My social life was very much tied up with [X] over this period. Or whenever that proved possible, since it was all too plain nowadays that neither Mr nor Mrs [X] approved of me as an appropriate escort for their daughter. This was on the grounds no doubt, that I was encouraging her to take too liberal an attitude towards premarital intercourse, and they had insufficient faith that I would actually marry her if it so happened that she became pregnant. The prospect of her becoming the next Marchioness and living at Longleat might be all very well, but she could so easily impair her potential as a bride for others if I were to back out from such a contract after a child was on the way. Nor had their daughter ever been devoid of worthy suitors. Indeed they had a considerable regard for [M],and may have supposed that he would prove more reliable in such matters. But [M] was due to take up a posting abroad, which meant that she might soon have no one to restrain her from getting too deeply involved with myself. And I had noted the worried expressions whenever I went over to her home.

On going up to Oxford, my problem was to furnish [X] with sufficiently plausible reasons for coming to see me, especially when there might be some question of her staying overnight - at a hotel rather than in my rooms of course. And the best policy was to present these matters as a joint excursion for the whole bunch of her girlfriends. [F] was the leading figure in this group, with Caroline Poole in the role of her adjutant perhaps, and [X] cast as the one most popularly in demand, who could best be relied upon to receive the invitations which might jointly enrich their visits. Then there was also [Y] who joined the group, sussing out the Oxford environment (timidly at first) with some intention of coming to grips with her own confused identity. They were apt to pile into a car together, or to arrive singly by train, in time for the particular party or dance that was listed on our social calendar.

Their arrival upon our social scene was rapidly communicated by word of mouth, so that those who had not yet met up with them were apt to go out with the express purpose of tracking them down. Or in my own case, [X] would come round to collect me. And there were usually several ports of call to make before we had managed to join up with the rest of her group - after partially satisfying our own carnal desires that is to say. And inasmuch that drinks were generously on offer at each of the rooms where we paid a call, the quantity consumed kept most of us feeling more than just merry.

Sometimes we’d all go out to lunch together - to Woodstock perhaps. And I have a bleary memory of a drive back to Oxford, in a Landrover driven by [F], when we had to stop several times because I was going to be sick. The point that sticks in my memory is that [X] insisted upon holding my head while I was in the process of vomiting. It wasn’t in any way my wish that she should perform this service for me. Indeed, I have a strong preference (when such embarrassing moments arise) to hide myself in a corner where I can best cope with the situation unaided. But it’s difficult to reason effectively with someone who is convinced of the charitable nature of the performance in which she is indulging. I was in weakened estate, and obliged to accept the treatment that she prescribed.

Some of the women within our entourage were indeed just as hard-drinking as the men, and I know that [F]’s behaviour in particular gave rise to some sharp words of criticism from James Spooner, who told her brutally on one occasion that she was a drunken bitch - leading to some tears and general heart-searching. But this outburst of candid criticism may have done her some good, in that she appeared to develop more control over her drinking habits on subsequent visits. And with her behaviour moderated, she was soon able to number James amongst her friends.

What disconcerted me slightly was the way [X] appeared so popular with all manner of males. I didn’t feel that my status in her affections was vulnerable from the other undergraduates, but there was now a new angle of rivalry which came from the dons. And it was Raymond Carr in particular, the History don at New College, who - despite being happily married to his long-suffering wife Sarah, and a whole brood of children to raise - had the notoriety in those days of chatting up and dating the female undergraduates who mingled with the Grid-iron set at Oxford. [G] was receiving his special attention over these months, but I noted how he had attention to spare for [X] at the parties we attended. And this somehow amounted to a challenge from above - from someone whom I didn’t know very well, and whom I felt uncertain how to place (with all his intellectual prestige) in relative status against my own.

The social highlights to any term came in the particular dances, or balls, that were to be given. And it was the Grid dance this term, which was being held in Raymond Carr’s house at Great Milton. The level of drinking was always high, without much consideration for maintaining today’s standards for sobriety despite our knowing that we’d be at the wheel of a car when driving home.

