Voyage of Innocence

She didn’t want to see Hugh. Not after what Claudia had said. To do that – what exactly – with Giles? No, Claudia was making it up. It was one of these fancies she’d picked up from her strange London life. Her brother was potty, who was to say that Claudia didn’t have a loony streak as well? Vee wasn’t going to believe her, and that was that.

The outer door, that they had learned to call an oak, was open. Inside, Hugh was stretched out on a sofa in front of the blazing fire, a pipe in his mouth, fanning himself with a copy of the Spectator. He leaped to his feet, and came over to give Vee a hug.

She shrank away from him, hating herself for doing so. This was Hugh, her brother, not some monster conjured up by Claudia, damn her.

‘What’s up, old thing?’ he said. ‘You look as though you’ve seen a ghost. If you thought you did, don’t worry, it’s probably just Bartlett, my tutor, he’s been dead for centuries, only no one’s noticed yet. Giles, buck up over there and yell for Tewson to bring tea.’

Tall, exquisite Giles. She stared at him, her mind still unable to cope with Claudia’s bombshell.

No, Claudia had got it all wrong, at least about her brother. Perhaps one or two men might be like that; all right, she could accept that. Although she hadn’t said so to Claudia, there had been talk at school about Oscar Wilde. And what did men do, two of them? She drew back from these uncomfortable anatomical thoughts and went over to the window.

The quad outside was half in shadow, half glowing in the autumn sunlight. That was like her, she thought, she’d been walking in the sun, and now the shadows had caught up with her. Unreal shadows, things of the darkness of the night and restless dreams, and no more substance in them than such phantasms had. Curse Claudia, for even suggesting such a thing.

Giles came over to her with a cup of tea, and as he went back to the table, Vee saw him touch Hugh lightly on the shoulder. Hugh turned and smiled at him, a smile of such sweetness and affection that there could be no doubt at all about the intimacy that existed between the two men.

The cup and saucer slipped through her fingers; the delicate porcelain smashed in pink and white chips on the dark wooden floor, tea splashed on to the carpet.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she said mechanically. ‘How clumsy of me.’

‘The Dresden is wasted on you, Vee,’ said Hugh. ‘It’ll be an enamel mug next time. Tewson, we’ve had a spillage, come and see to it, would you? Giles, pour out another cup for Vee, and this time, for heaven’s sake hold on to it. Have a biscuit, that’ll soothe your nerves, I never saw you so on edge. That’s what education does to a girl, I see how right all the misogynists are.’

This Hugh was almost a stranger to her. The brother she’d grown up with at the Deanery seemed to have vanished, to be replaced by this new person, a person she knew nothing about. Was this the brother she had confided in, moaned about their parents to, shared jokes with, laughed with when he did his merciless drawings of York notables, the brother who laughed when she did an imitation of the senior clergy wresting the tall palms from each other’s grasp on Palm Sunday, in an effort not to have to carry the small and weedy ones?

The memories crowded into her head, a jumble of images and voices.

That was the brother of her childhood, of the Deanery, of times that had gone. Here, in front of her was the man, with his own life, his own feelings – and his own attachments. To Giles.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, putting down the fresh cup with a bang. ‘I think I’m going to be sick.’

‘Not in here,’ said Giles. ‘Down the stairs, turn right before you get to the door. Claudia, do you want to go with her, to hold her head?’

‘No,’ said Claudia. ‘Leave her alone, she’s just had a bit of a shock, that’s all,’

‘Oh?’ said Hugh, enquiringly.

‘Nothing you two need to know about,’ said Claudia.

As Vee stumbled down the stairs towards the lavatory she heard Claudia talking.

‘Are you going to cut the cake? Is anyone else coming to tea? I feel like meeting some new people.’

‘I hope John Petrus may drop in,’ Hugh said. ‘Brilliant man, Fellow of Balliol, and …’

Vee heard nothing more.

