The tradition of Pack Monday Fair at Fernhurst is almost as old as the
School House studies. The legend, whether authenticated or not only
Macdonald, the historian of Fernhurst, could say, was handed down from
generation to generation. It was believed that, when the building of the
Abbey was finished, all the masons, glass-workers and artificers packed
up their tools and paraded the town with music and song, celebrating the
glory of their accomplished work. And from time immemorial the
townspeople have celebrated the second Monday in October by assembling
outside the Abbey at midnight, and ushering in a day of marketing and
revelry by a procession through the town, beating tin cans and blowing
upon posthorns. With the exception of this ritual, the day had become
merely an ordinary fair. But there was no sleeping on that Sunday night,
and for the whole week tantalising sounds of shrieking merry-go-rounds,
of whistling tramcars and thundering switchbacks were borne across the
night to disturb those who were trying to work in hall. It used to be
the custom for the bloods to creep out at night and take part in the
revels; but when the new Chief had come, four years before, he put a
firm hand upon such abuses, and had even threatened to expel anyone he
found in the act, a threat which he had carried out promptly by
expelling the best half-back in the school a fortnight before the
Dulbridge match; so that now only a few daring spirits stole out in the
small hours of the night on the hazardous expedition. Those courageous
souls were the objects of the deepest veneration among the smaller boys,
who would whisper quietly of their doings in the upper dormitories when
darkness lent a general security to the secrets that were being
revealed.
This term about three days before Pack Monday, Gordon, Mansell, Carter
and a few others were engaged in their favourite hobby of shipping
Rudd's study. One chair had already gone the way of all old wood, and
the table was in danger of following it, when Rudd suddenly burst out:
"Oh, you think yourselves damned fine fellows, six of you against one!"
A roar of laughter went up. It was the traditional complaint of all
weaklings in school stories, and was singularly of the preparatory
school type of defence.
"Jolly brave, aren't you? I'd like to see any one of you do anything
that might get you into trouble. I don't mind betting there's not one of
you that would dare to come out with me to the fair next Monday."
There was an awkward pause. The challenge was unconventional; and the
Public School boy is not brought up to expect surprises. The only thing
to do was to pass it off with a joke.
Lovelace stepped into the breach.
"Do you think any of us would go anywhere with a swine like you who does
not wash? Dirty hog!"
"Of course you would not; you are afraid."
At that point Gordon's hatred of taking the second place, which had
before led him into difficulties, once again asserted itself. "Damn it
all," he thought, "I am not going to be beaten by Rudd!"
"Do you say we are all funks if we don't go?"
"Yes!"
"All right then, damn you, I will go with you, just to show you that you
are not the only person in this rotten school who's fool enough to risk
being bunked."
Rudd was taken aback. He had made the challenge out of bravado. He had
regretted it instantly. In the same spirit Gordon had accepted the
challenge; he also wished he had not the moment afterwards. But both saw
that they would have to go through with it now.
"Good man," said Rudd, not to be outdone. "I wanted someone to go with
me; rather lonely these little excursions without company."
He spoke with the air of one who spent every other night giving
dinner-parties at the Eversham Tap.
"Look here, now," broke in Mansell, "don't make bloody fools of
yourselves. You will only get the sack if you are caught, and you
probably will get caught; you are sure to do something silly. For God's
sake, don't go. It's not worth it. Really, not!"
"Oh, shut up; don't panic," was Gordon's scornful answer; "we are going
to have a fine time, aren't we, Rudd?"
"Splendid," said Rudd, who wanted to laugh; the whole situation was
fraught with such a perfectly impossible irony.
"Oh, do have some sense, man." Lovelace was impatient with him. "What is
the use of rushing about at midnight in slouch hats with a lot of silly,
shrieking girls?"
"You can't understand, you live in the country. I am a Londoner. You
want the true Cockney spirit that goes rolling drunk on Hampstead Heath
on Easter Monday."
"Well, thank God, I do want it, then," said Lovelace.
Rumour flies round a house quickly. In hall several people came up and
asked Gordon if it was true. They looked at him curiously with an
expression in which surprise and admiration were curiously blended. The
old love of notoriety swept over Gordon once more; he felt frightfully
bucked with himself. What a devil of a fellow he was, to be sure. He
went round the studies in hall, proclaiming his audacity.