Bendor was the first of my friends to have a serious accident, when speeding home that night with [Y] as his date in the front passenger seat. [X] and I had been offered a lift, but declined it. So it was taken by Ian instead. Bendor was unable to make it round a corner, so that the car went over a bank and sailed through the air for a short distance before hitting the ground and somersaulting. Ian was pulled out with two broken ribs, and [Y] was found unconscious, pinned under the wreckage - ending up in hospital for a few days with concussion and a few cuts and bruises, but otherwise unharmed. Bendor was smitten with extravagant remorse, after taking note of the consequences of an evening’s folly - beating his head against a wall, wishing all manner of transferred agony to his own person. (Indeed, he lost his licence for six months when he eventually appeared in court to answer for his misdeeds.) But no manner of self-recrimination or punishment seemed to bring about the reformed behaviour which he promised himself - unless you count the switch he made from spirits to wine.

Oxford wasn’t the only place where meetings with [X] could be arranged. Sometimes I went up to London - with the destination on one of these occasions being a gathering at [F]’s flat in Eaton Square. [F] perhaps displayed the most opulent lifestyle within the group, and she had more or less the free use of what was really her father’s flat. Once a number of her friends had been gathered, a night-club atmosphere came into existence. And there was one occasion when [X] and I were lying on the floor and behaving quite badly (by the contemporary standards), "smooching" - as [F] liked to call it. Or "heavy petting", as it was being called in America. But whatever one called it, there was quite a lot of sexual contact involved.

Since the lights were extinguished, our boldness was increased until - quite unexpectedly - someone lit a match on the pretence to be lighting a cigarette. This was Richard Hawkins, from New College. He obviously got a good glimpse of what we were doing, even though we slid aside in an attempt to disguise the degree of our carnal play. Later, once the lights had been turned up and we were conversing again, Richard was endeavouring to chat up [X] with me sitting there beside her. And because [X] was acting in character by flirting quite atrociously with him, from the security of my presence, he was trying it out to discover just how much might be allowed to him - stroking her leg, but gradually going higher until he was up inside her skirt. And it reached a point when [X] began to panic, so I laid my hand gently on Richard’s arm, telling him to desist - which he promptly did with a light laugh.

I tell this story in particular because it reveals how [X] was acquiring a mild notoriety within the gossip hearsay promoted by the likes of Richard. People came to hear how we’d almost been "having it off" on the floor of [F]’s flat, and this marked a degree of amorous extroversion which exceeded the majority of her friends. [X] was enormously popular, but people may have been talking about her in a fashion that cast aspersions against her morals - particularly when tales of our behaviour came to the ears of the older generation. But my own feeling was that none of this really mattered, provided that her "misbehaviour" was coupled with my own.

I simply didn’t matter if the world frowned upon the way we behaved together. We were a couple and I hoped that it would remain that way. I felt there was some manner of lifestyle role which could have been specially designed for us, involving an act of cocking a snook at the fossilized modes of behaviour from the previous generation, which had managed to survive the war despite the fact that their ridiculous aspects were all too clearly showing. We were the right sort of couple to cock such a snook, and to get away with it. And if we should pause to reflect upon the matter, this was no more than the kind of behaviour in which Henry and Daphne had themselves indulged, when they had been our age.

Sublimely safe in our paired embrace, we share
space with no others, throwing rocks
to knock from precarious pedestals the prejudices
missed at yesterday’s respectful coconut shy.
Vying to match the standard of outrageous excess,
set expressly by those who spawned and raised me,
ways spring to our ever fertile fancy,
to bandy deeds iconoclastic in spirit.
Prettily pirouetting on the party’s cake,
we’ll fake the enormity of conformity - good for a lark! -
to shed stark contrast on the next bout
of flouted rules that we flutter, better than confetti.
We’ll drop our pants and wiggle with our bums
until we’ve shocked all pompous dads and mums.

Despite our considerable care about such matters, we were still smitten with the recurrent fear that I had made her pregnant.

