The Summer Before the War (9 page)

“I expect your husband is fluent in both languages?” asked Beatrice.

“Yes, he is, damn him, and he seems to think it should be easy for me to be the same,” said Eleanor. “Now do sit down here beside me and tell me do you think it at all reasonable for him to accept a summons home and leave me surrounded by a German staff who speak no English?”

“I have often found that necessity does make one pick up languages a little faster,” said Beatrice. She sank cautiously into a canvas deck chair. “I once had to lease an apartment in Cairo…”

“Yes, yes,” said Eleanor, tossing her beautiful head and threatening to dislodge her hat. “But could he have at least engaged a bilingual nanny or lady's maid? No, Fräulein Gerta and Liesl the maid are from families who have served his family for centuries, and the Baron's family only has one way of doing things.” Here she assumed a slightly deeper voice and wagged a finger at herself. She crossed her eyes while doing so, and Beatrice could not help laughing.

“I hear your husband is young and handsome and that you are both very much in love,” said Beatrice, who had heard the same whispered by several admiring matrons during the afternoon.

“Oh, he is besotted, and I have him twined around this little finger of mine,” said Eleanor. “But on this one issue he is immovable because his mother insists I cannot be presented at court until I have enough German to answer should their Imperial Majesties stoop to speak to me.” She sighed and kicked off her white, heeled shoes onto the grass. “With two thousand people circulating in the most complicated of processions, I would be lucky if a footman asked for my wrap.”

“Oh dear,” said Beatrice, trying not to grin.

“And so I am confined to making little signs and pointing like a blind person,” Eleanor complained, leaning down to massage toes encased in white silk stockings.

Beatrice was not quite sure about the analogy, but she lost her train of thought as she saw Hugh coming across the grass, bearing with him not only Daniel but also Harry Wheaton and a footman with many glasses carried on a tray with legs.

“We weren't sure what everyone would want to drink, so we brought everything,” said Harry Wheaton, his face as innocent and unself-conscious as that of a spaniel puppy.

As the footman set the tray table next to Eleanor's chair, Beatrice stood up to make a hasty withdrawal, but Wheaton forestalled her. “I say, Eleanor, I made an absolute donkey of myself insulting Miss Nash the other day, and I beg you to help me make my apologies.”

“Did you really, Harry?” said his sister. “Well, you may have to leave immediately, because if Miss Nash is not of a mind to forgive you, I'm afraid I must choose her over you. She is going to teach me German.”

“Really, it was nothing,” said Beatrice. “But I should find Mrs. Kent. If you'll excuse me…”

“But we will certainly not excuse you,” said Eleanor. “We will have my oaf of a brother removed by several footmen. Do pass me some champagne, Daniel.”

“Miss Nash, I really do apologize, most sincerely,” said Wheaton. “Do stay and have a glass of champagne—or have a glass of lemonade, as I intend to do.” He picked up a glass of lemonade, causing his sister and Daniel to go off into peals of laughter.

“I forgive you, Mr. Wheaton,” said Beatrice, “if only for the sake of your mother, who has been so kind to me, and your sister, who is so charming.”

“I am often so forgiven,” he said. “I will drink this lemonade in their honor and promise to be a better man hereafter.”

“Good,” said Eleanor. “Now Beatrice can sit down and we can all be comfortable while Daniel reads us some of his poems.” The footman offered lemonade and champagne, and Beatrice took the lemonade and promised herself it would be the last time.

“I'm an invited guest, not the entertainment,” said Daniel. “I only show my poems on the most serious of occasions.”

“You used to show me one for a penny,” said Eleanor. “I have a whole box of ditties tied up with a tartan ribbon from my twelfth birthday.”

“I was less discriminating in those days,” said Daniel. “Discrimination being less affordable when one is a small boy with no pocket money.”

As the talk ebbed and flowed, Hugh pulled up a deck chair and Daniel sprawled on the grass with no regard for his light flannel trousers. Harry Wheaton perched on the end of his sister's chaise, and there was talk of a picnic expedition to the hop fields and of the new bathing machines at Camber Sands, and then Eleanor was expressing a wish that Beatrice accompany her to bathe as neither Fräulein nor the maid enjoyed the water and had made such a fuss last time. Beatrice, pleased to be still and cool and among this laughing circle of young people as the shadows lengthened across the lawn, felt for a moment released from care and repeated to herself that it had been a happy decision to come to Rye.

