No Winding-Sheet

7

A Question of Water-Lilies

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Except for the continued absence of Mr Pythias, the Easter term settled into its usual routine. The junior geography master became the senior geography master and received the extra allowance attached to this improvement in his status and a ‘supply’ teacher was appointed to cover the vacant position.

The cheques had been paid into the school-journey fund and it was generally assumed that they had been sent to the bank by Mr Pythias and that somebody else had addressed the envelope for him. Mr Ronsonby, with his wife’s grudging agreement, had subscribed the rest of the money and had told nobody else about this. He was convinced at last that all his confidence in Mr Pythias had been misplaced and he said as much to Mr Burke.

‘Well, everybody here is of the same opinion,’ said Burke. ‘Is the school journey still on?’

‘Yes, of course it is.’

‘Ah!’ said Mr Burke, guessing the truth but thinking it better not to say so, since he had no intention of offering to share in the payment to the travel agents. ‘Oh, well, before anything else comes about, I suppose we have to plan the official opening.’

‘Yes. I shall call a staff meeting on Friday and see what suggestions are put forward. Have you yourself anything in mind?’

‘I suppose we shall include the things we show the parents on open days, but the governors will expect a little more than that. It’s a nuisance it has to come in the summer term. I don’t want the sixth too much involved. GCE begins immediately after Whitsun.’

‘Yes. Still, they are our top boys and must make a showing. I shall persuade the governors to fix a date for the opening as early in next term as possible and then the GCE candidates will have to wire in and memorise and revise for all they’re worth. The challenge may stimulate them.’

‘One can only hope so,’ said Mr Burke. ‘I don’t think we’ve ever had such a weak set of candidates for years. And all this picking and choosing of subjects! Give me the old Matric in which you had to pass in five compulsory papers.’

‘It was hard on those who had no aptitude for maths or science.’

‘I believe in the good all-rounder. Balance is everything. What’s the use of a good bowler if he’s got butter-fingers in the field and gets out first ball when it’s only a long hop or a full toss?’

‘We could do with Pythias,’ said the headmaster, whose summer game was tennis, not cricket. ‘He used to get some very advanced work from his geography classes, something which made an excellent and most impressive display. The man was an artist, nothing less. Oh, well, he’s far away by now and has probably changed his name.’

‘Detective-Inspector Routh has just come in. Are you free?’ asked Margaret Wirrell, coming in.

“I’ll go,’ said Burke.

‘I was just saying to Burke that Pythias has probably taken another name,’ said Mr Ronsonby when Routh was shown in.

‘Another name, sir?’

‘Oh,’ said Mr Ronsonby, trying to speak airily, ‘you know what a hot-bed his native part of the world has always been. Pythias was at college over here and, except for his name, nobody would know that he wasn’t an Englishman, but who knows what affiliations he may have had with his own country? I have never thought Pythias was a likely surname, but he has never offered any other.’

‘I think, sir, you had better forget those sort of doubts. A man is entitled to call himself what he likes so long as he has no criminal intentions in so doing. I agree that, if Mr Pythias has absconded with the money, he may well have changed his name, but I see no reason why we should assume his guilt until we get more evidence of it than we’ve got at present. I am afraid, sir, the chances are that Mr Pythias is dead.’

‘I would sooner believe that Pythias is dead than that he has absconded with what, in these times, is a relatively small sum of money,’ said Mr Ronsonby, ‘but what else can I believe? If he is dead we should have heard by now, surely?’

‘Well, I’ve done my best and so, by all accounts, have you, sir, to trace him to Springdale. We’ve both failed, but there might be some substance in your idea that, if he has absconded, he has also changed his name. It would also mean that, if he was staying with friends there, they also have English names, for I could find no Greek ones in Springdale. I suppose you don’t feel able to lodge a formal complaint against him for absconding with the money? We can’t go any further unless you do, although I may tell you that the case interests me. My view is that sooner or later we’re going to find ourselves with a murder enquiry.’