One of the nicest things about [X] was her ability to clown, and I remember one instance when she had me in stitches - walking some twenty yards ahead of me in Soho after nightfall, and posing as a prostitute. She would start walking alongside some male suggesting that he might like to take her back home with him. It is fortunate that her behaviour was never observed by a policeman, or the two of us might have found ourselves in court on an embarrassing charge. But in any case there were no difficulties in this instance, especially in that she managed to solicit the men who were only concerned to shy away from such attentions. Not that their rejections greatly pleased [X].

I had more reason for personal concern when, on a different occasion, [X] happened to run into [M]. We were just emerging from Peter Jones together, and there was some trivial matter over which we were quarrelling. And [M] was driving past in his car when, on spotting [X], he pulled up and opened the door so that she could jump in for a brief chat as they circled Sloane Square. The trouble was that I had been walking just ahead of her, and didn’t see what had happened. In my state of petulance due to the quarrel, I imagined that [X] was still walking a few paces behind me. So when I finally looked over my shoulder to find no one there, I supposed that [X] had flounced back into Peter Jones - as a manner of protest against me. Well I was damned if I was going to follow her, so I continued on my path to Eaton Square - whereupon I relented and retraced my steps to Sloane Square, in the hopes of refinding her before our plans for the day would have to be scrapped.

We were fortunate enough to make the reconnection. [X] herself had been hunting frantically, and there was now nothing but relief and explanations on offer. She imagined that I had seen her climb into the car with [M], and that I would wait for her just round the corner. So the fact of not finding me there had thrown her in a tizzy. But we were quickly reconciled - although I was given to understand that I had caused problems between herself and [M], who had been hearing rumours of her relationship with myself. ("Was that A.Thynne with you?" he was reported as enquiring.) Apparently he had been doing his best to discount the rumours, but the sight of me in her company had sparked off feelings of jealousy, and much uncertainty about himself. Such was the tale which [X] unfolded to me over the coming months. All that I was told for the moment however, was that she had invited him down to [O] for one last weekend before he took up his post as aide-de-camp to the Governor of Queensland.

[X]’s eventual account of this weekend was (to some extent) reassuring. She thought that he had been trying to propose marriage to her, but she hadn’t allowed him to feel sure enough of himself to declare his feelings so emphatically. She had quite pointedly discouraged him from supposing that she might be prepared to wait for his return before committing herself emotionally elsewhere. And his sister Henrietta had reported to [X], subsequently, that [M] had returned from this weekend morose and despondent until the day he went abroad.

[X] was ambivalent in her manner of revealing the effect of [M] upon her emotions. There were certainly times when she gave me to understand that her regard for him was firmly in time past, and that there should be no real comparison within time present with her feelings towards myself. But there was one occasion, after she had been drinking a bit, when she informed me that she could never love me in quite the same way as she had loved [M]. In her tendency towards dramatic statement, she described her love for [M] as "an irrepressible madness", whilst that for myself was something more quiet and steady. I was never really conscious of that steadiness, but I supposed she was trying to convey that she held it to be of greater value to herself. Not that my pride found it any too easy to digest the terms of the comparison.

I sail the sunlit sea in a two-seat clinker,
thinking to circle the world’s girdle - my girl
curled around me - when up porpoise-pop
a crop of her memories, which slap away my feet.
Seated at table, the game’s with a shuffled pack
where I lack assurance that former patterns prevail,
and failed nerve might forfeit fortune’s gains
in painful dissolution of romantic status.
Mated in love’s season (in body and in mind),
I find it revolting that other lovers might claim
the same degree of greedy fusion - refused
no more than I in scores of sexual glory.
It niggles me to look to find my place
upon a scale with rights to her embrace.

Plans were afoot for a weekend of our own at [O]. [X] had it all worked out. She’d planned it for when her parents would next be up in Scotland, and the staff would be told nothing about a party of her friends arriving from Oxford until the very last minute, so that there would be insufficient time for anyone to put a stop to it. And in the meantime she had arranged for her friends in north Wiltshire - like [F] and Fiona Menzies - to put up week-end parties at the same time, and to bring them over to [O] for a super smooching-party on the Saturday evening.

