Summer Half: A Virago Modern Classic (VMC) Read online

  ‘I am so sorry you were left here,’ said a very pleasant voice to him. ‘Father ought to have brought you straight up. Mother says please will you come up with me, and we are so glad you can stay the night. I am Kate Keith.’

  ‘Thank you so much,’ said the melancholy young man, suddenly producing an agreeable smile, undraping himself from the mantelpiece, and taking her offered hand. ‘My name is Noel Merton, but perhaps your father told you.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Kate, leading the way to the drawing-room, ‘he said you missed the train. They always alter the trains at Barchester about this time, and no one ever remembers if the 9.35 is the 9.40 or the 9.30.’

  ‘As a matter of fact, it was the 9.30 this time,’ said the melancholy young man, ‘which is why I am intruding.’

  ‘Helen,’ said Mr Keith to his wife, as Kate and the guest came in, ‘this is Mr Merton of whom you have heard. My son Robert you know, Merton. This is his wife, that is my other son Colin, and Kate you have already met.’

  Everyone said polite things, and a silent struggle took place between Mr and Mrs Keith, she trying to make the conversation general, her husband burning to continue with his guest the technical conversation they had begun at dinner and continued during the drive out. The guest would have preferred, as a third course, to talk with Miss Keith, but she had slipped out of the room, so he exerted himself to be pleasant to his hostess and her daughter-in-law. Suddenly the door was wrenched open, and Lydia’s powerful form filled the doorway. On seeing a stranger she began to back.

  ‘Come in, Lydia, and shut the door,’ said her mother. ‘Mr Merton, this is my younger girl, Lydia.’

  ‘Are you the man Noel Merton that Father was talking about?’ asked Lydia, crushing the guest’s hand in a grip of iron.

  He said he was.

  ‘I’ve awfully wanted to meet you,’ said Lydia, ‘to ask you if you spell your name with those two little things.’

  Noel Merton was instantly equal to the occasion.

  ‘I really ought to,’ he said. ‘I was christened that way, but as I have to sign my name about twenty thousand times a year, I gave them up and write it plain Noel, without any spots.’

  ‘I thought it might be all covered with bubukles and whelks and knobs,’ said Lydia, sitting down ungracefully with her knees apart, and taking possession of the visitor.

  ‘Are you fond of Shakespeare then?’ said Noel.

  ‘Rather. I’m frightfully keen on him. Shakespeare and Horace are my favourite poets. Miss Pettinger likes Milton best, but no one takes any notice of her. I say, do you hate Cromwell?’

  ‘Loathe him,’ said Noel promptly.

  ‘I say, that’s fine,’ said Lydia, with a slight American accent. ‘I’ve just been doing an essay about him for the history mistress, and I’ve made it a stinker.’

  Robert, who knew from experience that nothing short of violence would stop his younger sister when she was feeling at her ease, said he and Edith must really go, so they said good night and went, leaving messages for Kate.

  ‘Come along, Lydia,’ said her mother, ‘it is high time you were in bed, and I’m going too. You’ll look after Mr Merton, Henry, won’t you?’ she added, giving her husband a look which contained so many housewifely reminders about razors, collars, toothbrushes and sundries that he was quite confused.

  ‘I say,’ said Lydia, ‘you know it’s summer time tomorrow. Has anyone put the clocks wrong?’

  Mrs Keith looked conscience-stricken.

  ‘I did speak to cook this morning,’ she said, ‘just after I had read it up in The Times, but I don’t know if I said to put them backward or forward. I must have known at the time, because I’d just read it, but I can’t think now. It’s forward, isn’t it?’

  ‘Backward, I think,’ said Mr Keith.

  ‘I know it breaks my watch to do it one way and not the other way,’ said Mr Merton, ‘but I can’t remember if it breaks it in spring and doesn’t break it in autumn, or the other way round.’

  ‘If you go to China you keep on gaining a day,’ said Colin. ‘Or is it losing it?’

  ‘I know we had to alter the clocks five times an hour going to America,’ said Mr Keith.

  ‘Oh rot, Daddy, you couldn’t,’ said Lydia. ‘Not five times an hour.’

  ‘I didn’t say five times an hour, my dear,’ said Mr Keith mildly. ‘Well, yes, you are quite right, I did. But you took me wrongly. What I meant was that I had to alter my watch five times during the voyage, an hour.’

  ‘The captain must have been potty,’ said Lydia.

  ‘I think Father means an hour five times,’ said Colin. ‘I mean to alter it an hour five different times. No, I don’t. Kate,’ he appealed to his sister who came in at the moment, ‘is it clocks forward or backward tonight?’

  ‘Forward,’ said Kate. ‘I know, because there’s an hour’s less sleep tonight, and the cook is convinced that she will get an hour less in bed every night from now on, till we put the clocks on, I mean back again, in the autumn. I told her she would have an hour more every night through the winter, but she is thinking of giving notice.’

  ‘Gosh! she doesn’t understand the thing a bit,’ said Lydia. ‘Look here, Noel, let’s go and explain to her. You’d love the cook. She’s a perfect angel, and doesn’t mind drowning kittens a bit. Come on.’

