‘You’re making the decision.’
‘No, I’m not, circumstances are. All I’m doing is facing them. Or trying to, and you aren’t helping much. It isn’t like you. I always took you for a fighter.’
‘I’m bloody well sick of fighting. Sick to death of it. Some way this has to be resolved. If it isn’t we’ll drift apart.’ He remembered Howarth, husked and emotionally sterile at fifty, showing him that photograph of Amy Crispin, the day he received her legacy. Well, he could level with Howarth at around forty. He, too, would have photographs tucked away in a drawer, one of Beth, one of her. Three, if you counted Julia Darbyshire.
‘I’ll write,’ she said, ‘often, and telling you everything. It’s the best of a bad job.’
‘Yes, it is,’ he said, ‘but you’ve got more guts than I have, or maybe less need.’
‘Need? No Davy, we’re even on that score. God knows, there have been times lately when I would have risked everything to spend one night in your arms. That night before the election was only one of them.’
‘It’s more than that with me. That way a man can manage. Howarth has, and Barnaby has, or seems to. Even I did for a long time after Beth. It’s sharing, unloading, talking things out for a long time with someone who matters, understands. I’m supposed to do all that on paper from here on. Indefinitely.’
‘Not indefinitely, Davy. Only until you’ve had a sporting chance to concentrate on something you love. You think of me as important and so I am, but not so important as that.’
They left it there. She was staying in the flat of a university friend at Crick-lewood. There was no question of them going there, and none of taking her home to the Marwoods, at Elmer’s End. They could book in somewhere, but he did not fancy Grace waking on Christmas morning and asking where he was. She walked him down to Charing Cross, saying she could get a bus or tube any old time. In forty-eight hours he would be on his way back to Bamfylde and she, he supposed, would be making ready for the Canadian adventure. At the barrier he kissed her, noting that her cheeks were wet and that she had difficulty in speaking. Compassion, of the kind he had felt for her after that rowdy meeting, returned to him.
‘It’s still a case of hanging on, of waiting for the next spin of the wheel. I can’t say any more just now. Will you be going back to Bilhampton before you take off?’
‘If I do I’ll ring. I’ll ring, anyway, wherever I am. I can cope when you’re at a distance.’
He left her then, sensing that she preferred it, but knowing that she was watching him move along the platform to catch yet another train. Bamfylde, like Paris, he had once told her, was worth a mass. But was it, now that he had it under his hand?
He was able, to his own surprise, to keep thoughts of her at a safe distance during the next few weeks. Bamfylde engulfed him like a long, rumbling avalanche, a clamorous torrent of letters, decisions, long- and short-term plans, the least of which was that perennial bugbear of the schoolmaster, the timetable.
Throughout the early part of January he worked alone, spending long hours in Algy’s old study. When he could escape he set out on tours that took him into every nook and cranny of the great sprawling place, noting down its deficiencies, conjuring with changes, adjustments and adaptations, and getting an inspiration now and again from all he saw and remembered.
One came when he turned out the contents of Alcock’s study cupboard and came across the cane he had inherited from Algy. He tossed it aside, with a pile of other rubbish. There would be no question of him beating mischief out of Bamfeldians. He made up his mind as to that long ago. Neither Algy nor Alcock, to do them justice, had been floggers, in the old tradition of headmasters and towards the end of his long reign Algy had all but discarded corporal punishment, but the right to beat Junior and Middle School boys was still reserved by senior prefects. Alcock had preferred outright expulsion for what he regarded as major crimes, and subtle humiliations for minor infringements.
David, over the years, had given a good deal of thought to the maintenance of discipline, accepting the fact that it wasn’t something to which spot decisions could be applied. Every boy varied as did every offence to some extent. What he aimed at – an ideal, he supposed – was the maximum use of the average boy’s response to fair play, to seeing authority’s point of view, accepting reproof and apologising with good grace. But every now and again one ran across a boy totally unresponsive to this approach. Then, if one ruled out corporal punishment, what did one do? How did one safeguard the system?
