H. J. Somers Wedderburn
William Hill
and thereafter followed a second class that is outside our present
sympathies. It was characteristic that he did not trouble to look for
Thorpe on the physics list, but backed out of the struggle at once, and
in a curious emotional state between pride over common second-class
humanity and acute disappointment at Wedderburn's success, went on his
way upstairs. At the top, as he was hanging up his coat in the passage,
the zoological demonstrator, a young man from Oxford, who secretly
regarded him as a blatant "mugger" of the very worst type, offered his
heartiest congratulations.
At the laboratory door Hill stopped for a second to get his breath,
and then entered. He looked straight up the laboratory and saw all
five girl students grouped in their places, and Wedderburn, the once
retiring Wedderburn, leaning rather gracefully against the window,
playing with the blind tassel and talking, apparently, to the five
of them. Now, Hill could talk bravely enough and even overbearingly
to one girl, and he could have made a speech to a roomful of girls,
but this business of standing at ease and appreciating, fencing, and
returning quick remarks round a group was, he knew, altogether beyond
him. Coming up the staircase his feelings for Wedderburn had been
generous, a certain admiration perhaps, a willingness to shake his hand
conspicuously and heartily as one who had fought but the first round.
But before Christmas Wedderburn had never gone up to that end of the
room to talk. In a flash Hill's mist of vague excitement condensed
abruptly to a vivid dislike of Wedderburn. Possibly his expression
changed. As he came up to his place, Wedderburn nodded carelessly to
him, and the others glanced round. Miss Haysman looked at him and away
again, the faintest touch of her eyes. "I can't agree with you, Mr.
Wedderburn," she said.
"I must congratulate you on your first class, Mr. Hill," said the
spectacled girl in green, turning round and beaming at him.
"It's nothing," said Hill, staring at Wedderburn and Miss Haysman
talking together, and eager to hear what they talked about.
"We poor folks in the second class don't think so," said the girl in
spectacles.
What was it Wedderburn was saying? Something about William Morris!
Hill did not answer the girl in spectacles, and the smile died out of
his face. He could not hear, and failed to see how he could "cut in."
Confound Wedderburn! He sat down, opened his bag, hesitated whether
to return the volume of Browning forthwith, in the sight of all, and
instead drew out his new notebooks for the short course in elementary
botany that was now beginning, and which would terminate in February.
As he did so, a fat, heavy man, with a white face and pale grey eyes,
Bindon, the professor of botany, who came up from Kew for January and
February, came in by the lecture theatre door, and passed, rubbing his
hands together and smiling, in silent affability down the laboratory.
* * * * *
In the subsequent six weeks Hill experienced some very rapid and
curiously complex emotional developments. For the most part he had
Wedderburn in focus--a fact that Miss Haysman never suspected. She told
Hill (for in the comparative privacy of the museum she talked a good
deal to him of socialism and Browning and general propositions) that
she had met Wedderburn at the house of some people she knew, and "he's
inherited his cleverness; for his father, you know, is the great eye
specialist."
