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June 1914 - Lower Sixth
Ellwood spritzed a generous amount of his new Albany cologne on his wrists and breathed in deeply, then drew his comb through his hair one final time. He leant close enough to the mirror to make it fog, and grinned.
The gleam in his own eyes was easy to recognise. He’d been looking forward to this day for a very long time.
—
Gaunt rolled his shoulders and straightened his collar. The knot of his tie was tight and small, his tailcoat freshly laundered. He looked in the mirror one final time, trying not to scowl at his own reflection, then collected his notecards and strode out of the door.
—
The entire hall fell silent as Gaunt entered, making his way through the benches towards the two raised lecterns in the middle of the floor. They were lit by a sunbeam coming through the skylight, like some kind of divine illumination through the Pantheon oculus in Rome. Gaunt had always loved this room, the way you could see all the way across the fields to Chapel with its cool white granite glowing in the evening sun.
The sea of faces in the hall turned from expectant to skeptical as Gaunt approached his podium. Some boys even looked pitying. Only Ellwood’s face was unique in its mix of expressions, staring at Gaunt from his place at the other lectern. There was a bright flush on his cheeks - understandable, considering the heat of the day - and his eyes gleamed with anticipation. He reminded Gaunt, somewhat worryingly, of the wolf from Grimm’s fairytales.
But there was something else in Ellwood’s eyes, too. A kind of softness. Perhaps Gaunt was imagining it, but Ellwood looked almost… proud. Of what, Gaunt couldn’t fathom. Ellwood hadn’t won yet. And he wouldn’t, not if Gaunt could help it - for this was not any old debate, but a topic close to his heart.
Ellwood knew that, though. Perhaps that’s why he was looking at Gaunt with such a wolfish glint in his eye.
Gaunt coughed as he stepped up to the lectern and tried his best to hold Ellwood’s gaze. The air swelled with an anticipatory sense that anything could happen. This was the feeling Gaunt lived for when he was due in the ring. Of course it was a thrill to win a boxing match, but he gleaned most satisfaction from the fight itself, from seeing how much pain he could withstand and expel in turn. Gaunt would never have fought Ellwood, but there was an acidic satisfaction in standing in front of him now, engaging in a battle of wits before all their friends.
“Order! Order in the House!” declared Weeding, who was presiding over the debate. Gaunt had sat in the debating society audience many times, usually to see Ellwood destroy his opponent (‘It’s only fair, Gaunto, I’m there for all of your matches’) - and each time he was surprised that such a reedy, bespectacled boy had managed not only to evade bullying at Preshute, but to preside with such grandiosity over the debating society for three years running. Weeding lived up to his name in many ways, but the school had never found time to punish him for it. Instead, boys from every house seemed to find his nature so inherently mock-worthy that they went completely in the other direction and chose not to mock him at all. As a result, Weeding traversed the school with a kind of naive unawareness of the social shield he carried.
Gaunt looked between Weeding and Ellwood, realising there could not have been two young men more opposite. He smiled to himself, and Ellwood noticed this, quirking his eyebrow in challenge.
Oh yes? that arched eyebrow seemed to say. Think you’ve got my number, do you?
Gaunt’s smirk widened, but he quickly forced it down, straightening his tie. He felt Ellwood’s darting eyes rake over him, and suddenly he was much too hot, his collar rather too tight. No one had opened the windows, and it was stuffy, cloying, the late June heat pressing heavily against the panes. Gaunt could see flies dotting the outside of the glass, trying to find a way in.
There was a fragrant smell, too, something floral and unfamiliar. It wasn’t like the woody scent of the benches or the freshly-mown grass outside. It was richer and altogether more exotic. Gaunt took another deep breath in through his nose when Ellwood’s musical laugh sounded across the room.
Gaunt opened his eyes. The boys from the First XI were clamouring around Ellwood, leaning up to his lectern with their eyes alight. Behind them, Gaunt caught sight of Macready, craning his neck to see.
“Order in the house…!” Weeding shouted again, but this time he was interrupted by a Shell boy who leant up to whisper in his ear (there was always a first year student to act as Debating Secretary’s Assistant, and this one looked particularly terrified, a shimmer of sweat on his brow that refused to be mopped away).
The House took the opportunity to break into a spirited debate of their own about who would win.
“What’s he playing at, taking on Ellwood?”
“The man’s a fool. He’s got no chance.”
“Old Ellwood could be arguing against war and he’d still win.”
“I’d like to see that, shall we suggest a turnabout?”
“Not now, Gaunt’d probably punch your lights out. He’s been studying for this for weeks.”
“What a waste of time. Everyone knows he should stick to the ring...”
Gaunt swallowed and shouldered off his tailcoat. He wished Weeding would begin.
“It is ungentlemanly to remove one’s jacket during proceedings, Gaunt,” said Weeding, looking at Gaunt over his eyeglasses.
