The Fourth Estate

“But how will we get in?” she asked.

“With a key,” he replied.

“That’s not possible,” she said, rising to the bait. “It’s always locked when the First Eleven are away.”

“Not when the groundsman’s son works on the Courier, it isn’t.”

Penny took him in her arms, only moments after he had finished doing up his fly buttons. “Do you love me, Keith?”

Keith tried to think of a convincing reply that didn’t commit him. “Haven’t I sacrificed an afternoon at the races to be with you?”

Penny frowned as he released himself from her grip. She was just about to press him when he added, “See you next week.” He unlocked the gym door and peeked out into the corridor. He turned back, smiled and said, “Stay put for at least another five minutes.”

He took a circuitous route back to his dormitory and let himself in through the kitchen window.

When he crept into his study, he found a note on his desk from the headmaster asking to see him at eight o’clock. He checked his watch. It was already ten to eight. He was relieved that he hadn’t succumbed to Penny’s charms and stayed a little longer in the gymnasium. He began to wonder what the headmaster was going to complain about this time, but suspected that Penny had already pointed him in the right direction.

He checked the mirror above his washbasin, to be sure there were no outward signs of the extra-curricular activities of the past two hours. He straightened his tie and removed a touch of pink lipstick from his cheek.

As he crunched across the gravel to the headmaster’s house, he began to rehearse his defense against the reprimand he had been anticipating for some days. He tried to put his thoughts into a coherent order, and felt more and more confident that he could answer every one of the headmaster’s possible admonitions. Freedom of the press, the exercise of one’s democratic rights, the evils of censorship—and if the headmaster still rebuked him after that lot, he would remind him of his address to the parents on Founder’s Day the previous year when he had condemned Hitler for carrying out exactly the same gagging tactics on the German press. Most of these arguments had been picked up from his father at the breakfast table since he had returned from Yalta.

Keith arrived outside the headmaster’s house as the clock on the school chapel struck eight. A maid answered his knock on the door and said, “Good evening, Mr. Townsend.” It was the first time anyone had ever called him “Mr.” She ushered him straight through to the headmaster’s study. Mr. Jessop looked up from behind a desk littered with papers.

“Good evening, Townsend,” he said, dispensing with the usual custom of addressing a boy in his final year by his Christian name. Keith was obviously in deep trouble.

“Good evening, sir,” he replied, somehow managing to make the word “sir” sound condescending.

“Do have a seat,” said Mr. Jessop, waving an arm toward the chair opposite his desk.

Keith was surprised: if you were offered a seat, that usually meant you were not in any trouble. Surely he wasn’t going to offer him …

“Would you care for a sherry, Townsend?”

“No, thank you,” replied Keith in disbelief. The sherry was normally offered only to the head boy.

Ah, thought Keith, bribery. He’s going to tell me that perhaps it might be wise in future to temper my natural tendency to be provocative by … etc., etc. Well, I already have a reply prepared for that one. You can go to hell.

“I am of course aware, Townsend, of just how much work is involved in trying to gain a place at Oxford while at the same time attempting to edit the school magazine.”

So that’s his game. He wants me to resign. Never. He’ll have to sack me first. And if he does, I’ll publish an underground magazine the week before the official one comes out.

“Nevertheless, I was hoping that you might feel able to take on a further responsibility.”

He’s not going to make me a prefect? I don’t believe it.

“You may be surprised to learn, Townsend, that I consider the cricket pavilion to be unsuitable…” continued the headmaster. Keith turned scarlet.

“Unsuitable, Headmaster?” he blurted out.

“… for the first eleven of a school of our reputation. Now, I realize that you have not made your mark at St. Andrew’s as a sportsman. However, the School Council has decided that this year’s appeal should be in aid of a new pavilion.”

Well, they needn’t expect any help from me, thought Keith. But I may as well let him go on a bit before I turn him down.

“I know you will be glad to learn that your mother has agreed to be president of the appeal.” He paused. “With that in mind, I hoped you’d agree to be the student chairman.”

Keith made no attempt to respond. He knew only too well that once the old man got into his full stride, there was little point in interrupting him.

“And as you don’t have the arduous responsibility of being a prefect, and do not represent the school in any of its teams, I felt you might be interested in taking up this challenge…”