A Javelin for Jonah

chapter

3

Blots on a Copybook

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Joynings had been established originally by a syndicate of do-gooders who had bought the house and its grounds and had drawn up the College constitution. Gascoigne Medlar was not, in actuality, its first Warden, although he boasted that the College was his own foundation. The first Warden had been appointed by the syndicate. He was a clergyman and a well-meaning idealist, unfitted by nature, upbringing and education to cope with the type of delinquent for whom the original Joynings had been planned. He lasted for nearly a year, but resigned when he had recovered in hospital from an attack by a homicidal member of the junior common room who had disliked his sermons on brotherly love.

Gascoigne Medlar had not been appointed to take his place. Instead, he had bought the house and grounds when the syndicate, acknowledging failure, had put the property up for sale, had retained such parts of the constitution as appeared advantageous, and had jettisoned the rest. The original students, boys from broken homes for the most part, had been admitted without charge. Gascoigne changed that. He was not interested in delinquents as such, but only in the delinquent but athletic children of wealthy parents. He advertised widely at first, and, when the response came, he charged high fees, having spent much of his own money on improvements. He also paid very high salaries in order to attract a first-class staff. If they turned out to be less than first-class, they went. There was only one exception. Jones, his relative by marriage, Jonah though he turned out to be, was allowed to stay on in spite of his misdemeanours. Staff and students complained, but Gascoigne Medlar was adamant.

“He is my dear wife’s only living relative,” he would explain. “She would return and haunt me if I ever turned poor Davy adrift. He has nobody in the world but me.”

“Doesn’t seem in character, old Gasbag taking a stand like that,” said Jerry to Hamish when he was discussing Jones’s latest misadventures. “You’d think, if only for his own sake and the reputation of the College, that he’d cut out the sentimental angle and get rid of the fellow. He’s been nothing but a trouble-maker and a nuisance ever since he’s been here. He spends a third of his time half-bottled, another third chasing the women—Ma Yale has complained more than once on behalf of the girls here—and the rest of his life laying out the best of our athletes through sheer damn interfering idiocy.”

“Perhaps Gassie feels that Jonah is the victim of his own weaknesses with regard to A and B,” said Martin, who was with them, “and that, so far as C is concerned, Jonah may be misguided but well-meaning.”

“I doubt whether Barry would support that view,” said Hamish. “The unfortunate old thing will be thirsting for Jonah’s blood over that long-jump accident to Colin. He’ll be very, very angry indeed when he comes back from leave and finds that the lad has been laid out with a couple of broken shins.”

“He knows about it already. Henry has written to him. Lesley isn’t feeling very sweetly disposed towards Jonah, cither,” said Jerry, “although, personally, I think she overplayed her hand when she went with a mouthful of curses to plague the Old Man about that idiotic girl of hers. After all, to do blighted Jonah justice, he swears he hadn’t asked the wretched kid to rake the pit, and if Lesley had taught her how to use her muscles correctly, she wouldn’t have dislocated a chunk of her silly little spine, would she?”

“Well, one might perhaps give him the benefit of the doubt there,” admitted Martin, “but he’s a menace and a misfit, all the same, and, whether he’s Gassie’s relative by marriage or not, I think he ought to be driven out into the wilderness to fend for himself and not live here in the lap of luxury. Why, his quarters are as good as those of Gassie himself, and what does he do to deserve them? He’s supposed to be in charge of the men’s gym, but how much time does he ever spend there? Instead of getting on with his own job, he’s making a thorough pest of himself, one way or another, on the field and the track, or else he’s propping up the bar in the Bricklayers’ Arms. It isn’t good enough, especially in a place like this.”

The opinion expressed by Martin had been endorsed by Henry, and on more than one occasion. Hamish often thought that Henry was like a small, alert sheepdog, chivvying, but never biting, the lost lambs who formed the bulk of Gascoigne Medlar’s flock. Henry brought to his work a monkish singleness of purpose which was remarkable even among his gifted and dedicated companions. These employed their various talents honestly, cheerfully and without stint. They could not be said to love their charges, but they did well by them. Henry was unique at Joynings in that, with him, it was possible not only to hate the sin but to love the sinner. Except for Gascoigne himself, he was the only member of staff ever to have been married. He had lost his wife under tragic circumstances and had found at Joynings a kind of anodyne. Under him, the College had been transformed from a private, although luxurious, prison into a sought-after and surprisingly successful reformatory.

