by Jane Arbor
HIGH MASTER OF CLERE
Jane Arbor
It was no easy task for a young man to take over as head of an old school like Clere, but some of Daniel Wyat’s methods were a little too much for Verity to take ... especially when her own father had been the previous high master.
CHAPTER I
Of long habit Nash came to heel at the wall gate. As Verity opened it and followed the old dachshund into the lane beyond she was thinking, I’m glad he can’t know—grateful that he couldn’t share the ache at her own heart.
Clere and all it stood for ... How little longer would it be there for them both as the only way of life they had ever known? Clere, stone-built, Tudor, facing austerely towards Dogger from the fat curve of the north Norfolk coast, was one of the smaller public schools. Verity had been only a baby, her brother Lance not yet born, when their father had first come to Clere as a housemaster, later to be its Head until his sudden collapse on the last day of the previous summer term. He had died while the boys’ voices were still loud in the Dismissal Hymn, and when they had scattered to their homes they had gone mourning their beloved ‘High Master’ as one who would be for ever among ‘those who here shall meet no more’...
That had been six weeks ago; six short weeks in which the Lyttons’ gentle, sheltered world had shattered, weeks in which shock and regrets had had to yield at last to the problems of their future.
Nothing was settled. Plans had to be fluid as yet. The present chance was that the best of the new jobs on offer to Verity would entail a move to either Birmingham or London or, if she were lucky, into another school secretaryship in Surrey. But it was already September, and though the Governors of Clere had been indulgent to Mrs. Lytton’s widowhood, she and her family would have to vacate their quarters before the new High Master moved in.
With careful economy Lance, nine years Verity’s junior and now fifteen, could finish his schooling at Clere. But Mrs. Lytton must give place to the wife of her husband’s successor and must make a new home for herself and her children, while a man, as yet without name or personality as far as they were concerned, would make Clere his own ... no longer theirs.
Nash was padding ahead down the lane which, leading only from the village to the shore, held no traffic hazards for a small dog long past his youth. Cars bound shorewards took the wider creek road and at this time of year few cars except those of wildfowlers or birdwatchers sought the bleakness of the dunes and the windblown flats of ribbed sand which met the open fan of the sky at the horizon.
The Scout and Guide tents had been struck and the summer caravans had gone, along with the half-dozen beached pedaloes and the ice-cream kiosk which were the village’s sole concession to the seasonal trippers. On any wild day such as this during Clere vacation Verity and Nash and the seabirds could expect to find dunes and shore deserted—which made the car parked far down the sands something of an interloper with no rights there.
Nash alerted, squatting back on age-thickened haunches and lifting his greying muzzle to take the car’s scent. Then, never able to resist investigating a car, he loped towards it, leaving Verity no choice but to follow.
Nearer, she saw the car was no wildfowler’s jalopy. It had a ‘town’ look with its long lines and opened drophead, against the far side of which the driver leaned, smoking and looking out to sea. So he had his back to her, and he did not turn until Nash was sniffing at the car wheels and Verity was a few feet distant.
As he glanced down at Nash, making a perfunctory dog-acknowledging noise, Verity noted his long face of lean planes and deep-set eyes; also the well-cut lounge suit and bow tie, which two latter ‘went’ exactly with the good car but which were incongruous on a windy foreshore under a storm-racked sky.
At her crisp command to Nash he waddled back to her and she saw herself taken into the stranger’s line of vision as a mere female shape in raincoat and wellingtons; taken and indifferently dismissed. He returned the ‘good afternoon’ she gave him by, country habit, then resumed his contemplation of the horizon without a second glance at the detail her mirror saw—dark hair which could shine chestnut in some lights, eyes once described by ... someone as ‘sea-coloured,’ a nose that was a reasonably decent shape ... the nondescript rest. But as she was about to move off he remarked of Nash,
‘Nice fellow. But haven’t you allowed him to get very fat?’
