(no subject)
We sign the contract tomorrow lunchtime and get the keys and can start moving stuff. Sadly we have packed fuck all stuff so this is going to take a while. Also need more shelves. Also Lindsay, as one might expect, is being fucking impossible.
"My dear fellow, if you go about questioning the existence of a soul, you will find yourself in hot water with Doctor Bean and subsequently the Dean. Debate something less contentious."
"Pshaw!" Edward muttered, secretly rather please to have shocked Rigglesworth, even if the man did give it a shield of concern for Edward's own fate. "If only trivialities were suitable for debate we should never have made any progress at all."
"I think it is a splendid idea of Batterbee's to hand me such an uncontested victory," said Desmond, demonstrating with a grin that the apple he was eating had become caught in his large white teeth. Edward, whose teeth were yellow and uneven despite his best efforts, kept his lips sullenly drawn together (this had little effect on the overall roundness of his face, for his lips were rather plump). "Who would vote he'd won, no matter how fine his rhetoric?" Desmond patted Edward upon the shoulder - a gesture whose intimacy was only permitted him because of his nationality, and one which still drew a venomous look from his friend. "You have a gift for losing, Batterbee, never relinquish it."
"What does your Scotsman make of this unwinnable premise?" Rigglesworth asked in some desperation.
"I beg your pardon?" asked Edward coldly.
"That redhead you've taken up with, the two of you are inseparable. Everyone is quite sure you're plotting something."
"Mr Bruce," Desmond said through a mouthful of apple, before Edward could open his red-cheeked mouth and damn himself with sudden anger, "is in point of fact not a Scotsman. Dear me, Rigglesworth, have you not observed how he speaks?"
"It is hard to observe any man's speech with you two around," Rigglesworth said peevishly, "or get a word in edgeways. I say, stop spitting pips on my carpet!"
Desmond held an apple pip between his teeth and waggled it, along with his eyebrows, at Rigglesworth, before spitting it into the palm of his hand and palming it into the appropriate receptacle. The American, as many had observed, had the rather unusual habit of eating apples whole, core and all; it was an affectation he cultivated precisely because it was remarked upon.
"What I mean is --" Rigglesworth said, once this struggle for the sanctity of his carpets had been completed, "-- you shan't have a great many friends left, always excepting Milford here of course, if you go about making ridiculous claims like that."
"Nonsense," said Edward in a rather relieved voice, for he felt on firmer ground here, "one does not win or lose friends with morals, but with character and kindness."
"Hear, hear," Desmond said, somewhat facetious in his applause.
"Well you see," said Rigglesworth, who had a great many morals and rather little character, "that is a much more suitable topic for debate."
"No it isn't," Edward grumbled, taking one of Rigglesworth's apples for himself and inspecting it for dents, "it barely passes for a quip over tea. Rigglesworth do stop giving such an excellent imitation of a stuffed shirt."
"No, it is not suitable."
"I don't give a fig for suitable," Edward said airily.
"Yes, we're back to your redhead again, aren't we," Rigglesworth said with a kind of breathless nastiness, as if laying down a particularly good hand at cards against a man who had bet his whole purse.
"And what do you mean by that?" asked Edward in the voice that made larger men than he back up in haste. "I shall knock you down, Rigglesworth, choose your words with care."
"You mean that Milford will knock me down," Rigglesworth sighed in disgust. "When do you ever condescend to conduct your own fights?"
"Oh well," Desmond said placidly, taking a second apple. "Give me a moment to remove my waistcoat - it is new, you see, and I like the peacocks - and I shall oblige you both."
"Admirable as ever," Rigglesworth said with near to a sneer. "Batterbee, if you weren't shocking enough to hold Milford's attention you might learn to govern yourself better --"
"Yes, it's an interesting paradox, isn't it?" said Edward quite earnestly. "If I governed myself better I shouldn't appeal to Desmond, but if I did I'd have no need of him; but as I govern myself so poorly I both appeal to my friend and have need of his friendship. Of course, I might also govern myself poorly because I like the wretch." He took a bite of the apple.
