‘As guilty as hell,’ he said, ‘She was party to a plot to assassinate Elizabeth by exploding gunpowder under the bed. But it never stopped her being a great favourite in the Junior School. She’s got a romantic aura. I can always guarantee attention when I’m telling the Third about the last scene at Fotheringay. Especially that bit about the red wig coming off and exposing her as a grizzled old hag.’
She laughed and he was glad to note a rise of her mercury. ‘You really do go for the gory details, Davy. But who are you to sneer at the romantics?’
‘Oh, I don’t. I make ‘em work overtime for me. Until I get to the Fifth, that is,’ and suddenly she stopped in her stride, swung him round and kissed him on the mouth.
‘You’re wonderful medicine for me, Davy.’
They were moving along a down-curving track, about some two hundred feet above the river. Oak, beech, thorn and chestnut grew in profusion, and although this was clearly a popular hikers’ path they had met none over the last mile. She said, ‘In here, Davy…’ and steered him off the track into a tiny glade, carpeted with the skeletons of last year’s leaves and sown with bluebells and wood anemones. ‘We’ve waited long enough, Davy. Too long for our good. I’m sure of you, absolutely sure and, just for the record, there never was anyone else in Canada or the States.’
‘You don’t have to justify yourself to me.’
‘I do. No one else means a damn to me.’
Until then, until the moment she stopped, he had been aware on her part of something that had not been there in the serene days when they had been lovers on the shore of Windermere, or even that occasion he had been able to bring a measure of peace to her after that rowdy meeting at Bilhampton. But now, screened by the thickets, she seemed to reflect and as his arms went round her she said, mildly, ‘Here, Davy? Now?’ and the way she said it gave him pause. He lowered his head and kissed the swell of her breast above the neck of her blouse.
‘That’s for you to say, Chris. At Bilhampton you needed me. I’m not so sure now, in spite of what happened back there. You’ve grown a lot since then. You’ll shake it off with or without me.’
‘I daresay. But I’ll always need you. Not just when I’ve taken a tumble. I had a special reason for bringing you out here. If it had been simpler we could have stayed in town, I’ll try and explain, but kiss me first. As though you meant it.’
He kissed her mouth and felt her tremble. She said, ‘It’s enough, you see. You’ve only got to touch me, Davy,’ but then, to his astonishment, she moved apart from him and taking lipstick and mirror from her handbag set about restoring her make-up.
He had a picture gallery then of the three women he had held in his arms, performing this same office, and in a way it emphasised their differences. Beth did it absentmindedly, as part of a daily routine. Julia Darbyshire did it painstakingly, as though the face she meant to show to the world was her sole capital, but Christine was different again. She applied lipstick, powder puff and comb with swift, impatient flourishes, the way she tackled most things, following through an impromptu plan but with half an eye on the clock. He said, ‘I wouldn’t bother with the war paint. We’re not going home yet, are we?’
‘That could depend,’ she said, ‘on all manner of things.’
‘Such as?’
‘Your tolerance, to start with.’
‘Take that for granted. Especially as you cheered me up by saying there was no one else in the picture.’
‘Not that kind of tolerance, Davy.’
‘Well?’
‘I’ve always thought of you as my husband, my real husband, that is. If I hadn’t I wouldn’t have gone to bed with you, not even that night in Bilhampton when I was in the depths of misery. I’m not really promiscuous, although I suppose some people would say I was. I thought I loved Rowley. But I’ve known I loved you, from the second time we met and I went to confessional in that Newport pub. No, I mean something more important. I’m free, Davy. Or will be, in August.’
She could not have said anything more calculated to astonish him. ‘Free? Rowley’s agreed to let you divorce him?’
‘Well, not exactly.’ Her smile was a little crooked, revealing a tingle of malice that was uncharacteristic of her. ‘I cornered him and forced him to let me go. On pain of being divorced the hard way. Now I suppose you’ll want the entire sordid story.’
