The Spring Madness of Mr Sermon (39 page)

^{"Damn it woman, I'm not interested in other schools!" he almost screamed. "I've been offered a post at Barrowdene! Not Eton, or Harrow or anywhere on the doorstep of that jungle you live in! It's Barrowdene or nothing and I've got to know!"}

²⁴⁴

^{She replied in the same calm tone. "Very well then, get on the train and come home tomorrow. It's ridiculous to expect me to make a decision, or even to express a considered opinion under these circumstances. What time can you get a train ?"}

^{He said, between his teeth; "I can't come up just like that! If I come at all it would have to be on a Saturday and I should have to return again at latest Sunday night but if you feel this way about it why should I waste five pounds on a fare? I've got a better idea. You get in the car and drive down and see me! You've done it before and you can do it again, but don't bring Jonquil, d'you hear? I'll expect you by tea-time on Saturday!" and with a flourish that helped him to regain control of his temper he slammed down the receiver and stumped off to bed.}

^{Sybil heard the sharp click signifying disconnection but for more than a minute she remained standing by the telephone, holding the receiver to her ear and repeating, over and over again, "Hullo? Are you there, Sebastian? Hullo? Sebastian, are you there?" for never in her life had anybody hung up on her and even now she could scarcely believe it had happened. Then, as she remained with her back to the garden-room door jiggling and jiggling at the hook, an arm encircled her waist and she felt the sly tickle of a moustache on the back of her neck, and although her instinct was to shrug herself away she resisted the impulse and yielded slightly to the pressure. She said, replacing the receiver, "It was only Sebastian, he's been offered a teaching post down there, Kelvin!"}

^{Kelvin Scott-James had never been this close to Sybil Sermon and her nearness seemed to affect his breathing, so that he was unable to reply at once and his silence gave her the chance to extricate herself without offending him. She returned to the living-room and he followed looking like a disconsolate collie.}

^{Here, however, noting Sybil's distress, he suddenly found his voice. "He's a bounder!" he said and then, firmly, "This rather buttons it up, doesn't it my dear?"}

^{The phrase 'buttons it up' was very typical of Kelvin Scott-James,}

^{who was plump, pink-cheeked, dramatically moustached and still a bachelor at forty-three. He had been christened Eustace Kelvin James, the 'Scott' having been added on July 2jrd, 1942, the date he had been commissioned in the Royal Air Force. Almost everything about Kelvin Scott-James dated from that day in 1942, so that one might have said that for him the march of time stopped dead the moment he received his first grudging salute. From that moment, for instance, he had ceased to call a match a match and it became 'a metch", just as an unwelcome obligation became not a worry or a nuisance but 'a bind'. If his car-fender became entangled with anyone else's car fender it was not a collision but a 'prang', and when he worsted someone in argument, he invariably described his victory as having 'shot so-and-so down in flames'. It was from this red-letter day in his life that he started to sprout his thick ginger moustache and now, in 1961, he was as much an anachronism as, say, the K-nut, the Masher or the crossbow.}

^{When he left the R.A.F. in 1945 he returned to his father's photographer's business in Kipley and when his father died he inherited the business and a certain amount of money, but the money was so securely tied up in trusts that he could never get at it and was always short of ready cash. He lived fairly well, however, for he was a reasonably efficient photographer and it was a professional engagement that brought him into contact with Sybil and the Amateurs. Later he joined the Society and played one or two heavy character roles in her productions, but until a few weeks ago he had occupied a place on the outer edge of the circle surrounding Sybil. Only latterly, to his amazed delight, had he suddenly moved in and was now firmly established as her adjutant and confidant, for, following her abortive raid into the West Sybil had sought his counsel rather than carry out her threat about consulting a solicitor.}

^{On the evening that Sebastian rang through with his news, Kelvin had been sitting on the sofa listening patiently to another recital of woes and wishing she would stop talking if only for a moment. Then the telephone rang and he listened, slightly shamefacedly, to her conversation with Sebastian. When she seemed to be growing annoyed with her caller he had taken heart and tiptoed to the door,}

²⁴⁶

^{standing on the threshold and studying her back view with, a degree of satisfaction that increased the rate of his pulse. The click of Sebastian's withdrawal from the conversation had been a signal to advance or 'to press on regardless' as he himself would have put it, and he moved forward and placed his arm round her waist, drawing; her gently towards him and inhaling her expensive perfume with the kind of sigh attributed to lovers in Restoration poems. At last, it seemed, he was making progress and one aspect of this rather gentle embrace that encouraged him to make his subsequent leap in the dark was the sensation of her plump buttocks resting for a matter of seconds against his almost equally plump loins.}

^{"Look here, my dear. I'm going to speak plainly!" he announced, when he had closed the door and followed her back to the fire. "If you really want my advice you ought to go right ahead and . . . call it a day. Damn it, how long can he go on dodging the column like this? You could divorce him for what he's done already!"}

^{Sybil continued to look irritable and undecided. There was an emphasis in his voice that suggested he needed very little encouragement to advance from courtier to usurper but the conversation with Sebastian, and the abruptness with which he had brought it to an end, had left Sybil in a mood where she was inclined to be led rather than to lead so she forced herself to smile a warm smile and to say, softly:}

^{"I don't think I
can
divorce him, Kelvin. He's offered me a home down there and if that came out in court, as it most certainly would, the judge would throw the whole thing out in a moment! As a matter of fact he's just practically ordered me to go down there on Saturday!"}

^{Kelvin had met Sebastian on several occasions and had great difficulty in reconciling his memory of the man with someone who issued orders to a woman like Sybil over the telephone.}

^{"Ordered you! But you're not going, of course?"}

^{"Well, no, of course I'm not, but . . . doesn't that leave me in an even more difficult situation? I mean, he could probably prove he asked me a second time. There might even have been someone listening in at that end-a lawyer or somebody!"}

