“More than one person involved? Sounds likely. If the headmaster weren’t such a jelly, he’d be a likely candidate for the frame. Not Rapson—he was a loner. But, sir, the time scale’s all wrong for a conspiracy, isn’t it?”
“Time? How?”
“The disappearances. We’ve got this first photo from Edwardian days. Rapson has a date here of MCMIII. Eleven years before war broke out. And the most recent is a date last year. There have been three headmasters in that period. Farman was appointed six years ago. Before that there was a Dr. Sutton. Before him, an ancient old bean who retired at the age of eighty. Now what was his name? Oh, where’s Rapson when you need him? Streetly-Standish! That’s it!”
“Difficult to assign the notion of criminal conspiracy to three generations of headmaster, going back three decades.” Joe’s voice was full of doubt. “ ‘Welcome to St. Magnus, old boy. Here’s the keys to the cocktail cabinet and, while you’re at it, you’d better have an open-ended list of boys who won’t be coming back. You may wish to add to it.’ I can’t see it. I think we need to get old Godwit in here again.”
Gosling was already on his feet. “He’s snoozing in the arm chair in the staff room, sir. I’ll fetch him.”
Godwit seemed alert enough as he entered and took the seat Gosling held for him. He even seemed pleased to be called on again. “The last three headmasters? I knew them all,” he chirruped. “A breed in decline, sadly. Streetly-Standish? He was fading somewhat by the time I arrived, but I served for three years under him. Excellent scholar. Though he was not a humanist—the natural sciences were his forte. Strict. Fine leader. Dr. Sutton, his successor? No, I’m perfectly sure he was not known and not related to the previous head. This is not an Oxford college. The heads are chosen by a committee and the most suitable one selected. The position is not passed down. Dr. Sutton also was an excellent headmaster. Differing from the others in that he was, in fact, a family man. Charming wife and three daughters all of whom lived on the premises. Mrs. Sutton doubled as Matron. And the present holder of the post?” Godwit fell silent and marshaled his thoughts. When he was quite ready, out they trooped: “These are straitened times. Many talented men, scholars as well as others, were wasted in the war, of course. The school was lucky to have acquired the services of Mr. Farman. He has been kind to me.”
Joe smiled his encouragement and his understanding. “I’m going to repeat a request,” he began.
“Ah! You’re still looking for the common denominator, Sandilands! And I have, once again, to tell you—there isn’t an obvious one. Or even an obscure one. Three different men from three different backgrounds. Different subjects and universities. Different views of life. Different proclivities.”
“Their religious beliefs?” Joe asked.
“I use the word again: different. Streetly-Standish was a declared atheist. A very fashionable thing to be in those days, but he didn’t impose his views on the school. He was thought modern and innovative even though some of his ideas were a bit ahead of the morality of the time. His successor, Sutton, had been a clergyman. Farman? Who can tell? Overtly, he’s Church of England and preaches to us all in the accepted manner. I don’t believe these three men knew each other. All they have in common is a stint at the same school. There is nothing else that linked them.” Godwit thought hard for a moment. “Except perhaps—” He shook his head, an elusive memory fluttering past him and escaping.
Getting to his feet, he added: “I shall turn this, whatever it is—I’ll call it ‘your quest’—over in my mind. Or what remains of my mind. I shall not forget. If anything stirs in the depth of this turgid pond of memory, I shall hurry to confide in you or young Gosling here. I take it he carries your seal of approval?”
“You may speak freely to Gosling. We’re working together on this. Working to right an ancient wrong.” It sounded overly dramatic but expressed Joe’s increasing determination to restore the lost boys, if only to memory. The words were received with an approving nod.
A hand as brown and fragile as a dead leaf reached out and tenderly touched the plump little face of John Peterkin. Godwit murmured a few words in ancient Greek, made the sign of the cross over the photograph, and left the room.
Joe turned to Gosling. “When it comes to Greek, I can claim, as with Shakespeare, that I have little Latin and even less—”
Gosling cut short his embarrassment. “Euripides, sir. It’s from one of his tragedies. Alcestis. We put it on in my second year at Oxford. Outdoors in a meadow on the banks of the Isis. That wonderful summer!” Seeing Joe’s puzzled look, he went on with the quiet tact of a courtier. “You’ll remember, sir, that, in the play, our hero, Hercules, is trying to snatch back the recently dead Greek princess, Alcestis, from Death?”
