Summer Half: A Virago Modern Classic (VMC)

by Angela Thirkell

  ‘It is an old vinaigrette,’ he said, opening it, as if this explained why he was keeping it on his person with a button in it.

  ‘What a good idea to carry a button box about,’ said Kate approvingly, ‘because you never know. Are you sure you don’t need it? It will do perfectly.’

  As Everard laid it reverently in Kate’s hand, he reflected upon the mad thrill that a button, warm from the region of her heart, would be to him, and wondered if a similar button, tepid from incarceration in a vinaigrette in his waistcoat pocket, might be at all repellent to her.

  He said he really didn’t need it at all, and any button would do for him, and became aware that he was talking nonsense, and wished Kate would go before he turned into a raving lunatic under her eyes. When Colin came back he and Everard walked across the court with Kate to the headmaster’s house to collect Lydia.

  The Keiths’ car was waiting, and Lydia, seated in it, was holding forth, as from a rostrum, to Swan, Morland and Hacker.

  ‘I say, Kate,’ she said loudly, ‘couldn’t we ask all these boys for the Bank Holiday weekend, when school breaks up? Tony and Eric and I could clean out the pond in the rose garden, and Hacker would like to come awfully. I say, Hacker, what’s your name?’

  Hacker looked hopelessly at his two friends and mumbled something.

  ‘He means his name’s really Percy,’ said Morland, ‘but he doesn’t like it, and he wants you to call him Hack.’

  ‘Right-oh,’ said Lydia. ‘I think Percy’s pretty awful myself, but Hack’s quite a decent sort of name. Could we, Kate, do you think?’

  Kate looked perplexed.

  ‘You do jump down people’s throats, Lydia,’ said Colin. ‘Kate can’t settle that sort of thing without asking the parents.’

  ‘I was thinking,’ said Kate, ‘if Mother doesn’t mind we could easily have the three boys, if they don’t mind sleeping in the gardener’s cottage. The gardener’s wife has two very nice bedrooms,’ said Kate, earnestly addressing the boys, ‘with two beds in one and one in the other. We send over sheets and towels and things when she has our guests there, and I don’t think she has let for Bank Holiday, and she washes beautifully and would mend anything for you. Of course you would come to us for all your meals and only go to the cottage at night. She hasn’t a bathroom, but you can always have baths at the Manor, and if you wanted milk at night, or soup, or anything, she would love to get it. She used to be Robert’s nurse. I think that’s all, isn’t it?’ said Kate, getting into the car.

  ‘One thing, Kate,’ said Colin. ‘Quite apart from the parents’ views, we don’t know whether the boys can come.’

  ‘Of course they can,’ said Lydia. ‘We settled all that. I say, why not ask Everard too? He’s awfully nice.’

  Everard clutched at the sun-baked door of the car to steady himself.

  ‘That would be very nice,’ said Kate, eyeing Everard appraisingly, as if he were one of his own pupils. ‘Robert and Edith and the children may be with us, and Noel Merton, but we could manage, I’m sure. If I speak to Mother tonight, and then write to you, would that be all right, Mr Carter?’

  Everard pushed aside with infinite labour several large Catherine wheels, two rockets, a noise like a Tube train, and a slight earthquake, and said how delightful it would be so long as Mrs Keith wouldn’t think she saw too much of him, and wondered what he meant and why he had said it. Kate and Lydia with Geraldine were carried away in the motor, and darkness fell upon the world. From this darkness Everard spoke quite calmly and sanely to Colin about the sports, and would Colin go and ask matron how the senior boy with the sprained ankle and the junior boy with biliousness were getting on.

  7

  The Last of School

  Term sweltered on towards the exams. The summer was the finest and warmest that anyone except Mr Lorimer remembered. The cricket-players became intoxicated by the succession of blazing afternoons and the number of matches they won, and their talk rose to such a pitch of dullness that Swan and Morland put a taboo on it in the prep room. In this they could hardly have succeeded, had they not been seconded by the Captain of Rowing, who was still dumbly in love with matron and trying to write an ode to her. Mr Carter, coming into the prep room after supper one evening, found all the senior boys sitting with what looked like turbans round their heads, and a large jug half full of dirty-looking water standing in a puddle in the middle of the table. Apart from the others, and turbanless, the Captain of Rowing sat hunched up over an exercise book.

