“There, Peekaboo,” said Ruthie, with a sudden access of extreme virtue. “What did I tell you? I’ve washed, Sir Julian.”
“I am very glad to hear it.”
“What’s that?”
“Don’t touch. It’s the foot-brake.”
“What’s a foot-brake?”
“Is it a nice foot-brake?”
“Do you like having a foot-brake?”
“Have all motor-cars got foot-brakes?”
“Does Daddy like foot-brakes?”
The extreme idiocy of the questions launched at him drew forth a stifled ejaculation from the owner of the foot-brake, but Ruthie and Ambrose received no further enlightenment on the subject of their enquiries.
“Here’s Daddy!”
“Good morning, Sir Julian. Sorry to have kept you.”
“Good morning.”
“Go into the house, children. Sarah is looking for you.”
“Oh, she wants to wash my hands,” aggrievedly said the boy.
“Get under the laurels, flat, and I’ll run and say that Daddy’s taken you in the motor to Culmouth,” suggested his sister with great readiness.
Mark Easter made no slightest attempt to cope with his offsprings’ ingenious admixture of uncleanliness, deceit and disobedience.
He took his place beside Sir Julian and the car started forward.
“I’m afraid those brats of mine came up at an unearthly hour to disturb you this morning. I had no idea where they were, or I’d have fetched them back.”
“They didn’t stay long,” said Sir Julian, with perfect truth.
“The fact is, Lady Rossiter is much too good to them. But I’ll see it doesn’t happen again. They were rather beyond themselves this morning.”
Mark hesitated and Sir Julian waited, rather amused to hear how his simple, straightforward agent and man of business would explain the cause of his children’s objectionable upliftedness.
“I daresay they told you I had a letter from my sister this morning. It seems that she’s written a novel, and Messrs. Blade have agreed to publish it. Of course, she’s very delighted about it, and asked me to tell the kids, and the idea somehow took hold of them. I don’t see quite why it should appeal to them so much, but you know how excitable children are.”
“Have you read the book?”
“Good Lord, no! I never took her scribbling seriously.”
Mark took off his cap and let the wind ruffle up his brown hair and moustache. His blue eyes laughed, while his face was still screwed up into a look of perplexity.
“She’s given it a very odd name. I daresay the children told you.”
“Yes. They did.”
“I hope it’s proper, I’m sure,” said Mark Easter doubtfully. “They say that girls always write the most improper books. I suppose because they don’t know what they’re talking about.”
“I daresay it’s innocent enough.”
Mark repeated thoughtfully, “It seems an odd thing to call a book, ‘Why, Ben! ‘but I don’t mind saying that I wish she hadn’t added that it was a story of the sexes and the worst of it is that the children have got hold of it, and I’m afraid that we shall never hear the last of it.”
Sir Julian, feeling quite unable to suggest an optimistic alternative, wisely abandoned the subject.
II
THE College stood not far from Culmouth Cathedral, the biggest building of the many that surrounded the open grass patch of the Cathedral Green.
It was a restored Georgian house, well in keeping with its surroundings, and with a square paved court at the back shaded by immense elm-trees.
Julian Rossiter always went up the shallow stone steps that led to the big green double door with a sense of satisfaction.
The satisfaction, however, from an artistic point of view, diminished sensibly and at an ever-increasing rate as he penetrated to the inside of the dignified red and white exterior.
The large square hall was paved with uncovered stones, and surrounded by doors of varnished deal, each bearing an announcement in staring white letters.
“Nearly eleven o’clock,” said Mark Easter. “Do you want to look in at the classes, Sir Julian? Fuller is probably giving a lesson till eleven.”
Sir Julian signed assent, and the two men turned to the stairs, also of uncarpeted stone.
On the first floor, which produced the same aspect of chilly cleanliness, a door was held open from the inside by a wooden kitchen chair, revealing the interior of Classroom No. V., which bore the whitelettered announcement, “Demonstration Room.”
