Майкл Ридпат - The Diplomat’s Wife

‘Lady Meeke? I’m Mrs Woodfield, the school secretary. We spoke on the telephone.’

Grams shook her hand and introduced Phil.

‘Would you like a tour? I’m sure the place has changed a lot since you lived here, but I hope some of it will bring back memories.’

‘Thank you, I’d love one.’

And so Mrs Woodfield showed them around the house, or rather the school. Phil had never been in a boarding school before, and he felt sorry for the kids who were shut away there for weeks on end, especially the smaller ones. But he had to admit the place had a friendly feel to it — this was no Dotheboys Hall. It did smell of small boys: strains of socks, body odour, school food, old books, ink and carbolic twisted through the corridors, dormitories and classrooms.

It wasn’t a large school, but Phil was amazed at how dozens of children could eat, sleep and work in a home that had been built for just one family. His grandmother’s family. They passed through the dormitories upstairs.

‘This was my room,’ said Grams. Phil could see how it might once have been a delightful bedroom, looking out over a lawn sloping gently down to a stream, with Dartmoor rising behind it. Now four small single beds and two bunk beds took up almost the entire floor space.

They passed through other dormitories that had belonged to Hugh and Sarah, although they weren’t permitted to see Lord and Lady Chaddington’s bedroom, which was now part of the headmaster’s quarters.

Downstairs, the dining room was still a dining room, but narrow tables and benches had replaced the Chippendale table and chairs, and most of the other rooms had been turned into classrooms, as had the stables outside. Scrappy notices and solemn wood-and-gold honours boards proclaiming scholarships to minor public schools adorned the corridor walls, along with a random selection of prints: county maps, local churches, Indian hunting scenes. The classroom art was more educational: posters of an internal combustion engine and Roman legionaries marching along a straight road.

Finally they came to the school library.

This was a magnificent hexagonal room of bookshelves reaching two storeys high, a wrought-iron gallery giving access the higher shelves. A hexagonal skylight let in the June sunshine.

‘I’m so pleased you kept this!’ said Grams, her eyes shining. ‘Oh, this was my favourite room in the house, Philip! My grandfather built it in the last century. And stocked it. There were wonderful books here.’ She cast her eyes along the shelves. ‘They’ve all gone, now.’

Mrs Woodfield sniffed. ‘We’re very proud of our library.’

‘Oh, of course!’ said Grams. ‘Every school should have a library.’ She glanced along a row of history textbooks. ‘It’s wonderful that children learn to love books here. It’s just... it’s different.’

‘The grounds will have changed too,’ said Mrs Woodfield. ‘Although I suspect what we now call the headmaster’s garden will be pretty much the same as it was. You are welcome to wander around outside, if you wish.’

And so they did. The stable yard had been turned into a playground, a pair of wonky football posts defied the summer term on the lawn, classrooms had been built in the walled garden, but a square of grass survived, lined on one side with a border of flowers of different shapes and sizes and on the other with an arbour bearing a massive green plant.

‘Ah, they’ve kept the wisteria!’ said Grams. ‘A couple of weeks ago this whole thing would have been purple.’

‘It’s very pretty,’ said Phil. His enthusiasm for gardens lagged way behind his grandmother’s, but even he could appreciate the beauty of the setting.

They walked over to the arbour. ‘Let’s sit here for a bit,’ she said as they approached one of those benches engraved with the name of a past pupil which adorn all schools. They looked out over to the moor rising not more than a couple of miles away. They could hear the rustle of a brook at the bottom of the garden, and in the distance the squeals and cheers of small boys playing cricket.

‘Are you sorry you came?’ Phil asked.

‘No,’ said Grams. ‘Well, partly. But I wanted to see it. I needed to see it.’ She sighed. ‘I loved it here. At least when I was a child. I’m not sure I came back here at all after about 1939. Until Sarah and I had to sell it.’

‘Why was that?’

‘You’ll find out,’ Grams said. She turned to her grandson. ‘I think I need to begin my story, don’t you?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘We’ll begin here, the weekend Hugh died.’

February 1934, Chaddington Hall, Devon

I was nineteen, and I was waiting to get married. To whom, I had no idea.

The project had started the year before, my first season. My mother and I had decamped to our London house in Hill Street in Mayfair. Several weeks were given over to Mama visiting the mothers of other debutantes and both of us trying on a series of dresses, before the gruelling schedule of ball after ball began. Although I was her raw material, my mother was strangely confident. My elder sister Sarah’s season had been a triumph; she had nabbed Tubby Partington-Smythe, a skinny cavalry officer who was the son of a marquess and a genial, considerate young man who had fallen instantly and heavily in love with her. They were now married — happily married. Although my mother considered me not nearly as good a catch as Sarah, she felt I had nice eyes, and her dressmaker could make something of my full figure. Although unfashionable, quite a few men liked a full figure, apparently.

And I was clever, she said. A much smaller number of men would like that.

The whole thing was the disaster I had expected it to be. The balls involved dance cards, which were carried around by the debs. The dance cards were filled in with the names of young men. Or not.

In my case not.

My mother soon got fed up with sitting out dances with me, and I ended up with a girl called Edwina, the daughter of an ambassador to a Balkan country who had seen the world and was interested in it. Her figure was ‘full’ top to toe, and she had unfortunate buck teeth, so she and I spent a lot of time together on the edges of the balls, much to Mama’s annoyance. The one good thing was that eventually I got to go to Buckingham Palace to see the king. That was fun.

But now I was stuck in Chaddington Hall, with nothing but the library and Tallow, my beautiful grey mare, to amuse me.

And my brother Hugh, whenever he put in an appearance.

Luncheon was over and I was sitting in the small drawing room, reading my book, waiting for him to arrive from London. The small drawing room had a good view of the drive. Hugh was arriving ‘some time after luncheon’, and I was excited.

Sure enough, his dark blue Riley sped up the drive. I rushed out to meet him, overtaking Jecks, the butler, on the way.

Hugh waved and hopped out of the car, before giving me a hug. He was short for a man, about my height, with thick dark hair, blue eyes and a wide, wide smile that he now bestowed on me. He was desperately good-looking, according to the debs and their mothers, so Mama had come under pressure to procure him for a number of the balls last summer. He had liked Edwina too.

‘ Ciamar a bha an turas agad? ’ I said.

‘What?’

‘ Ciamar a bha an turas agad? ’ I repeated.

‘Ah!’ Hugh gave me a wide grin. ‘ Bha turas math agam ’ he replied. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t recognize your Gaelic pronunciation.’

‘I was just guessing,’ I said. ‘It’s difficult when you only have a textbook to go from.’

‘Not bad, then,’ said Hugh. ‘I’m impressed.’