Authors: Tim Vicary
‘Yes?’
He looked at Sarah and his smile broadened in a way that Deborah had not seen for some time. ‘Firstly, Mrs Becket, there are a large number of old pictures in this house, some of them of my ancestors. I would appreciate it if they were left unscratched.’
Sarah flushed. ‘Why yes, of course. You don't think . . .’
‘And secondly . . .’ He glanced towards the table, where wisps of steam were curling towards the ceiling from a shining silver tureen. ‘. . . that you make every effort while in this house to eat the food that is put in front of you, beginning with what Mrs Hubert has provided today.’
‘Well yes, of course, I agree.’
‘In that case, you are welcome.’
Sarah sat down in her chair, demurely, as she had promised, and Deborah picked up a plate and lifted the lid of the silver tureen.
T
HE SUN appeared briefly from behind grey, hurrying clouds as Simon turned off the road and began to nurse the car down the long, rutted track towards St Andrew's Preparatory School. As he passed a wood the sunlight caught the building briefly, making the bricks of the old red house glow warmly amid the surrounding green fields. The windows flashed like mirrors, and the ivy on the walls shone brightly. It's like a church, Simon thought, a holy place that I'm about to raid.
Then the sunlight passed and it was just an old dull house amid drab fields, waiting for the rain that was about to sweep in over Lough Neagh. Simon had driven most of the way with the canvas cover raised, ready for the downpour that was bound to start before long.
He turned the car in a circle on the gravel drive outside the school's front door, so that it would be facing away, up the drive, when he left. Every little detail was important, he knew, on occasions like this. It was a pity about the car itself — Werner's new Daimler, rather than Charles's Lancia, which would have been more convincing, but that couldn't be helped. Anyway, he had an explanation ready.
He got out of the car, tugged his already smooth uniform jacket straight, strode briskly up the main steps, and rang the bell. The immaculate uniform, the gleaming Sam Browne belt, the cap with the badge of the UVF, would impress the headmaster more than anything else, he hoped. He remembered how keen the man had been to talk to him last time, when he had come dressed like this with Mrs Cavendish to deliver the boy at the beginning of term.
The bell echoed away inside the school and there was no response. For an awful moment Simon thought there was no one there, that they had all gone away. Then the door opened slowly and a woman peered out.
‘Yes? Can I help you?’
‘My name is Simon Fletcher. I've come with an important message from Colonel Cavendish, about his son. Is Dr Duncan here?’
‘He's taking prep at the moment. Can you wait half an hour?'
‘I'm afraid not. It is
very
urgent. I have to be back in a couple of hours.’
The woman sniffed. She was large and formidable, dressed in a long woollen skirt and cardigan. Dr Duncan's wife, Simon supposed. She looked him up and down; then, seemingly impressed by the uniform and look of dutiful urgency on his face, nodded.
‘All right. Come in and sit down there. I'll see if I can fetch him.’
Simon sat on a chair in the hall, staring silently for a moment at a moth-eaten tiger's head above a row of photographs of past cricket and rugby teams. He heard the murmur of voices from far away. A distant door slammed and footsteps approached. Dr Duncan stood before him, in an old brown suit with a row of pens in the top pocket, and a shabby chalk-stained gown. The grey hair and side whiskers stood out more wildly than Simon remembered.
He stood up and held out his hand. The headmaster shook it brusquely.
‘Well, young man? You have an urgent message from young Cavendish's father, I hear.’
‘Yes, sir. It's . . . rather serious, I'm sorry to say.’
‘Step in here.’
Dr Duncan opened a wood panelled door to the right of the tiger's head and ushered Simon in. There was a large desk, rows of books, several ancient chairs and sofas with cricket bats and pads piled on them, and a rack on the wall with a number of thin, pliable canes. Simon shivered, remembering a similar room in his own school days. Dr Duncan sat behind his desk, indicating a hard, upright chair in front of it.
‘Well, what is it? Serious, you say?’
‘Yes. It's the boy's mother, I'm afraid. She's very ill.’
‘Mrs Cavendish? I'm sorry to hear it. She looked well enough when she came here.’
‘Yes. It was an accident. She, er, fell from her horse and hurt her head. The doctors are very concerned. Only a matter of time, they say.’
Dr Duncan sighed, pursed his lips, and pressed his fingertips together in front of his face. ‘Dear me, how very tragic! Such a pleasant young woman, too. Well, well. You want me to break the news to the boy, I suppose.’
