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That feeling didn’t go away as their group solidified. He wrote to his parents in Second Week, feeling guilty that he had let so long go by, and found himself laughing aloud at the improbability of it all as he imagined their expressions, reading in the little dark parlour.
I’ve made a fine set of particular friends already. There is Hugo (Morley-Adams—the shipping magnate’s son!), very charming, without the least condescension. Toby, an excellent fellow, turns out to be the grandson and heir of a marquess, and will one day have a great house and a fortune. But he’s awfully friendly, no side to him at all, and his twin sister—Mother, hold onto your hat—is studyingchemistry! My other friends?—
He thought about sophisticated, drawling, fur-coated Nicky, who lounged against doorways and uttered witticisms that bit.
are all very pleasant too. I have met a lady mathematician—we mix a reasonable amount with the ladies of Anselm Hall, as Anselm’s takes a progressive view on women’s education, and of course Toby is permitted visits from his sister. We even have an African man, educated in England, and a very decent sort. He is, like me, the only one of his kind here, though there are several Indian fellows, largely of the maharajah type so above my touch. Then again, I am friends with a marquess-to-be, so who knows? I feel as though I’ve learned more in a fortnight here than I did in all my eighteen years till now.
Also, and you will be astonished by this, I am now a sportsman!
The Boat Club had come for him in the first week. He’d imagined at the time that he’d been considered worthy of notice because he was one of what was already dubbed ‘Feynsham’s set’, though he soon understood that his appeal lay in the fact that he was the smallest man in the college. They’d asked him to try out as cox for the rowing team, and Toby had agreed on his behalf.
Jem hadn’t agreed. Jem had sat in the buttery, frozen in terror as a pack of huge hearty second- and third-year men clustered around him, loudly assessing his meagre form. He couldn’t swim. He’d never been on a boat in his life, didn’t know what a cox was, and had never aspired to do anything with sport except avoid it. He’d been summoning up the courage to convey that he’d vastly prefer to be in the library than on the river when Toby had given a brisk nod and said, ‘Marvellous. Of course he will, he’ll be splendid. We’ll see you on the river, Jem.’
So Jem had tried out, huddled at the stern of the boat, bewildered by his responsibilities, trying not to fall in. The river had been misty that autumn morning, his breath steaming, the world green and grey around him, the only sounds plashing oars and grunting men, and his own voice shouting commands that came out as faint requests at first, and soon increased in volume as the Eton and Harrow and Winchester and Rugby rowers obeyed without question. He’d hurried back to StAnselm’s bubbling with the news that they wanted him to return, and Toby had slapped him on the shoulder with a crow of satisfaction.
‘Of course they do. I knew it.’
Nicky rolled his eyes. ‘Marvellous. He’ll be braying like a boatie any moment. Why must you ruin all the good men?’
Jem was the only rower of their group. Toby laughingly disclaimed interest in sport. Aaron, who had magnificent shoulders, had been wooed by the boat crew but refused, preferring to run; he and Hugo had already started sprinting together. Hugo was a natural athlete, all muscle and grace. He and Nicky had joined the university Sword Club at once, and it was a matter of course that they would be representing StAnselm’s at fencing.
Jem hadn’t quite been able to imagine Nicky the fencer: he didn’t seem like an athlete of any kind, with his languid ways that gave Jem doubt he’d have survived a less rarefied atmosphere than Winchester College. That lasted until Hugo and Nicky decided to get some time with the foils at a gymnasium, and Jem was permitted to watch.
He perched on a bench at the edge of the echoing hall. Both men wore tight white breeches and padded jackets, with faces masked in silver mesh, but Jem had no trouble distinguishing them. Hugo had powerful athlete’s thighs and calves; Nicky longer legs and a narrower frame. They were both barefoot. Jem watched Nicky’s feet with fascination—perfect, long-toed, flexing for balance in an almost animal way—and was almost shocked when the foils were swept up into glittering salute.
It was enthralling. Jem had never seen fencing, didn’t understand the rules or why they moved in such an odd, sidling manner, but he was compelled by the whip of the flexible blades, hissing and scraping, the movement of attack and retreat, the play of strong bodies under the anonymising, close-fitting uniforms. Hugo looked like a warrior: powerful, fast, steady of wrist. Nicky was sinew to his muscle, supple and swaying, then moving with vicious speed and decision. They shifted up and down the hall as though testing one another, blades glancing and dancing, and Jem watched in an ecstasy of longing. For the grace and strength, for the physical prowess, for the fact of this noble medieval pastime as a living thing, for Nicky’s long, elegant lines and the surety of his movements and his shout of triumph as he landed a hit.
Finally Hugo flung up a hand and stepped back. Both swords flashed upwards in salute, and then the two pulled their masks off, sweaty of face and dishevelled of hair. Nicky looked more vibrant than Jem had yet seen him, eyes bright and gleaming with victory.
‘Well played,’ Hugo said, and they launched into analysis of Nicky’s final move, which had apparently been very clever, ignoring Jem on the bench. He didn’t mind. Nicky looked his age for once, the eighteen he was rather than the jaded forty he liked to appear, lean body held tight by the clinging white jacket. Jem watched, lost in the room’s echoes and the scent of male sweat.
‘Nicky takes too many risks,’ Hugo explained afterwards, as they left together. ‘It pays dividends in the short term, granted?—’
‘As now, when I beat you.’
‘Not, however, when we met in the Cup.’ Nicky tipped his head. ‘Those moves are pure reaction, without control.’
‘That’s what training’s for,’ Nicky retorted. ‘Think in training, act in fighting.’
Jem let the argument wash over him. They argued about everything: sport and politics and books and theatre and wine and the relative merits of subjects and tutors and anything else they could think of over the endless, impossibly short eight-week term. He made friends among his fellow mathematicians and among the rowers; he attended lectures religiously and chapel as a matter of obligation; he spent afternoons in the Bodleian Library, stunned by his good fortune and breathing the book-saturated air, and nights in the buttery, or sprawled on the couch in Toby or Nicky or Hugo’s rooms, in front of a blazing fire, learning to drink port, talking about everything and nothing.
When he went home at the end of that first term, his mother said, as she always did for any length of absence, ‘My goodness, you’ve changed! I shouldn’t have known you!’ This time, Jem thought, she might have meant it. This time, he wasn’t sure he knew himself.
FOUR
He started with Hugo.
In some respects he seemed the least accessible of the Seven Wonders now, excepting, of course, Toby. Hugo had become an important man, a Liberal MP. Parliament was in session, and doubtless he had many demands on his time: society, his father’s business, his forthcoming excellent marriage. Nevertheless, he might spare an hour for an old friend. Hugo had always been reasonable.
All the same, Jem didn’t write in advance. It wasn’t precisely that he thought Hugo’s door would be closed to him if he did, but still he decided to go straight there.
Jem arrived at the elegant Georgian townhouse on Stratton Street before nine that morning. A footman, or for all he knew a butler, in a coat rather newer and smarter than Jem’s own, opened the door and gave him the most disdainful look he had received in some time. ‘Yes?’
‘I’d like to see Hugo Morley-Adams.’
‘Have you an appointment,’ the footman enquired, not bothering to make it a question.
‘Tell him it’s Jem Kite. Jeremy Kite. From StAnselm’s.’