Our fantasies for the evening began to run amok, but as so often happens, the realization of them went sadly wrong - the initial problem being that the two of us were bickering as badly as a recently married couple. The reasons were all too trivial either for memory or description, but our mutual irritations were quickly bubbling to the surface - followed by a coolness which impaired the general spirit of conviviality. No smooching had developed in the manner we had all anticipated, and as I saw it much of the fault lay in [X]’s inadequate organizational skills when it came to party-giving. The guests were just sitting round the drawing room with the conversation less than lively, and my own mood was becoming distinctly grumpy.

One of the people who had come over in [F]’s party was [F],a young economist and musician. He was the friend more accurately of [F]’s mother, but his curiosity had been aroused by all the talk about smooching-parties, and he had come with an interest to see for himself what precisely might happen at these events. But the scene which he was observing must have counted as an anti-climax. He had been drinking perhaps more than the rest of us, but he took it upon himself to try and liven things up - unfortunately at my expense. We had barely exchanged any words at all, so there was certainly no question of us having quarrelled, but he declared that the evening required some excitement and the two of us should have a fight. I declared that I had no quarrel with him, so was reluctant to oblige. But he wouldn’t take no for an answer - standing in front of me while endeavouring to haul me to me feet.

It was a difficult situation for me. The problem was really that I had a certain prestige as a pugilist - a man with too many notches on his gun, so that others wished to measure their fighting prowess against my own. It is my guess that [F] had been exercising himself in judo, and he thought he might show off by displaying how such training could outmatch any punching skills. But I had no wish to throw any punches. Once he had pulled me to my feet however, I attempted to put a quick end to his aggressiveness by moving in quickly and shoving him to the floor. I then turned my back on him and was about to return to my seat. But he caught hold of my foot and twisted it in what amounted to a judo throw. And once I was down on the ground, he got my head in a lock while I was lying there on top of him. It wasn’t paining me, being in fact quite comfortable. But there wasn’t very much that I could do to release myself, without escalating the degree of conflict by sinking my fist into his exposed solar plexus. I chose not to do this, accepting instead his suggestion that we call it a draw and release one another.

Singled out as the means to demonstrate
his rated best test for personal bravado,
it’s hard (when I’ve done nothing to pick a fight)
I’m indicted thus for pugilistic performance.
With normal behaviour suspended, I still endeavour
to sever my connections with violence, pinning it
to minimal level and holding back. In battle,
I’d batter opponents from a full arsenal of weapons.
But he kept boasting thereafter we’d been on a par
as scarred gladiators - a subject he found
roundly to merit self-congratulation,
but a matter impinging on my own dented pride.
It never was (and never could be) fun
to be a man with notches on his gun.

No one’s spirits had been especially revived as a result of this incident, and we were all sitting there unenthusiastically listening to Alexander McEwen singing to the accompaniment of his guitar. For my own part, I was no longer feeling sufficiently sociable to participate in any of this, so I retired to my bedroom. But when this had been noticed by [X], she somehow concluded that I had decided to terminate our relationship and, on seeking me out, went to pieces emotionally - flinging her arms round my neck and trembling all over. She was crying and begging me not to leave her - or to allow her to have a little time "so as to get accustomed to the situation".

All this made me feel that my morose behaviour amounted to something reprehensible. I felt like an utter shit. So I assured her that there was no thought of leaving her in my mind at all. I was simply in a bad mood, which would doubtless pass by the following morning. A reconciliation was then effected. By the time we returned to the drawing-room however, we found that all the other guests had taken their leave. And about time too, was my own verdict, for it now meant that we could retire to bed together - for part of the night that is to say, since [X] was still greatly concerned that the staff should not be made privy to the degree of intimacy in our relationship.

