Complete Short Stories (VMC) Read Free

aspect; might have been a Victorian engraving – the end-piece to an idyllic chapter, hitting inadvertently, because of medium, quite the wrong note.
    At the foot of the hillside, with lawns up to its porch, was a little church, which Hester knew from Robert’s letters to be Saxon. Since the eighteenth century it had been used as a private chapel by the successive owners of the house – the last of these now impoverished and departed. The family graveslay under the wall. Once, Robert had written that he had discovered an adder’s nest there. His letters often – too often for Hester – consisted of nature notes, meticulously detailed.
    Hester found this view from her window much more pre-envisaged than the rest. It had a strength and interest which her cousin’s letters had managed to impart.
    From the church – now used as school chapel – a wheezy, elephantine voluntary began and a procession of choir-boys, their royal-blue skirts trailing the grass or hitched up unevenly above their boots, came out of the house and paced, with a pace so slow they rocked and swayed, towards the church door. The chaplain followed, head bent, sleeves flung back on his folded arms. He was, as Hester already knew, a thorn in Robert’s flesh.
    In the drawing-room, Muriel was pouring out tea. Robert always stood up to drink his. It was a woman’s hour, he felt, and his dropping in on it was fleeting and accidental. Hugh Baseden stood up as well – though wondering why – until Muriel said: ‘Won’t you sit down, Mr Baseden?’
    At once, he searched for reproof in her tone, and thought that perhaps he had been imitating a piece of headmasterliness – not for him. Holding his cup unsteadily in one hand, he jerked up the knees of his trousers with the other and lowered himself on to the too-deep sofa, perched there on the edge staring at the tea in his saucer.
    Muriel had little patience with gaucherie, though inspiring it. She pushed aside Hester’s clean cup and clasped her hands in her lap.
    ‘What can she be doing?’ she asked.
    ‘Perhaps afraid to come down,’ Robert said.
    Hugh looked with embarrassment at the half-open door where Hester hesitated, peering in, clearly wondering if this were the right room and the right people in it. To give warning to the others, he stood up quickly and slopped some more tea into his saucer. Robert and Muriel turned their heads.
    ‘We were thinking you must be lost,’ Muriel said, unsure of how much Hester might have heard.
    Robert went forward and led her into the room. ‘This is Hugh Baseden. My cousin, Hester Lilly, Hugh. You are newcomers together, Hester, for this is Hugh’s first term with us.’
    Hester sank down on the sofa, her knees an inelegant angle. When asked if she would have sugar she said ‘yes’ in error, and knew at once that however long her stay might be she was condemned to sweet tea throughout it, for she would never find the courage to explain.
    ‘Mr Baseden is one of those ghoulish schoolmasters who cuts up deadfrogs and puts pieces of bad meat under glass to watch what happens,’ Muriel said. ‘I am sure it teaches the boys something enormously important, although it sounds so unenticing.’
    ‘Do girls not learn biology then?’ Hugh asked, looking from one to the other.
    Muriel said ‘no’ and Hester said ‘yes’: and they spoke together.
    ‘Then that is how much it has all changed,’ Muriel added lightly. ‘That marks the great difference in our ages’ – she smiled at Hester – ‘as so much else does, alas! But I am glad I was spared the experience. The smell!’ She put her hand delicately to her face and closed her eyes. Hester felt that the lessons she had learnt had made her repulsive herself. ‘Oh, do you remember, Robert,’ Muriel went on, ‘last Parents’ Day? The rabbit? I walked into the Science Room with Mrs Carmichael and there it was, opened out, pinned to a board and all its inside labelled. How we scurried off. All the