Gaunt glanced about. “You must be joking,” he said.
Weeding raised his eyebrows.
Gaunt stared at him - then, without thinking, he looked at Ellwood, who had been shushing the First XI boys to simmer down. Roseveare was last to sit, leaning back in his seat in a carelessly elegant fashion, one ankle crossed over his knee like an overconfident politician. For a moment Gaunt was distracted by the way his hair gleamed in the afternoon sun, but then he remembered himself.
He pulled his tailcoat back on.
“Come now, Weeding, it is rather warm,” said Ellwood.
“Rules are rules,” Weeding replied.
“It’s not a rule!” said Gaunt.
“It’s etiquette in polite company,” said Weeding, as though Gaunt was uncouth for the mere suggestion.
“Polite company,” muttered Gaunt, knowing the proceedings to follow would be anything but.
Ellwood looked at him apologetically. “Rotten luck, Gaunto,” he said. “It seems tailcoats, too, are a necessary evil.”
He winked, and Gaunt momentarily forgot why they were here, standing in a boiling hot room full of spectators when they could have been laying on the grass outside in Court. Ellwood would recite poetry, and the blue air would be full of that certain, effervescent promise that only appears on lazy summer afternoons.
“This month’s debate,” declared Weeding, oblivious to the somersaults occurring in Gaunt’s stomach, “and the final debate of the school year 1913-1914, is that: In the opinion of the House, war is a necessary evil. Mr Sidney Ellwood is arguing for; Mr Henry Gaunt against.”
Several boys banged their feet on the floor; others slapped their knees like a drumroll. Gaunt fiddled with his tie again. The new pin was tight against his chest, and he wasn’t sure if it was in the correct place. He could feel Ellwood’s gaze burning a hole right through him, and wished he’d thought to bring a glass of water to the stand. That’s what politicians did in the House of Commons, wasn’t it? Or the Prime Minister, when giving a speech to the people? Yes - Lord Asquith would never have been caught without something to ease his throat.
“Mr Ellwood, if you’d care to begin?” asked Weeding, stretching his arms outward as if to give the room itself over to Ellwood.
Ellwood bowed grandly, and Gaunt stifled an amused laugh. He suddenly felt more relaxed. He, too, was going to be something of an audience member for this. It was always enjoyable to see Ellwood in fine form, working a room.
Ellwood leant forward and rested his hands on each side of the lectern.
“Gentlemen of the House,” he began, his voice commanding and melodic. “I propose that war is a necessary evil, with my first and perhaps most persuasive argument being on the subject of human nature itself.” Ellwood paused, as though to allow everyone to comprehend such a vast idea. “It is, as we all should know, human nature to choose the most efficient path as we see fit for our ends and purposes. No man makes a choice that he does not deem absolutely necessary for himself at the time, no matter how incongruous it may appear to the eyes of others. In fact, it would be against nature for him to do so, and, arguably, impossible.”
Appreciative murmurs rippled around the room.
“In evidence of this claim,” Ellwood continued, “I draw the House’s attention to Mr Gaunt’s tie pin.” Gaunt’s hand stilled on his tie. “A recent purchase, I believe, and quite the bold choice for someone of his age and station.”
As one, every face in the room turned to look at Gaunt. Gaunt’s cheeks flushed, but he looked at Ellwood coolly, focusing on the way a hidden smile played on his lips as he gazed around the room.
“But rest assured that Mr Gaunt would most certainly not have made the choice to purchase an item of such…” Ellwood paused with dramatic pensiveness, “... acquired taste if he did not think it the only suitable option at the time. How do I know this? Why, my good sirs, I was present.”
Several boys laughed aloud. Gaunt rolled his eyes, but it was true: Ellwood had been with him when he’d bought the tie pin in town, and had made his feelings about it quite plain, then, too. Gaunt released a slow breath through his nose, refusing to look at Ellwood, because he knew exactly what expression he would find if he did.
Even so, he couldn’t help but shake his head with a smile.
“I can only apologise to you all,” Ellwood went on, still looking around the room with performative sincerity, “for having to bear witness to such an aesthetic tragedy on this otherwise fine summer’s afternoon. I can assure you that it is a situation most peculiar, as Mr Gaunt is usually splendidly dressed. In fact, I’d say he’s quite the paragon of sartorial virtue much of the time.”
Gaunt looked up at that.
“As such, it would undoubtedly be the best thing for Mr Gaunt, and for the House - indeed for Preshute College itself - if I stepped forward this instant and tore the culprit pin from his unfortunate shirt.”
The assistant Shell boy gasped. Gaunt looked down in alarm at the fresh sweat beading on his brow.
