The Summer Before the War

by Helen Simonson

  “Poot?” asked Daniel. “What would we say? ‘Could you please withdraw so our aunt can beat your aunt’?”

  “We have to do something,” said Hugh. While Daniel and Harry had agreed that Bettina Fothergill could not be allowed to usurp both Aunt Agatha and Lady Emily with her machinations, Hugh found himself unusually indignant at the unfairness of Mr. Poot snatching away a job from a young woman who so clearly deserved it. As he peered through the inn’s open door again, to where Mr. Poot sat very straight on a wooden settle, looking like a skinny toby jug, he reassured himself that ordinary chivalry demanded action and that his indignation had more to do with Miss Nash being alone in the world than with a pretty face or the intelligence behind her eyes.

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake, he’ll see you,” said Daniel. “We’re trying to be discreet, remember?” Just then an automobile horn gave a loud blast and a large black car swerved to a halt with Wheaton, attired in a voluminous duster and goggles, at the wheel. The chauffeur rode next to him, tight-lipped and gripping the door.

  “Am I on time?” called Wheaton. He removed his goggles, wiped his face with a driving scarf, and hopped out of the car. The chauffeur slid over to take the wheel. “We dropped off my mother earlier and I took the old car for a spin. Still getting the hang of it. Round the corners it’s like trying to steer a cow.”

  “Ridden many cows?” asked Daniel.

  “A few,” said Wheaton. “At least that’s what they tell me. I can’t say I remember clearly.”

  “We are too late,” said Hugh. “Miss Nash is already being interviewed, and they may send for Poot at any time.”

  “Well, we’d better get to work,” said Wheaton. “Daniel and I will lure Poot into the taproom while you slip your aunt a note and ask her to stall as long as possible.”

  Hugh hung back as they entered the inn’s lobby and asked a porter to bring him a pen and paper. He took a seat at a small table in a window nook and busied himself with turning over the pages of an old issue of the Racing Times. Trying to appear absorbed in tables of results from early spring’s races and advertisements for stud services and worm treatments, he kept a keen ear on Wheaton’s conversation.

  “Just telling my friend Daniel here that this town is sorely lacking in congenial chaps on whom one can rely for a companionable talk.”

  “I tell him he’s too fussy about where he gathers,” said Daniel, shaking Poot by the hand.

  “I don’t like rubbing up against all and sundry,” said Wheaton. “I prefer a quiet room and a landlord who knows his regulars. Don’t you agree, Pooty, old boy?”

  “It’s just Poot,” said Poot.

  “Have you met Old Jones, the landlord here?” asked Wheaton, stuffing his driving gloves into his coat pocket and shouldering off the voluminous garment. A footman stepped smoothly up to take it from him. Wheaton was well known in half the public houses in town, and while most had had occasion to escort him off the premises for some wild act stemming from drunkenness, they never failed to welcome him with a hopeful deference.

  “I have not had occasion—” began Poot. He looked ready to deny any desire to frequent public houses, but Wheaton interrupted.

  “What luck,” he said. “Daniel and I were just stopping in now to ask Jones about hosting a small supper for a few chaps. Come with us and I’ll introduce you.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t, I’m waiting to see the school governors,” said Poot, but Hugh saw his eyes flicker towards the taproom.

  “That could take hours, knowing my mother,” said Wheaton. He slapped Poot heartily on the back. “You come along with us and we’ll ask Old Jones to give us the nod when they need you upstairs.”

  “When Harry Wheaton introduces you, you’re all set in this town,” said Daniel, steering him by the arm now. “It’s a good thing we came along.”

  As they disappeared into the taproom, Hugh looked around for someone to take up his note. It took a few moments to find a man and to give him instructions and fish out a sixpence to thank him. When the note was safely on its way upstairs, Hugh shuffled slowly past the taproom door and glanced in to see Mr. Jones, the landlord, lead a toast to the King, and a nervous Mr. Poot, earlobes scarlet, drink down his glass in one swallow. His eyes closed as if in prayer, but his face did not twist or pucker as might be usual in someone unused to strong drink. Of the four men gathered around the bar, only Daniel gave a smothered cough as the dram went down. At some signal from Wheaton, the landlord refilled the glasses, filling Mr. Poot’s to the brim, and proclaimed a loud welcome to Master Wheaton’s new young friend. Hugh walked away satisfied, wondering only how he might explain to Aunt Agatha why Daniel would need to miss lunch and lie down all afternoon.