Some credit for this success was also due to the Warden and some to the students themselves. The majority of them— the men in particular—had been worsted in their fight against authority when they were—so to speak—in the outside world, and were relieved, if not openly thankful, to be put out to grass for a bit in the easy-going, safe (although fenced-in) pastures of Joynings. They were lost lambs, not black sheep; weak, rather than wicked; ridiculous and sometimes vicious children, but not unprincipled, criminally-minded adults. For one thing, they had been carefully selected and vetted and were not a representative cross-section of the misguided, delinquent young, and the fact that they were athletes and swimmers meant that they were misfits who had a saving grace.

As for Gascoigne, there was no doubt that he was a businessman first and a philanthropist second, but he had spent on the College a great deal of the money he had inherited from his wife and had added one amenity after another until it was doubtful whether the students could have enjoyed better living-conditions anywhere else. Jones, his wife’s brother, had been left nothing under her will, but by giving him a place on the staff of the College and by turning a deaf ear to all the complaints against him, Gascoigne argued that he had done what he could.

What Gascoigne really thought of his brother-in-law not even Henry could say. The accident to Colin was never publicly referred to by the Warden. Jones’s first appearance at the high table after the accident was hissed by the long-jump squad, but there was no concerted demonstration against him. However, he soon brought himself again into prominence over another and a different matter.

The first indication of the trouble which was to ensue came in the form of a red-faced, thick-set man in a pin-striped suit and a bowler hat—clearly his Sunday rig-out—who approached Jerry on the running-track one afternoon and asked where he could find Jones.

“You can’t,” Jerry replied. “All visitors have to see the Warden.”

“I want Jones.”

“Well, you’ll have to see the Warden first. What do you want with Jones, anyway? You’re not a parent, are you?”

“None of your business, mister. Which way do I go?”

“I should try the front door.”

The man strode off. Jerry turned back to his squad of runners and thought no more about him until he saw the man returning an hour later. He was carrying a cheap suitcase and was accompanied by a girl whom Jerry recognized as one of the maids who waited at the high table.

“Good-bye, sir,” she said, as she passed him.

“Not leaving us, Bertha?” he asked. She gave something between a sniff and a sob and did not answer. The man tugged her sleeve with his free hand.

“Come on, come on,” he said. “The sooner you’re out of this hell’s kitchen the better, my gal.”

Exactly what had brought about Bertha’s abrupt departure from Joynings was revealed a little later. The story came from Miss Yale, who confided it to Henry, Hamish and Lesley when they were taking tea with her in her quarters a fortnight after Barry had gone on leave.

“Well, Jonah has done it this time,” she said. “I’ve talked turkey to Gassie about it and I’ve given it to him straight. If Bertha is pregnant, Jonah will have to go. We can’t afford that sort of thing here.”

“Her father came up,” said Henry. “Gassie told me about it. Gassie is in no end of a taking. He’s made up his mind to speak to Jones, so I think, Miss Yale, your words got home to him. The father threatened to make enough stink to get the College closed. He couldn’t do that, of course, but he could make things very awkward. He says he’s going to write to the local paper and blacken us with all sorts of accusations. It seems that Bertha has made up wild tales about goings-on between the men and the women students, and her father has swallowed them. Useless to point out to a man of that type that he could lay himself open to prosecution. Even if he were convicted, the damage would have been done.”

“Yes, everybody would be saying there’s no smoke without fire,” said Lesley. “Well, nobody would be more thankful than I if Jones were kicked out, but do you think Gassie would do it? He seems strangely attached to that gosh-awful misfit.”

“I think he feels he owes him something,” said Henry. “He’s his brother-in-law and, apart from his salary, Jonah is absolutely penniless.”

“That’s all the more reason why Jonah should behave himself,” said Miss Yale.

