Another Year Read online

  Bello:

  hidden talent rediscovered!

  Bello is a digital only imprint of Pan Macmillan, established to breathe life into previously published classic books.

  At Bello we believe in the timeless power of the imagination, of good story, narrative and entertainment and we want to use digital technology to ensure that many more readers can enjoy these books into the future.

  We publish in ebook and Print on Demand formats to bring these wonderful books to new audiences.

  About Bello:

  www.panmacmillan.com/imprints/bello

  About the author:

  www.panmacmillan.com/author/rcsherriff

  Contents

  R. C. Sherriff

  PART ONE

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  PART TWO

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty One

  PART THREE

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty One

  Chapter Thirty Two

  Chapter Thirty Three

  Chapter Thirty Four

  Chapter Thirty Five

  Chapter Thirty Six

  R C Sherriff

  Another Year

  R. C. Sherriff

  On his return from the First World War, R. C. Sherriff settled in London, working as an insurance agent and writing plays in the evening. Journey’s End, inspired by Sherriff’s own experience of fighting, was his sixth play but the first to be given a professional production. It was an immediate, outstanding and phenomenal success. Thirty one separate productions ran concurrently around the world and it was translated into twenty six languages. Its success, however, was both a boon and a burden — while it allowed him to give up the day job and devote himself full-time to writing, it often overshadowed his later work or was used as the yardstick against which it was measured unfavourably.

  Fortunately for Sherriff he was not only a playwright but also a novelist and a screenwriter. He wrote a best-selling novel, A Fortnight In September in 1931, and the screenplays for The Invisible Man (1933), The Four Feathers (1939) and classic films such as Goodbye Mr Chips (1939), for which he received an Oscar nomination, and The Dambusters (1955).

  Although Sherriff was occupied as a playwright and screenwriter he did not lose his urge to write novels and he followed the success of his first novel with The Hopkins Manuscript, Chedworth, Another Year and others. Now, while Journey’s End continues to define Sherriff’s reputation, much of his work remains ripe for rediscovery.

  PART ONE

  Chapter One

  Mr. Matthews had arranged to be called at seven that morning, but he was wide awake by five. With a long and strenuous day in front of him he tried to settle down for some more sleep, but after a while he gave it up and lay watching the moon go down behind the trees at the bottom of the Vicarage garden.

  He thought of the village out there in the darkness, and he envied all the people in it. He envied them because they were content to go on living in Little Stanton until they died, and he wondered whether he had done a wise thing to surrender his security and happiness for the long thin chance of such a different kind of happiness.

  His Bishop had doubted the wisdom of it. A Vicar who had gained such love and respect in his parish, he had said, should not become the unthinking slave of conscience. “I can’t imagine Little Stanton without you,” said the Bishop. “In fact, in many ways, you are Little Stanton.”

  Colonel Champion, the local Squire, had not gone so far as to say that. Only one man at a time could be Little Stanton—but the Colonel had spoken his mind when Mr. Matthews had announced his resignation. He had told him he was a downright fool to burn his boats and take a living in an East End slum at an age when sensible men were settling down to enjoy the fruits of a well-spent life. “You know you’ll be a loss to this parish.” said the Colonel—“how d’ you know you’ll be a gain to the one you’re going to?”

  What the Colonel really meant was that the cricket club was losing its only reliable Umpire and the Flower Show was losing in Ruth Matthews, the Vicar’s wife, an organiser who had made the Little Stanton Show the best in Dorset. Roger and Ruth Matthews had, in fact, a finger in every village pie and both well knew the sacrifice they were making.

  Lying there in the darkness, he heard the owls come back from their night’s hunting in Stanton Park and settle down in the hollow oak in the churchyard. He envied them because they too had no desire for wider fields and would go on living in Little Stanton until they died. His memory ran back across the years to the far-off day when he had made the resolution that he was only now fulfilling. He was nineteen—in his first year at Oxford, and he had come to London to see the boat race. He had stayed the week-end with an Uncle who was vicar of an East End parish, and he had made his resolution on the night before he left. It did not say much for his determination, he reflected, that he should have dallied for the best part of his lifetime.

  His Uncle’s Vicarage had stood in the cesspit of London, and young Roger Matthews had been appalled by what he saw. The old man, nearing eighty, was fighting a lonely battle against dirt and blasphemy and wretchedness, but the light of youth was in his eyes and the courage of youth was in his heart, and Roger had made his resolution on the last evening of his stay. He resolved to give up his plans for Colonial Service—go for the Church and give his life to the people of the slums.

  It was a brave resolution, but it went astray. He became a clergyman, but he did not go to the slums. On the advice of his tutor he went as curate to a West Country town to gain experience in quiet surroundings before he began his harder task. “For five years,” decided Roger—“and then the slums.”

