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

  ‘I don’t know. I really never thought about that. How do you learn to teach?’

  ‘I think they go to training colleges,’ said Kate, ‘or is that to be clergymen? Anyway, they have to begin practising on someone.’

  ‘Gosh,’ said Colin, horror-struck, ‘I remember now we had a man to teach us for a fortnight when the fifth-form master was ill, and he was from somewhere where they teach teaching, and they didn’t dare to leave him alone in the room with us, we behaved so badly. Even the drawing master could keep order better than he could.’

  Kate sat silent, sharing her brother’s presentiments of evil.

  ‘It’s such a short time since you were at school yourself,’ she said at last, ‘that you must be pretty well up to their ways.’

  ‘No,’ said her brother. ‘The point is that everything changes so quickly. Boys are ghastly polite now, which is much worse than banging their desks or throwing ink. Do you remember that boy of Mrs Morland’s, Tony I think his name was, who came to tea last summer with his mother? He had charming manners, but he made me feel about nine years old.’

  ‘There are your socks,’ said Kate, kissing the top of his head. ‘I must go now. I’ve got these notes for the Dean to do, and I want to get them finished before tomorrow night, so that I can take them with me. I’m sure school will be all right. After all, heaps of people are schoolmasters.’

  ‘Look at them,’ said Colin, bitterly and unfairly.

  By Tuesday evening several important letters had been written and received. The breakfast post brought a letter to Kate from Noel Merton.

  ‘Oh dear,’ she said when she had read it, ‘Mr Merton says it was one of our maids who packed Robert’s pyjamas in his dispatch-case, and he is having the pyjamas and the collar washed and sent back. What a mercy I hadn’t posted my letter. Palmer, did you pack those pyjamas of Mr Robert’s in Mr Merton’s suitcase?’

  ‘I packed the pyjamas which was on the gentleman’s bed, miss. I am sure I couldn’t say whose they were,’ said Palmer, clearly showing by a shudder in her voice that she was virginally incapable of telling one gentleman’s pyjamas from another’s.

  ‘Well, never mind,’ said Kate.

  As the breakfasters worked through their correspondence, it appeared that Mr Merton had written to Mrs Keith, thanking her for her hospitality and apologising for the trouble he had given. He had also written to Mr Keith, thanking him for the dinner at the County Club, and expressing pleasure at having Colin in his rooms in the autumn.

  ‘Well, I can’t see why Noel didn’t write to me, too,’ said Lydia, who had finished her breakfast and was fidgeting with a knife and a spoon. ‘I talked to him as much as any of you did. I’m going to ask him to go to the Old Vic with me some time, because he likes Shakespeare. I could have lent him some of my pyjamas, if it comes to that,’ she said, stooping to pick up the knife she had knocked onto the floor; ‘that pair I loathe that you got me in Bournemouth, Mother, when I’d forgotten mine, and he could have kept them, and there needn’t have been any fuss about the washing.’

  ‘You really mustn’t call everyone by their Christian names,’ said Mrs Keith.

  ‘Well, what am I to call them, Mother?’ said Lydia indignantly. ‘One can’t go about calling everyone Mister.’

  ‘You’ll be late for your train, Lydia,’ said Kate warningly.

  Lydia dashed out of the room, shut the door so violently that it sprang open again, and a minute later was seen bicycling at break-neck speed down the drive. Half an hour later the car came to the door to take Mr Keith to his office. Kate went out to see her father off.

  ‘Good morning, Sanders,’ she said to the chauffeur. ‘Have you taken a letter that was in my writing on the hall table? I don’t want it posting after all.’

  Sanders said he hadn’t taken nothing this morning, but last night when he was going down to the village late, after his supper, Palmer had given him a letter and said he might as well post it. The address was a Mr Merton, he said.

  ‘Oh thanks, Sanders, never mind,’ said Kate.

