‘You don’t feel up to what?’
‘Do you think I’d trust you to write that letter without an edited draft? What’s on the diary for tomorrow, Ellie?’
‘Tomorrow is Sunday,’ Ellie said, primly.
‘My God, so it is! Well, that’s a bore. You’ll just have to contain yourself until Tuesday, won’t you. Afternoon post probably. And tell me all about that book of yours. Ellie was very impressed to hear it was being published at last.’
‘You know about “The Royal Tigress”? But I only told Grace!’
‘I have a very long telescope,’ Algy said. ‘It can range freely over three parishes, yours, mine and the one in between.’ Somewhere, deep in the recesses of the rambling house, a small bell tinkled.
‘That,’ said Ellie, ‘will be Mrs Shawe, telling us dinner is served. Imagine ringing a bell for cold pheasant and pickles? I’ve always thought it silly but she will do it.’
‘It came to her ears,’ Algy said, ‘that for years and years and years our lives had been regulated by bells, my dear.’
‘Ah, but that was a real bell, Algy. Hers is an Alpine tinkle, half-heard among the edelweiss.’
‘I say, that’s rather neat,’ Algy said, cocking his head like a robin, ‘ “Half-heard among the edelweiss”. Yatton-under-Edge has reawakened the muse in you. Perhaps you can go back to composing your greeting verses thus augmenting our pitiful stipend.’ He turned to David. ‘Did I ever tell you that family secret, P.J.? Before we married, Ellie earned pinmoney writing verses for birthday and anniversary cards. What did they pay you, m’dear?’
‘A guinea a gross,’ Ellie said, ‘and it was very hard work, I can tell you.’
‘Sweated labour, I’d say. P.J. will get somebody at Westminster to look into it.’
They were now, he decided, well launched on one of their time-honoured pursuits, an elaborate leg-pull that had, as its unspoken object, the disarming of an audience and a general relaxation of tension. Over the years he had watched them at it. With boys, with parents, with visiting notabilities, all manner of people who drifted in through Big School arch with their problems and grouses. They were very, very good at it, so good indeed that it was impossible not to humour them.
He got up, and Algy led the way into the austere dining-room across the hall. Three places were laid at the Sheraton table. Presentation silver winked from the sideboard. Above it, hanging three degrees out of true, was an oval portrait of a rotund little man in the frock coat and punishing cravat of the early nineteenth century, Ellie’s grandfather, he believed, who had been a vintner with a prosperous business in Tunbridge Wells. The vintner looked very much at home here, far more so than when he had sat peering down between framed photographs of First Elevens in what was now Alcock’s monastic parlour at Bamfylde.
It was coming up to eleven o’clock when he set out on his return journey over the broad shoulder of the west plateau and down the narrow flint roads where the headlight beam made a tunnel of the high arching hedgerows, rich with the scent of honeysuckle and the riot of hedge flowers that grew there. He heard Yatton Church clock strike the hour as he crossed the Bray at the packhorse bridge and began the gentle climb towards Stone Cross, three miles away on the rim of a fold bathed in moonlight. He drove carefully, for the surface was loose and the bends very sharp, and by the time he had chugged past the church the moon was sailing free of cloud wisps and the playing-fields and buildings were in clear view, so that he stopped by the old, unmended gate, straddling the machine and looking at the place from the angle he had first seen it the day the Osborne specialist sent him here on what he had thought of as a fool’s errand.
It hadn’t changed much but by moonlight, with the rearward part of the buildings in shadow, it looked smaller and more compact. A thought came to him, the tailpiece of an anecdote he had told the Lower Third a day or two before the end of term, relating to Charles II’s final look at England at the end of his long flight from Worcester. Legend had it that the king, an hour or so before joining the collier that was to take him to France, had reined in and said to a companion, ‘It’s worth fighting for…’ It was too, and he felt a closer affinity with a monarch he had always admired for his common sense and humour, rare qualities in a Stuart. He said, aloud, ‘Well, you’ll get your fight, Alcock, old sport. And it’ll be a bonny one, I’m telling you!’ and then restarted the machine and drove the last two hundred yards home.
