LITMIR.BIZ

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social cachet, the Muthaiga was not a particularly impressive piece of architecture, being little more than a greatly expanded bungalow, with pink pebbledash walls, painted metal window frames (for wooden frames soon rotted away in the subtropical climate) and a few classical columns by the entrance to provide a sense of colonial prestige. Inside, one walked over floors of highly polished wooden parquet, past walls painted in shades of cream and green. It looked, as Hugh Delamere had once remarked to Leon, ‘Like a cross between my old prep school and a suburban nursing home.’

      Arriving back at the club one evening, after a long day of meetings with lawyers and accountants, Leon sank into one of the chintz-covered armchairs that dotted the members’ lounge. A uniformed waiter immediately appeared and took his order for a gin and tonic. The drink appeared beside him only moments later and Leon signed for it on a coloured paper chit: nothing as grubby as money was ever seen to change hands within the club’s portals. Leon took a sip of the ice-cold drink, put the glass back on the side table and leaned back in his chair, eyes closed as he let the cares of the day slip away.

      Then he heard a familiar voice: ‘Evening, Courtney, mind if I join you?’

      ‘By all means, Joss,’ Leon replied.

      Over the past few years a lot had changed in Josslyn Hay’s life. For one thing, he was now the twenty-second Earl of Erroll, having inherited the title on his father’s death, along with the honorary post of Lord High Constable of Scotland. He had not, however, inherited any money, for his father had not been a wealthy man, and the lack of cash had led to the breakdown of his marriage to Lady Idina. His second wife, Molly, was, like Idina, a wealthy divorcée and, once again, Joss saw no reason whatsoever why his marriage vows should apply to him. He still looked as he always had done: his hair swept back and blond, his head slightly turned, so that his half-closed blue eyes looked slightly sideways at anyone he was talking to. And one look was still enough to land the great majority of women who happened to catch his fancy.

      So far as Leon was concerned, Joss Erroll, as he now liked to be known, was an unprincipled rogue, no matter how elevated his title might be, and if he ever so much as glanced at Saffron he’d horsewhip him all the way to the Mombasa docks and throw him onto the first outbound steamer he could find. But until that time, Leon was perfectly happy to enjoy Joss’s company. It was certainly more agreeable than that of a great many other expats he could think of.

      ‘Have you heard about this business at the Oxford Union?’ Joss asked, once he had been served a drink of his own.

      ‘What business is that?’ Leon replied.

      ‘A bloody rum one, I can tell you.’ Joss took a cigarette from a slim silver case, tapped it against the table, lit it and sat back, savouring the first inhalation. ‘They had a debate with the motion, “This House will under no circumstances fight for its King and Country.”’

      ‘Bloody Hellfire! I trust the motion was soundly defeated.’

      ‘’Fraid not, old boy, it was carried by almost three hundred votes to one hundred and fifty. A two-to-one majority.’

      Leon looked aghast. ‘Are you seriously telling me that the flower of young English manhood, the fellows who are supposed to be the brightest and best of their generation, have declared that they will never fight for their country?’

      ‘Apparently so,’ Joss replied. ‘The Huns, or the commies, or even the damn French can pitch up on our shores, march across the country, rape our womenfolk and pitchfork our babies, and the brightest brains in the kingdom will simply say, “By all means, feel free.”’

      ‘I don’t believe it,’ said Leon. ‘Of course the last war was bloody. And I know people say it was the war to end all wars. But this lily-livered pacifism is nothing but cowardice and treachery. There are times when the nation simply has to be defended and a man has to answer the call.’

      ‘Couldn’t agree with you more, Courtney. But then again, you and I are simple, straightforward chaps. We’re not like these intellectual Oxbridge types.’

      ‘Well, I grant you,’ said Leon, ‘there is no one on earth as dangerous as a really clever fool. But even so, how in God’s name were the audience at the Union persuaded to support the motion?’

      Joss took a long lazy drag on his cigarette as a sly smile played across his lips. ‘Oh, you’ll love this … the chap proposing the motion, Digby I believe was his name, said that we should all follow the example of Soviet Russia, which was the only country fighting for the cause of peace … a rather interesting paradox, that, I thought: fighting for peace.’

      ‘Perhaps that’s what the Reds were doing when they seized power in a bloody revolution and murdered the Tsar and his family,’ Leon observed.

      ‘Ah, yes, that must have been it. How foolish we were not to spot their peaceful intentions. Anyway, when Master Digby had said his piece he was supported by a philosopher called Joad – can’t say I’ve ever heard of him but apparently he’s considered quite the coming man in philosophical circles – and he suggested that if Britain should ever be invaded there was no point fighting our enemies with weapons. We had to engage in a campaign of non-violent protest, like Mister Gandhi goes in for, in India.’

      ‘Good grief,’ gasped Leon. ‘Can you imagine it if these people get their way? Enemy planes will start bombing London and their tanks will roll down Whitehall, and all we’ll have to defend us will be Joad and a bunch of conscientious objectors from Oxford University sitting in the middle of the road, chanting for peace?’

      ‘Well, look on the bright side, Courtney. Most people don’t go to Oxford University.’

      ‘Well, I suppose that’s a reassuring thought. Care for another drink?’

      The following evening, Leon wrote one of his regular letters to Saffron. He gave her a vivid account of the debate, as discussed by him and Erroll, and let her know in no uncertain terms of his extreme disapproval of its outcome and of the Oxford students who had voted for it. ‘I warn you now, my girl, if you should ever be courted by an Oxford man I will refuse to allow him into my house. I’m sure you will read these words and think, “Oh, the old boy’s just having his little joke,” and you may be right. But I am shocked to think that a supposedly great university should have become a nest of Reds, traitors and pacifists and I would disapprove most strongly of you having anything whatever to do with it.’

      Saffron received the letter a week later in South Africa. She had never given much thought to any universities, let alone Oxford, but the idea of students being so provocative and so tremendously annoying to their elders pricked her curiosity. So she asked her form teacher, ‘Please, Miss, can girls go to Oxford University?’

      ‘Indeed they can, Saffron,’ her teacher replied. ‘None of our pupils has ever gone to Oxford, or not yet, at any rate. But our sister school in England regularly puts girls up for both the Oxford and Cambridge entrance examinations, with considerable success.’

      ‘So if I went to the other Roedean, I might be able to get into Oxford?’

      The teacher laughed. ‘Well, I suppose so, Saffron. But you would have to work rather harder than you do presently. There are very few places for young women at England’s great universities, so competition to get in is very fierce indeed.’

      To some teenage girls, those words might have been enough to put them off the very idea of university education. But Saffron was different. The thought of going halfway across the world to engage in a winner-takes-all contest filled her with excitement and enthusiasm.

      ‘Have I been any help to you, my dear?’ the teacher asked.

      ‘Oh yes, Miss,’ beamed Saffron. ‘You have been a very great help indeed!’

      Of all the discoveries Saffron had made since arriving at her new school, the most surprising was that she enjoyed her lessons much more than she’d expected. She was hardly an intellectual, for whom thought was preferable to action, but she had a quick mind, grasped ideas easily and, because she enjoyed the feeling of getting things right, worked to make that happen

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