‘Well, no sir, it's not exactly that. Apparently she's been asking to see him, and Colonel Cavendish has sent me to bring him home.’
Dr Duncan thought for a moment, then shook his head. ‘I'm not sure that's wise, young man. Serious injury and death can have a very traumatic effect on the minds of boys of young Cavendish's age, you know. They don't have the maturity to cope with it. In my opinion it might be best to keep him on at school, where he is surrounded by friends and has plenty of work to keep him busy. Take his mind off it, stop him brooding.’
Simon opened his mouth, closed it again, swallowed. He had thought he had anticipated everything but not this. He had forgotten the stubborn, bloody-minded, stiff-upper-lip attitude schoolmasters of the old style could adopt. He forced his face into a conciliatory smile.
‘You're probably right, sir, of course. But it's not for me to decide, I'm just here to obey orders. Colonel Cavendish's express instructions were that I should bring the boy home to see his mother, tonight.’
Dr Duncan bristled. ‘It's termtime, and I am
in loco parentis
. In the absence of the Colonel himself, it's for me to decide.’
Simon stared at the man, saying nothing. Outside, there was the sudden thunder of a group of boys rushing upstairs, and a teacher shouting at them to be quiet. Simon felt a surge of all the hatreds and resentments of authority he had felt in his own school days, and thought, irrationally, I could take out my revolver and shoot this old fool in the face if I wanted.
But that would be no help at all.
Softly, he tried to insist. ‘She is very ill, sir.’
‘So you say.’ Dr Duncan hesitated. 'I don't want to be unkind, but in my experience misplaced softness at this point can make matters much worse in the future.' He glanced at the telephone, hanging in its stand on the right of his desk. ‘Perhaps I should speak to the Colonel myself.’
Simon was prepared for this. ‘He is extremely distraught, sir. Also, he is very busy with UVF business; he won't be home until eight this evening. And he gave me express instructions to have the boy home before then. I can't disobey an order, sir.’
Dr Duncan frowned at him, then sighed. ‘Well, I understand that. As I say, I think it's unwise, but we all have to submit to discipline. I'll write the boy out an
exeat
for a week, and send for him now. But tell the Colonel what I said now, will you?’
‘Yes, sir. Of course.’
Dr Duncan grunted and leaned back to pull a bellrope behind his desk. The woman came in.
‘Fetch Cavendish here, will you, my dear. And tell him to bring his coat.’
When Tom came in, in grey flannel shorts and pullover, with his tie slightly awry and fair untidy hair, Dr Duncan stood up portentously and came from behind his desk to put his hand on the boy's shoulder. That lean, freckled face with the smudge of ink on the cheek, Simon thought bitterly, this is what Charles valued above me. A miniature of himself, an officer and gentlemen in the making. Let's see how he takes this news.
‘I'm afraid I have something unfortunate to tell you, my boy,’ Dr Duncan said. ‘You recognise this young officer?’
Tom glanced at Simon, eyes wide with wonder. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘Well, he has brought me some unfortunate news. It seems your mother has had a fall from a horse and is seriously ill. Your father feels it is best that you should go home to see her at once.’
‘Oh no! But … Mummy?’ Tom glanced about him wildly. ‘She hardly ever rides.’
‘That's just it, Tom,’ Simon said smoothly. ‘She put the side saddle on old Punch, and he shied at something in the hedge. She couldn't hold him. He reared and came down on top of her, I think.’
‘But what happened? Is she badly hurt?’
‘Quite badly, yes. She's hurt her head. That's why your father sent me to fetch you, now.’
‘Oh, I see. Yes, of course. We'd better go.’
No tears, Simon noticed. Just wide, dark eyes in a slightly paler face. The freckles stood out more clearly than when he'd come in. Perhaps there was a slight quiver of the lip.
‘Here's your coat, Cavendish.’ Mrs Duncan helped Tom put it on as they went out onto the front steps. Her husband said: ‘I've given you an
exeat
for a week, boy, but tell your father you can come back earlier if he thinks fit. It may be better to be here with your friends and your work to take your mind off things. Also there's a match next Saturday, we'd like to see you play in that.’
Tom wasn't listening. As Simon had anticipated, he was staring at the Daimler.
‘That's not Father's car. Mr Fletcher, why have you brought that?’
