The Summer Before the War Read online

  “A splendid room,” said Beatrice, faintly.

  “I was exiled here as a boy shortly after my chemistry experiments proved malodorous,” said Hugh. “Just give me a moment to finish this and I’ll introduce you to the boys.”

  To adjust her composure in front of her new pupils, she walked along the wall to view the glass-fronted cabinets and extra shelves propped up on bricks, which contained books, boxes, and a lifetime’s collection of natural specimens. Skulls, rocks, fossils, feathers, half a dried bat, and a stuffed pheasant beset by moths seemed like a lost treasure. Beatrice was struck with a painful pang of jealousy that in this, the home of an aunt, a room bigger than her entire new accommodations would have been set aside for a visiting boy’s hobbies. She touched her fingertips to the cool, dimpled surface of an ostrich egg and bent to peer at a tank containing two frogs. One of the frogs swam energetically against the side, and Beatrice could not help but pause to examine his mighty efforts to scrape his way to freedom through the glass.

  “That’s Samuel and Samuel, miss,” said the boy with the book. He was the tallest and wore boots of enormous size.

  “We were going to call them Johnson and Pepys, but Daniel thought it sounded like a grocer’s,” said Hugh, carefully plucking something thinly sliced from a cup of formaldehyde and transferring it with tweezers to a slide held close to his face. “That boy impertinent enough to speak to a lady without being asked is Jack Heathly.”

  “Sorry, sir,” said Jack, his ears flushing red. “Sorry, miss.”

  “Jack’s father is one of our most respected local shepherds,” said Hugh. “And Jack’s older brother is a sheep-shearing champion.”

  “Gone all the way to Australia, he is,” said Jack, who looked both proud and wistful. “I keep all the stamps from his letters.”

  “I think they are upsetting Samuel with their brain slicing,” said Beatrice, smiling at Jack. “Did Mr. Grange section the heads of all his brothers and sisters?”

  “Only if they died of natural causes,” said Hugh. “I’m not too good about killing things up close. Our cook dispatches the chickens.”

  “I’d kill stuff for you, Mr. Hugh,” said the shortest boy, sitting down at the table.

  “Thank you, Snout,” said Hugh. “This fine if somewhat short fellow is Snout. His father has the forge down by the Strand.”

  “How d’you do, miss?” said Snout. He did not look up but continued to slice with slow precision through a chicken head, his thin face creased into a frown and his tongue pressed between his lips.

  “And this third fellow is Arty Pike, Miss Nash. No doubt you’ve seen Pike Brothers, the ironmongers in the high street?”

  “Ironmongers and Haberdashery,” said the jug-eared boy, coming to attention. “ ‘All your needs and no fancy prices’ is our motto, miss.”

  “I shall be sure to open an account, Master Pike,” said Beatrice. Her magnanimity was met with a smirk that suggested he had already appraised the modest size of her business.

  “Finish up, boys, and I’ll introduce you properly to Miss Nash, who is going to be taking over as your summer tutor.” They must have been warned, thought Beatrice, for they managed to keep their groans as low as a mutter. They were not as enthusiastic to be taught as she was to engage in teaching.

  “Can I finish up too?” asked the boy with the book.

  “Only if you’re done with your translation, Jack,” said Hugh. He looked up at Beatrice to add, “We have an agreement that Latin homework will be done each week if we want to help with the science experiments.” He smiled in a way that telegraphed he might have much more to communicate about the boys were they not in the room. She returned the smile, admiring that he could disguise scientific inquiry as a reward.

  “Wot we learning Latin for, anyway?” Jack asked, chewing his pencil. He looked with gloomy despair at three lines of Latin text scrawled by Hugh on a large sheet of brown butcher’s paper and returned to consulting the reference book.

  “Jack’s learning Latin and bowing and scraping so he can be a gentleman,” said Arty. “They’re going to give him a top hat to wear while he’s shearing sheep.”

  “Better a working man than a sot, my dad says,” said Jack, putting the book away on a shelf as if it was all agreed that he was finished with his Latin. Arty’s face went dark at the apparent insult, and Hugh intervened.