FIVE

Vee was having tutorials that term with Dr Nettleton at Christ Church. She never knew whether he’d be there or not, as he was apt to take off for weekends in France and not get back until Tuesday morning; her tutorial was at eleven-thirty on Mondays. His rooms were in Canterbury quad, and that Monday she climbed the three flights of stairs to discover a note on the door. He was away, would Miss Trenchard please come on Thursday at five.

Which left her with time to kill, and official permission to be in Christ Church before the witching hour of one o’clock. She wandered into Peck and was hailed from the window by Hugh. ‘Hi, intruder,’ he called down. ‘Your nose is pink, is it cold? Who let you in?’

‘I’d a tutorial with Nettleton, but he’s away.’

Giles joined him at the window. ‘Rogering his French mistress, I expect,’ Vee heard him say. ‘Come on up,’ he called down to her.

Rogering? What did that mean? Vee went up to Hugh’s room, to find a man in a black jacket barring her way. ‘You can’t come in here, miss,’ he said in a lugubrious voice. ‘No visitors to the college before one p.m., and certainly no members of the female sex on my staircase.’

‘Give over, Tewson,’ Hugh called out. ‘That’s not a member of the female sex, it’s my sister. Turn your mind to more important matters.’ He flapped a book towards the windows, where dust motes were dancing in the beams of sunlight. ‘Dust, Tewson, look at that. You need to dust, not fuss about my sister.’

‘Dust is in the air, I can’t deal with dust until it hits the ground or the table and how can I dust a room that’s in the state you two young gentlemen leave it, with piles of papers and books everywhere? Of course there’s going to be dust.’

‘Books go with the life of an undergraduate, Tewson,’ said Giles, heaving himself up on to the window seat and stretching out his grey flannelled legs. He had a small telescope in one hand, and he lifted it to his left eye and gazed out over the quad.

‘I’ll be with you in two ticks,’ said Hugh, from his desk. ‘Just let me finish this article.’

‘Hillier is still asleep,’ Giles reported. ‘Leaves his curtains pulled back so that the light wakes him, but there he is, fast asleep.’

‘That Mr Hillier, his scout can’t do anything with him, sleeps like he’s the proverbial log,’ Tewson said. ‘Mr Hotchkiss, as has that staircase, he bangs on the door, but to no purpose. Mr Hillier may leave his curtains open, like you say, sir, but the oak’s shut, nothing gets through to him. Mr Hotchkiss has complained to the Censor again and again, how can he do his job and wake someone up who doesn’t want to wake? It’s hard enough clearing up after some of you young gents; if you carry on like this at home, I can’t think that you’ve got any staff left.’

He hitched up his grey striped trousers and gave a sniff. ‘Not but what at least you have staff at home, not like that Mr Ibbotson, you can tell his family doesn’t keep anyone above a tweeny.’

‘Mr Ibbotson’s father is a carpenter,’ said Hugh. He threw down a copy of the New Statesman. ‘God, what rubbish these fellows write. And don’t you think the less of him for that, Tewson, you dreadful old snob. Joel is brilliant, far brainier than any of us, he’ll probably end up Chancellor of the Exchequer.’

‘Time was when nobody who wasn’t a gentleman came to the House,’ said Tewson.

‘Ah, just you wait,’ said Hugh, tapping his magazine with his fingers. ‘Soon, come the revolution, all the aristos will be swinging from that lamp-post out there, and you’ll have to change your view, too, Tewson, pretty smartly, or you’ll be had up for being a member of the petty bourgeoisie. It’s the workers who’ll call the tune in the years to come.’

‘Workers! What do you know about workers?’ Tewson flipped his duster at the motes and stalked out, bearing the tray of dirty crocks in front of him like a trophy. He shut the door with a defiant click.

‘You shouldn’t tease him,’ Giles said. ‘Look, the Angelus must be about to ring, there’s old Horsley just coming out of the library. Punctual to the minute, off to his rooms for the first port of the day.’

‘He has one at breakfast,’ Hugh said.

‘Port? At breakfast? Surely not.’

