for a moment, doubting whether he would answer to the name of “dear.”
“Ten,” he said.
“Just ten?” asked the young man as if alert for humour.
Peter nodded, and the young man was thwarted.
“I suppose you’ll be ready for something to eat,” said Mrs. Pybus.
“’Adn’t you better come in?”
They went in.
The room they entered was, perhaps, the most ordinary sort of room in
England at that time, but it struck upon the observant minds of Joan and
Peter as being strange and remarkable. They had never been before in an
ordinary English living-room. It was a small, oblong room with a faint
projection towards the street, as if it had attempted to develop a bow
window and had lacked the strength to do so. On one side was a fireplace
surmounted by a mantelshelf and an “overmantel,” an affair of
walnut-wood with a number of patches of looking-glass and small brackets
and niches on which were displayed an array of worthless objects made to
suggest ornaments, small sham bronzes, shepherdesses, sham Japanese
fans, a disjointed German pipe and the like. In the midst of the
mantelshelf stood a black marble clock insisting fixedly that the time
was half-past seven, and the mantelshelf itself and the fireplace were
“draped” with a very cheap figured muslin that one might well have
supposed had never been to the wash except for the fact that its pattern
was so manifestly washed out. The walls were papered with a florid pink
wallpaper, and all the woodwork was painted a dirty brownish-yellow
colour and “grained” so as to render the detection of dirt impossible.
Small as this room was there had been a strenuous and successful attempt
to obliterate such floor space as it contained by an accumulation of
useless furniture; there were flimsy things called whatnots in two of
its corners, there was a bulky veneered mahogany chiffonier opposite the
fireplace, and in the window two ferns and a rubber plant in
wool-adorned pots died slowly upon a rickety table of bamboo. The walls
had been a basis for much decorative activity, partly it would seem to
conceal or minimize a mysterious skin disease that affected the
wallpaper, but partly also for a mere perverse impulse towards litter.
There were weak fret work brackets stuck up for their own sakes and more
or less askew, and stouter brackets entrusted with the support of more
“ornaments,” small bowls and a tea-pot that valiantly pretended they
were things of beauty; there were crossed palm fans, there was a steel
engraving of Queen Victoria giving the Bible to a dusky potentate as the
secret of England’s greatness; there was “The Soul’s Awakening,” two
portraits of George and May, and a large but faded photograph of the sea
front at Scarborough in an Oxford frame. A gas “chandelier” descended
into the midst of this apartment, betraying a confused ornate
disposition in its lines, and the obliteration of the floor space was
completed by a number of black horsehair chairs and a large table, now
“laid” with a worn and greyish-white cloth for a meal. Such were the
homes that the Victorian age had evolved by the million in England, and
to such nests did the common mind of the British resort when it wished
to meditate upon the problems of its Imperial destiny. Joan and Peter
surveyed it open-mouthed.
The table was laid about a cruet as its central fact, a large, metallic
edifice surmounted by a ring and bearing weary mustard, spiritless
pepper, faded cayenne pepper, vinegar and mysteries in bottles. Joan and
Peter were interested in this strange object and at the same time
vaguely aware of something missing. What they missed were flowers; on
this table there were no flowers. There was a cold joint, a white jug of
beer and a glass jug of water, and pickles. “I got cold meat,” said Mrs.
Pybus, “not being sure when you were coming.” She arranged her guests.
But she did not immediately begin. She had had an idea. She regarded
Peter.
“Now, Peter,” she said, “let me ’ear you say Grice.”
Peter wondered.
“Say Grice, dearie.”
“Grice,” said Peter.
The young man with the red hair was convulsed with merriment. “That’s
good,” he said. “That’s reely Good. Kids _are_ amusing.”
“But I tole you to say Grice,” said Mrs. Pybus, ruffled.
“I said it.”
The young man’s voice squeaked as he explained. “He doesn’t know _’ow_
to say Grace,” he said. “Never ’eard of it.”
