Everyone at the table disliked Rose a little more than they had yet done. Lydia glared and took a deep breath, but while she was preparing for the onslaught Swan said carelessly:
‘That would be a pity. If Mr Winter hadn’t started Hacker on his classics he’d never have been top of Mr Lorimer’s form,’ and kicked Morland under the table.
‘And then he’d never have got the scholarship, and Gibbon would have starved,’ said Morland.
‘And Hacker would have had to take a job,’ said Lydia, advancing gladly to the fray. ‘I think classics really matter almost more than anything. I mean look at Horace and that ode of his about the monument being more perennial than brass, or bronze or whatever it was he meant. It may sound like boasting, but after all just look at him. It isn’t everyone that their books last about two thousand years. Of course there’s the Bible, but people have to read that, but with Horace people needn’t read him except at school, but they do, and heaps of him is quotations now. Like Shakespeare and Virgil and Caesar and Cicero and the rest, if people didn’t read them they couldn’t pass exams, and they’d get absolutely nowhere. Are you good at Horace, Mr Winter?’
‘Mr Winter is writing a book about him,’ said Morland.
‘That’s enough, Tony,’ said Philip, embarrassed by his kind young friends, yet amused and a little touched by their and Lydia’s championship of his cause. On hearing this Lydia gave Philip a précis of her views on classical literature, and Noel, always entertained by Lydia, joined the discussion. Matron then looked at her wrist-watch and said she had no idea and she must go at once. Philip had to return to his post, Swan and Hacker had reluctantly to leave the strawberries and cream to take part in the consolation race, and Morland accompanied them, carrying Gibbon in his cage so that he might enjoy the fresh air and see his master run. Lydia and Geraldine went with them.
Rose’s complacency had been shaken by this general defection. She looked round the party in search of entertainment. Kate and Noel were sitting in the deep window seat, looking at the sports and having pleasant conversation. Free as Rose was from any form of sensitiveness or tact, something told her that no third person was needed, and that, rather confusedly, she was the one. Colin, seeing her look low, took pity on her, and asked her to help him to tidy the tea-things away, and put glasses and bottles ready for more guests.
Kate and Noel were enjoying the view from the window. The long shadows from the elms lay peacefully across the playing fields and the sports were nearly over. White flannels, bright and in many cases hideous blazers, women’s party frocks, made a pretty kaleidoscope of colour. The Birketts were conversing indefatigably with parents, known and unknown, with no daughter to help them. Mr Lorimer had raised a respectful cheer by appearing in knickerbockers that buttoned below the knee and a straw boater. The Dean and Mrs Crawley were talking to friends, among whom Noel recognised the Robert Keiths, who must have come over later. The sack race had just been won by a small boy who well deserved it, for he had practised with a pillow-case morning and evening all that term, without being discovered by matron. Matron herself, looking very attractive in her beige lace, was surrounded by a number of old boys, asking and answering twenty questions at once, and proudly introducing to them all her eldest nephew, the one who was her married sister’s son and second wireless operator on an Atlantic liner. The consolation race was the last on the programme, and the audience was already making towards the cricket pavilion, where the Dean was to give the prizes.
Noel looked at the field, and looked at Kate, and thought, not for the first time, how very charming she looked, and how very kind and thoughtful she was. In fact the ideal wife, except that he didn’t want a wife. He had also become aware, as his friendship with Kate had gently flowered, that except on domestic matters and books she seemed to have no conversation. Every time he met her he was struck afresh by her charming manners and unaffected interest in what he was doing, but he never got any further, and sometimes had a suspicion that her obvious interest in him dated from and was entirely nourished by the night she had so thoughtfully provided pyjamas, toothbrush, and other toilet accessories for him. Had he, so he was forced to admit, come to the house as an ordinary visitor with a well-stocked suitcase, it was probable that she would never have given him another thought. But one couldn’t go through life without pyjamas and toothbrushes so that Kate might provide them and, providing them, smile on him. Kate, in fact, was a delightful friend and one in whose house when she married, for marry she must, it would be very pleasant to stay. Noel was ambitious, but marriage was not among his aims. Rather for him the life of the agreeable bachelor, who is always in request as best man, trustee, valued guest, for whom good houses with well-bred host and fellow-guests, excellent food and wine, motors, yachts, will always be waiting. A life that cannot perhaps go on indefinitely, and sometimes Noel thought of Major Pendennis, but by that time he intended to be a wealthy man himself, and in his turn be host. Meanwhile it was pleasant to sit with Kate, and if he wanted to rouse her to animation, he only had to say some of the nice things that he honestly felt about Colin, or remark carelessly that his housekeeper had twice given him burnt toast for breakfast lately.
