by H. S. Cross
—Just what is your beastly point?
White flag. The thrill of holding secrets and making them pay. Pearce had got away with following Mainwaring and Riding to the barn in the middle of the night, and now Halton had made it plain he knew. But his decisive advantage, greater even than knowing Pearce’s night prowling, was knowing Pearce’s character. Any other person would have called his bluff: if he actually were to peach on Pearce, not only would he be sent to Coventry, but the accessory hell would make Pearce’s knockings-about look like love taps. But Pearce, and only Pearce, was straight enough to fear him. Pearce was too stupid for deviousness, so he never detected it in others, and he was too beholden to the goodwill of authorities to risk a fall from grace.
Pearce watched silently as he departed, and when he slammed the door, Pearce didn’t follow. His joints felt loose, like eating too much icing. Everyone talked about revenge served cold, but no one said it could rack your nerves.
* * *
Trinity term was the best term, in Moss’s view. The weather was good. The sport was cricket. They had Patron’s Day in June and fruit in season. The days were long, the bounds wide.
Pearce, as usual, tried to spoil it the very first night by lurching into Moss and Crighton’s study when he should have been at dorm rounds. Moss sent Crighton to the dorms and told Pearce to relax. Pearce refused. He was in a bait with Halton though fagging hadn’t even started. Despite a torrent of words, Moss couldn’t follow.
Pearce wasn’t usually this bad. True, he’d gone berserk in the final moments of last term, but Moss had supposed it the looming prospect of home. Had he always been worst at the start and end of terms? Moss had no idea what had transpired during Pearce’s holiday (and the thought of Pearce’s home life made him shudder), but he felt sure it involved hours on his knees. Too much religion was as bad as too little, though Morgan always said it wasn’t that simple with Pearce. Still, Morgan wasn’t here, and Pearce had never opened his heart to Moss.
* * *
Moss hauled him out of bed and into the corridor:
—I don’t know what you’ve been playing at, young Halton, but you can leave Pearce alone.
He would be fagging for Moss and Crighton this term. It was all settled with Pearce. He was to take the innocent expression off his face.
—And if word gets around, that we’re soft for example, you’ll get something to remember. Understand?
Was it necessary to thank God when good fortune arose from your own maneuvers? Their ayah in Mombasa had practiced witchcraft but always prayed as well to her own gods and to the Virgin Mary. Halton wasn’t sure the witchcraft had ever worked, but his sister believed in it. They’d been in England six months, and still Miranda wore that charm under her clothing. It was her luck and her blessing, she said, and without it, she would never have won a single competition. The holidays had not brought them closer, as he’d hoped, and he saw that in his absence she had become wed to the piano as never before. When he accused her of loving it more than she loved him, her reply was unconsoling: You are my brother. Piano is my soul!
Dear Mr. Grieves, Thank you for your letter and advice about taking the Remove exam early. A challenge would indeed do the boy good and give him something to focus his mind. (Heaven knows, he needs it.) Can I infer from your vagueness that my son is being a nuisance?
Mrs. Riding’s script was neat but boyish, sharper than most mothers’ and written in a turquoise ink. His letter had cheered her mother’s heart, she said, particularly his expectations for the Scholarship Sixth.
If it isn’t too forward, I’d take the liberty to say that there’s no other man I’d better trust with the boy than you.
He didn’t think she was speaking in code.
I hope the Remove will effect a change of manner in the boy, but in any case I’m confident you’ll guide him as only you can. Sincere Regards, Mrs. E. Riding.
And by change of manner, she meant…?
p.s. Incidentally, I’ve made plans to remarry. News not received as well as hoped. Work cut out for you, sorry to say.
He’d been delayed in France by stormy seas. His throat was sore during the crossing, and by the time he got back to the Academy, he was fevered and frantic. Jamie had postponed the staff meeting on his behalf, and his matron had taken care of study assignments, dorms, and other notices according to what he’d been able to shout down the telephone before the line dropped in Dieppe. He sat up that first night, preparing hasty lessons, attending to correspondence, and fielding a stack of memoranda from Jamie.
Choir 7–8 p.m. Sat., 8–9 a.m. Sun.
Austin withdrawn, cramming for Sandhurst.
Sunday timetable, rev …
Tea Saturday 5 o’clock?