“Is it a catch?” asked Peter.
The young man caught and restrained a fresh outburst of merriment with
the back of his hand, and then explained again to Mrs. Pybus.
“’E’s a perfec’ little ’eathen,” said Mrs. Pybus. “I _never_ did.
They’ll teach you to say grice all right, my boy, before you’re very
much older. Mark my words.” And with a sort of businesslike reverence
Mrs. Pybus gabbled her formula. Then she proceeded to carve. As she
carved she pursed her lips and frowned.
The cold meat was not bad, but the children ate fastidiously, and Joan,
after her fashion, left all her fat. This attracted the attention of
Mrs. Pybus. “Eat it up, dearie,” said Mrs. Pybus. “Wiste not, want not.”
“I don’t eat fat.”
“But you _must_ eat fat,” said Mrs. Pybus.
Joan shook her head.
“We’ll ’ave to teach you to eat fat,” said Mrs. Pybus with a dangerous
gentleness. For the time, however, the teaching was not insisted upon.
“Lovely bits! Enough to feed a little dog,” said Mrs. Pybus, as she
removed Joan’s plate to make way for apple tart.
The conversation was intermittent. It was as if they waited for some
further event. The young man with the red hair spoke of the great world
of London and the funeral of Lord Salisbury.
“’E was a great statesman, say what you like,” said the young man with
red hair.
He also spoke of Holbein’s attempt to swim the channel.
“They say ’e oils ’imself all over,” said the young man.
“Lor’!” said Mrs. Pybus.
“It can’t be comfortable,” said the young man; “say what you like.”
Presently the young man broke a silence by saying: “These here Balkans
seem to be giving trouble again.”
“Troublesome lot they are,” said Mrs. Pybus.
“Greeks and Macedonians and Turks and Bulgarians and such. It fair makes
my head spin, the lot of them. Servians there are too, and Montenegroes.
Too many of ’em altogether. Cat and dog.”
“Are them the same Greeks that used to be so clever?” asked Mrs. Pybus.
“_Used_ to be,” said the young man with a kind of dark scorn, and
suddenly began to pick his teeth with a pin.
“They can’t even speak their own language now—not properly. Fair
rotten,” the young man added.
He fascinated Joan. She had never watched anything like him. But Peter
just hated him.
§ 4
Upon this scene there presently appeared a new actor. He was preluded by
a knocking at the door, he was ushered in by Mrs. Pybus who was opening
and shutting her mouth in a state of breathless respect; he was received
with the utmost deference by the young man with red hair. Indeed, from
the moment when his knocking was heard without, the manner and bearing
of the red-haired young man underwent the most marvellous change. An
agitated alacrity appeared in his manner; he stood up and moved
nervously; by weak, neck-ward movements of his head he seemed to
indicate he now regretted wearing such a bright green tie. The newcomer
appeared in the doorway. He was a tall, grey-clad, fair gentleman, with
a face that twitched and a hand that dandled in front of him. He grinned
his teeth at the room. “So thassem,” he said, touching his teeth with
his thumbnail.
He nodded confidentially to the red-haired young man without removing
his eyes from Joan and Peter. He showed still more of his teeth and
rattled his thumbnail along them. Then he waved his hand over the table.
“Clear all this away,” he said, and sat down in the young man’s chair.
Mrs. Pybus cleared away rapidly, assisted abjectly by the young man.
Mr. Grimes seemed to check off the two children. “You’re Joan,” he said.
“I needn’t bother about you. You’re provided for. Peter. Peter’s our
business.”
He got out a pocket-book and pencil. “Let’s look at you, Peter. Just
come out here, will you?”
Peter obeyed reluctantly and suspiciously.
“No stockings. Don’t they wear stockings at that school of yours?”
“Not when we don’t want them,” said Peter. “No.”
“’Mazes me you wear anything,” said Mr. Grimes. “S’pose it’ll come to
that. Let’s see your hat.”
