‘Well done,’ said Lady Beazeley with a beaming smile, and Judith took the cup and bobbed a curtsey and returned to her place to a storm of applause and with cheeks, she knew, red as beetroots.
Then, finally, the School Hymn. The music mistress, already in her place, crashed out a chord on her piano, everybody rose to their feet, and eight hundred voices just about raised the roof.
He who would valiant be
'Gainst all disaster
Let him in constancy
Follow the Master.
The power of music had always affected Judith deeply, shifting her moods in an instant between the ephemeral emotions of sorrow and joy. Now, she had come to the end of an era, and knew that never again would she hear the familiar words of Bunyan's great poem without remembering every detail of the moment. The hot summer afternoon, the scent of flowers, the great surge of voices. It was hard to decide whether she felt happy or sad.
Since Lord thou dost defend
Us with thy Spirit
We know we at the end
Shall life inherit.
Happy. She was happy. With the resilience of youth, her spirits soared. And, singing, another cheerful thought occurred to her. With the Carnhayl Cup under her belt she was in a strong position to get possession of her new car before she and Loveday set off for their visit to Porthkerris. They would drive together. Two friends, done with school. Grown-ups.
Then fancies flee away
I'll fear not what men say
I'll labour night and day
To be a pilgrim.
Speech Day was over, everybody departed, the school, the dormitory, deserted. Only Judith remained behind, sitting on her bed, sorting out the contents of her handbag, and putting off time until six o'clock when she had an appointment in the headmistress's study to say goodbye to Miss Catto. Her luggage and her battered trunk were already on their way to the Carey-Lewises in the boot of the Colonel's Daimler. Later, when Miss Catto had finished with her, Mr Baines had volunteered to come and drive her back to Nancherrow. The time spent with him as they made this journey would be a splendid opportunity to press the case for getting her new car.
Finished with her handbag, she crossed the dormitory and went to lean out of the opened window. Saw the empty lawns sloping to the tennis courts and the shrubbery. All traces of the garden party had been cleared away, and shadows were beginning to lengthen across the trodden grass. She thought of the afternoon when she had seen it all for the first time; the day that she had come with her mother for a little private prowl. In retrospect, the four years which lay between had flown more quickly than Judith could ever have imagined, and yet, in some ways, the long-ago afternoon seemed a lifetime away.
Five to six. Time to go. She turned back to the empty dormitory, retrieved her handbag, and went downstairs. The great stairway stood empty, and everything seemed strangely silent. No chatter of voices, no clangour of bells, no distant tinkle of scales from the music room, as some girl laboured through her practice hour. She knocked on the study door, and Miss Catto called ‘Come in’ and Judith found her headmistress, not sitting behind her desk, but at ease in an armchair, turned to the long window and with her feet up on a stool. She had been reading The Times, but as Judith appeared, folded it and dropped it onto the floor beside her.
‘Judith. Come along. I'm not going to spring to my feet, because I'm exhausted.’
She had removed her gown and hood and tossed them across her desk, and her appearance was quite different without these, badges of office. Now it was possible to admire the silk afternoon dress, and to observe her legs, shapely in fine silk stockings. Her navy-blue court shoes had little heels and silver buckles, and, comfortably relaxed after her demanding day, she looked both feminine and attractive, and it occurred to Judith that it was really a shame that Mr Baines already had a wife and family of his own.
‘I don't wonder you're exhausted. You've never stopped all day.’
Another armchair had been set in position, and between stood the low table, on which had been placed a silver salver with a bottle of sherry and three small glasses. Judith saw this and frowned. Never had there been so much as a whiff of wine in this room. Miss Catto saw her puzzlement and smiled. ‘The three glasses are for you and me and Mr Baines when he turns up. But we won't wait for him. Pour us each a glass, dear, and then sit down.’
‘I've never drunk sherry.’
‘Well, this is a very suitable day for you to start. And I think it will do us both good.’
So she poured the two glasses, and then settled herself in the cushions of the second chair. Miss Catto raised her glass. ‘To you and your future, Judith.’
‘Thank you.’
