The Spring Madness of Mr Sermon (27 page)

^{"Steve Pellet-Smith ?"}

^{"Yes, he was a Yale man doing research on the magazine I worked on for a time. He was a terribly brainy person and I admired him, particularly his powers of application and concentration which was something I lacked so badly. I wasn't all that attracted to him physically, tho' he wasn't bad-looking, lean-faced, very intense, with high cheekbones and rather husky for an intellectual. He was a bit Caius-Cassiusy, you know, wiry but strong as a bull. His folks had money and he was over here getting material for a thesis. I forget what it was on, I fancy a French poet . . . 'Shen' or 'Chen'- something-or-other!"}

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^{"Chenier. Andre Chenier?"}

^{"That was it! Aren't you brainy? I remember now, the poor little toad wrote reams of verse to a girl who didn't give a damn about him. Steve was crazy about him and we went all over France tracing clues, at least, he did, I usually stayed at a little place in Brittany and lazed around, waiting. I liked that part of our marriage, it was a kind of stop-go honeymoon and I was always thrilled to see him come loping down the path to the farm where I'd been dumped."}

^{"What went wrong ?"}

^{"Oh, all kinds of things. I suppose he got bored with my laziness and general dimness. He should have married a girl with something upstairs as well as down, someone a bit better balanced, if you follow me. We got along fine in bed and often out of it when we hadn't seen one another for a fortnight or so, but when we went to his home in New England he began his drive to turn me into something he didn't have to apologise for to all the other long-hairs. He just didn't realise what he was up against. Dozens of well-meaning teachers had already broken their teeth on me and he wasn't any more successful than the best of them. We had some dreadful rows but I don't think he realised that I did try. If I'd been madly in love with him I might have succeeded, but I wasn't, I just liked and admired him, and it wasn't enough, you see ? Then I blew my top-reaction to all the intellectual pressure, I suppose-and had a rather dreary affaire with a boy who hadn't got an idea in his head outside horses and baseball, and then Steve's mother chipped in and finally he divorced me. I couldn't quarrel with that and I don't now, he was more generous than I had a right to expect and even paid my expenses home and gave me a bit over. I hope to God he found somebody who could give him a better deal."}

^{The thing that Sebastian found himself admiring most about her was her breezy honesty. He was beginning to discover how rare this kind of honesty had been in the world he had deserted but how often it cropped up now that he had gained a little elbow-room and had time to consider people objectively. It was one of the things that had attracted him to Olga and, before that, to Tapper Sugg and the barmaid at the Cat and Carthorse just over the hill. People had never been anything like so frank about themselves in the}

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^{suburb and a conversation with any of Sybil's devotees, or member of the staff at Napier Hall, always left him with a feeling that they had drawn a tight circle round themselves and that nothing but a violent shock would cause them to step outside it and be themselves for a few moments. It had made all his personal contacts stale and profitless, as though every sentence he exchanged with the few people he did meet was the kind one might exchange in a railway compartment and this stricture, this hedged-in feeling, had extended even to Sybil and certainly to his son and daughter. As he pondered this, however, a new thought struck him. Were the kind of people he had met during the last few weeks different or did they merely seem different because his own personality had undergone a radical change, so that he was now able to meet them half-way or, in the case of the shy ones like Olga, more than half-way? He was so struck with this that Rachel Grey made the error of thinking his attention had wandered and said: "Look here, Martin, I'm boring you to tears! I didn't volunteer the story of my life, you asked for it, remember? Let's have a drink and something to eat!" and she pressed the starter button.}

^{"I'm not in the least bored," he said, "I was comparing your story with my own. After the divorce what happened? Did you come home again?"}

^{"I always come home! Father's a very tolerant person and one of the wisest people I know. He doesn't probe, he enjoys watching me get my breath back. I'm the youngest you see and all the others have turned out rather well. One brother is a physicist and another brother and a sister are both happily married with two kids apiece. He's been very lonely since Mother died and the one tidy thing about my life is my relationship with Fred. He's a poppet and we're buddies! There isn't much left to tell anyway; after a bit I took the job as companion-nannie to Lady Wilkinson."}

