Fatal Glamour by Paul Delany

family at a house they had rented, Great Oakley Hall, near Kettering. “I wasn’t particularly impressed,” Lytton reported to J.M. Keynes. “His appearance is pleasant – mainly, I think, owing to youth . . . He’s damned literary, rather too serious and conscientious, and devoid of finesse.” Duncan Grant was given a more positive account: “He has rather nice – but you know –yellow-ochre-ish hair, and a healthy young complexion. I took him out for a walk round the Park this morning, and he talked about Poetry and Public Schools as decently as could be expected.” 6 When Rupert went to King’s in December to write his scholarship exams he travelled with Geoffrey Keynes and stayed at the Keynes home on Harvey Road. He met J.T. Sheppard, already a fellow of King’s and an Apostle, and the mathematician H.T.J. (Harry) Norton, who was at Trinity, and would be elected to the Society in January.
    Rupert’s debut in gay Cambridge aroused a curious mixture of rivalry and cooperation in those who pursued him. It was accepted by Lytton and other Apostles that James was most in love with Rupert, and therefore entitled to lobby the Society for his beloved’s admission. But anyone in their little circle could also try their luck with the new beauty, and keep everyone else informed about progress. As soon as Rupert arrived at Cambridge in October 1906, Harry Norton put in his bid. “Of course the pose is pretty bad, damnably bad,” he reported to Lytton, “And MrSadler is responsible for much . . . But on the other hand; he is quite, yes quite, unintelligent. Of course he is hopelessly wrong-headed; but he is willing and anxious to learn.” Willing to learn, yes, but not to go to bed with Harry: “He also thought one shouldn’t commit sodomy ‘since in physical things we should obey the dictates of Nature.’ And when I burst into tears and asked who Nature was, he replied ‘Well, Evolution or God.’” Norton had to be satisfied with ogling Rupert’s appearance in
The Eumenides
in November: “Conjecture is already rife as to the state of his legs.” 7
    The production of Aeschylus’
Eumenides
was directed by Justin Brooke. Rupert unfortunately suffered from stage fright, so Justin cast him as the Herald. All he had to do was stand downstage in a short skirt, look interesting, and say nothing. Eddie Marsh, private secretary to the young cabinet minister Winston Churchill, experienced the coup de foudre at his first sight of Rupert’s “radiant, youthful figure.” A.C. Benson, an older fellow of Magdalen, made a note in his diary: “A herald made a pretty figure, spoilt by a glassy stare.” James Strachey, now at Trinity and able to renew his acquaintance with Rupert, left a note after the performance telling him how beautiful he looked. For his first year and a half at Cambridge, Rupert found himself in the role of the young and pretty boys that he had admired during his last two years at Rugby. If the role had come to him from outside, he was nonetheless happy to accept it. In a single evening he had become Cambridge’s pin-up of the year, and he threw himself full tilt into the role of the gay and handsome ingénue. Even the eminent Newnham classicist Jane Harrison was drawn into the game, with a wry reference in a lecture to Rupert’s
bon mot
that “Nobody over thirty is worth talking to.” So easily infatuating others, Rupert was in danger of becoming fatuous himself.
    When James made him a declaration of love after the performance of the
Eumenides
, Rupert made it clear that he wanted nothing more than friendship – and probably not even that unless James could control his infatuation. But James went on pursuing him, getting as close as he dared, and then retreating when Rupert turned skittish. He followed Rupert into the Fabians, abandoning his former