“Haven’t got a hat,” said Peter. “Wouldn’t wear it if I had.”
“_Wouldn’t_ you!” said Mr. Grimes. “H’m!”
“Nice little handful,” said Mr. Grimes, and hummed. He produced a paper
from the pocket-book and read it, rubbing his teeth with the point of
his pencil.
“Lersee whassor outfit we wan’,” said Mr. Grimes. “H’m.... H’m....
H’m....”
He stood up briskly. “Well, young man, we must go out and get you some
clothes and things. What’s called a school outfit. We’ll have to go in
that motor-car again. Quickest way. Get your hat. But you haven’t got a
hat.”
“Me come too,” said Joan.
“No. You can’t come to a tailor’s, and that’s where we’re going. Little
girls can’t come to tailors, you know,” said Mr. Grimes.
Peter thought privately that Mr. Grimes was just the sort of beast who
would take you to a tailor’s. Well, he would stick it out. This couldn’t
go on for ever. He allowed himself to be guided by Mr. Grimes to the
door. He restrained an impulse to ask to be allowed to sit beside the
driver. One doesn’t ask favours of beasts like Grimes.
Joan went to the window to watch the car and Mr. Grimes’ proceedings
mistrustfully.
“I got a nice picture-book for you to look at,” said Mrs. Pybus, coming
behind her. “Don’t go standing and staring out of the window, dearie.
It’s an idle thing to stare out of windows.”
Joan had an unpleasant feeling that she had to comply with this. Under
the initiative of Mrs. Pybus she sat up to the table and permitted a
large book to be opened in front of her, feigning attention. She kept
her eye as much as possible on the window. She was aware of Peter
getting into the car with Mr. Grimes. There was a sudden buzzing of
machinery, the slam of a door, and the automobile moved and vanished.
She gave a divided attention to the picture-book before her, which was
really not properly a picture-book at all but an old bound volume of the
_Illustrated London News_ full of wood engravings of royal processions
and suchlike desiccated matter. It was a dusty, frowsty volume,
damp-stained at the edges. She tried to be amused. But it was very grey
and dull, and she felt strangely uneasy. Every few minutes she would
look up expecting to see the car back outside, but it did not return....
She heard the red-haired young man in the passage saying he thought he’d
have to be getting round to the railway-station, and there was some
point explained by Mrs. Pybus at great length and over and over again
about the difference between the Great Western and the South Western
Railway. The front door slammed after him at last, and Mrs. Pybus was
audible returning to her kitchen.
Presently she came and looked at Joan with a thin, unreal smile on her
white face.
“Getting on all right with the pretty pictures, dearie?” she asked.
“When’s Peter coming back?” asked Joan.
“Oh, not for a longish bit,” said Mrs. Pybus. “You see, he’s going to
school.”
“Can I go to school?”
“Not _’is_ school. He’s going to a boy school.”
“Oh!” said Joan, learning for the first time that schools have sexes.
“Can I go out in the garden?”
“It isn’t much of a garden,” said Mrs. Pybus. “But what there is you’re
welcome.”
It wasn’t much of a garden. Rather it was a yard, into which a lean-to
scullery, a coal shed, and a dustbin bit deeply. Along one side was a
high fence cutting it off from a similar yard, and against this high
fence a few nasturtiums gingered the colour scheme. A clothes-line
stretched diagonally across this space and bore a depressed pair of
black stockings, and in the corner at the far end a lilac bush was
slowly but steadily and successfully wishing itself dead. The opposite
corner was devoted to a collection of bottles, the ribs of an umbrella,
and a dust-pan that had lost its handle. From beneath this curious
rather than pleasing accumulation peeped the skeleton of a “rockery”
built of brick clinkers and free from vegetation of any sort. An unseen
baby a garden or two away deplored its existence loudly. At intervals a
voice that sounded like the voice of an embittered little girl cut
across these lamentations:
“Well, you shouldn’t ’ave _broke_ yer bottle,” said the voice, with a
note of moral demonstration....