It was the easier just now to murmur something nice about Colin, because he was being so excellent a host. He had given them a very good tea, and was now nobly sacrificing himself by entertaining that odious little beauty Rose Birkett. Ever since the day when Rose had taken two men’s coats with hardly a thank you, and so heartlessly ignored that red-haired Winter, who was obviously quite devoted to her, Noel had felt it would be amusing to see exactly how far Rose’s selfishness and love of admiration would lead her. Only for this had he allowed himself to be led by the hand to Colin’s party and placed next to the enchantress. To see Philip’s anxiety had made it all more amusing. Noel was not at heart unkind, but any man who let his naked emotion get beyond his control was, in Noel’s view, fair play. If Mr Lorimer had known the havoc that Mr Merton was helping to make with his Junior Classical Master, he would have descended upon Noel, buttoned knickerbockers, straw boater and all, and said exactly what he thought. But Mr Lorimer was arguing with Holinshed’s father, now recovered from the heat, who had seven children, about the impropriety of married clergy, and would never know. Noel idly thought that to flirt a very little with Rose, and tease Winter, was a sport that might be repeated as occasion offered.
Kate, looking kindly at the playing fields, was thinking partly how nice Noel was, but even more whether any of Colin’s socks needed darning, or his shirts new buttons. She had brought a small workcase with her, and was hoping very much that Colin wouldn’t mind her using it. She also wondered if Rose would mind being told that she had a hole in her thin stocking, because a few stitches would put it right again, as it was only the seam.
Just as Colin, with Rose’s very unhelpful assistance, which consisted chiefly in making up her face and breaking a saucer, had got things straight, Philip came back. Rose was so chastened by a little neglect that she greeted him with a relief which he mistook for affection. He looked so tremulously happy at her kindness that Kate quite forgave Rose her bad behaviour at tea, and Noel felt more strongly than ever that Winter was fair play. Rose so far unbent as to sit with Philip in the other window seat, and tell him how sickening school sports were, a statement with which Philip, who had sat for most of the afternoon at the secretary’s table, in the burning sun, with just enough wind to send the scoring papers flying from time to time, heartily agreed.
Kate meanwhile had persuaded Colin to let her look at his wardrobe, and with moans of indignation had extracted two and a half pairs of socks, three shirts, and a waistcoat, all in need of darns or buttons, besides two collars she said he simply could not use again. With these she sat down at one end of the table and became happily absorbed. Colin talked to Noel about Lemon and other subjects, and all was delightful calm, which Philip, poised insecurely in his new-found happiness, felt could not last. Nor was he wrong.
Suddenly Geraldine appeared at the door, round-eyed, showing such symptoms of bringing news, good or bad, that even Rose and the Fairweathers stopped talking to look at her.
‘What do you think?’ said Geraldine, with a vivacity that surprised all who knew her. ‘Hacker has won the Consolation Race!’
No one cared in the least, but some tribute was evidently fitting, so Kate said how very nice that was.
‘He’s just coming,’ said Geraldine, holding the door open for Swan and Morland, who walked in looking extremely depressed, with Hacker between them carrying the chameleon.
‘What do you think?’ said Swan to the assembled company in a hushed, despairing voice. ‘Hacker has won the Consolation Race.’
‘Congratulations,’ said Colin, rather tired of Hacker and his affairs.
‘Sir!’ said Morland reproachfully.
‘Well, what about it?’ said Colin, perplexed.
But before Morland could answer, Everard came in.
‘Sorry I couldn’t get up sooner, Colin,’ he said. ‘I had to do my duty by some parents.’
Colin introduced Everard to Robert and Edith and the Fairweathers, of whom Everard had a vague recollection as good football players in the preparatory school. Hacker slunk into a corner where his young friends moodily watched him, but Geraldine was not going to have Hacker slighted. She poked Lydia and said with unusual self-possession, ‘I say, Hacker has won the Consolation Race!’
‘Jolly good,’ said Lydia approvingly. ‘I bet the chameleon was pleased. I say, Mr Carter,’ she added, in her turn poking Everard, ‘did you know Hacker had won the Consolation Race?’
‘What?’ said Everard, and even Philip emerged from his gloom to say, ‘Good God!’
‘We didn’t mean you to know till afterwards, sir,’ said Swan, in an undertaker’s low but penetrating voice, ‘but she,’ said Swan, with a cold look at Geraldine, ‘gave the whole thing away. We told Hacker again and again, but he’s quite dippy with his exams and must have lost his head.’
‘But Eric came in twentieth, sir,’ said Morland, anxious to restore in some degree the smirched honour of Mr Carter’s house.
‘I never meant to, sir,’ said the wretched Hacker.
‘Well, you have done it,’ said Everard.
‘It’s the worst knock the House has ever had,’ said Philip, forgetting his own troubles in those of the republic. “The Consolation Race”!’
Morland reminded Everard that a boy called Mowbray had once won the Sack Race, but Swan brushed aside such paltering with truth.
‘Mowbray had a temperature and got pneumonia next day,’ he said, ‘so you can’t count it. The whole school will be laughing at us. “Fancy Carter’s winning the Consolation Race!” What made you do it, Hack?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Hacker shamefacedly. ‘I thought it would be something for Gibbon to remember.’
‘If I had done my duty I’d have confiscated that chameleon weeks ago, when you let the bathroom flood,’ said Everard. ‘Well, it might have been worse. As Morland says, we did once win the Sack Race. And we’ve got thirteen out of twenty-four events.’
