Anglo-Saxon Attitudes (24 page)

Gerald got up from his chair. 'Look, Gilbert,' he said, 'I'm fed up with all this tommy-rot. I'm going.'

But before he had picked up his gloves, Gilbert seized his sleeve. 'I'll tell you something that'll keep you here,' he said, and smiled with a drunken, self-satisfied look of cunning. 'You think my guvnor's a great scholar, just because he reads Carolingian uncials or some other farting nonsense. How could he be a great scholar? He hasn't enough imagination to come in out of the rain. How could he understand the Middle Ages with his dregs of Darwinism, his Jesus Christ who's a decent Englishman and his Primrose League politics? He wouldn't know a Giotto if he saw one, and tell him the truth about a Romanesque carving and his poor little cotton-woolled soul wouldn't sleep for nights. If he thinks about it all apart from his "documents" and his origins of Parliament he probably sees a lot of starry-eyed pre-Raphaelite women with goitre, or else a crowd of red-faced lady dons morris-dancing on the village green. As for the Dark Ages! he wouldn't know a fraud if he saw one.
I
know because I've caught him out.'

Gerald, who had sat down to avoid a scene, wondered what nonsense was about to come. Gilbert, when drunk, was full of wondrous stories and elaborate leg-pulls. He decided to give him his head. 'Really?'  he said. 'What was that?'  But he need not have bothered: Gilbert in full spate heard nothing.

'The great Stokesay, and you, and all the ruddy crowd, thought that the little wooden fellow with the respectable-sized piece was part of Bishop what's-his-name's equipment for the long journey ahead of him, didn't you? Any fool with half a sense of what a man of God was like in those days would have felt the falseness of the thing. I
know,
because I put it there.'

Gerald had a sudden instant conviction that he was hearing the truth. His tongue seemed enormous in his mouth; he could not speak.

'Oh yes, I did,' Gilbert said. He was speaking quite softly now and with a sort of crooning pleasure. 'I found the thing on the other site, among the pagan graves, where you'd expect to find it. And, with a little help, I put it in Thingummy's tomb. I just thought there was half a chance in hell that the old man was the vain fool he turned out to be. He wouldn't have believed it if it hadn't been
his
excavation, and you, you fools, took the same line. Even that theatrical old fool Portway wasn't prepared to disagree with the great Stokesay. He smelt a rat, but he kept mum. After all, it was
his
excavation too,
and
his land on which the great discovery was made, even if it did dishonour his Church.' Gilbert shouted for two more brandies. 'We'll drink a health,' he said, 'to the day dear father gets the knighthood he wants so much, because that's the day I shall spill the beans.'

Gerald drank down the brandy and felt able to speak. 'Tell me the story again, Gilbert,' he said, trying to convey no decision as to the truth of what he had heard; 'I didn't follow it very well.'

Gilbert's face seemed suddenly to go dead. 'Oh yes, you did,' he said. Then he burst into a raucous laugh. 'You believed every word of it, Middleton. You swallowed it whole. I fooled you completely, my father's little ray of promise, his shining pupil, the brightest jewel in Clio's diadem. You believed it,' and once again he laughed loudly.

Gerald said, 'I know nothing about it. It isn't my period.'

Gilbert bowed mockingly. 'I beg your pardon,' he said, then, mimicking, he added, 'Of course, it isn't your
period.
How silly of me! You bloody historians and your periods, you're like a lot of women. Go on,' he said. 'Hop it.' His eyes closed and his head slumped on to his shoulders drunkenly.

Gerald got up and went out of the restaurant, convincing himself gladly that it
was
another of Gilbert's aggressive drunken jokes.

And so it might well have been, for everything went according to the usual pattern. On the Monday Gerald received the usual charming note of apology from Gilbert - only this one had seemed more than usually sincere, or were they all like that? There had followed three of the happiest months of their friendship. Gilbert had been amusing, interesting, even humane. They had found a common new enthusiasm in soldiering and under its impetus Gilbert seemed to have lost his bitterness or at least the play-acting hysterical aspect of it, even when he was drunk.

