R. Delderfield & R. F. Delderfield (24 page)

'I don't think he knows himself, sir. That'll depend on the exams at the end of next term, won't it?' but Herries smiled. 'Not on your life. Examinations are for the conformists, as I've told many an anxious parent in my time. And nobody could call Boyer a conformist.'

They dispersed the next day and holiday stillness descended on the place. In the lull that followed, David, recalling that he and Beth were approaching the sixth anniversary of their encounter on the pier at Colwyn Bay, posted off to Challacombe on the excuse of seeing his bank manager and collecting some curtain materials Beth had ordered. With these errands accomplished he made for Merriweather's, the Challacombe jeweller. He had intended buying her an oval wristwatch as a birthday gift but on entering Market Street he paused outside Marty Lile's car mart, spotting a three-wheeler, with '
For Sale – Bargain'
scrawled on its windshield. Marty, seeing him, waddled out, chafing his hands, in a way exactly mimicked by two generations of Bamfylde boys.

He said, in his broad Devon burr. 'Top o' the marnin' to 'ee Mr Powlett-
Jones! That there motor is a praper ole steal. No more'n dree thousand on the clock. Why dorn 'ee try her out?' and when David said he was in no mind to buy a car, especially a three-wheeler, Marty said, 'Giddon, you and the missus need transport outalong, dorn 'ee? Youm stuck fast half the year round. Woulden it be nice to have your orn means o' poppin' inalong for a visit to the pictures every now and again?'

It would at that, thought David, remembering the long winter evenings, and reminding himself that the twins were due to start nursery school at the village primary in a month or two. 'How much, Mr Lile?'

'Thirty pounds to you, and I'd ask thirty-five to anyone who wasn't up at skuel. Try her, there's petrol in the tank.'

He said, taking his seat behind the wheel, 'I've never been sold on three-wheelers. They're so easily overset,' but Marty denied this, declaring that it only held good when there were two wheels at the front. 'Tiz like a triangle, you see,' he went on. 'Knock un from the apex an' 'er lifts an' stays put. But youm out looking for trouble. How much traffic do 'ee pass tween yer an' skuel?'

He drove down to the quay and back, finding the car handled very easily, so that he thought, 'Beth would get more use out of this than a watch. I could teach her to drive on the level stretch outside the cottage in a day or two…' and after a little bargaining he dragged Marty down to twenty-seven pounds ten, and drove back to Bamfylde in high spirits.

Beth, exasperated with her efforts to adapt the cottage curtains to the tall windows of Havelock's, was delighted. In the first flush of enthusiasm he coaxed her out into the drive and gave her her first lesson, finding that she was a quick learner once she had mastered the gears. 'At least we'll be mobile,' he said, congratulating her, 'and not dependent on bikes. You can pack the twins into the dickey seat, drop them off at school, and then do your shopping in Challacombe. I made it home in twenty minutes and she took Quarry Hill like a bird. I'll give her a good going over when I get time.'

But he was short on time just then. Overnight, it seemed, the school was full of boys again, swapping holiday yarns, and Beth was preparing for the first of her new boys' teas in Havelock's, and there were a thousand things to attend to as he began his first full term as housemaster, with a complement of eighty boys, including four first-termers.

And then, just as he was getting into his stride, the Winterbourne divorce had to blow up out of a clear sky, and all his nervous energy was directed towards ensuring that Winterbourne survived what promised to be an
extremely unpleasant term and an experience that could, if it wasn't carefully handled, scar a sensitive boy's mind.

2

The news of Viola Winterbourne's divorce reached the school via the Sunday papers, about a fortnight before half-term.

Everybody knew the celebrated Viola Winterbourne, a popular musical comedy actress, currently starring in
Under My Balcony
in the West End. She had, in fact, shown herself at Bamfylde from time to time, queening it over all the other visitors on Sports Day and Speech Days, for Winterbourne (nicknamed “Spats” on account of sartorial elegance) was in his second year, and currently in the Lower Fourth.

