Lord Dismiss Us (7 page)

Early on Sunday morning the Chaplain sang Holy Communion on one trumpeting, relentlessly sustained note. Failure to attend was no offence, but many likely lie-abeds were tempted out because attendance, and no other excuse, freed one from the morning service at ten.

The latter was, therefore, a rather deserted and pale affair; and there was no sermon.

No, nothing was to be compared with Sunday Night.

Even the devout would have agreed to this, in terms of its especial pleasures; for there
was
a silent brotherhood of the devout; small but persistent, as the notable quantity of Reverends and Bishops in the Old Weatherhillian Magazine testified. They could be identified by their presence at Holy Communion on Wednesdays and Saints Days. Attendance was not obligatory, and it took some courage for a junior boy, however devout, to rise early in his dormitory and go to the Chapel.

As for the baser ‘Hearties’, even they positively liked Sunday Night: it was the end-of-the-week sing song, and in between the singing the opportunities for whispered ribaldry, about the Staff, all present and asking for it, were manifold.

The only variant in the performance, the only likely flaw, was the Sermon. Visiting clergy, in a rota so little changing as to afford almost word for word imitation in advance, came and bored the congregation close to hysterics. It was only the unusual vicar who believed that one could communicate with God by wireless waves who gave any satisfaction whatsoever.

But the perfection of this first Sunday – as of the last – was that on these two nights the Reverend Cyril Starr himself spoke. And while these polemics were also known in advance, they were a ceaseless delight.

Even New Boys, who were still losing hope after the first week, suddenly found themselves cast into a region of storm and tempest in which they belonged just as much as everyone else. Many had gone to bed on the first Sunday Night released, as by an explosion, from alienation and homesickness.

For them, it was a surprise. But the rest knew that the Chaplain was going to give them . . .
must
give them, could not fail them by not giving them . . . the
burning fire
.

Mrs Crabtree, like her husband, was new and not aware of this. Steele might have given warning, but it was not the sort of thing that occurred to his military mind. She did foresee the significance of the entire Community in assembly, and she also foresaw the dominance which the Reverend Cyril Starr must inevitably exert over the proceedings. She had often wished that her husband was a clergyman, like her father, but never more so than now. She was deeply interested in the Church, as well as being an intense believer in its doctrines. She felt a pang of annoyance that it was not the Headmaster but the Chaplain who, as she was going up to change, came rustling past her on the stairs in a white cloud of ecclesiastical garments. His black eyes twinkled wickedly, and ‘played about his lips’ was exactly right for his disturbing smile. She had the unpleasant impression that she was the object of amusement; but she consoled herself with the fact that he seemed to smile the whole time.

This man puzzled her, tantalised her . . . very nearly obsessed her. It was not solely the mystery of the sphinx. One had to admit that he was alarmingly handsome. She had several times caught her breath when there was a sudden squeak of buckled shoes and a Roman Emperor came round the corner, (or else the Grand Inquisitor); the face white as marble, the hair black as night. (He refrained entirely from speech – not even a ‘good morning’). And there was, too, the tendency to regard all men in Orders as in some sort potential Confessors. How unlikely, and yet how dangerously possible, with this one.

She was of the opinion that the Chaplain had suffered, and was suffering. She was even beginning to think that he
did
have to eat cold duck instead of shepherd’s pie. But it was more than the stomach; more even than the pitiful ginger-haired boys leaping into blue water. He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And she was a woman of similar ilk.

She had accepted it now, and was making the best – or worst – of it, but the one action Mrs Crabtree could not understand on God’s part was His giving her a brain as well as her brown eyes. At Oxford, and home at the vicarage in Dorset, her brown eyes had attracted, and the brain dispatched, all her contemporaries who were remotely human. It was not that the young men took unreasonable flight. The flight was fair. She had already, against her own wishes, detected and been bored by their stupidity. In misery she had filled an entire exercise-book with poems on the theme – ‘I am not as other women are.’

In her thirties, a classical scholar with an invalid father, she had met Philip Crabtree, who was Headmaster of a Dorset prep school. He had fallen for both eyes and brain, and persuaded her, correctly, that as educationalists he and she would make an excellent pair. She had suffered frequent bouts of despair ever since. But she prayed much, and fervently believed. Her husband did neither of these things. She would have wished him in vestments, handing her the Bread and Wine.

