Lord Dismiss Us (33 page)

Ma Crab had taken the cup, and nearly missed it, because her chin had jerked up and her eyes were on the ceiling. Her voice was quavering and almost inaudible.

‘Floreat Weatherhill. Et floreant the Weatherhillians.’

She dipped into it. She handed it to Ashley, who was standing at her side, and dropped her eyes to the table. The Cod had risen. Ashley looked into the pale brown liquid, with silver flashing through it, and with embarrassment forced himself to speak what were to him fatuous words – ‘Floreat Weatherhill. Et floreant the Weatherhillians.’

He tasted the noxious liquid, and handed the Cup to the Cod, with sharp relief.

The Cod boomed. Excessive and preposterous, Ashley thought. He sat down and tried to stomach the roast beef. There was a gentle rattle of knives and forks. ‘Floreat Weatherhill,’ said the Pedant very testily indeed, ‘Et floreant the Weatherhillians.’

‘Matron disapproves,’ Mrs Crabtree murmured, with several nervous dips. ‘She fears an epidemic. She does not appreciate our traditions.’

‘Floreat Weatherhill.’ The Chaplain worked it out of the corner of a wickedly enigmatic smile, and appeared to add further mockery – ‘Et floreant the Weatherhillians.’ Mrs Crabtree cleared her throat and threw her head right back.

Rowles made it sound loyal, but surprisingly abrupt, and he had scarcely taken a sip of the extraordinary concoction when he was nodding to Lloyd to remove it.

Lloyd bore it to the Old Boys’ table. And muted conversation began all down the Hall. Very few people knew who these invaders were, and the ceremony had lost its solemnity. There were even some giggles when old Sir Gregory (‘Greg’) Waltham absolutely shouted it out.

‘Our Chaplain seems amused,’ said Mrs Crabtree drily.

It was curious: Ashley had also been studying him, and wondering about him.

‘What, in your opinion,’ he said, ‘if it is not too naïve a question,
is
this Burning Fire?’

She was playing with some peas on her plate.

‘I believe, in our dear Chaplain’s terms, it is a deliverance through pain.’

‘Really?’

They were talking in muted voices. No one was attending. Dotterel and Clinton, opposite, had turned their backs to them and were looking down the Hall.

‘We each bear a Cross,’ said Mrs Crabtree. ‘It must be acknowledged, not evaded. Once it is truly faced and admitted, it is then scourged in the Fire, which is Christ. And the Fire is His love. But I speak like a child’s guide. You know all this perfectly well, Mr Ashley.’

‘Floreat Weatherhill.’ It was Carleton’s voice.

‘I’m afraid I can’t believe in this Fire.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Floreat Weatherhill,’ cried a very piping voice, and there were high-pitched imitations. More of the Juniors were involved now, and it was becoming quite rowdy. The Head’s paternal and jovial watch down the Hall was mixed with an expression of faint alarm. Was this all right with the Old Boys? Was it usual?

‘Does the acknowledgement of the Cross not bring its own salvation?’

‘Not to a Christian.’ She smiled wanly. ‘Not even, I suspect, to a Freudian. Certainly not to the Chaplain. His Cross is purely abdominal.’

Ashley was amazed, and nearly laughed out loud for the first time in weeks. But there was something coldly merciless about it.

‘Can one be sure of that?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘Floreat Weatherhill. . . .’ Carleton watched Nicky with wonder and pride: something sincere about him, some strange dignity, had silenced his noisy neighbours as soon as he spoke. The next speaker was promptly mocked.

‘I looked out some of your writings, Mr Ashley, when I heard you’d be teaching here.’

‘Really?’

‘That’s why I was interested in meeting you. That essay on Forster. The unforeseeing multitudes who remain aloof from sympathy, neither rejoicing in human joy nor mourning with human grief, and are the world’s bane. I’m not sure that I quote correctly. . . .’

‘Word for word,’ said Ashley, in surprised admiration.

‘Well . . . the Chaplain holds a membership card.’

Ashley marvelled at such venom.

‘Hey, Finch Minor, don’t swig the lot!’

As if at a signal, Lloyd was going solemnly down the aisle with his second Cup.

‘You remember,’ said Mrs Crabtree, ‘You point out that these Unattached have, logically, one vice: Curiosity. The Chaplain sits up there, asking incessant questions of his admirers.’

