Hare Sitting Up (8 page)

Left in charge of Splaine Croft, Miss Grimstone received visitors in the drawing-room. Judith looked round it with interest. It was the sort of entirely feminine and decidedly old-fashioned apartment which some bachelors think proper to keep about the house in pious memory of a mother.

But it was a pleasant room in itself – and no doubt there would be prospective parents over whom its selling-power could be considerable. Gentlefolk have to be on the job for a good many generations, Judith reflected, to build up just this sort of everything-good and everything-faded effect. The bits and pieces of French furniture had really come from France – and already long ago local carpenters had had to be called in to remedy unfortunate disintegrations. The few watercolours were really by Girtin and Paul Sandby and the elder and the younger Cozens, and they had been acquired by Junipers when such things cost a good deal less than they do now. The whole room was much of a piece – the only odd note being struck by a modern portrait-bust in bronze. Judith, being a sculptor herself, saw at a glance who it was by. Fifteen hundred guineas, she said to herself. And then Miss Grimstone entered the room.

Judith shook hands and then turned to the large bay window. It looked out on the rose garden. ‘Peace!’ she said enthusiastically.

Miss Grimstone peered at her intently through thick lenses. ‘It is,’ she admitted, ‘a secluded situation.’

‘No – those roses. The large yellow ones with the faint pink flush. Peace. Such a beautiful name for a rose. Do you know’ – and Judith turned impulsively to Miss Grimstone – ‘I am quite, quite sure that Kevin and Jerry would be very, very happy here!’

‘And they might even learn something, if that is judged to be of any importance.’ Miss Grimstone, who regarded Splaine Croft not as a refuge from the miseries of the world but as a place at which there were standards to keep up, clearly had no scruple about snubbing gush. ‘And how curious, Lady Appleby, that your sons would appear to be named out of
Finnegans Wake
.’

Judith felt a sinking sensation inside. She was the more disconcerted because Miss Grimstone had so unmistakably the appearance of one whose literary studies are unlikely to have proceeded beyond
Eric,
or
Little by Little
. Irresponsible humour, clearly, ought not to be cultivated by those who would assist Scotland Yard.

‘Finnegans Wake
!’ she said, perplexed. ‘Is that quite a
nice
book?’

‘Since it is largely unintelligible, the point is hard to determine. No doubt the matter of your children’s names is coincidental.’

‘Of course,’ Judith said, ‘my husband’s family are Irish.’

‘Indeed? You surprise me, Lady Appleby. To my mind, the name has Yorkshire associations.’

‘Quite so. The Cromwellian Settlement, you know, Miss Grimstone. How useful history is! Kevin and Jerry both adore it.’

Miss Grimstone, although receiving this last assertion with undisguised scepticism, was obviously impressed by the suggestion of Applebys busy in a territorial way in the seventeenth century. ‘I am sure,’ she said, ‘that Mr Juniper would wish me to tell you that the prospect of any vacancies in the near future is very small. We are almost fully booked up for some years ahead. Most boys who come to Splaine are either sons of old Splaine boys or have had elder brothers at the school. A certain priority has to be accorded to applications in which there are circumstances of that kind. But I am sure that Mr Juniper would do his best. Would your husband have been born in Kilkenny?’

‘No, not Kilkenny.’ Judith, who knew very well that John had been born at Kirkby Overblow, was disconcerted by this. ‘In Wicklow. But Appleby House is now a ruin, unfortunately. It was burnt down in the troubles.’

‘How very shocking.’ Miss Grimstone was again discernibly impressed. ‘I ask simply because we have a closed scholarship for boys coming from Kilkenny. Wicklow, I’m afraid, wouldn’t count. And now, I think you may care to look over part of the school? Both matron and housekeeper are unfortunately on holiday, but I think I can tell you enough, perhaps, about the domestic side.’

‘Oh, thank you
so
much.’ Judith felt it was now incumbent upon her to think up the sort of questions and attitudes proper in one who has married into the Irish landed gentry. ‘You have your own green vegetables, I suppose?’

‘Most certainly. Everything of that sort is grown within the grounds.’

‘And cows?’

‘Of course. We have’ – Miss Grimstone spoke without a flicker – ‘special cows, suitable for invalids, infants, and young and tender stomachs in general.’

