short. The others looked at each other in amazement, and even checked to be sure it wasn’t in fact Dr Smith, and then they burst out laughing. ‘More, more!’ they demanded. Despite being swung and prodded and spun round and round, still dangling from the beam, Thomas managed to scramble through his repertoire of jokes and rhymes and imitations.
As Alexander predicted, they cut him down, still laughing. But his ordeal wasn’t quite over – perhaps they were having too much fun. They stood him on top of the bookcase and told him to sing. So Thomas sang; he sang all the songs he had ever sung in taverns and inns to make extra pennies for the family; the sea shanties, the mummers’ and morris songs, and foreign songs he’d picked up from sailors and travellers in the inns round the docks, imitating the characters and their accents, which had the boys splitting their sides. Finally, when he felt he had got them sufficiently on his side, he leapt down from the bookcase and went into a dance, accompanying himself with foot-tapping and thigh-slapping. And he even found a pair of spoons which he then played with incredible skill, to everyone’s amazement. Soon all the boys were also foot-tapping and thigh-slapping and making such a rumpus that Mrs Renshaw, the matron, came hurrying in to put a stop to it.
Later, lying on their mattresses side by side in the darkness, instead of dropping wet toads on his face or inserting wriggling spiders into his bed, the boys begged him for more imitations of Dr Smith and the Bishop. He duly obliged, and added Mrs Renshaw to the list, which had everybody giggling and sniggering in the darkness until, gradually, all but Thomas himself subsided into sleep. He lay long into the night, staring into the darkness, wondering if at last his troubles were at an end. They were as far as teasing was concerned; from then on, Thomas was not only accepted but he became the most popular of boys, at least with all except Alexander.
Alexander was a loner and didn’t seem to want any close friends. He often disappeared for hours at a time, and if discovered it was usually at the schoolroom virginals with his nose in a musical score or scribbling on a page of manuscript, much to the scorn of the other boys. In the school it wasn’t always good to be different. Most boys, wearing as they did their uniform jacket and tails and mortar board in school, or the black cassock and white ruffs for cathedral services, managed to seem like a single organism. They conformed to a group mind and a group purpose – except Alexander. He didn’t care. He didn’t try to conform or attempt to be one of them. Where they spoke with the same soft, broad, Gloucestershire dialect, he spoke like a gentleman; where the other boys got up to larks and laughed at the same jokes, he would be standing apart, watching but not joining in; and though they slept side by side, ate together, practised together and studied together, he was never quite one of them, and they referred to him as ‘Gentleman Alex’.
It was not just because he seemed a gentleman that made Alexander different. Although the boys joked about him, they never laid a finger on him and Thomas soon realised they respected him after all, for no one doubted that Alexander had the finest voice of them all and, more than that, was the most musically gifted. Even the bishop treated him with awe and called him ‘our little genius’. Not only did Alexander have the voice of an angel, but he played the harpsichord and virginals precociously well and had composed obsessively from the age of six. His anthems and choral pieces were often sung at services and concerts.
At first, Thomas was disappointed to find himself ordered to sit next to this surly, uncommunicative boy in the schoolroom. Strange that Alexander, who had advised Thomas to make the boys laugh, seemed impervious to jokes and wise-cracking. When Thomas tried to get even a smile out of his companion, his attempt was received with a blank uncomprehending stare. But Thomas was gifted at algebra, and when he saw Alexander drifting helplessly over a calculation, he offered to help him. Alexander grudgingly accepted his assistance and, in due course, reciprocated by helping Thomas with Latin, Greek and French. Then, when Thomas took up the violin, he soon showed himself to be such a skilful performer, Alexander began writing pieces for him. Without realising it, they had become friends.
It was a strange friendship. No two boys were more unlike each other: Alexander introverted and gloomy, Thomas popular and sociable; Alexander able to enchant people with his voice, Thomas to make them laugh. But the difference which troubled Thomas the most was their difference in class and status and when, with each summer, Alexander began to invite Thomas to spend the holidays with him, Thomas always found excuses. Until now. Perhaps it was because Alexander was so sunk in the depths of depression as August approached, so certain that the life he loved was coming to an end, that Thomas agreed to spend the summer at Ashbrook.
The vaulting rang with the sounds of the opening chords of an anthem. The great sound of the organ resonated among the vaultings. The choirmaster’s raised hand demanded attention and, at his stroke, the choristers’ voices burst into song like a dawn chorus.
‘Tommy!’ a voice hissed from behind the pillar. A small bare-footed girl peered round shyly, carrying a bundle in her apron. ‘Our mam’s sent some clothes for you. Wants for you to look like a gentleman.’ She giggled at the thought.
Thomas peeled away from the choir, embarrassed. He pulled his little sister out of sight. ‘What are you doing here, Lizzie?’ he asked roughly.
‘Mam wanted you to be dressed proper for going away. She sent you these.’ Lizzie thrust a bundle into his arms, wrapped in a piece of sail cloth.
Thomas wondered how his mother could possibly afford to send anything decent that he could wear. He had intended going in the clothes provided by the cathedral: his choir school breeches, stockings and tailed jacket.
He prised open a corner and peeped inside. There was a jacket and breeches made of sturdy broadcloth, a shirt of not too coarse a cotton and a woven waistcoat. He looked up, puzzled. ‘How did she come by these?’
Lizzie giggled again. ‘They were our uncle Martin’s clothes. You don’t mind, do you? Mam thought you would fit them now – being as how you’re the same age he was when he died.’
‘Thanks, Liz,’ he dropped a kiss on her bonneted head. ‘Thank Ma for me, and tell her I’ll take care of the clothes. Now, go – or you’ll get me into trouble.’
‘Tommy – are you going to be a gentleman?’ teased Lizzie. ‘You will come home and tell us all about it, won’t you? You’ll never be too grand for us, will you?’
‘Shoo – you silly little goose,’ laughed Thomas, and pushed her off. ‘And don’t forget to give our mam a big kiss from me,’ he called after her.
‘Mother has promised us a feast to make up for Christmas and Easter,’ Alexander told Thomas. ‘We will eat duck, roast lamb and Easter almond and simnel cake. We’ll eat ourselves silly to make up for all that eel pie, stewed fish and vegetable broth we get day in day out.’ Suddenly the talk was of food as the boys packed their bags and put on their walking boots. Those who didn’t live in the city were preparing to walk up to ten or fifteen miles home. Thomas was getting ready to do the same when word came to Alexander that the Ashbrook carriage was here and that John Millman, the head groom, was waiting.
‘We’re going by carriage?’ murmured Thomas with awe. Silently, he followed Alexander out into the close where a two-horse carriage was waiting. The shiny dark green painted body of the carriage had a coat of arms with the letter A in gold, swirling round the symbol of a white swan.
There were warm greetings as the boys emerged. Alexander shook the groom’s hand warmly and introduced him to Thomas. ‘This fellow, John, is my dearest friend, so I hope you’ll look out for him and show him the ropes if he seems lost.’ John Millman nodded courteously and opened the carriage door to reveal Mrs Lynch, swathed and bonneted, looking more matronly, and her face quite free of rouge. She smiled ingratiatingly and struggled to get out in deference to the young master.
‘Stay,
