The Summer Before the War (33 page)

“I don't believe indiscriminate corporal punishment is a valid teaching method,” said Beatrice. “I intend to reach them through rational thought and a shared thirst for knowledge.” This caused peals of laughter from all gathered in the snug staff room.

“When you stop talking like that is when you'll stop feeling so dead,” said Miss Devon. “Won't she, Mr. Dimbly?” There was more laughter, and Beatrice could only munch on her egg in miserable silence. Later that morning she found occasion to rap her ruler smartly on the edge of two desks. And when Snout appeared to deliberately break wind, right in the middle of her explanation of how the next day's test would determine those who might be scholarship examination material, she made sure to whistle the ruler past his ear. The class seemed to sit up and become less like blank mutes, and, as Snout gave her the slightest nod of acknowledgment, Beatrice felt the pressure to sleep slip from her brow like the pulling off of a heavy wool cap.

With only half an hour to go before the class was released into the Saturday afternoon, the Headmaster stuck his head around the classroom door and asked to speak to her a moment in the library about the plans for the upcoming town fete. Her Upper Form Latin class's participation in the afternoon was to consist of parading through the streets dressed as Roman warriors and then a handful of rousing war speeches selected from the
Aeneid,
to be recited from the stage in both Latin and the pupils' own English translations. Her three summer pupils had taken a leadership role, Arty and Jack with a certain swaggering air of expertise and Snout with continued protestations of complete indifference. But the whole class had shown an unusual diligence in the project, though their excitement seemed largely to do with the promised costumes and swords.

It seemed the Headmaster wished to suggest that a particular pupil, the captain of the rugby team, should take over Snout's role as Aeneas in the Latin class's performance.

“Headmaster, I should be allowed to put together my Latin recitation based on what will best represent the school,” said Beatrice. “The boy I have chosen to play the Trojan hero has a particular passion for the piece and fluent recitation. He is my best student and I believe one of our strongest candidates to win a scholarship in the Latin examinations. The boy you suggest is more at home on the rugby pitch than in Latin class and recites like a wooden post.”

“We have a great sense of camaraderie here,” said the Headmaster. “You will find I employ only the lightest touch on the tiller to keep our little ship moving to the wind.”

“That is wonderful to hear, Headmaster,” she said.

“Only in recognition that you are new here, it does behoove me to just hint to you when there are matters which may have a bearing on the situation,” he continued. “I think only of guiding you to the greatest understanding and success.”

“Is there something I should know?” she asked.

“The young man in question has received much from us. He has been granted a fuller education than most boys of his background enjoy and I believe he has reason to be appreciative of all we have done for him.”

“He is very bright,” said Beatrice.

“One must wonder, of course, whether too much education at some point may make a young person frustrated with his or her life,” he mused. “It can be very upsetting to find that one cannot go further but has gone so far that one no longer fits comfortably into the life to which one is born.”

“Most people welcome the opportunity for advancement,” said Beatrice. “I think young Master Sidley has a great chance of bringing honor to the school with a scholarship, and of going on to achieve much.”

“I regret that, despite Mrs. Kent's desire for change, we must face the fact that the boy must not sit for the scholarship,” said the Headmaster, shaking his head with an air of gentle sorrow. “It is a question of leadership, you see,” he continued. “The natural leaders among our pupils do the greatest credit to the school, and I think you'll find, Miss Nash—when you've been here a little longer—that the pupils themselves accept and admire such leadership; they expect and desire to see themselves so represented.”

“Surely the best and brightest…” she began. “I really must protest, Headmaster.”

“Such a boy could never adequately represent our school, Miss Nash,” he said. His tone was so gentle she was almost lulled into agreement. “So he can parrot a little Latin—little more than a parlor trick really—but he would never manage in the company of boys of real learning, of real families. Why, he would find it unbearable and be a laughingstock.”

“The rugby captain, is he such a leader?” asked Beatrice. But she knew the answer and, to her shame, that further protestation would only damage her own position.

“You see it too!” said the Headmaster. “I am so glad you understand. I had no desire to step in and usurp your authority.” He rubbed his hands in delight. “Only think how well our young athlete will fill out the Trojan General's breastplate and with what authority he will hoist his sword.”

“If only he could recite Latin with any feeling,” said Beatrice, defeated.

“As long as he is loud, Miss Nash, as long as he is loud,” said the Headmaster.

Snout had sneaked away from the gymnasium, where the smell of India rubber mats and hot feet overwhelmed him, and Mr. Dimbly, cheering on some feat of strength by one or two of the strongest athletes, left the other boys to bump and jostle him up the rough ropes and over the leather vaulting horses. Escaping into the fresh air of the afternoon, he slipped into the bare dirt patch behind an overgrown yew bush near the library windows, to roll and smoke his last few strands of tobacco.