A monotonous female voice, raised to a high, expressionless monotone, came from beside the large blackboard facing a double row of desks and forms.
“Gay lengthened for the final syllable ture li-ga-ture. Through the line for a third-place vowel. Is that quite clear?
An expressionless murmur of assent came in reply.
“Once again then, please, and without putting in the vowels. Are you ready? Take the same words down again and the vowels to be indicated by the placing of the outline.”
“Aperture adventure ligature -”
“Classroom pretty nearly full,” said Mark under his breath. “There are always more students of shorthand than anything else.”
“Who’s giving the dictation?”
“Miss Farmer.”
“It’s an uneducated pronunciation. I wish we could get a better class of teacher.”
‘Young Cooper is pretty good. He takes French and accountancy and book-keeping.”
“Cooper has two gifts to a degree which I have never seen equalled,” Sir Julian said grimly. “He has a genius for extracting a personal application from everything he hears or sees, and he is firmly convinced that his every action, trivial or otherwise, is worthy of comment.”
Five minutes later an opportunity presented itself for immediate verification of this pleasing summary.
Brisk, snub-nosed and sandy-haired, Cooper emerged bustling from “No. II., Book-keeping,” just as Mark and Sir Julian turned away from No. V.
“Good morning, Sir Julian. Good morning. I thought you’d be in to-day.”
“Is Fuller disengaged?”
“I think so let me consult my watch.” Cooper shot into view a rather bony wrist with a large watch on it. “I see by my wrist-watch that it’s just on eleven. Let me pop it out of sight again. Fuller will be in his room, I fancy, but I’ll go and find him at once, Sir Julian, and tell him you’re here. I’m just on my way down now, to put these books away. I’ll look into Fuller’s room on my way past.”
“Thanks,” said Julian laconically.
Cooper hastened ahead of them, murmuring as he went:
“I’ll just give a knock on Fuller’s door, and look in to say Sir Julian’s here, and then I can get rid of all these books... down the stairs, and one hand on the books so that they don’t slip from under my arm...”
In an incredibly short space of time he had sped up the stairs again and made the rather self-evident announcement:
“Run up again to let you know Fuller’s there, Sir Julian. I thought I’d let you know, so I ran up again.”
“Right. See you at the meeting, I suppose, Cooper?”
“Yes, Sir Julian. I think I’ve always attended every meeting since we first opened here. Half -past eleven, the meeting this morning; that gives me just half an hour. I leave you here, then, and turn off to the locker room.... Dear me, a sneeze is coming; now, can I get at a handkerchief in time?”
They left him rehearsing the procedure of his sneeze in a sub-audible manner.
“That boy always reminds me of a curate,” said Sir Julian unkindly.
In the ground-floor room where the Supervisor sat intrenched behind an enormous table piled with papers, the subject of the vacant post of Lady Superintendent was embarked upon.
“The girl I wrote to you about from London, Sir Julian, is practically a lady,” said Fuller, in a very earnest manner, fixing a pair of black, straight-
gazing eyes on his chief. “In a general way, I wouldn’t have a girl who is a lady on the staff for anything you could offer me, but this one has had three years’ experience in Southampton Row, and has the highest testimonials, and certificates for shorthand and typewriting and a diploma for French.”
“What salary does she want?” said Mark Easter.
“She’d take the figure we decided on, because she wants to come to the west of England.”
“A hundred-and-twenty and exes?”
“That’s right.”
“Free to come at once?”
“To-morrow, if we want her.”
“That’s good. She’s prepared to undertake a certain amount of tuition, and supervision of the staff, of course?”
“Quite.”
“Well, Sir Julian,” said Mark Easter, turning to him, “shall we put it to the directors?”