  “Now, now, boys. Let’s behave like gentlemen in the presence of Miss Nash.”

  “I don’t want to be no gentleman and I doubt a bit o’ Latin is going to make ’em let us join anyway,” said Jack.

  “I want to be a gentleman,” said Snout, handling his knife with the ease of experience as he sliced the last of his heads paper-thin. “You don’t get laughed at for reading books, you don’t have to let no one on your land, and you can kill all the rabbits you want and no one calls the coppers.”

  “He’s a poacher, miss,” said Jack.

  “Say it again and I’ll ’ave you,” said Snout, balling up his fists and screwing up his face so much Beatrice began to see the origin of his nickname.

  “Come now, Snout, you must not rise to the bait,” said Hugh. “And, Jack, perhaps you should spend less time insulting Snout and more time learning from his superior Latin talents?” This did not seem to be welcomed by either boy. They both glared, and Beatrice was glad she had been educated privately and not in their schoolroom, where, she began to understand, talent might bring as much ridicule as respect.

  “Latin is not just the language of the Caesars but also the language of the science you are studying,” she said. “And it underpins all medicine, law, and religion, so it’s the key that unlocks many fields.” She stopped as they looked at her with suspicion. Her calling to teach was partly inspired by her father’s view that education in general, and Latin in particular, should not be kept for the few, that it was wrong to divide the world and keep all success and distinction in the hands of a small elite. But perhaps his leanings towards such new ideas, and his wish to spread classical education to the people, would not be popular in the rural setting of Rye, she thought.

  “There you are, boys,” said Hugh. “Miss Nash intends to make you as erudite and as wealthy as the ancients.”

  “May I see what’s under the microscope?” said Beatrice, hiding her blushes as she changed the subject. “I assume it is brain matter?”

  “See, boys, Miss Nash really is not squeamish,” said Hugh, and Beatrice felt a flicker of satisfaction at her own stoicism. “Do come and look. It’s a slice across the medulla.”

  “Medulla from the Latin meaning ‘pith,’ miss,” said Snout. “The black stain shows the paths where the brain sends messages to breathe and things.” He seemed to have forgotten to be shy, and his eyes, now raised to hers, reflected a sharp intelligence. “Silver chromate, they call it. Very poisonous, but the chicken was already dead, miss.”

  “A very fine explanation, thank you,” said Beatrice, feeling slightly more optimistic that at least one boy showed real enthusiasm. She bent over the eyepiece of the large black microscope and squinted at a piece of yellow flesh as translucent as onion skin, swirled with complex black lines like fine calligraphy. “It’s very beautiful,” she added.

  “From where did you acquire such fortitude?” asked Hugh, setting all three boys to disinfecting the worktable with strong yellow soap.

  “As unfashionable as it is to have a strong stomach, my father developed a fondness for pioneer history while we were in America,” said Beatrice. “He became convinced that education should not be divorced from basic skills and that it was weakness in the educated classes to affect delicate sensibilities.”

  “I hate to think how one proves such a thing,” said Hugh.

  “There was a harrowing visit to the university’s kitchen yard, where I disgraced myself by running away with the chicken whose neck I was supposed to wring,” she said. She looked up from the microscope and added, “This is perhaps a more macabre hobby than insect wing
s?”

  “It’s not a hobby,” said Hugh. “It’s part of my research. There’s a lot to be learned from chicken brains.”

  “Only if one is planning on specializing in the brains of clergymen and politicians, that is,” said a voice as his cousin Daniel sauntered into the room. “Are you coming to dinner smelling like a chemist’s shop again?”

  “I have plenty of time,” said Hugh.

  “Given your perfunctory wardrobe style, I don’t doubt it,” said Daniel. “Goodness me, you’ll never make it while the place is still positively pustulating with the great unwashed.” The three boys, who were soaping their hands at a zinc basin in the corner, turned with lowering faces that suggested several blunt responses were being only barely quashed by respect for their superiors.

  “If you’re going to be rude, Daniel, perhaps you could do it in your own study,” said Hugh. “Boys, you are dismissed. I want your pages translated back into the Latin for next time.”

