Good Behaviour by Maggie O'Farrell, Molly Keane Read Free Book Online

flogging, and Mrs Brock, with her music lessons and poetry readings,
     must go. It was to be hoped that any damage Richard might have suffered from them would be repaired by an early start at Entwhistle’s.
    ‘And who is going to sack Mrs Brock?’ Lady Grizel would have wanted to know.
    ‘You are, of course.’
    ‘No, my darling, I am not. You are. You thought of it.’
    To suit some inescapable duty – judging at a neighbouring hunt’s puppy show, most likely – Richard’s punishment was postponed
     until Friday, two days away, and two very dreadful days intervened. Richard, the condemned man, set about hispony in a fiery way, went a great deal to the lavatory, and was sick after breakfast and very sick after tea on Friday.
    Sholto reported that he was unable to sleep a wink because Richard was so quiet. Richard didn’t know how many people knew
     he had told a lie and was going to be beaten. He took any kindness or cordiality as an insult. His hair stood up in stiff
     little dry peaks on his head. He jumped off the garden wall into a seed-bed to prove to himself his manly side. Walter, white
     to the lips, came to the schoolroom to say the Captain was waiting for Master Richard in the gunroom. Richard, white to the
     lips too, met the Captain, green about the gills, but prepared to do his duty.
    ‘Why did you lie to your mother, Richard?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘You were ashamed about that rather silly book, I suppose,
and
rightly so.’
    ‘No, I wasn’t.’
    ‘But you told a lie. We don’t have liars in our family, do we? Anything to say about that?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘Well, bend over this chair.’
    ‘Oh, please, Daddy. Please, Daddy—’
    ‘Look – keep quiet, will you, or I’ll have to get Walter to hold you.’
    ‘No. I’ll be good. I’ll be good.’
    ‘Now, shut up, old boy,’ the Captain said kindly, as he put down his leather-covered malacca stick. ‘You’ll upset Mummie if
     she hears you. Got to take punishment, haven’t we, old son. I’ve had plenty in my time.’ And the Captain laughed heartily,
     far more from nerves than from any unkindness. ‘Cut along to Nannie. She’ll look after you.’
    But it was to the schoolroom that Richard went, very quietly, almost creeping in. He stood still, lost for a reason, for anything
     to say, a guilty embarrassed person.
    ‘Forgot to do my history,’ he muttered.
    ‘History, Richard? We don’t have history this week.’ Mrs Brock turned back to the piano, where, when he came in, she had been
     playing and softly singing ‘Abide with Me.’ Now her throaty animal voice filled the whole air in the room, as a smell takes
     over the senses. As the air throbbed round him, all proper rules escaped Richard’s control. When Mrs Brock, crying too, twisted
     her piano-stool round towards him, he forgot all the stiff-upper-lipmanship and threw himself, sobbing wildly, into her arms.
     Mrs Brock folded him to her breast where he burrowed his head into the dark comfort of that strictly clothed bosom. For ever
     afterwards he remembered the smell of security in an embrace where Rimmel’s toilet vinegar and
papier poudré
fought a losing battle with warm, merciful human flesh. He sobbed on in measureless relief.
    It had to be then that Nannie, high priestess of correct behaviour for little boys, made her entrance and stood for a minute,
     holding on to the door handle for support, as she saw with unaffected horror the pair enlaced on the piano-stool. Speechless
     for once, she turned away, shutting the door sharply on the scene, and lost not a moment in imparting her triumphantly unhealthy
     news to Lady Grizel.
    So Mrs Brock was next in the gunroom, summoned by a shaking Walter. He had heard Richard’s cries and wondered what more could
     be in store for his schoolroom friends.
    ‘Mrs Brock, do sit down. I asked you to come and have a talk with me because, actually, his mother and I aren’t too happy
     about Richard. Frankly, he’s