Miss Nash's voice came blunt and urgent through the open window. The slower, old-man voice of the Headmaster, with his longer sentences, and digressions into this and that, was unmistakable. Eavesdroppers, as his great-grandmother would tell him, will have their ears burned off with a hot coal. His eyes watched the curl of smoke from the tip of his cigarette paper as he scratched at the itchy wool of his school uniform. He felt the tightness of the hatband around his head, smelled the dry dirt and the green cemetery waxiness of the yew. His neck grew hot and his teeth clenched.

It was hard to endure the steady stream of petty humiliations from the other boys. It was hard to do his homework by smoky oil lamp under the small, dark eaves of the cottage. He wished he had a father who understood the geometry of triangles, or could discuss which word might bring the heat of ancient battles to life from the dry simplicity of Latin. But his father worked with bellows and hammer, and kept his accounts in his head. It was lonely writing reports on places he could barely imagine; poring over the atlas, the pictures of native princes from around the Empire, or the treasures brought back to British museums by various scientific expeditions. He found geography to be no less fantastical than history, so that he found it no harder to imagine ancient Troy or Rome than modern Bombay, and found Latin more alive and exciting than living French.

The hardest lesson of all, heard once more from the library window today, was that Miss Nash's promises had come to nothing and he could never escape who he was. In this he was no different from any other lad in the county. By face, by name, and by accent, everyone knew who everyone else was going back a hundred years. It was like a big brown label tied to his jacket with his family history printed in big letters. Or like being one of Mr. Hugh's specimens, floating in a jar of foul-smelling preservative with a sticky label on the lid. It was not possible to change places with another boy, even for a day. It was not possible to be different.

“Oh, that's only the Sidley boy—his father's a Gypsy…”

“Aye, blood will out in the end, they say…”

And now the Headmaster's voice rang again in his ear, “Such a boy could never adequately represent our school…”

He had dared to hope that sticking with the schoolroom, though the constraints chafed at him like chains, might be his escape. But it was clear now that he would never be allowed to leave the prison of who he was. They would smile, but their eyes would say “dirty Gypsy.” He was destined to live and die within a few miles of his father's sooty forge, and all his fancy schooling would likely suggest only that he was wilier and less trustworthy than his father, who had never learned to read.

He pinched the butt of his cigarette between his fingers, feeling the sting of hot ash. The burn was like an offering to seal his vow. He would prove them all wrong about Richard Sidley. He would turn soldier, and like the wandering Trojan warriors of the
Aeneid,
he would seek his destiny on a grand adventure in foreign parts. He scrambled from the bushes and set off at a lope across the playing field towards the railway line. If he could sneak onto the next train as it slowed for the crossing, he might make it to Colonel Wheaton's camp before tea.

Over the railway line, across the grass,

While up above the golden wings are spread,

Flying, ever flying overhead,

Here still I see your khaki figure pass,

And when I leave the meadow, almost wait,

That you should open first the wooden gate.

M
ARIAN
A
LLEN
, “The Wind on the Downs”

The morning of the
fete dawned clear, the bite of early October air quickly succumbing to the warmth of another Indian summer day. Beatrice opened her stiff casement and leaned her head from the cold room into a shaft of morning sun. A scattering of birds from the cobbles signaled a lone figure climbing the steep street, and Beatrice recognized the slow steps and bent back of the fishmonger's wife, whose son had been among those lost in the first battles of the Expeditionary Force. How proud she and her husband had been of their young soldier, already a veteran of some years, and how much excited interest and respect the town had showered upon them in the earliest weeks, as the thirst for information and for the chance to feel close to the action had made the fishmonger's a hive of activity and gossip. Now the woman seemed to have aged many years, and business was slower in the shop as many townspeople gave in to the callow instinct to avoid the grieving parents.

Beatrice had seen the same in her aunt's village. For every person who stopped to smile in sympathy and speak a word about her father, there were others who turned aside into shop doorways or whisked across the street, lowering their umbrellas to obscure their faces. When forced to meet later, they would be so surprised not to have seen more of her.

On such a day as today, the widows and the grieving mothers were expected to keep their black weeds and pale faces in their shuttered homes. In history, and in the great art hanging in the museums, those who had borne the sacrifice of husbands and sons seemed always missing from pageant and feast, thought Beatrice. No parade of victory or peace ever included the biers of the dead. Held at the window by a consciousness of her own desire to hide, Beatrice made sure to catch the fishmonger's wife's eye and give a quick smile and a wave before retreating inside.