Part Six
* * *
CUT AND COME AGAIN
One
* * *
1
DAVID BEGAN TO SEE HIMSELF AS A TRIAL BALLOON FOR national weather, a tiny unit released to test the force of the unending series of storms and gales that had blown across the country since the long, Edwardian lull, when he was growing up in the Valleys. In an almost predictable way his personal fortunes seemed to coincide with those of the country, ever since that day he came home from school to be told his father and brothers were dead in the pit disaster. For that had been shortly before a few shots in a Balkan town had heralded the storm that engulfed everybody.
Then, again running almost parallel with what was happening in the world outside, came the death of Beth and little Joan, coinciding with the start of the long, dragging strike in the coal mines, and its climax in the General Strike of May, 1926, when the national mood had matched his own despondency. He emerged from it during the tail end of the ‘twenties but soon, with the coming of Alcock, it came on to blow again, and here they were approaching crisis point, both he and the nation, in the spring of 1931, and MacDonald’s government as beset by problems in Westminster as he was at Bamfylde.
Algy’s draft letter arrived on Tuesday, as promised. By Wednesday night, a day or two before the start of summer term, he had written his own letter, and posted it to Sir Rufus Creighton, in spite of a warning that the old chap was off on another of his tours, this time to India, and was not expected back until June. He could afford to wait, however. His batteries were still masked and if Alcock challenged him in the meantime, so much the better.
Christine wrote twice a week, keeping him up to date with her progress in the constituency, and they met occasionally in Taunton. She was settling down thereabouts, having taken a part-time secretarial job, and gone back on her obstinate decision to leave her husband’s allowance untouched. ‘I can use the money for things I plan to do between now and the next election,’ she said. ‘There’s to be one soon enough, for Ramsay is floundering. The whole world is going broke, they say. There’s even talk of a Coalition.’
‘Would your people stand for that?’ he asked, and she said the party stalwarts would not, but it was possible Ramsay Mac, Snowden and Jimmy Thomas might. ‘They’re proving a frightful disappointment,’ she admitted. ‘Power seems to have watered their beer. I don’t mean Ramsay’s grand manner, and all that rubbish they print about him kissing duchesses. It’s more serious than that. The leaders aren’t in touch any longer, especially with the unemployed.’
‘I don’t see what the poor devils can do with nearly three million on the dole. This crisis is international, isn’t it?’
‘They could keep faith with the people who voted for them,’ she said, ‘even if it meant going into opposition again.’
‘What good would that do?’
‘I don’t know. I only know I prefer the Labour Party when it’s attacking.’
He sympathised with her but was more concerned with his own situation than that of a harassed Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer. The weeks drifted by, just as they had when he was nursing a tiny flame of hope that he would succeed Algy Herries. He confided, to a degree, in her, and to a greater degree in Howarth and Barnaby, but in no one else on the staff. Howarth was taciturn about the possible results of his counter-attack but Barnaby was encouraging. ‘You’re a bonnie fighter, man,’ he told David, when the latter explained what he had done, and as usual he had an appropriate tag for the occasion – ‘In rebus dubiis plurimi est a
udacia.’
In the second week of June Sir Rufus sent a bleak reply to his letter. It contained little but a promise that he would ‘take counsel with certain of the Governors’ and ‘consider the possibility of calling a special meeting’. He gave no hint as to whether any direct approach had been made to him by Alcock, and none as to when the meeting, if there was one, would be called, or what the terms of reference were likely to be. He did add, however, that he could rest assured the matter would be investigated and should hold himself in readiness to answer any questions put to him. David showed the letter to Howarth who grunted, ‘Typical bureaucratic response. So guarded and qualified it might be addressed to a blackmailer. But then, come to think of it, I suppose that’s what Alcock is making us in his quaint, original way.’
