Mathieson observed that Simblefield was no longer giving tongue, but was, instead, gazing at him with much complacency.
‘Simblefield,’ he said, ‘have you any notion at all of the meaning of this poem?’
‘Oh, sir,’ said Simblefield feebly.
‘Just what is our attitude to nature in our thoughtless youth, Simblefield? You must be well qualified to answer that question.’
There was some laughter of a rather insincere kind. ‘Potty Simblefield,’ said someone.
‘Well, Simblefield? I’m waiting for an answer.’
‘Oh, sir, I don’t know, sir.’
‘Of course you must know. Think, boy. You don’t take much notice of nature, do you?’
‘Oh, yes, sir.’
‘No, you don’t, Simblefield. To you, it’s simply a background for your own personality.’
‘Yes, sir, I see, sir,’ said Simblefield rather too readily.
‘I have grave doubts, Simblefield, as to whether in fact you do see. But some of the others may.’
There was an instant clamour. ‘I understand, sir.’ ‘Only a fool like Simblefield wouldn’t understand.’ ‘Sir, it’s like when you go for a walk, sir, you don’t really notice the trees.’ ‘Sir, why do we have to read Wordsworth, sir?’
‘Quiet!’ said Mr Mathieson with determination. An uneasy hush ensued. ‘Now, that is precisely the way in which Wordsworth did not look at nature.’
‘Wordsworth was a daft fool,’ someone said sotto voce.
Mr Mathieson, after briefly considering tracing this remark to its source, and deciding against it, went on, ‘That is to say that for Wordsworth nature was more than a mere background.’
‘Sir!’
‘Well?’
‘Didn’t Wordsworth nearly have his head cut off in the French Revolution, sir?’
‘He was certainly in France shortly after the Revolution. As I was saying—’
‘Sir, why do they cut people’s heads off in France and hang them in England?’
‘And electrocute them in America, sir?’
‘And shoot them in Russia, sir?’
A further babel arose. ‘They don’t shoot them in Russia, you fool, they cut off their heads with an axe.’ ‘Sir, is it true that when they hang a man his heart goes on beating long after he’s dead?’ ‘Oh, Bagshaw, you idiot.’ ‘Yes, you fool, how could he be dead if his heart was beating?’
Mathieson banged on his desk.
‘If anyone speaks again without permission,’ he said, ‘I shall report him to his housemaster.’
This was at once effective – being, indeed, an infallible specific against any form of disorder. At Castrevenford, to be reported to one’s housemaster was a serious affair.
‘Now,’ said Mr Mathieson, ‘let us return to the subject in hand. What, Simblefield, do you suppose Wordsworth to mean by “the still, sad music of humanity”?’
‘Oh, sir.’ Simblefield was clearly dismayed at this further demand on his meagre intellectual resources. ‘Well, sir, I think it means…Look here, sir, suppose a mountain, or a bird, or something…’
Luckily for Simblefield, whose ability to camouflage his ignorance was held in well-justified contempt by the rest of the form, he was not required to finish; for it was at this moment that the headmaster entered the room.
The boys got hastily to their feet, amid a scraping of desks and banging of chairs. It was rare for the headmaster to visit a form room during school hours, and their curiosity was tempered by an apprehensive mental inventory of recent misdeeds.
‘Sit down, gentlemen,’ the headmaster remarked benignly. ‘Mr Mathieson, can you spare me a minute or two?’
‘Of course, headmaster,’ said Mathieson; and to the boys, ‘Go on reading until I come back.’
The two men went out into the corridor. It was bare, echoing, with uneven wooden boards; and owing to the fact that the teaching block had not been designed for its present purpose, being actually a converted lunatic asylum (a circumstance which regularly provoked a good deal of mediocre wit), the light was insufficient. At present, however, the corridor had the merit of being comparatively cool.
‘Aequam memento rebus in arduis servare mentem,’ said Mr Hargrave in the adjacent room, ‘does not mean, “Remember to keep a month’s water for the hard roads”, and only a blockhead like you, Hewitt, would credit Horace with making such an asinine remark.’
