you. It is a question of the values we have, the principles by which we live our lives. It is no more, but no less, than that. We expect your loyalty – for a lifetime.’

  That night, when I returned to my room, I picked up my pen and tried to compose a letter to Roger. He was now travelling in South America for his sabbatical year. I missed him a great deal. He had written to me several times, but for me, keeping up any regular correspondence was difficult, as he changed his address with some frequency and I was never sure that my letters would be delivered. In any case, the words for the letter I had intended to write that night would not come. I suppose I was anxious about his reaction to my becoming an Apostle. I desperately wanted to avoid anything which might incur his displeasure or ridicule. I decided to wait and to tell him about my election in person when he was back in England.

  I never tried my hand at writing the secular curse.

  23

  At the end of my second year, Downing College held a May Ball. Several colleges held balls every year, and some had a better reputation than others. Despite the name, May Balls were held in June, after examinations had been completed, and they represented a way to let one’s hair down and prepare for the summer break. The May Ball was a grand occasion. The men wore white tie; the women wore formal ball gowns. Large tents were erected in college, and Downing had the great advantage of having a large expanse of lawn between the hall and the Master’s lodge, which avoided any sense of crowding. There would be a tent for dancing, in which a series of bands played throughout the night; tents for food; tents for drinks, and the entire college was open for strolling and conversation. It had been a busy year for me. I had represented the University at chess again, and played successfully in a county championship which qualified me for the British Championship in the summer. I was active in CUSS with Kim and Donald, and attended meetings of the Apostles faithfully every Saturday evening. At the same time, I was still on track for a First in my exams. I felt I was entitled to a special evening.

  I had been exchanging weekly letters with Bridget. Hers were full and informative. She had a chatty style of writing, and told me almost every detail of her life in Bristol, her anthropological studies, and the people she met, the lecturers and students. I had the impression that she had the happy gift of writing whatever came into her head, without self-censorship. I am sure my letters must have seemed very different to her. I had seen her only once or twice since the fateful night of the storm; I was still sure that I was in love with her, and she seemed to feel the same way. But I never wrote to her entirely openly. I was most open about my college work and chess activities, perhaps because they were things I thought she would understand readily enough. I was more cautious in writing about my work with CUSS, and especially the Apostles, which I referred to only occasionally, and without revealing the name, as a college debating society. What I was afraid of, I really do not know. Nothing I was doing was unusual for a Cambridge man at that time. I had no real reason to be secretive about it. Bridget was never in the least critical. She sometimes asked questions about my work, but always in a matter-of-fact way, without comment. Nonetheless, sometimes I felt a fear of offending her, of antagonising her in some way; and at other times I had a nagging fear that word of something I was doing would leak back to my parents through some unguarded remark she might make to hers. This led me to censor myself and present her with a carefully constructed image of myself which, even at the time, struck me as ridiculous. We ended each letter with a declaration of love, and I can truthfully say that we never questioned our love, or our intention to be together, despite our youth, our immaturity, our total lack of experience of personal intimacy, and our abysmal ignorance about the true nature of long-term relationships. Not once did we ask ourselves whether we ought to be meeting other people, perhaps people who were available in the places where we lived, before committing ourselves to a lifetime together. I envy the young people of today their knowledge and sophistication about sex and relationships, their calmness and lack of haste in selecting partners, their more balanced and less desperate approach to life; and I congratulate them on consigning so much of the hypocrisy which affected my generation to the history books.

  I naturally asked Bridget to be my partner at the May Ball. She replied at once, accepting, and then bombarded me with letters twice or three times a week, describing the gowns she had looked at, and advice from her mother for staying awake all night, and all kinds of details which made clear how excited she was about it. There was no question of risking having her found in my room at Trinity, which would have resulted in my being sent down on suspicion of nameless indecencies. I booked her a room in lodgings in Lensfield Road, close to Downing. She came to Cambridge a day early. I wanted to show her around the city, and hoped that we could become accustomed to each other’s company again, so that we could start learning how to act in public as a couple, before the big occasion where there would be so many people to talk to.

  The ball was spectacular. We feasted on salmon and salad, followed by strawberries and cream, and drank a good deal of champagne and wine. Many of my friends were there, and I felt a real pride and pleasure in introducing Bridget to them. She seemed totally at ease, whether talking with my fellow students and their girlfriends, or with the Fellows and their wives. She proved to be an excellent dancer too, which made up for my well-known deficiencies in that area. Between about 1 and 3 o’clock in the morning, we had a low period, when we were exhausted after so much dancing and general revelry. We were both tempted to call it a night, and I offered to walk her back to her room. But the tradition of the May Ball demanded that we see it through until dawn broke, and our pride would not allow us to quit, so we took some coffee and walked to the far side of the college, by the chapel. It was a beautiful night, mild, the sky full of stars, and we lay on the edge of the lawn gazing up at them until the coffee took effect and we returned for the rousing finale in the dance tent as the eastern sky began to offer the first hint of the coming daylight.