  ‘Go to bed now, Lydia,’ said her father.

  Lydia kissed her father and Colin, wrenched Noel’s hand violently from its socket, and accompanied her mother upstairs.

  ‘Going to bed, Kate?’ said her father. ‘I’m taking Merton and Colin to the library for a drink before we turn in.’

  ‘Mr Merton,’ said Kate, with a look of earnest concentration on her pretty face, ‘you will find a new toothbrush and toothpaste and safety razor in your room. The pyjamas and hairbrushes are Robert’s if you don’t mind. We keep them for him, as he is so often here. The only thing I’m not sure about,’ she said, wrinkling her forehead, ‘is clean collars.’

  ‘Oh, please don’t bother,’ said the guest, going pink at her cool treatment of his material needs.

  ‘It’s no bother,’ said Kate simply, ‘but I’m afraid Father’s would be too large and Colin’s too small. Colin, when you go up you might see if there are some of Robert’s anywhere. And do you mind which train you go by tomorrow, Mr Merton? The Sunday trains are all bad. There’s a very slow 11.45 that gets up at four, with no restaurant car, but we’d give you sandwiches, and a 6.37 with a dining-car that gets up at ten. If you’ll let me know, I’ll order the car.’

  Mr Keith pressed his guest to stay till the later train, but Noel said he was dining out and would have to go by the midday train. Kate said good night and the men went to the library.

  ‘Have a drink, Merton,’ said Mr Keith. ‘Well, Colin, did you get Lemon? I gave him to your mother.’

  ‘Thanks awfully, Father,’ said Colin, ‘he’s perfectly splendid. But there’s one thing I couldn’t quite get, and Robert wasn’t quite sure either. He said you could help me,’ said Colin, turning to Noel and wondering whether he ought to say Sir.

  ‘Let’s see,’ said Noel, and was able to elucidate the point that had puzzled Colin.

  ‘Well,’ said Mr Keith, ‘that brings us to the question we were discussing, Merton. This boy of mine has done some solid reading, but he’d be better in London now. Colin, Mr Merton is willing to have you in his chambers and do what he can for you. So unless there is any very grave reason against it, such as your both disliking each other at sight, I think it an excellent plan. And when you have been called, Colin, I hope you will get on as well as Merton has.’

  ‘I shall like my part of it,’ said Noel hastily, ‘as long as your son does.’

  ‘It’s awfully decent of you, sir,’ said Colin, hardly knowing what he was saying, so imminent was the deadly moment when he must unmask.

  ‘There’s only one drawback,’ said Noel. ‘For various reasons I can’t have you till the autumn. But if your father doesn’t m
ind waiting till then, I expect we shall get on very well.’

  ‘Father,’ said Colin in a hoarse voice, ‘I meant to tell you I saw the headmaster at Southbridge today and I think it’s practically certain that I am to have a job as Junior Classical Master. I felt I must do something.’

  He then lost all consciousness of time and space. He knew that when he got back to earth he would find Mr Merton scornfully cursing him for his ungrateful flouting of so good an opportunity, and his father either dead of a stroke, or worse, but even more probable, lying senseless on the floor, paralysed all down one side, his face hideously contorted, his mind gone, a hopeless wreck to the end of his days.

  ‘Splendid,’ said the voice of Mr Merton coming to him over mountains and down through thundering waters. ‘I know Birkett, he’s an excellent man. You’ll get some experience and be able to do plenty of reading in your spare time. Write to me if you need help on any point.’

  Colin began to come to again.

  ‘Well,’ said his father, ‘you have taken me by surprise, Colin, but it’s a very good move. A school is a better atmosphere for work than a home. And with a term’s salary you’ll be able to go abroad in the summer, or get a little car.’

  ‘But I can’t go on taking an allowance, Father,’ said Colin, becoming articulate.

  ‘That’s very nice of you, Colin, but quite unnecessary. No more to drink, Merton? Very well, we’ll go to bed. You might take Merton up, Colin. I’ve got a few letters to write.’

  ‘I think these collars of Robert’s might do, sir,’ said Colin, after rummaging in a drawer. ‘I’m afraid my neck’s a bit bony, or I’d have offered you one of mine.’

  ‘Don’t let’s worry about Sir and Mister,’ said Noel, ‘unless you’d rather, of course. How old is your sister?’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘The one in black that wanted to explain summer time to the cook.’

  ‘Oh, Lydia. She’s sixteen.’

  ‘Good Lord,’ said Noel.

  ‘Well, good night,’ said Colin, finding that his guest had nothing else to say.

  ‘Good night, Colin,’ said the guest, and retired to Robert’s pyjamas, reflecting on the peculiar but not unattractive character of the younger Miss Keith. While brushing his teeth, the feeling of a brand-new toothbrush suddenly reminded him of the elder Miss Keith and her cool, thoughtful care for his needs, and he thought he would like to see both girls again.

  Colin went to bed in considerably better spirits. A headmaster of a good school had engaged him on one interview. A successful barrister was taking him into his chambers. What his father might be paying for this privilege, besides the allowance he made him, Colin did not consider. If he had heard the conversation that was going on between Mr and Mrs Birkett, he would have been slightly disillusioned.

