My week among the aristocrats

‘I knew that I would never return, and should never return; for my week there was so perfect, that I could never hope to recreate it. If I was to, then I'd become a tragedian junkie, forever chasing that first high with a greater and greater dose.’

‘My theme is memory, that winged host that soared about me one grey morning of war-time. These memories, which are my life—for we possess nothing certainly except the past—are always with me.’

Alas, these are not my own words, but rather the words of a scribbler I very much admire, the venerable Evelyn Waugh; who like myself gazed into the upper echelons, and felt not bitter, but sweet. It is perhaps the greatest show of social restraint to not harbour resentments of class; not to feel envy towards the rank above, nor to laud over the rank below. It is gentlemanly, rather, to appreciate the role that each must play, and marvel at the opulence of well-spent wealth. As I have come to learn, through the application of my senses, that is the greatest difference between traditional nobility and the usurper of the corporation, the financier, and the celebrity; taste, in one word.

And so, my theme is memory. And a particular memory of mine came to the fore when, recently, I was invited to a luncheon at the East India Club. For as long as I can recall, I'd always wanted to dine in one of London's exclusive members clubs; and so came the opportunity. As I walked those halls, my footsteps smothered by the deep carpets; and my words whipped into a whisper by the sheer deference I felt, I was shown around. I saw the room whence the victory at Waterloo was announced, aptly named The Waterloo Room. One such room, built as a facsimile of a country pub, dragged me to the past. Not to 1955, as the decor seemed to say, but rather to 2018. I am no stranger to the country pub, and have patronised a dozen in my time, but this pub took me somewhere else entirely, to a specific memory. 

The theme is memory, and here is one of mine; my week among the aristocrats.

In the name of discretion, certain details and particulars have been withheld. In the name of concision, I shall place all said particulars in one paragraph. While attending an unnamed university in an unnamed northern city, I befriended an unnamed chap from an unnamed family of historical prominence. He invited me, and several other unnamed companions, to his unnamed house in an unnamed southern county. I shall give this house the fictitious name of Amorley, and henceforth it shall be referred to as such. Discretion aside, I can begin.

When I arrived at Amorley, in the sauntering airs of mid June, I felt an immediate platonic love. That is, to love something without a pulse; an object, an idyll, an idea. I fell in love with Amorley because I had never seen anything like it before. Only in photographs and period dramas had I seen a portico with such a ferocious grandeur, and yet such an effortless ease. I was seduced in moments, and knew that the week ahead would stay with me in perpetuity. There were rules, as parents are within their right to have. The eastern wing was off limits, as the family generated extra income by placing all of their artworks and antique furnitures there, and having visitors gawk at them. As such, it had to be tidy, uninhabited and free of muddy footprints.

We broke that rule on the first night. And this secret, shameful as it may be, has only just been revealed some five years later. 

I digress. It is safe to say that I was not an automatic fit for the life of a country gent, as much as I dress almost exclusively in menswear of the mid century, speak with an RP accent, and have a pre-university education that came with a receipt, this is very much a fish-out-of-water story. I was not born a gentleman, it is something I have strived for, and still strive for.

Suffice it to say that the rules and etiquettes of formal dining were learned on the job. Suffice it so say that my school is not well known in the eyes of this particular rank. And suffice it to say that when I enter the shooting fields, the clay pigeons thank their lucky stars, for they will survive the night.

While I was out of place at Amorley, I was not unwelcome. Quite the opposite, I fell somewhere between an exotic item of curiosity - the middle class Essexonian, with dark hair and a mix of English and Mediterranean stock - and a guest to whom the glamours of nobility were not an object of derision. I was deeply fascinated by their world, and I mourned its passing; which had occurred some decades before my birth.

I shall compare my story once more to that of my greatest literary hero. For he saw that world in its sparkling prime, its supernova, while he too was not of it. So bedazzled was he by the English aristocracy that it formed the skeleton of his greatest and most lasting novel. A great chunk of my debut novel is set in a house, based almost entirely on Amorley. For I saw what remained, what wasn't stamped out in the post-war haze of fire and fury. And I fell in love with what I saw, and shall spend each day until my last fighting, or in my case, writing, to have some semblance of that languid leisure, and to pass it on when the time is right.

Perhaps what charmed me the most about my week among the aristocrats was the sense of familial pride, and continuity, on display. The patronymical legacy of the unnamed family was well documented in paintings, that hung upon the walls, and a leather-bound book, that felt so ancient, in the library. Family, folk, and nationhood is a chain, that stretches from today, all the way back, to the dawn of man. Each link is a human life; hopes and dreams, favourite songs and books, friends and foes, lovers and siblings. Most chains are broken, and most people are deracinated. I could not say what my great-great grandfather did for a living. Yet, my unnamed friend, with whom I have since lost contact, knew his great-great-great grandfather's favourite hound, and spoke as if it were his own.

For the remainder of that week, we settled into lives of another age. We swam in a small lake, dined in black-tie, played croquet on the acres of lawn, and drank exquisite wine. The house sat upon a slight hill, and looked over the village below.

And so we return to the pub. One night, that happened to have been my penultimate, we took in the village. While the English village in these times is little more than a retirement home cross-pollinated with a pleasant nursery, it once served an interesting role in congruence with the country house. It was the tandem of rural life, the village offered workers and the big house offered work. Not all of the landed gentry were kind to, or willing to fraternise with, the villagers, but for my unnamed hosts it was an obligation; noblesse oblige, as it were.

It was in this pub, so identical to that of the East India Club, that all distinctions of class vanished, and rich man drank with poor. They hunted together and they drank together; while it is entirely possible that the ancestors of one were tenants of the other’s ancestors. I spoke little that night, for I could only observe. I don't think I said more than a few words, mostly 'please' and 'thank you'.

The night ended with a chorus of laughter, over some joke I have since forgotten. While I looked on and beamed, an older chap, who I was sitting next to, leaned over and addressed me.

"They're a good lot," he said. "Keep them around."

Alas, I did not heed his words. And while I never fell out with my unnamed friend, life pulled us in different directions. Lockdown made islands of us all, and some of us stayed that way. He lives abroad now, America I think. The last messages we exchanged were for the wishing of a happy Christmas, in 2019. As I took my seat in the car, alongside my fellow tourists, and Amorley was driven out of view, I knew that I would never return, and should never return; for my week there was so perfect, that I could never hope to recreate it. If I was to, then I'd become a tragedian junkie, forever chasing that first high with a greater and greater dose.

I will always hold that week close to my heart. And while I may never live it again, nor ever again be twenty-two and wide-eyed, I shall always be grateful for that halcyon week among the aristocrats.