"I say, look here, old chap, you needn't tell anyone, but I am going out
to Pack Monday Fair; it will be some rag!"
The sensation he caused was highly gratifying. By prayers all his
friends and most of his acquaintances knew of it. Of course they would
keep it secret. But Gordon knew well that by break next day it would be
round the outhouses, and he looked forward to the number of questions he
would get asked. To be the hero of an impending escapade was pleasant.
"I say, Davenport," he said in his dormitory that evening, "I am going
out to the fair on Monday."
Davenport said nothing, and showed no sign of surprise. Gordon was
disappointed.
"Well, what do you think of it?" he said at last.
"That you are a sillier ass than I thought you were," said Davenport.
And as Gordon lay thinking over everything in the dark, he came to the
conclusion that Davenport was not so very far wrong after all.
* * * * *
Cold and nervous, Gordon waited for Rudd in the dark boot-hole under the
Chief's study on Pack Monday night just before twelve. In stockinged
feet he had crept downstairs, opened the creaking door without making
any appreciable noise, and then waited in the boot-room, which was
filled with the odour of blacking and damp decay. There was a small
window at the end of it, through which it was just possible to squeeze
out on to the Chief's front lawn. After that all was easy; anyone could
clamber over the wall by the V. A green.
There was the sound of feet on the stairs. It seemed to Gordon as if
they were bound to wake the whole house. Rudd's figure was framed black
in the doorway.
Silently they wormed their way through the window. The damp soil of a
flower bed was cold under their feet; with his hand Rudd smoothed out
the footprints.
They stole down the silent cloisters, echoing shadows leered at them.
The wall of the V. A green rose dark and sinister. At last breathless
among the tombstones by the Abbey they slipped on their boots, turned up
coat collars and drew their caps over their eyes.
A minute later the glaring lights of the booths in Cheap Street engulfed
them. They were jostled in the crowd. It was, after all, only Hampstead
Heath on a small scale.
"Walk up, walk up! All the fun of the fair! Buy a teazer! Buy a teazer!
Buy a teazer! Tickle the girls! Walk up! Try your luck at the darts,
sir; now then, sir, come on!"
The confused roar was as music to Gordon's soul. He had the Cockney love
of a fair. The children of London are still true to the coster legends
of the Old Kent Road.
Gordon and Rudd did not stop long in Cheap Street. The real business was
in the fair fields by Rogers's house. This was only the outskirts.
The next hour passed in a dream. Lights flared, rifles snapped at
fugitive ping-pong balls leaping on cascades of water, swing-boats rose
heavenwards, merry-go-rounds banged out rag-time choruses. Gordon let
himself go. He and Rudd tried everything. After wasting half-a-crown on
the cocoanuts, Rudd captured first go at the darts a wonderful vase
decorated with the gilt legend, "A Present from Fernhurst," and Gordon
at the rifle range won a beautiful china shepherdess which held for days
the admiration of the School House, until pining perhaps for its lover,
which by no outlay of darts could Gordon secure, it became dislodged
from the bracket and fell in pieces on the floor, to be swept away by
Arthur, the school _custos_, into the perpetual darkness of the dustbin.
Weary at last, the pair sought the shelter of a small cafe, where they
luxuriously sipped lemonade. Faces arose out of the night, passed by and
faded out again. The sky was red with pleasure, the noise and shrieks
grew louder and more insistent. There was a dance going on.
"I say, Rudd, do you dance?"
"No, not much."
"Well, look here, I can, a bit; at any rate I am going to have a bit of
fun over there. Let us go on our own for a bit. Meet me here at a
quarter to four."
"Right," said Rudd, and continued sipping the lurid poison that called
itself American cream soda, and was in reality merely a cheap illness.
Gordon walked in the direction of the dancing. The grass had been cut
quite short in a circle, and to the time of a broken band the town
dandies were whirling round, flushed with excitement and the close
proximity of a female form. "The Maenads and the Bassarids," murmured
Gordon to himself, and cursed his luck for not knowing any of the girls.
Disconsolately he wandered across to the Bijou Theatre, a tumble-down
hut where a huge crowd was jostling and shouting.
