The Stranger's Child (2 page)

‘Perhaps losing a father made him shy,’ said Clara. ‘He wanted only to be with you.’

‘Mm, you may be right,’ said Freda, piqued by Clara’s wisdom, and touched at the same time by the thought of George’s devotion. ‘But he’s certainly changing now. I can see it in his walk. And he whistles a great deal, which usually shows that a man’s looking forward to something . . . Of course he loves Cambridge. He loves the life of ideas.’ She saw the paths across and around the courts of the colleges as ideas, with the young men following them, through archways, and up staircases. Beyond were the gardens and river-banks, the hazy dazzle of social freedom, where George and his friends stretched out on the grass, or slipped by in punts. She said cautiously, ‘You know he has been elected to the Conversazione Society.’

‘Indeed . . .’ said Clara, with a vague shake of the head.

‘We’re not allowed to know about it. But it’s philosophy, I think. Cecil Valance got him into it. They discuss ideas. I think George said they discuss, “Does this hearth-rug exist?” That kind of thing.’

‘The big questions,’ said Clara.

Freda laughed guiltily and said, ‘I understand it’s a great honour to be a member.’

‘And Cecil is older than George,’ said Clara.

‘I believe two or three years older, and already quite an expert on some aspect of the Indian Mutiny. Apparently he hopes to be a Fellow of the college.’

‘He is offering to help George.’

‘Well, I think they’re great friends!’

Clara let a moment pass. ‘Whatever the reason,’ she said, ‘George is blooming.’

Freda smiled firmly, as she took up her friend’s idea. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘He’s coming into bloom, at last!’ The image was both beautiful and vaguely unsettling. Then Daphne was sticking her head through the window and shouting,

‘They’re here!’ – sounding furious with them for not knowing.

‘Ah, good,’ said her mother, standing up again.

‘Not a moment too soon,’ said Clara Kalbeck, with a dry laugh, as if her own patience had been tried by the wait.

Daphne glanced quickly over her shoulder, before saying, ‘He’s extremely charming, you know, but he has a rather carrying voice.’

‘And so have you, my dear,’ said Freda. ‘Now do go and bring him in.’

‘I shall depart,’ said Clara, quietly and gravely.

‘Oh, nonsense,’ said Freda, surrendering as she had suspected she would, and getting up and going into the hall. As it happened Hubert had just got home from work, and was standing at the front door in his bowler hat, almost throwing two brown suitcases into the house. He said,

‘I brought these up with me in the van.’

‘Oh, they must be Cecil’s,’ said Freda. ‘Yes, “C. T. V.”, look. Do be careful . . .’ Her elder son was a well-built boy, with a surprisingly ruddy moustache, but she saw in a moment, in the light of her latest conversation, that he hadn’t yet bloomed, and would surely be completely bald before he had had the chance. She said, ‘And a most intriguing packet has come for you. Good evening, Hubert.’

‘Good evening, Mother,’ said Hubert, leaning over the cases to kiss her on the cheek. It was the little dry comedy of their relations, which somehow turned on the fact that Hubert wasn’t lightly amused, perhaps didn’t even know there was anything comic about them. ‘Is this it?’ he said, picking up a small parcel wrapped in shiny red paper. ‘It looks more like a lady’s thing.’

‘Well, so I had hoped,’ said his mother, ‘it’s from Mappin’s—’ as behind her, where the garden door had stood open all day, the others were arriving: waiting a minute outside, in the soft light that spread across the path, George and Cecil arm in arm, gleaming against the dusk, and Daphne just behind, wide-eyed, with a part in the drama, the person who had found them. Freda had a momentary sense of Cecil leading George, rather than George presenting his friend; and Cecil himself, crossing the threshold in his pale linen clothes, with only his hat in his hand, seemed strangely unencumbered. He might have been coming in from his own garden.