"_My_ father is a cobbler," said Hill, quite irrelevantly, and
perceived the want of dignity even as he said it. But the gleam of
jealousy did not offend her. She conceived herself the fundamental
source of it. He suffered bitterly from a sense of Wedderburn's
unfairness, and a realisation of his own handicap. Here was this
Wedderburn had picked up a prominent man for a father, and instead
of his losing so many marks on the score of that advantage, it was
counted to him for righteousness! And while Hill had to introduce
himself and talk to Miss Haysman clumsily over mangled guineapigs in
the laboratory, this Wedderburn, in some backstairs way, had access to
her social altitudes, and could converse in a polished argot that Hill
understood perhaps, but felt incapable of speaking. Not, of course,
that he wanted to. Then it seemed to Hill that for Wedderburn to come
there day after day with cuffs unfrayed, neatly tailored, precisely
barbered, quietly perfect, was in itself an ill-bred, sneering sort
of proceeding. Moreover, it was a stealthy thing for Wedderburn to
behave insignificantly for a space, to mock modesty, to lead Hill to
fancy that he himself was beyond dispute the man of the year, and
then suddenly to dart in front of him, and incontinently to swell up
in this fashion. In addition to these things, Wedderburn displayed an
increasing disposition to join in any conversational grouping that
included Miss Haysman, and would venture, and indeed seek occasion, to
pass opinions derogatory to socialism and atheism. He goaded Hill to
incivilities by neat, shallow, and exceedingly effective personalities
about the socialist leaders, until Hill hated Bernard Shaw's graceful
egotisms, William Morris's limited editions and luxurious wall-papers,
and Walter Crane's charmingly absurd ideal working men, about as much
as he hated Wedderburn. The dissertations in the laboratory, that had
been his glory in the previous term, became a danger, degenerated into
inglorious tussles with Wedderburn, and Hill kept to them only out of
an obscure perception that his honour was involved. In the debating
society Hill knew quite clearly that, to a thunderous accompaniment
of banged desks, he could have pulverised Wedderburn. Only Wedderburn
never attended the debating society to be pulverised, because--nauseous
affectation!--he "dined late."
You must not imagine that these things presented themselves in quite
such a crude form to Hill's perception. Hill was a born generaliser.
Wedderburn to him was not so much an individual obstacle as a type,
the salient angle of a class. The economic theories that, after
infinite ferment, had shaped themselves in Hill's mind, became abruptly
concrete at the contact. The world became full of easy-mannered,
graceful, gracefully-dressed, conversationally dexterous, finally
shallow Wedderburns, Bishops Wedderburn, Wedderburn M.P.'s, Professors
Wedderburn, Wedderburn landlords, all with finger-bowl shibboleths and
epigrammatic cities of refuge from a sturdy debater. And everyone
ill-clothed or ill-dressed, from the cobbler to the cab-runner, was a
man and a brother, a fellow-sufferer, to Hill's imagination. So that
he became, as it were, a champion of the fallen and oppressed, albeit
to outward seeming only a self-assertive, ill-mannered young man, and
an unsuccessful champion at that. Again and again a skirmish over the
afternoon tea that the girl students had inaugurated, left Hill with
flushed cheeks and a tattered temper, and the debating society noticed
a new quality of sarcastic bitterness in his speeches.
You will understand now how it was necessary, if only in the interests
of humanity, that Hill should demolish Wedderburn in the forthcoming
examination and outshine him in the eyes of Miss Haysman; and you
will perceive, too, how Miss Haysman fell into some common feminine
misconceptions. The Hill-Wedderburn quarrel, for in his unostentatious
way Wedderburn reciprocated Hill's ill-veiled rivalry, became a tribute
to her indefinable charm; she was the Queen of Beauty in a tournament
of scalpels and stumpy pencils. To her confidential friend's secret
annoyance, it even troubled her conscience, for she was a good girl,
and painfully aware, from Ruskin and contemporary fiction, how entirely
men's activities are determined by women's attitudes. And if Hill never
by any chance mentioned the topic of love to her, she only credited him
with the finer modesty for that omission.
So the time came on for the second examination, and Hill's increasing
pallor confirmed the general rumour that he was working hard. In the
aërated bread shop near South Kensington Station you would see him,
breaking his bun and sipping his milk, with his eyes intent upon a
paper of closely written notes. In his bedroom there were propositions
about buds and stems round his looking-glass, a diagram to catch his
eye, if soap should chance to spare it, above his washing basin.
He missed several meetings of the debating society, but he found
the chance encounters with Miss Haysman in the spacious ways of the
adjacent art museum, or in the little museum at the top of the College,
or in the College corridors, more frequent and very restful. In
particular, they used to meet in a little gallery full of wrought-iron
chests and gates, near the art library, and there Hill used to talk,
under the gentle stimulus of her flattering attention, of Browning and
his personal ambitions. A characteristic she found remarkable in him
was his freedom from avarice. He contemplated quite calmly the prospect
of living all his life on an income below a hundred pounds a year. But
he was determined to be famous, to make, recognisably in his own proper
person, the world a better place to live in. He took Bradlaugh and John
Burns for his leaders and models, poor, even impecunious, great men.
