The Horatio Stubbs Trilogy (2 page)

The doorbell rang. My mother cried from above, ‘There she is now!'

Beatrice went to the front door. Against instructions, I followed. I wanted to get a private word in first.

Sister came lightly in, wearing her worn but tidy light tweed coat. She smiled at me with her head held slightly on one side, and quickly put her small hand into mine. Something lit in her face at the sight of mine lighting.

‘Hope you won't be too bored,' I whispered. Mother was already bearing down the stairs, making little sort of preliminary tuning-up sounds. I stood back for the overture.

Meals have changed since then. They changed almost at that precise moment in time, as far as the Stubbs family was concerned. Perhaps that was the last of the rather lavish teas that my mother liked to give for her friends, sitting at the top of the table, with the teapot and its accessories by her side on a separate folding table, talking amiably to all and sundry, addressing each of her guests in turn so that none should feel left out, pausing now and then to give low-voiced instructions to Beatrice.

My poor mama! She was always happiest in the past, and this present spread was an attempt as much to stop the clock as to impress the visitor. In the recent declaration of war, boys of my age had already smelt change, and trembled; my mother's generation doubtless did the same – but their tremblings were far less pleasurable than ours.

Perhaps for this reason she decided to address Sister as if the two of them were of the same generation. I must admit now that there can have been less than ten years between them, but that gulf appeared to be infinite at the time.

Over the jelly and cream, the dainty slices of brown bread and butter, the jams in their glass dishes inside silver holders, the sponge and fruit cakes, the buns and biscuits and chocolate éclairs that were there mainly for Ann's benefit, Mother cheerfully talked of Sister's future, about which she knew even less than I.

‘I must say, I think it's jolly brave of you to throw up a safe job and join the war effort! You'll have a wonderful time, lots of boy friends and admirers! Oh, I know!'

‘I'm hoping to get posted to France,' said Sister.

‘Lovely, what fun! Go to Paris! Such a beautiful city. Notre-Dame! The boulevards! Robert and I
love
Paris, especially in the spring …'

‘You were only there one day, Mummy!' Ann said.

‘A beautiful spring day – eat your bread-and-butter properly, Ann, and sit up straight! You'd like Paris, I know, Sister.'

‘Yes, I do, very much. I have connections there.'

‘Family connections, no doubt? I expect you know most of the capitals of Europe … I should like to do my bit for the old country, but I'm not as free as you – three children and a husband …'

‘You wouldn't actually call Nelson a child, would you, Mum?' I asked. ‘He's in the forces and he's grown a moustache.'

Mother smiled at me and held out her hand. ‘Pass your cup nicely if you'd like another cup of tea. Beatrice, I think if we could have some more hot water … Nelson looks so silly with a moustache, Sister! Of course, you've never seen him. They'll soon make him shave it off. He's at Aldershot; Robert was there in the Great War. He'll always be my child if he lives to be sixty. I hope he'll do well in the Army. I believe your family are some of them in the forces, Sister, aren't they?'

A small foot kicked me under the table, and Ann made a face at me over her cup; we could almost feel Mother forcing the conversational-tone-improving word ‘Admiral' to materialize in the air above the table.

‘Try and drink more like a lady, Ann,' said Mother, catching the movement. ‘Aren't they, Sister?'

Sister was sitting at table eating demurely, half-smiling in a way she had. She looked, I thought, rather like a dutiful young daughter, except that her face was faintly lined. Her short hair, some strands of which were quite fair, was neat and beautiful. She was so – well, you could see she was the product of upper-class breeding.

‘My father and his brother were in the Navy.'

‘Oh, the Navy, the senior service! And I expect they were both very successful, weren't they? Let me cut you a slice of sponge.'

‘I wouldn't say successful. My father's brother, poor Uncle David, was drowned at sea.'

‘You poor thing! I'm so sorry. Horatio never told me!'

‘I didn't know,' I said. ‘I never heard of Sister's Uncle David.'

‘No, of course, you didn't,' Sister said, giving me a little secret smile. ‘It was rather a tragedy. It happened in 1917. I was crazy about my uncle, although I was only a tot. He was so brave and so handsome. His ship was sunk in the Atlantic by a German U-boat. He was in the water for some incredible time, clinging to a spar. At last a British merchant naval vessel picked him up and – do you know? – he hadn't been aboard an hour before that ship was also torpedoed by a U-boat. It went straight to the bottom, Uncle with it.'

‘War's a terrible thing,' Mother said, causing a plate of cake to circulate.

‘We'll soon beat the Germans,' I said. ‘Their tanks are made of cardboard. The Head said so.'

There was a pause for silent patriotism and fruit cake.

‘But your father's alive and well still, I hear,' Mother said.

Sister nodded. ‘He's a rear-admiral. Retired, of course. Now he talks about closing down Traven House and getting back into harness, if the Admiralty will have him.'

We all smiled. Mother said, ‘Rear-admiral … A pity the way our grand old homes have to close.'

Father had looked up Sister's home in an old
Baedeker
the previous evening, and found: ‘3 m. farther NE,
Traven House
, Georgian, fine Vict. orangery, once the home of Sir Francis Traven, Gov. of Massachusetts Bay, 1771–9.' We were all delighted, and wondered if Sir Francis's descendants still grew oranges there.

‘Have you got any ghosts?' Ann asked. ‘I'd be quite terrified! Do you have battlements, with phantom men in armour clanking about?'

Sister laughed, a very charming little display. ‘No, no ghosts, no battlements.'

‘But Horry told me …'

‘Eat your cake,' I said. ‘You'd be terrified of the mere thought of a ghost.'

‘Don't bully her, Horatio, and do just brush your hair out of your eyes. That's better!'

‘Mummy and I would love to come and see you at Traven House,' Ann said.

