by Jane Arbor
Under her skilled hand the affair fell into an easy, relaxed shape. Introductions were made, acquaintances adroitly grouped and the unsociable coaxed from their corners. People too long on the fringe of groups were made the centres of others, kept inexorably on the move by their hostess’s gentle determination that everyone should have a chance to meet some kindred spirit.
Bob Wales came late, joining Verity who was talking to Nicholas Dysart and his wife and Jane Dysart’s sister, Ira, who was spending the weekend with them.
Ira Cusack was in her late twenties, many years younger than Jane. Verity had met her once or twice before and each time was struck by the contrast between the two. In Ira, Jane’s angularity was a narrow-hipped elegance; Jane’s scraped hair and lean, soured features became Ira’s sleekly piled chignon and a fine bone-structure of cheek and jaw and throat. Jane’s clothes were a uniform of drab tweeds and cardigans; Ira’s were in daringly matched colours and of ‘ginger group’ cut. She was provocative where Jane was aggressive and she had cultivated poise as Jane never had.
Ira was an assistant producer with Viking Vision, an East Anglian television syndicate. But she was coming to the end of her contract and was thinking of free-lancing for a time, she was telling Verity as Bob approached, followed by Daniel Wyatt who summoned a waiter to renew their drinks and to bring one for Bob.
Nicholas approved, ‘This was a good idea of yours, High Master.’
Daniel looked about him, then shook his head. ‘No credit to me. Believe it or not, my original conception was a stag smoking party. That became cocktails, to allow for a leaven of wives and daughters, but it was Mrs. Lytton who decreed I should make it my debut to the county instead.’
Ira Cusack laughed up at him. ‘And why not, High Master? You had to make a Positively First Appearance some time, hadn’t you? And you’re News with a capital “N”, you know. Or didn’t you?’
‘Am I?’
‘Of course. We’ve got you taped in the files and V.V. can blow up the headlines any time it likes—“Bachelor Head Of Clere”, “Youngest Public School Chief in England”—that kind of thing. Which reminds me—supposing I ask you to do something for me very soon—will you? And please don’t say “It depends”, for I won’t listen if you do!’
‘Then there’s no profit in my saying it, is there?’
‘No.’ Ira thrust forward her lips, making a long, rounded drawl of the word. ‘Anyway, I hope you won’t want to when you hear what I want—that is, to feature Clere on a programme in V.V.’s “Stately Schools” series, which is my last fling with them before my contract ends.’
In the concentrated way he had when his interest was taken Daniel turned his full attention on her, shutting the others out.
‘You want my co-operation for a film of the school in the ordinary course of work, play, extra-mural societies and so on? You would be handling it yourself?’
‘Only,’ smiled Ira, ‘as general dogsbody to my chief. He gets the kudos and the rave notices—or the reverse. I only get the small print on the credits screen. But yes, I should do a lot of the donkey work—working out angles of approach—not camera angles!—timing and script and all that.’
‘And how long would it all take?’
‘As long or as short a time as you’d be prepared to allow us. Say a fortnight for working out the shape. The actual filming could be done in a couple of days or less. Of course I should need to be on the spot for the fortnight, but I’ve sounded my sister about it and she’ll put me up. Oh, please!’ Ira begged archly.
Daniel demurred, ‘I’d have to consider it. And I’d say Clere is hardly typical of its kind. It’s small, it offers and fills a great many free places and though its fabric is old enough, I’d hate to think that “stately” could apply to the kind of education it gives.’
‘But don’t you see, that’s how it qualifies—through being different?’ urged Ira. ‘Even, if you like, through your not being a typical public school headmaster. Which you aren’t, are you?’
‘Is there such a creature?’ murmured Daniel. ‘However, I confess I’m interested and I’d be prepared to give you a firm answer if you or your chief would ring me in, say, a week’s time.’
Ira’s slow smile approved him. ‘Oh, thank you, High Master! Though I suppose you couldn’t give me the merest sliver of a hint as to whether it will be Yes or No?’