‘Murder? Good gracious me, Inspector! Think what that would do to my school! You know, Inspector, further to what I could see you regarded as my wild and fanciful notion that Pythias may have mixed himself up in Greek politics, perhaps those of a subversive nature, I am wondering whether he could have been kidnapped when he left Mrs Buxton’s house on that Friday night and spirited away. He could be in a Greek prison by now. Does Buxton travel with a mate? It would take two of them to kidnap a grown man.’

‘Oh, yes, sir. It needs two of them to load up and unload the furniture van. I’ve seen the mate and he endorses everything Buxton says about the time they knocked off on that Friday. I don’t think we shall get any further with the Buxtons.’

‘Well,’ said Mr Ronsonby, ‘I’m beginning to feel sure in my own mind that Mr Pythias has been caught up in Greek politics. I did have my suspicions that he had met with foul play — been mugged on his way to the station or on the train — but, if that had been so, you would have turned up some evidence of it by now.’

‘Well, sir, I shall keep an eye on things, although not, as I say, an official eye, but there’s really nothing else I can do at present. I’m under orders, you see.’

‘Oh, well, I must just soldier on, then, Inspector.’

There had been a good deal more discussion of Pythias’s absence from the staffroom and endeavours had been made to ‘sound’ Margaret Wirrell to find out what she knew. All efforts to extract information failed and for good reason. Even if she had known anything, she would not have betrayed the headmaster’s confidence, but, in any case, her unvarying and truthful reply to enquirers was, ‘You know as much as I do.’

Time wore on through a rather dismal spring until half-term and after. There were the usual epidemics of measles and chicken-pox among the younger boys and of influenza among the masters. Because of fluctuations in the weather there were whole days when no outside work was done on the building, but three weeks before the Easter holiday the contractor’s foreman was able to assure Mr Ronsonby that, given any luck with the weather, the work would be completed very soon after the beginning of the Easter holiday. He was drafting in extra men and allowing more overtime and now could see an end to the job.

So bright, in fact, were the prospects that Mr Ronsonby called Mr Burke into consultation and then arranged another staff meeting at which Margaret Wirrell was to be present to take notes. The date of the official opening could not be decided by the staff and headmaster because the governors had not so far reached agreement on this point. Besides, the mayor’s list of engagements had to be taken into account and was not, so far, finalised.

‘But there is no reason,’ said Mr Ronsonby, ‘why we should not present the governing body with three or four suggestions as to a possible date, if only to jog their memories. Perhaps somebody would give us a lead. It can’t be a Thursday because of council meetings; it can’t be a Saturday (“thank God!” said a voice) because our chairman plays golf on Saturdays, and it can’t be a Monday because of the Philanthropic.’

‘Well, that leaves plenty of choice,’ said Mr Burke. ‘Why don’t we offer the Tuesdays, Wednesdays or Fridays of the first two or three weeks of term?’

Other voices took up a refrain.

‘Will the choir be needed and are the orchestra to take part?’

‘Does the head boy make a speech?’

‘There will have to be a bouquet for the mayoress and another for the wife of the chairman of governors, I suppose. A boy in my form has a father who is a florist.’

‘What about catering?’

‘The catering, yes,’ said Mr Ronsonby, seizing upon the most important item of the programme. ‘We shall have to send out invitations, of course, but we must assume, for practical purposes, that everybody will accept. All the council members will expect to come and so will the whole of the governing body. The secretary and treasurer of the parent-teacher association must be asked and so must the heads of all the neighbouring schools. Her Majesty’s Inspectors must be invited, although they probably won’t accept as that would establish a precedent, but our own education officer and a representative of the contractors will certainly turn up. Most of the men will be acompanied by wives and there are ourselves and our own wives. Perhaps, Margaret, you will do the necessary arithmetic later on and let me have an estimate of the probable numbers. I may have left out one or two people, but you will know and can fill them in.’

‘I suppose we let Bussell’s have the catering order,’ said Mr Burke. ‘They always cater for us at the swimming gala and on sports day.’

