THE LANCHESTER LETTERS
The Term did not end without further unpleasantness. The treatment of
le Willow had created a feeling of deep resentment in the school, and
this feeling was intensified when Old Chilternians came down and said
that the place was becoming a regular Sunday school, and that the new
man deserved to be shot. It was known, too, that some of the masters
shared the opinion of the Old Chilternians, and “the Jowler” was
generally recognised as the champion who was foremost in defending the
old flag against attacks. Mr. Chowdler himself was quite unconscious
that he had revealed his inner mind to the boys or fanned the flame of
disloyalty. But there was no doubt that he talked with great freedom to
parents and old boys; and neither parents nor old boys are invariably
discreet.
The upshot of it all was that, at the school concert on the last night
but one of the Term, both Mr. Chowdler and le Willow received a great
ovation which contrasted forcibly with the very faint cheering that
greeted the entrance of the headmaster. It was said that there had even
been hissing; but, while some maintained that it had proceeded from
a group of old boys, and some ascribed it to isolated members of Mr.
Chowdler’s house, others asserted that there had been nothing of the
kind at all. Anyhow, it was not very marked, and Mr. Flaggon ignored
it. He had a disconcerting way of concealing his feelings, an air of
impenetrability which suggested, somehow, that he might have a trump
card up his sleeve. The boys did not like him the better for this. Boys
feel more at home with a man who plays with all his cards on the table.
But the school got a glimpse into the working of their headmaster’s
mind when they were summoned into the Great Hall, just before the last
chapel, to hear some remarks which Mr. Flaggon thought it his duty to
address to them. The Term, he said, had been an unsatisfactory Term.
He dwelt on the prevalence of cribbing, on the general slackness of
discipline and the apparent absence of any healthy public opinion
on matters that were vital to the school. He spoke sternly, but in
measured language and without exaggeration of bitterness, and he ended
with an appeal to the best traditions of the school and the better
instincts of the better boys. There were no threats; but everybody
realised that the speech was intended as a grave warning.
Many of the masters were considerably impressed upon it. A few of the
older ones, however, headed by Mr. Chowdler, chose to regard it as
an unwarranted attack on themselves. The boys listened, as boys will
always listen to easy and effective speaking, with every appearance of
being moved; and the singing in chapel, immediately afterwards, was
unusually subdued. But, as soon as the first effect had worn off and
the tongues of the scoffers were unloosed, the discontented spirit
reasserted itself again, and the opinion most commonly expressed in
the houses that night was that they had been treated like preparatory
schoolboys. A few there were, chiefly boys in the highest forms, who
felt dimly that they had been brought face to face with a real man and
a nobler conception of life than they had hitherto realised; but, as
yet, they were only few and they held their peace, leaving the talking
to the malcontents.
On the first morning of the holidays, the headmaster had a long
interview with Mr. Chase. Mr. Chase was not altogether happy about his
house; no more was Mr. Flaggon. Indeed, he was not very happy about any
of the houses. In his dealings with offenders who had been reported to
him in the course of the Term, he had been painfully struck by a kind
of moral hardness in them, an apparent imperviousness to the influences
that make life a noble thing. It stamped itself on their faces in a
particular look which was half defiant, half bored, and a sort of easy
insolence which seemed to mistake itself for good breeding. And it
was something new in his experience. With the thoughtless, daredevil,
and impetuous temperament his own school days had made him familiar;
but this was a new type, which seemed incapable of repentance and met
punishment and appeal alike with the same callous indifference.
And, as he watched the boys’ faces day by day and week by week from his
place in chapel, he was conscious of a gradual deterioration in many of
them. Bigger boys, who at the beginning of the Term had suggested, with
all their uncouthness, something of the frankness and spontaneity of
healthy-minded youth, were growing old and veiled and blasé. Even among
the new boys there were some who had exchanged the frank and grubby
light-heartedness, natural to their years, for a look of self-conscious
pertness that was decidedly unpleasing. It seemed as if there were
a blight upon the place, some secret impalpable influence that was
poisoning the springs of life. Mr. Flaggon had diagnosed it at first
as a lack of discipline, and he had set himself to fight the evil with
heroic remedies. Cost what it might, he would have discipline. But he
was beginning to suspect that indiscipline was only a symptom and that
he had not yet penetrated to the root of the mischief.
