"And what did you do before the war, Corporal?" asks Edward indifferently.
"Well… I was a lord."
"A what?" asks Edward, stupefied. He likes Corporal Barrow, with his calm hands, pleasant voice and the smell of tobacco and cheap cologne, which would be awful in ordinary life but feels good in a hospital. In answer to his question he was expecting to hear "farmer", "shopkeeper", "carter", whatever those people do. But "lord"?
"Lord Barrow?" he says, trying to collect his thoughts.
The Corporal coughs, hiding his embarrassment. "There are none of those. I'm… well, not exactly a lord. There is that family, and they only have daughters, and the title was going to a cousin, but he drowned on the Titanic, and now I'm next in line."
This sounds so improbable that Edward, out of sheer contrariety, is almost ready to believe him for a second. Almost – because he remembers seeing Pygmalion with Mrs. Campbell just before the war. Nothing shows a person's origins as clearly as his voice and pronunciation, especially if you are blind. In the voice of Nurse Crawley you can hear a big estate, a strict governess and a season in London, Doctor Clarkson's voice tells of the south of England, the Boer War and years of country practice. When Corporal Barrow speaks, Edward can hear Yorkshire, grammar school and lots of conceit. He can hear nothing that says "lord".
"Do you not believe me? All right, ask me something."
"About what?"
"About anything. Which fork you use to eat fish, what wine you drink with lamb, how you dress for shooting grouse…"
"Eh bien, j'écoute*."
Edward is instantly ashamed of himself. It is always silly to take pride in the privileges you did not earn. To do so in a hospital bed, when the man you are trying to humiliate has just been helping you to drink your tea since you are a useless blind cripple…
"You accent is awful," says Barrow in a condescending voice.
Edward can barely believe it himself, but he seems to be smiling.
"You were wounded too, were you not?"
Instead of an answer Barrow takes Edward's hand and puts it on his arm. Barrow is constantly touching him, and does not seem to realize that it betrays his plebeian origins worse than any accent. Edward can easily remember the last time he embraced his father and held his younger brother's hand – it was the day he was leaving for the war – but he cannot recollect the penultimate time he did that. Barrow, on the other hand, is constantly adjusting Edward's collar, and he brushes his hair and shaves him every morning.
"Maybe I should grow a beard," suggested Edward once.
"Oh, no," answered Barrow, disgusted, "it prickles."
He really does know his wine and his way around a fox-hunt. A former servant, of course – a footman or a valet, too young to be a butler. Edward does not try to expose him again – let him be a lord if he chooses. In his imagination Barrow wears a livery instead of a soldier's uniform.
"Tough luck," he says, fingering the ugly scar.
"Could've been worse," answers Barrow carelessly. "Fingers move, that's enough. I'll have to wear gloves, so what? My hands ain't pretty anyway, not like yours.
Edward realizes that there is no face above the livery.
"Corporal, and what do you look like, exactly?" he asks gingerly.
Barrow lapses into silence. That is strange, usually he is gabby enough.
"I'm… tall," he says at last.
"I noticed that." Earlier that day he has been teaching Edward to walk with the cane. "What colour is you hair?"
"Black."
"And your eyes?" Edward is almost sure of the answer.
"Blue."
The picture in Edward's head is so sugary that he laughs in spite of himself, even though he promised himself that he would not. He can imagine what Barrow really looks like: round face, snub nose, unruly flaxen hair. No wonder he wishes to become the raven-haired blue-eyed beau from the lid of a chocolate box.
"You must be quite a looker," he says and winces at his own condescending tone.
"Not as much as you are," answers Barrow in a constrained voice and leaves Edward to ponder on the thought that if there is anything worse than a cripple, it must be a tactless cripple.
Nurse Crawley brings him his evening potion. Edward spends some time convincing himself that he will not ask her, that it would be dishonourable, that every man has a right to his illusions, but he just cannot help himself.
"Tell me, Nurse, what does Corporal Barrow look like?"
If the question seems odd to her, she does not show it.
"Tall, pale, black hair, blue eyes. Regular features? Oh, no, that sounds like a police bulletin. You'd better ask Nurse Billows, she often goes to the pictures and can always tell which actor a person resembles".
Edward drinks his potion, stunned.
"Do you find him handsome?" he asks.
Nurse Crawley snorts like an angry cat.
"If I wanted to discuss who is handsome and who isn't, and who is in love with whom, I would've stayed in the drawing room, instead of training to be a nurse. Excuse me".
Edward decides that she has flaming red hair and a retroussé nose..
"… and there is a tiger skin near the fire-place, - says Edward. – Awfully trite, but nothing to be done about it, it is my grandfather's memento. Why are you laughing? He shot a tiger from elephant back."
"Nothing, just a poem I remembered," says Thomas. "Want to hear it?"
"Yes, please."
Edward is slightly taken aback. They have never talked about literature before – or music, theatre or paintings.
"Would you like to sin
With Elinor Glyn
On a tiger skin?
Or would you prefer
To err with her
On some other fur?"
"Oh my goodness," says Edward in a weak voice. "What is it? Where does it come from? Do you even know who Elinor Glyn is?"
He is instantly contrite about the last bit.
"'Course I do," answers Thomas imperturbably. "The King's mistress**. Did you ever try doing you-know-what on that skin?"
Edward imagines making love on the floor near the fire-place, with deer's heads watching him with their glass eyes, while the inscrutable Carter stands by the door holding a silver tray
"No," he says, "it wasn't a thing we ever did in our house. What about you?"
He checks himself at once. Probably the closest Thomas has ever come to a tiger skin was to sweep it.
"Once," answers Thomas. His voice sounds strange– embarrassed, perhaps, or maybe—
"You never cease to amaze me."
"It was… with the wrong person. Doesn't matter. Just asking."
Edward imagines a pale black-haired footman pulling down a giggling maid in a lacy apron on the floor. It smacks too much of a French farce, so he puts a uniform on the footman, then he realizes that the whole point of making love on a tiger skin is doing it without your clothes on. At the same time he gets rid of the "wrong person", because he cannot imagine her. Thomas is lying on the striped fur, smiling and looking up with his bright eyes, blue as the sky, as forget-me-nots, as Mother's favourite brooch, as everything that Edward will never see again.
* Well, I'm listening (фр.)
** Thomas confuses Elinor Glyn – an early 20th century English writer, in whose novel there was, indeed, sex on a tiger skin, - and Nell Gwyn, the mistress of Charles II.