‘Oh, yes, we must support the local tradesmen when we can. When we know the numbers, perhaps you would see them, Burke. Take Margaret with you. Catering orders need a woman’s touch. I can give you carte blanche, more or less, as no doubt the parent-teacher association will fix up a whist drive or coffee parties or a fair, so there should be plenty of money for food and so on. After all, a school is only formally opened once in its lifetime, so we ought to make the occasion one which our guests will remember.’

‘What about the choir and the orchestra, Headmaster?’ persisted the teacher responsible for these amenities. ‘The songs will have to be chosen and rehearsed, and —’

‘Make out a list, Phillips, and bring it along to me. One thing, we have time in hand. The same goes for the orchestra. A list of possible works and, if a soloist can be found, all the better. The audience always likes to have a solo performance thrown in, whether instrumental or vocal.’

‘There is Fallon on the trumpet, Headmaster, and —’

‘Excellent. See to it and let me have the details. Now we come to another point, gentlemen. The governors want to make us a present to mark the official opening. They are prepared with some suggestions of their own if we have no special request, but would like to give us something we ourselves would prefer.’

Suggestions came readily and every suggestion had its detractors.

‘A small cricket pavilion, perhaps.’

‘Redundant. What’s wrong with the gym changing room?’

‘A piece of statuary.’ (This came from the art master, Mr Pybus, who was hoping for a commission.)

‘Some oaf would contrive to put graffiti on it,’ said a dissenting voice.

‘A memorial window.’

‘Too churchy. Besides, it would get broken.’

‘Heraldic lions on the front gates.’

‘They would be an Aunt Sally for the local toughs.’

‘To hark back a little,’ said the art master, ‘is the affair to be run on the lines of an open day? I mean, if so, there must be exhibitions of work. I have some very promising boys taking GCE in art, and —’

The headmaster sat back and let the tide of suggestions and argument surge round him. It ceased after a bit and then the deputy head, who had not joined in any arguments, said, ‘To get back to the point, I thought we were discussing the gift the governors have decided to donate to the school, were we not? I was wondering about a water-lily pond for the quad.’

‘The groundsman won’t grass-seed the quad until the autumn and then the grass has got to grow. We wouldn’t have the pond for goodness knows how long,’ said the master who ran the gardening club. ‘Otherwise I like that suggestion, but I’m sure the governors will want their present to be on view on opening day.’

‘And so it can be,’ said Mr Burke. ‘I suggest that we get the quad completely levelled and the pond sunk, before anything is done about grassing the rest of the area. There would be no point in digging up a lot of new turf to sink the pond. There is going to be a plinth of double paving-stones all round the quad and with that and a nice level surface and the pond there won’t be any eyesore and all the grassing can come later. We are making the quad strictly out of bounds to the boys, of course.’

‘If you have water-lilies you need goldfish,’ said young Mr Scaife.

‘If you have goldfish, a heron will get them,’ said Mr Phillips.

‘A heron won’t come down to a space which is entirely enclosed by high buildings,’ argued Scaife.

‘Why don’t we ask the boys for suggestions? Make a good subject for an essay,’ said the junior English master. ‘After all, the school is as much theirs as ours.’

‘Well, gentlemen,’ said Mr Ronsonby, ‘I don’t think this is a matter which can be settled out of hand. Perhaps you would all go away and give it your earnest consideration. I shall call another staff meeting at the end of next week and, if necessary, take a vote.’ He motioned Burke to stay behind as the others filed out. ‘I like the idea of that water-lily pond,’ he said.

‘Well, I can be sure of three votes in favour of it, my own, and those of Filkins and I think Scaife. Filkins can see his gardening club as honorary custodians of the pond. They’ll revel in doing the planting and he’ll see that they make a success of it. He’s got a very tidy little pool in his own back garden, so there’s nothing he doesn’t know about fish and water plants.’

