Even the porters had recognised the blossoming alliance, although they firmly believed it was no more than platonic, the sort of thing they’d seen in the trenches where lifelong friendships had been forged and withstood the fire of conflict. Most of them had served in France or Belgium, most of them had known officers who had come close to a fellow combatant who’d ended up meaning more to them than the wife or sweetheart left at home. Comradeship in the face of adversity, perhaps. It was no wonder that some men had come home from the war almost as strangers to their families, feeling lost in a world they’d once known but which now had no colour or depth for them.
There were some old soldiers at the cricket match, swapping stories, delighting in being able to relive the past. Perhaps regretting the way their lives had turned out. Edward watched and listened to them, deep in thought. In the end he began to clear lunch away. “Let’s go back to my rooms, Hugo. There’s something rather special I want to show you.” They strolled back to Cranmer, where they’d barely been in Edward’s room a moment before he thrust a silver object into his friend’s grasp.
“I didn’t know you smoked.” Hugo admired the handsome cigarette case as he turned it over in his hands.
“I don’t, that case was my grandfather’s. He’s given up the things as being bad for his lungs and left it with me, in case I took up the filthy habit.” Edward smiled ruefully. “This nearly fell into the hands of those ogres down at the porters’ lodge. I had to tell a lie or two to get it back.”
Hugo had noted the strange tone in his friend’s voice. “I don’t understand.”
“The old gentleman was visiting last term. As he left he presented it to me and then held me in a huge embrace. It was the first time I can ever remember him showing such affection. I was so overcome I didn’t realise we’d dropped this,” he fingered the case lovingly, “until Marsh caught me the next day to return it. I was rather abrupt with him.”
“Why? Surely he was just doing his duty? The initials on the outside would guide him to you.” Hugo traced the outline of the E. “Is your grandfather an Edward, as well?”
“No, he’s an Edwin. The name suits him much more than it would me. Anyway it wasn’t so much the snapping up of lost trifles I minded—I trust them not to try to steal things—it was the thought that they may have been snooping around.” He opened the case to reveal an inscription. “Grandfather was very particular about pointing this out to me.”
Hugo took the case and inspected the handsome copperplate writing. To thine own self be true. “It’s from Hamlet, isn’t it?”
“Indeed. Polonius’ advice to his son, I believe. I didn’t want Marsh and his colleagues speculating about its meaning.” Edward fell quiet, still considering the case. “It was given to him—my grandfather, I mean—when he was twenty one, by a maiden aunt. He says that she was particularly perceptive.” He turned the thing over again.
“There’s a story here, isn’t there? Don’t feel obliged to share it with me if you feel it would break your grandfather’s confidence.”
“No, I believe it’s important that you know. We should have no secrets.” Edward looked deadly serious, an expression that always melted his friend’s heart. Just like a schoolboy explaining something to a teacher or making a report to the Headmaster about why a window had been broken, Edward seemed very young and vulnerable. “When he was younger, Edwin Easterby fell in love with a girl. His parents felt the match was totally unsuitable; she being only a servant and him the son of the house. They intervened, sending grandfather away to join the army and her to service with a family in Scotland.”
Hugo shook his head. “I know it goes against the grain, that there are norms of society and unspoken rules that everyone expects to be obeyed, but this seems ridiculous. I can’t understand why two people who love each other shouldn’t be allowed to do so.” If he appreciated the irony in what he said, he didn’t show it.
“My family wouldn’t hold with that point of view. As far as they’re concerned, one has to do one’s duty in terms of finding a suitable partner. So my grandfather married a pleasant young lady of his own standing. There was no great love between them, but an agreeable friendship—and my father was produced. He was an only child, against a family tradition on both sides of large families.” Edward looked shrewdly, surprisingly shrewdly, at Hugo. “I think that speaks volumes, doesn’t it?”
“It appears to. Is your grandmother still alive?” Hugo sat down next to his friend, closer than they’d been since the morning they’d kissed.
