High Master of Clere

by Jane Arbor

  She was soon to learn. ‘Now,’ said Daniel, addressing her, ‘Mrs. Dysart has come to me with information which, from anyone of less integrity, I’d find it hard to believe. It concerns a middle-school boy, Bland—Fourth Form, West House—so perhaps you will tell me what you know of his having played truant and gone to Norwich about ten days ago?’

  Verity moistened her lips, ‘I know he did go,’ she said.

  ‘How?’ The monosyllable rapped out.

  ‘Mother was shopping there and saw him.’

  ‘And Mrs. Lytton, knowing he had no right in Norwich, told you, and you questioned Bland? His explanation to you was that he had gone to meet his twin sister; you warned him against doing such a thing again and took the matter no further?’

  Verity inclined her head. ‘That’s so, yes.’ (How did they know?)

  Daniel was about to tell her. ‘Very well. That’s what he has now admitted to Mrs. Dysart. You didn’t tell him it was Mrs. Lytton who had seen him, but he says whoever did and you are the only people in school who knew he went. As far as you know, is that right?’

  ‘Yes. I certainly told no one.’

  ‘Why not his housemaster? Or Mrs. Dysart? Or possibly me?’

  ‘Because I thought—’ she began, only for Daniel to cut her short.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘We’ll go into your reasons later. Meanwhile I dare say you may be shocked to hear we now have several cases of measles on our hands? Bland himself a certain one and four or five other probables. Matron has them all in the San. and will know for certain in a day or so. And this within a few days of the end of term. What have you to say to that?’

  Measles! (‘Meg had a cold.’ ‘Only because Meg was feeling so low’. And Bland had kissed his twin!) Verity said, ‘What can I say but that I agree it’s possible Bland was the contact, as he said his sister was—’

  ‘Possible? Well, that’s handsome of you, I must say!’ interrupted Jane. ‘You take it upon yourself to do nothing about it when a boy has admitted to you that he has had an infectious contact, and then you coolly allow it’s “possible” he has spread the thing around!’

  Stung, Verity rounded upon her. ‘Bland didn’t tell me. I’m sure he didn’t know. All he told me was that his sister was depressed with a cold. They spent the day together, and Mother watched him kiss her when he saw her on to a bus.’

  Jane snapped, ‘Well, he knows now that he caught the thing from her as she has written to him since to say she has it too.’

  Verity frowned. ‘He knew—and he didn’t report to Matron or to you?’

  ‘Not until he couldn’t help himself—when his symptoms were all too obvious. But are you quite sure he didn’t confide in you?’

  ‘Sure? Of course I’m sure!’ Verity appealed to Daniel. ‘Please, High Master, I must insist you believe I knew nothing at all of this!’

  He gave her a long searching look. ‘I believe you,’ he said, and turned to Jane. ‘Now we’ve established that Verity couldn’t have helped us earlier, perhaps I needn’t keep you any longer, Mrs. Dysart,’ he invited.

  Jane rose, but paused at the door. ‘What are we going to do about it, High Master? School breaks up on Friday!’

  Daniel looked at his watch. ‘Ask Matron to come with Dr. Wales to see me in half an hour’s time, when we’ll discuss action stations. The “certains” won’t be leaving with the others, of course. They’ll have to do their isolation stint here, and their people must be notified. But Verity will handle that end of it.’ With firm courtesy he showed Jane out and returned to face Verity across his desk.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘you wouldn’t claim this as a diplomatic success on your part, I hope?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Nor even another well-meant but bungled attempt to divert justice? More, perhaps, a case of heart overruling head—disastrously?’

  Verity nodded. ‘Yes, that, I think. I was sorry for Bland and sorry for his sister. They are twins and they haven’t a real home of their own, and Bland was worried lest I should report him, as much for her sake as for his own.’

  ‘So your misguided charity sat in lone judgment and supposed that was the end of the matter? But, Verity’—Daniel sat forward, his tone gentling slightly—‘you must know the sound sense there is behind this clamp-down on random outside contacts for the boys during term? That it’s for fairness to the ones who have no family at all near enough for meeting or weekending, fully as much as it’s aimed against the chance that has put us in the present trouble?’

