In fact, he did rather more than think, broaching the matter to Brigadier Cooper when he saw him emerge from Algy’s house one afternoon a week later.
Howarth must have been a shrewd judge of character. The Warrior was surprised but delighted, making no bones at all about his dislike of Carter or, for that matter, his apprehension concerning the appointment of anyone likely to change the style of the school. In fact, his extreme conservatism left David a little doubtful of his choice of patron. ‘We don’t want a Clever Dick prancing about here with God knows how many damn silly modern theories,’ he growled. ‘All I ask of the place is to turn out chaps who can speak up, play up and look anyone straight in the eye. Some of the Governors have been naggin’ poor old Algy for years. “Get the scholarship level up and never mind Kipling’s ‘If,’ “ they kept telling him, but he never took a dam’ bit of notice, bless him. He knew what he was about and kept the flag flying, didn’t he? As to that feller Carter, he’s not the type either. We used to regard chaps like him as oddities in my time here. Called ‘em “Stinks” and they were very small beer then, I assure you. Not saying we haven’t got to watch the science side, mind you, but he’ll do well enough right where he is for my money. Have a crack at it, young feller-me-lad. Why not? What have you got to lose?’
‘My job, sir. I couldn’t serve under Carter. We’d be after one another’s scalps from the word go and no matter who won the school wouldn’t.’
It was a situation the Warrior obviously relished. He said, rubbing his long nose with a nut-brown forefinger, ‘Tell you what you do. Leave the reccy to me. I’ll sniff around and flush something out before the next monthly meeting. Carter’s application is in, and they’re already whittling the first batch down. Nothing definite yet, of course. They’ll leave it all to the last minute, if I know ‘em. Wish to God I’d had a few of ‘em under me in S.A. and Mespot.’
He went off, growling to himself, the traditional Blimp and a Godsend to the cartoonists but still a man to be reckoned with. He had won his V.C. at the Modder River more than a quarter-century ago, and later served four sweltering years in Mesopotamia, Palestine and Salonika when he was recalled from retirement. David had intended asking his advice on approaching Algy if he hadn’t marched off so abruptly. As it was, he decided to delay that until he got some idea of the amount of support he was likely to receive.
He did not see the brigadier again before the end of term but on the first day of the holidays the old chap wrote saying David could be sure of three votes, including his own. Three wasn’t many out of a Governing body of eighteen, but it insured him against ignominy. The brigadier added that the short list was now almost complete, and that it included at least one headmaster, of a school roughly equivalent with Bamfylde. The passing of information, he supposed, was very unethical but Cooper was not a man to worry on that score. It had the effect, however, of preventing David from confiding in Algy. The approach would now have to come from him, as soon as the news leaked that he had applied. In the interval David took Grace off to London to spend the Easter holiday with Beth’s people. It would provide a change for her, Beth’s sisters having daughters about her age. ‘She’ll grow into a boy if I don’t change her diet now and again,’ he told Ellie. It did not occur to him, as the Taunton-Paddington express pulled in, that he had reached a point where he needed a change himself.
2
He had almost outgrown cities and city amusements but he liked to visit the theatre when the opportunity offered and with Grace in good company took himself off to the West End one afternoon to see a matinee at the Globe, in Shaftesbury Avenue. The play did not impress him overmuch and he was emerging into the crowd of teatime shoppers, heading for the Coventry Street Corner House, when he heard his name called and turned to see a smartly dressed woman waving excitedly in his direction. At first he could not be sure and hesitated but then, with pleasurable surprise, he identified her as Julia Darbyshire, who came up very much out of breath, saying, ‘You always were one for stepping out! I saw you in the foyer and almost lost you…’ then stood back, letting her glance run over him as she said, ‘You’re looking well, P.J.! Better than I expected. Wuthering Heights must agree with you. All I really wanted to say was… well… how terribly sorry I was when I heard what happened, and how many times I thought about writing but didn’t. Why? Does one ever know whether letters of that kind are welcome?’