One of the few breaks in the rhythm of the term was Christine’s visit on Sports Day, accompanied by her cousin, the one-eyed Ridgeway, home on leave from Malaya. Ridgeway found it difficult to accept his former housemaster’s close friendship with someone he had been taught to regard as the family black sheep and while Christine was being shown over the kitchens, he said, half-apologetically, ‘She was always a bit of a Bolshie, sir, if you know what I mean.’ David, much amused, said, ‘Alas, Ridgeway, I’m a “bit of a Bolshie” myself. That was accepted here, even in your time, but you never held it against me, did you?’ to which Ridgeway replied, with terrible earnestness, ‘Of course not, sir, but she’s a woman!’
It was no good reminding Ridgeway that even the flapper had been eligible to vote since 1928. It still seemed to him indefensible that a female relative of his should enlist under a Socialist banner, likely to shame him publicly if she ever got into Parliament, an event he considered slightly less probable than a landing on the moon. ‘I mean, after all, sir, politics are still a man’s business, aren’t they? The very idea of her standing on a platform, and spouting about the Means Test and whatnot, is a pretty bad show, taken all round. I can quite understand Uncle Willie cutting her out of his will. The pity of it is, of course, that she’s not old, only a year or so older than I am. I mean, if she was a middle-aged frump it might be different.’
He gave it up after that but relayed the exchange to Christine, as soon as Ridgeway was off hobnobbing with his cronies in the Old Boys’ bar. It kept her amused for the rest of the day.
There was one result of her visit, however, that inclined him to agree with Ridgeway that Christine Forster was a little odd when you came to think about it. She declared herself daunted by the Spartan aspects of Bamfylde and said, ‘It’s so frightfully austere, isn’t it? Aren’t there any home comforts at all? I mean, hasn’t anyone ever heard of soft furnishings, and carpets? Or kitchen implements superseding those used in a baron’s hall at the time of the Conquest?’ And when he explained that the one gain of Alcock’s stay among them had been an improvement in fabric, she exclaimed, ‘My God! What was it before he arrived? A Dickensian workhouse? Why does a public school have to look like a penitents’ monastery as well as act like one? I never was much of a one for tradition, but I’ve never had anything against stainless steel, floor coverings, curtains, modern plumbing and the odd incinerator, instead of that stinking bonfire you keep burning down at the piggeries.’
‘The place isn’t very well endowed,’ he argued, much on the defensive, ‘it needs money spending on it to bring it up to date but we don’t cater for sat-
raps, just chaps equipped to work for their living, and stand on their own two feet when they leave here.’
‘Well, you don’t even succeed in that if my cousin’s story about his glass eye is to be believed. The general picture I get of him and his type is a layabout in a wicker chair, knocking back whiskies and sodas and watching the black, browns and yellows do the hard graft. Oh, I admit that boys brought up in these cheerless barns do seem to have much more confidence than the ones in day schools, but I can’t help feeling you need a few women around the place to cushion the corners. Is it true that nearly all the masters are bachelors? Or widowers like you?’
‘Not always from choice,’ he said, thinking of Howarth, and the girl who had turned him down for a stockbroker. ‘You don’t go into this for money, Chris. However, talking of feminine touches, come and meet Grace. She’s over by the finishing tape, offering up a prayer for one of her two favourites to win the steeplechase.’
They crossed behind the east drive beeches and he introduced them, noting that Grace had made an immediate impact on Christine. They chatted amiably for five minutes or so, then Grace forgot them both in the excitement of the run-in, as the leaders of the field came streaming through the gap behind the plantation, to cover the last quarter-mile of the course. Christine whispered, in an aside, ‘She’s delightful, Davy, and does you credit! She’ll break hearts in another few years.’
‘I doubt it,’ he said, glancing across at the tape, and making his almost daily comparison between the child and Beth, ‘but she’ll be pretty, I think, in a Romneyish kind of way.’
Hoskins, whose wind seemed to have thrived on all the practice he put in on the saxophone, passed the favourite Collier, within two yards of the post, and leaving Christine he crossed to the finishing post and joined Grace prancing up and down with delight as everyone crowded round the winner to congratulate him. Then, feeling a little foolish at his own display of glee, he rejoined Christine on the far side of the spectators’ rope. She said, smiling, ‘You’re really rather sweet, all of you. I’m glad I came, for at least you can rely on me going into the Tory lobby when Labour gets around to abolishing these archaic institutions. Now let’s have tea, and after tea take me down to that little church you told me about, and show me where you and Beth lived when you were first married. If you don’t mind, that is.’