  ‘Yes. I’m sorry.’ She could have wept for contrition.

  Daniel sighed. ‘I’m sorry too. I mean, that it had to be you.’

  She met his eyes. ‘You’re shocked that I could have been so lax with Bland? You think it reflects on your trust in my good sense?’

  He said sharply, ‘Don’t impute motives to me, please. I meant that though I’ve accepted your good faith, Mrs. Dysart hasn’t, and she may not be too careful to see you aren’t criticized along with Bland for having put everyone’s holiday in jeopardy.’

  ‘Well, you could say I asked for that, couldn’t you?’

  ‘You could also say,’ he retorted, ‘that as you were technically in the wrong, I’m under no obligation to stand between you and anyone who may be out for your blood over this. But would you expect me to take that attitude?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I hope you’re too—just.’

  He laughed shortly. ‘ “Damned with faint praise” indeed! That I’m just is the sum total of your assessment of me by the end of our first four months? You wouldn’t say anything warmer was involved? For instance, loyalty, which should surely work both ways in a relationship like ours?’

  Verity shook her head. ‘I’d settle for justice. I’d hate you to feel you had to defend me just out of loyalty to me, right or wrong.’

  ‘Nonsense. You should be grateful for a bit of blind loyalty when it comes your way. It makes the world go round—Or do I misquote? Is that something else?’ Daniel looked at his watch and stood. ‘I’ll call you again to this war council with Matron. It’ll furnish you with plenty of work, I dare say.’ It was a knack which she recognized—his switch of manner from the personal to the formal with scarcely a change of tone. It was disconcerting. But because it was his way, she loved him even for that.

  He was as good as his word. There was no breath of blame for her from anyone over Bland’s truancy, and even Matron, who took the brunt of the anxiety, allowed that Verity would have needed the gift of second sight to guess at the consequences of Bland’s one brotherly kiss for his twin.

  The ‘action stations’ went to work.

  Health records were called for; the whole school divided into the sheep who had already had measles, the goats who had not. Then—a very popular move, this—the sheep and such of the goats as had had no contact at all with Bland and the few suspects were sent home five days early. The remaining goats were kept back until the danger time for their Showing symptoms ran out. By Christmas Eve that left only Bland and a small core of eight other boys, all past the week of their high fever, but all confined to Clere for the three weeks of their isolation period.

  The Dysarts and Ira Cusack had been able to leave for Switzerland on time; the other housemasters made their own Christmas plans and Matron had gone too, entrusting the care of her restless convalescents to Mrs. Lytton and Verity. Mrs. Lytton took the situation with her usual sunny complacency, ordering a twenty-five-pound turkey and goodies to match, saying she had never, during all her time at Clere, had as many as nine foster-children for the length of a vacation.

  ‘The poor things, we shall have to do something for them over Christmas,’ she had warned Daniel. ‘If it wasn’t for their quarantine we could have some parties, invite some nice girls for them—’

  ‘If they weren’t in quarantine they wouldn’t be here and in need of the stimulus of nice girls,’ he had pointed out.

  She wrinkled her pretty nose at him. ‘Of course not. Silly
of me—Now what can we do about them? Oh dear, it’s like being besieged!’ She paused, her eye so purposeful that he had protested, ‘I hope you aren’t casting me for the role of Santa Claus?’

  ‘No, they’re too old for that. But a tree—We could make a big thing of their presents round the tree on Christmas night. Lay on a cold buffet supper, and yes—perhaps fancy dress? It will give them something to plan. I think the Percevals will be here and perhaps the Hunters, so we’ll all be in costume too—and you can award the prizes.’

  ‘Ah’—Daniel had seen a way out for himself—‘I can’t judge and compete as well, so that lets me off fancy dress.’

