The Spring Madness of Mr Sermon (44 page)

^{The man's face was familiar and Sebastian had a good view of him as he passed. He marked the panama-hatted man's arched brows and slightly aquiline features and thought: 'He must be a Kingsbay worthy home after a holiday and I probably met him during my first weeks in town', and then a sharper memory focus brought him to his feet with a rush as he realised that this man was exactly like the American publisher who had been photographed in Naples with his arm round Olga's waist.}

^{"Good God!" he exclaimed to himself. "He can't be! Olga is supposed to be in Casablanca and isn't due home for another ten days!' But it was and Olga wasn't in Casablanca, for here she was on the 'Up' platform of Haversham Junction, mincing along in four-inch heels some ten yards behind the Boston publisher and his porter, and fumbling in her handbag as though searching for a tip.}

^{He was so surprised to see her that he shouted without a second thought, projecting head and shoulders from the window and yelling "Olga! Olga!" and at once she stopped fumbling and looked right, executing a little jig of delight and calling "Andrew! Wait Andrew!" at the man ascending the footbridge that spanned the lines.}

^{She ran or rather teetered towards him, arms spread wide, eyes shining with pleasure and when she kissed him on either cheek he noticed how radiantly healthy she looked and what an expensive perfume she was using and how altogether different and more sophisticated she was from the Olga he had parted from three months before.}

^{"Oh, Martin, it's so good to see you!" she said, breathlessly, "but don't tell me you're on your way up to town just as we're coming home. We left the boat nine days before the end of the voyage so as to get home quicker by overland route from Marseilles. Andy, darling, he's here!" as the man in the panama hat approached and stood waiting to be introduced. "This is him! This is Martin-}

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^{Sebastian! Isn't it a shame? He's going up to London on the train we've just left."}

^{The man lifted his hat and smiled but did not seem to be overwhelmed by the coincidence.}

^{"I told you we should have wired, girl," he said, with not much more than a hint of an accent, and to Sebastian: "You aim to be away long, Mr. Sermon? Business trip, maybe?"}

^{"I ... er ... I'm not sure," said Sebastian, wishing heartily that he had not drawn attention to himself, and thankful that the reunion was strictly limited by the time factor. "I'm afraid I have to go up Olga, it's very important but maybe it's lucky we met. Here's your key and you'll find everything okay because Mrs. Gibson came in at midday and promised to clean up while I was away. Look out . . . they're going to shunt!" and he hopped back into his carriage followed by Olga who shouted to Andrew, "It's all right! Our train doesn't go until after his. Be a darling and get the luggage in. I'll travel round and hop out when she's hooked up," and she bounced down on the seat opposite Sebastian, caught up both his hands and gazed at him with the expression of a nice-mannered little girl who had just opened her Christmas present.}

^{"Oh, Martin dear!" she said, breathlessly, "I simply had to get rid of him, if only for two minutes. So much to tell you! So much has happened! But how can I possibly tell you in such a little time? Don't bother about the key, dear, we'll be staying at the Frobisher until Wednesday and anyway the house is officially yours until the end of August, isn't it ? Oh dear, how can I begin ? I didn't want it to be like this, all gabbled and breathless, but perhaps it's as well . . . you see, Martin . . . !"}

^{"You're getting married," he said helpfully. "You're marrying Andrew, the publisher, and you don't have to break it gently or apologise, Olga!"}

^{She stared at him with such astonishment that he laughed.}

^{"You knew? But how did you know? Did somebody write? Somebody on the boat . . . ?"}

^{"No, Olga, you told me yourself in your letters. Damn it, I've been a schoolmaster for twenty-five years and I'm an expert at reading between lines. Boys use words to screen a blank mind and}

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^{you used them to cover up the truth. In any case I would have known the moment I looked at you." "Oh dear, does it show that obviously?"}

^{"Yes, it does, you might as well be shedding confetti all over the carriage! When is it to be? On Wednesday you say?"}