Gosling paused to give Joe a chance to say: “Ah, yes, of course. Familiar with the situation, not the injured party. Go on.”
“The deceased is the lovely wife of his friend Admetus. He, Admetus, is a bounder and a cad, as all agree. He’s destined to die according to a whim of the gods unless some other poor so-and-so can be persuaded to die in his place. His selfish old parents, though tottering at death’s door, refuse. The only one to offer is his dutiful wife, Alcestis.”
“Far too good for him,” Joe remarked. “Wives usually are.”
“Her husband—what a shit!—says thank you very much, and the lady prepares herself for death. Tearful farewells to the children and all that going on. In the middle of all this, Hercules, taking a break between two of his labours, turns up for dinner—”
“And senses there’s a bit of an atmosphere?”
“Nobody’s fool, Hercules! Our hero decides, unlike the caddish husband, that he’s not going to let this sacrifice be made, and although by now the lady has actually done the deed and her soul is practically in the clutches of the old boatman, Charon, Hercules piles in with a last-minute, god-defying plan.
“Being a stout-hearted and enterprising lad, he brings it off. After a bit of a dustup.” Gosling grinned. “Something of a brawler, Hercules. A dirty fighter. Used his brain as well as his brawn. He sneaked up on Death himself at the key moment of the burial ceremony and got him in a neck-lock. Went one round with the Infernal Lord and won. He rescued the lady from Charon before he could punt her soul across the river to Hades.”
“Whence there is no return,” Joe muttered.
“That’s right. He brought Alcestis home again to her husband, sound in wind and limb.”
“I don’t like to think how the ensuing conversation went, Gosling! Now, in a good Victorian melodrama of the kind I like, the husband would have killed himself in remorse and Hercules would have gone off with the girl. And she’d have been well pleased with her bargain. Quite a man, Hercules! Your sort of bloke, Gosling?” Joe said, trying to hide his amusement.
“Oh, yes. Half-man, half-god, remember. I’d have liked to have him in my crew! At my back, sir, rowing at bow.”
Joe didn’t need to ask which of the characters the young man had played on stage and hoped that the attractively pugilistic features had not been obscured by the traditional mask. “No last-minute rescue of Peterkin, in this case, I fear. Not even a decent burial as far as anyone’s aware. Did you catch Godwit’s words?”
“Yes. Memory not wonderful, but I’ll give it a go. At one point the Chorus says something like … Oh, that I had the strength to bring you back to light from the dark of death, rowing back across the sacred river.”
The words hung between them, ancient, guttural and full of grief. Joe left a silence before he spoke softly. “I’ll echo that sentiment, Gosling. We’ll find old Charon and give him a bad time, shall we? We may not return with the bodies, but we can snatch back the souls from oblivion, perhaps.”
“We’ll take our seats at the oar, sir, and give it ten!”
CHAPTER 16
“Miss Joliffe! I lent you a pair of my twins last year, I believe?” Mr. Farman had placed Dorcas on his left and Joe on his right at the top table
for lunch. His comment silenced Joe and the other diners but appeared not to disconcert Dorcas.
“That’s quite right, headmaster. I wondered if you’d remember the name. We’ve not met before but I did send you a letter of thanks, following on my research program at St. Raphael.”
“I hope the brothers Simpson were of some use?” His tone was jovial, expansive, and Dorcas replied with equal warmth.
“Oh, invaluable, sir! Twins—I speak of identical twins—are very hard to come by. One birth in two hundred and fifty at best, I understand, and they’re not always easy to track down.”
“And even rarer, I should have thought, in the ranks of the upper classes,” Farman commented, nodding sagely.
“I’m wondering, can it be your observation or your research, sir, that leads you to say that?” Dorcas asked innocently.