  ‘For that you shall donate the prizes as well as present them. And a tree we must have, and silly games, and I dare say television can fill in the gaps—’

  So Mrs. Lytton had had her way. On Christmas Eve the small band of outcasts gathered to hang decorations, to argue over the lighting circuit for the Christmas tree, to pull turkey sinews and sample Rosa’s mince-pies, all to the sad beat of the transistor radios which accompanied them everywhere and without which they appeared to be incapable of thought or action.

  In the dark of Christmas morning they attended Chapel where Daniel read the lessons, and met for turkey and plum pudding and fresh batches of mince-pies at lunch time. They were despatched in a body to ‘walk it off’ during the afternoon, and reappeared in the evening, would-be nonchalant but slightly self-conscious in their fancy dress.

  They had not been able to go shopping, so their costumes were marvels of improvisation. A Greek soldier had for uniform a dustbin-lid shield and a borrowed pleated skirt, brief above bony knees; Neptune shivered in trailing seaweed threaded into string dishcloths, and carried a hayfork as a trident; a ham, padded to shape, wore a paper frill and was realistically breadcrumbed with sawdust over a coating of glue. There were several astronauts peering through polythene helmets; Lance was a cowboy ‘baddie ‘ in black leather; Mrs. Lytton was ethereal as Titania and Verity wore the looped skirts of a French revolutionary woman, with tricolour cockade pinned to a Cadet Corps forage-cap.

  The ham, offering itself for judging on a large cardboard dish complete with carvers, won first prize for originality, and Mrs. Lytton, judged to be ‘easiest on the eye’ by Daniel, was awarded a bouquet of dewy yellow rosebuds. She was so delighted with these that she kissed him by way of thanks. He kissed her in return, to the delight of the company, and the evening got away to a relaxed start.

  Around eleven o’clock the lights were put out and the party gathered round the fire to drink hot fruit punch and tell ghost stories until after midnight, when it broke up. Daniel saw the convalescents back to the San. and the others parted and went to bed.

  It was as Verity opened her wardrobe that she noticed her loss when her eye caught the lapel of her everyday jersey suit where her Clere badge should have been, but was not.

  ‘Oh no!’ Frantically she snatched the suit from the rail, shook it, fingered through its pockets, then searched the floor of the wardrobe, the surrounding carpet and her dressing-table—the latter without much hope, as hitherto she had never unfastened the clasp from one lapel except to pin it again to another.

  She sank down on her dressing-stool, sick with panic. (Daniel’s gift, which she had promised herself she would always, always wear!) Why hadn’t she noticed its loss when she had taken off the suit earlier? Now it could be anywhere at all that she had been since—yes, since yesterday morning, when she knew it had been in place. She remembered touching and noticing it as she had dressed.

  What chance was there of finding it, except by a miracle? She could hardly hope to remember or retrace every step she had taken during thirty-six hours. But she had to try. Concentrating, she suddenly realized she need cover only Christmas Eve. This morning she had put on a different dress without remembering to transfer the clasp to it.

  So, yesterday—In another flash she saw herself helping Lance and the other boys to hang the holly, sorting the knotty branches and handing them to Lance on the stepladder. One he had rejected, asking for something smaller as he threw the discard down to her. She had caught it in her gloved hands, but remembered now that as it fell, its prickles had snatched at the shoulder of her suit and could have torn off the clasp if it hadn’t been securely fastened. So if the branch had been used elsewhere later it was just possible that the clasp had dropped from it as it was hung and had been swept up with the pile of woody branches and dropped berries which had been the rubbish of their labour.

  It was the merest chance, but the only one which offered. Tomorrow she could publicize her loss and organize a search. But tonight she knew she would not sleep if she did not follow up this one slender clue.

  She reached for a coat. She could collect a torch downstairs. For she was in small luck—the rubbish had been put outside for Martin to bum on the garden bonfire. But Martin was not on duty over the holiday; the rubbish would still be there.

  She used the two-way switch on the landing, but a second or two after she had gained the hall the light went out and her groping for the kitchen switch with no result showed that there was a power failure.

  ‘There would be!’ she muttered, searching for a candle to light her way to her torch in the pocket of her raincoat, hanging outside her office.

