Resume

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Bonnie Prince Charlie, Bosphorous, clarsach, communion chalice, Head Teachers' Conference, hypogonadism, Inklings, lacrosse, Land Girl, lost Faberge egg, model railway club, National Trust, Pele Tower, seamed stockings, Simon Bolivar, Snodland, St Birinus, St Vitus

Candia: You think it would be useful?

Brassica: Well, a lot of people have come in on the action

mid-plot, so-yes- why not offer them a synopsis?

Candia:  Okay- they can skip it if they have been following

since Snod’s story took off.

Here it is, folks:

SYNOPSIS: Snod’s Law

Augustus Snodbury, Senior Master and Acting Head of St Birinus’ Middle School

is ripe for retirement. He loves comfort food, the Model Railway Club and Latin.

He is a role model for Junior Masters, but a bête noire for other staff.

For his entire life, he has taken for granted that he was the product of a liaison

of socialite and erstwhile Land Girl, Berenice Snodbury and A N Other.

Berenice’s sister, Augusta, took on responsibility for the child when her sister

ran off to Venezuela, following romantic dreams inspired by her hero, Simon

Bolivar.

The original Augusta, the girls’ mother. had not set them a terribly orthodox

example, as she herself had run around the Bosphorous with an itinerant rug

seller.

Snod’s lonely, institutionalised existence is interrupted by a climactic revelation

that an affair which he conducted with the ‘lax’ (lacrosse) mistress of a

sister establishment many moons ago engendered a child. That ‘child’ is now

a Housemistress at St Vitus’ School for the Academically-Gifted Girl, the school

in which her mother originally taught. (In fact, Gus has unwittingly met his

daughter on a number of occasions, at joint educational functions.)

The reason that his relationship broke down was owing to a Hardyean

twist of fate. A missing communication which contained his marriage

proposal now re-surfaces during re-furbishment for a school let. Diana,

the retired lax mistress, is exposed as having been deceitful.

She married ‘on the re-bound’, foisting her child on Murgatroyd-Syylk,

picture dealer and restorer. The pair subsequently divorced and now

Syylk is completing a restoration project of a Pele Tower in the Borders.

Drusilla, the Housemistress, attempts to encourage her parents to meet.

Will their romance re-ignite? Initially, it is a damp squib.

On Berenice’s death, a mysterious package arrives at school. It contains

a signet ring which Augustus’ apparent half-brother was asked to send

over to England. It bears an insignia associated with Wyvern Mote, now a

National Trust property.

Drusilla and Gus visit Great-Aunt Augusta and take her out of Snodland

Nursing Home for the Debased Gentry for the day, partly to introduce her

to her great-niece, and partly to investigate Wyvern Mote. There they see

a photograph in the schoolroom of two of the original heirs, with their tutor,

Anthony Revelly. The facial resemblance is clear: Gus is his offspring; Revelly

his father, rather than Lord Wyvern.

Lady Wyvern had had the child by her sons’ tutor on the death of her

husband. The tutor was permitted to live in a grace-and-favour apartment

in the stable block, for life, when the property was handed over to The

National Trust.

Berenice, who had been a Land Girl in the vicinity, had been paid an

undisclosed sum to acknowledge the child as being her own. A good time

girl, Berenice had tired of the responsibility, eventually absconding and

leaving her sister to arrange his schooling at St Birinus. Augusta had

once been Head Girl of St Vitus’, so knew of the boys’ prep school

establishment and its reputation.

Now Hugo, in Venezuela, has to be disabused of his belief in his

relationship to Gus.  They decide to leave Aunt Augusta in the dark.

The latter gave her ‘great-niece’ a present of what resembles one

of the famous missing Faberge eggs.  It turns out to be a fake and

yet, Dru’s visit to her step-father in the Pele Tower makes up for her

disappointment, as she is promised a communion chalice which Bonnie

Prince Charlie used before his fateful final ride south, on Syylk’s decease.

(The Pele Tower turns out to have been in Lady Wyvern’s family in the

past, so there is a neat circularity about Drusilla’s future inheritance of

the restored property, as Murgatroyd’s sole heiress.

The Head Teacher of St Birinus’ had an unfortunate ‘turn’ at the Christmas

Eve Midnight Service and was diagnosed with hypogonadism. His mid-life

crisis leads to him taking time off in order to make a motorcycle trip across

The Sahara, much to his wife’s relief. Unfortunately, Gus has to ‘stand in’,

but when his previous boss decides to abdicate, he does not apply for the

permanent post. Nevertheless, a position of Deputy Head is created for him,

in order to boost his pension. Poskett, Milford-Haven and Drusilla Fotheringay-

Syylk apply for the Headship, but are unsuccessful. Will the latter two decide

to throw over their careers and try to make a musical success of their lives

together?

