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‘Oh, of course you are.’ Nicky passed him the wine. ‘It’s the difference between thinking,That is a beautiful thing, andThat is a beautiful thing, so I must own it. Or, in Ella’s case, demanding an analysis of what constitutes beauty, in triplicate.’
‘Thatisn’tfair. Why don’t you like Ella?’
‘Who says I don’t?’
‘Well, you.’
‘I did not.’
‘Did.’
‘My God, you child. I don’t dislike the woman. It is simply that it doesn’t do to betooimportant in one twin’s life; it risks putting the other’s nose out of joint, and we can’t have that.’
Jem stared out at the spires. The sun was set now, the remaining light briefly turning the gracious stone blood-red. ‘I don’t think Toby is possessive, is he? He strikes me as extremely generous.’
‘Those aren’t opposites. Are you familiar with the Feynsham family?’
‘Of course I’m not.’
‘I mean Toby’s position.’
‘Well, his grandfather’s a marquess, isn’t he? And Toby’s his heir.’
‘No, not precisely,’ Nicky said. ‘Toby is, if I may so describe it, the heir presumptive to the heir apparent.’
‘I have no idea what that means.’
The bells started then, chiming the hour all over Oxford. The distant boom of Old Tom in Christ Church, the lighter peals from StMary Magdalen, Balliol and Trinity, antiphonies, scales and cadences and pure single chimes, with Anselm’s own brassy chapel clock so loud up here that Jem gripped his stone seat, fearful of being jolted off by the force of the noise. Nicky took his wrist, as if to steady him, and kept hold of it, and they let the glorious cacophony wash over them until it was indisputably agreed to be nine o’clock.
‘Can’t hear yourself think,’ Nicky said. ‘What were we talking about?’
‘Toby.’
‘Of course we were. Well. The Marquess of Grevesham had two sons. Toby’s father was the younger. The older son, Viscount Crenshaw, is a childless widower and notorious drunk. If he dies without issue, the next heir will be Toby.’
‘Isn’t that what I said?’
‘IfCrenshaw dies without issue. Which he well may: he’s over sixty, and the marquess has started taking Toby round the estates and doing the speech aboutOne day, my grandson, all this will be yours. But Toby has no claim at all on the marquessate or its riches until the sozzled old fool expires. And if Crenshaw marries on his deathbed, the title could still be lost to an unborn child. Do you see? You and I can reach for our glittering futures. Toby has no way to achieve his except to wait for someone to die. Which, you may imagine, preys on the nerves.’
‘Maybe he should settle to something else in the meantime, then.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. Can you imagine Tobes working?’
It sounded like everything Jem had read in satirical novels about the upper classes. ‘What happens to Ella when Toby becomes a marquess?’
Nicky shrugged. ‘She will become Lady Petronella.’
‘Ladywhat?’
‘Didn’t you know Ella’s baptismal affliction? It would have soured my character too. Why was I talking about this?’
Jem tried to remember, a task made less easy since they’d got a fair way through the bottle. ‘Possessiveness?’
‘That’s right. You and I don’t look upon the world as a mass ofI could have that, orI should have had that, and if we think,I want that, we don’t expect it to fall into our hands for the wanting. And the corollary of that, of course, the reward for our denial, is that we can see beauty without resenting that we don’t own it. A poverty of the flesh, a richness of the spirit.’
‘What utter rot. Anyone can appreciate a lovely view if they care to look. And talk about the spiritual benefits of being poor is something you never hear from the poor. Only from the rich giving reasons why it’s not in anyone’s interests to raise wages.’
‘Bloody socialist.’
