Ripeness is All

by Eric Linklater

  Tessie, however, speedily became notorious for the enthusiasm and catholicity of her affections. In practice she was no snob – though in conversation she and Doris still made great ado about the smartness of their life in Bombay – and every morning she spent an hour or two on the narrow laurel-hedged path to the side door at Rumneys which the tradesmen used. There she dallied in delightful conversation with the milkman, the butcher’s boy, the baker’s man, and other callers. In the afternoon she often went for a walk with Sergeant Pilcher, who was generally off-duty between office-hours in the morning and evening instruction in the drill-hall. And after dinner she was frequently entertained, by commercial travellers at the cinema or the Lammiter palais-de-danse. Tessie enjoyed herself very well indeed.

  Hilary was distressed by the frequency of her unexplained absences from home, and talked to her in a firm but kindly way about the desirability and advantages of polite behaviour. But Tessie was stubborn, and George was not helpful. He laughed when he was told that Tessie had been seen kissing the milkman at half past eight of a fine summer morning, and he complained that Hilary was unreasonable when she objected to Tessie’s return from the palais-de-danse at midnight. ‘You say it’s disgusting to be embraced so early in the morning,’ he said, ‘but when the poor girl stays up till twelve o’clock, for no other purpose, you’re angry again. Try to be logical, Hilary.’

  ‘I’m trying to look after your daughter,’ said Hilary.

  At last, after many similar discussions, George was persuaded to talk seriously to Tessie. He spoke to her in private, and neither his arguments nor her replies were made known to Hilary. But the debate was stormy, and Tessie won. Thereafter George shrugged his shoulders and said she could be trusted to look after herself.

  There was no open quarrel till Jane came home. Jane had played brilliantly in the Ladies’ Open Championship, finishing only seven strokes behind Mrs Holm, the winner. After leaving Porthcawl she had paid a series of visits to various friends who lived near good courses, and returned to Lammiter in time for the annual competition for the Captain’s Medal. This was three weeks after George’s homecoming.

  She made no attempt to conceal dislike for her unexpected cousins. She was rude to George, harshly contemptuous of Doris and Tessie, and she ignored the children. Rumneys grew daily more uncomfortable, the air more brittle with strain. A governess who had been engaged to look after the children left within a fortnight, and the servants were discontented. Hilary, under the burden of peacemaking, began to look tired and haggard.

  But Jane, as if thriving in a stormy atmosphere, played herself into the final of the Medal competition with relentless vigour and consistent accuracy on the greens. She was always at her best in match-play, and her ultimate victory seemed assured.

  Her opponent in the final was a Miss Pennyfeather, a tall agreeable-looking girl who had but lately left school. She was a brilliant player, but her nerves had not yet been proved against a gallery, and she was generally expected to crack up.

  At the end of the first round, however, Jane was only two up. Miss Pennyfeather had begun very badly indeed, but disaster had produced a fighting spirit, and after holding Jane for a long time she had, by perfect golf, taken three of the last five holes and made a game of it.

  They set out for the second round after lunch. It was a lovely day, warm, sunny, almost windless, and they were followed by three or four hundred spectators. At the fifth Jane had not increased her lead. She took the sixth with a swashbuckling drive, a belligerent second, and an audacious and lucky putt. With truculence unassuaged she took the seventh and the eighth. At the ninth her drive lay smugly in the middle of the fairway, two hundred yards from the tee.

  This was a pretty hole. The fairway was undulating, and to the right of it stood five tall trees in all their leafy splendour. They grew on the near side of a small quarry. The quarry had not been used for many years. Time had mollified its harsh declivities, grass had grown a carpet in it, and the trees swung their green canopy above. But pleasant though it was to see, it was none the less a danger, and many a hopeful drive, curling maliciously, had been trapped in it.

  Miss Pennyfeather’s nerve was again forsaking her. She addressed her ball. She bit her lip. She swung a little desperately, somewhat abruptly. She struck a little loosely. Her ball rose, curved to the right like a reed bending in the wind, struck a tree, and rebounding obtusely fell behind the quarry and still farther to the right.