“But to my point,” continued Ellwood, unperturbed, “As with Mr Gaunt here, so it is throughout all human history: time and again men do what they must - or think they must - to best serve their ends. Mr Gaunt wanted to look his best - respectable, fashionable - and gave his best efforts to do so…”
Roseveare snorted, shaking his head and smiling down at the floor with his arms crossed. Pritchard’s eyes were bouncing between Ellwood and Gaunt with a look of sheer, unbridled delight.
“... and while I admire the pluck - for want of a more civilised term - I’d like Mr Gaunt to know that I am always on hand to offer support and advice from my own generous coffers.”
Gaunt stared at Ellwood, who was gazing back at him with a frankly impertinent amount of false contrition. For a crazed moment, Gaunt considered crossing the room to kiss the smug expression off his face, but then he realised he was rather grateful to be standing behind his lectern, hidden from the waist down.
Ellwood allowed an obnoxiously long pause, smirking at Gaunt before beginning his arguments proper.
Peacock, Gaunt thought.
By the time it was Gaunt’s turn to speak, Ellwood had removed his own tailcoat (to nary a whisper of objection from Weeding) and ridden three rounds of raucous applause from the House. Gaunt reflected that it would have been so easy, under normal circumstances, to stopper Ellwood’s flow - shove a cigarette in his mouth, tell him he had food in his teeth, flatter him in some nonchalant and easily-denied way - but Gaunt was frozen. The rules of debate disallowed interruptions in the first half, and besides, Gaunt could think of nothing to say. He could only stare as Ellwood ripped him to shreds, and wonder if the intended effect was not so much to intimidate him into a loss as to arouse him into one. Was this how Ellwood seduced the boys he brought in to discuss the cricket teams? Rile them into a confused state of frustration and longing? Was this what he’d been taught by Maitland?
Gaunt wasn’t sure, but it was certainly what was happening to him.
“So we see,” Ellwood finished, “there can be no life without conflict. It is simple human nature, a natural impulse.” His eyes bored darkly into Gaunt’s. “It is undeniable.”
”Thank you, Mr Ellwood,” said Weeding, who sounded genuinely impressed at Ellwood’s wayward rendition of the Punic Wars. The boys stamped their feet on the wooden benches, and Gaunt pointedly ignored how heartily Roseveare clapped Ellwood on the back.
“Mr Gaunt,” said Weeding. “The floor is yours.”
Ellwood lounged against the lectern as the boys settled back down, his gaze flickering to Gaunt’s chest again. Gaunt’s hand flew self-consciously to his tie pin, feeling its sharp edges beneath his fingers, then turned away and took off his tailcoat, folding it neatly over a bench. He caught Ellwood’s eye as he unbuttoned his cuffs, slowly and methodically rolling his shirtsleeves up to his elbows. Ellwood’s eyes widened slightly, following Gaunt’s hands as they worked. Gaunt thought he saw Ellwood bite his lip, but he couldn’t be sure.
Gaunt picked up his notecards. His points still stood, but after Ellwood’s mellifluous speech, they seemed trite and predictable - and worst of all, boring. Ellwood had done away with much of history to paint a vainglorious image of swashbuckling heroics, and the House had lapped it up. Perhaps debating was not about facts at all, Gaunt considered, but something else entirely.
“Well?” came Ellwood’s voice across the room. “What say you, Gaunto?”
Gaunt looked up at him from beneath his eyebrows. Ellwood stared back, his gaze steady and keen. One of his long, nimble fingers tapped quickly against the chocolate-dark wood of the lectern. The rich, floral smell filled Gaunt's nostrils, making his head spin.
Gaunt pressed his lips together. Yes, Ellwood would likely win - the school loved him, and Gaunt had already been the victim of his skill in persuasion by agreeing to debate in the first place - but Ellwood had betrayed something in himself with his colourful history of the Punic Wars. On the surface, he had spoken about military necessity in maintaining order, but beneath it all lurked something else, something revealing. Ellwood had chosen to speak, in front of the entire House, about souls; about human nature itself and its darkest shadows.
He’d never done anything like that before.
The realisation made Gaunt want to step down off the podium, cross the empty space between them, and take Ellwood into his arms. Perhaps they were not on opposing sides of this debate, after all. Perhaps Gaunt could do away with his opening gambit and skip ahead to his most direct point - the one he had feared was too cynical yet too soft, its gentle philosophy hidden under a layer of reluctance that not only seemed to go against school pride, but national pride: Plato’s idea that war destroys the soul.
It was something Gaunt believed absolutely.
Gaunt took a deep breath and slowly pulled a notecard from the back of the pile. His emergency reserve.
“The great philosopher Plato,” he began, “argued that war was a result of greed and des…”
Gaunt’s throat caught on the word ‘desire’, as though the act of shaping the syllables in his mouth would reveal his own personal longings. The room was too hot; his notes swam before his eyes. He could feel eager faces watching on, and they seemed to stretch forever, all the way to the edges of the green fields beyond the window panes.