He ran into something and half apologised.
"Oh, don't mind me," a high-pitched voice shrieked excitedly.
He turned round and saw the flushed face of a girl of about nineteen
looking up at him. She was alone.
"I say," Gordon muttered nervously, "you look a bit lonely, come and
have some ginger beer."
"Orl right. I don't mind. Give us your arm!"
They rolled off to a neighbouring stall, where Gordon stood his Juliet
countless lemonades and chocolates. He felt very brave and grown-up, and
thought contemptuously of Davenport in bed dreaming some fatuous dream,
while he was engulfed in noise and colour. This was life. From the stall
the two wandered to the swing-boats, and towering high above the tawdry
glitter of the revel saw through the red mist the Abbey, austere and
still, the School House dormitories stretching silent with suspended
life, the class-rooms peopled with ghosts.
A plank jarred under the boat.
"Garn, surely it ain't time to stop yet," wailed Emmie.
He had gathered enough courage to ask her her name.
"Have another?" pleaded Gordon.
"No; let us try the lively thing over there. These boats do make me feel
so funny-like."
The merry-go-round was just stopping. There was a rush for the horses.
Gordon leapt on one, and leaning down caught Emmie up and sat her in
front of him; she lay back in his arms in a languor of satisfied
excitement. Her hair blew across his face, stifling him; on every side
couples were hugging and squeezing. The sensuous whirl of the machine
was acting as a narcotic, numbing thought. He caught her flushed, tired
face in his hands and kissed her wildly, beside himself with the
excitement of the moment.
"You don't mind, do you?" he murmured in a hoarse whisper.
"Don't be so silly; I have been waiting for that. Now we can get
comfy-like."
Her arms were round his neck, her flushed face was hot on his, her hair
hung over his shoulders. The strains of _You Made Me Love You_ came
inarticulate with passion out of the shrieking organ. Her elbow nudged
him. Her lips were as fire beneath his. The machine slowed down and
stopped. Gordon paid for five extra rounds. Dazed with new and hitherto
unrealised sensations, Gordon forgot everything but the strange warm
thing nestling in his arms; and he abandoned himself to the passion of
the moment.
At last their time was up. Closely, her hair on his shoulder, they moved
to the dancing circle, and plunged into the throng of the shouting,
jostling dancers. Of the next two hours Gordon could remember nothing.
He had vague recollections of streaming hair, of warm hands, and of
fierce, wild kisses. Lights flickered, shot skywards, and went out.
Forms loomed before him, a strange weariness came over him, he
remembered flinging himself beside her in the grass and burying his face
in her hair. She seemed to speak as from a very long way off. Once more
the dance caught them. Then _Auld Lang Syne_ struck up. Hands were
clasped, a circle swayed riotously. There were promises to meet next
night, promises that neither meant to keep. Rudd was waiting impatiently
at the cafe. Once more the wall by the Abbey rose spectral, once more
the cloisters echoed vaguely. The boot-hole window creaked.
As the dawn broke tempestuously in the sky Gordon fell across his bed,
his brain tired with a thousand memories, all fugitive, all vague, all
exquisitely unsubstantial.
* * * * *
With heavy, tired eyes Gordon ran down to breakfast a second before
time. He felt utterly weary, exhausted, incapable of effort. People came
up and asked him in whispers if everything had turned out well. He
answered absentmindedly, incoherently.
"I don't believe you went there at all," a voice jeered.
Gordon did not reply. He merely put his hand in his pocket and pulled
out the china shepherdess that he was about to place on the rickety
study bracket.
Doubt was silenced.
The long hours of morning school passed by on leaden feet; he seemed
unable to answer any question right; even the Chief was annoyed.
Rain fell in torrents. The Colts game was scratched.
On a pile of cushions laid on the floor Gordon slept away the whole
afternoon. From four to six he had to write a Greek Prose in his study.
The tea bell scattered his dreams. He rose languidly, with the
unpleasant sensation of work unfinished.