She stopped, looking a little confused, so he came to her rescue, telling her he would have liked to have heard from her, and was pleased to see her looking so pretty and cheerful. She coloured at this, but then smiled and said things had taken a turn for the better. Her husband had died a year ago and it would be hypocrisy to regard that as anything but a mercy. Later she had landed a job as manageress of a fashionable teashop, in Old Bond Street. ‘The pay is a lot better than Bamfylde’s,’ she added, ‘and the waitresses are a nice bunch of kids. I get a free hand running it and every now and again celebrities drop in and that gives me the illusion I’m back in the swim. The wide open spaces were never for me, P.J. I was an idiot to ever imagine they were. As for Arthur, well, to be frank, I was relieved when he died under an operation. Glad for both of us but especially for him. There was absolutely no hope and he was never free from pain. Your loss was very different. I couldn’t get you out of my mind, and you’ve no idea how glad I am to see you looking fit and… well, more or less yourself again. Not surprised, though. You always had plenty of guts.’
‘Don’t let’s stand here,’ he said, embarrassed by her directness. ‘I was popping into Lyons’ for tea. Won’t you join me?’ and she said she would be delighted for it was her day off, and everybody she knew in town was at work. He said, as soon as the Nippy had taken their order, ‘How did you come to hear about it, Mrs Darbyshire? I had no idea you kept in touch with Bamfylde. I always had the impression you were thankful to scrape the mud from your shoes.’
‘Keith Blades wrote. Don’t worry. Just once, and only about you.’ She hesitated a moment. ‘You see, I told him about your part in it. I thought I owed it to both of you, but don’t worry, he’s a very discreet boy. I’m quite sure he’s never mentioned it to anyone and probably won’t until he finds a nice girl, marries her, and lays his murky past on the table, the way men do once they’ve sown their wild oats.’
He had always respected her for her courage and integrity but now he found himself enjoying her company, partly as a fellow traveller but also as a smart and attractive woman, who had faced her troubles and side-stepped self-pity. Everything about her indicated a cheerful ability to get up and try again, and again after that if need be. She had taken great pains with her appearance, and although he knew she was the same age as himself she could have passed for a woman in her early twenties. She had what he thought of as “the West End look,” and her forthrightness was much at odds with the Julia Darbyshire he had confronted in that shabby little sitting-room above the quad. He could see now how entirely possible it was that an imaginative boy like Blades had persuaded himself that he was madly in love with her. She had charm and high spirits, as well as good looks, but more than enough femininity to captivate an adolescent romantic, especially one isolated in a male community. Algy, he thought, should have had more sense than select her, even as a stop-gap. There was magnetism here, and promise too. It was a wonder there hadn’t been a dozen boys mooning after her during her brief spell as Second Form mistress.
He told her the facts of the accident, then how he had succeeded in adjusting to it, partly on account of Grace’s survival, partly because of the stimulus and comradeship offered by the staff and boys. He told her how the boys competed to spoil the kid, how Winterbourne was teaching her to paint, and Hoskins to dance. ‘It seemed to me I owed it to everybody to make the effort,’ he admitted. ‘It was like being at the receiving end of trench comradeship, with everyone in the unit reaching back to give you a hand. Does that sound fanciful?’
‘Not from you it doesn’t. I don’t suppos
e I’m telling you anything you don’t know when I say you’re so right for that place. It wouldn’t surprise me, thirty years from now, to hear you had spent your entire life down there, and enjoyed every moment of it, even your feud with Carter.’
Her mention of Carter reminded him of their present rivalry and he was surprised to note how even the remote possibility of him replacing Herries excited her. ‘Why, that’s perfectly splendid, P.J.! I can’t think of anyone who would make a better job of it and the boys will be rooting for you. Is it likely? I mean, you’re very young for the job, aren’t you? Or they’ll think so, won’t they?’
‘I’m only a few years younger than Carter,’ he said, ‘and he’s applying. He’s down there right now, canvassing like mad if I know him.’
‘Oh, they’ll never give it to him,’ she said, so emphatically that he felt encouraged. ‘If it isn’t you it will be a stranger, someone in his late forties, you see if it isn’t. Would you be terribly disappointed?’
