Summer Half: A Virago Modern Classic (VMC)

by Angela Thirkell

  ‘Mr Keith,’ said Rose, turning her large eyes on the new master, ‘what sort of a car have you got?’

  Mr Smith quickly said grace. Colin wasn’t quite sure if a question asked in so irreligious a way had, as it were, any status, and tried to pretend he hadn’t heard.

  ‘Because I adore cars – I am sorry, Mr Smith, if I interrupted – and I’d adore it if you took me out one day,’ said Rose.

  ‘I’m afraid I haven’t got one,’ said Colin.

  ‘Oh, Mr Keith! But why? Philip has a marvellous sports car, but she’s getting a bit old. He has had her seven months. Philip, why don’t you sell your sports car to Mr Keith and get a new one? I’ll teach you to drive, Mr Keith.’

  At the thought of Rose teaching Keith to drive, Philip turned quite black inwardly.

  ‘We went over to Barchester last Saturday, sir,’ said Swan, addressing himself to the headmaster. ‘Mr Carter lent us his car and we had a splendid time. They showed us a lot of old fourteenth-century deeds in the chapter house.’

  ‘We nearly had a crash at the lower bridge,’ said Morland, taking up the tale. ‘A huge lorry came prancing out of the railway yard at us, but Mr Keith nipped round it like anything.’

  ‘I thought you said it was Mr Carter’s car,’ said Mr Birkett.

  ‘Yes, sir, but he lent it to us. Mr Keith drove, and he told us an awful lot about the old manuscripts.’

  The black wave of jealousy in Philip subsided. If Keith could nip round lorries like that, he would not need instruction from Rose. Swan and Morland hit each other under the table as a sign that they had scored one against Rose, for whom they had the deepest contempt, though outwardly their manners were perfect. That would teach her to try and show Mr Keith how to drive.

  ‘You do drive, Mr Keith? Then why don’t you buy Philip’s old car?’ said Rose, with the pertinacity of the foolish. ‘She’s got one or two tricks, but I’d come out with you and show you how she works. You can easily get seventy out of her if you know how.’

  ‘What do you say, Winter? Are you thinking of selling?’ asked Colin, rather bored, and vaguely hoping to draw his colleague.

  ‘No,’ said Philip, rather curtly.

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Colin cheerfully, ‘because I wasn’t thinking of buying. A car would be rather an extravagance as far as I am concerned.’

  Philip flamed again into inward heat. It would have been intolerable if Keith had wanted to buy his car and take advantage of Rose’s offers, and yet somehow it was equally intolerable that he shouldn’t want to buy it. As if the Blue Sports Car, though seven months old and perhaps hardly worthy of Rose, were not good enough for an upstart temporary assistant master. The thought of the Mixed Fifth surged up inside him once more. Rose, so sweet, so unsuspecting, must be saved from this interloping scoundrel. He turned to Rose to protect her, but she was deeply engaged with the Chaplain, discussing Shakespeare, about whom she said she was potty. Philip, looking round in irritation, caught sight of Swan and glared at him. Swan deliberately took his spectacle case out of his pocket, his spectacles out of their case, polished the lenses and put the spectacles on. He then, for a fleeting moment, looked at Philip. If his housemaster had been there he would at once have recognised what Philip meant when he accused Swan of looking at him through his spectacles, and taken steps to put Swan into a less truculent frame of mind, but Philip was, and knew himself to be, powerless against this monstrous regiment.

  ‘Do you need your glasses at meal-times, Swan?’ he asked, in a voice whose brittle calm might deceive masters but never could deceive a boy.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Swan mournfully. ‘The oculist said to use them for close work, but to put them on if my eyes got tired. I think,’ he continued, addressing his headmaster, ‘it’s the top light, sir.’

  He indicated the hanging light above the dining-table, an Edwardian arrangement in art nouveau brasswork with a red silk fringe, which Mrs Birkett had not yet had the courage to petition the Governors about.

  ‘Amy,’ shouted Mr Birkett to his wife, ‘that light has been put up again. The light gets in everyone’s eyes. Tony, pull the thing down a bit.’

  ‘Pardon me, sir,’ said Simnet, and with great dignity pulled the light down three-quarters of an inch.

