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PENDERSLEIGH PARK, 1913
Pendersleigh Park was different. Not in the physical sense, of course, because with the Durhams change was unspeakable, but rather in the emotional. Maurice had visited on many an occasion, as a friend does, though he was slowly losing the feeling of joy and anticipation that used to bubble in the pits of his stomach when he had come the past years.
Maurice’s car pulled up to the main entrance. He tugged on his overcoat, tipped his chauffeur, and made his way to the front door of the house that had, for a short time, become his second home.
“Want me to carry anything for you, sir?” an accented voice questioned behind Maurice. He turned to see a servant boy, barely younger than himself, that he must have failed to notice on previous visits. He scanned him, noticed the lumpy canvas bag tucked beneath his coat, which to him indicated he was the gamekeeper.
“Oh, yes, thank you,” Maurice hastily answered after he’d realized his pause. He dug in his pocket and set a sixpence into the boy’s hand, then motioned to the back of the motorcar. The boy popped open the trunk and took out the singular case Maurice had bothered to bring. He looked over to him for a moment, and they locked eyes before he went off to a side entrance, briefcase in hand.
Maurice only packed for amusement now, bare necessities such as money and a few changes of clothes. He’d become such close friends with the Durhams, near relations, that anything he required would be provided.
The door opened before he had a chance to knock. On the other side to greet him was Mrs Durham.
“Oh, Mr Hall, how lovely it is to see you again! It has been so long since you last paid us a visit,” she said with a smile, and placed a hand on Maurice’s shoulder. “Please do come and sit, have some tea.”
“Of course,” he obliged with a nod, and followed her to the lounge. The house was eerily empty, save for the maid who placed the tea tray on the coffee table. “Thank you.” Maurice said to her, then again to Mrs Durham as they picked up their cups.
“Do take off your coat, Mr Hall. Is it not awfully warm?” she asked.
”Oh, no, I am quite alright. And I do beg of you to call me Maurice.”
”Well, if you in— That is all, thank you, Sarah.”
The maid, Sarah, nodded and scurried away at Mrs Durham’s dismissal.
Maurice took a sip of his tea, which burnt his tongue and tasted of nothing but hot water.
“Where are your bags?” Mrs Durham asked, apparently just then remembering he had come in empty-handed.
“Oh, I handed them off to the gamekeeper, I believe,” he explained, and set his cup back down on the tray. “Do you happen to know his name? I can’t remember coming across him before.”
Mrs Durham hummed. “No, I can’t recall,” she admitted. “Ask Simcox if you run into him. He knows those types of things.” She laughed at her own dismissive statement. There was a moment of silence, filled with only the clinking of china and metal and the ticking of the clock.
Maurice stood and thanked Mrs Durham for the welcome. “I presume I’ll be in the Russet Room?” he asked, and turned to go at her nod of confirmation. “Oh—” he added before leaving. “Where is—”
“He’s in the Blue Room, I believe, dear. Do go up and talk to him before settling. He will be so glad to see you.” Mrs Durham smiled and sent Maurice off.
The damned Blue Room.
Maurice made his way up the stairs and down the corridor, until he reached the room he’d spent his first visit to Penge in. He hesitated as he hovered his fist over the door. Does he knock and face the thing that has brought him pain for the past year, or turn around and run and forget any of it had ever happened?
He took a breath. And knocked.
Maurice creaked open the door, still not getting the attention of the man in the room, who was looking out the window. He let himself all the way in, as quietly as he could.
“Clive?” His voice shuddered with anxiety.
The man turned around and looked at Maurice with a grin, not taking note of his tone. “Maurice!” Clive exclaimed as he came over to him and embraced his friend. “It’s so good to see you, old man! It has been much too long since you last came to lodge with us at Penge.”
”I know,” Maurice agreed. He looked Clive up and down. This wasn’t the first time that he had seen his friend in this state, yet his gelled-back hair and newly sported moustache was still foreign to him. “Where’s Anne? Pippa?”
Clive laughed. “Anne’s out shopping with her school friend,” he said, referring to his wife, “and Pippa and Archie are travelling in Ireland. They should be back quite soon, in fact, I believe.”
“How nice,” Maurice said. “What are you doing here, then? Why did you not go with Anne?”
