Joe wondered whether he should snatch the knife from Dorcas’s hand as a preventative measure. The idiot Farman had no idea that the girl he was talking to had, herself, gone barefoot and largely uneducated for the first years of her life, excluded by society. She had grown up believing what her grandmother and the village told her: that she was the illegitimate offspring of a gypsy. As the oldest daughter of a loving and charming but feckless father, Dorcas had gallantly helped with the rearing of the children that followed. A tribe in themselves, these included two younger half brothers. Twins. Their mother had wearied of the constant hounding by grandmama and, succumbing to bribes and threats, had gone off in the night with her boys, back to her own people. Dorcas’s “stepmothers” always ran away. It would be difficult to imagine a more provoking conversational gambit, Joe thought, and he tensed, awaiting the response.
“We take them where we find them, headmaster.” Her voice was level, her knife engaged in cutting the hard crust of the meat pie. “Dr. Barnardo’s excellent institutions have been very helpful to our department. They rescue hundreds of children from death or exploitation on the streets and allow us access occasionally with our clipboards and our lollipops to question and test them.”
“Ah, yes. Sir James was telling me that he takes a certain interest in such establishments.” He looked about him to be sure that everyone had noted his intimacy with Sir James. Joe wondered where he had acquired it.
“He contributes financially to their welfare and offers his personal encouragement and support. He’s even been observed to lose to some of the boys at table tennis.”
“Sports-as good a way as any to overcome the communication problems.”
“And the less fortunate have much to communicate, Mr. Farman. Whatever their language, East End children tell me the same story: that bad diet, infected water, foul air and poverty are wrecking the health of the nation’s children.”
Looks were exchanged around the table. Eyebrows were raised. Sneers tugged gently at the corners of thin mouths.
Heavy talk for a lunch party. In her inexperience, Dorcas was allowing herself to be led into a serious discussion that could only end in embarrassment. He sensed that with her last comment, the girl had put herself into the open: a fox sighted a field away, a legitimate quarry for the pack, and could now expect a ritual pursuit to the rallying cries of “Bolshy … Lefty … Red.…” And, most unforgiveable by her lights: “Feminist!”
Joe decided to stop the hunt short. “Gentlemen, may I offer you the solution? I’m prescribing second helpings of Sussex steak and kidney pie and weekends of bracing Sussex air for every child born east of Bow Church,” he announced.
Surprisingly, murmurs of approval were burbled around the table. “Quite right! Establish a Utopia-on-Sea!”
“The commissioner speaks in jest but-yes! Something must be done to feed the multitude!” an elderly voice said firmly. “How else are we going to get the ranks up to scratch in time for the next war? Eh? Because it’s coming, you know! It’s coming.”
“Most of the 1914 intake were well under 5′4″ and dreadfully undernourished,” another voice came in, in support. “I remember my batman when he first joined me. Skin and bone. No notion of hygiene.”
“ ‘Lord, Thou feedest them with the bread of tears.’ Psalms 80. May I remind my colleagues that the Lord will provide?”
Farman leaned to Joe and muttered superfluously, “Doctor Sheale, Divinity.”
“Whatever they’re fed on, I do note the masses always seem to have the strength to march and riot whenever the fancy takes them” was the lofty contribution of a bluff young man (“Hawkins, History”). “Let’s not forget ’26! Now there was a damn close-run thing! Wellington would have known what to do about it. Or Napoleon. Gladstone, perhaps. Disraeli even.” He sighed. “What has become of our heroes?”
“Nearly all our best men are dead! Carlyle, Tennyson, Browning, George Eliot-and I’m not feeling very well myself.” The speaker shook his head and directed an apologetic smile at Dorcas. “Punch ’93,” he added in a disarming stage whisper.
Inevitably: “Langhorne, English Lit” followed.
Joe didn’t conceal his amusement. He laughed out loud. Intrigued by the calculated frivolity of the remark, he noted the name, Langhorne, and looked forwards to an exchange of views with this joker. A man with the smooth, dark looks of an ageing gigolo, enlivened by a splash of intelligence and a twist of irony, he presented an intriguing cocktail, Joe thought fancifully. Not a man you’d share a pint at the pub with. He caught himself searching for a polite formula for asking Langhorne, English Lit, what on earth had propelled a man of his nature into his chosen profession and then remembered that he had a large source to draw on since he’d been asked the same thing himself in a hundred different ways. He caught Dorcas’s eye, inviting a smile. When it came, it had the glinting edge of a stiletto.
She’d been escorted to the dining room at the last moment and promptly abandoned by Matron, so Joe had had no opportunity to murmur his usual “Now behave yourself, Dorcas!” Indeed, he didn’t think he would have had the nerve to deliver the warning to this composed and superficially congenial young woman. Being the only female in the room, she was the centre of all attention but appeared not to notice it. Sitting amongst the black robes and dusty suits, she glowed in her dark-red woollen two-piece. Joe’s were not the only eyes on her; her pretty face and graceful gestures constantly drew sentimental glances from the rows of boys tucking into their pie and mashed potatoes, each remembering a mother or a sister.
The food was unpalatable, the company worse, but at least they didn’t dawdle over their plates. These were whisked away by two young men and a pretty girl he assumed to be Betty Bellefoy. The pupils at the long refectory tables had their own routine of scraping and passing down the plates, and the monitors at the ends of the rows staggered to the hatch with the piles. Dr. Sheale said grace, lingeringly, and the high-table party processed out to the common room for coffee.
Mr. Langhorne was instantly at Dorcas’s side to lead her in, hand her a cup, and make her laugh. Joe found himself being plucked from the queue for the urn by Farman.
“We just have time for a recuperative cup while the boys have a quarter of an hour’s break, and then we’re into afternoon school. Now, Sandilands, it will be growing dark in two hours’ time. If you’re to make the trip back to-Godalming, was it? — you must go to the head of the queue. Come along!”
This was the moment.
“Sir,” Joe spoke briskly. “Don’t concern yourself. No hurry whatsoever. I shall be staying until the end of the day-and beyond. Arrangements have been made for accommodation in the town. Miss Joliffe and I will return tomorrow morning before start of school. As for young Drummond, you would oblige me by arranging for him to spend the afternoon with Miss Joliffe-and a few chums perhaps-in a secure place on the first floor of the main building. An impromptu drawing class suggests itself. Amongst her many talents, Miss Joliffe, you’ll find, is an art enthusiast and perfectly accustomed to teaching young boys. At the end of the day, I shall have a private conversation with my nephew, as a result of which he will either join us down at the inn or stay in school and pick up his normal school timetable.”
Farman’s face fell and he began to bluster objections. Joe smiled benignly and took no notice. “I should be further obliged if you would fix things so that your Mr. Gosling is available to me in the capacity of aide-de-camp. We will set up headquarters in Mr. Rapson’s old study. There’s something rotten at the heart of St. Magnus, sir, and I intend to locate and cut out the worm I find wriggling at its core.”