[X] was indeed liable to go to pieces very quickly, in a manner which may have indicated that she was even less integrated as a personality than myself. At the same time she had a tendency to make a point of appearing tough-minded and obdurate - especially in her dealings with the wretched butler at [O], for whom she displayed little compassion. (His expression was as worried as a bloodhound’s, but almost signalling that he merited her reprimands.) There was this hard side to her which I always knew might be turned against myself, if the relationship were to deteriorate.

The whole concept of this weekend party had been ill-advised from the very start. And of course I was the one who should have been advising her differently. [X] got into some trouble from her parents once they had returned from Scotland, with a confession awaiting them as to how the house had been used in their absence. And I don’t suppose that it raised my own standing in their eyes, in that it may have seemed to them that I was leading their daughter into follies which did her reputation no good. But their attitude was more a question of restraining her from seeing quite so much of me, rather than to forbid any social contact at all.

While [X] may at times have been hankering after a degree of romance which she had once felt for [M], there were also some traces of infidelity within my own heart. For the sentimental thoughts which I felt for Lita were still fresh in my mind. Our parting in Biarritz the previous September had been under less than satisfactory circumstances. I had intended to leave matters there without making further fool of myself, but she had written to me around the start of the term asking how I was, and saying she was sad because she hadn’t heard from me.

It was a letter which left me uncertain how she had really regarded me in her heart. My flirtation with her had ended so badly the previous Summer in Biarritz. She must have known about the way I had been humiliated by her friend [J], but her effort in reopening the contact looked hopeful perhaps. And her comment about seeking out people with a soul was made, I suspected, with myself in mind - or at any rate with an awareness of how I had liked her to image me. I responded by sending her one of the best of my paintings from the previous summer - an almost abstract conception of planets swirling through space - and she wrote back briefly to thank me for it.

The possibility seemed open for me to salvage something from our previous romance, if I could find a different basis for it. But I realized this placed me on difficult ground. I had no wish to act in any manner that might be construed as an infidelity to [X]. At the same time I was aware how she still treasured the memory of [M], and had kept the relationship in a state that was far from terminated. It seemed reasonable that I should keep the door ajar for my romance with Lita. So I did indeed write back to her in a letter of Christmas greeting, which tried to convey some of the savour of this new life that I was leading here at Oxford. In her own Christmas card she expressed the hope that my broken leg would be mended in time for me to join her skiing party at Kitzbühl. But I left that unanswered for the time being, for I was uncertain of how the situation might evolve from this point forwards.

There was also another relationship which had given rise to some disturbed emotions in my heart, although not of a variety which I had reason to treasure. But the story needs some initial words of explanation as to how I came to be acquainted with Mrs [H] and her daughter [H].

While I had been in Paris, I had received a letter from my Aunt Vanda to say that a friend of hers would be writing to ask my advice upon Parisian art schools, because her daughter was hoping to attend one. And such a letter from Mrs [H] did soon follow - stating that she had worries upon the question of whether it would be wise to let her daughter reside in Paris. "Whenever I take her abroad, the foreigners seem to find her very attractive - [H] has lovely golden hair." I was foolish enough to be snared, feeling hopeful that I might get the chance to meet such a beauty. So I replied with what I imagined was a letter of sound good sense, proclaiming that it was safe enough for a young girl of this day and age to study in Paris, but that Parisian males would of course be expected to seek out her acquaintance, so that whatever transpired would be for herself to determine.

[H] never did get her mother’s permission to reside in Paris, but on my return home, I received a second letter inviting me over to lunch at their home, the Manor House in Beckington, on the pretext of discussing the matter further - a pretext which was revealed as bogus once it had been revealed, at lunch, that a decision had already been taken that Paris furnished an unsuitable environment for a young girl’s studies. The blatancy of the desire to introduce me to the daughter had been disguised, to some extent, by inviting me alongside a young man who was introduced to me as "the Honourable [I] " - already at Oxford, as I was informed. And [H], who was far short of the standard of beauty that I had been led to expect, had coy smiles to offer to the two of us, but was sparing on definite things to say.