  ‘That’s better,’ said Mr Birkett. ‘But quite right, Swan, to wear your glasses. Bad light is at the bottom of half the eye strain we hear so much about, and a light hanging from the ceiling is an abomination. I shall mention it to the Governors and ask if we can’t have it changed.’

  ‘Do, dear,’ said his wife.

  ‘Sir,’ said Morland, who knew that Mr Winter was inexplicably irritated by his friend’s very modern spectacles, ‘don’t you think Eric’s glasses are a good idea? Show them to Mr Birkett, Eric.’

  Swan took off his glasses and handed them to the Head, who examined them with interest. They were indeed a peculiar shape, only lately become fashionable, and Swan had persuaded his mother to order them, although they cost ten shillings extra, on the plea that his sight would be irremediably damaged if she didn’t, but really in order to impress his friends and, if possible, provoke the exacerbated attention of his masters.

  ‘You see, sir,’ said Morland, warming to his subject, ‘they are made so that you can look up without having to lift your head, or getting the line of the frame across your line of vision. You can get even bigger ones for tennis, when you have to look up a lot.’

  Mr Birkett pronounced them ingenious and amusing, and asked permission to try them on. Rose then insisted that Philip should wear them. Sooner than disappoint his Rose he unwillingly put them on, only to be greeted with hysterical giggles from Rose, who said he looked exactly like Harold Lloyd. Philip flushed deeply, took them off, and pushed them across the table to Swan, who remarked innocently that Mr Carter had a pair of the big ones for tennis, and one would hardly notice he had them on. He then picked up his glasses, put them on again, and studied with attention Philip’s face from which the red was slowly ebbing.

  Mr Birkett, who had not lived with boys for a quarter of a century for nothing, had rather enjoyed the baiting of his difficult future son-in-law, but the moment had come when, even at Sunday supper, discipline must be maintained.

  ‘You don’t need your spectacles now the light is lowered, Swan,’ he said.

  ‘Very well, sir,’ said Swan. As he put them away he favoured Mr Birkett with a fleeting glance whose extreme candour was almost the equivalent of a wink.

  ‘By the way, Mr Keith,’ said Mrs Birkett, after a discouraging look at her daughter which made that lively creature change from the giggles to the sulks, ‘do you know anything about Northbridge Rectory? I think it’s in your part of the county.’

  ‘It’s our church. I mean we go to Northbridge on Sundays. It’s an awfully nice sort of rather ugly house with a garden to the river, and an island where people camp a little way up-stream.’

  ‘It is to let for the summer holidays, and we are thinking of taking it,’ said Mrs Birkett. ‘Do you know if there are drains, or ghosts, or anything?’

  ‘I never heard of any,’ said Colin. ‘I mean no one goes white in a night, and I know there’s an awfully scientific new cesspool, and they’ve never had typhoid.’

  ‘Oh Mr Keith, do you live near the Rectory?’ said Rose, forgetting the sulks.

  Colin said he did.

  Rose said that was marvellous, and she adored rectories.

  ‘I had a letter from the Rector yesterday,’ continued Mrs Birkett. ‘He said he and his wife were going to Matlock for Whitsun, and suggested that we should use the Rectory, with his servants, just for the weekend, and see if we liked it. It is a very kind thought, and quite a good idea, I think.’

  No one answered for a moment. Colin, not at all anxious, though he liked Mr and Mrs Birkett very much, to spend most of the summer near their daughter, was wishing he had given the Rectory drains a bad character, and wondering if he could quickly invent a ghost, when Rose, who
se thoughts always came to her as inspirations, suddenly screamed, ‘Mummy!’ so loudly that everyone jumped except Swan and Morland, who exchanged pitying shrugs.

  ‘Mummy!’ said Rose again, ‘how marvellous! Oh, do let’s go there for Whitsun, and Philip can come too, and we’ll go on the river with Mr Keith.’

  Mrs Birkett, who had foreseen that they would have to put up with Philip for Whitsun, and thought this would be as good a way as any other, gave a qualified agreement. Philip again hated Colin so much that he nearly stopped loving Rose, till the thought of being in a punt with her made him suddenly feel he couldn’t eat any pudding from pure love.

  The rule for Sunday evenings was that after lingering a little over the Madeira, the party broke up, because Mr Birkett had Monday before him, so when the men came into the drawing-room, it was only to say good night. Rose was loud in her lamentations that Mr Smith and Mr Keith had to go so soon, and clung to Philip’s arm in a heavy and exhausting way.

