The Spring Madness of Mr Sermon (50 page)

^{"I'll have a chat to the lad after lunch," he said, "but in the meantime I'd better ring my wife and ask her to arrange for our daily woman to stay on. Was there anything else, Headmaster?"}

^{Grey looked puzzled, clapping a hand to his highest tuft. "Was there ? Oh yes, there was! I'm glad you're taking Kibbins, Sermon, because he'll be in your house!" and he gave Sebastian a sly but painful nudge.}

^{"My House? Bennett's house? But Bennett isn't retiring for another four years ..."}

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^{"He's changed his mind," said Grey calmly, "or his wife has changed it for him! This last illness of his has put the wind up her and she's persuaded him to go at the end of summer term." He gave Sebastian a long, shrewd glance. "You won your battle over getting your wife to Kingsbay; do you think she'd take kindly to moving all over again in September?"}

^{Mr. Sermon was too stunned to reply. A house! Bennett's house! Something that he had considered no more than remote possibility! He wondered how other masters might react to a man getting a house after less than a year on the staff and then he remembered that Fred Grey's policy had been to build up a cadre of very young masters and that all the elderly men had houses of their own. He said, deliberately, "I should have to discuss this with Sybil over the week-end. I think she might come round to the idea but things aren't quite as simple as they were. The idea of this baby terrified me at first but now I've got thoroughly used to it and in a way it's been a Godsend, it has given her so much to think about!"}

^{"Well, you can both think about it over the Easter holidays," said Grey, "and don't worry about internal jealousies because there's no one else at all suitable and in any case I've told Bennett to keep quiet about it for the time being. Where is your next period?"}

^{"The Lower Third," Sebastian told him.}

^{"I'll keep 'em quiet while you phone your wife now," said Grey, "for it's obvious you're fidgeting to call her up!" and he turned abruptly on his heel and strode back towards the school buildings where mobs of boys were milling to and fro during the break period.}

^{Sebastian made his way to the library block where there was a telephone in a room adjoining the bursar's office. No one was there so he shut the door on the strident chorus arising from the quadrangle and cloister and asked the operator for his home number.}

^{Sybil answered the call almost at once. "How are you feeling?" he asked anxiously for he thought she sounded breathless.}

^{"Elephantine!" she replied cheerfully, "I wasn't half this size with either of the others and I think we must have miscounted!"}

^{"Not on your life," he said, "that's one date I'm sure about! You're quite sure you'll be okay until I get back tonight?"}

^{"Quite sure, and don't fuss! Oh, Bignall the Town Clerk has been here. He's invited us both to the Civic dinner on Wednesday. I told him you'd go but it's a case of Miss Otis regrets as far as I'm concerned and he only had to look at me to agree!"}

^{For perhaps the thousandth time since their fight in the bedroom he marvelled at the astounding revolution in her outlook and approach to life, and to him. 'Elephantine', 'Don't fuss', 'Miss Otis regrets . . . !' quips at the expense of her own swelling figure and his old-maidish concern for her, a woman who seemingly had nothing in common with the majestic Sybil Sermon who had queened it over the Wyckham Rise Amateurs for so many years. He said, with some misgiving, "I've ... er ... some more news, Sybil! Grey has just offered me Bennett's house, when he retires in July. How do you feel about accepting? It'll mean selling up and moving again."}

^{Five seconds passed, then she said, very clearly:}

^{"Is Bennett's house part of the original building in that wing covered with Virginia creeper?"}

^{"Yes, the block nearest the plantation. It's pretty primitive I believe but I dare say Grey will make them renovate here and there before anyone new takes over."}

^{"Tell him you'll take it," she said.}

^{"Oh look, you can't decide that quickly Sybil, you'll have the baby to cope with . . . and anyway we haven't got to decide right now, Bennett's retirement isn't official for months!"}

^{"You want it, don't you?"}

^{"Yes, I do, I want it very much indeed but that isn't the point, Sybil. You gave way over coming down here last year and I'd be more than willing to give way over this and wait for another house to come up."}

^{"How long would that be?"}

^{"Two or three years, maybe."}

^{"We might all be dead by then; take it!"}

^{He let ten or twelve seconds tick by. Then she went on, "This isn't something we need to think about, Sebastian, because there's no}

^{longer anyone else to consider! Jonquil looks like being married in a year, and Keith is happy enough messing about at that Hounslow filling-station. Whatever you want I'll settle for, and if the house needs new plumbing and a coat of paint we can pay for it ourselves. Tell the Head that you've spoken to me and I've advised you to accept it. Tell him that having started a family again at forty I've decided to go in for mothering in a big way! How many boys are there in Bennett's house?"}

^{"About fifty," he said smiling. "The youngest is thirteen plus thank God, but Sybil . . . wait . . . don't ring off!"}

^{"I'm still here."}

^{"Then, thank you dear, and I love you very much. I can't tell you how much over the bursar's telephone but it's a very impressive total!"}

^{"Thank you," she said, "I'll take you up on that when I'm in a less interesting condition!" and he heard her laugh as she rang off.}

^{He went to the window that looked over the steep roofs to the dark green line of the plantation. From here he could see the frontage of the old wing, with its twisted Tudor chimney-pots and creeper-fringed windows reflecting the eleven o'clock sun. He stood there for a few minutes, appreciation of life rising in him like sap until his throat contracted and tears broke through and his sense of well-being sprang partly from contemplation of Bennett's creeper-clad house, soon to be his house and empire, but far more so from the memory of Sybil's voice and the communicated comradeship it had conveyed to him. What chemistry, he wondered, had wrought such a change in her? They were lovers now in a sense that they had never been before, not in the very earliest days of their marriage but there was more to it than that for in the last six months they seemed to have generated a current of sympathy, trust and understanding that crackled so fiercely and continuously that it boosted them clear of the hazards that menaced couples of their age and temperament. Yet her acceptance of his news about the house, her readiness to pack up and move all over again so soon after pulling up roots astonished him as nothing had since her surrender the night he returned home. As he thought about it his love for her engulfed}

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^{him, so that he wanted most desperately to express it in deeds he could never achieve and sonnets he could never write, for today, almost exactly one year after the first onrush of his Spring madness, Mr. Sermon felt very humble again. The difference was, however, that he now knew humility, while a virtue, required watching as carefully as a secret vice.}