‘I dare say you can assume it will be at least a conditional Yes,’ he assured her. ‘But ring my secretary, will you, and she’ll make an appointment at which we can discuss it?’
‘Your? Oh, how stupid of me!’ Ira’s glance flicked from him to Verity. ‘My dear, for the moment I didn’t realize High Master meant you. But somehow I’d thought you mightn’t still be school secretary. That by now you’d probably be engaged or even married to that extremely attractive games master who was trailing you when I was over last term. I know Jane told me that everyone supposed—’
But Jane Dysart, who claimed to be above school gossip, did not allow her to go on.
‘Really, Ira,’ she snapped, ‘I don’t recall even mentioning Verity’s affairs to you. Anyway, Mr. Doran was only here for one term, and since he left I don’t know that anyone at Clere has heard a word from him or a single thing about him.’
‘Ooh—sorry, I’m sure!’ Ira wrinkled her nose and assumed a mock accent, dropping the perfunctory apology between Jane and Verity without making it clear for which of them she intended it. But for her part Verity more easily forgave Ira’s idle curiosity than she pardoned the subtlety of Jane’s information to everyone present that there had been ‘affairs’ of her own for gossip and that Max had played Lothario with her, jilting her and riding away.
But before she could frame a reply to Jane, Daniel made it for her.
‘You’re not entirely right there, Mrs. Dysart,’ he said. ‘For in fact Verity has met the young man since—in my company.’
‘Oh!’ Jane’s tone was blank. ‘Really? I didn’t know you knew him, High Master?’
Daniel said evenly, ‘I didn’t, until Verity introduced him to me.’ He added conversationally to Verity, ‘Weren’t you telling me he’s now at one of the Outward Bounds?’
Verity hadn’t told him so. Max had. But she said ‘Yes’ to Daniel’s version, recognizing it for the kindness it was, the cloak spread for her protection from Jane’s sly malice.
He had been at pains to confound Jane by his adroit editing of the truth. Why? Verity wondered. And then—how much did he suppose she had been hurt by the chance meeting and by Max’s cavalier farewell; by the insolence of that ‘Better hunting next time’ which still rankled in her memory?
A minute or two later the party kaleidoscope shifted again and their group broke up. Bob Wales put a firm hand beneath Verity’s elbow and drew her aside.
‘That was pretty unnecessary of Jane, wasn’t it?’ he asked.
Verity nodded. ‘I thought so.’
‘Well, obviously she had been gossiping to glamour-girl sister about you. But what did she think she had got on you and Doran? Come on, V.,’ Bob urged to Verity’s silence. ‘You know my opinion of that little man. But I’ve never forced it on you and I won’t now if he does—or did—mean a lot to you. Just—does he?—is all I’m asking.’
Owing Bob the truth he had never demanded in so many words before, Verity said, ‘He was beginning to—quite a lot. But not any more. I’m cured.’
‘Yet you’ve been seeing him since he left Clere?’
‘Only by chance. Not in the sense you mean. Anyway, another girl had him in tow and I didn’t mind a bit.’
Bob grunted, ‘Thank goodness for that. But where was this? And how come your chief was among those present?’
Verity told him. But as Bob began, ‘Well, he certainly managed to cut Jane down to size. Did you see her face? The man’s made himself an enemy there—’ a waiter came to say that a transfer call had been put through for him and he had to leave.
Verity remained standing al
one near the door from which other people were also leaving, and when he had parted from two of them Daniel came over, gesturing at her empty glass.
She shook her head. ‘No more, thank you.’
‘No?’ He didn’t press her, but stayed to ask, ‘I hope you didn’t mind my taking a hand just now, but it seemed to me you were being put in a very false position through no fault of your own.’
She glanced up at him. ‘I was, and I was grateful to you,’ she told him.
‘Good.’
In Verity’s experience of him just such a crisp monosyllable was his way of closing a subject. She should have left it there, she raged later. But at the time her need to be done with the whole incident, especially with Max’s parting gibe which Daniel had overheard, made her plunge on.