‘And before I forget, congratulations on winning the Carnhayl Cup. And remember, it was an almost unanimous vote, and absolutely nothing to do with me.’
‘It was all a bit surprising…I thought Freda Roberts would get it. And I nearly fell over going up those wretched steps…’
‘Well, you didn't, and that's all that matters. Now, what's the programme for the holidays…?’
The sherry was good. It warmed, and made Judith feel comfortable and at ease. She curled up her legs, as she would never before have dared to do, and told Miss Catto her plans.
‘I'm going back to Nancherrow to begin with, and then Mrs Warren has asked me to Porthkerris for a couple of weeks.’
‘With your friend Heather.’ Miss Catto never forgot any person's name. ‘You'll enjoy that.’
‘Yes, and they've asked Loveday too, but Loveday can't make up her mind whether to come or not.’
Miss Catto laughed. ‘Typical. Perhaps she feels a bit shy?’
‘No, it's not that. It's her new pony. She's been to Porthkerris with me before. We went once, just for a day, and then another time a whole weekend.’
‘And did Loveday enjoy herself?’
‘Enormously. I was rather surprised.’
‘Three friends is sometimes not a very good number.’
‘I know, but Loveday and Heather got on like a house on fire, and Mr and Mrs Warren think Loveday's a real character. And Heather's brothers teased and ragged her, but she loved it all and gave as good as she got.’
‘Splendid for her to get away from the rather rarefied atmosphere of home. To see how other people live and fit in with their ways.’
‘I'm hoping she'll come, and that I'll be able to drive her there, in my own car. Did Mr Baines tell you about that?’
‘He did drop a hint.’
‘It was his idea. He said I needed to be independent, and perhaps, if I passed my Matric…’ Judith hesitated, not wishing to sound smug or boastful, ‘But now, I've won the Carnhayl Cup…?’
Miss Catto, understanding, laughed. ‘I should think so! Make your point with him while he hasn't got a leg to stand on. Independence! What joy. Now, tell me more. What else is on the cards?’
‘I'll probably go and be with Aunt Biddy for a bit. Uncle Bob's at sea, and Ned's joined the Royal Oak, so she's always happy to have a bit of company. We thought we'd go to London for a day or two, and she'd help me buy some new clothes for Singapore. I can't arrive looking too dowdy.’
‘Most certainly not. Just promise me one thing. Don't fall in love while you're in Singapore and get married and throw Oxford out of the window. You've got all your life to fall in love and get married, but you'll never have the opportunity of going to University again.’
‘Miss Catto, I have no intention of getting married for ages. Certainly not before I'm twenty-five.’
‘Good for you. And watch out for shipboard romances. I've never had one, but I hear they're lethal.’
‘I won't forget.’
Miss Catto smiled. ‘I shall miss you,’ she told Judith. ‘But it's your life, and time for you to move on, make your own decisions, set your own rules instead of having them set for you by some other person. Just remember that the most important thing is to be truthful to yourself. If you hang on to that, you won't go far wron
g.’
‘You've always been so kind…’
‘My dear child, such rubbish. Simply doing my job.’
‘No. More than that. And I always felt badly because I never took up your invitation to stay with your mother and father in Oxford. I would really have loved to go, and to meet them, but somehow…’
She hesitated. Miss Catto laughed. ‘You found a surrogate family of your own. An infinitely more suitable and satisfactory arrangement. After all, there is only so much a headmistress can provide in the way of direction. A feeling of home and belonging has to come from someone else. Looking at you now, I would say that Mrs Carey-Lewis has done an excellent job. But, too, I think it's time you went back to your own family. Now…’
But at this juncture their conversation was interrupted by a firm rap at the door, and the appearance of Mr Baines.
‘I'm not disturbing you…?’
‘Not at all,’ Miss Catto told him.
He gave Judith a pat on her shoulder. ‘Your chauffeur's reporting for duty. Not too early, I hope?’
Miss Catto smiled up at him from her chair. ‘We're having a restoring glass of sherry. Sit down and join us for a moment.’