Mainwaring withdrawn. Explain later.
Tea Sunday 4.30. Marion out.
The final letter had been discovered near dawn stuck to a bill from his booksellers.
Hôtel des Deux-Mondes, Vichy—Dear Uncle John, you mustn’t be agitated. It’s only been three days, and we didn’t get any of your letters until this morning. It was Hôtel des Sources, not Hôtel des Souris, but never mind now ’cause we’ve moved (see above). Mum has recovered some strength. The three doctors haven’t agreed on a scheme, but they have her taking the waters day and night. She says to tell you she’s doing splendidly and please forgive her being slack, she doesn’t feel much like letter writing. Now she’s telling me to say there’s no need, with a sweet secretary like me. Help! (Only joking.) (About the Help, I mean.) They say the weather in the Channel is clearing, so I expect you’ll soon be home and back to proper tea. Love, Cordelia.
22
Trevor wasn’t on the train. He wasn’t waiting at the Academy, he wasn’t at tea, and he didn’t arrive with the late train. Though somewhat unnerved, Gray determined to take advantage of his late arrival to tackle the holiday task; it was more involved than he expected, and though he didn’t do it well, at least he’d have something to pass in to the Flea. His relief evaporated when he tramped up to the dorms and learned not only that Trevor had still not arrived but that everyone else expected him to know why. What’s more, he’d been moved to Moss’s dorm, presumably another effort to separate him from Trevor. When he asked Moss for explanation, Moss had none. Moss did, however, report that their Housemaster had been looking for him, though Moss hadn’t the first idea why. No, Gray could not go now. Grieves would send for him tomorrow. Meantime, Gray could meditate on this: He, Moss, would not tolerate carrying on in his dorm. Gray could just reconcile himself to ordinary conduct. He was to stay in his bed from lights-out tonight until first bell tomorrow, and he was to do the same every night thereafter.
At breakfast Sunday morning, still no Trevor, and no Grieves either. The notice boards bore no summons. Leslie reported that there had been no bed for Trevor in the old dorm. Was Mainwaring in hospital? Leslie asked. Was he expelled? Surely Trevor had written him in the holidays? Gray assured him Trevor had not. Trevor’s view of letter writing was like his view of lady voters—suffered under compulsion.
—Well, Leslie declared, he didn’t vanish.
Of course, he didn’t vanish. He was probably motoring up with his pater, who’d returned from Palestine at Easter. The Colonel was a nerve-racking driver, Gray could attest. They might have had a puncture, or a wreck. The dormitory matter was obviously some balls-up, like the conspiracy to make him sit the Remove early.
This last disclosure proved red meat to hyenas. Leslie and the others tore into the idea, amplifying its idiocy (What’s the point when we’re all sitting it in July?), unfairness (You’ll have to swot your skin off to keep up with the Fifth), and moral hazard (If you do this, Brains, you’ll prove yourself forever a swot). The verdict of the breakfast table was firm:
—Shirk it. Grievous be damned.
* * *
John was too old to scrape by with only two hours’ sleep, or so his body declared as he lowered himself into the bath. His throat felt like blood, and his
first deep breath brought on an extended bout of coughing. A cup of tea would tip the balance, though, and Mrs. Firth had one waiting in his study. It tortured his throat, and when Fletcher knocked on his door with three pieces of post that had been misdelivered to Burton-Lee, John discovered he was losing his voice. Two were bills. The third he opened immediately:
Hôtel Beauparlant, Vichy—Dear Uncle John, you’re going to give yourself a heart attack. We have only now received the sixth of your letters. Please, it unsettles Mum when people worry. I think you’d better write us Poste Restante from now on. We’ve moved again (above) and for all I know we’ll move another time if Mum gets tired of this place. Les trois médecins have agreed to disagree. Monsieur Flagorneur says she has biliary dyskinesia (bile duct hypercinétique). M. Bétise puts it down to a fragile liver, while M. Miteux stands firm with spasmophilia. The only thing they can agree is she must build up her terrain (get stronger, generally), which involves drinking buckets of horrible water from Les Halles Sources.