She said, ‘I ought to explain about Mr. Doran and myself. We were rather friendly while he was here, and I couldn’t blame Mrs. Dysart if she had mentioned it to Miss Cusack. But I did mind—as you guessed I should—her implication that he had run out on something serious between us, whereas it wasn’t so at all. He—that is, we both accepted that we were just friends, nothing more. Which is why I was so taken aback by what he said when we parted company that evening, and I wanted you to know that—’ But there she broke off, chilled by her companion’s expression.
Daniel said, ‘Please don’t think you owe me details, just because I felt I couldn’t let you be publicly mortified. Doran has left Clere now, and whether or not he’s equally in the past tense for you, I haven’t regarded as any business of mine.’
‘Perhaps it isn’t, though I had an idea that his—his exit-line might have made the details your business.’ In deeper water now than she had bargained for, Verity thrashed out wildly. ‘After all, you heard him, and I’d have thought—well, you could hardly mistake what he meant when he—’
‘When he wished you joy of future hunting and hinted that I might be your present quarry?’ Daniel finished for her. ‘But do you know, I thought I could afford to ignore that? That you could too, if the cap didn’t fit you, as surely I was entitled to assume it didn’t?’
‘Of course you were!’
‘Then what are we arguing about?’
Verity gave up. ‘Nothing, I dare say. It was simply that I hadn’t reckoned on your being quite so—detached about something which embarrassed me a lot.’
‘And for “detached” read “thick-skinned”, eh?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t think I meant more than aloof; the way in which you withdraw when you think you may get committed against your will; or involved with people too personally.’
‘And that’s not very astute of you. Should I have come into schoolmastering if I hadn’t expected to be involved with people? Or don’t you consider a couple of hundred boys and a staff to match qualify for the description?’
‘I thought you would realize I was talking about your private relations with people.’
‘Of which you’d claim you have a long and extensive experience?’ But as she flinched, his grave smile disarmed the rebuke.
‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘You’ve put your finger on my theory that ideally one’s professional and private affairs should be kept apart, though in practice they’ll tangle, given half a chance. Take our own, for instance. For couldn’t one say that you and I set out professionally under the advantage—or the handicap—according to taste—of having been romantically linked in our nurseries?’
(Oh, Mother, you promised!) Verity’s fingers tightened on the stem of her glass. Aloud she said, ‘I’d no idea you had heard about that.’
‘But you had?’ He seemed to be amused by her confusion. But before she could retort that of course she had, since her mother would hardly have omitted telling him so, he took her glass from her.
‘You look as if you could do with another drink after all,’ he said. But when he came back he brought another man with him and did not stay himself.
When everyone had gone Mrs. Lytton was so happy with the party’s success that Verity hadn’t the heart to tax her with having prattled to Daniel after promising she wouldn’t. The three of them dined together, talking ‘party’, but very soon afterwards Mrs. Lytton said she was tired and would go to bed. Verity wouldn’t be too late, would she, and if she were going to take Nash out first, why didn’t she ask Daniel to go too?
She put the question in her clear, light voice in the full hearing of Daniel who rose, opening the door for her and glancing his own question at Verity.
Verity said, ‘If you’d care to come. We usually go down to the shore,’ and was waiting for him in wellingtons and a light coat over her cocktail frock when he joined her on the drive, having changed into corduroy slacks and a pullover in the interval.
It was a lovely night. By the time they reached the shore the red autumn moon was up, spilling a light-path across the sea and blackening every shadow by contrast. The sands were still wet after high tide and their boots and Nash’s outsize pads scuttered arcs of water as they went.
On the way down the lane they had talked about Nash, and Verity had described his illness of the summer, though without bringing up Max’s name again.
‘Were you warned that it might recur?’ asked Daniel.
‘I’m afraid so. The vet says, at his age, “any time”. Meanwhile I try to be grateful for every day that he stays as well as he is.’ As she spoke she skimmed a pebble into the surf for the little dog to follow. He did so, cavorting and dancing with frustration when he could not find it. Daniel threw another, his wrist flicking as expertly as Verity’s to make it skid four times on the surface before it finally sank, to Nash’s rage and Verity’s admiration for the expertise.
