their beer with a big head and only listen to brass band music, and whenever I tell a southerner that I run a school in Yorkshire, they inevitably call me Wackford Squeers.’
‘Surely not,’ soothed Perdita, slipping an arm around as much of her godfather’s shoulders as she could reach. ‘He was a perfectly horrid man and you’re a perfectly sweet one. Ash Grange isn’t anything like Dotheboys Hall, is it?’
Mr Armitage smiled, his heart obviously melting at his Bolshevik goddaughter’s flattery.
‘Only in one respect, I hope. The advertisement for Dotheboys, according to Dickens, claims that the school offers “No extras, no vacations and diet unparalleled”. Well, we do supply extras and we certainly have vacations, but when it comes to offering a diet unparalleled, I have to say we are inordinately proud of our catering and our diet – as you can see’ – he patted his well-filled waistcoat – ‘is indeed unparalleled. But then, I have to say that as my good lady wife is in charge of catering and that is the one area of the school where the headmaster has absolutely no authority whatsoever. Do not, however, repeat what I just said in the staff room. As far as the staff – and the boys come to that – are concerned, the headmaster is all-knowing, all-powerful and absolutely everywhere at once.’
Rupert and Perdita dutifully followed the omniscient and omnipotent Brigham Armitage along a high, windowless corridor which led into the bowels of the school. As was clearly the highway code of traffic within the establishment, they walked on the left and a trickle of schoolboys pulling on coats and scarves, or struggling with heavily laden haversacks or satchels, marched in procession in the opposite direction. To a boy they were quiet and orderly and all greeted the headmaster with a polite ‘Good night, sir’. The older ones, or at least those over five feet tall, all gave Perdita a second if not a third glance. Rupert wondered whether he should scowl at them but restrained himself on the grounds that boys were apt to be, when all was said and done, boys.
Along the length of the corridor, well above head height and out of reach of the casual juvenile vandal hung an eclectic series of framed oil paintings without any apparent linking theme. Yet two of them, hanging side by side, struck a chord of recognition in Rupert.
‘Excuse me, Headmaster,’ he said formally as there were boys in the corridor, ‘but those two paintings look rather familiar.’
‘Are you an art lover, Mr Campion?’ Mr Armitage stopped in his tracks, acknowledged a brace of boys hurrying past with a respectful nod and then concentrated on the paintings Rupert was pointing at.
‘Not really,’ Rupert confessed. ‘It was just that those two are both landscapes, or should I say “seascapes”, of the Suffolk coast, are they not?’
‘They are indeed. Do you know the artists?’
‘Not a clue, I’m afraid, but we know that coast.’
‘Yes, of course,’ the headmaster mused, ‘you would. They are both of the area around Walberswick and Southwold. The one on the right is a Bernard Priestman and the other’s a Rowland Suddaby. East Anglia seems to have exerted quite a pull on our artists.’
‘
Your
artists, Headmaster?’ Perdita asked. ‘Are they connected to the school?’
Mr Armitage glanced along the corridor and his eyes flashed in a silent warning that they were being overheard by several sets of juvenile ears working with bat-like precision.
‘Sadly no, Miss Browning; I meant “our artists” in the sense that all the paintings hung here are by Yorkshiremen. The next one, that rather surreal daub which looks like a draughts’ board someone has taken an axe to, is by Edward Wadsworth. Not to my taste at all, far too modern, but he was a Yorkshireman – born in Cleckheaton actually, which is not that far from here – and he did some sterling work for the navy in the First War on “dazzle camouflage” on
‘Surely not,’ soothed Perdita, slipping an arm around as much of her godfather’s shoulders as she could reach. ‘He was a perfectly horrid man and you’re a perfectly sweet one. Ash Grange isn’t anything like Dotheboys Hall, is it?’
Mr Armitage smiled, his heart obviously melting at his Bolshevik goddaughter’s flattery.
‘Only in one respect, I hope. The advertisement for Dotheboys, according to Dickens, claims that the school offers “No extras, no vacations and diet unparalleled”. Well, we do supply extras and we certainly have vacations, but when it comes to offering a diet unparalleled, I have to say we are inordinately proud of our catering and our diet – as you can see’ – he patted his well-filled waistcoat – ‘is indeed unparalleled. But then, I have to say that as my good lady wife is in charge of catering and that is the one area of the school where the headmaster has absolutely no authority whatsoever. Do not, however, repeat what I just said in the staff room. As far as the staff – and the boys come to that – are concerned, the headmaster is all-knowing, all-powerful and absolutely everywhere at once.’
Rupert and Perdita dutifully followed the omniscient and omnipotent Brigham Armitage along a high, windowless corridor which led into the bowels of the school. As was clearly the highway code of traffic within the establishment, they walked on the left and a trickle of schoolboys pulling on coats and scarves, or struggling with heavily laden haversacks or satchels, marched in procession in the opposite direction. To a boy they were quiet and orderly and all greeted the headmaster with a polite ‘Good night, sir’. The older ones, or at least those over five feet tall, all gave Perdita a second if not a third glance. Rupert wondered whether he should scowl at them but restrained himself on the grounds that boys were apt to be, when all was said and done, boys.
Along the length of the corridor, well above head height and out of reach of the casual juvenile vandal hung an eclectic series of framed oil paintings without any apparent linking theme. Yet two of them, hanging side by side, struck a chord of recognition in Rupert.
‘Excuse me, Headmaster,’ he said formally as there were boys in the corridor, ‘but those two paintings look rather familiar.’
‘Are you an art lover, Mr Campion?’ Mr Armitage stopped in his tracks, acknowledged a brace of boys hurrying past with a respectful nod and then concentrated on the paintings Rupert was pointing at.
‘Not really,’ Rupert confessed. ‘It was just that those two are both landscapes, or should I say “seascapes”, of the Suffolk coast, are they not?’
‘They are indeed. Do you know the artists?’
‘Not a clue, I’m afraid, but we know that coast.’
‘Yes, of course,’ the headmaster mused, ‘you would. They are both of the area around Walberswick and Southwold. The one on the right is a Bernard Priestman and the other’s a Rowland Suddaby. East Anglia seems to have exerted quite a pull on our artists.’
‘
Your
artists, Headmaster?’ Perdita asked. ‘Are they connected to the school?’
Mr Armitage glanced along the corridor and his eyes flashed in a silent warning that they were being overheard by several sets of juvenile ears working with bat-like precision.
‘Sadly no, Miss Browning; I meant “our artists” in the sense that all the paintings hung here are by Yorkshiremen. The next one, that rather surreal daub which looks like a draughts’ board someone has taken an axe to, is by Edward Wadsworth. Not to my taste at all, far too modern, but he was a Yorkshireman – born in Cleckheaton actually, which is not that far from here – and he did some sterling work for the navy in the First War on “dazzle camouflage” on
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