‘Whisky. Gives him stamina, he says. Sets him up for the day, purely medicinal. Do you remember, Vee, one of the vergers at the Minster had the same habit, only it was the communion wine? He helped himself to a snifter every morning when he opened up. Passed out in evensong while the choir was singing Wachet auf one Sunday afternoon. Flat on his face.’

Vee did remember, how could she forget such a glorious event?

‘Let’s drive out into the country, find a place to have lunch, Vee,’ Hugh suggested.

Did that include Giles? Vee wondered. Then, ‘You can’t drive.’

‘Oh, but I can.’

‘You don’t have a car.’

‘I use Bungy’s. I do his prose compositions, he lends me his car. A perfect quid pro quo.’

‘When did you learn to drive? How?’

‘Last year, and there’s nothing to it. You get in the car, screech a few gears, and you’re away.’

Giles put his telescope down. ‘Don’t, Vee, is my advice. Hugh turns into a fiend behind the wheel, and he’s the worst driver I know.’

‘I can’t lunch, anyhow. I must get back to Grace. Claudia’s bought a bicycle, and we’re going to teach her how to ride it.’

‘Good God. Will it be a private affair, or will spectators be admitted?’

‘Only helpers, and you aren’t that. You merely want to laugh.’

‘I should like to see our cousin at a disadvantage for once.’

Vee and Lally had both acquired bicycles in the first week of term, Vee an ancient black boneshaker from the pound, and Lally a rather more respectable model from a third-year who’d broken her leg and said she was never getting on a bike again.

Claudia was at first scornful of this primitive means of transport, and then envious. ‘Can I have a go?’ she asked Lally.

‘Can you ride a bike?’

‘I never have, but it looks easy enough.’ Claudia hauled herself into the saddle and thirty seconds later, she and the bike were in the lily pond in the centre of the quad.

‘Easy, huh?’ said Lally, looking resignedly at her twisted wheel. ‘Get your own bike, and we’ll teach you how to ride it.’

Claudia had continued to walk everywhere, and then had given in. ‘A man from the bicycle shop is bringing it around this afternoon,’ she’d announced at breakfast.

It was new and shiny, and Lally shook her head when she saw it. ‘It’ll get stolen, the first time you leave it propped up against a lamppost.’

‘I’ll put a spell on it,’ Claudia said. ‘Anyhow, it isn’t going to get pinched. I see Jenks strapping it on the back of the car when we come down for the last time.’

SIX

They didn’t take their bicycles when they went to Balliol for John Petrus’s party, not in those clothes.

Vee was surprised to get an invitation. ‘I’ve never met him.’

‘He’s a don at Balliol,’ Claudia said, her voice careless, her face alert. ‘Fearfully clever, and very good-looking. He knows Hugh quite well, and he wants to meet you and Lally.’

Vee returned to the invitation. What did one wear to a don’s cocktail party?

‘Not tweeds,’ Lally and Claudia said together. Vee’s bristly Yorkshire tweeds, built to last, were a standing joke. Practical and warm they might be, but they were no more than a distant relation to the lovely American tweed that Lally wore, or Claudia’s even prettier and much softer ones, and Vee knew which she preferred.

‘Petrus is the most terrific dandy, frightfully dashing for a university fellow,’ Claudia said. ‘Such a shame that we don’t fit into each other’s clothes, Vee, and Lally’s far too tall for hers to be any use to you.’

‘I wouldn’t mind being able to wear your clothes, but I don’t think you’d want to borrow any of mine, even if you could fit into them,’ Vee said. ‘Not your style.’ She minded very much about how old-fashioned and frumpish most of her wardrobe was, but she wasn’t going to let Claudia know that.

‘No, I wouldn’t, although those tweeds do have a certain bizarre character to them.’

In the end, Vee wore her green moiré frock for Petrus’s party. She’d thought it very elegant when she bought it in Leeds, but she knew she’d win no prizes for smartness with Claudia and Lally there. It shrieked ‘provincial’ beside their clothes: from Paris in Claudia’s case, and New York in Lally’s.