The English master set his essay subject to the second, third and fourth years, as anybody higher up the school was not likely to stay long enough to receive much benefit from any amenity which the governors provided. This was pointed out by the senior English master, who added that, in any case, the fifth and sixth were far too busy with preparing for public examinations to be pestered with an essay which had nothing to do with their work.

The bulk of the middle school, it seemed, favoured a trampoline for the gymnasium or a school swimming-bath, or (a project which the music master had been fighting for years) the formation of a school pop group with instruments and a microphone, all to be provided by the governors.

The staff, meeting with Mr Ronsonby again on Friday afternoon, settled almost unanimously for the lily pond, and Margaret Wirrell was instructed to get leaflets from leading firms (not necessarily local ones this time) and submit them to Mr Filkins. When he had whittled the possible firms down to three or four, Mr Ronsonby promised to bring up the subject at the governors’ meeting on the following Wednesday ‘and see what they think,’ he said. ‘After that, if they agree to give us the pond, they may prefer to get estimates and tenders for themselves, so I shall make it clear that our list merely offers some suggestions. They will like to know that we have taken that amount of trouble over the matter, and that we are enthusiastically in favour of the pond.’

‘I hope the official opening won’t interfere with the school journey,’ said young Scaife in an aside to his friend Marmont.

‘There is no chance of that, Mr Scaife,’ said Burke. ‘The opening will be early enough in the term to avoid any clash. It is not ideal that the journey is to take place in school time, anyway.’ (Mr Scaife and the other masters who were going to Greece thought that it was.) ‘Unfortunately, to obtain the concession of cheap fares, Mr Pythias had to settle for June. Had it not been an outing of high educational value, Pythias would never have applied for school-time leave or had it granted.’

This brought back the missing Pythias to everybody’s mind. His absence by this time had been taken as a matter of course by the rest of the staff, although they had not ceased to speculate about it, but now that his name had cropped up again in this public way, Scaife asked, ‘I suppose there’s no news of him, Headmaster?’

‘If there were, Mr Scaife, the staff would be the first people to know.’

The masters dispersed to dismiss their classes. Mr Ronsonby never held staff meetings outside school hours. There were more reasons for this than mere consideration for the staff. The school was rich in out-of-school activities and the various clubs were held directly school was finished on a Friday afternoon. Friday was the day for the choir with or without the orchestra. The poultry club (with arrangements for weekend feeding) had chosen Friday and so had the chess club and other out-of-school societies. Mr Ronsonby was known to be greatly in favour of the clubs and to look very kindly upon those who gave up their time to run them. He knew, however, that to keep his staff after school hours merely to attend a staff meeting would not only breed resentment among the teachers, but would result in the winding-up of the clubs, for no boy, however keen, would be willing to hang about for half an hour or more, even if the staff themselves would be prepared to carry on the clubs so much later than usual.

‘I shall need to give up my Monday evenings as well,’ said Mr Phillips, attempting a martyred air as he left with Mr Filkins. ‘If choir and orchestra are to be involved, they will need rehearsing more than once a week. When it gets nearer the date of the opening, I may need to ask for some school time as well.’

‘You’ll be quite popular so long as you ask for last lesson on a Friday afternoon,’ said Mr Filkins. ‘Nobody does any work after break on a Friday. It’s simply a matter of keeping sufficient order to ensure that somebody doesn’t actually burn the school down. Jodley, in my form, is a member of your orchestra. You are welcome to him any time you like.’

‘He is our tympanist.’

‘I’ll bet he is. Has he busted a drum or the cymbals yet?’

‘You know,’ said the junior English master to his senior colleague, ‘when we have the next staff meeting I’d like to suggest to the Old Man that we include some verse speaking in the opening-day programme.’

‘Such as what?’

‘Well, the school is named after Sir George Etherege. Wouldn’t it be a thought if we had some of Sir George’s verses spoken?’

‘Such as what?’