  It was most annoying that this should have happened, and entirely her own fault. No one could blame Palmer or Sanders. Letters were not as a rule posted at night, because they wouldn’t get anywhere any sooner if they were, and Sanders always took the family letters to Barchester when he drove Mr Keith to the office. Kate was thoroughly put out. Mr Merton would now think her a fussy young woman, who had suspected him of theft. She worked angrily on her notes for the Dean, with only half her mind on the work before her, till the soothing thought entered her mind that she ought to answer Mr Merton’s very polite and considerate note. Curiously enough the same thought had been in Merton’s mind, when with some pains he had composed his letter.

  Colin had still had no letter from Mr Birkett and went to the Deanery dinner-party in a subdued frame of mind. It was only a family party, and the conversation ran largely on Colin’s affairs, often in a disheartening manner. The Dean spoke of Mr Birkett indeed as an excellent man in every way, and hoped he would get more young masters of Colin’s type. There had been a regrettable tendency, he said, under the late headmaster, now Master of Lazarus College at Oxford and writing articles of a very foolish kind for newspapers of the left, to appoint men whose degrees were certainly good, but their opinions not what one wanted in those responsible for forming the character of the young. He had reason to know, he stated, that Mr Birkett was not altogether happy about the engagement of his elder daughter to one of his assistant masters, who was encouraging the boys to think rather of politics and the new psychology than of their work.

  Mrs Crawley said she was sure boys had by nature such a wholesome contempt for masters as would probably nullify all such teaching. Seeing that Colin looked downcast, she then kindly cheered him up by recounting various anecdotes about nephews of hers who had been at Southbridge, and the trial they were to their unhappy masters.

  All this may have been true, and Mrs Crawley certainly made her account of the nephews amusing, but to Colin it was only a nail the more in his coffin. His last hope was removed when, on their return from Barchester, he found a letter from Mr Birkett to say that he would expect him to start work the following week. School began on Tuesday, and he would be glad if Colin would come on the Monday.

  ‘Well, that’s all right, Father,’ said Colin, forcing a smile.

  ‘What’s all right?’ asked Mr Keith, opening his letters.

  ‘Mr Birkett says he expects me on Monday.’

  ‘Splendid. A very pleasant dinner at the Deanery, Helen. Don’t stay up for me, I must write some letters in the library before I go to bed.’

  ‘It is sad that we shan’t see you much longer, darling,’ said Mrs Keith, ‘but you must come home for Whitsun and bring any friends you like. Lydia! Why aren’t you in bed?’

  ‘I was, Mother,’ said Lydia, arriving in a manly dressing-gown, ‘but I was reading. I say, Colin, was that Mr Birkett’s letter? I saw the Southbridge postmark.’

  ‘Lydia, you oughtn’t to look at letters,’ said her mother.

  ‘Or at least you oughtn’t to mention that you have,’ said Colin. ‘Yes, it was Mr Birkett’s letter, and I am to go there on Monday.’

  ‘I shan’t be able to bear it,’ said Lydia, beginning to cry.

  Her family, concerned, begged her to cheer up, but it appeared that she couldn’t, because she had been reading Othello in bed, and was so overcome by the tragedy that the news of Colin’s departure was the last straw.

  ‘I’m really enjoying myself,’ she protested, amid heart- and ear-rending sobs.

  ‘Well, I’m not,’ said Colin, almost sharply. ‘Do go to bed, Lydia, and stop being silly. Here’s some soda-water.’

  Lydia drank the water, blew her nose loudly, wiped her eyes, and went away again. Her mother went up with her to see that her light was turned off, and Colin was left with Kate.

  ‘I have done it now,’ he said. ‘One thing is it can’t last for ever, but I do wish the
re weren’t any boys at that school.’

  By Monday afternoon the school was ready for the boarders, who would be drifting in from tea-time onwards. Mrs Birkett was dispensing tea to any parents who had so little regard for the feelings of their sons as to accompany them to school, while Mr Birkett gave interviews in his study to such parents as absolutely insisted. When Colin arrived in a car from the station, the sinister butler recognised him and took charge.