In point of fact it had struck me from the start how she and [I] might form a well-matched couple, for he appeared to me as being of the same disposition as herself - displaying over the course of luncheon how he was much under the thumb of his battle-axe of a mother. (She was the wife of one of one of Britain’s wartime generals.) If I read the situation correctly, I was being shown the marriageable regard in which the young [H] was held by others. And it was stressed to me how she too wanted to become an artist. But the embarrassing part was that I didn’t fancy [H], despite all that docility and sweetness with which I was quite prepared to credit her.

As far as I was concerned, I would have done nothing more to develop the relationship. But once I was at Oxford, I had received a letter from Mrs [H] to say that she was coming down with [H] to take a look at the Ruskin School of Art, and she wondered if I’d like to join her for luncheon in the Randolph Hotel - along with [I] as I discovered. I felt responsible in some measure for permitting the mother to harbour any supposition that I might emerge as a suitable match for her daughter, so it was now with deliberation that I kept dropping into our conversation the name of [X] - who just happened to have been a school acquaintance of [H]. (They had both been at Hatherop Castle, which was where Longstowe Hall - my sister’s old school - was now situated.)

It seems that I mentioned [X] just once too often, for Mrs [H]’ expression suddenly sharpened in saying something to the following order. "I always feel so sorry for that girl. I suppose you know about her illness. It’s something in her blood that means she can’t have any children. It’s a miracle that [X] herself ever lived. It’s something in the blood you know."

I did my best to conceal the emotional turmoil inside me with a simple disclaimer that I knew anything at all about the sister. Mrs [H] then turned to talk to the others. But I could feel that I was beginning to black-out, so I quickly got to my feet and excused myself on the pretext of paying a visit to the loo. My gait was probably unsteady, but I managed to reach it without falling and lay there on the floor, inside one of the cubicles, until the blood came back into my head. Then as soon as I had returned to the table, I made my excuses about not feeling well, and I slipped away.

Our love lay in a casket with jewelled clasp,
which I grasp in both hands with a child’s sense
of tense possession - never guessing the credibly
dreadful divisive power of ‘nice’ neighbours.
I weigh their words, despairing (frantic) - standing
at a blank wall, wondering where the road went -
bent double sifting buds from the crusted
dust under once ripening cherry trees.
Seizing up (a machine drained of oil)
my brain’s heart recoils to the stomach pit,
stitching intermittent thoughts together -
bereft of meaning - merely playing for time.
Are all the dreams so hopefully I nursed
to disappear as in a bubble burst?

I realized that I could not be free from worry on the subject, but I was now better able to view the matter in its true perspective. And as for raising the question with [X], I no longer felt that there was quite so great a need. I’d bide my time for the right opportunity. But there was one good point which I did appreciate. It was clear to me that [X]’s parents hadn’t been raising her to any understanding that she ought to avoid having children. We had often touched upon this subject, and I knew that she regarded two children as the ideal. My inclination was to dismiss my fears as unwarranted.

Then came the end of the Michaelmas term, and I was back at Longleat with my leg in a plaster cast. I was curious to discover that my father’s attitude towards [X] had made a slight upturn, without her actually doing anything to merit such a change. But it seems that he had been making some enquiries from his friends in Whites’ Club as to the financial assets of the [X] family. "The old boy’s got money in shipping", he confided to me one day - with a mischievous twinkle in his eye, as if he was comprehending for the first time what I actually saw in the girl. It would have made no difference to my personal regard for [X] if he’d learnt instead that Mr [X] was bankrupt. But I was happy to be given to understand that Henry’s objections to such a marriage might now be vastly reduced.

Or they were just for a brief spell, but when [X] came over to lunch at Job’s Mill, she never made any effort to charm my father - for the simple reason that she didn’t like him. Their conceptions of humour didn’t spark on one another. There is a reference in one of [X]’s letters to a practical joke she played on Henry - although I have no exact record of what precisely it may have been. Nor can I remember. But I think it was in some reference to his collection of Hitleriana - perhaps a matter of copying out some circular that had come her way from the Bishop of Bath and Wells, requesting the donation of books for some charity, and perhaps his copy of Mein Kampf in particular. My guess is that she was writing to suggest that the quality of his collection of first editions would be infinitely improved if he were to shed from it such works of tainted reputation. I am inclined to suspect that the subject of his Hitleriana had even been mentioned at the lunch. But whatever she may have written, it is liable to have been childish, leaving ill-concealed the fact that it emanated from her hand. .