The story had an embarrassing aftermath for Hamish. Taken, at an early stage in his sojourn at Joynings, to see the Warden’s collection of trophies, he had shown so much interest in the various items that Gascoigne had asked him whether, during his leisure time (of which he had plenty, for his duties were not onerous), he would be willing to re-arrange and re-catalogue the treasures.

They were kept in an ante-room which opened out of the Warden’s study, and Hamish had been given a key to the locked chamber. He always tried to arrange matters so that he could go in when he knew that Gascoigne was elsewhere engaged. One morning, therefore, having no lectures and no other commitments, he let himself into the ante-room, leaving the door ajar, and soon was so much absorbed in a task which interested him and satisfied his curiosity, that it was some time before he realized that a conversation was going on between Gascoigne and Jones, and that the subject of it was Bertha, the servant whom Jones had seduced.

When this dawned upon Hamish he found himself in the unenviable position occupied by most involuntary eavesdroppers. He could emerge from his lair and excuse himself by reminding Gascoigne of his commission to review the trophies, thus risking embarrassment to all concerned, himself included, or he could remain where he was (and this, under the circumstances, seemed the tactful course) and expunge from his mind everything which he could not help overhearing. At the point when Hamish first realized what the conversation was about, it was running thus:

“And I can’t put up with it,” Gascoigne was saying. “The girl’s father has been here, and it was with the greatest difficulty that I prevented a confrontation between him and yourself, Davy. He was in a mood which I can only describe as dangerous. If what this man has told me turns out to be true, I shall have no option but to ask you to leave. I don’t want to demand your resignation…”

“You would never be willing to part with your dead wife’s brother, dear boy! Surely you could not bring yourself to do anything so unkind?” said Jones, in a most unpleasant tone.

“I should have no option, Davy, and so I warn you.”

“Hardly for you to warn me, is it?”

“There is a limit, you know, and if this wretched girl has a child…”

“My dear chap!”

“Well, her father seemed to think…”

“What a suspicious mind he must have! My dear Gassie, I assure you that there is no possibility…”

“I must hope that you are right. But you know what these girls are. If she has a child, whether it is yours or not, you will have laid yourself open to the most unpleasant consequences.”

“And you will have laid yourself open to paying compensation, of course, as you are my banker, dear boy; so, if the girl and her father attempt to put the screw on—well, you’ll know what to do about it, won’t you? You owe me already more than you’ll ever be able to pay.”

“Now, look here, Davy—.”

“Oh, be your age, my dear chap! Forget it! You can always square those sort of people, and you have plenty of my sister’s money for a hand-out.”

There was an angry exclamation from Gascoigne and then Hamish heard a door slam. He peered out through the crack of his own inner door. Jones had gone. Gascoigne Medlar sat down at his desk, pulled some papers towards him, fidgeted with them for a minute or two and then thrust them into a drawer and followed his brother-in-law out of the room. Hamish made his own escape and went in search of Martin, wishing that he could confide in him, for the conversation he had overheard hinted unpleasantly of blackmail. “There’s a film-show this afternoon instead of field and track practices,” said Martin. “Jerry will come for a run if you’ll join us. Henry doesn’t need any help in the hall.”

“Oh, good. What’s the idea, though?”

“Jerry wants to get into training for his club’s first crosscountry run, and Henry thinks a change will do the students good, I suppose. Can you be ready by two? That will give us a nice couple of hours and time for a bath and a change before tea. I’ve laid in some bangers. We can fry them over the gas-ring in my room. It will be like being back at school again.”

“Yes. Good! Fine! What about Barry, though? Wouldn’t he like to join us now he’s back from furlough?”

“No. He’s going to visit his wounded warrior in hospital and look in on Lesley’s damaged gymnasts.”

“What is Lesley doing, then?”

“Putting her Chronos Vase squad through it. Miss Yale and Celia are watching the film and the Warden says he’ll look in at it if he can. I say, did I ever tell you about my interview when he collected me on to the strength here?”

