R. Delderfield & R. F. Delderfield (61 page)

Her enthusiasm crackled over the line as she said, 'But that's wonderful! And to think I never asked about it.'

'Don't let that bother you. I'd completely forgotten it myself. Hi, you read all the papers. Will you keep an eye open for other reviews?'

'I'll do better. There are papers right here on the hotel table,' and he heard her slam out of the booth and a moment later her voice saying, 'I won't have time to read them but I've got the
Chronicle
here, and some others… hold on,' and he listened, grinning, to a prolonged rustling, ending in a shout, 'There's one here! In the
Empire News,
of all papers… “When Knights Were Bold!”
What an awful heading! …But it's nice. The man seems quite taken by it, says it reads like a thriller.'

'That's what Father Times says.'

'You'll be famous by tomorrow!'

'Nonsense!' he laughed, 'but I must say I'm bowled over by them reviewing it at all. After all, I'm not a professional historian.'

'Of course you're a pro if you teach history, then go on to sell it between hard covers. Will you make a lot of money?'

'The publisher says around four hundred if it sells out. A bit more on a reprint.'

'This will send your stock soaring at Bamfylde, won't it?'

'I don't quite know, they've never had an author before. But there's another aspect of it, Chris. If I go on to write other books, and I'm sure I could, couldn't I think about doing it full-time? Who gives a damn whether an author is married, single or living in sin?'

She said, in an incisive voice, 'Cut that out, Davy! Write as much as you like. Make as much money as you can, and jolly good luck to you. But stay with what you're doing. I know you far better than you know yourself, and you wouldn't enjoy doing anything else, no matter how successful you were. They're paging me now, darling. I can't stay, except to say thank you over and over again, and how terribly pleased I am for you. Goodbye, darling, darling Davy.'

She rang off and he sat there with one hand holding the receiver, the other resting on the small pile of books, considering the unequivocality of her advice, and wondering how she could be so sure of his vocation when she was not in the least sure of her own. She had predecessors in this field. Both Beth and Julia Darbyshire had given him the same advice, and usually, when the ride was smooth, he found himself in agreement with them. But four years under Alcock had gone some way towards undermining his confidence. Now he was not at all sure. It would depend, he supposed, on how Bamfylde lurched into the new year, when the Governors met again to fill the vacuum. Until then there seemed no profit in seeking a hard decision. It was a time, surely, to drift along with the tide.

He went over to the bookcase and pulled out a copy of
Who's Who,
thumbing through the flimsy leaves until he located 'Ellicott, John Ernest; historian and author…' with a long list of books to his credit. He even recognised the title of one that he had read and enjoyed. 'So much for chaps who write
books,' he said aloud. 'I didn't even remember the author's name,' and for some reason this made him chuckle. He put two copies of the book in his bookcase between Oman and Macaulay, picked up those destined for Barnaby and Howarth, and went down the stairs whistling. 'Queer that,' he thought, as he crossed the empty quad on his way to relieve Barnaby. 'I often used to whistle my way down these steps in Algy's day, but I stopped doing it when Alcock took over. Maybe it's the end of the tunnel.'

1

H
E HAD NO DIFFICULTY IN RECOGNISING THE PATTERN. EVER since he climbed the winding road from Bamfylde Bridge Halt for the very first time, it had forever reasserted itself, a personal within a national cycle, so that he could always see Bamfylde and the outside world as reflections of one another, hope countering disappointment, slump following boom, pain giving way to pleasure, failure to modest triumph.

The term, after such a gloomy start, was settling down to a minor boom, with Bamfylde back on course under Algy's caretaker administration, with the surprising success of the book and the queer, quirkish satisfaction that it brought when he realised staff and boys took pride in his achievement. And after that, in mid-October, Chris's amazing rally in South Mendips, where she too made headlines, with her unexpectedly high turnout against impossible odds, the Liberal pushed into third place, and a total of eleven thousand, four hundred and two votes.