You’ll be satisfied to hear she’s engaged a sort of a governess. (You needn’t have gone behind my back. I read out all her letters, you know.) Her name is Miss Murgatroyd, she’s from Dorset, and she’s just finished governessing in Gascogne. We are studying French. I’m learning to say things ever so practical. “I like this country and admire its institutions.” “The strike is at its worst.” Love, Cordelia.
At least they’d got a governess. He would write the woman this afternoon, though at the rate he was going …
* * *
Trevor had not arrived for the opening service, and Pearce didn’t read his name at call-over, a detail which would have rekindled gossip had the JCR not summoned them for a House meeting. Gray crowded into the houseroom and was forced to wait there, assaulted by everyone’s curiosity, until Carter, Swinton, Moss, and Pearce filed in ten minutes later.
Their Housemaster had come down with the flu, Carter reported. Kardleigh had consigned him to bed, but before collapsing thither, he had enjoined Carter to welcome them back. Important term ahead, cricket cup, Patron’s Day, bounds, et cetera. Changes in the JCR: Austin withdrawn to cram for Sandhurst, Pearce into the breach. Withdrawal also in the Remove, Mainwaring, wish him well. Next week’s innovation, rolling two courts for lawn tennis—yes, thank you, it wasn’t just for girls, Swinton’s serve was lethal and he’d take all comers. Timetables, Prep, and to review again summer bounds—
—Leslie, do shut up.
—Sorry, Carter, but everyone’s wondering about Mainwaring. We heard he broke his head.
Carter warned them against rumor mongering. Mainwaring had broken nothing. Carter had no details for the withdrawal, but potential reasons were limitless. To repeat, they wished him well, and now a cheer for the various XIs and for the best Trinity term yet.
* * *
Gray batted poorly and stood useless at long off as the heavy truth bloomed: Trevor was not coming back. Trevor had said the Academy was the best thing he ever had, but that night he had risked everything for the sake of Gray’s shame and neglect; he had climbed, jumped, and fallen, not in ignorance but courage. In some real way, he had laid down his life for his friend.
The cricket continued far away, and a mole emerged from the ditch behind him, unruffled by his presence. This, he realized, was the new reality without Trevor at his side, like the term after Wilberforce but lacking the distractions that disaster had afforded. Later, as he stood with the Remove and watched Grieves’s First XI, a fag from Burton-Lee’s assaulted him: the Flea requested his presence. Stomach dropped, he snaked through the sidelines and met Burton-Lee at the door of his House.
—Sir, Gray said as they came indoors.
The Flea bustled into his study. Gray stood where bid as the man splashed gin in a glass, hissed it full of tonic, and began to orate. The subject, it appeared, was Gray’s Housemaster. Seeing that Mr. Grieves had collapsed at his post, taking voiceless to his bed before term had even begun, it was up to Mr. Burton-Lee, as usual, to sort out the resultant messes, chief amongst them Mr. Grieves’s fancy that Gray sit his Remove early. The Flea dilated upon the folly, disruption, and bad precedent such a maneuver would produce, particularly for a boy who had already been streamed too far ahead of his years, not to mention his maturity.
—You can just take that unwholesome smirk off your face, young man.
The Flea disliked Grieves’s plan, he disliked the cheek of it, he disliked the Headmaster’s approval, and he most especially disliked the gross inconvenience to the SCR, who would have to organize it at the drop of a hat. Gray himself would suffer inconvenience, let him not imagine otherwise, for if he were promoted, he would be expected to learn on his own time everything the Fifth had covered since September. If he were promoted, he would be excused Mathematics and Natural Science—
—An attractive prospect, I grant, given that your crib has also quit the field.
He held his tongue.
In exchange, he would have Greek and rhetoric, all in advance of his current attainment. But if, perchance, Gray wished to delay his Remove until the proper time, then the Flea would take it upon himself to speak with the Headmaster and smooth things over on Gray’s behalf. This, it emerged, was the point of the interview.
—I’ve half a notion you were never keen on the idea yourself. Am I right?
—No, sir.
—I beg your pardon?
—Crammed in the hols, sir. I’m ready. And I have the holiday task.
The Flea looked like a child whose ice cream had fallen to the sand, but he quickly recovered. The Flea cared nothing for holiday tasks. The Flea cared only about the intemperate nuisance now facing the SCR. Gray could depart his sight until Primus Tuesday, at which time he could report to the Head’s study, where Captain Lewis would direct him. Until then, he could swot in his houseroom during lessons.