^{"Oh no, not that soon, we're just going up to town on Wednesday. Andy's got business with publishers and I've promised myself a terrific shopping spree! We hope to marry very soon tho' and go back to the Continent for the honeymoon, Paris first, then Switzerland . . . but look here, we've only a minute left, how about you? What's been happening while I've been away? I got both your letters but they were terribly disappointing! I don't think I should have accepted Andy if they'd been the kind of letters I thought I might get!"}

^{"Hoped you might get, Olga?"}

^{She stopped smiling and looked -confused.}

^{"No, Martin, not really! We don't have to pretend with one another do we ? You're still in love with your wife. I always knew that in my heart and I'm sure I did the right thing for both of us. You think so now don't you? Say you do, anyway! Oh, God!" as the coach struck the buffers of the express and almost precipitated her into his lap, "here we are and so much still to be said. Have you really got to go to London? Can't you come back with us and go up next week?"}

^{"No, Olga, I can't," he said, "and you'd better get out before Andy thinks you're having second thoughts. Here," as he opened the door and helped her down, "I'll get in touch soon, early next week perhaps and before you come up to town."}

^{The guard checked the door and blew his whistle. Sebastian could see Andy standing uncertainly beside the Kingsbay train but Olga seemed reluctant to release his hand and only did so when the guard said, "Stand clear, Madam, if you please!"}

^{"Martin," she cried, as the train began to move, "there's something I've simply got to know!"}

^{"What is it, Olga?"}

^{"Will you be staying in Kingsbay?"}

^{"Yes, I will, Kingsbay or district, why?"}

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^{She was almost running alongside now and he feared for her safety.}

^{"Would you like to buy the house? Cheap?" she screamed. "What furniture you want and I'll leave a mortgage on ... !"}

^{The hiss of escaping steam would have drowned any word he uttered but in fact he made no reply because he was too stunned by her question to think of one, even a noncommittal one. He leaned far out of the window as the train gathered speed and caught a last glimpse of her in a swirl of smoke, a bright, eager little figure still teetering along but slowing down as she yielded the race and still, as far as he could determine, screaming that she would sell the house cheaply and leave a mortgage if wanted!}

^{He hoisted the window and returned to his corner wondering how a cruise had transformed a shy and rather lovable little woman into the chirrupy, breathless opportunist he had left behind at Haversham. For an hour or so he sat thinking, and it was contemplation of Olga's offer about the house that switched his thoughts on to an unexplored path. Olga had asked him to buy the house and all the furnishings, things that had comprised her home for years and, until his arrival in Kingsbay, had constituted her major interest in life. Her offer to sell implied a determination on her part to make an absolutely clean break with the past, to put Kingsbay and everything it signified behind her and make a new beginning, probably as far away as Boston, Massachusetts. Could Sybil be induced to do a thing like that? Did she value her marriage highly enough to turn her back on every single thing in her life except a husband who had already deserted her? Apparently not, for she had already expressed her views in this respect, once when she had visited him and again over the telephone when he told her about the Barrowdene offer. But suppose he could find some means of forcing the issue? Suppose he could present her with a reasonable alternative, a pleasantly-situated house of the size and style to which she was accustomed and not a teacher's cottage on a moor? Then, as he pondered this possibility, he had a dazzling inspiration. He remembered that he was the legal owner of the house in Wyckham Rise. Both Sybil and her father had insisted on this when they had bought it twelve years ago. He thought with excitement, 'Great God, I can sell the damned}