The headmaster said, ‘How did the rehearsal go last night, Mathieson?’
‘Oh…well enough, headmaster. I think we shall get a reasonable performance.’
‘No troubles or hold-ups of any kind?’
‘No. I don’t think so.’
‘Ah.’ The headmaster appeared to be listening to the sounds which emanated from the Modern Lower Fifth – abrupt crescendos of chatter alternating antiphonally with panic-stricken outbursts of shushing. He applied his forefinger judicially to the centre of his lower lip.
‘This girl who’s playing the part of Katherine,’ he resumed. ‘How does she strike you?’
‘She acts well,’ said Mathieson.
‘But apart from that – as a personality.’
Mathieson hesitated before replying. ‘To be frank, headmaster, she seems to be rather a sexy young creature.’
‘Yes, I’m glad to have you confirm that. The situation is that she arrived home from last night’s rehearsal in a state of considerable agitation, and we can’t find out what upset her.’
‘She was perfectly all right during the rehearsal,’ said Mathieson. ‘Almost too lively, in fact.’
‘Yes. Well, I’m pleased to hear it; it lessens our responsibility to some extent…Do you know if she has – ah – designs on any particular boy?’
‘I may be quite wrong, but I rather thought that Williams…’
‘Williams? Which Williams? There are dozens.’
‘J. H., headmaster. In the Modern Sixth. He’s playing Henry.’
‘Oh, yes, of course. I think I’d better have a word with him…By the way, your dress rehearsal’s this evening, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I’ll try and look in,’ said the headmaster, ‘if I can find the time.’
So Mathieson returned to the task of instilling Wordsworthian metaphysics into the barren intellects of the Modern Lower Fifth, and the headmaster made his way to the porter’s office, where he left instructions that J. H. Williams was to be summoned to his study immediately after morning school.
When Wells, the porter, entered the Modem Sixth room ten minutes before the end of the last period, he found Mr Etherege expounding the technics of demonology and black magic.
Wells was not greatly surprised at this. Mr Etherege was one of those leavening eccentrics who are sometimes to be found at a large public school, and he had been at Castrevenford for so long that he now legislated for himself, both as to what he taught and as to how he taught it. He had a fancy for the esoteric and remote, and among his more recent obsessions were yoga, Notker Balbulus, an obscure eighteenth-century poet named Samuel Smitherson, the lost island of Atlantis and the artistic significance of the blues. No boy passed through his hands without acquiring some knowledge of whatever obscure and useless subject happened to interest him at the moment.
The framers of education acts have little use for such dominies as Mr Etherege; but in this, as in so many other things, they are grossly impercipient. The fact is that every large school requires an advocatus diaboli – and at Castrevenford Mr Etherege occupied this important post. He was flagrantly lacking in public spirit. He never attended important matches. He was not interested in the spiritual welfare of his boys. He lacked respect for the school as an institution. In short, he was impenitently an individualist. And if, at first sight, these characteristics do not appear particularly commendable, you must remember their context. In a school like Castrevenford a good deal of emphasis is necessarily laid on public spirit, and the thing is liable to develop, if unregulated, into a
rather dreary fetish. Mr Etherege helped to keep this peril at bay, and consequently the headmaster valued him as much as his more sternly dutiful colleagues. His divagations from the approved syllabus were the price that had to be paid, and its evils had in any case been minimized by the removal from his timetables of all work for important examinations.
Cautiously skirting the mirific sign of the pentagram which was chalked on the floor, Wells delivered the headmaster’s message to Mr Etherege, who passed it on, embroidered with pessimistic conjecture, to J. H. Williams. Wells departed, and Mr Etherege commented briskly on the Grand Grimoire until an electric bell, shrilling violently throughout the building, indicated that morning school was over; at this he uttered a cantrip, designed, as he said, to protect J. H. Williams from bodily harm during his interview with the headmaster, and dismissed the class. Williams – a dark, clever, good-looking boy of sixteen – at once made his way through a jostling, clamorous, rout of his contemporaries to the headmaster’s study, his vague apprehensions unallayed by Mr Etherege’s promise of supernatural protection.