”Oh, I’m sure she had tired of me,” Clive assured Maurice with a chuckle. “I jest. Her friend has just returned from holiday and they desired to reconnect.” He gave Maurice a friendly pat on the back. “How long are you here for, Maurice?”
Maurice went over to the dresser and wiped some invisible dust. “Oh, not long. I’m simply stopping by for a day or two from the city before returning home to Mother and Ada and Kitty,” He mustered a smile to Clive. “Anyhow, I should go and unpack.” He went to leave, before his friend’s voice stopped him for a moment.
“Maurice?”
He turned. “Yes?”
There was a pause before Clive spoke. “I’m glad you’re here, old chap.”
”As am I.”
With that, he left.
When he arrived to the Russet Room, the gamekeeper boy was there. He’d just set Maurice’s case on the freshly-made bed.
“Thank you.” Maurice said with a nod, as he removed his coat and hung it on the rack next to the door.
The boy made for the door silently. “Sir?” he said just before leaving.
Maurice looked over at him. “Yes?”
The boy swallowed, and Maurice took notice of how his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat with the movement. “M’ name’s Scudder, sir.”
There was silence for a moment as Maurice looked the boy—Scudder— up and down, from his tousled brown hair to the dirty boots on his feet. “You’re free to go,” he said, waving his hand with dismissal. “I require no more from you.”
Scudder nodded and was gone.
Anne had returned by supper, her bag significantly heavier and her pockets significantly lighter. Maurice assumed he’d lost any space he had in Clive’s mind for the night, and would have stayed in the bedroom for supper if it hadn’t been for his respect of Mrs Durham and her hospitality.
Glasses clinked as Maurice arrived in the dining room, where he was welcomed by Clive.
“Ah, there you are, Maurice, I thought you weren’t going to join us! I had nearly forgotten you were here at Penge!” The amiable company laughed, though Maurice secretly wondered how much truth were in Clive’s words.
“Oh, please sit, Mr Hall,” Anne invited, gesturing to an empty seat on her side not occupied by Clive. “It has felt like forever since I’ve seen and talked with you.”
Maurice grinned. “How am I to refuse that?” He took the seat. “I do implore you to call me Maurice,” he insisted as he laid a napkin on his lap. “The wife of my dearest friend has no need to use such formalities. All of you, really,” he added once more in referral to Mrs Durham.
Anne giggled. “How strange! Well, I shall certainly do my best, Maurice.”
Despite his feelings of betrayal when Clive had first announced his marriage, Maurice had grown quite fond of Anne. She was a kind, pretty girl, and if anything, he appreciated that she seemed to make Clive happy.
“So what brings you to Penge, Maurice?” Mrs Durham asked. “Are you here long?”
”I’m afraid not,” he admitted, and reiterated what he had explained to Clive. “I intend on going home tomorrow morning.”
”Such a shame you’re leaving us so soon,” Clive said. “I would have liked to have caught up with your goings-on,” Maurice nodded and began to slice his ham cutlet. “Say,” Clive continued, “why don’t we go out hunting tomorrow at dawn and we can chat?”
“I would much like to oblige, but I really should be getting out earlier. Perhaps some other time.” Maurice said with a twinge of regret. He thought he saw Clive’s smile falter for a moment, though perhaps he had imagined it.
“Well, I believe I can speak for all of us when wishing you save travels, Maurice,” Mrs Durham assured him with a gentle smile. Her words were met with vigorous nods from Anne and a brief moment of uncomfortable eye contact with Clive.
“Thank you,” he said, tearing his gaze from his friend. “Now, I say, enough about me, how have you all been faring these past months?”
The sun was long beneath the horizon by the time Maurice had returned to the Russet Room. He was changing out of his dinner clothes when he heard a knock at the door.
“One moment,” he called, but the door opened anyways. “I said— oh.”
He paused his fury when he saw it was Clive who stood in the doorway. Suddenly self-conscious, Maurice dug in his case to put on a nightshirt. “Is everything alright?” he asked.
“Oh, yes, yes, everything is just fine,” Clive responded, as if shaking himself from a trance. “I was just…”
”What?”
