R. Delderfield & R. F. Delderfield

by To Serve Them All My Days

  ‘You see the supreme wisdom of keeping files,’ Howarth said, savouring his triumph, ‘for I’ve come to believe that chap takes nothing on trust.’ Then, glancing around the common room he added, ‘Not that I blame him altogether when I regard you lot.’

  They conceded Howarth his gibe for by then the Statute of Limitations had crystallised the opposition in a way that no previous act on Alcock’s part had. Yet it proved something of a false dawn for David, who soon found himself in a position of virtual isolation. By the end of the following term wickets were falling fast. Howarth had once again withdrawn into himself, Irvine and Rapper Gibbs had resigned, and Carter had made his move.

  Rapper’s retirement came as no surprise to anyone. He was sixty-four but had let it be known that he was prepared to soldier on indefinitely. He was a widower without children, and Bamfylde had been his life since before Herries’s time. He had no stomach for a man who was not only tone deaf but seemed to regard housemasters as palace spies. For him the Three N’s was the final straw. He gave in his notice and shuffled off to do for himself, and his two Siamese cats, in a cottage adjoining Gatwick’s farm north of the village.

  Surprisingly, Alcock offered Irvine Gibbs’s house, Campbell’s, and even more surprisingly Irvine rejected the offer. Even in Algy’s day Irvine and his attractive wife had been restless, Irvine seeking a more prestigious school, where his talents as a rugby and cricket coach could expect greater scope, and his wife Phyl could look for more sophisticated leisure. Secretly, it seemed, they had gone about their prospecting, and Irvine had finally landed a new post in a well-known Eastbourne prep school.

  David was sorry to see them go. Among them all Irvine was the only man on the staff who had shared his army experiences in a time that sometimes seemed as distant as the Crimea, and both man and wife had been close to Beth. The time was approaching when no boy, and few among the staff, would remember her. Irvine, breaking the news, urged him to join them in a move, but David said, ‘I’ll stick it out a while yet. It can only get better or worse. If it doesn’t improve then I’ll take your advice. Meantime, Carter is still around and since Howarth went back in his shell he and I have been getting along extremely well.’

  Phyl Irvine said, shrewdly, ‘Is it Bamfylde or Beth that keeps you here, Davy?’ and he replied with a smile, that it was a little of both, plus the occasional visits of young men whom he had taught in the Second and Third forms. There was a grain of truth in this. Almost every week one or other of them zoomed up the east drive in a jazzy sports car, or astride a powerful motorcycle. The trio he always thought of as The Reprieved – Cooper, Fosdyke and Scrubbs-Norton, boys who had been in the Sixth when he came here early in 1918, and were saved by the Armistice the following November, were frequent visitors. All doing very well, he noted, for two of them were married, and Cooper was the father of the boy he had visualised that summer day when Algy had surprised him reading the news of the breaching of the Hindenburg Line.

  Another regular visitor was Boyer, who was up at Cambridge and had decided to teach if he got a good degree. Taylor, the Latinist, was making his mark at Oxford, and Dobson I, who once won a history prize by cribbing, had struck oil in an expanding radio firm and appeared at the Whitsuntide reunion driving a Rolls-Royce. Of the others he had come to like, Skidmore, embryo martyr, the two Kassava brothers, Nun Stratton-Forbes, who had brought him news of Beth’s twins, Ruby Bickford, broke and home in disgrace from Brazil, and many others, some put in an occasional appearance, others wrote. Possibly his most regular correspondent (and an unlikely one at that) was Paddy McNaughton, the gunman, who had a tourist office in Dublin, and was assembling material for a documentary film of the Irish troubles. He kept in touch with more than a hundred of them all told, and a very few of the cream, like Spats Winterbourne and Sax Hoskins, were still here, so that he was able to salvage something of the family spirit of happier days, sensing that their loyalty was to him rather than the school. Whether this would survive the departure of the very last of the boys here under Algy he was not sure. Probably not, in which case he might well take Irvine’s advice and make a change.