‘No,’ he said, ‘as a matter of fact I think I’d be relieved, providing he was the right chap, of course, and didn’t play merry hell with Algy’s legacy. It’s a very special kind of school, Mrs Darbyshire. It’s difficult to say why or how, but it is, you know. It’s got so many of the good things about the old-style public school, a kind of steadiness, continuity, and a touch of genuine idealism, but it also has – how the devil can I put it? – post-war optimism, and a broadening of outlook that’s been achieved in all kinds of ways since people got the war into perspective. Put it this way, it’s a kind of launching platform for kids moving out into a world that’s still doing precisely what you and I have been doing this last year or so.’
‘And what’s that?’ she asked, smiling.
‘Licking our wounds, and preparing for another go. That’s Algy’s doing, of course. He’s a bit of a genius really, especially when you consider he was born at a time when they were still hanging people in public and schools like Bamfylde were a cross between a gaol and a four-ale bar! We’ll all miss him but we’ll survive, given half a chance. Mind you, the setting has something to do with it. It’s so… so permanent, so English if you like. But the best of England.’
He broke off, laughing at his own enthusiasm, but she said, ‘Go on, P.J.’
‘Well, Algy and the surrounding countryside complement one another. There’s Exmoor, looking just as it did when your tribe and mine were wearing skins and painting themselves blue, and there’s the grab-your-girl-grab-your-cash world outside. And smack in the middle, like an adjudicator, is old Algy, doing a weighing-out act to make sure one doesn’t swamp the other.’
‘That’s a pocket sermon,’ she said, ‘with the smack of the Welsh about it, but then…’ and she stopped, smiling.
‘Well?’
‘I was only going to say that every time you get enthusiastic about anything, I remember you’re a Taffy who has decided to throw in his lot with the English. Do you ever regret doing it?’
‘No,’ he said, chuckling. ‘The English have got their points. An ability to organise is one of ‘em that we lack. The truth is I had my faith in the future handed back to me at Bamfylde. The place saved my sanity, so naturally I’m prejudiced.’
She said, with conviction, ‘You’re one of the sanest people I’ve ever met, P.J. You’d have steadied up somewhere but I see what you mean, nevertheless. Well, here’s hoping those Governors see it too, and give you the chance you deserve. Why don’t we drink to that somewhere? I might be the very first to wet the new headmaster’s head.’
They went out and she piloted him expertly through crowded side streets to a pub she knew, where they drank three gins and he listened to her for a change.
After leaving Bamfylde, she had gone to Southampton, taking an office job in a solicitor’s to be near her husband. After his death she had been lucky enough to land the managerial job at the Old Bond Street teashop. It was an American firm, and paid above average for good executives. The owner, who spent half his time over here, was a genial middle-aged New Jerseyman called Sprockman – ‘Hiram Ulysses Sprockman, believe it or not,’ she told him, ‘and a real sweetie, in a ponderous, teddy-bear way. He takes me out to dinner sometimes, and even asks my advice on buying pictures and Regency furniture. He’s a terrific Anglophile, all set on becoming a New England squire when he’s tired of making money, but that won’t be until he’s in his dotage if I’m any judge. Once Arthur’s estate was cleared I could afford a flat to myself in Camden Town. It’s very handy and I’ve furnished it myself with pieces my mother-in-law left me.’ She paused a moment. ‘Look, why not come back and let me cook dinner for you? I’m far better at cooking than teaching.’
‘Let me buy you dinner in Soho,’ he suggested, but she shook her head. ‘Not on your life, P.J. Their menus look appetising but I’ve seen the inside of some of their kitchens and prefer to poison myself. Are they expecting you back early?’
‘No,’ he said, excited at the prospect of being entertained by her. ‘Grace is sleeping out at her aunt’s tonight and I said I’d be late back. I thought about taking in another show. The Aldwych, perhaps.’
‘Nothing worth seeing,’ she said, ‘and I’ve had a look at most of them. Come back to my place and let me cook you something. Time somebody fussed you a bit. The way your wife did when you’d been fussing over those boys all day. Or is that taking things too much for granted, P.J.?’