But Miss Haysman thought that such lives were deficient on the æsthetic
side, by which, though she did not know it, she meant good wall-paper
and upholstery, pretty books, tasteful clothes, concerts, and meals
nicely cooked and respectfully served.
At last came the day of the second examination, and the professor of
botany, a fussy, conscientious man, rearranged all the tables in a long
narrow laboratory to prevent copying, and put his demonstrator on a
chair on a table (where he felt, he said, like a Hindoo god), to see
all the cheating, and stuck a notice outside the door, "Door closed,"
for no earthly reason that any human being could discover. And all the
morning from ten till one the quill of Wedderburn shrieked defiance
at Hill's, and the quills of the others chased their leaders in a
tireless pack, and so also it was in the afternoon. Wedderburn was a
little quieter than usual, and Hill's face was hot all day, and his
overcoat bulged with textbooks and notebooks against the last moment's
revision. And the next day, in the morning and in the afternoon, was
the practical examination, when sections had to be cut and slides
identified. In the morning Hill was depressed because he knew he had
cut a thick section, and in the afternoon came the mysterious slip.
It was just the kind of thing that the botanical professor was always
doing. Like the income tax, it offered a premium to the cheat. It was
a preparation under the microscope, a little glass slip, held in its
place on the stage of the instrument by light steel clips, and the
inscription set forth that the slip was not to be moved. Each student
was to go in turn to it, sketch it, write in his book of answers what
he considered it to be, and return to his place. Now, to move such a
slip is a thing one can do by a chance movement of the finger, and in
a fraction of a second. The professor's reason for decreeing that the
slip should not be moved depended on the fact that the object he wanted
identified was characteristic of a certain tree stem. In the position
in which it was placed it was a difficult thing to recognise, but once
the slip was moved so as to bring other parts of the preparation into
view, its nature was obvious enough.
Hill came to this, flushed from a contest with staining re-agents, sat
down on the little stool before the microscope, turned the mirror to
get the best light, and then, out of sheer habit, shifted the slip.
At once he remembered the prohibition, and, with an almost continuous
motion of his hands, moved it back, and sat paralysed with astonishment
at his action.
Then, slowly, he turned his head. The professor was out of the room;
the demonstrator sat aloft on his impromptu rostrum, reading the
_Q. Jour. Mi. Sci._; the rest of the examinees were busy, and with
their backs to him. Should he own up to the accident now? He knew
quite clearly what the thing was. It was a lenticel, a characteristic
preparation from the elder-tree. His eyes roved over his intent
fellow-students, and Wedderburn suddenly glanced over his shoulder at
him with a queer expression in his eyes. The mental excitement that had
kept Hill at an abnormal pitch of vigour these two days gave way to a
curious nervous tension. His book of answers was beside him. He did not
write down what the thing was, but with one eye at the microscope he
began making a hasty sketch of it. His mind was full of this grotesque
puzzle in ethics that had suddenly been sprung upon him. Should he
identify it? or should he leave this question unanswered? In that
case Wedderburn would probably come out first in the second result.
How could he tell now whether he might not have identified the thing
without shifting it? It was possible that Wedderburn had failed to
recognise it, of course. Suppose Wedderburn too had shifted the slide?
He looked up at the clock. There were fifteen minutes in which to
make up his mind. He gathered up his book of answers and the coloured
pencils he used in illustrating his replies, and walked back to his
seat.
He read through his manuscript, and then sat thinking and gnawing
his knuckle. It would look queer now if he owned up. He _must_ beat
Wedderburn. He forgot the examples of those starry gentlemen, John
Burns and Bradlaugh. Besides, he reflected, the glimpse of the rest
of the slip he had had was, after all, quite accidental, forced upon
him by chance, a kind of providential revelation rather than an unfair
advantage. It was not nearly so dishonest to avail himself of that as
it was of Broome, who believed in the efficacy of prayer, to pray daily
for a first-class. "Five minutes more," said the demonstrator, folding
up his paper and becoming observant. Hill watched the clock hands until
two minutes remained; then he opened the book of answers, and, with hot
ears and an affectation of ease, gave his drawing of the lenticel its
name.
