Tom was very happy at the grammar school. Tall and well built, good at games as well as lessons, he was never in danger of being bullied; there was a genuine cross section of class in the school and the sons of local farm workers, jobbing builders and tradespeople were taught alongside those of businessmen, teachers and doctors. Tom particularly attracted the attention of the history master, a rather flamboyant character called Tristram Sherrin; he was a brilliant, inspiring teacher, and had sent many boys on to read history at university. He ran a chess club after school, which Tom joined, after which he would sit and chat with the boys and talk about their futures and their aspirations. Tom told him that what he really wanted to do was become a barrister: ‘The law really interests me, and I’d love to stand and argue people’s cases in court.’ Sherrin said this was an admirable ambition, but a university degree was essential, adding tactfully that he feared this would not be an option for Tom on financial grounds. However, Tom might become a solicitor, by way of taking articles, and this too was fascinating work. ‘Not as glamorous, perhaps, but I think you’d enjoy it. I have a friend who is a solicitor; if you’re interested when the time comes, we can have a further conversation.’
Tom said he would be very grateful and challenged him to another game of chess which he won. Sherrin looked after him as he left the room and marked him down as a boy to watch.
As Tom reached sixteen and faced the School Certificate, there was certainly no sign of him developing the dreaded ideas above his station. He was as devoted a son as could be wished for and by the time of the chance meeting in the lane with Diana Southcott, he was also becoming extraordinarily good-looking.
Chapter 2
1937
The Southcotts were not proper aristocracy – Diana’s father had been knighted after the war, rather than inheriting his title, but that was a detail that both he and Lady Southcott considered of little importance. The Manor House in West Hilton had been bought by Sir Gerald’s father, a rich industrialist who had raised his eldest son to consider himself landed gentry. Sir Gerald and his family moved into the house after he died, thereby cementing their impression of themselves, and indeed the impression of everyone else in the area.
Lady Southcott took her duties as Lady of the Manor very seriously, and devoted herself to her charities, and to the local community, most assiduously. She produced an heir (and a spare) to the dynasty, Michael and Richard, and had then offered a final flourish, Diana, who would be presented at court in the next London Season.
That summer of 1937, Diana was seventeen years old, beautiful, accomplished, supremely self-confident, and waiting impatiently for her season in the sun – or at least in London and planning her own dance, to be held in May at West Hilton Manor, at the end of which she would quite possibly have found herself several rich and suitable young men as suitors, one of whom (ideally titled) would, fairly swiftly, become first her fiancé and then her husband. Such was the ordered and indeed expected rite of passage for girls of her class and upbringing.
Diana’s dance – actually her whole season – was a great success. Held on one of the loveliest nights of the year, early in June, at Hilton Manor in a marquee filled with white roses and studded, like the garden, with starry lights, it was a fairy-tale occasion, as several of the society pages chose to call it. A hundred and fifty young people attended, the girls all sweet faced, the boys well behaved, the band fashionable. The food – a small dinner beforehand and a breakfast at dawn – was splendid, the champagne vintage. Sir Gerald had been budgeting for the occasion for years, knowing his daughter’s future could very well depend upon it.
Diana had serious work to do, and only a short time in which to do it; this had been none too subtly impressed upon her by her mother, who had been reading aloud from the engagement column in The Times over breakfast for several months now, exclaiming at the felicity of one girl’s choice and the inopportuneness of another’s. Putting the paper down when she had finished, she would smile at Diana and say, ‘Well, darling, this time next year, who knows?’ Or words to that effect.
Had Diana had more of an education she might have baulked at her role in this drama. As it was, she accepted it excitedly, and entered into preparations for it with great enthusiasm. And as she danced the night away and a seemingly endless procession of suitable young men told her how beautiful she was, many of them adding that they would hope to see her again very soon, she realised the fulfilment of her – and her mother’s – ambitions were to be achieved without undue difficulty. To love, at this stage, she gave little consideration.
Tom left the grammar school with several credits in his Higher School Certificate, and Tristram Sherrin kept his promise to introduce him to Gordon Pemberton, a local solicitor, who was looking for an articled clerk. He was impressed by Tom and took him on. There was a little difficulty over the fee of ￡300 required for articles; once again, the admirable Isobel was happy to advance this. Tom, deeply grateful, assured her he regarded it as a loan, and that as soon as he was earning anything at all substantial, he would repay it.
He was fairly happy during his first two years at Pemberton & Marchant. It was a very quiet life. The firm was a small one, with just two partners: Pemberton himself and Basil Marchant, both in their early fifties; then there were two senior clerks, with two secretaries, one for each partner, and Gordon Pemberton’s son, Nigel, studying for his articles like Tom.
Tom’s favourite member of staff was Basil’s secretary, Betty Foxton. She was fifty and a widow, bosomy, rosy and very cheerful. She behaved in a motherly way towards her ‘boys’ as she called them, often bringing them in a cake she had baked, and always interested in what they had done at the weekends.
The work was almost entirely conveyancing, with some probate thrown in, but Tom’s dream of becoming a solicitor made him feel that whatever he was doing was important.
‘It does have its moments,’ he told Angela Smithers, with whom he had been going out for six months. Angela was a salesgirl at Parsons, and he had met her through his godmother. She was very pretty, endowed with blonde hair and big blue eyes but not a great brain; she had high hopes of her relationship with Tom Knelston even though he was, as her mother pointed out, ‘only a postman’s son’. Angela, a spirited girl, retorted that she couldn’t see much difference between that and being a motor mechanic’s daughter.
Tom had no hopes, high or otherwise, of his relationship with Angela, except to kiss her more often and perhaps more excitingly, and in six months they had certainly progressed beyond the peck on the cheek, the dry kiss on the lips, to quite exploratory activities, usually in the back row of the cinema – she had even once or twice allowed him to stroke one of her breasts (very briefly). He could see he was never going to get beyond that stage without certain commitments which he was most assuredly not prepared to make. For the time being, she was fun and they enjoyed one another’s company.
Mr Pemberton didn’t often praise Tom or even speak to him, but at the end of his first six months, he said, ‘I’m pleased with you, Tom, very pleased. You’ve worked hard and done well. I hope you’re happy here.’