It was one of those summer days when the cold of the Thames valley eats into the very bone, though the boys who slouched about the street with no apparent aim in view, looking like refugees in a foreign town, did not seem to notice it. Sigi’s bright little eyes, which missed nothing, darted from one to another. He was amazed by their archaic black clothes and general air of ill-being. Hughie, bathed in the light that never was, glanced at him from time to time, wondering if the magic had already begun to work. Had he known his Sigi better he would have been quite well aware that it had not. The corners of the mouth were drooping in a very tell-tale way.
They were shown their table in the restaurant and were settling themselves round it when Miles, looking with disfavour at the seat of his chair, asked if he could have a cushion. The waitress quite understood, and went off to get him one.
‘Been in trouble, old boy?’ said Hughie.
‘Only been beaten by the library.’
‘Bad luck. What for?’
‘Changing the times sheet, as usual.’
‘Oh I say, you shouldn’t do that, you know.’
‘You’re telling me.’
‘Beaten?’ said Sigi. His blood ran cold.
‘Yes, of course. Aren’t you ever beaten?’
‘Certainly not. I’m a French boy – I wouldn’t allow such a thing.’
‘What a sissy!’
‘But do you like being beaten?’
‘Not specially. But I shall like it all right when it’s my turn to beat the others.’
Hughie said, ‘When I got into the library I used to lay about me like Captain Bligh. I had a lot of leeway to make up – we had an awful time at m’tutor’s from a brute called Kroesig. But I got my own back. How’s the food this half, Miles?’
‘Well you literally can’t see it, there’s so little. We buy everything at the sock shop now. M’tutor is married,’ he explained for the benefit of Grace and Sigi, ‘and Mrs Woodford has got three children and a fur coat, all paid for by the housebooks, of course, and is saving up for more.’
‘More children or more fur coats?’
‘More of everything. She’s literally the meanest miser you ever saw.’
‘Yes, married tutors can be the devil,’ said Hughie. ‘Mine was a bachelor and I’m bound to say he never starved us, but m’dame used to steal our money.’
‘Steal it!’ said Grace. ‘What a shame.’
‘Well that’s what we used to say. Rather like Miles and the fur coats, you know. These Eton rumours shouldn’t be taken too seriously, they would none of them stand up to scientific investigation.’
Sigi looked relieved. ‘What about the beating?’ he said. ‘Is that a rumour too?’
‘Just take a look at my behind,’ said Miles. ‘I’ll show you after. That will stand up to any amount of scientific examination, as you’ll see.’
A family party now came in. A woman, looking incredibly old to be the mother of children in their teens, was followed by two little girls and a stocky boy with a square of pink elastoplast on the back of his neck. They hurried through the restaurant and went upstairs.
Miles’s mouth opened wider; he turned quite pink.
‘Badger-Skeffington,’ he said.
‘No!’ said Hughie, craning round to look. But they had disappeared.
‘Badger-Skeffington!’ said Grace, laughing hysterically. She was thinking that, wonderful as it seemed, some man must have gone to bed with that old lady only a few years before, since the youngest little girl was not more than twelve.
‘What are you laughing at?’ said Hughie.
‘Such a funny name.’
‘It may seem funny to you, but I can tell you, you haven’t heard it for the last time. That boy is an extraordinary athlete; it’s years since they’ve had such a boy here. Tell them, Miles.’
‘Keeper of the Field, Keeper of Boxing, Captain of the XI. They’ll be having a black-market lunch up there,’ he said enviously. ‘Badger-Skeffington’s mother is a most famous black-marketeer.’
‘Are you sure? She doesn’t look a bit like that.’
‘Didn’t you notice how they were all weighed down with baskets and things? Tons of beefsteak, I expect, pots of cream, pounds of butter. That’s why they go upstairs, so that nobody shall see what they are unpacking. They bribe the police with huge sums, it’s well known.’
‘Miles! I expect they have a farm.’
‘So likely, in Ennismore Gardens. That’s why Badger-Skeffington always wins everything – Daddy says he’s literally full of food, like a French racehorse. They’re nouveaux riches, you know.’
‘Now hold on, Miles, that’s not true. I often see Bobby Badger at my club, he’s frightfully poor, it was a fearful effort to send the boy here at all, I believe.’
‘Yes, I know, Uncle Hughie, the point is they are nouveaux riches and frightfully poor as well. There are lots like that here. Their fathers and mothers give up literally everything to send them.’
‘Oh dear, how poor everybody seems to be, in England,’ said Grace. ‘It’s too terrible when even the nouveaux riches are poor.’
‘Yes, and while we are on the subject I would like to know exactly why it is they are all so stinking rich in France,’ said Hughie, stuffily. He was rich himself, but his capital seemed to be melting away at an alarming rate. ‘It seems quite sinister to me.’
‘Quite easy really. The French have always looked after their estates. They have foresters in their forests, not just gamekeepers, and their vineyards are a gold mine. In England, when I was a child anyhow, landed estates simply drained away the money – I remember quite well how my father and uncles used to talk as if it was a most tremendous luxury, owning land. There was never any idea of making it pay.’
‘H’m,’