  Even as the Ball was ending, its traditions continued. Those with sufficient energy would walk to Scudamore’s boatyard on Magdalene Bridge, which remained open for May Balls, and would rent a punt to progress slowly along the river to Grantchester for breakfast. We had discussed this with several other couples during the Ball, with a view to getting a group together. They had seemed enthusiastic at the time, but weariness must have overtaken them, because when we were ready to leave, they were nowhere to be found. I asked Bridget whether she wanted to go anyway, just the two of us. She did.

  As we left the city behind and moved into the open countryside, it was partly light, the rising sun still no more than a warming orange glow to the east. At that point the river is bordered by leafy green banks, which creates the impression of punting through forest glades, and you have to b
e careful to keep the punting pole clear of overhanging branches. The river and the morning were still, the tranquility disturbed only by the occasional flap of wings and a light splash as a heron dived elegantly in pursuit of some prey. We arrived at Grantchester and I lifted the pole out of the water, allowing the punt to drift slowly into the bank before tying it up securely. I stood and offered her my hands to help her out on to the bank. I was about to turn to the path which led to the village, where breakfast awaited. She shook her head.

  ‘Later,’ she said quietly.

  She took my hands again and pulled me down to lie beside her on the dewy grass. I took off my jacket. She released the knot of my tie and undid the top button of my shirt. She had not worn stockings, and she had abandoned her formal heels on the walk from Downing. I was speechless, and I could only watch as she unbuttoned the front of my dress trousers and slowly pulled them down. We kissed passionately. I ran my hand up to the top of her leg and we stroked each other lovingly for what seemed an eternity. Eventually she guided me inside her and we gave ourselves to each other with complete abandon.

  It was not just romantic convention that detained us in that moment. We genuinely wished we could stay there, on the bank of the river, forever. It was only much later, back in her room, when we had changed out of our formal wear, and the punt was gone, and the Ball was over, and there was nothing left to protect us from the reality of the new day, that we began to think about the implications of what had happened between us. We had been reckless, and there might be consequences.

  ‘I don’t regret it at all,’ she said, defiantly. ‘It was really beautiful.’

  ‘Neither do I,’ I insisted. ‘If you are pregnant, I would like to marry you and make a home for you and our child. I’m not entirely sure how we will manage, but I know there will be a way.’

  She looked at me curiously.

  ‘What if I’m not pregnant?’ she asked. ‘Would you still want to marry me then?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ I replied.

  She kissed me.

  ‘Good,’ she said. ‘Then I will marry you, as long as that is what you really want.’

  Two weeks later, her period arrived, exactly on time. She wrote to tell me, and I felt a huge wave of relief flood over me. On the evening of the day her letter arrived I played a chess match for Trinity against Queen’s. I dispatched my opponent ruthlessly in less than thirty moves, then went out and downed several pints in quick succession. I wrote back to Bridget in a light style, something about our luck holding, being lucky together as a couple, perhaps we had a future as professional gamblers, and we made jokes about it, back and forth, for quite some time. But neither of us questioned the decision to marry, even though it had been made at a moment of such crisis. From that time on, it was accepted between us as something which would eventually happen. I did not think much about what we had done after the shock and anxiety had worn off, beyond thinking that we had got away with it, that our luck had been good and, when looking back in a romantic mood, that the fates had rewarded us for fearlessly indulging our spontaneous passion for each other. It never dawned on me that it might have any more significance than that, until much later.

  24

  Friday, 23 April

  Julia Cathermole had given a great deal of thought to how she would signal her acceptance of the Service’s offer to provide evidence to Professor Hollander, and to how she would arrange what she knew the Service wanted in return. One option had been to contact Baxter and meet him at St Ermin’s Hotel or, if he insisted, in the more secure environment of his Headquarters in Broadway. But after long consideration, she had decided to bypass Baxter if she could. Julia was not sure how many doors her father’s memory would open, but she saw no harm in finding out – as long as she did not let the grass grow. The High Court had given the parties in the case of Digby v Hollander a provisional trial date in October, but it was by no means certain that Hollander would make it as far as trial. The inevitable Request for further and better particulars of the Defence had arrived from the offices of Harper Sutton & Harper, and the threat of an application to strike out the Defence – to plunge a dagger into the heart of Hollander’s case of justification – was looming. She needed the evidence, and she needed it soon. She had to act without delay. She concluded that her best chance of getting what she wanted was to go to the top, and to invite the man at the top to come to her, instead of going to him.