There was indeed this goading streak of stubborn opposition which could surface in [X], once she had identified some characteristic in her elders which she felt merited her confrontation. Leaving that apple-core on Xan’s typewriter the previous September was another such instance. Such acts were undiplomatic to say the least. And it did seem over the weeks which followed that Henry’s disapproval of her was intensifying. But I wasn’t faring much better myself in that [X]’s parents now regarded me with considerable suspicion, and I was painfully aware of this during the one weekend of this vacation when I was invited to stay at [O].

In point of fact our sexual activities were much curtailed in daylight hours, from the fact of my leg being in plaster. We couldn’t disappear on long walks together, in the manner we had done in Scotland. And with her parents’ attitude towards myself being so full of doubt, we were making an effort not to appear too enamoured with each others’ company when in their presence. We participated in the family shopping in Bath, and then we all went to a cinema together. Then on the Sunday we paid a visit to Peter Scott’s wild fowl trust at Slimbridge, with [X], her camera at the ready, running after the geese making honking noises - until she espied Peter Scott, whereupon she employed much the same kind of tactics on himself.

Much as I loved [X], I perceived something disastrously impractical in her whole approach to life. On the Saturday evening for example, we were lying there on the floor of the drawing room with [X] producing sketches of women copulating - with captions like "I love you" scribbled underneath. I could see that her father suspected that she was drawing scenes of a lascivious nature, but she went and abandoned the sketch-book upon the sofa when she retired to bed. Mr [X] was indeed left alone in the room after the rest of us had gone upstairs. But it was difficult for me to discuss such carelessness with [X] without provoking a quarrel. She felt that I wasn’t accepting her for what she was - that I was attempting to impose my own order of life upon hers. But it made me despair that she could ever find her own road to a well-ordered attitude.

[X] did find her way to my bedroom after she had allowed time for her parents to fall asleep. But in order to avoid having to pass her father’s bedroom door, she took a long detour down one set of stairs and then up by the other, managing in the process to awaken the watch-dog who barked for a full half hour whilst she crouched trembling behind the sofa. She was still trembling by the time she joined me in bed - and frozen too. Nor was I at my best as a lover, lying there with my leg in a plaster cast. (This must count as the least satisfying night that we ever spent together.) Then on returning to her room in the early hours, she plucked up her courage to run past her father’s room, but in the dark managed to bang into it. I noted how, in my presence next morning, Mr [X] remarked reprovingly to his daughter that she’d been behaving foolishly of late.

The parents’ disapproval of me was never offensively overt. But Mr [X] turned to me at one point and, with a long stare, he did see fit to mention that there was no money in his family. It was evident to me how Henry’s enquiries at Whites’ Club must have been with his usual lack of subtlety or discretion. But it saddened me to realize how they supposed that I was liable to share his concern about such matters.

Attempting so badly to appear as if we were on our best behaviour became a strain, and it was responsible for my outbursts of impatience with [X] at times when we were alone. There were indeed occasions when I felt that we just weren’t suited for one another. And the whole subject of that mongoloid gene did trouble me enormously. But I did reach a firm conclusion in my heart that this in itself could never be a sufficient reason for breaking with her - even if it meant a decision not to have any children. If we were to break, it could only be for the reason that we had found ourselves to be of incompatible temperaments. Her vulnerability at any prospect of parting invariably touched me, and I cared deeply for her happiness.

But of course I was never present to defend myself when [X]’s parents were urging their daughter to see less of me. Whilst I could empathize with their attitude of concern for their daughter’s moral welfare, our interests in the matter were diametrically opposed. [X] was apt to feel critically towards her father - perhaps on the grounds that he displayed that manner of British reserve which leaves people wondering about the degree of emotional warmth that could be credited to him. (A deficiency which I felt inclined to attribute to his shyness; and there was a gentle dignity about his behaviour which I frankly admired.) But [X] displayed a far higher regard for her mother, absorbing her attitudes in all that mattered in life.