He cleared his throat.
“War is the result of greed and desire, for more land or more money, and most especially for more power. Plato claimed that desire for things we cannot have, things we are not owed or deserving of…” Gaunt’s voice shook as he glanced automatically at Ellwood, “... that such desire, being the main cause of war, comes from an unrest within the soul, a dissatisfaction with one’s own fortune. As such, desire is a base thing, the lowest aspect of the human psyche, beneath spirit and rational intellect...”
Gaunt paused. His tone was much too harsh; he couldn’t settle into a smooth, gliding rhythm like Ellwood had. He tried to focus on the neat blue letters instead of the crushing weight of Ellwood’s gaze.
“This indulgence in base desire went against every ideal the Greeks held. Though,” Gaunt looked up, “as my opponent is well-versed in the Romantic arts, perhaps I can use a topical case study to assist my point.”
Ellwood cocked his eyebrow.
“While much art and poetry depicts the desire for war as a glorious display of strength, passion akin to romantic love…” - Ellwood’s delicate eyebrow arched even higher - “there are also countless works that depict such desire as dangerous and disruptive to civilised life. We see this in the Hellenistic period and again in the Renaissance, when an abundance of art depicted the human form, specifically the male form, with…”
Gaunt glanced down at his notes, scarcely able to believe that he’d actually written this down as an argument to present. The House was staring at him, almost comically rapt.
“The Greeks, intellectual and enlightened, depicted themselves as perfectly-proportioned figures, pristine marble sculptures with toned muscles and delicate hair curling just-so…”
Gaunt’s eyes flickered to Ellwood, who was leaning on the lectern with one arm propped on his hip, his dark eyes gleaming.
“With eyes clear and dark, and…”
A drop of sweat trickled slowly down the centre of Gaunt’s spine, seeping into the heavy woollen waistband of his trousers. He cleared his throat again. He couldn’t seem to swallow; all the moisture had left his mouth, as though he’d eaten a handful of sand.
“Well?” said Weeding, whom Gaunt had forgotten existed.
“And…” Gaunt gripped his notes. “... And modestly-sized members.”
There was a physical ripple around the room.
“The barbarians, meanwhile,” Gaunt hurried, “were portrayed as base savages with grotesquely-engorged genitalia, representing the clouding of sound judgement by earthly passions.”
The murmuring babble rose. “Good grief,” said a boy nearby, and Gaunt’s mind flashed with treacherous images of Ellwood in the showers after cricket. He shook the thoughts away.
“Order!” cried Weeding. “Mr Gaunt, I trust this improper information is leading somewhere?”
“It is,” nodded Gaunt politely before continuing to address the House. “In addition to the fine arts, we see the tragic cost of base desire run rampant throughout world history, theatre, and even medicine. It is famously depicted in classical literature: in Virgil’s The Aeneid, in the Iliad by Homer, and perhaps most comprehensively, in the extended writings of Thucydides.”
Several boys groaned loudly, their excitement instantaneously quelled at the mere mention of the Peloponnesian war. Ellwood’s head lolled back towards the heavens.
“Christ alive…”
“You owe me ten shillings,” said an Upper Sixth boy to the fellow next to him.
“We’re past the first five!” protested his friend.
“Thucydides,” Gaunt continued, “not only argues, but documents, in a most literary and readable fashion-” (“He’s got to be joking,” said Roseveare) “- that war is a violent teacher, capable of eroding the spirit of man and society alike…”
The evening drew on in a typically raucous fashion, with much hollering and slapping of knees as the debate neared its end. Gaunt listened to Ellwood’s lilting voice run through argument after argument like water, so poetic it sounded more like he was quoting Keats than Sir Robert John Seeley. Ellwood gazed directly into people’s eyes as he spoke to them, and Gaunt knew that each boy would have felt they were somehow the only person in the room - the only person in the entire world - in that moment. Gaunt knew this because it was exactly how he felt when Ellwood spoke to him.
Eventually Weeding stepped in to quieten everyone down lest a roaming housemaster ‘put an untimely end to the session for lack of decorum’. Gaunt had undone his collar and loosened his tie; his new pin was abandoned on the lectern, lit up in bright gold as the setting sun cast long, low beams across the hall. Gaunt could barely read his notes through the glare, but it didn’t matter; he had done away with them, bringing up arguments directly from his heart, and Ellwood mirrored him, countering and parrying his every point with succinct ease, his eyes bright and face flushed, his hair almost coming loose from its wax. Gaunt found he was almost enjoying himself too much to care about losing - almost.
“The loss of a society’s spirit seems a high price to pay when there are other ways to maintain order and peace,” Gaunt said.
“Au contraire, I’d say that the building of character and the addition of beauty via tragedy is a fair price indeed - wouldn’t you agree, gentlemen?” remarked Ellwood.
