Miss Hampton and Miss Bent were delighted with their new neighbour, the one hoping to pick his brains, the other to improve his political outlook, and offered to negotiate with Mrs. Dingle, to which end they kept Maria’s key.
‘Good-bye,’ said Miss Hampton, as they all left the agent’s office. ‘Bring your wife in for a drink any time. She doesn’t wear trousers, does she?’
‘Trousers?’ said Mr. Bissell, who could hardly believe his ears.
‘That’s all right,’ said Miss Hampton. ‘Can’t abide those women who go about in slacks trying to look like men.’
‘I suppose you mean Mrs. and Miss Phelps,’ said Philip.
‘I do,’ said Miss Hampton, ‘and how Admiral Phelps can stand it I don’t know. Women don’t need trousers to drive motor ambulances, and the South-bridge ambulance is only the baker’s van, 1936 Ford. Drove an ambulance all over the North of France myself in the War and never once thought of trousers. Good-bye. I must take Bent home. We’ll hardly have time for a drink before lunch.’
So saying she took a firm grasp of Smigly-Rydz’s lead and walked away with Miss Bent. Philip, seeing the grocer’s motor van passing, hailed it, asked if it was going up to the school, and within three minutes had landed himself and Mr. Bissell at Mr. Birkett’s back door.
‘We had given you up, Mr. Bissell,’ said Mrs. Birkett placidly, ‘but luckily it’s a Monday-ish sort of lunch. You’ll stay, Philip, won’t you?’
‘Many thanks,’ said Philip, ‘but I must get back to the Carters, so I’ll say good-bye. Good-bye, Bissell, and good luck with Maria Cottage.’
Mr. Birkett took him to the front door.
‘You’ll be seeing me here on and off when I get leave,’ said Philip. ‘My love to Geraldine, though I know it’s wasted. If I turned up as a casualty with one leg and half my head blown away she would take far more interest.’
‘Do you remember Featherstonhaugh?’ said Mr. Birkett irrelevantly.
‘The Captain of Rowing in ’37?’ said Philip. ‘He went into the Nigerian Police, didn’t he?’
‘Yes. And he was coming home on leave and was in the Lancashire when she was torpedoed. He wasn’t among the rescued. That’s the beginning, Philip. Good-bye.’
Mr. Birkett went back to lunch and Philip ran across to the Carters, who had also given him up for lost and welcomed him with rejoicing. Everard’s joy that Mr. Bissell was not to live with him was unfeigned, and though Kate visibly regretted the housewifely turmoil that their coming would have meant, she was so fond of her husband that she bore it very well. The talk all through lunch was of school shop, in which the two men were still deeply engaged when the front door bell rang.
‘That must be young Holinshed,’ said Everard.
‘I remember giving young Holinshed C minus in his General Knowledge paper three years ago,’ said Philip, ‘and never did boy more deserve it. What does he want?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Everard. ‘He wrote to ask if he could come and see me as he was in trouble, which might mean anything. He’s pretty sure of a mathematical scholarship in December if he sticks to it, and he may be worrying. If you aren’t in a hurry, Philip, come and see him.’
The two masters left the dining-room and went to Everard’s study where young Holinshed was waiting. He shook hands with his housemaster and seeing a stranger in khaki said, ‘How do you do, sir.’
‘I’ll give you C minus again, Holinshed, if you cut me,’ said Philip.
‘Good lord, it’s Mr. Winter,’ said young Holinshed. ‘I am sorry, sir. I didn’t know you were in the army.’
‘Captain Winter, to be accurate,’ said Everard. ‘Anything wrong, Holinshed?’
Young Holinshed went bright red and looked so wretched that Everard and Philip wondered again which of the usual scrapes a boy of seventeen had got into and how long it would take to explain to him that whatever he had done did not mean death and damnation.
‘Would you rather talk to me alone?’ said Everard, and Philip made as if to get up and go.
‘It’s nothing of that sort, sir,’ said Holinshed desperately. ‘It’s this war, sir. I simply can’t get into it.’
