High Master of Clere (21 page)

‘
I know, but
—’
She stopped.
‘
It
’
s just that,
once I realized it might be there, I couldn
’
t
...
bear to do nothing about it.
’

He looked at her in silence for a moment, then said,
‘
Behind that candle you remind me forcibly of the woman in the parable who also couldn
’
t wait to sweep her house in search of one silver groat out of ten
!’

Verity smiled thinly and thrust her loose hair behind her ear with her free hand.
‘
I feel rather like her,
’
she said.

‘
Meaning it really can
’
t wait until morning? All right. But there
’
s a cruel sleet falling and you
’
re not going out. I
’
ll go myself.
’

‘
You won
’
t know where to look
—’

‘
I
’
ll find where to look. Go into the warm
‘—
his hand turned her towards the kitchen—
’
and I
’
ll report back.
’

She disobeyed him by going to search the floor of the party room and to turn her torch on the holly arrangements. After a fruitless search she had just regained the kitchen when he returned, switching on the light, which now responded, and opening his palm to her.

‘
A silver groat masquerading as a needle in a haystack,
’
he
said.

‘
Oh
!
Bless
you
!’
she
exclaimed
as
impulsively as she
would have thanked Lance
or her
mother. She
took
the clasp
from
h
im
and burnished it lovingly against the side of her hand.
‘
It
’
s more than I dared hope—that I should ever see it again
!’

He looked his surprise at her bubbling pleasure.
‘
Why all the intensity?
’
he asked.
‘
You had only
to tell me you had lost it and I could have ordered you another.
’

She shook her head.
‘
It wouldn
’
t have been the same. Replacements never are; they
’
re always spoiled by the guilt of one
’
s having been careless with the first one, don
’
t you think?
’

He smiled.
‘
Only when the first has some deep sentimental value, surely? If it had none, I imagine I could accept a replacement with no qualms of conscience at all!
’

‘
Well, of course
!
’
She broke off, covering
the inference to be read into that by asking him if he would like a cup of tea.

‘
Good idea. And if I remember rightly, it
’
s your
turn to make it. Mine, last time
—
Oh, my dear,
I
’
m sorry
!’
he added to her swift flush and rejecting turn of the head.
‘
That was hardly fair of me, was it?
’

‘
Perhaps
...
not very.
’
But she saw he wasn
’
t guilty of recalling her own shaming memory of that other midnight when he went on,
‘
Tell me, have you begun to think yet of having another dog in Nash
’
s place?
’

She busied herself with cups and saucers and switched on the kettle.
‘
I couldn
’
t—just yet. I know you
’
re supposed to pay the greatest possible compliment to your first dog when you take on another at once. But while everything about Nash is still fresh with me, I
’
m afraid I should judge the new dog unfairly for being different from Nash, which he couldn
’
t help.
’

Daniel nodded.
‘
You very well might. It
’
s a hurdle newcomers have to take—to be judged for the crime of merely being new. As I should know, shouldn
’
t I?
’

‘
You mean
?
’

‘
You know, I think. That first day, Lance was openly hostile and you were—wary, and between you, you were speaking for Clere; defying me to run it my way and accusing me of trying to erase your father
’
s stamp on it with every innovation I might make.
’

‘
That was only because hard
l
y anyone remembered a High Master
but
Father, and because he had been loved so much
!
Anyway, it isn
’
t so any longer. Even Lance says you
’
re
“
on the beam
”
now, and you must know the school thinks so too. The staff are with you as well. I can tell by the way they
’
ve already begun to call you by your initials instead of
“
Mr.
Wyatt
”
. Amongst themselves you
’
re
“
D. W.
”
now, as Father always used to be
“
R. L.
”
’

‘
And you regard that as proof of my acceptance, do you? I wish I could see it as more than a wisp of straw in the wind.
’
Daniel took his cup of tea and stirred it.
‘
You talk of how your father was universally loved, and yet the one person who must have loved him most was the one who accepted me at once without question, out of her faith that your father
’
s mark on Clere was far too lasting and indelible for any successor to him to spoil. I mean your mother, who never even probed to hear why I dropped so completely out of your world after I had been sent to Canada as a child; who left me to explain myself in my own time—or never, I think, if that was the way I wanted it.
’

Verity said,
‘
Does she know now? If so, she hasn
’
t mentioned it to us.
’

‘
I asked her not to. I have a normal instinct for self-preservation, and it seemed to me you had a nice enough brew of hostility a-cooking without my adding fuel to your fire with a story which does me no credit at a
ll
. But I think you should hear it now.
’

‘
Why? You
’
ve told me already you could have come back to Clere earlier than you did, and if Mother didn
’
t press to learn more than that, I needn
’
t,
’
Verity said a little stiffly.