“Hear, hear,” came cries from the benches. Boys slumped all over each other as the session neared its end, as though sensing the proceedings were now nothing more than a formality.
“I don’t deny there are other ways to maintain peace,” reasoned Ellwood, “but rather that conflict is at the very heart of human nature, much more so than rationality or restraint. War is inevitable, and so our efforts are instead best spent making it as humane as poss-”
“Humane! War!”
“Mr Gaunt, do try to keep your head,” said Weeding. He sounded dreadfully exasperated.
“Yes!” cried Ellwood. “Humane, meaning natural. The decay of life in nature is inevitable - the seasons wane, and so must we. Does the frost feel guilt for waging war upon the leaves? Does the tree resent the frost?”
“Not at all, if only because the frost will help preserve life until the new spring,” protested Gaunt.
“Exactly,” said Ellwood, as if Gaunt had proved his point instead of opposed it. “It’s the cycle of life.”
“You believe war is an inevitable part of the cycle of life?” said Gaunt.
“History would suggest as much, don’t you think?”
“I think that if history has taught us anything,” said Gaunt, “it’s that even when the last sword is laid to rest and the world turned to an earthly paradise, there would still be someone who found something to complain about.”
Ellwood stood up straight and appraised Gaunt steadily. “Exactly.” He looked at Weeding, who was watching with his mouth slightly open.
“Would you look at that,” said Pritchard.
“A tie,” came the awed voice of a small Remove boy.
“We haven’t yet voted, Harding,” said another.
“But they agree.”
“It seems so,” sighed a lanky boy from Upper Sixth. “Or rather, they’ve persuaded each other.”
“A turnabout!”
Ellwood laughed, shaking his head in disbelief.
“No… no,” said Gaunt, though he’d lost his train of thought. Ellwood’s face had settled into a kind of calm, as though the matter was already won.
“A ‘necessary evil’, Gaunto; not a favourable one.”
“Well, if this is just a question of semantics…!” said Gaunt, throwing his hands up in the air.
“Of course it is!” cried Ellwood. “Did you think I was arguing in favour of the knowing commitment of brutal acts without justification? Man is irrational, undeniably, despite what your Classics say - despite the ideals they hold, which are frankly impossible to live up to half the time. There is no one infallible, no one who could truly follow a life of stoic restraint and abstinence-”
“What about monks?” said Gaunt. “Or Stoics?”
“Monks!” cried Ellwood. “Are we all to become monks, Gaunt, giving up everything that makes life pleasurable?”
“I-”
“If so, kindly hand over your cigarettes,” said Ellwood, holding out an expectant hand. The House cheered in approval.
Gaunt didn’t reply, but he leant forward on his hands, giving Ellwood a firm look.
“Conflict in life is constant,” said Ellwood. “Perhaps the only enduring constant. Once we satisfy our desires, new ones spring up like buds in May. Something, somewhere, is always lacking. Serenity turns to boredom…”
“Paradise to hell,” said Gaunt.
“...and at the centre of it all, grey morality: a man choosing the lesser of two evils, as he must, for the choice between good and evil is no choice at all. Perhaps war is not always the best course of action, but man will -”
“Or indeed woman,” interjected Gaunt without thinking.
Ellwood raised an eyebrow. “Indeed all living peoples, will always make the choice they deem correct - which is, despairingly, often a regrettable one. Such is war’s inevitability, and thus, its necessity.”
“But…” spluttered Gaunt, “to say such a thing removes agency! It places life in the hands of fate, it supports violent acts of cruelty and inhumanity! It explains away any crime if the person committing it believed they were doing good!”
“Which is why we have laws to regulate what is seen as moral and right,” said Ellwood brightly.
“Yes, because all of our laws about what’s right are absolutely fair,” said Gaunt, unable to hide the bitterness from his voice.
Ellwood opened his mouth, but no words came out. He closed it again.
A quiet moment passed in the hall. Gaunt kept his eyes locked on Ellwood’s. Ellwood’s eyebrows fluttered, a momentary frown that was gone as soon as it came.
“Not at all,” he said in a low voice, then looked around the room. “But this is an issue of human nature, not law. War occurs when laws are flouted to the detriment of all.”
“Exactly,” said Gaunt.
“And thus unfortunately, drastic action must be taken in response. Until human nature itself changes, there will be war. Ergo, a ‘necessary’ evil.” Ellwood shuffled his papers and gazed sadly at Gaunt. “In an ideal world, Henry… but until then…”
Gaunt felt a strange lump in his throat. He looked away, fiddling with the tie pin sitting next to his notes.
The boys seemed to sense a chemical change in the air. Ellwood had won. Gaunt breathed out heavily through his nose, waiting for the vote. He hadn’t predicted, earlier that day, that Ellwood of all people would be talking to him about the impossibility of ideal worlds.