He found the headmaster gazing out of his window, with his hands clasped behind his back.
‘Williams,’ said the headmaster without preliminary, ‘you must not make assignations with young women.’
A moment’s reflection had persuaded him that this was the likeliest gambit for their interview. He knew that Williams was a candid and sensible boy, who would deny such an accusation only if it were untrue.
Williams went red in the face. ‘No, sir,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, sir.’
‘Be more accurate, Williams,’ the headmaster admonished him mildly. ‘If, at your age, you’re sorry that you arranged to meet an attractive girl, then you ought to be examined by a doctor…The phrase you should use in such circumstances is: “I apologize”.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Williams agreed, rather helplessly.
‘And where exactly was this rendezvous?’
‘In the science building, sir.’
‘Ah. I take it, then, that the arrangement was made during last evening’s rehearsal?’
‘Yes, sir. The rehearsal ended at nine forty-five. So there was a quarter of an hour to spare before I needed to be back at my house.’
The headmaster made a mental note that this gap must not be allowed to occur next year.
‘This appointment,’ he said, ‘was it made on your own initiative?’
‘Well, sir’ – Williams risked an apologetic grin – ‘one might say it was a cooperative effort.’
‘Indeed.’ The headmaster considered for a moment. ‘Have you any excuses to make?’
‘Well, sir, I don’t know if you’ve actually seen Brenda, sir—’
The headmaster interrupted him. ‘Yes, that’s obviously the only justification you could offer: Vénus tout entière à son Williams attachée. Being in the Modem Sixth, you should know your Racine.’
‘It’s only natural at my age, sir,’ Williams murmured hopefully, ‘as you said yourself.’
‘Did I?’ said the headmaster. ‘That was indiscreet of me. But if we all gave way to our natural impulses as and when we felt like it, we should soon be back at the Stone Age…What exactly happened during your meeting with this young woman?’
Williams looked surprised. ‘Nothing, sir. I wasn’t able to turn up.’
‘What?’ the headmaster exclaimed.
‘Mr Pargiton caught me, sir, just as I was leaving the hall. As you know, sir, we’re supposed to go back to our houses immediately the rehearsal’s over, even if it finishes early…And of course, I was heading at the time in the opposite direction to Hogg’s. Mr Pargiton’ – Williams’ tone betrayed considerable resentment – ‘took me back and handed me over to Mr Fry.’
The headmaster reflected that Pargiton’s officiousness, which was normally rather tiresome, had its uses after all.
‘And you’re prepared to swear,’ he said, ‘that after the rehearsal you never set eyes on the girl?’
‘Yes, sir. That’s the truth.’
The headmaster sat down abruptly in the swivel chair behind his desk. ‘As I said before, you must not make assignations with young women.’
‘No, sir.’
‘Nor must you, on leaving this room, go round complaining about obscurantist repression of wholesome desires.’
‘No, sir, I shouldn’t dream—’
‘Your mind, Williams, is probably full of half-baked Freudian dogma.’
‘Well, actually, sir—’
‘Forget it. God forbid that you should be permanently celibate. But the term lasts only twelve weeks, and if you can’t abstain from the opposite sex for that length of time without suffering psychological damage, then your brain is an altogether feebler instrument than I’ve hitherto believed.’
Williams said nothing; his logic was incapable for the moment of contending with all this.
‘And in conclusion,’ the headmaster remarked, ‘kindly remember that there will be hell to pay if you attempt to meet this girl again…Now go away.’
And Williams took himself off, mightily pleased both at the efficacy of Mr Etherege’s spell and at the headmaster’s directness and good sense. He did not suspect that the headmaster’s directness and good sense had been carefully calculated so as to appeal to his own youthful mixture of idealism and cynicism. The headmaster had had considerable practice in getting the results he wanted.