Clive shut the door and let himself fully into the room, and Maurice’s heart leapt a few traitorous beats. Clive strode across the room and stared out the window, the same way he had been when Maurice had met him in the Blue Room. “Why have you been gone so long, Maurice? It’s been nearly a year since I saw you last.”
”Oh. Work, you know. It’s been… well, you know. Keeps me occupied,” Maurice said, picking up his scattered suit and tossing it in a bin.
“You never called.”
“Simply didn’t have time to, I’m afraid.”
“No time in months? Maurice, you never even wrote.”
Maurice involuntarily let out a bitter laugh. “Well, we know how that went last time I did that.”
”Maurice—”
”Clive, I think it’s best if I turn in for the night. I am quite exhausted and I need to have enough energy to travel back home and be with my family.”
There was silence for a moment, save for the soft chirping of crickets heard from the slightly-cracked-open window. Clive made for the door, but before leaving, he stopped in his tracks, as if he’d had second thoughts. He turned back and faced Maurice.
“Do let me come with you. It has been so long since I last saw your mother and dear Ada and Kitty.”
Maurice was taken aback by Clive’s odd request. “I leave at seven o’clock,” he said, without giving his friend a straight answer. “Goodnight, Clive.”
“Goodnight, Maurice.”
Sleep did not come easily to him. He had tossed and turned for most of the night, for the first time feeling uncomfortable in the Durham home. Maurice’s head was filled with thoughts of home, wonders of Clive’s arrangement, and—for some reason—the face of that gamekeeper, Scudder. He didn’t fall into the gentle grasp of sleep until long after midnight, then was awoken by the sun streaming through the window—he had forgotten to close the curtains before bed.
Maurice packed hastily and made his way downstairs, where he met Mrs Durham.
“Are you off, dear?” she asked.
“I am,” Maurice replied. “Dreadfully overslept and I pray I haven’t missed the taxi I called for last night.”
“Oh, I’m sure you’ll be alright,” Mrs Durham reassured him, gently patting his cheek. “Be careful, though, it is awfully cloudy, and I’ve heard it’s to storm by noon.”
”Thank you,” he said, touched by her wariness, “but I’m sure it will all be alright. By the way, have you seen Clive? I would like to bid him farewell.”
Mrs Durham shook her head. “No, I haven’t, I’m sorry. But I’ll let him know you are gone and give him your love as soon as I do.”
Maurice smiled. “Thank you, again. For that and your hospitality. Goodbye, now. I will write you as soon as I am home.”
With those words, Maurice left the grand doors of Penge. The taxi had just arrived. He went to put his briefcase in the trunk when he heard a voice.
“Safe travels, sir.”
Maurice looked over his shoulder to see Scudder waving from the patio. A strange warmth spread through him, and he found himself waving back to the gamekeeper.
“I look forward to seeing you again, Scudder. Farewell.” Maurice called, then got in the car, shutting the door. He watched as the grand house grew smaller through the window.
“Going to the countryside, right, sir?” the driver asked as they entered the main road.
Maurice was silent for a moment, with an abnormal nagging feeling deep in his stomach. “Actually, take me to the city. I have an engagement I need to attend. You needn’t wait around for me there.” He noticed the driver’s hesitation. “Don’t worry, I will be sure to pay you extra for the detour.” The driver nodded, and the nagging feeling lifted.
Something was to happen. Perhaps it was the storm, perhaps it was fate. Either way, Maurice knew he couldn’t go home quite yet.
LONDON, 1913
The sky was a threatening shade of grey by the time Maurice arrived in the city. He thanked the driver, handed him a few pounds, and stepped out of the car, and, staring up at the sky, felt a fat raindrop hit him square on the forehead.
He wasn’t sure why he was in London. There was nothing here for him but his work. And—
“Maurice?”
He spun at the sound of his name, and was met with a familiar, moustached face.
“Clive? Is that you?” Maurice made his way to the man across the street with a smile on his face. “What are you doing here?”
”What are you doing here? I thought you were going home!”
Maurice chuckled. “I thought so too,” He looked around. “I couldn’t, for some odd reason. I’ll catch the train tonight. For now, care to walk with an old friend?”
”I’d be delighted.”
Maurice and Clive strolled down the street beneath the grey sky that taunted them with rumbles.
“Oh, I do hope that damned storm can hold off a few more hours. I told Mother I’d be home today.” Maurice complained.