The row of faces at tea seemed to frighten him. He felt as if he had
awakened out of a nightmare, that still held on to him with cold, clammy
hands, and was trying to draw him back once more into its web. Visions
rose before him of shrieking showmen's booths, blinking with tawdry
yellow eyes. Emmie's hoarse laugh grated on his ears; he was overwrought
and wanted to shout, to shriek, to give some vent to his feelings. But
he seemed chained to the long bench, and his tongue was tied so that he
could only mouth out silly platitudes about the weather and the
Fifteen's chances.
On his way back to the studies he felt an arm laid in his. He shivered
and turned round, half expecting to see Emmie's flushed, exciting face
peering up at him. He almost sighed with relief when he found it was
Tester.
"Look here, just come for a stroll round the courts. The rain's stopped.
I want to talk to you."
They wandered out under the lindens.
"I suppose you did go out last night, didn't you?"
"Yes."
"What on earth did you do it for?"
"I am sick of the whole affair," Gordon said petulantly. "Rudd called
the lot of us funks, so----"
"I know that tale quite well," Tester broke in. "I want to know why you
went out. At least I don't mean that. I mean to tell you why you went
out, because I don't think you know yourself. You have made an awful
fool of yourself. You have run the risk of getting sacked, merely
because you wanted to be talked about."
"I didn't. I went because I was jolly well not going to have Rudd
calling me a funk."
"Comes to the same thing in the end, doesn't it? You did not want to
play second fiddle; you didn't want Rudd to appear to have scored. You
wanted to be the central figure. Much the same, isn't it? The love of
notoriety."
Gordon murmured something inaudible.
"And it is all so damned silly. You are running the risk of getting the
sack, and for nothing at all. I can understand quite well anyone being
drawn into anything dangerous by a strong emotion or feeling. It is
natural. Masters say we should curb our natures. I don't know if they
are right. That's neither here nor there. There was nothing natural in
what you did. It was merely rotten imbecility--your self-consciousness,
your fear of not seeming to have done the right thing. You can't go on
like this. I own that this term you have been more or less sane. The
last two terms I have often wondered what was going to happen to you.
You had no balance; you kept on doing silly little things so as to hold
the attention of a more stupid audience. This term you have stopped that
sort of rot. But what is the use of it going to be, if you go and do
things like this on the impulse of the moment, merely because you don't
want to look silly? You can't think how much more silly you look by
playing the ruddy ass during the small hours inside a stinking booth!
You can't afford to do that sort of thing. Your ambition is to be
captain of the House, and not a bad ambition either. But do you realise
that if you are going to be a real power in the House, if you are going
to fight the masters, as you say you will, you can't afford to fling
away points? You must appear impregnable. Don't be an ass. A master
holds all the high cards. If you play into his hand, he has you done to
the world. Suppose you were caught going out at night your last year,
what would happen? You might get the sack at once; and all your
rebellion would be wasted. And, mark you, a rebellion is wanted. There
is real need of a man who has the strength of his opinions and sticks
out. What's the use of it if you go and get sacked? Of course, they
might keep you on, and ask you to go at the end of the term to save your
face. What would your position be then? You would be bound hand and
foot, powerless to do anything. Life would slip past you. You have got
to be above suspicion. Think, however much you may want to do a thing
now, however much praise you may think an action of yours would get,
stop and consider how it will appear two years hence. A really serious
row might knock you out for the rest of your time here: a bad name
sticks. Remember that. Think of the day when you are going to be a real
power, and stand up for the independence of the individual to think as
he likes, not as Buller likes; for the independence of the House to run
itself. 'The Bull' runs our house to-day. You hear men say, 'We can't do
that, Buller would be sick!' You have to free them of Buller's tyranny,
if you are going to be a man; and if you do, you can't fight in rusty
armour. These masters may be fools, but they have the cards."
Gordon listened to Tester's flow of words. He was furious. But when at
last lights were put out and he lay back in bed and watched the stars
steadfast in love and splendour, and the moon immutable, enigmatic,
smiling quietly, he appreciated the truth of Tester's argument. A great
battle was before him; he would have to go into it strong and prepared
at every point. There must be no chink in his coat of mail.
Some day his hour would come; till then he had to wait in patience, and
during the long vigil he would keep his shield clean of rust. He would
have to think, to weigh his decisions, to keep before his eyes the goal
towards which his ambition was set.