"Now I resent this line of reason," Desmond interrupted. "Who is to say I stand loyal to Batterbee because of his shocking statements? Perhaps I am enamoured of his good looks."
"Shut up, Desmond," Edward said, through his apple.
"Impossible," Rigglesworth said tartly, "he hasn't any."
"Surely women should be the judge of that," Edward said, stung. He was conscious, often, of his nondescript face and his rotundity.
"Women are no judge of beauty," Rigglesworth said. He spoke as if he had given it long consideration.
"Oh ho. Perhaps we should let the Newnham girls in to debate that," chuckled Desmond.
"Absolutely not. They are quite clever in their own way, I suppose, but they're hardly capable of sustained rhetoric --"
"You'd assert no such thing had you ever quarrelled with Batterbee's bedder," Desmond said cheerfully, watching Edward choke on his apple with unflinching equanimity. "The woman can argue the legs from an ass."
"The ass in question being me," Edward admitted. "We only refuse Newnham entry because they would win."
"I fear we have been blown off-course," Rigglesworth muttered. "I will not propose this topic. Let us leave it to Young."
"Put it in a hat with the others," Edward insisted.
"Batterbee, you ass, you know perfectly well there are no 'others', you and your pet American --"
"Oh if anything he's my pet," Desmond said with vigour, "Or Bruce's..."
"Shut up, Desmond," Edward murmured, quite horrified.
"-- you and your bloody amoral cabal --"
"Language," Edward said, almost as if he had not uttered the words 'God's anus' that very morning when confronted with a singed arm from the bedpan.
"-- have been canvassing and coercing to keep all other options out. I shan't have it, I tell you. I have appealed to Doctor Bean --"
"Oh now what would you go and do a thing like that for?" Edward spluttered, spitting apple fragments onto Rigglesworth's carpet in indignation.
"Because you're a nuisance, and you rock the boat farther than you realise," Rigglesworth sighed. "Have a care, Batterbee. Don't make the dons look too closely at your affairs."
When they were quite free of Rigglesworth's rather apple-scented rooms, Desmond picked a piece of green skin from between his teeth and said, "What's it like?"
"What is what like?"
"Being in love."
Edward said nothing.
"I know I fall in love with four girls a week and two on public holidays," said Desmond, "but I'm not so rash as to suggest that's the same. What you're slogging through is positively Greek, isn't it? Beloveds and all that rot."
"Shut up," Edward muttered.
"Oh, tell me."
"Read a bloody poem."
"One of yours?"
"Good lord no, if you value your sense and taste. You'd loathe it more than the Romantics." For Desmond's hatred of any poetry written between Shakespeare and the birth of the 20th century was well-known.
"Does it rhyme?" Desmond asked.
"Scrupulously."
"I hate it already. So tell me without the verse, you dreadful little Englishman - what's it like, this love business?"
Edward lowered his head and said to his shirt collar, "Horrid."
"Horrid?" cried Desmond, almost blundering into Edward's path. "It is supposed to be the very greatest thing on earth, and you call it horrid!"
"Maybe if you aren't queer, Desmond."
"But forgetting all that --"
"Ah, forgetting the terror and the guilt."
"English," said Desmond with the terse, easy dismissal of one who had conducted the conversation about the English predilection for guilt so often that he need not do much but reference it again.
"Quite so," Edward said with a rather hollow laugh, "guilt and shame are my blood and bones."
"So tell me."
"What?"
"Why is it so horrid to love?"
"My chest hurts," Edward mumbled, addressing his Eton collar once more. "When I look at him. Or think about him. Everything else seems grey and patchy, drained of all life --"
"Not enhanced in beauty?"
"Not enhanced, but an intrusion. I am so pained by knowledge of where he is, as if needles are stabbing me from afar and tugging me there at once, and yet more pained by ignorance." Edward sighed. "It is like a sickness whose cure is its cause."
