Lord Dismiss Us (2 page)

Chapter Two

‘According to my informant, Mr Ashley was seen walking up the drive at ten fifteen,’ said Mrs Crabtree.

She was standing in front of the grandiose fireplace in the Head’s study, with her eyes on the ceiling and her hands behind her back.

Her husband sat at his desk at right angles to one of the two fine windows. This was their first public school, but they had already run two prep schools, and he knew that she never entered his study without information. Where it came from, he seldom knew. It was usually valuable, and frequently alarming.

‘His luggage consisted of a briefcase.’

‘Oh?’

It seemed to him a very modern word; though it came from the Latin. She was always surprising.

‘It must have given him little time to attend to the Sixth Form,’ she added.

Philip Crabtree pulled down the corners of his mouth. His lips were almost purple, with the lower one protruding, and his face rubicund. His hair was sandy, turning grey, and it had been cut high above the ears, to show that there was going to be no malingering.

‘We intend to put a stop to that sort of thing, if it exists,’ he said.

‘You are going to be busy.’

Her eyes came down from the ceiling and after some little dips of her chin, settled on the floor.

He knew these budgerigar-like dips: they indicated extra relish. Something shocking was probably on the way.

‘How do you mean?’ he murmured.

‘One has heard things,’ she said.

He had a disturbing suspicion that she meant brand new things. But he said –

‘Old Wilks had been here too long, Cecilia. There has been slackness – both in the classroom and in the field. Maybe other things besides. But that is why we have been appointed. The school is small, but well placed on the List. It is our job to set it to rights, and I am confident we shall.’

She had meant brand new things, but she decided to postpone her news.

They were on a high hill in Buckinghamshire. The Head’s House was Georgian and pink, and formed the centre of the façade. The windows gave on to a long grass slope, the cricket field, a small lake, trees, and, further off, the village of Marston.

‘The setting is noble,’ he said, glancing at the view. ‘We must see that the spirit matches it.’

‘I should have thought that was the province of our Chaplain,’ she said.

The Chaplain was the Reverend Cyril Starr, and all that Crabtree had encountered to date was a sphinx-like appearance and a perturbing smile at any reference to higher things. He had placed a question-mark against his name on the list; also a B. He was one of fourteen bachelors.

‘I was speaking of the school spirit. There is a greater challenge even than bringing Weatherhill up to the mark. They say that the System is finished, out-of-date and worse besides. I intend to prove them wrong.’

She did not look at him, but heard him with respect. Determination was his outstanding gift. Unprepossessing, puritanical, humble in the presence of titled folk, and the possessor of a second class degree in History, he had nevertheless brought two prep schools out of near collapse into the House Full category in double-quick time. Herself the possessor of an astonishing First in Classics, she had sensed his fortitude and his ambition, and married him for it. She had hopes of a major school.

‘Steele will be a tower of strength,’ said the Head.

‘I am informed,’ said Mrs Crabtree, ‘that Steele only holds his position through the refusal of Master Carleton – now the Second Prefect.’

For a moment she feared an apoplexy.

‘Are you telling me that Carleton refused the offer of the Senior Prefectship?’

‘I understand he expressed a disinterest in the running of the school. There was also some vague excuse of work. And I’m told he received the secret support of two Housemasters.’ She waited, and looked at the floor. ‘Dr Rowles and Mr Milner.’

Mr Milner was the Pedant. Dr Rowles had been Assistant Headmaster through four reigns and most of his forty-seven years at Weatherhill, and a question-mark had been placed against his name.

‘I’ll have a word with Carleton,’ said Crabtree, who could scarcely speak. ‘If Ashley doesn’t look smart I’ll have to send a boy for him.’

‘Might I stay for the interview?’

He looked up in surprise, and could see no alternative.

‘If you wish.’

‘I am interested in our Mr Ashley.’

He did not dare wonder why. His eyes strayed to the Magazines.

‘One can see here the way the wind’s been blowing,’ he said, tapping at them with a knuckle.

Mrs Crabtree had herself marked certain entries to bring this point to his attention.