“No, she died two years ago. What I never realised, as he’d never told any of us, was that my grandfather immediately set out to locate his old love. He traced her via the family she had been sent to. Their identity had never been divulged to him by his parents, but he found an old servant who’d kept in touch.” Edward didn’t look at his friend. “Hugo, I’ve never believed that I could really open my heart to anyone before now, but I’ve kept this secret too long.”
“And did he find her? Is there a happy ending to this?” Hugo kept his eyes fixed on Edward’s face, even though the man couldn’t seem to tear his gaze from the cigarette case. His friend was unbelievably beautiful and when he was solemn, as now, it added greatly to his allure. Hugo couldn’t, in all conscience, resist touching his hand.
“He did, or rather he found her grave. She, too, had married, been mother to five children and had died in childbed with the sixth.” Edward acknowledged the touch with a movement of his fingers. “Grandfather met her husband, and the man was happy to talk about his bonny Rosie as he called her. My grandfather said it was obvious that this chap had loved her very much and that their marriage had been extremely happy. Much more so than his own had turned out to be.”
“And his aunt had known? That the family hadn’t let him to be true to himself?” Hugo was beginning to understand why Edward was sharing this tale with him. He caressed his friend’s hand again.
Edward nodded. “I was very surprised that he chose to tell me this story, of all the family, although perhaps he shared that lady’s insight.” He began to study his shoes, a signal that meant he was talking about things which mattered very deeply to him. But he kept a grip on Hugo’s hand. “I don’t want to have the same misgivings as he has. He told me very plainly he regretted that he’d not simply defied his family, followed the girl and married her himself. Perhaps I wouldn’t be here, then, it’s an interesting philosophical point, but I sympathise with him entirely. To live your whole life wishing that events had gone otherwise must be mortal hard.”
“It’s a feeling many folk must share after these last few years.”
“But that’s different, entirely. Serving one’s country is a question of duty, and it would override personal considerations. That would be a question of protecting the innocent, seeing that the aggressor doesn’t go unopposed. But no one was at risk in my grandfather’s case—all that was at stake was our family’s sense of their honour, their ridiculous concept of the importance of their name.” Edward was becoming heated, this whole affair having touched on a raw nerve.
“Not so different to the war, then.” Hugo understood for the first time why his friend hadn’t wanted the porters to touch the cigarette case. It was as if they would be touching the man’s heart. “Families do protect their honour. In England there is a ridiculous amount of importance put on a man’s surname, his family history. The Lord alone knows that I’ve had to live with it all my life.” Hugo’s voice began to falter. “I’m not the eldest son, so there’s not the pressure that there is on Gordon to marry and produce an heir. But they still try to put me in the vicinity of eligible girls and drop subtle, and in my mother’s case unsubtle, hints about me settling down once I’m finished here and starting to make my way in the world.”
“Do they have any idea?” Edward raised his head, looking at Hugo face to face once more. He clasped his hands tightly, as if he was trying to stop them reaching up and touching Hugo’s face.
&nbs
p; “No, there’s no one in my family of your grandfather’s discernment or common sense. Or if there is, they’ve not informed me. It’s part of what makes the whole thing so very hopeless.” Tears began to well in Hugo’s eyes. They were exposing the deepest recesses of their souls, and it felt wonderfully liberating. “It’s hard enough to live with the disapproval of the church and the world in general, but to be letting one’s family down as well is just about unbearable.”
Edward gently offered his handkerchief but didn’t offer either advice or platitude. He squeezed his friend’s hand once more.
Hugo accepted both the linen and the kind-heartedness it represented. He knew that at times like this, listening and companionship were what counted, however much he wished that Edward would take him in his arms and smother him with affection. He shook his head and tried to compose himself. “Sorry.” It was the only word he could manage and he couldn’t trust himself to say more.
“You need never apologise to me. I won’t have you debasing yourself.”