‘I don’t mind,’ he said, ‘and for a special reason. You and Beth are two of a kind in some ways.’
He took her arm and they moved off across the forecourt. Watching them, from a discreet distance, stood Ridgeway, and with him Simmonds, an old friend of his period. Both recalled Beth Powlett-Jones and Simmonds said, ‘Old Pow-Wow never married again, did he?’
‘No,’ said Ridgeway, hastily heading him off. ‘How about a couple of jars, Sim?’ but Simmonds said, thoughtfully, ‘That bit of skirt he’s squiring, she’s not a bad-looker, is she? Know her?’
‘Never seen her in my life,’ Ridgeway answered and if he thought of Simon called Peter, the apostle could have counted on his heartfelt sympathy.
2
He wondered whether he should show her Beth’s grave but thought better of it, passing round the tower and entering the church by the west door. There was still more than two hours’ life in the day but inside it was already dusk. Sniffing the faint whiff of incense, and glancing up at the Stations of the Cross, she said, ‘Is that new head of yours a would-be Catholic?’
‘No, just “high”. We were very “low” in Algy’s time, but Stone Cross has always been part of Bamfylde and adjusts.’ He ran his hand along the smooth varnish of the pew, feeling the ridges of obliterated initials carved there by three generations of boys, and it struck him then that Alcock’s spring-clean could be interpreted as a kind of vandalism, symptomatic of so many changes that had occurred over the last three years. She must have sensed his disquiet for she said, quietly, ‘It’s beginning to show, Davy. The battle with the new man. How will it end?’
‘In his departure, or mine, and soon, I imagine.’
‘Why’s that?’
He summarised the situation to date, even telling her about Alcock’s clean sweep of the pew initials, and she said, after a moment, ‘I think you’ll win, Davy.’
‘Why?’
‘Feel there, just above that hassock,’ and she took his hand, guiding it to the limit of the pew-back, where his fingertips brushed against some raw indentations.
‘They’re already at it again. Flick your lighter.’
He humoured her, producing a small flame and bending low, where he made out a freshly
carved name, executed in letters about half an inch high.
It must have required a deal of patience, he thought, to chip away down there during brief intervals of prayer, but Hislop had made a fair enough job of it. He had even scooped out three full stops, one after each initial, one after the final letter. He said, chuckling, ‘Good old Hislop. He left his mark, after all. I suppose you could call that a sign. Not from Heaven, however.’
‘Was Hislop the boy you told me about, the one who was sacked for bookmaking?’
‘Yes, but I’ll wager he wasn’t the only one to counter-attack.’ He moved the full length of the church, glancing at the half-seen pew-supports. Bristow, Hoskins and Collier were represented, and in the rearmost pew Winterbourne had got as far as ‘B’. He drifted back to the front pew, thinking how pretty she looked, sitting there in her pink cloche hat, with the slanting light of the rose window converting the tip of a stray curl from chestnut to bronze. ‘You’re very good for me, Chris,’ he said, kissing her.
‘We’re good for each other,’ she said, and then, smiling, ‘Now I wonder if that’s ever happened before?’
‘The carving?’
‘No, a front pew kiss.’
‘They’ve had the occasional wedding here.’
‘Ah, but that’s not the same. It would be done standing, there by the altar. And a chaste kiss at that.’ Then she added, ‘If the cards don’t fall your way, if they back Alcock and put the pressure on you, would you make a fresh start, at another school?’
‘No.’
‘What then?’
‘I’d take that tip given me in Bilhampton and have a crack at politics.’
‘Could you afford to?’
‘I’ve got a bit put by, and could use it to keep me going while I nursed a constituency. It would have to be one with real prospects.’
‘Not like mine, you mean?’
R. Delderfield & R. F. Delderfield Page 41