Mr Campion's Fault (7 page)

Perdita laid the back of her spare hand against her forehead as if warding off a swoon. ‘I promise, my little turtle dove, but in all honesty I think it’s me who might need a bodyguard from all those teenage boys looking at my legs, not to mention Hilda Browne …’

‘I wasn’t thinking of you as a bodyguard, my love,’ said Rupert, looking deep into his wife’s eyes. ‘More as a translator.’

Perdita’s retort remained on the tip of her tongue as they both reacted to a discreet knock on their door.

Rupert answered the knock to find a middle-aged woman with sharp but not unattractive features holding a small bottle of milk, much in the pose of a gift-bearing king from the East in a nativity scene.

‘Mrs Armitage said you’d be wanting this,’ said the woman, making her offering.

‘That’s very kind of you, but you really shouldn’t have troubled …’

‘No trouble,’ said the woman firmly. ‘I’m working here tonight, doing the tea for the boys. I should think you’ll be at the headmaster’s table, won’t you?’

‘I believe so,’ said Rupert, not sure that he wasn’t being interrogated.

‘Well, I’ve got some nice neck-end of lamb stewing away already. Slow cooking brings out the flavour, I always say.’

‘I’m sure it will be delicious.’

He made to close the door but the woman made no move to go.

‘I was hoping,’ she said, ‘to catch Mrs Campion for a word whilst I was here, if it’s not being too forward.’

Rupert, slightly flustered and clutching a milk bottle he felt sure belonged in a dolls’ house, turned to his wife for guidance and Perdita, as usual, glided effortlessly to the rescue with her most charming smile.

‘Is there anything I can help you with, Mrs …?’

‘Braithwaite,’ said the woman, ‘Ada Braithwaite. I work here as the cook, or one of ’em.’

‘Nice to meet you, Mrs Braithwaite. I’m Perdita Campion.’

Perdita offered a hand for shaking and Ada took it hesitantly.

‘My son Roderick is a pupil here.’

‘I’m sure you can be very proud of him.’

‘Pride’s got nowt to do with it, leastways not with what I’ve come about.’

‘Is there a problem with Roderick? You’ll have to forgive me – I haven’t actually met any of the boys yet.’

‘There’s not a problem as such. Roderick’s a good lad who works hard and doesn’t lie. If he ever gives you trouble, you let me know and I’ll sort him out double quick.’

‘So how can I help you?’ Perdita asked carefully, recognizing a proud mother when she saw one.

‘You’re taking on Bertram Browne’s production, this
Doctor Faustus
thing.’

‘I am indeed,’ Perdita said cheerfully, ‘and I’m sure it will be wonderful.’

‘Well, be that as it may, my boy Roderick was in thrall to Mr Browne and Bertram’s death has shaken him up a lot – far more than he lets on. He’s taking the main part, I believe, in the production.’

‘Your Roderick’s playing Faustus?’

‘He’s learned all his lines. That’s not the problem.’

‘So what is, Mrs Braithwaite?’

‘Hilda Browne, that’s what. She’s in the show an’ all and I don’t want her taking it out on Roderick.’

‘Taking
what
out on Roderick?’

‘Her brother. Roderick and Mr Browne were very close, you see, and I reckon Hilda blames my Roderick for his death.’

Dinner in the long, cold school dining room was a self-service affair, the diners forming a line behind the headmaster, naturally, to shovel food on to plates from a series of metal tureens heated by small spirit burners. Seating around a long refectory table was informal, though the twenty or so boarders (at first sight Perdita had put their number at a round hundred) spaced themselves diplomatically away from the Armitages and the Campions. The food was hearty solid fuel appropriate for a winter evening: a lamb stew with potato and turnips (known in Yorkshire, Rupert learned, as ‘swede’), followed by a spotted dick suet pudding and hot custard. Unlike the famous Dickensian scene, when Rupert asked politely if there was any more, Celia Armitage gave him a beatific smile and said he should help himself as he was bound to need all his strength out on the rugby pitch.

It was only when the plates had been cleared that the boarders were despatched to a ‘prep room’ to which they went, commented Rupert, with an enthusiasm he had not encountered in his own schooldays. This was because, Mr Armitage confided, he had allowed his wife to persuade him to install a television for those pupils who boarded during the week which operated on an honour system and was only turned on once homework had been finished by all the boys.

‘All the school’s pupils seem remarkably well-behaved for boys of their age,’ said Perdita, ‘though of course I haven’t actually met any to talk to as yet.’