  —

  In the Green Banqueting Hall, Agatha Kent watched hopelessly as Beatrice Nash gave a good account of her qualifications, her extensive travels, and her experience to a table filled with men who mostly did not care. The Headmaster had the grace to look uncomfortable, making copious notes on a paper and fiddling with his collar. The Vicar looked earnestly pious, but his eyelids were drowsy and he was obviously smiling not at Miss Nash but at a mental picture of his lunch to come. Emily Wheaton was just now glaring at Mr. Satchell, the shipowner, who was whispering to Farmer Bowen. The farmer, who owned large acreage, from sheep pasture on the marsh to hop fields towards the Kent border, wore his best wool suit and polished boots, and as usual this time of year, he was at the meeting to make sure the school would remain closed for the full period of the hop harvest and otherwise to vote as the Mayor wished him to do. Mr. Satchell was very interested in the educational efforts of the school, looking as he was for a steady supply of young clerks for his maritime warehouses. He could usually be persuaded to support new efforts and ideas. But he was immune to the social inducements of Emily Wheaton, so his support for Beatrice was uncertain. Mr. Arnold Pike was Arty Pike’s uncle. He was a tightfisted man and suspicious of all change, as if it were somehow designed to strip him of his worldly position. Agatha thought this might be the result of a pricking conscience. He had benefited from the disinheritance of his older brother, Cedric, because their Chapel father had not approved of Cedric’s weakness for the occasional tipple. Now Cedric worked in the ironmongery on a store clerk’s salary and could not reliably afford his son’s school fees. Agatha and John’s little scholarships were supposed to be confidential, but sometimes she thought Arnold Pike glared at her with even more suspicion than usual.

  “I believe Miss Nash is not only fully qualified to teach Latin but has even had some work of Latin translation published?” said Agatha, trying to encourage the room at large. She had received a note from Hugh asking her to extend the interview as long as possible, but the frowns around the table did not inspire confidence.

  “Just a couple of short Herodotus poems published in a literary magazine in California,” said Beatrice. “And I also created a third poem in a similar style as a commentary on the original content and to display its connections to events of our own times,” she added.

  “Whoever heard of making up new Latin on top of what already exists!” said Mr. Satchell, looking comically alarmed. “I had enough old Latin beaten into me without trying to expand the stuff.” He stuck an elbow in Farmer Bowen’s ribs, and they both chuckled.

  “I am sure Miss Nash understands what an effort it is to get our young men to memorize the usual passages of translation,” said the Headmaster. “We did terribly in last year’s scholarship exams, and so we must be sure not to waste a moment trying anything too innovative this coming year.”

  “Repetitio est mater studiorum,” said the Vicar, who could not resist speaking Latin in the deep tone that he used for projecting sermons to the farthest reaches of St. Mary’s Church.

  “Hear, hear,” said Farmer Bowen, to cover the fact that he had no Latin whatsoever.

  “I absolutely agree that repetition is the mother of all studies,” said Beatrice Nash in a firm tone. “But I do find that the more w
ays one can vary the necessary practice, the more one can commit to memory not just the text but the story and the meaning.”

  “What we need is a master who’ll not spare the rod,” said Mr. Pike. “These boys must forget stories and games and bend their backs into hard work if they’re to acquire a respectable trade.”

  “Well spoken, Mr. Pike,” said the Mayor.

  “I’m sure Miss Nash is more than able to wield a cane to suitable effect,” said Lady Emily. “Do you play tennis, Miss Nash?”

  “Tennis?” asked Beatrice. She looked bewildered, and Agatha sighed. She was used to the very different paths of logic by which her fellow board members pursued their thoughts, but she realized now that to an outsider the exchange must seem like a chapter from Alice in Wonderland.

  “It’s all in the wrist,” said Lady Emily.

  “I do all the serious caning myself,” said the Headmaster. “I find it adds to the gravity to have the offending child take the long walk to my office. They are usually quite cowed by the time they see me.”

