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Last week I posted the first chapter of The Larks Still Bravely Singing, and I thought I might as well post the second one this week.
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Chapter 2
Robert went to the library that night. He’d always liked to read, and anyway the library was a splendid place for assignations, easily accessible to the convalescents and possessed of two distinct curtained alcoves.
Comforting the men, Cyril Sibley had called it. Their relationship had not really ended when Cyril went up to Oxford. After the war started they had gotten together again; but the demands of the army kept them apart much of the time, and then Robert had lost his leg and been in hospital for ages, and finally come home to Montagu House.
On leave from the Somme, Cyril had come to visit. Robert, delighted to see him, trammeled with guilt, had confessed his sins; and Cyril, white as paper, said, “I wish I’d died on the Somme before I knew you’d been unfaithful.”
At the time, Robert could at least have totted up how many. But then Cyril had left him, walking three miles to Montagu St. Clair in the dead of the night rather than stay near Robert another moment. (“Poor dear,” Robert’s mother said, for of course he could not tell her exactly why Cyril left; “Probably he couldn’t face the wounded men, when he’s going back in battle any moment.”) He never answered Robert’s begging apologetic letters.
And then Cyril died after all, at Arras.
After that, Robert slept with any man who would have him—and there were a great many convalescents happy to cheer the tedium with a good fuck. Now he couldn’t begin to count them up.
Possibly he ought to find a new place to spend his evenings. It might be too easy, here, to return to old habits, like a dog to its vomit.
He had not made much progress in Thackeray when the library door creaked open. He did not look up—he did not feel quite up to facing anyone, just then; but then David said, “Oh, I say. Robert Montagu. It is you.”
( Read more )
***
Chapter 2
Robert went to the library that night. He’d always liked to read, and anyway the library was a splendid place for assignations, easily accessible to the convalescents and possessed of two distinct curtained alcoves.
Comforting the men, Cyril Sibley had called it. Their relationship had not really ended when Cyril went up to Oxford. After the war started they had gotten together again; but the demands of the army kept them apart much of the time, and then Robert had lost his leg and been in hospital for ages, and finally come home to Montagu House.
On leave from the Somme, Cyril had come to visit. Robert, delighted to see him, trammeled with guilt, had confessed his sins; and Cyril, white as paper, said, “I wish I’d died on the Somme before I knew you’d been unfaithful.”
At the time, Robert could at least have totted up how many. But then Cyril had left him, walking three miles to Montagu St. Clair in the dead of the night rather than stay near Robert another moment. (“Poor dear,” Robert’s mother said, for of course he could not tell her exactly why Cyril left; “Probably he couldn’t face the wounded men, when he’s going back in battle any moment.”) He never answered Robert’s begging apologetic letters.
And then Cyril died after all, at Arras.
After that, Robert slept with any man who would have him—and there were a great many convalescents happy to cheer the tedium with a good fuck. Now he couldn’t begin to count them up.
Possibly he ought to find a new place to spend his evenings. It might be too easy, here, to return to old habits, like a dog to its vomit.
He had not made much progress in Thackeray when the library door creaked open. He did not look up—he did not feel quite up to facing anyone, just then; but then David said, “Oh, I say. Robert Montagu. It is you.”
( Read more )