As if by some divine intervention, the sky opened up and torrents of rain poured down in sheets. Lightning lit up the sky and pedestrians scrambled to get into the nearest building available to avoid getting wet. Clive laughed at the irony of Maurice’s prayer.
“Well, you best call home! No taxi or train will put up with this weather!” Clive practically yelled in order to be heard over the storm. Maurice barked a laugh.
“What’s the nearest hotel? We can’t stay out here all night!” Maurice called back.
“There’s one just up the road, sir!” a man hollered to him from about a meter down the sidewalk. “Best you hurry, though, I bet it’ll get right full soon!”
Clive yelled his thanks at him, and the two men ran up the street until they reached a small inn. It wasn’t anything particularly nice, but it would have to do as shelter.
As soon as they stepped in the door, Maurice looked at Clive and they both started laughing hysterically, gathering judgmental looks from those around them, as if they were college boys again without a care in the world.
Maurice motioned up at Clive’s hair. “You’re soaked,” he said, “God—your hair.”
“You don’t look any better off yourself, Maurice.” Clive ruffled Maurice’s hair, sending droplets of water across the lobby floor.
“You are a rotten, insufferable man, Clive Durham,” Maurice said with a laugh, and went up to the man at the desk. “Double room, please—unless—” He turned to Clive. “Do you want your own room?”
“Oh, no, no, double is fine,” Clive responded. “Best to save some space for everyone else here.”
“Double, then.” Maurice confirmed. He opened his wet briefcase and handed the man a few pound notes, and received a key in return. “Thank you.”
He beckoned to Clive, who followed him up a flight of creaky wooden stairs and into a room. It had only two small beds and a single dresser, and two windows that the wind whistled off of. Maurice locked the door behind them so as to avoid disturbance.
“Wish you had stayed at Penge now, don’t you?” Clive teased as he went into the small washroom. “Good Lord, this idiotic gel is madness.”
“Wash it out,” Maurice called after him. “And yes, I believe you’ve made your point that I shouldn’t have left. Anywho, what are you doing in the city? And why did no one know you had left?”
“Oh, they knew I left. Or, that Scudder boy did, at least. Saw me motor out before the sun came up. Dunno what he was doing, but I’m assuming—from your implications—that he didn’t say a word to anyone else.” Clive turned the sink on and ran the water through his hair.
“Seems right.”
Their lighthearted conversation had left Maurice feeling full again, once again back in their youth, not fearing to filter their words.
Clive came out of the washroom, his hair fully un-gelled though still wet. “Find me a rag, will you?” he asked. Maurice opened a dresser drawer to discover a stack of fresh linens.
“Will this do?” he inquired, holding up what appeared to be a pillowcase.
“Yes, yes, that’s fine. Just dry my damned hair.”
Maurice went up to Clive, the closest they had been in a long time. He futzed with his hair with the pillowcase, getting it as dry as he possible could. “There,” he said, and stroked a quick hand through the tousled mess of Clive’s hair. “Much better.”
“Thank you.” Clive said, and hurriedly turned away from Maurice, picking up his case and putting it on the bed nearest to the window.
“You know, I much prefer your hair this way. And I do wish you would shave that infernal moustache.” Maurice admitted. “You look like a completely different man.”
“I am a completely different man, Maurice. We aren’t schoolboys anymore.” Clive muttered, and then slammed his much-too-small briefcase shut. “Damn. I didn’t pack any clothes.”
“Well I don’t suppose you intended on staying the night at a run-down hotel,” Maurice said sarcastically. “Here,” he opened his own case, “take my nightshirt. I wore it yesterday, but it’s clean enough.”
“No, I’m fine, really.”
“Clive, take it. I insist.”
Clive sighed and took the shirt from Maurice’s outstretched hand. “You really needn’t care about me so much.”
“Don’t go there.” Maurice hissed, his tone more sinister than he had intended.
“Maurice, I didn’t mean—”
“Go change, please. I’ll change in here.”
Clive silently shut and locked the washroom door with a click. Maurice closed his eyes against threatening tears. No, he would not cry over the boy he once had. That boy was a man now, a man who wanted nothing to do with his past.