Which Mr Baines did, making himself comfortable, accepting his drink, and lighting himself a cigarette which made him look uncharacteristically racy. They talked. He had already congratulated Judith, during the course of the Garden Party, on winning the Carnhayl Cup, and clearly saw no reason to mention it again, but he was warm with praise for Miss Catto, and the success and general smooth running of the day.
‘We were certainly blessed with the weather,’ she pointed out. ‘I just wish somebody would edit the Chairman's annual speech. Who wants to listen to a blow-by-blow account of the dry rot in the chapel rafters? Or the measles epidemic in the Easter term.’
Mr Baines laughed. ‘It's a sort of compulsion. When he stands up to speak at the County Council meetings, everybody settles down for a restoring doze…’
But finally it was time to end it all. The sherry glasses were emptied and Mr Baines looked at his watch.
‘Time, I think, to go.’
They stood.
‘I shan't come and see you off,’ Miss Catto told Judith. ‘I hate waving goodbye. But please keep in touch, and let me know what you are doing.’
‘I will.’
‘And have a splendid summer holiday.’
‘I'll do that too.’
‘Goodbye, my dear.’
‘Goodbye, Miss Catto.’
They shook hands. They did not kiss. They had never kissed. Judith turned and went from the room and Mr Baines, following, closed the door behind them. Miss Catto was left alone. She stood for a moment, thoughtful and still; then went to pick up the newspaper she had discarded when Judith appeared. The news was becoming graver as each day passed. Now, two thousand Nazi guards, believed armed, had already moved into Danzig. Sooner or later, Hitler was going to invade Poland, just as he had annexed Czechoslovakia and Austria. And that would mean another war, and a whole new generation, on the brink of rich and rewarding lives, were going to be sucked into and decimated by this appalling conflict.
She folded the paper neatly and laid it on her desk. It was necessary, she knew, to remain strong and resolute, but it was at moments like this, just as Judith left her for the last time, that the tragedy of such wastage made her heart feel as though it were being torn apart.
Her gown and her hood lay where she had placed them. Now, she gathered them up, bundled them and held them close, as though for comfort. Speech Day was a hurdle to be taken every year, and always left her exhausted, but still, no reason to feel so bereft, so anguished. Suddenly tears welled in her eyes, and as they streamed down her cheeks, she buried her face in the fusty black material, silently raging against this imminent war; mourning for youth, for Judith, and for opportunities that would be lost forever.
August now, and a wet Monday morning. Summer rain, soft and drenching, streamed down upon Nancherrow. Drifting in from the south-east, low grey clouds obscured the cliffs and the sea, and heavy-leaved trees drooped and dripped. Gutters ran and drain-pipes gurgled, and the weekly wash was postponed for a day. Nobody complained. After a long spell of hot, dry weather, the sweet coolth was welcome. The rain fell with relentless steadiness, and thirsty flowers and fruit and vegetables absorbed the moisture with gratitude, and the air was filled with the incomparable scent of newly damp earth.
Loveday, with Tiger at her heels, emerged into the outdoors by way of the scullery, stepped out into the yard, and stopped for a moment to sniff the air and fill her lungs with this sweet invigorating freshness. She wore gumboots and an old raincoat, pulled over her shorts and a striped cotton sweater, but her head was bare, and as she set off in the direction of Lidgey Farm, the rain descended upon her hair, causing the dark locks to curl more tightly than ever.
She took the road that led towards the stables, but turned off before reaching them, following, instead, the rutted lane that led up onto the moors. Here the ancient, lichened stone walls were divided from the lane by a deep ditch, now running with water, and gorse grew in prickly thickets aflame with yellow flowers smelling of almonds. There were foxgloves too, in profusion, and pale-pink mallow, and tangles of wild honeysuckle, all the way up the lane, and the dark granite of rock wore velvety patches of saffron-coloured lichen. Beyond the wall were pasture fields, where Mr Mudge's Guernsey milk cows grazed, the grass a brilliant green between the random whale-shaped crests of hidden boulders, and overhead gulls, flying inland with the weather, wheeled and screamed.
