Lord Dismiss Us (21 page)

But the agony of having to look across the way, without apparently seeing Allen, who kept his head down as before!

And when they stood for the anthem, they were the only two who had to pretend they knew it.

The sermon he did not hear at all. But very few did. It was old Pettifer who came twice a year from some church in Oxford. They could imitate his shaky head; but not his sermons, because no one could remember them. The Chaplain looked scornful, and the squeaks of his shoes seemed, somehow, to express contempt.

Carleton hated to see them file out. This was final. It was now. What would he do?

Naylor must have found him even more detached than he had expected. Indeed, he hardly noticed Naylor. There was even no embarrassment at all in folding the altar-cloth.

They drank wine, as usual, on the Chaplain’s landing; and it seemed almost a toast to mutual understanding.

It was Naylor’s turn to help count the Collection.

So he was free.

He walked straight into the Senior Prefect, turning a corner by the Dining Hall, and Steele said, ‘Hey, look out!’ and examined him in a puzzled way.

He was in the dark Quad. The rain had stopped. It was a warm night.

He found he had not gone into his House through the Big Schoolroom door. He had passed it, and passed the window of his Common Room. The light was on. The other three were inside, making toast.

There was no one about. He was at the top of the steps, looking down at the New Buildings. There was a very dim light above the entrance door. Number
4
was quite a long way down. Allen probably couldn’t see him. There was still time to turn back.

But it wasn’t fair. He would meet and tell the boy it was all impossible, and put an end to it. There was no alternative.

He went quietly down the stairs, through the hall, and turned left down the corridor.

The door of Number
4
was open. It was very dark. There was a movement; of someone coming forward, and standing close.

‘Now listen,’ he whispered. ‘I don’t know what this is all about, but it’s impossible.’

There was no reply.

‘Allen. Do you hear me? Do you understand?’

A hand touched his, and then came softly inside his.

He pressed it, intending a sympathetic dismissal. But he found that he was still holding it, because it seemed to be the most marvellous thing that had ever happened to him. He was terrified, and amazingly happy.

He could not help it: he had raised his other hand, and put his arm around Allen and brought him gently closer. His hand was on that wonderful shoulder-blade. Allen’s dark, sweet-smelling hair was against his cheek. It was ecstacy. His legs were trembling. Allen was his. This marvellous boy was his.

A door slammed and there were feet clacking along somewhere in the corridor.

Carleton was startled. They stood listening. He had lowered his arm.

The feet stopped.

There was silence.

‘I’ll have to go,’ he whispered.

‘Don’t.’

‘I must.’

Allen’s whispered appeal touched his heart. He had never imagined anything like this in his life.

‘Listen, we can’t. I’m sorry, but we can’t. I’m the Second Prefect. You must forget it. I’m going.’

He released Allen’s hand, and went quickly out. He hurried softly along the corridor.

It seemed safer to go out the different door. There was a light-bulb here too. Four tennis-balls in a lidless box lay on a ledge. The warm damp night had brought out midges which were circling under the light-bulb. He went down between the borders. There were distant lights in the The Pedant’s Palace as his House went to bed, and Carleton could just see the path leading towards the archway made by the vine.

There was a giggle or a teasing laugh, and something hit him lightly in the back, and someone rushed past. He looked down and saw a tennis-ball bouncing at his feet, and without hesitation – and somehow freed, and released, and feeling light of heart and joyous – he caught it up and flung it at Allen’s broad back. Yes, it was Allen running ahead. It was a hit. Allen stopped for a second, and the ball struck Carleton in the chest.

He was dashing on under the vine, with the ball in his hand. He had caught up a little. This time it hit Allen again in the back, but he did not stop.

He picked up the ball – and Allen had gone. But he must be just ahead. Flushed with excitement and happiness, Carleton came suddenly to a halt.

There was a railing, and a light high above it. Ashley was leaning against the railing, talking with two boys. Beside them, steep concrete steps descended down to the yard where the Photographic and other Rooms were. Allen must have gone down them.

