The Stranger's Child - Alan Hollinghurst [75]
Sebby sat down, on the same side of the table as she was, and again with an evident awareness of the niceties, she half his age, but a titled lady, he far more clever, a distinguished guest who’d been asked to perform a peculiar service for his hosts. “I hope this isn’t distressing for you,” he said.
“Oh, not at all,” said Daphne graciously, her smile expressing a mild amazement at the thought that perhaps it should be. She saw Sebby’s own undecided glance. He said,
“Dear Cecil aroused keen feelings in many of those who crossed his path.”
“Indeed he did …”
“And you would seem, from the letters you’ve so generously shared with me, to have had a similar effect on him.”
“I know, isn’t it awful,” said Daphne.
“Hah …” Sebby again unsure of her. He turned to pick up a clutch of the letters. She hadn’t been able to read them again herself, out of a strong compound embarrassment at everything they said about both of them. “There are beautiful passages—I sat up late with them last night, in my room.” He smiled mildly as he turned over the small folded pages, re-creating his own pleasure. Daphne saw him propped up in the very grand bed in the Garnet Room and handling these papers with a mixture of eagerness and regret. He was used to dealing with confidential matters, though not as a rule perhaps the amorous declarations of excitable young men. He hesitated, looked up at her, and started reading, with an affectionate expression: “ ‘The moon tonight, dear child, I suppose shines as bright on Stanmore as it does on Mme Collet’s vegetable garden and on the very long nose of the adjutant, who is snoring enough to wake the Hun on the far side of the room. Are you too snoring—do you snore, child?—or do you lie awake and think of your poor dirty Cecil far away? He is much in need of his Daphne’s kind words and …’ ”—Sebby petered out discreetly at the slither into intimacy. “Delightful, isn’t it?”
“Oh … yes … I don’t remember,” said Daphne, half-turning her head to see. “The ones from France are a bit better, aren’t they?”
“I found them most touching,” said Sebby. “I have letters of my own from him, two or three … but these strike quite another tone.”
“He had something to write about,” said Daphne.
“He had a great deal to write about,” said Sebby, with a quick smile of courteous reproof. He looked through a few more letters, while Daphne wondered if she could possibly explain her feelings, even had she wanted to; she felt she would have to understand them first, and this unnatural little chat was hardly going to help her to do that. What she felt then; and what she felt now; and what she felt now about what she felt then: it wasn’t remotely easy to say. Sebby was every inch the bachelor—his intuitions about a young girl’s first love and about Cecil himself as a lover were unlikely to be worth much. Cecil’s way of being in love with her was alternately to berate her and to berate himself: there wasn’t much fun in it, for all his famed high spirits. Yet he always seemed happy when away from her (which was most of the time) and she had sensed more and more how much he enjoyed the absences he was always deploring. The War when it came was an absolute godsend. Sebby said, “Tell me if I am being too inquisitive, but I feel it will help me to a clearer vision of what might have been. Here’s the letter, what is it, June 1916, ‘Tell me, Daphne, will you be my widow?’ ”
“Oh, yes …” She coloured slightly.
“Do you remember how you replied to that?”
“Oh, I said of course.”
“And you considered yourselves … engaged?”
Daphne smiled and looked down at the deep red carpet almost puzzled for a moment that she had ended up here anyway. What was the status of a long-lost expectation? She couldn’t now recapture any picture she might then have had of a future life with Cecil. “As far as I remember we both agreed to keep it a secret. I wasn’t altogether Louisa