  But in two years he was in love, and in three he was married. Ruth Desmond was the Vicar’s daughter in nearby Little Stanton. She shared his resolution to work in the slums, and they began to make their plans. But her father’s health declined: he wanted Roger to take his place, and Roger did not like refusing. “For five years,” he said—“and then the slums.”

  But Little Stanton was a fascinating place, with meadows round it, and woods and streams, and the devil was hiding there, whispering every kind of temptation in Roger’s ear. They made a host of friends; their daughter Rosemary was born, and there was always some compelling reason for postponing their departure. One thing led to another. A campaign was launched to restore the church, and they founded the Musical Society and the Flower Show to raise funds. But when the church was restored, the Flower Show and the Musical Society had flourished so well in Ruth’s hands that they had to postpone their departure to look after them. Then there was the new cricket pavilion, the Boys’ Club and the Natural History Society, all of which were Mr. Matthews’ babies, and when a Roman Villa was discovered under a cornfield near the village, Mr. Matthews was appointed Secretary of the Excavation Committee, and it took a long time to dig the Villa up. It was fascinating work. Everything was fascinating in Little Stanton.


  The original five years turned to ten, and ten to twenty. They never gave up the idea of working in the slums. They talked about it on summer evenings in the garden as the sun went down; they discussed it on moonlight walks in the Dorset lanes, but as the years went by and the ties of his pleasant parish grew ever stronger, Roger Matthews began to get a feeling that he never would go to that brawling slum of his youthful dream. But it was nice to go on talking about it because it eased his conscience.

  Then one morning he woke up to face the fact that it was his fifty-seventh birthday. He looked out at the Vicarage garden and the sunlit trees in the distant park, and for the first time they gave him no happiness. It was now or never: in a few years he would be an old man, and while the fit of remorse was on him he wrote an advertisement to the Church News, announcing his desire to exchange his living for one in a poor neighbourhood of London.

  He felt a good deal better when the advertisement was posted, and when no answer came he felt better still. He had shown his good faith. If no one desired to offer him a parish in the slums, none could blame him for staying where he was.

  It was a shock when the letter had arrived from Mr. Todhunter, Vicar of St. Peter’s, Woodbank. Mr. Todhunter wrote to say that he had just seen the advertisement and was willing, on account of his health, to exchange the parish of Woodbank for the country air of Little Stanton.

  By that time Mr. Matthews had recovered from his attack of birthday remorse, and as he read the letter, Little Stanton seemed sweeter and more desirable than ever. But his challenge had been taken up. He had got to do something about it or brand himself for good as a backslider and hypocrite.

  He knew nothing of London and had only vaguely heard of Woodbank, but a neighbouring Vicar told him that it was just the kind of parish for a man who wanted to work amongst the poor and under-privileged. The Bishop bore this out—with the reservation that a man so valued in his parish should think carefully before leaving it.

  The Bishop’s reservation gave Mr. Matthews an honourable opportunity to excuse himself and stay where he was, but when he discussed it with his wife she had said—“It’s what you’ve always wanted in your heart, isn’t it?—a difficult parish to test your faith. Of course you can refuse it, but if you do, I don’t think you’ll ever be really happy again in Little Stanton—and I don’t think I would either. We should always be thinking of the might have beens.”

  Ruth had decided him, and with the decision made he was conscious of exhilaration and a self-respect that he had not felt for years. He knew then that he had never been really instrumental in bringing happiness to anyone in Little Stanton because happiness was woven into the fabric of that placid little place. In Woodbank he would be against stark misery and dirt, spiritual hunger and depravity. He would have his chance to prove what he was made of. The dying embers of his resolution glowed again, and he wrote to Mr. Todhunter agreeing to the exchange—promising to spend a night with him in Woodbank to arrange the details. He announced his decision to the parish and spent his evenings scheming and planning his new work in the slums with the ardour of a Crusader, and Ruth, he knew, was proud of his decision.

  There were dark moments of doubt: there was one that morning as he lay watching the moon go down, waiting for the time to get up and dress and catch the early train to London. But as dawn came his doubts were gone. He no longer envied the placid people of Little Stanton who would drowse on in the village until they died: he no longer envied the owls in the hollow oak, and when Emily the housekeeper brought up his early cup of tea and said: “It’s a dirty foggy morning, sir—pity it isn’t better for your journey,” he cared no more about the fog than Coeur de Lion cared about the rough sea in the Channel on the first day of his crusade to the Holy City. He was burning to be up and go. Before the sun went down that day he would see for the first time the town and people to whom he would give his best and final years.

