R. Delderfield & R. F. Delderfield (46 page)

Alcock said, mildly, 'Why, sever it, Irvine. On the spot. And then report to me, in order that it can be fully investigated.'

Barnaby spoke up. It was the first time he had ever challenged the new man but he did it without preamble.

'There's nothing of that kind in my house, I can assure you of that. Friendships, yes, but perfectly harmless ones, believe me.'

Alcock lifted one shoulder. 'I should like to, Barnaby, but none of us can be sure, can we?'

'I can,' Barnaby huffed. 'I don't speak for anyone else.'

Alcock seemed to consider this for a moment and then, when nobody followed it up, nodded and withdrew. Barely was he clear of the threshold when the bull-headed Irvine exploded.

'Bloody man's a nut-case! First he cancels free periods to watch important matches, then he starts sacking left, right and centre, now he confronts us with a thing like this! How the hell is a man supposed to investigate a ning without risking a snub? Aye, and a bloody-minded parent's letter into the bargain! Bound to make a fool of yourself, however you tackle it,' and he went on to provide them with what David thought a very fair illustration of his point. 'I see Skelton, pacing round the plantation boundary with young Grattan, deep in conversation with him. Now I happen to know that Skelton regards Grattan as the likeliest kid among the juniors to captain that new Colt's Eleven I'm bringing on. Boy's going to make a first-class bowler, providing he keeps at it, and where the hell would he look for coaching if he's got a ha'porth o' sense? To the captain of the First Eleven wouldn't he? And that man would have us believe they were madly in love with one another, when the damn fool has never watched a match in his life!'

Barnaby, having recovered his equanimity somewhat, resumed his favourite
role of verbal
agent provocateur.
'They might, of course, be using cricket as an emotional bridge, Irvine.'

'Cock!' roared Irvine, who had never adapted to Barnaby's gentle leg-pulls. 'I
told
Skelton to coach the kid! What does that make me? A pimp?'

It became known, when discussions on the subject widened, as the Stoic's 'Statute of Limitations', an attempt to draw an arbitrary line between seniors and juniors. Among the boys it acquired a less dignified title. They called it 'Noble's Three N's, or Non-Ninging Notice', and this is how it was referred to years later, when Old Boys reminisced round the bar at Whitsuntide reunions.

But at the time it soon ceased to be a joke, especially after Alcock launched his follow-up, demanding of each housemaster the imposition of a virtual ban in association between the two groups. It was then that Howarth scored for the staff, following a demand for a personal report on two of his boys transgressing the Statue of Limitations. Replying to Alcock's enquiry concerning the relationship between Dobson, an Upper Fifth rugby colour, and Vesey, a first-termer in the Lower Third, he produced a letter written from Vesey's father, then serving in the R.A.M.C. in India alongside Dobson's father, whom he happened to outrank.

The relevant quotation was passed from hand to hand as proof that even the Stoic was vulnerable to Howarth's irony. Vesey
père
had written,

The kid is sure to feel a bit low, seeing that this is his first trip home, but Captain Dobson happened to mention his younger boy is in his fourth year and asks me to ask you to put in a word with young Dobson on the kid's behalf. I don't want him coddled, mind you, but it was a great relief to his mother to learn that Dobson's boy is still with you…

'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 bloody 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.