Hugh took one last look in the mirror and adjusted his stiff cap to an angle that might make him look less like a bus driver. The cap made his ears look large, he thought, and its shiny peak made a permanent frowning shadow over his eyes. He would have been happier and more dashing, he thought, in a surgical coat, but an officer must appear on public occasions in dress uniform, no matter how stiff and uncomfortable. Daniel, who was lacing his boots in a chair across the day nursery, managed to make his dress uniform look relaxed almost to the point of informality and seemed not to be suffering from constriction through the shoulders or the itch of new wool against any exposed skin. His hair had been cut and oiled flat but still curled across his forehead, and his face was cheerful as he poked lace through brass rivet and puffed on an illicit early cigarette.

“Your jacket will smell of tobacco all day,” said Hugh. “Aunt Agatha will lecture you.”

“All soldiers smell of tobacco,” said Daniel. “The Tommy of tobacco, sweat, and cabbage; the officer of tobacco, shoe blacking, and bay rum. It is an extraordinary universality.”

“My chaps smell of iodine,” said Hugh. “I've had two baths this morning, and a splash of Uncle John's cologne, just so I don't have to be sick of myself.”

“I just hope the Hun smell different,” said Daniel. “Hard to bayonet something that smells like your bunkmate.”

“According to the papers, the Germans will stink of the blood of innocents,” said Hugh.

“Words cast at the world like stones,” said Daniel. “These journalists risk turning a moral obligation to act into a blind crusade of revenge.”

“Who's on a blind crusade?” asked Uncle John, knocking on the door and coming in.

“The press,” said Daniel. “They are inflaming the common man beyond all reason.”

“Is that the common view in your outfit?”

“We have a wide range of views,” said Daniel. “We enjoy some spirited debates in the mess.”

“And that is why it was always a bad idea to put all the writers and artists in one brigade,” said Uncle John, shaking his head but smiling. “If you can cease the sedition for half an hour, your aunt is telling me we must eat breakfast now if we are to be on time.”

“If you don't mind, I'm going to run down and see my chaps at their lodgings,” said Hugh. “Give the turnout one last look before the parade. I expect they'll have rustled up some grub.”

“My comrades will have to wait,” said Daniel. “Cook told me she's been keeping back a nice piece of bacon just for today. I refuse to let duty come between me and fresh rashers.”

Downstairs in the front hall, as Hugh paused to adjust his cap one futile last time in the mirror, he caught the scent of bacon and saw, through the open door, a corner of the set breakfast table, the blue of hydrangeas on the sideboard, the white linen curtains stirred by a small breeze. Muffled sounds of pots and pans came from the kitchen, a shimmer of sun spilled across the dark oak floor, and the scents of wood polish and clean paint added to the more insistent smells of the breakfast table. Hugh felt a sudden sense of the importance of the usual breakfast table rituals, the value of the ordinary front hall with its umbrella stand and the sun through the panes of the front door. A desire to join Daniel and the family at breakfast after all delayed his hand on the doorknob, but a stronger voice told him he was being sentimental if not maudlin. His departure from the house would not tear it apart like some fragile theater scenery, and he would not allow the war to freight every entrance and exit with the weight of tragedy. His departure would mean nothing except extra bacon for Daniel. In service of such a brisk resolution, Hugh immediately detoured into the dining room and wrapped several slices of bacon in a napkin so that he might eat them on his way down the hill.

The brass band, on its small platform, was on its third rendition of “Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do.” The trombone was flat, but all in all Agatha Kent was extremely happy with the parade so far. The day was brilliant with sun but refreshed by a breeze strong enough to ensure the proper fluttering of pennants, the stir of petticoats, and the occasional hand grabbing for a hat brim on the street corners. The parade, squeezed between the narrow houses and the thick clumps of people pressing into the street from the pavement, seemed to foam like a slow waterfall out into the wider street in front of the reviewing stand, a glorious succession of floats, decorated cars, and processions of local clubs and institutions. In her large notebook, Agatha ticked off participants as they passed. Mr. Tillingham rode by in an open car, accompanied by a girl dressed as Literature, holding a large parchment and a golden quill. Miss Buttles and Miss Finch received much applause and laughter as Queen Elizabeth I and Sir Walter Raleigh, with Sir Walter driving her new Triumph motorcycle and the Faerie Queen stuffed, ruff and all, into the sidecar like a prize chicken. The Mayor in his regalia waved from high up on a large horse-drawn omnibus, surrounded by representations of all of Rye's trades, including a fisherman who dangled a large dead cod on a short pole. The baying, snapping hounds of the Working Dog Association paraded in doggie coats featuring the St. George's Cross and the county coat of arms, except for a border terrier that appeared to have ripped off his coat and was carrying its crumpled remains in his jaws. And all along the parade, girls in pretty summer dresses and red, white, and blue sashes squeezed through the crowds with trays of small paper lapel flags and decorated buckets, flirting and cajoling the audience to buy a flag for the cause.