  As she left the kitchen, shading the flame of her candle with her hand, she heard someone crossing the hall and froze, as it could only be Daniel returning from the San., and he was the last person to whom she wanted to confess her loss tonight. In the morning he was leaving for Davos by air and by the time he returned she might not have to admit her carelessness. Her clasp might have been found.

  But he halted too. There was a kind of listening silence. Then he came on down the hall and his torch picked her out from the shadows behind her candle-flame.

  ‘What are you doing down here?’ he wanted to know. ‘There’s been a power failure, but there’s nothing we can do about it.’ And then, his eye on her coat, ‘You weren’t planning to go out, surely?’

  She blinked in the beam of his torch and he turned it aside. ‘No,’ she said. ‘That is, not out. Just—outside.’

  ‘A subtle distinction, that,’ he commented. ‘Just outside for what?’

  ‘To look for something I’ve lost.’

  ‘What?’

  Seeing no help for it, she succumbed to the bald question and explained. He listened, then said, ‘But what’s the midnight hurry? You can’t look properly with only a torch, and the rubbish-heap will still be there in the morning.’

  ‘I know, but—’ She stopped. ‘It’s just that, once I realized it might be there, I couldn’t ... bear to do nothing about it.’

  He looked at her in silence for a moment, then said, ‘ Behind that candle you remind me forcibly of the woman in the parable who also couldn’t wait to sweep her house in search of one silver groat out of ten!’

  Verity smiled thinly and thrust her loose hair behind her ear with her free hand. ‘I feel rather like her,’ she said.

  ‘Meaning it really can’t wait until morning? All right. But there’s a cruel sleet falling and you’re not going out. I’ll go myself.’

  ‘You won’t know where to look—’

  ‘I’ll find where to look. Go into the warm ‘—his hand turned her towards the kitchen—’and I’ll report back.’

  She disobeyed him by going to search the floor of the party room and to turn her torch on the holly arrangements. After a fruitless search she had just regained the kitchen when he returned, switching on the light, which now responded, and opening his palm to her.

  ‘A silver groat masquerading as a needle in a haystack,’ he said.

  ‘Oh! Bless you!’ she exclaimed as impulsively as she would have thankedLance or her mother. She took the clasp from him and burnished it lovingly against the side of her hand. ‘It’s more than I dared hope—that I should ever see it again!’

  He looked his surprise at her bubbling pleasure. ‘Why all t
he intensity?’ he asked. ‘You had only to tell me you had lost it and I could have ordered you another.’

  She shook her head. ‘It wouldn’t have been the same. Replacements never are; they’re always spoiled by the guilt of one’s having been careless with the first one, don’t you think?’

  He smiled. ‘Only when the first has some deep sentimental value, surely? If it had none, I imagine I could accept a replacement with no qualms of conscience at all!’

  ‘Well, of course!’ She broke off, covering the inference to be read into that by asking him if he would like a cup of tea.

  ‘Good idea. And if I remember rightly, it’s your turn to make it. Mine, last time—Oh, my dear, I’m sorry!’ he added to her swift flush and rejecting turn of the head. ‘That was hardly fair of me, was it?’

  ‘Perhaps ... not very.’ But she saw he wasn’t guilty of recalling her own shaming memory of that other midnight when he went on, ‘Tell me, have you begun to think yet of having another dog in Nash’s place?’

  She busied herself with cups and saucers and switched on the kettle. ‘I couldn’t—just yet. I know you’re supposed to pay the greatest possible compliment to your first dog when you take on another at once. But while everything about Nash is still fresh with me, I’m afraid I should judge the new dog unfairly for being different from Nash, which he couldn’t help.’

  Daniel nodded. ‘You very well might. It’s a hurdle newcomers have to take—to be judged for the crime of merely being new. As I should know, shouldn’t I?’

  ‘You mean?’

  ‘You know, I think. That first day, Lance was openly hostile and you were—wary, and between you, you were speaking for Clere; defying me to run it my way and accusing me of trying to erase your father’s stamp on it with every innovation I might make.’