Probably someone saw it in The Strand or some other magazine or newspaper, and thought it appropriate for a young girl to recite, he decided. She can't possibly have seen any of Sassoon's other poetry.
He presented her with her prize of stationery and a silver pen-set. She seemed pleased. "I want to be a teacher," she told him, when he'd asked her the usual question of what she wanted to do. "Like Miss Lasker."
Miss Lasker colored up and looked pleased. "I'm sure you'll be a fine teacher," Reggie told her, and signaled the headmaster with his eyes that it was time for the boys to receive their prizes. One more lot, and then I can sit down. . . .
Michael Stone stepped forward and announced the winners. Mathematics Prize, History Prize, Geography Prize—why weren't the girls given challenges like that?—Latin Prize, Best Recitation, and Best Essay on the subject of Patriotism.
The recitation, unmercifully, was "The Charge of the Light Brigade." Reggie tried not to listen. It called up too many memories of similar idiotic charges he had seen from the relative safety of his aeroplane—yet another suicidal dash "over the top" straight into the machine guns. He kept his face fixed in what—he hoped—was a vaguely pleasant expression and wondered what idiot had encouraged the boy to memorize this particular piece at this particular time.
He expected much the same out of the Grimsley boy's essay— But got a shock. It read like the poetry of Wilfrid Owens, or at least, a very, very young Wilfred Owens, one who hadn't yet seen the slaughtering grounds with his own eyes, but knew very well they were there, and knew that their leaders were idiots, and while questioning the sanity of it all, did not question that doing one's duty was the right and proper thing to do.
Oh, it wasn't laid out so skillfully as all that, and there was still more than a veneer of the youthful idealism that sent those first boys to their deaths in 1914, thinking it was a glorious thing to fall in battle. But still, the bones of intelligent questioning were there—and it astonished him.
So much so that the headmaster caught sight of his startled expression and leaned over to whisper, "Jimmy is the only boy left in his family. Father, both brothers, three uncles and all his male cousins. He'd like to go to university in two years, but—" Stone shrugged. "Whether he can get a place, I don't know."
"You just get him ready for the entrance examinations," Reggie said, fiercely. "I'll see that he gets there." He hadn't even known that he was going to say such a thing until after the words were out of his mouth, but he was glad that he had done so a moment later as he caught the look of astonishment, followed by gratitude, on Michael Stone's face.
He nodded to confirm the pledge, then returned his attention to the boy feeling a kind of proprietary determination. Too many of the bright intellectual lights of his generation had been put out already. He would, by heaven, save this one, at least.
After the prizes came the highlight of the day—what one little fellow joyfully called "A proper tea at last!" with jam buns, currant scones, and iced biscuits, ice creams, honey and more jam for the proper sandwiches, all the sweet things that children craved. And if they could not, as they had in days gone by, eat sweet things until they were sick, well perhaps that wasn't so bad a thing. There was just enough of the rationed sugar to make sure every child got enough to feel properly rewarded—to fill them up, they had to make do with slightly more wholesome fare. The adults did have to make do with what they could purchase at the church fair stalls; this was, after all, the school treat. Every child also got one of the finest crackers obtainable, with little prizes inside like pennywhistles, so that they all went home with at least a bag of nuts from the button hunt and a cracker prize in their pockets, along with the memory of a day stuffed full of fun without the shadow of war on it. After tea, the wagons arrived to carry them back down to the village again; the adults lingered until the church fair officially closed.
Reggie kept himself mostly out of the way. By this time, his leg was a torment, but the last thing he wanted was for anyone to notice.
Between the Longacre staff and the men from the village who came up to help with the dismantling, the tents came down and were stowed in the hay-wains. The stalls and booths did not come down quite as quickly as they had gone up, but by sunset, the only vestiges of the May Day festivities were the trampled grass, a few bare places where little girls had been unable to resist picking flowers in the gardens, and the swings still hanging in the trees.
Reggie got up onto the terrace without drawing any attention to himself, and paused there ostensibly to admire the setting sun, but in reality to give his knee a rest. Lady Devlin came up from the gardens when he had been standing there for a few moments to stand beside him. She surveyed the empty lawn and sighed happily. "Well, we'll be scraping our jam a bit thin for the next several weeks, and the gardens will look a little motheaten for a week or two, but it was worth it," she said with content. "Did you see their little faces?"
"And their not-so-little faces," Reggie told her, putting his arm around her shoulders to give her a squeeze. "Well done, Mater; you put on a ripping treat for them. Oh, that Grimsley boy—"
"If you're going to say we're finding him a place at Oxford, good," she interrupted. "That was an amazingly mature essay. Your father always meant to have a fund for the village, and never got around to taking care of it." She stopped for a moment, closed her eyes, then went on, bravely, "Since he never got the chance, we should do it for him. We'll make that boy the first to have it, shall we?"
He blinked at her, then grinned. "Mater, you are trumps!" he exclaimed warmly. "I'll get it set up with Mrs. MacGregor and Andrew Dennis tomorrow. I'll have Andrew set up a trust, and Lee can tell me what we should use to fund it with."
"That would be the wisest, I think." She nodded decisively. "You know, I'm glad you invited the Brigadier. You were right; we need more people about. I will invite your aunt—perhaps Lady Virginia too. We'll have some small summer weekends—"
So long as you don't plan to have 'em with the sole intention of trotting potential brides in front of me, he thought, though in truth, he knew that any such hope was probably in vain. What he said aloud was, "It'll be good to have people around. But at the moment—if you'll forgive me, dearest, I am going to go to my room, put my leg up, and have someone bring me a tray with the sad remains of the feasting. My leg is not at all pleased with me."
Truth to be told, his leg was telling him that if he didn't get weight off it soon, he might not like what it was going to do. He'd been able to ignore the pain for most of the day, but it was coming on with a vengeance now.
"You do look pale, dear," she said, casting a worried glance at him. "And do you know, that sounds like a capital idea to me, too. A hot bath, a book, and whatever the cook can throw together on a tray. The staff have worked their hearts out for this, too." She smiled. "However, I am very glad it is only once a year! Now I'll go and let the housekeeper know we'll be making an early evening of it. I'm sure the staff will be pleased."
She kissed his cheek and wandered back into the house; he waited, though his leg was really beginning to throb, until she was unlikely to see the difficulty he was in. Only then did he limp towards the door, and seize, with wordless gratitude, the cane that was in a stand beside it. His valet had silently, and without being asked, installed stands with canes in them in practically every room he was likely to be in, and at every outside door. Now he rested his weight on the handle and reminded himself to make sure Turner was properly thanked.