‘Don’t you think I’m entitled to it?’
She considered. ‘Yes, you are. You’ve been very patient. A damned sight more than most men would have been!’
‘You’re saying we can get married? That you’d settle for Bamfylde?’
‘I wouldn’t marry you any other way, Davy. That would be treachery.’
‘Well, then,’ he said, catching up her hands, ‘to hell with how you got rid of him. I don’t give a damn if you beat it out of him with a club,’ but she said, ‘Wait, Davy – you might as well hear it now. It isn’t something I’m proud of. There was a lot to be desired in Rowley, but I never did doubt the sincerity of his religious convictions and I left more scars on him than he’s left on me.’
‘Serve him damn well right.’
‘I can’t look at it that way. I wish I could but I can’t.’
‘What happened?’
‘I got word of him through a mutual friend and dropped a hint that I’d be delighted to see him again. As an old friend. For a chat, say. He came over one day last summer all smiles and dear-old-girlish. After a pat and a pinch he implied he was all in favour of a form of reconciliation.’
‘How do you mean, a “form of reconciliation”?’
‘Rowley’s kind. I was to remain his official wife, eager and available when he was randy, busy or between mistresses. He was to have a long leash. Say a couple of miles at full stretch. I saw my opening then and pretended to go along with the idea. I even let him get to the point where he was convinced the next time he’d make it all the way back. That wasn’t difficult. Bright as he is, he’s got a colossal male ego, and wrote off my reservations as a Nonconformist hangover on account of his other sleeping partners. It meant using my body as a bait but it worked like a charm.’
‘And after that?’
‘I had him watched by the seediest little private detective you ever read about, if you read that kind of fiction. His work was a lot better than his appearance. He came up with cast-iron evidence in ten days and all I had to do then was threaten. Rowley holds an important position out there, and the Scots Presbyterian influence is strong in his university. He had no alternative but to cave in and supply evidence for a divorce over here. The decree absolute comes through on August 1st. There’s no prospect of complications, or not unless he’s been watching us with a telescope this afternoon and that I doubt. He never was one for country delights.’
It did not seem more than a defensive statement on her part but he knew she would not view it that way. She would be more likely to regard it as moral blackmail, and at the time it had probably disgusted her. He said, ‘You can’t expect me to feel sorry for him. Plenty of women would have taken him for a lot more than a straight divorce, and you never spent a penny of his money on yourself. Put it out of mind. Look on it as a case of tit for tat.’ Then, with some difficulty, ‘In the preliminary skirmishes, didn’t you feel anything of the very strong affection you once had for him?’
‘Simply as a man? Yes, I did. You were a long way off, and I never did kid myself that celibacy is my strong suit. In that sense it was lucky it was Rowley, and not some other redblooded male. But what came over to me again, this time in added measure, was his absolute bloody selfishness. Rowley is more than ordinarily selfish, anyway, but measured against someone like you he isn’t much more than an animal. At least, that’s how it seemed to me. I like to be wanted as a person, not as an instrument. That’s important to me, Davy.’
‘It’s important to most women, so don’t be too generous with the haloes. If it wasn’t I would have said to hell with it and gone off on the rampage now and ag
ain, and I daresay you’ll discover I can run Rowley pretty close for selfishness sometimes. At least, as far as my job’s concerned. Are you absolutely sure you want to take me on? A husband pushing forty is one thing. Motherhood to a horde of growing boys is another.’
‘I’ll cope, somehow. Providing you’ve got more patience in reserve. In any case, it’s you who are taking the risk, Davy. Maybe you should take time off to think about it.’
‘I’ve had all the time I need. Meantime I’m starving so why don’t we celebrate? Do you think we could get a dinner at that place where we left the car?’
‘If we can find our way back to it before dark.’
He pulled her up and they went back up the long, winding path to the saddle of the two rock-strewn hills they had crossed an hour ago. In that brief interval or so it seemed to him, they had found a row of signposts pointing the way into a new era.