‘Well, I thought of getting the verse-speaking choir to make a rather theatrical bow to the mayoress and the wife of the chairman of the governors — they are bound to be sitting together — and give them the first stanza of “Ladies, though to — ” ’

‘Though to what?’ asked his senior sardonically. ‘A poem written by a man who was alive throughout the reign of Charles Two is hardly — never mind. Spit it out. I’ve forgotten it.’

‘Ladies, though to your conquering eyes

Love owes his chiefest victories,

And borrows those bright arms from you

With which he does the world subdue,

Yet you yourselves are not above

The empire nor the griefs of love.’

‘Have you forgotten, or didn’t you know, that the town clerk’s wife is staying with friends because the chairman of the governors —’

‘Oh, Lord! I’d forgotten that!’

‘Forget the verse speaking, too.’

‘I don’t see why the choir and the orchestra should have it all their own way. Then there’s Pybus. He will make the art room a showplace not only with the boys’ work, but with his own.’

‘Pybus can’t draw, paint or sculpt.’

‘The boys turn out some good stuff.’

‘Oh, yes, he’s a good teacher, but he can’t produce the goods himself. I’ll tell you who ought to have gone in for art in a big way and that’s Pythias. Did he ever show you any of his work?’

‘No, not that I remember. I wonder where he’s got to?’

‘Don’t we all. Anyway, if you’d seen what Pythias can do, you’d remember all right. He showed some of us one or two pictures, but Pybus wouldn’t have been over-enthusiastic about them, I daresay. There’s a lot in that gag — Shaw’s, was it? — he who can, does; he who cannot, teaches.’

‘Aimed at the literary critics, I suppose, but unfair, if so. Many of them are very good writers themselves. But this showmanship business. Filkins wants to stage an exhibition of cut flowers and garden produce. There might be promotion for anybody whose work catches the governors’ eyes. I don’t want to be left out of the running.’

‘Filkins has his uses. At least he got his boys to clear up that mess in the quad.’

‘He says he didn’t. Carpenter wants to fix up a cricket match on opening day — fathers and older brothers against the school. It looks as though everybody is aiming at a place in the sun except you and me.’

‘Not to worry, my poor ambitious lad. I certainly don’t.’

‘It will be a damn good thing when the whole business is over. Failing anything by Sir George Etherege — God! How we could have spread ourselves if only we’d been named after Tennyson or Matthew Arnold! Oh, what do you think about Kipling’s If? Always goes down well with the older generation.’

‘Yes, but most of them have given up the struggle to live by its precepts.’

‘If they ever tried them out! Then, of course, there’s Rabbi ben Ezra. Strange to say, most boys like that rather sickening piece.’

‘If you’re going all out for the tried and trite, what’s the matter with Gunga Din? I’d abandon the whole verse speaking idea, if I were you,’ said Burke, when, unable to obtain consolation from his senior colleague, the young man canvassed his views.

‘English is a major school subject, far more important than music and art and cricket matches and flowers and mixed veg.’

‘So is maths, but it’s not a show-off subject.’

‘I happen to know that Gibbs is going to exhibit a working model of Stephenson’s Rocket that his lower-fifth history class have made. A perishing waste of time I call it. That’s not history teaching,’ said the junior English master, who was still racking his brains to think of something to put on show, to young Mr Scaife, the next confidant.

‘It keeps his lads happy. They’re all on the fidget just waiting to leave. I call them the factory-hands-and-union-block-vote brigade,’ said Scaife.

‘Well,’ said Mr Burke, who overheard all this, ‘anything is preferable to school, I expect, for some of them. The growing boy can’t wait to burst the bonds of the prison house. Has it ever struck you that school is purgatory to a dull boy?’

‘Well, he retaliates by making it purgatory for the likes of us,’ said the senior English master. ‘Anyway, when I think of myself I think of the Apocrypha: “And some there be that have no memorial”, so cheer up, laddie. Those words will apply to most of us, no doubt, in time.’

‘Then I propose,’ said Mr Scaife, ‘that we have the names of the staff inscribed with a sculptor’s chisel on the surround of the governors’ lily pond.’