A Future Arrived (12 page)

“Ramsay's grandfather will pick him up at eight,” Charles said as he entered the common room. Simpson was there, reading a newspaper over a glass of sherry, and Marian Halliday was placing the day's sketches in a leather portfolio. Simpson only grunted, swallowed half the contents of his glass, and reimmersed himself in the sporting section of the
Times
.

“He fell asleep immediately after tea,” Marian said. “Complete, but contented exhaustion. I don't think he'll wet the bed
here
.”

“I would doubt it.”

“Eight, did you say? I shan't go home then. I would like a word or two with the man.”

Her Irish was up, Charles noticed. The green eyes had a hard glint to them and there were high spots of flame on her usually fair cheeks.

“I can manage quite well, Mrs. Halliday, thank you all the same.”

Her eyes mirrored some doubt. “I would like to point out to him that the hitting of a small boy with a stick,
many times
, can hardly be expected to improve his body
or
his mind. I would also like to mention that I think the custom is barbaric … and sadistic.”

“It is also, I'm sorry to say, a firmly ingrained custom in English schools.”

She stood rigidly before him. Anger made her nostrils flare. “Do you intend to say nothing? Just hand the boy over?”

“I certainly intend to hand the boy over. What other choice do I have? But I shall talk to the man … give him my opinion of schools such as Archdean.”

“Fat lot of good that will do!”

“It's the best that can be done, I'm afraid.” He lightly touched her arm. “Your outrage is admirable, but serves no purpose whatsoever. My advice is to go home and let me handle the matter—whether it does a fat lot of good or not.”

“Oh, very well.” She plucked the portfolio of drawings from a table. “But I shall stop off at the local first and have a very stiff gin!”

Simpson peered over his newspaper as she stalked from the room. “Spirited young woman, isn't she?”

“She's right, you know.”

“Yes. But I doubt if the elder Ramsay will see it quite that way. A pity there aren't more Scorcher O'Haras in the country. She was telling me about her brother … when he was sent to a public school at thirteen. Seems the first day he was there he got in wrong … gabbing in class or something. The master hit him a tremendous blow across the hand with a metal-tipped ruler. Young Scorcher didn't like that at all. He reared back and socked the fellow from Wealdstone to Watford. Made him think twice about hitting anyone in the future, I would imagine.”

“Yes, I'm sure it did.” Through the windows he could see Marian Halliday walking with long-legged fury past the rose garden toward the back of the building where her car was parked. “I have a feeling the sister would have done the same.”

T. C. Ramsay, Esq., arrived at eight fifteen in the back of a chauffeur-driven Daimler. The elderly man fitted the appearance Charles had imagined from hearing his voice—large, heavyset, with a jowly face and a ruddy complexion. John Bull in a business suit.

“Charles Greville, headmaster here.”

“T. C. Ramsay.” His handshake was perfunctory. He glanced at the imposing hall. “A larger place than I expected.”

“It is large, yes. A private house at one time.” Charles closed the massive front door. “I'm sorry we didn't find your grandson sooner, Mr. Ramsay. It would have spared you a couple of days of worry.”

“I had the police out looking, but I had no dire thoughts. I assumed he was simply dawdling somewhere … afraid to come home and face me. Oh, well, it all comes out in the wash, I suppose. Where is he?”

“Upstairs asleep. He was exhausted and we put him to bed after tea.”

The man cleared his throat loudly. “Yes … well … I'll take the lad off your hands. It's a fair drive back to Wimbledon.”

“I think we should have a talk first.”

“Do you?” His surprise was evident.

“There are some things I think you should know.”

T. C. Ramsay studied Charles for a moment, taking him in with a banker's stare. “Very well. I can spare a few minutes. I would like Derek to be awake and dressed, however.”

“Of course.” He looked up the broad, curved stairs. “One of you chaps down, please.”

There was a scuffling sound on the first-floor landing and then Manderson, still smarting over accusations that he had used undue force in tackling the runaway in the orchard, came barreling down the stairs several strides in front of his competitors.

“Only one,” Charles said sternly. “Manderson will do nicely, thank you.” A mob of boys froze on the stairs. “Manderson, this is Mr. Ramsay, Derek's grandfather.”

The boy smoothed his hair and tugged at this shirt almost in one gesture. “My pleasure, I'm sure … sir.”

T. C. Ramsay only grunted.

“Find Matron, will you,” Charles said. “Help her get young Ramsay up and dressed.”

“I'll do that, Mr. Greville, sir … right away.” He was off and running, clattering up the stairs.

“Eager fellow.”

“We stress service here.” Charles motioned toward one of the corridors leading off the hall. “Please come into my study, Mr. Ramsay.”

He had no intention of taking a seat. He stood stolid in the room, large hands clasped behind his back.

“So you're Charles Greville … the Viscount Amberley. I had the pleasure of knowing your father at Westminster when I was M. P. for Chaterham before the war. And this is what you do, is it? Run this place?”

“This …
school
, yes.”

“Your concept of a school is not the same as my own.”

“Possibly not. But a school it is.”

“More like a haven for misfits, if you ask me. I've read a good deal about Burgate House and have not liked one thing I've read. It's not my intention to be insulting, sir, but I'm a blunt man who speaks his mind.”

“Jolly good for you. I find that refreshing in this day and age. Would you care for a sherry? Some of my father's private stock from Jerez.”

The elderly man wavered, then gave in. “Perhaps a small glass.”

“You know,” Charles said as he poured the wine, “your grandson also read about us. It induced him to come here.”