  It was in truth a dirty morning. A damp November mist lay over the stubble fields that fringed the rambling branch line to Yeovil Junction and the mist turned to a stagnant yellow fog as he reached the London outskirts. The train hung about in the suburbs and was an hour late at Waterloo. He had some coffee and a meat pie at the Buffet and set off to cross the city for the trains that went to Woodbank. He was a countryman by birth and temperament and the turmoil of London dazed him. He got into the wrong tube train and was half-way to Hampstead before he found out that he was going north instead of east. It was three o’ clock before he arrived at Fenchurch Street, and a premature brown twilight lay over London as the train drew out on the last stage of his journey.

  But the weather did not damp the ardour of his new adventure. He had the compartment to himself and from the window he could see the huddled houses and the maze of crowded streets. He could almost feel the warm breath of the seething humanity that surged in them, and he longed to be down there rubbing shoulders with them—understanding them and making friends. Here at last were the people he was pledged to work for. They would be different, he knew, from the humdrum West Country kind: different in manner and outlook and thought and speech, but the same at heart, and keener in desire.

  Now and then he saw a church spire rising from the misty plain of roof-tops and he caught a glimpse of a cloistered house with trees around it that he guessed must be a Vicarage. He saw a clergyman standing at a street corner, talking and laughing with a group of boys, and his heart went out to him as a comrade in the days ahead.

  There seemed to be a great many stations, so close together that the train only got up speed for a minute at a time. They were all alike—drab little chocolate-coloured stations badly lit and difficult to identify, for nobody called out the names of them as the train drew in. He began to worry in case he went past Woodbank in the gathering darkness, but he managed to spot the name of one of them, and from the map on the carriage wall he counted five ahead before his destination.

  East London had been clear of fog, but it seemed to be coming up now from the river and the train began to crawl. It stopped for ten minutes outside the fifth station, and when it drew in he wondered whether he had counted them correctly. There was nothing to tell him that it was Woodbank and nobody in sight to help him. The guard was at the other end and the people who had got out were straggling away from him towards the exit. He took the chance, gathered up his bag and umbrella and clambered out.

  “Is this Woodbank?” he enquired of the ticket collector at the gate.

  The collector, whose head seemed permanently fixed through years of examining tickets in uncertain light, did not look up, but mumbled something that might have been “yes” or possibly “no”.

  “Can you tell me whether St. Peter’s Vicarage is near the station?” asked Mr. Matthews.

  The man shook his head, turned his back and went into a box. Mr. Matthews hesitated, thinking the collector was going to turn up a Directory to find out where the Vicarage was, but when he sat on a stool and began to eat a piece of cake out of a paper bag Mr. Matthews realised that the matter was closed, and went down the stone steps into an ice-cold subway that smelt of carbolic.

  The fog was drifting up the side streets from the Thames and the lights were coming on in the gaunt brick buildings round the railway station. The High Street, with its tramlines and forlorn uncared-for shops, looked bleak and desolate, and stretched away in both directions as far as he could see. The river was hidden by the houses but he could hear the tugs hooting and he could see the cranes and derricks over the roof-tops against the tarnished relic of a sunset.

  It was different from what he had expected. He had pictured narrow streets full of shouting children and men with hand-barrows selling fish and women in hair-curlers leaning out of windows. He had expected a glare of lights and a jostle of humanity, but except for a few dejected people waiting at a tram stop there was no one in sight. It was apparently Woodbank’s early closing day, and the shops were dark and empty.

  He looked around him, wondering which way to g
o. Down in Dorset, if you wanted to find the Vicarage in an unfamiliar town, the first person you met would tell you without hesitation. Up here in London people did not seem so well informed about their Vicarages. The ticket collector neither knew nor cared, and a little hunch-backed paper-seller outside the station had told him to ask a policeman. But there was no policeman in sight: it was getting darker and foggier and he felt dispirited and tired.

  Normally he would have taken the way that looked as if it led towards the centre of the town, but the High Street gave no clue of going anywhere in either direction except into a murky darkness.

  He turned to the right and set off at random, and presently saw some men at a street corner, leaning against the wall outside a public-house. They would be local men, he thought, and crossed over to them.

  “I’m looking for St. Peter’s Vicarage,” he said: “I wonder whether you can help me?”

  The men stopped talking and stared at him as if he had asked the way to the moon.

  “There’s no Vicarage round here,” said one of them at last.—“Not round here there isn’t.”

  Mr. Matthews hesitated. “This is Woodbank, isn’t it?” he asked.

  “It was when I got up this morning,” said the man.

  They all laughed at this, and Mr. Matthews felt it proper as the new Vicar, to join in. But when the laughter had subsided, and the men merely stared at him again, he said: “Thank you,” and went on down the street.

  He saw a man standing at the door of a half-shuttered pawn-shop: a pale, bulbous man in shirt-sleeves with a strip of shirt bulging out between the bottom of his tight waistcoat and the top of his trousers. He had a boil on his neck with a piece of plaster over it and one foot was bandaged up inside a carpet slipper that was slit to take the bandage. His big puffy face looked green and ghostly in the twilight.