‘They’re a good crop of lads,’ beamed Brigham Armitage, ‘and you won’t get any trouble from them. If you do, refer them to Celia. They are far more afraid of my wife than they are of me!’

‘Actually,’ said Rupert, coming in on the cue he and Perdita had agreed upon, ‘we have already had a couple of boys referred to us in a manner of speaking, though of course we’ve no idea who they are.’

‘One of them would be Roderick Braithwaite,’ said Mrs Armitage to her husband. ‘His mother asked permission to have a word with Miss Campion when she took their milk over to the Lodge. I couldn’t refuse.’

Mr Armitage patted his wife’s hand. ‘Of course not. I hope Ada did not upset you, Perdita.’

‘Not at all, though I’m not sure I could offer any comfort to her. She was concerned about Roderick’s role as Doctor Faustus and Hilda Browne insisting on being Helen of Troy.’

The headmaster nodded solemnly. ‘It is a difficult situation, I admit. Hilda is a distinctly odd lady and we have given her an awful lot of leeway because we valued Bertram and his contribution to the school so highly. I am tempted to say that Bertram’s death unhinged the poor woman, but frankly she’s always been that way. “Mad as a badger”, as the wing commander would say.’

‘Charity, darling, charity,’ Celia reminded him.

‘Mrs Braithwaite seems to think that Hilda Browne holds Roderick responsible for Bertram’s death,’ Perdita pressed.

‘Now that’s just nonsense, and if Hilda starts acting up, let me know and I’ll give her her marching orders. I won’t have young Roderick upset. He’s a bright lad and he’s been through a lot. Lost his father down the pit when he was a nipper, you know, and Ada’s done a fine job of bringing him up single-handed. I made sure he got a scholarship to come here and he hasn’t let me down academically. He’s university material in my opinion, but he took Bertram’s death hard so I’d appreciate it if you’d keep an eye on him.’

‘I certainly will,’ said Perdita. ‘After all, he is going to be my leading man.’

‘Hmmm,’ the headmaster ruminated. ‘He insisted on going ahead with the show out of loyalty to Bertram, and of course Hilda sees it as some sort of memorial to her brother.’

‘Don’t worry, Headmaster,’ said Rupert. ‘If anyone can handle temperamental actors it’s my wife here, and I’m sure she’ll look out for young Roderick. Funnily enough, I was asked to keep an eye out for another pupil … Andrew Ramsden … though I’m not clear why.’

Mr Armitage seemed even more chastened by this news. ‘You’ll see Andrew out on the rugby field; he’s the captain of our under-sixteens and a fine player. He’s also best friends with Roderick Braithwaite. Not quite as bright but steady enough. His problem is that his father is a police detective, a chief inspector, and at the moment he’s doing his detecting in Denby Ash.’

‘And why is that a problem?’ Perdita asked innocently.

‘He’s re-opening some old wounds made by a man called Haydon Bagley, the black sheep of Denby Ash, who, I am sad to say, happens to be an Old Boy of this school. In fact, he was one of our first Old Boys – certainly one of the first of our Bursary Boys.’ Armitage saw the flicker of puzzlement on Perdita’s face and explained: ‘We have always had a policy of providing bursaries for local lads from the village where their families would find it difficult to afford the fees. In Denby Ash that has invariably meant the sons of miners.’

‘But not their daughters,’ Perdita said sweetly.

‘We do what we can,’ said the headmaster without embarrassment. ‘Not perhaps all we would like to. Haydon Bagley was one of the first of our Bursary Boys, back in 1949. His father was a leading light in the local brass band and taking in young Haydon as a day boy was, I admit, a good piece of public relations for the school – at least at first. Unfortunately, Haydon turned out to be a bad egg. He went to work for the Yorkshire Bank and over the years wormed his way into being treasurer or book-keeper for every organization in the village, volunteering to do the jobs no one else wanted to, from the local Co-Op and the Parochial Church Council to the Pigeon Fanciers’ Club and the Mothers’ Union. Over the years he stole from all of them, including the brass band – for which he will never be forgiven. He was caught and sent to prison for fraud and embezzlement.’

‘Case closed, then,’ said Rupert. ‘So why is Andrew Ramsden’s dad investigating him?’

