The sailing moon in creek and cove -
here he glanced upwards with a surprising note of comic disadvantage, but carried on determinedly -
Till from the garden and the wild
A fresh association blow,
And year by year the landscape grow
Familiar to the stranger’s child -
the first hesitant drops, like soft footsteps or tactful throat-clearings, had quickly gained confidence, a rush of pattering had begun, and Cecil too, no stranger to the elements, was rushing through, raising his voice just when he needed to bring the poem to rest: he went on emphatically,
As year by year the labourer tills
His wonted glebe, or lops the glades;
And year by year our memory fades
From all the circle of the hills -
but now all of them were getting up to move the lamp and close the windows and his last words rose against the settling roar of the rain in a determined shout.
10
Hubert woke early, with a sharp ache above his left eye, where a number of oppressive thoughts seemed to have gathered and knotted. His pyjamas were twisted and damp with sweat. Social life, though it had its importance, often left him confused and even physically out of sorts. The rain on the roof had got him off to sleep, and then woken him again to his own heat. He had a muddled apprehension of people moving about, his mother had restless nights, and now, as he dozed and woke again, his worries about her wove their way through his uneasy recall of moments at dinner and afterwards. Then the sun rose with merciless brilliance. Like Cecil Valance, Hubert hated to waste time, but unlike Cecil he was sometimes at a loss to know quite what to do with it. He decided he must go to early Communion, and leave the rest of the party to go to Matins without him. Twenty minutes later he closed the front gate and set off down the hill with an air of sulky rectitude. It had turned into a fresh, still morning; the great vale of northern Middlesex lay before him, with the answering heights of Muswell Hill rising mistily beyond, but he searched in vain for his usual sober pleasure in belonging here.
He paid scant attention to the service, conducted by Mr Barstow, the laborious curate; but it gave him a measure of satisfaction to sit in his pew, and to kneel on the hard carpet of the sanctuary steps. Afterwards he walked home through the Priory, and was still quite warm from the climb when he joined the others at breakfast. Cecil was talking, in his trying, amusing way, and though Hubert greeted them all properly, and asked them if they’d slept well, he sensed that Cecil had taken charge.
‘I slept almost troublingly well,’ said Cecil, showing by his frown at his boiled egg that he expected a laugh; then went on where he’d been interrupted, ‘No, I shall leave that to you, if you don’t mind.’
‘You know Cecil’s a pagan, Mother,’ said George.
‘Cecil worships the dawn,’ said Daphne.
‘I see…’ said their mother, with the strained brightness of her early mornings.
Cecil said, ‘I confess I was relieved when Georgie told me Stanmore church was a roofless ruin.’
‘He may not have mentioned,’ said Hubert, ‘but there’s a first-rate new church bang next door to it. I can recommend it.’
‘I think I rather prefer the ruined one,’ said Daphne experimentally.
‘Really, child,’ said her mother, pouring tea into her cup with a wandering hand. ‘Well, we will have to go without you.’
‘Oh…!’
‘Cecil, I mean, not you.’
‘You know we had rather hoped to show you off to the village,’ said George.
‘Daphne will repeat the sermon for you over lunch,’ said his mother.
‘And what will Cecil do while we’re at church?’ asked Daphne.
Cecil gave a hesitant smile, and then rather mumbled, ‘Oh, I expect I’ll have a look at a poem.’
‘There,’ said Daphne; and George too looked vindicated.
Hubert, feeling a little queasy, poured out a cup of coffee and stood up. ‘I hope you won’t mind,’ he said, ‘if I excuse myself,’ and he left the room with the clear feeling that no one did. He crossed the hall and went into his father’s office, and closed the door.
My dear Harry [he wrote]
I will certainly take the cigarette-case in to Kinsley’s & have your name put on it – I think not in my writing, which as one wit remarked looks like a man’s attempt at knitting!
He looked gloomily out of the little leaded casement, that was half-obscured by leaves; and went on,
You were a bit upset with me last night Harry, and I’m not sure you were being altogether fair. I’m afraid I always rather shun demonstrations of affection between men.
Here he paused again, and then, with a firmness belied by his flinching expression, inserted ‘and dislike’ after ‘shun’; he turned his full stop into a comma, and went on:
as being unmanly, and ‘aesthetic’. I know the rest of the Sawle clan are more that way, but it has never been in my nature. You know no one ever had a better friend than you, Harry old boy. I should not have told you about our situation, it is not ‘desperate’ by any means, and I hope we manage pretty well. We are not yet ‘mortgaged to the last sod’ as you put it! But the small comforts of life make all the difference, whatever anyone says. I am not the demonstrative sort Harry, as you must know by now, but we are all very grateful.
Hubert sat back and smoothed his moustache down over his mouth in vexation. He felt his letter wasn’t going well. He looked briefly at the photograph of his father that hung above the bookcase, and wondered if he had ever had to deal with a similar problem. It was very hard, when you did get a friend, who was so ready to help, and then this happened. And then not knowing exactly what it was that was happening. He felt he must say something before Harry took him out for a run to St Albans in the car. Still not sure if he would actually send the letter, he closed it anyway, with a touch of coolness, ‘Yours ever Hubert.’ Remembering an idea he had had, which he hoped might not offend Harry, and might even be thought to have a certain elegance, he added: ‘PS, I wondered last night whether a simple H might not do just as well, on the cigarette-case, as standing for us both – ’
Then he thought he’d better start the whole letter again.
11
They left the garden through the front gate and went up the lane towards the Common, Cecil instinctively leading the way. ‘So what did you really do while we were flopping and droning?’ said George. He’d found the hour at church, away from Cecil, unexpectedly painful.
‘Oh, much the same,’ said Cecil. ‘I flopped on the lawn; and I droned to the parlour-maid.’
‘Little Veronica?’
‘Poor child, yes. We assessed the chances of a war with Germany.’
‘I’m sure she was a fund of pertinent views.’
‘She seemed to think it was on the cards.’
‘Oh, dear!’
‘I fear little Veronica is rather smitten with me.’
‘Darling Cecil, not everyone at “Two Acres” is in love with you, you know,’ said George, and smiled with private satisfaction and a hint of mistrust. He did wonder if Cecil hadn’t been almost too much of a success.
‘She’s an attractive young girl,’ said Cecil, in his most reasonable tone.
‘Is she?’
‘Well, to me.’ Cecil gave him a bland smile. ‘But then I don’t share your fastidious horror at the mere idea of a