  There were three sets of groans, made shorter by the boys’ eagerness to escape from a room containing a strange woman and the rude poet with the fancy vocabulary.

  “I look forward to seeing you at my home for your next lesson,” said Beatrice, hoping her voice projected more authority than she felt. “No dead chickens, I’m afraid, but lots of exciting stories and discussion.”

  “Yes, miss. Thank you, miss.” With the briefest of mumbled answers and nods to Beatrice they were gone, clattering down the stairs and out across the sunshine of the drive.

  “I made Mr. Grange late,” said Beatrice. “I’m sorry. I was so interested in the boys and the brains. I’m not sure I will be able to find some task half as compelling to keep their attention.” Though concerned, she was also eager to begin. To bring a true appreciation of Latin to such boys would honor her father. And she was ready to test her talents against the grubbiest and most stubborn, for if she could bring these three to heel, she had an idea the grammar school classroom would no longer fill her with dread.

  “Oh, don’t listen to Daniel,” said Hugh. “He’s never on time to dinner parties, and when he’s there he can’t be trusted to be polite. He is to be ignored—on most occasions.”

  “Oh, that hurts,” said Daniel, clutching at his chest. “But I know your anger merely distracts from the fact that you have finally lured a maiden to your lair.”

  “Don’t talk nonsense, Daniel,” said Hugh. “Miss Nash is a protégée of Aunt Agatha’s and you are not to make her feel uncomfortable. Why don’t you take her for a promenade in the garden while I clean up?”

  “Actually, your aunt sent me to search the box room for spare furniture,” said Beatrice. “If you can just direct me to the key, I can amuse myself until dinner.”

  “I think the hideous relics in the box room demand a knowledgeable guide,” said Daniel, “lest the great tower of Kent history topple on one’s head.” He flopped into an armchair and took out from his pocket a cigar and a slim volume that looked like a poetry journal. “I would be a Virgil to your Dante, Miss Nash, but I fear I am not expert enough to steer you away from all the pieces Hugh might have used over the years to dissect or store his bits of animals.”

  “Oh please, it was just the one bureau, and only one jar leaked,” said Hugh. “But by all means let me just wash my hands and I’ll show you, Miss Nash. I know there are a couple of nice Georgian bookcases that Aunt Agatha wisely refused to let me have for rabbit hutches.”

  “I’ll just stay here and have a moment to read and smoke in peace,” said Daniel. “Aunt Agatha has chased me even from the terrace.” He withdrew matches from his pocket, and Beatrice wondered if he meant to light his cigar right under her nose. However, he merely turned the box over between his fingers until Hugh, having soaped his hands at the basin and dried them with a rough towel hung from a nail, was ready to lead her downstairs. As they left, Daniel, without looking up from his book, added, “If I don’t hear the guests, do come and fetch me, Hugh—but not until the soup is absolutely on the table.”

  —

  Beatrice had feared the box room might leave her dirty and covered with cobwebs, but the cleaning abilities of Smith’s wife had not been exaggerated, and from the spotless room she had selected a simple green bed and bureau, a small tea table and chairs, and the bookcases, which she felt were far too valuable but which Hugh insisted were just the thing.

  “I allow plenty of room for sentimental attachments,” said Hugh. “But once something is consigned to the box room it is a matter of guilt, not love.” As she ran upstairs to wash her hands and deposit her hat in the third-best bedroom, to which Jenny directed her as if the room would now always be Beatrice’s, she smiled at the realization that Hugh Grange hid a dry sense of humor beneath his plain scientific demeanor. He was quieter than his dazzling cousin, she thought, but it seemed he was no less sharp-witted.

  Beatrice came down to a drawing room lively with voices and the clink of glasses. She hesitated in the doorway, knowing she should be eager to meet her patron, Lady Emily, but instead fluttering with anticipation and scanning the room to see the great Mr. Tillingham. All the time in the box room, while she talked to Hugh about the boys and laughed over the fat ottomans and plant stands to which he tried to tempt her, she had been growing more and more nervous. To meet the man whose writing she admired above all others was delightful, yet she feared to seem too eager. She was almost glad that Agatha had forbidden her to mention her desire to be a writer; otherwise she might have blurted out some gauche declaration to the great man.