  ‘Your things will go up to your room, sir, in Mr Carter’s house,’ he said, ‘and Mrs Birkett will be pleased to see you in the drawing-room. She is luckily free from parents at the moment.’

  Mrs Birkett, eyeing Colin with the quick appraising glance of a headmaster’s wife, agreed with her husband. Mr Keith looked thoroughly nice, but his neck was undoubtedly boyish. With her Colin at once felt completely at home, as generations of boys and masters had done, and was prattling confidently away, when in there came someone so distracting that he stopped in the middle of a sentence.

  ‘My elder daughter, Rose,’ said Mrs Birkett, who was used to the impression her daughter made. ‘Rose, this is Mr Keith.’

  Rose was certainly a ravishing creature, with every attribute of fair wavy hair, dark eyebrows, huge blue eyes, elegant figure, and unexceptionable legs. She shook hands with Colin as if he weren’t there and began to eat cake with a hearty appetite.

  Rose Birkett was a great trial to her devoted parents, because she simply couldn’t help getting engaged. At sixteen she had been engaged to the art master at Miss Pettinger’s school. When this was discovered and promptly broken off, to the intense relief of the art master, her parents had sent her to a very good and well-chaperoned school in Munich, where she had been engaged to an officer and a band conductor at the same time. The school had begged her parents to take her back. Before she had been at home six weeks she had become engaged to an assistant master.

  Mr and Mrs Birkett did not altogether care for the young man as a prospective son-in-law, but were too exhausted to take steps for the moment, so there the matter rested. The most annoying part of it was that Rose was a very nice, though incredibly foolish girl, and getting engaged was really her only weakness. What significance, if any, she attached to the word ‘engaged’, no one had yet discovered, unless it meant being taken out in the cars of the successive young men to whom she became attached. Her parents very much hoped she would grow out of the habit in time, but for the present all they could do was to tolerate young Mr Winter and hope for the best.

  Colin then remembered what Lydia had told him.

  ‘I think your sister is at Miss Pettinger’s with my sister, Lydia Keith,’ he said.

  ‘Of course, we know about Lydia,’ said Mrs Birkett, as her daughter’s mouth was too full to answer. ‘She was Ferdinand in The Tempest in the school play, wasn’t she? We all thought her so good. I do hope you will be comfortable, Mr Keith. You will be in Mr Carter’s house. Mr Winter, who is engaged to Rose, is there too, and about forty boys. Matron is very nice, and you get a lovely view from your room over the playing fields and away to the river. We are so glad to have you. I expect you would like to see my husband. He is in his study, just across the passage.’

  Colin, intimidated by her efficiency, said goodbye to Rose, who was still eating cake, and went into the fatal room where the interview had taken place. Mr Birkett, protected by his large study table, got up, shook hands across the barrier, and asked Colin to sit down.

  ‘Rather an annoying thing has happened, Keith,’ he said. ‘Harrison, the man who usually takes the Mixed Fifth, has broken his leg in the Lakes and probably won’t be back this term. As you know, I had asked you to take the Junior Classics, but I must keep Winter there, and I’ll have to ask you to try the Mixed Fifth for a bit. Do you feel like it?’

  ‘Certainly, sir. But I’d like to know what it is like,’ said Colin.

  ‘Well, it’s difficult to explain, but it’s a bit of everything. All sorts of boys. Some very clever ones that have to mark time a bit till they do their university scholarships; some rather slow ones that have one special subject they are brilliant at. What practically happens is that they all do what they like, so long as they do it intelligently, and you have to help them all, talk to them about anything interesting that comes into your head, try to find out roughly what they are thinking about and tell them not to, or encourage them, as the case may be, and any useful little facts about life – no, I don’t mean Facts of Life, all boys seem to be born knowing all about them now – but things you don’t know unless you are told, like how to address a Dean, to call a D.B.E. Dame Mary Cook and not Dame Cook, what ordinary trespass is, how income tax is worked, anything that might come in useful. Of course there’s a certain amount of routine work as well. Carter will tell you the rest, and if you are in a hole, don’t come to me. That’s all, I think.’

