The Passionate Year Read Free

that. On the whole he was looking forward to seven
o’clock, partly because he was eager to pick up more: of the threads of
Millstead life, and partly because he enjoyed dining out.
    Out in the corridor and in the dormitories and down the stone steps
various sounds told him, even though he did not know Millstead, that the term
had at last begun. He could hear the confused murmur of boyish voices
ascending in sudden gusts from the rooms below; every now and then footsteps
raced past his room and were muffled by the webbing on the dormitory floor;
he heard shouts and cries of all kinds, from shrillest treble to deepest
bass, rising and falling ceaselessly amid the vague jangle of miscellaneous
sound. Sometimes a particular voice or group of voices would become separate
from the rest, and then he could pick up scraps of conversation, eager
salutations, boisterous chaff, exchanged remarks about vacation experiences,
all intermittent and punctuated by the noisy unpacking of suit-cases and the
clatter of water jugs in their basins. He was so young that he could hardly
believe that he was a Master now and not a schoolboy.
    The school clock commenced to chime the hour. He rose, took a last view of
himself in the bedroom mirror, and went out into the corridor. A small boy
carrying a large bag collided with him outside the door and apologised
profusely. He said, with a laugh: “Oh, don’t mention it.”
    He knew that the boy would recount the incident to everybody in the
dormitory. In fact, as he turned the corner to descend the steps he caught a
momentary glimpse of the boy standing stock-still in the corridor gazing
after him. He smiled as he went down.
V
    He went round to the front entrance of the Headmaster’s
house and rang the bell. It was a curious house, the result of repeated
architectural patchings and additions; its ultimate incongruity had been
softened and mellowed by ivy and creeper of various sorts, so that it bore
the sad air of a muffled-up invalid. Potter opened the door and admitted him
with stealthy precision. While he was standing in the hall and being relieved
of his hat and gloves he had time to notice the Asiatic and African
bric-a-brac which, scattered about the walls and tables, bore testimony to
Doctor Ervine’s years as a missionary in foreign fields. Then, with the same
feline grace, Potter showed him into the drawing-room.
    It was a moderate-sized apartment lit by heavy old-fashioned gas
chandeliers, whose peculiar and continuous hissing sound emphasised the
awkwardness of any gap in the conversation. A baby-grand piano, with its
sound-board closed and littered with music and ornaments, and various
cabinets of china and curios, were the only large articles of furniture;
chairs and settees were sprinkled haphazard over the central area round the
screened fireplace. As Speed entered, with Potter opening the door for him
and intoning sepulchrally: “Mr. Speed,” an answering creak of several of the
chairs betrayed the fact that the room was occupied.
    Then the Head rose out of his armchair, book of some sort in hand, and
came forward with a large easy smile.
    “Um, yes—Mr. Speed—so glad—um, yes—may I introduce
you to my wife?—Lydia, this is Mr. Speed!”
    At first glance Speed was struck with the magnificent appropriateness of
the name Lydia. She was a pert little woman, obviously competent; the sort of
woman who is always suspected of twisting her husband round her little
finger. She was fifty if she was a day, yet she dressed with a dash of the
young university blue-stocking; an imitation so insolent that one assumed
either that she was younger than she looked or that some enormous brain
development justified the eccentricity. She had rather sharp blue eyes that
were shrewd rather than far-seeing, and her hair, energetically dyed, left
one in doubt as to what colour nature had ever accorded it. At present it was
a dull brown that had streaks