There had never been the slightest hope of victory. All over the country Labour strongholds were falling, as the electorate opted for business as usual (whatever that meant) and the economies of the 'National' government were approved by all who were not directly savaged by them. The Government was back with four hundred and ninety-nine seats, Labour losing a total of two hundred and thirteen, including those of thirty-four ex-ministers. Socialism was in retreat everywhere and yet, in South Mendips, that had returned a Tory by mammoth majorities ever since the earliest days of extended suffrage, a slip of a girl beat the Liberal by over a thousand votes and cut the overall Tory majority by fifteen hundred.

He phoned the day after the election to congratulate her, finding that she
was naïvely proud of her achievement. 'It's almost as good as being elected,' she told him excitedly, and added that she had had a telegram of congratulations from Transport House, together with a promise that they would set about finding her a constituency where her chances of getting elected would be appreciably improved.

'Will you accept, after so much groundwork right where you are?' and she said she would think about it, for that, after all, was politics.

After that the term slipped by, with nothing much to distinguish it from any other term this time of year. The weather worsened. Flurries of sleet slashed down from the moor, and all the lanes following the river valleys became shin-deep in red porridge, making it impossible for leaders to maintain average times during the runs. David still went out with them, arriving back in the quad in the winter twilight wet through and plastered from head to foot with Exmoor mud. The area between the rugby posts became a quagmire, scrums slithering across in a mad, splashing frolic whenever the weaker side lost anchorage in the mire. Sometimes you could hardly follow a game through the curtain of mud and every other pass was fumbled as the threequarters dropped the soggy ball. Then the frost came, with every hedgerow hawthorn bush transformed into a chandelier, and a cloud of breath rising over the house warm-up runs like vapour over cattle, and everyone blowing on his hands and jostling for seats nearest to the defective hotwater pipes, that gurgled like a gourmand's belly, giving the professional time-wasters any amount of excuses to practise their craft.

Coxe, inspirer of Towser's headboard, found a half-frozen blackbird up in the planty and restored to it the power of flight. The sick-room was full, the matron irritably busy. Skelton, notable cricketer, left at very short notice to take a job in Christchurch, New Zealand, embarrassing himself and everybody else by piping his eye at a farewell supper in Nicolson's. Barnaby sympathised. 'Poor chap's been here since he was nine. As a Sunsetter, it's the only home he's ever known. Must be damned frightening being uprooted by a telegram, and sent halfway across the world to muddle along among strangers.' Barnaby was more discerning, David thought, than most people would have you believe.

Heffling, poor wight, broke a wrist when tackled by the visiting full back on frozen ground far out on the touchline, and had to be driven to hospital over treacherous roads by Molyneux – the small change of a term, but the big pay-off was on its way so far as David was concerned. In the last week of term, while
David was superintending the unblocking of a frozen drain in the forecourt, he saw Sir Rufus Creighton drive up in his Daimler and give him a distant nod, descending a moment later to make his way into the head's house without a backward glance.

He thought, 'That old brown nut still has it in for me, despite his qualified support the day Alcock died – probably regards me as responsible for it, the way I did myself when it happened,' but then Algy bobbed out, pink-cheeked and excited, saying, 'Leave that infernal drain, P.J.! Let the outside staff see to it. Chairman wants a word with you. I'll get Rigby to bring in coffee at break-time and rejoin you then.'

'Hi, wait! What's this in aid of?' he demanded, but Algy was giving nothing away. 'Not my pigeon,' he said, 'I'm only the caretaker here, old son!' and skipped away, moving, David thought, more like a first-termer trying to keep the blood-circulating than a parson in his seventies.