Mr Armitage shook his head wearily. ‘Haydon finished his sentence and was released some weeks ago. It was thought he might try and return to Denby Ash but he seems to have disappeared. The truth is that so many people here felt betrayed and cheated by him, that if he did show his face he would be greeted with hostility – possibly violence. A mining community can be a very …
masculine
… entity. Miners have hard lives and when they feel betrayed by one of their own they have been known to deal out their own sort of eminently practical justice.’

‘Surely, if he’s been in prison, this Haydon Bagley chap has already been punished for what he did?’ argued Rupert.

‘But judging by local feeling,’ said the headmaster, ‘not punished enough. Not nearly enough.’

‘R
ight, boys,’ commanded Perdita, ‘lay those damned books aside.’

Her command was answered by two rows of silent desks each occupied by a silent, blank-faced boy.

‘Oh,
come on
, you guys. It’s from the play – just about the first thing the Good Angel tells Faustus to do. Who’s playing the Good Angel?’

The classroom remained silent until a nervous ginger-haired lad with an impressive splattering of freckles nervously raised a hand. ‘No one is, Miss. He’s been cut and so has the Evil Angel. We’ve also lost the Clown, Robin, a Vintner and a Carter, a Pope, the King of Hungary, the Holy Roman Emperor and five of the seven deadly sins.’

‘I see,’ said Perdita, disguising the fact that she clearly did not. ‘Can anyone let me have the text we’re supposed to be performing?’

The ginger-haired boy offered her a sheaf of Roneo-ed sheets of typed foolscap paper held together by a bootlace toggle in the top left corner. With a sigh she took it, pushing the new Penguin edition of
Christopher Marlowe – The Complete Plays
,
on which she had spent ten shillings, into her shoulder bag.

‘Mr Browne had to cut quite a lot,’ said the boy.

‘But not Helen of Troy?’

‘Oh no, she stays in.’

Perdita’s eyes scanned the classroom but could not find an adolescent gaze willing to meet hers. ‘From what I remember it’s only a walk-on part,’ she said airily. ‘We’ll just have to hope she walks very quickly.’

An infectious, though barely audible snigger rippled over the bowed heads of Perdita’s audience as the boys pretended to concentrate on their scripts and Perdita allowed herself a smile at discovering kindred spirits.

‘So who can tell me what’s left of what we actors laughingly call “the text”?’ she asked, weighing the flimsy sheets of typing in her right hand. ‘And please introduce yourselves. You know I’m Miss Browning but I’ve no idea who you are and we don’t have long in which to get to know each other.’

Once again, the red-headed boy in the front row raised his hand. ‘I’m Faustus, Miss.’

‘So you must be Roderick … Braithwaite, isn’t it?’

The young man’s shoulders straightened with pride at being recognized. ‘Yes, Miss.’

‘Well, if Mr Browne cast you as Faustus he must have had faith in you and presumably he explained his thinking behind what appears to have been rather major cuts to the play.’

‘Bertie – Mr Browne, I mean – had to make way for the music,’ said Roderick, his face a study of concentration, as if choosing his words very carefully.

‘That’s Mr Cawthorne’s department, isn’t it?’

‘He’s the music master, Miss, but Mrs Cawthorne won’t let him have anything to do with our play,’ advised a new, deeper voice, this time from a thick-set youth of dark complexion who, out of school uniform, Perdita felt sure would probably go unchallenged in a public house.

‘And you are?’

‘Mephistophilis, Miss, second-in-command to Lucifer himself.’

‘I know who Mephistophilis is, thank you, but who are you?’ Miss Browning asked sternly but politely.

‘I’m Banville, Miss. I volunteered to do the music myself but they wouldn’t have it. Now we have to put up with the local oompah-band.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Don’t take any notice of Banville, Miss,’ said Roderick, riding to the rescue. ‘He’s a fan of progressive rock music.’

‘You mean like The Moody Blues?’

Perdita spoke before remembering that it was a dangerous thing these days to debate popular music with teenagers, a subject which ignorance of usually resulted in bliss.

The older-than-his-school-uniform-suggested boy snorted loudly in disgust.

‘They’re hippies! Cream and King Crimson are the future of music!’

‘I can’t say I appreciate or agree with your taste,’ Perdita said with a wry smile, ‘but I think Mephistophilis might.’

‘Don’t take any notice of Banville, Miss Browning,’ said her leading man. ‘He’s just hacked off because he wrote a song for the play and Mr Browne threw it out.’

‘You wrote a song? That’s quite impressive.’

It was Mephistophilis the prog-rock fan’s turn to bristle with pride but Dr Faustus was quick to deflate his nemesis.