All too conscious that the criticism was justified, Verity bridled. Nash was overweight, but—
‘He’s very old. Nearly thirteen,’ she defended him. ‘Besides, he was ill in the summer and he isn’t equal to enough exercise now.’
‘And what do you call him? Dash?’
(Dash! How corny could you get?) ‘Not Dash. Nash,’ she corrected, making an over-importance of the ‘N’.
The stranger’s brows went up. ‘Beau?’
‘Beau?’ For a moment she missed the allusion. Then she said, ‘Oh—Beau Nash? No. It was simply that once, while he was about as silly as pups come, my father addressed him as “Noble and Sagacious Hound” and he has been N.A.S.H.—Nash for short—ever since.’
‘I see.’ A snapped finger and thumb invited Nash for a pat and a fondle of his silken ears, and as the man straightened he said, ‘I must say you’ve a pretty daunting piece of coast. Is it usually as bleak as this so early in the autumn?’
‘Well, there’s almost always a wind out here. After all, we face due north. And that way’—Verity’s head jerked eastward—‘they say there’s no higher ground between here and the Ural mountains.’
‘So I’ve heard, though it’s a part of the world I haven’t known until now.’ His tone implied that he liked it no better than he knew it, which put Verity on the defensive for her beloved coast.
She said a shade tartly, ‘I’m afraid you have to let it grow on you. It takes time,’ and when he seemed to look his doubt that it would ever grow on him, she signalled to Nash and went on her way.
A hundred yards on, when Nash was dawdling, she looked back. The car was still there, but its owner was walking dunewards in the opposite direction.
She halted, frowned, told Nash, ‘Well, I suppose he couldn’t be expected to know,’ then set out at a loping run to retrace her steps.
Fifty yards short of her late companion she shouted without ceremony, ‘Hi!’ and saw him turn to wait, wearing a ‘Now what?’ expression.
Level with him, Verity panted, ‘How long were you thinking of leaving your car where it is?’
‘Just while I explore the dunes. Why?’
‘Because you’ve left it pretty near the tide-line, and the tide is coming in.’
He looked at the far out curling lace of surf. ‘So?’ he invited.
Verity said drily, ‘You’d be surprised. Of course you weren’t to know, but in fact it doesn’t come in on the line it’s keeping now. Just about here it takes a sweep and floods right up to the dunes within minutes. And as your car is, so to speak, right in the line of fire, I wouldn’t abandon it for too long if I were you.’
He looked incredulous. ‘Treacherous currents on a shore as flat as this? Surely not?’ he questioned.
Verity shrugged. ‘You’ve been warned. You should have read the notice on the sea wall anyway.’ She looked at her watch and calculated. ‘In less than half an hour your car could be in a foot of water,’ she added with an expressive glance at his immaculate shoes before she turned away again without waiting to hear something about ‘coast lore’ which blew back to her on the wind.
Nash was in good form today, but as always she was on the watch for his tiring. For ever with her now was the memory of that alarming day in the summer when, almost in mid-gallop, a partial paralysis had seized him and she had had to carry him home, fearing all the vet
might have to say when he was called.
In the event, the vet had been grave but not despairing. This was something, he explained, to which the long-bodied breeds were liable when they were ageing. Care and rest and modern drugs might work wonders. If they failed—But he claimed he knew Nash for a gallant chap who would fight ... And fight Nash did, pulling through, first to totter on his nerveless hind legs, then to steady on them, then to step out and finally to run again, his stern gay and his head high.
But the days of waiting had been an agony of tension for Verity, and the memory of the worst of them was still shadowed by more than her remembered fears for Nash. For on that day she had been put to a cruel choice; had chosen the bittersweet of her duty to Nash and in consequence had watched a dream shatter to disillusion.
Looking back, the pain less raw now, she supposed she had built too much on a kiss or two, some charming compliments (‘sea-coloured’!) and the few dates she had had with Max Doran during his brief time at Clere. He had joined the staff at Easter as a temporary substitute for the regular games master who was ill, and he never pretended to more than a bird-of-passage temperament which, he told Verity with disarming candour, had never kept him anywhere for long.