At this unexpected confession the two masters’ surprise and relief were so great that they could almost have laughed.
‘Tell us about it,’ said Everard, ‘and I dare say Captain Winter can help a bit. Have you had any lunch?’
Young Holinshed admitted that he hadn’t. Everard, leaving him with Philip, found Kate and put the situation before her. Kate was enchanted to do a little fussing about food, and in an incredibly short time a tray of lunch was brought into the study. Holinshed was told to get on with his lunch and talk at the same time if he could, as Mr. Winter had to get back to Sparrowhill.
‘It’s like this, sir,’ said Holinshed, pitching into his food with an appetite undimmed by mental agony and addressing himself to Everard. ‘I didn’t tell you I tried to get into the navy in Munich week last year and I was awfully sick that they wouldn’t have me, but they made it pretty clear that no outsiders were wanted. Of course I was only a kid then.’
‘Sixteen,’ said Everard to Philip, aside.
‘Well, when they started the same racket over again, I felt I must do something or burst. And I’ve tried everything, sir, and no one will look at me. I’ve got terrific biceps,’ said Holinshed doubling his arm, ‘and I won the Half-mile in the sports and I’ve got my Certificate A in the O.T.C., but I might as well be a humpback for all the notice they take. All I get is “Go away and play,” or “Wait till you’re wanted.” I simply can’t go on being at school, sir. I tried to tell my pater about it, but he said something about my duty to stay on at school, and if anyone says duty to me again I’ll go mad. Both the Fairweathers are serving, and you are in the army, Mr. Winter, and heaps of fellows I know are doing something and if I can’t join in I’ll go mad, sir, I really will. Couldn’t you or Mr. Winter do something for me? I could easily say I was older than I am. I wouldn’t mind being a private a bit.’
As he finished his apologia Holinshed looked so wretched that Philip’s mind suddenly went back to the summer when a boy called Hacker, now at Lazarus, and a certainty for the Craven and the Hertford, had offered him his much-loved chameleon as thanks for coaching before a scholarship exam. Before Philip kindly refused it he had seen in Hacker’s face what he now saw in Holinshed’s, and if he had had a Fairy Godmother’s wand he would have given Holinshed a Colonel’s commission in the Guards at once, sooner than see his misery. But that couldn’t be, and now that his official connection with the School was so slight, perhaps not to be renewed for a long time, perhaps never again, Everard must handle the job. And he had to admit that Everard did it well, for after an hour’s talk, during which young Holinshed had been allowed to interrupt, storm, rage and rebel as much as he liked, he gradually began to see a faint glimmering of reason on the following points:
(a) that the Navy had no use for untrained amateurs;
(b) that he was only seventeen;
(c) that the Army didn’t at present want anyone till he was twenty;
(d) that if he got his scholarship in December, finished his school year, went on to the University and started his engineering course, or even, if circumstances were favourable, finished it, he would be every day and in every way better fitted to kill a great many enemies than he was at present.
‘Thanks most awfully, sir,’ said Holinshed. ‘It’s most awfully good of you to have bothered and I know I’ve been rather an ass. The only thing is, do you think there’ll still be a war by then?’
Everard said he would do his very best to see that a bit was kept back for him and he had better come and see Mrs. Carter and have some tea. Kate was delighted to see a boy in the holidays as the house seemed so empty when they were all away, and young Holinshed, undeterred by a large lunch at two-thirty, ate an enormous tea at four o’clock and much fortified physically and mentally went off again.
‘We’ll have more tro
uble of that sort,’ said Everard. ‘About twenty of the senior boarders here and in the other Houses went quite mad last year in Munich week. Some of them went mad at home, which was very trying for their parents, and some came and did their going mad here, which was fairly trying for me. However they all turned up on the first day of term and we heard no more about it.’
