The Stranger's Child - Alan Hollinghurst [9]
“I get out with the VWH now and then,” said Cecil, “though I’m afraid my father doesn’t approve.”
“Oh, really?”
“He breeds livestock, you see, and has a tender feeling for creatures.”
“Well, how very sweet,” said Daphne, shaking her head with dawning approval.
Cecil held her eye with that affable superiority that George could only struggle to emulate. “As he doesn’t ride to hounds, he’s gained the reputation locally of being a great scholar.” She smiled as if mesmerized by this, clearly having no idea what he meant.
George said, “Well, Cess, he is something of a scholar.”
“Indeed he is,” said Cecil. “He’s seen his Cattle Feeds and Cattle Care go into a fourth edition, the most successful literary production of the Valance family by far.”
“So far, you mean,” said George.
“And does your mother share his views on hunting?” asked Mrs. Sawle teasingly, perhaps not sure whom to side with.
“Oh, Lord, no—no, she’s all for killing. She likes me to get out with a gun when I can, though we keep it from my papa as much as possible. I’m quite a fair shot,” said Cecil, and with another sly glance round in the candlelight, to see that he had them all: “The General sent me out with a gun when I was quite small, to kill a whole lot of rooks that were making a racket—I brought down four of them …”
“Really …?” said Daphne, while George waited for the next line—
“But I wrote a poem about them the following day.”
“Ah! well …”—again, they didn’t quite know what to think; while George quickly explained that the General was what they called Cecil’s mother, feeling keenly embarrassed both by the fact and by the pretence that he hadn’t told them this before.
“I should have explained,” said Cecil. “My mother’s a natural leader of men. But she’s a sweet old thing once you get to know her. Wouldn’t you say, George?”
George thought Lady Valance the most terrifying person he’d ever met, dogmatic, pious, inexcusably direct, and immune to all jokes, even when explained to her; her sons had learned to treasure her earnestness as a great joke in itself. “Well, your mother devotes most of her time and energy to good works, doesn’t she,” George said, with wary piety of his own.
With the serving of the main course and a new wine, George suddenly felt it was going well, what had loomed as an unprecedented challenge was emerging a modest success. Clearly they all admired Cecil, and George’s confidence in his friend’s complete mastery of what to say and do outran his terror of his doing or saying something outrageous, even if simply intended to amuse. At Cambridge Cecil was frequently outrageous, and as for his letters—the things he wrote in letters appeared dimly to George now as a troupe of masked figures, Pompeian obscenities, hiding just out of view behind the curtains, and in the shadows of the inglenook. But for the moment all was well. Rather like the deep in Tennyson’s poem, Cecil had many voices … George’s toe sought out his friend’s now and again, and was received with a playful wriggle rather than a jab. He worried about his mother drinking too much, but the claret was a good one, much commended by Hubert, and a convivial mood, of a perceptibly new kind for “Two Acres,” suffused the whole party. Only his sister’s stares and grins at Cecil, and her pert way of putting her head on one side, could really annoy him. Then to his horror he heard Mrs. Kalbeck say, “And I understand you and George are members of an ancient society!”
“Oh … oh …,” said George, though at once it was a test above all for Cecil. He found his failure to look at him a reproach in itself.
After a moment, with an almost apologetic flinch, Cecil said, “Well, no harm in your knowing, I dare say.”
“And since candour is our watch-word!” George put in, glancing with lurking fury at his mother, who had been sworn to secrecy. Cecil must have seen, however, that a light-hearted embrace of the occasion was wiser than a