“Observation. My interest in genetics is not such that I should want to delve any deeper than I needed to into the subject. No, I see for myself, and perhaps others would agree”—he smiled questioningly around the company, gathering support—“that multiple births—litters, one might say—proliferate amongst the lower social orders. I’m sure that if you were to trawl the streets of Seven Dials you would find vastly more sets of matching faces. Once you had scrubbed off the dirt sufficiently to investigate. I can understand that the material extracted might not be of much use to you from a scientific perspective—the children might have difficulty in communicating. The majority—an alarmingly large majority—of children born in the capital, I understand, do not speak English and certainly do not read and write it.”
Joe wondered whether he should snatch the knife from Dorcas’s hand as a preventative measure. The idiot Farman had no idea that the girl he was talking to had, herself, gone barefoot and largely uneducated for the first years of her life, excluded by society. She had grown up believing what her grandmother and the village told her: that she was the illegitimate offspring of a gypsy. As the oldest daughter of a loving and charming but feckless father, Dorcas had gallantly helped with the rearing of the children that followed. A tribe in themselves, these included two younger half brothers. Twins. Their mother had wearied of the constant hounding by grandmama and, succumbing to bribes and threats, had gone off in the night with her boys, back to her own people. Dorcas’s “stepmothers” always ran away. It would be difficult to imagine a more provoking conversational gambit, Joe thought, and he tensed, awaiting the response.
“We take them where we find them, headmaster.” Her voice was level, her knife engaged in cutting the hard crust of the meat pie. “Dr. Barnardo’s excellent institutions have been very helpful to our department. They rescue hundreds of children from death or exploitation on the streets and allow us access occasionally with our clipboards and our lollipops to question and test them.”
“Ah, yes. Sir James was telling me that he takes a certain interest in such establishments.” He looked about him to be sure that everyone had noted his intimacy with Sir James. Joe wondered where he had acquired it.
“He contributes financially to their welfare and offers his personal encouragement and support. He’s even been observed to lose to some of the boys at table tennis.”
“Sports—as good a way as any to overcome the communication problems.”
“And the less fortunate have much to communicate, Mr. Farman. Whatever their language, East End children tell me the same story: that bad diet, infected water, foul air and poverty are wrecking the health of the nation’s children.”
Looks were exchanged around the table. Eyebrows were raised. Sneers tugged gently at the corners of thin mouths.
Heavy talk for a lunch party. In her inexperience, Dorcas was allowing herself to be led into a serious discussion that could only end in embarrassment. He sensed that with her last comment, the girl had put herself into the open: a fox sighted a field away, a legitimate quarry for the pack, and could now expect a ritual pursuit to the rallying cries of “Bolshy … Lefty … Red.…” And, most unforgiveable by her lights: “Feminist!”
Joe decided to stop the hunt short. “Gentlemen, may I offer you the solution? I’m prescribing second helpings of Sussex steak and kidney pie and weekends of bracing Sussex air for every child born east of Bow Church,” he announced.
Surprisingly, murmurs of approval were burbled around the table. “Quite right! Establish a Utopia-on-Sea!”
“The commissioner speaks in jest but—yes! Something must be done to feed the multitude!” an elderly voice said firmly. “How else are we going to get the ranks up to scratch in time for the next war? Eh? Because it’s coming, you know! It’s coming.”
“Most of the 1914 intake were well under 5′4″ and dreadfully undernourished,” another voice came in, in support. “I remember my batman when he first joined me. Skin and bone. No notion of hygiene.”
“ ‘Lord, Thou feedest them with the bread of tears.’ Psalms 80. May I remind my colleagues that the Lord will provide?”
Farman leaned to Joe and muttered superfluously, “Doctor Sheale, Divinity.”
“Whatever they’re fed on, I do note the masses always seem to have the strength to march and riot whenever the fancy takes them” was the lofty contribution of a bluff young man (“Hawkins, History”). “Let’s not forget ’26! Now there was a damn close-run thing! Wellington would have known what to do about it. Or Napoleon. Gladstone, perhaps. Disraeli even.” He sighed. “What has become of our heroes?”
“Nearly all our best men are dead! Carlyle, Tennyson, Browning, George Eliot—and I’m not feeling very well myself.” The speaker shook his head and directed an apologetic smile at Dorcas. “Punch ’93,” he added in a disarming stage whisper.