When the second pass list appeared, the previous positions of
Wedderburn and Hill were reversed, and the spectacled girl in green,
who knew the demonstrator in private life (where he was practically
human), said that in the result of the two examinations taken together
Hill had the advantage of a mark--167 to 166 out of a possible 200.
Everyone admired Hill in a way, though the suspicion of "mugging"
clung to him. But Hill was to find congratulations and Miss Haysman's
enhanced opinion of him, and even the decided decline in the crest
of Wedderburn, tainted by an unhappy memory. He felt a remarkable
access of energy at first, and the note of a democracy marching to
triumph returned to his debating society speeches; he worked at his
comparative anatomy with tremendous zeal and effect, and he went on
with his æsthetic education. But through it all, a vivid little picture
was continually coming before his mind's eye--of a sneakish person
manipulating a slide.
No human being had witnessed the act, and he was cocksure that no
higher power existed to see it; but for all that it worried him.
Memories are not dead things, but alive; they dwindle in disuse,
but they harden and develop in all sorts of queer ways if they are
being continually fretted. Curiously enough, though at the time he
perceived clearly that the shifting was accidental, as the days wore
on, his memory became confused about it, until at last he was not
sure--although he assured himself that he _was_ sure--whether the
movement had been absolutely involuntary. Then it is possible that
Hill's dietary was conducive to morbid conscientiousness; a breakfast
frequently eaten in a hurry, a midday bun, and, at such hours after
five as chanced to be convenient, such meat as his means determined,
usually in a chophouse in a back street off the Brompton Road.
Occasionally he treated himself to threepenny or ninepenny classics,
and they usually represented a suppression of potatoes or chops. It is
indisputable that outbreaks of self-abasement and emotional revival
have a distinct relation to periods of scarcity. But apart from this
influence on the feelings, there was in Hill a distinct aversion
to falsity that the blasphemous Landport cobbler had inculcated by
strap and tongue from his earliest years. Of one fact about professed
atheists I am convinced; they may be--they usually are--fools, void
of subtlety, revilers of holy institutions, brutal speakers, and
mischievous knaves, but they lie with difficulty. If it were not so,
if they had the faintest grasp of the idea of compromise, they would
simply be liberal churchmen. And, moreover, this memory poisoned his
regard for Miss Haysman. For she now so evidently preferred him to
Wedderburn that he felt sure he cared for her, and began reciprocating
her attentions by timid marks of personal regard; at one time he even
bought a bunch of violets, carried it about in his pocket, and produced
it, with a stumbling explanation, withered and dead, in the gallery of
old iron. It poisoned, too, the denunciation of capitalist dishonesty
that had been one of his life's pleasures. And, lastly, it poisoned his
triumph in Wedderburn. Previously he had been Wedderburn's superior
in his own eyes, and had raged simply at a want of recognition. Now
he began to fret at the darker suspicion of positive inferiority. He
fancied he found justifications for his position in Browning, but they
vanished on analysis. At last--moved, curiously enough, by exactly the
same motive forces that had resulted in his dishonesty--he went to
Professor Bindon, and made a clean breast of the whole affair. As Hill
was a paid student, Professor Bindon did not ask him to sit down, and
he stood before the professor's desk as he made his confession.
"It's a curious story," said Professor Bindon, slowly realising how
the thing reflected on himself, and then letting his anger rise,--"A
most remarkable story. I can't understand your doing it, and I can't
understand this avowal. You're a type of student--Cambridge men would
never dream--I suppose I ought to have thought--Why _did_ you cheat?"
"I didn't--cheat," said Hill.
"But you have just been telling me you did."
"I thought I explained"--
"Either you cheated or you did not cheat."
"I said my motion was involuntary."