  A fortnight before Christmas it got around that old Bouncer, the last survivor of the veteran quartet that had included Judy Cordwainer, Rapper Gibbs and Ferguson, had been pressured into resigning, ostensibly, Doc Willoughby told him, on account of deafness, but this was not the real reason. Ever since David could remember Bouncer had been deaf, but he could still teach, and even keep order with his volleys of penal marks. It was rumoured that Alcock had overcome Bouncer’s reluctance to resign by getting at the Governors.

  That left only Howarth, Barnaby and Carter of the originals, and on the final day of term, when everybody’s mind was on Christmas, Carter cut another link, appearing in his quarters while he was helping Grace to pack for their biennial trip to the Valley, and announcing that he had something important to say.

  David left the rest of the packing to Grace and took Carter and the whisky decanter into the study. Carter was buoyed up, he noticed, more like the man he remembered from their feuding days than the jaded housemaster of recent terms. He said, accepting a whisky, ‘Fill your glass, P.J. This might be to us.’

  ‘You’ve decided to go ahead with that prep school idea?’

  ‘All settled,’ said Carter, beaming. ‘Got a phone call from the agent in the lunch hour. Now it’s up to you.’

  ‘Come again?’

  ‘You said you could chip in two thousand, remember? Well that still goes as far as I’m concerned.’

  ‘You mean, it depends on my putting up money and coming in as a partner?’

  ‘Well, no, not exactly. I mean the offer is still open if you want to accept.’ He looked, David thought, slightly embarrassed but then, swallowing half his drink he added ‘I won’t hedge with you P.J. I’ve got all the money I need. As a matter of fact, I can raise two thousand by private loan if you turn me down. I… er… prefer not to disclose the source at this stage. What’s it to be?’

  ‘Let’s get this straight. If I join you, and bring in two thousand, we’re partners. If I don’t, then you can still go ahead by borrowing the amount I should contribute?’

  ‘That’s the picture, old man.’

  ‘Not quite, or not what I would think a fair arrangement, Carter. You told me some time back you would be paying five thousand plus for fabric alone. That would make you the senior partner, wouldn’t it?’

  There was a rather uncomfortable pause. Finally Carter said, carefully, ‘That was my idea when I proposed it, back in the summer. But, as I said then, I think we could work well together, and I wouldn’t lay down any conditions about seniority. Regardless of stake we should start out level pegs.’

  ‘That’s damned generous of you, Carter.’

  ‘No, it isn’t. To my way of thinking it would be the only way to ensure harmony. Well?’

  ‘I couldn’t accept in those circumstances. I don’t doubt your good faith for an instant, but if I came in now it would have to be on the basis of a junior, with a possible option to buy equality later, if and when I could afford it.’

  ‘And that doesn’t appeal to you?’

  ‘No. To be honest, I can’t see myself ever possessing five thousand pounds, but neither could I work under anybody.’

  ‘Damn it, you’re having to work under that brute, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I am, but on ground I know much better than the brute. It makes a difference. You must see that.’

  ‘Yes,’ Carter said, thoughtfully, ‘I see it, partly because I like to think I’ve come to know you pretty well, P.J. What you’re really saying is, as regards Bamfylde you still hope?’

  ‘Yes. And I’m backing myself to hold on, even with you and most of the others gone.’

  ‘Then it’s “no”, old man?’

  ‘Regretfully. Have another drink. Let me drink to your school. What’s it called?’

  ‘St. Magnus. Bloody awful, don’t you think? It’s got a blood
y awful motto, too. “Facta Non Verba.” I intend to change that, however.’

  ‘It would suit the Stoic. He performs all the deeds and we have to get along on his words. No matter, here’s to you, Carter, and to St. Magnus, and I’ll add something to that. One of the more intelligent things you and I ever did during our time was to bury the hatchet.’

  ‘Yes, it was,’ Carter said, ‘but it makes leaving you in the lurch that much more difficult.’

  ‘I’ll cope.’

  ‘I bet you will.’

  They finished their drinks and shook hands, David seeing Carter down the steps and across the quad to Outram’s, where they shook hands again.

