It was during the second week that, finding herself with a slack morning on the day when she was already free in the afternoon, she decided that it was time she went to town. She had some clothes to buy, and discovered a sudden discontent with the Cheltenham shops which had satisfied her for the past year. While she was in town (she did her best to make this into a casual afterthought) she would look up her nephew, Sam.
It had been with considerable pride that she had reached the status of an aunt at the age of nine. Sam, when he was of an age to appreciate the joke, had enjoyed it equally, and they had had a great deal of fun, when he went to school, arranging outings, which she had always preceded by a pompous and spinsterly note to his headmaster, executed in copperplate. It had been his father, whom her earliest recollections presented as a serious and responsible adult, who had always seemed to belong to a different generation. Sam was articled to a London solicitor now, and, since hers was a family in which established jokes died hard, when she rang up for him at the office she still went through a prim aunt-routine over the telephone. He shared rooms with a friend called James (if she had ever heard his second name she could never remember it), who had been up with him at Oxford. They were still excellent sources of university gossip, when one was in the mood.
Hilary found that, after a considerable lapse of time, the mood had overtaken her. She occupied her mind earnestly however, with her intention of buying clothes. She had reached lately what she felt to be a reasonable degree of frankness with herself. It did not extend, yet, to admitting that she proposed a journey of a hundred miles or so, mainly in the hope of hearing Julian's name mentioned by a young man who had been at a different college and who in all likelihood barely knew him by sight.
Having in the end cleared almost the whole day, she shopped at first conscientiously, then with unforeseen enjoyment and uncharacteristic extravagance. After this she rang up Sam, the joke coming off even more successfully than usual, since, in Sam's presence, the senior partner answered the 'phone. Half past five found them enjoying it again, retrospectively, while they toasted muffins over Sam's gas-fire. James, who was something in advertising or interior decoration (another point about which she was never quite clear), joined them soon afterwards. Thanks to his company, the talk drifted from family to Oxford with so little direction on her part that she could readily believe there had been none at all.
"I probably missed the chance of getting some uncensored information about you," she said, "a week or two ago. I ran into a man who must have been up with you, I should imagine, but I didn't think to ask him until too late."
"M-m?" inquired Sam, partly extricating himself from a slice of the Fuller's cake she had brought with her (this was another part of the aunt routine which had never lost popularity). "Name of who?"
"Fleming, unless I've remembered it wrong."
"Fleming, Fleming." Sam looked up, intelligently. "Oh. Good Lord, yes, I know the chap you mean. Funny how one forgets, he was on my staircase. Earnest little runt with the most fearful stammer. If he told you what his name was, I hope you had your mackintosh on."
Hilary put down the cup which, at the beginning of these remarks, she had found with disgust to be shaking slightly in her hand. "No, I don't think that can have been the one."
"Come to think of it," said Sam helpfully, "he might have got rid of the stutter by now. He was seeing a specialist about it, so that he could go into the Church."
With successful vagueness Hilary remarked, "I don't think it can have been. This one said he was producing a play."
James who in the opposite corner had been involved with a rather leathery piece of muffin, swallowed and sat up. "My good Sam, I never knew anyone with such a parochial mind. Other colleges do exist, however regrettably, you know. As if she'd remember H.B. Fleming five minutes after she'd met him. What about J.R.?"
"J.R.?" Sam gave a complete reprise of the dawning process, with, for Hilary, a quite unnerving effect. "Oh yes, of course the OUDS man. Quite likely, I didn't think. I was never as much in with that set as you were." He turned to Hilary. "Tall, striking-looking chap? Black hair?"
"That sounds more like it."
"You'd remember J.R." James decided. "Wouldn't she, Sam? More than striking, really, in what you might call the Apollo class. No, come, Sam, you must admit that. Girl I knew said she always wanted to stick a pin in him to see if he was real."
"And was he?" inquired Sam, unimpressed.
"Matter of fact, he was quite a harmless type when you knew him; you got not to notice it, somehow, after a bit." After a vaguely reminiscent pause, he added, "Lost his temper if anyone mentioned it. Funny, that."
"Did he?" said Sam interested. Hilary leaned back in her chair, and made herself unobtrusive, partly to listen, partly lest she should be asked for her impressions. Sam considered. "Might depend on who mentioned it, I suppose."
"No, nothing to it, really. I mean, just some typical lighthearted persiflage of old Prosser's; sort of thing anyone could have taken for granted, I'd have thought. Of course, he'd had one or two, we all had. Still I never knew it make him quarrelsome, any other time. If someone hadn't been quick, he'd have tipped Prosser off the window-sill into the quad. First floor window, too."
