The Great Lover (18 page)

Now she looks up, surprised. She crumples the handkerchief into a ball and seems to wonder whether to hand it back to me. Thankfully she decides against this and stuffs it into her apron pocket. ‘Why–yes, I–I suppose so—You and Mr Ward? In a caravan?’

‘We shall need a Primus stove, plates, spoons, cocoa, salt–
any chance of you sneaking us a few things, for our supplies? I mean, not if it would get you in trouble, but it’s proving rather expensive, what with the cost of the caravan I’m renting from Hugh and Steuart Wilson of King’s.’

‘Yes,’ she says, smiling at last. ‘Of course I can.’

‘Marvellous! And, Nell, I’ve never actually, you know, minded a horse before–do you think one ought to feed it once or twice a day on such a trip? It’s called Guy, apparently. The horse, I mean.’

‘Oh, I’m sure once will do fine, if it’s a good feed.’

‘Splendid! Well, let’s hope Women’s Suffrage doesn’t hijack our more important campaign…and, yes, a tin of sardines for our “whales” would be splendid. Do you really think you could spare them?’

She runs about the kitchen then, seemingly cheered to be given a purpose–and I feel a queer stab of pride that I’m the fellow who lifted her mood. Her sleeves are rolled up so that I see the finely haired skin on her bare arms and, seeing her thus, I am reminded once again of that day among the bees and her magnificent command of the creatures. Of course, such a memory of last summer, of the moment when I took her in my arms and the sunny taste of her mouth in mine, leads immediately into the unwanted, ugly memory of other things. Of her in the garden pegging up newly laundered wet sheets. I watched her from my window, knowing that she, and she alone, knew about Denham, knew all about me, every last thing…

‘I–well, thank you, Nell. I–I suppose Ka Cox could get some of these things just as easily. Ka’s a practical girl, you know, and an orphan like yourself, so used to taking charge of things—’

Nell had disappeared into the pantry, and appears suddenly, as I say this, bearing two jars of honey, and such a stricken look that I long at once to bite back the words, although not quite understanding which of them has offended her so. Is it the
mention of her being an orphan? Well, that was tactless, yes, but it is the truth, none the less, and Nell has never seemed to me to shirk simple facts. Could it, perhaps, have my been implication that Ka might do just as well as she, when Nell is trying so hard to accommodate me?

‘Oh, of course,’ Nell says, glancing down at the jars in her hands, now seeming uncertain whether to offer the honey or not.

‘I wouldn’t want to get you into trouble with Mrs Stevenson, Nell,’ I suggest, appeasingly.

Now she says hotly, ‘The honey is my own to give. From my family in Prickwillow, you know. Actually, these are two very special jars: the fields near our house with their poppies make a–quite special flavour, very different from Mr Neeve’s orchard honey.’

‘I—’ Naturally here I wish to apologise, but feel tongue-tied and then annoyed that this girl always seems to fluster me, render me foolish and clumsy and, in some queer fashion, hideously exposed. (My remarkable wit does rather desert me where Nell Golightly is concerned!) It is the matter of Denham, and the kiss, too, but more than that: it is some dreadful sense that she holds my secrets in her apron pocket along with my handkerchief. I’m delivered bound into her hands.

‘I should pack some books,’ I mutter stiffly, preparing to retreat to my room. ‘You know, decide what I’m taking. Marlowe, Donne, the Webbs’ report, that kind of thing. Yes, I need, we need, special information about the counties we’re passing through to help us plan our campaign–must go. Um, thanks awfully for the honey.’

I hold out my hands and, without a word, she places the two jars in them.

Poole High Street, close to the Free Library. Principal speaker Mr Brooke. Questions invited. In support of proposals for Poor Law Reform. Sponsored by the NCPD.

I am unable to remain still in my room. I sit on my bed, pile up a few books in a desultory fashion, and leap up again. I put my face to the floorboards, breathing in dust and mouse droppings, and listen.

Yes. Nell is still in the kitchen, clattering about with the pots. Can I find some excuse to venture back downstairs, and repair the damage of my clumsy remark about Ka and, more importantly, somehow smooth over the discomfort of what has transpired between us and can never be alluded to?

