I
“Not too bad, boy,” said old Briggs grudgingly, “not too bad.”
He was expressing approval of his new assistant’s performance in digging a strip of ground. It wouldn’t do, thought Briggs, to let the young fellow get above himself.
“Mind you,” he went on, “you don’t want to rush at things. Take it steady, that’s what I say. Steady is what does it.”
The young man understood that his performance had compared rather too favourably with Briggs’s own tempo of work.
“Now, along this here,” continued Briggs, “we’ll put some nice asters out. She don’t like asters—but I pay no attention. Females has their whims, but if you don’t pay no attention, ten to one they never notice. Though I will say She is the noticing kind on the whole. You’d think she ’ad enough to bother her head about, running a place like this.”
Adam understood that “She” who figured so largely in Briggs’s conversation referred to Miss Bulstrode.
“And who was it I saw you talking to just now?” went on Briggs suspiciously, “when you went along to the potting shed for them bamboos?”
“Oh, that was just one of the young ladies,” said Adam.
“Ah. One of them two Eye-ties, wasn’t it? Now you be careful, my boy. Don’t you get mixed up with no Eye-ties, I know what I’m talkin’ about. I knew Eye-ties, I did, in the first war and if I’d known then what I know now I’d have been more careful. See?”
“Wasn’t no harm in it,” said Adam, putting on a sulky manner. “Just passed the time of day with me, she did, and asked the names of one or two things.”
“Ah,” said Briggs, “but you be careful. It’s not your place to talk to any of the young ladies. She wouldn’t like it.”
“I wasn’t doing no harm and I didn’t say anything I shouldn’t.”
“I don’t say you did, boy. But I say a lot o’ young females penned up together here with not so much as a drawing master to take their minds off things—well, you’d better be careful. That’s all. Ah, here comes the Old Bitch now. Wanting something difficult, I’ll be bound.”
Miss Bulstrode was approaching with a rapid step. “Good morning, Briggs,” she said. “Good morning—er—”
“Adam, miss.”
“Ah yes, Adam. Well, you seem to have got that piece dug very satisfactorily. The wire netting’s coming down by the far tennis court, Briggs. You’d better attend to that.”
“All right, ma’am, all right. It’ll be seen to.”
“What are you putting in front here?”
“Well ma’am, I had thought—”
“Not asters,” said Miss Bulstrode, without giving him time to finish “Pom Pom dahlias,” and she departed briskly.
“Coming along—giving orders,” said Briggs. “Not that she isn’t a sharp one. She soon notices if you haven’t done work properly. And remember what I’ve said and be careful, boy. About Eye-ties and the others.”
“If she’s any fault to find with me, I’ll soon know what I can do,” said Adam sulkily. “Plenty o’ jobs going.”
“Ah. That’s like you young men all over nowadays. Won’t take a word from anybody. All I say is, mind your step.”
Adam continued to look sulky, but bent to his work once more.
Miss Bulstrode walked back along the path towards the school. She was frowning a little.
Miss Vansittart was coming in the opposite direction.
“What a hot afternoon,” said Miss Vansittart.
“Yes, it’s very sultry and oppressive.” Again Miss Bulstrode frowned. “Have you noticed that young man—the young gardener?”
“No, not particularly.”
“He seems to me—well—an odd type,” said Miss Bulstrode thoughtfully. “Not the usual kind around here.”
“Perhaps he’s just come down from Oxford and wants to make a little money.”
“He’s good-looking. The girls notice him.”
“The usual problem.”
Miss Bulstrode smiled. “To combine freedom for the girls and strict supervision—is that what you mean, Eleanor?”
“Yes.”
“We manage,” said Miss Bulstrode.
“Yes, indeed. You’ve never had a scandal at Meadowbank, have you?”
“We’ve come near it once or twice,” said Miss Bulstrode. She laughed. “Never a dull moment in running a school.” She went on, “Do you ever find life dull here, Eleanor?”