"You don't say? From what I heard . . ." Sam looked discreetly across Hilary, with one eyebrow raised.
"No," said James definitely. "I happen to know. That got said because of the way he let Lavenham tag along. Whether it was laziness, or plain good nature, or what, God knows. No one knew. I remember Tranter saying he asked him once. Seeing there was nothing in it, I mean, and knowing him pretty well, he felt he could."
"Did he get shot out of a window too?"
"Not in the least, I gathered. Fleming just uttered some bromide to the effect that Lavenham was human like anyone else if you treated him in a civilised manner. No, he was like that. Put up with anyone sooner than upset them. Don't you remember those dim girls one used to see him having coffee with? Always a crowd, though. Safety in numbers, I suppose."
"Queer type," said Sam profoundly. "He could act, I will say. Never did anything else of course. Scraped a third, I believe."
"Is he acting now?" asked James of Hilary. "I've wondered from time to time when his name would crop up in some notice or other. He was good, I mean. Even for Ouds."
"I believe only with some local amateurs; and producing, mostly."
"Funny," Sam ruminated, "how these Isis Idols peter out."
"The only thing was," said James, "they did say he wasn't very versatile. You know how he always went in for these weird characters, Caliban and so on. I remember, now I think of it, Toller told me once that he went all to fluff in a straight part. They had an idea of putting on Romeo and Juliet, I forget which year, banking on Fleming for Romeo, of course. Toller said he wasn't at all keen even to read it and when they got him down to it they could see why. Total loss, I believe. Stiff as a board."
"Odd," said Sam. He pondered. "Psychological, or something, I suppose."
"Oh I don't know. Just a nice, aimless sort of bloke, really, I think, with only one line. Wouldn't you say so?" He looked to Hilary for support.
"Very likely," she said. "He seemed quite cheerful and amusing. James, do stop wrestling with that burnt muffin and have some cake while there still is some. I've always deplored Sam's greed from his earliest years; I remember when he was at school..." She had never, she thought, really appreciated enough the uses of the aunt-routine. The conversation, thus derailed, was shunted without further trouble to a branch line.
On the journey home she focused her attention on her shopping with renewed care. With regard to the rest, she had succeeded only in unsettling emotions she would have done better to take in hand, while illuminating nothing at all.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2021-12-29 06:44 pm (UTC)It was during the second week that, finding herself with a slack morning on the day when she was already free in the afternoon, she decided that it was time she went to town. She had some clothes to buy, and discovered a sudden discontent with the Cheltenham shops which had satisfied her for the past year. While she was in town (she did her best to make this into a casual afterthought) she would look up her nephew, Sam.
It had been with considerable pride that she had reached the status of an aunt at the age of nine. Sam, when he was of an age to appreciate the joke, had enjoyed it equally, and they had had a great deal of fun, when he went to school, arranging outings, which she had always preceded by a pompous and spinsterly note to his headmaster, executed in copperplate. It had been his father, whom her earliest recollections presented as a serious and responsible adult, who had always seemed to belong to a different generation. Sam was articled to a London solicitor now, and, since hers was a family in which established jokes died hard, when she rang up for him at the office she still went through a prim aunt-routine over the telephone. He shared rooms with a friend called James (if she had ever heard his second name she could never remember it), who had been up with him at Oxford. They were still excellent sources of university gossip, when one was in the mood.
Hilary found that, after a considerable lapse of time, the mood had overtaken her. She occupied her mind earnestly however, with her intention of buying clothes. She had reached lately what she felt to be a reasonable degree of frankness with herself. It did not extend, yet, to admitting that she proposed a journey of a hundred miles or so, mainly in the hope of hearing Julian's name mentioned by a young man who had been at a different college and who in all likelihood barely knew him by sight.
Having in the end cleared almost the whole day, she shopped at first conscientiously, then with unforeseen enjoyment and uncharacteristic extravagance. After this she rang up Sam, the joke coming off even more successfully than usual, since, in Sam's presence, the senior partner answered the 'phone. Half past five found them enjoying it again, retrospectively, while they toasted muffins over Sam's gas-fire. James, who was something in advertising or interior decoration (another point about which she was never quite clear), joined them soon afterwards. Thanks to his company, the talk drifted from family to Oxford with so little direction on her part that she could readily believe there had been none at all.
"I probably missed the chance of getting some uncensored information about you," she said, "a week or two ago. I ran into a man who must have been up with you, I should imagine, but I didn't think to ask him until too late."
"M-m?" inquired Sam, partly extricating himself from a slice of the Fuller's cake she had brought with her (this was another part of the aunt routine which had never lost popularity). "Name of who?"