David had met her, and not been over-impressed, seeing her as a gossipy, vapid woman, obsessed by her own elegance and popularity, and much given to stage chit-chat that always headed listeners back to Viola Winterbourne's career. He had to admit, however, that she was a very dashing woman and a handsome one too, in yards of flowered silk and a close-fitting cloche hat, that emphasised the good bone-structure of her face and brought a sparkle into her cornflower-blue eyes. She was regarded as the principal showpiece at Bamfylde functions, whenever she bothered to attend one, and usually succeeded in relegating most other mothers to the status of peasants. He did not know much about the relationship of mother and son but guessed that Winterbourne, a neat, self-contained boy of fourteen, was embarrassed by her style and scintillating personality. Mothers had to be extremely judicious whenever they appeared at school, striking an exact balance between elegance and frumpishness. Many boys preferred their parents to keep their distance or, if they did come, to remain in the background. Cookson's father, a war profiteer, owned a Rolls-Royce, but Cookson saw to it, after one visit, that he left it at home when he called to take his son out for the day and arrived in a sedate Austin. At the other end of the scale was Gilroy, whose father, a Challacombe grocer, sometimes showed up on Sports Day wearing a large, cloth cap, vintage 1903, and pepper and salt knicker bockers, garments that made Gilroy blush for shame, especially as Gilroy
père
was an excitable little man, prone to rush from behind the ropes and thump his son on the back whenever he won a race.

David was aware that young Winterbourne, a member of his house, was a target for the wags of Middle School, and this was understandable, for Viola
Winterbourne was more likely to be in the news than out of it. She had been seen dancing with the Prince of Wales at a nightclub. She wrote chic fashion articles, almost certainly ghosted, in women's magazines. She had campaigned for her Conservative candidate and kissed electors in public. She was always ready to pronounce upon any subject, from the Black Bottom and birth-control, to survival after death. Ordinarily a well-conducted boy, Winterbourne had been known to hit out at those who made jovial references to his mother, and there had been rumours of a stand-up fight between Winterbourne and Curtiss, after the latter had pasted a picture of Viola in a bathing suit inside his desk, along with a page torn from
London Life
, featuring the
Folies Bergere
star, Josephine Baker.

Hints of the approaching divorce bothered David a little, though not seriously. Divorces, nowadays, were common enough, and almost everyday occurrences among stage-folk. Winterbourne would just have to ride it out, like anyone else with a personal problem. But then the unexpected happened. News came, via the midweek papers, that Viola Winterbourne's divorce promised to be a particularly spicy affair, and David at once took steps to prevent the more sensational papers from being circulated that week. This was not too difficult to achieve. The papers were always late, anyway, and were distributed, one to a class, by the school bursar. On Sundays, when no train stopped at Bamfylde Bridge Halt, no papers were delivered. David went so far as to take Boyer into his confidence, telling him to keep an eye on what the Middle School were discussing over the weekend. There was always a chance that a boy on day leave, or a servant returning from a Sunday off in Challacombe, would introduce a popular paper into the school. There was not much to be feared from Upper School, where a majority would be likely to exercise tact, or indeed from Lower School, where papers like the
News of the World
were not in great demand, but instinct told him boys of the Fourth and Lower Fifth Forms were alerted as to the possibility of a Sunday spread and would keep a sharp lookout for reports of proceedings.

To be on his guard David arranged with one of the domestics to get a copy of the
News of the World
from Challacombe and a single glance at its contents dismayed him. On an inside page was a headline reading ' “
Farmyard Morals!” Scathing Comment by Divorce Judge,
' and below it '
Musical Comedy Star Cited in Divorce Proceedings'
.

The report itself spared nobody's blushes. It was before the passing of the Domestic Proceedings Act, limiting what could be printed concerning cases of
this kind, and Viola's private life was hung on the line, the story of her involvement with Victor Manners-Smith, her co-star, being told in detail. There was mention of champagne parties in Paris, and nude bathing parties in the villa of an impresario at Cannes. Even passages from her wildly indiscreet letters were quoted, one describing her feelings about the correspondent the first time she got into bed with him. Her husband, whom David had never met, had been granted a decree nisi, with costs amounting to over two thousand pounds.

He said, after Beth had read the story, 'We've got to keep this from circulating somehow. That kid's life won't be worth living if this is bandied around Big School.'