^{"What I don't understand," he said slowly, as she reversed and moved back on to the road, "is how few bruises you've got to show for it. You aren't bitter about anything, not Steve or bad luck, or mistakes or even those awful Wilkinson people. You're like . . . like someone who has stood all day throwing rings at a hoop-la stall without winning a prize, but remains as optimistic as when you}

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^{started out. You think of yourself as a muddier but you aren't really, you've got something quite rare and I can't think of the word for it. It isn't 'resilience' exactly and it isn't a thick hide. Can you name it ? Do you know yourself that well?"}

^{She gave him a shrewd glance as though she was not at all sure how she should take this, then she laughed and said: "It was smart of you to spot it that quickly. I feel things as much as anyone but I don't bruise, at least, if I do the bruises don't stay and I know why all right. It's because I had a happy childhood. I discovered that as soon as I left home and you can spot it in other people, all kinds of people. It's armour against fate and most things bounce off it, Martin. You'll understand when you meet Fred." Then, eagerly, "I say, would you like to? Now? This afternoon?"}

^{"Go over to Barrowdene with you?"}

^{"Yes, after we've had lunch at the pub."}

^{"I would indeed, I've dropped schoolmastering but I'm still interested in schools, particularly schools like Barrowdene. Would your father mind ?"}

^{"He'd love it, you'd get on like a house on fire. I'll introduce you and then you can wander round. He's been there over twenty years and it oozes from the pores. He likes showing people around, particularly pros like you!"}

^{"Then I'd like to very much, Rachel, and if he's busy I'll pose as a parent prospecting the ground."}

^{She drove fast but extremely well and in a few moments they reached the pub where he had set out for Avalon. As they passed the crest of the hill he made a mental genuflexion and for the first time since Olga had announced her intention to leave he felt the spread of excitement and happiness in his belly, a sensation that he was beginning to recognise as the warning note of a new adventure.}

^{"There's one thing you haven't told me," he said, as they drank their beer and waited for Bella's pasties to warm. "Where does the veterinary book come in? Is it a hobby?"}

^{"It began as one," she told him, "but it's developed into a bit of a penance. I'm good with animals, dogs, cats, horses, anything that can t answer back, and I always had an idea I should enjoy working with them, particularly if they were sick and needed looking after.}

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^{I couldn't nurse people but I think I could nurse animals and during the time I was at the Wilkinsons I took refuge in the dream of becoming a vet. For one thing there's sex equality in that field, people accept women vets and it's just a question of finding the staying power to pass the exams."}

^{"You'll find it, Rachel!" he said, and regarding her comically through the glass bottom of his tankard he found himself wishing with all his heart that his own daughter, Jonquil, had the same zest for life, the same introspective modesty that concealed courage, warmth and a kind of impish gaiety. He remembered then what the girl had said about the legacy of a happy childhood. Perhaps Jonquil's had not been so happy and he wondered how much blame for this attached to Sybil's determination to dominate her background and how much to his placid acceptance of that domination.}

^{A romantic in a variety of fields, Mr. Sermon was almost an addict when it came to the Public School, or what he thought of in his mind as the Public School and the name 'Barrowdene' conjured up a picture of all that was good and vital and permanent in the system, for while it was old and traditional it had not become the exclusive preserve of the privileged, as had Eton or Harrow. Instead it might be said to occupy a leading position in the second flight and was reputed to provide a good modern education as well as inculcating into boys what most people recognised as 'the Public School spirit', a combination of self-reliance, good manners and qualities of leadership. The fact that he had never taught in a school of this type did not make him in the least envious of those who did. He merely considered them fortunate, like people who won football pools or enjoyed perfect health. As regards schools, in fact, he was a little bit of a snob.}