  ‘Say good night quickly, Rose,’ said her father, impatient at the delay.

  ‘Parting is such sweet sorrow,’ said the Chaplain, looking benignly at Philip and Rose. ‘Good night, good night, everyone.’

  Philip tore himself from Rose, and he and Colin left the house together, Swan and Morland walking sedately behind them. Philip, in black anger at the Whitsuntide treat in store for him, kept a sulky silence that Colin, after one or two attempts, stopped trying to break. So the walk back to Mr Carter’s house was as uncomfortable as a walk need be. When they got in Philip, muttering good night to Mr Carter and ignoring Colin, banged upstairs. Matron, who had just come in from a day with her married sister, the one whose boy was doing so well in the wireless in the merchant service, was outside the lower dormitory and greeted him with what Swan called her Shushing voice.

  ‘Now, Mr Winter, remember my boys when you come up! Every hour’s sleep before twelve is worth two afterwards, you know. But I dare say you are thinking of someone quite different from Our Boys, aren’t you, so we must make allowances. Well, good night, Mr Winter, and happy dreams of Someone.’

  Philip managed to say good night and shut himself into his bedroom with a bang that resounded through the house. Matron, merely observing aloud to herself that Mr Winter had got it badly, went to see if the lower dormitory had woken up; but how badly Mr Winter had got it, she could not guess.

  For a long time Philip lay awake, trying, with very little success, to fight the unreasonable jealousy of Colin that was invading his spirit. Reason told him that Colin was guiltless, and every advance had come from Rose, but to admit this was to admit that Rose was not perfect, and this Philip refused to do. He still loved her so frightfully that her image interfered in every moment of his personal life, making him pause while the lather dried on his face, only to wake a few minutes later to the breakfast bell. Into his work he had not allowed Rose to enter, which was perhaps why he was really happier at work than at any other time, though he would have challenged anyone who told him so.

  After a few words on house affairs, Mr Carter and Colin went to bed. Swan and Morland had gone quietly upstairs in case matron was lying in wait, but she was not visible, so they could whisper on the landing.

  ‘Rose really is the limit,’ said Swan. ‘How Mr Winter can stand for it beats me.’

  ‘He’s quite a decent chap apart from that,’ said Morland, ‘but he’ll be ruined as a master if this goes on.’

  ‘Take off your shoes and we’ll be Bulldog Drummond and Carl Petersen,’ said Swan.

  This excellent advice was accepted. They put their shoes neatly together against the wall and retired to opposite ends of the dim corridor. With a stifled snarl Petersen rushed forward, only to be met by a smashing counterblow from Hugh Drummond. The two closed, and Petersen’s great weight was beginning to tell when the lower dormitory door creaked. Petersen and Drummond hastily picked up their shoes and matron came out.

  ‘We were carrying our shoes up so as not to wake the lower dorm,’ said Morland. ‘Good night, matron.’

  Matron beamed approvingly, and the House was shortly wrapped in a silence which the storm in poor Philip’s heart did not audibly break.

  4

  Friends on the River

  The correspondence between Kate and Mr Merton, which had begun in so humdrum a manner over pyjamas, had rushed at high pressure into more intellectual spheres. That is to say, Mr Merton wrote to Kate about some of the new plays he had been to, while Kate wrote to Mr Merton about her work at the Deanery and what new books she had been reading. Mr Merton felt that Kate was a distinct acquisition to his large circle of pleasant friends, and Kate felt nothing in particular about Mr Merton except how very nice he was. She had also been to town two or three times to look up things in the British Museum for the Dean, and on each occasion had lunched with Mr Merton at a restaurant where he could point out to her all the theatrical people he knew.

  Lydia too had not been idle. A short run of Othello at the Old Vic had caused her to get some of her money out of the Post Office Savings Bank, purchase two dress circle seats for the matinee, and summon Mr Merton to accompany her. As an afterthought she asked her mother whether she might go, choosing the moment when Mrs Keith, already late for an appointment, was getting into the car.

  ‘Why didn’t you ask me before, Lydia?’ said her mother. ‘Saturday? Well, I suppose it’s all right. Are you going with the school?’

  ‘Mother! The Pettinger only takes us to Midsummer Night’s Dream. I’m going with Noel.’