When the time came to leave, Agatha Kent seemed distracted and was still looking about her after she, her nephews, and Beatrice had already taken their farewells of Lady Emily. “There he is,” said Agatha and waved her sunshade quite rudely at the Headmaster, who seemed to be slipping away down a side path.

The Headmaster changed direction and came to say goodbye. “Lovely afternoon,” he said.

“We have been looking for you everywhere,” said Agatha. “You have been positively elusive.”

“I have been looking for you too,” said the Headmaster. “Quite impossible in the crush, of course.” The small group of guests remaining on the large lawn did not seem to Beatrice to qualify as a crush, and Agatha's pursed lips suggested she thought the same.

“Mrs. Fothergill seems to be under the extraordinary impression that Miss Nash should appear at the governors' meeting tomorrow,” said Agatha. “I am sure she meant no offense to your independence and judgment, Headmaster, but I did suggest it would be the height of rudeness to suggest any debate of your decision in such matters.”

“I appreciate your support, Mrs. Kent,” said the Headmaster. He looked uncomfortable around the neck and pulled at his collar. “I do hope my letter to you, Miss Nash, indicated that a final approval of our Board of Governors was usual.”

“And usually automatic,” added Agatha.

“Quite so,” said the Headmaster. “And it seems to me that Miss Nash has little to fear from any last-minute candidate.”

“So there is a candidate?” said Agatha.

“Quite sudden and unexpected,” said the Headmaster. “I assure you I did not suggest nor promote the young man in question, but it has been argued persuasively that should we deny the board a chance to hear from all parties, we may be open to criticism at a later date.”

“Bettina Fothergill's work,” said Agatha.

“Is it that weaselly-looking nephew of hers?” said Daniel. “He had the audacity to ask me where I purchased my tie, and I don't think he meant it as a compliment.”

“That's it,” said Agatha. “For once you are perspicacious, Daniel.”

“Are you suggesting I am usually a fool?” said Daniel.

“Of course, in the event of an unforeseen decision in the unfavorable direction,” said the Headmaster, smoothly refusing to engage in answering the question, “I will make myself personally responsible to return Miss Nash to her family entirely unburdened by any travel expenses. So there is no need to worry at all, young lady.” He smiled widely and patted Beatrice on the arm. She fought against the urge to push him to the ground.

Agatha took her other arm and pressed it firmly. “We shall see you at tomorrow's meeting and Lady Emily and I will rely on your continued support,” she said. “We must not tolerate underhanded machinations.”

“Not unless we instigate them, of course,” Beatrice heard Daniel whisper to Hugh. “We must do something to help Aunt Agatha, Hugh.” She could not help but admire and despair of the family loyalty expressed in his urgent tone, which only highlighted her own lack of any family to stand with her.

“I am sure it is all quite a formality,” the Headmaster was saying. “But it was not within my power to refuse.”

“I think I would like to go home now,” said Beatrice faintly, the pleasures and potential pleasures of the conjured afternoon falling away like so many blowing ashes. As she allowed Hugh to lead her away, she gathered up a few thoughts of the lovelier parts of the afternoon and stowed them away in the back of her mind, where they might remind her at some future date that lovely afternoons do not survive the chill of dusk.

Despair had a way
of making tea taste bad. Beatrice recognized the feeling and knew that the lady's parlor of the finest coaching inn along the high street was probably not as drab as it appeared to her at this moment. The white wainscoting seemed bright enough, and fresh flowers adorned a low table in front of the fireplace, but the floral upholstery of the chairs made her dizzy, and the sun, lancing in at tall courtyard windows, was painful to her eyes.

A sleepless night counting and re-counting her small stock of money had left her feeling weak. By no creative arrangement or stringent budgeting could she contrive to manage independently on the small allowance under her control. She might have managed abroad, in some small French town perhaps, but her father's family would never advance her the funds to establish herself and she had no intention of humiliating herself by asking. In the dark she had considered writing again to those American friends of her father to whom she had already written, thanking them for their condolences. There had been expressions of concern and support on their part, and perhaps she had been too elliptical in her replies. But in the pale hours of the dawn, she knew she had been clear in her expression of a desire for meaningful work and a productive life. She had all but asked them to find her a position. Only two had found it necessary to reply again, and both carefully worded letters had extolled the virtue of home and reminded her of her father's dying wish to see her safe in the bosom of his family.