^{She said this without any conviction for she had, in fact, already}

²⁴⁷

^{half-decided to obey the summons as being the one action on her part likely to set a term to this intolerable situation but Kelvin pounced upon her suggestion like a seal after a herring.}

^{"You can depend upon it, my dear, somebody was listening but I'll lay odds it wasn't a solicitor! It was that scruffy girl you told me about, the one who messes about in a zoo. It wouldn't surprise me in the least to learn that she was having an affair with him, probably living in the house if the truth's known. If you could shoot him down while he was putting up that kind of black, then everything would be in the bag. From your point of view and from ... er ... from ours!"}

^{He had not meant to commit himself but it had slipped out and he was a little astonished by his own recklessness but instead of turning a cold and disapproving gaze upon him or challenging his presumption in any way, Sybil coloured and looked away with what he could only think of as a charming display of nervous pleasure. Scenting triumph, he blundered on, a R.A.F. Regiment tank running amok, "I ... I mean that, Sybil!...!... I'm very much in love with you! I can't stand seeing that bounder treat you this way. I'm not a rich man but I'm not poor .either and I'd like you to ... to think about us in that way, even if we could make no real decision until things had sorted themselves out. I'd wait years, you understand me ? Years!" and swept towards her by the impetus of his declaration he almost bounced across the hearthrug, gathered her in his arms and began raining random kisses on her neck, brow, cheeks and chin.}

^{Sybil was bowled over by the fury of the assault and they collapsed on to the sofa which, fortunately for her, was so positioned as to break their fall. She let the first wave of the attack pass over her and then, with a few dexterous wriggles, held it sufficiently to gasp: "Really, Kelvin! Stop it, Kelvin! Wait, you mustn't! You mustn't, really!" with just sufficient conviction to give him pause although his heart was bursting with triumph.}

^{"I'm not divorced yet!" she stated firmly, "and I'm certainly not going to put myself in the wrong, particularly not if what you say turns out to be true, do you understand?"}

^{Excited as he was, he yet recollected the necessity of consolidating}

²⁴⁸

^{a newly-won position and withdrew an inch or so, continuing to hold her firmly by the hand: "Very well, Sybil," he said briskly, "our next move is to get the gen! You mustn't go to Kingsbay, but I}

^will!"

^{"You will?"}

^{"As soon as I think he's had time to feel secure. In the meantime don't answer the telephone and don't answer any letters he sends. Leave everything to me and if what I feel certain of is true- namely that there's method in his madness and he's giving you cast-iron grounds for divorce-then I'll get the evidence and you- we-can go right ahead!"}

^{A gleam of Sybil's common sense lit up the turmoil of her thoughts and she said: "Why should he invite me down there if he's having an affair with that zoo woman? Surely Kingsbay is the last place he would want me to appear?"}

^{"Bluff!" replied Kelvin, patting her knee with the air of an all-wise male instructing the helpless little woman. "It's a manoeuvre any man might employ if he was determined to get what he wanted without involving himself or his mistress in a public scandal!"}

^{"But what does he want?" cried Sybil, piteously. "I don't know and I don't think I ever shall know!"}

^{Kelvin considered a moment, hesitating to say something that might wound her pride yet realising that the correct strategy now was to push on while she was confused and indecisive.}

^{"I'm afraid that is becoming all too clear, my dear. He intends to end your marriage but he wants to do it in a way that allows him to emerge as the injured party! That's very important to a schoolmaster, remember! If he really is in a position to get a job at a good school then it is essential that he puts you in the wrong. In my opinion he's quite cold-blooded about it and all this flannel about wanting to live in the country is pure camouflage. Nothing more, nothing less! Now are you going to let him get away with it, or are you going to give me permission to call his bluff and shoot him down in flames ? It's up to you, Sybil. I'm at your disposal and you must know that by now!" and he gave her two more little pats, one on each thigh.}

²⁴⁹

^{Sybil hesitated. Her intellect told her that Kelvin was talking sheer nonsense, that Sebastian was not having an affair, that he did not want a divorce and wished with all his heart for a reconciliation on his terms, but latterly her intellect had been on holiday and most of her decisions had been dictated by her emotions. If this bull-calf of a man who was clearly enslaved by her wanted to do a little investigating on her behalf then she might as well let him while Sebastian had another week or so to come to his senses. She said, taking him by the hand: "You're very good to me, Kelvin. I don't know why you should be but you are. You're the only real friend I've found in all this trouble and if you really want to go down there and find out what Sebastian is up to I don't think I should stop you, providing of course you promise to be very discreet and don't get involved in a scene!"}

^{"Ha, ha!" said Kelvin, "I don't think you need to worry on that score! If I find what I think I shall find it will be a matter for a solicitor! By the way, you don't think he'll recognise me? We've met, you know, at one or two of your parties."}

^{"I'm quite sure he won't recognise you," she said bitterly. "He's never done me the honour of recalling the name of any single member of the Society whom I introduced."}

^{"Very well!" said Kelvin, enthusiastically, "we'll let Saturday go by and I'll pop down mid-week. By that time he'll be convinced that you aren't running to his whistle, confound him! Give me his address and where he works, that ought to be sufficient."}

^{She gave him Sebastian's letter and he put it carefully away.}

^{When he was gone she went back into the living-room to turn out lights and empty the ashtrays. An irritating thought nagged at her that perhaps, after all, Kelvin Scott-James was not the man to trust with a mission that required tact and discretion, but the memory of Sebastian's hectoring tone returned to her and she shrugged off her misgivings.}

^{"I don't give a damn either way!" she told herself, "by the time he gets there, Sebastian will probably be here and I'll cure him of this madness one way or another. He can't have changed that much in three months!"}