‘Don’t you believe it. I can’t think of a better way of rounding off a very pleasant reunion.’
She was better than her word. It was a long time since anyone had pampered him and she prepared a very appetising meal, carrying on a conversation with him through the door of the kitchen while he sat before the fire. She was much more relaxed in a house, reminding him more of Beth coping with the unpredictabilities of the cottage stove, but there was nothing of that kind here. Someone, Julia or her parents-in-law, had excellent taste. All the furniture was antique and well-cared for, each individual piece being the work of an eighteenth- or early nineteenth-century craftsman. There were one or two valuable paintings, among them a Chrome, and a display of Rockingham china in a china cabinet. The neighbourhood outside was rackety but the flat was in a cul-de-sac, backed by a high wall beyond which, she said, was a market, unused at this time of day.
After the meal he helped her wash up and she brought coffee into the big living-room, where he felt so relaxed that he had no inclination to leave and make his way via tube to Charing Cross. Here, on her own ground, she was very easy to talk to and when dusk fell outside, with an accompanying drizzle, she drew the curtains and came and sat beside him on the sofa, kicking off her shoes and shooting her legs towards the fire so that once again he had a sense of renewal, as if they had known one another intimately, had been separated for a long time, and met again under congenial circumstances.
He said, after praising her cooking, ‘This is the most enjoyable afternoon and evening I’ve spent since it fell on me, Julia,’ and as he said it he became sharply aware of her nearness and her easy-going approach to him ever since her initial hail encouraged him to take her hand. He would have thought he had outgrown his early shyness with women but he had not, or not entirely. When she turned her head he felt as young and inexperienced as young Blades must have done, and then, as though to explain away his impulsive gesture, he said, ‘I haven’t touched a woman since it happened… was hardly aware of them again until lately.’
‘And now?’
‘Now? I’d be a prize-hypocrite if I said I didn’t want to kiss you, Julia.’
She said, evenly, ‘I’d be a worse hypocrite if I didn’t admit I was rather hoping you would,’ and took the initiative by kissing him, gently but assertively, as though she was experimenting, and he was encouraged to take her in his arms and kiss her properly, not as he recalled kissing Beth, on that last occasion he had held her in his arras the night after Winterbourne went missing, but as they had kissed in the earliest days of their association.
He was not disposed to let her go then and there was no occasion to, for she seemed content to stay with her head on his shoulder, looking into the shifting coals. They sat like that for what seemed to him a long time before she said, ‘Two years, David. It’s a long time, for a man as lively and imaginative as you. Beth was a very affectionate girl, wasn’t she?’
‘Very,’ he told her, ‘from the very beginning. It’s not that I haven’t begun to think of women again, particularly in the last few weeks. Sometimes I had half a mind to go out and look for one. But with me… well, it sounds damnably stuffy, but there has to be a personal relationship of some kind. The fact is, I had very little experience with women before I married and it wasn’t wholly on account of the war. Somehow a casual relationship, after Beth died that is, would have seemed… well… too damned clinical for my taste.’ He had to laugh at himself then, adding, ‘By God, I sound as pious as Skidmore, the parson’s son, telling me why he wouldn’t make the new boys’ bow to Founder’s statue in the quad.’
He wondered if she would remember Skidmore but she made no comment and seemed, in fact, to be pondering memories of her own. Presently she said, ‘Listen, David, I’m going to take a big risk. Big, because I’ve got a hell of a lot of respect for you, and I wouldn’t care to have you leave here with the wrong impression. If you hadn’t said what you said just now it wouldn’t have occurred to me but here it is, without a lot of fancy talk. You’re very welcome to stay the night if it would help. I wasn’t in love with Arthur, not in the way you and your wife were in love. I didn’t have time to discover whether or not we would have made a go of it after the war. Frankly I doubt it. I was very young then, and as full of silly ideas about love and marriage as most girls growing up with a war on. When we married, Arthur was very much the extrovert, keen on games, and making a good impression on people who didn’t matter. When he did come back he wasn’t anything at all. Just a hulk, and that was that, for both of us.’
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