  ‘Is this Mahomet’s Paradise?’ asked Everard.

  ‘Oh no, sir,’ said Swan, rather shocked, and rising as he spoke.

  As all the other boys rose with him, the effect was very impressive.

  ‘Then I suppose it’s the Vehmgericht, or the Ku Klux Klan. Sit down, all of you. What is this tomfoolery, Swan?’

  ‘Please, sir,’ said Swan, ‘we found it impossible to get any swotting done for the exams because the cricket people talked so much.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Swan and I thought we had better be Sydney Carton,’ said Morland. ‘He always worked best with a damp towel round his head, sir, and we let the cricket people be Sydney Carton too, if they swore to stop talking.’

  ‘And what are you wearing on your heads?’

  ‘Well, sir,’ said Morland virtuously, ‘we didn’t think matron would like us to use our face towels.’

  ‘I expect you were right. Well?’

  ‘They are mostly running shorts, sir,’ said Swan, ‘or vests. We damp them in the jug when we need refreshing, and they get quite dry by next day. Anyone who talks cricket isn’t allowed to be Sydney Carton, and Featherstonehaugh sees fair play,’ he said, indicating the Captain of Rowing.

  ‘It’s the first time I’ve ever heard of fair play between Rowing and Cricket,’ said Everard.

  ‘We have punch too, sir,’ said Morland, ‘to be more like. It was lemonade powder and Eno’s, and we made it in the jug, but Eric put too much Eno’s in, and it all fizzled over and got wasted, so we used it to damp the towels. I suppose, sir, you would rather we didn’t be Sydney Carton.’

  ‘Decidedly not,’ said Everard. ‘Take those things off your heads, and go on with your work. You don’t seem to be getting on, Featherstonehaugh. Want any help?’

  He looked over the Captain of Rowing’s shoulder at a blank page, upon which that ardent lover had not yet succeeded in putting one of his thoughts.

  ‘No, thank you, sir,’ said Featherstonehaugh.

  ‘Then you’d better do some work,’ said Everard, and was going out when Swan asked if he could speak to him. Everard told him he could come to his study.

  ‘Well, what is it?’ he said.

  ‘It’s about Gibbon, sir.’

  ‘Do you want to borrow him?’ said Everard, going to a bookcase.

  ‘No, sir. It’s Hacker’s chameleon, sir,’ said Swan, whose hair, since he had removed the damp running shorts, was standing on end in all directions.

  ‘Am I never to hear the last of that loathsome reptile?’ said Everard.

  ‘That’s just it, sir. You know Hacker is awfully pleased about the Montgomery, and no one grudges it him,’ said Swan magnanimously, though he knew, and Everard knew, that no other boy in the house would have had the faintest chance, ‘and he wanted to do something to thank Mr Lorimer and Mr Winter for helping him to get it, and he couldn’t think of anything they’d like except the chameleon.’

  ‘I always thought the Classical Sixth was a training ground for Colney Hatch,’ said Everard.

  ‘Yes, sir. The thing is that Hacker thinks he ought to give the chameleon to one of them, because he likes it better than anything. I call it silly, but I haven’t a self-sacrificing nature.’

  ‘You are a prig,’ said Everard. ‘Get on.’

  ‘Well, sir, luckily Mr Lorimer simply can’t abide animals of any kind, and he told Hacker the other day that if he ever saw that foul saurian again he’d put his foot on it. That was because Hacke
r let it go for a walk on that chapter in the Decline and Fall about the Byzantine games, because he thought it would be interesting to see if it would turn green or blue. We all thought it rather funny to make Greta Garbo Gibbon go for a walk on Edward Gibbon.’