Hamish had heard the story before, but he was fond of his ingenuous friend and invited him to go ahead. He knew that Martin’s interview had not been so very different from his own, except for one pardonable mistake which Martin had made, a pitfall which Hamish had avoided.

“Well,” said Martin, “I only came down with a rather fluky third, you know, and I was applying for every scholastic job within reach, so I applied for this one. I hadn’t a hope, really, but it soon dawned on me that the last things the Warden cared about were academic qualifications. What he was after were good-tempered hearties, so the thing went somewhat as follows: (You have to imagine me with all my ganglions quivering, and being prepared to embrace the boss’s knees at the drop of a hat in order to get a job.)

Me. Good morning, sir. It is very good of you to see me.

Him. Good morning, my dear fellow. Sit down, sit down, won’t you? Now, let me see. What did we apply for?

Me. Assistant lecturer in applied maths, sir.

Him. Ah, yes, to be sure. Of course. I remember now. Well, my dear fellow—by the way, we are all on Christian name terms here, so I shall address you hereafter as—let me see now—your application form? Here we are! Yes, of course! I shall address you in future as Martin. Well, now, Martin! Applied mathematics, as it is understood at Joynings, is a severely practical subject. There will be a certain amount of lecture-room work, of course, but nothing which need worry you. Henry will know. Perhaps you would go out on to the field and find him. Look for a small, spare man wearing a regrettable tweed cap with his blazer. He will tell you what he wants you to do. Coaching of field athletics, I believe it is. You won an inter-college event, I understand, in some form of throwing competition when you were up.

Me. Yes, sir, I—that is, well, the shot. It’s not really a throw, it’s a putt. As a matter of fact, sir…

Him. Gassie, my dear Martin, Gassie.

Me. I didn’t mean to be loquacious, sir. I’m very sorry. I only meant to tell you…

Him. Loquacious?

Me. Gassy, sir.”

Hamish laughed. “You are an ass!” he said.

“I could see a new thought had come to him,” went on Martin, “but you know, Jimmy, I can no more envisage myself addressing the Warden as Gassie than taking a trip in a space thingummy to the moon. However—I don’t believe I’ve told anybody this bit—I went on to tell him that, when he put me right, I was only going to say that I was really a javelin man. We were short on the shot that year, so I agreed to take it on, but it wasn’t my best event. All he said was, ‘Splendid, my dear Martin. Henry is the small, alert man in the loud tweed cap which he insists upon wearing with his blazer.’ ”

“His method of terminating all interviews, I think,” said Hamish, reserving to himself the fact that Gascoigne’s last interview had not been concluded in quite that way. “What about this run?”

“The run? Oh, I’m leaving that to Jerry. He’ll know a route. About seven miles is my idea, but he may want to stretch it to twelve.”

“If he does,” said Hamish, “I think you and I will take a short cut home and fry the bangers.”

Jerry, however, was willing to allow that six or seven miles at that time of year would be sufficient.

“It’s damned hot today,” he said. “Heard the latest about Jonesy?”

“If you mean in connection with Bertha’s father,” began Martin, “the answer is yes.”

“Oh, no. Since then. It seems Jonah has been to old Gassie and offered his resignation. One of my sprint relay lot told me.”

“No!” exclaimed Martin and Hamish in chorus.

“Fact. Had it from Jonah himself, so the lad said.”

“When?” asked Hamish, the conversation he had overheard being fresh in his mind. “When did you hear this?”

“Just a few minutes ago. Jonah told this chap that the Bertha story—which is all round College, by the way—was all my eye, but that it had hurt him to think Gassie believed it, so, in order to resolve the situation (the kid’s words, not mine) Jonah had decided to leave.”

“Does anybody else know?” asked Martin.

“Soon will, anyhow. Well, now, do you chaps think we’d better just look in on Henry and Ma Yale to make sure everything is still all right in the dining-hall before we go off?”

The idea that this was at all necessary tickled Hamish, since Henry possessed apparently hypnotic or occult powers where the management and control of the students was concerned, and Miss Yale was the last person on earth to need assistance with College discipline.

“Oh, I shouldn’t think he’d thank us,” he said. “Bit of an interruption, if he’s already got the film started, wouldn’t you think?”