Our visitor looked askance. ‘I'm afraid I shan't be at home much longer, Ann, otherwise I'd love to show you both round.'

The words sank deep into my heart. Although I continued to munch gloomily at the cake, I ached inside. She couldn't leave! I needed her. I loved her. She could not realize what she was doing to me or she would never go.

There were four females in the room with me. Excluding my mother, I had had sexual relations with all the others. But the need was now for Sister, entirely for Sister, only for Sister, among all the women in the world.

Should I stand up and declare my feelings? Would they laugh? What would Mother say? But Mother at this point, having poured herself a last cup of tea, was doing her party stunt and declaiming some poetry learnt as a girl:

‘And so it goes on – I forget what comes next. It's the court bit from Sir Walter Scott's “Marmion”. I learnt it at school. Oh, I could spout it for hours! I tell Ann and Horatio they ought to read more poetry. Are you a great poetry-reader, Sister?'

Sister made some suitable reply.

After tea Ann slipped away to play in her bedroom. I hung around while Mother entertained my guest.

‘Well, darling,' she said at last, turning to me. ‘Fetch Sister Traven your latest paintings. He really does show promise.'

‘I haven't done any more since I saw her last.'

Smiling, shaking of head. ‘He's done several, Sister. He's far too modest about them. I'm a great admirer of the British artists, Gainsborough and Hogarth, and others.' For some reason she pronounced Hogarth as if it had two “g”s: Hoggarth.

‘It's “Hogarth”, Mother. One “g”.'

‘I can spell Hogarth, darling.
And
pronounce it. A fine artist. We used to have a butcher called Hogarth at home, in the old days. Anyhow, Sister, it's been very good of you to take such an interest in Horatio, and to take him out as you have done. …'

Truer than she thought, I said to myself. I watched Sister as she rose to leave; not, if you were strictly honest, a great deal of figure. But I could discern her breasts under the jumper, and I knew how sweet they were, how pink the nipples, when you disengaged them gently from the brassière … Steady, you sod, or you'll be getting a hard on …

We all stood up. Mother lightly patted down a curl of hair on the back of my head, and then squeezed me affectionately.

‘I tell him, if he were a girl, I'd get a slide to that piece of hair. How it infuriates me! But he's a good boy. I sometimes reproach myself that I neglect him, bless him. Yes, I've been very lucky with my children.'

‘Oh, not that again, Mother! She says that to everyone, Sister. She forgets what little horrors we were.'

‘I'm sure you were,' Sister said, smiling. It amazed me at the time that she was not at all put off after seeing me treated as such a kid.

‘When this one cried as a child, his father got so mad at him, he used to take him to the window and threaten to throw him out! But he was a good boy, on the whole. Well, Sister, it's been so pleasant … Horatio, go and get Sister Traven's coat, where are your manners? Yes, I do hope we'll see you again soon …'

As they moved to the door, I got there first, opened it, and edged myself half out before saying, ‘Mother, I'll just drive down the road with Sister. There's something I want to tell her.'

‘Tell her now – you've been quiet enough up to now!'

‘No, it's all right. I'll tell her on the way, Mum. Then I can drop off to see William. I shan't be long.'

‘Yes, all right, dear. Don't be long. Your father will be home soon.'

As Sister and I made our way down our five whitened steps and along the front path, I took her arm and led her to the car. Mother stood waving as we drove away; I hoped she had noticed my gesture.

‘Let's go up by the cemetery.'

‘You mustn't be long!'

It was generally quiet in the lane that ran by the side of the cemetery. She stopped in a suitable place without any mucking about. We turned and looked at each other. There was no sign on her that she had been through the ordeal I had. We kissed each other. Not exactly a passionate kiss – I knew I would not get that kind from her at this hour of the day; the passionate ones, and even the ones before the passionate ones, which were her way of testing her own mood, only materialized after dark. But certainly a loving kiss. Again I was amazed that she was not put off by Mother's attempted demonstration that I was just a kid.

‘You were very nice to Mother,' I said presently.

‘She was nice to me.'

Better not explore that subject! I asked her if we could drive about until it got dark. She knew what I meant.

‘I must get back to Traven House, love. The family solicitor is coming over specially this evening, to sort out some of my papers. I have various bonds and other possessions, and a little not-very-valuable jewellery, that I am going to leave in his safe-keeping until the war is over.'

‘God, how I wish you weren't going, Virginia!' I ran my hands over her body, but she would only stand a certain amount of that in a semi-public place. In a safe room it was another matter. Once, after dark, in the dark, she had let me undress her and I had run my hands all over her body, and then slipped a finger into her fanny and began to frig her gently. That little secret organ of hers! But there could be nothing like that on this occasion.

She had made me grow up, made me see that there were other things than immediate satisfactions – I would not have dared ask her to toss me off, as I might have done with another girl; for Virginia was teaching me immense ideas about sexual organs – ideas that I learned only reluctantly, ideas that went against all my early training: showing me that love had to be there somewhere, and that against the recurrent isolation of life the hastily snatched orgasm was not the only antidote.

Firmly, she held my hands.

‘There's a war … People get separated. I learnt that in the last war, when I was younger than you.'

‘I can't bear to be separated from you, Virginia, darling! We've only just got to know each other.'

She looked very searchingly at me, then said, so quietly that I could hardly hear, ‘You can always write to me at my Nottingham address. I shan't be off to London yet … And, Horatio – I must tell you … You really don't know me at all.'

I rested my head on her shoulder.

‘Oh, Virginia, I want to, I want to know you better. You're so wonderful for me, and I love you so much.'

She never said she loved me. But she stroked my cheeks and looked at me in what for her was a wild sort of way.

‘Virginia, I want to know you …' The eternal cry of lovers. It was eventually by getting to know her that I lost her.