The reviewing stands were full, and Colonel Wheaton and Lady Emily, whose car had led the parade, had been hard-pressed to clamber up into their center chairs. Colonel Wheaton, in a dress uniform of his own design with several loops of braid to the right shoulder and an antique Indian sword dangling from an ornately decorated leather belt, was saluting now as his newly official troops marched by, his son, Harry, in the first rank and sporting the pips of a lieutenant's rank. The men straggled somewhat, some limping in boots that looked hastily gathered. They carried wooden models of rifles, as official ones had yet to arrive.

“Don't Daddy's men look marvelous?” asked Eleanor Wheaton. “Quite the real soldiers.”

“The khaki is not as striking as a dress uniform,” said Agatha.

“But it's harder to get shot at on the battlefield,” said her husband, John, dressed in a blazer and flannels. For a moment, Agatha experienced a pang. He would have looked so handsome in uniform, she thought, and he was not a year older than Colonel Wheaton, who seemed intent on being allowed into combat. “Best leave the braid and colors to the ladies,” added John, nodding at Eleanor. She was wearing a navy blue jacket of military design, much frogged across the bodice and pinched at the waist with a belt of scarlet wool.

“Between Father and me, we have rather cornered the market in braid,” she said, not seeming at all offended. “After the incident with the dogs, I may have been trying too hard to demonstrate my patriotism.” John raised an eyebrow in inquiry and Agatha found herself in the awkward position of having neglected to communicate a story that was of great consequence to one party and of little importance to the other. In such a situation, John's feelings would have to be sacrificed.

“You remember, dear,” she said. “I told you how some boys threw stones at Lady Emily's dachshunds while Eleanor was walking them and made the most appalling comments to both her and the poor doggies about being German.”

“Of course you did,” said John, demonstrating his diplomatic skills with only the slightest raising of an eyebrow. “Appalling! No one of intelligence would ever doubt the patriotism of such an English rose.”

“Thank you, Mr. Kent,” said Eleanor. “But I think Mother is more concerned about the accusations against the dogs.”

“How anyone could doubt the patriotism of my dachshunds is just shocking,” said Lady Emily. “It's an outrage.”

“The Breeders Association is changing the breed name from dachshund to Freedom Hound,” said Eleanor. “They will be running newspaper advertisements and hopefully that will help.”

“Such vulgar pandering to the masses,” said Lady Emily. “But if it saves even a single little dog's life, it must be endured, I suppose.”

“Speaking of saving lives, here comes Hugh's ambulance,” said Agatha. “Doesn't he look handsome?” Hugh walked ahead of his ambulance, his face stern. The ambulance, polished to a fault, had its back doors open, and two of Hugh's men waved their caps at the crowd from their perches inside. They were followed by another who proudly carried a box labeled
PORTABLE X-RAY
. The box was a fraud, a portable X-ray being much too large and too valuable to send out to a country parade, but the Medical Corps was proud enough of its newest medical advance to have allowed Hugh to construct a crude model for the occasion.

Behind Hugh came Daniel's group of eight officers, marching two abreast, all in new khaki and caps, with the officer's Sam Browne leather belt and a pistol holster on the left hip. Boots were polished, and the lack of limping suggested to Agatha that the boots and the officers who wore them were properly broken in.

“So thrilling Daniel's outfit came to join in,” said Eleanor. “But I had hoped the Artists Rifles might be wearing linen shirts and daggers in their belts.”

“They are not pirates,” said Agatha. “It's an Officer Training Corps, and they take it very seriously, as you can tell by their demeanor.”

“I can't wait to tour the model trench,” said Eleanor. “Beatrice Nash tells me they have bookshelves and willow furniture, and that they read poetry every night before taps.”

“The parade seems to be progressing with complete efficiency,” said John. “You ladies are generals in your own right.”

“Let us not count our chickens,” said Agatha. She had noticed one or two of the bucket girls seemed a little forward in their soliciting of men in the crowd, and she had also spotted that Snout, in Roman toga and sandals, seemed to have ditched his classmates and was also wielding a collection bucket. One of the fire-station horses had gone lame, and some of the schoolchildren seemed congenitally unable to walk in a straight line; their marching formation resembled a flock of worried sheep and the teachers had spent the parade herding rather than waving. The parade was going well, but it could not be assumed to be a success until the last float, containing the Britannia tableau, had stopped at the reviewing stand for the playing of the national anthems of Belgium and Great Britain and then moved on to the parade grounds to a rousing rendition of “Land of Hope and Glory.” It was hoped the entire crowd would be singing and would be motivated to spend their money on the afternoon's attractions. Then and only then, thought Agatha, would she breathe freely.