Ashley stopped talking. They were looking at him. Ashley had a funny, surprised, quizzical, kind of half-sneering expression. Carleton went boldly forward, to go down the stairs, intending to say, ‘good-night, gentlemen’, but he could not bring it out. As he passed, Ashley said, in a most peculiar voice: ‘Carleton’s in love.’

So they
had
just seen Allen, he thought. So he must be down here ahead of me.

It was only as he arrived at the bottom that he considered the full meaning of Ashley’s remark.

He had taken it for granted as correct!

Could it be?

His first love, the one they say affects a whole life. Was this what it was like?

No time to think. He was in the dark, in the yard, walking softly on the wet, slippery cobbles. His heart was racing. He said, quietly: ‘Allen?’

No answer. A starless night. But he could just make out the high hay-barns on one side, and on the other the ghostly white doors of the Photographic Room, the Senior Ping Pong Room and the Printing Room, where he and Johns produced their magazine.

‘Where are you?’

‘Oh come to me now, this may never happen again,’ thought Carleton, losing all caution.

‘Allen, where are you?
Please
.’

But he had gone.

It was baffling; not so much that he had gone, but that this strange younger boy seemed to have taken charge.

Chapter Fourteen

The lesser of the two gates was nearer Gillingham. It was, therefore, a likely bet that the two coaches would come up the back drive. They did. Entering between the tall stone pillars, with an eager face under a grey helmet at each window, they passed below a white banner six feet in width, on which were written the words in red –
beware of rape.

There was a gasp – and then shrieks.

‘Girls! Girls!’

Miss Hutchins was sitting in the first coach, wearing a tweed suit and a brown helmet. She turned quickly, and looked out the back window, and read it in reverse. It was true. Miss Moffit, the little Games Mistress beside her, was ashen white. And rightly.

But the girls were scarlet, and beyond restraint. The green coaches sounded like parrot-houses as they went up the bumpy, un-cemented back drive; and very slowly too, because the ancient driver in the front was weeping with laughter and could scarcely see.

Yet they were suddenly hushed as they turned up in front of the Head’s House. Over a hundred boys of the Senior School were standing about on the grass, examining them as if they were indeed a travelling zoo.

Blushing greatly, and some of them taken with renewed seizures, they descended to the ground. Mr Crabtree stepped forward. Miss Hutchins spoke at once: ‘I don’t know that we can stay, Headmaster. There is a quite disgusting notice over your gateway.’

The Head stared at her, quickly colouring, and at last brought out – ‘What? What is this, Steele?’

Steele looked military, and almost came to attention; but had to confess – ‘I don’t know, Sir.’

‘I hardly expected you to know. . . .’ Miss Hutchins paused. She had been interrupted by wolf whistles. The Head spun round, scarlet, and attempted to wither his charges with a glance. His wife, beside him, was gazing at the sunny blue sky; which was not helpful.

‘But I insist it come down at once, and I’ll have a letter of apology from the culprits, who, I trust, will be severely punished.’

‘By all means, Miss Hutchins,’ said the Head.

Now they put the week’s planning to the test. Ten girls had come in white, for mixed doubles. There was the Head’s court (for Prefects only), just across the drive near the Music Building; and there were four more courts down the hill near the lake, with benches around them. Adjacent to these, was a large marquee, within which Miss Bull was already supervising the distribution of strawberries.

Dr Rowles had announced that he would be staying in his room for the afternoon.

The Chaplain was doing the same – indeed he was At Home for tea – without feeling any need to announce it.

But The Pedant and The Cod, and a number of junior masters, were active. Everyone noticed that The Pedant was in uncommonly lively form. They told Prefects to take parties off on tours of the school. They saw that some watched tennis on the Head’s court, and that the other courts were not neglected. Jimmy Rich was keeping the Juniors out of the way on the cricket field, and more of them were up at the swimming-pool under McCaffrey.
Mixed bathing had been vetoed: Miss Hutchins was doubtful about the problem of changing; and the Head himself considered it
a little too ambitious for their first meeting.

Still, they were to mix; that was the thing. Tennis, and tea, and so on, were means to that sole end.