By his advice Mr. Chase, who was conscientious if unimaginative, was
getting rid of some of the older boys in his house, who had been
vegetating for a long time in the lower forms. He now suggested that
the housemaster should try to establish confidential relations with
some of the parents of his new boys, and find out from them, if
possible, whether all was really well. Mr. Chase looked dubious. “I
don’t quite like it,” he said. “It seems a little underhand--rather
like going behind people’s backs; because I have been talking a good
deal lately to my Prætor and to some of the old boys, and they all
assure me that, though there is a prejudice in the school against my
house, it is really quite right and as good as any. Besides, I don’t
want to alarm parents unnecessarily.”
Mr. Flaggon concealed a slight feeling of impatience. “We mustn’t,” he
said, “allow ourselves to be bound by a more than Spanish etiquette. We
have got to do the very best we can for the boys who are under us, and,
if we don’t use whatever help the parents can give us, we are surely
guilty of a grave breach of duty. And as for frightening them--no
sensible parent would be alarmed at being asked to co-operate with us
in the interests of his child. Only, you must choose the right parents;
for I’m really afraid there are some who don’t mind what happens to
their sons, provided they do well at their games and have a good time.”
Mr. Chase yielded to persuasion, and, when he had gone, Mr. Flaggon
sat down to a still harder task. He had decided that he must write
to Mr. Chowdler. Ordinarily, in handling a delicate situation, he
preferred the spoken to the written word. But in this case he felt that
he could write more calmly and sympathetically than he could speak;
for he was conscious that Mr. Chowdler’s voice and personality jarred
upon him, and he feared that, in an interview, this latent irritation
might betray itself in a tone or a gesture which would embitter rather
than end the quarrel. Anyhow, something had to be done, for the
situation was rapidly becoming impossible. Mr. Flaggon was aware of Mr.
Chowdler’s indiscretions. The knowledge had come to him through various
channels; and, once or twice lately, Mr. Chowdler’s tone and language
to himself had been of a kind which it is difficult for a headmaster to
ignore with dignity.
The letter was a difficult one to compose, and Mr. Flaggon weighed
his words very carefully. He tried to recall Mr. Chowdler to a sense
of elementary loyalty. He had, he said, every respect for differences
of opinion, and he did not expect his own views or actions to pass
uncriticised. But there were limits to the manner in which such
criticisms could be expressed without doing harm to the school, and he
was bound to say that, on several occasions, Mr. Chowdler had--quite
unconsciously, no doubt--gone beyond those limits. He disclaimed any
personal animus, and ended with a generous tribute to Mr. Chowdler’s
many services to Chiltern.
When he had read and re-read the letter and marked it “private,” he
dispatched it by a messenger and anxiously awaited the reply.
And he did not have long to wait. Whenever his indiscretions were
called in question, Mr. Chowdler made great play with the word
“gossip.” The headmaster, said Mr. Chowdler, had evidently been
listening to gossip, and would do well to be more shy of it in the
future. He (Mr. Chowdler) had nothing to reproach himself with, and he
refused to be held responsible for other folk’s mistakes. His advice
had always been at the service of the headmaster, but it had been
consistently ignored. People must lie in their beds as they make them.
The headmaster sighed as he read this answer to his appeal, but he
felt that nothing would be gained by continuing the correspondence or
dotting the “i’s.” He hoped against hope that, though Mr. Chowdler was
incapable of admitting himself to be in the wrong, he would lay the
admonition to heart and be more cautious in the future.
Mr. Flaggon spent the greater part of the holidays at Chiltern, working
a rough draft of a new curriculum and mastering a great mass of detail.
It was rumoured that his mother and sister were coming to live with
him in the summer; but at present they were wintering abroad, and
Mr. Flaggon was alone. In the course of the holidays he became more
closely acquainted with Mr. Bent. The two men, each out for a solitary
walk, had come from opposite footpaths into the same lane. Neither was
in search of company, but, as both were obviously bound in the same
direction, escape was impossible.
“Hullo!” said Mr. Flaggon. “I didn’t know you were here still, Bent. I
thought you were sure to be in Switzerland.”
“No,” said Mr. Bent; “I have shed my youthful indiscretions. I still
can’t stand Chiltern in the Easter or summer holidays, but I have at
last realised, with infinite relief, that at Christmas no place is
so attractive as one’s own fireside. It saves me a world of anxious
thought and planning. I just run up to town for the last week-end, and
that gives me the feeling, necessary to the pedagogue, of having been
away and seen things.”