  ‘Well,’ said that very nice woman Mrs Birkett to her husband before they went to bed, ‘are you pleased with your Junior Classics?’

  ‘He might be worse. It’s a good family. Father’s a solicitor in Barchester, well-known old firm. Do you remember the Fairweathers at the Prep School? This man’s brother married a sister of theirs.’

  ‘Oh, Edith, I remember her,’ said Mrs Birkett, ‘a very pretty girl at prize-givings and cricket matches. What is Mr Keith like?’

  ‘Like them all,’ said Mr Birkett, refilling his pipe. ‘Good University record, no games, likes walking, quite a good mind, I should say. From what he let fall his father wants him to go in for law, and I think he’s much more cut out for that than for teaching. He’ll do all right for a term though. You can’t do boys any harm with Junior Classics. The Latin Grammar is pretty well foolproof. I hope to get Harrison back in the autumn. He mayn’t be a brilliant scholar, but he knows boys inside out.’

  ‘Thank you. What I asked was, What is Mr Keith like? Presentable? Agreeable? Not likely to fall in love with Rose?’

  ‘I hope not. It’s bad enough to have a daughter engaged to one of one’s assistant masters without all the rest falling in love. He’s a nice-looking young man, nothing against him except his neck.’

  ‘Is it dirty?’

  ‘No, no, he’s clean enough. But I do get so tired of those young masters with necks like prep school boys. I never feel a master is up to his work till he takes a fifteen-inch collar. Young Keith will never make a teacher with a neck like that.’

  2

  Shades of the Prison House

  Mr Merton was got to Barchester in time for the slow 11.45, with a packet of sandwiches in his dispatch-case, and family life closed over his head. Rather to Colin’s mortification his relations continued to take his new job as a matter of course. No one thought it noble or considerate of him to go and earn some money by teaching, and Kate mistakenly went so far as to say she envied him.

  ‘I do think you are lucky, Colin,’ she said, as she sat in her brother’s room, sewing his name into the three pairs of new socks he had recently bought. ‘It will be frightfully interesting to see what a big school is like from the inside.’

  ‘After all I saw schools from the inside, what with prep school and public school, for about ten years,’ said Colin, ‘and there’s very little to them. Nothing but boys and masters.’

  ‘Still that was when you were young. It ought to be more fun now, because you’ll be a master instead of a boy, and there are heaps of very interesting schoolmasters now. I mean some of them are very modern and advanced, Communists and things.’

  ‘I’d rather they were things than Communists,’ said Colin morosely. ‘We had plenty of Communists at Oxford, all being earnest and writing their novels and wasting time with earnest females.’

  ‘Well, they might be nudists, or believe in self-expression for boys,’ said Kate, ‘which would be even worse.’

  ‘Judging from my own schooldays,’ said Colin, ‘there’s no need to believe in self-expression for boys. They’d do it anyway, and the less you believe in them the better. I’m honestly terrified, Kate, when I think I might have some boys in my form that are only half as odious as I used to be. A ghastly, ill-mannered, spotty-faced prig, with an absolutely elementary sense of humour and always growing out of my clothes.’

  ‘You aren’t sorry you got the job, are you?’ asked Kate.

  ‘Oh Lord, no. I expect it will be quite good fun if it weren’t for the boys.’

  ‘Anyway,’ said Kate comfortingly, ‘you’ll have lots of time for reading.’

  ‘I wish I were Mr Merton,’ said Colin. ‘If I do go to him in the autumn it’ll be simply splendid. It must be ripping to have your own chambers and be very busy and go about a lot. Did you like him, Kate?’

  ‘Yes, very much. But he isn’t what I’d call very intelligent. He left the toothbrush, which after all no one will want to use, behind, and took Robert’s pyjamas. I’ll have to write to him.’

  ‘Give him a day or two. I mean if he sees a pair of pyjamas in his dispatch-case that aren’t his, he’ll see they are someone else’s and realise what he’s done.’

  ‘Well, I’ll wait a day,’ said Kate. ‘I might hear from him on Tuesday morning. And talking of Tuesday, the parents and I are dining with the Crawleys, and when Mother rang up the Deanery to accept, Mrs Crawley said she hoped you’d come too and tell her all about your plans.’

  ‘I suppose Mother is broadcasting about my having a job,’ said Colin ungratefully. ‘I wish to goodness she’d leave me alone. She wasn’t a bit interested when I told her, but now she’s going to talk about her schoolmaster son till everyone is sick.’

  Kate made soothing noises.

  ‘By Jove,’ said Colin suddenly, ‘I’ve an idea. Mr Birkett didn’t absolutely fix it up. He said he’d write. And perhaps he will say he has decided I won’t do after all.’

  ‘He might. Someone terrifically good might have applied since he saw you. I mean,’ said Kate, trying to convey the impression that her brother was the best person in the world for the job, but that there might by a mistake be someone even better, ‘someon
e with just as good qualifications as you and experience of teaching as well. Do you think you can teach, Colin?’