Simon had his answer ready. ‘The Lancia broke down yesterday, Tom. It needs a new cylinder or something. Couldn't be fixed overnight, anyway, so your father hired this from a garage in Bangor. The owner's in the UVF. We have to keep the show on the road, you know. You'll enjoy riding in it — it's a dream to drive.’
Perhaps it was a little too complicated an excuse, but at least it was enough to overcome the time while Simon opened the front door and installed Tom in the passenger seat. Then Simon sprang round quickly to the front, cranked the handle, and leapt in beside him. They were away.
As they reached the end of the lane the rain came down. A few large pregnant drops on the windscreen at first, then floods of it, thundering off the canvas roof, swooshing across the windscreen, bouncing off the bonnet in hundreds of tiny fountains. Simon turned up his coat collar to shield himself against a stream trickling through the roof. If it doesn't stop the engine this could be a bonus, he thought. At least no one will hear us arrive in a downpour like this.
Beside him on the seat, Tom shivered in the sudden chill caused by the rain. Simon grinned to himself. You'll be a lot colder than this before the night is over, my boy, he thought. That stiff upper lip of yours might get frozen solid!
He smiled to himself at his joke, and felt no pity at all . . .
On the way back to Glenfee Tom said little. Once, when the rain had slackened and they could hear themselves speak, he tried to ask about his mother, but Simon did not encourage conversation.
‘I wasn't there. I didn't see it myself,’ he said. ‘You'll find out soon enough when we get you home.’
As planned, Werner was waiting for them in Dundonald. He had a black bag in his hand and was standing outside the hospital. When he got into the back seat of the car, Simon said: ‘This is Dr Marcus, a specialist in head injuries. Dr Robinson has called him in for a second opinion, and your father asked me to pick him up here on the way back.’
Tom said little then, either. He seemed cold and stunned more than anything else. Shivering, with his arms folded across his chest for warmth and his wide dark eyes staring earnestly forward through the rain as though to will them onwards. Not until they came to the walls around the park at Glenfee and turned right instead of continuing straight on along the side of the Lough, did he turn to Simon in alarm.
‘Where are you going? This is the wrong way!’
Simon had an answer for that too. ‘There's a tree down in the drive. We have to get in round the back.’
It was an unlikely answer, because there had been no wind, only rain, and anyway, the road to the back of the estate would still leave them with a ten minute's walk across sodden grass to get to the house, but it kept Tom quiet for another couple of minutes until they turned left along a muddy track that led into the woods at the top of the hill.
Then he said: ‘But this is stupid!’
Simon drove round a bend out of sight of the road, stopped the car, leaned over, and seized Tom's arms, pressing them against his sides so that he couldn't move. At the same time Werner reached from behind with a damp sponge which h pressed over the boy's nose and mouth. For a few moments Tom struggled, wriggling and kicking frantically, but it was no use.
The squeaking under the sponge faded, and the little body in Simon's hands relaxed. The reek of chloroform filled the car. For a few moments longer Werner held the sponge in place, then slowly, cautiously, he took it off. Tom's body flopped feebly to one side on the front seat, head lolling. He lay there, eyes closed, breathing quietly and slowly.
Simon put the car in gear, and drove on slowly up the muddy track into the woods.
For a long time Werner had been unable to work out what it was that annoyed him about English country houses.
After all, there were plenty of fine castles in Germany, providing a similar lifestyle. Werner himself had spent part of his youth in one. They were the birthplaces of the aristocracy - the von Moltkes, the Falkenhayns, the leaders of the Empire. Despite their occasional stupidity they had a place in the world — there were very few of them, and they were born to lead. He accepted their way of life as odd, but natural. He was impressed by his visits to the homes of his father's friends, and enjoyed them.
So why did their English and Irish counterparts annoy him so much? He had visited several as a boy, when his father was planning to send him to Eton; and many more since he had returned to the country, to work as a newspaper man.
It had taken him several years to realise that they annoyed him precisely because they were not counterparts of the German schlosses. There were far more of them, for a start — nearly everyone he had met at Eton seemed to have a country house. And then, when he went to them in anticipation, they were so much scruffier than he expected. Many of them stank of cats and dogs; they would have a few decent rooms and the rest would be cold and draughty, with thunderous plumbing and stuffed lion's heads presiding over faded wallpaper and peeling paint. Shamefully neglected, in fact.