Hugo began to laugh, tears turning into giggles, especially when Edward looked so solemn and puzzled at what had caused the transition. “You are absolutely priceless. There are times you resemble nothing more closely than a hero from a romantic novel.”
“Am I that funny?” A few months before, Edward might have been offended at such a remark, but now they were used to teasing each other. Although they’d never been so bold as to hold hands while doing the teasing.
“No, you’re absolutely wonderful. The lady who would write about you in that novel—it would be a lady, no doubt of great virtue and the highest morals—would fall in love with her creation and portray you as the absolute pinnacle of what women desire.” Hugo shook his head ruefully. “I suspect you’re the pinnacle of what I desire as well, and I should just damn well kiss you here and now. If I only had the moral bravery to say that the opinion of the world and my family didn’t matter a jot.”
Edward studied him carefully, still stroking his friend’s hand. “I’ve already made that decision, back when we walked down to the bridge and you told me about that boy. I won’t marry just to please my parents, nor will I turn my back on my true nature just to satisfy the expectations of my peers. I’m not a popular man; I can cope with being rejected.”
“Even by your nearest and dearest?”
“I only hold two people dear. One is my grandfather, and I believe he’s given me as clear a sign as he could that he would want me to live my life as honestly as possible. The other person is you. No one else counts.”
“And you would give it all up for me? Your good name in the eyes of your parents?” Hugo was finding a glimmer of hope. Somewhere in all this mess of emotions and expectations, there was a possibility that things could be all right.
“I’d rather that than lose touch with you. I’ve tried to imagine myself in my grandfather’s place, taking a wife he didn’t love just to satisfy someone else. Losing the one thing he cherished because others thought it wrong. It makes me furious on his behalf. I won’t have some grandchild of mine, the product of the unwanted offspring of a loveless marriage, thinking the same of me. I’d rather go to that monastery of yours.” Edward clung to his friend’s hands still, and Hugo wondered whether he was trying to make sure he’d never let go of them. In case losing touch with the hands meant losing the man.
Hugo shook his head affectionately. “To offer all that... it’s like a pearl beyond price and you’re casting it before a swine like me.”
Edward reached up, stroked Hugo’s cheek. “You are not, never have been, a swine. You’re the first friend I ever had, the only person here who had sought to be truly kind to me and not take any opportunity to gull me. You’re kindness itself, young man, and I will not hear you degrading yourself.”
Hugo chuckled, letting all his hurt and nervousness dissipate into further laughter. “You sound like my great uncle giving me a lecture on losing my temper on the golf course. Young man, indeed.” He caressed Edward’s face, savouring the feel of the smooth skin beneath his trembling fingers. “You’re the pearl beyond price yourself, or the nearest equivalent I’ll ever meet walking the cloisters of this college, if not the face of the entire earth.”
Edward leant forwards and gently kissed his friend’s brow before the man had a chance to pull back or react. “I can’t believe this is wrong, Hugo, any of it. It doesn’t hurt anyone. For goodness sake, we’re pulling ourselves to pieces trying to deny it. I find it so hard to keep my hands from holding yours or my arms from enfolding you.”
Hugo knew the pompous and embarrassed tone of his friend’s conversation reflected his mood and felt strangely touched by the haughty words. The sweetest murmurs of affection or dripping praise couldn’t have had such an effect. He tilted his face upwards, inching his nose along Edward’s jaw and cheek. His lips grazed the smooth skin of his friend’s temples, kissing his brow in return for the salute he’d received. It all felt wonderful. “I wish that life could be simple. I wish it could just be you and me and no one to judge us or condemn.”
Edward snuggled his head down onto Hugo’s shoulder, sighing deeply. “We could remain here, you know. There’s no reason you couldn’t stay on to take a doctorate. You’re bright and popular with everyone, and just think of the influence your father could bring to bear on the college. I’d work hard and make sure I could do the same. There are plenty of old bachelors within the university, it wouldn’t be looked on as out of place.” He held Hugo tight, as if by clinging to him like some talisman, he could make all their wishes come true in an instant.