“No indeed,” said Miss Vansittart. “I find the work here most stimulating and satisfying. You must feel very proud and happy, Honoria, at the great success you have achieved.”
“I think I made a good job of things,” said Miss Bulstrode thoughtfully. “Nothing, of course, is ever quite as one first imagined it….
“Tell me, Eleanor,” she said suddenly, “if you were running this place instead of me, what changes would you make? Don’t mind saying. I shall be interested to hear.”
“I don’t think I should want to make any changes,” said Eleanor Vansittart. “It seems to me the spirit of the place and the whole organization is well-nigh perfect.”
“You’d carry on on the same lines, you mean?”
“Yes, indeed. I don’t think they could be bettered.” Miss Bulstrode was silent for a moment. She was thinking to herself: I wonder if she said that in order to please me. One never knows with people. However close to them you may have been for years. Surely, she can’t really mean that. Anybody with any creative feeling at all must want to make changes. It’s true, though, that it mightn’t have seemed tactful to say so … And tact is very important. It’s important with parents, it’s important with the girls, it’s important with the staff. Eleanor certainly has tact.
Aloud, she said, “There must always be adjustments, though, mustn’t there? I mean with changing ideas and conditions of life generally.”
“Oh, that, yes,” said Miss Vansittart. “One has, as they say, to go with the times. But it’s your school, Honoria, you’ve made it what it is and your traditions are the essence of it. I think tradition is very important, don’t you?”
Miss Bulstrode did not answer. She was hovering on the brink of irrevocable words. The offer of a partnership hung in the air. Miss Vansittart, though seeming unaware in her well-bred way, must be conscious of the fact that it was there. Miss Bulstrode did not know really what was holding her back. Why did she so dislike to commit herself? Probably, she admitted ruefully, because she hated the idea of giving up control. Secretly, of course, she wanted to stay, she wanted to go on running her school. But surely nobody could be a worthier successor than Eleanor? So dependable, so reliable. Of course, as far as that went, so was dear Chaddy—reliable as they came. And yet you could never envisage Chaddy as headmistress of an outstanding school.
“What do I want?” said Miss Bulstrode to herself. “How tiresome I am being! Really, indecision has never been one of my faults up to now.”
A bell sounded in the distance.
“My German class,” said Miss Vansittart. “I must go in.” She moved at a rapid but dignified step towards the school buildings. Following her more slowly, Miss Bulstrode almost collided with Eileen Rich, hurrying from a side path.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, Miss Bulstrode. I didn’t see you.” Her hair, as usual, was escaping from its untidy bun. Miss Bulstrode noted anew the ugly but interesting bones of her face, a strange, eager, compelling young woman.
“You’ve got a class?”
“Yes. English—”
“You enjoy teaching, don’t you?” said Miss Bulstrode.
“I love it. It’s the most fascinating thing in the world.”
“Why?”
Eileen Rich stopped dead. She ran a hand through her hair. She frowned with the effort of thought.
“How interesting. I don’t know that I’ve really thought about it. Why does one like teaching? Is it because it makes one feel grand and important? No, no … it’s not as bad as that. No, it’s more like fishing, I think. You don’t know what catch you’re going to get, what you’re going to drag up from the sea. It’s the quality of the response. It’s so exciting when it comes. It doesn’t very often, of course.”
Miss Bulstrode nodded in agreement. She had been right! This girl had something!
“I expect you’ll run a school of your own some day,” she said.
“Oh, I hope so,” said Eileen Rich. “I do hope so. That’s what I’d like above anything.”
“You’ve got ideas already, haven’t you, as to how a school should be run?”
“Everyone has ideas, I suppose,” said Eileen Rich. “I daresay a great many of them are fantastic and they’d go utterly wrong. That would be a risk, of course. But one would have to try them out. I would have to learn by experience … The awful thing is that one can’t go by other people’s experience, can one?”