  “I understand that you would also like to increase proficiency in Euclidian geometry?” asked Beatrice. “I have pursued advanced studies in both geometry and the newest algebraic theories.” They looked at her as if she had offered to demonstrate fire-eating. It seemed to Agatha that Beatrice now gave up the fight. Her shoulders seemed to slump, and she folded her hands in her lap.

  “We are delighted in all your proficiencies,” said Agatha. “I believe we can let Miss Nash escape now?” They agreed, and as Beatrice left the room, Agatha looked over at Emily Wheaton, who was rigid with fury but who gave a small shake of the head. Agatha feared they were defeated.

  “Could we ask Mr. Poot to come in now?” said the Headmaster to the girl who was holding the door for Beatrice.

  “If my wife understood mathematics, maybe she’d keep tighter accounts and not be asking me for dress money every year,” said Mr. Pike.

  “Perish the thought, man,” said Mr. Satchell. “I’d rather show my books to the excise man.”

  —

  Mr. Poot sat very stiff on the upright chair and fixed his gaze, carefully it seemed, on the Mayor’s moving lips.

  “Not because he’s my nephew, of course,” the Mayor concluded after a long and enthusiastic summing-up of Mr. Poot’s career. In the Mayor’s telling, the man was something of a legend, thought Agatha. “But we would also be getting the benefit of his legal experience, and I believe he would be a figure our boys could look up to.”

  “We have girls as well, Mr. Fothergill,” said Agatha.

  “One or two, but they do not count in this case,” said the Mayor. “They cannot aspire to a legal career, whereas we may have several future clerks among our boys.”

  “Mr. Poot, may we inquire further about your wish to exchange the law for teaching?” asked Lady Emily. “What propels you into academia?”

  The young man swiveled his head towards her voice and opened his mouth to reply, but his head appeared to continue to revolve past her, and as slowly as in a dream, Mr. Poot toppled off his chair and lay in an inert heap on the carpet.

  “Well, I imagine that had something to do with it,” said Agatha.

  —

  With neither the heart to hope nor the energy to repack her possessions, Beatrice Nash sat with a book open on her lap. She had, however, forgotten her reading and was instead engaged in the important task of staring at a small brown spider which was constructing a lopsided web in the lower corner of the cottage’s front window. The spider seemed to lose its footing often and would drop, hanging from its trailing silk and tangling the lines, like an old lady dropping stitches in her knitting. Beatrice wondered how far the world extended for the spider. Did it have a warm spot in the garden to soak up the sun, or was its life circumscribed by the rough oak window frame and a small, dark hole in the painted sill? If it were accidentally dropped into a trunk and transported by ship to the wilds of South America, would it notice or would it just find another sill, another hole, and would the flicking tongue of a predatory lizard be no more a threat than Abigail’s broom? Wishing to expand the spider’s options in life, she caught up a portion of web and spider on the edge of her book and opened the stiff iron catch of the window to shake him out onto the street.

  Shouted calls and the scrape of a horse’s shoe on the cobbles made her lean out to look down the steep hill. A farm cart was coming up the narrow street, the straining horse coaxed not just by the farmer driving but by a boy walking at its head while other people pushed from behind. The cart contained a stack of objects wrapped and roped to such a dizzying height that it looked like some strange circus wagon. On top of the heap she could see Daniel, standing like a charioteer, whistling a jaunty martial tune and twirling a broad straw hat.

  “You’re not actually helping” came a voice, the narrow houses amplifying and projecting the sound towards her. She saw it was Hugh pushing behind the nearside back wheel.

  “I’m directing the triumphant approach,” said Daniel. “One more push up the middle there, sir.” The farmer gave a crack of his whip, and the cart lurched forward, the load shifting dangerously backward and left. Daniel whooped but grabbed for a rope to steady himself, and the boy at the horse’s head had to step nimbly aside as horse and wooden shafts thrust forward.

  “Do be careful,” said Hugh. “I said we should have done it in two loads.”

  “Where’s the triumph in that?” said Daniel. “This is an arrival!”