If Mrs [X] was cool in her appreciation of myself, then it was bound to effect my chances of making any progress with her daughter. Indeed, there were a couple of last minute phone calls to cancel plans to accompany me somewhere, with the excuses sounding lame - something about a sore throat and not feeling well. It made me wonder just how firmly [X] felt committed to the advancement of our relationship. I had wrangled with her on the subject over the phone, managing to extract from her one further invitation for a day visit to [O] before the end of the vacation.

It was on a day when Mr and Mrs [X] were absent, up in London. I had made up my mind that I must have a serious discussion with [X] about all matters which concerned our future development. But I was put out to discover, on my arrival, that I was in disgrace. Henry had permitted me the use of his chauffeur to get over there, but [X] greeted me coldly. Apparently I had been "selfish and inconsiderate" in my conversation over the phone. She had been expecting sympathy at least for her days in bed with flu, but I had done nothing but complain about her logic. I had been objecting to the reason she gave for not coming over to see me at Longleat, on the grounds that there would be no more exposure to the fresh air than she would get at [O]. And I was quick to point out that her suggestion that we now go for a walk - quickly withdrawn - would have involved all the fresh air that she’d been so much trying to avoid when considering the possibility of being exposed to it when away from home.

So there was a lot of bickering to overcome at the start, with [X] flouncing out of the room at one time - only to return in a few minutes after she’d realized that we didn’t have time enough on our hands for the frivolity of quarrelling. And I was blaming myself for not being more diplomatic in the way I chose to express what I might wish to say. In any case it wasn’t long before we were back on loving terms, sitting there with our arms around one another, and I felt that the time had come when I must start talking about the question of there being any genetic disorders in the family. But I couldn’t think of the right remark that I should make to get started, so a silence had arisen.

Then followed what must count as an amazing coincidence - if I am to avoid an explanation in terms of telepathy. For she suddenly announced that there was something she had to tell me. And after a bit of coaxing, it came out. She told me how there had once been a case of Downs syndrome within her family: nothing hereditary, incidentally. I told her that I hin fact already knew about this, and related to her the whole story concerning Mrs [H]. [X] found this fascinating. She said how it explained the guilty expression on Mrs [H]’ face when she and her mother had recently run into the woman at a local bazaar. They couldn’t think what might have been the matter with her.

It was an enormous relief for me to have got this subject out in the open, and we were soon making love - although I was still obliged to take a very passive role in such activities. (The plaster wasn’t due to be removed until after my return to Oxford.) The loving mood began to deteriorate however, after she had raised the subject of marriage. I think she felt hurt that I should be ruling out the possibility of marrying anyone before I had completed my studies at Oxford. Her line of argument seemed to be that I could hardly expect a girl to remain unmarried right up to the age of twenty-three. I sensed that she was growing cantankerous. Then she managed to set the displeasure behind her, and she was loving again.

I had lent her my Encyclopaedia of Sex Practices shortly after returning from Paris, but I now asked her to return it so that I could take it back to Oxford with me. She went off to look for it in her bedroom, but returned all flustered, merely with the hard cover of the book in her hand. The rest had evidently been ripped out by someone, and destroyed. We had no means of knowing after which date this must have happened, since [X] hadn’t examined it of late. But I realized how my image in the parents’ eyes must have sunk really low by now - with my signature inscribed there on the first page. I might see myself as their daughter’s educator, but in their eyes I was little more than her corrupter. Nor was there much that I could do to rectify such a matter - unless I were prepared to adopt a more positive attitude to instant marriage. And much as I loved [X], I didn’t want that.

That was as far as I managed to take my relationship with [X] over the course of this vacation. I knew that all our plans were on shaky ground, but in some ways we were managing to proceed with the construction of our marital intentions. And that is the point at which I’ll have to leave them for the time being.

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