“Not really,” said Miss Bulstrode. “In life one has to make one’s own mistakes.”
“That’s all right in life,” said Eileen Rich. “In life you can pick yourself up and start again.” Her hands, hanging at her sides, clenched themselves into fists. Her expression was grim. Then suddenly it relaxed into humour. “But if a school’s gone to pieces, you can’t very well pick that up and start again, can you?”
“If you ran a school like Meadowbank,” said Miss Bulstrode, “would you make changes—experiment?”
Eileen Rich looked embarrassed. “That’s—that’s an awfully hard thing to say,” she said.
“You mean you would,” said Miss Bulstrode. “Don’t mind speaking your mind, child.”
“One would always want, I suppose, to use one’s own ideas,” said Eileen Rich. “I don’t say they’d work. They mightn’t.”
“But it would be worth taking a risk?”
“It’s always worth taking a risk, isn’t it?” said Eileen Rich. “I mean if you feel strongly enough about anything.”
“You don’t object to leading a dangerous life. I see … ” said Miss Bulstrode.
“I think I’ve always led a dangerous life.” A shadow passed over the girl’s face. “I must go. They’ll be waiting.” She hurried off.
Miss Bulstrode stood looking after her. She was still standing there lost in thought when Miss Chadwick came hurrying to find her.
“Oh! there you are. We’ve been looking everywhere for you. Professor Anderson has just rung up. He wants to know if he can take Meroe this next weekend. He knows it’s against the rules so soon but he’s going off quite suddenly to—somewhere that sounds like Azure Basin.”
“Azerbaijan,” said Miss Bulstrode automatically, her mind still on her own thoughts.
“Not enough experience,” she murmured to herself. “That’s the risk. What did you say, Chaddy?”
Miss Chadwick repeated the message.
“I told Miss Shapland to say that we’d ring him back, and sent her to find you.”
“Say it will be quite all right,” said Miss Bulstrode. “I recognize that this is an exceptional occasion.”
Miss Chadwick looked at her keenly.
“You’re worrying, Honoria.”
“Yes, I am. I don’t really know my own mind. That’s unusual for me—and it upsets me … I know what I’d like to do—but I feel that to hand over to someone without the necessary experience wouldn’t be fair to the school.”
“I wish you’d give up this idea of retirement. You belong here. Meadowbank needs you.”
“Meadowbank means a lot to you, Chaddy, doesn’t it?”
“There’s no school like it anywhere in England,” said Miss Chadwick. “We can be proud of ourselves, you and I, for having started it.”
Miss Bulstrode put an affectionate arm round her shoulders. “We can indeed, Chaddy. As for you, you’re the comfort of my life. There’s nothing about Meadowbank you don’t know. You care for it as much as I do. And that’s saying a lot, my dear.”
Miss Chadwick flushed with pleasure. It was so seldom that Honoria Bulstrode broke through her reserve.
II
“I simply can’t play with the beastly thing. It’s no good.”
Jennifer flung her racquet down in despair.
“Oh, Jennifer, what a fuss you make.”
“It’s the balance,” Jennifer picked it up again and waggled it experimentally. “It doesn’t balance right.”
“It’s much better than my old thing,” Julia compared her racquet. “Mine’s like a sponge. Listen to the sound of it.” She twanged. “We meant to have it restrung, but Mummy forgot.”
“I’d rather have it than mine, all the same.” Jennifer took it and tried a swish or two with it.
“Well, I’d rather have yours. I could really hit something then. I’ll swap, if you will.”
“All right then, swap.”
The two girls peeled off the small pieces of adhesive plaster on which their names were written, and reaffixed them, each to the other’s racquet.
“I’m not going to swap back again,” said Julia warningly. “So it’s no use saying you don’t like my old sponge.”
III
Adam whistled cheerfully as he tacked up the wire netting round the tennis court. The door of the Sports Pavilion opened and Mademoiselle Blanche, the little mousy French Mistress, looked out. She seemed startled at the sight of Adam. She hesitated for a moment and then went back inside.