It was, however, that same night at Stokesay's after he had left Soho that Gerald first had sex with Dollie. Stokesay had been in bed when he arrived there and Gilbert had been quite right about Dollie - she had been willing and eager. As to her fears of Gilbert, her answer to that had been quite simple: 'Of course I'm frightened of him, Gerrie,' she had said. 'He's very mad, you know. But I'm not superstitious. As long as he doesn't hear of it, what's it matter?'

Even years later, when they were living together, Gerald had never told her how much his tension over Gilbert's account of Melpham had given him the courage to seduce her. Melpham was not a subject that would normally interest Dollie and he had always been at pains not to arouse her sense of guilt by any hostile reference to Gilbert. If they mentioned him it was in the terms of praise they had evolved to satisfy his father's hero-worship.

Gerald's attention was drawn back to the family by the sudden sound of his grandson's voice. Timothy had finished his book, and pulling his long gangling body from the armchair, he blinked at the family through his spectacles. 'I shall go to bed now, Mother,' he said. Crossing the room, he kissed first Marie Hélène and then Inge. 'Thank you for a very pleasant Christmas, Grandmother,' he said.

Inge took one of his hands and held it for a minute, looking up at his great height. 'So you have been improving your time,' she said, 'while we have been wasting ours in arguments. You are quite right. Life is not made for fighting and quarrels.' She was depressed at the degree to which her family kept out of the conversation. 'But
you
are the one who can answer our question, Timothy,' she cried. 'You are the philosopher. Now
you
will tell us. How does one know the truth about something? Do we know it in a flash - So! - or does it come to us very slowly like a tortoise? Is it a big thing or is it little things? There you are. A difficult question for a very tall boy.'

Gerald, remembering his children's reactions to her treatment in the past, was not surprised that Timothy did not apparently resent the immense patronage of her tone. 'A difficult question?'  he said. 'I should have thought it was quite simple, if you know all the facts. It's just a matter of getting every detail in its right place, isn't it? Making the right pattern.' His mind was still with his book and he spoke with impatience. 'Well, good night,' he said and was gone.

Gerald noted as some balm to his feelings that Robin had received no further separate recognition than he had. Many people in his position, he supposed, would seek an ally against the family in Timothy, whose reserve suggested so much hidden criticism. He was not sentimental enough to suppose that it would be difficult to break down his grandson's defences, to win his confidence. But what would he find except one generation's sceptical perception of its elder's follies? And what had he to offer in return? It would be pleasant to redress the balance of the old generation by calling in the new, but the thing savoured too much of Inge's emotional dishonesty, her vicarious living. And to say that the young liked her advances was no justification for betraying his own emotional integrity. Besides, he thought, young men and youths offered nothing but boredom; brash and pert, or shy like Timothy, what they had to say was ultimately callow. If there had been a granddaughter now, it would not have been necessary to listen, her presence alone would have given him life. But as it was... callow rubbish. Making the right pattern... getting every detail right. But what if there was no pattern, pray, but only a blur of half-remembered details? His arrival at Melpham, for instance, on the day of the discovery. ...

