Free The Stranger's Child by Alan Hollinghurst

dear?’ said Elspeth.
    ‘Oh, Lord Tennyson. Yes, indeed,’ she said warmly, laying a hand for a minute on Cecil’s sleeve. Cecil smiled courteously at the hand, until after a quick squeeze she took it away. ‘We were on our honeymoon, so it seemed auspicious.’ She looked round the table with the satisfaction of having their attention, but made anxious by George’s expression, his eyebrows raised in mocking indulgence. She felt he was trying to deflect the story which she’d now found a chance to tell. She knew she had a way of telling it, and knew from experience that she was liable to leave something out. ‘It was our honeymoon,’ she repeated, to steady herself; she let her eyes rest speculatively on Harry, as that intriguing word glowed in the candlelight. She didn’t think he’d heard the story before, but she wasn’t completely sure. ‘We went to the Isle of Wight – Frank said he wanted to take me over the water!’
    ‘Very typical of him,’ said Hubert, with a fond shake of the head.
    ‘You know you go over on the ferry, from . . . Lynmouth, isn’t it?’
    ‘Lymington, I believe . . .’ said Harry.
    ‘Why do I always get that wrong?’
    ‘You can go across from Portsmouth too, of course,’ said George; ‘but it’s a little further.’
    ‘Do let Mother tell the story,’ said Daphne, sounding frustrated equally with the story and the interruptions.
    Freda let Harry fill her glass, and took a rich long sip of wine. ‘It must have been the early evening. Have you been on that ferry? It seems to wander over to the Isle of Wight, as if it had all the time in the world! Or perhaps we were just impatient . . . I remember the Queen was at Osborne, and Frank said he’d seen the Equerry, with the red boxes – everything had to go back and forth on the ferry, of course, it must have been a business for them.’
    ‘I don’t suppose they minded,’ said Hubert. ‘She was the Queen, after all, and that was their job.’
    ‘No . . . probably they didn’t. Anyway – we were sitting inside, as I was feeling rather cold, but Frank was always very curious about ships!’
    ‘One could say that my father was fascinated by all kinds of transport,’ said Hubert.
    ‘And Frank said,’ said Freda, ‘would I mind, though it was our honeymoon, if he went outside and had a look round.’
    ‘And he ran into Tennyson,’ said Cecil, who had leant forward over his plate in a twisted posture of attention.
    ‘Well, I didn’t know it was him!’ said Freda, rather flustered by Cecil’s narrative economy. ‘You know, Frank always liked to have a talk with the captain and that kind of thing. Well, after a while I looked out and saw him leaning on the rail beside a most extraordinary figure.’
    ‘I’m sure,’ said Cecil. ‘He must often have been on the ferry, going to Farringford.’
    ‘Well, I’m sure . . . But I felt quite alarmed!’ said Freda. And she started, with a faint sense of panic, on the bit of the story she knew best, knew word for word from her earlier tellings: ‘It was a tall old man, even then he was taller than Frank, though I believe he was eighty. I can see him now, he had a cloak on over his clothes and – ’ here she always made large swooping gestures above her head – ‘an extraordinary, very wide hat, and from behind—’
    ‘A wide-awake hat,’ said George.
    ‘Yes . . . and from behind you saw his – ’ – she always dropped her voice – ‘ filthy -looking hair. I can see him now. My first thought was he was bothering Frank, you see, I mean that he was a beggar or something! Imagine!’
    ‘The Poet Laureate of England!’ said Hubert.
    ‘Well, you know they talked for some time. Apparently the captain had told him we were newly-weds.’ She had another drink of wine, looking at Harry over the glass. Her heart was beating absurdly.
    ‘And what did they talk about, darling?’ prompted George, with a rather tight smile.
    ‘Oh, I forget . . .’
    ‘Oh dear!’