3
Not since the long, hot summer of 1919 had a term passed in such a succession of fleeting, sunlit days. His mood, in the span between early May and late July, was at one with the period just prior to his earlier marriage. There had been other smoothly running terms but always, at one or another stage of them, something sour or explosive had occurred, a flare-up with Carter, a confrontation with Alcock or even a let-down reminding him yet again that it was all too easy to grow too complacent about one’s ability to judge character. But this term, with Bamfylde under his hand, it was all plain sailing and even the highlights were amusing.
There was Hislop’s momentary reversion to his original form, when he hit a spectacular six that soared over the western boundary, ricocheted from the bonnet of a Governor’s Daimler, and plopped through the open window of an adjoining car, where old Bouncer, back on a visit, was enjoying an afternoon nap. A dozen witnesses stepped forward to swear that Bouncer, leaping from his car, threatened the batsman with his statutory four penal marks for an act of lese-majestie.
There was the sudden appearance of Molyneux’s outlandish Australian uncle, who looked exactly like a Colonial gent masquerading as Bernard Shaw, a man so unfamiliar with the taboos of English schools as to appear in the Upper Fifth one morning and address Molyneux by his carefully concealed Christian name, Aloysius, a gaffe that stunned the French master and bid fair to undermine his class discipline for all time. And soon after that there was the overnight visit of Sax Hoskins and his Rhythmateers, touring the West Country resorts, who descended on Bamfylde one Sunday afternoon and gave what Sax called a ‘Bamfylde Benefit Session’, an honour bestowed upon them in Grace’s honour.
Sax had always been popular. Unquenchable high spirits, a rumbustious sense of humour and, above all, an uncanny mastery of many so-called musical instruments, dating from his Second Form variations of ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band’ on a mouth organ, had won him an enduring place in Bamfylde legend. His reappearance, at the head of a professional dance orchestra was a triumph and he played for two hours by Big Hall clock, the only man among his sweating Rhythmateers impervious to the heat, recorded as reaching the high eighties that night.
David had anticipated some difficulty with Grace concerning the prospect of a stepmother. Not much, perhaps, for she had always been an exceptionally biddable child, but their relationship was close and it would not have been surprising if she had viewed Christine with a certain amount of resentment. He told her of his plans the night he returned from Manchester, and was relieved when she took it calmly. Not as a matter of course, exactly, but more like an intelligent adult than an adolescent. She said, after he had outlined the history of his long, frustrating friendship with Christine, ‘Poor old Daddy! It sounds frightfully complicated. I knew you were keen on her, of course, and one time, two years ago it was, I made sure you’d marry her and was scared, even though she seemed nice that time she came here. But then, when you stopped talking about her, I made up my mind you’d stay single, especially now you’re head.’
‘I’d come to the same conclusion myself,’ he said. ‘This came out of the blue. I didn’t even know there was any hope for her getting a divorce, and even if there was there was always her determination to get into Parliament. She would, too, if she kept at it. She’s that kind of person.’
‘Won’t she ever try again?’
‘I don’t know. That’ll be up to her.’
‘And what do you think about that?’
He was fortunate, he reflected, to be able to discuss the situation so frankly with a fourteen-year-old. Her objectivity had to do with her long isolation here among so many thrustful males, he supposed. Their resilience, their tendency to treat every new day as a fresh start, had rubbed off on her over the years. He said, ‘She might try for local candidature, and I wouldn’t stop her. This is Tory and Liberal country, and Labour are keen to get a foot in the door. I imagine it all depends on how she settles in here. She hasn’t much confidence in herself as a headmaster’s wife. It’ll be up to you and me to try and give her some.’
‘You once had an idea of training me for the job, didn’t you?’
‘Yes, and in a way I still have. You could help a lot, Tuppence. The commercial courses start in September, when the builders’ men move out, and after school-leaving certificate you can take typing and shorthand. Then you can take Miss Rowlandson’s place when she retires as secretary. Would that appeal to you?’