He pulled down his mouth as he read again the news from boys recently departed. She had made a cross with a red pencil against their names.

‘P. L. Graham – I have been working as a clerk on the Midland Region of British Railways at Crewe, but six months ago I received promotion to a better position at Paddington Goods Station.’

Incredible. And there were more.

‘H. J. Huggett – Being posted to Bournemouth I was fortunate in being provided with an Austin Mini. My work entails visiting our shops in the Hampshire Area which boasts
47
branches. Bournemouth is a very pleasant seaside resort which I can firmly recommend to anyone in search of an uncluttered holiday with ample variety.’

There was even a case of possible unbalance.

‘M. L. Ivor – My rank is Captain but I do not use it in private life. Next month I shall be on holiday in the Isle of Man which will be the fifth country I have visited – Ulster and Eire, England and Wales; and now the Isle of Man!’

But the Head’s features relaxed and he nodded with satisfaction as he turned to an earlier copy of the Magazine and read the entry from an Old Boy who had left Weatherhill twelve years ago. Mrs Crabtree had used a
blue
pencil, and made a tick.

‘I have started up rugby among the Africans and we trounced some European teams in our very first season. These fellows score tries at tremendous speeds. My African houseboy I have had since the old Chimvu days brought large crowds to their feet simply ripping through the field. It is one of the conditions
in or near
my house that the chap must be prepared to learn rugby.’

‘This is the spirit we shall recapture,’ said Crabtree, tapping the paper. ‘We may not be colonisers any more. But we can be leaders. It is
not
the function of a public school to produce underdogs.’

His wife felt a thrill, mingling pleasure and disgust.

Ashley knocked and entered.

The room disconcerted and then distressed him. The Old Man’s library, his leather-bound volumes, even the shelves had gone; and had been replaced by pale grey wallpaper. There was a new green carpet. A cold wind had blown through, dispelling the pipe-smoke of decades. The Old Man’s portrait was changed into the self-consciously authoritarian profile of the rosy gentleman who sat at the desk in his chair. Before the painting a wide-hipped but by no means heavy lady in crossword-puzzle tweed scrutinised the wall above Ashley’s head.

‘Come in, come in, Mr Ashley. I’d like you to meet my wife.’

A small, cold, white hand came from behind her back. Ashley could scarcely feel it.

‘Headmaster has granted permission for my presence,’ she said, over his head.

Shy and determined, he thought, a troublesome combination. In spite of the hint of mockery, her words were pretentious.

‘I see.’

‘Well, let’s get on, shall we?’

‘Let’s try.’

Ashley didn’t mean to say it audibly. But the sense of shock hadn’t left him. They were imposters in this room.

Apart from a slight pursing of the lips, Mr Crabtree might not have heard.

‘Please take a seat.’

Mrs Crabtree was now looking at the floor; which meant that she had made a quick scrutiny in passing. She had seen a young squire in a brown tailored glen-check suit, with elegant hand-made shoes.

‘I’ve been glancing through examination results, Ashley – I’ll call you Ashley, if you don’t mind, I prefer to be called “Headmaster”, it makes things simpler for all concerned – in English and French, that is, among the senior boys, and I find, well, the most extraordinary variations. Some of the marks . . . Carleton’s here, for instance, in this scholarship of his . . . are outstanding. While others . . . a considerable number . . . seem to come terrible croppers.’

‘We all have our favourites,’ said Mrs Crabtree. ‘I have been a teacher myself.’

‘That is
not
what I was suggesting, my dear.’

‘I should hope not, Headmaster,’ said Ashley.

‘I apologise for misunderstanding,’ said Mrs Crabtree.

Ashley had noted her photograph as a young woman, in a silver frame, on the desk: intelligent, quite a beauty, but remote. A graduate in something. Chin up. A strangely ‘period’ photograph, although her hair was exactly as now; held by a hairpin above either temple and waving up into a clump over her ears. The eyes were beautiful; large, and sad.

‘What I imagined, Ashley, was that the more advanced teaching comes more easily to you.’

‘Some learn. Some don’t.’

‘But, uh, my dear fellow. That is the point. At Weatherhill we want
everyone
to learn.’