Boyer came to him after the dormitory bell had gone and said that no Sunday papers had been passed around Middle School and that Winterbourne, whom he had been watching closely, seemed to be taking the scandal in his stride. 'I even had a word with him before prep,' Boyer said, 'and he seems to have himself well in hand. I didn't mention the divorce, of course, but told him he was picked for wicket-keeper in the house match on Wednesday. That seemed to cheer him up no end. Anything else I can do, sir?'

'Not for the moment,' David told him. 'but keep your eye open for Sunday papers in tomorrow's distribution. I'll warn the bursar and if any show up whip 'em out of circulation,' and he left it at that, more or less satisfied that his strategy had succeeded.

It had not, apparently. At precisely six-forty on Monday, about an hour before rising bell when he and Beth were still in bed, there was an urgent rapping on the door and Beth shook him by the shoulder, struggling into her dressing gown. He said, sleepily, 'Who the devil would that be at this hour? Get rid of him, whoever he is,' and he rolled out of bed yawning and pulled the curtains aside, looking down on the empty quad as Beth crossed to the door calling, 'Who is it?'

'It's me, Mrs Powlett-Jones, Boyer. I'd like to speak to the housemaster at once, ma'am!'

David said, briefly, 'Go into the bathroom,' and he threw open the door to find Boyer on the threshold looking distraught.

'I'm sorry about the time, sir, but you had to know as soon as possible. Winterbourne's gone, sir. I don't think his bed was slept in, although it was rumpled a bit. I was up early to do an hour's cramming for the exam and I noticed he'd gone. He must have slipped down the fire escape in the night. Do you imagine he's run off to his father, sir?'

'I can check on that, his father's on the phone. That's the likeliest bet, but he wouldn't be able to get a train to Taunton on Sunday night, would he?'

'There's the milk train from Challacombe, sir. It stops at all the halts to pick up churns. That's about three-thirty a.m. If he hopped it he could be in Taunton by five and catch the fast to London. I've looked at the timetable, sir. There's one gets into Paddington at nine-ten.'

He thought, 'Thank God for Boyer… I was right about him after all…!' and said, 'Did you think to look in his locker?'

'Yes, sir. It's difficult to be sure but I think he's taken sweater, slacks and stinkers. His two suits are there.'

'Why the devil should he run away in plimsolls?'

'He might have planned on covering the distance between here and the next halt, at Crosshayes, sir. I would, knowing I'd be recognised and stopped by Walrus Tapscott down at the station. No one would question him buying a ticket at Crosshayes.'

'Thank you, Boyer,' David said. 'Keep it as quiet as possible. He won't be missed for a bit. Everyone will assume he went out early for a training run. I'll tell the head and do some phoning. I'll let you know what happens.'

'Thank you, sir,' Boyer said gravely and withdrew as Beth emerged from the bathroom. 'I heard,' she said. 'He can't have gone far, can he? And if he goes home to his father there's nothing to worry about, is there?'

'In that case, no, but it's something we've got to check at once.' He threw on some clothes and went down into the quad and across to Herries's house. Ellie, he knew, was an early riser, and he found her making tea in the kitchen. She said anxiously, 'I'll fetch Algy. You can find Mr Winterbourne's telephone number in his address book. It's in the top, right-hand drawer in the study desk.'

He got through to Winterbourne Senior with surprising speed. The Winterbourne house seemed to be a high-powered menage, with any number of lackeys about, even at this hour. 'Spats' had not shown up but his father did not seem ruffled by his son's disappearance in the middle of the night.

'Probably taken it into his head to go off somewhere he had fun in the holidays,' he said, as though Spats had been a man in his mid-twenties, with a particularly independent disposition. 'Impulsive kid, always was. Haven't you noticed that?'

'No,' said David, grimly, 'I can't say that I have,' taking a dislike to the flat, impersonal voice. 'To be perfectly frank, Mr Winterbourne, I've got
the impression he's very upset about the publicity Mrs Winterbourne's been getting.'

This seemed to jolt him a little but not much. He said, carefully, 'Really? Surprised to hear that. She's made headlines of one sort or another all his life.'

Herries bustled in, buttoning his trousers, and David offered him the receiver. The head said, in whisper, 'You deal with it, P.J. The boy's not arrived, has he?' and when David shook his head he frowned. It was not often that Algy Herries frowned and his face seemed to resent it.