Joan stayed in this garden for exactly three minutes. Then she returned
to Mrs. Pybus, who was engaged in some dim operations with a kettle in
the kitchen. “Drat this old kitchener!” said Mrs. Pybus, rattling at a
damper.
“Want to go ’ome,” Joan said, in a voice that betrayed emotion.
Mrs. Pybus turned her meagre face and surveyed Joan without excessive
tenderness.
“This _is_ your ’ome, dearie,” she said.
“I live at Ingle-Nook,” said Joan.
Mrs. Pybus shook her head. “All that’s been done away with,” she said.
“Your aunts ’ave give you up, and you’re going to live ’ere for
good—’long o’ me.”
§ 5
Meanwhile Mr. Grimes, with a cheerful kindliness that Peter perceived to
be assumed, conveyed that young gentleman first to an outfitter, where
he was subjected to nameless indignities with a tape, and finally sent
behind a screen and told to change out of his nice, comfortable old
clothes and Heidelberg sandals into a shirt and a collar and a grey
flannel suit, and hard black shoes. All of which he did in a mute,
helpless rage, because he did not consider himself equal to Mr. Grimes
and the outfitter and his staff (with possibly the chauffeur thrown in)
in open combat. He was then taken to a hairdresser and severely clipped,
which struck him as a more sensible proceeding; the stuff they put on
his head was indeed pleasingly aromatic; and then he was bought some
foolery of towels and things, and finally a Bible and a prayer-book and
a box. With this box he returned to the outfitter’s, and was quite
interested in discovering that a pile of things had accumulated on the
counter, ties, collars and things, and were to be packed in the box for
him forthwith. A junior assistant was doing up his Limpsfield clothes in
a separate parcel. So do we put off childish things. That parcel was to
go via Mr. Grimes to The Ingle-Nook.
A memory of certain beloved sea stories came into Peter’s head. “This my
kit?” he asked Mr. Grimes abruptly.
“You might call it your kit,” said Mr. Grimes.
“Am I going on a battleship?” asked Peter.
Mr. Grimes—and the two outfitting assistants in sympathy—were loudly
amused.
“You’re going to High Cross School,” said Mr. Grimes, emerging from his
mirth. “Firm treatment. Sound Church training. Unruly boys not objected
to.”
“I didn’t know,” said Peter.
They returned to the automobile, and after a mile or so of roads and
turnings stopped outside a gaunt brace of drab-coloured semi-detached
villas standing back behind a patch of lawn, and having a walled
enclosure to the left and an overgrown laurel shrubbery to the right.
“Here’s High Cross School,” said Mr. Grimes, a statement that was
rendered unnecessary by a conspicuous black and gold board that rose
above the walled enclosure. They descended.
“Wonther which ithe houth,” mused Mr. Grimes, consulting his teeth, and
then suddenly decided and led Peter towards the right hand of the two
associated doors. “This,” said Mr. Grimes, as they waited on the
doorstep, “is a _real_ school.... No nonsense about it,” said Mr.
Grimes.
Peter nodded with affected intelligence.
They were ushered by a slatternly maid-servant into the presence of a
baldish man with a white, puffy face and pale grey eyes, who was wearing
a university gown and seemed to be expecting them. He was standing
before the fireplace in the front parlour, which had a general air of
being a study. There were an untidy desk facing the window and
bookshelves in the recess on either side of the fireplace. Over the
mantel was a tobacco-jar bearing the arms of some college, and reminders
of Mr. Mainwearing’s university achievements in the form of a college
shield and Cambridge photographs.
“Well,” said Mr. Grimes, “here’s your young man,” and thrust Peter
forward.
“So you’ve come to join us?” said Mr. Mainwearing with a sort of clouded
amiability.
“Join what?” said Peter.
Mr. Mainwearing raised his eyebrows. “High Cross School,” he said.