  When he retraced his steps he heard the whine of Grace’s gramophone, backed by thumps and squeals of glee. She and Hoskins were dancing to the rhythm of Sax’s latest record, a convivial number called ‘Happy Days are Here Again’. He thought sourly, ‘Not for me, they aren’t. With Carter gone, I’m more or less alone, for I can’t look for much support from Howarth and Barnaby. One seems to be going stale, and the other has no real feelings for the old place.’ He went in and Sax grinned at him over Grace’s dark, bobbing curls. ‘And there’s another of them,’ he thought, crossing to the study, and glaring down at the pile of manuscript representing the latest draft of ‘The Royal Tigress’. ‘Old Sax will be leaving at the end of next term. I’m beginning to feel like Crusoe up here.’

  2

  He was on the point of leaving the following morning when Howarth appeared, the inevitable Gold Flake between his lips, and an expression of bafflement that David recognized as the forerunner of a confidence of some kind. Howarth found every confidence a great embarrassment, irrespective of whether it was given or received, so that David thought, ‘I hope to God he isn’t packing it in! He’s been more than usually crusty of late but I’d miss him more than any of them.’ He said, ‘Is it about keeping the Sunsetters occupied?’ and Howarth said no, he could cope with the Sunsetters for a week or so, and was here to confirm that Carter had not talked him into that prep school venture.

  ‘You knew about that?’

  ‘Good God, of course I knew about it. Have you ever known anyone pull wool over my eyes?’

  ‘No,’ David said, grinning, ‘I don’t think I have. I turned him down, although I must say he made me a very generous offer.’

  ‘I’m glad you showed that much sense. If you hadn’t my little backstairs strategy would have gone for nothing. Have you got a minute or two?’

  ‘Half an hour. The taxi is due here at eleven. Will you have a drink?’

  ‘Not at this hour of the day.’ He drifted over to the gramophone table, picked up the record Hoskins had left in the turntable, scanned the title, grimaced and put it down again. ‘Funny thing, that,’ he said, ‘I got it into my head you’d welsh on us. Must be slipping.’

  ‘You haven’t exactly given me the impression you were over-concerned who stayed and who left. I’d come to believe you’d opted out.’

  ‘Sidestepped that guerilla war you and Carter have been waging with Alcock? Well, you’re right. It irritated me. I never thought Alcock was worth it. However, we owe the fellow one thing. He got Carter out of the way.’

  ‘What are you driving at, Howarth?’

  ‘What’s in it for you – and the school. That’s what I’m driving at. I know you and Carter formed an unholy alliance, and that annoyed me, for I never did trust the chap. He’d have let you down in the end, you know. If you had gone in with him you would have lived to regret it.’

  ‘Is there much to regret at the moment?’

  Howarth gave him one of his bleakest looks, of the kind he reserved for boys who shattered the silence of a classroom by dropping a desk-lid. ‘The present has very little to do with it. This place has had bad men in the past. That sadist Wesker was one of them, if you believe everything Herries told you. But Herries pulled it up in no time at all and you could do the same if you had to. One thing is for sure. You wouldn’t have had the chance if you had sunk every penny you possess in that venture with Carter. Why don’t you look ahead a little? Alcock isn’t forever. He’s older than I am, and looks to me like a man who drives himself. Anything could happen in the next year or so and if it does, who will those fools on the Board look to for a rescue operation? Don’t tell me you haven’t thought of that.’

  ‘Oh, I’ve thought of it, but I can’t see myself sticking it indefinitely with Alcock breathing down my neck. He could easily stay on as long as Algy did.’

  ‘I can promise you he won’t,’ Howarth said.

  ‘How can you possibly say that? You’re not in his confidence any more than I am.’

  ‘I can promise it, none the less. I give him two years, probably less. How old will you be at, say, Christmas, 1932?’

  ‘Thirty-six.’

  ‘Just right. So my advice is to stick it out, and do what you can to chasten that damned Welsh pride of yours in the meantime. You and Carter and Gibbs, and even Barnaby, have all been behaving like Second Formers lately. I say nothing of Irvine. He was always poised for flight, with that flibbertigibbet wife of his.’

  ‘Damn it, Howarth, you can’t say we haven’t been provoked.’

  ‘Not madly provoked. Show me any job without stress. Pin pricks shouldn’t induce hysteria in a man who stuck it out three years in the trenches. As to Alcock’s ultimate impact on the school, I think it’ll be negligible. A new head, who had his finger on the pulse of the place, could achieve a turnabout in a month.’