“The schoolboy's paradise, or so I hear.”

“Hardly that, but not being flogged is heaven enough for some boys.”

“I daresay.” He scowled at the sherry glass when Charles handed it to him. “There's a purpose to caning. It's not simply blind, willful punishment. You know that, Greville. Where did you go? Eton? Harrow?”

“Eton.”

“They caned at Eton, I daresay, as strongly as they did at Archdean. God knows I had
my
backside striped more than once in lower house. It's part of the ritual one goes through. It makes for obedient boys. Diligent boys. It is the making of men.” He took a sip of the sherry, savored it on the tongue, and took another. “My son Thomas had many a thrashing. He was thirteen when I sent him to Archdean, the spring of nineteen eight. Discipline was ferocious in those days and a lad had to measure up if he wanted to keep any skin on his bottom. Tom measured up. He became, in time, captain of his house and captain of the school fifteen. Colors in footer and cricket as well. A fine, all-round boy. The custom today is to either sneer at discipline or wring one's hands over it. But, by God, it helped produce a breed I doubt we shall ever see again in England. Men who believed in
duty
and had
obedience
bred into their very bones. How else can one account for it, sir? The gallantry and self-sacrifice of those young men, those public-school boys, during the war? My own Tom … winning the V.C. at Zeebrugge … leading his men along the mole toward the German guns. Dying on his feet, but running on without a murmur until he dropped. Archdean produced that type of man, as did Eton, Wellington, Rugby—all the fine old schools. I want my grandson to measure up to that tradition. I don't need you to tell me that he's been caned, or even that he's been bullied. I'm quite sure that he has been, and will continue to be until he jolly well learns what's expected of him.”

Charles poured himself another glass, noting with satisfaction that his hand did not tremble. How amber the wine … how clean and nutty dry. There had been one bottle left in his kit and he had poured it into the tin mugs of his platoon officers before the Delville Wood show where most of them had died. Good school fellows all. Eton. Harrow. Sherborne and Malvern. A Catholic lad from Downside. A jocular little Scot a year out of Glenalmond who used to sing in the mess after a whisky or two …

… and who had died on the wire like a gutted pig. He moistened his dry lips.

“I'm sorry about your son, Mr. Ramsay. I know what you're saying and I know how strongly you believe it. I was in the war … the Royal Windsors. I'm well acquainted with the type of man the public schools bred. They were indeed brave, but many were both brave
and
foolish. The young subalterns of the Surreys who kicked a football across no-man's-land at the Somme and died doing so felt they were setting an example of coolness and bravery for their men. They would have better served their regiment and their king by crawling across on their bellies and not being shot to pieces by machine guns.”

Ramsay scowled, drained his glass, and held it out for refilling. “You are quite right in that respect, sir. I won't argue the point. My own Tom was in the marines and he told me of many foolish acts of bravery on the part of fellow officers that served no purpose other than death at an early age. As a banker I revere caution. The junior officers of Drayton's Bank crawl on their bellies when under fire or, by God, I know the reason why they don't! This is an excellent sherry, by the way.”

“Yes. It was given time—and patience—to age.”

“Well put. But boys are not sherries. They go green into the world and are
taught
to become mellow and palatable. Notwithstanding the kicking of footballs into machine guns, I believe the public schools teach their lessons well.”

“They teach some boys well … those that fit. Your grandson appears to be intelligent, but … at this stage of his life anyway … seems to be a square peg, and no amount of hammering is going to squeeze him into a round hole.”

“I'm not a believer in square pegs, Lord Amberley. Hammer hard enough and anything will fit. I don't mean to be ungracious. I'm glad that Derek fell into your hands and not some roving band of gypsies as it were, but dash it all, sir, I can't go along with this so-called
progressive
school nonsense. I believe it panders to a child's proclivity to anarchy and self-gratification. My grandson is spoiled enough as it is, for reasons I need not go into. He needs solid guidelines and discipline.” He set his glass on the table and turned toward the door. “Be so kind as to give my regards to Lord Stanmore.”

And that was that. Derek Ramsay, still half asleep, was led to the car and driven away. Five days later he was back.

H
E DID NOT
hide in the orchard this time but came panting and puffing up the drive, footsore and weary after the five-mile walk from Abingdon station. Valerie A'Dean-Spender, running an errand for the soviet, was the first to spot him.

“Hello, Fat Chap!” she called out cheerily. “What brings you back?” She fell into step beside him. She was nine and small for her age. Her bright yellow hair cut in an Eton crop made her look like a delicate boy. “Run away again?”

“None of your business,” he muttered.

“They'll only drag you back. I'd run off to sea if I were you.” She skipped ahead of him. “Do you like cream buns and jam tarts? That's what we're having for tea.” She raced ahead toward the front door, shouting back over her shoulder, “I'll save you some, Fat Chap … really I will.”

It was a different boy who faced Charles in his study. No cowering into a chair now. He stood stiff-backed, chubby and resolute, hands balled into pudgy little fists at his sides. His school uniform was reasonably neat and unstained.

“I shall never go back to Archdean,” he said with stubborn intensity.
“Never.”

Charles tilted back in his chair and tapped the end of a pencil against the rim of the desk. “You may well get your wish. I'd be greatly surprised if you're not expelled. But you can't stay here, Ramsay.”

“Why can't I? I like it here.”

“That's hardly the point. You have no say in the matter.”

“It's not fair.”

“It may not be fair, but it is fact. Come by train again?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I'm surprised you were allowed pocket money, given your propensity for flight.”