He came up with an experimental idea, one that seemed worth exploring. The institution of a forum of peers, based on where the culprit was lodged. Several such committees might be set up, with jurors voted in, term by term, by boys themselves, sitting under the chairmanship of the current house prefect. As to penalties, here again he opposed the principle of boy beating boy, any boy. In a majority of cases it didn’t matter a jot but if the boy at the receiving end was sensitive, or the prefect at the distributing end a bully, it could do untold harm. The whole thing was too fallible and in its place there would have to be a range of sanctions, all the way from the withdrawal of privileges to a vote of censure, expressing disapproval of the majority. It was an idea that Barnaby, with his easy access to the wisdom of the Ancients, might find workable and he made a note of it in his memoranda book.
Scores of random thoughts were finding their way into what Grace was already calling The-Book-From-Which-There’s-No-Rubbing-Out. A resolve to tap Old Boys’ funds for a gymnasium to replace the old covered playground. An additional classroom block, abutting Big School, that would, in itself, greatly simplify the timetable. Concrete litter disposal units designed to put an end to those stinking bonfires Westacott was always building down by the piggeries. Revival of the Choral Society, that had languished under Alcock. Upgrading of the Owl Society into a Sixth Form Club. Studies, if they could be squeezed in somewhere, for the Upper Fifth. A thorough turnout and restocking of the library. And, with Algy’s help, revival of the annual Gilbert and Sullivan opera, an event that had never failed to fill a vacuum in the Michaelmas term, when the days were at their shortest and the evenings not wholly devoted to prep.
Prep was another aspect of the system he hoped to revise. He had unpleasant memories of homework in his Grammar School days, of sitting hunched in the fireless parlour with a mountain of work to get through, and organised periods of evening prep such as existed in the routine of most boarding schools, had been an improvement on this. It had its faults, however, especially in summer term. It might be an improvement to introduce a period-length spell of early morning prep, between April and July, and possibly through the first weeks of the Michaelmas term. Thus evening prep would be shortened, and boys freed for communal activities, not necessarily aligned with sport.
There were, he soon discovered, whole new vistas to be explored, and much would depend on available funds, no doubt. He had no more than a working knowledge of the school’s finances, and a talk with Redcliffe, the bursar, proved depressing.
‘We’ve always run on a tight budget,’ Redcliffe said. ‘So tight that I confess I was frightened when I took over from Mr Shawn, early last year. The fees are too low, if you want my opinion, Headmaster.’
It would take time, he thought, to adjust to this form of address. Somehow he was unable to rid himself of the notion that his leg was being pulled. He said, ‘There’s no need to call me “Headmaster” when we’re alone, Redcliffe. I know Alcock insisted on it but I don’t. Will you pass that around? It’s embarrassing to have to tell everyone separately.’
Redcliffe, a young, eager man, looked flustered but said, with a smile, ‘Er… what exactly do we call you, sir?’
‘Well, it can hardly be what every boy from the Second Form up calls me behind my back and the Old Boys to my face, Pow-Wow, that is. How about taking a tip from Barnaby and Howarth? They’ve settled for P.J. and it looks to me as if you and I have got a lot of conspiratorial work ahead of us. Do you think
the majority of parents would stand for a hoist in fees?’
‘Yes, I do,’ Redcliffe said, unequivocally. ‘It would be a matter for the Governors and would need the approval of the Ministry, of course, but there wouldn’t be much difficulty. I could prepare a case for you.’
‘You do that,’ David said, ‘and we’ll try it on the dog later in the term. Let me have a look at the waiting-list.’
The waiting-list was even more depressing, the lowest, according to Redcliffe’s summary, since 1921. The graph had risen steadily up to a peak in 1929, the second year of Alcock’s administration, but then, just as Howarth had predicted, Bamfylde had begun to feel the pinch of the Depression. There had been a slow falling off in 1930, and a steep plunge in 1931. This would have to be considered in relation to any proposed increase in fees.