"Tidy," Desmond smiled.
"No," Edward corrected. "Horrid."
"My dear fellow, if you go about questioning the existence of a soul, you will find yourself in hot water with Doctor Bean and subsequently the Dean. Debate something less contentious."
"Pshaw!" Edward muttered, secretly rather please to have shocked Rigglesworth, even if the man did give it a shield of concern for Edward's own fate. "If only trivialities were suitable for debate we should never have made any progress at all."
"I think it is a splendid idea of Batterbee's to hand me such an uncontested victory," said Desmond, demonstrating with a grin that the apple he was eating had become caught in his large white teeth. Edward, whose teeth were yellow and uneven despite his best efforts, kept his lips sullenly drawn together (this had little effect on the overall roundness of his face, for his lips were rather plump). "Who would vote he'd won, no matter how fine his rhetoric?" Desmond patted Edward upon the shoulder - a gesture whose intimacy was only permitted him because of his nationality, and one which still drew a venomous look from his friend. "You have a gift for losing, Batterbee, never relinquish it."
"What does your Scotsman make of this unwinnable premise?" Rigglesworth asked in some desperation.
"I beg your pardon?" asked Edward coldly.
"That redhead you've taken up with, the two of you are inseparable. Everyone is quite sure you're plotting something."
"Mr Bruce," Desmond said through a mouthful of apple, before Edward could open his red-cheeked mouth and damn himself with sudden anger, "is in point of fact not a Scotsman. Dear me, Rigglesworth, have you not observed how he speaks?"
"It is hard to observe any man's speech with you two around," Rigglesworth said peevishly, "or get a word in edgeways. I say, stop spitting pips on my carpet!"
Desmond held an apple pip between his teeth and waggled it, along with his eyebrows, at Rigglesworth, before spitting it into the palm of his hand and palming it into the appropriate receptacle. The American, as many had observed, had the rather unusual habit of eating apples whole, core and all; it was an affectation he cultivated precisely because it was remarked upon.
"What I mean is --" Rigglesworth said, once this struggle for the sanctity of his carpets had been completed, "-- you shan't have a great many friends left, always excepting Milford here of course, if you go about making ridiculous claims like that."
"Nonsense," said Edward in a rather relieved voice, for he felt on firmer ground here, "one does not win or lose friends with morals, but with character and kindness."
"Hear, hear," Desmond said, somewhat facetious in his applause.
"Well you see," said Rigglesworth, who had a great many morals and rather little character, "that is a much more suitable topic for debate."
"No it isn't," Edward grumbled, taking one of Rigglesworth's apples for himself and inspecting it for dents, "it barely passes for a quip over tea. Rigglesworth do stop giving such an excellent imitation of a stuffed shirt."
"No, it is not suitable."
"I don't give a fig for suitable," Edward said airily.
"Yes, we're back to your redhead again, aren't we," Rigglesworth said with a kind of breathless nastiness, as if laying down a particularly good hand at cards against a man who had bet his whole purse.
"And what do you mean by that?" asked Edward in the voice that made larger men than he back up in haste. "I shall knock you down, Rigglesworth, choose your words with care."
"You mean that Milford will knock me down," Rigglesworth sighed in disgust. "When do you ever condescend to conduct your own fights?"
"Oh well," Desmond said placidly, taking a second apple. "Give me a moment to remove my waistcoat - it is new, you see, and I like the peacocks - and I shall oblige you both."
"Admirable as ever," Rigglesworth said with near to a sneer. "Batterbee, if you weren't shocking enough to hold Milford's attention you might learn to govern yourself better --"
"Yes, it's an interesting paradox, isn't it?" said Edward quite earnestly. "If I governed myself better I shouldn't appeal to Desmond, but if I did I'd have no need of him; but as I govern myself so poorly I both appeal to my friend and have need of his friendship. Of course, I might also govern myself poorly because I like the wretch." He took a bite of the apple.