Gilbert had written first from Melpham, 'I believe I am to congratulate you on obtaining a remarkable First in Tripos. So at any rate my father has told me. He, by the way, intends to invite you here, so I give you warning. Do not feel that you have to accept. My father's admiration for your scholarship is great enough to withstand the shock of refusal; so is my friendship. However if you wish to come ... the country is pleasant, if flat; the excavations belong as yet to the physical rather than to the intellectual disciplines, but my father seems confident of "important finds" and I shall use all my hitherto latent historical talents to produce them. History, by the way, I now see to be even more of an artisan skill than I had supposed in my most contemptuous moments - at least as you professionals play it. You will be the guest - if you have no more rewarding plan - of the owners of Melpham House - as we are. They are rich cultural snobs who are prepared to kill any number of fatted calves - the food is only passable - in return for finding their marshy and unprofitable estates to be one of England's "historic treasure-grounds". To be serious, the Portways quite interest me - they show the last decadence that plutocracy has reached in our declining civilization - money without the confidence of its power. The brother, as well as being the local archaeologist, is a modern Churchman, which means, as far as I can see, an attachment to any and every belief save the dogmas of his own religion. He has revived all manner of old-world customs here - or rather invented them, for I swear that no activities of the past could be so idiotic as his. He is forever setting up maypoles, producing mystery plays, and dancing on greens: and, as he has good looks of a theatrical kind, the local ladies swoon at the sight of him. There is behind all this mummery a peculiarly mischievous and foolish sort of egalitarianism based on some romantic notion of medieval society - in short, the cloven hoof of William Morris. As a result of all this neglect of his proper duties, of course, he is a very respected figure in the Church, indeed a canonry is in the air. His sister-in-law, your hostess, is the "great" Lilian Portway and very conscious of it. I thought her at first one of the most odious women I have met - an absurd example of that outdated enormity "the New Woman". She is a "great beauty" in a large, willowy sort of way that would have delighted the late Sir Edward Burne-Jones (is he, by the way, dead? If not, he should be) and
does
delight the "advanced" theatre public that flock to the plays of Shaw. In addition she has been in Holloway for the "cause" and speaks on public platforms. Can you think of a more unpleasing combination? However, down here, it must be said, she is less of the feminist and more feminine - she plays in fact the gracious hostess with a dilettante interest in the excavations. She proves, too, to have an agreeable if uninformed enthusiasm for Nietzsche which is creditable. After all, one has to remember that these women's antics are only the product of male permissiveness. However, I get a good deal of amusement twisting both their "advanced" tails, particularly the egregious parson's. No one of interest lives about here. So you will have to content yourself with your Fabian Maecenas hosts. There is a pretty enough girl who visits. Another enormity - a sports girl. She is on the way to being a tennis champion! However, I suspect that she is susceptible to masculine discipline. Her father is a retired colonel, whom she calls "an awfully jolly old boy". Apprehension of boredom has so far prevented me from putting her claims to the test....'

Professor Stokesay's invitation followed hard upon his son's letter of warning. Looking back to it, Gerald felt embarrassed by the touch of Mr Collins it contained. 'Mrs Portway - the great Lilian Portway - has urged me to invite you. She is a remarkable woman of extraordinary beauty, considerable personality, and, in addition, she is very cultivated. Her reception of us here has been truly magnificent, and, despite all the claims on her time, she professes and, I truly believe, feels great interest in the excavations. I do not normally attend the theatre, but I promise myself a visit when she next appears in London, for she has a notable and, I can easily believe, well-deserved reputation. She is, alas! deeply involved in the follies of women's suffrage, but with the typical tact of a great lady she has never mounted the soap-box in my presence. If only some of these raucous-voiced women would follow her example, they might do their cause more good than by their present irresponsible behaviour! I do not know how much you will see of Gilbert, for, between ourselves, he is showing a lively interest in a very charming little lady in the neighbourhood. Despite all his Timon orations against the modern woman, Gilbert seems to have fallen a willing victim to one now, for Miss Armstrong - Dollie as I am allowed to call her - is a champion tennis-player!

'I have no doubt that Mrs Portway will send her motor-car to fetch you from the station. Her chauffeur, Barker by the way, is a splendid local character, a fine specimen of East Anglian manhood, who has proved invaluable to us, both by his knowledge of the locality and by the loan of his considerable muscle power, which, in view of the difficulty of engaging satisfactory labour, has been very welcome. ...'

Mrs Portway's Delage had, in fact, met Gerald - a plum-coloured motor-car with Barker in a plum-coloured uniform matching his complexion. Gerald, more accustomed to such luxuries than Dr Stokesay, was in the habit of making up for his father's taciturnity by a few polite observations to the chauffeur. Such replies as he received from Barker, however, were neither intelligible nor encouraging. He gave himself up to watching as much of the countryside as could be seen through the August dust. Rolling country, oak-wooded here and there among the buff-coloured corn, gave way to flat, marshy heath. Through the dust-choked air Gerald began to sense salt-freshened currents in the slight east wind that cut the morning's heat. Wilting loosestrife, its purple bruised, giant yarrows, their lace dried and buckled, were interspersed increasingly along the roadside by clumsy-headed bullrushes and bushes of feathery tamarisk, their growth twisted westwards by the strong sea gales. It was almost twenty miles from the station to Melpham House, but they had hardly travelled an hour before the motor-car turned into a drive lined by St John's wort and variegated hollies.