Evelyn Waugh - Decline and Fall

Yours sincerely,

Sam Clutterbuck.

'Just look at that, said Grimes. 'God's own job and mine for the asking! If that had come ten days ago my whole life might have been different.

'You don't think of taking it now?

'Too late, old boy, too late. The saddest words in the English language.

In 'break' Grimes said to Paul: 'Look here, I've decided to take Sam Clutterbuck's job, and be damned to the Fagans! His eyes shone with excitement. 'I shan't say a word to them. I shall just go off. They can do what they like about it. I don't care.

'Splendid! said Paul. 'It's much the best thing you can do.

'I'm going this very afternoon, said Grimes.

An hour later, at the end of morning school, they met again. 'I've been thinking over that letter, said Grimes. 'I see it all now. It's just a joke.

'Nonsense! said Paul. 'I'm sure it isn't. Go and see the Clutterbucks right away.

'No, no, they don't mean it seriously. They've heard about my marriage from Percy, and they're just pulling my leg. It was too good to be true. Why should they offer me a job like that, even if such a wonderful job exists?

'My dear Grimes, I'm perfectly certain it was a genuine offer. Anyway, there's nothing to lose by going to see them.

'No, no, it's too late, old boy. Things like that don't happen. And he disappeared beyond the baize door.

Next day there was fresh trouble at Llanabba. Two men in stout boots, bowler hats, and thick grey overcoats presented themselves at the Castle with a warrant for Philbrick's arrest. Search was made for him, but it was suddenly discovered that he had already left by the morning train for Holyhead. The boys crowded round the detectives with interest and a good deal of disappointment. They were not, they thought, particularly impressive figures as they stood in the hall fingering their hats and drinking whisky and calling Dingy 'miss'.

'We've been after 'im for some time now, said the first detective. 'Ain't we, Bill?

'Pretty near six months. It's too bad, his getting away like this. They're getting rather restless at H.Q. about our travelling expenses.

'Is it a very serious case? asked Mr Prendergast. The entire school were by this time assembled in the hall. 'Not shooting or anything like that?

'No, there ain't been no bloodshed up to date, sir. I oughtn't to tell about it, really, but seeing as you've all been mixed up in it to some extent, I don't mind telling you that I think he'll get off on a plea of insanity. Loopy, you know.

'What's he been up to?

'False pretences and impersonation, sir. There's five charges against him in different parts of the country, mostly at hotels. He represents himself as a rich man, stays there for some time living like a lord, cashes a big cheque and then goes off. Calls 'isself Sir Solomon Philbrick. Funny thing is, I think he really believes his tale 'isself. I've come across several cases like that one time or another. There was a bloke in Somerset what thought 'e was Bishop of Bath and Wells and confirmed a whole lot of kids ‑ very reverent, too.

'Well, anyway, said Dingy, 'he went without his wages from here.

'I always felt there was something untrustworthy about that man, said Mr Prendergast.

'Lucky devil! said Grimes despondently.

'I'm worried about Grimes, said Mr Prendergast that evening. 'I never saw a man more changed. He used to be so self‑confident and self‑assertive. He came in here quite timidly just now and asked me whether I believed that Divine retribution took place in this world or the next. I began to talk to him about it, but I could see he wasn't listening. He sighed once or twice and then went out without a word while I was still speaking.

'Beste‑Chetwynde tells me he has kept in the whole of the third form because the blackboard fell down in his classroom this morning. He was convinced they had arranged it on purpose.

'Yes, they often do.

'But in this case, they hadn't. Beste‑Chetwynde said they were quite frightened at the way he spoke to them. Just like an actor, Beste‑Chetwynde said.

'Poor Grimes! I think he is seriously unnerved. It will be a relief when the holidays come.

But Captain Grimes's holiday came sooner than Mr Prendergast expected, and in a way which few people could have forseen. Three days later he did not appear at morning prayers, and Flossie, red‑eyed, admitted that he had not come in from the village the night before. Mr Davies, the stationmaster, confessed to seeing him earlier in the evening in a state of depression. Just before luncheon a youth presented himself at the Castle with a little pile of clothes he had found on the seashore. They were identified without difficulty as having belonged to the Captain. In the breast pocket of the jacket was an envelope addressed to the Doctor, and in it a slip of paper inscribed with the words: 'THOSE THAT LIVE BY THE FLESH SHALL PERISH BY THE FLESH.

As far as was possible this intelligence was kept from the boys.

Flossie, though severely shocked at this untimely curtailment of her married life, was firm in her resolution not to wear mourning. 'I don't think my husband would have expected it of me, she said.

In these distressing circumstances the boys began packing their boxes to go away for the Easter holidays.

end of part one

Margot Beste-Chetwynde had two houses in England ‑ one in London and the other in Hampshire. Her London house, built in the reign of William and Mary, was, by universal consent, the most beautiful building between Bond Street and Park Lane, but opinion was divided on the subject of her country house. This was very new indeed; in fact, it was scarcely finished when Paul went to stay there at the beginning of the Easter holidays. No single act in Mrs Beste‑Chetwynde's eventful and in many ways disgraceful career had excited quite so much hostile comment as the building, or rather the rebuilding, of this remarkable house.

It was called King's Thursday, and stood on the place which since the reign of Bloody Mary had been the seat of the Earls of Pastmaster. For three centuries the poverty and inertia of this noble family had preserved its home unmodified by any of the succeeding fashions that fell upon domestic architecture. No wing had been added, no window filled in; no portico, façade, terrace, orangery, tower, or battlement marred its timbered front. In the craze for coal‑gas and indoor sanitation, King's Thursday had slept unscathed by plumber or engineer. The estate carpenter, an office hereditary in the family of the original joiner who had panelled the halls and carved the great staircase, did such restorations as became necessary from time to time for the maintenance of the fabric, working with the same tools and with the traditional methods, so that in a few years his work became indistinguishable from that of his grandsires. Rushlights still flickered in the bedrooms long after all Lord Pastmaster's neighbours were blazing away electricity, and in the last fifty years Hampshire had gradually become proud of King's Thursday. From having been considered rather a blot on the progressive county, King's Thursday gradually became the Mecca of week‑end parties. 'I thought we might go over to tea at the Pastmasters', hostesses would say after luncheon on Sundays. 'You really must see their house. Quite unspoilt, my dear. Professor Franks, who was here last week, said it was recognized as the finest piece of domestic Tudor in England.

It was impossible to ring the Pastmasters up, but they were always at home and unaffectedly delighted to see their neighbours, and after tea Lord Pastmaster would lead the newcomers on a tour round the house, along the great galleries and into the bedrooms, and would point out the priest‑hole and the closet where the third Earl imprisoned his wife for wishing to rebuild a smoking chimney. 'That chimney still smokes when the wind's in the east, he would say, 'but we haven't rebuilt it yet.