Читать книгу The Passionate Year - James Hilton - Страница 7

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The Masters' Common-Room was empty save for a diminutive man reading the Farmer and Stockbreeder. As Speed entered the little man turned round in his chair and looked at him. Speed smiled and said, still with a trace of that almost boisterous nervousness: "I hope I'm not intruding."

The little man replied: "Oh, not at all. Come and sit down. Are you having tea?"

"Yes."

"Then perhaps we can have it together. You're Speed, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"Thought so. I'm Pritchard. Science and maths."

He said that with the air of making a vivid epigram. He had small, rather feminine features, and a complexion clear as a woman's. Moreover he nipped out his words, as it were, with a delicacy that was almost wholly feminine, and that blended curiously with his far-reaching contralto voice.

He pressed a bell by the mantelpiece.

"That'll fetch Potter," he said. "Potter's the Head's man, but the Head is good enough to lend him to us for meals. I daresay we'll be alone. The rest won't come before they have to."

"Why do you, then?" enquired Speed, laughing a little.

"Me?—Oh, I'm the victim of the railway time-table. If I'd caught a later train I shouldn't have arrived here till to-morrow. I come from the Isle of Man. Where do you come from?"

"Little place in Essex."

"You're all right, then. Perhaps you'll be able to manage a week-end home during the term. What's the Head put you on to?"

"Oh, drawing and music. And he mentioned commercial geography, but I'm not qualified for that."

"Bless you, you don't need to be. It's only exports and imports...Potter, tea for two, please...And some toast...Public-school man yourself, I suppose."

"Yes."

"Here?"

"No."

"Where, then, if you don't object to my questions?"

"Harrow."

Pritchard whistled.

After Potter had reappeared with the tea, he went on: "You know, Speed, we've had a bit of gossip here about you. Before the vac. started. Something that the Head's wife let out one night when Ransome—he's the classics Master—went there to dinner. She rather gave Ransome the impression that you were a bit of a millionaire."

Speed coloured and said hastily: "Oh, not at all. She's quite mistaken, I assure you."

Pritchard paused, teacup in hand. "But your father is Sir Charles Speed, isn't he?"

"Yes."

The assent was grudging and a trifle irritated. Speed helped himself to toast with an energy that gave emphasis to the monosyllable. After munching in silence for some minutes he said: "Don't forget I'm far more curious about Millstead than you have any right to be about me. Tell me about the place."

"My dear fellow, I"—his voice sank to a melodramatic whisper—"I positively daren't tell you anything while that fellow's about." (He jerked his head in the direction of the pantry cupboard inside which Potter could be heard sibilantly cleaning the knives.) "He's got ears that would pierce a ten-inch wall. But if you want to make a friend of me come up to my room to-night—I'm over the way in Milner's—and we'll have a pipe and a chat before bedtime."

Speed said: "Sorry. But I'm afraid I can't to-night. Thanks all the same, though. I'm dining at the Head's."

Pritchard's eyes rounded, and once again he emitted a soft whistle. "Oh, you are, are you?" he said, curiously, and he seemed ever so slightly displeased. He was silent for a short time; then, toying facetiously with a slab of cake, he added: "Well, be sure and give Miss Ervine my love when you get there."

"Miss Ervine?"

"Herself."

Speed said after a pause: "What's she like?"

Again Pritchard jerked his head significantly towards the pantry cupboard. "Mustn't talk shop here, old man. Besides, you'll find out quite soon enough what she's like."

He took up the Farmer and Stockbreeder and said, in rather a loud tone, as if for Potter's benefit to set a label of innocuousness upon the whole of their conversation: "Don't know if you're at all interested in farming, Speed?—I am. My brother's got a little farm down in Herefordshire..."

They chatted about farming for some time, while Potter wandered about preparing the long tables for dinner. Speed was not especially interested, and after a while excused himself by mentioning some letters that he must write. He came to the conclusion that he did not want to make a friend of Pritchard.