Up in the spare bedroom, Jonah settled the first suitcase on the bed, and ran his hands over the smooth hard leather; in the centre of the lid the initials C. T. V. were stamped in faded gold. He shifted and sighed in his private quandary, alert to the sound of the guest in the house. They were making each other laugh, down below, and the noise came upstairs without the sense. He heard Cecil Valance’s laugh, like a dog shut in a room, and pictured him again in the hall, in his cream-coloured jacket with grass stains on the elbows. He had lively dark eyes and high colour, as though he’d been running. Mr George had called him Cess – Jonah said it in a noiseless whisper as he traced the
C
with the tip of his finger. Then he stood up straight, sprang the catches, and released the heady and authentic gentleman’s smell: toilet water, starch, and the slowly fading reek of leather.

As a rule, Jonah only came upstairs to carry cases or shift a bed; and last winter, his first at ‘Two Acres’, he had brought the coals up for the fires. He was fifteen, short for his age, but strong; he chopped wood, ran errands, went up and down to the station in Horner’s van. He was the boy, in all the useful senses of the word, but he had never ‘valeted’ before. George and Hubert seemed able to dress and undress by themselves, and Mustow, Mrs Sawle’s maid, took down all the laundry. This morning, however, George had called him in after breakfast and told him to look after his friend Valance, who he said was used to any number of servants. At Corley Court he had a marvellous man called Wilkes, who had looked after George as well when he stayed there, and given him some good advice without appearing to do so. Jonah asked what sort of advice it had been, but George laughed and said, ‘Just find out if he needs anything. Unpack his bags as soon as he comes, and, you know, arrange the contents convincingly.’ This was the word, enormous but elusive, that Jonah had had on his mind all day, sometimes displaced by some other task, then gripping him again with a subtle horror.

Now he unbuckled straps and lifted tissue-paper with hesitant fingers. Though he needed help, he was glad he was alone. The case had been packed by some expert servant, by Wilkes himself perhaps, and seemed to Jonah to call for some similar skill in the unpacking. There was an evening suit with two waistcoats, one black and one fancy, and then under the tissue-paper three dress-shirts and a round leather box for the collars. Jonah saw himself in the wardrobe mirror as he carried the clothes across the room, and saw his shadow, from the lamp on the bedside table, go rearing across the slope of the ceiling. George said Wilkes had done a particular thing, which was to take away all his loose change when he arrived and wash it for him. Jonah wondered how he was going to get the change off Cecil without asking for it or appearing to steal it. It occurred to him that George might possibly have been joking, but with George these days, as even Mrs Sawle had said, it was hard to tell.

In the second case there were clothes for cricket and swimming, and a number of soft, coloured shirts which Jonah thought were unusual. He spaced them out equally on the available shelves, like a display in a draper’s. Then there was the body linen, fine as a lady’s, the drawers ivory-coloured, vaguely shiny, catching on the roughness of his thumb before he stroked them flat again. He listened for a moment for the tone of the talk downstairs, then took the chance he had been given to unfold a pair and hold them up against his round young face so that the light glowed through them. The pulse of excitement beating under his anxiety made the blood rush into his head.

The lid of the case was heavy; it had two wide pockets in it, closed with press-studs, and holding books and papers. Jonah took these out with a little more confidence, knowing from George that his guest was a writing man. He himself could write neatly, and could read almost anything, given the time. The handwriting, in the first book Jonah opened, was very bad, and ran uphill at an angle, with the
g
s and
y
s tangling the lines together. This appeared to be a diary. Another book, rubbed at the corners like the cash-book in the kitchen, had what must be poems in it. ‘Oh do not smile on me if at the last’ Jonah made out, the words quite large, but then after a few lines, where the crossing-out began, getting smaller and scratchier, sloping away across the page until they were crowded and climbing over each other in the bottom right-hand corner. There were dog-eared bits of paper tucked in, and an envelope addressed to ‘Cecil Valance Esq
^re
, King’s College’ in the careful writing which he knew at once to be George’s. He heard rapid steps on the stairs and Cecil calling out, ‘Hallo, which is my room?’

‘In here, sir,’ said Jonah, pushing the letter back and quickly squaring up the books on the table.

‘Aha, are you my man?’ said Cecil, suddenly possessing the room.

‘Yes, I am, sir,’ said Jonah, with a momentary sense of betrayal.