“I’m at the School of St. George and the Venerable Bede,” said Peter.
“So how can I?”
“No,” said Mr. Grimes; “you’re joining here now.”
“But I can’t go to _two_ schools.”
“Consequently you’re coming to _this_ one,” said Mr. Grimes.
“It’s very sudden,” said Peter.
“What’s this about the School of Saint What’s-his-name?” asked Mr.
Mainwearing of Mr. Grimes.
“It’s just a sort of fad school they’ve been sending him to,” Mr. Grimes
explained. “We’re altering all that. It’s a girls’ school, and he’s a
growing boy. It’s a school where socialism and play-acting are school
subjects, and everybody runs about with next to nothing on. So his
proper guardians have decided that’s got to stop. And here we are.”
Mr. Mainwearing regarded Peter heavily while this was going on.
“Done any square root yet?” he asked suddenly.
Peter had not.
“Know the date of Magna Carta?”
Peter did not. “It was under John,” he said.
“I wanted the date,” said Mr. Mainwearing. “What’s the capital of
Bulgaria?”
Peter did not know.
“Know any French irregular verbs?”
Peter said he didn’t.
“Got to begin at the beginning,” said Mr. Mainwearing. “Got your
outfit?”
“We’ve just seen to that,” said Mr. Grimes. “There’s one or two things
I’d like to say to you—”
He glanced at Peter.
Mr. Mainwearing comprehended. He came and laid one hand on Peter. “Time
you saw some of your schoolfellows,” he said.
Under his guiding pressure Peter was impelled along a passage, through
an archway, across an empty but frowsty schoolroom in which one solitary
small boy sat and sobbed grievously, and so by way of another passage to
a kind of glass back-door from which steps went down to a large
gravelled space, behind the high wall that carried the black and gold
board. In the corner were parallel bars. A group of nine or ten boys
were standing round these bars; they were all clad in the same sort of
grey flannels that Peter was wearing, and they had all started round at
the sound of the opening of the door. One shock-headed boy, perhaps a
head taller than any of the rest, had a great red mouth beneath a red
nose.
“Boys!” shouted Mr. Mainwearing; “here’s a new chum. See that he learns
his way about a bit, Probyn.”
“Yessir!” said the shock-headed boy in a loud adult kind of voice.
Mr. Mainwearing gave Peter a shove that started him down the steps
towards the playground, and slammed the door behind him.
Most of these boys were bigger than any boys that Peter had ever known
before. They looked enormous. He reckoned some must be fifteen or
sixteen—quite. They were as big as the biggest Sheldrick girl. Probyn
seemed indeed as big as a man; Peter could see right across the
playground that he had a black smear of moustache. His neck and wrists
and elbows stuck out of his clothes.
Peter with his hands in his new-found pockets walked slowly towards
these formidable creatures across the stony playground. They regarded
him enigmatically. So explorers must feel, who land on a strange beach
in the presence of an unknown race of men.
§ 6
“Come on, fathead!” said Probyn as he drew near.
Peter had expected that tone. He affected indifference.
“What’s your name?” asked Probyn.
“Stubland,” said Peter. “You Probyn?”
“Stubland,” said Probyn. “Stubland. What’s your Christian name?”
“Peter. What’s yours?”
Probyn disregarded this counter question markedly. “Simon Peter, eh!
Your father got you out of the Bible, I expect. Know anything of
cricket, Simon Peter?”
“Not much,” said Simon Peter.
“Can you swim?”
“No.”
“Can you fight?”
“I don’t know.”
“What’s your father?”
Peter didn’t answer. Instead, he fixed his attention upon a fair-haired
boy of about his own size who was standing at the end of the parallel
bars. “What’s _your_ name?” he asked.
The fair boy looked at Probyn.
“Damn it!” said Probyn. “I asked _you_ a question, Mr. Simon Peter.”