  A groan broke from Miss Pennyfeather’s supporters. ‘Rotten luck!’ said Jane gruffly, and walked slowly forward. The crowd followed. Miss Pennyfeather marched into the rough with a niblick. She looked at her ball and looked at the trees. They made a tall rampart before her, but there was a dip in the green crest. With a bitter blow she lofted the ball. It rose like a lark, crossed the trees, and, as a plummet, fell into the quarry. Out of the quarry came a terrified scream.

  Miss Pennyfeather advanced through the trees. Jane, from the fairway, approached the quarry. The crowd followed her. And in the quarry they found Tessie and Sergeant Pilcher.

  This untimely discovery might have been ignored, with no more unfortunate consequence than Jane’s embarrassment and the spectators’ annoyance – for golf was a serious matter, and a golf-course should not be profaned by amatory exercises – had not Tessie., far more angry than the spectators and startled by the descending ball, picked it up and thrown it at them.

  A hoarse and multifarious protest was the immediate response to this rash action. Even Sergeant Pilcher said ‘Coo! You shouldn’t have done that!’ And Jane, redder than she had been, cried from the lip of the quarry, ‘Good God, what the hell d’you think you’re doing?’

  ‘Why do you throw your balls at me?’ screamed Tessie. ‘Take your beastly balls away! I was nearly killed, I was nearly dead! What do you mean by throwing things at me?’

  Ponderous, furious, Jane descended the grassy slope to the floor of the quarry and confronted Tessie. ‘Look here,’ she said, ‘do you realize what you’ve done? Do you realize you’ve interfered with a most important match?’

  ‘And you have interfered with me!’ cried Tessie. ‘Go away, and take your little balls and throw them to other places.’

  ‘You little fool!’ said Jane. ‘Get out of this and go home immediately, or I’ll put you across my knee and smack your confounded bottom!’

  ‘I say!’ said Sergeant Pilcher, ‘that isn’t the way to talk to a lady.’

  ‘I’ll speak to your Colonel about you,’ said Jane.

  ‘We haven’t been doing anything wrong, Miss!’

  ‘Wrong!’ shouted Jane. ‘You come and perform your childish antics on the golf-course, you pick up my opponent’s ball, you ruin the match, and you say you haven’t done anything wrong!’

  The Sergeant was abashed. He said that Tessie didn’t understand the importance of golf.

  ‘Take her away at once,’ said Jane. ‘Get out of my sight, both of you, before I lose my temper!’

  Tessie was led away, shrilly protesting. The spectators, who had been excitedly telling each other who she was, now muttered, with righteous satisfaction, ‘A most disgraceful episode! Well, let’s get on with the game.’

  There was some argument about the correct position of Miss Pennyfeather’s ball, but Miss Pennyfeather sportingly insisted on its being returned to the quarry. She lofted it out, was pin-high with her fourth, and down in five. Jane topped her second, pitched her third into a bunker on the edge of the green, and took three more. Miss Pennyfeather also won the next two.

  Jane pulled herself together, controlled her temper, and halved the twelfth and thirteenth. At the short fourteenth Miss Pennyfeather got a two. At the fifteenth Jane drove out of bounds and they were all square.

  Jane won the sixteenth. On the next tee she unhappily caught sight of Tessie and the Sergeant: they had joined the crowd and were following the match with great interest. Jane, purple with rage, hooked her drive into the stream. Miss Pennyfeather won the
match and the Medal on the last green.

  Jane went home and with vehement anger told Hilary the story of Tessie’s outrageous behaviour: ‘And as though it wasn’t enough to make an exhibition of herself like that, she had the confounded impudence to follow me round! I tell you, Hilary, she’s absolutely shameless. When I saw her standing there, at the Long Stream, I could hardly control myself. Well, I couldn’t control myself, because I pulled my drive and lost the match. It was her fault entirely. I’ve tried to make allowances for her, but what she did this afternoon is impossible to forget and impossible to forgive. To behave like that, on a golf-course, was absolutely unpardonable. And though I hate to say it, you can’t expect me to live in the same house with a creature like that. Either she or I must leave at once.’