‘I shan’t need you much,’ Cecil said, ‘in fact you can leave me alone in the morning,’ taking off his jacket at once and passing it to Jonah, who hung it up in the wardrobe without touching on the stained elbows. He planned to come back later, when they were having dinner, and deal with the dirty clothes unseen. He was going to be very much involved with all Cecil’s things until Monday morning. ‘Now, what shall I call you?’ said Cecil, almost as if choosing from a list in his head.

‘I’m Jonah, sir.’

‘Jonah, eh . . . ?’ The name sometimes led to remarks, and Jonah started rearranging the books on the table, unsure if they showed in some way that he’d looked inside them. After a moment Cecil said,‘Now those are my poetry notebooks. You must make sure you never touch them.’

‘Very well, sir,’ said Jonah. ‘Did you want them unpacked, then?’

‘Yes, yes, that’s all right,’ said Cecil fair-mindedly. He tugged his tie off, and started unbuttoning his shirt. ‘Been with the family long?’

‘Since last Christmas, sir.’

Cecil smiled vaguely, as if he’d forgotten the question by the time it was answered, and said, ‘Funny little room, isn’t it.’ Since Jonah didn’t answer, he added, ‘Rather charming, though, rather charming,’ with his yap of a laugh. Jonah had the strange feeling of being intimate with someone who was simultaneously unaware of him. In a way it was what you looked for, as a servant. But he had never been kept in talk in any of the other, smaller, bedrooms. He peered respectfully at the floor, feeling he mustn’t be caught looking at Cecil’s naked shoulders and chest. Now Cecil took out the change from his pocket and slapped it on the wash-stand; Jonah glanced at it and bit his cheek. ‘And will you run me a bath,’ said Cecil, undoing his belt and wriggling his hips to make his trousers fall down.

‘Yes, sir,’ said Jonah, ‘at once, sir,’ and slipped past him with a pang of relief.

Hubert forwent his bath that evening, and had what he felt was an unsatisfactory wash in his room. He wanted their guest to admire the house, and took some pleasure in hearing the tremendous splashes coming from next door; but he frowned as well, as he tied his tie in the mirror, at the virtual certainty that the sacrifice of his own half-hour in the tub would go unrecognized.

Having some time to spare, he went downstairs to the gloomy little room by the front door, which had been his father’s office, and where Hubert too liked to write his letters. In truth he had very little private correspondence, and was dimly aware of not having the knack of it. When there was a letter to write, he did it with businesslike promptness. Now he sat down at the oak desk, fished his new gift from his dinner-jacket pocket, and laid it on the blotter with faint unease.

He took a sheet of headed paper from a drawer, dipped his pen in the pewter ink-well and wrote, in a rolling, backward-leaning hand:

Hubert turned the paper over on the blotter and thumped it tenderly with his fist. By writing large he had got the final few words on to the third side of the small folded sheet, which was a sign one hadn’t merely written dutifully; the letter ran on pleasantly, and reading it over again he felt satisfied with the touches of humour. He tucked it into an envelope, wrote ‘Harry Hewitt Esq., Mattocks, Harrow Weald’ and ‘By Hand’ in the corner, and placed it on the tray in the hall for Jonah to take over in the morning. He stood looking at it for a moment, struck by the solemn rightness of living just here, and of Harry living where he did, and of letters passing between them with such noble efficiency.

George was the last to come down, and even so he stopped on the stairs for a minute. They were almost ready. He saw the housemaid cross the hall with a salt-cellar, caught the odour of cooked fish, heard Cecil’s high overriding laugh, and felt the chill of his own act of daring, bringing this man into his mother’s house. Then he thought of what Cecil had said to him in the park, in the half-hour they had made for themselves by pretending he’d missed his train, and felt his scalp, his shoulders, his whole spine prickle under the sweeping, secret promise. He tiptoed down and slipped into the drawing-room with a nearly dizzy-making sense of the dangers ahead. ‘Ah, George,’ murmured his mother, with a hint of reproach; he shrugged and smirked slightly as if his only offence had been to keep them waiting. Hubert, with his back to the empty grate, had ensnared them all in talk about local transport. ‘So you were stranded at Harrow and Wealdstone, eh?’ He beamed over his raised champagne glass, as proud of the rigours of life in Stanmore as he was of the blessings.