Sir Rufus was seated in what Algy called 'The Privileged Culprit's Chair', at angles to the study desk. It was a chair covered with petit-point, used by parents, members of the staff being consulted, and seniors being lectured by the head. Junior or Middle School defaulters were never asked to sit in here. 'They wouldn't know what to do with their hands and feet,' Algy had once told him. 'They much prefer to face the music standing.' The old judge still looked like Buddha, his smooth brown flesh stretched tightly over his skull, his mottled hands tidily folded, as in prayer or meditation. The mark of his years in the East lurked in posture and sunken eyes. He said, quietly, 'Take a seat, Powlett-Jones. Behind the desk, please.' Then, surprisingly, 'Do you smoke?'

'Yes, Sir Rufus.'

'Try one of these? Burmese. I indulge once a day, after dinner. One now would give me heartburn. I have them sent, you know, in boxes of one hundred. All the way from Rangoon.'

David accepted one of his cheroots and found it very strong. Sir Rufus, who seemed in no hurry, waited for it to draw. 'Well?'

'It's… er… very good, Sir Rufus.'

'I think so. Never could be bothered with whiffs. If you like to smoke then smoke the leaf, as God intended. Don't poison yourself with chemical products, hashed up in Nottingham or Bristol.' He paused, looking down at his
brown, wrinkled hands, splashed with age spots. Then, raising his head, 'When Herries retired a few years ago you had hopes of succeeding him, I recall?'

'No real hope, sir.'

'But you applied.'

'I was talked into it.'

'Indeed? By whom? By Herries?'

'Not really. By Brigadier Cooper for one, by Mr Howarth for another. But I realise now that I applied against my better judgement.'

'You wouldn't back yourself to take over here?'

It took him getting on for a minute to absorb the shock. Then he said, carefully, 'It isn't that, sir. But I see, looking back, that my original application was a brash gesture on my part. I had only been teaching for nine years, and needed a great deal more experience.'

'I see. And now?'

He smiled. 'Well, I've had four years' more experience. And I'm that much older and wiser.'

The little man pondered a moment. Then, with the greatest deliberation, he drew a folded sheet of paper from his inside pocket and spread it out on his knees. With a sense of shock David recognised it as Alcock's unfinished letter. Sir Rufus said, 'Dr Willoughby passed it to me. It was correct of you to give it to him. Some men, I think, would have hesitated to do that in the circumstances.'

'I was tempted myself, sir.'

'Ah, I daresay. However, it tells us a good deal, I think.'

'Sir?'

'I don't see why I shouldn't be as frank with you as you have been with me. I consider we made a haphazard choice as regards Mr Alcock. We shirked the issue. We owed it to everyone to take more time to probe a little deeper. Do you blame yourself for his death in any way?'

'A little. I was clearly a contributory factor.'

'That's nonsense, Powlett-Jones, and I believe Dr Willoughby told you so at the time.'

'Yes, he did.'

'Well, then, oblige me by putting it out of mind. Alcock was a very sick man and deliberately concealed the fact. The point is, how would you feel about taking over as deputy here? Until the next full meeting of the Board in March?'

'Deputy? You mean, take Mr Herries's place for the time being?'

'Not exactly. To deputise with confirmation in mind. As a near-certainty, I should add.'

It had come. After all this time. Right out of the blue, on a frosty December morning, getting on for fourteen years since he had first sat in this room, and shared Algy's sorrow over the slaughter of the 1913 Fifteen. He was lost for words. His hands shook a little, reminding him again of that first interview, half a lifetime ago it seemed. Before Beth. Before Chris. Before Alcock and the dragging weight of Alcock' s corpse in his arms. He stammered, at last, 'I… I'd like that more than anything in the world, Sir Rufus. It's extremely kind of you to make the offer.'

'It isn't an offer in that sense. I can't make it official. You realise that, I hope?'

'Naturally, sir.'

'It would have to have the full approval of the Governing Body. But…' he came as near to smiling as was possible with that taut, brown skin – 'I have a feeling that could be managed. With tact and gentle persuasion. I'll go farther and risk getting myself into a scrape. In your place, Powlett-Jones, I would take it as read. Take over from today and see the term out. I'll accept full responsibility for that. But first, are there any conditions on your part?'