Loveday enjoyed rain. She was used to it, and it exhilarated her. Tiger ran ahead, and she followed him, quickening her pace to keep up with his enthusiasm. After a bit, she became very warm and unbuttoned the raincoat, and let it flap around and behind her, like a useless pair of wings. She went on and the lane zigzagged, to and fro, up the hill. Lidgey lay just ahead, but she couldn't see it because of the misty cloud. Which didn't matter, because she knew it was there, just as she knew all of Nancherrow, the farms and estate, like the back of her hand. The acres of land which belonged to her father were her world, and blindfold, she knew that she could have found her way quite safely in any corner of it. Even down the gunnera tunnel, through the quarry, and so to the cliffs and the cove.
At last, the final bend in the lane, and the Lidgey farmhouse loomed out of the murk, above and ahead of her; solid and squat, with farm buildings and stables and piggeries all about it. Mrs Mudge's kitchen window shone out like a yellow candle, but that was not surprising considering the gloomy conditions, because Mrs Mudge's kitchen, even on the brightest of days, was inclined to be a lightless place.
She reached the gate which led into the farmyard and paused for a moment to get her breath. Tiger was already through and ahead of her, so she climbed the gate and crossed the mucky yard, rich with the reek of cattle manure. In the middle of the yard a stone midden was heaped with this, steaming gently, festering away until such time as it would be ripe for spreading on fields and ploughed in. Around the place, Mrs Mudge's brown hens squawked and pecked, foraging for goodies, and on the top of the midden wall, her handsome cock stood tiptoe and stretched his wings and crowed his heart out. Loveday picked her way across the slippery cobbles, and went through a second gate and into the farmhouse garden. A pebble path led to the front door, and here she toed off her rubber boots and, in socked feet, let herself indoors.
The ceiling was low, the little hall dim. A wooden staircase rose to the upper floor. She put her thumb on the iron latch of the kitchen door and pushed it open, to be assailed by the warm smell of Mrs Mudge's cooking. Vegetable broth and warm bread. ‘Mrs Mudge?’
Mrs Mudge was there, standing at her sink peeling potatoes, surrounded as always by a certain chaos. She had been rolling pastry at one end of her kitchen table, but because the kitchen was living room as well, the other end of the table was piled with newspapers, seed catalogues, ironmonger's brochures, and bills waiting
to be paid. Uncleaned boots stood by the range, tea-towels hung over it, and washing aired on a rack, yanked by a pulley to the ceiling. Mr Mudge's long johns were much in evidence. There was, as well, a dresser, painted blue, its shelves crammed not only with mismatched items of china, but curling postcards, packets of worm-pills, old letters, dog leads, a syringe, an old-fashioned telephone, and a basket of mud-encrusted eggs waiting to be washed. Mrs Mudge's hens were careless where they laid, and a favourite place to search for eggs was at the back of the sheep-dog's kennel.
Loveday scarcely noticed the clutter. The Lidgey kitchen always looked this way, and she liked it. It was somehow very cosy. And Mrs Mudge was comfortably grubby as well, standing there flanked by blackened saucepans, dishes of hen-food, and all the unwashed crocks and bowls of her morning's labour. She wore a wraparound pinafore and her rubber boots. She wore these boots all the time, because she was constantly in and out of the house, flinging crusts to the hens, or fetching kindling, or heaving baskets of dirty clothes out of the washhouse, and it was scarcely worthwhile taking the boots off. The flagged floor and the worn rugs were distinctly dirty, but the dirt didn't show too much, and Mr Mudge and Walter saw nothing to complain about, so well fed were they, so cared for, and so unbothered about such trivial matters. (And yet, Loveday knew, the dairy, for which Mrs Mudge was solely responsible, was hygienically spotless, scrubbed and disinfected. Which, considering the number of people who drank her milk and ate her butter and cream, was perhaps just as well.)
Mrs Mudge turned from her sink, with a potato in one hand and her lethal knife, a much-honed old carver, in the other. ‘Loveday!’ As always, she looked delighted. There was nothing she enjoyed so much as an unexpected interruption. A good excuse to put the kettle on, make a pot of tea, and gossip. ‘Well, this is some nice surprise.’