  ‘I sometimes find a certain comfort in your primitive sense of humour, Swan,’ said Everard. ‘It shows me that you are not twenty years older and wiser than I am, as you would like to make me believe. Do you think you could come to the point? I have to finish the General Knowledge paper for the Junior School before I go to bed.’

  ‘Sorry, sir. That rules out Mr Lorimer, but Hacker still feels he ought to sacrifice Gibbon, and if Mr Winter won’t take it, he’s going to give it to you.’

  Everard exploded in a way that gave Swan deep satisfaction. Everard, though well aware that every word he said would be cherished by Swan and retailed in the prep room, allowed himself to get rid of his accumulated irritation, while Swan listened with growing respect for a master who could so heartily forget himself.

  ‘Listen, Swan,’ said Everard.

  ‘I did, sir,’ said Swan.

  ‘I’ll beat you if you are funny,’ said Everard. ‘Go and find Hacker and send him here, and then find Mr Winter, and ask him if he will come to my room. But get Hacker first.’

  When Hacker arrived, Everard went straight to the point. A rumour had reached him, he said, that Hacker wished to express his gratitude to some of the staff by presenting a chameleon. It was, said Everard, a kind and thoughtful idea, but he could not encourage it. If the giving of live-stock became a precedent, goodness knew what the school would become. There was a Siamese prince in the Lower School, and an Indian in the cricket eleven whose father was Prime Minister of a native state and fabulously wealthy. If Hacker were allowed to present his chameleon, they might expect to have elephants, panthers and peacocks showered on them. While very much appreciating Hacker’s intentions, he could not take the gift. He saw, however, no reason why Mr Winter, who curiously enough came in at that moment, should not be told of Hacker’s suggestion. If he refused the chameleon Hacker must understand that the incident was closed.

  ‘Did you send for me?’ said Philip.

  Everard, ignoring the implication that he was a slave-driver, said that Hacker wanted to say something to him.

  Hacker looked appealingly at Everard, but as his housemaster turned his back and sat down at his desk, he was forced to take up his tale.

  ‘Mr Lorimer and you got me the scholarship, sir,’ he said in a muffled, stammering way, ‘and I wanted to give you something. Mr Lorimer doesn’t like Gibbon, but if you’d like to have him, sir, I dare say he’d be quite happy with you.’

  As he spoke he took Gibbon out of his pocket and held him lovingly in his hands.

  ‘Thank you very much indeed, Hacker,’ said Philip, touched and taken aback.

  ‘Will you have him then, sir?’ said Hacker, feeling nearer tears than was at all suitable for the boy who had just got the best open scholarship of the year.

  Philip, struck by the change in Hacker’s voice, looked at him. What he saw made him look away again at once. He pulled himself together quickly. This was one of his own boys in trouble, and his first duty was to get him out of it. The excess of sensitiveness which made him feel Rose’s careless treatment so deeply, which made him suspect slights where none were intended, which spoilt so much of his life for him, suddenly showed him what Hacker might be feeling about an ugly lizard with a ridiculous name.

  ‘I would very much appreciate having him, Hacker,’ he said gravely, ‘but I think he would miss you. I think the best thing for your chameleon, Hacker, would be to go to Oxford with you. If you liked, you might give him Philip for an extra name. Go along now.’

  Not unkindly he pushed Hacker out of the room. Hacker looked in at the prep room and announced that the chameleon’s name for the future would be Philip Gibbon. Swan and Morland shrugged their shoulders wearily. Featherstonehaugh, who but seldom saw a joke, laughed so much that he choked, and had to drink water out of the punch jug. The rest of the seniors took no notice. But Hacker, who had put Philip Gibbon into his cage for the night, would not have cared for the shrugs or laughter of the whole world. On a luggage label he was writing the words Philip Gibbon, Esq., c/o P. Hacker, Esq., Lazarus College, Oxford.

  He tied the label to the bars of the cage, and stood back to see the effect. The effect was excellent, and he took up his Sophocles and got to work again.

