Guy Renton by Alec Waugh Read Free Book Online Page A

other families: about which you said, ‘Nobody bothers about that nowadays. Everyone knows that it goes on. It’s bad luck if you’re caught.’ The kind of thing you never expected to have happen to yourself.
    Probably it was not too surprising. Franklin was strikingly good looking, tall, light-haired, loose-limbed, fresh complexioned, with an easy, effortless power of making friends, quick-witted and rebellious, with a lack of ambition that had made Guy wonder how he had managed to be so good at games. A natural ball-game player, with an eye and with a sense of timing, almost self-taught, Franklin only bothered to exert himself when circumstances were against him, a bad light, good bowling or a tricky wicket: he enjoyed a losing game but lostinterest when a game was saved or a corner turned: the kind that very easily ran into trouble: into this kind of trouble.
    With two minutes to spare Guy joined them in the drawing-room. They all looked very solemn: so solemn that he decided to be frivolous.
    â€œI consider it’s all very cavalier,” he said. “You send a boy to a headmaster to be trained, then after he’s taken your money for four years, he admits that he can’t make a job of it. He ought to return your money. If a watchmaker can’t make your watch go, he doesn’t expect to be paid for the time he’s put in on it.”
    His brother-in-law had a literal mind.
    â€œI don’t agree with you at all,” Rex said. “A headmaster has a responsibility to the other boys, to the parents who have put those boys under his charge. If he feels that that charge is to be imperilled by the presence among them of one boy—even though there is no specific accusation against the boy ...”
    Mrs. Renton interrupted. “I can’t have you say a thing like that. I insist. ...” At that point dinner was announced.
    Dinner brought a break in the discussion, since a parlourmaid was in attendance throughout the meal, but it did not make the occasion easier. Rex as usual had a dampening effect. He had met and courted Lucy as a dashing young colonel with two gold wound stripes and a row of medals. He had been Guy’s colonel: that was how he and Lucy had come to meet. It had been a romantic marriage, but that was nine years ago. The years had taken toll of him. Like many another regular, he had resigned after the war rather than revert to junior rank; his father died and he believed he would have plenty to keep him occupied, running an estate in Devonshire. He had not realized how difficult it would be to run even parsimoniously an estate that had yielded a comfortable income through the nineteenth century. He had raged and cursed and protested, but could see no way of making his estate support the kind of life to which he considered himself entitled. In his indignation he had persuaded the Conservative Association to select him as their candidate at the next election. He had voiced the grievances of the landed gentry with great force and eloquence, but had been soundly beaten at the polls by a Liberal from the manufacturing section of the constituency. Forthe next election the Conservative Association had chosen a different candidate. They had suggested as tactfully as possible that Rex’s appeal to the electorate had been somewhat limited.
    The following spring he let his house. An industrialist who had made a fortune during the war wanted a country house where he could entertain his friends over the week-end. He did not mind its running at a loss. He could charge his entertainment against sur-tax. Rex rented a bungalow on the Wentworth Estate and took up golf seriously. “There’s nothing else that people like myself can be serious about,” he said. “That’s what’s wrong with the country. It doesn’t find proper employment for those who have, or should have—shall we say—a real stake in its prosperity.”
    The effect of