^{Thus it was that he approached Barrowdene that May afternoon in a state of suppressed excitement, finding it difficult to realise that he was being taken there by the youngest child of the man who had ruled over this establishment for twenty years, a man to whom she referred, somewhat disrespectfully he thought, as 'Fred, a Poppet!'}

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^{The buildings occupied a long ridge of moorland about ten miles inland from Kingsbay rising clear above the valley woods that grew on each side of the river. There were one or two white farms within view but no villages, not even a hamlet, and Mr. Sermon recalled then that Barrowdene was famous for cross-country events and that several old Harrovians had made reputations for themselves in Olympic Events in post-war years. Much as Shrewsbury was a rowing school Barrowdene was a steeplechasing school and a glance at the country surrounding it told him why it had so specialised. On all sides of the square-sided steeple, the brown hills rose in great, gorse-grown folds and every cleft was dark with pine and beech through which, here and there, ribbons of silver water moved along little valleys to feed the Dene that flanked the school to the west.}

^{"By George!" he exclaimed, as the old Morris chugged clear of the woods and tackled the steep road to the east drive, "what a wonderful setting for a school! What a marvellous place to live and work in! It's the epitome of every Public School in literature!"}

^{She glanced at him and smiled, finding his enthusiasm rewarding but because she was familiar with the scene and, as a girl, unresponsive to the mysticism of the cult, she did not feed his excitement with a running commentary on the various pitches and outbuildings as they passed between two rows of evenly-spaced beeches to the quadrangle. Only when they reached the war memorial on the edge of the playing field did she say, "Fred holds two services there every year, one on November Eleven and one for the R.A.F. in September. I used to think it was all pious bunk until one day I went in to see him after he had come in from a service. I found him alone and weeping and I didn't think of the services as mere ritual after that! We had twenty-nine boys killed in World War Two and Fred knew most of them by their nicknames! It makes a difference I suppose!"}

^{Her comment helped to establish in his mind a picture of the man whom he already respected. He saw him ar; a calm, dignified figure of medium height, greying and also inclining to baldness, with a quasi-military erectness and a sternness that could change in an instant to gentleness and understanding. He would, thought Mr. Sermon, be neatly and quietly dressed in blue serge or dark grey,}

^{and there would be about him the repose of a village rector wedded to the purposeful air of a professional man of affairs, something between Doctor Arnold and an Edwardian Cabinet Minister, with just a dash of the kind of man glimpsed in launches that follow the eights at Varsity boat-races.}

^{Rachel pulled into a semicircular court outside the chapel and hailed a good-looking seventeen-year-old in blazer and flannels who was carrying an armful of cricket pads.}

^{"Hi, Buster! Is the Head around?"}

^{"Talking to Mr. Raven on the library steps Miss Grey, shall I tell him you're here?"}

^{"Please, and tell him I've brought a friend and we're going in to tea now!" and she led Mr. Sermon into the Headmaster's house, a suite of high-ceilinged rooms that cowered between two greystone blocks three storeys high.}

^{The drawing-room was simply furnished with one or two pieces of mahogany and modern, handmade furniture in soft wood. There were one or two engravings of landscapes and along the length of a shelf a set of Coalport plates, rather late Coalport, thought Mr. Sermon in his character of.dealer. The room as a whole was less expensively furnished than he would have imagined but it looked very much lived in, with piles of books and papers on the table and most of the chairs, and some silver on the sideboard that needed cleaning. There was a vase stuffed with foxgloves under one window and the smell of tobacco was so strong that Mr. Sermon sneezed.}

^{"I'm sorry about the fug," said Rachel, opening a window that looked out on to tennis lawns. "Fred's absolutely immune to it. We all follow him round opening windows and sometimes the boys put on a choking act when he comes into a classroom. If smokers really do die of lung cancer he should have died long ago. He gets through about two ounces a day and he uses the same old pipe until it falls to pieces! Sit down and I'll tell Mrs. Brennan there's two for tea, I hope to God nobody shows up!" and she disappeared through a green door leaving Mr. Sermon to take a seat near the window and gulp moorland air while he had the chance.}