“I don’t know. There’s a funny feeling abroad,” said Martin,“ and there’ll be whoopee, anyway, once the students know Jonah is going to leave us.”

“If he really is going to leave us,” said Hamish, again remembering the last words he had heard Jones address to the Warden, and the arrogant sound of a loudly-slammed door.

The cross-country run was enjoyable and was completely without incident. When it was over, the three runners, bathed and changed, assembled in Martin’s room to fry the sausages and settle down to consume these and the rest of the feast which he had provided, and the College, intent upon its own tea, appeared to be at peace. The two young women lecturers, with Henry and Barry (who had returned from the hospital), were entertained to buttered scones and cake by Miss Yale and Gascoigne, it was assumed, was taking tea in his own quarters, so that the only person who appeared to be unaccounted for was Jones, although nobody was particularly concerned about this, as he often took tea with Gascoigne before spending the evening at the Bricklayers’ Arms. His name, however, came up as usual.

“I can’t understand Gassie over this Bertha business,” said Lesley. “Hang it all, here he had the chance to get rid of Jonah once and for all, and without a decent testimonial, at that. Instead of kicking him out, he just lets him resign as though he was a decent type like any other of us.”

“So long as he goes, I don’t care how it comes about,” said Celia. “I never got around to telling you what he did to one of my divers. It was the week before Jimmy joined the strength, and I honestly believe that if Jimmy had been with us at the time he would have treated Jonah as one of my girls told me he treated that little swine Kirk at his first French lecture. If Jones—”

“I wish to heaven we could keep Jones out of the conversation,” said Barry. “The very sound of his name makes me feel murderous.”

“Me, too,” said Lesley. “How did you find my two girls? You went to see them, didn’t you?”

“More cheerful than my poor Colin, although how the young idiot could have been such a fool as to let Jones con him into attempting a stupid trick like that, I shall never know.” Barry, to everyone’s embarrassment, blinked back tears.

“I think your two hussies were at fault, too,” said Miss Yale to Lesley. “A trained gymnast should never allow her concentration to be upset when she’s practising.”

“Thank you, I’m sure,” said Lesley angrily. “And I suppose my other hussy should have refused point-blank when she was asked to rake that pit?”

“Now, now,” said Henry. “We’ve no evidence that Jones intended to attract the girl’s attention in the gym, and none that he asked the other girl to do the raking. I know the fellow is a complete liability, but fair’s fair, after all.”

“There was nothing fair about the way he treated Colin,” said Barry, now scowling down at the cream-cake on his plate. “I’ve had it out with him, though. I don’t think he’ll pull any more of his tricks on my squad.”

“Talking of that,” said Celia, “well, I speak as an outside observer, in a way, I suppose, being only on part-time here, but don’t you think perhaps there’s a bit too much of this ‘my squad’ business? I mean,” she went on, for she was a courageous but obtuse young woman, “I think Lesley is far more concerned about those two girls than about Colin, and Barry feels vice versa. Oughtn’t we to think about the College as a whole, so to speak?—if you see what I mean.”

“The difficulty about that,” said Henry, “is that what everybody thinks about, nobody thinks about particularly. Even you, Celia, couldn’t get your diving belles up to the excellent pitch you do, unless you were single-minded about your divers and didn’t give a hoot for Jimmy’s swimmers, for example.”

“Even I give all my attention to the girls,” said Miss Yale, “and don’t give a damn for the men, so I think perhaps Celia has got on to something, in a way. Trouble is, as Henry points out, our standards would soon go down if everybody mucked in at everything. You’ve simply got to specialize, and that involves bias.”

“It’s by playing off squad against squad that we get our results, I suppose,” agreed Lesley. “Our various gangs are much keener on outdoing one another in collecting pots and medals, than they are keen on the College as a whole. Personally, with the types we have to deal with, I’m all for the competitive spirit, although I really am terribly sorry about Colin, Barry, really I am.”

Barry crumpled up the paper serviette which Miss Yale had supplied, thanked her abruptly for the tea and stalked out.