‘He didn’t write anything really, Miss. He just rearranged the last Faustus speech – the “I’ll burn my books” one – and set it to a distorted guitar. He wanted to call it
Sixteenth Century Schizoid Man
.’

In case the pretty new drama teacher was unfamiliar with the concept, Mephistophilis rose to his feet and mimed the action of a hyperactive electric guitar player, but fortunately did not burst into song before Perdita waved him back down into his seat.

‘Mr Browne said it was a daft idea and told Banville he shouldn’t mess with Marlowe’s dialogue,’ said Roderick, as if summing up for the prosecution.

Perdita adopted what she thought was a judicial pose and addressed the now deflated guitarist. ‘I think that’s very good advice, Banville. However, I’m still not clear on why the text seems to have been cut to a few sheets of foolscap.’ She waved the slight typescript with a flourish.

‘Religion, Miss,’ said Roderick quietly. ‘There’s a quite a lot of it in Denby Ash – the church, the Methodist chapels and tabernacles, the Mission – and we also have a vicar as our physics master, so Bertie – Mr Browne – was sure that someone was bound to be offended by a play where somebody conjured up the Devil and traded his soul for earthly knowledge and the sins of the flesh.’

‘Not to mention the sins of Helen of Troy – the face that launched a thousand whatsists,’ Banville mugged lasciviously, getting in to character.

‘Oh, grow up, you great clot!’ snapped Roderick, waving a fist at his co-star.

‘“Oh, good Faustus, stay thy desperate steps”,’ Perdita declaimed loudly, only to be met with a surprised and surprisingly vacant set of young faces. ‘“I shall be the angel hovering over your head ready to pour a vial of precious grace into your soul …”’

She paused, knowing from bitter experience that she had lost her audience. ‘I suppose that bit’s been cut as well,’ she sighed. ‘Never mind; I’ll go through what’s left of the text over the weekend and we’ll have a proper run through on Monday.
Faustus
really is a very Christian morality play, you know, though that’s not all it is, of course. I hadn’t anticipated this much bowdlerization.’

In front of her Mephistophilis, assuming a double-entendre, let out a high-pitched giggle but every other young face remained as calmly blank as a mill pond.

‘You have heard of Thomas Bowdler, haven’t you? Early-nineteenth-century chap who edited the plays of Shakespeare, taking out all the naughty bits and since then anything that has been expurgated has been “bowdlerized”. Normally it involves getting rid of anything people find a bit rude.’

Perdita was pleased to see a questioning hand rose from the front desks, though instantly suspicious when she focussed and saw it belonged to Mephistophilis. ‘Yes?’ she said carefully.

‘Did they try and do this boulder thing with that nudey show in London last year, Miss?’

‘Do you mean
Hair
?’ Perdita realized she had their full attention.

‘That had more to with theatre censorship and the abolition of the Lord Chamberlain’s office, I think, but speaking personally …’ Now her audience was spellbound and, as one, leaning forward in their seats. ‘I have never appeared on stage in the …’

Perdita extended her comic timing for as long as she dared, even though this was never going to be her toughest audience.

‘… West End, so I really I can’t comment.’

A classroom of youth, as one, deflated around her.

‘Now can we get back to my earlier question, please? I’m still not clear exactly whose religious feelings are we likely to upset with our performance of Christopher Marlowe’s classic and highly respected tragical history.’

A new hand rose unsteadily. It belonged to an angelic boy with blond curls who looked no more than twelve years old and had a face which, in a previous age, could have advertised Pears soap. Perdita nodded permission for the cherub to speak.

‘I’m Lucifer, Miss,’ the cherub sang sweetly.

‘Oh, I very much doubt that,’ Perdita encouraged.

‘His name’s Philip Watson,’ said Mephistophilis helpfully.

Lucifer glared at Mephistophilis briefly, in a most un-angelic way, before continuing.

‘They are all a bit bell, book and candle around here, Miss. The vicar, Old Twiggy, doesn’t approve of any summoning up the Devil or spirits and things, and all the Methodist ministers and lay preachers don’t like the idea of seeing the deadly sins on stage, especially not Lust – which was the first to go. In fact, some of them are opposed to the whole idea of theatre and plays. Mrs Cawthorne is a staunch Methodist, which is why she won’t allow Mr Cawthorne to have anything to do with the production, even though he’s the music master. The Reverend Stan – that’s what we call him – who’s our physics teacher and supposed to be a man of science has to disapprove of the show because he still wears the dog collar. We’ve only got the Denby Ash brass band doing the music because Trotsky is an atheist and he likes upsetting the churches.’