Drusilla has shone in various musical concerts, by playing her harp for both

schools. She has been the focus of attention from Nigel Milford-Haven, the

rather wimpish Junior Master who is beginning to sing solo tenor in some

school productions and Geoffrey Poskett, Choirmaster. She seems to favour

Nigel, since she has asked him to come to the Borders with her in the school

holidays, to stage a concert for clarsach and voice.

She hopes to raise money for Murgatroyd’s roof repairs. Nigel is nervous, as

his mother usually draws on his decorating expertise in the school holidays

and she is not going to be too pleased at his bid for independence.

Meanwhile ‘Snod’ has settled into a friendly relationship with Diana, the mother

of his child, who has sold her cottage and moved back to the Suttonford area,

in which both schools are situated. However, his attention has been attracted

to Virginia Fisher-Giles, the widowed seamed-stocking-wearing PA. An invitation

for coffee chez elle after she has run him to a Head Teachers’ Conference

turns out to be more intimate than either anticipated.

Will he succumb to a projection of future domesticity with Virginia? Will he

resurrect the corpse of his relationship with Diana, or will he continue his

‘Inkling’ existence of bachelor bliss?

The lure of retirement is like an ever-receding pot of gold. He has a year

or two to serve as Deputy Head under the new regime. Will he be able to

preserve the old ways, or will the introduction of a new system create a

tsunami of bureaucracy that will threaten to engulf him?

Revelation

Tags

Ancient Mariner, Bourbon biscuit, Purgatory, seamed stockings, St Birinus, St Vitus

Virginia, PA to the Acting Head of St Birinus Middle School, was curious.

A woman had just gone into Snod’s study and she wanted to know the

reason. She could have sworn that it was that Welsh woman who had

played the harp in the end of term concert.  When Virginia went in with

tea and biscuits, silence descended until she had shown herself out

again.  Still, she had taken a closer look and it was that woman from St

Vitus’ School for the Academically-Gifted Girl after all and she was wearing a

lovely gold necklace with a harp charm , so she must be Welsh.

She had just sat down at her computer when Nigel Milford-Haven, Junior

Master, knocked on her door.

Excuse me, but is Mr Snodbury free at the moment? he asked, his face, as

usual, pale with stress.

Regrettably not. Virginia loved blocking ordinary staff’s access to the highest

authority.  He is in consultation with that Welsh teacher from the girls’ school-

the one who played the harp in the concert.

Welsh?  Nigel expressed his confusion.  She’s not Welsh.

Virginia wanted to interrogate him as to how a minion such as himself

could be privy to information about the ethnicity of his betters, but she

restrained herself and restricted her reply to: Well, why else would she be

wearing a harp round her neck? It would be like the Ancient Mariner being in

denial about his particular cervical-was that the right word?- decoration being

a proclamation that he was not the world’s biggest lover of all things

ornithological.

Nigel was hyper-aware that his form class would be destroying the room, so

he nervously answered quickly, before shooting off back to Purgatory: No, she

is Mr Snodbury’s daughter.

What?  Are you certain?  I didn’t know he was married!  Virginia was seriously

discomfited.  She had thought that she knew everything.  He doesn’t wear a

ring.

Nigel flushed, partly with pleasure, now that he knew his anonymous present

of jewellery had been accepted.  Well, please could I send John Boothroyd-

Smythe to stand outside your office?  He is being unusually, or, to be more

truthful- usually-disruptive.

Virginia nodded, not taking in the information.  She was shell-shocked.  She

would never have sought to ingratiate herself with a married man, seamed

stockings or not.  Hers, I mean.

Mr Snodbury, married!

She knocked and went into the study to clear the cups and tray. Yes, he

was wearing a ring.  Why had she not noticed this before?  She stole a

sidelong glance.

They both had the same jowly profile and looked annoyed at her interruption.

As she used her elbow to exit the room, since neither Gus, nor Drusilla

offered to open the door, so deep were they in conversation, she collided

with a boy that she recognised all too well.

Not you again! she shouted.  Don’t you understand in that infantile brain of

yours that we are all heartily sick and tired of your puerile and selfish

behaviour? Get back to your class and apologise to your teacher and if I ever

see you here again, I will personally not be responsible for what I do to you!

The semi-permanent smirk was wiped off John’s face and he fled with his tail

between his legs.  No one had ever spoken to him like that before and he

immediately got the message.

Yes, Ms Fisher-Giles, he whispered, awestruck, and ran, practically wetting

himself.

Virginia’s seamed stockinged legs almost gave way under her and she

collapsed into her chair.  Before she knew it she had eaten three

Bourbon biscuits.

Married, she muttered.  And I never knew.