  Hilary sighed, and talked reasonably, and tried to soothe Jane’s temper. But Jane’s mind was made up. She had been insulted, not in her private capacity, but as a golfer, and the insult was unforgivable. It was, however, impossible to turn Tessie out of doors, and Jane was compelled to sacrifice her comfort to her dignity. She slept that night in one of the cheerless little bedrooms at the Ladies’ Club.

  Hilary was so tired that she went to bed at a quarter to ten. But she could not sleep, and after half an hour’s vain importunacy of sleep she turned on the light and looked for something to read. There were several books on the table beside her, and, still in its wrapper, the latest number of Red, the school magazine that Rupert was editing. She chose Red because it was lighter to hold than a novel.

  The editorial was entitled ‘Sexual Barbarians’. It was headed by the rubric, apparently meaningless: A slice of cuttle-fish and a red mullet to Priapus. Boldly it began: ‘These are the Dark Ages of Sex. So far as sexual matters are concerned we live, in ignorance and superstitious fear. The authorities of all the Public Schools of England have entered into a conspiracy of silence. They teach us many things – most of them badly – but they teach us nothing about Sex.’

  ‘I should hope not,’ thought Hilary, and with growing apprehension continued to read. The first three numbers of the magazine had dealt with political and literary subjects, and they had all been sensational, though somewhat conventionally sensational: that is to say, they had attacked the Officers’ Training Corps, the Victorian Tradition in Literature, and the Financial Dictatorship of the City of London. Hilary should have been able to guess what would come next. The next topic was inevitably Sex. But she was innocent in many ways, and her only conjecture had been a foreboding that some day Rupert would go too far. And now, she felt, the day had probably arrived.

  Sexual starvation was the crying scandal of the Public Schools, said Rupert. Elsewhere he described their life as an emotional famine. He referred to their pitiful attempts to find a proxy for true emotion; to the lurid novels that battened on their plight; and to well-meaning but useless experiments in co-education. He quoted Lawrence: CA man who is emotionally educated is as rare as a phoenix. The more scholastically educated a man is generally, the more he is an emotional boor.’

  ‘The remedy for this kind of boorishness is not coeducation,’ said Rupert.’ We can learn nothing from girls of our own class, because they know no more than we do. So far as we can see, the only remedy is this: that every housemaster should engage a suitable number of young but accomplished doxies. Call them hetairae, if you like. And these young women should be at the disposal of the Upper School in the same way as, for example, tuition in Extra Maths.

  ‘This idea, sufficiently advantageous as it stands, could be made still more profitable. We suggest that the prettiest girls should be reserved as weekly prizes for proficiency in Greek Verse Composition or an English Essay. Because it is obvious that something must be done to reduce the absurd prestige of the First Eleven, the Fifteen, and other athletic louts, and restore learning to its proper place. This is a School, not a Ham and Beef Shop. And if the Scholars get the pretty girls, while the Hearties are left with Plain Jane, then scholarship will be given a much needed fillip, and the Hearties will learn their proper place in society.

  ‘We who enjoy the many advantages of a Public School education are supposed to be the future leaders of our country. But how can we be good leaders when, during the most impressionable years of our life, we suffer from this grievous lack of emotional vitamins? A remedy for this deficiency must be found, and we believe that the remedy here suggested is eminently reasonable.

  ‘We seriously commend it to the attention of the authorities.’

  The last sentence, thought Hilary, is the silliest of all. Such opinions ought to be concealed from the authorities, not commended to them. She wondered if Rupert would be expelled, and foresaw, too clearly, another crisis at the Vicarage. Then with a click of the tongue, a little noise of irritation, she put these thoughts from her. And presently she began to laugh. She put out the light and lay for a long time laughing quietly, her cheek moving against the pillow. She fell asleep and saw, in a dream, Rupert’s dignified headmaster in the act of presenting prizes at end of term. Instead of the table with its customary pile of calf-bound poets there stood behind him a long row of lightly-clad chorus-girls, arms locked and knees high, stepping rhythmically, cheerfully singing. ‘Rupert Purefoy!’ said the Headmaster. Rupert stepped on to the platform. The Headmaster detached from the dancing row a flaxen-haired, plump, and bright-eyed beauty. ‘Hoc ingenii feliciter exculti praemium donant academiae Tugburiensis gubernatores’, he said: and with a smile handed her to Rupert.