‘You’re good,’ she commented. ‘I hardly ever manage more than two skids at a time.’
‘My record is six. It’s a knack, and you must pick the right kind of stone.’
‘I know, but—’ She watched as he skittered another across the shallows, then threw one herself. They continued turn and turn about until Nash, deciding he was the odd man out in a game on which his humans were too intent, trotted away.
Wiping down their hands, they followed him, and after a minute or two Verity asked diffidently, ‘How long have you known that silly story about us? When did Mother tell it to you?’
‘She didn’t. I’d heard it from my own mother years ago. Certainly long before either you or I were in a position to assert our right to pick our own mates, thanks very much. You were then at the crawling stage, I believe, and I was still in short pants. I may say I remember signifying in no mean fashion what I thought of the idea.’
‘I’m sure you did.’ Verity’s short laugh was partly of relief that her mother hadn’t broken her promise. ‘I think you were about ten at the time Mother and Mrs. Wyatt concocted it for fun. But I hadn’t realized you already knew it when you came to Clere.’
‘As I’ve told you, I did, and it lent a certain piquancy to our meeting. But I’m afraid I can’t pretend I came fired with romantic curiosity about you beforehand.’
‘You wouldn’t expect me to believe you did?’ The ugly doubt which Lance had sowed in her mind made Verity add, ‘All the same, Lance and I did wonder why you’d never got in touch with Mother or Father earlier. Because you must have known, before you were offered the High Mastership, that we were here?’
There was a moment’s pause. Then Daniel said, ‘You’d realized that and read it as sinister?’
Verity remembered Lance’s ‘phoney’ with distaste and rejected it. ‘Not exactly sinister. Just—odd,’ she said.
Daniel shook his head. ‘I doubt if you would have brought it up if you merely thought it odd. No, at a guess your speculations ran—“Why didn’t the man come until after Father was dead, and then only to step into his shoes?” Something like that?’ It was so near to Lance’s criticism that Verity was taken aback. ‘Well—’ she began. Daniel went on,
‘I thought so. On our tour of the school that first day Lance left me
in little doubt that that was his reaction. But if I tell you that Mrs. Lytton has accepted that at the time I had my own good reasons, shouldn’t that be enough?’
‘Of course. We hadn’t any right—’
‘You hadn’t, had you?’ Daniel agreed, his tone bland but a barrier which, this time, Verity did not attempt to storm.
It was Nash who decided the limit of the walk by turning back towards the dunes when he had had enough. They had reached the wall gate from the lane when Daniel asked, ‘Does Lance care as much about the shore as you do?’
Verity said, ‘Yes, I think so, though for different reasons. I just enjoy messing about on it, but his passion is bird photography and he spends hours building “hides” and even more hours crouching in them, waiting for the birds to come in.’
‘Seabirds mostly, I suppose? What kinds do you see on this coast?’
‘Oh—terns, bitterns, a lot of different migrant gulls, wild geese, duck. We have grey seals too. Lance gets marvellous results with his pocket camera, but he’s always dreaming of what he’s going to do in cine and colour when he can afford a better one.’
‘Meanwhile, would the loan of a Leica interest him, do you think? I ask, as I have one which I’ve had no time to use lately.’
At the casual question Verity looked up, her eyes wide. ‘A Leica? You’d lend him yours? It’s just not true! He’d be ecstatic. Oh—’ she broke off in confusion.
Daniel said drily, ‘You’re thinking, probably, that he’d distrust it as a Greek gift, coming from me. Well, that must be risked—the offer is open if he cares to take it, and in return I shall expect him to put together a collection of his slides to show to his House one evening. So let me know, will you, if he accepts and he can have it? I’ll give it to you in the morning.’
He left her at the main school entrance, saying he had work to do in his study. At their halt Verity had picked up Nash, who had been dawdling, and Daniel stroked the silken head as he added, ‘I’ve enjoyed this. You must let me come along with you again some time.’