I peer over the balcony in time to see Mrs Stevenson leave the kitchen. Then I return downstairs, where Nell seems happily back to her customary good spirits and Mrs Stevenson does not return. I show her one of our leaflets, which she admires. I show her some of my notes, too, and she murmurs that the Spike is indeed worse than any prison, with mothers separated from children, and husbands from wives, and hard labour all day long. ‘At least in prison you might one day be released!’ she says. ‘In the Spike no one ever seems to come out who goes in.’

I contemplate this awful thought for a moment. ‘I’m a little nervous. You know, the British Working Man can be rather–alarming to one like me!’

She laughs.

‘I’m preparing my various responses, just in case.’

I leap on to a kitchen chair in my bare feet and, in a voice that mimics Sidney Webb’s meaningful tones, announce: ‘You may fear for the moral character of the poor, yes, if these laws came to pass. Will the fibre of the working man become weak if he has recourse to the state directly he is out of a job? It is all very well, my dear young woman, to be so concerned, so
incensed
about the moral character of the poor
individual
, but what about the moral fibre of a nation as a whole and its responsibility to its citizens in need? What of that, eh, my girl?’

She laughs again.

‘After all,’ I continue, dropping the mimicry in my tone and aiming for sincerity, ‘why make a distinction between times of adversity and times of trouble or danger from others? If we are in danger from other people we have no difficulty in throwing ourselves at the mercy of the state in the shape of the local policeman or law courts. This carries no shame or social stigma! Why should it be otherwise in times of financial trouble? This “loss of independence” does not weaken the character. It leaves men free to use their energies more profitably!’

She claps and smiles one of her deep, bosomy smiles and I feel immensely pleased, and immensely relieved and, yes, it almost does feel easy between us again. I jump down from my soapbox. ‘Marvellous! Thank you, Nell. Oh, yes, I’m quite prepared now for whatever Assaults on Reason these working folk are going to throw at us–not to mention the eggs!’

She gives a little shriek then, and disappears to the pantry again, returning with a box of eggs. ‘Take these too. I’ve asked. I’ll bring extra from home when I visit and Mrs Stevenson says it’s fine.’

‘Oh, Nell, you are too kind. I’m not sure young Dudders knows how to boil an egg, but we can teach him, eh?’

‘You’re funny,’ she says.

I stare into her glorious violet eyes and I know that I was not wrong in my estimation of her intelligence. ‘I’m sorry about your sister, Nell,’ I say, and in an instant we are both serious again. ‘Marrying an old man is a horrible fate.’

‘Yes.’

Whenever I let slip the mask for a moment, Nellie never fails to respond. It is not in what she says–Tradition and Centuries are difficult to undo–but in her glances. That is where the truth between us resides. At least, sometimes I believe this. But then the glorious violet eyes of Nell Golightly could persuade a man of anything.

Now she covers her hands with a teacloth and takes the tray
of scones from the oven. A delicious hot smell wafts around us. I hear from the voices outside on the lawn that Ka and Geoffrey and the others are returning and a private conversation cannot be continued. I’m surprised at how angry this makes me feel.

‘We leave tomorrow next week for our trip, so any–provisions you might secrete before then would be gratefully received.’

‘I’ll do my best.’

‘It’s all for the Cause, of course.’

‘Yes, sir,’ she says. I realise from her tone and that ‘sir’ that the others are in earshot and Mrs Stevenson’s approaching tread is on the stair, so I lean forward to whisper my next remark, and I have no idea what I’m going to say until the words are out of my mouth.

‘I have one more request of you, Nellie. I will make it first thing in the morning.’

‘Yes, sir. As you will.’

Her eyes widen. Violets. Darkening woods. Nature hammers out a drumbeat.

I straighten up.
Quelle surprise!
Whatever that request might be, it seems Nell has said yes!

Rupert says, ‘Let’s swim at Byron’s Pool.’

‘What–now? At this hour?’

‘Come on, no one’s up. It’s a glorious morning. Come, come on, Nellie…’

‘But my duties–I haven’t finished in the kitchen.’

‘It’s six o’clock! The sun’s barely up. Surely your sister might cover for you just this once. Tell Mrs Stevenson you have some errand–I don’t know…Don’t you have to go to the butcher’s sometimes?’