He had declared his intention of holding Scripture classes – (he was teaching nothing else) – but she knew perfectly well that it was merely to emphasise his patriarchal position, and to deprive the Chaplain of what would otherwise be a monopoly in their great Founder’s oft-quoted blueprint for Weatherhill.

As for Lucretia, the child had the eyes and her father’s brain, but even so she appeared to take a sour view already of existence. Perhaps her mother had transferred it, unwittingly. Perhaps School would cure it.

‘Why can’t I go in these?’

‘Because nobody goes to Church in jeans. Where is your tartan skirt?’

‘Why do I have to go at all?’

The Headmaster, in his dressing-room next door, was having difficulty in deciding between his six suits. He, too, could foresee the significance of the approaching ceremony, and was not sure what kind of appearance to make. It was important, because he had always gone to church for this reason; of necessity, as a schoolmaster. His wife went for the other reason, and it was an increasingly disturbing division between them. As they grew apart, old accepted differences took on new life and developed alarmingly.

Not to be able to decide on a suit! In the last few days he had been afflicted by uncertainty for the first time in his life. He was noticing it now whenever it appeared, like spots on the body. Certainty was the essence of his whole reputation. Certainty, and the making of decisions.

There had been no rest this sabbath: an alarming discussion with the Bursar about the school’s finances; a distressing visit from Lord Mountheath, who wanted quick results.

His narrow window looked out on to Buckinghamshire in the rain. All day, more than two hundred boys had occupied themselves indoors. At what? Where? In this, and in the larger sense, he felt that the place was existing without him, and in ways unknown to him. He had made no decisions. He was set apart here, in this House. If he invaded their indoor world, silence fell; all motion ceased; eyes stared at him; questions received that dreadful, chilling reply – ‘Yes, Sir.’

His prep schools had been small, friendly places. He had never been set apart.

And what
was
going on? Outdoors, it was bewildering enough. He was haunted by a curiously disturbing little scene. On the very first day he had taken a stick and gone for a walk in the wood, and come suddenly on two boys in a clearing. They were wearing bathing-togs and lying on a ridiculously wintry bearskin rug. The older boy – who looked much the older – was attending to the other’s arm. A thorn or some such thing. He released it on Mr Crabtree’s appearance.

‘The weather is giving us a good start, eh?’

‘Yes, Sir.’

‘We must enjoy it while we can.’

‘Yes, Sir. That’s what
we
thought, Sir.’

It had developed that this boy was a Prefect, and the other one had only come the previous Term.

If there was anything of the sort that he suspected, he intended to destroy it instantly. It gave him a peculiar sense of horror.

There seemed to be no one to turn to. The Staff was no less remote. Ashley had been excessively rude. The Chaplain, whom one should have been able to consult about moral conduct, was unapproachable. He had accompanied the Head to the Chapel and explained the seating arrangements, in an aloof manner. A comment from Crabtree about the beauty of the stained-glass had been greeted with a disagreeable smile and no response.

Nevertheless, the Head was noted for optimism, as well as for certainty. In the approaching ceremony they would kneel as one. The Captain and crew would be together – at the turning of the tide.

He realised that it mattered little which suit he selected: it would be almost entirely hidden by his gown.

He felt that in the old days he would have thought of that at the beginning.

Carleton and a boy from another House named Naylor had been made the two Chapel Prefects, because the Chaplain had determined them to be the least religious of the available twelve. They were very nearly atheists. He had a theory that preoccupation with the objects of ritual, from altar-cloth to bellrope, would effect a slow conversion. He was mildly amused to find himself wrong. They continued as stage directors with an interest in the performance, but little or none in the play itself.

The boy, Carleton . . . brown, wavy hair and those wide-apart eyes, but oh dear, a player of games, a taker of showers . . . had been guilty of another deception two years previously. A declaration of the wish to be baptised at the age of sixteen, contrary to the viewpoint of parents who had deemed it unnecessary, had aroused the Chaplain’s sense of drama, not to mention his genuine pleasure at admitting one who was lost into the fold. He had enacted a remarkable scena by night, in secret, in the Chapel, to avoid the child embarrassment and mockery. Carleton had asked to leave the room, in the course of Prep in the Big Schoolroom, and come to the Chapel where the Reverend Cyril Starr and his attendants were gathered together under a spotlight around a vast soup tureen, like so many witches about a cauldron.