"Now I resent this line of reason," Desmond interrupted. "Who is to say I stand loyal to Batterbee because of his shocking statements? Perhaps I am enamoured of his good looks."
"Shut up, Desmond," Edward said, through his apple.
"Impossible," Rigglesworth said tartly, "he hasn't any."
"Surely women should be the judge of that," Edward said, stung. He was conscious, often, of his nondescript face and his rotundity.
"Women are no judge of beauty," Rigglesworth said. He spoke as if he had given it long consideration.
"Oh ho. Perhaps we should let the Newnham girls in to debate that," chuckled Desmond.
"Absolutely not. They are quite clever in their own way, I suppose, but they're hardly capable of sustained rhetoric --"
"You'd assert no such thing had you ever quarrelled with Batterbee's bedder," Desmond said cheerfully, watching Edward choke on his apple with unflinching equanimity. "The woman can argue the legs from an ass."
"The ass in question being me," Edward admitted. "We only refuse Newnham entry because they would win."
"I fear we have been blown off-course," Rigglesworth muttered. "I will not propose this topic. Let us leave it to Young."
"Put it in a hat with the others," Edward insisted.
"Batterbee, you ass, you know perfectly well there are no 'others', you and your pet American --"
"Oh if anything he's my pet," Desmond said with vigour, "Or Bruce's..."
"Shut up, Desmond," Edward murmured, quite horrified.
"-- you and your bloody amoral cabal --"
"Language," Edward said, almost as if he had not uttered the words 'God's anus' that very morning when confronted with a singed arm from the bedpan.
"-- have been canvassing and coercing to keep all other options out. I shan't have it, I tell you. I have appealed to Doctor Bean --"
"Oh now what would you go and do a thing like that for?" Edward spluttered, spitting apple fragments onto Rigglesworth's carpet in indignation.
"Because you're a nuisance, and you rock the boat farther than you realise," Rigglesworth sighed. "Have a care, Batterbee. Don't make the dons look too closely at your affairs."
When they were quite free of Rigglesworth's rather apple-scented rooms, Desmond picked a piece of green skin from between his teeth and said, "What's it like?"
"What is what like?"
"Being in love."
Edward said nothing.
"I know I fall in love with four girls a week and two on public holidays," said Desmond, "but I'm not so rash as to suggest that's the same. What you're slogging through is positively Greek, isn't it? Beloveds and all that rot."
"Shut up," Edward muttered.
"Oh, tell me."
"Read a bloody poem."
"One of yours?"
"Good lord no, if you value your sense and taste. You'd loathe it more than the Romantics." For Desmond's hatred of any poetry written between Shakespeare and the birth of the 20th century was well-known.
"Does it rhyme?" Desmond asked.
"Scrupulously."
"I hate it already. So tell me without the verse, you dreadful little Englishman - what's it like, this love business?"
Edward lowered his head and said to his shirt collar, "Horrid."
"Horrid?" cried Desmond, almost blundering into Edward's path. "It is supposed to be the very greatest thing on earth, and you call it horrid!"
"Maybe if you aren't queer, Desmond."
"But forgetting all that --"
"Ah, forgetting the terror and the guilt."
"English," said Desmond with the terse, easy dismissal of one who had conducted the conversation about the English predilection for guilt so often that he need not do much but reference it again.
"Quite so," Edward said with a rather hollow laugh, "guilt and shame are my blood and bones."
"So tell me."
"What?"
"Why is it so horrid to love?"
"My chest hurts," Edward mumbled, addressing his Eton collar once more. "When I look at him. Or think about him. Everything else seems grey and patchy, drained of all life --"
"Not enhanced in beauty?"
"Not enhanced, but an intrusion. I am so pained by knowledge of where he is, as if needles are stabbing me from afar and tugging me there at once, and yet more pained by ignorance." Edward sighed. "It is like a sickness whose cure is its cause."
"Tidy," Desmond smiled.
"No," Edward corrected. "Horrid."