He had had no particular qualifications for his job—just his brawn and a dynamic vitality which he boasted he could use in a dozen ways when he tired, as he certainly would, of organizing cross-country runs and yelling instructions from touch-lines.
‘Pity the girl who’s tempted to tie up with me,’ he advised. ‘She’ll have to learn that I’m a comer and a goer—mostly a goer.’
But Verity hadn’t wanted to be advised. Under his spell she told herself that even when he left Clere he would keep in touch, would come back, or he would ask her to meet him elsewhere and she would go ... Meanwhile there were the snatched summer hours to enjoy with him, hours which, sadly, taught her nothing about the real Max who emerged on that ugly day of choice.
He had wanted her to go out with him for the whole day. She had begged in reply that she couldn’t possibly leave Nash for so long. They had argued the issue back and forth, and even when Max had flung out with a parting, unforgivable, ‘It’s high time that damned hound was put down, anyway,’ she had honestly tried to see that as the fruit of his understandable frustration.
But he had never forgiven her. He had not wanted to hear when Nash recovered, and on the score of attending an interview for his next job he had left Clere a couple of days before the end of term.
He had not sought her out to say goodbye, and the only sign from him since had been his note of condolence to Mrs. Lytton. Verity, coping with sheaves of such letters, had replied to it in the formal third person and had been glad that her mother had no inkling of what it cost her to destroy it later, so that she was not tempted to remember his address.
She was glad too that she knew already Max had not really been for her, nor she for him. They had not really quarrelled over Nash that day, but because their values touched only at glancing tangents. They didn’t, on any deep issue, speak the same language. But the experience had left a bruise behind—a bruise to her spirit which was taking time to fade.
Today, when she and Nash turned for home, they went back by a different way—through the big wrought-iron gates and up the main drive leading to the long north face of the school, flanked at one end by the chapel and at the other by the unfinished, still scaffolded new wing, Clere’s first additional building for a century and a pride of Mr. Lytton’s which he had not lived to see finished. Nor would she see it finished now, thought Verity sadly, doubting whether she would bear to come back to Clere once she had gone.
The High Master’s family quarters were part of the main building, at the back facing south over the school grounds. His study flanked the Tudor front doorway, with Verity’s small office facing it across the hall. The boys’ residential Houses, each under a married housemaster and each named for the four winds which assailed Clere, stood detached in their own gardens—‘North’ the one carrying the special privileges due to seniority; ‘East’, ‘West’ and ‘South’ the three to which newcomers were allotted as far as possible according to the initial letters of their surnames. Lance, still posted to West House, was hoping for promotion to ‘North’ in the coming term.
In the house Verity gave Nash fresh water in his bowl, watched him enjoy his drink, then went in search of her mother. Lance was with her in their sitting-room, his long legs astride the arm of an easy chair, listening as Mrs. Lytton read aloud from a letter.
‘It came by the second post. It’s from Sir Bonham, saying the Governors have appointed a new High, and asking if it’s convenient for him to come to look over School tomorrow afternoon at half-past three. That is ‘—referring again to the letter—‘the seventh is tomorrow, isn’t it? It’s not?’
‘It is, you know,’ Lance said drily. ‘It’s today, sweet Mamma, no less.’
‘Today? So it is!’ Mrs. Lytton’s pale blue eyes widened. ‘But what could Sir Bonham be thinking of—giving us no more notice than this?’
But Verity was looking at the envelope’s postmark. ‘There’s a Post Office go-slow on. You can’t blame Sir Bonham—his letter has been three days coming. You could telephone now to say you’ll make it convenient. But it’s hardly worth it, as the man must be practically here. Don’t panic, Mother. He’ll have to take School and us and everything just as he finds it. Where does he come from and what is his name?’ she asked.