Mr. Bissell was then announced. He had come to say good-bye to Mrs. Carter and thank her for her kind offer of hospitality. Kind Kate assured him that if by any chance Maria Cottage didn’t suit him, or was uncomfortable for the first few days, he and his wife must use the House for meals, baths, or anything they liked. Mr. Bissell, while not quite liking the use of the word ‘bath’ as applied to Mrs. Bissell, was none the less grateful.
‘If you’re going to the station, I’ll run you into Barchester in my car,’ said Philip. ‘It will save you a change, and it’s a pretty drive.’
Mr. Bissell said he didn’t mind. This being rightly interpreted as an expression of great gratitude by the company, good-byes were said, and Mr. Bissell and Philip went to the front door, accompanied by Everard.
‘It’s been a pleasure to meet you, Carter,’ said Mr. Bissell, remembering his manners. ‘I’m sure we shall pull together. The world has deteri’ated of late, and it’s up to we schoolmasters to make it a better place for the boys.’
Everard’s eye met Philip’s with extreme gravity as he said good-bye. With a sudden inspiration he told Mr. Bissell that he reciprocated his sentiments and then went indoors.
‘I am so sorry,’ said Kate when he came back, ‘that the poor Bissells have no children. I wonder why?’
‘I didn’t ask, darling,’ said Everard, ‘but I’m sure you’ll have it out of Mrs. Bissell an hour after you have made her acquaintance.’
CHAPTER VI
THE WORKING PARTY
IN due course the Hosiers’ Boys Foundation School came down to Southbridge, partly in motor coaches, partly in its parents’ cars. Masters and boys were duly installed in their new quarters and got into their routine pretty quickly. By great good luck very few of the masters were married and those that had wives were able to find lodgings for them in the village, or in Barchester. Mr. and Mrs. Bissell took up their residence in Maria Cottage, with the enthusiastic help of Miss Hampton and Miss Bent. Miss Bent it was who showed them the crack in the scullery sink, but it was Miss Hampton who bearded the agent in his office and got it repaired at once, quite out of its turn. Mrs. Birkett helped her husband and the staff with her usual quiet efficiency and in a very short time the two schools had arrived at a working arrangement about the hours for games, the use of the masters’ common room and other vital interests. The masters on both sides were on the whole heroic in concealing their feelings about the things they disliked in each other and it was only when goaded beyond bearing by Mr. Hopkins, the science master of the Hosiers’ Boys who loudly proclaimed himself a Conscientious Objector although he was forty-five and limped, that Everard said to Mr. Birkett he had never quite known what common room meant before.
Everything being in tolerably good order, Mrs. Birkett and Mrs. Morland decided to go over one afternoon to Northbridge and call on the Keiths. They had heard, through Kate, that Mrs. Keith was not quite so well, and felt sorry for Lydia whose ardent spirit would, they knew, have liked to fling itself into uniform or some kind of war job.
Nothing could have been more lovely and more peaceful than the drive to Northbridge, in those early autumn days. The road skirted the river for a few miles, water meadows on one side and the downs on the other. On their lower slopes the stubble was pale gold, while from their grassy heights came the melancholy yet pleasing dissonance of sheep bells. Then, avoiding Barchester and a great loop of the river, the road mounted the downs, ran for a mile between wide stretches of thyme-grown turf where juniper bushes deployed their crooked armies of fantastic men and animals, with an infinitely wide, hazy distance encircling the world, and dropped again to the river. The short lime avenue that led to Northbridge Manor was beginning to turn yellow, and Michaelmas daisies shone in every amethystine colour below it. It seemed quite useless to speak of this peaceful beauty, which needs must make one think of other autumn fields where the earth was red, the trees broken, the harvest ravaged, so neither lady said anything about it.
Mrs. Morland, who was driving her own car, had to park it at some distance from the house, as the little circular sweep before the front door was already occupied by half a dozen cars.
‘Oh, dear,’ said Mrs. Birkett, ‘it must be the Sewing Party to-day. I had forgotten that Mrs. Keith has it on Tuesdays. Well, it can’t be helped. We’ll go straight in.’