He turned from the guilty Hacker to talk to Kate.
‘Oh, Philip,’ said Rose loudly from the window seat where she was holding court with the Fairweathers, ‘you don’t mind if we don’t go out next Saturday, do you? They’ve got a racing car and we’re going to the coast to bathe. Your car isn’t much good for long runs, is she?’
The two Fairweathers hoped with one voice that they weren’t butting in. Philip deprecated such an idea.
‘Anyway,’ continued Rose, ‘I don’t see why Hacker shouldn’t win the Consolation Prize. I think, Philip, you are quite sickening about it. I think it’s marvellous of Hacker.’
Hacker burst into a cold sweat of anguish, and hunted vainly for a handkerchief to mop his brow. Kate saw, understood, and thrust one of Colin’s, on to which she had just sewn his name, into Hacker’s clammy hand. Swan and Morland exchanged indignant glances. That Rose had done the dirty on Mr Winter again. Also she had publicly praised Hacker for his deed of shame, and though Hacker had most horribly let the House down by his misplaced exertions, to be pilloried by Rose was a punishment far beyond his deserts.
‘Anyway, I expect Gibbon was jolly pleased,’ said Swan to Morland, loud enough for anyone who was interested to hear.
‘I say, Hack,’ said Morland, in the same slightly artificial voice, ‘we found who it was that put the red frock on your chameleon. It was Swan’s fag.’
‘I whanged him with my bedroom slipper,’ said Swan. ‘And I made him clean my corps uniform for it; buttons, green pipe-clay, belt, boots and everything.’
‘And I got Swan to lend him to me to do mine too,’ said Morland, ‘and that’ll learn him to persecute saurians.’
‘And to give cheek to his betters,’ said Swan.
‘Sir,’ said Morland to Everard, ‘wasn’t there a boy in 1929 who got the Scripture Prize?’
‘There was,’ said Everard. ‘Thanks, Morland, for the kind thought. That was a depth to which Hacker has not descended. Well, Hacker, you won’t do it again here, and I dare say you’ll never be tempted again. Colin, what about drinks?’
While conversation became general, and Robert and Edith were saying goodbye, Philip was again in torment. Damn it, those boys, well-meaning young asses, were being kind to him. He knew perfectly well, though no one else did, unless perhaps Everard, who knew too much about his house, that Swan’s remark about punishing people who gave cheek meant that the senior boys had noticed and resented the impertinence of the boy, or boys, who had put the chameleon in its communist jacket into his desk. They couldn’t openly defend him, or fight duels for him, but they had made it pretty clear that they felt for his position, and were not going to allow anyone else to pester him. And as for their encouraging remarks to Hacker about the race, they were obviously an indirect snub to Rose to comfort Hacker for her ill-judged congratulations. Blast their kindness! Blast himself for wearing his heart on his sleeve so that Fifth Form boys could peck at it. Blast everything! Perhaps it would be better to go to Russia, where things were ordered better, and stay there. Why hadn’t he eloped with Rose as he at first intended? Why had he ever been born? He excused himself to Colin and went away.
Rose now said she must go home. The Fairweathers offered to drive her. Rose said it was only just across the quad, but it would be marvellous if they would, as it was perfectly sickening to have to walk, so with much hearty, meaningless laughter they went downstairs. Geraldine, who had gone back into her shell, said she supposed she had better go over and say goodbye to her parents before going back to school, where she boarded, so Lydia and the three boys said they would accompany her, Kate promising to pick her up in ten minutes at the headmaster’s house. Swan and Morland said goodbye and thanked Colin politely for the feast. Hacker was again stricken dumb, and Swan kindly said for him that his mother had told him to thank Mr
Keith for the nice tea and say how much he had enjoyed himself and he hoped he had behaved well, which caused Hacker to scowl and go crimson. Then a message came from Mrs Crawley to summon Noel to the waiting car, so that Everard was left alone with Colin and Kate.
‘I’ve just finished the mending, Colin,’ said Kate, ‘all except the waistcoat. I didn’t bring any buttons with me. You haven’t got one, have you?’
‘If I had it wouldn’t be off,’ said Colin cryptically. ‘I must take these glasses back to Philip’s room. I borrowed them from him in case we hadn’t enough. Back in a second.’
‘Oh, Mr Carter,’ said Kate, ‘that spare button you asked for off that waistcoat of yours. You haven’t got it, have you? I believe it would be just right for Colin’s waistcoat.’
‘I don’t quite know,’ said Everard, conscious that the button, relic once touched by Kate’s fingers, had since Whitsun lived in a very safe inside pocket by day, and under his pillow by night.
‘I am sorry,’ said Kate, with genuine disappointment. ‘It would just have done. Haven’t you any idea if you kept it?’
‘I might have it about me,’ said Everard in an idiotic way, and feeling inside his waistcoat he produced a small, flat silver box.
Summer Half: A Virago Modern Classic (VMC) Page 15