Mrs. Lytton fingered the letter nervously, keeping its contents from Verity’s sight. ‘He’s been—well, a—a History don at Oxford for the last four years. And his name—oh dear, children, it’s the oddest thing! Because if it is—’ Pausing, she removed her reading-glasses and tapped them against her cheek. ‘If it is, and it just could be, I suppose—he’s Daniel Wyatt. Daniel! My Daniel—ours! You know?’
Lance and Verity stared their shock. Verity began, ‘Not?’ and Lance finished for her, ‘Oh no! Not that little creep who left you and Father flat after he was evacuated to Canada during the war? What makes you think it could be the same?’
‘Because of the name, of course. It isn’t a usual one.’ Mrs. Lytton added with dignity, ‘And he was not a creep. He was only ten when he went out to this Canadian uncle, and his leaving us with no news needn’t have been his fault, as I’ve told you often. Let’s see—that was when Verity was about one, which makes him now—’
‘Around thirty-four,’ Lance cut in. ‘And prancing in here as High Master after Father at that age? For pity’s sake, no!’
His mother’s lip quivered at his vehemence. ‘I know, dear. He will be young. But your father wasn’t so very much older when he became High. And aren’t we going to hate the thought of anyone at all taking his place?’
‘Not anyone. Obviously we’ve got to have a new High. But why couldn’t they appoint Old Nick, for instance? Let’s face it, Mrs. Old Nick takes some swallowing. But they’ve been here longer than any other staff, and most of us would settle for him.’
‘Perhaps, dear. Though I believe Nicholas Dysart has never wanted promotion. Anyway, this man may not be Daniel. What’s the time now, Verity?’
‘Ten past three. But look, Mother, in case he is the same, just brief us again about him, won’t you? He was sent out to Canada to his father’s brother after they—his mother and father—had been killed together in an air-raid, wasn’t that it?’
‘As if we hadn’t had chapter and verse about the little dear fed to us all our lives!’ murmured Lance.
But Mrs. Lytton confirmed, ‘Yes. Cleo Wyatt and I had been friends since our schooldays, and the four of us, Robert and I, and Cleo and Dick Wyatt, kept up the friendship, even during the years they were abroad on Army service. Dick was a regular officer, you see. Cleo married long before I did, and Daniel was nine or so when they were posted Home at the beginning of the war. They were much better off than we were. Dick had a lot of private means. But it never made any difference, and we had hoped s
o much that we could care for Daniel after they were killed.’
Verity, who had heard the story many times before, prompted gently, ‘Which was why you were so hurt when he just—faded out and stayed out for good?’
Mrs. Lytton nodded. ‘Yes, though I’ve never believed the break was his doing. His uncle must have deliberately cut all his ties over here, for some reason best known to himself. We wrote, but Daniel never replied, and Robert thought it best to leave it, even though it broke our hearts’—she paused to laugh on a short breath—‘Oh dear, how it all comes back! And I’ve told you both, haven’t I, about our silly joke—Cleo’s and mine—about his being just right for you, Verity, when you both grew up? How she and I planned to go into partnership as matchmakers for you when you did?’
Lance raised resigned eyes to the ceiling. ‘Told us? We know it by heart!’
Verity frowned him down, and Mrs. Lytton defended, ‘Well, of course it was sentimental of us! But it was only our fun and we weren’t to know then— Anyway, I don’t even know what Daniel went in for after he grew up or whether he could have come back to England. But if he did and he is this man, I can’t think of anyone Robert would rather have had to follow him as High.’
‘At his age and never having been a Head before? Why he won’t have a clue, and I don’t believe Father would—’ began Lance passionately, breaking off as the doorbell rang and his mother rose with a fluttering glance out of the window.
Verity said quickly, ‘Stay here, Mother. I’ll go.’ But Mrs. Lytton, on her way to the door, said with dignity, ‘No, dear. It’s my place to welcome Robert’s successor to Clere. You do see that?’ and Verity, recognizing that as the sad little pride it was, nodded and stood aside.
Lance moved over to the hearth where his rhythmic kicks at the kerb made a punctuation to the murmur of voices from the hall.