  ‘Then secretly you’ve sided with us all the time?’

  ‘As regards him? Up to a point. He’s not interested in the school as a school, only as a source of power, and a stage for his ego. Somewhere to strut, like a ham actor. He’d behave in exactly the same way if you put him in charge of the regional gas board. That shows you how much degrees are worth. Most people, including parents still regard schoolmasters as desiccated imparters of fifth-hand information, but you know and I know that they’re more than that if they’re any good. What applies to one school doesn’t necessarily apply to another. You wouldn’t administer a Crown Colony the way you run the London County Council, would you? Besides, we’ve got something out of the silly ass. He’s improved the fabric, and his window-dressing isn’t so bad. We needed a spring clean and an academic hoist. And the numbers have remained fairly steady, haven’t they?’

  ‘The tone isn’t the same and on your own admission that’s what is important.’

  ‘You can adjust a tone. Those new latrines of his will last us a generation. I wouldn’t be talking this way if our waiting-list had suffered but it hasn’t and it won’t, until the blight sets in.’

  ‘What blight?’

  Howarth glared at him again. ‘What blight? Great God, man, I thought you were a political animal! Can’t you see where we’re all heading?’

  ‘You mean the Wall Street crash?’

  ‘Among other things. The ‘thirties are going to be a bloody difficult time for all of us, especially for places like this, that aren’t buttressed by inherited wealth and a snob reputation. By this time next year numbers will have fallen by ten per cent. And by the year after that by thirty per cent. Many of the parents we rely on won’t have the cash to keep boys here, and as soon as the barometer falls Alcock will go, you see if I’m not right.’

  It was a point of view, and one he had never thought about, perhaps because his continual collisions with Alcock had obscured what was happening outside, where the unemployment figures were mounting month by month, a minority government was running the country, and a gale was blowing through the treasuries of the world. He wondered if Howarth’s prophecies were relevant and decided that they were. Alcock was not a man who was equal to a challenge of that kind. He was too dedicated to rule of thumb, too self-assured, too set in his ways. He said, ‘What was that you said about your backstairs strategy, Howarth?’

  ‘Oh, that?’ He gave one of his thin smiles. ‘That was masterly, though I do say
it myself. Did you wonder where Carter got that private loan he talked about? It was from me. I advanced him three thousand, at a rate of interest he wouldn’t get from any bank in the land. Almost interest free, you could say.’

  ‘You did that? To prevent him roping me in?’

  ‘Why not? I can afford it, as you well know. Buying the man off seemed the best way to go about it, although I misjudged him in one respect. I didn’t really suppose he would offer to take you in on equal terms. I suppose even Carter has his own interpretation of the word “loyalty”. Well, I’m not here to apologise for it. Go off and enjoy yourself over Christmas. I daresay you’ll find things seething in the Valleys, and come back here with a crated guillotine. That could lead to another display of fireworks, I suppose, but I never minded fireworks, providing a professional was lighting the fuses.’ He nodded and stalked off, Grace appeared from the bedroom, saying, ‘Will you fasten the straps, Daddy? The trunk is too full for me to manage,’ and he said, absently, ‘Yes, dear, right away. Go down and watch for the taxi. We’ve cut it fine if we’re after that eleven-thirty train.’

  Four

  * * *

  1

  HOWARTH WAS RIGHT ABOUT THE MOOD OF THE VALLEYS. David could not recall a time when there had been no talk of militant action and when the names of families drawing royalties from deep and dangerous seams were mentioned without a curse. But now, with a sense of crisis that recalled the long dragging strike of 1925/6, the mood of the mining communities was one of blazing anger and frustration. ‘A Socialist government is in, isn’t it? A Socialist Prime Minister has plumped his arse down in Number Ten, hasn’t he, boyo? Then why the hell doesn’t he do something about unemployment and nationalise the whole bloody industry?’ All the miners he met, including his brothers-in-law, Ewart and Bryn, talked this way, rejecting the argument that MacDonald was only holding on to power by the skin of his teeth, and could do little without Liberal support. For years now they had seen their own salvation in Labour’s promise that the industry would be taken over by the government, and the fact that Ramsay’s victory, in the spring of 1929, had not achieved this by December, implied that they were going to be betrayed yet again.