‘You make the cap fit,’ Ashley said. ‘Myself, I begin to envy the truly Unattached. I’m not sure any longer that they are either baneful or multitudinous. They may well be few, and possessed of rare virtues.’

‘What virtues would you suggest?’

‘Freedoms mostly,’ Ashley said. ‘Curiosity is a very small vice. The Chaplain is free of argument, competition, envy, blame, conflict, and he makes no assertions – save one. And even though you ascribe it, in his case, to the abdomen, you seem to acknowledge it to be the greatest of all.’

‘Certainly his assertion achieves greatness, if you speak of the Fire . . .’ said Mrs Crabtree; and Ashley wondered at such a reaction to the School jest.

The Toast was over, and Lloyd was contentedly serving semolina.

‘But as for your freedoms . . . from Mr Connolly in the guise of Palinurus, are they not? . . .’

‘You are well read.’

‘I have nothing else to do. That is my Cross. Your freedoms . . . they strike me merely as negatives.’

‘They allow one to live at peace, in a room.’

‘Pascal’s ideal always struck me as outstandingly undesirable. I gather you are losing the gift, Mr Ashley. The point about attachments is that one has to be so careful with whom they are formed, don’t you think?’

Ashley had no chance to answer. The Head rose and pronounced – ‘Benedictus benedicatur, per Jesum Christum dominum nostrum.’ And his wife, with bent head, eyes on the floor, and hands behind her back, followed him down the Hall without another word.

Instead of being up front, with the Staff, Ashley lounged on a kitchen chair close to the narrow, open, arched door of the Big Schoolroom. Now and then he glanced out, on to the Chapel Square, where the innocent invaders were beginning to swarm, in even greater number than in the morning. Clouds of dust blew about them, and among the hats only the white-petalled helmets of the debutantes seemed secure.

Within, boys sat on high behind Ashley, with their legs dangling from tables that had been piled up, to make more room. They had the best view of the dais, and the Prizegiving. Ashley only saw the backs of heads.

Everyone had been getting prizes, he felt. The team spirit. Under advice from the Pedant, the Bishop had handed out numerous silver cups, a football, a cricket ball and bat, a hockey-stick, and countless leather-bound books.

It was over; and now the Bishop was speaking. A slow rumbling from this ancient mountain of a man –

‘Each of you spends only a few years here. That may seem like nothing compared with a lifetime. But a great many will feel that they have been the most important of all. Even the few months of a term, when one is young, are equal to years when one is grown up. All the time your characters, your views and ideas, are being formed, and your feelings developed. You are being developed to go out and take your place as citizens of the world. . . .’

Ashley thought he might faint. His heart was racing.

He was standing near the War Memorial, talking with two young women in print frocks covered with large flowers; talking very easily, smiling, showing his white teeth. He wore a grey herring-bone sports coat, with grey flannels, and a dog-collar.

He looked exactly the same.

‘Most of all, from my own time at Weatherhill,’ the Bishop said, ‘I remember our Classics master, Blewitt, an absolutely legendary figure in his day. Some of us may have thought him severe, even irascible, by nature. But that was our ignorance, as youngsters. Those fiery, even flaming outbursts of his which would undoubtedly have taken him to the top in politics – or any of the more public professions – were far from being what they seemed to the victim. They were merely expressions of a mercurial and generous nature. Quite simply, Blewitt loved Weatherhill. He had no ambitions outside. He loved the place and all that it stood for. Blewitt was a simple, honest Christian. That was his secret, and most of us came to know it. That was the essence of the towering legend that was Blewitt. . . .’

Yes, short and square, with wide-apart eyes, and even now that blushing child’s complexion. How dare you smile! How dare you appear so stupidly well! How dare you deny my existence and all that has been! Who are these women?

‘And so the years roll by,’ the Bishop said. ‘There have been changes. New buildings which we would have envied. But essentially Weatherhill remains the same. The same principles apply. The same sort of fellow, Christian, upstanding, cleanliving, ready to pull his weight and more, ready to take responsibility, ready to command those less fortunately favoured, goes forth into the world. That world may be changing. But Old Weatherhillians remain the same, thank God. You find ’em in the Church, you find ’em in the Army – nine Major-Generals to date, I believe – you even find ’em in the Art game. A bit long in the hair, what? Yes, yes, you laugh. We have our little laugh. But never mind. They’re Weatherhillians – like the rest of us. We’ve had our characters developed on the same old lines . . . the best lines. . . .’

