The Wilt Inheritance by Tom Sharpe Read Free Book Online

more.’
    ‘Nothing could be further from my mind,’ said Wilt. ‘What I’m trying to din into your head is that when I was at Fitzherbert, a hearty was an undergraduate – all right, a student – who was good at sport. An arty was lousy at sport. If I was anything, I was an arty. Is that clear?’
    ‘As mud,’ said his wife. ‘I shouldn’t have thought you were good at anything.’
    ‘Agreed,’ said Wilt. ‘On the other hand, this Gadsley bloke must have been a rowing or rugger sort, and thanks to your telling his wife I went to Porterhouse, the bloody man will undoubtedly talk sport – if hebothers to take the slightest notice of me at all, that is. I’ll just have to try and keep out of his way.’
    ‘You’ll be too busy tutoring his step-son to have to go anywhere near Sir George. Besides he’s probably too busy being a landowner, and playing golf, and hunting, shooting and fishing … or whatever it is that landowners do.’
    ‘There is that, though I’m not going to spend all day, every day, teaching the boy if I can help it.’
    ‘Of course not. It will be a lovely peaceful holiday for all of us,’ Eva said, then went back upstairs to carry on packing the suitcases, satisfied that Henry fully understood the importance of his coming interview.
    ‘Peaceful?’ muttered Wilt. ‘Fat chance of that.’ And with the accompanying thought that the quads would almost certainly create chaos wherever they were, went back to reading about the First World War since it seemed Edward’s examining board had based their syllabus around modern European history.
    Meanwhile at St Barnaby’s School, Sussex, the Headmistress was in consultation with two teachers there, Miss Sanger and Ms Young, about the quads.
    ‘I simply can’t cope with them any longer,’ Ms Young was saying. ‘They create havoc in their house practically every day. Take last night, for example, when the fire alarm went off at two in the morning and we had to evacuate the dormitories. Who do you think was responsible? One of those horrid Wilt girls, that’s who.’
    ‘Are you absolutely certain?’ asked the Headmistress.
    ‘I can’t prove it but I’m pretty certain. In the first place there was no fire, and secondly, Sandra Clalley told me that one of them – Emmeline, I think – had left the dormitory not long beforehand, ostensibly to go to the lavatory. By the time she came back to her bed, the glass had been smashed on the alarm.’
    ‘It could have been broken before or by someone else.’
    ‘Hmmm, I would agree with you there were it not for the fact that she was wearing gloves, and leather ones too, Sandra told me she was.’
    ‘Did you ask Emmeline about it? What did she say?’
    ‘She looked at me blankly and had the cheek to say she didn’t know anything about leather gloves or fire alarms. For all I know, it might have been another one of them … I still can’t tell those girls apart. In any case, she accused Sandra Clalley of lying and trying to get her into trouble because she was jealous of her and her sisters.’
    ‘But that might well have been the case. After all, Sandra has come up with absurd stories about other girls,’ said Miss Sanger. ‘In my experience, she is not to be trusted in the slightest. Anna Mayle was nearly expelled because Sandra accused her of stealing her knickers, all of them, from the laundry while she was in the Sanatorium with glandular fever. That turned out to be a downright lie. We eventually found them behind one of the washing machines.’
    The Headmistress nodded.
    ‘Mrs Bluwell admitted she’d left a pile of wet underwear on top of the machine and so Sandra’s could have fallen down behind it. There was absolutely no proof Anna was involved. Besides her father is a bishop and she’s always been very well behaved. I don’t see how we can ask Mr and Mrs Wilt to remove their girls just because Sandra Clalley accuses them of setting off the fire alarm last night.’
    ‘But