"I am not a metaphysician, I am a servant of science--of fact. You
were told not to move the slip. You did move the slip. If that is not
cheating"--
"If I was a cheat," said Hill, with the note of hysterics in his voice,
"should I come here and tell you?"
"Your repentance, of course, does you credit," said Professor Bindon,
"but it does not alter the original facts."
"No, sir," said Hill, giving in in utter self-abasement.
"Even now you cause an enormous amount of trouble. The examination list
will have to be revised."
"I suppose so, sir."
"Suppose so? Of course it must be revised. And I don't see how I can
conscientiously pass you."
"Not pass me?" said Hill. "Fail me?"
"It's the rule in all examinations. Or where should we be? What else
did you expect? You don't want to shirk the consequences of your own
acts?"
"I thought, perhaps"--said Hill. And then, "Fail me? I thought, as I
told you, you would simply deduct the marks given for that slip."
"Impossible!" said Bindon. "Besides, it would still leave you above
Wedderburn. Deduct only the marks--Preposterous! The Departmental
Regulations distinctly say"--
"But it's my own admission, sir."
"The Regulations say nothing whatever of the manner in which the matter
comes to light. They simply provide"--
"It will ruin me. If I fail this examination, they won't renew my
scholarship."
"You should have thought of that before."
"But, sir, consider all my circumstances"--
"I cannot consider anything. Professors in this College are machines.
The Regulations will not even let us recommend our students for
appointments. I am a machine, and you have worked me. I have to do"--
"It's very hard, sir."
"Possibly it is."
"If I am to be failed this examination, I might as well go home at
once."
"That is as you think proper." Bindon's voice softened a little; he
perceived he had been unjust, and, provided he did not contradict
himself, he was disposed to amelioration, "As a private person," he
said, "I think this confession of yours goes far to mitigate your
offence. But you have set the machinery in motion, and now it must take
its course. I--I am really sorry you gave way."
A wave of emotion prevented Hill from answering. Suddenly, very
vividly, he saw the heavily-lined face of the old Landport cobbler, his
father. "Good God! What a fool I have been!" he said hotly and abruptly.
"I hope," said Bindon, "that it will be a lesson to you."
But, curiously enough, they were not thinking of quite the same
indiscretion.
There was a pause.
"I would like a day to think, sir, and then I will let you know--about
going home, I mean," said Hill, moving towards the door.
* * * * *
The next day Hill's place was vacant. The spectacled girl in green was,
as usual, first with the news. Wedderburn and Miss Haysman were talking
of a performance of _The Meistersingers_ when she came up to them.
"Have you heard?" she said.
"Heard what?"
"There was cheating in the examination."
"Cheating!" said Wedderburn, with his face suddenly hot. "How?"
"That slide"--
"Moved? Never!"
"It was. That slide that we weren't to move"--
"Nonsense!" said Wedderburn. "Why! How could they find out? Who do they
say--?"
"It was Mr. Hill."
"_Hill!_"
"Mr. Hill!"
"Not--surely not the immaculate Hill?" said Wedderburn, recovering.
"I don't believe it," said Miss Haysman. "How do you know?"
"I _didn't_," said the girl in spectacles. "But I know it now for a
fact. Mr. Hill went and confessed to Professor Bindon himself."
"By Jove!" said Wedderburn. "Hill of all people. But I am always
inclined to distrust these philanthropists-on-principle"--
"Are you quite sure?" said Miss Haysman, with a catch in her breath.
"Quite. It's dreadful, isn't it? But, you know, what can you expect?
His father is a cobbler."
Then Miss Haysman astonished the girl in spectacles.
"I don't care. I will not believe it," she said, flushing darkly under
her warm-tinted skin. "I will not believe it until he has told me so
himself--face to face. I would scarcely believe it then," and abruptly
she turned her back on the girl in spectacles, and walked to her own
place.
"It's true, all the same," said the girl in spectacles, peering and
smiling at Wedderburn.
But Wedderburn did not answer her. She was indeed one of those people
who seem destined to make unanswered remarks.