Resplendent in white lace, the Chaplain had placed himself between the Matron and Dr Rowles, who were standing in, so to speak, as godmother and godfather, and murmured incantations over the tureen and its glittering water. After much of this, he suddenly halted, fixed Carleton with piercing eyes, and inquired of the boy whether he renounced the devil and all his works, the vain pomp and glory of the world, and the carnal desires of the flesh.

‘I renounce them all,’ Carleton declared; not with the sweeping bravado that the words seemed to imply, but in a quavering voice, having no option.

There were more inquiries, more melodious sounds, and the Chaplain prayed that the Old Adam in Carleton might be buried; and then he dipped a beringed finger in the water and elaborately crossed the boy’s forehead. The degree of water was minimal, but in a second a white handkerchief of extreme elegance was in his hand, and he was lightly dabbing the boy’s head.

The sense of awe that the Chaplain had counted upon, had not been present. Afterwards, all that Carleton remembered was wondering how Dr Rowles on all occasions managed to keep a straight face. It had been plain that on this one he had been hard pressed, although he was a true believer.

There had been two reasons for that night’s excursion, as the Chaplain later realised. The boy disliked the non-conformity and feared the resulting exposure, as the only one of his year not available for Confirmation. More practical – attendance at Communion on Sunday, for which he would not otherwise have been eligible, excused one from the morning Service. On the three Sunday ‘exeats’ (four for Prefects), this made all the difference to the day out.

Undismayed, the Chaplain selected him as a Chapel Prefect. The boy accepted: he seemed mildly amused by the idea. The Chaplain hoped that familiarity would breed devotion; but in vain.

Still, it was agreeable to see the two best-looking Prefects taking the Collection. It impressed the parents in the ante-chapel. Naylor had close-together eyes, but they were darkly alive, like the Chaplain’s. His black hair was not wavy, but it was crinkly in an exotic
way. He had an olive complexion, brilliant white teeth, and a slim
figure. He was not a games player; and it was difficult to tell whether he took showers or not, and he
had
come to tea for a while. But the others found him a little showy; he did not melt into the canvas; the irreligion was unattractive; and now he was too old. No Prefects came to tea. Boys lost interest in chocolate cake at a certain age, and became semi-adult and unappealing. Pleasant enough, though, to observe some of them from afar.

Both in white surplices, and feeling good in their dark blue suits, Carleton and Naylor had collected the altar-cloth, money-bags, and a great gold plate like the sun, from a cupboard on the landing outside the Chaplain’s rooms. They had disposed them about the Chapel. Its pews faced each other across the aisle, on rising levels, with the exception of one row on either side, for the Head and Housemasters, who looked across the whole School and on to the altar. The row on the Head’s side ended at the organ, at which the Precentor, Dr Kingsly, was quietly playing. Both rows were backed by an ornate wooden screen, up to the roof, which cut off the ante-chapel – more simply referred to as ‘the porch’. The rain had moved away and the late evening sun came into it, through the open doors, beside which the bellrope hung down to the pink-flagged floor.

Carleton had ushered a dozen or so parents and relatives into the four tiers of pews in the ante-chapel. It was not a good place to sit, but there was no room in the Chapel proper. Only those at the centre could see down the aisle; the rest saw only the wooden partitions and the backs of masters’ heads on high. The parents did not appear to be able to grasp this; and it seemed irreverent to point it out, as if the service were a spectacle. So Carleton let them sit at either end. Visiting parents never seemed to be able to grasp anything. They were always cowed, and waited about to be told what to do, like babes. Thank goodness his own never came!

Naylor was standing in the high oaken doorway, by the bellrope, looking at his watch. Fortunately, he liked ringing the bell. A certain knack was required, as well as physical strength, and Carleton had never entirely mastered it. One could look a terrible fool if the thing went wrong. The whole School could hear it, and one could easily be pulled up in the air off one’s feet.

His uncertainty probably dated from being told once, as a fag, to ring it. He couldn’t manage it. He was nearly sick: it was terrible. Now he himself could command a fag, but luckily, as well as Naylor, that humorist, Metcalfe, positively liked doing it.

This was an odd thing: younger boys appropriated what Carle
ton considered most disagreeable tasks to themselves.