HE DROVE to the Principal’s office. There he found Miss Leithbridge, seething. She was a middle-aged grey-haired Englishwoman who taught primary-school methods. She was hostile to Sandilands. ‘Because,’ Jean had said, ‘she really fancies you and you hardly give her a kind look.’ He himself put it down to professional jealousy. She thought the Vice-Principal’s job should have gone to her.
‘I hope you’re pleased with yourself, Mr Sandilands,’ she cried.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Weren’t you always complaining that our students were too docile? Haven’t you often wished that they would show more spirit?’
He could not deny it.
‘Well, I hope you’re satisfied, now that you’ve got the College in danger of being closed. This used to be a very happy place. Look at it now. Demonstrating, with placards! Like students at home and we know what bolsheviks most of them are.’
There were tears of anger and frustration in her eyes.
‘Margaret has just been to try and reason with them,’ said the Principal. ‘Not with much success, I’m afraid.’
‘I told them that if they carried on like that they weren’t fit to be teachers. They paid absolutely no heed. That politeness of theirs is nothing but a shield to hide their real feelings. They don’t really respect us. Not even you, Mr Sandilands, though you’ve done more than the rest of us to win their favour.’
He refused to let himself be provoked.
‘Well, they’ve gone back to their classes now,’ he said.
‘I’ve given Mr Anderson a list of the ringleaders, those that were impertinent to me. I’m going to insist that they also be expelled. There’s an element that we should get rid of. This disturbance is a blessing in that it has shown us who the troublemakers are.’
‘Surely, Margaret, their aims are laudable,’ said the Principal.
‘What aims, for heaven’s sake?’
Sandilands answered. ‘Justice, for one. They think their colleagues have been unjustly treated. I agree with them.’
‘Well, I don’t. You’re more easily taken in than you think. I think Chia and Lo got what they deserved. I was never taken in by those big smiles that flashed on and off. I wasn’t surprised to hear that they were plotters and Communists.’
‘Nobody’s accused them of being Communists,’ said Sandilands.
‘I’m accusing them. They want to get rid of the Sultan, don’t they? They want to run the country themselves, don’t they?’
‘It’s called democracy, Miss Leithbridge.’
‘Democracy! What’s that but a lot of squabbling, with everybody looking to their own advantage? This country should think itself fortunate. The Sultan rules for the benefit of everyone. Aren’t the hospitals free? Do our students pay fees?’
It was annoying to Sandilands to hear sentiments he largely agreed with being uttered by someone stupid and prejudiced.
‘If the Sultan was a tyrant I could understand it,’ said Miss Leithbridge, getting to her feet, ‘but you, Mr Sandilands, better than most of us have reason to know that he is not.’
Would a tyrant have played golf with a teacher and suffered defeat after defeat with a meek smile? Would he not have insisted on trying again after a missed putt? No. His Highness was hardly a tyrant. He did his best to be fair. It was true many peasants and fishermen still lived in flimsy shacks and his own palace had two thousand rooms, and the mosque had cost hundreds of millions, but education was free and there was a good health service. Was a benevolent dictator to be preferred to a squabbling Parliament?
Miss Leithbridge then left, saying she hoped there was a class waiting for her. Didn’t Mr Sandilands have one waiting for him?
He had, but first he had to tell the Principal about his visit to Government House tomorrow with Mrs Azaharri.
‘Will anything come of it, Andrew?’ asked the Principal.
‘Mrs Azaharri seems confident.’
‘What kind of woman is she? I often see her mentioned in the Savu Times.’
Sandilands should have cried, with shining eyes, that she was the most beautiful woman he had ever met, the most courageous, the most sincere, and the most desirable. What he did mutter, with lowered eyes, was that she had struck him as quite competent.
‘She’s half-Scottish, I believe.’
‘Yes. Her mother came from Temple, a small village about a dozen miles from Edinburgh.’
Would he one day take Leila to see where her mother had been born?
‘Well, if she is as handsome as they say she is she should have some influence on His Highness,’ said the Principal, with a chuckle.
‘She’s not like that. She’s got principles.’
‘So has His Highness.’ The Principal laughed.
Sandilands was alarmed. Leila was a widow and therefore vulnerable. She would not succumb to the lure of riches, he was sure of that, but what if she thought she could use her influence to persuade the Sultan to introduce reforms? She could have as much power as if she really was Prime Minister.
His disquiet lasted only a few moments. As he made for his classroom he felt joyful. The reason was his secret: he was in love with Leila. He told it to a red-headed bird taking a dip in a fountain, but he would tell it to no human being, in the meantime at any rate, and especially not – here his joy receded with a rush – to Jean.
He had given her no promises. She would have to admit that, but she would claim that his sleeping with her, though it was really her sleeping with him, amounted to more than casual friendship.
His joy soon surged back. In a few hours he would see Leila again. He would meet her daughter and perhaps her father. He would find out if he was right in thinking that she was as attracted to him as he was to her.
If their love for each other was ever openly declared he would be faced with two choices: either to marry her (defying all the consequent difficulties) or – his heart sank – to sever from her as the song put it and be for a long time broken-hearted, but safe.
It was his mother’s fault. As a boy and a young man he had had to listen to her warnings against the cunning and wickedness of women: they were all Jezebels. He had come to realise that she was crazy with religion, but it had made his relationships with women cautious and furtive.