—
“Who would have thought it?” said West as everyone got to their feet and began filing out of the room. Ellwood was glowing, enjoying his victory a little too much to go over and greet Gaunt yet, though he felt a desperate surge of affection at the scowl on Gaunt’s face as he gathered up his notes.
“Better luck next time, eh, Gaunt?” said Weeding, and Gaunt grunted.
Ellwood chuckled, his chest blooming. He pictured himself stepping off the podium, walking over to Gaunt and slipping a hand through his. How easy it seemed in his mind sometimes, to do such a thing.
But he knew it was just the euphoria of a good debate well won.
“Old Jaunty Gaunty, fighting against war!”
“Saying it destroys the soul; what tosh.”
“I say Sidney, good job,” said Roseveare from behind Ellwood.
“Splendid oration!” said Pritchard. “Who knew you knew so much about the Punic Wars?”
“Thanks,” Ellwood retorted.
“I didn’t know half of that,” said West. “I always end up dozing off when old Larchmont’s talking.”
“We know,” said Pritchard, who had been the victim of West’s entire unconscious weight falling on top of him more than once.
“Do you think Gaunt really believes all that?” came the murmurs of boys across the room. Ellwood glanced over at a gaggle collecting by the door.
“He’s not got a soul to worry about destroying. Have you ever heard of a pacifist boxer?”
It was an Upper Sixth boy from River House, still bitter about his defeat at Gaunt’s hands in the ring last month.
Roseveare huffed a laugh, looking over at them. “They’ve got a point.”
“Gaunt’s a puzzle,” said Pritchard, as he so often did.
“He’s a traitor is what he is.”
The voice was cold and cruel, and Ellwood’s head snapped up immediately. A silence fell quickly in the room, boys stopping to look round for who had spoken. Some who had already left peered back in through the doorway, sharks smelling blood in the water.
“Who said that?” came Roseveare’s voice. Ellwood’s chest tightened. Gaunt was standing alone in the middle of the room; most of the boys were gathered by the door. Somewhere, a shoe scuffled on the wooden floor.
“Well, he is,” came the voice again, and everyone parted to reveal a boy who Ellwood recognised as Gaunt’s old rival in the ring: Cuthbert-Smith.
Ellwood suddenly felt oddly small standing on the podium. He hadn’t expected Cuthbert-Smith of all people to come to debating society. Yes, he was the editor of the Preshutian, but he usually had much more interesting things to report, leaving the little work to desperate Remove boys keen to get into the school paper. Other than that, he rarely left the gym, spending his free time beating the living daylights out of a punching bag or anyone who happened across his path - including Gaunt.
Ellwood watched Cuthbert-Smith’s oval head rise above the rest. His face was twisted into a smirk, a strange expression caught between jest and sincerity.
“Only to say that, well, he’s a German,” he said, as if no further explanation was needed.
“Fooey!” came cries from several of the more ignorant younger boys.
“Tosh!”
“Of course he’s not!”
“So what?” said someone else.
“What are you playing at, Smithy? Speaking as if Gaunt up there is some kind of spy!”
“Very ungentlemanly of you, I do say, even if it is true-”
Ellwood saw Gaunt’s expression harden. His hands were slowly balling into fists then relaxing again, over and over. Ellwood felt the sudden need to go to him, to draw him aside and force Gaunt to look him in the eye - not Cuthbert-Smith, not anyone else; him. If Gaunt could just look at him - if they could just go outside, into the hazy evening sunlight -
“That’s quite enough, can we please continue this outside if we must?” said Weeding, who was trying to shepherd everyone out of the door, but was being completely ignored. His prowess as Debating Secretary didn’t seem to carry into any other sphere of school life; as soon as the session closed, he faded into the sweeping currents of Preshute like a feather borne along by the ocean.
Ellwood succeeded in pushing through his friends to reach Gaunt. He crossed the empty space in the middle of the rounded room, an area which had contained such huge meaning when they were debating, but which he now traversed with a few easy steps.
“Cuthbert-Smith seems keen on getting in as many blows as possible before leaving for Oxford,” Gaunt muttered furiously.
“Come on, Gaunto, just leave him be.”
“Leave him be? I didn’t do anything!”
“I know you didn’t,” said Ellwood quickly, “just… “
“Yes?” said Gaunt. He didn’t seem able to look Ellwood in the eye.
Ellwood wouldn’t usually have said it, but he was still high from the thrill of the debate, and Gaunt’s hair had flopped so artfully down into his eyes, and his shirt was rumpled, and he looked so very glum, and all Ellwood wanted to do was steer him by the shoulders off somewhere no one would follow.
“Come to Thornycroft this summer,” he said.
“I - what?”
“Come to my house. This summer.”
Gaunt looked confused. “I always come to y-”
“For the entire summer,” said Ellwood.
Gaunt stared at him.
