ACTON'S LAST MOVE
Phil's unpopularity had somewhat abated, for his victory in the rackets
had given him a good leg up in the estimation of his fellows; but still
there was the uneasy feeling that in the matter of the "footer" cap his
conduct was shady, or at least dubious.
I was awfully sorry to see this, for I myself was leaving at midsummer,
and in my own mind I had always looked upon Phil to take up the
captaincy. He would have made, in my opinion, the _beau ideal_ of a
captain, for he was a gentleman, a scholar, and an athlete. But the
other monitors, or at least many of them, did not look upon Phil with
enthusiasm, and his election for the captaincy did not now seem the sure
thing it had done a few months before.
At St. Amory's the monitors elect a captain, and Corker confirms the
appointment if he thinks their choice suitable, but he insists that he
must be well up in the Sixth, and not a mere athlete.
Now, Phil's ambition was to be Captain of St. Amory's, as his father had
been before him, and when the home authorities finally decided that I
was to go to Cambridge in the Michaelmas term; Phil hoped and desired
to step into my shoes. He had one great lever to move the fellows in his
favour, he was much the best cricketer in the school and deservedly
Captain of the Eleven, and, besides that, was one of the best all-round
fellows in Sixth Form work. But Phil did not in the least hint that the
captaincy was his soul's desire; he determined to merit it, and then
leave the matter in the hands of the school. So, from the very beginning
of the term, he read hard and played hard, and he left his mark on the
class lists and the scoring-board in very unmistakable fashion.
And now Acton came like an evil genius on the scene. In a word, he had
determined that if he could in any way baulk poor Phil's ambition, he
would. If by his means he could put Phil out of the running for the
captaincy it should be done. If he could succeed, this success would
make up and to spare for his two former defeats. Therefore, warily and
cautiously, he set to work.
Acton himself was not much of a cricketer; the game was not, as it were,
second nature to him, as it was to Phil, but he was a very smart
field--cover was his position--and he could slog heavily, and often with
success. He threw himself heartily into the game, and crept rapidly up
the ladder of improvement, until Biffen's whispered that their shining
light stood a good chance of getting into the Eleven. "That is," said
Biffen's crowd, "if Bourne will run straight and give a good man his
flannels. But after the 'footer' fraud, what can one expect?" I heard
of this, and straightway told Phil.
"Oh, they need not fear. If Acton deserves his flannels, he will get
them. I've nothing whatever against his cricket."
Acton learned this, and instantly his new-found zeal for cricket
slackened considerably.
"Oh!" said he to himself, "I can't blister you there, Bourne, eh? I
can't pose as the deserving cricketer kept out of the Eleven by a
jealous cad of a captain, eh? So I'll try another tack to keep you in
evil odour, Mr. Bourne."
Acton did not turn up at the nets that night, and when Worcester noticed
this, Acton calmly sailed on his new tack.
"What's the good of sweating away at the nets, Dick? I'll not get my
flannels in any case."
"Oh yes, you will. Bourne has said he's got nothing against your
cricket."
"And you believe that, Dick?" said Acton, with a whistle of contemptuous
incredulity.
"I do," said Dick. "But you are not exactly quite the flier at cricket
that you are at 'footer,' so you can't afford to slack up now."
"I've got private knowledge," said Acton, with a filthy lie, "that I
won't get 'em in any case, so I shall not try."
Dick was considerably upset by this, and Acton's sudden stoppage of
practice after an intense beginning made his lie seem a good imitation
of truth, and gave Worcester food for bitter thoughts against Phil.
Acton worked "the-no-good-to-try" dodge carefully and artistically; he
never actually said his lie openly, or Phil would have nailed it to the
counter, but, like a second Iago, he dropped little barbed insinuations
here, little double-edged sayings there, until Biffenites to a man
believed there would be a repetition of the "footer" cap over again, and
the school generally drifted back to aloofness as far as Phil was
concerned.
Acton laid himself out to be excessively friendly with the monitors, and
just as he entered into their good graces, Phil drifted out of them--in
fact, to be friendly with Acton was the same thing as being cool towards
Bourne. Phil made splendid scores Saturday after Saturday, but the
enthusiasm which his fine play should have called out was wanting.
"Why don't you cheer your captain, Tom?" I overheard a father say to his
young hopeful.
"No fear!" said the frenzied Biffenite. "Bourne is a beast!"
In fact, the only one who seemed to derive any pleasure from Bourne's
prowess in the field was Acton himself. He used to sit near the
flag-staff, and when Phil made his splendid late cut, whose applause was
so generous as his? whose joy so great? Acton's manoeuvres were on the
highest artistic levels, I can assure you, and in the eyes of the
fellows generally, his was a case of persecuted forgiving virtue. Acton,
too, kept in old Corker's good books, and his achievements in the way of
classics made the old master beam upon him with his keen blue eye.
I saw with dismay how persistently unpopular Phil remained, and I heard
the charms of Acton sung daily by monitor after monitor, until I saw
that Acton had captured the whole body bar Phil's own staunch friends,
Baines, Roberts, and Vercoe. And then it dawned upon me that Acton was
making a bid for the captaincy himself, and when I had convinced myself
that this was his object, I felt angrier than I can remember. I
thereupon wrote to Aspinall, gave him a full, true, and particular
account of Acton's campaign against Phil, and asked him to release
me--and Phil--from our promise of secrecy regarding the football-match
accident. His reply comforted me, and I knew that, come what might, I
had a thunderbolt in my pocket in Aspinall's letter, which could knock
Acton off the Captain's chair if he tried for that blissful seat.
I told him so, to save trouble later on, and he heard me out with a far
from pretty sneer, which, however, did not quite conceal his chagrin.
But though I made sure of his being out of the hunt, I could not make
sure of Phil being elected, and in a short time Mivart was mentioned
casually as the likeliest fellow to take my place. I have nothing
whatever to say against Mivart; he was a good fellow, but he was not
quite up to Phil's level.
Phil knew of these subterranean workings of his enemy, but he was too
proud a fellow to try and make any headway against the mining.
"If they elect Mivart they will elect a good man, that is all, though
I'd give a lot, old man, to take your place."
Thus things went on until Lord's came and ended in the usual draw.
Phil's selection of the Eleven was in every way satisfactory, and his
score for first wicket had made St. Amory's safe from defeat, but,
despite all, his unpopularity was pronounced.
The election was going to take place in a week, and Mivart, thanks to
Acton's careful "nursing," was evidently going to romp home in the
election with something like a sixteen to four majority. Vercoe
determined to propose Phil, and Baines was only too delighted to second
it; but Phil's cronies had no more hope of his success than Phil had
himself.