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^{house from under her and she couldn't do a thing to stop me and neither could her father, for all his cleverness! I could sell it and buy Olga's house and we could live there until I get a housemastership at Barrowdene!' His thoughts raced along keeping pace with the express. Sybil had declared that she couldn't live in Kingsbay but he didn't take this very seriously for, in some ways, Kingsbay could offer the social life that she seemed to find so important to her happiness in suburbia. It had a large number of residents that Sybil would have to admit were 'good-class' and it had a thriving Dramatic Society and a number of excellent shops. Once the initial break was made she would be very much at home in a place like Kingsbay and for the time being he could travel to and from Barrowdene each day. As the pattern of their lives began to emerge he was impressed by its symmetry. All that was missing was the centrepiece and at the back of his mind Sebastian still had a hidden reserve of confidence regarding his power to jolt her into conjugal obedience. He thought: 'By God, it's the answer! What can I lose ? If it succeeds I'm home and dry and if it fails we might just as well separate and I'll forget about Barrowdene and go in with Tapper Sugg!' and so satisfied did he feel with his decision that he put up his legs on the opposite seat, folded his arms and dropped off to sleep, lulled by the steady clack of wheels, a sound that had always given him pleasure.}

^{He did not go straight to Wyckham Rise in the hope of forestalling the report of Scott-James. By now he had dismissed Scott-James from his calculations for without photographic evidence the man was harmless and in any case he would be unlikely to tell the inglorious truth about his encounter at the love-nest. Instead he booked in at a medium-priced hotel and at once telephoned Olga's hotel in Kingsbay, asking her to hold the offer open until he returned early the following week.}

^{After that he was able to put Olga out of mind. She now belonged to the past, as surely so as Napier Hall and the Reverend Victor Hawley, and the thought of his former Headmaster awakened a}

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^{sense of mischief in him so that he dialled the school number, asking the secretary to put him through to the Reverend Hawley but neglecting to identify himself or state his business. The Headmaster came to the 'phone and Sebastian could hear him wheezing into the receiver.}

^{"Yes? Who is it? Hawley here!"}

^{"It's Sermon," said Sebastian, feeling waggish, "surely you recall my voice, Headmaster?"}

^{He heard the old man gasp and then begin to gobble with excitement.}

^{"Sermon! My dear fellow! I'm delighted to hear from you, delighted! Where are you? In London? At home? Are you coming over ? Are you coming back to us ?}

^{"You still want me back?" said Sebastian, winking at a sparrow on the bedroom window-sill. "Oh, come now, Headmaster, surely not after what I tried to do to Lane-Perkins last April?"}

^{"Nonsense!" said Hawley, "think no more about it, Sermon. That turned out most unexpectedly and I would have written you about it if I'd known your address. As it was I telephoned your wife, asking her to explain." He did not wait to discover whether Sybil had relayed his message but went on: "The truth is, Lane-Perkins" father came round the following day and asked for you! No, he wasn't angry, all he wanted to do was shake your hand and tell you to repeat the dose once a week! He said he'd never known the boy so tractable and had since taken to walloping him regularly whenever merited and with excellent effect! But look here, Sermon old man, don't let's waste time, I'd begun to think you weren't rejoining us after all and I'm interviewing a replacement."}

^{'You fearful old liar,' thought Sebastian, 'do you imagine that I don't know you're at your wits-end to find somebody to work half as conscientiously as I did at your drivelling little establishment,' but he said, soberly: "Well, as a matter of fact, Headmaster, I can't return to Napier Hall. I appreciate you keeping the job open for me all this time but I've accepted a post at a big school in the West."}

^{"Really?" ('He sounds amazed, damn him!' thought Sebastian) "Might I know which school it is?"}

^{"Certainly," said Sebastian. "It's Barrowdene."}

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^{"Barrowdene!" Clearly the Reverend Hawley was impressed. "Well ... er ... congratulations my dear chap, that's ... er ... splendid, quite splendid! I didn't think we should keep you very long," he went on, forgetting that Sermon had served fifteen years on his staff, "but I ... er ... I do hope we shall see something of you before term opens?"}

^{"Perhaps," said Sebastian, suddenly losing interest in the Reverend Hawley, "I'll write you after I get settled."}

^{"By the way, how are you, old man? In good health, I trust?"}