  ‘Thank goodness you turned it down,’ said Everard to Philip as soon as Hacker had gone. ‘Hacker is a queer fish. His attachment to that chameleon is almost sublime.’

  ‘You needn’t laugh at him,’ said Philip. ‘You’d better laugh at me.’

  ‘If it weren’t for the General Knowledge paper, which has to be finished tonight,’ said Everard, ‘I might. Thank you for coming down. I don’t suppose we’ll hear any more of the chameleon now.’

  ‘Does that mean you want to get rid of me?’ asked Philip.

  ‘It only means exactly what I said. I am glad you didn’t take the chameleon, and now I’ve got to get this confounded paper done. Unless, of course, there’s anything special you want to see me about,’ he said, thinking as he looked at Philip’s face that one assistant master could be more trouble than a houseful of boys.

  ‘You don’t mind if I have a talk with you, then?’ said Philip.

  Everard pushed away his papers without outward impatience and sat back. If Philip needed help, the General Knowledge papers could wait.

  Philip stood staring out of the window at the headmaster’s house.

  ‘I can’t stand it, Everard,’ he said. ‘I’m going.’

  ‘Have you told the Head yet? You can’t suddenly rush off without notice.’

  ‘No. But I shall. I don’t want to upset the house, but it’s unbearable. I’m simply a useless dead weight here now.’

  ‘Not at all. Your work has been as good as ever this term, Philip, perhaps better. Try not to think about other things. No need to tell the world your affairs aren’t going quite straight.’

  ‘No need, indeed,’ said Philip bitterly. ‘The whole house, the whole school knows. The boys are kind to me, Everard, kind to me, because they see I’m a useless fool. Swan and Morland used to argue with me like anything in the history period. I thought I was helping them to see modern politics from a reasonable point of view.’

  ‘Left, I gather.’

  ‘Yes, left. Why not?’

  ‘Well, there is right, and personally I think there is a great deal of middle.’

  ‘Middle?’ said Philip contemptuously. ‘Our only salvation lies in the left. But anyway, those two used to get up the most fantastic arguments on the other side. I admit I lost my temper a bit sometimes if they were too clever, but we all enjoyed it and we got some really good talk. Now they say “Yes, sir” to whatever I say, as if I were a lunatic that had to be humoured. And Swan never puts on his spectacles except for his work. And now Hacker, comforting me with chameleons, for I am – oh God, I can’t stand it.’

  ‘I’m sorry you feel it like that.’

  ‘I don’t mind you or Colin,’ continued Philip, pursuing some apparently inconsequent train of thought. ‘I’ve been pretty rotten to Colin and I’ve apologised. It’s that man Merton. He’s going to be with the Keiths again, Colin tells me. He’ll be at the Rectory all the time. What chance have I got? And she is so trusting and inexperienced.’

  Everard, stifling a strong desire to say exactly what he thought of Rose’s inexperience, said Philip was making mountains out of molehills.

  ‘As far as I know,’ he said slowly, as if he were choosing his words with great care and thought, ‘Merton has no wish to be at the Rectory.’

  ‘You mean —’

  ‘Exactly what I say. And now, for God’s sake try to be a little more reasonable, Philip. Don’t think everyone is thinking of you, because they aren’t. Don’t think everyone wants to be your rival, because they certa
inly don’t. And do go to bed, or write your book, and I must get on with this work.’

  Just then a terrific clamour broke forth in the school quad. It was the Messrs Fairweather with their racing car, bringing Rose back from the cinema at Barchester. Hatless, flushed, alive, exquisite, she was standing on the steps of the headmaster’s house, lit by the late daylight from the west and the bright light from the hall. For a few minutes she exchanged lively sallies with her escort, then kissed them both in a careless way and disappeared.

  ‘There!’ said Philip, and burst out again violently about his own misery, the inexperience of Rose, the black designs of the Fairweathers and Noel Merton. Everard, very tired, turned on him and told him in so many words not to be a damned fool and waste people’s time.