Alan Hollinghurst - The Stranger’s Child

‘Oh, Rupert Brooke,’ said Freda, ‘what an Adonis!’

Cecil gave a snuffly smile as if at some rather basic misapprehension. ‘Oh, yes, I know Brooke,’ he said. ‘We used to see a lot of him in College, but now of course rather less.’

‘My mother thinks Rupert’s work rather advanced,’ said George.

‘Really, my dear?’ said Elspeth, with twinkling concern.

Freda thought it best not to protest – as a mother one had to play the fool from time to time. ‘I didn’t awfully care to read about his being sea-sick,’ she said, ‘to be perfectly honest.’

‘Oh, gobbets up I throw!’ said Daphne.

‘Thank you, child, I said I didn’t care for it.’ In fact it was one of their own silly catch-phrases, those puerile tags that reduced the family to weeping laughter but were strictly not for the outside world. Freda gave her daughter a sharp pinch of a frown, in part to stop herself smirking. She felt Cecil would be forming a very poor impression of all of them.

‘I’m no expert on poetry,’ said Hubert, with sweet redundancy, and seemed ready to head them off in another direction.

‘I’m less up to date with English poetry,’ said Elspeth.

Harry said, ‘I always enjoy Strachey’s pieces in the Spectator – you must know him, I suppose?’

Again, perhaps, was the boys’ Club in the air, that fearfully important ‘Conversazione Society’ she wasn’t allowed to mention? ‘We do see Lytton from time to time,’ Cecil said, with an air of discretion.

‘Now he’s awfully clever,’ said Elspeth.

‘Who’s that, dear?’ said Freda.

‘Lytton Strachey – you must have seen his Landmarks in French Literature .’

‘Oh… I…?’

‘Harry thought less highly of it than I did.’

‘I prefer a heavier ratio of fact to hot air,’ said Harry.

‘We all believe Lytton will do something brilliant one day,’ said Cecil suavely.

‘I don’t care for him,’ said George.

‘Now, why’s that, dear?’ said Freda mockingly, though she didn’t think she’d ever heard of this man Strachey before a minute ago.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ muttered George, and blushed, and then looked rather cross.

‘No one could deny,’ said Cecil, ‘that poor Strachey has the most unfortunate speaking voice.’

‘Oh…?’ Freda knew she mustn’t catch Daphne’s eye.

‘What you musical types I believe call a falsetto . It makes any sort of public speaking impossible for him.’

‘Even his private speaking’s pretty impossible,’ said George.

‘Well, happily, we don’t have to hear the fellow,’ said Harry; ‘or, in your mother’s case, read him either.’ He looked at Freda beside him with a smirk of almost parental collusion, and then at Hubert, who laughed uncertainly. It would be something one had to put up with, his cool good humour curdling into sarcasm. He was a kind and generous man, oddly generous perhaps for one so cool, but you couldn’t be sure he would make the right effect.

‘Well, on the matter of at least semi-public speaking…’ said Cecil archly, and gave a strange look at Daphne.

‘Oh yes!’ said Daphne, with a child’s alertness at the sudden touch of attention. ‘What about our readings, Cecil?’

‘Oh, my dear, what’s this?’ said Freda, fearing Daphne was about to bore their guests.

‘It was Cecil’s idea,’ said Daphne.

‘He may have said it just to be kind,’ said Freda.

‘Not a bit of it,’ said Cecil.

‘Mother, Cecil has offered to read to us!’ said Daphne, almost as if Freda were deaf, as well as mad to ignore such an offer.

Freda said, ‘Well, that is very kind, Cecil, whatever you may say. If you’re sure…?’ She herself, of course, had suggested something similar the night before, to get them in from the garden.

‘Perhaps you’ll read us some of your own work?’ Harry said, with a solemn look, to show Cecil that its fame had gone before him.

Cecil smiled and looked down again. ‘Well, Daphne and I hatched this plan, do you see, that everyone would read out their own favourite poem of Tennyson’s.’

‘Goodness, I don’t know,’ said Freda, thinking she couldn’t without her glasses. And Hubert said warmly,

‘Oh no, old chap, we’d much rather listen to you.’

‘Well, if you’d really like that…’ said Cecil, with a clever little show of discomfort.

Freda looked at Daphne, whose own desire to perform for them all seemed sunk in her fascination with Cecil. To a hostess such a reading was potentially awkward, but of course it might turn out to be a triumph and a thing they’d remember for years. Harry had asked for it, and she didn’t want to disappoint him. She had a dread of Harry being bored. She said, ‘Well, then – after dinner…!’ And then, ‘You know we met him, of course…?’

‘Now this will interest you, Cecil,’ said Hubert.

‘Met whom, my dear?’ said Elspeth.

‘Oh, Lord Tennyson. Yes, indeed,’ she said warmly, laying a hand for a minute on Cecil’s sleeve. Cecil smiled courteously at the hand, until after a quick squeeze she took it away. ‘We were on our honeymoon, so it seemed auspicious.’ She looked round the table with the satisfaction of having their attention, but made anxious by George’s expression, his eyebrows raised in mocking indulgence. She felt he was trying to deflect the story which she’d now found a chance to tell. She knew she had a way of telling it, and knew from experience that she was liable to leave something out. ‘It was our honeymoon,’ she repeated, to steady herself; she let her eyes rest speculatively on Harry, as that intriguing word glowed in the candlelight. She didn’t think he’d heard the story before, but she wasn’t completely sure. ‘We went to the Isle of Wight – Frank said he wanted to take me over the water!’

‘Very typical of him,’ said Hubert, with a fond shake of the head.

‘You know you go over on the ferry, from… Lynmouth, isn’t it?’

‘Lymington, I believe…’ said Harry.

‘Why do I always get that wrong?’

‘You can go across from Portsmouth too, of course,’ said George; ‘but it’s a little further.’

‘Do let Mother tell the story,’ said Daphne, sounding frustrated equally with the story and the interruptions.

Freda let Harry fill her glass, and took a rich long sip of wine. ‘It must have been the early evening. Have you been on that ferry? It seems to wander over to the Isle of Wight, as if it had all the time in the world! Or perhaps we were just impatient… I remember the Queen was at Osborne, and Frank said he’d seen the Equerry, with the red boxes – everything had to go back and forth on the ferry, of course, it must have been a business for them.’

‘I don’t suppose they minded,’ said Hubert. ‘She was the Queen, after all, and that was their job.’

‘No… probably they didn’t. Anyway – we were sitting inside, as I was feeling rather cold, but Frank was always very curious about ships!’

‘One could say that my father was fascinated by all kinds of transport,’ said Hubert.

‘And Frank said,’ said Freda, ‘would I mind, though it was our honeymoon, if he went outside and had a look round.’

‘And he ran into Tennyson,’ said Cecil, who had leant forward over his plate in a twisted posture of attention.

‘Well, I didn’t know it was him!’ said Freda, rather flustered by Cecil’s narrative economy. ‘You know, Frank always liked to have a talk with the captain and that kind of thing. Well, after a while I looked out and saw him leaning on the rail beside a most extraordinary figure.’

‘I’m sure,’ said Cecil. ‘He must often have been on the ferry, going to Farringford.’