  Julia’s dinner parties were a legend among the young smart set in Kensington and Chelsea. She had a wide acquaintanceship in cultural circles, and those who accepted invitations to dinner at her town house on Eaton Square might find themselves sitting next to the conductor of a major symphony orchestra, a best-selling author, an up-and-coming painter, or even the occasional notorious rock musician. Many influential lawyers and politicians, and even cabinet ministers, proved susceptible to the prospect of a fascinating evening chez Julia. She hoped that such an invitation – and her father’s memory – would be enough to lure C out for the evening, and to her immense relief, it worked. As soon as he accepted, she made a number of calls and attracted an eclectic gathering of luminaries from the musical world and a famous poet from Spain – but no one from the world of politics, or from the law, with the single exception of Miles Overton QC.

  As ever, she spared no expense on the catering, and personally supervised the menu and selection of wines. She meditated at length over the seating plan. She sat Dick White next to a celebrated oboist and Miles Overton next to the Spanish poet, and well away from each other. She wanted them to meet later in the evening, and not before. Later in the evening was another of Julia’s specialties. It was understood that an invitation to remain behind late for brandy was additional to the dinner invitation and was not extended to all guests. Moreover, Julia had a mischievous disposition, and usually ensured that at least one very beautiful young woman remained as her personal guest, giving rise to a beguiling mystery about her personal life, and to outrageous gossip on the same subject, all of which amused her greatly. But on this occasion, just after eleven o’clock, she graciously bade farewell to all her guests except Dick White and Miles Overton, and conducted them upstairs to her personal study, leaving the catering staff to clean up and restore the dining and living room to some semblance of order. The club-style green leather chairs were comfortable. The brandy was old and distinguished.

  ‘Dick, I’ve asked you and Miles to stay because I want to talk about something which is important, and rather urgent. You know, of course, that Miles is representing Francis Hollander?’

  Dick nodded. He had a considerable store of information available to him about the case of Digby v Hollander, and he had fully expected the conversation to turn to the case at some point during the evening.

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed.

  ‘I think we can talk in complete secrecy here,’ she smiled. ‘Or at least, Dick, if that is not the case, I am sure you would know.’

  He returned the smile.

  ‘I am sure we are perfectly safe,’ he replied.

  ‘As you know,’ she continued, ‘your man Baxter met Francis at Heathrow when he arrived in London, and indicated the Service’s interest in assisting him to some extent in defending himself against the action brought against him by Digby. When Francis told me this, I had a meeting with Baxter myself and he confirmed that the Service has a strong interest in ensuring that Digby does not prevail, and was prepared to support Hollander in various ways, including funding and information.’

  She noticed that Miles’s eyes had opened wide, and turned to him. ‘Miles, I have not told you about this because it has not been necessary until now. The financial arrangements were put in place immediately, but you don’t deal with that, of course. As far as your clerk Vernon knows, Hollander is paying privately for his legal services, and that is all he needs to know.’

  Miles smiled and held his hands up. ‘I don’t need t
o know any more, either,’ he said.

  ‘As far as any supply of information is concerned, the arrangement I made with Baxter was that we would approach the Service if it became necessary.’

  ‘If Hollander had no answer to Digby’s case, and couldn’t contest it on his own?’ Dick asked.

  ‘Yes, and no,’ Julia replied. ‘Francis has information about Digby – again, Miles, I’m sorry, but this is very sensitive, and I couldn’t go into it before I knew there was no other way. He has information, but he doesn’t have evidence.’

  Dick nodded. ‘Baxter told me that there was information you couldn’t use in court, for technical reasons.’

  ‘Technically, it’s hearsay,’ Julia replied, ‘and I know Miles and his junior, Ginny Castle, both feel there is virtually no chance of a judge admitting it at the trial.’

  She turned to Miles, silently inviting him to elaborate.

  ‘There is limited provision for some hearsay to be admitted,’ he replied, ‘but if it is evidence on which the case virtually depends, we can’t see any judge allowing it. The problem is that you can’t test hearsay by means of cross-examination. In this case, the source of Professor Hollander’s information is deceased, so cross-examination is impossible anyway.’