“Somebody has started this rumour that Jones will be leaving us,” said Miss Yale, “but is there really anything in it, do you think?”

“Nothing at all,” said Henry. “I heard it, too, and went straight to Gassie. First he’d heard of it, he said. He was sure it is nothing but a canard. I hope the students aren’t up to some mischief, that’s all.”

After tea the students always employed themselves in any legitimate way which suggested itself to them. There were various clubs and societies; there was a drama group, a choral union, an orchestra, and a chess club. There were facilities for make-and-mend; the workshops were open; coaching still went on for those who were particularly ambitious and energetic; there were tennis courts, a clock-golf course, the indoor and outdoor swimming pools, provision for squash and badminton. There was also a first-class library and an art room.

The evening meal was at eight and it was the custom for the whole staff to attend it. They sat at the high table in an orthodox setting and the high table at night always took on a festive appearance, with the men in dinner-jackets and the women in semi-formal attire. The glass and silver on the long tables all down the hall sparkled and shone, and the wine (strictly rationed but invariably provided) was poured by servants as impeccable and silent-footed as those in any nineteenth-century ducal mansion. Although the students were as talkative and noisy as those in any other college dining-hall, decorum reigned and the general atmosphere was happy and relaxed, as it was almost bound to be in the presence of such good food and palatable (although limited) wine.

The staff table had one vacant seat. As it was the custom for the whole faculty to be present at the evening meal unless anybody happened to be on leave, Gascoigne, at a pause in the conversation, remarked upon Jones’s absence from the board.

“I have no idea where he can be,” said Henry, who was seated, as usual, upon the Warden’s left. (Miss Yale invariably sat at his right hand, as the senior woman present). “I don’t remember seeing him since just after lunch.”

“I really wish he wouldn’t go into the village so often,” said Gascoigne. “It doesn’t do our image any good to have him always hanging round that public-house.”

“I’ll mention it to him, if you like.”

“Oh, no, don’t do that. He must please himself, of course. I keep no tabs on the staff so long as they carry out their duties.”

“But he doesn’t carry out his duties,” said Miss Yale. “When is he ever in the gym? He prefers messing about on the field and causing injuries to the students and annoying and embarrassing my girls.”

“I shall speak to him about that. I have already dealt with him over the recent incident involving Bertha.”

“I shall do more than speak to him. I’ll drop the shot on his head if he doesn’t leave the girl students alone, and so I’ve told him.” And Miss Yale took wine in a determined manner.

Gascoigne turned the conversation on to other matters. The meal ended at nine, and the staff and students trooped out. At ten the Warden left the senior common room to which, as usual, he had been invited for coffee, and at eleven Henry did visiting rounds and locked up the mansion to keep out any prospective Romeos who might fancy a visit to the women students’ rooms and to keep indoors any of Miss Yale’s charges who had an urge to invade the halls of residence. He then took the keys to the Warden and they talked about College affairs and had a night-cap together as usual. Before returning to his quarters on this particular occasion, however, Henry had something unusual to report.

“Jones isn’t back,” he said, “but I thought I’d better lock up as usual, so I did. All right?”

“Jones? Davy? Dear me! I suppose he went to the village. He very often does. I was surprised, all the same, not to see him at dinner. Perhaps his car has broken down.”

“The Bricklayers’ Arms closes at half-past ten, and he knows plenty of people there,” said Henry. “It’s a quarter to twelve. He’d have got a lift back by now.”

“Oh, well, he’ll have to knock somebody up when he does come in, but it’s very unsatisfactory of him, I must say. I hate the servants to be disturbed at night.”

“I shan’t be going to bed yet. I’ll wait up for him, if you like.”

But midnight came, and twelve-thirty. At a quarter to one Henry decided that Jones had found somewhere in the village to sleep. He might be too drunk to drive, or, if his car had broken down, he might have begged a bed at the Bricklayers’ Arms and would hope to cadge a lift back to College in the morning.

There was no sign of Jones at breakfast, but nobody on the staff felt any concern until lunchtime came and there was still no word of him.

“I can’t understand it,” said Henry. The Warden looked gloomy and wagged his head, but offered no words.