‘You want the impossible.’

‘Now listen to
me
, Ashley. . . .’

The door opened and a girl in jeans posed against the wall on which had once hung a charming moth-eaten tapestry. It was gone. She looked sulky. She had her mother’s brown eyes. She said: ‘Miss Bull won’t give me lettuce for the rabbits.’

‘Oh really!’ exclaimed her father. ‘Leave this room at once. You are
not
to interrupt me in this way.’

‘I’ll speak to her shortly, Lucretia,’ said Mrs Crabtree.

‘They’re hungry,’ said the girl, calmly leaving the room, but shutting the door hard.

‘My daughter, Lucretia. She’s fourteen, I regret to say,’ remarked Mrs Crabtree.

‘Now listen to me, Ashley. . . .’

‘Regret?’

‘It is not quite the place. I fear for her virginity.’

‘Ashley!! Will you kindly listen to me.’

‘Very well.’

‘This is the main reason why I wanted to see you people. It’s quite clear to me that standards have been allowed to slip for many years. My predecessor was far too old. He should have retired long ago . . .’

‘I disagree.’

‘I will not tolerate interruption! You may or may not know, there have been two new appointments to our Board of Governors, coincident with my own as Headmaster. Lord Mountheath and Sir Charles Pike are absolutely behind me in the need to bring back the public school spirit to Weatherhill.’

‘I’ve never been quite clear what that means,’ said Ashley.

‘That is only too evident. One of the things it means, Ashley, is that the whole team scores good marks, for the honour of the school. And if this means that on your part you give less attention to individuals like Carleton, and more to the general good, then so be it.’

‘It’s a wonder the Labour Party doesn’t approve.’

‘Kindly allow me to speak. And if it means that Carleton must forego special attention, for the general good, then so be it. A boy who refuses to be Senior Prefect has obviously something else that is more important for him to learn than French.’

‘The school spirit?’

‘Exactly. He must learn that he is a member of a team. I intend to have everybody at Weatherhill joining in and pulling together.’

‘You should have no trouble about that.’

Mrs Crabtree looked quickly at Ashley, glanced at her husband, and returned to the ceiling.

‘You think not?’ said the Head, in complete surprise.

‘A great many are addicted to it already, I understand.’

‘I don’t follow you, Ashley. That is far from my information. I am speaking of corporate pride. We must regard ourselves as members one of another.’

‘That’s pretty well what I meant.’

‘A school is like a ship. I may be the Captain, but we must all sail her together.’

‘Heave ho, me hearties,’ said Ashley.

There was a scarlet, amazed silence from the Head. A faint pink came over his wife’s cheeks. She needed a shave, Ashley noticed. He himself was trembling.

She was the first to recover.

‘Mr Ashley would seem to be amusing himself at our expense, Headmaster,’ she said.

Crabtree, already alight, heard the familiar relish in her voice, and exploded.

‘Any more of this from you, Ashley, and I shall go to the Board and request your resignation. I will not stand for it! I have now told you your obligations. You had better fulfil them.’

‘One is not compelled to listen to cant,’ said Ashley. ‘You must excuse me. I have to introduce Milton to some small boys.’

So saying, he rose and walked out of the room.

Mrs Crabtree was again the first to recover.

‘We shall have to watch our Mr Ashley,’ she said, with several dips of the chin.

No reply was forthcoming, or necessary.

Chapter Three

Unimpressed by the new appointment, and uninterested in rumours
of change, the Reverend Cyril Starr sent out word that all Starlings would be welcome for tea from four o’clock on.

He did not call them Starlings. But he had been here for twenty
-three years and he knew well that this was what they were contemptuously known as by those who were not among the Chosen. It amused him mildly; as did almost everything else.

The Chaplain had the most luxurious appointments of any member of the Staff, and the only ones that were in the Head’s House. They were at the top, on the second floor. There was an unfortunate proximity to those in command. Hitherto this had given him little concern, but he was not happy about the new arrivals, both of whom he already disliked. (The daughter was disliked as a matter of course, young girls being hors de question.)