“You’re always saying you’re sick of the city,” said Ellwood. He was talking quickly, but his head felt oddly cool. “We can play croquet on the lawn and lounge around drinking pink lemonade. I can teach you how to fence.”
“You don’t know how to fence,” said Gaunt.
Ellwood grinned. Almost everyone had left the room now, and he placed a hand furtively on Gaunt’s arm. Gaunt's sleeves were still rolled up, his skin fiery-warm and a little damp. Ellwood resisted wrapping his fingers around his strong, muscular forearm, resisted rubbing his thumb up and down the knotted veins and tendons that were firm beneath his skin.
“You can have your old room,” murmured Ellwood. “The one you like, next to mine.”
Gaunt swallowed. They were standing very close. Ellwood could see the ring of gold surrounding Gaunt’s pupils, the way it contrasted so sharply with his irises yet matched his hair perfectly.
“All summer,” said Ellwood placatingly, as though this had been the real debate all along, and he would undoubtedly win this one, too.
“What about… the balls,” said Gaunt. “The social season.” He sounded lobotomised.
Ellwood raised an eyebrow. It was so easy to joke; so easy to lay a smooth, polished veneer over the wild waters of his heart.
“Want to dance, do you, Henry Gaunt?”
Gaunt’s eyes widened. Then he seemed to wake up. He stepped back slightly, away from Ellwood, and looked around, blinking.
“Fellows?” came a reedy voice from the door. It was Weeding. Ellwood could have kicked him.
“Just… give us a moment,” called Ellwood, still looking at Gaunt, who had reached one arm blindly behind him, towards his papers on the lectern, as though he’d been about to gather them up but had forgotten halfway through.
“Say ye-!” came an aborted shout. There was a scuffling and a giggling by the door, the sound of boys scrapping with each other, hands being slapped over mouths and shoulders shunted into doorframes. “Say - get off me!”
“Shut up, Cyril!” came Pritchard’s indignant voice.
“What the devil is-” said Weeding.
“Gau-!” the scrapping sound became more frantic. “Say yes, G- argh!”
Ellwood was too terrified to move. Gaunt was staring at the ground.
More laughter, then a deep whoop that Ellwood recognised as West and the sound of footsteps racing away down the corridor.
Suddenly Ellwood felt foolish. What was he playing at, putting Gaunt on the spot like that? Just because he’d won a debate… just because Gaunt had said that thing about some laws being unfair, and looked at Ellwood with a dark, meaningful look in his eye. He must think Ellwood was simply rubbing victory in his face.
“Henry, I meant nothing by it,” said Ellwood.
“It’s fine, Elly,” said Gaunt. He didn’t sound angry.
“I was just… I don’t know what came over me. The London season: of course. I must have forgotten, I…” Ellwood sighed and affected an exasperated gesture: Silly me!
Gaunt smiled. “Riding a high, perhaps,” he said, shuffling his papers and pulling his tailcoat over his rolled up shirtsleeves.
Ellwood turned away, gazing helplessly around the room. He went back to his own lectern, stepping up on to the podium to collect his notes. There was something scrawled in the top corner that hadn’t been there earlier. Roseveare’s handwriting.
Ellwood opened his mouth and looked sharply at the doorway. It was empty.
“Coming?” said Gaunt, his tailcoat straightened, his notes tucked neatly back in his satchel. A strand of his sandy hair still flopped over his brow, limp in the summer heat.
Ellwood had a strange, floating feeling, as though the day had run away from him.
“Where to?” he asked, lingering by his lectern.
Gaunt rolled his eyes. “Royal Ascot,” he said dryly.
“Ha ha, very droll,” said Ellwood. “I fear we’ve already missed it.” He affected a pout. “Too busy taking final exams, unfortunately.”
“Wimbledon, then,” said Gaunt.
“You know I prefer the Regatta.”
“I thought you were a polo man?”
“Not if it means I miss the cricket.”
Gaunt placed a hand over his heart, looking shocked. “You wouldn’t!” he gasped. “What about your man, Jack Hobbs?”
Ellwood smirked, walking to the edge of the podium. Gaunt had slowly made his way over, and was standing looking up at him.
“He’s splendid, though not my favourite.”
“You’ve found another favourite cricketer and haven’t told me?”
“He’s not my favourite man,” said Ellwood quietly.
Gaunt held his gaze. “No?”
Ellwood shook his head. “No.”
Gaunt nodded silently. “I suppose that’ll be Keats, then.”
“Maybe.”
Gaunt’s face was unreadable. Then he let out a heavy sigh.
“Sadly, I think it’s going to be more garden parties than games at the season this year. You forgot your notes,” he added, because Ellwood was making to step down from the podium.
Ellwood sighed even more theatrically than Gaunt and turned back to the lectern. “Garden parties,” he said, sweeping up his papers, “and balls. Balls, balls, balls. And we all know how Henry Gaunt simply despises balls.”