He quickly regained his straightforward mentality and changed into the only clothes he had besides his dinner suit: a white button-down and corduroy pants. Not ideal for sleeping, but it would have to do.
The washroom door creaked open, and Clive stepped out, changed and clean-shaven. “That better?” he asked.
Maurice looked at him. Suddenly, Clive was no longer the family-driven, wealthy husband he had made himself out to be, but was once again the musical, outspoken young man Maurice had met at Cambridge. Clive’s hair was mostly dry, and fell around his temple the way Maurice had known it to. The new lack of his moustache re-exposed his upper lip and showed his full grin.
“Well?” Clive said, snapping Maurice out of his trance.
“Yes, much better,” he agreed, with a hint of a quiver in his voice.
“Did you know they put razors in hotel washrooms?” Clive ranted as he made his way back to his claimed bed. “It’s shocking, really.”
“Yes, quite.” Maurice replied half-heartedly. He shut his case and set it at the end of his bed.
The storm was still raging outside, without a hope of calming down within the night and giving them a chance of leaving the city.
Maurice found he’d looked back at Clive multiple times. He had once again seen the beauty he’d first found so surreal about him. He never thought he’d see that again. He wondered—did Clive ever look at him like that, and remember what once was? Did he still see Maurice as the Cambridge boy he’d once cared so deeply for? Or was it all a distant memory, a dream, perhaps, that only came back in flashes?
“Clive?” he found himself asking, his mouth moving quicker than his mind. “Do you ever think about Cambridge?” As soon as the words had left his lips he regretted them.
Clive had pulled back the blanket on the tiny bed. “How do you mean?”
There was a moment’s pause. A moment so brief that any outsider wouldn’t even had realized there was a silence, but a moment just long enough that the words Maurice was refusing to say aloud were conveyed to Clive.
“No.” he said harshly. “Maurice, you know I don’t want to talk about it. Cambridge is in the past now.”
“You look the same. You haven’t changed a bit.”
“I’ve changed a great deal. Just because you refuse to see it doesn’t mean I haven’t changed.”
Maurice looked up and stared at Clive across the room until they made eye contact. “You need to stop lying to yourself,” he said in the loudest voice he could muster, which was still barely a breath above a whisper.
“What did you say?” Clive took a step towards Maurice.
“Clive, you need to stop lying to yourself.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Are you happy?”
They stood face-to-face now, their breaths warming the other’s throat. This was the closest Maurice had been to Clive in a year.
“Are you happy, Clive?” he repeated softly.
He received no answer, only the deep blue of his friend’s eyes staring into what he felt was his soul. It took everything in him not to give in to the impulse to stroke his dark hair, that looked so soft and silky in the dingy lighting. The only sound to be heard was the roaring thunder and pummeling rain.
“Maurice, what do you want from me?” Clive asked, though it sounded more like a statement than a question. “I have been as decent a fellow as I can to you, and yet I have no clue whatsoever what it is you want from me to be satisfied.”
”Dammit, Clive, use that genius head of yours and try and think about what I’m asking you. Are. You. Happy?” Maurice emphasized each and every word.
Still no response.
Maurice sighed. “Let me rephrase. Do you love Anne?”
“Of course I love Anne, what are you—”
“No,” Maurice cut off Clive’s rushed response. “Do you love Anne?”
Clive’s eyes darted back and forth between each of Maurice’s. His breath hitched for a brief moment, and Maurice thought he saw his eyes glisten.
“Maurice, I want to hear no more of this.” Clive hissed the words, and began to turn.
Then, suddenly, as if possessed by some outside or otherworldly force, Maurice took ahold of Clive’s arm, spun him back around, and kissed him, fast and hard, with such a ferocity that Clive nearly fell backward.
“Damn you to Hell for all I care if nothing we ever did means anything to you,” Maurice said as soon as Clive had pushed himself away. “I don’t care if you love me or not anymore. That’s all finished. But you’re living a lie if you keep telling yourself that you’re happy with the path you’ve charted for yourself.”
“Don’t tell me how to live my life,” Clive spat from across the room. “What happened at Cambridge was a mistake, and you are never to speak of it to me again, do you understand?”
The crack in his voice at the end of his venomous statement did not go unnoticed by Maurice.