“Perhaps. It would certainly be easier to keep each other’s company if we were colleagues here.” Hugo laughed, making Edward’s head bounce up and down against his chest. “You might end up as Warden and you could give the talk every term. You’d change the subject, of course, from self-sacrifice to being true to one’s lights. I could end up as the sort of crusty old fellow who scares the living daylights out of the first year students but who is adored by them by the time they leave.” Maybe this was the light at the end of their tunnel, the means that they could be together, but the idea did have its ludicrous aspects.
Edward lifted his head, his eyes bright with tears that might be of laughter but could equally be relief at seeing a possible way out of their impasse. “Everyone would adore you. It’s me they’d be frightened of, quite rightly, as I’m scared of De Banzie.” He focused his eyes on his friend’s lips. “Hugo, please...”
Edward didn’t need to elaborate. Hugo knew what he wanted from the direction of his gaze, his flushed cheeks, the plaintive note in his voice, and he no longer had it in him to resist. He leaned down and kissed his friend, very lightly at first and then more firmly, once for friendship, once for love. Edward responded in kind with warm and affectionate, tender and shy kisses, the sort he’d been desperate to share since those first coffee flavoured ones had both shattered him and shown him a world of possibilities.
Hugo ran his tongue along the gentle contours of Edward’s lips, tasting the lingering sweetness from lunch. “I love you, Edward, you big soppy idiot,” Hugo’s voice was hoarse with emotion, “and I promise I won’t let myself be separated from you just to suit someone else’s convenience. We could only ever part of our free will.” He kissed Edward powerfully, letting his tongue plunder the other man’s mouth. He expected to feel tensing of muscle but not the unexpected relaxation that came as Edward must have realised this wasn’t just normal, it was charming, and began to respond in the same way.
“I love you as well, Hugo, beyond all logic or reason. It would have to be love for us to want to risk all the disapproval, wouldn’t it?” Edward looked at his friend with eyes that appeared awash with a strange mixture of fear and delight, then reached towards him for another kiss or three, the pair of them making up for all the months of unrequited desire.
“It could only be love or folly, and I don’t think either of us is stupid. Nor precipitate—we’ve had a long
while to mull this over.” Hugo drew his hand down his friend’s neck, enjoying the texture of smooth, delicate flesh that barely felt like it saw a razor. And for the first time, he felt no self-loathing at touching another man, just a simple joy and wonder at the marvels of love—how it could take all one’s fears and doubts and transform them. No wonder he’d never felt this happy previously; he’d never been in love before.
Quite against all Hugo anticipated, Edward began to take the lead, kissing and caressing—all innocence and wonder and not showing a trace of animal lust or desire. It was everything that Hugo needed to feel at ease with the situation. If there had been overt passion, he might well have felt brimful of doubts again, but the purity of Edward’s approach reassured him that things wouldn’t get out of hand. Edward must have been thinking they had all the time in the world and all the world of love to discover in that time.
Hugo broke from a passionate kiss and nestled down into his friend’s arms, burying his face in the folds of the man’s jacket. “Did we decide that quote was from Hamlet? The one on your grandfather’s case?”
“We did, indeed.” If Edward was puzzled at the sudden change of tack he didn’t show it.
Hugo wondered whether his friend found him infuriating at times, but if Edward couldn’t help being pompous, he couldn’t help being wordy. “Then I can match it with another, if you’ll excuse the adaptation. I shall l wear you in my heart of hearts, as long as you’re willing to have a place there.” Hugo rubbed his fingers along his friend’s jacket, caressing the material as if it were the man’s skin.
“I would never ask to be removed from there. It would take a Somme or Flanders Field to wrench me from you.” Edward held Hugo close as if they really were about to be separated by bugle call or order to march. He seemed determined now that he’d never let this man go or turn his back on such pleasure as he found in his arms.
Speak Its Name Page 5