In one swift, instinctive motion, Ellwood proffered his hand, as though to balance himself as he stepped off the podium, and Gaunt took it. Their fingers slid warmly together, the pressure of one hand supporting another as Ellwood hopped down, and then it was over; they broke apart like an ocean wave receding from the shore.
They were halfway across the room before Ellwood realised what had happened.
“My house it is, then,” said Gaunt. “You can have your old room.”
He turned at the door when he realised Ellwood wasn’t at his side.
Ellwood was looking around at the empty debating room, at the varnished wooden benches, now so reverent and quiet in the evening sunlight, ready for their long summertime sleep. His hand tingled where Gaunt had touched it.
“Our last Monday in Lower Sixth, Gaunto,” he murmured. “This time next year we’ll be collecting our caps. Off to Oxford.”
Gaunt didn’t reply, but Ellwood knew he’d be smiling.
“Which debate will you win next term, I wonder?” asked Gaunt from the door.
“Haven’t you heard?” said Ellwood, his voice wispy and hushed. “It’s on the subject of ghosts. All those who believe, say ‘aye’.”
“Believe in ghosts?” asked Gaunt.
Ellwood nodded. Across Court, the Chapel steeple rose high into the fading blue sky.
Gaunt huffed a laugh. “Well, that’ll be you, then,” he said.
Ellwood turned to him. “Me?”
Gaunt was smiling knowingly. “Yes, you. Who else would argue in favour of the supernatural sublime but Mr Romanticism himself? Didn’t you recently buy a copy of that painting by - who was it? Friedrich?”
“Caspar David,” said Ellwood, loyally filling in the name.
Gaunt hummed, his smirk spreading. “Ah, yes. The German Romantic. Perhaps he’s your new favourite man.”
Ellwood felt himself blush. He poked his tongue into his cheek and shoved his hands in his pockets. “It’s a fine work.”
“I’m sure it is.”
“A lot of fine work comes out of Germany.”
They stared at each other.
“I don’t believe in ghosts,” said Ellwood, though he wasn’t sure why he needed to clarify. “Not really.”
Gaunt just gazed back at him.
Ellwood rubbed his left eye, scratching a small itch that had appeared there. When he blinked it open again, Gaunt was looking at him so softly that Ellwood wished for three more weeks of summer exams just so he could see that expression again.
“Are you coming?” said Gaunt, holding open the door.
Ellwood breathed deeply and made his way towards him, feeling like he was leaving something behind. A version of himself, perhaps - the schoolboy of Preshute. He was to be in Upper Sixth now, final form, but before that, there was a whole summer of revelry ahead. His birthday was in July. It was always a shame to have left school by the time it came around, but he knew that he and Gaunt would go out with all their friends to the Hurlingham, or perhaps a poetry evening. Gaunt had told Ellwood there was to be a surprise, had asked Ellwood to mark the date, and Ellwood couldn’t stop his mind swirling with impossible things, like a trip somewhere, just the two of them. Maybe Gaunt was going to take him walking in the South Downs like they’d spoken about once, or even back to Munich.
Then he’d remembered that Gaunt already had plans to go back to Germany at the end of summer, and he hadn’t invited Ellwood along. When Gaunt had received his latest letter from Gideon Devi, it had taken everything in Ellwood not to ask if Devi had been invited to Munich instead.
“Say it’ll always be like this, Gaunto,” said Ellwood, before he could stop himself. “You and me, here, forever, discussing Romantic painters and poetry and mythology and cricket.” He looked at Gaunt, who was watching him with something pensive in his expression. “I think I believe we’ll never leave this place, even when we’re aged and worn, like old boots.”
Gaunt huffed a laugh. The door slipped a little from his grasp, and he adjusted his foot against it. Ellwood noticed his tie pin was still missing from the front of his shirt.
He frowned and walked over to Gaunt’s lectern. There it was, looking a little dull and forgotten in the corner.
“I think you forgot something,” Ellwood said quietly, joining Gaunt in the doorway. He almost raised his hand to Gaunt’s chest, pinning the little brass piece back in place, but stopped himself just in time.
What stoic restraint, he thought wryly. Perhaps I should become a monk.
Gaunt held out his hand so Ellwood could drop the pin into his palm. His fingers closed around it before Ellwood could pull away, so that their hands brushed together again. Gaunt pocketed the pin.
“Are you going to buy me a tie pin for my birthday, Gaunto?” Ellwood asked softly.
Gaunt laughed again.
“If you’re lucky,” he said, and Ellwood snorted, though something inside him was breaking.
He turned and looked out of the window one final time. The sunset had turned the Chapel steeple to glaring amber-orange, like a pillar of fire reaching into the darkening sky. Ellwood could already feel the lines of his next poem forming in his mind.
“Come on, Elly,” said Gaunt softly, and Ellwood followed him out of the door.