I smile at this, for meat is delivered, every morning, by the
butcher’s boy, Tommy, long before Rupert wakes. But the idea of it, of sneaking away with Rupert, of being outdoors by the river in the earliest, freshest part of the day, rather than indoors, hot and sweaty, cleaning out the copper and blackening the stove and starching the linen for the new tenants, feels so tempting, so scandalous, that I can hardly stop my heart picketing my chest for permission. How many times have I listened bitterly to the shouts, the laughter and calls of Rupert and his friends, the thud of wood and splash in the water, remembering with longing Edmund frolicking in the river Lark, while Rupert rows back along the Cam escorting some lady in a hat or being read to by some twit in a silk tie, and I’m out by the hives, working?

‘All right,’ I say. ‘Betty will stand in for me.’

And I grab the smoker and some quicklime so that I might inspect the bees on the way back and make-believe I have been checking that no surplus queen cells have been forming in the brood chamber. Rupert goes on ahead, carrying the butterfly net, and some rolled-up towels so that we won’t be seen walking together. The Stevensons are still asleep. Betty is just stirring and I tell her that I will be gone an hour and she’s to make out I’m busy with the bees, if anyone asks. She looks startled but is too sleepy to ask more.

My heart raps at my ribcage for fear, for naughtiness, swift and stubborn as the spotted woodpecker at the tree. The sky is clean, the day shiny as a newborn, and a light wind is brushing my cheek as I trip along behind Rupert, watching his figure in the distance as he leaves the garden and joins the lane; his blue shirt, his long, loose-limbed gait. I haven’t run away like this since I was in the schoolhouse and that was a day that the Reverend himself came to find me.

I venture this thought to Rupert when I catch up with him. Thick white dust is shifting under his sand-shoes. He seems dismayed to discover my family are regular churchgoers.

‘But how else could a girl like me get an education?’ I ask,
and he stares at me for a moment, and nods. We cross the bridge in front of Grantchester Mill and walk through a meadow, which is still sopping with dew.

‘I must give you
Principia Ethica
and more poems by Swinburne. I shall soon corrupt you.’

I set my mouth then, knowing he is laughing at me. We are now in sight of the the dam with its grey sluice gates and the deep, waiting water. The smell of mint and mud swells around us. He sits at the edge of the water, at the place where the river widens into a pool and cow-parsley grows on the banks in huge white clumps. He seems to be waiting for me to join him. I’m shy at first, but seeing him look up expectantly and brush his fringe from his eyes, I sit myself down beside him. Not too close.

‘What do you think of Ka Cox, Nellie?’

This is not what I expected. I put down the smoker on the grass.

Miss Cox. Yesterday, coming back late with the Frenchman, Mr Raverat, she startled me in the kitchen, where I had my back to the lawn and the french windows and was drying crockery with the teacloth. Her sudden appearance made me jump and I dropped a cup. To my surprise she bent with me to pick up the pieces and, handing them to me, said, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry! I startled you. How silly of me.’ Mr Raverat stood awkwardly while she gathered more of the pieces and placed them in my outstretched palm. ‘I really
am
terribly sorry,’ she said, and opened her mouth to say more. I imagined she was about to offer to pay, but to my astonishment she said, ‘Where does Mrs Stevenson keep the pan and brush? Let me sweep up the rest.’

‘Oh, no, ma’am,’ I said hastily, and Mr Raverat put his arm on hers and murmured something in French to her. He swept her out of the kitchen and on to the lawn.

‘She is very…
kind
,’ I say now cautiously.

Rupert has rolled on to his stomach, holding the butterfly net in the green eddies of the water so that the back of his head is
towards me. ‘Kind…Hmmm. How observant you are!’ He sits up and pokes me with a little twig, and laughs.

I blush, wondering if my interest in Miss Cox betrays me. But he seems not to notice.

‘Kind, though. Is that enough? Is kindness what a man wants…after all? Not especially pretty…She’s sweet on Jacques, of course,’

‘Oh. For myself I thought your friend Mr Keynes rather fond of her,’ I answer.

Rupert seems surprised. ‘Geoffrey? Surely not? But, then, that’s the surprise with Ka. Other chaps do seem rather to find her–attractive. It’s a mystery to me. Jacques is perfectly smitten.’

To my surprise, now that she is being so dismissed, I feel obliged to defend Miss Cox. ‘Well, there’s plenty to be said for kindness, after all. For warmth and a generous nature…more than, you know, looks alone…’

‘Perhaps. Or perhaps it’s that some men wish to be mothered. And some of us would run a thousand miles before taking up that particular offer!’

Knowing this to be a reference to
his
mother, I now feel the need to defend her, too. ‘I don’t see that maternal affection is so…dreadful…’