Sir Julian made no immediate reply, and Fuller, nothing if not intent upon his business, laid both arms upon the paper-bestrewn table, leant well forward, and began in an earnest and expostulating tone:
“I see you’re hesitating, sir. I wish you could have had a personal interview with the young lady, for I really was most favourably impressed most favourably. As I say, a superior young woman is always an influence, if there’s no nonsense about her, and Miss Marchrose certainly has none, so far as I could judge. Of course, sir, the decision rests with you, but I must say I should like to give her a trial. I believe we might do worse.”
“What sort of age is she?”
“She told me she was twenty-eight,” said Fuller, with a grin that revealed dazzling teeth in his swarthy face, and thereby considerably increased his already marked resemblance to a Southern State negro.
“I should have preferred an older woman.”
“I doubt if she’ll ever see thirty again, sir,” said Fuller simply.
“Well, Fuller, I know you’ve the interests of the College very much at heart, and I’m quite willing to give her a trial on your recommendation,” said Julian. “We’ll put it before the directors at the meeting.”
“Thank you, Sir Julian. I thought you’d probably trust my judgment,” Fuller remarked, with satisfaction. “And I don’t think you will regret it. She struck me as being a thorough woman of business, most capable, and as hard as nails.”
At this final qualification Sir Julian looked rather glum, irresistibly reminded of the heroine of that episode which had wrought so much havoc in the household of his wife’s relatives.
“However,” he remarked to Mark Easter, as they went towards the committee-room at the appointed hour, “I really do trust Fuller’s judgment, so far as the good of the College goes, though I haven’t his own implicit belief in his absolute infallibility.”
“He thinks the whole show rests on him,” said Mark Easter, and added with belated justice, “And for the matter of that, I really don’t know where we should get another man like him. He’s a nailer for work.”
“I hope his protégée will be a success. If he talks to the directors about her being practically a lady, as distinguished, I suppose, from a young lady in business, he’ll fetch that old snob Bellew.”
“He probably won’t mention it,” said Mark Easter shrewdly. “He looks upon it as a disadvantage in the abstract, but he told me yesterday that he thought he could explain it if any objection were raised.”
“Fuller would think he could explain it,” Sir Julian rejoined drily, “if the creation of the world were in question.”
The committee-room was a long, low annexe to the main body of the building, with the usual green-baize covered table placed lengthways down the middle of the room, mahogany chairs at regular intervals round it, an armchair at the head for the chairman, and on the table the usual disposition of clean blotting-paper, pencils, note-books, and a carafe of water covered with an inverted glass.
A clock ticked on the chimneypiece.
Young Cooper was the sole occupant of the room, and observed brightly, “No one has arrived yet, sir, but I see the clock gives it as two minutes to the half-hour.”
“Got an agenda there, Cooper?” said Mark, and proceeded to study the typewritten slip of paper.
Sir Julian went to the chair at the head of the table.
He also looked idly at the agenda, listening the while with the rather revolted fascination with which young Cooper’s peculiar style of sub-audible self-communion always inspired him.
“I must move my chair or pull down the blind sun coming right in through the window. If I lift it so that oughtn’t to interfere with anyone else. Just caught the edge of the carpet, though that won’t do... put the chair-leg down on it, and then we’re all right.”
“Now, Sir Julian, it’s just striking the half-hour.”
“I hear it.”
“So do I,” agreed Cooper agreeably, as the clock on the chimneypiece chimed loudly. “I’m just going to the window, to see if Mr. Bellew’s car is in sight.”
Having, as usual, suited the action to the word, Cooper was shortly able to announce that the car was there, and that he would come back to the table and see if the blotting-paper was straight.
“They’ll draw on it,” he said mournfully. “They always do. That’s a thing I couldn’t do myself, even if I weren’t taking down the Minutes. I couldn’t pay attention if I were drawing.”
They did draw on the blotting-paper.
Sir Julian, leaning back at the head of the table, giving only half his attention to the meeting, which followed lines so habitual as to have become almost routine, watched with idle amusement the verification of Cooper’s resignedly doleful prophecies.