  “This is a spectacle,” said Hugh, raising his hat to three ladies who had wedged themselves into a doorway in fear.

  The spectacle was increased by the blast of a car horn as Agatha Kent’s car made the turn at the top of the lane and nosed down to the cottage. The horse gave a loud whinny and backed slightly before being wrestled to a stop. The car parked directly outside Beatrice’s window and revealed Agatha Kent, sitting amid a pile of brown paper parcels and a bouquet of roses. Jenny the maid was squashed into the rumble seat clutching a quantity of mops and brooms, and from his perch on the running board, an aproned shop boy sprang down to haul a huge basket from the front seat. Agatha waved as Smith ran around the car to open her door, and Beatrice experienced a momentary desire to slam the window and flee into the back alley as she realized the spectacle was coming to her door.

  “We are come with all the spoils of victory,” said Agatha, speaking through the window. She waved Jenny and the shop boy towards the front door, adding, “Do let’s get inside before we disturb all the neighbors.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Beatrice.

  “The position is yours, my dear,” said Agatha.

  “But I thought…” Beatrice began.

  “A mere formality, as I had supposed,” said Agatha. “Now, Hugh, do have them take great care with those bookcases. They were my mother’s.”

  Beatrice could only stand back, in shock, as the procession came into the tiny parlor: first Abigail carrying the shop basket; then Jenny and her mops; the farmer and his boy carrying a bookcase; and Agatha, ducking her hat under the doorframe and filling the room with the scent of pink roses.

  “Is it true?” asked Beatrice. “I thought for sure Mr. Poot would be chosen.”

  “Mr. Poot proved himself an—an unsteady candidate, shall we say,” said Daniel, coming into the crowded space carrying a stiff-backed chair.

  “We shall not,” said Agatha in a reproving tone. “Do go through to the kitchen, Jenny, and get those few things put away. The bookcases either side of the fireplace, I think, don’t you, Miss Nash? Oh, and these are for you, from the garden. Do you have a vase?”

  Her bicycle had reached a speed at which its wheels seemed to spin without effort. The dirt road thrummed beneath her, and a breeze of her own making refreshed her face and kept her cool even as she pumped her legs faster, boots pressed to the hard rubber pedals. Out here on the marsh, there seemed to be no other person in the world, only the flutter of white butterflies among the n
odding meadowsweet and tall grasses that edged the green and weedy ditches. The very day seemed to dance within her, and Beatrice Nash hitched her blue serge skirts higher and let out a whoop of joy to have the whole day to herself.

  To be established, for a week now, in a freshly scrubbed cottage, to be in possession of paying work, and to have found congenial acquaintances while being under no one’s direction seemed to Beatrice fortunate indeed. Even when school began, she thought, there would be both the satisfaction of noble vocation and evenings free for reading and writing. And today she was a real writer. Her book was on its way to Mr. Caraway, her father’s publisher, and she rode out of town with all the confidence that comes to a writer from having wrapped a finished work in several sheets of stout brown paper, secured it with strong twine and red sealing wax, and handed it in to the man in the Post Office.

  On such a fair day, the summer bank holiday, Beatrice was inclined to be generous even towards the dark shadow of Mrs. Turber. That very morning, there had been a purse-lipped negotiation over the beef sandwich now in Beatrice’s bicycle basket. It was Mrs. Turber’s routine, and apparently much praised by the prior lodger, to provide a substantial noontime dinner and a cold supper at night. Evening dinner was offered only on Saturday nights and a glass of wine provided along with the best china. It was hardly decent, she said, to expect her to provide portable cold lunches, nor would a lady of Mrs. Turber’s standing be caught eating such a lunch alone along a public road somewhere. Beatrice had pleaded summer weather and asked for a simple plate of dinner to be reheated and served on a tray in the evenings. Mrs. Turber had grudgingly called for Abigail to make the sandwich, but she’d continued to sniff her disapproval, and only a gleam in the eye betrayed a possible satisfaction that a widow could be forgiven for pocketing some small savings from this arrangement. Breathing the fresh air of the fields and basking in the sun, Beatrice laughed aloud and vowed to treat the widow with such resolute and kindly respect that her landlady’s crusty air of suffering must eventually give way.