Mr. Flaggon had not had time or opportunity to become at all intimate
with any of his staff. He was, as we have said, by nature rather shy
and reticent, and the consciousness of much latent hostility had
made advances unusually difficult. There had, of course, been formal
calls and dinner-parties; but neither calls nor dinner-parties lend
themselves to the formation of friendships.
Mr. Bent had been a puzzle to him. The flippancy of his tone and manner
at masters’ meetings had often been annoying; but he had sometimes
said things which suggested ideals and a breadth of view at variance
with his apparent cynicism. When, therefore, as they were passing his
house, Mr. Bent said, “Won’t you come in and have a cup of tea?” Mr.
Flaggon accepted the invitation. That walk and tea led to other walks
and other teas. Mr. Bent recognised in the headmaster a man of great
mental alertness and wide interests; and Mr. Flaggon discovered an
unexpectedly serious vein in his companion, veiled, as it often was,
under an ironic humour. As conversation became more intimate, Mr. Bent
ventured one day to express his inner feelings about Chiltern and the
Lanchester tradition.
“We are haunted here,” he said, “as you have doubtless observed, by the
ghost of greatness; and it won’t let us speak, or think, or do. Nothing
is so paralysing (the preachers call it inspiring) as the memory of a
great man. If I want a new Latin prose book, I can’t have it because
Dr. Lanchester taught out of the old one; and if I want a window that
will open, it is impossible because Lanchester didn’t believe in
ventilation. This, of course, is fearful heresy, and men have died on
the scaffold for less.”
“I’m sorry,” said Mr. Flaggon with a laugh, “that you are so prejudiced
against Lanchester, because I had a proposal to make to you. I’ve just
come into possession of some papers of his, and I am going to ask you
to look through them for me and see if they contain anything of real
interest. I simply haven’t got time myself.”
“Oh, of course, I wasn’t crabbing the _real_ Lanchester,” said Mr.
Bent; “it’s only his ghost that annoys me. The _man_ was an educational
reformer, but the _ghost_ is only a glorified cricket ‘pro.’ What are
the papers?”
“They have been sent me,” replied the headmaster, “by a Mrs. Core,
whose grandfather wrote the life of Dr. Lanchester. Probably the best
things are in the book already, but there may be a gem here and there
that has been passed over. Would you care to do a little sifting?”
“I should love it,” said Mr. Bent. “You see, we have done what the
descendants of prophet-slayers always do. We have hidden away _our_
prophet under a showy tomb, built out of the very stones that slew him.
I should vastly enjoy digging for his bones.”
So Mr. Bent carried home, one day, a boxful of old papers, and spent
several happy evenings going over them. The gem of the collection was
a little bundle of letters, written to an intimate friend during the
early years of the doctor’s headmastership, and so outspoken in their
comments on persons and events that, apparently, the biographer had
been afraid to use them. Such phrases as “I am determined, God willing,
to lift this school out of the mire into which it has fallen.... The
unruly spirit of the boys troubles me less than the prejudice of the
masters.... Alexander the coppersmith” (probably an allusion to the
Rev. John Alexander, at that time second master at Chiltern) “does me
much harm.... I apprehend more and more clearly that a headmaster must
be a despot.... The moral and intellectual deadness of these people
to the larger issues of education appals me”--delighted Mr. Bent and
whetted his appetite for more. When he returned the papers at the end
of the week, he observed:
“There’s matter enough here to blow up Chiltern and half the county
into the bargain. Some of the letters are splendid and quite new,
but it would never do to publish them. People would say they were an
impudent forgery. Lanchester was a much finer fellow than I realised,
and intensely modern. By the way, I understood he had had difficulties,
but I never knew that he had to begin by sacking a third of the school
and two of the senior----” But a look on Mr. Flaggon’s face pulled him
up abruptly. “That’s the worst of headmasters,” he said to himself
afterwards. “The moment you begin to be natural with them, you tumble
up against the official.”
But Mr. Flaggon was not offended. He had merely remembered, suddenly
and with a twinge of pain, the difficult problems that confronted him,
and what sharp remedies he might be forced to employ before they were
finally solved.