The English Tutor by Sara Seale Page A

scream her dislike of him and kick him hard on his long shins.
    He glanced up for a moment.
    “ I shouldn ’ t do it, ” he said with a faint smile.
    “ Do what? ”
    “ Throw the ink at me, or whatever you had in mind. ”
    The room was very quiet after that except for the steady sound of Mark ’ s pen travelling over the paper. No one in the house seemed to be stirring and the cool sunshine of an Irish summer poured in at the open window and made lazy patterns on the worn carpet. Clancy thought of Brian roystering with Kilmallin, and her heart was sick within her.
    Tea-time came and went, but no one disturbed them, for Aunt Bea and the servants thought they were with Kevin. Clancy began to feel hungry. Lunch with Conn had been a sketchy affair, as it so often was, and it was a long time yet until the dinner hour.
    Mark had finished his time-table, and was now reading. Every now and then he got up to stretch his legs, but he took no notice of Clancy, who was beginning to fidget. Her eyes wandered to the sheet of questions in front of her, and she surreptitiously pulled it a little nearer.
    Mark ’ s clipped voice made her jump.
    “ You ’ ll find it easier if you pick up the paper, ” he said.
    The fight had long since gone out of her, but she still would not give in.
    “ I can ’ t read your writing, ” she said childishly.
    His eyebrows went up and he reached across for the paper.
    “ Let me read it to you, ” he said.
    She listened unwillingly, aware that she had given him the wrong opening by her evasion. He paused as he came to the history question, and read out quite expressionlessly: “ Write what you know of Cromwell and Ireland, ” and Clancy ’ s eyes flashed.
    “ Give it to me! ” she snapped. “ I ’ ll show you! ”
    She snatched the paper back, and dipped her pen fiercely in the ink.
    Mark stretched, then looked at his watch.
    “ Six o ’ clock, ” he remarked. “ Well, you ’ ve wasted nearly five hours, Clancy, but I think you ’ ll just have time to finish before dinner. Take the other subjects first, please. I left the history till the last as I fancied you ’ d have plenty to say. ”
    She shot him a malevolent look, but she gave in. She began to write.

 
    CHAPTER FIVE
    IT was the beginning of partial submission for Clancy. As Mark had observed, she was not stupid, and that first encounter with him in the schoolroom had taught her that it was going to be quicker and less unpleasant in the long run to observe the letter of the law if not the spirit.
    In those early days it was not difficult for Mark to think of her as a child for she showed him no other side to her nature. She was a difficult and often tiresome pupil and she resolutely refused to learn. In the privacy of the tower room, he had corrected hers and Brian ’ s general knowledge paper, and sighed impatiently over their mutual lack of schooling, and he wondered what on earth his string of predecessors could have done to earn their keep.
    With Clancy it w as a little harder to assess the extent of her ignorance, for she clearly had not tried until she reached the history question, and then she had let herself go for several pages. Mark grinned as he tackled the ill-written and misspelt exercise. Clancy ’ s style was flamboyant and bloodthirsty, her dates surprisingly correct, and her comments on the Lord Protector of England vitriolic and often inaccurate. She rounded off her exercise by saying smugly: “ The curse of Cromwell lies heaviest upon the west of Ireland, and all who bear this blood-drenched name should take heed before they try to meddle with the Irish. ”
    The next morning he handed them back their corrected papers and informed them mildly that their ignorance was astounding. “ Any boy of nine could have made a better showing on your paper, Brian, ” he said, “ and Clancy ’ s was first-term stuff at any public school. It strikes me that I shall have to revise my whole time-table, and start