‘I heard you had whisky,’ he said. Preddle rose to his feet. Soames took his off the mantelpiece.
‘Come in, sir, do,’ said Preddle. He rummaged among riding boots and tennis shoes and found another glass. ‘I didn’t see you at the dance, sir.’
‘Too old for dancing. Spent the evening at the Tally-Ho in Garchester. Nice girls, those barmaids.’
‘Preferable to the girls we’ve been supporting tonight,’ said Soames. ‘When do you go down, sir?’
‘Tomorrow, with Mr Brown. Going rock-climbing in Cumberland. Thanks very much. Well, cheers. Do as much for you another time. Been drinking nothing but draught beer this evening. Offered no hospitality, with all you fellows at the dance. Beer always makes me thirsty. And what devilment were you planning when I came along?’
‘Devilment? We’re serious types, sir.’
‘Don’t forget I always listen at doors.’ He drained his glass. ‘Another spot? Thanks very much. I think I will. Remember the great coach-rag? No. Before your time. Well, mud in your eye.’
‘How much d’you think he heard?’ asked Preddle, when the tutor had gone. Soames looked nostalgically at his empty glass, pushed it forward to be refilled and then shook his head.
‘He was fishing. He hadn’t heard a thing. Even if he had, there was nothing that mattered. He’d probably join in if we asked him. All the staff suffer from retarded mentality.’
‘What about us? Are we really going on with it?’
‘Well, we’ve more or less committed ourselves, I feel. Put our hands to the plough, so to speak.’
‘Put our hands to the spade, you mean. Don’t you see that it will be the most frightful fag?’
‘Never mind. Think of the girls digging up old Benson’s rats. We’ll be doing it for the good of their souls.’
‘Girls don’t have souls. They only have vital statistics.’
chapter two
Phantom Horseman
‘We had worked for some time, when we were disturbed by the horrible noise made by our poultry.’
Ibid.
« ^ »
Calladale House was a late Georgian mansion to which had been added, in mid-Victorian times, an excrescence of a long left wing. Lecture-rooms were in the original building and the wing had been converted into study-bedrooms for twenty students. The rest of the girls and most of the staff were accommodated in hostels erected, between 1920 and 1937, at various points on the estate. In addition, there were cottages for the college electrician and the head gardener, various sheds and greenhouses, piggeries, cattle sheds and poultry runs. There were also garages for staff cars and cart-sheds for the farm machinery, not to mention rubbish dumps, compost heaps and a silo.
On the day before the autumn term began, the Principal, Miss Katharine McKay, known to the students as Canny Katie, was explaining the college ritual to a new lecturer. Mr Carey Lestrange, the noted pig-fancier, had been called upon at short notice to take on the duties of the senior pig-man who wrote to say that he had broken his leg in a climbing accident during the summer vacation, and was still in hospital.
‘It won’t be for long,’ Miss McKay had pleaded, ‘and you’re just the person. I have to be rather careful in the choice of my men.’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Carey gravely.
‘Well, the way we work is this: first milking—won’t affect you in any way, but you may as well learn the routine—is at six, breakfast at seven-thirty—try not to be late; sets a bad example—then work begins at half-past eight. Break is at a quarter to eleven—they get shockingly hungry, so we feed ’em cocoa and bread and jam for fifteen minutes— midday meal at one. Two-fifteen, beginning of the next work period. Two hours. Tea after that, and supper at six-thirty. Then the girls take a compulsory study-period from seven until nine while we mark the written work or prepare for next day. Lock-up is at eleven. All visitors must be off the premises on Saturday and Sundays by eight o’clock. All right? Oh, second milking at five-thirty, but, again, that won’t be your pigeon. Here’s your time-table. Stick to it closely, if you don’t mind, otherwise there’s chaos in a place like this, where everything works on a rota, and everybody alternates theory and practice.’
‘Yes, I see. I’m accustomed to pretty accurate timekeeping at my own place, so I can promise not to let the side down.’
‘Good. What about sleeping quarters?’
‘I’ve got a fast car. I can sleep at home.’
‘Means you won’t need to be here for breakfast. All right, so long as you’re ready to begin work at the right time. Don’t let the girls slack. They’re apt to try it on with new men. You’re rather handsome. Don’t let them get any crushes. Awful idiots, most of them. I suppose we were the same at their age.’
‘Oh, I’m fast approaching my sere and yellow leaf. I should hardly cause twenty-year-olds to flutter.’
‘Don’t you believe it ! Some of ’em would vamp their great-grandfathers if they could. It’s no end of a nuisance having that Highpepper place so close. Twenty-five miles in twenty-five minutes is their average. Gentlemen-farmers, indeed !’
‘Oh, yes, the fellows who raise nothing but their hats ! I’ve been over there once or twice to talk pig. All the same, most of them are reasonably intelligent.’
‘Rakes, every one. Oh, well, see you in the morning. And, I repeat, stay of one mind with Shelley. “I fear thy kisses, gentle maiden; thou needest not fear mine.” ’
‘You terrify me,’ said Carey. ‘No wonder they say that the female of the species is deadlier than the male.’
‘And a truer word was never spoken. Haven’t you an aunt with three husbands?’
‘Well, not all of them at the same time, you know.’
‘Like to meet her.’
‘I will invite her to the College Open Day.’
On the whole, he enjoyed his job, although his students’ combination of intense concentration on work and equally intense concentration on the pursuit of young men amused, and, to some extent, repelled him. The girls, however, were easy to teach and Carey loved pigs. Then, the staff Common Room, although an extremely noisy place, proved to be a surprisingly comradely one. Its extroverted denizens he found sociable and amusing. There were three other men on the staff, and when the monstrous regiment of women became intolerable, as was inevitable at times, there was always the Tally-Ho in Garchester, where the feast of reason and the flow of soul could be enjoyed to the accompaniment of some of the best beer in England. This cathedral city and county town marked, indeed, the apex of a triangle whose twenty-five mile base was bounded on the west by High-pepper Hall and on the east by Calladale. It was almost equi-distant from both colleges.
Another inevitability was that, with half the time given over to practical work, there was a far more free and easy relationship between staff and students than would have been possible at a college offering a purely academic course. Carey became the recipient of girlish confidences, the repository of girlish secrets, the adviser in the nice conducting of love affairs. He heard of college squabbles and of difficulties at home; of plans and ambitions; of despairs and frustrations; of hopes and fears; of triumphs and disasters.
‘In fact,’ he confided to his wife, soon after he had taken up his duties, ‘I might as well be their father-confessor and have done with it.’
It was also inevitable that, early in his new career, he should hear about his predecessor.
‘The other Piggy wasn’t a bit like you,’ remarked a damsel named Gay, one afternoon, after Carey had demonstrated the steps to be taken to relieve constipation in a pregnant sow.
‘In what sense?’ asked Carey. ‘Check the increased amount of bran you are using and go easy with that bland pig-oil. In fact, I should try the increased bran-content alone at first. It prevents clogging because it holds water in the lower bowel. Keep your gestation charts up to date, all of you. There will be a “snap” test tomorrow, in place of the lecture on types of bacon pig.’