  Chapter 20

  Two days later, in the afternoon, the Vicar telephoned to Hilary and asked her to come and see him. His voice was dull and hopeless, and Hilary went to the Vicarage in fear of the worst.

  ‘Rupert and Denis have both been expelled,’ he said.

  ‘Both of them!’ Hilary exclaimed.

  The Vicar picked up the fourth and fatal number of Red.

  ‘Yes, I’ve seen that,’ said Hilary, ‘and though I’m terribly sorry to hear about Rupert, I can’t honestly say I’m surprised. For my own part I thought the article rather amusing, though I might take a different view if I were a headmaster. But what has Denis done? He’s got nothing to do with the magazine.’

  ‘You know as much about them as I do,’ said the Vicar. ‘You know that Rupert pretends to be a Communist, and Denis calls himself a Fascist. This wretched magazine is supposed to be a Communist organ. Denis and his friends have always disliked it. And the editorial in this last number infuriated them. The Head, I gather, didn’t take it very seriously, but the Fascists did. What especially annoyed them – you remember the article? – was the suggestion that Hearties would have to be content with the plainer girls, because most of the Fascists, apparently, are Hearties. So there was a riot. A very serious riot, in which Rupert and Denis were prominent. They were, in fact, the ringleaders. Dobbin has written very sympathetically to me, but he makes it quite clear that, for the sake of the school, expulsion was necessary. He tells me they have caused him a great deal of anxiety for the last six months or more.’

  For some little time Hilary said nothing, and the Vicar lay sunk in his chair, his chin on his breast, his hands lying idly on his thighs. He had aged, grown thin, his knees were sharply pointed, and his hair was grey.

  Hilary said, doubtfully, ‘Well, I’m glad to see that you’re taking it philosophically.’

  ‘There is no philosophy in defeat,’ said the Vicar. ‘I admit I am beaten. That’s all.’

  ‘You’ve been admitting that for months,’ said Hilary sharply.

  ‘But this is the end. I can’t go on any longer. I’ve suffered blow after blow, and I’ve no strength left to out-face a scandal of this kind. I’ve written to the Bishop.’

  ‘And what have you said to him?’

  ‘I have offered him my resignation.’

  ‘Have you posted the letter?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Good. Now listen to me, Lionel. I’ve come to a certain decision, and the only problem that now re
mains is how to put it into words. I needn’t tell you, I suppose, that you’ve been a source of constant worry ever since poor Caroline’s death. I needn’t remind you that we – you and I, that is – have been friends for more years than I care to remember. And in many ways I’m very fond of you, though you often make me intensely angry by your selfishness, your display of wounded vanity, your childish egoism, your ridiculous self-pity, and absolute lack of common sense. I thought, for some time, you were feeling better, and getting rid of your pessimism. I hoped that you were. But it seems I was wrong. It seems as though there’s only one cure for you. However, I didn’t mean to upbraid you. What I did intend, and what I still intend, is to suggest that we get married. I’ve given a great deal of thought to this matter, and I feel it’s the sensible thing to do. I’m devoted to the children, and …’

  ‘You fool!’ shouted the Vicar.

  He had risen from his chair. Stooping slightly, leaning on his stick, he glared at Hilary with an expression she had never seen before. Not anger, but violent dislike of her was its arresting quality. And Hilary, who had been talking rapidly, quick-firing her sentences – she had no desire to linger sentimentally over her declaration, she had made it sound like a scolding rather than a proposal – Hilary was abruptly silenced. She had been ready for an argument, but she was not prepared for this display of physical aversion. She was dreadfully taken aback. She turned rather pale, and spoke with difficulty.