Signed, Sealed, Delivered

Tags

Bourbon biscuit, Caracas, cri de coeur, Cumbernauld, De Sousa, Elastoplast, Gregory's Girl, Ipostel, lime tea, madeleine, Philately, seamed stockings, Telegraph, wyvern

Virginia Fisher-Giles, The School Secretary and PA to Acting Head,

Augustus Snodbury, was reluctant to sign for the rather shabby parcel.

It was postmarked ‘Caracas‘ and she didn’t recognise the name on the

sender label: Hugo De Sousa.  There was an Ipostel label still hanging onto

it.  Clearly addressed to Mr Augustus Snodbury, St Birinus School, Suttonford

etc., she decided that she had better take it in and check the list of new

boys’ guardians.

The postman said that he had rattled it and smelt it and it seemed all right.

Nevertheless, Virginia had read, only the previous week, about a nineteen year

old diplomat’s son in South London, who had innocently and altruistically signed

for a neighbour’s parcel, and who had ended up being arrested and his parents’

home and garden being turned over for several days by police in bio-hazard

suits, before being issued an apology.

The Head, who was on sick leave, never received odd mail such as this.  She

wondered what on earth Snodbury was up to.  Unless, of course, it was some

kind of jape organised by that pest, John Boothroyd-Smythe.  He had once

offered her a nut from his cylindrical tin and when she removed the lid, a cloth

snake on a spring had leapt out at her and had given her the shock of her life.

As for ‘Caracas’..wasn’t that the ultimate destination those two teenage idiots

had misspelled on their placard, when they were trying to hitch a

lift from rainy Cumbernauld, or wherever, to an exotic land of allegedly

compliant girls, in the opening sequence of that coming-of-age classic

Scottish film, Gregory’s Girl?

Virginia simply had to know everything that was going on in St Birinus.  After

all, she was the PA and this whole episode was too, too intriguing.

Gus had a free period and was opening his Telegraph, ready to dunk

his Bourbon biscuit into his tea, when he noticed the package in his in-tray.

His first emotion was pleasurable, as he realised that the stamps would be

educational for his lunchtime Philately Club.  But this was followed by

puzzlement.  He didn’t know anyone of the surname on the label, except for a

composer of brass music, which was not really in line with his preferences.

He held the box up to his rather hairy ear.  No, there was no ticking.  Gingerly,

he tore off a corner of the brown paper and shook the parcel over his tray.

No white powder came out.

He decided to live dangerously and ripped it open, in the way one deals

with an Elastoplast that simply has to come off.

A small box fell out onto his desk.  He opened it.  It contained a gold

signet ring with a strange crest.

Snod might as well have dipped a Madeleine into some lime tea, rather than

a Bourbon into his builders’ variety, for, all at once, the years rolled away

and he could remember things past.  The mythical winged creature depicted

a dragony-type beast with a barbed tail.

A wyvern! he exclaimed.  And he could see the hand that had worn the ring

in his infant memory.  A stab of emotion that he thought he had suppressed

for over fifty years clutched at his entrails.

There was an accompanying letter.  As he read its contents, his tea turned

cold and he forgot to eat the second Bourbon.  This, in itself, would have

enlightened any observer as to the significance of the impact he had

received.

However, there was no voyeur, except for Virginia, who, unable to contain

her curiosity, barged into the study, without the usual courtesy of a knock,

and interrupted with:

I say, Mr Snodbury, you haven’t drunk your tea!  Did you get your parcel? 

Was it anything of interest?

But Gus was sitting expressionless and scarcely seemed to hear her.

Virginia, brought up short, revised her behaviour and, apologising, merely

took the cup away, along with the first uneaten biscuit that she had ever

had to retrieve and prepare for disposal.

How very strange! And, like Mary, she pondered all these things in her heart,

as she bent down and followed the trail of rubber bands from the school foyer

to the spot where the mail van parked every day.

Really!  She was tired of picking up the detritus scattered by that buffoon

whose ridiculous semi-uniform of baseball cap and unseasonable shorts

was a disgrace to civilised society.  As for that trolley thing that he pushed,

it was completely wimpish.  How she longed for a real man that she could

respect.  But what was the chance of her meeting one in this limited scenario?

The seamed stockings that she wore were a cri-de-coeur.  If the true princess

could spot a pea, then, surely, a real prince would notice her stockings!  And,

oh, how she longed that one day he would come!

Pastoral Care

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allotment, Bourbon biscuit, child benefit, Cincinnatus, dibbling, harrowing, in loco parentis, internecine, open question, Pastoral Care, ploughing, Polar vortex, Protestant reformation, seamed stockings, smallholding, spyware, toga, Type 2 diabetes, William Morris Willow Bough Minor, work ethic, yoke of oxen

 

Gisela Boothroyd-Smythe and her newly ex-husband, Maxwell,

sat at opposite ends of the William Morris Willow Bough Minor

upholstered sofa in Acting Head, Augustus Snodbury’s study.