Already he had learned the trick of dividing his problems into categories of the kind that encouraged the enlistment of one confidant, selected in advance. Thus, major changes such as those he was now discussing with Redcliffe, demanded the shrewdness and experience of Howarth, but what he thought of as climatic changes, like a new approach to discipline, demanded the more flexible approach of a mind like Barnaby’s. He soon made a friend of the newly appointed music master, Renshaw-Smith, whom he tackled about the revitalisation of the Choral Society.
Renshaw-Smith, a young man with a narrow face, thinning hair and a sharp, predatory nose, always put him in mind of a fledgling sparrow-hawk, but although shy and inclined to be self-effacing, he responded to encouragement. When David told him of his intentions he said, eagerly, ‘That’s good news, Headmaster. We’ve some very promising trebles and at least two good tenors. I was wondering, would you think it too ambitious to start training a choir for the Devon Musical Festival, in April? At my last school we won high placings, although of course, we had girls there, Melbourne House being co-ed. I really would like to try.’
‘Try by all means,’ David told him. ‘You’ll have the whole of the Lent term to bring them on. Who is your best tenor, by the way?’
‘Dobson, without a doubt, and keen to improve.’
‘Really? I would have said he was the hairy outdoor type but I’ll tell you why I asked. I’m hoping to revive the annual Gilbert and Sullivan. We were famous for them in Mr Herries’s time. Would Gilbert and Sullivan be too lowbrow for you?’
Renshaw-Smith looked shocked. ‘No, indeed, Headmaster. Sullivan wrote some excellent light music, and I know about the Bamfylde operas. I’ve seen the photographs and old scores. Mr Gibbs gave them to me.’
‘Would you enjoy getting some kind of orchestra together for a production next December? It’s a chore, I warn you. We hold the auditions in summer, and rehearse every night throughout Michaelmas term.’
‘I should enjoy it. I found time hang rather heavily last term. You see, Melbourne House was close to Bristol, and I had most of my evenings free. I miss the opportunity of getting to a concert now and again and this place… well, it is something of a wilderness, isn’t it?’
‘It’s seemed that way lately,’ David said, ‘but it never did in Herries’s time. We made our own entertainment and a lot of it was very stimulating. I’m going to do my damnedest to start everything up again, but I should have to rely on your help, Renshaw-Smith.’
‘Oh, but you can,’ Renshaw-Smith said, seeming to peck with excitement, and David left him, wondering if he knew the boys referred to him as ‘Pecker’ and had done, since the day of his arrival.
He went next to Howarth to discuss finance in relation to building plans. ‘I don’t intend to tinker, like the Stoic. I’ve always believed in Rothschild’s dictum – “Buy on a falling market.” With a shrinking waiting-list we need to offer something extra, and get plans for an extension into the new prospectus. God knows, that old one needs rewriting. It always reminds one of a spa holiday guide, about the time of Victoria’s Jubilee.’
‘And we thought of the Noble Stoic as a new broom,’ Howarth said, wryly. ‘Well, I’m with you by and large. You recall I foresaw this shortage of cash reacting on us, but don’t talk to me about retrenchment. I never did trust that word. It’s usually a sluggard’s euphemism for parsimony and cowardice. Still, it all comes down to cash in the end, and how the devil do you hope to raise the ten thousand or more that a new classroom block and gymnasium will cost you?’
‘From the Old Boys. There’s a couple of thousand in the kitty. It’s been accumulating and I’m planning a big appeal next Whitsun, when I can corner more than a hundred O.B.s at their annual meeting.’
‘You honestly believe you can squeeze eight thousand pounds out of Old Boys? Good God, man, half of them are still looking for jobs, or living on their parents’ fat. Boyer, for instance, he’s still on his uppers, isn’t he?’
Boyer was, or more or less. He had come down with a good enough degree two years ago but had since had to make do with starveling appointments in private schools. He wrote, from time to time, but had not revisited the school and David had the impression he would find it difficult to scrape together the rail fare from the far north. He said, ‘I’ll get the money somehow but it would help if you took over as O.B. secretary. I’ve been doing it for six years now, and no complaints, but I don’t see how I can combine it with the headship. After all, Howarth, who was it pushed me into this job in the first place?’
