Джеймс Хилтон - Time And Time Again

This kind of thing was lost on Lily. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘when I was at school we were told how many counties there are in England.’

‘What a depressing school it must have been!’

‘It was not! It was better-looking than some of these old colleges.’

Weigall assumed his most languid air. ‘BETTER-looking, Lily?’

‘Newer. More modern. I tell you, Linstead’s an up-to-date place. You should see some of the parks we have. My dad’s the superintendent of them.’

Peters abruptly seized Lily’s hand across the table. ‘Lily… ignore these other two and listen to me. First, I congratulate you. To have a father who superintends parks is magnificent. My own father, God bless him, is a coal miner. Lived in the same cottage for thirty years—a cottage in a town where there are no parks and consequently no superintendent of parks. My father began work in the pits when he was eleven, and he still works in the pits. But by sheer grit and ability his son, whom you see here in a preliminary stage of intoxication… by sheer… whatever it was I just said… plus, of course, an army grant and a scholarship and sundry other assistances… has been admitted to this ancient seat of learning to study, ape, and acquire the manners and customs of his betters… while still retaining, Lily—and this is important—that innate sympathy with the working classes that makes him salute you, as he does now, in profound adoration!’

Charles contrived a smile, but Lily was blushing through the beginnings of tears. ‘Oh, go on with you,’ she murmured, but she did not withdraw her hand. ‘I’m not crying because I believe a word you say—it’s the way you make me feel… Charlie, does he often talk like that?’

Charles would have had to admit that Bill Peters often did, after a few drinks; but there wasn’t time to answer at all before Peters raised his glass and demanded a toast. ‘To the Labour Party and the working classes, Lily!’

‘Oh, that’s a lot of nonsense!’ she retorted. ‘My dad votes Conservative!’

She wouldn’t drink, but she turned to them all with a rosy smile, finally settling it on Charles. ‘Darling, it’s such fun being here… I didn’t know clever people could be so silly.’

The rest of the evening passed for Charles in a fog of sensations, one of which was amazement at the new dimension of personality Lily was revealing. It pleased him up to the point where it began to hurt. He had feared that Weigall and Peters might not like her, or that she might be too nervous to talk to them, and though he was glad he was wrong he was not quite at ease enough to be happy.

But he was beginning to be sleepy and that was something. The party could not last much longer, for by midnight according to university rules Lily would have to be out of college and Peters back at his lodgings across the town. When half-past eleven struck and Peters did not make a move, it was Lily who picked up the signal. ‘Ought I to go, Charlie? You tell me when.’

Peters said: ‘Don’t fidget, Andy—she doesn’t have to leave till a few minutes to twelve.’

‘But I have to get back here before they shut the gates,’ Charles said.

‘You don’t have to go at all. I can drop her at the Lion—it’s right on my way and I’m in rooms—my landlady never says a thing if I’m a few minutes late.’

Charles felt himself challenged by some test of fair-mindedness, logic, magnanimity, reasonableness, and other qualities which he admired. He didn’t exactly consent to the arrangement, but somehow he let it fix itself without further argument, and about five minutes to twelve Peters left with Lily. She was evidently thrilled that he was wearing a cap and gown and would thus escort her, and it was just Charles’s bad luck not to have given her this pleasure himself, for academic costume in the streets was at all times permissible, though not compulsory till after dark.

While the departing footsteps were echoing down the staircase and across the court to the gateway, Weigall lit another cigarette. He, being of the same college, could stay as long as he liked. ‘Good company,’ he commented.

‘You think so?’

‘For her age… must be very young. You know, Andy, when you first mentioned a girl coming up to see you, I thought she was a friend of the family or something.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well—er—isn’t there some girl that your family hopes you’ll marry some day? There generally is, with most families. Some dreadful creature quite often, with huge front teeth and lots of money. Thank God your little Lily isn’t like that.’

‘No,’ said Charles, ‘she isn’t like that.’

Weigall went on: ‘She’s charming, and she has a bright eager mind that’s a joy to make contact with. I think I could ring most of my change on her counter—when she’s a little older. What puzzles me is where you could possibly have picked her up?’

‘Why is it such a puzzle?’

‘Because… I suppose I somehow didn’t think of you as a picker-up —not in that sense.’

‘What sense?’

‘Oh, come now, Andy, have a heart! Don’t you want me to talk frankly? I’ve told you I like her, and that’s the truth, but unless she’s destined to be your future wife do I have to pretend you were introduced by the vicar of Beeching?’

Charles said in a clipped staccato voice: ‘I met her in a Lyons teashop in London. Her father, as she told you, works for the local council in a suburb. They live in a small house in one of those terribly long streets—not a slum—just dreary and respectable. She’s got a Cockney accent, which you heard. Socially I suppose you’d call her lower middle class—’

‘Good God,’ Weigall interrupted, ‘who cares about class nowadays except smart fellows like Bill Peters? He’s a snob in reverse—one of these days he’s going to make that miner’s cottage business pay off like a bonanza. Whereas you and I, Andy, are stuck in between—we weren’t born at Blenheim or Chatsworth on the one hand, and on the other hand we didn’t starve in tenements or pick crusts out of gutters… We just come from country homes with bits of land and families that go back a few centuries without having collected any titles or riches on the way… Well, that’s not quite true in your case, your father has a knighthood, but I gather he earned it, which is bad… I tell you, Andy, in the world I see coming our background—yours and mine—is going to be a pretty fair handicap. We’ll be the excluded middle—if you’ll pardon a logician’s term. So prepare to defend yourself, not Lily. She’s all right. She’ll sleep well tonight—she hasn’t our worries. You look worn out, by the way. Why don’t you get to bed?’

‘Yes, I think I will. Thanks, Tony.’

‘Thanks for what? I haven’t given you any advice… Good night.’

But again Charles could not sleep and heard the quarters maddeningly till nearly dawn. Then he got up and crossed the courts to the new bath-house (built as a post-war innovation in collegiate life); a hot bath made him feel better and fresher. He had promised to have breakfast with Lily at the Lion at half-past ten, but after eight, when the college began to come to life, time passed most slowly of all. Debden, who was doubtless curious about Lily, chattered with his usual amiable inquisitiveness as he tidied up the room, venturing to observe that it would be ‘a lovely day for taking the young lady on the river’.

Charles agreed. ‘Yes, I might do that.’ And so he might. He had not made definite plans, hoping that Lily might care to spend part of the day quietly in his rooms.

She was a few minutes late coming down to meet him at the Lion, and while he waited in the lounge he wondered about Peters and her the previous night. Had they talked till much later, at the hotel, and was this why she was late? Peters had said his landlady would let him in after midnight without making a fuss… Was it possible, then, that… but no, it was not only impossible, it was absurd… and anyhow, here she was.