‘And just who is Trotsky?’ asked Perdita. She quickly added: ‘Your brass band one, not the famous one.’

‘Arthur Exley, Miss,’ said Watson. ‘He’s bandmaster for Denby Ash and also a militant hothead in the miners’ union.’

Perdita was sure that was a phrase young Watson had picked up from his parents at the breakfast table, possibly as Watson
pére
read from the editorial of the
Yorkshire Post
.

‘Hence the nickname “Trotsky”?’

Watson, and several of the other boys, nodded in agreement.

‘So, to sum up, apart from the late Mr Browne – and, of course, his sister – and, as far as I can gather, a left wing, musical trade unionist, there are very few people in Denby Ash who approve of our show?’

‘Even the local witch has come out against it,’ said Mephistophilis with a certain amount of glee.

‘Ivy Neal is not a witch!’ snapped Dr Faustus, gripping the edges of the desk which constrained him. ‘She’s just an eccentric old gypsy lady.’

‘Well, I bet you daren’t go down Pinfold Lane after dark!’

‘That’s enough of that, Banville,’ Perdita said sternly, remembering that she had authority and should be asserting it.

‘Mind you,’ Banville continued with relish, ‘you ought to be familiar with ghoulies and ghosties by now, Braithwaite. After all, you’re the one who lives in a haunted house.’

Rupert had dismissed the joking suggestions from his family that he invest in thermal underwear for his expedition to Yorkshire and now, in the middle of Ash Grange’s rugby field with a shiny referee’s whistle bouncing from a cord around his neck and wearing a threadbare purple tracksuit and football boots too big for his feet despite two pairs of socks, he was beginning to wish he had taken the advice seriously.

The temperature was probably not below freezing point and the wind certainly not gale force, but the light rain which had fallen all day seemed – out here, exposed on the playing field – to have the texture of icy needles pricking at his skin. As it would never do for the games master to be seen standing there shivering with only the metal whistle between his lips keeping his teeth from chattering, Rupert decided it was best to keep moving – as much for his circulation as well as his pride – and joined in enthusiastically with ‘circuit training’ which consisted of running circuits of the field at varying speed in order to ‘warm up’, an instruction which the boys under his command greeted with a communal and instinctive groan. Their competitiveness soon became clear, however, as one by one they lapped their new coach with relish.

Warmer, but out of breath, Rupert suggested practising scrums – a quick head count assuring him that he had more than enough bodies on the pitch – and then line-outs as ‘set plays’ were important. When the boys looked at him in bemusement, he explained that he had picked up the term whilst at Harvard and observing that strange illegitimate offspring of rugby, American Football. If he had suddenly announced the abolition of all homework or the free distribution of passes to the BBC’s Lime Grove Studios for the recording of
Top of the Pops
, he could not have gained more instant respect.

The rest of his first training session could easily have been filled with a question-and-answer session on the topic “What’s it like in America, sir?” but one of the fitter, clearly dominant boys suggested that they followed Bertram Browne’s training regime and split into teams for a seven-a-side game. As the boy making the suggestion not only did so politely and turned out to be Andrew Ramsden, the captain of the school’s under-sixteen team, Rupert agreed and accepted the role of nominal referee, interfering in the game as little as possible but sprinting in bursts just long enough to keep his circulation moving.

As the rugby players seemed to know what they were doing and had no real need of a referee, coach or games master, Rupert took the opportunity to get his bearings in the local geography.

The playing fields of Ash Grange School occupied an elevated position overlooking Denby Wood, whilst they in turn were overlooked by the large black spoil heap of Grange Ash colliery which rose on the other side of the Huddersfield road like an extinct Vesuvius. In the distance, through the stinging drizzle, Rupert could make out the Meccano-like winding towers of two other collieries, both of which seemed to be in working order judging by the constant stream of black-dusted lorries trundling from their direction and straining up the hill through the village.

From his vantage point Rupert reckoned he had a view over Denby Ash which could only be rivalled from the top of the Grange Ash muck stack. His eyes followed the descent of the single road sleeved, or so it appeared to him, by a long, continuous terrace of redbrick houses, each one with a chimney pluming dark grey smoke until he was sure he could make out the tower of the church they had passed on their way into the village the day before.