“I’m not going to let you stumble through like half-awake, half-alive, because you won’t admit to yourself that you aren’t ever going to change,” Maurice said. He took a few steps towards Clive, who, shockingly, did not move. “You aren’t happy. I know you. I know all of you. I know when you’re happy, and with this life you’ve dug yourself into you are anything but.”
The wind outside howled, echoing the stormy torments in Maurice’s head.
He once again stood mere centimeters from Clive, and scanned the face which he had once loved; that once had loved him. He knew they would never be again the way they were, and he had long ago accepted that, but it greatly pained Maurice to see his friend in such a state of in-between.
“I am happy.” A single tear rolled down Clive’s cheek, contradicting his claim. He paid no notice to it.
“Damn you, Clive,” Maurice muttered as he turned away and went back to his bed. “You’re a rotten liar.” He threw back the plush blanket.
Silent seconds seemed to last a dreadful eternity. Maurice knew not what Clive did or thought.
Then, Maurice felt the ghost of a touch on the back of his neck, sending a shiver down his spine. Slowly, he turned and was met, to his bitter surprise, by Clive standing so close that their chests near touched. His hand had dropped from Maurice’s neck to rest on his arm.
“I want to be very clear,” Clive said in a soft voice that made Maurice’s skin prickle, “whatever happened between us is over. I do not love you.”
“Nor I you,” Maurice interjected. He had never thought the day would come when those words would be true.
“And I do not want anything to be misconstrued, I only want to do as you say one time, and one time only,”
“Clive, what are you—”
And he kissed him. Maurice was taken aback by the tender fierceness of Clive’s touch. It wasn’t a way they had kissed at Cambridge, nor any time Maurice could recall. This kiss was wrought with desperation and a hungry desire for something Maurice could not understand.
In the time it took for Maurice’s mind to race with these wonders, Clive had pulled away. He ran a hand through his hair with a bitter laugh, a look of bewilderment on his face. Neither of the men breathed a word, they simply stared at the other, a common, silent question both of them never dared to ask.
What happens now?
“You’re bloody hard, Clive.” Maurice said; his eyes darted and betrayed his better-knowing mind.
And then, with a strength Maurice did not know he possessed, Clive nearly leapt at him and knocked him down onto the bed. “Fine. You get your fun. I get to prove my point. After tonight, this never happened, do I make myself clear?”
“As crystal,” Maurice said, his voice a mere whisper.
Clive positioned himself so his legs were on either side of Maurice’s hips, his hands held him up on the pillow. Tentatively, Maurice touched the back of Clive’s neck, and they stared at each other, their terrified breaths quick and loud.
With a crash of thunder, Maurice tightened his grip and pushed himself up, and kissed Clive with the intensity of a scorned lover and the gentleness of a first love. Slowly, almost so as not to startle him, Maurice’s hand slipped beneath Clive’s—his—nightshirt. There was a brief hitch in Clive’s breath before he broke away. Maurice quickly pulled his hands back to his sides in fear that something horrible had happened; that Clive changed his mind and would run and report him.
But his fears were in vain. Clive sat up and tugged the shirt off, suddenly wearing nothing but his undergarments. Maurice stared but did not follow suit. Slowly, very slowly, he slid his hand up Clive’s bare chest.
Clive let out a sigh, which blew at his dark, overgrown hair. He licked his upper lip, as if still adjusting to the lack of hair above it. It felt like both an eternity and an instant before they were kissing again, Maurice’s hand trailing the crevices in Clive’s torso, lines he had retained muscle memory of to follow.
It was strange, though, because Maurice felt no sort of the spark he used to, only a brief satisfaction as he experimentally ran his tongue across Clive’s lips. It was the same feeling that burned in him during those nights with Dickie, the doctor’s nephew; that hastened, heavy passion.
Lust. Not love. Maurice hadn’t felt love in a long time.
“Is this what you wanted?” Clive murmured against Maurice’s lips, as he moved his hands from the pillow to the sides of his face, holding him.
“Is this what you want?” Maurice shot back. He received no answer, only a momentary hesitation before Clive reconnected their lips in a fierce passion that Maurice had never encountered before.
The storm outside raged, a thunderclap so loud it might have been an explosion marked the exact moment Maurice kissed Clive back.
Needless to say, Clive’s bed remained untouched for the rest of the night.