The Book And The Brotherhood

persuasive, magical, veil rarely coercive. But he was not romantic or sentimental in matey, he was awareof children as anotherrace, chauvinistic, hostile, often unintelligible. His pupils were a set of indi viduals to whom his relation was scrupulously professional. A perceptive person (his friend Marchment) once said to him, ‘Jenkin, you don't really like children!' He did like children, but not in the general and conventional sense. That row of heads, made by some trick of the light to look red, as if of some island tribe or painted natives, unnerved him, makⁱng him aware of the instability and vulnerability of his present state of mind. He felt he had suffered a defeat. Perhaps this was his last Guy Fawkes party?

'Why, Violet, you're looking really smart tonight!' said Gideon. 'Isn't she?'

Violet actually blushed and wriggled like a coy maiden, as Patricia said later. She had certainly made an effort. She had put away the blue spectacles; it emerged later that she had treated herself to contact lenses. She had also, with the help of a hairdresser, made her hair look more attractively tousled, the fringe less dominant, less straight and less severe. She was wearing a fairly simple well-cut light-blue cocktail dress with some glittering decoration round the neck.

'You look almost sophisticated,' said Patricia, 'but those spangles at the top won't do, I expect you could get them off. I do wish you'd come over and help us like you used to, and Gideon needs a secretary, don't you, darling? Everyone needs to be needed -'

'We didn't expect you,' said Gideon, smiling benevolently. 'I expected her,' said Gerard, 'come and get a drink, I'll mix you a special.'

Violet followed Gerard into the dining room and Gerard quickly closed the door. He said, 'Violet, we do so want you to think again about the money.'

'Who's 'we'?' said Violet, deepening the frown lines above her nose and the tragedy lines below her mouth.

'Pat and me and Rose.'

'How does Rose come in?'

'She just agrees with us.'

'It's none of Rose's business.'

'All right, but look, Violet, be rational, be kind to us. Father said in his will that he trusted us to look after you. You must let us execute his wishes – it's like being forced not to keep a promise.'

'He said no such thing in his will, he didn't mention me in his will.'

'What makes you think that?'

'Pat told me. Not only no money, but no ment

‘Damn, thought Gerard. What do I say now? 'Violet, my father wished us to help you, he assumed we would.'

'If he had wanted me to be 'helped' after his death he could have arranged it! Anyway I don't want 'help'!' Violet's face, now that of a demonic cat, also expressed a kind of spiteful glee. 'Pat wants me to be her housemaid, you heard her just now, she wrote me a patronising letter, and you tell me lies about Uncle Matthew's will. I may be poor and a relation but I'm not going to play the part of poor relation to gratify you and Pat!'

'Well, we are determined to help Tamar. She must go back to Oxford.'

'Oh, I know it's all a plot to help her, not me! Nobody really cares about me! Tamar's perfectly all right, she's got a good job. Later on she might not get a job, it gets worse each year, she realises she's lucky.'

'We shall help Tamar.'

'You know perfectly well she won't accept it, you're just humouring your conscience! It would be psychologically disastrous for her. Can't you leave her alone? You think she's some sort of sturdy virtuous peasant girl. She isn't, she's a precarious unstable neurotic. She couldn't stand the pace at Oxford, she'd have had a breakdown. Why do you think your precious Oxford is such a wonderful place for a girl to be? You know Tamar never enjoyed it, she just made herself ill with work! Tamar needs a quiet orderly life and a steady job. She's not an intellectual, thank heavens!'

Gulliver put his head round the door, took a look at Gerard and Violet, said 'Sorry!' and disappeared.

^`Why can't you be happy?' said Gerard.

'You seem not to want to be.'

`That's my business. Oh, you understand nothing!'

Gerard poured out a glass of the fruit cup and gave it to Violet. 'I'm sorry. You mustn't be cross with Pat, she means well. We'll talk again later.'

`You said you'd mix me a special!'

Gerard took a bottle of gin from the sideboard and poured a generous quantity into Violet's glass.

`Do you expect me to drink that?' She kept the glass however and went off smiling.

Rose had rescued her sandwiches from the fridge and brought them into the drawing room, where Gulliver had declared he was hungry. The sandwiches were now cold and damp, Gulliver and Lily were eating them however. Rose then fetched her canapes from the dining room, just vacated by Gerard and Violet. The form had always been that people ate and drank all the evening and wandered about as they would. Now Patricia wanted to make a drama of herding everyone to collect their plateful. This also raised the question of when exactly the fireworks were to begin.

`What's the matter with Tamar?' said Patricia, coming in and looking disapprovingly at the rapid unauthorised consumption of food which was going on. 'She can't keep still, she won't sit down, she keeps sliding about the place like a cat. I suppose she wants a tete-a-tete with Gerard.'

`She's just shy,' said Rose, 'she's so self-effacing.'

`I don't think she's effacing herself, she keeps jumping around like a performing flea! I expect it's mummy's presence.'

`Violet looks lovely. She can still do it when she tries.'

`She usually prefers the hag act. Tonight it's 'I care for nobody, no not I' She can turn herself into anything, she's better adapted to life really, she doesn't suffer like we do. I've never seen so many fireworks, the side passage is full of them. They're just like schoolboys, aren't they, our men.' Rose did not care for 'our men'.

Jenkin came in from the garden, entering through the glass doors and pushing his way between the curtains.

'Has Duncan come?'

`No, but Violet has.'

`Duncan won't come,' said Rose.

But just at that moment the door bell rang.

Patricia's knife and fork and plate policy worked out much as Rose had anticipated. The regulars, trained by Gerard, resented the innovation and ignored the pie and curry and trifle arrangement, eating up the sandwiches and canapes, and thereafter, scorning the plates and utensils, making their own impromptu sandwiches by tearing open rolls and jamming in lettuce leaves and bits of ham and tomato which then fell out onto the carpet. Gerard's little cakes, discovered in the larder, were popular too, so was the cheese which Rose had _Provided. One or two guests out of politeness (Jenkin) or because they were genuinely interested in the steak and kidney pie (Gulliver) or because the whole thing had been their own idea (Patricia) fussily found a place to sit and some piece of furniture to sit at and uncomfortably, while the others strolled about, sat down to a pretence of ordinary dinner. Gideon, to Patricia's annoyance and chagrin, defected to the strollers. Claret was now provided, and the fruit cup was still available. The gin and whisky were not in demand at the early stages, even by Duncan who was the last to arrive and startled his friends by asking for Perrier, then drinking the cup, then only at a later stage the whisky. By then Gulliver and Lily were also on whisky. Lily, who had earlier discovered the gin-laced glass abandoned by Violet and drunk it up, was by now distinctly tipsy. Tamar