  He picked up his fountain-pen, and before Colin was out of the room, was immersed in papers.

  The sinister butler, who was hovering about, came forward and offered to show Colin the way to Mr Carter’s house across the school quad.

  ‘But I know you, don’t I?’ said Colin, stopping half-way. ‘Weren’t you a scout at Lazarus? I was there pretty often, and I’m sure I remember you.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said the butler, ‘I was on staircase seven. But when our new Master was appointed, the same that was headmaster here, sir, and took to writing for the evening papers, I felt I was demeaning myself by remaining in the College. Our late Master used to write for the papers, sir, but toney papers, such as the Classical Review. There has been a sad come-down of late, sir, in Oxford. Presidents and Masters of Colleges courting publicity in a way that cheapens Us, sir. So I handed in my resignation to the Bursar, having previously ascertained from Mr Birkett, a very nice gentleman, who also had rooms on number seven in his time, that this situation was vacant. I remember you well, sir, and the High Old Times, if you will excuse the expression, you and the Honourable Mr Norris used to have. Many’s the time Mr Norris has done considerable damage to his rooms, but I must say he always made it up handsome. This is Mr Carter’s house, sir. He is a very nice gentleman, sir, quiet and learned, and we cannot all have been at Oxford. Mr Winter is, I fear, sowing what one might term his mental wild oats rather late, sir, which makes him trying at times.’

  ‘He is engaged to Miss Birkett, I believe,’ said Colin.

  ‘That, sir, I could not presume to say,’ said the butler. ‘Nor no one else, sir.’

  ‘Well, thanks awfully. Your name is Simnet, isn’t it?’ said Colin, passing half a crown into the butler’s hand.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said Simnet. ‘The moment I set eyes on you last Saturday week, I said to myself: That is Mr Keith, that used to visit the Honourable Mr Norris on number seven, and he is a gentleman. If you ever need anything, sir, I am to be found in my pantry, when not actively engaged.’

  Colin, rather cheered by the prospect of one very useful friend in his new surroundings, rang Mr Carter’s bell. As no one appeared and the front door was open, he went in. A long passage paved with hideous tiles ran from front to back of the house, with doors on each side, but they were all shut. In despair Colin opened a door gently and looked in. He saw a large, bare room, with two or three long tables and some lockers, obviously the boys’ prep room. It was lighted by two big windows looking onto the playing fields, and inhabited at the moment by four or five senior boys, talking and arranging books. Colin felt like a relapsed heretic before the Inquisition.

  ‘Can I help you, sir?’ asked a tall, thin boy in spectacles, with a courteous manner.

  ‘My name is Keith,’ said Colin. ‘I’m a new master. Mr Birkett said I would be in Mr Carter’s house. The butler brought me here and I rang the bell, but no one came.’

  ‘They never do on the first day,’ said the tall boy. ‘My name is Swan, sir, Eric Swan. Tony!’ he called to another boy, ‘where’s Mr Carter?’

  The boy raised a serious face from the book he was rea
ding and looked at Colin.

  ‘How do you do, sir,’ he said, rising. ‘My name is Tony Morland. My mother brought me to tea at your house last summer. I’ll find Mr Carter for you.’

  He opened one of the large windows and looked out.

  ‘He’s going over the cricket pitch with the pro, sir,’ he said. ‘Eric, take Mr Keith to Mr Carter’s study, and I’ll let him know he is here. The maids are perfectly hopeless, sir. I’m trying to get things a bit better, but it’s an uphill job.’

  Swan opened a door at the other side of the passage and stood aside for Colin to go in. A young man in deliberately shabby tweeds, with a white face and flaming red hair, came down the passage.

  ‘What are you doing in Mr Carter’s study, Swan?’ he said angrily.

  ‘This is Mr Keith, sir,’ said Swan, pointedly ignoring the young man’s question, and managing to imply that a gentleman always greets a guest before scolding an inferior. ‘Morland has just gone to let Mr Carter know he is here.’