The only guide who was not silent with embarrassment was Lucretia Crabtree. She took – she commanded – a party of eight up into the wood, to see her rabbits which were kept in numerous cages. With them went a Starling named Lawson. He was – even for a Starling – very ugly and unwashed. He had lately been helping with the rabbits, and had otherwise been seen in attendance. It was a liaison that was generally regarded as revolting; and also damn cheek, since one did not associate with girls.

In this respect, Sexy Sinnott, whose tastes seemed indiscriminate, was probably the boldest among the few sinners. He sprawled amidst a group of four or five, lying on a grass bank above the Head’s court. But it was noticeable that the more he talked, the more he faltered and the more he blushed.

They watched with mocking eyes. They whispered comments behind hands to each other –
even while one was speaking
.

Yes, it became uncomfortably plain very soon that, though the visitors might have lost the first round, the day was going to be theirs. Together in groups they talked, they whispered, they discussed; they made selections on Darwinian principles.

Their hosts suffered. ‘Rape’ looked a sorry threat.

‘I’m Peggy Wyckham. I’m Captain. You’re Terence Carleton?’

‘Yes.’

Carleton was in agony. She was some inches taller than he was; gingery, freckled, with a full bosom. She had happy blue eyes that he knew should have seemed nice and friendly. But no: they were too frighteningly alive, and – did he imagine it? – they were laughing at him for being a shy child.

‘This is Antonia Naylor.’

‘Hullo.’

Antonia was worse. She was bored and superior; maybe contemptuous. She was slim, dark and supple. The news had somehow gone right through the school beforehand that she would be the beauty of the day. She was Naylor’s sister.

‘This is . . . Bewick.’

(He had no idea of Bewick’s christian-name).

‘Gerald,’ said Bewick, in a quavering voice.

‘Hi,’ said Peggy Wyckham.

The four of them went on court. Carleton was playing with Antonia.

There were staring faces all around. Male and female eyes, in entirely separate groups. He saw Ashley in the distance, on some lone walk, or prowl, pause and narrow his eyes, studying what was presumably a preposterous scene. The Crabs, Miss Hutchins and Miss Moffit sat in a row of deck-chairs by the net. Red-haired Hamilton Minor was up on the umpire’s ladder. He loved being scorer. His ambition was to be an accountant.

‘You serve,’ said Antonia, for some reason, in a dry, apparently hostile voice. It was the one thing he did not want to do, but the instruction was imperative. She patted two balls back without looking. She crouched at the net; slim and limber in a neat white dress, with a young girl’s legs and shiny black hair. Somehow incredible to think of her as being Naylor’s sister. She was another being; supposed to be beautiful; but that was what Naylor was. How did one tackle – how was one ever likely to be tempted to tackle – this different creature, so thin in the middle, with those breasts . . . and such a fierce face?

The ball went sidewards, away to the right, and he only just reached it and struck it into the net. Which was pretty silly, since he himself had thrown it up. The second time it went up so high he thought it would never come down. He waited too long, but just managed to push it over. Peggy came in heavily, all white and pink, and hit it calmly and hard to his backhand. He scooped it up. Peggy banged it down, just missing Antonia, who was in retreat.

‘Love – fifteen,’ said Hamilton Minor.

Antonia tossed her hair.

He had just spotted his darling, his still undeclared, and apparently much recovered, darling, chatting with friends behind the end netting.

Purgatory must be like this.

‘We must see that they mix.’

The Head had leaned towards Miss Hutchins with this sudden, original thought.

‘Quite,’ she said.

Mrs Crabtree spoke for the first time; dipping like a bird – ‘I fear it’s less important for you than for us.’

Miss Hutchins had no response. The Head’s mouth went down. Miss Moffit delicately cleared her throat.

‘Do you ride?’ asked Antonia, in a bored voice.

Everyone was standing on the grass outside the marquee; in distinct groups. He was one of the very few boys trapped by a visitor. He wished they were still playing tennis: it had not been so bad; they had been defeated by Peggy Wyckham’s steadiness, but only just.