  ‘Noel who, Lydia? I can’t remember all your school friends. Is it Mrs Crawley’s girl?’

  ‘Mother! Noel Merton. He’s awfully keen on Shakespeare.’

  ‘Do you mean Mr Merton?’

  ‘Well, Mr if you like. Can I go, Mother?’

  Mrs Keith looked helplessly at her daughter.

  ‘Really, Lydia, I wish you wouldn’t be so sudden. You hardly know Mr Merton.’

  ‘Of course I do, Mother. And anyway I’m paying for the seats. And can I have some money for my return ticket?’

  ‘Well, if you are paying for the tickets,’ said Mrs Keith, reflecting that White Slavers, whose abundant existence was ever present to her mind, would certainly buy the tickets themselves, and even more certainly not go to the Old Vic, if indeed they had ever heard of it.

  ‘Thanks awfully, Mother,’ said Lydia, an expert at pinning her mother down at the right moment. ‘And can I have the money for the tickets now? It’s ten and five the day return.’

  ‘Can’t you wait till I come back, Lydia? I’m late as it is.’

  ‘Well, I thought if you gave it me now it would save trouble. If you haven’t change a pound will do.’

  Mrs Keith scrabbled in her bag and gave her daughter a pound.

  ‘Thanks awfully, Mother,’ said Lydia. ‘Oh, and could Sanders take me to the station tomorrow? If I bicycle in my new suit I’ll split the skirt from top to bottom.’

  ‘I can’t promise anything,’ said Mrs Keith. ‘Yes, Sanders, go on.’

  ‘Oh Mother!’

  ‘Well, Lydia, I’ll see.’

  Satisfied with her work, Lydia waved goodbye to her mother, exchanged a conspiratorial nod with Sanders, and went back to the essay on Cromwell which the history mistress had rightly condemned, ordering Lydia to re-write it in a more historical spirit.

  Saturday dawned bright and fair. Lydia had the car and went up to town in very good spirits, lunching in the train on chocolates and sausage rolls, which she had thoughtfully provided for herself out of her mother’s pound. In the foyer of the Old Vic she met Mr Merton, who as a student of human nature had put off going away for the weekend till a later train, in order to accept Lydia’s invitation. Othello proceeded on its fatal course. As far as Mr Merton could ascertain, Lydia took a deep breath as the curtain rose and held it in a very alarming way till the interval. People poured out to stretch their cramped limbs and get a little fresh air, but Lydia was apparently turned to stone. Mr Merton th
ought it kinder to let her come out of her trance unassisted, as he had often heard that to rouse the victims of trances too quickly was apt to lead to mental derangement. After two or three minutes she sighed away her long-held breath with a kind of joyful power that made Mr Merton glad that most of the audience had gone out.

  ‘Would you like to walk about a bit?’ he said.

  ‘Oh, all right,’ said Lydia, getting up with such violence that the whole row of seats shook. ‘I say, isn’t Othello wonderful?’

  Mr Merton said it was.

  ‘I feel as if I’d written it myself,’ said Lydia, stumbling into the foyer.

  To this Mr Merton found no reply.

  ‘I mean,’ said Lydia, in a penetrating voice, ‘Shakespeare is so wonderful because he’s like Horace. I mean everything he says seems to have something to do with oneself. For instance, when Iago says to Roderigo, “Drown cats and blind puppies,” it made me think of our cook and the way she doesn’t mind drowning kittens. I couldn’t bear to drown them myself, but she says they don’t feel it if they are young enough, because she was brought up on a farm. I think Shakespeare must have had an extraordinary mind. I mean he has such a wonderful vocabulary. When you think of all the words you have to look up in the glossary, it just shows. But I don’t look up the words as a rule because I think Shakespeare didn’t mean you to. I mean he expected you to know them, and if you didn’t he didn’t mind. I am enjoying myself. I expect the second half will be ghastly. I mean it would have been so easy to make everything all right if anyone had had any sense, but Shakespeare’s people never seem to have had much sense. I suppose it’s partly because of the exits and entrances. I mean they never get their entrance in time to tell anyone what has really happened and then someone kills someone by mistake, and when the person comes to tell them the one they killed was innocent all the time, or someone else in disguise, they only say Othello’s occupation’s gone, or something of the sort. But somehow when it’s Shakespeare it’s all right.’