She had declined one other teaching offer in favor of Rye. A northern mill town had offered just the productive life, the challenge of public service that she craved, but her heart had failed her at the thought of soot-blackened streets and rows of tenement cottages running across the hills. She had been forced to laugh at her own hypocrisy in choosing seaside Sussex over the surely greater educational impact she might make among the children of factory workers. Now she wondered if she would have time to write again and ask them to reconsider her. If not, she might eke out a few weeks at a friend's home near Brighton, but her chances of finding some other position immediately were not good. She had no romantic notions of becoming a parlor maid or an actress, and she had never had patience with those more literary heroines who solved their problems with a knife or an oncoming train. She would have to write to Marbely Hall at some point and ask to come back.

“Excuse me, miss,” said a serving girl, peering around the door. “They're ready for you in the Green Banqueting Hall.”

“Thank you,” said Beatrice, rising reluctantly from her chair. She shook out her skirts and smoothed a hand across her hair, looking at her face in the over-mantel mirror. She would face the Board of Governors with her very best smile and a forthright presentation of her skills and qualifications. She would not let them see that she knew the answer was already decided. They would pick the man over her, but she would make sure they knew, in their hearts, that she was the better candidate.

Hugh and Daniel were hovering outside the coaching inn, which presented an august Georgian façade to the high street and was the site of many a municipal meeting and festivity. Or rather, as Hugh acknowledged, he was hovering, conspicuous in his anxiety, while Daniel leaned against the inn's front wall, smoking a cheroot and gazing upward in the annoying way he did when he was suddenly struck by some fortunate arrangement of words. Hugh could only hope he would not start pulling out his notebook and a pen when time was so precious.

“He said he'd be here,” said Daniel, still musing. “I do wish you'd stop fidgeting.”

“And Harry Wheaton is the most reliable man we know,” said Hugh.

“He is most reliable when there's a prank to be played or a girl to be courted,” said Daniel. “He seemed to regard the removal of Mr. Poot as a lark.”

“Well, Poot is sitting in the hallway now, and Miss Nash is already in with the governors,” said Hugh. “We should go and talk to him ourselves.”

“Poot?” asked Daniel. “What would we say? ‘Could you please withdraw so our aunt can beat your aunt'?”

“We have to do something,” said Hugh. While Daniel and Harry had agreed that Bettina Fothergill could not be allowed to usurp both Aunt Agatha and Lady Emily with her machinations, Hugh found himself unusually indignant at the unfairness of Mr. Poot snatching away a job from a young woman who so clearly deserved it. As he peered through the inn's open door again, to where Mr. Poot sat very straight on a wooden settle, looking like a skinny toby jug, he reassured himself that ordinary chivalry demanded action and that his indignation had more to do with Miss Nash being alone in the world than with a pretty face or the intelligence behind her eyes.

“Oh, for goodness' sake, he'll see you,” said Daniel. “We're trying to be discreet, remember?” Just then an automobile horn gave a loud blast and a large black car swerved to a halt with Wheaton, attired in a voluminous duster and goggles, at the wheel. The chauffeur rode next to him, tight-lipped and gripping the door.

“Am I on time?” called Wheaton. He removed his goggles, wiped his face with a driving scarf, and hopped out of the car. The chauffeur slid over to take the wheel. “We dropped off my mother earlier and I took the old car for a spin. Still getting the hang of it. Round the corners it's like trying to steer a cow.”

“Ridden many cows?” asked Daniel.

“A few,” said Wheaton. “At least that's what they tell me. I can't say I remember clearly.”

“We are too late,” said Hugh. “Miss Nash is already being interviewed, and they may send for Poot at any time.”

“Well, we'd better get to work,” said Wheaton. “Daniel and I will lure Poot into the taproom while you slip your aunt a note and ask her to stall as long as possible.”

Hugh hung back as they entered the inn's lobby and asked a porter to bring him a pen and paper. He took a seat at a small table in a window nook and busied himself with turning over the pages of an old issue of the
Racing Times
. Trying to appear absorbed in tables of results from early spring's races and advertisements for stud services and worm treatments, he kept a keen ear on Wheaton's conversation.

“Just telling my friend Daniel here that this town is sorely lacking in congenial chaps on whom one can rely for a companionable talk.”

“I tell him he's too fussy about where he gathers,” said Daniel, shaking Poot by the hand.

“I don't like rubbing up against all and sundry,” said Wheaton. “I prefer a quiet room and a landlord who knows his regulars. Don't you agree, Pooty, old boy?”

“It's just Poot,” said Poot.