He had called both warring factions into school for a review of

their delinquent son’s Autumn term.  The emotional temperature

in the room reflected the physical Polar Vortex being experienced

elsewhere.

Snod opened the large file on his desk.  Gisela rubbed her heel on

the rug, exacerbating the hole which had been initiated many

parental meetings before.  She twisted the wedding ring which she

now wore on her right hand.

Maxwell sat with his legs splayed, trying to make himself appear

bigger.

Attendance…hmm..almost perfect.  Maths and Science very good.

Arts subjects: ‘a facility with words’, as his form teacher, Mr

Milford-Haven has so succinctly put it in his summative report.

Everything seems to boil down to John’s problematic attitude to

authority and his lack of empathy towards his peers.

He is a bit of an individual, Maxwell broke in and his ex-wife scowled

at him.

I understand that both children are now boarding, Snod re-directed.

He felt that this was one of those open questions, couched in a

declarative which might open up discussion.  He was surprised to

hear himself employing the technique.

Ye Gods Above! I must have been inadvertently listening at the last

Training Session, he silently marvelled.

Gisela cleared her throat.  Em, yes.  Juniper feels that she has more

freedom at school.

That’s because you set up spyware to find out what she was up to,

interrupted Maxwell.

Maybe, but you didn’t have to inform the Child Benefit people that she

was not with me sufficiently to merit a payment, recriminated Gisela.

Now, let’s stick to the point, Snod intervened.  He had almost added

‘children’.  Both offspring seem to have become more calm with the

schools being ‘in loco parentis’.

Gisela and Maxwell forgot their differences to exchange an

uncomprehending glance.  Neither had studied Latin.

I think, concluded Snod, that participation in the school concert

definitely improved his co-operative skills. Life is all about teamwork

(What a load of old jargon, he admonished himself.)

Of course, individuation can be a positive.  After all, it led to The

Protestant Reformation.  It’s all a matter of cultivating the work

ethic.

Personally I hate teams, he admitted to himself.  Unless, of course,

they are of the cricketing or choral varieties.  In every other realm I

prefer to calculate my own decisions and work out how to achieve my

own goals.

He recalled the image of one of his personal heroes.  There had been a

pen and ink drawing of Cincinnatus wearing a shorty toga and perhaps a

laurel wreath, depicted in Gus’ own boyish Latin textbook.

There he was, the great dictator, minding his own business, in an agrarian

backwater, furrowing a field in retirement, when he was called upon to

leave the plough and to govern through the crisis of an invasion of three

intercenine tribes.

Imagine how pointless it would have been if Cincinnatus’ governance skills,

finely honed through harrowing, had been hampered by him having to drag a

yoke of useless dead oxen after him! Snod opined to himself. No, sometimes,

it is better to just get on and do things yourself.  Certainly in this line of

business it’s the case.

He quickly re-grouped his thought processes, releasing his

linked fingers.

Well,  I won’t detain you, knowing that you are both Very Busy People.

Flattery could get you everywhere.

And he stood up, remaining behind the desk, because he had seen

his GP do the very same when he wanted to terminate a consultation.

Snod then shook their hands.  Gisela had to stretch over the ring binder,

as her arms were shorter.  She didn’t shake hands with her ex-husband

and barely inclined her head to him.

The School Secretary showed them out and Snod reflected that he had

been advocating attributes which he had never developed himself. Did this

make him a hypocrite?

Hmm, she’s wearing high heels today, he observed. You know, I could

have sworn that she had seamed stockings..

He was fixated on the hosiery of his PA.

The door opened once more and the question was resolved.

I’ve brought you your tea and some biscuits, she announced.

You probably need a sugar fix after seeing those two.

On the contrary, I feel remarkably refreshed, he commented, glancing

down at her heels as she left the room.

Mmm-two sugars and two Bourbon biscuits.  Diana restricted his biscuit

portion to one.  She was always banging on about Type Two Diabetes.

She ought to leave a man alone, he cringed.

Mr Snodbury, sir!

He jumped out of his reverie and spilled his tea into the saucer.

It was Milford-Haven.  Snod hoped this wouldn’t be a lengthy session.

He bit into one of the Bourbons to mark his territory.

Yes, all this power was heady stuff, but he, like his Classical hero, would

return to civilian oblivion once his task was over.  Maybe he would try to get

an allotment?  His pension might not run to a Roman smallholding.

He wondered if the secretary liked horticulture.  He wouldn’t mind

watching her bend over as she did some dibbling.

Are you all right, sir?  I mean, is that all right?

Yes, Caligula- I mean, Milford-Haven, do as you think best.  Show some

initiative.

And Nigel stood up, grabbed the other biscuit and said, Cheers!

Snod supposed that was what was called being an individual.