As is so often the pleasant custom in the country the outer door of the house was kept open through the warmer months, and all friends were accustomed to turn the handle of the inner glass door and walk straight in. A wide passage ran through the house from front to back, and glass doors open at the farther end showed a vista of a wide gravel walk between grass plots and a magnificent cedar, while on one side creepers were reddening on a brick wall. A sound of confused gabbling on the left showed that the Sewing Party was in full progress. Mrs. Birkett opened the drawing-room door and went in, followed by Mrs. Morland. A dozen ladies or thereabouts were sitting among billows of rather unpleasant-looking flannelette and art woollens, with Mrs. Keith in nominal command, but Mrs. Birkett was uncomfortably struck by the change in her friend since they had last met before Rose’s wedding. There was no doubt that Mrs. Keith was far from well and Mrs. Birkett didn’t like it.
‘I’m afraid we’ve come on the wrong day,’ she said, ‘but this is the first free afternoon I’ve had since term began. You know Laura Morland. She is staying with me for the present.’
Mrs. Keith said she remembered Mrs. Morland’s nice boy that she had brought to tea once so well and how was he.
‘He is very well, thank you,’ said Mrs. Morland, who had also noted Mrs. Keith’s altered appearance and was impelled by nervous sympathy to talk far more than was necessary. ‘At least I suppose he is, but he is staying with hunting friends and doesn’t write. Of course the hunting season has been over for some time, but they may be cubbing, though whether they cub as early as this, I don’t know. It is extraordinary how little one knows about hunting when one doesn’t have hunting friends or take much interest in it and has never ridden.’
She looked rather wildly round her for corroboration.
‘Can you sew?’ said Lydia, suddenly surging up from a group of workers and speaking in a threatening way to Mrs. Morland, while she carelessly snapped a large pair of scissors.
Mrs. Morland said she could.
‘Here’s a pyjama leg, then,’ said Lydia. ‘I’m not much good at sewing myself, but I can cut out, which is more than most people have the sense to do,’ she added with a withering glance at the workers. ‘And if you want a needle and cotton, or pins, or anything, you’ll find one in the basket on the table, unless Mrs. Warbury has taken them all.’
With which words of help Lydia returned to her cutting out.
Mrs. Morland, after greeting several ladies who were known to her, made her way to the basket on the table. The basket was quite full of an empty needle-book, a large pincushion with no pins in it, and two or three dozen reels of cotton of different colours, all with long ends trailing from them and all of these trails hopelessly entangled. There were also half a dozen thimbles, some made for giants with large hands, others for undersized dwarfs. Mrs. Morland, always diffident, stood hovering over the basket, the pyjama leg dangling from her hand.
‘Mrs. Morland, isn’t it,’ said a lady who was sitting in a very comfortable arm-chair sewing, though owing to the size and fatness of the arms of her chair she was pinioned as it were and could only sew by holding her work high in the air.
Mrs. Morland said it was.
‘I am Gloria Warbury,’ said the lady, a dark, ravaged, intense creature. ‘You wouldn’t remember me.’
‘No, I wouldn’t quite,’ said Mrs. Morland, always truthful, ‘Was it somewhere we met?’
Mrs. Warbury laughed in a profound way.
‘Do you remember,’ she said, ‘a cocktail party at Johns and Fairfield?’
Mrs. Morland cast her mind back to several cocktail parties at the house of the well-known publishers with whom, despite their blandishments and her refusal to listen to them, she had always been on excellent terms, and asked if Mrs. Warbury meant the one where everyone was so drunk.
‘You were talking,’ said Mrs. Warbury, ignoring this question, ‘to a man.’
She said the word man in such a way that all conversation ceased and every worker looked up from her sewing.
‘I expect I was,’ said Mrs. Morland, ‘unless it happened to be a woman. Were you there?’
She put this question with such anxious if idiotic interest that Mrs. Warbury, while finding her almost half-witted, could not suspect any malice.
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