“Have you met Old Jones, the landlord here?” asked Wheaton, stuffing his driving gloves into his coat pocket and shouldering off the voluminous garment. A footman stepped smoothly up to take it from him. Wheaton was well known in half the public houses in town, and while most had had occasion to escort him off the premises for some wild act stemming from drunkenness, they never failed to welcome him with a hopeful deference.

“I have not had occasion—” began Poot. He looked ready to deny any desire to frequent public houses, but Wheaton interrupted.

“What luck,” he said. “Daniel and I were just stopping in now to ask Jones about hosting a small supper for a few chaps. Come with us and I'll introduce you.”

“Oh, I couldn't, I'm waiting to see the school governors,” said Poot, but Hugh saw his eyes flicker towards the taproom.

“That could take hours, knowing my mother,” said Wheaton. He slapped Poot heartily on the back. “You come along with us and we'll ask Old Jones to give us the nod when they need you upstairs.”

“When Harry Wheaton introduces you, you're all set in this town,” said Daniel, steering him by the arm now. “It's a good thing we came along.”

As they disappeared into the taproom, Hugh looked around for someone to take up his note. It took a few moments to find a man and to give him instructions and fish out a sixpence to thank him. When the note was safely on its way upstairs, Hugh shuffled slowly past the taproom door and glanced in to see Mr. Jones, the landlord, lead a toast to the King, and a nervous Mr. Poot, earlobes scarlet, drink down his glass in one swallow. His eyes closed as if in prayer, but his face did not twist or pucker as might be usual in someone unused to strong drink. Of the four men gathered around the bar, only Daniel gave a smothered cough as the dram went down. At some signal from Wheaton, the landlord refilled the glasses, filling Mr. Poot's to the brim, and proclaimed a loud welcome to Master Wheaton's new young friend. Hugh walked away satisfied, wondering only how he might explain to Aunt Agatha why Daniel would need to miss lunch and lie down all afternoon.

In the Green Banqueting Hall, Agatha Kent watched hopelessly as Beatrice Nash gave a good account of her qualifications, her extensive travels, and her experience to a table filled with men who mostly did not care. The Headmaster had the grace to look uncomfortable, making copious notes on a paper and fiddling with his collar. The Vicar looked earnestly pious, but his eyelids were drowsy and he was obviously smiling not at Miss Nash but at a mental picture of his lunch to come. Emily Wheaton was just now glaring at Mr. Satchell, the shipowner, who was whispering to Farmer Bowen. The farmer, who owned large acreage, from sheep pasture on the marsh to hop fields towards the Kent border, wore his best wool suit and polished boots, and as usual this time of year, he was at the meeting to make sure the school would remain closed for the full period of the hop harvest and otherwise to vote as the Mayor wished him to do. Mr. Satchell was very interested in the educational efforts of the school, looking as he was for a steady supply of young clerks for his maritime warehouses. He could usually be persuaded to support new efforts and ideas. But he was immune to the social inducements of Emily Wheaton, so his support for Beatrice was uncertain. Mr. Arnold Pike was Arty Pike's uncle. He was a tightfisted man and suspicious of all change, as if it were somehow designed to strip him of his worldly position. Agatha thought this might be the result of a pricking conscience. He had benefited from the disinheritance of his older brother, Cedric, because their Chapel father had not approved of Cedric's weakness for the occasional tipple. Now Cedric worked in the ironmongery on a store clerk's salary and could not reliably afford his son's school fees. Agatha and John's little scholarships were supposed to be confidential, but sometimes she thought Arnold Pike glared at her with even more suspicion than usual.

“I believe Miss Nash is not only fully qualified to teach Latin but has even had some work of Latin translation published?” said Agatha, trying to encourage the room at large. She had received a note from Hugh asking her to extend the interview as long as possible, but the frowns around the table did not inspire confidence.

“Just a couple of short Herodotus poems published in a literary magazine in California,” said Beatrice. “And I also created a third poem in a similar style as a commentary on the original content and to display its connections to events of our own times,” she added.

“Whoever heard of making up new Latin on top of what already exists!” said Mr. Satchell, looking comically alarmed. “I had enough old Latin beaten into me without trying to expand the stuff.” He stuck an elbow in Farmer Bowen's ribs, and they both chuckled.

“I am sure Miss Nash understands what an effort it is to get our young men to memorize the usual passages of translation,” said the Headmaster. “We did terribly in last year's scholarship exams, and so we must be sure not to waste a moment trying anything too innovative this coming year.”

“Repetitio est mater studiorum,”
said the Vicar, who could not resist speaking Latin in the deep tone that he used for projecting sermons to the farthest reaches of St. Mary's Church.