Peter continued disregardful. “Hasn’t this school got a flagstaff?” he
asked generally.
Probyn came closer to him and gripped him by the shoulder. “I asked you
a question, Mr. Simon Peter. What is your father?”
It was a question Peter could not answer because for some obscure reason
he could not bring himself to say that his father was dead. If ever he
said that, he knew his father would be dead. But what else could he say
of his father? So he seemed to shrink a little and remained mute. “We’ll
have to cross-examine you,” said Probyn, and shook him.
The fair boy came in front of Peter. It was clear he had great
confidence in Probyn. He had a fat, smooth, round face that Peter
disliked.
“Simon Peter,” he said. “Answer up.”
“What is your father?” said Probyn.
“What’s your father?” repeated the fair boy, and then suddenly flicked
Peter under the nose with his finger.
But this did at least enable Peter to change the subject. He smote at
the fat-faced boy with great vigour and missed him. The fat-faced boy
dodged back quickly.
“Hullo!” said Probyn. “Ginger!”
“That chap’s not going to touch my nose,” said Peter. “Anyhow.”
“Touch it when I like,” said the fat-faced boy.
“You won’t.”
“You want to _fight?_” asked the fat-faced boy, conscious of popular
support.
Peter said he wasn’t going to have his nose flicked anyhow.
“Flick it again, Newton,” said Probyn, “and see.”
“I’ll show you in no time,” said Newton.
“Why!—I’d lick you with one hand,” continued Newton.
Peter said nothing. But he regarded his antagonist very intently.
“Skinny little snipe,” said Newton. “Whaddyou think you’d do to me?”
“Hit him, Newton,” said a cadaverous boy with freckles.
“Hit him, Newton. He’s too cocky,” said another. “Flick his silly nose
again and see.”
“I’ll hit him ’f’e wants it,” said Newton, and buttoned up his jacket in
a preparatory way.
“Hit him, Newton,” other voices urged.
“Let him put up his fists,” said Newton.
“Do that when I please,” said Peter rather faintly.
Newton had seemed at first just about Peter’s size. Now he seemed very
much larger. All the boys seemed to have grown larger. They were
gathering in a vast circle of doom round a minute and friendless Peter.
Probyn loomed over him like a figure of fate. Peter wondered whether he
need have hit at Newton. It seemed now a very unwise thing indeed to
have done. Newton was alternately swaying towards him and swaying away
from him, and repeating his demand for Peter to put his hands up. He
seemed on the verge of flicking again. He was going to flick. Probyn
watched them both critically. Then with a rapid movement of the mind
Peter realized that Newton’s face was swaying now well within his range;
the moment had come, and desperately, with a great effort and a wide and
sweeping movement of the arm, he smote hard at Newton’s cheek. Smack. A
good blow. Newton recoiled with an expression of astonishment.
“You—swine!” he said.
Two other boys came running across the playground, and voices explained,
“New boy.... Fight....”
But curiously enough the fight did not go on. Newton at a slightly
greater distance continued to loom threateningly, but did no more than
loom. His cheek was very red. “I’ll break your jaw, cutting at me like
that,” he said. “You swine!” He used foul and novel terms expressive of
rage. He looked at Probyn as if for approval, but Probyn offered none.
He continued to threaten, but he did not come within arm’s length again.
“Hit him back, Newton,” several voices urged, but with no success.
“Wait till I start on him,” said Newton.
“Buck up, young Newton,” said Probyn suddenly, “and stop jawing. You
began it. _I’m_ not going to help you. Make a ring, you chaps. It’s a
fair fight.”
Peter found himself facing Newton in the centre of an interested circle.
Newton was walking crab fashion athwart the circle, swaying with his
fists and elbows high. He was now acting a dangerous intentness. “Come
on,” he said terribly.
“Hit him, Newton,” said the cadaverous boy. “Don’t wait for him.”
“You started it, Newton,” Probyn insisted. “And he’s hit you fair.”