Yes, apparently no older, no taller, and that rather high voice, just audible against the Bishop’s. Only the preposterous collar. And a certain poise in adult company. My God, was it possible that one of them was a wife?

‘I once had a dog called Hubert,’ the Bishop said. ‘A scruffy little fellow he was, when he came to us as a puppy. But my wife and I took him in hand. We didn’t bully him. We guided him. We let him find his own feet, and then we began to show him the right way of going about it. We said, in a manner of speaking, “Look here, Hubert. . . .” ’

It was incredible, and overwhelming. It was just as before. The same ache. I persuaded you to read Jane Austen, remember? I started you off on ‘Pride and Prejudice’. I may be ridiculous, but what are
you
now? Do you feel you’ve developed or something, damn you? Have you any memory? My God, you
must
have!

Applause. And more applause. The Head had stood up; apprehensive and flushed, with his mouth pulled down. The visiting audience was suddenly on the alert – eager to help.

‘Your Grace, I envy you your memories. As you all know, I am what you might call a New Boy. . . .’ (Laughter rippled in the front rows.) ‘Like other New Boys, it is my proud boast that I am now at an English public school. . . .’ (More laughter and some clapping. There were a number of parents up there.) ‘I was at one more years ago than I care to remember, by the way, in case you have any doubts on that score.’ (An explosion of laughter and applause. Mrs Crabtree glowed and smiled wanly, with her head thrown back.) ‘I cannot resist returning to the Bishop’s splendid simile concerning his dog, Hubert. . . .’

What are you now? Are you a dull, common-place, self-satisfied, sporting parson? How can you be, you who wrote those poems to me? Yes, you did. You want to deny it. But you
can
’
t
deny it.

‘. . . the character is formed,’ the Head said, ‘the feelings developed, but they must also be guided. They must not be allowed, so to speak, to run about the streets – and become a danger to others. There must be Christian discipline. . . .’

Will I approach and try to speak? No, never. You will look at me blankly and say ‘Hullo, Ashley.’ Lying. Denying. And realising at once, to your embarrassment and maybe even guilt, that
I
do not deny.

‘Young people develop feelings before they develop the moral sense,’ said the Head. ‘It is our duty to curb them. Or rather, it is the duty of myself and my colleagues, and of course of our Chaplain, to see that the sense of morality is also developed and runs parallel. I want to give the parents now an undertaking that this will be done – or should I say, will continue to be done. . . .’

There was a bemused and embarrassed stillness in the front rows.

The trio was walking away. They were laughing. He walked between them. The same back to his head, the same shoulders. . . .

In the San you lay naked and adoring in my arms.

‘As for our numbers, our achievements in the classroom, and in the field, they are well up to standard. But I believe we can, and will, improve. . . .’

Chapter Twenty-three

‘Ah, Carleton. Come in. Take a pew,’ said the Butcher.

He sat behind the Head’s desk, with a pipe in his hand, and notes in front of him. With his close-shaven ginger head, broken nose and curious ears, you might think he was still a boxer. But he had retired from the amateur ring twenty years ago.

The study was cold. It was a dark, grim morning. The rain hit the two tall windows in sudden gusts.

‘Sorry about taking you from Class, but I don’t imagine that’ll worry you, eh?’

‘Uh. . . . No, Sir.’

‘I’m starting by seeing the Head of each House. Now then . . . as Head of Priestley, not to mention Second Prefect, have you anything you’d like to tell me?’

‘Um . . . no, Sir. I can’t think of anything.’

The Butcher swivelled, until he faced one of the dark windows, and re-lit his pipe. He suddenly swivelled back again.

‘Now then. Let’s not be mealy-mouthed about this, Carleton. We want healthy minds and healthy bodies at Weatherhill. The fellows that haven’t got them may go and bugger somewhere else. The Head wants a clean start. I’m with him all the way.’

‘Oh.’

‘I hear you sleep next to McIver?’

‘Me? Yes . . . I do.’

‘What have you got to say about him?’

‘Uh . . . I can’t think of anything.’

‘In that case, all my thanks go to Steele.’

The Butcher had turned to a small white cardboard box on the desk, and was taking something out of it.

‘The Senior Prefect took me to the Photographic Room last night. We collected these.’

The Butcher placed the pile of negatives in front of Carleton.

‘He tells me they’re taken by McIver for cash. I find it hard to think of anything more filthy. Have a look at the top five. They’re all in your House.’