‘Me,’ said Howarth, with one of his frosty smiles, ‘but my sponsorship went off at half-cock. I don’t mind admitting I had nothing whatever to do with this latest turn-up. That was all Algy’s doing, or Algy’s and Doc Willoughby’s.’
‘Willoughby got at Sir Rufus?’
‘How do you think our respected Chairman came by that bit of evidence you pocketed from Alcock’s desk, the night he died? Willoughby took it to Algy and they hatched the plot between them. They asked Sir Rufus over to dinner, filled him with old port, and set him to work on the waverers. But for God’s sake don’t let them know I told you and don’t thank Willoughby yourself. He’s like me that way. Feels a damned fool if he’s caught out doing a good turn.’
They began to fit together, all the pieces of the jigsaw that had been assembling from the moment of Alcock’s death, but it seemed unlikely now that he would ever know just how the final picture emerged as a likeness of himself. Howarth was right, however, it would never do to probe too deeply. All the same, the information made him glow a little. It meant that he had the full trust of at least two dedicated Bamfeldians apart from Howarth’s steady patronage.
He said, ‘I always knew you approved, Howarth, but how does old Barnaby feel about it. After all, he’s senior to me, and was piqued when I pipped him as housemaster?’ but Howarth said, ‘Barnaby’s purring, so leave him be. He’s happy enough. A house is as much as he cares to handle. Besides, he’s like me. Too idle to envy you your job. It wouldn’t surprise me if, in a year or so, we didn’t start wishing to God that you’d run out of steam.’
‘Will you take over that Old Boys’ job pro tem?’
‘Just long enough to tide you over. Then one of the younger chaps can have it, and I’ll put my feet up until I retire. Only another four years, thank God.’
‘I can’t imagine this place without your crustiness to give it savour. What will you do then, Howarth?’
‘Go abroad and die in the sun,’ Howarth said. ‘I often ask myself why the devil a sane man, with money in the bank, should spend eight months of the year with his coat collar up and his toes to a gas-fire.’
He shelved his forum idea for the time being. It needed more thought, and he was not yet ready to take either Barnaby or Howarth into his confidence. Instinct told him that he would need to win over some of the younger masters, especially Scott, a stern disciplinarian, who had come to them from a prestigious school to replace Carter on the science side and take his place as Outram’s housemaster. Scott was forty-eight, and a cut above their usual replacements. He was here, it was said, because of his chest, that played him up in the damp Thames val
ley, and a somewhat prickly little man. The best approach to him, David thought, would be a juicy carrot in the form of an improved laboratory, and science was low on his list of priorities just now.
There was one other thing, however, concerning which he consulted nobody. The night before the new term began he checked through his records and traced Hislop’s home number, for Hislop, penalised for straightforwardness over the loss of his ill-gotten gains as school bookmaker, was still on his conscience.
The shrewish voice of Mrs Hislop answered the phone and he was glad it was her and not Hislop’s father. He said, ‘Mrs Hislop? It’s Powlett-Jones, calling from Bamfylde. You remember me, I hope?’
‘I remember you, Mr Powlett-Jones. I remember everything about that disgraceful business.’
‘It’s about your boy I’m ringing. It may sound presumptuous on my part, but is there any chance of him wanting to return here? He’s still only sixteen plus, isn’t he? Of course, if you’ve got him in elsewhere he’ll probably be better off where he is, but I’m acting headmaster and I’d like to have him back, if he wants to come.’
He heard her sharp intake of breath and waited, letting the prospect of a fresh start for Hislop make its impact. Then she said, ‘You mean that? You… want him back?’
‘Yes, I do, Mrs Hislop. You may remember I thought he had been very unfairly dealt with by Mr Alcock but I could put that right now, providing he undertook to work, and toe the line generally. I always did believe in him.’
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