Old Alderman Bellew, oily and apoplectic, made meaningless circles and semi-circles with a pencil grasped between the swollen knuckles of his first and second fingers, and only glanced up once or twice as a question of finance was touched upon by Fuller, Financial Secretary to the College as well as Supervisor of Classes.
Another director was yawning almost unconcealedly, until, catching the eye of the chairman, he assumed an expression of acute concern and hastily inserted a forefinger into his still open mouth as though in search of an aching tooth. This simple manoeuvre was apparent to Sir Julian, and his eyes half involuntarily met Mark Easter’s laughing blue ones in an instant’s exchange of silent amusement.
Julian looked down again at his own share of blotting-paper, left immaculate in deference to Cooper’s feelings, and his thoughts dwelt upon Mark Easter.
He thought of the good-looking, light-hearted fellow that Mark had been all his life, of his casual marriage, embarked upon out of pure good-nature, with a woman older than himself, and for no better reasons than the ones that he had once put forward, half apologetically, to Julian himself.
“She was having such a rotten time when I met her in Ireland no one ever asked her to dance, and the other girls all seemed to be younger and prettier and having more fun. I used to take her for drives, you know, and then dance with her in the evenings; and upon my word, I was the only chap that ever took any notice of her, I do believe. And I really did want to settle down and have a home, and it somehow seemed more likely she’d take me than one of the pretty little fly-aways who could get all the fun they wanted before settling down. She was by way of being a good housekeeper, too, and fond of kids. I’m fond of kids myself,” said Mark Easter wistfully.
Sir Julian wondered, not for the first time, how long that fondness had survived the shrieking, stamping, bullying era inaugurated by Ruthie, and the whining, unwashed, question-asking proclivities of her junior.
Mark Easter never spoke of his children except with a sort of apologetic tolerance, but neither was he often to be seen in their company.
He was agent to the Rossiter estate, and more often found about his work and at the College in Culmouth than in his untidy, servant-ridden, mistressless house.
Julian’s thoughts turned for an unwilling moment to the recollection of the rapidly-growing gossip that had saddled Mark
Easter, ten years ago, with an alternatively morphomaniac, drug-taking inebriate or homicidally insane partner. To his own ever-increasing, silent certainty that disaster threatened the only human being whom he cared for in the world, to Mark’s haggard face and prolonged absences from home.
Then to a grey dawn, when Mark had ridden up to ask in three inarticulate words for help that Julian had given in almost unbroken silence. Mrs. Easter had gone away, and there was no more occasion for furtive surmise, for everyone knew at last that she had been steadily drinking her way into the home for inebriates that now had sheltered her for more than seven years.
And Mark, with an elasticity at which Julian had never yet ceased to marvel, had recovered his habit of easy laughter, his keen interest in his work, his old enthusiasm for the Commercial and Technical College schemes.
Sir Julian secretly admired and envied his almost childlike absorption in the College. He sent sidelong glances from time to time at Mark’s keen, handsome face, at the shrewdness of the gaze which he kept upon each speaker.
Fairfax Fuller never was there a worse misnomer, thought Julian, with a grim half -smile, as he looked at his swarthy- faced subordinate Fairfax Fuller might have made a good speaker say, a political agent. Kept to his facts, always sound, and with a weight of personal conviction that told. But there was nothing to look interested about, Julian reflected, as Mark Easter was looking interested.
Fuller always put forward the same arguments: for a better class of teacher, for an extension of advertisement, always with the same implication of his own indispensability as managing Supervisor.
Alderman Bellew was tedious, obviously only speaking at all so as to impress the fact of his presence on his fellow-directors, and Mark Easter said nothing, until Miss Marchrose’s application for the post of Lady Superintendent was brought forward by Fuller.
The discussion of the appointment was merely formal, and Sir Julian gave it formal sanction.
“I think that concludes our business for to-day, gentlemen. Thank you all very much.”
The chairman rose.
“Anything else you want me for, Fuller?” he enquired, as the meeting dispersed.
Collected Works of E M Delafield Page 125