She told him it would and that she wanted, in addition to improve her French and learn German. Her French was already good and she seemed to have a flair for languages. ‘Oughtn’t I to meet her again soon?’ she added, ‘I mean, before you get married? We shall have to have a good chin-wag about you,’ and he laughed, telling her that this was obligatory, if only to warn Chris of his likes and dislikes.
The meeting, when it came on Sports Day, was an unqualified success, adapting to the amiable pattern of the term. He had not realised how much he must have talked to Chris about Grace, or how observant Chris was when it came to assessing people. It was fun to watch Grace showing her round and familiarising her with every odd corner of the place, as though Chris had been a conscientious mother, hoping to send her son here in the autumn. And afterwards they gave him the slip and set out on a walk across Middlemoor, returning dusty and hungry, having achieved some kind of conspiratorial affinity while removed from the world of men and boys. It was only later, shortly before Chris set off north to pay a duty visit to her family in Yorkshire, that she indicated the level of intimacy they had achieved.
‘She’s an extraordinary little body, Davy. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone quite like her. Or not anyone under forty. Beth must have been a singular person. I mean, I’d expect any child of yours to be bright, and fairly easy to get along with, but she’s more than that. She’s… well… a born go-between. Now I’d say that’s rare in a person her age. The really satisfying thing, however, is that she seems to have made up her mind that I’m the best of a bad job.’
It was characteristic of her, he thought, to put it like that and he said, laughing, ‘Don’t give me or Beth special credit for Grace. The boys have done that for her. I’ve always thought of Grace as a woman, even when she was six.’
She had left her car up north for an overhaul, so he saw her off at yet another railway station, a familiar one this time, so that the parting was less urgent. When she had gone he walked home along a road cordoned by summer foliage, and rich with the scent of honeysuckle. At the playing field gate he paused, listening to the distant snack of the ball at the nets and the odd isolated shout that carried all this way in the evening lull, acknowledging both sounds as part of Bamfylde’s summer pattern and welcome on that account.
Standing there, looking over his shoulder at the stark outline of the buildings silhouetted against a lemon, coral-streaked sky, he found it difficult to think of himself as a bridegroom-in-waiting, on a par with the callow young man who had passed this way on summer evenings in 1919. So difficult, indeed, that he could chuckle at the prospect, thinking, ‘It’s impossible to th
ink of oneself as young in this job… almost everyone around is so much younger… easier to see oneself as an up-and-coming Judy Cordwainer… I’m thirty-seven, sound of wind and limb, certainly in the right job, but there have been times over the past few years when I’ve felt as old as Jehovah in one of His Why-don’t-I-give-it-all-up moods…?’ And then, unaccountably, he suddenly recalled that ridiculous incident in the train on their honeymoon trip to the Isle of Wight, when Beth had been so embarrassed by the onset of a period and he laughed, standing there by himself, for a thing like that wouldn’t be likely to bother many couples nowadays.
As always, his reverie was terminated by the bell, ringing out over the plateau as Norman Minor, seventh in a long and distinguished line of bell-ringers he recalled, made his ritual circuit of the buildings, calling boys to prep like monks to prayer. He never had got round to replacing the handbell with a fixed one and now that he came to think about it he decided it could wait. The longer he stayed here the less he was inclined to disturb the old routine, even though, in a matter of thirty months, he had introduced a variety of new ones. It was a hangover of Algy’s philosophy, he supposed – ‘Concentrate on essentials, expand all you like, but don’t pull up anything by the roots before making absolutely certain it’s dead.’
He extinguished his cigarette carefully, for there were fire hazards in this kind of weather, then went along under a forest of six-foot cow-parsley stalks to the cloverleaf exit of the east drive. By the time he reached the forecourt the prep hush was on the school and he welcomed it. Four weeks wasn’t long, for all the jobs he had in hand.
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