‘That is most satisfactory.’ Judith had an uneasy feeling that Miss Grimstone, too, was capable of indulging obscure and unseasonable humour. ‘And now I would certainly like to see over the school.’

‘The house is a large and rambling one, as you will have noticed, Lady Appleby. But I can certainly show you over the greater part of the boys’ quarters. And the kitchens – which are, of course, most important.’

Judith had certainly noticed the size of the house. John had given her a decidedly tall order. Wondering what was to be done about it, she let her glance stray once more round the drawing-room. It came to rest on the bronze bust.

‘Is that,’ she asked suddenly, ‘a bust of Mr Juniper’s famous brother?’

Miss Grimstone didn’t take this inquiry very well. ‘The bust,’ she said severely, ‘is of Mr Juniper himself.’

‘Oh, I see! Commissioned, no doubt, by old pupils of the school.’

‘I think not.’ Miss Grimstone, although disapproving this curiosity, was allowing herself a tone that was faintly dry. ‘If you are interested in contemporary art, Lady Appleby, I must show you the Augustus John in the dining-room.’

‘Of Mr Juniper again? Not delivering his celebrated leg break?’

‘I think,’ Miss Grimstone said, ‘we might begin with the chapel. It is all that remains of the house formerly standing on the site. We are very proud of it. There is some fine modern glass. Which
was
presented by old boys.’

I must take it for granted – Judith said to herself as she went peering here and there in the interest of the mythical Kevin and Jerry – that the missing scientist is on the premises. He has committed a crime, he has done something disgraceful, he has gone harmlessly off his head. Anything that would prompt his schoolmastering brother to say, ‘Very well, lie low here for a time.’ That is the situation, and when John popped up here the other day the unfortunate schoolmaster was taken completely by surprise, and could do nothing but acquiesce in his plan. Alternatively, what is lurking here now is not Professor Howard Juniper living but Professor Howard Juniper dead. His brother has done him in. An affair of passion connected, no doubt, with Miss Grimstone. And my dear husband has pleasantly given me the task of finding the body. A policeman’s wife is not a happy one.

Outside, it was still raining dismally, and thunder was rumbling in the distance. And everything was planned for outside at this time of the year, so that there was a feeling abroad that the day was running drearily down. In one empty classroom the boy who had chattered so cheerfully to Judith on her arrival was now forlornly engaged in sticking together the parts of a model aeroplane which obviously bored him extremely. U-Tin – it was easy to identify U-Tin – was in a corner of the boys’ day-room, addressing himself with equal lack of conviction to a chess problem. Alabaster Two – since he was in blue corduroy he was presumably Alabaster Two – was in another corner, playing ludo with a conscientiously interested young man who must be either Pooh or Piglet. The holiday boarders ran about uncertainly; and Piglet (if the ludo-player was Pooh) kept on rounding them up and making suggestions of which they didn’t think too well.

Judith, conscious of this state of affairs as Miss Grimstone marched her around, found herself suddenly in the possession of a plan. It would be exhausting, but it might work very well. Unfortunately there was one serious difficulty in the way of putting it into operation. She herself hadn’t arrived at Splaine as quite the right person. Gushing and enthusiastic, yes. But not quite
jolly
enough. That was it… Judith, as Miss Grimstone showed her the kitchens and the up-to-date refrigeration, set herself to modulate, unobtrusively but rapidly, into a very jolly person indeed. An admiral’s daughter, she said to herself. A Betjeman girl. Or a matron from Eliot’s land of lobelias and tennis flannels. Slap Miss Grimstone on the back? Well, not quite. It was important to be asked to stay to tea.

A bell clanged out somewhere above the domestic offices. It was a cracked bell, Judith noted, of the kind with which the sombre imagination of Graham Greene regularly provides schools in the distressful memories of his male characters. But at Splaine Croft this horror of the ringing bell (John Donne, Judith told herself, being thus launched upon literary references) appeared to be rather cheerfully received. Perhaps it was because it did, on this occasion, mean tea. There was a general stampede to the dining hall.

‘Are they to have tea?’ Judith asked – enthusiastic and oh so jolly. ‘But I
must
see them! May I just peep?’

‘During the holidays I myself take tea with the school.’ Miss Grimstone glanced at Judith with what could not be other than naked suspicion. ‘I hope you have time to take a cup yourself? It is far from elegant, of course. But thoroughly wholesome. Each boy has half a pint of milk from the special cows.’