"Fleming, unless I've remembered it wrong."
"Fleming, Fleming." Sam looked up, intelligently. "Oh. Good Lord, yes, I know the chap you mean. Funny how one forgets, he was on my staircase. Earnest little runt with the most fearful stammer. If he told you what his name was, I hope you had your mackintosh on."
Hilary put down the cup which, at the beginning of these remarks, she had found with disgust to be shaking slightly in her hand. "No, I don't think that can have been the one."
"Come to think of it," said Sam helpfully, "he might have got rid of the stutter by now. He was seeing a specialist about it, so that he could go into the Church."
With successful vagueness Hilary remarked, "I don't think it can have been. This one said he was producing a play."
James who in the opposite corner had been involved with a rather leathery piece of muffin, swallowed and sat up. "My good Sam, I never knew anyone with such a parochial mind. Other colleges do exist, however regrettably, you know. As if she'd remember H.B. Fleming five minutes after she'd met him. What about J.R.?"
"J.R.?" Sam gave a complete reprise of the dawning process, with, for Hilary, a quite unnerving effect. "Oh yes, of course the OUDS man. Quite likely, I didn't think. I was never as much in with that set as you were." He turned to Hilary. "Tall, striking-looking chap? Black hair?"
"That sounds more like it."
"You'd remember J.R." James decided. "Wouldn't she, Sam? More than striking, really, in what you might call the Apollo class. No, come, Sam, you must admit that. Girl I knew said she always wanted to stick a pin in him to see if he was real."
"And was he?" inquired Sam, unimpressed.
"Matter of fact, he was quite a harmless type when you knew him; you got not to notice it, somehow, after a bit." After a vaguely reminiscent pause, he added, "Lost his temper if anyone mentioned it. Funny, that."
"Did he?" said Sam interested. Hilary leaned back in her chair, and made herself unobtrusive, partly to listen, partly lest she should be asked for her impressions. Sam considered. "Might depend on who mentioned it, I suppose."
"No, nothing to it, really. I mean, just some typical lighthearted persiflage of old Prosser's; sort of thing anyone could have taken for granted, I'd have thought. Of course, he'd had one or two, we all had. Still I never knew it make him quarrelsome, any other time. If someone hadn't been quick, he'd have tipped Prosser off the window-sill into the quad. First floor window, too."
"You don't say? From what I heard . . ." Sam looked discreetly across Hilary, with one eyebrow raised.
"No," said James definitely. "I happen to know. That got said because of the way he let Lavenham tag along. Whether it was laziness, or plain good nature, or what, God knows. No one knew. I remember Tranter saying he asked him once. Seeing there was nothing in it, I mean, and knowing him pretty well, he felt he could."
"Did he get shot out of a window too?"
"Not in the least, I gathered. Fleming just uttered some bromide to the effect that Lavenham was human like anyone else if you treated him in a civilised manner. No, he was like that. Put up with anyone sooner than upset them. Don't you remember those dim girls one used to see him having coffee with? Always a crowd, though. Safety in numbers, I suppose."
"Queer type," said Sam profoundly. "He could act, I will say. Never did anything else of course. Scraped a third, I believe."
"Is he acting now?" asked James of Hilary. "I've wondered from time to time when his name would crop up in some notice or other. He was good, I mean. Even for Ouds."
"I believe only with some local amateurs; and producing, mostly."
"Funny," Sam ruminated, "how these Isis Idols peter out."
"The only thing was," said James, "they did say he wasn't very versatile. You know how he always went in for these weird characters, Caliban and so on. I remember, now I think of it, Toller told me once that he went all to fluff in a straight part. They had an idea of putting on Romeo and Juliet, I forget which year, banking on Fleming for Romeo, of course. Toller said he wasn't at all keen even to read it and when they got him down to it they could see why. Total loss, I believe. Stiff as a board."
"Odd," said Sam. He pondered. "Psychological, or something, I suppose."
"Oh I don't know. Just a nice, aimless sort of bloke, really, I think, with only one line. Wouldn't you say so?" He looked to Hilary for support.
"Very likely," she said. "He seemed quite cheerful and amusing. James, do stop wrestling with that burnt muffin and have some cake while there still is some. I've always deplored Sam's greed from his earliest years; I remember when he was at school..." She had never, she thought, really appreciated enough the uses of the aunt-routine. The conversation, thus derailed, was shunted without further trouble to a branch line.
On the journey home she focused her attention on her shopping with renewed care. With regard to the rest, she had succeeded only in unsettling emotions she would have done better to take in hand, while illuminating nothing at all.