Inevitably: “Langhorne, English Lit” followed.
Joe didn’t conceal his amusement. He laughed out loud. Intrigued by the calculated frivolity of the remark, he noted the name, Langhorne, and looked forwards to an exchange of views with this joker. A man with the smooth, dark looks of an ageing gigolo, enlivened by a splash of intelligence and a twist of irony, he presented an intriguing cocktail, Joe thought fancifully. Not a man you’d share a pint at the pub with. He caught himself searching for a polite formula for asking Langhorne, English Lit, what on earth had propelled a man of his nature into his chosen profession and then remembered that he had a large source to draw on since he’d been asked the same thing himself in a hundred different ways. He caught Dorcas’s eye, inviting a smile. When it came, it had the glinting edge of a stiletto.
She’d been escorted to the dining room at the last moment and promptly abandoned by Matron, so Joe had had no opportunity to murmur his usual “Now behave yourself, Dorcas!” Indeed, he didn’t think he would have had the nerve to deliver the warning to this composed and superficially congenial young woman. Being the only female in the room, she was the centre of all attention but appeared not to notice it. Sitting amongst the black robes and dusty suits, she glowed in her dark-red woollen two-piece. Joe’s were not the only eyes on her; her pretty face and graceful gestures constantly drew sentimental glances from the rows of boys tucking into their pie and mashed potatoes, each remembering a mother or a sister.
The food was unpalatable, the company worse, but at least they didn’t dawdle over their plates. These were whisked away by two young men and a pretty girl he assumed to be Betty Bellefoy. The pupils at the long refectory tables had their own routine of scraping and passing down the plates, and the monitors at the ends of the rows staggered to the hatch with the piles. Dr. Sheale said grace, lingeringly, and the high-table party processed out to the common room for coffee.
Mr. Langhorne was instantly at Dorcas’s side to lead her in, hand her a cup, and make her laugh. Joe found himself being plucked from the queue for the urn by Farman.
“We just have time for a recuperative cup while the boys have a quarter of an hour’s break, and then we’re into afternoon school. Now, Sandilands, it will be growing dark in two hours’ time. If you’re to make the trip bac
k to—Godalming, was it?—you must go to the head of the queue. Come along!”
This was the moment.
“Sir,” Joe spoke briskly. “Don’t concern yourself. No hurry whatsoever. I shall be staying until the end of the day—and beyond. Arrangements have been made for accommodation in the town. Miss Joliffe and I will return tomorrow morning before start of school. As for young Drummond, you would oblige me by arranging for him to spend the afternoon with Miss Joliffe—and a few chums perhaps—in a secure place on the first floor of the main building. An impromptu drawing class suggests itself. Amongst her many talents, Miss Joliffe, you’ll find, is an art enthusiast and perfectly accustomed to teaching young boys. At the end of the day, I shall have a private conversation with my nephew, as a result of which he will either join us down at the inn or stay in school and pick up his normal school timetable.”
Farman’s face fell and he began to bluster objections. Joe smiled benignly and took no notice. “I should be further obliged if you would fix things so that your Mr. Gosling is available to me in the capacity of aide-de-camp. We will set up headquarters in Mr. Rapson’s old study. There’s something rotten at the heart of St. Magnus, sir, and I intend to locate and cut out the worm I find wriggling at its core.”
“I’VE DONE THE audit, sir. It’s all in there. Everything we want and more. It’s even clearly labeled and in date order. Alphabetically ordered subsections. I told you Rapson was meticulous.” Gosling emerged with cobwebbed hair from the cupboard eager to get on. “What I’d have given to get my hands on this cache! But Rapson guarded his territory like a jealous dragon. I’d no idea that this was here!”
“Did you not? Look, Gosling, I hope you don’t mind my commandeering your services like this? I really would prefer to have a sharp lad like you on hand until I’ve got to the bottom of this.”
“Glad to have something useful to do, sir. The charade I’ve been involved with was getting very tiresome. I’ve been thinking of doing a bunk myself.”
Not My Blood Page 15
