When they left on the Friday afternoon, Herr Kroll gave Sebastian a pound and shook him warmly by the hand. Sebastian handed the money to Mrs Tibbet, but she refused it, saying, 'It's yours. You've more than earned it.'
'But I still haven't paid for my board and lodging. And if I don't, my grandmother, who used to be the manageress of the Grand Hotel in Bristol, would never let me hear the end of it.'
Mrs Tibbet took him in her arms. 'Good luck, Seb,' she said. When she finally let him go, she stood back and added, 'Take your trousers off.'
Sebastian looked even more embarrassed than when Herr Kroll had asked him where he could find a strip joint.
'I need to iron those, if you're not going to look as if you've just come from work.'
31
'I'M NOT SURE if he's in,' said a man Sebastian could never forget. 'But I'll check.'
'Seb!' a voice echoed down the marble corridor. 'It's so good to see you, old chap,' Bruno added as he shook hands with his friend. 'I was afraid I might never see you again, if the rumours were true.'
'What rumours?'
'Karl, please ask Elena to serve tea in the drawing room.'
Bruno led Sebastian into the house. At Beechcroft, Sebastian had always taken the lead, with Bruno his willing lieutenant. Now the roles were reversed as the guest followed his host down a corridor and into the drawing room. Sebastian had always thought he had been brought up in a degree of comfort, even luxury, but what greeted him when he entered the drawing room would have taken minor royalty by surprise. The paintings, the furniture, even the carpets wouldn't have looked out of place in a museum.
'What rumours?' repeated Sebastian nervously, as he took a seat on the edge of the sofa.
'I'll come to that in a moment,' said Bruno. 'But first, tell me why you left so suddenly? One minute you were sitting with Vic and me in the study, and the next you'd disappeared.'
'Didn't the headmaster say anything at morning assembly the next day?'
'Not a word, which only added to the mystery. Everyone had a theory of course, but as both the housemaster and Banks-Williams were silent as the grave, no one knew what was fact and what was fiction. I asked Matron, that fount of all knowledge, but she clammed up whenever your name was mentioned. Most unlike her. Vic feared the worst, but then his glass is always half empty. He was convinced you'd been expelled and that was the last we'd hear of you, but I told him we'd all meet up again at Cambridge.'
'I'm afraid not,' said Sebastian. 'Vic was right.' He then told his friend everything that had happened since his interview with the headmaster earlier in the week, leaving Bruno in no doubt how devastated he was to have lost his place at Cambridge.
When he came to the end of his story, Bruno said, 'So that's why Hilly-Billy called me to his study after assembly on Wednesday morning.'
'What punishment did you get?'
'Six of the best, my prefect status removed, plus a warning that any further indiscretions and I'd be rusticated.'
'I might have got away with just being rusticated,' said Sebastian, 'if Hilly-Billy hadn't caught me smoking on the train to London.'
'Why go to London when you had a ticket for Bristol?'
'I was going to hang around here until Friday, and then go home on the last day of term. Ma and Pa aren't due back from the States until tomorrow, so I figured they'd be none the wiser. If I hadn't bumped into Hilly-Billy on the train, I would have got away with it.'
'But if you take the train to Bristol today, they still won't be any the wiser.'
'No chance,' said Sebastian. 'Don't forget what Hilly-Billy said. "School rules will still apply to you until the last day of term," he mimicked, clinging on to the lapels of his jacket. "Should you break even one of them, I will not hesitate to reconsider my position concerning your place at Cambridge. Is that understood?" Within an hour of being booted out of his office, I'd broken three rules, right under his nose!'
A maid entered the room carrying a large silver tray weighed down with food that neither of them had ever experienced at Beechcroft.
Bruno buttered a hot muffin. 'As soon as we've had tea, why don't you go back to the guest house and pick up your things. You can stay here tonight, and we'll try and work out what you should do next.'
'But how will your pa feel about that?'
'On the way here from school, I told him I wouldn't be going up to Cambridge in September if it hadn't been for you taking the blame. He said I was lucky to have such a friend, and he'd like the chance to thank you personally.'
'If Banks-Williams had seen you first, Bruno, you would have done exactly the same thing.'
'That's not the point, Seb. He saw you first, so I got away with a thrashing and Vic escaped scot free, and only just in time, because Vic had been hoping to get to know Ruby more intimately.'
'Ruby,' repeated Sebastian. 'Did you find out what happened to her?'
'She disappeared on the same day as you. Cook told me we wouldn't be seeing her again.'
'And you still think I have a chance of going to Cambridge?'
Both boys fell silent.
'Elena,' said Bruno when the maid returned, carrying a large fruitcake, 'my friend will be returning to Paddington to pick up his things. Would you ask the chauffeur to drive him, and have a guest room prepared by the time he gets back?'
'I'm afraid the chauffeur has just left to pick up your father from the office. I'm not expecting them back before dinner.'
'Then you'll have to take a taxi,' said Bruno. 'But not until you've sampled cook's fruitcake.'
'I've barely enough money for a bus, let alone a taxi,' whispered Sebastian.
'I'll book you one and put it on my father's account,' said Bruno as he picked up the cake knife.
'That's wonderful news,' said Mrs Tibbet, once Sebastian had told her everything that had happened that afternoon. 'But I still think you should phone your parents and let them know where you are. After all, you still can't be certain you've lost your place at Cambridge.'
'Ruby's been sacked, my housemaster refuses to discuss the subject, even Matron, who is never short of an opinion, wouldn't say a word. I can promise you, Mrs Tibbet, I won't be going up to Cambridge. In any case, my parents aren't back from America until tomorrow, so I couldn't get in touch with them even if I wanted to.'
Mrs Tibbet kept her counsel. 'Well, if you're leaving,' she said, 'you'd better go and pack your things because I could use the room. I've already had to turn away three customers.'
'I'll be as quick as I can.' Sebastian left the kitchen and ran back up the stairs to his room. Once he'd packed and tidied up, he returned to find Mrs Tibbet and Janice standing in the hall waiting for him.
'It's been a memorable week, quite memorable,' said Mrs Tibbet as she opened the front door, 'and one Janice and me are unlikely to forget.'
'When I write my memoirs, Tibby, you'll get a whole chapter,' Sebastian said as they walked out on to the pavement together.
'You'll have forgotten us both long before then,' she said wistfully.