‘
Ah, but your mother is unique. I know she loved me as a child and I think she does still,
whereas you haven
’
t the same motive for charity
—
Anyway, you know of course that after I went to Canada I was never in touch again until I came to Clere as its future High Master
?’
Daniel asked.

‘
Yes, and that my people were hurt. But Mother always said they could only suppose your uncle must have had his own reasons for breaking all your ties with England as he did.
’

‘
He had indeed his reasons, though what they were I wasn
’
t to realize for years—in fact, until he was dead,
’
Daniel confirmed grimly.
‘
Meanwhile he fed me with lies. One of them—that I was a near
-
pauper, thrust on his hospitality. Another—that if your people had raised a finger to offer me a home on this side I needn
’
t have had to cross the Atlantic in wartime. Another—and to prove this I suspect he suppressed letters both ways—that they didn
’
t write to me nor want to hear from me. And the cruellest of all, which he saved until I was old enough to understand it—that the friendship between my family and yours had been nothing but a cloak for an otherwise open scandal.
’

Verity blanched.
‘
A—
scandal
?’

‘
A guilty association between my father and
—
your mother.
’

‘
But
—Mother
and his own brother? How could you have believed it of either of them?
’

‘
Of course I shouldn
’
t,
’
Daniel agreed.
‘
Hindsight knows that well enough. So does self-reproach. But at the time I could only defend them out of a child
’
s memory, and the doubt stayed to rankle long after I had broken with Uncle Hugo Wyatt for good. Meanwhile he had let me work my way through high school and college with the help of scholarships and vacation jobs, and the only one of his lies which came to roost was the fact that my father
’
s money was waiting for me when I came of age.
’

‘
But the rest? Surely, if you had looked up Father and Mother again when you did come to England, you could have sensed from their reception of you whether it was true or not? Because if it had been, they would be afraid you had heard it all from your uncle and they wouldn
’
t have wanted to see you back, would they?
’

‘
Exactly my own reasoning, while I didn
’
t know the extent of his malice. He had passed off his deception about my inheritance by claiming that he had wanted to make me self-reliant—which just could have been true. So as I feared the rest was too, I judged your people unheard and decided to write off the whole sorry business.
’

‘
Then why did you come when you had the offer of the High Mastership
?’

Daniel frowned over his cigarette.
‘
The sixty
-
four-dollar question you were bound to ask! I wish I could tell you
I had had a change of heart, but it wasn
’
t nearly as simple as that.
’

‘
If you hadn
’
t wanted the High Mastership you wouldn
’
t have come?
’

‘
Nor even as simple as
that
!
If I had had the offer alone, I should have told the Governors I wasn
’
t interested in it. But by the same post as I received it there was a letter from my uncle, forwarded by his solicitors after his death—of which I hadn
’
t heard—which retracted all the scurrility he had fed to me for years and begged me to try to
“
understand and forgive
”
his motives.
’

‘
And could you?
’

‘
Not easily. But it seems he had been in love with my mother and had needed to take out his revenge on his brother for having won her instead. They were both dead. They had escaped him, but he could still smear all my memories of my father and of your people. As I
’
ve told you, he succeeded, but the two letters—his and the Governors
’—
arriving together gave me a reprieve I
’
d done nothing to earn. As I saw it, it freed me to come back to Clere, if not with a clear conscience, at least not empty-handed. For I argued that if I could achieve even a fraction of all your father had done and hoped for it, there
’
d be my amend for all the doubts I should never have harboured. That
’
s how I reasoned, Verity. Perhaps I was only whitewashing myself. But I hope not.
’

She said slowly,
‘
Thank you for telling me. And I don
’
t think you were. You wanted to do well by Clere for their sake, and that I understand, probably
because it
’
s so much my thing too
—’

The smile she loved came and went. He said,
‘
Trust the jargon of your age-group to express an ideal with a word like
“
thing
”!
But I know what you mean and we
’
re in it together, aren
’
t we? I know I
’
ve still most of my giants to face and I
’
m going to make a lot of mistakes, but help me, will you? Stay on my side?
’