  She noticed that Daniel had decided to be polite and was already present. He stood up briefly as she came in. Agatha, in a pale green dress adorned with a brooch of silver and peacock feathers and curly Arabian gold slippers, came forward, glass of Madeira in hand, to greet her.

  “Miss Nash, why don’t you allow me to introduce you to our little school’s most important patron,” said Agatha. “Lady Emily, may I introduce to you Miss Beatrice Nash?” Lady Emily, despite the warm evening, wore severe, high-collared black silk. She was a study in gaunt angles, her limbs folded carefully onto the least comfortable chaise in the room, chin lifted as if she were about to have her portrait taken. As a concession to the informal dinner, to which she had all but invited herself at the last minute, she wore only a choker of fat pearls.

  “Welcome to our little town,” said Lady Emily. “Agatha tells us we are lucky to have attracted a teacher of your credentials, and Lady Marbely has of course vouched for your character.”

  “I am very grateful to Mrs. Kent and to you, Lady Emily,” said Beatrice. She knew what it must have cost her aunt to pen a few lines of praise in order to be rid of her and took great satisfaction in not repeating her aunt’s name, even though Lady Emily’s pursed lips suggested she was waiting for more communication. Beatrice merely offered her blandest and most demure smile.

  “And may I introduce you to Mr. Tillingham,” said Agatha, sweeping a plump arm towards a heavy-jowled older man, who was struggling to rise from a deep chair. “Though I’m sure our most distinguished literary neighbor needs no introduction.”

  At last the great man was in front of her. With a heave, he popped upright, swaying a little as the bulk of his torso sought equilibrium above two short legs and a pair of dainty feet. He considered Beatrice from hooded eyes under a broad forehead that continued up and over the back of a balding head. She thought at once of a large owl.

  “No indeed,” she stammered. He was less impressive in person than in the photographs she had seen of him in the newspapers, but she was still struck with a childish blush as he took her hand.

  “How do you do,” he said.

  She struggled for a reply as she tried not to pour out an effusive gush of silly compliments about the beauty of his language, or the elliptical construction of his sentences. She settled on “My father, Joseph Nash, was a great admirer of your work.” At least her father’s name would signal that she was more than just the ladies’ latest education
al experiment to be gaped at over dinner.

  “Joseph Nash? Joseph Nash?” said Mr. Tillingham, his face politely blank as he grasped for some connection to the name.

  “A Short History of Euripides?” she said. “You were kind enough to write to him about it.” It was the most successful of her father’s modest published works, and he had considered it his finest achievement, in some part because it had resulted in correspondence from Mr. Tillingham. Tillingham had written in praise, her father had responded in kind. Tillingham had written again to suggest that he concentrate exclusively on historical biography and to lament that so many threw away their talents on cheap journalism and low criticism. Her father had laughed and written to thank Tillingham for the advice. Neither had mentioned the journal to which her father contributed and in which he had roundly criticized one of Tillingham’s first plays. She still had Tillingham’s original letters, along with her copies of her father’s replies. They were wrapped in oilcloth and tied with a thin leather lace, in a tin box of her father’s papers, a box she had barely managed to smuggle from the Marbely home. She felt a rising anxiety as everyone wrinkled their brows as if searching for a collective memory.

  “Well, I’m sure Mr. Tillingham must correspond with dozens of people,” said Agatha.

  “What color are the boards?” asked Tillingham. “I have a good memory for color.”

  “Green,” said Beatrice. “Rather slim, with a cream title.”

  “Ah yes, I remember now,” said Tillingham. “A rare historical work that achieved its own promised brevity, and one or two moments of surprising clarity within the pages. I believe I was not unimpressed.”

  “Thank you,” said Beatrice.

  “I shall look it up in my library,” said Tillingham. “Perhaps it will remind me further of your father’s correspondence.” There was a slight easing of tension around the room, as if Mr. Tillingham’s recollection of her father’s book served as a password.