—One must hope, at least, that the Upper School will curb your more obnoxious forms of disobedience.
The Flea let that sink in.
—Fas est et ab hoste doceri.
It is right to learn, even from an enemy.
He was late changing, of course, and his studs were not in his shirt where he had left them. By the time he got to chapel, Moss had already sent latecomers in.
—You’re pushing the boat out, Moss said.
Everything he did turned out for the worst. Just as he’d warmed to the idea of shirking the exam, the Flea had cornered him into declaring himself ready. Now he had a black mark on the first day of term. The narthex bench screeched when he sat.
—Don’t you give me the Sullen and Resentful, Moss said.
He smarted at the wielding of one of Morgan’s phrases.
—You’re a brute to bring him into everything!
—Did you see the papers? Moss asked. The Dark Blues’ Great Hope!
The last thing he was prepared to discuss was Morgan Wilberforce. He closed his eyes as the Magnificat hummed through the doors.
—It’s this vile Remove, he said at last.
—Ah, that.
Rumors, it seemed, had reached Moss.
—What are you going to do? Moss asked.
—What can I do? Shirk.
—Like hell you will! Grievous went to all this trouble. If you throw it away, it’ll break his heart!
—What do I care about his putrid heart?
—I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.
—Well, really, sod him.
Moss clicked his tongue:
—What would Morgan say?
—Stop harping on him!
Moss gazed at the woodwork:
—You know, it’s because of the Flea that Grieves made Wilberforce Captain of Games.
—What the hell are you talking about?
—In the beginning. He told Grievous not to.
* * *
The matron of John’s house did her best to send Jamie packing. Mr. Grieves was ill, she reported, not to be disturbed, Kardleigh’s orders. Matrons everywhere
were dragons, which was why one engaged them in the first place, but the woman behaved as if everything were Jamie’s fault. And as he returned to his study, he could feel someone inside his mind telling him he’d been reckless and self-centered and ought not to have put John in a pincer last term. Perhaps, he conceded. But he had been well within his rights; John had compromised him, not the other way round. And now for John to arrive back days late with only misspelled wires for explanation, for him to ignore Jamie’s communiqués, skip Sunday lunch, skip the cricket, skip evensong and Jamie’s invitation to tea, which he had taken such pains to arrange around Marion’s evening with her poetry society, for John to do all this and then take to his bed? The last thing Jamie ought to feel was remorse.
He sat up late with Lewis, slicing through correspondence so he could take John’s lessons for him in the morning. When he came to bed, Marion was already asleep. The crucial period wouldn’t come for another week, but Jamie felt it essential to appear game at any hour. She was curled like a child, so he knew she’d been crying. More than the failure, he hated the cruel taint of the enterprise. This thing, which had been life and hope and everything good, now felt like facing down a lion. They had to do it, religiously and with calm, but the more they failed, the more he dreaded it. He could only imagine how she felt. Procreation was a depraved scheme for putting one off lust.
* * *
John was too ill to sleep, but he couldn’t think in a single strand. He wanted French coffee. He wanted a croque madame from their endroit préferé. If only someone would bring him that plat, he could work out how to face Jamie and the things Jamie wanted to discuss. The curtain had been rung down on the barn business, he’d assert, and this was a new term, new slate, and here was Riding, passing his Remove with flying colors, or so he’d shortly be, or had he already? And what about the choir! Hadn’t young Halton sounded fine with the solo? Oh, who existed to haul him from this suffocation, hacking up his lungs every time he lay prone? When he was young, he used to soothe himself to sleep thinking of the pond near Jamie’s house, where he’d dive through the reeds and find creatures in the mud. When his father had taken him to the Rectory the first time, John had thought it a savage sort of Eden. The Bishop had five children, the son close to his own age, barbarians all. Their mother, too, had died, but so long ago that they didn’t remember her. They seemed not to suffer, as if one could get along without a mother. They did frightful things with magnifying glasses and insects. There was a vivisection of a squirrel he still begged God to forgive him for watching. On his first visit, Jamie tried to get him to go bathing, but John refused. Yes, he could swim. No, he wasn’t afraid. He didn’t mind whether the girls were coming or not, nor did he care to see the wild beehive. No thank you was his answer, now and forever.