“Wonder what she’s been up to,” said Adam to himself. It would not have occurred to him that Mademoiselle Blanche had been up to anything, if it had not been for her manner. She had a guilty look which immediately roused surmise in his mind. Presently she came out again, closing the door behind her, and paused to speak as she passed him.
“Ah, you repair the netting, I see.”
“Yes, miss.”
“They are very fine courts here, and the swimming pool and the pavilion too. Oh! le sport! You think a lot in England of le sport, do you not?”
“Well, I suppose we do, miss.”
“Do you play tennis yourself?” Her eyes appraised him in a definitely feminine way and with a faint invitation in her glance. Adam wondered once more about her. It struck him that Mademoiselle Blanche was a somewhat unsuitable French Mistress for Meadowbank.
“No,” he said untruthfully, “I don’t play tennis. Haven’t got the time.”
“You play cricket, then?”
“Oh well, I played cricket as a boy. Most chaps do.”
“I have not had much time to look around,” said Angèle Blanche. “Not until today and it was so fine I thought I would like to examine the Sports Pavilion. I wish to write home to my friends in France who keep a school.”
Again Adam wondered a little. It seemed a lot of unnecessary explanation. It was almost as though Mademoiselle Blanche wished to excuse her presence out here at the Sports Pavilion. But why should she? She had a perfect right to go anywhere in the school grounds that she pleased. There was certainly no need to apologize for it to a gardener’s assistant. It raised queries again in his mind. What had this young woman been doing in the Sports Pavilion?
He looked thoughtfully at Mademoiselle Blanche. It would be a good thing perhaps to know a little more about her. Subtly, deliberately, his manner changed. It was still respectful but not quite so respectful. He permitted his eyes to tell her that she was an attractive-looking young woman.
“You must find it a bit dull sometimes working in a girls’ school, miss,” he said.
“It does not amuse me very much, no.”
“Still,” said Adam, “I suppose you get your times off, don’t you?”
There was a slight pause. It was as though she were debating with herself. Then, he felt it was with slight regret, the distance between them was deliberately widened.
“Oh yes,” she said, “I have adequate time off. The conditions of employment here are excellent.” She gave him a little nod of the head. “Good morning.” She walked off towards the house.
“You’ve been up to something,” said Adam to himself, “in the Sports Pavilion.”
He waited till she was out of sight, then he left his work, went across to the Sports Pavilion and looked inside. But nothing that he could see was out of place. “All the same,” he said to himself, “she was up to something.”
As he came out again, he was confronted unexpectedly by Ann Shapland.
“Do you know where Miss Bulstrode is?” she asked.
“I think she’s gone back to the house, miss. She was talking to Briggs just now.”
Ann was frowning.
“What are you doing in the Sports Pavilion?”
Adam was slightly taken aback. Nasty suspicious mind she’s got, he thought. He said, with a faint insolence in his voice:
“Thought I’d like to take a look at it. No harm in looking, is there?”
“Oughtn’t you to be getting on with your work?”
“I’ve just about finished nailing the wire round the tennis court.” He turned, looking up at the building behind him. “This is new, isn’t it? Must have cost a packet. The best of everything the young ladies here get, don’t they?”
“They pay for it,” said Ann dryly.
“Pay through the nose, so I’ve heard,” agreed Adam.
He felt a desire he hardly understood himself, to wound or annoy this girl. She was so cool always, so self-sufficient. He would really enjoy seeing her angry.
But Ann did not give him that satisfaction. She merely said:
“You’d better finish tacking up the netting,” and went back towards the house. Halfway there, she slackened speed and looked back. Adam was busy at the tennis wire. She looked from him to the Sports Pavilion in a puzzled manner.
[Cat Among the Pigeons -Agatha Christie] Seven Straws in The Wind