Claudia wore a grey silk dress, cut on the bias, which made her look like a Norse goddess out for a good time. Lally’s frock was a cocktail in apricot silk, a demanding colour that suited her hair and eyes.

They set off to Balliol, Vee feeling countrified and dowdy in her thick coat. Claudia had a fur wrap, needless to say, and looked fearfully glamorous.

They arrived at the lodge at the same moment as Alfred Gore. His vitality swept over them as he waved the porter aside. ‘I’ll take the ladies up to Mr Petrus’s rooms,’ he said, and set off across the quad, brandishing a large black umbrella.

He guided them to a dark entrance and up three stone steps. Inside, it was dark, with a kind of stuffy dampness in the air and a strong smell of urine.

‘It is a bit whiffy,’ said Alfred. ‘All the same, these Balliol men, they don’t know the meaning of the word drains, they’re far too clever to bother their heads about details like properly functioning lavs. We’re on the third floor, I’m afraid,’ he went on, bounding ahead up the stairs, then waiting on the landing for them to catch up. ‘In we go.’

Vee was used to crushes, since the York clergy liked to gather together in small spaces with their wives and families, but her first impression was that she had never seen so many people crammed into one room. It was a large room, with three sash windows set in bays, a large fireplace, and a closed door, which must lead to a bedroom. There was a huge rolltop desk, pushed into a corner and stacked with papers. A grand piano took up a lot of space at the end of the room; its lid was down and it was draped in green baize, which was just as well, given the glasses set down on it.

Alfred eased his way through the mass of chattering, smoking people until he came within reach of Petrus. Being taller than most of those there, he could look over their heads and catch the attention of their host. ‘Petrus!’ he cried. ‘Refugees from Grace.’

‘Hello,’ said Claudia, fixing Petrus with her most dazzling blue look.

He was a slender man, quite tall, with very pale fair hair combed back from his forehead. He had a mouth that Vee found slightly disturbing, but the most remarkable thing about him were his dark grey eyes, watchful, clever, penetrating eyes.

‘Claudia, my dear, how lovely to see you.’ He gave her a brushing kiss on one cheek and then on the other, and made a little bow to Lally. ‘Our American visitor, I assume. Miss Fitzpatrick, isn’t it? I had the pleasure of meeting your father when last I was in Chicago. I’m sure he will win a seat in the Senate, and then we may expect great things from him.’ His eyes moved to Vee. ‘Ah, the Yorkshire cousin. Hugh Trenchard’s sister, I believe. Good evening Miss Trenchard. You honour us this evening.’

Vee could feel a flush creeping over her face. Was he being ironic? She was infuriated to find herself both flustered and overwhelmed by this man. He wasn’t handsome in any film-star kind of way, but he made the other men around look diminished. Except for Alfred, who had his own energetic personality wrapped around him like a cloak.

As for clothes, the two men couldn’t have looked more different. Alfred was wearing an appalling pair of grey flannel trousers, held up with an Eton tie, she noticed, and his usual shabby pullover. Petrus, in contrast, was wearing an immaculately tailored suit and a dashingly embroidered waistcoat.

‘Call her Vee, everybody does,’ said Claudia, manoeuvring so that she stood beside her host. ‘This looks as though it’s going to be a lively party.’

Vee had no desire to stand there with Petrus’s sardonic eye upon her, so she edged backwards and slid towards the window.

At first glance, although much more eccentric or dowdy or casual in their dress, she would have said the guests were the same as at any other party; people who knew one another extremely well and probably met each other every day, and who therefore had lots to talk and gossip about.

Then her ears tuned in to the conversation. No, this wasn’t the desultory chitchat of York parties. Arguments were raging all about her; people were giving their opinions with an intensity and at a volume that was never found in the drawing rooms of Yorkshire. They were discussing politics. Or international trade. Or the rights of the workers.

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