Judith found herself wondering what this formidable old person really believed about her. That she was some brazen woman from a magazine, perhaps, preparing a colourful feature on the education of the surtax-paying classes. Still, here she was safely in the dining hall, where Pooh and Piglet were being introduced to her under perfectly commonplace names that she didn’t catch. At school, of course, small boys are not introduced. But Judith, considering it to be all in her part, shook hands with them all vigorously. They stared at her, polite but round-eyed. She acknowledged in herself a flickering suspicion that she was not a terribly good actress. Everybody sat down at a single long table at one end of the room. The panelling, she noticed, wasn’t pitch pine, but some really gloomy high-class stuff. A city gent’s house, once upon a time, Splaine Croft must have been.

In the absence of the school matron, Miss Grimstone poised the beautiful Georgian teapot from which the grown-ups were to recruit themselves. Her aged features took on an inquiring expression, so that Judith supposed she was about to say, ‘Sugar and cream?’

‘I didn’t gather’ – this was what Miss Grimstone actually asked – ‘whether Kevin and Jerry are twins?’

‘Well,
almost
twins.’

There was a pained silence. Pooh and Piglet gave each other a quick apprehensive glance, as if doubting the propriety rather than the credibility of this obscure obstetrical intelligence. Judith improved the occasion by a large jolly laugh. Miss Grimstone refrained from further interrogation. U-Tin, who was presumably some sort of prince, made a few polite remarks in an English that was faultless but perhaps a little too formal for his years. The other boys ate mostly in silence; the rain still streaming down outside the windows made them glum. Judith, thus left with a clear field, offered the company a breezy account of her childhood. Her father, although perpetually afloat as admirals always are, had kept his family in the heart of the countryside. A large family, Judith explained, in a large rambling house. Really very like Splaine Croft.

‘Did it have secret passages?’ Alabaster Two asked suddenly.

‘Well, no – but there were very deep cellars.’

‘My grandfather’s place has secret passages,’ Alabaster Two said. And added modestly: ‘But, of course, it’s a sort of castle, and you’d expect them.’

‘Secret passages are best, I agree,’ Judith said. ‘But having several staircases is important too. With two staircases you can have very decent hide-and-seek. But with
three
staircases–’

‘Splaine has three staircases,’ the boy who had first encountered Judith interrupted.

‘Has it really?’ Judith seemed not to have made herself aware of this fact. ‘Well, with
three
staircases you can play Chinese Torturers.’

There was a moment of impressed silence. Judith’s credit had mounted perceptibly. She might perhaps be a person really entitled to that sort of laugh.

‘Chinese Torturers?’ Piglet asked with interest. He was a pleasant lad, Judith thought, but with a mental age probably a good deal below U-Tin’s. ‘I don’t think it’s in the Weekend Book.’

‘It certainly isn’t.’ Judith rejected this suggestion with civil scorn. ‘It’s the sort of game that is known only in a very few families. It was known in mine. We also knew Hungry Tigers. And Heads Off Quick. But Chinese Torturers was the best.’

Miss Grimstone alone seemed to react unfavourably to this. ‘The title,’ she said, ‘fails to commend itself to me, I confess. I hope it was not a game that carried any suggestion of cruelty, or gave scope for bullying.’

‘Well, of course, you have to
imagine
the most frightful things.’ Judith was concerned to be fair-minded. ‘And there is
lots
of rough and tumble.’

‘I would suppose,’ Miss Grimstone said drily, ‘that Kevin and Jerry would not care for it at all. Although it
is
a family game.’

‘And it’s the most splendid exercise’ – Judith ignored this shaft – ‘for a wet day. You rush all over
and over
the house. That’s where the staircases come in.’

‘It sounds tremendous fun,’ Pooh said. He looked cautiously at Judith, plainly indulging a callow vision of the fun that a little rough and tumble in her company might produce. Judith smiled at him brightly. Not so nice as Piglet, she was thinking. He reads too many modern novels, full of accessible women and inexpressible men.

‘Could you tell us the rules, please?’ U-Tin said politely.

‘Well, of course, there are two sides: victims and executioners.’ Judith frowned. ‘I’m afraid it’s rather hard to
explain
. But if I could just
show
you–’