Elizabeth Edmondson - Voyage of Innocence

Vee became aware that someone was hovering behind them. She turned round and came face to face with a man who looked like a cherub. He was gazing at Lally.

‘What a lovely, lovely woman,’ he breathed. He laid a hand on her arm. ‘I say, may I paint you? Oh, please say yes. Everyone loves to be painted by me.’

Alfred, who had abandoned his megaphone for a moment, paused on his way back to the RAPMOC stand; he was carrying a glass of water in his hand. Yelling about the injustices of society gave you a thirst, Vee supposed.

‘This is Marcus,’ he said, waving his free hand towards the cherub. ‘A Balliol man, an artist.’

‘Can you study art at Oxford?’ Lally asked.

‘Law,’ said Marcus, in his soft voice. ‘I’m reading law because I have to, but I paint because I love to. What beauty!’ he went on, looking at Lally again. ‘That exquisite colour of hair – it is natural, I do hope?’ he added, anxiously.

‘Perfectly,’ said Lally, who seemed happy to take Marcus in her stride.

‘Neither red nor brown, and together with a cream complexion, not a freckle in sight, so fortunate, because often that colouring is so sadly marred by freckles, the effect is ravishing. Slightly aquiline nose, hazel eyes, no, golden eyes, long neck, slim as a willow. I shall paint you as Artemis, with a bow in your hand. Please say you’ll come. Not to my room, if that offends your maidenly sensibilities. It can be at the Ruskin, if you prefer, I work there as well. And bring your friends, bring a chaperone. Not that you aren’t perfectly safe, I never touch women, Alfred will vouch for me.’

‘Oh, pipe down, Marcus, and leave the girl alone,’ said Alfred. He drank his water and dumped the glass on the nearest stand. He gave Vee a direct look. ‘Give RAPMOC a go, Miss Trenchard. It might change your life.’

‘Are you a Christian?’ boomed a voice from across the way. ‘Join OICCU, and spend worthwhile time in the company of your fellow Christians.’

‘One for you, Vee,’ said Claudia.

‘Perhaps,’ she said, feeling suddenly guilty that she was so disinclined to have anything to do with the Christian Union.

Why, Vee wondered, as they left Schools clutching handfuls of leaflets, did Christians dress so badly? Why was she so dowdy in comparison to the dashing Claudia and stylish Lally? It was partly a matter of money, but even so …

‘It’s interesting, the way the men dress,’ she said, as they set off down the High.

‘Several distinct groups,’ agreed Claudia. ‘Tweedy squire-ish ones.’

‘Fops,’ Vee said. ‘Did you see that one in a floppy bow tie and that big hat?’

‘He looked kind of cute,’ Lally said.

‘Better than those grubby ones in duffel coats,’ said Claudia. ‘What is it about duffel coats?’

‘Then there are the don’t-cares, like your friend Alfred Gore,’ Vee said.

‘Don’t you believe it,’ said Claudia. ‘I’m a cynic when it comes to people who look as though they have minds above clothes. I think Alfred’s outfit is just as artfully put together as the bow tie and the hat. Men!’ she added with affectionate scorn.

Alfred took a few minutes’ break from his megaphoning and wandered over to talk to Hugh. ‘Which college is your sister at?’

‘Grace,’ said Hugh, scribbling on a card and filing it away. ‘So’s Claudia, but you know her. She’s a cousin of ours. Don’t know anything about the American one. My word, she’s a looker.’

Alfred raised his eyebrows. ‘Giles might hear you.’

‘Anyone may hear my opinion, she’s quite lovely. Claudia’s grown into a minx, by the look of her.’

‘The Veres are all mad,’ said Alfred. ‘Lovely eyes.’

‘Claudia? A bit intense for me.’

‘No, Vee has lovely dark eyes.’

Hugh considered this. ‘Does she? I’ve never thought about it.’

Alfred went back to his stand and his megaphone.

A few days later, Vee found a note from Hugh in her pigeonhole in the Lodge. ‘Hugh’s invited us to tea,’ she said, flourishing a sketch of the three of them.

Claudia was sifting through a handful of her own letters. She had more post than anyone else in their year, most of which she tossed into the bin without a second glance. She twitched the note out of Vee’s hand, looked at it, and laughed. ‘Wicked likenesses, what a devil the man is! Four o’clock at Christ Church. Peckwater 3.4. Do you suppose the divine Giles will be there? If so, I’m definitely on. What about you, Lally?’

‘Does he mean for all of us to go?’ asked Lally.

‘The picture tells its own story,’ Vee said, ‘and, besides, it’s addressed to the three of us.’ She handed Lally the envelope, addressed in Hugh’s elegant script: The Three Graces, c/o Miss V Trenchard.

‘He should be more specific, and name names,’ said Claudia. ‘He might get any three, such as Miss Harbottle, or that girl in the third year who’s so passionate about Moral Rearmament.’

‘It’s what he and Giles call us,’ Vee said.

‘I take it as a compliment.’

‘It might suit you and Lally, but hardly me,’ Vee said, feeling that with her dull Yorkshire clothes, and washed-out winter face, the soubriquet could only count as a courtesy. It irked her, the difference between how Lally and she looked. Lally wore no make-up, but her wonderful colouring and complexion put her in another league from Vee. As for Claudia, she never went out without make-up, which earned her the disapproval of quite half the college.

‘God prefers us to look the way He made us,’ one sanctimonious second-year told her in Hall.

‘Did He tell you so? Then why does He allow make-up to be made or sold?’

‘Make-up is the work of Satan.’

‘I’ll look out for the name when next I buy a lipstick,’ Claudia promised.

‘I’ll meet you at Christ Church, but it won’t be until a little later,’ said Lally, ‘I’ve got a choir rehearsal until four.’

‘We’ll stop off and buy a cake,’ Claudia said as she and Vee set off at a quarter to four. ‘Just to be sure of our welcome.’

They went into Fullers, busy with women in hats having tea. ‘I hope Hugh hasn’t invited that dreary man from the next staircase up,’ Vee said ‘What kind of cake shall we buy?’

‘Walnut, I think,’ said Claudia. ‘All men love walnut cake.’

They watched the cake being put in a box. The assistant made a loop with the ribbon and passed it to Vee while Claudia paid. ‘No, put your purse away, Vee, this is my treat.’

Claudia was well aware that her cousin had to watch every penny, and she managed to be generous in a casually kind way that made it impossible to refuse.

‘Which dreary man?’ she asked as they went out of the shop and into Cornmarket.

‘Jonathan somebody. Short and pink and hates women.’

‘A Repton man, what do you expect from your northern wastelands? You’re all years behind the times there. Anyhow, most of the men here hate women, haven’t you noticed?’

‘No, I haven’t. I know a lot wish women had never been admitted to the university, but that’s simply unthinking prejudice. Why should they hate us?’

‘It’s what men do, when women trespass on their territory. Except for those that are queer, some of them get on quite well with women.’

‘Queer? Odd, you mean, men who are eccentric?’

Claudia stopped and turned to look at her companion. ‘Vee! Queer. You know, men who go to bed with other men. Like at their schools.’

Vee was taken aback. ‘Men who go to bed with men?’

‘Yes, of course.’ She gave Vee a quick, concerned look. ‘Do you mean you didn’t know? What did you think they do at school, all those boys cooped up together? They get the habit there, and when they come on here, or go to Cambridge, they just carry on.’