Perceiving that Pargiton lingered in front of the teaching block, the headmaster sought, and found, confirmation of Williams’ narrative. He then telephoned to the High School and gave Miss Parry a concise summary of what he had learned.
‘I see,’ she said. ‘In that case, I’ll return to the attack. How long could Brenda have waited in the science building?’
‘Until about half past ten, I suppose, when Wells locks it up for the night.’
‘Good. Thank you very much.’
‘By the way,’ the headmaster added, ‘you might let me know what results you get.’
‘Of course,’ said Miss Parry. ‘I’ll telephone you later on.’
‘Later on’ proved to be about ten minutes before the beginning of afternoon school.
‘Look here,’ said Miss Parry, ‘are you quite certain that boy is telling the truth?’
‘I’m positive,’ the headmaster replied. ‘Why?’
‘Brenda denies that she ever went anywhere near the science building.’
‘Oh, Lord…Well, mightn’t that simply mean she was leading Williams up the garden path?’
‘It may. I don’t know.’
‘Does she deny having arranged to meet Williams?’
‘No. She wanted to at first, but I think that was only to protect the boy. She maintains that she thought better of it, and went home instead.’
‘I see…No other information?’
‘Nothing. The girl’s as obstinate as a donkey…There’s only one thing I’m sure of.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Something,’ said Miss Parry, ‘has nearly frightened her out of her mind.’
3
Thieves Break in and Steal
The site of Castrevenford School is a substantial rectangle, bounded on the west by the river Castreven and on the east by a main road. Elsewhere the line of demarcation is vaguer: northwards the playing fields peter out indeterminately into farming land, while to the south there is a confusing huddle of school buildings adjacent to a disorganized cluster of houses named Snagshill, which is a suburb both of Castrevenford and – more definitely – of the school itself. The main teaching block – a large but comfortless eighteenth-century erection of red brick, ivy-covered and a kind of game reservation for mice – stands isolated on the western boundary, with a clock tower, roofed by well-oxidized copper, surmounting it. From it, a gentle slope, planted with elms and beeches and riddled with rabbit warrens, runs down to the river bank. Here the school boathouse is situated, and a substantial landing stage. Across the river there are fields, woods
, a distant grange; and beyond them can be seen the towers and spires of Castrevenford town, three miles upstream.
The boarding houses are seven in number, scattered irregularly about the circumference of the site. At the north-eastern angle is the chapel, an uncommonly hideous relic of late Victorian times, put up with such parsimony and haste that the authorities go in hourly fear of its subsidence or total collapse. The school gates open on the main road. A long drive runs from them, through an avenue of oaks, to the teaching block – which may be most conveniently referred to by its tide of Hubbard’s Building. Near the gates is the hall, severely box-like and utilitarian. The science building, the scout hut, the armoury and the library are grouped together on the south side near Davenant’s, which is the largest of the boarding houses. In it the headmaster’s study is situated, since his private house is half a mile away from the site.
The rest of the area is occupied by playing fields, squash and fives courts, the gymnasium, the swimming pool, the tuck shop, and the carpenter’s workshop. It is provided with a complex tracery of asphalt paths designed specifically, in the view of the boys, to make them walk the maximum possible distance between their houses and Hubbard’s Building.
It was this scene – or at all events a part of it – that the headmaster contemplated as he stood at his study window, meditating the problem of Brenda Boyce. At five minutes to two the school bell began tolling, and the headmaster, finding his conjectures profitless, fell to considering whether, in spite of the more conservative members of the staff, its wretched clangour should not be permanently silenced. The thing was intended, of course, to encourage punctuality; but it had not been used during the war, and the resumption of its daily tintinnabulation had resulted in no appreciable decrease in the steady minority of latecomers. There were too many bells at Castrevenford altogether. There were the clock chimes, which sounded the hours, halves and quarters with peevish insistence; the bells in the science building; the electric bell which marked the beginning and end of each lesson; the handbells in the houses; the chapel bell, which had obviously suffered some radical mishap during its casting…
Love Lies Bleeding Page 2