Chapter Eight #2
“You should see our knees after a game of hockey in the winter,” said Bel. “They’re all blue and purple and red, not even counting the bruises.”
“Mine aren’t,” Deva pointed out with a trace of smugness. “It gets much hotter in India, doesn’t it, Mummy?”
“Yes, indeed,” Sakari agreed, smiling, “but in India, young ladies do not run races.”
“You’re not going to stop me?” her daughter asked in alarm.
“No, no! Have I not come today especially to watch you?”
Harriman blew a whistle and started issuing orders through a megaphone.
The girls jumped up and scampered off to the start line, and sports day proceeded on its scheduled—or possibly rescheduled—way.
Belinda, all flying legs and pigtails, managed to come in second in her heat of the under-fifteen-hundred yards, thus winning two points for Lister.
“Only because Vanessa got a cramp in her leg halfway,” she said dismissively when Daisy congratulated her. “And Jane didn’t even start. She’s in the San with an upset tummy.”
“Well, it’s jolly good, all the same,” Daisy insisted. “I’m proud of you, and Daddy will be, too, when he hears.”
“I wish he was here. Do you think he might come tomorrow?”
“How can I guess, darling? You know how it is.”
Bel heaved a sigh. “Yes. I’m not making a fuss, honestly. Some people’s fathers are in Africa, and Deva’s and Lizzie’s didn’t come even though they’re just in London, not off catching criminals.”
Lizzie ended the day with four points for her house, and somehow Deva scraped up one, so three happy children dashed back to the school buildings later that afternoon. With the prospect of high tea in the town ahead, they were in a hurry to change. Their mothers followed more slowly.
“I’m quite worn out from watching so much energetic activity,” Sakari declared.
Daisy saw two of Belinda’s favourite teachers sitting together near the end of the row of seats.
She had met them on a previous visit. Talking seriously, they seemed oblivious of the end of the athletic programme and the older boys now folding and removing the chairs.
As their conversation was about to be interrupted anyway, Daisy stopped to have a word with them while Sakari and Melanie went on.
“Mrs. Fletcher!” Mr. Tesler, the science master, stood up. Daisy refrained from offering to shake hands as he had a crippled right hand.
Mr. Pencote reached for his crutches.
“Don’t get up, Mr. Pencote,” Daisy said quickly.
The English teacher was also crippled, having lost both legs in the War.
Belinda had told Daisy and Alec that often he wore two artificial legs and walked with only a cane, but sometimes he managed to get about on one leg and crutches.
Bel being Bel, she worried about it. Alec had explained that sometimes a stump healed badly and made a prosthesis too uncomfortable to use all the time.
Not that understanding made Belinda stop worrying.
“I just wanted to tell both of you,” Daisy continued, “how much Belinda enjoys your classes. At present she’s torn between becoming a writer or a career as a scientist.”
“You’re a writer, aren’t you, Mrs. Fletcher,” said Pencote. “Belinda’s very proud of you. She once brought a copy of Town and Country to school at the beginning of term, to show me. It’s not a magazine I see regularly but I enjoyed your article.”
Sitting down on the vacant chair beside him, Daisy went on chatting with him about her work and Belinda’s studies, while Tesler turned aside to talk to another parent who approached him.
The boys clearing chairs came nearer. “We’re going to have to move,” said Pencote, once again reaching for his crutches.
Daisy leant down to pick up the one nearest her and handed it to him. As she straightened, Harriman paused as he strode past.
“Lending a hand to our hero here?” he said. “That’s the ticket.”
Pencote turned red. “Hero?” he shouted. “I’m not a hero, I’m a bloody victim! A victim of imperialist warmongers.” With furious impotence, he swung one crutch at Harriman’s back.
The games master, unheeding, had already gone on to bellow orders at the boys.
“Oh dear,” said Daisy, unable to think of anything more pertinent to utter.
“Sorry, Mrs. Fletcher. I try to watch my language, in accordance with Quaker principles, but that b—that … that…”
“Bully,” she suggested.
“He gets my goat, and what’s more, he knows it.
If I’d discovered Quakerism sooner,” he said bitterly, “I wouldn’t have been so keen to join up and I might …
But that’s water under the bridge. The real hero is Tesler.
He stuck to his pacifist principles and was sent to Dartmoor.
” He lowered his voice. “That’s where he lost the use of his hand, you know. An accident in the quarries.”
“The man I was engaged to was a Quaker.” Daisy seldom spoke of Michael, but, much as she loved Alec, her throat still ached with tears when she thought of him. “He volunteered for the Friends’ Ambulance Unit and was blown up in France.”
“That’s real heroism.” Tesler had returned to them. Helping his friend stand up, he went on, “Dartmoor wasn’t so bad, old chap. You shouldn’t take any notice of what that fat-head says. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He’s as lacking in brains as in nerves.”
Pencote was obviously still seething, but he managed to chuckle. “That of God in every man?” he said, giving the Quaker principle an ironic inflection.
“Yes,” Tesler said serenely. “Even Harriman, though he hides it well. Mrs. Fletcher, you say Belinda’s talking of a career in science?
I wish I could encourage her. She’s one of the few pupils who truly grasp that science is not just about learning rules but about discovery.
However, there are few—if any—opportunities for women in the sciences. ”
“Marie Curie!” Miss Bascombe joined them, as they moved slowly towards the school buildings.
“All right, few.” Tesler gave her a fond smile, which was returned, Daisy noted.
“That child has determination. She’ll be good at sports, too, Mrs. Fletcher, once she stops growing so fast. If she wants to be a scientist, don’t discourage her.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Daisy assured the earnest young woman. “But she’s only in the second form. She’ll change her mind a dozen times, I dare say, before she has to decide.”
At that moment, Harriman caught up with them, with a group of boys carrying chairs. As they passed, he swung round and said, “Look what I found on the field.”
He handed something to Tesler, who automatically took it. He strode on. Daisy and the three teachers stared down at the small object in Tesler’s hand.
A white feather.
“A gull, I should think.” Tesler seemed unmoved by the obvious implication that he was a coward. But Pencote and Miss Bascombe stared after Harriman with loathing.